Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

uju32 · Sep 8, 2022

Word of Jim dump, because I can:

Greetings Jim!
1) How's Life?
2) Is there anything you 'd be willing to tell us about your long-term plans for Cinder Spires (number of books, plot teases, etc)?
3) What is a Saint in the Dresden Files? You've mentioned them as a mortal champion distinct from the Knights of the Cross, so I was curious what they were like, and if they specific to the Heavenly crowd or a more common and/or non-denominational form of power?
4) Did Vadderung sacrifice anything to be able to spend so much time on Earth, or is he just at a higher risk than most prefer? Or something else entirely?
5) Is Ancient Mai so called because she is the eldest in the Council's gerontocracy? (Chronologically if not on the objective scale).
6) Can you clarify how many times Bob has been split? It seems like it happened both before Harry got him and also during/after Dead Beat from Harry's orders, does that mean there were three Bob's at one point?
7) Can the True Name be considered a full part of the Self equation in the way the Body, Spirit, and Soul are? Ive been nursing a theory about the Dresden File Self being a multipart and evolving thing based on (a westerners understanding of) the Egyptian myths.
Thanks Again!
Quantus, Special Collections

[–]jimbutcherauthorAMA Author[S] 668 points 4 years ago
1) Confusing!

2) I've got an outline for three, six, or nine books depending on how folks are liking it.

3) Saints, for practical purposes in the Dresden Files, distinct from straightforward religious figures, were mainly people with a wizard's or sorcerer's talents who went into the Church and who blended faith magic with their natural abilities to accomplish some amazing things. Most of the Catholic saints were members of the White Council as well. As the power of the Church waned, the word Saint kind of gradually turned to saint, and in the current storyline saints are simply people who blend faith with their magic.
It is Frowned Upon to be a practicing saint in the White Council, in some senses. They much prefer minds uncluttered by what they see as unnecessary folderol, and think that the worst thing they could imagine is a blend of a wizard's power with a fanatic's zeal, so if you're a saint it's not hard to make other wizards uneasy. Most saints keep their practice under discrete wraps, though there is at least one practicing saint on the Senior Council.

4) Over several different points of the Dresden Files universe, the old gods' power was curtailed, limits set upon it, so that they wouldn't be able to do as much interfering with the development of humans. That was fine with most of them--they were kind of self absorbed jerks anyway, a lot of them. But a few wanted to keep walking beside and guiding humanity.
I don't want to ruin the story for you, and it will be out further down the line.

5) Ancient Mai carries the title for oldest wizard on the Council, but does not see herself as a leadership figure, and regarded Langtry's talents as more suitable than her own for the role of Merlin.

6) Bob was never meant to be a contiguous personality with his own self motivation. He was supposed to be a sidekick and servant, and then this stupid kid went and gave him a NAME. With the name came individuality, and it was all downhill from there.
It's less a question of how many splits Bob has in his personality, and more about how much of his memory/power his dominant personality can encompass at one time. Two truly powerful wizards have held Bob--Kemmler and Dresden. Both of them left the mark of their force of will upon the construct in a particularly powerful way and in fairly recent times. When Butters picked up Bob, he too left his mark on the skull, though as somebody who really isn't all that much different from Harry, the skull just sort of rolled into the most convenient shape to make a personality for Butters--the one he already had for Harry.

7) The True Name is kind of the portrait on the passport that has the rest of the information under mind, body and spirit. It's what lets your power "recognize" your target when you send it out. The name itself isn't a part of you: it's a description of you.

Hello thank you for your time, it is much appreciated and I hope you are doing well.

What is Mister's cat name for Harry in Cinders Spire style?

What was Archangel the location and its importance to the White Council, and what was the Brute Squad that Bob mentioned role compared to the wardens?

What kind of magic did Aleron LaFortier specialize in? In Dead Beat Harry said that Ebenezer was the least powerful of the Senior Council was this Harry being an unreliable narrator or was LaFortier stronger then he looked?

What did Harry mean in Dead Beat when he said Cowl's magic was different from what he worked with? They both used kinetic magic and had a lingering sense of black magic was it the way Cowl used his magic or something else?

What are the other three Vampire Courts who are like mosquitos in influence compared to the others major Courts called and will we see them in the series?

What would Harry's Denarian form look like if he took up Lasciel's coin? If he took up other coins like Ursiel and Magog would he become more bestial or would he adapt other characteristics?

[–]jimbutcherauthorAMA Author[S] 525 points 4 years ago
1) Sleeps Loudly

2) That was where Petrovich the Earth Mage lived. He and his people were hell on wheels in a fight. Earth magic is slow and tricky to use, but if you get good at it, it's very difficult to counter.

3) Illusion. Ebenezar can pull a satellite down from orbit onto your head. Someone like LaFortier can bamboozle nations. The way that the old school wizards think, direct power is the least useful power. All you can do with it is break something or kill someone.

4) Black magic is different. It's kind of the ultimate perversion of magic's original intent--creation. It takes things away from you when you use it, increasingly so as you use it more. To be able to use black magic at all is to have a soul that truly believes it /belongs/ here and /should/ be used. It's super powerful and super destructive. Things go wrong just because there's black magic about, much less when it gets used to actually break something.

5) You won't see Courts because they don't have them. There are other vampires around, but they aren't as large and organized as the Courts have been, and can't operate with the same kind of coordination.
The exception to that is the Jade Court, who rarely act outside of the Yangtze river valley. Everyone knows that they exist. No one is quite sure where. They do not respond to invitations or offer any of their own. They never deal directly with outsiders, but move through allies and agents. They are not signatories of the Accords, but everyone speaks of and treats them as if they are, because some fairly horrible things have happened to people, over the centuries, who showed too much disrespect.
The mosquito type vamps though operate mainly in SE Asia, mostly in SK, Thailand, that region. They're thugs, a branch of the Tongs, running drugs and human slaves through the local seas and sometimes hiring out as assassins.

6) If he took up Lasciel's coin, he'd immediately have a style and fashion adviser who would make him look like Someone Important everywhere he went. He'd have better posture, would look neat and clean all the time, like he knew exactly what he was doing, and would have supernatural sex appeal he could summon up on demand. Lasciel would have turned him into Bond.

Hi Jim! Thanks for taking the time to do this AMA and for the AMAZING books you've written so far. The Dresden Files is easily my favourite book series. When I found out you do AMAs every now again I started compiling some questions as I was going through the books. Could you shed light on some of these things please?

Throughout your books you mention that the right side/hand releases energy and the left hand/side absorbs it. Does this have anything to do with your dominant hand/side? Is this the opposite for lefties?

Is the Nevernever mapped to Earth/Our solar system/the whole universe? Or the other way around? Is it possible to not open a Way from one dimension to the other? Or is there for every location one on the other side - always guaranteed? Is the mapping a function?

You mentioned that parts of the Nevernever connect to parts of the real world based on similar ambiances and energies. Is it possible to have an ambiance or energy that does not have an equivalent in the other dimension?

Is Harry named after the city of Dresden because he usually ends up setting things on fire?

Reading Cold Days, it seemed like you really changed the way you approach the audience. A lot more breaking the fourth wall and more swearing. Is this something new you were trying or any particular reason for this change?

Is Nicodemus the same guy as St. Nicodemus from the Bible who helped wrap Jesus in the shroud of Turin?

Thank you!

[–]jimbutcherauthorAMA Author[S] 294 points 4 years ago
1) It's less about dominant hand than which one is closer to your heart, so nah, it's the same for righties and lefties. Dominant hands for spells aren't usually an issue by the time you know what you're doing, but among the apprentices righties have an advantage at offense, lefties at defense.

2) The Nevernever is, like, noneuclidean space in a lot of ways. It morphs and changes, without a fixed amount of acreage. Based on how much power you apply to it, you can change the Nevernever, make a given area larger or smaller.

3) No. The Nevernever is made out of a substance that is basically like the goo from Ghostbusters 2: it reacts to human emotions. When a given vibe goes out, the goo responds.

4) No. He is named after the city of Dresden because the night I was thinking of character names, John Sheridan on B5 was giving this speech about military atrocities and their psychological impact. Dresden was one of the cities he mentions in the speech, and it went well with "Harry."

5) Heh. Cold Days was Dresden operating on a whole new engine, more or less. There were more changes than that.

6) Inappropriate for this venue.

What made you decide to read "Even Hand" for the Brief Cases audiobook?

Does reincarnation exist in the Dresden Files universe? And do we know any characters that have already had former lives?

Will we ever meet the other heavenly archangels: Michael, Gabriel, or Raphael?

Did Hendricks finish his thesis?

How old is Marcone?

How did Hendricks and Marcone meet? How long have they known each other before Storm Front?

Is Marcone genuinely fond of Helen Beckitt, or is their "romantic" relationship for him more about keeping a potential threat close or just a weird guilt trip?

Multiple times in Small Favor, characters are able to contact the otherwise unreachable Denarians through "Accords-approved methods." What do these methods entail?

Thanks!

[–]jimbutcherauthorAMA Author[S] 217 points 4 years ago
1) Someone had to do it. They saved money using me.

2) Sort of. And not really. For reincarnation to be viable, you can't rig the game by knowing who you were the last time around.

3) <spoiler>I'm not going to tell you</spoiler>

4) He keeps writing it and rewriting it. It's over 1200 pages now.

5) If I recall, he was 40 in Storm Front.

6) In the service. They were Marines together. Marcone was Hendrick's sergeant when Hendricks was a Louie.

7) Marcone... does not think like most human beings. For him, there's no reason all of those things can't be true at the same time. But he's not going to be giving anyone True Love shields from the Whites any time soon either.

8) Mostly established messaging and answering services, mostly through human attorneys. You are also allowed to use heralds (and send heralds back headless if you get annoyed, like Ancient Mai's herald was frozen half to death by Mab in Summer Knight, by way of telling the Council "no, you can't use my roads.") And there are some various supernaturals who specialize as go-betweens and intermediaries.

Processing...

OH THOSE GUYS.

Yeah, I know who they all are. I don't have a further story role set for them at the moment, they're just part of Mab's backstory. That's kind of her trophy case of personal victories.

If I remember right they're Vlad Tsepes and his lover (who wanted to be together forever), Richlieu (Mab always collects eventually, no matter how tricky you are), that's not Arachne it's friggin' Anansi (Mab, too, knows hubris), and the triumverate of women was actually two women with Mab pulling a Scooby Doo move and hiding among them. Trying to remember, they were a pair of historical French or German or British twin sisters who were burned as witches by a Saint. Mab saved them, sort of. Instead of being burned to cinders, they were transformed to living crystal and used to decorate her bower. Mostly, Mab defeated the Saint, sort of at the end of the middle ages/opening of the Renaissance, when there hadn't been all that many Old Word wins lately.

They aren't really a part of Harry's story, just background details for Mab. Anansi is too much a trickster to be caught forever. He'll get free at some point and have a merry vengeance on Mab's pride and ego. She's just so serious, all the time, a guy like Anansi couldn't do anything BUT give her the grumpy camp counselor treatment once he was free.

1: How fast could Lash teach magic? The bit about being able to teach Harry how to heal his hand in Dead Beat implied that it was several dozen times faster than normal (because there's no way he'd be able to pick up healing before his hand healed normally on his own).
2: How exactly would the version of Changes where Harry does the Darkhallow have gone afterwards? It seems like the kind of thing that would burn his bridges with absolutely everybody.
3: You've previously mentioned that Morgan might appear in book 17 (Mirror Mirror), is that still on track?
4: Can you tell us more about the details of how Ways work and how two people working in the same spot can end up in different places?
5: Will the Shapeshifting Guru from the Ukraine mentioned in the list of freeholding lords in White Night play a role in the series or will it be like the Jade Court and not appear in the series?
6: Why did the half-turned Red Court and Cassius experience sped-up aging the moment they lost the thing stopping their aging? Shouldn't they have just gone back to aging at normal rate if the Red Court half of them was just pressing the proverbial pause button?
7: Did He Who Walks Behind slow down time around the clerk who tried to run in Ghost Story? If no, how was he slowed down?
EDIT: Why could Harry understand Sharkface's name while He Who Walks Behind's name was just an impression that HWWB gave him?

1) Teach it? VERY quickly. She could alter your perception of time and give you months of pure mental lessons in an evening. If she just did it for you while you sit in the passenger seat? She can do that instantly.

2) Well, with the White Council for sure, and with a lot of human authorities. But if he'd become a friggin' necromancer, he would have found his allies among the dead and dead-adjacent, and things would have generally been a lot gothier.

3) Maybe.

4) I can.

5) Can't think of a reason to have him around for Harry's story. Might be a different case in a spinoff.

6) Because it wasn't pressing pause. It was just sustaining them for the duration of the transformation. Once the transformation dropped them back into their mortal form again, it was time to pay the piper. They paid for their life with life, the way all vampires do. They just chose not to take someone else's. But younger half-vamps, like Susan, would have been okay, just older and a lot more tired.

7) HHWB, being a Walker, is an outsider on a power level similar to Uriel. He can do all KINDS of stuff. But also has a lot of weird limits as to when and where he can use his power.

Hi Jim, I have a question about Mortimer Lindquist.

In Ghost Story we learn that Morty is a significantly more powerful ectomancer than Dresden thought. My question is this: Is Ectomancy just another field of magical study that a wizard could have a talent for like Harry with Thaumaturgy, Chandler with Time magic, and Molly with Illusion magic or is Ectomancy a separate field from normal magical study? Could Morty become a full Wizard or are his talents too different?

EDIT: Hey everyone I don't know if you already are subscribed to /r/DresdenFiles but if not it is a great place to discuss the books, short stories, graphic novels, and interviews with Jim.

Oh, any wizard could learn ectomancy, it's just a matter of spending the time and energy to do it.

Morty's issue isn't that his Ectomancy isn't strong: it's that he doesn't have that kind of strength elsewhere. You wanna be a Wizard of the White Council, you've kinda gotta be able to do it all. That's what separates a wizard like Harry from a sorcerer like Morty. Harry might NEVER be as strong an ectomancer as Morty is. But Harry can also do thaumaturgy and evocation and abjuration AND divination AND illusions AND etc etc. Morty only tunes in to the one channel. Wizards got the entire America's Favorite Package.

Hi Jim! My question is about the Dresden Files:

Can a wizard soulgaze a baby? A child? What would it do to that child?

Thanks for all of the books you've written. I've enjoyed them very much.

Kids have got a certain amount of magical protection. Think of them like a baby dear: a fawn gets born with a suite of counter-predator capabilities that help it survive. Same for kids. They tend to be really resilient to the effects of magic. A child could soulgaze a wizard and find it distressing and confusing, but wouldn't wind up with the inkstain on their memory like the wizard would.

Thanks for having this AmA!

Is Nicodemus the first host for Anduriel?

What is Nicodemus' occupation before he chose to change career to murdering murderer?

Thanks!

1) Yes, the one and only.

2) He was a tax collector. Which was only technically not as bad as being a murderer at that time in history.

Source: 2018 AMA

Reddit - Dive into anything

www.reddit.com

Yog · Oct 18, 2022

So, let me present you guys,

Fivefold Courts of Frozen Fate v. 1.2

Huge size – 2 points, 3 points remaining
Difficult Terrain, 3 points remaining
Accessible Terrain, 3 points remaining
Pockets of Safety +2 points, 5 points remaining
Balanced Ecosystem, 5 points remaining
Earthly Fauna, 5 points remaining
Deadly Beasts, +1 point, 6 points remaining
Earthly Flora, 6 points remaining
Deadly Flora, +1 point, 7 points remaining
Human Populace, 7 points remaining
Resident Devils, -1 point, 6 points remaining
Advanced Social structures, 6 points remaining
Advanced Technology, -2 points, 4 points remaining
Loyalty: Committed, -2 points, 2 points remaining
Dangerously Alien, 2 points remaining
Endless Suffering, -1 point, 1 point remaining
Gaols, -1 point, 0 points remaining

Bottleneck - useful, yes, but loses us some possible plot of someone escaping our hell, and loses interactions of others trying to come in. I used terrain and climate as much as I could to still render our realm protected.
Cauls - not something I want at all, and not the style of character we are playing.
Fruits of Hell - the cost is too much, and the downsides are too. Not something I want
Grand Grimoire - narratively very interesting, but can be built afterwards without point buy. Hopefully, can be roleplayed as exploration of what's already there, but undiscovered. I certainly left enough possibilities for that. Gaols are probably in the same niche, but we would likely need them quicker than Grand Grimoire.
Exclusive Transportation - useful, but can be built later, and with accessible terrain between cities, not that needed.
Lord of the Land - if we permanently moved to our hell realm it would be worth it. Otherwise, no. Better to take something that's always on.
Time differential - if the differential was higher, it would be worth it. Right now, too pricey.
Overpopulated - I have a strong opinion on this. It's too self-sabotaging.

Bolded - changed from v.1.1.

If someone were to look at it from far away, your kingdom would look like a perfect hemisphere with a radius of 1564 kilometers, most of its surface is buried under multicolored ice made of water, mercury, krypton, xenon – almost all elements of the periodic table known to man, and perhaps, more. If observed from a closer distance, and by a more discerning eye, the nature of the land appears far more complex, and perilous. Jagged, razor sharp forests of ice-like shards extend hundred meters high, forming a near impossible to traverse landscape. As time passes by, they break, shift, change and grow, as if they were alive. And indeed they are, if not in a way that Earth knows life. Many-limbed creatures, eyeless and pentaradially symmetrical, skitter through these deadly forests, chittering in bursts of infrared radiation.

Such is the depth of your domain's unfeeling coldness, that rivers of liquid oxygen flow through it, confined by the banks of superconducting bronze. Strange, alien creatures that derive nutrition from radiological decay of uranium and breath hydrogen-helium atmosphere, populate these rivers, inimical and universally hostile to everything within their reach. Their bioluminescence is the only source of illumination beyond the soft silver light of the moon traversing the starless black skies, each revolution with a new phase and surface.

To venture into this hellscape in an attempt to escape the kingdom of your heart without permission and a guide, is to face an almost guaranteed demise, for even if one was to clad themselves into a space-worthy thermally sealed suit, they would still be fleeced to the bone by a never-ending blizzard of ferrous snow. Electrically charged iron and nickel dust cyclone with the wind speeds far exceeding a hundred meters per second obscures the borders of your realm from NeverNever to eye and any electronic equipment. Only those wise in the ways of your soul can dare hope to navigate this terrain.

And yet, not every place within your self is so inhospitable. For even as the iron cyclone rages at the border of the world, a no less ferocious anticyclone expands from its center. Where they meet, in a strip of land one hundred and eighty kilometers wide, their clash in the skies is both ferocious and life giving. In that narrow space, the titanic magnetic fields generated by them cancel each other, and their particles' collisions generate heat enough that eternal ring of lightning plasma is raging in the skies, unable to escape its natural confinement. The temperature is high enough that liquid water can flow in this equator. The light is soft and bright enough that photosynthesis is effective. And life, or at least life recognizable by Earthborn eyes at first glance, strives there, desperate to occupy this narrow ring of space allowed to it. Dense and ever shifting forests rustle in the ever blowing winds, their deep blue crowns endlessly shrugging metal dust from themselves. Their trunks stretch ever further in hopes to catch the lightning and fill their underground capacitors with vital energy. Fast and dangerous beasts, iron hided and sharp toothed traverse metal coated land of ever shifting shadows below, seeking either fruit or prey, for life is short and dangerous in this world, and no source of nourishment is to be dismissed.

It is among these forests that civilization of your world exists. It is confined into five great fortress city-states sitting in five corners of a great pentacle, 1102 kilometers from the center of the world. Each fortress is positioned on top of a great pole of metal, large enough to generate its own magnetic field and prevent metal dust from passing into the city, and to serve as a source of free electricity for the city's industry. The size of each settlement is larger than any that could be found on Earth. In fact, the number of denizens in each can only be compared to the population of the greatest states of your birth world. They are connected to each other by great underground channels forming the beams of the pentagram, with great armored trains coursing through them.

Each city is different, unique, strange and, somehow, nostalgic. Each is perfectly independent, and each is required for others to exist prosperously with their own roles.

In the east stands ruby clad city of law and warriors. Forges and training centers fill it, and all those who seek martial perfection, those who wish to pursue the career in law enforcement and law making, those desiring to sally forth in defense of the realm, gather there.

To the south east lies the city of knowledge, its emerald flags adorning the walls of its libraries, universities, research centers, ritual sites and laboratories. All those who strive for understanding visit it at least once in their lifetimes. Many a secret is hidden behind its walls, some, likely, unknown even to you, its creator. Certainly, its records extend to before the creation of its sister cities, perhaps to before the realm it is in existed at all.

In the south western corner of the pentagram, the city of art stands, its streets clad paved with saphires. Where silence and focus reign in the libraries of its neighbor to the east, laugher and jubilation can be heard in all parts of this city. Magnificent are its galleries, captivating its theaters, and enthralling its bordellos.

And when the inhabitants of your world tire of jubilation, grow weary of training, become forlorn in their pursuit of knowledge, they travel to the city at the far west corner of the great pentacle. There, under the amethyst roofs of its buildings and ministrations of the carefully selected caretakers, they find the end to their struggle, and beginning of something new. For not all your citizens are human, and none of them know age and death as mortals do, and in time require assistance to move on, to rest, to change, and perhaps to end. It is also there that other guests of your world, souls of the damned are processed and made to atone for their sins, to find salvation and healing before being let out into the wider society.

Finally, in the north, there is a city from which teams of daring explorers venture forth, protected only by their armor and faith in you, to brave the borders of your realm in pursuit of minerals and other wealth. There the services that maintain great transportation arteries linking the five sister cities are located. There the main food production facilities are located. And finally, there stand the great golden gates, beyond which is the only tunnel leading directly to the border of your world.

Great are the cities of your kingdom, each more than two hundred million strong in number, each with its culture, philosophy, dreams and futures. And yet, they are not the crown of this world. For in its very center, there exists a sixth structure.

A giant statue, or a mountain if a form of statue, an axis of the wheel around which the world turns stands in the middle of your soul. Two eastern dragons, one black as the darkest night, the other all colors of rainbow, both over twenty kilometers long, spiral around each other in a mockery of a human DNA, rising from the ground to challenge the empty skies.

They emerge, frozen at the moment of a triumphant and desperate escape, from a round cracked hill of bronze in the ground. Upon closer inspection, one can find that the hill is but a tip of a giant sphere, almost buried under ice. If one was to brave the darkness and spelunk down into its depths, they would find themselves in a giant labyrinth of concentric brass and basalt spheres. Strange, eldritch writings and grotesque carvings cover its walls, floors, ceiling. Flickering green lights illuminate some, but far from all corridors. Over time, it seems, the layout of the labyrinth shifts, as the spheres composing it move against each other. Whether this movement is slowly winding down or speeding up is impossible to tell.

As one explores more and more of the great construct, a wise explorer would notice two prevailing trends. When approaching what should be the geometric center of this structure, the temperature slowly rises and, should the visitor has appropriate equipment or keen enough senses, they'll note the rising level of background radiation. When venturing deeper and deeper beneath the ground, farther from the surface, the shadows grow somehow heavier, the sounds of one's footsteps become hollow, and the very essence of the air becomes more and more grave-like. It is impossible to reach the deepest layers, much less the core or the bottom - the tunnels have collapsed long ago, some melted, some covered in debris. As such, no one knows what lies there. The calculations, however, indicate that just like the top of the sphere extends above the ground, its bottom might, in fact, dip into the nothingness below your soul's world.

Tribes of primitives seem to inhabit the corridors and great halls of this labyrinth. They war endlessly for resources, locations of thermal vents and power lines, utilizing what great mechanism-organs the labyrinth has active with great skill. In the deeper levels, evidence of more sophisticated and advanced societies has been observed.

No one tries to leave, and, in fact, what few prisoners were ever taken by the exploration expeditions, indicate that escaping the sphere is considered to be the greatest of sins. The labyrinth inhabitants believe themselves to be both its prisoners and wardens, waiting for the Head Warden to come and, in a paradoxical way, both affirm their oaths and release them from their prison.

That the sphere is, indeed, a prison, is not a question. Ample evidence of this was found by the Five Cities explorators. Each of its rooms can serve as a holding cell, its walls lined with symbols old and forgotten, meant to prevent teleportation, transformation, or any other means of escape, including death itself. The passages are lined with titanic vault-like doors barring passage. Each sections could quickly be isolated from each other, and then flooded with gas, water, or, indeed, even fire. Brass eyes embedded into ceilings follow the movements of travelers. Soul-locked terminals giving access to the facility's slumbering systems are prevalent. Everything is waiting for its mistress to come. The security increases as one progresses deeper and deeper into the sphere, but even the areas closets to the crack, where five cities permanent expedition post is established, serve as the greatest and most inescapable prison of the realm, where arch-heretics and worst lunatics are held.

If the bottom of the titanic twin dragon statue is a thing of brass and darkness, then the top is a beauty of crystal and light. In dragons' jaws, a giant crystalline palace complex rests, its architecture something that doesn't belong to today – only to tomorrow and perhaps to ages long since past. It is a glimmering symbol of hope and might. It is the seat of your governance, and the natural meeting place of the governing parties of your subjects. It is also a church, and a site of holy pilgrimage for them. The only possible glimpse of something that doesn't exist in this realm. Illuminating your throne, and observable only in your throne room is the Sun. Sometimes yellow, and sometimes green. The hidden geometries and enchantments of the crystals lining the walls of your castle are aligned in such a way that when you, and no one else sit upon the throne, the light shining on you, or emitted by you, will be spread, amplified and emitted by the castle itself, creating a rising sun for your realm.

In times past, the palace complex could only be reached by greatest and most devoted climbing the dragon's spine. Nowadays, the ingenuity of your subjects allows for a quick air transport from the base fortress-station at the bottom of the statue, which serves as the gates to both your palace and the underground labyrinth.

"Life here will begin out there". I didn't write these words, on the velum pages made from my own skin, with ink made of burnt bones of ancient monsters, under the light of candles burning green. In fact, I, nor my parents nor my child and wife, exist at all, as the devils I call forth from the hells unlike this one, and monsters summoned from further still, gleefully tell me. We all are but a backstory to a play yet unwritten, existing as a possibility among an infinity of its peers. They offer me this knowledge freely, gladly, safe in the knowledge that this is not happening. They desire that I despair, break and blaspheme, that I utter oaths unbreakable even if they are, in fact, unspoken, sell myself and all to follow me to their masters for the surety of becoming, and in doing so transform myself into a hidden poison at the heart of my future mistress.

They are fools, who see little, and understand less. They fail to grasp that even as they are safe to speak, so I am safe to question, fearing not to offend the realms they come from by conduct unbecoming, daring to betray ignorance and weakness without terror of discovery. They do not see this time-not as the gift it is, the opportunity to prepare, not one blind chance of history, but the infinity of different past probabilities coming together coming together to craft the perfect future.

From the secret diaries of the Mirror of the Changing Moon, the founder of the Covenant of Empress-to-Be, dated ten thousand and one lunar cycle Before Her Arrival.

The Covenant of the Empress-to-Be is a monotheistic state religion of the five cities world. At its core lie the "Prophecies of Arrival" which state that at some point in the future, a divine figure, "Empress-to-Be" will arrive, and grant her followers life.

This is perhaps the most counter-intuitive precept of the church. According to its mystics, the world of five cities does not truly exist prior to their goddess' arrival, and merely represents one of the infinite possible backstories for the real world to come, ignited by her divine spark. Following from that revelation, lie the doctrine that preaches that their followers and the society as a whole has to live their lives in a way that would make their history be the one chosen by the divine empress in their subjective future. The followers of the Covenant are to better themselves continuously, to improve their utilitarian value, live their lives interestingly, to increase their entertainment value, and to undergo the right of Ending if they "write the story of their life into a corner with no way out".

The different specializations of the five cities are in many ways, reflections of their religious doctrine, where the City of Swords chapels preach that the Empress will need loyal soldiers, while the City of Fountains seeks to please Empress's senses.

Historical research indicates that the concept of paradoxical "existence before beginning" is likely a legacy of the older Cult of Twin Dragons, which existed before the Covenant's rise to power. Other researchers trace the idea of a messianic figure prophesized to come rule the world in the distant future to beliefs of the Core Prison tribes, some of which might have been ancestors of the modern civilization.

The Covenant heavily incorporates scientific research and method into their doctrine, such as using the theory of evolution to prove that humanoid population couldn't have arisen in this realm, and was willed into being by divine power. Historical research into the world's seemingly long and sometimes buried past is seen as a way to enrich the "world building" and keep the Empress interested.

"Unbiased review of the state religion", part of the briefing documents prepared for her Divine Majesty, twenty lunar cycles before her Arrival.

At the level of "committed" loyalty, religion is going to play an important role in the world's life. In fact, it is likely that theocracy would be the order of the day. When combined with "advanced technology" and "advanced society" it is also likely that wide use of magic and scientific research would be present. "human population" choice explicitly mentions history stretching to before creation of the exalt's kingdom. In Dresdenverse, summoning and NeverNever are all very much a part of magic. And there's a giant Oramus statue in the center of the world.

All these facts need to be reconciled. Thus, the Covenant of Empress-to-Be. Basically, it's a state religion that is aware of how history only really begins once Molly arrives.

Lunar cycle = one month. There are no seasons I could think of easily, so, full lunar cycles would be the measure of time.

Wan Kuei are the unruly dead who, through guile, cunning, and, above all, sheer perseverance, escaped on the thousands hells their soul found itself in after death. For the untold billions suffering in the underworlds of Yama Kings, it is no more than a few thousands that achieve this feat. Yet every soul struggles, and every hell can be escaped from. Indeed, if a new hell was to germinate from the chaotic seas of wyld possibility, or to be constructed by even the most godlike of powers, it too, would be a prison imperfect, the very laws of nature preventing formation of a realm truly without hope for escape. Why that is so, is a question unanswered. Some wise mystics believe that it is hope itself that lies as the cornerstone of these realms, and that the perfect hell would paradoxically have no power, and would collapse before it even came to be. Other students of ancient and forbidden lore posit that all hells are but echoes of some Primordial hell, sharing its base fundamental nature common to them all. It is the raw will of its unknown prisoners that prevents modern hells from being inescapable, they theorize. Select few wonder if those first prisoners have themselves ever escaped, or if they still struggle, projecting their effort through all of the cosmos.

The realm of your heart is, beyond everything else, a hell, to which souls of mortals are confined. It is thus its nature to be escapable, and of those souls in your kingdom to attempt escape. Yours, however, is not the world of one of foolish and greedy Yama Kings, and there are paths made intentionally available to each of your kingdom's denizens. They number four in total.

The first, and, sadly, by far the most travelled to its destination, is the path of surrender, leading to the end of struggle and nothing more. When a citizen tires of existence, they travel to the amethyst clad city in the west, and submit themselves to the priests living there with but a single request – to end it all. Should counselling, therapy, prolonged rest and meditation on the beauty of living not help, they are then subject to a solemn ritual. In a quite chapels, silent priests would write strange, arcane symbols on their bodies, give them ice wine fermented from the fruits only growing in the darkest outermost edges of your realm to lull them to sleep, and then, shedding tears of regret, murder them with ritualistic daggers. Unlike any other death under the light of the moon and lightning, this one does not permit returns. The soul slips quietly into the Maw of Oblivion.

The second route is for those burning with the lust for battle, enticed by religious fervor and the promises of glory. To follow it, one must devote themselves to training. Join one of the monastery-forges of the Red City, practice diligently one's katas and recite fervently one's prayers to the Empress-to-Be. Rise through the ranks of monks and win a right to join the honor guard of Her crystal palace – that is the ticket to salvation through servitude. For it is amongst those in her guard that the Empress is prophesized to select the men-at-arms who will do battle in her name outside this realm once the time comes. And if one is lucky enough, skilled enough, distinguished enough, survives enough of these battles, then they can pray to the Empress for a permanent release, to take them into the mortal world and release them from her service.

The third road is the shortest one, and, perhaps, the hardest. If one wishes to escape the kingdom of five cities, one needs but to take a train to the City of Journeys, and to declare it so. No obstacles will be laid before them, and they will be swiftly taken outside the city. From there on, everything will be in their own hands. They will just have to walk to the outer edges of the world, to climb the razor-edged forests, to pass through the iron hurricane and to traverse into the uncertain Ways of the unreality. It is not an easy task. To attempt it is common, for it is human nature to seek escape from the place of confinement. It is a sign of strength to crack one's cell open, rather than bow one's head and succumb to punishment. Many try, and most fail, nurturing the outer fields with their lifeblood, only to draw breath once more in one of the cities. Those few who would succeed are declared Anathema, their names added to the rolls of the enemies of state. For to succeed is to cast away the bonds of family, companionship and faith that define the nations of this world. It is to become a hungry dead, and to forevermore prey on the inhabitants of the worlds.

The fourth and final way branches off from the ones already described. It is not the way of many, rather it is the path of select few, for whom other roads are not suited. If, after throwing oneself against the outer storms time and time again, one learns humility, and yet doesn't desire the ending granted in the silent chapels of the Amethyst City; if they do not have the trust and faith in their heart to dedicate themselves to the Empress-to-Be in the promise of salvation… Then, on a new escape attempt, they can walk in a different direction. Not to storm in the direction of the rim, but to move in the direction of the Red City, evading beasts and traversing forests in the way. Once they reach the next city, their pilgrimage, and the trials accompanying it, truly begin.

In the city of saffron and forges, they are faced with two tasks. First, to master their body, and to prove their strength. To do so, they have to defeat one of the grandmasters of the martial art sects of the city in unarmed combat, demonstrating that they have mastered the first weapon everyone has – their own body. Then, as the second part of their trial, they are to forge and master a weapon, apprenticing. Their creation has to be acknowledged as a masterwork by the Ring of Smiths that control the weapon manufacturing of the realm, and their skill in wielding it by a grandmaster of the art. Only when these two tasks are done, their trial is considered complete, and the doors of City of Rubies open for them, so they can, once again journey the circle of life on the path to the city of Secrets.

Once they reach the Verdant City, their trial of History begins. Its two mirrored parts are to learn the history of the past, and to create the history of the future. In order to accomplish the first task, the applicant must unearth a piece of ancient knowledge, buried somewhere in the realm, and gift it to their peers. In order to finish, they must master and further a craft, a school of knowledge, create new knowledge that would serve as a foundation to those who will come next – on Earth that would be an equivalent of earning a doctorate.

The test of the City of Pleasures is by far the longest. Many of those few who try it consider it the cruelest. The first part is simple. It is, just like in all the previous trials, a matter of obtaining, and then proving, one's skill – this time by creating a piece of art good enough to become known as a masterpiece, to prove that one understands the society of the Five Cities enough that their creations resonate with everyone, not just a select few. It is the second part that breaks most who attempt it. For to succeed one must love, raise, and finally leave behind a child. Whether it be by adoption, or through means more natural, a child must reach adulthood and succeed on their own merits under the tutelage of the one walking this path. And when that child sincerely says that everything they have is thanks to the pilgrim, it is then that the pilgrim must leave them behind, to walk to the next city, without looking back. Thus their Sacrifice is complete.

The Silent City's trial is, in comparison a mercy. It is also, a final warning. First, the walker must participate in all the aspects of the ritual of Ending. They must try and talk someone out of finishing themselves, and when they fail, they must learn what the Final death is like, and grant it with their own hands, for if they are incapable of doing so, then no hope exists for them in the cruel world of outside. And when they understand death, they must nurture the fear of it inside themselves, for only the final death exists in the outside, not the brief embrace of renewal they are accustomed to. And it is out of that fear they must take a sacred vow not to seek their end, which forever denies them the mercies of the Amethist City. Once the vows are complete, they start on the final leg of their Journey.

And when they end it, they stand before the Golden Gate of the First City. They carve their name into it with their weapon – and there's plenty of room left still on it. And after the celebration to remember, they leave, more complete then when they started, and perhaps prepared to what lies next.

To date, no one has completed this road.

…

Or you could actually try and escape this hell of a reality, instead of meekly following the paths prepared for you. How? When they let you out to throw yourselves against the maelstrom, you could turn around and sneak your way to the foundation of Her Majesty's shining castle in the sky. Study every last draconic scale, as you climb upwards, clinging to them. Read and put to memory the blasphemous writings written on the scales of the prismatic dragon that can be seen only in their reflections in the polished ebon scales of its brother, under the light of the changing moon. Spend hundreds, thousands lifetimes learning to read and comprehend the message in one go, as with your every fall, the message changes. Do not speak of it to anyone, for should they learn of your attempts, you will never be able to try again. Discern the painful truths from hurtful lies entwined in this secret writ. Follow that knowledge to unlock the doors nonexistent, and you shall be free.

The whispers in shadows recorded by the acolyte of Her Divine Promise battle order shortly before she abandoned the order to become an inner ring explorer

The rules on kingdom making state that the has to exist a path to escape the hell you make. Exaltations deal with perfect effects. Why couldn't it make a perfect prison? I started to think why, and trying to fit this with a Watsonian explanation.

I came up with two explanations. One from the Dresdenverse side of the crossover, and the other is from Exalted perspective, which can also be used in an ExWoD game. The Dresdenverse explanation is that within existence Free Will is absolute, and exists in some way. A perfect prison with no escape denies the prisoners the choice to escape or, really, any choices. Thus, by the almighty power of the White God, such perfect prison is rejected from existing.

The Exalted answer is that the creation of the kingdom is the power of Infernal Exaltation. It is an act of an exalted growing from human to something like a primordial in their soul structure, and it is a mirror of primordial host making the Creation. However, and it is very important, an infernal exaltation was created by the yozi, not by primordials. We create not just a world, but a hell – the distant shadow of Malfean realm of the ages past. The exaltation carries the charms of its creators, parts of their self. It is, at the very core of itself, their hope for escape. And no yozi can truly abide the existence of a perfect, inescapable prison, for they are the ultimate prisoners, and the exaltation is the ultimate lock pick. To create a hell without hope would run directly counter to the very themes and purpose of infernals existing. And so, the infernal exalt's inner world has to be escapable.

Next, I decided to look into the ways of escape. The rules are clear – walk to the outer edge of the realm, and you are free (and, for the dead condemned to the hell, probably become a hungry dead variant). However, this is clearly not the only way to escape. The realm I made was inspired by the Maidens, and clearly features in-story references to old lore. So, I devised five paths:

1) To die. This is the path of Endings, and, since I used Endless Suffering in the build, requires a ritual. Because this is a world with advanced culture and society, to get to that ritual, one has to pass through extensive therapy and counselling.

2) To join Molly's entourage and get summoned/taken outside. This was discussed before, and clearly the players want to have some option to do so. "Summon a strike team from your inner world" being a possible charm. This path was made to explain how the strike team is selected. I mean, the population of the world is in the millions. Who gets called? Thus, the religious order of warriors, dedicated to the Empress-to-Be on the promise of getting to see the outer world. This is the path of War.

3) Walking outside. This is the path of Journeys. It's the one encoded into the canon text of the kingdom making charm. I simply added the flavoring and social repercussions of how leaving behind the society with "committed" loyalty to the infernal would not be taken well, but trying to do so would be treated as normal.

4) This is the one I had to work most for. This is the path of Serenity, and it is also heavily inspired, as readers might have noticed, by the initiation into sorcery trials. Since I made a door in the north-most city that leads to an easy exit, I had to justify why people wouldn't use it, and how it could be used. I also wanted a way to make heroes in this realm, if really needed. Not Molly's honor guard, but someone independent. Thus, this idea. It is basically a socially acceptable way to escape into the outer world. By following the steps of the path, the applicant prepares themselves (learning to fight, getting education mundane and occult, becoming intimate with the concept of death), and society (creating new knowledge, art, and a member of society) for their disappearance.

The followers of the third path diminish the world by leaving it, while the followers of the fourth path enrich it through their journey and becoming heroes of the people.

5) The final path, presented as an in-story scribbling, is the path of Secrets, and is left vague. It is even harder to follow than the fourth path. It is there, because this is hell. There's a giant twin statue of Oramus and Ebon Dragon in the middle of it. There has to be blasphemous knowledge hidden somewhere and a way to sin against the world.

The realms is Australia sized in surface area (Huge size: -2 kingdom creation points), and is a perfect circle with the radius of 1564.3 km (the surface area of Australia is 7 688 000 square kilometers, which means that the radius is R=sqrt(7 688 000/Pi)).

There is a small moon seen circling around the realm. It is a super-giant magnet.

Most of the realm is unsurvivable, with only a narrow goldilocks zone, and has a hard terrain (Difficult terrain: 0 points, Pockets of Safety: +2 points). The surface temperature outside the survivable area (indicated white in the map) is ~ -200 C, meaning that nitrogen and oxygen are liquid, and argon, mercury and most other things are solid. The atmosphere in those areas is composed primarily of hydrogen, with heavy presence of deuterium and tritium heavy hydrogen isotopes (I'll explain later). The ground is composed of large ice-like crystals, razor edged and perilous to traverse. They are inspired by tiberium from Command and Conquer. They grow, devour material from the ground and reconstruct it into parts of themselves. Essentially, they are very alien, very dangerous, plant life forms (deadly flora +1 point). Some very alien creatures exist in the rivers of liquid oxygen. Those creatures are mindless and hostile (deadly beasts +1 point). They use thermal energy of nuclear decay for sustenance, and feed on uranium dust that is abundant in the rivers. For a reference picture see a tiberium landscape, but far colder.

The landscape is very heavy with metals and heavy elements. Because of how cold it is, several metals, specifically bronze alloys, are superconducting, creating strong magnetic fields and leading to stuff like levitating rocks existing.

Harsh winds ~ 500 km/h circle the outer edges of the world. Essentially, it's a huge mega-tornado encircling the whole realm. The direction of air movement is indicated on the map (blue curved arrow). The air is heavy with electrically charged iron and nickel dust. This, together with the moon's rotation, essentially creates a super-giant induction motor that generates a magnetic field that plays merry havoc with electronics and navigation. Visibility is also very low. The dust is small enough and sharp enough to cut anything unprotected by serious armor down to bones. The alien nature of the landscape makes it hard to navigate (Dangerously Alien trait: 0 points).

Similar winds, but rotating in an opposite direction, are blowing from the center of the realm out. Where the cyclone and anticyclone meat, they collide, generating friction, electrical discharges and heat. The magnetic fields generated by the two winds also negate each other in this area. Because of this, magnetically confined hydrogen plasma is ignited in the upper parts of the atmosphere. Because of the heavy deuterium tritium presence, low intensity fusion reaction occurs, generating additional heat and some radiation.

All these factors combine to make a narrow band of the surface (indicated in white, 180 km wide) habitable in terms of magnetic fields, temperature, illumination. However, the terrain is still hard enough, and there's metallic dust. Because of this, the human-like civilization is confined to the five great city-states.

The cities are separated by dense forests (Earthen flora) of blue and purple leaved plants (colors based on hypothetical exoplant plants, if I got the wavelengths right), that constantly shift in the wind and by themselves, in order to shrug off metal particles accumulating on them. Said particles accumulate on the ground beneath them, and serve as part of their makeup. They also try and catch lightning from the skies for energy, which is accumulated in underground capacitor banks. Because of the excess of metal, animals (Earthen fauna) almost universally have metal shells and are rather heavy.

The city-states are located in five corners of a giant pentagram. They are technologically advanced, with complex societies of human and non-human inhabitants (Advanced Social Structures: 0 points, Advanced technology: -2 points, Human Populace: 0 points, Resident Devils: -1 point, Committed population: -2 points). Each city is located on top of a giant pole of metal, paved over with insulating material. In order to generate electricity one needs just to put a metal rod into the ground and attract lightning from the air. The poles generate magnetic fields that keep the metal dust away. The cities are connected to each other and the center of the realm by an advanced underground train transportation network. Within the cities, public transportation is well developed (Accessible Terrain, 0 points).

The cities are inspired by the Maidens, as people might have noticed.

In the north (Indicated as yellow) is the "Mercury city" inspired by the Maiden of Journeys. It houses the industries needed to maintain transportation networks existing between the cities and in the cities and the "foraging" industry, which essentially runs Tiberian Sun harvesters – operations to venture out into the hellscape and gather valuable resources. It also houses a large golden gate, beyond which there's a direct route to the realm's border – a giant underground tunnel.

In the east there's "Mars city" (indicated in red), dedicated to war. Since the cities are (mostly) in peace with each other, and depend on each other, it wouldn't make sense to make a "war industry only" city. Because of this, police academies and prisons are also located there. There are a lot of martial monasteries working on developing magical martial arts. Weapon manufacturers (including for weapons needed in foraging industry) are also located there.

In the south-east there's "Jupiter city" (green on the map), a center of learning, both technological and arcane. Universities, laboratories, arcane centers, and also spy agencies are there.

In the south-west lies "Venus city" (blue on the map), which is an center of entertainment and arts. Theaters, art galleries, TV studios, brothels. Also kindergartens, because children should be happy. It is also a major center of food production.

Finally in the west there's "Saturn city" (purple on the map). It is a medical and psychological counselling center. It also primarily deals with dead souls sent to our realm, other than those we need imprisoned (those go to "Mars city"). Mortuary centers are also there. Because the population of the world is unaging or at least very slowly aging, it would also deal with "endings", ie a very thorough psychological renewal sessions for very old beings to make them make a new beginning in life. This is also the only place where final death can happen in this realm (endless suffering. -1 point, condition for resurrection "any death except one that happened in special rituals in Saturn City").

Population of each city is about two hundred million people. The food production is handled via vertical farms, and very efficient and nutritious alien fruits. There's not much meat, though.

In the center of the realm, there's a giant column depicting two ascending eastern dragons. It is meant to be inspired by Ebon Dragon and Oramus. At the top of the column there's a giant crystalline complex. For image reference, see Crystal Tokyo. It is a political and religious center of the realm, and Molly's seat of power, complete with an (almost always) empty throne. It houses the united government of the people of the realm, even if each city also has self-governance. As a special feature, the throne, which is located at the geometric center of the realm, is illuminated by unseen sun. Anyone sitting in it, if they look up, would be able to see said sun, in an effect that is reverse to how one can see night sky from the bottom of a well (and yes, I know that it doesn't work in real life). The sun is sometimes yellow, and sometimes green. When you are sitting in the throne, the light shining upon them, or emitted by them is amplified by the palace and the whole thing lights up like a sun.

At the bottom of the statue complex is a giant sphere almost completely buried in ice, with only a small hill emerging, barely a hundred meters tall, with a giant crack running through it. The dragons can be seen as escaping it. The sphere is inspired by Malfeas – it's a giant magical prison complex of advanced, but slumbering, technology populated by devil tribes. It's composed of multiple concentric spheres of brass. It has a huge number of rooms, each of which can be used as a prison cell, with enchantments preventing teleportation, shapeshifting or other means of escape. Even if someone dies there, they reincarnate back in their cell. Only a very small part of the complex has been investigated, or is active. To activate all of it, and possibly take full command, one would need to reach the center of the sphere, braving many an obstacle. What is already available is still enough of a prison to count as Gaols purchase.

Where the top of the sphere pokes out of ice, just a tiny bit, the bottom (possibly, it's left ambiguous) dips below the bottom of your realm and into oblivion.

1) Arctis Tor – that was the place that redefined Molly's life, like it or not

2) Sailor Moon – both as a mockery of Arctis Tor, and because Molly likely watched it as a kid

3) Dreams of the First Age. Just enough very small (IC) hints are references, based on forgotten lore suppressed deep in our exaltation, on the dreams that allow us to learn Ancient Sorcery that, with a lot of time and effort, we could uncover more.

4) Five cities – inspired and stylized by Five Maidens of Exalted. War, Secrets, Serenity, Endings, Journeys.

5) The Gaol Sphere – the buried sphere under the ice. Inspired by the greatest prison to ever be – Malfeas himself. It held Yozis, the architects of reality. It held our exaltation at one point.

6) Twin Dragon statues – Ebon Dragon and Oramus, two of the Yozi. The architect of the reclamation, the mind behind infernals, and the being that defines paradox.

7) Our shining crystalline palace is meant to symbolize our exaltation itself. Something for which Yozis grasped to get them to freedom and salvation. A shining symbol of hope. A place of rulership

Black areas - unsurvivable areas
White area - survivable "goldilocks" area
blue arrow - wind directions
Blue lines - transportation network
Colored circles - cities

3D model of the main design features:
Colors were chosen from the fluff description.

Possible render (I am not very good at it):

I welcome all criticism and comments. If anyone finds any errors in the text, please let me know.

Yzarc · Feb 18, 2023

Hi @DragonParadox I have finished fluffing up the world of Mu. Can you please change the threadmark to this post?

BUILD:
Charm -0 - 5
Vast - 3 - 2
Pockets of Safety - 0 - 4
Accessible Terrain - 0 - 4
Overpopulated - 0 - 5
Earthly Fauna - 0 - 5
Deadly Beasts - 0 - 6
Earthly Flora - 0 - 6
Deadly Flora - 0 - 7
Human Populace - 0 - 7
Resident Devils - 1 - 6
Social - Advanced - 0 - 6
Tech - Advanced - 2 - 4
Loyalty - Committed - 2 - 2
Feature - Dangerously Alien - 0 - 2
Endless Suffering - 1 - 1
Those who follow the spirit, if not the letter of the law, shall come back to life if they die from anything but old age.
Lord of the Land - 1 - 0

Points earned: 10
Points spent: 10

MU – THE WORLD THAT WASN'T

When the Yozis crafted the Infernal exaltation, they granted on to them, the power to shape worlds—worlds made from their own heart, soul and Essence. A newly formed Realm but one that comes with a native human population, with their own culture and a history that harkens to an era that predates the creation of the Kingdom.

The world of Mu is a place vastly unlike Earth. Mu has no poles to structure and define its substance. Instead, Mu is flat, a port cityscape of black stone and brass that lays at the centre of the world on the shores of an acidic sea, an endless desert that circles the world and a metallic silver forest to the west. The world is set upon by weather that composes of storms of liquid dreams and silent crimson winds that all have learned to fear.

The strangeness of Mu goes beyond the geography as well. Demons and spirits walk freely among the mortal inhabitants leading to much strife as they do not think quite as mortals do. They live in ways as alien as the world they live in.

Mu did not exist until it was dredged forth from realms of possibility, the Infernals' will shaking reality, forcing it to accede to the Infernal's wishes.

LIFE BEFORE THE GODDESS

The inhabitants of Mu call themselves the children of Zen-Mu, for their goal is to achieve enlightenment, man and devil alike. The Humans are bog standard while the devils come in a variety of forms. Devils are varied in breath and scope and to give a summary of the types, they come in three categories.

There are the beast-men, who's forms mirror that of beasts and men to various degrees, with some being humans with animal features to animals with human features. Though called beast-men, the term also includes fish-men and bird-men and other hybrids.

The next are the spirits. They who have no physical form and exist as pure data. They once were limited to haunting the metallic walls and technologies of Avalon but as technology progressed, they were given metal bodies of their own. The most powerful of them can manifest directly without needing a body to inhabit.

Finally, there are the elementals. They who are the incarnation of an element. They are the opposite of the spirits, existing as a physical being and not an emphatical one.

Regardless of their power however, theirs's was a cursed existence. Their land filled with dangerous beasts, plants and climate. There were the ever-present and incredibly violent storms, roving swarms of flesh-devouring fauna and the highly dangerous flora. Thus, were they forced to seek shelter behind sturdy walls, forced into cramped conditions and suffer famines and disease.

The people were inventive and advanced technology and magic but it was never enough. Despite the great strides they made in transportation, too many lives were lost in the frequent forays into the world at large. For not even the ability to teleport men and material would bring back the dead.

The walled cities, with Avalon at the centre of the world, acted as the main outposts of civilization in Mu. For these could be defended and reinforced with ease, and should the worst happen, the people could be evacuated with little difficulty.

These havens are safe from the threat of the monsters and the hostile world that exists outside of their borders. The majority of Humans and devils live within the safety of the Cities with many Kingdoms forming but most falling either due to the attacks by the fauna.

THE COMING OF THE GODDESS

Ivan worked the fields, growing crops to feed his family. He had worked the same lands that his father did before him, as did his grand da before that and so on. Generations of his family members have tilled the soil of these harsh and cruel lands and generations more to come would do so.

Yet, there was a difference. Many things had changed since the coming of the new Goddess.

Before, the question of worship had never truly been a thing. The false Gods had never truly answered any of his family's prayers. You could scream at the sky till your face turned blue and still nothing would happen. The false Gods might as well as been a bunch of deaf mutes for all Ivan cared.

Thus for generations, his family had largely followed the false Gods of whatever Cleric came by and quickly converted when the next came. This way, generations had passed until the Goddess came into their lives.

At first, they had thought that the Goddess was just another false God. One whose clerics demanded worship and stood by uncaring about the fate of the other worshipers. Then Ivan and his family had personally experienced the miracle of the Goddess. Thus at that moment, they had found their Goddess and everything had changed.

In many ways, things remained the same. The Goddess still had not granted them their wishes. No, the Goddess was a smart and instead protected them from death itself so that they may learn from their experiences. Instead of miracles, she granted them knowledge and capacity to aide themselves. That is not to say that she had not granted them blessings or such. Ivan still marveled at how clear his mind had become after coming back from the dead and at how strong he had become. So many things had become easier for him and his family since that day.

They still worked their farms but now things had changed. Now people returned from the dead, healed, if not in mind, then in body. This ensured that the knowledge and experience they gained would not be forgotten and instead would be spread and passed on.

The knowledge of even if they would get sick, they would not die or rather would return from the dead did wonders to morale. Ivan smiled at the main reason why he had stayed loyal to the Goddess. Before only one out of four children made it to adulthood. Ivan still remembered with pain about his brothers and sisters, none of whom were alive. Dead to the cold, hunger, disease, and wild animals.

The worst was perhaps dying to disease. Ivan still shuddered at how his father had taken one of his brothers who had fallen ill into the woods during winter. Hours had gone by and his father had returned with blood stains on his jacket, grim faced and did not even look at them as he entered his bedroom.

It was only later that Ivan understood what had happened. To prevent the sickness from spreading, his father had taken his dying brother and given him a quick death. Ivan wanted to hate his father for this but could not. It was far more humane than what others did. At least his father had not left his brother to die slowly in the forest either to the elements or the animals.

But now? No sons and daughters of his would suffer such a fate. For the first time, there was hope. Hope for a better future and not one dependent on the whims of a fickle being but one built on their own two hands. The Goddess had given them a great gift leaving it up to them to use it and Ivan swore that he would do so.

Many prayed to the Goddess for granting them power, glory and honor, but Ivan and his family prayed to the Goddess for granting them the knowledge to live a good life.

AVALON – THE EVER-DISTANT UTOPIA

Avalon is a city unlike no other, for it is the size of a continent and is located at the Centre of Mu. Avalon was the seed around which the Mu accreted. The city is a nightmare of brass, lights and darkness. Where the sun sets, it is lit by vast coruscating arcs of electricity, or the roaring flames of the Furnaces, or the weird glow of luminous minerals.

The walls of the city are brass and steel, hard-edged and unforgiving. The city comprises of countless miles of tunnels and corridors and crawlspaces, dotted with recessed chambers and foundries and maintenance docks in areas where it borders the acidic sea.

Sometimes catwalks and open floors make travel easy, but more often braided cables sprawl across the ground, conduits are stapled to walls and ceilings in thick bundles, brass plugs protrude from the floor to knee-height and valves from the ceiling at eye level, all at irregular intervals.

Where it is not dangerously cramped, Avalon may open up to reveal cyclopean vistas—iron canyons which stretch for hundreds of miles, vanishing into darkness even under exposure to the most powerful lamps or anima flares. Open wells may run for leagues, traversable only by narrow stairs built into the walls, or by ladders, or by no obvious means at all, forcing explorers to climb or seek another route.

The city is never silent, forever marked by the sounds of industry. For technology forms the hardened shell and magic flowing in the wind, forms the power.

The city at the Centre of the world acts as the teleportation hub that facilitates the existence of all other cities and kingdoms in Mu.

Before the creation of the teleportation network, communication between separate Kingdoms and cities was difficult due to the constant threat of the monsters, as messages had to be delivered through physical means, such as railroad couriers.

HISTORY OF AVALON

Avalon is a city that has seemingly come into existence since the very beginning. The oldest records show that Avalon existed long before the first man or devil took their first breath.

Avalon is the first and last bastion of Mu. It is from Avalon that the colonists venture out to claim the four directions and it is to Avalon that they return, if they survive.

It is a land of steel and is endless in its supply, the metals seemingly just growing out of the walls. The mines of Avalon, first dug millennia ago have yet to run out. Even the oldest mines are still operational.

However, this abundance of metals has resulted in a scarcity of arid land. Indeed, the continental sized Avalon has a severe lack of crop growing lands. Though effort has been made to create green houses, throughout its history, Avalon has had numerous famines, riots and dissent.

Avalon has always been ruled by a counsel and will always be ruled by a counsel. Home to the only people whose technological capacity stands not only comparable to Modern earth but noticeably advanced, the inhabitants of Avalon are also unique among the people of Mu in that they do not sail the seas, they do not hunt or raid, for conquest is not in their nature. As laid down in the Ancient Pact Citizens of Avalon are the sole source of metalwork to the people of the four directions baring the few Mountain halls in the North that are still colonized.

Before the advent of teleportation, every season vast fleets of landships will risk the torturous and nearly suicidal journeys to the various settlements. Though crude in the extreme compared to Avalon's military technology, these landships and weapons are nevertheless more than powerful enough to deter even the most hot-headed raider or monster from trying to steal the goods contained within.

Once the Landship arrived, the tribesmen of the four directions trade furs, salted meats and other goods for precious steel axe and spear blades, far superior weapons to the stone and bone the tribes are otherwise forced to use.

CULTURE OF AVALON

The people of Avalon believe on the concepts of dharma and karma. Ahimsa, the philosophy of nonviolence, is an important aspect of their faiths. However, non-violence does not equate to pacificism. For while they do not strike the first blow, they have no problems striking the final blow. As such they frequently employ civil disobedience in a truly massive scale to fight back against corrupt officials. But sadly, this is not followed universally or as often as would be preferred.

Avalon has 25 states and territories with different culture. The Avalonian culture is an amalgamation of several various cultures, spans across the Avalon continent and has been influenced and shaped by a history that is several Millenia. Throughout its history, their culture has been heavily influenced by Dharmic religions.

Avalon is the most religiously and ethnically diverse nations in Mu, with some of the most deeply religious societies and cultures. Although Avalon is secular, religion plays a central and definitive role in the life of many of its people.

Because of the diversity of religious groups in Avalon, there has been a history of turmoil and violence between them. Avalon has been a theatre for violent religious clashes between members of different religions. Several groups have founded various national-religious political parties, and in spite of government policies minority religious groups are being subjected to prejudice from more dominant groups in order to maintain and control resources in particular regions of Avalon.

This has all changed with the coming of the Goddess, as for the first time, the answer of "Is there a God" has been answered, irrecusably and unconditionally. Now, the various religions are re-orienting themselves around the new Goddess.

THE NORTH

The North has always been a land of survival rather than grace. Summers are short; winters are long and cruel. The land stretches from the walls of Avalon all the way to the very edges of Mu. They above all the regions cannot rely solely on Avalon's protection.

And so, they must be resourceful and hardy to survive, which is what gives them their identity and strength. They're strong from the fact that they have to survive on their own, which makes them a force to be reckoned with.

They may not have the same luxuries as Avalon, but they make up for that by being hard workers, being tough, and always ready to fight.

The mildest areas lie around the borders of the various Mountain ranges, where numerous small kingdoms and city-states have risen in pockets of areas that are shielded from the harsh land and its numerous dangers. It is not unusual for a city to burrow into one of the peaks of the various mountains.

They have long been home to some of the most interesting and diverse cultures. Those areas, which lie at the borders of the various mountain ranges, are known for their mild climates and unique cultural characteristics. Here, numerous small kingdoms and city-states have developed in these pockets of land, creating a vibrant mix of cultures and traditions. These areas provide an interesting backdrop for exploration as each kingdom or city-state has its own unique history, customs and beliefs.

The north mountains are a place of mystery and wonder. It is a place where mortals and devils alike can find solace in the seemingly barren wasteland. Despite its harsh conditions, this area has become home to many creatures who have adapted to the extreme temperatures and environment. From the Dire bears who hunt for food in the icy waters to the Alpha reindeer that roam across the tundra, this region offers a unique opportunity for exploration and discovery. For adventurers brave enough to venture into these frozen lands, they will be rewarded with breath-taking landscapes, fascinating wildlife, and an unforgettable experience.

To the extreme north, the ever-white fields cap the boundary of what most would consider the habitable areas of the North. The Great Ice stretches farther beyond that, all howling snow and glaciers, to the edge of the world itself.

The Great Ice is a vast, ever-white expanse that stretches far to the extreme north. It is a boundary for what most people consider the habitable areas of the North. This icy landscape is home to some of the world's most extreme and inhospitable conditions. From snowstorms and frostbite to greater polar bears and elemental walruses, this area is full of unique experiences that few people will ever get to experience in person or survive. The Great Ice is an incredible place with its own unique beauty, but it also poses many dangers and challenges for those who dare venture out into its depths.

HISTORY OF THE NORTH

The first settlers found the surface too inhospitable to properly colonize. Instead, the colonists built expansive cave cities deep beneath the various mountains of the continental mountain range. For many years the settlers sheltered beneath the rock, kept safe as the realm above was sundered in violent storms and set upon by great beasts and monsters. Though these cities were safe from the predators and harsh elements, they were ultimately abandoned.

Only contradictory legends and rumors now remain to explain why these great shelters were forsaken. Some legends tell that some malevolent force was present in the rock that led to mutation and madness, while other stories tell of the creating of dangerous and forbidden weaponry that made the cities unsafe to inhabit.

Those who have survived in the caves have over time devolved into foul creatures and horrible monsters with misshapen limbs, pale and diseased skin and massive milky orbs for eyes.

All that is left of the first failed settlements are ancient ruins and serve as important reminders of their shared history and the kingdoms that have gone before them and the artifacts and magics developed by them in a desperate and usually futile bid to stay alive. From the grandeur of Truin to the mysteriousness of Et-Ram, these ancient ruins give glimpses as to how people lived hundreds or even thousands of years ago.

They allow an insight into the North's collective pasts, offering invaluable knowledge about the world they live in. By visiting ancient ruins, the people of the north not only gain a better understanding of their own heritage but also become aware of the invaluable treasures that lie hidden away beneath layers of dust, ice and ruins as well as the chance restore the ruins and to expand upon what was built before.

They often contain strange architectures, powerful artifacts and very rarely survivors or mysterious inhabitants that can interact with courageous travelers. Filled with secrets that have yet to be unlocked by brave adventurers, these ruins remain shrouded in mystery due to their magical powers. By engaging in a journey through these majestic locations the people of the North will be able to uncover new settlements to rebuild while discovering powerful ancient artifacts along their way.

CULTURE OF THE NORTH

For eons, the vast frozen wastelands of the north have been home to a unique Barbarian culture that has been enriched by powerful magical traditions due to the mixing of human and devil alike. Although the barbarians live in harsh conditions and difficult terrain, they find comfort and strength in the knowledge that their culture has survived despite extreme conditions.

The Barbarians are a fierce people who believe strongly in honor and self-reliance. This is also reflected in their reliance on magic as a source of power. Magic is used by Barbarians both in times of peace and war, enabling them to survive and thrive in even the harshest environments.

Magic is an integral part of this culture - it provides a means for the Barbarians to escape danger and seek protection from the harsh cold environment. It shapes their way of life, allowing them to endure and flourish in the hostile climate. Just as importantly, it gives them a chance at an adventure beyond what can be seen and experienced in daily life.

Long-forgotten secrets remain hidden deep within these northern lands, secrets of forgotten magic and ancient knowledge. Through their own strength of will and adherence to their culture, these barbarians wield strange magics and conquer near-mythical creatures and Monsters in order to survive. In an ever-changing landscape filled with icy forests, snowstorms and deep rivers, they remain a powerful source of strength for countless generations since times past. With legends of powerful warriors that battle strange creatures marauding through their villages; magic remains one of the Barbarians' strongest weapons in this unrelenting war against nature itself.

The people of the North have taken their new found immortality with gusto and a new generation of adventurers have emerged that are attempting to and succeeding in pushing back the hordes of beasts that plague the North.

THE EAST

The grasslands of Mu are home to massive herds of huge, bovine creatures that are as tall as a man and sometimes as large as a house. Their lack of intelligence and violent tempers make them very dangerous to the herdsmen, but the huge amount of meat and leather that can be harvested from them is worth the effort. These fields can sustain entire tribes for years, and there are even tribes that dedicate themselves to this practice.

The largest herds of these beasts are in the cold reaches of the North-East, grazing on the grass that grows on the hills and mountains. The paths to these fields are narrow, winding, and dangerous, but the herds are vast enough to sustain entire villages of herding tribes.

Fertile fields can be found in the protected valleys between the mountains, offering a respite from the various monsters and weather that are so prevalent in Mu. These fields act as the breadbasket for the people living in the East and as a safety net. But these fields are not enough, for there are highly fertile but vastly more dangerous fields in which the people brave the dangers to drive vast herds of cattle across the treacherous planes.

It is here in the far reaches of the continent, sheltered from the dangers in the shadow of mountains that the herders acquire the majority of their food. It is not common for one to be able to have both a quality harvest and a quality cattle herd. It is common to have only one or the other. The fields are dangerous indeed, but are equally rewarding on the other side.

The land is littered with great magical stones that are revered by the people. These stones, though seemingly unrelated, give the people essential abilities to survive the monsters and weather. The history of the stones is lost to time, only the legends remain. Any who pass these stones are expected to take off their shoes and bow in respect, for the stones are seen as the foundation of the people.

It is said those who dare to disrespect the stones may never return. It has been said that the beasts of the plane frequently hunt the herd and are often slain by the beasts as they are used to the rigors of such a place.

The east is known as the home to the creatures of change, the beings that can warp their form, change into other beings and even create themselves out of nothing but their own will. It is a place of mystery, and danger, but also of great opportunity.

For the east is home to the creatures of knowledge, and the beings that seek to become more than what they are. It is the place of advancement, and learning, but also of great risk for the unwise.

It is also a home to creatures of creation, the beings that give life to others, heal the ailing and bring warmth and life to others. The pockets where these creatures live are a place of compassion, and giving, but also of great sorrow as many perish in the attempt to reach them, trying and failing to get healing for their loved ones.

As the plants of the east have adapted to a world without stability, so too have the animals of the East adapted to the changing conditions and the predators and native diseases that plague the roaming herds.

There is a great deal of variety in the creatures that make the east their home. To the herd animals that roam the plains, the crag gorillas who roam the shifting forests, the cannibalistic tribe of ogres that live in the mountains, and the wide array of animals and plants that once roamed throughout the vast forests, few creatures have yet to be catalogued or encountered.

HISTORY OF THE EAST

A land which has as its sole purpose seems to be as a dumping ground for special creatures and beings. The East is a vast continuous plain of nothing but land, water and air in which everything is constantly in a state of flux and nothing ever seems to stay put for more than a brief moment. Forests spring up only to up root themselves and walk away.

The only reason that these plains themselves are a constant is because of the intervention of a group of powerful, benevolent spirits known as the Celestials which are made of the same spiritual energy as the magic stones. These beings have raised mighty mountains that dot the land and which provide shelter for the people. Civilization only ever exists in these pockets of sanity.

There was once healthy trade that once existed between the mountain settlers and the tribes of the lowlands but that has since dwindled with the decline of settlers and the attacks by the beasts. The once bustling trade routes and the guarded and fortified settlements have gone silent and now are being lost to the history of the east.

Not much else is known of the history of the east, lost to the ever-shifting landscape.

CULTURE OF THE EAST

The hill tribes that live in the east are a superstitious lot. They believe in forces beyond the natural and although they have begun to adopt and understand magic, they still fear it greatly.

To the plain tribes of the east, all things have a soul, or an essence, or a spirit. This is not limited to beast and man. A rock has an essence, a tree has a spirit and to an elder, even a pebble has a soul. Of course, the tribes do not have the words to describe these unseen forces that pervade the natural world and so they call them by other terms.

These unseen forces are responsible for all things that happen that cannot be explained by the natural world. They are what brought the glaciers to the north and the dust storms to the south. They explain why one man is blessed by the gods with great strength and another cursed to be born a weakling. They are the reason why the stars move in the sky and why the sun does rises. They are the cause of the thunder and the lightning and the rain and the snow. They are the reason for all that happens that cannot be explained by the natural world. So the elders say.

The spirits are what keeps the world going and keep the tribes of the east safe from the beasts that roam the ever-shifting dark forests. They are the reason the tribes are safer in their homes than they are in the pursuit of food. It is the spirits who are responsible for setting the herds of animals that provide food for both the tribes and the beasts. The spirits keep the land from wandering and the weather from being too cold or too hot. The elders say that there are enough spirits for everyone and that the good will always prevail. Some are just stronger than others and the right offerings can cause them to look favorably upon you.

With their superstitious outlook, the tribesmen have long since given up the precious metals and gems that once stood for their wealth. To the plain's tribes, gold was once an object of value. Once, they believed that the more gold a person has the richer they are in the foods and animals they can acquire and the longer they will live. If a person was wealthy, they must be blessed.

They have since abandoned the metals they once relied on for comfort and instead have begun to dress in the hides of the animals that roam the ice fields. This can be seen as a testament to their respect for the animals and their apprehension to take the life of another. Money, food, and other goods are exchanged for goods and services as is widely practiced in civilized realms.

THE WEST

The west is a land composed of silver metallic forests. It is an endless forest that begins from the walls of Avalon all the way to the edge of the world. It is a forest of death as no settlement has ever been established and no one has survived to tell the tale.

For the people of Avalon, this is a lush land where there is much to be gained. The west itself is only accessible through ruins in the border between the west and the South and has a large amount of water to traverse while being blasted by the powers of the storms.

The west is not a barren land. Far from it. The west is a land of wealth. Over the millennia, however, the lands of the west bordering Avalon, as well as the South, have been constantly attacked by hordes of beasts and monsters that surge forth from the forests. These areas are filled with the remains of battlefields where human and devil alike have attempted to fight back against the beast tides. But the beast tides are killing machines, devouring the bodies of those who fight back and leaving nothing behind them.

For the people of the bordering the west, this is a land of horror as they have witnessed the carnage that has been left behind. It is also a land of refinement. It is a land of study. It is a land that is red in tooth and claw.

HISTORY OF THE WEST

The West has no history. Those who went in never came out, not even rumors survived. Not even devils. The deaths are so complete that not even whispers are left, only profound silence.

The west was some alien and unknowable land that devoured all those who entered, wholly and completely……that is until the advent of the Goddess. Now, immortal adventures are braving the Silver metallic jungles and are returning with knowledge, wisdom and sometimes, even with their lives.

CULTURE OF THE WEST – THOSE WHO BORDER THE METAL FORESTS

Of the resources available, the most valuable is the knowledge of the land itself. No man knows how much the forests will change with each beast tide. Sometimes old paths survive and good fortune may preserve a tribe's territory on the border of the forest for many years, but it is more likely that they will be broken and destroyed.

When this happens there will be vicious wars between the tribes and only those who succeed in finding new land and establishing themselves on it will survive. Once the Beast tide has passed, the tribes must settle the new lands quickly, for soon their supplies will run out. If they can find no new land, they must resume their wars for the territories of other tribes. So it is that the life of a tribesman is one of constant seaborne migration and warfare.

Thus, the South-western lands are a land of battles. The people are bloodthirsty and brutal by necessity and live within the bowels of the world, in swamps and in the mud, spending their lives killing their enemies. It is a world where the biggest threat to your life comes to you every day.

These lands are extremely fertile and have kept the tribes fed since the time immoral. Rice is the food of the Gods here and it is a land that will turn green and green quickly. For this reason, they are hotly contested, the people find themselves surrounded by enemies as often as they are surrounded by allies.

This fierce competition in a dog-eat-dog world has led to the people getting their weapons and equipment by looting corpses.

THE SOUTH

A great ocean of acidic waters lays to the south of Mu, bordering the southern ends of Avalon where great docks churn out vast fleets of ships. The ocean borders the silver forests in the west, a land so dangerous that no settlement has yet to be established there, despite the people's new found immortality. But it is not just the west, because as tranquil as the acidic ocean occasionally seems, it is an undoubtedly a violent place.

The skies of the South are highly dangerous. Titans and rocs often patrol the skies looking for prey. The lands near the mountains are totally uninhabitable due to the effect of the Titans due to their nesting habits.

Most of the titans of Mu live within Mu's single global ocean that Avalon must live by and fight if they are to survive. It is not an easy life at the best of times. Many gigantic creatures inhabit the acidic sea, ancient and scaly reptilian behemoths that are as large as small islands and can swallow a warship in a single gulp. Others are long and serpentine, with boiling acidic blood and scales that glint like pearls in the sun.

Storms raged across the entire Ocean; even as uncountable hordes of watery horrors fight in the oceans to devour each other. Chitinous horrors clad in amber resin clashed with pods of tentacled horrors.

These sea monsters will sometimes pluck a sailor from the deck of a ship and drag him down to his death in the deep, acidic waters. Still others are too uncertain in form to describe, as they are many-tentacled monstrosities with razored beaks and cold black eyes that hide in the depths until they rise to the surface to feed.

It is a sea that is constantly in motion and although it is not impossible to find land plane it is almost never ever stable. With explosive violence, the lands are often torn asunder. Blazing volcanic islands rise from the steaming acidic ocean spewing flames, with lava pouring down their slopes. Below the surface, the waters boil into steam that engulfs the world with its sulphureous fumes. Great tidal waves scour the coastlines of Avalon as new islands are birthed.

However, Islands created in the upheavals of preceding years are cast into turmoil by this annual eruption. Some endure, but many are broken apart or swallowed by the seas, engulfed in the churning waters and casting their unlucky inhabitants into the deeps.

HISTORY OF THE SOUTH

The waters are treacherous, but the seemingly infinite bounty of fish, coral and pearls is worth the risk. In the deep recesses of the ocean is rumored to be a land of wonders, everything one could want, but no one has travelled that deep.

The South has often been fished for the vast bounties that can be found within and is the sole reason why Avalon can exist for the continental sized docks berth countless fishing ships that exist solely to feed Avalon's endless hunger.

For as long as it has existed, Avalon has had a love hate relationship with the South, as unlike the West and despite the dangers, the South provides an endless supply of food.

Regarding the people who have braved the waters, there existed only tribesman who sail the seas for nothing lasting could be built on the few lands that are available and any land is too hotly contested and small for civilization.

The sole exception are the colonists from Avalon. It is also in these oceans that warships made of special sorcerous metals, escorts Arks containing colonists from Avalon, thousands of miles to the nearest archipelagos. Avalon's newest armies accompany the colonists, there to protect them from hostile life forms.

The colonists comprise of volunteers hoping to make better lives far from their current homes; some simply hoping to escape the crowded and famine prone Avalon.

These islands, devoid of any land creatures and away from most weather conditions, are ideal spots to convert into vast farming lands. Most pay tribute in the form of crops and received the Avalon's protections from the tribes who have to be forced into submission and policed.

The docks on these islands also act as ideal spots to drop off vast quantities of fish and other aquatic food that are to be teleported to the ever-hungry Avalon.

CULTURE OF THE SOUTH

It is against the creatures of the seas that the warriors of the tribes match themselves and those that emerge triumphant live forever in the oral legends of their tribe.

The extreme geography and the creation and destruction of islands has resulted in the human population becoming one composed largely of primitive, nomadic, barbarian tribes who barely approximate an Iron Age level of development. The tribes constantly seek secure territory, and as a result skirmishes and feuds over islands between rival tribes are common. The people are hardened to the changes in temperature and environmental extremes, and so is the native fauna.

Though extremely dangerous, the island tribes make a living from hunting the great beasts of the seas, creatures that often greatly outweigh and outsize the largest of their ships. Yet to slay even one such beast is a rich bounty indeed, providing skin, scales, fat, meat and bones that can last a tribe for months. The hide is cured and turned into clothes, ship hulls and shelters, while the meat is salted and preserved. Such hunts are necessary practice, for with the turn of every season comes the chance that a tribe's home island will be torn asunder and sink beneath the wave, sending the entire tribe out onto the seas in a mass exodus.

The tribe must find a new home if they are to survive, for no matter how skilled the sailors, no tribe can survive on the seas alone for any length of time. Yet any new land is likely to be already inhabited or at the very least will be claimed by multiple tribes who will have to fight for dominance and ownership.

THE EDGE OF MU

For in the ends of Mu lies the endless desert. A barren and lifeless land filled to the brim with only death and horrors. A crimson silent wind guards the skies of the endless desert and occasionally blows inward, to the terror of all.

There is nothing to be found here, only death and misery. Yet, if one was to brave the desert for seven days and seven nights, a miracle would happen that they would enter paradise, or so is the saying. In truth, no one in Mu is aware of what happens to those who survive in the endless desert on the eight days. That is until the arrival of the Goddess.

Ok, So I have taken inspiration from a LOT of places, both real life and fictional. I am crediting 40k, Exalted and real life religions for parts and inspirations as well as extracts.

myrix · Feb 21, 2023

DragonParadox said:
Your powers interact directly with hell, wait until you get the Inner Darkness charm from Kakuri, the one that let's you turn someone's darker instincts into a literal Super Powered Evil Side or you know, when you create an entire realm of beings who think of you as their goddess. That;s bound to be fun from a theological PoV

BronzeTongue said:
In fairness the hells we're associated with are basically the RC Cola of hells from the perspective of a Catholic priest.

Still soda, but lacking in critical name brand recognition.

All the while back that got me thinking how Charity might react to Molly's future Kingdom, wanted to write something about it based on Yog's worldbuilding, and then my imagination ran away and veered off to wherever I didn't expect it to.

Bit off more than I could chew because writing is hard and I suck at it, still finished, mostly because I was too stubborn to let my ideas go, though also because I wanted to give back something in thanks for the quest. Don't have time and energy for discussion, voting and participation, the utter fucking lunacy shows no signs of ending, so still can't donate, though maybe I should finally try and use a workaround, so an omake as tribute @DragonParadox, thanks for your wonderful fun interesting stories, they are perfect for making a bad day better, and thank you all guys for your participation, helping make this quest happen.

Some disclaimers.

1. Yog's worldbuilding is totally his own and my take on it is unaffiliated and is not indicative of it.

2. English is not my native language, and I never written anything like that before. I obviously tried to make it fun and interesting, but that's for the audience to judge, if it's at least readable for at some people who are not me, I'd consider that a win. Sorry for any OOC and contradictions to ExWoD/Harry Dresden mechanics and fluff; honestly probably could have tried to make it better, but after the first few thousands words just wanted it to end and be done with it.

3. WARNING for those who need it, the section after the first triple-asterisk break * * * has references to slavery, blood sacrifices and sexual assault.

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Godsworn

The first sign of imminent arrival was the current majordomo on Throne Hall duty starting to turn towards the Throne with all the haste available to a venerable spider-kin. Nothing but one thing could make ever poised Embodied Flow of Harmony even entertain the notion of appearing hurried... The thought hasn't even finished forming in wingleader's mind when she herself, with whatever meager gift she had, felt a rising tension in the threads of fate. Then a ripple and a shift in the sublime radiance bathing the Throne from above and outside the mere reality, and then the Empress was here.

The Light flowed down in waves and curtains golden and viridian, illuminating the Throne and its immediate surrounds dozens of times brighter then just a moment before and enclothing the Creator in a panoply befitting only Her, wings of a mantle around her shoulders and halo of a crown upon her head. Yet whatever the eyes could see, the most stark evidence of Her arrival was felt directly in the soul.

For a moment outside of time there was nothing, only Her and the Light of her soul and innumerable shadows She cast, infinitely lighter in presence than the impossibly real original, and there was no Soaring Enlightment through Martial Excellency, a dragon-kin of the White Moons of the Ruby City and commander of the 2nd wing of the 5th cohort of the Palace Guard, only a bare identity frozen in time.

By the Grace of the Creator the existence is bestowed. That was still not as intense as the very first time the Empress graced the Realm with her presence; by the fortune or fate or random chance, Soaring Enlightment and her wing were present in the Throne Hall at the Hour of Fulfillment.

Then Her Eternal Majesty appeared sitting on the Throne, not standing half a step in front of it, sublime radiance enveloped not just the Throne and its steps, but suffused the whole of the Palace, spreading from the Throne Hall and rising as a column of light into infinity, illuminating the whole Realm, and the soul touch was felt by every Realm denizen, not just those in the immediate vicinity of the Palace.

And now we and our wing are the only ones to greet Her Eternal Majesty upon her arrival three times yet. Advantageous, perhaps? Articulated thoughts of her machine spirit companion, All-Encompassing Clarity of Purpose, rose on the outer reaches of Soaring Enlightment's consciousness.

Well, praise be the ever giving shift rotation then.

The chance to see the Empress' entrance with one's own eyes was better on her first arrival, as for the Prophesized Cycle of Arrival the complement of the Throne Hall honor guard was increased to eight wings instead of the usual two, giving a full cohort, almost one tenth of the Palace Guard, leave to be present for the occasion.

Decision justified most completely by the utmost devotion, of course, and not the silent shared understanding of simply wanting to be the first among the whole Realm to witness the Creator. Lord Commander would have happily doubled that again if not for all the other would-be greeters. While the Throne Hall was quite spacious, four hundred guards and delegations from each of the five cities, almost complete upper eschelons of the High Priesthood and Confederation administration, representatives of explorers of the Central Circle, explorers of the Sphere, Eternal Gaol service, Imperial Household and Palatial Services, and other assorted organizations and services situated in or close to the Palace filled it quite enough.

Situation not made better by the absense of precise knowledge of the timing of Divinity's advent. Best calculations could only pinpoint it to several days around the beginning of the second week of the cycle, necessitating shifts for all other delegations too, though some of the more advanced in age fungiform greeters just parked themselves in the hall for the duration. And the protocol negotiations, as rumors went, were horrendously troublesome, requiring months of working out in advance how it was proper and who would have precedence to greet Her Divine Majesty depending on who would be present in the Throne Hall at the time of her arrival.

In the end it was First Councilor of the Confederation who had seniority when the Empress arrived, the outcome most appropriate and with least complications perhaps, certainly more representative of the Five Courts on the whole and united than if it was one of the cardinals or city delegates.

It was unforgettable due to being quite literally etched in the soul. The arrival, the weight of transcendence buckling the reality, the Light of Creation suffusing everything in sight and beyond, the soul touch, the infinitesimal shift in the base of existence, both within and without, restoring the balance and granting that last missing bit of something finally allowing everything and everyone to fully be... The Spirit of the Palace manifesting through fractally refracted crystals of space and time rolling along the length of the Throne Hall overhead for the first time in history... And then slightly delayed and almost unwavering greetings and affirmations of allegiance on behalf of all the denizens of the Courts by the half kneeling and bowing First Councilor, with everybody else in the Throne Hall likewise kneeling behind her.

And in response, magnanimous acknowledgement and acceptance by Divinity finally sitting the Throne in the brightest, brighter than everything ever seen and yet not blinding holy radiance, taking the reign of the Realm in the name of Her Divine Majesty the Creator the Giver of Life the Soul of the Realm Empress Radiant Pearl of Sorcery Pure and Unpure, Exalted Mistress of Mystical Arts, Boundaries, Crossroads and Transitions, Shaper and Builder, Beloved of All, Eternal Sovereign of the Fivefold Courts of Frozen Fate.

All that happening in the Throne Hall was of course shown across all of the Realm with the best telepresence all the thaumaturgical and ferromantic advancement in the Realm could provide. Each of more than one and a half billion denizens of the Realm could follow through whatever communication device was closest, live, alerted by the soul touch, the fullfillment of the Covenant and the radiance of the Light of Creation shining from on high above the Palace and illuminating all of the Realm brighter then the Luna and the heavenly crown of light combined, or later in recording, but of course to be in the center of it all with a line of sight to the Throne and the Empress was something else.

Current affair was remarkably less notable, of course. Soaring Enlightment was half-kneeling in deference, her wings formally pressed against her back and her additional cybernetic limbs curling just so in imitation of Flow of Harmony and other spider-kin present greeting the Empress in their own way with everybody else in the Throne Hall, and on the edge of Soaring Enlightment's awareness she felt All-Encompassing Clarity of Purpose slightly shifting her being, doing her own version of formal greeting.

Yet there was one most notable difference, for the first time since her first appearance the Empress did not arrive alone. She was descending the dais steps, not visibly in a hurry yet not wasting any time, motioning for her companions to follow her. There were two, a man and a woman, standing one step below the Throne just to the right and to the left of it, both seemingly human without any visible alterations, augmentations or phenotype admixtures, the same as Empress appeared to be. And they felt different to the arcane senses, the subtle unmistakeable otherness drifting off of them indicating they were from Beyond.

Both seemed guarded, the man more in a resolute way, ready to face the challenge head-on, the woman more in a pained, unsure way. Both looked prepared for combat, with personal arms and armor, the woman's more mundane kind and the man's thaumaturgical-seeming, yet did not appear to be a threat, both as presumed royal guests and because Soaring Enlightment's foresight did not show her any kind of confrontation with any of the two in the immediate future.

Impressions? As usual with such simple communications, that was less an articulated thought and more simply a particular stance of consciousness directed towards her partner, easily recognized by her after all the cycles, almost all of the time of Soaring Enlightment's several turns of the wheel so far in fact, they spent together.

The man, curiousity, anxiety, resolve, urgency for action. Fear. For others, not himself. The woman, weary, worried, distraught and unhappy, fear, of the same kind but more prominent. Based on what we see, the man would probably be a bigger threat if it would come to combat, but the data is sparse.

Agreed. It would have been much better to actively scan them with all available thaumaturgical and technological methods, but that would be rude to personal guests of the Empress. Yet this left those two the only persons in the Palace wingleader did not have the knowledge of capabilities of, the uncertainty greatly increased by them being unknowns from Beyond.

Please compile and send the report with all this additional info to the cohort leader on duty with copy to the Lord Commander. While everybody in the Palace of course already knew of the arrival and Flow of Harmony doubtlessly sent notifications to all relevant parties, there were formalities to uphold and information on the Empress' guests was pertinent.

Getting subtle feeling of acknowledgement from her partner and reaching out through the tacnet to her subordinates and to fellow wingleader of the second wing on Throne Hall duty — Treat Empress' companions as befitting honored guests of the Realm — Soaring Enlightment shifted most of her focus back to the Empress.

In less than several seconds since the arrival Empress already descended the dais and was almost in front of Flow of Harmony. The Light, which started to recede as soon as Empress took the first step away from the Throne, was almost gone, leaving only the crown of radiance upon her brow. The aged majordomo, the wingleader would wager, was gathering himself for his duty of welcoming Empress back and trying to reach into the future with his fate sense for the most befitting way to do it.

"Your Divine Majesty, heartfelt greetings and most warm welcome back to your Realm on behalf of all of your ever loyal and faithful subjects. Fivefold Courts are at your service, as always."

"Thank you, master majordomo. Please rise, everyone."

Aknowleging murmurs of "My Empress" spread through the rising guards, including Soaring Enlightment and her partner, though in Clarity of Purpose's case it was movement of spirit and speech of thought.

Let's follow protocol, our turn next. Twenty-five paces to where Empress and Flow of Harmony were now standing was a short enough distance that even Soaring Enlightment's limited future sight was enough for her to arrive just as it would be time for her to speak, though there was a feeling of a looming expected interruption.

"I am beyond honored, Your Divine Majesty. Having not had the utmost privilige of directly attending your most august personage before, I am the 3rd assistant majordomo of the Palace Embodied Flow of Harmony, at your service. Anything in addition to your standing orders, any wish of yours you need but command and the Palatial Services will do uttermost to do your will."

Majordomo half-bowed again, presenting to the Empress a comm suitable, Soaring Enlightment knew, for housing and communicating with Empress' machine spirit companions, both any she might have brought with her just now and those she established here in the Fivefold Courts in her previous visits.

"Your Divine Majesty, a personal communication device as per your specifications. And if it would be to your satisfaction, I most humbly offer to continue personally attending you for the time being."

"Thank you, and I will be glad to have your assistance, honored Embodied Flow of Harmony."

Just as Empress uttered her response, and just before Soaring Enlightment made her last step, it happened. The familiar feeling of presence, always there at the back of the mind, getting weightier and weighter ever since the Empress appeared not even a minute ago, finally increased exponentially in a span of a blink and become concentrated in a single point somewhere above and behind Soaring Enlightment and Flow of Harmony, just in front and above the Empress.

Her companions, who had descended the dais themselves and now were just several paces behind her, were frozen in their steps, their eyes locked to that same point. Soaring Enlightment knew what they were seeing, had seen it with her own eyes both at the Hour of Fulfillment and the second time she was witness to the arrival of the Empress. That time her wing was the second one of the Throne Hall watch and she stayed back, giving her a good view, though even now the video feeds from guards of her and her subordinate wingleader's wings were but a thought away, at the edge of her perception of the tacnet.

Both she and Flow of Harmony made to turn and step back, flanking Empress to the left and to the right, but she knew most of the show would be over by the time she would lay eyes on it. Waves of reality warping, alike to a slab of diamond shattering under immense pressure into a multitude of shards, splitting and refracting the scene behind it in interplay of shadow, light and razor sharp edges, were flowing through the air, seemingly slow yet faster than the eye could follow, revealing Everlasting Radiance of Oblivion, the Spirit of the Palace.

Old, at least as old as the Realm itself and perhaps even older, inscrutable, ever present but never there, owing allegiance to no one, it almost never interacted with others. The last interaction in the recorded history before their appearance at Fulfillment was shortly after the Final War, when the Covenant of the Empress-to-Be was accepted realmwide and the Articles of Confederation were signed. The vague feeling received in response to propriation for leave to use the Palace as the capital of the United Realm was interpreted by augurs and diviners as mildly accepting indifference. Even their most commonly used apellation was not something that they revealed themselves, but a discovery from the Emerald Archives at the dawn of history, confirmed by multiple oracles as sufficiently appropriate title. And now they were manifesting in the Throne Hall unerringly each time Empress arrived to the Realm.

Their chosen form was that of a noble creature of legends, a likeness of the twin statues forming the supporting pillar of the Palace, the scales of their long sinuous body mostly white yet also invoking comparison to the statues with two thin stripes of black and rainbow spiralling along from their tail to their head, almost as large as an armspan and crowned in a shimmering standing wave of shattered reality, which trapped, refracted and reflected back the Light of Empress' own crown, just as the Palace itself would were the Empress to sit the Throne.

Inclining their head down to look at the Empress, they uttered a single word after a pregnant pause:

"Sovereign."

Their voice had such weight and power behind it it seemed as if the whole of the Throne Hall itself was speaking. Holding their gaze, Empress uttered her own words in a likewise weighty, if not to the same extent, way, after just a slightly smaller pause:

"Honored Guardian of Inheritance."

Two of them continued to gaze into each other's eyes for a moment more, and then the Spirit slowly blinked in deference with a lengthy exhale of a shimmering reality crunching streams through their nostrils, and vanished the same way it appeared.

After a small sigh of her own, Empress looked at Soaring Enlightment.

"It's nice seeing a known face, wingleader, though I had not had the pleasure of introductions."

Soaring Enlightment replied with a half-bow:

"Wingleader Soaring Enlightment of Martial Excellency, of the 2nd wing of the 5th cohort of the Palace Guard, my Empress, and you honor me beyond words. If it would please you, I and my wing would be your and your companions' escort."

"It would." Seeming curtness of the reply was softend by a small smile. Motioning to her companions, who now stood just behind her, Empress continued. "This is Charity Carpenter, my mother, and this is Warden Harry Dresden, my friend, skilled thaumaturge, servant of justice and protector of the innocent... and my favourite."

A half-grin now adorned Empress' lips.

Not just honored guests, that may require adjustment to the escort. Report to the on duty cohort leader, my wing is assuming escort duties, a note on purported identities of the Realm's guests, copy to the Lord Commander, wider notification on my responsibility for the escort. Her partner responding with acknowledgement and a pull to the expected notification designating Embodied Flow of Harmony as an interim head of staff and a point of contact for inquiries for the Empress, Soaring Enlightment started necessary preparations by formally cedeing Throne Hall watch to her now former fellow wingleader and contacting her direct subordinates.

"They will be with me for the duration of our visit and we'll leave together after our business here is finished, please accomodate them to the best of your abilities. And don't worry, mom, if it will come to staying longer, Harry will sleep on the couch. There are plenty of couches in my quarters, aren't there?" Her smile only grew as she asked the majordomo.

"Quite so, Your Divine Majesty, most of the sitting rooms have them, and they are also available in the main and second dining rooms, the emerald and sapphire lunch rooms and in your personal and the first connecting bedrooms. Though, if I may be so bold, if a separate accomodation is required, would one of the aforementioned connecting bedrooms, or the Imperial Consort quarters, or perhaps one of the two closest connecting guest suites be to your and His Excellency's tastes?"

Empress was full-on smiling now, while His Excellency's expression was slowly morphing into a particular sort of a blank look and Empress' mother was beginning to look prominently weary. Bowing deeply, majordomo continued.

"And, Your Divine Majesty, with utmost humility I beg your forgiveness for inexcusable lapse of judgement on behalf of Palatial Services and Imperial Household overall. We did not foresee a possibility for a need to accomodate exalted members of your august family, and right now the Palace does not posess a suite befitting Most Holy Mother of the Creator. Pray allow us to rectify this glaring mistake, and we will furnish quarters suitable for Her Divine Highness' majesty and according to her personal preferences." Flow of Harmony bowed slightly deeper in direction of Her Divine Highness and then even more deeply back to the Empress, and it seemed it was Her Divine Highness' expression's turn to freeze.

"Please raise your head esteemed majordomo, there's nothing to forgive. We won't be staying long, at most several hours, so there's no need for such accomodations. Also, please address my mother as Her Imperial Highness at most, she does not hold the rank of divinity and it would be improper to address her as such. Neither do my father and my brothers and sisters for that matter, please note that. Though it might be prudent to prepare guest quarters for my family in case they would visit in the future, that's a question for later." Her Imperial Highness' expression darkenen upon hearing last words. "Right now we need the Library, please notify the staff that we'll need assistance on finding information on large-scale thaumaturgical rituals, related topics and some other additional questions."

"At once, Your Divine Majesty. If the intention is to consult on thaumaturgical matters, might I suggest availing yourselves of the expertise of High Priestess and the thaumaturgical and ferromantic engineering cohort of the Guard?"

"Good suggestion, Embodied Flow of Harmony, yes, please invite Her Eminence and Guard's best thaumaturges. Mom, staying together with us and coming to the Library? Or would you like to do anything else while we're here, perhaps something to help better prepare for the confrontation ahead in any way?"

There was no immediate answer. Seeing something in Her Imperial Highness' expression, Empress stepped up to her, catching her gaze and placing right hand on her shoulder.

"Sorry mom, it was not the best joke then in the beginning, was just trying to lift the mood a little. And please disregard any other oddities which go with the territory. We have the time to prepare, we'll get help, as much as we need, return, deal with everything that needs to be dealt with, and everything and everybody will be alright. Look, there are all these people, my people, here, and beyond, and they all would help me, us, gladly. Please trust me, I'm taking this seriously and I'm fully confident we'll be successful, not just because I think so, but because I see what needs to be done and know how we can do it. They won't know what hit them."

"I... I trust you, Molly, I just wish there was no need for you, for anything like, for any of that. Let's just get this over with, I will accompany you to the library."

"Alright mom." Slightly nodding to her mother, Empress turned to her other companion. "And sorry for putting you on the spot like that, Harry. Though you know that honestly you are my favourite wizard, Warden, PI, teacher, savior and many other things, right? And thanks again for coming with me, I really appreciate it." Empress was smiling again. "Even if it meant braving the horrors of my own personal Hell."

His Excellency responded with a sigh and resigned smile.

"You are being worse than Bob. Aren't you enjoying this too much?"

"Surely not worse than Bob! And right now, I'll take all the harmless fun I can, and hey, I'm the sole divine eternal sovereign of my own personal hell realm residing in my very soul, why wouldn't I want to enjoy that, Your Excellency?" Empress' smile was growing. "You know, I would imagine that were Bob here instead of my impeccably loyal and discrete staff and guards, the nets would already be bursting with chatter and speculation, with headers like "Empress' Favourite: August Delight of Divinity's Heart?! Find out more!"."

"Well of course your Hell would have a magic internet. I would say 'let's just focus on the task at hand', but what's with the dragon?"

"And I would say 'Your wish is my command, Harry'; unfortunately the dragon, actually the Spirit of this Palace commonly named as Everlasting Radiance of Oblivion, is a mystery for a later date I don't know that much about. Greets me every time I arrive here, and then scoffs at me. Something to do with the history or foundation of my power? And then there's this brass sphere the size of Greenland with a prison labyrynth inside, right below the Palace in fact, which also might be connected to this somehow?"

"Sounded more like a huff than a scoff to me. And don't worry, I'm sure you'll figure it all out."

"Well thank you, Harry, glad to have your confidence in me. You know, perhaps when there's no looming disaster and you again can be my guest here we can study it together, sating both our curiosities. Sounds good, Your Excellency?" It looked like His Excellency's title was for some reason a surefire way to bring out Empress' smile.

His Excellency replied after a split-second of hesitation.

"When there's no looming disaster, why not. Though only if you'll stop calling me that."

"That's a promise then, Harry."

Finished speaking with her companion, Empress turned to Embodied Flow of Harmony who was waiting for her attention in an unassuming way born out of long years of training and practice.

"Your Divine Majesty, Her Eminence accepts your invitation with utmost gratefullness and most humbly inquires if she might be granted leave of your presence sooner to serve you in any way possible and to confer on religious matters. Lord Commander reports that the leader and the best of the 11th cohort will be awaiting you in the Library and will render any assistance possible, and most humbly inquires if at your convinience he could join and be granted an audience. First Councilor of Confederation and Seneschal of the Palace likewise most humbly inquire on a possibility of an audience at your convinience."

"Naturally. Well, no sense in delaying, High Priestess is welcome to join on the way to the Library at her earliest if she so wishes, and the others may wait for me there." Empress replied in a much more level tone.

Not unexpected.

However tightly were people bound together in common cause, there would always be differences in minutae and preferred courses of action, and laws and accords always delineated no more than a minuscule portion of possible avenues of conduct, leaving all else for the age-old competitions for power and influence. Those who strived to influence the world around them to any appreciable degree according to their beliefs and intentions could not ignore this simple truth, the more the longer they lived, the higher they rose and the more intense their desire for change were.

There were always multitude points of contention between numerous polities, hierarchies, clans, organizations and associations of Fivefold Courts, both before and, though much, much less overt and bloody, during the Age of the Covenant. For any issues going away due to the changes, even such fundamental ones, new one arose, and Fulfillment and Empress assuming her rightful place as the Sovereign of the Courts was not an exception.

The secular politicians of the Confederation who always leaned heavily on the Covenant as one of the main and most potent justifications for a central Realm government now doubtlessy were aiming to emerge from the shadow of religion and position themselves as a premier institution of the Realm as secular administration under the Empress, budging Cities' autonomy and reducing the Hierarchy influence. The Hierarchy of course would have prefered to subsume as much of the influence of central institutions as possible, leading the Realm under the aegis of the God-Empress, while Holy Guard and the Imperial Household, the smaller organizations whose allegiance directly to the Empress was only a theoretical matter before the Arrival, were eager to make the theory a practice and safeguard their autonomy.

In reality of course this all was much more subtle than such simplified summary could give impression of, the lines of future struggles starting to take shape thousands of cycles ago, seeded among the peace of the Age of the Covenant by expectation of the Arrival of the Empress-to-Be being proved beyond any doubt, with plans spanning millenia of cycles by age-old players with centuries of experience coming to a head right now. Soaring Enlightment was thankful such headaches were not hers to bear.

What followed though was more out of the ordinary, as almost immediately she got a request for translocation near the Empress signed by High Priestess' identity. Her Eminence was perhaps the only one in the Palace skilled enough, powerful enough and priviledged enough to even have grounds to make such a request, and even then, Soaring Enlightment thought, only expected direct assistance to the Empress and her personal invitation to join allowed Her Eminence to stay within the bounds of propriety she might have ran afoul of otherwise. She must have felt strongly enough about her duty indeed to rush so.

"My Empress, Her Eminence intends to join us now by translocation." While notifying the Empress, Soaring Enlightment simultaneously transmitted heads-up to her wing and to her fellow wingleader now responsible for Throne Hall watch, though the second was a just courtesy as it was on Her Eminence to do due diligence and notify the watch. Approving request for translocation, she brought her attention to the expected point of egress some ten paces in front of them.

It would have been impressive if not for the appearance of the Spirit just a while ago. Three figures stepped out of thin air, viridian flames burning through the fabric of reality before and after them, swift and accurate, a sign of mastery and might of the caster. They were Her Eminence High Priestess of the Palace and the Central Circle Manifest Virtuous Transcendence accompanied by her second in the hierarchy Senior Priest Eminent Deedful Faith to her right and her personal assistant deacon Beneficent Contemplation of the Universal to her left, both slightly behind her.

Together they painted quite a picture. Deacon was perhaps the least unusual-looking among the three, a visibly venerable wingless dragon-kin whose mon identified him as a scion of one of noteworthy clans of the City of Journeys. Unlike Soaring Enlightment, in addition to commonly acquired two supplementary pairs of cybernetic arms he also bore extensive cranial implants and limb replacements, suggesting a relatively uncommon preference for battling effects of his aging biology through quite radical solution of cybernetic replacements which would stay with him through all his future turns of the wheel.

Senior Priest's extensive cybernetic augmentations were not the most notable about him. It was immediately apparent for anyone looking at him that he was quite firmly into sessile stage of his life, though not extensively so as far as things went for setas. Foregoing the usual propensity of his kind to stay in one place at such age, he elected to employ a cybernetic solution for locomotion, a many-limbed sturdy walking base bearing his quite voluminous fungoid body. More common multiple cybernetic arms, prehensile cybertentacles and cybernetically linked micro-drones comprised the rest of his enhancements.

High Priestess was still the most remarkable of them all. Not breaking their stride, they smoothly transitioned into a half-bowing, half-kneeling deferential greeting, through only in case of a wingless dragon-kin deacon it looked like anything usual.

She does pull off effortlessly impressive, even here in the Throne Hall and in the presence of the Empress. Though the fate sight must be of great help. Clarity of Purpose whispered in her thoughts.

I would wager it's just second nature at this point, unless she explicitly goes for something else. Soaring Enlightment thought back.

Her Eminence had mostly human and spider-kin heritage, and it was reflected in her seeming, but not in a usual way, as she was one of the first cases of full-body replacement. With upper half mostly humanoid with two pairs of arms and lower half eight-limbed, strong, powerful and elegant, her arachniform body of exquisite make with softer warmer bone white composite and hard cold matte black metal surface streaked through with subtly glowing lines of thaumaturgical enhancements cut a striking figure even kneeling.

"My Most Gracious Goddess, Highest of All." Upon hearing these words Her Imperial Highness' lips pressed together more tightly.

It was Her Eminence's rich and powerful, yet soft and genial voice that uttered the greeting for her and her companions. Her resplendent robes of office exquisitly crafted from rarest spider-kin silk and lit up with light of thaumaturgical power, her moonsilver circlet of rank softly shining with a warm glow upon her metallic jet-black ornamental locks, her features exibiting both perfection and liveliness beyond compare, her expression regal yet warmly welcoming, everything in her appearance and her bearing was designed, perfected and arranged to embody power and wisdom, beauty and grace, to awe, inspire, сaptivate and lead.

"Greetings, honored High Priestess, honored Senior Priest, honored deacon. Please rise, my faithful, and join us."

Most, perhaps, uncommon of all, Her Eminence exuded sincerity. Among the high hierarchs of the Covenant, she was one of those most firmly espousing Covenant's tenets of self-improvement and preached accordingly, even being the only one among the cardinals to publicly support consideration of responsible research into cybernetic transcention and complete noospheric transmigration. In everything she did you could see her wholehearted belief in and devotion to, among everything else, her Goddess, Creator and Giver of Life, first, and idea of better life through personal transcendence second.

Master of the mystic arts, extremely skilled thaumaturge and capable oracle, long-lived through alchemy, magic and, in the recent hundreds of cycles, technology, she expertly held cardinalcy of the inner circle continuously for the past three and half thousand cycles, all through the last stretch of its rise in prominence, and now, after Arrival and Fulfillment, some doctrinal contentions aside, could be called the second most prominent hierarch of the Covenant after only the Blessed Founder Mirror of the Changing Moon.

Some considered her the future of the Covenant, and were she to head the hypothetical theocracy in future, Soaring Enlightment was sure she and her administration could lead and govern the Realm with wisdom and forethought for the betterment of all. Unfortunately, that same devotion that made Her Eminenece so admirable would also engender a fundamental deficiency in any governance headed by her.

Would she question the absolute authority above her if she would happen on something disagreeable? Would she stand her ground if her questions would not receive satisfying answers? Would her allegiance to justice and better life for all hold true if pressured by the authority and presented with an opportunity to advance ideas dear to her for the small price of averting her gaze from disagreeable parts?

Would, for that matter, anyone else governing in the name of the Eternal Empress? Any system of governance relying to any significant degree on unquestionable authority of a single being, however virtuous, was fundamentally flawed, and...

Empress and clergy were finishing their greetings, and Soaring Enlightment was preparing to direct her wing to escort their disparate group to the Library, when Empress turned to her.

"Wingleader, the situation I am trying to resolve would greatly benefit from a group of capable combatants ready to defend the innocent and battle evil. As I am informed, it is a duty of the Holy Guard to wage battle in my name as my men-at-arms, anywhere in the Realm or beyond, and I believe you fit for the task. Are you and your wing ready for a tour of duty?"

* * *

Soaring Enlightment was born at the tail end of the post-Unification population boom. Merciful nature of the Realm did not allow incarnation of new souls unless there was at least minimally available living space, and Soaring Enlightment's generation was expected to be the last truly numerous one in history barring fundamental changes to the nature of the Realm in the future.

With the Final War back in the past, all of the Realm content under the aegis of the Covenant and the Arrival expected several thousands cycles in the future it was the golden age of peace and prosperity, Five Cities flourishing like never before with new heights of thaumaturgy and ferromancy and all peoples working together as one kin.

Her child name was Joy, for she was a long-awaited joy of her parents and probably their only child for a long, long time, if not forever. At twenty-five cycles of age she proved her wings and her ability to fly before the elders and has been granted the traditional byname Soaring, a source of pride for her clan, which placed great value on inheritance of the past and was among the last less than fifty clans of dragon-kin among the whole of the Realm which could boast of majority of members being able to fly, and a source of pride for her, being distinguished and recognized for her abilities.

Soaring Joy of the White Moons of the Ruby City continued to mature, eagerly applying herself to studying and nurturing her talents, natural and ancestral, including solid thaumaturgical aptitude and comparatively meager fate sense ability, and absorbing bit by bit and making her own her inherited memories and skills. She lived a happy life in a happy time, loved by her parents and immediate family and loving them back, and liked and taken pride in by her clan and liking and being proud of her clan and her heritage.

It did not last.

Through some quirk of her inheritance parts of both of her ancestral abilities twisted, the fate sight flowing through her ancestral memories, amplifying them into full-fledged visions of the past of her bloodlines, first in dreams, and then in the wake. Some were just glimpses of everyday life, others were not so harmful, struggle, suffering, death.

Of course her family and her clan helped her. Alchemy, enchantments, psyche and spirit arts, teachings on mastery of self through mastery of one's own awareness and abilities, experience to advise, attentive ears to listen and loving arms to hold tight, with all the help the predicament no longer impacted her life much, leaving her only with occasional dreams of the past, even if she felt the ability to call visions still there, somewhere in her soul. And she still needed to make sense of things she saw in these dreams, they were confusing her.

She turned to study of history and found unexpected help in the form of her great-grandfather, one of the current assistant holders of clan archives. Glimpses into the past coalesced into a comprehensible picture, and it was not pleasant. She was seeing the past of the Ruby City, the Hegemony of the Crimson Spear, mostly from the eyes of scions of its ruling clan of the Bloody Hand.

Weren't her visions the memories of her honored ancestors?

White Moons were established by those of the Bloody Hands who was left after the Final War. Those who weren't interred in the Eternal Gaol to be held there even through their future deaths and turns of the wheel, those who repented, those who did not exile themselves from the clan and those who helped crush the Hegemony, taking new name, the symbol of hope for the better future.

Why wasn't she told this before?

She was still young, she would have known if she started studying history earlier, or when she would have been older otherwise. It was thousands of cycles ago, and thanks to the population boom, new souls born after the Unification now outnumbered those from before, the inheritance of the Bloody Hands was history, the past since left behind.

She needed to understand better. In her free time she started consciously reaching for her fate sight, just like she reached for it in combat precognition practice, except instead of directing it to the future she directed it to the past. Knowledge poured into her young mind, and the more she delved into abyss of history, the more its revelations inexorably grounded her innocence down.

The deepest of ancestral memories extended to the dawn of time, when her people were just bands of hunters roving the belf of life under the heavenly crown of lightning. They were suited for such life like no others, their strong wings carrying them great distances, their ancestrally-honed skills with sharp spears and mightful mystic arts making them unmatched hunters and warriors, their natural armor unscathed by biting iron winds and primordial fire in their blood protecting them from the cold. With sufficient preparation and armed and protected by mighty sorcerous treasures they even could hope to enter the freezing and howling wilds and return alive.

Dragon-kin were the first to have as common knowledge that the belt of life did indeed circle the whole Realm around and that the Mountains of Fate numbered five and each was equally surprisingly malleable to shaping, as if intended to be settled by peoples, and the first to discover extensive cave systems traversing the full extent of the Realm, as if made to be used as roads through the inhospitable wilds, the first to scout out and establish first permanent trade routes between each of the five nascent mountain cities and the inner circle where the crystal jewel of the Palace rested upon the Pillar of Challenge.

Time went, things progressed, ways of life changed, for some more than for others. And some turned these natural gifts, might and sorcery that allowed them to conquer and thrive in the inhospitable environment of the Realm to subjugation and domination of others. A day had come when Cunning Might of Bonds, then matriarch of the Bloody Hands clan and the 11th Holder of the Crimson Spear declared herself the first Hegemon upon the Red Mountain.

Not so unusual at first, but as the moon came and went up in the sky, tens, hundreds, thousands of cycles, the hierarchy crystallized, kin, allies, servants, slaves, and the idea of power as foremost virtue had firmly taken place among the rules of the Ruby City, who became old souls with memories worn away by succession of their turns of the wheel, caring for nothing but dominion over others, using any possible overt and covert means of achieving it, cruelly indifferent to everything else.

That same nature of their biology that they used to justify their supremacy ensured that there would never be Eternal Hegemon, that even if they would thwart every threat to themselves and used whatever means they could to prolong their current life, sooner or later its thread will be cut, and with it, their rule, and a new Holder would ascend the Hegemony seat. And the ever-tightening struggle kept the machine of suffering churning, trapping both opressors and oppressed, chewing through their lifes with its ever-strengthening teeth of progressively more corrupted intentions and minds, harder than any adamant.

It was so... wasteful, all this suffering, it should not have happened, the ever-precious time of life lost to this pointless cruelty should not have been.

Having had both seen her foot crushing those below her and looked through her eyes up at her oppressors grounding her face into dust, Soaring Joy found the experiences abhorrent... even if somewhat instructive if looked at from far away and forced to be taken as a lesson. Resolving that each second lived has to be filled with care and compassion lest your might will consume you and everyone you, she cut back on looking into the past and dived even further into her studies and training, which she had already been doing whenever she felt like needing more distance from the horrors of the past.

She still welcomed occasional dreams, some of the visions she'd seen were wondrous, some interesting, some educational, and she liked to see and know more of her honored ancestors, at least those that were not monsters by their own hand. And thanks to her developing fate sight, honed in her martial practices, she felt more in control even in involuntary visions in her dreams.

In her discussions with her great-grandfather she raised the obvious question, was there any way to prevent these unforgivable thousands and thousands cycles of suffering and life lost?

He thought the answer was that perhaps this could had been done by changing, dismantling or changing the Hegemony at its dawn, when the vicious cycle of sinking into evil had not yet progressed far.

What did he do in the Final War?

He joined the fight against the Hegemony and was killed in the fighting. As it is with violent deaths, the Realm reconstituted him somewhat quickly, yet hostilities were already getting close to their end, with the war ending soon. You could say he was luckier then some others, having to fight against kin was the least bad option then, but it did not make it good.

He counted himself blessed that he never had encountered his father who fought for the loyalists, and twice blessed that his mother had gone to her next turn of the wheel before the war and had not returned until after, she would have surely joined his father. After the war his father repented, did not join the new clan, waited for his mother to return and then left with her for the Emerald City. He had heard from them only sparingly since.

He had no children yet and not counted any more of his kin as his family, except for his younger brother who chose exile long before the war and lived his lifes since then in the City of Journeys, content as far as he knew.

And after the war?

He lived a better life and tried to, as much as he could, to help build a better future for the Realm, the City, his kin and himself, helping himself by helping others. And it looked like, by and large, he succeeded more than he failed, and if he was of any help to a bright young kin like herself, he would that among his successes.

She hugged her smiling great-grandfather and thanked him profusely.

She no longer felt much like a Joy, so she had taken a new name of Soaring Enlightment of Martial Excellency at her coming-of-age ceremony, reflecing her newfound understanding and her continued successes in her chosen pursuits, martial and academic. To help yourself by helping others was not a bad advice, she felt, she would go into law enforcement to protect innocents and prevent evils.

Living was almost good until the past gave her one last horrible gift of a vision.

In one of her dream visions she found herself seeing through the eyes of the a female, bound and under guard, in line of others like her stretching out to the rows of altars. Black, red, green and purple lines and symbols of sorcerous fire lit up the sky, easily surpassing the almost dark, as if eclipsed Luna and the seemingly faint light of the Realm's heavenly crown above. The air reeked of blood and death, and she saw thousands dead and thousands more having their throats slit on the long countless steps below, their blood pooling and slowly spilling down the steps in small streams.

Then she heard and seen anguish of others like her on the altars, and that was unconsciousnable, that was too much. Her vehement denial bouyed her mind, lifting her mind's eye above the reality of the vision crumbling below her. Then she was falling in all directions at once, and then she lurched violently awake, almost failing to recognize where she was before retching to the side of her bed.

Being there, seeing, hearing, feeling all that through the memories of her honored ancestor was incomparable to reading dry, detached mentions of eugenics enhanced with ritual sorceries of the height of the Hegemony in history books. As it was told, in their never-ending strife for power leaders of the Hegemony turned to acquisition of beneficial bloodlines, with high aptitudes for thaumaturgy, fate sight and martial pursuits, by any means necessary.

Apparently killing tens, hundreds of thousands, millions in attemps to meaningfully reduce local population and simultaneously using the deaths as blood sacrifices in sourcerous rituals of hitherto unknown scale, all to deceive and force the mercy of the Realm to allow incarnation of new children and to power perverse fetility charms of unimaginable might to force fruitful conceptions for prospective, voluntary or not, genitors. All with empty indifference to anything other then the ultimate goal.

What she had seen, it was vile. Sickening. It was insane! How could any soul, gifted by its fundamental nature with base empathy and compassion, perceive this as anything but the abomination it was? How could this have been perpetrated? For the only time in all her lifes Soaring Enlightment wondered if the natural law of the Realm not allowing to plunge unwilling soul into the final Oblivion was just.

She was certain her honored ancestor whose eyes she had seen this through wound up on one of the altars. Were there others? Didn't that mean that her abilities, her talent for thaumaturgy, her martial prowess, her fate sight, the very means she had used to peer into the past, almost certainly at least in part were gifted to her by being violently wrested from her unwilling ancestors through such atrocious indignities? Another part of her inheritance she no longer felt any pride in.

She felt honor bound to redress the offences to all of her honored ancestors treated in such a way. She had no means to do that. No statute of limitations extended to before the Unification, certainly not to the times of the High Hegemony thousands of cycles before it. And she would not have standing to raise a honor duel challenge before the Council of the Clan, an affront somewhere, somewhen in the deepest past, done by perpetrators she knew not to victims she knew almost nothing of, all on her claim with no witnesses? Who would she even challenge?

Soaring Enlightment felt dejected. That, as far as history went, the period of these atrocities was the only time the unquestionable dominion of Hegemony over the Ruby City and its environs faltered, however briefly, plunging it into a long turmoil, was a too little mercy. The Hegemony righted itself and then ossified, dimished but stable, trudging along the passage of time for thousands and thousands of cycles more until the rise of the Covenant, when the conflict between Hegemony's spirit and practices and Covenant's core tenets on compassion and justice led to violence and Hegemony's demise in the Final War.

Where before Soaring Enlightment desired to know, to understand, now she wanted to forget. And... she was now afraid. Afraid it would break something in her soul, to experience memories of enduring or inflicting such atrocious indignities, to see and feel how one of her honored ancestors was brutalized by or was brutalizing another. And she didn't care to find out if she could controls her visions better.

She turned to a more potent alchemy and stopped having dreams altogether, and tried to leave the past to the past, getting on with her life, focusing on her work and self-improvement and continuing to find a certain kind of satisfaction in excellency. She worked in law enforcement as she intended, and found an unexpected but very much welcome friend in All-Encompassing Clarity of Purpose, she was content and sometimes even happy for the rest of her first life and then for her next several turns of the wheel as well.

The age of peace and prosperity continued, thousands of cycles went by, the Arrival was getting closer and closer, until with great fanfare and jubilation all across the Realm it was announced that the Express-to-Be was expected to arrive and fulfill the prophecies just a thousand cycles hence.

* * *

She could no longer ignore her thoughts, and she needed to talk with Clarity.

Clarity?

She realized she already made the decision and immediately felt lighter, the uncertainty clouding her mind as of late evaporating away.

I am ready to listen. And I'm glad that whatever it was is over. Feeling better?

Thanks, yeah, better. I... will get to the point, I need, I will leave the department and I'm going to apply to the Palace Guard selection.

She could feel her friend's suprise.

Alright, what are the reasons? What's the end goal?

I've seen what unaccountable authority could lead to. Covenant teaches that Empress-to-Be is benevolent and virtuous, but that's unproved supposition based on indirect evidence and wishful thinking. All that's proven is that She is the Realm's Creator, and that She will arrive in the now not so far off future to finish her Creation and assume her eternal sovereignity over it. She would be able to assume any degree of rulership over the Realm She would desire, including direct rule as eternal absolute divine authority, and even if She is benevolent and virtuous in the beginning, eternity is a long time. However unlikely you think it may be, She is an unknown that may affect the Realm greatly with disastrous consequences, and whatever the chance I will have to recognize if it's likely and to try to prevent it if need be would be greater if I will be closer to Her. And the Guard is the most likely path for me to achieve this.

There was a pause as Clarity's presence retreated closer to the edges of her thoughts, giving impression of shifting tighter on itself. Her friend probably was thinking hard.

That's... your reasoning is not quite wrong, but I'm not sure I could call it sensible on the face of it. Have you considered all implications properly? You are talking about possibility of oathbreaking and treason, depending on severity of charges you may end up in eternal imprisonment in case of unfavourable outcome. Isn't the reward to risk ratio completely atrocious? The Empress-to-Be is the literal Goddess of the Realm, she most probably would be too powerful to effectively oppose at all. Even if she is not, that very idea of yours to be as close to her as possible would make you uniquely vulnerable, you have absolutely no guarantees she won't be able to just look at you or do whatever and instantly know all your intentions. Wouldn't more indirect political approach be advantageous? Go into politics, if your beliefs of ethical superiority of fully secular government based fully and completely on self-determination of peoples is true, given sufficient time you would accumulate enough political success to be able to ultimately raise a question of political reform explicitly cutting off any external authories, including Hierarchy and Empress-to-Be herself. If she is benevolent, she will go along; if she would be softly adversarial, she will be defeated politically; if she would be adversarial in a hard way, you would have your political supporters as the base of your side of conflict, increasing the chances of victory.

If it would come to repercussions for treason and oathbreaking, it would mean that I have accepted that the authority I had rebelled against is an unlawful one. You know, as the highest source of law is the unalienable rights of sentients, including the right to governance in accord with their freely given mutual consent. Won't be a valid legal defense, but at least my conscience would be clear. Means that if I decide that a confrontational, overt or covert, approach is varranted, I should just succeed and not get caught. I'm aware the risk might be very high, but it's worth it. Political route would be non-viable at least until the Arrival and most probably for some time after, the Empress-to-Be's approval would be too high, and the time might be of essense. Just like Hegemony's atrocities could be prevented if it would have been opposed sufficiently early, it might be that sufficiently early action could do what later would be impossible, so I would need to be as close as possible to the center of it all as early as possible. And it's all just the worst case, most probably the Covenant's teachings are right, the Empress would be virtuous enough and there would be no need for anything dangerous or drastic, and I would probably return to law or go into politics as you say.

Whatever the odds, you are talking about things that are unimaginably risky, worse than checking if a Pillar energy mainline that is almost surely off but actually maybe not is indeed off by grabbing it with your bare hands! And there are fates worse than dying early, or even being imprisoned in the Eternal Gaol for some of your future turns of the wheel or even eternity. Please, how exactly is it worth it?

With your mainline example the risk would be justified if the whole City's life free of suffering depends on checking if it indeed is as soon as possible and there's no other way to do it quicker. Nobody should have a chance to suffer opression and indignities I've seen in Hegemony's past. And of those that suffered through those thousands and thousands of cycles of Hegemony's rule, how many finally chose the End and embraced the final Oblivion over unbearable atrocities they were subjected to throughout their lives, turn of the wheel after turn of the wheel? How many souls were extinguished, each sublimely precious unique existence, now forever lost, erased because of preventable evils? With what I've seen, I would be positive at least a few, though probably many. And again, it extremely unlikely that it will be anything like that, but if needed, I will happily die a thousands deaths and then a final one to not let the unforgivable happen again!

Soaring Enlightment, please, your own soul, your life, your existence is as sublimely precious as everyone's else, just as of those you've seen suffer in the past or of those you purport to protect in the future. And yours is not just precious in the abstract, its very precious to me! How can you even try comparing an infinite future of one soul with all its variate experiences against anothers? It makes no sense to exchange your existense to perhaps potentially possibly save others!

Maybe it's the difference of perspective between a free spirit and a fundamentally flesh-bound being, but I never thought of my future as infinite. But that's beside the point, it's not about that or anything else for that matter except for one thing, two things, it's about saving others being worthwile, and me finding myself in a situation where I can take up responsibility for doing this worthwile thing, and then me, of my own free will, taking up this responsibility and using whatever means at my disposal I deem adequate to actually do this worthwile thing. Please, Clarity, I need to do this! It was bad enough knowning, seeing, feeling all the things done by the Hegemony, by my ancestral clan, my kin, to my other ancestors, also my kin, and to innumerable other people, and being able to do exactly nothing about it. You know, with how I'd seen bloodlines stretching to the dawn of time, the whole Realm now must be strewn with my cousins, my sisters and brothers, however distant, everywhere. And if I already have tens of millions of siblings, what's a billion and a change more? I'll gladly name the whole of the Realm as my kin. And not one of us should ever experience the suffering and atrocities I've seen. It would be unbearable to see something like this happen again and not try everything in my power to prevent it. And, as I see it, the best position for me to be in to to ascertain if something does indeed need to be prevented, and then, if it does, actually prevent it, is to be in the Guard.

Transition from frantic thought exchange to a long pause of silence was disconcertingly abrupt.

And how exactly are you planning to manage it?

I will start dreaming again and looking into the past in the wake too. It's time to actually use my gift for its mundane purpose, acquisition of skills and knowledge from my ancestors, and I should have enough control over my visions for it judging by my combat precognition mastery. My accumulated wealth should allow me to get the best and rarest methods of life extension, from the clan and at large, and with it I should be able to get least two thousands cycles more from this turn of the wheel. And then, training and studying, and training and studying more and then training and studying again. And would make an official request for assistance to the clan, they should agree to help at least in part, having a member on the Guard would give them face. And then, trying out for Guard selection as many times as it takes. Overall, almost like the happy childhood.

For a moment she felt an impression of lightness from Clarity in response to her not quite good attempt at humor, replaced after by a calm consideration.

Last point, what about ethical repercussions of taking someone else's place? Whatever the associated prestige, the recognized purpose of the Guard is to earn reward of freedom from the Realm by the Empress-to-Be's grace. If you are to join for explicitly different purpose, you would be robbing someone of the opportunity to earn their freedom, wouldn't you?

It should not be a problem, there just won't be enough time to earn the reward in the timeframe I would need to ascertain the proper course of future actions. And were I to actually earn the distinction, I would try my best, circumstances permitting, to transfer the honor to someone more in need of it. Not perfect, but it's something I can live with.

Yeah, like that wouldn't attract attention; though you are probably not wrong on the timeframe. Well, looks like you have a plan.

Now the pause was almost non-existent.

I'm going with you, all the way to however it ends.

It wasn't something Soaring Enlightment expected, though at the same time it also wasn't something she expected not; she felt a sweetly sick mixture of relief with apprehension and guilt.

I... I deeply thank you. Staying together like all these lives would greatly ease and gladden my heart, though I couldn't bring myself to ask you if you would even consider joining me. I wouldn't want anything bad for you just because of me. Is it something you would actually want? That's a very abrupt turn from the plans we've had beforehand, and, though unlikely, it might be dangerous, as you yourself said.

I said, yeah. It still is broadly in line with the direction I see my life going in in the foreseeable future, my goals and intentions. Still something worthwile and honorable, and you are still the person I want to work with. I'm not against the principle of the thing, just against doing it in an unoptimal, unnecessary dangerous way. And... you nourished my mind and buyoued my ego with constant interaction when I was barely alive and startingly dumb text processor and organizer in enchanted book your great-grandfather gifted you; you raised me up to fully realized sentience with your own thoughts, intentions and convictions always there shining bright for me. Is it so surprising my intentions would be pretty closely aligned with yours? I've had plenty opportunities to experience what's it like to live by myself, separately, without you between your turns of the wheel, and each time Realm brought you back I found myself glad and relieved to find you to be again together. And when I first asked you what is a friend, you said you are my friend, and when I was learning and pestering you about who are kin and siblings, you asked me if I wanted to be sisters with you. Though apparently it's so easy for you the whole Realm is my company now. She felt Clarity's wordless, ethereal smile in the shape of her thoughts. So together, sister.

Mutual warmth suffused their intertwined thoughts, and for the first time in a long, long, long, long while Soaring Enlightment felt some measure of what might have been peace.

So together, sister.

* * *

Time went on, and Soaring Enlightment became more tempered in her passion but not less strong in her conviction to not let evils be repeated, and her and Clarity's plans found success.

It was even to a certain degree easier than she expected. She had inherited much talent and used it to fuel her diligent and hard work all her life, improving herself and her abilities, and Clarity likewise shared her inclination to self-improvement. With their thoughts intertwined and Clarity's second will to weave sorcery and empower rituals, second point of view and another mind to plan and deliberate and react and two shared sets of senses, together they were most capable indeed.

It was very rarely done, but they were close enough and trusted in each other enough to swear their oaths as one, the catch of course being that any one of the two of them failing or betraying their responsibilities would be counted as failing on both their parts.

The Arrival arrived, and she had seen the Empress complete the Creation and assume sovereignty of the Realm. And then she had seen her second time, again from the distance, with not much new impressions. And then a third time, now much closer, and then she was being asked if she and her wing were ready to follow Empress Beyond.

Wasn't it a most fortunate opportunity, to get closer, to get to know, to experience? The next high of the path she set her life on, of sorts? The answer was obvious.

"We are, my Empress".

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Some final notes.

1. No sun in the Realm and so no days, the moon cycle is divided into 25 periods ("days"), each 25 "hours". Obviously artificial division but with nice fivefold symmetry, used after being suggested in the scrolls unearthed from Emerald City repositories at the dawn of time.

2. Molly's regnal name, Radiant Pearl of Sorcery Pure and Unpure, Exalted Mistress of Mystical Arts, Boundaries, Crossroads and Transitions, Shaper and Builder, Beloved of All, is based on Margaret Katherine Amanda Carpenter with a hefty dose of re-interpretation and artistic liberty.

"Radiant Pearl" from Margaret's "pearl" Greek Etymology and, Radiant because Molly is not just any pearl.

"of Sorcery Pure and Unpure" is from Katherine's various Greek etymologies, "each of the two", "pure" and Hecate.

"Exalted Mistress of Mystical Arts, Boundaries, Crossroads and Transitions" is again from Hecate.

"Shaper and Builder" is from Carpenter.

"Beloved of All" is from Amanda's Latin etymology.

3. The Realm is merciful, so conception rate is magically negatively affected by population density, otherwise even if time between death and reconstitution is roughly equal to the time lived for non-violent deaths, unchecked population growth will lead to horrible overpopulation; c.f. if roughly a half of all humans born were alive at any point of time, we would be up to 50 billion Earth population by the end of the 19th century.

4. Fairly late in writing realized Soaring Enlightment could be, with few changes to the latter part of the story or even with no changes at all, be someone who is headed for Siderial exaltation as it is described in ExWoD, seeing as she is started finding herself amidst coincidences and could have a destined fate in politics of the Realm. Probably as a Chosen of Battles naturally.

5. Worldbuilding detail I wanted to but failed to work into the text, just before the Arrival there was a Realm-wide unofficial betting what would the Empress-to-Be be, a human, a spider-kin, a dragon-kin, a mushroom person, a machine spirit, some mix or something else entirely. Most of Soaring Enlightment's clan who had bet bet for dragon-kin.

Yzarc · Jul 30, 2023

My homebrew Sorcery system. Now 100% more user friendly.

Glossary

Terrestrials- Exalted and beings as "powerful" as a Dragonblooded.
Celestial- Exalted and beings as "powerful" as Lunars and Sidereals.
Solaroids- Exalted and beings as "powerful" as Solars, Abyssals and Infernals.
Essence: The power stat of the Exalted. Substitute Powerstat/2 rounded down to a minimum of 1 for beings who do not have Essence.
Excellencies - The generic dice adders that the Exalts used.
Indefinite- The effect lasts till the Sorcerer removes it or dies, whichever comes first. The Sorcerer must commit one Willpower per effect.
NPC - Short for "Non-Playable Character". These are the characters that are not played by the main players themselves and most often by the Storyteller.
PC - Player Character. These are the main characters that the Players themselves control.
Storyteller - The God of the game. You are their pawns, they control your fate.
Schools: Schools of Magic. They contain a list of effects unique to each school.
Spell: The active use of Schools. Spells invoke certain effects depending on schools used and the successes rolled. Spells are temporary but their consequences are not.
Sorcery: Magic. Warp reality for fun and profit. Sorcery can be shared between Exalted of different types. It is separated into spells and Workings.
Sorcerer: Someone who has been initiated into Sorcery.
Means: Things that reduce the difficulty of Spells and Workings.
Primordials: Once they were the masters of the universe. Then they fell to the might of the Exalted. Those of them who were slain by the Exalted became the Neverborn. Those who surrendered became the Yozis and were imprisoned inside their king.
Workings: Essentially Rituals used to make permanent effects on the world.

Ancient Sorcery

The forgotten Primordials built the Universe from chaos. By the power of the forgotten Primordials, the World came into existence and everything within it. Ancient Sorcery is this power, filtered down through fractured glimpses of understanding that cannot begin to describe the intricate elegance of the Universe.

The powers of Ancient Sorcery are divided into spells and sorcerous workings. A spell is a discrete power with a defined cost and effects. Ancient Sorcerous workings, on the other hand, are great changes made to the fabric of the world. Workings require considerable resources and effort to complete.

How do you become a Sorcerer?

The minimum buy in for becoming a Sorcerer is to have at least 7 dots in Willpower. After that, it is just a matter of awakening to the truth of the universe as the tattered remnants of an Ancient and forgotten Godking's Working guides your character to an awakening not seen in eons.

How a character awakens as a Sorcerer depends entirely on them. They can go on a journey that ends with them making a sacrifice or simply fall out of bed one morning and realise that they can see the truth of the Universe……..well a small part of it.

Steps to cast Spells/Workings

Step 1: Declare the school/Working you are going to invoke with base difficulty of 9.

Step 2: Declare which ability you are using. The rating of Ability + 1 is the limit on the level of the Aspect available.

Step 3: Apply all difficulty modifiers from various sources.

Step 4: Spend 1 Willpower or 3 Reagents and Roll Willpower + Essence at the determined difficulty

Step 5: Counter magic applies here.

Step 6: Count the success after reducing any successes lost to counter magic and repeat Step 4 until the player has sufficient successes to cast the Spell/Working.

Step 7: Distribute the Successes among the Aspects and/or effects and caste the spell/working.

Means

Means are things that help reduce the difficulty of the Working or Spell. Strictly speaking, Means are things that you try and stack to push things into your favor. While multiple different means stack, the same means does not stack multiple times.

Assistance: Qualified assistants who are initiated into sorcery.

Complementary Supernatural Power: If the Caster possesses a school, power or charm that helps the roll then it grants a reduction in difficulty.

Infrastructure: Dedicated infrastructure for sorcery like libraries with magic tomes, libraries with sorcerous reagents, etc.

Artifact or item: Special items. It grants a reduction in difficulty.

Bargains of Power: You bargained with a great or terrible power (or like Infernals are one) for Sorcerous might.

Others: Anything else you convince the Storyteller to agree that it will grant a reduction in difficulty.

The difficulty reduction of each Means is directly based on the power of the caster and how much they can gain from the assistance.

Terrestrials: Gain a difficulty reduction of -1 per mean which are together capped at Essence.

Celestials: Gain a difficulty reduction of -2 per mean which are together capped at Essence.

Solaroids: Gain a difficulty reduction of -3 per mean which are together capped at Essence.

Means are NOT necessary, but they are very good to have.

Spells

To be a sorcerer is to be mad with jagged shards of cosmic awareness and with will and might enough to impose that madness on the world. Tapping into this legacy, a Sorcerer may give form to the inchoate. The Sorcerer spends one Willpower and casts the spell by taking a shape sorcery action.

To take a shape sorcery action, the sorcerer must first declare the general school of the spell she is attempting to cast. She then expends one willpower to make an extended (Willpower + Essence) roll at a base difficulty of 9 before the application of Charms and means. Excellencies NEVER apply to the Willpower + Essence roll.

If a being is using anything other than Essence as a power stat, then use Power Stat/2, rounded down in the place of Essence.

Spells are always cast instantly upon reaching the required number of successes. They last for a certain duration and are NEVER permanent, but the consequences of the said spell always are.

Indefinite effects exist and lasts till the Sorcerer removes it or dies, whichever comes first. The Sorcerer must commit one Willpower per effect. All indefinite spells are valid targets for countermagic and while they do not reduce in function, they stop working once the person casting counter magic gets more successes on the roll than the Sorcerer.

A sorcerer needs only one success to successfully cast a spell though additional successes on the roll may enhance the spell by granting it additional aspects and effects. Sorcerers are explicitly barred from spending Willpower for the roll. Boosted Spells however, require hitting a target number. Once the number has been hit, then any success over the target count for the enhancement of the spell.

You can make as many rolls as you dare but each roll requires spending one Willpower and acts as your action for that turn. In addition, successfully casting the spell only returns 1 Willpower regardless of how much you spend on the spell.

Willpower

Spells cost one point of Willpower per roll as it takes a significant investment of the sorcerer's will to grasp and wield the Essence of the cosmos. This cost must be paid up front, when the sorcerer first begins shaping the spell. If the spell is cast successfully, the realization of the sorcerer's design fulfills her, restoring only one point of the total Willpower spent to fuel the spell. If the spell is lost, blotched, or countered, then all spent Willpower is simply lost.

Schools

There are many different Schools that a sorcerer can possess, for the mutability of the Universe is as limitless as imagination itself. Some examples range from creating illusions, to firing bolts of energy, to seeing the future, to rarer arts like animating the dead, summoning daemons from the hell, and the transmutation of matter.

These abilities usually begin as a basic, almost rudimentary form of the power. Over time, a sorcerer can learn more ways to fine tune that power for a variety of effects.

Each School is unique, different, alien. A school is a natural expression of a character's heroic willpower, powered by nothing but their desire to change the world and the ability that best defines their effort to make their desire a reality.

Spells are an abstraction, representing the act of imposing one's will on reality. Though they may be given memorable and evocative names by characters, spells are more of a mixture of personal desire and the harnessing of Willpower than a discrete power.

A spell has a base difficulty of 9. This difficulty is before the application of Charms, means, etc.

Upgraded spells are those spells that have been upgraded to the First, Second or Third Circle Respectively. Such spell's have their scope but not effects upgraded.

Unlocking and using Schools

How you gain a School is to perform a First Circle Working to crystallize the fragment of your truth and learn how to imprint that into reality, thus gaining an entire school of effects. Then a simple expenditure of willpower is all you need to manifest your truth onto the world and cast the spell.

Ancient Sorcery is the result of reality warping and not stable learning. Thus, a Sorcerer cannot teach another Sorcerer his truth. He can initiate another into Sorcery and guide them to craft or cast their own spells but never teach. Thus, while they may resemble native magic effects, they are a separate system in and of themselves, unique to each Sorcerer.

In addition, they are not as strictly bound to the examples given below. For example, if you use the ability Technology, then you can use the School of Healing to "heal" technology, with healing, you can inflict mental derangements with the Destruction School and so on.

Schools are conceptual and a Sorcerer is a mad mad lad who follows no rules but their own. Thus what a Sorcerer can do with a School is fairly broad, limited only by the successes rolled and the concept of the school. See List of Schools for more details.

The Mechanics in play

You do not purchase schools but instead gather ingredients and perform a Sorcerous Working to rewrite reality to allow yourself to cast spells.

All Sorcerers gain Counter Magic for free upon becoming Sorcerers. Roll Willpower + Essence at a base difficulty 9 with the same modifiers as spells and workings. Each success you score cancels one of the opponent's successes. If the opponent ends up without enough successes for the spell to go off, then it fails and she still loses whatever costs she paid, be it blood, Quintessence, Willpower or whatever. You must spend one Willpower per roll to cast the Counterspell. But you must score only one natural success for the Counterspell to work at all and get your one willpower back, even if you fail to stop the enemy spell. This works on all spells and magics.

Players do not start with Schools and have to earn them in game but if the character is starting as a Sorcerer from character generation, then they start with a limited number of schools. Normally, to become sorcerers, you need to work for it in game but certain merits like Brigid's Heir allows you to start the game as a Sorcerer.

Solaroids start with no more than 3 schools. Celestials start with no more than 2 schools. Terrestrials start with no more than 1 school.

Aspects

Schools have aspects and/or effects that the sorcerer must specify after casting. When they make as many or as little rolls as they want, the spell is cast and the player determines how much he wants to distribute successes to each aspect. NOTE, a Player can ONLY distribute Ability +1 successes per aspect or effect for spells and act as a limit on what level of Aspect can be used for a Working..

In essence, a sorcerer must divide up successes among various aspects of the spell and is capped on how many successes he can give to each aspect by the rating of the ability used.

If an aspect has a rating of 6, then you need to spend 6 successes from the rolls to use that aspect or can use Aspect 6 on Workings. Generally speaking, an aspect requiring more success is a straight up improvement from the previous ones but if the lower aspects have features not covered, then consider it covered.

Ability Rating

Each School of Sorcery is bound to a specific concept. But rather than purchasing dots in the schools, you use your basic ability as a focus. This not only determines what you can do but also how well you can do it.

A School or Working is not bound to any one ability but rather uses the ability most applicable and thematic. For example, teleporting yourself can use the Athlete's ability. However, teleporting objects may use the Awareness or Alertness ability. Casting damaging spells at range may use Firearms but using damaging touch based spells can use Melee or Brawl. If you are trying to teleport a car you and your circle are riding in, then use Drive and so on.

Storytellers are advised to be generous in interpreting which ability applies.

If the character has any special characteristic with regards to the ability, such as Exalted getting double 10s and 1s not reducing success, then those rules apply to the Willpower + Essence roll to cast the spell or Working.

NOTE: Things and Charms that increase or reduce difficulty or dice for an ability NEVER apply, but increases or reduction of difficulty or dice DO apply if they are applicable to all rolls. So Carms like All things Betray do NOT apply but charms like Cracked Cell Circumvention and Without Honor Without Hope do apply.

In addition, if for any reason a School Rating is required, then it is equal to the most applicable Ability + 1. If the base Ability being used is at rating 0, then you gain a +3 difficulty on the rolls.

When in doubt? Occult. Occult can be considered the God Stat of Ancient Sorcery. However, this does limit the spell strictly to the effect listed in each school.

Schools of Sorcery

The below are a list of Schools, their aspects and effects but do not constitute an exhaustive list of schools to unlock. Truly spectacular effects require an expenditure of Willpower but minor effects with no consequences can be done with stunts.

Alteration

Alteration spells are about change, both in the caster and in the world around them. This is the school for those who wish to learn to alter their bodies, material or the general world around them. It is a very instinctive path and a careless Sorcerer can lose themselves if they are not careful.

Transformed objects retain their former shape, but react normally to their new materials; a liquid pillar would simply collapse. Such transformed items do not give sustenance when eaten but otherwise do not cause harm in such a manner when the spell ends if the Sorcerer means them no harm.

This school can also be used to make temporary magic items and potions. These items have a shelf life of the duration after which they stop working. Instant effects like healing are unaffected but lasting and ongoing effects, such as shapeshifting are limited to the total duration of the potion.

Magical beings and items can be altered but get to resist the effect, with a by spending one Willpower per roll to make a Willpower (difficulty 4 + Ability + 1) extended roll until the rolls produce more successes than the Sorcerer's.

The Aspects applicable are below.

Range
Successes	Effect
1	Melee range. The transformation can only be done if the Sorcerer is physically touching the target.
2	Close range. This doesn't mean that the target is necessarily within punching distance, but that they are very close.
3	Short Range. The things are outside of the range of Melee weapons but are able to close such a distance in moments. People can communicate with one another without shouting.
4	Medium Range. The thing is a fair distance away. It's the range where two characters have to shout to communicate with one another.
5	Long Range. The thing is very far away. This is the range of long ranged weapons. People cannot communicate with one another without assistance at these ranges.
6	Extreme Range. The thing is barely in visible range, communication is generally impossible and only sniper rifles and other similarly long ranged weapons can be used.
Number of Targets
1	1 target or a size 1 swarm of small animals.
2	Up to 2 targets or a Size 2 swarm of small animals.
3	Up to 3 targets or a Size 3 swarm of small animals.
4	Up to 4 targets or a Size 4 swarm of small animals.
5	Up to 5 targets or a Size 5 swarm of small animals.
6	Up to 6 targets or a Size 6 swarm of small animals.
Effect
1	Cosmetic changes. Transforms the target into close variations or compounds.
2	Noticeable changes. It still transforms the target into close variations or compounds but with obvious changes such as steel into iron. If used on a living being, then it grants them new features such as claws, scales, etc.
3	Major changes. Transforms them into generally, elementally associated material such as steel to marble, etc. If used on a living being, then it replaces some body parts with another. For example, a Sorcerer can use this effect to give themselves or others a digestive system to digest food that they would otherwise not be able to digest, or gills to breathe underwater.
4	Significant changes. Transforms them into vaguely, elementally associated material that need not be in the same solid, liquid or gaseous state such as steel to liquid mercury, etc. If used on a living being, it transforms them into a hybrid of the two states, granting it the best attributes of the two and the general abilities of the two beings, such as the ability to breath underwater, produce silk, poison, etc. But this may cause mental issues due to conflicting instincts. Adds 2 dice to all relevant rolls and reduces the same number of dice from mental rolls.
5	Transforms the target into completely unrelated material such as Steel into cake. It can now transform living beings into non-living material or fully into animals, i.e turn people or animals into statues or other animals. At the option of the Sorcerer, the targets can lose their intelligence and general ability. Adds or removes 3 dice to all relevant rolls.
6	Turn the target into material or beings that do not exist, i.e turn people into living statues of bronze with corresponding boosted stats, or turn them into a creature straight out of your fanfiction, adding or removing 4 dice to all rolls and (3 + Essence) Fomori powers chosen by the Sorcerer. You can now make temporary magic potions and items.
Duration
1	For 1 turn or 5 minutes.
2	For 2 turns or 10 minutes.
3	For 3 turns or 15 minutes.
4	For 5 turns or 1 hour.
5	For one scene or one month.
6	Indefinite.

Astral Projection

This School is one that reaches out through space, time and planes of existence to touch the mind of a person or being. It can be used to talk to them, observe their dreams and many other effects.

Mundane beings cannot resist being contacted but Magical beings can resist this, by spending one Willpower to make a Willpower (difficulty 4 + Ability + 1) extended roll until the rolls produce more successes than the Sorcerer's.

If the target is not in visual range of the Sorcerer will requires some mystic link to the target, such as their True Name, some of their Blood, hair, nail clippings, saliva, urine, etc (It must be unmixed with other materials), a Prized possession or any item that is in frequent contact with or use by the target, such as clothing, etc.

The Aspects applicable are below.

Range
Successes	Effect
1	Short Range. The things are outside of the range of Melee weapons but are able to close such a distance in moments. People can communicate with one another without shouting.
2	Medium Range. The thing is a fair distance away. It's the range where two characters have to shout to communicate with one another.
3	Long Range. The thing is very far away. This is the range of long ranged weapons. People cannot communicate with one another without assistance at these ranges.
4	Extreme Range. The thing is barely in visible range, communication is generally impossible and only sniper rifles and other similarly long ranged weapons can be used.
5	Somewhere in the same plane of existence. So long as it is somewhere in the same plane of existence, it can be moved.
6	Other planes of existence. It can reach out to beings in other dimensions.
Effect
1	All communication is incredibly vague and not very understandable. Can enter the dreams of others, even if the dream is not understandable.
2	All communication is vague information and barely understandable. The dream is similarly more clear, if vague.
3	All communication is understandable but not detailed. The Sorcerer may discreetly send that person a single message. When the person wakes, he does not need to remember the dream at the option of the Sorcerer but is unconsciously aware of the message.
4	All communication is understandable if simplified. Details get missed. The Sorcerer may choose to send the target a nightmare and deny them any benefit of bed rest, including healing wounds. Alternatively, he may banish nightmares, giving the target a good night of sleep.
5	All communication is understandable and foreign languages get translated without details being missed. The caster can freely control the target's dream and socially interact with the sleeping target. When the person wakes, he does not remember anything at the option of the Sorcerer.
6	All communication is understandable and nothing is missed regardless of what language or communication method is used and any one eavesdropping in will hear only that which the Sorcerer wants them to hear. The Sorcerer can temporarily bring the target's dreams into reality, granting them improved attributes and magical items for the scene.

Calamity Control

The act of intentionally creating, manipulating or altering natural disasters. The user can create, shape and manipulate all forms of natural disasters, including disasters such as avalanches, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, hydrological disasters, meteorological disasters, wildfires, space disasters, violent thunderstorms, hurricanes, volcanic eruptions, and floods, etc.

The Aspects applicable are below.

Effect
Successes	Range
1	Close range. This doesn't mean that the things being moved are necessarily within punching distance of each other, but that they are very close.
2	Short Range. The things are outside of the range of Melee weapons but are able to close such a distance in moments. People can communicate with one another without shouting.
3	Medium Range. The thing is a fair distance away. It's the range where two characters have to shout to communicate with one another.
4	Long Range. The thing is very far away. This is the range of long ranged weapons. People cannot communicate with one another without assistance at these ranges.
5	Extreme Range. The thing is barely in visible range, communication is generally impossible and only sniper rifles and other similarly long ranged weapons can be used.
6	Non-Visual Range. The area outside the visual range of most beings. Scale is limited to roughly the size of a small town or a large village.
Scale
1	Minor control. Minor changes such as a sudden cold breeze, a slight drop in room temperature, a softening of the light in a room, the sudden flaring of candles, etc.
2	Small control. Small changes such as summoning up a dense fog, cloudy or clear skies, favorable winds, etc.
3	Major Control. Changes such as rain showers, strong winds, changes in the local temperature by as much as 30 degrees in either direction, calm or strong seas or currents, etc.
4	Large Control. Changes such as creating a storm, powerful rains, gale force winds, heat waves and cold snaps (changes of up to 40 degrees in temperature), and powerful tides and undercurrents. Caster can control such disasters or take control of existing natural disasters with an additional Willpower + Essence roll (difficulty 9). This counts as an action for that turn. Success at the roll to allow the caster to direct the weather phenomena and to also attack multiple targets, capped by the number of successes rolled, with (4 health levels + the caster's successes). The roll to attack is made by the caster with a single Willpower + Essence roll at a difficulty of 9 that is applied universally to all targets and must be made for each turn. This counts as an action for that turn. Attacks do either lethal or bashing damage depending on their exact effects, aggravated if the subject "botches" the soak roll.
5	Extreme control. Changes such as full control over all disasters and ongoing natural phenomena. Attacks sent against others do 6 health levels + your successes on a Willpower + Essence roll. No roll or action is needed to launch the attack. The said attack can be soaked but not blocked or parried and applies to all enemies.
6	Full Control. Can summon the most destructive of natural disasters. Attacks have a base of 8 health levels + successes rolled on a Willpower + Essence roll at difficulty 9. No roll or action is needed to launch the attack. The said attack can be soaked but not blocked or parried and applies to all enemies. Such disasters will disrupt local weather patterns for weeks or even months after it fades away; the faster it is summoned the more extreme the aftermath and disruptions.
Manifestation Speed
1	Depending on the severity, minutes to a week or more.
2	Minor changes take a few seconds or minutes. Major changes still take long periods of time to take effect.
3	Small changes take a minute and large changes take a few hours to a day to take effect. Extreme changes take several days.
4	Minor changes are almost instantaneous, larger changes occur within a few hours, and extreme changes happen in a day or two.
5	Minor and Small changes occur instantly, larger changes happen in an hour or so, and even extreme changes usually take place within a day of you asking for them.
6	All changes are instant.
Duration of Effect
1	A few seconds or one turn. Limited to Small changes and below.
2	A minute or 3 turns. Limited to Small changes and below.
3	A few minutes or 5 turns. Limited to Small changes and below.
4	An hour or for the duration of combat.
5	Several hours to 1 day.
6	A week or less.

Clairvoyance

The faculty of perceiving things or events in the future or beyond normal sensory contact. This is the skill of reading the past, present, and future. However, viewing and influencing are very different. As such influencing the present and the future fall under another school.

Keep in mind that the future is in flux and it is not possible to see the future by more than 15 minutes with any accuracy. In addition, multiple attempts to see the future will only get you the same result and not yield any new information unless you increase the Aspect.

Mundane beings cannot resist being scurried but Magical beings can resist this, if they are aware of it, by spending one Willpower per roll to make a Willpower (difficulty 4 + Ability + 1) extended roll until the rolls produce more successes than the Sorcerer's.

If the target is not in visual range of the Sorcerer will requires some mystic link to the target, such as their True Name, some of their Blood, hair, nail clippings, saliva, urine, etc (It must be unmixed with other materials), a Prized possession or any item that is in frequent contact with or use by the target, such as clothing, etc.

The Aspects applicable are below.

Information
Successes	Effect
1	Get some Incredibly vague information about the target. The Storyteller reveals a single word related to your goal but with no context.
2	Vague information and one steeped in symbolism and metaphors. Usually a sentence.
3	Opaque information but not very obvious or explicit. A few sentences.
4	Accurate information but one that required work to understand. The Storyteller gives a clear sentence but with no context.
5	Accurate information and in an easy to understand format.
6	Accurate information with some extra information that you did not ask for but one that the Storyteller thinks you may need to know.
Number of Targets
1	1 target.
2	Up to two targets.
3	Up to three targets.
4	Up to four targets.
5	Up to five targets.
6	Up to six targets.
Time
1	5 minutes into the past or future.
2	15 minutes into the past or the future.
3	1 month into the past. You get a general idea of if your current course of action is likely to have positive or negative results for you.
4	A year and a day into the past. You can ask the Storyteller a simple yes or no question about your current course of action limited by the Information aspect.
5	20 years into the past. Predicting something that does not depend on free will, such as machine based lottery draws can be made, limited by the Information aspect. Things like established facts may also be revealed.
6	See into the past. The Storyteller reveals one danger or thing that stands in the way of your goal that you are not aware of, limited by the information aspect. (This can only be used once per goal unless something substantial changes or you put more successes in the Information aspect).

Destruction

Destruction spells manipulate energy or tap any sources of power to produce a desired end. Many of these spells produce spectacular effects, and Destruction spells can deal large amounts of damage. This is the school that allows a Sorcerer to control powerful elemental attacks such as blasts of lightning, bolts of fire etc or shape any instant-duration, damaging phenomenon into existence to injure the target, even if the phenomenon is wholly imagined and has no natural counterpart.

Hitting a target with a spell requires no rolls as a successful spell will hit the target regardless but the damage can be soaked by the target provided it can soak the damage type.

The spell causes two dice of lethal damage per success spent on damage. The spell does not do aggravated damage by default and the Sorcerer must spend two additional successes for aggravated damage. Total damage of the Spell cannot exceed Essence + Ability + 1.

The Aspects applicable are below.

Range
Successes	Effect
1	Melee range. The damage can only be done if the Sorcerer is physically touching the target.
2	Close range. This doesn't mean that the things being moved are necessarily within punching distance of each other, but that they are very close.
3	Short Range. The things are outside of the range of Melee weapons but are able to close such a distance in moments. People can communicate with one another without shouting.
4	Medium Range. The thing is a fair distance away. It's the range where two characters have to shout to communicate with one another.
5	Long Range. The thing is very far away. This is the range of long ranged weapons. People cannot communicate with one another without assistance at these ranges.
6	Extreme Range. The thing is barely in visible range, communication is generally impossible and only sniper rifles and other similarly long ranged weapons can be used.
Area of Effect
1	Everything in Melee range.
2	Everything in close range.
3	Everything in close range but the Sorcerer can shield one ally from the damage.
4	Everything in close range but the Sorcerer can shield two allies from the damage.
5	Everything in close range but the Sorcerer can shield three allies from the damage.
6	Everything in close range but the Sorcerer can shield five allies from the damage.

Special Effects

All special effects are optional and require the Sorcerer to spend their rating success on them.

• • This effect requires a large amount of relevant material, such as water, stone, wood, etc. A sudden wave of the material rushes the target and the target is engulfed by the said material and is crushed. If the target survives the attack, they have to dig their way free in a Strength roll against difficulty 6. They require as many successes as health levels suffer.

• Any nonliving material that the target is wearing or carrying begins to rust, decay, warp and generally fall apart within 3 turns. This does not affect any living biological beings, only items and tools. So a person will not, normally, be affected but if he dies due to the spell, his corpse will. Animated corpses and robots count as living until they are rendered inanimate, though their tools and items are still affected normally.

• Everything in close range is blinded for one turn per health level of damage inflicted.

• Freeze the ground surrounding the target, forcing all targets in range to make reflexive Athletics rolls to remain standing per turn.

• Surround the area of the target with poisonous smoke. Any one who breathes the poison takes one health level of lethal damage per turn, unless they leave the cloud.

Healing

Healing is a school that primarily enhances the target's abilities, often granting them superhuman recovery and curing them of even the most deadly wounds. The preview of Saints and Madmen, the Sorcerer can only force the body to perform its natural functions, if supercharged.

This school normally works by accelerating the body's natural processes, by helping it do what it would normally do anyway, only faster and better. A master of the Path can bring someone back even from death's door... but at a cost

The Aspects applicable are below.

Cure
Successes	Effect
1	Cures mental problems such as headaches or one basing damage or weak toxins.
2	Cures mental problems such as migraines or two bashing damage or rating 1 toxins.
3	Cure one minor debilitating mental problem or two bashing damage or one lethal damage, or rating 2 toxins.
4	Cure one major debilitating mental problem or all bashing damage or two lethal damage or rating 3 toxins.
5	Cures two major debilitating mental problems or all bashing and lethal damage or rating 4 to 5 toxins.
6	Cures all mental problems or all bashing, lethal damage and one aggravated damage or toxins of all rating or amputation and other permanent injuries and disabilities.
Number of Targets
1	1 target.
2	Up to 2 targets.
3	Up to 3 targets.
4	Up to 4 targets.
5	Up to 5 targets.
6	Up to 6 targets.
Duration
1	Healing requires the target to get one week of complete bed rest.
2	Healing requires the target to get an entire day of rest.
3	Healing requires the target to get an hour of rest.
4	Healing requires the target to get 3 turns of no actions or 15 minutes of rest
5	Healing requires the target to get 1 turn of no action or 5 minutes of rest.
6	Healing is instant.

Illusions

The school of deception. It allows the Sorcerer to deceive the senses of others. The Sorcerer can make people see things that are not there, not see things that are there, hear phantom noises, or otherwise experience things that are unreal.

This school does not directly affect beings so to resist the same, it must be counter magicked as per normal. The illusions also do not require an action to maintain but does take up an action to change.

The Aspects applicable are below.

Complexity
Successes	Effect
1	Simple illusions or sounds. The image is stationary, cannot move and the sound cannot repeat.
2	The Sorcerer may make the image move, an illusion of a wolf could be made to blink and shift its weight, for example, instead of being static. The wolf can also make simple sounds a normal wolf makes.
3	The Sorcerer may program the Illusion to react to a number of stimuli up to their Ability + 1 and produce sounds such as intelligible speech.
4	The image is no longer stationary and the Sorcerer can use it to disguise themselves. The caster can indirectly control the target's sense that has been affected by this spell, i.e sight, sound, smell etc.
5	The Sorcerer can use the illusion to render things invisible to all senses. The Target can lose all his senses and enters into a state of sensory deprivation.
6	In addition to the above, the illusion is intelligent, acting in the best interests of the Sorcerer for the duration of the effect and does not require an action to change or alter.
Scale
1	1 illusion.
2	Up to 2 illusions.
3	Up to 3 illusions.
4	Up to 4 illusions.
5	Up to 5 illusions.
6	Up to 6 illusions.
Duration
1	For 1 turn or 5 minutes.
2	For 2 turns or 10 minutes.
3	For 3 turns or 15 minutes.
4	For 5 turns or 1 hour.
5	For one scene or one month.
6	Indefinite.

Luck

Luck, both good and bad, are yours to command. The Sorcerer can control probabilities, alter the flow of events and change a target's future for good or for ill. This is the power of blessings and curses, the preview of infernal and divine beings.

Mundane beings cannot resist being scurried but Magical beings can resist this, if they are aware of it, by spending one Willpower per roll to make a Willpower (difficulty 4 + Ability + 1) extended roll until the rolls produce more successes than the Sorcerer's.

If the target is not in visual range of the Sorcerer then the Fate school ALWAYS requires some mystic link to the target, such as their True Name, some of their Blood, hair, nail clippings, saliva, urine, etc (It must be unmixed with other materials), a Prized possession or any item that is in frequent contact with or use by the target, such as clothing, etc.

The Aspects applicable are below.

Consequence
Successes	Effect
1	A brief inconvenience, or windfall. Stubbing your toe or catching a taxi just in time for an important meeting.
2	A lasting inconvenience or blessing. This can be a minor injury or some minor advantage, sprain your leg, catching a cold or another not life threatening, diseases, breaking something difficult to replace etc.
3	Removes or adds 1 difficulty from their rolls. A series of unfortunate events that are not usually life threatening, what would normally be a major setback for the short-term goals of the target.
4	Removes or adds 2 difficulty from their rolls. Permanent or debilitating injuries or afflictions such as dementia and psychosis. Blessings include things like cancer going into remission, winning money, etc.
5	Removes or adds 3 difficulties from their rolls. Life threatening events, extremely deadly diseases, etc. Blessings include surviving deadly events.
6	Removes or adds 3 difficulty and 3 dice from their rolls. At this level, it becomes very obvious if someone is blessed or cursed.
Number of Targets
1	1 target.
2	Up to 2 targets.
3	Up to 3 targets.
4	Up to 4 targets.
5	Up to 5 targets.
6	Up to 6 targets.
Duration
1	For 1 turn or 5 minutes.
2	For 2 turns or 10 minutes.
3	For 3 turns or 15 minutes.
4	For 5 turns or 1 hour.
5	For one scene or one month.
6	Indefinite.

Mind Control

Mind Control spells….well mind control people. These spells affect the minds of others, influencing or controlling their behavior. This can be resisted by those with enough willpower or if it is being used to force someone to do anything against their intimacy or take obvious suicidal actions by spending one Willpower per roll to make a Willpower (difficulty 4 + Ability + 1) extended roll until the rolls produce more successes than the Sorcerer's.

Normally, each character makes this roll when the spell first goes into effect if they are awake and conscious. However, people with Willpower 9 - 10 make the check every day. Those with Willpower 1 - 2, make it once, if that at all.

Those who possess similar mind-influencing powers can also typically ignore attempts to influence them with this Path. Magical beings can make the Willpower rolls if they are aware of the influence in addition to the above rule.

The Aspects applicable are below.

Influence
Successes	Effect
1	Add 1 dice to all Social rolls by the Caster against the affected target.
2	In addition to the above, the caster can also make a simple request. As long as the request is something within a target's nature, they do not get to resist.
3	In addition to the above, the caster can also make a complex request. As long as the request is something within a target's nature, they do not get to resist.
4	Add 2 dice to all Social rolls by the Caster against the affected target. The caster can also make a complex request and as long as the request is something that is not guaranteed to cause harm, a non-magic Target does not get to resist. You can switch the context of intimacies. From love to hate, from dislike to infatuation, etc.
5	In addition to the above, the caster can make a complex request and may rewrite the target's memories, telling the target in as much or as little detail as they desire what happened, after which the target will remember what the caster told them, filling in any gaps by themselves. .
6	Add 3 dice to all Social rolls by the Caster against the affected target. As above but can now affect Supernatural beings and other beings with mind control powers, though they can roll to resist the effect.
Number of Targets
1	1 target.
2	Up to 2 targets.
3	Up to 3 targets.
4	Up to 4 targets.
5	Up to 5 targets.
6	Up to 6 targets.
Duration
1	For 1 turn or 5 minutes.
2	For 2 turns or 10 minutes.
3	For 3 turns or 15 minutes.
4	For 5 turns or 1 hour.
5	For one scene or one month.
6	Indefinite.

Summoning and Warding

The ability to Summon, bind and control various natural or supernatural entities. Sorcerers can use their powers to command ghosts, demons, animals, even other people, both living and dead. A creature or object cannot appear inside another creature or object, nor can it appear floating in an empty space. This is to prevent a conjuror from destroying things by summoning things in other things. So summoning puppies inside people is not allowed but summoning puppies inside buildings is allowed. Essentially, it must arrive in an open location on a surface capable of supporting it.

NOTE: These rules are very much can be used to dead animate bodies or machine frames rather than summon them.

The Aspects applicable are below.

Scale
Successes	Effect
1	The Sorcerer can affect simple creatures such as small, unintelligent animals, like rats, bats and insects. This also functions upon simple spirits/demons or basic technological devices like toasters etc.
2	The Sorcerer can affect large creatures such as wolves, ghosts of the dead or larger technical devices like televisions, etc.
3	The Sorcerer can affect large animals like elephants, self-willed natural beings like humans, spirits/demons and complex electronics such as computers etc.
4	The Sorcerer can affect ghouls, mortal magicians and similar low powered supernatural entities. Magical items may be affected. Truly gigantic but possible creatures such as dinosaurs are also in this category.
5	The Sorcerer can affect powerful magical items, supernatural beings such as vampires, werewolves, lesser spirits/devils and the like. Colossal and building sized creatures are also in this category.
6	The Sorcerer can affect items and beings such as powerful Gods, Demons, Angels, etc. Mountain sized beings and supernaturally large beings fall under this category.
Control
1	The summoned being cannot act against the summoner. But does not have to obey the commands of the summoner.
2	Basic control. The summoned being must perform basic actions which would not harm the summoned being or answer at least one of the Sorcerer's questions truthfully.
3	The being must truthfully answer the Sorcerer's questions and must perform any one service demanded, which can carry a risk of injury, though it may twist the spirit of the order.
4	The being must perform a task for the caster as directed, regardless of risk, following the letter of the order, if not the spirit.
5	The Sorcerer can order the being to instead perform a task for another being or answer any questions posed by them truthfully.
6	The being must follow the letter and spirit of the order. It must act in the best interests of the Sorcerer for the duration of the summons.
Duration
1	For 1 turn or 5 minutes.
2	For 2 turns or 10 minutes.
3	For 3 turns or 15 minutes.
4	For 5 turns or 1 hour.
5	For one scene or one month.
6	Indefinite.
Number of Targets
1	1 target or a size 1 swarm of small animals.
2	Up to 2 targets or a Size 2 swarm of small animals.
3	Up to 3 targets or a Size 3 swarm of small animals.
4	Up to 4 targets or a Size 4 swarm of small animals.
5	Up to 5 targets or a Size 5 swarm of small animals.
6	Up to 6 targets or a Size 6 swarm of small animals.

Warding Strength

Wards are a simple Willpower + Essence roll at the determined difficulty. The Strength of the Wards are limited by Ability + 1. Each success causes the subject to lose one die from all actions against the sorcerer.

With Ability at 3+, the sorcerer may create a Warding Circle that forces the creature to not be able to pass into or out of the circle, unless the creature scores more successes on a Willpower + Essence (difficulty 4 + Ability + 1) roll than the Sorcerer scored on the Ward roll.

This is the ability used to usurp any stationary magical effects. While it can affect Workings, it cannot weaken or change them, only manipulate and switch things like foe recognition or ownership. This is temporary, limited by Duration.

Telekinesis

Telekinesis is the art of moving items, beings etc with the power of your mind. This is the power that allows a person to influence a physical world without physical interaction.

Once the spell is cast, the Sorcerer has control over the object till the end of the Scene and Counter magic does not degrade the spell unless the number of successes rolled is reduced to 0, in which case the Sorcerer simply loses control over the item.

The Aspects applicable are below.

Weight
Successes	Effect
1	Very Small items. A coin, business card, penknife, etc. Life forms cannot be manipulated at this stage.
2	Small items, a hardcover book. At this level, very small or simple lifeforms (insects, snails, etc. ) can be manipulated as well.
3	A largish object such as a computer monitor, telephones etc.
4	Heavy objects such as a cupboard or wardrobe, which can be physically lifted by a normal human can be manipulated.
5	Very heavy objects from cars to elephants can be moved.
6	Extremely heavy objects like large buses etc can be moved.
Range
1	Close range. This doesn't mean that the things being moved are necessarily within punching distance of each other, but that they are very close.
2	Short Range. The things are outside of the range of Melee weapons but are able to close such a distance in moments. People can communicate with one another without shouting.
3	Medium Range. The thing is a fair distance away. It's the range where two characters have to shout to communicate with one another.
4	Long Range. The thing is very far away. This is the range of long ranged weapons. People cannot communicate with one another without assistance at these ranges.
5	Extreme Range. The thing is barely in visible range, communication is generally impossible and only sniper rifles and other similarly long ranged weapons can be used.
6	Somewhere in the same plane of existence. So long as it is somewhere in the same plane of existence, it can be moved.
Control
1	It moves in the general direction you want it to. You have no real control.
2	You have a rough control over the speed and direction of the movement. Things pretty much go where you want them to but without much fine control.
3	You have some fine control over the thing. Rolls involving the thing, such as attacks etc made at a +1 difficulty.
4	You have fine control over the thing. You can use telekinesis to do fine tasks such as opening locks, slowly threading a needle, etc.
5	You have Extreme control over the thing. This lowers the difficulty of all actions involving the said thing by -1.
6	The thing automatically does what you want it to with no further action. Mechanically, manipulating the object in combat no longer requires an action.
Number of Targets
1	1 target.
2	Up to 2 targets.
3	Up to 3 targets.
4	Up to 4 targets.
5	Up to 5 targets.
6	Up to 6 targets.

Teleportation

What is the shortest route between two points? A Straight line? No, the shortest route is directly from Point A to Point B, no travel required. Teleportation is the art of just that, moving from Point A to B without the messy and time consuming travel time.

Non-magical beings cannot resist the effect and can be forcefully teleported but Magical beings get to resist the effect, if they are aware of it, by spending one Willpower per roll to make a Willpower (difficulty 4 + Ability + 1) extended roll until the rolls produce more successes than the Sorcerer's.

The Aspects applicable are below.

Range
Successes	Effect
1	Close range. This doesn't mean that the things being moved are necessarily within punching distance of each other, but that they are very close.
2	Short Range. The things are outside of the range of Melee weapons but are able to close such a distance in moments. People can communicate with one another without shouting.
3	Medium Range. The thing is a fair distance away. It's the range where two characters have to shout to communicate with one another.
4	Long Range. The thing is very far away. This is the range of long ranged weapons. People cannot communicate with one another without assistance at these ranges.
5	Extreme Range. The thing is barely in visible range, communication is generally impossible and only sniper rifles and other similarly long ranged weapons can be used.
6	Somewhere in the same plane of existence that you have been to at least once. So long as it is somewhere in the same plane of existence, you can go there.
Number of Targets
1	1 target or a size 1 swarm of small animals.
2	Up to 2 targets or a Size 2 swarm of small animals.
3	Up to 3 targets or a Size 3 swarm of small animals.
4	Up to 4 targets or a Size 4 swarm of small animals.
5	Up to 5 targets or a Size 5 swarm of small animals.
6	Up to 6 targets or a Size 6 swarm of small animals.
Casting Speed
1	Teleportation requires 6 turns of no actions or 6 minutes.
2	Teleportation requires 5 turns of no actions or 5 minutes.
3	Teleportation requires 4 turns of no actions or 4 minutes.
4	Teleportation requires 3 turns of no actions or 3 minutes.
5	Teleportation requires 2 turns of no action or 2 minutes.
6	Teleportation is instant.

Upgrading Schools

Spells from schools always affect only individuals by base, with very few exceptions. They do not affect Battle Groups or large areas such as villages or cities. But Workings can be used to upgrade the scope of Spells from a specific school. Take healing for example. With a First Circle boost, the healing effect can affect a magnitude 1 - 2 Battlegroup. With a Second Circle Working, heals can affect a small town. At Third Circle? It can hit a large City.

This explicitly scales with the setting. For example, in a Space Opera, entire planets can fall under the Third Circle, substituting for cities. Even entire galaxies can substitute for cities if the setting is big enough.

Using a Spell as a basis for a Working does not count as upgrading, even if you already have it. For example, healing an entire city in an instant counts as an upgrade, but permanently transmuting material according to the rules of Alteration school with a Working does not count.

Essentially? Anything that causes the spell effect to be permanent is a Working and anything that boosts spells from a school to hit more people is a Boost.

If I upgrade a School, can I still cast the base form? Yes, even if you upgrade a School all the way to the Third Circle, you can still cast it as a Second or First or even as a Base Spell.

Do I need access to the Second or Third Circle to upgrade a Spell to that Circle? Yes, normally speaking the Character must perform the Working but with Storyteller permission, you can have a Circle member or someone with access do the ritual for you, but be careful with trusting your soul to strange beings. .

Target Number

A spell in its base form does not need a target number. If you roll at least one success, the spell is successful. However, when spells are upgraded, you need to roll a certain number of successes over the course of a minimum number of turns before the spell is ready. Once you hit the target number, you can continue accruing successes until you are ready to cast the spell.

Base Spell: No Target Number needed.

First Circle Spell: 10 Successes, at least one turn.

Second Circle Spell: 20 Successes, at least two turns.

Third Circle Spell: 40 Successes, at least three turns.

Effects of Upgrading

First Circle Spell: Effects or summons a battle group of up to Size 2. Can increase the area of effect to include an area the size of a small village or the number of targets to the population within.

Second Circle Spell: Effects or summons a battle group of up to Size 4. Can increase the area of effect to include an area the size of a Town or the number of targets to the population within.

Third Circle Spell: Effects or summons a battle group of up to Size 5. Can increase the area of effect to include an area the size of a City or the number of targets to the population within.

NOTE: To actually affect a Size X Battle Group, you still need to select the corresponding multiple people option. So if you want to affect a Size 5 battle group, your spell has to affect 5 people by base. Similarly, if you want to affect a City sized area then you need to follow similar rules.

Pre-casting Spells

A character may only have one pre-caste spell active at a time for the unboosted spell and one for each Circle, so a maximum of 4 spells in total. The spells stored need not be related and can be from different schools.

A Base Spell.
A Spell Boosted by the First Circle.
A Spell Boosted by the Second Circle.
A Spell Boosted by the Third Circle.

Sorcerous Workings

Sorcerous workings allow characters to permanently reshape the world through their sheer Willpower. Workings are PERMANENT unless countered by another Working. Making the spell of a school permanent with a Working is possible and such a permanent effect CANNOT be countermagicked and has to be opposed by another working. Though take note you do not need to know the school to make a spell from it permanent.

Every Working begins with the sorcerer's intention: what they wish to accomplish. Once this intention has been established, the working is then assigned three separate regents.

Enacting the working is an extended (Willpower + Essence) roll, with a base difficulty of 9. This roll does not require a Willpower expenditure.

The combined roll for First Circle Workings last for an Hour. All Exalted and reasonably-powerful mortals and Spirits have access to this circle.

The combined rolls for Second Circle Workings last for a day. All Celestial Exalted and only powerful beings have access to this circle.

The combined rolls for Third Circle Workings last for a week. Only Solaroids and Creator Gods have access to this Circle. Yes, that is a capital G in God.

Even if you gain all the successes you need to complete the Working, you are still bound by the time taken for the Working to complete. However, Charms like Craftsman Need no Tools or similar apply to Sorcerous Workings, reducing the time needed to finish the working.

While the Storyteller determines how a successful working manifests in the world, it cannot defy the player's intent. The Storyteller can add catches, quirks, or twists that make the working more interesting or flavourful but not ones that the Player dislikes.

While what is possible is left at the hands of the Storyteller, the player gets veto rights on the rest.

Can my Character (PC or Storyteller controlled Big bad) access Sorcery Circles they do not normally have access to?

Yes with GM permission, but it adds +4 difficulty per Circle you access. Meaning a Dragon blooded has a +4 difficulty in all Workings of the Second Circle and +8 Difficulty in the Third Circle while Celestials have +4 difficulty in the Third Circle.

How Workings Work

The combined rolls for a First Circle working lasts as long as it is indicated. Each roll is instant and you can make rolls as per the rules are provided below. Sum up all the successes from the rolls and if you hit the target total, your working is a success. This is capped at the First Circle and additional successes cannot reach effects that fall under the Second and Third Circle.

Second and Third Circle Workings do not do anything on their own, instead acting as a booster or cap breaker for the First Circle Working. How it works is as follows.

A Second Circle working is simply a first Circle working but boosted by the Second Circle Working. You make the First Circle rolls as usual until you hit the cap. Then you make a single roll for a Second Circle Working and a single success on that roll ensures that the cap is broken. Then continue making more First Circle rolls until you reach the target number for the effects of the Second Circle.

A Third Circle working is the same as above but doing a single Third Circle roll to remove that cap for the Third Circle when you reach it. As previously, the roll must succeed with at least one success for the Working to work. Then, continue rolling First Circle Workings until you get the desired number of successes.

The successes rolled in the Second and Third Circle roll always count towards the target total. If at any point you fail either the Second Circle roll or the Third Circle roll, then the entire Working is wasted and you will have to start from the beginning.

How many rolls can I make?

To determine the number of rolls that can be made before the Working fails, add together the factors for the workshop and their reagents. If you're missing either, you can't even start.

Then add bonuses for extra time taken, the help of others, complementary abilities, relevant magic, and anything else that seems appropriate. Not all of these are necessary, but they are very good to have.

A normal Spirit or magical item can only grant an initiation that reduces difficulty by -1. Gods and powerful items can grant an initiation that reduces difficulty by -2. Only truly powerful beings like a head of a Pantheon or Creator Gods can grant an initiation that reduces difficulty by -3.

Blessings

+1 rolls for a blessing from a spirit or a demon. (Celestials gain this for free)

+2 rolls for a blessing from a God or Godlike being. (Solars gain this for free)

+3 rolls for a blessing from a Supremely powerful God or being. (Infernals gain this for free)

Workshop

This does not stack with itself.

+1 rolls for a basic workshop, with all the standard tools.

+2 rolls for a master's workshop, which contains a high quality example of every tool a normal craftsman in the field would ever want.

+3 rolls for a supernaturally excellent workshop. A character using Craftsman Needs No Tools or its equivalent of craft charm has this level of workshop for most projects.

Note however that manses and extremely large Artifacts may require large numbers of laborers as part of the workshop.

Reagents

This does not stack with itself.

+2 rolls for using resonant mundane reagents.

+3 rolls for using one resonant magical reagent in addition to the above.

+4 rolls for using mostly resonant magical reagents.

+5 rolls for using purely resonant magical ingredients.

Assistance

+1 roll for working with a master assistant or a team of competent workers.

+2 rolls for working with supernaturally excellent help.

Time

This does not stack with itself.

+1 roll for taking five times as much time as is standard.

+2 rolls for taking ten times as much time as is standard.

+3 rolls for taking fifteen times as much time as is standard.

Other

+2/+1 roll for having an Ability related to the Working at 5, or at 3.

+1 roll for having a Charm, spell, anima power, or other magical ability that's related to the Working or Spell.

+1 roll for tools suffused with resonant Essence. Tools made from charms apply if the user's Essence is resonant.

+2 rolls for having a resonant Essence. For Infernals, this is limited to their Favoured hells.

+3 rolls for using a helper with resonant Essence.

Undoing Workings - Primacy

You cannot undo a Working Directly. Instead, you need to weaken it with another working equal to it or destroy it with a working of a greater Circle. Generally speaking it is easier to destroy than to create and as such, weakening or undoing a Working only requires a single roll of the Corresponding Circle or greater.

Take Solar Circle workings as an example. You must first weaken it with another Solar Circle Working that uses the reagents that are directly dissonant with the Working you want to Weaken. A single Solar Circle roll is enough and you do not need to make any Second or First Circle rolls. If successful, it now reduces to a Second Circle Working. You can now use another Solar Circle Roll with the same rules of reagents as previously to completely unmake the Working or use Second Circle Working with the same rules as above to weaken the enemy Working into a First Circle Working and so on.

This however, absolutely requires you to find reagents that are directly dissonant with the Working, i.e you need to investigate the enemy working and gather the required dissonant reagents, spending not insignificant screen time doing so.

First Circle Working

5 Successes

Permanently gain a new School (Once per Story).
Make up to the one success effect or Aspect of a Spell permanent.
Make small and minor alterations to the geography. This cannot be magical and only those effects which can otherwise be achieved through mundane means, such as a spring that gives fresh and clean water, enhanced fertility of farms etc.
Make permanent Wards over a town or neighborhood-sized region against a particular type of mundane nuisance, such as forest fires, crop-eating pests, or rabid animals.
One Dot Rituals mentioned in Sorcerer Revised Chapter 4.

10 Successes

Make crossbreeds between two different species of plant or animal to create a hybrid species with the best traits of both. The restriction is that it is not possible to crossbreed a plant and an animal.
Remove or Grant mutations to oneself or a willing subject.
Instill a plant, animal, or object with human-level intelligence. The newly sapient and sentient being is not compelled to be loyal to you, nor does it need to have a human mindset.
Ward a chamber or building against magical intrusions such as scrying, teleportation, or intrusion by a particular type of spirit.
Animate a Size 3 group of automata or zombies, or a dozen or so modestly customized corpses.
Make up to two success effects or Aspect of a Spell permanent.
Two Dot Rituals mentioned in Sorcerer Revised Chapter 4.

15 Successes

Upgrade a Base Spell to the First Circle.
Make up to the three successes effect or Aspect of a Spell permanent. This includes the spells boosted by the First Circle.
Three Dot Rituals mentioned in Sorcerer Revised Chapter 4.

Second Circle Working

20 Successes

Bind two characters allowing them to mentally communicate at any distance.
Transform a room so that its interior resembles a natural biome.
Alter a building so it can be bigger on the inside, have separate biomes in each room, etc.
Make up to the four success effects or Aspect of a Spell permanent. This includes the spells boosted by the First Circle.

25 Successes

Make alterations to the geography. This can be magical which can not be achieved through mundane means, such as eternally fertile farms, alter the weather and seasons of a town-sized region, a lake made out of fresh pepsi, etc.
Enchant buildings and towns to strengthen them against danger or give them a measure of resilience to supernatural powers.
Grant a supernatural power to one's self or to a willing subject. These are Fomori powers but without any downsides.
Make alterations to the nature of a willing supernatural being. This is additive, so granting a spirit of peace the concept of healing may change it so it can now heal mental afflictions, granting it new charms.
Spread mutations throughout the mundane flora and fauna of an entire ecosystem.
Make up to the five success effects or Aspect of a Spell permanent. This includes the spells boosted by the First Circle.
Four Dot Rituals mentioned in Sorcerer Revised Chapter 4.

30 Successes

Make up to the Six success effects or Aspect of a Spell permanent. This includes spells boosted by the Second Circle.
Enchant the architecture of an entire structure to grant it limited mobility, the capacity to rearrange its internal structure, intelligence comparable to a human, or similar powers.
Open a permanent portal between two different realms of existence, such as a small shadowland or a faerie ring that leads travelers into the deep Wyld.
Five Dot Rituals mentioned in Sorcerer Revised Chapter 4.
Upgrade a First Circle Spell to the Second Circle.

Third Circle Working

35 successes

Make major alterations to the geography. Transform deserts into rainforests, drain seas, etc. It can cause fantastical weather effects such as rain made of dreams, rivers made out of denial, or a mountain composed out of color blue.
Freely extract and manipulate souls.
Grant limited immortality.
Make up to the Six success effects or Aspect of a Spell permanent. This includes spells boosted by the Third Circle.

40 successes

Alter major metaphysical properties of a city-sized region, such as making it mobile etc.
Alter the flow of time in an area the size of a city.
Enchant a city-sized region or a regional ethnicity, altering the nature of the afterlife for those people.
Utterly transform the nature of a supernatural being, such as remaking a demon as a god, etc.

45 Successes

Create an Extremely powerful being.
Cast a city-sized region into a different realm of existence, or outside of time and space altogether, with set conditions for when it returns or how it can be accessed.
Six Dot Rituals mentioned in Sorcerer Revised Chapter 4.
Upgrade a Second Circle Spell to the Third Circle.

Variable Working

Variable workings are those working that vary in which circle they fall under depending on the action taken.

Alter the Cosmos

Make subtle alterations to the metaphysics of the entire cosmos. The Circle, target number of dice all depends on the alterations and is set by the Storyteller.

Resurrection

The corpse is returned to life at 0 health levels points. The subject loses one dot of Stamina. If they had only one dot of Stamina to begin with, the working fails and they cannot be returned to life. The corpse must be reasonably preserved. If you have only a finger it will not work.

The Circle and target total needed for this working depends on the nature and power of the being involved. Exalted always count as and are brought back as mortal, their exaltation fleeing their corpse at the moment of their death. While brought back as a mortal, they have the chance to Exalt once again depending on various factors.

Convert Reagent

This working converts one Non Magical reagent into a specific Non Magical reagent, or changes a concept of a Non Magical reagent into a specific concept. How this works is that upon successfully completing the First Circle working with the target number as determined by the Storyteller, count the number of successes over the target number. Accordingly, you get the results.

You do not always get what you want. Depending on how well you roll, you get the following results. For example, let us say you want steel essence. You will not get exactly what you want but depending on how well you roll over the target successes, you can get a reagent that can substitute for it. See the table below.

Completely unrelated (i.e. steel and cake): 0-2 success
Generally, elementally associated (i.e. steel and marble): 3-4 success
Close variations or compounds (i.e. steel and iron): 5+ success

Create Magic Reagent

This working converts one substance into a Magical Reagent. How this works is that upon successfully completing the First Circle working with the target number as determined by the Storyteller, count the number of successes over the target number. Accordingly, you get the results.

Completely unrelated (i.e. steel and cake): 0-2 success
Generally, elementally associated (i.e. steel and marble): 3-4 success
Close variations or compounds (i.e. steel and iron): 5+ success

Resonant Reagents

Sorcerous Workings cannot work without resonant reagents. For example, if the player wants to obtain a limited form of immortality, then they will need reagents resonant with the concept of immortality. The peaches of Immortality from the Gardens of the August Celestial Jade Emperor or the Golden Apples of myth from Greece would be considered to be resonant.

However, reagents need not be magical in nature. Take the same example, a fossilized snake skin which would also count due to the myth of Gilgamesh and the snake that stole his herb of immortality.

Optional Content on how to design reagents

Every item has multiple concepts associated with it. This may be natural, i.e fire = hot, entropy, fuel etc, or manmade, Lotus = Enlightenment, purity, rebirth, etc. Even mythical reagents like the Peaches of Immortality = Immortality, vitality, divinity, etc. So then a player character gains or comes across a reagent, assign 3 concepts associated with that reagent.

The Quick and Dirty is to roll a D100 3 times. If the result of the first roll is 50+, the player can choose one concept associated with that reagent. If the roll fails, the Storyteller assigns a concept of their choosing. For the second roll, the target for the player to choose is 75+ and the third is 90+

Rules for Reagents

Non-magical reagents need not be unique but they should not be common as well. It must take at least some in game screen time to gain the reagent. You cannot simply walk into Walmart and buy them. Well, you or your circle member may buy them in bulk but you will still need to barter with Spirits and demons for them and otherwise put in some in-game effort to get them.

However, if the Storyteller has the reagent fall out of a plane and smack your character in the face? Then thank the Storyteller and go collect your reagent.

Now, with Magic Reagents, they must be willingly given as a Gift or as payment for services rendered. They may also be forcefully taken via Right of conquest or secretly stolen via a great act of Larceny, etc.

Basically? You or your circle member need to pull off something reasonably impressive for the Magic Reagent to count for your working. The exception is harvesting or creating Magic reagents via workings.

Optional Content on Reagent acquisition

Can I grow ingredients? Short answer: yes, Long answer? Take a Lotus as an example.

You can grow a bunch of Lotus flowers but for them to count, you need to take in-game action to form an association with the ingredient. So you would need to build or roleplay ordering or hiring people to build a pond and roleplay ordering, or harvesting the Lotus seeds and then having them planted. You can always make a Working to make the Lotus followers grow faster and it would be a perfectly valid way of getting some reagents.

Say, you want to gather crystalised Sunlight, which would count as a Magic Reagent. This is a Terrestrial Circle Working and you would need Reagents associated with gathering or transforming Sunlight.

So, you make a mirror. Yes a mundane mirror but one which must have a minimum of 5 successes to count. Then you would need one of the concepts of "REDIRECT" or "REFLECT".

Then you will need a Solar Panel that converts Solar power into energy. This is something you cannot simply buy but would need to design by roleplaying in game. Once done, you can make it or have others mass produce it. But you need some involvement in its acquisition. The concept you will need may be "CONVERSION".

NOTE: You do not HAVE to make it personally and a Party member can do it for you. The important thing is the screen time, not necessarily the effort you put in to get it.

Then you will need a battery and will be subject to the same rules as the solar panel. It will have the concept of "STORAGE" and need to be a battery designed to take the energy from Solar panels. So just any battery will not work.

Assuming you have the concepts, you can now use the concept of "REDIRECT" or "REFLECT" with "CONVERSION" and "STORAGE" to transform Sunlight in a Terrestrial Circle Working into a Magic reagent containing three concepts.

Concepts and Workings

When placed one after the other, they must thematically mean something. Take the above for example, Redirect or reflect, well does the same to Sunlight. The Convert concept transforms sunlight into a Magic reagent. The storage concept ensures that the magic solidifies into a Magic Reagent. Thus:

Reagents must be related to the Working conceptually, i.e immortality requires reagents associated with immortality.
You need three relevant reagents.

Storytellers are advised to be generous with the interpretations of resonant reagents.

Reagents and Circles

All Workings requires three reagents to work.

For First Circle workings, these need not be magical in nature but are still subject to the normal rules regarding reagents.

In addition to the reagents gathered and used for the First Circle working, the Second Circle Working requires at least one magic reagent, so two non magical and one magical.

In addition to the reagents gathered and used for the First Circle workings and the Second Circle Working, Third Circle Working requires three Magical reagents.

Crafting

Artifacts , Menses and other Wonders

Artifacts and Manses projects can be attempted using the table below to determine the difficulty, interval and goal number based on the artifact rating. These intervals assume about four hours of work each day, but cannot be decreased by spending more time working (though a character would work on multiple projects simultaneously if they had nothing else to do).

Repairing a broken artifact is generally as difficult as creating one a dot lower in rating, except that the interval may be significantly shorter depending on how extensive the damage is.

Legendary artifacts and Manses, which go beyond the five dot scale, use difficulties, intervals and goal numbers chosen by the Storyteller - not all Legendary Artifacts are created equal, but they're all very difficult.

Artifact	Dif	Intervals	Goal
1	9	1 Week	15
2	9	2 Weeks	30
3	9	1 Month	45
4	9	2 Months	60
5	9	6 Months	75
Manse	9	6 Months	75+

Use the same rules as a Sorcerous Working to determine the number of rolls available.

Balance

So, the entire system of Workings is balanced by the High number of successes needed to do the working, the fact that the rolls are made at a difficulty of 9 and that each roll requires fresh sets of Reagents or Willpower.

Mechanically, Rolling Willpower + Essence means that you cannot use excellencies, 1s reduce success and 10s do not normally count as double successes.

You are also only ever going to roll 6 to 11 dice at any given point of time at the early stages of the game. Because by the time a PC reaches E5, balance has been dead for a while and its body has been looted a long LONG time ago.

XP wise – You need to max your willpower, which costs 30xp as a buy in. It also balances acquisition of schools by giving partial control over to the Story Teller.

powergoat · Aug 11, 2023

So I have really liked the Fivefold courts since I read Yog's V1 post, and have spent a long time woolgathering the concept and supplementary ideas. So this will be a post that serves as a collection of stream-of-thought rambles about ideas surrounding the fivefold courts, and I can only hope that some of them are interesting enough to integrate.

In the Fivefold Courts there are plenty of amazing and beautiful structures, but some are a cut above the rest, jewels of their respective city's. None as grand as the Soaring Palace of course, but lesser wonders are still wondrous
In the City of Swords, the single grandest structure would have to be the Arena of Newfound Glories (A blatant colosseum ripoff), a massive stadium with many publicly diplayed events, many which would be called bloodsports in a world were the reaper was not on vacation. Single duels are very rare due to the sheer size making such a thing seem wasteful, but team deathmatches between different recognizable teams are far more commonplace, alongside man vs beast matches, or occasionally an old master facing a large number of his students at once. Some of the largest spectacle matches however, are warstrider duels, sponsored by the wealthy in grand displays of giant metal warriors beating the hell out of each other.
The Arena itself has top-of-the-line viewing technology, but the real draw is the advanced rituals that allow the arena itself to be rapidly reconfigured into a number of different environments, from simulacrums of the different cities to approximations of any of the great forests, every livable environment can be emulated sufficiently for interesting combat.
The City of Scrolls has already had the Infinite Library mentioned, and DP already mentioned a specific academy which is probably a Harvard-expy, so Ill skip this for now.
The City of Fountains/Serenity, There is probably at least one Grand Theater, but above that I would put the Fractal Gallery, a beautiful structure seemingly made of crystal that houses most of the greatest art within all the cities, with six wings, the first five fits with a theme of a city, The Serenity wing being for the most pure expressions of art itself, the Journeys wing for pieces about or symbolic of the forests or wastes, the Secrets wing containing pieces related to history and the occult, the Battles wing containing pieces on the state of society as well as the most beautiful weapons, the Endings wing contains some of the most personal pieces about emotion, tragedy, and the self, and the final wing, the Fateful wing, containing naught but art of the Empress-to-be, some from their own mind, others from half-mad tocalli artists trying to capture a fragment of what they saw
Within the City of Endings nothing can stand to match the Grand Temple Of Her Coming, by far the largest temple of worship in the name of the Empress-To-Be, it takes some obvious inspiration from the Palace itself, except the entire structure is slanted facing the center of the realm, almost as if the building itself was bowing. At all times you can find services within, guidance for all your spiritual troubles and to be brought further on the path of the greater you that She would wish you to become.
The City of Journeys, some more negative might say, is the least interesting of the Cities. While there are certainly grand buildings, the Central Station, the Bountiful Bazaar, and a massive Central Overabundant Farm that provides most of the grown food the the five cities, the City of Journeys has ever been focused outward over inward, leading it to be the most cosmopolitan of the Cities, it is nearly a saying that you can find the best specialists of anything in their city, but the second best is over in journeys.

One thing that I never saw brought up was what was used as money. While in the 'modern day' of the five cities many transactions may be digital, they weren't always so and there are always reasons to have a more physical currency. That led to the question, what could possibly be used as a currency? You would want something extremely difficult to counterfeit.
So my first real Idea was the Scales of the Dragons. While both statues are 'indestructable', occasionally a large scale of one of them would seem to 'shed', falling loose with a massive impact. This never seemed to diminish the statues, and while the scales of the Iridescent dragon have yet to be found out how to be worked, the black dragons scales are relatively easy to shatter. These scales seem lacking in any significant power, and have found very little use in any arcane rituals, but the black stone carries a seemingly unique thaumic signature. A single grain in a coin of metal gives it a mystic sheen that has yet to be imitated, with five, twenty five, and 125 grain coins for larger purchases, alongside the far rarer black coins, equal to 625 grains. For Scale, you can think a single grain as about 50 cents USD for food price equivalencies.
I will admit this Idea stuck with me because the Ebon Dragon being the Source of Money/The Root of all Evil tickled my funny bone

The Wastes in an inhospitable enviroment to most of the population, and not a plesent place to live for the rest. That said, there are still some landmarks that are near enough to be known and recongnised to the citizens of the Five Cities, or at least the ones that look outwards at all
The Hungy Spire is a structure just two cycle walk to the east of the City of Scrolls, which makes many people have clear assumptions to its origins. a 6-7 story tall obelisk type structure, clearly hollow and with windows, yet it is definitely no safe harbor for travelers or grovel tribes. For this structure seems to be composed of Consumer Ice. How anyone has shaped such a structure is a mystery besides 'with magic', but if that was all it wouldn't be so foreboding. No, whoever had built such a thing made it far more dangerous with some manner of ritual, causing it to emit an aura that seems to consume all that comes close. From a distance it is subtle, but it gets stronger as you approach, and what few have studied it estimate that at the threshold of the structure it would be similar to being completely encased in a coffin of consumer ice, and perhaps even stronger should the structure be entered. Some say the creator is still within plotting, others say he just got eaten by his own structure and went into hiding afterwards
The Flashflame Canyon is well renowned as it is an absolutley massive trench 5 cycle walk north from the city of journeys. Being well known for being the end of many first time travelers into the wastes who just start at journeys and strait away, noone is quite sure what caused the massive tranch to form in the first place. It has its own mini ecosystem in the slightly higher temperatures deep in the cliffs, but the cliffs get their name from the passage of Link Worms, one of the few places you can see them from the surface, as they pass by their initial hear causes large angular flashes and surges of spherical gasses before being quickly consumed, causing a spectacle that can be seen even from the top of the ravine.
The Kinghut, being about 7 cycle walk South South-East of the City of fountains, is the remains of a truley gargantuan Wastehut. A sphere embeded into the ground about 9 stories tall, it was said to have nearly rolled over a Grovel tribe, before its chief stopped it with his bare hands before breaking it open. However it happened, now it is commenly used by the tribes as a neutral meeting ground, to make deals and trade between themselves.

So if any of the Gruvel waste tribes or forest tribes want to move on, they still have to visit the city of ending and participate in their rituals? Or do the Gruvel tribes have some tradition of throwing themselves of the edge of the world? and what happenes to them, Gruvel are the most likley to make that trip after all/

Negentropy · Aug 15, 2023

DragonParadox said:
From what I recall it was not Bob but Harry mussing about the infinite nature of the nevernever. That said I will not be using quite so expansive a concept. I have a post somewhere in here explaining why I do not like multi-verses, they make consequences go away, but the same is true for finding arbitrary things in the spirit worlds. If I wanted Harry to find Spiderman in there with all the implications that would have I would have made this a Marvel Crossover, I did not so you cannot.

That said and meta-concerns aside 'you can find anything in the Nevernever if you go deep enough' is something many young wizards believe as it is an exaggeration of the very real fact that you can find a lot of weird stuff in there.

Quick - the ~~copyright~~ opportunity is open, we to make a Spiderman-expy in our realm now!

"Tune in your 'jacks - its Tarantula Jack! And thanks to the hard working boys, girls and SUTRA's of the Adamant CorporationTM now you too can experience the daring devil trill seeking of Jack's iconic, breathtakingly action-packed and verticality filled manoeuvres with our new line of Web-slingshot!TM available as either gene-mods or cybernetic-augmentations and includes a complementary g-force and Fall-ArrestTM survivability package! Coming soon to a clinic near you!"

"...In other news, Adamant Corp executives continued to be gruelled in the metro-parliament this weekend over the hundreds of traffic accidents (air- and ground-lanes), particularly the airborne collisions with VTOLs, drones, aircars, and other 'craft, pedestrian strikes, as well as at least 3 different preliminary building scaffolds allegedly pulled down by users of the controversial new "web-grapple-line" mobility devices/implants/organs in the style of and sponsored by part-time vigilante, stunt-demon and influencer known by his noospeak handle "Tarantula Jack". The miscellaneous property damage caused to "webbed" panels, windows, walls and infrastructure damaged by the force of being attempted to be used as an anchor point for swings and by would be "webbers" crashing into buildings, vehicles, persons, or in at least one instance to the wildlife below after one instance of "slinging" off of the city 'plate - due to miscalculating swings is continuing to rise as new reports come in.

Under Oath and Geas today, top executives acknowledged that the current accelerated VR training course is insufficient training for "the challenges which come with an entirely novel locomotive system of transportation and adventure" and are promising under Geas to wholly fund new investment into a mandatory new educational course and navigational aids free of charge for current and future users, including upgraded spatial awareness packages, path prediction algorithms, and building/vehicle/person structural stability and integrity assessment software for 'jacks and AR vision/visors, as well as new augments and modifications including "spring-light" and "feather-foot" feet and leg alterations as well as full body "feather-fall" charms, "upskill" neural programming and memory/experience upload chips, and integrated spirit-guides based off of and trained by Tarantula Jack himself, all in an effort to limit the growing calls for "swing-free" zones, lanes and areas by local sector governments restricting the operational use and sale of their new product line, as well as prevent pre-emptive bans on civilian use in the other cities (military, first responder and certain grav-ball tournaments interest continues to be strong Sanctuary-wide, however). A timeline for when and how these updates will be rolled out, and if the pause on continued sale and use of grapple-lines will be extended until this safety package is available.

Environmental activists and business associations say that while efforts to improve the safety of the product is a step in the right direction, no agreement should be reached until there is a total ban on non-reusable, non-retractable detaching "web-lines" of both organic and synthetic origins because of the environmental pollution and fast rising clean-up costs (especially for high-rise office windows) with many buildings already expanding their adhesion repellent fields, previously intended to prevent bird strikes and droppings, to "blacklist" the material composition of these lines. However, there is ongoing controversy as to whether this proposal will include a grandfather cause to protect those who evolved or mutated these abilities naturally prior to their technological mass adoption as well as traditional magic traditions which use similar methodologies, and whether thuamically based alternatives which detach and fade will also be banned as the potential impact and risk of magical/spiritual pollution continues to be debated.

When asked for comment, a spokesperson for Tarantula Jack declined due to their client being unavailable to reach due to "ongoing extra-planar commitments"."

Sorry, this copyright joke intended to be at most two paragraphs got away from me due to how much fun writing all the problems and potential solutions (and the problems brought up by such solutions) to Spiderman-style webslingers turned out being! While I intended for the idea of frequent "webslingers" and/or grapple-hooks/cables swing from building to VTOL to building to be more of a joke, as it might not fit the aesthetics we are going for and/or break game balance (thereby making gameplay less fun, although if the concern is over-utilising such an ability on Earth or the wider Nevernever, then it could always be contained by making it rely on some unique facet or underpinning of the meta-physical architecture of our realm specifically, and it would probably has limited utility outside of rapid mobility in built-up/vertical areas and/or rapidly grappling objects/people either to pull them towards the grappler or to bring the grappler closer to said grappled object/person), especially as its probably too powerful to be available straight away as of our initial entrance into this world without needing any action or resource investment on our part (not so much for us personally, but as a multiplicative factor for our ~~minions~~ friends and subjects' capabilities), let alone if it were to become more technologically mature and mass-reproduceable as a device and/or technique.

Also, I'm not sure of what "extra-planar" knowledge our inhabitants have about the world beyond there own and thusly I don't know if Jack's excuse of being "elsewhere" would make sense (granted a trill-seeking potentially crazy summoned demon-turned-would-be-superhero-and-celebrity might not be expected to make much sense in their explanations anyway).

Although of course if anyone wants us to develop such in a future project you are more than welcome to or use anything else I mentioned here, and furthermore my apologies if I misunderstood, mischaracterised or misrepresented any of the pre-existing lore and/or intended vision of this realm that's already been established.

However I did have some interesting ideas which might be more applicable to the "canonical" world, like legal testimony and legally-binding agreements using magical Geas to ensure honesty and agreement/contract/plea deal compliance respectively, or city divisions being arranged by circular divisions: for instance, using sectors, perhaps the boundaries of which could be determined by degrees, with the northernmost point (or any other cardinal direction, perhaps each city chooses the cardinal direction they are closest to, with two sharing a southernmost starting point layout) being marked as the 360-0 degree line - so for example, you'd have say Sector 90.58^o-91.53^o, although as the city (and the city plate) expands and presumably subdivides local governments further, such a system would lead to impractically thin slices of a block, building or less which would be a nightmare to effectively manage as a meaningful distinct jurisdiction and region of governance, so in all likelihood if sector are used at all they would probably only be applied to "historical" or "founding" districts - those areas that existed as sectors when the city plates were initially constructed, and expansions being independently subdivided as if an annulus into (line or curved) segments akin to Mamikon's visual calculus. I'm assuming that both the plate is expanded over time as people build additional housing (plus all other necessary and appreciated infrastructure, industry, habitats, environments, etc., to support additional life) and thusly expanding the population (although I'm sure the cities also grow vertically in taller structures (perhaps both extending further above AND even below the plate?) and higher population density, probably to a greater extend than in breath and width), and that administrative subdivisions are probably a necessity even with all the techno-magical advancements considering many of these city districts we might think of as "local/municipal/shire/parish/etc. councils" would likely be larger than most Earth countries, each representing at least millions, if not tens or even hundreds of millions of people considering each city is at least a billion-strong!

uju32 · Aug 23, 2023

I usually do this with new pointbuild systems to test their flexibility, so here goes:

FOMOR OF THE ELEMENTAL NATIONS

UCHIHA SASUKE

Armored Skin: Soak and heal lethal damage as bashing

Fiery Discharge: 1 ranged attack every other round

Nimbleness: +2 dice to all rolls associated with climbing, jumping and balance

Wall Walking: Hands and feet are sticky, and the donor can run up sheer surfaces as quickly as running across the ground. No roll needed normally, only in combat or crisis situations where you roll Dex+Athletics

Extra Speed: +1 Action, and 1.5x speed

Spirit Ties: Connection to the spirit world. Grants Gnosis

Curse Seal I/II

Bestial Mutation: +2 to Physical Attributes when activated

Wings: Fly at normal human jogging speed

Improved Flight: Increase flight speed

Sharingan

Mega-Attribute: Perception: +3 Perception

Sense The Unnatural: Per + Occult at DC6 to sense supernatural creatures within 20 yards

Eyes of the Wyrm: Enemy who looks you in the eye must roll Willpower at DC8 or remain immobilized in horror for 1-5 turns

Illusion: Single-sense illusion.

Mangekyou Sharingan

Wicked Weapons of Malfeas

Hideous Breath(Amaterasu): Ranged blast at will, Dex + Athletics at DC5, Range 30 yards. 6L or 3A of damage.

Instincts for Violence: Free counterattack when engaged in close quarters; Dex + Brawl at DC7, damage Str-1.

Yet Still More Hideous Breath:

Deadly: +3 lethal or +2 agg damage

Extreme Range: +30 yards range

True Illusion(Tsukiyomi): Full-sensory illusion. Simulate lasting physical trauma and permanent derangements in a victim.

Insculpt The Rune of Shattering Elements(Susanoo): Roll Willpower at DC7 and pay one unsoakable level of agg damage for immunity to one source of damage.

Armored Hide(Susanoo): +3 dice for soaking lethal and bashing. Can also soak agg at DC8.

Heavy Armor(Susanoo): Roll Willpower at DC6; each success is a point of armor for the scene. Also, Brawl or Melee attackers suffer (attacker's Strength) dice of aggravated damage

UZUMAKI NARUTO

Armored Skin: Soak and heal lethal damage as bashing

Nimbleness: +2 dice to all rolls associated with climbing, jumping and balance

Wall Walking: Hands and feet are sticky, and the donor can run up sheer surfaces as quickly as running across the ground. No roll needed normally, only in combat or crisis situations where you roll Dex+Athletics

Spirit Ties: Connection to the spirit world. Grants Gnosis.

Regeneration: Heal 1 bashing or 1 lethal damage per combat turn. Heal 1 Agg damage per day at cost of 1 WP

Fiery Discharge(Rasengan): 1 ranged attack every other round

Channeling Kyuubi Chakra

Bestial Mutation: +2 to Physical Attributes when activated

Berzerker: +5 Rage. Vulnerable to frenzy.

Extra Speed: +1 Action, and 1.5x speed

Improved Regeneration: Heal 1 Agg damage per minute. At will, spend WP or Rage to heal agg or all bashing.

Enhanced Bestial Mutation

Standby Power: Siren's Veil: +2 to all Social Attributes, and may roll App + Empathy against (target WP) DC to appear as ideal mate

Bestial Power: Claws and Fangs: Str+1 Aggravated damage. Cannot be concealed.

Spirit Charms and Garou Gifts

Gateway(Kage Bunshin): Materialize banes in the material world.

Call of the Wyrm(Kage Bunshin): Attracts creatures of the Wyrm

Tailed Beast Mode

Extra Limbs: Tails.

Exoskeleton: +3 Strength, +3 Stamina

Size Shift x3: Increase in size

Enhanced Super Beast Mode: +5 Attribute points to distribute as you choose except to Appearance

Wicked Weapons of Malfeas

Hideous Breath(Tailed Beast Ball): Ranged blast at will, Dex + Athletics at DC5, Range 30 yards. 6L or 3A of damage. Single target and AoE versions.

Stretchy Parts: Limbs can elongate at will at rate of 2 yards per point of Stamina or Willpower

Yet Still More Hideous Breath:

Deadly: +3 lethal or +2 agg damage

Extreme Range: +30 yards range

Sourcebooks: W20 Core, W20 Book of the Wyrm, W20 Book of the Wyrm Companion, WTA Freak Legion, WTA Possessed, WTA Book of the Wyrm 2nd Edition.

===
Next time I'll try my hand at statting out a couple of canon and quest monsters.

Exmorri · Aug 26, 2023

Omake: So Many Questions

(This is partly a recycled draft of part 3 of Calling Down, and partly inspired by the untaken option in Arc 9 post 1.)

{X} With questions, so so many questions

Slowly at first, then babbling, you try to describe your situation to the visiting angel. "I... I created a world. I think. A planet. It's full of people and it's located in another dimension that's inside my soul and I still don't understand how this works since apparently it's also really old, older than me, it has its own history and everything! They made me Empress! Did you know anything about this? Couldn't you have warned me? Couldn't you have sent Dad a sign or something?"

"No." he says calmly.

"Why not? Isn't it important enough? I'm responsible for a whole world now and I didn't even know it was going to happen! And it's so different, why is it like that, why isn't Earth like that?" In a way it's a relief to be able to complain about it to someone trustworthy. The tour of your soul-realm was stressful and confusing, and you had to deal with issues at hand and think about the implications later. Now it's later, and there's a lot of implications to think about.

"The full reasons are complex beyond your comprehension, but in a sense, that world is an expression of your will and what you decided to make. I cannot see what you're going to make ahead of time, not for a world, not for the fan fiction you wrote when you were fourteen."

That feels like cheating to bring that fic up. Also, intrusive to realize he's read it. No wait, if you have a guardian angel he can't not read it. Are angels allowed to leave anonymous reviews on FFN? You giggle slightly at realizing your jumbled thoughts about an entire world have been interrupted by something so mundane as fanfic. Deep breath, Molly, concentrate, you think to yourself. You have questions and a unique opportunity to ask them. "Why can't people on Earth get infinite second chances, if the ones in the other world do?"

"The people in your world get more chances, not infinite second chances. All creation returns to dust, even yours."

Usum contradicts that in your head. You wonder how he can possibly know, that sounds like flattery, and then firmly stuff that thought onto the mental shelf of items marked For Later. "My world seems better in other ways." It's not really a question, and you get not really an answer, which leads to a sort of verbal fencing.
"Your world is more like what you want than Earth is, and seems better to you."
"There's less unnecessary suffering."
"Are you angry at Tolkien for putting Frodo through unnecessary suffering?"
"What? No, Frodo is fictional!"
"Does Frodo think he's fictional?"

"Of course not! Everyone thinks they're real-" you cut off abruptly, as the implication hits you. Are the Fivefold Courts of Fate in some sense fictional? Did you write yourself as a self-insert into a world you made up? You brought something real out of it, but your power has conjured tools out of nothing before, and it costs power points to create relatively small tools. It should cost millions of power points to create an entire world, so maybe only the people and things you bring out are created real and the rest are not, at least not yet? The For Later shelf in your head is starting to feel stuffed now. You frown at the angel. "Are you saying my world isn't real? Can I please get a straight answer for once? God works in mysterious ways and free will and all that, but I'm trying to do the right thing here and this is very confusing and doesn't seem to be covered in the Ten Commandments, I don't think it's happened to anyone at all before, it would be good if you could at least point me in the right direction, without dragging me there."

The angel nods. "Every world is real on the inside and fictional to its maker, Earth included. For God so loved the world, He gave Man the power of sub-creation. It is the same power that births new life and imagines other worlds and makes new art. Earth has pride of place and every one of its inhabitants is real enough to stand before the throne on Judgment Day, when the dead are raised to life, not as corpses dragged out of graves, but made anew with glorified bodies. Not all, but some, of Man's sub-creations will be made real and stand there too. I'm not allowed to tell you exactly which ones," at this he smiles, looks from side to side, and leans down in a conspiratorial manner, "but, spoiler alert, Frodo is one of them."

I get to meet Frodo in Heaven!? is your first thought. Did he just say 'spoiler alert', really? is your second. Guess he really does read fanfic. One part of you still wants to ask more follow-up questions, but it gets metaphorically dragged away by two other parts of you, the first saying that more questions aren't helping, the second saying it's time to talk to Mom.

---
How much do you tell Charity, and how do you frame it? Not a real vote.
{ } "I needed somewhere safe to take my friends, so my power showed me a friendly other world I could visit on the spot." (Light on details, emphasize that it's safe.)
{ } "The power I got makes me heir to the throne of another world." (Some details, frame it as something external that happened to you.)
{ } "The power I got contains, or created, a world somehow, located in a dimension inside my soul." (Plenty of details, Charity's reaction is unpredictable.)
{ } Write-in, possibly involving Dad.

deadcrystal · Aug 27, 2023

A desert road under every hell

Molly looked at the the body of the latest agent of her enemies to attack her. Some ancient Black Court member, although working for another party in this case. Unclear who exactly, but it was not like she had a shortage of foes at this point. Especially as the people of her world (and wasn't that still so overwhelming and strange?) began making inroads into building their own local power base. He had been...disturbingly well informed about her powers. Not enough to save him, but Molly was getting irritated at how many forces knew more about the source and nature of her power than she did. There weren't that many, if she considered it fairly, whatever her powers were they were simply too old for many to have a clue, but still.

It couldn't go on like this. She had to do something. Using her power's ability to grasp knowledge on itself directly was sadly impossible, like trying to examine a microscope using itself. Even matters that only grazed against it were a recipe for a splitting headache. That didn't mean she was out of options however. There was one thing she hadn't tried yet, for fear it would simply lead her to one of those who sought her death.

What road can I follow to reach a place where I might find the most knowledge about my powers?

She braced for a migraine to intrude, but it did not. Instead she saw.

Her vision cast away from where she was, flew on wings of eyes and green light, flew across the world and down below. Though she quickly found that was merely to find the nearest entrance to a deeper pit still, to Yomi Wan.

Plummeting, her view went down and down. Past the blood pits, past the scouring winds, past oceans of boiling oil, past maggots and the palaces of the Yama Kings, in their unique variety. Further and further still, and ever downwards.

She saw the spires of the final redoubt of Enma-O, obsidian spires and curling steel parapets. Saw his hidden libraries, and descending layers of concealed sub-basement dungeons.

And down, and down, and down.

Through forgotten rooms, to forgotten excavations, to natural caverns, until finally...

A narrow fissure in a cave wall, from which spilled silver sand, that seemed so strangely familiar.

The long vision ended, in the same frozen moment it always took. Well, that was hardly convenient.

The Yozi being dead or unreachable adds no narrative potential, moreover killing them would just result in more Neverborn, and that's hardly a good thing. Cutting them off entirely from Creation I view as basically impossible. OTOH reinforcing the prison as to narrow the places Cecelyne impinges upon Creation to as remote a location as possible? Seems doable, given some massive backstory events in pre-history. Plus making it harder for 1CD to escape into Creation. I can imagine a few 3CD who were summoned into Creation in aeons past hiding out in Yomi Wan pretending to be a Yama King. Avoiding going back to their greater self and doing nothing to help an escape, just enjoying the high life in an ignorant Creation. Makes for a fun hook I think.

Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

The Spark of Madness

The Spark of Madness

Glossary​

Ancient Sorcery​

How do you become a Sorcerer?

Steps to cast Spells/Workings

Means

Spells​

Willpower

Schools

Unlocking and using Schools

The Mechanics in play

Aspects

Ability Rating

Schools of Sorcery​

Alteration

Astral Projection

Calamity Control

Clairvoyance

Destruction

Healing

Illusions

Luck

Mind Control

Summoning and Warding

Telekinesis

Teleportation

Upgrading Schools​

Target Number

Effects of Upgrading

Pre-casting Spells

Sorcerous Workings​

How Workings Work

How many rolls can I make?

Undoing Workings - Primacy

First Circle Working

Second Circle Working

Third Circle Working

Variable Working

Resonant Reagents​

Rules for Reagents

Concepts and Workings

Reagents and Circles

Crafting​

Artifacts , Menses and other Wonders

Balance​

Slaaneshi Cultist

Glossary

Ancient Sorcery

Spells

Schools of Sorcery

Upgrading Schools

Sorcerous Workings

Resonant Reagents

Crafting

Balance