"...Wait, didn't you say that yesterday?"
Yeah funny how that works out.
Turns out shortly after my blog entry, we lost it again! For almost a full 24 hours. Fun times.
Now I did try to sleep sleep sleep the troubles away and now that my power is back, hopefully for good, I have a ton of catchup work to do, but there were plenty of eventful things I think are worth talking about.
Yesterday, my family made the decision to drive to Denny's for dinner--we had no food prepared and no way of preparing food with the power out, no generator, nothing. On the drive there, my mother and my sister were both rather alarmed by my father's haphazard driving; his carelessness made them rather...on edge.
And while I have utterly desensitized myself to thoughts of various different catastrophes by playing the scenarios out in my head (I have talked about this before on my blog, about a month ago, a little bit more if I recall correctly, so you can find me talking about it there--normally, I would be all too happy to talk about it again but this blog is going to cover a ton of things which leave me with a need to rush the rest of the subjects).
I found myself sharing similar sentiments.
Which is rather surprising.
Because you know that headspace I've been in? The rather negative one where I haven't had a reason to live? I'm still in it and even now to some extent am still feeling it.
And yet.
My mind was filled with thoughts of.
"I don't want to die."
I had an overwhelmingly strong urge to live. My will to live is still there. I don't know what's driving this strong power, I don't know what the basis of it is, I don't know where it comes from. But it was most definitively, positively, overwhelmingly there.
I was sharing my sister and mother's concern, because I didn't want to die.
I don't know why I didn't want to die.
I still haven't figured it out.
But I don't want to die.
And in fact, to the quite opposite: I am afraid to die. It's terrifying me.
I haven't a clue why.
I still don't know why I am alive.
I still don't have a reason to live for.
You'd think that in order for me to have this strong, overwhelming urge to live, I would have some sort of motivating reason, underlying justification for not wanting to die.
But if it's there, I haven't found it yet.
In spite of me not having a reason to live.
In spite of me being in that negative headspace.
Of thinking.
"The world might just be better off if I were not in it", more or less.
That terrible headspace I blogged about less than a week ago, that I never left and am still in it even in this very second.
That doesn't change that the feeling was there, that fear of death and very strong desire to never let it pass, as long as I have any ability whatsoever to fight against it. (Mind you, realistically speaking, this is a bit morbid and grim, but I don't expect to live to an old age. The two most likely causes of death would be either in a car accident or more likely, due to something like cancer from not taking good care of myself, not checking in with doctors regularly, and the doctors probably not searching for the signs of the diseases that would kill me until it's too late. If I did get, sayyy, skin cancer, and the doctors didn't notice it until it was stage four and had metastasized to multiple organs in my body...I'd be pretty much a goner in no time flat. If that happens, not much I can do about it, but you bet that I'd still try to do something.)
And knowing that deep down.
I very much am fighting to stay alive.
Even if I don't know why I am fighting to stay alive.
The fact that the fight is there is, in of itself, empowering.
It's a little disappointing, not knowing why I want to live.
But I do know that I want to live.
I haven't discovered the reason why I want to stay alive, so I need to keep searching for a reason to keep living, but knowing that I want to live is, in of itself, just that tidbit, enough to keep me afloat for as long as I remember it. (Which is one reason I'm writing this blog, mind you! It'll make it easier for me to remember the feeling that was there, even if I don't know what the feeling is for or about, so that I don't forget.)
That was one thing which happened during the outage.
There were a couple of extra things as well, though.
One thing was working on a webcomic project which has many, many, of the same themes as The Descended does, with a similar core cast size (four protagonists), following a 'villain' in his rise to power, that has a notable beginning and end, in a Fantasy setting (albeit an Urban Fantasy setting of sorts; religious notes about it but not a lot of actual nonhumans otherwise), which I wanted to blog about ages ago yet never got around to it.
In fact.
If you check my December blog entries, at or after December 13th of last year (that is to say, December 13th, 2019 or so), you'll keep seeing me refer to "I really need to blog about this!", and then I never did because I am a moron about that sort of thing.
Well, blog entry made! Or, started, anyway. Still need to finish it.
Basically, I don't know if any blog readers will remember it, but around December 13th, I had mentioned that there was an idea for a webcomic that I really really liked and which was really really fun, but which I didn't have the skills to pull off. The webcomic, Freakshow High, remains something that I cannot make for a vast majority of reasons; I would need a co-writer who would take my basic ideas for the setting to come up with characters and plots which I would collaborate with them on.
Traditionally, I have never been involved in a collaboration which went well. Admittedly, though, that was me working on other peoples' brainchilds, rather than someone who shares my ambition and can see what I am going for, fleshing out my concepts to make something of their own that I just so happen to also have credit for. Butstill, I imagine that's a bit of a tough ask.
How do you get someone to be a co-writer for a webcomic by telling them, "take this basic idea and then make it so that I can make it"? I mean, I think that some collaborative efforts actually have worked out from similar, but the question is could I do that? I'm...not so convinced. Even if I could, the point remains, by myself, I wouldn't be able to make it in any world no matter what; I'd need help, help of a specific kind.
However.
Freakshow High did revive the artist within me.
And more than that--the worldbuilding narrative-writer within me. (Which I think is reflected in my dreams. The last two nights, my dreams have been amazing, cinematic, masterpieces, beautiful, fluent, works of art with fleshed out characters and deep, intricate plotlines and amazing worlds with simply stunning visuals, that I was really bummed out to wake up from because I knew that my awake mind couldn't continue their plots and that I wouldn't get the stories back if I went to sleep so they were killed mid-project, essentially.)
I did a 5-minute drawing of the protagonist from that series, Hey You.
It was done in actually closer to three. In ink. With no reference images. And it was better than most drawings I've made in pencil, with no time limit, using reference images. Was it perfect, no, there were obvious flaws born of me improvising on the spot. But for what it was, it was the best drawing I've ever done...
...Until I drew the Dean of Freakshow High, Dean Master Satan Hercure, in a similar timeframe. I called it a 5-minute doodle concept sketch, but it was done in three, and it would be passable as being in an actual webcomic page.
I did better than that, too.
For the first time in years.
I designed a webcomic logo to apply to the webcomic. Not the most inventive of logos (Freakshow High, underlined by bull horns that surround the text, with flames on top of it), but still an actual well and true proper logo for a webcomic, even knowing that it's for a webcomic that I'll never actually be able to make on my own.
And it goes further.
That worldbuilding I said I hadn't done and was feeling uninspired to do?
That didn't last!
I created a list, incomplete, of attendees to Freakshow High, with details about them.
Demons are among the 'infernal' attendees, who more or less feed off of energies radiating from their source of specialty, particularly emotions. Each demon has a unique specialty (though these are usually genetic, with a clan of demons sharing their specialty), but can still sustain themselves off of other methods. Think a lot like Cubii as portrayed in Dan and Mab--they are usually attached to an emotion (mostly negative ones), and feed from the energy radiating from it.
They may occasionally gain abilities pertaining to their primary source of sustenance, which can include things such as minor shapeshifting or invisibility among others.
Devils who the Dean is among, are among the 'infernal' attendees, and are not to be confused with Demons. They more or less get their energy from contracts, sustaining themselves from bargains, both written and spoken. This is neither inherently nefarious nor inherently benign. They are obligated to fulfill the terms of these deals for their duration, but have the power to terminate any deal they want to at any time. They also have very loose definitions, open to interpretation, on what a deal is. (They can call things deals which weren't intended as deals, with some creativity, and with specific interpretation of wording, get away with breaking the spirit of a deal in favor of rules lawyering the wording.)
They have reasonably decent shapeshifting abilities.
Succubii who should not be confused with Incubii and should not be confused with Devils or Demons, are among the 'infernal' attendees. They are, technically speaking, all hermaphrodites, who in spite of being hermaphrodites do true to what you'd expect, usually appear female. They do indeed feed off of the type of energy you'd expect, love energy, most potently from sex, but they can recharge themselves simply by hanging around people who have a bond of any form of love--familial, romantic, platonic.
They get the most energy from having sex with someone and more or less 'draining' them, but they can sustain themselves just passively by being around strong bonds. Due to having the same resource pool as Incubii, they are bitter rivals with Incubii by and large, absolutely loathe being compared to them, will probably murder you if you make the mistake or even if not give you a rather lengthy lecture on the differences between them.
To a lesser extent, this also applies to Demons. Most demons can partially sustain themselves off of the Succubii territory resources, and some demons specifically require it as their unique specialty, but Succubii are a different species altogether.
Incubii who should not be confused with Succubii and should not be confused with Devils or Demons, are also among the 'infernal' attendees, and much to the chagrin of Incubii and Succubii everywhere, you could take the paragraphs above about the Succubii and apply them to the Incubii--they are, technically, hermaphrodites, who in spite of being hermaphrodites usually appear male. They feed off of love energy, are bitter rivals with Incubii as a result, loathe being compared to them, would probably murder you for doing so or at least give a rather lengthy lecture on the differences between the two, and these differences to a lesser extent apply to them and Demons.
Imps are among the 'infernal' attendees, who're anywhere from 25-75% the height of an average human. At their tallest, they just look like a shorter human; at their shortest, they are like the size of a dog or big cat. They make up for this by having limited illusions and shapeshifting capabilities, which allow them to, should they so choose to, appear normal size, something aided by their wings naturally supporting flight.
Fairies are basically more insectoid Imps. About the same height, with the same illusionary and shapeshifting powers, who have wings that allow them to fly.
The Fairfolk are much as you'd expect the Fae to be: basically alien in thought process, but incredibly attuned to the world otherwise. They have unparalleled hearing and sight, which non-Fairfolk suspect is the reason they appear to be crazy (because they see and hear things others do not, and can't turn this off), and like the vast majority of attendees to Freakshow High, have no limited lifespan, accumulating knowledge and also quirks as time passes and they get bored, usually choosing to obsess with something.
Gorgons can paralyze people with eye contact--note that this is an activated power, not something that always applies at all times. Their hair is indeed snakes, but these snakes can take on the appearance of dreadlocks and can be cut to any length the gorgon wants their hair to be. These snakes are prehensile so long as they are in snake (not human) form, allowing gorgons to manipulate objects using their hair.
Lamia are basically the land-equivalent of the merfolk: they are basically anthropomorphic snakes. Think like a centaur but instead of the bottom half being a horse, it's instead a snake. However. At puberty, lamia's tails will split in two, allowing them the option of either slithering, or walking on two 'legs'. (Yes this is blatantly ripped from One Piece, I thought that was incredibly neat, deal with it.)
Lizardfolk are pretty much what you'd expect; anthropomorphic lizards of various kind.
Dragons are, well...exactly what you'd picture a western dragon to be. Gigantic creatures, winged, scaled, four legs, tail, claws, teeth, with a big breath weapon. They are inherently master level shapeshifters, though, and almost always take far, far, more reasonably-sized shapes, usually humanoid. They are some of the strongest creatures in existence and do indeed have a taste for greed, but they are not invincible and do lay eggs unless they maintain their shapeshifted form 100% of the time, so they almost never appear in their natural forms.
Merfolk are also pretty self-explanatory, with the add-on I mentioned ripped from One Piece: they are amphibious, able to breath both air and in water, are the best swimmers bar none in the water, and at puberty their tail splits in two allowing for them to walk on land rather comfortably while still maintaining their ability to swim.
Fishfolk are not Merfolk; they are basically anthropomorphic fishes. Whereas Merfolk can vaguely be thought of as terms of literally half-man, half-fish a la Centaurs being half-man, half-horse, Merfolk are instead just hybridizing human and fish features throughout their whole body. It's a little cheap to do especially given what I already stole, but again, you can more or less just look at One Piece's depiction of Fishmen to see what I am getting at here.
Insectoids are to insects what Fishfolk are to fish, humanoid versions of various different insects.
Werebeasts are pretty self-explanatory: humans who have the ability to transform into a different, usually mammalian, creature, in various different forms: full transformation (fully become the creature), hybrid form, and partial transformation (where they're mostly human but have a few features accentuating them that come from the creature they are a werebeast of).
The most common of these by far is the werewolf, but there are plenty of others like werecats as well. You can indeed be either born as one or gain it as an infection; the infection can only be transmitted on a full moon, and there is a slight difference between those born werebeasts and those who're infected; those born have full control over their transformation from birth and are not obligated to transform during the full moon, whereas those infected need to learn how to control their transformations yet no matter how much control they gain they are always going to be in either their hybrid or full-beast forms on the full moon.
Vampires are pretty self-explanatory as well. No, they don't fry in sunlight, but the sun does weaken them. They're pale in complexion. They drink blood; this doesn't need to kill the target. They can be transformed or exist from birth; transforming requires draining someone then giving them blood when they are on the brink of death. They don't explode when impaled by a stake, but leaving a stake in their heart will paralyze them and put to halt their regenerative capacities; long enough will kill them.
I'm not sure on what abilities they have for sure. Do they have hypnosis, shapeshifting, turning into a mist, etc. powers or not, more or less, haven't decided that yet, but they are more or less your standard fare for vampires who aren't ridiculously weak and yet also aren't ridiculously brokenly strong, either. Average run of the mill vampires pretty much, who don't have stupid quirks (they're not compelled to count, repelled by holy water, do not require invitations, can cross running water, are unaffected by crosses, you get the idea), but don't have dominance either.
Witches are a separate species from humans, technically, but for all intents and purposes, are basically just "humans who can use magic". This magic is genetically passed on from parent to child no matter what (general rule of thumb: almost every single attendee of Freakshow High is fertile and capable of having children with almost any other attendee of Freakshow High, which means that yes, you can have someone who has anywhere from 2-20 species in their lineage although it should be noted that you're not going to have best-of-all from this, you'll basically inherit one or two and then the rest basically don't exist aside from having a small chance your descendants manifest them, think dominant versus recessive in that you'll have a few dominant with most recessive), and on every rare once and a while, can appear in someone who previously lacked it.
They are disproportionately female, but not inherently so. (Usually any witch who randomly gains powers in spite of lacking a lineage of it will indeed be female though.) There's plenty of male witches, but they still call themselves witches in spite of that term usually having a female connotation to it.
Their magic is currently not well-defined, though what I have in mind is more or less, "very very versatile and capable of a lot, but still having set rules to follow which make it not capable of anything, with limitations to what is possible", I just didn't put in the actual work yet to set said limits and such.
Ghouls are creatures that are 'cursed', more or less a generic term that applies to many types of things. A wendigo would be a type of ghoul, for instance, due to the curse of consuming flesh until passing it on. These curses can be of numerous different natures. Common curses that create ghouls originate from Witches, but they can be from plenty of other sources. As long as they retain enough autonomy to function in the supernatural society, however, they are more than free to attend Freakshow High and work towards whatever goals they have. (Some curses can be ended, others are eternal.)
Zombies are not the infectious type--they are, specifically, people who were raised by the voodoo magic of a witch. This applies to all zombies, but normally, most zombies are automatons that have no free will, give no thought, are basically raised creatures that are slaves to the one who created them to do their bidding and nothing but their bidding. However, it is a not-too-uncommon happenstance where zombies gain sentience and with it, a sense of free will. They think, they are no longer mindless, they no longer are slaves, though they may remain servants, they just aren't nothing but a body. They have a mind and thus are entitled to everything which comes with it.
In this sense, zombies are technically speaking a very specific form of construct, but they are classified differently because constructs weren't actual people before gaining sentience whereas zombies were. The personalities zombies gain may or may not reflect who they were before. They may or may not have memories of who they were before.
Constructs are magically-created golems that have somehow gained sentience. Whereas golems are mindless automatons that have, of sorts, 'programming' that they follow, constructs can think, have free will, and are thus entitled to everything that comes with it.
The quintessential example of a construct would be Frankenstein's Monster (though depending on how much of Frankenstein's monster is nuts and bolts and how much is flesh he probably qualifies more as a zombie); that is in a nutshell what a construct would be. Something artificially constructed that has gained a will of its own.
Ectoplasmic creatures, which I am calling 'ethereal', are also numerous in attendance.
Ghosts are the most famous of the 'ethereal' species, due to more or less being the ones who overall have the best abilities. Like all ethereal species, most ghosts are not born, but while they have incredibly reduced fertility, they are not actually sterile, so it is possible for an ethereal creature to be born as an ethereal creature rather than simply randomly existing by happenstance.
They have optional invisibility which they can trigger at will. Like all ethereal creatures, they can fly--and of the ethereal creatures, by shifting their legs into a ghostly tail, they can achieve the fastest flight speed of any ethereal creature, and are basically to flight what merfolk are to water.
Wraiths are ethereal creatures who have the ability to teleport. In this sense, they can rival ghosts in speed in flight, by repeatedly teleporting over and over again, but while they can shift from one location to another instantly, this is not something they can spam indefinitely. (They can do it in rapidfire short-term, and there's no hard-limit to what they can do, but they do get winded the more they use it.)
Banshees are ethereal creatures who more or less have the ability to shout really really loudly and painfully. But it's a little more complicated than that; they basically have mastery of sound of all sorts. They can mute sounds that would normally be made, or crank up sounds that would normally be inaudible. They can't travel at the speed of sound, but they can otherwise fully manipulate sound in ways that make them basically unparalleled masters of sound.
People know them as shouting really loudly and painfully though because while Banshees are capable of really complex, nuanced uses of their power...inherent in being a Banshee is basically an innate sense of drama queen (note that there's a dead even split between male and female banshees), an inherent hamminess, laziness, desire to play things up, and the like, and also an utter lack of awareness to how they are perceived by others, who think that their loud screeches are 'true art' and that the people who cover their ears are haters that don't understand, more or less.
Phantoms are ethereal creatures who have the ability to phase through matter. This is an optional ability. Other ethereal creatures are still very much physical, which is something you might not expect. And all ethereal creatures thus have the ability to interact with objects (which is why I didn't add poltergeists to the list of ethereal creatures originally, though I have since reconsidered), and be interacted with.
Phantoms can optionally disable this interaction and optionally pass through walls and such.
Specters are unique among ethereal creatures as having the ability to shapeshift. They can choose what form they appear as, which makes them one of the stronger ectoplasmal creatures since they can fly and more or less choose what mass and shape they have, which can have a number of rather useful effects, even allowing them to somewhat mimic the powers of other ethereal creatures. (Take on a form small enough to pass through a wall if the wall has a crack in it, for instance, or accelerate themselves by physics, and so on and so forth.)
Poltergeists were originally not in the list because all ethereal creatures can interact with objects, but I decided to add them in with them being unique among ethereal creatures as being able to do this from a range with them having telekinetic powers whereas other ectoplasmal creatures require touch.
Bigfolk are basically your Yetis, Bigfoots, Sasquatches, and such.
Sirens are similar to Banshees in being masters of musical noise, but with more of a pleasant take on it and also being more seductive, with their sounds inherently containing hypnosis to them.
Among the attendees would also be a word that I imagine exists and I could find but was too lazy to for this blog because this is a massive tangent from my true blog entry, involving a catch-all term for Satyrs, Centaurs, and Minotaurs.
I also included from Greek Mythology Harpies, Chimeras, and Sphinxes (who would also take on the Egyptian mythology there as well as the Greek one), with the intention of adding more similar with research.
I also added in Ratmen, anthropomorphic rats, and Avians, anthropomorphic birds (aka birdfolk).
One classification I also added was something I wanted to be distinctly separate from Witches, Necromancers, who more or less are masters of the dead, having a high attunement to ethereal creatures, can raise the dead, and perform some low-level magics separate from Witch magic that revolve around various aspects of humans specifically.
And that's a list I expected to be incomplete.
It's all I have.
But it's something I made on December 11th with a little added on December 13th (though for this blog I did a little bit of on-the-spot decision making, namely, including Poltergeists).
I did far more than make the attendees though.
I did an estimation of the size of the school, somewhere in the range of 200-500 students.
Given that number, I estimated that there'd be around 15-30 teachers and probably 20-60 total faculty (since not all faculty would be teachers though there would of course be people with multiple jobs).
I named the town the school of Freakshow High is in, and modeled it as being a fairly isolated town-city: not small enough to be a town, but small enough that when most people think of a 'city', they're going to think more populous than what this is. (To put this into perspective, probably about the size of Snohomish or Monroe here in the state of Washington. Not entirely rural, but also not exactly a metropolis. No skyscrapers, but a fair amount of industrialization yet enough undeveloped land that there's plenty of trees and the like around.)
The school is in Edenville, and I even gave Freakshow High its sports teams' names: the Edenville Devilsnakes.
I think that the size of a small city-town is somewhere in the range of 2000-10,000 though I admit I would need to research this a bit. (Not exactly sure where but it's not a big enough deal for me to focus on.)
I have character bios on Hey You and the Dean, a fair idea of Hey You's background and where they came from, the like. A ton of work I put in.
And yet in spite of all that, it is a project I will never make because I would need help to make it.
...So what was all of that build-up for?
...Because on December 13th, sharing a sheet of work scrapbook paper that the first half contained the additions for Freakshow High.
...Was a webcomic project that I could do on my own.
This is a long, long blog post, so, uhh...lemme pull it back and remind you of exactly what I was on about since I realize we went on the longest tangent ever. Go way back to the, "One thing was working on a webcomic project which has many, many, of the same themes as The Descended does, with a similar core cast size (four protagonists), following a 'villain' in his rise to power, that has a notable beginning and end, in a Fantasy setting (albeit an Urban Fantasy setting of sorts; religious notes about it but not a lot of actual nonhumans otherwise), which I wanted to blog about ages ago yet never got around to it.", section of this blog entry.
That project is what I actually set out to talk about.
I can't make Freakshow High on my own.
But if I so chose to. (I probably won't, but I have the choice that I could.)
I could make this new project.
This new project has the first chapter more or less mapped out. It has a set beginning, end, and various middle parts set out. I know what I want to do with it if I were to do it and I know how I would do it, more or less.
I have the main characters modeled out as well as the three other demons in the setting. (The minions of the three other demons, the later lesser followers of the titular demon, the lesser followers of the three other demons, the followers of more holy divine powers, the lesser followers of more divine holy powers, and random people who aren't followers of anyone? Yeah I have absolutely none of them modeled out.)
Which is to say, the most important characters, I know what they look like more or less and know their personalities in a nutshell.
I have done rather extensive worldbuilding and can talk about every aspect of the world; it's a fairly simple world to pull off easily enough. It's neat, it's beautiful, but also fairly simple to grasp once you get into it, just get a few of the basic bases down and you can follow along rather freely.
And like Freakshow High, I did more work than that.
I made a really really cool logo for it that I can draw repeatedly and easily because while simple, it is easily replicable. (It is probably not a very original logo concept, but it is still something I took time to design which I feel like I put my own spin on that makes it a signature of my webcomic.)
I even made the webcomic's slogan too.
During the outage, I went one step further and drew the cat in the series, too. Mind you--I did so in about three to four minutes, with zero reference images (this was at Denny's so no kitties to use) and zero erasing. I drew a cat in five minutes with zero references and in spite of that, it actually looks passable as being a cat.
The only reason I didn't draw more was due to lacking time, usually being busy with other things.
But all of the pieces to make the webcomic are there if I were to so choose.
That project is one which I'm not sure I want to mention by name, but ehhhh...sure, I'll risk listing its name; it's Bazu's Fourthsworne.
To keep a long long story short:
There are four rulers of Hell, the Foursworne, and Bazu the Broken (full name, Bazu Fourthsworne, the Fourth Foursworn) is the weakest of them. (He is associated with snakes and the color yellow.) He was UnPersoned by the first foursworn, trapped to rule the smallest section of Hell and with no presence on earth and no followers and no means of manifesting.
The story follows his rise to power after he is, through a sheer stroke of luck, manifested by pure happenstance in a ritual that had every reason to not go right but somehow actually did go right. (It was deliberately written wrong as to sabotage any efforts to make it successful, but by a one in trillion chance occurrence, managed to fulfill the conditions that had been left out.)
The main characters aside from him (this contains first-episode spoilers by the way):
Creed, his summoned Avatar. Creed has four forms: possessing the cat, possessing the cat but transformed into a humanoid form (that of a little boy), using the cat as a way of manifesting an incomplete form (very loosely modeled off of Ryoma Hoshi from Danganronpa V3), and a fully manifested complete form where he is the will of Bazu incarnate.
Adam Caine, the person who did the summoning, becomes his head follower, basically what you'd get if you combined the Pope with a King in that he has almost absolute authority over Bazu's domain (which, as noted, at the beginning of the story...is nothing, but Bazu makes it clear that as he gains power, so too will Adam), second only to Bazu himself.
Lilith Edenson, one of the people present at the summoning, becomes a servant of Bazu by making a contract with him. During the summoning process, Adam killed his sister--Lilith, in love with her, was very much Not Okay with this. Contracts with a demon can be broken down into more or less trivial (the demon does something and in exchange the servant does a single task for the demon and is then free), difficult (the demon does something hard to accomplish and in exchange the servant has lifelong servitude, but is free once they die), or impossible (the demon, via the contract, accomplishes something that shouldn't be possible for the demon, in exchange for the person making the contract becoming an eternal servant, damned to forever be the slave of the demon), to more or less keep the long story short.
Reviving Adam's sister, whose death was integral to the success of the ritual, was an impossible feat, which via the contract, was achieved, but as a consequence, Lilith has become an eternal servant of Bazu.
And the actual protagonist of the story (because Bazu is more of the deutagonist), the one whose perspective the majority of the story is told through:
Evelyn Caine, preferring Eevee (not Eve), is the sister of Adam Caine and more or less FWB with Lilith. (Lilith is a lesbian, Eevee is pan, Lilith's love for Eevee is stronger than Eevee's love for Lilith but they have communicated their feelings. Eevee does love Lilith, just...not as much as Lilith loves Eevee, and Lilith has accepted this and is okay with the status of their relationship since both Eevee and Lilith are happy with it.)
Since Adam, her brother, becomes basically a lord of the damned helping Bazu accomplish his will in exchange for becoming more powerful, and Lilith her sort-of-lover is eternally indebted to Bazu to always serve his will, she more or less tags along with the group of them.
She is heavily a deadpan snarker, will heavily riff on Bazu, has a low opinion of him, will insult him, and so on and so forth. For his part, Bazu considers her expendable and will often trick her into doing things that are far more dangerous than they may seem, to further his own ends, and has no qualms of letting her die again and no intention of reviving her a second time should she die again. He demonstrates, both with his actions and his words, that she is essentially cannon fodder for him, a useful tool, but not an actual asset.
She doesn't really have a reason to help Bazu but more or less nonchalantly tags along and inevitably ends up helping him anyway. Sometimes by choice, sometimes to help Adam (she is his sister so she does care for him), sometimes to help Lilith (she does care about Lilith more than she cares about a friend), but often just because Bazu manipulated things that way.
Because Bazu is, specifically, the Demon of Charisma and is the most charismatic bastard around. Not the smartest, not the strongest, but his charm is why he was basically removed from the mortal realm; he was too much of a threat if allowed to roam free...
...And yet, the story follows precisely what happens after he does exactly that.
From Eevee's viewpoint, by and large.
I love the project and I like it a lot.
I can make it, too.
Will I?
Ehhh...not sure.
But it's primed and ready for me if I ever decided to.
So what else?
I kinda have a growing urge to mod Civilization III again.
I don't want to work on the Across the Ages project--that was a bit too cumbersome. I do like what I was doing with it, but it just was something that had too many issues that I don't think someone of my skill level could work out.
Instead, I wanted to work on a more toned-down attempt at a modified version of the Rise of Rome scenario.
My first modified Rise of Rome scenario was my first, and grandest, venture into modding Civ 3 stuff.
It had a ton of stuff done but was atrocious overall and I basically made it ridiculously easy mode regardless of who I was playing on, adding everything and the kitchen sink to it.
This toned-down version would have a few modifications that would risk pushing me into that territory, but which with luck I'd be fine with.
The basic idea, 7/8 playable, Egypt still on the decline, but with each civilization having specific traits of theirs emphasized and played up.
I'd remove pollution as much as is possible (this is just a quality of life improvement), add in Wool in locations as close to the Medieval scenario as is possible and no other locations (which would actually make it difficult to achieve for half the civs, which is a good thing!), turn silver/gold into resources, add in the wonders from Mesopotamia that aren't included, two outposts for Rome to allow for contacting the Celts and Goths (one in England, one in approximately Germany near the rivers there) with one unit on them, an extra Carthago Novo unit for Carthage as compensation, an outpost for Persia to allow first-turn contact with Scythia and similarly an extra Macedon unit as compensation, and then the draw to the scenario:
The units.
Goths would have a focus on raw offense, forgoing defense but having offense rivaling or even exceeding even Roman units.
Celts would have movement speed, traveling extra distance. Their units would have bog-standard attack/defense.
Carthage would have units that take less shields to produce, but require more resources to make, emphasizing their cheap mercenary nature. These units would be loosely equal to normal units, but some stronger and others weaker.
The Scythians would have units that treat all terrain as roads, but no extra movement speed, to differentiate their units from the Celtic units. Their units would have bog-standard attack/defense.
Rome would have their units be able to use all worker actions, have the strongest overall units in offense/defense (including a defensive horseman that'd be able to match their citizens), but pay for it in having those units be more expensive overall in terms of shields.
Egypt would have unique units, but have all of them be weaker than units from other civs, to represent their 'on the decline' nature.
The Greeks would have amphibious warriors/swordsmen (who would have stats equal to other swordsmen otherwise) and be self-balanced against the Persians for their spearmen to be loosely equivalent to the Persian swordsmen with Persian units having higher offense and lower defense and Macedonian units being equal in both.
Their units would be stronger than Carthage, but weaker than Rome.
I wouldn't touch things otherwise for risk of turning things too complex and ruining the simple idea as it is now.
Now, admittedly--there would still be about 75 units in the scenario, but that wouldn't be "75 units plus the ones already in there", it would be "75 units including the ones already in there".
Maybe bump it up to 80 when you add in leaders, armies, gallies, and workers.
But I am pretty sure a total of 80 units in the game or thereabouts, is not more than most scenarios.
I'd have to double-check to be sure, but I feel like if it's not actually much more than is in most scenarios, no real harm in striving for it.
It feels incredibly doable, I'd just need to do it.
Hmm, what else...I think that beyond that, it's just 'catching up' stuff.
I need to play a few TFT games to get the quest there.
I have eight days to play two RANKED (yes, RANKED) games of League, and to also play one of Garen, Jax, Draven, or Leona. (Sadly, I only own Garen of them. The one I'd least one to play.)
ARURF is life and I want to test if my build with a mana champion works on ARUF, where cooldowns are at 80% and every item is thus over the CDR limit. But also mostly to see if a manamune can transform into the muramana in ARURF.
I have obligations that I am days late to attending to, and these once I finally finish this blog entry (I think I've been writing this blog for an upwards of six hours?), those are going to be what I probably focus on.
I have a vod to watch and multiple videos to watch to catch up on. Probably about 12-24 in total. Most of them ~10 minutes but at least four of them are longer.
Busy, busy times.
Yeah funny how that works out.
Turns out shortly after my blog entry, we lost it again! For almost a full 24 hours. Fun times.
Now I did try to sleep sleep sleep the troubles away and now that my power is back, hopefully for good, I have a ton of catchup work to do, but there were plenty of eventful things I think are worth talking about.
Yesterday, my family made the decision to drive to Denny's for dinner--we had no food prepared and no way of preparing food with the power out, no generator, nothing. On the drive there, my mother and my sister were both rather alarmed by my father's haphazard driving; his carelessness made them rather...on edge.
And while I have utterly desensitized myself to thoughts of various different catastrophes by playing the scenarios out in my head (I have talked about this before on my blog, about a month ago, a little bit more if I recall correctly, so you can find me talking about it there--normally, I would be all too happy to talk about it again but this blog is going to cover a ton of things which leave me with a need to rush the rest of the subjects).
I found myself sharing similar sentiments.
Which is rather surprising.
Because you know that headspace I've been in? The rather negative one where I haven't had a reason to live? I'm still in it and even now to some extent am still feeling it.
And yet.
My mind was filled with thoughts of.
"I don't want to die."
I had an overwhelmingly strong urge to live. My will to live is still there. I don't know what's driving this strong power, I don't know what the basis of it is, I don't know where it comes from. But it was most definitively, positively, overwhelmingly there.
I was sharing my sister and mother's concern, because I didn't want to die.
I don't know why I didn't want to die.
I still haven't figured it out.
But I don't want to die.
And in fact, to the quite opposite: I am afraid to die. It's terrifying me.
I haven't a clue why.
I still don't know why I am alive.
I still don't have a reason to live for.
You'd think that in order for me to have this strong, overwhelming urge to live, I would have some sort of motivating reason, underlying justification for not wanting to die.
But if it's there, I haven't found it yet.
In spite of me not having a reason to live.
In spite of me being in that negative headspace.
Of thinking.
"The world might just be better off if I were not in it", more or less.
That terrible headspace I blogged about less than a week ago, that I never left and am still in it even in this very second.
That doesn't change that the feeling was there, that fear of death and very strong desire to never let it pass, as long as I have any ability whatsoever to fight against it. (Mind you, realistically speaking, this is a bit morbid and grim, but I don't expect to live to an old age. The two most likely causes of death would be either in a car accident or more likely, due to something like cancer from not taking good care of myself, not checking in with doctors regularly, and the doctors probably not searching for the signs of the diseases that would kill me until it's too late. If I did get, sayyy, skin cancer, and the doctors didn't notice it until it was stage four and had metastasized to multiple organs in my body...I'd be pretty much a goner in no time flat. If that happens, not much I can do about it, but you bet that I'd still try to do something.)
And knowing that deep down.
I very much am fighting to stay alive.
Even if I don't know why I am fighting to stay alive.
The fact that the fight is there is, in of itself, empowering.
It's a little disappointing, not knowing why I want to live.
But I do know that I want to live.
I haven't discovered the reason why I want to stay alive, so I need to keep searching for a reason to keep living, but knowing that I want to live is, in of itself, just that tidbit, enough to keep me afloat for as long as I remember it. (Which is one reason I'm writing this blog, mind you! It'll make it easier for me to remember the feeling that was there, even if I don't know what the feeling is for or about, so that I don't forget.)
That was one thing which happened during the outage.
There were a couple of extra things as well, though.
One thing was working on a webcomic project which has many, many, of the same themes as The Descended does, with a similar core cast size (four protagonists), following a 'villain' in his rise to power, that has a notable beginning and end, in a Fantasy setting (albeit an Urban Fantasy setting of sorts; religious notes about it but not a lot of actual nonhumans otherwise), which I wanted to blog about ages ago yet never got around to it.
In fact.
If you check my December blog entries, at or after December 13th of last year (that is to say, December 13th, 2019 or so), you'll keep seeing me refer to "I really need to blog about this!", and then I never did because I am a moron about that sort of thing.
Well, blog entry made! Or, started, anyway. Still need to finish it.
Basically, I don't know if any blog readers will remember it, but around December 13th, I had mentioned that there was an idea for a webcomic that I really really liked and which was really really fun, but which I didn't have the skills to pull off. The webcomic, Freakshow High, remains something that I cannot make for a vast majority of reasons; I would need a co-writer who would take my basic ideas for the setting to come up with characters and plots which I would collaborate with them on.
Traditionally, I have never been involved in a collaboration which went well. Admittedly, though, that was me working on other peoples' brainchilds, rather than someone who shares my ambition and can see what I am going for, fleshing out my concepts to make something of their own that I just so happen to also have credit for. Butstill, I imagine that's a bit of a tough ask.
How do you get someone to be a co-writer for a webcomic by telling them, "take this basic idea and then make it so that I can make it"? I mean, I think that some collaborative efforts actually have worked out from similar, but the question is could I do that? I'm...not so convinced. Even if I could, the point remains, by myself, I wouldn't be able to make it in any world no matter what; I'd need help, help of a specific kind.
However.
Freakshow High did revive the artist within me.
And more than that--the worldbuilding narrative-writer within me. (Which I think is reflected in my dreams. The last two nights, my dreams have been amazing, cinematic, masterpieces, beautiful, fluent, works of art with fleshed out characters and deep, intricate plotlines and amazing worlds with simply stunning visuals, that I was really bummed out to wake up from because I knew that my awake mind couldn't continue their plots and that I wouldn't get the stories back if I went to sleep so they were killed mid-project, essentially.)
I did a 5-minute drawing of the protagonist from that series, Hey You.
It was done in actually closer to three. In ink. With no reference images. And it was better than most drawings I've made in pencil, with no time limit, using reference images. Was it perfect, no, there were obvious flaws born of me improvising on the spot. But for what it was, it was the best drawing I've ever done...
...Until I drew the Dean of Freakshow High, Dean Master Satan Hercure, in a similar timeframe. I called it a 5-minute doodle concept sketch, but it was done in three, and it would be passable as being in an actual webcomic page.
I did better than that, too.
For the first time in years.
I designed a webcomic logo to apply to the webcomic. Not the most inventive of logos (Freakshow High, underlined by bull horns that surround the text, with flames on top of it), but still an actual well and true proper logo for a webcomic, even knowing that it's for a webcomic that I'll never actually be able to make on my own.
And it goes further.
That worldbuilding I said I hadn't done and was feeling uninspired to do?
That didn't last!
I created a list, incomplete, of attendees to Freakshow High, with details about them.
Demons are among the 'infernal' attendees, who more or less feed off of energies radiating from their source of specialty, particularly emotions. Each demon has a unique specialty (though these are usually genetic, with a clan of demons sharing their specialty), but can still sustain themselves off of other methods. Think a lot like Cubii as portrayed in Dan and Mab--they are usually attached to an emotion (mostly negative ones), and feed from the energy radiating from it.
They may occasionally gain abilities pertaining to their primary source of sustenance, which can include things such as minor shapeshifting or invisibility among others.
Devils who the Dean is among, are among the 'infernal' attendees, and are not to be confused with Demons. They more or less get their energy from contracts, sustaining themselves from bargains, both written and spoken. This is neither inherently nefarious nor inherently benign. They are obligated to fulfill the terms of these deals for their duration, but have the power to terminate any deal they want to at any time. They also have very loose definitions, open to interpretation, on what a deal is. (They can call things deals which weren't intended as deals, with some creativity, and with specific interpretation of wording, get away with breaking the spirit of a deal in favor of rules lawyering the wording.)
They have reasonably decent shapeshifting abilities.
Succubii who should not be confused with Incubii and should not be confused with Devils or Demons, are among the 'infernal' attendees. They are, technically speaking, all hermaphrodites, who in spite of being hermaphrodites do true to what you'd expect, usually appear female. They do indeed feed off of the type of energy you'd expect, love energy, most potently from sex, but they can recharge themselves simply by hanging around people who have a bond of any form of love--familial, romantic, platonic.
They get the most energy from having sex with someone and more or less 'draining' them, but they can sustain themselves just passively by being around strong bonds. Due to having the same resource pool as Incubii, they are bitter rivals with Incubii by and large, absolutely loathe being compared to them, will probably murder you if you make the mistake or even if not give you a rather lengthy lecture on the differences between them.
To a lesser extent, this also applies to Demons. Most demons can partially sustain themselves off of the Succubii territory resources, and some demons specifically require it as their unique specialty, but Succubii are a different species altogether.
Incubii who should not be confused with Succubii and should not be confused with Devils or Demons, are also among the 'infernal' attendees, and much to the chagrin of Incubii and Succubii everywhere, you could take the paragraphs above about the Succubii and apply them to the Incubii--they are, technically, hermaphrodites, who in spite of being hermaphrodites usually appear male. They feed off of love energy, are bitter rivals with Incubii as a result, loathe being compared to them, would probably murder you for doing so or at least give a rather lengthy lecture on the differences between the two, and these differences to a lesser extent apply to them and Demons.
Imps are among the 'infernal' attendees, who're anywhere from 25-75% the height of an average human. At their tallest, they just look like a shorter human; at their shortest, they are like the size of a dog or big cat. They make up for this by having limited illusions and shapeshifting capabilities, which allow them to, should they so choose to, appear normal size, something aided by their wings naturally supporting flight.
Fairies are basically more insectoid Imps. About the same height, with the same illusionary and shapeshifting powers, who have wings that allow them to fly.
The Fairfolk are much as you'd expect the Fae to be: basically alien in thought process, but incredibly attuned to the world otherwise. They have unparalleled hearing and sight, which non-Fairfolk suspect is the reason they appear to be crazy (because they see and hear things others do not, and can't turn this off), and like the vast majority of attendees to Freakshow High, have no limited lifespan, accumulating knowledge and also quirks as time passes and they get bored, usually choosing to obsess with something.
Gorgons can paralyze people with eye contact--note that this is an activated power, not something that always applies at all times. Their hair is indeed snakes, but these snakes can take on the appearance of dreadlocks and can be cut to any length the gorgon wants their hair to be. These snakes are prehensile so long as they are in snake (not human) form, allowing gorgons to manipulate objects using their hair.
Lamia are basically the land-equivalent of the merfolk: they are basically anthropomorphic snakes. Think like a centaur but instead of the bottom half being a horse, it's instead a snake. However. At puberty, lamia's tails will split in two, allowing them the option of either slithering, or walking on two 'legs'. (Yes this is blatantly ripped from One Piece, I thought that was incredibly neat, deal with it.)
Lizardfolk are pretty much what you'd expect; anthropomorphic lizards of various kind.
Dragons are, well...exactly what you'd picture a western dragon to be. Gigantic creatures, winged, scaled, four legs, tail, claws, teeth, with a big breath weapon. They are inherently master level shapeshifters, though, and almost always take far, far, more reasonably-sized shapes, usually humanoid. They are some of the strongest creatures in existence and do indeed have a taste for greed, but they are not invincible and do lay eggs unless they maintain their shapeshifted form 100% of the time, so they almost never appear in their natural forms.
Merfolk are also pretty self-explanatory, with the add-on I mentioned ripped from One Piece: they are amphibious, able to breath both air and in water, are the best swimmers bar none in the water, and at puberty their tail splits in two allowing for them to walk on land rather comfortably while still maintaining their ability to swim.
Fishfolk are not Merfolk; they are basically anthropomorphic fishes. Whereas Merfolk can vaguely be thought of as terms of literally half-man, half-fish a la Centaurs being half-man, half-horse, Merfolk are instead just hybridizing human and fish features throughout their whole body. It's a little cheap to do especially given what I already stole, but again, you can more or less just look at One Piece's depiction of Fishmen to see what I am getting at here.
Insectoids are to insects what Fishfolk are to fish, humanoid versions of various different insects.
Werebeasts are pretty self-explanatory: humans who have the ability to transform into a different, usually mammalian, creature, in various different forms: full transformation (fully become the creature), hybrid form, and partial transformation (where they're mostly human but have a few features accentuating them that come from the creature they are a werebeast of).
The most common of these by far is the werewolf, but there are plenty of others like werecats as well. You can indeed be either born as one or gain it as an infection; the infection can only be transmitted on a full moon, and there is a slight difference between those born werebeasts and those who're infected; those born have full control over their transformation from birth and are not obligated to transform during the full moon, whereas those infected need to learn how to control their transformations yet no matter how much control they gain they are always going to be in either their hybrid or full-beast forms on the full moon.
Vampires are pretty self-explanatory as well. No, they don't fry in sunlight, but the sun does weaken them. They're pale in complexion. They drink blood; this doesn't need to kill the target. They can be transformed or exist from birth; transforming requires draining someone then giving them blood when they are on the brink of death. They don't explode when impaled by a stake, but leaving a stake in their heart will paralyze them and put to halt their regenerative capacities; long enough will kill them.
I'm not sure on what abilities they have for sure. Do they have hypnosis, shapeshifting, turning into a mist, etc. powers or not, more or less, haven't decided that yet, but they are more or less your standard fare for vampires who aren't ridiculously weak and yet also aren't ridiculously brokenly strong, either. Average run of the mill vampires pretty much, who don't have stupid quirks (they're not compelled to count, repelled by holy water, do not require invitations, can cross running water, are unaffected by crosses, you get the idea), but don't have dominance either.
Witches are a separate species from humans, technically, but for all intents and purposes, are basically just "humans who can use magic". This magic is genetically passed on from parent to child no matter what (general rule of thumb: almost every single attendee of Freakshow High is fertile and capable of having children with almost any other attendee of Freakshow High, which means that yes, you can have someone who has anywhere from 2-20 species in their lineage although it should be noted that you're not going to have best-of-all from this, you'll basically inherit one or two and then the rest basically don't exist aside from having a small chance your descendants manifest them, think dominant versus recessive in that you'll have a few dominant with most recessive), and on every rare once and a while, can appear in someone who previously lacked it.
They are disproportionately female, but not inherently so. (Usually any witch who randomly gains powers in spite of lacking a lineage of it will indeed be female though.) There's plenty of male witches, but they still call themselves witches in spite of that term usually having a female connotation to it.
Their magic is currently not well-defined, though what I have in mind is more or less, "very very versatile and capable of a lot, but still having set rules to follow which make it not capable of anything, with limitations to what is possible", I just didn't put in the actual work yet to set said limits and such.
Ghouls are creatures that are 'cursed', more or less a generic term that applies to many types of things. A wendigo would be a type of ghoul, for instance, due to the curse of consuming flesh until passing it on. These curses can be of numerous different natures. Common curses that create ghouls originate from Witches, but they can be from plenty of other sources. As long as they retain enough autonomy to function in the supernatural society, however, they are more than free to attend Freakshow High and work towards whatever goals they have. (Some curses can be ended, others are eternal.)
Zombies are not the infectious type--they are, specifically, people who were raised by the voodoo magic of a witch. This applies to all zombies, but normally, most zombies are automatons that have no free will, give no thought, are basically raised creatures that are slaves to the one who created them to do their bidding and nothing but their bidding. However, it is a not-too-uncommon happenstance where zombies gain sentience and with it, a sense of free will. They think, they are no longer mindless, they no longer are slaves, though they may remain servants, they just aren't nothing but a body. They have a mind and thus are entitled to everything which comes with it.
In this sense, zombies are technically speaking a very specific form of construct, but they are classified differently because constructs weren't actual people before gaining sentience whereas zombies were. The personalities zombies gain may or may not reflect who they were before. They may or may not have memories of who they were before.
Constructs are magically-created golems that have somehow gained sentience. Whereas golems are mindless automatons that have, of sorts, 'programming' that they follow, constructs can think, have free will, and are thus entitled to everything that comes with it.
The quintessential example of a construct would be Frankenstein's Monster (though depending on how much of Frankenstein's monster is nuts and bolts and how much is flesh he probably qualifies more as a zombie); that is in a nutshell what a construct would be. Something artificially constructed that has gained a will of its own.
Ectoplasmic creatures, which I am calling 'ethereal', are also numerous in attendance.
Ghosts are the most famous of the 'ethereal' species, due to more or less being the ones who overall have the best abilities. Like all ethereal species, most ghosts are not born, but while they have incredibly reduced fertility, they are not actually sterile, so it is possible for an ethereal creature to be born as an ethereal creature rather than simply randomly existing by happenstance.
They have optional invisibility which they can trigger at will. Like all ethereal creatures, they can fly--and of the ethereal creatures, by shifting their legs into a ghostly tail, they can achieve the fastest flight speed of any ethereal creature, and are basically to flight what merfolk are to water.
Wraiths are ethereal creatures who have the ability to teleport. In this sense, they can rival ghosts in speed in flight, by repeatedly teleporting over and over again, but while they can shift from one location to another instantly, this is not something they can spam indefinitely. (They can do it in rapidfire short-term, and there's no hard-limit to what they can do, but they do get winded the more they use it.)
Banshees are ethereal creatures who more or less have the ability to shout really really loudly and painfully. But it's a little more complicated than that; they basically have mastery of sound of all sorts. They can mute sounds that would normally be made, or crank up sounds that would normally be inaudible. They can't travel at the speed of sound, but they can otherwise fully manipulate sound in ways that make them basically unparalleled masters of sound.
People know them as shouting really loudly and painfully though because while Banshees are capable of really complex, nuanced uses of their power...inherent in being a Banshee is basically an innate sense of drama queen (note that there's a dead even split between male and female banshees), an inherent hamminess, laziness, desire to play things up, and the like, and also an utter lack of awareness to how they are perceived by others, who think that their loud screeches are 'true art' and that the people who cover their ears are haters that don't understand, more or less.
Phantoms are ethereal creatures who have the ability to phase through matter. This is an optional ability. Other ethereal creatures are still very much physical, which is something you might not expect. And all ethereal creatures thus have the ability to interact with objects (which is why I didn't add poltergeists to the list of ethereal creatures originally, though I have since reconsidered), and be interacted with.
Phantoms can optionally disable this interaction and optionally pass through walls and such.
Specters are unique among ethereal creatures as having the ability to shapeshift. They can choose what form they appear as, which makes them one of the stronger ectoplasmal creatures since they can fly and more or less choose what mass and shape they have, which can have a number of rather useful effects, even allowing them to somewhat mimic the powers of other ethereal creatures. (Take on a form small enough to pass through a wall if the wall has a crack in it, for instance, or accelerate themselves by physics, and so on and so forth.)
Poltergeists were originally not in the list because all ethereal creatures can interact with objects, but I decided to add them in with them being unique among ethereal creatures as being able to do this from a range with them having telekinetic powers whereas other ectoplasmal creatures require touch.
Bigfolk are basically your Yetis, Bigfoots, Sasquatches, and such.
Sirens are similar to Banshees in being masters of musical noise, but with more of a pleasant take on it and also being more seductive, with their sounds inherently containing hypnosis to them.
Among the attendees would also be a word that I imagine exists and I could find but was too lazy to for this blog because this is a massive tangent from my true blog entry, involving a catch-all term for Satyrs, Centaurs, and Minotaurs.
I also included from Greek Mythology Harpies, Chimeras, and Sphinxes (who would also take on the Egyptian mythology there as well as the Greek one), with the intention of adding more similar with research.
I also added in Ratmen, anthropomorphic rats, and Avians, anthropomorphic birds (aka birdfolk).
One classification I also added was something I wanted to be distinctly separate from Witches, Necromancers, who more or less are masters of the dead, having a high attunement to ethereal creatures, can raise the dead, and perform some low-level magics separate from Witch magic that revolve around various aspects of humans specifically.
And that's a list I expected to be incomplete.
It's all I have.
But it's something I made on December 11th with a little added on December 13th (though for this blog I did a little bit of on-the-spot decision making, namely, including Poltergeists).
I did far more than make the attendees though.
I did an estimation of the size of the school, somewhere in the range of 200-500 students.
Given that number, I estimated that there'd be around 15-30 teachers and probably 20-60 total faculty (since not all faculty would be teachers though there would of course be people with multiple jobs).
I named the town the school of Freakshow High is in, and modeled it as being a fairly isolated town-city: not small enough to be a town, but small enough that when most people think of a 'city', they're going to think more populous than what this is. (To put this into perspective, probably about the size of Snohomish or Monroe here in the state of Washington. Not entirely rural, but also not exactly a metropolis. No skyscrapers, but a fair amount of industrialization yet enough undeveloped land that there's plenty of trees and the like around.)
The school is in Edenville, and I even gave Freakshow High its sports teams' names: the Edenville Devilsnakes.
I think that the size of a small city-town is somewhere in the range of 2000-10,000 though I admit I would need to research this a bit. (Not exactly sure where but it's not a big enough deal for me to focus on.)
I have character bios on Hey You and the Dean, a fair idea of Hey You's background and where they came from, the like. A ton of work I put in.
And yet in spite of all that, it is a project I will never make because I would need help to make it.
...So what was all of that build-up for?
...Because on December 13th, sharing a sheet of work scrapbook paper that the first half contained the additions for Freakshow High.
...Was a webcomic project that I could do on my own.
This is a long, long blog post, so, uhh...lemme pull it back and remind you of exactly what I was on about since I realize we went on the longest tangent ever. Go way back to the, "One thing was working on a webcomic project which has many, many, of the same themes as The Descended does, with a similar core cast size (four protagonists), following a 'villain' in his rise to power, that has a notable beginning and end, in a Fantasy setting (albeit an Urban Fantasy setting of sorts; religious notes about it but not a lot of actual nonhumans otherwise), which I wanted to blog about ages ago yet never got around to it.", section of this blog entry.
That project is what I actually set out to talk about.
I can't make Freakshow High on my own.
But if I so chose to. (I probably won't, but I have the choice that I could.)
I could make this new project.
This new project has the first chapter more or less mapped out. It has a set beginning, end, and various middle parts set out. I know what I want to do with it if I were to do it and I know how I would do it, more or less.
I have the main characters modeled out as well as the three other demons in the setting. (The minions of the three other demons, the later lesser followers of the titular demon, the lesser followers of the three other demons, the followers of more holy divine powers, the lesser followers of more divine holy powers, and random people who aren't followers of anyone? Yeah I have absolutely none of them modeled out.)
Which is to say, the most important characters, I know what they look like more or less and know their personalities in a nutshell.
I have done rather extensive worldbuilding and can talk about every aspect of the world; it's a fairly simple world to pull off easily enough. It's neat, it's beautiful, but also fairly simple to grasp once you get into it, just get a few of the basic bases down and you can follow along rather freely.
And like Freakshow High, I did more work than that.
I made a really really cool logo for it that I can draw repeatedly and easily because while simple, it is easily replicable. (It is probably not a very original logo concept, but it is still something I took time to design which I feel like I put my own spin on that makes it a signature of my webcomic.)
I even made the webcomic's slogan too.
During the outage, I went one step further and drew the cat in the series, too. Mind you--I did so in about three to four minutes, with zero reference images (this was at Denny's so no kitties to use) and zero erasing. I drew a cat in five minutes with zero references and in spite of that, it actually looks passable as being a cat.
The only reason I didn't draw more was due to lacking time, usually being busy with other things.
But all of the pieces to make the webcomic are there if I were to so choose.
That project is one which I'm not sure I want to mention by name, but ehhhh...sure, I'll risk listing its name; it's Bazu's Fourthsworne.
To keep a long long story short:
There are four rulers of Hell, the Foursworne, and Bazu the Broken (full name, Bazu Fourthsworne, the Fourth Foursworn) is the weakest of them. (He is associated with snakes and the color yellow.) He was UnPersoned by the first foursworn, trapped to rule the smallest section of Hell and with no presence on earth and no followers and no means of manifesting.
The story follows his rise to power after he is, through a sheer stroke of luck, manifested by pure happenstance in a ritual that had every reason to not go right but somehow actually did go right. (It was deliberately written wrong as to sabotage any efforts to make it successful, but by a one in trillion chance occurrence, managed to fulfill the conditions that had been left out.)
The main characters aside from him (this contains first-episode spoilers by the way):
Creed, his summoned Avatar. Creed has four forms: possessing the cat, possessing the cat but transformed into a humanoid form (that of a little boy), using the cat as a way of manifesting an incomplete form (very loosely modeled off of Ryoma Hoshi from Danganronpa V3), and a fully manifested complete form where he is the will of Bazu incarnate.
Adam Caine, the person who did the summoning, becomes his head follower, basically what you'd get if you combined the Pope with a King in that he has almost absolute authority over Bazu's domain (which, as noted, at the beginning of the story...is nothing, but Bazu makes it clear that as he gains power, so too will Adam), second only to Bazu himself.
Lilith Edenson, one of the people present at the summoning, becomes a servant of Bazu by making a contract with him. During the summoning process, Adam killed his sister--Lilith, in love with her, was very much Not Okay with this. Contracts with a demon can be broken down into more or less trivial (the demon does something and in exchange the servant does a single task for the demon and is then free), difficult (the demon does something hard to accomplish and in exchange the servant has lifelong servitude, but is free once they die), or impossible (the demon, via the contract, accomplishes something that shouldn't be possible for the demon, in exchange for the person making the contract becoming an eternal servant, damned to forever be the slave of the demon), to more or less keep the long story short.
Reviving Adam's sister, whose death was integral to the success of the ritual, was an impossible feat, which via the contract, was achieved, but as a consequence, Lilith has become an eternal servant of Bazu.
And the actual protagonist of the story (because Bazu is more of the deutagonist), the one whose perspective the majority of the story is told through:
Evelyn Caine, preferring Eevee (not Eve), is the sister of Adam Caine and more or less FWB with Lilith. (Lilith is a lesbian, Eevee is pan, Lilith's love for Eevee is stronger than Eevee's love for Lilith but they have communicated their feelings. Eevee does love Lilith, just...not as much as Lilith loves Eevee, and Lilith has accepted this and is okay with the status of their relationship since both Eevee and Lilith are happy with it.)
Since Adam, her brother, becomes basically a lord of the damned helping Bazu accomplish his will in exchange for becoming more powerful, and Lilith her sort-of-lover is eternally indebted to Bazu to always serve his will, she more or less tags along with the group of them.
She is heavily a deadpan snarker, will heavily riff on Bazu, has a low opinion of him, will insult him, and so on and so forth. For his part, Bazu considers her expendable and will often trick her into doing things that are far more dangerous than they may seem, to further his own ends, and has no qualms of letting her die again and no intention of reviving her a second time should she die again. He demonstrates, both with his actions and his words, that she is essentially cannon fodder for him, a useful tool, but not an actual asset.
She doesn't really have a reason to help Bazu but more or less nonchalantly tags along and inevitably ends up helping him anyway. Sometimes by choice, sometimes to help Adam (she is his sister so she does care for him), sometimes to help Lilith (she does care about Lilith more than she cares about a friend), but often just because Bazu manipulated things that way.
Because Bazu is, specifically, the Demon of Charisma and is the most charismatic bastard around. Not the smartest, not the strongest, but his charm is why he was basically removed from the mortal realm; he was too much of a threat if allowed to roam free...
...And yet, the story follows precisely what happens after he does exactly that.
From Eevee's viewpoint, by and large.
I love the project and I like it a lot.
I can make it, too.
Will I?
Ehhh...not sure.
But it's primed and ready for me if I ever decided to.
So what else?
I kinda have a growing urge to mod Civilization III again.
I don't want to work on the Across the Ages project--that was a bit too cumbersome. I do like what I was doing with it, but it just was something that had too many issues that I don't think someone of my skill level could work out.
Instead, I wanted to work on a more toned-down attempt at a modified version of the Rise of Rome scenario.
My first modified Rise of Rome scenario was my first, and grandest, venture into modding Civ 3 stuff.
It had a ton of stuff done but was atrocious overall and I basically made it ridiculously easy mode regardless of who I was playing on, adding everything and the kitchen sink to it.
This toned-down version would have a few modifications that would risk pushing me into that territory, but which with luck I'd be fine with.
The basic idea, 7/8 playable, Egypt still on the decline, but with each civilization having specific traits of theirs emphasized and played up.
I'd remove pollution as much as is possible (this is just a quality of life improvement), add in Wool in locations as close to the Medieval scenario as is possible and no other locations (which would actually make it difficult to achieve for half the civs, which is a good thing!), turn silver/gold into resources, add in the wonders from Mesopotamia that aren't included, two outposts for Rome to allow for contacting the Celts and Goths (one in England, one in approximately Germany near the rivers there) with one unit on them, an extra Carthago Novo unit for Carthage as compensation, an outpost for Persia to allow first-turn contact with Scythia and similarly an extra Macedon unit as compensation, and then the draw to the scenario:
The units.
Goths would have a focus on raw offense, forgoing defense but having offense rivaling or even exceeding even Roman units.
Celts would have movement speed, traveling extra distance. Their units would have bog-standard attack/defense.
Carthage would have units that take less shields to produce, but require more resources to make, emphasizing their cheap mercenary nature. These units would be loosely equal to normal units, but some stronger and others weaker.
The Scythians would have units that treat all terrain as roads, but no extra movement speed, to differentiate their units from the Celtic units. Their units would have bog-standard attack/defense.
Rome would have their units be able to use all worker actions, have the strongest overall units in offense/defense (including a defensive horseman that'd be able to match their citizens), but pay for it in having those units be more expensive overall in terms of shields.
Egypt would have unique units, but have all of them be weaker than units from other civs, to represent their 'on the decline' nature.
The Greeks would have amphibious warriors/swordsmen (who would have stats equal to other swordsmen otherwise) and be self-balanced against the Persians for their spearmen to be loosely equivalent to the Persian swordsmen with Persian units having higher offense and lower defense and Macedonian units being equal in both.
Their units would be stronger than Carthage, but weaker than Rome.
I wouldn't touch things otherwise for risk of turning things too complex and ruining the simple idea as it is now.
Now, admittedly--there would still be about 75 units in the scenario, but that wouldn't be "75 units plus the ones already in there", it would be "75 units including the ones already in there".
Maybe bump it up to 80 when you add in leaders, armies, gallies, and workers.
But I am pretty sure a total of 80 units in the game or thereabouts, is not more than most scenarios.
I'd have to double-check to be sure, but I feel like if it's not actually much more than is in most scenarios, no real harm in striving for it.
It feels incredibly doable, I'd just need to do it.
Hmm, what else...I think that beyond that, it's just 'catching up' stuff.
I need to play a few TFT games to get the quest there.
I have eight days to play two RANKED (yes, RANKED) games of League, and to also play one of Garen, Jax, Draven, or Leona. (Sadly, I only own Garen of them. The one I'd least one to play.)
ARURF is life and I want to test if my build with a mana champion works on ARUF, where cooldowns are at 80% and every item is thus over the CDR limit. But also mostly to see if a manamune can transform into the muramana in ARURF.
I have obligations that I am days late to attending to, and these once I finally finish this blog entry (I think I've been writing this blog for an upwards of six hours?), those are going to be what I probably focus on.
I have a vod to watch and multiple videos to watch to catch up on. Probably about 12-24 in total. Most of them ~10 minutes but at least four of them are longer.
Busy, busy times.
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