#tmhtidbits

Dr. Al’styr E. Jekyll is one of the main characters of The Mind at Heart, and a protagonist. He’s gangly tall and almost alarmingly too-thin, freckled and dark-skinned, baring the tusks, the long, fluffy ears and the slight mane along the spine of an Erh’mai Fir. His eyes are a cold lavender purple, his nose is crooked from being obviously broken and not properly reset in the past. He always has dark circles under his eyes. He’s all sharp edges and straight-cut lines, in more ways then one. Despite being in his late 20s, his back is always hunched and he feels just a year off from ancient.

That’s generally what he is- but who is he? If you were to ask him now, when TMH is set- he’d say nobody.

In the not so distant past however, he was a combat medic. And before that, the disdained black sheep of his 2nd family. I say second, but it wasn’t really. It simply was his first, changed. His mother, Maigrine Jekyll is a daughter of a noble family in a neighbouring nation while his father, Cor’ven Erh’laen was a direct descendant of one of the last Erh’mai Fir nomadic tribes. Cor’ven disappeared when Al’styr was four, and within the year his mother remarried a rich and powerful foreign businessman by the name of Adam Sivirius. Sivirian Maestonian Pegasi are said to be the best bred for any task- and they are. Adam’s country had previously defeated and taken control of Maeston, and much prejudice, bitterness and hatred between them and the Erh’mai Fir remained.

According to Al’styr, the only good to come out of those dark years was Lo’dion Sivirius, his younger half-brother. Al’styr spent his time protecting Lo’dion from his father’s anger and teaching his sibling the then-outlawed art of magic. However, Lo’dion still regarded Al’styr with a weird combination of love and disdain- inherited from his father’s own opinions’ influences. This caused quite a lot of tension, and it eventually boiled over just as Al’styr had finally saved up the means for both of them to leave for Elion to study abroad- Lo’dion refusing to go with. Al’styr left alone and only came back when summoned by his mother, now a doctor and general surgeon.

His mother, who’d grown distant and cold, implored him to follow Lo’dion into the army, to watch over him and keep him safe. So he did, because he still loved his brother deeply- even though Lo’dion had been placed in the cavalry and Al’styr tagged to the highest-risk patrol.

Here Al’styr witness death and destruction like never before- and he began to search for any means he could find to try and help ease the cost of life on the battlefield. And he found one... a Simulacrum- a thing made of magic and matter, following the will of the creator without hesitation.

Except it went horribly wrong. Horribly, utterly wrong. Now he is in exile and hiding, attempting to put his life back together in a new if not completely unfamiliar place- all the while his past is nipping at his heels, bound to catch him one day....

Tonight’s tidbit will be short and sweet- the list of J&H characters who exist within The Mind at Heart. This is by no means the final, concrete list, but it gives everyone an idea of who’s who.

Mains

Henry Jekyll - Dr. Al’styr E. Jekyll

Edward Hyde - Dar’nel Hyde

Gabriel Utterson - Esmus St.Utterson

Robert Hastie Lanyon - Hel’st Lanyon

Richard Enfield - Eoin Enfield

Mr. Poole - Madame Earnest Poole

Sir Danvers Carew - Col. Danvers Carew

Others

Who are solely part of TMH

Corn the Drail

(More to come lol)

Fun fact: Madame Poole is basically Enfield’s grandmother and Esmus’ best friend, making Esmus Enfield’s adopted great-wine-aunt. Upon meeting Al’styr and discovering that Esmus’ new hire is “supporting his younger bro all on his own”, Madame Poole also decides to adopt them “both” as her grandsons. Her actual son, who would probs be closer to the J&H version of Poole, may or may not exist. We’ll see.

Today’s tidbit is (hopefully) gonna be short- I’m tired and its late and Uni hit the ground running after the holidays- so. I want to introduce what makes The Mind at Heart a Frankenstein story as much as a Jekyll and Hyde story: the concept of the Simulacra.

What are the Simulacra? Well, to explain that I must first give a few general pointers on how Chorell’s magic system works. Essentially, it’s based upon the fact that all things contain magic within a body of matter. Living things actively interact with the magic on two distinct plains- the ‘internal’ (having to do with the magic within them) and the ‘external’ (having to do with the magic within other things outside of themselves). Living things that can’t be described as sapient only ever interact on the internal level (ex: plants growing) whilst animals and intelligent creatures have the ability to use their magic to influence the magic of other things. No-one in the world has yet to discover exactly how or why- but since I created the world I do know and will share: intelligent creatures have Souls. Souls are what enable people to use their magic to say- control the elements, or levitate things (and make the things do the dishes for them), or even form runes if they are skilled enough. One seemingly can not perform external magic without a Soul.

(Also souls enable Soulmate bonds but thats an entirely other post- let me know if that’s what I should write about next)

So what does this have to do with the Simulacra? I shall now tell you- in concept, the Simulacra is supposed to be the embodiment of ones magic and will outside of ones own body. It can be built from anything- with complicated clockwork joints or simply carved from wood- so long as it has the parts necessary for whatever task one wants it to accomplish. Once brought to a pseudo-life, it should start the task it was built to do and follow the will of its creator without hesitation- as essentially, it is just another part of the creator and their magic should flow through in naturally. Never, ever, should the Simulacra be inbued with its creator’s soul.

It should be specified that this is All In Theory. No-ones actually ever accomplished it. Natural Simulacra actually exist as well- and boi is that a thing my world’s scientists are trying to puzzle out (only two specimens have ever been observed, one was brought into captivity and did not last long).

But the essential to know is that Dr. Al’styr Jekyll stumbled upon the Simulacra theory and almost a year later succeeded in the creation of Chorell’s first runework simulacra, simultaneously mangling himself horribly in the process and setting off an absolutely terrible chain of consequences doing so.

So for today’s tidbit, the second thereof, I want to talk a lil about The Blackmail House Inn and Guild- and maybe also it’s infamous owner, Esmus St. Utterson.

The Blackmail House used to be one of the best, most reputable Guildhalls in the Kingdom of Ilcotzan. It was, and in a physical sense- still is the biggest Guildhall of the Ilcotznian capital & port metropolis of Tolco. So what happened? Why does its once-crisp red facade crumble depressingly under a hunched blackened roof, eerily foreboding and ominous?

Well. No one’s quite sure, actually. Not even the current owner. But there are whispers of a contract gone wrong, guild members crossing their client, and consequences so dire they could only be resolved in blood. This all happened long ago though, and whatever truth to be had in the Inn’s halls is long gone.

The current owner, Esmus St. Utterson, has been there for about 5 or 6 years now and her goal is to reestablish Blackmail House as the Grand Guildhall it once was- but the progress is slow and the expenses pile up fast, so for the moment the Hall is doubling as an inn. She’s also struggling to maintain guild memberships to fulfill contracts- since they are so few and far between no one wants to waste their time there, and because no one’s there most clients submit request elsewhere.

So, St. Utterson set about trying to gain more customers- and her efforts mostly fell flat. She and her nephew Enfield eventually became the last two employees of the House, catering to a few patrons at night as a pub and inn but holding no contracts otherwise. All other warriors left, putting their names to more profitable ventures with other Guildhalls.

This didn’t deter Esmus though. Finally admitting she couldn’t keep the House afloat independently, she very recently applied to become part of Elion Academy’s network of Guilds. These Guilds are usually engaged to protect expeditions to and from their destinations, and if accepted Blackmail House would have a steady flow of new missions and contracts. However, she’s been notified she’s missing a few key individuals on her team- most notably an in-house doctor and a navigator. Now she has a couple of weeks to convince the right people to come work for her and her seemingly doomed Hall, and complete the test-mission from the Academy- or risk losing one of her most prized possessions.

I think I’m going to try to post a lil bit about the Mind at Heart every day or so- things about the plot or characters or creatures and worldbuilding. I don’t want to worry about spoilers or bother with keeping too too much a secret- because after all TMH is still in its drafting phase. Feel free to ask questions!