Endless Blue - Week 46 - Orbs of Krakenkind

Archeology

Orbs of Krakenkind

Particularly potent relics of a time when the Elder Squids hunted the waters of the Endless Blue, each Orb of Krakenkind is a sphere about one foot in diameter.  Its out layer has a thick, unyeilding texture, like slathered on shellac, that taints the viscous goo entrapped within its confines with a hue of molten amber.  Suspended in the tacky inner mucus is a free floating darkness, barely visible through the occluded sebaceous muck.  This suspended mass, untethered to the Orb's outer veneer, weighs heavily despite the surrounding ocean pressures.  This un-anchored center of gravity makes holding either sphere balanced a difficult task, and no matter what the depth it is taken to it will always pull downward with a negative buoyancy.

An Orb of Krakenkind when first discovered.

The whirling, swirling, twirling miasma of oily, waxy oozes has no perceptible pattern to its internal  flux, seeming to be an eternal current of featureless ichor and bile.  Only once its ancient powers are activated does the thick curtain of scum part and a huge iris, rippled with golden hues of color and tensed lengths of muscle.  Smack dab in the center of that constantly refocusing iris gapes the terrifying waved shape of a Kraken's pupil.  It stares directly out, its penetrating gaze constant in a single direct no matter which direction the Orb is turned.

An Orb of Krakenkind once activated.

History

Evidence of the existence of any of the Orbs of Krakenkind is mostly supposition and vagaries, accumulated through the telling and retelling of mythical folklore.  True evidence of the primordial subsistence of such artifacts is generally cited as the work of fevered dreams or broken minds.

Despite eloquent theories and plausible rationalizations, there are in actuality only a single pair of Krakonic Orbs.  The matched pair of orbs forever point in opposite directions.  As one always gazes into the past and the other peers into the future, they can never look at each other.  Attempt to turn the first in the direction of its mate will cause the mate to move, much like magnets with the same polarity.  If the mate is constrained or has more force pushing on it to keep it from moving, the first cannot turn at all.  A very literal example of irresistible force meeting immovable object.

When in use, the iris of the eyes sheds a glow that matches the Era of history being viewed.  Only the Cardinal, Bronze, Golden, and Verdant/Verdigris eras can be scryed through the Krakonian Orb of Past and conversely only the Indigo, Violaceous, and Livid ages can be spied through the Krakonian Orb of Future.  Moments of the Cerulean Era ares split between the two eyes as is fitting the time the investigated incidents occurred.  Once activated, the pupil then dilates from the infamous w-shape into a round portal in which the time and place may be observed.

Historians assert one of the Orbs must have been used to prophesy the unification of the Kraken species and ascendancy into the occupying empire that dominated the Fluid Nations.  How else, they argue, could such a fickle, uncooperative race put aside their instinctive tendencies and put the needs of the whole over the interests of the one without direct evidence of beneficial results?  To see is to believe, and before the Kraken Empire held sway over the Known World no one would have foreseen their alliance.

Campaign Use

Relics that predict future events pose an incredible boon to those that can auger their messages, and seeking out such means of prognostication would be highly sought after.  The quest to find just one Orb of Krakenkind is but the start of a longer adventure, involving the unique properties of the Orbs to seek out its mate.  The eye that looks back through time can leave glimpses of the places where the other Orb once stood, or the eyes that spies forward may leave tantalizing hits of where the adventurers need to head next.  But even with just a single Krakonian Orb the possibilities unbounded by the limits of time.

Powers

Constant

- The pupils of either Orb will always point away from its partner's location.  At far distances the shift in direction the eye focuses is hard to gauge, but the closer the two come in proximity the greater the movement.  This is sort of a reverse compass, a load-stone effect pointing diametrically away from the object of desire.

Invoked

- Either Orb of Krakenkind can activate the following divination spells at will, but can only affect targets in periods of time appropriate for the particular eye: locate object, clairaudience/clairvoyance, scrying

- Either Orb of Krakenkind can activate the following divination spells oncer per day, but can only affect targets in periods of time appropriate for the particular eye: legend lore, divination, find the path

- Either Orb of Krakenkind can activate the following divination spells oncer per week, but can only affect targets in periods of time appropriate for the particular eye: discern location, foresight

Resonating

- The closer the two eyes come to each other, the clearer the prophecy that they reveal becomes.  To hold both eyes in either hand is believed to grant the bearer omniscience of history and future to the finest detail.

Curse

- The more the possessor indulges in the auguries of the Krakonian Orbs, the more malformed their minds become.  Slowly they lose their familiar personality quirks and stark taking on a distant, yet territorial mindset. Thought by though, the mind of the holder become more like that of a Kraken, driven by the same primordial urges of avarice and hunger that made the species feared across the seas of Elqua.  With both orbs in his possession, the holder begins a slow, horrifying metamorphosis, losing all connection with their piscean form and transmogrifying into a dread squid in both body and mind.  With this remaking of a lone individual into a massive Kraken, the Orbs complete their most insidious purpose -- the ressurection of the Kraken race.  The newly transformed Kraken's first impulse will be to sequester the orbs away in seperate but equally devious hiding places until the hubris of a new questor seeks out their terrible powers.

Suggested Means of Destruction

The eyes must be made to look at each other.
Both of the Orbs must be smashed at the exact moment as the other, while the act is replayed through its own dilated pupil.
The Orb must be hatched in the nursery of a non-extinct Kraken.

Endless Blue - Week 45 - Khantusk: Cetacean Symbol of Absolute Allegiance

Archeology

Khantusk: Cetacean Symbol of Absolute Allegiance

Khantusk is the jutting tooth from the long-deceased First Khan, pulled from its root during the battle with the Leviathan of Coinchenn.  As long as a mer's arm and just as thick, it would be an excessive large example of the tusk for even the biggest narwhal.  Its time-yellowed  ivory is stained a with a brown patina of weathered age that is emphasized by the pale engraving along its slightly upward curve that show lividly from the surrounding patina.  Shod near its root and tip with a band of lustrous black pearl, which anchor loosely wrapped, finely woven ribbons of velvet embroidered with text of silk thread.  The runic Aquelan symbols carved into the tusk that cite the militaristic violence committed during the First Khan's dynasty are swaddled by the calligraphic Verse sigils stitched into the wrap that recount the adulation of His loyal citizenry.  The artifact is far from pristine, with the stain of ancient blood on the ribbons, a cracked  bark-like texture, a fractured tip and a substantial divot missing from where the Leviathan ripped it from the First Khan's mouth.  Most notable is the weight of Khantusk.  First picked up, it is light, almost uplifting itself into the hands of a bearer; however as the mantle of leadership pulls down on the bearer, Khantusk weighs ever more heavily.

History

In the early ages of the Cetacean Barbarians, the disparate currents were united under a single leader.  Taking the title of Khan, this narwhal led the orcan tribes on a campaign of invasion and bloodshed that ensured their place in early Elquan history.  A campaign was begun, targeting the wayward Cetacean tribes across the Known World, invading the fledgling societies and cutting a swath of violence and atrocity across the Cetacean Oceans.  Pod after pod either pledged their absolute, undying allegiance to the Khan of the Cetacean Hordes, or were crushed by the Hordes masses.  Those that joined the Khan's cause were incorporated into the Hordes, dispersed among the Eight Banners so no one force was comprised too much of any one subjugated pod.

Eventually the unification of the Cetacean Oceans was not enough for the glory-seeking First Khan, and the turned is avaricious gaze towards the rest of the Known World.  His frenzied Hordes relentlessly raided the no mer's sea borders of the neighboring Chelon, Lumulus, and Mer homeseas.   Fear of impending incursion by their neighbors proved true, and the First Khan began a systematic invasion of territory that redefined the borders of the Fluid Nations.  Success after of ruthless success, victory after bloody victory, the dread of the Cetacean Hordes grew as their savagery and cruelty increased.

What could have been a new era in governance of the oceans of Elqua saw a change in timber, and the unshakable faith of the Orcans in their First Khan began to waver.  As dire and focused a military race they may be, even the combat centric civilization of the Horde began to balk at the First Khan's brutality.  No longer did the Khan demand fealty from the conquered, but subservience.  Those of his inner circle that worshiped him as divinity incarnate were no longer shown the attention of his charisma, but instead were treated as the warbeasts that were enslaved in the Horde's masses.  The First Khan's drive for perfection became obsession, and finally manifest in irresistible compulsion.  No where was the fall of the Khan's fame more clearly illustrated than the drive to dominate the Mer tribe known as the Dumasque.

The resistance of this one particular tribe of Mer, dwarfed in size and strength by the massively built Orcans, would have at an earlier time filled the minds and hearts of the Cetacean poet-warriors with pride.  Never before in their prehistory had they face so spirited an opponent, so unbreakable a species, as the Dumasque.  Combat is honor, and honor is life to the Orcans, and the conflict with the Dumasque exemplified that ideal.  But frustration mounted in the brow of the First Khan.  How dare these inferiors, these smaller pisceans, the inconsequential creatures stand in the way of His unification.  The more the Dumasque resisted, the more consumed with their defeat the Khan became.  His tactics grew more desperate, his methods more cruel.  He drew needed attention and resources from the rest of His dynasty to deal with this tiny obstacle.  Those among his Inner Circle that voiced simple concern, let alone opposition to the Khan's will, were ostracized to the front lines.  So single-minded was the Khan's obsession that once He finally expelled the Dumasque from their water, He did not rest his loyal-but-spent soldiers.  Instead, he vowed their obliteration from the seas of the world, and continued to chase the retreating survivors.  This advance history dubbed the Khan's Folly, as it took the dynasty's beleaguered and exhausted forces to their ultimate failure -- the Undertow.

The Khan's forces were decimated there, sucked down into the abyssal depths of Elqua by the Undertow by uncaring order of their warlord.  As the Dumasque, caught between the gyre of the Undertow and genocide by the ravening Khan, they chose destruction by the whirlpool.  The Khan would not accept this, and sent the Horde in after them.  The resultant chaos left barely a tenth of the Horde able to escape from the unrelenting swallowing of the Undertow, including most of the Khan's inner circle and his companion, the Rani.

As the broken Cetacean Barbarians dragged their shattered bodies back to their homesea, the Khan raved.  He railed against the universe, damned the gods for their pettiness, denying Him the victory that was due to him.  It was as the remnants passed through the shoals of Coinchenn that they fell prey to the Leviathan, a massive monstrosity that saw an easy meal in the bleeding, moaning survivors of the Undertow's wrath.  Unable to take another defeat, ruing His obsession and ashamed of the sacrifice made in his folly, the Khan threw himself at the Leviathan.  Crazed with guilt and shame and loathing, it is said the battle lasted for hours before the Leviathan maimed the Khan, pulling his tusk out from his jaw by the root.  By final decree, the Khan sent his forces back to their homesea as He dragged the monstrosity down to the Shelf and darkness.  Before their retreat, one of the bearers of the Eight Banners saved the Khan's tusk from sinking to the same end as the embattled combatants, and brought it home to the Oceans as a testimony to the end of the First Dynasty.

Returned to its place of birth, those that stayed behind and thus did not witness the descent of the First Khan into ruination, embraced the tusk as a monument to what had gone before.  They carved the military victories of their mightiest leader on the curved ivory, shackled to it the songs and praise of the people in silk.  Named "Khantusk", it became the mantle of power for the Cetacean Oceans, and was wielded by the subsequent Khans as they tried to recapture the glory that once bathed the Orcan hordes.  But never did the defeated Horde reclaimed the absolute allegiance of its people as it once enjoyed, and eventually the Orcan race left their barbaric ways behind to become one of the Civilized.

Here Khantusk languished in obscurity; once a mighty weapon, now little more than a forgotten symbol of an abandoned chapter in history, as reduced in import as the power of the Khan from which it came.  As the Orcans fostered their new role as diplomat between the races, Khantusk's importance was relegated to archivists and historians only.  It disappeared during one of the many outbreaks of the Shellback Wars at the end of the Golden Epoch, when one of the diplomatic missions of the Cetaceans between the two squabbling species went horribly awry and resulted in one of the most protracted skirmishes in Chelon/Lumulus relations before the emergence of the Kraken Empire.

Campaign Use

Khantusk would serve as a mighty tool for unifying nations, for bringing disparate forces together as a cohesive whole.  It would be of great import to any nation, be they expansionist or fending off the incursions of such a nation.  The players could be entrusted with retrieving the cetacean artifact, either from an invading warlord or for a homesea against said invader.  Or perhaps the player characters seek it out for themselves, to aid in their own ascension into the political powers of the Endless Blue.  Even the fact that the artifact is not whole can be a hook for adventure, with various parties of differing ethical and moral standing contesting over a shard of ivory that seems to have magical properties.

Powers

Continuous

- Infused with the decades of loyalty and fidelity, seeped with the patriotism that comes from utter nationalism, the very idea of Khantusk serves as a symbol for unity and leadership.  Those that posses the artifact are imbued with a portion of that First Khan's infamy.  If the bearer possess Khantusk for at least one month, their leadership potential is magnified by a magnitude of one.  Their masses of servants and soldiers swells, expanding from a crowd to an army.  Treat such a character as if they possessed the Leadership feat; and if such character already possess the leadership feat, multiply the results by 10.  Those with silver tongues and a skill for for attracting followers expands in the presence of Khantusk, potentially reaching into the thousands of dedicated supplicants.

- The bearer then begins to form an inner circle of loyalists, dedicated to both the Khantusk's bearer and his cause.  If the bearer has the Leadership feat, Khantusk's charismatic abilities multiplies the number of cohorts that flock to his cause.  The carrier gains a number of cohorts -- referred to as his inner circle -- equal to his normal Leadership result for 1st level followers.  These inner circle cohorts are still limited in experience by the class level limit listed for the bearer's Leadership score.  Members of the Inner Circle may themselves take the Leadership feat and gain their own followers and cohort, benefiting from a +2 association bonus.  However, once the bearer begins to suffer from the artifact's cursed power, that benefit becomes a -5 disadvantage due to the negative association.

- Finally, the bearer gains a companion.  One individual above all others understands the vision the bearer has for the nation and history, and shares in it with non-shakable loyalty.  This special cohort is the equal to the bearer, in level and influence, and will be seen by the bearers followers as the one true source for the bearer's wisdom.  The relationship between bearer and companion can be platonic or romantic, but whate ever the form it takes the pairing forges a primal, pure bond between the two free of jealousy or distrust.

Invoked

- When held, Khantusk can influence the attitude of others towards the bearer.  It can shift a non-player character's attitude positvely one stage (from hostile to unfriendly, then to indifferent, and so on).  This can only be done once a day per individual, but can influence any number of individuals.  Repeated daily use on the same individual(s) can cause strain on the bearer and may trigger the artifact's curse that much sooner.  If the individual targeted by Khantusk's influencing power is of the same race as the bearer, the adjustment in attitude leaps immediately to friendly status.

Cursed

- History repeats itself, and Khantusk ensures that those that bear its divine powers repeat the success and ultimate failure of the First Khan.  Slowly, over the length of the bearer's campaign, he will slowly begin to suffer from the same afflictions that the Unifier of the Cetacean Barbarians did: paranoia, megalomania, and narcissism.  His lust for blood and savagery in battle will take its toll, influencing the bearer's mind, making him cruel and primitive.

Suggested Means of Destruction

It must be replaced it in the remains of the First Khan's jaw.
It must be surrendered to the hands of a foe that has never opposed you.
It must be wrested from the bearer by their jaded companion and thrown to the disillusioned masses.

Endless Blue - Week 44 - The Ur'qwal'she: Perfection in Form

Archeology

The Ur'qwal'she

The Ur'qwal'she are a series of artifice construction projects that began secretly the Bronze Era of Elqua.  The current Ur'qwal'she -- the eight in the line of improved attempts at the perfect hippoideal form -- is almost ovoid in shape and about three meters radially.  An access lock on the outside of the oval casing is specifically designed for the triangular arrangement of the Lumulus' three fingers, which must interlock around the latch in order to open the hatch ingress.  Picking the lock is a nearly impossible task achieve without some form of divine intervention or arcane boon.

It becomes obvious upon opening the apparatus that this is not simply some dearthsteel shell.  Inside are strange pods, space for four masses roughly the size of pisceans.  These pods are interlaced with conduits, chains, ligaments, and cord, working into the very walls of the shell like fabric.  Inside the first two pods, at about the same location that a passenger's gill slits would be, are a series of ten sigil-less levers, and the bottom of these opened eggs lays a layer of padding around a central spool.

History

The inquisitive and the diplomatic have long tried to understand the minds of the incomprehensible Lumulus, and rarely has there been any success.  But the same is true from the Lumulan perspective looking outward at the homeseas of the shell-less.  Unshackled by the constraints of religious dogma, the alien minds of the Lumulus have contemplated tirelessly about the intrinsic metaphysical questions that the other races do.  It seems to be one of the few things shared in common with the rest of the piscean species, but even that commonality is not enough to catch glimpses into the inconceivable thought processes that ruminate in their chitinously encased craniums.  Without spiritual doctrine to dictate their direction, Lumulan philosophers turned to more logical methodology to glean the answers they sought.  In the quest to solve the enigma of why life exists, the Lumulus stepped into the role of Creator and chose to determine how.

The birth of the cultural quest known as  The Ur'qwal'she -- Perfection of Form -- began in the Bronze Era.  Developing the art of smithing metals not only gave the Lumulus an unsurpassable  edge in economical development, but gifted them with the medium in which to forge the most ambitious  agenda of any species in the known world.  The final objective of their progressive plan was to produce the perfect reproduction of the Lumulan morphology, and to attain that goal they began construction on a machine that would obsess their culture for millennia.  Individuals willing put aside their own aspirations for themselves, their families and their forgeclans, and instead targeted their attention on learning the skills and knowledge that would be needed to complete their great experiment.  The shaping of metal, the mixing of alchemicals, the assemblage of an almost never ending series of interconnecting clockwork parts was deemed more than an honor, but a duty more dear than loyalty to their race.

The beginning form of the Ur`qwal'she was simplistic, even austere.  A rough lozenge shape that could barely fit the two pilots elected to operate it during it's test trials.  Once cramped uncomfortably inside, the activation of the machine began a series of physical rearrangements of it's constituent pieces, like a revolving puzzle.  Three short, pole-like legs on each side, a pair of clumsy and cumbersome claws extended from the front, below the hemispherical portholes, each beneath a short but slim shaft of metal.  Behind it the rear extended in sections, lengthening the craft a half-times again before unfurling into a fluked rudder.  The deployed state corsely imitated the idealistic form of the crustacean-like shape of it creators.

Despite its auspicious beginnings, the inaugural launch of the Ur'qwal'she met in disaster.  Failure of the first incarnation was brutal and stunning, leading many to think the task was beyond the reach of Lumulan minds.  But in the end rugged determination won out and the project was renewed.  The second incarnation began reconstruction, cannibalizing the form of the first incarnation in much the same way a Lumulus might consume a previously shed carapace.  The Lumulus learned from their early mistake, improved upon the Perfect Form, and eventually were ready for their second attempt at creating perfection.

It failed.  So too did the next attempt, and the next, and the next after that...  Several generations of apparatus have been forged and re-forged, only to have nature prove the whole attempt to be in vain.  But each failure only further tempered the Lumulan resolve, and the pieces that were to become the artifact Ur'qwal'she were collected and started anew.

No incarnation of the Ur'qwal'she has ever been lost.  The closest came during an outbreak of the Shellback skirmishes when aggressive Chelon forces occupied the area secretly storing the apparatus' bare structure for several months.  During those few months it took every ounce of Lumulan ingenuity and dedication to finally drive back the invaders whom it is believed never found the hidden workshop that stored it.  Quickly the Lumulus moved it to a more remote location on the fringes of the Lumulus Basin and the Spine of the World, in the Antarctic Circle.  There it lay dormant and undiscovered as the Kraken Empire rose to prominence and dominated the Known World.

With the fall of the Kraken Empire, the way was cleared to rescue the Ur'qwal'she from banishment and continue the creation.  Today, the octal incarnation is near completion, in part due to the same "deal with the devil" the Lumulus made with the Chelon to defeat their common masters.  Now armed with the secret of lumulating dearthsteel, the Lumulus are convinced this is the ultimate achievement, and success is all but ensured.  Once activated, it will the culmination of a geas felt through the entire species for nearly as long as there is written record of history.

Campaign Use

The Ur'qwal'she is not a simple magical item to be given the players as payment for some undertaken task.  Indeed, only under the most dire of circumstances would a player character even be let near the artifact, let alone been given control over its function.  However, threats to the artifact's location or existence are prime opportunities for interaction with the players.  The potential power of the craft is another angle, and the player characters might be enlisted by a concerned faction that the Ur'qwal'she will be used as weapon of war, or even a blue print for further creations.  Such a mechanized navy would make the LMSDF or some other agency an unstoppable force, completely unbalancing the state of affairs among the Fluid Nations.

Powers

Constant

- Gazing through the porthole "eyes" of the Ur'qwal'shi grant those viewing with ultravision up to 60 feet.
- The claws possess the vorpal and keen weapon qualities.

Invoked

- The craft can ignore the effects of any current or buoyancy altering spell.
- The body of the vessel can be made to shed ultraviolet light equivalent to daylight so that those inside may see out the porthole "eyes".
- The apparatus virtually inhales in water like any other living creature, sustaining a breathable liquid for those inside.  It automatically filters out any toxic or poisonous substance carried in that inhaled water (such as Ceph ink, red tide toxin, or other contaminant), but does not provide breathable water where there is not (such as in a brine lake or above the surface).  This power prevents the passengers from using any type of currentsense within the confines of the craft.  The apparatus can seal off the flow of water from outside its hull and essentially "hold its breath", leaving the occupants to breathe enough stored fresh water for four to eight hours, divided evenly among the number of occupants.

Resonating

- The apparatus resonates with those parts of itself re-incorporated from previous incarnations.  As a result, the octal incarnation has a primitive "race memory" imprinted on its alchemical conduits and eldritch mechanisms.  This imparts upon the pilot of the vessel an almost empathic link with the craft, and passes on rudimentary emotional cues like fear and anger when face with conditions similar to those that destroyed it in previous incarnations.
- The artifact is capable of consuming prey caught in its pincers.  This act helps repair any physical damage to the craft first, then nourishes the passengers inside.  While inside, the passengers do not succumb to hunger or thirst.

Curse

- The rigors of using the Ur'qwal'she slowly drain the animus vitae of those inside.  The immediate effect is the doubling the need to trance (or sleep for non-Lumulus).  Long term exposure results in permanent point loss to Constitution, and eventually death.  Bodies left inside the Ur'qwal'she after death become perfectly mummified, preserved right down to the intact hair follicle.

Suggested Means of Destruction

It must be piloted to the surface and let all it vital fluids drain out onto the dry soil.
It must be crushed between two colliding islands that move.
It must be made to peel the hull from itself with its own pincers.