"Sun! Suuuuun!"
Zeristia dances happily under the Armor's Glorious Rays. All ten of her eyes watch it climb into the air, transfixed.
"Praise! Light! Sunlight! P-PRAISE! PRAISE THE SUN!"
PRAISE IT MOTHERFUCKER.
...
A few minutes pass. Zeristia seems to break out of her trance. She considers seeding her new garden, yet-
"Hmmmmmmm."
Something is missing. Oh yes.
"Water! Water for babies! Drink! Yes!"
Find a water source with which to irrigate the battlefield!
5Zeristia basks under the light of the sun. She watches as its luminescence flows out into the world, heating the sands and nourishing what few plants exist. After several minutes there is an even brighter flash of light overhead. A beam of white energy rises from somewhere in the desert and lands directly on the Armor's chestplate, causing the entire armor to warp in shape. Zeristia slits her eyes to get a better look. Two metallic horns have grown out of the helm. It also looks like the boots have become rounder and heavier, though details are difficult to make out.
She turns her gaze back to the ground. The desert has plenty of space for plants to grow, but it's also completely dry. The most abundant source of water is up north, where a mirrored sphere hanging above the web produces continuous rainfall. The Wetlands are filled with all kinds of rivers, lakes, and reservoirs, including a half-finished canal that causes flooding near a tower made of glass. To Zeristia's delight, the entire place is already green with life. Various crops grow around the tower, while the rest of the wetlands are buried under fields of a strange golden grain.
The Shifting Bog is also a potential water source. Its waters are deathly poisonous, polluted with mud and primeval venom. There are no plants there, and only the hardiest of fauna can survive. The Gardener sees metallic larvae slithering underneath the swamp. Some of them are biting at a metallic vulture that is easily a hundred times their size.
Ira hunts for more of the sands remnants
6 v 4Ira shakes herself free of the nightmare and tunnels deep into the earth. She goes farther downwards than she's ever gone before, until the darkness is complete and the surface is a mere memory of a dream. She can sense nothing except the lifeless sand rasping against her body, and perhaps the sound of her own ragged breathing as she slithers through the earth. If not for the vague sense of gravity pressing down on her, Ira could believe that she was suspended in an empty void. She burrows outwards in ever-widening circles, searching for Remnants of the sand that she knows must lurk here.
An indeterminate amount of time passes. Ira has no way to measure it, so it could be hours or days. She hears a faint scratching sound coming from the sand to her right. Sharp pieces of stone brush up against her body, so close that they actually slice through the outer layers of her skin. The sandworm pivots around so that she doesn't get impaled, then dives towards the Remnant that just attacked her. Both dead and living sand floods into her open mouth. Some of it tries to stay there and choke her, but she shakes her head until the clump of sand-creature gets dislodged. A hard lump slithers down her esophagus and deposits itself in her stomach.
When her surroundings are silent again, Ira strains her ears for other Remnants. She hears muffled echoes of scratching, so faint that they must be coming to her from a vast distance. The World-Eater counts at least fifteen of them, judging by slight differences in the sounds' position or rhythm. The noises are slowly but steadily coming closer, closing in on Ira from every direction. Whenever two meet their sounds join together and become louder, as if more sand is being displaced.
Interresing. Now for the last part of his plan, modify the Vespas and make sure they can breed with each other and any future Vespas, except Royal ones like him and his firstborn. Then eat some of the sand, and make a new breed of offspring, with jaws capable of cutting through stone and legs to dig through sand, They'll be the builders of the nest, the Earth Vespas.
2Meruem takes a closer look at the fire Vespas' bodies. It isn't entirely clear how their biology works, especially once he factors in the literal fire burning in their tails, but it looks like they have the all the organs they'd need to breed. The female ones all have wombs, which are interconnected with their essence in a way that the Spawner doesn't fully understand. The males have something that looks a bit similar, or at least similar enough for him to get the idea. He concludes that it's probably best to leave well enough alone.
Having addressed the reproduction issue, Meruem scoops up massive handfuls of sand and shoves them into his mouth. While the mechanics are more or less the same, consuming the fire of the Crater felt radically different. The essence was glorious, incandescent power without any physical form. The sand is matter with just the slightest bit of spirit attached. It tastes dead to Meruem, as if he's actually eating an animal's rotten carcass. Nothing about it is actually that bad, but he still finds himself vomiting it back up before he's gotten the chance to make any offspring. It flops to the ground alongside some of his own digestive juices.
My very own Sun! This power is perfect for the situation! Use the miniature star and imbue the Smelter's Armor with it's radiant power, combining them into a gloriously incandescent and absolutely magnificent Sun for the entire world!
4Aton coils his willpower around the miniature sun. Its power loops back in on itself, cascading down from the Bulls hors and into the parts of his flesh that haven't yet been transformed. It seeps into his head, and a large patch of his fur becomes brilliant gold. The energy continues to build up, like white fire in Aton's skull, and when it reaches his brain he understands what he must do. The Herder opens his mouth and allows the power of his sun to escape from it, jetting through the sky as a blindingly bright beam. It collides with the sun, merging together with a flash. The armor shifts. Metallic horns grow from the sides of the helm, and the bottoms of its boots twist until they resemble a bull's hooves.
More of its light washes over Aton. This time the sun has thoughts, which it sends bouncing through Aton's mind. It wants to link itself to the Herder, to illuminate him with its radiance and fill him with the luminous power that it has discovered. The patch of golden fur that surrounds his head creeps downwards, encompassing his neck and the tops of his shoulders as well. Aton's essence twitches, only partially resisting the sun's energies.
"Who's the floating ball, why did it bring its friends with it, why did wall us in, and why did it let the deer demon things follow it? You know what it doesn't matter I got stuff to do."
Try to burn the mushrooms away, if that fails wrap my lab coat around my face and go into the tower and grab as much glass as I can then get out and wash everything off including my self, then finish off the trucks and trailers while making sure the important stuff is glass (Important stuff being engine, chassis, wheels, and tanker) then load up every thing that was gathered into the respective trailers.
1 , 6Dr. Bob spares a moment to examine the wall of ooze that has grown around the tower. It seems to have been created by a ball of similar ooze, which is currently holding smaller Nothing-oozes on a platform made from crusted-over ooze. Parts of the barrier ripple as deer-demons, led here by that selfsame ooze-ball, try to rip their way inside. It takes another full moment for the full implications of their presence to sink in. The demons could break in any minute now, so Dr. Bob yells a warning to the Deer-Men and runs towards the floor of the tower that houses his laboratory.
The mushrooms are sparse at the base of the tower, but as he approaches the floors that were occupied by Deer-Men the patches of fungi become more dense. Three floors below the lab, at the point where Bob originally smashes his way into the building, the entire ground is covered in toadstools and spores. Dr. Bob pulls his fingernails across the wall. Sparks jump away from his hand and fall to the ground, where they set the mushrooms on fire. The entire room goes up at once, as if someone had covered the place in gasoline. thermal currents push up an entire cloud of spores. Dr. Bob doesn't shove his face into his lab coat quickly enough to avoid them.
He can suddenly hear voices coming from the flames, calling out to him in booming tones that shake the earth. Some scream at him and demand his blood, while others shout strange mandates out into the aether or beg for him to use his powers of creation. Bob ignores them and does his best to stumble through the room. Fire burns through his shoes and then scorches his flesh, even as he climbs up the next three flights of stairs. Mushrooms, spores, and fires are everywhere. So are pieces of glass equipment, which Dr. Bob bundles up in a hemp bag. He can see butterflies folding themselves around the stars by the time he's done.
"I will explain later"
Take bits of the crusted ooze and throw them at the dear-demons, have Apollyon and the rest of the fragments help by throwing things from the top of the wall.
AJAMA: 1 & Fragments: 2 & Apollyon: 3 vs. Deer-Demons: 6AJAMA peels away pieces of the crusted ooze and throws them at the Deer-Demons. One dodges the projectiles by diving back into the wall, which slow down a chunk of crust that was flying towards its head. The other two don't bother to move. Splintered pieces of ooze plow into limbs and torsos, breaking their bones and even piercing their organs. The demons don't seem to mind. They continue pushing their way through the barrier while their bodies regenerate, as if they hadn't been injured at all. It takes only thirty seconds or so for the last scar to erase itself.
The black sphere is so startled that it doesn't realize it removed important parts of the ooze-platform. Fragments rush to fill the gaps, mostly with their own bodies, but they aren't strong enough to hold the structure together. More pieces flake off, this time carrying some Non-ooze down with them. Fragments' bodies splatter across the sand, temporarily disrupted by the force of the impact. When it becomes clear that the platform is going to disintegrate, Apollyon levitates the rest of AJAMA's followers to the ground.
Three massive bulges form in the barrier as the Demons finally begin to break through. One of those bulges strains to the breaking point, causing a single black paw to emerge from the surface of the wall. It digs into the sand and uses the leverage to pull the rest of an arm out, and then a snarling black head. AJAMA gets an unpleasantly close view of the deer-demon's barbed antlers.
Propose to council firstly focusing on restoring web military potential : implementing military focused blueprints, replenishing sentinel legions and construction of godsbane : system of mirrors spread out across the web capable of reflecting light and weaved spells into one focusing lense for making ray capable of ending primordials or wiping out cities to keep great web safe
Parun brings the council to order. The crowd of oversevers slowly quiets down, until their murmurings are background noise rather than an all-consuming roar. Even from his place in the center of the gathering, Amon can see that the Spiderlings are still anxious. They perceived Nazir as a universal constant, a cosmic being who would teach them and watch over them until the end of their lives. Now, after his death, they're mostly just looking for some kind of stability, or even for someone to tell them what to do. The Primelings do their best to assuage them.
Amon is the first to speak before the Council. His proposal revolves around the military capabilities of the web, which have been reduced dramatically by the loss of six Primelings and seven legions. The first and most obvious course of action is to replenish the Web's troops, which can be accomplished by treating the wounded and raising more Sentinels from the broader population. Amon also asks Aetherweavers to focus their efforts on decoding the weapon and vehicle blueprints that Nazir sent after his death, but the final part of his proposal is the most significant. He presents blueprints for the Godsbane, a series of mirrors and lenses that can scorch the mortal world using the full power of the sun.
It is an ambitious project, particularly after the loss of a Primordials' powers of creation. The representatives of the tribes consider the prospect of making a deal with Gral, or perhaps of redirecting the Spiderlings who are currently working on the Inheritance to this new project. A few support Amon's more mundane proposals, but oppose this one due to its massive scope. Still, most like the concept of the Godsbane, if not the cost of its construction. Parun and his legion are among the few exceptions. Amon's brother seems horrified by the idea of this superweapon, though he hasn't publicly said anything against it.
Hynsyr takes a break from his martial training to once again focus inwards. Instead meditating upon soul and growing his ability to safely manipulate it.
5Hynsyr calms his mind, abandoning each of the hundred lines of thought he used to control his spears. His unified mind sinks deeper, past the muscle and sinew of his physical form. It descends past the bonds that tie Hynsyr to his creations, weathers the golden storm of essence that surrounds his heart, and sinks into the most fundamental part of his being. The soul rests there, eternally entwined with the Titan's identity. He reaches for it with one imaginary hand, through essence that burns away flesh and an icy void that scours his mental bones. For a fleeting moment he brushes past something else. Its power overwhelms him and draws him inwards. The soul tumbles through itself. Eternity passes in an eyeblink.
Time becomes meaningless. The soul sees the beginning and end of the world laid out before it, as if frozen in crystal. It sees the place where the sand ends, crumbling outwards into nonexistence more absolute than Nothing itself. The entirety of existence is there, endlessly vast and infinitely long. The soul stands apart from it. It is a kernel of reality more real than the rest, impervious to the passage of time and the whims of living creatures. It surrounds itself in flesh and calls itself Hynsyr, but in reality the primordial is a mere extension of its will. The soul is an indefinite, latent force that will persist long after he is gone.
The moment passes. Hynsyr's senses collapse in on themselves, limiting his awareness to a single point in time and space. He opens his eyes. Absolutely nothing has changed. The sand beneath his feet is thoroughly solid, the world is vast, and the stars overhead are just as bright as they were before. Only the underpinnings of his existence feels less solid. They're more flexible than they were, more willing to bend at the edges. Hynsyr experimentally conjures a thousand spears of light. They appear instantly, ten in each hand, without any need to focus his mind or segment his consciousness.
Awaken, and fly to the one that requests my presence. .
Have North begin researching the techniques required to make steel. Any and all researchers, allied tribes, and other Ironwinged on the Web are relieved, should they wish to attend the meeting. Ultimately, stability, not force, should be a first priority.
East should continue educating the Groundlings, taking note of any that seem to have a better grasp of this manipulation than others. These gifted individuals should establish a school, in which the skill can be honed, and made more tangible.
North: 3 & Ironweavers: 6
East: 5
The Merchant of the North relieves several researchers and Ironwinged who want to watch the Council. Most of the contracted researchers don't belong to a tribe, which means that they end up in the audience. The Winged cluster around the rest of Gral's delegation, at the outer edge of the meeting. Their representative is one of only a few who vote against Amon's proposal. They're vastly outnumbered by the militants, although it's still unclear whether the Godsbane motion will receive enough votes to pass. Most delegates' concerns center around the weapon's practicality rather than its ethical or diplomatic implications.
Meanwhile, North rounds up the remaining Ironweavers and has them produce several bales of metal thread. The Merchant floods each strand with the power of the Bargain, reinforcing raw iron with pacts of strength and inviolability, but the enchantments remain relatively weak. While they do increase the overall strength of the metal, its composition remain the same. The ironweavers have slightly more success. They use a self-modification weaving to enhance their own physiologies. Alterations to their weaving abilities make them capable of spinning solid steel.
At East's behest, some of the Groundlings work to improve their terrakinesis. While the raw power of their ability doesn't expand very much, experienced practitioners find that they can increase the precision of their control to a startling degree. It's possible for them to coat their bodies in regenerative armor plating made of dirt, or to sculpt incredibly thin needles from sand and grit. East instructs them to teach these techniques to the less proficient Groundlings.
Dr. Bob, the Unmoved Mover
-Regent of the Tower
-Spidersilk net.
-Improvised glass tools.
-Glass automaton
-Perpetual-motion bus
-Vial of Einyar
-Red Liquor
--------------------------------
Kūhaku, the Mirror
-Catatonia
-Rain-Maker
--------------------------------
Ira, the World-Eater
-Empty
-Woven together
-Debt: Gral: Two Favors Owed
-Minor burns
--------------------------------
Gral, the Contractor
-Contract: Winged Spiderlings
-Contract: Ira: Two Favors
-Pinion Blades
--------------------------------
AJAMA, the Demiurge
-Ooze-born Body
-Ooze-born Spheres
-Sphere of Darkness
--------------------------------
Hynsyr, the Titan
-Transcendent
-Hundred Armed Form
-Edge of Infinity
-Spearmaster
-1000 spears of light
--------------------------------
Ashe, the Collector
-Brass feathers (underwater).
-Glass trinkets
--------------------------------
Meruem, the Spawner
-Flawed essence bladder
-Infused with Nothingness
-Firstborn
--------------------------------
Aton, the Herder
-Radiant
--------------------------------
Zeristia, the Gardener
--------------------------------
Amon
Bestiary:
Demons: Crude imitations of the primordials made from sand and absence.
--Obsidian Archdemon: An obsidian dragon crafted by the Empty itself. It was granted the power to manipulate nothingness.
Fragments of Emptiness: Spirits made from the scattered pieces of ALTHERTH. They were driven out of the sand when Ira consumed the absent heart.
Apollyon: A Fragment which usurped AJAMA’s original body and converted it into Nothingness.
--Absent Ooze: A Nonexistent strain of Black Ooze that Apollyon can produce. Other Fragments often use it to create makeshift bodies.
Shardforms: Obsidian creatures which absorbed the Empty's already-incomplete consciousness. The broken pieces of ALTERTH's identity they possess give them animalistic intelligence.
--Awakened Shardforms: A herd of Sharforms who were granted sapience by Gral. They’ve agreed to provide the Silken Nest with raw materials in return for goods.
Steel Maggots: Metallic larvae which Gral accidentally created while trying to make avian Emissaries. After they were pulled off of the vulture, few escaped into the desert, where they accepted Gral's peace terms and moved into the shifting bog.
Steel Grubs: Steel maggots that have been bound with Pact-collars and transformed into livestock. They have grown larger than their sapient kin, but are unintelligent and largely peaceful.
Brass Buzzards: Brass birds crafted from Gral's feathers. They are infused with the pain it felt while creating them.
Spiderlings: A race of intelligent spiders which can live on light. They cover both the stars and the great web.
--Dustwalkers: A Spiderling subspecies which can feed on sand as well as light. They live on the sand and fight an asymmetrical war against it for survival.
--Ironwinged: Defeated Spiderlings who made a deal with Gral. They received wings in exchange for service, and have built a nest on one of the new stars. They were later granted the ability to weave metal.
--Ancestors: Aetherweavers who have achieved immortality by becoming spirits bound to the great web. They are incorporeal, and their astral bodies make it easier for them to manipulate aether.
--Scarred Spiderlings: Spiderlings who have gained great strength and endurance because of their mistreatment by the Brass Buzzards. They built a market but have mixed feelings about Gral and his servants.
--Sentinels: A army of biologically and magically augmented Spiderlings, created by elite Aetherweavers with Nazir's guidance. They serve the Spider Demigods, and stand ready to protect the Web alongside them.
Primelings: Ten entities created by Nazir and a group of the most powerful Aetherweavers. They watch over the Web in Nazir's stead, but are weakened by flaws in their weaving.
--Ekhor: A proud warrior who wears a larger variant of Sentinel Plate. He was nearly killed in the War of Sands.
--Sekhmet: A Primeling with flaws in the Weavings that form her mind. Despite being a brilliant tactician, her behavior is consistently very odd.
Merchants: Four steel vultures made from Gral’s essence. They are capable of using the Bargain.
Lightfolk: A species of humanoid mortals born from Hynsyr's golden light. Their powers of creation threaten to overwhelm their bodies, causing their inner light to warp chaotically. Many have begun to train so that they can gain more control over this ability.
--Prismatics: Seven lightfolk which glow brighter than the rest. They were hewn from the rainbow light of Hynsyr's eyes.
Deer-Men: A humanoid race with the heads of deer. Dr. Bob originally crafted them from the silk of Nazir's web. They were granted superior dexterity through a contract with Gral.
Three-Headed Worm: A juvenile sandworm created by Ira to serve the Dustwalkers.
Crops: Hemp, potato, corn, and bean plants created by Dr. Bob.
Suspicious Mushrooms: Mushrooms that sprouted in the Glass Tower after Dr. Bob’s disastrous attempts at brewing alcohol. They spawn clouds of hallucinogenic spores.
Fish: A school of colorful fish that swam straight out of Ashe’s dream. They wander through the rivers and lakes of the Wetlands.
Omni-Grain: A type of wheat designed to provide nourishment to every species. It grows explosively in the vitality-rich water of the Wetlands.
Deer Demons: Three deer-men whose bodies and minds were twisted by a botched healing. They have an unnaturally fast healing factor and limited control over other aspects of their physiology.
Atlas:
The Living Sands: ALTERTH once awakened the desert and allowed it to consume him. For a time his creation was infinite, but now most of the sand has died. The few surviving pieces are a shadow of what they once were.
The Stars: Glass spheres filled with fire. Gyaweft created them and threw them into the air to illuminate the world.
--New Stars: A second set that isn't accessible through the Great Web. Fortunately, that means they can't be blotted out by Spiderlings.
--Negative Star: A black sphere which radiates darkness, created by AJAMA after Gyaweft's death.
Nazir's Web: A giant web that begins in the desert and reaches up towards the stars.
--Silken Nest: A new star that the winged spiderlings have claimed as a nest. It can only be reached by gliding or descending on strands of silk.
--Tapestries: Libraries of spells and other knotwork which have been woven together and hung from the great web. Some have begun to collect aetheric cobwebs.
--Market of Scars: A grand market built by the Scarred Spiderlings in exchange for their resilience. The Ironwinged sell metal equipment there.
Shifting Bog: A large pool of mud drawn from the sand by Kuhaku. When the sand was alive, islands in the bog constantly formed and dissolved. It has been tainted with Nazir's venom.
Glass Tower: A tower made of glass, raised from the sands by Gyaweft. It extends upwards through the web, tall enough that its upper floors reach the stars.
--Moat: The Tower is surrounded by a lake. Only one thin bridge connects it to the rest of the sand.
--Sandcastles: A series of elaborate sandcastles built around the moat. They were crafted so masterfully that they won’t dissolve in rain. Ashe later added an incredibly detailed sand city of her own.
--Garden: An irrigated garden containing several different types of crops.
--Laboratory: A room furnished with chemistry equipment and various glass containers.
Light Spires: A glowing city made by the Lightfolk using their creation magic.
--Temple of Yig: A golden temple which houses Yig, the First Tribute. It is an intricately-carved cathedral with walls made from an aurora.
Einyar: A sea of golden light drawn from Hynsyr's aura. It preserves the spirits of the Lightfolk after death, so that the cycle may advance.
Bone Fortress: A giant tree grown from one of Ira's teeth, and given to the Dustwalkers as a gift. It has become a large fortress.
Glass Crater: When Gyaweft flew his Sunship into the ground, it melted a wide swathe of the sand into glass. Fiery essence spilled from the ship still burns here, and sealed fault lines radiate from the impact site.
--Smelter's Grave: The center of the crater. Gyaweft's corpse lies here, alongside the molten remains of his Sunship.
Wetlands: Areas of the sand and the Great Web which Kuhaku continuously showers with water. The rain is heavy enough to form rivers and lakes.
--Abandoned Nests: A nesting ground that was briefly occupied by the Brass Buzzards. It is strewn with metal feathers and bloody talon-prints.
Canal: A shallow canal that Ira dug to fulfill one of her favors to Gral. It was meant to channel water from the Wetlands to various other parts of the world, but it overflowed and flooded the Glass Tower instead.
Knowledge:
Knot-Writing: A written language Nazir formulated so that Aetherweavers could record their spells. It involves weaving complex knots into silk, and therefore comes intuitively to Spiderlings but is almost impossible for anyone else to comprehend.
Bargainer's Tongue: A simplified version of knot-script which can be etched into a flat surface rather than woven into silk. It is comprehensible to non-Spiderlings, but not as intuitive.
English: A written script based on twenty-six letters and a few punctuation symbols. It was introduced by Dr. Bob and is primarily used by the Deer-Men.
Metalworking: Blacksmithing techniques that are typically available to the Ironwinged. They can be used to weave metal objects.
Aetherweaving: A magical discipline which involves spinning spiritual webs. It was taught to the Spiderlings by Nazir and is available to the Tribes, the Primelings, and any other arachnid capable of making silk.
Lightforging: Creation magic unique to the Lightfolk. It is a powerful but chaotic ability which can be used to make solid-light constructs out of one's own aura. More advanced techniques allow practitioners to create complex materials such as metal or wood.
Eight-Talon Way: A powerful martial art created by the Brass Buzzards. It is purely offensive in nature, but consists of strikes so lethal that defense isn’t usually necessary.
Agriculture: Farming is only feasible in the wetlands, but plants watered by Kuhaku’s rain grow quickly. The Deer-Men have been taught to cultivate and use several kinds of crops.
Prayer: A technique which allows Lightfolk to tap into their connections with Yig and Einyar. The Prismatics have learned how to use it to communicate with Hynsyr.
Photosynthesis Enchantments: A personal enhancement Weaving developed by the Ironwinged. It increases the amount of energy that Spiderlings can absorb from light.
Platonic Glyphs: Symbols that telepathically insert concepts into the reader’s mind. Writing with them requires some form of magical power, but they can be understood by anyone willing to endure mental strain.
The Inheritance: A magical message that Nazir sent to his children from beyond the veil. It included incomplete blueprints for several different marvels of Aetheric technology.
Items:
Seven Rainbow Spears: Weapons Hynsyr forged from a rogue splinter of his soul and gave to the Prismatics. They amplify their wielders' magic immensely, and provide slightly more control over their powers of creation.
Black Ooze: A patch of black goo created by AJAMA which can grow by absorbing sand. A column of ooze goes deep beneath the earth, where it breached a reservoir of Emptiness.
--Chaos Ooze: Blobs of ooze which have accidentally been made to assimilate a variety of substances and concepts. They were later sealed away.
--Silence Ooze: A strain of chaos ooze that can feed on silence. AJAMA transplanted some of it to the empty desert, where it has grown rapidly.
--Crusted Ooze: Semisolid ooze variants which have been hardened by intense pressure. They take slightly longer to grow as a result of their density.
Pact-Arms: Metal weapons, armor, and tools which can compel their wielders to carry out tasks for the Winged Spiderlings. Most are in the possession of Spiderlings on the Web.
Tribute Tokens: A currency minted by the Ironwinged and infused with the power of the Bargain. They see light use in the Great Web but are not considered especially valuable, so most of the economy still relies upon bartering.
Sentinel Plate: Magical armor developed for use by the Sentinels. It can drain the force of attacks and release it in the form of telekinetic blasts.
Life Machine: A machitech device that can be used to shunt vitality from one area to another. Additional upgrades gave it the ability to drain life from sand, which a Merchant used to create a patch of fertile soil around the machine.
Smelter’s Plate: A suit of metal armor that was once part of Gyaweft’s body. After his death, it was claimed by a Shardform called Awake.
Dawn Axehead: An axehead that Gywaeft made from the remains of his Sunship. It was meant to split the world into pieces, but the Smelter bled out before he could complete the shaft.
Factions:
Spiderling Tribes: Prominent groups of Spiderlings, mostly organized by subspecies. The are scattered across the Web, the stars, and the sand.
--Order of Strands: The first Spiderlings to learn the art of Aetherweaving. Many have strained their minds and bodies to hone their abilities, making them feeble despite their mystical strength.
High Council of the Web: The governing body of the Great Web. It consists of delegates from each of the tribes, as well as one Primeling. Most meetings take place in Nazir's nest at the top of the Web.
Lifeweavers: A group of Ancestors who helped Nazir create the Primelings and Sentinels.
Warpriests: A Lightfolk religious order which protects Einyar, the Temple of Yig, and the Light Spires themselves.
Ministry of Light: Civil servants appointed by Hynsyr to oversee the Light Spires. The seven Prismatics were installed as founding members.
Scrap-Ranches: Homesteads manned by Ironwinged and awakened Shardforms. They produce metal by farming Steel Grubs and shearing excess material off of their body.
The Lost: Fragments of Nothingness that chose to follow AJAMA rather than the Archdemon. Their new purpose is to create, collect, and preserve knowledge.