synopsychic | (no subject)

So. We had another one of our captors show up on the Jaunt. I spoke with him - he gave me the name Hakan Ceasar, but now that I'm myself again, I think it's pretty safe to say it was the Emperor. He told me he was there to 'ensure the orderly transference of power', which as far as I know was the shift in government in Sarmatia. Why that specifically was important, I don't know, but it seems like it was.

For the newbies - you've probably at least been given the bare bones of who and what the Trumps are, but I thought it might help some to have an idea of the timeline, given how frequently people arrive and vanish. To my knowledge, the first Trump to make themselves known to Travellers was the Fool, somewhere around a year ago, in the ocean world. This wasn't the first Jaunt ever, mind - I know of at least six that took place before that, and nobody can remember earlier than that, so there may have been more. The Jaunt after that, with the crazy zombie shit - no Trumps anybody knows of, but that glitched out somehow. Fuck knows what was going on there. The fancy solstice ball had the Sun and the Moon. Harrowgate, no Trumps again, but the first appearance a figure called the King in Yellow. Other people can probably tell you more about that, but my understanding is that... he? it? isn't a Trump, but may be as powerful as them, and is bad fucking news. His sigil has showed up a few times in Liminal Space. [There's a brief image of the triskelion symbol blocking the drain in an industrial sink] If you see it, mention it psychically so someone who knows what they're doing can deal with it.

[A pause, then he continues]
Anyway, after that - the Lovers appeared at the school, in the form of an AI system. Before that, the Trumps had appeared as humans - on the outside, anyway. The GRID is where shit started to get really crazy, though we got some answers, too. The Magician, under the guise of ROSE, appeared to be attempting the revival or freeing of the Hermit, known there as SAGE. The Devil and the Lovers attempted to influence travellers to prevent this - the Devil called SAGE a criminal, and said that his execution was 'within the rules', whatever the rules are. He also said that our excursions were 'sanctioned'. The High Priestess spoke with and marked one traveller, but did not manifest.

At some point, the Magician told people that four Trumps were dead - the Hierophant, Fortune, Temperance, and the Star. In liminal space afterwards, there was a phone that allowed calling any of the Trumps that had previously made themselves known, and one said that of the four dead, one was killed by an external force of some sort, and the other three were due to internal conflict. Which is which, I'm not sure. I spoke to the Sun briefly, who was polite but not forthcoming. As far as I know, nobody was marked for speaking to them over the phone.

In Questing Country, the High Priestess appeared, though I have no details about it. Nobody mentioned seeing any Trumps in the Jaunt after that, Melasurei, though from what I gathered, things didn't go well in general there. In Nova Veniza, both the Chariot and the Hanged Man appeared, and the Chariot was apparently fairly affable. And that's everything up to now.

The Trumps work under some sort of set of rules, though I don't know how closely bound by them they are. We're pawns, and the purpose of whatever little game they're playing at isn't clear. It may just be a game, to them - but what the Emperor told me made it sounds like there were higher stakes involved, and that he was aware of these. They're apparently limited to marking five travellers each, though I don't have a record on who's been marked and who hasn't. Some people have been public about it, while others have not. There's been speculation that once every traveller is marked, the nature of what we do may shift to something other than the Jaunts. But there's a lot we don't know.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Preventative measures. I can teach you to identify whether a being or ritual site is eldritch in nature. I can teach you wards to defend against them. I can teach you spells to imbue objects with the power to hold back the Old Ones. It is not much, but... it will give us precious few seconds should the King in Yellow appear.

If the situation is that dire, it'd be foolish not to learn such magic, although I may put it as a slightly lower priority than making food and shelter...

... I can also teach you how to make portals and create food and rooms, but not now. I... have Travelers to train in defensive techniques against the Old Ones.

Oh, understandable, definitely understandable! (This little workshop-hotel is lovely, by the way). I already had people I was going to bother for those.

Say, perhaps it would be a good idea to ask your pupils to teach others the defensive tactics when they've mastered them? I'm two months late for a "pyramid scheme" joke, but it will propagate a lot faster if people pass the skills down.

Very well. And... thank you. I only hope my workshop meets your needs adequately.

No, I will not. [His mental voice is suddenly very stern.] If someone approaches and asks them to teach these defenses, so be it. But I will not force this knowledge on anyone. If something were to happen, we will be the first, and perhaps only, line of defense. Anyone who does not feel up to that task has no business learning secrets which could potentially ruin us all if they are used haphazardly or unwillingly.

... and they are not my pupils. Pupils have a far different meaning when you were once responsible for the cult who worshiped that foul creature.

Rather than offering power to someone, you ask them to accept the responsibility. I suppose that's a more responsible way of looking at it with regards to the individual, if not the group.

...and for a very understandable reason, Maestro Da Vinci.

There is little in the way of power, here. Only defensive marks and spells which will be useless should one thing be drawn incorrectly or pronounced differently. But as a sorceress, you should know what happens when a spell component is missing or is of low quality.

... I do not feel like much of a maestro at the moment.

You've been dealt extremely poor hands by the Trumps, which aside from the ironic reversal of cards dealing things to a human, isn't something that can be helped.

I've watched Witches with the power of the Trumps try to break someone down before. They were exceptionally effective. The torture that can be inflicted in this kind of situation is unimaginable to those who haven't lived it.

We have all been dealt extremely poor hands. Not just me. So many other Travelers have suffered in ways I could not even begin to imagine...

[There's a long silence on his end for a moment.]

But the Trumps are not infallible. I have seen them misstep more than once or twice.

If we wish to escape - or simply win at their little "game" - it might be helpful to spread that information around at least as much as defenses against the King in Yellow.

Which information? That the Trumps can they, themselves, be trumped? Or that other Travelers have suffered terribly due to this game of theirs? That was clear from the very beginning.

Not only the Trumps' mistakes and failures, but the context of how they made them.

I think, if we're going to do anything but suffer in their little games, we need to understand the Trumps' thought processes, and their screw-ups are much more useful for that than their successes.

I cannot speak collectively about them, but for one instance; even then, I am not sure if it was because of all Trumps or only a select few. They are... very individualized, the Trumps, very different beings, from us and from each other. They have trouble pretending to be human, even the most human-looking ones.

The biggest mistake I remember was Austin. When they sent us to Boston, they... well, I would explain it now as shutting down a simulation.

...they mixed things up on a stupid rhyme? And didn't have the panache to play it off? I'm suddenly less impressed.