I will shortly be running a new campaign. I've deemed this new campaign "Iron Twilight: The Fall of the Ronkan Empire," and will detail that particular part of my setting's history.
However, the group I will be running for has no experience with Trinity. In an attempt to introduce them to the setting, I'll be writing a variety of preview pieces that will attempt to convey various aspects of Ronkan life, at the height of their Empire.
This is the first such piece.
[ November 13, 108 RIY ]
[ Arcadia Noble City, Gallione ]
The technologists and "greasemonkies," as they called themselves, had been hard at work on the Thalassian, a 'walker of epic proportions, for the past two years. Standing at fifty feet tall, as wide as a building, limbs as thick as tree-trunks, the Thalassian would be the first 'walker of its size. Unlike other 'walkers, however, the Thalassian had no visible armaments: no guns, no harpoons, no swords. Instead, carabini - arcanically-treated orichalcum - had been inlaid into the plating of the 'walker, which would allow it to invoke magical energies, just as wizards and sorcerers did. The 'walker had no need for conventional weaponry when it could blast the foes of the Empire with fire and lightning; and while the Woodland League had been vanquished over a century ago, the Empire most certainly still had foes, be it monstrosities from the wastes of the Lost or the guerrila movement of the remaining druids hidden within the forests.
Dusk fell, and the various workers - now primarily consisting of mechanics, to put the finishing touches on the enormous construct's movement apparatus, and artificers, who worked tirelessly to imbue their power into the carabini - went to their barracks, save for one: Cidolfus Orlandu, the director of the project. The Thalassian was his vision, his dream; he had presented the plans to the Emperor in Lesalia, and had been granted the funding to proceed; the two years since then, however, had not been so easy, but he and his crew had prevailed. He now walked upon the top of the scaffolding near the Thalassian, and as dusk turned into night over the massive workyard, he contemplated his work, light from the world's twin moons casting an eerie pale upon the metal skin of the machine.
The work had been long and tedious. The dwarves of Zharrae Modan had begun to distance themselves from the rest of the world, and it required much diplomacy on the part of Cidolfus to convince them to part with the vast amounts of orichalcum required. The construction crews were eager enough, but much delicacy was required in the core of the 'walker, in which rested a complex orrery made of charged carabini. Turning the orichalcum into carabini had itself taken months; the artificers had worked day and night for six weeks, each day producing only a small amount of carabini. Working the metal also had its dangers: carabini was absurdly reactive when exposed to machinery, requiring the carabini to be worked by hand. Only three dwarves on Cidolfus' construction crew were able to do the work, and it took them another four weeks to mold the metal into the orrery and the inlays required.
But now, here he was: standing before the almost-complete Thalassian. It was an achievement indicative of the progress of the Ronkan Empire: the ways of the old and the new, of magic and technology, combined into a single entity. Wherever the elves were now, surely they knew that this was to be the result of progress; perhaps it was why they fled.
Tomorrow, the artificers would come in and begin imbuing the carabini with their infusions that would enable the 'walker to invoke the power of magic. They would hold off on placing the final, most powerful infusion, which would wait until the celebration on the 21st, when the Thalassian would be unveiled to the peoples of the Empire. The Emperor and the various Lords of the many City-States would be there: Marquis Elmdor of Limberry; Duke Larg of Gallione; Cardinal Delacroix of Lionel; Duke Goltanna of Zeltennia; Grand Duke Barrington of Fovoham; and Marquise Lorne of Wayverith. No word had come from Zharrae Modan or the Blue Hills, but it would be likely that they would send some dignitary or other to oversee the proceedings.
Cidolfus sighed. He was a descendant of Roywyn Forder, the human inventor who had produced the first schematics for 'walkers. It was her ingenuity that had allowed the Ronkan Empire to overcome the Woodland League, and to show the elves that the human people were not to be subjugated. That was over a hundred years ago; the elves and most of the druids had long since fled the continent, to lands unknown. Since then, the peoples of Distarin had come from across the Lerner Ocean, bringing with them their strange philosophies and foreign customs. Now, here he stood, the great-grandson of Forder, following in her stead, improving upon her designs - and implementing magic into the construction, no less! Magic that had been lost for hundreds of years, its use forbade by the elves.
Certainly there were those humans who continued its use, either with the required druidic sponsor, or somewhere in the vast expanse of the Lost. But only in the past fifty years had the human race begun to use magic extensively once again. Cidolfus shook his head in amazement - the rapidity with which humanity adapted astounded him. It was surely why humanity was Saint Iocus' favored people; the elves had done nothing but stagnate, and the various other peoples of Sarteri were trapped in their ancient ways and customs. The gnomes and moogles seemed adaptable, true enough, but their people seemed to lack the vitality of the human spirit: only humans, it seemed, were able to answer any profession that called upon them; only humans had risen up against oppression and fought against inequity. This was a human land, and these were human times.
But he was worried, as well. The gnomes - the blue gnomes, specifically - had warned in the early months of the project that some things were not meant to be trifled with, that magic and technology were separate for a reason. There was a reason that the two had never been combined before, in the history of the known world, or so they said: when pressed, the gnomes were unable to give these reasons, if there even were any. Nonetheless, as he watched the red and silver sparks that fell every few moments, for seemingly no reason, from the inlays on the limbs of the Thalassian, Cidolfus had to wonder...
"What have we wrought?"
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