Here is a fully re-engineered framework for The First Hundred-Thousand Wars: Age of Masks presented with the precision of an index, a reimagined outline, and a formal table of contents. The goal is to create a document that is both a creative scaffold and a usable production map for a six-book, 720,000-word epic.
I. Detailed Index
Series Information
- Title: The First Hundred-Thousand Wars
- Macro-Age: The Age of Masks (Years 0–3,000)
- Length: Six Books, each 120,000 words (total ≈720,000 words).
- Composition per Book:
- Part I — ≈60,000 words
- Part II — ≈60,000 words
- Sub-units per Part:
- 3 Episodes at 20,000 words each
- 2 Episodes at 10,000 words each
- 5 Chapters at 2,000 words each
- 4 Scenes at 500 words each
- 4,000 supplemental words (choral fragments, mythic interludes)
- Narrative Devices: Rotating close third-person POV, internal monologue, flashbacks, cliffhangers, symbolic objects.
- Stylistic Notes:
- Every episode concludes with a cliffhanger.
- Every scene concludes with a humanizing action.
- Imagery emphasizes melanated bodies, Levantine light, and mythic sensuality.
- Tone balances mythic gravity, erotic candor, and strategic humor.
II. Reimagined Outline
The six-book arc covers a single macro-Age (Age of Masks). Each book escalates the transformation of identity: from masks as law, to numbers as oppression, to rivers as memory, to stars as stolen destiny, to thunder as written power, to the final road that only moves forward.
Book I: Borrowed Faces (Years 0–400)
Theme: Birth-faces forbidden; masks become both chains and rebellion.
Cornerstone Battle: The Siege of Ten Thousand Faces
- Part I (60k): Origins of the mask laws, the forging of resistance, first tolls of rebellion.
- Part II (60k): Public revolt, carnival riots, covenant of unmasking, first great battle.
Book II: The Arithmetic of Selves (Years 401–900)
Theme: Identity becomes accountancy; resistance is deliberate miscounting.
Cornerstone Battle: The Audit at the World’s Table
- Part I (60k): Sky-ledgers, taxed grief, tavern comedy, manipulation of calendars.
- Part II (60k): The hidden day, double-entry hearts, the forging of infinity, the audit war.
Book III: Rivers That Remember (Years 901–1,600)
Theme: Water itself testifies; memory as both prison and covenant.
Cornerstone Battle: The Drowning of Oaths
- Part I (60k): Rivers develop speech, covenants of passage, flooded crafts, silt courts.
- Part II (60k): Rafts of mothers, drift of numbers, the price of forgetting, covenantal flood war.
Book IV: Unhoused Stars (Years 1,601–2,200)
Theme: Constellations stolen; fate is unpinned; time hungers.
Cornerstone Battle: The Night Without North
- Part I (60k): Heist of constellations, cartographer’s seduction, time’s teeth, negative daylight.
- Part II (60k): Starless portraits, astrolabe of desire, riddle of direction, blank-sky battle.
Book V: Human Thunder (Years 2,201–2,700)
Theme: Mortals write binding stories; thunder becomes both litigant and scripture.
Cornerstone Battle: The Library Storm
- Part I (60k): Awakening of the page, hammered alphabets, editing fate, silence as weapon.
- Part II (60k): Thunder on trial, feast of flaws, soft revolts of tenderness, storm of words.
Book VI: The Unreturning (Years 2,701–3,000)
Theme: The last convergence; the bridge that crosses once and never returns.
Cornerstone Battle: The Bridge of No Second Crossing
- Part I (60k): Road without reverse, auditor of mercy, final tithe, compass shattered.
- Part II (60k): Time grows hungry, flawed choir, inventory of leaving, ultimate crossing.
III. Table of Contents
Book I: Borrowed Faces
- Part I
- Episode 1: The First Mask Cracks
- Episode 2: A Tax on Names
- Episode 3: The Bell of Skin
- Episode 4: The Tribunal of Echoes
- Part II
- Episode 5: Carnival of Mouths
- Episode 6: The Pact of Unmasking
- Episode 7: Salt and Mirror
- Episode 8: The Siege of Ten Thousand Faces
Book II: The Arithmetic of Selves
- Part I
- Episode 1: The Sky Opens Its Book
- Episode 2: Mercy Embezzlement
- Episode 3: Compound Interest of Grief
- Episode 4: Ledger-Blood Comedy
- Part II
- Episode 5: The Miscounted Sun
- Episode 6: Double-Entry Heart
- Episode 7: Infinity Forged
- Episode 8: The Audit at the World’s Table
Book III: Rivers That Remember
- Part I
- Episode 1: When Rivers Grew Mouths
- Episode 2: The First Covenant
- Episode 3: Flooded Workshop
- Episode 4: Court of Silt
- Part II
- Episode 5: Raft of Mothers
- Episode 6: Ledger Drift
- Episode 7: The Price of Peace
- Episode 8: The Drowning of Oaths
Book IV: Unhoused Stars
- Part I
- Episode 1: Constellation Heist
- Episode 2: The Cartographer’s Seduction
- Episode 3: Chronos Licks His Teeth
- Episode 4: Counting the Dark
- Part II
- Episode 5: Starless Portraits
- Episode 6: The Astrolabe of Thirst
- Episode 7: The Riddle of the Map
- Episode 8: The Night Without North
Book V: Human Thunder
- Part I
- Episode 1: The Page Wakes
- Episode 2: The Hammered Alphabet
- Episode 3: Editor of Fate
- Episode 4: Lecture on Subtext
- Part II
- Episode 5: Thunder on Trial
- Episode 6: Feast of Faults
- Episode 7: Soft Revolt
- Episode 8: The Library Storm
Book VI: The Unreturning
- Part I
- Episode 1: The Road Without Reverse
- Episode 2: Mercy’s Auditor
- Episode 3: The Last Tithe
- Episode 4: Breaking the Compass
- Part II
- Episode 5: Time Grows Hungry
- Episode 6: Choir of the Flawed
- Episode 7: Inventory of Leaving
- Episode 8: The Bridge of No Second Crossing
This document provides the index (structural blueprint), outline (thematic arc), and table of contents (narrative roadmap).
Do you want me to now expand Book I into a granular index with numbered chapters, POV designations, and specific inner-dialogue cues—so it functions as a working draft skeleton?