Enoch Staple
From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe
Once upon a time...
| [[Image:|300px|]] | |
| Enoch Staple | |
| Player: | |
| Origin: | Magic |
|---|---|
| Archetype: | Controller/Dominator/Kheldian |
| Security Level: | 50 |
| Personal Data | |
| Real Name: | Unknown - likely does not possess one |
| Known Aliases: | Enoch Staple, Fantabulon, The Bishop of the Chalcedony Basilica, Lord of the Hidden Thurible, The Laughing Duke |
| Species: | Unknown |
| Age: | Unkown |
| Height: | Roughly 7' |
| Weight: | Roughly 220 |
| Eye Color: | Irises composed of red and blue |
| Hair Color: | Red and Blue |
| Biographical Data | |
| Nationality: | Unknown |
| Occupation: | Hero |
| Place of Birth: | Unavailable |
| Base of Operations: | Unavailable |
| Marital Status: | Unknown |
| Known Relatives: | Unknown |
| Known Powers | |
| Illusions, Shapechanging, Bestowing of Blessings and Curses | |
| Known Abilities | |
| Uknown | |
| Equipment | |
| Clothing, cloak, hat | |
| ' | |
Your Chimera - Care, Feeding, and Identifying Fewmeats, or History.
Enoch Staple is a hero, or, depending on who you ask, a villain, operating in/around/nowhere near Paragon City. He has made a lifestyle out of illusions, half-truths, wholesale lies, phantasms, fabrications, fantabulons, and inconsistency. But where did he come from? Gentle reader, progress onward, and turn not a blind third eye to the twilight trifles presented henceforth, and behold as the curtain draws back, the magician reveals his secrets, and all tongues drip with rapt attention, for herein lies the lie, the whole lie, and nothing but the lie, otherwise known as Enoch Staple.
The Chalcedony Basilica, or the Reality before Time
He was a story, who told himself into existence. He was meant to be enduring, and so he gave himself a body long of limb and adaptable. He was meant to be a thing of beauty, of course, and so he gave himself fair features, looks enough to bewitch or belittle, as his mood struck him, or perhaps simply draw awestruck adulation from commoners as he meandered his domain. And finally, he needed to be clever, intelligent, and puissant in all arts, and so, he told the wilds of the world this, as well, and they listened, emboldening his corpus with wits and wiles as befit the mightiest of his kind. Now that he existed, he realized he couldn't exist on his own - that would be ridiculous. And so he began speaking, his pleasant tongue bending a world into existence around him. His own lands, of course, with pleasing mountains and deep forests, and a countryside filled with people for him to rule over and protect. He was, of course, a hero. He dreamed his own courtiers into existence, his servants, his knights, his tax collectors, and his courtesans. Finally, he sang a wondrous song, and from the heart of his story-forged lands, there arose a great citadel, of graceful flying buttresses and floating towers, with foyers and galleries all devoted to espousing beauty, truth, and knowledge. He took a seat as it's rightful lord, and ruled there for all time with benevolence and wisdom.
Then the others came. Others like him - some greater, some lesser, lords of great courts and nations. He eagerly crafted ambassadors to carry tribute or declarations of war to his neighbors - his allies attended his feasts and celebrations, and he theirs, while at other times his armies and war behemoths clashed with those of his nearby kinfolk. And for a while, things were good. Then the greatest of his kind rose up, and established a monarchy, and he eagerly joined with them, becoming for them the bishop, his great palace becoming the Chalcedony Basilica, his pronouncements giving hope and faith to an entire kingdom of wild things, of the elf folk, of Raksha and Fae. And for a while, things were still good.
He grew tired of court life, though.
The Tower of Widows and Mad Dogs, or the Exile
She was bored, as well. They met at court, their flirtations subtle and clever, their rendezvous in private parlors or in secret safehouses. An affair! Just the thing to spark things up. Then it was found out. She ran to her husband, proclaimed the Bishop's wickedness, how he entranced and enticed her to acts of infidelity. The Onyx courts were outraged! He was stripped of his title, an example being made. He was clapped in profane irons, and ejected from the lands of Dreaming, of Faerie and of Mutability, sent to wander the deserts of the Real until such a time as he learned humility. Others stood up for him - his friends, his oath-sworn comrades, even his most dire rival (Who would later follow him to the real, as an act of solidarity).
He was chased to the gates of Nirvishesha, and his life ended, just as it began.
The Fix Unfixed, or Getting to Know the New World
Blood, Stumps, and Other Changes, or Getting Adjusted to a Dire Situation
Becoming the Chimera, or Just Desserts and Living the Modern Life
Enoch Staple, Enoch Staple, Twelve Feet Tall and Made of Maple
"You live like this, sheltered, in a delicate world, and you believe you are living. Then you read a book… or you take a trip… and you discover that you are not living, that you are hibernating. The symptoms of hibernating are easily detectable: first, restlessness. The second symptom (when hibernating becomes dangerous and might degenerate into death): absence of pleasure. That is all. It appears like an innocuous illness. Monotony, boredom, death. Millions live like this (or die like this) without knowing it. They work in offices. They drive a car. They picnic with their families. They raise children. And then some shock treatment takes place, a person, a book, a song, and it awakens them and saves them from death. Some never awaken."
- Anais Nin
On the Price of Love
Are you ready to cut off your head and place your foot on it? If so, come; Love awaits you! Love is not grown in a garden, nor sold in the marketplace; whether you are a king or a servant, the price is your head, and nothing less. Yes, the cost of the elixir of love is your head! Do you hesitate? 0 miser, It is cheap at that price!
– Abu Hamid Al-Ghazzali
A Mahrt Is Captured
Two farm workers slept together in one room. One of them was ridden by a mahrt so often that he finally asked his comrade the next time it happened to stop up the knothole in the door so they could capture the mahrt.
The next time he was miserably moaning and groaning in his sleep, his comrade did what he had been asked, then called his friend by name. Awakening, he quickly reached out and grabbed a piece of straw in his hand. Although it twisted and turned, he held it tightly until his comrade had stopped up the knothole. He then laid the piece of straw on the table, and they both fell asleep until morning.
When they awoke they saw a beautiful girl behind the stove. They nearly parted ways disputing whom she belonged to. The one who had stopped up the knothole said that she should be his, because if he had not done that, she would have escaped. The other one said that she belonged to him, because he had captured her.
Finally the one who stopped up the knothole gave in, and the other one married the girl. They had children and lived together quite happily.
However, the woman often begged her husband to show her the knothole where she had entered the room. She said that she would have no peace until she had seen it. The man resisted her pleas for a long time, but once she begged him especially earnestly, saying that she could hear her mother in England calling the pigs, and asked him to allow see her again just once.
Finally he softened and gave in. He went with her and showed her where she had entered the room, but in that instant she flew out through the knothole and never returned.
- A. Kuhn and W. Schwartz, "Mahrt gefangen," Norddeutsche Sagen, Märchen und Gebräuche (Leipzig: F. A. Brockhaus, 1848), no. 16, pp. 14-15.
A Charm to Control the Nightmare
S. George, S. George, our ladies knight, He walkt by daie, so did he by night. Untill such time as he her found, He hir beat and he hir bound, Untill hir troth she to him plight, She would not come to him that night.
-James Orchard Halliwell-Phillipps, Popular Rhymes and Nursery Tales (London: John Russell Smith, 1849), p. 213.
The Baku
In Japan, among superstitious people, evil dreams are believed to be the result of evil spirits, and the supernatural creature called Baku is known as Eater of Dreams.
The Baku, like so many mythological beings, is a curious mingling of various animals. It has the face of a lion, the body of a horse, the tail of a cow, the forelock of a rhinoceros, and the feet of a tiger.
Several evil dreams are mentioned in an old Japanese book, such as two snakes twined together, a fox with the voice of a man, blood-stained garments, a talking rice-pot, and so on.
When a Japanese peasant awakens from an evil nightmare, he cries: "Devour, O Baku! devour my evil dream." At one time pictures of the Baku were hung up in Japanese houses and its name written upon pillows. It was believed that if the Baku could be induced to eat a horrible dream, the creature had the power to change it into good fortune
-F. Hadland Davis, Myths and Legends of Japan (London: G. G. Harrap, 1913), pp. 358-359.
From the Ynglinga Saga of Snorri Sturluson
Svegdir's son was named Vanlandi, and he took the kingdom after him and ruled over the Wealth of Uppsala. He was a great warrior and went far over the land. He had stayed one winter in Finland with Snæ the Old, and there married his daughter Driva. In the spring he went away, whilst Driva stayed behind, and he promised to come back after three winters, but he came not for ten winters.
Then Driva had Huld the witch woman called to her, and sent Visbur, hers and Vanlandi's son, to Sweden. Driva paid Huld the witch woman to draw Vanlandi to Finland with sorcery or else to kill him. When the spell was being furthered, Vanlandi was in Uppsala, and he had a longing to go to Finland, but his friends and advisers forbade him, and said that it certainly was Finnish witchcraft which caused his wanderlust. Then he became sleepy and said that the Mare was treading on him. His men sprang up and would help him, but when they came to his head she trod on his feet, so that they were nigh broken; then they resorted to the feet, but then she smothered the head, so that he died there. The Swedes took his body and burned it near a river which was called Skuta; there was his standing-stone set up. Thus says Tjodolv:
But on the way To Vili's brother Evil wights Bore Vanlandi; Then there trod The troll-wise Sorceress On the warrior lord. And there was burned On the Skuta bank That generous man Whom the Mare killed.
- Snorri Sturlason, Heimskringla; or, the Lives of the Norse Kings, edited with notes by Erling Monsen and translated into English with the assistance of A. H. Smith (Cambridge, England: W. Heffer & Sons, 1932), pp. 9-10.
