Tale of Tales * 8

THE DEAF-MUTE GIRL IN A PRETTY WHITE DRESS

The main character of the game. The player can give her instructions on what to do but she also has a will of her own. She is a mysterious character. We don't know much about her. Only that she is in need of the player's help and care. She is about 8 years old. She is deaf and mute. She has been seperated from her guardian Sheherazade and wants to go back to her. But the palace is not without it's attractions for a young girl. So her mood is a combination of sadness and glee, in part influenced by the behaviour of the player.

THE PRINCESS

She was cursed by an angry fairy to die in her teenage years. But a good fairy converted this curse to 100 years of sleep. During this time, an impenetrable forest would protect the princess and her court. Eight princes have, however, succeeded in finding a way through the thorns. This caused a dispruption of the spell by which the princess and her court did not wake up after 100 years.

So now she has been lying there, untouched by time, sleeping through a spell of disrupted magic, for half a millenium. We're not sure if she will ultimately wake up but her appearance will change as the game progresses. Returning magical objects that were misplaced by the Princes will make her appear more and more like the attractive young woman she was before. She looks oddly similar to Sheherazade and the little Girl.
She has many names. But we tend to refer to her mostly as Talia.

THE PRINCES

There were 8 who tried and failed to wake the palace from sleep. Some were noble, others vain, but not one a suitable suitor. They could not end the spell. Or leave the palace for that matter: the forest had closed behind them as soon as they got through. Though they have died long ago, we find traces of these unworthy intruders here and there.

The Poet was the first to enter the palace illegally. After failing to wake her, he dedicates the rest of his life to writing poetry for the Princess. He ends up hanging himself in the Throne Room. Talia's brother also succeeded in coming into the palace. He wants to save his sister and sets up a trap to kill his mother whom he blames for what has gone wrong. He dies amidst the graves of his unborn brothers and sisters in the crypt of the Chapel. The Tailor makes a wedding dress for the princess woven from the hairs of sleeping palace residents. He dies when he trips in the Torture Room where his favourite hair combing client fell asleep. The Hunter ended up in the palace in pursuit of his falcon. The falcon is still alive when the game starts but the hunter has died of alcohol abuse. The Actor sets up a performance telling the life of the sleeping princess in which he plays the leading part. He gets addicted to smoking the flowers of the Wicked Branches and dies on stage during a rehearsal. The Traveler is an adventurer and rummages through the palace in search of rare items. He dies after he falls from some stairs into a pile of sheets. The Engineer wants to save the princess through the wonders of modern science. He sets up many machines and constructions in his attempts and did many experiments. One of those experiments goes wrong and he falls to his death sideways against the wall of the Clock Tower. The Priest is an exorcist who wants to cast out the evil demons that hold the palace in their grip. But in his madness, he starts idolizing the sleeping princess. He dies in the beginning of the game, at the foot of the Mausoleum, in front of the eyes of the Player and the deaf mute Girl.

THE WICKED FAIRY

If you thought the unworthy Princes were able to break through the magical forest on their own strengths, you are mistaken. If you think the disgruntled Fairy that cursed the princess to die is just going to sit there while the whole court sleeps peacefully instead, you couldn't be further from the truth.
Unable to penetrate the magical protection erected by her sisters herself, she finds easy victims in the vain Princes who are all too willing to go and rescue a damsel in distress and claim her for their own. Their living presence in the Palace is enough for the Wicked Fairy to enter the grounds in the shape of a parasitic plant: the Wicked Branches. The magical forest has now become the host for the destruction of the very thing it was meant to shield. The Branches keep growing and continue to destroy the palace as the game progresses.

THE KING AND THE QUEEN

The King had an affair with the nanny of his daughter and lead a life more or less seperated from his wife. After having the child, the Queen had developed strange behaviours that he ultimately could not bear anymore.
The Queen was the leader of a mysterious cult that brings infants as sacrfices to an Ogress who lives in one of the palace's towers. We meet her, asleep, trapped in a construction set up by one of the 8 princes (her son, Talia's brother).

There seem to be other creatures in the palace. They are not asleep. And they are certainly not dead. We never really see them but we know they are there.