[i]Sancta Civitas[/i] The young Vespain carpenter paused in her work assembling in the beehive to stretch and get something to partch her sawdust dried throat. Buzzing wings lifted her off of the ground and out of her hive’s workshop. A quick trip down a central shaft brought her to their underground larder, and her journey back up to the surface carrying a small jar of wine attracted a number of her sisters, and started an impromptu picnic up on the hive’s roof. Hesitant questions as to whether they could afford to be cracking open the wine right now were dismissed. “These bee-hives and ladybird shrinez the City’z commissioning mean we’re rolling in food tokens. Iz fine to take a little break.” the carpenter, who’s name was Tadiza, said as she broke off the seal on the wine. Before he had set out to create the Elemental Bees for Artifex Kallak had made an appearance in his Avatar persona out in the fields beyond the wall, practically ambushing a committee who where observing a goblin druid in action with an impromptu carpentry lesson. The Avatar had instructed the observers and a number of local farmers on how to first make and maintain a bee box that would allow the easy farming of honey and then also the creation of a shrine that would attract ladybirds to their fields. The shrines mostly consisted of an offering table where the farmer would put food for the beetles, which would keep them around even after they eradicated the pests (such as aphids) in their field, a place for them to lay their eggs, and a small nesting chamber below it where they could hibernate during the islands short winter. A small amount of religious iconography. Artifex's horn crown, which looked like a pair of barbed mandibles if you looked at it another way, took pride of place on these structures, blessing them in the name of the insect god. Tadiza had been working on these since the city’s began commissioning them en masse, pulling in a fair amount of tokens for her hive. Right now however, she put the work she was doing aside and enjoyed the company of her sisters, a lovely picnic and the view from the top of their hive. Calling the agricultural district one district was a bit of a stretch, as it consisted of several clusters of buildings nesting around the northern gateways that linked the stone coated inner city from the fertile plains of the outer, but they were all liked, and all shared a common function so they ended up grouped together. If Tadzia craned her neck she could just about see out through the gate to the beginnings of the rows upon rows of farmlands spreading out from the outer walls. Inside were homes for farmers and workshops for processing food such as mills and wine presses. There were also craftspeople who did work that helped service those farms, Tadiza’s mostly woodworking sisters being one such group. New to all this were the large granaries that had only recently started going up, designed by the Emissaries. One was under construction within their area, slowly rising up out of the buildings around it. Down in the streets below goblins and the odd Mantarin and Akua went about their days while the air above them buzzed with Vespian. Joining the people where the cities insectile caretakers. Giant ants emerged from their nests below the city and crawled over its walls, either to inspect them for damage or to cross over to ant trails cutting through the farmland beyond into the wilds. Above them Buzzed the giant bees known as Hivers, who lived in the tops of the towers that dotted the walls. Always a common sight in the city, what was new was the smattering of them seen among the people. As Tadiza watched a massive hiver with a goblin on its back slowly rose above the city carrying a support beam beneath it. It traveled up to the top of the granary where a few workers unloaded it and set to work putting it in place. Down below giant Civitas ants could be seen more commonly, being used as mounts or instructed to carry materials or pull large carts. “Care for some honey’d hoof-rat?” one of the Vespain asked Tadiza, breaking her way from her people watching, “tastez different from bug meat. But in a good way.” “Isn't hunted meat really expensive?” she asked, knowing that it’d need to have been shipped in quickly after the beast was slain out in the woods “I know I said we were doing well but that’z a little much” “No, see, itz honeyed. Goblin I got it from kept a whole bunch in these big jarz of honey. Kept it from going bad” “And you believed him?” Tadiza asked “I’m not sick yet” her sister insisted, pressing the thin cut of meat into Tadiza’s hands “Hoenyz still pretty expensive” objected another “No, see I got a good deal coz I fixed a wobbly leg on hiz stand for him” the honey meat buyer retorted. Tadiza tuned the rest of the conversation out as she nibbled on the meat and went back to people watching. It was sweet, even if the honey had been mostly scraped back into the goblin’s storage jar. Tadiza’s mind took it all in as she kept watching the world go by. The tasty honeyed meat, the goblins she’d seen riding one of the giant Hivers, the silo tower being built nearby, the Hivers in their tower, the beehives she was in the middle of making back down in the workshop. She clicked her mandibles together idly feeling she was on the cusp of something. Hivers. Preservation. Silos. She felt like those could go together, but the prospect of even approaching the forming idea was daunting. She was just a carpenter after all, what did she know about all architecture, food preservation and animal handling. Far far away and yet only a short skip to the side Artifex drummed his fingers on the edge of a workbench in his inner sanctum, impatiently. Sometimes he’d peruse the going on in Sancta Civitas, mostly just to enjoy the sight of it all working nicely, sometimes to see if he could intervene somewhere useful. While doing so he’d come across the Tadiza right as the carpenter was stumbling on the edge of an epiphany. He could butt in and tell her to go for it, that her idea was a good one, but he reflected that it had been a chance that he’d found her right on the cusp. How many other opportunities floundered due to lack of confidence, knowledge or mental capacity to hold the entire plan in their heads at once without him noticing he wondered. Certainly a lot in the city, and infinitely more in the world beyond it where he couldn't see as clearly. [color=GreenYellow]“Sometimes all they need is a little extra push”[/color] Artifex mused. He mentally glanced over at The Library where an eflin Akua and Mantarin woman were talking excitedly about some spell or other, the rainbow flecks in their eyes sparkling as they did so. [color=GreenYellow]“Clever, whoever made them. Yes. all they need is a little push, a little... inspiration.”[/color] [hr] [i]Arborea[/i] “I’ve done it! Arta! Arta! come see” yelled the Sylphi artificer, waking up the apprentice who stayed with her at her workshop. The young plant woman stumbled out of the living section of the building and into the workshop. “Master. It’s the middle of the night. Why are you up?” Arta asked, rubbing her eyes drowsily before taking in the mess that the workshop was in “and why are you working!?” “I just. I had this idea. Couldn't sleep. Here. Take this. Isn't it amazing!” the artificer handing her apprentice a strange double barreled buzzer, each one packed with spell components. “Quick. To the test range. go go go” “I, uh, ok?” Arta said as she was more or less shoved out into the night as her master grabbed the small magical globe of light she had been using to light up the room and followed her out into the dirt clearing behind their yard. “This is safe right?” Arta asked as she raided the buzzer and took aim at one of the badly scorched targets set up in the clearing for test purposes, which was set in front of a small cliff face that the house and test range where deliberately built next too. “Oh I am sure i did it perfectly. Don't worry.” her master insisted “Now shoot it. Quick quick” “I. alright” Arta replied, aiming at one of the targets they had built back here for testing and hesitantly thumbed the trigger button on the magical weapon. Spell powder ignited, causing a complex chemical and magical reaction to occur and the signature buzzing sound to be emitted as the spell formed within the weapon. Arta expected a fireball, or some other kind of flashy spell, but instead what happened was a rather pathetic magical mote shot out, striking one of the targets and sticking there. “Is that?” she asked “Now hit it again. Like this” said the artificer, impatiently leaning over Arta’s shoulder and poking the firing button a second time There was a flash of light as the gun expelled a large puff of smoke. Arta was about to suggest that the spell hadn't worked and that they should go back to bed when a swarm of bees launched themselves out of the smoke produced by the powder. The swarm roared towards the target, mobbing it and stinging it for about thirty of Arta’s rapid-fire heartbeats before the light they were following died. When it did the swarm grew still and then suddenly disintegrated into individual puffs of smoke. Arta stared at all of this, utterly confused. “Amazing isn’t it” her master said, beaming at her and the Buzzer. “But. why?” “Well it’s called a buzzer isn't it?” “That. I.” “See, it came to me in a dream. We can make fire and ice and stone, so why not something alive? Now with those unalive things you shoot and then it’s done, but with these whoever's attacking is in a whole heap of trouble for quite a while, plus if you miss you just need to reload the first spell which is really easy to make compared to more damaging spells. Now what i did was I got some bee wings and stingers and I” Arta’s master began to explain, rambling at length about her new invention and, somehow, Arta found herself running around raiding bee hives for the rest of the night while her master churned out heaps of powder. By morning they were both exhausted and when they woke up mid afternoon neither had any idea how they’d made the 3 buzzers and dozens of spell charges sitting i n their workshop or what had driven them to be so excited about them in the first place. [hr] [i]Taerenga[/i] “Jimmeny. What have yu done,” the chief of a Taerengan goblin tribe yelled at his tribes smith’s apprentice “That tin was supposed tey arm thirteen of our finest warriors, and ye’ve used it ta just make one soddin weapon!” Jimmeny the goblin looked down at the massive two handed bronze sword he had forged and then up at the murderous look in the goblin chief, “Iz a weapon fit fo a cheif?” “Oh no, yu aint gona bribe yur way out of this sonny. I’m going to have your head fer this!” the chief yelled before waving his spear armed guards forwards “tak the sword and bring im befo me” Jimmeny, his body well muscle from 3 years of smiting, did not go quietly. Instead he grasped the handles of the great-sword, the engraved arcane knot (which only the shaman should have known how to carve) flashing, and with cry swept it forward, smashing his enemies aside, shattering spears, shields and bones alike. The chief stared at the ruins that the blade had made of his men, his hands shaking as they clutched a small enchanted blade of his own, the finest his tribe had ever made. It too broke before Jimmeny’s work. “Aye,” Jimmeny said to himself as he looked down at the shattered remains scattered around him “A sword fit fo a chief” [hr] [i]South Kubrajzar[/i] A group of Vespian swarmed around a small room they’d built in their hive as they added the finishing touches to it. Already they’d gotten a lesser Hive Crawler to dig a steep tunnel leading down from the surface hive to the underground tunnels below, where it opened over a waste pit that the Swarm Guards periodically drenched with acid. There was also a door sealing the tunnel room off from the rest of the hive, a hatch to close over the tunnel when it was not in use, a bucket full of water in case the tunnel got clogged, a nice wooden seat onto which one of the wasp women added a soft goatskin for padding while another hung up a little spring of strongly and pleasantly smelling pin needles while a final Vespian plopped down a small wooden box filled with small pieces of their races signature paper in easy reach of where the user of the room would be sitting. The small group stepped back and admired the wonderful new edition of their hive, before immediately starting to argue about who needed to use the new waste disposal shortcut the most and who would have to slog their way down to the pit the old fashioned way. It took six months of the smell gradually becoming unbearable for the Vespian who originally had the idea to be inspired and find a way to safely milk, store and transport a Swarm Guard's acid up to the indoor toilet so she could properly cleanse the tunnel. [hr] [i]The Highlands[/i] The glassmaker stared at the softly glowing statuette of Cadien he’d made, and wept for he knew he’d never be able to make anything as beautiful again. Two months later he made a cloudy cocktail glass, complete with a delightful fruity drink and little umbrella. Half a year later, he made a set of glass marbles, each one containing a depiction of one of the gods. Three days later an incredibly small figurine of a sheep. The glass maker never did achieve the same greatness as his first inspired work, and the two would never be parted, but he did make a fair amount of wealth off the sales of each of his subsequent saprobic acts of creativity. He could live with that. [hr] [i]Arbarent[/i] “Sister what have you done to yourself!” a Vespain asked as a maggoty thing crawled out of the cocoon the eldest of their Hive had sealed herself in a week before. “Feed me!” the horrid thing moaned “I must. Get bigger. Mutate again. Prove our hive strongest. Drive the fleshlingz from our landz!” The Vespian crowded around the maggot, a small number of them mutated with lesser alterations like scorpion tails, extra arms, bone weapons or functioning legs. They listened, they understood, and they went hunting. One month later the first, and greatest, of the war princess emerged from her colossal cocoon, and the arbarent quaked at her footfalls. [hr] [i]Sancta Civitas[/i] Tadiza hovered above the streets of the port district. It had been 4 months since that fateful day up on the roof of her hive. Inspiration had struck, and it had struck her hard enough for her to abandon the picnic and fly all the way to the silo construction site. Hard enough for her to demand an audience with the Embassy member running the build site. She’d ranted to him about her idea, got kicked out, gone back to her hive and built a smoke spewing contraption out of wood, metal and magic despite never having cast a spell in her life. Then she and her sisters, who had been caught up in her excitement, had raided one of the Hiver nests using the smoker, stolen a juvenile queen and hauled it before the Emissary who had mainly asked questions about how she had made the smoker with zero training. Then one of the builder-priests listening had gotten just as enthusiastic about the plan as she was and after a lot of arguing they set Tadiza’s plan into action. The results of that plan could be seen all across the agricultural district, the towering silos having grown even taller with the addition of a section dedicated to housing Hivers resting at the top. From these vast amounts of, admittedly fairly lousy tasting compared to that made by their smaller brethren, honey could be harvested and used to preserve the food stores in the tower. Everything could be preserved in the honey, from grains to meats to berries, because for reasons unknown nothing rotted while submerged in the golden substance. Tadiza’s addition to the silos had been heralded as genius and the girl was sick of seeing them. She’d been inducted into Artifex’s priesthood as soon as the effectiveness of the prototype was in. She’d met the Queen! They’d all expected great things from her and then. Nothing. As soon as the first tower was up her drive had just burned out. They’d asked here how to get more queens for the other towers and she had no idea. They’d wanted her to lead the construction of more towers, but the blueprints in her mind were gone. They’d figured it out in the end of course, and they were building more towers even as their inventor wandered the Docks. It was the only place in the city where you couldn’t see any of them. There was one going up behind the walls to store seafood of course, but space on the external docks was at a premium, or would be according to the builder-priest's long term plans, and so the buildings consisted mainly of shipwrights dotted around the docks and a few temporary warehouses. Tadiza hadn’t been down here before despite being born in the city. There had been no reason for her to go. But she had been in the area and had needed to get away from the sight of the towers. She buzzed too and fro, taking in the sights, watching the people and ships go by till she passed by a half built vessel laying on the side of a wharf. “Me tell you. Sea waves” a goblin captain was saying to an Akua shipwright who looked like a salmon that had grown arms and legs “Too high. Bailing water all time and that if lucky. Sides taller, or seal rowers in. Anything. Stop flooding” They were, Tadiza realized as she hovered closer, talking about the project to build true sea going vessels that didn't just hug the coast of their great island that had been spurred by a visiting druid’s assertion that he had come from another island like theirs. She had to admit, the idea was an interesting one. Sailing the seas, exploring far flung places, getting away from it all. The ships were interesting too now that she was getting a closer look at them. Fine pieces of carpentry, but built on a grand scale. Stone, metal, clay. These were the materials the priests loved to raise their grand buildings, but she liked wood. She felt like she understood it. “If you make the sides taller it’ll sit lower in the water,” the Akua was saying “If youuu seal it over youuu need to make the sides taller anyway and it’ll be too heavy. Want to row something twice as heavy? Because youuu can’t. Suuure the fancy magic figureheads the mages are making’ll help youuu when its clam, but when the winds a howling and blowing youuu against the rocks youuu’ll want to be able to row it as hard as it can go. Make it bigger and youu ain't going nowhere. How’d youuu even get the oars ouuut huh?” “More oars then!” the Goblin retorted “Then its longer, and heavier.” The Akua said with certainty, “It’s juuust how things are” “Excuse me” Tadiza said, interrupting the pair’s bickering. “What?” the fish said with annoyance, before noting the ceremonial hammer and chisel hanging from her belt and managing to sound even more irritated when he added “oh joy. Another one of you landers come to tell me how to do my job?” “I was just wondering why you can't put the oars on top of each other?” Tadiza asked “What?” “Yeah. that. More oars!” the goblin agreed “Redicuuulouuuse. How wouuuld that even work?!” “Look. ok you. Captain. Do this with your handz” she instructed, getting the Goblin to make a three step staircase with his hands. “Ok so you have one golbin sitting here, and another here behind and above them, and then you stick the oars out though the walls here” she said “and that means you can have more rowers in the same length of boat” explaining the oar setup of what would become known as a bireme. “Yeah. Is good.” the Goblin agreed. “Stack and row” “No no no! That's never been done and we can go deviating from tried and true designs for something this important. I’m in charge her and we’re not-” the Akua insisted before finding one of Tadiza’s fingers pressed against his lips “I don't care!” she said, before giggling and yelling at the top of her lungs “I don’t care!” She took off and did a little spin before pointing at the goblin captain “You. You’re my number two. We’re taking over thiz operation in the name of Artifex and we’re making the best ship the world has ever seen!“ “Doing that” the goblin said while nodding enthusiastically, already completely wrapped up in her mania, before he scampered off to yell at the workers who had been incharge of the ship building. “What. no youuu can’t do this” the Akua isnisted as he lost control of the situation “Oh I can” Tadiza insisted, a spark lighting up her eyes “Because I have an Idea that it’z going to change the world, THE WORLD, and nobody iz going to stop me from seeing it though!” [hider=summary] Tadiza the carpenter sits on the roof of her hive, and view her conversation and people watching we learn about the introduction of beehives and ladybird shrines to the city’s farms, of how the city is using giant ants and bees as transport and labor and about the preservative properties of honey. She begins to form an idea involving the giant hiver bees, their tower top homes, the under construction silo tower and the use of honey to preserve food, but does not feel confident about pursuing the line of thought or speaking about it. Artifex, who happened to come across her during a routine mental stroll through the city wonders how many other good ideas have died because the thinker did not have the confidence, skills or mental capacity to see them though. Inspired by the Servants, he decides to make a phenomenon that gives some mortals the extra push they need to bring their ideas to fruition. The pov rapidly jump all across Galbar showing the effects of the new order: [list] [*]An Arborea artificer creating a Buzzer (magic gun) that fires homing bees [*]A Taerenga goblin smith who makes an enchanted claymore and kills his chief when the latter is infuriated by the excessive amount of metal used to make the massive sword. [*]A Kubrajzar Vespian who makes an indoor toilet [*]A Highlands’s glassmaker who makes a series of impressive decorative trinkets [*]A Vespian in the Arbarent who first mutates into a grub like feeding stage, puts on a tone of mass and then transforms into a large monster called a War Princess [/list] Before jumping back to Tadiza. Her invention, installing Hiver hives on top of the Silos for an easy source of honey, has been adopted by the city and she has been inducted into Artifex’s priesthood. Yet she was unable to reproduce the leadership and designs needed to create any more structures beyond the first tower, and has fallen into a depression as a result. While wandering around the city’s docks to avoid having to even look at the silo towers she takes interest in the ships there, which she has never had reason to see before and then comes across a ship's captain and a shipwright arguing about the designs of a vessel intended to cross the open ocean. The captain worries about the low sides of the ship being prone to flooding in the choppy waves of the ocean, while the shipwright professes his suggestions are foolish because the ship will become un-rowable. Tadiza inserts herself into the conversation and suggests a system where a second set of rowers sit above the first. The shipwright objects to her intrusion and unorthodox designs, but Tadiza feels the same rush of inspiration coming on that she felt when designing the towers and uses her position of the preisthood and the fact that the captain is entirely caught up in her manic rush to commandeer the entire operation. Tadiza has been inspired to make the first bireme (which is like a precursor to the trireme with 2 sets of oars instead of 3), and in doing so becomes the first of her Golden Generation to find her calling. [/hider] [hider= mp summary] Start mp/dp 5/5 2dp and 1 mp The First Expansion - Golden Generation Great Explorers I – Those born in this generation have a greater desire for adventure sometimes. Resulting in more dedicated explorers that sail off beyond the horizon to discover new lands and open up trade routes. Shipmasters II – Great inventors have been born in this age who have placed great focus upon the improvement of ships. Artisans, researchers and seasoned veterans of the sea each ponder over new ship designs while new tools are created, both magical and mundane, to improve the seafaring capabilities of these new ships. 3 mp to unlock the portfolio: Ships 3dp and 1 mp Order: The Inscrutable Inventors (generally shortened just to Inventor) Manic Muse I: When seeking to solve a problem they will on rare occasion be struck by inspiration. While inspired the Seer will obsess about the solution they have seen and will gain the effects of the following three titles. Mental Blueprints I: the Seers can hold in their minds a perfect blueprint of whatever it is they are trying to build. Beyond Comprehension I: The solution, invention or project can slightly surpass the Seer’s and/or the seer’s Societies technological understanding. Not that as this title’s effects are lost when not inspired, the Seer does not learn how to do these new things they do while under its effects and must become reinspired inorder to perform repairs, maintenance, replication or improvements to these advanced features. Swept up in the Rush I: When working on a project Seer enthusiastically and energetically obsesses over whatever they are trying to build, and can pull a few other individuals into this state of being as their subordinates. Subordinates who partake in the Rush gain limited versions of the Seer’s powers, allowing them to share their grand vision enough that they can help make it a reality. (inspire = gift for price purposes as the result is the same) 0mp used to teach them the people of SC about beekeeping 0mp used to bless their crops with guardian ladybirds to reduce the issues of pests 0mp used to teach them how to use honey as a preservative 0mp to inspire the creation of a few buzzers (magic guns made here https://www.roleplayerguild.com/posts/5104622 ) that shoot bees 0mp used to inspire the use hivers as a source of massive amounts of honey 0mp used to teach them to do this repeatedly 0mp used to inspire the creation of the first bireme 2/5 stoneworking or 3/5 arcane monuments 1/5 psionics or 4/5 mad science End mp/dp 0/0 [/hider] [hider=prestige] The Inscrutable Inventors + 5 End totals: The Inscrutable Inventors: (5) [/hider]