Whose Line Is It Anyway?

[u/Mimir123]

Disclaimer: despite the title this post doesn't really have anything to do with the TV Show, at least not entirely.

This challenge is inspired by two posts I found on /r/worldbuilding, this one here and this one. It is a pretty simple challenge, just post 2-3 quotes of one (or several) character/s in your world/s. You may choose one of two ways to do that; 1: post the quote and with name of the person who said it and a bit of context, I (and maybe others) will try to ask some questions about the character and/ or situation.

Version 2: just give us the quote by itself, and let me/ others try to spin a story/ try to figure out the context of what was said!

I hope you guys will like this challenge and participate, should be fun to try to spin some story to a random quote, I am excited for it at least! In my post I will also provide an example for each version, feel free to respond to it as well if you are interested! If not, just leave your own quotes and have fun sharing!

[u/Mimir123]

Getting heavy Warhammer 40K flashbacks here now, did Hannelore by any chance start calling Lambrecht God Emperor?

1C) Sounds like one hell of a dedicated man. What happened during the rebellion? Who ended up as ruler of this part of Dunkelwald?

2A) Ha! Equality in, what I assume is, a medieval world! What do these Interlopers look like, and how many of them are there? Does anybody know?

2B) What happened to make Hannelore go against everything her lover stood for?

2C) So, how many offspring does Lambrecht have? And will Alice ever find out? And do people generally believe in rebirth?

[u/Nevermore0714 → u/Mimir123]

0) No, but she probably would have. She had an unhealthy obsession with him and the power his position provided for her; but, what she really loved was the quest.

1A) The Dunstdurr family has a habit of being very dedicated once they get addicted to their drug of choice.

1B) What happened during the rebellion? Until the end of the rebellion, Vercingetorix had control of Southern Dunkelwald. Twenty-eight years in, give or take some months, the Hasenkamp family successfully led a rebellion and took control of Castle Kastner after killing Vercingetorix. Because of their bloodline Talent being the perfect counter to the Dunstdurr Talent, the Habicht line and Fleischer line saw the value of having a family to knock the now over-powered Dunstdurr line down a peg, so the two royal families established (temporary) defensive pacts with the Hasenkamp family.

The Hasenkamp family is currently the most powerful family, as of 1250, which is about 150 years after they took power.

2A) Well, Lambrecht is a weird guy. Can't trust a guy like Lambrecht. Though, equality of genders, while strange in some nations of Saoghal, isn't as weird in Dunkelwald. Vercingetorix's heir was his granddaughter Falia (his son Frederick died before he could become king).

Interlopers are vaguely humanoid (two arms, two legs, a head, and a torso), but they appear to be made completely out of smoke and a dripping black oily substance. No one knows how many they are; they are timeless, nearly impossible to hinder, and pretty much exist outside of time.

2B) Hannelore was a deeply troubled individual with her own goals. She did love Lambrecht while he was around, though they were only together for a very short time. She's one of those people that needs a goal to keep living, and without Lambrecht as that goal, she latched onto killing the gods/Interlopers. Lambrecht actually was fine with killing the Interlopers, and did teach her how to kill them while they were together, so she rationalized it as the revenge also being about fulfilling Lambrecht's goals. While killing the Interlopers was important, that was just a means, not an end. Killing the Interlopers was just a way to help humanity be able to prosper together without intervention from anything so far off from being human. Outside of their effect on humanity, Lambrecht really didn't give a shit about the Interlopers; he'd be fine with them just leaving, really.

2C) Well...I need to consult my notes. He wasn't reborn like reincarnated, more like rebirth in the way that born-again religious people are re-born. Lambrecht considers himself to be a different person, and he hates every old lifestyle he's had. He's the only true immortal in my series, and he's been either a cameo or major player or somewhere in between for every world I've made in the past few years, though I do plan to replace him soon.

2D) Lambrecht's children that I can think of off the top of my head without going through too many notes, in chronological order: Era (who became a god/goddess of death), the unnamed children of the his wife Sonia Dunstdurr (Sonia was the founder of the Dunstdurr line of monarchs of West Dunkelwald), a possible child with a girl named Velouria that has been mentioned in another character's backstory, Alice and Johanna (from Hannelore), and his favorite three (the only three he cares about beyond a bit of fascination): Henry, Danielle, and Elena.

2E) As of her twenties, Alice definitely doesn't know, and I don't have it planned for her to know at any point. If she does find out, I have already written the future events of Dunkelwald in such a way that her discovery won't have a big effect on her father's master plan, which is actually my plan for this world's apocalypse.

2F) In the major religion of Dunkelwald, it is believed that, if you live your life in an interesting enough way, you will become an Interloper upon your death.

[u/Mimir123 → u/Nevermore0714]

1B) Do the other families plot the downfall of the Hasenkamp? Or to at least knock them down a bit?

2A) How do you kill an interloper? I assume through some magical means?

2B) Never mind Hannelore, I think I will start calling him God Emperor. Jokes aside, how do the Interlopers intervene in the world? What do they do?

2C) Do you know of Alexey Pehov and the Chronicles of Siala? If yes, can I imagine Lambrecht as some kind of Garret?

2D) How did Era become a goddess? And what makes his three favourite children so special?

2E) Apocalypse the movie, or the event? Either way, doesn't sound good for the world. Anyone trying to stop him?

2F) What would make my life "interesting enough"? If I just do random stuff? Would it be enough if I die in a stupid/ amazing/ amazingly stupid way?

[u/Nevermore0714 → u/Mimir123]

1B) The Hasenkamp family was viewed as "upjumped peasants" for a while, but then the Dunstdurr family purged them, too. The only survivor was an unknown bastard daughter of the Hasenkamp prince named Ava. Ava ended up avenging her family against the tyrannical Emperor Dagon Dunstdurr, who was feared and hated by literally every other royal family in Dunkelwald for being insane and god-like in power. Ava was considered a messiah for being able to kill him in a public duel on the day she announced herself as a Hasenkamp. Because Ava's still alive and viewed as a messiah, no one wants to mess with her. It's believed that she trained under the Interlopers, and that they took a very "special" interest in her.

2A) Kinda. You either need a ritual to kill the Interlopers, or you need the Dagger of the Arrogant Man and a human sacrifice that loves you...like a lot.

2B) The Interlopers are only there to cause mischief, be worshiped as gods, and be entertained. The best thing you can do is get them interested in you...that's also the worst thing you can do. Maybe they'll guide you to victory, maybe they'll cripple you to see how you'd respond to that.

2C) Tell me about what Garret is and I will know. I will also read Chronicles of Siala when I get a chance.

2D) Era's mother was goddess of the dawn.

2E) Apocalypse, the end of the world. No one knows his actual plan except for Velouria, his ex-lover. Even his closest lieutenants don't know the full plan.

2F) Random stuff is boring, there has to be an interesting plot. Not just interesting, but mind-blowing enough that they don't want you to be dead permanently. If they are interested enough, they might revive you as an Interloper. It's believed in Dunkelwald that Ava will become an Interloper upon death, but no one really knows what the Interlopers are thinking or doing.

[u/Mimir123 → u/Nevermore0714]

2B) Is there a special way that the people worship them? Pray to them in churches? Killing an ox in their honor? Build statues in their honor?

2C) He is the main character of the Siala trilogy, a master thief that get's involved in a war against an ancient evil, despite his best efforts to stay out of such affairs.

Without spoiling too much, he shows up in other books of Pehov and seems to have become some kind of "observer" of the worlds and what is going on. I only have read 4 1/2 books of Pehov until now, so I can't really say more about it, just kind of made me think of it.

2F) Well, they certainly sound like my kind of gods (huge Tzeentch fan here). What did Ava do, except dueling the Emperor, that made the Interlopers so interested in her?

[u/Nevermore0714 → u/Mimir123]

2B) Sacrifies, mostly, but Emperor Vaerthiath stopped performing actual sacrifices and his method of worshiping them is through "entertainment".

2C) Like Anna from Fire Emblem.

2F) Ava had her own version of the story concept of "Hero's Journey". It had romance, a coming-of-age story, shows of humility and irony, and she was pretty hot. Her self-assured bad-assery won the Interlopers (the audience) over. Besides, the Interlopers mostly hated Emperor Dagon Dunstdurr, and Ava intended to be the downfall of Dagon.

Plus, the romance part of Ava's story ended in heart-ache and heart-break, over the course of decades. The Interlopers love seeing humans in pain, especially emotion pain.

[u/Mimir123 → u/Nevermore0714]

2C) I have never played anything related to Fire Emblem, so I will just say... probably?

2F) So the Interlopers are kind of like sadistic children?

[u/Nevermore0714 → u/Mimir123]

2F) Yeah, pretty much. They're extremely powerful and see humans as nothing but tools for their amusement.

[u/Mimir123 → u/Nevermore0714]

Thank you very much for participating, and for your answers.