- We're sorry to be the bearers of bad news, but your entire world has been destroyed. Unmade. It's to the point where it's like it never existed... and because of that, your souls, and the souls of your loved ones, have all been shattered into pieces and erased.Fortunately, you're one of the lucky ones.Whether it's due to a strong soul or to pure dumb luck, you managed to avoid being completely destroyed. One small fragment is all that's left, and as a result, you can be saved. The method is rather simple: with the team that you find yourself on, you have to play games that are run by beings that seem fairly omnipotent... and if you win, you regain parts of your own soul. By rebuilding your soul, you'll also rebuild your world and save it from the threat that's destroying and erasing worlds.
A Journal Roleplay on Dreamwidth that began in 2013, Kyriakos
focuses on memory loss and the subsequent regaining of "shards" or pieces of one's soul in the form of memories and skills. Sorted into one of 13 teams, games are run and shards awarded to the winners.
Kyriakos provides examples of:
- Big Bad: Nyssa is the current antagonist.
- Brought Down to Normal: Any powers the characters may have (including mundane abilities like braiding hair) are taken away and must be regained as shards.
- Butt-Monkey: The Rotten and Knut are often the butt of jokes, and derision from the narration.
- Cats Are Magic: The Echo Duchess Fluffyface is a fuzzy white cat.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: The "slow kill" cards during trauma games are exactly as their name implies.
- The Cutie: Takshaka and Dawon are composed primarily of sweet characters or characters from slice-of-life series.
- Cute Witch: Little Witch as per her name. The Bone Witch is an older example.
- Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: If a character dies and is lucky enough to roll an instantaneous resurrect on Nyssa's clock or the Echo in question offers them. More often cruelly subverted, as revivals otherwise take quests and hard work. Nyssa's clock usually works as
wounds healing in reverse. - The Dreaded: Nyssa and The Yaksinis are the most well-known trauma Echoes, as the mere act of being summoned to their realms for games can throw veteran characters into a blind panic.
- Eastern Zodiac: The twelve regular teams are based upon the twelve animals of the Eastern zodiac, with the Cats as the archetypal cat of the legend who missed out on becoming a part of the lineup.
- Family of Choice: Frequently, as the team members live and fight together.
- In-Series Nickname: As characters rarely remember their names, they're given themed nicknames by their teammates upon first arrival.
- Journey to the Center of the Mind: Heartgames.
- Magic Mirror: The Mirrors each character gets are a representation of their soul. If every shard is removed, they vanish into thin air until someone puts them back in.
- Memory Tropes: A whole slew of them, naturally. Including:
- Amnesiac Dissonance: Possible, if the character is only "evil" by virtue of their memories. Such a realization can occur through gaining shards.
- Identity Amnesia: Everyone.
- Never-Forgotten Skill: All characters have a starter shard of any skill or memory of the player's choosing.
- Quest for Identity: Characters strive to regain all memories as shards and complete their mirrors.
- Our Vampires Are Different: Knut is a stereotypical vampire with fangs and bat wings who likes to sleep in the rafters of Barghest's cottage, but lacks other typical vampire traits like Weakened by the Light. As it turns out, he's not a vampire at all, merely a shapeshifter mouse.
- Pals with Jesus: The Rotten acts more like an eighth member of the team than their protector and leader.
- Snake People: Kanra is a lamia.
- The Stoner: Eden, who is literally described as a stoner in-game.
- Theme Naming: Most of the teams have one for its members' amnesia names.
- Gullgalana is photoshop filters and effects.
- Dawon is flowers.
- Ometotchtli is units of measurement.
- Takshaka is colors and birds together.
- Vanara is mythological beasts and deities.
- Barghest is constellations and celestial bodies.
- Taken to the next level when Sirius Black joined the game, taking on the name Procyon. (Procyon is the name of a star in Canis Minoris, and means "before the dog".)
- Henwen is minerals.
- The Cats are, appropriately, species and breeds of cats.
- NPC: The Echoes.
- Token Evil Team: Vanara's members are almost always bloodthirsty, sinister, or downright villainous, leading to their comical designation of "Team Mistake." Barghest also used to be composed of mostly "yan" characters, but they've since calmed down.
- Tyrant Takes the Helm: Nyssa overthrew the Queen and Princess and subsequently all of Kyriakos.
- Yaoi Fangirl: The Rotten in spades.
- You Dirty Rat!: Subverted, as the aptly-named Ratatoskr are some of the more heroic characters. Knut's castle is also filled to the brim with his minion rats, but there isn't a mean bone in his body.
