The Eagle King

"Markandeya ORACLE "by Nisachar
http://iririv.deviantart.com/favourites/#/d56bb8m

The Eagle King is enthroned within a prison labyrinth buried deep within the heart of the machine world of Altair IV. While most travelers to the Altair system are there to visit the Imperial Throneworld on Altair III, a few brave or foolhardy pilgrims and explorers risk the soul-destroying subterranean machinery of Altair IV to seek illumination. They are usually searching for clues to the location of the Eagle King. Often these delvers fall prey to the machines' magnified projections of their own flawed egos.

This ancient man-machine hybrid is said to possess oracular powers rivaling those of the Imperial Sibylline Order. Some believe the Eagle King's presence on Altair IV precedes humanity entirely. Perhaps he was one of the ancient architects or guardians of the machine world?

Others claim that this giant was one of the first Imperial Sovereigns, enlightened yet cursed to remain forever on the Great Wheel by his long-forgotten transgressions . Here he undergoes endless cycles of birth, destruction, and rebirth deep within the realm of the great machines. He is never in the same prison labyrinth twice.

All revelation has its price, so seek out the Eagle King forewarned. Find him, before the great machines drive you mad. Find him, and experience the revelations you seek. Find him, but escape again before the Great Causeway withdraws, casting you into the endless machinepit below his throne.

OGL MECHANICS

Someone who reaches the Eagle King's prison-labyrinth may ask the Eagle King a single question about the past, present, future, the universe, themselves, or someone/something else. Asking this question creates a new bond with the subject of the query. The GM will provide the player with a new Aspect, which  replaces one of the character's existing Aspects. The player chooses which existing Aspect is lost.

Roll 1d6 to determine the nature of the Aspect:

• On a 1 or 2, a Great Destiny is created (positive Aspect)
• On a 3 or 4, a Curse is levied (negative Aspect)
• On a 5 or 6, a Portent is created (an ambiguous Aspect which can be interpreted as either positive or negative)

The Spindles: Origin Story I

Art by Juan Ochoa

This is the first in a series of posts on a new class of superscience artifact. The Spindles are used by the leaders of the military orders of the Empire, as well as by other august personages of high rank or special portfolio (hint, PCs!). The Spindles are also found in other regions of space and in other polities beyond the Empire. A detailed description of this class of artifacts' powers, as well as Fate Accelerated Edition mechanics, will follow the origin stories.

The Spindles were already ancient when humanity took its first steps toward the stars. It was during the era of the Glorious Sun-King of Amarna, the Radiant Gatemaster, that we discovered the Spindles. The records of the encounter are preserved in the sacred archives of The Banishers of Gloom, stored deep within Krellic vaults on the machine world of Altair IV. Indelible live records lie coiled within data-scrolls etched upon the fabric of space-time itself, as well as within more fragile texts scripted upon ancient papyrus scrolls.

During the Radiant Diaspora, the Order of the Banishers of Gloom* served as the Sun-King's advance force through the Amarna Gate.  The Banishers scouted among the worlds revealed through the Gate network. The Banishers had two missions for the Sun-King: they identified safe and abundant worlds for the Sun-King's subjects and allies to colonize. And they also located less hospitable worlds that were suitable places for the Lord of Amarna's enemies to be banished or entombed.

The Banishers of Gloom soon discovered that the universe was a very hostile place. Relatively few garden worlds existed. And most habitable worlds required intervention before they were truly safe for colonization. The galaxy was filled with secretive and recondite menaces such as the Anapa, as well as overt and terrible threats like the Tzitzimine, the Star Demons who endanger to every world that orbits a star - as well as preying on the darker and more distant orbits where the occasional bright light draws their kind like wolves to a stray lamb.

So the Order of the Banishers of Gloom set for themselves a third great task: to seek out and destroy all manner of inimical life forms and civilizations. The Banishers were quite successful in their efforts: one need only look at the records of the Star League's discoveries several thousand years later and see the numerous already-settled human worlds, as well as the many devastated and wrecked worlds with the last ruined relics of once prosperous alien civilizations.

One such alien world is recorded in the Banishers' archives. Its location and true name were redacted centuries ago. The world is known only as the House of Knives. When the Banishers arrived on that world, it had already been long-wrecked by nuclear war. The Banishers fought a subterranean war there against a malignant, telepathic insect race that used illusions, psychic tumors, and hell-eggs to defend their tunnels, warrens, and memory libraries against the merciless human invaders.

In spite of having abandoned most conventional military technologies in favor of their psychic powers, the aliens almost won the war. But deep beneath the burned, radioactive crust of the House of Knives, the Banishers of Gloom made a discovery. They unsealed the now-legendary Emerald Vault, and found thousands of the Spindles.

A few of the Spindles in the Emerald Vault clung unmoving to the exoskeletal limbs of the aliens' long-dead ancestors. But most of the Spindles were just floating there, spinning in mid-air around their vertical axis.

As if they had been waiting for the Banishers to arrive and liberate them.

A pact was made. Oaths of loyalty and mutual assistance were sworn. The Banishers and their new-found allies soon won the War of the House of Knives. And then the Spindles and Banishers went back through a Gate began exploring worlds together.

*In these latter times, the Company of the Banishers of Gloom traces its august lineage back to the ancient military-religious Order of the Banishers of Gloom thousands of years in the past. They claim it is the same order, one which has acted to protect humanity for thousands of years. This belief and identity is reflected in the Banishers' very language and modes of interaction with the Imperial Sovereign. Members of the order refer to the Imperial Sovereign by odd and archaic titles such as "Sun-King" and "Eagle of Amarna". 

The Spindles: Origin Story III

Art by Juan Ochoa

The psychic scrolls in the archives of the Imperial Sibyls of the Red Moon record that the first Spindle appeared shortly after the death of Glorious First, the Imperial Sovereign who founded the Empire. In accordance with her wishes, Glorious First was buried within the vast Krellic machine labyrinth under the surface of Altair IV.

The whispering Anapa prepared her body for its final rest. They then awakened the Stasis Vault Apparatus, which would extend and preserve her remains throughout all time (eternal now, past, and present). Next, the Anapa cast the charms required to summon and bind the Horrors who would stand watch, hungry and aware, at the tomb of Glorious First throughout eternity. Once the spells were cast, the Horrors were always-already there.

Their tasks completed, each member of the Anapa delegation departed through one of the hundreds of Gates beneath the surface of the Eagle King's world. Each one returned to its own private sanctuary realm. There was once again silence on Altair IV.

But less than a day later, a psychic alarm reached the sibyls' monastery on Red Moon in orbit far above. The Imperial Sibyls, charged with maintaining a watch on that ancient fourth planet, learned of movement from within the tomb of Glorious First.

Her Stasis Vault Apparatus had yielded to something. The tomb's great Time Portal irised open. Something glided out of the tomb. It moved past the Horrors, and made its slow, gliding ascent to the world's surface.

The Sibyls descended and wait for it, magics and psychic sutras readied. At a surface shrine of The Charioteer - some  forgotten star-king or space-god - they welcomed the Spindle. The sibyls found the Spindle to be psychically null, its mind a cypher entirely closed to them. But it could speak, and they soon found a common tongue in which to converse.

They made their proper introductions.

The Spindle soon made its intentions known. It requested an audience with the new Imperial Sovereign on the Throne World of Altair III. The Sibyls assented to the request.

Their reason was simple: they recognized something about the Spindle. Its ocular aperture looked just like the large ruby ring-stone worn by Glorious First.

Legions Of The Imperial Sovereign III

"Spindle" Legion standard by Juan Ochoa

Today at FATE SF, we are continuing our series of posts detailing the Legions of the Empire. Legions XXIV-XXIX are collectively known as the Other Suns. Each of these in whole or in part includes alien species.

***

Legio XXIV Cohorts of the Shaking Earth: Heavy mobile infantry recruited from the Codex worlds. Legion is divided into cohorts with totemic aspects - Eagle, Jaguar, Tapir, Feathered Serpent, and Coyote - as well as the Jade Nose Plug and Smoking Mirror cohorts. Human members are often highly modified to resemble their cohort's animal totems. Phenotypically concordant aliens are also welcomed into these cohorts. Jade Nose Plug is composed exclusively of aliens with exotic atmosphere requirements. Smoking Mirror cohort is mixed-species cohort. Its members - often spectral or otherwise disturbingly alien - were recruited through the Smoking Mirror Engine gate network, and are accompanied in combat by warrior-priests of Tezcatlipoca. The XXIV has a distinguished record of service on high gravity, high radiation, poisonous atmosphere, and seismically unstable worlds, but it is deployed on many other types of planets as well.

Legio XXV Matriarch Nargri's Kin: Saurian pan-species legion skilled in the use of both ancient and contemporary weapons, although the cohorts stationed on Kanjobal are with out peer in the use of blackpowder weapons. The XXV is an all-genders unit but is always led by a female general from one of the Empire's multitude of saurian species.

Legio XXVI Iridescent Vibration: Formerly an independent military Order, Legio XXVI protects the worlds inside and outside the Empire that were settled by the ancient Glissendo-speaking insect species that fled the Core regions in antiquity. The XXVI's headquarters, hatcheries, and training grounds are located within a fleet of ancient space arks still fleeing the Core at relativistic speeds. A range of combat modalities; excellent fighter pilots.

Legio XXVII The Coronal Band: A host of energy beings sworn to protect the Imperial Sovereign from all manner of immaterial enemies; ancient enemies of the Tzitzimine Star Demons. The Legion's home is the corona of Altair, the Star of the Eagle King. The XXVII are always in the company of their General, known as The Prince With No Shadow: the undying 27th Imperial Sovereign.

Legio XXVIII Rabbit Banner: Light mobile infantry designed for scouting and fast strike operations. Jungle and mountain combat specialists. Recruited from the same Codex worlds as the XXIV. On less extreme planets, the XXVIII often serve in combined actions with the Cohorts of the Shaking Earth. Although primarily human, the XXVII recently opened its ranks to avian Glissendo-speaking insect species.

Legio XXIX Jade Collar: Largely ceremonial today, this Legion garrisons Old Earth. Its officers and half of its ranks are filled out by the descendants of the original Comet Barbarians who smashed the Star League. The other half of its ranks is filled out by alien species who suffered under the Star League's yoke. After its conquest, Earth was divided up among these species for settlement and spoliation. Today the XXIX often accompanies archaeological expeditions exploring the human ruins on Old Earth.

Sovereign Dreams

Anti-aircraft guns guarding the sky of Leningrad

Saturday night, we had our first dream about the Empire. The Imperial Sovereign was alone in a city under siege, on an anonymous war torn world far from Altair III.  Evasion and misdirection were the only means to survive until evacuation - for almost certainly, a rescue ship will eventually arrive. (If not, we have the seeds for a very gritty "politics-and-small arms" campaign.) These congeries of Aspects, with arbitrary line breaks, relate the experience and share a bit more of the history of the Empire. 

Sovereign Dreams In A City Under Siege

Not everything had fallen yet:

The great hotels 

In the City Center of that 
Forlorn T -2 world

Still stood

Lights still on

Up here

Unlike the soldiered 

Streets below

And the battered slums

That surround the City

Besieged by tyrants, factions, armed rats

From the west

They had marched here for Us

Wanted to strike a bargain

And win the Empire's favor
Through force

What could we do?
Just visitors here

So far from Home

No comet-scarred Third

No Krellic Fourth
No Eagle King or

Plastic educator here
To devise a winning 
Stratagem

Our strategy, then:

Stay hidden

Retire
Take no messages
Treat with no one
No deals
No fighting

Seclusion only
Like the Sovereigns 

Of Old 
(When was this, anyway?)

In this grand hotel

Still standing

A floor to Ourselves

Just room service

A few lean Red Men
Violet eyes hidden 
Behind dark shades

War harness 
Chafing 
Under olive 
Greatcoats

Thus we stay, and

Through our seclusion

To the Middle Sovereigns

Be True

(The Middle Utmost
safely ruling from sealed palaces

spun deep into future times, 

their towers only now appearing
in this late age) 

In seclusion
We await evacuation 

From above

The Imperial Sibyls

Art by Juan Ochoa

The star-prophetesses known as the Sibyls have been active throughout the galaxy since ancient times. The Sibyls have played an important role in many civilizations as prophets and advisers to sovereigns. The leaders of each of the successive states leading to the Empire - the Star League, the Instrumentality, the Vorpal Core, the Lesser and Greater Arrays, The Commonality, and the various Comet Nations - have benefited from the prophesies of the Sibyls. At least when they have listened, interpreted, and acted-on the Sibyls' prophesies wisely.

A Sibyl's powers of prophesy come at a great cost. All Sibyls have been extensively modified. This starts with the Mind Hatch at the crown of their shaved heads. The Mind Hatch opens onto a brain that integrates both alien tissue and machine parts with the Sibyl's native brain structure.

The Sibyl's modified brain includes an Oracle Core which is nearly indestructible. The Oracle Core processes and records the Sibyl's supersensory data, and serves as a back-up recording of their raw experience and prophesies which can be retrieved from the Sibyl's body upon their death. There is of course a black market in Oracle Cores; the possession of such items outside the ranks of the Sibyline orders in considered a capital offense by most governments.

A Sibyl's head is surrounded by a Psi-Orrery, a nimbus of advanced psi-sensors and quantum potentiometers. These devices help the Sibyls to plug into galactic-level psychic currents and tap the Probabilities. This is the material basis for the Sibyl's prophetic powers. The designs of the Avatar of Paradox, the AI pilots who can navigate the whorls and eddies of hyperspace with ease, appear to emulate these Sibylline abilities, albeit within the more narrow context of solving complex navigational problems in hyperspace.

Sibyls prefer to live in communities of their kind. The largest number of Sibyls within imperial space is on the Red Moon, which orbits the chtonic machine world of the Eagle King on Altair IV. Some 500 Sibyls reside there. The world is invisible in normal space, as it orbits Altair IV from the 10th or highest enumeration of hyperspace.

The distant coreward homeworld of the Ketherines is the first and longest extant community of the Sibylline Order. It is also one of the four Galactic Cardinal Points. The Ketherine world is called Red Shell; it is a bulwark against the expansion of the galactic Anti-Consciousness, the entity lurking in the depths of the Galactic Core. Some Nexialists conjecture that the root of Sibylline prophetic power is their ability to channel raw sensory data from Probabilities collapsing into the Anti-Consciousness.

The Sibylines' only response to this speculation was Prophesy:

Beyond Measure,

Above the Crown of

Time and Space Itself

Unceasing, Faithful

A Font of Insight

A Well Reversed

Upon Itself

Revealing

***

OGL MECHANICS

Imperial Sibyl
Star-Prophetess

ASPECTS:

• High Concept: Star-prophetess from the Red Moon
• Trouble: Mind Hatch hides a treasure
• Aspect: Adviser to the Imperial Sovereign
• Aspect: Crowned by a Psi-Orrery
• Aspect: Alien flesh and machines

APPROACHES

• Careful: +3
• Clever: +2
• Flashy: +2
• Forceful: +0
• Quick: +1
• Sneaky: +1

STUNTS:

• The Gift of Prophesy: +2 to Flashy Approach to pronounce a prophesy based on one of the Probabilities: what may or might happen, what has happened, what will happen, etc.
• Oracle Core: A Sibyl has perfect recall of her supersensory perceptions and oracular prophesies.
• Psychic Currents: +2 to Careful Approach to tap into the galactic-level psychic currents (the thoughts of godlike entities, Jupiter Brains, etc.).

REFRESH: 3

Jupiter and Ganymede

http://scitechdaily.com/herschel-solves-mystery-of-
origin-of-water-in-the-upper-atmosphere-of-jupiter/

During the Latter Period, some 80% of the Empire's territory was directly incorporated to the R.U.R. Workers-State which lies coreward of the Empire. It happened across vast stretches of the Empire in the course of a six hour period. In less than a day, the majority of the Empire's most densely populated worlds were incorporated into a more advanced machine civilization. A prosperous humanity transcended to a new, effectively post-human state. The R.U.R. bulwark against the Anti-Consciousness lurking in the Core was likewise bolstered immensely by the territories added during the Subsumption.

After the R.U.R. Subsumption, the Empire's rimward expansion accelerated. The Late Expansion was rapid because the Empire kept the entirety of its fleets and Legions, which no longer had such a vast territorial expanse to defend. Imperial Sovereigns resumed the habits of the Empire's first rulers. Like their Comet Barbarian ancestors, they led the expansion from the front, at the head of their fleets. Their efforts were supported by an influx of new ships and R.U.R. legions manufactured in the Subsumption Zones.

All of these developments have caused many to wonder whether the Subsumption was planned from the beginning of the Empire. Was the Subsumption agreed upon thousands of years ago, during the Empire's Early Period? It seems likely. After all, it was the 13th Imperial Sovereign, known as The Cupbearer, who first befriended the Jupiter Brains of the R.U.R. He established the most enduring alliance in the Empire's history.

Upon his abdication, the 13th Imperial Sovereign lived out the remainder of his life in R.U.R. space, in the company of his machine-friend, the Thingmaker-class Intelligence Panjandrum. Almost alone among the Imperial Sovereigns of the Early Period, The Cupbearer chose one of Panjandrum's disused factory wheels as his burial place, rather than the Eagle King's machine world of Altair IV. (The Nexialists claim that Panjandrum's current speech patterns resemble those of The Cupbearer, so perhaps he yet lives on in some form?)

Further evidence that the R.U.R. Subsumption was a long-planned event can be found in the storied history of The Interstitials, the numerous post-human statelets that formed, dissolved, and reformed on the borders of R.U.R. space and the Empire. Such statelets have existed since the time of the 17th Imperial Sovereign as places of innovation and encounter. Many were short-lived experiments, and for this reason are also known as the Firefly States. They were the first places where humans (and aliens) and machines learned to live in harmony, growing together and developing new states and forms. From this living dream, the first seeds of the Subsumption grew.