Could you a classpect analysis for a Knight of Hope?

I could indeed!! This one seems… really interesting!!

Title: Knight of Hope

Title Breakdown: One who Actively Defends [wields in defense of, serves, applies, protects] Hope [faith, belief, magic, positive emotion, pure creation]

Role in the Session: So, here we have the Wwhitest of Knights. Straight-up Paladin, right here. Maybe they’re actually religious, maybe they have a more nebulous personal code, but either way, the Knight of Hope is bound to be someone committed to their beliefs to the point of zealotry. Not only are they committed, but they’re also liable to proselytize or project a holier-than-thou attitude, to cover up for an internal sense that their faith is wavering and/or inadequate. Their role in the session is to keep Hope alive – to hold their team together by providing a light on the horizon, and a beacon of faith when rational optimism is all but impossible.

Hope as an Aspect is all about conviction, about as opposed to Rage’s nihilism/absurdism, and acceptance/commitment as opposed to Rage’s skepticism. It shares with Time and Doom a fondness for grand narratives and suspension of disbelief, and will probably manifest as a belief in fate, predestination, or some similar force in those Bound to it. The Knight is there to defend and make the most of what little Hope their session has remaining, and in order to rise to the task they must realize that the Hope has been in them all along. As soon as they overcome the hesitance within themselves, they can become the force for truth and justice that their session so desperately needs.

The Knight’s Quest may involve a Planet whose native consorts have become despondent and pessimistic, despairing that any Hope could rise again. Their Denizen, even sleeping, may be a wrathful, depressive force that keeps them in this state, but before the Knight can confront the Denizen themselves, they will have to face their own demons and fulfill their duty of being a Light even in the bleakest of landscapes. Their force of will is their greatest strength, and it will confer an advantage greater than any weapon might; when all else is lost, they’re going to be the ones staggering to their feet and saying, despite all evidence to the contrary, that it ain’t over yet. This is a tremendous task to rise to, and the Knight will certainly struggle at first – it will be crucial for them to fall back on their allies when they must, even when it seems as though those allies’ convictions may not be so strong as their own. A Seer of Doom might help the Knight acquire resilience, understanding of how to press forward in the bleak circumstances they are all but certain to face. A Rogue of Time’s ability to “buy [the Knight] some time”, perhaps by literally sending them back in time to correct whatever the flaw may be in their Session, would be a formidable tool in conjunction with the Knight’s ability to utilize their beliefs in every way possible.

Opposite Role: The Rogue of Rage. Boy howdy are these two gonna have problems with one another. The Rogue’s role is to “appropriate, redistribute, and give their allies skepticism, anger, and destruction” – which is pretty much the last thing the Knight needs, given that they’re already less-than-confident in the strength of their beliefs. I could see a slow-burn of resentment building between the two, culminating in one or both of them Inverting or Over-embracing, and allowing the clash of their mutually exclusive beliefs to tear the team apart. Needless to say, the team should not(!) allow this to happen!! It is absolutely crucial, for the Knight especially, to have people on their side, and the Rogue of Rage is bound to be a real sower of discord. I never say never when it comes to relationships (romantic or platonic) or teamwork/collaboration between two roles, but these ones in particular are like oil and water.

God Tier Powers

The Knight’s Aspect is Culminative-Conclusive-Personal; their Class is that of the Active Defender. This means that their powers are going to draw on their own internal beliefs and conceptions, and be directed towards intensity/concentration as opposed to expansion or diffusion. They are literally carrying their faith as sword and shield, for better or for worse. Here are some ideas as to how that might manifest in their suite of post-Ascension powers…

Divine Grace: The Knight’s faith acts as a literal suit of armor, perhaps invisible, or perhaps made of shimmering white energy. As long as they’re confident that they will not be harmed, they could walk through an explosion unscathed, simply by virtue of their unassailable conviction. While they needn’t focus directly to keep this ability active, their defenses will drop as soon as their belief wavers, so they’ll have to have sufficiently developed in their personal arc to make the most of this ability.

Templar: When the Knight is near a symbolic manifestation of their cause, or their team’s cause, they are both physically and psychologically empowered, using any of their abilities (Aspect-related or otherwise) with greater skill and magnitude as long as they know that the symbol is there. They needn’t even see it directly, as long as they believe it to be present; obvious destruction of the symbol (which could be a flag, a building, or really any physical representation of what they stand for) will almost certainly shatter this belief, but they don’t have to have a direct line of sight, for example.

Hope Against Hope: The Knight can take the smallest glimmer of Hope and turn it into a great, radiant surge. Once they have reached the height of their control over Hope, they can invoke it to conjure up something they need, something fully real but only present so long as they believe it is. This could be a tool or a weapon at the time it’s needed most, or it could be something more abstract – a single moment of opportunity, perhaps, or maybe a message or a sign that the tides are turning. This is a very abstract and powerful ability and its limits are all-but-nonexistent, but it can only be called upon when all Hope seems lost, and the Knight truly relies on their faith against all the evidence that such faith is senseless.

Personality: The Knight of Hope’s zealotry might seem obnoxious to the, uh, less persuaded among their teammates, but it’s also what sets them apart and gives them much of their strength. What they really need to work through isn’t their conviction or stubbornness but rather their tendency towards burnout, and their constant anxiety that their faith isn’t adequate, that they aren’t holding up to their own standards. This doesn’t necessarily mean they should let their guard down or allow their beliefs to lapse or weaken, they’ve just got to learn that sometimes it’s best to let your actions speak for themselves, and to remain fully committed to practicing what they preach. If they can do this, they can do just about anything.

Their interests, outside of their religion or philosophical code, might involve some symbolic representation of belief or personal truth – role-playing, fiction writing, or dramatic reenactment are all possibilities. The common thread is that each activity involves significant creative energy and active, sustained suspension of disbelief – the very forces that the Knight will rely on over the course of their personal journey through the Game.

Songs: I’vve got a feww of these in mind already… 8y wwhich I mean I’m attemptin a rare and highly dangerous x3 Goats combo ::::p

Last Man on Earth by the Mountain Goats

Hail St. Sebastian by the Mountain Goats

Romans 10:9 by noted North Carolina Christian/Pagan ska/metal alt/pop five-piece, the Mountain Goats

Also like, viva la vida by coldplay or somethin

Anywways!! I hope you enjoyed readin this analysis; I certainly enjoyed wwritin it!! Thanks for the ask ^^^^v^^^^

~ P L U R ~

I have been listening to Inherit Nothing, so Heir of Void?

Another Heir, and this time the Mythological Role of a canonical character, Equius Zahaak, who, alas, did not live to fully realize his destiny as the Heir of Void. Or so it would seem. However, Void is a cryptic Aspect, and leaves open all kinds of angles of interpretation when it comes to the notion of realization of one’s Role. Here’s my take on the…

Title: Heir of Void

Title Breakdown: One who passively manipulates [inherits, becomes one with, invites change in, invites others to change] Void [nothingness, vacuums, darkness, oblivion, depth, silence, irrelevence]

Role in the Session: The Heir of Void is a fascinating Role, due to the fact that in a sense, they write themselves out of the story. By becoming one with nothing, however, they gain tremendous power, as Void’s depths could well be infinite. Void encompasses not only darkness, secrecy, and obscurity itself, but also that which lurks in the darkness, the whispered words which comprise the secret, and all those forgotten and abandoned things obscured until the time is right to find them – it is all the potential of an unopened door in a building hitherto unvisited. It would be redundant for me to say that Void is a mysterious Aspect, but, well, it is – the magnitude and character of its power is almost by definition indiscernable. Therefore, when we examine the Heir of Void, it’s probably best to interpret their inheritance not only as “nothing” (though that is applicable) but also “everything within the nothingness”.

Void and the Heir share an interesting quality in terms of their Hero’s Quest and personal narrative/story arc – they both involve absence, leaving home, learning, and making an eventual return. However, because of Void’s proximity to Space and the metaphysical depth of Introspective Aspects in general, I’m not entirely certain that the odyssey undertaken by an Heir of Void would end with the Heir’s return. The Void stretches on forever, and it changes all who touch it. This isn’t an ending without hope, it’s simply an acknowledgement that Void is an Aspect of irresolution. It doesn’t give easy answers or swift resolution, and it makes no promises. It simply renders apparent that which is absent, that which is untouched and unseen and ripe for exploration. Light players cut apart the Void to render it known; Void players bask in the ineffable sanctity of all that which remains unknown. The Heir of Void ultimately becomes one with the Void – that is to say, they learn to take on the ineffibility, become unseen, and in so doing triumph.

An Heir of Void’s ideal co-players are rather hard to pin down, as I think Void players are rather adaptable, but to continue with my pattern of naming players with players whose Aspects share a Trine with the Aspect of the subject of the analysis, I’ll name the Seer of Breath and the Prince of Heart. The Seer is someone who makes a leader of everyone in their party by teaching of freedom and independence, awakening that in even those like the Heir who might ordinarily be loathe to stand out or distinguish themselves; the Prince “destroys the Self” as the Heir of Void “becomes one with nothing” -  two concepts that are discrete but clearly overlaps strongly, two lines running in not-quite-opposite directions along the same track.

Opposite Role: The Mage of Light. The Mage of Light, as noted in our analysis of that Role about a month ago, is a performer – the Active Understanding Class, and bound to the Aspect most strongly associated with information, attention, and awareness. Light is arguably the more “active” Aspect here, as well, given that light can illuminate darkness, while darkness itself cannot quench light, because darkness doesn’t exist any more than cold or silence do, on a physical level. Void permeates the totality of these concepts, lining the metaphysical walls of the spaces, the absences, the Voids where some thing or another is absent. The Mage, who actively involves themselves with, and teaches others of by example, Light, is opposed to the Heir of Void almost by accident – not due to any normative discrepency between the narrative arcs of the two Roles, as is so often the case with opposite/Inverse Role, but simply because the Mage’s very presence destroys the Heir – literally preventing them from becoming Void by depriving them of their nonexistence, forcing them, intentionally or otherwise, to be real or to be seen. The Heir’s only recourse here is, well, that which is so often a Void player’s only resource – to leave. If the Heir makes themselves absent, they are free to do their work; they need only stay one step ahead of the Mage, or come to an agreement to stay away from one another. There’s a whole lot of potential for drama here.

God Tier Powers

Void is the Actual-Introspective Aspect, which probably warrants some as it makes the unnecessary (A/N: 8ut true!!!) metaphysical assumption that reality can understand itself, and it also seems to directly contradict what Void is all a8bout – Void players tend to be associated with unreality and somewhat avoidant of self-examination. I see Void as Introspective because it looks inward in the same way that Light looks outward. It’s Actual in that the abyss it is gazing into isn’t one’s own psyche/soul – that’s Heart’s area of concern. Rather, Void looks at what we can’t see, at the negative left behind by Light’s (meta)physical photography. Engaging with Void is like searching for lost time, or for a forgotten phrase, or for the path through a darkened city that you once knew well to a familiar place from which you have long been absent. Once you get close enough to it, you begin to realize that the search is the object.

The Heir is the Passive Manipulation Class, and the counterpart to the Witch. The Heir inherits, invites gradual change in, surrounds themselves with, and ultimately unifies with their Aspect.

One With Nothing: The Heir of Void ceases to exist, in part or in whole. They don’t actually die, of course – they just set their consciousness or their body out of phase with reality, leaving a Void where it once was. They can return whenever they will, and this ability can be employed as both a long-term tactic for secrecy and espionage, or as a simple means of phasing through matter and across distances unimpeded.

Hole in World: Matter, energy, and information tend to spiral towards the Ascended Heir of Void as though they themselves were a singularity, amassing a literal or metaphorical accretion ring which could be used for any number of purposes – a weapon, a shield, or an implement of area-control in strife, preventing encroaching Underlings or Dersite soldiers from engaging directly.

Circle’s Summoning: The Heir carries their inheritance with them – as our Heir of Void becomes increasingly suffused with the Void, they are drawn closer and closer to the maddening knowledge and enfeebling power of the Furthest Ring and its occupants. “Becoming the Void” sounds a lot like going Grimdark to me, but I imagine the Heir would have somewhat more… discretion? over their access to the power of the Noble Circle of Horrorterrors, perhaps being able to access Grimdark capabilities without entirely losing control of their identity.

Personality: The Heir of Void would likely be somewhat quiet and self-isolating, and may struggle with the concept of identity in general – attaching themselves to a particular label instead of engaging in deeper introspection. This may lead to tension in personal relationships due to the Heir’s apparent emptiness and attachment to a smokescreen of structure. The Heir isn’t deliberately concealing their identity here – they’re just transferring their sense of identity to an artifact in a conscious or unconscious attempt to avoid the, well, Void within them. Their soft-spokenness and idiosyncracies can cause them to be overlooked or disappear in social settings, which may cause a no small amount of longing and angst. For the Heir to fully develop as a person and a player, they need to look inward – Void being as it is an Introspective Aspect – and forge for themselves an identity independent from extant structures or formulae.

(A/N: For the foreseea8le future, I’m afraid I’m goin to 8e retirin the Songs section, 8ut do feel free to send playlist requests regardin specific Roles.)

I hope you enjoyed this analysis!! It has, 8y a wwide margin, set the record for the longest time I’vve t8ken to complete an analysis, for various reasons (computer difficulties and also some reconsider8ion of Void as an Aspect. Thanks for your request ::::)

~ P L U R ~