[Original Work] The Wheel of Fate

[Tinkerer]

This is less of a story than it is an idea that I want to be able to pitch in some way (since it feels more in line with a movie script or something).

It'd be titled "Wheel of Fate"

In this world, there are three deities that are the source of all magic in the world.
All people are born under 1 of the 3 deities.
The deities are known simply as: the deity of Life, the deity of Death, and the deity of Fate (or just Life, Death, and Fate)
The names are based on the oldest religious system in that world: a system where every person is born with their life attached to a spiritual "Wheel" that continually turns in a single direction.
According to that system, the wheel dips into a pit of fire, so that everyone is born from ash and when it is time for them to die, their spirits dip into the fire and burn out.

Since everyone is born under one of the three deities, everyone has an aptitude for magic in the vein of their deity.
People born under Life are best at curative and creative magics.
People born under Death are best at elemental and destructive magics.
People born under Fate have passive but unique magics (ie. Can make themselves unseen, alter luck, influence people's minds, etc.).

 

Main Character is unique in that he was born under both Death and Fate.

​This is an oddity and yielded a man with no innate magic of his own, but an odd ability to "pull back" the Wheel of Fate.

​Whenever he would be close to death, he could rewind the Wheel in order to pull himself from the brink of death.

​This power has little in the way of impact for the outside world (i.e., he cannot go back in time), but if he were, say, stabbed, his body would knit itself back together if he were to pull back the Wheel.  His ability is even potent enough to allow him to put his spirit back in his own body if he were killed immediately.

He can even pull himself back to restore his youth.

​Thereby, he is essentially unkillable.  However, he never saw this power as good.  Always thought of it as a curse rather than a blessing.

Was headhunted by the government to be a special ops unit tasked to do what essentially amounts to mission impossible-type suicide things.

 

...all that is setup.  If this were to be a novel or something, I would have to expand on this because the story itself isn't super long.

 

 

Story begins a few years after his retirement (he's 200+ years old at this point).

​Story takes place in a modern setting (smartphones, huge information jumps, modern weaponry, etc.), though people still rely on magic to do things that tech hasn't been able to accomplish.

​MC has a wife and a young son.

​MC suffers from slight PTSD.  He has the will to keep himself alive, but working as a professional "silencer" for the government has taken its toll.

Show how he was a real asset in the past, able to do things no one else could do in battle, even being able to pull back others from the brink of death using his ability.

​Show how he began to question and soon get disgusted by the government's bureaucratic regime and quit, unable to loyally stand behind a system he felt no love for.  ​Kept in contact with some of his close associates though.

Show how he met his wife and lived for her happiness, finally being able to begin getting over all the nightmares he'd gained over multiple lifetimes.

 

Unbeknownst to the MC though, his service was not all good.  His power was having ripples that far exceeded what he had realized.

All the MC (and the reader) knows at this point is that the MC's power can pull back the Wheel, preventing him from dipping into the fires of death.

However, in doing so, he moves the Wheel back, unintentionally killing people who had no reason to die.

In fact, the more the MC pulls back the Wheel, the more out of joint it becomes​, making it so that more and more people, of different walks of life, randomly spontaneously combust, turning into a pile of ash.

*Somehow point out that the old religious system that spoke on the Wheel of Fate advocated cremation (i.e. Dipping oneself into the fires of death), so the parallel becomes plain.

 

The last time the MC pulled back the Wheel, the only child of an old​ associate (associate's name will henceforth be called Ransom for ease) died and turned to ash.

Ransom, in his grief, pulled strings to find out what happened to his little girl.

Discovered that the government had already known that his old friend MC was the cause of the random people dying and had actually dispatched people to kill him many times over, but could not kill him because he would respawn.

Ransom, in anger at the government's probable involvement in his daughter's death, but fully in grief, decides to take matters into his own hands, both for the sake of revenge, and also with the more noble objective to stop the MC from killing off thousands more people (or even plunging the world into the Fires of Death) by simply keeping himself alive.

 

MC comes back home from therapy one day and finds his wife dead on the floor.

In his own grief, he immediately plunged into the other world, seeing his wife just dipped into the Fires.  He tries to reach out and pull her back, but fails, only succeeding in searing his hands (in real life).

​Hands blackened and burning, he grieves his wife.  Later finds that his son was kidnapped.

 

blah, blah, blah... things happen.

 

Climax has MC confronting Ransom in front of his son and Ransom explaining to MC the true nature of his power.  Ransom wants him to give up his life willingly, but is willing to threaten MC's son with death if MC doesn't comply.

 

*Unsure how I want this to play out.  Leaning towards MC beginning to try to restore himself, but seeing that in pulling the Wheel back, he begins killing his son.  I need some plausible means for Ransom to know​ that if the MC tries to restore himself, his son would die.*

 

 

Want to ensure that whatever medium I want for this (again, movie seems best for this kind of story), it has a theme of the cyclical nature of things:  MC's actions and reactions not changing.  The government always being behind the scenes, breeding hate.  Violence begetting violence.  Ashes to ashes.

The MC, however, being the guy he is in the story and the way his power operates, is supposed to let himself die at the end, both breaking his own cycle (putting self-preservation ahead of everything else), yet also fulfilling the greater cycle (by dying, he restores the natural order of things).

 

Besides this story though, the world around it is one that I expect to be able to use in other ways for other stories.  It's a world where magic is disillusioned and there really isn't any sense of wonder​ left in the world.  Despite the continual technological progresses, a majority of people have the sense that people have reached the pinnacle.  There's nothing left ​worth ​discovering, everything can either be explained or attributed to magic.  Apathy and nihilism is the predominant feeling by a majority of the populace and crime skyrockets because of people's desires to simply feel​ something.

 

[Chaotic Angel]

Once the story is in fruition, I guess it could work. The question really is are you cut out to create such a masterpiece?

 

It has so much potential, so the last thing you wanna do is funk up.

 

This could be interesting one way or another. I'm looking forward to seeing where this is headed.

[Tinkerer]

Once the story is in fruition, I guess it could work. The question really is are you cut out to create such a masterpiece?

 

It has so much potential, so the last thing you wanna do is f*** up.

 

This could be interesting one way or another. I'm looking forward to seeing where this is headed.

 

Not meant to be my masterpiece (I have another story outlined for that), but one that came into my head pretty much fully formed.  I did want to get the details down before I forget them though.

[Catterjune]

I liked the setup and... some of the story. Reminds me a lot of Rin: Daughters of Mnemosyne and (if they cut out on all the sex and violence) I'd probably consider it one of my favorite animes.

Ehh... not sure how I feel about the rest of the story. Sounds... less interesting. Brevity, wit! etc etc I mean, it's good to have ideas but like... until you have a story I don't really wanna read all your plans.