recursal/Fanatic-Fandom huggingface dataset:
Poulus Cambria

**Poulus Cambria**, more commonly known as **Poul**, is an ex-soldier encountered by Juniper Smith in the Risen Lands. He is blonde and muscular, of a similar age to Juniper.

> *“We're allowed to cooperate. We stand a better chance of survival if it's us against them instead of everyone for themselves. We can --”*
>
>
> —**Poul**, Chapter 1: "Taking the Fall"

## Biography

After being convicted of rape by a military tribunal, Cold Comfort Poul was put on one of the Host's planes into the Risen Lands with Juniper Smith, the Fuchsia Coterie and various other criminals. He was able to slip his gag and tried to tell his fellow passengers to work together, but was cut off when the plane's belly opened and the passengers were dropped. Taking the Fall

He later wound up stuck with Becca and an injured Sly inside an abandoned clothing store, where he ran into Juniper once more. After Sly's death, he defused an argument between Juniper and Becca. He advocated that they remain in the store for a day until the worst of the danger had passed, against Becca's more risky approach.

Juniper ended up clearing the path outside, with Becca and Poul close behind. When Becca fell and Juniper turned back for her, Poul kept running and got away. He ran into three undead outside the mechanic's shop, and had to lead them away - he arrived back at the shop shortly before Juniper himself. They went into the shop together, where Poul recognised "Cypress" as Princess Amaryllis Penndraig and pledged himself to her service. Goraion

However, with room for only two on the soulcycle, Amaryllis interrogated him. He revealed full name and his crime, and attempted to persuade her that he would make a better travelling companion than Juniper. Juniper disagreed, mistakenly thinking that Amaryllis wouldn't murder the rapist in cold blood - as it turned out, she didn't hesitate shooting Poul with the void rifle and collecting his soul. Cold Comfort

## References

1. ↑ From a different room, the guy who had called to me from the alley crept in. I guessed he was about my age, blonde and muscular like a Nazi recruitment poster. He gave me a strained smile and held out his hand.
—*Worth the Candle* Chapter 5: "Goraion"
Long Pig

**Juniper and Uther go up the Stairs.**

## Synopsis

Arthur's armor falls apart, and Amaryllis draws out from Sable armor, guns and a first aid kit. They advance to the final Landing, populated by English-speaking felheim. They give up their weapons, and are told to stay one night and meet with the fellinari.

They trade two guns to the felheim elders, and receive a candle and a small white mouse. Juniper kills the mouse, and is attacked by the fellinari, who he kills. He fails to find Amaryllis, cannot track her with the crystals, and advances up the Stairs with Arthur.

## Featured characters

* Arthur Blum
* Amaryllis Penndraig
* Juniper Smith
* Juniper's dad (mentioned)
* White Toad
* Juniper's mom (mentioned)
* Pallida Sade (mentioned)
* Dahlia (mentioned)
* Tiffany Archer (mentioned)
* Bethel (mentioned)
Isaac Aumann

Isaac Aumann was the conniving and ruthless gold mage of Barren Jewel, who captured Amaryllis Penndraig at Caer Laga as a part of one of his many schemes to increase his vast riches (and thus the size of his vault).

## Appearance

Isaac Aumann was bald with mottled red and white skin. He preferred to wear a tightly fitting suit that looks like silk and no shoes, as well as a "necklace" and "bracelets" that were in reality just a series of small metal balls held attached to his skin by tactile telekinesis to have that appearance.

## Personality

All gold mages are driven by the desire to acquire as much gold as possible, and Isaac Aumann stood out even amongst them. He was described as particularly ruthless, and was willing to engage in torture and murder for the purpose of expanding his vault. He was exceptionally long-lasting as a gold mage, having spent twelve years as one at the start of the story. In comparison, the longest lasting gold mage had been one for eighteen, but her location away from many sources of gold means the call of gold was not as severe. Barren Jewel, on the other hand, sees money change hands constantly, attesting to Isaac's skill as a businessman and racketeer and the ability to keep the compulsion well-fed.

## History

Aumann moved to Barren Jewel at some point before the start of the story, getting rid of three other gold mages that lived there at the time and taking over their vaults, after which he began his quest to becoming the de facto ruler of the town by engaging in business endeavors of various legality. He lived in Trifles Tower, where had a large staff on payroll, including at least a warder, a velocity mage, still mage and revision mage, used to both aid in keeping his vault safe and to provide defensive ability where gold magic alone couldn't make do.

Aumann accumulated a large amount of enemies along the way, which eventually and unfortunately for him included Juniper Smith. He set up a teleportation ward in Caer Laga with the intent to blackmail any member of Uther's Lost Court that arrives in and negotiate passage to safety for an enormous fee. Amaryllis Penndraig was in a significantly more desperate condition when he arrived, which has led to him kidnapping her and flying her back home to coerce her into parting with anything she had available. He tortured her out of information with the aid of a revision mage and then undid the damage.

While she was in his custody, Rat Rot that Amaryllis has been afflicted with had progressed, driving him to (unsuccessfully) try and find a cure, as he needed her alive.

Meanwhile, Juniper and Fenn recruited Grakhuil Leadbraids, a dwarven warder, and engaged in a heist in the Trifles Tower that culminated in them killing Isaac and his mage staff, taking all the gold that remained in his vault, disposing of his corpse and fleeing Barren Jewel for good.
Interval

**Juniper decompresses.**

## Synopsis

Juniper talks with Amaryllis outside the portal, and decides to decompress before the debrief. He finds that he's lost the game interface, but regains his magic, and the game loyalty bonuses like Symbiosis work again.

Juniper chats with Fenn, and they watch TV.

Juniper chats with Grak, finding out that he's been traveling, is friends with some Dorises and has been shutting down entad exclusion zones.

Juniper chats with Valencia, who has married Jorge and has three children. The eldest is a girl named Juniper.

Juniper chats with Amaryllis. She has stayed true to him, not taking another partner. They talk business

* after Juniper died, the Council of Arches was dissolved, and the tuung split into loyalists (pro-Amaryllis), nationalists (pro-Republic) and traditionalists.
* the Void Beast has changed velocity, and it can't be accounted for with known incidents.
* the Republic of Miunun has joined the Empire of Common Cause.
* the Doris Finch exclusion zone (DFEZ) has been downgraded to a minor exclusion, and will likely become a free exclusion later. This was triggered by an end to resource scarcity by warding duplication of Doris, but not equipment, and a change in culture due to Blood God Doris (BGD) being charitable and proving to the Dorises they could be not terrible.
* the locus is healthy and growing. There's a second locus, a white toad with a garden on its back, which is probably Juniper's child.
* Amaryllis had her adventure in the Outer Reaches. When she came back, three clones didn't want to merge, of which two were lovers. She merged them anyway.
* Pallida had left but came back when Amaryllis retrieved her hat from the Bryllyg Sea.
* Raven returned to the Infinite Library temporarily.
* Grak had many relationships, some serious, but didn't settle down in the end.
* Bethel was brought back into the party, and enjoys being Valencia's house.

## Featured characters

* Juniper Smith
* Amaryllis Penndraig
* Many Dorises
* Fenn Greenglass
* Grakhuil Leadbraids
* Valencia the Red
* White Toad (mentioned)
Nate

**Nate** was part of ten-year-old Juniper Smith's *Dungeons & Dragons* group.

## Biography

Nate had stopped coming to Juniper's *Dungeons & Dragons* sessions two weeks before Greg, Ricky and Arthur replaced him with a necromancer NPC. The Familiar and the Foreign

## References

1. ↑ We’d lost our fourth, Nate, two weeks prior, and I was really worried that D&D, the highlight of my week, was going to come to an end.
—*Worth the Candle* Chapter 83: "The Familiar and the Foreign"
Athenaeum of Mathematics and Metaphysics

***I could see the air quotes out of the corner of my eye.***

*The following is an extract from* Worth the Candle: A Brief Description of Aerb*.*

The original creator of what would later become the Athenaeum of Mathematics and Metaphysics has been lost to time, though he/she/it is heavily suspected to also be the creator of the (slave species) salin, those who inhabited the city of Kresham for time immemorial and, for a time, hovered on the brink of extinction. The salin, one of the more unusual of the mortal species, subsist entirely on the creation and cataloging of knowledge, and per experimentation carried out by the Second Empire, are able to produce caloric energy as a byproduct of mental activity.

Following the presumed death of whatever entity created them, the salin went through a period of aimless calculation, measurement, and cataloging, which led to them having a large and largely useless library. Sometime around ~400 BE, an enterprising human came into Kresham and turned the salin to more productive tasks after taking up the reins previously held by the master that created them. The salin were hired out in the wider region to act as accountants, engineers, mathematicians, navigators, cartographers, and spies, and the vast library in Kresham was eventually turned to useful purpose.

An institution of learning eventually began to flourish around the large quantities of useful information that the salin were directed to gather, even as poor curation of the species led to a declining population. Eventually, the regional business that the salin had been working toward needed to be supplemented with lower-quality (but much more plentiful) trained humans, who became the first computers. Around that same time, star magic was independently invented and became an integral part of the burgeoning center of learning.

Following Uther Penndraig’s visit and the adoption of a number of Penndraig reforms, the Kresham Institute was rebranded as the Athenaeum of Mathematics and Metaphysics, and the salin population began to once again grow.

Always one of the more submissive athenaeums, Mathematics and Metaphysics has a tendency to be a more docile force on the world stage.

*Extracted text ends here.*
Color Riot

The **Color Riot**  is a group of soldiers with unclear affiliations, comprised of several thematically named cohorts including the Fuchsia Coterie and the Golden Cete. They occasionally oppose Juniper Smith and his party.

> *“Ordinarily, one in one hundred survive the journey to the outpost, but the Color Riot will ensure that you don’t even have that hope … not unless we work together.”*
>
>
>
> —**Cypress** to Juniper, Chapter 2: "Thickenings"
>

## Cohorts

### Fuchsia Coterie

The **Fuchsia Coterie** are a group of soldiers that wear pink mohawks and plain clothes.

### Golden Cete

The **Golden Cete** are "trained soldiers at a high rank".

## History

The Fuchsia Coterie infiltrated one of the Host's planes into the Risen Lands. Taking the Fall Their mission involved killing everyone who saw them there, Thickenings though Amaryllis Penndraig would later theorise that their main goal was her own assassination, orchestrated by the Lost King's Court. Diamond and Iron Juniper Smith fought several of their number in Comfort, collecting their souls to power Amaryllis' XC-class soulcycle. Solely Responsible Reaver

Larkspur Prentiss would later teleport the Golden Cete into Boastre Vino, alongside multiple helicopters with mounted guns and a void cannon, as support in the battle with Juniper's party. PPROM Their number included at least two blade-bound, one of whom was strong enough to cut Fenn Greenglass in half. She and Solace were, however, able to dispatch the regular soldiers easily. Copse and Robbers Blood in the Water

## References

1. ↑ Pink mohawk aside, he was dressed down, with light brown pants made of some kind of canvas and a plain, unadorned t-shirt.
—*Worth the Candle* Chapter 3: "Solely Responsible"
2. ↑ The good news is that the rest are probably Golden Cete, part of the Color Riot, trained soldiers at a high rank.
—*Worth the Candle* Chapter 50: "Copse and Robbers"
Athenaeum of Bone and Flesh

***I could see the air quotes out of the corner of my eye.***

*The following is an extract from* Worth the Candle: A Brief Description of Aerb*.*

The Athenaeum of Bone and Flesh is the largest place of learning with regards to healing in all of Aerb, and one of the largest of the athenaeums. The main campus takes up the majority of Cranberry Bay in the Monarchical Democracy of Esplandian, and stretches through the city with disparate buildings owned and operated by the athenaeum. It is currently most known for the teaching of bone magic.

The ‘Flesh’ in the title ‘Bone and Flesh’ refers to the magic once employed by the fleshsmiths, though fleshsmithing was excluded to the Pendleham exclusion zone shortly after the athenaeum changed its name. The school of magic is (understandably) no longer taught at Bone and Flesh, but the name remains, now referring to the more mundane healing arts, which are taught in conjunction with bone magic. One of the largest buildings at Bone and Flesh is the Boneyard, the athenaeum’s enormous collection of bones from around the world. The greater a bone mage’s skill, the more that they can draw out of the bones, and the most proficient of the magi can draw specic or bloodline magics, including from magical beasts. The Boneyard takes up three city blocks and contains a wide variety of bones that have special uses, including some bones that come from now-extinct species (though research must be done at a satellite site five hundred miles away due to RDLLE legislation in the hopes of minimizing casualties and damage from potential new

*Extracted text ends here.*
Reflection at the End

**Juniper speaks with the Dungeon Master.**

## Synopsis

Juniper and the Dungeon Master talk. It's meta.

Juniper meets the original Aerb Juniper, who was sent to the Other Side when Juniper was dream-skewered. He's referred to as "B-Side" Juniper, and destroyed the Union Empire, their superweapon, and found a way home for himself a week before Juniper completed his own adventure.

Juniper also meets the Actor, who can play the part of any character who doesn't need to be real. Juniper declares that everybody in the Hells apart from his own party and rescuers was retroactively the Actor.

Juniper goes to heaven, where he meets Fenn and the Narrator living in a cottage together. The Fenn here is the one who died originally, and the Fenn Juniper met in the Hells was a copy, brought in as the DM realised there was no way Amaryllis wouldn't resurrect Fenn if she was going to hell to resurrect Juniper anyway.

The Dungeon Master explains some final metaphors, then gives Juniper the keys to the kingdom, and godlike power.

## Featured characters

* Dungeon Master
* Juniper Smith
* Tiffany Archer (mentioned)
* Maddie (mentioned)
* Arthur Blum (mentioned)
* The Layman
* Juniper Smith (Aerb)
* B-Side Juniper's companions:
	+ a cactus person
	+ an anthropomorphic otter
	+ a non-anthro octopus
	+ a woman with gems for hair
	+ a halfling
	+ a woman who changes appearance each time she's looked at
* The Architect
* The Warden
* The Actor (Thespian)
* Fenn Greenglass
* The Narrator
* Amaryllis Penndraig (mentioned)
Department

**Juniper and Fenn get captured.**

## Synopsis

Juniper and Fenn catch up, then are defeated and captured by two demons and a wolf.

Juniper makes a deal with his interrogator, who finds out he knows about the weapon killing infernals. He finds out he is in in a fortress of the Prime Lochan, Thyrakir, Weaver of Tongues; in the city Rezire Kilmeros, in the Seam of Scars, south of the Putrid Pass, in the 78th hell.

Juniper does some more catching up with Fenn, then Amaryllis arrives.

## Featured characters

* Juniper Smith
* Fenn Greenglass
* Unnamed demon (clawed feet, chunky, with eyestalks)
* Unnamed demon (chicken feet, barbed spine, baby head)
* Unnamed devil (clawed hands, vestigial wings, droopy face)
* Amaryllis Penndraig
Bells

**Bells** are the system of time used in the world of This Used to be About Dungeons. They're literal bells that can be heard across town.

## Examples

* Second Bell - far too early for Verity to normally be up (she's not a morning person).
* Third Bell - Pucklechurch market opens. Mid-morning.
* Fourth Bell - Verity's idea of waking early (i.e. quite late)
* Fifth Bell - Rolaj gets off work. The teleporting wardrobe usually runs out of charges around this time.
* Ninth Bell - The Fig and Gristle kitchen closes

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 “It’s better to have one made early, right?”

“It is,” said Alfric, but he paused, listening. “That’s third bell though, which means the market just opened, which means that we have very little time to waste in meeting up with our fourth member. I don’t know where she lives, so her daily trip to the market might be the only time to find her.” - Chapter 2: Big City Energy
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 “Verity doesn’t like the mornings, but I’m not going to sit here all day waiting for her to get up.” [...] Verity opened her door and poked her head out. Alfric was surprised by how similar she looked to Mizuki, with her hair messy, a frown on her face, and a squint. Unlike Mizuki, she had gotten into a dress instead of a robe, one that had a pattern of white flowers on top of lavender fabric. It was slightly wrinkled.

“What time is it?” she asked.

“Just past second bell,” said Alfric.

“Oh,” she said, looking between the two of them. Her bleary eyes finally rested on Mizuki. “I don’t usually get up until at least fourth bell.” [...] “I still need to wake up, or sleep some more,” said Verity. - Chapter 2: Big City Energy
3. ↑ And as for the last potential member of the party, Isra, all Alfric knew aside from her vital statistics was that she came to the biweekly market in the mid-morning - Chapter 1: The Fig and Gristle
4. ↑ “Do you have time while you’re here?” asked Rolaj. “I’m at the shop until fifth bell, but free after that, if you want to do something.” - Chapter 69: Undone II
5. ↑ “Wardrobe,” said Mizuki. “If there are still charges left.” She seemed light on words.

“It’s early yet,” said Bethany. “It usually doesn’t run out until around fifth bell. Alfric had me raise the price, and it’s been going later, but still running out, which means the price will probably go up again.” - Chapter 85: Seeker
6. ↑ “Cynthia, come on, it’s not even that late,” said Verity.

“Rules are rules, as much as I like you,” the tavern owner replied. “And it’s not just a matter of the rules, the kitchen gets shut down at ninth bell, and the boy has already started in on dishes and cleaning up.” - Chapter 8: Late Meals in a Quiet Kitchen
Karen Dowler

**Karen Dowler** was Juniper Smith's first crush, way back in elementary school.

## Biography

Karen Dowler attended the same elementary school as Juniper Smith. He developed a crush on her in second or third grade, but she moved away in fourth grade - by which point she'd already been replaced by Pippi Longstocking as the focus of Juniper's affections. Commingling

## Notes

* Look, it's not like anyone's going to be typing "karen dowler worth the candle" into Google any time soon, but we were given her name in the story so we have to make a page for her. Sorry, that's just how it works.
* She was introduced eight short paragraphs before Lena Kordrew - whose name is an anagram of Karen's.

## References

<references>

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 <But if you want my first non-fictitious crush, it was a girl in second or third grade, Karen Dowler. She moved away in fourth grade, but I was over her by then. She’d been replaced by Pippi Longstocking, who was the strongest girl in the world.>
—*Worth the Candle* Chapter 140: "Commingling"
Dire guinea pig

Dire guinea pigs are an oversized version of common guinea pigs, the main differences are feet more claw-like adapted for holding weight and proportionally shorter hair. They walk easily around obstacles and are used as mounts apparently in the wilderness.

## References

1. ↑ Dire guinea pigs were close enough to the real thing, except that their feet were more clawlike and adapted to holding a ton of weight, and hair that was proportionally shorter. They’d seemed like a stupid idea to me when I first saw them, but as we rode, I marveled at how easily they moved through and around obstacles with their little feet. They were still pretty stupid, but at least they were functional, in a way that I grudgingly accepted was a justification for their existence.
—*Worth the Candle* Chapter 186: "Paladin"
Lena Kordrew

**Lena Kordrew** was Amaryllis Penndraig's first crush.

## Biography

Lena Kordrew was a member of Amaryllis Penndraig's group of carefully-selected commoner friends. She would've grown up to be one of Amaryllis' trusted staff - had Amaryllis' mother not died. Commingling

## Notes

* Look, it's not like anyone's going to be typing "lena kordrew worth the candle" into Google any time soon, but we were given her name in the story so we have to make a page for her. Sorry, that's just how it works.
* She was introduced eight short paragraphs after Karen Dowler - whose name is an anagram of Lena's.

## References

<references>

1. ↑ <Most of the Lost King’s Court don’t go to school until we attend an athenaeum. We have dedicated tutors instead, and a carefully selected cohort of commoner friends we grow up with who are meant to become trusted staff. Lena was one of them. After my mother died, my aunt had rather different ideas about who my friends should be. I never saw Lena again.>
—*Worth the Candle* Chapter 140: "Commingling"
Athenaeum of Speculation and Scrutiny

***I could see the air quotes out of the corner of my eye.***

*The following is an extract from* Worth the Candle: A Brief Description of Aerb*.*

Derisively known as ‘The Athenaeum of Bits and Bobs’, Speculation and Scrutiny has a distinct lack of focus in comparison to the other athenaeums. There is no particular magical school taught there, nor any one specific aspect of the universe that’s intensively studied. In part, this is due to the athenaeum’s history; originally a research institute funded by a king in the pre-imperial era, it quickly grew far beyond its original mandate, and once it began to turn a profit, eventually outlasted the kingdom that had created it. It’s said that the scientific method came out of Speculation and Scrutiny, but the actual origins are unclear.

In concrete terms, the Athenaeum of Speculation and Scrutiny is divided up into a number of different ‘colleges’, though teachers often teach at more than one college, and students are encouraged to have a diversity of education, drawing on as many different and interrelated disciplines as possible. An unfortunate side effect of this is that it’s difficult to say what a graduate of Speculation and Scrutiny can actually do, because their specialty might be just about anything.

Among the colleges at Speculation and Scrutiny are:

* Keli College: entadsW
* Wirisi College: inheritance and bloodlines
* Pasu College: Animalia
* Cerebral College: dream-skewered
* Daniner College: ‘dead’ magics
* Bats’aral College: exclusions
* Additionally, there are a large number of colleges devoted to bloodline or specic magics, though those magics tend to have non-athenaeum centers of learning closer to the center of their population, and only a fraction are represented at Speculation and Scrutiny.

Speculation and Scrutiny is relatively more cloistered than the other athenaeums, in part because of its small size. It’s located on top of a mountain, high enough up that plant growth is diminished; a trolley leads down the mountain to the town of Boastre Vino, a common location for students with some free time to visit for a night of carousing.

*Extracted text ends here.*
Ectad

**Ectads** are dungeon-derived magical materials, in common use throughout the world of This Used to be About Dungeons. Once processed and refined, each gives off a constant magical effect.[*citation needed*]

## Types

### Glowstone

Used in lanterns, which (since it constantly glows) just need to be shuttered to "turn them off".[*citation needed*]

* Alfric has a little pocket lantern
* Pucklechurch has a lot of hanging lanterns on the buildings, although people shutter them late at night

### Heating Element

* Used in stoves, ovens etc (paired with a cooling element to neutralize them when not in use)
* Used for heating rooms

### Cooling

* Paired with heating elements to neutralize them when they're not in use
* Used in chillers and the like to keep food cool

## References

1. ↑ “Did you bring a lantern? It’s hard to see.”

“I did,” said Alfric, pulling a disc from his pocket. He unlatched it, and light spilled out from one half of it. - Chapter 1: The Fig and Gristle
2. ↑ And indeed, through the trees the warm glow of hanging lanterns was visible, though a number of them had been shuttered for the night, leaving only a soft glow coming from a few of the houses. - Chapter 1: The Fig and Gristle
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 She opened up one of the heaters on the stove, setting the cooling element to one side and letting the warming element heat up, with a heavy cast-iron pan placed on top of it. [...] Before she sat down, she remarried the warming element to the cooling one, carefully matching them to each other so that they would be inert. - Chapter 2: Big City Energy
4. ↑ I *do* have a jacket. Plus some warming elements to keep my room toasty. - Chapter 4: Three Raccoons
5. ↑ He moved away from Mizuki, who was apparently trying to pick out which of the containers of honey she wanted to buy, and went over to one of the other stalls, which was set up with cuts of meat displayed in a cart. The base of it was apparently lined with chilling elements, as it was quite cool. - Chapter 3: Venison and Honey
Heck if I Know

**Juniper escapes hell.**

## Synopsis

Juniper and Lisi ride the hellacopter to the Fortress where they meet up with Fenn and Grak. It is revealed that Lisi and Reimer are still together, the Void Beast has destroyed the elemental plane of gold, and Juniper was stuck in the City of a Thousand Brides for three years before it was destroyed using an antimatter rune bomb, sending thousands to the hells.

They go to the portal room. The portal is made of thousands of mortals connected by wires in their brains, and was a schloss created by Amaryllis. Each journey is powered by the sacrifice of ten mortals, and due to the rune magic exclusion this means they go to the hells. Juniper stays behind to help Amaryllis when she arrives. He saves her from a helicopter crash and a wyvern, and they escape together.

## Featured characters

* Juniper Smith
* Lisianthus Penndraig
* Fenn Greenglass
* Grakhuil Leadbraids
* Amaryllis Penndraig
Becca

**Becca** is a girl encountered by Juniper Smith in the Risen Lands. She has a scar running from the side of her mouth to just below her ear.

> *“We run at the first sign of it going south. We’re not going to wait while you’re overrun and we’re not going to help you.”*
>
>
> —**Becca** to Juniper, Chapter 5: "Goraion"

## Biography

Becca was imprisoned by The Host, presumably for committing some crime or another, and was later airdropped into the Risen Lands. She wound up stuck with Poul and an injured Sly inside an abandoned clothing store, where they were found by Juniper Smith.

After Sly died, the already-mistrustful Becca took offence at the last rites given by Juniper upon his mention of "heaven" - a concept alien to Aerb. She advocated for leaving the clothing store, against Poul's more cautious approach.

Juniper cleared the path outside, with Becca and Poul close behind. As they darted through the alleys, Becca's shirt caught on a bent piece of pipe and she fell, badly hitting her head in the process. Unwilling to risk another level of Cowardice, Juniper turned back for her and carried her as they ran. Ultimately, this slowed him down too much - a Zombie Voltron caught up and snatched Becca away, dashing her against a dumpster with enough force to cut her in two. Goraion

## References

1. ↑ There were two people ducked down in the back of the clothing store, one a pallid boy clutching a stomach wound and the other a girl with a scar running from the side of her mouth to just below her ear.
—*Worth the Candle* Chapter 5: "Goraion"
Passion Magic

Passion magic is, in essence, a group of different fields of magic with a single unifying principle of manifesting various expressions of the mage's emotions that have visible effect on the world, with the precise form these expressions manifest in being dependent on the mage. It's very difficult to categorize and systematize by its very nature and, in fact, it was previously believed that different what we now know to be subfields of the magic were fundamentally incompatible.

It's taught at the Athenaeum of Ink and Ardor.

## Abilities

A passion mage manifests magical expression of a feeling they experience that depend on the person, the precise nature and intensity of the feeling, and so on. This is typically done by focusing on a particular memory that evokes said feeling.

* Anger grants telekinesis, usually of offensive nature and quite limited.
* Sadness gives environmental control in ways that are even more difficult to predict than the rest of the field, ranging from increasing humidity to spontaneous generation of life.
* Fear allows for increased speed and reaction times, though not to the level of a velocity mage. For Juniper, this manifests visually by skipping frames, in a way similar to dropping framerate or connecting to a game's server on a spotty internet connection.
* Contentment allows emotional state reading and projection.
* Love allows for buffs, usually defensive in nature, temporary and reversible, such as stone skin, blade conjuration and so on.
* Happiness has effects that are growth-related.

Mind-altering substances and techniques offer tremendous benefits to passion mages for the purposes of invoking and controlling emotions; so does soul magic, but that practice fell out of favor after the fall of the Second Empire for obvious reasons.

## Notable practitioners

* Montran, one of Uther's Knights
* Juniper Smith
Hellfall

**Juniper goes to hell.**

## Synopsis

Juniper falls into hell, and meets the Dungeon Master. The talk briefly about hell (the DM created Alpha Hell and Omega Hell and left the Architect to do the rest), that the DM hates Juniper, that the DM occasionally played DMPCs but "nobody close", and Arthur's time as Uther.

Juniper summons and binds spirit blade and heads towards infernal civilization. He finds a kept soul, Lalezhe, who speaks a different language, and heads inside a house to kill his master and find some clothes for protection. After victory, he goes outside to find Lalezhe gone, but meets Fenn falling from the sky.

## Featured characters

* Juniper Smith
* Dungeon Master
* A ḷaḷukha (Lalezhe)
* Unnamed devil (flower face, long arms)
* Fenn Greenglass

* Amaryllis Penndraig (flashback)
* Raven Masters (flashback)
* Grakhuil Leadbraids (flashback)
Junah

The city of Junah is built on a hill next to the Alden Coast and holds the Athenaeum of Barriers, the city is built in ‘tiers’, each separated from the others by a tall wall with many points of entry. In the modern day, the bottom three ‘tiers’ are publicly accessible spaces where many of the introductory courses are taught, as well as containing the majority of housing for students, faculty, staff, and support systems. The top two tiers are devoted to more intensive and specialized study, including the athenaeum’s large, restricted-access library and the storage facility for warding-related entads that are loaned, rented, or leased by the athenaeum. The walls that separate Junah’s tiers are laced with wards that protect the city, and in particular, the upper two tiers, from a very wide variety of threats, and access points through the walls are typically keyed wards that restrict access to students and teachers with particular clearances and levels of learning.

The athenaeum controls the city since at least four thousand years ago, despite attempts by the surrounding kingdom to take it back. The athenaeum’s culture is largely conservative and its posture is defensive, even more so than the athenaeums generally are.
Long Memory

**The party reach the final Landing.**

## Synopsis

The party advance past the Landing, and find that all the books they possess have been ruined by replacing words with Walter (a meme they encountered in an earlier room). Raven gets sick, and Fenn takes her back to the previous Landing. Amaryllis and Uther talk about narrative.

Uther takes a potion to restore him to 16, looking like a slightly thinner Arthur. They fight their way through a room full of moving statues, with difficulty. They reach the next Landing.

## Featured characters

* Juniper Smith
* Amaryllis Penndraig
* Raven Masters
* Uther Penndraig
* Fenn Greenglass
* White Toad
* Bethel
Nevermore

**Raven moves on.**

## Synopsis

Raven thinks about how everybody else has moved on, mostly into relationships with children. She spends time as an aunt, particularly with children who are very into reading. Fenn dubbed the group Raven's Readers.

She has spent some time in "deep dives", long-running simulations with a shallow clone outside (with possible memory modification). For two years, she played Madeline Melcore, a hero with outrageous magical powers fighting the Dark King, and at the end she was able to bring some context to her emotions and time with Uther.

She has recently been spending a lot of time with the Total Resurrection Working Group: a society aiming to resurrect absolutely everyone (i.e. those people who no-one existing in heaven knows well enough to request resurrection). They are constrained by the Authority that only people who are strongly desired to be resurrected can be, and self-edits are forbidden, so they have to spend a lot of time getting to know the people they intend to resurrect so that they can sincerely request the resurrection. She has been resurrecting one person every two or three days for seven years or so, but has ceased to enjoy it and plans to take a break.

Raven accepts matchmaking, and meets Clarke Rinsome at a dinner date. She gets on well, and invites him to spend two or three years with her in an Authority-created deep dive with her, and after the fact they'll understand each other a lot better.

## Featured characters

* Raven Masters
* Bethel (mentioned)
* Six-Eyed Doe (mentioned)
* Grakhuil Leadbraids
* Fenn Greenglass (mentioned)
* Everett Wolfe (mentioned)
* Shermarin Cartier (mentioned)
* Lil (Raven's assistant)
* Amaryllis Penndraig (mentioned)
* Juniper Smith (mentioned)
* Clarke Rinsome
The Rowdyrunk Boys Wiki:Protected page

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Datura Desert

The Datura Desert is a desertic exclusion zone on Aerb where no plant can grow and magic-feeding creatures called thaum-seekers roam the land hunting.

## Geography

Datura is a four-hundred-mile expanse of hot sand with no water or plants.

### Barren Jewel

The city of Barren Jewel is the only location in Datura where long-term survival is possible, due to it being founded around a well of power created by a mage called Alvion - once you are within its bounds, you are safe from thaumseekers and always have food and drink.

### Caer Laga

Caer Laga is a redoubt built by Uther's Lost Court generations ago and was unfinished when the disaster struck. It has blood wards that prevent entry by anyone except for a member of Uther's bloodline and anyone they designate as a friend. A stash of heirloom entads had been contained within and was claimed by Juniper's party. This included the Sable, the Flickerblade, the Anyblade, the Immobility Plate, the Jar O'Fairies, all of which have been immensely useful, and the Clonal Kit and an unnamed amulet that contained a fascimile of Amaryllis's great-grandfather, which largely weren't.

## Magic

The Datura Desert is home to creatures called thaum-seekers (or thaum-suckers, depends on the speaker). They are canine creatures that feed on magic, with immense claws, large nostrils, and teeth that extend well beyond their lips. They have an unparalleled ability to sense passive and active magic at great distance. They don't accelerate very fast, but can maintain their velocity for great distances, likely making them persistence hunters, and can jump high enough to be a threat to winged craft.

Alone or in small groups, they're already generally dangerous enough to necessitate the use of magic or entads to defeat, which alerts them across great distances. The precise mechanism by which they consume magic is unclear, but it likely involves the physical consumption of the source of magic they detected, such as a mage.

The Datura Desert also doesn't have any water or plants to speak of as a result of a blight that has struck the land. It's unknown if that is related to the thaum-seekers infestation.

## History

Datura used to be a place of thriving agriculture. At some point, however, a blight has spread across the land, killing plants and livestock and making soil infertile. A mage called Alvion created a well of magic that made a small portion of it liveable by acting as a source of food and water, as well as protecting its inhabitants from thaum-seekers. According to Amaryllis the thaum-seekers were the factor that elevated the already dangerous desert to the level of a major exclusion zone. When exactly the region became an exclusion zone is unclear.

## References

1. ↑ The Datura Desert would be dangerous even if it were only four hundred miles of hot sand with no water or plants to speak of, but it’s the thaum-seekers that elevate it to the level of a major exclusion zone.
—*Worth the Candle* Chapter 17: "Voting Blocs"
A Long Row to Hoe

**The party moves through the third landing.**

## Synopsis

The party reach the third Landing: a labyrinth. Uther breaks up a fight between red-skinned people and the Conguine, a hippy collective of various races, over fir trees growing in the soil of the maze.

Juniper and Fenn talk about how the maze was inspired by Juniper's interest in Factorio's ribbon worlds: spaces to live in that are as confined as possible. Juniper talks about how he likes to bend a system as far as it'll go, almost to breaking point, and then slightly over to watch it break. Juniper admits he would like the story of a man trapped by narrative, and this infuriates Uther.

As they reach the capital city of the Conguine, Uther decides to avoid any roadblocks by flying over them, and the party enter Sable to travel with him. They come across buildings made of stone, and tunnels carved through the maze using void tools, which they obtained when Uther brought void crystals and Leyden jars in his second trip through. The tunnels drastically speed up the pace through the maze.

## Featured characters

* Juniper Smith
* Amaryllis Penndraig
* Fenn Greenglass
* Uther Penndraig
* Bethel
* White Toad

## Notes

* The Void Beast destroys the world in the A Cypress Waits timeline partially due to the continued void use by the maze-dwellers, using the void crystals Uther brought.
The Narrator, the Angel, and the Devil

**Fenn has some family time.**

## Synopsis

The Narrator and Fenns live in a sleek alien house of curves and sharp edges, surrounded by clouds, with a beach accessible by gliding (or teleporting).

The Narrator plays the Godsgame with the other Junipers. The Godsgame is a board game where the players act as gods trying to create the best stories involving their primary, secondary and tertiary themes over the course of five thousand years.

Nellan, Fenn's son, visits. They have reconciled. He's going to become a runner on the barrisball (a middle heavens megasport) team, and so won't be able to receive contact for six months.

The Narrator and Fenns discuss barrisball, and how it would make a good anime, and move into the upper heavens so it can be created in a place without creative scarcity. Angel Fenn says it would be a good place to raise a family.

They agree to have children.

## Featured characters

* Fenn Greenglass (Angel and Devil)
* Narrator
* Nellan
Old Sins Cast Long Shadows

**Juniper and Uther talk.**

## Synopsis

Juniper catches Uther / Arthur up about what happened on Earth and Aerb. Uther briefly talks about his initial voyages into the Long Stairs, and the Boundless Pit. Uther gives Bethel back to Juniper, and apologises. They talk about narrative and stories.

## Featured characters

* Juniper Smith
* Uther Penndraig / Arthur Blum
* Bethel
* Amaryllis Penndraig
* Fenn Greenglass
* Raven Masters
* Zona Delzora (mentioned)
* Uther's sons (mentioned)
* Forty-Two (mentioned)
* Maddie (mentioned)
* Vervain (mentioned)

## Notes

* Juniper mentions having received two error messages through the game layer. The first time occurred in In Which Juniper Stares At His Character Sheet, when increasing MEN. The second time, when encountering a lethal meme, was in Safe Mode.
Clerical Errors

**Juniper talks with Invreizen.**

## Synopsis

Juniper travels to Frustbury and talks with Invreizen to request help against Fel Seed.

Juniper finds out that the locus prevents the Gods' powers from working on him.

Juniper loses gold magic after deciding not to blackmail Invreizen.

## Featured characters

* Juniper Smith
* Amaryllis Penndraig
* Grakhuil Leadbraids
* Raven Masters
* Six-Eyed Doe (in spirit)
* Invreizen
The End of the World

**Various people ascend to heaven.**

## Synopsis

Avatars of the Transition Services talk to various people, to tell them about the transition the world is going through. The Avatars are each threads of the Authority, the intelligence running reality.

The avatars will serve as "assistants" to each person, to help them make their way in the new worlds. They can decide which level of heaven (or Aerb) they wish to reside in. The higher heavens offer more freedom: creation of material goods, creative goods, bodily and mental modification. The lower heavens, in lacking this freedom, can offer more purpose, and a more similar experience to Old Aerb.

Heavy use is made of Thespians, or 'spians for short. Thespians are people played by the Actor, do not suffer, will not hurt anyone, and will answer truthfully when asked whether they are a 'spian. In particular, Old Aerb is mostly populated by 'spians, and most animals in Aerb and the lower heavens are 'spians.

## Featured characters

* Rance Su, a mezin milk leaf farmer
* Various nameless avatars of the Transition Services
* Garrett Voss, living in poverty
* Perrina Wharf, who lost her son
* Sutsu Su, a studious Ascender
* Mercen Honth, a dwarven athenaeum lecturer
* Randall Vox, a punisher
* Joyce (mentioned), who committed a terrible crime
* Pollanny FePonn, who wishes to have sex with the avatar
* Mark Perperson, who thinks heaven is a mockery
* Clarabell Brown, the beach-dweller
* Trish, Clara's assistant
* Doris Finch
* Various children in a children's ward of a hospital
* Sonee, who questions the speed of Transition
* Roj, Sonee's assistant
* Pallida Sade
* Juniper Smith