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 Post Posted: Fri Nov 12, 2021 6:20 am 
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Now that we're here at 211111, we have it. It's the full picture minus a few details about how exactly Riff's dad got it, but we know after that panel its next owner will indeed be Wilcott. So finally, after all these years of being a gigantic, long-running mystery nobody was actually trying to solve, we can at last present a full and entire accounting for who had their hands on the Book of E-Ville throughout all of human history, both now, in the past, in the future, in the past again, and now again. Or something.

The Refs are probably incomplete, and the accounting may be too. I'll try to add more over time, and feel free to point out missing bits in the replies. No doubt more will be revealed in later updates too, so this may not in fact be truly definitive yet. But it's close enough for government work and hand grenades, so it's close enough for me.


___--~~~************************************~~~--___


The Definitive Book of E-Ville Chain of Custody

Prologue:
- The future gods of humanity, with Khronus at the lead, ensnare Kozoaku in the fate web, which lets them trap him in the Never, and sets him up to be susceptible to later imprisonment
- Symachus hates this whole idea and wants to end the humanity spark. I forget why, it's in there somewhere...
- With Symachus's manipulation, Kozoaku is summoned by King Farahn because he's an idiot/jealous
- Future KZK, currently in the future (which is to say present, but our recent-past), uses Gwynn's decision to put on the cursed necklace as the means to travel to the distant past and swap bodies with Queen Siphaniana. Don't read that sentence out loud unless you want a headache
- Future KZK then preps a goodie box to help maximize his chances of a successful release in the present day of 2014-15? It was back when Obama was still president, so I remember nothing
- Kozoaku uses his contacts in the Never to acquire a god-killing sword disconnected from the Fate Web (Chaz), and then orchestrates the downfall of Mohkadun, while his future self ensures Kron and Kron's mother are killed, and that Kozoaku finds himself to blame for all of it in the presence of the gods. Why would he do this to himself? Because KZK is the King Bitch. Also, timeline preservation reasons. I don't know, I wasn't listening.


THE CHAIN

  • Ref At the end of the era of Mohkadun, Dunuloa and Khronus rename Kozoaku to KZK the Voweless One, put him in King Farahn, and trap Farahn inside a magic Scroll
  • Ref Dunuloa approaches Maloufo and convinces/bullies him into taking ownership of the Scroll, stating humanity's fate now must be exclusively in their own hands. Fate stuff, I guess. Or maybe she was just mad about the whole dead mom and brother thing.
  • During the exile of Mohkadun's people, Symachus's son is struck blind by the curse that affected him, driving his mother to take ownership of the Scroll and attempt to release KZK with her husband's support. She is killed by Maloufo and ownership returned to him
  • Again during the exile, Siphaniana takes ownership of the Scroll in an attempt to release her husband Farahn. And again, Maloufo kills her before she's able, and regains ownership. This may have happened several more times, but we're stopping there for brevity's sake. Needless to say, Maloufo killed a LOT of people. Enough for Dunuloa to notice.
  • Ref After Dunuloa directs them to the Nile, Maloufo has Asahn take ownership of the Scroll and sends them both "North" to bury it where it will never be found. Much later, Symachus's son Macha follows them. (spoilers: this plan failed I guess? Otherwise we wouldn't have a story...)
  • Ref The Scroll comes into the possession of the cult of the Sun Twin in Athens and then later Delphi, where KZK is nearly released a couple times. The Oracle of Delphi gives an appointed time to send the scroll to a worshipper of the Moon Twin in Etruria, like a hundred or so years later.
  • Ref In 500BC, the Sun Twin messenger Servra delivers the Scroll into the possession of inventor and magician Quintus Liberliganus (who is disconcertingly the owner of a pet demon named Ozzid - sworn to protect his family's descendents for all time), a Potential of great import, along with the goodie box future KZK designed to be opened by future Wilcott. er...regular Wilcott.
  • Ref In Rome several years later, Servra then delivers Rana's images, which will eventually become the Book of Güd. Quintus with the help of his daughter Alligia brainstorm a new name for KZK's scroll, settling on the Latin "Ex Villis": Worthless. The Book of E. Vil. Vill? Vili? The Book of E-Ville is born. Well, basically. Look he's bad at Latin okay?
  • Quintus requests Allie kill him on his deathbed, to lock the Book's spells - meant to conceal its true nature - in place. Allie Bookbinder, now takes ownership of the Book and basically undoes all that crap. Why have a magic book if you can't use it to kill demon cultists amirite? She casts a spell of domination over Farahn to prevent him as the only threat in the book from doing anything but what she says, and pretty much goes ham on every End-of-the-world cult out there, and basically has a blast her whole life. She does at least separate most of the demons she binds into a "Book of Uhglee". That book presumably remains in Rome, taking a separate path to Wilcot. Though all roads lead to him eventually.
  • After Allie and her son (un)suspiciously die of the plague, her granddaughter Siphy comes into possession of the Book. She unfortunately falls in love with Farahn, and is manipulated to try adding and subtracting pages he and the bug (mostly the bug let's be real) want in. This takes her to northern Europe where she finally gets fed up and attempts to cast the Dominate spell. Farahn uses his newfound power to bookify her, leaving all the material stranded in some forest somewhere. Ozzid is freed of his edict to protect Quintus's descendents, as his line supposedly ends here. SUPPOSEDLY. (it does tho)
  • Ref A thousand-ish years later, with "Yffi" stalking the wodee woods with his familiars, a young Edda comes into ownership of the Book, as well as the Book of Güd and the Book of Bhad (oh what's that? I haven't mentioned that one yet? Yeah. I KNOW). She becomes Yffi's scribe, goes to Greece, then to Trent (where Yffi spots Chaz and whisks them away), then to the Carpathians, then back to Greece, wherein Edda is finally seduced by the power Farahn offers and - after Yffi removes his magical protection from her - gets bookified.
  • Yffi then has his familiars hide the Book of Güd in his cave, and the Book of E-Ville in Trent's ironically titled Library.
  • The events of the Stormbreaker saga occur, wherein KZK from the future - our past, and further past than the KZK who went to Mohkadun - does battle with the already warring Trents and Mercians. It's just KZK in the past though, the future Book of E-Ville remains in the future (which is to say, 1999)
  • Ref King Sigghard Lionson of the Trents takes ownership of the Book, believing himself to be the Stormbreaker. He dies pretty much immediately
  • Past-Future KZK (while currently trapped KZK suffers from a spacetime migrain) orders Ozzid to bury the Book somewhere nobody will find it for a long time. It takes him a few tries, but eventually he flies it out to the ancient ruins of the Liberliganus family home, buried deep underground, where he goes into a sorta depressed demon hibernation
  • -- at some point here, we get the "definitely just a throwaway quip and totally not relevant to any future stories" joke about the Books of Güd, Bhad, and Uhglee --
  • Hundreds of years later in the very malleable year of 1972 1983 (my birth year!), Wilcott finds and takes ownership of the Book of E-Ville, as well as KZK's box o' goodies.
  • Ref Wilcott's unscrupulous secretary Kira then acquires the book and speedruns the entire KZK-dreams - to - blood magic process, killing Tombsy to remove another page.
  • Kira then wildly oversteps her bounds and gets bookified. Record time, ma'am. Well done.
  • The Box opens with a drop of Wilcott's blood, giving him the ability to find and assemble "Ordained" that all of KZK's bits are hiding in (also unknowingly bringing together all of the present day's Potentials, like himself and Riff). He proceeds to set up a plan to have his friends and family presumably be the gods of the next Spark, with him and Tombsy setting up warring Demon Cult factions to facilitate this plan: one led by Chilus/Tombsy, and one led by Wilcott/Skippy
  • Ref Riff ends up taking ownership of the Book a short time later as part of Wilcott's plan. He uses it to SPAM SATAN. er I mean, to recklessly summon a random demon. Why is this the first thing Riff does when he gets his hands on a magic book? I don't know. (actually we do know! it's because the Bug convinces Farahn to make the book appear to be mainly benign and useless spells so someone proactive with an inventive streak like Riff would be tricked into using it)
  • Riff then unknowingly helps Wilcott locate the lost city of Mohkadun, but meanwhile...
  • Gwynn takes ownership of the Book in order to get back at Riff for cheating on her with Zoe (yeah, that's a thing that happened)
  • And then uh...a couple things happened, to put it mildly! Holy hell it's been in Gwynn's possession for basically the entirety of the comic. It's gonna take a while to validate whether anyone else uses it briefly after this. In the meantime, let's appreciate what happened next: she gets possessed by KZK, then:
  • Ref Riff accidentally sends him back in time. Torg and Zoe follow shortly after to participate in the Stormbreaker Saga...
  • ...Then there was "The Bug The Witch and The Robot" dreamscape chapter, old Dr. Schlock also only exists because he comes from a future where KZK wins. Yeah, that's a thing, and iirc present-day Schlock died so it's even weirder, but all that's fine cuz old Schlock dies after taking over HeretiCorp, a corporation apparently deeply linked Fate-wise with the demon cult to the point where it would've been VERY BAD (tm) if they had crossed paths (they didn't tho), and let's not even get into how this all connects to The Deus Ex Ovum and the Holiday Wars, Oceans Unmoving, Aylee and the many alternate reality end-of-the-world futures. Then the ancient Queen Siphaniana possesses her body, and there's all the globe-trotting intrigue of the "present day" events of the Mohkadun chapter, which then brings us to --
  • Wilcott regains ownership of the Book at KZK's altar at the ancient site of Mohkadun in order to attempt to complete the Release ritual - this is what I assume happens. He's holding a scroll when KZK is released but the Book is clearly at the site with them and nobody else would be trusted with handling it - certainly the demons can't.
  • Ref Zoe hits KZK with one of Dunuloa's eggs, binding him back into Farahn who - it should be noted - still trapped in the Book. Gwynn then uses the opportunity to rename KZK "Poopypants" and reasserts her magical connection to Farahn, thus trapping her in a toxic relationship with a book. But at least not trapped IN a book. Uh, not yet.

Also, something-something-all of reality is doomed. Okay goodnight!


Last edited by Yodimus_Prime on Sun May 15, 2022 11:05 am, edited 7 times in total.
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 Post Posted: Fri Nov 12, 2021 1:40 pm 
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Should clarify here that it was Riff who sent KZK back in time after he possessed Gwynn (intending to simply freeze him).

https://archives.sluggy.com/book.php?ch ... 1999-03-02

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 Post Posted: Wed Nov 17, 2021 12:49 am 
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Thanks! I'll insert that in.
I have no idea when I'll next have time to expand this, but hopefully I can fill out the whole thing at some point so it actually is "definitive" :P

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 Post Posted: Wed Nov 17, 2021 9:01 am 
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This is great, perhaps it should be in the Niftypedia. I've been meaning to try and do something on it but don't know where to start.

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 Post Posted: Mon Nov 22, 2021 8:28 am 
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Yodimus_Prime wrote:
to recklessly summon a random demon. Why is this the first thing Riff does when he gets his hands on a magic book?

To keep himself from becoming a mass murderer, he says. Apparently he had to choose between releasing his inner demons and releasing an actual demon – and summoning a demon who then kills lots of people is of course much better than killing people oneself.

Yodimus_Prime wrote:
Then the ancient Queen Siphaniana possesses her body

Right before this, Lacey tries to "borrow" the book, but it teleports back to Gwynn – but then the book seems to avoid Siphaniana in Gwynn's body, staying with Lacey and Chilus instead, until they deliver it to Wilcott. (Why doesn't Farahn take the chance to be reunited with the real Siphaniana?)

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 Post Posted: Mon Nov 22, 2021 3:49 pm 
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Rombobjörn wrote:
To keep himself from becoming a mass murderer, he says. Apparently he had to choose between releasing his inner demons and releasing an actual demon – and summoning a demon who then kills lots of people is of course much better than killing people oneself.

Y'know, until I reread that linked strip, I'd forgotten Riff has a half-brother. I'm sure the kid has grown up to be well-adjusted and normal, though.

*beat*

Ah, who am I kidding?

Edit: Step-brother, not half-brother... kid's still gotta be messed up by now, anyway.


Last edited by Thom Solo on Wed Nov 24, 2021 1:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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 Post Posted: Tue Nov 23, 2021 4:05 am 
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Also, the strip a few panels later reminded me that Wilcott apparently remarried. I bet that's gonna come up soon.

Rombobjörn wrote:
Yodimus_Prime wrote:
Then the ancient Queen Siphaniana possesses her body

Right before this, Lacey tries to "borrow" the book, but it teleports back to Gwynn – but then the book seems to avoid Siphaniana in Gwynn's body, staying with Lacey and Chilus instead, until they deliver it to Wilcott. (Why doesn't Farahn take the chance to be reunited with the real Siphaniana?)


Oh interesting observation. My wild guess is that he was unable to perceive who was possessing Gwynn's body, so just assumed stranger danger. KZK on the other hand, almost certainly would've been able to use Siphy's dreams to figure out her identity and do some hijinks. However, he tagged along with Gwynn's soul to do some hijinks in the past instead, so Farahn didn't have any help

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 Post Posted: Fri Dec 31, 2021 1:06 am 
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Hey! There we go, today's update visualizes the final link in the chain of custody! I'll link that up in the OP.

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 Post Posted: Tue Feb 15, 2022 11:52 pm 
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Rombobjörn wrote:
(Why doesn't Farahn take the chance to be reunited with the real Siphaniana?)


The answer to that is finally revealed in https://archives.sluggy.com/book.php?chapter=73#2022-02-09. Farahn has figured out that his *real* Siphaniana is Gwynn, and that the real Siphaniana he considers an "impostor" and is not the one he had the Hate At First Sight relationship with.

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 Post Posted: Wed Feb 16, 2022 10:54 pm 
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This is amazing! Thank you for your hard work!

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 Post Posted: Fri Jun 03, 2022 11:02 am 
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I rediscovered a detail that seems to have been missed. Valerie claimed that the Book of E-Ville had been in her family for generations until Trent raiders stole it. That's hard to reconcile with Yffi sending the book to the library book-pit in Trent only 25 years before the Battle of Trent. It could of course have been taken from the pit to Valerie's family and then back to the pit, but 25 years isn't generations. Maybe Valerie lied about how long the book had been in her family's possession?

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 Post Posted: Fri Jun 03, 2022 6:53 pm 
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Hmm yeah that seems hard to reconcile. It's not entirely out of the realm of possibility that the Trents had books stolen and then returned at some point, but the timing is weird and it mostly feels like a continuity mistake. I suppose one solution is that the comic from Y's perspective could be retconned to send the Book to Mercia instead of Trent and then the "generations" comment just be handwaved away as bad memory. Not entirely satisfying though, but ultimately I think it's fine to let it slide since the Mercia-Trent conflict was pretty complicated.

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 Post Posted: Mon Jun 06, 2022 7:14 pm 
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Or it could simply be that Valerie was an unreliable narrator who lied and told Torg the Book had been in her family for generations as an additional manipulation, but in fact her family never owned it at all.

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 Post Posted: Tue Jun 07, 2022 2:22 am 
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Has it ever been established where Valerie come from?

If she is from Carpathian Basin, it could be Mr. Y himself lied to Valerie or her family, telling them the book he is working on belong to them.

https://archives.sluggy.com/book.php?ch ... 2021-10-13

Side-note: we have often speculated Mr. Y might be at the origin of Vampires with his blood magic, but this doesn't completely mesh well with Lysinda being only 25 years away from corrupting Valerie.

25 years seem a bit short from Dracu coming into existence and different factions of Vampires already existing.

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