Narrative Design Document - Mystic Searches

Narrative Design Document Part 1 – The Sage Lakes

Joe Granato IV

The world of Myrinda

An overview

Myrinda. Playground of deities. The fabled continent where the makeup of corporeal reality is still malleable. To the mundane world, sacred accounts of the strange land are no more than a collection of allegories on which the world’s cultures were founded. But make no mistake, the place is real, as is all of its wonder.

As the oldest stories tell it, the Paramicha Darane (translated loosely as the Age of Wonder, and more directly as the old stories of superstition) saw brave explorers from long extinct races converge on Myrinda’s shores. They came to cheat death, or to create life. They came to heal the sick, or to curse the fortunate. They came to learn the secrets of divination, or to take militant command of their fate. They came to find balance, or to invoke entropy. They all came with personal motivations, and they all recklessly tapped supernatural agencies with no regard to consequence.

As word spread of the region’s magical properties, the scattered, rumor-fueled pilgrimages became mass migration. The sparse, supernatural wells were torn open. Whether the response came from external deities or from the elements or from nature itself, the consequence was violent and beyond explanation. The global cataclysm known as the Samudaripen consumed the world. Entire civilizations were lost. The Age of Wonder ended. As the generations passed and the embers of memory went cold, stories of Myrinda and its magic devolved into myth.

Which is the exact intent of its protectors. After the Samudaripen, Myrinda was vacant save for those who were capable of the strongest communion with the mystical elements. A rigorous, dogmatic order was established. Rigid boundaries were created. Individual caretakers took on the responsibility for magic within each boundary. Each caretaker acted as both vanguard and regulator. These were the first of the Mystics, and through thoughtful discipline and careful control, they have existed as custodians of magic, keeping Myrinda safely hidden from the world for generations.

But not everyone in Myrinda values the strict, regimented control over the world’s magic. Racial rivalries have divided the population. The wildlife has become restless and aggressive. Politicians have marginalized the salience of magic entirely. And a rogue cult has been infiltrating all communities, spreading a manifesto which seems aimed at undermining faith in the order of the Mystics.

From the Celestial Observatory at the Sage Lakes, Mystic Paen reads the warning spelled across the night sky. The pattern in the stars warns of something ominous. Something that the Mystics will be powerless to prevent. And in the stars, he reads that Julian, the young vagabond who hears the song of the world, will have a vital part to play. This is where our story begins.

Geography

The Sage Lakes

Sage lakes contains an agrarian society, made up mostly of farmers and traders with an elf-like heritage. Those who inhabit the planes have the most glorious view of the celestial sphere in Myrinda. Their studies have led to a great understanding of the cosmos and the order of the world. They are responsible for advanced cartography, navigation systems, and calendars. Their magic is that of Order, and those studying the magic of Sage Lakes often practice divination and are adept at premonition and precognition. It’s not so much that they can see the future, but rather can measure it in a predictive way.

Julian, our main protagonist

Julian was once a vagabond minstrel, traveling the mundane world amazing commoners with his songcraft. It wasn’t that he was a virtuoso composer, nor that he practiced some sort of rehearsed recitation, but rather than he communed with the world around him and created a supernatural sonic counterpoint to his surroundings. He was vetted in secret by Mystic Paen of Myrinda when his musical ability was recognized as a magical property. After a series of trials proved to Paen that further suggested Julian’s aptitude for magic, he was recruited to study under Paen in Myrinda by the Order of Mystics. He now resides at the Celestial Observatory of Sage Lakes. In terms of magic itself, he is fairly inept (and somewhat apathetic). But no one can deny the awe-inspiring nature of the sound of his lute.

The Mystic of Order: Master Paen

Before taking role as Mystic, Mystic Paen was a member of the Council of Appointment. Now, he studies the patterns in the stars and works closely with Mayor Haviender Vendt of the capital city Iohai to maintain the delicate balance between the magic users of Myrinda.

Prologue to Adventure: The introduction of Majorie

One night, while deeply invested into his nightly ritual of neglecting his responsibilities, Julian is in deep communion with the night at the southmost lip of the Borrowood forest; a place known as Glenhaven. An unfortunate motif worms its way into his song, and recoiling from the unnatural dissonance, the forest around him begins to whither. He is able to find the right motif to end the dramatic battle with the maleficent force, which resolves in the shape of the frightened girl Majorie. Garbed in tattered aristocratic attire and accompanied by a domesticated feist, she collapses in resignation in an attempt to be healed by the magic of life and sentience that permeates Glenhaven from its source in the Borrowood. Ashamed of his voyeuristic witness and inadvertent participation in the strange happening, Julian flees before being discovered. Yet he can not shake the new melody created by their chance encounter.

It is Julian’s song, or rather this communion with the song of life emanating in that place, which countered the affects of her curse.

Majorie is the daughter of a bureaucratic artist father and a lifelong servant in the maidj guard mother. She was born in Iohai, the neutral capital of Myrinda, where magic is prohibited by law as a matter of protecting the bureaucracy from any significant influence or favor. Those in the capital are often seen as elite, pompous, and arrogant, as they self-define their own importance as the center of the civilized world. But as a young girl, Majorie and her younger brother Aarn, were quite mischievous, fascinated by a magical world they could see from the city walls, especially inspired by schoolyard stories of heroic treasure hunters. After combative dares, the two scaled down into the swamps of Swynhall, at the heart of which was a sunken section of the city often targeted by treasure hunters willing to risk their health in a place thick with the magic of decay for a chance to recover lost relics. There, the childish game turned very serious when her brother accidentally uncovered one of those very relics. This particular piece was a music box that was last used to record an incantation that could summon the Mystic of Death. Death was summoned, and Aarn was taken. Majorie was touched by the amalgam of the incantation, the trauma of seeing death take her brother, and the wonder of the supernatural spectacle.

Feeling responsible for his death, Majorie becomes secretly obsessed with the subject. She buries herself in the old tomes in the catacombs of the capital city’s library, where she meets a mysterious hooded figure. This figure, Amriya, offers her potential answers in a forbidden book called the Myrin Svatura.

The book’s cryptic, rather nonsensical poetry has a subconscious effect that transforms Majorie into a monster. This monster flees the capital in search of answers. It is this Majorie that Julian meets in Glenhaven.

Glenhaven

Glenhaven is a small geographic area south of the Sage Lakes. This is where Julian escapes regularly to play his lute for the forest, and where Majorie finds solace from the frightening thing growing inside her. Both of them feel the influence of the magic of sentience (and life, generally) radiating from the Borrowood. From the novelization, a description of this region is:

“In the glen at the mouth of the Borrowood, the skeletons of scattered architectural remains evidenced a valiant yet futile battle between a once proud civilization and the nature with which he now communed. Here, among the mossy ruins that were a threshold to the enchanted forest beyond, the song of the world was clearest of anywhere he knew.”

The Bijav Kintala

The Bijav Kintala is an annual festival held in the Sage Lakes which celebrates another year of s of the continent descending on the Sage Lakes for frivolous merriment and serious trade in the spirit of unity. But the eastern provinces now mostly keep to themselves. There are racial and ideological tensions between the mutants in Swynhall and the galbies of Borrowood. In recent times, the event has become more of a habitual spectacle put on by those in the Sage Lakes to entertain those living more mundanelives in the capital Iohai.

The Incendiaries

Incendiary is an epithet given to the growing cult of transients campaigning against the order of the mystics. Amriya is one of the members of this group. The hooded figures have become more and more prominent, distributing propaganda and sewing discontent with the status quo. In a world that is brimming with racial tension and ideological divide, this manner of manipulation very effective. For the incendiaries, the ends justify the means. They are willing to put the world through some serious upheaval to democratize the magic of Myrinda rather than see it regulated by the dogmatic order of the mystics.

To combat their influence, the Mayor of Iohai, Haviender Vendt, has worked with Master Paen to push for harsher penalties for anyone brandishing the mandala sigul as part of distributed propaganda. The ancient symbol shows the balance in compartmentalizing the magic, and it is considered profane to use this symbol of unity in a way that undermines the system. The current penalty is exile to Nark, a heavily guarded, walled in wasteland of snowlike ash at the foot of a dormant volcano.

Unfortunately, it seems that this harsh punishment has only emboldened the incendiaries, and fostered sympathy for, or at least curiosity in, their cause.

An ancient mystic temple

Julian and Majorie meet again at the Bijav Kintala. Together, they witness the exile of one of the incendiaries at the hands of Mystic Paen. The night brings them close, and eventually their path leads back to the pocket of forest at the foot of the Borrowood that resonates so strongly with the magic of life known as Glenhaven. However, Julian senses a terrible dissonance, and traces its source to an ancient mystic temple. This temple is one of the skeletons leftover from a long forgotten age. Julian becomes trapped inside.

The Burnouts, and a Muse

Burnouts are the reanimated remains of failed mystics. Mystics are groomed for a long time, and therefor become incredibly powerful in their ability to use magic. But not all who study ascend to role as custodian. There are only 8 sitting mystics at any given time. In a ritual that both tests their aptitude and their fealty to preserving order in Myrinda, many candidates fail. Their aura is subsequently lost to the void, and as in death, they lose cohesion with their corporeal body. Through a complex, strategic plot, the incendiaries reanimated a handful of these failed mystics, and in exchange for reconstitution, have learned how to tap the magic of Myrinda for their own purposes. The spiteful burnouts are also being used as champions to directly counter the current sitting mystic order as the cult executes an broadly lateral attempted coup.

Inside the ancient mystic temple, one of these burnouts is found tormenting what looks to be a small forest creature. Instinctively, Julian responds. With a firm grip on his trusty lute, he assails the towering supernatural being, allowing the creature escape and to hide. Ultimately, Julian is no match for an angered failed mystic.

Julian wakes some time later. His wounds are tended to and mostly healed. After the burnout left the temple, the small creature, a muse, emerged to nurse him to health and keep him alive. In Myrinda, muses are a physical manifestation of the song of the world. They are an anthropomorphized representation of the strong vibrative motifs that are at the foundation of Myrinda’s magical properties. These creatures usually only come to exist in peripheral awareness, but Julian has become so attuned to the song of the world that in the same way he communes with it, he can commune with them. This particular muse has made residence in the old shrine devoted to life magic from an age long before the mystics, before the Samudaripen that fundamentally changed the world. It has been flirting with communication with Julian. When the burnout appeared in the temple, it acted to exterminate this muse like a common pest. Only Julian’s valiant act saved it from an untimely end. Muse warns that the song of the world is being challenged everywhere in Myrinda.

The Sage Lakes in disarray.

Julain returns to a Sage Lakes that is virtually unrecognizable. It turns out that Julian had been in the care of the muse for weeks, and in that time, the peaceful home of the magic of order had fallen victim to terrible and chaotic circumstances. Peaceful creatures had become malicious and dangerous. A smokey haze left the celestial sphere an unnatural shade of color. Crops had turned early, and the grim reality of desperation yielded violence over finite resources. Emissaries had been dispatched for answers and for help, but had yet to return. Ordinarily, the residents of Sage Lakes could count on Mystic Paen’s magical means to solve issues and communicate with the rest of the world, but he was trapped inside the celestial observatory by some sort of monster who had erected an impenetrable shell around the structure. No one knew his condition and most feared the worst. The remaining residents huddled in their homes while hooded incendiaries took to the streets, using untrained, unauthorized magic to quell unrest and defend against emboldened creatures. The attitude on the vigilante protectors was somewhat split. While some continued to see them as a combative agitators, others were more open in empathizing, and championed their presence and self-appointed role as protectors in the absence of Sage Lake’s sitting mystic.

Majorie has been desperately searching for Julian with the help of a few of his friends, but they’d been unable to locate the ancient shrine. They had assumed the worst.

Together, Majorie, Julian, and his friend Glume find a secret way into the Sage Lakes Celestial Observatory on a mission to save Mystic Paen.

The Celestial Observatory

From above, the observatory looks like a lake. From underneath, the thin membrane of water held in place by the magic of order is a lens through which to see the order in the stars.

Glume

Glume is a bit of an enigma. One of Julian’s closest friends, he’s the child of a Paan and Zmeu, the sitting Mystic of Exigence, who presides over Nark. This isn’t so strange on the part of Zmeu. As one might expect from the Mystic of Exigence, he procreates with every opportunity and without prejudice to expand his progeny. However, the civilians of Paanitan, guided by Mystic Sirene, are curators of the magic that is responsible for predetermination. And so Glume’s split lineage demonstrates a perpetual tug of war between subservience to destiny and personal intervention into one’s course in life. The constant tension between the two has made him a very capable student with obscene levels of natural talent, though his certainty in his own destiny leaves him with an aloof disposition. Ironically, the boastful delusion of his own fated greatness steeped in predetermination only fosters a competitive side, which generally leads him to embrace the fire of exigence.

The Great Fool

The monster holding Paen prisoner is no monster at all, but is Paen himself, with his magic of order and balance corrupted. He has become a caricature of the fool, maddened by the influence of a burnout. His monster form actively disrupts the balance of the world by refracting the starlight through his orb and projecting the distortions out into Myrinda.

Seizing the opportunity to fulfill his destiny as a hero, Glume confronts Paen. Marshalling his best efforts through the fire of exigence, Glume proves to be out of his depth, and Paen crushes the boy to death with a giant stone tablet bearing his mother’s glyph; a glyph that denotes the power of destiny. Julian and Majorie escape into the temple, stalked by monster Paen.

The Greatest Mistake

Ultimately cornered, Majorie and Julian finally confront his teacher. Julian has only an inept grasp at magic, but Majorie’s curse reveals itself in horrible glory. Such an unlikely scenario that she, born into mundanity without any formal instruction, owns her magic and becomes a manifestation of death incarnate. Unfortunately, Mystic Paen uses her own magic against her. As her strength grows, the room comes to life with vines and roots, serving Paen and threatening to suffocate her. Julian commands his lute and begins to resonate with the song of the world to try to deescalate her death magic in order to save her life. Through his command of this music, he tries to wrestle for control of the supernatural agency in the room. But just like Glume’s exigence being countered by Paen with destiny, and Majorie’s death magic being countered with an overabundance of life, Julian’s song is met with opposing dissonances that cancel out his control. The intense focus in the drama of the moment cause him to faulter and play wrong notes, which Paen then counters. As the counter to the wrongness mistakes, the room resonates with Paen’s overpowering correctness. This gives Julian the idea to allow Paen to correct chaos with order. Julian continues to interject mistakes into his song, each of which Paen counters with overwhelming perfection. As balance returns to the room, Paen returns to his true form enough to regain his senses, and he drives out the influence of the burnout.

Starblight

This serves as a quasi epilogue to the first arc. As Paen recovers, he is able to help restore a shaky balance to the Sage Lakes. Most of the incendiaries scatter. Majorie leaves with the plan to return to Iohai and face her past, realizing that it is time for her to admit to her family the truth about what happened to her brother. After honoring Glume, there is a bittersweet goodbye.

Julian assists the rebuilding efforts of a frail Paen devastated by his susceptibility to these malignant external forces. He confides in Julian that he is a bit frightened to open himself back up fully to his own abilities. The stars tell him that what transpired in the Sage Lakes is only a piece in a complex puzzle. He tasks Julian with traveling to the capital of Iohai to summon Haviender Vendt, and alert the Maidj guard to be on the ready. When Julian is asked to tap the magic of order himself to gauge the stars, he sees that a terrible, unnatural illness has washed over the capital city, and his last vision before losing his fragile control of the newly learned magic is of a dying Majorie.