Hello Scions,
No massive updates on our regular progress chart this month (I don't expect any huge jumps as we close out the year), BUT I do have a cool preview for you today!
Scion: Divine Inspiration is absolutely filled with story hooks and seeds. Enough to run several chronicles, in fact! Here are some of the intriguing locations introduced in this book for you to add to the World:
Martyr Technologies Main Campus
(The Source of Genius, A Chance to End the World, Epic of Martyrs)
Located on the southern edge of Central Park, Martyr Technologies Main Campus stands no less beautiful than the ancient Tower of Babel. The 550-meter-tall skyscraper serves as both the residential quarters of company executives and the cover for the rampant divine experimentation going on beneath it. Those with proper clearance can ride the elevator down 15 levels, entering the Research & Development Hall. Here, experiments on non-human phenomena run rampant — some on living things, some on Relics, some on ideas inspired by myth alone.
Martyr Technologies has five other campuses across the world. These campuses are cutting-edge research centers for archaeology, software and artificial intelligence, physics, chemistry, and cryptozoology. The data these branches produce is Martyr Technologies’ actual product. Martyr Technologies itself is ran by founder Shahida Fadel, secret Scion of Tiamat and woman whose destiny is poised to change the course of the world.
Shahida Fadel’s divine lineage and existence as an Incarnate of Tiamat affords her the ability to birth genius ideas so long as she chases her desires. This miraculous ability culminated in the creation of the Chaos Gate — a locked gate hidden within the bowels of the Research & Development Hall that gives those with a passcode access to an Overworld called the Primordial Sea.
This is the body, power, and domain of Tiamat herself. Within this sea exists every possibility, and the raw essence to make those possibilities real. Shahida has pulled mythical creatures, esoteric objects, and even raw information from this sea. Those creatures and objects she so births are studied in secret. What’s learned from those studies fuels technological innovations in the industries related to the company’s five branches.
For example, a Sphinx-like creature pulled from the sea undergoes brain scans and has its riddles recorded, solved, and deconstructed. The creature’s brain is studied and inspiration from said study inspires a new way to program language-based AI models, which lead to new innovations, and newer and newer still. The leap from divinity to science is enabled solely by Shahida’s Purview, mirroring the way in which Tiamat was both the origin of chaos and could create nearly anything from her chaos.
However, experiments such as these must remain secret. Not only is Shahida’s existence as a Scion kept secret — protecting her company from critical public opinion — but studying divine mystery would earn the ire of many Gods, Denizens, Scions, and so on. Beneath the looming skyscraper, divine beasts never meant for life are vivisected cruelly, or put through horrendous trials, resulting in isolated wards and wings, faculty that are lied to and kept separate, extreme security protocols to ensure no overlap or outside contamination. This makes it supremely difficult, though not impossible, for suspicious investigators to figure out the rot festering here.
The main campus’ top six floors are dedicated to Shahida and her family, with Shahida living on one floor and her five children each assigned one of their own below her — two of which stand empty after their occupants went no contact with the rest of the family. The remaining floors are a mixture of dormitories, playrooms, and museum exhibits that help create a friendly public face for the company. Those trying to infiltrate the Research & Development Hall need a badge and passcode unique to every employee living on the main campus.
The tower’s passcodes and badges only work for an employee’s work ward. There are numerous work wards, each kept in the dark about the other, and they often change names and locations in the hall. Only Shahida and her current husband — recently departed in Chapter Two’s “Epic of Martyrs” — have passcodes that grant master access. Master access is a requirement to find the Chaos Gate — a nondescript metal door — located in the bottom of the hall.
Plot Hooks
- A Dragon hungry for secrets sends its Heirs to steal a passcode and badge and to bring back tales of what happens beneath the main campus.
- A divine creature being experimented on calls out to its God or Goddess, who in turn sends the Scions to free it.
- A mysterious esoteric object of great, dark power was smuggled out of the Research & Development Hall. Shahida sends Scions to secretly recover it.
Murphysboro, Illinois, USA
(Ill Winds, My Big Muddy Buddy, The Storm of Last Century)
Murphysboro is a small city in Southern Illinois, supporting a population of several thousand people and serving as the county seat for Jackson County. Most famous as the birthplace of Civil War general John A. Logan, a chosen Scion of Heru, Murphysboro hosts a small museum bearing his name. Its annual apple festival, offering parades, crafts, and a street fair featuring food, music, and carnival rides, draws thousands to the area each year, revitalizing the city’s economy with copious tourist dollars. While the apple festival is its largest event, it’s far from the city’s only one, with others focused on barbecue cook-offs, farmers’ markets, and even a beer festival celebrating their Big Muddy Monster.
Walnut Street, the main road through Murphysboro, hosts most of the city’s restaurants, businesses, and its single-screen Historic Liberty Theater. Most of these are within easy walking distance. A pleasant smell of barbecue tantalizes those approaching 17th Street while enjoying an afternoon stroll. A prospering Gods’ shop a few doors down from the theater offers new and used books, fragrant incense, glittering pendants, and anything else a mortal might desire to honor their Gods in private rituals. Carl Lee Park, an outdoor amphitheater beside the Sallie Logan Public Library, provides free sunset concerts several times during the summer months and a tree-lighting ceremony each Christmas.
The people of Murphysboro are generally friendly and welcoming, though many residents would quietly prefer outsiders to spend their money and depart quickly. The Christians and Kemetics hold on to a longstanding rivalry in the city, the latter feeling Little Egypt should belong to the Netjer alone and the former believing the time of the Egyptian Gods passed long ago. This rivalry’s usually demonstrated by merciless one-upmanship conducted with friendly smiles and backhanded compliments. Most recently, a passing Scion of Khnum helped the Kemetics take the upper hand by raising a great stone obelisk, though one of the churches has been looking into the cost of erecting a higher cross upon their steeple. While they’re distracted by their petty rivalry, subtle cults in service to Mythos entities infiltrate both groups, hiding their dark machinations behind small-town charm.
During the prohibition era, bootleggers dug tunnels beneath the town. Today, these tunnels are off limits, ostensibly due to unstable construction making them too hazardous to explore. This is a half-truth, and not a year goes by without a lost sewer worker or group of foolhardy teens vanishing after setting foot inside. In the aftermath of the Tri-State tornado outbreak and his Apotheosis, the Shroud of Scythes set up residence within these tunnels. Since then, they’ve grown into a Terra Incognita, far more expansive than any small city could hold. Within the tunnels, the effects of Euclidean space and time don’t apply. The massive, shifting labyrinth twists at impossible angles, and retracing one’s steps seldom leads to the point of entry. Even gravity is relative here, allowing some explorers to walk along walls or ceilings and causing others to plummet down hallways. The time one leaves them doesn’t necessarily equate to the time one spent inside, though for unknown reasons, carrying an object crafted by human hands helps to bring people out at a time close to its creation — usually.
Plot Hooks
- Young Scions of Nyarlathotep sow discord between the city’s Christian and Kemetic citizens, pushing their usual quiet rivalry toward outright violence unless the Band steps in.
- Entranced by the Maddening Music, the Carbondale Marching Terriers crash the apple festival parade, playing a discordant song to infect the crowd with the Music’s alien wishes.
- A brief jaunt in the Bootlegger Tunnels leaves the characters in a different time, or causes them to emerge into a different realm entirely.
Panama City, Home of Saints
(City of Saints and Prophets)
Panama City, with its indigenous and Spanish ruins and churches amid towering skyscrapers, straddled by the Pacific Ocean, is one of the world’s premier trading ports thanks to one of the wonders of the modern world: The Panama Canal. The capital city is a vibrant and worldly tropical metropolis with many cultures, religions, ideologies, income classes, and more. They all share the same sea-breeze-and-ceviche-scented and reggaeton-bumping neighborhoods of a city its residents consider exists, as the national motto states, “Pro Mundi Benefico” (For the benefit of the World).
Panama City overflows with busts, statues, shrines, and monuments dedicated to Saints and other great figures who have lived up to that ideal. Alongside those monuments are the shrines of Panama’s varied communities, whether the Chinese shopkeepers, Guna Craftsmen, or Santero Antillans. These can be found in parks, roundabouts, metro stations, and residential neighborhoods, where material tributes and offerings of various kinds can be so stacked so high, they obscure who the monument is dedicated to. Not all of these Saints are adored equally in a city of such sheer diversity and passionate engagement, as some are despised and attacked by rival Saints and their followers. Their memories are also manipulated by politicians, clergy, activists, and definitely by the great merchant families of Panama who either claim to fly their banners or denounce them as the greatest enemies of their people.
Modern Saints would do well to remember the atmosphere they find themselves in, suffused with such rivalries and passions and the mysticisms of many faiths, and what the Saints stand for. It’s hard to fall under the radar of the residents of a city where they wear t-shirts, lovingly stained through the years with cerveza and passion-fruit juice, emblazoned with their unofficial (and what many consider truer) motto: “Panama City: Crossroads of the World, Center of the Universe.”
Plot Hooks
- An expedition has returned from the deepest and most dangerous depths of the Darien Gap, a jungle so thick and mountainous it’s widely considered impassable. They make claims they have returned with the rifle and sword of Victoriano Lorenzo, the great revolutionary hero of the Thousand Day War. The supposed Relics were stolen before the expedition could display their findings by what one of the scholars claimed were “spectral and vengeful figures.”
- The Panama Canal, one of the world’s most crucial trade and transportation passages, is about to be closed due to the Panama Canal Authority ordering the surprising and irrational firing of all of its employees. This comes after a strike that was declared for increased pay and better working conditions. Journalists, in an attempt to figure out why the PCA would make a decision that could destroy Panama City and the entire nation, have reported strange colored lights and noises coming from the PCA’s headquarters in the Ancon neighborhood of Panama City at night.
Lots of great stuff there, and I look forward to the eventual release of this Stretch Goal supplement!
REWARDS STILL PENDING
With the PDF finalized, print prep continues on our hardcover reward. It's all a matter of confirming specs and locking in the schedule for the print run and delivery. Until Onyx Path has updated the status to "Printing" it will still take some time to work it's way to us. I'll update as I learn more info.
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ONYX PATH PROJECT TRACKING
You can find the
weekly Monday Meeting blog updates <here>, which note any projects with status changes since the previous Month End summary. The project statuses listed are current as of last Monday, so do check it out each Monday night to see if anything may have progressed!
I will continue to post regular updates everymonth until the final reward has gone out.
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The Alchemical Exalted are the Chosen of the Machine God, biomechanical demigods forged from divine metal and heroic souls. They do not rule the Eight Nations, but serve as Champions of the people, a sacred duty greater than any ambition. The eldest of Alchemicals transcend their human forms to become metropoli, living cities that offer the Eight Nations a stronghold against Autochthonia’s perils.
The Realm of Brass and Shadows is unforgiving, and the Eight Nations find themselves faced with many challenges: cataclysmic upheavals of Autochthon’s world-machinery, incursions of gruesome techno-organic gremlins, and the ever-present threat to their livelihoods. All the while, the slumbering Autochthon grows ever sicker, his corrupting Blight metastasizing throughout his world-body. Despair not. There is work to be done.
Alchemicals: Forged by the Machine God is an expansion for the
Exalted Third Edition tabletop roleplaying game. It’s set in a mythic world where spirits walk openly among humanity, warring demigods topple kingdoms, and the restless dead roam on moonless nights. Heroes granted divine power contend against one another for the future of Creation. These are the Exalted!
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