Arcus Prima

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 uppereastern edge of the Core Halo. The blocks composed of clean, white stonework with some elegant, universal geometries worked artfully if subtly in. The blocks are more vertically than horizontally separated, so the 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.

The Garden

The Garden is a 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.

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.

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.

• The Lab of Eli
• Beta-chan's Avatar Room

Isle of Marmo

[1]
The Isle of Marmo is a spooky island (as opposed to Isla Sybilla's purely architectural composition of floating blocks) nominally floating on the northern side of the Core Halo. Unlike Isla Sybilla however, Marmo is mobile and follows a complex track or orbit around the dense island formations of the core 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 doors 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 desireable 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 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

Upper

[2]

Core Halo

[3] The Core Halo is the densest region of floating islands in Arcus Prima.

Besides the usual risk of stepping over an edge into empty air, the Core Halo is slightly more dangerous than other "wild" areas of Arcus Prima. In some areas, the islands are so dense here that there is a chance of getting trapped and crushed or pushed over the side by their gradual movements. Islands do regularly collide as well, and may shower lower areas with potentially dangerous debris. In rare cases, if Marmo is close by, restless presences may interact with local statuary, creating Disturbed Residents.

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

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, this would be where they end up.