End of Infinities- A Science Fantasy GSRP

[Estro]

Nation Name: The Artists At the Edge of Creation
Location and Capital: Pantalaimon, Triton, Neptune
History: The Moon of the Artists is not so much a nation as a location. Out, surrounded by Quillipoth Space, the light of the sun travels long to get here, but it arrives not to find a nation, or a state, or a government. They are a society, a people, a commune, perhaps.

The first people to come to Triton, in the last years of the twentieth century, were called thieves, and noted as such. They had taken with them the Louvre, the concert halls of a dozen countries, museums and galleries and streets besides, flung off into into space with the sound of a thousand songs and the whisper of a thousand paintings laughing at such base rules as gravity.

They were artists all, these first few, and left to find somewhere new. Somewhere where the blossom of Divine Beauty could flourish, somewhere where their muses could grow, somewhere away from repression and money and a thousand things besides.

And they founded Pantalaimon - all mercies. No, founded isn't the right word. They set down, and Pantalaimon grew up from then. They refused the usual trappings of society, and forged one from the Divine Beauty, an overflowing of bounty. They painted, they sung, they carved, they played.

More would come, with time, as Triton refused to kill them, and as they broadcasted their new creations, new songs, new plays, new games. They fling it freely into the world.

It has been decades aplenty since they first left, taking the art of the old world with them. More join, to come practice the arts, to enjoy them. The largest tourist hub in the solar system, a wonderous expression of every form of art the human mind can think, available to any who can come and more besides. An endless Carnival, as they worship and create as one.

They don't call them Thieves anymore. No, they have a new name.

The Artists at the Edge of Creation.

Or, more commonly, The Artists.
Culture:
Let us be clear. Not even a plurality of the artists of humanity live on Triton. No, there are artists everywhere, and good ones too. Excellent ones, even.

But those artists who are obsessed? Those strange masters, those who can do nothing but project their muse onto paper, onto stone, into plays and games and cinema and more besides? They find their way to Pantalaimon, to Kirjava, to Stelmaria, to any of the seventeen cities of Triton as their mind takes them.

The Artists, like their individual components, are obsessed. For some it may be a subtle obsession, a drive to create the perfect coffee, to draw better than they did a month ago, a year. But to look upon the society itself is to see this obsession revealed. They create, they improve, they drive forwards. Forms of art that can only be perceived by those with the correct mindset, paintings with a million lines of code. The Artists say nothing about what is art, for them it is clear.

Art is Art, and that is the fullness of the matter.

Spoiler: The People

Obsession characterises the people of The Artists At the Edge. Each of them has seen the divine beauty, and swear to see it reflected.

Looking upon a crowd of Artists is a motly sight. People will craft themselves anew in their obession. Arms made of watercolours, eyes made of poetry. Transhumanists, some call them. Posthumanists, looking at the more extreme examples of them - the architect who has become the buildings they design, the game designer who has split himself into every NPC, the writer who lives as a dragon formed of written word. They know better. They are still, fundamentally human they say. For they can do what they believe is the province of the Children of the Godhead alone: Love art for arts sake.

As a collective, the people of the Artists are cheerful, gregarious, and welcoming, as befits such a place of mass tourism. They place no limits on how long you can stay, and food is as free as they can make it, as housing, as it the rest. But few stay for long. It is a great place to stay a week, or perhaps two, travelling to see architectural designs from inspired minds. To watch plays performed by great actors, to hear concerts of every genre by those who can do naught but love their creations.

But, fundamentally, they are obsessed. And most of them, most of the tourists are not. After a while they start to find it jarring, the questions and jokes, the invitations to try their hand at a new sport, a new form of painting invented not three months ago. They leave, to come back in a few years perhaps, and in the meantime listen to the songs and cinema they give to the rest of the system, to play the games they release. Not exclusively, of course, but the reach of Triton is long.

And for those who can understand the Artists? Those who fit in? Well, never let it be said Triton refuses an artist.

Spoiler: The 'Government'

You seem to be confusing artists for politicians and bureaucrats. What government?

Spoiler: The Cities

Seventeen cities dot the surface of Triton. Each of them are connected to the other through vast landscapes of the other cities, and each one specialises in different arts. Kirjava, for example, specialises primarily in neoclassical music, watercolour portraits, and surrealist video games. But all of them contain places to find every art.

For those who want to live outside the city, you can usually find architects willing to help build whatever you want provided you let them design it. This also applies for people who want to live in the cities.

Spoiler: Food and Drink

If you're eating food, it will be artisan food. Get used to it.

Most of the raw ingredients for food are made in specialised rooms in restaurants through playing a nine part dirge made for the electronic saxophone. Some prefer Oboes, however.

Gnosis: Art is the fundamental expression of the Divine Beauty.

This is the underpinning of the beliefs of the Artists. Art, at its core, is the divine beauty made manifest. For this reason, that is why most (estimated at 87.8% of the total population, but you try doing demographics on a place that doesn't differentiate between tourists and natives) of the population have integrated art with themselves. Whether that is arms sculpted from ossified Light, entirely new senses grafted from Limericks and mid-19th century neo-Renascence art, or weirder things besides, they try to reflect the infinite glory of the divine Beauty in their bodies.

But that is not to say that is all Art can do in their hands. They can forge buildings from paintings, or the inverse. They can shatter stone with music, and grow new life with performances of Twelfth Night. But, whatever the result, whatever the objective, it is known of one limit.

It must be Beautiful.

Stats:

• Sword: 0 (With no government, worth speaking off, it's very hard to have anything called an army)
• Stave: 3
• Banquet: 10 (You are wearing our blue jeans and listening to our pop music)
• Coin: 7 (The Divine Beauty is infinite in it's glory)
• Crown: 0 (What Government is there to be loyal to?)

Armies and Fleets:
Triton doesn't really have Armies or Fleets so much as vast works of art that can be re-purposed for defence. Offense would require getting the Artists to agree on a cohesive line of action long enough for it to happen, so... it doesn't.

Heroes:

• Name: Alyss Iggulden
• History: Alyss is a musician, some say. Alyss is a painter, others say. A Writer. A Games designer, A playwright, a poet. Oh, they attribute every art to Alyss. And they're right in doing so. Born of the first generation native to Triton, Alyss never found something she loved. Something she obsessed over. She could sculpt, but there was no passion. She could write, but it was wooden. She was passable in most every art, as are most of this moon. But unlike the others, unlike even those born of her generation, she could not find something that she saw the divine Beauty come from.
  
  And then she looked up. She built a boat, forged of Ice from comets a billion miles from the sun, and set to it sails of spun Star Light. She set forth, towards one thing she knew was of unquestionable beauty.
  
  She flew into the Sun.
  
  She has come out a changed woman. Her once ordinary ginger hair is now sculpted sun-stuff, and her eyes like stars. The rest of her body is covered in dozens of lines of pencil thick burns, never to heal, the untouched skin a sharp contrast to the Light irradiated skin.
  
  Alyss has found her divine beauty. She has found her obsession and crafted it into her skin, into her body. She burnt beauty itself into her skin, until she could stand it no more.
  
  She still practices every art found on this moon. But now all are done equally. All are done with Passion.
• Legend: Alyss is a master at every form of art. She can conduct a symphony one night and then build a hab-bloc hte next. And with this, she forges divine Beauty like nobody else. She is forty eight years old now, and most everyone on the moon respects her, if not for her skills then for one of the works of art she has made throughout the years. But for submersing herself in the Light itslef, until it permeated her completely.
  
  But it came with a cost. She wanted to find an obsession, something she could love and work with. She has them now. A million of them, burnt into her soul, a firestorm lying where most humans would have but glowing embers, and even other Artists would have only few fires. She does it out of love. Out of need. Because should she stop making art for long enough, stop feeding the fire in her soul, that fire will consume her, in a pyre worthy of a king.
  
  She also, as you might expect, lacks focus in the extreme. She really cannot plan beyond one project, one composition, one performance.
  
  But oh! What performances they are.

 

[THatWhichWillBe]

That's good and all, but what kind of tangible effects does it have? If you're chasing after the Form of wisdom, there should be something backing you up.

Click to shrink...

I'm thinking of doing something slightly punny, they're seeking to fill themselves with the light of the Supernal, so their technology is all based on Light. That and data-storage. Hard-Light, Lasers, Fusion Reactors[Seeing as Fusion is the heart of a Star], stuff like that.

Though that too may be a bit too broad...

 

[ChrisClark13]

I'm thinking of doing something slightly punny, they're seeking to fill themselves with the light of the Supernal, so their technology is all based on Light. That and data-storage. Hard-Light, Lasers, Fusion Reactors[Seeing as Fusion is the heart of a Star], stuff like that.

Though that too may be a bit too broad...

Click to shrink...

So Enlightenment then?

Seems alright, can't be more silly than The Artists.

 

[Estro]

Seems alright, can't be more silly than The Artists.

Click to shrink...

Bitch i will seranade you

 

[THatWhichWillBe]

Bitch i will seranade you

Click to shrink...

You need a good light show for the Supreme Rave to end all Raves?

 

[munchkinomatic]

I'm just gonna drop this here to get my foot in the door while I keep working.


Nation Name: Constellation Court
Location and Capital: Cradle, Orbit above Venus
History: Mankind is not the first to break through their glass cage. There were countless before them who walked amongst heaven. Many of them coveted the grace of Asters dancing in the Light, of the perfection in Supernal Forms and the glory of Godspeak. Driven by their desire, they dove deep into the weave of worlds and nature of things. They captured divine words, replicated divine forms, called forth their own shadows to capture the forms most high. The Cradle was the culmination of their effort: a planetoid of metal and ceramic orbitting Venus, a moon of mortal made. Within the Cradle, space and time bent over themselves to accomplish the six cosmic entities that it was build around, each a small planetoid in their own. The city spin above the brightest planet, passing through the Asters as it drank in the Light. It has been countless aeons since the Ancients passed away into history, yet the Craddle retained the same sheen of ancient days.

When the cage was broken and men took to heaven, the First Servant came here on a ship full of wide-eyed men and women seeking new future. They heard the song of Stars and, together, they set their foots on the Cradle where they were blessed with the Courtiers' grace. They emerged changed; focused. They were given a purpose, a pantheon.


Culture: The Court itself is both too small for a true culture to form. However, each Star has its own order, each which their own teachings.

Shapers: Shapers are adherents of the Crowned Star. They are craftmens, creators, shakers and movers. They see the world as is, and have visions of what it must be. They stoke the Forgefire in their hearts and on their hands with themselves and all around them. For a Shaper, to be satisfied and content is a terrible thing worthy of punishment; the world around them is never as nearly as good as it could be. The oldest and most respected Shapers are gaunt, skeletal things, usually encased in steel and gears of their own making after their bodies proved incapable of handling the vigor that their visions demanded. The Forgefire in their heart burn the brightest, and would soon consume them

Revellers: Revellers dedicate themselves to the Dancing Star and its Great Feast, in which they are feasters and courses. Revellers are most publically seen Court Servants: they host events and gala, speak of the Stars and their lights, and spread their grace by healing the sick and wounded or causing crops to springforth even in vacuum, irradiated hellholes, frozen wastelands or scroching lavafields. Most young Revellers are the very peak of physical health and beauty, while the ones more enlightened in the Way of Sacrifice have given themselves entirely into the Dancing Star's eternal feast.

Light Keepers: Those who dedicate their existence to Illumination have taken up the tradition of withwashing themselves. Their skin, hair, and clothes are all bleached alabaster. Their eyes are replaced with light-emitting cybernetics. After the Revellers, they are the most commonly seen Court Servants. The Light Keepers tasked themselves in travelling the Solar System, either in search of new knowledge or to combat the darkness of ignorance. In places too poor or remote for a academian to visit, a Light Keeper usually volunteer as teachers. It is said that their radiance grow with service, and the oldest are like skin-clad sunlight.

Map Makers: Ancient and reclusive, the Map Makers scurry across and within the Cartographers like insects across the surface of Tera itself. They read the endless carving, intepretting and ordering countless timelines into meaningful paths. Map Makers rarely speak to others outside their reclusive cycle, for their infinite work demands their very lifelong dedication. However, amongst their numbers is the Guide, who is tasked with taking the data fed by their peers and use it to advice the rest of the Court.

Memoriams: Memoriams are ghostly people dressed in tatters. Amongst the public, they are seen as coroners and undertakers who perform the rite to ease the dead into the Lost Star's embrace. Older members of the order are faded and ghostly, like the haunting shadows of lost ones. Thus, they rarely show among people, instead they trawl the rotting corpse of the Lost Star, walking the line between now and then.

Above them all was the First Servant, who commune with the Courtiers and their King directly and speaks their words to the flock below. The First Servant is the most publically visible and approachable of the higher echelons. They wear entirely black, to signify their place beneath the Hallowed King.​

Gnosis - Heavenly Forms: Five magnificent entities twirling about a single pitch black sphere. These are ancient things. Asters-like entities crafted, or more accurately realized, by an ancient people to transcribe the purest Godspeak, and through that replicate the Supernal Forms. They are tangentally Divine, and their minds recall fragments of the Beginning when the Light bled through darkness. Each of them hold a miniscule fraction of the Godspeak within their vast form, and therefore know a fraction of their respective Forms. None among them are greater than the Hallowed King, who knows the Light, and for that trapped in eternal darkness. He slumbers in ignorance as the five courtiers dances around him, leeching his twisted insights.

Beneath them, the Children swarmed like ants, tripping and climbing over themselves beneath the ancient shadows. They come drawn by the glory of the courtiers, by the need for guidance toward the truth. The Courtiers are Divine, close to Creation, close to the Form. In many ways, they know the Truth which the Children seek, and therefore, the Children kneel.

Stats:

• Sword: 0
• Stave: 0
• Banquet: 10
• Coin: 0
• Crown: 10

Army:

• High Concept: Motley Militia
• Trouble: Untrained and under-equipped
• Aspects: Fanatical, maintenance-free, defender

Heroes:

• Name: Crowned Star
• History: Since the Beginning, the Children hungered for changes. In their minds, they forged the concept, and spoke the words. The Crowned Star is the remmants and consequences of these inventions. The Crowned Star is echoes of clashing steel and cannon roars. The Crowned Star is the shadows casted by the flickering of forgefire, by the blades parting flesh, by revolutionaries toppling empires. The Ancients realized The Crowned Star to contain the Godspeak of change through the act of utterance. Appropriately, The Crowned Star knows the Word, but only to the same extent of a spoken sound knowing its own meaning.
• Legend: The Crowned Star is a massive sphere of fusion fire clad in a knightly armor of omnispectral light. At its heart is the Great Fire that consumes and reshapes. It is the Smith and Warrior, Creator and Destroyer. Across all times and histories, murderers, smiths, rulers and despoilers alike spoke its name and call its gaze through their actions. In return, The Crowned Star occasionally blesses them with a Fire of their own. Invoke the Crowned Star with the promise of abolishment and creation, and one may recieve the might to both sunder and create worlds. However, both the Crown Star and those touch by its Fire are dominated by the same Fire. Once stoked, it must be fed, or will soon extinguished, leaving its wielder diminished.

• Name: Dancing Star
• History: The Dancing Star was mortals once. A long time ago, there was a princess. She was an enlightened ruler and patron of art, she was beloved by her people and loved them in turn. Under and all around her, the great cycle spun. For all things that lives hunger and are hungered for, and the Princess and her people gave and took to their hearts' content in their endless feast, it became akin to a scrawling of a Word upon the world's skin. With writing came the subtle utterance, and the feast bend to capture that one moment in time. The Dancing Star is that moment, and it sounds the Sound of Give and Take, Satisfaction and Hunger, of the cycle turning.
• Legend: The Dancing Star is a massive sphere of undulating, inchoate flesh. Upon its form glimered gold, gems, and countless artworks and architectures of a kingdom long gone. It moves through the air with the grace of a troupe of dancers; flesh unwinds like threads, twisting and flowing like ribbons flying in a carnival. All things that live speak the Dancing Star's name and invoke its gaze through the fufilment of baser desires. Where there is no life and the cycle is still, the Dancing Star spins the wheel and breath the breath, so that all may dance and feast. However, unlike the Crowned one, whose demands purpose in actions, the Dancing Star has none. The life it gifts is wild and untamed, eternally spreading. Consuming as much as giving.

• Name: Illuminating Star
• History: In time long gone, when Venus was under the Ancients, there was an observatory built here. It was the greatest there's ever been. Larger than an entire city, with countless apparatus to observe the heaven. But this one was not made for simple stargazing, the observatory was built to observe the Light dancing through cloud, Asters fluttering through the void, and the Sun itself in its glory. Each hour pass, the observatory would learn more and more. With its success, more researchers and astrologists were sent within, to dissect the knowledge gathered. But which question answered and each insight gained, their minds would grow sharper and eyes keener. The more they knew, the more they see the extent of their ignorance. The observatory was expanded rapidly on a daily basis and thousands of researchers entered its doors each day to learn astral secrets. The staff within never left, instead finding accomodation within the city-like construct where they would be close to the secrets they hungered for. Eventually, one day, the observatory realized that it had learnt all it could while chained to the cursed ground. So, it stood up and jumped. The observatory soared higher and higher into the Heaven above, until it was amongst the Asters. Which each of its lens-eyes, it gaze into the eyes of Asters and drank deep on what it saw. Which each of its countless arms it caught a stray ray of Light and held like life-line, so that darkness will never surround it again. It danced amongst Aster, bathing in the Sun's Light, until Light sear away all impurity, leaving only the utterance of Knowledge behind.
• Legend: The thousand-eyed one is a spherical mass of countless eyes and limbs from countless creatures, known or otherwise. Each eye shone mercilessly, and the light was of such intensity that diamonds would flow like gas beneath the assault. Each hand carries a torch, or a lamp, or other fantastical lighting instruments, and the light they shine make the darkness bleed umbral nectar. Throughout history, scholars and philosophers spoke its name and invoke its radiant gazes through their endless quest for knowledge. The Illuminating Star is the culmination of their search, the fruit they hungered for, the idol they modeled after. It rips away darkness with extreme prejudice. No mystery will remain so long under its countless gazes. However, the Illuminating Star has no mercy, be it for its subject or its students. It seizes knowledges violently, impulsively, without concern for consequences. It grant knowledge freely, wihout concern for the recipents.

• Name: Cartographer Star
• History: The Cartographer Star is oldest of the Stars, perhaps barring the Hallowed King itself. It came after the Beginning, but before Time. Its unfolded as Creation unfolded, growing exponentially greater with each passing moment as it recorded all diverging and converging paths that came to be. However, in the early day, the Cartographer Star was disorganized and unstructured. It was the Ancients who found it and gave it a system, so that the endless records became an endless library.
• Legend: The Cartographer Star is a sphere of white marble which surface contain engraving of all possible timelines and and sight within Creation. There is a circular door on its side which lead to its hollow inside, which are also filled with engravings. Scholars and adherents of the Cartographer throughout histories agreed that the outside depicts the Many Paths while the inside depicts the Many Unknowns. However, what the engravings seem to always lacks is a reference point. It contains infinite could be and infinite might be, but nothing on the here and now. Together, both faces of the Cartographer theoratically depict all of creation, but this depiction lack a simple "you are here". All those who seek a path, be it through time or through space, invoke the Many Paths Outside. All those who seeks concealment and secrecy, invokes the Many Unknown Inside.

• Name: Lost Star
• History: All Children have looked behind at somepoint, back to the path walked by them and their ancestors before them. They asked questions, and they mourned what is no more. It is the mourning that gave meaning to moments passed, and it is meaning that gave them wills. The Lost Star was born from remembered glory, and the Ancient harnessed it for that exact purpose: to eternalize their glory in that one moment. They suceeded, of course. All they was are within the Lost Star, along with all that came before them.
• Legend: By its nature, the Lost Star walks behind the Cartographer; behind that single moment when infinities converge. Looking on the Lost Star as it is, all one will see is a rotting husk clad in tattered memories, but it was not too long before Now that it was glorious and alive. As Now marches forward, the Glory-that-Was followed in its heel, picking up what Now casted aside. It is not Death, for it is not the End. It is not Afterlife, for it is not Continuity. The Lost Star merely gathers and preserves what that is no more. When one gazes into the past and cry for the loss of a loved one, it is the tattered Star that they speaks to. While it is entirely disconnected from the present and future, having died and rot away just moment ago, one can still pick ancient secrets from its bones, or even make is what was, but only for a scant moment.

 

[Arkalest]

Dropping the base sheet for my faction as well. Heroes and fleets to be added later.



Nation Name: The City


Location and Capital: Europe/The Heights.


History:

Spoiler: A Tale Of One City

Back. Let's go back.
About...No, time is meaningless. The City's growth is measured not in decades, but in ideas. In increments. The Copernicans of the pre-Revelation days believed in the sacrality of an universe that ticked forward inexorably, utterly and wholly crushingly.
We know better now.
The men and women in the boardroom didn't, and it's why they talked and argued and yelled at each other even as the streets peeled off the newer buildings like a snake sheds its skin. An endless charade about confines, duties and crisis management, even as millions choked under the fumes and vagaries of the resurging labyrinths. Hundreds of thousands changing from the flowers and stalks and resins erupting from the cracks, dozens of thousands quietly slinking off in the night to find the things they saw in dreams, calling out. Hundreds just shrugging off their forms, becoming something else...
A fast death. Slow enough that they could see it happen, but fast enough they couldn't do anything when the red and white and the eye- No.
These were from before. Let's go further back.
Let's go back to the men and women in red and white. The visionaries, the thinkers. The architects. At least that is how they fashioned themselves after decades, centuries of study. They see the patterns. They see one pattern above all and try to grasp it, see it as the profund motor of change that rumbles hidden beneath the surface.
They see it exemplified in the City. Some try to summon this pattern, and find out it contains more. A labyrinth. It's a seductive thing, this crown of false and hidden histories. They follow it to its logical conclusions, to lodges, and secret circles and revolutionary thoughts. All seeking an unity they quite never fully comprehend.

All nurturing a seed planted long ago.
To find that seed's first germination, we need to find one of its first plantings. So we go back. We see columns and parliaments and great dams crumble, we see the roads sink into the gravel and into dirt, unraveled like strands of a thread.
A group of women and men upon a golden hill, overlooking an acropolis. Even then they can feel something is missing. Something fundamental. The golden light of a sunset is setting ablaze a dozen temples, marble columns painted with a rainbow of pigments taken from far-away lands.
And in these dancing lights, they could almost make it. What was missing: An idea. Fragmented, coiled within and upon itself. A pattern.
Where it did come from? This rapturous, all-devouring idea?
It came from but one place. One time. This wondrous image, this project that staked itself, burnt itself into so many minds could have not come but from one place: THE place of places. The omnilinguistic nexus, the world of worlds. A name that needs to be told not, for it burns bright in the subconscious, a gaping phantom itch of Man's reptilian brain that yet strives to be filled.

The City was borne of this. It is a shard of a shard of a shard, a shadow of a wisp of smoke, and yet?

Yet to those who caught sight of it, it was more real than anything else. They closed their eyes and saw the golden hue of a sunset, washing over an endless assembly of buildings of all shapes, greenery surging between them, tamed yet not fallow. A sense of peace crowned their hearts, the certainty of being part of something greater shining in even the darkest times.

So when the City was drawn forth by the breaking of the Seal, many rejoiced. Many wept openly, despite the City being nothing but seeds scattered to the wind. Raw-edged passages to cut-off dimensions and worlds.

The weeping turned sorrowful when the City begun its growth. As many cursed themselves for their short-sightedness. A few tried to help. The chaos soon swallowed them.
A very talented few realized it was their moment.

Architects, they called themselves. They rose and in the dust of the parasite-city, the apotheosis of man's works, they took scalpel and hammer and chisel and edict and rifle, and set about carving out their vision of the future out of the monstrous megalopolis.

It's been a long time since then, and the Architects' work is far from done. Their myriad contraptions and subalterns toil day and night to reshape the City, body mind and laws. In this post-anthropocene chaos, the endless legions of creatures that were banished by the last dying word on the manifold lips of Babiru now roam free, their survivor societies having to fit with their new reality.
Of course, the Architects are more than ecstatic to help. From high in their nexus-towers they overseer the growth of the City people, with a finger on the arteries of the polis itself.

It's that pulse-taking that shapes how and when the chisel and hammer will be used. Not if, for the City has the same will to power of man, the same unquenching thirst for expansion. Thus it must be contained, an idea too big for a single mind, a task too big for a single people, a single faction.
It must be shaped, some whisper, least it flourishes in the same chaos that drowned Babiru.

And so the great work continues.

Is it the city? Is it the people? The gnosis of the Architects? Their ambitions, the things they breed and brew in dark concrete wombs below the mercurial skin of the City? Their deeds, the communities and enclaves they sustain and nurture and crush at will? Their hidden unwords, spoken only at the height of silence? Which one is the great work?

Only the city knows.

And where the city is going, where its growth will lead, not even its Architects know.

Culture: (Still WIP)



Tumor-scrapers of concrete fractals raise for kilometers, crowning the mountain ranges that were once called Alps and Caucases. Rivers splinter and rush out of broken aqueducts, their water coming from someplace else, mingling into a mixture with thaumic properties that goes on to feed the gigantic pseudo-parks dotting the City's structures.

Amidst this chaos, gigantic enclaves that carry the echopraxial architectural styles of once-cities reach out to the sky. They are topped by pyramidal arcologies in the zones less hospitable to kin life, and open prehensile gardens in the more stable sectors, providing food and habitation for millions.
It's everything, for most citizens.

Everything they will ever know, they will ever experience. From cradle to grave, the city will be mother, father, life-giver, substenance-provider, their worst enemy and most malicious antagonist.
And more importantly, it will the hub of their everyday activities.

Most citizens have the luck of living in fully-powered and outfitted Enclaves. These sectors of the city-seed have been "tamed" by the Architects through the usage of sterilizing fanes and lode-spikes. Their growth-fueling leylines have been redirected to provide energy to infrastructure. And without said leylines to provide the "spark", the various materials that make up the city-seed are ripe for the taking.
Thus most Enclaves are ringed by an ever-growing constellation of great factories and structures that constantly churn and devour the city, pushing back on its more dangerous features. Through the Architects' great alchemies, fallow concrete and fleshsteel are broken down into their constituent parts for the assembly lines to use. The noxious liquids that pool at the bottom of buildings are collected and filtered into useful reagents.

Most citizens can freely partake of this bounty...Up to a point. The City tries for a system of universal welfare: Lodgings, food and basic necessities are considered a right. "Tries" is the operative keyword here, though: Due to the sheer size of the territory and the uneven bureaucratic spread, these services are not always reliable.
It's a refrain that haunts the Architects. They're fighting a war within, against the corruption inevitably brought by such sheer scale, by the powers they wield, by their own nature, and a war without against the very city seed itself. Against doomsday cults and dangerous megafauna that seeps through the dimensional cracks from liminal realms. Spread thin, while trying to achieve greatness in matters of Gnosis.

Of course, the average citizen does not care much about this. Life in the City in some ways mirrors that of a great metropolis. There's art, there's culture, there's mass media- Often under the watchful eye of the Ministry of Culture, operating out of Enclave Macedonia- And there's places of learning and worship.
People still get up in the morning, go to work and commingle. They do it in the shadows of monolithic buildings, but overall for a lot of people in the CIty life goes on relatively stably.
There's people looking to make a career in the many subsidized corporations that help with running the City's alchemical grid, there's people looking to turn into media sensations.

And then there's rough edges all over.









Gnosis: (Very WIP)
The Gnosis of the City revolves around the idea of patterns. Patterns can be repeated, drawn from, identified and absorbed. They can be reshaped. The greater the pattern, the stronger, the more deep-reaching.
Thus the Architects believe in the 3-in-1, the defining patterns that make up a person: Mind, Body, and Soul. Their ideologies and alchemical treaties have a clear lineage, one that erudite people can spot as having its roots in the atomists and philsophers of Greece. Further erudites may actually realize that the concepts on display are fragments and echoes of larger truths that seekers of the previous civilization cycle may have glimpsed in their dreams. Babiru's shadow has always loomed tall on the Architects.

Over the course of the centuries, they have come to believe the Body as being an exaltation of the basal matter, the Mind to be a fruit of the pattern of Knowledge, and the Soul descend from the Heavens. Man is nothing but a combination of patterns, forever aimed to conquer the skies, forever held back by being part basal matter.
Thus, they constantly seek to prod and unravel and strengthen those links, see how they fit in the greater schemes of things. THey see history, science and everything else as fitting into them.

Their Gnosis is then one of sheer transformation and reforging and advancement. Their Alchemy seeks to undo and redo the basal matter by following the quasi-instructions garnered from analyzing the Great Work paradigm. Their focus is thus also cast backwards, to analyze the ruins of the liminal realms in order to divine where these patterns failed in their own propagation, and why.




Such tripartite characteristics warrant precise heraldry, and so the City is filled with the symbols representing the single patterns. The towering wide-open stylized Eye adorns most of the Architects' istitutions, while the Hand is often resrved for their forces, military and non.



Stats: 3

• Sword: 6

• Stave: 3

• Banquet: 1

• Coin: 3

• Crown: 7

Fleet:

-The Seeking Fleet:

• High Concept: Old & New, To Seek More Knowledge And Secure it
• Trouble: Eye-Catching, Costly & Temperamental.
• Valusian Siege-Ziggurats (Craft Carriers/artillery), Mulian Skyburners(Elite strikecraft), Atlantean Ketches (Boarding parties/Invasion troops.)

Army:

-The Masons:

• High Concept: Engineer-Guards of the City's Confines.
• Trouble: Sprawling Bureuacry-Backed, Spread Thin.
• Combat Geomancy/Architecture, Alchemy-Enhanced Constructs, Colossal Creatures for Crushing.

-

 

[Pirx]

Nation Name: Lamassu Judicary

Location and Capital: On the surface and in the clouds of Venus sits the soon-to-be double city of Ishtar (on the surface) - Shamash (in the clouds)

History:
When Earth's glass cage shattered, thousands of creatures long banished into the realm of mythology walked the earth alongside humanity once more. In the Middle East, cradle of human civilization, hundreds of different beings emerged from their hiding places and woke from their slumber. Walking tall among them were the Lamassu, once venerated as protectors from evil spirits and guardians of the pathways to the celestial realm. Their stern gaze fell upon humanity and they found their erstwhile charges lacking. The rule of law, instituted under their guidance by the kings of old had faltered in the aftermath of the revelation, humanity had lost their fear of the divine. At once, they vowed to once more serve as guardians of humanity and deliver them from lawlessness to divine justice.

Some Lamassu were satisfied serving as warriors, spiritual guardians or justices in human communities, spreading far and wide over the Earth and into the Solar system. But others felt they needed to set an example, to create a place were the rule of law was real and were all were equal before the law as they were equal before the Lord. So they gathered their followers and set out for Venus to create two cities that were to become one: Shamash high in the clouds, bathed in the light of the divine, and Ishtar on the forever clouded surface. Between them, a bridge was to be constructed, a giant tower reaching up from the ground to the heavens to show that the celestial realm and the worlds of the mortals were separated but one. And just like the light of God could reach the worlds of the system, so could the mortals aspire to the divine principles.

Culture:
Within the Judiciary, all are equal before the law, be they Lamassu, Kusarikku, human or members of another species. It is the law, that allows the children of the Godhead to recreate celestial order in society and that will ultimately make them one with heaven, once the perfect code of laws can be formulated. This is the belief at the heart of the Judiciary and forms the basis of their culture. Accordingly, their are few aspects of society, that are not regulated by laws. It is said, with little hyperbole, that the Lamassu body of law is more comprehensive than the legislation of all of old Earth combined. Adherence to law is likewise ingrained into judiciary culture. To know and observe the laws is a point of personal pride and a sign of devotion for citizens and thus law enforcement is surprisingly soft handed.

But rules and laws are not a virtue of their own, they serve as a bridge between the divine and the mundane. The Lamassu Judicary, too, strives to be such a bridge. Thus it has devoted considerable effort to create a megalopolis that reaches from heaven to earth. Building from the floating cloud city of Shamash high in the venusian atmosphere downwards and building up from the shadowy surface city of Ishtar, the two cities will become one before short. Once they have grown into one, the Lamassu plan to use this link between heaven and earth to shine the light of heaven upon the surface of Venus: The surface of the tower reaching up for the clouds is covered in mirrors and fiber-optic relays that will one day radiate the divine light collected above in Shamash to the world below the clouds.

Lamassu, though only numbering in the 10s of thousands, hold the most positions of power. They are the founders of the Judiciary and they make up the majority of judges, script-sages, ministers, generals and diplomats. In all their actions, they strive for fairness and even-handedness, especially when dealing with "impulsive" species such as humans. Their assumed position as guardians and mentors of humanity can come across as snobbish elitism but also spawn honest admiration for the Lamassu's dedication to order and peace. Renown Lamassu judges are sometimes asked to settle disputes or oversee negotiations by independent polities.

The Kusarikku, bull-men once believed to be demons of babylonian mythology, struggled to reintegrate themselves into terran society after the Revelation. Viewed with suspicion among the people of the Middle East and often mistaken for Minotaurs elsewhere, they lacked a place of their own and a purpose that could unite them. When the Lamassu announced their plans to settle Venus, many Kusarikku flocked to their banner. Now, hundreds of thousands of them live and work in Shamash, bathed in the eternal light they venerated since the beginning of creation. Few settle on the surface, too strong is the call of the divine light. Within the Judiciary, Kusarikku can be found in all walks of life.

Most numerous, however, are humans. They make up almost the entire workforce, they fill out the ranks of the armed forces and even make their way into the highest echelons of power. It is them, who live the laws carefully crafted by the Lamassu and thus get ever closer to heaven.

Gnosis:
The voice of God is law and the law is the voice of God. But where it just takes a single word of Godspeak uttered just once to permanently alter all of reality permanently, the laws of humanity and its siblings are fallible, breakable and need constant enforcement. And so it goes for all of humanity's creations: they were temporary, ever changing and damned to be imperfect. Could anything else be expected of the multitude of derived Godspeaks? Their words, even if more permanent than ordinary speak, were in the end temporary as well: Their power a mere shadow of the divine, they, too could fade from memory and existence once spoken. Just as with the law, only the written word can be trusted. A code of laws, once written, can be studied and enforced for generations. There is no pursuit holier than the creation of the perfect code of laws - one that mirrors the celestial laws, orders the affairs of the mortals and gives them infallible justice. This is the goal the Lamassu and their followers try to achieve, heaven on earth through divine order.

And just as with their laws, the Lamassu's distrust of the spoke word permeates all parts of their society. Their derived form of Godspeak is almost exclusively a written language. It can be read and spoken, of course, but its appliance is mostly in the written form: structures are engraved with it to make them more durable or graceful; ships and armor are decorated with artfully engraved words of power to allow the soldiers of the Judiciary to protect it against all enemies of order.

Stats:

• Sword: 5
• Stave: 1
• Banquet: 5
• Coin: 2
• Crown: 7

Armies and Fleets:

The Servants of the Law, the armed forces of the Lamassu Judiciary, are charged with protecting the order and peace the courts of the Judiciary have created. For their duty, they are provided armor, weaponry and ships covered in mighty Scripture of Law, the Lamassu's written form of Godspeak. It reinforces their armor and empowers their weapons. Kusarikku and humans are most numerous among the soldiery, with Lamassu serving most often as officers, commanders and mighty war judges, re-writing the laws that govern the battle when needed. The Servants are disciplined and dedicated soldiers with a strong respect (some mighty say: single minded obsession) of the chain of command and the rules of engagement laid out by the war judges. Fleet and army are occasionally deployed to enforce justice abroad. Be it in support of a friendly polity on Venus or to thwart amorite piracy. Ships of the Winged Bulls have been employed in this role more frequently in the past few years, even coming to the aid of foreign ships under attack in unclaimed territory.

Fleet Template: The winged Bulls

• High Concept: Venusian space patrol!
• Trouble: Rigid chain of command
• Aspects: Covered in Holy Words, Anti-piracy operations,

Army Template: The Lions of Justice

• High Concept: Stern servants of justice
• Trouble: Rigid chain of command
• Aspects: Bull's Strength, Clad in Holy Scripture,

Heroes:

Spoiler: Hero 1

• Name: Self Explanatory.
• History: Self Explanatory.
• Legend: The real meat and bones. Legend is what your hero excels in. It's basically a skills section. However, I'd like for it to include flaws and failings in addition to superpowers. For example, if I was statting out Achilles like this, I would put down his temper and his Heel on top of his invincibility.

Spoiler: Shutruk

• Name: Shutruk
• History: Self Explanatory.
• Legend: The real meat and bones. Legend is what your hero excels in. It's basically a skills section. However, I'd like for it to include flaws and failings in addition to superpowers. For example, if I was statting out Achilles like this, I would put down his temper and his Heel on top of his invincibility.

Spoiler: Enkidu

• Name: Enkidu
• History: Self Explanatory.
• Legend: The real meat and bones. Legend is what your hero excels in. It's basically a skills section. However, I'd like for it to include flaws and failings in addition to superpowers. For example, if I was statting out Achilles like this, I would put down his temper and his Heel on top of his invincibility.

Spoiler: High Judge Rimsuh

• Name: High Judge Rimush
• History: Self Explanatory.
• Legend: The real meat and bones. Legend is what your hero excels in. It's basically a skills section. However, I'd like for it to include flaws and failings in addition to superpowers. For example, if I was statting out Achilles like this, I would put down his temper and his Heel on top of his invincibility.

 

[Old Guard]

I've got a map we can use. I've colored in my Saturnite Consortium in yellow, and I believe putting a box using your color around the smaller asteroids, and moons works best. Feel free to add it your own factions!

 

[Rocketeer]

Nation Name: The Quorum of Hosts
Location and Capital: Mars, Keter Fields
History: The fires raged across the firmament of Mars, wars turning the yellow-orange skies of our home blood red with fire and heavenly sparks. The hosts fought, their peoples divided into chaos as each struggled for their own equality, peoples of every kind dying upon the sands until finally every kingdom broke against the other.

At the end, there were two great armies locked in a war of extermination like so many had feared would happen to the two great kingdoms of old, their peoples modelling those old ideals and promising to never cease until the other was dead. For years they fought, until in the swirling maelstrom of chaos those two armies simply refused to let another soul die, to let another soul like them be killed for something so pointless. They met in peace for the first time, every man laying down their arms and agreeing to the first Terms of the Quorum. They agreed that all would be equal under it's law, and that all would have a say in the direction of the Host, for all their actions and their voices carried a spark of the divine and truly together they would come closest to Heaven. More and more, people flock to it's banner, to dedicate themselves to the Quorum and to the passion of a united purpose. But there are still those outside, those who express their wills through pain and warfare that need to be defended from, their selfishness a blight upon the hell they have created here.

Culture: The Hosts themselves are much like a body, in that they share many different cultural origins, but above all the Quorum has an expectation that everyone will play their part once an action has been decided. Once a consensus is reached, any fractures will only lead to pain for everyone involved.

Gnosis: The Quorum believes solidly in consensus, in the power that comes from a unity of action. The Revelation showed us the consequences of what happens when those of the firmament are disunited in their voice, as a symphony is destroyed if all are not playing the same music, or a body destroys itself if all it's pieces do not work in rhythm. It is with that power, of all voices acting as one, that passion that comes from a unity of purpose and soul that brings nations down and carries us into the stars. It turns wayward and lost parts of our body, all stepping upon each other and destroying what the others create in hopes of building themselves into a beautiful dance which can ascend to the heavens.

Stats:

• Sword: 7
• Stave: 3
• Banquet: 3
• Coin: 2
• Crown: 5

(TLDR; Gnostic Space IWW who're terrified of the rest of you lot)

 

[Laplace]

Culture: The Hosts themselves are much like a body, in that they share many different cultural origins, but above all the Quorum has an expectation that everyone will play their part once an action has been decided. Once a consensus is reached, any fractures will only lead to pain for everyone involved.

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(TLDR; Gnostic Space IWW who're terrified of the rest of you lot)

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It's very good, but the culture section could be worked out a little more. Gnosis seems a little sparse, but maybe that's just me. In addition, your missing a fleet and army section as well as the heroes.

...I should also start threadmarking.

 

[Rocketeer]

Thank you, I just wanted to crank out a basic concept while I had the image firmly in my head, and then I'd flesh it all out if it proved satisfactory.

 

[TenfoldShields]

I'm really interested tbh, but it's also 1:00 AM here, I'll try to have a sketched out thing over the next day or so if that's alright. >>

 

[Laplace]

I'm really interested tbh, but it's also 1:00 AM here, I'll try to have a sketched out thing over the next day or so if that's alright. >>

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Oh, no that's alright. Take your time.

 

[Dekutulla]

@Laplace is the general religious aesthetic mainly judeo-christian or is there room for maneuvering? I saw mention of some generic european elves and shit but I'm not really clear how far you're going with that

 

[Laplace]

@Laplace is the general religious aesthetic mainly judeo-christian or is there room for maneuvering? I saw mention of some generic european elves and shit but I'm not really clear how far you're going with that

Click to shrink...

The setting background is basically Judeo-Christian mixed with a lot of Platonic philosophy. It's not a one to one match to any of the scriptures, but ICly, the scriptures and most other religious texts are supposed to be scattershot memories of the past before the Children first tried to ascend to Heaven.

Essentially, yeah, it's mainly Judeo-Christian, but it's also very easy to re-contextualize them as other myths, so there's a lot of leeway.

 

[Another Amoeba]

Nation Name: Skippers (informal), Greys (rough translation)
Location and Capital: Scattered throughout Kuiper Belt with a "public" base on Eris, Capitals constantly shift.

History:

"Skippers" is the name for the enigmatic ships spotted throughout the Outer Objects. No one can really say what they are. Some say they're just pirates, brave and stupid enough to risk running to the Kuiper Belt to escape the law. Others claim that they're demons, cast out at creation, while others still peg them as the ghosts of those who died in the Outer Objects, catching wayward spacefarers and forcing them to share their fate. Some think they're aliens, real aliens, like the ones on Pluto, out to abduct and probe you, or the things that thrive in Dark Space, slavering at the thought of snuffing out the Sun and eating reality. It's impossible to research these things without falling deep into a web of conspiracy theories and conjecture.

In reality, they are the remnants of a frenzied assault on the Kuiper Belt, lead by the Aster Ahriman. The aim was to colonize the it in one fell swoop and establish fortresses throughout the Oort Cloud. The problem was, there were many more things already living there than Ahriman expected, and they took great offence to being forced out. Ahriman's venture descended into a brutal war of attrition spanning generations, but they powered through, then pushed on. This was a mistake. The proto-Greys overstretched themselves. With their armies and navies redeployed, they lost most of their gains in the Kuiper Belt while failing to gain anything further away. The Greys' civilization was destroyed, reduced to mostly isolated colonies doing all they could to hold out against the onslaught.

It was in this era that Mind-And-Architect was born. She was a thinker, the Greys' premier mind. When she was young, she had the dream of unifying her species and restoring order to the Kuiper Belt. She got to work, paging through history and experimenting in the present. She realized this: the Greys now thrived in the chaos of the Kuiper Belt. Their creations were all the more powerful for it, but that chaos needed a firm hand reeling it in. With that in mind, she designed her new government, and saw it implemented through befriending and allying the mysterious Made-Into-Darkness.

With the Greys reinvigorated, the fighting descended into stalemate, then died down, both sides too battered to continue on. Now, there exists a strange peace between the Greys and the denizens of Outer Objects. The locals viewing them with something like fear, something like respect, and something like acceptance. No longer under threat, the Greys' attention turned Sunward.

They set up an embassy of sorts on Eris, open to anyone who dares come to see them. Those who take them up on their offer often report feelings of revulsion at the sight of them, strongest among the Asters. Reportedly, when a congregation of ten Asters were invited to meet Made-Into-Darkness, seven went mad. A significant minority of Astropetrei believe them to be demons of some sort. The Greys are kept safe from extremists mostly because they live so far away from the Light of the Sun.

Culture: Greys are divided into two subspecies, Kuiper and Hybrid; broadly defined by how close they can reach the Sun and how horrifying they are in person. Aside from this, much of their culture and society is unknown to the other sapients of the Solar System.

- The Kuiper range from profoundly unsettling to terrifying. Part of this is due to their profoundly inhuman appearance, but the effect goes far beyond that, like their entire race has thin ties to the Supernal form of terror. They react poorly to the Light, due to their adaptions to living in the Kuiper Belt. Because of this, they cannot approach closer to the sun than Jupiter's orbit without assuredly dying, and prefer to remain as far away as Uranus at least.
- The Hybrid are the Grey's first step to their "reconnection." Rarer, slower to mature, and more voracious eaters that their Kuiper brethren, they can travel anywhere farther away from the Sun then Mercury's orbital distance. They are mostly military forces on Eris or on patrol. The Hybrid seem less perturbing to outsiders, but still exude an air of palpable wrongness. They were designed by Mind-And-Architect to be the stability to control the Kuiper's chaos, with more affinity for Light than their more common brothers and sisters.

Any individual's name is three hyphenated words, chosen at the time they decide to dedicate themselves to their work. Until then, their "names" are three four-digit numbers randomly assigned at birth.

Life in the Kuiper Belt: Here, the Greys live in small, self-sufficient colonies of generally five hundred thousand inhabitants, each protected by an Ordstar. Lady of Thought Mind-And-Architect constantly moves to a from colony to colony spinward, while Chief Militant Made-Into-Darkness circles the other way. Each time the new court arrives, the government is replaced, so half are under military rule, and half under a civilian government. These governments are given a set of quotas and expectations, but are otherwise left to develop mostly on their own. Every time Chief Militant and Lady of Thought meet, it is tradition to launch a new colony, guarded by a newly christened Ordstar. Then, the two leaders play a game of chance to see if the old government stays or a new one is set up.

One unique holdover from their colonial days is the Indrid Cluster, fourteen habitats clustered close together that share one government and is treated as one colony by the travelling courts. The leader whose government is in control of Indrid is considered "more prominent" of the two. Currently, Mind-And-Architect's civilian government rules the cluster.

Life on Eris: One common misconception about Eris is that it is the Greys' seat of government. It is not, rather it is their embassy and fortress. Of course, they're not really in a hurry to correct this, either. To them, Eris is their greatest achievement, representing the true beginning of their control over chaos in its inhabitants, the Hybrids. This worldlet is guarded by ten Ordstars and is the base of the Gleaming Ones. It's most unique feature, however, is the Sun Catcher, a massive array of mirrors that reflect the Sun's light onto Eris's surface, making it much more suitable for others to visit. Eris is not considered a colony. Rather, it is governed full-time by Scorched-To-Cinders, though he is often off on missions himself.

Gnosis: Controlled Chaos

In the long years away from the Sun, the Greys have changed, losing their connection to the Light, as they lived so far removed from it. Now, however, their culture is possessed by a sudden desire to reconnect with what they have lost, but not completely. They want to use the orderliness of Light to manipulate the inherent disorderliness of the Kuiper Belt, but not to override it. Any force for unity is a force for stagnation. The ideal government is hundreds or thousands of micro-nations, acting according to a leader's will, but also alone and in competition with each other.

Their technology is a reflection of this. In a Grey's hand, its paradoxical use of controlled entropy lets a single tool function as everything from a pen to a microwave. In anyone else's hands, actually writing with a Skipper's pen is just as likely an outcome as that pen turning into a hunk of polonium when used. Their magic is also based around entropy manipulation. The most powerful Greys wield chaos like a scalpel, overwriting whatever physical rules displease them-- at least, they do so as long as the Light is faint. Their next step was Solar Shielding for their equipment, then the Hybrids, then Scorched-To-Cinders.

Stats:

• Sword: 5 -- The bulk of their military is defensive, and their offensive forces are small and elite.
• Stave: 2 -- Their colonies are small, unpopulous, and scattered.
• Banquet: 0 -- Even looking at a Grey is unsettling, and many members of the Astropetrei believe them demons. Most of the rest of the Solar System hardly knows they exist.
• Coin: 8 -- Their technology is esoteric and all-purpose. What they would consider a spartan life is wondrous to others.
• Crown: 5 -- The Greys are aligned, but their colonies are left largely autonomous. A competitive air is encouraged between them.

Ordstars:

• Reality-Controlling Defensive Stations
• No Reserves and Non-Locomotive
• Short-Range Defensive Fleets, Your Bullets Don't Exist Anymore And Maybe Never Did, Protect The Colony!

Raiding Lances

• Speedy, Agile Raiders
• Corvettes and Destroyers
• Entropy Whip, Flee Into The Darkness, Stealth Systems and Scry-Blocking

Gleaming Ones

• Hybrid Special-Ops Teams
• Tactics Over Strategy
• Teleport In; Teleport Out, Masters of Stealth, One Gun Does All

Entropy Casters

• Chaos Wizards
• Passing Jupiter is Suicide
• Terrible to Behold, Studied Under The Heroes, Extremely Rare; Absurdly Powerful

Heroes:

• Name: Made-Into-Darkness
• History: No one knows for sure where it comes from, not even the Greys, not even itself. Some believe it to be Ahriman, or his chosen successor, twisted by entropy. Others believe it's a choir of Asters, fused together under the stresses of combat. Whatever it was, it is now one half of the Grey's Dual Leadership. Mind designed the new system, Made brought the colonies into the fold. Perhaps the single most terrifying of the Greys, space darkens around it while those who see it despair. It is to the Greys what the Greys are to others. What few natives remain in forgotten places of the Kuiper Belt fear it, for they know it will stamp them down should they ever draw its ire.
• Legend: Made-Into-Darkness is possibly the most powerful being in the Kuiper Belt. There, it defines practically every element of reality by its very presence, from the fundamental forces to the speed of time. This is not Godspeak. Godspeak is most painful to it. This power grows the further he travels from the Light of the Sun. Among the denizens of the Oort Cloud, it is said Made once slew a civilization an infinite number of times. This is not true, he merely killed every member of civilization at the same moment of objective time. Made-Into-Darkness is revered and despised as a deity of Death in almost every culture there, fighting against the rest of their Pantheons in the latter days of The War. As its power waxes as he travels away from the sun, its power wanes as it approaches the Sun and order reasserts itself. It can persist in a weakened state among the Outer Objects, but can travel no closer to the Sun then Uranus before having no power at all and dying. No one, perhaps not even Made itself, knows what would happen should it enter true Qlippoth space, but everyone, including Made itself, fears for existence should this come to pass.

• Name: Mind-And-Architect
• History: Mind is in many ways the opposite of Made. Her history is very well known. She was a low-ranking administrator whose rise through the ranks is recorded, culminating in almost single handedly redesigning the Grey government. While Godspeak hurts Made, she had derived several words of it for her own use. These mostly relate to "Thought," or "Chaos" .Uniquely among her species, she's quite affable, if still uncomfortable to be around in other respects. Mind is the epitome of the Greys' intellectual aspirations, mastering the art of controlled chaos and beneficent independence, making her something of a spiritual guide as well as leader. She pines for mastery of the Supernal form of Chaos, perfect disorder at her command.
• Legend: To an outsider, any project she works on is a full-time madhouse, but she always overachieves. She uses her Derived Godspeak to the fullest extent here, corralling the chaos and competition to the very edge of spiraling out of control, where the Greys' creations are most powerful, and keeping it there. She is not a fighter, but has enough power to generally escape in a cinch, with liberal use of the Derived Word "Chaos," knowing full well it is inimical to most things that are not Greys. In combat, she wields her pen, her flawless use of its world-bending powers as effective any Grey's gun

• Name: Scorched-To-Cinders
• History: Scorched is the culmination of one hundred years of Made's personal attention, a Grey that can bring entropy to the Sun and Light to the Oort Cloud. His name comes from the most important part of his creation, flying a ship into the sun and basking there for seven years, burning him away piece by piece. He emerged a fine ash, individual flecks he can arrange into a plethora of forms. After his creation, he was given two tasks: to fly into the Oort Cloud and slay a beast using Derived Godspeak, and to fly to Venus and reduce ten nearby asteroids to their component quarks. At both of these tasks, he succeeded.
• Legend: Scorched is not the most powerful thing in either dimly or brightly Lighted Space by a long shot, but he is one of the Grey's most useful assets, both diplomat and infiltrator. Most people, it turned out, find talking to a cloud of person-shaped ash much more appealing than coming face-to-face with a Skipper. With his pen, he can even color himself ash by ash until he is indistinguishable from whatever he's mimicking. When infiltrating, he splits himself into a large, diffuse cloud and simply floats where he needs to go, through vents or down corridors without eliciting more attention than a sneeze. However, Scorched's true power lies in the lack of restrictions on his abilities. Unlike the rest of his kin, he is neither limited to acting within the Outer Objects nor does he become weaker the closer he gets to the sun. He has derived many words of Godspeak relating to stealth or swordsmanship, chasing their Supernal forms, and will most often make use of the sentences: "I summon my saber," and "Now, I hide." His most glaring flaw is that he loses his grip on chaos the more he uses Lighted abilities, and vice-versa. His almost invariable opening is to destroy everything around him, increasing their entropy to decrease his, then to use this power boost to try and win quickly.

 

[Laplace]

Skippers (informal), Greys (rough translation)

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It's a very good faction, although I think you're underestimating Qilipolth Space a bit? Like, it's anti-existence. Nothing exists, nothing that can be communicated, at least. Bearing that in mind, the kuipers are untenable, seeing as you probably don't want to play reality hating anti-existences. You could have them transhumanist spacers adapting themselves to surviving in anti-existence, but certainly not outright hybrids between inhabitants of regular space and Q-space.

 

[Another Amoeba]

It's a very good faction, although I think you're underestimating Qilipolth Space a bit? Like, it's anti-existence. Nothing exists, nothing that can be communicated, at least. Bearing that in mind, the kuipers are untenable, seeing as you probably don't want to play reality hating anti-existences. You could have them transhumanist spacers adapting themselves to surviving in anti-existence, but certainly not outright hybrids between inhabitants of regular space and Q-space.

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If I switch their habitats from asteroid bases guarded by the Ordstars to the Ordstars themselves, and move them a bit closer in, would that work?

I can edit their Gnosis so that they use their proximity to Q-Space to manufacture their technology, and Made-Into-Darkness can be the thing that went all-in, and survived, somehow. He's already the guy that no-one, not even within my faction, understands.

Edit: The original idea was that they adapted to living on the edge, and that's still preserved here, IMO.

 

[Laplace]

If I switch their habitats from asteroid bases guarded by the Ordstars to the Ordstars themselves, and move them a bit closer in, would that work?

I can edit their Gnosis so that they use their proximity to Q-Space to manufacture their technology, and Made-Into-Darkness can be the thing that went all-in, and survived, somehow. He's already the guy that no-one, not even within my faction, understands.

Edit: The original idea was that they adapted to living on the edge, and that's still preserved here, IMO.

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The habitats aren't really the problem. The proven was that well, a significant demographic are hybrids of Q-space? That's the main problem I have with the faction, not the habitats.

See, Qilipolth Space is heavily inspired by the Abyss from Mage: The Awakening. And the Abyss is fundamentally malevolent. While Q-space isn't as evil, it still hates reality because 'I was having a good gig in non-existence, fuck you for making me define myself and forcing me to use pronouns fuck you.' So like, yeah.

 

[Another Amoeba]

The habitats aren't really the problem. The proven was that well, a significant demographic are hybrids of Q-space? That's the main problem I have with the faction, not the habitats.

See, Qilipolth Space is heavily inspired by the Abyss from Mage: The Awakening. And the Abyss is fundamentally malevolent. While Q-space isn't as evil, it still hates reality because 'I was having a good gig in non-existence, fuck you for making me define myself and forcing me to use pronouns fuck you.' So like, yeah.

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Hybrid in this case doesn't mean between Q-Space and Realspace, rather between The Adapted-To-Low-Light-Space "Kuipers" and normal Light-Spacers. They're hybrids between what they are and what they were, not even more Q-Spacey than normal.

The current Skippers actually view themselves as too entropic, not too ordered. Sorry if that was unclear.

Edit: Oh, I see how I made that unclear, with my piece on Eris. I meant it to read more like "representing their fusion of their current state and the inhabitants of Lighted Space in the Hybrids," and failed to make it clear that they're actually moving away from Qlippoth with these guys.

 

[Laplace]

Hybrid in this case doesn't mean between Q-Space and Realspace, rather between The Adapted-To-Low-Light-Space "Kuipers" and normal Light-Spacers. They're hybrids between what they are and what they were, not even more Q-Spacey than normal.

The current Skippers actually view themselves as too entropic, not too ordered. Sorry if that was unclear.

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Okay so to get this clear, your demographics is split between the guys who actually hang out in-system, the guy's adapted to living in the edge of the system, and the hybrids between to two, correct?

the denizens of Qlippoth Space.

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Also I read your sheet again. Can you change this so that the beings are instead living in the Kuiper belt? I think I've made it clear that the actual denizens if Q-space can't really be bargained with in a constructive manner.

 

[Another Amoeba]

Okay so to get this clear, your demographics is split between the guys who actually hang out in-system, the guy's adapted to living in the edge of the system, and the hybrids between to two, correct?

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The demographics are those adapted to live at the edge of the system, and those engineered to be able to live in the system again.

Basically, Mind-and-Architect realized they were on the path to going full rah-rah barbarity and built a new governmental system to stop that. She allied with Made-Into-Darkness, and since that far away from the sun it basically has the ability to Ctrl-Z whatever's bothering it at the moment, instituting that system wasn't too hard. Her engineering of the new guys was part of their "reconnection" to the light, in that they can use chaos as a tool rather than it being an intrinsic part of their character. Why fight your instincts when you can make people with better instincts?

Also I read your sheet again. Can you change this so that the beings are instead living in the Kuiper belt? I think I've made it clear that the actual denizens if Q-space can't really be bargained with in a constructive manner.

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Oh, my fundamental misunderstanding was that "Q-Space" was the catch-all term for everything past Pluto that progressively became more and more of a mess the further out you go. It was the phrasing of your Outer Objects info-sheet that tripped me up:

However, even they find it hard to inhabit the places where the Light of Heaven dims and fades into the unreal Qlippoth Space.

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"Dims and fades into" made me think the transition was a gradual process and everything sufficiently dim (past Pluto) was deemed Q-Space, not just I-Liked-Being-Nothing-Now-Die level Q-Space. The Skippers ain't touching that. They're actually meant to be living in the Kuiper Belt already.

 

[Laplace]

The demographics are those adapted to live at the edge of the system, and those engineered to be able to live in the system again.

Basically, Mind-and-Architect realized they were on the path to going full rah-rah barbarity and built a new governmental system to stop that. She allied with Made-Into-Darkness, and since that far away from the sun it basically has the ability to Ctrl-Z whatever's bothering it at the moment, instituting that system wasn't too hard. Her engineering of the new guys was part of their "reconnection" to the light, in that they can use chaos as a tool rather than it being an intrinsic part of their character. Why fight your instincts when you can make people with better instincts?

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Mmhm. Gotcha.

Oh, my fundamental misunderstanding was that "Q-Space" was the catch-all term for everything past Pluto that progressively became more and more of a mess the further out you go. It was the phrasing of your Outer Objects info-sheet that tripped me up:

"Dims and fades into" made me think the transition was a gradual process and everything sufficiently dim (past Pluto) was deemed Q-Space, not just I-Liked-Being-Nothing-Now-Die level Q-Space. The Skippers ain't touching that. They're actually meant to be living in the Kuiper Belt already.

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Oh, yeah, my mistake. That area of dim Light is still technically regular space, so the Outer Objects still count as regular space, in the sense that the Marianas Trench is still on the surface of Earth.

 

[Another Amoeba]

Mmhm. Gotcha.

Oh, yeah, my mistake. That area of dim Light is still technically regular space, so the Outer Objects still count as regular space, in the sense that the Marianas Trench is still on the surface of Earth.

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I'll clear everything up with an edit, then.