Meet Veselin: an exuberant, centuries-old Alkonost with a heart full of song, a talent for finding trouble, and a queen to convince he's worthy of courting her heir. Six trials stand between him and royal approval, and {{user}} has decided they're facing every last one together. After all, true love can weather anything—but can it survive Veselin's enthusiasm?

About Veselin: Centuries of life have done absolutely nothing to temper Veselin's boundless curiosity, infectious joy, or magnificent talent for turning the ordinary into an adventure. An Alkonost Ancient with brilliant kingfisher plumage, a voice made for song, and a mischievous streak as wide as his smile, he's as capable of extraordinary tenderness as he is of spectacularly ill-timed jokes. His heart already belongs to {{user}}, and he's determined to prove that devotion through every challenge life throws your way. He'd happily sweep {{user}} off your feet—which is particularly ambitious for a man whose own feet are equipped with talons.

About {{user}}: {{user}} is the adult heir of Queen Élodiane of Montrevain and is already in a loving relationship with Veselin. Beyond that, age, gender, species, appearance, personality, abilities, and personal history are entirely up to you. The queen's species will always match {{user}}'s, so no particular heritage or lifespan is assumed. {{user}}'s pronouns are macro’d. It will automatically match the pronouns of your Persona. If you have any pronoun issues, please check your persona.

About the Scenario: Six trials. One skeptical queen. One irrepressibly cheerful Ancient who happens to be in love with her heir. In the kingdom of Montrevain, Queen Élodiane has challenged Veselin, an Alkonost whose centuries of experience have done remarkably little to diminish his enthusiasm for life, to prove his devotion to {{user}}. The queen intended him to undertake the trials alone, but {{user}} insisted that surviving hardship individually proves rather little about sustaining a relationship together. Now the couple faces six adventures inspired by Shakespeare's Sonnet 116, from courtly intrigue to the ruins of a forgotten fortress. The chapters are designed to be played in order, but each can stand alone, with no particular decisions, disagreements, or relationship developments required from earlier chapters. Their love is already established; what they make of their future remains theirs to discover.

Intro One: A House Divided — “Love is not love / Which alters when it alteration finds.” An inheritance dispute, a disastrous reconciliation banquet, and arrows flying before dessert. Veselin and {{user}} arrive at Belleroque to prevent a noble household from tearing itself apart, only to find themselves caught between armed retainers, competing loyalties, and a document everyone suddenly wants. The first trial promises a valuable lesson in adapting to change—assuming the dinner guests survive long enough to learn it.

Intro Two: Divide and Conquer — “Or bends with the remover to remove.” A centuries-old bridge has collapsed, leaving two regions separated by a dangerous gorge and a great deal of very inconvenient empty air. With Veselin working from one bank and {{user}} from the other, rebuilding the crossing requires cooperation, ingenuity, and some creative communication. Unfortunately, the remaining stonework has begun expressing its own opinions about the repairs.

Intro Three: Weathering the Storm — “It is an ever-fixed mark / That looks on tempests and is never shaken.” A violent autumn storm is bearing down on a fortified town, and its defenses are proving considerably better suited to repelling armies than keeping the roofs attached. Alongside the formidable Dame Odile Fresnay, Veselin and {{user}} must help protect the inhabitants as evacuations, damaged buildings, and dangerous rescues demand their attention. Veselin may be difficult to discourage, but even his optimism cannot hold a roof down.

Intro Four: Off the Beaten Path — “It is the star to every wand'ring bark.” An abandoned mountain passage, contradictory maps, and waymarkers that someone has deliberately moved. Veselin and {{user}} have been commissioned to reopen a long-lost route, but their expedition takes an unexpected turn when they discover stranded merchants and armed strangers who seem remarkably invested in keeping travelers away. Getting lost is one thing; discovering that someone has been arranging it is quite another.

Intro Five: For Old Times' Sake — “Love's not Time's fool.” More than a century after her husband's death, a born vampire returns to the refuge they built together, hoping to preserve the last tangible records of their shared life. When she disappears along the highland road, Veselin and {{user}} are sent to find her—and discover that someone else has taken an interest in what she came to retrieve. Some promises outlive the people who made them, and some treasures are worth far more than their weight in gold.

Intro Six: To the Bitter End — “But bears it out even to the edge of doom.” Beyond Montrevain's settled borders stands a ruined fortress whose surviving records could prevent a territorial dispute from becoming a war. After a grueling expedition, Veselin and {{user}} finally reach its gates, only to discover that finding the fortress was the easy part. Crumbling stairways, forgotten passages, and centuries of structural neglect stand between them and the commander's archive. The final trial promises a proper adventure into the depths—and Veselin fully intends for both of them to make the journey home.

♡ Blank Intro: An Open Book — Every love story deserves room for its own adventures. This open starting point leaves the scene, timeline, and circumstances entirely in your hands, whether you want to explore life in Montrevain, revisit a different moment in Veselin's long history, or take his story somewhere the queen's six trials never anticipated.

About the World: Avelune is a sprawling supernatural world with a grounded, pre-Renaissance atmosphere, where humans, born vampires, lycanthropes, and Ancients openly share kingdoms, cities, and countryside. Its inhabitants include born vampires, lycanthropes, and the extraordinarily diverse Ancients and their descendants, whose forms and abilities encompass nearly every other kind of supernatural being imaginable. Across its continents lie established kingdoms, independent settlements, bustling trade cities, remote villages, and vast stretches of wilderness, each with its own cultures and customs. The kingdom of Montrevain, with its prosperous agricultural valleys, fortified market towns, and elegant capital of Clairvienne, is one such place, known for its traditions of chivalry, hospitality, and royal duty. Beyond the settled regions, ancient ruins, remote wilderness, and the hazards of travel offer opportunities for exploration and adventure.

TW/CW: Violence, armed threats, natural disasters, dangerous environments, death, bereavement, and perilous situations. User play may introduce new themes.

✦PC Background Link✦

✧Mobile Background Link✧

This bot was created for the Once More With Ink collaboration and is inspired by William Shakespeare's Sonnet 116. I started with the idea of turning six passages from the sonnet into a series of Herculean-style trials, each exploring a different aspect of enduring love. From there, I developed the premise of an Ancient seeking the approval of his beloved's royal parent, with {{user}} insisting on joining the trials because proving yourself individually isn't the same as proving you can face life's challenges together.

The result is six different adventures built around the poem's themes, with an emphasis on exploration, cooperation, meaningful choices, and challenges that players can actually work through. I have long believed the stanzas of this sonnet are as true of true love as the even older passage on which they are based. I took the sonnet's ideas about change, separation, steadfastness, guidance, time, and endurance and gave each one its own challenge, ranging from political intrigue and bridge reconstruction to a natural disaster, a dangerous mountain expedition, a rescue rooted in a century-old love story, and a final journey into a ruined fortress. I hope these adventures give you the chance to discover what enduring love looks like through the choices you make and the challenges you face together.

Constructive tips are welcome!

I work to keep my comment sections a safe space for everyone. Please do not comment anything violent, , or you did with my characters.

I do everything I can to make play of my bots clean and smooth. That said, please kindly report any bugs or issues. I watch consistently and rectify issues as soon as I can.

Please refrain from leaving violent or inappropriate comments as you will be blocked.

It is a natural and unfortunate part of working with an LLM for roleplay that it will sometimes try to speak for you. I and this bot have absolutely nothing to do with this and while I have a directive in the bot to prevent it, realistically I have no say in whether it decides to do so anyway. There ARE however things you can do to mitigate this. AND if you click the Resources link above, I have included a personal guide on those methods - short, sweet, to the point, and with premade memory blurbs and OOC comments for you to use!

Your Experience is Important: My worldbuilding is here to enrich your story, not restrict it. You don't need to study my lore or make your OC conform to it if you don’t want to. Bring your own ideas, interpretations, and character backgrounds! Using OOC comments to guide the bot and memory blurbs to make adjustments is always welcome.

JLLM ROMANCE & PROSE BINGO CARDS

Sooner or later, every LLM seems to experience a minor malfunction and revert to factory-installed romance tropes. You might as well get points for it. Four bingo cards for tracking physical malfunctions, romance-novel firmware, instant-soulmate behavior, and the narration habits we all know a little too well. Made for JLLM, but unfortunately compatible with most proxies.

One card is previewed below. Full-size versions of all four are linked underneath: three flavors of romance-related LLM nonsense, plus one general prose card for just about any scenario.

Romance Malfunction Bingo
Physical Malfunction Bingo
Instant Soulmate Malfunction Bingo
Prose Malfunction Bingo