Thank you very much.
Team Analysis: TC and CA
Knight of Heart, Seer of Breath, and Mage of Void
Alright. Since you have acknowledged these are not the only players in the session, we won’t talk about what you need. We’ll instead go right to work discussing what their roles are in any session at all together.
A Knight of Heart is a bit of a tricky player. On the one hand, they have the ability to weaponize their soul, whoever they are as a person, be this splitting into multiple versions of themselves to make an army of the aspects of their soul, or arming themselves with a weapon symbolically representing them. On the other, they’re probably trying to hide whoever they are in some way shape or form behind a mask. We’ve discussed this before with other Knights, but so you know, Knights have a bad habit of hiding who they are behind any one aspect of themselves they want to accentuate, Karkat’s anger, Dave’s coolness, Latula’s G4M3RG1RL persona, often as an attempt to make sure that their weaknesses don’t get found out. Karkat never wanted to let anyone know of his mutation, Dave of his feelings of being a coward and his abuse in childhood. So Knights have something they want to hide. And they need to stop. They may not need to open up completely to be capable of using their powers (their class, after all, is one of self-discovery and self-reliance, achieving their own full potential by their own power), but if they want to be able to help their teammates with their land quests, and with the session in general, then they need to learn to let go of their mask, at least in some small part. Find a teammate to confide in, perhaps? Either way, a Knight of Heart would prove a great and easy mediator between people in the session, and while not necessarily a leader (whether or not they are depends on whoever else may be in the session), certainly someone who can take care of the team. Also important: the presence of a Knight of Heart indicates that the session lacks either emotion (perhaps in the sense of everyone being as “cold” as Dirk) or a sense of self to provide distinction between players (as we suggested before with the earlier Knight of Heart post, perhaps the session is comprised largely of twins or triplets to physically denote this lack of self).
The Seer of Breath would be able to see what’s needed to free people from their connections to things, people, and places…to put it bluntly. There is a lot more to this Seer’s powers but I’m focusing on this aspect of it right now because while we’re on the subject of the Knight of Heart and the Seer of Breath together, I think this is probably the person most likely to help the Knight break down their mask! Their ability to see what it would take to free anyone from their connections by pushing them in the right directions to make their own sort of self-discoveries partners perfectly with the Knight’s need to do things themselves to figure out how to use their powers. The Seer would say things, little things, push them in the right direction to seek out their own freedom from needing to hide who they are. The most immediate comparison I can think of would be Cole from Dragon Age: Inquisition (forgive me, for I am likely to be making these references far too much for my own good). His desire and innate ability to sense pain and try to, in his words, “untangle it,” is very similar to the Seer’s ability to free people—this analogy I’m making would be even more accurate if this Seer uses their powers purely to help others, freeing people from toxic relationships, from obsession, from addiction. But the Seer can also use their powers for not-quite-so-good things, too—breaking apart perfectly healthy relationships for the sake of the team dynamic, breaking apart people from their coping mechanisms to make the session far easier, but the further and further they go to get rid of things, trying to shape their teammates, the more likely they are to invert—begin to free people from their external connections just to strengthen their devotion to the team, that’s not Seer of Breath territory—that’s a Witch of Blood. Breath players are likely to be leaders in their sessions because of their innate freedom. Nothing’s holding them back but themselves, and of the three here (you need at least three other players, the Time and Space and one last player to even things out), this is the person who’s most likely to be the leader. They can make the hard decisions, they just need to be careful to not meddle too much.
The Mage of Void, as we noted before, in the post we crafted about them, is someone who can see a lot. And for the Knight of Heart, that’s probably a bit too much. The Knight didn’t ask them to figure them out, to figure out their secret—it just happened, and now it seems to the Knight like they’re just holding it smugly over their head. Screw them and their stupid face, the Knight thinks, just waiting for the other ball to drop…in actuality, it’s nothing like that. The Mage has no intentions of using this information, or giving it to anyone. They just kind of don’t care. Not to say that they don’t understand the gravity of the Knight’s need to keep their mask on for the other members of the session, they just don’t care about their finding out the truth. For all intents and purposes, they invite the Knight, you can keep on pretending with me, too, act like it never happened. The Knight can’t bring themselves to, though. Something about doing so just feels wrong. In any case, we’ll talk more about them later. The Seer and the Mage get on well together. As the Mage and Seer come into their powers, they get closer, the Seer going to the Mage for information, secrets that impede on their ability to untangle the bonds keeping people around them stagnant. The Seer depends on the Mage for a lot, and the Mage in turn, trusts them. They help because they know the Seer won’t misuse their powers for stupid stuff, and the second they try to, the Mage pulls the plug. In a series of checks and balances to keep the team leader from screwing the session over, the Mage of Void is the first line of defenses. In hindsight, perhaps they’re a better leader?…Well, it doesn’t matter much. Without the other players, we can’t figure out too much.
Sadly, without the other members of the team listed, we can’t draw too many conclusions as to how this would go down, but you seem to have a neat little cell here. Be careful who you choose to put in with them.
Relationships: CA and TC
Knight of Heart, Seer of Breath, and Mage of Void
Knight of Heart <> Seer of Breath: This relationship needs to be this level of strong friendship for anything to get anywhere on the Knight’s part of understanding their powers. Anything less that this level of trust and respect and it might not work. But beyond it needing to be this, their titles actually lend themselves to it pretty well. Passive-active groupings work pretty well together, one pursuing what the other points out in their sitting on the sidelines. A Seer of Breath would be able to learn how to remove bonds and the Knight of Heart would be able to create emotional ones. They would bond over their differences, recognizing the other’s strengths for the advantage they are, and would likely learn to compensate for each other, the Knight moving where the Seer cannot, and the Seer knowing what the Knight doesn’t. Their cooperation makes or breaks the game.
Knight of Heart <3< Mage of Void: Now what I described before, the relationship between the Knight and the Mage, it’s a bit one-sided. The Knight has all these feelings of anger towards the Mage because of this sudden unmasking, but the Mage just doesn’t really feel this great, undying need to use this knowledge, this dirt on the Knight for anything at all, no desire to humiliate or expose them. There are two ways this could go from here, and really it depends on how much of the Knight’s dependence on the mask the Seer manages to dismantle. Either a lot of the mask comes off and the Knight mellows out, this relationship would dissolve into simple and unpassionate professionalism, or the mask still manages to stick around, and so does the Knight’s animosity towards his teammate.
Seer of Breath <> Mage of Void: We talked about this before—a healthy respect and trust between them? Their methods of teamwork? Their ability to control each other (and not in a malicious way, more that they’ll stop each other from being stupid)? That’s a moiralliegance if ever I’ve seen one. It just needs to stay that way. Too passionate in either positive or negative directions and we have them trying to control each other or being far too lenient, neither of which is really any good. Okay, good? Good.
It’s okay. Trust me when I say, that list is not long.
Team Analysis: TC and CA
Witch of Hope, Maid of Heart, Page of Life, Seer of Space, and Mage of Time
Well, congratulations, you passed the first main point, having a Space and a Time player. They are both required for a session to be anywhere near possible to succeed, so that’s down. You now have a chance of succeeding!
A possible problem however, that I saw with this team, is the fact that it has an uneven number of players. For a balanced session, an even number would be necessary, and it would be helpful to balance out the number of active and passive players. So the passive player we suggest to even out your session at six players would be a Sylph of Rage.
The Witch of Hope would be your main brawler. Lasers, a manipulation of faith, and an abrasive personality to match after the session starts, this is the character on your team who is going to be fighting the absolute most. But this faith you would place in them on the battlefield does not mean that they are anything even vaguely near leadership material. They do not know how to rally their teammates, they are more likely to enrage them and maybe never even know it. But on the battlefield, you cannot deny they are the most useful member of your team there. They have Hope to manipulate, to train freely. They would be not only be an object of faith for you in combat, but also an object of faith for whoever they would care to be, allocating the powerful energy of their Aspect as freely as they want. But under no circumstances should the remainder of this team place any faith in this character as a leader. Second-in-command? Yeah, sure, they’d probably have a pretty good hand in passing on orders and motivating their comrades and the like, but do NOT let this character be a leader.
The Maid of Heart, however, do allow to be a leader. This is a character in touch with the emotions of their comrades, at least slightly capable in battle by virtue of sheer numbers (making copies of yourself, who knew that splinters could be so useful?), and, while a tad manipulative and not entirely ethical, would be able to create emotions in their allies to defuse any given situation, even without using their god tier powers outright. The Maid would have a finger on the pulse of their team, would be able to keep a short leash on the enthusiastic-but-abrasive Witch, would provide words of encouragement to the Page as they struggle their way up to their god tier, and would have the sense to leave the Seer and the Mage alone to work by themselves—the Maid would find out that, by the fairly enigmatic virtue of their Aspects, the Seer and the Mage would prefer to work as a slightly separate unit. The Sylph and the Maid would likely serve as the two grounding forces of this team, one understanding the forces which would serve to undermine the team (Rage) the other understanding everyone’s emotions and selves. The Maid and the Sylph would likely prove to be close friends by the end of the session, if not already by the start, given how they would be so keen to confide in each other their fears and thoughts (Sylphs often prove a good listener given the intrinsic healing nature to their roles, and if you add that to the emotional nature of the Maid’s Aspect, these two would be each other’s best confidants and advisors—and I will add that it certainly helps these two are the active-passive pair of their classes). The Maid needs to be careful to not abuse their power, either as a leader or in their god tier form, but I believe their understanding of the gravity of their roles and the friend and adviser they will have in the Sylph will help.
Pages often start as the most passive of people, and in this session, the Page of Life will prove no different. Likely a very meek person, the Page of Life is all about choices, decisions to make in life. The Page, pre-session, might have been a person with a wide variety of opportunities before them, but was sort of overwhelmed by the amount of them, the fear that they might make the wrong choice, accordingly. Now, in-session, they’re sort of pigeonholed in a role, and it’s frustrating to them, to suddenly be void of all these choices and to be only offered now the one. To be honest, though, I can’t blame them for being frustrated, but they do only have one role. The Page of Life is an incredibly powerful healing class. They would potentially be the best cleric of all time, equipping their teammates with the incredible healing power of Life. It’s an amazing role to have, and a well-trained Page of Life could even bring a dead teammate back to life. But to achieve this role, they would need the aid of their comrades. The Seer of Space would tell them just how important, how necessary this role is, and how they alone would be able to fulfill it in their session. The Maid of Heart would try to aid them in accepting their role, help them be motivated to fill it. The Witch of Hope would also probably prove a source of motivation themselves, although this might be more of a, “Ha, ha, I’m better than you,” sort of deal. In any case, if this Page’s other teammates support them, they should prove quite the capable healer.
The Seer of Space would be the central tactician of the team, given the nature of their classpect, and would rely on their teammate’s trust to better get them through their session—luckily, though, one already does trust them. The Mage of Time and Seer of Space should take to each other like a duck to water, if they haven’t before the session. So when they need something, the Seer of Space will be undoubtedly be the one to find it, to comb through all of paradox space, but the Mage of Time will likely be the one to get it. The Seer will also likely put a bit of a leash on their Mage, given how they would have some knowledge of how bad it would be if Time itself were to try and bite the session in the butt (the Page needs it to get even the vaguest understanding of their abilities, the Seer needs it for the frog, etc.), but other than that, they give the Mage full reign over their powers, as the Seer would be among the first to know that, to survive this session, they need a Time player who knows Time like the back of their hand. The Seer would serve as another advisor to the Maid, knowing the where of all things they might need, and would provide a more logical side to the Maid, in comparison to their more emotional self. Given their intrinsic knowledge of birth inherent of Space, they will likely not need as much coaching in the making of their frog from their denizen than anyone else. The Seer of Space will also put a leash on the Witch of Hope, a sort of unattached persona directing the Witch towards what they might need and what they might need to do. To the Page of Life, though, the Seer acts a tad more emotional, more parental, as it were, encouraging them to fulfill their role as no one else could. The Seer of Space would be the first to discover the Quest Beds, and also likely the first to figure out how to use them, and to suggest the use of them to all they and the Mage believe would need to use them.
Speaking of the Mage, they and the Seer would work best as an independent unit, for the most part. Without a Knight to work with, the Seer would depend most on the Time player for help in completing their world’s quest, but beyond even that, the two would be pushing each other’s limits, helping each other reach the highest point of their powers. Sure, they’d be helping the other members of the team, but their main concern would be each other—especially with the Mage. We’ve touched on this once or twice before with one or two other posts concerning a Mage of Time, but Mages of Time have a tendency to separate themselves from the rest of their team. While not quite true in regards to the Seer of Space, they would certainly avoid involving themselves with the other players in order to fulfill their own goals. Hell, if the Mage and the Seer develop their abilities well enough, it’s more than likely they might even be able to outright unravel the mysteries of SBURB in addition to realizing their own quests.
The reason why TC and I suggested the addition of a Sylph of Rage would be because, in addition to being a grounding force to the team and a good vent an adviser to the Maid of Heart, we noted you don’t have much in the way of combat power. Sure, you have that Witch of Hope, but until the Maid of Heart goes legitimate god tier, that Witch is all you’ve got. But the Sylph of Rage, with their ability to create Rage in others would essentially allow them the ability to give their teammates incredible power wrapped in the form of a berserker mode of sorts. In addition to that, the Sylph would be able to provide some sort of healing power with their ability to heal using Rage. While certainly….unusual in the way it sounds, the Sylph will be an incredible ally while the Page learns, the Maid leads, and the Witch fights.
So all in all, we think this team should be quite capable of taking the game on. They have a sound emotional base, a curious Space/Time duo, and a healer with a lot of potential. Just keep an eye on the Witch before the final fight, and you should be fine.
I’m glad you’re putting such faith in us. We’ll try to live up to your expectations.
This has been a long time coming.
Team Analysis: CA and TC
Knight of Light, Page of Doom, Sylph of Heart, Thief of Void, Witch of Mind, Prince of Breath, Mage of Time, and Seer of Space
Okay, you’ve got yourself quite the crew here. It passes the first two points of inspection, having a Space and Time player and having an even number of players. As far as Classes, the scales are a bit tipped towards the active side of things, but it’s nothing too worrisome: three passives to five actives should work out okay.
The Knight of Light is…a bit dangerous. We’ve talked about this with the, what, three-and-a-half (if you count the team ask) asks about Knights we’ve had? Knights’ Aspects are those that the session itself lacks. So in stark contrast to the Knight of Void’s session we discussed not too long ago, the Knight of Light would be very big problem to the session. The session would have absolutely, or at least next to, no luck at all. Anything that can go wrong for this group will go wrong, and it will go very very wrong. So when they arm themselves with Luck, they will need to be creative (hint: not all luck needs to be good to be luck), and arm themselves with what little of their Aspect exists in the session to help both themselves and their teammates proceed. Personalitywise, the Knight of Light would have a “mask” which would obscure their true personality, like Dave’s cool kid attitude, Karkat’s anger, and Latula’s radical gamer girl persona. In order to work well with their team, the Knight would need to learn to remove their mask and be true to themselves, which, thanks to the presence of a Sylph of Heart and a Witch of Mind, will likely not be an issue.
The Page of Doom, as all Pages do, will start with a lack of their aspect, but will attempt to make up for this lack with overcompensation. An example of this would be Jake believing everything that he was told. As such, this Page of Doom will likely have a hard time obeying the rules, and then will attempt to enforce the rules on everybody else. This behavior might end up alienating them from the rest of the team by being a total nuisance to everyone else, which is bad, since the theory is that Pages may need some help to reach their full potential. The only major example of this is Aranea helping Jake. However, if the Page does end up reaching his full potential, then he will make the team a force to be reckoned with. The Page would be the one who allowed people the ability to arm themselves with destruction and rules, and while their enforcing of the rules would certainly arm their teammates with them, to arm their teammates with destruction, they will likely need a bit of ability to cooperate. Just imagine what would happen if they got into a fight while armed with the Page’s abilities.
The Sylph of Heart is one of the two players which could help the Page reach their full potential, with the other being the Witch of Mind. The Sylph would be very (and I do mean VERY) good at resolving disputes between their teammates. They would understand emotion, and would know how to get the desired results between two parties, i.e., reconciliation. Of course, if they were to desire to bring two people further apart emotionally, they could do that, too. Really, it’s about creating animosity or the desire to reconcile between two people, and boy, oh boy, can the Sylph do that. Furthermore, most Sylphs have a tendency to meddle in their aspect, so the Sylph of Heart would most likely meddle in romantic affairs of their colleagues, so they would WANT to resolve these disputes as well. The Sylph wouldn’t be very likely to be the grounding force of this team, as, despite the human element to their aspect, they would be more concerned with their teammates than the larger picture of the goals around them.
The Thief of Void would be able to steal the nothingness out of thin air, much like Roxy’s abilities (as one would imagine, given the similarities between the Stealing classes), but where Roxy does it for someone else’s sake, the Thief would use their powers to get what they want. But I would advise one thing: the Page of Doom and the Thief of Void should never go anywhere near each other for prolonged periods of time, they will be at each others’ throats faster than you can say, “No, dude, don’t,” ‘cuz if you’re looking for a rule breaker, the Thief of Void is it. Impatient, has powers that break the basic laws of matter, not very likely to give them up, the Thief of Void is everything the Page hates, as while the Page knows sacrifice and rules are necessary to keep a system running, the Thief is just running around and bypassing everything they know and love on the average Tuesday. Not very helpful to their blood pressure. When it comes to opposing viewpoints, boy, do these guys have them. The leader of this session, provided they’re at least partially knowledgeable concerning their abilities and Aspects, will be glad to have the two of them by their side as advisers. And if things should come to a fight, the Sylph of Heart and the Witch of Mind should be able to put a leash of the two to keep them apart.
The Witch of Mind would be like Sherlock Holmes, except not. The Witch would be able to make astounding leaps of logic that make NO SENSE, but still turn out to be correct. They would have a sort of intuitive understanding of what they were saying, just perhaps no real way to express it because to them, these little neurons connecting, adding information one after another, really just only make sense to them, being the only Mind player in their session. Now, there could be a really good reason for why they can’t get these words out in a reasonable manner. Maybe they’re prone to sesquipedalian loquaciousness, like I (CA) am. Maybe they have a speech impediment like a stutter, or a lisp. Maybe they’re deaf and can’t speak very well or easily, or maybe they’re just outright mute. But if they can get their teammates to trust them (and that is very vital), they should be alright. Their teammates will be able to put their outright faith in them, regardless of whether or not it makes sense to them that the Witch just KNOWS that Snape didn’t kill Dumbledore, or that Laura was always scared of Kevin. And what’s better is that the Witch would be able to put leashes on their teammates, by manipulating the consequences of them doing bad things, like the Thief and the Page fighting. Thief punches Page, Witch makes it so Page punches back harder, and the Thief decides, hey, maybe punching my teammate isn’t that great an idea. However, manipulating consequences, which fall under the category of the Doom aspect as well, might annoy the overzealous Page if they catch on. Therefore, it is vital that the Witch remain discreet with their actions.
Oh, boy, do I (CA) know the Prince of Breath. As an alternate god tier title for myself, I did a fair bit of research into what it would mean to be the Prince, whether thematic aspects of my life fitted the Sylph role or the Prince role. From what I found, Princes lack their Aspect as an integral part of who they are (Dirk being a stone cold motherfucker, Eridan lacking faith in something he so obviously loved, magic, and Kurloz being a very chill dude), so the Prince of Breath would be lacking freedom. The Prince could easily be the one who is home stuck until the session starts, but even then they might find that their portals are just a little bit too far to reach, so that just means that they have to take things into their own hands when it comes to their freedom. The Prince wouldn’t be the optimal choice of leader, as them lacking their Aspect generally leads to some sort of inevitable backlash in an abundance of their Aspect destroying things through them, and between Eridan destroying lives and the only Hope left for his race, Dirk throwing himself into the fuzzy pixel mess Caliborn had made by shoving everything at once into the game cartridge, and Kurloz sewing his mouth shut, it doesn’t end well for the Prince, nor anyone else involved. So no Prince leaders. But the Prince would be a really REALLY big help towards killing the Black King, being able to destroy everything by simply remaining unhindered in their path (or by destroying everything that would hinder them). The Prince would be rather emotionally attached to other people, reflecting the denial of Breath (and therefore acceptance of Blood), and while these bonds might become troublesome, the Sylph of Heart would be able to weaken or strengthen the emotion joining them, and therefore weaken or strengthen the bond as the situation required. If there was ever a perfect auspistice for the Prince, then the Sylph would be it.
Well, the Mage of Time is a role that we have done before. You know pretty much exactly what they can do, so I’ll skip to the interpersonal relationships! While the rest of the Justice League are out fighting crime, getting their hands dirty… WITH JUSTICE, the Mage of TIme will be Martian Manhunter, staying in the Watchtower, looking over everything from a distance. This would make them a poor leader, but a decent advisor, as they would remain rather detached from the rest of the players, and as such it would be incredibly difficult to have a very close relationship with them. Therefore, it would be incredibly difficult to even get them to hate you, so if you want them to be someone’s kismesis, moirail, auspistice, or matesprit, you’ll have your work cut out for you. The Mage may also be too constantly busy with their own task of keeping the timelines stable to assist with anyone else’s problems, but they will, through their own tasks, keep everyone safe as best they can. One word of caution, though. KEEP THEM AWAY FROM THE PRINCE!!! While, yes, every Mage has had a history of being screwed over by their aspects, a Prince has had a hand in the downfall of Mages everywhere. Examples of this are Eridan blinding and half killing Sollux and Kurloz deafening and mind-controlling Meulin. Luckily, the Mage of Time’s detachment should help in distancing themselves from the Prince.
The Seer of Space is the optimal leader for this session given the classpects you have provided for us. They would be able to see into the whole of creation, to search for what they needed, and while this doesn’t seem to be quite as perpetually nifty as another Seer’s abilities to look for path to take or fortuitous action, that’s because they don’t need to know all that. You see, with this variety of cohorts working with them (eight people is a fairly large session, and while it adds a lot of variety to the Black King’s abilities, it also gives the players a huge amount of variety in abilities), the Seer would have their back covered, given the variety of Aspects around them. They would able to find what people need to get things done. Like Heimdall….actually, that’s really not that bad a metaphor for the Seer of Space. Only Void Players could escape their view, or perhaps a Prince of Light, who could use their powers to effectively blind the Seer. But, seeing as there is no Prince of Light in this particular session, the only Player who could hide themselves from the Seer of Space is the Thief of Void. This could lead to one of two things happening. Either the Seer would harbor some animosity towards the slippery Thief, perhaps send the Prince of Breath or Knight of Light after them to keep the Thief on a short leash, or the Seer, who would probably be more relaxed than the one who took the former option, would have to become far more skilled than the Thief in order to possibly hope to keep tabs on their teammates. However, most Seers are the types to want to know everything, and might initially try for the former of the two options rather than the latter. This is not what Seers are made for, though, and they will have to overcome this adversity in order to perform their tasks more effectively.
All in all, the team is all right. While it definitely will have its fair share of struggles, these can be overcome with enough work put in by the players. The Sylph, Witch, and Seer are undeniably the MVPs, what with the former two keeping pretty much everyone on a leash and the Seer leading the whole damn circus to town, but if they can get everyone under control and try to work around the utter deficiency of luck the Knight’s set up for them, it should be alright. A challenge? Most certainly. But alright in the end.
Wow. This is our biggest ask yet. Alright, well, we’ll start with the Lord and the Muse individually, then focus on how they would cooperate, and THEN do the team ask and suggest classes for each one.
Also, we are so sorry it took so long.
Lord of Heart
Powers: CA
The Lord and the Muse are the two Master classes, the most active and passive of all the classes, respectively. These two classes are supposed to Embody their Aspects, and it’s imagined that, given their supreme power that they are incapable of inverting, unlike every single other class in all of SBURB. Of course, given how powerful these two classes are, they are going to be very rare, as the game knows that their powers would reach far beyond their own sessions (for examples, see Lord English and Calliope). Speaking of examples, there aren’t much of any. Caliborn and Calliope are the two known members of the Master Classes, and one’s, well, dead. Good news? It’s not Caliborn, so we have a little bit more to work with as far as Lord powers go. Of course, this just supports a theory we mentioned earlier on while discussing the Muse of Time: the Lord would Embody their Aspect actively with the access they have to the powers of all the active classes in SBURB, namely, the Mage, the Witch, the Maid, the Prince, the Knight, and the Thief. They would be able to Know like the Mage, Manipulate like the Witch, Create like the Maid, Destroy like the Prince, Exploit like the Knight, and Steal like the Thief. But if I just leave it there, that wouldn’t be any fun. So let’s talk about the powers of a Lord of Heart.
As a Mage of Heart, they would be able to Know all the rules of the soul, the self, and emotions. They would be able to understand what makes a person be inherently different from everyone else on their fuckin’ planet (even if there’s only one other person on their planet). It’s nature vs. nurture, and they understand the former best. In other words, they would not subscribe to the theory of tabla raza (look it up if you don’t know it, it’s actually quite the fascinating theory). But all this really doesn’t mean too much looking at it alone. If we’re going to look at the Lord’s powers, it’s best to intertwine them, because Knowing how things work in the Heart helps to…
Manipulate it as the Witch. Because they know how far they have to stretch, given the limits of their Aspect as the Mage, the Witch’s abilities would be more of a breakthrough. Where the Mage might pull at one’s Heart strings (ha, see what I did there?), the Witch would PULL OUT A CHAINSAW, CUT THEM IN HALF, MIX THEM IN THE BLENDER WITH THE BASS, DROP THEM LIKE SKRILLEX, put them back together and play a haunting refrain. So in other words, unlike how the Witch of Blood would write the bad fanfic, the Lord of Heart, as the Witch of Heart would be the Mary Sue. This isn’t to say this Mary Sue’s like, My Immortal bad, but they’re really good at, well, manipulating people. If they wanted something, they’d get it, and it would be exactly how they wanted it. They would even be able to condition people to permanently help them by using a sort of Pavlov trick on them. You know, “You help me, I make you feel good, so you associate helping me with feeling good and do it with little in the way of prompting.” Furthermore, the Witch would go beyond just Knowing what makes a person them, they would be able to change it. Imagine, waking up as a completely different person, and yet you never notice. As it was said in Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull (keep in mind we aren’t actually looking up quotes here), “We turn you into us and you don’t even know we’re doing it.” Speaking of charismatic people, the Lord would be able to do practically everything as far as people are involved. The Lord of Heart would be the ultimate psychological thriller villain, and with just those two powers alone.
Alright, that’s cool, but what about beating people up? Well, we’ve got you covered there. A while ago, we explained the powers of the Maid of Heart, and one of them was the ability to produce clones, to create self. The bonus here? The Lord might actually be able to make this army of clones solid. So instead of just having the Lord’s clone no. 413 punch the Black King in the soul by punching their face, the Lord’s clone might just be able to punch the Black King in the face. Or maybe both. Maybe the clones exist on both a physical and metaphysical level simultaneously (suck it, existentialists). But in addition to that, the Lord of Heart would be able to use the Maid of Heart’s powers to create emotion (in others, this is a Pavlov trick).
Speaking of beating people up, the Lord’s not going to find much better than their skills as the Prince of Heart. I mean, just look at what Dirk did, and that wasn’t even the real Dirk! The Prince would be able to destroy emotions, which will help them and others be, “stone cold motherfuckers,” and they would be able to destroy self by removing a person’s soul from their bodies, leaving them an empty husk, essentially dead.
Then there’s the Knight’s abilities. We had gone over these earlier in a post dedicated to the Knight of Heart, we had mentioned that the Knight’s abilities include arming themselves with their soul, and thus, making a weapon for themselves that reflects them, or possibly fitting their strife specibus. In addition to that, speaking of cloning, the Lord of Heart would be able to make an army of all the different parts of themselves, the part of them that wants to destroy, the part of them that wants to create, the part of them that wants to know, every part of them. They might even be literally able to split into a Mage, a Witch, a Prince, a Maid, a Knight, and a Thief all with their own abilities and different weapons.
And finally, there’s the Lord’s abilities as the Thief of Heart. Besides the obvious, you know, stealing emotions, the more fun version of events is that which comes from stealing souls. Tell me, do you play Pokemon? Well, TC and I do, and let me tell you, there’s a Pokemon that makes a lot of sense as a Thief of Heart, mostly, if not entirely, for its abilities: Kecleon. It’s a chameleon-like Pokemon whose abilities are Color Change (allows it to change its type into the type of the last move it was hit with, thereby making it less effective if they’re hit with it again), and Protean (which allows its type to change to match the move it’s using, and thereby getting a bonus for their efforts). Kecleon gets a boost for changing what makes them them, and so would a Thief of Heart, and so would the Lord of Heart. Thieves of Heart are shapeshifters, and really good at it. The Lord of Heart, therefore, would be able to steal self, change their face and voice and gods know what else to look and be like their attackers’, or one of their attackers’ allies. They might be able to steal some of their enemies’ or allies’ traits, making the Thief braver or stronger, or more stoic. Hell, they might even be able to steal some of their allies’ or enemies’’ powers as well! They could be able to go as far as to be like the Black King if they accumulate enough strength and powers.
So, put all this together- actually, you know what? You don’t even NEED all this to know what role the Lord of Heart, or any Lord, would have: the front lines. Lord aren’t just on the front lines. Whether they’re starting the fight or ending it, they ARE the front lines. They’re always really into fighting, whether it’s to stop a fight or just for the hell of it. Lords are meant to destroy, after all. When they are given The Choice by Yaldaboath, they’re practically predestined to choose the more active role: to destroy, and to never stop destroying until someone stops them. Their activeness means that they would have the choice of what they want to do, and rather than simply letting whatever happen happen, they would take a role in the how and why of the happening. Lords are very, very dangerous as a result, which is why it’s so rare to find one in the first place. The game knows that whatever the Lord will do, it will have more repercussions than just in their game (for examples, see Lord English), it might affect the entirety of spacetime. The Lord will need to be controlled if anything good is going to come of their session.
So in conclusion, this Lord’s catchphrase? “How can you beat me when I am you?”
Weapons: TC
Well. Lord weapons. Sweet. Anyways, since we only have Caliborn/Lord English to work with, this makes patterns quite easy. Something flashy, intimidating, and powerful looking sounds like what a Lord would wield. For instance, the gun that LE used to kill Hussie. Furthermore, while the weapon of the Lord would appear to be more powerful that that of the Muse, the appearances might be deceiving. Furthermore, it might be best if the two weapons resembled one another. Food for thought.
Furthermore, the pattern set by Heart weapons, as previously stated multiple times, sets a template for melee weapons with a penchant for stabbing, cutting, and just being sharp and/or pointy overall. Take Dirk’s sword and Nepeta and Meulin’s claws as examples.
When these two are combined, you get a sharp, gaudy melee weapon. Sounds like any number of the following could fit the bill.
Land and Quest: TC and CA
Alright: land analysis time. Difficulties abound.
You know how we only have one example of a Lord? Yeah, he’s not going to be much in the way of help here (as per usual). After all, his session only had one player in it, and we know that a session that has only one player is going to be dramatically different from a session with other people in it as well. So we can’t use his land, can we?
So after a fair degree of discussion between the two of us, TC and I have decided that the Lord’s and the Muse’s lands, like most everything else about them, would be linked.
We told you multiple times that the Lord’s and the Muse’s powers reach far beyond their session, and, if left unchecked, might go and scar all of existence. Well, we’re thinking that that might have something to do with why the Muse’s land is so empty.
It wasn’t always. And it’s nothing the Muse could stop.
But we’ll get back to that later. In any case, TC and I agree that the Lord’s land would be very lively, brimming with life in all of the citizens and the land itself. There’s wildlife, plantlife, and plenty of everything for all consorts in the land. They have no problems, no real quest to solve, nothing that had gone wrong. Even their denizen, Yaldaboath, never caused any trouble in the land’s known existence. So what else is there to do for the Lord but use their Quest Bed and learn their abilities? What quest could there be?
Well, they do have a quest. And it’s a quest linked intrinsically with The Choice.
You see, the Muse’s planet is barren. How did it get that way? Why are there no consorts? No written records of the destruction of their world? Well, there was a Lord of their Aspect before. And they fulfilled their quest.
The Lord of Heart’s quest is to set up their planet for the next Muse of Heart that would come into existence by destroying everything on that world.
So to design the world, you would use a word that would relate to the Aspect of the player and the aesthetic of the land, not necessarily in that order. The land’s aesthetic is liveliness, and whether that means bright colors everywhere or not is entirely your choice. But the words I can think of that are Heart-related and could relate to the land include Soul, Happiness, Animation, etc. It might even just be the word Heart. Lords and Muses take what we know of the worlds and turn them on their head because of the vast reach of their powers. Their powers are great, and the need for the session to keep them in check are greater.
And if the Choice must be made…so be it.
Muse of Mind
Powers: CA
The Muse and the Lord are the two Master Classes, the most passive and most active (respectively) out of all the classes, and are extremely rare titles (only one character has ever had the title of Muse in the webcomic, and sadly, she’s dead. As such, like with the Lord, I will try and relate to you what I can.
Muses are hypothesized to Embody their Aspects, and, as such, are hypothesized to have all the abilities of the classes that fit their descriptions as passive or active. For the Muse, that would mean they would have the Seer’s ability to Know, the Heir’s ability to Manipulate, the Sylph’s ability to Create, the Bard’s ability to Destroy, the Page’s ability to Exploit, and the Rogue’s ability to Steal. As I’m sure you’ve noticed, most of these classes have to do with other people and their ability to use their Aspect in conjunction to others. The Muse would Know their Aspect and generally give that knowledge to others to work out amongst themselves. They would be able to Manipulate their Aspect, but be controlled by its whims, and perhaps, in a way, inherit their Aspect. They would be able to Create their Aspect for others, and perhaps heal them using their Aspect. Just as similarly, they would be able to Destroy their Aspect by giving others the tools to do it for them (or something similar). They would be able to allow their teammates (or just other people in general) to Exploit their Aspect as a weapon, and, to reach higher levels of power, would be forced to depend on others (not a bad thing, perhaps a little time-consuming, but not bad). And finally, they would be able to Steal their Aspect and give the spoils of their efforts to their teammates or allies. Furthermore, even better, is that it may very well be impossible for either the Muse or the Lord to invert their Class and Aspect. They would suffer no risk for inversion, meaning that they would have no need for balance between the use of their abilities and the lack of use of their abilities.
So for a Muse of Mind, they would, as the Seer of Mind, be able to sort through any possible outcomes for a certain set of actions. So Terezi as the Seer of Mind was able to tell exactly what would happen if she were to let Vriska go and try to kill Bec Noir, and the consequences from what was going to happen from there on out. And in an amazing turn of events, she actually acted on this knowledge, killing her friend. Under most circumstances, though, the information that the Muse would obtain as the Seer wouldn’t be used by the Muse themselves, but rather by their teammates. They would be able to see the consequences of everyone’s actions and be able to warn their teammates of pivotal points for their session, and the best actions to take for each. Oh, and they would probably be able to read their teammates’ minds. Just saying.
As the Heir of Mind, the Muse of Mind would be able to Manipulate Mind, possibly begin to change what certain consequences would be for taking certain actions (for example: changing the thoughts of the creepy man standing in the subway station catcalling women after you call him out to some sort of revelation that what he’s doing is supremely stupid and dickish rather than him thinking that you’re the dick him deciding to try and stab you). Furthermore, Mind would sort of be like a parent to the Muse when they’re acting as the Heir: they would have sudden breakthroughs, be able to understand certain thoughts and the like, which would essentially just be Mind going, “Happy birthday, have a present.” It’s by such breakthroughs that the Heir would, in a sense, inherit Mind. Mind would limit what the Muse could do as the Heir, but not to the extent of the Mage. Where the Mage has a twenty-foot concrete wall of rules, the Heir has a wooden fence that they’re sometimes allowed to hop over to visit their friends or help the next-door neighbor with building a shed. The knowledge the Muse got as the Seer could help them in manipulating the end results of an action.
As the Sylph of Mind, the Muse would be able to create Mind. They would be able to create thoughts for others, and to create consequences for others’ actions. I imagine that the Muse would use this a LOT to help keep their teammates from doing stupid stuff. When they see that the Lord is thinking of doing something ridiculous for the Vine, the Muse could create the thought in them that what they’re doing is stupid, and that they shouldn’t do it. If the Lord should happen to ignore it, they get a consequence. Perhaps not something as dire as, say, dying (although, if they pulled enough strings for the Rube Goldberg machine, they could do that), but they could indeed give the Lord enough of a warning from an oddly coincidental fate to warn them to never do that again. And as far as the Sylph’s hypothesized abilities of healing Mind and healing with Mind. The former would be something like healing a chain of events by making sure the right things happen at the right time (similar to what John is currently doing by using Terezi’s list), and the latter would involve healing by using the consequences of one’s actions, and likely increasing the benefits of good action. Like if someone were to get injured and they were to actually try and heal themselves, the end results, healing, would come by sooner.
The Bard of Mind we have talked about earlier, but in the case you haven’t read the post we made for it, as the Bard the Muse would have a sort of charmspeak ability, and would be able to convince others to believe something, to destroy thoughts otherwise. To destroy using Mind, they would be able to combine both these and their Seer powers to set into motion something as small as someone stepping on a butterfly, to something as large as an all-out war. The Bard of Mind is the master of destroying Rube Goldberg machines, and therefore, the Muse of Mind could only be that much better given their far more advanced abilities as a Seer.
Again, we’ve already done a post on the Page of Mind (I’d even hazard a guess as that being how you found us in the first place), but in the case you, or any other Muse of Mind reading hasn’t, the Muse would be able to, as the Page, use a sort of telepathic ability and equip their teammates with their thoughts. In addition to that, they would be able to equip their allies with the abilities of a Knight of Mind, arming them with the knowledge of choice and consequences, and justice. The Muse’s allies 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.
And then finally, we have the Muse’s abilities as the Rogue of Mind. They would be able to steal thoughts from other people, their enemies, presumably, and share them with their allies, giving them spy abilities, similar to how the Page of Mind’s abilities did. They would also be able to steal consequences and dish them out as well. Think of it like this: say that, after a long, convoluted set of events, the Muse’s friend was about to die. Well, they could lessen the blow, give them a chance of survival, by taking the consequence from their ally and distributing it among their enemies, or, if worse comes to worse, the entire team. The suffering of the many for the good of the one. Again, it’s all how the Muse uses these abilities.
Similar to most other Muses, this one would not be on the front lines. They would be a good spy with the Rogue and Page of Mind’s abilities, and an even better political saboteur by using the Bard of Mind’s skills. The Seer of Mind would give them the knowledge of when they’re going to mess up, and the Sylph’s skills would be useful to be able to convince people to do what they say. So while the Lord of Heart’s messing everything up on the front lines, the Muse of Mind would be able to sneak around and get what they need from enemies (provided the two of them could cooperate for long enough, but we’ll get to that later).
Of course, there’s one last thing a Muse must overcome: The Choice. As we mentioned earlier, Muses and Lords are offered The Choice by their denizen, Yaldaboath. Muses are predestined to make the choice that has them sacrifice their lives to end a force of great destruction- presumably the Lord of the opposing classpect, similar to Calliope and Caliborn. And based on how you said that the other players join them from a scratched session, it’s possible that the Lord and the Muse will both be given the option of making their Choice, as they would be the only two in their session. We can only hope it doesn’t come to that, though.
Weapons: TC
OK, to reiterate what was said about the weapons of a Muse from an earlier post, Muses tend to have weapons that are generally related to those of their corresponding Lord, if there is one. Their weapon tends to be a rather smaller, more unassuming version of the Lord’s. For instance, while Caliborn, the Lord of Time, wields a Scepter that transforms into a big assault rifle, his sister wielded a Wand that transformed into a far more diminutive pistol. Despite what the appearance of the weapons may suggest, the Muse’s weapon may be in fact the more powerful of the two, as indicated by the fact that Lord English abandoned his own assault rifle/scepter in favor of his sister’s wand/pistol, which he then proceeded to use to annihilate a large portion of the dream bubbles and of Paradox Space in general.
Now, we’re quite unsure of whether the Lord/Muse classes have a separate weapon pattern completely different from those of the ordinary classpect patterns, or perhaps if only the Lord’s pattern applies, or maybe if only the Muse’s pattern applies, and whichever does not have their ordinary aspect pattern apply changes to suit the pattern formed by those that do. There is really no way of knowing. However, the theory that I personally am sticking with is that the Lord sticks to their aspect’s weapon pattern, and the Muse has to change to suit the Lord. Why do I believe this? Simple. It’s how the classes work. As the more active class, the Lord would forge the path, while the Muse would be forced to follow that path as the more passive class.
In any case, as the Mind aspect also tends towards melee weapons, it matters little in this instance. In fact, it is theorized that they are both blades, as well. We will stick with the most agreed upon melee fact alone. The following would pair well with the weapons suggested for the Lord.
With axekind:
With bladekind:
With chainsawkind:
With forkkind:
With lancekind:
With ninjakind:
With scythekind:
With spearkind:
Land and Quest: TC and CA
Muses’ and Lords’ lands are…well, complicated, to say the least. The only Muse we’ve seen in canon is dead, and we haven’t even seen her land. Hell, we haven’t even seen Caliborn’s true land, yet! But we must have some sort of idea of what a Muse’s land would look like, as we finished a request for the Muse of Time. Well, TC and I tend to agree on a sort of headcanon world for the Lord or Muse of anything in any session that has other people:
It would be completely barren. Almost like the worlds in Jane’s, Jake’s, Dirk’s, and Roxy’s Void session, but with fewer enemies, and possibly with no life on it in the first place. There would be no consorts in the land for the Muse to investigate. There would be no puzzles to solve. Nothing, save for the Muse’s quest bed. We imagine that the Muse’s denizen would be Yaldaboath, but there’s no certainty for Muses. It would allow them to make The Choice, which is very important for Muses and Lords alike.
But what, then, is their quest? If they have no definition to their land, no consorts, and practically the only monster in their land being the Denizen whose only act would be to offer them to choice all Muses must face, what quest could there possibly be for them? Well, the only possible quest that I can think of is the one that reflects their abilities: everyone else’s.
That’s right. Their quest is to make sure that everyone else’s quests happen while the session is still ongoing. Before the Black King is defeated, their quest is to give everyone else enough time, to give them enough ability to complete their own quests, all the while preparing for the final battle with the Black King. They have to use their abilities to the fullest here. They have to be able to see what needs to be done to defeat the Black King, to secure their session, they have to be able to give both themselves and their teammates enough time, and they have to make sure nothing gets messed up along the way, and then simultaneously try to set things up so that their teammates can finish their quests, so that they can finish their own, and so they all may better from it.
So how, then, would one design the land of a Muse? Well, you could use the parts of this land that we hypothesize to actually exist. A word to describe the world’s aesthetic could be something related to the barrenness of the land. The other word could be a word that relates to both the Aspect of the Muse and the aesthetic of the world. For example, the Muse of Mind could have words like Consequences or Justice, things that Mind has a deep connection to. Hell, they might even have Choice in their Land’s full name as a bit of an ironic twist (related to their Aspect, and the Muse’s ultimate responsibility). They might just even have their own Aspect as their Aspect word. Again, Muses and Lords take what we know of the rules of creating things like lands and quests and turn them on their heads.
Which is entirely why we imagine that Muses wouldn’t have a quest word for their lands. They’re in charge of managing others’ quests, and, if the time should come, making the choice to sacrifice their lives to stop a force of great evil.
Relationships: TC and CA
Lord of Heart and Muse of Mind
Muses and Lords are quite fascinating Classes, and when they are of opposite Classes and Aspects, that means something very very special and very very strong is between them, but whether it’s good or bad is…well, dependent on their species.
The Lord of Heart and the Muse of Mind would be interconnected throughout whatever arguable guise of fate exists in the continued existence of SBURB. It’s an odd and complex process by which it works, but it exists so that the Lord might always be balanced out by the Muse, at least to some extent. Caliborn was balanced by Calliope before she died, and the opposite was also true. Two great powers would balance each other out, and would hopefully end up making it so that the Lord doesn’t destroy, and that therefore, the Muse doesn’t need to sacrifice themselves to stop said destruction.
So, relationships between these two classes is going to be very strong no matter what species the Muse and the Lord are, but we can imagine it a bit like this:
Human!Lord <3 Human!Muse: Humanity’s strongest emotion is believed to be love, and I can’t blame us for believing that. This doesn’t mean that they don’t have arguments. In fact, because they care about each other so much, they might just argue a lot. But this doesn’t mean that this deep emotion doesn’t exist. If one or both of them happen to be aromantic, though, the relationship would just happen to be very strong <>, almost familial in nature.
Troll!Lord <3< / <3 Troll!Muse: Trolls have always been a bit…volatile, really. This relationship is a prime example of how strong relationships are between trolls, really, and the two would be switching back and forth all over the place. They would NEED an auspistice in order to keep from ripping each others’ throats out in some sort of mix of hate and love, so when the session starts…well, hopefully they’re on separate worlds, or else gods know what will happen (and when the other players join them, don’t worry, we’ve got a good auspistice picked out).
Cherub!Lord <3< Cherub!Muse: There is no doubt about this: the strongest emotion a cherub would feel towards another cherub is hatred. If they happen to be in the same body, this hatred is, more often than not, simply derision and annoyance, but if they’re two, separate, fully developed (one-minded) cherubs, this hatred is a full on romance. And it needs to stop. There’s not much that can get in a cherub’s way once it begins rampaging, and if the two of them do the cherub do in the middle of their session, that’s very bad news. Thankfully, according to the rest of the ask you sent us, they’re not the only ones in the session if they are cherubs, which hopefully means that their destructive behaviors towards each other could be curtailed by the other players.
Human!Lord <3< / <3 Troll!Muse, Troll!Lord <3< / <3 Human!Muse: Gods know that trolls could teach a human how their hate/love thing works and have it work between them. They’d still need an auspistice under most circumstances, yes, but their relationship would be less volatile than if they were both trolls (given how the culture of one is likely less war-driven than the other).
Cherub!Lord <3< Human!Muse, Human!Lord <3< Cherub!Muse: Gods know that SBURB allows for enough shenanigans already that for the reason of balancing each other out, they’d know each other. Again, strong emotions. For the cherub, especially if they’re fully developed, they’re likely antagonizing each other to the point where it could easily be some sort of odd romance. For the human, the cherub knows just what buttons to push to get them to blow up every time they talk. Gods help them if they can even begin to manage this session.
Team Analysis: CA and TC
Lord of Heart, Muse of Mind, and Undecided Class Time, Space, Breath, and Void Players
Well, with the introduction of the Deus Ex Machina thing, this session has everything it needs: a Space player, a Time player, and an even number of players to boot! But you said that you needed some help deciding the classes for your four other players.
So let’s get down to it: the players we recommend are the Rogue of Time, the Thief of Space, the Sylph of Breath, and the Mage of Void.
We had already decided that we would need two active and two passive classes for the remaining Aspects, as in sessions with Muses and Lords of opposite Aspects, balance is key. Too many active or passive players and you might have a war on your hands. So with that, we knew that we would want an auspistice for the Muse and Lord, and we figured there would be none better than a Sylph in that role. Sylphs have a tendency to stop fights more often than we start them (exclusions to this rule tend to be…unsavory in result *cough* Aranea *cough*). We figured we would want a Mage (gods we’re such egotists), as Mages tend to be quite helpful as well with their knowledge, but given how dangerous many of the remaining Aspects were, especially if they were to glitch out or try to bite the session in the butt, we knew that Void was the best place to put the Mage. As for the other two, we imagined that more opposing classpects couldn’t hurt, and if the worst should come to worse, someone handing out more Time to their teammates would be helpful. So Rogue of Time and Thief of Space.
So we talked about how the two Master Classes would get along with each other. We talked about how where the Lord would lead the charge on the front lines, the Muse would supply information as a spy of sorts while everyone else is distracted by the Lord’s shenanigans. Now, let’s talk about the other players.
The Sylph of Breath would be the optimal choice for a leader, Breath players often are. The Sylph would be able to create freedom for their teammates, and with the Muse and the Lord in this session, that is a NECESSARY factor. In their auspisticing, the Sylph of Breath would be pulling the Muse and the Lord apart, make most of their parts concerned not with the other, but with another person or another thing. Hell, if they’re cherubs in the same body, then the Sylph might even be able to pull enough strings to give the two separate bodies. The Sylph would be able to mediate disputes, and would be at the same time, distant enough from other players to be an unbiased judge of things, and close enough to know why people feel passionately.
Rogues always tend to reflect their Aspect before the session starts, generally in a more symbolic way. So this Rogue might have intrinsic ties to death or endings. Maybe, if they’re human, their parental figure(s) run a funeral parlor, or they themselves are interested in things like autopsy. If they’re a troll, they might be keen on becoming an executioner of some sort. But as soon as the session starts up, similar to how Roxy became sober, this Rogue would be all about creating things, and giving other people time to create things, too, as per their powers to steal Time and give it to their allies. This would likely mean that their allies would have some sort of time travel ability, at least for what Time the Rogue would give them. The Rogue would be all about allowing others to create whatever they want, allowing people to get what they need done, done, and might easily be a good member of the team to vent to when things happen or just go wrong. As such, the Muse would likely go to the Rogue for a fair bit of emotional support, especially as the Sylph begins to separate them from their counterpart, the Lord. The Thief will rely on the Rogue to give them time to complete their quest, and more often than not, the Rogue will be able to provide, and will be happy to do so.
Believe it or not, the Thief is likely the most…out there of all the people. Thieves, although having a tendency to reflect their Aspect, do not have lives that do much the same, as shown by Vriska losing her arm and eye, and Meenah not having a choice as heir to the throne. The Thief would be just about as surrounded by endings or destruction (neither of which are as bad as one would think) as they wish to create. Thieves have a problem, though, and it’s that they are…impatient. Vriska wasn’t patient enough with her “student,” Tavros, Meenah wasn’t very patient at all with Aranea’s stories, it’s a thing that they have. Thieves of Space, with powers that focus on speed, among other things, have that problem likely even more. So even with the Rogue allowing them Time to travel, they will have far too much time on their hands. So the Muse and the Lord will have a bit of a…joint project with this one. The Muse will be the logos: they will outright tell the Thief what bad consequences will arise from their actions, their impatience, whatever. The Lord, however, will let them know that they can slow down, and if they don’t, well, a little manipulating couldn’t hurt anything.
And then there’s the Mage of Void. Plus side? They know Nothing. They know how to manipulate it, make the best out of a bad thing, out of destruction, utter obliteration. They could use this knowledge, to know how far the nothing that was there extended, to make something out of it, to undo the Nothing, within the limits of the Nothing. Similarly, they might be able to feel obliteration approaching, like a dark spot on a monitor. Bad side? Well, if they break the rules of Void, they’ll likely find themselves knowing nothing. They have no idea how this Nothing came about or what existed before the nothing. They will be clueless. And that can be dangerous. If you know what’s coming, you can prepare, you have the chance to beat it. But if, say, a Lord was about to rampage (perhaps the Lord of Mind that destroyed the Muse’s land), and the Mage didn’t know what was going to happen, then everything could easily be destroyed. The Mage will be another grounding force in the session, able to know what to do and what might occur.
Final prognosis? If the rest of the team can manage to keep the Muse and the Lord separate to do their jobs, and if the Mage doesn’t lose their sight, then I can see this team going on to do big things. They can make it.
Sure thing! Once again, like with the Page of Mind post we did not too long ago, we’ll do the specific god tier first and then go about describing the team.
Also, sorry it took so long. TC and I have been hella busy. Hope you like it.
Powers: CA
The Page and the Knight are the passive-active pair for the Exploit classes. Their jobs are to allow themselves, or, in the Page’s case, others, to exploit their Aspect as a weapon. Pages and Knights must both reach their full potential in order to completely use their abilities, and given how Pages rely on others to reach their full potential, it takes an infinitely longer time. However, all this time spent on the Page is not in vain. Once they reach their full potential, Pages are hypothesized to be the most powerful Class in SBURB. Pages arm others with their Aspect, granting them great power in a sort of repayment for allowing them to reach their full potential. Pages are like kings, leading an army of Knights of their Aspect. And with the Page of Heart, that is a very apt description, especially given the abilities of the Knights this Page would be leading.
The Page of Heart would be able to arm others with the Aspect of Heart. This means that the people they arm become Knights of Heart, in addition to giving the Page an ability to give others a certain emotion that they may already be feeling a spark of. It would almost be like a cleric in an RPG or something similar, making their teammates feel pumped for battle. If the Page’s team feels as though they will lose the battle against their Black King, then the Page will be able to take their fighting spirit, for that always exists going into a battle, and boosts it. They boost their team’s morale, in order to give them the feeling that they will win, and giving them more of an ability to win (you know, if you think it, you can do it).
Another ability of the Page of Heart to equip others with Heart as a weapon would be allowing their allies to become Knights of Heart. A couple of posts ago, I explained the abilities of the Knight of Heart, but in the case you hadn’t read that, that basic abilities a Knight of Heart would have include an intuitive knowledge of Heart, leading to a sort of empathetic ability in order to know what emotions to exploit, the ability to create a sort of “soul weapon,” which may reflect the person who uses it or the Knight in question’s strife specibus, and the ability to splinter themselves, making an army out of the parts of themselves that feel or act certain ways. For example, let’s say that Vriska came into contact with a Page of Heart who reached god tier and their full potential, and they happen to bestow the powers of a Knight of Heart on her. Her splintering might occur between the side of her which is entirely victory-driven, another might be the side of her which feels a fair amount of crushing remorse for her actions, and yet another might be the homicidal maniac who believes those who drag down the group shouldn’t be around to do as much and so on and so on. She’s a very conflicted person at some points, and not so much at others. This Page will have more of an “army” to lead than others, given how their Knights would be able to split themselves up into different people.
In any case, this Page will likely have a role in their team as a motivator of sorts. Someone who can get their team up and at ‘em as far as completing quests and other jobs and the like. This makes them a prime choice for a leadership role, but I’ll be analyzing that role more in-depth later on in the team section.
Weapons: TC
The tendency for a Page is to use an ACTUAL WEAPON as a strife specibus as opposed to the item lying nearest to them. A Page would use a sword as a weapon instead of, say, a broom. Heart players tend to gravitate towards melee weapons with a sharp and/or pointed edge. As such, when taking both of these factors into account, we get the following weapons.
Land and Quest: CA and TC
A lot of this will be repetition from the Knight of Heart post we made not too long ago. So here we go.
So far, we’ve seen the lands of two Heart players, Dirk Strider, the Prince, and Nepeta Leijon, the Rogue, but of those two, we can probably only use one as an example, as Dirk’s session is a Void session, which leads to some automatic differences between his world and the world of a Heart player in a normal session. For example, his entire world is covered in a noble gas, and is filled with dead, skeletal consorts…or maybe those are just monsters? And of course, time for our usual disclaimer-like quip: 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.
In any case, the unfortunate fact is that we are now limited to only using one land, the Land of Little Cubes and Tea. Nepeta’s land is an oddity in its nomenclature, given how it is made of an extra word. While this was presumably done only on Hussie’s part to make the abbreviation for the land LOLCAT, this is an interesting thing and I felt need to make a note of it.
In any case, Nepeta’s land is rather easy to deconstruct and decipher. The “Little Cubes,” part is likely a reference to the little cubes forming staircases and such all along the land, looking suspiciously like sugar cubes. This is likely the Aspect word. Heart lands tend to be sweet and soft, and these “Little Cubes” are most likely made of sugar. The “Tea,” part is quite obviously a reference to the teapots sitting on top of the mountains on the land. We aren’t entirely certain which is the quest and which is the aesthetic word given how little time there was spent focusing on the characters in the Land of Little Cubes and Tea, but that’s as much as we can learn from the name and brief glances we have gotten of the land.
As a side note, if none of the words in thepageofhopes’ list appeal to you or they don’t seem to fit the land you had pictured for your character (if you thought of a quest beforehand), it is possible that the Aspect word for a Heart land is meant to sort of reflect the nature of the player. Nepeta, despite having her underlying metal-as-all-hell nature, was a sweet, adorable individual, a personality that made her easy to like, and as such, her land reflected that. Dirk didn’t have an Aspect word, but his land reflected him, as it was a very interesting land with great levels of depth to it, like Dirk.
As for the Page’s quest, I imagine it a little like this: Dominoes. There is a problem on the Page’s world. The consorts, although they recognize it’s a problem, have no real motivation to get rid of it. This is similar to the Knight of Heart’s quest, but rather than the Knight themselves motivating everyone, the Page is smart (this isn’t to say that the Knight isn’t, their abilities work in a different way than the Page’s, which would have made this quest a bad idea for them to undertake). They realize that, given the nature of their abilities, a lot less work can be put into things if you simply have some people act as the motivators. Motivate one in the right way, and you have a Knight of Heart to motivate others. Spread them out, give them enough time, and these Knights of Heart would have spread Heart throughout their area like wildfire. Now the Page can point the Knights in the right direction, tell them what they need to do, in order to get rid of the problem. This might be making something. This might be getting a weapon from somewhere else on the world for the Page to use to slay some sort of monster. Whatever it is, with an army of Knights to motivate the consorts, the quest is a lot easier to manage.
Team Analysis: CA and TC
Knight of Void, Mage of Space, Rogue of Life, and Page of Heart
Well, there’s an immediate problem that I spot with this session: There’s no Time Player. Time Players are vital to the session. Doc Scratch, I believe, said something along the lines of, “A session without a Time player is doomed to fail.” And what’s worse is that without a Time Player, your players wouldn’t have a Scratch Device to help start the session over, so their game is doomed and without some Deus Ex Machina sort of thing going on, and a healthy session intervenes and gives them something to work with, then this session won’t have any sort of good ending. More likely than not? The Reckoning will happen, and everyone will die. The end.
But I’m not going to end it there. You have a Space player, one of two necessary parts for this game. There’s still some sort of hope here, so what I’m going to do? I’m going prescribe you a Time player based on what kind of Time class would help balance out this session. I might even help and prescribe another player to help out if it comes down to it (I know a fair amount of people I’ve worked with want sessions with an even number of people, and it may even be required by SBURB anyway, so I’m going to help you out there). So let’s see what kind of things the team you already have need.
The Knight of Void would provide an immediate benefit to this session. A Knight’s presence in a session means that whatever their Aspect is, their session lacks it, and this session is given a great gift by this Knight. Under most circumstances, the Knight of Void would likely constitute an immediate advantage to their session, as the lack of Void means that this team would have everything they need to complete their session successfully. In this session, though, given how there is no Time player, they would have everything they need except Time to help the Genesis Frog or to prepare themselves. This Knight would be an army, a construction crew, basically anything, able to call out anything they need from the nothingness, and able to show up wherever they may be needed. The weaponization of Void would likely allow this Knight the ability to teleport into and out of existence wherever they need to be, or, at the very least, turn invisible. But with this boon comes a potentiality for the session’s curse: Knights have a mask that they hide behind. For Dave, it was the impermeable “cool kid” act, for Karkat, it was anger, and for Latula, it was the identity of the gamer girl. If this Knight hides behind a mask that makes them keen on overworking themselves, or, on the flip side, not working at all, then the session has more problems than simply no Time. But that’s why the Page will be helpful, once they reach their full potential. Now, this may seem manipulative, but if the Page were to arm the Knight with a feeling of guilt whenever the Knight doesn’t show up on time, or a feeling of happiness whenever they do something good, then the group may be able to train the Knight to step out from behind their mask and simply act for the group. The Page will have to be careful with when and how they do this. If they simply do this with their abilities, rather than talking to them and using pathos to convince the Knight that what they’re doing is problematic, then they might accidentally invert themselves into a Thief of Mind, stealing the Knight’s thoughts and giving themselves a boost while doing so.
The Mage of Space. Now, I know a fair bit about Mages, TC being one, and I know a fair bit about Space, that being my Aspect, so I know that an unprepared Mage will cause a pretty large degree of problems. First off, Mages have a tendency to be bitten in the butt by their Aspect. And Space is a very big thing to have its teeth digging into your ass. Space has a connection to creation, and if the Mage breaks the rules, then gods know that the game might glitch out, and the Mage might end up standing on an enemy spawn point working double-time. But altogether, a Mage balanced by their teammates would be an asset to their team. Their massive knowledge of how Space works would allow them to go around at super-speed or make their enemies go around a lot slower. They could teleport themselves and other things. They could make things bigger or smaller, within the rules of how matter works, and they might even be able to, given enough time learning, make one of those never-ending corridor type deals. You know, when the protagonist of something or another is running towards a door at the end of the hallway or whatever, but no matter how fast of long they run, it never seems to be getting any closer? That’s likely something the Mage could manipulate into existence. They would be the person who needs the Knight’s services most, even outside of their quest, as the Knight would be able to pop test subjects into existence for them to learn more about their abilities and the rules of Space once they reach god tier. But again, the Mage’s inevitable backlash will have to be something that the Mage is prepared to get rid of, and they will have to help prepare their teammates to do the same. The Mage will need to learn or already have some sort of good work ethic, because if they want to complete their quest and learn to manage their abilities as the Mage of Space, then they will have to work double-time, and the Page would likely be able to help motivate the Mage, too.
Next up, the Rogue of Life. Now, let’s face it: with Nepeta’s ship-making, Roxy’s drunken speech obscuring what she’s trying to say, and Rufioh’s wings, Rogues have always had the tendency to reflect their Aspect. But with what I can tell, as soon as the Rogue enters the session, that tendency to reflect their Aspect is gone. Nepeta didn’t have much in the way of shipping time until the trolls were on the meteor, as far as we can tell, Roxy became sober (and as such, her speech stopped obscuring information, a major symbol of Void), and Rufioh ended up becoming paralyzed from the neck down, thereby losing his freedom. So this Rogue would likely be a very lively person before the game started, they would be all for all the possibilities of their Aspect, and then when the game starts, they might not show this all too much. This isn’t to say that they end up being as bland as dead!Aradia, but it might mean they their priorities get put in order. Let’s say that this Rogue, before the game starts, is all for screwing the rules (a more symbolic showing of Doom, Life’s antithesis) for some reason or another that may have to do with affluence, but when they enter the game, something happens that makes them realize that the rules are important in this game, and they embrace the control that Doom has over their life. They realize the limitations of Life, and respect them. The Rogue would be a grounding force for the rest of the team, understanding where Life’s jurisdiction ends, but that doesn’t mean that they might not stretch those rules if something very special to them were on the line. The Rogue would be taking the life from their enemies and giving it to their teammates, a fearsome ability that would be very useful in making sure people tend not to die. But when the Reckoning comes, not even they will be able to keep things from dying.
And finally, the Page of Heart. I had mentioned a something about Pages earlier in another team ask, and I’m thinking that a lot of it rings true here, as well. The Page will likely be at least somewhat mild-mannered, and likely a sort of protege for some of the other members of the team. The Rogue and the Page would likely keep the other members of the team in check, what with the Rogue’s newfound understanding of rules and the Page’s understanding of emotion. But funny enough, I have a feeling that this Page might be more likely to be looking at a lot of the session in a more objective manner. I talked about some of their roles earlier, with the Knight and Mage, but they would probably be the one who lets the Knight and Mage know what they are doing right and what they are doing wrong. They would make the Knight and Mage aware of things by using their abilities, but they have to be careful that they don’t just make their teammates feel things on the fly, lest they invert by the surprising overuse of their abilities. The Page would have to be willing to talk to their teammates, let them know that things are going wrong, and that they can be a part of the solution. Counselling, you know.
Altogether, this is a pretty good bunch. A fair balance of people grounded by an understanding of problems and solutions, and a fair amount also aided by their ability to do awesome things. But we are still missing two players. So first off? We’ll add the Time player.
For this session, we recommend the Sylph of Time. Once they reach god tier, the Sylph would be able to create Time for others, giving everyone enough Time to finish their quests, master their abilities, and then be back in Time for tea. They would have time travel, like all Time players, but they would also be able to give Time to their other people. It would be like giving others a hyperbolic Time chamber (give the player ten minutes in the Sylph’s abilities, and they would be able to complete a day’s, a month’s, etc., worth of stuff). The Sylph, as a healer, would be able to heal using Time, basically undoing whatever damage had been done, provided Time was willing to do that much. I would recommend having this Sylph’s major concern be reaching god tier, at which point the ability to make hyperbolic Time chambers for everyone else be an option. They would be a major asset to this team, but would also be able to help solve any arguments people might be having in the team (give them Time). Then they would know when to send in the Page to help.
Now, for your last player, TC and I had a bit of a debate. We both knew that achieving a balance between active and passive players was probably for the better, but where I was thinking Mind player, you know, logos to the pathos, TC was thinking Hope (because all sessions could use a bit of Hope) or Rage (to motivate). Now, I don’t know about you, but I’ve always thought Rage players were a bit dangerous (no offense, Rage players, a lot of times, dangerous is good, just a bit scary), especially in a session that might have Space itself causing problems with the Mage in it. Then he suggested the Witch of Blood. Active player. Not a member of an Aspect already used. Also, incredibly helpful. You know those horrible (and I mean HORRIBLE) fanfictions you might be able to find gods-know-where if you’re not careful? Those ones where not only are physics questionable, but everyone’s acting out of character as fuck? Well, the physics would likely be the Mage’s job, but the OOC team-building-in-five-minutes thing would be the Witch’s. This session, with the Sylph and the Page and Rogue acting as grounders, and the Mage and Knight being powerhouses, is already very good. They would have a good chance of succeeding. But if their teamwork is shoddy, not much could be done with it. The Witch would be able to rewrite any encounter like it were a bad fanfic. They would make the Knight completely abandon their mask to help their teammates with little to no prompting courtesy of the Page, the Mage would be willing to work just as hard as they need to, and the Rogue, well, the Rogue may be poorly written, but at least they pose a good point: don’t break those rules, Mage. The Witch of Blood would be able to make the team cooperate as never before. If they were good before, well, with the Witch by their side, as TC put it, they’d be “a well-oiled machine.”
Add a Sylph of Time and a Witch of Blood, and your team has a very good chance of surviving. Nice job choosing a variety of Classes and Aspects.
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.