powersthatbe | Cursed Kingdom Final Reveal

Twenty years ago, the first Illuminated came into the kingdom, to focus and feed from its rich magical energies. The spike in ambient magic when he tapped into the kingdom’s “oil reserve” of sorcery caused the jump in draconic birth-rates.

The coming of a second Illuminated, fifteen years ago, caused the curses and blessings - they’re a byproduct of the different colors of magic interfering with one another, and can be cured by direct contact with an Illuminant’s power center.

The curses getting worse, and the dragons getting more prevalent, are a direct side-effect of more and more Illuminants coming in to feed off the local magic - call it sorcerous pollution, basically. Incidentally, that magic IS a finite resource, and in another twenty or thirty years it will be depleted, with eight of them drawing on it, making the whole kingdom dead to magic.

Eight years ago, a curse struck the Queen, changing her form and wiping her memory. She’s now the Bandit known as Hawkeye. Direct physical contact with any Illuminated power center will cure her, but contact with the Throne, which Violet stole to make his power center, would cure her AND give her some measure of magical power, as it is, innately, the power of Royalty, making her half-Illuminated and Violet only half-Illuminated himself.

The dragons have migrated because they have sensed the energy behind the portals to Liminal Space. The Trumps’ first point of contact was the tournament grounds, and that’s where their power in the kingdom is focused. Eating some of that power is what s making them grow.

The Illuminated, using their power centers, could also tap into that power. If too much of it is drained (say, half the Illuminated, especially if there are still dragons nearby), Infiltrators will start getting their memories back, and the illusion that they belong in this world will fade.

The idea is, after the dragon-fight, to have the Queen revealed and face off against the Illuminated, trying to banish them most likely. That’s why the Travelers were brought here - to break the power of the Illuminated and scatter them, because as inhuman body-jumping magicians with power over archetypes, they are FAR TOO SIMILAR to weak, proto-Trumps of some kind, and the Trumps don’t want the competition. Of course, once the Illuminated realize this, they may begin trying to turn the Travelers against their faceless masters… but if the power of the Trumps is broken, the Travelers will be stranded, and the Illuminated will continue draining the power from Dolorosa.

Those are the stakes everyone is playing for.