Story

 

What is Land of a Thousand Curses about? What is the side story, Cursed about?

The main story that this side story is a part of:

- The story is about a world where the characters live in that has been aflicted with a dangerous curse that turns the people into savage, mindless beast. There is no known cure and the whole world lives in fear of this villain who presents himself as a masked figure dubbed The Masked Beast; hence, his beast mask and beastial attributes of claws and legs on an overall human appearing body. This mysterious villain with their curse they inflict upon the world has a secret agenda they are working to achieve. It is up to the main characters Tony,  Joslyn, Rupert, and Lori to stop the Masked Beast, find a cure, and save their home.

So now, what is so special about this sidestory:

- Cursed: A Land of a Thousand Curses sidestory, follows the story of an important side character named Aerin Rritlo who has been aflicted by a curse for the past five years, until now. She has been temporarily freed from the grasp of her curse by an old cure that the main characters found and used on her; however, that victory is cut short as the curse seems to be developing methods of countering the cure as the story continues on. Aerin is a fascinating and complex character, espeically as a member of the famous Curse Hunting family, The Rritlos. She has no magic of her own and because of that, she gets hidden away from the world by her father in an atempt to erase his shame of a magicless child. Considering her past with her family and her relationship with each member, I didn't want her to become just a background character, especially one with no real character or presonality. Aerin was the first character I created in the story; however, she wasn't going to play a huge role considering she wasn't going to be a main character on the quest to find a cure considering she was cursed from the start of the story. She is offscreen for the majority of the story, so there needed to be main characters to fill that spot if she wasn't going to do that herself.

So what is it about her that makes her special to include her story in a bigger, broader story? It's not only that I liked Aerin so much as a character that I wanted her to be included in the story, but I also needed a way to bring all the Rritlo siblings together, but in a natural way. In the story, there are houses of specialized magic and the Rritlos are the top house, using the most powerful type of magic which is Mind Magic. Now it is already told in the story that Aerin has no actual magic, but that doesn't mean she is completely powerless to the others. She's learned way of countering magic, especially mind magic so that helps in the story when the Scarlet Beast tries to gain control of her again but can't since Aerin knows how to fight mind controlling magic. She also knows other ways of keeping up her stance and how to fight against magic as she had to train herself to be able to stand up against her father and siblings, who physically or pschologically attacked her on their father's orders.

 What is most important about Aerin is that she serves as the bridge to bringing all her siblings together. During the story, the Rritlos all came back for a yearly meeting and during that time The Scarlet Beast breaks out of her prison, making all the Rritlo siblings have to fight her. They don't succeed since they  hate each other and can't move past that, so they all fight alone. Eventually Lori realises they can't succeed alone and have to work together, put their problems and hate aside for the moment if they want to save Aerin with the cure they found. They agree and together they do beat her. It is when Aerin is human that she serves as that bridge, because she lets them know how she feels about them. Aerin has been the source of her family's problem and the punching bag for her siblings (with the exception of Lori), so she really has a reason to hate them all, yet she finds it in her heart to forgive them. She choses to let love lead her life than hate and anger like the rest do because that is what their father wanted and she wants nothing to do with that part of her life. This allows them to start looking into themselves and search for forgiveness and try to repair their family because like Aerin, they've all had that horrible upbringing and terrible father that they hate and don't want to be a part of, so why should they continue acting the way he made them. Why let him win. That's what makes Aerin's story cruical to tell, because it allows other characters and herself to grow and develop.