Pimping My Canon: Unclean Legacy
As I've long been promising, here's the big pimping post about Manfred and Francescu's canon. Unfortunately, I have no shiny media to offer (curse you, free online writing-blog canon!!), but I've got a big writeup in case you need convincing that our canon is the best evar. EVAR.
So what is this, anyway?
Hitherby Dragons: An Unclean Legacy ("Unclean Legacy" or "UL" for short) is Francescu and Manfred's canon of origin, a dark fantasy story with a very simple premise: "What if Gargamel from The Smurfs succeeded in turning the Smurfs to gold, gaining massive cosmic power in doing so, and then attempted to settle down and raise a family? What if he had children -- kids with great powers, intense sibling rivalries, and serious problems? How do they survive childhood, and what happens years later when they reunite at Gargamel's deathbed, all vying for a part of Gargamel's powerful legacy?"
In other words, it's about 50% cool epic dark-fantasy action and 50% total crack, and the main characters are all 21 or under for the main action of the plot. Camp potential should be obvious.
While the story takes place over the course of roughly 30 years, the major action (and the time period from which Francescu and Manfred have been apped) takes place during the Gargamel siblings' adolescence and early adulthood, when they range in age from 21 to 16. During this period, they're all attempting to figure out pecking orders, forge relationships, and deal with their powers -- some natural, some given as "gifts" by their father on each child's tenth birthday. Somehow, despite their best efforts, it all goes wrong... and it makes great soap opera in the process. The only thing that could make their lives better is some good fresh air, mystery meat, and zombie-hunting.
The entire thing is available online, starting with the first installment, "The Fallen Knight." (Just use "Next Post" to keep going. There are occasional posts of other stuff, but you'll know when you've hit the end.)
Five Reasons Why You Should App From Unclean Legacy
1) Having an insane canon lets you get away with a lot of stuff. Ever wanted an excuse to just start throwing around cookie elves and be able to claim it's canonically legitimate? Here you go. When it comes to insanity, the sky's the limit.
2) Vibrant, dynamic character personalities. Even the relatively minor characters in UL are genuinely interesting people with strong voices of their own, and every appable character (and some non-appables) could fit in at camp instantly. If you like strong, weird characters, this is the canon for you.
3) An ideal mix of serious roleplaying possibilities and crack. Do you enjoy in-depth characterization and serious, dramatic roleplaying? Unclean Legacy characters can do that. Like creating relationships and launching tinyplots? UL is ideal for creating all sorts of fascinating entanglements. Enjoy fighting wacky things, turning into wackier things, and generally experiencing full-blown cracktastic chaos? UL can do that -- and does that, in canon, with a tone that can go from "spinach-spiders? What the hell?" to "... oh shit angst" in five seconds flat. It's your full-spectrum camp experience.
4) Francescu and Manfred needs their lives to be more difficult. C'mon, you know it's true. Go make trouble for 'em.
5) Elisabet saves Christmas.
Characters Who Can Be Apped
All five of the remaining Gargamel siblings are eligible to be apped as campers. They are:
Violet (age 21), the eldest and the only one without obvious supernatural powers. Nonetheless, she holds great sway over her father and siblings due to her authentic affection for them; she is, in essence, the caring parent that the rest of the family never really had. Caring but firm, she holds secrets of her own. Her tenth-birthday gift (which may or may not apply in camp, but why not?) is a tremendous threshing machine which makes dust and miasma of any would-be suitor -- when she was ten, she really hated boys...
Tomas (age 18), a priest and dabbler in sorcery who is blessed with a surpassing, near-solipsist arrogance. His tenth-birthday gift was to see the face of God; ever since, he's considered himself a cut above the rest of humanity, and he acts it. He's cunning, with the callous sadism of someone who considers himself above it all, and has impressive talent at manipulation of men's minds.
Sophie (age 17) is a twin. In the UL universe, every set of identical twins is born with only one soul, in only one child; the great sorcerer Montechristien Gargamel was a twin without a soul, and his daughter Sophie follows in his footsteps. An accomplished shapeshifter and stealthy fighter, Sophie felt her soullessness acutely throughout her childhood and wished on her tenth birthday to "be somebody worthy of corrupting" -- a "gift" that has caused her no end of trouble, as even now she is pursued by the Devil. She was close to Manfred before his fall, although he now in large part blames her for it, and she in turn has her difficulties with Francescu. It can only end in tears...
Christine (age 17) is Sophie's twin and possesses their shared soul, a fact which she uses as an excuse for insufferable self-righteousness, in her devotion to the path of the good and reaching Heaven. She treats Sophie as a personal taint and wishes her dead, although she rarely pursues this openly. Christine is a sorcerer of note in her own right, but by far her greatest strength is the Bad House, a mechanical demon of a house bent to Christine's will and endlessly wandering the woods on metal legs.
Elisabet (age 16) is a ninja! She does everything that a ninja needs to do: stealthy assassination, throwing shuriken, delivering monologues... becoming amorphous, manifesting tentacles... well, calling Elisabet just a ninja may not quite suffice. The youngest of the Gargamels, she is perversely the most like her mother, who died giving birth to her. Elisabet is more monstrous than she seems, and more innocent. Plus she has poisoned needles!
If there were a counselor app date in the offing, at this point I would pimp the comedic possibilities of Montechristien Gargamel himself -- Smurf-destroyer, peerless sorcerer, petty lord of all he surveys, widower, indifferent-to-sadistic father, and thoroughly damned sinner -- but that'll have to wait. For now, go thee and read! And app! Here's the link to the beginning of UL again, if you don't want to scroll up. Make us proud.
If you do decide to app from UL, I'm always available to beta, and I'm sure Francescu is too. Furthermore, I am extremely likely to buy a paid account (+ icons, if you want) for anyone from UL who gets in. Come take advantage of my generosity!
So what is this, anyway?
Hitherby Dragons: An Unclean Legacy ("Unclean Legacy" or "UL" for short) is Francescu and Manfred's canon of origin, a dark fantasy story with a very simple premise: "What if Gargamel from The Smurfs succeeded in turning the Smurfs to gold, gaining massive cosmic power in doing so, and then attempted to settle down and raise a family? What if he had children -- kids with great powers, intense sibling rivalries, and serious problems? How do they survive childhood, and what happens years later when they reunite at Gargamel's deathbed, all vying for a part of Gargamel's powerful legacy?"
In other words, it's about 50% cool epic dark-fantasy action and 50% total crack, and the main characters are all 21 or under for the main action of the plot. Camp potential should be obvious.
While the story takes place over the course of roughly 30 years, the major action (and the time period from which Francescu and Manfred have been apped) takes place during the Gargamel siblings' adolescence and early adulthood, when they range in age from 21 to 16. During this period, they're all attempting to figure out pecking orders, forge relationships, and deal with their powers -- some natural, some given as "gifts" by their father on each child's tenth birthday. Somehow, despite their best efforts, it all goes wrong... and it makes great soap opera in the process. The only thing that could make their lives better is some good fresh air, mystery meat, and zombie-hunting.
The entire thing is available online, starting with the first installment, "The Fallen Knight." (Just use "Next Post" to keep going. There are occasional posts of other stuff, but you'll know when you've hit the end.)
Five Reasons Why You Should App From Unclean Legacy
1) Having an insane canon lets you get away with a lot of stuff. Ever wanted an excuse to just start throwing around cookie elves and be able to claim it's canonically legitimate? Here you go. When it comes to insanity, the sky's the limit.
2) Vibrant, dynamic character personalities. Even the relatively minor characters in UL are genuinely interesting people with strong voices of their own, and every appable character (and some non-appables) could fit in at camp instantly. If you like strong, weird characters, this is the canon for you.
3) An ideal mix of serious roleplaying possibilities and crack. Do you enjoy in-depth characterization and serious, dramatic roleplaying? Unclean Legacy characters can do that. Like creating relationships and launching tinyplots? UL is ideal for creating all sorts of fascinating entanglements. Enjoy fighting wacky things, turning into wackier things, and generally experiencing full-blown cracktastic chaos? UL can do that -- and does that, in canon, with a tone that can go from "spinach-spiders? What the hell?" to "... oh shit angst" in five seconds flat. It's your full-spectrum camp experience.
4) Francescu and Manfred needs their lives to be more difficult. C'mon, you know it's true. Go make trouble for 'em.
5) Elisabet saves Christmas.
Characters Who Can Be Apped
All five of the remaining Gargamel siblings are eligible to be apped as campers. They are:
Violet (age 21), the eldest and the only one without obvious supernatural powers. Nonetheless, she holds great sway over her father and siblings due to her authentic affection for them; she is, in essence, the caring parent that the rest of the family never really had. Caring but firm, she holds secrets of her own. Her tenth-birthday gift (which may or may not apply in camp, but why not?) is a tremendous threshing machine which makes dust and miasma of any would-be suitor -- when she was ten, she really hated boys...
Tomas (age 18), a priest and dabbler in sorcery who is blessed with a surpassing, near-solipsist arrogance. His tenth-birthday gift was to see the face of God; ever since, he's considered himself a cut above the rest of humanity, and he acts it. He's cunning, with the callous sadism of someone who considers himself above it all, and has impressive talent at manipulation of men's minds.
Sophie (age 17) is a twin. In the UL universe, every set of identical twins is born with only one soul, in only one child; the great sorcerer Montechristien Gargamel was a twin without a soul, and his daughter Sophie follows in his footsteps. An accomplished shapeshifter and stealthy fighter, Sophie felt her soullessness acutely throughout her childhood and wished on her tenth birthday to "be somebody worthy of corrupting" -- a "gift" that has caused her no end of trouble, as even now she is pursued by the Devil. She was close to Manfred before his fall, although he now in large part blames her for it, and she in turn has her difficulties with Francescu. It can only end in tears...
Christine (age 17) is Sophie's twin and possesses their shared soul, a fact which she uses as an excuse for insufferable self-righteousness, in her devotion to the path of the good and reaching Heaven. She treats Sophie as a personal taint and wishes her dead, although she rarely pursues this openly. Christine is a sorcerer of note in her own right, but by far her greatest strength is the Bad House, a mechanical demon of a house bent to Christine's will and endlessly wandering the woods on metal legs.
Elisabet (age 16) is a ninja! She does everything that a ninja needs to do: stealthy assassination, throwing shuriken, delivering monologues... becoming amorphous, manifesting tentacles... well, calling Elisabet just a ninja may not quite suffice. The youngest of the Gargamels, she is perversely the most like her mother, who died giving birth to her. Elisabet is more monstrous than she seems, and more innocent. Plus she has poisoned needles!
If there were a counselor app date in the offing, at this point I would pimp the comedic possibilities of Montechristien Gargamel himself -- Smurf-destroyer, peerless sorcerer, petty lord of all he surveys, widower, indifferent-to-sadistic father, and thoroughly damned sinner -- but that'll have to wait. For now, go thee and read! And app! Here's the link to the beginning of UL again, if you don't want to scroll up. Make us proud.
If you do decide to app from UL, I'm always available to beta, and I'm sure Francescu is too. Furthermore, I am extremely likely to buy a paid account (+ icons, if you want) for anyone from UL who gets in. Come take advantage of my generosity!