It had begun like any other shift in Autochtonia. In various parts of the great maker's body, the champions of the octet were going about their work diligently. Outside the safety of the wondrous cities of the octet, some champions hunted gremlins, others were conducting scientific surveys on the nature of newly of discovered blight zones where the maker's reality seemed to fail in particularly odd ways, while a few were just staggering out of their vats for the very first time.
But a select few champions, some equipped for glorious science, some to convert lost tribes of reach-dwellers back into society, some for gremlin-butchery, some to keep an eye on all the other champions, some for surveys in the reaches, some simply passing through a blight zone to get to somewhere else, all suddenly found themselves caught and unable to escape from certain weird blight-zone anomalies... and then they found themselves dropping through the great maker's world body, entering the void instead.
Elsewhere, in Creation, in a remote location in the south-east at an ancient manse long since picked clean by vagrants and the odd scavenger lord, an ancient gate - an otherworld gate - one that hadn't worked for a very long time to due to the geomantic havoc that the great contagion wreaked up creation - gave one final sputter, as its last redudant failsafes finally yielded to entropy after millenia of no maintenance. As the gate sparked to life for a brief second, consuming the last few motes of essence stored in its crystal capacitors, connecting to nowhere, a handful of strange figures fell out of the portal... which then exploded quite violently, reducing the ancient manse to nothing but rubble and shattered plants.
In the nearby kingdom of Ozmea none of this was felt or heard, for there were plenty of other things to deal with. The local King called Silver Coyote and his warrior elite known as the Gundai had plenty to see to, maintaining order over impudent peasants who never did seem to understand who was in charge, leading to plenty of ongoing tensions. Among these was a sorely disappointed son of a farmer who had tried to join the Gundai, only to return to his small village disillusioned after having witnessed the brutality and careless violence employed by the Gundais. It didn't help that fair folk with assumptions of burnings glass were raiding that village. Another soul lost in the ongoing political intrigues and peasant revolts of Ozmea was an assassin who had just awoken to find that he could remember no events prior to him just waking up.
What both of these souls had in common was that at the moment the ancient otherworld gate exploded they both found themselves blessed by the heavens - burdening them with glorious purpose...
What the three alchemicals who had just tumbled into creation were going to do - well, who knows?
Additional game rules
For simplicity's sake solars and alchies pay the same to learn abilities (favored/non-favored price and training time differences still apply) - However [and this counts for ALL players] , using EXP to get anything WILL require in game training time. The time spent training will depend on what you purchase. Most likely time differentials will be in days, weeks or months.
For long periods of downtime it might help to have the whole assembly/circle agree on collective downtime - its never fun to have to go "Ok, my robot is out of the game for the next 4 in-game weeks... followed by six months of RL game-time being devoted to a grand quest that takes a week of in-game time.
For alchemicals the issue of upgrades/charms and surviving in creation is tricky, but by no means impossible.
My original Glorious Modulator of Free Men (NPC crafting monkey, ho!) will be there - kitted out up to his ears in crafting charms. You will have to talk him into building your 18 inch solid golden 4th appearance augmentation - he might disagree with how to spend limited resources, consider social attacks but be aware that he might return the favor.
The rules for making alchemical charms, submodules, attribute-upgrades is as follows:
The cost for a charm is the charm's Essence requirement in resources, which should ideally contain at least a bit of your alchemical's magical material. How you get these resources is your own problem, and part of the challenge of the game - scavenger, loot, steal, trade, or ask nicely - its your choice. The same applies to everything else, attributes requiring [New rating/2 rounded up] resources, with a good deal of champion-specific magical materials
Since some magical materials might be found in the form of artifacts, then an artifact can be broken down (carefuly) to supply magical materials, if its made from such, to up to its artifact rating number of charms. So an orichalcum daiklaive will supply magic gold for two orichalcum caste charms. Solars beware.
It takes a charm's essence requirement in hours to construct the charm and install it (as a total value) - but after that the specified training time kicks in during which your champion will be calibrating and harmonizing with the new part of his body. This doesn't have to be downtime, but the part of the champ's body that has been modified might not be that easy to use until the charm gains full functionality - so if you have a new pair of jet-nozzle in your feet, then walking might be difficult until you get used to the new sensation and extra weight.
Submodules cost their xp cost/2 rounded up in resources, and take Resource hours to make and install - works instantly, assuming that the charm they're put into is currently active on/in an Alchemical
There is one exception to the above rule on resources and charm/submodule costs: If the charm or submodule description mentions specific materials or components you have to use that (Example: Adamant for making essence sight lenses for the Optical Enhancement charm's submodule) - but be creative: If you can find a substitute material that does the same without compromising the overall steampunky/cyberpunky aesthetics of Alchemicals, then that might be ok too. No wooden components though, perhaps if you're a green jade alchie.
Charms and submodules can in this game be installed without vats - but that might just leave you with a frail un-installed charm to haul around, as doing so will not store the charm in any noetic charm network. Guard these carefully, as such strange devices might be quite alluring to some collectors or curious thieves who see that you have shinies they can take.
For attribute upgrades and more charm slots you'll need a vats complex, which the provided NPC has promised will be his crafting champion's first priority... assuming that the lot of you can manage to get along - and once he's properly upgraded that really wont take that long. Slots take an hour to install up and work straight away, while attribute upgrades take [New attribute ratingX2] hours to implant/upgrade, followed by the same calibration/harmonization semi-downtime - although if you have an entirely new set of stronger muscles, or new and stronger bones, then moving at all might be a fairly big issue - again, be creative.
And of course the whole deal about finding resources can in theory end up being made quite moot if you find a great old treasure hoard, or take control of a city and use its tax revenue to fund your upgrades - again - be creative, I will reward that.
But a select few champions, some equipped for glorious science, some to convert lost tribes of reach-dwellers back into society, some for gremlin-butchery, some to keep an eye on all the other champions, some for surveys in the reaches, some simply passing through a blight zone to get to somewhere else, all suddenly found themselves caught and unable to escape from certain weird blight-zone anomalies... and then they found themselves dropping through the great maker's world body, entering the void instead.
Elsewhere, in Creation, in a remote location in the south-east at an ancient manse long since picked clean by vagrants and the odd scavenger lord, an ancient gate - an otherworld gate - one that hadn't worked for a very long time to due to the geomantic havoc that the great contagion wreaked up creation - gave one final sputter, as its last redudant failsafes finally yielded to entropy after millenia of no maintenance. As the gate sparked to life for a brief second, consuming the last few motes of essence stored in its crystal capacitors, connecting to nowhere, a handful of strange figures fell out of the portal... which then exploded quite violently, reducing the ancient manse to nothing but rubble and shattered plants.
In the nearby kingdom of Ozmea none of this was felt or heard, for there were plenty of other things to deal with. The local King called Silver Coyote and his warrior elite known as the Gundai had plenty to see to, maintaining order over impudent peasants who never did seem to understand who was in charge, leading to plenty of ongoing tensions. Among these was a sorely disappointed son of a farmer who had tried to join the Gundai, only to return to his small village disillusioned after having witnessed the brutality and careless violence employed by the Gundais. It didn't help that fair folk with assumptions of burnings glass were raiding that village. Another soul lost in the ongoing political intrigues and peasant revolts of Ozmea was an assassin who had just awoken to find that he could remember no events prior to him just waking up.
What both of these souls had in common was that at the moment the ancient otherworld gate exploded they both found themselves blessed by the heavens - burdening them with glorious purpose...
What the three alchemicals who had just tumbled into creation were going to do - well, who knows?
Additional game rules
For simplicity's sake solars and alchies pay the same to learn abilities (favored/non-favored price and training time differences still apply) - However [and this counts for ALL players] , using EXP to get anything WILL require in game training time. The time spent training will depend on what you purchase. Most likely time differentials will be in days, weeks or months.
For long periods of downtime it might help to have the whole assembly/circle agree on collective downtime - its never fun to have to go "Ok, my robot is out of the game for the next 4 in-game weeks... followed by six months of RL game-time being devoted to a grand quest that takes a week of in-game time.
For alchemicals the issue of upgrades/charms and surviving in creation is tricky, but by no means impossible.
My original Glorious Modulator of Free Men (NPC crafting monkey, ho!) will be there - kitted out up to his ears in crafting charms. You will have to talk him into building your 18 inch solid golden 4th appearance augmentation - he might disagree with how to spend limited resources, consider social attacks but be aware that he might return the favor.
The rules for making alchemical charms, submodules, attribute-upgrades is as follows:
The cost for a charm is the charm's Essence requirement in resources, which should ideally contain at least a bit of your alchemical's magical material. How you get these resources is your own problem, and part of the challenge of the game - scavenger, loot, steal, trade, or ask nicely - its your choice. The same applies to everything else, attributes requiring [New rating/2 rounded up] resources, with a good deal of champion-specific magical materials
Since some magical materials might be found in the form of artifacts, then an artifact can be broken down (carefuly) to supply magical materials, if its made from such, to up to its artifact rating number of charms. So an orichalcum daiklaive will supply magic gold for two orichalcum caste charms. Solars beware.
It takes a charm's essence requirement in hours to construct the charm and install it (as a total value) - but after that the specified training time kicks in during which your champion will be calibrating and harmonizing with the new part of his body. This doesn't have to be downtime, but the part of the champ's body that has been modified might not be that easy to use until the charm gains full functionality - so if you have a new pair of jet-nozzle in your feet, then walking might be difficult until you get used to the new sensation and extra weight.
Submodules cost their xp cost/2 rounded up in resources, and take Resource hours to make and install - works instantly, assuming that the charm they're put into is currently active on/in an Alchemical
There is one exception to the above rule on resources and charm/submodule costs: If the charm or submodule description mentions specific materials or components you have to use that (Example: Adamant for making essence sight lenses for the Optical Enhancement charm's submodule) - but be creative: If you can find a substitute material that does the same without compromising the overall steampunky/cyberpunky aesthetics of Alchemicals, then that might be ok too. No wooden components though, perhaps if you're a green jade alchie.
Charms and submodules can in this game be installed without vats - but that might just leave you with a frail un-installed charm to haul around, as doing so will not store the charm in any noetic charm network. Guard these carefully, as such strange devices might be quite alluring to some collectors or curious thieves who see that you have shinies they can take.
For attribute upgrades and more charm slots you'll need a vats complex, which the provided NPC has promised will be his crafting champion's first priority... assuming that the lot of you can manage to get along - and once he's properly upgraded that really wont take that long. Slots take an hour to install up and work straight away, while attribute upgrades take [New attribute ratingX2] hours to implant/upgrade, followed by the same calibration/harmonization semi-downtime - although if you have an entirely new set of stronger muscles, or new and stronger bones, then moving at all might be a fairly big issue - again, be creative.
And of course the whole deal about finding resources can in theory end up being made quite moot if you find a great old treasure hoard, or take control of a city and use its tax revenue to fund your upgrades - again - be creative, I will reward that.
