Hynsyr accepts the flower tribute and makes his pleasure at the offering known.
Hynsyr shall now watch to see what his children will do with their new artifacts and more advanced magic.
Lightfolk: 5 v 5The supplicant smiles and retreats back to the crowd, which soon begins to disperse as Lightfolk return to work. Hynsyr's creations waste no time in putting their abilities to use. The ramshackle buildings they first constructed are replaced by new spires, made from wood, glass, stone, and metal. Each material is made of faint golden light, which casts a soft glow over the entire city. This attracts a small population of Spiderlings, who nourish themselves by basking in the radiance.
Other Lightfolk venture out into the desert. Some bring back strange marvels, like sheets of glass and vials of living water, but a few never return. When two of the Prismatics investigate, they uncover two entirely different problems: a nearby bog that has been tainted with poison, and a small army of demons hidden in sand dunes around the city.
Awake chuckles a little at the spiderlings' waving display, and waves back.
"Hello, friends! I mean you no harm. The Primordials bring our two kinds into conflict, but I am sure that there is some way for us all to live in harmony, with each other and with the world.
I seek the grave of the smelter Gyaweft. I believe that a relic of that deceased Primordial lay there, its potential still waiting to be harnesses. Yes, even by mere mortals such as you or I. Would any of you wish to follow me on my journey? I cannot promise that my quest will bear fruit, but if it does surely you will stand to benefit as well, if you come along."
Diplomacy.
With negotiations thus concluded, Gral binds the contract with Bargain, and then takes the mortal to the Smelter's Grave.
Awake: 5
2The patrol stands down. They seemed unnerved by Awake in spite of his speech, but are reassured when he doesn't begin to slaughter them all. His brief talk with Nazir and Gral, also helps, primarily because Awake mentions the possibility of world peace. That stops the Spiderlings in their tracks, as they imagine world where they don't need to battle the sand for food or push other Spiderlings off an enormous web.
Meanwhile, the Awake brokers a deal with Gral, who swoops to the ground and seizes the Shadform in its talons. The Dustwalkers remain behind, citing a fear of burning holes in the ground, but they tentatively wish him luck in his travels. They stare upwards as the steel vulture carries him away, and to the rim of the glass crater.
Gral ends up circling the Smelter's grave, which is currently enveloped in an inferno. Landing is made more complicated by tongues of flame, which threaten to knock the Contractor out of the air, but Awake should be able to get closer on foot if he's dropped farther out. This close to Gyaweft's deathbed, fire and heat are the only real dangers.
Have the Winged start producing goods with their metal-silk, and begin trading them at the Scarred market, both potentially making a profit and smoothing over relations. The Buzzards are to rest and regroup, in preparation for future actions.
Winged: 4The Winged Spiderlings are fascinated by their new ability. Metal is far sturdier than webbing, and by using it they are able to create tools and armaments the likes of which they have never seen before. A variety of new wonders go on sale when they set up shop in the market: metal rods, hammers far more dense than any made of silk, a variety of knives, and even rudimentary armor made by weaving a steel cocoon. The creations are somewhat lackluster by Gral's own standards, but his servants will learn more about metalworking as they practice. In the meantime, Scarred Spiderlings still can't seem to get their hands on enough metal equipment. The Winged accumulate some goodwill by selling it for a relatively low price.
Shrink the layer of ooze on the darkness, try to solidify it by pressure.
4AJAMA uses their control of the black ooze to push the sphere's boundaries inwards and compress the darkness inside. Billowing clouds of negative illumination are forced together, becoming denser and more solid as they are pressed into a smaller and smaller volume of space. The reaction releases heat, which boils away the surrounding layer of ooze. A sphere of pure, solidified darkness is left behind, like a pearl in the center of an oyster. It falls out of AJAMA's grasp and drifts to the ground, light as a feather.
It is impossible to sense anything inside the orb, and any light which shines through it is instantly nullified. The darkness inside it is complete, although by necessity it is confined to a relatively small space.
"That's a fancy robot you guys made way cooler than the thing I made is, also we're gonna be making a vehicle and hopefully it'll go better than last time."
Use some of the glass to make a bus, have the deer men help and the glass robot if it can.
Deer-Men: 3+1 , Dr. Bob: 5 , Automaton: 2One of the Deer-Men bows his head.
"Thank you, Doctor. As always, we are at your disposal."He organizes his fellows into groups and sets them to work on chunks of glass. These are rapidly converted into wheels, axles, and the beginning of a chassis, all with incredibly precise dimensions. If Dr. Bob hadn't seen the parts crafted with his own eyes, he would have assumed that they were conjured by another primordial or made by machines. Which may not be very faar from the truth, given that the robot is carrying up another load of glass blocks. It deposits them on the floor in the center of the chamber, so that the teams can restock and get back to work.
When the outer frame of the bus has been completed, Bob's allies gather around a table and scratch engine blueprints into the glass. While they argue about whether to power it with springs or combustion, the doctor decides to take a stab at the problem himself. He sits on the ground and fits together several glass odds and ends, occasionally in ways that defy conventional geometry. The ultimate result of this work is a continuously-rotating disk that can be slotted into the bus's engine chamber, allowing it to run on perpetual motion. The Deer-Men are intrigued, but can't come up with any explanation better than
"primordial shenanigans."Create 10 loyal only to me fabulous spider demigods to lead and protect spiderkind, they would be weaved into existance to make them naturally attuned to weaving, their skin would be covered by constantly shifting weaving patterns distracting their foes and repelling magic aimed at them. They will have poisonous acidic spit and shoot webs harder then steel. Attract most brilliant weavers to this weaving project.
This world is full of perils, time to give you my final and greatest gift before I can abandon you to your own devices
Nazir: 2 , Weavers: 5Nazir carries a few of the most powerful and skilled Aetherweavers to its nest at the top of the Web. There, the primordial reveals that he will leave the Spiderlings to decide their own fates, and describes on last, glorious gift that he will bestow upon them before he goes. The Weavers, who have never created so much as a single living creature before, are well out of their depth when it comes to birthing demigods, but they agree to help their creator to the best of their abilities. Those who are not yet ancestors prepare for the ritual by undergoing the transformation, so that they can bring more mystical power to bear.
Nazir begins the Weaving by gathering up vast strands of Aether, as thick and strong as the physical silk of the Great web. He braids them into ten distinct patterns, each of which coalesces into the shape of a giant spider. The disciples weave smaller threads into the hollow places of this structure, forming minute patterns which make up the Demigods' muscles, bones, and organs. They continue even when Nazir itself stumbles, and do their best to account for the great spiders' mistakes. The entire working is on the verge of collapse, but the Ancestors preserve it by filling holes with their own latticework.
When the task is complete, ten spider demigods crawl out into the physical world. They are alive, but weaker than Nazir intended, thin in places where their weaves should have held strong. The mortals have done the best they could, but even the greatest among them had difficulty compensating for the loss of Nazir's power.
Ira realizes that eating sand will not help her destroy the sand as a whole and walks away from the fragments of nothingness. She searches the sands for a power source to empower herself with.
6
4 , 1Ira turns from Fragments and tunnels away so quickly that they cannot pursue her. There is too much sand in the world to fit in her stomach, and doing battle with its appendages is meaningless. There is always the infinite mass below her, which can give birth to more limbs and monsters than she will ever be able to eat. Instead she tunnels from one end of the world to the other, searching for something that will grant her the power to hurt her enemy in a more permanent way.
She finds it deep beneath the surface of the earth, as the ground itself does its best to beat her back. She tunnels through it, to the something buried so thoroughly that the sandworm can only barely sense it. Demons the size of flies spring into being to stab her, and black mist gushes from the sand itself, but Ira cannot be stopped.
The thing below her is a non-thing, with a heartbeat that doesn't shake the World-Eater's bones.
Dr. Bob, the Unmoved Mover
-Spidersilk net.
-Glass chunks
-Improvised glass tools.
-Glass automaton
-Perpetual-motion bus
--------------------------------
Kūhaku, the Mirror
--------------------------------
Nazir, the Weaver
-God of the great web.
--------------------------------
Ira, the World-Eater
-Blackened Scars
-Woven together
-Debt: Gral: Three Favors Owed
--------------------------------
Gral, the Contractor
-Contract: Winged Spiderlings.
-Contract: Deer-Men: One Favor
-Contract: Ira: Three Favors
-Heavily bandaged.
--------------------------------
AJAMA, the Demiurge
-Ooze-born Body
-Ooze-born Spheres
-Sphere of Darkness
--------------------------------
Hynsyr, the Titan
-Golden Flower
--------------------------------
Awake
-Echoes and instincts
--------------------------------
The Living Sands: An awakened desert that extends outwards indefinitely. It consumed ALTERTHENTERRINTARTINTH, the being which brought it to life, and subsumed a part of their consciousness known as the Empty.
--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: ?
--Shardforms: Obsidian creatures which absorbed the Empty's already-incomplete consciousness. The broken pieces of ALTERTH's identity they have absorbed give them animalistic intelligence.
-Steel Maggots: Metallic larvae which Gral accidentally created while trying to create bird 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.
-Brass Buzzards: Brass birds crafted from Gral's feathers. They are infused with the pain it felt while creating them.
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. It hangs above the bone tree.
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.
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.
--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.
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.
--Winged Spiderlings: 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.
--Aetherweavers: A few Spiderlings who can perform magic by spinning aetheric webs. Nazir taught them the basics of their craft, allowing them to create fairly intricate wards against evil.
-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.
--Ancestors: Weavers 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.
Spider Demigods: 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.
Shifting Bog: A large pool of mud drawn from the sand by Kuhaku. Islands rapidly form and dissolve as the sand beneath it moves. 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.
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.
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.
The 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.
Light Spires: A glowing city made by the Lightfolk using their creation magic.
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.
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.
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.
Three-Headed Worm: A juvenile sandworm created by Ira to serve the Dustwalkers.
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.
Author
Topic: Sand & Souls - Let There Be Turns (Read 61776 times)