Tatterdemalion

Princess-Champions of Hyperborea

Mittens!

POP!

When Eupheria arrives, it’s with a shower of neon fireworks, right next to you. You jump and hiss and nearly fall right off the platform. (Why aren’t there guardrails?? This is so badly designed!)

“Mittens, look at what you’ve done!” She puts one of her hands on your head and spins you like a top. “If you didn’t like your pretty dress, why didn’t you just say so? Tsk, tsk, what are they teaching you in the Solarium these days? Back in my day, Mommy would have sent me to my room without dessert for ruining my clothes!”

She releases you and lets you spin dizzily over the edge, only to grab you by the waist and pull you back in close. You end up smooshed against her blouse while you try to get the world to stop tilting so violently.

“But don’t you worry, darling! Grandma is here to take such good care of you!” She plucks the snakerchief out of your mouth, wipes it all over your face as if cleaning a stubborn spot, and then tucks it into your top, where it grumpily wiggles. “Here, I’ll even let you pick out your own outfit!”

She snaps her fingers, and an ornate glass door rises up out of the platform, achingly reminiscent of home. It slides open with the whisper of glass on glass, revealing a corridor beyond filled with clothes.

“There you go, Mittens! Pick out whatever you like! And remember to watch out!”

She shoves you through, hands on your shoulders and back and hips and head, and the door closes before you can ask what exactly you should be watching out for.

The corridor itself is very long, and rocking underfoot like the deck of a ship in choppy seas. Intermittently lit by weak lamps swinging from the ceiling, it is full of swaying shadows and the whisper of fabric on fabric, and smells strongly of floral perfumes. She must have raided every boutique in the Bazaar, given the dizzying array of fashions and options. You gape, head still spinning, and— ack! No! Bad snakerchief! Down!!

***

Kazelia!

“Later use!”
“Later use!”
“Lateeeer ussssseee...”

Spriggans are merely Challenge Rating 2, mostly because of their thorn claws and rudimentary cunning, but they are often found running in packs and get +2 to grappling attempts when working in concert. They rustle the petals of their rose heads to mimic speech, and often bury victims in fertile soil from the neck down as a temporary prison while they alert a Nightmare Commander, who will arrive in 1d4+1 rounds.

If you stand and fight, you’ll look super brave and cool. Roll to Keep Them Busy and fend them off until they run away, and turn to Page 43.

If you decide discretion is the better part of valor, you’ll have to leg it for the greenhouse door. Roll to Get Away, and turn to Page 107.

If you want to convince them that you are their new Nightmare Commander, roll your Wisdom with Despair and turn to Page 72.

***

Adila!

When you look back, Eupheria is already gone. Maybe you were too good? Haha! Take that! You are a Good Girl and already on top of the tallest mushroom, and from here you can clearly see the route to bounce to! You’re doing so well.

And that’s when you hear the screech of the Giant Fungal Bat.

It’s the size of you, and then some. It’s being ridden by some cackling feline gremlins, and they’re urging it to swoop down towards you! The second half of this challenge is going to be much, much more interesting, and the reverberation of the screech rattling around your skull is making it difficult to think.

Your tongue feels like it’s a mushroom and that’s so weird.

Whatever you do next, roll it with Despair while you try to keep your head together!

Princess-Champions of Hyperborea

Juniper Blue!

This is the most chaotic, most frantic deployment that the Watch has ever performed. The big guns are being wheeled out of containment: the Chaos Cannon, the Devil Swords, the Wheel of Truth, the Glass-Eating Swarm, the Howling Typhoon (bottled), and the Seventy-Seven Heresies. The returning troops from Ilumina are being deployed in concentric circles around the Clocktower, supplemented by the garrison who remained bringing out the cursed treasures of the Watch, every thing they confiscated to keep Hyperborea safe.

The worst part?

Nobody will tell you why you're doing this. This is worse than the deployment for the Snake-Husband: you are bringing out everything. Whatever is in that Clocktower has been judged to be the most dangerous thing that the Watch has ever faced, and you really hope that it doesn't end up being the princesses who helped save the Bazaar last time. Sure, they might have failed, they might have caused Shazari to end up buried with the Snake-Husband beneath the sands, but they were good girls. They don't deserve to be obliterated with extreme prejudice.

"Any idea what they're after, cousin?"

"Some treasure from old Hyperborea that Ourania's told them to contain."

Your irregulars lounge behind you: the King of the Bazaar and the Konkon princess. The King's got his nose to the wind, and knows that if you're all up in arms-- or, at least, if the fox is asking for his help-- it's time to get the crime families of the Bazaar out in force beside you. There is nothing on Hyperborea that will be able to defeat this coalition. At least, that's what you desperately hope.

That's when the clocks all begin to chime. All at once.

Arms pour out of the clock face that the Chaos Cannon is aimed at, each one grotesquely long-fingered and clad in shimmering sleeves like oil slicks on a river. They just keep coming. Someone's screaming for the cannon to fire. It might be you. You can't really tell. Why aren't you all synchronizing? Why aren't you all one mind, one arm, one Watch? What's the delay?

The cannon roars and eats sound itself, hurling up a multi-colored ball of raw chaos. Anything that it hits will be scrambled and unmade. It's too dangerous to ever be used against a target except in circumstances just like this. Anything to stop those arms grabbing at the Bazaar, to stop the things sliding down them, to stop the giant glass dragon with its ridiculous googly eyes unfolding out of one of those many palms, to stop the way those nails dug at the earth and tore at the sky.

Seven hands make an intricate pattern, a ritual circle, and the Chaos Cannon's shot fizzles out completely in midair. And then, for good measure, the cannon unfolds into a giant rosebush covered in magenta roses.

You're not synchronizing. You're alone and the weapons of the Watch are failing. You need... what does the Operations Manual say? You need to fall back and gather intel. Once you have identified a weakness, strike it with overwhelming force.

"King," you scream over the chaos. "Get word out! Everyone is to retreat to the redoubts! Pull back! Pull--"

***

The Bazaar!

You are touched and pinched and prodded by Eupheria, her many arms rubbing your streets in a very forward manner, even as she emerges from her dungeon surrounded in the glory of her subjects, spinning the Caduceus playfully, and tries to decide what she's going to do with you.

And this is what she discovers: that you are Hyperborea in miniature.

You are the melting pot of a dozen kingdoms. Only here do the flowers of Feloria bloom beside the mushrooms of Deep Hollow and the redwoods of Axonia. Only here does Iluminan glass adorn Jedadi gold, and only here do the goblin toys of Hobling Keep play beside the golden trinkets of the dryads, the shell-art of the mermaids, the incense packets of the Askaians promising incredible dreams come true, and the silk ropes of the Konkon. This is Hyperborea, hidden behind curtains and in cellars, on display on the beautiful streets, auctioned off on the rooftops, stolen and lost and rescued and won a hundred times every hour.

So Eupheria does not erase you from the face of Hyperborea. Instead she takes you, every part of you, and folds you in on yourself. She heaps you up into a mountain winding up to her new Argossa, still chiming, growing clock-branches in mimicry of the stone-tree at the center of the world. She hollows you out and turns your cellars into dungeons, your streets into mazes, your gardens into jungles, and makes of you her Labyrinth.

Then she releases her children into you, made wonderful and strange! Her gremlins, parodies of the cats who roam your back alleys, eyeless and bouncing and hungry. Her glass knights, deer-headed mockeries of the Rowani, centaurs with such terrible claws. Her pixies, mirror-headed mimics of the goblins, flitting here and there on their dragonfly wings, showing everyone what Eupheria wants them to see, showing Eupheria what everyone is up to in turn. Her rose-headed spriggans, her slinking silk Dancing Dolls, her merrows and pookas and kelpies and kobolds, all run rampant through your streets! The Nightmare Army has been unleashed again, and soon enough, Eupheria means to see them spread through all Hyperborea. Aren't you so lucky to be first?

***

Adila!

You bounce when you land and nearly end up falling off the mushroom. You really don't want to fall off the mushroom.

You're in a vast cavern, one you might recognize from stories you've heard about Deep Hollow. Mushrooms the size of trees, the size of buildings, rise from the misty depths of whatever lies below. Mushrooms grow on top of mushrooms. The colors are surprisingly varied: red and white, of course, and murky brown, but also lacy white, bruised violet, pitch black...

"Now, we can't have you cheating. That's what you were always best at, after all. How did I not see it?"

Eupheria's sitting on the Caduceus, hovering in the air next to you, one leg slung carelessly over the other. She's wearing the kind of dress she'd wear back when you had victory banquets, covered in frills and folds, every one of them nauseatingly shifting and changing hues.

"You're special. None of the rules apply to you. Well, here's a rule: NO FLYING."

She snaps her fingers, and your wings are crushed against your sides by a tight corset. It is Uncomfortable. Like, your wings aren't in a dangerous position, but it's messing with your balance and it's going to get sore very fast.

"There we go! Now you can have a proper challenge for once."

Okay. There's definitely a way out, and you'll be able to see it up if you get up to a higher mushroom. The only trick is going to be getting up there, but Euphie likes to pretend she's playing fair. And... she's watching you. Which is definitely adding to the pressure.

***

Mittens!

You drop onto the conveyor belt. All around you are the hissing, clanking sounds of a goblin factory, and the buzzing of pixie wings. You look up, trying to get your bearings so that you can focus on luring the snakerchief out of your mouth, and realize that you are headed straight into a series of machines slamming together with princess-sized molds and manacles. If you end up there, it's as good as an immediate game over.

Think, think! On the left side, there's a lot of railings and chains dangling from the ceiling over the vast and smoky pit. If you manage to swing from one to another, you might be able to get out of here, or at the very least catch your breath. But on the right side, while there are a lot fewer chains spaced further apart, making it imperative that you get your acrobatics perfect, there's also -- up near the ceiling, set into a fire alarm -- a twinkling light. One of yours. Which one?

Pick! Pick now!

And if you pick the right side, make your Get Away roll with Despair.

***

Kazelia!

You drop into the foliage and hit every single branch on your way down. It is a disaster. By the time you land in the vines, you are bruised and out of breath. And... the vines are starting to constrict around you. Oh boy. Looks like Eupheria wasn't impressed by your rules lawyering.

Okay, time to check your surroundings. You're in the middle of what seems to be an enormous greenhouse? There's rustling in the bushes below, but there's also a trail and, hey, if this a greenhouse, maybe you'll get lucky and find a gardener!

Or maybe you'll just be eaten by this Axonian Princesstrap, which is much too close for comfort, snapping its leafy jaws as it strains against its roots to catch your foot. Another moment or two, and it might just catch you and then start dragging you in with its slimy tongue.

Masks: Resurrection Roundabout

POTENTIAL 4
INSECURE

Now, given the breathing room, the chance to catch your breath and escape with your dignity intact, some people would choose to leg it immediately. They would thank their lucky stars that they were saved by some fluke of fortune and then go to ground where the endless waves of their dimensional dopplegangers couldn't find them. Those people would not be @SARAHPHIM, the top Superstreamer of 20XX. Because @SARAHPHIM, like a furious cat, knows only one way to handle a challenge to her dominance when her rivals are momentarily disrupted, and that is to go on the attack while they're still trying to figure out what happened.

She throws Dominus at Sarampire, yelling "she's a Catholic!" and then lunges at Witcherphim, going into a slide at the last second like she's trying to steal home, and slams the biotech injector against the silver-haired swordswoman's thigh. She rolls up, and then shoots a Heaven Thunder Spear right into Witcherphim's back.

"That means use a cross and pray to the saints," she yells at Dominus, keeping Witcherphim off balance with a hellish and high-intensity barrage. "And-- dios mio, don't let her-- yeah, she's going to try and crush your windpipe--"

She summons up another sword, because Witcherphim's right that these absolutely rule, and "tosses" it into Dominus's hands. Now she's sustaining a sword and pinning down Witcherphim and making it look easy, but if literally one more thing distracts her it's all going to fall apart like a house of cards.

[10 on Directly Engage. I want to create an opportunity for Dominus to banish the good Catholic vampire and impress, surprise, or frighten these two, and hopefully the @SARAHPHIM Nation converging on our Sara's head. I am cool with taking a few blows, so do your worst.]

Monster Hearts: Sleepshy Rise

Elodie Faucher
the infernal

DESCRIPTION
Look: Dark Fairy Tale. Her hair’s only pink at the ends, growing out thick and dark again. She’s swapped out the hoodies for fur-collared red jackets and the cute leggings for ripped jeans.
Eyes: Flickering Eyes. Green as grass, but they are darting and skittish.
Origin: Emissary of Mother Earth.

STATS
Hot 2
Cold -1
Volatile -1
Dark 2

MOVES
Soul Debt: give strings to the Dark Power to use Bargains; at 5 Strings, go Darkest Self.

Dark Recruiter: whenever you bring an innocent soul to the Dark Power, mark experience.

Heightened Senses: when you rely on your animal instincts, roll +Dark, and on a hit take +1 Forward. On a 10+, ask three; on a 7-9, ask one.
# Where’s my best escape route or way in?
# Which enemy is most vulnerable to me?
# What’s their secret weakness?
# What poses the biggest threat to me?
# Who’s in control here?

BARGAINS
Elsewise Power: use a move from another playbook, just this once.

Uncanny Voices: ask for a secret, and be given a secret fear, desire or strength, their choice.

Sex Move: when you have sex, the Dark Power loses a String on you and gains a String on whoever you had sex with.

Darkest Self: you are shivering, needy and alone. The Dark Power makes daunting, open-ended demands; each one fulfilled brings you closer to feeling whole, and removes a String on you. You escape when the Dark Power is out of strings, or when you make a bargain with an even more dangerous entity.

STRINGS
2 on Timothy.
1 on Annalee.
1 on Carmen.

Masks: Resurrection Roundabout

@SARAHPHIM

On the flatscreen, she's a figure of power, arms crossed and shoulders straight. The red streak in her dark hair falls over her right eye, and her wicked grin suggests that she's challenging you, the viewer: want to see if you're good enough to beat @SARAHPHIM, jackass? You're not, but I'd love to see you try. On the flatscreen, she's wearing the bodysuit, a shifting series of stained-glass designs that make her look like she just strode down from the windows of St Martin's on Jefferson, and her ChRB drones fan around her head in a disquieting halo. Her feed scrolls at the foot of the flatscreen, reminding you that she's streaming patrol tonight. Pity whoever gets in her way.

Sara gives her alter ego an approving nod as you walk past. In public, she wears a dizzying array of names: a Maryam lightweave scarf that's in this season, an immaculate Dior blouse under her signature black leather jacket, and aviator shades by AtlasTech. (An intern regularly drops purchase links with flash sale discounts on her feed, and she goes out of her way to namedrop the brands in interviews.) That's part and parcel of the brand: being sharp as hell, on and off the beat. She took to it quick, though; it's an outlet. A way to tell the world that she's the best. That she deserves this. Keep up, idiots.

POWER
Light Control.

LABELS
DANGER 0
FREAK -1
SAVIOR +1
SUPERIOR [+2]
MUNDANE +2

AUDIENCE
@SARAHPHIM's audience loves her for being dangerous and self-confident, vicious with the put-downs mid-stream and yet, simultaneously, enough of an artist that fans take hours reconstructing her patterns, looking for the loopholes. She's brilliant, knows how to wield her smoldering voice over the mic, and is (with the help of a gym regimen that sometimes has her face-down on the floor groaning) stunning in her photo-ops. Her fans tend to ask for autographs, the chance to try to beat one of her patterns (on low power), or to be pinned against a wall while she roasts them and then tells them to scram.

The advantages of her audience include the fact that she is connected to her various social media accounts easily and can elicit feedback with little more than a casual comment on stream, as well as the fact that she has fans from all over the world; those parts of it that are connected to the net, anyway. She's considering a New Zealand convention next year, actually; you'd be surprised how big she is over there. If you are into eheroics, you've heard of @SARAHPHIM at least once.

Her audience demands novelty and brand new action, improvements on the patterns and new ideas; they're surprisingly understandable of mistakes, as long as they're ambitious mistakes that back the narrative that she's an ambitious, cocky genius of aesthetic. Nothing worse than a boring stream, right? Speaking of boring, her audience has a sizable shipping community that constantly buoys her popularity, but if she ever picked somebody- game over. The flame wars would be uncontrollable. ("we popping the BIGGEST bottles when fireworks becomes canon tomorrow")

MOVES
Stage-Fighting: when you Directly Engage a Threat with an audience watching, mark a condition to roll +Superior instead of +Danger.
Cold and Cruel: when you shut someone down, roll +Superior. On a 10+, inflict a condition, shed their Influence or take Influence over them. On a 7-9, mutual condition infliction or mutual Influence loss, your choice. On a miss, they gain Influence over you.
The gossip mags: when you tap into the gossip and rumor of the celebrity industry for information on an important city figure, roll +Superior. On a 10+, ask 3; on a 7-9, ask 1:

• What are they up to?
• What or who do they most care about?
• What allies do they have? Enemies?
• Where and when can I find them?
• How could I make them vulnerable to me?

On a miss, ask one anyway, but they hear about your interest in them.
Are you watching closely?: when you mislead, distract or trick someone, roll +Superior. On a hit, they’re fooled, at least for a moment. On a 10+, choose 3; on a 7-9, choose 2.

• You get an opportunity!
• You expose a weakness or a flaw!
• You confuse them for some time!
• You avoid further entanglement!

On a miss, you’re hopelessly embroiled in it; mark a Condition.
I don't care what you think!: take +2 to Rejecting Influence.

The Audience: when you accept what the audience says about you, clear a condition. When you reject what the audience says, mark potential and expect retribution.
Audience's Help: when you seek help from the audience, roll +Superior. On a hit, someone in the audience can hook you up. On a 10+, their demands are small. On a 7-9, their demands are a lot higher. On a miss, you've screwed up, and they won't help you until you redeem yourself in their eyes.

TEAM MOVES
Triumphant Celebration: when you share a triumphant celebration with someone, declare whether it's all part of the show or not. If so, you shift labels. If not, then they can shift your labels, and you can clear a condition or mark potential.
Vulnerability: when you share vulnerability or weakness with someone, ask them if they will tell anyone the truth about you. If they agree to keep it a secret, clear a condition or mark potential. If they don't agree, the GM shifts your labels.

BACKSTORY

Hider

- When did you first appear onscreen?
"Oh, god. I was so cheap back then, don't even make me think about it. I was still using a janky iTell 47m headset and smart-lens assemble when I tried streaming for the first time, and that only after word got around about me going after the Lensky mob. Figured I might catch someone's eye, and even if nobody had the brains to notice me, it was fun keeping up commentary while I worked. Puts me in the zone. The part of my brain that does the work can focus while I run my mouth. Don't ask to see the old streams. I don't save them. Besides, you want to see the best, watch yesterday's stream, moron."
- What do you tell people about how you got your powers?
"I caught the devil sneaking into my house and beat his ass until he offered me superpowers to save his skin. His first offer was plastic stretchy body, Elastigirl style. You believe that? I broke the coffee table with his pointy weaselbeard face and told the asshole to try again. So he offered me all the stars in the sky. I told him, look, I could do better than that- so he offered me the power to do just that. Bing bang boom, and now I'm cleaning up the streets. Too bad he's too chickenshit to ever come crawling back, I think I could squeeze him for flight this time with my #gymgains."
- Who, outside of the team, supports your burgeoning star in every way possible?
"Mami. She didn't raise no quitter! Any of you genetic cesspits say anything about her, anything at all, and I'll shove a bar of soap so far down your throat you're shitting bubbles tomorrow, got it? Then I'll kick you from stream, jagoff, see if I don't."
- Who, outside of the team, loathes what you represent?
"Hey, @JuneBird, if you listening, call me when you can handle a spinning helix of laser spheres with enough precision to knock someone flat on their ass without incinerating them and then make every single one of them go poof without so much as scorching the wallpaper, and then we can talk. Oh, what's that? You can't? Then shut up and stop whining about my sponsors and let me do my damn job."
- Why do you care about the team?
"What, these idiots? I guess somebody's got to take care of them. Might get themselves hurt if they bite off something too big to chew. Besides, they make me laugh. Ha. Ha. You hear that? Proof."
[the entire comment thread is just pictures of @SARAHPHIM holding hands with her teammates, draping her arms possessively over their shoulders, and generally violating their personal space]
[also, gifs of that one time she ate an orange during an interview without peeling it first, and arguments about whether she actually knows how to eat an orange]

INFLUENCE
All three of you idiots get Influence on @SARAHPHIM.

FIRST TEAM-UP
As a team, we attracted the attention of a major media outlet in the city, thanks to our efforts. Who are they? Why do they support us?

NIGHTMARES

Hider

In Sara's nightmares, her fingers don't do anything in the dark. Two walls over, somebody's crying, rain's slapping against the window, and she's lying on the mattress snapping her fingers over and over again, trying to ignore the gnawing teeth of her hunger tearing her apart from the inside out, and nothing breaks the dark this time.

MUSIC
Britney Spears - Circus
Panic! At The Disco - Hey Look Ma, I Made It
Dorothy - Missile

Princess-Champions of Hyperborea

PRINCESS-CHAMPIONS OF HYPERBOREA

A Game of Fellowship

"In the deepest matters of the Bazaar, look to love. Always."

"Hither came Oberon, white-haired, night-eyed, sword in hand, a thief, a reaver, a monster, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jeweled thrones of the earth under his riding-boots."

"Then turn selfishness into a weapon! Make all things yours! Make other lives and dreams and hopes yours! Protect them! Save them! Bring them into the sheepfold! Walk the gale for them! Keep away the wolf! My dreams! My brother! My family! My land! My world! How dare you try to take these things, because they are mine! I have a duty!"

"Everyone here is a princess! I'm, like, the only one who's not a princess."

STARRING
Phoe as Princess Alina Cascade of Ilumina, the Lantern
Thanqol as Princess Adila of the Watch, the Dragon
AND
Anarion as Princess Kazelia Swiftlance, the Harbinger
SEEKING TO DEFEAT
Tatterdemalion as Oberon Greymane, the Overlord

LORE POSTS!

- On Ilumina
- On the Watch
- On the Riders

- A Rumor About Alina
- Rumors About Riders
- Rumors About Dragons

- A Story about Veils
- A Story about Djinn
- A Story about Carnival
- Visiting Jedad

- A Memory about Riders

- A Story about Rowan
- The Iluminan Royal Family

- Devilhome
- The Snake-Husband

A TALE OF HYPERBOREA

There is a snake curled around the whole wide world. Her name is Ouroboros, and she is so big that it's hard to believe your eyes the first time that you see her. You'll say to yourself, "goodness, someone built a very big wall on the coast of whatever land we're approaching!" Then you'll say, "someone built a wall to split the sea in half: this side and that side." Then you'll get closer still, and you'll see bronze scales the size of palaces, rising up out of the sea, and you'll have to sit down to take it all in - that this is Ouroboros, and her belly rests upon the sea floor while her back rubs up against the sky. Within her coils lies Hyperborea, and that a world enough to satisfy anyone.*

In the winter-time, the short days and the long nights of fur cloaks and wonderful spectacles in ice, there came cresting over Ouroboros's vast back a King. Stars fell from their thrones in the velvet dark of his eyes, and a wind from the deep vaults of winter kissed his pale cheeks. He didn't come alone! Behind him came his children, and his court, and all of his people, each one carrying their livelihoods with them. It's not my place to say where they came from, or even if they came from someplace at all, but I can say that when their King looked out upon Hyperborea far below, a fierce and jealous love woke in his cold breast, and he sighed in reverie.

He told the child he favored most, a witch of winter night, to take wing alongside him, that together they could make a survey of the world which lay beneath them. So she put on her cloak of feathers and became a barn owl, while he became the North Wind which bore her along, though from time to time he would become a great black he-eagle or a sleek-backed wolf or a wickedly handsome man, whichever suited him right at that moment. Where that wind blew the shutters blew right open and the frost's fingers crawled in; the pipes burst and the bare-branched trees moaned and cracked; the waves of the Hyperborean Sea boiled cold and furious and marched up upon the shore. And as they went along together, whenever the witch saw something beautiful and wonderful, the sort of thing that Hyperborea is wonderfully rich in, she would call her father's eye to it, and he would sigh and say, "ah, I love it," or, "ah, I must have it," and by both meant the same thing.

By spiraling paths they finally came to Argossa, the mountain whose roots bind Hyperborea together, the tree whose shining stone limbs press up against the roof of the sky; and here the witch fell away, unable to match her father in swiftness and power. About each branch of the mountain-tree the wind curled like a cat, moaning professions of ardor and desire and possession, and soon enough the King saw nesting within the highest branches the silver chariot of the Moon, with twelve gleaming mares in its traces, and he leaped right to it, his fingers tickling their flanks, his breath holding the chariot fast, for at once he loved it and meant to have it, not for its use but simply to know that it was his.

But the Moon had come to Argossa, as it did every night, to stop and have a midnight dinner with Ourania, who is queen above all other queens, who cares for Hyperborea as the gardener cares for her wildest flowers, with a light hand and a gentle word, and yet who can bear the touch of the sun and the moon when they kiss her farewell, brushing their burning lips against the back of her dark hand or upon her perfect cheek, and who knows the secret love-names of the sea and the sky. And when the King's eye fell upon her, a deep and terrible yearning yawned open within his frozen heart, fiercer and more perilous than anything that night had yet witnessed.

Yet Ourania’s eyes flashed with sudden fire, which pierced him there and held him fast, having had the knowing of him at once; for she sat in Argossa, the wellspring of her power and the turning-point of the world. At once the King became a huge and lovely serpent as fine as a treasure-casket, with wicked coils to hold her fast and close, and she became the secretary-bird and had him right by the neck. Then he was the true black dart which pierces the breast of the bird on the wing, and she was the quiver which caught the dart fast and made it harmless. Then he was the black moth which devours and consumes whatever it falls upon, and she was the night-bird which catches the moth with its song. At every turn she had the best of him, until he had to use all of his cunning and swiftness just to fall headlong down Argossa's slopes with nothing but his pride in tatters and that yearning as sharp as a knife buried in his breast.

Howling and keening he fell upon Hyperborea as a hideous gale, overturning ships and uprooting groves, snatching up anything he caught only to toss it aside many miles distant. But the wise shut their doors tight against him, and Ourania set her own southerly winds to fox him and undo him at every turn, and come the dawn he was just a man once more, shabbily dressed and run ragged in his shame and defeat, burning with the perverse desire to have precisely that which one is denied, which cannot be contented, not even if you stack the whole wide world on the other side of the scales.

And it just so happened that as he stumbled along like a blind man, undone in his self-inflicted torment, a princess came riding by with her companions, warmly cloaked and gilded in various treasures of the kingdom of Jedad, against which they had just been on campaign. Seeing the King and mistaking him for a drunk or a victim of misfortune, she told her companions that they should hold a moment and try to lift his spirits with gay jests and fine company. This was a mistake, as thinking himself the object of mockery, the King drew his blade and knocked the princess straight down, and when her companions flew to her defense, he knocked them straight down too. Then his eyes shone all full of falling stars, and in a terrible fear, the princess offered up all of their spoils as ransom, that he might straight away release her into the care of her mother, the queen of that very land. And to this, the King composed himself and said:

"No. Go and tell your mother that her daughter has cost her a kingdom. Before the day is over, I will come and take it from her. Her throne will be my throne, and her lands will be my lands. I will drive her subjects out, so that my own subjects may have a home to call their own. My name is Oberon Greymane. Remember it, for you will hear much more of me now that I am here at last, in this beautiful and beloved world."

And as he said, so has it come to pass. And now it should be springtime, the early thaw, but winter is fighting back tooth and nail, because it loves Oberon Greymane like it loves no one else, and it follows where the Riders go on their black horses, their laughter like bells chiming on a glass bridle, and no princess may stand before them, for they are the champions forged beyond the bounds of Ouroboros.

*The dragons say that beyond Ouroboros is formless night, and beyond the night, worlds uncharted. But their accounts are hardly unbiased.

ON HYPERBOREA

HYPERBOREA

Hyperborea is flat, and bounded on every side by Ouroboros, the world serpent who holds her tail in her mouth. From its heart grows the mountain Argossa, the stone-tree whose veins are shot through with living jewels. Nestled among its branches is the palace of High Queen Ourania, who holds authority over the kingdoms and domains of all Hyperborea. At noon she has tea made ready for the sun, at midnight she has a very late dinner made ready for the moon, and it is for this reason that the clocks of Hyperborea must by necessity be clever enough to know when to take a break themselves while the charioteers of heaven talk with their hostess about what they have seen on their journeys.

Hyperborea is blessed with a rich tapestry of cultures, all sorts of talking folk, an embarrassment of natural resources, and an abundance of magical princesses. Living magic flows through Hyperborea much like blood through a body, and in this metaphor, Argossa serves as the heart; the aesthetics of tapping into that magic differ from kingdom to kingdom, but crystals are a very popular choice. (Indeed, “laser” weapons, generated by magic crystals, are a common sight in certain parts of Hyperborea.)

The default of government is the matriarchy. This may have something to do with the fact that the High Queen is ageless as the hills and has a vital role in caring for Hyperborea's magic; queens are therefore seen as partaking in the authority of the High Queen, and (sometimes quite literally) focal points for their kingdom's magic. This means, then, that there are, as aforementioned, an abundance of magical princesses in Hyperborea.

Naturally, being a princess comes with expectations! The ideal princess is vital and strong, overflowing with the fecund Blood of her people; she is brave and steadfast, proving her Courage on the battlefield; she is eloquent and sure-footed, displaying her Grace before all; she is clever and truly observes the world around her with common Sense; and she possesses the Wisdom to distinguish wicked action from virtue. Their education commonly combines combat and survival training with academic study of Hyperborea, and every princess is expected to both be a champion of her people on and off the battlefield and prepared to take on the burdens and responsibilities of rule, should she be called to do so. Who launches raids into enemy territory for the glory of their lineage? The princess. Who attends feasts and galas in order to socialize with foreigners they may one day count as equals or rivals? The princess. Who drives off monsters, helps rebuild in the wake of natural disasters, and acts as an aspirational ideal for their citizens? The princess.

Now, the Hyperboreans are, by and large, quite singular in the way they wage war: with such bountiful natural resources available to every kingdom worth the name, conflicts are more personal and impulsive, with a focus on raids, humiliation of one's rivals, and counting coup over conquest and slaughter. An aspiring princess-champion might lead a band of companions into a rival country, find their queen's cattle herd, disarm and subdue the herdsmen, and then seek to prove her cunning and skill by driving the whole herd home without being caught - and were her pursuers to catch her, the ensuing melee would likely be to first blood and the ransom of anyone on the losing side who didn't leg it quickly enough. Arms and armor are expressions of one's own persona more than simple tools of violence, and death by simple misadventure is more likely than death on the battlefield.

RIDERS

The Riders are from beyond Ouroboros, and wherever they came from must be very cold indeed. They bring winter with them where'er their roving takes them: the howling gale, the blinding blizzard, the ice that bursts the pipes, and the chill that touches blood and bone alike. If their King cements his rule over Hyperborea, it will- to steal a turn of phrase- be always winter, never Ridersmas. As a general rule, they are cruel and domineering (though perhaps because of the influence of their king), and love to possess pretty things, especially if someone previously [owned or dated] them, delete as applicable. And, unfortunately for Hyperborea, they are dangerous and skillful combatants.

Their hair is white as snow and their eyes are deep night, full of wheeling alien stars. Their liveries are blue and black, and their weapons hum and sigh disconcertingly in the hand. They are cold as ice to the touch, and their teeth are the fangs of the predator. Their laughter sounds like silver bells being shaken on a glass bridle. Their beauty is terrible, their terror is beautiful.

Other than that? They really are just people, and it's not impossible to imagine a future in which they form a vital part of Hyperborea's rich tapestry. The trick is figuring out how to thaw their frozen hearts, how to teach them friendship, and how to not be subjugated and have your treasures stolen in the meantime.

Their King, Oberon Greymane, has overrun a kingdom entire, imprisoned its queen and turned the beautiful Castle Thessia into an ice-bound fortress from which the Riders issue forth on their many raids against the rest of Hyperborea. This would all be worrying enough, but worse is the fact that, ever since his arrival in Hyperborea, he has sent messages to the High Queen daily, which veer wildly between threats and flirtations. After all, Riders do enjoy owning pretty things, no matter their opinions on the matter.

OBERON GREYMANE

The Heart of Winter. The Robber King. The Shadow Dancer. King of the Riders, first over Ouroboros's nigh-impassable back, handsome and quick to laughter, yet covetous and arrogant in equal measure. Has an uncomfortable amount of Hot Dad Energy. If he usurps Ourania’s throne in Argossa's branches, you won't need a weather forecast anymore: snow upcoming for the next seven hundred years.

• UNQUESTIONED KING OF THE RIDERS - like it or not, by the ancient codes of Hyperborea, the queens of Hyperborea have to treat Oberon as a peer, and no Rider would ever disobey or question an order from their King. (SoP: Castle Thessia)
• WINTER'S PANOPLY - some of the things he carries are undeniably from places that are not Hyperborea, and others are wonders that he has stolen from the kingdoms of Hyperborea and turned to his own ends: the abhorrent wonder-knife Yearning/Echidna, the unbreakable ribbon-spear Pearlion, the black eclipse-bow Blinding, the rippling night-cloak Kthos, the writhing blade-tattoos of Ynloc-Athera...
• MASTER OF SHAPES AND SEEMINGS - he can, at a whim, become a howling gale, a great grey wolf, a child, a giant, or you, even. Those night-filled eyes never change, but he can lay a spell upon you such that you don't notice until it's too late...

Agenda: Ultimate Power. Hyperborea gets colder by the day. Riders go where they please, seeking beautiful things to steal and carry off to their king, humiliating every champion who dares stand up to them. Soon, if not checked, Oberon will feel confident enough - and potent enough - to challenge Ourania’s champions directly, and then there shall be winter without end.

Army: The Organization. Your average Rider isn't a threat to a Princess-Champion at all. Again, they're mostly just people, if an alien people. No, his army consists largely of his children, the princesses (and prince) of the Riders, equal to any challenge he sets before them.

General: Princess Azora Howl. Presently most favored of Oberon's children, Azora Howl is the foremost witch of the Riders, and maintains her position as her father's second-in-command by tactical use of her siblings and the careful unraveling of various protective spells wrapped around Hyperborea and Argossa.

Weakness: The Dolorous Song. Sing before him a song that makes him weep. Undo his justifications and self-confidence, make him feel regret and shame for what he has done, leave him a tired and friendless old man, and his power will melt like the spring thaw. Complications keeping Thanqol from speedrunning Fellowship: the composition and appropriate performance of such a song, as well as getting him to stay and listen after the first performance clotheslines him. Yes, I am singing Hadestown lyrics right now and you can’t stop me

THE FELLOWSHIP

Let me just stop you here a moment. Most princesses, most champions of Hyperborea? They're busy. There are repairs that need to be made after those terrible winter storms, their homeland needs them to stand up to these brash new outsiders (but our princess will totally win, their people say, unlike all those other ones), and in short, they have their own problems. They just haven't looked up and realized that their problems are all the fault of the King of the Riders, and that this problem is too big for any one kingdom to handle alone.

That you're part of the Fellowship instead of being at home means something. It means that someone - maybe you, maybe your mother, maybe the witches of Hecatia - knew that if you didn't do something to stop Oberon Greymane, then all of Hyperborea would fall. Or it means that you've already got skin in the game, you've already been defeated by the Riders before, your kingdom is still in the grip of winter instead of turning to spring's thaw. Maybe your mother even swore fealty to or made an alliance with the Riders, and you've gone renegade because it's the right thing to do, rather than the easy thing. Heck. Maybe you're even the first princess who lost to Oberon Greymane, the one who made a terrible mistake by trying to be a good samaritan.

By Hyperborean standards, you're already a pretty impressive fighting force, being three different Princesses in alliance with your retinues and your treasures. This isn't unprecedented by any means, though! Team-ups are a classic tradition of the Hyperborean saga, and you can probably rattle off stories about three-Princess teams- just be aware that when you roll in people are going to notice the fact that you're in a team-up. Heck, it might even be enough to let you stand up to those dastardly Riders!

The standard gameplay loop for this game will likely be fighting over Sources of Power, trying to keep them out of Oberon's clutches while also making daring forays into Rider-held kingdoms to free them of his control. Remember that taking a SoP will allow you to erase one of the Overlord's stats, while the Overlord taking a SoP allows him to add another stat to his sheet. There will also be episodes like "the Crystal Gala" and "the Riders took our little siblings hostage!" and "the Dueling Championship you must not let the Riders win." Probably also "secret date night with your new Rider girlfriend which Oberon must not find out about."

DESIGNER'S NOTES

HYPERBOREAN ETYMOLOGY

The name Hyperborea was intentionally chosen, or else retroactively became meaningful, or both. In the classical Greek tradition, it meant the land beyond the North Wind, an idyllic paradise beyond the world we know. Our Hyperborea is a land beyond the ordinary world, a paradise of merry wars and benevolent verdancy, and the North Wind - in the form of the King of the Riders - has finally arrived.

THE PRETTY PRINCESS PRINCIPLE

If there is a disconnect between the way your playbook describes a move or gear option - heck, even the tags - and your vision of being a pretty princess, your vision always gets priority. Just signpost the change and if it causes any problems, that's on me to bring up. Fellowship was designed to be generic player-detailed fantasy, and it needs tweaking to bring it in line with a strong and consistent vision.

HYPERBOREAN WARFARE

This is shamelessly lifted from Princesses of the Universe, but it's a solid concept: fighting to kill isn't particularly appropriate in-genre. So we might as well make it part of your cultural expectations: that of course you run away once your schemes have failed, that of course when you have someone at your mercy you gloat and take them prisoner rather than run them through, that of course the laser blast won't kill you. The dramatic flipside, naturally, is that losing a battle sucks because everyone knows you lost, and that's a loss of prestige and honor for your kingdom, plus all the emotional drama that comes from feeling like a failure.

This also allows for feuding kingdoms and suspicion from other princesses without turning the setting into Game of Thrones- yeah, we're at war, which means our champions are trying to one-up each other and prove our kingdom's legitimacy, with face and honor at stake, not that we're throwing an entire generation of our people into a meat grinder.

Now, the Riders might try to kill you! It would be very rude, and they'd try to do it when nobody was looking, but they're not from around here and not killing people does not come as naturally to them. Still, they'd be swimming up against the narrative current, so if a Rider happened to stab you in the back, you'd almost certainly survive. It'd just be painful and dramatic and the kids watching at home would be wondering whether they actually got you, but of course they didn't really.

Because of this, you should revise the +BLOOD Finish Them to "when you seek to overpower them or beat them down, roll +Blood." More "I throw them around until they do that dramatic but futile attempt to get up" or "I wrestle them into submission," less "I STAB THEIR FACE." It runs the risk of overlapping a little with +SENSE, but I think we'll get the hang of the difference.

RIDERS

In Jenna Moran's Nobilis, the Riders (or Excrucians) are from outside the universe (check) and want to unmake it (not so much check). One of their "types" has the motivation that they love you, or rather, some ineffable essence of you that they want to free by destroying everything else about you.

I changed their motivation somewhat; destroying all of existence is a bit bleak for a magical princess tv show. But a selfish, rapacious love of all the beauty and wonder within this world, which they will jealously hoard or bury under snowdrifts when their star ascends? That works wonderfully. The connection to winter is a personal flourish. It fits, I think. Comparisons to the Wintersmith are apt, and they have shades of that world's elves as well.

Your average Rider is a civilian, who (coldly, beautifully, longingly) has an actual job of some sort. The Riders you'll be fighting, though? They're the King's children, or his royal guards, the handful of Riders who signed up for this job of fighting magical princesses. So, to sum up: deep night-studded eyes and white hair, not okay to punch immediately. Wearing the King's armor and pointing swords at you and laughing evilly? Totally okay to punch. Though it’ll be tough, and they might just punch you back!

THE OVERLORD

The natural foil for a world of princesses is a DILF. No, I am not taking constructive criticism.

If we were playing Under Hollow Hills, he would be the Nightmare Horse: dangerous, alluring, sensual, genial until you realize you're too close and he holds you fast. Appearance-wise, equal parts Geralt of Riva and Lee Pace's Thranduil, with eyes like the first night you were out in real wilderness. Also the Big Bad Wolf, at least symbolically, sometimes literally.

If all of Hyperborea united against him, he'd lose, no question. I don't think that's going to happen unless your characters make it happen, and you'll be fighting his kids and their attempts to divide the kingdoms every step of the way. Also, if you ran into him, he'd probably stop to have a pleasant conversation and be, like, the Cool Dad of your various adversaries, while still being capable of beating you down without breaking a sweat if you tried to stop whatever he was there to do.

If I was him, I would justify myself by saying: imagine that a friend invited you over for dinner, and when you arrived, you discovered that they had a lost van Gogh painting! And they were using it as a plate for slices of pizza while watching TV! Wouldn't that make you horrified? Wouldn't you take it away from them? Wouldn't you clean it off, hang it up in your house, and treasure having it? Something that beautiful deserves to be owned by someone who appreciates it properly. (But owning it is the important part, even if you never give it a second glance, because you know that you love it and it is yours.)

THE HIGH QUEEN

A confluence of inspirations: Princess Celestia, regal and supernal and associated with the heavens; Queen Angella, a mentoring figure who requires others to go forth while she remains in her locus of power, despite fears that the task will consume them; the Summer Lady, a figure of obsession for the King of Winter, the brilliant counterpoint to his endless winter night.

Why doesn't she go forth and kick a bodacious amount of ass? Because her power is connected intimately to Argossa, the axis mundi, and leaving would mean several steps down in power level, putting everyone at risk. Okay, why doesn't she make all the other kingdoms work together to beat the Overlord? As long as the Riders play by the same rules and customs as everyone else, rules and customs she had a direct hand in establishing, direct alliance-forming and action against their kingdom will set a precedent that will destabilize her legitimacy as High Queen in the long run - the other queens will be thinking, "if Ourania decides she doesn't like us, she'll make everyone else team up against us, too!" Then everything gets messy. There's probably a point where everyone will see the danger they're in and unite, and according to the laws of drama, that point is definitely past the point where the Riders can reasonably be stopped.

So it's just you, whatever guidance Ourania can provide, and whatever princesses you can convince to join you in the war, usually by fixing the problems that the Riders have already caused for them. If you fail, winter forever. No pressure or anything!

(Side note I'll throw in here: if you're having trouble imagining Argossa properly, imagine one of those massive-trunked baobab trees, except it's not wooden, it's stone, and its leaves are jewels, and yet it is alive. It is both the omphalos and the world tree. Yes, and.)

FUN AND TONE

When I tried writing for this, I quickly found out that this game has the potential to be a lot of fun. If something's cool I can just throw it in. Crossbow? Why not a crystal-powered laser crossbow! Should Princess Azora Howl have the ability to command shadows just because she's a witch? Hell yeah, why not! It's like giving myself permission to be gleefully, fecklessly inventive; throwing the doors wide open, but in a way that builds on creativity rather than has me trying to figure out the Right Thing to Write.

If this game is anything, I hope it's fun.

Similarly, the general tone I'm trying to hit is "yeah, you'd let your preteens watch this," with a side of "kids can actually handle a whole lot" - you can get drunk, kiss each other, bleed on-screen, bicker with each other, and suffer terrible loss, but we're not likely to kill characters off (particularly not graphically), the villains are generally selfish and cruel but not vile, and love and friendship can conquer even the sorceries of Azora Howl and Oberon Greymane. Even if you get stabbed and left to die by Morgina Fang, someone will come along to save you at the last second. "Redemption arc" is a possibility for any antagonists you make the effort to befriend, but it'll involve having to own up to hurting others. And now that I've said that, watch as we somehow dive right into "the Riders blew up an entire kingdom, and your sister was still on it when it exploded!"

GM PREP

So, Raz! What steps are you taking to combat GM burnout for this game?

I’m glad you asked! The delay between announcement of concept and delivery has allowed our best fox scribes to compile episode ideas. My own organizational style for this game is inspired heavily by Thanqol’s own experimentation in our currently-running Masks game: episodic by design, leaning into the intentional source materials (She-Ra, MLP but with more Adventure, CMWGE).

What this means is that I can throw you directly into situations (instead of trying to make a sandbox, which I am. less good at), I can get weird and improvisational and focused on providing an EXPERIENCE instead of getting hung up on accuracy and seeming cool and like I know how real things work, and I feel like I’ve got a handle on the core gameplay loops here.

ART

Ourania

Riders

Cosmologies

MUSIC
Warriors (Extended) - where this pitch began.
Lost in Thoughts All Alone - JOIIIIIIIIIN IN THE TALE, IN THE BLIIIIIIGHT, OF CONQUEST AND LIESSSS
You'll Play Your Part - wow princessing is a lot of responsibility huh
My Odyssey - on the other hand, it's also as awesome as all get out
You - a love song for the Robber King
Bad Apple!! - and an anthem for his children
Ivory Steeds - it's too late. they're here.

PATCH NOTES
- High Queen name changed from Celene to Ourania (cf. Jack Problem)
- Shy, frightened Meina Glint changed to badass, hyper-vigilant Eska Glint
- Pacifist woobie Caspian Fleet changed to bratty twink Cassian Fleet
- Riders no longer capable of hypergeometric vore
- Fixed Greymane/Whitemane inconsistency in favor of Greymane
- Overlord Stat changed from invincible swordsman and dancer to panoply of treasures
- Overlord Weakness added
- Art added
- Propped up a cardboard box with a stick and wrote "FREE ANGST FOR FLUFFY PONY" on the side

A GAZETTEER

THE FOLLOWING IS MY GIFT TO YOU; CHANGE, STEAL, OR DENY ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING AS SUITS YOUR CHARACTERS.

So I've noticed that one thing that Fellowship can struggle with is a sense of context and place. Therefore, I've come up with a bunch of places that probably will be in Hyperborea, pending any player intervention. (Which is important; if, say, Phoe wants to tell me that I've fallen for cunning lies about Devilhome, or if Anarion wants to replace Jedad with pyramid-haunted Serethia, or Thanqol informs me that he’s gonna be the Princess of the Ridgeback Mountains, it's vital that you be able to do so without worrying about treading on my toes.) Also, this is in no way an exhaustive list; it's just what's sprung forth from my head up til this point. Hyperborea is large and wonderful enough that "oh, yes, there's a marvelous kingdom we haven't mentioned yet just beyond the horizon" is always a possibility.

Jedad is a desert kingdom that hugs the coastline of the inner Hyperborean Sea. As one of the laws of Hyperborea is that all places must be fruitful, even Jedad is bursting to the seams with resources: in this case, the sands of Jedad produce a multitude of spices when ground, filtered or steamed. The banks of the rivers are lush and verdant, and generally the heat never rises above "a good excuse to sit around, fan yourself, and share cold drinks." The Queen of Jedad has a magic ring that allows her to command the djinn of the desert, which saves tremendously on construction costs. Veils are ubiquitous, for important fashion reasons. Further south, the volcanoes can be dangerous if not treated with respect and careful planning, but the rare ores and fire crystals found within make mining operations worth the expense.

Deep Hollow is a city mostly situated within a crevasse. Note that I say mostly: it is a city of mushrooms, which means that it is constantly expanding beyond the lips of the crevasse. The fashion is to wear wide hats and traveling cloaks, which means that a citizen of Deep Hollow, standing still, may be mistaken at a glance for yet another mushroom. They make mushroom ciders, truffle cakes, mushroom pies, mushroom steaks, and little mushroom snowglobes. Even the lamps of the city are bioluminescent mushrooms. You'd think that the people of Deep Hollow would be taciturn and dour, but they're actually very friendly, and have a thriving poetry slam community (as long as you like sonnets about mushrooms).

The wide plains of Rowan are renowned for the herds of wild horses that graze there. The people of Rowan, on the other hand, are renowned for their rivalry with the wild griffons of the mountains, who like nothing better than horse sandwiches. They are a proud and contentious folk, who are not at all encroaching on any other intellectual property involving somewhat Anglo-Saxon horse riders. If you need a fine steed, perhaps even one of the famed pegasi, you'd best go to Rowan.

Feloria is a bucolic farmland, the breadbasket of all Hyperborea. It has the widest variety of flowers grown in all of Hyperborea, and its festivals are fine excuses to eat until you're stuffed, to wear a multitude of flower crowns and garlands, and to end up kissing someone you didn't expect to. It's also a popular place to retire, oddly enough; it's easy to disappear among the hills of Feloria, open up a small farm, and live in contentment for the rest of your days, if that's what you really want out of your old age.

Hidden deep within Feloria is Hecatia University, the most prestigious community of witches in all of Hyperborea. Initiates spend half the year serving as village witches across Feloria, and half the year attending classes in the spell-cloaked, ivy-choked halls of Hecatia, learning how to wield magic responsibly and with flair. Being educated at Hecatia is somewhat scandalous for a princess, given the perception that the University's oath of care and service to the common folk, sworn upon graduation, conflicts with a future queen's duty to care for her nation first and foremost - but witches are known for being stubborn, and if you're the kind of person who belongs at Hecatia, you'll run away from your kingdom before you let anyone else tell you to forget about your gifts.

Axonia is a verdant, overgrown jungle, dotted with ancient ruins from some civilization from the dawn of time. The current ruling regime is made up of dryads, naturally. It's one of the more dangerous parts of Hyperborea, full of monsters and exotic insects - not to mention dinosaurs! It's even illegal to go plundering those ancient ruins - which just makes them more appealing targets for aspiring champions. Rumor has it that the Temple of the Jade Serpent is deliberately designed to be an appealing target, full of devious traps, and that every time a princess-champion makes it away with the treasure at the temple's heart, the dryads put in a new treasure and reset the traps.

Hobling Keep is the heart of goblinkind in Hyperborea. A sprawling labyrinth of tinkers and alchemists, Hobling Keep is ruled by the Goblin Queen, one of the most trusted advisors of High Queen Ourania. If you want to find the most cutting-edge magitech in Hyperborea, it'll be in the bazaars of Hobling Keep. It's rumored to be impregnable, were the Goblin Queen to lock the gates and raise the walls to Siege Mode - but only a rampaging dragon could possibly pose such a threat!

Askaia is an island kingdom of cats, The Cat Returns style. The Askaians burn so much catnip-laced incense that the whole island is wreathed in smoky mist, with beautiful glass towers rising up out of the haze. The princesses of Askaia, notably, can become catgirls through a magical girl-style transformation, because opposable thumbs are a superpower in their own right.

Speaking of dragons, of course Hyperborea has dragons! They haunt the highest mountains in all Hyperborea- save Argossa itself, tallest of all- the Ridgeback Mountains. Rumor has it that the mountains themselves are the back of the mother of all dragons, but only the Paladins of the Red Monastery know for sure. Guarding the mountain passes with their halberds and peerless martial arts, the Paladins keep overconfident champions and foolish gawkers from disturbing the hidden rites of the dragons. Or, according to rumor, from plundering their extravagant hoards. To gain access, you have to pass their trials of character and virtue.

When it comes to truly wild parties, you have to go underneath Hyperborea to Devilhome to really cut lose. It's a 24/7 revel down there among the paper-masked, black-furred devils of Hyperborea, who were banished beneath the earth aeons ago for breaking the original chariots of the sun and the moon; or shattering one of the horns of the mother of dragons; or some other unspeakable crime of passion and strength. Their Grandmothers can still break the unbreakable, fetter the unfetterable, jump over Argossa in a single bound, and otherwise perform deeds that are by definition impossible. The trick is impressing them enough to gain their respect, let alone their attention. If the Riders hadn't shown up, the Overlord would probably have been from Devilhome...

THE OLD ARCHIVES

Princess-Champions of Hyperborea

Azora Howl!

You are the smallest, angriest owl. It is a blessing that you are not just an owl head, that you can still use your transformation magic, but you are— to use a turn of phrase— mode locked. You can’t turn into yourself. Probably because this mad princess doesn’t want you to.

claka-claka-claka-claka-clack

“I’m Princess Eska Glinteye. I’m here because my father wants me to bring back the Caduceus so he can use it to take over Hyperborea and force Ourania to marry him. I came here with hostages and a hypnotized dragon. Adila is ridiculously easy to hypnotize, actually, and now I understand why. The real problem is that she’s so stupid, she’ll misunderstand half of what you tell her to do. She’s like a fire-and-forget arrow that might get blown back into my face. She wants so badly to be my friend, which is pathetic, because I’m terrified of friendship. Letting people get to know me means that I’m vulnerable. My machines will never betray me, and once I master hypnosis, no one else will ever betray me, and I can relax. I’ll be safe.”

Eupheria’s not even listening. The crowd’s reacting, of course, but it’s obvious that the Wicked Queen is miles away. Something the dragon said shook her hard, and the Iluminan crybaby made it worse. Maybe she’s going to reveal she’s also polyamorous, ha!

claka-claka-claka-claka-clack

“I’m Princess Dandelion of Feloria. I’m here because, well, apparently the dragon I have feelings for likes being hypnotized too much to fight back when she’s told to kidnap me. I honestly don’t know how to feel bout the firework she dropped in my lap here; my insides are more tangled up than a wild prickler bush. But I do know one thing for sure, sure as rain in the summer: you’re cruel, ma’am. Dragging folk’s secrets out of their own mouths is nasty as it gets, and if you had a heart, you would have stopped it the moment poor little Rita started crying. You almost certainly didn’t deserve to get locked up here for so long, but from the looks of it you didn’t learn a blamed thing from it, and so I must admit, in all this magic honesty, that I am looking forward to kicking your butt, taking your magic staff away from you, and putting it somewhere where no one can abuse it again. Then I can start thinking about what to do with Adila, seeing as I never made my move, being too worried I’d pressure her to have to pick between her career and my devotion to my kingdom, but apparently she also just felt picking between me and every other girl that caught her eye was too difficult, and I know that’s not fair but dangit I can’t not say it because of someone’s magic spell, so go jump in a bull pen and land in a pie, ma’am.”

The farm girl’s lucky Eupheria is so out of it. If you were in her shoes, if you had her power— not that you’d ever take it for yourself, of course, but would father really mind if you tested it out— you’d already have turned her into a braying donkey.

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“I am Isolde. I used to be the king of Ilumina, but I don’t deserve that title any more. Years ago, I discovered that I had the attention of a dark witch-cult growing in the heart of Ilumina itself, one that idolized your reign of nightmares over all of Hyperborea as the height of Ilumina’s power and importance. They wanted me, your descendant, to come here and take the Caduceus so that I could overthrow Ourania and lead Ilumina to victory over every other kingdom, especially Jedad, because of our frankly ridiculous feud. One of them, Constance Reedley, tried to kidnap my little girls in order to blackmail me. She never even got into the castle keep before being apprehended, but I was afraid. I couldn’t bear seeing my little girls in harm’s way. So I abdicated and pretended, for years, that I didn’t care about my family. I spent those years rooting out every Iluminan supremacist and misguided witch who thought my reign would perfect as long as they were on my side. I buried every hint I could find about you and your tomb, and even if I’d known you were alive, I would have done the same thing. I will never let your shadow hurt my family, and I will never be the person you became. So I intend to take that cursed Devil treasure away from you, snap it over my knee, throw it in the Devil’s Gulch, and go home to my family, and tell my girls the truth: that I love them more than I love anything else in all of Hyperborea. Your shadow has ruined years of my life! I had to miss little Jess’s first steps! I had to pretend that I never cared about my precious girls! I will never be like you, Grandmother. Also, while I’m furious at your abuse of magic to wring truths out of us all, I am grateful that I can say right now, honestly and truthfully, that I love Alina, that I always have, and that I am very proud of her and her relationship with Rita von Catabas, who is a lovely girl who should not be ashamed of what she enjoys.”

Did that make Eupheria flinch? The crowd is dead silent. You hop up to take your turn as Isolde starts crying, just like everyone else who’s friends with Alina Cascade.

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“I am Princess Azora Howl,” you say. “I crave my father’s love and approval more than anything else in the world. You are dangling unlimited power over this world in front of me, and I only want to play with it a little, turn everyone here into my helpless playthings, humiliate them— you know, much like you’re doing now. I would be happy to give you some pointers. But after that, I will take the Caduceus and give it to my father, because I am the only thing Oberon truly loves and nothing and no one will take that away from me. Not my failures of sisters, not pretty sparkle princesses, not you and not Ourania. I am the perfect daughter.”

You conclude by preening your wing, and Eupheria takes center stage again.

“Well! Well well well well well! What a delightful bunch of princesses we have here tonight! I feel especially fortunate to have my loving family and Adila’s little lapdog here with us! I must be the luckiest queen in all of Hyperborea! The things I’m going to do to you three~! The exquisite torments! I’ll make Adila experience every second, too, and she’ll know that it’s her fault!” She giggles, one hand held over her face, her lime-and-teal eyes visible through her fingers.

It is, somehow, the scariest thing you have ever seen.

Then the wheel stops with a solid ka-thunk.

A gasp rises from the crowd as Eupheria wheels around furiously and stares at the result: the needle sits perfectly between “LABYRINTH OF TORMENT, BROADCAST LIVE” and “grant my rescuer(s) their hearts’ desire!”

Was this your sister’s doing? Perhaps.

Either way, Eupheria starts to laugh. She doubles over, shrieking. And then she snaps her fingers and the needle splits into two, pointing at both results.

“Well!! Looks like we’ve decided on the result!! We’re doing the LABYRINTH OF TORMENT, with hearts’ desires as our grand prize for completion of the labyrinth!”

***

Rita von Catabas!

“But Miss Eupheria!”

You look up through your running mascara and tearful lashes and see the most hideously wrong thing you’ve ever seen in your life. It looks like a cat, short and stout and running around on its chubby little hind legs. That would be bad enough! But then it opens its mouth. Its eyeless head flops back on a hinge and all there is there is teeth and a huge red wet tongue.

“Won’t the princesses just team up and make you grant all their hearts’ desires? That doesn’t seem fair!”

“That’s right, Grimalkin,” Eupheria purrs. “That wouldn’t be fair! That’s why only first place gets the prize! No silver medals, no team finishes. Everyone else has to woman up and accept their penalties!”

“Penalties, Miss Eupheria?” It sounds gleeful, and a ripple of nasty laughter runs through the crowd.

“That’s right! A game’s no fun without losers, after all.” She spins the Caduceus, and a goblin machine pops into existence next to every one of you on stage, spinning and rattling. There are dice involved, and clattering levers, and smoke belching out.

BING BING BING! Adila’s comes to a stop, displaying: [HECKHOUND]. A glossy black spiked collar wraps around her throat.

BING BING BING! Kazelia gets [LITTLE MISS KNOW-IT-ALL] and a new pair of braces to handle her buck teeth.

BING BING BING! Alina gets [ASKAIAN DAYDREAMS] and a pink collar with the nametag Mittens and it’s your fault, right? Eupheria has to be doing this on purpose. Making fun of you all again.

BING BING BING! Dandy gets [BACK ON THE FARM] and a pony’s tail growing through her tights, Eska gets [MANIC MANNEQUIN] and two red spots on her cheeks, Azora (her head deftly spun back onto her body) gets [DADDY’S LITTLE GIRL] and an oversized polka-dot hair bow, and Isolde gets [MINI-ME] and hair the same shade as Eupheria’s. (She has to be doing this on purpose. The look of horror on Isolde’s face hurts.)

Finally, yours clangs to a stop. BING BING BING! You look up, trembling.

[ARE WE PRINCESS OR ARE WE DANCER?]

A Jedadi sequined hip belt ties itself snugly around your waist. Oh. Okay. Yeah, you’ll just end up as a Jedadi dancing-girl. That’s not so bad. Lina’s actually totally into that.

“One princess gets all her dreams come true! The losers get to spend the rest of their lives as my playthings! Any questions, contestants~?”

The fanfare is deafening and the lights are blinding and Eupheria is cackling with delight and today was not supposed to go like this.

[Every princess has received a Curse. Each Curse has five segments; each time you roll a 6-, advance the transformation. When you hit five segments, you are completely transformed into Eupheria’s plaything.]

Princess-Champions of Hyperborea

Rita von Catabas!

You fall, bouncing off bronze breastplates and reorienting yourself as best you can in the chaos. Everything in you is yowling that down is still down, despite the nausea of falling sideways at high speed, and it’s all you can do not to lose your lunch. Blech!

And right before you can fling yourself at high speeds at Eupheria to try and stop her... the lights go out. Everything winks out. You float in empty blackness, and when you yowl for Alina, there’s no sound. There’s nothing at all.

Then the lights blink on, right in your eyes, and you flinch with a hiss as the fanfare plays.

“Goooooood evening, everybody! This is Tonight With Queen Eupheria, presenting uh-live from her bespoke dungeon dimension!”

When your eyes adjust, you realize you’re sitting on a couch next to Eska, who is— oh. Oh whiskers. She’s wearing a ruffled lace top and leather trousers, and her hair is pulled back in true swashbuckler chic. She was not wearing that a second ago, and she’s not supposed to be that hot. Gah!

For what it’s worth, she in turn looks a little flustered by your ladybug-themed polka dot dress and the cute yellow bandana over your hair, with little holes for your ears.

And, okay, there’s Lina in the floofiest dress you’ve ever seen and her hair up in a bun, sitting in a chair nearby, and Kazelia in a daring off-the-shoulder gown, and next to her the angriest little owl you’ve ever seen in your life, and Adila sitting on her own couch, wearing a peacock-patterned ball gown. And there’s Dandy in an oversized sweater with little bows on it and tights, and Isolde(?!?) in a Konkon-style kimono, too.

“As we all know,” Eupheria says, her high heels clacking on the stage before the vast audience of her nightmare army, her awful gremlins and black glass knights and the huge figure of her glass dragon, “back when Adila locked me away and threw away the key, I promised you all that if someone came and saved me, saved us, I’d do anything to thank them.” She’s wearing a sharp iridescent suit now, with loose sleeves that flop down to cover her hands, and she’s talking into the Caduceus, shrunk down to the size of a wand. Both her unnaturally garish lights and Alina’s pure, wholesome lights are swirling around her.

“But nobody came.”

For a moment... for that line... her voice is raw and small. Then she turns impossibly sharp on her heel to look at you all, the crowd booing viciously behind her, in command and in control once again.

“Can you believe that? Nobody! Not one person in all of Hyperborea said to themselves, hey, maybe she’s getting cramped in there, how about we offer her parole? So I figured, if Hyperborea has turned its back on me, why not destroy everything when I got out, instead? And let me tell you, I made a checklist. Boil the seas away to start things off, then chop down Argossa and use it for kindling, and then tear down every kingdom brick by brick until there’s nowhere left to hide for every stinking, miserable little wretch who abandoned me!” She looms over you all, suddenly ten feet tall, her teeth turning to hideous fangs as she screeches her fury, magenta hair lashing like a nest full of writhing snakes—

And then she giggles, and it’s like flipping a switch. The fangs are gone, she’s shrunk down to merely being tall and willowy, and she’s back to being outrageously, ominously bubbly.

“But then, you know, you think of one thing, then you think of another, and soon enough it’s like, bluh, how am I even supposed to choose, right? Soooo many options! That’s why I made the...”

“WHEEL! OF! FAAAAAAATE!!!”

To the sound of the crowd’s roaring, she waves a hand and up out of the stage rises a huge, huge, huge wheel. Every one of the little slices of the wheel has text in Eupheria’s wild handwriting and plenty of illustrations:

• host a rainbow tea party for everyone in Hyperborea, let bygones be bygones! :)
• BURN DOWN ARGOSSA AND BLOW THE SUN AND MOON OUT OF THE SKY, REPLACE EVERYTHING WITH MY FACE
• Princess 2 Prince, Boy Extravaganza!!!
• Everyone Is Cat (Except Askaians, Who Will Be Dog)
• TEN THOUSAND YEARS OF SPARKLY TERROR
• put everyone in their own personal dungeon dimension, see how THEY like it
• grant my gallant rescuer(s) their hearts’ desire!
• LABYRINTH OF TORMENT, BROADCAST LIVE
• everybody gets a limited edition Shadow War teacup and box of lemon cake mix :)
• erase everyone’s hearts
• make bridges between all the worlds so nobody has to lose their eyes again
• turn Ouroboros into a worm, go fishing
• FLIP HYPERBOREA UPSIDE DOWN SO EVERYONE HAS TO LIVE IN THE DARK NOW
• turn everybody into me! :)
• Crossover Episode?
• bees!!!
• turn Ourania into a puppy and then abandon her by the side of the road with a sign that says she’s a bad dog and everyone should ignore her and then go and kick her just to be sure she’s miserable for the rest of her life
• retire to Axonia and make new bespoke parrots
• turn everybody into dragons? no chance this will backfire!!!!

“Would my lovely assistant please come turn the wheel?” The spotlights fall on Azora’s body, dressed in a spangly leotard. The owl screeches furiously. Azora’s body curtseys, then takes the great slats of the wheels in both hands and sets it spinning with a mighty heave.

Slowly, but gaining speed, it begins to spin, a little Caduceus-shaped needle up at the top indicating which one she intends to inflict on Hyperborea. Ooooh boy.

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“While we’re waiting on the results, let’s hear from our intrepid guests! Go ahead, introduce yourselves— one at a time, please— and tell us all what brought you here! What your hopes and dreams are, what you think of your host, and why, after all that time, you’re setting me free now!”

She taps the miniature Caduceus against her lips and grins. Her eyes are endless pits of swirling color that make you feel like you’re going to fall in, or maybe lose yourself trying to keep track of where one color ends and the other begins. “And no lies, please.”

claka-claka-claka-claka-clack

“Hello,” you say, waving at the crowd, suddenly jolted from watching her eyes. No princess of Askaia will shirk from a challenge to be so cute and so adorable they win the hearts of a nightmare army! “My name’s Rita von Catabas, Princess of the Askaian Isles, and I’m Alina’s girlfriend! I’ve wanted to kiss her since we were both little kittens, and when she asked me out in Argossa, it was a dream come true! I didn’t feel I was worthy of it— I needed her help to save my home, wasn’t there when she needed me in Jedad, and couldn’t save a princess who saved me in turn in Feloria, but the way she looks at me makes me feel like the most special princess in the world.” You’re a little surprised you’re going into so much detail, but you turn and give Alina the sweetest smile in all of Hyperborea.

“We didn’t mean to save you,” you continue, continuing onwards, feeling a weird pressure building in the back of your head, “because everyone thought you were dead, or just a story, and I actually have no clue how you’re still alive after all this time. And when I was just a little kitten the story of you and Princess Carmilla and how you made the brave cat princess into your pet made me so flustered that even now that I’m all grown up I fantasize about doing that with Alina even though my parents would be horrified if they found out but that’s okay because Alina knows and accepts that I’m into that!!”

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You are going to melt. You are going to melt right through your seat and through the floor and all the way down to Devilhome. Eska is snickering loudly. You are blushing furiously and the hysterical roar of the crowd is like the crashing of the waves on the shore and you are actually starting to sniffle and cry and why did you say that??

“Well, thank you so much for sharing that with us,” Queen Eupheria says, hiding her laughter behind her hand, floating a signed souvenir picture of herself over to you captioned to my adoring fan, “who’s next~?”

Now you can’t say anything else, can’t try to explain or complain. One At A Time, Please. All you can do is bury your face in your paws and sob with humiliation, but not at so loud a volume it would stop someone else from taking their turn.

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[Broken Heart — Eupheria cannot be Finished with Wisdom or Grace. Damage this stat when her heart is made whole.
Wicked Queen — Eupheria cannot be Finished with Blood, Sense or Courage. Damage this stat when she renounces her crown.
Caddy And I Are One — Eupheria may rewrite her own stats and tags. Damage this stat when she no longer possesses the Caduceus.

The CADUCEUS is a Source of Power that allows the bearer to inflict Location Stats at will.

Eupheria has inflicted the Location Stats Zone of Compulsive Truth and One At A Time, Please on the stage of Tonight With Eupheria.]

Masks: Resurrection Roundabout

POTENTIAL 4

@SARAHPHIM: This sucks.
@SARAHPHIM: Sit tight, Dommy, I’m coming.

“I had a meeting, you know,” Sara groans as she pulls herself up the fangirl like ivy creeping up a trellis, ignoring her scandalized squeaking. She can handle having a half-concussed superheroine clinging to her for balance. “Was gonna sign on to an awesome clothing line. But everything’s got to be an ordeal these days.”

The unwritten contract between @SARAHPHIM and her fans is that she will be there to save them. Witcherphim can beat her for all she cares, she just needs to be there for Dominus first.

She tosses a glitter bomb through the broken window and scampers madly for the back, her sword and cloak melting away, the biotech stuffed in one of the shallow pockets on her suit. The fan will probably follow her, but no way she’s as fast as Sara at a dead sprint.

The helicopter’s spiraling down towards the ground, and Dominus needs more time to get the pilot out so they can both eject before their firey doom. You work with the tools you have: Sara begins juggling the helicopter with hardlight blasts, keeping it at a level altitude while also shaking Dominus and company around in there like pinballs. If there’s anyone who could escape in those conditions, it’s Dominus.

[7 on Defense. Exposing self to danger (hot) in order to take Influence on Dominus.]

Monster Hearts: Sleepshy Rise

SECOND PLACE
WEREWOLF MAGNET

“I mean, if you think about it, we kiiiiiind of are?” Elodie is amazing under pressure. “You did ask me out on a tea date, after all.” Ignore the fact it was school mandated! “And there was the promise of K-I-S-S later, and besides, what else was I going to say? Oh, gosh, Dad, you’re right, I am dating this stinky, sweaty werewolf I’m currently pinned under, we absolutely were doing the badonkadonk, you can expect a fresh litter of puppies in June? You know how Dads are.”

She mimes shooting herself in the head. Don’t think about how often she’s seen the aftermath. Don’t think about that at all.

“I had to get him off the scent, and fast, and besides, we were on such a nice date already, and once we get that spell off you, we can keep going, maybe even make it official?”

She bats her eyes, trying very hard not to think about sweaty werewolves pinning her to a wall and making her sing like a dove.

“Because I’d be lots better for you than Annalee. She’s probably interested in having a hypnotized house husband to do her evil bidding, and that would be such a waste!”

Then she hops up and grabs his hands, pressing them up against her collarbone. “Come on, Timmy! Let’s stop wasting time!” It’s unclear whether she’s talking about wedding bells or having kids, with the manic gleam in her eye, and the thought of Lord Sleepshy or the Angel busting in on Unallowed Activities probably looms large in one’s imagination.

[That’s a 6 on Turning Timmy On.]