An idea percolating in my head. Will have to get back to at some point.
The gist: A young woman, fleeing her past on the last of her meager inheritance, unwittingly stumbles upon a literal underworld. Beneath a bright and new city on the grow is a bright and growing spirit world feeding on new energy. After killing a prenatal spirit of healing and, in doing so, earning its heart of healing, she is enlisted by Addiction, a young spirit girl and enterprising goddess, to be her courier, toll collector, and enforcer—not to mention a potential harvester of fresh spirit organs to empower Addiction's growing army.
Our heroine, such as she is, accepts, and her journey begins.
In a nutshell: The drug trade, BUT WITH MAGIC! In a conceptual nutshell, not claiming it'll be anywhere near any of these three: Requiem for a Dream + Marathon x End of Evangelion.
Not sure what form this will take. Perhaps a comic? More to come.
Currently the story is modeled on King Crimson music (as the title suggests), divided into volumes or chapters named after King Crimson songs, starting with one from The ConstruKtion of Light and ending with one from In the Wake of Poseidon, bookended with a prologue/epilogue which quote from songs from the last and first albums. So:
Prologue: The Power to Believe. Act One: Heaven and Earth. Act Two: Walking on Air. Act Three: That Which Passes, Passes Like Clouds. Act Four: Heartbreak. Act Five: Heat in the Jungle. Act Six: Starless. Act Seven:The Great Deceiver. Act Eight: Song of the Gulls. Act Nine: The Battle of Glass Tears. Act Ten: Peace - An End. Epilogue: Epitaph.Tropes certain to show up:
- Chainsaw Good: Our heroine's preferred primary weapon: Hate, a chainsaw-saber.
- Glasgow Grin: Our heroine's face is distinctly scarred. Someone, at some point, stuck a switchblade in her mouth and draaaagged it in such a way as to widen her smile by a few inches on the right side. And drag it up to just under her right eye. The first stitching attempt was made with a hot sewing needle and thread. The second was by an actual doctor, but he only had so much to work with...
- Healing Factor: Our heroine regenerates from any physical damage she takes after the organ is installed. Unfortunately, since she harvested it from a not-yet-developed spirit, so it's not very quick healing at this point, and sufficient injury could still bleed her out (or smash an organ outright) and kill her. If she survives long enough, though, she'll have a very potent blessing.
- Humans Are Special: Not necessarily good, not necessarily bastards. Special, though. Before humans, there were no spirits, and the two are thus siblings.
- Metroidvania: Our heroine obtains a panoply of spirit weapons to assist in her duties. Most of them harvested from her defeated enemies.
- Our Monsters Are Weird: There's a whole otherworld ecology going on. There are four types of spirit creature:
- Spirits, which are spirit humans, and correspond to concepts, emotions, and impulses, such as Addiction, Fear, Sorrow, Joy, and so on. Older spirits become more complex.
- Demons, which are spirit animals, and correspond to things, like cars, mirrors, houses, and bigger things. Older and more powerful demons aggregate lesser demons; a plane demon is much nastier than a fuel demon, wheel demon, wing demon, and windshield demon separate.
- Elementals, which are part scenery, part building, and part Genius Loci. They correspond to the greatest works of man (landmarks, generally) and nature (again, landmarks). Potentially quite wise, potentially quite powerful, potentially quite uninterested in giving up their secrets—and potentially homicidally eager to defend them.
- Gods, which correspond to concepts too massive for humans or spirits to understand. The Earth itself is a god, but the most powerful god period is Void, the emptiness between the stars. There are four gods which spirits worship as the Great Impulses all living things must bow to: Fear, Pain, Hate, and Need.
- You Kill It, You Bought It: Spirits of sufficient power offer up their magically-imbued organs when they are slain. Spirits of insufficient power merely leak experience points, I mean spirit verve.
