War
Some wars start with a bang, others with a whimper. The war between the Great Plan and the Terata started with neither. It started with a story written by a young woman named Mary Shelley almost 200 cycles ago. Every human knows the tale. Man makes monster, monster plagues man, wackiness ensues. The monster is stopped, and there is much rejoicing as hero and heroine kiss and the credits roll.
Except that's not the story.
Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus, was indeed a tale about a monster, but not the one everyone thinks of. They think of the tall fellow in the sweater with the bolts coming out of his neck, and that's just not true. If anything, the creature is the victim. The real monster of the story is the scientist, and what the scientist represents.
The scientist is reason run amok. The scientist is the drive and ambition that would twist what is into what could be, when what could be is horrible. The scientist is the modern sorcerer's apprentice, destroying everything by toying with things better left alone.
And so when the human realm came to dream that dream and to fear that fear, a new Essence was born into Otherwhere: the Scientist.
The creature itself was nothing new. Golems had been walking around in Autumn for as long as even the Prime Essences can remember. But the scientist...this was a new kind of fear, a new kind of monster. And so Otherwhere changed to accommodate humanity's dreams, as it always does, and scientists began to appear among us.
For a long time, almost one-hundred cycles, there were no real problems. Oh, there were the normal things, squabbles, but nothing major. But then there came a new story, one that started here, in Otherwhere. The story of the Great Plan.
Like the scientists, this was something new. Aisling are dreams; it is unheard of for us to dream. But here it was, a new dream, a new tale, woven among us. A dream of a dream, a story of a story. A fiction about a truth, as told by a fiction.
At first there was nothing. People heard about the Plan or read the Manifesto, but said nothing. It was shocking, but ridiculous. The manifesto declared existence in Otherwhere itself to be an illness and a revolution against the natural order to be the cure. What could any educated, self-respecting monster be expected to think about that?
But slowly, people began talking. More little pamphlets were passed around and the ideas in them seemed to catch on. Soon, everyone knew someone who had become a part of the Plan. Autumn being what it was, no one really noticed. Otherwhere is chaotic by its very nature, with the geography and creatures within it slowly shifting to reflect the shifting dreams, hopes, and fears of humanity. It's easy to let some things just...happen.
Finally, someone noticed. Grim Jack was ancient and powerful, the Prime Essence of the gravediggers, but he was not exactly the most presentable Aisling on in the Realm. His rustic manner and the cloud of graveyard dirt clinging to him made his company an acquired taste, and few of the other Prime Essences listened to his wild tales. Mad Maeve, his companion and the Prime Essence of the witches, was no help as reference, being, well...mad.
Many laughed when Jack formed his band, the Terata, and swore to stop the Great Plan. It was even worse when he started trying to enlist the other Prime Essences to fight against the quasi-mythical Technocrat, the leader of the Plan no one seems to know anything about.
That all changed when the Prime Essences began to notice their own people going over to the ways of the Plan. Witches renounced their runes and cauldrons for laboratories and gravediggers set aside their shovels for test tubes. The numbers were getting worse all the time, with the powers of Aisling who did not join the plan equally diminishing. Eventually, even the Prime Essence of the Vampiresses, Lilith, agreed that something must be done.
Ironically, it was a scientist who came forward with the solution. A gate would be constructed, a massive melding of science and magic that would bridge the gap between the Human Realm and Otherwhere. Humans would be given Masques, devices which would allow them to take on Essences. Since they were able to dream their own dreams, the masquers, as they came to be called, would be far more powerful that the native Aisling, and thus able to turn the tide in the war. It was agreed that each Essence would be included in the Seasons Gate, so that no human dream would be turned away, and the Prime Essences came together for the second time in history to create the great artifact. It was a success, or so we thought.
Jebediah Mourn, a powerful gravedigger, was sent into the Human Realm to recruit humans to come to Otherwhere, but when he arrived, he found that the Great Plan was there, too. The dreams and fears that had driven humanity were being replaced with a cold, efficient reason and dreamers powerful enough for his purposes were few and far between. Still, he worked for the benefit of all Otherwhere and recruited where he could, among the daydreams and imaginations of the humans who came to his shop, drawn by his subtle magic.
In Otherwhere, the plan proceeds accordingly, but there are new rumors involving a coming counterattack from the Technocrat. A stalemate has developed, as both sides stand on shaky ground and masquers flood Otherwhere, shifting the balance of power.
This is where it stands. Perhaps you can make the difference.