James Bell

CREATOR

10 days ago

Project Update: Peek Ahead: Smiths and Foes

Hello Jadebearers,

Another super quick sneak peek update as we head into a long weekend for many of us. First up, a bit from the manuscript chapter we'll see on Tuesday!

Smiths of the Shining Future

The philosophy that Jade could be used to do more than power spells and fuel unimaginable combat abilities didn’t take quickly. As has been the case since Sorcery first entered the hands and minds of mortals, the instinct is to grasp and wield without consideration. It was the Smiths of the Shining Future who first philosophized that Jade would be better put to use as a fuel for tools and muse for inventions. Following Zy’s demise, much of the machinery around Eos (especially in Ferralim) fell quiet, unpowered. It was this that birthed the Smiths: those who believe Jade is required to separate mortals from their basest, raw abilities, and open doorways to new technologies and advancements.

The first generation of Jade smiths emerged from Ferralim, as stunningly brilliant artificers, architects, engineers, and visionaries who looked upon the Infernal War’s devastation and saw possibility in the smoke of destruction. They first went to work in the Iron Expanse recovering much of the ruin they found there and putting the mines, factories, and foundries back to work, before rolling their inventions out into the Wilds where they’d be free to pursue their aims without a tightly controlled realm looking over their shoulders and controlling what they were permitted to produce.

These Smiths of the Shining Future discovered that a Jade-powered forge burned hotter, that a bridge reinforced with infernal alloys lasted longer, and a city designed around recovered and enlivened Sovereign principles functioned more efficiently. They combined the reverent with the utilitarian. The Smiths of the Shining Future proposed that for centuries mortals had served the Malefic, but now, in their discorporate states, the Malefic would be put to work for the mortals.

Within decades the Smiths were building wonders and nightmares (the distinction between them remains controversial) across the Wilds, selling them to most of the nine realms. Anyone who walks through a major city now cannot avoid their influence in the form of aqueducts, defensive walls, and the Jade-powered transit systems in Soleos, Ferralim, and Kir Sento. Storm barriers, automated mills, medical instruments, and siege weapons are all the product of the Smiths’ ingenuity, and their dogged refusal to leave infernal power buried.

Smith critics point out that many of these engineers’ innovations have exploded or collapsed under their own weight, and to their credit, the Smiths of the Shining Future freely acknowledge this. They respond that failure is merely successful experimentation viewed from an unfortunate angle.

The Smiths believe strongly in the ultimate benevolence of machinery, and that industry will serve to improve all lives in Eos. They recognize that sacrifice requires strength, but according to the Smiths, it takes strength to be gentle and kind.

No faction of Jadebearers has done more to shape the physical world in the Infernal War’s wake, and no philosophy has produced more disasters. Most Smiths are confident enough in their work and beliefs to admit their weapons can and should be deadly, no matter whose hands they’re in. The Stalwarts of the Righteous Blade make for frequent allies of the Smiths of the Shining Future, where the Cultivators of the Living Sublime castigate them loudly for their reliance on technology and manipulation of the sacral elements.

The Anvil

Built around a sprawling forge in the Iron Expanse of Ferralim, the Anvil is as much workshop as martial academy. Its students learn to fight with weapons they have forged themselves, believing that a warrior and their blade must be tempered together; the clang of hammers and roar of bellows continue from dawn until midnight. The academy’s master, Lady Mei, is a legendary Sword Saint who claims that she was given the role of master in a dream from Zy. Her fanatical approach to forging, tempering, hammering, folding, heating, and repeating the process — for tools as well as students — marks her as one the more eccentric and severe masters in Eos. The Anvil has recently begun producing strange red ore that seems to whisper to anyone who works it, all while rival disciples sabotage each other while competing for Lady Mei’s attention.

Story Hook: Engine Reignited
Zy’s Kaos Engine spanned an entire mountain range, a great machine of iron and bronze pumping smoke and siphoning chemicals, refining ores and converting lives into weapons. It ate its creator, ultimately, at which point the Kaos Engine just stopped functioning. It didn’t explode in a shower of molten metal or spew foul gases; it just… stopped.
And so, in the years that followed, bits and pieces were peeled and pried from its frame, until it became a husk. Only the most immovable, unwieldy glaciers of metal remained in place as testament to Zy’s ambition.
That is, until the Jadebearer known as Tyro Glass Hand found a crack in the husk and climbed within, trying to locate Zy’s heart. Tyron didn’t emerge, but suddenly, without warning, defunct materials and machine parts in the Round Tooth Mountains came alive for the first time in decades, turning on their owners and the inhabitants of nearby villages.

And then a sneak peek for the following Tuesday, from the draft manuscript Chapter 8:

The Myriad Foes of Eos

Ever since the Jadestorms exploded across Eos, the creatures of the world have changed drastically. Once-docile spirits now seek to actively harm and disrupt, and wildlife has evolved and warped into something wholly unlike what it once was. Jadebearers and their traveling companions will encounter a wide array of creatures, some less benevolent than others.

Beasts

Ashwalkers

No one who sees an ashwalker for the first time mistakes them for something natural, though they were, once — huge-shouldered herd animals that wandered the plains of Ash-Daun and the bases of the mountains in Ferralim. When the Jadestorm passed through their migration routes, the Jade settled into their bones, forcing their bodies to grow and evolve in unnatural ways. Mineral-encrusted skeletons push through their hides in jagged formations, erupting along the spine and framing the skull. The ashwalkers still move in herds, following the same migration paths they always did — through cities, over bridges, and over or through the same paths people are already walking.

Template: Nascent
Drive: Keep moving.
Primary Pool: 6 (Stampeding, breaking through obstacles)
Secondary Pool: 4 (Detecting threats, warning cries)
Desperation Pool: 3
Defense: 1
Integrity: 1
Injuries: 1
Initiative: 3
Qualities: Ground Affliction, Mineral Entity, Natural Weapons (Horns: Piercing), Stable
Moves: Elemental Strike (Arcane) x1, Trample x2

Constructs

Marygal, the Lone Aegis

Somewhere in Ferralim, founded long before the mountain ranges there had names, a city was forged in the mantle of the mountains. Anyone who manages to make the journey there will find pages of history and numerous relics. It’s believed that this city was full of historians and sages who either traveled further into the mountain after the Jadestorm, or were wiped out during it.

Marygal is another of the things left behind, but there’s only one of her. She had several siblings, once, carved from the mountainside itself, towering nearly as tall as the peaks, but they crumbled long ago. Now that she’s the only one left, Marygal hopes that guarding the abandoned city will encourage her creators to return to it. She wanders the mountains of the Expanse, vigilantly watching for any threat.

Template: Worthy
Drive: Protect the city.
Primary Pool: 10 (Crushing blows, leaping across distances)
Secondary Pool: 8 (Noticing trespassers, powerful throws)
Desperation Pool: 5
Enhancements: +2 to actions intended to keep trespassers away from the city.
Defense: 3
Integrity: 2
Injuries: 7
Armor: 1 (Barbed)
Initiative: 5
Qualities: Colossal, Feral, Ground Affliction, Invulnerability (fire), Mineral Entity, Natural Weapons (Stone fists: Crushing), Stable, Vulnerability (mining tools)
Moves: Barrier x2, Devastating Blow x2, Repair Self x1, Spawn (stone guardians) x2
Special: +1 Durability Advantage whenever Marygal is within eyesight of the caves leading to her masters’ old city.

Elemental Lords

Cinder Storm

Temple Diabolik once used red-lacquered burial talismans to consecrate sites of sacrifice. When the Malefic died and their cinders spread across Eos, not all of them made it into a person. Some of them were absorbed by things like the burial talismans. It wasn’t enough energy to give them a sense of self, exactly, but it was enough to fill them with hunger and the instinct to seek out Jadebearers to consume their cinders. These talismans travel in flocks, red figures on the horizon; people who see them coming for the first time fear that the sky has finally started to rain blood.

Template: Tide
Drive: Prove superiority in any and every arena.
Primary Pool: 8 (Seeking out Jadebearers, riding the wind)
Secondary Pool: 6 (Bringing a sense of dread)
Desperation Pool: 4
Size: Small
Enhancements: +1 to attacks within close range.
Defense: 2
Integrity: 1
Injuries: 4
Initiative: 4
Qualities: Deadly Aura (sharp edges), Encircling, Endless Tide, Pressing Bodies
Moves: Converging Strike x2, Discorporate x1

Spirits

Lantern Bearers

Legends say that these creatures were once tall and fair, but time and dedication to their purpose has shriveled them into something unrecognizable as human. Little more than solid shadows themselves, lantern bearers are found where light refuses to shine — bogs and marshes, in the shadow of volcanoes, cemeteries where the mist hangs thick and heavy. Those who get close enough to the lantern bearers find that they aren’t carrying the light at all, but that it’s settled within their chests, where a heart might have once been. Unfortunately, those who get close enough to realize that are met with hostility.

Template: Nascent
Drive: Remain an undisturbed light in the darkness.
Primary Pool: 6 (Elemental attacks, maintaining distance)
Secondary Pool: 4 (Guiding the lost)
Desperation Pool: 3
Defense: 1
Integrity: 1
Injuries: 1
Initiative: 3
Qualities: Baleful Touch, Luring, Unusual Anatomy
Moves: Elemental Strike (Flaming) x2, Leap x1

What are those templates? What are those moves?

We'll find out in 11 days when the entire draft manuscript is available for backers to read - before any pledges are processed or payments collected. If you know someone who's been on the fence, let them know they can jump on before the end and test the water, reading the entire book before the campaign concludes.

So, have a great weekend and I'll be back on Monday with the first of TWO draft manuscript sections coming to backers next week!

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