Story Details
These aren't completely set details, but they are the general plan for where the story of Chimeric will go. It's also worth keeping note that
these shouldn't define the character arc cards beyond providing a common direction for all of them.
As a Whole
The recurring themes here to aim Chimeric, and towards holistic/completeness
For Characters:
- As each quarter progresses, daemons and mages should have an increasingly developed presence, as them not hiding in shadows anymore.
- Sort of a dialogue between daemons, humans, and mages, as past, present, and future respectively.
- Mostly human centric, to keep the fantastical portions seemingly sparing, and a window of the present
General Route:
- Starting from a time of anxiety, on the verge of fall or change, introduction here
- Falling, getting back up, other introspection
- Accepting a somewhat dreadful end, with a new found faith
Recurring Atmosphere:
- Stages of change and acceptance of something once feared (structured like an invitation to it)
- Dialogue who to care/trust, and contrast with vindication/confrontation
- Fantastical, yet haunted feeling that becomes more and more vocal in the next
- Overall, this sort of psychopomp observance
The most symbolic things are towards tempus fugit and the idea of removing splinters. Otherwise, I'm not trying to make some message on saving world hunger or other populous nonsense, I'm just aiming
towards something I would like.
On the otherhand, since it has never been easy for me to see as complete, the paradox of striving completeness, yet never complete is also to consider. Being considerate about time, yet never seeming
to reach what is truly considerate. Knowing oneself and getting rid of thorns, but never sure if completely removed. And both whisked, left to asked what intents really are.
First Quarter - An Uncertain World
These are mostly one-off stories. They should prime for the next, but now, they're mostly one-offs.
If it's worth doing, can lead into the next quarters. Otherwise, it's less an arching story, and more of
a picture painted by the details of the world at this very time.
Some One-Offs in Mind (make pandemonium ensue):
- Travelling across a strait
- Hunting down a lesser daemon
- Freeing a particular hostage
- Handling a feud between two cities
- Getting rid of a bunch of pirates
- Taking treasure from a place
- Escape being pursued by daemons
Atmosphere or Effect:
- Introduction to Chimeric's world, lingering feel on the recurring atmosphere to come, and feeling of an older world temporarily sober after madness
- Wondering of who to care/trust
- Anxiety on the verge of fall or change
There isn't a configuration in mind for this one beyond hinting at any details for the start of the second quarter. Really, it's telling good short stories here than anything since I know the approach hasn't been
defined yet. At most, they're meant to represent a time period in this world, and also center around the general themes of the setting.
Second Quarter - Autumn
Protagonists from before fight an empire that was beneath them.
For Characters:
- Protagonists from before banding up (but not consistently)
- Antagonists hinted before are not entirely unified, and slight implication they have a common power behind them
- Implication daemons are scrambling for their own matters here
Approach Here:
- More sporadic battles than the epic battle
- A more military angle to the stories
- Politics aren't involved much beyond illustrating main chemistry between protagonists
General Route:
- Start out with losses early
- Gaining ground
- Ending in a hopeful stalemate
Ending Route:
- By this point, Argyfasel taken back, and confident to this point despite deaths
- End up on a very bad chokepoint when pushing back
- Conflict gets out of hand to the point of daemons from both sides getting involved hand-to-hand
- Both sides back off from each other
Atmosphere or Effect:
- Contrast of finding care before with finding vindication now
- Pulling in one direction to seemingly go nowhere / struggle in change
- From stagnancy before to unwilling confrontation
I want to go about these quarters one with more sophistication after the first one, and I want it so that each of these quarters can be taken standalone barring continuity.
This quarter leans more into a military story influence, while still keeping the mystical presentation, and the effect is a mix of vindication and the feeling/idea of wars being violent rituals in of themselves, contrast
the increasing goodness of the protagonists versus the evil.
From the first quarter, it's falling down and having the hope to climb back up. Onto the third quarter, there is room to breathe despite defeat that seemed to go no where, and
like the first quarter, it is not entirely structured as a singular story minus a few.
Third Quarter - Chasm
More reflective adventure, the main characters from before slip into the inner world of daemons.
For Characters:
- Follows fewer, and the more distinguished characters, particularly Ro'vaiel
- More outward characterization of daemons here
Approach Here:
- Less action oriented than before
- More moody and/or adherent to mode (i.e. leaning into daemon horror)
- Somewhat of a romp into daemon world, and should leave even more mystery than when going in
General Route
- Find a way into daemons' place during a static time (thinking one of the daemons disguised as a prostitute reaching towards Ro'vaiel)
- Finding more about the daemon world
- Ending in helping them out, and finding out a more common enemy among them
Ending Route
- At the cusp of one battle, it was three of the humans that saved everyone else alive
- While preparing exit and giving gifts, took artifacts the daemons didn't understand, and daemons cannibalizing one of their undead daemons offended the protagonists greatly.
- After getting out, daemons get invited to the humans feast instead, and something about it gives them an uplifting melancholy.
- Daemons listening to the protagonists, as both realized some bad things happened while gone.
Atmosphere or Effect:
- Lost somewhere else (see myths of fairies for reference), and in the cold, nightly house of a bunch of winter shadows
- Contrast how better humans are to the daemons, and a dialogue between their respective glooms
- The fantastical and haunted aspect most vocal and visceral here
Probably the most unusual of the quarters, and the one I have wanted to for the longest time out of all of them. In a way, it's supposed to be an inverted Holy Grail story, where the humans
search for something in the daemon's world, and as uncertainty layers on them, they realize the misery until now lead them to something even the good daemons lack.
The good daemons realize this, and as clarity comes to all of them, they unite.
From the feeling of going no where, there is the descent into this quarter. From a moment of clarity, approach onto the last quarter, as a will to begrudgingly confront.
_
Last Quarter - Into Winter
The protagonists surviving to the next, settling on getting a series of antagonists down than rebuilding.
Approach Here:
- Combination of the other phases approaches, but leaning more towards the third
- At this point, anything here should follow the progression from all phases before
General Route
- Uproar of events breaking short stasis
- More towards defending while finding ways to pick off each antagonist
- Ending in getting all the daemon antagonists
Ending Route
- Last daemons united are taken out despite a seeming downhill battle (the protagonists are surrounded and outnumbered)
- Threats of evil daemons beyond getting all of them, and human antagonists before retreat or surrender, with no daemons above them
- Introspection of a darker time to come, but ready after learning from everything before
- Cryptic look into that time to top
Atmosphere or Effect:
- Acceptance of an uncertain conclusion, with clarity of situation
- Clarity of friends and enemies trailing to long after
- Mix of the visceral and the more deceptive fantastic/haunted feeling, as a sort of now entered a world that's not the same as once was
It should tie up about everything, but also being its own story, and leaving enough for a new story after.
After coming back for confrontation, slowly pulling the thorns both the good daemons and protagonists had, even if they considered the repercussions in the previous quarter, in clarity.
If the quarters were summarized as a very plain story: it is people, confused and languishing in a situation, who come to their senses when an unknown enemy pushes them down. Then, when they face
the enemies, they learn they're vindictive from a past unclear to them. Once they can breathe, they end up on a search of their past, and realizing where they really are, come back with the guides of the past, who
understand the fight too. Finally, they clash again, accept they're provoking bigger fights, and break the spirits of the enemies to defeat them.
