commit 13dd60986ca9a608f7a83c9f82dda138c2268361 Author: Matt Soucy Date: Sat Oct 27 17:07:36 2018 -0400 Dump contents into git diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f08278d --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitignore @@ -0,0 +1 @@ +*.pdf \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/.vscode/settings.json b/.vscode/settings.json new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a04c404 --- /dev/null +++ b/.vscode/settings.json @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +{ + "spellright.language": [ + "English (American)" + ], + "spellright.documentTypes": [ + "latex", + "plaintext", + "markdown" + ], + "spellright.recheckOnSave": true +} \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/.vscode/spellright.dict b/.vscode/spellright.dict new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f57c7a0 --- /dev/null +++ b/.vscode/spellright.dict @@ -0,0 +1 @@ +Slannon diff --git a/Book-1/Chapter-1.md b/Book-1/Chapter-1.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..949a7c2 --- /dev/null +++ b/Book-1/Chapter-1.md @@ -0,0 +1,38 @@ +Chapter 1 +========= + +"You shouldn't have done it." + +Though the two men stood side by side, they couldn't be mistaken for standing together. The shorter one appeared by all accounts to be engrossed in the sunset, but there was a certain anger that made itself known in his voice. He spoke again. "There will be thousands of new ones. Thousands. Not just here, but every city." + +"I couldn't see any other way." + +"Thousands of people, around the world, are going to find themselves in more danger than they've ever been. Because you *couldn't see any other way.*" + +The tall man crossed his arms. "The alternative would be worse. I'd rather have a few thousand, than all of them. The world isn't ready for that yet." + +He tried to approach the shorter man, before hesitating and walking away. "We'll find them. With or without your help. If that's the price I have to pay for what I did, then I'll pay it." + +When he turned around to look for a response, there was nobody there. + +--- + +Slannon knew the moment he opened his eyes that there was something wrong. Not the fact that he was lying on the floor - he'd done his fair share of that after some late nights with friends. Studying, of course, or at least that was the alibi he claimed. This floor was harder than what he was used to, though - maybe some sort of stone? + +The room was sparsely decorated. A solid block acting as a table, up against the wall. A single metal chair, a few feet from where Slannon's head had been resting. A soft white light seeming to come from a small hole in the ceiling. All of which looked completely foreign to the student who woke up in their midst. + +Slannon stood, feeling cramped in the small room. "Hello? Anyone there?" He immediately felt silly - wasn't that the first thing that characters in a horror movie said? He glanced around, spotting the doorway behind him. "I'm coming out now." + +His attempts to leave the room were delayed slightly, as he jiggled the handle unsuccessfully. "Ha ha, very funny. Let me out now." + +He sat in the chair, pondering the door in front of him. It was less of a door, he decided, and more of a large annoying slab of gray material that was blocking him from getting on with... What, exactly? What had he been doing before he woke up? + +"The party..." he thought, remembering the night before. It had started as a small gathering, in his apartment off-campus. His roommates had decided to invite a few of their friends, who had showed up with *their* friends... and the next thing Slannon knew, there had been several dozen people in various stages of undress and inebriation. He groaned, remembering downing a line of shots while some pop song blared in the background. + +But that couldn't be right. He felt his head. Nope, no pulsing feeling, no headache. He felt awake, and comfortable, almost as if he had bypassed the hangover entirely. "Was I out for an entire week or something?" + +He stood up from the chair, walking back toward the door. This time, he took a careful look around the door, noticing for the first time a carving to one side of it. Concentric circles were filled with a series of symbols, surrounding a hand print. Hesitantly, he reached out, aligning his right hand with the inset in the wall. The print felt warm to the touch, and before he could think about it he pushed forward. The warmth flowed up his arm for a moment, before the sensation abruptly reversed - a cold shock seemed to flow from his arm into the wall. + +He gasped, withdrawing his hand and staring at the offending patch of wall. Much to his surprise, it was no longer the dull gray it had been. Instead, the symbols were all glowing a faint blue. As he watched them, they vanished, seeming to fade into the wall with no trace of their existence. The circles followed suit, leaving just the hand print in the wall, as there was a clicking sound from the door. + +Slannon yanked the handle, half expecting the door to still be locked, and was pleased when it opened. With a final glance at the room, he walked through the doorway, emerging into a dull hallway. Lining the otherwise plain walls were a series of doors, much like the one he had come from, while at the end he could see light pouring from a glass door leading outside. Hastily, he ran toward the exit, emerging outdoors. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile new file mode 100644 index 0000000..10c4457 --- /dev/null +++ b/Makefile @@ -0,0 +1,12 @@ + +chapter-sort = $(shell echo -e $(subst $(sp),'\n',$2) | sort $1 --key=1,1 -) + +books : Book1.pdf + +Book1.pdf : $(call chapter-sort,-n,$(wildcard Book-1/*.md)) + pandoc $^ -o $@ + +clean: + rm -rf Book1.pdf + +.PHONY: books clean \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/characters.md b/characters.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ae7a276 --- /dev/null +++ b/characters.md @@ -0,0 +1,43 @@ +# Slannon + +Main character of Beyond the Veil and Raising the Veil. +Tall, nerdy, intelligent but has no direction in life. +Telepathy, chronokinesis, telekinesis +Only discovers chronokinesis during the climax of Raising the Veil. + +# Mira + +Pickpocket who Slannon finds looting the abandoned city. +Pyrokinesis, telepathy +The only Worldwalker in Class One or Two + +# Lazarro (Laz) + +Main character of Piercing the Veil +Telekinesis, cryokinesis, photokinesis +Younger man who is adept at shaping magic into weapons. +Leader of Class One +Tall + +# Rasputin + +Laz's younger brother +Umbrakinesis, telekinesis, telepathy +Class One + +# Tom (Tome) + +Powerful telepath +Slightly cowardly, he prefers to stay in the tower and link the groups together +Photographic memory allows him to remember all the runes he's ever seen, telepathy projects them as needed + +# Richard Jacobs + +Antagonist of Piercing the Veil +Telepath +Politician who is using Maia to build a staff full of telepaths. +Plans on using telepaths to sway public opinion into electing him President. + +# Zermuksh + +An Abomination from one of the Distant Realms. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/cosmology.md b/cosmology.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b6191fe --- /dev/null +++ b/cosmology.md @@ -0,0 +1,28 @@ +# Earth + +Earth is what most people know as the "real" world. + +# The Veil + +Separates Earth from Psith. +Prevents people and magic from passing through. +In some locations on Earth, usually ones with deep-seated mental fields, the Veil is weaker and people (and things) might fall through. +This explains why certain places are "magical" or "haunted", because the Veil is weaker there. + +# Psith + +The "magical" world, powered by thought on Earth. +Areas on Earth with large populations have more mental power contributing to their existence, making them larger. + +# Maia + +Maia is the source of pure magic. +Magic is channeled from here through the Towers to Psith. +It's at the "core" of the multiverse. +Nothing but magic can exist here - anything that travels there rapidly disintegrates into magic. + +# Distant Realms + +These are other worlds, accessible from Earth only via travelling through Maia. +Some of these realms are more advanced than Earth, technologically or magically. +At least one of the Realms is full of horrors such as Zermuksh. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/synopsis.md b/synopsis.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1cdd108 --- /dev/null +++ b/synopsis.md @@ -0,0 +1,33 @@ +# Beyond the Veil + +Slannon wakes up in a deserted city, finding a few other people in similar situations. While trying to find out what's going on, they accidentally connect telepathically. +The group locates a tower, and upon entering are greeted by a group of people calling themselves the Weavers. The group is informed of the Veil between Earth and the world they are in, which has been dubbed Psith. +The group develop their powers, becoming Class Two of the Weavers. +On their first journey out, to pick up a newly-discovered Traveller, they're ambushed by a group that calls themselves the Piercers. Slannon and a few others are taken captive. +The Piercers have gathered a large number of missing Travellers. By forcing them to use their powers together, they hope to weaken the Veil enough in one area that they can summon something to Psith. +Slannon and Class Two reach out to the others, creating a rainbow circle of energy. Mira is used as the focal point to channel the circle's energy into a single spell, ripping a hole in the air. Mira and the Piercers fall through, replaced with a solid crystal of mana. +With the Piercers gone, the rest of the Travellers are freed. Class Two stages a funeral for Mira, while Class One focuses on sending the others home and repairing the Veil. + +# Piercing the Veil + +Prequel to Beyond the Veil +Lazarro lives in a house that has long been considered to be haunted. On Halloween night, he finds himself following a ghost, who leads him to Psith through the weakening in the Veil. He and his friends, including Rasputin, find out that a local politician has been gathering forces in Psith, and plan on using their telepathic powers to push his bid for President. + How do they find out? +Laz is searching for a way to stop him, when he stumbles upon an entrance to one of the strange Towers that dot Psith. Upon entering, he activates it, waking one of the last guardians from a previous generation of Travellers, who teaches him and his friends how to control their powers - including, most importantly, how to go home at will. +Jacobs stages an attack on the group, who take refuge in the tower. Laz manages to find a room in the tower that channels energy into the Veil. Rasputin and Laz combine their powers to form a sphere of influence, drawing energy from the area around them and condensing it into a hardened form of the Veil directly in Jacobs' mind. Unable to control his powers, the staff is released. Jacobs is trapped in Psith, unable to cross back to Earth. +The battle drew energy from the entire Veil, weakening it worldwide and causing several thousand people (one in a million) to flip over to Psith all at once. +Laz and Rasp vow to find the people they Flipped, and to repair the veil to prevent magic from causing that sort of temptation and problem on Earth. + +# Raising the Veil +Final adventure +Slannon mourns Mira's passing +Slannon is reading in the Tower's library, and discovers that the point of the Towers is to be able to control the Veil. +The tower can only be fully controlled by a Worldwalker - Mira +Jacobs returns, advising a new group of Piercers. He is betrayed, when the Piercers reveal that they want to stage all out war on Earth, considering themselves superior. As a non-Traveller, they consider him expendable +Weavers are dispatched when Piercers begin their attack on Earth. Mira's mana crystal is stolen and used to fuel a psychic attack on Earth, knocking out the majority of the non-Travellers on Earth +Slannon and the class pool their energy to create a second mana crystal +Slannon uses the second crystal to travel through time, plucking Mira from the moment that she fell through the spell in Beyond the Veil, dropping it on the trip back + There is only one crystal the whole time, that crystal from the future travels to the past, to get stolen +The piercers have a Worldwalker and use them to spread the psychic attack to everyone on Earth, by interfacing with a Tower and using the Veil as a carrier + This kills Jacobs, as he has a solid part of the Veil in his skull +Result: the Veil is completely removed, allowing people to cross from Earth to Psith freely, but without gaining powers in the process diff --git a/terminology.md b/terminology.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f649ad0 --- /dev/null +++ b/terminology.md @@ -0,0 +1,41 @@ +# Terminology + +## Traveler + +One who journeys from Earth to Maia. +The journey through the veil gifts them with magical abilities. + +## Towers + +The Towers exist + +## Weavers + +An organization that protects the Veil. +They seek out Travelers to help introduce them to Maia and teach them to use their powers. +Named because they "weave" new layers over the Veil. + +## Worldwalker + +Child of a Traveler +Has the innate ability to manipulate the Veil + +## Magic + +By shaping magic in certain ways, reality can be altered +Focusing on runes and magic circles tricks the mind into thinking the appropriate way + +## Evocation + +Basic form of magic +Doesn't use spell circles/runes +Limited to very simple things, often elemental + +## Ritual + +Use of a spell circle or runes to cast spells +Allows multiple Travelers to work on a spell together + +## Elements + +Six elements that make up the world \ No newline at end of file