Queen of Cups

AKA: The Endless Queen, The Unchained Madame, The Mentor of Ten Paths, Herself

Kingdom: Calat 

Followers' Epithets: Wanderers, Monks, Masks, Hippies (Derogatory)

Discovery is an important factor of life. Many will tell you that you are better off not knowing, or that it’s better to live in blissful ignorance. To live as another piece of the Machine. That is not the case. The machine is simply the groups of people who go through life, each piece is what each of us are. But what makes us run? What makes us tick? What causes us to react the way we do and why? What is that bit of energy through all of us and how do we express it in the machine of life? Not what society says we should believe, but what we believe as individuals. Good and Evil, Fear and Desire, Love and Hate.

If there’s anything we lost, it was how to know where “I” begins compared to the labels from everyone else and to face even that which makes us afraid of ourselves.

We need to learn how to know ourselves again. But we can’t start until we take the first step.

The Queen of Cups believes that many people have lost the ability of someone to know their own identity apart from the masses of other people. Her followers believe that such a way is still possible, and seek to learn everything they can about themselves and to help others on the path.

Tales of Calat

From her seat of the Capital of her Kingdom, the City of Alhambra, the Queen of Cups rules the Kingdom of Calat. Wide expanses of coasts live on Calat’s shores, where sky, sea and land become one. The Queen sits upon a throne of Opal and Quartz, with a watchful eye she oversees her Kingdom as it continues its growth. She is known for having a stake in almost everything involved with her city. In each life has she walked a different path, done things a different way. It’s not uncommon for her to try a new way and even sometimes renovate her kingdom should the people follow suit, but nonetheless she speaks with understanding to almost every topic that is brought up to her.

It’s quite simple to approach her. The Queen always adjusts her wavelength to meet the Princess’s own, holding few standards and accepting of how even the most unruly of Nobles are. The best way to name a conversation with her is as if she serves as a mentor to all Princesses. She will advise and give her thoughts on the matter, but ultimately, she leaves the Princess to The Queen is known for moving about her kingdom, never worried of her own safety nor that of her Kingdom’s. Some may say that she is too careless, but she is perhaps the most in tune with her kingdom's needs and to the voices of her people. Perhaps this clues into the subject of her being the Mentor of Ten Paths. The Queen from her first few incarnations has attracted ten Nobles whose duties to the Queen and her Invocation have gained her heart, and she has accepted them as both her personal guard and as her advisors. All are, of course more than qualified to be her companions in her quest.

Philosophy

The Queen of Cups has only ever asked one question to her Princesses: “Who are you?”

Maintain an Open Mind

The path to self-­enlightenment isn’t a single path nor is it devoted to the “one” way. To a courtier of Cups, any path can be the path that leads to that kind of enlightenment and a Cup is free to take lessons from or even mix and match philosophies from each way she takes from. To be able to keep her mind from closing off possibilities is vital to Cups as a whole.

A Crown is Just an Accessory

Throughout a life, a person will acquire labels or titles, something that is thought of as an identifier for someone. Alcoholic, Slut, Goody Two Shoes, even the Queen of Cups claims her own title falls under this. The Queen believes that, though you may qualify for many things in your life, they are simply an extension of you and not who “you” are. They will one day the princess will change and the label will no longer accurately describe her. At best, they serve as stepping stones to enlightenment that the Queen of Cups believes will give the means for finding out whom the princess is as a whole person.

Mark the Road

The Princess’s path on the Belief of Cups ends with this philosophy. The path doesn’t simply end with discovering Enlightenment. Rather, it continues in that she’s discovered how to discover that Enlightenment. Such teachings should never go to waste or be kept hidden in the darkness. It should be shared so that the world may shine ever brighter in the Light.

Duties

A Cup’s Duty is to find themselves or help others on the way of their own path. To taste new things and try new experiences, to face the darkness within and without and to feel strange sensations if only to see how she’ll react to them. Every step with a Cup can be a revealing experience.

Champions of Cups face just as much of the darkness within as they do the darkness without. They are often drifters, heading from city to city, giving words of wisdom to those willing to hear. Sometimes a person or two goes with them, perhaps to start a quest of their own with the princess holding their hand on the first few steps.

Graces of Cups often work their way as leaders to twelve step programs and self­help groups. Not only working to help others be themselves, they also discourage those who seek to corrupt said things for their own benefits. Another movement that has caught their attention, and that many Wanderers are found leading, are pro­LGBT rights movements.

With Graces leading said self­help groups, it is the Menders who often work as the counselors to same groups working away at both the addiction itself, but they also work away at how such groups tend to force the label on people even if they have successfully been cleaned out. Another tendency for Menders of Cups is working as counselors in schools or juvenile centers, where children and teens are forming their own identities and place in the world.

Seekers with the Philosophy of Cups tend to work not only on their own enlightenment, but to show others the same route. But given Cup’s penchant for being able to understand the states of other supernaturals, Seekers can also serve as middle ground and perhaps as informants to other Nobles of the lives of other Supernaturals. Of course, some do exist who seek to corrupt them as infiltrators, but Seekers are just as good at escaping as they are at fitting in.

Art by Troubadours of Cups usually have only one meaning: to let people come up with their own meaning. Finding what you think of something can reveal oodles of things about your identity. The job of the Troubadours of Cups is just to create intricacies and abstract thoughts for each person to discover for themselves what the art means to them.

Background

Those who join the Court of Cups tend to be those who want to find or create some meaning in their life. Other times, they are rebels against some form of oppressive societies and want to defy it all in favor of their own selves and prove that they are able to live on without it. There are factions of Princesses who have joined the Court of Cups because the prospect seemed to sound admirable. However, the thought of having to face their fears, and even darker parts of themselves that they repress, keep some away, as does the tendency for its members to be the most foremost to admit their possession (whether they actually dabble is another story) of the Twilight Invocations.

The Court of Cups is also known for gaining the most Nobles or Sworn who were previously Twilight. Tears who can no longer take defending Alhambra’s bleak future, Storms whose apocalyptic rage has finally settled and viewed the destruction behind, or Mirrors who’ve managed to gain a sense of responsibility or have broken hard and are sensible enough to leave. Of this, the Court of Cups is often a transitory court that they don’t stay in for long before changing to another court.

Character Creation

The Queen and Court of Cups can be said to not have any favored Attributes or Skills. Each path one walks to find their best path requires them to walk alone. As such, Princesses of Cups gauge what they should do by what they think is best. Attributes and Skills vary. Presence and Resolve tend to be practiced, as they assert their identity and strive to keep searching for themselves. Occult and Empathy traits are practiced the most when it comes to Skills. Occult for Fulmine charms on the supernatural world and Empathy to understand the path another takes.

Merits also tend to vary with each Cup. The most common amongst the Cups is picking up Emotional Intuition through their sojourns and understanding of another.

Heraldry

The Court of Cups Regalia is amazingly devoid of a theme that other Courts regalia follows. The Queen of Cups has decreed that her Princesses have the right to decide for themselves what their regalia appears like. As such, it always appears like the Princess’s own idealized self. However, as time goes on and they feel like the more they’ve found out about themselves, the more their regalia tends to change itself based on the Princess’s new sense of self.

Practical Magic

It is the nature of the Masks to take different routes to find themselves at the end of the day, to gain a taste of roads she may yet travel. The Court of Cups can use their practical magic to negate untrained skill penalties from one type of Skill (Physical, Social or Mental) chosen upon using the Practical Magic in a scene. As such, this practical magic can only be used once per scene. Normally each Wisp negates one Skill type’s worth of Untrained Penalties for a scene.

High Belief increases this effect: At Belief 8, the first Wisp negates two untrained skill type penalties. At Belief 9, all three skill types can be targeted with this Practical magic. And at Belief 10, the Princess is instead considered to have at least one dot within any skills that she has no dots within.

Invocation: Fulmine

The Unchained Madame brings the senses and emotions into the Invocation of Fulmine, and the Wanderers who follow the Court of Cups find themselves learning it better than any other. It is linked with the virtue of self­discovery, the attempts to connect with new and unfelt experiences and the connections formed through emotions and Electricity, the element where positive and negative, two opposites come together to form one. It is also bound with the means to facilitate self-­change, in which it is known for being able to change into other types of Supernaturals.

Fulmine applies for no cost when the target of a Princess’s charm is electricity or is a type of technology that uses electricity. It also applies at no cost if the Princess is attempting to discover something about herself or to help someone else do the same, when she is attempting to understand another’s emotions or if her target is a Supernatural who has given her their consent to be the target. It also applies for free if she’s trying to protect her own nature from external domination.

Fulmine does not stand for any attempt to crush another individual or crush another’s individuality. If a Princess should attempt to force someone to do something against their will or to continue do something that they do not want to do anymore, the Princess may not apply Fulmine for the rest of the Scene.

Stereotypes

Clubs: They do take steps to learn about themselves, and yet they let their want for Harmony in all things to blind them to their self­-development.
Diamonds: You cannot create the meaning of life from a theorem of how to live it. Many unseen factors await in the shadows.
Hearts: It’s admirable that you take the position as leader, but all leaders’ times eventually pass on to other ones. Will your policies stick? And what will you do when you’re not on the throne anymore?
Spades: Do you go wherever you please or are you directed by where the wind blows?
Swords: A flame that burns without regard for permanence will either burn everything in sight or burn out. Either way, be careful.
Wands: You could understand so much more if you didn’t simply whack a problem from one side until it’s fixed.
Pentacles: As you gaze across the void into other times, do those same other times gaze a bit back into you?
Tears: The problem isn’t how sick Alhambra is, it’s that nobody steps up to acknowledge how sick it is.
Storms: What will you do when everything is gone?
Mirrors: You claim to become an ideal of a paragon that will save everyone. However in doing so, you too become hollowed out, becoming the mirror that everyone blames for their failed futures.

Vampires: You can blame the society and the people above it, but the people aren’t entirely blameless either. That doesn’t mean they aren’t worth saving.
Werewolves: Like dogs in the corner, they are afraid and will lash out at anything that threatens them. Unless you know of the same circumstances, never approach without protection.
Mages: They’ve been known for hubris, but when someone gains total dominion over reality, how else are they expected to act?
Prometheans: They themselves have many paths with the same goal: to become human. What happens when they do? The journey continues.
Changelings: Perhaps some of what you have lost can be offset by what you have gained and that you’re not as feeble as you were. One example of this? You’ve escaped that hell with nothing but your own power.
Sin-­Eaters: In making death a complete joke to themselves, they’ve also in a way made their life one as well.
Mummies: The first step to freedom is a leap and the hardest one to take for these kinds.
Demons: They know what it’s like to walk a different path. Except they use it to hide and steal other people’s chances to walk on their own.
Beasts: Don’t ask us on them. They are evil, and our charms cannot touch them except by the fear they afflict on others.
Mad Scientists: They may have great powers, but they’ve now forever lost the ability to conduct any real science. A strange, but real torment.
Leviathans: I would like to say it’s the society, but the people are messed up in a way too.
Hunters: Half should realize what they hunt have some form of humanity. The other half should realize that they’ve become the monsters.
Mortals: It’s okay, it’ll only hurt the first time. I mean it.

You can't control the world, but you don't need to.

Inspiration

Byakuren Hijiri, Riku

Next: The Queen of Wands