Factory-Cathedral of the Exalted Battle Girded in Power and Fury
Rating: ••••• Aspect: Fire Hearthstone: Fire-Eating Rock Bearer: Ragara Thannak-Tyros Attuned: Scarlet Empress, Cathak Furius, Ragara Thannak-Tyros, Cathak Adlai, Solemn Refuge, ?
The Factory-Cathedral of the Exalted Battle Girded in Power and Fury, oft referred to by the more manageable title the Cathedral of Battle, is a massive industrial manse located in the Great Tail of Juche Prefecture, near the border with the Scarlet Prefecture and somewhat over a hundred miles as the crow flies from the Imperial City. Savants say its armoured, steel-clad bulk has stood there since long before the Great Contagion, some positing even more ancient origins.
Contents
Layout
The surrounding landscape is rocky and barren, devoid of trees or buildings, with mortals prohibited by law from approaching closer than 3 miles unless employed at the Cathedral. This empty expanse is broken only by a cluster of buildings on the road to the manse, one mile from its doors. One provides housing for up to 30 technicians, the other housing and a small shrine for 5 Immaculate monks.
The manse itself sits flanked by two low hills, its bulk curving upwards windowless and metallic. Through two massive doors marked with prayers to the god Tachi-kun in gold filigree, a visitor reaches the purification chamber, where showers and lead boxes await to cleanse and store anything that might defile the cathedral. Through another massive door lies the armoury, a large chamber for storage of materials and finished products. Two more sets of doors open from here onto the factory floor, an open area that takes up the largest share of the cathedral’s ten thousand square feet, open space stretching up several stories to vaulted metal ceilings from which floodlights bathe the floor below in clear white light at all times. It is dominated by a set of conveyors making up the cathedral’s automated production system, surrounded by ordered rows of work tables and benches. Nearest the entrance, the space is left open save for a system of metal struts and scaffolding to support the frame of a warstrider as it is assembled, while at the rear of the floor stand the innumerable pipes of the refinery organ, with the most advanced tools and generators of the cathedral’s workshop can be found.
An observation walkway moves around the entirety of the work floor on a second level, accessible by two ladders on either side of the entry and two passcode-activated elevators flanking the organ. Above the organ, protected from the noise of the floor by doors and thick windows of red-tinted glass, can be found the cathedral’s control room.
The control room contains complex keyboards for arranging production and activating systems, the displays glowing in bright Old Realm script from the room’s red windows. At the center of the room, a pit of magma bubbles constantly around a pillar of black basalt, upon which an upside-down helm of orichalcum atop a crest of red jade sits, in which the hearthstone materializes.
At the rear of the room stand two alcoves, one containing an altar and shrine to Tachi-kun, the other an elevator which descends down to the first floor, behind the wall supporting the refinery organ. Here can be found the cathedral’s extensive archives, along with a door to a small office and laboratory. Beyond this another elevator allows access further downward, but entry to it has been sealed with Immaculate prayer scrolls and sorcerous wards, and it currently appears nonfunctional.
Operations
Like all manses, the cathedral is personal property of the Scarlet Empress, its operations conducted through a byzantine web of individuals and institutions. Its primary purpose for centuries or more has been construction of armour for the armies of the Realm and scions of the Dynasty, including the much-venerated jade giants that are warstriders. By tradition, the manse’s hearthstone is granted to a sorcerer-engineer who can oversee production, which is determined by requests from individual Legions, which are reviewed by the Enlightened Regulators of Essence Engineering, a small ministry within the Thousand Scales. The funds and materials for the production of an individual item are allocated either from the Regulators’ budget or from a Great House sponsoring construction. The Immaculate Order further regulates the process, providing monks to oversee the consecration/purity of the facility and ensure that the highly-religious process of magitech creation did not result in unacceptable violations of Immaculate doctrine and the prayer calendar. Funds and components for general maintenance are provided by the Regulators. Security around the facility is provided by a patrol force of 2nd Imperial Legion troops, who maintained a cordon barring anyone from approaching within 3 miles save those on the staff. The cathedral maintained a steady production schedule, producing components vital to maintaining the Realm’s dragon armours and warstriders, as well as producing one common warstrider every year, but with the death of the hearthstone bearer in RY 753, the Empress chose to halt regular production and failed to appoint a replacement, the hearthstone instead going to power the armours of the 2nd Legion’s elite forces. Funding was cut following Deliberative budget adjustments in the wake of the Empress’ disappearance, which disbanded the Regulators, and 2nd Legion troops were withdrawn, replaced by lessened patrols from House Ragara’s 6th Imperial Legion.
Powers
Consecrated Systems (Temple Manse): The Cathedral honors Tachi-kun, Central God of War, to the very roots of its design. The site causes physical harm to Fair Folk who attempt to make use of it, and prayer sacrifices to Tachi-kun made within are bolstered in potency.
Automated Systems (Atelier Manse): The automated machinery of the Cathedral consists of smelters, moulds, forges, and pounding hammers, mechanisms built for production using Craft (Fire) and Craft (Magitech). It can quickly produce things chosen by the hearthstone bearer.
Ideal Workshop: The Cathedral is home to a vast array of mechanisms and tools for the crafting of magitech.
- The Cathedral’s Workshop has not been in full operation since before the Contagion, though mundane tools have been moved into the space for limited work. It is currently operating as a Master’s Workshop, requiring Resources 3 per month to keep operational. In addition to the exotic ingredients required to re-activate the more advanced systems, some damage and scavenging may have occurred over the years.
Attunement Recognition: The manse can sense those who are attuned to it, and the bearer of its hearthstone.
Basic Senses: The manse can detect goings-on within its walls.
Magical Conveniences (1):
- Doors do not have handles, but rather slide open on the input of the proper passcode in an Old Realm panel on the frame.
- Bright candles along the floors of rooms and corridors light when visitors are detected and extinguish when they leave.
- The armoury keeps metals within it from rusting and blades from going dull.
Password Activations (1): Visitors at the cathedral’s control room may use Central Control with use of the proper keycodes, with additional codes to open the cathedral’s doors.
Each passcode forms part of a prayer to Tachi-kun, and the cathedral’s Immaculate monks are careful to restrict which codes can be used and how frequently so as not to disrupt the allotted flow of prayer.
Archive (2): The archive of the cathedral consists of several large moonsilver screens through which visitors can call up and display the contents of data crystals stored within the Cathedral archives, or a complete index of available titles sorted by subject. Printouts onto silk sheets can be called for, provided they are properly supplied (this system can also print dictation given to it by visitors with the proper passcode). See Archive section below for contents of this repository.
Central Control (2): Central Control contains the mechanisms for monitoring the manse’s senses, sealing its outer doors, and operating its automated assembly systems.
Armoured (3): The cathedral is built of solid stone braced with sheets of metal, steel on the outside and some interior rooms, while others are girded in thicker sheets of polished brass embossed with prayers to Tachi-kun.
Refinery Organ: The cathedral’s refinery organ stands at the back of the work floor, beneath the control room, its pipes and tubes running up into the vaulted ceiling and twisting around the walls throughout the manse. The Organ is a vital tool for the purification of materials: with the right song played on its keys, exotic ingredients can be rendered useable in artifice, and appropriate raw materials can be smelted into orichalcum, moonsilver, soulsteel, and starmetal. Unfortunately the songs to accomplish these tasks have largely been lost.
Drawbacks
Maintenance (4): The Maintenance of the Cathedral has two aspects.
- Everyone who enters must undergo purification rituals, lest unclean Essence contaminate the delicate machinery. Entering the cathedral requires a visitor to undergo a purification ritual, bathing and cleaning themselves and all items entering within, leaving behind poisons such as drugs or alcohol as well as foodstuffs other than rice, bread, vegetables, tea, and water. A cadre of Immaculate monks ensures that the cathedral remains consecrated and that all who enter are properly cleansed.
- Every year, a factory-cathedral consumes at least three exotic ingredients suitable for crafting artifacts rated 3 or higher: for instance, 10 talents of jade, a frozen lightning bolt and the blood of a Second Circle demon.
Habitability (1): While sturdy, the cathedral has no amenities for residing there such as bedrooms, showers, or chamber pots... in fact, this would disrupt the purity of the site. Those who work at the manse are typically housed (and go to the bathroom in) simple barracks located one mile from the cathedral proper.
Repair (5): The Cathedral is a magitech artifact with Repair ratings of 5. Each manse power is damaged and repaired separately.
Damage to the manse structure or surrounding lands is repaired as normal for a manse.
Staff
Hearthstone Bearer: Ragara Thannak-Tyros
Master Artificer: Ragara Thannak-Tyros
Enlightened Overseer: None [position defunct with dissolution of ministry in RY764, responsibilities transferred to Cathak Furius (winglord, 2nd Imperial Legion)].
Immaculate Nestor: Solemn Refuge
Immaculate Monks: ?
Thaumaturge-Technicians: Thesk Feng (Senior Technician), Ambrim Daiko, Glowing Pearls, Unkada Chim (fanglord, 2nd Imperial Legion), Assuri Marble Abacus (fanglord, 3rd Imperial Legion).
Archives
Theology Prayers to Tachi-kun with Motonic Specifications Armourcraft Girded in Fire Smelting Techniques of the River Province Advanced Armourcraft Principles of Advanced Enhancement Interfacing Motonic Inefficiencies in Humanoid-Template Systems Grand Armourcraft Performance of the Annihilator Class in Initial Trials Misassumptions of the Current Ignorant 'masters' of advanced engineering as relating to Enchanted Control Arrays - A brief essay by a true Master of the Field Arts of Brigid Missteps of Devon Terrestrial Circle of Emerald: Incantation of Effective Restoration Terrestrial Circle of Emerald: Raising the Earth’s Bones Terrestrial Circle of Emerald: Purifying Flames Terrestrial Circle of Emerald: Internal Flame Terrestrial Circle of Emerald: Calling the Stalwart Servitor Celestial Circle of Sapphire: Eternal Crystalline Encasement Literature Entwined by the Pond Rise of the Animated Overlord
