William

Art by Alyssa Wiswall

Various unnamed family members

Mademoiselle Chantiralaine (adoptive mother)

**William** (currently known as Old Coot Willie) is a posthuman who appears throughout the Shaperaverse. He is voiced by Paul Shapera.

## Background

William was born to Prudence, a runaway noblewoman, and her husband, a commoner trumpet player with whom she had eloped. As a child, William was brought up into the life of a travelling musician, like his father, and as such, he would learn several instruments, deliver opening monologues at performance venues, and become socially adept, all while maintaining a very loving relationship with his parents. However, at the age of 10, he lost his mother. She was killed by an assassin who was hired by her family to kill her husband, but whose aim was off because of his consumption of lithium salts. With this having occurred, William and his father became inseparably close. The two would travel everywhere together, and William's father would become his best friend, which helped to solidify their own bond, but also led to William never really learning how to interact with children his age. Unfortunately, when William was 15, his father was assassinated by a second hitman, whom Prudence's family had also hired years before to kill the first for killing Prudence instead of her husband.

Upon being orphaned, William was taken in by a family friend, a woman named Mademoiselle Chantiralaine, who was a fortune teller at a carnival William's father was acquainted with. She managed to discern that William's parents were in danger and track down the family through divination, but not soon enough to prevent the parents' deaths. She was, however, able to rescue William from his mother's family. They had intended to use him as a military sacrifice: a powerful duke was planning a campaign, and families who provided soldiers were to be rewarded. None of the family members wanted to go and fight, so they figured they could cheat the system by offering up William, who they saw as useless in any other regard. However, thanks to Mme Chantiralaine, it would take months for them to track down William. When they finally did arrive, though, Chantiralaine saw them coming, thanks to her divination skills, and was prepared to hide William when they arrived. Upon the arrival of 4 of William's cousins to the carnival, they demanded William, only to be ignored, until their leader threatened one of the carnival's members with bodily harm. Eventually, this escalated into an actual brawl, which William's cousins lost, with the leading cousin being the only resulting death. After this had occurred, Chantiralaine explained to William that this problem would not disappear, that people would now be after him, and that the best way to avoid this was for him to lay low in an urban setting. She thus sent William off to the town of Settington, where a client of hers, a printmaker, would take him on as an apprentice.

The printmaker was a grumpy yet kind man, and expected William to exercise discipline in his duties and in learning how to perform them. William did exactly this, and within a few months, he had won the printmaker's trust, loyalty, and endearment. William committed himself to reading, and became quite astute over the years. The more he read, too, the more sociable he became, and this reflected in the printmaker's business by attracting customers to the shop, and when the printmaker's business started doing exceptionally well, he made it apparent that William would take over for him upon his retirement. William's responsibility and level of influence regarding the shop only increased, and with this, eventually he was invited to apply for membership in the Masonic Lodge. William, being socially inactive outside of the printshop, jumped at the opportunity, applied, and was accepted. There, his voracious intellect consumed more and more knowledge. He associated with intelligent men from all sorts of professions, he learned all sorts of things regarding rituals and lore, plays, moral lessons, and more. Rising through the ranks of the Lodge, he eventually learned everything he could have, and joined two other lodges to learn even more, whereupon one of the lodges' members suggested that William join a more esoteric brotherhood.

William began to study ritual magic, joining magical lodges. Over the next decade, he became increasingly proficient, and would end up devising rituals for different lodges citywide and across the continent. However, he eventually became so adept that he began to lose interest in the lodge system, and so he created his own lodge with carefully selected members. William, having devised several rituals, began to notice that rituals were mostly psychological in nature, and that magical rituals in particular were performed with the intent of affecting the world at large. While this didn't often happen, it sometimes did, and William had trouble figuring out what prompted these truly observable effects. One day, he went to the theatre, and it clicked. The secret to the rituals' success wasn't in belief that the rituals would work, nor was it in the opposite: it was about total commitment to the ritual in the moment, but the abandonment of its whimsy as soon as it was done with. William selected 3 other men who were capable of this discipline of perception, and together, the Promethean Lodge spent time exploring rituals and how to make them more effective. One night, they left their usual workspace after a particularly satisfying session, only to find that the city had become unfamiliar to them. The city they were in shared details with their original one, but some things were noticeably off. The Lodge, though they were unaware of *exactly* what had happened, had jumped Narratives to an alternate version of Settington, one where a vampire queen ruled the land and her subordinates picked off stray humans each night during the Blood Hour.

When they tried to leave this place, the Lodge ended up in a Narrative where Settington was plagued by werewolves during the blood hour. Another jump, and it was zombies, then soul-sucking ghosts, crocodile men, and demon spiders, with each successive Narrative becoming increasingly dangerous and devastated. Out of money and desperate to change course into a less dangerous world, the men decided to steal something that would be valuable anywhere, and so they broke into a candlestick shop, where they met Kola. After explaining their situation, they jumped Narratives again, now with Kola in tow. The world they appeared in next had a ruined city in very poor conditions. Jan became ill, and though they continued to jump in search of help for him, he would eventually die once they had arrived in a Narrative with a barren desert. As the Promethean Lodge mourned him, they were captured by Gnomes, who separated Davish from the rest of the group. Davish would be tortured to death, but William, Kola, and Percy were put in a cell, where they were greeted by 3 captured Lost Ones, one of whom explained the history of the Lost Ones, the reason the Gnomes had captured them all, and explained that William had to flower in order to escape the cycle he and the Lodge were caught in with each jump. The Lost One showed William how to leave and ordered William to kill him and his companions, but not before telling him that there were Dwarves at the center of the next world William would travel to, and that he was to relay the Lost One's message to them, at which point he would be found by another Lost One that would show him how to flower. The Lost Ones were killed, and a portal was created.

The remaining 3 members of the Lodge, plus the corpse of Davish, arrived in yet another desert. This one, however, was inhabited by humans who took them to their village. The villagers didn't trust the men, but were accepting of Kola, and so they gave preferential treatment to her as well as William. Over time, they integrated into the community, learned the language, and built themselves dwellings, and eventually Kola would become pregnant with an ancestor of Asha's. While William settled into the world, he still had the pressing matters of finding the Dwarves and, more personally, getting laid. There were no men in the village who would have been down to oblige William on this second point, but thankfully, there was a religious summit approaching in which one of the venerated deities was Mira, the Goddess of Gay, whose worship inspired sexual behaviour in her devotees. Thus it was that William lost his virginity. Additionally, the summit put William in contact with a clan that had legends of caves that led to the Dwarves. So it was that the clan arranged to have William and Percy visit them to explore, with the promise of an eventual return.

When the party arrived at the clan's village, they found it ravaged by Gnomes. The women of the village evacuated to nearby caves, William and Percy coming with them. They wandered through the caves until the path split. Percy volunteered to stay with the women, who were unwilling to go down the path that they believed led to the Dwarves. William went down alone, and when he at last arrived at the Dwarves and their wheel, the Dwarves greeted him, referring to him as the Fool, saying it was an honor to meet him and that he was the greatest hope they'd produced. He relayed the Lost One's message to the Dwarves, who in turn told him that in order to flower, he must first be sent to a sublevel of the 7-level Metaverse, where he would go mad, but would flower after the fact. He was told that he'll meet the Hierophant, who ruled a part of the sublevel, and that the Hierophant was cruel, but necessary for William to get into the main part of the sublevel. As this occurred, the Gnomes invaded the Dwarves' chamber, killing them all, but not before a Dwarf managed to open a portal and send William through.

William's next coherent thought was "I'm a footstool." He'd been subjugated by the Hierophant soon after his arrival in the Hierophant's realm, likely because he'd gone mad upon his arrival. He resolved to kill the Hierophant. At night, William would be imprisoned in a pit that could alternately become a dungeon cell or a small rock in the middle of a stormy sea. By this time, he had regained his sanity and was desperate to escape. He saw no way out other than a deus ex machina. Lo and behold, the Javanese gods arrived. After 3 days, they whisked William away to a new part of the sublevel where the Hierophant couldn't reach him. The Hierophant declared war, which was expected by the gods, as a prophecy predicted his rescue by them and that the rescue would trigger a war. This prophecy did not previously exist, however; William clumsily retconned it into existence with his new abilities. When William asked the gods for tips on how to improve in this aspect, they told him they didn't know how to help him learn, as he was a new and rare type of being. However, they did give him a grimoire and a magic quill to go along with it before sending him on a boat that would take him through a byway of the sublevel. He would meet the gods again, centuries later.

As William adventured through the metaverse, he learned how to survive in it. He developed the ability to assume different archetypes, changing whichever one he embodied to suit his environment, which in turn influenced how well he came out of certain situations. All the while, he gradually filled the pages of his grimoire, and he became something of a legendary figure. Eventually, he went back to the Narrative where he had left Kola and Percy, hoping to reunite with them, but they had died decades before his arrival. He wanted to leave the Narrative and re-enter it so he could arrive at a previous point in time, and while he knew that traveling backwards in time like this *was* possible, he acknowledged the fact that there was a slim chance of it happening, and that even when it did there was no guarantee he would arrive in the desired time. He just decided to let it be, and eventually, he met Kola's great-granddaughter, Ashanti. Ashanti welcomed him into the tribe, and she told him that he was the stuff of legend, his return to the Narrative having been foretold as oral tradition for decades.

He taught the tribe about what he called transcendence, giving them tips on how to prompt more flowerings, reading them the contents of his grimoire, which would become oral tradition as generations passed. He didn't have flowering down to an exact science, but the descendants of the current members of the tribe eventually would. William would not be around to see this happen, though, as he couldn't bear to stick around once Ashanti died. A wanderer once more, William explored the sublevel as well as the fourth level of the metaverse. He had two more run-ins with the Gnomes. He avoided them the first time, but the second time, he had to fight them head-on in a pirate Narrative. Playing the captain of a ship, he used his skills to his advantage to hold off the Gnomes, and while this worked in brief, it would not hold them off forever. As they overwhelmed and targeted him, he opened a portal to a hellish Narrative, where he jumped Narratives once again before he could be burned alive as the Gnomes were. Realizing that the Gnomes were a problem he would not be able to ignore, he resolved to find the Lost Ones and organize a resistance.

Much later on, centuries later, after William's grimoire had been filled, lost, and its pages scattered throughout the metaverse, William returned to the court of the Hierophant, who, after all these years, did not recognize him. William goaded him into a fight. Though the Hierophant was a powerful being, he was only capable of fighting within one type of reality and character style, while William had, by this point, mastered multiple. The battle between the two was lengthy and hard-fought, and William cycled through a range of archetypes throughout. Eventually, at the end of the struggle, William killed the Hierophant.

When William next appeared, it was in the Decadent Abbey with a woman named Yashfa, who greeted the trio of Jill, Michael, and Asha. He appeared as an 8-year old boy whom Yashfa was doubtful of actually existing. She speculated him to be a ghost. She did, however, mention William by name, in talking about his grimoire. Throughout their experience at the Abbey, he never talks, though he does make odd gestures, such as miming conversation with his hands like they were sock puppets.

Eventually, when the trio and Lloyd Allen returned to Lloyd's world in search of information, but had a run-in with the gnomes, who were destroying the Narrative, William was there to guide them to a space where they could perform their Narrative-hopping ritual before quickly disappearing again. Later on, he reappeared when the gang had established the August Sky Playhouse, where it was revealed that he had been following them since their journey through the tunnels in the second level of the metaverse. This was the first time his description as a ghost boy was called into question, with Jill casting doubt on the idea that he was a ghost. After the young posthumans, with their new addition David Adams, began experimenting with Narration and moving through the metaverse, he was one of the attendees of the August Sky Playhouse's first performance for an audience. Later on, after Asha had developed a stutter and shaky hands, William's presence as the boy was able to help her managed the latter condition.

In the final battle against the Gnomes, William, as the boy, played a more active role. He constantly attended to Asha, who was the first person he audibly spoke to as the boy, and quickly deduced his true identity. When he and Asha reconvened with the rest of the fighting forces, he was mostly inactive until after Baron Samedi and Cerridwen had been killed. Once his identity was revealed to the members of the August Sky Playhouse, he gave a brief explanation for his inaction up until then, expressing his disdain for the rules of the metaverse before declaring that he would change them if he could, but that in the meantime, he could now act in vengeance. He revealed that he was portraying an archetype at the time, which he called "Little Damien," and used the abilities he had in this Antichrist-like archetype to summon the hordes of Hell, silently commanding an army of demons to slaughter all remaining Gnomes on the battlefield.

After the massacre, William saw off the August Sky members. He implored them to leave level 5 of the metaverse for their own good, to which Michael responded that they only needed to learn a few more things before going off, a reassurance Jill tried to reinforce. Unconvinced, he moved onto Asha, promising that he'd see her soon, as she needed him to remain stable. Asha tried to assuage his concern, but he knew better. Lloyd approached William with massive interest in learning from him, and in response, William wrapped him in a tearful hug. While Lloyd was unaware of the meaning behind this, William was aware of the long, painful road ahead of Lloyd, but resigned himself to silence on this matter. William then hugged Raven, expressing great interest in his future, and telling him that their futures could be strongly intertwined. At last, he embraced Michael, asking him to practice self-care, fearing that Michael would become a sad alcoholic (which he did). Michael, however, laughed it off. William told him he was a good man, before turning to the group at and declaring his love for all of them, promising that they would meet again (for the most part). He asked them to be safe, as the road ahead of them was long and difficult, and once more, asked them to leave level 5 as soon as they could, though he knew they wouldn't listen. With that, he left.

## Appearances

### The Yam Salve Song

William briefly appears in the Yam Salve Song to state that Yam Salve can be used as lube.

### Miss Helen's Weird West Cabaret

William cameos in Henry's backstory as Old Coot Willie, telling a memory-deficient Henry where he is and that he's waking up from a massive drunken all-male orgy.

### The Lost Fairy

William cameos as an old man Han-Mi uses to keep Jakob from finding Jane and Symbel. He blocks the door they went through, feigning ignorance when approached.

### Astonishing Tales of the Highly Improbable

Aside from his appearances in stories where he actually is present, Lloyd mentions William in one of his opening segments, explaining William's nature and his unique ability to switch archetypes to the Sentient Room, mentioning that William, now going by Willie and embodying the Old Coot archetype, has a tendency to cameo in odd places, and, being the most senior posthuman, may perhaps be the most developed postie alive. Lloyd concludes his musing on William by resolving to track him down once he escapes New Albion.