RCR-FabUlt-E0C: Space Whale Crash

PROLOGUE

• Defines how you got together. Difficult right now because we’re all in different parts of the world.
• Aether is actively attacking the donut planet. MYSTERIES - Where are the moon aliens? What happened to the wizards? Where are the space whales?
• Brought together by fate.
• Tsuminagai - last mage. Skyblade - commander of the Lunar Order. Gnosis - protect history. House of Clemence - sent away to look for magic.
• Spenser go talk to Gnosis - know one, talk to Tsuminagai. Cmdr Skyblade - Shows up.
• INCITING INCIDENT: SPACE WHALE CRASHES into the donut.

Commander Skyblade’s Prologue

• Skyblade wakes up. The crash caused it? “Wait” to the leader of Lunar Order. Last thing you see is Moon Mage. Put her to sleep on purpose. They were last to leave for the moon. A thousand years ago. She has an iridescent shield. Dark blue armor. To Skyblade, it looks like humanoid. Looks like crystals. Shifting color. Has never actually been in combat. Was only trained. Magic looks like. Light blue. Contain and prevent. Trained to be reserved. Weapons are objects. Slight movement around Skyblade. Hear voices in the distance.
• Skyblade wakes up. Inside a wooden crate. It’s in a ship. This looks plain. More magical boats before. Inside the hold. Surrounded by crates. Busts open another crate and see pieces of another soldier. Covers in barnacles. Unassembled. Can tell there’s a face and a head. Armor is crystalline, but inside is steampunk mechanical. Regenerative magic that powers them. Complex magitech, but early mechanically. Don’t know power source. Crystal power? Skyblade opens several crates. What’s going on?
• Skyblade peeks through hatch. Sees it’s a ship on the water. Hear arguing. Otter people are arguing. They’re squeaking at each other. They seem like they’re in a hurry. Ten otters are pumping the oars… and it’s airborne!!! Seems like they’re heading towards land. Still arguing with captain. Skyblade stealthily comes up the deck. Taken as much info as necessary. They’re speaking in Common with an Otter accent.
• Skyblade now understands the Otter. Looking to see where the whale crashed. The otters are Lutran. Captain Roughclaw. Shortcut through Colvand Empire. Airship suddenly rocked. Hear another machine in the air. Hong Kong Junk fighting a Spanish Galleon. Giant ship. Firing at the Otter pirates.
• M. Bison looking like villain. Commodore Gallus Lucius Ambustus. Cracks knuckles on jeweled magitech sword. Gallus is cock in Roman. So Commdore Dick. Ambustus means burnt. Literally Burnt Cock. Family crest is a flaming rooster. Biggest cocks in the Colvand empire. Crack in the world… well of dark energy… called “The Dark Cleft” and the burnt cocks are trying to penetrate it.
• Warship Calamity. Three other ships.
• Otters are rushing to hull to batten down the cargo. They see you. Draw steel. Invader. Skyblade addresses Captain Roughclaw. We’re going to fight Colvand together. Strap down all the cargo. Chain things up. Flatbelly talks to Skyblade. Captain turns ship, drives hellbent for the flagship. Presses lever. All the cargo falls out the ship. Parachutes with smoke comes up. Smoke barrels everywhere. Otter has wing suit. The hold was parachuted, and ejected, while the rest of the ship became a missile. Slams into one of Calamity’s balloons.
• Land in woods. The Pebble Bandits. Skyblade left on her own and has drive towards the crash site. Skyblade now has a bond with the Pebble Bandits.
• Fast forward a week to two later.

Spenser Sabine’s Prologue

• I believe everyone can be persuaded. Everyone has a price. Manipulating people is natural language. Four older brothers. Oldest, second. Raleigh was the fourth oldest, we were closest age, and were going to leave Sabine to make our own fortune. At the last minute, he stayed in Sabine. Raleigh ratted him out, kept the intiial fund. Left Spenser poor. Edvard middle one who convinced Raleigh to stay and screw Spenser. Crenshaw second brother. Marius is the oldest and is in the lead to become Emperor. Top contenders. Sullied my name,
• Marius, Crenshaw, Edvard, Raleigh, Spenser.
• Spenser at House of Clemence - sang a song about the wife of House of Haathstawk. Lady Haathstawk, gossips and squaks
• Spent a lot of time in the words. Taught by a witch in the forest. Ms. Summer. Like a teacher. I believe monsters and humans can live together in harmony because I can talk to them, but I am also a real politik person and know that it will never happen realistically.
• Rituals - enhances senses, see through eyes of animals, quell fury of animal. Magic through music. Talking to animals and monsters is the exception in this world.
• Something fell out of sky at the edge of Clemens territory. Borders Colvand territory. Borders Haathstawk territory. Mountain range, too high. Lots of winds. Airships crash there. Bermuda triangle. Shipwrecks in the mountain range. You always have to fly around that mountain range. Good place to loot old shipwreck on foot.
• Marius Sabine’s early forties rival - Grigory Clemence - mid sixties. Better chance of becoming emperor. Separate countries.
• Asked to investigate. Eager to build more trust with House of Clemens. Skyblade landed in Colvand territory.

Tsuminagai’s Prologue

• City State (Tartarus) borders Nemean league. Asphodel north of mountain range. Asphodel is Northern city state. Tartarus is Southern city state. Tartarus is built to be a scholarly haven for both Nemeans and Colvands. Knowledge base. Protected by Nemean League.
• Grey Tower up in the mountains. Asphodel doesn’t exist anymore. Used to be multidisciplinary magic scholarship city. Asphodel was exclusive - type of magic. Hermetic magic. Very specific magic. Myth. Nobody talks about Asphodel region and Grey Tower..
• Asphodel and Grey Tower destroyed. Entropy mage, engaged in chaos magick. Forbidden texts, we could see from our vantage the aether. Saw the cosmos. Old magic texts that hinted at that have - general something that. Myth of Kajero.
• Taken a name other than my own. Tried to create aether. In doing so, opened up something that was akin to it. Consumed Asphodel. Wandering towards aether to get better understanding. Ronin Mage.
• Tsuminagai has been wandering years. In Tartarus. Knows Gnosis. Sounds like crash is aether. Aether has attacked and destroyed Asphodel? Is it coincidence? Did Aether attacks start BEFORE what Tsuminagai do? No. Aethershark attacks started only AFTER Tsuminagai did. We don’t know yet.
• Tsuminagai - Osamu taught entropy magic. Head of the Entropist discipline. Grey Tower has other disciplines. Mages specialized in each one. To Tsumi’s knowledge, he is the last entropic mage. He is AFRAID of his magic. Magic looks like… silver smoke effect. Colvand has started using dark magic. Tsumi has felt it.
• Has a katana. Traditional japanese swordfighting. Not looking to fight unless necessary. Weapon is spiritual to Tsumi.
• Obsessed with the Aether. What is it? Why is aether is malevolent. Why? Dangerous.
• Cosmos - drives all the disciplines. Allows us to practice magic. Cyclical. Birth and rebirth. Beginning or ending?
• Tsumi stands out in Southern university city. Studies weird stuff. Have weird connections to dark magic. Tsumi has found errors in Gnosis’ papers and has gone to Sebastian to talk about. Sebastian has found Tsumi’s stuff is real and works.
• Sebastian has verified Tsuminagai’s dark magic. Philosophical discussion. Gnosis reveals himself. Sense of fear of what Gnosis is doing. It’s not theoretical to Tsuminagai. Sebastian starts publishing stuff with omission because of Tsuminagai. But theory is right but practice is wrong.
• Sebastian - Professor Xavier. Tsuminagai - Magento. Idealist and realist.
• Spenser is catching a ride to Tartarus. Lots of airships trading commercially

Sebastian (Gnosis) Prologue

• Magic looks like janky. Magic would work, but doesn’t look practiced. No finesse or style. Cooking from recipe or chef. Self-taught. Auto-didatic. Pyro. Talks to fire. Gnosis believes he can harness power as knowledge and not for practical. Does not abuse his magic. Will still use matches.
• Autodidactic - good at learning. Study.
• Mentor? He was one of the professors at his school. Turned Gnosis to books that helped preserve magical knowledge and history. Still around. Good relationship. Professor Chilichuck. Independent research. Never wanted to teach.
• Funding? Publishing for money. Published under Gnosis.
• Academy/College - UoT - Nobles. Get along with them? Got along with them. A lot of noble contacts. Everything needs to be dug up and archived and categorized.
• Centuries old mystery. Dark magic - wants to preserve ALL types of magic. Gnosis is like Satoshi. Nobody knows who he is. Sebastian Ramford.
• Sebastian is publishing everything. Owns a printing house in Tartarus. Sebastian Ramford. Ramford Press. The Ramford Papers Also print news. Have contacts. Journalists. Heard news that something crashed from Aether into Colvand..

Coming Together

• Spenser reaches out to Sebastian about the Space Whale Crash.
• Sebastian would go explore it himself. Insatiably curious person.
• Tsuminigai - in Tartarus for research - reading. Magical text to understand Aether.
• Sebastian and Tsuminagai - bond.
• Hike with carriage and horses. Henchmen and sherpa.
• Skyblade is at the crash site already standing sentry. Skyblade knows what a space whale is. It is weakened state. but doesn’t know what to make it better. Know that aether is just aether. Never seen a whale crash before.
• Tsuminagai has the medallion of the mage. Skyblade would recognize the medallion. Head mages have medallions, and some have them, some don’t. Medallions are important artefacts in this world. They are everywhere.
• We all get to the sites. Tsuminagai has seen one in the Aether. Sebastian has read about them. Spenser has no idea. Sebastian has read about the Lunar Order.
• Pebble Bandits have not told anything to Skyblade., So she still has no idea of time has passed. “Thank god you’ve arrived”. Myths of the whales. Myths of the Guardians. These are myths we all know. We are seeing something that was mythical in real life.

An index of all “Rain City Reckoning” RPG sessions can be found here