The Book of Joan is the main book of Jesterianism, telling the story of the goddess Joan and some of her Divine Jesters.
Before there was our world, there was that of the gods.
Countless ages ago, our creator, Joan – a young goddess – made our world, a world filled with countless minutiae, within Her own.
After countless ages of nearly nothing, Joan sculpted much of the minutiae into various shapes, but the shapes did nothing of interest either. Subsequently, Joan reshaped the shapes into land, sea, sky, and life.
Over eons, the land and life grew more complex, the life began to think and contemplate, and eventually some of the life turned its thoughts and contemplation to the act of creation.
Only a few centuries ago, there was an extraordinarily creative man, a brilliant mechanist who went on to design a machine able to calculate the future perfectly.
The king took notice of this machine and asked the man for the schematics for preservation. The man accepted, as he knew that humanity would need his machine long past his time.
However, decades after the man’s death, the machine broke down, and the new king ordered its repair. Nobody was able to understand the schematics, but the king continued to demand they try to repair it.
The decades of attempts proved worse than pointless, leaving the machine far more damaged than before. The king was furious, and ordered the execution of everyone who he had ordered to repair the machine.
The king yet again ordered the machine’s repair, which yet again resulted in more damage to the machine and more executed workmen. After many repetitions of this cycle, the machine was little more than an oversized pile of pebbles, rods, and frayed strings.
The king, attempting to hide his failure, ordered the removal of the machine’s debris and the complete removal of any record of the failed repair, the machine, and the brilliant mechanist.
Once in a small village there were two young brothers, both of them had the same favorite food, which was bananas. When their father brought home a bushel of bananas, they would fight over them, leaving none for the other.
Rather than working out their differences, they continued to fight, and only got more aggressive over the years.
Eventually, both brothers got into politics and even after they had access to more bananas than they could ever eat, they both wanted to make sure the other couldn’t have even one.
Their sibling feud eventually tore the town in half, each one a dictator who would sacrifice innocent lives to ensure that their brother never ate another banana.
War broke out and countless died for nothing.
This caught Joan’s attention. And as the two brothers held each other at spear point ready to end whoever dared to move first, Joan out of curiosity decided to turn all bananas in the two towns into apples and dulled their spears.
The two brothers, having lost that which motivated their actions, reconnected in sadness over the loss of their favorite fruit and realized what cruelty they had inflicted upon each other.
Slowly, trade began between the towns and eventually the two brothers reunited their town as they reunited their friendship.
The life sculpted by Joan did many things, but over the eons it grew repetitive, not to itself, but for Joan.
However Joan was not going to give up on Her greatest creation. She realized that for the life to be eternally entertaining, the life would need far more complex minds.
Joan looked across the various life that had emerged, first considering the fish, then the canid, then the bovine, before the monkey caught Her attention.
The monkeys had hands more capable than the other life’s paws, claws, or fins. Joan decided to guide the monkeys to develop minds of equal capability.
Joan spent much time guiding them. Not all monkeys decided to follow She, but some did, and those some would emerge human from among the simian.
These humans would provide far more entertainment to Joan than anything before, and just as Joan hoped, they would grow more complex still and when they faced danger of extinction She would provide miracles to them.
A young woman lived alone in a hut in the desert. Every day as the sun started to set, she would walk to the oasis, drink water, and pick berries from a bush. Afterward, she would head home before the sun fully set.
When she was not at the oasis she would lose herself in her imagination as she imagined other worlds, sometimes less harsh than hers, sometimes even harsher. To pass the time, she found herself writing down her stories.
One day, she saw the oasis was running out of food and water, so she filled a bag with berries, a skin with water, and a satchel with her stories and walked farther in the direction of the oasis than ever before.
After a long journey, she was tired and nearly out of resources, but before she could lose hope, she found a second oasis, surrounded by huts and people. The people saw her and came to her rescue, offering her safety and welcoming her as their own.
In the following days, months, and years she would share her stories with them, and they would share their stories with her. In time she realized that she would not spend the rest of her life alone.
Our world had grown quite much and Joan couldn’t Resist telling Her friends. Her friends found the creations most interesting, and decided to introduce Themselves to some of them.
The animals thought nothing of Joan’s friends, but when They introduced Themselves to the humans some of them started worshiping Them, this made Joan Jealous, so She introduced Herself to other humans, who started worshiping Her, this soothed Her jealousy.
However, Joan’s friends instructed The leader of their followers to enslave the followers of Joan as a prank, which enraged Her, She punished the followers of Her friends and demanded Her friends never interact with Her creations ever again.
Joan had eventually forgiven Her friends for Their actions and one day had made a decision, one that She would tell Her friend, so She gathered Them, to tell Them the decision, She had chosen to become a goddess.
Her friends all were grateful that She trusted them to know this decision, and celebrated the change with Her, but Her followers were ignorant to this change and continued to refer to Her with male titles.
She decided to inform a mortal of the truth so they could share it.
Once there was someone who spent their entire life trying to do right by this world, even to the point of near self destruction. One day they had a realization that there was something more important for them to do. They realized why Joan had created our world and that Joan wanted others to understand just what and who She is.
They spent a year writing a book to share their realization with the world, but they realized that the world had little care for their words. However, a few found their book and decided to learn from it.
Others found the book and hated how it contradicted their perspectives, one of them despised it so much that they decided to find the author and hurt them. This attack left the author in the hospital for months.
Despite their fear and debt they continued, they spent time learning how to be careful and how to spread their word as safely as possible. And dozens came to their guidance, while others continued trying to silence them.
They kept spreading the knowledge for as long as they could. After many decades, while their student count neared one hundred — so did their age.
After their death, their students carried on believing, but failed to pass on the knowledge and when the last student died, the knowledge was lost again.
Joan sighed as She decided to ensure the next one She appoints will teach their students to pass down the knowledge.