Making the Setting: The Villains of the Piece (Part Two)

Having the Nephilim as their fallen angel fathers around as the penultimate villains (because we know who the ultimate Enemy is), the face of evil first wears a more familiar form. For my purposes, that face is a character that's not going to be revealed yet due to the prominent position that character has in the narrative, but is nonetheless an otherwise normal member of the nobility who has secretly concealed practice of forbidden arts and allegiance to the Enemy in the pursuit of personal power and dreams of empire.

It is this character that plays the narrative role of mastermind, conspiring with lesser villains which are actually pawns used to advance the overall objectives of centralizing power and authority into a single entity- all with the aim of making another attempt (this time on the galactic scope and scale) of uniting--yoking--all nations to one master directly.

The mastermind's allies (pawns) think themselves masterminds in turn, and replicate the web of conspiracy and criminality required to surreptitiously advance their own agendas, resulting in lesser schemes collecting together to achieve greater ends. I will start writing stories about these lesser schemes, hinting as their greater importance as I go. The purpose is to introduce multiple heroes into the setting, giving each one the attention that they are due, and slowly building towards the bigger meta-narrative.

This is nothing new. E.E. Smith used it shamelessly for the Lensman books, and by making each of these adventures self-contained I need not impose the burden of continuity upon the reader; it's a bonus, not a requirement, because Transmedia Doesn't Work. You, the reader, ought to be able to pick up and put down my works as you like without getting confused or lost.

As for these lesser masterminds, each one will be a different expression of the archetype. As their presence isn't always one that I need to conceal for narrative purposes, I will name a few next week.