Tatterdemalion

Masks: BABYLON MUST FALL

Shamash, Bound in Glory.

It is Ishtar who is waiting for you at the Bridge of Heaven, before the array of your chariots. It was always Ishtar who would. The curtains of her palanquin part as your priests approach their holy vessels, and one gauntlet wreathed in lapis lazuli makes an imploring gesture.

“Shamash,” she says, and she dares to use her Voice on you. On YOU. On Shamash who Breaks the Horizon. As if you did not have Dampeners worked into your helm. “Stay. I have prepared a feast in honor of your aspect as Champion of Heaven, First of the Fleet. A year has passed since I gave birth to this festival, all in your honor. Stay with us.”

“It is my prerogative and duty to conquer the proud sky,” you respond. A check. “Nothing may bind me or keep me in check.”

“Yet stay,” Ishtar pleads, stony-faced in serene radiance under her crown of many banners. “I will offer you whatever you may wish. Babylon the Great is the perfected world, and all that may be wished is within it.”

“Save for that which Shamash brings on swift wings, and Marduk with the tramp of many feet which are not his own. Are you perhaps lost in memories of the days before creation, sister, that you must be comforted?”

As direct a rebuke as you can make. The gauntlet withdraws sharply. Good. Ishtar has been getting too proud for someone who has only been part of the Pantheon for a few centuries now.

“I will bring you trophies, sister,” you say, and bow low. “Ones befitting a Queen of Heaven.” Because you will, inevitably, win.

You just hope the Zhianku makes their struggle entertaining for a little while.

***

Smoke rises and is filtered out by your helm. You could (and have) walk on the outer shell of a chariot and never for a moment struggle for breath. Struggle is for those beneath you. Struggle is for those who fear losing their lives.

...that creature is strange. It puffs and parades itself around like one of your exalted servants, taking pride in its barbarity. Yet you have held this world for years. How has its pride not been broken by seeing the ruin of its world’s champions? (It is Zhianku. It trained in their rude academies, belaboring under the useless thought-construct of a soul. There is no such thing. There must not be. When you die you will stop.)

Still. You find yourself interested in bringing it back. The way the court ogles at it is entertaining enough, and its brashness, its spirit... perhaps maybe you will not kill it. Maybe this time you will be like your brothers and sisters who do not kill, who do not glory in the fires in heaven, who do not dash chariots against the rocks and know their captains to be dead upon impact. Maybe you will bring it back and ask Ishtar to break it in, to gouge out its higher functions until it never so much as thinks (ha!) of Looking at you.

Of seeing the you inside of Shamash.

You rise with a grunt. The music stops instantly. You wave a hand. “Continue. I merely follow the wind.” That is enough to keep the idiots from panic as you take the slow path to the rear chambers where your true tribute is being made ready.

And there it is. The Zhianku student. The one who sees. The mocking trickster. It stands among your gold as if saying: I know the secret, too. This is my power now. I will take it and pry the helmet off your skull and now there will be two dead gods on this planet.

And no wild death-yearning can stop the blind horrified panic of losing your gold.

The Furnace in your chest ignites. You burn gold without thought. The distance between you is cut roughly from existence. Your fingers curl around its throat and you lift, the words of your arm an inferno branded on your being. POWER. STRENGTH. GLORY. The Furnace roars hungrily as you bring it close.

It Looks at you again, or tries to: the lenses of your helmet filter out the cognitohazard battering at you, reducing it to a smoky figure writhing in your grip. It is like holding smoke. It will be out soon. It will have your gold.

The generators in your helm flicker to life with a thought, triangulating on its head. You unleash your Voice. Let Ishtar have her irresistible commands; you have the Wind That Consumes.

The wall behind it cracks like a hammerblow from the backwash of your Voice. The creature goes limp, and before you boil the brain in its skull, you disengage the generators and toss it down to the floor.

There is silence but for the ragged whine of aftershock. The Inquisitor and her servants are on their faces, not daring to rise. You watch the creature.

Get up, you think.

You’re not done with it yet.

[Never Give Up, Never Surrender, Canada.]

Breathless Dead

“Do the machines spark it within me?” Redana considers it for a moment, cradling the bread bowl in one hand. “I don’t think I can be curious. I know all their parts. I can figure out what needs to be fixed. And it’s a good workout, too. When I get it running, I’m satisfied. But I’m not curious. It’s enough to know that it’s working again, that I took something broken and made it better.”

She looks out at the swirls of red and white, biting her lips thoughtfully. The thought works through her. “That, though. Out there.” She points at a swirl that might have been the flick of a tail from some sea-dwelling beast, disappeared back into the dust. “That! I want to see what’s beyond that, what’s hiding inside it, and... I want to see it all. I never could have dreamed that this would be out here! I’d seen drawings, but the real thing is, wow! That’s what makes me curious, Master Hermetic, that’s what makes me want to walk! Is that the Saffron path? Or something connected to it?”

She turns and looks hopefully at the priest of Hermes, suspended in a moment of possibility where she’s ready to believe anything. It’s so painfully earnest, isn’t it? The hope that she might be told her wanderlust is contained within the saffron, or that there is an ancient order of knights-compass in whose steps she could follow, or that the Hermetic might tell her to follow the rainbow road of the mariner-priestess...

Fellowship: The Heart

Coleman!

This is your fault. You know that as soon as you hear that droning, terrible bell drop down into audible octaves, sending your heart plummeting. This is going to happen to your friends because they stayed with you and Sasha.

clang. clang. clang.

There’s no time. All at once it surges around you, sand shivering out of existence and replaced by pitted stone and corroded steel, toxic quicksilver and fire. So much fire. You are alone, now, you and Sasha. The others are gone.

clang. clang. clang.

When you hear that bell at a station, that means an engineer is needed. When a crew hears that, they stop and bank the fires and send their best down into the bowels of the station, to the Central Administration Spine, to uncover the need. The less time between peals, the more pressing the matter.

clang. clang. clang.

But it’s very rare to hear that dreadful noise indeed, because the ancient masters who built, or shaped, or summoned, or grew the stations of the line? They laid a working upon their masterpiece, built a station and annexed it and its metaphysical weight. Accidents and disasters and curses and wrecks all slide down from the stations and end up in Wormwood Station, where the bells never stop.

They end up here.

clang. clang. clang.

Crackling, distorted laughter issues from the sparking, broken speakers embedded into the walls. Once they were beautiful fleur-de-lis ornaments, but now they look like they’re liable to give you tetanus if you so much as touch them.

“Now Arriving,” the speakers proclaim, the cheerful and caring voice of a Station underlaid with something deep and jagged and darkly wicked. “All passengers disEMbark at Terminal [bzzzzzt]. Mind the Gap. Mind the Step. Please be aware there MAY be delays in Departure. All outbound trains scheduled for departure at [bzzzzzzzzzt]. Mind the GAP.”

clang. clang. clang.

A train has the weight, physical and metaphysical, to barrel through Wormwood and save the crew from hell. Sometimes you see things through the windows. Sometimes you see people-shaped things running for the train, waving, sobbing. Wait, they silently scream before they’re lost in the distance. Wait.

clang. clang. clang.

Welcome to Wormwood Station. Mind the gap.

Wormwood Station

Disaster and Ruin. Everything in Wormwood Station is going wrong. This is because Wormwood Station is the place where things go horribly, terribly, impressively wrong.

The Boss: ????

Response Level 0.

***

Jackdaw!

There is a wand pointed up your nose.

A minute ago you were excitedly pointing out that the Forest was erupting within sight, thick black brambles choking the sand, ravens darting out to spear fat white worms on their beaks. Then there was the sound of a doleful, foreboding, desolate bell, and then a loud rushing, roaring noise, and your grip was torn away. And now you’re here.

There’s a huge stained glass window of unfortunate design arching above your head. Its subject matter is glorious, from what you can tell, all magnificent spires and beautiful trains and strangely-dressed people, but it is too heavy. It sags dangerously, and shards of glass shatter down from where it is cracked, drifting in a smoky breeze like snow. Huge glass-drifts fill the room, and you can already feel dangerous, shining glass settling in delicate specks on your clothes.

There is a wand pointed up your nose. The hand that holds it is clapped about in dreadful black iron. The helmet of the figure has grasping horns like bony fingers, but don’t be confused. They are shorter than you. As short as Ailee, even. And they have a similar tail, probably, under the barbed armor. It’s just that the faceplate is a snarling furious dragon.

All around you, among the glass-drifts, unfortunate kobolds slave away filling chests of black iron with glass. They are not dressed for the elements. The glass leaves clean white scars everywhere. Around them are these tiny black knights, armed with firewands and spears, with golden talismans and good-luck charms.

“In the name of King Dragon,” the rat squeaks, “you and your former belongings now belong to the Under-Empire, longlegs! Hand them over!”

Chief Squeaker of King Dragon

I Bring The Name: the Chief Squeaker can manipulate both fire and gold as they wish, up to and including using them as Ranged, Burning attacks.

Noooo, My Scheme-Plans! when this stat becomes damaged, the Chief Squeaker suffers an ironic and terrible circumstance that removes them from the scene (or Takes them Out, if it’s the last one).

I BRING THE EYE: the Chief Squeaker can leave curses on those they damage, all highly Dragon-themed. Turning you into a pathetic little kobold is a favorite.

***

Lucien!

waaaaaooooow, sparks the angel.

It sightlessly stalks through the burning food court, its halo of white wisteria crackling. Its wings drag on the floor, knocking over tables and chairs. Whatever attracts its attention has that mournful head swing ponderously towards it, the wisteria parts, and then—

krakboooom.

That was a vending machine, which is still sparking with blue and white arcs of lightning, having just sprayed boiling drinks inches from your hiding spot.

Everyone said the Heart was mercurial, especially as you got lower, but this is ridiculous. One minute you hear an alarm bell, the next you’re tying a rag over your face to avoid dying of smoke inhalation before the angel can get you first.

waaaaaaaooooooow, it hums thoughtfully, and then incinerates a refuse bin.

Angel of Wisteria

Gaze of Destruction: the Angel is Piercing, Burning, Ranged, Reload at anything it looks upon.

Emissary of the Heart: the Angel cannot be damaged by the works of the Heart. For these purposes, both Ailee’s magic and Sasha count as “of the Heart.”

I Bring The Heart: the world around the Angel is highly mutable, and moves around it can be used at any range.

***

Ailee!

Whooooo boy! That was one hell of a shunt!

That’s a technical term. You would be very happy to explain it to others in small little baby words like this: “when a shunt happens, it’s because things from one u-ni-verse just went into another u-ni-verse.” But even that’s a simplification. Where you are right now is, if you’re right, and you always are, an artificially created and sustained miniature looped universe/timeline. Things come in when it intersects with Universe Prime, but there’s probably specific ways to exit the loop/torus manifold. Maybe you don’t quite know what those are yet, but you’re getting there. Like it’ll be hard.

The more pressing matter is the swarm of Bees that’s started glowing and humming angrily. You’re inside one of their hives, all slate-blue stone and gently throbbing azure circuitry. The Bees themselves (fat fuzzy beans with no mouth and giant solid blue eyes, wings buzzing at roughly the speed of sound to keep them from their assuredly intended destiny as caterpillars) are agitated about this. Really agitated.

One shoots lasers from those furiously glowing eyes and zaps you right on the paw. It feels like getting tapped with a smoldering coal, more annoying than painful... but you are surrounded by roughly seven bajillion bees.

(Also, if they really get angry, they will all land on you and vibrate at pandimensional frequencies until you are delicious baked mouse.)

Bees

Bees

Everyone is fond of bees

Except for creatures from the Heart

And you know that they’ll come for you

Fellowship: The Heart

I have decided it is time for More Heart. I would suggest figuring out your End of Session move pretty sharpish. I have decided to encourage this with Post.

Dark Age (playtest): The Lands of Pendragon

Do you remember playing with her, Robena? Her laughter bubbling up into a delighted shriek as you chased her through the rushes? The gap between her teeth when she grinned, holding up a well-armored gentleman snapping his pincers helplessly at the two of you?

She’s different now. Of course she would be. But you must have stared longer than you meant when you saw her emerge from the mist on the Low. She wore a wreath of large black berries and jaunty river-lilies, and when her boatman pulled the boat ashore she offered him her hand like it was a sacrament.

And now the two of you are here, in Lostwithiel, and she still seems out of place. Or is it Lostwithiel that is out of place? She walks barefoot and her shoulders are straight and proud, and the crowd parts before her instead of causing her to dart here and there. How could the vivacious young girl you remember become something like this, a pillar of the old faith hung in garlands, taciturn and stately?

Then a child darts away from their sibling, clutching a toy, and runs into her. Hard. Constance sways dangerously, like a willow tree, and the toy (a simple doll) goes flying. People nearby gasp, and the mother (who had been haggling too intently to keep track of her child) starts making frantic apologies to the Woman of the Low.

Then Constance squats down, one hand outstretched to keep her balance, and waves the child over. (They are young enough that their gender is entirely “sticky face and grubby hands”.) She pulls a berry free from her wreath and pushes it into the child’s hands, then whispers in their ear.

Awe-struck, the child toddles back to their mother, holding that berry like it’s a precious jewel. And Constance, rising elegantly, smiles. It’s like day breaking on the hills.

Then she looks at you and her smile cools. What have you done wrong?

***

Composed face. Be the one they expect you to be. Everybody’s looking up to you, Constance. A daughter of giants and a wise woman of the woods doesn’t smile like a silly girl at every handsome knight that crosses her path.

When the little darling ran into you, you nearly crumpled into the arms of this burly, grim, intriguing knight. One who definitely is not interested in things like “tea in a sacred garden,” before you get ideas. She’s here as your escort, nothing more. Keep that in your head, daughter of giants!

It is your duty, your obligation to be a stone axle around which the world can turn. You call upon the seasons to remember their ancient oaths, to show their most pleasing faces, and to receive sacrifice. A boon for a boon, a song for a song. (And thank goodness you have not been called upon to beg from them a life.)

You danced the maypole by the shores of the Low, this past season; you buried gifts in the earth and called on it to remember and reciprocate; you fanned the flames and sang the night through to bring Spring to high waxing. And now you are here, confident, focused, not offering your fruits (such as they are) to a strange knight.

A bark; you jump. Just a dog, excited by the attention he’s getting from passers-by, rolling around by a stall. Not dozens of dogs baying and barking and howling, off in the distance at twilight, deep in the Treffwood.

Is it a rumor if you have heard it? Or is it still a rumor if you have not seen it, despite watching the tangled branches carefully, half expecting to see a flash of panthers’ spots, a serpent’s neck?

The Beast of King Pellinore is here. And it will be your responsibility to stand between it and the people of Lostwithiel, if it crosses the threshold, if it bursts forth from the Treffwood to tear up crops and frighten oxen and devil the countryside.

There is nothing like it in the rolls of beasts, and you are not prepared. So all you do is keep your eyes peeled and watch the woods by twilight, listening to that far-off calamity of hounds.

Breathless Dead

Redana laughs. It explodes out of her, and when she tries to rein it in, she ends up making an undignified snort[1].

“Me? Saffron? Are you kidding? Saffron robes are for smart people. People who understand cosmic enlightenment and want to upgrade their bodies! Like you, you’re a great Hermetican. You don’t just know how this stuff works, like, even I could figure that out! You know why it was made like that in the first place, and how it fits with the rest of the device[2].”

Redana shakes her head with a rueful, oblivious smile. “Besides. I was born almost perfect.” She doesn’t turn her head. There’s no need. The Auspex sees all. “And then that was fixed. So Mom would have a fit if I started taking the body she gave me apart and sticking on tentacles and plasma kidneys.”

She doesn’t answer the question of what she wants to be. It’d be easy to assume that it’s because she’s running from the question. But, really, it’s not like she can rewind the conversation and remind herself of everything the Hermetican said[3].

***

[1]: Redana Claudius is many things. “Capable of composed, elegant laughter” is not one of those things.

[2]: “And an interlocking system made of interconnections between disparate but mutually necessary components we shall term a device henceforth...”
— The Traversal Catechism, origin disputed

[3]: she does have this capability. It’s just throttled along with all the other information the Auspex summarizes into basic instructions and chibi figures. And conversational aptitude is not the primary concern of Baby’s First Auspex Framework.

Breathless Dead

Redana lets the red and the white fill her up. On one side of her lies a white-handled cane, repurposed from a damaged strut, and on the other lies an untouched bread bowl filled with a hot curry. The winds twist the dust together, and if she unfocuses and lets it all sink in she can almost see two dragons with writhing tails biting at each other, breaking apart where they strike, wild and lawless, creatures of the storm and the far beyond.

Wait. The Hermetican is still talking. What was he saying?

“Okay,” she says, as the Auspex displays the key points of what had just been said. “I hear you. So you need me to go fight the crabs in a harness while you vent the lower decks, right?”

Just like Atlantica! She can see herself now, weightless, tethered, only needing three limbs as she vanquishes a monstrous horde! Behind her, the sky glitters with eight million ice crystals and angry crabs as the Plousios adds to the beauty of the heavens. Her mighty sword flashes and Bella clings to her—

“What are we waiting for?” Redana picks up her bread bowl and starts shoveling it into her mouth at a decidedly unwise speed.

Masks: BABYLON MUST FALL

Canada!

The minute you arrive "backstage," as it were, you're surrounded by servants. A Macaw starts sketching your features, a Thornback readies a tablet and stylus, blindfolded Janissaries level laser flintlocks, and the Lynx-- ouch! The Lynx pricks you with a needle to take a blood sample. This is a well-oiled and prepped operation.

Notably, this isn't the only operation going on back here: servants are stacking golden bars in an ornate display, each one stamped with the seal of Caphtor. This looks like another tribute of the city to their god. Still, it attracts your attention for a moment. What is Shamash supposed to do with that, anyway? Nod and order it carried to their chariot?

"Canada Taliv," the Inquisitor says, looking down at a tablet, "you are going to die."

Wow. Harsh.

"Had you offered yourself up to our justice beforehand," the Inquisitor continues, her voice calm and steady, "you would have lived. But Shamash holds your life in their hands now, and they mean to kill you, by all indications. Therefore, as a representative of holy Ereshkigal, I am offering you a bargain. Cooperate with my questions and I will carry out your unfinished business. You fight against civilization out of a misguided desire to protect those around you; give me their names, and I will see them given preferential treatment and protected to the best of my ability."

"Or you can die," the Lynx hisses, "and we will still track the ghost and the magician down. This is a bargain, flatfoot."

***

Marianne!

Daisy takes the paddle gleefully, and weighs it in her hand for a moment, overwhelmed and awe-struck. "Yes," she breathes. "Yes, yes, yes! Thank you, thank you! I'll... you'll protect me, right?" She's suddenly hesitant, looking over at those struggling figures, two long-limbed Annunaki and one prickly Thornback. "Because they'll be so angry..."

Her fingers tighten and loosen on the handle. Her breath goes quick and nervous through her nostrils, and one of the Annunaki sisters tosses her hair and makes an attempt at threatening Daisy, despite the shaking heads of her fellow captives. You can even hear the sneer.

***

Anathet!

It's almost dusk and you're about to leave your lovely little maple grove when Marianne looms out of the shadows and flashes that scary, scary grin of hers. It nearly gives you a heart attack, even with you prepared for Tia to pop up. But, hey, two of the gals here in one place! And you probably don't need Canada to talk with the Seneschal and present your demands, wherever that musclebound beauty is...

Dark Age (playtest): The Lands of Pendragon

What system were you using before you made the switch if I may ask? The original Pendragon? or is there another AW hack of it?

@Penny

We were using Fellowship, which is a fantasy quest version of AW. It’s really solid (we’re doing a great space fantasy with it in Breathless Dead) but didn’t have the right vibe.

(Good call on Pendragon; I handed Anarion the GPC for inspiration.)

Breathless Dead

“Nnngh...”

Feeling is coming back. The only problem is that it is the sort of feeling of unfolding your leg from underneath you and having the blood rush back in. Redana has always imagined tiny little needles under her skin, throbbing as they stick in place, until her blood melts the pain away. But that feeling isn’t going away this time, so all she can do is grit her teeth and try not to squirm. It’s agonizingly ticklish.

The infirmary is a small circle of lantern-light. Beyond it stretches rows on rows of folded cots, ready to accommodate dozens of injured marines and sailors, unused in the darkness. There are small, hard pillows tucked under her back and piled beneath her leg. She is under firm orders from Dolce to not get out of bed, not to walk on it, and to let her divine blessings counteract the curse long enough for it to heal normally.

(The curse. Those weapons were meant to leave unhealing wounds. Even her nanites can only deny that power, not unmake it completely.)

She’s alone, now. Epistia is sleeping on the other side of the door, scythe resting on her lap, still unsmiling. Nothing is entering the infirmary without her say-so. And that’s sweet, but the vast dark of the rusting, moldering room is starting to... ugh. It’s a room. Another room she’s not allowed to leave. And there’s nothing to do.

Her Auspex peels back walls, showing her: a Magus squeezing through vents (wow, that’s what’s under the robes?) and a statue on patrol, ship-rats scuttling and gnawing on plating, and far far beyond, the raging heart of a star that fuels the Plousios. She stares without a choice, without seeing.

***

Hush-a-bye, princess, I’ll give you a moon
all strung with pearls
a bouquet of worlds
and morning will be here soon

Her face aches. The numbing injections are wearing off and her socket itches. The thing keeps sending numbers and measurements and calculations straight to her brain and it’s too much, it’s a muddled mess shouted at her in a foreign language of mathematics and statistics, and she doesn’t want to know the atomic weight of her palace walls or the estimated wealth per capita of the planet or the dread shapes of the gods moving through all things.

Her knees are drawn up to her chest and her arms are wrapped around them and she’s shaking. It’s so bad. And it’s got to get worse before it gets better, that’s what they told her, the priests and doctors and surgeons. It’s got to get worse before it gets better.

Hush, little princess, your Bella is here
all through the night
til morning light
shows you there’s nothing to fear

She can feel the breath moving through Bella. One ear is smooshed against her lacy apron, but her song is still clear as the water in the little garden stream. Her voice is so pretty. It’s the prettiest thing in the whole wide world.

Her fingers are so soft. They stroke gently over one cheek, staying well away from that throbbing socket, wiping away the tears that seep out from around that glittering sapphire. She’s here. She’s here and she’s never getting taken away. Please. Please, Mommy. You can take away her toys and her privileges and her eye but please don’t take her Bella away.

Sleep, o my princess, and please do not cry
one day you will see
a silly kitten like me
will always wipe the tears from your eyes.

***

Redana Claudius closes her eyes and shakes. It’s completely silent in the dark, cavernous infirmary as Bella breaks her promise.