OKAY so PREMISE!
This rp takes place on a flat world, afloat in a sea of chaos that constantly gnaws at its edges. What keeps the chaos at bay you don't ask? Why fate of course! Fate is the cause of effect. It's what makes a woodcutters axe make a tree fall down, but what happens when her axe makes the tree fall, say, up? And purple? You get a FATE ERROR, chaos spills from the error and things start getting more and more chaotic around it. A fate error left unchecked can drag entire kingdoms into chaos, and it's the will of the beings that dwell in that horrid primordial sea to drag all the world back down into its depths!
So why haven't they succeeded yet?
Because The Bureau of Destiny won't allow it that's why!
We're gonna play a bunch of characters called Sidereals, the chosen servants of the Five Maidens, tasked with holding chaos at bay by ensuring the plans of Heaven come to fruition* and also sometimes killing demons, or at least giving them cease and desist notices.
But Maidens?? Who are they?
? The Maidens are five very spooky lady goddesses who run the Bureau of Destiny, some say they're not actually separate gods at all and are actually a hivemind, the embodiment of inevitability itself. Others say that they're something even stranger, that they appeared before the titans at the creation of the world and claimed the titans would one day create them, but then they betrayed them and bound them before they could. No one knows for sure. Except for maybe Jupiter. You can ask her if you want, but she'll just smile.
Each one of the Maidens runs her aspect of reality by dispatching Sidereals to
do their jobs for the*REDACTED BY THE MAIDEN OF SECRETS* to do their will in the world. The Maidens have a hundred Sidereals between them, 20 for each Maiden. While all the Sidereals have their own tasks to do they usually get assigned missions in groups, to cover each others weaknesses and watch each others backs, even as the Maidens
claim they do for each other.
MERCURY is the Maiden of Journeys. Her color is yellow, especially saffron, and she's in charge of all coming and going on the earth and in the heavens. Her planet is the most wayward, darting to and fro across the heavens like a blowfly, and often just as irritatingly, especially for the astrologers whose kings behead them when they fail to predict her movements. Mercury is a trickster and a wanderer, and her house is the Golden Barque of Heaven, a mile long ship that sails from one end of Heaven to the other every day. Her forms are many, like any of the Maidens, but when in human appearance her skin is usually either the color of copper or coffee, her hair is anywhere from the white of sun-bleached bone to the yellow of waving corn, and her clothing ranges from swimsuits to ponchos to capes to caps and a hundred other eclectic ornaments based on where she's been, but everything she wears is always as open to sun, wind and admiring eyes as possible.
Mercury selects her Sidereals from among the nomads, the horse-lords of the grass seas of the southeast, the catamaran peoples of the western seas, the icewalkers of the far north, the refugees of the wars in the east. Wherever people are in motion, Mercury will predestine a child to be born with yellow eyes and dreams full of stars and to one day
Journey away from their people, almost certainly never to return.
"It's the Journey that matters, not the destination!"- Mercury, way too often, everyone groans.JUPITER is the Maiden of Secrets. Her color is green, especially dark emerald, and she's in charge of all things secret and hidden in the world, including
*REDACTED* and
*REDACTED*. Her planet is the most subtle, oftentimes seeming to vanish from the sky completely only to reappear from another direction entirely. Trying to predict her movements is usually utterly futile, often to the dismay of astrologers whose queens roast them alive for failing to unlock the secrets of her movements. Jupiter is a trickster and a soothsayer. Others assume: She knows. What she knows is what's difficult to figure out however, as eye contact with her is extremely uncomfortable, everyone who attempts it gets the feeling she can see right into their mind, something she doesn't alleviate by somehow always smiling JUST as they start thinking that.
Her house is the Forbidding Manse of Ivy, a grey-stone building swamped in ivy that squats like a toad on a lily pad. The Manse is filled with art, sculptures and music that always seems to MEAN
SOMETHING but no one can ever QUITE figure out WHAT. You can ask Jupiter if you want, but she usually just smiles. It still never hurts to ask though as she has a tendency to suddenly divulge incredibly rare information at the drop of a hat, but rarely explains why.
Jupiter, in human form anyway, has the pale skin of a librarian or
TOTAL NERDBURGE-*REDACTED* bookworm, as in many ways she's both those things. She carries books filled with knowledge it'd kill you just to know and coffee it'd kill you to drink too much of [so normal but excellent coffee then?]. She often wears eye-patches, blindfolds or thick black glasses but no one knows why. You can ask her, but she'll probably just smile. Her clothes are usually thick and woolen, and usually cover almost everything but her face [and sometimes even that], while her hair is filled with bells that she uses to call her sisters and distract you from what her hands are doing.
Jupiter selects her Sidereals from among the
*REDACTED*, the
*REDACTED* and the people who are
*DOUBLE REDACTED*. I could actually tell you why, but if I did I'd probably get
*REDACTED*.
";]" - Jupiter.MARS is the Maiden of BATTLES. She is a red-haired, red-eyed and red-blooded goddess of strategy, slaughter and soldiers, who worship her as their mother and friend, and is in charge of all collisions of causes and all acts of violence in the world. Mars's color is red and her planet is the most belligerent and militaristic, swaggering across the heavens like a brigadier on a parade ground, much to the displeasure of the astrologers who are drawn and quartered for informing their presidents that their causes are not supported by Mars.
Mars is a general, a strategist and a front-line fighter all rolled into one. She's equally likely to delegate a Sidereal to a mission behind enemy lines as she is to go in their place, and can often be found drilling the Chosen of all of her Sisters in advanced combat tactics or even just exercise routines. Mars's home is the Crimson Panoply of Victory, a giant fortress of red steel and red brick surrounded by camps and battlefields.
Mars herself appears as a redheaded woman, always attired in some form of armament. A spear, quiver, shield, banner and gauntlet are rare far from her reach.
Mars selects her Sidereals from among the generals, the forgotten soldiers, the brilliant but overlooked tacticians and the frothing berserks. All have their uses, and none uses them more efficiently than her.
"*Enthusiastic war cries*" - Mars.AAAAND I gotta sleep I'll post again in the morning! There's two more maidens.
*The Maidens can't do it they're FAR too busy with absolutely TOTALLY IMPORTANT WORK. Totally. Would they lie to you? Would
I lie to you??[?] I think not.
