Balketh

I Am Unnecessarily Convinced:

That I have the right plan for a successful Chronicles of Darkness prestige show, in like, all the critical ways: in lore, cohesion, adaptation, gripping story, etc.

An all-seasons-planned-from-start multi-season show that covers the entire breadth of the setting, from Mortal, all the way up to Mage, revolving around the big 3 (Vamp/WWolf/Mage) with, at least, appearances of all most of the other genres, as a cohesive and functional world and story. (Except maybe Mummy. That can... That can stay obor deyour, unless it's just a funny reference in one episode.) It's technically 4 major power tiers, but all the Mortal stuff is in the first tier with Vamp because all of their problems and stories intermingled.

So the Genre flow is thus. For Tier 1, we have:

• Mortals, including Mortal supernatural elements (Ghosts/etc)
• • Appearance within Mortals from Gheist, as it's so Mortal-specific/adjacent.
• Vampires, as the Mortals get all swept up from minor ghosts and Gheists, up into the dark and contradictory world of the Kindred and their politics.
• • Ever accompanying Vampires, of course, are Hunters, but less 'hunt everything supernatural', and more 'mostly hunting CoD Vampires, which are buck fucking wild already'.

In Tier 2, we advance, unrelenting, up the supernatural chain:

• Werewolves, of the Forsaken variety; unlike their oWoD/WoD counterparts, these actually have a reason and a role in the world, rather than just being a self-propogating mistake/monster: they're the guardians of balance of the specific 'Spirit' ecosystem of the world, but also end up trying to serve as neutral balancers between all the genres, as they're quite tough.
• Changeling appears, but as it's handled in Chronicles, as a 'limited' genre. Not one of the big hitters, but an ecosystem of its own. Mostly interacted with via the protags, Werewolves, and sometimes Vamps.
• Promethean rounds out the tier as a bridging point: the revelation of higher planes, powers, and struggles, that have roots in Mortals.

In Tier 3, we break that glass ceiling and step further out into the metaphysical worlds:

• Mage is the primary genre of Tier 3. More on them later.
• Beast, of the Primordial variety make an appearance here, but hard-tethered to Mage; not overwriting lore, but in that, otherwise, Beast has so little to connect it to the rest of the story, and Mage is the most direct, obvious, and interesting connection to Beast.
• Demons feature more prominently alongside/engaging with Mages as the Tier 3 arc progresses, as an extreme outlier tying Mages and the rest of the setting into the ultimate foe,
• The God Machine (+Exarchs): The Big Bad keeping order over all the Small Bads, but distinctly an Outsider - not of, or from, this time/place/world. Needed, because otherwise the Mages only have the Exarchs to contend with, which doesn't connect either of them to the other supernatural inhabitants of the Fallen World.

Mages, alongside much of Tier 3, are integrated from minute one of the show. Anything supernatural that the characters explain or resolve or understand comes with different flavours of characters recognizing that there's unexplained elements in these outcomes. The goal is that, going back and watching with the context of Mages or Beasts or Demons or TGM (or even showing that context later in the show), all the background events and unexplainables start to tie together - not all perfectly explained, but of similar source, or happenstance.

Very few if any filler episodes ever needed, because everything can be tied back into the main threads, but not critically so, not 'you have to know ALL the lore to get it' so - references, eureka moments, not headscratching confusion.

All this is no easy task - weaving Mage and its accompanying genres all throughout the show is a daunting task, and requires you to write the world top down - establish the Mage characters and world arc first, attach Beast as a Major Problem they're dealing with, fold in Demon to Mage until the two are evenly mixed, and lay it all out for a confrontation with the God Machine, and don't skimp on the ending either - get metatextual-conflict-y like how Rebuild of Evangelion goes. Don't be afraid to throw hands with Mage's understanding of its own world. Break timelines if you gotta. Tie the Exarchs into it, either as puppets of the God Machine, or more interestingly, matched/stalemated foes with TGM over its attempted presence in the Supernal, but it ultimately ends in a win for the protags, which can be even more painful than a loss - especially if nothing changes now that Heaven Is Empty.

With Mages established first as a (mostly) unified resistance operation/attempted society that does their best to protect the Fallen World from metaphysical threats (way cooler than Dr Strange ever did...), we can actually use this as a vehicle for the direction of the whole show, by initially posing unexplained show appearances of Mage operations as 'maybe they're the true villains', quickly twisting it into 'they're not controlling everything, they're reacting as best they can and failing sometimes, but they're definitely helping', to 'yeah no they're fighting the Highest Level Of Fight going on right now, and they're rag tag compared to their foes.' Etc. By integrating them as a later contextualised mystery element, there can be multiple layers of mystery all going at once, but also only ever needing the viewer to focus on the main top layer mystery/story at hand, with all the rest as both foundational requirements and great rewatch material.

I... Could go on, but I won't. This was the limit of my hyperfocus, and I felt it end just now. Absolutely wild shit.

All this certainty is unnecessary, because heck knows I'm never gonna be in a place to make a prestige T.V. show.

But it's fun to think about. So it's never wasted time. :D