The Second Challenge: 3rd Place
Continual Cadence
Continual Cadence is a fraymotif used by a Knight of Life and a Bard of Mind in battle. It spawns a lute with a chant carved on the handle. The lute is played by the Bard on the outskirts of the battle, preferably on a sniper post or other such platform with a good view of what’s going on. As the Bard plays the lute to release the power of the fraymotif, the Knight will sing the chant so the power channels to them. This also forms a mental link between the two players, which allows them to discuss battle plans, and the Bard informs the Knight about what’s going on in the battle so they can react faster than most. We chose Continual Cadence as the title of our fraymotif because a cadence is a call and response song, similar to the playing of the lute and the chanting of the Knight. Continual is a synonym for survival, which connects to both our aspects. In Life, it symbolizes the will to survive in any way possible, and in Mind it shows how logic can twist the rules as far as they’ll go to ensure a favorable outcome. The lute and chant both stem from the middle ages, where you can find Knights (Greatly controlled by the church, and the church’s songs mainly consist of unaccompanied chanting) and Bards (Who play a lute to entertain the king and keep their heads.) The lute is also a nod to one of Andrew Hussie’s previous comics, Bardquest. The main way this fraymotif operates is based on how the two Godtiers involved mesh. The aspects of Life and Mind influence how powerful the fraymotif is, and how it uses that power. Life is an aspect very much based on raw power, where as Mind prides itself on logic and strategy. As such, it is very fitting that the Life player receives the power and the Mind player helps them with how best to use it. The player’s classes factor in to determine how difficult the fraymotif is to master. The Knight is very in their element, fighting and protecting. However, they must strip away their masks and trust the Bard to tell them the truth, and give them the best options, and if the session has progressed like many that contain Bards, the Bard has likely proved themselves untrustworthy many times over. The Bard must fight the urge to give the Knight the wrong instructions, or to simply throw down the lute and go blow something up; which is like swimming upstream to the oft destructive and chaotic Bard. In short, this fraymotif operates both musically and strategically on teamwork and character building, much like Sburb itself. It forces it’s operators to grow as people and players in order to function at full capacity.
