Strange Stars A-To-Z: "H" Is For High House

Illustration by John Howe

The High House 

Wing there with me

The high place, the infinite space

The only structure built into hyperspace 

What node does it thread? What race built it? Who lives there now - 

Among its many rooms?

We know it's real 

(we think) 

Because the feathered Hyehoon 

Of quick-clawed Omu 

Say they've been there 

They call it Marao's House 

Wing with me there

We've loved the title of James Stoddard's The High House for a long time, so hopefully he's OK with another even higher (hyper?) house.

Device

Andrei Tarkovsky's "Stalker"

You're old. Cold. Tired. Beat up. Bedraggled. Out of booze. 

That's bad in Russia, and worse in the Zone.

Hexcrawl. Dungeon crawl. Zone crawl.

Is there a difference?

Maybe not. But at least you made it this far.

Right to the threshold, right to the edge of the Room.

There's only one thing left to do.

But can you do it?

The Vengeance Of The Patient

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sn87a.jpg

They can be awakened. 

Coaxed. 

Nudged. 

Once stirred their aim is true. 

They are the ultimate weapon in the slowest of wars. 

The oldest of the old call them

"The Vengeance of the Patient."

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