Magical Realm Cyoa/Theriobach

Build

Complications: [125] Notorious!, [150] Amnesia!

Demiplane: [147] Area Increase 2 (600,000 km2)

Planar Features: [143] Portals, [137] Protection 2

Population: [131] Population Increase 3 (15,000,000 population)

Inhabitants: [130] Attitude Adjustment, [128] Culture & Customs, [126] Pretty Population, [124] Population Demographics (60/40 female to male population), [121] Population Longevity, [117] Metahuman Population (transhumanist technomagical augmentation)

Technology: [111] Technology Upgrade 6

Magic: [105] Magical Upgrade 3

Society: [103] Aesthetics, [101] University, [99] Wealthy, [96] Industrial, [91] Technomagic, [89] Infrastructure, [88] Sanitation

Culture: [87] Music Affinity, [86] Art Affinity, [85] Mechanical Affinity, [84] Alcohol Affinity, [83] Sexual Affinity, [82] Warfare Affinity

Environment: [80] Cosmic Adjustment, [77] Landscape Adjustment, [74] Exceptional Materials, [71] Fauna & Flora 2

Adventure: [70] Malice (political unrest), [67] Afterlife, [63] Theme

Capital: [58] Lifestyle Upgrade 3, [53] Automatons 2, [50] Influence 2

Personal: [48] Immortality, [45] Spirit Walk, [43] Shape Shift 1, [41] Memory, [39] Peak Condition, [36] Superhuman Body

Powers: [33] Nullification, [30] Biomancy, [29] Elementalism 1, [27] Conjuration, [25] Machina Mind, [23] Healing, [21] Alchemy, [19] Enchanting

Companions: [17] Harem, [14] Familiar

Ascension: [4] Divine Spark, [0] Guidance 1

Realm

General

Though a relatively small plane no larger than an average Earth country, the City-State of Theriobach has been developed into a single vast city built around a system of canals and artificial bays. Celestially, it is a plane unto itself, existing in a self-contained bubble connected to the outside multiverse only through its Gateways. The procession of the sun and moon follows a curious pattern, with a lingering sunset followed by a yet longer night. The climate is generally of temperate northern Mediterranean nature, and varies little with the passing seasons.

The city itself is characterized by a distinctive style of monumental baroque architecture, drawing mostly on a palette of pale gray-blue stone and burnished metal. Dense blocks of richly ornamented towers soar to immense heights above the canals, interspersed with open-air public plazas and arched bridges. From the terraced rooftop gardens of palaces, the calls of peacocks and far stranger creatures can be heard. Splendidly archaic looking motor-yachts and even luxurious private submarines cruise quietly through the city’s waterways, while air travel remains all but unheard of.

Economy

[WIP]

Functionally a post-scarcity society, all aspects of the realm are kept maintained in pristine condition by a veritable army of clockwork automatons, perhaps the most overt sign of the advanced technology underlying the city’s Renaissance façade. Automated machinery has taken the place of manual labor and sprawling subterranean factories churn out the products of Theriobach’s booming industrial sector, unseen by the world above. Particularly notable among these industries is the production of finely crafted exotic weaponry, along with a wide range of extraordinary materials (as much a product of the arcane arts as of science) that form the basis of the city’s technology. Flexible semi-organic ceramics, transparent metals, and self-powering circuits are but a few of these mass-produced wonders.

Military

[WIP]

As the people are fundamentally ill-disposed to military discipline, Theriobach does not maintain a standing army of any sort. However, the relative impossibility of mounting a large-scale invasion through its own gateways makes this a matter of little consequence, and should it prove necessary, the legions of automata are quite capable of bearing arms in defense of the city. In the absence of an established military tradition, the more martially inclined among the citizenry often take up careers as soldiers of fortune abroad, taking advantage of the full extent of their realm’s advanced technology to become elegant and frightfully lethal biomechanical combatants backed by cadres of heavily armed robotic servants.

Culture & Customs

The People

[WIP]

The city-state’s people are a singularly decadent and hedonistic sort, prone to an obsessive devotion to the arts and to their own vanity. Society is highly aristocratic, with even the lower classes holding minor noble titles and enjoying a life of relative luxury. Much of the population has some degree of technomagical augmentation, often becoming visibly inhuman and doll-like in appearance. The more enthusiastic adopters of these transhuman techniques appear as living works of art, largely escaping the grip of aging and sickness in flawless bodies more mechanical than organic. The fashion of the day is in keeping with the overall aesthetic of the city and favors elaborate attire not out of place in the 16th or 17th centuries. On those occasions when boredom moves the people from their habitual state of debauched idleness, they tend to tinker with all manner of little devices, particularly the dizzying array of elaborate weapons that they employ against one another with a troubling regularity. Indeed, with a general climate of lawlessness and a natural predisposition towards political intrigues; duels, assassinations, and poisonings are among the leading causes of death.

Cybernetics

The use of various forms of techno-magical augmentation is extraordinarily widespread among the Theriobachi populace, almost to the point of being universal. This is due more to the broad cultural preoccupation with aesthetics than with any particular interest in the practical benefits brought by transhumanism; the human body is viewed as an artistic medium like any other, leading residents to conduct dramatic reconstructive procedures on themselves in the interest of achieving their particular visions of perfection.

The process of reconstruction generally begins in adolescence with a series of infusions of nanomachines into an individual’s bloodstream. In addition to providing a range of health benefits (improved metabolism, resistance to disease, accelerated healing, etc.) these nanomachines begin to work subtle physiological changes on the subject’s body, preparing it for the later phases in the process. Nerves are primed to receive unfamiliar inputs, metabolic processes are accelerated and reworked to power inorganic systems, and durable alloys are deposited over the skeletal structure. Over the course of the next few years, the subject’s blood takes on an oily black appearance as the nanomachines replicate and replace natural cells, while the loss of hemoglobin gives the skin a distinctively pale tone.

Once this initial phase is complete, a wide range of different augmentations become available. The first body parts to be replaced tend to be the eyes, owing to the relative ease of the procedure. Typically improving visual acuity and extending the range of visible wavelengths of light, these implants are stunningly intricate devices ranging from near perfect replicas of the subject’s original eyes to far more exotic arrays of lenses set into orbs of polished stone or metal.

All but a few of individuals then go on to carry out the most visible stage of augmentation; complete external reconstruction. During this process the subject’s skin and much of the subcutaneous tissue is removed, stripping his or her body to the underlying musculature. The removed skin is then replaced with a layer of one of several biomimetic meta-materials, usually a sort of alchemically derived porcelain, but similar materials based on marble, alabaster, and ivory are also relatively common. These materials possess a unique property of variable flexibility, for instance, being soft enough to allow for a full range of facial expressions, while rigid enough on larger surfaces to allow for elaborate ornamental inlay work. Thanks to the nanomachines saturating the organic components of the subject’s body, this new “second skin” rapidly bonds with their remaining flesh, integrating with the subject’s nervous system to provide normal sensation. As a subject’s hair is necessarily lost in this process, elaborate wigs are the style of the day, though some opt instead for a more striking fashion statement, grafting thousands of strands of impossibly fine monofilament wire in place of their hair.

Of course, the final product of the reconstruction process varies enormously from person to person based on individual aesthetic tastes. There are three main schools of thought regarding styles of augmentation: On one end of the spectrum, there are those who find beauty in the natural human form and believe that mechanical bodies should resemble as closely as possible an idealized version of the organic ones they replace. They seek to avoid any visible mechanical joints, and from a distance may be indistinguishable from particularly attractive human beings. This viewpoint is opposed by a small group at the opposite end of the spectrum who argue that mere mimicry of nature lacks creativity and that a far greater degree of artistry can be expressed through a purely artificial aesthetic. They tend to eschew synthetic skin in favor of engraved metal and seldom retain as much of their original internal anatomy as do others. The third and arguably most widespread viewpoint holds that the distinction between human and mechanical forms is immaterial, blurring together elements of the other two styles with a focus on ornamentation. These are the famed “living dolls” of Theriobach, elegant and unsettlingly beautiful examples of biomechanical splendor, immediately identifiable by their distinctive mechanical ball joints and the rich filigree patterns adorning their pale, lustrous forms.

Death and Other Occult Matters

[WIP]

It is perhaps fortunate that an inoffensive sort of afterlife awaits those who meet their end while in Theriobach. Upon dying, an individual will find himself in a shadowy, peaceful underworld that locally adapts to suit the whims of the deceased. There is neither punishment nor reward in this afterlife, and the dead are free to conduct their un-lives as they see fit. The underworld is quite close to the city itself from a metaphysical perspective, so that many souls eventually find their way back to the world of the living to be reincarnated or even possess artificially constructed bodies and return to their former lives.

Realm Wizard

Prince von Theriobach

Prince Alexander Lucius von Theriobach, first among the lords of the realm, Black Prince of Machines, Master of Life and Death: These are but a few of the grandiose honorifics by which the dictatorial techno-sorcerer ruling over the city-state of Theriobach is known. Politically speaking, he is broadly despised and feared by the populace, who see him as a quasi-divine being and ascribe to him a far greater power over the world than he truly possesses. As such, it is common custom to blame any manner of misfortune or evil fate on the Prince’s influence, no matter how tenuous the connection may be. Which is of course not to say that he is never at fault. Frequently subjected to coup d’etats and assassinations, the fact that he invariably returns to life shortly afterwards only serves to further convince the people of his unnatural and villainous nature. In the face of this civil turmoil, he is unable to exercise more than nominal political authority over Theriobach or even maintain basic rule of law, instead governing only as the highest among a Byzantine hierarchy of backstabbing noble houses.

Physically, he is perhaps the finest example of the realm’s art of technomagical augmentation, looking very much like a classical sculpture brought to life. With skin of white alchemically imbued marble, eyes of sapphire set in almost translucently pale quartz, a fine tracery of gold around flawless mechanical joints, and a penchant for outrageously lavish attire, the Prince makes quite a striking appearance. His powers are focused mainly on the creation and manipulation of machines, but allow for substantial control over living tissue as well, as fits the nature of the realm’s technology. While not a particularly evil sort of man by nature, his lack of memory of his former life on Earth has lead to his personality being influenced by the dubious moral climate in Theriobach. He has developed a certain detachment from what might be called “reality” and a sort of casual disregard for the well-being of those of lower social standing that may eventually make him deserving of his reputation among his subjects.

Familiar

[WIP]