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Echoes of Eternity: A Warhammer 40k Necron Lord Quest (Redux)
- Thread starter boredblues
- Start date
Alright, we have it. Voting closed.
- Location
- Spain
A suggestion for next time, if there is a highly constested (or tied) vote like the Sweear/promise thing don't say "keep it open some more"... It is better to Establish a clear time limit of X hours/days until the vote closes, and if the vote is tied then either throw a coin or ask for a tiebreaker
Noted, thanks for the advice!
Too late!
- Location
- yorkshire
OK we are cyring the flayer virus it should be our main research topic
- Location
- yorkshire
Yep and we could uluse the cure as levaige for many things also the infected will really want to protect us
Necron Lexicon
NECRON LEXICON
AN'LEKH: The hieroglyph-based language used by Necrons to decorate their works. It's founded on a mix of tactile, visual, olfactory and auditory elements laid on a quantum framework and connected to the Necron quaternary digital speech. It can be seen only through noble-grade sensors, which brings most unaugmented lifeforms to consider Necron complexes as stark and unadorned. An'Lekh masterpieces reach to the subatomic levels, able to tell years of history in a space as large as a fingertip.
An'Lekh glyphs are used by Cryptek and Canoptek as interfaces to most Necron devices, making them an essential component of their society. Considered sacred, An'Lekh is used only in art and technology. The ability to see it is considered one of the skills needed to be recognized as a Noble.
CANOPTEK: All the protocol-based automata used by the Necrontyr and then by the Necrons for war and construction purposes. Not true AI, the Canoptek use protocols to tailor their actions to various circumstances, something made possible only by the computational power lent to them by Gauss and Necrodermis technology.
The introduction of Canoptek shaped later Necrontyr society. With the automata taking charge of all mundane tasks, from building to food-making, the commoners were left out of work. This prompted a general militarization of the already centralized Necrontyr, with many commoners being enlisted into the army and the artisan and medical castes. Meanwhile, just as many went to form an underbelly of listless, poverty-riddled vagrants that was easy prey for the C'tan cults.
Canoptek were considered state property, with licenses for owning a fixed number of the machines lent to noble families by the royal caste. An ample, criminal world of unlicensed Canoptek still existed at all societal strata.
Among the Necrons, the Canoptek play an unreplaceable role, taking charge of all maintenance, construction and surveillance. During combat, they take the role of support and assault units.
CASTE: A socio-economic and cultural group forming Necrontyr and Necron societies. Among the late Necrontyr, existed Common, Warrior, Medic, Artisan, Priest, Noble and Royal main castes, with a variable number of sub-castes. Every member of society was assigned a caste at birth, with very few ways of changing it. Respecting one's caste-born duties was considered the staple of existence: a Necrontyr who reneged on them also gave up on all rights and descended to animal state. At the same time, rights afforded by a caste were rigidly asserted. In theory, a peasant who had been offended in his caste rights could appeal directly to the Phaeron, no matter the offender.
While caste membership influenced one's position in society and dictated most of his life, there was a certain fluidity in the system, with many people belonging to more than one caste. To amend that, Necrontyr divided caste membership between Was ("being owned"), which meant the caste in which one was born and from which one received most of the duties that couldn't be avoided, and K'Was ("being part"), which was the castes one had membership of in addition to the main one. Generally speaking, this membership brought rights and possibilities rather than duties.
For example, a general's son belonged to both the Noble and Warrior castes since birth, with the first being his Was and the second his K'was. In concrete term, his Was burdened him with the duty of obedience to his monarch and family and of ruling justly as well as the right to be judged only by the same caste members, while his K'was gave him the right to bear arms, enter a military academy and own hunting beasts. The combination of his Was and K'was, meanwhile, allowed him to access command roles in the military.
The caste system was a fixed part of Necrontyr society and allowed their rulers an incredible amount of control over the population, while assuaging Necrontyr's penchant for intrigue and social jockeying.
With Bio-Transference, the caste system lost most of its meaning but didn't disappear. Rather, it was simplified, with the awareness-retaining higher classes folded in the Lord and Cryptek castes, the Warrior caste becoming the Lychguard and Deathmarks, and all the other members of the population reduced to basic Necron status.
PHAERON: A Necron Overlord in charge of a Dynasty. Before Bio-Transference, Phaerons ruled as absolute monarchs, with their right based on a mix of lineage, holy mandate and command efficiency as well as on complex webs of familial, fealty, economic and social prevalence-based vassalage. Depending from the phases of Necrontyr history and the Dynasty in question, the Phaeron was considered the incarnation of the supreme God, a protector of his people and the one who permitted their peaceful passage from their sickness-riddled life by estabilishing and leading the priest caste, or the direct owner of the state and everyone who lived into it. No matter the finer points, a Phaeron was always an absolute monarch with rights of life or death over most of his subjects. His authority was cemented formally by him carrying the title of high priest, first general, master of rites and realm architect.
After the rise of the Necrons, most elements that made up a Phaeron authority lost their weight. By the time of the Awakening, Phaerons base their rule on the glory and power they can bring to the Dynasty and the control they can assert on subordinates. When both fail, a Phaeron is usually unseated and replaced by a more effective noble. As the formal supreme monarch, the title is both held in high esteem and highly sought, as it gives its bearer a special set of rights called Ma'at'un. The female form is Phaerakh.
AC - Alright, a bit low on the health spectrum lately, so here a low effort piece. Please, let's give a round of applause for the first opening of the Necron lexicon. I am quite excited to delve into lore the main one never quite touched. Expect more words added soon.
Did the commoners folded into the warrior caste become Immortals or were they turned into Warriors like the vagrant necrons when biotransference occurred?
The Immortals were the "Astra Tempestus" of the Necrontyr, those commoners or low-ranking warrior-born who distinguished themselves enough to get a promotion into a professional core. Imagine them like the man-at-arms working for a knight. By the time the Necrontyr civilization is in its late stage, a LOT of commoners worked for the military (their duty-based culture meant that doing something useful was the only way to get some recognition and not be considered a pest and treated like dirt, no matter that the Canoptek did basically everything), and effort, and results, were very much appreciated by the rulers. From that, the Immortals got their (slightly) better engrams with Bio-Transference and better frames than the Warriors.
Turn 3 Results - 2
You reach for him. His cheek is damp and cold, carved with the channels of one million lonely tears. You look into his eyes. There are no eyelids to shield his soul from the universe's glare. Always open, always burning.
"You're a big boy," you comment, looking him up and down. He's not used to this, to be looked in any way but disgust, to be reached for instead of fled from. He leans into it, almost startled, and you think of wounded birds huddling under shelters.
His claws click as he closes them, hiss as he opens them. His eyes burns with a desperate prayer.
Your not-existing heart melts. Just a little. You're a wicked old woman, after all.
"I cannot swear," you whisper. "I carry too much."
It's almost enough to break him. He whimpers, a sound like glass shredding bone. He presses against your hand with desperate intensity. He doesn't beg, he doesn't talk. He abases himself, like a dog broken by the lash, a mime caught in his act of pain. You peer into his eyes. The sadness you see in those broken lights is gut-wrenching. The constant agony of clinging to what remains of himself has chased away any will. All defiance, beaten out by knife and thirst. All that remains is a guttering spark, about to go out.
"But…!" You smile. It's a challenge, a roar against the all-enclosing dark. Unthinkable madness to curve lips before such tragedy. Yet, you do, and far, far away, in a pit of impossible black, an absolute abyss of pitch-black malice, something immense rattles His chains. Suddenly, you're very small. A speck of dust to a dying nebula. A defiant microbe. Eyes like rotting stars peer at you, agonizing in their hatred.
You shiver. You tremble. Pain sears through your circuits. For a moment, you're back, loping into the shadows. But it's me. It's still me. Two plus two. It's an unbreakable truth. Maybe one day, it won't. As for now, it is, and that's all that matters. The rattle of chains echoes in your ears, but it's just that.
He looks sad and scared. The mantle of skin hangs from his misshapen form like an ill-fitted shirt. The mask of a shivering little boy huddling alone in the dark. Taught that the only truth is suffering and hunger.
Your smile is his light. He stands a bit taller before it, a bit more like the himself that is now lost. A withered flower, touched by the sun. He whimpers, hugging your knees, laying his head on your lap. Please, oh please, don't send me away.
"But…" you whisper. You lay your fingers on his head, where metal and stitched skin meet. Is there a pulse there? It can't. It shouldn't. You still feel it. A beat, slow and sad and dead, in sync with your own.
"I can promise."
He shudders, a whine wrenched from the depths of his ragged maw. It's a prayer. It's a warning. Oh, don't do it. Oh, please do it. Oh, chase me away before I infect you too. Before we break your smile. Oh, please, don't send us away. Please, oh please. Voices pick it up, whispers of the dark resolving themselves in wavering forms swathed in stolen skin. Flayed Ones, shivering in their exposed flesh, trembling in their painful hope. So many eyes, wavering like marsh lights.
"And I do," your whisper pierces the murk. Your determination is loud and cold and clear, and the shadows recede before it. "I promise. I will break your chains. You shall be saved."
They draw back before you, the damned shying away from unbreakable will. But not these, not here, not now. For once, it's not them being pushed away, but what chains them. The darkness cannot reclaim them like it would have done before. Now, they cling to you, and in doing so, they remain and know the tiniest moment of relief from their agony.
All that remains is an empty room, no shadow in sight. They huddle at your feet, a pile of shivering half-dead. Your devoted, your hounds, your broken-hearted children. You keep still to not disturb their sleep, keep a hand on the Stalker's head on your lap to soothe his dreams. New tears streak from his eyes, but not from pain. Mother. Oh, Mother.
It's a pretty thing, you decide, to hear their slow breaths in this peaceful dark. This liminal place between moments. Safe, just this once. It makes the searing pain from the brand on your back worth.
Far away, the monster turns and writhes, that titanic dead thing that wouldn't sleep in His grave. One link of many chains snaps. He laughs, but you smile and your children are here, away from Him, and that's all that matters.
"What's your name?"
He demurs, stalking about on all four. For all intents and purposes, the image is that of an anxious pet. If a pet was a three-meter-tall Flayed Stalker draped in bloody skin. The communication channel between you is a nightmare of corrupted data and glitches.
"Come now. I don't bite…"
He shrinks, startled. You imagine ears flattening against a furry head and realize your mistake: more than anything, he doesn't want to make you angry or disappoint you in any way.
"I am not angry," you say, placating. You extend a hand toward him but don't touch him. You leave your fingers hanging a palm away. An invitation.
Suspect and doubt and pain war on his side of the channel. But what rules is fear. So much fear. Fear of being hurt. Fear of remembering, Fear of trusting. Fear of shifting, dreading that what little mind could crumble under the effort.
"I am not angry," you repeat, soft but firm. Your hand remains extended, an unmoving, steady bridge between him and you.
His love is a desperate, tentative little thing. It brings him to his knees, nuzzling his metal-carved cheek against your hand.
"I am Me," he murmurs. His voice is deep and grating, as if razors are shredding his throat and mashing in his chest.
You smile. "You're copying."
Another mistake. It takes you more than a light effort to have come back to you.
"I am not angry," you say for the third time, not minding it at all. "I think it's cute. You're learning."
He hides his face against your lap, shuddering every so slightly as you caress his head.
"I am… Me," he rumbles, and there's an abyssal sadness there, the unrestrained pain of a traveler that finally found a dock after a lifetime under the scorching sun and salt.
Me. A name that is a nomination. A name that is a prayer. Oh, don't ask. Just watch. Just watch the Me of this moment, please. Forget the past, forget the future. Let them all die and be forgotten. Don't make me remember. I am Me. I am Me.
Anything else but allowing him this little mercy is unthinkable.
"Welcome home, Me, my child."
He shudders in your lap, then relaxes ever so slightly. He says nothing, but you think that his breath is flowing a bit more freely now.
In his corner of the channel, among the ruptured memories and brokeness, gentle stars twinkle.
-------------------------
It has been a long time since you've done one of these things. You'll admit it: you missed it. Why, you missed it so much that you don't mind rewatching some of the memories you have of it with your main processor.
It starts with you sitting in your new den. Your tendrils seep into the digital world that is the Tomb complex. Like curious little roots they go, and where they are, so are you. Your consciousness runs along them and then you're in the system. Why, you are the system. The walls of lithonecris are your skin, the eyes of every tiny Scarab and floating Spyder are the windows from which you gaze. One of your fingers is one million tiny claws. Your heart is a furnace of roaring, viridian energy. Your limbs are endless hallways and corridors and crypts, sinking into the deep, innervating the planet.
The complex is alive, a single, hive-like existence held together by circuits and flowing with data. Now, it's you and you enjoy your existence. You're a thing of logic, untouched by doubt and running with ruthless efficiency. Your mind is a thing of percentages, projections and calculations, your hands and feet the tens of thousands of dim existences running through your veins like cells in a bloodstream.
You wonder about the divine. Thousands of processes run across your titanic processors and you're barely fazed. As a Warrior, you awaken, blinking as you step out of your coffin. As a Scarab, you size up a damaged patch of lithonecris, signalling your Spyder Overseer. As a hall's sensors, you provide a steady stream of environmental data about your charge.
You're a ghost in the machine, everywhere and nowhere at once. Is this what it means to be a demigod?
Maybe. What's sure is that you have enough computational power in your hands that you could run a planet. And what are you doing with it? Well, you're watching fops going to a party. Very Necron-like, you think with a chuckle.
"The Matriarch Representative. Queen Mother. Phaerakh of Flame. Keeper of the Shard. Chainbreaker. Great mecenate of science. Knowledge-bearer. Inscriber of Glyphs. Feller of…"
While the herald recites your many, many titles, your body is still, hidden in the gloom of the antechamber. But your mind is running laps across the complex, watching, assessing.
They've gone back to the old habits quickly. Three Sekmat. Having a running battle with a bunch of Destroyers while rushing at breakneck speed on their barges not to be late. There was four, but the fourth has been blown up by a lucky shot and is in the process of rebuilding himself. He won't be pleased, you reckon.
There's the matter of seeing who sent the destroyers, but that's for another time. For now, you take an extensive log of the constructs' engrams and set a few of your sub-routines to try and work out if there are data-trails to chase. Not like the culprits would get anything more than a rap on the knuckle: these games were part of life. Still, information is king and your daughter can only benefit from more strings to pull.
Just then, Nekaph finishes his litany. The hulking Vargard is a colossus of a Necron, towering head and shoulders over a Lychguard. His reinforced plating adds to that, building him to geological immensities. As the butt of his cerimonial staff hits the floor, your sensors register a tremor.
His voice is still echoing as you stride in, your handmaidens in tow. You arrive fashionably late, of course.
The nobles crowd the hall. They stand still, so many metal statues moving only when strictly necessary, floating in nebulas of data transmissions and shared processes, surrounded by starfields of computations and projections. The network is a private affair, with a counter infused with the host's signature and clocking rhythm connected to a counter to the start of the ritual. Multiple queries are already forming, the nobles setting subroutines to take care of ritual "handshakes" and greetings. Others sync with the ruler's shadow signature as a sign of deference.
They turn as you enter, glowing eyes piercing the gloom. It may be vain of you, but you feel quite smug. The shared channels, those dedicated to having people know what the owners want them to know, brim with a mix of obsequience, awe and grudging respect. And intimidation. You like that. You quite like that.
As you stride among them, your display comes alive with formal greetings. A few are succinct. Most are long and rambling. Everybody is cautious around you. They don't know your position and so they either avoid committing or recite as much as they can to get at least a title right. And to fish out details. Naughty naughty. Your answers are curt, a pleasant smile and a graceful nod that mean nothing and leave only more confusion in their wake.
The pings start soon after.
Necron Lords have the computational power of a supercomputer, the memory of a server archive and the pride to match, all rolled into one. With that, and since you may as well go bold or go home, their greetings came alongside curated selections of memories. The most refined experiences in emotion, sensorial input and logical discourse, sharpened and distilled in concentrated essences that would have a mortal's brain go haywire trying to decrypt them. Of course, as with everything else they did, this too was a declaration of status: the more exotic, complex and evocative the memory-distillate, the greater the flaunting.
The Sekmat, bold souls that they are, try their best, but their pings are brutish things at best: the satisfying feel of a skull caving in, a spiderweb of variable and computations resolving itself in a brilliant out-maneuvering, the flash of insight as a weakness is spotted, future actualizing as an elegant concatenation of parries and feints and, of course, the ever-green One Strike Severing; or just the grim greatness of one million boots crunching gravel in unison.
Processors purring, you breathe them in. Still, compared to what the Akmat brings? Adorable.
Simphonies of thoughts intertwining and cascading to dizzying heights of logic and conclusion. Four-dimensional expositions of experiences beyond time and space. Glimpses of an insight into the nature of things. Philosophical concepts compressed into a few meaning-impulses of cold, sharp beauty. Mathematical paradoxes resolved with cascades of algorithms and ruthless logic. Geometrical constructs of dizzying complexity and piercing depth. Chaos-variables enslaved to logic-projections of blinding, all-encompassing accuracy.
You're impressed. Going all out like this is considered in bad taste, in normal times. But these aren't normal times, are they?
Well, you can't fall short now, can you?
Making an Impression: Req 20, Diplomacy, 36+7=43. Short and sweet.
Sometimes, less is more. That's your thought as your ping blooms in the party network, a patch of blood on a spiderweb. The image of the Master Program's Warp-Core stinks of disorder, even in the simple format you encoded it. It sparks a wave of morbid fascination and, since asking questions is the highest form of lack of fashion, burning curiosity. And to your wicked little delight, envy.
Here they are, reminiscing about old things, when the Matriarch shows them tantalizing glimpses of the new Galaxy and the Powers they must contend with, trick or subdue to reclaim their rightful domination.
It turns you in the center of attention, the winds of encrypted conversations and data flows moving to you like the eye of a hurricane. Good thing you're an innocent little swan, or your head could get too big for your own good! Oh, it's good to be bad…
Like gravity wells, parties follow their rules of attraction and repulsion. Necron parties, well, it's all about success percentages and the Ak'Mathon, the color-based language with which one projects how amiable he is to being approached and about which topics. As you stride among the nobles, leaving Khepra behind in the space reserved to the retinues, your Mathon glyph is a pure Gauss green: approach, all ye are willing, and talk about what you will. There are few things conveying power more than open arms and a bright smile.
The first to take up the invitation is an Atahualpa, one of the leading families of the Dynasty.
Atahualpa Capac is old blood, his name harkening back to the dynasty's origins, and it shows. His frame is covered with the sharp cuneiform of the First Dinastic War rather than the hieroglyphs of the United Empire. Personally, he's not old, belonging to the generation before Raethis'. His ambition and military skill are renowned, as well as his curious choice of allegiance: as a member of the aristocracy, he qualifies as an Akmat, but in all but name, he's a Sekmat, always leading from the front. It's an unusual lifestyle, bordering on arrogance, but it lets him chip in on both courts with his opinions and actions. Add that he's quite skilled and you have an important member of the Dynasty's upper class.
You slow down for him. Just a tad.
"Napaykuyki, Matriarch," he greets in the old style. His signature radiates with discipline and elegant refinement. "It's so rare to see fresh faces in our halls. Have you come to bask in the light of the Luminous' hearth?"
Any tricks?, Req 20, Diplomacy, 76+7=83. Trying to fish out your role in the play.
Napaykuyki. The formal greeting for superiors toward inferiors. Not in rank, as much as in the Phaeron's favor. With the old language going out of style, only a few would know of it. It could be masked as an honest mistake, but also as a declaration of the Capac's to a return to the old times, when the Dynasty was free from the Triarch's bridles.
"Enyapuyki, my dear Apu Inca," you purr, replying with the equal rank greeting, and adding his family title as well. Surprise glimmers on his end, like a glint over metal. "Why, thank you. It's a wonder to be back in the well-kept halls I once ruled by fate's grace. But I would do more than bask. I would fan the fire, if I can find my breath, of course." You giggle.
Capac's signature flares with a dry denial. "You underestimate yourself, madam. It wasn't a frail breeze that felled the mad machine, but a hurricane. Many would shy away from such a mighty wind – or bask in its gusts."
More tricks? Req 30, Diplomacy, 53+7=60. Dangerous metaphors meant to pull you on the spot.
"Oh, you flatterer," you deflect, hiding your lips behind a fan of fingers. "I wouldn't call myself a storm. There's such violence in the wold, don't you think? A whisper is more apt, or as you very skillfully said, a breeze. To fan the fire and see the hearth swell. But maybe I tire the metaphor." You chuckle.
Appreciation glimmers in Capac's eyes. He nods, conceding the bout.
You have to admit you like him. With only a few words, he tested you and where you stand compared to the throne. The fact that he's a threat means little, really. Parrying is only fun when the strokes come fast and close.
"A meaning wouldn't tire so easily, Ma'am. Not if the vocalizer behind it isn't faulty."
You turn. You don't need it to feel the three signatures coming your way, triggering a wave of bows and greetings, but it's still good form.
"And allow me to be so bold as to say that your enhancements are all but common," the figure who spoke is slim and tall, his frame's angles sharpened and sections reinforced until he appears as a collection of violent implements assembled in the shape of a sand-colored Necron Ovelord.
"And how would you even know that, Merkath?" Another snarls. The Cryptek is so old that he may as well be a living fossil. His body, a mix between an arachnid, a Necron and a crustacean, entrusts motion ot the Acanthrite it's connected to. Half of it is covered in grooves and strange, smooth valleys, as if a great heat melted it. The rest is burdened by add-ons, crackling coils and geometrical shapes that float and turn and rearranges themselves. "Each to its place, I say! Experience on the field is good, but it needs study and laboratory work to shine!" He barks, waving a gnarled staff. The Overlord smirks in reply, a jagged line opening where his mouth ought to be.
"Yeah!" Another exclaims. Broad and heavyset, this one looks like a sadder, fatter version of Tefetra. Still, the Barge-worth plates fused to his gut and the Gauss cannon hanging on his back, or the massive trophy rack, are nothing to sneeze at.
And just like that, you're ambushed. Did they plan for it? No doubt. Sending their most eager member forward while they waited for their cue to step in. How fun. Bring it on then.
One of your sub-routines glances toward the back of the hall, where the throne is.
Your daughter lounges, surrounded by a cloud of attendants and slaves. As the Phaerakh, she must be above such petty skirmishes. Instead, she sits, allowing her subjects to gaze upon their ruler and offer their devotion. Another ritual, and one she must not be very fond of, if the distant, tiny whimper for help your sensors catch is anything to go by. All good experiences for you, my dear.
She can't help you, not without risking her hand. No matter. This is a game you're quite good at, if you can allow yourself some immodesty.
"My dear Lords…" You offer each a custom-tailored digital handshake. Their signatures thrill back, pinging for a casual conversation, which you benevolently agree to. Then, since offense is the best defense: "Your words cut to the skin of our reality, my Lord Althymr. Truly, it is wise to turn his attention to one's affair before asserting our dominion over the Deshret*."
A veiled threat, an insinuation and a position, all woven into one. Their processors work and whirr as they dig through the implications.
Althymr clutches his staff with both hands, a gesture that has nothing about age, but before he can speak, Merkath flags his answer. An insult, considering one is an Akmat and another a Sekmat, and one that has Althymr hunker down like a crab planting his feet for a fight. You register the old lord presenting it to the party's temp archive for later consideration by the ruler.
"The Matriarch speaks with the wisdom of the ages." The Overlord's voice is the glad hiss of a blade drawn from its scabbard. "It wouldn't do to face the challenges of the Awakening by refusing optimal change. Our blades ought to be sharpened, their holders adequately… prepared."
Althymr twitches. His signature shudders with indignation. "Optimal change, yes. Follow that, you…"
"My Lords, please." Capac's tone is conciliatory yet firm. "Let us not sully our revered Matriarch's serenity with our grievances. Surely, Our Most August Queen is the appropriate recipient for them."
That takes the wind out of their sails; or just remind them why they are there. The two bickering lords look at each other for a tense moment. They nod, their signatures blaring with ritual apologies.
Couldn't divide them, tsk. No matter…
Just like that, all attention returns to little old you. Considering, piercing. Without missing a beat, Capac resumes. "It's a time of changes, My Lady. Isfet*, cursed disorder, knocks at our door. I beg your forgiveness for all those who, in their eagerness to serve, may look like they're losing composure."
You ping your agreement with a digital courtsy.
"Yeah!" The fat lord exclaims. He nods eagerly, looking left and right, and is promptly ignored. You glance at him with curiosity. Your surface-level archives have no records of his family glyphs. How rare.
"Uphold Ma'at*!" Althymr barks. "Only a fool builds on sand! A strong foundation makes for a mighty pylon! You can mould the shape, re-engrave the glyphs and swap the circuits. But to change the material? Extract the founding blocks? Foolishness!" He leans toward you, two lids opening and closing rapidly as his central eye zeroes on you. "The Matriarch has always been the risk-taker. I remember. But maybe time moulds even a block of Necrodermis, mh?"
Fending off the Old Spider: Req 40, Diplomacy, 67+7=70. The art of using many words to say nothing.
"Oh, but time means little, my dear Lord," you chide. "And I'd rather see the pylon's face changed than to risk its foundations shifted and its alignment lost."
Althymr's staff came down, hitting the Canoptek he rode with a dull thunk. "Even at the cost of what makes us what we are?"
"How dramatic. Aren't we masters of ourselves? We'll sharpen and mould and rebuild ourselves as many times it takes. But our undying will? That, we shall never lose, no matter what."
Althymr snarls, a dry, crackling sound. "The Silent King wouldn't agree."
You smile. "Then we must work so that he can be impressed when his gaze return over us."
Althymr watches you, consideration glowing in his eye. He nods, as slow and implacable as a marching iceberg.
"Oh, give it up, old Lord," Merkath mocks, sharp like a whip. Althymr shudders like he has been hit. "You speak of rejecting grievances and then that's what you talk about. I'd rather raise a cup to Our Wise Queen for her choice of seat arrangement. It's a new world, yes? With new priorieties and a new need for strength. I crave the moment she'll find enough to follow the path she started to blaze."
Insolence. It has Althymr glaring daggers at him, but Merkath doesn't even glance his way. His unrepentant gaze is all for you, intense, inviting and dangerous.
Fending off the Bladed Dancer: Req 20, Diplomacy, 14+7=21. A bold approach needs only a step aside.
You know the weight your daughter carries. You saw how she struggles beneath it. Yet, she tries and tries. Listening as she's insulted like this makes you want to lick your teeth and snap a neck. But you keep your cool. In here, words are fit to snap necks, make no mistakes.
"My daughter rules well," you purr, holding his gaze. You tilt your head, smiling. He shifts, some of bravado bleeding off him. "We couldn't hope for a more competent, adaptable ruler."
"Indeed," Merkath says, careful and threatening like a hunting cat. "This new age will take strength, force, a new order. The skill to lead and accept changes, not to follow like a sheep. A powerful character, yes? Not one who is cowed easily."
Digs and barbs to your daughter and adopted son. He really doesn't like them, this child of steel and dust, mh?
"And… experience." His eyes gleam, inviting. His voice fills with fervor.
He's inviting you into a plot to take over the crown for yourself. In the middle of a party. He has guts, you'll hand it to him. And you'll admit that you feel flattered. Almost.
"Good thing our good rulers have plenty of these virtues, then."
He looks at you. Not taken aback, nor surprised. Poised, tense, like a prowling beast about to pounce. Then, it goes out of him, and he's stepping back, easy and relaxed.
"Very good indeed," he hisses, pleased. There's a new respect in those piercing eyes of his. He looks at you with appreciation. "I'll say it again: your add-ons are splendid."
"Why, thank you. We could take inspiration from them to improve your forces."
"I'd love that." He bows deep, a hand like a collection of knives scraping a little on his chest.
The fat lord decides to take that moment to stomp in, with all the finesse of a bumbling mastodon.
"Is it true?" He grumbles, sounding like he's crunching gravel. "Is it true you want to become a God?"
It's like someone dropped a Seraptek in the middle of the hall. The auroras of messages is snuffed out. The nobles, which have been earsdropping, are suddenly revealed, standing like a bunch of scarecrows whose field has burned away.
"It was for that, wasn't it?" The fat lord, showing a frankly remarkable ability for obliviousness, continues. "You turned the Dynasty into Necrons because you wanted that!" A gasp goes through the audience.
You look into his eyes, his eager and curious face. Someone's cat's paw, meant to put you on the spot and address what nobody wanted to address. The subtlelty is on par with a brick, though. Dynasties splintered for far less.
Capac has gone still like a statue. Althymr flinches and twitches, his staff hitting the Canoptek's head like a metronome. As for Merkath, he's trembling, a soft, keening laugh coming from the grill of his mouth. If they are the owners, they didn't expect something like that. Honestly, you don't blame them.
You let your gaze roam the hall. Necron Lords and Crypteks, proud masters of technology and eternity, might and will, evades your attention. They turn away, mimicking gestures that mean little to them and yet still mean something. Shame, distrust, doubt, fear.
From her throne, Raethis watches you, eyes burning with horror.
All Eyes On You: Req 60, Diplomacy, 80+7=87. Take a good look then.
Silly girl. This is not your first dance.
You smile, a languid thing that has the fat fool lean forward, hope for an answer, and to please whoever put him to this, sparkling in his gaze.
He nods when you gesture for him to get closer, and shuffles forward.
"Did you prefer end up as the C'tan's food?"
With that, you bow and stride away. Communications and messages resume in your wake, ritual protocols resuming with something approaching relief.
A message pings in your display. It's from Capac.
Two words: A God?
You think of the pain of your people, of the madness the Old Ones turned the Warp into. The Master Program's words roar in your memory, painting a shadow over you.
You reply. One word: Maybe.
From there, the celebration goes as well as can be expected. Raethis tries her best, setting the tone, keeping up with rituals. The main point is her speech. She talks of the new dawn for their dynasty, of what has been lost and what will have to be rebuilt. She tries the optimistic, hopeful approach, but to your chagrin, she doesn't set much in the way of strong policies. It's all very vague, a spiel on the importance of cooperation and the potentialities that await in the new Galaxy. Apart from the need to get the Tombworld up and running, she says little about concrete planning, like how the Dynasty should act before inferior races, or their own. As for threats like the Master Program and the Warp, she minimizes, emphasizing their strength as Necrons.
Not a disaster, but not what you'd call good either. More than anything, it portrays her as an indecisive, weak ruler.
The dynasty is awake and alert now. Still, as the Lords return to their tasks and occupations, there are murmurs and whispers. Like the Queen said, it's a new world.
It remains to be seen if it will be better than the one they left.
------------------
TRAIT ACQUIRED: Wordweaver: Words can be barbs. You are aware of it, and skilled in the fencing. +1 Diplomacy.
SKILL UPGRADED: Lore (Necrontyr), Master, 1/3 -> 2/3
NEW HERO UNLOCKED: Khepra, the Handmaiden
NEW DYNASTY TRAIT UNLOCKED:
NEW CHARACTER INFORMATION DISCOVERED:
NEW FACTION INFORMATION DISCOVERED
NEW DYNASTY INFORMATION DISCOVERED
---------------
With the Tombworld approaching full functionality, Raethis approaches you: as per tradition, all Lineages* have been apportioned a measure of Gauss energy. Still, even the Gauss isn't limitless. Unbalaced allocations must be made and that will allow the favoured lineages to supply their particular expertise en-masse and for the Phaerakh to show her favour. In turn, the expertises that will be prioritized will shape the Dynasty's means toward the Galaxy at large.
Rolling for Xolotl Lineage skills: 1d100=93
[x] Xolotl Lineage: The royal family has held the Scarred Throne for twenty generations, up until the Last Children. A matriarchal, branching lineage, it owes the length of its rule to a mix of far-sighted rulers, ruthlessness and careful marriage policies. No Necron Lord wouldn't love to possess a cartouche marked with the glyph of such a storied bloodline, and their ability to produce and repair delicate necrodermic bio-apparatus as well as to build sacred artifacts is legendary.
Will supply:
- Sacred Cartouches
- Superior Maintenance (Engrammatic Circuits*, Engrammatic Organs*)
- Artifacts
Choose three: (The chosen lineages will supply enough of their special expertise and/or manufacts for you to be able to use it as a resource in trades or actions, in and out the Dynasty).
Each of the lineage showed here have enough clout and/or dignity to stand on their own. Other lineages exist in the dynasty but are clients of these or aren't useful enough to be present.
Every Sekmat or Akmat Lineage chosen will provide 5% Dynasty Standing to the Faction. You get 1 Instability for each of the three Dynast Lineages you don't pick. Dynasts that aren't picked will grumble but do nothing dramatic for now, since their political power won't take an immediate hit. Still, they'll keep an eye out for what you do next. Be careful with them because even if they won't rebel if you don't after them hard, they still can make your life harder than it needs to be. Whatever you choose, the new facilities will increase your Gauss expenditure by 250 units.
The resources you get will get you the chances that otherwise you wouldn't get. For example, if you need to impress that Hive World filled with naive humans, you may resort to the Szeran's digital holograms to pass yourself as the Emperor, or maybe you want to make a deal with Dark Eldar. In that case, the Merkath have you covered, giving your hosts bloodsport and violent emotions in spades. And so on. The Galaxy is a big place. You never know what could come in handy.
It goes: Pathetic - Weak - Inferior - Average - Improved - Superior - Excellent - Supreme (For a Necron)
[] (Sekmat) Merkath Lineage: Small and obscure, this lineage is an appendix to the far larger, far more important Imothu. At least in apperances. It's a public secret that Merkath the Blade keeps the weak-willed Imothu patriarch under his thumb. The Merkath Bladedancers are renowned for their skill and they sell it, both in training and show, with an eagerness many find distasteful. The many nobles who engaged a Merkath to fight in honor duels are a glaring exception.
Will supply:
- Improved Fighting (Training)
- Improved Fighting (Spectacle)
[] (Akmat) Atahualpa Lineage: One of the oldest and most exalted of lineages, harkening back to the times of the First Dynastic Wars. Led by the respected Capac, the Atahualpa are disciplined and powerful, having risen to become a second to the ruling family. Many look with wariness at the efficiency with which they establish communication and teleportation relays, or the skill and speed with which they churn out weapons, no matter the origin.
Will supply:
- Improved Weapons
- Improved Communications
[] (Akmat) Ilintek Lineage: Althymr Ilintek leads this long-time lineage, one of the few to remember the reign of Xorathis' mother. The Old Spider rules over a court of hundreds of children and grandchildren, which in turn churn out plates, armor in the industrial quantity required by war. The Spiderlings, as someone derisively call them, are a vociferous member of the Old Aristocracy and while they scoff at change, the Necrodermis that flows from their founts do so in quality good enough to woo an old Lord. As for the quantity, it's fit to drown a kingdom.
Will supply:
- Improved Maintenance (Armor)
- Superior Necrodermis
[] (Sekmat) Tuberekh Lineage: Small and weak, this family has long been isolated by an almost constant string of social bumbling. Today, the Dominak Hute is desperate for a patron, which, coupled with his ability to be oblivious to social cues, doesn't picture a future so different from the past. The Tuberekh have an almost preternatural knack for knowing things, from the most innocent gossip to secrets that could damn a fortune.
Will supply:
- Information
[] (Akmat) Sinchi Lineage: Before the Passage, the Sinchi were held in high esteem, both by nobles who seek their medical expertise, and the masses who received from their mass-produced food. With their arts being a relic of the past, they are now a long-fallen house. Yet, Chief Apothecary Illumi refuses to give up the trade that made the fortune of her family.
Will supply:
- Superior Medical Expertise
- Superior Mass Food Production
[] (Sekmat) Umu Lineage: If the Sinchi fell with the passage, the Umu blazed the opposite path. Their Amu priests are experts in offering psychological help to nobles flagging under the weight of eternity, as well as in helping those who lost interest in life into finding new meaning. Their insight in the digitalized mind allow them to construct digital landscapes unmatched in detail and depth, where they run projections that some say outclass any seer. Raam-Ru Efethikel has long given up motory functions to turn himself into a living supercomputer.
Will supply:
- Improved Psychological Expertise
- Digital Projections
[] (Akmat) Szeran Lineage: The First Szeraki isn't coy about his ultra-conservatorism. Not only he and his lineage oppose any change, they also think that it's the Dynasty's duty to prepare the ground for the inevitable return of the Silent King. For that, they work relentlessly, perfecting digital landscaping to woo the inferior races, while keeping alive the wealth of knowledge of the rituals of the Old Ones. The lineage considers itself the secret arm of the Triarch.
Will supply:
- Digital Landscaping (Holograms)
- Psychic Expertise
[] (Akmat) Imothu Lineage: A powerful, sprawling family that claim the title of Dynast, yet it well presents the conundrum the Akmat finds themselves facing today. The diplomatic arts with which the Imothu climbed to fame seem pointless now, so it's little surprise that their Chief Speaker fell under the sway of his strong-willed brother Merkath. Still, the Imothu remains an integral part of the Dynasty, with their artists able to craft An'Lekh masterpieces fit to steal a Necron Lord's not-existent breath away.
Will supply:
- Improved Art (An'Lekh)
- Improved Diplomacy
[] (Sekmat) Anu Puca Lineage: Eccentricism is a given for Necron nobility, but little can compare to the brightly-colored Sundancers of the Anu Puca. Suncaller Ifta tells far and wide that no matter how jaded you are and how much you've seen and experienced, the Anu Puca will make you remember what it feels to be flesh and blood. His lineage's establishments are a fixture that nobody will speak about. Nonetheless, they remain. Their more public persona is that of storytellers and storycrafters.
Will supply:
- Emotion-crafting
- Art (Storytelling)
AC - Sorry for being late. Life got in the way. Anyway, here's a doozy for you today. Lots of new stuff and we see what passes for an economy among immortal machines who (mostly) stepped past post-scarcity. Goodies, sure, but mostly it's all about expertise and the favors that earns you. You can imagine them like resources (like Stone, or Iron). All Necrons know how to inscribe An'Lekh, but only the Imothu have that good An'Lekh and you don't want to fall behind, do you?
They are requested, and so they have value. And while most of these are thought to be of interest to other necrons, the galaxy is a big place. No reason why you can't trade with another race. Economics goes beyond. Also, we see their politics. Necrons are big on that. It's one of the few things that can still raise their concern, after all, and arguably the most interesting (not fun, Necrons never have fun, maybe).
Big thanks to Mayto for giving me inspiration. Go read his Return of the Skarrenavi. It's good as all hell.
I'll be updating the Characters sheet soon and add the standings. For now...
"You're a big boy," you comment, looking him up and down. He's not used to this, to be looked in any way but disgust, to be reached for instead of fled from. He leans into it, almost startled, and you think of wounded birds huddling under shelters.
His claws click as he closes them, hiss as he opens them. His eyes burns with a desperate prayer.
Your not-existing heart melts. Just a little. You're a wicked old woman, after all.
"I cannot swear," you whisper. "I carry too much."
It's almost enough to break him. He whimpers, a sound like glass shredding bone. He presses against your hand with desperate intensity. He doesn't beg, he doesn't talk. He abases himself, like a dog broken by the lash, a mime caught in his act of pain. You peer into his eyes. The sadness you see in those broken lights is gut-wrenching. The constant agony of clinging to what remains of himself has chased away any will. All defiance, beaten out by knife and thirst. All that remains is a guttering spark, about to go out.
"But…!" You smile. It's a challenge, a roar against the all-enclosing dark. Unthinkable madness to curve lips before such tragedy. Yet, you do, and far, far away, in a pit of impossible black, an absolute abyss of pitch-black malice, something immense rattles His chains. Suddenly, you're very small. A speck of dust to a dying nebula. A defiant microbe. Eyes like rotting stars peer at you, agonizing in their hatred.
You shiver. You tremble. Pain sears through your circuits. For a moment, you're back, loping into the shadows. But it's me. It's still me. Two plus two. It's an unbreakable truth. Maybe one day, it won't. As for now, it is, and that's all that matters. The rattle of chains echoes in your ears, but it's just that.
He looks sad and scared. The mantle of skin hangs from his misshapen form like an ill-fitted shirt. The mask of a shivering little boy huddling alone in the dark. Taught that the only truth is suffering and hunger.
Your smile is his light. He stands a bit taller before it, a bit more like the himself that is now lost. A withered flower, touched by the sun. He whimpers, hugging your knees, laying his head on your lap. Please, oh please, don't send me away.
"But…" you whisper. You lay your fingers on his head, where metal and stitched skin meet. Is there a pulse there? It can't. It shouldn't. You still feel it. A beat, slow and sad and dead, in sync with your own.
"I can promise."
He shudders, a whine wrenched from the depths of his ragged maw. It's a prayer. It's a warning. Oh, don't do it. Oh, please do it. Oh, chase me away before I infect you too. Before we break your smile. Oh, please, don't send us away. Please, oh please. Voices pick it up, whispers of the dark resolving themselves in wavering forms swathed in stolen skin. Flayed Ones, shivering in their exposed flesh, trembling in their painful hope. So many eyes, wavering like marsh lights.
"And I do," your whisper pierces the murk. Your determination is loud and cold and clear, and the shadows recede before it. "I promise. I will break your chains. You shall be saved."
They draw back before you, the damned shying away from unbreakable will. But not these, not here, not now. For once, it's not them being pushed away, but what chains them. The darkness cannot reclaim them like it would have done before. Now, they cling to you, and in doing so, they remain and know the tiniest moment of relief from their agony.
All that remains is an empty room, no shadow in sight. They huddle at your feet, a pile of shivering half-dead. Your devoted, your hounds, your broken-hearted children. You keep still to not disturb their sleep, keep a hand on the Stalker's head on your lap to soothe his dreams. New tears streak from his eyes, but not from pain. Mother. Oh, Mother.
It's a pretty thing, you decide, to hear their slow breaths in this peaceful dark. This liminal place between moments. Safe, just this once. It makes the searing pain from the brand on your back worth.
Far away, the monster turns and writhes, that titanic dead thing that wouldn't sleep in His grave. One link of many chains snaps. He laughs, but you smile and your children are here, away from Him, and that's all that matters.
"What's your name?"
He demurs, stalking about on all four. For all intents and purposes, the image is that of an anxious pet. If a pet was a three-meter-tall Flayed Stalker draped in bloody skin. The communication channel between you is a nightmare of corrupted data and glitches.
"Come now. I don't bite…"
He shrinks, startled. You imagine ears flattening against a furry head and realize your mistake: more than anything, he doesn't want to make you angry or disappoint you in any way.
"I am not angry," you say, placating. You extend a hand toward him but don't touch him. You leave your fingers hanging a palm away. An invitation.
Suspect and doubt and pain war on his side of the channel. But what rules is fear. So much fear. Fear of being hurt. Fear of remembering, Fear of trusting. Fear of shifting, dreading that what little mind could crumble under the effort.
"I am not angry," you repeat, soft but firm. Your hand remains extended, an unmoving, steady bridge between him and you.
His love is a desperate, tentative little thing. It brings him to his knees, nuzzling his metal-carved cheek against your hand.
"I am Me," he murmurs. His voice is deep and grating, as if razors are shredding his throat and mashing in his chest.
You smile. "You're copying."
Another mistake. It takes you more than a light effort to have come back to you.
"I am not angry," you say for the third time, not minding it at all. "I think it's cute. You're learning."
He hides his face against your lap, shuddering every so slightly as you caress his head.
"I am… Me," he rumbles, and there's an abyssal sadness there, the unrestrained pain of a traveler that finally found a dock after a lifetime under the scorching sun and salt.
Me. A name that is a nomination. A name that is a prayer. Oh, don't ask. Just watch. Just watch the Me of this moment, please. Forget the past, forget the future. Let them all die and be forgotten. Don't make me remember. I am Me. I am Me.
Anything else but allowing him this little mercy is unthinkable.
"Welcome home, Me, my child."
He shudders in your lap, then relaxes ever so slightly. He says nothing, but you think that his breath is flowing a bit more freely now.
In his corner of the channel, among the ruptured memories and brokeness, gentle stars twinkle.
-------------------------
It has been a long time since you've done one of these things. You'll admit it: you missed it. Why, you missed it so much that you don't mind rewatching some of the memories you have of it with your main processor.
It starts with you sitting in your new den. Your tendrils seep into the digital world that is the Tomb complex. Like curious little roots they go, and where they are, so are you. Your consciousness runs along them and then you're in the system. Why, you are the system. The walls of lithonecris are your skin, the eyes of every tiny Scarab and floating Spyder are the windows from which you gaze. One of your fingers is one million tiny claws. Your heart is a furnace of roaring, viridian energy. Your limbs are endless hallways and corridors and crypts, sinking into the deep, innervating the planet.
The complex is alive, a single, hive-like existence held together by circuits and flowing with data. Now, it's you and you enjoy your existence. You're a thing of logic, untouched by doubt and running with ruthless efficiency. Your mind is a thing of percentages, projections and calculations, your hands and feet the tens of thousands of dim existences running through your veins like cells in a bloodstream.
You wonder about the divine. Thousands of processes run across your titanic processors and you're barely fazed. As a Warrior, you awaken, blinking as you step out of your coffin. As a Scarab, you size up a damaged patch of lithonecris, signalling your Spyder Overseer. As a hall's sensors, you provide a steady stream of environmental data about your charge.
You're a ghost in the machine, everywhere and nowhere at once. Is this what it means to be a demigod?
Maybe. What's sure is that you have enough computational power in your hands that you could run a planet. And what are you doing with it? Well, you're watching fops going to a party. Very Necron-like, you think with a chuckle.
"The Matriarch Representative. Queen Mother. Phaerakh of Flame. Keeper of the Shard. Chainbreaker. Great mecenate of science. Knowledge-bearer. Inscriber of Glyphs. Feller of…"
While the herald recites your many, many titles, your body is still, hidden in the gloom of the antechamber. But your mind is running laps across the complex, watching, assessing.
They've gone back to the old habits quickly. Three Sekmat. Having a running battle with a bunch of Destroyers while rushing at breakneck speed on their barges not to be late. There was four, but the fourth has been blown up by a lucky shot and is in the process of rebuilding himself. He won't be pleased, you reckon.
There's the matter of seeing who sent the destroyers, but that's for another time. For now, you take an extensive log of the constructs' engrams and set a few of your sub-routines to try and work out if there are data-trails to chase. Not like the culprits would get anything more than a rap on the knuckle: these games were part of life. Still, information is king and your daughter can only benefit from more strings to pull.
Just then, Nekaph finishes his litany. The hulking Vargard is a colossus of a Necron, towering head and shoulders over a Lychguard. His reinforced plating adds to that, building him to geological immensities. As the butt of his cerimonial staff hits the floor, your sensors register a tremor.
His voice is still echoing as you stride in, your handmaidens in tow. You arrive fashionably late, of course.
The nobles crowd the hall. They stand still, so many metal statues moving only when strictly necessary, floating in nebulas of data transmissions and shared processes, surrounded by starfields of computations and projections. The network is a private affair, with a counter infused with the host's signature and clocking rhythm connected to a counter to the start of the ritual. Multiple queries are already forming, the nobles setting subroutines to take care of ritual "handshakes" and greetings. Others sync with the ruler's shadow signature as a sign of deference.
They turn as you enter, glowing eyes piercing the gloom. It may be vain of you, but you feel quite smug. The shared channels, those dedicated to having people know what the owners want them to know, brim with a mix of obsequience, awe and grudging respect. And intimidation. You like that. You quite like that.
As you stride among them, your display comes alive with formal greetings. A few are succinct. Most are long and rambling. Everybody is cautious around you. They don't know your position and so they either avoid committing or recite as much as they can to get at least a title right. And to fish out details. Naughty naughty. Your answers are curt, a pleasant smile and a graceful nod that mean nothing and leave only more confusion in their wake.
The pings start soon after.
Necron Lords have the computational power of a supercomputer, the memory of a server archive and the pride to match, all rolled into one. With that, and since you may as well go bold or go home, their greetings came alongside curated selections of memories. The most refined experiences in emotion, sensorial input and logical discourse, sharpened and distilled in concentrated essences that would have a mortal's brain go haywire trying to decrypt them. Of course, as with everything else they did, this too was a declaration of status: the more exotic, complex and evocative the memory-distillate, the greater the flaunting.
The Sekmat, bold souls that they are, try their best, but their pings are brutish things at best: the satisfying feel of a skull caving in, a spiderweb of variable and computations resolving itself in a brilliant out-maneuvering, the flash of insight as a weakness is spotted, future actualizing as an elegant concatenation of parries and feints and, of course, the ever-green One Strike Severing; or just the grim greatness of one million boots crunching gravel in unison.
Processors purring, you breathe them in. Still, compared to what the Akmat brings? Adorable.
Simphonies of thoughts intertwining and cascading to dizzying heights of logic and conclusion. Four-dimensional expositions of experiences beyond time and space. Glimpses of an insight into the nature of things. Philosophical concepts compressed into a few meaning-impulses of cold, sharp beauty. Mathematical paradoxes resolved with cascades of algorithms and ruthless logic. Geometrical constructs of dizzying complexity and piercing depth. Chaos-variables enslaved to logic-projections of blinding, all-encompassing accuracy.
You're impressed. Going all out like this is considered in bad taste, in normal times. But these aren't normal times, are they?
Well, you can't fall short now, can you?
Making an Impression: Req 20, Diplomacy, 36+7=43. Short and sweet.
Sometimes, less is more. That's your thought as your ping blooms in the party network, a patch of blood on a spiderweb. The image of the Master Program's Warp-Core stinks of disorder, even in the simple format you encoded it. It sparks a wave of morbid fascination and, since asking questions is the highest form of lack of fashion, burning curiosity. And to your wicked little delight, envy.
Here they are, reminiscing about old things, when the Matriarch shows them tantalizing glimpses of the new Galaxy and the Powers they must contend with, trick or subdue to reclaim their rightful domination.
It turns you in the center of attention, the winds of encrypted conversations and data flows moving to you like the eye of a hurricane. Good thing you're an innocent little swan, or your head could get too big for your own good! Oh, it's good to be bad…
Like gravity wells, parties follow their rules of attraction and repulsion. Necron parties, well, it's all about success percentages and the Ak'Mathon, the color-based language with which one projects how amiable he is to being approached and about which topics. As you stride among the nobles, leaving Khepra behind in the space reserved to the retinues, your Mathon glyph is a pure Gauss green: approach, all ye are willing, and talk about what you will. There are few things conveying power more than open arms and a bright smile.
The first to take up the invitation is an Atahualpa, one of the leading families of the Dynasty.
Atahualpa Capac is old blood, his name harkening back to the dynasty's origins, and it shows. His frame is covered with the sharp cuneiform of the First Dinastic War rather than the hieroglyphs of the United Empire. Personally, he's not old, belonging to the generation before Raethis'. His ambition and military skill are renowned, as well as his curious choice of allegiance: as a member of the aristocracy, he qualifies as an Akmat, but in all but name, he's a Sekmat, always leading from the front. It's an unusual lifestyle, bordering on arrogance, but it lets him chip in on both courts with his opinions and actions. Add that he's quite skilled and you have an important member of the Dynasty's upper class.
You slow down for him. Just a tad.
"Napaykuyki, Matriarch," he greets in the old style. His signature radiates with discipline and elegant refinement. "It's so rare to see fresh faces in our halls. Have you come to bask in the light of the Luminous' hearth?"
Any tricks?, Req 20, Diplomacy, 76+7=83. Trying to fish out your role in the play.
Napaykuyki. The formal greeting for superiors toward inferiors. Not in rank, as much as in the Phaeron's favor. With the old language going out of style, only a few would know of it. It could be masked as an honest mistake, but also as a declaration of the Capac's to a return to the old times, when the Dynasty was free from the Triarch's bridles.
"Enyapuyki, my dear Apu Inca," you purr, replying with the equal rank greeting, and adding his family title as well. Surprise glimmers on his end, like a glint over metal. "Why, thank you. It's a wonder to be back in the well-kept halls I once ruled by fate's grace. But I would do more than bask. I would fan the fire, if I can find my breath, of course." You giggle.
Capac's signature flares with a dry denial. "You underestimate yourself, madam. It wasn't a frail breeze that felled the mad machine, but a hurricane. Many would shy away from such a mighty wind – or bask in its gusts."
More tricks? Req 30, Diplomacy, 53+7=60. Dangerous metaphors meant to pull you on the spot.
"Oh, you flatterer," you deflect, hiding your lips behind a fan of fingers. "I wouldn't call myself a storm. There's such violence in the wold, don't you think? A whisper is more apt, or as you very skillfully said, a breeze. To fan the fire and see the hearth swell. But maybe I tire the metaphor." You chuckle.
Appreciation glimmers in Capac's eyes. He nods, conceding the bout.
You have to admit you like him. With only a few words, he tested you and where you stand compared to the throne. The fact that he's a threat means little, really. Parrying is only fun when the strokes come fast and close.
"A meaning wouldn't tire so easily, Ma'am. Not if the vocalizer behind it isn't faulty."
You turn. You don't need it to feel the three signatures coming your way, triggering a wave of bows and greetings, but it's still good form.
"And allow me to be so bold as to say that your enhancements are all but common," the figure who spoke is slim and tall, his frame's angles sharpened and sections reinforced until he appears as a collection of violent implements assembled in the shape of a sand-colored Necron Ovelord.
"And how would you even know that, Merkath?" Another snarls. The Cryptek is so old that he may as well be a living fossil. His body, a mix between an arachnid, a Necron and a crustacean, entrusts motion ot the Acanthrite it's connected to. Half of it is covered in grooves and strange, smooth valleys, as if a great heat melted it. The rest is burdened by add-ons, crackling coils and geometrical shapes that float and turn and rearranges themselves. "Each to its place, I say! Experience on the field is good, but it needs study and laboratory work to shine!" He barks, waving a gnarled staff. The Overlord smirks in reply, a jagged line opening where his mouth ought to be.
"Yeah!" Another exclaims. Broad and heavyset, this one looks like a sadder, fatter version of Tefetra. Still, the Barge-worth plates fused to his gut and the Gauss cannon hanging on his back, or the massive trophy rack, are nothing to sneeze at.
And just like that, you're ambushed. Did they plan for it? No doubt. Sending their most eager member forward while they waited for their cue to step in. How fun. Bring it on then.
One of your sub-routines glances toward the back of the hall, where the throne is.
Your daughter lounges, surrounded by a cloud of attendants and slaves. As the Phaerakh, she must be above such petty skirmishes. Instead, she sits, allowing her subjects to gaze upon their ruler and offer their devotion. Another ritual, and one she must not be very fond of, if the distant, tiny whimper for help your sensors catch is anything to go by. All good experiences for you, my dear.
She can't help you, not without risking her hand. No matter. This is a game you're quite good at, if you can allow yourself some immodesty.
"My dear Lords…" You offer each a custom-tailored digital handshake. Their signatures thrill back, pinging for a casual conversation, which you benevolently agree to. Then, since offense is the best defense: "Your words cut to the skin of our reality, my Lord Althymr. Truly, it is wise to turn his attention to one's affair before asserting our dominion over the Deshret*."
A veiled threat, an insinuation and a position, all woven into one. Their processors work and whirr as they dig through the implications.
Althymr clutches his staff with both hands, a gesture that has nothing about age, but before he can speak, Merkath flags his answer. An insult, considering one is an Akmat and another a Sekmat, and one that has Althymr hunker down like a crab planting his feet for a fight. You register the old lord presenting it to the party's temp archive for later consideration by the ruler.
"The Matriarch speaks with the wisdom of the ages." The Overlord's voice is the glad hiss of a blade drawn from its scabbard. "It wouldn't do to face the challenges of the Awakening by refusing optimal change. Our blades ought to be sharpened, their holders adequately… prepared."
Althymr twitches. His signature shudders with indignation. "Optimal change, yes. Follow that, you…"
"My Lords, please." Capac's tone is conciliatory yet firm. "Let us not sully our revered Matriarch's serenity with our grievances. Surely, Our Most August Queen is the appropriate recipient for them."
That takes the wind out of their sails; or just remind them why they are there. The two bickering lords look at each other for a tense moment. They nod, their signatures blaring with ritual apologies.
Couldn't divide them, tsk. No matter…
Just like that, all attention returns to little old you. Considering, piercing. Without missing a beat, Capac resumes. "It's a time of changes, My Lady. Isfet*, cursed disorder, knocks at our door. I beg your forgiveness for all those who, in their eagerness to serve, may look like they're losing composure."
You ping your agreement with a digital courtsy.
"Yeah!" The fat lord exclaims. He nods eagerly, looking left and right, and is promptly ignored. You glance at him with curiosity. Your surface-level archives have no records of his family glyphs. How rare.
"Uphold Ma'at*!" Althymr barks. "Only a fool builds on sand! A strong foundation makes for a mighty pylon! You can mould the shape, re-engrave the glyphs and swap the circuits. But to change the material? Extract the founding blocks? Foolishness!" He leans toward you, two lids opening and closing rapidly as his central eye zeroes on you. "The Matriarch has always been the risk-taker. I remember. But maybe time moulds even a block of Necrodermis, mh?"
Fending off the Old Spider: Req 40, Diplomacy, 67+7=70. The art of using many words to say nothing.
"Oh, but time means little, my dear Lord," you chide. "And I'd rather see the pylon's face changed than to risk its foundations shifted and its alignment lost."
Althymr's staff came down, hitting the Canoptek he rode with a dull thunk. "Even at the cost of what makes us what we are?"
"How dramatic. Aren't we masters of ourselves? We'll sharpen and mould and rebuild ourselves as many times it takes. But our undying will? That, we shall never lose, no matter what."
Althymr snarls, a dry, crackling sound. "The Silent King wouldn't agree."
You smile. "Then we must work so that he can be impressed when his gaze return over us."
Althymr watches you, consideration glowing in his eye. He nods, as slow and implacable as a marching iceberg.
"Oh, give it up, old Lord," Merkath mocks, sharp like a whip. Althymr shudders like he has been hit. "You speak of rejecting grievances and then that's what you talk about. I'd rather raise a cup to Our Wise Queen for her choice of seat arrangement. It's a new world, yes? With new priorieties and a new need for strength. I crave the moment she'll find enough to follow the path she started to blaze."
Insolence. It has Althymr glaring daggers at him, but Merkath doesn't even glance his way. His unrepentant gaze is all for you, intense, inviting and dangerous.
Fending off the Bladed Dancer: Req 20, Diplomacy, 14+7=21. A bold approach needs only a step aside.
You know the weight your daughter carries. You saw how she struggles beneath it. Yet, she tries and tries. Listening as she's insulted like this makes you want to lick your teeth and snap a neck. But you keep your cool. In here, words are fit to snap necks, make no mistakes.
"My daughter rules well," you purr, holding his gaze. You tilt your head, smiling. He shifts, some of bravado bleeding off him. "We couldn't hope for a more competent, adaptable ruler."
"Indeed," Merkath says, careful and threatening like a hunting cat. "This new age will take strength, force, a new order. The skill to lead and accept changes, not to follow like a sheep. A powerful character, yes? Not one who is cowed easily."
Digs and barbs to your daughter and adopted son. He really doesn't like them, this child of steel and dust, mh?
"And… experience." His eyes gleam, inviting. His voice fills with fervor.
He's inviting you into a plot to take over the crown for yourself. In the middle of a party. He has guts, you'll hand it to him. And you'll admit that you feel flattered. Almost.
"Good thing our good rulers have plenty of these virtues, then."
He looks at you. Not taken aback, nor surprised. Poised, tense, like a prowling beast about to pounce. Then, it goes out of him, and he's stepping back, easy and relaxed.
"Very good indeed," he hisses, pleased. There's a new respect in those piercing eyes of his. He looks at you with appreciation. "I'll say it again: your add-ons are splendid."
"Why, thank you. We could take inspiration from them to improve your forces."
"I'd love that." He bows deep, a hand like a collection of knives scraping a little on his chest.
The fat lord decides to take that moment to stomp in, with all the finesse of a bumbling mastodon.
"Is it true?" He grumbles, sounding like he's crunching gravel. "Is it true you want to become a God?"
It's like someone dropped a Seraptek in the middle of the hall. The auroras of messages is snuffed out. The nobles, which have been earsdropping, are suddenly revealed, standing like a bunch of scarecrows whose field has burned away.
"It was for that, wasn't it?" The fat lord, showing a frankly remarkable ability for obliviousness, continues. "You turned the Dynasty into Necrons because you wanted that!" A gasp goes through the audience.
You look into his eyes, his eager and curious face. Someone's cat's paw, meant to put you on the spot and address what nobody wanted to address. The subtlelty is on par with a brick, though. Dynasties splintered for far less.
Capac has gone still like a statue. Althymr flinches and twitches, his staff hitting the Canoptek's head like a metronome. As for Merkath, he's trembling, a soft, keening laugh coming from the grill of his mouth. If they are the owners, they didn't expect something like that. Honestly, you don't blame them.
You let your gaze roam the hall. Necron Lords and Crypteks, proud masters of technology and eternity, might and will, evades your attention. They turn away, mimicking gestures that mean little to them and yet still mean something. Shame, distrust, doubt, fear.
From her throne, Raethis watches you, eyes burning with horror.
All Eyes On You: Req 60, Diplomacy, 80+7=87. Take a good look then.
Silly girl. This is not your first dance.
You smile, a languid thing that has the fat fool lean forward, hope for an answer, and to please whoever put him to this, sparkling in his gaze.
He nods when you gesture for him to get closer, and shuffles forward.
"Did you prefer end up as the C'tan's food?"
With that, you bow and stride away. Communications and messages resume in your wake, ritual protocols resuming with something approaching relief.
A message pings in your display. It's from Capac.
Two words: A God?
You think of the pain of your people, of the madness the Old Ones turned the Warp into. The Master Program's words roar in your memory, painting a shadow over you.
You reply. One word: Maybe.
From there, the celebration goes as well as can be expected. Raethis tries her best, setting the tone, keeping up with rituals. The main point is her speech. She talks of the new dawn for their dynasty, of what has been lost and what will have to be rebuilt. She tries the optimistic, hopeful approach, but to your chagrin, she doesn't set much in the way of strong policies. It's all very vague, a spiel on the importance of cooperation and the potentialities that await in the new Galaxy. Apart from the need to get the Tombworld up and running, she says little about concrete planning, like how the Dynasty should act before inferior races, or their own. As for threats like the Master Program and the Warp, she minimizes, emphasizing their strength as Necrons.
Not a disaster, but not what you'd call good either. More than anything, it portrays her as an indecisive, weak ruler.
The dynasty is awake and alert now. Still, as the Lords return to their tasks and occupations, there are murmurs and whispers. Like the Queen said, it's a new world.
It remains to be seen if it will be better than the one they left.
------------------
TRAIT ACQUIRED: Wordweaver: Words can be barbs. You are aware of it, and skilled in the fencing. +1 Diplomacy.
SKILL UPGRADED: Lore (Necrontyr), Master, 1/3 -> 2/3
NEW HERO UNLOCKED: Khepra, the Handmaiden
NEW DYNASTY TRAIT UNLOCKED:
- Fearsome Synergy: By combining the two separate branches of their Dynasty, the Xolotl are more than the sum of their parts. Your push for equality only made sure that neither Court wishes to be left behind. On the field, the Xolotl always field a mix of technical experts and martial lords working in concert; it makes the Dynasty's forces adaptable and dependable.
+2 Martial, +1 Intrigue, +1 Technomancy
+2 Martial, +1 Intrigue, +1 Technomancy
NEW CHARACTER INFORMATION DISCOVERED:
- Raethis, Luminous Queen, of the Lineage of Xolotl
Standing: 10
> She trusts you with all her soul. You're her column and mother.
- Tefetra, King of Might, of the Lineage of Telbati, Xolotl adopted
Standing: 2
> He blames you for Bio-Transference and would love if you didn't wander too close to his wife. He's professional around you, but that's that.
- Althymr Herphtra II, Akmat, of the Lineage of Ilintek
Standing: 0
> The Old Spider considers you a dangerous yet useful tool to the Dynasty, to be kept on a leash. In the end, he doesn't trust you. He's probably wise on that.
- Capac Atahualpa, Akmat, of the Lineage of Tupalca
Standing: 3
> He respects you. As a rival, as a possible ally, it doesn't matter. Respect is respect.
- Merkath, Sekmat, of the Lineage of Merkath
Standing: 4
> The closest a Necron can feel to attraction. He'd love to know you, and your enhancements, better.
- Hute the Fool, Sekmat, of the Lineage of Tuberekh
Standing: 1
> He understands you're some kind of big shot, but he's not sure about much else.
Standing: 10
> She trusts you with all her soul. You're her column and mother.
- Tefetra, King of Might, of the Lineage of Telbati, Xolotl adopted
Standing: 2
> He blames you for Bio-Transference and would love if you didn't wander too close to his wife. He's professional around you, but that's that.
- Althymr Herphtra II, Akmat, of the Lineage of Ilintek
Standing: 0
> The Old Spider considers you a dangerous yet useful tool to the Dynasty, to be kept on a leash. In the end, he doesn't trust you. He's probably wise on that.
- Capac Atahualpa, Akmat, of the Lineage of Tupalca
Standing: 3
> He respects you. As a rival, as a possible ally, it doesn't matter. Respect is respect.
- Merkath, Sekmat, of the Lineage of Merkath
Standing: 4
> The closest a Necron can feel to attraction. He'd love to know you, and your enhancements, better.
- Hute the Fool, Sekmat, of the Lineage of Tuberekh
Standing: 1
> He understands you're some kind of big shot, but he's not sure about much else.
NEW FACTION INFORMATION DISCOVERED
- The Akmat
Dynasty Standing: 65%
> The faction holds all the political power, with the three Dynasts advising the Phaerakh and the ruler herself belonging to its ranks. Allegedly. With the disappearance of the network of alliances the dynasty relied on to survive against the Old Ones, their importance is at its lowest ebb in memory. They are aristocratic and combative, more than ready to fight to retain their privileges.
Your Standing: 7
> They fear you because of your role in Bio-Transference. They admire your technological prowess. It's complicated.
- The Sekmat
Dynasty Standing: 35%
> The weapon-wielding arm of the Dynasty, the faction welcomes the new world: it will finally allow them to step into the light and to their deserved station! It will take fighting, no doubt, but the Sekmat are born and bred for it. They envy the Sekmat for their high standing and desire to impose their domination.
Your standing: 5
> Another Sekmat? Yet, the Queen seems to have changed her tune since the return of this crone...
Dynasty Standing: 65%
> The faction holds all the political power, with the three Dynasts advising the Phaerakh and the ruler herself belonging to its ranks. Allegedly. With the disappearance of the network of alliances the dynasty relied on to survive against the Old Ones, their importance is at its lowest ebb in memory. They are aristocratic and combative, more than ready to fight to retain their privileges.
Your Standing: 7
> They fear you because of your role in Bio-Transference. They admire your technological prowess. It's complicated.
- The Sekmat
Dynasty Standing: 35%
> The weapon-wielding arm of the Dynasty, the faction welcomes the new world: it will finally allow them to step into the light and to their deserved station! It will take fighting, no doubt, but the Sekmat are born and bred for it. They envy the Sekmat for their high standing and desire to impose their domination.
Your standing: 5
> Another Sekmat? Yet, the Queen seems to have changed her tune since the return of this crone...
NEW DYNASTY INFORMATION DISCOVERED
Standing: 7
> The Dynasty isn't sure about you. The Bio-Transference was such a chaotic mess that they don't know whether to treat you as a savior or an executioner. They still fear and are wary of you, especially after you showed your prowess against the Machine Program, and again since your role in the dynasty is uncertain. You're a divisive figure.
> During the period you were away and focused on events at the Silent Court, three families became leading among the lineages: the Imothu, the Atahualpa and the Ilintek. These three lineages hold the vaunted title of Dynast, marking them as advisors that, by the weight of their power, skills and influence, even the Phaeron has to keep into consideration.
> The Dynasty isn't sure about you. The Bio-Transference was such a chaotic mess that they don't know whether to treat you as a savior or an executioner. They still fear and are wary of you, especially after you showed your prowess against the Machine Program, and again since your role in the dynasty is uncertain. You're a divisive figure.
> During the period you were away and focused on events at the Silent Court, three families became leading among the lineages: the Imothu, the Atahualpa and the Ilintek. These three lineages hold the vaunted title of Dynast, marking them as advisors that, by the weight of their power, skills and influence, even the Phaeron has to keep into consideration.
---------------
With the Tombworld approaching full functionality, Raethis approaches you: as per tradition, all Lineages* have been apportioned a measure of Gauss energy. Still, even the Gauss isn't limitless. Unbalaced allocations must be made and that will allow the favoured lineages to supply their particular expertise en-masse and for the Phaerakh to show her favour. In turn, the expertises that will be prioritized will shape the Dynasty's means toward the Galaxy at large.
Rolling for Xolotl Lineage skills: 1d100=93
[x] Xolotl Lineage: The royal family has held the Scarred Throne for twenty generations, up until the Last Children. A matriarchal, branching lineage, it owes the length of its rule to a mix of far-sighted rulers, ruthlessness and careful marriage policies. No Necron Lord wouldn't love to possess a cartouche marked with the glyph of such a storied bloodline, and their ability to produce and repair delicate necrodermic bio-apparatus as well as to build sacred artifacts is legendary.
Will supply:
- Sacred Cartouches
- Superior Maintenance (Engrammatic Circuits*, Engrammatic Organs*)
- Artifacts
Choose three: (The chosen lineages will supply enough of their special expertise and/or manufacts for you to be able to use it as a resource in trades or actions, in and out the Dynasty).
Each of the lineage showed here have enough clout and/or dignity to stand on their own. Other lineages exist in the dynasty but are clients of these or aren't useful enough to be present.
Every Sekmat or Akmat Lineage chosen will provide 5% Dynasty Standing to the Faction. You get 1 Instability for each of the three Dynast Lineages you don't pick. Dynasts that aren't picked will grumble but do nothing dramatic for now, since their political power won't take an immediate hit. Still, they'll keep an eye out for what you do next. Be careful with them because even if they won't rebel if you don't after them hard, they still can make your life harder than it needs to be. Whatever you choose, the new facilities will increase your Gauss expenditure by 250 units.
The resources you get will get you the chances that otherwise you wouldn't get. For example, if you need to impress that Hive World filled with naive humans, you may resort to the Szeran's digital holograms to pass yourself as the Emperor, or maybe you want to make a deal with Dark Eldar. In that case, the Merkath have you covered, giving your hosts bloodsport and violent emotions in spades. And so on. The Galaxy is a big place. You never know what could come in handy.
It goes: Pathetic - Weak - Inferior - Average - Improved - Superior - Excellent - Supreme (For a Necron)
[] (Sekmat) Merkath Lineage: Small and obscure, this lineage is an appendix to the far larger, far more important Imothu. At least in apperances. It's a public secret that Merkath the Blade keeps the weak-willed Imothu patriarch under his thumb. The Merkath Bladedancers are renowned for their skill and they sell it, both in training and show, with an eagerness many find distasteful. The many nobles who engaged a Merkath to fight in honor duels are a glaring exception.
Will supply:
- Improved Fighting (Training)
- Improved Fighting (Spectacle)
[] (Akmat) Atahualpa Lineage: One of the oldest and most exalted of lineages, harkening back to the times of the First Dynastic Wars. Led by the respected Capac, the Atahualpa are disciplined and powerful, having risen to become a second to the ruling family. Many look with wariness at the efficiency with which they establish communication and teleportation relays, or the skill and speed with which they churn out weapons, no matter the origin.
Will supply:
- Improved Weapons
- Improved Communications
[] (Akmat) Ilintek Lineage: Althymr Ilintek leads this long-time lineage, one of the few to remember the reign of Xorathis' mother. The Old Spider rules over a court of hundreds of children and grandchildren, which in turn churn out plates, armor in the industrial quantity required by war. The Spiderlings, as someone derisively call them, are a vociferous member of the Old Aristocracy and while they scoff at change, the Necrodermis that flows from their founts do so in quality good enough to woo an old Lord. As for the quantity, it's fit to drown a kingdom.
Will supply:
- Improved Maintenance (Armor)
- Superior Necrodermis
[] (Sekmat) Tuberekh Lineage: Small and weak, this family has long been isolated by an almost constant string of social bumbling. Today, the Dominak Hute is desperate for a patron, which, coupled with his ability to be oblivious to social cues, doesn't picture a future so different from the past. The Tuberekh have an almost preternatural knack for knowing things, from the most innocent gossip to secrets that could damn a fortune.
Will supply:
- Information
[] (Akmat) Sinchi Lineage: Before the Passage, the Sinchi were held in high esteem, both by nobles who seek their medical expertise, and the masses who received from their mass-produced food. With their arts being a relic of the past, they are now a long-fallen house. Yet, Chief Apothecary Illumi refuses to give up the trade that made the fortune of her family.
Will supply:
- Superior Medical Expertise
- Superior Mass Food Production
[] (Sekmat) Umu Lineage: If the Sinchi fell with the passage, the Umu blazed the opposite path. Their Amu priests are experts in offering psychological help to nobles flagging under the weight of eternity, as well as in helping those who lost interest in life into finding new meaning. Their insight in the digitalized mind allow them to construct digital landscapes unmatched in detail and depth, where they run projections that some say outclass any seer. Raam-Ru Efethikel has long given up motory functions to turn himself into a living supercomputer.
Will supply:
- Improved Psychological Expertise
- Digital Projections
[] (Akmat) Szeran Lineage: The First Szeraki isn't coy about his ultra-conservatorism. Not only he and his lineage oppose any change, they also think that it's the Dynasty's duty to prepare the ground for the inevitable return of the Silent King. For that, they work relentlessly, perfecting digital landscaping to woo the inferior races, while keeping alive the wealth of knowledge of the rituals of the Old Ones. The lineage considers itself the secret arm of the Triarch.
Will supply:
- Digital Landscaping (Holograms)
- Psychic Expertise
[] (Akmat) Imothu Lineage: A powerful, sprawling family that claim the title of Dynast, yet it well presents the conundrum the Akmat finds themselves facing today. The diplomatic arts with which the Imothu climbed to fame seem pointless now, so it's little surprise that their Chief Speaker fell under the sway of his strong-willed brother Merkath. Still, the Imothu remains an integral part of the Dynasty, with their artists able to craft An'Lekh masterpieces fit to steal a Necron Lord's not-existent breath away.
Will supply:
- Improved Art (An'Lekh)
- Improved Diplomacy
[] (Sekmat) Anu Puca Lineage: Eccentricism is a given for Necron nobility, but little can compare to the brightly-colored Sundancers of the Anu Puca. Suncaller Ifta tells far and wide that no matter how jaded you are and how much you've seen and experienced, the Anu Puca will make you remember what it feels to be flesh and blood. His lineage's establishments are a fixture that nobody will speak about. Nonetheless, they remain. Their more public persona is that of storytellers and storycrafters.
Will supply:
- Emotion-crafting
- Art (Storytelling)
AC - Sorry for being late. Life got in the way. Anyway, here's a doozy for you today. Lots of new stuff and we see what passes for an economy among immortal machines who (mostly) stepped past post-scarcity. Goodies, sure, but mostly it's all about expertise and the favors that earns you. You can imagine them like resources (like Stone, or Iron). All Necrons know how to inscribe An'Lekh, but only the Imothu have that good An'Lekh and you don't want to fall behind, do you?
They are requested, and so they have value. And while most of these are thought to be of interest to other necrons, the galaxy is a big place. No reason why you can't trade with another race. Economics goes beyond. Also, we see their politics. Necrons are big on that. It's one of the few things that can still raise their concern, after all, and arguably the most interesting (not fun, Necrons never have fun, maybe).
Big thanks to Mayto for giving me inspiration. Go read his Return of the Skarrenavi. It's good as all hell.
I'll be updating the Characters sheet soon and add the standings. For now...
THERE WILL BE A FOUR-HOUR MORATORIUM BEFORE VOTING
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- Location
- yorkshire
choices choices some clutch rolls there
When you get more Gauss, you'll be able to activate more resources.
Poor Raethis. Hope she can gain more confidence over time, and that we can get Tefetra to trust us more.
- Location
- The Space Between
They want Atahualpa, Ilintek and Merkath and that suits me just fine. We've got problems to deal with still, with the wildlife and the C'tan growths and a Seraptek unaccounted for. The other bonuses do look good though, and I'm glad each seem likely to survive even if we don't fund them right away.
It might be extremely militant, but even if nothing new comes to fight us there's a whole planet's surface to explore and study up there.
hey @boredblues what do the asterisks mean on "Engrammatic Circuits*, Engrammatic Organs*" from our lineage?
It might be extremely militant, but even if nothing new comes to fight us there's a whole planet's surface to explore and study up there.
hey @boredblues what do the asterisks mean on "Engrammatic Circuits*, Engrammatic Organs*" from our lineage?
- Location
- Spain
I can see the appeal to go full martial, but honestly, I would love to see a more subtle approach, and I find the idea of Necrons as Immortal artists and Storytellers so much more engaging than an army of soulless robots.
[X]Plan: Art & Knowledge are food for the Soul.
-[X] (Sekmat) Tuberekh Lineage: Small and weak, this family has long been isolated by an almost constant string of social bumbling. Today, the Dominak Hute is desperate for a patron, which, coupled with his ability to be oblivious to social cues, doesn't picture a future so different from the past. The Tuberekh have an almost preternatural knack for knowing things, from the most innocent gossip to secrets that could damn a fortune.
Will supply:
- Information
-[X] (Akmat) Imothu Lineage: A powerful, sprawling family that claim the title of Dynast, yet it well presents the conundrum the Akmat finds themselves facing today. The diplomatic arts with which the Imothu climbed to fame seem pointless now, so it's little surprise that their Chief Speaker fell under the sway of his strong-willed brother Merkath. Still, the Imothu remains an integral part of the Dynasty, with their artists able to craft An'Lekh masterpieces fit to steal a Necron Lord's not-existent breath away.
Will supply:
- Improved Art (An'Lekh)
- Improved Diplomacy
-[X] (Sekmat) Anu Puca Lineage: Eccentricism is a given for Necron nobility, but little can compare to the brightly-colored Sundancers of the Anu Puca. Suncaller Ifta tells far and wide that no matter how jaded you are and how much you've seen and experienced, the Anu Puca will make you remember what it feels to be flesh and blood. His lineage's establishments are a fixture that nobody will speak about. Nonetheless, they remain. Their more public persona is that of storytellers and storycrafters.
Will supply:
- Emotion-crafting
- Art (Storytelling)
- Location
- yorkshire
[X]Plan: Art & Knowledge are food for the Soul.
- Location
- The Space Between
Do note that not picking the military families introduces a point of Instability per family we snub. So we snub all the military families with the most political power, who are also the Dynast tier advisors of our queen and granddaughter, and how's that going to play out for her?
I'd rather work on getting enough Gauss to kick a minimum to all the families rather than have to tackle the instability of a dynasty we've destabilized with our own choices (when we're not even the political leader that'd be stuck handling it in the near term)
My preference is to not introduce instability but I'd be fine with one and grumbly-accepting of two. Three feels like trampling the work of our granddaughter for our own selfish whims
I'd rather work on getting enough Gauss to kick a minimum to all the families rather than have to tackle the instability of a dynasty we've destabilized with our own choices (when we're not even the political leader that'd be stuck handling it in the near term)
My preference is to not introduce instability but I'd be fine with one and grumbly-accepting of two. Three feels like trampling the work of our granddaughter for our own selfish whims
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Sometimes there is a place for subtlety. And sometimes there is a place for a brick through the window.
…. Is this the Necron equivalent of drug lords?
I knew I had forgotten something. Adding it now.
Maybeeeeeee.
Vote Start
[X] More than War (Though we've got that too)
- [X] (Sekmat) Merkath Lineage: Small and obscure, this lineage is an appendix to the far larger, far more important Imothu. At least in apperances. It's a public secret that Merkath the Blade keeps the weak-willed Imothu patriarch under his thumb. The Merkath Bladedancers are renowned for their skill and they sell it, both in training and show, with an eagerness many find distasteful. The many nobles who engaged a Merkath to fight in honor duels are a glaring exception.
Will supply:
- Improved Fighting (Training)
- Improved Fighting (Spectacle)
- [X](Sekmat) Umu Lineage: If the Sinchi fell with the passage, the Umu blazed the opposite path. Their Amu priests are experts in offering psychological help to nobles flagging under the weight of eternity, as well as in helping those who lost interest in life into finding new meaning. Their insight in the digitalized mind allow them to construct digital landscapes unmatched in detail and depth, where they run projections that some say outclass any seer. Raam-Ru Efethikel has long given up motory functions to turn himself into a living supercomputer.
Will supply:
- Improved Psychological Expertise
- Digital Projections
- [X] (Akmat) Atahualpa Lineage: One of the oldest and most exalted of lineages, harkening back to the times of the First Dynastic Wars. Led by the respected Capac, the Atahualpa are disciplined and powerful, having risen to become a second to the ruling family. Many look with wariness at the efficiency with which they establish communication and teleportation relays, or the skill and speed with which they churn out weapons, no matter the origin.
Will supply:
- Improved Weapons
- Improved Communications
- [X] (Sekmat) Merkath Lineage: Small and obscure, this lineage is an appendix to the far larger, far more important Imothu. At least in apperances. It's a public secret that Merkath the Blade keeps the weak-willed Imothu patriarch under his thumb. The Merkath Bladedancers are renowned for their skill and they sell it, both in training and show, with an eagerness many find distasteful. The many nobles who engaged a Merkath to fight in honor duels are a glaring exception.
Will supply:
- Improved Fighting (Training)
- Improved Fighting (Spectacle)
- [X](Sekmat) Umu Lineage: If the Sinchi fell with the passage, the Umu blazed the opposite path. Their Amu priests are experts in offering psychological help to nobles flagging under the weight of eternity, as well as in helping those who lost interest in life into finding new meaning. Their insight in the digitalized mind allow them to construct digital landscapes unmatched in detail and depth, where they run projections that some say outclass any seer. Raam-Ru Efethikel has long given up motory functions to turn himself into a living supercomputer.
Will supply:
- Improved Psychological Expertise
- Digital Projections
- [X] (Akmat) Atahualpa Lineage: One of the oldest and most exalted of lineages, harkening back to the times of the First Dynastic Wars. Led by the respected Capac, the Atahualpa are disciplined and powerful, having risen to become a second to the ruling family. Many look with wariness at the efficiency with which they establish communication and teleportation relays, or the skill and speed with which they churn out weapons, no matter the origin.
Will supply:
- Improved Weapons
- Improved Communications
[X] Plan: Sharp rounded:
- [X] (Akmat) Ilintek Lineage: Althymr Ilintek leads this long-time lineage, one of the few to remember the reign of Xorathis' mother. The Old Spider rules over a court of hundreds of children and grandchildren, which in turn churn out plates, armor in the industrial quantity required by war. The Spiderlings, as someone derisively call them, are a vociferous member of the Old Aristocracy and while they scoff at change, the Necrodermis that flows from their founts do so in quality good enough to woo an old Lord. As for the quantity, it's fit to drown a kingdom.
Will supply:
- Improved Maintenance (Armor)
- Superior Necrodermis
- [X] (Sekmat) Umu Lineage: If the Sinchi fell with the passage, the Umu blazed the opposite path. Their Amu priests are experts in offering psychological help to nobles flagging under the weight of eternity, as well as in helping those who lost interest in life into finding new meaning. Their insight in the digitalized mind allow them to construct digital landscapes unmatched in detail and depth, where they run projections that some say outclass any seer. Raam-Ru Efethikel has long given up motory functions to turn himself into a living supercomputer.
Will supply:
- Improved Psychological Expertise
- [X] (Akmat) Szeran Lineage: The First Szeraki isn't coy about his ultra-conservatorism. Not only he and his lineage oppose any change, they also think that it's the Dynasty's duty to prepare the ground for the inevitable return of the Silent King. For that, they work relentlessly, perfecting digital landscaping to woo the inferior races, while keeping alive the wealth of knowledge of the rituals of the Old Ones. The lineage considers itself the secret arm of the Triarch.
Will supply:
- Digital Landscaping (Holograms)
- Psychic Expertise
Sypply combo... there is a reasoning behind it, just not feeling like expanding on it.
- [X] (Akmat) Ilintek Lineage: Althymr Ilintek leads this long-time lineage, one of the few to remember the reign of Xorathis' mother. The Old Spider rules over a court of hundreds of children and grandchildren, which in turn churn out plates, armor in the industrial quantity required by war. The Spiderlings, as someone derisively call them, are a vociferous member of the Old Aristocracy and while they scoff at change, the Necrodermis that flows from their founts do so in quality good enough to woo an old Lord. As for the quantity, it's fit to drown a kingdom.
Will supply:
- Improved Maintenance (Armor)
- Superior Necrodermis
- [X] (Sekmat) Umu Lineage: If the Sinchi fell with the passage, the Umu blazed the opposite path. Their Amu priests are experts in offering psychological help to nobles flagging under the weight of eternity, as well as in helping those who lost interest in life into finding new meaning. Their insight in the digitalized mind allow them to construct digital landscapes unmatched in detail and depth, where they run projections that some say outclass any seer. Raam-Ru Efethikel has long given up motory functions to turn himself into a living supercomputer.
Will supply:
- Improved Psychological Expertise
- [X] (Akmat) Szeran Lineage: The First Szeraki isn't coy about his ultra-conservatorism. Not only he and his lineage oppose any change, they also think that it's the Dynasty's duty to prepare the ground for the inevitable return of the Silent King. For that, they work relentlessly, perfecting digital landscaping to woo the inferior races, while keeping alive the wealth of knowledge of the rituals of the Old Ones. The lineage considers itself the secret arm of the Triarch.
Will supply:
- Digital Landscaping (Holograms)
- Psychic Expertise
Sypply combo... there is a reasoning behind it, just not feeling like expanding on it.
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