The Wishworld Series Bible has been updated again!

Now with some tidbits about Jana's personality, updates on the state of Arkansas and Memphis, Tennesee.

BOLDED ITALICS are new updates.
BOLD are updates from the last version (in case you didn't see them).

WISHWORLD

I want this story/novel/whatever you call it to be pretty freeflowing and Your Own Work, so this Bible will probably be kinda brief, giving you the main characters, settings, premises (premisii?) and a few loose guidelines.

THE PREMISE

The Basic Premise here is that young 8 year old Jana Anderson is given any wish in the world she wants by a waitress at a popular restaurant. Thing is, the wish comes true - she wishes that everone in the restaurant gets their wish. Hers causes her to grow up, she's now 18. Everyone else, though, (all forty two of them) have ALSO gotten their wishes. Some people may have asked for the Chicken Fried Steak instead of Liver, and others were whisked away to far off incredibly twisted lands by their wishes. With the aid of a talking skull in a box (no, seriously) and a motorbike that runs on magic, she travels the world, attempting to get people to give up their wishes to make the world right again.

THE MAIN CHARACTERS

JANA ANDERSON

Jana Anderson starts our story as a bored 8 year old suburbanite kid at a restaurant with her parents (Tim Anderson and Julia Anderson). She likes dolls, and playing house, and, like most girls her age, really hopes to grow up to be a pretty singing ballerina princess astronaut. She's an innocent with a kind heart, and this is what causes all our problems.

As her parents both run out to powder their noses, her waitress comes by and asks what she'd like. Anything that she wants. And Jana decides she wants everyone in the restaurant to get their wish, which happens.

Jana gets her wish, she's a 18 year old woman now. She's a tiny spitfire - a slim well toned five foot three in in her boots, ragged blonde hair down to the waistline (usually with random braids), blue eyes, and sharp features.

She has the book-smarts of an 18 year old. She has the (easily annoyed) maturity of an 18 year old. She has NONE of the experience. Her body is new to her, the world of grown-ups is new to her, and she's going to need to learn that when adults tell her one thing, they'll often mean they're going to do some another thing. It'll be a tough journey for Jana, and she'll grow smarter about it as the series progresses, losing some of her childish naivete and immaturity and maybe even gaining some ruthlessness to get her quest finished. She has an innate warrior's instinct for danger, but, deep down, she wants to be that 8 Year Old's Perfect Singing Princess Ballerina Astronaut.

The world (really her local area of San Antonio) she finds herself in is very dungeons and dragons fantasy, and as such, she's dressed as an 18 year old female warrior savage in leathered animal skins and tribal beads. She'll wear other clothes in other non-D&D looking portions of the world, but may need to be reminded occasionally that animal skins are not what one wears when having Tea With the Queen.

SYLVIA WALKER (aka The Skull, The Box and The Skull Box)

Sylvia starts out story as the waitress who asks Jana what she'd like. After the switch, she becomes a powerful potions and magic witch, but "dies" in an altercation with our main baddie, Vengeance.

However, Sylvia's wish wasn't to become a witch. It was to cheat death through magic, and cheat it she did. Her skull (the actual skull, not a severed head or decomposing lump of flesh), once placed in a small ornately hand carved wooden chest survives, and gives advice.

To outsiders, it looks as if the box is actually talking to Jana, and Jana makes a point of not opening it to talk to Sylvia, although she will to allow the skull to "see" the world they're in a bit more clearly, occasionally yell at it when it tells her something she doesn't like, or to scare the hell out of the people around her. She can work magic, and

her magic leaves a visual impression of transparent gold when worked.

Sylvia doesn't spew forth riddles or puzzles, but only speaks when spoken to. If Sylvia has the answer for something, she won't say it unless Jana asks. Mainly because Sylvia is kinda angry at Jana, and while she doesn't want to sandbag Jana, she's kinda stubborn. She'll also make Jana think for herself if Jana leans too much on her for advice, or if she knows Jana should be able to work out the solution herself.

Sylvia has a lot she can say sometimes - she can see a few hours into the future, can see from inside her box for about a quarter mile around her (a half mile if she's outside the box). Sylvia can "feel" the gems or wishwielders from farther away than she can see, but only vague directions, and usually cannot tell the actual person unless out of

the box and within line of sight.

Should we need to see Sylvia, either in flashbacks, or "reconstituted" she usually wears a purplish long robe, tied at the waist with a gold cord-belt, and a large floppy witches hat on top of a mass of red hair done in an up-do. Clear blue eyes and fair freckled skin.

Sylvia is a Southern Belle-ish mother and deeply cares for Jana since she can't find her own children and sees in Jana the 8 year old who granted everyone their wishes (and doubt's that her own kids would like to see her in this condition). She's rather relaxed and laid back, but prone to fits of silent depression and skulking, especially as she realizes that without Jana, there is nothing anyone can do for her, or she can do for herself. Outside of her magic abilities, she is helpless.

Jana will eventually take Sylvia's wish, once she feels she's mature enough to handle her quest on her own, and Sylvia, honestly, can't wait. I mean, she's a skull. It's not like she can waterski any time soon.

RECURRING CHARACTERS

As of right now, there's only ONE recurring character. Don't let that stop you from bringing in other characters that could recur, although if you're going to use someone else’s character, it's probably good manners to ask the creator of that character first.

WILLIAM THROCKMORTON (aka Vengeance)

As of this writing the one recurring character is Vengeance. Before the switch, William Throckmorton is a thirteen year old nobody. He's not a bad kid, just kinda ostracized, still trying to find his niche in the world, and that niche isn't all that popular. He's fantasizing about his perfect world when the switch happens.

William becomes Vengeance after the switch. He is the owner/king/emperor/grand poobah of the city state of San Antonio, where the restaurant was. He's not a bad emperor, in fact, it's rather a benevolent dictatorship, but he plays up the part of Bad Ass because, in this world, he can. He's doing rather good for himself, what with his eight supermodel type concubines, his D&D style city state that is running well, his being a pretty good magic user and his making sure everyone under him is happy. Unless, of course, he isn't.

So guess who Jana first asks to give all this up?

Vengeance may be a benevolent dictator, but he knows he's got a good thing going - he's not giving it up for nothing. He attempts to kill Jana (ends up killing Sylvia, instead), and chases her out of outside of his city state. And pursues her until she manages to escape his sphere of influence...

...until Vengeance realizes that she may be able to end this wishworld even WITHOUT all 42 wishes (my "I can't get 42 chapters!" trapdoor). Then he gets pissed - and starts coming after her. Deep down, he knows his life is so much better here than back in the pre-wish world, and he's terrified of being in that restaurant alone again.

Vengeance's world is black. He lives in a seven spire castle made of obsidian, with a moat surrounded by molten steel (kept hot by magic). He looks about 40, chisled and detemined. He wears a black set of body armor, which clases with his steel grey hair, ponytailed to his waist andfiery orange eyes.

His guards and acolytes all wear black. Acolytes, his personal servants, and "gophers" all wear black hooded cloaks. His military officers also wear only black full body armor with tall oval helmets, and are armed with lances and horses.

THE WORLD

The world has been seriously altered because of the wishes. Our story starts out in San Antonio, Texas, which has been converted to a D&D style city state run by vengeance. The whole world isn't like this, though - pockets of technologically advanced areas exist, pockets of hunter gatherer communities, pockets of whatever the wisher has asked for in that area, or that the wish has transformed to "support" a wish. This allows you to allow your story to function if you don't want to stick with any one type of location. All we ask is that there be some basic continuity. If Los Angeles is a fascist state run by Swedish Dictators in one chapter, another chapter can't have it as a gigantic free love hippie commune. There'll be a list of cities and what they are under the "Continuity" section of the bible.

THE PLOTS

What kind of stories are we looking for here? Pretty much anything goes. There's no set theme or tone to the series. You wanna write a broad comedy, please do. You want to go all Shakespearean, go right ahead (just don't kill our main characters, if you don't mind?). Wanna go for a Pullitzer? Good luck. The nice thing about the premise of the series, is you can DO that.

THE GROUND RULES

Here are some basic ground rules for the stories. More will be added as we need them, but I'm hoping we won't.

WISHES

There are several ground rules regarding wishes. In order to give up a wish, the character giving it up must TRULY...in their HEARTS...give up that wish. They can't just say "Okay, don't want that Playstation anymore." They have to truly give it up. When they do, a bright flash appears coming from their chest, and a round spherical gem (it can be any kind of gem, I prefer Jade myself) appears from the corono of the flash, usually floating out a few inches from the chest before dropping to the ground. The person feels the gem popping out as painful, but not debilitating, like a sudden jolt.

If the person dies, the wish can do two things. First, the wish is transferred to the person most directly affected by the wish. If a father wishes his son was a football star, and dies, the son becomes the wish bearer, and Jana must convince the son to not be a football star. Secondly, if the person dies and he was the only person (directly) affected by his wish or if he had no one to pass it on to, on death, the gem will usually end up found in the person's hand. In this case Jana must simply collect the gem (or, for fun, chase down someone whose stolen the gem, or dig up some graves looking for it).

Jana can also FAIL to get a gem. Someone doesn't want to give it up or is incapable of giving it up, or even can't FIND a gem. That will be dealt with in the last chapter.

Wishes once given up, cannot be reclaimed, but at the same time, the wish doesn't really END right at the point. The wish will continue until Jana does the ritual to revert all the changes. So someone may decide to give up their wish because they know they'll have it until Jana succeeds, or may give it up only to decide later to kill Jana so she can't revert the world, and they can keep their wish, even after recanting it.

MEMORIES

Most of the regular folks in our world have no memories of the Old World, before the switch. They feel they have always been in this world, and act ccordingly. A few, however, dream of the Old World as it used to be. They see it as just recurring dreams, but a few realize that others dream of the same people and places. A few others realize that the dream world corresponds to this one. An even smaller group claims that THIS is the dream world, and the Old World is the real one. Some will even say they remember their lives in the Old World.

But the only ones who truly know what life was before the switch are the forty two wishwielders. The know this world is not the original world. They remember who and what they were back then, too. At the same time, they have full memories of their lives HERE as well, as if they were born here. The wishwielders, however, know that those are false memories. The real ones are the ones from before the switch.

LONG TERM CHARACTER CHANGES

I'm all for character development. I don't think you can make a

good story without it. That said, you probably don't want to make too

many drastic changes to Jana - she has to survive 42 chapters. Please do

not lop her arms off (unless it's either REALLY REALLY REALLY

important, or you can find a way to put them back on again...we prefer

the latter)

THE MOST IMPORTANT RULE OF ALL

Have fun with this. Don't feel constrained by something here. If

it gets in your way, let's talk, see what we can work out. We can bend

the rules as far as they can without breaking if need be.

AND THANKS FOR PARTICIPATING!

CONTINUITY LIST

The following continuity list will try to keep a list of changes

done to the world and characters as they come in. It'll also list

long term changes or items that may affect later stories. These are FIRST

COME FIRST SERVED, but if you're story contradicts it, we can be flexible.

POST WISH LOCATIONS:

Arkansas – a vast dangerous wasteland populated by ogres. Little Rock obliterated and in ruins. Northern Arkansas is populated by dwarves who severely restrict non-dwarves from secretive areas.

Memphis, Tennessee – an isolated forest of xenophobic elves. The Mississippi River is rumored to have monsters in it.

San Antonio, Texas - Dungeons and Dragons-ish Medeival Sword and

Sorcery World. Run by Vengeance.

VEHICLES:

KAWASAKI 2007 NINJA - Jana's red motorbike. Runs on magic that

Sylvia provides, however, Jana will need to learn to "fuel" it up herself,

eventually.