Genre: Tragic Fantasy Opera
Theme: Longing, sacrifice, and the cost of godhood
Setting: A dreamlike metaphysical realm echoing the collapse of magic and divinity, spanning from the fall of ancient empires to the edge of apotheosis.
🎶 Purpose & Feel
Elysian Dreams is designed as an allegory—a myth rendered in music. It masks the true story of a mortal girl’s rise to godhood through tragedy, love, and sacrifice. It is said to be inspired by forgotten Netherese lore and veiled divine truths.
The score blends slow, elegiac cello and flute with grand, sweeping chorals. The melody drifts between soaring beauty and raw absence, mirroring a dream that is slowly slipping away.
🎭 Act I – The Fall and the Seed
Prologue:
A solitary man walks the stage—an actor portraying Karsus, once-mortal archmage. His baritone echoes as he recounts the arrogance of reaching for divinity, his voice rising as he conjures illusions of the fall of Mystryl, goddess of magic. Her death is swift, her rebirth—Mystra—a whisper of hope. The illusion fades.
Scene I:
Darkness. A small girl—barefoot, wrapped in ash-grey—stands amid a storm of blue fire and shattered stone. The Spellplague swirls around her. Her voice is quiet, singing of confusion and loss as souls fall like feathers from the rafters. This is the girl, unnamed to the audience. Her family is gone. Her city, gone.
Scene II:
As the world rebuilds, the girl grows. She becomes an apprentice to a scholar of death and dreams. In ethereal duets, she sings of silence, memory, and longing. A ghostly chorus follows her—a tether to the souls she can no longer forget.
Closing of Act I:
On the steps of an abandoned shrine, she reaches skyward, silhouetted in blue. “If gods can die, why not be born?” she asks.
An explosion of violins and white light closes the act.
🎭 Act II – The Garden of Threads
Scene I:
Years later, she walks among the garden of threads—lines of fate strung like gossamer above the stage. She is older now. Confident. And no longer alone. A masked figure meets her—her lover. They speak and dance in harmony. Their duet is the most beautiful in the opera. He calls her his guide, and she calls him her anchor.
Scene II:
Their love draws her toward life. She smiles, she hesitates in her studies. She dreams of a mortal future. But fate is cruel.
Her lover is taken—his death unexplained, his thread severed violently. In her anguish, she sings a wrathful aria, blaming the faceless god of death for the injustice. Her song pierces the veil of the stage—screaming into silence.
Scene III:
She steals a tome of names from Ioun’s domain—sneaking knowledge never meant for mortals. As a storm of choral fury builds, she begins the Ritual of Seeding—binding the threads of fate to her soul. Threads spiral around her as voices chant forgotten truths. Her own voice rises above them all:
“Through the dark, I’ve found my way, Rising now to brighter day. Dead remembered, not forgotten, Their voices here, never rotten.”
Finale:
All lights extinguish except the strands of fate—now glowing gold and violet. They wind around her like wings. Her cloak forms as if from shadow. A crown of dusk settles above her brow. She no longer sings. She simply speaks:
“The dead will not be forgotten.”
The threads snap into silence.
She rises.
Curtains fall.
🍷 Interlude at the Mezzanine
During this extended stillness, as stagehands quietly adjust props and musicians stretch hands offstage, the scent of warm wine and cinnamon bread drifts through the balcony.
Serela arrives—not from the front, but from the private staff corridor. She carries a second bottle of the same wine Silverhand had poured, along with a small tray of dried fruits, sugared almonds, and crumbly pale biscuits.
She approaches without ceremony, hands full, and lowers her eyes respectfully.
“My lady, I thought you might want a second bottle.”
Silverhand’s smile is fond, almost motherly.
“Come, Serela. Don’t hover. Sit with us.”
Serela hesitates but nods, carefully setting down the offerings before sitting at the edge of the table.
Tonight she is not the blade of the Open Lord—though no one who has seen her work could forget it. She wears a deep green gown, simple but immaculately tailored, with slits that allow for movement. At her hip, concealed beneath the folds, is the unmistakable shape of a sheathed blade, woven seamlessly into her belt.
She sits with poise, but speaks little. The fire the party saw in her the day before—the sharp-eyed woman ready to act without hesitation—is a shadow now. Here she is mousey, reserved, dutiful.
Only once, when the soprano reaches for the impossible note in the final chorus, does she speak without thinking:
“She always misses that interval in rehearsal. But she’ll hit it when it counts.”
Silverhand raises an eyebrow with a faint grin.
“Then let’s all pray tomorrow matters.”
They share a quiet moment. Below, the opera swells again—fate winding tighter around its heroine, dreams fading into the dawn of divinity.