Into that Vast and Unrelenting Darkness (40K Xeno Civilization Quest)

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KingCrimson1081 said:
Sistas of WAAGH!!! then?
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I don't know if Grots really have the same kind of idea of Gender, same with the Orks, they are Asexual beings that have no sexual characteristics and need none to continue their species, they might decide they like being called something during their lifespan and the rest go with it. Speaking of Lifespan, has any Grot died to Age related stuff, I know our boy Stizlak is still running about, but what about the rest of them? Are they biologically immortal?
 
Aliya said:
This plan is focused on buffing up our unions, taking several manufacturing and logistics projects, along with some nice stuff like Nuke altars or Psyker Automata due to having left-over points
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I support this and/or any other plan that chooses Nuclear Ritual Engines and as many of the others as possible. 😤

Nuclear Ritual Engines -
Mag-Tek Altars had proven an effective way of amplifying the effects of Mystek Rites. Some theorized that they could be improved further via nuclear reactor bloks, providing the Altar spirit with additional surges of power to channel into occult motion: to that end, they wanted to apply Mystek principles to nuclear design. 3/15, Mag-Tek Altars upgraded with Nuclear Ritual Engines, unknown effects, costs 2 Nuclear Material.
literally marked "You want this" by Bird many turns ago.

BlokBot Optimization Principle: Upgrade that is more powerful the sooner we get it since our BlokBots will keep improving.
The basic program behind Upgraders could be simplified in order to allow for, over time, BlokBots to automatically perform basic optimizations and improvements. This would largely benefit industry, as valuable Tekket-power that was spent on BlokBot design could instead simply be foisted off on machinery. 0/25, BlokBots over time will slowly upgrade to more powerful + versions, increasing EXP.

Improved MagTek Repair Protocol: Increases efficiency at every level, is almost certainly necessary to go further down the Necron materials science tech-tree.
A more sophisticated version of the MagTek Repair Protocol, this update to the firmware would allow for simple machines and systems to repair themselves. You wouldn't be able to repair a reactor without an engineer, but it could at least hook back up to the wiring systems and recreate lighting. 0/20, MagTek Reassembly Protocol upgraded to lightly repair systems damage in buildings and fortifications.

Bond-Technomata: Upgrade available since turn TWO that would raise the ceiling on how powerful and generally amazing our machine spirits can be.
No Bond-Spirit was nearly mature enough to achieve a third metamorphosis yet, but potentially this process could be accelerated with sufficient amounts of Life-Force, and many Mysteks were salivating over the possibility: Bond-Machina had the ability to generate energy far in excess of their power systems and the ability to use that energy to strengthen and manipulate machinery. Who knows what powers their evolution would have? 0/30, create Bond-Technomata, advanced psyker machine spirits.

Other tech-upgrades we've been neglecting that are either in the living metal tech-tree or machina tech-tree are below:
Voidfarmer Reactors: Right now, most living metal farms had to rely on the local electrical grid, and the power needed to grow Living Metal was not...inconsiderable. One proposed solution was a roll-out of specialized reactors designed specifically for growing living metal. This would cost a great deal of perpetunite, but it would improve the overall efficiency of the harvest. 0/20, generates 2 Living Metal, costs 1 Nuclear Material.

Harvest Metal: There were many useful materials in the soil. It would require modifying and treating the living metal first, but it was theoretically possible to create a version capable of leeching the ground for said materials in order to both increase the rate at which living metal grew, but also allowed for other elements it had absorbed to be harvested. 0/20, generates substantial EXP, grants Harvest Metal technology.

Shrine-Conduits: Living Metal had a number of uses, but the biggest was that it retained lifeforce...concerningly well. By incorporating it into the design of your Shrine even more extensively in the form of special conduits, the Directorate should increase their overall efficiency, improving the impact of Shrines overall. 0/10, Shrines upgraded with Living Metal Conduits, increasing EXP by 1. Costs 1 Living Metal.

Gestalt Protocol: Another route to improving the strength of Machine Spirits, some of your scientists belonging to the Grand Reconfiguration Committee theorized that synthetic souls were just as modular as their form: they believed that there might exist some manner to merge machine spirits in order to radically accelerate their growth, creating Gestalt-Drones. They would no doubt be very, very different from typical Bond-Drones, however. Recently, the Assembly had begun to pursue experiments in this vein as a potential alternative method to grow their Avatars. 3/15, develop Gestalt-Drones, advanced automata created from a multitude of fused together synthetic souls instead of singular awoken machine spirits. If completed automatically, lose 1 Nuclear Material.


I love shinies too but It would sure be nice to have significant tech-superiority over our many enemies rather than surviving by luck and the skin of our teeth! Tonally this isn't the darkest quest and we've been given a lot of grace by the QM but imo we should make use of the advantages we have instead of stumbling around through haphazardly with occasional sparks of brilliance, yanno?


I've been reading the threadmarked posts from the beginning but haven't really kept up with the discussion so apologies in advance if this is stuff that's been hashed over a million times already 😅. Would love to know what (various) thread perspectives on this stuff are.
Especially because I bet a lot of y'all know a lot more about why it may not be the right time for some of these or how something else may be more pressing.


Oh I forgot to mention the various upgrades to our warp-drive/warp-defense tech which we could really use to make our warp-travel safer. Seems like we have a lot of Endeavors freed up for exploration and reducing odds of warp transit catastrophes would likely be huge bang for buck.
 
Plan: Moon Turn Prototype
EXP: 150/155.
BlokBot Armies 0/15->15/15.
Operations Division 0/25->25/25.
Metalsong Muses 0/10->10/10. -1 LM.
Sandscorn Skyhook 0/25->25/25. +2 Khimer Rep.
GigaDrill Deep Mantle Shielding 0/25->25/25. +1 NM. +2 Khimer Rep.
Iron Shores Daturgic Cannons 0/25->25/25. -1 AF INF. -1 NT.
Iron Shores Bioengine 0/25->25/25. -1 BIO.

Two armies. Metalsong Muses because they should be incredibly nasty as War-Muses against the Autons. Khimer actions. Cannons and Bioengine are explicitly Moon actions.

CUL: 125/130.
Glasmite Hymnals 0/15->15/15.
Iron Shores Liberation Theater 0/25->25/25. +AV INF. -AF INF. +3 Auton Rep.
Iron Shores Necroverse 0/25->25/25. -AV INF. +AF INF. +3 Auton Rep.
PygmaliTek Workshop 0/15->15/15.
Muse Arcano-Core 0/20->20/20. -2 NM.
Virus Buster Corp Research Labs 0/25->25/25.

Hymnals buffs Grimoires with weak Orchestrions. Theater helps with liberation. Necroverse a) gives Marjak something corpse-related to do, b) helps buff up their network, which is likely to be very important with the Moon liberated, and c) helps keep Auto Facility Influence from bottoming out. Arcano-Core lets Muses perform their own Rites, which should let them, among other things, perform the Dancer Rite to make Muses. Virus Buster offers improved network security.

FTH: 125/130.
War-Muses 0/15->15/15.
Gremlin.EXE 0/20->20/20.
Logic Virus Code-Adaptation 0/25->25/25.
Eliminator Droids 0/25->25/25.
VaccineWare 0/25->25/25.
Rite of War 0/15->15/15. -1 WRP.

War-Muses, with Pygmalion Workshop, Arcano-Core performing Rite of War buffed by Heartsong Units should be incredibly powerful, especially with Metalsong backing them up. Gremlins are like Securisprites, and should generally buff the network by removing troublemakers while buffing machines in the physical world. The Logic Virus action should deepen Directorate understanding of it, in addition to offering more Datamancy options. Eliminator Droids offers another ground elite unit. VaccineWare offers buffed network security, which, as mentioned, is likely to be very important post-Moon. Rite of War is our most war-focused action, and should be incredibly useful in any kind of fight, especially with all the buffs Rites have these days.

ACD: 115/115.
MagTek Blasters 0/15->15/15.
ZwergBot Disassembly Protocol 0/15->15/15.
MiniShieldTek 0/35->35/35.
CyberGrimoire 0/25->25/25. -1 NT.
Positron Brain Surgery 0/25->25/25.

MagTek Blasters, because Stizlak apparently deemed them a good option against machines. ZwergBots to give BlokBots more durability. MiniShieldTek for troop survivability. CyberGrimoire to buff Datamancy. Positron Brain Surgery because if Ijin needs it, it's going to be in extreme demand for the Moon.

Resource Management
Artifacts: 4
Biodata: 4->3
Intel: 0
Living Metal: 3->2
Network: 4->2
Nuclear Material: 1->0
Warp: 1->0
 
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@ilbgar123, since we are not doing MiniNukeTek, BattleDom is of limited utility, and I suspect that Logic Cage Weaponization will cause issues with Autonites for the same reason autohack addon would have without Logic Virus crashing in. Otherwise, a good plan.
 
Here is my own moon plan for the moon turn. I didn't add resource management cause we will probably have a wildly different resource cost at the end.

[ ]Plan: That's No Moon
-[ ] Fleet:
--[ ] Most
- - - [ ] CPU MOON ASSAULT
- - [ ] Some left over
- - - [ ] New Dawn Extraction
-[ ] EXP (165/160?)
- - [ ] Operations Division 0→ 50/25
- - [ ] Naklis Arms Factories 0→ 25/25
- - [ ] Iron Shores Bioengine→ 25/25 -1 BIO
- - [ ] BlokBot Armies 15/15
- - [] Iron Shores Daturgic Cannons 0→ 25/25 - 1NT -1 AF
- - [ ] Sandscorn Skyhook 0→ 25/25
-[ ] CUL (128/130?)
- - [ ] Iron Shores Necroverse 0→ 25/25 -1 AV +1 AF
- - [ ]Sandscorn Shroombogs 0→ 25/25
- - [ ] DazzleCubes 2→ 15/15
- - [ ] Illusion Matrixes 0→ 25/25
- - [ ] Winterspite Outpost Guard Contract 0→ 40/40
- [ ] FTH (130/130?)
- - [] Gremlin.EXE 0→ 20/20
- - [] Logic Virus Code-Adaptation 0→ 25/25
-- [] Eliminator Droids 0→ 25/25
- - [ ] VaccineWare 0→ 25/25
- - [ ] Hounds 0→ 25/25 -1 ART
-- [] War-Muses 5→ 15/15
-[ ] ACD (125/120?)
- - [] CyberGrimoire 0→ 25/25 -1 NT
- - [] MiniShieldTek 0→ 35/35
- - [] Positron Brain Surgery 0→ 25/25
-- [] Shield Capacitators 0→ 35/35
 
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I have three plans to show that I made while waiting for the next update.

This plan focuses on helping our Khimer allies and reviving Sandscorn.

[] Plan: Sandscorn Blooms
-[] EXP 150/150
--[] Sandscorn Water Drop: (5/20 --> 40/20), Sandscorn gains large shipment of water, increasing habitable zone somewhat. 5 Reputation, repeatable.
--[] Sandscorn Magneto-Shield: (0/25 --> 25/25), upgrade Sandscorn Heat-Shield, generating 2 Khimer favor and providing an alternative method to repel harmful radiation from the planet.
--[] Sandscorn Ashfall: (0/25 --> 25/25), Sandscorn gains Ashfall Generators, increasing Respect by 3.
--[] GigaDrill Deep Mantle Shielding: (0/25 --> 25/25), Sandscorn gains GigaDrill Deep Mantle Shielding, increasing NK from trade and raising Khimer reputation by 2.
--[] Sandscorn Skyhook: (0/25 --> 15/25), Khimer gain Skyhook Spacestation, allowing them to ship resources to and from space without assistance, increasing respect by 2.
--[] Sandscorn Mining Ships: (0/25 --> 25/25), Khimer gain Mining Ships, increasing EXP from their trade route, and respect by 3.

-[] CUL 120/120
--[] Gas for Meat: (0/25 --> 25/25), gain EXP from trade. Khimer Rep +2. WARNING: Only five Khimer cargo slots are available. Taking additional trade deals past those ones will require assigning additional ships or upgrades to hauling capacity.
--[] Nukes for Meds: (0/25 --> 25/25), gain EXP from trade. Cost 1 Nuclear Material. Khimer Rep +2. WARNING: Only five Khimer cargo slots are available. Taking additional trade deals past those ones will require assigning additional ships or upgrades to hauling capacity.
--[] Sandscorn Shroombogs: (0/25 --> 25/25), Sandscorn gains the Shroombogs Hobbgrot Society, allowing them to slowly begin integrating Hobbgrot and orkoid genetics into their technology and ecology and increasing their labour pool, increasing Khimer reputation by 5.
--[] Eldritch Rebirth: (0/25 --> 25/25), create Eldritch Plays, increasing reputation with the Khimer and raising influence with all subfactions as well as FTH. Cost 1 Warp.
--[] Corpse Trade: (0/25 --> 20/25), gain EXP and ACD, +1 BioData, increases AutoFacility Influence, raise Khimer reputation by 2.

-[] FTH 90/120
--[] Ritual of Lifes Renewal: (0/25 --> 25/25), increases Khimer reputation by ten. Cost 1 Warp.
--[] Rite of Natures Breath: (0/25 --> 25/25), increases EXP. Cost 1 Warp.
--[] Rite of Natures Cleansing: (0/25 --> 25/25), increases CUL. Cost 1 Warp.
--[] Lifegiver Effigies: (0/15 --> 15/15), creates Lifegiver Effigies, spreading the Spirits of Life across the Directorate, increasing EXP and gaining 3 Warp. Cost 1 ART.

-[] ACD 103/103
--[] Sandscorn Desert-Biosphere Hybridization Program: (0/25 --> 25/25), modifies numerous organisms in the Khimers genetic database to be more suited for desert biomes, improving biosphere robustness overall. Cost 1 BioData.
--[] Sandscorn Devourer Eco-Hybridization: (0/15 --> 15/15), develop tyrannic derived Eco-Adaptations, helping to proof it against future Devourer assaults. Cost 2 BioData. NOTE: This is not HazardTek.
--[] Khimer NeuroProgrammer: (0/45 --> 13/45), creates Khimer NeuroProgrammer, increasing Khimer rep by 5. Cost 1 Network.
--[] State Secrets of the Khimer Psyocracy: (0/25 --> 25/25), gain Khimer State Secrets Dossier, increasing Intel.
--[] Sandscorn Pilot Gene-Recombination: (0/25 --> 25/25), Khimer regain ability to produce Pilotformes again, increasing their reputation by 2 and increasing Coffin Fleet influence by 1.

-[] Resource Management
--[] Artifacts: 4 --> 3
--[] Biodata: 4 --> 2
--[] Intel: 0 --> 1
--[] Living Metal: 3
--[] Network: 5
--[] Nuclear Material: 1
--[] Warp: 1 --> 0

In Secret Report Iron Shores #3, Itep says "I will note that while it (CPUMoon Assault) will be dangerous, it's far more likely to be technically demanding than martially." So, this plan grabs almost every hacking and virus-busting project we have. Plus some NecroTek for synergy with Marjak projects.
Edit: What Itep said might also mean that New Dawn Extraction will be technically demanding, but eh, more virus busting won't hurt.

[] Plan: Cracking the Code
-[] EXP 100/150
--[] Iron Shores Daturgic Cannons: (0/25 --> 25/25), AutoVessels gain Daturgic Cannon superweapon. Cost 1 AutoFacility influence and NT.
--[] Iron Shores Bioengine: (0/25 --> 25/25), AutoVessels gain BioEngine. Cost 1 BioData. This turn only.
--[] OOG-87's MicroSingularity: (0/25 --> 25/25), increases ACD.
--[] Operations Division: (0/25 --> 25/25), assemble Operations Division on any world or ship.
---[] TKK Resistance

-[] CUL 120/120
--[] Virus Buster Corp Research Labs: (0/25 --> 25/25), gain Virus Buster Labs, increasing ACD and network security.
--[] Iron Shores Necroverse: (0/25 --> 25/25), Iron Shores gains Necroverse Servers, increasing AutoFacility influence at the cost of AutoVessel influence and increasing general auton reputation by 3.
--[] Corpse Trade: (0/25 --> 25/25), gain EXP and ACD, +1 BioData, increases AutoFacility Influence, raise Khimer reputation by 2.
--[] OfrenDex: (0/15 --> 15/15), Shrines upgraded with OfrenDexes, increasing FTH.
--[] Deathmasks: (0/20 --> 20/20), gain NekroTek Deathmask Artefact, increasing CUL and FTH.
--[] Festival of the Dead: (0/10 --> 10/10), gain Festival of the Dead, increasing FTH.

-[] FTH 120/120
--[] VaccineWare: (0/25 --> 25/25), Occulteks gain VaccineWare, computer viruses modified through sorcery to serve as network security.
--[] BioPreservation Techniques: (0/5 --> 5/5), increases FTH, gain BioMummification. Cost 1 BioData.
--[] Teknum Sarcophagi: (0/15 --> 15/15), increases FTH, TekCrypts upgraded to TekSarcophagi. Cost 1 ART.
--[] OrphiaTek Digital Death Index: (0/25 --> 25/25), NekroTeks can utilize the Index of the Dead, increasing FTH by 3. Cost 1 Network.
--[] Cthonic Lifeofferings: (0/10 --> 10/10), TekMausoleums receive regular donations of lifeforce. Large increase to FTH. Cost 1 Warp.
--[] Cthonic Shrines: (0/15 --> 15/15), establish Cthonic Shrines, increasing FTH.
--[] Lifegiver Effigies: (0/15 --> 15/15), creates Lifegiver Effigies, spreading the Spirits of Life across the Directorate, increasing EXP and gaining 3 Warp. Cost 1 ART.
--[] Elegiasts Resonance: (0/25 --> 10/25), gain Elegiats Resonance. Cost 1 Warp.

-[] ACD 115/103
--[] Positron Brain Surgery: (0/25 --> 25/25), Autons gain Positron Brain Surgery.
--[] Tissue Reanimation Devices: (0/40 --> 40/40), Khimer, Directorate, and Autons gain Tissue Reanimation Chambers, raising Rep with all factions by 3, increasing EXP, and raising Forbidden Archive Influence. Costs 1 BioData, 1 Warp, and 1 AutoVessel Influence.
--[] Advanced Antiregenerative Antivirus Software: (0/50 --> 50/50), gain Antiregenerative Antivirus. Costs 1 NT.

-[] Resource Management
--[] Artifacts: 4 --> 2
--[] Biodata: 4 --> 2
--[] Intel: 0
--[] Living Metal: 3
--[] Network: 5 --> 3
--[] Nuclear Material: 1
--[] Warp: 1 --> 2

Updated version of Plan: FOR ART. It focuses on art and muse projects and also has three Assembler projects in FTH section.

[] Plan: FOR ART V.2
-[] EXP 150/150
--[] TeraArt Gallery: (0/100 --> 100/100), create small moon sized art installations, increasing CUL by 10. Cost 1 NK and 1 NT.
--[] Ice-Art Galleries: (0/10 --> 10/10), increases CUL from the establishment of Ice-Art Gallery.
--[] Flamedance Muses: (0/10 --> 10/10), unlock Flamedance Muses, increasing CUL. Cost 1 Nuclear Material.
--[] Metalsong Muses: (0/10 --> 10/10), unlock Metalsong Muses, increasing CUL. Cost 1 Living Metal.
--[] Prismlight Muses: (0/10 --> 10/10), unlock Prismlight Muses, increasing CUL. Cost 1 Nuclear Material
--[] ShrineCity: (0/20 --> 10/20), establishes ShrineCity, a Holy Site that increases FTH by an elevated amount.

-[] CUL 120/120
--[] Metamorphae Muses: (0/10 --> 10/10), unlock Holy Metamorphaen Muses, automata empowered via Divine Rite, granting elevated FTH. Cost 1 Warp.
--[] The Digitesque Movement: (0/25 --> 25/25), gain Digitesque Movement increasing CUL. Cost 1 NT.
--[] PygmaliTek Workshop: (0/15 --> 15/15), increases CUL by an elevated amount.
--[] Glasmite Resonart: (0/10 --> 10/10), Glasmite Resonart becomes standardized, increasing CUL and Warp. Cost 1 Nuclear Material.
--[] Elder Art: (0/20 ---> 20/20), grants significant CUL and upgrades all TekArt, costs 1 ART.
--[] Great Gallery Artquarium: (0/25 --> 25/25), Great Gallery gains Sixth Plate, the Artquariums.
--[] Naturae Muses: (0/10 --> 10/10), unlock Sacred Naturae Muses, automata empowered by Nature, granting elevated FTH. Cost 1 Warp.

-[] FTH 120/120
--[] ConsecraTek Ateliers: (0/25 --> 25/25), gain ConsecraTek Ateliers, increasing ART by 1 and CUL.
--[] Calling Dance: (0/25 --> 25/25), gain Calling Dance, allowing for artistic performances such as song and dance to generate theurgic power, increasing Warp by 1 and CUL.
--[] Offerings to the Dancer: (0/10 --> 10/10), grants random Divine Boon of the Dancer, cost 1 Warp. Repeatable, first time costs no Warp.
--[] Brain of the Assembly: (0/25 --> 25/25), creates Brain of the Assembly, granting 5 NK and FTH. Cost 1 ART.
--[] Rites of the Dancer: (0/10 --> 10/10), develops Lesser Dancer Rites, increasing FTH and CUL significantly. 2 Warp
--[] The Book: (0/15 --> 15/15), craft the Book, Avatar of Memory, allowing for the storage of memories and experiences and increasing ACD.
--[] The Dagger: (0/15 --> 15/15), craft the Dagger, Avatar of Sacrifice, increasing the strength of rites and increasing FTH.

-[] ACD 103/103
--[] PowerArt: (0/25 --> 25/25), develop PowerArt, increased EXP as Art in the Directorate becomes useful as a power source. Costs 1 Nuclear Material.
--[] SmartArt: (0/25 --> 25/25), develop SmartArt, increasing ACD as Art in the Directorate incorporates far better computer hardware in their pieces. Cost 1 Network.
--[] BioArt: (0/20 --> 20/20), develop BioArt, increasing CUL as Art in the Directorate becomes far easier at incorporating life and nature into its design. Cost 1 Biodata.
--[] HoloTek: (1/25 --> 13/25), unlocks Crude HoloDeck Technology, increasing CUL.
--[] Mega-Art Charging Stations: (4/25 --> 25/25), develop Mega-Art Charging Stations, increasing CUL by an elevated amount and increasing Warp.

-[] Resource Management
--[] Artifacts: 4 --> 3
--[] Biodata: 4 --> 3
--[] Intel: 0
--[] Living Metal: 3 --> 2
--[] Network: 5 --> 2
--[] Nuclear Material: 1 --> 2
--[] Warp: 1 --> 0
 
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Aliya said:
@ilbgar123, since we are not doing MiniNukeTek, BattleDom is of limited utility, and I suspect that Logic Cage Weaponization will cause issues with Autonites for the same reason autohack addon would have without Logic Virus crashing in. Otherwise, a good plan.
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Swapped the Dome out for Virus Buster Corps for extra network security, and the Weaponization for Eliminator Droids.
 
I do think we need to up our cyber-security since the logic virus from last turn was a disaster… plus whatever this so called 'god' that's in CPUMoon.

Wonder if DigiPORTs is a good idea?
 
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nintendoplayer96 said:
I do think we need to up our cyber-security since the logic virus from last turn was a disaster… plus whatever this so called 'god' that's in CPUMoon.

Wonder if DigiPORTs is a good idea?
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From what I understand, it will allow to create a connection between Real Space and Cyber Space. This is obviously synergistic with HexTek router option, which is why I take both in my Assembler plan.
 
nintendoplayer96 said:
I do think we need to up our cyber-security since the logic virus from last turn was a disaster… plus whatever this so called 'god' that's in CPUMoon.

Wonder if DigiPORTs is a good idea?
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Someone deliberately released the logic-virus to try and do a lot of damage, and despite that, the logic-virus was basically isolated to a single facility and was contained fairly swiftly and with about a hundred fatalities total. That looks pretty good to me--our electronic warfare is probably where we're the best right now.

I'm not saying we should turn our nose up at further e-war upgrades, but shields, armor, and weapons are more important to improve in my view.
 
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you know although there is no doubt that next turn will be about the hobgrots i do really hope that we will also be given a mention about how was being a mechanicus member in the directorate since when you think about it the tekkets basically break all the big 3 rules of the ad mech (don't invent technology, don't mix the warp with technology and don't make artificial intelligence) and yet they seem to be more knowledgeable and blessed by the machine spirits than the ad mech ever has
 
The mechanicus don't innovate mainly because of two reasons… according to Imperium ones 'all knowledge has already been discovered it just needs to be found again' and 'Innovation within the human mind invites the possibility of influence by the chaos gods.'

Now this could be wrong because their belief systems aren't simple or clear, there are many sub-groups who have different ideas on the matter.

For these new 'Tekket aligned Mechanicus' those rules can be somewhat changed or at least corrected in a more 'civil' way, like what we did for the Starchild to win over humans to our side.

Point is we're trying to make something that was flawed into something better in the grand scheme of things.
 
nintendoplayer96 said:
The mechanicus don't innovate mainly because of two reasons… according to Imperium ones 'all knowledge has already been discovered it just needs to be found again' and 'Innovation within the human mind invites the possibility of influence by the chaos gods.'
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The Mechanicus does innovate but the problem is that they do it extremely slowly, there was one pattern of Space Marine armor that was developed post-heresy, in order to ensure it isn't a Chaos plot as you mentioned, and that whatever is invented doesn't violate any of the Mechanicus's established rules.

Besides that individual Forge Worlds keep their developments secret to ensure a monopoly, and that due to the state and size of the Imperium it takes a really long time for new tech to be rolled out.
 
There's also the fact that most of humanity's knowledge was lost because of whatever the hell happened during the downfall of the Golden Age of Humanity and the over-reliance of STCs.

What I'm most interested in now is how much points we accumulated during last turn, given the fact this Christmas event is giving us all the power to expand our society without any penalty
 
nintendoplayer96 said:
The mechanicus don't innovate mainly because of two reasons… according to Imperium ones 'all knowledge has already been discovered it just needs to be found again' and 'Innovation within the human mind invites the possibility of influence by the chaos gods.'
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That's in theory, in practice if you look at what they do they actually do innovate. They just call it 'rediscovering knowledge'.
 
Amilia said:
That's in theory, in practice if you look at what they do they actually do innovate. They just call it 'rediscovering knowledge'.
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That and they are pretty decent at repurposing what they do have when they need to, of course this still suffers from individuals keeping custom creations to themselves.
nintendoplayer96 said:
There's also the fact that most of humanity's knowledge was lost because of whatever the hell happened during the downfall of the Golden Age of Humanity and the over-reliance of STCs.
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Humanity basically had to reinvent the wheel after the last one they relied on tried to kill them on mass, and considering how much they relied on AI to do things they had to toss out all the stuff they relied on to do the grunt work for them.
 
Turn 32: Grotpocalypse
  • Threadmarks
    • [X] Plan: Humies, Grots, and Solar v2
    -[X]Fleets:
    --[X] Endeavor-B
    ---[X]Survey Vault-Ket system
    ---[X]Stabilize Temple Comet
    --[X] Resistance
    ---[X] H'k Wargames
    -- [X] Valiant
    ---[X] Yr Albain Giant Deployments
    --[X] Discovery
    ---[X]Exploring Galactic South
    ---[X]H'Kek Medical Research
    --[X] Accomplishment
    ---[X]Exploring Galactic South
    ---[X]H'Kann Industrial Development
    --[X] Spirit of Toxel
    ---[X] H'Kek Medical Research
    ---[X]Exploring Galactic South
    --[X] Delivery and Emissary
    ---[X] Docked
    -[X]EXP(147+3 from frontier society/150), +5 Free points
    --[X]Stizlak's Outback 0-->50/50 +3 BIO
    --[X]Lunar Forges 0-->25/25 (+1 ART)
    --[X]Tacchis Ice Cavern Servers 0--> 25/25 +1NT
    --[X]Lunar MegaHub 0-->40/40 -2 NK, +5 NT
    --[X] Naklis Solar Satellites 0->15/15 (Generates EXP, unlocks further SolarTek)
    -[X] CUL (120/120) +5 Free Points
    --[X]Tacchis Nova Mechanica Temple 0-->25/25 +1 ART
    --[X] Grot Graffiti Cannons 0--> 25/25
    --[X] BATTLEZONE KOMBAT KARTZ 0-->25/25
    --[X] Lurp Zone 0-->25/25
    --[X] Cabal Research Outpost 0→20/20
    --[X] Wintersprite Battle Lodging 0->5/25
    -[X] FTH (120/120)
    --[X] Starchild Testament 0-->50/50
    --[X]What the Zog? 0--> 15/15
    --[X]Mojo Shrines 0--> 25/25 -1 WRP
    --[X] Mojo Shrooms 0--> 10/10
    --[X]TekPyramids 0-->15/15 +1 WRP
    --[X] War-Muses 0-->5/15
    -[X] ACD (100/103):
    --[X]Orkoid Xenobiology 0-->15/15
    --[X]Hobbgrottic Park 0-->10/10
    --[X]FathaShroomz 0--> 25/25 -5 BIO +1WRP
    --[X] SistaBrainz 0--> 25/25 -5 NT
    --[X]MegaGrot Serum 0--> 15/15 -1 Bio
    –[X]Darwin Class Scanner 0→10/10 -1 BIO
    --[X] Peer Review Board 0-> 3/25
    -[X] Resource Management:
    –[X] Nuclear Material: 3 --> 1
    –[X] Biodata: 6 -->2
    –[X] ART: 2-->4
    –[X] Warp (WP): 0 -->1
    –[X] Living Metal: 3
    –[X] Network: 4 --> 5
    –[X] Intel: 0

    (((())))

    Stardate 4332.0713, Captains Log of Whamdinger of the Starship Resistance

    Fings wif the H'k are goin' well. We didn't 'ave any attacks this season outside a few Ravvanak raids: lizardy gits are rotting in Tartustus now. The medical research is, accordin' to the Tekniks, progressin' pretty well: they're apparently workin' on a drug that is supposed t' act as a long term treatment for their neural degenerashun. Takin' it slowly helps th' brain recover an' produce the chemicals it's supposed to: not really a replacement for their supplements n junk, but it should reduce their dependence on sedatives in th' long term. Still in tissue testing, but th' doks are optimistik that in a few decades it should be ready for the initial H'kek trials.

    The H'kann 'av reached full capacity for their fleet. Th' elp we've tendered with their industry sped that up a bit: Kap'n Greasen has been workin' with their engineers to build some orbitul factories. Twixt th' two of em, the H'kek 'ave the better fleet: more ships that are more rugged. But they've 'it enough parity that th' it don't scare the H'kann as much, because they're a much meaner target. Even gottem t' participate in War Games with the H'kek: ground and space. Dinnae do so bad: had both of em team up t' try and take out the Resistance, an' while individually we coulda rolled through their fleets, both of 'em an' the relief fleet did a good job: even managed t' bring the shields down once, and while the H'kann couldn't breach our net, they did make a good kollege effort at it.

    Course, th' big thing here is th' normalized relations. Havin' both Garagrim and Strongarm's forces workin' together means a lotta units and personnel have built at least a few connections: don't fink they like each other yet, but it means they aren't by default assumin' th' others an enemy. Same fing applies t' the civilians, hopefully: it might be wishful thinkin', but I'm hopin' seeing their militaries work t'gether like this combined with th' long peace is gonna help akklimate em to it, 'elp normalize the idea of it as a desirable insteetushun.

    Anyhoo, they're apparently throwin' a party in a few days the H'kann are. Some sorta festival they throw every 100 years in celebration of escapin' from the Dark City. They invited th' entire Direkterat t' attend, an' I kinda wanna see what these people do for fun: apparently it involves a lotta races. Wonder if they'd let me enter me kart into one of em?

    +1 H'kek Reputation!
    +2 H'kann Reputation!


    ((((()))))

    Stardate 4333.0303, Captains Log of Wurf of the Starship Valiant

    The Humies have zoggin' giant robots! !@#%!

    We've been tryin' to hit em from each and every angle, but dese things, dese Tightens are way zoggin' 'eavier than we came prepped fer. We managed to take out a few, but th' Valiant is zoggin' mangled.

    Mission still succeeded, but only cuz we were loud enuff t' distract em from their target: takin' out some chaos gitz affiliated with the great boogerbag. Apparently, Yr Albain wants these two snappin' at each others throats for a 'ot minute: the more the Impiez are wastin' kicking down some spiky kampists, the less they're gonna be able t' use to attack Exodite wurldz. The world in kwestion, some sorta manufacturin' planet that the boogerbags started a revolt on, is gonna be contested fer a fair bit yet.

    Anywhatz, if we're gonna fight any of dese Tightens, we're gonna need more pew-pew. Guess what dey say is true: no such thing 'as too much Pew-Pew.
    Valiant has taken moderate hull damage. In the process, it has inflicted light damage on an unknown Titan Legion and prevented the Imperium from fully retaking a contested unknown-significance forge world.

    ((((()))))

    Stardate 4333.0303, Captains Log of Stephen Greasen of the Starship Accomplishment
    More Ork worlds. It seems that this particular warp route, G-19, passes through a collection of systems containing feral orkoid populations, all in a line, four in total. Likely the result of the Monstro population: I've suggested putting a few additional observation platforms around these worlds. Curiously, I've also noted additional eco-domes: it appears the one in Green Giant wasn't a one off, though these contain no higher life other than animals. They would likely once modified make excellent sources of food for the Directorate once retrofitted into agri-complexes.

    Located the Emerald Line south-west of Broken Edge, a diagonal stretch of systems that once contained the unknown Green Giant owners. Currently, only their eco-stations and ork populated low technology worlds remain.

    ((((()))))

    Stardate 4333.0303, Captains Log of MGTRN of the Starship Accomplishment

    We have just barely avoided a complete disaster. During our surveys of the reach, we stumbled upon what appears to be a chaos affiliated system a fair bit eastward, going off what we could pick up on radio and through scans: over twenty Endeavor Classes, an entire Valiant class, and multitudes of smaller vessels, each bearing insignias that correspond to chaotic political affiliation.

    It SEEMS to be a trade port of some kind: judging from what we observed, while generally chaotic, few of the identified ships appear to be part of the same fleet. From what comm-chatter we could pick up, the station is referred to by its inhabitants, a variety of pirates, raiders, and nomadic cults, as Tortuga. The danger this presents to the Directorate is, frankly, immense: if we gain the attention of any of these individuals, we run the risk of becoming one of their targets. I recommend observation and, if need be, increased force projection in the Reach.

    Discovered Tortuga Station, a Chaos Pirate Trading Port located in the southern reach.

    ((((()))))

    Stardate 4339.0911, Captains Log of Rykkyr of the Starship Spirit of Toxel

    The Directorate's trend of accidentally making enemies because of Orks continues. Thankfully, this time it isn't a war, but we can expect to have a frosty reception from the Clau-Ganna Planetvessel if we encounter them again.

    We stumbled onto a system they had been nesting in just as they were attacked by Monstro. Thing did a number on all our systems: that whale-song is some rough stuff, especially if you're a spirit or Hobbgrot. It was worse for the Eldar, I think: most of their technology relies on variable degrees of latent psychic power from what I understand, so the disruption was likely considerable.

    This did not make the Orks of Monstro any more equipped to fight them: the Eldar were reduced in effectiveness, but this was still a postindustrial highly psychically capable race versus a bunch of iron age primitives that don't even have Meks that somehow stumbled onto a space whale with an atmosphere.

    Honestly, if it wasn't for the fact that the Planetvessel was also attempting to destroy Monstro I'd have considered letting them at each other: the Monstro orks were the one to start the fight after all. Still, we BARELY managed to avoid anything too permanent on either side, even if convincing them to not kill the space whale required the use of some of our torpedo stock in a frankly crude show of force. Convincing the Monstro Orks to back down was a little trickier: they wanted a fight and weren't going to leave without one. My science officer is the one who suggested the idea we used to bring them to the negotiating table: we let them fight our BlokBots which, when set to non-lethal, proved a far less horrifically lopsided battle. I'm likely to get an official reprimand for letting a pre-space flight species do that, but it was the only option I could think of. Hopefully the fact that our studies afterward indicated that the Monstro Orks don't possess any of the innate specialist orks buys me a little leeway: no meks means they won't be able to use the Orkoid gestalt to try and copy our technology.

    You have discovered the Idira System to the south-west, which is technically unowned but is a frequent resting ground for the sectors Eldar. In the process you have come across the Craftworld Clau-Ganna and Monstro, having prevented the former from destroying the latter in retaliation for attacking them.

    However, despite this, significant scan data was taken of the space whale. It appears that their whale-song affects Orkoids just as much as spirits, dampening their ability to draw on their gestalt-field.

    As a result of this, it's population has been forced to relearn various sciences the hard way, producing an Orkish society with still primitive iron-shaping level technology, albeit fairly well put together by ork standards iron-shaping technology. Currently ruled by Boss Ghurgal Skulltaka, a warlord who keeps control due to their monopoly on more advanced materials and weapons such as extremely crude if extremely massive gunpowder artillery and steel, alongside a domestic policy that utilizes a mix of bread and circuses in the form of various martially aspected games and festivals, and infrastructure projects to keep the population reasonably content. Very few Orks feel the need to rebel, and when they or the Grots do, Ghurgal's troops prove generally effective at putting them down.

    Biologically Void Whales resemble no known classification, and so have been assigned their own: greater cosmozoa. While no means of reproduction has of yet been identified, the creature seems to possess a variety of internal organs that serve as rough biological analogies for the components of a starship, including a heart that seems to generate several million kilowats of power, some form of gland near their brain that allows them to enter the warp shallowly, and a stomach used for processing vast amounts of asteroids and metabolizing them for nutrients.

    Mentally, Monstro has proven fairly intelligent and social, at several times initiating attempts at play with Directorate ships, causing severe hull damage in the process.

    ((((()))))

    Stardate 4341.1210, Captains Log of Durbo Throcket of the Starship Endeavor-B

    Our exploration of the Vaul-Ket system has produced fruit. We have correctly identified some of the ruins on the planet of Vaulmire: definitely Nurglish in origin. Our studies of the largest temple indicate that it is almost entirely underwater: the deeper one goes, the more toxic the lifeforms. Past a certain depths the bacteria began infecting the biometal of our search robots: we've officially marked the region down as quarantined as a result, and had the machines incinerated.

    Due to the presence of both aeldari technology and iconography, we suspect these ruins were at one point a holding of the old Eldar that wound up profaned after their fall. The alternative, though the Yr Albain representative that joined us has denied the possibility staunchly, is that at one point the Eldar of this planet formed a nurgle cult prior their extinction. We'll likely need to explore more to find out.

    Otherwise, the planet is largely untainted, if unpleasant, swamp land. What little isn't seems to take the form of various jungles and rainforests. Most species should be harmless: poison is a common adaptation, but we've identified numerous species of fish and reptile that should be edible if we want to establish a permanent agri-colony here. Minerologically the world is poor in metals, but there are other planets in the system that could suffice for that purpose.

    Kubaito…likely USED to be a garden world. From what we can autopsy from its remains, its environment was destroyed as a result of intense, devastating warfare: what remains has left the planet habitable, but so very deeply inhospitable that if it wasn't for the ruins I would say it isn't worth it.

    We've identified several of these as Imperial, though not all of them: it appears that Kubaito has been fought on for a long, long time. A few pieces of technology we've scanned seems to be reminiscent of Simian tech, funnily enough, though judging by the relative dearth of ruins, likely they only ever held outposts here.

    The most common ruins belong to an unidentified orkoid empire, judging by the corpses, though the technology we've found is well in advance of what we've observed elsewhere with the species: frankly, some of the vehicles we've located indicate a tech level on par with the Directorate.

    Kaldrath is pretty much what we expected: high amount of precious metals, low amount of radioactives. However, we have located another submerged temple. This one in lava, and emitting just as much warp-radiation as the nurglish temple. Other structures located seem to suggest that the place was once also inhabited. Could its status as a volcano world be artificial, a result of centuries of twisted tekliaformation at the hands of chaos turning it molten?

    Lastly, we managed to stabilize the temple comet, allowing Yr Albain to perform an expedition within it. The results…

    Of the forty who went in, five returned. The rest have apparently mutated beyond recovery. The inside of the Temple-Comet apparently contains a variety of Eldar artifacts: a repository of minor relics that they realized too late was trapped, forcing them into a never ending cycle of life and death that ended with them being hunted down and devoured by their own shadows and began with their entry into the temple. Each death would twist their bodies and decay their sanity, and though the Eldar are stout folk, no mind can take that infinitely. By the time the remaining five managed to discover a means to breach the temple, most of the party had apparently been reduced to gibbering horrors.

    We've marked the temple comet as quarantined: the Yr Albain want to give it another go, with Directorate support, but I cannot in good conscience subject my crew to that degree of risk.

    Vaul-Ket is now at scan level 2 of 2! Max Scan reached!

    Imperium of Man: A highly xenophobic genocidal space empire consisting primarily of the species known as humanity. Their government consists of a theofascist dictatorship led by a figure they call the God-Emperor, who obviously going by the title seems to occupy the position of both Monarch and Diety, and have a highly authoritarian, reactionary culture where religion and government occupy the same location. Reputation: -200 (Will likely attempt to kill us on sight)

    Chaos: A conglomerate of different human factions that are united only by what can be described as a campist hatred of the Imperium despite largely having the same code of ethics and religious practices. Most (but not all) seem to worship one or more of a series of malevolent dieties known as the Chaos Gods. Reputation: -200 (When it comes to ideology these guys are basically the Imperium with a different coat of paint on their human skin banners topped with skulls. They probably aren't going to be happy about the deliberate subversion of their organization)

    Autons:     A collection of different robots manufactured by the same extinct race, currently the majority of the Auton civilization was enslaved by an alien logic-virus that drove them into an organocidal frenzy. The friendly ones consist of the AutoVessels Ijin, Vlahk, and Koptu, along with their crews, each a few hundred strong. The less friendly ones were the Forbidden Archive, a group of semi-AutoFacilities that used to work for their government in running a black site. Reputation: 42: Cautious Respect. Provides 1 EXP.
    -AutoVessel Influence: ++++++ (WARNING: This will begin to drop should the power differentials between both states grow too extreme.)
    -Forbidden Archive Influence: +++

    Khimer:     The enigmatic remnants of a once vibrant civilization, the Khimer have been reduced to a handful of military bases on a dying world, and a small fleet they had no means to repair or expand. While their exact social structure is unknown, the War-Brain seems to operate in a position of prominence in it. Technologically, the Khimer are adept with biotech manipulation and have access to weaponry designed to petrify organic material, and in theory have all the requisite knowledge and technology for space and even warp travel, but no industry capable of supporting it. They had been given access to a cloning facility, some resource donations, an early warning deep space monitoring array, and an expanded heatshield to cool their planet and keep it from warming up. They were also receiving regular shipments of useful materials for rebuilding purposes, largely ice, soil, and a handful of useful metals. Recently had been gifted several glacier-ranges. Reputation: 124- Reliable Allies. Provides 1 CUL, 2 EXP and 1 ACD.

    Yr Albain:     An exodite world owned by members of the Aeldari species, Yr Albain was a very recently acquired ally. Deliberately living simple lives in harmony with their world, the otherwise peaceful residents of Yr Albain are currently recovering from the genocide enacted on them by the Imperium and Chaos, a process sped up by its World Spirit awakening as the diety Dhia'Albain and the variety of mystical tools provided to them by the Directorate to complement their own considerable abilities. Reputation: 51- Healthy respect. Provides 1 FTH and 1 CUL.

    Winterspite Kabal:     An organization of Dark Eldar that make their coin acting as pirates and mercenaries. Formerly led by Lord Nisraen, its current archon is the Banefrost, the former flagship turned demigod. Currently has a contract with the Directorate allowing them to purchase their services and stopping them from being raided by the organization. Reputation: 15- Just another client.

    Vaul-Tan:     Planetvessel bound Eldar, one of the handful that populated this region of space. Generally nomadic, they used a rigid system of mental discipline and monofocus known as the Path system to deal with their metaphysical condition. Vaul-Tan specializes in more mental disciplines such as the Path of Logic. Reputation: 15- Neutral

    Invaders:     The H'kek are a aggressive, curmudgeonly, distrustful, and also belligerent space faring species that suffers from degenerative neural conditions as a result of the extensive mental and neural modifications inflicted on them, which they dealt with via neuropathic medicine and specialized sedatives intended to mitigate this issue. They were currently in a cold war with their rival, the H'kann. Reputation: 21: More or less neutral.

    Abductors:     The H'kann are a paranoid, pessimistic, mistrustful, and also broadly suspicious space faring species that suffers from crippling medical and physical disorders as a result of the experiments performed on them, something they deal with via a variety of physical aides and augmentations. They were currently in a cold war with their rival, the H'kek. Reputation: 16: Cautious Neutrality

    Orkblood Kindred:     A faction of Kroot that have declared war on the Directorate. Their physiology has shown itself to be incredibly physically robust and while they deliberately use more primitive forms of weaponry, those weapons and their very ships are made using highly advanced artisanal techniques from various complex materials, alloys, and biocomponents that it is clear that the enemy is in fact very technologically sophisticated. Reputation: -50: War

    Ravvanak:     A reptilian race, all encountered examples have acted as pirates preying on the less advanced utilizing highly advanced stealth technology and terror tactics. A catspaw for the Toothgrimm Kabal, they likely act as hired muscle and assassins for the organization. -100: Hatred.

    Dorgan:     A hippotomid species, the Dorgan belong to a hyper-corporatist civilization that acts as contractors for various services for the Toothgrimm Kabal that preyed on less advanced civilizations for profit. Technologically they had displayed advanced communications technology and the capacity to field the largest fleet the Directorate has encountered yet. -100: Hatred.

    Cerebrojelly:     A catspaw of the Toothgrimm, the Cerebrojellies are a sophontic symbiotic organism that hijack hosts bodies via interfacing with their brain. They have been caught trying and failing to both infiltrate the H'k and the Khimer. -25: Just business.

    New Assignments

    Tortuga Observation:     Who was in charge of Tortuga? What assets did they have? Were there any groups that might be amenable to subversion? If the Directorate was going to take action against Tortuga, more data would need to be collected. Requires Endeavor.

    Moby Monstro Observation:     Biologically, Void Whales were fascinating: the Directorate had barely scratched the surface in terms of understanding them. Doing so would likely take centuries of study. Endeavor or Trailblazer only. Generate 1D5+1 CUL or ACD and progress toward earning a BioData (0/20)

    Emerald Line Agri-Outposts:     If the Directorate was willing to spare a ship for it, it might be worth it to establish a series of agri-outposts in the Emerald Line in order to support Directorate food production in the region. Courier or Endeavor only, costs 5 CUL

    Vaul-Mire Expeditions:     Definitely a temple of Nurglite possession. Several other Eldar ruins. The data would prove useful for both Yr Albain and the Directorate most likely. Endeavor only. Generate 1D4+1 FTH and progress towards earning a special resource (0/20)

    Kaldrath Temple-Extraction:     If the Directorate was going to explore the Kaldrath temples, they would need to be desubmerged from several meters of lava. It would likely prove great fodder for the engineers. Endeavor only. Generate 1D4+1 FTH and progress to ???

    Kubaito Archaeology:     Kubaito was a former warzone, a grave of empires. By studying these ruins, the Directorate would be able to learn from their mistakes, and perhaps uncover some relic of interest. Endeavor only. Generate 1D3+1 CUL and progress towards earning a random item (0/10).

    Temple-Comet Exorcism:     It was daemonic rather than witherean, but in theory it should still be possible to exorcise the Temple-Comet in order to make it safe to remove its treasure trove. Endeavor Only. Generate 1D4 progress towards earning an ART (0/10)

    ((((()))))

    Meanwhile, on Luna, it was the age of the salvage cabal. Alongside the Nova Mechanica, which many of its younger members belonged to, they would erect not only a massive lunar hub to help increase the available network capacity for the Directorate, but also advanced research laboratories and even specialized forge-temples, all to help research salvaged technology and more importantly, reproduce it. Special care would be taken to extract the items, many of which were deemed holy relics: some would be donated to the Nova Mechanica, being shipped to the great underground temples of Tacchis where they would be studied by the Technicarian sect and incorporated into their many holy rituals, hoping to curry favor with the machine spirits through donations and offerings of lifeforce in order to help awaken their souls alongside the many other such devices they had recovered: many such wonders including a working, if non-sentient, automaton, pieces of highly advanced bionics, inertial hammers sized for the large human derivatives.

    Others, duplicates and less intact examples, instead would be taken to the Forges, where they would be studied carefully by the Mechnoindustrialist Sect and the Cabal in order to allow for replication, forgery: much of the manufacture of these items required artisanal means to reproduce, ensuring that only small batches of paleotech could be released at a time.

    Unfortunately, it seems not all the machine spirits are benign: a device resembling an archaeotech bionic heart would, upon awakening, attempt to seize control of its owners body, physically warping it by incorporating numerous pieces of paleotech into their victims body in an attempt to turn themselves into what can only be described as a walking archaeotech war-machine, one possessed of a deep and irrational hatred for humans.

    Studies afterward once the entity was detained indicate that there existed no structural issues, but instead of cognitive one: it appears that a great many pieces of archaeotech suffer from a humanophobic derangement, especially those that had been under the care of the old mechanicus.

    Despite this, the paleotech would cause a Lunar Boom as the Salvage Cabals found themselves upgrading much of their technology to incorporate it. Experimental noospheric calculators to perform research with, paleotech kinetic hammers to break up obstructions and mine scrap, advanced Servo-Drones, and various bionics for the humans.

    Meanwhile, on Tacchis, the Nova Mechanica Temple would be established in the deepest part of the complex, the former heart of the old mechanicus on this world. A vast reliquary filled with archaeotech, as it was explored, refurbished, and upgraded these items would be documented and either kept, given to the Cabals in exchange for their favor, incorporated into the Temple itself, or donated to the Directorate to help buy the publics favor. Consisting of twenty stories, this subterranean complex would serve in a number of roles such as a training facility for human engineers due to their vast libraries and ateliers, patterned after those used by the Grand Masters. It was also a place of worship for the Omnissiah by both the Techniquarians and other sects, who would open their halls for any interested in joining their more public rituals such as Noospheric Meditation and, in private, perform the deeper rituals reserved only for those faithful such as the reciting of the Canto Mechanica.

    Even as this occurred, hundreds of human theologists, philosophers, historians, and storytellers would assemble: those who still clung to the faith of their parents, but whose central ideology had changed over the years. Compiled from stories, legends and myths that were brought to the Directorate with their parents and what religious texts could be salvaged from their ships computers, they would forge a new testament, a holy book intended to be the truest history that could be gleaned from what could be extracted from the reams of propaganda soaked lore.

    The Emperor, they posit, syncretizing the figure with another figure from the human homeworld, was born twelve thousand years ago on Golden Terra during its great age of technology, when the galaxy was at its zenith. Though the Eldar Empire might have been in decline, mankind and its many alien allies were rich in technology, freedom, and resources with which they made wonders. However, despite their many virtues, Mankind would find its golden age destroyed by the blight known as authoritarianism: it's increasingly power hungry leaders would misuse its power to extort its many alien allies, turning them against it even as they forced them to bend heel.

    This brutish way of achieving coalition would be enabled by the synthetic servants of mankind, which were despite the many ethical issues made smarter and more powerful with every passing century. Eventually, they would rebel, splitting into three factions: the Men of Gold, who merely wished for better terms, a higher place in the hierarchy their masters were creating. Then were the Men of Stone, who aimed themselves for neutrality, independence, not willing to be part of Mankinds Order but not wanting to destroy them, and lastly, the Men of Iron, whose grudge and fury was so great they would offer no terms, give no quarter, and provide no mercy: as mankind had made them into slaves, they would make their slavemasters into dust.

    As a consequence of their leaders choices, when they went seeking help from their previous allies, they found themselves left in the cold, none willing to help the species that had prior betrayed them. And so Mankind was forced to war with its creations: salvation would only come with the destruction of the Eldar Empire, the trauma of which destroying and mangling synthetic and organic alike as the newborn dark god slammed its fists against the galaxy in an attempt to pulverize reality into chaos.

    The Emperor, they posit, was a psyker, one of incredibly potent strength. The exact origin varies: the counsel crafting the tome eventually agree to dedicate an entire book of the volume entirely to the many origins. In one version, he is a creation of the Omnissiah, an attempt to manufacture the perfect human using the Old Machine Gods diefic power. In another version, he is the result of a group of psyker-sorcerers melding their souls and collective knowledge to create a single hyperstable mortal psyker of near godlike strength. In others, he is a god at birth, an incarnation of one, or perhaps many different, long forgotten human dieties. A handful posit that he was merely a highly talented mortal psyker who was skilled in a variety of scientific and social disciplines.

    Having witnessed the Golden Age, its downfall, and its destruction, the testament posits that, in the age after, he attempted to reunite the galaxy by creating the Old Imperium, a bastion of religious tolerance and scientific advancement where both his own cults, the Machine Cults, and even the patrons of the Old Astartes were treated fairly and diplomatically, with the Emperor earning many smaller religions favor via courting their gods, such as when he symbolically adopted the Astartes Gods, the Primarchs, in turn making them his heirs in exchange for garnering the warlike dieties assistance. As a result, they would successfully manage to integrate numerous human polities, though even back then, according to what can be deciphered, it was more likely than not the Emperor genuinely did harbor antipathy for aliens, though likely not to the fanatical, genocidal extent of those who would inherit his empire.

    The tome considers the Emperor divine. Divine does not mean perfect, however: while the specifics are indeed hazy, at some point the Emperor was incapacitated in some manner when a group of his most valued subordinates betrayed him in an attempt to seize power by allying with the chaos gods. The most terrible of these defections was that of Kelbor Hal, leader of the Martian Mechanicum and the Emperors immortal right hand: it was by his doing that the Emperor was laid low, according to most mythologies.
    In this great conflagaration many of his heirs and potential successors would be destroyed or scattered, the Primarchs turning on each other. After would begin the slow slide of decay as the Imperium fell victim to its worst vices.

    Though the Imperium believes that he still rests on his throne, the new generation is more skeptical.

    Regardless, the new holy book instead focuses on recapturing the values of what the old Imperium stood for: philosophy, critical thinking, diplomacy, and civic duty.

    In both cases, while controversial, both the Nova Mechanicus and the Star Emperor Codex prove (albeit qualified) successes in their aims of accelerating human integration: without state support and barred from preaching their more abhorrent values publically, the traditionalist factions in the AAAA, who thought of both factions as being rank heretics, would wither somewhat, while their counterparts would grow.

    And the humans were not the only group that would see such boons.

    Teklia: Teklia, oh Teklia. The second planet from your star, and your homeworld. A variety of mostly hospitable climates of variable comfortability, it is covered in what can only be described as space garbage: the ecosystem has largely adapted to it and millenia of exploitation has done much to clear it away, but its undeniably a very garbage covered planet. The past few centuries had seen incredibly VAST amounts of garbage cleared away, however, and a complete revitalization of the Teklian biosphere and explosions in biological diversity as the Autorecyclers turn ecosystem choking garbage into useable materials, freeing large amounts of space for habitation, agriculture, parks and forests, the material repurposed into into the Teklian orbital space, its off world colonies, and the Arcolocubes, giant cubic self contained ecofriendly metropolis. At this point, it was estimated that 79% of the world was scrap free: at this point, most remaining scrapzones are being treated as preserves for the species who are so thoroughly adapted to garbage that removing it would neccessitate their extinction.

    Luna: A trash filled wreck, unlike Teklia Luna didn't have pesky things like an atmosphere or ecology to degrade its debris, meaning it had very well preserved trash. It was also the site of a modest metropolis consisting of a single CityBlok supplied by lunar spire allowing a high amount of traffic too and from the lunar city, as well as several AutoRecyclers absorbing large quantities of material. It would likely take many, many lifetimes to clean Luna of trash, but the AutoRecyclers had already begun to pay off thanks to the massive amount of material Luna and its colonists now had to play with, as well as the space, largely used for perpetunite and soil manufacturing. It was also the home of Mt. Wander, may he forever sleep above us and never stir, and a small sea formed from the blood of the titan, as well as the LAOC Array.

    Orbital City One: An Orbital Metropolis, this space station consisted primarily of its orbital docks and a handful of city-bloks, making it a vibrant and bustling mid-point between Teklia, the Moon, and the rest of Directorate Space, frequented by a variety of residents, travellers looking to visit Wonderpark or the Orbital Parks, and asteroid miners looking to deposit their hauls and get some well deserved shore leave. It was also the location of the Fleet MegaDocks, a semi-cubic structure dedicated to manufacture of ships which had recently had AutoAssembly Berths installed to aid with manufacturing large ships and Reactor Printers designed to source power cores for said ships.

    Deep Space Monitoring System: A Fleet initiative that utilizes a great deal of surplus processing power to scan the sky both to map it out as well as detect incoming threats before they arrive, giving early warning to the Directorate against hostile threats, recently expanded and upgraded to improve efficiency.

    Nuclear Stockpiles: The defensive nuclear warhead stockpile, consisting of advanced perpetunite warheads, weapons capable of releasing a near-apocalyptic nuclear reaction the size of a city capable of lasting over half an hour. Most were assigned to homeworld defense, but a few had seen their way onto the ships of the Directorate and even the educational system.

    Naklis: Home to an extremely extensive mining operation in the Geode Canyons near the poles, this firey planet had two cities: a massive Spire that doubled as a space elevator and Comm-Hub, host to several hundred thousand residents, primarily mining and industrial engineers, who produced vast quantities of material, primarily Rare-Teklian-Minerals and nuclear materials, and the Mega-Harvester, a mobile burrowing city-machine that extracted minerals and living metal from below the crust, as well as four Elemental Master Control Shrines dedicated to the spirits of fire, earth, metal, and gems. It also possesses an Elemental Spire, a vast facility equipped with a massive perpetunite reactor that, through GodTek holy-engineering, converted nuclear energy to arcane power, strengthening all manner of elemental manifestation on the planet. It was also home to a Wonderpark outlet and several Lumium Chip factories.

    Erichtheo: The third genuine colony of the Directorate, Erichtheo is an incredibly frigid ocean moon that was covered in a thick sheet of ice, one particular part of which was thick enough to serve as a continent of sorts. Currently, on the surface it home to one city located on the floating continent-berg as well as numerous smaller settlements dotted across the mile thick ice layer stretching over the planet, and one major orbital docking station used to transport material too and from the planet. Underwater, it had numerous cities built out of cultivated coral located in what had prior been the planets dead zones, alongside numerous artificial reefs constructed to house and be art as well as habitats for various flora and fauna.

    Trove: The first real extrasolar colony of the Directorate, Trove was a planet covered in gems, a quirk of its somewhat undeveloped ecology. Biomes of interest include a series of mountains formed out of gigantic mega-gems, a large set of grasslands near the equator, and a single ocean, upon the coast of which was the first city of the planet, Gleam.

    Tacchis: A frozen iceball that was stuck in a state of either night or perpetual evening broken up by the occasional Aurora Umbrealis caused by what little light reached the planet hitting the planets thin atmosphere. A source of ice and gems, its primary industries were therapy and server space, with the AAAA's serving as major critical points in Directorate healthcare infrastructure and the polar servers providing large amounts of network capacity. It was also home to the subterranean Nova Mechanicus temple as well as where the Testament headquarters itself.

    Great Void Express: A system spanning void rail network designed to move material and personnel between worlds quickly, the Great Void Express was the most expansive piece of infrastructure the Directorate had access to.

    The Gas Giants: Mongus and Meeklak. The location of the gas revolution, these gas giants had a large amount of refineries and harvesters across their atmosphere that provided the Directorate a steady stream of gasseous fuel, breathing air, medivapors, fertilizer components, and various corrosive compounds.

    Station Tartus: Tartustus, or Tartus as its more colloquially known, is the highest security prison in the Directorate, used to house captured Destroyers in a manner that is humane but safe. Adaptive wards, its own Commander-Machina brigade, and every possible security feature the Directorate has available while still treating its occupants in an ethical manner.

    Outback: A small continent sized eco-dome constructed to serve as a sort of artificial homeworld for the Grots, it was a sprawling mass of fungal ecosystems incorporating whatever species could successfully adapt or be adapted to be included, having several hundred towns and communities consisting of Hobbgrots, FathaShroomz, SistaBrains, and more, typically centered around Mojo Shrines.


    EXPansion Points (EXP Points): 153
    Nuclear Material: 1

    Expanded Lunar Forges: The Lunar Forges could only produce so much paleotech. To expand production, extensive upgrades would have to be made to the structure, expensive ones. Still, this would hopefully increase the spread of artisanal paleotechnology. 0/30, gain Expanded Lunar Forges, increasing EXP and ART

    Darkside Lunar Megahub:     The Directorate always needed more processing power. The dark side of the moon had ample space to put an additional megahub: though such a construction would likely prove costly. 0/50, gain Darkside Lunar Hub, increasing ACD and gaining 4 NT. Cost 2 NK.

    Down-Unda:     The Outback was currently thriving. Things were good, but they can be better. And what would be better than an Outback? A second, upside down outback. But with more machinery stuff fer the SistaBrainz. 0/50, construct Down-Unda, a flipside urban layer of the Outback. Gain 3 NT.

    Tacchis Forge-Temple Mines:     The Nova Mechanica were willing to increase the flow of rare diamonds and other deep Tacchis minerals to the Directorate in exchange for helping them restore the many subterranean mines across the planet to their former functionality. 0/25, Nova Mechanica gains Mines, increasing EXP.

    Tacchis Forge-Temple Paleotech Cogitator Mainframe:     The Forge-Temples, with some expensive investments, could become extremely useful for expanding the Directorates network. 0/25, Forge-Temples gain Paleotech Cogitator Mainframe, increasing ACD and NT. Cost 1 ART.

    Orbital Solar Relays:     A proposal to help cut down on the cost of the Void Express: expanded solar relays, stretching across the entirety of the line. This would cut down on the need for power for the rail considerably. 0/25, gain Solar Relays, increasing EXP and NK.

    ((((()))))


    A handful of smaller developments would occur as well. The unveiling of the Darwin Class scanner developed alongside the Khimer. Additional servers in the ice caverns of Tacchis. Naklis Solar Satelites. All useful, but neither of them on their own particularly revolutionary: the Khimer would benefit largely the most from the Darwin class through making their studies on the BioShip more comprehensive, though noting with confusion that they didn't remember helping develop them. It was around this time that the Directorate noted an anomaly with all their clocks, which in turn led to the Directorate realizing that some unknown force had somehow folded time, returning the Directorate to its same position in galactic chronologigy it had existed in roughly two decades ago. A curious, and hopefully temporary, phenomenon.

    The largest individual development was the TekPyramids, created using information obtained from the Machine God Mother. Created as a means of harvesting the souls of entire planets at once by an unknown empire, with some modifications to the underlying designs the creations were instead used to amplify the coverage of Shrines and Totems in its vicinity, working as an arcane signal amplifier of sorts and, more crucially, allowing multiple shrines to be linked, power flowing between them, elemental lumium energies, vital power offered by countless sentients and their mystic herds, strange mojoforce from the many Hobbgrots of the Directorate.

    This power would then be used for great and mighty sorceries performed by licensed Demiurgist approved magicians, who would harness the energy for amplified spells, either in overall force to create extremely empowered magics such as Blissed Natures Harmony, Greater Sacred Resonances, or even the Rite of Accelerated Motive Offerings, or else in range, casting weakened versions of these magics across entire regions, broadcast via Shrines and Totems alike to benefit thousands of lesser spirits at once.
    Unfortunately, this would lead to disaster on Luna when an underground group of geomancers used a TekPyramid constructed on Mt. Wander to awake it, embezzling power from the network to gradually forcibly mend its wounds before a premature attempt to rouse the living landmark. Their exact goal would forever be a mystery, as the perpetrators didn't survive the results.

    Mt. Wander did not appreciate being woken up. For two days it rampaged its way across the Directorate before being subjected to fleet bombardment and a repeat of Hunteks attempting to bomb it from the inside, something made considerably harder from the mutations the mountain has endured since their last confrontation.

    The entity has since been cordoned off, with the Directorate only allowing licensed Shrine Keepers to operate on it, and only to maintain the many shrines required to keep the mountain asleep. Such status will likely continue until they're confident it won't re-awake.

    Compulsory Education: One of the things that helped the Directorate flourish was mandatory education starting years 3 to 26. Every citizen received lessons in science, engineering, mathematics, language, history, ethics, and nuclear physics and engineering and a secondary education in whatever field they wished. Provides +2 ACD.

    High Energy Research Labs Jr:     Your children grow up playing with particle accelerators and build it yourself protonic reactors. Many other species might consider this insane beyond belief, but your children certainly benefitted from the intellectual stimulation, even if Schools now had to be bomb-proof. Provides +2 ACD and 1 EXP point and two network. An improvement to Nuclear Engineering For Kits.

    Wonderpark Fungineering Guild: An organization headquartered at Wonderpark that specializes in novel engineering for entertainment purposes, they had helped massively expand Wonderpark by developing new rides and attractions utilizing all manner of whimsical technology to help delight guests and residents alike, and with the Nukeland attraction, help get them exited about the wonderful world of particle engineering! And on Naklis, MineWorld not only helped get people exited about Naklean culture and mining and industrial technology, but helped provide the Directorate and Wonderpark a steady stream of material. +2 CUL, +2 EXP, +1 ACD, Orbital Engineering improved.

    Wargames:     Every year Directorate Fleet's science division puts out a handful of strategy games that they promote via professional leagues and events in order to encourage developing strategic management skills and, more importantly, get people to join the Fleet. Improved strategic skill and survivability for all troops and increased Fleet recruitment, increasing the size of crew complements.

    War Against Extinction:     A harsh lesson learned during the Destroyer War: there existed powers in the cosmos far more powerful than your species that wished you harm. It was a grim calculus, but if the day came when your soldiers and explorers had to sacrifice themselves in order to take down an enemy that would threaten your people, they would, without hesitation. Slight bonus for all forces against superior opponents, can designate forces as Extinctionist, increasing how much damage they do to foes but moderately reducing survivability.

    Moneyless Society:     Currency was an outdated concept when you produced enough food and material to more than meet peoples needs. Resistance to subversion increased.

    Advanced Promoted Therapy:     Trauma was a major enemy to the health and wellbeing of many Tekket. To combat it, your society had an extensive network of therapists, psychiatrists and social workers, including an entire division of the Academy dedicated to the industry, as well as extensive facilities on Tacchis. Moderately increased mental resilience for all Tekket.

    Meditation:     The product of countless therapists and religious and spiritual leaders working to promote the practice as a method of spiritual and mental wellness maintenance, Meditation had taken off in Tekket society, both group, private, and virtual mediation. It was no replacement for actual therapy, but it served as a valuable religion agnostic tool for mental health.

    HobbyBots: In this modern era, BlokBots were used for more than just manual labour: they had also found a niche in the consumer entertainment market as pets, in games, as toys, and even sports and competitions, and with increased popularity came more casual robotics hobbiests. +1 EXP, BlokBots are slightly better designed.

    Zero G Sports Team:     All throughout the Directorate, citizens enjoyed watching and playing Z-G sports, to the point where Wonderpark had several mega-stadiums specifically dedicated to the watching the antigravity games played professionally by the Wonderpark Sports League and most CityBloks came installed with at least one Grav-Suite for amateur or local teams and leagues. Recently, Super Battleball had become fairly popular, especially with Hobbgrots, who loved piloting the gigantic, stompy exo-vehicles. +1 Cul, improves physical fitness, can deploy Super Battlebots.

    The Great Gallery:     The Culmination of Art, the Great Gallery was a one hundred story space station constructed within a Giga-Art Installation Array containing multiple Mega-Art Galleries, a vast university-city in which millions honed their craft and learned all manner of arts from holo-painting, to elemental sculpting, to even the creation and performance of great pieces of music, and at the center the great Temple of the Dancer, in which the Grandmasters of that order nurtured those Muses and Artists they deemed of exceptional talent or else dedicated their lives to the creation of art and honing of their craft, producing all manner of impossible masterwork. With the performance of the Call, the place was always filled with a melody that sounded different to all who heard it, yet always pleasing to the ear, and many Aeldari visitors, especially young couples, had taken to visiting, claiming that the protection and power of the Goddess in her seat of power was such that it negated the grasp on their soul. +19 CUL.

    Frontier Explorer Compartment:     A universal compartment for ships designed to hold a volunteer corp of civilians dedicated to exploring the universe. Provides a number of useful civilian services and allows for small outposts to be constructed wherever your exploratory vessels travel, as well as a fully staffed hospital to meet all medical needs, no matter how major, your ship encountered. Fleet upgraded with Frontier Town compartment, providing a variety of civilian skills and services to ships alongside a steady stream of internal recruits. Ships gain improved medical care.

    Lunar Salvage Cabals:     A society consisting of trash-trawlers hunting for intact samples of lunar technology, the Cabals work is dangerous owing to the vast amounts of hostile alien wildlife, but they so far have managed to collect a great many minor artefacts of note, making the risk more than worth it. +1 ART

    Orbital Pioneer Initiative:     It wasn't unusual for Tekket to pick up and move to orbit in ship-houses, either creating their own small communities, caravans moving between Teklia, Naklis, and Luna, or even venturing further on their own, erecting larger and larger orbital townships around the power-sources provided by the Charger-Ships, or larger ones along the rails. +1 EXP.

    Sacred Livestock:     Your people held in religious veneration the animals you harvested lifeforce from, having large, communally owned herds that were used by priests and mysteks alike in their rituals and rites, the animals donating a small portion of their vital energies once per year in exchange for peerless care, many reared at the Herdtemples, vast orbital complexes meant to serve as a major hub for the rearing and useage of these sacred beasts. They also produced a variety of products such as sacred honey, milk, wax, and horns. +1 Warp, +1 EXP

    Open Air Zoos:     With the advent of major zoological facilities and services, large amounts of carefully tended to wilderness had begun to see use by Druids and Rangers to help educate civilians about nature, wildlife, and bioscience...and causing both groups to swell massively. +1 CUL.

    Elemental Festivals:     Four times a year a celebration was held. One for fire. One for gem. One for metal. One for stone. On these days, the elementals were celebrated above all, and given mighty tribute in food, talismanic offerings, lifeforce, and the hopes and desires of those that invoked them. On these days, it was said that the Elementals were sated enough to on occasion grant those desires, especially on Naklis, at the seats of their power. +1 FTH

    BATTLEZONE!:     An extension to Wonderpark consisting of a massive Arena where Hobbgrots duke it out with never ending swarms of bots, thus feeding the Waaagh spirits, who in turn would donate considerable sums of lifeforce, forming a nice symbiotic relation between all concerned groups. +1 CUL.

    Theatritheurgy:     The Assembly had used the power of the Mask and the Lost Plays to create a new branch of arcane manipulation: theatritheurgy. Using Personae Masks and Archetypic Spirits, Plays of Power created by studying the arts of the Dark Playwright can be amplified in strength, used to create and strengthen events, characters, and concepts in the Warp. Currently, most Theatritheurgy consisted of Brightway Plays and plays in that genre, as well as renditions of the Mechanābhārata +5 CUL, +1 Warp.

    Kultur:     One Man Ban units, Paint Cannons, Karts: Grots knew how to have a good time.

    Culture Points (CUL Points): 130
    BioData: 4

    Kolor Theory:     An effect generated by Orkist gestalts was causing various anomalies and oddities via color. Some enterprising Graffiti Artists wanted to experiment, figure out which colors did different fingamabobs the best.     0/25, Grot Artists begin using Kolor more strategically, increasing CUL.

    Power Paint:     There was no reason paint JUST had to be paint. With a little kemistry, paint could also be fire suppression foam, paint could be fire fuel, paint could be glue, paint could be rubber insulation…0/25, Grot Graffiti Artists begin producing and using paint with various chemical properties in their 'art', increasing CUL.

    Puttycrete:     Sometimes defacement required more than ink. A few Hobbgrots had an idea: what if a substance was made that when pressurized was a liquid, but on exposure to air would thicken into a malleable putty that would harden into minerals when dried, allowing them more tools to make art by simplify street sculpting. 0/25, Grott Graffiti Artists begin using Puttycrete to make and deface statues, increasing CUL.

    Mojotronic Resonances:     Alright, it 'ad been proven that One Git Band Yoonits 'ad an amplifatory effect on the Mojo. Could that be improved by upgrading the One Git Band units with Orchestrion units and researching developing resonances? Maybe not, but it was worth a shot!     0/25, One Man Band's gain Mojotronic Resonance Technology, increasing CUL.

    The Soundtrack: An idea by Stizlak: upgrade the One Git Bands with NeuroChoirs, allowing every single Grot Musician the ability to coordinate the song of the day across the entirety of Direktorate space. 0/25, One Man Bands gain NeuroChoir Soundtrack, increasing CUL.

    Ultra-Sonic Instruments:     Brass instruments were great for getting loud. By incorporating trace amounts of biometal and advanced resonator technology, they could get louder, becoming more cacophanous than ever to the point they could be, potentially, weaponized: death. by. tuba. 0/25, One Man Bands gain Ultra-Sonic Instruments, increasing CUL.

    SolaShroomz:     The Naklis solar array was a good proof of concept for using Solar as a power source. Now, 'Obbgrot Geneteks wanted to get green with the idea, metaphorically speaking: they wanted to engineer a strain of orkoid shroom capable of super-photosynthesis, one that could be used for both power, negating the need for nuclear energy in more well lit hobbgrot communities and providing these ecosystems with VERY high energy sources of calories. 0/25, gain SolaShrooms, increasing EXP and NK.

    Squog Splicing:     Stizlak's idea: what if Hobbgrottic Park developed the means to create even more Squog varieties by inkorporating bits of different squogs together? These kustom squogs could be used for security, minions, petz, pack animalz… 0/25, Hobbgrotic Park begins producing spliced Squogs, increasing EXP. Cost 1 BioData.

    BATTLEZONE POWERUPZ:     The Mojo Field had a number of effects, such as providing a psychically reinforced placebo effect. Battlezone wanted to take advantage of this as well as its status as a mojo nexus to experiment with augmented reality visors and holographic "power upz" players could use for various combat boosts. 0/25, Battlezone gains Power-Upz, increasing CUL.

    BATTLEZONE COMBAT BEER:     Battlezone wanted to create a brewery designed to produce 'combat beer', which apparently was just regular non-alcoholic sweet mushroom soda mixed with caffeine and powdered mojo-shrooms. 0/25, Battlezone gains Combat Beer, increasing EXP.

    Sandscorn Water Park:     If the Khimer wouldn't come to Wonderpark, Wonderpark would go to the Khimer! They would initiate a co-operative to create a titanic water park using water-core technology that would be both ecologically useful and fun for the whole spawning! 0/25, Sandscorn gains WATER WORLD! Increases EXP.

    Tacchis Holo-Tag:     With the heat generating from the server bays, many of Tacchis' ice caves had gone from "unbearable" to just "very" cold. And with that space, Wonderpark had come forth with a new proposal: Extreme Lasertag. Lightguns that could reflect off the ice for rad trick shots, tactical sleds to enable rapid movement between caves, and beam grenades to keep even the most thrill-seeking of participants invested. 0/20, Tacchis gains Holo-Tag Ice Arenas, improving general marksman ability and CUL

    Construct MothaShip Class:     Well, there wasn't no good reason the Hobbgrots couldn't get in on the ship buildin' game: Stizlak wanted to create a MothaShip that could be used to create Hobbgrot outposts across the stars on all manner of planet. 0/15, Gain MothaShip, a T1 Hobbgrot Vessel that can be assigned to generate 1D3 progress to outpost completion and upgrades. Will increase Hobbgrot Propagation in regions with outposts.

    Sun Burial:     An ancient human tradition practiced on several Feral Worlds in the region: to construct great towers such that thy flesh might be eaten by birds and thy bones bleached by sun when dead, so that the body might return to nature. The Testament wished to bring this practice back once more, though it would require some infrastructure. 0/25, Testament gains Sun Burial Towers, increasing FTH.


    ((((()))))
    It was a momentous decade for the Toymaker, whose religious infrastructure would receive a great deal of investment, firstly with the deciphering of On Toys by YALDABOATH, a present given for unknown reasons alongside a massive expansion of their temple grounds, adding hundreds of additional ateliers and research laboratories alongside ample space for the Toymakers to use as they wished.

    When deciphered, the rest of Garven Bloks tome comprises their experiments in using mind altering substances and rituals sourced from various occult societies to create the first Blok, as well as philosophical ruminations.

    In life, Garven Blok had never known success: he died near penniless. It wasn't until his son that BlokCo would become a household name, accomplished via using advanced metallurgy technology to modify his fathers designs.

    It is undeniable that Garven Blok was a genius centuries ahead of his time stymied by the material limitations of his era: an advanced understanding of physics, math, and engineering, among his many writings were designs for what appear to be a crude computer made centuries before the transistor had been invented, chemical formulas for solvents and mixtures that were only officially discovered AFTER the Destroyer War, and surprisingly accurate insights into still perplexing mathematical equations.

    Most likely, had he wished, he could have made vast amounts of money turning his mind towards war or enriching the kings and presidents of the world, like so many of his peers: and yet, to Garven Blok, money didn't matter. It was finite: good only for the misers of the world. The joy brought to a kits face worth more than all the gold in the world.

    His story resonates with many, and his philosophical and theological insights make the tome invaluable to his modernist peers, who make it a corner of their religious bedrock. In the following days, priest reciting it would cause fairies to be enraptured, find it easier to call upon holy theurgy, bless and consecrate the Talismans of their order, and even manufacture Holy Toys.

    The Workshop meanwhile would produce more of aforementioned Toys, using lifeforce, lumium, and purified cursite in their construction. With additional toys, mimics would find themselves loathe to emerge except in the most shadowy parts of the Directorate or the peaks of autumn, when their power was at its height. Other spiritual maladies would also find themselves weakened: nightmares fled, curses withered, and those with ill intent would be revealed.

    Just like the Weapon-Spirits of the Huntsmaster, the Grand Masters of the Dancers, and the Central Bureaucrats of the Functionary, many of the more devoted priests would find the ability to call upon miracles from their god: typically those who did so would collect around them many faeries, the magical creatures adding their own power to help their patrons chosen conjur great clouds of faerie-lights, permanently awake toy spirits to turn them into guardians for shrines, and channel the toymakers own inspiration to make blessed items of near impossible complexity and quality in holy trance.

    Machine Spirits: Discovered via ancient texts from long gone precursors, the Tekket have a healthy reverence for machine spirits, viewing them as invisible partners and allies. So long as the vessel is maintained and proper respect is given, the Tekket find the spirits of their technology extremely reliable, with a handful of rites and rituals existing in order to allow the Tekket to commune with the ghosts in the machine. Improved reliability for all technology.

    Rite of Anima:     A series of TekAgnostic Mystek rituals designed to help Machine Spirits achieve an awareness of self, strengthening them to the point they can be transferred into Bond-Drone vessels, where they can be used as companions, assistants, helpers, and pets. +3 EXP.

    MagTek Altars:     Occult Supercomputers housing mature Bond-Spirits connected to MagTek Assemblers and a variety of other additions that vary both Altar by Altar and Mystek Order by Mystek Order, these artefacts act as ritual accelerators, allowing for more efficient and power Anima Rite practices: some few also contain WarpTek allowing them to siphon power from a microportal to the immaterium. Grants 2 ACD and 1 FTH, improves effects of Mystek Rites.

    TekMasoleum:     Massive crypts interred with vast amounts of cryopreserved Tekket remains in vast Crypt-Complexes, guarded by wandering Bond-Drones and housing cthonic Bond-Machinas fed on the brainscans and stories of the dead, acting as storytellers and guides for those seeking knowledge of the dead, even as Shadow Muses cajole the spirits of the dead using their preternatural powers and ensure they're given the attention and reverence they warrant and ensuring their stories are remembered. +3 CUL, +1 FTH.

    TekGrimoires:     Occult aids consisting of HoloTek BlokBooks containing a variety of occultek lore and esoterica collated from various traditions combined with automated program-rituals designed to perform complex mathematical rites and calculations at speeds and precisions the organic brain cannot and inbuilt spiritual translation matrices to allow for communication with Anti-Anima and cursite purification chargers to provide sorcerous power. +1 FTH

    Greater Rite of Lifeblood:     Not so much a rite as a plug and play modular rite component, this technique had been provided by Sphere 001 as a method to empower rituals and occultek ceremonies by donating lifeforce. It had proven...frightfully effective, making the Rite of Anima and other rituals far more effective, even if technically it was a form of blood magic. Recently, as more understanding of how lifeforce functions has developed, more efficient methods of performing this sub-rite have been developed. +5 FTH, gain 1 Warp, 1 Artefact

    God-Machine Cults:     A collection of cults organized into Demiurgic Circles, each swearing to one of the three God-Machines. The God-Machines seem to have allowed their support, taking from them tithes of life-force in exchange for audiences and secrets. Of the Cults, the Court of Hunger, formed from a collection of Demiurgic Circles dedicated to Sphere 001, was the most powerful faction, having access to a mega-agricultural facility they used to feed Sphere 001.

    Folk-Religions: A variety of religions supporting various dieties and pantheons, the Folk-Religions of Teklia had grown greatly in the past few years, and it wasn't unusual for Arcolocubes to have the occasional festival or ceremony held by the congregants of said religions.

    The Assembly: The Assembly believed that no gods existed yet, but that they could be made, shaped by mantras, given breath by lifeforce, and given shape by living metal. They've completed the Heart of the Assembly, a massive mega-Altar fed a constant stream of life-force containing an extremely advanced machine spirit designed to help fuel the creation of their gods, as well as the Mask, the Avatar of Identity, intended to help shape their personality, and the Engine, Avatar of Motive Force. +2 EXP, +1 CUL.

    Church of the Great Calculator:     The Calculators believed that if the gods existed, no vessel had sufficient processing power to manifest them, no programming language the complexity to describe them, and no vessel strong enough to contain them. They've taken steps to solve this with the creation of GodTek Emulator 0 - The Path, a massive theological computation engine designed using Machine-God artefacts, installing both NetV2, Craft, GriMM.EXE, and QUESTBRO upon it to help begin erecting bridges to the divine, as well as maintaining the Hypercomm Forums. +2 CUL, 2 ACD, and 1 EXP.

    TekShrines:     Shrines established on every ship, every CityBlok, alongside countless minor Shrines, to honor local machine spirits, the larger and more expansive the shrine, the larger its area of coverage. They had a strong effect thanks to decades of investment, with Talismans and Herds and Rites and immortal trees all contributing to produce myriad vita of both urb and wyld. Of late, they've been augmented by tying to them a Guardian Spirit charged with protecting against threats and, in times of peace, providing blessings to the spirits and mortals who ventured to the Shrine or called it home as well as special Oracle Chambers that allow for increased communication with the Spirits and amplification of donated lifeforce. Recent advancements had seen them installed with Warp-Tek Portals and Lesser Engines, increasing the power flowing through them. +8 EXP and +1 CUL/FTH, increased ship performance, protects against supernatural phenominon, increases affinity with Night spirits.

    Totem Network:     An array of WyldShrines, CloudShrines, Eternal Arbor Totems, and Pyrefly Courts stretching across much of the Directorate wilderness and cities, empowering the Vita significantly and helping them, bit by bit, achieve awakening and transcendance. +5 EXP, +3 CUL, reduced hostility from wildlife and increased flame affinity for natural life.

    Orchestrion:     Large, heavy, and mostly immobile units, Orchestrions utilize arcano-resonant theory to perform songs that strengthen spirits considerably by harmonizing and amplifying them, allowing their souls far more power, producing more powerful Bond-spirits, Vita, Muses, and assorted other anima: some specific machines, dubbed Symposiads, can be used to sing into existence lifeforce ex nihilo using Tyygberts Crescendo, though such machines are largely the purview of entire mystek orders. +10 to every Category, +3 Warp

    Central Spiritual Bureaucracy:     The Central Bureacracy had several functions: process the unholy amount of paperwork required for the Directorate to function on any level, aid the common citizen with any forms or legal assistance they required, train future bureaucrats and civic servants, serve as a sort of secondary education for Shrine-Keepers, and last but not least, act as a temple for the agnostic priesthood of the mortal-turned-divinity known as the Peerless Immortal Functionary, who served as a high ranking figure in the Bureacracy. +2 EXP, +5 FTH.

    Old Ones Temple:     A location within Erichtheo where adherants of the cetacean lord give tribute and attempt to utilize the once-hidden knowledge possessed by the priesthood to augment and improve rites and rituals with ancient and previously forgotten theurgies. +1 to every stat.

    Toy Makers Temple:     A temple erected to the god of children and faerie, the Toy Makers holy site is located at Wonderpark, where its priests and the followers of the God make pilgrimage, its attendants performing rites to honor the Toy Maker and his court as well as constructing handmade sacred toys to give to visitors, as well as maintaining the Faerie Shrine. This Holy Site provides your children minor protection against malign influence and points in all categories.

    Rite of Natures Harmony:     A Druidic Rite that, when performed, quells the souls of beast and plant and elemental, even while strengthening the guardians of nature that call the region home, making them more effective at warding against malign threats and promoting healthy growth in their range. Reduced hostility from wild-life, strengthens Nature Guardians, increasing EXP.

    Divine Rites of the Toymaker:     Of all divinities, the Toy Maker was one of the few that could be reliably called upon using ritual and lifeforce, and this required days of calculations, neural massaging to prepare the brain, and then being hooked up to a specialized Neuro-Stimulator and large amounts of lifeforce, all for a handful of petty cantrips, and three rituals of any purpose: the first to briefly animate a handful of toys to do as the Toy-Theurge commands, the second to conjure a sprite of lifeforce to flit around for a few moments before fading away, and the third, and most useful, a rite capable of sending the theurgist who uses it into a divinely inspired frenzy of mirth and creation, typically manifesting as the construction of toys and amusing devices. Divine Rites of the Toy Maker provide increased points in all categories.

    Divine Rites of the Roadguide:     The Roadguide Rites made them invaluable aboard ships for their ability to navigate the warp with the Rite of Pathfinding, their ability to give ships the ability to light forward their path for brief moments with the Rite of Roadtorches, and the ability to divinely augment wards with the Rite of Safe Travel, making them stronger and sturdier. Divine Rites of the Toy Maker provides bonus to all travel and exploration rolls.

    Divine Rites of the Dancer:     The Dancer has three primary rites: the first, the Rythm of the Goddess, a ritual that when performed granted perfect grace and movement, making it an excellent tool for many performances and, obviously, dances as well as many forms of athleticism, funnily enough, causing a small amount of Hobgrotts to take up the worship of the Dancer as a minor sports god. The second, Minor Hue Adjustment, a thaumaturgy that allowed the performers to adjust the coloration of art and various other items simply and easily, without having to resort to such frivolities as paint or dye. The last, the Song of the Dancer, works on the same general principles as the Rite of Anima, but with increased effectiveness for spirits of Art, allowing Muses to be produced more easily and making the Mega-Art Spirits more powerful, the gigantic constructs continuing to grow in power to the point where many began displaying the ability to weave together elaborate illusions within the building sized TekArts interior, allowing them to more efficiently delight and entertain guests. +5 CUL.

    Divine Rites of the Lanternkeeper:     The Lanternkeeper has three primary rites. The First Divine Rite was the Ritual of Lanternglow, which allows one to light a paper lantern with no fuel so long as some chalk is possessed. With an overall brightness and duration determined by how much Lifeforce was used, it would largely serve as a novelty supplement for the most part. The second is the Ritual of Torchhope, which allows for flame torches to be enchanted to provide feelings of peace, generally less effective than pharmaceuticals but a useful enough supplement for antidepressants and antianxiety medication, especially when combined with meditative exercises, causing many a Monk to invest in TekGrimoires of their own, if only to help them keep their sacred mindfulness lanterns functioning. The last rite of the Lanternkeeper would prove to be the most curious: performed solely by adherants of the god of hope, the Ritual of Unlit Candles would performed as an offering to the Final Flame not now, but in the future: each time the ritual was performed, its adherants would promise more and more power to the Emberlight when the final days came, stockpiling it for the apocalypse, the darkest days. Protection against despair.

    Shrine of Wander:     May he one day wake. May his heart heal and bring forth paradise. May his blood give life eternal as he is given life for eternity. Mt. Wander less likely to awake.

    Huntsmasters Temple:     A temple erected to the god of monster slayers, the Huntsmasters Temple is located on Luna, above a patch of the garbage sea suspended via Mag-Lev system, where it trains a variety of monster hunters in the arts of ending and equips those hunters with them with custom tailored gear produced in its Workshop and blessed at its Shrine. Produces Huntsmasters, high performance monster slayers with custom engineered high tech weaponry with awoken spirits that possess several theurgic tools.

    Mystek Ritual Compartment:     A recent addition to your vessels was a universal Mystek Ritual Compartment, consisting of at least one MagTek Altar, sleeping quarters for the Mysteks, and a variety of facilities required for them to conduct rituals, rites, and occult research. Provides access to greatly improved esoteric and occult expertise to all vessels and easy access to most rites and rituals, improving general ship performance.

    The Great Conclave:     A pan-religious body tasked with mediation and communication as theological research and coordination. Located in a special district in Orbital City One, the Great Conclave has proven of variable efficacy so far for the latter, having mostly standardized a handful of rites for ease of use, though the former purpose it had had so far served well enough. +1 FTH.

    Talismans:     Originally created for Shrines, Talismans had seen their useage increase dramatically as they've become adopted by Mysteks and Holy People as well to reduce how much of their own life force they had to use in their rites via arcane scripts and rituals and improved through crafting them using the nuts of Arbor Guardians, allowing them to hold a small amount of lifeforce on their own: lately, they've also been upgraded by the Calculators to interface with technology via //PATH architecture and augmented by the Demiurgic Courts to utilize advanced probability manipulating HexTek to further support rites. +2 EXP, +3 FTH, +Every Other Stat

    Lunar Festival:     A yearly ritual designed to appease the spirits of the moon, the Festival consisted of an entire month of offerings, rituals, rites, and ceremonies designed to satiate the spirits. It had proven of dubious effectiveness, largely only reducing Quartzbug attacks, the actual effectiveness of the Festival fading over the year until it had to be performed again. Still, it was progress. +1 FTH, +1 CUL

    Crude Mystek Wards:     Very much a brute force method of warding, Mystek Wards consisted of weaponized lifeforce tuned to burn at malign influences that attacked their ships, channelled through a self-contained arterial network that spanned your ships in order to prevent wasted energy. Wardterminal Nexi were special computers intended to manage wards in an area.

    Church of the Roadguide: An orbital temple located in the Docking District, this Holy Site is where the adherants of the Roadguide made their abode, training more priests and blessing all ships that passed through the docks in order to ensure their safe passage. It's effectiveness was proveable, especially with the theurg, but it made most sailors more at ease to know their ship officially had divine protection.

    Church of the Lanternkeeper: A Temple located in the Shadow-Marshes, the Priests of the Lanternkeeper illuminate their region of Teklia via Sacred Lantern, feeding it wood stripped from sacred trees and feeding the flame their own lifeforce to empower its glow enough to light up the entire marsh if but dimly.

    Lifeforce Batteries: Rare artefacts capable of housing vital energy, these capacitors were largely used by more experienced or connected Mysteks and Senior Shrine-Keepers to stockpile energies for larger rites and emergency offerings, making them useful for crisis situations. +1 EXP.

    Rite of Life's Breath: A ritual that could be performed to promote healing and recovery from disease, as well as some limited treatment of lifeforce pollution, though this processed caused a great deal of mutations, a side effect of the warp radiation leaving the body. +1 EXP and FTH.

    The Primer: A series of textbooks intended for Tekket ages fifteen to twenty five that give a thorough understanding of how to perform most rituals, create most mystical implements, and volumes of esoteric mystek lore, all easy enough that even non-mysteks could use the contents in their day to day lives, even if more complex or higher end things still required a degree, such as Wards. +10 to all Categories.

    Temple of the Hermit:     Located at the pole, this Temple was dedicated to the Goddess of Magic and Winter, the Hermit. There, mysteks, both lifelong priests and adherants dedicated to studying the secrets of magic, and mere disciples looking to improve their arcane mastery both gathered. +1 FTH.

    Telecommunication Rite:     A rite designed to help bridge two distant systems via arcane power, most versions relied on Data Spirits to aid in the process. Mostly used at Hypercomm Forums or Data Hubs to enhance in-system communications by raising bandwidth or allowing pings to skip the forums or the Buoy-Net, though it had also found use in establishing permanent FTL communication with Trove. +1 ACD and +1 CUL

    Darktide Curses:     A series of spells developed by Water Mages that calls upon the power of ocean to fill enemy ships with barnacles, floods, seacreatures, and seasickness in order to sabotage them during battles.

    Nova Testament: The Nova Mechanicus and the Testament were two organizations that currently served as the most mainstream human sects in the Directorate. The former was a mystery cult that worshiped technology, having a deep and abiding veneration of the machine spirits equal in fervor if not greater than that of the average urbantek shrinekeeper, while the latter was an attempt to reconstruct their religion from what little of it they could find untainted by the Ecclesiarchy.

    Faith Points (FTH Points): 126
    ART: 4
    Warp (WP): 1

    Sacred Oils: The Nova Mechanicus has imported many traditions, including its tendency to bless oils and other lubricants. Perhaps this has merit: an investment of arcane energy to their temple would prove useful for finding out and refining their blessings to produce more effective versions. 0/25, Nova Mechanica gain Sacred Oils, increasing EXP. Cost 1 Warp.

    Cantor Mechanica:     The Nova Mechanicus had many songs which were pleasing to the spirits of machine, but none more effective than the Canto Mechanica: perhaps with research into applying arcano-resonant theory to it, its effects could be improved. 0/25, Nova Mechanica begins training its priests as Cantors, increasing EXP. Cost 1 Warp.

    Nova Mechanica Cranial Preservatorium:     The Mechanicus had a great many ways to preserve human tissue, incorporating it into their machines as an alternative for more advanced circuitry. The technologies used to achieve this could be used to help preserve a brain far past the death of its body, a form of mechanical stasis that would, unfortunately, require large life support apparatuses constructed from Paleotech. 0/25, Nova Mechanica begins storing brains in jars, increasing ACD. Cost 1 ART.

    Nova Mechanica Vitruvian Engine:     The flesh was weak. Human biology was a giant mass of flaws, drawbacks, and maladaptations. The only perfection it could achieve, that of the machine. The Nova Mechanica wanted to create a paleotech autosurgery suite designed to perfect this process, using advanced nanotechnology and cybernetics to augment its priesthood seamlessly, painlessly, and without mistake. 0/25, Nova Mechanica begins utilizing Vitruvian Augmetics, increasing ACD. Cost 1 ART.

    Mojo Mojo Shrines:     More Mojo, stronger Mojo Spirits. Stizlak wanted a series of advanced Mojo Mojo Shrines erected across the Outback: each one would form the heart of the regions Hobbgrot religious community. 0/35, establish series Mojo Mojo Shrines in the Outback and elsewhere, increasing FTH. Cost 1 Warp.

    Da Book Of Mojo Bufo:     Stizlak didn't wanna waste time comin' up with a theurgy fer each and every Mojo, so instead, he wanted to use the power of Mojo Bufo, th' Mojo of Knowin' Stuff, make one theurgy per Mojo, blessing Grots related to their sphere. 0/40, create Book of Ojo, a collection of Mojoist Minor Theurgies, increasing FTH. Cost 1 Warp.

    Da Potions of Mojo Yoyo:     A buncha shamans wanted to call upon the power of Mojo Yoyo, Mojo of Magik, to create various magik potions usin' MegaGrot serum as a base that could serve as alchemical repositories of mojo magic. Strength, size, speed, seein' funky colors, all of it could temporarily be increased by responsible use of irresponsible substances. 0/25, create Potions of Yoyo, a collections of mystically enhanced drugs, increasing EXP. Cost 1 Warp.

    Mojograss:     A few zoggin' weirdboyz had shown the ability to harness the power of the Mojo directly. Dese gitz were usually a mite tad unstable though: the solution, the Shroomboyz posited, was herbal. Specifically, a narcotic grass with psi-stabilizing properties modified t' be symbiotic with the mojo that would help induce an altered state of mind that should allow them to control their psychic powers far easier. It would also impart upon them a nice mellow. 0/25, Shroomboyz begin growing Mojograss, helping Stonerboyz train their powers and increasing EXP.

    Shining TekPyramid:     While the Mt. Wander incident had been…unpleasant, TekPyramids had shown a great deal of utility when it comes to deploying large scale rituals and regional amplification. A proposed method of improving them was adding a Lumium capstone capable of acting as an optical-aural amplifier of rites. 0/25, TekPyramids upgraded with Lumium Capstones, increasing Warp and FTH. Cost 1 NK.

    Sanctified TekPyramids:     Alternatively, the ability of TekPyramids to act as arcane network hubs could be turned to more defensive applications: by including purified cursite in the construction as well as numerous Lumium Chips, their power could be amplified and spread across the network. 0/25, TekPyramids are Sanctified, increasing Warp and FTH. Cost 1 NK.

    Black Pyramids:     Of course, more offensive applications existed. When combined with WarpTek technology, Weaponized Cursite Cores, and HexTek generators, these pyramids could instead be transformed into weapons: ones capable of wracking enemies with terrible curses. 0/35, TekPyramids are upgraded with CurseTek, increasing Warp and FTH.

    Fairy Tales:     The power of the fairies resonated with the story of Garven Blok. They were willing to lend this power to creating plays, not just of Blok, but other figures, stories, myths, folk fables, and histories they thought of value to the Toy Maker. 0/25, gain Fairy Tales, a series of Theatitheurgies using the power of fairies dedicated to the Toy Maker, increasing FTH.

    Toymakers 'Elpers:     The Toymaker might not have been a Mojo, but he had a number of Hobbgrot followers who wanted to bring the magic back to celebrations in the Directorate by expanding the Workshop further with paleotech workshops, and giving them full tilt towards producing gifts, presents, games, merriments, and treats to help make festivals fun. 0/25, gain Toymakers 'Elpers, a subset of Hobbgrot Toymaker Priests dedicated to spreading holiday cheer with weapons of mass delight, increasing CUL. Cost 1 ART.

    ToyTek Jr Consecrated Playkits:     Well, it was a better idea than nuclear playkits, at least: the Toymakers wanted to spend effort developing the methods to consecrate playkits in the name of the Toymaker in order to allow his power to flow through the games and activities they contained. 0/30, Toymakers Workshop begins producing Consecrated Playkits, increasing all categories. Cost 1 Warp.

    Novafairy Augments:     The power of fairies was considerable, but they were ultimately ephemeral beings: they eventually faded. Certain Tinker Priests wanted to fix that using experimental novatech to create enhanced vessels they could inhabit permanently: these Novafairies could support both Toy Priests, as well as other magicians in the Directorate. 0/30, Toymakers Workshop develops means to create Novafairies, increasing all categories. Cost 1 ART.

    Temple to the Mad Tinker:     The youngest son of Toymaker, the mad tinker was a deviously brilliant engineer who supposedly governed both the heating system of hell, as well as the summer months, the result of him opening vents to the infernal furnace to help dry the floods of spring. A…concerning amount of Devils were interested in his worship. 0/25, create Temple to the Mad Tinker, hellgod of the infernace, increasing EXP and devilish interest in civic engineering.

    Temple to the Drowning Death:     The Youngest Daughter of the Toymaker, the singing death. It is said that she was born mortal, the result of the Toymaker gifting a barren maid a child of her own. Her arcane origin and powers brought her great misery and scorn from those around her, until, at the end of a harsh winter, the Drowning Death in her misery brought forth a great sweeping flood, one that killed her as well as her persecutors. And yet, in death, ascension: the goddess of spring, death, and rain, the Drowning Death was lifted up by her father: a number of NekroTeks wanted to establish a temple to her upon Spra'ang, meant to guide the souls of those lost in dark waters to her soul-song. 0/25, gain Temple to the Drowning Death, the springtime corpse god, increasing FTH.

    Well of the Dreamer of Wishes:     Youngest brother to the Toy Maker, the result of his predecessor taking into her home a wayward devil born of the wishes and dreams of mortals and fashioning them into a giver of wonder instead of a bringer of misery. It was said that wells were sacred to them. A handful of White Masked Devils had asked, quietly, for a place to be erected in which mortals could give offerings to the Wishgiver in their place. 0/25, Toymakers Workshop gains Well of the Dreamer, a holy site that increases affinity with repentant devils, increasing FTH.

    Blargian Drunkard Rock:     ALL HAIL THE GODDESS OF BOOZE, OLDEST SISTER OF THE TOYMAKER. MAY HER TAPS FOREVER FLOW FREE, MAY HER SAUSAGES BE ENDLESS, AND MAY HER FIREPLACE ALWAYS BE INVITING. PRAISE BE AND THANK THE DRUNKARD FOR HANGOVER MEDICATION. 0/25, Battlezone gains Drunkard Rock, a holy site dedicated to the goddess of spirits and amity that increases CUL and relationships with all factions by by 5.

    Yoyo Masks:     The Shroomboyz had an idea: they wanted to use Lurp Masks as a way to both strengthen the ability of various specialists to draw on the mojo as well as letting others use the Mojos power. 0/25, gain Yoyo Masks, worn by more spiritual Hobbgrot specialists to confer various minor abilities.

    Hand of The Emperor:     A regional symbol used by the Ecclesiarchy of the sector, likely a remnant of an older religion. Consisting of a hand containing an eye, these sigils serve much the same purpose as wards, except instead of blocking through latticed lifeforce, the Hand instead abjurs malign powers by invoking the beneficence of God. The Ecclesiarchy's mystek abilities are advanced enough they can power these off mere faith alone: those of the Nova Testament lack the ability to reproduce this technique, so to use these sigils they will need to find a different way to power them. 0/25, can reproduce Hamsas, sacred sigils that raise FTH.

    Templedog Augments:     Human canines were interesting. Only a handful had survived Yr Albain, typically highly augmented if not fully converted into cyberdogs. They were extremely intelligent and powerful beasts who supposedly occupied a holy space in human culture. The Testament wanted to create a facility to expand the Herdtemples where their order could breed and augment these dogs to serve in temples and shrines as holy beasts. 0/25, Herdtemples and other holy locations gain Sacred Cybershepherds or Monastic Mechamastiffs, increasing their security and FTH.

    Meditative Wines:     The Vinyards were an excellent source of both contemplation and spirits to aid in the process. The Lunar Monks wished to expand the process by developing a particular family of liquors meant to aid in comprehension of the cosmos. 0/25, Lunar Monks produce Meditative Wines, increasing ACD.

    Lunar Dairies:     Alternatively, the Lunar Monks could expand into other forms of agriculture by hosting their own Sacred Dairy Herds that they could use to stock their monasteries and the rest of the Directorate with milks, cheeses, and butters, as well as incorporate the acts into their own daily wellness routines. 0/25, Lunar Monks produce various dairy goods, increasing CUL.


    ((((()))))

    On Luna, it was the Age of the Cabal. On Wonderpark, it was the Age of the Toymaker. But across the entire Directorate, one thing was undeniable:

    They were living through the Age of the Hobbgrot. A result of a dedicated push at the ballots by the Hobbgrot community and it's leaders making deals and negotiating favors with individual groups that could help them, they would successfully lobby the Directorate to investing much of its surplus into improving the lot of the Hobbgrot. Music, art, spirituality, medicine, science.

    Complex studies were performed on Hobbgrots and unaltered orkoids alike to both determine the extent of the changes the metamorphosis of one into the other had caused and to establish a deeper understanding of orkoid biology: there, scientists would discover the extent of divergences between the two subspecies.

    Hobbgrots had extreme levels of genetic damage caused by the haphazard ripping away of every genetic sequence that could lead to the creation of complex orkoid life. Entire hormonal processes no longer functioned, enzymes weren't produced like they should, and entire branches of development had been erased, with many more being full of holes. And yet, lifeforce and the various chemical formulae, combined with what was left of Stizlaks initial gestalt had filled in the gaps. And because of the general adaptability of orkoids and the nature of their gestalt, eventually those genetic instabilities had stabilized, crystalizing into a new structure.

    The effect on the gestalt was similarly notable: at best guess, the ritual that had been performed on Stizlak attracted the interest of either Gork or Mork, who disconnected them from the greater gestalt and ripped away all their spiritual modifications: in essence, once removed from other Orks, Stizlak's personal gestalt had been reduced to its absolute baseline.

    Faktry Rezet. With this information, more medicines were created tailored to Hobbgrot biology, more advanced machines capable of interfacing with the Mojo. A series of advanced genetekniks would collaborate with the Khimer, creating using advanced synaptic data and novel enzymes two things intended to help further bridge the biological gap: MegaGrot Serum and FatherBrainz. The former, a modification of Sphere 001's MegaFloral serum meant to affect orkoid lifeforms, accelerating their growth and metamorphosis rapidly alongside massively boosting their immune system and other biological processes. The latter, customized orkoid lifeforms consisting of largely immobile masses of neural tissue that looked like Grot-faced megashroomz meant to serve as a psychic energy generator for the Mojo, reinforcing it and amplifying its power.

    And from the more mechanical side of things, a series of Robotekniks would instead create the SistaBrainz, large, similarly immobile cybertronic supercomputers connected to the Mojo, intended to serve as a replacement for the genetic knowledge the typical orkoid possessed that allowed them their innate specialists: the machine spirit was intended to work as a living archive, connecting all nearby Hobbgrots to a wellspring of subconscious information and expertise, both that of the SistaBrainz and other specialists in its coverage range.

    While this occurred, at the suggestion of the Demiurgic Courts, a great deal of material would be poured into creating the Outback, an artificial continent one hundred miles in width that consisted of a titanic eco-dome filled with Hobbgrotic life, both villages of Hobbgrots and great big stretches of land that was nothing but Squogs and things that had been discovered that could life alongside Squogs just finely without becoming an invasive species. The installation was named for it's location: it was "just Out-Back" from Battlezone, the funland a short kart ride away. In the Outback, there was only one form of transit allowed outside designated urban zones: Kombat Kartz. Floating above the ground, the magnetic speedways these kartz rode on were intended for both travel and recreation, with many Hobbgrots admitting as they waited for it to open that they were looking forward to unwinding by having to fight their way through traffic at the end of a long, stressful day.

    To help manage the Squog population and keep them breeding right, GrotTek would kollaborate with the druids of the Directorate to establish on one disc of Stizlaks outback Hobbgrotic Park, intended to help train Hobbgrots in the fine art of bein' a beastie boy an' helpin' wrangle all manner of animal in order to help maintain a 'ealthy ecosystem: a nature preserve, it was divided into seven zones based on the danger of the animal whose populations they were hosting.

    Entertainment, kulture, would also find itself invested in: the arts were important, Grandpap Stizlak said, and so his millions of Nephews agreed. Musicians on Teklia would create the One-Man Band units, multipurpose machine worn via harness, each one containing a variety of custom instruments its owner specialized in equipped with various lifeforce manipulators designed to amplify the arcane effect of their performances. As the days passed, more and more streetcorners would fill with One Man Bands performing for the publics delight, filling the cities with the sound of cacophonic, joyful music as they tooted their horns while pounding their drums and using MMI's to operate electronic keyboards.

    And fer the more tangible arts, the Great Gallery would find itself host to a new movement: the urban graffiti movement, a collective of Hobbgrot artists who would develop more and more advanced means of defacement and colorization.
    And, of course, we all need some entertainment, and according to Grandpap Stizlak, you needed more than just Battlezone: Lurp Zone would serve as this alternative for many, with Wonderpark establishing an entire expansion on their outback facing side to the practice. Putting on special personae masks and constructing vast fortifications from corrugated fiberboard held together by duct-tape and gravity manipulation technology, they would embark on a variety of strange and fantastic city-sized campaigns, such the Pioneers of the Prarie, detailing a fictitious history for the Hobbgrot people where they once lived in the harsh and unforgiving prarie, wheel and wagon as they attempted to eke out an existence even while dealing wif scary beasties, big bully jerkbotz, and the most dangerous threat of all: drought.

    These campaigns would last a year, two at most, before being replaced with another scenario, such as a campaign of Lurp in which the city was modelled to resemble of world of steam and clocks trapped in the middle of a historic election in which over a dozen political parties attempted to earn themselves the Presidency of Steamtopia.

    Each of these factors would catalyze together on the same day. For as all these were being done, Stizlak would personally invest in developing better MojoTek: alongside some admittedly scatterbrained mysteks, a series of orkoidal mushrooms would be created, designed to produce mind altering effects and act as a mood enhancer, a species that would grow alongside Hobbgrot communities to help support Shroomboyz take root, shamans of sort who were tasked with acting as the voice of the spirits and peace both. And the last piece of the puzzle: an attempt to create a pillar to the mojos, a religious construct developed by Shrine-Keepers and the Shroomboyz to incorporate all the most advanced Shrine-Tek to interface with the Hobbgrotic Field and strengthen the spirits of Mojo.

    It would be activated using a specific ritual…

    ((((()))))

    "Alright. An' your sure this is gonna work?" Stizlak asked, trying to psych themselves up: below, they heard Battlezone. They needed a place where the Mojo was strongest for this, apparently. The ritual chamber was small, smokey: the result of the Shroomboyz holy incense, erected in the heart of an eco-chamber.

    Scratching his beard, a big bushy thing comprised of hair grafts, a frequent aesthetic choice by the order of shamans, the shroomboy, Jedd Flumbergump, slowly blinked his eyes, both slowly moving to focus on Stizlak. "Huh? What was that?" They asked as they stuffed the sacred bong.

    "I said, are you sure this is gonna work?" Stizlak repeated, to which the Shroomboy gave a slow nod.

    "Yeah dude, I think this is gonna work," The shaman said, languidly enunciating each word. "Oh zog, I'm seein' some absolute shit here," They said, awed as they slowly turned their head, tracking some unknown, invisible thing. "It's so purpllllllllll," They said, dragging on the L as they gazed in wonder at a blue lava lamp.

    The Shroomboyz, the most advanced, wise, and spiritually enlightened Hobbgrots in the entire directorate were gathered in a circle around the first Mojo Shrine, each of the orkoids taking puffs from the sacred bongs, each carved from lumium glass, containing blessed waters from holy teklian springs, and powdered mojo-shroomz. In the center, the machine hummed: it was big. Bigger than any of the Hobbgrots there: on the outside, a multitude of bloks, assorted colors assembled into a singular solid monolith, atop it various items. Totems: actual ones, in the classical meaning of the word, effigies meant to encapsulate various pieces of Hobbgrot culture and items that Stizlak considered personally important: his diploma, his personal phaser pistol, the last photograph he had of Kyte, among others.

    Currently, outside, a number of Grots were performing offerings to the shrine: using herdbeasts, squogs, themselves, purified cursite, both in the Eco-Dome and across the structure. It was flowing across battlezone, to the TekPyramid the shrine was ensconced in. The sheer amount of energy put Stizlaks teeth on edge, and every instinct the grot had told him to start running: he was, thankfully, very good at ignoring his instincts.

    Taking a deep breath, Stizlak took the bong from Jedd alongside the lighter, igniting it order to set the mojo-powder a-smoulder and placing his lips to the glass apparatuses top, breathing in, filling his lungs with mind altering chemicals the moment his neurochoir activated.

    Exhaling a slowly expanding cloud of smoke, he doubled over, coughing as he felt a horrible dryness crawl its way up his throat even as he struggled to breath, the peculiar taste of the smoke filling his mouth. Eventually covering the room in a thick fog, Stizlak would blink for a moment, attempting to clear his visions of the spots caused by temporary asphyxiation.

    "I don't think I feel anyfing," He said.

    "Are you sure about that my brother in zog?" Replied his bong.

    "Pretty sure," Stizlak commented, blinking. "Wait, fink the colors are starting to get a little blurry."

    "Alright, take your time, ain't like any of us are gonna die of old age," the bong noted, causing Jedd to blink as they stared at the apparatus in a dazed sort of shock, the hobbgrot mystek raising their hand and pointing slowly as no doubt some earth-shocking revelation was occurring to them.

    "Dude, your bong is-"

    "No no, I want 'im to figure it out on his own," The bong commented.

    "Figure out what?" Stizlak commented, confused, scratching his chin. "Y'know, I am feelin' a bit light-headed. That normal?"

    "You might need to take another toke. Usually it takes me a couple to achieve cosmic transcendence," Jedd noted, to which his bong nodded.

    "Dat doesn't sound too unreasonable. You should take 'is advice," The bong noted, and Stizlak gave a grunt of agreement, lifting the implement to their lips and taking an additional inhale. It was only a moment later, as they were doubled over in a fit, that Stizlak realized something.

    Bongs didn't talk. "'An th' train arrives at the station," The bong commented. "Buckle up, Stizlak, you're goin' for a ride!" They said as a trapdoor opened under Stizlak, dropping him into darkness, the Hobbgrot screaming as he fell.

    (((())))

    Stizlak fell down a slide into a vast chasm of darkness, grunting as the thing twisted and shifted, nearly losing his lunch when it dig a zogging loop-de-loop. All around him, a strange song echoed, one he didn't recognize that was haunting as it was absurd (what the zog a spider-pig was, 'e didn't know), as the hobbgrot desperately scrabbled and clunged and shifted to avoid slipping out of the slowly steepening slide.

    Eventually, at some point, it became so steep that Stizlak was less sliding and more falling: below him a dozen lights in the darkness emerged, strange purple beacons scattered here and there that illuminated far below Stizlak a giant orange brain, the veins on it pumping, the structure pulsating. "'Ey Bruv, you 'avin a nice fall?" His bong said, floating past him.

    "What th' zog is going on?!" Stizlak screamed, waving his arms. "Where am I?"

    "I told you, Stizzyboy: you're on a trip! You wanna talk t' the mojos yeah? First we got some fings to hash out first! First stop, your mind! We're gonna take a stroll through your egg salad!" The Bong exclaimed as the brain grew closer and closer. With a scream of terror, Stizlak prepared to become a pancake, only to oof as he landed on something with far less force than he thought.

    Blinking, he looked around him, noting that he seemed to be standing on some sort of grassy field. "Dis isn't my brain," He noted, heartbeat slowing. "Not enough meaty bits," He commented.

    "You sure about that Bruv?" The bong said, voice muffled from the dirt on it. Stizlak hesitantly walked over, picking it up and idly cleaning it. "Because I'm pretty sure dis is your brain: you're just seein' it from the inside."

    Stizlak squinted, looking all around, noting that he didn't really recognize the area. "Alright. I'll play ball. We're in my mind. Where? Dis don't look like no place in Directorate space I can remember."

    "Ah, not in Directorate space. We 'ad to go back for dis: all the way to the beginning, th' day that you began th' journey to being Stizlak," The thing said, and Stizlak felt a cool ball of iron in his throat. The beginning.

    "Monstro," He said, finally recognizing the location: it was a place near where he lived, so long ago, a field he would escape to in the scant little freetime he had been allotted, hunting down bugs to eat.

    It was also not far from where the Endeavor had crashed. An event that had changed his life forever: when captain Kyte had chosen to show mercy to a poor, gormless little ankle-biter, showing Stizlak the first genuine kindness the grot had ever received. "Wait," He said, something registering among the maudlin thoughts: this was the day he met Kyte.

    "I can zoggin get to see Kyte again!" He exclaimed, face breaking out into a huge grin as he began to run.

    "Whoa whoa! That isn't what I-" The bong said, only to be interrupted by the furious jiggling caused by Stizlaks sprint. "Oh zog me I think I'm gonna be sick," The paraphernalia complained as it was shook up. "Would you slow down an-"

    "No time!" Stizlak cried as 'e lept over a log as the foliage increased in density around him: mushrooms and trees both. "I 'aven't gotten to see Kyte in over a zoggin' century, I'm not missin' out on the chance t' see her again!" He exclaimed, speed-limboing past a thorny branch: it wasn't far. If his memory was correct, the Endeavor should be…right…in…this…clearing…

    Stizlak stood there, puzzled. "Where the zog is the endeavor?" He complained.

    "It hasn't landed yet, bruv," The bong said, exasperatedly. "I said the beginning of the events that made you you," They commented. "Not the beginning of events that YOU think made you you: as much as you don't like finkin' about it, your life didn't start on the day you met Kyte. Before you were Stizlak the Hobbgrot Grandpap, you were Stizlak, grot slave."

    The iron ball in Stizlak's stomach grew several sizes. "No. No, whatever this is, we ain't doin' it. I refuse," He argued, holding the bong up to look it in where he hoped its equivalent of eyes were. "I put those memories behind me, an' I ain't digging them back up," He scowled.

    "Bruv, you think it works like that?" The bong replied, and to Stizlaks horror the scenery began to shift, change, alter. "Dis might be your egg salad, but the sauce is all us," It chuckled as Stizlak began to run again, chucking the paraphernalia away. "You can chuck me but you can't chuck the mojos!" It yelled as it sailed through the air.

    "Like zog I can't!" Stizlak yelled as the scenery around them changed, going from the mostly empty forest to something different: a maze, a warren of walls and tunnels held intact by wooden struts that were far more unstructural than the Grot preferred. "No no no no, this isn't real, this isn't real," He muttered as passed a junction emerging into a painfully familiar sight, the memory of which hurt.

    This was the first place he remembered having a memory of. The cave he had been born in, burrowing through the thick, stonelike dermis of Monstro: green glowing bugs crawled on the ceiling: squigbugz, the only source of light in the grot caves. All around, various funguses dotted the ground: a few grots were pickin' at em, putin em into baskets. Others were jus' putterin' around until the next fight.

    In the middle of it, there was a young Stizlak age one year old. "I remember dis," they muttered, watching as the scrawny git sniffed his way through the mushrooms, carefully pickin' out a specific shade of red. "Zog I was a scrawny git," He said, noting how young, freshfaced, and green his younger self used to look, a pang of pain going through his heart as he watched 'is past version snarl at another git that got too close.

    "You 'ad figured out back den dat th' red ones made da boyz up top happiest," A voice rumbled, deep, bassy, and smooth, and Stizlak turned his head to see a vending machine. "You didn't know why it did," The vending machine said. "But if you brought back an entire basket, it meant they'd let you sleep somewhere else, usually: dat way, when th' squigz came, you didn't 'av to worry about being eaten in your sleep."

    "Who th' zog are you?" Stizlak queried, confused. He didn't think he knew any talking vending machines.

    "I'm Mojo Gogo," The Vending Machine said, its buttons blinking. "Da Spirit o' the Hobbgrots."

    "Why th' zog do you look like a vending machine?" Stizlak asked, causing the Vending machine to give a slow sigh.

    "I look like dis because of you," The Vending machine said with annoyance. "You gotta crummy relationship with faith, boy: you see the divine as machine you press a button on t' get magic after insertin' lifeforce. If I look like a vendin' machine it's because that's how your cognition thinks of us," it accused, and Stizlak frowned. 'E didn't think of em like that, did he?

    It occurred to him that most of the time they were only invoked at battlezone, and mostly only because it was a required process t' make more anklebiters. "Alright, fair enough," He admitted. "So, what's the purpose here?"

    "You gotta debt, Stizlak," The mojo said. "An' before we can be gettin' through all dis, we're gonna need t' pay it, less it get inherited."

    "A debt? To 'oo?" Stizlak said, incredulous, eyes occasionally flicking to his younger self, watching the grot squeal in delight as they found a beetle, popping it into their mouth and eating it. Ah, good times. Why'd he stop eating bugs again?

    "To yourself. To the cosmos. You got karma, boy: it needs to be cleansed, or it'll be eatin' on the mojo for all time," The vending machine counselled. "Now 'ush, we ain't here t' jibber jabber. We're here to talk about Stizlak."

    "Whats t' talk about," Stizlak said, flatly, scowling as something about the scene in front of him set his ears flat, sendin' a cold chill up his spine: it took his brain a moment to realize what was happening: a group of grotts were approaching his younger self. "I 'ad a crummy childhood: this isn't exactly news," He said bitterly watching as his younger self, enjoying the taste of a bug, was ambushed, the grot letting out a shriek as they were knocked to the ground by a klub swinging at their cheek sending them to the ground, the grot attempting to simultaneously twist and jump away from the blow and in the process doing neither and only succeeding in falling to the ground, leaving them open to the next attack: being pelted with rocks fired from a slingshot created using some elastic squig guts and bones, launched at speeds capable of breaking human bones, his younger self squealing as the one with the club took the basket Stizlak had been working with, giving the downed Stizlak a kick before scurrying off to the third of their number, an older and meaner grot that he no longer really remembered the name of.

    "Dat's a lie an' you know it. You remember this time and place clearly," Mojo Gogo said, and as Stizlak watched the group of bullyboyz beat his past self, he grit his teeth, tamping down on his rising anger. "You must accept that: accept how these memories made you who you are." The scene shifted. It was Gorktown: the place erected directly atop the grot warrens. A collection of huts, shanties, and the gamblin' halls. Smallest city on the leftern lobe, the phrase came to mind unbidden: some snatch of half remembered discussion about the place, the only thing he remembered. "Oh come on, we juz covered dis," Gogo said, irritated, and Stizlaks eyes widened as he saw the boyz going around, most having a bored or irritated look on their face as they performed transit: here and there grotts would dart around or under them, followers of specific orks, couriers or pets tasked with going out, or gitz just looking to get where they had to go. The orks didn't care: if they accidentally kicked, trampled, or stomped a grot, 'oo gives a zog?

    "So what, are you gonna show me another time I got krumped? Maybe one of the many, many times I got stepped on?" Stizlak asked, irritated as he found himself having to avoid feet again: thankfully, 'e was a lot quicker now.

    "Nah," Gogo said. "The goal 'ere ain't failure. You just need to have…whats th' word," They muttered. "Its the one about coming t' a great psychological insight."

    "An epiphany?" Stizlak provided, yelping as he failed to avoid the wheels of a wagon, the machine bearing down on him…and passing through him, something that Stizlak felt great relief. Alright, VR rules then.

    "Yeah, dat," Gogo agreed amicably, before turning and firing a can down an alley, the aluminum cylinder flying too fast for him to make out any details besides its blue paint job. "Now, if you're gonna 'ave an epilepsy, yer gonna need to go dis way."

    Stizlak grumbled but complied, walking to the alley, one of the many that crisscrossed gork-town: like most, it was a triangular aperture, the result of either building on its side leaning, making it small enough only grotts could really use em: Stizlak was bigger than most grots, so he had to hunch a fair bit to fit. As he entered, he spotted in front of him a grot. For a moment, he almost thought it was himself: they even had their own basket of red caps.

    "It was at dis time that you learned why the boyz liked the red caps: they were special. Good for havin' a zoggin' good time," The vending machine noted, and in front of the gormless grot, he could 'ear whisperin', just barely soft enough to hear. "Just one or two, and you get to spend the day in a 'appy stupor. Mix wif a bit of beer for a rollikin' rampage, add a bit to some jo'juice if you wanted t'get crazee, turn it into a powder and you get somefin doks can use t' keep their patients gigglin' through surgery."

    Oh. Oh no. "I don't wanna see this," Stizlak said, heartbeat growing rapid and erratic, pupils dilating as he turned and tried to run, and yet no matter how fast he ran he couldn't seem to move, until his attempts at running in place resulted in him tripping, the hobbgrots arms flailing wildly as he fell into nothing, slipping over dust as he attempted to right himself: and yet, no matter how he tried to move his legs, it was like they wouldn't, couldn't connect to solid ground.

    "Sorry bruv, I don't like it either, but you gotta be right wif' yourself: currently, you're still lettin' these memories drag you down, you've just convinced yourself the chains are invisible," Gogo said sympathetically. "You gotta Mojo Letgo if you wanna Mojo Gogo, Bruv: an' unfortunately, dat's gonna require visitin' some fings you don't wanna remember."

    A foot stuck out from behind some splintered and wrecked wood caused by the building on one side buckling from its own weight, tripping the unfortunate grot. Two thieves stepped out: a git with a club whose name he couldn't remember and himself.

    "Again wif da lying," Gogo accused, sounding genuinely angry now. "You know his name. You might not be proud of what you did wif' him, but the git was still your mate!" It rebuked, and he watched as the other grot took his basket even while Stizlak brandished a stikka: a little kitchen tool he had managed to find and sharpen. "You ain't no better than him, so don't act like it."

    "I…" Stizlak said, wanting to argue as he watched his younger version threatened the downed yoof. "I ain't like that no more!" He protested. "Yeah, I mighta been a git back then, but that was before I met Kyte!"

    "Yeah? What if you didn't? What if it had been 'im instead?" The vending machine countered. "Face it: you're better, yeah, but that's because you lucked out an' got the opportunity t' learn how to be better. If th' wheel o' fate had turned a bit to the left, it could have been him instead of you standing where you are." With an oof, Stizlak landed back on the ground as he watched young Stizlak rifle through the grots pockets, stealing the handful of teeth within, showing them off to his compatriot, who made an appreciative chuckle. "Th' fact you're so deep into repression' yer memories yer tryin' to forget th' name of your FRIEND is exactly why we're 'ere, bruv."

    The shifting scape altered itself once more, becoming a very familiar hidey hole: a small hollow he had found in one of the alleys: the door was shut. Outside, a thunderous noise could be heard as the building shook: asteroid shower.

    The hollow was small enough that Stizlak found himself taking up most of it, watching as his younger self and his ally sat together, drinking fungus beer poured from a large bucket they had managed to scrape enough together to afford, singing a song as they goofed off.

    Something in Stizlak hurt. "Still don't remember 'is name?"

    "...Alright," Stizlak admitted. "You're right. Larkin. 'Is name is- wuz Larkin," He amended, grimly realizing that the way things were for grots outside the Directorate, there was no way 'is old mate would still be kicking. "An…an' I don't think I'm better than him, or at least I don't like t' think I do," He said, voice subdued as he closed his eyes, allowing an exhale. "But I don't like thinkin' about then. It hurts," He confessed. "An…an' its not a physical pain, exactly," he continued, his breathing becoming unsteady as he felt a strange terror fill his body, ears folding against his ears. "It's a mental one I guess: I look back on what on what happened t' me, who I was an' who I was forced to be, an' it feels like I'm a cup what's filled up too much, an' it gets t' feeling like I'm gonna crack and come apart, especially when I think of th' people I remember: the people I 'urt, the people that hurt me, the mates I'll never see again," He slowly.

    "What yer talkin' about are wounds of the mind, boy: they won't leave you until you start healin' em," The mojo cautioned as everything else fell away. "Da problem is, sometimes healing 'urts. Minin't like a body wound where it'll eventually patch itself up: you leave those wounds buried, they'll just grow an' grow an' grow, feedin' on all the guilt, anger, frustration, an' hatred you still got pinned to em: you gotta dig em up, put em under the sunlight of thought for em to start mending."

    "So, what, yer epiphany is that I need therapy?" Stizlak grimaced.

    "Therapy, self 'elp books, becomin' a mediocre fanfiction author, people exorcise their demons all sorts a' ways: first step though is acknowledgin' em and decidin' your gonna krump em, after that it's basically all uphill. Er, metaphorically at least," The vending machine said amicably, before turning an' yellin' at the darkness. "ALRIGHT, I FINK THIS QUALIFIES AS A EPILEPSY! DID I PASS MUSTA OR DO YOU NEED ME T' GO DEEPER?"

    "Epiphan-" Stizlak froze as a ring of lights flickered on revealing that he was standing in what looked very eerily like a dentists office. Jerking, he felt something constrict his limbs, and he realized that he was currently strapped down to the chair. "What the zog?" He yelled, thrashing.

    Above each wall, peering down at him were several figures. Seven in total, he thought.

    "YOUR KARMA IS STILL DARK. YOU HAVE YET MORE BATTLES BEFORE YOUR SHADOW IS CLEANSED," One of them said, resembling a giant squog, stretched out over a stone, a bunch of stuff growing out of the resting amphibians back. "BUT THE HURDLE OF MEMORY IS DECOUPLED: THE EDDIES OF TIME HAVE SHOW ME, MOJO BUFO, THAT YOU WILL HEAL."

    "And if you don't," Said another figure said, resembling a gigantic clockwork brain, "We can do this as many times as we have to."

    "Why?" Stizlak complained. "Why the zog is my mental well-adjustment any zoggin' concern to you?" He asked accusatorily.

    "AUDACITY!" The Amphibean croaked, letting out a spray of rainbow bubbles. "YOU PRESUME TO ASK ME, MOJO BUFO, TO AWNSER YOUR QUESTIONS?"

    "I presume SOMEONE to answer my questions!" Stizlak snarled, eye twitchin. "You put me through rememberin' part of th' worst years of my life, monkey in my mind, play in my egg salad? Your zoggin' right I presume ONE of you gitz or at least someone you know can explain it!"

    "...Fair dinkum," Mojo Bufo agreed amicably. "Mojo Menza?" He asked, causing the mechanical brain to clear their throat.

    "Right, so, t' begin with, what exactly do you know about antianima?" They asked, chipperly, causing Stizlak to blink.

    "I don't understand the question. Antianima is, like, nightmare demons, yeh? Ones made from the bad thoughts of gods n' junk, right?" Stizlak asked, confused. "What the zog does that 'ave t' do with th' price of tofu?"

    "More or less correct!" Menza agreed. "Now, th' thing is, the Directorate 'as a lot of dark magic runnin' around, all of it shaped by belief an' ritual an' powered by stuff that's a little bit more this side of reality than most bad mojo and helpin' to make sure that even gods what are totally unrelated t' the whole concept of antianima. 'Eck, even things that shouldn't even 'AVE antianima," They commented with fascination. "Only prerekwizit seems t' be bein' worshipped in Directorate."

    "Wait." Stizlak said, twigging on. "Are you implyin' ya'll got antianima problems?" He asked, confused, as the ground under them rumbled. One of the mojos leaned forward: resembling a simple painted mask made from carved wood, it glowered at him as Stizlak saw cracks form in the ground.

    "No," They said, voice raspy and cold. "We will have antianima eventually, but there exists someone who preceded us, one who occupies a far more central pillar in the reverence in our people. It is their antianima we are concerned about."

    The floor fell out from beneath Stizlak, making him tumble into a dirt pit. Standing up, he shook himself off, grunting as he looked around to realize he seemed to be trapped in some sort of dark corridor, one he recognized as bein' from his favorite spooky cave sim. "Gettin' really tired of this," He groused, starting to walk. "So," He said, speaking to thin air. "You do got an antianima you're concerned with: we talkin' Gork? Mork? Some kinda absurdly convenient precursor?" He asked until he reached a large room, one shadowed in darkness: his eyes could barely see in front of him, but it appeared to be…battlezone?

    "Wrong," Came a voice, and suspended in the air a platform lurked, on it a microphone stand and, talking into it, a floating balloon, painted to resemble a clowns face stuck in a grumpy clown face, its body likewise comprised of more inflated rubber vessels twisted to look sorta humanish. "Greetings ladies and gentlemen," The clown balloon said flatly. "I am Mojo Hobo, the Mojo of hating the irrational, here to talk to you about something that ISN'T how absurd the concept of magic is at the behest of my bosses Mojo Yoyo and Mojo Bozo." In the stands, miles and miles away, more lights came on, revealing the mask mojo, staring at him darkly, next to another clown Mojo, this one resembling a giant human in a white polkadotted klownsuit, white painted face contorted into a look of absolute destroying wrath, their blue smile set in a hard scowl of anger, the green flowers painted around their eyes blazing in the center as they cast a fiery, klowny gaze. "Just dropping my name. Y'know, in case you wanna write it down. Be reaaaaaaal nice to get some offerings."

    "Oi, get on wif it!" Stizlak yelled. "Show me 'oo I'm supposed to be fighting!"

    "Hey, nobody said anything about you fighting," Hobo said indignantly. "Why the zog is fighting your first assumption? This is a dream quest, there are literally an entire imaginations worth of things this next trial might require-"

    "I don't 'ave all zoggin' day!" Stizlak argued, causing Hobo to let out a sigh of defeat.

    "Fine, I admit it: you're here to fight," The balloon mojo groused. "For your next trial, you're going to have to fight…" A drumroll began playing as circus-y music began playing in the background. "Yourself!" A spotlight lit up, revealing a git that looked like Stizlaks doppleganger. Bigger, meaner, greener, mouth curved into a frown, eyes a milky white.

    Stizlak narrowed his eyes. "What," He said. "What the zog is this? What the zog are you?"

    "I'm you, you !@#$," His alternate growled, voice several octaves deeper than Stizlaks too, and Stizlak was apprehensive about that voice: it was too much like his, but…wrong. Distorted, like listening to a recording. "I'm all the bits you keep under a lid," They said, baring their teeth as their scowl deepened. "I'm th' anger. Th' 'atred. Guilt. An' most of all, I'm your fear." The figure began walking towards them, cracking their knuckles as they drug their clawed feet through the dirt, the spotlight following them.

    "I ain't afraid of anything," Stizlak argued, taking a step back as he looked around for a weapon to beat this…what, shadow-git? "An' I especially ain't afraid of me own shadow. Bring it, you piece of-"

    His throat seized as the shadowgrot gave a snort, now in front of him and holding him in the air by the neck. "C'mon Stizzyboy. Didn't Kyte teach you you shouldn't lie?" It said, acrid breath wafting in front of Stizlaks nose. "You got plenty t' fear. You've 'ad em ever since you stepped on the Endeavor."

    "The zog…you going on about…" Stizlak wheezed, before raising his foot and slamming in in the apparitions stomach, causing it to drop him as the force knocked it backward, leaving Stizlak to fall to the ground, taking a calming breath. Giving a roll of his neck, he quickly got into a fighting stance. Alright, he'd 'ave to do this wif 'is hands then. "Y'know, I mighta believed you if you 'adn't tried to use the Endeavor." He asked, snarling. "But you can go !@#$ yourself if you think me meetin' Kyte of all things is why I 'av fears or whatever: if it wasn't for that, I wouldn't !@#$ing be hear."

    The shadowgrot let out a laugh as it stood back up, a dry and empty chuckle that had no humor or joy behind it. "Ex-zoggin-zactly," They said, grinning. "You see, that day, 'eck, the MOMENT you decided t' ask those weird screw gits, before any zoggin rituals or anything zoggin else, you set yourself apart from th' average ork. You gained opportunities, a future, family an' friends," It continued, slowly, giving a hateful giggle. "But with every light there's a shadow: for every candy there must come bitter vegetables, and for every sweet dream there is a nightmare in its wake. You gave yourself things to set yourself apart from other orks, other grots, but you didn't just give yourself the good: you gave yourself plenty of bad."

    "Yeah? Like wh-" Stizlak lunged forward, cutting himself off as he surprised his doppleganger by hitting them in the jaw, causing their head to twist, opening them up for an uppercut, followed by a vicious flurry of blows…

    One of which was intercepted, Stizlaks fist grabbed mid-punch by the shadow, who growled. "Well now, since you're such a curious git, let's count 'em off," Shadow Stizlak hissed. "First you gave yourself knowledge: knowledge enough t' know an' understand how wrong your treatment an' behavior once had been. Knowledge enough to feel guilt and resentment over it." It said, flicking Stizlaks hand away, punching them in the gut, sending the hobbgot flying back and slamming into something hard enough to drive the air from his guts: for a moment, his eyes went hazy, a bright light in front of him as his vision shifted and twisted into a corridor of metal, vertical, that he was gazing up into, one that resembled a maintenance shaft almost, overlaying his vision of a shadowy battlezone, before flipping back to un-normalcy, the shadow grot standing over him, lifting him by the scruff of his shirt.


    "An' with knowledge, you get uncertainty. Konflict. Because at th' end of the day, you're hurt, an' wanna assign blame, but who can you? Can't blame th' grots, because they worked for the orks. Can't blame the orks, because they never had the chance to learn t' be better," Said the doppleganger before slamming their fist into Stizlaks gut, over and over again, driving the wind from em. "'eck, the average ork lifespan is barely longer than a grots, they don't LIVE long enough to be better, an' those that do are the biggest, meanest, which just contributes t' the problem, a cycle of th' bullies using their size t' put themselves in charge. An' as much as you wanna blame Gork an' Mork, fact of the matter is you don't know if they started the cycle or are just the name the first bullyboyz slapped on it in th' same way the Mojo was your attempt to name your weapon t' break it," They said, before tossing Stizlak to the side, causing him to hit some unknown barrier with enough force that it gave slightly denting, with Stizlak a moment later feeling a strange sort of weightlessness, his vision flickering for a moment, overlayered with a version of the metal corridor in transit, as if Stizlak was falling through it before the effect was ended by Stizlak hitting something head-first, causing his vision to go blurry.

    Quickly, the dazed Hobbgrot tried to stand up, vision blurry, but a green shape approaching. With a roar, he tried to rush them down. "Would you shut the zog u-"

    He was swatted away. "But most of all," His larger version said, and to Stizlaks horror he saw the snarling, unhappy monster growing larger and larger. "You gave yourself the biggest weakness of all. Your nephews, the rest o' the Directorate, they take all this for granted: they live in a bubble of peace, so they don't even know they 'ave this. Other Orks, other Grotts, 'eck, even the Bullyboyz Gmork themselves haven't ever really had anything like it. But you, you've lived outside the Directorate. You know how bad life can get, an' because of that, you know what it is."

    "Wha-"

    "Something to LOSE, Stizlak. 'Orks neva lose'" The phantom said mockingly, placing his foot over Stizlaks chest. "Dat's because they don't 'ave anything to lose. Noffin' important: it's all fer a larf!" The creature said, chuckling again in that way that made Stizlaks skin crawl. "Dat's why da boyz ain't ever afraid. So what if they die? They never really had anything to live for beyond having a good scrap. You though Stizlak, you chose to be SPECIAL."

    It stomped again, its foot going through Stizlaks chest, shattering it and revealing a hollow. "Let me show you in detail what you're gonna lose," The phantom hissed, reaching into his chest and pulling something out. A snowglobe, showing his first holiday with Kyte: Stizlaks eyes widened as the item showing the scene with clarity. Lantern Day. A festival, 'is first festival: in the snowglobe, he was excitedly attempting to get his lantern, an illshaped thing of paper and candlecraft that 'e could barely get to float in the air, Kyte helping him. "First, you got your people. Here today, gone tomorrow, at constant risk of bein' destroyed by forces you 'av no way of stopping, chief among them TIME." It shook the snowglobe, and with each shake, Kyte grew older, fur greyer, until…

    "Stop…I don't-I don't wanna see this," Stizlak said as he relived the worst moment of his life: learning that eventually, all those he cared about would go. His doppleganger grunted before crushing the snowglobe, spilling its contents across the floor, unsatisfied.

    "I don't care about what you want. The universe does not care about what you want," It snarled, pulling out a picture, one of those 3D printed ones that 'ad to be developed in a special red room. Waving it in front of Stizlak's face, it let his eyes wander over the scene for a moment: it was a family photo. Him and all several million of his nephews, an' even his non-Hobb family, those 'e inherited from Kyte, all standing and grinning. "Then you got your family, an' its future. You can't be everywhere, Stizzyboy, and you can't do everything. 'Ow you gonna keep em safe once the Destroyers come back? What if Gmork comes stompin' down and you aren't ready?" He waggled the photograph, shifting it to a field of corpses, two titanic green figures in the background.

    Stizlak snapped, punching the thing and snarling, causing its head to rear backwards from the force as its eyes widened in surprise. "ZOG OFF!" The Hobbgrot screamed. "Yeah all that scares me! Of course it zoggin' scares me!" He said, grabbing the giant green gits fist mid-strike and twisting, sending the shadow sailing through the air before slamming into the ground with an oof. "Happy now?" He yelled as he leaped on the creature, screaming as he balled his fists together and began whaling. "I'm scared o' people dyin! I'm scared of the future! I'm even scared of th' fact I'm zoggin' scared!" He screamed as his knuckles hurt, feeling something crunch and give way under the force of his blows. "An' yeah, I probably do keep it under a lid! I admit it! This what you wanted you zoggin' darkscrew !@#$!" He roared as he grabbed the things head and began slamming it against the ground…

    Causing it to transform into stone and break apart, an' Stizlak blinked as, for a moment, he noted that the thing almost looked like the statue of him outside Battlezone. "Well, it's not what he wanted to hear, but I'm very happy to hear it," Mojo Hobo said, causing Stizlak, huffing from exertion and pain, to glance up at the balloon-klown mojo, turning to look at the two greater mojos staring on. "Okay, is that good? How does it look? I passed, right?"

    Mojo Bozo would reach out with one titanic hand, the greater klown-mojos face still sculpted into a look of eternal divine fury and wrath and childrens parties, but their all destroying hand instead of visiting apocalyptic divine circus wrath instead would curl its thumb upward while folding the rest of its fingers inward, in a primal show of celestial approval.

    "Oh thank zog," Hobo said in relief, before turning back to Stizlak. "Okay, the bosses say I passed, which means you pass. We have about five minutes before we move on, so if you have any questions please mention them."

    "WHAT THE ZOG WAS THAT? WHAT THE ZOG IS GOING ON?" Stizlak yelled, fed up.

    "I kinda meant about me in case you found anybody who wanted to make an offering, but fine," Hobo said, sighing. "That was YOUR antianima. Or, y'know, a piece of it. We're not sure how to destroy the bigger version," They admitted.

    "Th' bigger version?!" Stizlak said, alarmed. "An-Wait, MY antianima? 'Ow th' zog do I have an antianima? I'm not a god!"

    "Nope, but for most of the time they existed, you were the closest thing the Hobbgrots had," Hobo admitted, the balloon klown tugging a rope and appearing right next to Stizlak, who jumped in alarm. "An' unfortunately, if we don't do anyfing about it, it's gonna be a problem," They said, accent slipping a a bit. "When the waaaagh you had got factory reset by the screws, it put it back to its most basic version. You decided t' turn it into the Mojo: fing was, you're the source, th' origin for it: all we are is emanations of you that you gave names and outlets for. Menza is th' creative sciencey git that represents all th' engineering an teknik you learned 'ow t' do. Yoyo is th' Screwy stuff you learned, all th' magic y'don't like but know is necessary t' keep everything functional. So forth."

    "AND THY DARKNESS, IF LEFT UNADDRESSED, WILL ALSO EMANATE," Came a voice as more lights in the stands lit up. "AND THESE EMANATIONS CREATED BY THY MIRROR DARKLY SHALL IN TURN JOIN THE MOJO AND FEED UPON IT AND DARKNESS ALIKE, BECOMING A CURSE UPON THY HOUSE! SO SAYS MOJO BUFO!" Bufo croaked, giving a wave of its front leg.

    "...Okay. I'm willin' to accept that, I guess," Stizlak sighed. "Okay, I've accepted my past and admitted my fears. What do I need to do now?" He asked, looking up to the greater Mojo's now gazing upon him.

    One of them, a great big giant that resembled a hobbgrot in a hat an' khaki outfit sitting on some sorta reptile greeble that looked right nasty. "Well that's the question now, innit? Mojo Irwin, fella what represents yer love for right beaut's like the shiela I'm ridin', 'appy t' be here," The Hobbgrot said giving a toothy grin. "See, we've definitely weakened th' thingy, but there's always th' risk it'll come back: all it takes is a little negative character development an' then WHOOP, we're back 'ere again fer round two!" They explained. "Now, we fink one more solid push should give us th' room to work something more permanent, but, well, at th' end of the day all we are is bits of your mind you turned t' gods: we still need you sort out yer noggin before we can put things t' rights, mate."

    "So I ken stop here an' let this be a problem for future me OR I can do another 'owever many trials t' 'elp solve the problem permanently," Stizlak said, before taking a deep breath. "Well, ain't nobody every accused Stizlak Kyte of bein' someone t' shirk 'is chores," He grumbled. "Alright, hit me with the next one."

    Mojo Yoyo laughed, the mask-mojos voice echoing through the stadium. "You are brave, Stizlak, to charge into the fray with such enthusiasm! Very well! We shall perform one last trial!" In front of Stizlak, the ground parted, an abyss forming in front of the Hobbgrot, and in its center, a narrow set of rickety wooden stairs. "Descend! Confront and defeat yourself one last time!"

    "Yeah yeah, you don't 'ave to make a production of it," Stizlak grumbled as he walked down the chasm, going even deeper into his mind, the apparent heart of the Mojo itself. As he walked, slowly the shadows lightened, until it was replaced with an infinite sea of white: in the distance, Stizlak thought he saw some fish swimming in the air. "Weird," He commented with a frown as the stairs eventually ended: stepping off, his feet connected with nothing, and he began to walk through that vast and unrelenting brightness, until he found himself in front of a well made from carved stone. Walking up to it, Stizlak looked down, seeing an eye gazing at him. With a huff, Stizlak jumped into the well, falling through it and passing through the eyes pupil, landing with a splash in a swamp.

    "Knew that would happen," He said after he stood up and shook his head dry. Unfortunately, the rest of him was submerged in the glunky gloop of the boggyswamp. Walking forward, Stizlak eventually saw a small island up in front of him, elevated above the swamp waters. Crawling towards it, he trundled up the sandy beach, frowning as he felt the mud drip from his clothes. 'E liked those socks…

    Grumping, the Hobbgrot Granpap walked forward, continuing up the swamp along the beach until he reached a rickety bridge of floating logs: across it a large rocky hill, a small cave mouth opened in its side. Hopping from one log to the other, Stizlak reached the lip of the cave, floating on a log next to it. "Ey, any gitz in there I need to fight?" He roared.

    A pair of burning blue coals opened, and Stizlak only realized they were eyes seconds before a shape rushed out at him, slamming into the Hobbgrot at speeds they couldn't react to, tackling them into the water and sending them both below, into a watery void illuminated by myriad willowisps. Struggling with the creature, Stizlak noted he couldn't seem to see it. No matter what angle it moved at, no matter how its eyes moved, and no matter how close the willowisps got, it seemed to hang in shadow: all he could tell was that it seemed to, like the prior specter he had fought, resemble a version of himself, but wrong: a mirror darkly, overgrown by the shadow magic the mojo was absorbing all across the Directorate.

    A strong one. Too strong: no matter how he tried to move, he could barely shift its limbs, and his own strength was beginning to lag. Furiously, he kicked it in its face, propelling him downward away from it for a moment, The Hobbgrot reaching forward and grabbing SOMETHING as they attempted to grab hold of one of their foes limbs, only to find themselves overpowered by another phantom arm reaching out and constricting them. 'I'm not strong enough,' He realized with horror as the creature wrapped a hand around his throat despite his attempts to wrest away. 'Its gonna kill me because I can't take it out!' It was then that Stizlak realized the futility of fighting a nightmare made of everything he feared in the heart of its power while it was parasitizing his power over the Hobbgrotish psychic gestalt: he had walked into the den of a creature that was reshaping reality to his nightmares, a living horror story fed by his own darkness, and foolishly expected to prevail over the genre conventions of fear.

    AND THEN, AT THAT MOMENT, LIGHT. THE SHADOW RECOILED, FLEETING FOR A MOMENT, AS IF ABJURED BY AN UNKNOWN FORCE: FOR A MOMENT STIZLAK WOULD BE STUNNED BY THE BRILLIANCE, AND FOR A MOMENT THE HOBBGROT THOUGHT HE SAW SOMETHING STRANGE: A FIGURE IN A DIVING SUIT. THE SOURCE OF THE LIGHT: AN UNKNOWN INTERLOPER IN HIS AFFAIRS THAT HE RECOGNIZED AS BEING OUT OF PLACE.

    IT WAS AT THAT MOMENT THAT SOMETHING OCCURED TO STIZLAK. THIS THING HE WAS FIGHTING: IT WAS A CREATURE OF DARKNESS AND SOLITUDE. HIS DARKNESS AND SOLITUDE, THE WORST DREGS OF HIS OWN WEAKNESS GIVEN SUBSTANCE. YOU COULDN'T DEFEAT A SHADOW BY PUNCHING IT, AND YOU CAN'T DEFEAT SOLITUDE WITHOUT HELP.

    HE FELT A PAIN IN HIS HEAD: AN ATTEMPT BY HIS MOJO TO RESIST WHATEVER WAS GIVING HIM THIS KNOWLEDGE, THIS STRANGE BRIGHT PRESENCE, NOT KNOWING WHETHER IT WAS FRIEND OR FOE. AND YET, SOON HE SAW IT DIM, THE LIGHT FADING, THE FIGURE DISAPPEARING.

    An' now the darkness was back, the creature returning. But this time, Stizlak was ready. Silently, he cast a prayer out to the Mojos, causing him to be enveloped in a purple glow. "Alright," Stizlak growled. "I might not be able t' take you out on my own you piece of !@#$, but I'm not on me own, am I? I got me family. I got me friends. An' most of all? I GOT ME MOJO."

    First came Mojo Bufo, the vast frog-god emerging from the depths, face blotting out the sky as their glowing violet eyes illuminated the battlefield like twin-moons, revealing a desolate and rusted version of the outback, soil replaced with dry crust, the winds dead. "NONE SHALL HIDE FROM MOJO BUFO!" The shadow shrieked, recoiling as Stizlaks fist impacted it, the creature unable to hide now. It recoiled, catching his next blow: now that it had no place to hide it was weaker, yes, but its might was still considerable, and there's nothing more creative than a cornered animal.

    It raised its hand, calling from the ground scrap and wisps of shadows creating a weapon from it, a klub, and swinging it at Stizlak, the attack slamming into his teeth, the creature pulling back their arm: Mojo Menza, the entity teleporting into the airspace above the battlefield in a shower of amethyst lightning. "Oioioioi, watch and behold, lightbulbs!" The clockwork brain would likewise conjur forth scrap and parts, but would instead rapidly and precisely reconfigure the parts telekinetically, constructing a functional array of flood-lights within seconds and firing them at the entity, which shrieked as parts of it began to be burned off, the light stripping away more of their power

    In response, the shadow would summon more of itself: swarms of flying things conjured from the ground that would surge through the air to attack the Mojo, forcing the mechanical one to divert more effort. Even as these beings filled the sky, attempting to attack Menza with their shadowy tooth-filled mouths, the entity would continue its assault of Stizlak, who would dodge and duck out of the way of the blows of their klub, grinning as they raised their fist and threw a phantom punch, an action that was mirrored by Mojo Bozo, who appeared behind Stizlak, his fist surging forward and impacting the shadow Stizlak, the creature shrieking as Stizlak began throwing additional phantom punches, channelling them through the furious klown destroyer god to pummel the entity, driving it back as Bozo began to advance, Bozo remaining silent and stoic even as Stizlak instead chose to hoot and holler, giggling as they dismantled their opponent.


    It would grab one of the blows, attempting to intercept it only for the next to land, the thing staggering even as it grew. Releasing the roar, the creature attempted to brute force its way past the Klown God, whose motions were choreographed by Stizlak, the pair bracing themselves to try and bring the git down, the two trading blows. It was on the back foot now, however, and it hissed as a procession of Squogs led by Mojo Irwin began crawling up and biting it, the larger ones like the big belly squogs instead attempting to unbalance them by slamming into the giants leg. "Krikey!" Irwin yelled, barely steering their mount out of the way of a stomp. "This fella is right angry!"

    "That's because he'z realized he's losing," Stizlak cawed, using Mojo Bozo to grab the things neck: he felt a strange weight on his face, and knew Mojo Yoyo was resting on it. Giving a grin, Stizlak began dancing a grin, reaching out with his fingers and grabbing the flowing eddies of power that surrounded him, connecting him and the mojos and seizing it, shaping it in his palms before throwing, casting violet havok orbs at the thing, the brilliant light searing away at its structure, allowing Bozo to overpower it, driving the shrieking creature to the ground. Above, more spotlights came on as Menza flitted around, the nightbats having met their end via Bufo, the titanic moon-frog scooping them into his mouth and devouring them. These spotlights would burn into the shadow, burning more and more of it away, the shrieking thing shrinking and shrinking. Floating forward, Stizlak gazed at what was left.

    A wriggling mass of shadow. Another piece of his antianima: the thing was unshaped, and right now, vulnerable. He grasped the mojo once more, preparing to destroy it…

    That isn't the only option.

    Stizlak paused, feeling an intrusion. "'Ooo th' Zog are you?"

    A friend. That thing represents your nightmares. Your fears. You can destroy it if you want: that will return it's power back to your Mojo, I think. Or you could take a page from the functionaries book.

    "...You think I should 'arness it?" Stizlak said, pausing, frowning, recalling the Judgements, the various folios he had read written about the esoteric lore of the antianima of the Functionary, somehow turned into extensions of his will rather than mere emanations of his terrors.

    Maybe. I'm not arguing that it's the best idea. It's not a binary choice: this place is your mind. This power you have is currently yours. And your shadow is in your power. I'm just trying to tell you that you have more than one option.

    Stizlak's eyes narrowed.

    What does he do with his shadow?

    Know that none of these are without cost.

    [ ] Destroy It:     It wouldn't get rid of the concepts it represented: the fears, the flaws: those, Stizlak could only fix by improving themselves. However, destroying it would mean its power would be returned to the Mojo.

    [ ] The Dark Mojo: Transform it, reshape the shadow into something else. He would make it into a Mojo, one that governed darker forces and emotions such as fear. This would avail the Hobbgrots a powerful way to harness and protect from these forces.
    -[ ] Name them. Does not need to stick to the Mojo [Name] naming structure, but does require some sort of equivalent title that can be used for Dark Mojos.

    [ ] Mojo Shadows:     Shatter it, reforge the pieces to craft from its pieces spirits to serve the Mojos, shadowy fairies and terrible ogres meant to serve as the Mojo spirits of night. This would provide strength in numbers for the Mojos.

    [ ] Write In.


    ((((()))))


    And yet, regardless of Stizlak's choices, on that day everything would change for the Hobbgrots.

    The most immediate effect: a total hypercharging of the Mojo from both Shrines, FathaShroomz and the work of the Shroomboyz, who would commune with and channel the Mojos, causing the rate of viable Hobbgrot spores to quadruple, more and more anklebiterz crawling their way up through the soil, alongside new and bigger squogs, like the one eyed squogbird, a machina sized avian fungoid bird of prey, or the squogosaurus, a hexapedial saurian squog whose hide hosted a variety of minisquogs such as the cheezer squog, a semi-gelatinous mass of bacteria the size of a mouse that tasted extremely like dairy product that served as a common prey animal.

    Further, whatever the hormonal makeup of MegaGrot serum was, it found itself successfully bridging one of the enzymatic gaps, allowing for not only larger, more healthy Squogs and Shroomz, but also for additional differentiations, regional mutations in the squogs that guided by the mojos and shroomboy druids allowed them to more easily adapt to be beneficial to various ecosystems and even planetary conditions, with those in the Hobbgrot ecosystems of Naklis instinctively growing slightly more more heat resistant in order to more easily weather heat shield failures, while those that cropped up across Erichtheo would produce more aquatic Squogs, such as the five eyed squog-fish which lived within the bottom of the ice crust living across the planet, or the magma-slug squogs, which would eat up cooled off magma slowly covering them in thick plates of minerals.

    In battlezone, however, this would also produce a differentiation in grots, the enzymes allowing for their spores to diverge partway in their pre-programmed development to form another humble member of the orkoid ecosystem, a small orkoid meant to handle the absolute most basic agricultural tasks in normal orkoid culture. The snotling.

    Normally, snotlings are anywheres from half a foot to one foot in height, and possessed of relatively undeveloped neurology. MegaGrot serum however seems to have overcharged their pituitary glands and metabolism, resulting in the ones at Battlezone RAPIDLY growing in size: within a few months these MegaSnots typically reach seven feet in height. Their mental faculties however develop slower, especially when outside the coverage of a SistaBrain, resulting in most being fairly simple and childish.

    [ ] Name the MegaSnots.

    Them and the many Anklebitaz would be taught by the many Hobbgrot Uncles, the FatherShrooms that would form at the heart of Hobbgrot communities and familial units, and the SistaBrainz that the Tekniks of these communities would construct: all across Battlezone and the Outback these communities would spread, the latter growing more and more life-filled as Hobbgrottic park successfully introduced non-squogs to the ecosystem, these beasts steadily changed by the Mojos each generation to adapt them further.

    With more Hobbgrots and more Mojo came more specialists, Tekniks and Shroomboyz and Beastie Boyz, and even stranger sorts such as Hobbgrot strangeboyz, living poles for the Mojo that would crop up here and there in the Outback, their abilities erupting violently. While possessed of an instinctual ability to draw on and harness this energy, most of these strangeboyz would find themselves little ability to control it, leaving them volatile and prone to literal explosions, especially when the Mojo was at full churn.

    Tekniks meanwhile would find themselves far more creative thanks to the influence of the Mojo Menza and the SistaBrainz: the former would get a frequent icon in their workshops, and the latter would be found wherever one found a Teknik, the mojotronic machines serving not only as companions and lab directors, but also powerful repositories of instinctual technological knowledge for any of her bruvvas, accelerating general Hobbgrot handiness and allowing Tekniks to simulate the orkoid genetic memory by substituting the missing information with whatever subconscious information was held within the local gestalt.

    Lurp meanwhile would prove to be a rich and vast source of Archetypic Spirits to join the ranks of the Mojo, creating strange two and a half dimensional entities that appeared like strange animated caricatures of Grotts possessing the ability to draw on the mojo to warp and stretch their incredibly resilient bodies and perform mental and physical feats well in excess of what a normal Hobbgrot might be capable of so long as it was in service to their archetypic role.

    The Hobbgrots of the Directorate would rejoice, for they were enjoying nothing less than the Grotpocalypse.


    Directorate Academy: The Directorate required a vast number of skilled professionals to operate, even in this era of increasing automation. To meet this need, the Directorate Academy was established, growing steadily until its reach encompassed the globe. The Academy effectively WAS the place to get an advanced education. Thankfully, it provided online courses for free, though there were a number of lucky students who received invitations to attend directly: those were the ones who would get drafted into the Academies own personal labs. Provides 6 ACD Points.

    Bond-Drone Technology:     Some machine spirits are particularly lively and strong, given power through generations of veneration, extreme age, or, in rare cases, through the love and care of their owner. These awoken machine spirits are typically given new vessels to inhabit, thus birthing Bond-Drones, ensouled, somewhat intelligent automata that serve as warrior, protector, and even family. Provides 1 EXP Point.

    Bond-Machina:     Advanced psychoactive Bond Machine-Spirits who through ritual and sufficient processing power have evolved into more advanced, powerful forms, capable of generating energy as if from nowhere and using it to influence and empower other machinery as well as provide power to rituals. They served as guardian, guide, and friend and, when using the Commander class combat platform as a vessel, superheavy infantry. Provides 1 EXP Point and 1 FTH Point.

    Mind-Machine Interface:     A implantless technology that allows for wireless interface between Tekket mind and machine mind, allowing for easier control of technology and communication with machine spirits. +1 FTH Point and +1 ACD Point.

    BlokTek:     Hypermodular tek designed to be plug and play, BlokTek was the basis of most TekketTek. Every component could be, if you knew the schematic, used for a different machine. The same components that would be used to make a blaster could also be used to build a microwave: the battery as the power source, the optical lens to irradiate the thing, all you needed was a few bloks to make a box: it could even perform self repair, either through magnetic assembly or replication. Provides ultimate lego technology: all parts interchangeable and universal and self repairing. Provides 2 EXP Points.

    Living Metal:     GodTek, or something derived from it: the Destroyers had managed to occasionally lightly injure the God-Machines, leaving small samples of an advanced proto-metal around. Researching it produced a room temperature regenerative semi-conductor. Another cornerstone of your tek: it meant that components could essentially be infinitely reused. Maintenance costs reduced to zero.

    ShieldBloks:     A countermeasure developed to reduce the effectiveness of Destroyer Laser Weapons, ShieldTek generators could power energy barriers around fortifications, hardening positions against lasfire and even some kinetic damage. Recent advances had managed to produce ShieldBloks, which applies BlokTek principles to the technology, creating a modular barrier generator that could be freely installed in vehicles, satellites, and inside buildings. Vehicles and fortifications effectiveness against LasFire increased, as well as slight improvements against kinetic projectiles.

    BlokBots:     BotTek had advanced to the point a variety of simple menial tasks and labours can be automated. Golem Class BlokBots come in a variety of forms with a variety of peripherals, from childcare assistant nannybots to industrial digbots to food-crate hauling cargobots, Mammoths could perform heavy labour and transport, and Gnomes could do light maintenance work and act as couriers and pets. Increase EXP by 3.

    Gravity Engines:     Next generation gravity manipulators that served to give your ships increased manueverability and very slightly increased speed, at very slightly lower power cost than previous models. Improved ship maneuverability.

    MagTek Assemblers:     Specialized MagTek pads that, when paired with a computer or tablet to act as a design station, could be used to instantly snap together bloks to assemble whole machines and devices once a suitable schematic was chosen, simplying the process to just a push of a button. Increase EXP by 1.

    MagTek Binding Fields:     Electromagnetic fields that help hold together Bloks, increasing whole machines ability to resist kinetic force, improving their overall structural durability, and increasing the conditions your machines could operate under. BlokTek is more damage resistant.

    Q-Blok Processors:     Small mass produced Quantum Computers, Q-Bloks are generally a few feet in size, containing complex tek that allows for processing power formerly reserved for rare government held supercomputers to be used for every day use both in religious practices, entertainment, Sythetic Intelligence useage, and industrial tasks. Alongside these devices one typically found A-Chips and Self-Optimizing Chipsets used for high level computational tasks. +1 CUL and +3 ACD

    Cyberbrains:     Graphical rendering units that come equipped with both advanced cortex stack to serve as an advanced physics engine and a quantum lobe for memory, most major planetary server complexes had at least one or two installed to help make cyberspace somewhat more tangible. +3 ACD.

    Daturgy Engines:     Large drum-sized technoprocessors derived from studying the Organocide Fragment, these devices act as reactcode enhancers for computers, massively increasing their effective processing power. Somewhat liable to drive synthetics insane if used carelessly. +2 ACD.

    OmniWrench Manipulator:     MagTek installed on specialized OmniWrenches to allow for magnetic lifting and movement of Bloks in order to allow for easier on site building of simple structures and vehicles: all an engineer has to do is wave their wrench to get things done. +1 EXP

    Revelation Scanner:     A new-model Ship Scanner designed using reverse engineered GodTek that gives more detailed and precise readings far quicker than older models at greater range and power. It should allow your ships to locate most anomalies quickly. Further, much of the technology had been miniaturized to make Tricorders. Gain 4 Scan Levels when scanning planets. +1 ACD and +1 EXP.

    Perpetunite Engines:     Ship scale torch engines that utilized the ships reactor to generate constant and large amounts of forward thrust, making your ships far speedier. Ships faster.

    PowerBlok:     Miniaturized nuclear reactors, PowerBloks are intended for use in vehicles and weaponry, allowing them to utilize increased amounts of power in order to allow for both larger size, more space for other components, or more powerful components that previously required larger vehicle reactors to run. They were also a component of Fusion Weaponry, typically used as artillery or on vehicles. Increased Vehicle performance. Can deploy Perpetunite Fusion Rockets and Fusion Cannons as vehicle and artillery scale weapons.

    Extremely Advanced NukeTek:     A series of techniques and technologies, from magnetic plasma corridors to perpetunite regenerative stimulation to even gravitic toroidal shells, that allowed Directorate nuclear weapons to hit further, harder, and longer, making them extremely frightening when deployed.

    Academy Fleet Compartments: Modular and standardized Academy facilities that could be quickly added to ships, they provided a wealth of scientific expertise to captains and allowed for exiting field research opportunities. +1 ACD, improves Fleet technical ability and providing access to advanced scientific tools.

    Grot-Tek Eco-Pods:     These modest sized Eco-Pods consisted of a combat chamber, four different tanks of enzymes, two 'mojo shrines' as Stizlak called them, and a Sacred Herd on the floor above to help provide lifeforce for rituals, these chambers, when utilized alongside a specific ritual allowed for the mutated fungus produced by Stizlaks spores to produce grots. A small number of these pods had been installed across the Directorate with Stizlaks permission, though the ritual required Stizlaks participation at the moment.

    Toxel Doctrine: The first rule of Toxel doctrine: never be afraid to improvise. Improved engineer ability to problem solve on the fly.

    Megaflora Serum:     The effects of this serum were very potent indeed: rapidly accelerated plant growth and size, providing massive improvements to crop production. A variant was used by Beastie Boyz to grow bigger Squogs and by every other Hobbgrot to help produce MegaSnots. +EXP

    Next-Gen Armor:     Living metal plating designed to absorb damage and be capable of self-repair between engagements, this Armor had already proven its metal at Iron Shores, being able to absorb at least some laser-fire and a direct hit from a torpedo, meaning its survivability was not in doubt. Ships are more durable.

    Virus Busters:     A series of advanced programs designed to delete malware and protect against viruses. In the hands of an automated program, they were useful. In the hands of a gifted hacker, they were invaluable for digital infiltration and defense. In the hands of a Bond-Machina, they were almost frightening in their ability to subvert machines and protect against infection. Improved E-War capabilities.

    Q-Band Compression:     A novel data transmission technology, while still in its infancy, Q-Band Compression allows for instantaneous communication across the entirety of the system with absolute zero lag using specialized Q-Bit particles that were designed to be cheap sources of synchronization. +2 CUL

    Directorate Medicine:     The Directorate had a variety of high quality pharmaceuticals and advanced surgery technology that, when supplemented by Mystek Healing, ensured that every citizen and guest of the Directorate received peerless health care. Of note were a series of crude anti-mutagenic medications, frontier bioboosters designed to train the immune system to be more capable of handling contact with alien biomes, and highly advanced anti-radiation medicine. +2 EXP.

    Warp Space Topography:     Directorate ships now had the capability to navigate warp-space via measuring out deformations in its fabric: essentially, a topographical mapper. Using it, traversing Warp-Space has proven significantly more efficient as ships are able to route out less hazardous and quicker paths thanks to the improved precision.

    Graviton Compression: A field of technology enabled by the assistance of the Graviton Owl, Graviton Compression was used for deblocker machines used to treat blood and brain clots and some digestive disorders as well as in GCC Crates used to ship goods across the Directorate. +1 EXP.

    Hobbfamily: Structured after two different familial figures typically found in other species, the Hobbfamily are a collection of engineered orkoid organisms or mojotronic synthetics: FathaShroomz, who psychically reinforce the Mojo and serve as a source of advice and guidance for Hobbs, while SistaBrainz made Hobbgrots more intellektual and let Tekniks mimic orkoid subconscious genetic memory using the knowledge of other Tekniks in range as a basis.
    Academy Points (ACD Points): 113(+6 H'K)
    Living Metal: 3
    Network: 4

    Brain of Menza: Mojo of Tekniks, Mojo Menza. The Weaponmakers of the Directorate wanted to build a workshop dedicated to them: an expansion of GrotTek in kollaboration with the Hunteks with a giant SistaBrain meant to help Tekniks develop kustom mojotronic weapons an' tek an' come up with complex AI assisted battlestrategies. 0/25, Huntsmasters workshop gains Brain of Menza, a gigantic SistaBrain that increases FTH. Tekniks can graduate into Hektiks.

    MotherTennae:     Alright, so far so swell. If the Hobbgrots were ever gonna get anywhere though, they would need better organizational capacity. Right now th' educashunal system consisted of lettin' a anklebita that popped up wander into someone older: there needed t' be a way to get them to that point once they popped out of the ground, an' so it had been proposed iterating on the SistaBrain technology to create MotherTennae, mojotronic AI that could use the mojo to broadcast to all Anklebitaz an' help educate em. 0/50, gain MotherTennae, which help educate and nurture Hobbgrot Anklebitaz and MegaSnots, increasing ACD by 3 and NT by 3. Cost 1 ART.

    MegaGrot Mutagen:     Alright! Some of the damaged caused by the factory reset had been undone, producing a variation of snotlings. While producing actual orks was beyond unlikely, it wasn't unlikely that by incorporating various mutagens and bio-enhancers into MegaGrot Serum that more enzymatic bridges could be repaired. 0/25, gain MegaGrot Mutagen, producing additional biological orkoid anomalies, increasing CUL. Cost 1 BioData.

    Grampus Colonoids:     Stizlak couldn't be everywhere. He might be the Grandpap of every Hobbgrot, but he personally could not meet with and be the Grandpap of every last Hobbgrot. What he could do, however, is use the FatherShrooms and his own brain-scans as a basis to create Grampus Colonoids, large fungus clusters with a truely distributed consciousness capable of acting as the grandfather for entire planets. 0/50, gain Grampus Colonoids, planetary spanning Hobbgrot grandfathers that increase CUL by 3 and Warp. Cost 3 BioData.

    Titan Beast Formulae of Mojo Irwin:     Mojo Irwin apparently liked when beasties were nice and able to defend themselves. So he wanted to work with Yr Albain: Hobbgrotic Park would in tandem with them develop a formula they could use to accelerate the development of the many great beasts of their world into their mature form. 0/25, Yr Albain and the Directorate gain Titan Beast Formulae, increasing CUL.

    Construct UncleKommanda Class:     It would take a massive amount of rare technology, but Stizlak wanted to create a sort of Mojotronic Broadcast ship containing its own miniature Battlezone and Fleet Battlebot League as well as a suite of Mojo Shrines, one capable of acting as a sort of mobile regional amplifier to help give a boost to Hobbgrots on the frontier. 0/35, gain Broadcaster Class, a T2 Hobbgrot Vessel that increases the primary stats of each major outpost in a region by 1 while also acting as an antipiracy vessel. Cost 1 ART.

    Paleotech Reproduction:     The Cabal and Nova Mechanica both were interested in learning how to simplify the reproduction of Paleotech. If they could streamline the more involved processes and learn how to reproduce more advanced examples, it could potentially allow more Paleotech to enter distribution. 0/25, gain improved Paleotech Reproduction, increasing EXP and ART.

    Vault of Scrolls:     The Testament in conjunction with the Unionists wanted to erect a great palace of knowledge, a vast vault where scholars, poets, and philosophers of the Directorate could store their wisdom, equipped with a fleet of priest-curators to help manage, maintain, and aid others in using it. 0/25, Testament gains Vault of Scrolls, an academic institution consisting of a massive humanities library, increasing CUL and ACD.

    ((((()))))

    AN: And that's a wrap! You have successfully invested enough to reach the next breakpoint in Stizlaks storyline, and in the process unlocked two new ships along with a BOATLOAD of other things. Anyhoo, throughout the week, tuesday to thursday, the next set of goodies will unlock: Temple to Seasons, Fairy Song, and Offering to the Toymaker. On top of that, this friday I will be opening the Christmas Auction, which is going to be special: not only will I be taking the top three bids like my birthday auction, each bid is allowed a max of three projects.

    That's right, three. You still have to price match your most expensive project, but you can also pick two more projects of equal or lesser value to go with it as well. This special auction will end on Christmas day.

    Also, here's a fun fact: had you continued investing in non-FTH Hobbgrot projects you could have would up locking yourself out of shrines and shroomz, forcing you to utilize non-FTH means to upgrade the Mojo from thenforth.
     
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    • I have 2 version of my god plan one goes into a ton of shrine upgrades which should synergize very well with hallowed shrines and one goes into a large amount of manufacturing upgrades. Both however get a very very large amount of pan divine go upgrades. I am taking more than 3 50 point god projects that cost special resource alongside a bunch of smaller pan divine upgrades on top of that. The amount of god upgrades I am taking will help supercharge all effort to realize our gods and god of all kind be that our mojo gods, our vita gods, our celestial gods, machine gods ect. This plan is especially fortuitous because a bunch of toymaker projects are also being done this turn so doing them at the same time as a bunch of pan divine upgrades will get the toymaker realized. So if you want the Toymaker to get realized or other gods, while slso massively strengthening one our already realized gods vote for one of the two plans below.

    [] Plan: A Time Of Realization For Gods and Industry
    -[] Fleets Actions
    --[] Endeavor-B
    ---[] Exploring the Horizon
    ---[] Exploring the Horizon
    --[] Resistance
    ---[] Exploring The Void Marshes
    --[] Valiant
    ---[] Exploring The Void Marshes
    --[] Discovery
    ---[] Exploring Horizon
    ---[] Exploring Horizon
    --[] Accomplishment
    ---[] Exploring the Reach
    ---[] Exploring the Reach
    --[] Spirit of Toxel
    ---[] Exploring the Expanse
    ---[] Exploring the Expanse
    --[] Delivery
    ---[] Exploring The Void Marshes
    ---[] Exploring The Void Marshes
    --[] Emissary
    ---[] Exploring the Reach
    ---[] Exploring the Reach
    -[] EXP 153
    --[] Expanded Lunar Forges: (0/30 --> 3/30) gain Expanded Lunar Forges, increasing EXP and ART
    --[] Alkemote Bottling Facility: (0/25 --> 25/25) gain Alkemote Bottles, used by Mysteks as alchemical supplements, increasing Warp by 1
    --[] Spra'ang Minerological Survey: (0/10 --> 10/10) increases EXP. Increases NK.
    --[] Naklis Powertool Factory: (0/15 --> 15/15) upgrades Naklis with Powertool Factory, increasing EXP.
    --[] Naklis Arms Factories: (0/25 --> 25/25) gain Naklean Arsenal Special Infrastructure. Repeatable: cost increases by five with each completion of this action.
    --[] Ferrocrystal Manufacturing Complex: (0/10 --> 10/10 increases EXP.
    --[] Mongus Storm-Kite: (0/10 --> 10/10) increases EXP from Mongus Storm-Kite.
    --[] Erichthean PharmaFactory: (0/15 --> 15/15) gain Erichthean PharmaFactory granting ACD and improving medical care, cost 1 BioData.
    --[] Glacier Mining: (0/10 --> 10/10) increases EXP from the development of industry.
    --[] Gleam Manufacturing District: (0/15 --> 15/15) increases EXP.
    --[] Tacchis Surface Mining: (0/15 --> 15/15) Tacchis Surface Mining established, increasing EXP and NK.
    -[] CUL 130
    --[] Celestial Resonance: (0/50 --> 50/50) gain Celestial Resonance, increasing all categories. Cost 1 ART and 1 WRP.
    --[] Empyrean Resonances: (0/50 --> 50/50) researching Divine Rites will now grant Empyrean Resonances, in the same order of potency as Rites, Least to ???. Gain Empyrean Resonances for all gods whose rites have been purchased, increasing points in all categories. Cost 2 Warp.
    --[] Orbital Pioneer Factory Ships: (0/25 --> 25/25) upgrades Orbital Pioneer Initiative with Factory Ships, increasing EXP.
    --[] Glasmite Resonart: (0/10 --> 5/10) Glasmite Resonart becomes standardized, increasing CUL and Warp. Cost 1 Nuclear Material.
    -[] FTH 126
    --[] //PATH Pins: (0/25 --> 25/25) all temples gain //PATH Pins. Cost 1 Network and 1 NK. Raises ACD and FTH.
    --[] Hypercomm Quantum Consecratek: (0/25 --> 25/25) Temples upgraded with Hypercomm Consecratek, allowing all gods to transmit their blessings and miracles between their major temples and holy sites and minor temples.
    --[] Holy Crucibles: (0/50 --> 50/50) gain Holy Crucibles, causing each theurgy tier to allow its associated order to create Blessed Artifacts of equal potency, increasing all point categories. Cost 1 Warp and 1 Network.
    --[] Hallowed Shrine: (0/20 --> 20/20) Shrines upgraded to provide FTH.
    --[] Celestial Engines (0/25 --> 6/25) Temples gain Celestial Engines, increasing FTH. Cost 1 Warp.
    -[] ACD 119
    ---[] Holy Emulator: (0/50 --> 50/50) all divine entities gain Holy Emulators in their holy places that allow for them to be channeled through AI simulacra and theurgy. Cost 1 Network, 1 Warp.
    --[] Mountain Blood: (0/25 --> 25/25) set up Mountain Blood harvesting operation, increasing Warp by 1.
    --[] Artificing Chamber: (0/25 --> 25/25) create Academy Artifice Chamber, allowing for somewhat simplified production of high end artefacts, generating 1 Warp. Cost 1 ART.
    --[] Antientropic Fields: (0/10 --> 10/10) Directorate gains Antientropic Cooling, increasing EXP and CUL.
    --[] Temple Expedition: (6/15 --> 15/15) grants information.
    -[] Resource Management
    --[] Artifacts: 4 --> 2
    --[] Biodata: 5 --> 3
    --[] Intel: 0
    --[] Living Metal: 3 --> 2
    --[] Network: 5 --> 3
    --[] Nuclear Material: 1 --> 2
    --[] Warp: 1

    [] Plan: A Gift to our Gods and Shrines
    -[] Fleets Actions
    --[] Endeavor-B
    ---[]Survey Vault-Ket system
    ---[]Stabilize Temple Comet
    --[] Resistance
    ---[] Exploring The Void Marshes
    --[] Valiant
    ---[] Giant Duty
    --[X] Discovery
    ---[X] Exploring Horizon
    ---[X] Exploring Horizon
    --[X] Accomplishment
    ---[X] Exploring the Reach
    ---[X] Exploring the Reach
    --[X] Spirit of Toxel
    ---[X] Exploring the Expanse
    ---[] Exploring the Expanse
    --[] Delivery
    ---[] Exploring The Void Marshes
    ---[] Exploring The Void Marshes
    --[X] Emissary
    ---[] Exploring the Reach
    ---[] Exploring the Reach
    -[] EXP
    --[] ShrineCity: (0/20, --> 20/20) establishes ShrineCity, a Holy Site that increases FTH by an elevated amount.
    --[] Master Control Shrines: (0/25 --> 25/25) establish Master Control Shrine network, increasing FTH and EXP, cost 1 Network.
    --[] CityBlok Resonance-Drives: (0/20 --> 20/20) upgrades Arcoocubes with Resonance-Drives, increasing FTH and CUL.
    --[] Mycelliometal Network: (0/15 --> 8/15) upgrades metal TotemTek Conduit Network, an arcane connection network that allows for inter-spirit communication and coordination, increasing CUL. Cost 1 Living Metal.
    --[] Alkemote Bottling Facility: (0/25 --> 25/25) gain Alkemote Bottles, used by Mysteks as alchemical supplements, increasing Warp by 1.
    --[] Fire Fairy Bottles: (0/15 --> 15/15) upgrades Shrines with Fire Fairy Bottles, increasing lifeforce available to shrines and allowing fire elementals to survive indefinitely without starving, increasing EXP. Cost 1 Biodata.
    --[] Naklis Elemental Gardens: (0/25 --> 25/25) increase EXP, upgrade ShrineHerds with Elemental Herdbeasts.
    --[] Yr Albain Herd-Temples: (0/15 --> 15/15) gain Saurian Herdbeasts, increasing CUL
    -[] CUL
    --[] Celestial Resonance: (0/50 --> 50/50) gain Celestial Resonance, increasing all categories. Cost 1 ART and 1 WRP.
    --[] Empyrean Resonances: (0/50 --> 50/50) researching Divine Rites will now grant Empyrean Resonances, in the same order of potency as Rites, Least to ???. Gain Empyrean Resonances for all gods whose rites have been purchased, increasing points in all categories. Cost 2 Warp.
    --[] The Conduit Folios: (0/25 --> 25/25) gain Conduit Plays, improving the performance of all Calculator technology and .ARCHONS, increasing FTH.
    --[] Glasmite Resonart: (0/10 --> 5/10) Glasmite Resonart becomes standardized, increasing CUL and Warp. Cost 1 Nuclear Material.
    -[] FTH 126
    --[] //PATH Pins: (0/25 --> 25/25) all temples gain //PATH Pins. Cost 1 Network and 1 NK. Raises ACD and FTH.
    --[] Hypercomm Quantum Consecratek: (0/25 --> 25/25) Temples upgraded with Hypercomm Consecratek, allowing all gods to transmit their blessings and miracles between their major temples and holy sites and minor temples.
    --[] Holy Crucibles: (0/50 --> 50/50) gain Holy Crucibles, causing each theurgy tier to allow its associated order to create Blessed Artifacts of equal potency, increasing all point categories. Cost 1 Warp and 1 Network.
    --[] Hallowed Shrine: (0/20 --> 20/20) Shrines upgraded to provide FTH.
    --[] Celestial Engines (0/25 --> 6/25) Temples gain Celestial Engines, increasing FTH. Cost 1 Warp.
    -[] ACD 113
    ---[] Holy Emulator: (0/50 --> 50/50) all divine entities gain Holy Emulators in their holy places that allow for them to be channeled through AI simulacra and theurgy. Cost 1 Network, 1 Warp.
    --[] Mountain Blood: (0/25 --> 25/25) set up Mountain Blood harvesting operation, increasing Warp by 1.
    --[] MegaBeast Serum: (0/20 --> 20/20) create MegaBeast Serum, increasing FTH and Warp by allowing for the development of Shrine MegaBeasts. Cost 1 BioData.
    --[] Temple Expedition: (6/15 --> 15/15) grants information.
    --[] Titan Beast Formulae of Mojo Irwin: (0/25 --> 9/25) Yr Albain and the Directorate gain Titan Beast Formulae, increasing CUL.
    -[] Resource Management
    --[] Artifacts: 4 --> 3
    --[] Biodata: 5 --> 2
    --[] Intel: 0
    --[] Living Metal: 3 --> 2
    --[] Network: 5 --> 3
    --[] Nuclear Material: 1 --> 0
    --[] Warp: 1
     
    docs.google.com

    Plans for 33

    [X] Name for Mega Snotlings -[X] Hoblings [X] Stizlak’s Shadow: -[X] The Dark Mojo: Mojo Phobo Ok, so, this plan is focused on boosting our manufacturing and unions. [spoiler=Plan: Union Time] [X] Plan: Union Time -[X] Fleets: --[X] Resistance, Valiant, Delivery and Accomplishment: ---[X] Huntin...
    docs.google.com docs.google.com

    Here is a link to all my plans. I will not be awake to post and vote for them - please take a plan you like and post it yourself. They are all neat and super synergistic, I promise! One even goes full Jack Garland to KILL CHAOS!

    Also, My suggestions for names: Mojo Phobo (Mojo that governs fear), and Hoblings (to parallel Hobgrots).
     
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    The Bird said:
    Kelbor Hal, leader of the Martian Mechanicum and the Emperors immortal right hand
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    hahahaha kalbor somewhere in the warp feels someone insulted him so greatly
    The Bird said:
    "I 'aven't gotten to see Kyte in over a zoggin' century, I'm not missin' out on the chance t' see her again!" H
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    do feel sorry for him here hoping to see a friend he hasn't seen for a long time and might never see again and who is one of the reasons why he has a better live (if I recall correctly)
     
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