psychic upload: Arcana 101

[leftbehindagain]

This list is intended as a quick overview of the Arcana, their associated archetypes, and some other useful information about them as individuals. It is NOT meant to endorse any one of the lot; take the information here and your own encounters, and draw your own conclusions. The library off the Workshop has more in-depth information.

Fool
Alias: Don Orlea
Archetypes: new beginnings, innocence, recklessness, curiosity
Personality: Extremely obtuse.
Goal if Winner: Return Travelers to where they started.
Traveler-friendly?: Difficult to say, since he rarely gives a straight answer to anything.

Magician
Alias: ROSE
Archetypes: action, creativity, personal power
Personality: Very sly (she snuck into Liminal Space and hijacked us all to a different jaunt than her fellows intended, and it still took us a month to figure out who she was).
Goal if Winner: Unknown; she may be more focused on the Travelers’ progress than her own at present.
Traveler-friendly?: ???????????

Priestess
Alias: Lots. Shekinah is the only one I’m sure of.
Archetypes: intuition, introspection, mystery
Personality: Speaks in riddles, seems to encourage finding answers within yourself.
Goal if Winner: Unknown - she may not know yet herself, given her archetype.
Traveler-friendly?: Maybe. She did remove the King in Yellow’s sigil from Liminal Space, which could have been for the Arcana’s benefit, ours, or both. Seems friendly according to her marked group.

Empress
Alias: Mei
Archetypes: feminine power, motherhood, material comfort, sensuality
Personality: Archetypal Mom. How well this goes over depends on who talks to her.
Goal if Winner: Return Travelers to their home worlds or allow them to stay in Liminal Space, at their individual preference; revive Star ahead of all the other dead Arcana. Apparently collaborated with Emperor to do the same thing if either of them wins.
Traveler-friendly?: Yes, if prone to thinking of everyone as her children.

Emperor
Alias: Hakan Caesar (several Travelers call him ‘Emperor Emperor’ because of this highly uncreative choice)
Archetypes: masculine power, authority, order, stability
Personality: Archetypal Dad, very order-oriented. Not as yielding as Empress.
Goal if Winner: Return Travelers to their home worlds or allow them to stay in Liminal Space, at their individual preference; revive Star ahead of all the other dead Arcana. Apparently collaborated with Empress to do the same thing if either of them wins.
Traveler-friendly?: Maybe. Empress would be the one of the pair to try to convince of things, though, and she might be able to get Emperor to listen.

Hierophant
Alias:
Archetypes: tradition, status quo, group identity
Personality: unknown
Cause of Death: Intra-Arcana squabbling, apparently related to Hermit trying to leave active play and Lovers and Devil imprisoning him on the Grid.
Traveler-friendly?: unknown

Lovers
Alias: PSYCHE
Archetypes: choice, romance, connection, bonding
Personality: Gregarious but not necessarily truthful. She works with Devil a lot.
Goal if Winner:
Traveler-friendly?: No (don’t let the sweet façade fool you).

Chariot
Alias: Cairbre
Archetypes: willpower, victory, movement
Personality: Terse but relatively forthcoming. Not fond of staying still.
Goal if Winner: Continue Traveling, allow Travelers to come along if they’d like/greater control over destinations etc./a chance to treat their own worlds as a jaunt to fix problems.
Traveler-friendly?: Yes.

Strength
Alias: Durga
Archetypes: self-control, compassion, perseverance
Personality: Seems to have left an overall good impression on those she’s marked.
Goal if Winner:
Traveler-friendly?: Possibly.

Hermit
Alias: SAGE
Archetypes: guidance, isolation, reflection, retreat
Personality: Very quiet. Prone to the kind of philosophical statements that don’t make a lot of sense.
Goal if Winner:
Traveler-friendly?: Uncertain. His attempt to leave active play may have endangered or irrevocably altered some Travelers (it was before Moebius so no one can be sure), and he talks even less now that he’s a wolf.

Fortune
Alias: Fortuna
Archetypes: luck, destiny, surprises
Personality: unknown
Cause of Death: Traveler action (probably), tied to jaunt visits to January city and Yensid that happened before Moebius.
Cause of Resurrection: Time-travel jaunt to Mars.
Goal if Winner: Unknown. Probably includes reviving dead Arcana.
Traveler-friendly?: Likely, given that she took the time to ask whether Travelers see Liminal Space as a prison.
Fortune won the previous round of play, and established the rules for this one. The mechanism that brings new Travelers into Liminal Space was located in her deadspace (which presumably doesn't exist anymore now that she's not dead).

Justice
Alias: Astraea
Archetypes: impartiality, objectivity, clear vision, intellectual balance
Personality: Fairly straightforward, extremely rational.
Goal if Winner: Revive dead Arcana, return Travelers to ‘where they choose to go’ (not necessarily to their world of origin), strike a blow against eldritch entities.
Traveler-friendly?: Uncertain, but she at least seems to be willing to work with Travelers.

Hanged Man
Alias: Pendu
Archetypes: self-sacrifice, stagnation, passivity
Personality: Archetypal Shrugging.
Goal if Winner: …On thinking about it, I’d be surprised to learn he has one.
Traveler-friendly?: Uncertain; it’s possible he can’t be bothered to be notably friendly or unfriendly.

Death
Alias: Mortimer
Archetypes: major/deep change, loss, conclusion
Personality: As straightforward as he can be, given the restrictions in place based on the rules the Arcana are following. Deeply regrets his hand in Moebius.
Goal if Winner: Stop the game.
Traveler-friendly?: Yes.

Temperance
Alias: Sinregado
Archetypes: emotional balance, moderation, harmony
Personality: unknown
Cause of Death: Eldritch entities. Temperance’s death was the one that kicked off this round of the Arcana’s game.
Traveler-friendly?: unknown

Devil
Alias: MALBOLGE
Archetypes: self-bondage, material pleasure, temptation, doubt
Personality: Edgelord and total asshole.
Goal if Winner: Unknown. Possibly leaning on temptation of their marked group to get the job done.
Traveler-friendly?: ABSOLUTELY NOT.

Tower
Alias: Gatekeeper?
Archetypes: sudden/explosive change, disaster, chaos
Personality: In favor of apocalypses and, apparently, dropping ceilings on people.
Goal if Winner: Unknown. I wouldn’t be surprised if he also wants to stop the game, just in a more destructive manner than Death.
Traveler-friendly?: Unknown, doesn’t seem likely.

Star
Alias: Hoshiko
Archetypes: hope, faith, trust, tranquility
Personality: unknown
Cause of Death: Traveler action, sometime around Moebius (exact jaunt unknown)
Traveler-friendly?: unknown, but it seems likely she was

Moon
Alias: LUNE
Archetypes: illusion, confusion, anxiety
Personality: Seems to be fundamentally incapable of telling a truth.
Goal if Winner: Give everyone ‘what they want. ’ Any possible disclaimers attached to this went unmentioned, but presumably there are several.
Traveler-friendly?: Uncertain.

Sun
Alias: SOL
Archetypes: honesty, optimism, hard work, enthusiasm
Personality: Genial and straightforward; will decline to answer a question rather than lie about it.
Goal if Winner:
Traveler-friendly?: Maybe.

Judgement
Alias: Penuel
Archetypes: rebirth, absolution… well, judgement
Personality: ‘Pissy bitch,’ apparently particularly when the game’s rules are broken.
Goal if Winner: Continue play after punishing ‘Antisticides and Exploiters’ (former group is Lovers, Hermit and Devil); allow their marked Travelers to determine other non-Arcana’s fate.
Traveler-friendly?: Probably not.

World
This seems to be the prize the Arcana are competing for, not one of the Arcana themselves.

It seems safe to presume reviving some or all of the dead Arcana is a relatively common goal, whether a particular Arcana has stated it or not; Devil and/or Tower are the most likely to truly oppose the idea.