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Kalpa Akashicorprus

Author: 
Temple Zero
Librarian Comment: 

This chapter was intended as a mirror to the general historical overview chapters that open up both the 1st and 3rd editions of the Pocket Guide. It was only briefly brainstormed, but was generally intended to cover the history of the world since its creation.

Nazz did a draft of an introductory paragraph for the Kalpa chapter, as did Lady Nerevar, but finding the hook proved difficult, as the team did not want to rehash the general creation myths and since other chapters already leaned heavily into the kalpa concept. Michael Kirkbride pitched in with this idea for the structure of the chapter:

To me, Tamrielic kalpas are Extinction Events caused by three people trying to catch one another (King/Rebel/Lover) and a witness that sees the resulting eschaton. These roles are always somehow re-enacted in a holographic fractal until SNAP the three do catch one another and things splode and another kalpa begins.

Because of the holographic nature of the process, the witness is always scattered into several, some of which actually *jump* kalpas. And then they start their fool talking, which wakes up the new King/Rebel/Lover.

(This is Mankar's talk about the fall of Lyg. Part last kalpa, part this kalpa, but something a hologram of the witness saw. This is all the other manifestations of Enantiomorph.)

Okay, so that's the Creation Myth of All Creation Myths and no one wants to read all that in spooky or vague terms. The Monomyth was successful (I think) because it spoke pretty straightforward. Only when it hit the "quantum variations" did it get to be the realm of study.

That's why I suggest being matter of fact and without flourish about this section.

1) Kalpas are This. We remember them like This.
2) The last kalpa was This Thing, where the King (Who?) caught the Rebel (Who?) with the Lover (Who?) and Extinction Event resulted (Which was?). The Witness(es) to all of this was (Who?)
3) The last kalpa is the easiest to remember because of events X, Y, Z, which are those re-enactments.
4) The current kalpa is the King or Rebel (Which is which?) trying to break the rules of the game, freezing time and space so that he can have the Lover (Who?) without the explodo. He is trying not to be seen with the Lover, trying to consummate it (Which will do what?). He has made several attempts at killing or erasing potential Witnesses so that he can get that freak on. But he's stuck in this process, immortal within its masks, and doomed to live with this One Last Chance forever (hence, Corprus).
5) The next kalpa is in question. It will be an echo either of another Extinction Event or the birth of the Amaranth. Certain forces are tired of waiting, hastening the explosion and making sure they're at ground zero to jump that shit. Other forces are fighting those to make sure Amaranth happens, at the beautiful sacrifice of their own lives, since the Amaranth is the new universe that will have no witness but itself and its parents (who will be forgotten as relics of the last of the old kind of kalpas).

And further clarifying how exactly this fit with the idea of summarizing the history of the world:

I think it would be remiss not to present the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd eras in this section. I would do them only in single paragraph form, with a dawn/mythic just before.

But the bulk of the section would be about kalpas, with the abovementioned items only touched on as a small record of the current kalpa.

(And, yeah, each era should have some whacko-that-aint-right angle to it-- the Second Era being all snakes with Reman just another snake, but with a dude's head, for example-- and intoned in the same matter of fact style as the rest of it.)