Revision as of 08:07, 5 April 2010

The Mad Tea Party

You can take this as seriously as you want to. Half of it is indeed a joke. The other half ties in with the theory that the Games of Divinity are a Primordial, and the third half is an alternate explanation for the Empress' disappearance.

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"Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."

The souls of the Games of Divinity typically reside in Yu-Shan, dwelling within the Games themselves. They foil cheating, see that play proceeds smoothly, and ensure that no one stops playing for too long. Once a year, during Calibration, when the rules of the Games go topsy-turvy and wild, they are given a sabbatical. Some, such as Kerberos the Silver Dog, the Games' fetich, elect to remain in Heaven during this time; others go forth into the world, pursuing ends multifarious and inscrutable. One such is Argenta, the Girl in the Silver Hat. Each Calibration, she hosts a tea party for her seven souls and any others who might happen upon it. She appears to derive pleasure from experiencing different cultures' ways of appreciating tea, and styles her party after the customs of the area it appears in. If she chooses an area not inhabited by a tea-drinking people, she invents the necessary etiquette herself (though always retaining an "authentic" local feel). The Hatter and her souls spend the five days of Calibration sipping tea and conversing with themselves, as the Wyld roils and gibbers about them.

"It wasn't very civil of you to sit down without being invited."

Argenta, the Girl In the Silver Hat</i>
the Quicksilver Princess, the Clockmaker's Bane, the Mad Hatter;
Demon of the Third Circle (Unfettered);
Fifth Soul of Monopoly, the Many-In-One, the Marvelous Game, the Games of Divinity

The Girl In the Silver Hat is an island in a sea of madness, or so it seems to those who find their way to her after stumbling through her cocoon of twisted, protean reality. In truth, she is an insanity more dangerous than the Wyld which pulses around her. The Quicksilver Princess embodies the desire for perfection that drives artificers and philosophers to lunacy. Those who take tea with her often leave outwardly unscathed, even apparently enlightened, but always they carry with them something of her crazed desire to understand and quantify the universe down to the tiniest mote. It may take months, years, or even decades to manifest, but anyone who speaks with her will sooner or later be visited by madness. Even so, those few who know of Argenta sometimes seek her out, for she sees all the world as a vast mechanism, and understands its workings with a precision that is the envy of sorcerers, Exalted, and Gods alike.

Argenta appears as a girl or young woman with blond hair and silvery, pupilless eyes. Prim and proper, she is always attired in the mode of formal dress most appropriate to her setting. All her outfits include a silver hat.

The Wyld swirls around Argenta, as the world itself is twisted by her madness. Her Mad Tea Party's immediate environs are considered to be Wyld bordermarches, although any alterations inflicted upon the terrain vanish when the Party departs. Argenta can calm the Wyld, stir it into a tempest, or create people and things out of it merely by imagining them. Despite this affinity for chaos, she is a firm believer in rules and etiquette. This frequently spirals into a mad obsession with minutiae, a desire to define and refine and slice thinner and thinner until only the most fundamental truth remains. Argenta is only too willing to discuss philosophy and proper conduct; it is a good idea to politely deflect any conversational gambits she makes in these directions, however, for such discussion has a tendency to drive listeners stark raving mad.

The Tea Party which Argenta hosts appears only during Calibration, in a new place each time. No place is impossible; the Tea Party can be held anywhere in Creation or beyond. Malfeas, Autochthonia, Yu-Shan, and even the Underworld have all hosted the Mad Hatter and her entourage at one time or another. Guests are always welcome, so long as they observe the proper rules of etiquette. When the last day of Calibration arrives, any visitors are politely but firmly asked to leave. If they resist, they are ejected by force. The fate awaiting those who successfully resist ejection is unknown; no one is known to have ever accomplished this feat.

The Games of Divinity are bound by no oaths such as those which constrain its Yozi kindred; thus, Argenta and her underlings are under no obligation to respond to sorcerous summons, and cannot be compelled. When in a whimsical mood, she sometimes plays at subservience, but if a sorcerer brags of her conquest, or is ever less than scrupulously polite in his requests, his days will be short.

<i> That's...horrible. Chilling, even. Good show. hplovescats

When will the Scarlet Empress learn? Curiosity killed the cat; ancient Dynasts fare little better. - Quendalon

I should start a new page just for all the wacky misadventures I've come up with for Miss Scarlet.\\ _Ikselam

Do so, chop chop. These are interesting, in their frightening way. What do First Circle creatures of this family look like? (I can guess a few...) - FourWillowsWeeping

Tweedledee and Dum, for one. Er... two. Domino

Walruses, certainly, and March Hares. I suppose you could say that Hopping Puppeteers are Carpenters of a sort. The Queen of Hearts' First Circles would obviously be themed after playing cards. The Duchess might also plausibly fall under her auspices.

This whole thing owes a large debt of inspiration to the PC shooter Alice, so pretty much anything in that game could be translated over pretty easily.\\ _Ikselam

You named the GoD "Monopoly"? LOL! And his fetich is a silver dog... I guess we know what your favorite playing piece is :-D So, is this Primordial's preferred manifestation that of an old man wearing a tuxedo and carrying bags of jade coins? - RichardX1 (note to self: use the Preview function)

Actually, Domino made up the name. And the Games' manifestation is the literal playing field of the Games of Divinity. As a Primordial, it's too metaphysically big to condense itself down into human or quasi-human form.\\ Monopoly's Third Circle demons are: a Silver Hound, a girl wearing a Silver Hat, a messenger with Silver Shoes, a rider in a Silver Chariot, a Silver Horse, a Silver Admiral, a laundress with a Silver Iron, and a seamstress with a Silver Thimble. \\ I actually flirted with the idea of doing a similarly tongue-in-cheek-ish writeup for Kerberos, with all his Second Circles being based on famous fictional canids (Lassie, Old Yeller, Fenris Wolf, Hound of the Baskervilles, Scooby Doo, &c.), but it never really congealed. I don't think it would have worked as well as this one, anyway.\\ _Ikselam

In the spirit of this entry, I'd think the Silver Shoes would manifest as the shoes alone, presenting themselves to those lost and far from home and making of them great witches who are in turn betrayed by the shoes and killed by the next lost wayfarer chosen. Those who would rather just go home than enjoy the powers of the shoes may be released to humble lives; those who wear them find themselves attended by such wonders as living scarecrows, men of metal, beasts that speak and other, stranger creations of the Second Circle. Ben-San

You know, Dorothy had the Tin Man, the Scarecrow, the Meek Lion, and Toto... They sound more like souls than Wyld-nexii. Perhaps The Farm-Girl from Distant Canzaus replaced The Malevolent Wave-Witch? $.02 &Arafelis

Dorothy was a Sidreal - Oops a house has fallen on the witch, must have been caught up in a hurricane or something, oh well never mind... celebrityomnipath

Well now that we know its possible, how about adding a Progenitive Soul to the party? Lets see who is left... Humpty Dumpty or the Duchess could work as Progenitive. If you go with the Duchess, her First Circle Creatures could be Frog and Fish Footmen. On the other hand, the Tweedles could be Dumpty's. Other Tweedles, beyond the prime two who lead their clan could take the role of the Walress & the Carpenter.

On the topic of First Circle Creatures, I'd say that the Flame-Eyed Beast's should be Jubjub Birds and Frumious Bandersnatches. Ofcourse I could have completely missunderstood, and the Flame-Eyed Beast isn't the Jabberwock... - Glamourweaver

I love it! Great work. - BogMod