Hitherby Dragons

"In the old days, they didn't know very much about the world. But they made maps anyway. If they had to map something they couldn't, they just drew whatever they felt like and wrote, "Here there be dragons."... We still don't know very much about the world; and there are things to map of it besides its surface. Can broken things be remade? Can destinies change? Is it worth the risk of hope? Important questions, but one can only shrug, you see: Here, there be dragons."

Hitherby Dragons is a series of online short stories written by Jenna K. Moran (formerly known as Rebecca S. Borgstrom), who also created the Tabletop RPG Nobilis.

A girl called Jane, her brother (sort of) Martin, and a cast of others tell stories in the Gibbelins' Tower to make sense of their own existence, to amuse, and to understand the nature of the world around them.

Hitherby has a set of story Canon, set in a strange variant of our world, telling of the current characters, as well as variants on the stories of Tantalus, Buddha, Belshazzar, Confucius, Lot and Persephone. The mythologies it creates concern the powers of suffering, the imprisonment of personal uncertainty, and the relationship between oppressor and servant.

However, many of the stories are individual legends, and can generally be read without any further context. A large number of the legends are warped combinations of pop culture with philosophical, political or religious motifs. Some are reflections of the mythology of the world, and some are whatever complete nonsense blasted out of the author's mind that morning before coffee. Stories where Jesus pilots a Humongous Mecha, the wars of gods are fought with Sailor Moon attacks or the Buddha can be summoned from a Pokeball are by no means atypical.

From a troper's point of view, there are several legends that work by playing the tropes either completely out of context, much straighter than even the original or even tropes that function as rules of the universe.

Hitherby Dragons had a long hiatus. but started again in 2011. A list of all the stories that make up the first three chapters can be found here.

The story starts here

Hitherby Dragons provides examples of:
"Cho takes the viper step. It’s the kung fu step a viper would take, if a viper knew kung fu"
 * Aesoptinium: Part of the main Canon concerns how causing emptiness is a way to create gods.
 * Dark Fic: A lot of pleasant stories are rewritten to be very dark, often even sinister.
 * Dissimile: Seen here:

"and had legs"


 * Epiphanic Prison: The nature of being an "isn't", and Ii Ma's prison.
 * Framing Device: Technically, all non- canon stories are produced by the characters of the Gibbelin's tower.
 * Loads and Loads of Characters: There is a consistent cast who act out legends and are involved in histories, but it can get hard to keep track.
 * A recent post on the site suggests, but by no means promises, that there may eventually be more stories that connect to the canon.
 * As of early 2011, a couple of new histories have been added.

Various Hitherby stories have dealt with:

 * A Boy And His Siggort: The Sid and Max storyline, beginning here and continued in scattered posts.
 * Anachronic Order: The story, while roughly in chronological order, can skip around from modern day to the Biblical era to Ancient China and so on.
 * As the Good Book Says...: There are quite a few scenes based on Biblical scenes and a few characters have Biblical names. One even quotes the verse with his own name on it.
 * Hell Seeker: Ink Catherly is a preteen adventurer determined to reach hell "because I'm an explorer". In this case, hell is located in an infinitely-tall tower inside her closet.
 * Horsemen of the Apocalypse: In a high school!
 * Logic Bomb: In Ink And Illogic and also Forbidden A in The Angels
 * Martial Arts and Crafts: Ninja weather forecasters! Pickle Ninjas! Ninja Buddha with enlightenment shurikens!
 * Our Angels Are Different: They answer emptiness with hope and wear jackets with holes for their wings.
 * Our Gods Are Greater: 'God' is a general term used for (almost) any supernatural being in the canon.
 * Planet Eris: In a world where Buddha pirates roam the seas, the supernatural is common knowledge and any 'god' can be summed up in one sentence...
 * Scooby-Dooby Doors & Scooby-Doo Hoax in Daphne and her dog
 * Superpower Lottery: Supernatural abilities vary vastly - Magical Angel has a chance of being able to do anything while Realistic Angel is pragmatic. And footsoldiers question pie.
 * Sugar Apocalypse: Hoo, boy. Many, many, many kid's shows and concepts are subjected to unearthly horrors in legend.
 * Torture Always Works: in An Oracle For NP, this is taken to ridiculous extremes.
 * Vision Quest: The Bridge
 * Wax On, Wax Off: "You will need laborious training,” Kon says, “to master this. Hours of work in all manner of abnormal training positions, and difficult exercises of great mystic import which I will have to make up on the spot."