In the city of Heaven, the only city, there are those vain enough to think to trespass on the domain of the gods with their arts of Alchemy. You are one of them.
Transmutations of Lead: An Alchemist Quest
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TURN 0: BIRTH
- Location
- boundless optimism
Remember, titan, that immortality is only ever the preserve of the gods. Three times has Man reached for that perfect stasis and three times they failed. Remember how the snake stole the everlasting herb from Gilgamesh. Recall Eve and how we drove her from Eden for tasting the truth we know. Recall the tortures of Sisyphus in that dreary hell. Yet for every vain alchemist burned there are a thousand more.
I, more than any other, know that hubris is the birthright of mankind, and I, more than any other, know the ways that the titans stretch and strain against their limits.
So I will tell your story, o titan. Even though I know it very well, told as it is a thousand times.
It starts, with all things, with an exchange.
A crowd gathers. The ant-faced Myrmidons, rain slick carapaces shining in the streetlamps, march a man to the pyre at the center of the square. The mood is disappointed. This man does not weep, he does not previcate, beg nor cry. Shoddy fare for an execution. Barely an interesting diversion for Heaven, but still the crowd gathers, because the road is jammed and someone is selling toasted chestnuts. What better to pass the hours than a public execution?
You wish you had an inch of your master's iron will. His stoney expression does not move an inch as the Myrmidons tie him to the stake. It remained that way when they tossed the match to the pyre and the soul-eating flame blackened his flesh and bone. You know that he would want to spend his last moments in this base earth howling his secret arts to the world in a final defiance but the myrmidons ripped out his throat and tongue and drove nails into his cerebrum when they kicked down the door to his hiding-hole.
So his final defiance is silence.
The crowd cheers, a thousand hoots and jeers that are so easy to hide in. No one notices your tears.
You…
[]- Betrayed him to the Myrmidons. He had methods and sciences he withheld from you, his only student. Frustration boiled into rage and rage tempered into cold cruelty. You gave his name to the Myrmidons so you could break into his laboratory without his interference.
The fire recedes, and the crowd with it. You incline your head in the passing of your teacher, and melt into the anonymous tangle of streets in Lower Heaven.
Choose Your Heresy
[]- New Masons: The Freemasons exulted the ratios and measures of their calculation. So engrossed they were that they were killed in divine purges, their heads in their idealized mathematical world. What remained were the New Masons, thuggish masters of base matter who measured and built ever more perfect bodies for themselves, with stars in their hearts, walking counterclockwise towards the light infinite.
I, more than any other, know that hubris is the birthright of mankind, and I, more than any other, know the ways that the titans stretch and strain against their limits.
So I will tell your story, o titan. Even though I know it very well, told as it is a thousand times.
It starts, with all things, with an exchange.
A crowd gathers. The ant-faced Myrmidons, rain slick carapaces shining in the streetlamps, march a man to the pyre at the center of the square. The mood is disappointed. This man does not weep, he does not previcate, beg nor cry. Shoddy fare for an execution. Barely an interesting diversion for Heaven, but still the crowd gathers, because the road is jammed and someone is selling toasted chestnuts. What better to pass the hours than a public execution?
You wish you had an inch of your master's iron will. His stoney expression does not move an inch as the Myrmidons tie him to the stake. It remained that way when they tossed the match to the pyre and the soul-eating flame blackened his flesh and bone. You know that he would want to spend his last moments in this base earth howling his secret arts to the world in a final defiance but the myrmidons ripped out his throat and tongue and drove nails into his cerebrum when they kicked down the door to his hiding-hole.
So his final defiance is silence.
The crowd cheers, a thousand hoots and jeers that are so easy to hide in. No one notices your tears.
You…
[]- Betrayed him to the Myrmidons. He had methods and sciences he withheld from you, his only student. Frustration boiled into rage and rage tempered into cold cruelty. You gave his name to the Myrmidons so you could break into his laboratory without his interference.
- Gain Location- The Master's Secret. You are aware of the location and passphrases to your master's hidden bolthole, containing his greatest work. It is doubtless that it is filled with traps, but you are sure that you can overcome them.
- Gain Location- The Student's Folly. The mistakes of your experiments are still smouldering within the warrens of Rukhrest. The alembics, retorts, and manuscripts are still there, mildly singed, though the Myrmidons will be looking for it as well.
The fire recedes, and the crowd with it. You incline your head in the passing of your teacher, and melt into the anonymous tangle of streets in Lower Heaven.
Choose Your Heresy
[]- New Masons: The Freemasons exulted the ratios and measures of their calculation. So engrossed they were that they were killed in divine purges, their heads in their idealized mathematical world. What remained were the New Masons, thuggish masters of base matter who measured and built ever more perfect bodies for themselves, with stars in their hearts, walking counterclockwise towards the light infinite.
- Gain The Initiate Cybernetic (+1 Solve Matters By Force): You have begun the work. Your extremities, hands and feet, arms and legs, are works of the secret Masonic Arts.
- Gain Move- Expurgate The Lie: You may expel the influences of false gods and demons from their victims. Roll any stat with a Grace tendency. On a success, they are driven out. On a critical success, they are also burned by the fires of your faith.
- Gain The Alkahest (+1 Solve Matters By Erudition): To know something you must break it first. The universal solvent renders (almost) everything to its base components.
This quest will be working on Powered By The Apocalypse, with Clocks from Blades In the Dark. Each challenge or move will be resolved by rolling a 2d6+(Stat). A 10+ is a success, with a chance for added benefit. A 7-9 is a success with some drawbacks- you might gain some unwelcome attention, lose an arm, or get poisoned by alchemical fumes. Anything less than a 6 is a failure. Clocks are representations of obstacles, progress, and basically anything else that can be abstracted. Crafting an object would be represented by a Clock.
Unlike other games, Stats represent real, concrete items while Moves represent innate personal skills. You don't have +2 to Fight because you're a good fighter, you have it because you have a gun (+2 Solve Matters By Force).
Stats reflect specific tendencies that are used to solve challenges. These tendencies are by Force, Grace, Cunning, Erudition, and Passion.
Unlike other games, Stats represent real, concrete items while Moves represent innate personal skills. You don't have +2 to Fight because you're a good fighter, you have it because you have a gun (+2 Solve Matters By Force).
Stats reflect specific tendencies that are used to solve challenges. These tendencies are by Force, Grace, Cunning, Erudition, and Passion.
You
- Location
- boundless optimism
You are PSEUDO-ALEXANDER, an ALCHEMIST.
Your stats are:
Your stats are:
- The Alkahest (+1 Solve Matters By Erudition): To know something you must break it first. The universal solvent renders (almost) everything to its base components.
- Black Book of Ibn al-Ghul: Penned by a necromancer of some note, the Black Book details the spiritual predators that feed on the dead, and ways to entice, command, and slay them as well as a brief treatise in the ways of locating sustenance in the desert via magic.
- Transmutations of Silver vol 1: A classic amongst the Perfect Circle. The first volume is a study on transmuting base metals to the noble metals, with later volumes extending the process to spiritual transmutations. Vol 1 also contains advice for committing fraud.
- 0/8->Debt: By the grace of the True Fire, the faithful of the Hidden Temple own your ass and expect you to work it off. Congratulations!
- 0/4->Self Control: If you do not have something to do and very soon you will do something very unwise and very interesting. For someone observing at a very far distance.
Last edited:
[x]-Ruined him with unwise experiments
[x]-True Fire
[x]-True Fire
- Location
- The Void
[X]- Ruined him with unwise experiments
[X]- Perfect Circle
[X]- Perfect Circle
- Location
- England
[X]- Ruined him with unwise experiments
[X]- Perfect Circle
[X]- Perfect Circle
- Location
- Wörms, the half continent
[X]- Ruined him with unwise experiment
[X]- Perfect Circle
Hubris? Bah! I can distill hubris into three different kinds of pride! I don't have hubris.
[X]- Perfect Circle
Hubris? Bah! I can distill hubris into three different kinds of pride! I don't have hubris.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
[X]- Ruined him with unwise experiment
[X]- Perfect Circle
[X]- Perfect Circle
Kaboomatic
Where the Wild Things Are
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X]- Ruined him with unwise experiments
[X]- True Fire
[X]- True Fire
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
[X]- Betrayed him to the Myrmidons
[X]- Perfect Circle
[X]- Perfect Circle
TURN 0b
- Location
- boundless optimism
You took the Centipede to the foot of Rukhrest. The DEMETER-hatched beast chitters as you step off of the howdahs on its back, the driver waving the bait-stick to get the thing trundling along the roads. Rukhrest towers above you and Lower Heaven. Once the home of rocs, swooping down on the surrounding districts to carry off pedestrians as prey, before the Myrmidons stormed the tower-mountain-slum, put all the birds to the sword, smashed their nests, and kept only a few for ENKI's laboratories. What remains was given to the carrion realtors, who brought up the land and rented it's carved warrens at rock bottom prices.
It was perfect for you, who wanted a well ventilated room on the cheap, without anyone to look at what the inhabitant of Room 414 was doing.
Luck is with you. As you ascend the winding staircases, you could not spy a single Myrmidon. They haven't got to it yet, although they will soon.
You step into your folly. Here, is where you began to delve to the secrets of the Emerald Tablet, in that rickety desk shoved in a corner. There, where the notes on reverse engineering the basic syllabary of Enochian, the divine basal tongue, lie open. There, the work-table where you began to synthesize diamonds out of glass, as one day you will repeat the process to transmute your earthly soul to a divine spirit. The remains of your experiment, a chunk of something not quite glass, salt, nor crystal, sits on the table.
You hold it in your hands. It was his fault, you say to yourself as the rainclouds break, sunlight falling on the spires of Heaven. It was his fault for restricting his curricula. It was his fault for not recognizing your innate brilliance, for proscribing herbcraft and geometry when you already were breaking down the formulae of Magister Pynchon's work.
It was his. You squeeze your eyes shut. It was his fault. You were forced to, you had to do it. The truths, the secrets, the method, it was in your skull and you had to get it out, work out the kinks before it burst your skull.
But did you really try? A voice from your palace-of-mind. To talk to him. You demanded. You insulted. You gave ultimatums. But you never talked. Because he was your god and your father, you never thought to see him as an equal, or someone to confide in. Someone that existed at the same plane of existence as you.
How could he? Your Master was a great man, the greatest of men. Someone to be planned around, hidden from, never to be negotiated with, because it was futile as moving the stars. "Oh wand of the Thrice-Great," you whisper, "I killed him. I killed him."
That you did. The chunk of pseudocrystal falls from your hands. You allow yourself a moment of recrimination, and then you sigh, breathe, and visualize the guilt as a dark haze over your palace-of-mind, a sepia toned memory of the wynds and streets of your childhood, swirling down into a box. You can deal with that later. You have more pressing matters to attend to.
To wit, the ant car coming down the road your apartment overlooks. Their spears glint in the day, two of their more animalistic cousins, each the size of a bus, pulling a search-tower behind them. "Alarm, Alarm," you hear the speaker, someone with a voice like echoing thunder.. "An alchemist is within the vicinity. Citizens of Heaven, please leave the area. Alarm. Alarm. This is for the public safety. If you remain, you will be detained. Alarm. Alarm."
Clock Created- 0/4->Closing In!: The Punishing Hand of Divine Justice closes. You have only so much time to settle your affairs. Choose one option, and up to two more. Each option past the first gives +1 to the Myrmidon's roll (+0) to catch you. When this clock is filled, the Myrmidons will have taken you to custody.
Clock Created- 0/4->Escape!: You will not wait for the hands to close around your neck. When this clock is filled, you have made your daring escape.
[]- Improvise a Bomb: Indulge in every alchemist's enjoyment of exothermic reactions. Make a basic move with the Alkahest. On a 7-9, +2 to the Escape clock, but cause severe collateral damage. On a 10+, +3. Your mastery means there is no collateral damage. On a 6-, +1 to the Myrmidon's roll.
[]- Fight Your Way Out: You're not a coward. (Is that bravery, or suicidal guilt?) Make a basic move with the Syllables of Baraqiel. On a 7-9, +1 to the Escape clock, but gain a Wound. On a 10+, +2 and demonstrate your mastery in a stunning fashion. On a 6-, gain a Wound.
[]- Take the Transmutations of Silver vol 1: A classic amongst the Perfect Circle. The first volume is a study on transmuting base metals to the noble metals, with later volumes extending the process to spiritual transmutations. Vol 1 also contains advice for committing fraud.
It was perfect for you, who wanted a well ventilated room on the cheap, without anyone to look at what the inhabitant of Room 414 was doing.
Luck is with you. As you ascend the winding staircases, you could not spy a single Myrmidon. They haven't got to it yet, although they will soon.
You step into your folly. Here, is where you began to delve to the secrets of the Emerald Tablet, in that rickety desk shoved in a corner. There, where the notes on reverse engineering the basic syllabary of Enochian, the divine basal tongue, lie open. There, the work-table where you began to synthesize diamonds out of glass, as one day you will repeat the process to transmute your earthly soul to a divine spirit. The remains of your experiment, a chunk of something not quite glass, salt, nor crystal, sits on the table.
You hold it in your hands. It was his fault, you say to yourself as the rainclouds break, sunlight falling on the spires of Heaven. It was his fault for restricting his curricula. It was his fault for not recognizing your innate brilliance, for proscribing herbcraft and geometry when you already were breaking down the formulae of Magister Pynchon's work.
It was his. You squeeze your eyes shut. It was his fault. You were forced to, you had to do it. The truths, the secrets, the method, it was in your skull and you had to get it out, work out the kinks before it burst your skull.
But did you really try? A voice from your palace-of-mind. To talk to him. You demanded. You insulted. You gave ultimatums. But you never talked. Because he was your god and your father, you never thought to see him as an equal, or someone to confide in. Someone that existed at the same plane of existence as you.
How could he? Your Master was a great man, the greatest of men. Someone to be planned around, hidden from, never to be negotiated with, because it was futile as moving the stars. "Oh wand of the Thrice-Great," you whisper, "I killed him. I killed him."
That you did. The chunk of pseudocrystal falls from your hands. You allow yourself a moment of recrimination, and then you sigh, breathe, and visualize the guilt as a dark haze over your palace-of-mind, a sepia toned memory of the wynds and streets of your childhood, swirling down into a box. You can deal with that later. You have more pressing matters to attend to.
To wit, the ant car coming down the road your apartment overlooks. Their spears glint in the day, two of their more animalistic cousins, each the size of a bus, pulling a search-tower behind them. "Alarm, Alarm," you hear the speaker, someone with a voice like echoing thunder.. "An alchemist is within the vicinity. Citizens of Heaven, please leave the area. Alarm. Alarm. This is for the public safety. If you remain, you will be detained. Alarm. Alarm."
Clock Created- 0/4->Closing In!: The Punishing Hand of Divine Justice closes. You have only so much time to settle your affairs. Choose one option, and up to two more. Each option past the first gives +1 to the Myrmidon's roll (+0) to catch you. When this clock is filled, the Myrmidons will have taken you to custody.
Clock Created- 0/4->Escape!: You will not wait for the hands to close around your neck. When this clock is filled, you have made your daring escape.
[]- Improvise a Bomb: Indulge in every alchemist's enjoyment of exothermic reactions. Make a basic move with the Alkahest. On a 7-9, +2 to the Escape clock, but cause severe collateral damage. On a 10+, +3. Your mastery means there is no collateral damage. On a 6-, +1 to the Myrmidon's roll.
[]- Fight Your Way Out: You're not a coward. (Is that bravery, or suicidal guilt?) Make a basic move with the Syllables of Baraqiel. On a 7-9, +1 to the Escape clock, but gain a Wound. On a 10+, +2 and demonstrate your mastery in a stunning fashion. On a 6-, gain a Wound.
- Gain Syllables of Baraqiel (+1 Solve Matters By Force): The Rebel Watcher's power over thunder echoes in your every word. Divine fire leaps at your command.
[]- Take the Transmutations of Silver vol 1: A classic amongst the Perfect Circle. The first volume is a study on transmuting base metals to the noble metals, with later volumes extending the process to spiritual transmutations. Vol 1 also contains advice for committing fraud.