Alright! Well, we’ll do the Page of Mind thing first, and then regroup for the team thing later on. We’re sorry this took so long to put together.
Powers: CA
The Page and the Knight are the passive-active pair for the Exploit class. The Page is notorious for being a class without many powers to start off with, even after they achieve god tier, but once they achieve their “full potential,” they become a force to be reckoned with. Many times, it has been admitted over the course of Homestuck that Pages are potentially the most powerful class known, but given their passive nature, this cannot affect themselves, and even given their power, it takes a very long time to reach, leaving many Pages never even recognizing their true potential in the end, a tragic fate, and one that may cause them to invert once they realize the tragedy in it. But thankfully, it hasn’t happened yet. Anyway, the Page requires others to help them to reach their full potential, whereas Knights are capable of reaching their potential on their own. But even if it takes longer for them to reach this full potential of theirs, it pays off immensely, as the Page is viewed as one of the most dangerous classes in the game, even if they don’t use their abilities for themselves. I mean, just look at the damage Jake did as the Page of Hope: he was able to allow “thought Dirk” to essentially threaten Aranea with destroying her soul. The only thing that stopped that from happening was that Aranea was the person who allowed Jake to reach his potential in the first place, and kept him screaming old-fashioned mannerisms while surrounded by a halo of Hope energy. Dirk was armed with Jake’s belief in him, allowing him to use that as a weapon, and without her, he lost his potential.
The thing about Pages is that their potential isn’t in the same place Knights’ is. Say that a Knight was given a sword. I’m certain they could do about twelve billion different things with that same sword until it breaks. They could level mountains, raise armies, whatever they well like. While the Page, when you give them a sword, they give it to others. I have heard it said before that where Knights are amazing, a Page can be likened to a king, leading an army of Knights. And the reason why they can do that is because they can give a Knight’s sword, a Knight’s abilities, to another person. They can create an army of Knights by giving their swords to others, and giving back their powers to the people who helped them reach their potential.
So essentially the Page of Mind’s ability is to make their allies Knights of Mind. Mind is the Aspect of thoughts and choices, so therefore, those who the Page arms with their ability would be able to arm themselves with thought and choice. The Page might be well-suited as an intelligence gatherer, now that I think of it, as they would be arm others with specific thoughts, their thoughts. They would be able to pass on their thoughts and the information that they gathered to their Knights using their abilities. In a way, a Page would be capable of telepathy, arming others with their thoughts. Those equipped with the abilities of a Knight of Mind would be able to arm themselves with the knowledge of choice and the consequences. The Knights in the Page’s army would be excellent builders of Rube Goldberg machines, capable of setting things up one after the other to harm their enemies, be this through physical harm, insanity, or another mean. They would be able to weaponize thoughts and create revolution or raise an army for themselves. It’s possible that those armed with knowledge of the Aspect of Mind might have some sort of understanding of justice through their understanding of choice and consequence. After all, as Latula Pyrope, the Knight of Mind, said that karma made some sort of intuitive sense to her. They understand that there is a balance among all things, and justice, whether or not it is fair, must be served as consequences.
So a Page of Mind would be able to bestow to others the abilities of a Knight of Mind, bestow upon their allies thoughts and information in a sort of telepathic manner. This could open up multiple roles. A spy or an intel-gatherer would work quite well. By working with the rest of the team, they could provide a communication role by passing along thoughts for others to arm themselves with. In this way, they might be able to transfer information faster than people could type it. In the case of communication failures, like all members of their team fails to keep five computers on them at all times like a sensible person, or they just happen to lose them all, the Page of Mind would be able to allow for communication between teammates. They would be at the center of a web of communication, and an invaluable teammate.
Weapons: TC
Well, pages are interesting in terms of weapons, since there is no real set pattern to them. I mean, what can you think of that a lance (Tavros), a bow and arrow (Horrus), and a pair of pistols (Jake) have in common? Then I realized that all of these are all weapons in the conventional sense. Mind players, also have a potential pattern, as I mentioned earlier, assuming that Latula and Terezi use the same weapon. Even if they do not, the other theorized weapon that Latula used was her skateboard, meaning that at the very least, Mind players gravitate towards melee weapons. So, as such, the following strife specibi would fit both of these patterns.
Land and Quest: TC and CA
We have discussed this before, with our Bard of Mind post, so a lot of this is repetition, but let’s go about it once more.
Of the Mind players we have known in Homestuck (Terezi, the Seer, and Latula, the Knight), we have only seen the former’s land, The Land of Thought and Flow, so all ideas we have about a Mind land comes from inferences we have drawn from Terezi’s. As with TC’s land, we suggest the use, once again, of this word list to aid you in the creation of your land, in both its quest and its aesthetic.
So, dissecting Terezi’s land. We don’t know what her quest was, but we know that both words can relate to Mind in some way or another. Thought is the obvious one, as Mind is the Aspect of thought, but what about Flow? Well, flow is a reference to either the rivers all over her land, or the lights flashing and flowing through the sky (the lights that look suspiciously like the Mind symbol). Either way, we can probably imagine that “Flow,” might have been the aesthetic word for her land, leaving “thought,” to have been both the word related to her Aspect. Although we don’t know which word was her quest word, we can at least dissect that much into her land.
Now, the word relating to the Mind Aspect is easy to make. But the quest, that is the harder bit. As we had said before, Mind is the Aspect of thought and choices, of consequences and possibility. This, as such, could lead to a variety of potential quests for a Mind land and Mind player, but to help a Page of Mind understand their abilities once they reach their full potential, might I suggest a quest in which they have to solve a puzzle but using their whole land. It’s timed, in a way. Like there’s only a certain window of time during which the Page may reach a treasure or something, and the Page needs the help of their consorts or other players to reach it. You know how in video games there are those puzzles where once you press a button, you have a limited amount of time to cross ten platforms, juggle some lemons and blitz a few enemies? Yeah, it’s a bit like that, except there are twelve buttons that need to be pressed at the same time and they’re all on different parts of the Page’s world. Under normal circumstances? Impossible. But if they use their allies (consorts, teammates or otherwise), and give them the information that they need in order to help them, they should be able to complete it.
This would help them in learning to use their abilities to transfer information. They would be able to learn the basics of their abilities, even if they haven’t reached the god tier yet. They could just use a computer and IM system to give their allies the go-ahead. They just need to use their ability to arm others with information in order to finish their quest.
Well, I think I just came up with your quest word and Aspect word. Puzzles. Or maybe Trials. It’s up to you.
Team Analysis: CA and TC
Knight of Breath, Page of Mind, Muse of Time, Sylph of Space
First time to do this. Okay, well, you reached the first checkpoint, i.e., the Time and the Space player. The Time player helps with giving enough time to the creation of the Genesis Frog, and help others with finishing their quests as well, this ringing especially true given this Time player is the Muse. The Time player is also in charge of Scratching the session, should it be necessary. And although we aren’t sure if it’s necessary, the fact that this session has an even number is pretty helpful, especially when getting the planets aligned. The ring has always been surrounded by an even number, so, if it does happen to be a necessary factor to the game, you’re good there.
However, there may be a couple of problems, and those problems come in the form of the Knight and the Muse in the session. Admittedly, they are very awesome classes, but the Knight’s Aspect is exactly what the session lacks, and a session without Breath (a.k.a., freedom), is almost immediately crippled. As I mentioned in the post about the Knight of Breath, some possible ways the session could lack freedom include the portals that the players need to get around their might be too far away to reach, there might not be enough building materials to reach them in the first place, or the portals might not even exist. This lack of mobility can take many forms, but no matter what form it takes, the session will be crippled by it, and to keep the session from dying, the Knight will have to get in gear as fast as possible as far as mastering their abilities. The Knight will have to be willing to fly everyone around through the portals, get people where they need to be and when they need to be there (as per the Muse’s specifications), and not get too tired out from doing it. It’s an immense challenge.
Speaking of the Muse, the problem with that is that the Muse’s existence in the session may throw things out of whack: a powerful class has a fair amount of problems to balance things. For example? The Muse may learn that they have to leave their session partway through the make The Choice to save gods know how many people from the person who chose to destroy things. The Muse’s planet is dead, which means that they had to oversee everyone else’s quests, but without the Muse to do that, the session may fail. Their sacrifice has consequences, consequences that the Page in this session may be able to help understand, or, rather, help the Muse themselves understand. In any case, Muses are powerful, and their existences in a session tend to mean that something major is going to happen. Caution is advised.
Alright, now let’s talk about their cooperation:
The Knight of Breath is an interesting person to look at, because Knights are infamous for hiding behind a sort of shell or mask. Dave hides behind a “cool,” exterior, Karkat hides behind a mask of anger, and Latula, behind the guise of a “gamer girl.” This hiding is done entirely to protect a sort of insecurity, or perhaps a problem they see with themselves that they don’t want to face. Dave hides behind the entirely unflappable cool person exterior because he believes that he can’t amount to the same thing as his brother or John (at least he believes as much in the game, especially once John reaches god tier, hence his, “I’m not a hero, I won’t die a Heroic death, etc., etc., etc.” shpeal). So, depending on what the mask of this Knight of Breath is, the Knight might cause a problem very early, especially so given the team’s dependence on them! Just imagine the problem an aloof Knight of Breath may hold (e.g., shows up 15 minutes late with Starbucks just to give the impression that they don’t care too much). The Page of Mind will likely be needed to help them if their mask turns out to be problematic and the Sylph will be there to help with any problems their mask may cause with the other teammates. The Muse will likely take on a different role for the Knight: one of the coach. They will have to help train them to use their powers, devote and give time to them, be this Time they stole from their enemies, Time they inherited, or Time they created for them, because without this Knight knowing how to use their abilities, the session may fail. So this Knight’s role? Integral.
The Page of Mind would be a protege of sorts for the entire team. Not necessarily someone they would feel like pushing around, per se, but Pages have a tendency to be fairly mild-mannered, I suppose. The Page would have to allow others to understand their mistakes before allowing someone else to step in to correct them (if the people themselves don’t correct them themselves, that is). Whereas the Sylph would likely mediate using the pathos (emotional appeal), the Page would likely use logos (logical appeal) and really just show them that they made a mistake objectively. They, like the Knight of Breath, would likely be a major devotion of the Muse’s Time and resources (i.e., Time), especially so if the Knight has a “mask,” that’s causing problems for others. By allowing the Knight of Breath to know the abilities of a Knight of Mind, they would be able to know the consequences of the persona they’re hiding behind, and the problems it’s causing for others. They would know that they have to modify their behavior in order to bring the session to a successful close. So the Page is an important part of this session, as they would be able to allow their teammates to weaponize their thoughts and choices, and also understand the consequences that occur as a result of their actions.
The Muse of Time would likely serve as mission control and teacher for the group. Practically everything would be their job, as per their quest, and they would be able to decide what the next best course of action would be. They would teach the Page to reach their full potential, and they would help the Knight understand and use their newfound abilities, not to mention helping the Sylph with creating the Genesis Frog. Given how barren their world is and how good they’ll end up at Time shenanigans once they reach god tier (or possibly even before), they ought to have little standing in their way of reaching god tier. Their biggest problem would be learning how to use them all in time to get their new universe created. But with a little help from their innate Knowing and their teammates, especially the Sylph, they should be fine, and they should be able to tell whether The Choice needs to be made at all.
The Sylph of Space’s role would most likely be as a fairly good mediator, as shown by Kanaya being a prime auspistice. The whole “creating Space for others,” schtick of their powers would likely reflect in their ability to know how to get conflicts resolved most of the time: separate the parties involved. If they’re given some time on their own, they will likely realize what it is they want to say to one another, and why things went wrong. Sylphs are fairly helpful and calm people on their own, but between trying to make sure any disputes end up finished and making a universe, they, like everyone else in this session, have a lot on their plate. The Sylph would serve as a grounding force for their team. While the Knight is messing around with all their fancy new powers or whatever, the Sylph would likely be the one to tell them that they need to help out other teammates move around their world. Where the Page would be too harsh in trying to tell the Knight to get to work, the Sylph knows exactly what to say to get their teammate to help. Where the Muse is likely working themselves to death, the Sylph would be willing to get them to rest a bit, knowing that they would be able to work just as hard, if not harder, later, with the Time they have accumulated.
Other potential problems include the abundance of passive players, players who can’t use their powers for themselves. If they have an agenda they have to accomplish, and their teammates either can’t or won’t help them with it, they wouldn’t be able to accomplish it, no matter how important it is that it be completed. Cooperation is key for a session with a lot of passive players outnumbering active players.
But looking on the bright side, we have people whose abilities should compensate for each other’s, and if they have enough bite to support their bark, then the team should be fine and the Genesis Frog should look splendid on the other side of that door.
Prognosis? As long as they’re already willing to put up with each other’s shit, they should be good. It’ll be a hard session, but with the right strings pulled, everyone should come out of it alive.
Sylph of Space
Alrighty, then. With TC’s god tier posted, I guess it’s time for mine (CA’s). Once again, we’re going to do powers, weapons, and the land and quest. Let’s go.
Powers: CA
The Sylph and the Maid are the passive-active pair for the Creating class. Both classes are hypothesized to be female-exclusive classes, but given Hussie’s response regarding the possibility of a female Prince (which was a yes), it is fully possible that any gender restrictions on the classes are null (male Sylphs, rejoice!). In any case, both Maids and Sylphs create, but generally do it for different people. Where the Maid does for themselves, the Sylph generally does for others. There aren’t many examples to illustrate this contrast, as there is only one Maid and Sylph each who have reached god tier and use their powers in the way they are supposed to (Aradia, Maid of Time, and Aranea, Sylph of Light). I did not include Jane in that list because nearly as soon as she reached god tier, she was forced into inversion by Her Imperious Condescension, and she was never able to use her abilities as the Maid of Life in the way they were meant to be used.
In any case, another speculated additional ability of any Sylph is to heal using their Aspect or to simply heal their Aspect. One example of this is Aranea Serket healing Terezi’s eyes, allowing her to see again (a more literal interpretation of the Light Aspect, but an interpretation of it all the same), therefore healing her with Light, and at the same time, passively creating light in her eyes. A less fortuitous example of this would be Kanaya trying to use the Matriorb to recreate her race, or, in other words, perhaps, heal it. Or just heal Space of its absence.
The Sylph of Space creates for others using Space, but the funny thing about Space is that it is a very science-y aspect. It is hypothesized to have ties to creation, similar to how its countering Aspect, Time, is related to death, but its major ties are to the velocity, size, shape, and position of various things. So a Sylph of Space would basically be a cleric from an RPG: they would provide buffs to their teammates. This would generally mean that they would be no where near the front lines, opening up a potential tactician position, which is only augmented by their abilities. They could give speed to a teammate, making them able to go around like a certain Marvel mutant and screw shit over. They can change the position of their allies, allowing them to get away from enemies quickly or, perhaps, if the advantage would be theirs, let them go straight to the front lines in preparation for a massacre. They can make their allies large as life, giving them brute strength, or make them small so that they can easily dodge enemy attacks. They could also create Space for their enemies as well: they could slow down their Space, or make them small or insignificant. They could alter the position of their enemies, pushing back a horde to leave just one to fight. It would be like conducting an orchestra, altering what needs to be altered of their allies or enemies with merely the flick of a hand.
But, if we’re talking about the Sylph’s infamous other ability, i.e., that of healing, then we’re speaking of two things. To heal Space might mean replacing something that was destroyed, something that was meant to be, meant to exist, and simply doesn’t. I imagine this as opening Rifts, taking something that doesn’t need to exist in one universe to fill in for something missing from our universe. You can’t open them when you want to, but rather, when it is needed (much like Kanaya’s Chastity Fetch Modus). And to heal using Space may mean stealing a little bit of something from Space’s “creation” theme, in other words, healing by recreating what is missing in a person’s Space. Again, infinitely powerful, but with two drawbacks: A Sylph can’t use this ability on themselves, and even if they are using it on others, they can only use it if Space is missing it (and Space is one finicky son of a bitch to negotiate with).
Weapons: CA and TC
As I mentioned earlier, the Sylph of Space has no powers that they can use explicitly for themselves. The buffs that they have, they can’t use on themselves, which means they need a hella powerful weapon to back up their claims.
One possible theory concerning the weapons of a Sylph is that they are generally items that would not be considered very threatening, but can change into a different weapon. For instance, Kanaya’s lipstick could change into a chainsaw. Another possible example would be if, like most of the other Beforus trolls, Aranea used the same weapon as her dancestor, which in her case would be the Fluorite Octet, which does a different thing for each different roll. However, it is unknown what weapon Aranea used. So there are two ways a weapon can be made for a Sylph: start out with something very powerful and just add more stuff to it as you go along, or start off with a weapon that allows for a bit of subtlety, that comes off as something that isn’t really a weapon, and then allow it to become uber-powerful by buffing it up like a Sylph would their teammates.
In any case, the following strife specibi come to mind for the Sylph of Space:
CA’s weapon falls into the umbrellakind strife specibus.
Land and Quest: CA
I decided to hijack this part of the post to explain my land, and the land of Space players in general, although TC is, as always, a part of the editing process.
In any case, the Space player’s land is simultaneously both the easiest to design and the most important of the entire session, given how the Space player is responsible for the creation of the Genesis Frog, which, in turn, creates the new universe that the winners subsequently play god in. This means that the Space player’s quest is ultimately to create the Genesis Frog, although there may be a quest that leads up to this (i.e., that lights the forge or gathers the frogs or keeps them from getting eaten, etc.). In any case, the land itself with be created following the formula: “The Land of X and Frogs.” Frogs is the quest word, so you don’t have to worry about that, but you do have to worry about planning out what the world is like. If you have a secondary quest already in mind for you or your character, then put a word describing it, and there you go, you have your land.
My land is The Land of Music and Frogs. There are large marble structures as far as the eye can see, which create tones when the wind blows through them. There’s also the necessary volcano for Space lands (well, I use “necessary,” as a way to describe that it’s a pattern between Space Players’ lands), and the ocean and a beach not too far away from the volcano below. In order to start up the forge, I have to learn to use the marble structures to alter the tones on the breeze. It’s a puzzle that uses my ability to detect patterns and my creativity to my advantage. My problem? Music itself isn’t specifically my forte as far as theoretical application. Not to mention, I wouldn’t have much in the way of the slightest idea on what pattern I would have to use in order to get the desired results of lighting the Forge. And then there’s the whole “creating a new universe in the belly of a Frog” thing, so I’ll need all the help I can get from my teammates.
Again, if you want our help to try and design a specific Land and quest to play up the strengths of your character or to try and challenge them, by all means, send us an ask.