"...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.

It's not an original idea! It is an idea I would never be able to pull off for a multitude of reasons! Not enough inspiration to properly worldbuild; not enough talent to make the art; not enough material to write the slice-of-life comic to the length justifying creating the idea; a bundleload of reasons like that and so much more.

Basically. It's an idea I could never make, but which is neat and funny enough that I'd love to make it. I just never could. And like I said. This concept has probably been done before. Not just once, but probably multiple times. It's not an original idea; it's just my own spin on the idea.

Basically, it'd be a webcomic revolving around the central character known as 'You'. Full name, "Hey, You", so named derisively because they are called such by everyone and have grown to accept the name as theirs. They're an agender pansexual fairly androgynous high school student, not physically gifted, not extraordinarily smart, fairly average--very pop-cultured, due to isolation from society, but lacking much in real life experiences because they avoid the outside world due to excessive bullying and being called, constantly, a freak.

They apply for a high school tailored to Freaks, only this high school is...well. Pretty predictably. A high school for monsters. Vampires, werewolves, ghosts, and the like. (The 'the like' is the aforementioned "not inspired enough to properly worldbuild"; I'd need dozens of dozens of creatures to populate the world, creatures of myth and such, but I haven't fleshed that out yet.)

But because the school doesn't have any rule against accepting a human to their school, You gets accepted into the school anyway.

And from there gets introduced into the world of the supernatural and myths and the like and caught up in the monstrous equivalent of high school drama.

There are dozens of webcomics like this; there are hundreds with the monster-focused premise, which could do it so much better than I ever could.

But.

All the same.

​It was an idea, an idea I came up with today, and I would love to make it, I just never could for the plethora of reasons mentioned.

It's a little late.
I'm a little tired.
It's a little cold.
I kinda want to go to bed now.

But, I'm currently waiting for the ability to submit an action which'll take me ten minutes, and I have nothing else to do other than fill that time with something, and writing a blog entry proper seems as good a way as any to do it. Even though the blog will take far more than the time I needed.

I suppose I can write about the story idea I had on Sunday, Red Strider.
With the exception of the polyamorous relationship, I am fairly certain that everything in this story idea has been done before--my take, barring that particular aspect, is nothing unique, nothing original, nothing groundbreaking, nothing putting a twist on the tale which I invented and I am quite certain that it has all been done before.

But I am also quite certain that even if every individual aspect of the story has been done before.

All of them together?

Yeah, my story's the first.

So basically, this is a Little Red Riding Hood and Big Bad Wolf story, with the Lumberjack/Huntsman (combined to be the same guy, which...again, has been done before; combining those two guys to be one and the same is something which is often done) as well.

Specifically, the Big Bad Wolf is a werewolf by birth, who infected Little Red Riding Hood and the Huntsman with his lycanthropy. (So, Little Red Riding Hood as a werewolf, and the Huntsman/Lumberjack as a werewolf--again. Both of these have been done, albeit I'm pretty sure not together.)

To give a little more detail.
Little Red Riding Hood, in this case, is the titular character, the Red Strider: Rosanne (known as Rose to those close to her) "Red Strider" Hood. She, along with Clint "Huntsman" Hunter, and Arthur "Mutt" Wolfe, are a trio of monster hunters, who for their living travel from location to location helping out the locals with whatever supernatural threat may plague their city.

All three of them carry cold iron and silver weapons, along with also carrying wooden stakes, but each of them has their own unique skills, knowledge/background, and tools that the others do not have.

Rosanne was raised by her grandmother, a witch. (Specifically, a good witch--I'll explain more about witches below.) She was taught the knowledge of witchcraft and the tools of the trade, so she is a somewhat-talented witch of her own, albeit not a fullblown master of witchcraft. She was always a hunter, using her bow and arrow, and she also carries two hatchets and two knives on top of that.

She's got some training from Clint in the ways of the woods which she didn't learn with her own upbringing, but he's the real master of the art. She is in love with both Clint and Arthur. Her only qualms with transforming into a werewolf are that she doesn't want to broadcast this to her enemies (as it does have exploitable weaknesses) unless she chooses to, and that she does have a sense of modesty which transforming can potentially run afoul of. (See below.)

Clint Hunter is a master tracker, hunter, herbalist, scientist in the fields of flora and fauna, you get the idea. He basically has lived in the woods his entire life, hunting down prey and learning about natural medicines and remedies, as well as investing time to learn about the supernatural creatures of the world to know of their weaknesses and telltale calling signs.

He uses a crossbow with various different types of bolts, but additionally carries two axes, two hatchets, and two knives on top of that. He is in love with Rose. He is on a last-name basis with Wolfe when showing him begrudging respect. (When not showing begrudging respect, it's just 'Mutt'.) He has a strong distaste for using his werewolf abilities, but will do so in case of emergency.

Arthur Wolfe was born a werewolf. He doesn't know how old he is (werewolves are immortal), because his parents raised him in the wild. He doesn't know the day, month, or even year he was born, and he never cared to track such things. Still, for the vast majority of his life, Arthur was the Big Bad Wolf.

As in. He was evil. He ate people. He killed. He loved the thrill of the hunt, and sought out the best prey, the most challenging of things to hunt down and kill, to get immense pleasure out of the massacre along with a good feast. He was an unrepentant monster...and he still is.

Sort of.

When he met Rosanne, he fell in love with her, and while he originally was planning on eating her, he gradually changed his mind, and eventually (albeit after the eventful fight where Rosanne and Clint were both infected), he swore, promised, to put those days behind him.

He is under no magical oath to keep his word. He is a known liar, he hates being bound by rules, he hates laws, he hates restrictions, and his code of conduct is incredibly lose. So he has every reason to go back on his word--but in his love of Rosanne and knowing that she doesn't want him to do that, he simply chooses not to, even though he still really wants to.

Basically, he didn't change; he still wants to kill, he still wants to hunt, he still wants to be that sadistic murderer, but he gave a promise to not act on what he wanted to do despite his desire to--and while nothing is holding him to that promise...it's not a promise he wants to break because he knows Rosanne would be upset by it.

While he is a werewolf by birth, he is also a skilled alchemist. Alchemy is neither the work of science nor the work of witchcraft. It is a separate system altogether, with different principles. Now, granted. Knowledge of witchcraft/knowledge of scientific principles (such as having botanical knowledge) translate incredibly well into alchemy, but they are still two entirely separate things.

Alchemy, similar to witchcraft, is a latent genetic trait which in addition to requiring the gene also requires training to unlock and utilize the potential of. (And, no, the two are not mutually exclusive; there are plenty of witches who are also alchemists, and vice versa. And some of them are even scientists as well!)

So he carries the tools of the trade, but also arms himself with more traditional weapons. He carries two swords, and in addition to the swords, carries knives...lots, and lots, and lots of knives, throwing them as he pleases, to have basically the same amount of ammo as his companions.

He is in love with Rosanne, and while he and Clint aren't really fond of each other, they at least tolerate and work with the other and have managed to build a steady, healthy, working relationship with Rosanne.

He is a bit of a dick, and unashamably so. He's blunt, he doesn't mince words, he's unapologetic, unrepentant, but he is also astute, sharp-witted, reliable, and willing to do what needs to be done. He won't hesitate to perform a deed which is heroic in spite of his past lifestyle, and this past lifestyle can be an asset when called upon to perform deeds that are necessary but which nobody wants to due, e.g. mercy killing those who truly cannot be saved. (Which, they usually can be, if they are willing.)

So there are a few setting details I figured I should mention.
Obviously, this would be a land of fairy tales. A fantasy setting of some sort.
I haven't worked out all the details of the setting, but the general rule of thumb: almost no supernatural creature is inherently always evil; their evilness comes from the individual rather than from the supernatural.

For instance, obviously, Arthur is a werewolf who is evil--doing good things out of love, but still at heart evil. That's not due to being a werewolf; that's due to him having just been evil.

Most people are neutral with a slight inclination to lean towards acts of altruism, that is to say, most people are "more or less, decent/good folk". This includes the world of the supernatural. But the world is a big, big place, and plenty of places are plagued by those who in spite of the general natural lean towards being good...are just, rotten to their core.

Monsters, who are monsters. And most of them are supernatural with the power to inflict great harm on others.

Witches are no exception.
For the sake of classification, you can call some people "good witches" and some people "bad witches", but this is not something designated by some steadfast rule. There's no "oh you were born a bad witch, you can only be a bad witch", or "you were born a good witch, you must be a good witch"; there's no "good witch powers" compared to "bad witch powers"; there's no real separation between the two.

Witches are witches, regardless of whether they are good or bad. And whether they are good or bad isn't determined by birth, but rather, by what they do with the powers at their disposal. Witch powers are universal, so any witch can use any witch power, but some witch powers are more 'evil' in nature (for instance, the witchcraft which extends your lifespan beyond its natural maximum), while other powers are more 'good' in nature (for instance, shielding a place from harm).

I also wanted to talk about werewolves in the setting.
Birth-werewolves, those who were born as werewolves, are almost identical to werewolves who were turned later in their life. The transmission vector is specifically body fluids during a blue moon, usually a bite but other fluids work just as well for these purposes.

The main difference: werewolves who were turned must take full-wolf form during the full moon, and can't transform during the new moon; a birth werewolf has neither of these restrictions. Turned werewolves can also only transmit while in their full wolf form, a limitation a birth wolf lacks.

But, to get into their powers:
In human form, werewolves have peak levels of human everything. The strongest of strong human strength, the toughest of tough human endurance, the most attuned of sensitive human senses. Able to see, smell, hear, see, etc. to the highest ability possible for a human. With no need of exercising regularly being able to do stunts like run a marathon in record time, lift low hundreds of pounds, transport this load a long distance, you get the idea.

They are fast, they are strong, they are tough, but they are still at levels which a human can plausibly achieve. High athletic level, with the build to match. (So, yes, they are naturally ripped. Which applies regardless of gender.) If you took a look at them, you wouldn't think that they were supernatural creatures; you would think that they were average humans, performing feats which are appropriate for their in-shape body build.

And while no human could do everything they do all at once, a human could do anything individually that they do.

The one exception which is supernatural: they have skin which is harder to breach than any human (but not so hard as to make you think it's armor), and they still regenerate ridiculously well. I mean, cut off their heads and they'll die; cause intense extended trauma and they'll die (like, ripped in half and guts scattered), but they can explicitly survive wounds which would normally be lethal.

In their full wolf form, there are advantages and disadvantages.

They possess telepathy with other werewolves, able to communicate with other werewolves, regardless of the other werewolves' states. Other werewolves human but there's a full wolf werewolf? They can still communicate two ways without speaking a word. Other werewolves in half-wolf form but there's a full werewolf? They can still communicate two ways without speaking a word.

They can communicate with canines and felines--a particularly useful skill to have, as cats and dogs are particularly attuned to the supernatural world, and both have evil-detecting/good-detecting innate abilities.

They have the best smelling of any creature in existence. Go look up creatures with good smell (like dogs, bears, and the like--I'd actually have to do the research there myself which...I currently haven't), look at what they can do with their noses, and werewolves in full wolf form can do it.

They have the best hearing of any creature in existence. Same as above.

They have full night vision, able to see in absolute pitch black darkness with a clarity as if it were still as bright as day.

They are incredibly fast, nimble, agile, mobile, and maneuverable. They can sprint at incredible speeds, leap incredible distances with good turns, dodge, weave, twist, turn, you name it. 

Their fur provides not only natural warmth but also a natural level of armor, protecting against bodily harm.

They can pass as being "just a big dog".

They can still fit into smaller spaces.

They are still REALLY strong, supernaturally so. They're stronger than they are when they're human in these wolf forms.

And they have even higher regeneration capabilities in this form.

The form comes with a number of disadvantages though.
Full wolves are full wolves--no human vocal chords. By which, I mean, they can't speak. They can growl, but those growls can't really be understood by others.

Clothes do not transform with the werewolf--so when you take full wolf form, none of your human clothes would fit, and thus, they won't be there when you transform out of full wolf form.

They are fully quadrupedal; this obviously limits their dexterity. No fine motor control with paws or I guess jaws; they can't really do anything which requires opposable thumbs or the like.

As mentioned, they have the best hearing/smelling of any creature--this can cause sensory overload fairly easily. Where loud noises/really bad smells are physically painful to them and can briefly stun them.

They have, relatively speaking, low defense especially against blunt trauma--that is to say, they can very easily be tossed around, they can be stunned, winded, knocked unconscious, and the like by blunt force blows. Rocks, clubs, fists, you name it. They'll still take considerably more than a normal human would to be affected by this, but it is incredibly easy for anything with remotely high levels of peak-human-or-higher level strength to just...grab them and ragdoll them, tossing them about. They can't really counter that except by dodging.

In other words, while against projectiles and cutting and piercing weapons they have plenty of defenses, against blunt force weapons, they are "fragile speedsters".

They are wearing full fur coats--this can leave them vulnerable to overheating.

And they are fully carnivorous in this form; they cannot stomach anything except for meat in it, and thus, if taking this form and requiring sustenance, must eat meat from somewhere or another.

Their half-wolf forms come with their own advantages and disadvantages.
They can be bipedal or quadrupedal, switching between the two freely.
They are still incredibly fast and agile, with inhuman abilities to sprint, burst, leap, etc.
While even in wolf form they have incredible inhuman strength, in half wolf form this is amplified to levels which're high even by supernatural beast standards.
They have their already monstrous toughness raised to be literally like hard steel armor plating--they are basically a brick wall, immovable, hitting like a freight train moving at full speed, and indomitable.
They can actually speak.
They have both claws and teeth, but still have opposable thumbs, so have full human dexterity.
They are omnivorous, able to digest just about anything. Things even humans might not be able to.
They still have heightened senses of hearing and smelling--not as high as their full wolf forms, but still supernatural levels beyond what any human is capable of.
They still have fur to give them a second armor level and natural protection from the cold.

All in all, an awesome form which has almost all the strengths of both but almost none of the weaknesses beyond the universal ones.

But it's not without its flaws.
A half-werewolf form is obviously monstrous. It can take some convincing that, yeah, you're not there to eat the townsfolk if you stride in when wearing this form.

It can destroy clothing when transforming--this is why werewolves who care to preserve their clothing tend to wear a bunch of loose clothing with gaps in certain areas and elasticity to them, such that when they transform to and from this form, their clothing remains unscathed. Wear the wrong type of clothing though, and if you don't remove it before transforming, you shred it.

It has low maneuverability. It's fast. It's strong. It's a tank. But while it is capable of those acts of extreme athleticism. Those movements are largely linear. Straight up, straight forward, straight back, or at very slight angles. There isn't the same ability to turn on a dime that the full wolf form has, and even peak humans can do better than them (and thus, they can do better in their full human form).

Yeah, their maneuverability is still about at average human level, but considering their maneuverability in both other forms, this is a massive step down.

On a similar note: their sight is at human levels, lacking the enhancement of supernatural creatures.

And they still can suffer from overheating in this form.

There are a few things universal throughout all forms.
High regeneration.
Immortality.
Immunity to all diseases, even supernatural ones.

But also, weakness to silver--silver in this case causes their supernatural regeneration to be lowered for any wound made by a silver weapon to human levels. That is to say, a normal cut would heal instantly; a cut with a silver weapon wouldn't be permanent, but would still take weeks to heal, just as it would with any given human. This makes it much easier to kill a werewolf using silver weapons.

They also have a weakness towards wolfsbane. When you're not a birth werewolf, you can't transform at all when exposed to it. Even as a birth werewolf, while you can transform freely, you're brought down in strength/speed/etc. in those forms to more human levels.

Hmm...there might be more, but that's all I can think of.

Anyway, this did take me more than enough time and I am dead tired so I'll be going to bed once I do the action I was stalling time for.

Things that I would love to blog about...if it wasn't 7:45 am after I stayed up basically all night on an extended play-date with my girlfriend. And added stuff, too. (Basically fleshed out all of the Nine Hells.)

I'll talk about it tomorrow, I guess.

So let's blog about the story idea I had yesterday!
I envisioned it as a manga-styled (probably not literally right-to-left, but art-style, plot, the everything, stereotypical shonen manga) story, and named it 'SirPlus' (because while I imagine that pun is known, it's not something I think would be an actual story's name, whereas Surplus, the title that I'd otherwise want, would almost certainly be taken), after the titular character's eventual codename.

So to describe this story, I need to give some background info. The main inspiration is YuYuHakusho, with a significant dash of InuYasha but with sides of various other series which feature things like Ki or an equivalently-named body energy source.

The idea spawned from wanting to run a series featuring five energy types--and this being a stereotypical shonen series, yes, the protagonist can, eventually, tap into all five of the energy sources (and his codename derives from his ability to do so, thanks to a commonly-used reference chart for the nature of the five energy types).

The five energy types are as follows:
Holy Energy, considered the opposite of Demon Energy, has a few requirements. The user must be pure of heart (but mind you, 'pure of heart' has a very very loose definition; a chivalrous pervert can still be considered pure; someone who is pure evil is still pure; a well-intentioned extremist with pure intentions counts, and so on and so forth).

You must learn how to use Holy Energy while you are currently alive. (Mind you, you can use it if you've learned it even if you are dead; if you were a spirit who was through any means given a 'living' body, you can then learn it while using this body even if said form is only temporary.)

You cannot be a pureblooded demon; no demon can ever learn holy magic. Heck, while means of becoming a demon (though rare) may exist, if someone knows how to use Holy Energy, they cannot become a pureblooded demon. To become one, they'd have to give up their Holy Energy capacity altogether.

And finally, you must have training in how to use Energy--usually, this is easiest done if the energy you are training in is Spirit energy, but Body energy is just as commonly used (mostly because Body energy can be learned by literally anyone with training whereas Spirit energy has some requirements of its own).

With the exception of Kekkaishi, Shrine Maidens, and Holy Monks (each of which is a special exception because they use a specific variant of holy energy), this energy type is not inherited genetically. You can be born the child of a Holy Energy user and be unable to use it; you can be born the child of a family who nowhere in their family has anyone ever used Holy Energy and yet have the capacity to tap into it; you can be surrounded by Holy Energy users and never learn it yourself; you can have never ever ever encountered a Holy Energy user in your entire life and yet still pick up how to use it.

Literally any non-demon can use it, so long as they meet the specified criteria; pure of heart, currently alive, not a pureblooded demon, and trained in how to use Energy (so basically, Holy Energy is almost never the first of the five energy types learned unless you're a Kekkaishi, Shrine Maiden, or Holy Monk).

However, in spite of this capacity of anyone being able to learn it, it is the least-learned type of energy out there of the standard four. Its primary users are the Kekkaishi, Shrine Maidens, and Holy Monks, who learn it as part of their family legacies. (You don't need to be born into one of those three to take it up, but it is certainly much easier if you are born into a family of one of those three. You also aren't required to use that specific form of Holy Energy. Someone who is the child of a Kekkaishi can learn customized Holy Energy magic which doesn't involve Kekkaishi barriers at all.)

Kekkaishi, Barrier Warriors (who have an approximately equal number of active female and active male members), are mostly defensive. Their barriers can purify evil within them (which also gives them minor healing abilities, a frequent attribute of Holy Energy), but otherwise it takes creativity to use them offensively. Creating small spear-like barriers; crushing someone between two barriers; creating a barrier and removing the oxygen from within to asphyxiate those within; creating a barrier and exploding something within to create a contained localized explosion, etc.

Shrine Maidens (who are mostly, but not exclusively, female...though they are still called Shrine Maidens even when male and wear the Shrine Maiden clothing regardless of gender) are mostly offensive. They have limited healing abilities and are very skilled at detecting evil, finding weak points in enemy's defenses, and offensive usage of magic, mostly through either enchanted physical arrows (these are more powerful) or outright pure energy arrows (these are less powerful but have unlimited ammo and don't require lugging around a physical bow/quiver).

Our protagonist's mother is a semi-retired shrine maiden. She no longer travels across the country (something active shrine maidens are expected to do), but she still helps out at her shrine, around town, and trains the next generation of shrine maidens. Our protagonist refused to take up the family tradition, so isn't trained in shrine maiden holy magic, but he is trained by her in how to fight, skills he'd later transition into his own style. (He ends up using customized Holy Energy eventually, although it is not the first Energy type he learns even though he's obviously known about it his whole life.)

Holy Monks (who are mostly, but not exclusively, male) use a balance of offensive and defensive applications of their holy magic. They use charms, they use enchanted staves, they use holy fists/elbows/knees/feet, can launch some energy attacks, ward against attacks especially from evil, purify evil from an area, etc. 

All three have plentiful membership and all three have similar tendencies. Some stay local, to help out around the town, whereas others roam around the country (even world), helping out others, and it is expected for them to protect, to heal, to ward against evil and so on and so forth.

All three also happen to have been taught and learned that while a fair share of their enemies would be demons, demons are not inherently evil nor are all evils in the world originating from demons and are quite aware of what their fellow human beings are capable of, both the good and the bad.

But speaking of demons...

Demon Energy, on the opposite side of the spectrum from Holy Energy, is innate to anyone with demon blood in their veins. It is also exclusive to them. There's not much more to say than that. Only demons can use it, and every demon inherently uses it. Obviously, some demons use it more than others, but every demon has the capacity to use it to at least some degree.

Spirit Energy has similarly complex requirements to Holy energy. The user must have died--but mind you. This death doesn't require you to currently be dead. Clinical death counts. And, yes. That loophole you probably just thought of? It is exploited. If you are dead for less than a minute, it still counts as a death even if you are immediately revived.

Because this aspect of spirit energy is known and well-documented, it is commonly exploited in fact. Obviously, unlocking it via this method is considered dangerous (there's always the risk the revival fails), but it is still an oft-used albeit slightly dangerous method of unlocking this energy type for use.

In extremely rare cases, near-death experiences (especially accompanied by some combination of: latent untapped body energy potential, extremely strong presence of Spirit Energy in the area over a sufficiently long period of time, a brief comatose state accompanying the near-death experiences) can unlock it.

Spirit Energy also takes training to unlock and master. One need not unlock another type of energy first to use it, but it's certainly easier to learn spirit energy if you know how to use a different type of energy first. It is also much much easier to learn if you are a spirit, especially in a currently-not-in-a-living-body state.

Mind you--spirits who have obtained a living body don't magically lose access to their spirit energy; once unlocked, it's unlocked permanently even if you're well and truly fully alive the entire time.

Life Energy, on the opposite side of the spectrum from Spirit Energy, is never used by anyone even though almost anyone can use it. The 'almost' comes from it having a pretty simple restriction: its user must currently be alive, thus, spirits can't use it (and thus why it's considered to be on the opposite side of the spectrum).

Only a spirit sacrificing a revival method can use it without consequence; only a spirit with a currently-living vessel can use it, but doing so drains the life of the vessel. Life Energy is, simply put, sacrificing your lifespan. All beings, even demons who have lived for millenia, have a lifespan, and using life energy shortens it. It is irreversible; it is not something which you can just go use and then try to replace by using a different energy method (say, a demon trying to use a demon power to maintain their immortality).

Once gone, it is gone. It will shorten the time you have alive, permanently. It is finite in its supply. It is a measure of last resort, to be used only when you are ready to give up your life in a last-ditch effort to well and truly fight to the bitter end in defense of your objective. It cannot be forcefully used. It cannot be coerced out of someone. If you were, say, controlling the body of someone you wouldn't be able to kill them by making them use life energy. It requires conscious, deliberate, fully willing, thought to use as a measure of last resort, where you have pushed yourself to your limit and need a final push to actually accomplish the job.

As a consequence, unlike other energy types, it usually cannot be drained from others. (Energy drainers are in of themselves fairly rare, but they exist. Yet none of them can drain life energy. Well, almost none of them...) There's a minor exception; an antihero character (might be a rival to the protagonist? Not sure yet about that) can drain it...but only from those who consent to the drain. He tells them that he can fight, he can save them, but that they need to, say, give up one year of their life to do so and asks them if they accept; only if they do does he have the ability to use their life energy in the amount quantified.

There'd also be one vampiresque villain biting the neck of a victim with the ability to drain it--but only if the victim has absolutely no defense, no way of fending off the attack. No training, no resistance, no awareness, and no incredibly strong latent energy of any type.

The protagonist only uses it once, but it was a very notable instance.

The final type of energy, Body Energy, also called Ki Energy, is something literally anyone can learn to use. Everyone has it; everyone can use it. There's no restrictions; there's no limitations. All it takes is to train in it, or to be innately gifted with it and exposed to a sufficiently large trauma as to forcefully unlock it. (And for obvious reasons, the former is far more common than the latter and is the preferred method.)

None of these energy types are limited in what they can do; the only limits to them are the aforementioned requirements to be able to use them in the first place. They can do literally anything the user wants them to, provided the user has both the sufficient reserves of the energy (again, none of these energy types exist in unlimited quantities for a person; everyone has a finite supply at any given time) and the sufficient training in mastering what they want to do with it. (If you want to launch a fireball, you can't just spontaneously think 'launch a fireball' and it'll happen; every technique you use is something you need to train your body how to learn how to use.)

Now, there is a bit of a 'trump triangle' to energy types. Holy will, usually, be able to overcome Demon energy. Demon energy will, usually, be able to overcome Spirit energy. Spirit energy will, usually, be able to overcome Holy energy. But these aren't hard rules so much as general guidelines of "all other factors equal, one energy type has a slight advantage over the others".

For what it's worth, Ki is mostly neutral to all three but could potentially overall be at a slight disadvantage; Life energy is mostly going to have the advantage over all three but harvesting it is not going to guarantee victory.

Now it is worth mentioning: you know how in basically every single anime show ever, each and every single person has different moves and techniques? How they are customized to the individual; some series may have some standardized techniques and some series may have characters who trained together using at least one of the same moves while having personalized unique individual moves to not be completely identical; same principle applies here.

Energy, regardless of type, is highly customized to the individual. Each and every individual learns their own techniques. They name their own moves, they discover the motions for their moves on their own, they learn how to channel the energy and how to shape it to do the desired effect, all on their own.

They can also be taught by another how to do it, by being trained by them. Seeing it done, going through the motions of it being done, and so on and so forth until they learn how to accomplish the technique.

Thus, while there are standards, while some abilities (e.g. Kekkaishi/Shrine Maiden/Holy Monk ones) are standardized, most powers are unique to the individual. And even said standard abilities? Can be modified/customized by an individual, quite often, to somehow mold them differently from their original form/shape.

So these energies both simultaneously are and are not "magical do anything" energy types. You can do anything that you have trained yourself to be able to do. Shoot a spear of energy is something that if you trained how to do you can do, but if you wanted to spontaneously shoot a spear of energy, good luck. Create an energy shield is something that if you trained how to do you can do, but if you desperately needed to defend against an incoming attack and shouted 'shield!' without having actually trained yourself in how to create a shield...good luck.

This training isn't just mental, nor is it just physical; it is a combination of both. You need to actually practice, you need to actually learn, you need to actually figure out how something works, in order to do it. And skills don't instantly transfer from one energy type to another (with the exception of life energy which would never be used if it didn't have this ability setting it apart from the other four; nobody's going to willingly burn off their lifespan to train in how to use it, obv). You can't practice a skill using demon energy and then try to use that same skill using spirit energy; to pull off that skill using spirit energy, you need to practice using it with spirit energy and figure out the difference.

Mind you. Once you learn how to use one energy type, it's usually not that hard to transfer this knowledge into applying a different energy type. If it took you ten years to learn Ki, it might take you only ten weeks to figure out how to use spirit energy techniques that are similar to your body energy ones. But it is not an instant "it's active, therefore I can transfer one to another".

The main advantages to having access to multiple types of energy are as follows:
-As mentioned, certain energy types can have the edge over other energy types, situationally. So knowing how to use multiple types allows you to respond in the way most likely to give you the advantage.
-Certain energy types are more easily suited for certain skills than others. While every energy type can do what the others can, certain energy types have easier times doing specific tasks (say, forming an energy blade) than others do.
-The body only stores a finite amount of every given energy type at a given time. You don't have unlimited body, demon, holy, spirit, or life energy; they are a resource that is depleted and needs to be restored with rest and recovery.
...However. It's not "your body only stores a certain finite amount of total energy"; it's "your body only stores a certain finite amount of each energy type".

So basically, having access to two energy types doubles your energy pool; three, triple. Four, quadruple. All five, you can fight until you drop dead from expending your life energy which would presumably be the last to be fully depleted.

I wanted to make a story based around that concept.
What I came up with was that the protagonist was the son of the aforementioned Shrine Maiden and, secretly, unknown to him until much much much later in the story, the demon Rakan. (His father's actively involved in his life. Has a part-time job, is involved in housework, and the like. So the reason it's not known isn't because his dad's not around; it's just that his parents never told him that he's half-demon and never told him about his demon lineage so while he knows about his mother being a semi-retired shrine maiden, he has no clue that his father's a semi-retired monster.)

Rakan is...well, the pioneer of the Demon Bullet and Demon Blade techniques (the protagonist's first techniques were ki-based versions of these techniques); for centuries, he's been known for his rampages where he slaughters and literally devours humans.

He derives no pleasure from consuming human flesh, nor does he need to in order to survive. (He can live just fine off of normal food.) However, whenever he consumes human flesh, he gains a temporary huge boost to his power...and 1/100th of this boost is permanent so if he were to consume 100 humans he would effectively permanently boost his power as much as he would temporarily from a single serving.

He does like to fight opponents who put up a fight. Mind you, 'putting up a fight' does not translate to 'can actually threaten him'; usually when he went on his rampages he'd find the people taking up arms against him and shred them to pieces slowly. Enjoying the hunt, in a sense. And if someone tried to just...not fight him, he'd find a way to incentivize them into doing so.

In his own words he fully admits that while demons are not inherently evil, he is. (Well, mostly. He's under no obligation to his wife not to commit such acts. He never promised not to, he was never asked not to, she never instructed him not to, but out of love just chose to not do so anymore. Not because it'd be preying on her kind. Just because it seemed like a romantic gesture to him. He's got no intention to start eating humans again, but he didn't change his morals or anything of the sort. In his own words, "I fell in love with her, not the human race she belongs to.")

It'd have been fully possible for him to increase his power by nonlethal methods: consuming recently deceased corpses (they need to be fairly fresh for him to get the power), or even taking nonlethal bites out of a person (which even with the best of healing abilities will leave a scar, but which is easy enough for him to do). He killed humans because he thought it fun to do.

This earned him a lot of titles.
Rakan the Devourer.
Blood Bullet Rakan.
Demon Blade Rakan.
SerpentSlayer Rakan.
Lord Rakan. (The title demons, particularly those who consider themselves his servants, call him.)
Ninth Hell Rakan. (Basically, the ninth demon to be considered so powerful as to be hell on earth.)
Rakan the Slasher.
The Striped Tiger.
Crescent Heavenkiller Rakan.

He insists "most of those titles I earned by killing some dude who had a few of his own"--
Said person those titles were earned by killing? A demon by the name of Ivan the Unkillable, AKA, The Unslayable Serpent, AKA, DragonGod Ivan, AKA The Hand of Heaven. (He was later revived and thus, is still actually alive. Still, the act of killing him was enough to be worthy of attention.)

Ivan was a demon considered powerful enough where if he were so inclined he could've been powerful enough to be a Hell--and only wasn't one because he was actually fairly saintly in that he was a genuinely altruistic demon with no ulterior motive, a down-to-earth demon who was friendly and amicable...just, immensely powerful. (And is half the reason why people know demons aren't inherently evil even though quite a lot of demons are.)

Rakan insists that the only reason he was able to pull it off was that he had just fed on an entire city's worth of people and thus was at the absolute highest possible peak of his power, and in his own words, "I thought he was just some schmuck who objected to me slaying a city; if I had known who he was, I would've run."

Rakan certainly didn't help his reputation when, after the aforementioned event, there was a conference held in the afterlife on whether to hunt him down and kill him due to him being such a large threat. Rakan killed himself (after setting up a revival mechanism so that he'd be brought back to life) in order to invite himself to the conference and offer his viewpoint explaining the matter.

This would basically be akin to party crashing in on heaven when you're Lucifer and saying, "Yo, God, sorry about the mess I caused downstairs, but it was an accident, I swear; I came here to apologize for the misunderstanding." He said that the city slaying was done as an experiment, he found it boring, he promised he would never do something on that scale again, explained he had no intention of challenging people like Ivan, and promised to do them a favor so long as they didn't put out the kill order on him.

He got what he wanted; they decided not to put out the kill order on him...by instantly on the spot classifying him as the Ninth Hell--threats so dangerous that nobody is to try and kill because they are just that dangerous. (He later paid off that favor simply enough; they asked for him to be present in a place, which convinced one of the other nine hells to negotiate rather than fight as they were originally going to until Rakan was there.)

He also said that he would mitigate the damage he'd do by continuing to do what he was already doing: hunting down demons (particularly evil ones) of notable strength and killing them, so that they wouldn't menace people. He had ulterior motives for this, of course; not done out of any sense of altruism, but simply done to seek a challenge, in that he wanted to have some good fights against opponents he knew he could beat but which he'd still have some difficulty in bringing down, where it wouldn't be easy to massacre them.

So he is, as far as demons go...rather noteworthy, rather notorious, both by spirits and by other demons because of his actions over the course of centuries of carnage and mayhem. 

The protagonist inherited his father's powers, albeit dormant. As he is half-human, his demon powers passively grow stronger with time without him needing to consume human flesh. (He can consume human flesh to gain that immediate power spike and 1/100th of said power spike permanently being added...but as he's no desire to partake in cannibalism, for obvious reasons, opts not to.)

There's a tradeoff, though. Our protagonist is a really big eater who needs to eat a ton of calories to fuel said demon powers. In fact, when activating his demon powers, he consumes his own body fat and looks unnaturally muscular as a consequence when using his demon powers. He has the power to surpass his father quite easily, it's just that in his current state he can only use his demon powers at their fullest for a limited amount of time as a consequence of currently requiring that consumption of his own body to activate them.

Mind you, that is not a normal demon trait; it is a trait specific to "newblood" demons, where their demonic powers can only be activated by a trigger mechanism of some sort. His trigger mechanism just so happens to be his father's trait of consuming flesh. Given enough time to develop, he'd be able to use his demon powers without the need to consume his own body flesh, and consuming his own body flesh would be an optional thing done to give his demon powers an immediate power boost.

I guess I should talk about the world the setting takes place in.

In this setting, demons have faded in and out of common knowledge. Sometimes, they're out in the open and everyone knows about them; other times, they're in the shadows and very few humans are "in the know". In the current modern era the story is set in, people are slowly transitioning from a long period of the former into the latter; demons aren't completely out in the open, but they're less and less secretive.

There's not an unlimited number of afterlives, but there is a very large number of afterlives for dead people to go to; they will go to the afterlife most suited for them. Some could be described as 'hell', most would be described as some form of 'heaven'. There's a transitionary realm between our world and said afterlives, where there's a collective bureaucracy of spirits who help make the transition of spirits into the afterlives easier.

The existence of spirits is not public knowledge, but it's a bit of an "open secret"; basically everyone who uses energy or is closely tied to someone who uses energy has some awareness of spirits' existence. They are, after all, heavily involved with the world.

Usage of ki is something everyone knows about, though. Everyone knows how ki works; everyone knows ki exists; everyone knows what ki does, and so on and so forth. Not everyone learns how to use it; in fact, most people don't. But it's a thing that everyone knows about.

Martial artists are a big thing, as are organizations that travel across the world. Some official, some unofficial, some international, some by country. Militaries and Police Forces usually have many members trained in the usage of at least one form of energy; Detectives with powers investigating usage of powers are a thing; etc.

The setting would, obviously. Have Loads And Loads of Characters. Some muggle, most not; some who start muggle and gain powers, most who were already using energy of one form or another at the beginning of the story. (Our protagonist starts off not having any, but very very very quickly learns ki, as the need arises.)

There's probably more details to the story than these, but this is most of where the idea came from.

It's a big​ project and you can maybe see why I wanted to make it. I really love the idea.

For a start, I thought of a really freakin' cool story idea which is ready to blog about, but which I should probably be more lucid to attempt to blog about. I did well in TFT today, both gaining points in ranked and also winning a match in unranked. I even performed adequately in League itself! I had to be carried pretty much, but I still managed to hold my own well enough in the games I won. Wasn't the best on my team, but helped contribute to the win both times.

My one regret for today: the day is over. Like, I did a nice workout this morning; I didn't have a hard time at work; I thought of a good story idea while at work; I had fun playing games once home from work; literally the only bummer about the day is that the day is at its end.

I've been up for 19.5 hours, and even though it's only just past midnight (12:30), I'm dead tired. I want to stay up longer. I want the day not to end. I want it continue. I want to still do stuff. But I'm just...out of energy, both physical and mental. And for most tasks, emotional. Doing the stuff I did was great, but it was also draining and I don't think I can handle any more of it for a while.

​So I guess it's to bed with me.

Not just any birthday, mind you. The last official "you are now an adult" birthday by legal standards. Everyone knows about the eighteen-year mark; everyone knows about the 21-year mark; some regions have other age marks for adulthood but those two are the famous ones.

Yet what they don't tell you is that there's a third: the age where you can no longer be covered by your parents (on insurance, etc.). I'm not quite sure that's as universal (the age might differ in different countries and some countries might lack that restriction altogether), but here in the good ol' US of A, that age is 26. My age as of today.

So by the last standard in existence legally, I'm technically an adult. Sure don't feel like one tho.

Anyway, I have no clue when this is scheduled for, but APPARENTLY, to celebrate my birthday, the plan's to go to an arcade sometime vaguely soonish. My main hesitation is, I don't know if I'm expected to pay for my playing. If so, I don't want to spend my own money and it seems like a bit of a waste for me to go and do nothing but watch. But if someone else fields my bill--or rather, coins--heck yes I'll try it out. If not, well...I'm a cheapskate scrooge who hordes money.

I may or may not have more to talk about later, or maybe I expand on the above. Right now, I'm writing this up to be typed later, because I'm at work. There's an hour's gap between when I finish my TKD workout and when I start work, a gap I normally fill with browsing the internet (well, kinda; browsing one site specifically) on my phone.

There's just one problem:
My phone charger died/quit working. It was working two days ago on Sunday, but quit some time between then and now. Natural consequence of this?
Obviously...with my phone on for two days when it's a years-old phone that gets close to death within 24 hours of being uncharged...the phone itself died. It'll be fine once I get it recharged for a few hours, going from 0% batter to 100% battery, but that'll require a new phone charger, one that I currently obviously lack as the current one failing me caught me off-guard. (I suspected it'd eventually need replacing because of the exposed wires. I didn't suspect it'd need it so soon.)

That having been said...while I'm writing this blog out of boredom, I don't have any real topic to discuss (also, because I'm writing larger letters today, I'm running out of room on the paper). The story I want to blog about has its notes at home and I've nothing new to add to said notes. A new story isn't ready for a blog just yet; I'm still fleshing out the concept (short version: villain protagonist in a superhero setting, and trying to write a villain protagonist who ISN'T a Well-Intentioned Extremist, isn't secretly good, is just an actual villain but not motivated by typical villain ambitions of greed, revenge, or power, with the power set to allow for them to get away with it while not being story-breaking).

​So I just don't have access to anything right now.

I've got like almost two dozen videos that I want to watch.
I've not been playing many League games even though I have quests that'll expire soon and I want to complete them.
I've not been playing ranked TFT games as much as I want.
I've not been blogging with the blog entries on the stories I want to blog about.
And I have dozens of obligations beyond that.

I'm not going to be able to go to tae kwon do tomorrow from a combination of having basically-a-blister (it looks like a blister but was not a blister; I went onto the guard stand with a perfectly healthy foot and then by half-way through the rotation I looked at my foot and suddenly there was torn skin on my heel, so what probably happened is that I scraped it hard against the wooden chair) on a day where we were supposed to run (running and blisters, bad mix) plus me just generally not feeling well.

Which means in an area I am already incompetent in (physical fitness), I'll be falling even more behind because I can't do what I need to do to stay in shape.

There's just.

​So much I'm not doing, that I need to do.

...But then I forgot, and ended up playing Teamfight Tactics all day long. (Oops.) In my defense, I had a good excuse; I was both trying to advance my quests forward (which takes a ton of games) and trying out the new system (they revamped a lot of things in 9.14) and trying out the ranked system.

By the way, combining the three...not the best of ideas for obtaining a good rank. Between unfamiliarity with what the best comps would be in the latest meta (needing to relearn everything...or as it turns out, not very much to be honest) and going out of my way to make comps that weren't the most ideal but would fulfill the requirements, I ended up initially placed in Iron II.

Yes, Iron.

I've since advanced to Bronze IV, but my LP is so ridiculously/dangerously low that I could be demoted back into iron in any case of having bad random rolls.

And make no mistake, the game still is random. Riot games improved it. You almost always get at least one drop from a wave...but it's "almost", not "always". Furthermore, said drop? Can be gold...which is utterly worthless...especially when instead of an item which could be more valuable than twenty gold, you end up with a consolation prize of...one. gold. piece.

Basically you still need to get lucky on what items you get.
This also applies to the carousel. You need to, if near/at the bottom, be lucky with what's on it; you need to, if near/at the top, hope that the people below leave you something you want and/or that there was nothing on the carousel that was gamebreaking.

Items, or a lack thereof, still drive a significant part of the game.

And then there's the rolls. You can't get by with any combination of mostly-T1-synergies; you can't get by past the earlygame with non-synergistic T2s. To do well in a match, you need T2s that happen to have good synergies...which...requires luck.

There's some skill involved, sure, but right now a single bad game can knock you down for circumstances out of your  control, which kinda sucks.

Oh well.

I'm most of the way to the final Beta reward (well, final that I know of, anyway); if I completed the current quests I have, I'd have it! But since that'd require at least ten games...it'll have to wait.

​I'm going to bed now instead.

...Or. At least.
Let's WRITE a proper blog entry today. I'm writing this at work; there's only about a 20% chance I end up POSTING it today, with only a 30% chance I even end up posting it at all. (If I don't post it the day of, odds are fairly high I don't post it at all.)

But I've gotta try.

You know why?

...Because today, I worldbuilt an ENTIRE WORLD. One with 11.5 races in it, an entire history of a continent, cultures for each of them, myth and lore for some, biology, magical rules, even the UNIVERSE BEYOND THE WORLD THE STORY TAKES PLACE ON.

Multiple characters (I've thought up about a dozen or two) and basically the plot from start to finish. I even have a name and a half for the protagonist! (The protagonist renames himself Dmitrius; I've got an idea for the type of original name for him, but it's not set in stone. I wanted something 'kinda mundane, but not incredibly mundane, a name you'd expect to see from a fantasy character that's not too out there and still realistic', the likes of, say, 'Tristan' which is the working name I have for him even though I tend to overuse the name Tristan in my stories or names similar to it.)

All of this originated from the most innocuous of all things; during work, I got a song stuck in my head. Didn't even hear the song played; I just thought of it randomly and then it kinda just resonated in me for a while.

Which song?

​This one:

...Specifically, the lyrics,
"Nobody knows what it's like,
To be the bad man,
To be the sad man".

Which got me thinking about Villain Protagonists. They're a dime a dozen, even the specific breed of Villain Protagonist I thought of; not someone with a fundamental physical need to be villainous (think like "needs to feast on human flesh" types of literally-can't-not-be-a-villain), not someone forced into villainy by circumstances (think like "needs cash from villainous acts to get by"), but rather, someone who CHOSE to be a villain, even knowing that being a villain would suck.

Someone who doesn't do evil because it feels good and quite the opposite knows it feels bad. Someone who doesn't do evil because of some petty reasoning but who has an actual ambition beyond a stereotypical villainous goal like conquering, greed, revenge, etc.

Someone who goes into villainy knowing it wouldn't be easy, knowing it wouldn't be fun, knowing it wouldn't be guaranteed to work out and failure would be very realistically an outcome...and yet in spite of knowing these things, willingly and deliberately embarked into villainy ANYWAY.

I've always loved those sorts of stories, and while I know the concept's far from unique, I wanted to take my shot at my own spin on the concept, and it all kinda snowballed from there. Some things I decided right away; while options like a webcomic might work, I kinda wanted to use the narration method of literature, of writing, for it, in part because I developed a unique narration style for the story--one I've used similar before but never quite this one.

More specifically, a mixture of present tense and flashback past tense; a mixture of the Villain Protagonist's first person perspective, and biased/detailed/subjective third person perspective (as opposed to unbiased/distanced/objective third person; the difference between the two is that biased/detailed/subjective gives insight into characters' minds in spite of it not literally being inside of their heads; even though you're not reading things from their perspective, you still have a bias where things come across as if they were being shown from that character's viewpoint).

I had a good concept for the kind of content I wanted in the story. It would show his feelings (how much he hates what he's doing, pretty much, chronicling how he's miserable and in spite of being really dang good at the whole villainy thing as a natural who has the act down pat, he hates every single minute of it and despises every act he's doing, but keeps doing it because of his objective, his goal), while also showing what he's doing:

Fighting, then killing, former friends...and after all of those are dead, fighting, then killing, genuinely good people who he knows are genuinely good people. Not "jerks with hearts of gold", not people who look nice but who have secret bad sides, not people who have any real character faults...except for one; unfortunately, due to their altruism, they stand in opposition to his end goals.

They are literally just genuinely, seriously, legitimately nice folks, unambiguously so, and he slaughters them when they get in his way, because they are in his way and he needs to remove them in order to accomplish his plan.

Flashbacks would help detail his rise to villainy, his goals, his motives, and even his plan, chunk by chunk, section by section. We'd only very very slowly learn bits and pieces of what motivates him, what drives him to villainy (save for the tagline, which we'd get immediately, foreshadowing/hinting at the full extent of his plan), with us only getting the very final part at the very end of the story and letting it all fall into place.

The least-spoilery version that I can share with you (I don't want to give the actual full version in this blog because no joke, I might actually write this story because it's just that good to me and spoilering it in this blog months/years before I write it would kinda ruin the big plot twist/reveal): he aims to break the setting's Medieval Stasis (oh I need to talk about that, patience, I will below in a sec); I can give some more details below on that but not too much.

To facilitate this idea, I brainstormed a setting; my answer--a High Fantasy setting:
Medieval-level technology (by and large at least; mostly swords, bows, and the like augmented by magic, runes, and magitech), augmented by magic (specifically, two different types--casting magic whose most proficient users of the 'civilized races' is the elves, and rune magic, whose most proficient users of the 'civilized races' is the dwarves, with humans and gnomes being a middle ground using both in the form of magitech).

There would be multiple clichéd races (the aforementioned loose affiliation of "allied"/good/'civilized' races; Elves, Dwarves, Gnomes, and Humans), and the setting would be on a single content they all share space on.

Said continent is more or less a Pangaea-shaped continent. Think 'combined land mass and variety in geographical features of North America and South America'...but with it being the comparative size to the whole world of Australia.
I need better words for that. Imagine that the landmass of this continent is 16.428 million miles². However, imagine that instead of the total size of the world being 196.9 million miles², the total landmass of this setting would be 1089.115555555553 million miles².

Or thereabouts. (My math might be horribly off here if I didn't do the process correctly. Basically, Australia's landmass is 2.97 million miles squared, and the landmass of the earth is 196.9 million miles squared; Australia's landmass is 1.50837988826816% the total landmass of the earth; divide the combined landmass of North and South America by that number, 0.0150837988826816, and you should get the comparative mass of the planet this setting takes place on. That, or I completely and horrifically failed at math forever.)

Basically what I'm saying is, their planet is huge, but all of life as the civilized races know it exists on one continent; they've never ventured into the ocean beyond to explore the rest of their world even though they have calculated the total size of their world and know that their continent is only a mere fraction of it. (And yes, canonically they do in fact have full other continents in existence which have just never been explored and are total unknowns to the sentient/sapient life on the continent.)

But really, one of the first things I developed--and the thing which makes the whole setting fall into place--is the story's slogan. If it were a webcomic, it'd be the webcomic slogan; if this story got a TVTropes page, it'd be the page quote, etc. It's the driving message, opening the book and yet echoing throughout, constantly referred back to. Not exactly the most original of slogans, but apt all the same:

"Sometimes, the world needs a villain."

And that slogan needed justification.

Why would the setting need a villain?

There had to be both 1: A solid reason why the medieval stasis developed in the first place (short answer, people became placated after having won a war), and yet also 2: a reason why it was a Very Bad Thing to have happened in the first place, which our Villain Protagonist, Dmitrius, felt the need to become a villain to fix, to break the status quo.

And that I can go into without it being a spoiler because this is just background lore, setting details which prop up the narrative and are important to the fundamental plot but which don't give any of the crucial details away. Stuff that helps people explore the world but which you don't necessarily need in the book itself (even though it will all be in the book itself).

What I came up with?

Basically, the "good guy" races, AKA, "magical humanoids"--the aforementioned Humans, Dwarves, Elves, and Gnomes--long ago triumphed over their traditionally-cliched-"evil"-counterparts. (In this case, an alliance of Orcs/Goblins/Hobgoblins/Kobolds/Ogres, who are "magically impaired humanoids" incapable of using EITHER runic OR casting magic, and who instead relied on technological advancement.)

In this setting, the traditionally-cliched-'evil'-races were not in fact evil, and no, they were not portrayed as evil, either. Everyone knows that they weren't. They regret that conflict arose, war broke out, differences couldn't be settled, and ultimately the only peace to be had was the seeming extinction of the five magically impaired humanoid races.

And no--the Medieval Stasis of the setting is not because those races were the only ones developing technology, as you might expect the cliched answer to why there is a Medieval Stasis to be...although their absence is part of the reason why the Medieval Stasis developed in the first place.

Monsters are all-but extinct (only one race of monsters is known to exist and they are an endangered species whose sightings are incredibly rare and are meticulously hunted down and exterminated promptly) and no threats exist.

People aren't unified into one "allied nation"; people aren't unified into four kingdoms one for each race; for the most part, while small kingdoms that rule a few cities exist, by and large, individual cities govern themselves and are otherwise unaffiliated. There's no alliances to be had, because there's no wars, no pacts, to be made. They've never had a need to form them, to form a grand unified nation, because they never have a need to fight with each other; there's an eternal peace.

Resources are bountiful; space is plentiful. Religious beliefs do differ, but these differences are a matter of academic debate rather than driving jihads/crusades. Basically, while the people have some sense of not being completely defenseless (because they still know that there are threats which, however unlikely, could menace them), they just have no need to fight each other, no need to really break the peace.

That's not to say there's no fighting at all, no squabbles, no violence whatsoever. Crimes happen, people fight even with weapons, clash with each other in skirmishes, but these things never escalate too far because they can be settled without the need for it.

With the level of magical/technological knowledge the races have, each race has basically doubled their natural lifespan. Humans to 150, Gnomes to 200, Dwarves to 500, Elves to 1200. And with the level of healing magic/runes/magitech available, pretty much nobody dies of anything other than old age. (Which, mind you, is one of the reasons why fighting's not very common. There's not really a drive for revenge because nobody dies to be avenged in the first place; there's not really a point in fighting to the death when it's basically impossible to kill each other.)

For all intents and purposes, it looks like a utopia, but the Medieval Stasis is, in large part, because it is so 'perfect'. Nobody has a need to advance things further than they were when they won the war. Nobody has a need to invent anything new, because their every need and want can be met now. 

While there are passionate individuals who love adventure and exploration, there's no actual need for them to do those things aside from thrill-seeking; while there are those who like the challenges of furthering theories of magic, the abilities of casting magic and rune magic and hybridizations of the two have been explored to the point of being science, and past a certain point that science can't really advance much further because every breakthrough that they could plausibly have made, has already been made, and they have no paradigm shift to force a change in their perspectives.

Thus.

Stasis.

And our villain protagonist's goal is to break that altogether, for reasons that you start the story not knowing. All we get to know is exactly what I said; the story slogan. That he genuinely believes the one and only way to succeed at his goal, to break the stasis, is for there to be a villain...and since nobody he knew of was exactly volunteering to fill the role, he took it upon himself to play the part and enact his agenda.

He started his crusade by slowly gathering the forces of the hidden world.

His first ally: a Minotaur. Minotaurs are the aforementioned last monster race in existence. In this setting, monsters are just as intelligent as the magical (and for that matter, non-magical) humanoids. They are brilliant, smart, cunning, deadly monsters who can be bipedal or quadrupedal...but this comes at a tradeoff.

​Minotaurs, as all other monster races were, are magically-inept, just like the non-magical humanoids. That means that all magical spells to facilitate communication with them won't work. Magic works on them. So you can communicate to them. But you can't receive any feedback from them. No telepathy/mindreading, no empaths reading their emotions, nothing.

They have no real hands to speak of (they have hooves), so they are incapable of using any form of technology, really, even basic tech like a sword or ax. Combined with their inability to use any form of magic, that means they are limited to their innate natural physiology (which is, admittedly, more than enough on its own; they are basically monstrous bulls capable of bulldozing through rows of people and of maneuvering on either all fours or on two legs and instantly switching between the two).

They have a language of their own...but the problem is. They are utterly, physically, completely and entirely, unable to speak the magical-humanoid language (for simplicity's sake let's call it English). With training, they can understand it. They can be taught to understand what's being said when someone is speaking English, but they have a fundamental physical inability to talk back in it. And due to said magical ineptitude, no spells can translate their language into English.

Vice-versa is also the case. With training, someone can understand what they are saying when they speak their own language. But no humanoid can actually speak their language. This meant that there was an obvious, basically-unsolvable communication barrier between the species, and when they met, conflict naturally arose.

The magical humanoids knew that monsters were smart and had human intelligence, but they had no way of knowing that they weren't just "smart, dangerous beasts", so in this sense yes magical humanoids did in fact categorize a not-really-evil race as 'evil', but in this case it was backed up by basically their first meetings eons ago. Both could recognize the intelligence of the other, but not understand anything else about them, and past a certain point both sides just fell into the roll of "automatically try to wipe out the other".

Dmitrius managed to use the Freetalk spell (after using a 'hold person' spell to ensure the minotaur didn't run away--Dmitrius started the engagement when he deduced that 'hold person' only works on sentient, sapient lifeforms and thus confirmed that, yes, Minotaurs are in fact intelligent enough to be communicated with) to bridge the gap.

What's the Freetalk spell? Literally "Talking Is A Free Action" given an actual justification in the setting. It's the spell that even non-mage adventurers back when adventurers were a commonality learned because it allowed for conversations spanning hours to take place in the matter of only seconds. People couldn't move while using the spell beyond making communication-essential gestures (like pointing to something, for instance), but it allows for conversations to happen.

Dmitrius basically taught the Minotaur how to understand English (he deemed the minotaur smart enough to pick it up and that it'd be faster for the minotaur to learn English first than for him to learn the minotaur's language first), and once the Minotaur understood his English, the minotaur was able to walk Dmitrius through, very slowly, how to understand the minotaur's language, allowing for them to speak to each other in their own language and still hold conversation.

He began gathering the surviving minotaurs, pointing out that if they didn't do something they'd be on their way to extinction within 100 years and even if they outlived that expectation, expansion of the humanoid magic users would ensure their extinction within the next 300 years; he knew that if they wanted to survive as a species, they needed to change something and he began convincing them.

With them contacted/located, he asked them about the non-magical humanoid races, on the theory that they were not in fact actually extinct and were simply far, far more well-hidden and scattered. He was right. 

The thing about Orcs, Goblins, Hobgoblins, Kobolds, and Ogres is that the five used to be a unified kingdom. They had one ruler, and were a coherent nation. One single grand supernation from this super-alliance of technological innovators.

But disputes between them and the four magical humanoid races elevated, tensions rose, and war broke out. The four magical humanoid races, in spite of previously not having been unified (and after having won the war, no longer being unified), did in fact unify to stand a chance against the mighty kingdom and though the war waged for hundreds of years...they did eventually emerge victorious.

This victory wasn't because their magic was superior.
It wasn't because of internal strife.
It wasn't because of them being smarter/better or anything like that.

It was a simple matter of two factors when combined together, basically boiling down to atrophy.

The non-magical humanoid races had a few advantages over the magical humanoid races. They learn much, much, much faster than the magical humanoid races; they breed in the span of a couple of months rather than almost a year; when breeding they breed dozens of offspring rather than just one or two; they're hermaphrodites so they aren't limited in reproductive partners.

But there's a tradeoff; they live for a much, much, much shorter span of time. Their average life expectancy is an average across the five races (some shorter, some longer) of 20 years; with their technology, they can extend it further to 30-40, but they are still much much much shorter lived than their magical humanoid counterparts.

There's also the simple matter of experience and logistics. With their vast numerical superiority, you'd think they'd be overwhelming...but the problem is, those increased numbers require an increase in resources to maintain...and in the aftermath of combat, that's more bodies who need medical treatment.

To put it simply: in the aftermath of any given battle, every single magical humanoid involved that lived through the battle would not only live, but also be able to get back into top fighting form, living to fight another day.

In the aftermath of any given battle, not every single non-magical humanoid involved that lived through the battle...would end up living. It was simply impossible to rescue them all from death, and even if they were saved, it wasn't guaranteed that they wouldn't be crippled.

In the span of 80 years, you'd have a single magical humanoid general square off against 8 non-magical humanoid generals. That disconnect in leadership, in experience, in continuity, was disastrous. They had built an empire, but in the atrophying state of warfare, the transitions between leaders wasn't smooth, whereas on the side of the magical humanoids, they had all the time in the world to smoothly transition from one leader to another.

Another way of thinking about it: the non-magical humanoids were very very quick to learn as individuals, but as a species were quite slow to learn; the magical humanoids are very slow learning as individuals, but as a species could learn far more efficiently the ever-changing nature of total warfare.

Dmitrius offered them a return to their homelands, a return to the state where they used to be, pointing out that with him at the helm and with the help of all his gathered forces, they would be able to overcome this shortcoming, especially when given that their opponents, placated by such a long-standing peace, would have since forgotten in their stagnation the way of war, whereas them in their harsh living conditions have continued to advance and now have technology far beyond what they had the last time the races clashed.

There is one more race that Dmitrius gathers to his cause: the Dragons. Dragons used to dominate the land even before the days of the non-magical humanoid empire. In fact, it was a combined alliance of all humanoids, magical and non-magical alike, that brought the dragons (helped by internal strife with the dragons, as the dragons were all greedy and selfish to a fault) to extinction.

Or rather, so it was believed. The truth: dragons are immortal, not dieing of old age at all. Every female dragon died, so they are incapable of hatching dragonlings, of laying eggs and birthing a new generation of dragons; the current dragons alive are the last there are, but they still exist. They're just all male and can't procreate.

Dmitrius offers, in return for their services, the help of the non-humanoid breeding pits to create female clones of every single dragon alive. Obviously, the male dragons can't mate with their own clone (it'd basically be like matiing with your sister; incest and all of that, not exactly great for the long-term survival of a species), but basically...there is enough genetic diversity across the dragon species because essentially none of the surviving male dragons are closely related to one another that any given male dragon can mate with basically any other male dragon's female clone.

A male dragon mating with a different male dragon's female clone wouldn't produce any problems because the other male dragon's female clone would have sufficiently different genes from the male mating with her that their offspring would be viable.

Granted, dragons take a hundred years to reach mating age (one of the reasons why they got to extinction range in the first place), but given they are literally immortal, a hundred years of serving Dmitrius's agenda is well worth the revitalization of their race to them. Which is a big deal, because dragons are...well. DRAGONS.

Like, three times the size of a humanoid. Breath fire. Scaled, hard to puncture skin. Winged fliers. Lots of sharp teeth and sharp claws. Most skilled magic users of all in both runic AND casting magic. DRAGONS.

And Dmitrius makes them his allies.

Dmitrius has one more ally up his sleeve as well, but one of his own creation.

Long ago, necromancy was thought to have gone extinct because the magical humanoid races thought necromancy was an abomination which kept the souls of the living from moving on to the afterlife. Dmitrius doesn't know if that's true or not (there's no proven afterlife, there's no disproven afterlife, there's no proof that souls suffer when made undead, etc.), but he honestly doesn't care; the utility of having an undead army is simply too much of one for him to ignore.

There's a minor limitation; necromancy only works on the four magical humanoid races' corpses. He can't revive, say, a dead dragon; a dead orc; a dead minotaur. But he can revive en masse a massive army of Undead servants, and does precisely that.

That's basically how he ends up beginning his ascent to villainhood.

There's probably more I'm forgetting to share, but that's all I can think of at the moment.

It's a really good idea, I think.

Like I said, I thought of basically everything.

Only thing I really lack is the story's name and the world/continent's name. (I'm thinking that in spite of the world not being just the continent, that they would name the continent and world one and the same. Because in spite of knowing that their world is more than just their continent now​, at the time it gained its name, the two were considered one and the same. Whole, evolving knowledge, and all that.)