Key character

A key character was a character in Glastieven mythology that was controlled by the person who created it and used as their protagonist in roleplays. Key characters were basically the player characters of Glastieven mythology, and in contrast, other characters were basically NPCs (this elides over some nuances). There was one key character per real-life person in each cycle and the key characters in each cycle were organised into a team of heroes. A key character was supposed to be inspired by its creator, cleverly reflecting a particular aspect of their personality, such that each of a player's characters drew on a different side of their identity. However, they were also meant to be well-rounded characters who made sense on their own, and self-inserts were considered poor character design.

The BHH, Mission, Maisraln and Suijing Cycles, and the Frontier stories of the Starlight Cycle, had their own key characters. The Crossover Cycle brought together key characters from the other cycles. The Genesis Cycle was supposed to have key characters but was never developed far enough, and the Maiestas Cycle — which was not considered a cycle at the time and has only been upgraded to one in retrospect — only had non-key characters.

Terminology

In nomine tantum (INT)

In nomine tantum (INT), which was believed to be Latin for "in name only", described a key character that had a name, a backstory and a place in the band of heroes, but not a distinctive personality. As each player was meant to have one key character per relevant cycle, it was obvious from the outset how many characters they would need, so it was quite possible to choose a name and use it as a placeholder. Robert tended to make the most INT characters, as he preferred to develop his keys intuitively through roleplaying rather than literary character design (like Kerry and Tom) or art and cosplaying (like Cat).

Fleeting keys

A fleeting key was a key character created by someone who joined the mythology for a period but ended up leaving and abandoning their characters. Ultimately, no-one other than Cat, Kerry, Robert and Tom stayed committed to the project, so key characters created by anyone else were considered fleeting keys. Most key characters existed INT, though a minority did have distinctive personalities. Charlotte's character Orka Fyfån was fully developed, and other well-developed fleeting keys included Charlotte's Isabelle Montague and Polara Kannistelle, Isabella's Amethyst Johnson and Slash Brightside, Michael's Bale Santra and Ella's Omar Benali.

Michael, Alice and Maya, Cat's brother, Kerry's brother, Tae, Freddie and Aaron all made RP characters for BHH in the era of "the game" or the Acteriendian BHH roleplays (technically, Aaron made his in 2017, in the early stages of the post-Acteriendian BHH revival). Michael and Ben made fleeting keys for Maisraln. After the concept of Glastieven mythology was created, and hence the idea that participants should have a key character for every cycle, Isabella, Charlotte, Georgia, Clay and Ella all made sets of fleeting keys at various points. Charlotte's were the most developed, followed by Isabella's.

The term "fleeting key" was coined in retrospect; the concept had no special recognition at the time, when fleeting keys were simply regarded as keys like the others.

Archetypes

In 2017 and 2018, and to a lesser but definitely continuing extent in 2019 and 2020, the sum of key characters controlled by a particular person was referred to as an "archetype" or "character archetype", and the group of key characters in a given cycle was called an "archetype grouping". For example, Tom's key characters Ajax Inuta Krassen, Isan Segba, Matthew Hall, Gawyn Harowcal and Ainas Tacar were collectively referred to as Tom's archetype. Tom's BHH key character Ajax, Kerry's BHH key character Ciarraí Teagwyn Kavanah, Robert's BHH key character Raven Olympia and Cat's BHH key character Ro Elluna — known collectively in-universe as the Fourth Army — were called an archetype grouping.

Originally, between July and November 2017, archetypes were referred to with acronyms, e.g. Robert had the "REMR archetype" (Raven-Erin-Matt-Raven, from Raven Darkside, Erin Xiangmay, Matt Starling and Raven Olympia) and Cat had the "LEIR archetype" (Lyra-Eden-Ida-Ro). After November 2017, archetypes were referred to by the last name of the BHH character and a was often capitalised, so Robert had the Olympia Archetype and Cat the Elluna Archetype.

Non-key characters could be spoken about as warped or unusual instances of an archetype. This was originally invoked to describe Macil Rava, a villain created by Tom that he tended to control and that seemed to reflect on a narrow part of his personality just as a key character would. Kerry tried to use the archetype structure to represent a single long character arc, viewing his characters along the timeline as a progression from least emotionally mature (Kensaki, then Elvar) to more so (Mark, then Cathal, and most of all Ciarraí), passing through various stages of personal development along the way.

The terminology of "archetypes" was controversial and unpopular at the time. Robert and Cat considered it a "wiki-ism" driven by Tom that was too confusing and abstract. Kerry disliked using technical comparative terminology wrongly, and so pushed attempts to include other characters like Macil as instances of the archetypes, and tried to find another word for the de facto player characters in each cycle, eventually settling on the term "key character". For his part, Tom was sceptical about Kerry's attempt to write his archetype as a single character arc, and disliked the BHH-centrism of naming the archetypes after BHH characters.