Cheese

Not to be confused with the group's Tales of Somewhere counterpart, the Knights of the Cheese Table.

"Caio: Then kill me, what are you waiting?! Brenda: I'd kill you, if I wanted to. Paulo: Kill me too! I want to meet the Cheese God!"

- The Cheese is Born

The Cheese was the legendary RPG group that preceded the 12th Art. It was once a proud group in which many adventures and stories were born, but now most of them rest on its former members's memories as the group was officially shut down as of 2017.

Born from the Infinite Gustavos Crisis, the Cheese was a group of remarkable players and game masters that used to meet and participate in many interactive role-playing games.

The Infinite Gustavos Crisis
During an RPG game based on Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, William Camiccia met Caio Graco and Dimitri Balby for the first time and the three became an alliance known as The Dark Knights. However, that RPG's Game Master, Gustavo, used to reset his own games from the fresh start for no reason and create many different games per day, most of them never having any chance to actually be played. United by the wish to play a responsible game with a coherent plot, the trio gathered along a few people interested and formed what would become the first sketch of the Cheese.

Assembling the Cheese
Many took participation on what could be called the "baking" of the Cheese, and the group was already well assembled way before the name came to be.

It was on a Kenyan Blake game - Neverwinter Nights, that he had the idea of uniting all his players into one single chat. This chat soon became full and active most of the day, as it was slowly building his own mark. During a seemingly meaningless conversation between Brenda Guerra and Caio Graco, Paulo interrupted to mention for the first time the existence of a Cheese God, and that's how the group came to be named.

On its apex, the Cheese had more than ten games occurring at the same time, most of them being well-played. Warrior, The Battle of Ariador and The Forgotten Legends being mere examples of it. Also on its apex, the group had most of its members active and chatting all day, discussing things from politics to game ideas and even their personal lives. No longer a group of playing, the Cheese had then become a group of friends.

The Great Abandonment
As the time passed, however, some friendships grew wary and became petty fights and discussions. The members were not getting along so well anymore, and even though the group tries to take those matters in some lighthearted way, like making the Dimitri-Caio dispute about only authorizing the entrance of members that gained approval of at least half the group a fun event, some arguments couldn't be simply resolved and a few members of the group were leaving one by one until there was only six left.

The six remaining members then decided to shut the group down as there was no longer time or space in most of their lives for sustaining both responsibilities and playing the RPGs. When its founder members left, the group was officially declared to have been shut down and a wiki project was opened to have the group's legacy passed to the next generation, but it failed.

Race to the Finale: One Last Time
About half a year after the group shut down, Dimitri Balby tried one more time to narrate a RPG about how would be the one last adventure of the "legendary Knights of the Cheese Table", that would be Finale, but it didn't work out as well, even though Finale later acquired its place in the 12th Art memorial and Tales of Somewhere lore when it got its canon ending.

Disbandment and Legacy
Cheese left a bunch of RPG mechanics to be recycled, and most of its members that were still willing to play later either aided founding or joined the 12th Art. The lore of Tales of Somewhere is also heavily inspired by the group's adventures and the ruins of a Cheese Tower, that was a figurative way of calling the "space" in which the group met, rest in the lands of Somewhere. Of all the Cheese RPGs, The Forgotten Legends is the only one to survive to this day.

In the Universe
For more information on the role of the Cheese in the general lore of Tales of Somewhere, read more in Knights of the Cheese Table, their in-universe counterpart.

In the TOS canon, the Cheeseverse was an original multiverse which housed many different timelines and stories that converged into the Cheese Tower, headquarters for the Knights of the Cheese Table, that had the function of protecting those universes. Similar to how the Cheese split in real life, the Knights of the Cheese Table went in different ways and abandoned the Tower and their function. This universe's incarnation of André Gazotti was the only member to not abandon the tower, but he committed suicide on an arcane explosion that destroyed the whole place and fuses his aura with the universe.

As a parallel to how Finale was executed in real life, in this canon, Dimitri did try to reassemble the group to fight Lucinde, an imposing bigger threat that wished to wipe their whole legacy of existence. In the end, the Cheese members faced her and lost, dying one by one until only four last fighters remained: Takato, Dimitri, Andy and Kenyan. After Takato was taken down, Dimitri realized there was no hope in fighting and used his last powers as a Game Master to preserve his most precious creation: the world of The Forgotten Legends. This significant action mirrors how TFL is still the only RPG to remain after the group ended.

Kenyan and Andy then died with honor, fighting to their last breath. The whole Cheeseverse was then devoured by Lucinde and reset as she envisioned it. In her first actions as now goddess of the universe, Lucinde killed every last of the Cheese members so they would never pose a threat to her again.

It took the collective effort of the Hero of the Prophecy, Leonardo's father Rastar and Takato Blue to reset the universe once again and take it off of Lucinde's grasp. In this new timeline, the Cheese Tower from the previous universe was kept and used as a base of operations for the revived Knights of the Cheese Table (group which, in this version, was composed of only the counterparts of William, Caio, Nicolas and Carlos) until the First War of Somewhere, in which all of them died heroically in battle. The reincarnation of other members of the group are spread throughout the world and many of them never came to know about the team's existence.

Absent in the 12th Art

 * William Camiccia, one of the Dark Knights, as well as one of the Cheese's founders. Known for having created Warrior, Moon of the Dark Ages and Warrior: The Last. As a player he mostly created characters related to his fictional family that, according to him, is destined to save the world.
 * Caio Graco, one of the Dark Knights, as well as one of the Cheese's founders. Created The Battle of Ariador and War of the Kings. As a player, remained mostly loyal to his friends until starting to dive into the scheming terrain later. Was an excepcional fighter.
 * Kenyan Blake, the fourth Dark Knight and indirect responsible for the Cheese's foundation. Mostly created characters with shadowy attitudes and tragic pasts. He narrated Neverwinter Nights, briefly. Kenyan was a player that took the games very seriously.
 * Brenda Guerra, one of the original Cheese members that did not took part on its foundation. Often played as the archetype of a skilled survivor with a bow as a weapon of choice, and sometimes as a rogue later in game. Is the only Cheese member to have played the original The Island.
 * Carlos Schwambach, the member of the Cheese with a longbow, that created characters often related to nobility and such. Joined on the Cheese's apex, and was one of the firsts to quit the group when its downfall started.
 * Nicolas R. Porto, the honored, often disappearing member of the Cheese. Marked the world of The Forgotten Legends as Styller Once, hero of the Coldlands. Had at least one character in every RPG of the group.
 * Lucas Vieira, the sympathetic and intelligent - also rather optimistic, member of the Cheese and one of its original members. Used to have no certain style except for his characters having a more wise and intelligent pose towards his decisions.
 * Gabriela Kenway, the youngest member of the Cheese, trained by both Caio and Will in battle and playing. Left the group early, before The Great Abandonment.

Members of the 12th Art

 * Dimitri Balby, one of the Dark Knights and founders of the group. Posterior founder of the 12th Art.
 * Paulo Henrique, one of the original members of the group and the priest for the Cheese God.
 * Takato White, one of the original members of the group, but appeared randomly.
 * Leonardo P. Basílio, one of the original members of the group.
 * André Gazotti, considered the Prophet for the Apocalypse, for when he joined the group, it was about to enter its downfall. Posterior founder of the 12th Art.

Trivia

 * It was a tradition on Cheese to celebrate a member's birthday with an RPG. Usually, the game would stop and be discontinued as day was over, and thus most of these birthday games never got a proper ending, with the exception of Lucasversary.