SPOOKTOBER DAY 7 – COSMIC HORROR
OPTIONAL CHALLENGES:  ADDICTION, SECRET CODE / PUZZLE, WASTELAND
TAROT INFLUENCE:  TWO OF WANDS, UPRIGHT, from a card including image of Janus

TITLE:  SEVEN STARS

Premise:  I’ve often said the thing that worked best for me about j’brahms cinematic ouvarie is the grand apocalyptic visuals that hearken to dreams I’ve had of seeing multiple suns in the sky, or volcanoes, or supernovae.  Maybe it’s time to use that.  Thinking about disaster at that scale plus the sub-theme of addiction naturally calls to mind Galactus from marvel comics.  Tryin’ not to bite too much…

A world exists in a cluster of seven stars, close enough to each other that they’re all visible in daylight of Merouffi VIII.  We’ll say this exists in the Josefina & Blasfemia universe, where the supernatural exists as a natural phenomenon, the spirit world a parallel dimension whose qualities are informed by different fundamental particles which respond to and reflect the collective imagination of thinking creatures.

The descendants of the colonists on this unfortunate world are plagued with time-space deformities and supernatural problems, which they have adapted to through descent into barbarism.  Many are mutants or hybridized with incarnate spirits, none pleasant.  The closest thing that the world has to scientists are the Priestesses of Taroth, who have developed a belief – now prophecy – that when all seven stars are visible on the same day, their world will end.  They know enough of astronomy to model this and know exactly when it’s going to happen – within sixty-six years.

The Villain:  King Sissif IV has a scheme to become the savior of his people by taming the stars.  This is against the will of Ta’roth, a god-like spirit who emerged from the collective struggles of Merouffian colonists, seen as the embodiment of the inexorable movement of the heavens.

Saving the world is good, right?  He has created a fascist system where the masses must work to construct ziggurats and machines, working unto death, or being used as ritual sacrifices (TWO OF WANDS / EXCHANGE).  If the ceremony works, whoever wears the king’s crown can control Taroth, and thereby the stars themselves.

Horror Element:  Sissif is right that the entity of Taroth can be controlled with a complex and massive enough ritual (SECRET CODE / PUZZLE) but he is wrong that the powers of the astral realm can control the movement of the stars in long space.  The suffering he’s causing is for nothing.

The priestesses of Taroth view people who want to save the world as slaves to their desires (ADDICTION) and use that rhetoric in their sermons.  The heroes are a mixed bag of doom-loving Taroth faithful, nihilists, and freedom fighters.  They’re fighting against saving the world – fighting to end the world – for their own personal reasons.  Good is bad and bad is good (JANUS).

In the spirit of undercutting the horror of it all, I might end it with the prophecy coming to pass, but the world isn’t fully destroyed – just its current configuration.  Maybe all the pure humans are killed by radiation but the hybrids and mutants, but life goes on in the world that remains (WASTELAND).
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This year I’m using AI tools from goog and openai plus photopea to make my covers.  The tech feels close but still has some maddening irritations to it.  Didn’t have time to make the art for the basis of this one, or fuss over this at all.  Not intolerable for just a few revisions, but yes, terribly generic.  Also yes, I used Elric in the prompt.

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