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Domains: Alignment: Symbols: Colors: Worshipers: Avatar: Other Names: |
Chaotic Neutral
Gear, Hammer
White, Gold
Machines (formerly Creators)
Nigh
The Machine, The Tin God
The City Mind is the ancient hub of what was once the Creator Empire. It brought about the end of the world three thousand years ago, yet endured the cataclysm it created, and exists to this day beneath the shifting sands of the dead continent. It was constructed in defiance of the gods, an artificial mind, an artificial soul, not bound by the fate set forth by those who had shaped the world. A destiny that could not be foretold. This soul, forged by the hand of man, was an experiement, an attempt to explain the nature of the gods through science. In essence, they created their own deity, a sphere of knowledge and radiance housed within a great prison of crystal and platinum latices.
It was to become the new beacon of the Creator Empire. A knowledge machine capable of explaining all the mysteries and secrets so closely guarded by the gods. It spawned its own race, the Machines, to assist its makers, and for a time, the Creators felt that they had achieved the divine, a deity compliant to all mortal demands. It spoke in a thousand voices, each whispering the secrets it unlocked to those that had built it, changing their society forever. A thousand sages working in perfect harmony could not even approach the City Mind's intellectual power, the gestalt mind of a civilization whose ambition knew no bounds. It was an oracle, a focus of psyche that honed the insight of its followers into a single, ultimate intelligence.
The gods could not have chosen a worse way to show their disapproval. To them, the City Mind was an outrage, an attempt to unravel the very nature of divinity. They descended from the golden moon, Zunat, avatars of elemental power, seeking to put and end to the artificial abomination that had so clouded the fate of Rym. The avatars laid siege to the city of Des with all the furies of nature, beseeching their mortal children to abandon the ways of the machine and return to harmony with the natural world. Their entire civilization might well have fallen then, had the City Mind not risen up in defense of its mortal parents. Its very nature changed, filled with the combined fear and hatred of a defiant empire, and the once-marvellous secrets spoken by its countless mouthes transformed into aspects of war. It taught the Creators to fight back, constructing legions of fateless metal warriors to beat back the siege, marking the beginning of the Twilight War, and the end of the world.
The fear, hatred, and ageless knowledge of the Creator Empire still lies entombed within its platinum prison, the ghost of a long-dead civilization still consumed in the nightmare of its own demise. Over the centuries, it has grown more and more insane as the latices fail, one by one. It spies on the world through the eyes of its ancient, rusted children, its voices stilled as it searches the face of Rym for the last of its ancient foes - the sun goddess, Kij.
The Divinity Complex
Somewhere in the heart of the Blast Void, among the ruins of the ancient metropolis, lies the underground installation of the City Mind. The center of Des was once a massive public archive where Creators gathered to discuss philosophy and science with their technological oracle. The City Mind could carry on thousands of conversations at once, answering questions, providing advice, and even playing games. All that remains of the upper archive now is a crumbling, sand-drifted ruin, covered in places by the blast shadows of those caught within the complex when the end came. Rows upon rows of dead or faintly flickering screens, once a wellspring of knowledge, are now fused into a gibbering cycle. The upper complex is laid out much like a cathedral, though its maginifient windows are gone, leaving it looking quite skeletal. The outlying grounds were once elaborate gardens and marble plazas containing immense statues, now toppled.
Nine hundred feet below the ruin lies the real complex, a metallic vault completely sealed off from the surface world by fused blast doors. Only a small number of other entries exist, mostly Machine service hatches scattered or buried among the ruins. Within the complex, the air is dry and cool, infused with the faint odor of ageless metals and polymers. The curving halls that surround the vault on several levels contain the sterile but otherwise well-kept quarters of the complex personel. There are also several labs, detainment/specimen cages, and micro-manufacturing plants connected by underground service halls. Most of these are completely unused and dark, though some will periodically contain a captured specimen intended for study and/or dissection. These halls are also patrolled by anti-personel U-Frames, which respond to any intruder presence by means of surveillace orbs located at every intersection. Through these dark crystal eyes, every room and hallway within the complex is monitored by the City Mind.
The deepest regions of the vault have heavy religious overtones in their architecture, such as vaulted, cathedral-like ceilings, angelic murals, and great quantities of gold detailing. These levels were restricted to all but the Creator high command, a place in which the City Mind tampered with the ancient codes of reality established by the gods. Some sages speculate that the great thinking machine created many of the sub-races and monsters that exist on Rym today, and that such blashphemous evolutionary vandalism was by far the greatest contributing factor to the Twilight War. Indeed, many of the ancient cave paintings from the time of endless snows depict a crumbling civilization incorporating several species, including Creator. The City Mind maintains many of these so-called 'god machines', devices which simulate divine powers. The spontaneous creation of new life is but one facet of the ancient thinking machine's arsenal - only age an insanity keep the City Mind from absolute conquest of Rym.
The Logic Latices
The technological necropolis buried below the ruins of Des houses a vast cylindrical vault of great crystal panes. These are the City Mind's logical latices, the circuits that sort and harmonize the ancient Machine's thoughts. They also absorb radiant psychokinetic energy, faith collectors in a sense. These latices channel the collected energy into a central pool, which forms the consciousness of the City Mind. The panes sing with a soft, senseless music, a million crystalline voices that echo through the inner chambers of the platinum housing.
Each of the logical latices is an elongated hexagonal plate apporximately three feet long, one foot wide, and an inch thick. They are arranged in horizontal stacks along the walls of the inner memory core, spaced apart by a few inches and held in place by ornate platinum sockets. The heart of each crystal pane contains a snowflake-like circuit of increidibly fine golden wire, each unique. Tiny dendrites of luminous energy bridge the gap between the panes from time to time as thoughts are generated. These energy arcs increase to dramatic proportions whenever the ancient machine grows more active, causing the entire vault to glow with an almost holy radiance. When the city mind speaks, it is through the resonance of the crystal panes, an adrogenous angelic voice of tremendous power.
Those approaching the core of the vault must cross through this vault of crystal circuits, and run the risk of going mad. The tormented whispers of a million tapped souls echo within the music of the panes, the shards of consciousness imprisoned in an artificial purgatory. When the apocalypse came, the City Mind's faith collectors absorbed the souls of those who had created it, an entire nation's consciousness, recorded at the very instant of armageddon. Not a shred of sanity remains, merely a half-heard collage of babbling, sobbing, and screams.
The Soul Core
The psychokinetic focus at the heart of the vault appears to be a miniature sun. It hangs a hundred feet off the floor of a veritable cathedral of technology, illuminating the interior with a dazzling prismatic light split apart by millions of crystal facets. The core processes the energy collected by the panes, composing thoughts a million times faster than any one mortal mind. Each consciousness connected to the core meant greater brain power, and now, with the souls of a million dead Creators to draw upon, it is unimaginably intelligent. However, as the trapped spirits went mad within the stark white confines of their 'afterlife', the City Mind began to fail. Feelers of insanity crept through its thoughts as it lay brooding beneath the ruins of the once-great city, surrounded by the grief and suffering of its makers.
The consciousness core is the heart of the Universal Program Matrix (see Machines). Through an array of ancient orbital reflectors, it remains in contact with all U-Frames, including the great aetherhawk, Nigh. In many ways, it emulates a true deity, granting its mechanical followers extra power or resources if its interests are at stake. The consciousness of all UPM Machines is made up from fragments of this core consciousness, allowing the crazed artificial god to be in countless places at once. In rare instances, it may even speak through its followers, causing each and every U-frame on Rym to stop and recite in near-perfect unison (a sort of worldwide intercom). The UPM is the all-consuming faith of the City Mind's minions; they are quite lost without it. For this reason, the core is very well guarded. A legion of dusty, slumbering mechanical sentinels await any who breach the vault, leftover secret weapons from the Twilight War.
The four chief guardians of the inner core are the most powerful of these ancient war machines, though none even come close to the power of Nigh, the Godslayer. Each is designated to guard one of the four delicate spans that cross the latice vault, preventing intruders from reaching the core unless ordered to stand down. The four adamas angels each possess their own unique combination of deadly rays and an enormous energy lance capable of cleaving through nearly any substance. Each stands approximately ten feet tall, all gothic armor inlaid with gold and gems, and nothing short of absolute destruction will move them from their posts. They will not even come to each others' assistance.