Arcus Prima

The Chantryrealm

Atmosphere

Isle of Marmo (Chateau Stang): Spooky (-5)

Isla Sybilla: Peaceful (5)

Everywhere else: Normal

Phenomenon

Intermittent ghost raids from the Dark Isle: Haunted (-5)

Psychic Emanations

Normal (0)

Magickal Manifestations

Ghostly islands, faintly visible through the morning fog: Noticeable (-10)

Guardians

The Taihu Five: 5x Aware (5)

Size

Arcus Prima is a freshwater lake far vaster than Lake Taihu, above which float thousands of levitating islands: Large (10)

The various chantry buildings are spread out, with most of the 'restored' ones on Isle Marmo and Sybillae: Large (10)

Security

Westin has set up a vast array of micro-wards to alert him to intruders: Average (5)

Wards

Arcus Prima is heavily warded against any unauthorised entry: Diff 10 War vs all unauthorised (20)

Fortifications

The newly-constructed ancient ruins and floating isles of Arcus Prima pose an incredible challenge to any would-be attacker: Impregnable (15)

Shallowing

The mists of Lake Taihu overlap eerily with those of Lake Prima: Strong (-5)

Communications

Trans-Umbral (5)

Land Status

Tempus Spatium has control of Arcus Prima by right of conquest and reformat: Private (0)

Special Portal

To Hasseltine House, Vancouver (5)

Surroundings

The land of Arcus Prima is made up of many floating islands of all sizes: Strange (5, 5 quint)

Climate

The seasons turn in Arcus Prima like they do in Shanghai and we will probably wind up complaining about this some of the time: Earthly Climate (0)

Misc

All those authorized can generate wings to fly between islands, in addition several permanent teleport gates link Chateau Stang to Isle Sybillae: Transport net (10, +10 Quint)

Building Conditions

The inhabited buildings on Isles Marmo and Sybillae are of acceptable quality, but many additional overgrown buildings lurk on other islands: normal (0)

Library

Cathy has collected a huge set of books and needs help to sort them all: Exceptional (5 + 5 free)

Laboratory

Every chantry member has a place to study, practice, and learn ideally suited to their interests, whether a moe cosplay studio or a Victorian seance chamber: Superior (5)

Labs must be detailed in some style or other - IE, a chemistry lab full of beakers and tubes, or a bio-lab greenhouse full of man eating plants, etc. They reduce the difficulty of the associated mundane skill by -2, and also give one extra success per roll to magical rituals.

Labs can be shared, but each member gets to define one.

Liz: Writing studio and library

Mari:

Shu: Martial arts dojo

Kana:

Eli: Two of four laboratory areas defined, including a Biology/Medical Lab and a Nanotech Design lab.

Proteus: The Emergent Oasis, the center of Arcus Prima's electronic network.

Cara:

Cathy: Egyptian chapel

Westin:

Yu Lan:

Population

Having been formatted from a blank slate, Arcus Prima has no native sentients: No People (-5)

Servants

We need catgirl maids: No Servants (-10)

Internal Politics

We can't agree on a way to get out of a wet paper bag: Disorganized (-5)

Some members of Tempus Spatium have extremely strong links to other parties: Conflicting Loyalties (-5)

Can't talk, snuggling up to hot technocratic powersuit girls: Rogue Cabals (-5)

Communal Resources

Resources (4)
Enemy (5) [Lord Mikaboshi]

Realm Affairs

Quint Requirements 115/Week
Quint Income 125/Week (10/Week suprlus)

Node Sources

Lake Taihu - 50

Hassletine House - 20

Proteuspad - 15

Kansai Earthquake Shrine - 15

Cockroach Node - 25

Unlinked Nodes

Kobyashi Bunker Node - 10

Hokkaido Shrine - 20

Locations

Isla Sybilla

Isla Sybilla is the larger of the two chantry halls floating in the realm of Arcus Prima. Rather than a single island (or a natural island at all) it is composed of a number of floating blocks that remain more or less stationary relative to each other and are in turn anchored at the outer edge on the eastern side of the Inner Halo. The blocks composed of clean, white stonework with some elegant, universal geometries worked artfully, if subtly, in. They are more vertically than horizontally separated, so the entire complex is taller than it is wide. Generally speaking, Sybilla has a very pleasant atmosphere, though it is on the quiet side, and is conductive to good mental health when not under attack by its nemesis, Chateau Stang.

Central Block

The Central Block is the largest block of Isla Sybilla, being larger than the others combined. It appears archaic given its emphasized "slightly overgrown ruins" aesthetic but has most modern (if slightly ornate) amenities. Excluding its buildings, numerous huge extensions, and artistic flourishes in the form of shallow exterior seams, the basic foundation stone of the block is a perfect cube. The main library is located here in a vast hall with countless tomes and scrolls, including a full decade of Paradigma and an array of science texts. There is also a top-of-the-line data server linked to a number of terminals nearby and accessible from any of the chambers used by the chantry technomancers.

The Garden

The Garden is a small, spherical upperwestern block of Isla Sybilla. The upper half is a thin latticework supporting climbing plants above a paved garden and heated pool. All manner of plants can be found here, including some not known on Earth. There is a secret in the garden.

The Egyptian House

Located on a small block close to the Central Library, The Egyptian House is a small New Kingdom style mansion. As per the standard New Kingdom design it is a fairly self-contained compound containing all the facilities a noble household would need for their everyday life. However even Cathy drew the limit at actually stocking the barns and stables with cattle or horses. Aside from the mansion itself the only things that stand out is the small pool, the garden, and the chapel.

The waters in the pool are clear and sweet, giving it a wholesome inviting aspect. The pool itself is deep enough and large enough to swim in, but not so deep that you'd be in any danger, and the walls are low enough that you can easily get in and out. A couple of sacred ibises occasionally drink of the water, though they normally spend their time searching for food in and around the garden.

The garden is watered from the same unknown source as the pool, and is filled with odd herbs and vegetables. By now however the lack of proper tending is starting to give it an overgrown look, with some of the more fragile plants slowly starting to perish.

By comparison the chapel is in excellent repair and painted in blazing colours both outside and inside. Detailed hieroglyphics are carved into the stone outside and carefully painted to emphasise the details. Inside the walls are also covered with hieroglyphics and paintings of mythological scenes. Standing by the far wall are the three gods of the chapel: Osiris, Seshat, and Thoth. Each is carved according to tradition and exacting sacred proportions, and carefully painted to emphasise their divine presence. High up in the roof skylights are cunningly placed so that on significant feast days light of the sun and the moon will fall upon the relevant inscriptions or paintings. Every inch of the chapel, both inside and outside, is impeccably clean and well maintained. The sacrifices before each god are exchanged each day, as is the incense and the oil in the lamps. [Sanctum -2 Difficulty to Occult, +1 Success, Automatic Time 2 / Correspondence 2 / Spirit 2 Ward]

The mansion itself is also brightly painted, though it is mostly white-chalked outside the interior is covered with bright paintings. As with most ancient Egyptian homes the gods are omnipresent; the main entrance is protected by drawn Akeru, while the dwarf god Bes stands guard over the bed. For the most part the mansion is furnished in the Egyptian style, though rather lavishly so with soft couches and countless low tables. The only concession to modernity is that there is modern indoor plumbing in the bath. Overall the mansion feels rather unused and neglected, with dust gathering on much of the furniture. Only the bedroom and wardrobe shows any sign of regular usage.

Outside a single stray cat is busily chasing the many rats that raid the granaries. Though since the grain is slowly being eaten away and not replenished, the rat problem will probably solve itself soon enough.

Dojo Block

Shu's Dojo is located on one of the eastward blocks that maintains a relatively fixed position slightly over the Central Block. This block is awash with greenery and large stone pieces. The Dojo is carved into these pieces, and cannot easily be seen from the air, only by following the entry path to the main facility.

The entry path is as much a part of the dojo as the actual training hall, and is a winding road that travels from a teleport gate on the outskirts of the island, up the mountainous hills, and through a barrier shieldwall of large stones.

The hall is located in the middle of the island, and can be seen once one has passed the shield wall. it is a japanese style structure built as a traditional dojo as part of a complex, and is obstensibly where Shu lives while present on Arcus Prima. It consists of seven buildings, listed as follows:

The Dojo

The actual training hall, it is two storeys tall, but open in the middle. The second storey allows for observers to stand the balconeys that ring the interior and overlook practice without disturbing the students, and is equipped as a typical dojo, with various weapons and training aids for practice and combat.

The Cottage

The complex is meant to be a home- Shu's first real home since entering this far flung future, and the cottage is reflective of that. Constructed in a traditional japanese method, it is a two storey building, with a furnished basement. It has a kitchen, living room, sleeping quarters for students upstairs, and more modern amenities like washing machine/dryer and storage in the basement.

The Hōjō

Shu's personal quarters are in an off building, connected to the others by means of a raised walkway. It is an austere building, with bare walls and a sleeping pad, and those japanese heating tables and that sort of thing. There is a small collection of books on a shelf in the closet- research that Shu is currently studying, and the building has its own bathroom and shower.

The Hotsprings

Actually two buildings- separate for male and female students (Kana insisted), the hot springs are the primary reason for other Chantry members to come to the dojo complex. A 'natural' formation of rocky protrusions that meet up to the shield wall, the hot springs are located on the southern point of the island, and can be accessed either from a teleport gate to the entry way, or from a hidden path from the dojo complex. Considered part of the complex due to regular use and maintenance, the hot springs overlook the Central Block. As part of their function, they are connected to the heart of the realm, and energy bleeds off into them, allowing users to recoup lost quintessence from the energy flows without the need to tap the nodes themselves.

The Library

While currently mostly empty, this hall has been prepared for the addition of training scrolls and books to help in the path towards self mastery, as well as storing more dangerous materials in a vault complex located in the basement.

The Armory/The Ninja Cave

Not a building on official records, The Ninja Cave is a ninja armory located behind a waterfall on the northern section of the island. There are several secret passages that travel from the dojo complex to the armory. The armory holds Shu's various war trophies and pieces of his history, like the tattered clothes he wore through from the past to the future, or the seeds to ninja herbs that no longer grow in modern times. It is also the most modernly equipped of the buildings, and is a veritable ninja bat-cave.

Lower Academy

Looks suspiciously like a small Japanese high-school campus.

• The Old School Building is a run-down facility located on the a corner at the back of the block's surface. Unlike the rest of Sybilla, it is distinctly spooky.
• The Mahora Library is located in the massive physical block beneath the campus.

Ohno Shrine

Ohno Shrine is the uppermost block of Isla Sybilla – a tall but narrow cylinder rising many stories into the sky, wrapped around several times on the outside by a steeply spiraling set of steps. The base of the block is attached to and accessible from the eastern edge of the Upper Academy; the path to the stairs is marked by an overgrown torii obscured by trees and bushes behind the Student Activities Building.

The shrine itself is a small traditional Shinto shrine with stereotyped components heavily emphasized, though its circular platform is one of the smaller discrete areas on Isla Sybilla. Space-intensive features like the bamboo grove are carefully arranged on stepped upward extensions to appear more spacious than they are with the deception hidden by plants and rocks. The arrangement of its buildings matches up well with common descriptions of various shrines found in popular Japanese visual fiction. The eternally empty Hakurei offertory box is especially noticeable.

Kana and Liz are effectively shrine maidens at the Ohno shrine, although the actual use of the area for more than passing amusement is mostly restricted to Liz.

Aethyrodynamics Laboratory

The Aethyrodynamics Laboratory is a large, mostly horizontal block located on the lower northern side. The buildings here were constructed utilizing the mathematical principles of the realm, with much use of the golden ratio and the dodecahedron - the platonic solid of Ether. It is notable in that it is almost entirely enclosed, with an entrance through a large set of clamshell doors, leading to a pentagonal iris door inscribed with the emblem of the Sons of Ether. These open onto a central hallway, which has scientific decor relating to the nearby labs, and a Michaelson-Morley interferometer showing the net Ether drag at all times. This hallway is known as the Hall of Spheres. The nine laboratories / storerooms for Chemistry, Molecular Biology, Umbralogy, Quantum Physics, Chronal Mechanics, Applied Psionics, Chaotic Thermodynamics, and Aethyric Quintonics are in varying degrees of sophistication and completion. The end of the hallway is a sliding pocket door that opens onto a foyer with an elevator and double-helical staircase, along with the door to the living quarters.
Living Quarters
The living spaces are done in a polished, science fiction style: automated pocket doors, glowing panel displays, commlink systems, etc. There are skylights and window throughout, and all the furnishings one would expect of a luxury apartment. Among the more notable features are a library of videos, with a truly spectacular amount of anime donated by Kana, top of the line electronics, a small concealed armory, and a secret escape hatch.
Lower Level
The lower level is devoted to four vast laboratory areas, only two of which are occupied. The Advanced Molecular Biology lab is something worthy of a Progenitor research director, with machinery lovingly crafted for Natalya. There is a section specifically dedicated to medical treatment and diagnosis, thought it lacks proper surgical facilities. There is also a set of habitats for various engineered biological creations, like Archy. The Nanofabrication Facility is dominated by a large nanofabricator hooked into large conduits. There are a few workbenches with obscure and common tools, and a top of the line visual design system with a virtual reality interface designed by Proteus.

Heraklean Stratopedon

Holding a commanding position somewhat distant from the central part of the Isla Sybilla, the Heraklean Stratopedon is the military training ground of the Chantry Realm. It is warded so that the sounds of combat training do not disturb the rest of the blocks. The area features a rigorous obstacle course that is highly vertical given the limited size of the block, a tactical shooting range that uses top of the line technology, a well-stocked armory, and a full Greek temple that shows the only signs of elegance in the spartan block. Westin's apartment is a minor addition to the block, with only the bare minimum of furnishings and a computer terminal in a small room.

Rei Block

Rei Block is the bottommost section of Isla Sybilla and is shaped like a hexagonal prism. Unlike the other blocks of the chantry hall, the seams in the white stone that seem to be decorative in other areas are evidently active in this section as glowy lines that pulsate a soft bluish light; the effect is most evident at night. Besides the overall shape of the block, the hexagonal shape is a very evident theme throughout.

Rei Block has very few exterior features, though plenty of places that can mechanically extend or retract to reveal external features for whatever reasons the primary occupants deem appropriate.

• Beta-chan's Avatar Room

Isle of Marmo

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The Isle of Marmo approaches

The Isle of Marmo is a spooky island (as opposed to Isla Sybilla's purely architectural composition of floating blocks) nominally floating on the western side of the Lower Halo. Unlike Isla Sybilla, Marmo is mobile and follows a complex counter-clockwise track or orbit and periodically passes closely to Isla Sybilla. The point at which this occurs is conjectured to be annual – on Halloween when the realm was first recreated.

Marmo's dominant feature is Chateau Stang, the smaller of Arcus Prima's two chantry halls. Chateau Stang is a flying, completely over-the-top ode to gothic architecture with stone that is white yet somehow shadowy and dark. The chateau sits atop the Dark Hill, a rocky formation at the center of the Isle of Marmo, and its front gates face east in an outrageous profusion of vaulting arches, steeples, and ostentatious statuary. Its internal furnishings are mostly various shades of scarlet where possible with dim lightning to stop it from jarring the eyes too much. The mansion was originally to have been a dedicated Hermitic chantryhouse but failed to appeal to Catherine West as she was ill disposed to the spooky atmosphere.

• Aside from its Orphan architect and interior designer, the Main Hall of Chateau Stang is a more or less desirable Hermetic function hall, with all those guest apartments, studies, banquet facilities, meeting chambers and sitting rooms necessary for social networking, political intrigue and looking all snootily refined and old fashioned. The deviations are the little stylistic ones: decorative armours at the corridor intersections are distinctly female and highly insubstantial whereas the the weapons hanging from the walls look far too substantial. Many other furnishings like paintings, tapestries or stained glass windows are also either tainted by the Kanadigm, or simply totally over the top as if taking up the slack.

• The Ritual Chamber lies in the basement. It is more or less to Hermetic specification insofar as Kana can understand them. It is quite a deep facility. The primary magic circle lies beneath a tall shaft directly beneath the Clock Tower. The floor of the Clock Tower can retract, as can the clock tower's own ceiling via some barely-sensical Matter 4 rearrangement of the machinery and pendulum.

• Arcus Prima's primary link to Earth is located within the Main Hall, where there is a giant painting of roses and yaoi vampires overlooking a certain flight of stairs. A hidden switch causes the entire panel behind this hologram to pull away and connects to Hasseltine House via a twisting secret passage that eventually emerges behind a false bookshelf in the latter.

(Kana-Liz defenses tba!)

• The Alchemical Laboratory is located in a tower off of the Main Hall, and incorporates all of the bubbling cauldrons, Jacob's Ladders, and flasks of noxious chemicals an Etherite's imagination could come up with. While it sees little use, its Frankenstein-like atmosphere adds to the ambiance. There is also a small chamber below the tower with ultra-reinforced walls, with a supply of volatile and explosive chemicals. There are dummies of stereotypical vampires and technocrats present. The door is labeled "Mari's Relaxation Chamber."

• The Voile Library is located in the West Wing. Of course, since Cathy didn't like the chateau, it is primarily an atmospheric library with Kana as acting librarian.

Other Floating Islands

Lower Halo

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Upper Halo

Inner Halo

The Inner Halo is a ring of islands floating in a ring around the Eye of Arcus Prima. Unlike the Lower Halo, the landmasses of the Inner Halo are stationary. Isla Sybilla is located at the uppereastern edge of this ring.

• The Onsen Isles with their mysterious vulcanism are conveniently close to Isla Sybilla.

Eye of Arcus Prima

The Eye of Arcus Prima, or the "Core", is a very dense region of drifting islands in the nominal center of the realm. Although the true heart remains the Fountain of Divine Geometry (which disappeared following the recreation of the realm), Kana assumes that the fountain must be in there somewhere. In any event, mobile chantryhouse Chateau Stang also orbits the Eye along the path of the Inner Halo.

The islands in the Eye are covered in apparently ancient ruins. The architecture is beautiful but confounding and seemingly aimless. In some places, separate islands are held together by stone causeways or arches. Besides the usual risk of stepping over a ledge and falling through empty air, the Eye of Arcus Prima is somewhat more dangerous than the other "wild" areas of Arcus Prima. In some places, the islands are so dense that there is a chance of getting trapped and crushed or pushed over the side by their gradual movements relative to each other. Many of the islands regularly collide as well, and may shower lower areas with potentially dangerous debris.

Lake Prima

The surface of Arcus Prima a vast freshwater lake in theory roughly the size of all the Great Lakes combined. In practice, no one knows what actually bounds the shore, as it is never visible, or knows how deep or what the lakebed is like. Hence, its status as a "lake" is derived only from the fact that the realm's primary node is the Taihu near Shanghai. Chantry mages rarely visit the lake as it sits far below the floating isles where the chantry halls are but one supposes that if anyone were to breach the powerful wards in place against the realm's shallowing, there is a strong possibility they would wind up somewhere here.

Potential Improvements

• Install SF0 fabricators and multiply into Factory Island (req: hypertech and matter 4)
• Claidmell storm systems (req: spirit mage and social rolls)
• Distinct paradigm-islands? Hermetic, Techno, Akashic, etc
• Use SF0 medical loot & Eli-ism to create proper hospital & regen facility (Nat is also a doctor)
• Training grounds?
• Constant Spirit 3 use raises a real kami for the realm at Ohno
• Etherfleet dock / lighthouse / fueling station
• Gates to Sasayama & the Pharos of Abkhazia?
• Umbranet Ethereal Telephone system - for inter-realm communications.
• More living facilities - dormitory and cafeteria in the school, dining hall and guest rooms in the Chateau.
• Hold up. We have a few powerful corr/matter/prime/dsci mages. Could we steal the Sasayama hot spring?