Origins is the ninth episode of season 15, Neverafter.
Intro[]
"Hello, one and all! Welcome back to another thrilling episode of "Dimension 20: Neverafter." I am your humble Dungeon Master, Brennan Lee Mulligan. With me, as always, are our Intrepid Heroes. Say "hi," Intrepid Heroes!
[...] Last we left off, our Intrepid Heroes had stumbled into The Lines Between: a citadel of parchment and paper, text and tales, hanging in the midst of the Auroratory, the sea of stories here between all the lands of legend, heroes, and fairytales. Within the Auroratory, you met not only Scheherazade and Sinbad, who you'd been having communications with, but also the legendary Aesop from the Land of Birds and Beasts, who was accompanied by none other than a familiar face, and quite a long one at that, the mule, Alphonse, who had escaped there from the Neverafter, seeming to indicate, again, that the barriers between realms are growing thinner and stranger with the passing of time. We also saw that Alphonse had, in travelling from the Neverafter after your battle, come across some strange glowing in the woods before finding the border of this place, seeming almost like light issuing forward from a door, before tumbling through parchment and arriving in Aesop's homeland. Aesop seemed to indicate that his realm had managed to repel some of the Times of Shadow that had come -- again, the time of horror either presaged, or perhaps manifested itself by, The Gander -- but, also, sought to introduce you to other areas of The Lines Between. You saw, not only the doors to the Endless Nights and to the Land of Birds and Beasts, but also the Realm of Heroes and the Lands of the Tall.
Also, some of you were a little bit more adventurous: Pib ran off and found, next to your hall, the library with all of your stories, and managed to kill Pinocchio's now-disconnected familiar, Pinocchi-Crow. We love you Pinocchio-Crow. You met the first two of the staff of The Lines Between, Key and Legend, who introduced you to some of the issues that were happening and various environs of The Lines Between. You learned of the Auroratory and Ylfa, upon hearing the stories of the people of the Auroratory, swam out (good gut instinct, immediately proven possible to do) and realised that the most common version of her tale, that some might call the destiny of her once upon a time, was actually not the version of the story that she had lived through.
Key and Legend also brought you to the steps of the Canonade, a massive shrine with locked double doors, but, with some careful distraction on the part of Gerard and Rosamund running Key and Legend through some sword forms, that they found sick as hell, Scheherazade and Mother Goose became invisible and, looking through the keyhole, Mother Goose, on a nat 20, saw the ink at the centre of the Canonade, from which the permanency of these true destinies might be preserved here in The Lines Between, and saw, through that ink, the terrible force the librarians were aware of that seemed to manifest and wield that power: the creators of you, your lives, and all the horrors that have been visited upon them. At that very moment, Ylfa called for help as she sunk further and further, with a weird, swimming, red energy dropping her further down, saved by the veteran sailor, Captain Pib, and his vessel, Pinocchio, brought back, as you were, with a strange image of a burning wolf.
And, arriving back, the information about, and I speak their name here aloud, The Authors, was shared. With some shrewd, cunning work between our various sort-of fictional storytellers, Scheherazade, Aesop, and Mother Goose, Key and Legend were split up after indicating that there were other staff members here, such as Index and Glossary, who seem to have more information, but also that there was something in The Lines Between with them, and that some horror had originated from within the Neverafter. You also saw problems within The Lines Between other than that, strange cutbacks, after being introduced to The Sword of Truth, that found its voice here in The Lines Between.
However, you all rushed your way back to the room with your stories. Pib, you are still holding the copy of The Frog Prince, and the strange, desecrated copy of Cinderella, and, upon realising that the image Pinocchio saw in your first edition, so to speak, of a handsome man in an etching on a bedside table, may have originated in this extra-dimensional space. At that moment, the door shut and changed, and this is where we begin this episode, once again, returning to the library."
Content Warnings[]
This episode contains the following content warnings at the given timecodes:
- D&D Typical Violence: (throughout)
- General Horror Tropes: (throughout)
- Flashing images/video: (0:10.00 - 0:54.38, 0:30:36 - 0:30:37, 0:36:54 - 0:36:58, 0:50:54 - 0:50:57, 1:13:34 - 1:13:39, 1:41:24 - 1:41:29, 1:42:28 - 1:43:05, 1:52:33 - 1:52:37, 2:03:19 - 2:03:24)
- Misophonia (1:00:48 - 1:01:02, 1:17:05 - 1:17:07)
- Harm to animals, animal death: (1:00:21 - 1:01:19 (wolf), 1:18:03 - 1:18:10 (bird))
- Animal Violence (animal eating another animal): (1:16:58 - 1:17:19)
- Harm to Body Part (Eyes): (1:52:08 - 1:52:08)
- Self harm: (2:01:17 - 02:01:25)
Synopsis[]
Locations[]
- The Lines Between
- The Tower of Tales
- The Neverafter
Characters[]
Players[]
- Prince Gerard of Greenleigh
- Puss in Boots
- Pinocchio
- Mother Timothy Goose
- Ylfa Snorgelsson
- Princess Rosamund du Prix
New[]
- The Stepsisters (memory)
- Baba Yaga (memory)
- The Evil Queen
- Peter, The Baron of Bricks
Returning[]
- The Stepmother
- Geppetto (memory)
- The Wicked Fairy (memory)
- Turquina
- Ylfa Jottensdottir (memory)
- Big Bad Wolf (memory)
- Princess Elody of Greenleigh (memory)
- The Gander
- Cinderella (memory)
Mentioned[]
- Scheherazade
- Aesop
- Little Miss Muffet
- Itsy Bitsy Spider
- Cricket
- Il Teribile Pescecana
- Fairy Godmother
- The Authors
- The Woodsman
- Mother Snorgelsson
- Aesop
- Key & Legend
- Magic Mirror