Line #15 Literature/ChildrenOfTheNameless


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4	Since the day she was born, Tacenda has been both blessed and cursed. When her protective spell fails in the night and her Kessig village is attacked, she seeks revenge against whom she believes responsible: the demon-consorting Lord of the Manor, Davriel Cane.
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6	''Children of the Nameless'' is a ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'' novella set on Innistrad, written by Creator/BrandonSanderson, and available for free download on the ''Magic'' website.
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9	!!This book provides examples of:
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11	* AffablyEvil: Davriel is almost completely selfish and thinks nothing of feeding pesky intruders to his demonic servants, but he isn't actively malicious and mostly just wants to be left alone.
12	** This extends to his demonic minions; in a setting where demons are AlwaysChaoticEvil, Davriel's demons are given some sympathetic qualities. Brerig isn't actively malicious and is loyal to Davriel, and Miss Highwater appreciates that Davriel recognizes her for her skill in writing contracts rather than being HotAsHell.
13	* AmbiguousEnding: Did [[spoiler: Tacenda Ignite a latent Planeswalker Spark]]? Did [[spoiler: the Entity of the Bog ''give'' her Planeswalking abilities]]? Or did [[spoiler: she simply AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence within Innistrad]]? It's left unclear, and WordOfGod is that this was intentional since [[spoiler: he only had permission from Wizards of the Coast to make ''one'' Planeswalker]].
14	* BrilliantButLazy: Davriel is clever enough to make multiple [[DealWithTheDevil Deals With The Devil]] and come out the better for each one through blatant LoopholeAbuse. He has no desire to use that cleverness for anything more than setting himself up in a comfy mansion with a bunch of demonic servants who can handle all worldly concerns for him while he faffs about and takes long naps all day.
15	* ChekhovsGun: [[spoiler: Early in the book, Davriel uses a minor spell that lets him coat surfaces in ink. Every time his arsenal of stolen spells is enumerated thereafter, the inkspell is mentioned and dismissed as useless to the problem at hand. Until at the climax of the book, he remembers that Willia is ''terrified'' of the dark, and uses the spell to coat her eyes in ink, blinding her.]]
16	* CoolAndUnusualPunishment: Tacenda threatens to spread the story of Davriel's supposed evil so that heroes will come and ensure he never gets a good nap ever again. And then she realizes that she doesn't even ''need'' to do that, as the stories are already spreading. Davriel grudgingly agrees to help as it seems like the least bad option.
17	* TheCorrupter:
18	** The Entity within Davriel constantly tries to get Davriel to use its power to become a MultiversalConqueror. He mostly ignores it. [[spoiler: Willia, on the other hand...]]
19	** At one point, Crunchgnar tries to convince Tacenda to usurp Davriel and become Lady of the Manor. He even promises not to even try and take her soul, so long as he gets Davriel's.
20	* DarkIsNotEvil: The Bog is... strange. It raises the local villagers like cattle and takes their souls when they die, but [[spoiler:the souls live on as part of it, which is as good an afterlife as they can hope for]]. The person who killed the town, [[spoiler:Willia, was seemingly corrupted by the power of the Bog in her head, but the power of the Bog in Tacenda's head is calm and gives Tacenda everything she needs in the end]]. Davriel Cane and most of his demons as well, though they're not particularly altruistic either.
21	* DeadpanSnarker: Good ''Lord'', Davriel. The man can't go more than a sentence without insulting someone in some way or another, though it's implied he's at least partially a StepfordSnarker. Miss Highwater gets in on it too.
22	* DealWithTheDevil: Davriel has an entire ''mansion'' of demons who all have contracts for his soul. It goes to whichever one manages to fulfill their contracts stipends first (Brerig has to solve a riddle, Crunchgnar has to make sure Davriel lives to sixty-five without dying, ect.). Luckily for Davriel, he's ''very'' good at [[ExactWords wording the contracts]] in such a way to make that impossible.
23	* DirtyCoward: Davriel is, at his heart, a coward, and is always ready to use his ability to travel planes to escape. Most of the time it's easy for him to cover this up with laziness, overwhelming power, or pragmatic retreats, but in the end he would always rather run than fight.
24	* EmbarrassingFirstName: Miss Highwater's True Name is "Voluptara." Davriel says it sounds like something a twelve year-old boy would come up with. She retorts that she was [[OurDemonsAreDifferent only a few days old]] when she came up with it.
25	* EveryoneHasStandards: Davriel isn't particularly compassionate, but he remains horrified of the carnage that resulted the last time he tried to have ambitions, and never wants to cause anything like it again.
26	* EvilOverlord: Davriel apparently was one in the past. Most people ''assume'' he still is one, but he mostly just takes naps these days.
27	* FriendlyEnemies: The retired cathar Rom apparently spent a decade of his youth hunting Miss Highwater across Innistrad before giving up. They greet each other like old friends when Davriel and co. visit the priory, with Miss Highwater even comforting him over his how old he's become.
28	* HolyBurnsEvil: Apparently, if Davriel tries to steal a power from a genuinely good person, it is excruciatingly painful for the both of them, and the power fades much more quickly. Unfortunately for Davriel, the genuinely good head of a local monastery happens to have a ghost-binding spell that Davriel regularly needs to use.
29	* KilledOffForReal:
30	** Tacenda's parents can't be revived even if their souls are retrieved, since they've been dead too long.
31	** According to Davriel, demons lack souls, so once they're dead, they're simply ''gone''. [[spoiler: Brerig and Crunchgnar suffer this fate]].
32	* LightIsNotGood:
33	** Before the start of the story, the angels whom most humans worshiped all went violently insane, dealing hefty damage to faith and religion. The Nameless Angel is the exception, and her religion is still gaining followers. [[spoiler:But she wasn't actually an exception--her followers chained her up in the basement when she went insane, and eventually forced an old demon hunter to execute her. Part of what caused Willia's StartOfDarkness was finding out that her religion had murdered her god]]. On the other hand, [[spoiler:Tacenda seemingly speaks to the angel's soul (even though angels aren't supposed to have souls), which is calm and kind and gives her the advice she needs to save everyone]].
34	** [[spoiler:Willia Verlassen]] is stronger during the day and even throws around "bolts of light", [[spoiler:but she is the evil twin]].
35	** According to [[WordOfGod Brandon Sanderson's reddit]], the main villains are Green-aligned as to show the more negative side of that colour for a long welcome change. This includes [[spoiler:the aforementioned Willia, who is Green/White/Black]], the Bog Entity (who strictly doesn't care about which of the sisters survives, only that it is fed) and the mindless, assimilatory geists (which are helpfully described as glowing with a green light in the text).
36	* LoopholeAbuse: All of Davriel's contracts work like this. Of course the demons expect this, but he's ''very'' good at it.
37	** Brerig gets Davriel's soul if he answers a riddle: "What am I thinking of right now?" (the "right now" being the time the contract was signed). It's so blatantly unfair that all the other demons are pretty sure that Brerig just wants a master and doesn't actually care about taking souls. [[spoiler:Turns out that the answer was a random rock Davriel had seen on the roadside]].
38	** Crunchgar gets Davriel's soul if Davriel lives to sixty-five without dying; a good contract for a bodyguard. The contract is full of ''very'' specific wording to define exactly how long a year is and exactly when Crunchgar will be able to claim him. [[spoiler:The ExactWords were a RedHerring; Davriel died long before he ever met Crunchgar, so there was never any chance of him collecting]].
39	** Miss Highwater gets Davriel's soul if she manages to seduce him. We never hear any twists of the contract; Davriel just seems completely confident in his ability to ignore her wiles.
40	* MsFanservice: Subverted; Miss Highwater is ''implied'' to be disgustingly sexy (she says she first designed her body when she was young, and thus it was mostly intended to appeal to hormonal boys), but her appearance is never described in any detail whatsoever. In the last scene, she's implied to be naked, but only from the extremely embarrassed reactions of the priests.
41	* NotDistractedByTheSexy: Davriel completely ignores all of Miss Highwater's attempts to seduce him. In fact, their contract is that she gets his soul if she can successfully seduce him, and he never makes a contract that has any chance of coming back to bite him.
42	* NotQuiteDead: Davriel realises early on that the villagers aren't dead, they've just had their souls forcefully shunted out of their bodies to become the Whisperers, though it won't be long before their bodies start to decay and they become ''fully'' dead. Tacenda all but blackmails him into helping her fix it in time.
43	* PowerParasite: Davriel's only innate power (without tapping the Entity, at least), is the ability to steal magical tricks from other people. It's not permanent: He can hold a power for anywhere from a few weeks to a few months without using it; if he does, it will be gone in a few days (or after a couple of uses).
44	* SelfMadeOrphan: [[spoiler: Willia was responsible for the death of her and Tacenda's parents, though she claims it was accidental. Everyone after that, however, wasn't]].
45	* SiblingYinYang: Tacenda and Willia each got half the Bog's power, giving them complementary gifts and curses: Willia is inhumanly strong and powerful while the sun is up, but becomes completely blind while it's down, while Tacenda can see clearly in the dark and perform MagicMusic, but is blind while the sun is up.
46	* SuccubiAndIncubi: PlayedWith. Miss Highwater is never explicitly called a succubus, but is one in all but name. Her contract with Davriel even stipulates that she gets his soul if she ever manages to seduce him. Hilariously, he summoned her because he'd heard of how good she was at using ExactWords in her contracts, and wanted someone that good to handle his paperwork for him.

Context Literature / ChildrenOfTheNameless