Tsenkutli, The Empire, The Black Gate, Lair of Serpents, House of Enlightenment, and many more names. It is led by the memetic demon Tezcatlipoca (Smoking mirror), whose body is composed of all words ever written. Once they ruled two thirds of the world, this was before The Empire was broken in half by the cataclysm, and in half again by a still ongoing civil war between it and The Church of the Last Revelation.
Its society is composed of two strata (castes), known as citizens and noncitizens. One is the most educated society in the world, living in immense black steel citadels where all children are raised by the state, only meeting their parents as adults. When one is found not to fit in, is found guilty of a transgression, or lacks potential. They are demoted to a second, lower caste. This lower cast is unsupported by the state, and lives and dies by chance and their own capacity to protect themselves. Despite this, this society remains relatively prosperous, and does allow some modicum of social mobility, provided you do not wish to ascend to a position of power. Most characters will be members of the second cast, who received their training while they were still in good graces with the state. All within the empire are initiated into the first caste at birth.
It is possible to regain citizenship, but it is significantly more difficult to gain than it is to lose.
The Empire, while not having literally invented either, did essentially invent the modern forms of both paths and magic. They notably have created the art of soul magic, as well as either completely (or jointly) created the schools of war, industrial, and orthodox magic. This of course was before the magical revolution, and at this time it is believed that three-hundred schools of magic can be credited to imperial mages, nearly half of all schools.
Imperial culture and running imperial NPCs:
Self sharpening: The empire has a centuries long, thoroughly reinforced culture of ruthless criticism. Any idea, thought, or aspect of the self, is to be analyzed, tested, found wanting and improved. Older citizens will be off puttingly calm and will tolerate any amount of negotiation, and questioning, so long as it is not obviously in bad faith. They will, in turn, often take some enjoyment from pointing out flaws in the pcs rhetoric, planning, or execution of a mission. Younger citizens have yet to be inured, and will as such both criticize more frequently and not react as well to being criticized.
Reaction roll modifiers:
+2 for having an imperial citizen in the group
+2 Being a mage or obviously high ranking academic.
+2 Demonstrate knowledge of soul magic or linguistics.
+1 (cumulative) Each time you react to criticism by thanking them and responding with a suggestion on how you could improve.
+1 (cumulative) Each time you point out a mistake they have made, and give a good suggestion on how to improve.
+1 for giving a gift
+1 for giving a uniquely suitable gift.
-1 for speaking or acting crudely
-2 (cumulative) Each time you react to criticism with frustration and anger.
-3 for being associated with a foe of the empire.
Tapping: A tap against a surface is a signal of acknowledgement and agreement. In some cases, the type of tapping provides contextual information. For example, multiple quickly repeating taps suggests urgency, while slow repetition signals uncertainty or consideration. The material chosen can also be important.
Gifts:
The giving of gifts is a large part of imperial society. Food is generally gifted for more regular occasions. In the case of specific events, you may need to try harder.
Giving a gift in general gives +1 to reaction rolls.
Staples: Fish, bread or rice, depending on the region. Representative of shared blood, memory and mental stability. Can also be used to welcome or highlight foreigners of guests.
Dark chocolate: Sweet or unsweetened, frequently quite spicy, often to silly extents. Mostly a Macho thing. Representative of resolve and kindling of passion and energy.
White chocolate: Can be either highly sweetened, or very buttery and creamy and slightly salty. Representative of comfort and relaxation, associated with childhood.
Coffee: Coffee is essentially the only legal drug within the empire, as such, it is massively ubiquitous. Coffee is not endemic to the gilded wastes (imperial core region), so this forms a large component of colonial trade. The sharing of coffee is less specific, but can signify friendship, or encouragement for a long day of work ahead or warmth during the cold.
Military/strangers: There is some base level of kinship between all martial subsocities. As such, those who are in bad situations can generally expect some amount of help. Refusing to help when asked reasonably will generally have strong negative consequences on your reputation.
Court of serpents: The empire has the single largest quantity of demons of any political entity, rivalled only by the republic. They permeate every echelon of society, from thrall demons kept on tight leashes and bound by silver chains, to be used as tools for agents of the emperor, to the demonic noble houses blessed with sacred bloodlines derived from a contract with a common ancestor. Despite the legal fall from grace these houses have experienced, they remain at the core of society itself. Against the efforts and wishes of all states, most citizens of the nine rivers consider themselves members of their family and house first, and citizens of their states second.
Leadership within the empire must be actively maintained by performance, loyalty and skill, and is rarely guaranteed. As such, the echelons are filled primarily with centuries old humans as well demons. Essential to its previous accord with the church, which was necessary for the initial conquest of the world, given the primarily Christian composition of the new subjects, is the fact that less than a percent of all the demons originate from Yahweh. Instead, their legacies originate from the True Gods of the Mother of Serpents and the Nameless, with small contributions by the Lord of the Burning Horizon and the Star Soother.
Cities are governed by patricians, the state by councilors and ministers, and the military by marshals, generals and commissioners. Relative authority is partially determined by proximity to their domain. Higher authority figures have broader domains, and have some limited ability to supersede lesser figures in order to run things quickly.
Imperial actions and goals:
These are arranged hierarchically.
1: Uphold the oath made to the vermin.
2: Ensure the survival of humanity within this world.
3: Preserve the dignity and sanity of humanity and demon kind.
4: Maintain the existence of the empire and dominion.
From this are derived the following non-hierarchical instrumental goals. And then the following actions.
Increase economic prosperity and social stability within the dominion:
Damage to infrastructure, citizens and supply lines will result in two task forces being created.
The first will repair the infrastructure and guard it until the second force performs its job.
The second force will first be a relatively small group of agents, which will investigate the situation and report back. The number and rank of agents will continually increase until an answer is found. The answer will then be reviewed for inconsistency and a method to prove its veracity will be found. This part will take minutes to hours, not days.
After that, the task force will be reinforced to include both the scout force and a much larger group, part of the strike team proper.
If the threat is bestial or ill-equipped, they will attack during the day, using mass weight of firearms.
If it is civilized, the strike will occur during the night, with blade and claw and manmade horror.
In either case, they will send overwhelming numbers, to minimize the chance of a complete defeat and capture.
Increase the military force of the empire relative to the other forces within the world:
Any technology which can be found and recovered is prized, and they will match and slightly exceed any offers made by other powers, so long as the offer they are matching is legitimate.
In addition, the capture of live monsters will also be well rewarded.
Officially, only the church is directly sabotaged. But mercenaries will often be hired through proxies to sabotage the republic or colonies deemed to be too powerful. If the party is hired, it should be impossible to trace the activity back to the empire, even if they suspect something.
Remove the ability of the true gods and maggots to annihilate the empire should they wish: Unknown, primarily spatial and memetic research, theorized to be the imprinting of minds into memetic agents, so that the population could be restored even if materially annihilated.
Expand the territory of the empire:
This happens simultaneously across every frontier not claimed by a great power. Notably, the needle grass plains, depths, graveyard of stars, intertidal, colonies and expanse*). More interesting are the places where it struggles. Notably, the empire has no easy to access entrance to the first church, and so must pass through the sunken city. It is also attempting to support the secessionist movements within the republic.
*Seemingly endless ocean that lies south of the intertidal.
Tezcatlipoca:
Understand what I am, in every breath you take I live a lifetime. Within my mind, our reunions are framed by recollections of past eons, your words, history, as if communicating with a being of ancient myth. Nail these words deep within your soul, and hang your understanding of them between them. And when your understanding becomes truth, becomes reality, crystallizes it. So that within your soul exists a map of another's mind.
Should you do this, you will then know how not to waste my time.
High demon Tezcatlipoca, Emperor of Emperors, Lord of heaven and earth, The unseen wind, who creates themselves and humanity, The ever present, The pretender by whom we all live.
Contacting Tezcatlipoca:
Ritual requirements: Write a question in 500s worth of pure silver.
Result: Your location will be known to them, your question will be answered truthfully.
Should the answer to the question be too far in excess of the silver you have given, you will be told this, this is still valuable information.
You may ask again by giving an order of magnitude more silver, the question will be answered when the value of silver is sufficiently high.
Should the answer be unknown or nonsensical, you will be told this. The former is rare and valuable information, the latter your fault. In either case, no refunds.
Note: Aztec names: I almost always include the English version of the name, you can use that instead.
By Andreas Rocha
Is it not our duty to consume those lesser than us, so that they may become great.
If so, then we had no choice, your state was weak, and your nation corrupted.
By Andy Walsh.
Tsenkutli is located on the intersection of a river of molten lead with one of water. A three-mile wide industrial complex sits upon the water lock, suffocating the geysers like a glacier would a volcano. The imperial machine never sleeps, and so the city toils under a blanket of fog.
Imperial paths:
Ψ Xicotlimiuh: City of needles: The birthplace of the empire and location of the pure wyrm of
the lake of wax. It is the genesis of soul magic and cooperation between the empire and the dominion. It, alongside the new capital, deserves its own blog post.
Stance: Burning cloak: Each turn this is active, you and anyone touching or hit by you take d6 fire damage. If you have the curse of wax, take only 1 fire damage. Gain 3 strength and movement.
Technique: Hypergolic blood: Your blood becomes highly acidic and boils when exposed to air. If you bite your tongue (1 necrotic to self), you may spit a jet of blood up to 12m with acc2, dealing 6 acid/fire damage, or as an automatic hit in response to taking melee damage.
Technique: Mark of honey: Pick a creature within line of sight, they will emit a strong, sickly sweet aroma which is sensed by every single insect within a 1km radius. This is as disruptive as it seems it ought to be.
Strike(1ap): Steel proboscis: Add 2d6 necrotic damage with life steal to a melee piercing hit to an organic target.
Soul anchor: Wing thief: Break open the chrysalis of a creature of equal or greater size as you, eat the creature within, and take its place until metamorphosis concludes. Gain a pair of insectoid wings, which give a flight speed of 12m/40ft while unencumbered. You may break off your wings and replace them with new ones if you find some of suitable size for you, either to replace damaged wings or because the new wings have some sort of effect.
Ψ Tsenkutli: Lord’s Stone: A military style, for navigating trenches and hunting men, the style of the capital, the black gate, and the hell swamps of no man's land. Regarding Tsenkutli itself, it is one of seven* cities with over 50 million inhabitants, and as such it too deserves its own post.
Stance: Soft-Step: Allows walking on mud or semi-liquid substances as if they were dry ground. Projects a 10cm aura of silence off your hands and feet.
Technique(2ap): Sunder ribs: Make a melee attack with a slashing weapon at advantage. On a hit, give weaknessX2 to piercing damage. In addition, any future melee piercing or unarmed attacks you deal against them steals 1 thaum/MD.
Technique: Sever (2ap): Requires a blade on your person, but does not require it to be swung or drawn. Sever 1 arm or leg at the knee or elbow, dealing 8 slashing, 3m (10ft).
Technique: Gun parry (1ap): Make an attack with a one-handed firearm, when used as a reaction to an attack, cancel that attack on a hit and slow by 3m.
Soul anchor: Heart eater: Consume a heart doped with 10 grams of molten silver dissolved in acid, this act deals 12 acid damage and 2 soul damage, but will not kill you.
You may consume the hearts of souled creatures who have never taken soul damage to increase your speed and max hp by 1, and deal 2 soul damage to the victim. You also have an extra litre of blood if that matters. The required HD of the creature increases by 1 each time you use this ability.
*The first five cities are Gesit, The Sunken City, The City of Silver, City of Brass, and Tsenkutli.
Ψ Atlatlacamani: Storm Cradle: Found north of Tlannana Tzalitzi. It has a unique environment, suffering extremely mild winds and rainfall (contrasted against every other northern province). It has a stable eastern current within both wind and waves. Due to this, alongside its proximity to the lake of mold, a 12 league long net of sanctified nerves were erected across the gulf between it and Tlannana Tzalitzi, to ward off the metastasis of cancer. Within it is the beating heart of imperial aquaculture. Thirty-one thousand miles of ironwood reefs, filled with nigh endless quantities of kelp, shellfish, salmon and sea lice. These last creatures are the product of Imperial genius. It was realized that by connecting them to the body of the formless mother and inflicting them with genes that render them unable to open their mouths, it is possible to gather theoretically infinite biomass. In order to keep the sanguine resonance levels within the region low, processing is done within the endless canneries of its southern kin and the sunken city.
Stance: Wave breaker: Make yourself unable to be moved in one specific axis. This can be used to hover. This does not provide leverage for walking.
Technique: Iron skin: Spatially lock a melee weapon upon being hit, reducing the maximum physical damage to 3. This effectively disarms the enemy.
Technique(2ap): Pile driver: Delayed 1, make a melee attack with at acc+6, anti-material*, advantage, dealing 4x[Base weapon damage] additional piercing on a hit. Weapons not built to withstand these forces (such as common steel weapons) break and deal impaling damage. The weapon hangs in the air for a second during the delay.
Technique(1ap): Clear sky: Still the air in a 3x3x3 meter cube for 1 minute. The air itself becomes difficult terrain and requires a dc8 strength check to move in. Gasses within this air do not diffuse. It is non-newtonian, so faster creatures and projectiles cannot overcome the difficult terrain and instead may only move 3m during their turn, losing all their kinetic energy.
*Touch ac, ignores cover, no critical damage.
Ψ Tlannana-Tzaliztli: Breaking of gnashing teeth: A style of leviathan hunters. The port city of Tlannana Tzaliztli is the southernmost city in the empire, and one of 3 megacities within the intertidal. By a special accord with the deep church, this is the only location where vermin are allowed to possess marine animals. The significance of this is not easily appreciated by non-vermin. It is also one of few cities with a thread pillar that extends to the upper atmosphere. This has led to a unique local ecology and an airship program, and both live guns and live ships originate from specially cultivated stains of the former.
Stance: Stern guard: When an enemy is charging/leaping at you, make a free attack. Gain an additional advantage if you're elevated relative to your opponent.
Stance: Hunter: Gain +3acc to unarmed attacks, climbing/swimming speed and mounting checks. Your attacks are rounded up instead of down when going into titanic hp.
Strike: Teeth breaker: After landing a melee attack, knock back 1 and reduce the damage on all bite attacks to [target strength] if it would otherwise be higher.
Strike: Gill-slit: Force a save against losing the ability to breathe water. Deal 1 Exhaustion.
Ψ Neyolno-notzalli: Inner deliberation: Style or the first legion.
Stance: Emperor: The words you have written while in this stance can be read and edited by you from any distance.
Technique (1ap): Pry-open: 1 person within 3m takes d6 psychic damage and then gets 2x psychic vulnerability.
Technique (4ap) (touch): Take: Deal d6 psychic damage, and you may steal a handful of thoughts from your target (Decided by gm).
Technique: Psycho Resonance(1ap): Pick 2 targets within 6m, damage done to one target is replicated to the other as psychic damage. The link breaks after 2 rounds.
Soul anchor: Trepanation: +3m to omniception and to all spells with a range greater than touch. Awarded to all who successfully finish the entrance exams to join the imperial bureaucracy.
Ψ Burial legion: Requires binding cog: Style of the third legion, which is responsible for internal security and the recovery and salvage of abandoned settlements. Originally a legion of slave soldiers drawn from the still-bitter conquered forces of the enemy, they swelled in numbers and importance during the shattering and the civil war that ensued.
Stance: Worldmover: While pulling or dragging, triple your strength.
Stance: Law of the three part world: Wounds inflicted while in this stance take 10 times as long to heal, including for regeneration. Melee critical damage is doubled, and you gain F: Cancer.
Technique: Chained mind: Ignore one mental attack or breakdown.
Strike: Lie: Target must save or forget past minute and cancel all actions.
Ψ Tlalocayotl: Gate breaking tempest: The style of the assault troops responsible for taking the many cities besieged by the empire. It is named after the high marshal of the imperial army.
Stance: Mountain to mountain: You may triple jump.
Technique: Overseer: You manifest a 3x3m plane of solidified air beneath your feet. It is strong enough to support an ox, but not bulletproof. This technique resets whenever you witness blood drawn. You may angle your feet to change the angle of the plane.
Technique: Barotrauma: Touch someone, until contact is broken, they experience three hundred times regular air pressure. 6 force damage at the end of each of your and their turns.
Technique: Fissure (2ap): Stomp the ground, a 9m long fissure opens in the ground starting at your feet. The cracks are up to 1m deep into a surface, and you may perfectly control the path of the fissure in any route. The fissure may branch and crawl up walls. You could use this to break a wall In half, or make a perfectly circular hole in a bridge or other floor to drop someone through it. This does not affect organic or living matter.
Soul anchor: Ambhi: Pour 20L of blood onto the fresh ashes of a home. Then bury yourself and sleep within. The blood does not need to be souled.
You gain resistance -2 to toxic and force damage. In addition, when you are brought to 0 or less hp by physical damage, you are brought to 1hp. This could let you survive a fall from orbit, in theory.
Ψ Ehecatl: Thirteenth heavens: A style derived from the night wind.
Stance: Storm dance: Twirl your weapon around you, whipping up a storm, for each ap you spend attacking, you can jump 6 in the direction of an enemy (before or after the attack).
Your melee attacks deal knock back 1. Slow moving projectiles such as arrows used against you gain disadvantage.
Technique (2ap): Vacuum slice: 20m line, 3d6 slashing/force damage, in addition make a free melee slashing attack. Add 1 MD to pull everyone within 3m to the center of the line after the strike, and to increase damage by [sum].
Technique (xap): Storm stomp: 1+xm cone, 3x force, knockback x+2.
Technique (1ap): Windblast: 12m, acc6, 6 bludgeoning/force/lightning, knockback 3*.
*Distance values are always in meters, unless otherwise stated.
Ψ Alangar: Night emperor: The path of the black guard: Originally, the night empire was one of the fiercest rivals to the empire. At the time of its conquest, during the curtain call of the unification wars, it was the only entity to successfully stall, defeat and then rout the invasion force sent to destroy It. Again and again this repeated, with the war only concluding after a decade of hard fighting when the first weapons of mass destruction were deployed.
Its poor luck continued during the war of revelation, where another of its cities were struck by a nuclear barrage, claiming the #2 spot for the most bombarded city to rest alongside itself. Currently, only two of its cities remain, those being the underground cities of Inim Akkad and Ashak. Alangar himself is the husband of the night empress and the second most powerful of the true dragons, behind Cipactli. The black guard are responsible for holding the entirety of the underground and much of the black gate in the name of the dominion.
Stance: Blood begets blood: When dealing with an attack damage, you may flip 1 die or (only if you have no dice) damage source to [round number]. Gain infra-vision.
Technique: Rekindled: Recover [round number] points of exhaustion.
Technique: Nightfall: Destroy three lamp sized light sources.
Technique: Shadow step: Teleport to a point within 30m and line of sight that is covered in darkness.
Ψ Broken: Style of the second legion.
Stance: Cycle: Remove the need to breathe.
Technique: Lupa: Make a movement action.
If anyone uses this technique, everyone else in this combat that has this technique, has it forcibly activated.
Strike*: Release(1ap): Shatter a rusted weapon to deal 1d12+weapon weight damage and convert it to slashing/force/poison damage.
Technique: Kin: Rub iron dust into an open wound to heal 1d6 necrotic damage, stop all bleeding, and restore 1 exhaustion.
Lesson: You may pull a corroded blade or bolt from a pile of blood soaked rust.
Ψ Xiuhtecuhtli: Burning river, father flame: This style draws from the power of the river of molten lead, Xiteyakana, and the demon who inhabits it. It is wielded by the left hand of the emperor, and those who serve him.
Stance: Dancing blade: While in this stance, your blade may act anywhere within 9m. In addition, the blade flies 18m/s, or 9m/s if you are riding it like a surfboard. You do not need to roll to not fall off the blade, as you are skilled in its use and may manipulate it to catch yourself. In addition, the blade gains multiattack.
You must me able to physically carry (but not wield) the blade, and you must carry it on your person at least twenty hours a day.
While using this stance, your hands must be empty, and you may never wield any other weapons. In addition, you may not carry any magnetic material save for lead on your person.
If the sword you are wielding weighs more then half your body weight, it takes +1ap to attack with.
Technique: Leaping blade(2ap): Make a melee attack at advantage at 60m, the next turn, the blade returns, making a second melee attack at advantage to a target within the approximate path of its return.
Technique: Torque (2ap): 3 attacks to a target within 3m, once an attack hits, the following attacks hit automatically with the same roll.
Technique: Lead storm (2ap) (delayed 1): Consumes 1kg of metal to make 6 attacks at acc3 for 4 piercing damage, divided amongst any number of targets within 30m. Gain +2 acc if the material is lead or gold.
Soul anchor: Heavy hands: Dip your hands within a vat of molten metal, then heal the damage taken, repeat the process 3 times. After this, your unarmed attacks hit as flanged maces, and may be used to parry or catch blades as if they where a buckler, as they gain the appearance and durability of the metal used.
Ψ Yohualli-Tlahuilhuiani: Night sky painter: Prerequisite: Gain a source of gravity magic or gravitational authority.
Stance: Fall: You may change your relative gravitational “down” at will.
Technique: Refracted truth: All who can see your eyes believe a truth to be false, or are enlightened regarding the falsehood of one of their convictions. You choose the truth, and must know of and sincerely believe in the veracity of the fact you are exposing.
Technique: Night sky mirror: Store an instance of light (radiance) or heat (flame) that contacts you within a polished stone or mirror painted black. It is converted into its other counterpart (light to heat and heat to light) when the object breaks, or by spending 1ap while touching it with your left hand, the latter allows direction by pointing with your right hand.
Technique: Lamb of the heavenly abyss (2ap) (3m/10ft): Deal [number of full small slots on target] force/knockback/pull, target resistance counts as weakness.
Soul anchor: Third moon kin: Consume 100g of rock that has arrived from outside this world within the past century, dissolved in oil with 3 thaums.
Gain immunity to blindness, deafness, bad luck and fate, your eyes become as rock.
Gain resistance -2 to bludgeoning.
Ψ Truth: This path is learnt as soon as you learn any other path. It does not count as a path for any purpose aside from the core purpose of learning techniques from it.
Stance: Duelist’s focus: Double advantage dice for one-handed attacks if you are not wielding something that can be used as a melee weapon or shield in your offhand.
Stance: Cloud step: You can double jump once per turn.
Technique: Sunder shield: Break a shield and knockback by [strength].
Technique: Cleave: Transfer excess slashing damage into an adjacent target.
Technique: Walz: Swap the position of two creatures of the same size within 1m.
Strike: Charger (1ap): Deal knockback equal to the amount of metres you have moved in a straight line this turn after making a melee attack.
Technique: Challenge: d6 enemies chosen by the dm must save or get disadvantage on all attacks against your allies. You may bypass this save by making a sufficiently well worded or delivered proclamation of your name and titles.
Technique: Quickstep: Save to dodge 1 attack (it counts as if it had missed), and move 1m.
Technique: Jump up: Get up from prone and move half a free action.
Strike: Knockback: On a bludgeoning attack, convert critical damage into knock back.
Strike(1ap): Disarm: Target must save or drop an object they are holding. If they lose their weapon or shield, the next melee attack against them is performed at advantage.
Soul anchor: Phlebotomy: Take 100 damage, or 10x your hp, whichever is higher, over the course of one day. You must be conscious during the entire process.
Resistance to piercing x0.5, bleeding you take is converted to necrotic.
Soul anchor: Mithridatism: Expose yourself to the poison of 3 different sources, and almost or completely die to each one.
You may only be affected once by the same toxin (this negates damage over time).
Soul anchor: Worldstrider: Venture to 5 distant or hard to reach locations. Each location must be harder to reach than the last*. You may venture to 5 more locations to gain these benefits again, ad infinitum.
+3m/10ft to all movement, recover 1 exhaustion once per day.
Credit to Louis for helping with the editing: https://garamondia.blogspot.com/
