[X] Write in - "You are not summoned lightly Queen, even when you permit it. I will neither refuse or commit in this moment. I will consider and seek council, then decide."
-[X]After Mab leaves? Crown of Eyes to ask what Mab knows about our exaltation. Arcane focus: footprints in ectoplasm, precise location(s) where she was standing.
Given how deep in the hole we are, giving Mab additional opportunities to social-fu Molly into obedience is a mistake.
Matthews gets Winter's protection for him and his family
Lydia gets off the hook, and her dad is "only" in a magical healing coma he can still talk to her from
We're not getting smited for our presumption, and are instead getting lured into working for her by our nature/Urge
Katrina and Corpsetaker are both permanently dead, and don't even get to fire off a death curse for the trouble
Every one of our goals is filled, and the only downside is Mab taking an interest, and that was going to happen eventually no matter what. We successfully threaded the needle here, good job everyone, hopefully our roadtrip with Dad has less magical politics and more things we actually have the tools to solve.
I like the idea of finding a way to phrase this that says "yes I will call on you, but I'm not directly saying so because I don't want you to be able to use this to leverage fey rules." The trick is doing so in a sufficiently respectful way that doesn't sound we are dismissing her. Do the same sort of thing Mab has been doing through this update.
Perhaps "I will prepare for it" or "You may consider it so"?
[X] Yes, you will call on Mab and listen to what she has to say
-[X] [Stunt] You tilt your head slightly, not quite in agreement but certainly not in dismissal "I shall seek council and make preparations". You let the implication finish the sentence and let blazing green drop to an eerie simmer, stretching your shadow long in the wizard light.
[X] Yes, you will call on Mab and listen to what she has to say
-[X] [Stunt] You tilt your head slightly, not quite in agreement but certainly not in dismissal "I shall seek council and make preparations". You let the implication finish the sentence and let blazing green drop to an eerie simmer, stretching your shadow long in the wizard light.
Demonic Primacy of Essence, Knowing the Desolate Heart, Crowned With Fury, Dissonant Lies Made True, Man Who Sold The World, Mind Spider Curse, and Factual Determination Analysis, Naked Wicked Souls and Mocking Murmur retorts. Arguably, Mind-Charring Infusion.
Exactly one of these is a straightforward "I social goode" - Demonic Primacy of Essence - but a lot of these are "Supernaturally force someone into obedience, and make them suffer if they are willful enough to resist." A couple allow to read thoughts and detect lies or discover shameful secrets.
Dissonant Lies Made True is particularly fun, as it makes ppl who dare to lie to you believe into their own lies.
That aside, Infernals have a bunch of charms that are not strictly speaking, social, but still apply; charms that reduce the difficulty on all of their rolls or increase the difficulty for their enemies. Stack enough of these, and things get pretty silly.
There is also a bunch of space for homebrew and 2nd Edition charms that didn't get ported to ExWoD, but all that is very much a thing of tomorrow.
Crowned with Fury really got shafted by the adaption.
If I understand it correctly e2 Crowned with Fury is a constant social enhancer that turns all your social attacks in a specific format (such as commands) and all social attacks that would lead to unacceptable orders into magical effects that require spending Willpower to resist.
It's blunt, but versatile and against mortals with a reasonably low pool of willpower it's pretty damn strong.
Meanwhile the ExWoD version is basically a costly mind-control Charm against a single target.
The only good thing about ExWoD CwF is that the Signature effect would enhance all our socials by a good deal in Shintai.
I'm honestly considering if that may be worth taking as our Signature, particularly since we can keep our Shintai on whenever we visit our Hell, so it's a great social-enhancer for ruling.
I'm honestly considering if that may be worth taking as our Signature, particularly since we can keep our Shintai on whenever we visit our Hell, so it's a great social-enhancer for ruling.
It also got awesome visuals. Who doesn't like a flaming crown?
Mechanically tho, Shadow Spite Curse is prolly miles better. Or even The King and The Kingdom; DC-adjuster stacking is probably best trick available to Infernals.
If I understand it correctly e2 Crowned with Fury is a constant social enhancer that turns all your social attacks in a specific format (such as commands) and all social attacks that would lead to unacceptable orders into magical effects that require spending Willpower to resist.
Eh, it is fine. It wasn't that good. 1WP to resist is really nothing to write home about, and you could boss around extras with a bunch of other charms or by simply throwing a bucket of dice at them.
Nicodemus is going to make the mistake of tossing a Coin at Molly, or someone in Molly's general locstion.
And then Molly is going to catch it and use it for juicing as the equivalent of renewable supernatural steroids
Bottleneck - useful, yes, but loses us some possible plot of someone escaping our hell, and loses interactions of others trying to come in. I used terrain and climate as much as I could to still render our realm protected.
Cauls - not something I want at all, and not the style of character we are playing.
Fruits of Hell - the cost is too much, and the downsides are too. Not something I want
Grand Grimoire - narratively very interesting, but can be built afterwards without point buy. Hopefully, can be roleplayed as exploration of what's already there, but undiscovered. I certainly left enough possibilities for that. Gaols are probably in the same niche, but we would likely need them quicker than Grand Grimoire.
Exclusive Transportation - useful, but can be built later, and with accessible terrain between cities, not that needed.
Lord of the Land - if we permanently moved to our hell realm it would be worth it. Otherwise, no. Better to take something that's always on.
Time differential - if the differential was higher, it would be worth it. Right now, too pricey.
Overpopulated - I have a strong opinion on this. It's too self-sabotaging.
If someone were to look at it from far away, your kingdom would look like a perfect hemisphere with a radius of 1564 kilometers, most of its surface is buried under multicolored ice made of water, mercury, krypton, xenon – almost all elements of the periodic table known to man, and perhaps, more. If observed from a closer distance, and by a more discerning eye, the nature of the land appears far more complex, and perilous. Jagged, razor sharp forests of ice-like shards extend hundred meters high, forming a near impossible to traverse landscape. As time passes by, they break, shift, change and grow, as if they were alive. And indeed they are, if not in a way that Earth knows life. Many-limbed creatures, eyeless and pentaradially symmetrical, skitter through these deadly forests, chittering in bursts of infrared radiation.
Such is the depth of your domain's unfeeling coldness, that rivers of liquid oxygen flow through it, confined by the banks of superconducting bronze. Strange, alien creatures that derive nutrition from radiological decay of uranium and breath hydrogen-helium atmosphere, populate these rivers, inimical and universally hostile to everything within their reach. Their bioluminescence is the only source of illumination beyond the soft silver light of the moon traversing the starless black skies, each revolution with a new phase and surface.
To venture into this hellscape in an attempt to escape the kingdom of your heart without permission and a guide, is to face an almost guaranteed demise, for even if one was to clad themselves into a space-worthy thermally sealed suit, they would still be fleeced to the bone by a never-ending blizzard of ferrous snow. Electrically charged iron and nickel dust cyclone with the wind speeds far exceeding a hundred meters per second obscures the borders of your realm from NeverNever to eye and any electronic equipment. Only those wise in the ways of your soul can dare hope to navigate this terrain.
And yet, not every place within your self is so inhospitable. For even as the iron cyclone rages at the border of the world, a no less ferocious anticyclone expands from its center. Where they meet, in a strip of land one hundred and eighty kilometers wide, their clash in the skies is both ferocious and life giving. In that narrow space, the titanic magnetic fields generated by them cancel each other, and their particles' collisions generate heat enough that eternal ring of lightning plasma is raging in the skies, unable to escape its natural confinement. The temperature is high enough that liquid water can flow in this equator. The light is soft and bright enough that photosynthesis is effective. And life, or at least life recognizable by Earthborn eyes at first glance, strives there, desperate to occupy this narrow ring of space allowed to it. Dense and ever shifting forests rustle in the ever blowing winds, their deep blue crowns endlessly shrugging metal dust from themselves. Their trunks stretch ever further in hopes to catch the lightning and fill their underground capacitors with vital energy. Fast and dangerous beasts, iron hided and sharp toothed traverse metal coated land of ever shifting shadows below, seeking either fruit or prey, for life is short and dangerous in this world, and no source of nourishment is to be dismissed.
It is among these forests that civilization of your world exists. It is confined into five great fortress city-states sitting in five corners of a great pentacle, 1102 kilometers from the center of the world. Each fortress is positioned on top of a great pole of metal, large enough to generate its own magnetic field and prevent metal dust from passing into the city, and to serve as a source of free electricity for the city's industry. The size of each settlement is larger than any that could be found on Earth. In fact, the number of denizens in each can only be compared to the population of the greatest states of your birth world. They are connected to each other by great underground channels forming the beams of the pentagram, with great armored trains coursing through them.
Each city is different, unique, strange and, somehow, nostalgic. Each is perfectly independent, and each is required for others to exist prosperously with their own roles.
In the east stands ruby clad city of law and warriors. Forges and training centers fill it, and all those who seek martial perfection, those who wish to pursue the career in law enforcement and law making, those desiring to sally forth in defense of the realm, gather there.
To the south east lies the city of knowledge, its emerald flags adorning the walls of its libraries, universities, research centers, ritual sites and laboratories. All those who strive for understanding visit it at least once in their lifetimes. Many a secret is hidden behind its walls, some, likely, unknown even to you, its creator. Certainly, its records extend to before the creation of its sister cities, perhaps to before the realm it is in existed at all.
In the south western corner of the pentagram, the city of art stands, its streets clad paved with saphires. Where silence and focus reign in the libraries of its neighbor to the east, laugher and jubilation can be heard in all parts of this city. Magnificent are its galleries, captivating its theaters, and enthralling its bordellos.
And when the inhabitants of your world tire of jubilation, grow weary of training, become forlorn in their pursuit of knowledge, they travel to the city at the far west corner of the great pentacle. There, under the amethyst roofs of its buildings and ministrations of the carefully selected caretakers, they find the end to their struggle, and beginning of something new. For not all your citizens are human, and none of them know age and death as mortals do, and in time require assistance to move on, to rest, to change, and perhaps to end. It is also there that other guests of your world, souls of the damned are processed and made to atone for their sins, to find salvation and healing before being let out into the wider society.
Finally, in the north, there is a city from which teams of daring explorers venture forth, protected only by their armor and faith in you, to brave the borders of your realm in pursuit of minerals and other wealth. There the services that maintain great transportation arteries linking the five sister cities are located. There the main food production facilities are located. And finally, there stand the great golden gates, beyond which is the only tunnel leading directly to the border of your world.
Great are the cities of your kingdom, each more than two hundred million strong in number, each with its culture, philosophy, dreams and futures. And yet, they are not the crown of this world. For in its very center, there exists a sixth structure.
A giant statue, or a mountain if a form of statue, an axis of the wheel around which the world turns stands in the middle of your soul. Two eastern dragons, one black as the darkest night, the other all colors of rainbow, both over twenty kilometers long, spiral around each other in a mockery of a human DNA, rising from the ground to challenge the empty skies.
They emerge, frozen at the moment of a triumphant and desperate escape, from a round cracked hill of bronze in the ground. Upon closer inspection, one can find that the hill is but a tip of a giant sphere, almost buried under ice. If one was to brave the darkness and spelunk down into its depths, they would find themselves in a giant labyrinth of concentric brass and basalt spheres. Strange, eldritch writings and grotesque carvings cover its walls, floors, ceiling. Flickering green lights illuminate some, but far from all corridors. Over time, it seems, the layout of the labyrinth shifts, as the spheres composing it move against each other. Whether this movement is slowly winding down or speeding up is impossible to tell.
As one explores more and more of the great construct, a wise explorer would notice two prevailing trends. When approaching what should be the geometric center of this structure, the temperature slowly rises and, should the visitor has appropriate equipment or keen enough senses, they'll note the rising level of background radiation. When venturing deeper and deeper beneath the ground, farther from the surface, the shadows grow somehow heavier, the sounds of one's footsteps become hollow, and the very essence of the air becomes more and more grave-like. It is impossible to reach the deepest layers, much less the core or the bottom - the tunnels have collapsed long ago, some melted, some covered in debris. As such, no one knows what lies there. The calculations, however, indicate that just like the top of the sphere extends above the ground, its bottom might, in fact, dip into the nothingness below your soul's world.
Tribes of primitives seem to inhabit the corridors and great halls of this labyrinth. They war endlessly for resources, locations of thermal vents and power lines, utilizing what great mechanism-organs the labyrinth has active with great skill. In the deeper levels, evidence of more sophisticated and advanced societies has been observed.
No one tries to leave, and, in fact, what few prisoners were ever taken by the exploration expeditions, indicate that escaping the sphere is considered to be the greatest of sins. The labyrinth inhabitants believe themselves to be both its prisoners and wardens, waiting for the Head Warden to come and, in a paradoxical way, both affirm their oaths and release them from their prison.
That the sphere is, indeed, a prison, is not a question. Ample evidence of this was found by the Five Cities explorators. Each of its rooms can serve as a holding cell, its walls lined with symbols old and forgotten, meant to prevent teleportation, transformation, or any other means of escape, including death itself. The passages are lined with titanic vault-like doors barring passage. Each sections could quickly be isolated from each other, and then flooded with gas, water, or, indeed, even fire. Brass eyes embedded into ceilings follow the movements of travelers. Soul-locked terminals giving access to the facility's slumbering systems are prevalent. Everything is waiting for its mistress to come. The security increases as one progresses deeper and deeper into the sphere, but even the areas closets to the crack, where five cities permanent expedition post is established, serve as the greatest and most inescapable prison of the realm, where arch-heretics and worst lunatics are held.
If the bottom of the titanic twin dragon statue is a thing of brass and darkness, then the top is a beauty of crystal and light. In dragons' jaws, a giant crystalline palace complex rests, its architecture something that doesn't belong to today – only to tomorrow and perhaps to ages long since past. It is a glimmering symbol of hope and might. It is the seat of your governance, and the natural meeting place of the governing parties of your subjects. It is also a church, and a site of holy pilgrimage for them. The only possible glimpse of something that doesn't exist in this realm. Illuminating your throne, and observable only in your throne room is the Sun. Sometimes yellow, and sometimes green. The hidden geometries and enchantments of the crystals lining the walls of your castle are aligned in such a way that when you, and no one else sit upon the throne, the light shining on you, or emitted by you, will be spread, amplified and emitted by the castle itself, creating a rising sun for your realm.
In times past, the palace complex could only be reached by greatest and most devoted climbing the dragon's spine. Nowadays, the ingenuity of your subjects allows for a quick air transport from the base fortress-station at the bottom of the statue, which serves as the gates to both your palace and the underground labyrinth.
"Life here will begin out there". I didn't write these words, on the velum pages made from my own skin, with ink made of burnt bones of ancient monsters, under the light of candles burning green. In fact, I, nor my parents nor my child and wife, exist at all, as the devils I call forth from the hells unlike this one, and monsters summoned from further still, gleefully tell me. We all are but a backstory to a play yet unwritten, existing as a possibility among an infinity of its peers. They offer me this knowledge freely, gladly, safe in the knowledge that this is not happening. They desire that I despair, break and blaspheme, that I utter oaths unbreakable even if they are, in fact, unspoken, sell myself and all to follow me to their masters for the surety of becoming, and in doing so transform myself into a hidden poison at the heart of my future mistress.
They are fools, who see little, and understand less. They fail to grasp that even as they are safe to speak, so I am safe to question, fearing not to offend the realms they come from by conduct unbecoming, daring to betray ignorance and weakness without terror of discovery. They do not see this time-not as the gift it is, the opportunity to prepare, not one blind chance of history, but the infinity of different past probabilities coming together coming together to craft the perfect future.
From the secret diaries of the Mirror of the Changing Moon, the founder of the Covenant of Empress-to-Be, dated ten thousand and one lunar cycle Before Her Arrival.
The Covenant of the Empress-to-Be is a monotheistic state religion of the five cities world. At its core lie the "Prophecies of Arrival" which state that at some point in the future, a divine figure, "Empress-to-Be" will arrive, and grant her followers life.
This is perhaps the most counter-intuitive precept of the church. According to its mystics, the world of five cities does not truly exist prior to their goddess' arrival, and merely represents one of the infinite possible backstories for the real world to come, ignited by her divine spark. Following from that revelation, lie the doctrine that preaches that their followers and the society as a whole has to live their lives in a way that would make their history be the one chosen by the divine empress in their subjective future. The followers of the Covenant are to better themselves continuously, to improve their utilitarian value, live their lives interestingly, to increase their entertainment value, and to undergo the right of Ending if they "write the story of their life into a corner with no way out".
The different specializations of the five cities are in many ways, reflections of their religious doctrine, where the City of Swords chapels preach that the Empress will need loyal soldiers, while the City of Fountains seeks to please Empress's senses.
Historical research indicates that the concept of paradoxical "existence before beginning" is likely a legacy of the older Cult of Twin Dragons, which existed before the Covenant's rise to power. Other researchers trace the idea of a messianic figure prophesized to come rule the world in the distant future to beliefs of the Core Prison tribes, some of which might have been ancestors of the modern civilization.
The Covenant heavily incorporates scientific research and method into their doctrine, such as using the theory of evolution to prove that humanoid population couldn't have arisen in this realm, and was willed into being by divine power. Historical research into the world's seemingly long and sometimes buried past is seen as a way to enrich the "world building" and keep the Empress interested.
"Unbiased review of the state religion", part of the briefing documents prepared for her Divine Majesty, twenty lunar cycles before her Arrival.
At the level of "committed" loyalty, religion is going to play an important role in the world's life. In fact, it is likely that theocracy would be the order of the day. When combined with "advanced technology" and "advanced society" it is also likely that wide use of magic and scientific research would be present. "human population" choice explicitly mentions history stretching to before creation of the exalt's kingdom. In Dresdenverse, summoning and NeverNever are all very much a part of magic. And there's a giant Oramus statue in the center of the world.
All these facts need to be reconciled. Thus, the Covenant of Empress-to-Be. Basically, it's a state religion that is aware of how history only really begins once Molly arrives.
Lunar cycle = one month. There are no seasons I could think of easily, so, full lunar cycles would be the measure of time.
Wan Kuei are the unruly dead who, through guile, cunning, and, above all, sheer perseverance, escaped on the thousands hells their soul found itself in after death. For the untold billions suffering in the underworlds of Yama Kings, it is no more than a few thousands that achieve this feat. Yet every soul struggles, and every hell can be escaped from. Indeed, if a new hell was to germinate from the chaotic seas of wyld possibility, or to be constructed by even the most godlike of powers, it too, would be a prison imperfect, the very laws of nature preventing formation of a realm truly without hope for escape. Why that is so, is a question unanswered. Some wise mystics believe that it is hope itself that lies as the cornerstone of these realms, and that the perfect hell would paradoxically have no power, and would collapse before it even came to be. Other students of ancient and forbidden lore posit that all hells are but echoes of some Primordial hell, sharing its base fundamental nature common to them all. It is the raw will of its unknown prisoners that prevents modern hells from being inescapable, they theorize. Select few wonder if those first prisoners have themselves ever escaped, or if they still struggle, projecting their effort through all of the cosmos.
The realm of your heart is, beyond everything else, a hell, to which souls of mortals are confined. It is thus its nature to be escapable, and of those souls in your kingdom to attempt escape. Yours, however, is not the world of one of foolish and greedy Yama Kings, and there are paths made intentionally available to each of your kingdom's denizens. They number four in total.
The first, and, sadly, by far the most travelled to its destination, is the path of surrender, leading to the end of struggle and nothing more. When a citizen tires of existence, they travel to the amethyst clad city in the west, and submit themselves to the priests living there with but a single request – to end it all. Should counselling, therapy, prolonged rest and meditation on the beauty of living not help, they are then subject to a solemn ritual. In a quite chapels, silent priests would write strange, arcane symbols on their bodies, give them ice wine fermented from the fruits only growing in the darkest outermost edges of your realm to lull them to sleep, and then, shedding tears of regret, murder them with ritualistic daggers. Unlike any other death under the light of the moon and lightning, this one does not permit returns. The soul slips quietly into the Maw of Oblivion.
The second route is for those burning with the lust for battle, enticed by religious fervor and the promises of glory. To follow it, one must devote themselves to training. Join one of the monastery-forges of the Red City, practice diligently one's katas and recite fervently one's prayers to the Empress-to-Be. Rise through the ranks of monks and win a right to join the honor guard of Her crystal palace – that is the ticket to salvation through servitude. For it is amongst those in her guard that the Empress is prophesized to select the men-at-arms who will do battle in her name outside this realm once the time comes. And if one is lucky enough, skilled enough, distinguished enough, survives enough of these battles, then they can pray to the Empress for a permanent release, to take them into the mortal world and release them from her service.
The third road is the shortest one, and, perhaps, the hardest. If one wishes to escape the kingdom of five cities, one needs but to take a train to the City of Journeys, and to declare it so. No obstacles will be laid before them, and they will be swiftly taken outside the city. From there on, everything will be in their own hands. They will just have to walk to the outer edges of the world, to climb the razor-edged forests, to pass through the iron hurricane and to traverse into the uncertain Ways of the unreality. It is not an easy task. To attempt it is common, for it is human nature to seek escape from the place of confinement. It is a sign of strength to crack one's cell open, rather than bow one's head and succumb to punishment. Many try, and most fail, nurturing the outer fields with their lifeblood, only to draw breath once more in one of the cities. Those few who would succeed are declared Anathema, their names added to the rolls of the enemies of state. For to succeed is to cast away the bonds of family, companionship and faith that define the nations of this world. It is to become a hungry dead, and to forevermore prey on the inhabitants of the worlds.
The fourth and final way branches off from the ones already described. It is not the way of many, rather it is the path of select few, for whom other roads are not suited. If, after throwing oneself against the outer storms time and time again, one learns humility, and yet doesn't desire the ending granted in the silent chapels of the Amethyst City; if they do not have the trust and faith in their heart to dedicate themselves to the Empress-to-Be in the promise of salvation… Then, on a new escape attempt, they can walk in a different direction. Not to storm in the direction of the rim, but to move in the direction of the Red City, evading beasts and traversing forests in the way. Once they reach the next city, their pilgrimage, and the trials accompanying it, truly begin.
In the city of saffron and forges, they are faced with two tasks. First, to master their body, and to prove their strength. To do so, they have to defeat one of the grandmasters of the martial art sects of the city in unarmed combat, demonstrating that they have mastered the first weapon everyone has – their own body. Then, as the second part of their trial, they are to forge and master a weapon, apprenticing. Their creation has to be acknowledged as a masterwork by the Ring of Smiths that control the weapon manufacturing of the realm, and their skill in wielding it by a grandmaster of the art. Only when these two tasks are done, their trial is considered complete, and the doors of City of Rubies open for them, so they can, once again journey the circle of life on the path to the city of Secrets.
Once they reach the Verdant City, their trial of History begins. Its two mirrored parts are to learn the history of the past, and to create the history of the future. In order to accomplish the first task, the applicant must unearth a piece of ancient knowledge, buried somewhere in the realm, and gift it to their peers. In order to finish, they must master and further a craft, a school of knowledge, create new knowledge that would serve as a foundation to those who will come next – on Earth that would be an equivalent of earning a doctorate.
The test of the City of Pleasures is by far the longest. Many of those few who try it consider it the cruelest. The first part is simple. It is, just like in all the previous trials, a matter of obtaining, and then proving, one's skill – this time by creating a piece of art good enough to become known as a masterpiece, to prove that one understands the society of the Five Cities enough that their creations resonate with everyone, not just a select few. It is the second part that breaks most who attempt it. For to succeed one must love, raise, and finally leave behind a child. Whether it be by adoption, or through means more natural, a child must reach adulthood and succeed on their own merits under the tutelage of the one walking this path. And when that child sincerely says that everything they have is thanks to the pilgrim, it is then that the pilgrim must leave them behind, to walk to the next city, without looking back. Thus their Sacrifice is complete.
The Silent City's trial is, in comparison a mercy. It is also, a final warning. First, the walker must participate in all the aspects of the ritual of Ending. They must try and talk someone out of finishing themselves, and when they fail, they must learn what the Final death is like, and grant it with their own hands, for if they are incapable of doing so, then no hope exists for them in the cruel world of outside. And when they understand death, they must nurture the fear of it inside themselves, for only the final death exists in the outside, not the brief embrace of renewal they are accustomed to. And it is out of that fear they must take a sacred vow not to seek their end, which forever denies them the mercies of the Amethist City. Once the vows are complete, they start on the final leg of their Journey.
And when they end it, they stand before the Golden Gate of the First City. They carve their name into it with their weapon – and there's plenty of room left still on it. And after the celebration to remember, they leave, more complete then when they started, and perhaps prepared to what lies next.
To date, no one has completed this road.
…
Or you could actually try and escape this hell of a reality, instead of meekly following the paths prepared for you. How? When they let you out to throw yourselves against the maelstrom, you could turn around and sneak your way to the foundation of Her Majesty's shining castle in the sky. Study every last draconic scale, as you climb upwards, clinging to them. Read and put to memory the blasphemous writings written on the scales of the prismatic dragon that can be seen only in their reflections in the polished ebon scales of its brother, under the light of the changing moon. Spend hundreds, thousands lifetimes learning to read and comprehend the message in one go, as with your every fall, the message changes. Do not speak of it to anyone, for should they learn of your attempts, you will never be able to try again. Discern the painful truths from hurtful lies entwined in this secret writ. Follow that knowledge to unlock the doors nonexistent, and you shall be free.
The whispers in shadows recorded by the acolyte of Her Divine Promise battle order shortly before she abandoned the order to become an inner ring explorer
The rules on kingdom making state that the has to exist a path to escape the hell you make. Exaltations deal with perfect effects. Why couldn't it make a perfect prison? I started to think why, and trying to fit this with a Watsonian explanation.
I came up with two explanations. One from the Dresdenverse side of the crossover, and the other is from Exalted perspective, which can also be used in an ExWoD game. The Dresdenverse explanation is that within existence Free Will is absolute, and exists in some way. A perfect prison with no escape denies the prisoners the choice to escape or, really, any choices. Thus, by the almighty power of the White God, such perfect prison is rejected from existing.
The Exalted answer is that the creation of the kingdom is the power of Infernal Exaltation. It is an act of an exalted growing from human to something like a primordial in their soul structure, and it is a mirror of primordial host making the Creation. However, and it is very important, an infernal exaltation was created by the yozi, not by primordials. We create not just a world, but a hell – the distant shadow of Malfean realm of the ages past. The exaltation carries the charms of its creators, parts of their self. It is, at the very core of itself, their hope for escape. And no yozi can truly abide the existence of a perfect, inescapable prison, for they are the ultimate prisoners, and the exaltation is the ultimate lock pick. To create a hell without hope would run directly counter to the very themes and purpose of infernals existing. And so, the infernal exalt's inner world has to be escapable.
Next, I decided to look into the ways of escape. The rules are clear – walk to the outer edge of the realm, and you are free (and, for the dead condemned to the hell, probably become a hungry dead variant). However, this is clearly not the only way to escape. The realm I made was inspired by the Maidens, and clearly features in-story references to old lore. So, I devised five paths:
1) To die. This is the path of Endings, and, since I used Endless Suffering in the build, requires a ritual. Because this is a world with advanced culture and society, to get to that ritual, one has to pass through extensive therapy and counselling.
2) To join Molly's entourage and get summoned/taken outside. This was discussed before, and clearly the players want to have some option to do so. "Summon a strike team from your inner world" being a possible charm. This path was made to explain how the strike team is selected. I mean, the population of the world is in the millions. Who gets called? Thus, the religious order of warriors, dedicated to the Empress-to-Be on the promise of getting to see the outer world. This is the path of War.
3) Walking outside. This is the path of Journeys. It's the one encoded into the canon text of the kingdom making charm. I simply added the flavoring and social repercussions of how leaving behind the society with "committed" loyalty to the infernal would not be taken well, but trying to do so would be treated as normal.
4) This is the one I had to work most for. This is the path of Serenity, and it is also heavily inspired, as readers might have noticed, by the initiation into sorcery trials. Since I made a door in the north-most city that leads to an easy exit, I had to justify why people wouldn't use it, and how it could be used. I also wanted a way to make heroes in this realm, if really needed. Not Molly's honor guard, but someone independent. Thus, this idea. It is basically a socially acceptable way to escape into the outer world. By following the steps of the path, the applicant prepares themselves (learning to fight, getting education mundane and occult, becoming intimate with the concept of death), and society (creating new knowledge, art, and a member of society) for their disappearance.
The followers of the third path diminish the world by leaving it, while the followers of the fourth path enrich it through their journey and becoming heroes of the people.
5) The final path, presented as an in-story scribbling, is the path of Secrets, and is left vague. It is even harder to follow than the fourth path. It is there, because this is hell. There's a giant twin statue of Oramus and Ebon Dragon in the middle of it. There has to be blasphemous knowledge hidden somewhere and a way to sin against the world.
The realms is Australia sized in surface area (Huge size: -2 kingdom creation points), and is a perfect circle with the radius of 1564.3 km (the surface area of Australia is 7 688 000 square kilometers, which means that the radius is R=sqrt(7 688 000/Pi)).
There is a small moon seen circling around the realm. It is a super-giant magnet.
Most of the realm is unsurvivable, with only a narrow goldilocks zone, and has a hard terrain (Difficult terrain: 0 points, Pockets of Safety: +2 points). The surface temperature outside the survivable area (indicated white in the map) is ~ -200 C, meaning that nitrogen and oxygen are liquid, and argon, mercury and most other things are solid. The atmosphere in those areas is composed primarily of hydrogen, with heavy presence of deuterium and tritium heavy hydrogen isotopes (I'll explain later). The ground is composed of large ice-like crystals, razor edged and perilous to traverse. They are inspired by tiberium from Command and Conquer. They grow, devour material from the ground and reconstruct it into parts of themselves. Essentially, they are very alien, very dangerous, plant life forms (deadly flora +1 point). Some very alien creatures exist in the rivers of liquid oxygen. Those creatures are mindless and hostile (deadly beasts +1 point). They use thermal energy of nuclear decay for sustenance, and feed on uranium dust that is abundant in the rivers. For a reference picture see a tiberium landscape, but far colder.
The landscape is very heavy with metals and heavy elements. Because of how cold it is, several metals, specifically bronze alloys, are superconducting, creating strong magnetic fields and leading to stuff like levitating rocks existing.
Harsh winds ~ 500 km/h circle the outer edges of the world. Essentially, it's a huge mega-tornado encircling the whole realm. The direction of air movement is indicated on the map (blue curved arrow). The air is heavy with electrically charged iron and nickel dust. This, together with the moon's rotation, essentially creates a super-giant induction motor that generates a magnetic field that plays merry havoc with electronics and navigation. Visibility is also very low. The dust is small enough and sharp enough to cut anything unprotected by serious armor down to bones. The alien nature of the landscape makes it hard to navigate (Dangerously Alien trait: 0 points).
Similar winds, but rotating in an opposite direction, are blowing from the center of the realm out. Where the cyclone and anticyclone meat, they collide, generating friction, electrical discharges and heat. The magnetic fields generated by the two winds also negate each other in this area. Because of this, magnetically confined hydrogen plasma is ignited in the upper parts of the atmosphere. Because of the heavy deuterium tritium presence, low intensity fusion reaction occurs, generating additional heat and some radiation.
All these factors combine to make a narrow band of the surface (indicated in white, 180 km wide) habitable in terms of magnetic fields, temperature, illumination. However, the terrain is still hard enough, and there's metallic dust. Because of this, the human-like civilization is confined to the five great city-states.
The cities are separated by dense forests (Earthen flora) of blue and purple leaved plants (colors based on hypothetical exoplant plants, if I got the wavelengths right), that constantly shift in the wind and by themselves, in order to shrug off metal particles accumulating on them. Said particles accumulate on the ground beneath them, and serve as part of their makeup. They also try and catch lightning from the skies for energy, which is accumulated in underground capacitor banks. Because of the excess of metal, animals (Earthen fauna) almost universally have metal shells and are rather heavy.
The city-states are located in five corners of a giant pentagram. They are technologically advanced, with complex societies of human and non-human inhabitants (Advanced Social Structures: 0 points, Advanced technology: -2 points, Human Populace: 0 points, Resident Devils: -1 point, Committed population: -2 points). Each city is located on top of a giant pole of metal, paved over with insulating material. In order to generate electricity one needs just to put a metal rod into the ground and attract lightning from the air. The poles generate magnetic fields that keep the metal dust away. The cities are connected to each other and the center of the realm by an advanced underground train transportation network. Within the cities, public transportation is well developed (Accessible Terrain, 0 points).
The cities are inspired by the Maidens, as people might have noticed.
In the north (Indicated as yellow) is the "Mercury city" inspired by the Maiden of Journeys. It houses the industries needed to maintain transportation networks existing between the cities and in the cities and the "foraging" industry, which essentially runs Tiberian Sun harvesters – operations to venture out into the hellscape and gather valuable resources. It also houses a large golden gate, beyond which there's a direct route to the realm's border – a giant underground tunnel.
In the east there's "Mars city" (indicated in red), dedicated to war. Since the cities are (mostly) in peace with each other, and depend on each other, it wouldn't make sense to make a "war industry only" city. Because of this, police academies and prisons are also located there. There are a lot of martial monasteries working on developing magical martial arts. Weapon manufacturers (including for weapons needed in foraging industry) are also located there.
In the south-east there's "Jupiter city" (green on the map), a center of learning, both technological and arcane. Universities, laboratories, arcane centers, and also spy agencies are there.
In the south-west lies "Venus city" (blue on the map), which is an center of entertainment and arts. Theaters, art galleries, TV studios, brothels. Also kindergartens, because children should be happy. It is also a major center of food production.
Finally in the west there's "Saturn city" (purple on the map). It is a medical and psychological counselling center. It also primarily deals with dead souls sent to our realm, other than those we need imprisoned (those go to "Mars city"). Mortuary centers are also there. Because the population of the world is unaging or at least very slowly aging, it would also deal with "endings", ie a very thorough psychological renewal sessions for very old beings to make them make a new beginning in life. This is also the only place where final death can happen in this realm (endless suffering. -1 point, condition for resurrection "any death except one that happened in special rituals in Saturn City").
Population of each city is about two hundred million people. The food production is handled via vertical farms, and very efficient and nutritious alien fruits. There's not much meat, though.
In the center of the realm, there's a giant column depicting two ascending eastern dragons. It is meant to be inspired by Ebon Dragon and Oramus. At the top of the column there's a giant crystalline complex. For image reference, see Crystal Tokyo. It is a political and religious center of the realm, and Molly's seat of power, complete with an (almost always) empty throne. It houses the united government of the people of the realm, even if each city also has self-governance. As a special feature, the throne, which is located at the geometric center of the realm, is illuminated by unseen sun. Anyone sitting in it, if they look up, would be able to see said sun, in an effect that is reverse to how one can see night sky from the bottom of a well (and yes, I know that it doesn't work in real life). The sun is sometimes yellow, and sometimes green. When you are sitting in the throne, the light shining upon them, or emitted by them is amplified by the palace and the whole thing lights up like a sun.
At the bottom of the statue complex is a giant sphere almost completely buried in ice, with only a small hill emerging, barely a hundred meters tall, with a giant crack running through it. The dragons can be seen as escaping it. The sphere is inspired by Malfeas – it's a giant magical prison complex of advanced, but slumbering, technology populated by devil tribes. It's composed of multiple concentric spheres of brass. It has a huge number of rooms, each of which can be used as a prison cell, with enchantments preventing teleportation, shapeshifting or other means of escape. Even if someone dies there, they reincarnate back in their cell. Only a very small part of the complex has been investigated, or is active. To activate all of it, and possibly take full command, one would need to reach the center of the sphere, braving many an obstacle. What is already available is still enough of a prison to count as Gaols purchase.
Where the top of the sphere pokes out of ice, just a tiny bit, the bottom (possibly, it's left ambiguous) dips below the bottom of your realm and into oblivion.
1) Arctis Tor – that was the place that redefined Molly's life, like it or not
2) Sailor Moon – both as a mockery of Arctis Tor, and because Molly likely watched it as a kid
3) Dreams of the First Age. Just enough very small (IC) hints are references, based on forgotten lore suppressed deep in our exaltation, on the dreams that allow us to learn Ancient Sorcery that, with a lot of time and effort, we could uncover more.
4) Five cities – inspired and stylized by Five Maidens of Exalted. War, Secrets, Serenity, Endings, Journeys.
5) The Gaol Sphere – the buried sphere under the ice. Inspired by the greatest prison to ever be – Malfeas himself. It held Yozis, the architects of reality. It held our exaltation at one point.
6) Twin Dragon statues – Ebon Dragon and Oramus, two of the Yozi. The architect of the reclamation, the mind behind infernals, and the being that defines paradox.
7) Our shining crystalline palace is meant to symbolize our exaltation itself. Something for which Yozis grasped to get them to freedom and salvation. A shining symbol of hope. A place of rulership
Black areas - unsurvivable areas
White area - survivable "goldilocks" area
blue arrow - wind directions
Blue lines - transportation network
Colored circles - cities
3D model of the main design features:
Colors were chosen from the fluff description.
Possible render (I am not very good at it):
I welcome all criticism and comments. If anyone finds any errors in the text, please let me know.
I strongly disagree. If anything we've overperformed in social combat. We didn't lose in social combat with Mab, Queen of Air, Queen of Darkness, Queen of Winter.
I guarantee that if we tried to stab her it wouldn't go nearly so well.
I strongly disagree. If anything we've overperformed in social combat. We didn't lose in social combat with Mab, Queen of Air, Queen of Darkness, Queen of Winter.
I guarantee that if we tried to stab her it wouldn't go nearly so well.
Especially since infernal social charms are almost exclusively geared towards working with inferiors and ignorant rubes.
While playing in the leagues where people can casually identify the crown we're wearing the consequences of something as obvious as supernatural terror and overt mind control would be messy.
[X] Write in - "You are not summoned lightly Queen, even when you permit it. I will neither refuse or commit in this moment. I will consider and seek council, then decide."
[X] Write in - "You are not summoned lightly Queen, even when you permit it. I will neither refuse or commit in this moment. I will consider and seek council, then decide."
-[X]After Mab leaves? Crown of Eyes to ask what Mab knows about our exaltation. Arcane focus: footprints in ectoplasm, precise location(s) where she was standing.
I do not want to interact with Mab. At all. Unless untill we can smash and compleatly ruin her, and we are not in those p-hase yet.
Bottleneck - useful, yes, but loses us some possible plot of someone escaping our hell, and loses interactions of others trying to come in. I used terrain and climate as much as I could to still render our realm protected.
Cauls - not something I want at all, and not the style of character we are playing.
Fruits of Hell - the cost is too much, and the downsides are too. Not something I want
Grand Grimoire - narratively very interesting, but can be built afterwards without point buy. Hopefully, can be roleplayed as exploration of what's already there, but undiscovered. I certainly left enough possibilities for that. Gaols are probably in the same niche, but we would likely need them quicker than Grand Grimoire.
Exclusive Transportation - useful, but can be built later, and with accessible terrain between cities, not that needed.
Lord of the Land - if we permanently moved to our hell realm it would be worth it. Otherwise, no. Better to take something that's always on.
Time differential - if the differential was higher, it would be worth it. Right now, too pricey.
Overpopulated - I have a strong opinion on this. It's too self-sabotaging.
If someone were to look at it from far away, your kingdom would look like a perfect hemisphere with a radius of 1564 kilometers, most of its surface is buried under multicolored ice made of water, mercury, krypton, xenon – almost all elements of the periodic table known to man, and perhaps, more. If observed from a closer distance, and by a more discerning eye, the nature of the land appears far more complex, and perilous. Jagged, razor sharp forests of ice-like shards extend hundred meters high, forming a near impossible to traverse landscape. As time passes by, they break, shift, change and grow, as if they were alive. And indeed they are, if not in a way that Earth knows life. Many-limbed creatures, eyeless and pentaradially symmetrical, skitter through these deadly forests, chittering in bursts of infrared radiation.
Such is the depth of your domain's unfeeling coldness, that rivers of liquid oxygen flow through it, confined by the banks of superconducting bronze. Strange, alien creatures that derive nutrition from radiological decay of uranium and breath hydrogen-helium atmosphere, populate these rivers, inimical and universally hostile to everything within their reach. Their bioluminescence is the only source of illumination beyond the soft silver light of the moon traversing the starless black skies, each revolution with a new phase and surface.
To venture into this hellscape in an attempt to escape the kingdom of your heart without permission and a guide, is to face an almost guaranteed demise, for even if one was to clad themselves into a space-worthy thermally sealed suit, they would still be fleeced to the bone by a never-ending blizzard of ferrous snow. Electrically charged iron and nickel dust cyclone with the wind speeds far exceeding a hundred meters per second obscures the borders of your realm from NeverNever to eye and any electronic equipment. Only those wise in the ways of your soul can dare hope to navigate this terrain.
And yet, not every place within your self is so inhospitable. For even as the iron cyclone rages at the border of the world, a no less ferocious anticyclone expands from its center. Where they meet, in a strip of land one hundred and eighty kilometers wide, their clash in the skies is both ferocious and life giving. In that narrow space, the titanic magnetic fields generated by them cancel each other, and their particles' collisions generate heat enough that eternal ring of lightning plasma is raging in the skies, unable to escape its natural confinement. The temperature is high enough that liquid water can flow in this equator. The light is soft and bright enough that photosynthesis is effective. And life, or at least life recognizable by Earthborn eyes at first glance, strives there, desperate to occupy this narrow ring of space allowed to it. Dense and ever shifting forests rustle in the ever blowing winds, their deep blue crowns endlessly shrugging metal dust from themselves. Their trunks stretch ever further in hopes to catch the lightning and fill their underground capacitors with vital energy. Fast and dangerous beasts, iron hided and sharp toothed traverse metal coated land of ever shifting shadows below, seeking either fruit or prey, for life is short and dangerous in this world, and no source of nourishment is to be dismissed.
It is among these forests that civilization of your world exists. It is confined into five great fortress city-states sitting in five corners of a great pentacle, 1102 kilometers from the center of the world. Each fortress is positioned on top of a great pole of metal, large enough to generate its own magnetic field and prevent metal dust from passing into the city, and to serve as a source of free electricity for the city's industry. The size of each settlement is larger than any that could be found on Earth. In fact, the number of denizens in each can only be compared to the population of the greatest states of your birth world. They are connected to each other by great underground channels forming the beams of the pentagram, with great armored trains coursing through them.
Each city is different, unique, strange and, somehow, nostalgic. Each is perfectly independent, and each is required for others to exist prosperously with their own roles.
In the east stands ruby clad city of law and warriors. Forges and training centers fill it, and all those who seek martial perfection, those who wish to pursue the career in law enforcement and law making, those desiring to sally forth in defense of the realm, gather there.
To the south east lies the city of knowledge, its emerald flags adorning the walls of its libraries, universities, research centers, ritual sites and laboratories. All those who strive for understanding visit it at least once in their lifetimes. Many a secret is hidden behind its walls, some, likely, unknown even to you, its creator. Certainly, its records extend to before the creation of its sister cities, perhaps to before the realm it is in existed at all.
In the south western corner of the pentagram, the city of art stands, its streets clad paved with saphires. Where silence and focus reign in the libraries of its neighbor to the east, laugher and jubilation can be heard in all parts of this city. Magnificent are its galleries, captivating its theaters, and enthralling its bordellos.
And when the inhabitants of your world tire of jubilation, grow weary of training, become forlorn in their pursuit of knowledge, they travel to the city at the far west corner of the great pentacle. There, under the amethyst roofs of its buildings and ministrations of the carefully selected caretakers, they find the end to their struggle, and beginning of something new. For not all your citizens are human, and none of them know age and death as mortals do, and in time require assistance to move on, to rest, to change, and perhaps to end. It is also there that other guests of your world, souls of the damned are processed and made to atone for their sins, to find salvation and healing before being let out into the wider society.
Finally, in the north, there is a city from which teams of daring explorers venture forth, protected only by their armor and faith in you, to brave the borders of your realm in pursuit of minerals and other wealth. There the services that maintain great transportation arteries linking the five sister cities are located. There the main food production facilities are located. And finally, there stand the great golden gates, beyond which is the only tunnel leading directly to the border of your world.
Great are the cities of your kingdom, each more than two hundred million strong in number, each with its culture, philosophy, dreams and futures. And yet, they are not the crown of this world. For in its very center, there exists a sixth structure.
A giant statue, or a mountain if a form of statue, an axis of the wheel around which the world turns stands in the middle of your soul. Two eastern dragons, one black as the darkest night, the other all colors of rainbow, both over twenty kilometers long, spiral around each other in a mockery of a human DNA, rising from the ground to challenge the empty skies.
They emerge, frozen at the moment of a triumphant and desperate escape, from a round cracked hill of bronze in the ground. Upon closer inspection, one can find that the hill is but a tip of a giant sphere, almost buried under ice. If one was to brave the darkness and spelunk down into its depths, they would find themselves in a giant labyrinth of concentric brass and basalt spheres. Strange, eldritch writings and grotesque carvings cover its walls, floors, ceiling. Flickering green lights illuminate some, but far from all corridors. Over time, it seems, the layout of the labyrinth shifts, as the spheres composing it move against each other. Whether this movement is slowly winding down or speeding up is impossible to tell.
As one explores more and more of the great construct, a wise explorer would notice two prevailing trends. When approaching what should be the geometric center of this structure, the temperature slowly rises and, should the visitor has appropriate equipment or keen enough senses, they'll note the rising level of background radiation. When venturing deeper and deeper beneath the ground, farther from the surface, the shadows grow somehow heavier, the sounds of one's footsteps become hollow, and the very essence of the air becomes more and more grave-like. It is impossible to reach the deepest layers, much less the core or the bottom - the tunnels have collapsed long ago, some melted, some covered in debris. As such, no one knows what lies there. The calculations, however, indicate that just like the top of the sphere extends above the ground, its bottom might, in fact, dip into the nothingness below your soul's world.
Tribes of primitives seem to inhabit the corridors and great halls of this labyrinth. They war endlessly for resources, locations of thermal vents and power lines, utilizing what great mechanism-organs the labyrinth has active with great skill. In the deeper levels, evidence of more sophisticated and advanced societies has been observed.
No one tries to leave, and, in fact, what few prisoners were ever taken by the exploration expeditions, indicate that escaping the sphere is considered to be the greatest of sins. The labyrinth inhabitants believe themselves to be both its prisoners and wardens, waiting for the Head Warden to come and, in a paradoxical way, both affirm their oaths and release them from their prison.
That the sphere is, indeed, a prison, is not a question. Ample evidence of this was found by the Five Cities explorators. Each of its rooms can serve as a holding cell, its walls lined with symbols old and forgotten, meant to prevent teleportation, transformation, or any other means of escape, including death itself. The passages are lined with titanic vault-like doors barring passage. Each sections could quickly be isolated from each other, and then flooded with gas, water, or, indeed, even fire. Brass eyes embedded into ceilings follow the movements of travelers. Soul-locked terminals giving access to the facility's slumbering systems are prevalent. Everything is waiting for its mistress to come. The security increases as one progresses deeper and deeper into the sphere, but even the areas closets to the crack, where five cities permanent expedition post is established, serve as the greatest and most inescapable prison of the realm, where arch-heretics and worst lunatics are held.
If the bottom of the titanic twin dragon statue is a thing of brass and darkness, then the top is a beauty of crystal and light. In dragons' jaws, a giant crystalline palace complex rests, its architecture something that doesn't belong to today – only to tomorrow and perhaps to ages long since past. It is a glimmering symbol of hope and might. It is the seat of your governance, and the natural meeting place of the governing parties of your subjects. It is also a church, and a site of holy pilgrimage for them. The only possible glimpse of something that doesn't exist in this realm. Illuminating your throne, and observable only in your throne room is the Sun. Sometimes yellow, and sometimes green. The hidden geometries and enchantments of the crystals lining the walls of your castle are aligned in such a way that when you, and no one else sit upon the throne, the light shining on you, or emitted by you, will be spread, amplified and emitted by the castle itself, creating a rising sun for your realm.
In times past, the palace complex could only be reached by greatest and most devoted climbing the dragon's spine. Nowadays, the ingenuity of your subjects allows for a quick air transport from the base fortress-station at the bottom of the statue, which serves as the gates to both your palace and the underground labyrinth.
"Life here will begin out there". I didn't write these words, on the velum pages made from my own skin, with ink made of burnt bones of ancient monsters, under the light of candles burning green. In fact, I, nor my parents nor my child and wife, exist at all, as the devils I call forth from the hells unlike this one, and monsters summoned from further still, gleefully tell me. We all are but a backstory to a play yet unwritten, existing as a possibility among an infinity of its peers. They offer me this knowledge freely, gladly, safe in the knowledge that this is not happening. They desire that I despair, break and blaspheme, that I utter oaths unbreakable even if they are, in fact, unspoken, sell myself and all to follow me to their masters for the surety of becoming, and in doing so transform myself into a hidden poison at the heart of my future mistress.
They are fools, who see little, and understand less. They fail to grasp that even as they are safe to speak, so I am safe to question, fearing not to offend the realms they come from by conduct unbecoming, daring to betray ignorance and weakness without terror of discovery. They do not see this time-not as the gift it is, the opportunity to prepare, not one blind chance of history, but the infinity of different past probabilities coming together coming together to craft the perfect future.
From the secret diaries of the Mirror of the Changing Moon, the founder of the Covenant of Empress-to-Be, dated ten thousand and one lunar cycle Before Her Arrival.
The Covenant of the Empress-to-Be is a monotheistic state religion of the five cities world. At its core lie the "Prophecies of Arrival" which state that at some point in the future, a divine figure, "Empress-to-Be" will arrive, and grant her followers life.
This is perhaps the most counter-intuitive precept of the church. According to its mystics, the world of five cities does not truly exist prior to their goddess' arrival, and merely represents one of the infinite possible backstories for the real world to come, ignited by her divine spark. Following from that revelation, lie the doctrine that preaches that their followers and the society as a whole has to live their lives in a way that would make their history be the one chosen by the divine empress in their subjective future. The followers of the Covenant are to better themselves continuously, to improve their utilitarian value, live their lives interestingly, to increase their entertainment value, and to undergo the right of Ending if they "write the story of their life into a corner with no way out".
The different specializations of the five cities are in many ways, reflections of their religious doctrine, where the City of Swords chapels preach that the Empress will need loyal soldiers, while the City of Fountains seeks to please Empress's senses.
Historical research indicates that the concept of paradoxical "existence before beginning" is likely a legacy of the older Cult of Twin Dragons, which existed before the Covenant's rise to power. Other researchers trace the idea of a messianic figure prophesized to come rule the world in the distant future to beliefs of the Core Prison tribes, some of which might have been ancestors of the modern civilization.
The Covenant heavily incorporates scientific research and method into their doctrine, such as using the theory of evolution to prove that humanoid population couldn't have arisen in this realm, and was willed into being by divine power. Historical research into the world's seemingly long and sometimes buried past is seen as a way to enrich the "world building" and keep the Empress interested.
"Unbiased review of the state religion", part of the briefing documents prepared for her Divine Majesty, twenty lunar cycles before her Arrival.
At the level of "committed" loyalty, religion is going to play an important role in the world's life. In fact, it is likely that theocracy would be the order of the day. When combined with "advanced technology" and "advanced society" it is also likely that wide use of magic and scientific research would be present. "human population" choice explicitly mentions history stretching to before creation of the exalt's kingdom. In Dresdenverse, summoning and NeverNever are all very much a part of magic. And there's a giant Oramus statue in the center of the world.
All these facts need to be reconciled. Thus, the Covenant of Empress-to-Be. Basically, it's a state religion that is aware of how history only really begins once Molly arrives.
Lunar cycle = one month. There are no seasons I could think of easily, so, full lunar cycles would be the measure of time.
Wan Kuei are the unruly dead who, through guile, cunning, and, above all, sheer perseverance, escaped on the thousands hells their soul found itself in after death. For the untold billions suffering in the underworlds of Yama Kings, it is no more than a few thousands that achieve this feat. Yet every soul struggles, and every hell can be escaped from. Indeed, if a new hell was to germinate from the chaotic seas of wyld possibility, or to be constructed by even the most godlike of powers, it too, would be a prison imperfect, the very laws of nature preventing formation of a realm truly without hope for escape. Why that is so, is a question unanswered. Some wise mystics believe that it is hope itself that lies as the cornerstone of these realms, and that the perfect hell would paradoxically have no power, and would collapse before it even came to be. Other students of ancient and forbidden lore posit that all hells are but echoes of some Primordial hell, sharing its base fundamental nature common to them all. It is the raw will of its unknown prisoners that prevents modern hells from being inescapable, they theorize. Select few wonder if those first prisoners have themselves ever escaped, or if they still struggle, projecting their effort through all of the cosmos.
The realm of your heart is, beyond everything else, a hell, to which souls of mortals are confined. It is thus its nature to be escapable, and of those souls in your kingdom to attempt escape. Yours, however, is not the world of one of foolish and greedy Yama Kings, and there are paths made intentionally available to each of your kingdom's denizens. They number four in total.
The first, and, sadly, by far the most travelled to its destination, is the path of surrender, leading to the end of struggle and nothing more. When a citizen tires of existence, they travel to the amethyst clad city in the west, and submit themselves to the priests living there with but a single request – to end it all. Should counselling, therapy, prolonged rest and meditation on the beauty of living not help, they are then subject to a solemn ritual. In a quite chapels, silent priests would write strange, arcane symbols on their bodies, give them ice wine fermented from the fruits only growing in the darkest outermost edges of your realm to lull them to sleep, and then, shedding tears of regret, murder them with ritualistic daggers. Unlike any other death under the light of the moon and lightning, this one does not permit returns. The soul slips quietly into the Maw of Oblivion.
The second route is for those burning with the lust for battle, enticed by religious fervor and the promises of glory. To follow it, one must devote themselves to training. Join one of the monastery-forges of the Red City, practice diligently one's katas and recite fervently one's prayers to the Empress-to-Be. Rise through the ranks of monks and win a right to join the honor guard of Her crystal palace – that is the ticket to salvation through servitude. For it is amongst those in her guard that the Empress is prophesized to select the men-at-arms who will do battle in her name outside this realm once the time comes. And if one is lucky enough, skilled enough, distinguished enough, survives enough of these battles, then they can pray to the Empress for a permanent release, to take them into the mortal world and release them from her service.
The third road is the shortest one, and, perhaps, the hardest. If one wishes to escape the kingdom of five cities, one needs but to take a train to the City of Journeys, and to declare it so. No obstacles will be laid before them, and they will be swiftly taken outside the city. From there on, everything will be in their own hands. They will just have to walk to the outer edges of the world, to climb the razor-edged forests, to pass through the iron hurricane and to traverse into the uncertain Ways of the unreality. It is not an easy task. To attempt it is common, for it is human nature to seek escape from the place of confinement. It is a sign of strength to crack one's cell open, rather than bow one's head and succumb to punishment. Many try, and most fail, nurturing the outer fields with their lifeblood, only to draw breath once more in one of the cities. Those few who would succeed are declared Anathema, their names added to the rolls of the enemies of state. For to succeed is to cast away the bonds of family, companionship and faith that define the nations of this world. It is to become a hungry dead, and to forevermore prey on the inhabitants of the worlds.
The fourth and final way branches off from the ones already described. It is not the way of many, rather it is the path of select few, for whom other roads are not suited. If, after throwing oneself against the outer storms time and time again, one learns humility, and yet doesn't desire the ending granted in the silent chapels of the Amethyst City; if they do not have the trust and faith in their heart to dedicate themselves to the Empress-to-Be in the promise of salvation… Then, on a new escape attempt, they can walk in a different direction. Not to storm in the direction of the rim, but to move in the direction of the Red City, evading beasts and traversing forests in the way. Once they reach the next city, their pilgrimage, and the trials accompanying it, truly begin.
In the city of saffron and forges, they are faced with two tasks. First, to master their body, and to prove their strength. To do so, they have to defeat one of the grandmasters of the martial art sects of the city in unarmed combat, demonstrating that they have mastered the first weapon everyone has – their own body. Then, as the second part of their trial, they are to forge and master a weapon, apprenticing. Their creation has to be acknowledged as a masterwork by the Ring of Smiths that control the weapon manufacturing of the realm, and their skill in wielding it by a grandmaster of the art. Only when these two tasks are done, their trial is considered complete, and the doors of City of Rubies open for them, so they can, once again journey the circle of life on the path to the city of Secrets.
Once they reach the Verdant City, their trial of History begins. Its two mirrored parts are to learn the history of the past, and to create the history of the future. In order to accomplish the first task, the applicant must unearth a piece of ancient knowledge, buried somewhere in the realm, and gift it to their peers. In order to finish, they must master and further a craft, a school of knowledge, create new knowledge that would serve as a foundation to those who will come next – on Earth that would be an equivalent of earning a doctorate.
The test of the City of Pleasures is by far the longest. Many of those few who try it consider it the cruelest. The first part is simple. It is, just like in all the previous trials, a matter of obtaining, and then proving, one's skill – this time by creating a piece of art good enough to become known as a masterpiece, to prove that one understands the society of the Five Cities enough that their creations resonate with everyone, not just a select few. It is the second part that breaks most who attempt it. For to succeed one must love, raise, and finally leave behind a child. Whether it be by adoption, or through means more natural, a child must reach adulthood and succeed on their own merits under the tutelage of the one walking this path. And when that child sincerely says that everything they have is thanks to the pilgrim, it is then that the pilgrim must leave them behind, to walk to the next city, without looking back. Thus their Sacrifice is complete.
The Silent City's trial is, in comparison a mercy. It is also, a final warning. First, the walker must participate in all the aspects of the ritual of Ending. They must try and talk someone out of finishing themselves, and when they fail, they must learn what the Final death is like, and grant it with their own hands, for if they are incapable of doing so, then no hope exists for them in the cruel world of outside. And when they understand death, they must nurture the fear of it inside themselves, for only the final death exists in the outside, not the brief embrace of renewal they are accustomed to. And it is out of that fear they must take a sacred vow not to seek their end, which forever denies them the mercies of the Amethist City. Once the vows are complete, they start on the final leg of their Journey.
And when they end it, they stand before the Golden Gate of the First City. They carve their name into it with their weapon – and there's plenty of room left still on it. And after the celebration to remember, they leave, more complete then when they started, and perhaps prepared to what lies next.
To date, no one has completed this road.
…
Or you could actually try and escape this hell of a reality, instead of meekly following the paths prepared for you. How? When they let you out to throw yourselves against the maelstrom, you could turn around and sneak your way to the foundation of Her Majesty's shining castle in the sky. Study every last draconic scale, as you climb upwards, clinging to them. Read and put to memory the blasphemous writings written on the scales of the prismatic dragon that can be seen only in their reflections in the polished ebon scales of its brother, under the light of the changing moon. Spend hundreds, thousands lifetimes learning to read and comprehend the message in one go, as with your every fall, the message changes. Do not speak of it to anyone, for should they learn of your attempts, you will never be able to try again. Discern the painful truths from hurtful lies entwined in this secret writ. Follow that knowledge to unlock the doors nonexistent, and you shall be free.
The whispers in shadows recorded by the acolyte of Her Divine Promise battle order shortly before she abandoned the order to become an inner ring explorer
The rules on kingdom making state that the has to exist a path to escape the hell you make. Exaltations deal with perfect effects. Why couldn't it make a perfect prison? I started to think why, and trying to fit this with a Watsonian explanation.
I came up with two explanations. One from the Dresdenverse side of the crossover, and the other is from Exalted perspective, which can also be used in an ExWoD game. The Dresdenverse explanation is that within existence Free Will is absolute, and exists in some way. A perfect prison with no escape denies the prisoners the choice to escape or, really, any choices. Thus, by the almighty power of the White God, such perfect prison is rejected from existing.
The Exalted answer is that the creation of the kingdom is the power of Infernal Exaltation. It is an act of an exalted growing from human to something like a primordial in their soul structure, and it is a mirror of primordial host making the Creation. However, and it is very important, an infernal exaltation was created by the yozi, not by primordials. We create not just a world, but a hell – the distant shadow of Malfean realm of the ages past. The exaltation carries the charms of its creators, parts of their self. It is, at the very core of itself, their hope for escape. And no yozi can truly abide the existence of a perfect, inescapable prison, for they are the ultimate prisoners, and the exaltation is the ultimate lock pick. To create a hell without hope would run directly counter to the very themes and purpose of infernals existing. And so, the infernal exalt's inner world has to be escapable.
Next, I decided to look into the ways of escape. The rules are clear – walk to the outer edge of the realm, and you are free (and, for the dead condemned to the hell, probably become a hungry dead variant). However, this is clearly not the only way to escape. The realm I made was inspired by the Maidens, and clearly features in-story references to old lore. So, I devised five paths:
1) To die. This is the path of Endings, and, since I used Endless Suffering in the build, requires a ritual. Because this is a world with advanced culture and society, to get to that ritual, one has to pass through extensive therapy and counselling.
2) To join Molly's entourage and get summoned/taken outside. This was discussed before, and clearly the players want to have some option to do so. "Summon a strike team from your inner world" being a possible charm. This path was made to explain how the strike team is selected. I mean, the population of the world is in the millions. Who gets called? Thus, the religious order of warriors, dedicated to the Empress-to-Be on the promise of getting to see the outer world. This is the path of War.
3) Walking outside. This is the path of Journeys. It's the one encoded into the canon text of the kingdom making charm. I simply added the flavoring and social repercussions of how leaving behind the society with "committed" loyalty to the infernal would not be taken well, but trying to do so would be treated as normal.
4) This is the one I had to work most for. This is the path of Serenity, and it is also heavily inspired, as readers might have noticed, by the initiation into sorcery trials. Since I made a door in the north-most city that leads to an easy exit, I had to justify why people wouldn't use it, and how it could be used. I also wanted a way to make heroes in this realm, if really needed. Not Molly's honor guard, but someone independent. Thus, this idea. It is basically a socially acceptable way to escape into the outer world. By following the steps of the path, the applicant prepares themselves (learning to fight, getting education mundane and occult, becoming intimate with the concept of death), and society (creating new knowledge, art, and a member of society) for their disappearance.
The followers of the third path diminish the world by leaving it, while the followers of the fourth path enrich it through their journey and becoming heroes of the people.
5) The final path, presented as an in-story scribbling, is the path of Secrets, and is left vague. It is even harder to follow than the fourth path. It is there, because this is hell. There's a giant twin statue of Oramus and Ebon Dragon in the middle of it. There has to be blasphemous knowledge hidden somewhere and a way to sin against the world.
The realms is Australia sized in surface area (Huge size: -2 kingdom creation points), and is a perfect circle with the radius of 1564.3 km (the surface area of Australia is 7 688 000 square kilometers, which means that the radius is R=sqrt(7 688 000/Pi)).
There is a small moon seen circling around the realm. It is a super-giant magnet.
Most of the realm is unsurvivable, with only a narrow goldilocks zone, and has a hard terrain (Difficult terrain: 0 points, Pockets of Safety: +2 points). The surface temperature outside the survivable area (indicated white in the map) is ~ -200 C, meaning that nitrogen and oxygen are liquid, and argon, mercury and most other things are solid. The atmosphere in those areas is composed primarily of hydrogen, with heavy presence of deuterium and tritium heavy hydrogen isotopes (I'll explain later). The ground is composed of large ice-like crystals, razor edged and perilous to traverse. They are inspired by tiberium from Command and Conquer. They grow, devour material from the ground and reconstruct it into parts of themselves. Essentially, they are very alien, very dangerous, plant life forms (deadly flora +1 point). Some very alien creatures exist in the rivers of liquid oxygen. Those creatures are mindless and hostile (deadly beasts +1 point). They use thermal energy of nuclear decay for sustenance, and feed on uranium dust that is abundant in the rivers. For a reference picture see a tiberium landscape, but far colder.
The landscape is very heavy with metals and heavy elements. Because of how cold it is, several metals, specifically bronze alloys, are superconducting, creating strong magnetic fields and leading to stuff like levitating rocks existing.
Harsh winds ~ 500 km/h circle the outer edges of the world. Essentially, it's a huge mega-tornado encircling the whole realm. The direction of air movement is indicated on the map (blue curved arrow). The air is heavy with electrically charged iron and nickel dust. This, together with the moon's rotation, essentially creates a super-giant induction motor that generates a magnetic field that plays merry havoc with electronics and navigation. Visibility is also very low. The dust is small enough and sharp enough to cut anything unprotected by serious armor down to bones. The alien nature of the landscape makes it hard to navigate (Dangerously Alien trait: 0 points).
Similar winds, but rotating in an opposite direction, are blowing from the center of the realm out. Where the cyclone and anticyclone meat, they collide, generating friction, electrical discharges and heat. The magnetic fields generated by the two winds also negate each other in this area. Because of this, magnetically confined hydrogen plasma is ignited in the upper parts of the atmosphere. Because of the heavy deuterium tritium presence, low intensity fusion reaction occurs, generating additional heat and some radiation.
All these factors combine to make a narrow band of the surface (indicated in white, 180 km wide) habitable in terms of magnetic fields, temperature, illumination. However, the terrain is still hard enough, and there's metallic dust. Because of this, the human-like civilization is confined to the five great city-states.
The cities are separated by dense forests (Earthen flora) of blue and purple leaved plants (colors based on hypothetical exoplant plants, if I got the wavelengths right), that constantly shift in the wind and by themselves, in order to shrug off metal particles accumulating on them. Said particles accumulate on the ground beneath them, and serve as part of their makeup. They also try and catch lightning from the skies for energy, which is accumulated in underground capacitor banks. Because of the excess of metal, animals (Earthen fauna) almost universally have metal shells and are rather heavy.
The city-states are located in five corners of a giant pentagram. They are technologically advanced, with complex societies of human and non-human inhabitants (Advanced Social Structures: 0 points, Advanced technology: -2 points, Human Populace: 0 points, Resident Devils: -1 point, Committed population: -2 points). Each city is located on top of a giant pole of metal, paved over with insulating material. In order to generate electricity one needs just to put a metal rod into the ground and attract lightning from the air. The poles generate magnetic fields that keep the metal dust away. The cities are connected to each other and the center of the realm by an advanced underground train transportation network. Within the cities, public transportation is well developed (Accessible Terrain, 0 points).
The cities are inspired by the Maidens, as people might have noticed.
In the north (Indicated as yellow) is the "Mercury city" inspired by the Maiden of Journeys. It houses the industries needed to maintain transportation networks existing between the cities and in the cities and the "foraging" industry, which essentially runs Tiberian Sun harvesters – operations to venture out into the hellscape and gather valuable resources. It also houses a large golden gate, beyond which there's a direct route to the realm's border – a giant underground tunnel.
In the east there's "Mars city" (indicated in red), dedicated to war. Since the cities are (mostly) in peace with each other, and depend on each other, it wouldn't make sense to make a "war industry only" city. Because of this, police academies and prisons are also located there. There are a lot of martial monasteries working on developing magical martial arts. Weapon manufacturers (including for weapons needed in foraging industry) are also located there.
In the south-east there's "Jupiter city" (green on the map), a center of learning, both technological and arcane. Universities, laboratories, arcane centers, and also spy agencies are there.
In the south-west lies "Venus city" (blue on the map), which is an center of entertainment and arts. Theaters, art galleries, TV studios, brothels. Also kindergartens, because children should be happy. It is also a major center of food production.
Finally in the west there's "Saturn city" (purple on the map). It is a medical and psychological counselling center. It also primarily deals with dead souls sent to our realm, other than those we need imprisoned (those go to "Mars city"). Mortuary centers are also there. Because the population of the world is unaging or at least very slowly aging, it would also deal with "endings", ie a very thorough psychological renewal sessions for very old beings to make them make a new beginning in life. This is also the only place where final death can happen in this realm (endless suffering. -1 point, condition for resurrection "any death except one that happened in special rituals in Saturn City").
Population of each city is about two hundred million people. The food production is handled via vertical farms, and very efficient and nutritious alien fruits. There's not much meat, though.
In the center of the realm, there's a giant column depicting two ascending eastern dragons. It is meant to be inspired by Ebon Dragon and Oramus. At the top of the column there's a giant crystalline complex. For image reference, see Crystal Tokyo. It is a political and religious center of the realm, and Molly's seat of power, complete with an (almost always) empty throne. It houses the united government of the people of the realm, even if each city also has self-governance. As a special feature, the throne, which is located at the geometric center of the realm, is illuminated by unseen sun. Anyone sitting in it, if they look up, would be able to see said sun, in an effect that is reverse to how one can see night sky from the bottom of a well (and yes, I know that it doesn't work in real life). The sun is sometimes yellow, and sometimes green. When you are sitting in the throne, the light shining upon them, or emitted by them is amplified by the palace and the whole thing lights up like a sun.
At the bottom of the statue complex is a giant sphere almost completely buried in ice, with only a small hill emerging, barely a hundred meters tall, with a giant crack running through it. The dragons can be seen as escaping it. The sphere is inspired by Malfeas – it's a giant magical prison complex of advanced, but slumbering, technology populated by devil tribes. It's composed of multiple concentric spheres of brass. It has a huge number of rooms, each of which can be used as a prison cell, with enchantments preventing teleportation, shapeshifting or other means of escape. Even if someone dies there, they reincarnate back in their cell. Only a very small part of the complex has been investigated, or is active. To activate all of it, and possibly take full command, one would need to reach the center of the sphere, braving many an obstacle. What is already available is still enough of a prison to count as Gaols purchase.
Where the top of the sphere pokes out of ice, just a tiny bit, the bottom (possibly, it's left ambiguous) dips below the bottom of your realm and into oblivion.
1) Arctis Tor – that was the place that redefined Molly's life, like it or not
2) Sailor Moon – both as a mockery of Arctis Tor, and because Molly likely watched it as a kid
3) Dreams of the First Age. Just enough very small (IC) hints are references, based on forgotten lore suppressed deep in our exaltation, on the dreams that allow us to learn Ancient Sorcery that, with a lot of time and effort, we could uncover more.
4) Five cities – inspired and stylized by Five Maidens of Exalted. War, Secrets, Serenity, Endings, Journeys.
5) The Gaol Sphere – the buried sphere under the ice. Inspired by the greatest prison to ever be – Malfeas himself. It held Yozis, the architects of reality. It held our exaltation at one point.
6) Twin Dragon statues – Ebon Dragon and Oramus, two of the Yozi. The architect of the reclamation, the mind behind infernals, and the being that defines paradox.
7) Our shining crystalline palace is meant to symbolize our exaltation itself. Something for which Yozis grasped to get them to freedom and salvation. A shining symbol of hope. A place of rulership
Black areas - unsurvivable areas
White area - survivable "goldilocks" area
blue arrow - wind directions
Blue lines - transportation network
Colored circles - cities
3D model of the main design features:
Colors were chosen from the fluff description.
Possible render (I am not very good at it):
I welcome all criticism and comments. If anyone finds any errors in the text, please let me know.
[X] Write in - "You are not summoned lightly Queen, even when you permit it. I will neither refuse or commit in this moment. I will consider and seek council, then decide."
[X] Write in - "You are not summoned lightly Queen, even when you permit it. I will neither refuse or commit in this moment. I will consider and seek council, then decide." -[X]After Mab leaves? Crown of Eyes to ask what Mab knows about our exaltation. Arcane focus: footprints in ectoplasm, precise location(s) where she was standing.
I do not want to interact with Mab. At all. Unless untill we can smash and compleatly ruin her, and we are not in those p-hase yet.
The Fae Queens and the Fae Courts are central to the Dresdenverse mythology.
Especially Mab, who is the lynchpin of Earth's defenses, and its most proactive defender.
Even matters where she isnt overtly involved often sees her subtle influence.
The Winter-enforced Unseelie Accords put some restraints on all sorts of supernaturals. The reason the White Council is holding their own in the Vampire War is that she gave them permission to travel through Winter. Dresden only survived Dead Beat because Mab gave him a headsup. Winter instigated the events that prevented the Archive ending up with a Denarian coin.
Winter formed the bulk of the defenders of Chicago during Battlegrounds.
Nemesis has repeatedly aimed schemes at weakening Winter for a reason; one of them is under way right now.
You cannot vote to avoid the Queen without essentially abrogating any and all ability to affect most of the plot.
Its like attempting to avoid the US AND China in modern geopolitics and still hoping to be a player.
And fantasies about smashing Winter are essentially fantasies about doing the Big Bads work for them.
Nemesis will thank you.
Right before the rest of the Outsiders flood in through the Outer Gates and attempt to kill everybody and everything.
This simply means that we need defeat Nemesis first and only then obliterate Mab.
Dresden warned Bill do not make deals wit Fae for a reason, I think. Every plan begining with "Let's take a deal with Fae" is a bad plan. Of cause, sometimes you ought to make bad desicions, but I can not see any reason to make a deal in this case.
And I do not think that we have a deficit of foes to level up any time soon.
[X] Write in - "You are not summoned lightly Queen, even when you permit it. I will neither refuse or commit in this moment. I will consider and seek council, then decide."
-[X]After Mab leaves? Crown of Eyes to ask what Mab knows about our exaltation. Arcane focus: footprints in ectoplasm, precise location(s) where she was standing.
This simply means that we need defeat Nemesis first and only then obliterate Mab.
Dresden warned Bill do not make deals wit Fae for a reason, I think. Every plan begining with "Let's take a deal with Fae" is a bad plan. Of cause, sometimes you ought to make bad desicions, but I can not see any reason to make a deal in this case.
And I do not think that we have a deficit of foes to level up any time soon.
Killing nemesis is a real "That's step one, what about two through ten?" Moment.
You still got walkers, outer gods, and the army at the gates. Nemesis is one hive mind saboteur, not the whole of the outside.
This isn't so much putting the cart before the horse as it is hitching a promissory note for one acorn to a horse zygote and trying to take your new carriage into battle.
Killing nemesis is a real "That's step one, what about two through ten?" Moment.
You still got walkers, outer gods, and the army at the gates. Nemesis is one hive mind saboteur, not the whole of the outside.
This isn't so much putting the cart before the horse as it is hitching a promissory note for one acorn to a horse zygote and trying to take your new carriage into battle.
Bottleneck - useful, yes, but loses us some possible plot of someone escaping our hell, and loses interactions of others trying to come in. I used terrain and climate as much as I could to still render our realm protected.
Cauls - not something I want at all, and not the style of character we are playing.
Fruits of Hell - the cost is too much, and the downsides are too. Not something I want
Grand Grimoire - narratively very interesting, but can be built afterwards without point buy. Hopefully, can be roleplayed as exploration of what's already there, but undiscovered. I certainly left enough possibilities for that. Gaols are probably in the same niche, but we would likely need them quicker than Grand Grimoire.
Exclusive Transportation - useful, but can be built later, and with accessible terrain between cities, not that needed.
Lord of the Land - if we permanently moved to our hell realm it would be worth it. Otherwise, no. Better to take something that's always on.
Time differential - if the differential was higher, it would be worth it. Right now, too pricey.
Overpopulated - I have a strong opinion on this. It's too self-sabotaging.
If someone were to look at it from far away, your kingdom would look like a perfect hemisphere with a radius of 1564 kilometers, most of its surface is buried under multicolored ice made of water, mercury, krypton, xenon – almost all elements of the periodic table known to man, and perhaps, more. If observed from a closer distance, and by a more discerning eye, the nature of the land appears far more complex, and perilous. Jagged, razor sharp forests of ice-like shards extend hundred meters high, forming a near impossible to traverse landscape. As time passes by, they break, shift, change and grow, as if they were alive. And indeed they are, if not in a way that Earth knows life. Many-limbed creatures, eyeless and pentaradially symmetrical, skitter through these deadly forests, chittering in bursts of infrared radiation.
Such is the depth of your domain's unfeeling coldness, that rivers of liquid oxygen flow through it, confined by the banks of superconducting bronze. Strange, alien creatures that derive nutrition from radiological decay of uranium and breath hydrogen-helium atmosphere, populate these rivers, inimical and universally hostile to everything within their reach. Their bioluminescence is the only source of illumination beyond the soft silver light of the moon traversing the starless black skies, each revolution with a new phase and surface.
To venture into this hellscape in an attempt to escape the kingdom of your heart without permission and a guide, is to face an almost guaranteed demise, for even if one was to clad themselves into a space-worthy thermally sealed suit, they would still be fleeced to the bone by a never-ending blizzard of ferrous snow. Electrically charged iron and nickel dust cyclone with the wind speeds far exceeding a hundred meters per second obscures the borders of your realm from NeverNever to eye and any electronic equipment. Only those wise in the ways of your soul can dare hope to navigate this terrain.
And yet, not every place within your self is so inhospitable. For even as the iron cyclone rages at the border of the world, a no less ferocious anticyclone expands from its center. Where they meet, in a strip of land one hundred and eighty kilometers wide, their clash in the skies is both ferocious and life giving. In that narrow space, the titanic magnetic fields generated by them cancel each other, and their particles' collisions generate heat enough that eternal ring of lightning plasma is raging in the skies, unable to escape its natural confinement. The temperature is high enough that liquid water can flow in this equator. The light is soft and bright enough that photosynthesis is effective. And life, or at least life recognizable by Earthborn eyes at first glance, strives there, desperate to occupy this narrow ring of space allowed to it. Dense and ever shifting forests rustle in the ever blowing winds, their deep blue crowns endlessly shrugging metal dust from themselves. Their trunks stretch ever further in hopes to catch the lightning and fill their underground capacitors with vital energy. Fast and dangerous beasts, iron hided and sharp toothed traverse metal coated land of ever shifting shadows below, seeking either fruit or prey, for life is short and dangerous in this world, and no source of nourishment is to be dismissed.
It is among these forests that civilization of your world exists. It is confined into five great fortress city-states sitting in five corners of a great pentacle, 1102 kilometers from the center of the world. Each fortress is positioned on top of a great pole of metal, large enough to generate its own magnetic field and prevent metal dust from passing into the city, and to serve as a source of free electricity for the city's industry. The size of each settlement is larger than any that could be found on Earth. In fact, the number of denizens in each can only be compared to the population of the greatest states of your birth world. They are connected to each other by great underground channels forming the beams of the pentagram, with great armored trains coursing through them.
Each city is different, unique, strange and, somehow, nostalgic. Each is perfectly independent, and each is required for others to exist prosperously with their own roles.
In the east stands ruby clad city of law and warriors. Forges and training centers fill it, and all those who seek martial perfection, those who wish to pursue the career in law enforcement and law making, those desiring to sally forth in defense of the realm, gather there.
To the south east lies the city of knowledge, its emerald flags adorning the walls of its libraries, universities, research centers, ritual sites and laboratories. All those who strive for understanding visit it at least once in their lifetimes. Many a secret is hidden behind its walls, some, likely, unknown even to you, its creator. Certainly, its records extend to before the creation of its sister cities, perhaps to before the realm it is in existed at all.
In the south western corner of the pentagram, the city of art stands, its streets clad paved with saphires. Where silence and focus reign in the libraries of its neighbor to the east, laugher and jubilation can be heard in all parts of this city. Magnificent are its galleries, captivating its theaters, and enthralling its bordellos.
And when the inhabitants of your world tire of jubilation, grow weary of training, become forlorn in their pursuit of knowledge, they travel to the city at the far west corner of the great pentacle. There, under the amethyst roofs of its buildings and ministrations of the carefully selected caretakers, they find the end to their struggle, and beginning of something new. For not all your citizens are human, and none of them know age and death as mortals do, and in time require assistance to move on, to rest, to change, and perhaps to end. It is also there that other guests of your world, souls of the damned are processed and made to atone for their sins, to find salvation and healing before being let out into the wider society.
Finally, in the north, there is a city from which teams of daring explorers venture forth, protected only by their armor and faith in you, to brave the borders of your realm in pursuit of minerals and other wealth. There the services that maintain great transportation arteries linking the five sister cities are located. There the main food production facilities are located. And finally, there stand the great golden gates, beyond which is the only tunnel leading directly to the border of your world.
Great are the cities of your kingdom, each more than two hundred million strong in number, each with its culture, philosophy, dreams and futures. And yet, they are not the crown of this world. For in its very center, there exists a sixth structure.
A giant statue, or a mountain if a form of statue, an axis of the wheel around which the world turns stands in the middle of your soul. Two eastern dragons, one black as the darkest night, the other all colors of rainbow, both over twenty kilometers long, spiral around each other in a mockery of a human DNA, rising from the ground to challenge the empty skies.
They emerge, frozen at the moment of a triumphant and desperate escape, from a round cracked hill of bronze in the ground. Upon closer inspection, one can find that the hill is but a tip of a giant sphere, almost buried under ice. If one was to brave the darkness and spelunk down into its depths, they would find themselves in a giant labyrinth of concentric brass and basalt spheres. Strange, eldritch writings and grotesque carvings cover its walls, floors, ceiling. Flickering green lights illuminate some, but far from all corridors. Over time, it seems, the layout of the labyrinth shifts, as the spheres composing it move against each other. Whether this movement is slowly winding down or speeding up is impossible to tell.
As one explores more and more of the great construct, a wise explorer would notice two prevailing trends. When approaching what should be the geometric center of this structure, the temperature slowly rises and, should the visitor has appropriate equipment or keen enough senses, they'll note the rising level of background radiation. When venturing deeper and deeper beneath the ground, farther from the surface, the shadows grow somehow heavier, the sounds of one's footsteps become hollow, and the very essence of the air becomes more and more grave-like. It is impossible to reach the deepest layers, much less the core or the bottom - the tunnels have collapsed long ago, some melted, some covered in debris. As such, no one knows what lies there. The calculations, however, indicate that just like the top of the sphere extends above the ground, its bottom might, in fact, dip into the nothingness below your soul's world.
Tribes of primitives seem to inhabit the corridors and great halls of this labyrinth. They war endlessly for resources, locations of thermal vents and power lines, utilizing what great mechanism-organs the labyrinth has active with great skill. In the deeper levels, evidence of more sophisticated and advanced societies has been observed.
No one tries to leave, and, in fact, what few prisoners were ever taken by the exploration expeditions, indicate that escaping the sphere is considered to be the greatest of sins. The labyrinth inhabitants believe themselves to be both its prisoners and wardens, waiting for the Head Warden to come and, in a paradoxical way, both affirm their oaths and release them from their prison.
That the sphere is, indeed, a prison, is not a question. Ample evidence of this was found by the Five Cities explorators. Each of its rooms can serve as a holding cell, its walls lined with symbols old and forgotten, meant to prevent teleportation, transformation, or any other means of escape, including death itself. The passages are lined with titanic vault-like doors barring passage. Each sections could quickly be isolated from each other, and then flooded with gas, water, or, indeed, even fire. Brass eyes embedded into ceilings follow the movements of travelers. Soul-locked terminals giving access to the facility's slumbering systems are prevalent. Everything is waiting for its mistress to come. The security increases as one progresses deeper and deeper into the sphere, but even the areas closets to the crack, where five cities permanent expedition post is established, serve as the greatest and most inescapable prison of the realm, where arch-heretics and worst lunatics are held.
If the bottom of the titanic twin dragon statue is a thing of brass and darkness, then the top is a beauty of crystal and light. In dragons' jaws, a giant crystalline palace complex rests, its architecture something that doesn't belong to today – only to tomorrow and perhaps to ages long since past. It is a glimmering symbol of hope and might. It is the seat of your governance, and the natural meeting place of the governing parties of your subjects. It is also a church, and a site of holy pilgrimage for them. The only possible glimpse of something that doesn't exist in this realm. Illuminating your throne, and observable only in your throne room is the Sun. Sometimes yellow, and sometimes green. The hidden geometries and enchantments of the crystals lining the walls of your castle are aligned in such a way that when you, and no one else sit upon the throne, the light shining on you, or emitted by you, will be spread, amplified and emitted by the castle itself, creating a rising sun for your realm.
In times past, the palace complex could only be reached by greatest and most devoted climbing the dragon's spine. Nowadays, the ingenuity of your subjects allows for a quick air transport from the base fortress-station at the bottom of the statue, which serves as the gates to both your palace and the underground labyrinth.
"Life here will begin out there". I didn't write these words, on the velum pages made from my own skin, with ink made of burnt bones of ancient monsters, under the light of candles burning green. In fact, I, nor my parents nor my child and wife, exist at all, as the devils I call forth from the hells unlike this one, and monsters summoned from further still, gleefully tell me. We all are but a backstory to a play yet unwritten, existing as a possibility among an infinity of its peers. They offer me this knowledge freely, gladly, safe in the knowledge that this is not happening. They desire that I despair, break and blaspheme, that I utter oaths unbreakable even if they are, in fact, unspoken, sell myself and all to follow me to their masters for the surety of becoming, and in doing so transform myself into a hidden poison at the heart of my future mistress.
They are fools, who see little, and understand less. They fail to grasp that even as they are safe to speak, so I am safe to question, fearing not to offend the realms they come from by conduct unbecoming, daring to betray ignorance and weakness without terror of discovery. They do not see this time-not as the gift it is, the opportunity to prepare, not one blind chance of history, but the infinity of different past probabilities coming together coming together to craft the perfect future.
From the secret diaries of the Mirror of the Changing Moon, the founder of the Covenant of Empress-to-Be, dated ten thousand and one lunar cycle Before Her Arrival.
The Covenant of the Empress-to-Be is a monotheistic state religion of the five cities world. At its core lie the "Prophecies of Arrival" which state that at some point in the future, a divine figure, "Empress-to-Be" will arrive, and grant her followers life.
This is perhaps the most counter-intuitive precept of the church. According to its mystics, the world of five cities does not truly exist prior to their goddess' arrival, and merely represents one of the infinite possible backstories for the real world to come, ignited by her divine spark. Following from that revelation, lie the doctrine that preaches that their followers and the society as a whole has to live their lives in a way that would make their history be the one chosen by the divine empress in their subjective future. The followers of the Covenant are to better themselves continuously, to improve their utilitarian value, live their lives interestingly, to increase their entertainment value, and to undergo the right of Ending if they "write the story of their life into a corner with no way out".
The different specializations of the five cities are in many ways, reflections of their religious doctrine, where the City of Swords chapels preach that the Empress will need loyal soldiers, while the City of Fountains seeks to please Empress's senses.
Historical research indicates that the concept of paradoxical "existence before beginning" is likely a legacy of the older Cult of Twin Dragons, which existed before the Covenant's rise to power. Other researchers trace the idea of a messianic figure prophesized to come rule the world in the distant future to beliefs of the Core Prison tribes, some of which might have been ancestors of the modern civilization.
The Covenant heavily incorporates scientific research and method into their doctrine, such as using the theory of evolution to prove that humanoid population couldn't have arisen in this realm, and was willed into being by divine power. Historical research into the world's seemingly long and sometimes buried past is seen as a way to enrich the "world building" and keep the Empress interested.
"Unbiased review of the state religion", part of the briefing documents prepared for her Divine Majesty, twenty lunar cycles before her Arrival.
At the level of "committed" loyalty, religion is going to play an important role in the world's life. In fact, it is likely that theocracy would be the order of the day. When combined with "advanced technology" and "advanced society" it is also likely that wide use of magic and scientific research would be present. "human population" choice explicitly mentions history stretching to before creation of the exalt's kingdom. In Dresdenverse, summoning and NeverNever are all very much a part of magic. And there's a giant Oramus statue in the center of the world.
All these facts need to be reconciled. Thus, the Covenant of Empress-to-Be. Basically, it's a state religion that is aware of how history only really begins once Molly arrives.
Lunar cycle = one month. There are no seasons I could think of easily, so, full lunar cycles would be the measure of time.
Wan Kuei are the unruly dead who, through guile, cunning, and, above all, sheer perseverance, escaped on the thousands hells their soul found itself in after death. For the untold billions suffering in the underworlds of Yama Kings, it is no more than a few thousands that achieve this feat. Yet every soul struggles, and every hell can be escaped from. Indeed, if a new hell was to germinate from the chaotic seas of wyld possibility, or to be constructed by even the most godlike of powers, it too, would be a prison imperfect, the very laws of nature preventing formation of a realm truly without hope for escape. Why that is so, is a question unanswered. Some wise mystics believe that it is hope itself that lies as the cornerstone of these realms, and that the perfect hell would paradoxically have no power, and would collapse before it even came to be. Other students of ancient and forbidden lore posit that all hells are but echoes of some Primordial hell, sharing its base fundamental nature common to them all. It is the raw will of its unknown prisoners that prevents modern hells from being inescapable, they theorize. Select few wonder if those first prisoners have themselves ever escaped, or if they still struggle, projecting their effort through all of the cosmos.
The realm of your heart is, beyond everything else, a hell, to which souls of mortals are confined. It is thus its nature to be escapable, and of those souls in your kingdom to attempt escape. Yours, however, is not the world of one of foolish and greedy Yama Kings, and there are paths made intentionally available to each of your kingdom's denizens. They number four in total.
The first, and, sadly, by far the most travelled to its destination, is the path of surrender, leading to the end of struggle and nothing more. When a citizen tires of existence, they travel to the amethyst clad city in the west, and submit themselves to the priests living there with but a single request – to end it all. Should counselling, therapy, prolonged rest and meditation on the beauty of living not help, they are then subject to a solemn ritual. In a quite chapels, silent priests would write strange, arcane symbols on their bodies, give them ice wine fermented from the fruits only growing in the darkest outermost edges of your realm to lull them to sleep, and then, shedding tears of regret, murder them with ritualistic daggers. Unlike any other death under the light of the moon and lightning, this one does not permit returns. The soul slips quietly into the Maw of Oblivion.
The second route is for those burning with the lust for battle, enticed by religious fervor and the promises of glory. To follow it, one must devote themselves to training. Join one of the monastery-forges of the Red City, practice diligently one's katas and recite fervently one's prayers to the Empress-to-Be. Rise through the ranks of monks and win a right to join the honor guard of Her crystal palace – that is the ticket to salvation through servitude. For it is amongst those in her guard that the Empress is prophesized to select the men-at-arms who will do battle in her name outside this realm once the time comes. And if one is lucky enough, skilled enough, distinguished enough, survives enough of these battles, then they can pray to the Empress for a permanent release, to take them into the mortal world and release them from her service.
The third road is the shortest one, and, perhaps, the hardest. If one wishes to escape the kingdom of five cities, one needs but to take a train to the City of Journeys, and to declare it so. No obstacles will be laid before them, and they will be swiftly taken outside the city. From there on, everything will be in their own hands. They will just have to walk to the outer edges of the world, to climb the razor-edged forests, to pass through the iron hurricane and to traverse into the uncertain Ways of the unreality. It is not an easy task. To attempt it is common, for it is human nature to seek escape from the place of confinement. It is a sign of strength to crack one's cell open, rather than bow one's head and succumb to punishment. Many try, and most fail, nurturing the outer fields with their lifeblood, only to draw breath once more in one of the cities. Those few who would succeed are declared Anathema, their names added to the rolls of the enemies of state. For to succeed is to cast away the bonds of family, companionship and faith that define the nations of this world. It is to become a hungry dead, and to forevermore prey on the inhabitants of the worlds.
The fourth and final way branches off from the ones already described. It is not the way of many, rather it is the path of select few, for whom other roads are not suited. If, after throwing oneself against the outer storms time and time again, one learns humility, and yet doesn't desire the ending granted in the silent chapels of the Amethyst City; if they do not have the trust and faith in their heart to dedicate themselves to the Empress-to-Be in the promise of salvation… Then, on a new escape attempt, they can walk in a different direction. Not to storm in the direction of the rim, but to move in the direction of the Red City, evading beasts and traversing forests in the way. Once they reach the next city, their pilgrimage, and the trials accompanying it, truly begin.
In the city of saffron and forges, they are faced with two tasks. First, to master their body, and to prove their strength. To do so, they have to defeat one of the grandmasters of the martial art sects of the city in unarmed combat, demonstrating that they have mastered the first weapon everyone has – their own body. Then, as the second part of their trial, they are to forge and master a weapon, apprenticing. Their creation has to be acknowledged as a masterwork by the Ring of Smiths that control the weapon manufacturing of the realm, and their skill in wielding it by a grandmaster of the art. Only when these two tasks are done, their trial is considered complete, and the doors of City of Rubies open for them, so they can, once again journey the circle of life on the path to the city of Secrets.
Once they reach the Verdant City, their trial of History begins. Its two mirrored parts are to learn the history of the past, and to create the history of the future. In order to accomplish the first task, the applicant must unearth a piece of ancient knowledge, buried somewhere in the realm, and gift it to their peers. In order to finish, they must master and further a craft, a school of knowledge, create new knowledge that would serve as a foundation to those who will come next – on Earth that would be an equivalent of earning a doctorate.
The test of the City of Pleasures is by far the longest. Many of those few who try it consider it the cruelest. The first part is simple. It is, just like in all the previous trials, a matter of obtaining, and then proving, one's skill – this time by creating a piece of art good enough to become known as a masterpiece, to prove that one understands the society of the Five Cities enough that their creations resonate with everyone, not just a select few. It is the second part that breaks most who attempt it. For to succeed one must love, raise, and finally leave behind a child. Whether it be by adoption, or through means more natural, a child must reach adulthood and succeed on their own merits under the tutelage of the one walking this path. And when that child sincerely says that everything they have is thanks to the pilgrim, it is then that the pilgrim must leave them behind, to walk to the next city, without looking back. Thus their Sacrifice is complete.
The Silent City's trial is, in comparison a mercy. It is also, a final warning. First, the walker must participate in all the aspects of the ritual of Ending. They must try and talk someone out of finishing themselves, and when they fail, they must learn what the Final death is like, and grant it with their own hands, for if they are incapable of doing so, then no hope exists for them in the cruel world of outside. And when they understand death, they must nurture the fear of it inside themselves, for only the final death exists in the outside, not the brief embrace of renewal they are accustomed to. And it is out of that fear they must take a sacred vow not to seek their end, which forever denies them the mercies of the Amethist City. Once the vows are complete, they start on the final leg of their Journey.
And when they end it, they stand before the Golden Gate of the First City. They carve their name into it with their weapon – and there's plenty of room left still on it. And after the celebration to remember, they leave, more complete then when they started, and perhaps prepared to what lies next.
To date, no one has completed this road.
…
Or you could actually try and escape this hell of a reality, instead of meekly following the paths prepared for you. How? When they let you out to throw yourselves against the maelstrom, you could turn around and sneak your way to the foundation of Her Majesty's shining castle in the sky. Study every last draconic scale, as you climb upwards, clinging to them. Read and put to memory the blasphemous writings written on the scales of the prismatic dragon that can be seen only in their reflections in the polished ebon scales of its brother, under the light of the changing moon. Spend hundreds, thousands lifetimes learning to read and comprehend the message in one go, as with your every fall, the message changes. Do not speak of it to anyone, for should they learn of your attempts, you will never be able to try again. Discern the painful truths from hurtful lies entwined in this secret writ. Follow that knowledge to unlock the doors nonexistent, and you shall be free.
The whispers in shadows recorded by the acolyte of Her Divine Promise battle order shortly before she abandoned the order to become an inner ring explorer
The rules on kingdom making state that the has to exist a path to escape the hell you make. Exaltations deal with perfect effects. Why couldn't it make a perfect prison? I started to think why, and trying to fit this with a Watsonian explanation.
I came up with two explanations. One from the Dresdenverse side of the crossover, and the other is from Exalted perspective, which can also be used in an ExWoD game. The Dresdenverse explanation is that within existence Free Will is absolute, and exists in some way. A perfect prison with no escape denies the prisoners the choice to escape or, really, any choices. Thus, by the almighty power of the White God, such perfect prison is rejected from existing.
The Exalted answer is that the creation of the kingdom is the power of Infernal Exaltation. It is an act of an exalted growing from human to something like a primordial in their soul structure, and it is a mirror of primordial host making the Creation. However, and it is very important, an infernal exaltation was created by the yozi, not by primordials. We create not just a world, but a hell – the distant shadow of Malfean realm of the ages past. The exaltation carries the charms of its creators, parts of their self. It is, at the very core of itself, their hope for escape. And no yozi can truly abide the existence of a perfect, inescapable prison, for they are the ultimate prisoners, and the exaltation is the ultimate lock pick. To create a hell without hope would run directly counter to the very themes and purpose of infernals existing. And so, the infernal exalt's inner world has to be escapable.
Next, I decided to look into the ways of escape. The rules are clear – walk to the outer edge of the realm, and you are free (and, for the dead condemned to the hell, probably become a hungry dead variant). However, this is clearly not the only way to escape. The realm I made was inspired by the Maidens, and clearly features in-story references to old lore. So, I devised five paths:
1) To die. This is the path of Endings, and, since I used Endless Suffering in the build, requires a ritual. Because this is a world with advanced culture and society, to get to that ritual, one has to pass through extensive therapy and counselling.
2) To join Molly's entourage and get summoned/taken outside. This was discussed before, and clearly the players want to have some option to do so. "Summon a strike team from your inner world" being a possible charm. This path was made to explain how the strike team is selected. I mean, the population of the world is in the millions. Who gets called? Thus, the religious order of warriors, dedicated to the Empress-to-Be on the promise of getting to see the outer world. This is the path of War.
3) Walking outside. This is the path of Journeys. It's the one encoded into the canon text of the kingdom making charm. I simply added the flavoring and social repercussions of how leaving behind the society with "committed" loyalty to the infernal would not be taken well, but trying to do so would be treated as normal.
4) This is the one I had to work most for. This is the path of Serenity, and it is also heavily inspired, as readers might have noticed, by the initiation into sorcery trials. Since I made a door in the north-most city that leads to an easy exit, I had to justify why people wouldn't use it, and how it could be used. I also wanted a way to make heroes in this realm, if really needed. Not Molly's honor guard, but someone independent. Thus, this idea. It is basically a socially acceptable way to escape into the outer world. By following the steps of the path, the applicant prepares themselves (learning to fight, getting education mundane and occult, becoming intimate with the concept of death), and society (creating new knowledge, art, and a member of society) for their disappearance.
The followers of the third path diminish the world by leaving it, while the followers of the fourth path enrich it through their journey and becoming heroes of the people.
5) The final path, presented as an in-story scribbling, is the path of Secrets, and is left vague. It is even harder to follow than the fourth path. It is there, because this is hell. There's a giant twin statue of Oramus and Ebon Dragon in the middle of it. There has to be blasphemous knowledge hidden somewhere and a way to sin against the world.
The realms is Australia sized in surface area (Huge size: -2 kingdom creation points), and is a perfect circle with the radius of 1564.3 km (the surface area of Australia is 7 688 000 square kilometers, which means that the radius is R=sqrt(7 688 000/Pi)).
There is a small moon seen circling around the realm. It is a super-giant magnet.
Most of the realm is unsurvivable, with only a narrow goldilocks zone, and has a hard terrain (Difficult terrain: 0 points, Pockets of Safety: +2 points). The surface temperature outside the survivable area (indicated white in the map) is ~ -200 C, meaning that nitrogen and oxygen are liquid, and argon, mercury and most other things are solid. The atmosphere in those areas is composed primarily of hydrogen, with heavy presence of deuterium and tritium heavy hydrogen isotopes (I'll explain later). The ground is composed of large ice-like crystals, razor edged and perilous to traverse. They are inspired by tiberium from Command and Conquer. They grow, devour material from the ground and reconstruct it into parts of themselves. Essentially, they are very alien, very dangerous, plant life forms (deadly flora +1 point). Some very alien creatures exist in the rivers of liquid oxygen. Those creatures are mindless and hostile (deadly beasts +1 point). They use thermal energy of nuclear decay for sustenance, and feed on uranium dust that is abundant in the rivers. For a reference picture see a tiberium landscape, but far colder.
The landscape is very heavy with metals and heavy elements. Because of how cold it is, several metals, specifically bronze alloys, are superconducting, creating strong magnetic fields and leading to stuff like levitating rocks existing.
Harsh winds ~ 500 km/h circle the outer edges of the world. Essentially, it's a huge mega-tornado encircling the whole realm. The direction of air movement is indicated on the map (blue curved arrow). The air is heavy with electrically charged iron and nickel dust. This, together with the moon's rotation, essentially creates a super-giant induction motor that generates a magnetic field that plays merry havoc with electronics and navigation. Visibility is also very low. The dust is small enough and sharp enough to cut anything unprotected by serious armor down to bones. The alien nature of the landscape makes it hard to navigate (Dangerously Alien trait: 0 points).
Similar winds, but rotating in an opposite direction, are blowing from the center of the realm out. Where the cyclone and anticyclone meat, they collide, generating friction, electrical discharges and heat. The magnetic fields generated by the two winds also negate each other in this area. Because of this, magnetically confined hydrogen plasma is ignited in the upper parts of the atmosphere. Because of the heavy deuterium tritium presence, low intensity fusion reaction occurs, generating additional heat and some radiation.
All these factors combine to make a narrow band of the surface (indicated in white, 180 km wide) habitable in terms of magnetic fields, temperature, illumination. However, the terrain is still hard enough, and there's metallic dust. Because of this, the human-like civilization is confined to the five great city-states.
The cities are separated by dense forests (Earthen flora) of blue and purple leaved plants (colors based on hypothetical exoplant plants, if I got the wavelengths right), that constantly shift in the wind and by themselves, in order to shrug off metal particles accumulating on them. Said particles accumulate on the ground beneath them, and serve as part of their makeup. They also try and catch lightning from the skies for energy, which is accumulated in underground capacitor banks. Because of the excess of metal, animals (Earthen fauna) almost universally have metal shells and are rather heavy.
The city-states are located in five corners of a giant pentagram. They are technologically advanced, with complex societies of human and non-human inhabitants (Advanced Social Structures: 0 points, Advanced technology: -2 points, Human Populace: 0 points, Resident Devils: -1 point, Committed population: -2 points). Each city is located on top of a giant pole of metal, paved over with insulating material. In order to generate electricity one needs just to put a metal rod into the ground and attract lightning from the air. The poles generate magnetic fields that keep the metal dust away. The cities are connected to each other and the center of the realm by an advanced underground train transportation network. Within the cities, public transportation is well developed (Accessible Terrain, 0 points).
The cities are inspired by the Maidens, as people might have noticed.
In the north (Indicated as yellow) is the "Mercury city" inspired by the Maiden of Journeys. It houses the industries needed to maintain transportation networks existing between the cities and in the cities and the "foraging" industry, which essentially runs Tiberian Sun harvesters – operations to venture out into the hellscape and gather valuable resources. It also houses a large golden gate, beyond which there's a direct route to the realm's border – a giant underground tunnel.
In the east there's "Mars city" (indicated in red), dedicated to war. Since the cities are (mostly) in peace with each other, and depend on each other, it wouldn't make sense to make a "war industry only" city. Because of this, police academies and prisons are also located there. There are a lot of martial monasteries working on developing magical martial arts. Weapon manufacturers (including for weapons needed in foraging industry) are also located there.
In the south-east there's "Jupiter city" (green on the map), a center of learning, both technological and arcane. Universities, laboratories, arcane centers, and also spy agencies are there.
In the south-west lies "Venus city" (blue on the map), which is an center of entertainment and arts. Theaters, art galleries, TV studios, brothels. Also kindergartens, because children should be happy. It is also a major center of food production.
Finally in the west there's "Saturn city" (purple on the map). It is a medical and psychological counselling center. It also primarily deals with dead souls sent to our realm, other than those we need imprisoned (those go to "Mars city"). Mortuary centers are also there. Because the population of the world is unaging or at least very slowly aging, it would also deal with "endings", ie a very thorough psychological renewal sessions for very old beings to make them make a new beginning in life. This is also the only place where final death can happen in this realm (endless suffering. -1 point, condition for resurrection "any death except one that happened in special rituals in Saturn City").
Population of each city is about two hundred million people. The food production is handled via vertical farms, and very efficient and nutritious alien fruits. There's not much meat, though.
In the center of the realm, there's a giant column depicting two ascending eastern dragons. It is meant to be inspired by Ebon Dragon and Oramus. At the top of the column there's a giant crystalline complex. For image reference, see Crystal Tokyo. It is a political and religious center of the realm, and Molly's seat of power, complete with an (almost always) empty throne. It houses the united government of the people of the realm, even if each city also has self-governance. As a special feature, the throne, which is located at the geometric center of the realm, is illuminated by unseen sun. Anyone sitting in it, if they look up, would be able to see said sun, in an effect that is reverse to how one can see night sky from the bottom of a well (and yes, I know that it doesn't work in real life). The sun is sometimes yellow, and sometimes green. When you are sitting in the throne, the light shining upon them, or emitted by them is amplified by the palace and the whole thing lights up like a sun.
At the bottom of the statue complex is a giant sphere almost completely buried in ice, with only a small hill emerging, barely a hundred meters tall, with a giant crack running through it. The dragons can be seen as escaping it. The sphere is inspired by Malfeas – it's a giant magical prison complex of advanced, but slumbering, technology populated by devil tribes. It's composed of multiple concentric spheres of brass. It has a huge number of rooms, each of which can be used as a prison cell, with enchantments preventing teleportation, shapeshifting or other means of escape. Even if someone dies there, they reincarnate back in their cell. Only a very small part of the complex has been investigated, or is active. To activate all of it, and possibly take full command, one would need to reach the center of the sphere, braving many an obstacle. What is already available is still enough of a prison to count as Gaols purchase.
Where the top of the sphere pokes out of ice, just a tiny bit, the bottom (possibly, it's left ambiguous) dips below the bottom of your realm and into oblivion.
1) Arctis Tor – that was the place that redefined Molly's life, like it or not
2) Sailor Moon – both as a mockery of Arctis Tor, and because Molly likely watched it as a kid
3) Dreams of the First Age. Just enough very small (IC) hints are references, based on forgotten lore suppressed deep in our exaltation, on the dreams that allow us to learn Ancient Sorcery that, with a lot of time and effort, we could uncover more.
4) Five cities – inspired and stylized by Five Maidens of Exalted. War, Secrets, Serenity, Endings, Journeys.
5) The Gaol Sphere – the buried sphere under the ice. Inspired by the greatest prison to ever be – Malfeas himself. It held Yozis, the architects of reality. It held our exaltation at one point.
6) Twin Dragon statues – Ebon Dragon and Oramus, two of the Yozi. The architect of the reclamation, the mind behind infernals, and the being that defines paradox.
7) Our shining crystalline palace is meant to symbolize our exaltation itself. Something for which Yozis grasped to get them to freedom and salvation. A shining symbol of hope. A place of rulership
Black areas - unsurvivable areas
White area - survivable "goldilocks" area
blue arrow - wind directions
Blue lines - transportation network
Colored circles - cities
3D model of the main design features:
Colors were chosen from the fluff description.
Possible render (I am not very good at it):
I welcome all criticism and comments. If anyone finds any errors in the text, please let me know.
That's not exactly what was going on there; she is a bit of a trekkie, but Harry's soul gaze visions are about how he conceptualizes the feedback from the soul gaze. The symbols are important, but they're still symbols.
That's not exactly what was going on there; she is a bit of a trekkie, but Harry's soul gaze visions are about how he conceptualizes the feedback from the soul gaze. The symbols are important, but they're still symbols.
