Someone, whether kidding or no, said he was going to try to run this game, so, in order to bedevil him I here list more background information I invented for it. Please note that I changed all these names and powers for my novel SUPERLUMINARY, since the needs of gameplay differ from the needs of fiction.

Genealogy Lesson—Generation One: The Children of Tellus

Now comes the genealogy part! Keeping track of who is related to whom is part of being a princess. Commoners don’t need to worry about these things.

There are five Imperial Queen Mothers:

The sovereign of the Manchu Empire that rules from California to Northern India is Empress Peace. Her children comprise the YELLOW FACTION.

• Moonrise is the eldest of all the children of Tellus, and shares something of his eccentric nature. In her youth, she used metamorphosis to disguise herself as a boy to join the military. To this day, she sports wings like a Siren. Her nerves have been modified with highspeed reflexes; she can parry a bullet out of midair. She is married to Kourai, Black Prince of Samarkand, who claims to be a necromancer.
• Sunset is a dispassionate and coldhearted woman. She prefers the wild to the city, and has sense impressions modified to be as keen as those of a hunting leopardess. She is also an expert and deadly archer. Her armor of lightsteel neutralizes inertia, so that neither bullets nor beam weapons function in her presence. She is known to have mastered nonlinear ratiocination discipline or “No-Man” ability to intuit missing data from a partial pattern. In the past, she has been able to deduce the origin or destination of teleportation or telepathic energies. She is rumored to control the Warpspace technology, which allows one to alter the laws of nature in the surrounding environment. She may have traveled to other stars. She is married to Hunter of the Hunter Tribe, a Neanderthal band from the dinosaur-haunted grasslands and jungles of Antarctica.
• Heaven is a Taoist monk, vowed to abstinence, who has learned the art of creating a dozen sword blades out of solidified mind-energy and fencing with all at once. He is able to read the hearts and souls of men, discovering even buried and forgotten memories, and to sense deceptive intent.Although unmarried, Azura the Ever Living, the so-called Queen of Magic, of the floating island of Togenkyo, claims to have been the lover of a previous incarnation of Prince Heaven, and her daughter Prudence of Niwa has been welcomed by Prince Heaven into his home and entourage, as if he acknowledges her as a daughter.
• Netherworld is a Zen Sardaukar Marine Navy-SEAL Buddhist deathmonk-knight, and is the most feared warrior in history. His senses have been sharpened like those of an animal, and he developed the ultimate martial art of Shinanju, which is the sublimation and culmination of all previously known hand to hand fighting systems of East and West. He is said to be able to stun, blind or kill an opponent, or rob him of the use of any special powers and abilities, by striking nerve clusters with precise blows, or defeating the foe paradoxically before he strikes the foe, merely by striking the air nearby. He is a ferocious and cunning tacticians and strategist, as well as a very patient and careful overseer of men. He is wont to dress in a cloak and hood made of fugilin, the color darker than black.

  He was married to Roxanne of India for many years, the most mild and gentle natured of women. After she passed away, he was a widower in inconsolable. But he has recently remarried Deja Thoris of Mars, who bested him in a tournament while disguised as a man, a wild and ferocious Sioux Bedouin from Mons Olympus.

The sovereign of the Holy Roman Empire of South America is Magnificinta Ximena Alecto Hecate Isabelle Eva Cagliostro del Austra Sacralregina, called Empress Maleficent. Her child comprises the WHITE FACTION.

• Aurora is one of the most beautiful and most intelligent women on the planet, equaled only by her cousin Tiana. She is the world’s foremost expert on exotic biotechnology. She is able not only to assume the form of any animal, and to change mass during metamorphosis, but also to assume exotic forms of energy beings that can walk through walls, or become invisible. She is also a skilled telepath and telempath.She was and is married to Koschey of Russia. After he was assassinated by his mother in law, Aurora used an unknown perhaps experimental process to resurrect him from the dead.

The sovereign of the Celestial British Empire of Tibet, India, Egypt, and, Azania (South Africa) is named Queen-Empress Gloriana, but others call her Empress Cinderella. Her children comprise the BLACK FACTION.

• Shiwan Sifu of Tibet is a son of Cinderella but not of Lord Tellus, and so is not recognized by the family. However, he is the Scientist General of the Council of Science, leader of the Legion of Science, as well as proconsul of Pluto.
• Ayesha is stronger than physically possible for a human being. She commands an unnatural beauty and power in her voice when he speaks, swaying multitudes with the magnetic force of her words, and she can compel immediate obedience in the unwary.She is married to Arno Zorn Lord Python of Vesta, a Leviathan and a master scientist of biotechnology.
• Princess Tiana is one of the most beautiful and most intelligent women on the planet, equaled only by her cousin Aurora. She is able to change shape to any creature, and to change mass during metamorphosis, but also to change her mind and soul, so that even a telepath cannot detect her.She is married to Prince Manx of the Isle of Man.
• Prince Aladdin is charming, rich, handsome, and an utter rogue and rakehell. He sometimes shows up drunk at court, or to fight a duel. He is a master of matter-creation and matter control technology, and is skilled in every art and science known to man, but only when he needs it. In the hands of others, matter control machines are able to make simple elements or simple chemicals: In his hands, with the aid of the focusing cells he carries on his person, and the matter organization transmission stations nearby, he can make complex machines with thousands of moving parts appear out of thin air, or living animals complete with instincts and trained reflexes.He has fathered children on his cousin Princess Ariel, on Lady Volturna of Jupiter, Lady Sriva of Mercury, Dame Mynthe of Pluto, sometimes with the lady’s consent, and sometimes under more questionable circumstances. His only legitimate and recognized wedding was to Thuvia of Mars, by whom he has one son.Children that he has fathered on seventeen-year-old parlor maids, nineteen-year-old witches, beautiful female bodyguards, chauffeurs, cowgirls or catburglars are not here noted.

The sovereign of The Gangland Military Democracy of the Tribal Nations of America is First Lady Lioness. She rose to power in the ranks of the military by sheer skill and drive, and rose to power among the Mafia families by slaughtering any rivals. Elected President for Life, she has appointed herself Supreme Justice of the United States, as well as the only member of the Senate and the House of Representatives. As befits the sovereign of a military gangland democracy, she accepts neither imperial nor royal title. Her Children comprise the RED FACTION.

• Lady Swan is the foremost expert on psychology and psionics on the planet, possesses a compartmentalized consciousness and a double brain, and has learned the secret of housing herself in multiple bodies. She is the director of the Pscyhohistorical Institute, and tends to be more concerned with the remote possibilities of the far future than immediate political crises.
• Lord Rook is more concerned with politics than any of his brethren, and seeks to restore the institutions that existed in the West, monogamy and monotheism and republican democracy, freedom of speech and conscience, the free market. Some regard him as a dangerous radical or an enemy of religion, others as a savior, reformer, and champion of the little man; still others dismiss him as a timid hypocrite, not willing to attach his zeal for reform to truly wonderful causes, such as abolishing written language. He is an expert at Contortion technology, and is rumored to have riddled nearby timespace with a network of hidden wormhole-passageways between the planets of the solar system.
• Lord Swift is a master of Callidetics, which makes him an expert sailor and atmosphere-craft pilot, and unbeatable at games of chance.

The sovereign of Atlantis is Ursula the Empress of the Sea. Her children comprise the BLUE FACTION.

• Princess Ariel is the world’s foremost expert on biogenetics and the metamorphic process. She has learned the art of inducing cellular changes in others against their will. She can change mass and size during metamorphosis, regenerate from wounds, and assume the instinctive knowledge proper to any beast-form she assumes.She is married to Mälzel, a humanoid robot of her own construction. She has also borne a child to Prince Aladdin out of wedlock.
• Prince Atlas is the strongest man in the nine worlds, using a metamorphic technique along with a discipline called Pranetics to reinforce his muscle cells with force fields. His upper range of physical strength has never been measured.He is married to his niece, Thelxiepeia the daughter of Nereus. He also recognizes as his son a boy named Cepheus, who is a clone of him, made without his knowledge or permission.
• Prince Nereus the Fearless is fearless, and an all around swell guy, if blue.

Genealogy Lesson—Generation Two: The Grandchildren of Tellus

*=indicates the paternity or legitimacy of the marriage or birth is in question.

About John C Wright

John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.

September 14, 2016 @ 7:04 pm

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