Café de Nuit

Posted: **Tue Dec 09, 2025 12:51 pm**

Zettaijin wrote: Sun Nov 05, 2023 9:24 am The enemy myself

It's a story as old as time. A vain woman refuses to accept the passage of time and seeks out mystical means of prolonging her youth.

The lengths to which some women will go to turn back time can be quite extreme - bathing in blood, human sacrifice, devouring infant flesh...

Josephine, as she is known these days, is no different. One day she set out to find the secrets of eternal youth. She scoured academic tomes - well she tried anyway. Truth be told, the poor woman was not barely able to read in her native tongue let alone the ancient arcane languages of sages and mystics. So she sought out the fabled wanderers of the mist with hopes of having something of value that could be traded in exchange for eternal youth. Sadly, she fell for the rumors and tall tales regarding the powers of these wandering folks and they laughed at her request. Jilted but not defeated, she sought advice from presumed alchemists and specialists of all matters otherworldly. It meant a few unpleasant nights by the side of her wealthy but oft drunk husband and the risk of being caught pilfering his coins, but she'd outlive him.

Perhaps the Dark Powers spied on her thoughts and spread a few bread crumbs to aid in her quest to find an answer to her burning query.

They led her to an ever changing entity capable of providing her with the means to achieve eternal youth.

Now, she was perhaps not a learned scholar, but she knew of these "dark pacts" and "deals with the devil." She knew there was a price to pay in the form of some terrible curse or twisted fate - her mother had not raised a fool. So she bluntly asked the entity for the various costs, to which the entity in its guise of a rotund child with an oddly small face laughed and praised her for her boldness.

"You know well, dear girl, of the dark ways. Bah, these things are all part of the protocol really. The transaction bears a heavy cost... blah blah blah... Listen, mine is the power of the endless cycle. I am the snake which devours its own tail. You will bear a child - your own self. As the child grows older, you will slowly become younger. It would behoove you to dispose of the child after it has reached a proper age."

"I would kill myself then?"

"In a sense, yes! Amusing, no? Quite a departure from what my peers offer."

"Indeed. But I find the price in blood to be rather trite..."

"Bah, what would YOU know, mortal?"

"Apparently enough to inquire about the suggested age... for my double's death. Also, let us be clear, I am aware that there is usually a price in blood in these matters. Old wives have told these tales to their daughters to deter them from seeking ones such as you. But I am not keen on shedding blood myself. Keeping my hands clean would be preferable."

"Such boldness! You, a mere mortal woman of no particular skill or power, come to a powerful, mysterious entity such as I to bargain? Ha ha ha ha! Very well, I have grown fond of your stubborn pride. I shall devour the child for you. You need not watch - merely deliver the child to my Earthly avatar and be on your way."

"Again, thank you for your generosity, however you failed to answer my initial question..."

"I may be endless but I am forgetful in my old age. yes, for the matter of the age, the girl will be... oh I don't know... perhaps once she reaches the age of motherhood herself? Let's make it a challenge, shall we! If she somehow bests you, I shall eagerly devour your bones and grant her the boon of eternal youth. Oh my, that would be... unoriginal now wouldn't it? Let us make it more curious... the double will live and enjoy her own boon of limitless youth. But one of you must bring into the world a sacrificial third. The rules remain unchanged - her growing age ensures your access to this fountain of youth."

"Needlessly convoluted and dare I say somewhat inane... but since I do not need to stain my hands... Now what if we both bear a son?"

"Try again, then. Your sons will be cursed with some manner of crippling affliction that will likely make them outcasts. I suggest you do not get too attached. There are two of you, one if bound to produce a daughter."

"Fair. Inane and complicated, but fair. And how shall we bring this offering to you?"

"I shall send an herald to summon you when I am ready."

"Now, what if my... our... umm this is confusing... this girl, what if she were to somehow be with child herself? The world is cruel... Or what if my double and myself both bring daughters into the world? Or if the child dies before reaching the age you request?"

"Ah yes, men are beasts and all that. Well now, there can only be two. The third is a sacrifice... a fourth would be... well, I haven't given that much thought to my admittedly elaborate scenario. But suffice to say there can only be two and I shall leave it at that. Oh, but remember that this child will one day gain the awareness of her status and much like your double will assume to be the real you. There, call it my twisting and turning."

"Ugh, this is messy... So, are you to father this double then?"

"Of course! Proper protocol must be followed. Allow me to change into a more suitable form... Any preferences? It need not be human either! I will refrain from judging as I really am beyond such silly mortal concepts as attractiveness and lust."

"This is unusual in ways I did not expect..."

And so, Josephine gave painful birth to a fully grown female double. The excruciating pain of this unearthly ordeal left her unconscious as the otherworldly entity weaved its magic and made it so neither woman knew who was the original, leaving them to plan out their newly acquired immortality.

Potential hooks:

As expected, it took only a few generations for things to go awry. Upon reaching a somewhat precocious "awakening" following a teenage pregnancy (as was brought up during the initial pact, no less!), the daughter of one of the two has escaped (with a bit of help from the entity who finds this turn of events amusing). A panicked, teenage mother is on the run from her mother/self and seeks help. Perhaps she does not share her older selves own desire for eternal life?

What of the sons? Surely one of them bore a son at some point. The "curse" states these will inevitably be outcasts, but how do they feel? And what is the nature of their affliction?

The entity is not so much malicious as a devious trickster in search of amusement in this dreary prison. The entity clearly has an uncanny amount of self-awareness but also despises being seen as boring or redundant. But what exactly is it? What happens if it is somehow banished?

This is another level of genre-savvy brilliance.

Note: A desire for immortality doesn't necessarily make you evil. Wanting to live is healthy, natural, and an instinct necessary for survival, and immortality is just the logical extreme of it.
The bad part is being willing to kill someone else in return - which is both cruel and hypocritical: Your life matter so much it can never stop, but another's is dispensable?! - and especially your own child, which symbolically violates the natural cycle of life (we bear children so our families, our cultures, our species will continue to exist after we're gone; the aspiring immortal in this trope rejects this natural solution for mortality in search for a supernatural and amoral one).
So my point is, the third girl might desire eternal youth too, but simply not be a scum! At the moment she's probably just trying to avoid dying right now, but when she has some time to plan ahead, she might look for a non-homocidal way to achieve it. (Look for Pointy Hat's 'Which Lich' series. He made lich-like undead for every core class & a few others - some of them require morally-questionable steps, but others don't, or leave room for getting around it.)

Posted: **Tue Dec 09, 2025 2:29 pm**

(Disclaimer: This is written in good intentions by a genderfluid poster. Trans women are women, trans men are men & non-binary people are non-binary. You're all valid and awesome. I just like exploring how queerness interacts with gendered magic systems and prophecies (like, a trans man's son being able to kill Macbeth cause he's not 'of woman born') and saw an opportunity to give it a dark twist.)

A vistana youth, born in a male body, starts showing signs of The Sight - and claims to be a girl.
Some people in her clan accept that by some twist of fate she was given the soul of a woman and it's just fine; but others fear he's a Dukkar making a strange excuse to avoid execution, and that believing his lies will result in calamity.
(Some of them are transphobic, but others simply aren't willing to take the chance when their entire nation's survival is on the line)
The Raunie tried to divinate the youth's fate, but the cards showed... Ambiguous results.
In the meanwhile the clan is divided, and some on the 'he's a Dukkar' camp might take things to their own hands.

Alternatively...

A renowned seer's egg finally cracks. He's conflicted between the euphoria of discovering his true self and the fear of the destruction he might bring. He sees visions of himself wielding terrible power and committing even more terrible transgressions. He left his clan without saying why, and travels alone, seeking a way to thwart his destiny.

Posted: **Sat Dec 20, 2025 8:15 pm**

So Gaz III says that Alanik Ray charges his clients based on ability-to-pay. Which is usually awesome - someone should be caring for victims who can't normally afford a private detective; that someone should be the police, but... I'm not going to get into real-world politics here but let's say that in most Ravenloft domains it absolutely doesn't. He fills that hole in the system. Great. But it also means he has to overprice his services to rich clients, cause otherwise it just wouldn't be profitable. I don't think he cares - considering his background, he'd have zero trust in the nobility and some part of him would kinda like to screw them up. Just a little bit.

The problem is, he's in Dementlieu now.
And in Dementlieu, way too many people lie about their ability to pay.
Like, the base for that is layed in Gaz III: S says that it's often enough to dress as a noble to get treated as one in the domain - which grants one an insane amount of privilege - but that facade would be financially hard to maintain in the long term due to quick shifts in the local fashion.
VRGtR takes this idea to its logical extreme: All 'nobles' in Saidra's Dementlieu are actually impersonators, wasting resources they don't really have in order to maintain this pretense - and always in danger of being revealed by the darklady and getting publicly disintegrated!

So my idea is that a fake noble, pretending to be an earl or something but actually broke, needed someone to investigate something for him discreetly. He hired Alanik, but can't pay even a quarter of what Pointy Ears demanded. But bro doesn't want to get disintegrated!
So to pay the debt, he took a loan. But he couldn't pay back the loan either, so he got desperate and made a deal with a hag. Now the hag is demanding in return some weird s--t that would take a little magical quest to get. So now he's hiring you to get the thing for him -but this means he'll have to find a way to pay you back... And he's keeping it all secret until you come back with the item, of course.

Posted: **Sun Dec 21, 2025 1:08 am**

It might help to remember Alanik Ray is based on Sherlock Holmes. An application of the Sherlock scan (tm) should point out a thousand and one little clues that Mr. Not-so-rich customer is trying to fake it so he can make it.
In which case Alanik'll probably get snippy and demand honesty, thereby embarrassing the customer, but he might do the job pro bono for now, then send an invoice later if the guy actually manages to get solvent.

Posted: **Mon Dec 22, 2025 4:25 pm**

Rock of the Fraternity wrote: Sun Dec 21, 2025 1:08 am It might help to remember Alanik Ray is based on Sherlock Holmes. An application of the Sherlock scan (tm) should point out a thousand and one little clues that Mr. Not-so-rich customer is trying to fake it so he can make it.
In which case Alanik'll probably get snippy and demand honesty, thereby embarrassing the customer, but he might do the job pro bono for now, then send an invoice later if the guy actually manages to get solvent.

Makes sense. But I'm going for the paranoia of 5e Dementlieu - "Anyone who lets the mask slip off meets a grisly end". If you lived there, you'd do anything to avoid admitting your actual financial situation to a stranger, even one with the reputation of a just man.

Posted: **Wed Dec 24, 2025 5:33 pm**

TW: Domestic violence

When Belladonna was 17, she fell in love with a vampire.
She suspected there was something off about Edwin from day 1#, but he was so charming and kind that even when she knew for sure, she didn't hurry for the nearest stake. It wasn't like he killed anyone! In fact, as they grew more intimate, she offered he'd feed exclusively on her, consentedly, thus getting around any ethical complications. When Bella's parents found out they called a renowned monster-hunter to take down Edwin and 'put an end to the spell', but the lovers outsmarted the hunter and fled to another domain.

It's been 20 years.
They're married, with two lovely dhampire daughters, and wealthier than Belladonna could have imagined as a peasant girl. It's a weird household, with everyone having a different sleep-schedule, but they make it work. They're supposed to be happy.
But lately, Edwin had grown unusually possessive of his wife. He's become strangely clingy, and disproportionately angry whenever she displeases him. When asked why, he answered that she's his redemption, his last tie to humanity, that without her he'd be a monster. He seems to try and control every aspect of her and their daughters' lives. He'd yet to hit any of them, but last time he fed on Belladonna, he took his time with it, continuing even when she begged him to stop. Had his monstrous nature finally started taking over him after centuries of suppression, or is she simply finally mature enough to
recognise the darkness behind the obsession that seemed so cute and romantic in her youth?

She decided it can't go on.
One night, she told the girls to pack their things and prepare for a ride - but when the three went down to the stables, they found that the horses were dead, drained of blood. The oldest daughter, Carmel, an aspiring adventurer who had been reading on the topic, realised what's going on and decapitated the horses so at least they'd stay dead. It surprised Belladonna how much the maiden took the monstrous for granted.
Green fog materialised from thin air, proceeding to crystallise into the shape of Edwin.
"You cannot leave me." He said grimly.
"I can and I do." She answered, determined. "You need help, Ed, but I can't help you. And I won't put our children - won't put myself - in that risk. If we can't ride, we'd walk. Goodbye."
In response, he grasped her arm. His fingers were as cold and hard as iron, there were flames in his eyes, and his lips were still dripping horse blood.
And suddenly, Belladonna realised something:
Edwin was a powerful undead, and she was a mortal woman, weak from decades of constant blood loss and isolated from any adult that could stand by her side. He could kill her right now in a dozen different ways, and even if she survived, she has nowhere to go.
She cannot leave him. She'd live - had been living - at his mercy. She gave away over the years anything - family, friends, her own livelihood, that old monster-hunter all these years ago - that could possibly save her from him, sealed her fate and gave him the key. How could she be that stupid? Was she really charmed? Did it even matter? Did she have a chance in the first place, or was she doomed since the moment he layed eyes on her?
She was so sure she's the hero, but she was a victim all along.
At that moment, Carmel reached an opposite conclusion: Right now, she has to be the hero, cause no one else will. She took out her makeup mirror and shove it in front of his eyes, making him startle. In the second it took him to recover she drew her sword, shouting at her mother and little sister to flee while they can. The woman and the child grudgingly obeyed, running frantically into the mists, where they wandered aimlessly until a one-legged Vistani woman offered them refuge in a caravan full of strange magic items and stranger types of tea.

They're safe, for now. But Belladonna knows Edwin will come after her. And what of Carmel? They have to rescue her!
Fortunately, the Vistana happens to know a group of adventurers who have some experience with vampires.
It's you.
You're the adventurers experienced with vampires.
Simple mission: break in to the mansion, kill a vampire, keep the teenage dhampire safe.
But before you go, Belladonna turns to you. Her voice is shaky and there are black bags under her eyes, which seem to stare at something a hundred miles away.
"I know it's delusional of me." She weeps. "I know what he is, always had. Drive the stake through his heart if you have to. You probably will. Do what it takes to keep my daughter - and yourselves - safe. But if there's another way, if there's some good still left in him? Try. Please."

In the meantime, Carmel is imprisoned in her own bedroom. Her father wants to turn her into a full vampire, a monster like him - but fortunately, she had prepared for the day she'd come toe to toe with him. She'd been preparing for years. Unlike her mother and sister, she had no delusions regarding Edwin's evil - If anything, she might be exaggerating it a bit. She realised she's living with a monster before most kids realise the tooth fairy is actually their mom, and had been secretly collecting over the past decade every book she could find about vampire lore, then every weapon she could get against them - which wasn't much, just some mirrors and garlics, but enough to keep him out of her room for a few days.
Carmel wants to be a vampire hunter, to make sure no other child will have to live in fear as she had - and the first step is to purge her family of the abomination that had been controlling it since before she was born.
But she also knows that cursed blood flows in her own veins. Sunlight wouldn't make her crumble, but looking at the sky hurts her eyes. She can enter sacred places, but always felt unwelcome there. She doesn't need to drink blood, but she craves it. Can she resist? For how long? Maybe keep it at animals? Still creepy... She wants so badly to be the hero, but what if she was born to be a villain?
Carmel can be an amazing ally to the party... Or, if they come too late, a fascinating foe.

Posted: **Thu Dec 25, 2025 8:44 am**

I prefer my happier version of vampire-mortal relationships.

Posted: **Thu Dec 25, 2025 1:27 pm**

Mistmaster wrote: Thu Dec 25, 2025 8:44 am I prefer my happier version of vampire-mortal relationships.

I feel like nowadays media is full of 'friendly neighboorhood vampires' who really are just nice guys who happen to be cursed etc. But the origin of the modern vampire is in tales of exploitive, toxic relationships - whether it's a romantic one like in Carmilla or a boss-employee one like in Dracula.
A vampire story can be about a well-intentioned person whose very nature tragically sets him against society and allegedly goodness, struggling to maintain their morality against overwhelming odds - But so can a werewolf story!
It can be about someone who is unjustly alienated and hated for what they are - But so can a tiefling story, a witch story, a golem story.
Where vampires really shine, IMHO, is as a metaphor for manipulative and egoistic people who take what they want because it doesn't even occur to them that anyone's feelings or lives but their own matter, who pass as benelovent and respectable until you're in a closed room with them, and whom someone has to stand up to, to expose, to take out to the sunlight, cause putting up with them means giving them the power to hurt you over and over again.

Also, I feel like we need more stories that remind us that not every monster turns into a prince if you kiss it, that it's not a wife's responsibility to 'fix' a problematic husband.

But honestly, why not both?
A myth is a story that every generation gives a new meaning to. The vampire myth had been around for long enough to have at least two meanings, and it's awesome.

Posted: **Thu Dec 25, 2025 2:32 pm**

TheArcaneWeirdo wrote: Thu Dec 25, 2025 1:27 pm
Mistmaster wrote: Thu Dec 25, 2025 8:44 am I prefer my happier version of vampire-mortal relationships.

I feel like nowadays media is full of 'friendly neighboorhood vampires' who really are just nice guys who happen to be cursed etc. But the origin of the modern vampire is in tales of exploitive, toxic relationships - whether it's a romantic one like in Carmilla or a boss-employee one like in Dracula.

Ancient vampire stories are either allegories about mourning too much or putting legs and a target on a disease outbreak. Victorian vampire stories until "Forever Knight" are about STDs who could wear boots, bodices and frilly shirts.

Posted: **Fri Dec 26, 2025 6:02 pm**

TheArcaneWeirdo wrote: Thu Dec 25, 2025 1:27 pm
Mistmaster wrote: Thu Dec 25, 2025 8:44 am I prefer my happier version of vampire-mortal relationships.

I feel like nowadays media is full of 'friendly neighboorhood vampires' who really are just nice guys who happen to be cursed etc. But the origin of the modern vampire is in tales of exploitive, toxic relationships - whether it's a romantic one like in Carmilla or a boss-employee one like in Dracula.
A vampire story can be about a well-intentioned person whose very nature tragically sets him against society and allegedly goodness, struggling to maintain their morality against overwhelming odds - But so can a werewolf story!
It can be about someone who is unjustly alienated and hated for what they are - But so can a tiefling story, a witch story, a golem story.
Where vampires really shine, IMHO, is as a metaphor for manipulative and egoistic people who take what they want because it doesn't even occur to them that anyone's feelings or lives but their own matter, who pass as benelovent and respectable until you're in a closed room with them, and whom someone has to stand up to, to expose, to take out to the sunlight, cause putting up with them means giving them the power to hurt you over and over again.

Also, I feel like we need more stories that remind us that not every monster turns into a prince if you kiss it, that it's not a wife's responsibility to 'fix' a problematic husband.

But honestly, why not both?
A myth is a story that every generation gives a new meaning to. The vampire myth had been around for long enough to have at least two meanings, and it's awesome.

Both. Both is good.

Posted: **Sat Dec 27, 2025 11:27 am**

Baron Von Stanton wrote: Thu Dec 25, 2025 2:32 pm
TheArcaneWeirdo wrote: Thu Dec 25, 2025 1:27 pm
Mistmaster wrote: Thu Dec 25, 2025 8:44 am I prefer my happier version of vampire-mortal relationships.

I feel like nowadays media is full of 'friendly neighboorhood vampires' who really are just nice guys who happen to be cursed etc. But the origin of the modern vampire is in tales of exploitive, toxic relationships - whether it's a romantic one like in Carmilla or a boss-employee one like in Dracula.
Ancient vampire stories are either allegories about mourning too much or putting legs and a target on a disease outbreak. Victorian vampire stories until "Forever Knight" are about STDs who could wear boots, bodices and frilly shirts.

Good point. That's why I said 'the modern vampire'.
I feel like nowadays ghosts took the mourning niche and zombies the epidemic one (And werewolves the STD one if you're JK Rowling

), but the classification itself is pretty modern.

Posted: **Tue Jan 06, 2026 2:59 am**

Someone revealed part of Harkon Lukas's crimes. They don't have enough proofs for the authorities, but the rumours are spreading, and the fandom is torn from the inside.
It's like with every artist that turns out to be problematic. There are always those who can't believe their idol is dead, and those who feel betrayed and like they can't keep being fans with that in mind, and those who believe in art-artist separation, and those who don't really care.
(Of course this would be a very niche argument, as Lukas's curse prevents him from gaining a large fandom.)

Now I'm trying to think what's the actual plot hook it leads too...
Maybe the party is hired by a fan who believes in a very literal interpretation of 'death of the author'.
Fine, hunt a wolfwere bard. We've seen worse.
But... Some of the more loyal fans are determined to defend their favourite musician. Those guys aren't evil, just very naive. How are we going to get to the darklord without hurting innocents? Do these people count as innocents, or is there a level of reality denial that's just indistinguishable from malice?
And it turns out that the fan conspiring to assassinate Lukas was actually the leader of the Harkon Lukas fan club. She did a lot of cover versions for his songs, she actually dreamed about working with him. Then he actually agreed to do a show tour with her, and it was everything she ever wanted - until the full moon. Now she hates him not only because of the sense of betrayal, but because she's terrified of becoming like him (both in the lycanthropic infection sense and in the sense of 'My role model is a monster - what does it mean about me?').
To complicate things further, all of this happens in the days prior to a large music festival, where Lukas is supposed to show with his new song - one actually written by the fan.

Posted: **Mon Feb 02, 2026 8:55 am**

Between peasant kids it was considered above her station to play with, long~dead parents, servants who whispered of her fey origins and a Lamordian nanny who insisted ad ridiculum that her growing storm sorcery is 'imaginary', Eli Holsworth was far more lonely than any 11 years old girl should be. She craved for a friend who would understand how she feels ~ and maybe should have been more careful of what she wished for.
On one winter morning, Eli sneaked out to the gardens with dawn. She played with the wind for a while, as she often had, flying the snow around her in swirls and whirls. Then she thought, not for the first time: "This is fun; but how much more fun could it be, if only I had a friend to play with!"
Then she recalled how, when her mother was still alive, they'd build each winter a snowman together. She never felt lonely those days. "I'd build a snowman again," She thought, "Then I'd be lonely no more!"
Thus she laboured all morning, piling snow into balls for legs and body and head. By noon her work was done, and she had already decided that the snowman was in fact a snowwoman, and her name was Amity, meaning 'friendship' in High Mordentish (Eli was a smart girl, and she paid more attention to her Mordentish lessons than her nanny would know.), and she liked warm hugs. But there was a problem: Amity had no face!
When Eli returned to the manor, the cook was already preparing lunch, but the girl had no time for that nonsense! She asked for a single, live carrot, which she stuck behind her ear before running up the stairs; She then went to the seamstress, who wanted to measure her for a special dress she was designing for her twelth birthday, but the girl had no time for that nonsense! She let the woman start measuring her, and seized the distraction to snatch a handful of buttons, which she shoved into her pocket before running out to the corridor; She knew not why the theft: The seamstress served her family, which currently included Eli alone ~ she surely would have given her lady the buttons had the child asked! But there was a sense of urgency about Amity. Her friend's creation could not be delayed by mundane matters such as lunchtime or manners! She'd apologise to the seamstress later. Somewhen.
She got out to the gardens once more, and granted the snowgirl a nose of carrot and lips and eyes of buttons. "Oh, Amity," She said, "You look beautiful now! But there's another problem: You have no hands!"
Thus she went to the nearest pine tree and broke a couple of twigs from it ~ But neither twig truly looked like a hand. A hand should have five fingers, shouldn't it? Eli's nanny spoke much about the importance of opposable thumbs! So Eli spent the afternoon searching every tree in the estate's ground for a twig with five smaller twigs branching out of it in the right places for fingers, and when she could find none, she went to the Lightless Woods and searched and searched till even the sky above the woods were lightless. She returned home empty handed, empty belied, her dress dirty and torn, but cared not. She barely heard her nanny when the latter chastitized her for skipping her lessons and for going unescorted to the forest, where any beast or thug (the Lamordian didn't believe the reports of ghosts and hags lurking amidst the vegetation, which she called 'superstitious folks' silly fairytales which a clever girl like you shouldn't waste her time on'.) could assault her. Nothing mattered anymore, nothing but the prospect of finally having a friend.
The next day she went to the forest again, and same on the day afterwards, until it occuered to her that she could simply take a large chunck of wood and carve it to the shape of a hand. She found a book on wood carving in the manor's library, and taught herself the craft over the past few weeks ~ all the while adding to amity new snow to replace the melted one. It was good she knew some ice spells, for by the time she had her hands ready, spring was starting to bloom. At last she granted Amity the wooden hands, marveling at her own craftsmanship. But her excitment quickly turned hollow, for she knew Amity was merely an inanimate object.
"There's one last problem, Amity!" She sighed, her brow wrinkling. "You have no heart!"
Eli pondered this issue for the rest of that day, and the day after it. But as she said her prayers to Ezra that night, an idea occured to her:
The late Lady Holsworth had a neckless with a large heart~shaped sapphire in its midst, called 'The Heart of the Sea'. Eli... She took it from her mother's dead body three years ago, on the night of the shipwreck, when only she was somehow spared by the storm. The night when she was given her magic, and her loneliness. She never dared to wear it herself, just kept it at the bottom of her jewelry box.
Now Eli finally took it out.
She sneaked out of the manor, mindless of the time ~ or perhaps especially mindful of it; For the hour was almost midnight, which is, as a universally accepted truth, the time when things above and bellow nature occur.
Walking barefoot on the grass, Eli approached the snowgirl a final time, and granted her a heart of sapphire.
As the clock rang twelve, Amity wakened, and gave her creator an ice~cold hug.

Well, this came out more poetic than I intended. Frankly I had a much more basic golem plot hook, then I looked up golem types and found out snow golems are a thing, and Frozen is one of my favourite movies (This isn't a direct expy, but I made a lot of references ~ the snowperson loving warm hugs, the parents dying in a shipwreck, you all know what Eli is short for...), so the fairy tale took shape as I wrote it.

Posted: **Mon Mar 02, 2026 11:33 am**

TheArcaneWeirdo wrote: Tue Dec 09, 2025 12:51 pm This is another level of genre-savvy brilliance.

Note: A desire for immortality doesn't necessarily make you evil. Wanting to live is healthy, natural, and an instinct necessary for survival, and immortality is just the logical extreme of it.
The bad part is being willing to kill someone else in return - which is both cruel and hypocritical: Your life matter so much it can never stop, but another's is dispensable?! - and especially your own child, which symbolically violates the natural cycle of life (we bear children so our families, our cultures, our species will continue to exist after we're gone; the aspiring immortal in this trope rejects this natural solution for mortality in search for a supernatural and amoral one).
So my point is, the third girl might desire eternal youth too, but simply not be a scum! At the moment she's probably just trying to avoid dying right now, but when she has some time to plan ahead, she might look for a non-homocidal way to achieve it. (Look for Pointy Hat's 'Which Lich' series. He made lich-like undead for every core class & a few others - some of them require morally-questionable steps, but others don't, or leave room for getting around it.)

Thanks, I like this one. The aloof, somewhat silly "entity" bantering with "Josephine" was fun. Genre-savvy brilliance is a bit much, but I'll take any compliment. This said, it has holes, now that I've read it again.

It doesn't quite explain the double being a fully grown woman right out of the womb when at first it is kind of stated that she'd grow up and there would be a sort of age exchange between her and her mother until sacrifice time.

Moreover, the relationship between "Josephine" and her double is unclear with the addition of the "third party". There has to be some kind of uneasy relationship between the original and her "daughter-clone" but I didn't quite get around to fleshing that part out. In what ways do they cooperate, compete, or ignore each other is something I need to think more about. And what if one dies?

I have faith in the idea, but it needs a bit of retooling for clarity. But then, the entity is aloof and likely to just come up with some "protocol" it forgot to explain. Heck, the entity is also a bit loose in how I wrote it now that I think about it. It's powerful enough to weave some pretty potent magic and, apparently, enter into "compacts" with mortals wherein we have the classic "boon for a price" trope. But it also seems somewhat whimsical and silly. I know I didn't want a fully malicious creature, but also one who could cause pretty bad stuff to happen out of carelessness. Mortals dying would like us dropping an egg on the floor, I suppose. We don't want it to happen, but it's just an egg and not exactly something all that important.

I dunno... it's a fun idea born of stuff I saw such as the birth scene in X-Tro and various clone stories.

Re: eternal life

I don't feel any particular need to elaborate on the matter of the "morality" of eternal life as plenty has been written by much better writers. But as far as my creation goes, the idea is that the "third" is probably quite young and not likely to have enough world-savviness to outwit her mother easily. I'd like to think of her as scared, confused and maybe sometimes nauseous.

Anyway, I don't have time to check out all of your ideas, but I appreciate your contributions to what may be the biggest non-news thread on the board.

Café de Nuit

Random hooks thread

Re: Random hooks thread

Re: Random hooks thread

Re: Random hooks thread

Re: Random hooks thread

Re: Random hooks thread

Re: Random hooks thread

Re: Random hooks thread

Re: Random hooks thread

Re: Random hooks thread

Re: Random hooks thread

Re: Random hooks thread

Re: Random hooks thread

Re: Random hooks thread

Re: Random hooks thread