Difference between revisions of "Other Poles"

Latest revision as of 18:56, 19 January 2013

Overview

• “The rough torus of the Elemental Pole of Metal enfolds the delicate sphere of the Elemental Pole of Crystal, capped on top by the hemisphere of the Pole of Oil and below by the symmetrical bowl of the Pole of Smoke. Folded through varying phases of Elsewhere, the metaspatial body of the Great Maker simultaneously encompasses the cylindrical Poles of Steam and Lightning, connected to the main mass by portal-ducts and batteries of rift-circuits.
• Altogether, the body of Autochthonia forms a shape loosely analogous to a sphere, yet it is larger on the inside than the outside and encompasses numerous higher dimensions of space packed into recursive infinitudes of Essence and form. By design, this geometry borders on incomprehensible. Just as a singular soul woefully fails to express the nuances of Primordial existence, so too does the human experience of space fail to understand the magnitude of titanic jouten. Autochthon could pack himself into a two foot wide orb or expand to blot out the whole of Creation’s sky and his absolute volume would remain unchanged.
• The Great Maker uses his Poles as embodied axioms, the idealized and quantized form of the six elements comprising all parts of his body. Each pole encompasses multiple organs, acting in concert as the titan’s ailing metabolism. The Pole of Metal forms his flesh, from the warded mile-thick skin of his outer shell to the most intricate mechanisms of his innards. The specialized “tissue” of the Pole of Crystal serves as his brain and control nexus, sending and receiving signals through the nervous system mapped by the Pole of Lightning and the dynamo reactors at its heart.
• Aspects of the circulatory system span three poles. Lightning provides the fastest vector by which the Machine God redistributes his empowering motes. Meanwhile, the Pole of Steam maintains the pressure and energy to keep pneumatic machine components operational. Finally, the Pole of Oil shares elements of circulation, endocrine and immune systems. Most of its secretions provide lubrication, fuel and catalysts for key alchemies. Other oils bind to dangerous chemicals so they can be transported and processed elsewhere. To the degree Autochthon has an actual heart as humans use the term, it exists in the complex of pumps and baffles that line the floor of his northern pole.
• While all of the Great Maker’s systems show signs of his illness, the Pole of Smoke shows the most severe symptoms. It is both stomach and lungs, constantly digesting the waste of his other systems in torrents of powerful solvents. The semi-pure raw materials that result allow him to heal wounds and expand his physiotopography. Meanwhile, the vaporized effluvia of this consumption constantly dirties the bellow-pumps that cycle gasses through the Primordial’s body.”

Pole of Crystal

• Alchemicals: “Within Autochthonia, the element of crystal is associated with order, symmetry and beauty. It is also associated with the phenomenon of Clarity, and beings with a more emotional nature are often disturbed by the cold logic of crystal elementals. Crystal elementals include representatives of both naturally occurring crystals such as salt and quartz and crystalline structures that are artificially created such as glass in any form. Mirrors also fall under the rubric of crystal, at least within Autochthonian cosmology.
• Crystal elementals often appear to be figures (whether human or animalistic) carved out of solid blocks of quartz or assembled out of glass fragments. Although there is no wood in Autochthonia, the Maker has evidently declared that crystal is an analog of wood (perhaps because both can grow, after a fashion). As a result, Autochthonia is home to entire forests of every type of crystal.
  • The progenitor of the crystal elementals is Garok, an enormous insect of pure quartz stretching more than a mile in length. Garok is currently trapped in a cocoon woven of adamant threads at the base of the Core itself, caught like a fly in a spider’s web. Crystal, as an element, is regulated by Kadmek. When new crystal elementals are required, Kadmek comes to the Core and sings to the sleeping Garok who then births the new elementals in a clutch of eggs.”
• “In the center of Autochthonia lies the most critical juncture of Great Maker’s anatomy, the smallest of his elemental poles and yet the repository of his consciousness. Inasmuch as Autochthonia replicates the universe in microcosm, the Pole of Crystal is a heaven to rival Yu-Shan in size and beauty. Structurally, it appears as a sphere-like object mimicking the exterior of Autochthonia in scale miniature, filled by many millions of distinct mineral inclusions and open spaces arranged in intricate patterns of demiorganic growth and mechanistic symmetry. All the colors of the rainbow lie strewn among these shards, aglow with surging lightning as they sing the chiming chorus of transdivine cognition.”
• “The gleaming spires of the Five Blessed Theopoli further bejewel the landscape with greater light and greater wonder, interconnected like a small nation by a series of extremely rapid tram tunnels. Four of these cities host embassy-tabernacles for a pair of specific Divine Ministers. Within these Ministerial Theopoli, the Machine God’s souls reveal his will in their allotted rotation of communion hours, assigning missions to their Adamant Caste attendants. The hush of empty glass hallways stands in stark contrast to the bustle of human cities, but their reverent quiet belies the constant activity of exmachina carrying out Municipal Charm maintenance and other tasks delegated by their superiors. The only humans permitted within the Ministerial Theopoli are alchemical demiurges serving as acolyte-attendants to the Operatives. No more than a hundred citizens enjoy this extraordinary privilege per city, and generally half are Anointed Ones uplifted from local glass walker tribes.”
• “At the center of the Pole of Crystal lies the Godhead, the amalgamated divine Core that is both fetich and central repository of the Great Maker’s will. In this great torus chamber, forests of ores and gems glitter for miles in all directions around the central pillar. Incalculable thought lightning blazes upon the tesseract ceiling of the Design, booming and crackling as chittering hordes of Design Weavers spin the firmament. Ozone hangs thick in the air, perfumed by the smoke of circuit faults like the incense of sacred offerings.”
• Dangers detailed on p. 117.

Places of Note

Om (Metropolis, Omnideific Martyr, Adamant caste)

• “Long ago, the youngest city [was] an Operative created to command the last stands of custodian militias in response to gremlin invasion. Beholden to all Ministers, she served as an emergency resource manager in the war on the Void. When defeat was certain, the Adamant Caste general arrived and led her forces to annihilation, taking out as many of the enemy as possible. Only at the last would she disappear and withdraw to await her next mission.
• The doomed bravery of Omnideific Martyr’s troops inspired her, but it also wore down her gentle soul. When she finally reached an age where she could give up her toil and root in the Pole of Crystal, she consecrated herself directly to the Core. The Divine Ministers accepted this decision, but saw no purpose in populating her streets with their servants. To ease her loneliness and keep her Charms operating at peak efficiency, Om sent her avatar to guide a band of wandering missionaries to her halls and gave them shelter.
• The descendants of those pilgrims have multiplied and thrived in the generations since, venerating Autochthon through rites broadcast by Om. They only barely understand the grace in which they reside, as many suffer amnesia and memory distortion from regular exposure to Om’s anima. Only the demiurges among them perceive with absolute clarity, serving as shaman-mediators to help the colonists attend their city’s needs and remember which buildings are dangerous. Soon, Om plans to Exalt her first assembly of Alchemicals, answerable through her to the recorded dictates of the silent Core. She believes it is long past time that someone watched the watchers.”

People of Note

Thousand-Faceted Nelumbo: 'The Coruscant Sifu,' Adamant Caste

• Nelumbo was catalyzed immediately after the death of Eyes and Wings of the Multitude, an Adamant under Debok Moom. The differences were notable immediately, where Eyes was gung ho and zealous whereas Nelumbo is calm and thoughtful. Still, she is a capable operative, and in the century of her life has mastered no less than seven Celestial styles and four Terrestial ones. She protects people in the Reaches around the Pole of Crystal, beyond the point of Debok Moom to where she even has a shanty in one village.
• But her calm is actually confusion – Eyes was alive for 792 years, so from what Nelumbo can remember Autochthon was thriving, now everything is failing. Calling upon her past lives, she seems to remember the vaguest details of Creation, most notably that there is a level of martial arts not present in Autochthonia.
  • “Thousand-Faceted Nelumbo wears a simple half-cloak over her otherwise nude form. Her hair is carried in formations of crystal over ice-blue skin. Nelumbo has begun to eschew Charms besides the Augmentations, in favor of applying esoteric styles to situations she encounters in the Reaches. Consequently, she has few visible Charms. In combat, she hurls the cloak away, preferring to fight unencumbered by clothing or armor. Her weapon is a crystalburst lance crafted by Debok Moom himself, which she uses in conjunction with Crystal Chameleon Style, her favored martial art.”
• Scroll: Stats on p. 161.
• The signature Adamant caste, decently interesting. Also naked.

Espinoquae: The Ministerial Subroutine for Surveillance, Light and Security (Gamma-7)

• He is 'nearly equal to the weakest of the Divine Ministers in power.'
• “Also known as Espinoquae the Omnipresent, Espinoquae acts as Mog’s chief spymaster. He is aptly suited for the task, for Espinoquae can see through every crystal, every mirror and every reflective surface of any kind. He can see through any and all of these scrying glasses simultaneously, and he can process all the information obtained with ease. Well, with relative ease. Occasionally, even Espinoquae can be distracted and miss something important. It doesn’t happen often, but it happens more than Mog realizes. By directing his spymaster to search constantly for any sign of disloyalty by anyone anywhere in Autochthonia, Mog has stretched Espinoquae dangerously thin, and the sheer volume of data is starting to impair his functioning.
• Desperate to experience a few moments of relative quiet, Espinoquae has begun spending more time and effort than is proper into developing his own cult within the Glorious Luminors of the Brilliant Rapture. He often dotes on especially fervent worshipers, such as by tipping off favored Luminors to particularly important crimes against the state or the Maker. In that way, Espinoquae’s worshipers grow in stature, and his place in their hearts grows as well.
  • Espinoquae usually appears as an imposing figure in flowing, blue robes. A pale blue mirror lodged into a misshapen head serves as his face. In terms of raw power and influence, Espinoquae probably equals the weakest Divine Ministers save for the fact that their status as components of the godhead himself automatically elevates them above a mere subroutine. Espinoquae’s Essence is 7, and his Virtues are Compassion 2, Conviction 5, Temperance 4 and Valor 4. He has 155 motes of Essence and must spend 80 motes to materialize. Espinoquae has a host of Charms pertaining to surveillance and the manipulation of information.”
  • As I mentioned elsewhere, has some hooks that translate decently into Gunstar.

Shodo-Kathan: The Ministerial Subroutine for Thaumaturgic Instruction (Beta-7)

• One of Ku’s less enthusiastic subroutines, Shodo-Kathan is not in charge of thaumaturgy, but thaumaturgy instruction. The distinction is important, for while Shodo-Kathan’s empirical knowledge of thaumaturgy is extensive, he isn’t actually all that good at it. Principally a god of bureaucracy and pedagogy, Shodo-Kathan detests his place in the court of the sinister and capricious Ku and often feels picked on by the other members of Ku’s court. Secretly, Shodo-Kathan hopes that he can somehow be transferred to the court of some other Divine Minister, but given the rigidity of the Autochthonian divine courts, that seems highly unlikely.
  • Shodo-Kathan appears as an elderly man in brown robes, with a skullcap and a long, white beard. He has an Essence of 7 and Virtues of Compassion 2, Conviction 2, Temperance 3 and Valor 2. He has 95 motes of Essence and must spend 60 to materialize. Shodo-Kathan knows a number of Charms pertaining to learning and knowledge, as well as the First and Third Excellencies for Lore and Occult. On a successful (Intelligence + Occult) roll with a difficulty equal to the required tier, Shodo-Kathan can instantly recall how to perform any thaumaturgic ritual for three motes. That does not mean that he can automatically perform such a ritual with any particular skill, merely that he knows it and can teach it to others.”
  • Bleh to his feelings, and Ku's dead anyway. Not a terrible subroutine idea, though.

Somairot: The Ministerial Subroutine for Prophecy (Beta-6)

• “Installed into the service of Kadmek just 500 years ago, Somairot is the goddess of prophecy. Kadmek himself is the god of prophecy and is the chief disseminator of visions and predictions. Toriamas assists him in such matters, but he tends to disparage Somairot’s talents and treat her with condescension. Currently, the two are in constant conflict over the Seal of Eight Divinities. Kadmek has cast numerous prophecies since the Eight Nations began exploring the possibility of opening the Seal, and he has concluded that interactions with the world beyond the Machine God would ultimately represent a net positive for Autochthonia.
• Somairot strenuously disagrees. Her own scrying reflects a constantly escalating potential for disaster arising from any breach of the Seal, one that threatens the Maker’s very survival. Contemptuous of Somairot’s histrionic predictions, Kadmek has forbidden her to forward any of her own prophecies as warnings to any mortals or even to the other Divine Ministers. Fearful of being embarrassed by Somairot’s predictions whether they are accurate or not, Kadmek suppresses any discussion of visions that conflict with his own.
  • Somairot has Essence 6, and her Virtues are Compassion 4, Conviction 4, Temperance 3 and Valor 4. Her Essence pool is 120, and she must spend 70 motes to materialize. In addition to her skills as a seer, Somairot has an encyclopedic knowledge of occult matters pertaining to prophecy. She theorizes that the differences between her visions and those of Kadmek arise from Kadmek’s failure to account for beings other than the Autochthonians who normally exist outside of the Design of Autochthon or the Loom of Fate.”
  • Decently interesting hook that translates into Gunstar with ease.

Glasswalkers

• “Few humans find their way to the Pole of Crystal, and even these live on the periphery of its splendors for fear of giving offense to the mighty exmachina who dwell nearest to the slumbering Core. The glass walkers are a peculiarly beautiful race with glittering fiber-optic hair, bright jeweled eyes and organic mineral studs growing from each chakra. They live an ascetic existence communing with Autochthon, yet not really understanding his nature any better for that crude communion. The primitive crystal clans are quick to attack intruders who fail to show proper deference to the holy land on which they live.
• After (Willpower rating) years, the mineral growths on adolescent glass walkers spread over their flesh as an articulated second skin that hums and chimes in accordance with the unknowable beauty of Autochthon’s somnolent genius. The soft inner music is at once fulfilling and addictive, keeping mature members from venturing into the cold silence beyond their native pole.
• Some adults experience the song of the Great Maker more fully and become alchemical demiurges as they age. These Anointed Ones receive invitation to attend the Adamant Caste and labor in the glittering paradise fortresses of the Chosen, preparing the miracles with which the Servitors of Autochthon enact the will of the Divine Ministers. For security reasons, memories of this glorious educated servitude receive cleansing in death so that future lives cannot recall time spent among the legendary Caste.”
  • Mutations on p. 125.

Pole of Lighting

• Alchemicals: “The most energetic and capricious of Autochthon’s elementals, lightning elementals regulate most of the Maker’s internal power systems. Many lightning elementals work in and among humans, providing ready-made power sources for their more sophisticated technological devices (although most metropolitan power needs are satisfied simply by tapping the existing electrical conduits that represent the Maker’s own neural network). Clever and eccentric, those lightning elementals assigned metropoli are chosen for their ability to work well with humans despite the excitable and unpredictable nature of the electricity they represent. Those lightning elementals who lack such social skills are instead dispatched to conduit mechanisms in the Far Reaches where there is little chance they will electrocute bystanders for slights real or imagined.
• Lightning elementals most often appear as yellow, blue or purple arcs of electricity with no defined shape. A few do possess a more coherent form, but only powerful elementals who burn so brightly that observers must wear goggles to approach or risk blindness.
  • The progenitor of lightning elementals is Bodara, the Mother of Lightning, a vaguely humanoid giantess standing more than three miles tall and formed of purest electricity. Her personal electrostatic field is deadly to any living thing that comes within a few hundred yards. Bodara is bound to the Elemental Pole of Electricity by magnetic force. Autochthon designed that elemental pole so that its magnetic polarity would be the inverse of Bodara’s, leaving the two inextricably bound together. The Chief Regulator of the lightning elementals is Mog, who uses the often-deadly elementals as just one more weapon in his personal arsenal.”
• “In the Pole of Lightning, churning dynamos along the walls rotate in opposing stacked rings, each adorned with spires that conduct the constant world-searing arcs to the appropriate circuits to fuel the Great Maker’s neuroelectric grid. Lightning does not strike everywhere at once, but the omnipresent risk of sudden vaporization keeps away most intruders.”
• “A diverse assortment of exmachina, elementals and biomechanoids populate the Poles of Lightning and Steam, each respectively customized for survival in their extreme climates. These regions are so inhospitable that their denizens have no default programming to attack intruders; the assumption is that anything which isn’t killed in a matter of moments probably belongs.
• Some natives of the Pole of Lightning boast total immunity to the burning arcs that crash through their habitat, but most are exceedingly nimble creatures whose defensive reflexes allow them to sidestep the bolts with inches to spare. The gremlins that infest this area are power-hungry parasites that mangle emitter rods and sink their pronged chelicerae into any untended junction box they can find. While most humans cannot hope to survive more than a few minutes in the open, the mutant arcspawn are dexterous enough to travel through the Pole of Lightning and find cave-like refuge in the shielded relay vaults scattered throughout.
• Hazards of p. 118.

Arcspawn

• “The Pole of Lightning borders on uninhabitable, not only for the obvious hazard of metal-vaporizing lightning strikes coruscating through most areas, but also the scarcity of nutrient veins. What few human colonies exist are small tribes of mutants lairing in shielded junction boxes, sending out their strongest warrior-gatherers through portals into the Reaches of the Pole of Metal to bring back food and supplies.
• Fortunately, arcspawn need only half the food and water of normal humans as a result of partially-metabolizing the ionizing radiance of their home. Away from such conditions, their bodies struggle to keep up and require much more food. This hunger alone would make them unwelcome in the Octet, even if they did not also give away their heritage with strangely lithe bodies and uniquely-patterned bioluminescent skin. There is unmistakable beauty to the way these delicate creatures bob and pirouette between surging arcs of plasma without getting struck, but it is a strange beauty abhorrent to the orthodoxy of the Eight Nations.”
  • Mutations on p. 123

The Pole of Steam

Alchemicals: “Steam holds an unusual place among the six elements of Autochthonia. Although it is as dangerous as any of the other five elements, the Autochthonians revere steam as an element of life itself. Steam tubes provide warmth in the cold tunnels of the Near Reaches. Condensed steam provides much of the fresh, potable water used by the humans for survival. Steam sterilizes and is an integral part of the cutting-edge medical practices that give the Autochthonians a degree of health unimaginable to the peoples of Creation. As Chief Regulator of Steam, Runel is venerated in a way that the other Ministers who regulate the other elements are not.

• The Elemental Pole of Steam itself is completely uninhabitable for living creatures. The primal steam of that place is superheated to a degree that would nearly vaporize living tissue on contact. The areas just outside the elemental pole are more amenable. Steam is regularly released from the upper levels of the pole, and as it cools, the areas surrounding it are constantly drenched in a warm, refreshing rainfall comparable to that of Creation’s rain forests. Much of Autochthonia’s water elemental population lives near here. Slaves to the local steam elementals, they constantly toil to direct the rains into special collection vents so that the fresh water can be conveyed to populated areas without contamination. In the patropoli, steam elementals provide both heat and water. Thermal jets provide energy for whole populations, while condensation provides water for the vast hydroponic gardens that help sustain the Autochthonian lifestyle.
• All of these processes are overseen by steam elementals. Although they are potentially as dangerous as any elemental can be, most steam elementals are accustomed to dealing with mortals and are able to regulate their own external temperatures. Indeed, urban steam elementals might more accurately be referred to as “water vapor elementals,” as most of these beings are as cool to the touch as a morning mist. Despite their utility and their urbanized backgrounds, few steam elementals are integrated into mortal societies in any meaningful way. Beings of vapor and mist, steam elementals do not understand the physics that act upon beings of flesh and bone, and more than a few steam elementals are quietly repulsed by the squishy, heavy bodies of the mortals to whom they have been subordinated.
  • The progenitor of the steam elementals is Heshassa, a genderless cloud of superheated steam that resides within a hollow column of orichalcum at the heart of the Elemental Pole of Steam. Veins of pure copper stretching thousands of miles connect the Elemental Poles of Lightning and Steam, keeping the water vapor within the latter as hot as possible. The orichalcum column is only 10 yards in diameter but more than 20 miles long, and Heshassa, being a creature of expanding gas, fills it completely. A contemplative creature, Heshassa has spent millennia meditating on its existence as a being that could occupy a potentially limitless volume but is constrained by an unbreakable container. At the base of the column lies a tiny spigot. When Runel requires a new steam elemental, she attaches an adamant bottle to the spigot and opens it for an instant, allowing a tiny jet of Heshassa’s essence to escape into the bottle. This primeval steam is then used to forge a new elemental.”
• “[T]he Pole of Steam is roughly a quarter filled with high-pressure water kept boiling by lightning arcs flashing through their depths. Anything not instantly flash-fried by the scalding sea must further contend with city-smashing pressure and typhoon whirlpools of pneumatic currents. The steam atop this sea is only marginally less pressurized and scalding, but still more than capable of crushing and cooking anyone caught in it.”
• “The great churning sea of the Pole of Steam is home to vast swarms of jellyfish-like creatures that maintain the health of their environment by servicing machinery and devouring toxic impurities for further processing elsewhere. Gremlin versions of these tentacled custodians grow irregularly as colossal hydras with dozens of mouths and hundreds of barbed tendrils. Every healthy spirit slain by these monsters becomes part of its killer, its anatomy fused to the tangled ends of forked tentacles and puppeteered as prosthetic organs. Steamblooded mutants created by exposure to the region do not live in the ocean itself, but rather in the sauna-like archipelagos of cooling facilities tethered to the walls. These complexes use blue jade refrigeration rods to extract drinkable water, some of which is mixed with poisonous chemicals and predigested by synthetic biocrystalline coral elementals to produce nutrient slurry.”
• “The mechanisms that distribute steam and recycle water also provide shortcuts through which steamblooded families navigate Autochthonia. Without these portals, each colony of would re-main trapped in its own processor-island, unable to survive a moment in the sea outside their home. With them, they travel the world and maintain a small black market economy throughout much of the Octet.
• Each portal links to a single destination somewhere in the Realm of Brass and Shadow as a two-way connection, bridging the intervening space through induced adjacency. The destinations shuffle occasionally when recalibrated by biotectonic drift, so regular travel is the only way to keep current on the state of the network. Portals also do not go everywhere, as their placement is based on the autonomic needs of pneumatic systems rather than the convenience of would-be travelers.
  • Teleportation is not as simple as finding the right pipe and jumping in. The portal only opens for matter moving at the right speed and trajectory, so a wrong move means travelers enter the actual vein system they leaped into. Mercifully, death comes swiftly inside the high-speed airless veins of pressurized system (Damage 6L/action; Trauma 4L). With training, portal jumpers only face brief scalding before emerging at the distant destination point (Damage 2L; Trauma 4L).
  • Recognizing a safe steam portal for what it is requires a difficulty 6 (Intelligence + Survival) roll. Those with a specialty in Steam Portals reduce this to difficulty 3. Steamblooded guard this specialty as a family secret and do not teach outsiders. There is no way to know where a portal goes without trying it out, but a successful roll detemines the destination is somewhere a human could survive. Engaging the portal mechanism requires a (Wits + Athletics) roll at the same difficulties as identifying one, including the benefits of appropriate specialization. It is possible to engage a portal leading to a deadly location if the mechanism is engaged without verifying its safety.
  • Portal circuits to and from the Pole of Lightning work similarly, but “riding the lightning” is much harder to accomplish. The base difficulty for gauging safety and using the system is 10, reduced to 5 for those with a specialty in Lightning Portals. Failure to jump correctly means the character is electrocuted by a massive surge of power and cannot avoid it via evasion (Damage 20L; Trauma 3).”
• Hazards on p. 118.

Steamblooded

• The Pole of Steam is even harder to survive than the Pole of Lightning, inasmuch as most of it is filled with a boiling sea. However, there are also condensation engines that protrude into the Pole, in which the close proximity of industrial coolants keeps temperatures down to mere sauna levels. Small tribes of steamblooded dwell in these engine complexes, traveling by way of portal ducts that metaspatially connect the survivable archipelago of subsystems.
• Steamblooded appear mostly human, but with hairless skin that has an unnatural plastic smoothness to it. This is easily concealed with clothing. Additionally, all wounds that bleed foam and hiss with the sound of escaping pressure. The mutants are fonts of limitless vigor and quickly regenerate from scalding, at the tragic cost of halving their lifespan as overtaxed metabolisms burn out. Steamblooded tunnel folk use their secret knowledge of Autochthonia’s portal ducts to evade the Octet and maintain a limited black market between cities. To say that all steamblooded vagrants are thieves and capitalists is a stereotype, but the epithets apply more often than not.
  • Mutations on p. 126

Pole of Oil

• Alchemicals: “Oil elementals rarely maintain a consistent form and usually appear as a mobile blob that can be amber, clear or jet black. If compelled to interact with humans, an oil elemental is capable of shaping itself into a crudely humanoid form, but the elementals dislike doing so and prefer to treat with others in their natural state. Among their own kind, oil elementals are surprisingly sociable, and the courts that congregate near the Elemental Pole of Oil are often salons of wit and panache floating serenely among the vast oceans of crude oil that make up Autochthon’s upper third. Few Autochthonians ever experience this side of oil elemental society, however. Most oil elementals who interact with humans in any manner are those who have been assigned to dwell far away from the elemental pole as punishment for some social faux pas. Accordingly, such elementals are free of the forced politeness that characterizes the Oil Courts but also usually embittered by the circumstances of their exile. As a result, most commonly encountered oil elementals are surly to the point of hostility.
  • The progenitor of the oil elementals is Susharra, the Empress of Black Waters. The most proactive of the elemental progenitors, Susharra is a veritable ocean of blackest crude oil of indeterminate size but usually possessing a volume of about 20 million gallons. She spends her time floating serenely through the vast ocean of oils and elixirs of the Elemental Pole of Oil. When her path takes her into the vicinity of the various Oil Courts, she is feted like a queen. When Noi requires a new oil elemental, he comes to her like a suitor, plies her, seduces her and takes their offspring for his own purposes.”
• “The chemical ocean of the Pole of Oil is the single-largest body of liquid within Autochthonia, encompassing a fifth of the world’s total volume. Most of the oil is relatively pure, existing as a viscous amber-tinted liquid. Encountering different colors or opacity indicates the presence of other chemicals, sometimes as catalytic currents and often as pollutants. While the entire ocean system churns constantly as a result of thermal imbalances and continuous chemical reactions, surface tension “walls” between areas of highly-divergent substances can sometimes maintain semi-stable seas for years or even decades.”
• “With virtually no breathable air and composed of substances ranging from mildly irritating to instantly lethal, the lightless Pole of Oil is extremely hostile to organic life. Temperatures vary widely in places, but most of the oceans share the bitter cold of Creation’s benthic depths. Accordingly, free-swimming denizens require adaptations to breathe oil as air, consume toxic chemicals for food, withstand intense pressure and navigate the lightless currents. There are things that do all this, wretches warped by the Void into eyeless, bleached monstrosities with razor-edged fins and gaping maws that scream echolocation clicks into the murk. Above these mutant parasites, gremlins combining features of sharks and cephalopods dominate the seas as roving super-predators.
• By contrast, the spiritual ecology of the Pole of Oil matches the diversity found elsewhere in Autochthonia. Large ovoid custodians reminiscent of whales serve as mobile refineries, imbibing raw chemicals and storing processed goods in holding bladders. When these fill, the creatures dock with seafloor towers or drop sealed pods for retrieval by myriads of crab-like tenders waiting below. Smaller custodians scout for suitable materials in wide-ranging schools, reporting back to a single base factory or scattered transmission buoys.
• Less hideous organic life endures in the same fashion as residents of the Pole of Steam, hiding out in air-filled towers rising from the ocean floor and establishing ramshackle arcologies tethered to the Pole of Metal. Braver colonies live nomadic lives aboard refinery whales. Clever colonists learn to jury-rig their host, gaining limited control over a few systems (like navigation). Often, they are merely passengers, praying their home will dock for air and nutrients before supplies runs out. Most inhabitants are oilkin mutants, still closely resembling their parent species while adapted to better handle the toxins that inevitably leak into their stale air. Only the inhabitants of Loran enjoy full protection from the mutagenic Essence that would otherwise add the city’s populace to the ranks of the oilkin.”
• Hazards on p. 119.

Oilkin

• “Seemingly normal in outward appearance, oilkin have black sticky blood that smells faintly of tar and greasy, rainbow-sheen sweat that is slippery like industrial lubricants. Their physiochemical adaptations make them more resistant to toxins and other chemical hazards, but they are dependent on drinking oil. Thus, they must still stick to living in air-filled biomechanoids and custodians or the jury-rigged arcologies of sealed factories jutting up from the ocean floor, intermittently traveling down into the Pole of Metal to forage or trade.
• Prejudice against the oilkin is less intense than other polar mutants face, chiefly due to the lack of obvious external signifiers. A surprising number live in the lowest rungs of Loran society, descended from tunnel tribes integrated into the populace during the city’s origin pilgrimage. Others picked up the mutations as a result of a lifetime spent working outside the safety of” Loran’s life-support Charms. Given how dirty such jobs are, some mutants go unnoticed for years, while others remain officially ignored so long as they keep their condition to themselves.”
  • Mutations on p. 126.

Pole of Smoke

• Alchemicals: “The elementals of smoke represent more than just the noxious fumes of Autochthon’s underbelly. They also represent the forces of entropy, decay, malice and malfunction. Many mortals view smoke elementals with nearly as much dread as gremlins, for the elementals are a living poison, inimical to all life. Smoke elementals invariably manifest as columns of black fumes barely coalesced into a coherent form. Usually that form is a humanoid one, but some smoke elementals appear as great beasts of choking gases or simply as deadly black clouds. Many smoke elementals have an affinity for the emotion of guilt, and legends among the Autochthonians speak of smoke elementals picking up the scent of crimes committed from miles away and stalking the criminals to their deaths.
• Despite their baleful nature and reputation, however, smoke elementals are generally loyal to Autochthon and the Divine Ministers. Then again, the Minister assigned to regulate the smoke elementals is Ku, which does little to allay fears about them. As Chief Regulator of Smoke, Ku holds dominion over several lesser elemental dragons of smoke, each of which can generate enough poisonous gas to sterilize an entire metropolis. For the most part, these venomous creatures have been deployed only against blight zones, but their effectiveness is more than enough to give the other Ministers pause.
  • The progenitor of the smoke elementals is the great death-cloud, Malancari, which, weighed down by her own malignance, has sunk to the lowest depths of the Elemental Pole of Smoke. When Ku requires a new smoke elemental, he must brave the deepest, most wretched depths of Autochthon’s underbelly and suck a portion of Malancari into his own lungs before returning to the upper world to exhale his new servant. Malancari resents these intrusions greatly and would dearly love the means to poison the Chief Regulator of Smoke, just as she would dearly love to spread her poisoned kiss to everything within Autochthonia, including the Great Maker himself.”
• “Although Autochthonia is a spherical world, the primary vector of gravity does not orient toward the core. Instead, that force pushes everything down from the Pole of Oil through the Pole of Metal, gradually filtering all refuse and waste products to fall into the vast junkyard hell of the Pole of Smoke beneath. The bowl occupies a fifth of the titan body’s volume, the largest open space in the entire realm. Thick fog banks cover the sky in choking toxic fumes, dozens and sometimes hundreds of miles thick. Long spires pierce the murk from the machinery above like jagged inverted skyscrapers.
• Far below lies a seemingly endless plain of broken metal, torn scraps of artificial rubber, glass shards and other industrial waste. Thousands of chutes in the ceiling empty this detritus onto the cratered hell, building irregular towers of garbage that would climb to the sky if underground seas of acid did not constantly dissolve the lowest layers. While the barrage of falling junk is more or less constant, the clouds also give frequent rise to sizzling typhoons and maelstroms that pour acid rain onto the cratered ruins below. These solvents pool in lakes and eventually drain through smoking tunnels leading down into the sea. Lightning and pyroclastic hail accompany the worst of these storms.
• Immense veins of varicolored jade climb the walls like so much ivy, pumping the slurry of raw materials extracted by solvent digestion back up into healthier parts of Autochthonia. The peristaltic undulations of these wide pipes makes the background waver like a desert mirage even in the rare moments where the smoke clears enough to see that far.
• Not all wreckage melts, of course. Countless artifacts lie mixed in with the rubble, some broken but many not. Furthermore, the junkyard itself offers such a glorious abundance of resources that it could end the shortages of the Octet if only there were some way to reliably transport it. Were Xexas to develop stable trade routes, it could become the seed of a new nation and likely the dominant economic power in Autochthonia.
• Some visitors don’t come as prospectors, but as crusaders. The Pole of Smoke holds the front lines of the war against the Void, so forces loyal to the Great Maker find no shortage of enemies to destroy. More than one Alchemical strategist has theorized that a cure for the Machine God’s sickness must begin with total genocide of all gremlins infesting the titan’s lungs.”
• “The Pole of Smoke is a place of endless and absolute ruin in a constant cycle of destruction and renewal. The sickness that ravages the Great Maker afflicts all of his body, but nowhere is the power of chaos and entropy more immediately evident. Whatever the pole might once have been like at the dawn of time, now it is a scoured wasteland inimical to all life.
• This is not to say that the Pole of Smoke lacks inhabitants, only that the Great Maker never intended to populate it. The fact that anything endures such conditions without losing all hope and greeting the rain is a testament to life’s tenacity. Were the Machine God awake, perhaps he might find some distant hope in the example.
• Humans cannot realistically survive a week breathing the poisoned air of the Pole of Smoke, and that’s assuming they avoid low-hanging clouds or open pits belching fumes as deadly as nerve gas. While the city of Xexas filters its air enough that inhabitants only suffer respiratory illness at 5% above Octet levels, citizens planning to leave the sealed urban complex for more than a few hours bring along breath mask artifacts or full encounter suits. Even with a reliable air supply, travelers must also contend with the absence of nutrient veins and the resulting need to carry sufficient food and water.
• Only the ashbreather mutants and their monstrous offshoots avoid these issues with adaptations that let them eat metal scrap and breathe smoke. Many cockroaches and rats possess similar or even more extensive mutations, allowing them to thrive in the junkyard wilderness.

Mortals sometimes fall into waste pipes and find themselves flushed all the way down to the Pole of Smoke. However, those that don’t die en route typically splatter on sharpened rubble at terminal velocity after several miles of free-fall. Spirits and biomechanoids are often hardier, giving them a chance to limp away from the craters in which they landed and begin a new life in the wastes. Those that don’t flee their entry craters risk being eaten alive by roving ashbreathers or tortured by gremlins until they break and embrace the Void.

• Arrivals typically join existing colonies of displaced and unfortunate spirits, dwelling in shanty towns assembled from available scrap until the rains melt the roofs and the residents must start over. There isn’t much hope for lost gods, as the hierarchy of the Divine Ministers does not waste resources on rescue missions for anything less than one of their direct vassals. Escape is possible, but difficult enough that it’s regarded as more of a legend than a realistic goal. The social orders created in the shantytowns parody the order of the Great Maker’s pantheons, placing the strong above the weak with a rigidity that would make Cecelyne proud.
• More gremlins live in the Pole of Smoke than in any single Blight Zone, organized into competing scavenger clans that prey upon healthy spirits when they can and war with one another when such prey is scarce. Given that gremlins outnumber such prey three to one, civil war is fairly commonplace. Cloudbursts interrupt these conflicts, sending all sides scurrying for shelter before they are annihilated.
• It can sometimes prove difficult to distinguish smoke elementals spawned by the pole from the gremlins infesting it, as they tend toward monstrous and dangerous forms. On the whole, while individual elementals are often more dangerous than any gremlin, the gremlin hordes present a much greater risk due to numbers and sheer viciousness. There is little love between the two types of monsters, as smoke elementals embody physical symptoms of Autochton’s malady rather than his madness.”
• Hazards on p. 121.

Ashbreathers

• “Ashbreathers are a fearsome offshoot of humanity native to the Pole of Smoke. Their thick scarred hides resist acid where the rain bleached their flesh and burnt them strong, letting them weather sudden cloudbursts as they scuttle for cover. Rows of sharp steel teeth rend metal, the only food their toxic gullets can process. Although magical materials are too hard to eat, the Essence-infused bodies of exmachina offer a rare and coveted delicacy.
• Ashbreathers breathe poisoned smoke as pure air and slowly choke in clean air, a fact that has largely confined them to the brutal landfill that spawned them. They roam the Pole of Smoke in nomadic tribes, sheltering in makeshift shanty towns made of local scrap. Their hunters stalk weak and damaged spirits lost in the junkyard, though they can subsist on a bitter diet of gnawed wreckage during lean times.
• Ashbreather tribes intermittently war and trade with Xexas, but they are not tolerated within the city. Scavenger crews operate on a rotating-roster system in order to limit time spent outside the safety of the city’s protective Charms. On the rare occasions that dental inspections reveal teeth darkening with steel, the afflicted are exiled and somberly added to the city’s memorial wall.”
  • Mutations on p. 125. Worse mutated Ashbreathers are known as Ruin-Eaters, and any ashbreather who subsides mainly on gremlins has a chance of becoming a Ruin-Eater with Gremlin Syndrome.