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<blockquote data-quote="Iron Sky" data-source="post: 6737682" data-attributes="member: 60965"><p><strong>Iron DM 2015 Final Entry</strong></p><p></p><p style="text-align: center"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px"><strong>Never Enough Place</strong></span></span></p> <p style="text-align: center"></p><p> <p style="text-align: center"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px">A high-level fantasy adventure.</span></span></p> <p style="text-align: center"></p><p> </p><p><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px"><strong>Ingredients</strong></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px"><strong></strong>• Heavenly Body</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px">• </span></span>Fog of War</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px">• </span></span>Sullen Scion</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px">• </span></span>Lawful Good</span></span></p><p> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px">• </span></span>Any Given Day</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px">• </span></span>Bad Investment</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px">• </span></span>Covenant</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px">• </span></span>Contract</span></span></p><p></p><p></p><p> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px"><strong>The Center Does Not Hold</strong></span></span></p><p> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px">Civis: Keeper of Order, God of Organization, Structure, Stability, Pride.</span></span></p><p> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px">His antithesis and rival, Karne: Boss of Bloodletting, God of Battle, Destruction, Chaos, and Deception.</span></span></p><p> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px">Interplanar War: eons of favors, oaths, promises, alliances, threats, and any-and-all means of bringing mortal and immortal alike to their banners. No holds barred, no mercy.</span></span></p><p> </p><p> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px">This war of extermination between the righteous and the ruthless rages across the multiverse. Millions die. Rare is the refuge left untouched, ubiquitous the refugee fleeing from this devastation or that massacre. So violent and far-reaching the war, some say the stable fundament that holds the universe together is shifted, skewed, or broken.</span></span></p><p> </p><p> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px"><strong>Hook</strong></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px">If any PCs are divine-focused, an envoy from their god arrives. Otherwise, a messenger from the Celestial Council. Its method and appearance depends on the character of the group. If they are warriors: a grizzled veteran approaching after battle. If rogues: a cloaked figure appearing at their hideout. If arcane: an intelligent familiar. For mystery: a note found in their belongings.</span></span></p><p></p><p> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px">Message essentials:</span></span></p><p>• <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px">The PCs are sought to be officially hired by the Celestial Council. It is made <em>very </em>clear that this service is to the Council as a body rather than any particular heavenly divinity. Upon completion of said contract: enough gold to buy a kingdom. Each.</span></span></p><p>• <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px">The PCs' part, locating a missing deity: one Maya, Mother of All That Exists, Goddess of Physicality, Stability, Space. Last seen: departing the Celestial Council to “halt to this endless butchery.” Likely destinations: Precis, demiplane of Civis; Bale, demiplane of Karne. Due to extensively-used wide-area battlefield anti-divination devices, her exact location is untrackable.</span></span></p><p>• <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px">To aid in search: Cassida Ius Aevum, daughter of an unknown mortal and Janae, Goddess of Time. Usefulness: demiplanar access – adopted daughter of Civis, protégé of Karne. Location: unknown, unlocatable for similar reasons.</span></span></p><p>• <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px">If necessary, divine characters <em>must</em> abandon their faith – final orders from their deities. Finding Maya is “absolutely essential” and will likely require uninvited travel to demiplanes of gods, a feat impossible to other gods and their faithful without express permission as part of the Celestial Covenant etched into the bedrock of reality when the multiverse was formed.</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px"><strong>Chasing Cassida</strong></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px">Likely immediate destinations:</span></span></p><p>• <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px">Precis – Civis' standing orders explicitly deny access to non-followers. To become followers, oaths for life backed by undertakings to prove faith and fealty such as destroying one of Karne's armies or war-titans, capturing a fortresses, splitting away a major ally, etc.</span></span></p><p>• <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px">Bale – Karne has similar standing orders, though the tasks his warlord-priests demand are bloodier and more wanton.</span></span></p><p>• <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px">The Celestial Council – Nebulous advice is all the Celestial Council offers. Further aid from any agent of the council might be considered favor or blessing.</span></span></p><p>• <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px">Locate Cassida – The most likely course, perhaps after the difficulty and Covenant-incompatibility of the previous choices is discovered. </span></span> </p><p></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px">Finding Cassida is difficult:</span></span></p><p>• <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px">Cassida is decades old but acts the rebellious teen, currently in the midst of enjoying the delights and depravities of the world. She bores easily and moves often.</span></span></p><p>• <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px">Her <em>Battle Shroud of Karne</em> shields widely from even divine scrying attempts and can summon up a black mist in battle that only she can see through. She uses the mists primarily for dramatic entrances and exits.</span></span></p><p> • <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px">Directions lead astray, maps are incorrect, compasses drift. Something is Wrong and this fact grows increasingly clear as the search for Cassida continues. Travel distances are off, landmarks vanished, constellations skewed, captains and caravans lost on routes they've used for decades.</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px">While searching: </span></span> </p><p>• <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px">Massive warcamps recruiting, drafting, conscripting, foraging, scouting, skirmishing.</span></span></p><p>• <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px">Sprawling battles, sudden ambushes, roadblocks, impeding sieges and blockades.</span></span></p><p>• <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px">Destroyed bridges, fresh ruins, mass graves, ravaged countrysides, corpse-choked battlefields swarming with carrion beasts.</span></span></p><p> • <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px">Refugees, sometimes interplanar, often in the thousands.</span></span></p><p>• <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px">Whole villages, forests, rivers just... gone. Only memories remain.</span></span></p><p></p><p> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px">When they finally track Cassida to a house of pleasure, dueling ground, drug den, race track, brawl, or the like, she's not what the PCs were hoping for. Pampered by <em>gods</em> growing up, she's a spoiled brat. Rebellious, pouty, petty, moody, sulking, entitled, ungrateful, with the innate powers of a demigod, the training, investiture, and raiment of the God of Havoc, and the PCs' best shot at entrance to Precis and Bale.</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px">Getting her to help includes any or all of:</span></span></p><p>• <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px">Going to absurd lengths to prove Civis didn't send them.</span></span></p><p>• <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px">Ruining her fun until she agrees to help just to make them leave.</span></span></p><p>• <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px">Persuading her she's used up the all the excitement easily found; “going with us will be <em>way</em> more interesting!”</span></span></p><p>• <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px">Convincing her they know of better entertainments; “c'mon, we'll show you later after you help!”</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px">The one thing she always demands is Ordum. Once the primary exported trade good of Precis, Ordum metal resonates with the demiplane's pure Lawfulness, making it ideal material for mechanical equipment, balancing scales, or weapons against Chaos. Trade in general has halted and Ordum is especially scarce now as Civis crafts His own scry-shielding mechanisms with it to hide the movements of His armies. </span></span> </p><p></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px">Acquiring Ordum may involve:</span></span></p><p> • <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px">Buying it – difficult as Civis' efficient quartermasters ration it and only Civis' champions have access.</span></span></p><p>• <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px">Stealing it.</span></span></p><p>• <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px">Fighting for it.</span></span></p><p>• <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px">Looting it.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px"></span></span>• <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px">Performing great feats for one of Civis' generals <em>without</em> becoming His follower and coming up against the Covenant's demiplanar travel restrictions.</span></span></p><p></p><p> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px">Unless they returned with a pure ingot (unlikely), Cassida throws a tantrum, hurls their hard-earned Ordum object into a lake, crevasse, or cesspit, then sulks. “It has to be unwrought so I can have it made into whatever I want, stupids.”</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px"></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px">Their reward for eventually obtaining an ingot: the laborious task of finding amidst the chaos of worlds war a clockwork master capable of crafting a pocket watch from it. She toys with said watch briefly then gets bored, stuffs it away, and grudgingly agrees to help.</span></span></p><p></p><p> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px">Her adopted Father still allows her access to Precis and her still-favored status with Karne grants access to Bale. The PCs may accompany her to either as long as they don't violate the Covenant.</span></span></p><p></p><p> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px">She bores easily and complains constantly, moping and dragging until she gets her way. The occasions she suddenly becomes helpful the PCs will learn to be wary as she'll invest them with powers that seem useful but end up faulty, cursed, excessive, and/or erratic. Her favorite: granting characters immense battle-prowess accompanied by berserk bloodlust that sets aggression to 11 and discrimination to 0. Carnage and tragedy.</span></span></p><p></p><p> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px">To top it off, some mornings she'll just be gone, vanished at exactly midnight. When tracked down again and asked about it, she gives the silent treatment.</span></span></p><p></p><p> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px"><strong>Precis</strong></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px">Precis is a plane of straight lines and square edges. Everything is counted, arrayed, and organized, including the population.</span></span></p><p></p><p> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px">Ideas for challenges while investigating Precis:</span></span></p><p>• <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px">Navigating Civis' byzantine bureaucracy to find answers, get interviews, access locations, etc.</span></span></p><p>• <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px">Conscription or conversion attempts by zealots.</span></span></p><p>• <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px">Cassida hiding from the party to watch them squirm when Civis' Customs and Immigration Agency arrives to deport them.</span></span></p><p></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px">Civis Himself is immaculately dressed, stern, and speaks in exact, clipped tones. When they finally meet Him, they are peripheral to a shouting match between Father and daughter. “You micromanage everything” “you make irrational choices” “You aren't my real Dad” “you started this whole war when you slept with Karne” “anything to get away from You”... ad nauseam. The only useful bit they manage to glean: Civis hasn't seen Maya.</span></span></p><p></p><p> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px"><strong>Bale</strong></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px">Bale is a shadowy, blackened plane of rubble and bloodshed, its challenges simpler yet more dangerous. Bale's two currencies: intimidation and violence... and the former being mostly the reputation for being effective and liberal with the latter.</span></span></p><p></p><p> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px">If the PCs are clever, they'll find the biggest, scariest man or monster around and kill it in a spectacularly rapid or brutal fashion. Otherwise, they'll face endless assaults, ambushes, and challenges. Eventually they'll likely face down one of Karne's <em>Shroud</em>-equipped warlord-priests.</span></span></p><p></p><p> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px">Karne Himself is gaunt and brutish, constantly dripping gore, His weapons rusted and bloodstained. When they manage to murder their way to a meeting with Him, immediate drama with Cassida: “you left Me” “you were only using me” “you used <em>Me</em> to get back at your Father”... ad nauseam. The useful bit extractable: Karne never saw Maya.</span></span></p><p></p><p> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px"><strong>Time's Up</strong></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px">At this point, the PCs are probably giving up, constructing wild theories, and/or plotting “the Maya treatment” for Cassida.</span></span></p><p></p><p> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px">Observing Cassida's midnight disappearances, however, they notice she reaches into her pocked each time a moment before vanishing. Up to this point she's refused to talk about it, but now she's sick of being dragged around and finally explains.</span></span></p><p></p><p> “<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px">Before all this started, Mother told me to have an Ordum timepiece made. It only ever ticks at random midnights, then everyone and everything suddenly freezes except me. I can't effect anything or anyone, just walk around, look at stuff. Boring. Stupid. The clock works for twenty-four hours, then stops again and everything goes back to normal. I don't get it.”</span></span></p><p></p><p> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px">She'll try to include the PCs next time the watch's power activates. At first they get only a few seconds, but eventually Cassida is able to share the whole extra day. While in “her time” everyone experiences fleeting impressions of a dead woman's face, everywhere, nowhere, immense.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px"></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px">During any one of these days, they also encounter a group of Janae's devotees and – via the PCs choice of confrontation, enchantment, diplomacy, or guile – learn that Janae's most-faithful recently started experiencing unpredictable, shared Given Days between days: “gifts of the Eon Mistress”. Asked where Janae is, riddles: “She's not here this time, next time She will be” or “One location touches another, but the second touches eternity.”</span></span></p><p></p><p> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px">Puzzling this out, some eventual Given Day they'll discover how to step “sideways” through time to Janae's demiperiod. There, Janae greets Cassida warmly, pleased that Her daughter found Her. Grudgingly, Cassida admits the PCs did most of it and Her pleasure turns to them. The omnipresence of Maya's body nearwhen is impossible to miss.</span></span></p><p></p><p> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px">Janae brags with the excitement of a master criminal explaining a heist pulled on the gods themselves:</span></span></p><p></p><p> “<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px">Cassida was already rebelling against her Father, a few subtle nudges sent her to the arms of his arch-rival Karne – one thing the controlling Civis would never tolerate and thus sparking this War to End All Wars. War hurts Maya so I knew She'd try to stop it eventually. </span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px"></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px">"When she did, <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px">I found the time to eliminate Her,</span></span> trapped Her in an inflated bit of <em>now</em>, and took her to the <em>exact moment</em> before She existed. Exposed to raw paradox, She's as close to dead as gods get. Resultant, Her domain wanes and extensible reality subtly continues to contract in upon itself. Best of all, Her body is hidden in my Given Days! While the gods search<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px"> fruitlessly </span></span> here-and-there amidst the war-shrouds for Her, they should be looking <em>now-and-then</em> in my recently inflated days-between-days.</span></span></p><p> </p><p> “<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px">Space-time: <strong>S</strong> = <strong>x</strong> * <strong>y</strong> * <strong>z</strong> * <strong>t</strong>. <strong>S</strong> is a constant, unchangeable even by the Council after<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px"> its value was unalterably set in</span></span> the Covenant at Creation. As <strong>width(x)</strong>, <strong>height<img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite22" alt="(y)" title="Thumbs up (y)" loading="lazy" data-shortname="(y)" /></strong>, <strong>depth(z)</strong> decrease together, <strong>time(t)</strong> must increase inverse-proportionally. Maya's domain erodes away as she fades, mine grows larger in step, and thus the End of Everything locked-in at Creation grows later and later. For now, I gift the extra time to my servants, but eventually the <em>wheres</em> will be dwarfed by the <em>whens </em>everywhere and for whoever is left. Space loses its unjust three-fold dominance and soon time shall have its proper primacy!”</span></span></p><p></p><p> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px">Conclusion options:</span></span></p><p>• <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px">Vow faith and allegiance to Janae, share in the Given Days She gifts, and pursue Her timely ends.</span></span></p><p>• <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px">Take word to the Celestial Council, complete the contract, and figure out how to bring the rogue Goddess to justice while there's still place.</span></span></p><p>• <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'"><span style="font-size: 12px">Radical PC Creativity.</span></span></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Iron Sky, post: 6737682, member: 60965"] [b]Iron DM 2015 Final Entry[/b] [CENTER][FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3][B]Never Enough Place[/B][/SIZE][/FONT] [/CENTER] [CENTER][FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3]A high-level fantasy adventure.[/SIZE][/FONT] [/CENTER] [FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3][B]Ingredients [/B]• Heavenly Body [FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3]• [/SIZE][/FONT]Fog of War [FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3]• [/SIZE][/FONT]Sullen Scion [FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3]• [/SIZE][/FONT]Lawful Good[/SIZE][/FONT] [FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3] [FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3]• [/SIZE][/FONT]Any Given Day [FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3]• [/SIZE][/FONT]Bad Investment [FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3]• [/SIZE][/FONT]Covenant [FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3]• [/SIZE][/FONT]Contract[/SIZE][/FONT] [FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3][B]The Center Does Not Hold[/B][/SIZE][/FONT] [FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3]Civis: Keeper of Order, God of Organization, Structure, Stability, Pride.[/SIZE][/FONT] [FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3]His antithesis and rival, Karne: Boss of Bloodletting, God of Battle, Destruction, Chaos, and Deception.[/SIZE][/FONT] [FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3]Interplanar War: eons of favors, oaths, promises, alliances, threats, and any-and-all means of bringing mortal and immortal alike to their banners. No holds barred, no mercy.[/SIZE][/FONT] [FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3]This war of extermination between the righteous and the ruthless rages across the multiverse. Millions die. Rare is the refuge left untouched, ubiquitous the refugee fleeing from this devastation or that massacre. So violent and far-reaching the war, some say the stable fundament that holds the universe together is shifted, skewed, or broken.[/SIZE][/FONT] [FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3][B]Hook[/B][/SIZE][/FONT] [FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3]If any PCs are divine-focused, an envoy from their god arrives. Otherwise, a messenger from the Celestial Council. Its method and appearance depends on the character of the group. If they are warriors: a grizzled veteran approaching after battle. If rogues: a cloaked figure appearing at their hideout. If arcane: an intelligent familiar. For mystery: a note found in their belongings.[/SIZE][/FONT] [FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3]Message essentials:[/SIZE][/FONT] • [FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3]The PCs are sought to be officially hired by the Celestial Council. It is made [I]very [/I]clear that this service is to the Council as a body rather than any particular heavenly divinity. Upon completion of said contract: enough gold to buy a kingdom. Each.[/SIZE][/FONT] • [FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3]The PCs' part, locating a missing deity: one Maya, Mother of All That Exists, Goddess of Physicality, Stability, Space. Last seen: departing the Celestial Council to “halt to this endless butchery.” Likely destinations: Precis, demiplane of Civis; Bale, demiplane of Karne. Due to extensively-used wide-area battlefield anti-divination devices, her exact location is untrackable.[/SIZE][/FONT] • [FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3]To aid in search: Cassida Ius Aevum, daughter of an unknown mortal and Janae, Goddess of Time. Usefulness: demiplanar access – adopted daughter of Civis, protégé of Karne. Location: unknown, unlocatable for similar reasons.[/SIZE][/FONT] • [FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3]If necessary, divine characters [I]must[/I] abandon their faith – final orders from their deities. Finding Maya is “absolutely essential” and will likely require uninvited travel to demiplanes of gods, a feat impossible to other gods and their faithful without express permission as part of the Celestial Covenant etched into the bedrock of reality when the multiverse was formed.[/SIZE][/FONT] [FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3][B]Chasing Cassida[/B][/SIZE][/FONT] [FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3]Likely immediate destinations:[/SIZE][/FONT] • [FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3]Precis – Civis' standing orders explicitly deny access to non-followers. To become followers, oaths for life backed by undertakings to prove faith and fealty such as destroying one of Karne's armies or war-titans, capturing a fortresses, splitting away a major ally, etc.[/SIZE][/FONT] • [FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3]Bale – Karne has similar standing orders, though the tasks his warlord-priests demand are bloodier and more wanton.[/SIZE][/FONT] • [FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3]The Celestial Council – Nebulous advice is all the Celestial Council offers. Further aid from any agent of the council might be considered favor or blessing.[/SIZE][/FONT] • [FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3]Locate Cassida – The most likely course, perhaps after the difficulty and Covenant-incompatibility of the previous choices is discovered. [/SIZE][/FONT] [FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3]Finding Cassida is difficult:[/SIZE][/FONT] • [FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3]Cassida is decades old but acts the rebellious teen, currently in the midst of enjoying the delights and depravities of the world. She bores easily and moves often.[/SIZE][/FONT] • [FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3]Her [I]Battle Shroud of Karne[/I] shields widely from even divine scrying attempts and can summon up a black mist in battle that only she can see through. She uses the mists primarily for dramatic entrances and exits.[/SIZE][/FONT] • [FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3]Directions lead astray, maps are incorrect, compasses drift. Something is Wrong and this fact grows increasingly clear as the search for Cassida continues. Travel distances are off, landmarks vanished, constellations skewed, captains and caravans lost on routes they've used for decades.[/SIZE][/FONT] [FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3]While searching: [/SIZE][/FONT] • [FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3]Massive warcamps recruiting, drafting, conscripting, foraging, scouting, skirmishing.[/SIZE][/FONT] • [FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3]Sprawling battles, sudden ambushes, roadblocks, impeding sieges and blockades.[/SIZE][/FONT] • [FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3]Destroyed bridges, fresh ruins, mass graves, ravaged countrysides, corpse-choked battlefields swarming with carrion beasts.[/SIZE][/FONT] • [FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3]Refugees, sometimes interplanar, often in the thousands.[/SIZE][/FONT] • [FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3]Whole villages, forests, rivers just... gone. Only memories remain.[/SIZE][/FONT] [FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3]When they finally track Cassida to a house of pleasure, dueling ground, drug den, race track, brawl, or the like, she's not what the PCs were hoping for. Pampered by [I]gods[/I] growing up, she's a spoiled brat. Rebellious, pouty, petty, moody, sulking, entitled, ungrateful, with the innate powers of a demigod, the training, investiture, and raiment of the God of Havoc, and the PCs' best shot at entrance to Precis and Bale.[/SIZE][/FONT] [FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3]Getting her to help includes any or all of:[/SIZE][/FONT] • [FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3]Going to absurd lengths to prove Civis didn't send them.[/SIZE][/FONT] • [FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3]Ruining her fun until she agrees to help just to make them leave.[/SIZE][/FONT] • [FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3]Persuading her she's used up the all the excitement easily found; “going with us will be [I]way[/I] more interesting!”[/SIZE][/FONT] • [FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3]Convincing her they know of better entertainments; “c'mon, we'll show you later after you help!”[/SIZE][/FONT] [FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3]The one thing she always demands is Ordum. Once the primary exported trade good of Precis, Ordum metal resonates with the demiplane's pure Lawfulness, making it ideal material for mechanical equipment, balancing scales, or weapons against Chaos. Trade in general has halted and Ordum is especially scarce now as Civis crafts His own scry-shielding mechanisms with it to hide the movements of His armies. [/SIZE][/FONT] [FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3]Acquiring Ordum may involve:[/SIZE][/FONT] • [FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3]Buying it – difficult as Civis' efficient quartermasters ration it and only Civis' champions have access.[/SIZE][/FONT] • [FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3]Stealing it.[/SIZE][/FONT] • [FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3]Fighting for it.[/SIZE][/FONT] • [FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3]Looting it. [/SIZE][/FONT]• [FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3]Performing great feats for one of Civis' generals [I]without[/I] becoming His follower and coming up against the Covenant's demiplanar travel restrictions.[/SIZE][/FONT] [FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3]Unless they returned with a pure ingot (unlikely), Cassida throws a tantrum, hurls their hard-earned Ordum object into a lake, crevasse, or cesspit, then sulks. “It has to be unwrought so I can have it made into whatever I want, stupids.” Their reward for eventually obtaining an ingot: the laborious task of finding amidst the chaos of worlds war a clockwork master capable of crafting a pocket watch from it. She toys with said watch briefly then gets bored, stuffs it away, and grudgingly agrees to help.[/SIZE][/FONT] [FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3]Her adopted Father still allows her access to Precis and her still-favored status with Karne grants access to Bale. The PCs may accompany her to either as long as they don't violate the Covenant.[/SIZE][/FONT] [FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3]She bores easily and complains constantly, moping and dragging until she gets her way. The occasions she suddenly becomes helpful the PCs will learn to be wary as she'll invest them with powers that seem useful but end up faulty, cursed, excessive, and/or erratic. Her favorite: granting characters immense battle-prowess accompanied by berserk bloodlust that sets aggression to 11 and discrimination to 0. Carnage and tragedy.[/SIZE][/FONT] [FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3]To top it off, some mornings she'll just be gone, vanished at exactly midnight. When tracked down again and asked about it, she gives the silent treatment.[/SIZE][/FONT] [FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3][B]Precis[/B][/SIZE][/FONT] [FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3]Precis is a plane of straight lines and square edges. Everything is counted, arrayed, and organized, including the population.[/SIZE][/FONT] [FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3]Ideas for challenges while investigating Precis:[/SIZE][/FONT] • [FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3]Navigating Civis' byzantine bureaucracy to find answers, get interviews, access locations, etc.[/SIZE][/FONT] • [FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3]Conscription or conversion attempts by zealots.[/SIZE][/FONT] • [FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3]Cassida hiding from the party to watch them squirm when Civis' Customs and Immigration Agency arrives to deport them.[/SIZE][/FONT] [FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3]Civis Himself is immaculately dressed, stern, and speaks in exact, clipped tones. When they finally meet Him, they are peripheral to a shouting match between Father and daughter. “You micromanage everything” “you make irrational choices” “You aren't my real Dad” “you started this whole war when you slept with Karne” “anything to get away from You”... ad nauseam. The only useful bit they manage to glean: Civis hasn't seen Maya.[/SIZE][/FONT] [FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3][B]Bale[/B][/SIZE][/FONT] [FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3]Bale is a shadowy, blackened plane of rubble and bloodshed, its challenges simpler yet more dangerous. Bale's two currencies: intimidation and violence... and the former being mostly the reputation for being effective and liberal with the latter.[/SIZE][/FONT] [FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3]If the PCs are clever, they'll find the biggest, scariest man or monster around and kill it in a spectacularly rapid or brutal fashion. Otherwise, they'll face endless assaults, ambushes, and challenges. Eventually they'll likely face down one of Karne's [I]Shroud[/I]-equipped warlord-priests.[/SIZE][/FONT] [FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3]Karne Himself is gaunt and brutish, constantly dripping gore, His weapons rusted and bloodstained. When they manage to murder their way to a meeting with Him, immediate drama with Cassida: “you left Me” “you were only using me” “you used [I]Me[/I] to get back at your Father”... ad nauseam. The useful bit extractable: Karne never saw Maya.[/SIZE][/FONT] [FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3][B]Time's Up[/B][/SIZE][/FONT] [FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3]At this point, the PCs are probably giving up, constructing wild theories, and/or plotting “the Maya treatment” for Cassida.[/SIZE][/FONT] [FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3]Observing Cassida's midnight disappearances, however, they notice she reaches into her pocked each time a moment before vanishing. Up to this point she's refused to talk about it, but now she's sick of being dragged around and finally explains.[/SIZE][/FONT] “[FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3]Before all this started, Mother told me to have an Ordum timepiece made. It only ever ticks at random midnights, then everyone and everything suddenly freezes except me. I can't effect anything or anyone, just walk around, look at stuff. Boring. Stupid. The clock works for twenty-four hours, then stops again and everything goes back to normal. I don't get it.”[/SIZE][/FONT] [FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3]She'll try to include the PCs next time the watch's power activates. At first they get only a few seconds, but eventually Cassida is able to share the whole extra day. While in “her time” everyone experiences fleeting impressions of a dead woman's face, everywhere, nowhere, immense. During any one of these days, they also encounter a group of Janae's devotees and – via the PCs choice of confrontation, enchantment, diplomacy, or guile – learn that Janae's most-faithful recently started experiencing unpredictable, shared Given Days between days: “gifts of the Eon Mistress”. Asked where Janae is, riddles: “She's not here this time, next time She will be” or “One location touches another, but the second touches eternity.”[/SIZE][/FONT] [FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3]Puzzling this out, some eventual Given Day they'll discover how to step “sideways” through time to Janae's demiperiod. There, Janae greets Cassida warmly, pleased that Her daughter found Her. Grudgingly, Cassida admits the PCs did most of it and Her pleasure turns to them. The omnipresence of Maya's body nearwhen is impossible to miss.[/SIZE][/FONT] [FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3]Janae brags with the excitement of a master criminal explaining a heist pulled on the gods themselves:[/SIZE][/FONT] “[FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3]Cassida was already rebelling against her Father, a few subtle nudges sent her to the arms of his arch-rival Karne – one thing the controlling Civis would never tolerate and thus sparking this War to End All Wars. War hurts Maya so I knew She'd try to stop it eventually. "When she did, [FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3]I found the time to eliminate Her,[/SIZE][/FONT] trapped Her in an inflated bit of [I]now[/I], and took her to the [I]exact moment[/I] before She existed. Exposed to raw paradox, She's as close to dead as gods get. Resultant, Her domain wanes and extensible reality subtly continues to contract in upon itself. Best of all, Her body is hidden in my Given Days! While the gods search[FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3] fruitlessly [/SIZE][/FONT] here-and-there amidst the war-shrouds for Her, they should be looking [I]now-and-then[/I] in my recently inflated days-between-days.[/SIZE][/FONT] “[FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3]Space-time: [B]S[/B] = [B]x[/B] * [B]y[/B] * [B]z[/B] * [B]t[/B]. [B]S[/B] is a constant, unchangeable even by the Council after[FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3] its value was unalterably set in[/SIZE][/FONT] the Covenant at Creation. As [B]width(x)[/B], [B]height(y)[/B], [B]depth(z)[/B] decrease together, [B]time(t)[/B] must increase inverse-proportionally. Maya's domain erodes away as she fades, mine grows larger in step, and thus the End of Everything locked-in at Creation grows later and later. For now, I gift the extra time to my servants, but eventually the [I]wheres[/I] will be dwarfed by the [I]whens [/I]everywhere and for whoever is left. Space loses its unjust three-fold dominance and soon time shall have its proper primacy!”[/SIZE][/FONT] [FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3]Conclusion options:[/SIZE][/FONT] • [FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3]Vow faith and allegiance to Janae, share in the Given Days She gifts, and pursue Her timely ends.[/SIZE][/FONT] • [FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3]Take word to the Celestial Council, complete the contract, and figure out how to bring the rogue Goddess to justice while there's still place.[/SIZE][/FONT] • [FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3]Radical PC Creativity.[/SIZE][/FONT] [/QUOTE]
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