@Aleph, quick question. Given the fact that Adorjan has taken such an interest in Keris, does this mean that there is a Third Circle Demon in Malfeas representing that love? And could Keris or it seek each other out?
It is entirely possible!
Given what that love
entails, Keris has not tried to find out and doesn't particularly want to. Though I suspect it's more her love for Marus that's driving this. Keris is her student, which means that whenever she remembers her at a 2-3 dot Principle sort of level, she'll spawn a Splintered Gale on a whim to track Keris down and teach her about how to dodge death from afar by shooting arrows at her with no warning, or make her pretty by pinning her down and giving her a full set of Artifact piercings, or possibly just sleep with her and then return to Adorjan to be reabsorbed.
Keris: "... yay?"
Having the priest on-board will be a pain for a while, but I'm sure that a creative Exalt will be able to twist the thing's mind around a little bit. Serfs can be more properly reverent if they're not dead.
Yeah, priests are not First Circles; they live in the 2CD ballpark, you need Sapphire Sorcery to summon them, and Keris is going to be
very careful about influencing hers. She might be able to swing it, but if so it's probably safest to do it "honestly" - by making and imposing her own consistent laws and getting it to prefer her system to Cecelyne's, in the same sort of way that ES's First Priest writeup decided to go play with mortals instead of going back to its mistress after it escaped.
Would Adorjan even care if her 3rd circles were slaughtered in retaliation? Could the other Yozis physically punish her to the extent that she acquiesces to their demands, or would she just enjoy the pain? What stops her from sweeping through the Conventicle Malfeasant and killing all the GSPs there? Basically, what does Adorjan fear strongly enough to curb her behaviour?
Very little. And that would be why Adorjan is widely feared in the Demon City. Because the only way to keep her away is noise, and even that only works because she doesn't like it, rather than being a defence.
And Keris' now has a nice boat. Kinda awkward to get such a gift after her showing (especially with the shrine to her souls. That's a very personal touch and Keris goes and ruins Ligier's night
Well, see, it's sort of half and half. Because on the one hand, yes, she embarrassed him and Lilunu was badly hurt. But on the other hand,
a shitload of sublimati and Second Circles saw something that survived Adorjan's personal attention bow to him. And she stopped and
let Adorjan maim her to protect Lilunu from further harm. He can definitely spin this in a positive way, as long as she's not around to act erratically again or draw more attention from the Silent Wind.
And yes, she has a nice boat! Let's take a look at it, shall we?
The Memory of Baisha
Artifact N/A light warship
Malfeas/Kimbery/Adorjan-fuelled
The Royal Barge of An Teng has been transformed by hellish craft. Under Ligier's direction, the orichalcum has been stripped from the hull, replaced with bronze that reflects only green light. The prow now mounts an ornate ramming spike that feels somehow predatory in its hungry intent, and the internal systems - corroded and degraded from thousands of years without maintenance - have been stripped out and restored with Malfean materials.
This ancient, brand-new vessel is one of the most valuable in all Creation. It is the flagship of Keris's planned armada, a mobile powerbase and the first home she has been able to truly call her own since she was five years old. By Unquestionable order, it has been consecrated as a temple to the Yozis, but Keris's private ceremony made it a tribute to her long-lost birthplace. The
Memory of Baisha is the name she gave it - and if the thought of a priceless First Age treasure bearing the name of a simple peasant town brings her a bittersweet sense of amusement... well, nobody else will know.
Powers and Weapons:
Submersible: The
Baisha can travel over or under water, and has a top speed of 50km/h (30mph), 1250 km/day (750 miles).
Armoured hull: The thick Malfean-brass hull is charged with fortifying essence, and gives the ship 30L/30B soak and Hardness.
Ramming spike: The five-metre ramming spike is a ship-scale dire lance that deals 16L/24L damage and ignores Hardness when charged with a chaotic mixture of reactor waste essence.
Silent Windstorm: When this deadly power is activated, a silent shredding windstorm akin to the winds of Adorjan surrounds the ship, acting as a hazard of 6L/action, Trauma 5. These winds extend 5m from the ship at the lowest setting, and increase by 5m with each subsequent level up to the fifth. They linger for 1-5 long ticks after the ship has passed, forming a tail of deadly wind that can be as long as 830-4200 metres.
Shrine to the Yozis: The
Baisha is a floating temple to the Yozis, consecrated to their glory and overseen by a Priest of Cecelyne. Prayer rolls to the Yozis and their souls are made at TN6, and demons find it pleasing to inhabit; a balm for the usual irritations of Creation. Even when its owner is not onboard, it exists Beyond Fate and slips between the strands of destiny.
Deck-mounted ballistae: While Keris has been unable to beg, borrow or barter any essence artillery, she has managed to obtain four ballistae that fire algarel-tipped bolts; two light and two heavy.
Light Ballistae: Speed 6, Acc 0, Damage 7L, Rate 1, Range 300, Cost 3/2, Tags: 2, A, P
Heavy Ballistae: Speed 6, Acc -1, Damage 11L, Rate 1, Range 400, Cost 3/2, Tags: 2, A, P
Fuel:
The
Memory of Baisha uses a mixture of hearthstones to fuel its various powers.
- The majority of the systems are fuelled by Malfean essence from the reactor, which requires at minimum a 4-dot Malfean hearthstone twice monthly. Ligierian hearthstones count as 1 dot higher than their rating for this purpose.
- The Kimberian shrine-engine at the base of the stern propels the ship, and requires a 3-dot Kimberian hearthstone for every 5000km it travels. At top speed and without stopping, this will last it 4 days.
- Each 3-dot Adorjani hearthstone slotted into the base of the control tower powers the silent windstorm at the lowest level for an hour. Higher levels decrease this time proportionally - the same hearthstone will only give twelve minutes at the highest setting.
Layout:
The
Memory of Baisha is ninety metres long and fifteen metres wide, with an additional ten-metre ramming spike mounted on the prow. It is not a traditional design, and is in some ways more akin to the shape of a fish than a ship; taller than it is wide and with the sleek lines of a marlin. Four decks make up the hull, with another two in the superstructure above the main deck that makes up the back and fin of the fish design. The primary bridge looks forward from this tower, filled with shining brass machinery and Cecelynite glass displays - a secondary control room is located within the hull. The fin that runs over the entire tower is an essence sail fed by Adorjani essence from a socket at the tower base; the source of the deadly silent windstorm. The stern end of the superstructure is equipped for combat, with ballistae mounts, boarding ramps and grappling lines.
On the top deck, the stern of the hull houses staterooms for Keris and a limited number of guests, as well as an indoor garden dedicated to her souls. Split into separate sections by carpeted paths, it contains miniature recreations of the conditions within Keris's Tiger Empire - a sandy bone-rockery for the Ruin, an icy islet at the centre of a pool for the Sea, a small garden with a green-burning campfire at its centre for the Marsh, and a tar pit for the honey plains.
The power for the ship comes from two large rooms that take up space on both of the bottom two decks. First is the Ligerian essence reactor amidships; a lead armoured monstrosity that consists almost entirely of shielding for the solid emerald furnace at its centre, whose light is death. Secondly, the motive force for the ship comes from the toxic and acidic Kimberian altar-engine at the stern, again shielded heavily by black lead to keep it from reacting aversely with Ligerian fire. A two-storey cargo bay situated in the top two decks is accessible at the bow through sliding hatches.
The
Baisha is crewed by several hundred sailors, most of them demons, and has separate quarters for officers and hands, as well as messes and wardrooms. A shrine to the Yozis is located amidships on the second deck, maintained by a Priest of Cecelyne. Algarel and vitriol are kept in their separate locked storerooms away from the armoury, which houses the deck-mounted ballistae when they are not in use. While major repairs require dock time, minor ones can be handled by the basic workshops for metalwork and alchemy that exist onboard, which also allow for ammunition production. A map room and infirmary are also well-equipped for the ship's anticipated needs.
Workrooms:
- Basic workshop (alchemy): provides tools for alchemy, +1 specialty in algarel distillery.
- Basic workshop (metalwork): provides tools for metalwork, +1 specialty in repair tools.
- Basic infirmary: provides medical tools, +1 specialties in trauma medicine.
- Basic map room: provides charts and maps, +1 specialty in Southwestern charts.
Crew:
Neride: Barely three years a sublimatus, Keris isn't sure what Neride was before she entered the Chrysalis. Whatever she was, she is now a hybrid of human and sea-krait; a banded serpentine body and face with a cobra's hood and the arms and figure of a woman. She wears a breastplate of runepearl and carries a black lightning halberd, earned through service to her previous master. Proud, snappish and with a voice that can wake the dead, Neride is used to being a captain on the seas of Hell, but her sublimation has left her more powerful than many are comfortable with, and Keris's offer of employment was a welcome safety net against censure. Despite her employment, she view Keris as an "owner" rather than a captain - one who owns the vessel and decides the destination but should not, ideally, have much to do with actually running the ship.
Helmsman: A experienced decanthrope pilot who goes by no name other than "Helmsman", Keris's pilot is far more powerful than most of his kin - on the verge of sublimating. All twelve of his bodies are male, and their waist-length hair and similarly demonic features are evidence that he has had them for many years. At first glance he is not a demon one would trust with a priceless flagship - the normal decanthrope mistrust and irrational fear of body theft has grown in him to a broad paranoia, ranging from hypochondria to obsessive detail-checking to wild and absurd theories about possible disasters. However, this trait makes him a conscientious perfectionist for those who can tolerate his worried rants, and the hysterical behaviour disappears entirely under pressure. The Helmsman has dedicated his life to piloting, and has brought ships safely through Kimberian storms that have drowned cities and Hegran hurricanes that send other ships spiralling into madness and calamity.
The Priest: Officially, the Priest of Cecelyne aboard the
Baisha is there to keep it out of the hands of the Dead or the traitorous gods, and to bless it in its service of the Yozis. Unofficially, it is there to keep an eye on Keris; the erratic and powerful Princess now equipped with a mobile powerbase unlike anything in Creation. The priest assigned to her has no name, but was chosen for its unusual flexibility of mind; able to accept the blue skies of Creation and the potential necessity of disobeying Keris in the name of the Law without breaking down or slaughtering the crew en masse. It is old and experienced; with fires that burn deep blue and a pair of lesser-starmetal sabres that it refuses to explain the origin of. Unless Keris has some particular question or request for it, it spends its days tending to the shrine, observing her activities and occasionally executing a crew member who has violated the Law more arduously than it can tolerate.
Kemirasi and Teveya: Twin angyal twin bodyguards created for Keris by Dulmea, these demons were made to be her loyal companions and aides, to sit beside her throne and entertain her with music and conversation. In their angyalkae guises they could pass for half-sisters of hers; Kemirasi favouring her mother and Teveya having more of her father's features. While they are no more powerful than the rest of their kind, few are likely to expect a pair of apparent harpists to be fast and savage killers. Their personalities are a delightful compliment to her own, and she enjoys playing off them with rhetorical questions and idle suggestions when thinking aloud as they take turns advocating for brash violence and subtle manipulation.
Sailors: Keris has summoned up a motley crew of demons to man her vessel. Most are from Hell, but there are a few tengervel from her Tiger Empire, and she is not above summoning a pair of doborminn to serve as loading cranes or artillery if the need should arise. When not tending to the needs of the ship, they drink, gamble and sing their days away. More than a few are aquatic, and these have the additional duty of supplying the kitchens with whatever they can hunt down in the southwestern seas.
... yeah. So. It is, in a couple of words;
fucking awesome. This is what six months of work in Ligier's personal workshops - paid for with an entire freehold of raksha, many of which were chaos-forged for use on the ship itself - will get you when applied to something that was already a High First Age wonder. Something that's explicitly an N/A Artifact that's plot-level powerful. And... well, the following conversation has some rather amusing points:
Aleph: The fun thing here is; they can all teach her something.
Aleph: She can learn navigating from the Helmsman, captaining from Neride, and if she ever gets her hands on Descending Wood, the Priest can probably teach her how to use it.
EarthScorpion: Heh. The sublimati really are built to be GSP minions.
EarthScorpion: Also, uh
EarthScorpion: Keris has quite a concentration of high power things on board.
EarthScorpion: Like, legit. Three E5-6 things and an E9 thing.
EarthScorpion: That's like a good chunk of a Third Circle and its souls. And that's before Sasi gets on board.
Aleph: Yeah, it really is her powerbase. A Circle of young Solars would want to, heh, smash the manses fuelling it.
Aleph: And then lure out and murder Neride and possibly the Priest, if they could, and only then risk attacking the ship itself.
Aleph: Oh, Keris.
Aleph: It is probably bad of me that I basically design a lot of your things with the view that you should be an endboss for a moderately powerful Solar circle.
Aleph: Who is a demonic pirate empress who sails around in a blasphemous hell-ship that you've corrupted from a beautiful relic of their pasts; wrecking shit and raiding places and blighting areas with flooding and tearing the world to steal buildings and ships away into another realm. And has monstrous children and creepy cults who worship you and yeah, this really does amuse me.
EarthScorpion: She also sometimes takes along her sinister corruptive conspirator-sorceress girlfriend who summons demons and sets up cults and offers contracts and occasionally creeps through the night as a horrific thing of living shadow. Or the terrifying indomitable killing machine it's-complicated lover of her girlfriend.
Aleph: Heh. And she's the good kind of plot point, too, because your circle doesn't have to fight her.
Aleph: She's willing to talk, and make deals - and even trade or ally with you, if you're willing to make a deal with the not-so-proverbial devil(-tiger).
