Damn I Am Pretty Art Laboratories

Aspect: The Forest Inside Crux Connected To: Poorfellows (To the Northeast), Rose Quarter (to the Southeast), Old Crux (To the North), The Grand Bazaar (to the Southwest). Most Significant Icon: The Archdruid Well Known For? An Ursyklon Neighborhood Notable Sites and Locales: Tengril Square, the Grove of Mage-Trees I turn to the east as I walk out of the Prince's Gate.  I can smell the pine needles of the trees, and squirrels chattle at me.  The Forest inside Crux.  The Wolf Quarter.  The Ursyklon's ancient home looks more like a slice of wilderness left within the city proper.  Wolves prowl the streets, some capable of speaking- one even winks at me, his collar bearing the seal of the city.  A Wolf of the City Watch. The Ursyklon's buildings are made from druidic magicks.  Massive trees are allowed to grow here.  Stone and wood are bent and coerced into buildings.  Every inch of the sky is covered in leaves, but for open spaces ...

A look at another vampire clan in Crux, the Medama or Wind-Vampires. Aspect(s):  A Question in the Air? Invoke: Whenever using magic that manipulates wind and air or anytime flying or standing in a windstorm. Compel: When presented with any situation or subject that asks a question, or draws one's curiosity, the Medama is compelled to study and question it, even if it might harm them. The Medama are the wind vampires: they ride high above the Tengu ghettoes, spires and mountaintops around Crux.  Curious first, the Medama are the vampires most often never seen in the blood quarter. The first of the Medama is said to have been a member of the Esoterium Machina.  Lady Medama studied anatomy through vivisection.  When she began to vivisect living bodies, she grew addicted to the sound of vivisected lungs.   Dark experiments with a vampire however, would taint Medama's soul.  The creature didn't die under her vivisected eye. ...

In which the Keepers continue their adventure in Poorfellows. Gav faces off against the Nightfish, Patrizo gangsters who just threw his character's best friend through a window. And of course, Gav recieves a prized relic from the Prince himself. The Opener: Rill meets with the Ratkings [here's a bit of Fiction I gave for my players- a cutscene about stuff they  consequently  never actually found out about] Professor Rill held up a hankerchief to help mask the smell. The sulfurous stench of Poorfellows only was magnified in its sewers. Part of him regretted using the dimension door spell to enter the sewers. Perhaps he should've made his graduate student come up to him rather than venture down himself. "Too many questions." Rill reminded himself. "And alas, discovery requires experimentation. This experimentation requires secrecy." "Master Rill?" A gravelly voice questioned, its tone desperate. A half-rat, half-human head eme...

The Dafhrog serve the Archdruid, and in that capacity, also work completely in secret.  Most Ursyklon know of the Dafhrog and their origin.  Perhaps the most common image of the Dafhrog are the results of their work: people frozen and forever changed into trees. Greenknives often never are charged with murder, sometimes openly striking a foe with a spell that traps another in bark and branch.  Modern Greenknives adapt pistols for the task, eschewing knives. History The Urzahad of the Ursyklon are best known amongst their people because of the traditional trial they perform all of those who worship Lupa the Wolf Mother .  The urzahadi is a rite in which all worshippers of Lupa are changed into a lupine form.  The Urzahad are not limited to being able to shift others into only wolves.  Different clans use different animals for their own rites, in addition to the Urzahadi. The Urzahad that first learned he forced another to take the form of a tree or...

I've never posted anything specific about the calendar in Crux yet.  My notes for my players has an exact framework, but even then... Calendars are a cultural maxim.  That is, they exist for specific cultures and tend to overlap in weird ways.  So, I guess these are the three major Calendars in play in Crux itself: the Ulstragorian, the Othebesian, and the Jade Imperial. The Ulstragorian Calendar The oldest known calendar system on Orphos, the Ulstragorian Calendar is a Ursyklon calendar.  It is based on the Ursyklon's own native calendar when they first conquered Orphos.  Changed to suit their new world, the Ulstragorian still never was widely adopted by non-Ursyklon.  A lunisolar calendar, the Ulstragorian tracks the Moon as well as the Blacksun with its month structure.  Hence, every three years it adds a 13th leapmonth to the calendar. Ulstragorian Months: Uz'Lupi, Vit'Lupi, Yar'Lupi, Mok'Lupi, Pak'Lupi, Alef'Lupi, Lupitok, Morrilupi, Caen...

The Prince of Crux Possible Aspects: In The Prince's Name; The Prince's Law; Mine Is a Higher Authority; Ancient Immortal Or Ancient Lie? Quote: "The Prince himself has a interest in this matter." The Prince controls the oldest criminal empire in the world, older than the university on the Skullmount or even the Ursyklon ruins of Gruudl.  This organization controls the city government of Crux and has maintained that control despite the many who've tried to conquer it. Common Knowledge  Specific details about the Prince remain murky.  Believed by many to be the same immortal being, who has ruled his criminal empire for countless lifetimes. There is a story often told about the Prince and the goddess Shraxes.  They say he and her were lovers, and that she granted him Crux as his wish.  He betrayed her, caging Shraxes rather than let the Demon Princess take Crux away from his control. Some claim she cursed him, turning him into the first vampire.  ...

Here is part one of a new short story set in Crux, about a Feyborn Albino Ferret by the name of Kaze Skysword.  Capable of speaking and taking on a class, Kaze is a Ranger with a talent for acquiring arcane relics of bygone eras.  Can he sell off his latest goods, or will old enemies get their chance to one up the ferret ranger? "Gk!" "I'm not a bloody gib!"  I screamed as I tightened my grip on the shopkeep's throat.  "Do I look like my balls were cut off you hairy piece of drek?" Ok, I didn't grab his entire throat.  My "grip" was more of my entire body squeezing hard on his windpipe.  To be fair, this liar of a human was trying to cheat me out.  He also was several times larger than me.  So going for the throat was the most fair approach. What?  Violence works, ok.  Goes double when you're the ferret and the other guy is some half-ape thing.  Mind if I continue? Thanks. "Still ain't paying that much for a...

Blurrets: Native to northern Ith and southern Ainesia , the Blurret is a native member of the mustelids- related to ferrets and polecats, Blurrets do differ in a couple of ways.  Most Blurrets have blue to purple fur, with eyes that glow white.  All Blurrets possess a natural form of sorcery, allowing them to become invisible for minutes at a time. Blurrets also possess thumbs and are capable of some tool-use.  As such, most are seen as pests- they easily bypass most animal locks and can't be found without some sorcerous ability to perceive them.  Some are kept as pets, but most domesticated Blurrets are kept to help detect air elementals, invisible stalkers and invisible small fauna for their masters.  Some also claim that Blurret fur's invisible qualities can be transferred, but most modern arcanists refute this. Ursyklon druids have long been able to interbreed Blurrets with Ferrets imported from Ainesia and Othebea.  Often only the thumbs are passe...

Episode Title: "Station Street" | Previous Session | And after four sessions of the first arc, I decided my next series of arcs would be character-centric ones.  These "spotlights" would let each player's character get a bit of story around themselves, introduce a part of Crux to the group as a whole, and more or less let me work on setting up a subplot or two. I wasn't feeling 100%, so this session was shorter than normal.  My players were stellar as always- asking questions about details I hadn't considered, more or less driving me to write things like the priot blog post on Poorfellows in depth.  Poorfellows is Crux's worst slum- a crowded, disease ridden island with the potential to explode, but literally and into riots as well. This arc is focused on the character of Gav Zarak.  Gav is a Magus and is considered somewhat of a genius.  Discovered by the Voice and her agents, Gav's current slate of work at the university is the result of...

Poorfellows Aspect: Overcrowded & Ready To Explode Connected To: Havershill (to the North), Wolf Quarter (To the West), Rose Quarter (to the South), Gallowsford (To the East) Most Significant Icon: The Tinkerer Well known For? Its gangs and poor. I cross the fine marble St. Cuth's Bridge into Poorfellows proper.  Crowded, so much of the streets here are less than a man's width wide.  Some buildings can only be reached through wooden stairs, others are half-sunked villas from a forgotten age.  But even the ruins in this place aren't abandoned.  People, people, people.  Poorfellows is named after a Tomasi Legion, but if you come here, you will think it is for the raggedy, plague-ridden folk from all nations. This place has rooms and board for any, but it is a dark urban nightmare.  A trap to its bedraggled folk.  The stink is perhaps the worse.  The rancid stench of the trapped, between the gnoll cannibals on the one hand and the fetid...

A look at one of the vampire clans of  Crux, City of Curses . Aspect(s): Ours Is The Water; Invoke When: Near water, underwater, talking about water or working any sort of water magic. Compel When: To act cold or unfeeling, OR too dry, dehydrated or too warm and must return to the sea for comfort. The Patrizo are often slandered as Fish-Vampires.  Unlike other vampires, the Patrizo don't fear running water.  Water is their right, something all Patrizo claim mastery over. The Patrizo descend from Maliphi Pirates that plagued the Storm Coast starting five to six thousand years ago.  Only one or perhaps two vampires survive from those pirates, but they started the same course their descendants continued.  They were slavers, and rather famed for how despicable they were to those they took.  Later Patrizo would continue the practice, of sorts. The Patrizo claim their line began with a man called Baron Patrizo, captain of a swift slaving ship called th...

The Keepers 4: Den of the Silver Snakes Session Report for a Fate Core game set in Crux, City of Curses.   For the Previous Session Report, click here. A bit late, but here is the session report for my last game of Crux. The Keepers did some home invasion, stopping the Machine while setting the city on fire. The Opener: Scene Question: "Does Fulcrum tell Ono and Rainel about the Machine?" In a scene with just NPCs, Ono and Rainel find Professor Fulcrum in the Alchemy Lab. After a bit of discussion, Ono threatens Fulcrum to tell him about the device. Ono is on a mission from the Archbishop- he has to stop this threat, before things spiral out of control. Fulcrum tells him what he wants to know- even though Fulcrum knows he could've potentially stopped the Tengu Crow. Fulcrum let Ono go, hoping Pyro wasn't in any danger... Scene Question: "Do the Keepers spare the youngest members of the Silver Snakes Gang?" In the last session I asked a playe...

Time to ramble.  I haven't done this in awhile.  Time to ramble a bit. That is what blogging is for right? I feel like I haven't kept up on my graphic novel reading* like I'd prefer.  Fables had been my go to fix, and catching up on Hellboy had been a thing.  But some other things fell out of my attention. I need to read more comics.  I recently got a hold of Rat Queens and Hawkeye, and I feel embarassed for not having read them any sooner.  Fek, I regret not starting Saga any sooner. And comics is a medium I love.  Its up there with IDK, books and whatever.  My novel reading also feels like it has faltered a bit too.  I suspect my penny-pinching has affected this the most. I want to read more.  Other things pop in.  Distract me. So I wonder, do I really want to read, or what? Anyway. 2014 still had been reading what I guess had been a huge load of books.  I actually checked; between RPGs, comics, webcomics, novels,...