| "STAGE/SCENE" | DESCRIPTION |
|---|
| STASIS | The character or their world is in a state of stagnation. |
| 1 | Jonathan is informed that one of his soldiers seems to have contracted smallpox, so he goes to investigate and discovers while many of the symptoms are the same (vomiting's, fever, achiness, and lesions covering the face and body) that the lesions rupture with in a day or two emitting a red light that flows away into the forest. Jonathan has his men quarantine the sick man while Jonathan start an investigation on where his soldier contracted the disease. |
| 2 | Jonathan informs his superior of the situation and asks for doctors to help deal with the sickness but politics gets in the way. Jonathan is told, indirectly, that his troops are being positioned to intimidate congress into giving the army the funds they need to do their jobs. |
| 3 | The sickness is spreading quickly, and those who are hit the hardest are the strong and able bodied who go into a kind of coma with strands of light leaving their bodies. Jonathan is desperately searching for a doctor in a near by town when he discovers that the sickness is here. He meets Jayana who is using her familiarity with the magical disease to help the townsfolk and she agrees to help the soldiers. |
| 4 | Jayana shows Jonathan and his men how to use some specially prepared toxic substances to trick the magical pathogen into abandoning its host. |
| 5 | Jonathan confronts Jayana about her role in the sickness inflicting the village and his men, and she admits that she is causing the sickness. |
| TRIGGER | Something happens, or the character does something to set the story in motion. |
| 1 | The automatons attack. A scene in which Jayana tries to convince Johnathan to use his ability to harness the power of the Chulchinor to save her people from the automatons. |
| 2 | Jonathan's command is being reassigned because someone made a political move on his position and he's being pushed out. Jayana, as a political representative of her people promises to help Jonathan (Jonathan's main concern is that his men be properly provisioned, which they are not currently, and the change in command wont help the men) |
| 3 | A scene in which Ned and Uncle William are attacked by micro-automatons. Uncle William is stung with magical venom and Jonathan and Jayana have to come back to stabilize him. |
| 4 | A scene in which Jonathan and Jayana return to find that Uncle William is dying from the magical venom and Ned is in bad shape from contending with the micro-automatons. |
| 5 | A scene where Jonathan and the other Terrans are apprehended and Jayana is taken into custody by [a disreputable looking civil servant] and whisked away to give a debriefing about her disappearance with the Chulchinor |
| QUEST | The character or one of their allies has a plan. For better or worse, they decide to follow it. |
| 1 | A scene in which Jonathan discovers that the Chulchinor doesn't have to be physically warn in order to activate it's web traveling abilities. Jonathan's desire to save his uncle convinces him to use it's ability to travel 4 dimensionally to find Jayana. She assists him in finding an artifact to help slow the effects of the venom |
| 2 | Jonathan is introduced to Catibreus, a powerful sorcerer whom Jayana has convinced Jonathan is someone who may be able to help Uncle William |
| 3 | Catibreus asks Jonathan to help acquire magic assets to help them save Uncle William and the sorcerer clan. Jonathan struggles with using the Chulchinor because of how disturbing the experience is but also because he is convinced that he has to communicate with a demon in order to activate the power of the arm band. The Chulchinor explains that Jayana's people are in desperate need of his help and that the Chulchinor will refrain from communicating with Jonathan via it's anthropomorphic avatar if a talking arm band would be less offensive to his Christian sensibilities. Jonathan thinks that this is only marginally better than speaking to a ghost like creature but agrees because of uncle Ben's need, and then buckles down to learn how to get the hang of multidimensional travel. |
| 4 | A scene where Jonathan is practicing with a sorcerer who is teaching a few people how to meditate and one of them discovers a black metal beetle hitched a ride on their clothes. They try to capture the automaton which they do, but the distraction allows another one to get away. |
| 5 | A scene where Viltinor discovers that the Chulchinor he's been searching for is in play, and that an alien (Jonathan) is wielding it to great effect |
| 6 | Jonathan discovers that there are not just the two types of automatons as Jayana's people thought but hundreds of different types. Jonathan tells Jayana and Ned but the one that the army captures doesn't seem to work like he said it would |
| 7 | Ned's practice—with the arm and leg attachments that give warriors greater strength—is cut short by an attack by the larger automatons called Arachs. Ned gets to don a set of real arm and leg attachments [i need a name for these arm and leg attachments] when a soldier is killed nearby. Jonathan told Ned to look out for a smaller blue automaton that provides communication between the automaton combatants to coordinate the attack, and Ned finds it and kills it, leading to the rebuff of the assualt. |
| 8 | Viltinor learns the wear-abouts of the Chulchinor |
| 9 | Jayana has to deal with the political implications that the Terran's are featured so strongly in her defense plan. Other leaders are worried that there is a power grab in process by the Aliens (Jonathan and Ned). Uncle William, while still being cared for, is taking in to a kind of house arrest situation, as a precaution against Jonathan and Ned making some kind of power grab |
| 10 | Jonathan is livid, and his practice suffers, leading to a surprise attack that the army has to rely on "traditional" means to detect. In other-words they don't have the advantage of the forward warnings from Jonathan. |
| 11 | This reinforces the fears that Jonathan is playing some kind of power game |
| 12 | Jonathan and Ned fight together to turn away another wave of Arachs. They are barely able to find the communication bug and discover that there is a secondary communication automaton helps to coordinate the creatures vision and when both are taken out the army is able to take out the attackers much more efficiently. This would be a good scene to explore the extent of the Chulchinor's healing factor (ie. Jonathan gets wounded badly). |
| 13 | A scene where Uncle William proves how cool he is, and discovers that Viltinor has some very well placed spies. |
| 14 | A scene where Viltinor's allies convince most of the leadership that the Terran's (Jonathan, Ned, and Uncle William) are keeping secrets about the Chulchinor and can't be trusted with so much power. |
| 15 | Jayana is politically forced to ask Jonathan to give up the Chulchinor, which he does gladly, but this only positions the artifact to be stolen by Viltinor |
| BOLT | The plan falls victim to a surprise attack, a set-back, or a diversion. |
| 1 | A scene in which Viltinor steals the Chulchinor and Jayana, Jonathan, and Ned are left in a desperate fight against arachs |
| 2 | A scene in which the Chulchinor runs philosophical circles around Viltinor, but eventually Viltinor hits on the fact that the Chulch needs Jonathan and Jayana |
| 3 | A scene in which Jayana saves Ned and protects Uncle William, who had an epiphany |
| 4 | A scene in which one of Viltinor's captains offer to let off the attack on the city if the Terran's give themselves up (Viltinor wants a human to experiment with the Chulch). Jayana has Jonathan restrained so that he can't give himself up, but wily Uncle William offers himself in exchange for a secession of hostilities. |
| 5 | A scene in which Viltinor and Uncle William meet. Viltinor offers to help Uncle William overcome the poisoning by turning him into an automaton. William and Viltinor do some philosophical jousting. The Uncle William reaches out to the Chulchinor mentally and makes contact. He learns that the physical distance from the Chulch doesn't make much difference except in the the users perception. |
| SHIFT | The character undergoes the essential change that begins to transform them into their end state. |
| 1 | A scene where Jayana, Jonathan and Ned are dealing with the remnants of the last assault and trying to figure out where Uncle William is located. |
| 2 | disaster for the side plot (maybe some foreshadowing for later events could go here) |
| 3 | A scene where the stakes are getting higher for Jayana, she loses some major resources for her people so the pressure to stop Viltinor is higher than ever. |
| 4 | Jonathan's stubbornness puts Ned in serious danger |
| 5 | A scene where Jonathan makes the firsts steps towards healthy compromise |
| DEFEAT | The jaws of defeat. All hope is lost. Allies fall and the quest now seems impossible. |
| 1 | Jonathan still feels somewhat connected to the Chulch, and wants to go after Uncle William, but Jayana can not spare any means of rapid transport for Jonathan and Ned to go on a rescue mission so they have to procure their own transportation. That means making a deal with one of the political factions that Jonathan doesn't get along with. Ned wants to wait until Jayana can help them, but Jonathan isn't going to hear any of that. |
| 2 | Viltinor discovers that Uncle William is communicating with the Chulch and starts prepping him to have his soul ripped out and turned into an automaton. |
| 3 | Jonathan and Ned have an incredibly small window to infiltrate Viltinor's base of operations and extract Uncle William. Ned wants to get the Chulch first and then Uncle William but Jonathan insists that the Chulch is to heavily guarded but they do it Jonathan's way. |
| 4 | They go in and botch the mission. Ned has his limbs pruned, and Jonathan is spiked with a device that allows Viltinor to monitor Jonathan's connection to the Chulch. But not before Uncle William reminds Jonathan of an experience where they discussed how "the way you think of the world around you determines how you interact with it, and thus changing your way of thinking also changes your reality." |
| 5 | Viltinor tells one of his lackeys to break Jonathan for later use. Viltinor has what he needs to start communicating with the gods through the Chulch and begins that process. Jonathan is given the choice of saving Uncle William or Ned. Jonathan refuses to choose so they turn Uncle William into an automaton to see if Terran's turn into different automatons than Talawhines. |
| POWER | The character finds the power within themselves to change and complete the quest. |
| 1 | "A scene in which Johnathan realizes that a power they have beneath themselves allows the to achieve their goal or to defeat they're enemy. Viltinor is ramping up his plan to use the Chulchinor to access the gods, he wants to be able to communicate with him and hopefully to access their power, and hopefully to become one of them. Jonathan realizes because of the clues that uncle William left for him that his connection to the Chulchinor is not purely physical, that he can access it with some effort without wearing it. He's being monitor with the magical artefact that he has on he's body and it allows Viltinor to know what is the strength of the connection between Jonathan and the Chulchinor, but because Jonathan changes his paradigm thinking that he's connection to the Chulchinor is not only physical but also conceptual, he imagines in his mind the place that he was taken to while he was meditating with the Chulchinor on, and it allows him to communicate with the demon. |
| 2 | A scene in which Jonathan fulfill a prophesy or faith or the expectation of his loved one's Uncle William wants Jonathan to do good, he wants Jonathan to help Jeana and her people. He will make the explicit connection between Jeana's people overcoming Viltinor's attack and the work that Jonathan did in the Continental's army. Jonathan will have a choice when he has some power from the Chulchinor, which is to go and take whatever is left of Uncle William and Ned and get out of there or he can turn around and confront Viltinor, who all of the sudden has big monster problems on his own. |
| 3 | A scene in which Jonathan takes on a new name, epithet or rank. Like ''the Wondering warrior" at this point he has gained the power to move freely through space and time. Jonathan's physical and mentally trainings combines, at this moment he's physical abilities start to pay off. He gets to have a hand on hand fight with Viltinor. |
| 4 | A scene in which Jonathan gains new admirers, followers or friends who are drawn to his power. Twist! The thing that Viltinor realizes in his intent to connect with the gods actually respects Jonathan and his travelling abilities, so between Jonathan and this creature get Viltinor to retreat, so he gets away but with a high cost. |
| 5 | A scene where Jayana and her forces overwhelmed the Calvary rides in and they're able to overwhelmed the Automatons forces as well of Viltinor's command and they're able to rescue Jonathan and his crew. |
| RESOLUTION | The character has reached their new state, which is the opposite of their Stasis state. |
| 1 | A scene that shows how Jonathan has become a warrior capable of adapting to a situation. His single combat skills have become formidable but still he needs to work on a fighting unit in order to save the Talaphines. |
| 2 | A scene that shows how Hand to hand combat are good as long you only have one or two opponents. The next problem is that there's an objective that requires physical altercation but there's no restrictions about the number of opponents. Jonathan reflects on this scene and he concludes that in order to reach more complex objectives that he has to work with other individuals in a team setting . The resolution scenes need to be able to tied up like what happens to Ned, how does he goes from being tortured, disarmed (literally) to being someone who can be a part of the elite fighting squad in the next book. |
| 3 | Jonathan dealing with the fact that uncle William is gone now. Between of the all of the trauma that uncle William was suffering while he came up with this theory that he can access the Chulchinor without actually wearing it, and then having his soul being ripped of his body. What's left of Uncle William is maybe a metallic automaton and that automaton might be cute and loveable but it's not uncle William. |
| 4 | How overcoming the forces of Viltinor has left the people, how does it look when your cleaning up after an inventions, the lost of resources, losing people, etc... |
| 5 | The relationship between the Chulchinor and Jonathan has changed because now Jonathan can access its power without wearing it. if he's wearing it the strength might be bigger, he can portal further or portal more people. Jonathan and the Chulchinor discussing about everything that happened and how the Chulchinor need Jonathan because he has the capacity to manipulate the web. There's some kind of predator that the Chulchinor is trying to prepare Jonathan for, the Chulchinor relays on the time when Jonathan sees the bigger picture he'll get a better understanding on how Viltinor ambition to join the pantheon is only affecting this galaxy, not the whole universe. |