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Mauve Rain Breeze
54735b
>>950710
Alright, starting from the top working down:
>Full plaintext character sheet should be posted in the thread for final approval.
Yeah, I was just putting where I was at the last time we had talked about this as a jumping off point, and posting the living copy for future documenting on the wiki page.
>What's in all those archives? Is it just books on shelves, or something stranger?
The manse was built as a place to shelter knowledge in the event of some catastrophe brought an end to the first age, and as such all of the original books in the archive were all books inked on orichalcum sheets and enchanted to be virtually indestructible, all written in old realm because that was assumed to be the language anyone that found the place in the event of the apocalypse would speak.
After the Usurpation, a lot of the books deemed heretical were removed and replaced over time with far more fragile normal books stored on the shelves, but it's still a sight to behold.
As for the actual information, a good bit of general occult knowledge, with the aim of teaching people sorcery, and a useful compliment of spells, establishing a government and trade patterns to help ward the Wyld off, and no small amount of Thaumaturgic knowledge, and general knowledge that a first age solar (and later the shogunate) would have thought important for restarting civilization.
> An infinite chakram can only be made of blue jade.
I was not aware of this
> An army consisting of trained thaumaturges provided by Command 2 should be Magnitude 3, Might 1, with another +1 Might if they've had the time and budget to equip themselves with basic thaumaturgical charms and potions. Magnitude 2, Might 2 would instead represent the low end of actual supernatural beings. What weapons, armor, and other battle-relevant equipment do they have? What tactics do they practice?
That is good to know, I had labored under some dumb assumptions. So, as far as typical armor, weapons, and the like that they have, unusual for the south, they tend to use medium armor, typically reinforced buff jackets, and typically use ranged measures. They do have a small group (10 people organized into two fangs) of people to reinforce the final choke point at a Torii gate inscribed with 'You only reach enlightenment on your own' only wide enough for one person to cross at a time.
They typically only work one fang at a time, with two up in the very front with clubs and hammers, and three in the back with spears. All of them wear spiked shoes to help stabilize themselves on the icy ground.
Standing at the top of a stone balcony extending out from the Manse with plenty of pillars to hide behind between shots are the majority of the army, and their main job in combat is taking out leaders holding everything together, and checking people that have firedust weapons that could seriously injure the gate defense team before they can awkwardly make their way to the front to do anything with it.
As for specific thaumaturgies, I haven't decided what all they would have prepared and ready to go at all times yet.
Barring
>A henchmen is a heroic mortal and as such needs, at absolute minimum, a name and distinguishing features. Preferably a full character sheet in their own right, since they'll likely end up leading an independent unit in battle at some point.
That is the plan, discussions around this never got far enough to really hammer that out, and this post is already fucking huge.
> How tall is the mountain, relative to the surrounding salt flats? Is the manse at the highest peak? A secondary peak? Partway down a ridge? In a wind-scoured valley? How hard is it to reach the manse? Is there a road suitable for wagons or pack animals? Staircase or ladder carved into a cliffside? Tunnels, secret or otherwise, perhaps associated with the mines or old lava tubes? A convenient landing platform for fliers?
The mountain is 2 miles tall, with a 5 mile radius base, effectively taking up the entire hex that it's in. As for how hard it is to reach the manse, it's not overly hard, but it is time consuming, effectively being a several mile spiral staircase only barely wide enough for a pack animal carved around the mountain starting half a mile up from the base with a landing platform like a dock meant for a personal vessel.
Fortunately, below that point there are a large number of giant crustaceans that the locals have learned to tame that can be ridden at least that high, though they don't naturally go past that point, so they aren't nearly as much help past that point.
But, the entrance to the Manse is only available from the side of the passage anyway and the ground outside of the stairs gets slick with ice that many southerners aren't used to dealing with, so it isn't like you would gain much of an advantage by trying to go up the mountain another way.
As far as tunnels, there are two. One person sized hole at the exact half way point that opens up to a cave deep enough for five or so people to comfortably rest in, and another immediately before the gate to enter the manse. This leads into the main mineshaft of the mountain.
As for the actual manse, it IS the peak of the mountain. Before it's construction, the mountain of Manwase was a volcano who's fiery essence was turned down by the statue of the lap, and it's god replaced by a more temperate god. So, rather than stone, the top of the mountain is brilliant crystal that from a distance looks like an icy summit.
> How far is it to the nearest other known permanent settlement, how often do they contact each other, and what's the diplomatic situation between them? What sort of things do you need to import because they can't be manufactured in-house?
The nearest settlement is at the base of the mountain, and a good 1,000 feet below the stairs, and they actually have a permanent embassy in the town, though no permanent diplomat, instead opting to rotate out staff to exchange information once a week, with a flare system for more urgent messages such as 'an enemy is coming' or other things like that.
As for imports they don't strictly NEED to import or export anything, but they do benefit from having external sources of mundane metals like iron, and food that isn't grown by the Manse's provider power, and get special ingredients for making artifacts and fueling thaumaturgies without dipping into the pre-prepared stocks are handy, as are getting books that aren't already in the manse's library.
> Once somebody gets within a few hundred yards of the manse, what sort of perimeter security are they looking at? Air-aspected architecture usually has to be, well, airy, high ceilings and wide clear windows and so on, and without the Fortress power it's not going to be hardened against a real siege, but delicate-looking glass can still be reinforced by Essence to be tough as thick mundane stone.
As specified with the army, a narrow easily defensible gate that forces them through single file, and high balconies that allow the manse to open fire against any enemies well before they can fire back, combined with the passage being too narrow to carry siege weapons up, let alone get to the platform to start climbing up the path.
> If you're mining, there's going to be tailings, and they can't just be dumped back down the same hole because, even apart from the need to access deeper deposits, broken-up rock occupies more volume than a similar mass of solid rock. So, where does it go? Similarly, how are sewage, dead people, and other potentially hazardous sorts of waste safely disposed of? Any stable society that doesn't want to be harassed by hungry ghosts needs some sort of basic funerary procedure.
For funerary rights, the custom is from the moment you're young, you keep one piece of knowledge and write it down, and keep it in a well known place. When you die, A small bit of your skin is taken and tanned into a leather page, and bound into a book, while the rest of your body is cremated, and just enough of those ashes are fashioned into ink to tattoo that piece of knowledge for all time into your page in the book of the dead, the rest scattered into the wind to travel creation for the rest of time.
For sewage, the Volcano's fiery essence was toned down enough to never erupt again and build a powerful air aspected demesne, but never fully turned off for largely this exact reason. The manse is hooked with virtually indestructible plumbing that deposits hazardous waste directly into the fiery depths some miles down, the manse not being capable of supporting enough people that this becomes an untenable solution, and all of it being hermetically sealed against intrusion helps gasses out.
I haven't really thought of a satisfactory answer to the broken up rock answer, though my current idea is to press it into bricks, and use it to build bracings in tunnels that already existed before mining, but that only answers some of the problem. Considering a full quarter at least of the population have enlightened essence, having access to cache eggs to transport it to ground level and/or dumping it down the side of the mountain from the bottom most level of stairs on the side opposite the town presumably works.
> Inside the manse, what's the overall layout? Where do people eat, sleep, work, receive medical care, store valuables, gather for group activities, or go for privacy? How many children and noncombatant support staff are involved? What does the hearthroom look like? How do the Provider and Comfort Zone powers work, in practical terms? Any other notable cosmetic magical features or geomantic quirks?
The manse is largely spire shaped, with ~100,000 square feet dedicated to small apartments, and an ~10,000 square foot mass dining hall that the apartments let out into, capable of supporting a little over 1,200 people, of which there are ~800, give or take a dozen or so.
The meat and bones of the Manse is the Library though, sitting at a little under 300,000 square feet, the library is designed fairly normally, it operates on a tiered system, where the bottom row and the biggest has the most general purpose books, and mostly tables, and places to read, one layer up it has more specialized knowledge and training areas start appearing to practice performing, and physical arts.
Then the next level up are where the books on thaumaturgies are, and all of the various workshops in the manse branch off from here. Then the next layer up, the majority of the surviving virtually indestructible books left by the Manse's creator maintain, it's a fully open room with a few tables, and treatises on sorcery both fundamental and practical.
Directly above the sorcery chamber and below the apartments are the manse's two hearthrooms. The top has a facsimile of the night sky with 29,000 diamonds making up stars, and two sapphires hidden amongst them, and in this room grows the hearthstone of the Savant's Icy Eye.
Below the apartment complex is a number of a few special books, mostly diaries speaking of life in the first age, and the book of the dead, and in here lies the stone of swift comprehension.
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