Ships hover in vacuum, bathed in smoke and coated in banners and medallions. Their pilots scrutinize the charts painted on the inside of their hollow world in glowing gold and white. Laborers load them with treasures, ancestral relics, and carefully-tuned air rifles.
Navigators are a semi-nomadic society (or, some would say, a subculture of the more numerous local Arcologists, who are in many ways similar) - in the Black Season, where their world of the Volume is airless, they venture out through mile-wide vents, gathering food, trading with their neighbors, and angling for glory. In the Blue Season, where clouds return to the Volume, they conglomerate in their three Assembly clans, each one working on a forever-unfinished ship-city, meant to hold dozens of generations of future Navigators on a trip, millions of miles long, to a dreamed-of heaven.
These assemblies (Elegiast, Cloudspinner, and Sidereal, in order of size and age) are broken up into septs - ~30 person extended families, each with a ship of their own. Player characters are the Select (chosen advisor-arbitrators) of these septs, competing for the treasure and fame that will have them acclaimed as Imperious (a tyrant, in power for only a single Blue Season).
Sept-vessels are treated as Districts in the domain game (descended, as the rest of these GLOG domain games are, from Phlox's work in Ten Blade Demigod). Each one has a Level (marking size and population; ~30 adults at level 1, doubling each level afterwards) and a set of possessions:
- Weaponry represents the sept's preparedness for external raiding violence - the Select's ability to use force internally is severely limited.
- Trade Goods provide a more peaceful way to interact with strangers.
- Reliquaries reinforce the sept's fame among the Navigators.
- Mysteries are treasures of the megastructure, numinous paraphernalia, and other assorted Weird Garbage.
Vessels also have a moiety - either Left-Handed or Right-Handed. Ships of the same moiety are expected, all else being equal, to treat each other well. Think of it as a reaction roll bonus with people who are otherwise strangers.
Septs of the Elegiast
Impermanence - a sept of exiles, newly returned to the fold. Their ship is scarred and empty; when the Samara captured them, it wasn’t without a fight, nor without looting. The family of Impermanence still nurses a grudge - one they would kill over.
Right-Handed, Level 2: Trade Goods 1 (bare necessities, a pity-gift from the Samara)
The Select of this vessel is called Misbegotten.
The famed ancestor of this sept is Amyas, who was Select when they were exiled - without his words, the sentence was certain to be death.
Certifier - according to its sept, a blessed machine. Glimpsed, years ago, by some kind of hovering brass sphere that scrutinized the Certifier’s crew with a piercing light. Some among them think it a sign - the sphere the vessel of some ancestral spirit.
Left-Handed, Level 1: Trade Goods 1 (induction forge), Reliquaries 1 (engraved marks of the piercing light)
The Select of this vessel is called Observed.
The famed ancestor of this sept is Ingalsinde, who spent three dozen years decoding Annunciate, the language of the earth.
Samara - a thin, needle-like Vessel, crewed by a thin, needle-like sept. A favorite for the Imperious of Assembly Elegiast to choose as guards, year after year. Killers of men. A year ago they returned the exile-sept of the Impermanence to the community - though the warrior Prothade and his followers think they should have let the ship bleed out, and the exiles suffocate. He has never been Select - but that won’t stop him from arguing with every decision you make.
Left-Handed, Level 2: Weaponry 2 (veteran infantry)
The Select of this vessel is called Paladin.
The famed ancestor of this sept is Quataryna, who guides the dead to rest with her.
Quadrireme - an aged ship, festooned with hanging banners, chains of charms, and shining icons. The hero-ulfeðnar Sicleramna dragged the sept to glory, but now he lies ill - and he says, in his deliriums, that he can hear something, crawling under the ship.
Right-Handed, Level 1: Weaponry 1 (Sicleramna’s students), Mysteries 1 (a stowaway?)
The Select of this vessel is called Forerunner.
The famed ancestor of this sept is Parva, who they say was the first Arcologist to ascend to the sky, some hundreds of years ago.
Septs of the Cloudspinner
Viridescent - an antenna-crusted warship. In years past, its spinal coilgun was the envy of the Navigators and the breaker of cities. But its capacitors were burnt out before you were born, to shatter the spine of a ship-eating nightmare. Now the sept lingers in decline.
Right-Handed, Level 2: Reliquaries 1 (fragment of the Ship-Eater), Mysteries 2 (the great cannon)
The Select of this vessel is called Trigonometrist.
The famed ancestor of this sept is Lantier, who was first to meet the dome-arcology 12 Marbles.
Bewarer - a painted vessel, covered in map-fables; miniature versions of those coating the surface of the Volume. Its last Select, Onesyme, who was killed by the Determinant - starting an open war between the two septs.
Left-Handed, Level 2: Weaponry 1 (feud-sharpened), Reliquaries 1 (the atlas)
The Select of this vessel is called Teacher.
The famed ancestor of this sept is Gaufroi, who drew the first map to the Ghostfields.
Arbitrage - a long, segmented vessel, like a great centipede, trailing tanks and containers to hold what it has pulled from the walls of the earth; but some of its holds have laid empty for years, and become overgrown with hanging vines. Its sept has taken this in stride.
Right-Handed, Level 1: Trade Goods 1 (ship-grown agriculture)
The Select of this vessel is called Appraiser.
The famed ancestor of this sept is Isambaud, who once led Arbitrage in a series of raids on the cities of the Spire.
Listener - a new-made vessel. Its people are celebratory, and its halls are shining. Crewed by refugees from the empty shell of the arcology 54 North, slowly adapting to the thunder and glory of Navigation.
Left-Handed, Level 1: Trade Goods 1 (Arcology-wrought fabric), Reliquaries 1 (shrine to Sadrabald)
The Select of this vessel is called Stargazer - as was the ruler of 54 North.
The famed ancestor of this sept is split; both Sadrabald, a saint of the arcologies, and Yzabé, whose descendants form the born-Navigator core of the sept, are revered.
Septs of the Sidereal
Determinant - a ship that writhes with life. Many-jointed arms of quicksilver sprout from it and sink into it, and during quiet nights it sings wordlessly to itself. Its antagonistic sept takes pride in its ability to claw at their rival vessels - even after sparking a great feud with Bewarer.
Left-Handed, Level 1: Weaponry 1 (feud-sharpened), Mysteries 1 (the Quicksilver Panoply)
The Select of this vessel is called Sharp-Toothed.
The famed ancestor of this sept is Iolente, who wore a fragment of the Panoply on her wrist.
Aliment - a far-wandering vessel, with a close relationship with some factions of the city of the Spire, to the south. A young faction of transhumanists hope to adopt a set of Spiral ways - in particular, the device or method high-status Spirals use to view and sort the thoughts and emotions of their fellows.
Right-Handed, Level 1, Trade Goods 1 (Spiral exports)
The Select of this vessel is called Patron, as are the rulers of the Spire.
The famed ancestor of this sept is Eschive, who was mysteriously poisoned.
Palaver - deep in the ship, in an engraved shrine of platinum and green plastic, lay the relics of Typhenet, common ancestor to all of Assembly Sidereal. Others come to it on pilgrimage, bringing gifts to the sept and gifts to the dead.
Left-Handed, Level 2: Reliquaries 2 (Typhenet’s grave)
The Select of this vessel is called Mummifier.
The famed ancestor of this sept is not Typhenet (they say they would never be so prideful), but Kadvael, one of her companions and the retriever of her body.
Together - the greatest ship of Assembly Sidereal. A pair of apotropaic eyes stare from its prow, and its hold heaves with loot. Its sept is pious, artistically-minded, and very, very, proud. They say that not a single panel of Sidereal doesn’t have the fingerprints of one of their sept on it.
Right-Handed, Level 2: Trade Goods 2 (paintings, carvings, and ship parts)
The Select of this vessel is called Sculptor.
- The famed ancestor of this sept is Typhenet - the sept seethes with entitlement and wrath that the Palaver holds her artifacts.
Treasures
1. Songline to Hell - the fable of Melisende, who in ages past ventured to a nightmare; a world of alkaline sands and white-hot tungsten pillars. Her descendants still seek to explore that place - and by listening to her words, you can find it.
2. Bottle of Vitiate - when poured on metal, it reacts viciously. Steel writhes and reaches, then flakes away as dust. Enough of it to open a 100x100 foot hole. It is rumored that there are methods and catalysts to let it turn water into more of itself.
3. Weightless Ants - two handfuls of them, little crawling lights. They follow whistled instructions, and can switch their weight to a total of negative 100 pounds at will.
4. Stranger’s Polearm - a +1 medium ranseur made of a magnetic alloy. It may be used to disarm at range, and can hold the weight of a person. The stranger came from somewhere to the south. She spoke to the walls and they moved. She spoke to the air and it froze. She killed a dozen ulfeðnar and two dozen skirmishers before she was, eventually, laid low.
5. Warleader’s Banner - any words you say while holding the banner are heard by everyone who could see you, as if you were right next to them.
6. Acledulf’s Song - an unnatural, tuneless, clipped sequence of unknown syllables. At its deafening crescendo both you and a target of your choice are struck by lightning.
7. Teal Incense - burn it atop your body in a closed room. Breathe in - it hurts, but do not worry. Breathe out. Breathe in - you don’t feel it any more, see? Breathe out; then open the room to hard vacuum. You will immediately pass out. But you will move anyway. For ten minutes you have an extra attack each turn, move twice as fast, and are not susceptible to pain, suffocation, injury, or fear. At the end of the duration you become immobilized with exhaustion. You have six doses.
8. Divination Vault - captured in a raid, along with a painted foreign augur. Once a year, enough of its signs are collected to answer a question.
9. Alchemic Crucible - once per season, this car-sized machine consumes vast amounts of hydrogen and turns it into strange things - ashes, or soft metals, or poison liquids. Its controls, if they work at all, are incomprehensible.
10. Whistling Beacon - a 30-sided shape in white plastic. It is solid except to bare skin, which moves through it as if it were water. At its core is a solid piece, the size of an eye. Crush it and the beacon howls through the EM bands. Living machines will swarm to it in their hundreds, blind with rage.
11. Whitefire Engine - a tremendous device that provides electricity and propulsion using a network of strange burning metal rods. With the standard supply of hydrogen fuel, your vessel can move at twice the standard speed. Please don’t do the other thing that you thought of as soon as you recognized what this is. Or do - I’m not your boss.
12. Blessed Carapace - protects, as any spacesuit would, from vacuum, poison, and similar. Acts as medium armor. The blessings upon it declare that you will not die in a shipwreck. Now - after the shipwreck, you're on your own, and it doesn't say anything about getting maimed.
