trivia venn

overview

Which link in a chain of events is the most vital to bring about a disaster? Could it be the first? Or the last? It's a silly little question, because on the left, and on the right, any one of them is equally holding the chain. It should be that every piece is as disasterous as its companions.

Answer: The most crucial link that conjures disaster is the one nobody expected. We might say, the 'drifting link', that picks up a length in each hand and connects a sequence that had before been defused. It's not even a link of a chain, quite. It's moreso a carabiner, and it looks horribly unnatural.

Who can predict when Trivia Venn descends upon a pivotal moment near you! A (dubiously-proclaimed) good witch, physician, and tricksy prankster, her mere presence introduces uncounted new variables into countless closed systems as she wanders the world. She is running from Death, you see. He will ravish her terribly if he should catch her. Yet he is not the only man after her. Death's devoted servant has defied his master and is staking a loving claim to her heart, with a promise to ravish her wonderfully.

Understand, it's only the second proposing to gift her with a legion of babies. Such are valuable currency to dark forces as a witch. Jilted Death dashes her Love and her body on the rocks, he sweeps to reap her soul into guts of fire and tar. Oh, God! She cries out. 'What nerve you have to give my name to Death?' answers God. 'You know your perfidy, and chose your side—Away!' But her virgin hands did touch God's heart, and she became one as like Death, that the reaper could not hold her, though God was rather surprised.

She even had a son with him.

We're already always alone.

story

Placeholder.

- Mom was a Miull native who worked as a cultural liaison/international guide, her job was to escort clients across borders through difficult terrain/culture shock to conduct their international business safely.

- She met a pair of Asphodelean brothers as clients over the course of her work; both were enamoured with her. She fell in love with the elder brother who would become Trivia’s dad, the younger brother (Trivia’s uncle) went nuts once he saw her pregnant. He killed Trivia’s dad to become a witch, then used his newfound magic to hex Trivia while she was still in the womb.

- The hex affects Trivia’s skin. Anyone who makes skin-to-skin contact with her is transformed into some inhuman thing, usually an animal, but it can also be plants, blobs, inanimate objects, etc.

- Trivia’s mom flees the Uncle using a circuitous route to Miulu, and does escape him, but goes into labour while still deep in Miulu’s wilds. Trivia is born, but the hex activates and transforms her mother into a flower, she dead. Newborn Trivia is left alone.

- Trivia is discovered and adopted by the spirits of the dead, which take the form of jackals, that inhabit Miulu. They alert the Shevra Baht (the cult to Mephi, Miulu’s patron god) to her presence, who attempt to integrate her with human society, but this fails owing to the hex. Decision is made to let the jackals raise her with supervision from the Shevra Baht.

- Swift Kappel, the son of an established Shevra Baht family, is assigned as Trivia’s playmate to help socialise her through her early years. He’s only a couple years older than her so the ages match up, and the plan works out.

- Trivia’s natural personality is really energetic, silly, and playful. She bonds hard with Swift since he’s her only real human contact, and though she’s basically happy with that, she has a growing loneliness and desire to go out and be involved with more people.

- Owing to that desire, she decides to apply for membership in the Masked Coven. This is Miulu’s national witch coven of voluntary sacrifices to Mephi, who needs to eat human souls on a monthly basis. Souls eaten by Mephi are subject to eternal torture in his stomach — the compensation for this posthumous hell is that the witches, while they’re still alive, are treated and obeyed like royalty, with the Shevra Baht as their servants.

- Trivia is extraordinarily, abnormally young to be joining the coven (like 7-8 yo), but Mephi approves it since he figures her life will already be miserable anyway.

- The ritual goes ahead and Mephi turns Trivia into a witch.

- Trivia moves out of the wilds and into Mephi’s sanctum, in the company of other coven members. Because she now dramatically outranks Swift, he is forbidden from seeing her until his training as a cultist catches up.

- The process of becoming a witch involves mutilating your own soul. Though Mephi is careful to twist only a superfluous portion of Trivia’s soul for the witching ritual, the damage still hits Trivia deep.

- Her emotions become severely blunted and borderline dead. A profound feeling of distance, emptiness, and unreality fills her, hampering her ability to feel joy and bond with others even though she’s around more people now. Most of her childhood and teenage years are spent trying to adjust to this condition.

- She is still only barely coping by the time Swift graduates into journeyman status and is permitted to work in roles that involve contact with witches. Extremely happy to see him, and with her existing bond to him still holding despite her soul damage, she reaches out to him like a friend.

- Swift is equally happy to see her again, but has been extensively indoctrinated by the cult in the meantime and knows he has to treat her as a master, not a friend. The conflict between his desires and his professional duty begins to torture him. Trivia notices how her attitude is causing problems for him and withdraws.

- While Swift tries and fails to deal with his own issues, Trivia gets hit with a dose of reality that she is on Mephi’s list and that her failure to thrive is making her inch uncomfortably near to the top. Simultaneously, she gets a glimpse of the kind of despair and resistance her covenmates put up when their moment comes and realises that’s going to be her.

- Horrified and panicked, she uses some tickets to a stage show in Asphodel she hears Swift has acquired as an excuse to flee the country. Being that she knows him personally, she requests that he specifically be assigned as her partner in travelling the world, which nobody with authority has a good enough reason to refuse.

~and this is the narrative start lol lmao~ ~oh god there’s so much delicate emotional business it’s going to be another raum WEW~

- Basically she and swift go travelling for a lot of years (a LOT of years) and Swift’s duty fetish allegiance to the Shevra Baht snaps because he decides he’d rather be with Trivia forever. It’s not intentional on Trivia’s part that this happens but once he’s out of Miulu and gets to see more of the world he starts feeling genuine life fulfilment and realises he can’t/doesn’t want go back.

- Trivia is still under the impression/suspicion that he will turn her over to the Shevra Baht, until he confesses and it becomes blatantly clear that he’s serious.

- Trivia now becomes massively concerned for Swift, since she’s not a feasible romantic partner and any way this goes is going to end with him getting massively screwed over. She tries to get him to leave and find a better girl for himself but it doesn’t work.

- Trivia resigns that she’s not going to change Swift’s mind and slowly lets herself put aside her doubts towards the idea of them being in a relationship. Comes to recognize over decades that she actually has had a lot of fun, happy, sad, angry, etc etc emotive and contemplative moments over the course of this journey to the point that she actually doesn’t feel that emptiness anymore, but it crept up on her so slowly she didn’t realise it was happening.

- Also realises that the reason she was able to come to feel like this wasn’t necessarily because of the places she went to or things she did, but because she went there and did them with Swift, specifically. It’s because of the combination of these experiences and Swift’s support/insight that she’s been able to gain a more stable foundation of herself, her wants, and desires. She loves Swift.

- By checking off the last landmark on her initial list to Mephi of places she wished to visit before she dies, Trivia signals for Swift to propose, which he does, and she accepts.

- And basically what follows is they go to Palida to hook up with a shaman who might be able to 1. Cure Trivia’s hex and 2. Cure her of being a witch, the first of which will FINALLY let Swift and Trivia settle down to do the BIG CANOODLE and make HELLA BABIES, the second of which will free her from her contract with Mephi. Shaman is experienced in curing hexes but the idea of curing witchdom is pretty untested and experimental, but the pair are willing to play guinea pig.

- While Trivia’s off on a mission to collect the reagent for curing the hex, Mephi finally rules that Trivia’s time is up and the Shevra Baht send a hunting party after her. Things go tits up, big action, very cool scenes, promise it'll be rad, get back to this later, yadda yadda.

- Anyway it all ends in Trivia falling off a cliff, but Swift on an outcropping catches her by the arm midway through the fall, so she’s hanging off the cliff, but her skin is exposed after getting roughed up in the reagent run and his grip is bad, so he winds up toppling off the side with her WHILE the hex activates and he begins turning into a bird.

- He doesn’t care tho because his boner is too overjoyed by the fact he can finally FINALLY have a hot awesome passionate makeout session with Trivia even if it’s the last thing he does.

- Meanwhile, Camellia notices this all going on because Trivia’s life is horrible enough to hit the conditions for an Archon pact, but Cam declines to offer one to her because Mephi already has dibs.

- So Trivia throttles Cam’s soul-brain-root-core-heart-dick-essence thing, catching him off guard, forcing herself into an Archon pact, and accidentally impregnating herself with Camille.

- Camille successfully comes to term by nourishing himself on Trivia’s love for Swift. Trivia births him, but he’s swept into Palida’s ocean and flows up into Kitiven.

- Some stuff?

- Trivia tries to get involved in Camille’s business

- Lisbet’s business is blocking Camille’s business

- Aster’s business is blocking Camille’s business

- Phoenix and Raum’s business is sus too don’t think that it isn’t >_>

- Bitches, let my son have his business!!!

- And then I will settle down with my hubby!!!

My god is Trivia MVP

personality

appearance

A hooded female figure wearing a porcelain mask of a snickering jackal, with long strips of linen bound tightly over all inches of her skin. Something about the way she holds herself feels subtly off, the reason for which requires sharp observation: she always stands precisely an arm’s length away from anyone else in the room, with a persistence that must be purposeful.

Beneath the mask is the face of a modestly attractive woman, complimented by the hourglass curves of a maternal goddess, but the repulsive stain of rot in her eyes betrays her nature — that of a witch.

personality

A selfish coward. Trivia is a withdrawn hedonist perpetually concerned with two things: feeling entertained, and keeping out of danger. Terrified of her own mortality, a morose preoccupation with the hellish fate awaiting her has made her a very downbeat person, aware that any joy she could find in her life will be undone and erased a million times over by eternal torture in death. Though she looks to find pleasure in the time she has, her principal interest lies in avoiding her fate, making her life a ceaseless and likely fruitless journey in evading and deceiving death indefinitely.

This all makes her rootless, with no inclination to tie herself to permanent causes, obligations, or relationships. The loyalties she does profess, she is quick to abandon, making her word profoundly unreliable. She lies prolifically and carries little guilt about cheating others for her own gain. This all said, she dislikes actually hurting people and is quick to discourage expectations that she’ll ever do more than what personally benefits her, the roundabout honesty of which people usually respect. She is adept at keeping herself off the radar of hazards, divorcing herself from danger before it can entangle her, and is often overlooked for her massive part in the messes she causes by being simply too transient, strange, and inoffensive to consider.

Though she is subdued, she is highly curious about people, places, and things. She is driven to explore and find meaning in mundane experiences, making her prone to philosophic thought and introspection, but she rarely holds onto any idea as unquestionably true or worth following. Grounded more in immediate reality than abstract possibilities, she is guided primarily by her current mood and whimsy when making big decisions. Because of this, she’s prone to guiding people away from dangerous paths, and to leaving them ignorant to coming disasters in equal measure, based entirely on her intuition of what she sees in front of her.

Her maternal drive is strong and she’s extremely weak to untended young children. She dislikes being responsible for others’ fates, but also dislikes seeing people trapped on one course, so is prone to offering alternative paths for cornered others to pursue or reject. Small, simple things easily amuse or endear her. She is somewhat lazy but not egregiously so.

Socially, she’s an introvert deeply fascinated with people. She’s an excellent listener with a quiet, respectful demeanour who lets others lead the talk and stays professional with strangers, though when she does express herself, she tends to come off as extremely weird. Her oblique speech is saturated with double-meanings and messages are left often to the listener’s interpretation; in this way, she’s quickly able to distance people and tease them without provoking reprisal.

powers

ARCHON IMMORTALITY: Twilight presence

Trivia is unaffected by all external forces that attempt to affect her as Trivia. Generic natural forces like gravity still affect her, but anything that would damage her form simply phases through her. She can become tired and hungry, but can’t feel things like temperature, pain, or pressure.

By this token, she is immune to all supernatural powers, including those of Archons. She also cannot be hurt by objects moved by people in the material world when she is in the dead world; the objects phase through her.

Archon ability: the celibate land

Trivia exists on an alternate plane of reality that is based on the material world. It is absolutely identical to the material world in all respects except one: apart from Trivia, it is empty of people. It is as though there is a filter imposed over reality that simply erases the presence of people.

These worlds are temporally linked. All forces acting upon the material world act identically upon Trivia’s plane and vice versa; thus, objects people are presently interacting with in the material world will observably move on Trivia’s plane, and objects that Trivia manipulates will observably move on the material plane too. It is simply not apparent what force acted to move the object, unless you were to suppose the presence of a ghost.

In all other cases, people on the material plane cannot see, hear, smell, feel, or otherwise sense Trivia herself, and vice versa, except for a sensation of chills experienced when someone moves through her body. She can be invoked, and can be observed by those with cognizance.

The world Trivia inhabits is henceforth ‘the dead world’, while the material world that all others inhabit is ‘the living world’. Medium Forces When Trivia and a person in the living world are exerting opposite forces on the same object — like if she were playing tug-of-war with someone, or if she were trying to pick up a cup someone else is trying to put down — one force will eventually win out, and this will incur one of two effects.

One: If Trivia Pulls.
If Trivia pulls hard enough on the medium object, the spirit of opponent will begin leaking into the dead world and become locked in repeating the actions they took over the period that their spirit leaked out. Once this process is complete, the opponent dies in the living world, leaving no soul.

These spirits are visible to Trivia, since they inhabit the dead world, and work as targets for soulsmithing. She can also break them out of their loops temporarily to interact with them, but they will die permanently if they realise they are dead.

Two: If Trivia Is Pulled.
If Trivia is pulled hard enough through a medium object, her passage makes contact with the opponent’s spirit and hexes them from within. Their soul begins degrading into a ghoul while remaining outwardly human, until their human guise becomes a mask they may assume and remove freely. These masks becomes harder to keep attached under moonlight, especially under full moons.

archon ability: dead masquerade

Trivia can manifest in the living world in the guise of any individual who has died, assuming their identity as a ‘mask’. When she does this, she is observable to and may interact with those in the living world.

Trivia does not perceive the world through the eyes of the guise she is assuming; it is more like she is observing the scene of them acting and interacting with people from a thousand miles away. Things she does or says while assuming a mask are also filtered through the mask’s personality and thoughts so as to keep them ‘in character’. They are still notably off though, being Trivia’s knowledge, interests, and intentions filtered through another identity. Trivia cannot use any powers the identity she is assuming would have. If her ruse is unmasked, or her guise is killed, she is jolted back to the dead world as herself.

Trivia can also manifest in the living world using her own mask. In this case, she is grounded to her own body, but her personality and appearance is heavily twisted by humanity’s collective interpretation of the figure ‘Trivia Venn’.

archon ability: lunar junction

By attempting to manifest in the living world without a mask, Trivia can enter the inbetween of the living and dead worlds. She is completely unaffected by all forces in this state, is aware of the locations of all people in this state, and though she cannot move, she can switch the environment around herself as a way to travel long distances. The state deactivates when she cancels it.

Anyone she encounters, or who encounters her, over the course of the junction gets sucked into this inbetween ‘twilight world’ in one of three states: Full Moon State (Positive + State) The subject is dragged along to Trivia’s destination and returned to the living world once the course of the junction ends. Both observers and subjects perceive this as the subject disappearing from existence, only to appear on the other side of the world a couple seconds later (with subjects getting to see some world wibbling while they’re dragged along with the junction). New Moon State (Negative - State) The subject is frozen in place with their perception of time accelerated. They are returned to the living world once Trivia activates a new Lunar Junction. From an outsider’s point of view, they disappear from existence, only to appear unchanged in that same spot years later. From the subject’s point of view, things went wibbly for two seconds and now there’s flying cars!? Half Moon State (Twilight State) The subject is able to navigate through the world and perceive time normally, but cannot interact with anything. They are returned to the living world once Trivia junctions through their location again. Those stuck in the twilight are able to see and interact with each other, should they manage to encounter each other.

Individuals are inherently predisposed to falling into one of these states (usually one of the first two), but can intentionally force themselves into one state over another provided that Trivia herself does not push them into a specific state, which she can do.

hex victim: circe's skin

When Trivia was still in the womb, a witch cast a hex on her skin. Any skin-to-skin contact she makes with human beings will transform them into an inhuman form reflective of the concepts within their soul. This most typically manifests as transforming people into everyday animals, but can also manifest as people turning into plants, rocks, blobs, inanimate objects, a spray of sand, or anything else.

She keeps her skin fully covered to prevent accidents. Does not affect witches.

WITCH MAGIC: MICROBIOLOGY

As a witch herself, Trivia can cast her own magic. Trivia’s magic revolves around the manipulation of microbiology — things like altering the synthesis rates of proteins, undoing plaques and tangles, strengthening white blood cells, nullifying viruses, and counteracting diseases. This powerset predisposes her to medicinal fields, but also makes her dangerous — she can induce heart attacks, aneurysms, organ failure, and so on.

soulsmithing

As a witch, Trivia is able to soulsmith.

Soulsmithing is the ability to bind souls to matter. It is necromancy, allowing Trivia to resurrect the dead in various receptacles. She can afflict those she resurrects with binding geas, psychological warps, and general tampering between their body/soul connection. She does not typically do this, though, as she practically never uses the power in the first place.

Trivia is an unremarkable soulsmith, being trained in theory but completely unpractised.

relations

swift

partner

The hubby

Started as childhood friends, he’s always been the more serious one. Found that funny when she was young, has come to seriously appreciate it now that she’s not. Always liked him as a friend but took a long time to warm up to him as a boyfriend, mostly from the guilt of her being a bad romantic pick alongside her feeling like she was taking advantage of him.

She’s over that now though and is happy to let herself get super pampered while her impulses yank him along. Leans on him as her emotional rock, appreciates his straightforward competence and devotion, very grateful to have him.

Wants his babies like woah.

mephi

god

Are you my daddy? No? O

Really weird dynamic where she likes him but he also terrifies her 1000% as a symbol of her eternal deathly torment. Trivia was abnormally young when she joined the coven and got a little more attention from Mephi than others did because of it, so she kinda glommed on him. Except. It’s Trivia. So it’s the world’s most detached glom.

She respects him as her god and regards him as an entity fundamentally superior to her, while seeing his human side as a sensible and kind young man hamstringed by deep sensitivity and love for his own self-loathing. She wouldn’t see him change, though — it’s just how he is.

Knows he’s biased towards her and takes full advantage of it. No hard feelings, she just wants to live.

camille

baby?

This is my son(?)

He is a tree

I love him mucho

He do not love me ‘n’ camille lemme mom you nnnNNMMMMMM

aster

headache

"why is the world doing whirligigs" (stares at the eclipse) I learned it from you

trivia

public perception

Distant and weird, tends not to attract much attention. Was respected as a Masked Coven witch back in Miulu, until she stiffed Mephi, so she’s regarded there as a cheater and traitor now, hence is not very popular.

Elsewhere as an Archon though, known as a trickster and healer, prominently acknowledged in rural communities & backwaters worldwide. Is the figure to turn to when looking to simultaneously obey and subvert agreed systems, to freely get the best from both. ‘Third path’.

in fights

Dislikes fights. Great at distancing herself from volatile situations before they explode, slips away from dangerous people unnoticed, doesn’t stick around to get caught up in the drama.

Magic is extremely strong when she does fight, though; can instakill any organic creature by forcing mass release of GABA. That said, prefers to just knock people unconscious. Sometimes hexes people without their knowledge, but not if the effect would ever be traceable to her.

Packs a pretty mean kick. See those claws? Pointy.

romance

Heart reserved for Swift Kappel. Took a while to get to that point, but has accepted he’s serious about wanting her and serious about gripping her mercurial nonsense. Used to fantasise about other options quite often but that petered out over time.

Does not consider herself a very good lover, since her idea of dates and so on is herself just doing what she wants while dragging the other person along. It works with Swift because he has a low pleasure drive, would not work with anyone more assertive.

hobbies

Pranks, riddles, tricks, especially subtle ones where the recipient can’t tell if she’s kidding or not. Food, alcohol, sightseeing, naps, spas, basically anything that lets her feel pampered and relaxed without working for it. Quite into yoga.

Often makes little dolls out of grass or straw while bored on the road.

misc. trivia

Full name is Trivia of Jackals Venn.
Former name, before becoming a witch, was Catherine.
Uses her magic to keep herself and Swift physically young and healthy, like late-twenties to early-thirties equivalent.
Makes money while travelling by working as a doctor. Prefers not to keep much wealth on-hand so as not to become a target for thieves, though.
Would be a decent cook if she tried, but doesn’t try. Still likes putting herself in charge of cooking when the whimsy strikes her and usually produces total, but edible, junk.
Can awooo like a champion.
Furry. She’s a furry. Thinks Swift’s fangs are super hot.
Favourite colour is midnight blue. Favourite food is tripe.