HoB: The Autopyle
March 16, 2015
Lady Poe of Blanchefort had quite a dilemma on her hands. A Silver tech female of growing regard, Lady Poe had become famous in Vithland for her Silver tech familiars, that she could create from thin air in a matter of moments.
The Autopyle room overlooking the Bay of Bloodstein (painting by Ewelina Dolzycka)
She had a vast collection of them: Bark the hound dog that could act as a tireless extension of one’s eyes and ears, able to detect even cloaked persons. There was Shadow the cat that could uncover and destroy Shadow tech, Fins the fish that healed wounds and Whisper, the over-sized lady bug that could cloak one sight and sound.
Most popular of all was Tweeter, the little bird that could get one to where one needed to go without fail.
Lady Poe was always happy to create a familiar when one was needed, however, the demand for them became more than she could keep up with. She was a mother and busy tutor of the Blanchefort children after all, but she was the type of person who never wanted to let anybody down.
She tried creating a great number of her familiars to have on-hand for use in case one was wanted, however, the familiars only last for a week before they fade away into nothing and she’d have to start all over again.
Lady Poe of Blanchefort had no idea the trouble her Autopyle would create (Carol Phillips)
She needed a method to keep her familiars functioning for an indefinite period of time, that way she could always have a small flock of her creations around for any who needed one. She eventually came up with a very clever and seemingly harmless answer to the problem.
Lady Poe created a Silver tech device she called the Autopyle. As she wanted to use an abandoned bell tower in the western face of Castle Blanchefort to keep her familiars, she formed her Autopyle into the shape of a massive bell. The Autopyle transmitted vast amounts of energy, and, with it in place, her familiars would last indefinitely. She decorated the bell tower, sanding and staining the floors, painting the walls, adding artwork, bookcases, draperies and couches, all done up in her provincial taste. In the rafters she added bird houses for her Tweeters and branches for the Whispers to climb on. When somebody needed a familiar, all they needed do was come to the room and sign one out on her ledger so she would know what needed to be replenished. The room became very popular. It was considered very relaxing to go into the nicely decorated room and play with all the animals.
RUTHINKILN OF WAAM:
Lady Poe had little idea the trouble her Autopyle creation would cause. Word eventually got out of the wondrous Silver tech creation Lay Poe had invented. Its news made it all the way into Xaphan space and into the ears of Ruthinkiln of Waam, a foul Black Hat and sister of the long lost Ethylrelda of Waam. With such a wondrous device, Ruthinkiln could create Shadow tech monsters the League had never seen before, and, on no less than ten separate occasions, she attempted to infiltrate Castle Blanchefort with her Spectre henchmen, the Drunes. Their intent was to steal the Autopyle and take it back to Xaphan space where its secrets could be unveiled.
Fortunately, all of Ruthinkiln’s infiltration efforts were detected and quashed. Lady Poe’s daughter, Millie, and Sebastian, son of Magistrate Kilos, made protecting the Autopyle room their personal quest as they grew into adults.
copyright 2015, Ren Garcia, Ewelina Dolzycka and Carol Phillips
Legends: StT’s and Whamic
July 30, 2014
The nefarious Black Hats, the scourges of Xaphan Space, have been in an on-going disagreement with their hated rivals of the League, the Sisterhood of Light for ages. In the older days of the AX Time Epoch, the Black Hats regularly met the Sisters on the battlefield like two great armies, the Black Hat slinging their Shadow tech and the Sisters countering with TK.
Eventually, after many defeats and a bit of internal strife, the Black Hats began shying away from direct engagements with the Sisters and commenced a campaign of smaller “harassing actions” against the League. The Black Hats became known and feared for “Snaring” certain places across the League, overrunning them with painted illusions and Shadow tech. However, the Sisters, ever vigilant, became adept at detecting Black Hat snares and eliminating them. The Black Hats were again frustrated.
Going back to the drawing board, the Black Hats finally came up with two forms of Shadow tech that the Sisters could not easily detect of be rid of: Shadow tech Traps and Whamic.
StT Pots were invented by Lady Poe of Blanchefort (Ewelina Dolzycka)
StT POTS:
Lady Poe of Blanchefort, a great innovator in the use of Silver tech, invented a variation of standard StT’s called an StT Pot, which can create vast amounts of programmable StT’s from a small space in a very short amount of time. StT Pots resemble a decorative vase with tiny Silver tech bugs wandering out to the rim. Highly effective, one or two StT Pots can eliminate an entire army in a matter of moments.
As they are made of Shadow tech, StT’s are very difficult to dispel. The Sisterhood of Light is adept at detecting and removing them. Also, a branch of Xaphan Cabalism and certain wavelengths of light have recently been discovered to dissolve or kill StT’s as well
WHAMIC:
Wilhella Cormand-Grande and her ex-husband, Scrib Tiffin, Portator of Shook. (Eve Ventrue)
copyright 2014, Ren Garcia, Eve Ventrue and Ewelina Dolzycka
StG Characters: King
July 2, 2014
Lady Poe of Blanchefort (Carol Phillips)
One of her favorite familiars is Tweeter, a tiny silver bird that can assist one in getting to where they need to go. She keeps a whole bell tower full of them in the northern wing of Castle Blanchefort, ready for use should someone need them. And, like all of her creations, Tweeter smiles. Lady Poe’s love of happy faces is well-known.
After the horrific events in the Grove with the Golden People and their Killanjo servants that nearly cost Lord Kabyl of Blanchefort his life, Lady Poe realized that the world can be a dangerous place and that she needed to actively protect the people she loved.
She took the basic Tweeter design and modified it, creating a Silver tech familiar that could kill if required. She once admired a kingfisher bird as it hovered over the lake hunting for food, so she shaped her new creation into the form of a crested kingfisher and named it King. And, as with all her creations, King functions perfectly. He does his job extremely well.
Although he never smiles, King can have a fairly winsome personality (Ewelina Dolzycka)
King also never smiles, unlike the rest of her creations.
Being a pacifist, Lady Poe was rather ashamed of her creation and the damage he could do. Instead of placing him in the bell tower with the Tweeters, she planted a number of embryonic Kings in a Servants Graveyard out in the vastness of the Grove. When one is needed, one must venture out to the graveyard, recite the incantation, and a King will rise. As a safeguard in keeping King from becoming an unprincipled murdering machine, he will imprint off of a nearby person, incorporating aspects of their personality into his own with the intent of furnishing him with restraint and a conscience. This imprinting gives King a marked variable in personality, with sometimes surprising results.
Sarah of Blanchefort always wants a King at her side (Eve Ventrue)
Lady Poe is currently considering moving his resting place from the graveyard to somewhere else in the Grove where Sarah cannot find him.
copyright 2014, Ren Garcia, Carol Phillips, Eve Ventrue and Ewelina Dolzycka.
StG: The Hall of Mirrors
December 27, 2013
The next book in the League of Elder series, “The Shadow tech Goddess” deals with extra-planar activity, the crossing of one plane of reality to another. A key concept when dealing with “reality-jumping” is a place called The Hall of Mirrors. The Hall of Mirrors is heavily featured in the book.
The Hall of Mirrors is the threshold from one plane of reality to another. If one wishes to cross into another plane of reality, one must first cross through the Hall of Mirrors, and that is not a simple task. Jumping from one reality to the next is dangerous to the well-being of the universe as a whole and the Hall exists to actively prevent such a thing, and, possibly to punish or eliminate those attempting to do so. It is not a naturally occurring phenomena, however its creators and custodians are unknown.
SUMMONING THE HALL:
It is possible to summon the Hall of Mirrors to oneself via technological, arcane and telepathic means. Those consciously seeking to pass through the Hall tend to draw its wrath much more than those who unconsciously summon it via telepathic means.
AN UNFASTNESS IN SPACE AND TIME:
Lord A-Ram’s hand-drawn map of the Hall of Mirrors, by Ewelina Dolzycka
It has two specific parts, the Hall of Mundane and the Hall of Possibilities
THE HALL OF MUNDANE:
The Hall of Mundane (HM) is the entry point to the Hall. It is where one came from and almost always where one exits. Given the changeable nature of the Hall, it is very difficult to know when one is inside the HM and when one is not. Some people, be it intentionally or unintentionally, have the ability to summon the Hall of Mirrors to them and spend a great deal of their lives rolling about within the HM, blissfully unaware of where they are. People with his ability are known as Mirrorbrugs and are valuable commodities to those who actively seek to penetrate the Hall.
The HM is a safe portion of the Hall of Mirrors. Moving about in it does not trigger the potent defenses lurking in the second part of the Hall: The Hall of Possibilities.
THE HALL OF POSSIBILITIES:
The next section of the Hall of Mirrors is the Hall of Possibilities (HP). Like the previous Hall, it too has no set appearance and can look like anything, however, those actively seeking to pass through it often describe the HP as looking like a dank stone corridor running to the left and right. To the left is the next plane of reality and the exit of the Hall. To the right is the chamber of a destructive entity known as the Shadow tech Goddess. The Shadow tech Goddess is the main defense of the Hall and those entering the HP invariably stir her up and draw her ire.
THE ANATAMETER:
Extra-Planar Entities, like the dreaded Tempus Findal, are immune to the defenses in the Hall of Mirrors and pass through as they wish (Fantasio).
CUSTOM ANATAMETERS:
An Anatameter may be created specifically for certain individuals. Anamatics sometimes do this, though the payment they require is said to be quite steep. In such cases, the Hall of Mirrors will be drawn to that person at their peril.
Professor Hannah-Ben Shurlamp, EVoR (Eve Ventrue)
Within the Hall of Possibilities are alcoves cut into the stone at regular intervals, these are the Nodes of Reality. The function of the Nodes is not well understood. They are thought to be a Minor Defense of the Hall and are invoked when ones gains access to the HP. Some scholars, like Hannah-Ben Shurlamp, EVoR of the University of Dee, speculate that one’s true love or one’s greatest enemy emerge from the Nodes and serve as a passive distraction to those entering the HP.
THE SHADOW TECH GODDESS:
Possibly the least understood facet to the Hall of Mirrors is the entity known as the Shadow tech Goddess. She inhabits the right-hand portion of the Hall of Possibilities and is meant to destroy any attempting to pass through the HP. She is like a coiled-up trap, waiting to strike. There is no known method of defeating her, though it has been speculated that discovering her true identity disarms her to some extent. Occasionally she has been known to continue on out of the Hall of Mundane and destroy everything she encounters, making her a Destroyer of Universes as well. She had been known to become interested in certain individuals and draw them to her–her reasoning behind this is unknown. She is said to wear a helmet completely covering her face and a robe of living Shadow tech.
The Hall of Mirrors appears in LoE Book 8, “The Shadow tech Goddess”, due out February 2014 from Loconeal Publishing.
copyright 2013, Ren Garcia, Ewelina Dolzycka, Fantasio, and Eve Ventrue
Schools of Magic in the League of Elder
May 9, 2013
As with many things in the League of Elder, the concept of Magic is a rather odd thing. It is the purview of a few, yet it can be had by any with the temerity to claim it.
THE THREE SCHOOLS OF MAGIC:
There are three distinct schools of magic in the League of Elder: TK, Vortex and Gellar.
TK Magic is practiced almost exclusively by the Sisterhood of Light (Eve Ventrue)
A course in TK magic was once taught at Sarfortnim College, where it was said students began demonstrating great mastery of it. The Sisters abolished the course and forbade its further teaching. The Hertogs, a hidden sects of scholars and other professionals who are frequent critics of the Sisters, seek to uncover the secrets of TK magic.
In Xaphan Space, the Black Hat Sisterhood also makes use of TK magic, though their mastery of it is not in the same category as the Sisters.
Sygillis of Metatron using Silver tech (Vortex magic) to assist Captain Davage.
The study of Shadow tech has been illegal in the League since the ouster of the Grand Abbess of Magravine in 144670AX, therefore Vortex magic is practiced mostly in Xaphan Space. The Black Hat Sisterhood makes great use of Shadow tech, often clashing with the Sisters. Their Shadow tech can often match the Sisters’ TK magic.
All schools of magic can vary depending on their application, however Vortex magic manifests extreme differences in terms of Good (Silver tech), Neutral (Emplosser) and Evil (Shadow tech). The use of Silver tech was recently legalized by the Sisters and is studied and practiced by the Xandarr 44 and a social circle of married ex-Black Hats known as the Silver Circle.
GELLAR: Gellar magic, or Acquisition Magic is the largest and most widely practiced magical school in both League and Xaphan Space. The prime tenet of the school states that objects, both arcane and technological, have power, and to collect a vast number of objects imparts magical power on the owner of said collected objects. The more objects acquired the greater the power. The word “Gellar” comes from the godlike legendary beings outside the League said to be able to control man, animal, and plant.
Admiral Pax, by way of his vast personal collection, is able to influence the thoughts and feelings of those around him via Gellar Magic (Eve Ventrue)
The Old Vith were said to have achieved great strides in the development of Gellar magic. They devised the Gellartron, a structure housing their arcane objects, focusing it into vast power. Most of the Old Vith castles dotting the north of Kana, including Castles Blanchefort, Durst and Bloodstein, were functioning Gellartrons wielding power approaching that of the Sisters. To protect their cashes of treasure, the Vith invented the Bowerchest, a great animated construct usually in the shape of a mystical creature, where they kept their prize posessions.
The Sisters became quite fearful of the Vith and began an active campaign to take their arcane items, seize their Bowerchests, and deactivate their Gellartrons. The Vith were said to have hidden their Bowerchests in a distant place known as Edamathrombo to protect them from the Sisters. In time, the Sisters were successful, the Vith were reduced in Gellar power and their Gellartrons were deactivated. Edamathrombo, and the riches kept there, was largely forgotten in Vith lore.
Though the Vith Gellartrons are all non-functional, the Sisters strongholds of Westron, Valenhelm, Kurtiss and Kentaro are all said to be functioning Gellartons granting the Sisters vast power.
copyright 2013, Ren Garcia, Eve Ventrue and Carol Phillips
Shadow tech
August 21, 2011
Sygillis of Metatron attempts to save the life of Captain Davage using Silver tech (Carol Phillips)
Shadow tech is an arcane substance. It is said to be material from another universe or dimension, filling that dimension like ether. A fairly common substance, it appears as a black, brown or silver semi-solid material, known variously as Implosser (brown), Shadow tech (black) and Silver tech (silver). In all forms it is thick and malleable rather like hot tar. It reacts to the touch of living things. In its brown Implosser form, it is a harmless, inert substance. The black form of Shadow tech is very dangerous due to its toxicity and should not be touched if at all possible. The Silver form is quite lively and beneficial, feeling “fizzy” to the touch.
The Implosser form is its basic, most common state. Strong emotion, such as anger, hatred and pain turn the Implosser to black. Likewise positive emotions such as love and happiness turn it silver.
In all its forms, Shadow tech is very versatile. It can be cast as pure energy, Black Hats have been known to knock down buildings, destroy high-flying vessels and kill whole armies with a mere sweep of their hand. It can also be formed into shapes, into complex machines and into the forms of living beings. Once formed, Shadow tech is very difficult to dispel, with only the Sisterhood of Light able to dispel it with any certainty.
Lady Poe of Blanchefort--a well known Shadow tech Female surrounded by her Silver tech familiars (Carol Phillips)
Most Shadow tech females are located in Xaphan Space. Countess Sygillis of Blanchefort, Lady Poe of Blanchefort, Bethrael of Moane and Duchess Torrijayne of Oyln are known Shadow tech Females in the League.
USES OF SHADOW TECH: Shadow tech Females can manipulate Shadow tech with great skill, using it to perform any number of desired functions.
SHADOW TECH TEMPLES: Shadow tech temples are structures, and sometimes whole cities made of Shadow tech usually found in Xaphan Space. Such places are often covered in illusion and cannot be detected. Being inside a Shadow tech temple can affect one’s well-being and sanity very quickly.
A one-mile tall Shadow tech Monster terrorizes Xandarr (Carol Phillips)
SHADOW TECH TRAPS (StT’s): Shadow tech Traps are very dangerous and persistent menaces. They are very small undetectable bits of Shadow tech that have been pre-programmed to perform any number of nefarious functions. Like a flea or tick, they lie in wait and latch on when an unsuspecting person happens by. An StT can remain attached to a person for years, causing them all manner of grief, or they can simply slay that person at a pre-determined time. The Sisterhood of Light is always on the lookout for StT’s, and never failing to find them in abundance. The island of Bilson-Gorman on Bazz was declared uninhabitable by the Sisters due to the persistence of StTs left there.
RUMBOB: Rumbob is a quantity of Shadow tech mixed with clay or straw or some other type of common material. Rumbob is easily infused with emotions and can influence the emotions of those coming into contact with it.
WHAMIC: Whamic is a form of Shadow tech that may be attached to holomail messages and sent across the skyways. Any person opening the Whamic could find themselves facing sudden death.
copyright 2011 Ren Garcia
The Temple of the Exploding Head 