The Open Door (megacrossover)

[micun]

Correct me if I am wrong, but didn't Skuld originally bring her mallet and those special glasses because it was the only thing that can harm the system bugs, or in the case of the glasses detect them. Meaning not even a direct application of divine magic and will can do anything to a system bug. Add to this the fact that only Skuld, Lars and Ao would know what Think is and...

[TheClueless]

Before I get to the chapter, I just thought I'd ask if we're going to see either of the following avatars interact with Skuld and Lars during the Time of Troubles.

Gwaeron Windstrom, the demigod of tracking and rangers in the North (of Faerun). A divine servant of Mielikki. During the original timeline's Time of Troubles, his avatar - in the North of Faerun - would track Malar through the North, keeping the evil god of the hunt from causing too much harm in Gwaeron's home territory. As an interesting side note, some of Drizzt's comments suggest that the renegade drow ranger may worship Gwaeron as well as Mielikki.

Selune, currently ranked as an (weak?) intermediate goddess of the moon. As I understand it, during the OTL, her avatar spent most of the Time of Troubles trying to live a quiet life as an inn keeper in Waterdeep. Shar's avatar almost got her killed by Selune's own clerics in the city, by pretending to be the goddess of the moon's avatar.

Speaking of Shar, her ability to get things done in the OTL version of the Time of Troubles became a lot easier for me to swallow after the Shadow Weave was revealed. As best I can put together, in the OTL, Shar (at the very least) did the following. 1) Killed Ibrandul (god of caverns and dungeons) beneath Waterdeep (Undermountain), and absorbed his portfolio, without anyone - other than a few of her clerics - knowing about this for *years*. 2) Nearly got Selune's avatar killed by the moon goddess' own worshippers in Waterdeep. 3) Tried to kill Sharess (goddess of cats and prostitutes) in a harem in Calimport - this failed only because Sune showed up to save her old friend and then undo the centuries of mind-influencing magics (Basically "Shar is my friend, and I should trust her." IMO, anyway) Shar had placed on Sharess.

(Speaking of which, I have to admit that this improved my opinion of Sune, the greater goddess of beauty and love, by quite a bit. Pissing off Shar is something that even the gods don't do lightly.)

Chapter Fifty-two: Visions of the Future

Given that Skuld is the Norn of the Future, and now the goddess of the *Shadow* Weave, I have to give this title at least three groans out of five, on the Pun-o-meter.

I take it that the Riders were using silver (alloyed) tipped arrows, given how easily they were affecting the devils?

Then the now thoroughly perforated creature took a strange object off its back and activated the strange wand/staff-thing with a tremendous roar of fire and noise, causing Andre, the paladin at the forefront of the charge, to die messily as his head exploded. The creature then hurled some sort of mental magical attack that slew Andre’s lieutenant Kris, his mental screams as his soul was shredded causing the all the horses and many of the men to panic, destroying the momentum of the charge before it had a chance to hit the tiny cluster of devils.

I think the soul-rending attack will impress the Erinyes more than the shotgun blast.

They, poor dears, don't know about things like "mass production". Yet.

On the whole, it hadn’t been worth it, but still, it was good to see two devils erased from the multiverse.

So Lars' retinue of Erinyes is reduced from ten down to eight. Given that eight still seems to be the "default" holy number for (new) Chaos Undivided, I have to put this in the same category of "is it really coincidence" as Asuka's last fight before her ascension to godhood.

Then, with a terrible cry, she hurled the energies at the Riders, catching in a swirling holocaust of destructive energies that flayed them and their horses to the bone… but not beyond that. As their own flesh burned, they did not die. No, a far worse fate awaited them.

Flaming skeleton(s)? Check.

The metal of their armour and weapons peeled back and melted, flowing about their burning bodies and reforming into thick chains that bound the riders to servitude. Their clothing combusted but did not turn to ash and fly away, rather reforming into the thick garments of semi-nomadic herders they had never seen but that Lars and Skuld knew very well.

Lots of chains? Check.

Clothes? Still a question mark.

When the dread spell was complete, approximately three hundred men and three hundred horses had been transformed, all their flesh stripped away and turned to halos of hellfire and night black smoke about their burning skeletons. They wore long coats and heavy leathers that seemed perpetually singed but never actually ignited. Wrapped around them were chains of steel that seemed to only be solid on a thin, cracked crust on the surface for one could see the white hot glow of molten metal beneath. From their right arms the chains draped down, long whips of molten cold iron wreathed in hellfire ready for use in the service of the one that had just claimed them. Meanwhile their mounts had been transformed into skeletal nightmares, snorting yellow-white flames while their glowing orange hooves struck sparks of molten iron across the ground.

So they're wearing leather cowboy outfits? Huh. Well, I guess since they're going to be riding horses instead of motorcycles...

And somehow, I don't think that these fellows will be a Frost Giant's best friends.

Paladins, rangers, fighters, and even clerics of other gods had made up the Riders of Nesmé. They had all been transformed, every last one of them involved in the attack, their souls claimed irretrievably by Skuld’s magic.

Which is probably going to annoy more than a few good and neutral gods. Having even a small number of your worshippers stolen from you tends to cause teeth to grind. Given that *any* divine spellcaster - including druids and rangers - in the Forgotten Realms has to be a passionate worshipper of one of the gods, the loss of these clerics, paladins and rangers is going to be taken as an even greater insult.

But, then again, they *did* launch a sneak attack on another goddess' husband...

Compelled by more than just the fear and pain that tormented them, the Riders mounted their flaming steeds and whipped them on with their chains, striking sparks as they took to the skies, the hooves of their horses finding purchase upon thin air as if it were a cobbled street. As they ascended, the trails of smoke about them coalesced into dark black thunderclouds, lightning leaping from the storm to lash at the riders, causing them to cry out with pain but harming them not in the least.

Somehow, I don't think that this is going to help Skuld keep a low profile in this part of Faerun. Or *any* part of Faerun, depending on how far individual ghost riders range between now and when the Time of Troubles end. Of course, it will help to spread her faith; since several of the gods (particularly among the evil ones) are regularly invoked to basically show that their powers are recognized so there's no reason to give any "demonstrations".

They probably won't pass beyond Faerun's borders to one of the other two segements of this continent, let alone to one of the other continents, before the Time of Troubles end. Probably.

And this has got to impress the Erinyes. Vengence for their two fallen sisters, and the transformation of enemies into tools, all in one package. The whole "fight 'true' evil" bit probably doesn't please them, but you can't please everyone all of the time.

And he got a bodkin or eight to the face for his trouble.

Bodkin?

Looking up at the still rather surprised Erinyes, Lars said jokingly to Skuld, “In the tradition of my people, I present to my wife a small harem for our own amusement.”

Before the Erinyes had time to respond to that Skuld placed a finger on her chin ponderingly and said, “Can they lick a good pussy or are they exclusively cock munchers?”

Well, I guess that removes any doubt that mingling of their souls has given Skuld a little bit of Mislaato. I guess a previous poster here was incorrect that Skuld would need to absorb (at least part of) Lovitar's portfolio before Odin's parental sense would start to tingle.

Oh, yes, before I forget.

<Animal House> OR-GY! OR-GY! OR-GY! </Animal House>

Falagoro frowned at him and protested, “I have personally damned over a hundred mortals!”

Cue Asmodeus getting a bit of a headache, and making a mental note to pass down an inter-office memo that it's generally *easier* to tempt individuals if they either don't think you're trying to tempt them, or (at the very least) aren't very good at it.

BTW, is Lars currently dressed like a Commisar or a naval captain?

Turning back to the town, he said, “This here is a rifle, approximately modelled after the Pattern 1853 Enfield although incorporating some of the characteristics of a Springfield 1861. It fires a .577 calibre Minie ball bullet, nasty little round that can easily remove a limb if it doesn’t just blow your guts or brains out. For a muzzleloader, it has excellent range, accuracy, and rate of fire. But the real power of this beauty here is that with the proper tools and training, anyone can make one. This is a major advantage as anyone can use one. Typical training time is a few weeks to achieve proficiency, instead of the years it takes to train with a sword or decades for magic.”

The revolution *will* be on your crystal balls.

Given what little I know about the subject, I'd say that it probably wouldn't be that hard at all for them to make minie balls that have a high enough "cold iron" or silver content to affect beings like demons and devils. Even without enchanting the rifles, that would let them be used on just about anything with a body. Sure you'd still need enchanted riles - or possibly even other types of weapons - for some threats, but that's what officers and special forces units are for.

Lars then frowned and said, “But do not think for one second we will tolerate your abuse of our allies, those whose only crime is that they were born different from you. We judge not on skin or shape, but on action. This world is full of dangers; do not make us amongst them. Think of the future, think of your children. Do you want them standing strong, shoulder to shoulder, the thinks that have hunted you cowering in their holes against them, or do you want them vanished to the mists of history? Choose people of Nesmé, and choose carefully.”

Carrot and stick.

I think you want "the things that have hunted" instead of "the thinks that have hunted".

Likewise I think you want "want them to vanish into the mists" instead of "want them vanished to the mists".

Rushing over to where the refugees were all retreating, the sight that greeted them was rather bizarre collection of giant, shadowy green spiders stepped out of swirling pools of darkness. There were also smaller ones seemingly made of metal that accompanied them, and some strange ones that were pale and seemed to phase in and out of reality. That wasn’t the bizarre part.

The bizarre part was the fact that at the centre of the grouping, riding on the largest of the shadowy spiders was a tiny little rabbit-spider thing with a mallet in its mouth.

Well, Skuld's worshippers will now know what her holy weapon is.

Then Lars dropped the biggest bombshell when he reported what his senses were telling him.

“They’re all female… and they’re all pregnant… with that System Bug’s children,” Lars said with a strangely horrified look on his face that was quickly mirrored by Skuld.

Poor Ao. Poor, poor Ao.

The bug then hopped down off it’s… well queen seemed the right word… and strode over to Lars and Skuld before depositing the hammer thought lost for months at Skuld’s feet. It then looked up at them with a stare that dared them to turn it against him.

I have to agree with others who have already stated that this seems to be a request for a non-aggression pact.

Of course, it could also be part of an offer to serve Skuld.

Smiling, Skuld said, “I say we kill Lolth and give the spider part of her portfolio to him.”

“If he doesn’t beat us to the punch,” Lars murmured.

Stronger gods in the Forgotten Realms do typically have one or more weaker gods as their subordinates.

Hmmm.... I wonder if the bug will just end up as the god of spiders...

In any event, thank you for the great chapter!

[von Neufeld]

Nice alternate viewpoint in the most recent chapter. However, I think it's time to take some looks at Buffyverse and Stiletto now.

[TheClueless]

Chalenge Rating: Hard

I don't supppose you could give us a numerical value for the challenge rating?

Balance of Good and Evil: Ghost riders are creatures of good, but they were damned for rash action and they have the fires of hell wreathing and strengthening their bodies. Thus they detect as evil and good aligned weapons are required to get through their damage reduction and regeneration, but any spells or abilities that deal damage or status effects based on alignment use their true alignment. Thus an unholy blight spell would hurt them, and while a holy sword would get through their damage reduction and deal real damage, it would not deal extra damage for striking an evil creature.

I imagine that the fact that'll be detected by "detect good" and by "detect evil" will cause some confusion for the first few months/years of their existance.

Love Quenches the Flames: The ghost riders were originally damned for attacking the mate of a goddess thinking him evil, thus the only cure for their condition is for others to not be so blind. If any creature of any alignment truly and honestly loves a ghost rider for who and what they are, then they will revert to a mortal form. Remove all special abilities and attacks except for smite evil, rejuvenation, and love quenches the flames for as long as at least one sentient being loves the ghost rider for whom they are. If killed while in this form they immediately rejuvenate (see below).

Do they gain any spellcasting abillities (like Ranger equal to their hit dice perhaps) while in their "mortal" form?

Rejuvenation: Like actual undead ghosts, ghost riders are tied to the mortal realms by the deity level strength of their curse and thus if killed they will return in 1d4 days without fail, unless an over deity steps in to undo the curse. Any ghost rider that has just rejuvenated has the love quenches the flames ability suppressed for a year and a day. If killed while in mortal form due to the love quenches the flames ability, they return on the round following their deaths.

So the only ones who could free them are Skuld, Ao, or beings that are at least as powerful/"connected" as either of them?

There we go, the first draft of the D&D version of my ghost riders. Still need to do the mounts, but they'll be based off a combination of nightmares, the celestial template, and the paladin's mount so there is less to think up there. Comments from the other D&D players?

It would still be nice to see their (the mounts) stats.

I haven't played anything in over a decade, but I personally feel it was "Most impressive". If I was playing an evil PC, these would be right up there in my characters nightmares.

[JGregory32]

You know someone is going to have to eventually tell Belldandy and Urd that Skuld got married and now has a daughter. A daughter that like to build skull thrones out of 'bad people' but still skull thrones. I wonder if Hild is going to have the typical anime reaction to hearing that she now has Grandbabies she can spoil.
Hmmm... would Mara get appointed babysitter/blame magnet for Grunhild?
Lord help Kenchi if he ever hurts Belldandy, she now has inlaws/neices that would do very nasty things to him.
Through I could see Lars taking him aside for a little 'advice' on relationships.

[holyknight]

You know someone is going to have to eventually tell Belldandy and Urd that Skuld got married and now has a daughter. A daughter that like to build skull thrones out of 'bad people' but still skull thrones. I wonder if Hild is going to have the typical anime reaction to hearing that she now has Grandbabies she can spoil.
Hmmm... would Mara get appointed babysitter/blame magnet for Grunhild?
Lord help Kenchi if he ever hurts Belldandy, she now has inlaws/neices that would do very nasty things to him.
Through I could see Lars taking him aside for a little 'advice' on relationships.

Err.......Hild can't say anything bout Grunhild, as Skuld and Belldandy are born of different mothers, but goddesses on their cases, unlike Urd, born from the Daimakaichou Hild.......


...although, being serious, she's VEERY likely to see Skuld's daughter, then start to wheedle Urd about giving her grandchildren to spoil too....

[Jim Starluck]

Through I could see Lars taking him aside for a little 'advice' on relationships.

He, uh... he pretty much already did that.

[WillowBee]

For the Praxis, followers of Chaos enjoy behaving like Jerks with Style, so maybe the Stiletto could snatch-teleport a few Torminel and Naxid, refer to them as “soon to be extinct species” (which is very likely) and put them in a zoo “to keep the conservationists happy.” As an added cruelty, they could be forced to entertain tourists and annoying children.

Welcome to the Tickle-Me Gitmo* combination Zoo and POW camp.

*The Daily Show once did a show where the Sesame Street muppet Elmo was sent to Guantanamo Bay detention center. Very funny,

[Darth Fanboy]

What about the Eva that showed up on the Daemonworld, i'd love to see that thing unleashed on the Ori.

[Darth Yoshi]

No can do. Remember, Reigle and Asukhon offered the Ascended a concession as a gesture of good faith for Kali's excursion and their entering that reality to retrieve her. They requested that the Eva not leave the Daemonworld. Of course, that doesn't mean Asukhon can't build a second one elsewhere. Of course newChaos could probably take on the Ascended and the Ori if they wanted, but a full out god war will likely alert people who need to remain unaware.

I'm curious; how many rare is use of the Shadow Weave? I get the impression that Shar was until recently the only being even aware of its existence.

[Firethorn]

Do they gain any spellcasting abillities (like Ranger equal to their hit dice perhaps) while in their "mortal" form?

Given the wording, the stat listing is for a 'generic' Ghost Rider. In reality, if Academia Nut wanted, he could gen Ghost rider versions of all 300 odd transformed men. While it could be argued that they've lost their magical abilities due to the transformation and Skuld's taking of their souls while transformed, I'd say the odds are good that any under the love transformation would resume their previous forms - and all abilities therein. Paladins would be paladins, etc...

I haven't played anything in over a decade, but I personally feel it was "Most impressive". If I was playing an evil PC, these would be right up there in my characters nightmares.

Especially once word of 'Love Quenches the Flames' gets around. Here you are, slaughtering some village when you kill the wrong person and suddenly have a Ghost Rider after you. Whether it be that nasty fighter type or some innocent woman.

[Valorie]

The Shadow Weave is relatively well-known to those with +10 ranks in knowledge(arcana), but few people use it because Shar demands servitude from those who wish to access its shadowy power. Those who refuse are hunted down but Shar's clergy. Technically, the Shadow Weave is redundant, as the normal Weave can be used for light and dark magic, creating an unneccessary dichotomy.

"SHADOW WEAVE MAGIC" feat

Prerequisite: Wis 15 or patron deity Shar.
Benefit: From now on, your spells tap the Shadow Weave instead of the Weave. You can also activate magic items that use the Shadow Weave without taking damage.
The saving throw for every spell you cast from the schools of enchantment, illusion, and necromancy increases by +1. You also get a +1 bonus on caster level checks to overcome spell resistance with spells from these schools.
The Shadow Weave proves less than optimal for effects involving energy r matter. Your effective caster level for spells you cast from the schools of evocation or transmutation (except spells with the darkness descriptor) is reduced by one. A 1st-level Shadow Weave user cannot cast spells from these schools at all.
You can no longer cast spells with the light descriptor. No matter what school they are from, such spells automatically fail. Your ability to use magic items that produce light effects is also limited - you cannot invoke an item's light power if its activation method is spell completion or spell trigger. From now on, any magic item you create is a Shadow Weave item (see Chapter 2 of the FORGOTTEN REALMS Campaign Setting).

[Valint]

I'm curious; how many rare is use of the Shadow Weave? I get the impression that Shar was until recently the only being even aware of its existence.

I believe the Shadow Weave was essentially a 3e creation--the retcon was that Shar had the Shadow Weave for millenia, but only allowed the occasional individual access to it. Knowledge became widespread in 1372 (the start of 3e, 14 years after the Time of Troubles), when the city of Shade returned to Faerun.

Considering that Shar had the power to cut anyone off from use of the Shadow Weave (and, even if she didn't cut you off, those who did not follow Shar took a permanent -2 to Wisdom from touching the Shadow Weave), one would imagine that any servants of Shar used to the Shadow Weave were in for a big surprise when Skuld took her place.

[Darth Fanboy]

They requested that the Eva not leave the Daemonworld. Of course, that doesn't mean Asukhon can't build a second one elsewhere.

I had implied the creation of a second daemonworld from the way NewChaos readily agreed to the Ancient's terms.

[TheClueless]

I'm curious; how many rare is use of the Shadow Weave? I get the impression that Shar was until recently the only being even aware of its existence.

I believe the Shadow Weave was essentially a 3e creation--the retcon was that Shar had the Shadow Weave for millenia, but only allowed the occasional individual access to it. Knowledge became widespread in 1372 (the start of 3e, 14 years after the Time of Troubles), when the city of Shade returned to Faerun.

Considering that Shar had the power to cut anyone off from use of the Shadow Weave (and, even if she didn't cut you off, those who did not follow Shar took a permanent -2 to Wisdom from touching the Shadow Weave), one would imagine that any servants of Shar used to the Shadow Weave were in for a big surprise when Skuld took her place.

Agreed. Before Shade showed up, Shar supposedly kept the Shadow Weave a secret from just about all of the Forgotten Realms population - that, plus the fact that the Plane of Shadows was her home turf in 3.x - allowed her to keep the existance of the Shadow Weave a secret from all the other gods, let alone Joe Wizard in Waterdeep.

My own guestimate is that Faerun *might* have as many as fifty individuals (and yes, I'm counting the undead here too) who had the Shadow Weave feat as of the Time of Troubles; but I wouldn't be surprised it if was less than twenty. In any event, at least half of them would have been clerics of Shar instead of mages or sorcerers.

The "redundant" nature of the Shadow Weave was (IC) due to two things. First off, Shar wanted to be free of having to depend on another god(dess) to allow her access to magic; and likewise wanted to free her followers from this - since only *she* can control them! Secondly, the creation of the Shadow Weave was an important step in Shar's plan to either seize control of the (normal) Weave, or destroy it. Either way, she'd have a monopoly on magic.

Two other things to remember :

The first is that the Shadow Weave was a one-way trip. Once you started to use it, nothing less than a wish could allow you to start using the "normal" Weave again. (And, Shar had a nasty habit of taking exception to people doing this. The kind that gets a high level divine assassin of Shar assigned to to your case.)

The second is that Shar had a lot more freedom in regards to cutting people off from the Shadow Weave than Mystra does in regards to the (normal) Weave. (And probably more than Skuld does, IMO.) Shar was a goddess of darkness, not of magic. Cutting people off - temporarily or permenantly - from the Shadow Weave didn't hurt her "worship intake" any where near as badly as it would Mystra.

[Satori]

Songs of Thunder: When mounted and either at a full gallop or charging, as part of the action the ghost rider may let out a mournful cry. All evil creatures that hear the song must make a Will saving throw with the DC equal to the ghost rider’s Perform (sing) check or become panicked for 2d6 rounds and shaken until the end of the encounter with the ghost rider. If unable to flee, any creature so affected will be paralyzed with fear if confronted while still panicked. Any creature that successfully saves is immune to any ghost rider’s song for the next 24 hours. This is a mind affecting, sonic effect.

Skill chekc based DC's are oh so easy to boost. But since they don't seem to have class levels, that's not utterly broken. Still, those DC are going to be really high. A DC of 18+1d20+CHA is going to be hard to beat.

[TheClueless]

Johan had led an interesting life up to this day. At age twelve he had been noticed as having some degree of sorcerous talent and had been recruited by a local mage as an apprentice, only for an orcish tribe to raid his village before he could do anything more than learn a few simple cantrips and thrust him into a long, brutal struggle to survive.

First it had been the orcs, claiming him as a slave for his ability to read the magical writings but never allowed to develop his abilities, instead forced to become a smith for them and improve their implements of war, bending his slight and untrained talents towards the enhancement of what he built for them. It had been a harsh few early years that had turned him to stone, and more than one fellow slave or rival orc who had tried to knife him in the back had taken a hammer blow to the head for the trouble.

I'm guessing Sorcerer (1 level only) / Artificer (from the Ebberon campaign setting). Possibly with levels in one of the classes from the Book of Nine Swords due to how strong/tough Johan apparently is. Probably no more than nine character levels; possibly no more than five.

Skuld will *like* Artificers (and their NPC equivalent, the Magewright). Basically they're mage-smiths; they can only cast their spells on items and constructs, and they get various item creation feats/bonuses as they go up in levels. They (and the Dragonmarks and the dragonshard crystals) are why the world of Eberron's "magi-tech" level is equivalent to somewhere between 1918 and 1946 (closer to 1918, in most areas).

A week later Kirilae had shown Johan what lay beyond the door. It was a small room, clearly carved out by magic decades ago. In it was a collection of works that probably would have had Kirilae sacrificed on some bloodstained altar for possessing. They were magical treatises written by the surface elves. Kirilae had run across mention of some of their magic years ago and it had become an obsession for her to discover the strange blend of magic and swordplay called blade singing that some of them used.

There were many styles of combining the arcane with martial disciplines, and Kirilae had been cobbling them together with what knowledge she could scrape together on the styles used by the surface elves. It was all heretical in the extreme, but Kirilae had been obsessed with uncovering the mechanics of how it was done since her early days training in wizardry. If her fellow drow would not let her study what she wanted because of what Lolth commanded, then to the Hells with Lolth.

Eh, I wasn't too fond of the Bladesinger prestige class in the Complete Warrior book, since you ended up only gaining five effective levels of your spellcasting class over ten levels. But it's still better than the version in Races of Faerun, since it has a seperate spellcasting progression rate that is the (arcane) equivalent of taking levels in a class like Ranger.

Let's just hope she's taken levels in a class from the Book of Nine Swords than levels of Fighter.

Then, two months after that, while out shopping for supplies, Johan had discovered a sale for weapons being produced in the Roreril compound. The quality of the blades was unsurpassed by anything without magic; the steel carefully tempered and folded with a delicate pattern of water ripples on the surface that belied the incredible strength such things actually spoke of. And yet there were literally dozens of these blades going for half what a lesser weapon might sell for.

Damascus steel?

Three months later House Roreril and House Oblodra obliterated House Baenre and the city was thrown into chaos as magic began to run amok and the political order tried to sort itself out in the typical drow fashion. Rumours abounded and it seemed that some new goddess had arisen in the midst of the Roreril compound and she intended to leave Menzoberranzan.

So Lars and Skuld had been on Faerun for approximately four months (due to the time it would take to travel to Menzoberranzan, and then set up the steel production facility) before House Baernre went the way of the dodo bird?

Kirilae had come to him, all the worldly possessions she could fit travel with; including the sword Johan had bought her, and asked him simply, “Will you follow me?”

Anyone else think of Babylon Five's Delenn when you read this part?

He brought his finger out of the pool of shadow he had created with his tools and he created a tiny smudge of inky blackness where no darkness should be able to manifest.

Hmmm... Maybe I should replace the level in Sorcerer with a level in Shadowcaster (from Tome of Magic)?

Johan’s heart nearly stopped when he realized that she had just called him ‘dear’ so freely and casually. Grinning, he held up the shield about his hand and gestured to the flickering darkness about him and said, “I think I just figured out how to touch Lady Skuld’s Shadow Weave.”

Well, if Warlocks can take levels in prestige classes that require caster levels, I can't see why Artificers and/or Shadowcasters couldn't take the Shadow Weave feat. Or, for that matter, levels in (Skuld's version of) the Shadow Adept prestige class.

Or he could be "rebuilding" himself. Shadowcaster / (One of the Book of Nine Swords base classes), with levels in the Shadowsmith prestige class maybe?

She had figured out the blade art she had sought for so many decades!

Well, I've already made my opinion on both version of the Bladesinger prestige class pretty clear.

I therefore can't help but hope that she's also been "rebuilt".
Shadowcaster / (One of the Book of Nine Swords base classes), with at least one level in a prestige class (either something from the Book of Nine Swords, or the Shadowblade prestige class).

Pulling him tight and demonstrating with her closeness just how thin the silk adorning her body was, Kirilae ask, “I am an elf and you are a human. I will outlive you and any children we might have, barring violence. I doubt I will truly ever comprehend all those little human things that you have been getting so excited about recently. But would you swear to love me for the rest of our lives before the goddess?”

I wouldn't be too sure that you'll outlve Johan by too much (if at all), Kirilae. Not if Skuld develops her own version of the Shade template anyway.

[TheClueless]

One thought that keeps coming to mind is: What about the city of Shade?

If you go by the numbers presented "Lords of Darkness" (and assume that the population was basically the same approx. 12 to 14 years earlier, during the Time of Troubles), it has a population of 25,000 (not counting non-human slaves, of course). Approx. five hundred of them are Shades.

Due to the fact that they are the decendants of Netherese (or, in some cases, were born before Netheril fell), taking a level in an arcane spell casting classes is (IMO) strongly encouraged. Likewise, due to the fact that their state (and therefore only legal) religion is the worship of Shar, I'd feel safe in saying that any arcane spell caster (and cleric of Shar, of course) is strongly encouraged to take the Shadow Weave feat as soon as possible.

But Shar's *lost* control of the Shadow Weave.

So, are at least some of the Shadovar going to start (quietly) worshipping Skuld? Will this result in a civil war among the citizens of the city of Shade?

[Jonen C]

But, then again, they *did* launch a sneak attack on another goddess' husband...

I'm sorry, but I have to smile at this.

"Sneak attack" is not something I normally associate with a cavalry charge.

I have a feeling the Forgotten Realms are going to learn a few new rules.

#0. The Rules have changed. Deal with it.
#1. Do not mess with Skulds family.

Hm?

[MichaelAwesome]

If Lars’ placed his personal sigil onto stone, would that gradually turn mineral substances into low-yield Warpstone? In the “Warhammer Fantasy” setting, Warpstone is solidified darkness with radioactive properties. If Skuld anchored pieces of Warpstone to the Shadow Weave, it’d act like a passive firewall against Shar if she tried to regain control over her domain. Analogues similar to Warpstone include Materia from “Final Fantasy VII” and Tiberium from “Command&Conquer.”

[Jaeger]

Slightly off topic:

Is the Stiletto equipped with a miniaturized Infinity Circuit? For the Open Doors continuum, there’s the chance that any Stiletto crewmember killed while the ship is in a low-energy dimension (such as the Doldrums) will be lost and not join with their Chaos gods in the Afterlife.

Tzintchi wants to have as much information and raw data as possible, so being denied the opportunity to absorb the souls of his followers and gain access to their memories would be very frustrating to him, particularly for when the Stiletto is exploring uncharted territories outside the Great Warding, as a seemingly insignificant nugget of knowledge could prove useful to his long-reaching plans.

As such, Chaos Undivided would wish to explore the recreation of Infinity Circuit technology if they have not already begun to do so.

In canon 40k, Craftworld Eldar use the Infinity Circuit to contain the souls of their deceased rather than allowing them to be devoured by Slaanesh and is the closest thing they have to an Afterlife.

[WillowBee]

In the Cityscape book, "arcane pollution" is talked about. To avoid pissing off the Neutral druidic gods of Nature, Skuld needs a system to keep her industrialization from badly damaging the local environment, like enchanting EarthElementals to help purify and breakdown unwanted chemical byproducts. Skuld has already started off on a bad foot by blowing up half of Northern Faerun with a subterranean atomic explosion.

Oozes and otuyghs make great garbage disposers as they'll eat anything that'd other creatures.

Is the Stiletto equipped with a miniaturized Infinity Circuit? For the Open Doors continuum, there’s the chance that any Stiletto crewmember killed while the ship is in a low-energy dimension (such as the Doldrums) will be lost and not join with their Chaos gods in the Afterlife.

Making Soulstones and mini-Infinity Circuits standard issue aboard Chaos Undivided's larger warships would also make a good defense in the inevitable conflict against AU versions the old Chaos gods that didn’t go back in time and uncreate themselves. The daemon minions of Slaanesh and Khorne are able to steal souls, so a Chaotic variant of the Infinity Circuit would protect their souls from being capture and leak valuable information to their enemies. Plus, Infinity Circuits behave like a collective spiritual entity, so it could be harnessed as an emergency power source when Warp taps like S3 organs aren’t available.

[Academia Nut]

For those interested minds, here are Johan and Kirilae's rough stats for 3.5 D&D. They're more meant to show them at the point of the story where they are introduced, and they are intentionally somewhat sub-optimal because they are characters in a story with organic backgrounds rather than the death machines of an actual campaign.

Here are basically the vital statistics, the stuff that will allow for the broad outlines of the characters to be appreciated by those who can read the numbers.

Johan, human fighter 5/shadowsmith 1
Str 14
Dex 12
Con 12
Int 15
Wis 10
Cha 14

Feats
Insightful }
Night Haunt } These two are to represent the nascent sorcerous ability he never got to properly develop
Weapon Focus (warhammer) - About the only weapon he could learn with as a smith
Blind-Fight - Underdark adaptation
Endurance }
Improved Initiative - Snap to it!
Diehard } These two are to represent his ability to keep going despite the punishments his masters might have inflicted upon him

Skills
Intimidate 10 - Keeps the other slaves off him
Craft (weapons) 11
Knowledge (arcana) 5 }
Knowledge (the planes) 5 } What he's managed to glean over the years reading off scrolls and the like with his Insightful feat
Hide 6 }
Move Silently 5 } A slave who is neither seen nor heard while doing his jobs is quite enjoyed by the racist drow
Use Magic Device 6 - For working with arcane materials while smithing. He really sucks with this skill despite the fact that he's poured a large number of points into it for little gain, but its part of his background

Possessions
Smith's hammer (counts as warhammer)

---

Kirilae, drow Wizard 1/Fighter 5/Bladesinger 3

Str 14
Dex 18
Con 10
Int 16
Wis 10
Cha 12

Feats
Combat Casting
Scribe Scroll - bonus feat for wizard
Weapon Focus (longsword)
Combat Expertise
Dodge
Mobility
Practiced Spellcaster - She's been keeping up with her studies of the arcane even while she hones her skills with a blade
Exotic Armour Proficiency (spider silk) - picked up just recently when she got her shadow spider silk armour

Skills
Spellcraft 10
Concentration 6
Knowledge (arcana) 8
Decipher Script 7
Balance 13
Perform (dance) 3
Perform (sing) 3
Tumble 13
Jump 9

Possessions
Shadow spidersilk armour (+3 armour, 0 armour check penalty, +10 max dex, 0% spell failure in shadowy areas, 10% elsewhere, weight 1lb)
Damascus moderncraft longsword - I know there are rules for damascus blades for 3.5 out there somewhere, but moderncraft basically makes hardness 20, masterwork quality, and costs twice as much as a regular blade to make with non-magical additions costing half as much to add on (the base cost for the purposes of construction would be 30+damascus cost/2)
Sunglasses

---

Of course, the fact that both of these characters are poor refugees has affected their ability to have equipment.

For those of you with issue for the moderncraft addition, well the strengths of steels in the medieval world were easily an order of magnitude below modern steels, if not two orders of magnitude for some. I remember hearing about someone debunking a bit of katana wanking about how a katana wielded by an expert could cut through a metal helmet, but it was pointed out that the katana was ruined by the act, and it was modern steel versus period iron.

In other words, the Forgotten Realms are about to have to ponder the riddle of steel anew.

[Academia Nut]

Chapter Fifty-four: Mask Dance

The last week had been frustrating for Captain Rong. Living in this realm was like trying to breathe on top of a tall mountain where the air was just thick enough to sustain life. And with Arya dormant to keep the both of them alive, it was like having half her brain lobotomized. The smarter, more experienced half too.

Thus she was working out her frustrations in the cool, intricate motions of a Tzintchian mask dance, the highest form of art that did not involve toppling empires. In a mask dance, the only thing ‘worn’ was a mask, in that the only thing the audience should never see is the face of the dancer. Elaborate costumes, fans, ribbons, and other props were used, and the mask was often changed, but the face of the dancer was never to be seen.

The objective, of course, was to scare the fuck out of the audience. Each routine was carefully constructed to confuse and disorient watchers into believing something that wasn’t real via forced perspectives and the use of distracting props, very much like the sleight of hand magicians of a previous era. Psychic abilities were prohibited, only careful choreography, whatever the dancer or dancers brought to the stage and old fashioned deception.

The climax of the dance arrived with the ‘fright’, some act that terrified those watching. The simplest dances ended with the audience watching one part of the stage certain that the dancer was there and then the dancer would emerge somewhere else and shout some variation of ‘Boo!’ to startle the audience. More complex ones used the motion to form unsettling philosophical questions in the mind and then at the climax pose a terrifying answer.

There were also instances of a Tzintchian duel ending with the dancer emerging to somehow attack the rival duellist in the audience. Dozens of documented cases ended with death for the unsuspecting target, making the performances all the more exciting as there was real danger to watching the performance. Rong herself had used a war fan to slit the throat of a teacher back in her academy days, thus earning her an automatic pass with top honours in that course.

She moved in a field of spinning frames draped with long robes and set with masks and holders for brightly coloured robes and shining swords. The frames were set on rollers as well, so every time she moved one she created an intricate pattern of motion. It was a practical example of chaos theory as the basic Brownian motion of the system was also influenced by the spinning arms colliding with each other, creating impossibly complex patterns.

Ducking in and out amongst the frames, Rong spun and danced, switching out her current accoutrements for the ones on the frames. One moment she had a fan like a butterfly’s wings, a silk blue robe with patterns of swans, and a terracotta mask like a tiger’s face, while the next she was wearing a cloak of pleated white cotton, a pair of gleaming bronze daggers, and white plastic mask devoid of features. All of the new items were taken from different frames.

The story Rong told in the motion was complex and multilayered. Perhaps an Eldar might have been capable of properly understanding the degree of subtleties, but there were dozens of sub-patterns and stories constructed in the overall dance. The overall theme was a questioning of the planned war with the C’tan, leading the audience to wonder if the looming conflict was worth it.

With a sudden crash, the carefully constructed chaos of motion Rong had constructed came to a halt as the spinning, moving frames all collided, their carefully tended motions finally coming to an end as they all locked up and some where knocked to the ground. The audience had their horrific conclusion.

Chaos was unsustainable.

Removing her mask, Rong looked about at the tumble and smiled. She was the only one in the room.

She had her answer as to what to do about the Praxis.


The crew of the Galactica had been quiet about the latest bout of ‘cooperation’ the Stiletto had offered recently. Their captain had made some tactical demands of the Colonials in dealing with this new threat. They explained that this area of space had some problems for their engines and thus they were slowly recharging for the next jump out, so they had asked the Colonials to deal with the screaming maniacs, even if they had offered assistance in doing it.

That ‘assistance’ involved sending over a pair of creepy guys in concealing robes carrying long staffs with weird eight pointed stars made from brass on the tops as ‘sensors and communications experts’, and one ‘close-quarters combat specialist’. The latter was kept in his assigned quarters unless they had a mission as he quite frankly scared everyone who saw him. When he walked his massive boots shook the deck and the human skulls he had tied to his armour clanked and rattled about. If it weren’t for the fact that he kept his helmet off when not in combat he would have easily been mistaken for some sort of Cylon war robot in his blood red mechanical armour.

Talking with them was hard as none of them knew any of the Colonial languages and the device they used as a translator was back aboard their ship so they needed to be in radio contact with the Stiletto, but very few actually wanted to talk to them. When not in their assigned quarters, the two robed… creatures… spent most of their time on the bridge inputting targeting data and jump points, while the giant stood protectively over them or, during the two military manoeuvres they had performed so far to shut up the raving lunatics at the listening outpost, he had led the attack.

None who had seen him in battle questioned why the Cylons had run screaming when they had tried to board the Stiletto. He was a monster in battle, although surprisingly gentle with the unarmed. He however accepted no quarter. Once you picked up arms against him the only conclusion was death. If you surrendered right away, he secured you but otherwise did no harm.

Fortunately for the crews of the listening post, there weren’t many weapons, except for ugly knives wielded by their officers, so only the guys at the top actually died, although their severed heads had been quickly stuck onto spikes on the baroque armour of the giant.

The Colonials did not like fighting with him as the roars of his war cries or his oversized gun or his chainsaw axe terrified them, but they had let him accompany them on the mission to the second outpost because they were more terrified of having him as an enemy than as a friend.

Other demands that had been made included the Raptors performing the op to take a very bizarre and precise route to the outposts. Instead of just jumping right to the outposts, they had been asked to make a series of smaller jumps such that the light cone of the craft just caught up to the new position before jumping again. They also asked that they only move in straight lines on these micro-jumps and take paths around any space debris instead of bypassing ‘through’ them. It was a strain to the systems, but the Stiletto had offered fuel to make up for the inefficiency of lots of jumps one after another and had been quite adamant that it be done the way they wanted or they wouldn’t help out with the operation.

There had also been the demand that the outposts be struck one after the other instead of a simultaneous mission. Only Adama was old and cagey enough to see what the captain of the Stiletto might have been doing.

These people claimed that they knew everything and that the Colonials and the Stiletto would submit to the ‘Praxis’, which apparently wasn’t their god despite talking about it like it was, while simultaneously not knowing about FTL drives. Any civilization that had access to FTL would quickly understand that they didn’t have a dozen contacts on their screen. In fact, Colonial and Cylon targeting systems were capable of automatically filtering such ‘light echo’ noise. An STL civilization on the other hand…

Adama figured that the Stiletto wanted to feed potential enemies information that was completely and utterly wrong now while they controlled the battlefield and information flow so as to shape actions later if it came down to a fight. As it was, the enemy would think their FTL only marginally faster than the speed of light and required regular stops to function, and that it could not pass through large masses.

With the contribution of fuel, Adama had allowed their demands to be met. Their captain was a sneaky bitch and he rather hoped he wouldn’t end up moved about like some game piece on a board as well. Although he had a sneaking suspicion the plan had been constructed so that he would understand it and thus approve.

What sort of culture would produce such a twisted, devious little mind?

Looking over the interrogation logs from his own people, he had not been privy to the logs from the Stiletto as he had not asked, fearing what an ‘interrogation’ from them would look like, Adama also wondered what sort of culture could produce the people… and things they had found. The Stiletto was alien, but it was filled with strange humans rather than the creatures they had found out there.

Although Adama had to admit that even the humans they had discovered were alien. The Stiletto had provided translator aid, and what they got was… creepy. Every last member of the captured crews were fanatics, not all to the same degree but fanatics nonetheless, and they either refused to acknowledge that they might know about something as simple as artificial gravity or they proclaimed its existence an affront to the Praxis. Apparently to them, everything was already known, and thus if they didn’t know about it, it was obviously forbidden.

One of the hooded creatures from the Stiletto hissed something and then the radio crackled with the translation, “Incoming enemy fleet through the spinward wormhole.”


The fleet had been hastily assembled, but Praxis standards, in only a few days, elements of the local sector defence split off and merged with a task force deployed from Zanshaa to confront this new occurrence. At first their listen post had reported the discovery of a new space faring species, the worst case scenario for first contact. That alone demanded a reaction, especially since it was initially believed that the enemy was capable of constructing generation or sleeper ships, both of which required technologies banned by the Praxis.

Then they started noticing the anomalies. The data sent over showed that the speech patterns of the new creatures all fell exactly within the range of vocalization allowed by Terrans. That in itself was not particularly unusual, but there was further evidence that something was extremely anomalous. Because when further data was sent by those of the listening posts, it was noted that the ships had patterns possibly indicative of writing on them. Preliminary code analysis had been successful at deciphering the writing, because they had the languages on file.

The majority of the ships had writing based off of an ancient Terran language known as ‘Greek’ while the largest of the ships had writing in something called ‘English’, tongues and alphabets dead for centuries since the conquest of Terra.

The wormholes were situated far from Terra both in physical space and in the network, but with the flexibility of time and space across the wormholes, there was the possibility that perhaps despite the fact that they shouldn’t have had access to the necessary technology, pre-Praxis Terrans had somehow sent out an interstellar mission and established a colony somewhere the Shaa had missed.

Or colonies as analysis showed very different cultures had built the ships, especially the two largest ones. The biggest was in fact quite worrying due to the strong cultish leaning of the decoration. The Terrans were known for their freakish adherence to a huge number of cults before being brought into the Praxis, and if that disease had festered for centuries or longer unchecked… it made the officers shudder at the vile implications.

The flotilla dispatched was rather large considering the size and number of enemy ships, consisting of fourteen light frigates, six cruisers, three heavy cruisers, and the bombardment ship Bombardment of Delhi as the flag of the entire operation. There were some uncomfortable with sending Terrans against an enemy that was quite possibly Terran as well, but the officers had insisted they be given the honour of redeeming their species name if it were the case that this was an offshoot.

Then some truly unsettling information had arisen with the loss of the listening posts. They had been given the demand to “Cease your prattling on about the Praxis or we will do it for you forcibly” and when the officers of the outposts had refused to allow their offensive presence to go uncommented on, the attack had begun.

And it was revealed that the enemy hadn’t been exactly lying about the possession of FTL drives, something that the Shaa said was impossible. Their smaller ships were capable of going about zero point one percent slower than the speed of light through a series of straight line, discontinuous movements, although it appeared they could not move through massive bodies.

The full might of the Praxis was being mustered against this… the closest word would have been ‘blasphemous’ if it had existed in their vocabulary… terrible foe, but for now the flotilla already headed there would see about destroying or at least driving off this current fleet while the rest would be used to discover and annihilate their homeworld.

The tacticians of the Praxis were racking their brains as to how to combat these monsters from outside the purity of the Praxis. So far the larger ships had not moved, and the first transmission had spoken of ‘recharging our drives’ so it seemed that only their smaller ships could move faster than light on a tactical level, and they seemed locked into a course once set and could not change direction.

Analysis suggested leaving the point defence anti-proton lasers on manual operation as the computers would lock on to the more distant but no longer present images first and thus miss quite spectacularly if allowed to fire automatically. Fortunately it appeared that the enemy did not have the precision to get their end points within better than a half light second, which would give plenty of time to lock on to any missiles fired. The ships were too small to do any damage with anything less than missiles.

“Entering system 7-53 now sir,” the navigation officer aboard the Bombardment of Delhi reported. The ships of the flotilla streamed out of the wormhole into the mostly abandoned star system. The outpost that should have launched asteroids through to balance the mass and keep the wormhole stable was quiet, indicating just how barbaric these creatures were that they would risk the stability of the wormholes with their actions.

Commodore Helsinki watched the displays carefully while maintaining his high G breathing exercises. They were currently accelerating at a stately 2Gs, which while somewhat suffocating was not excessively dangerous and a reasonable acceleration rate going into a potentially hostile zone.

A flurry of reports reached Helsinki’s ears as telemetry was reported. The enemy formation remained under no acceleration and was several light minutes away, just sitting there.

Helsinki considered his options for a time before he announced, “Begin launching pinnaces and anti-matter missiles. We have no need to talk with these barbarians.”


Upon her command throne, Rong watched as data was put on the screen. While true that they had attacked first, they had politely asked the guys to just shut up and stop hurling threats at them for several days before finally issuing their ultimatum. Even the Colonials had wanted to launch an attack before Rong lost her patience.

“Analysis suggests antimatter missiles as the only weapon on all but the four largest ships, with anti-proton lasers as point defences on the four biggest ones,” Ichiro reported, his own daemon having gone dormant a day after Arya. He then grimaced and said, “Also, the translator has figured out the names of some of the ships, including the probable flagship. It’s called the Bombardment of Delhi.”

Arya had been born in Delhi.

There was silence for a long moment before Rong said, “We knew from interrogations that humans were incorporated into this foul Praxis, but that is just crass. Crew?”

“Humans,” Faust replied with a grimace.

Rubbing her forehead, Rong said, “Oh come on! Alright, I want that ship’s name plate as a trophy for when Arya wakes up and the skulls and viscera of the crew dedicated to Asukhon. Cripple the fuckers, don’t kill them. We’ll send a message.”


Adama watched as the information was transmitted over to the Galactica. The plan was… subtle yet straightforward, elegant yet brutal. The Stiletto would sit behind and use its FTL sensor and comm. gear to snipe out the incoming missiles and shield the fleet while keeping its true firepower in reserve, while the Galactica used its own FTL drive to dance around the enemy. Against a foe like the Cylons it would never work, and as it was it would strain their drives to spin them up fast enough, but the tactics were based off the Adama Manoeuvre, so it would work.

The basic plan was to jump in, deploy Vipers and take some shots with the Galactica’s main guns at the biggest ship before jumping out nearly as quickly as the drive could spin up before jumping around the battlefield to harass the smaller ships. Apparently these nutcases used antimatter weapons, a technology the Colonials didn’t possess because they had cheaper, more stable fuels that wouldn’t destroy the ship on a lucky hit. Who strapped a bomb to their frakking asses like that?

Leaning over the DRADIS display, Adama ordered, “On my mark, jump.”


The entire command deck rocked as high velocity, high explosive armour piercing rounds penetrated the Bombardment of Delhi, ripping into its hull like high calibre bullets against cardboard. The ships were armoured against things like space debris impacts, not kinetic weapons. The crushing sensation of forward motion ceased, leaving the crew to drift in zero gravity.

“Report!” Helsinki screamed.

“Enemy ship appeared ten kilometres off our port side and opened fire with high impulse chemically propelled weapons. Port sensors are offline and the engines were forced into shutdown by hull breeches too close to the secondary antimatter tanks,” the tactical officer reported in a near panic.

“Target with anti-proton lasers!” Helsinki barked furiously.

“Sir, all missiles and pinnaces destroyed by enemy weapons fire half way to target… weapons used appear to be relativistic particle beams and lasers…” the weapons officer replied in confusion. There was a delay of nearly a minute between firing and impact at that range. It should be impossible to track the tiny, rapidly accelerating missiles at that range with weapons like that. Light didn’t move… that… fast…?

Helsinki had the sinking feeling of being suckered.

“Unable to target enemy ship as it left us with a blind spot and it just disappeared,” the tactical officer said in a voice that said he fully expected to get his throat cut.

“Sir, Pride of Naxus reports they are under attack and that…” the communication officer was cut off by a sudden massive red warning triangle appearing on the tactical display screen.

“Low yield probable fission/fusion warhead impacted Pride of Naxus in the drive engine. It is currently leaking antimatter. Emergency venting occurring but containment loss imminent,” the tactical officer explained.

Helsinki watched as the battle unfolded. The Bombardment of Delhi was blinded on one side and was relying on the frigates around her to provide sensor data for the port side, and with the heavy cruiser Pride of Naxus for all intents and purposes destroyed, that reduced their close range point defence capacities by about 15%.

The ship rocked again, more violently this time, rattling the weightless command crew in their restraints.

“Enemy fighters?” The tactical officer asked rhetorically from his computer in confusion. He then reported, “Containment lost for primary starboard anti-proton laser array. Single seat craft armed with kinetic energy weapons are currently ripping apart our defences. They hull hugging us and staying inside our defensive perimeter. We can’t target them.”

“Vigilance destroyed,” the sensor officer announced, the tactical display showing that cursed ship had just jumped within range and punctured the light cruiser’s missile racks with its freakishly primitive guns, shattering the matrices of anti-hydrogen snowflakes, cooking off the weapons and turning the ship to monatomic gas before jumping away.

The entire flotilla was disintegrating. The abominable enemy ship was capable of moving faster than proper communication would allow, thus turning the tight command structure of all Praxis formations into a chaotic shambled. Captains expectant for orders from their superiors, were panicking and freezing. Helsinki had frozen! They weren’t used to fighting like this!

“By the Shaa! Terminus just destroyed by Superior!” The tactical officer practically gurgled in terror.

“Superior is one of ours!” Helsinki screamed.

“Superior auto-targeted the enemy ship with its anti-proton laser but it jumped out before the beam arrived and it struck the Terminus by mistake,” the officer reported in horror.

Helsinki would have the throat of the Superior’s captain for this! The man had always been a hot headed, trigger happy idiot and to turn the auto-targetters on without permission was just the sort of insolence he would pull!

Helsinki wracked his brain for any sort of tactic he had learned at the academy, but Praxis doctrine had never accounted for enemies capable of moving from one point to another faster than light without moving through the intervening space! He panicked.

“Starburst! Starburst!” Helsinki ordered. “We need to open up space in the formation so we can engage our defences without risking hitting each other.”

With only three ships capable of close in fighting, and one rapidly having its point defences ripped to shreds by ridiculous single seat fighters, they needed to maximize their ability to hit things, and that meant antimatter missiles from the lighter warships. But in this close formation they wouldn’t be able to use them without irradiating other ships in the explosions.

It was ultimately the worst move Helsinki could have made as once they starburst and broke up the tight formation, every ship was on its own and all possibility of mutual support ceased to exist and the ability to coordinate defences was impossible. Moving out to long range wouldn’t stop the Galactica from jumping in at point blank range and pounding a warship, only now Adama could take his time instead of having to keep skipping about to avoid the other ships in the formation from shooting at him.

Unfortunately, in the rigid hierarchy of the Praxis, no one questioned Helsinki’s judgement and the ships started immediately burning their drives as quickly as possible to break up the formation randomly.

Then the Executor, Helsinki’s third heavy cruiser, mysteriously exploded, along with one of his frigates. Something had ripped across the solar system and cut the heavy cruiser in half, cooking off its fuel, before puncturing the ship four light seconds behind it.

The sensors officer blinked a few times while looking at his screen before he timidly replied, “Sensors indicate a high intensity laser from the last reported vector-location of the largest enemy ship is responsible.”

Helsinki’s jaw dropped. There was a three minute delay! They had only started the starburst four minutes ago. The enemy ship would have had to have known what they were going to do before they did it! The laws of physics explicitly forbade that sort of thing. Not even FTL drives approached that level of impossibility.

Especially since there was still a cloud of plasma from the initial wave of missiles that blocked line of sight between the two fleets.

Within his acceleration and vacuum suit, Helsinki quietly relieved himself into the provided receptacle. Everything was going wrong.


Hakim sat quietly in the payload compartment of his assigned Thunderhawk. His squad was assigned to capture the bridge crew, their psychic abilities given them the edge they needed to get living members, while the faster Whips and Reavers would capture the engines and weapons so that no one could be stupid enough to try and cook off the antimatter. The fact that both those chapters were close combat specialists also reduced the danger of a stray round damaging an important containment system.

The Thunderhawks had been loitering within the debris field around the Praxis installation around the wormhole they had been predicted to exit out of for a day now, the Bearers in their teleport Terminator armour kept in reserve. The enemy truly was arrogant to have not done a thorough sweep of the installation for just this sort of attack, although they seemed focused around warship combat, ignoring what a well placed knife in the back could do.

The Colonials were systematically picking apart the enemy formation, although they had already reported that their fuel supplies were reaching critical levels and they would have to retrieve their fighters and return to the fleet or get stranded around lunatics carrying antimatter. It was no matter. They had been expected to last exactly this long, and they had already done an immense amount of damage, breaking up the formation and crippling the ships capable of shooting back without blowing themselves up.

Hakim smiled a sandy smile as the acceleration couches they were in rocked with the impact of the Thunderhawk’s nose punching into the side of the disgustingly named Bombardment of Delhi.

Undoing his straps, Hakim hurled himself out of the artificial gravity environment of the Thunderhawk and into the weightless realm of the primitive ship. Despite using slugthrowers and nukes, the Galactica was really more advanced than this hunk of junk. Their FTL systems meant that the only battles that could be fought had to be at point blank range around targets of high importance. At that range, any sort of volatile fuel or weapon was a liability and so they used simpler weapons to avoid every battle turning into a MAD scenario. There was plenty of room for improvement, but their designers hadn’t been stupid in their weapon choices.

Landing on a solid surface, Hakim engaged his boots grapples and stuck down while the rest of his squad landed around him. Raising his wrist mounted storm bolter he destroyed a spidery maintenance robot with a small burst of fire before nodding for his men to find a place to get through the inner hull to the actual crew sections.

Finding a likely access hatch, Hakim nodded to two of his brothers to open it. Plunging their force halberds into the air lock, they quickly cut open the metal hatch amidst sparks of psychic energy. They did the same to the inner hatch, explosively decompressing the area beyond. The crew were all in suits just in case of such a loss of atmospheric pressure.

With precognitively precise aiming, the Heralds cut down anyone carrying anything that could possibly be used as a weapon, spraying hot blood all over the compartment.

This was too easy.


Commodore Helsinki watched in mute horror as his ships were one by one picked off by laser fire coming from a point on the other side of the solar system where he could not see. This was the greatest military disaster the Praxis had ever encountered. Not even the war with the Lai-own had ever gone this badly.

Then the decompression alerts started sounding. Something was causing his ship to progressively start loosing air. Watching the displays, he realized that the sections losing air were all aligned such that they would be along the fastest paths to engineering, the arsenal, and the bridge.

How barbaric were these creatures? Boarders?

Of course, these abominations could easily get so close that boarding actions actually had a chance of reaching the target… and weapons were kept under strict lock and key aboard a ship and were designed to crush mutinies, not repulse boarders. The only weapons they had were the knives of the officers and the tools of the technicians down in engineering.

Never having anticipated the possibility of capture as boarding was impossible and weapons hits tended to obliterate the target rather than cripple them, the Shaa had never installed any convenient methods of scuttling the ship, considering it an unnecessary hazard.

When the crackling blade punched through the hatch to the bridge, Helsinki knew that his time was up. Drawing his ceremonial dagger, he undid his restraints and moved to face these monsters like the Peer he was.

An enormous boot kicked down the dissected door and revealed a creature out of the eldest nightmares of Terran. Three metres tall from the bottom of its boots to the top of its headdress, it was blue and gold and covered in the death cult markings of some ancient Terran emperor. A fully enclosed battle suit, it was the sort of technology that could have only have evolved on the most backwards, brutal of worlds beyond the words of the Shaa and the Praxis. Around its right wrist it had an enormous double barrelled slug thrower, while in its left hand it had a halberd, but there was obviously an immense amount of technology in the melee weapon as its wicked blade glowed with unnatural light.

Stepping in to the command chamber on the “ceiling” from the point of view of the orientation of the acceleration couches, the abomination looked about with brightly glowing optical sensors. Helsinki felt that if every citizen of the Praxis were to be in his position, no matter how many iterations of this scenario were played out the end would always be the same.

He pushed off the nearest surface and charged with his knife.

The giant casually caught his arm and shattered his forearm in its iron grip. Helsinki screamed inside his suit before he blacked out.


Rong smiled as her mask dance reached its climax. The Bombardment of Delhi was theirs… as was its communications gear and the protocols in her captain’s head. An encrypted message could be sent straight to their capital and no one would stop it. An encrypted message from a trusted source that would never think of attaching a semi-sentient self-replicating adaptive virus with the only purpose being to spread itself and to hijack every available communications channel and deliver a simple message.

The rechristened Revenge of Delhi drifted in open space, the new name drawn with the headless corpses of the crew in Sanskrit. It would broadcast its message daily until destroyed, passing it on to a different network node each time. Given communication times, within about a month the entire empire was likely to have every computer infested with the bug.

It was time to deliver the ‘fright’ of this performance. They had already attached the impassionate tactical data, but there was also a more important message to send.

Rong picked up her daemon sword, the ethereal flicker about it dulled by the low energy of this universe but still clearly present. She then walked in front of the kneeling Commodore Helsinki, all of his pride stripped from him.

Chaos was unsustainable, but that was because it kept reinventing itself into new form. That was the truth and the lie within her dance to herself. This would spread chaos far and wide in this universe. Billions would likely die in the infighting, but Rong did not particularly care. They had threatened those under her care repeatedly and then opened fire without demanding an explanation or even asking if the captured crews were still alive. By her books, these hidebound bastards had it coming.

Smiling her most daemonic smile in her currently diminished state, she said to the camera in the language of the Praxis, “Greetings, I am Rong Xun, captain of the Stiletto, and I would just like to say that I don’t particularly like your Praxis. It’s so very limited. I mean, if you are seeing this now it is showing how pathetic your computer science is. Although I hear that you detest AIs, so perhaps you should destroy whatever is broadcasting this message right now as our little program is a simple AI by our standards. Of course, that will serve my purposes of destroying your culture pretty effectively as you dismantle your own telecommunications networks. So maybe you should keep listening.

“The Praxis is weak. Your doctrine claims that you already know everything and have forbidden things that you disagree with. Well you know nothing, as evidenced by the fact that your Peer here is at my feet, taken off his ship by our boarding parties. The universe is so much vaster than you comprehend, and its pathetic your pretending at knowledge. You are limited, short sighted, and beneath us. We have other business to tend to, but when we return we will sweep you away, of that I can guarantee. Don’t you agree commodore?” Rong asked, causing Helsinki to lift his head.

And reveal the Chaos star cut into his forehead.

“My soul to Chaos! All glory to the gods!” Helsinki cried out just before Rong’s daemon sword descended, separating his head from his shoulders. But even as his body slumped to the ground, pumping out spurts of blood as his heart tried to realize that he was dead, his soul remain visible, drawn into the daemon sword.

Grinning, Rong said, “As you can see, despite the lies you have been fed, there is an afterlife, and we control it. All those Shaa who committed suicide? Yeah, we’re waiting. I hope the few of you still alive remember that next time you think about ending your boredom. Because we’re exciting!”

The camera clicked off and the message was encoded. In ten minutes the first transmission from the Revenge of Delhi would be on its way. In perhaps a week the broadcasts would start. In two weeks, probably ahead of the news of the destruction of social order across the empire, a much bigger fleet would arrive.

In two hours the Stiletto and the Colonials would jump away to another universe.

Rong grinned. It would be fun to watch the lovely chaos spread, but she had other obligations.

[Setesh]

For those of you with issue for the moderncraft addition, well the strengths of steels in the medieval world were easily an order of magnitude below modern steels, if not two orders of magnitude for some. I remember hearing about someone debunking a bit of katana wanking about how a katana wielded by an expert could cut through a metal helmet, but it was pointed out that the katana was ruined by the act, and it was modern steel versus period iron.

In other words, the Forgotten Realms are about to have to ponder the riddle of steel anew.

Actually no, katana's are not modern steel. While the forging is of similar care and technical expertise as Damascus steel, their smelting process is terrible. The starting iron is of far less quality, which is why the had to fold it 800-1000 times, otherwise it wouldn't keep an edge. It left them with a strong, but brittle blade. The blade would snap under a certain amount of side blade force. This is why the techniques emphasize cutting through the opponent, if your blade gets stuck in him it could be snapped. Damascus steel on the other hand started from high quality iron, the blades were folded 300-600 times and were easily as strong, but no where near as brittle. There are cases of Damascus steel rapiers being bent 45 degrees with no harm coming to them. Same with long swords cutting into armor, it just needs to be resharpened later but the blade survives.
From the D20 Armory, while not D&D specific (generic D20 supplement) its the only place I can recall seeing it.
Bronze, Cost:x1.0, Base Craft DC:10, Weight:+20%, AttAdjust:-2, DmgAdjust:-1, Hardness:4, HP:8
Iron, Cost:0.8x , Base Craft DC:10, Weight:+0%, AttAdjust:-1, DmgAdjust:-1, Hardness:6, HP:25
Cold Iron, Cost: x1.1, Base Craft DC:15, Weight:+0%, AttAdjust:0, DmgAdjust:0, Hardness:6, HP:25
Steel, Cost: x1.0, Base Craft DC:10, Weight:+0%, AttAdjust:0, DmgAdjust:0, Hardness:10, HP:30
Damascus Steel, Cost:x1.5, Base Craft DC:30, Weight:-10%, AttAdjust:+1, DmgAdjust:+1, Hardness:15, HP:30
Adamant, Cost:x201, Base Craft DC:30, Weight:+20%, AttAdjust:+1, DmgAdjust:+1, Hardness:20, HP:40