RPGnet - User contributions [en]

Traveler/OpposingFactions

2013-02-26T09:13:29Z

Darkgloomie:

[[Traveler the Stream|Main Page]]
__TOC__

==Ananke==

If the Stream- time- is considered as a body with Aion as its blood, a Traveler could be called a sort of virulent disease, infecting and feeding off the flow of events. They squabble with the order of things, fight among each other and cause paradoxes.

To counteract this Anankes exist. Nobody quite knows where they come from or how they are made; they are the antibodies of the Time Stream. Creatures of order and linearity, they are blessed with an instinctive ability to sense snags in the timeline and an absolute willingness to do anything it takes to resolve them, which usually doesn't end well for anybody involved: the Stream is their only preoccupation and so any possible obstacle is to be dealt with swiftly. They oppose Travelers everywhere, everywhen, unless a bigger threat is present. But what could be worse than beings who- accidentally or not- strain the Stream with their very existence?

The shape of an Ananke varies wildly based on individuals; some are whirling snakes, others are rotary saws of tooth and hair, and still others are toothed-gear aberrations swinging pendulums and gears. A few, but for the blue circles in their serpentine eyes and the shimmer of their skin, could very well be human. Some theorize that humanoid Anankes are the result of mortals being lost in the Stream- humans condemned to the abyss of Time acclimate to the place and become its servants, become changed by its brass and ice.

Anankes come in five different types: Mechanisms (living clock-people which act completely automatically), Chronophages (creatures that consume Aion like food), Stutters (balls of memory doomed to repeat the same stretch of time for all existence), Paradoxical (beings spawned from paradoxes that cause contradictions wherever they go) and Clock-eaters (humans infused by the Stream to become its psychotic, time-obsessed servants). Each has some way of manipulating Aion- Mechanisms measure out time and use Aion to control machines, Maws eat living flesh to absorb its Aion and substitute Aion for food to send it back into the Stream, Stutters force time to enter self-regressive loops, Paradoxicals can survive the side effects of paradoxes and are capable of causing them more efficiently, and Clock-eaters... well, they look and can act mostly human, and that might be the worst threat of all.

==Kharybdis==

"...All of our history...Our art and science...All to meet the needs of that...beast..." - Chrono Trigger

Imagine a hunger. Imagine something that wants to eat and eat and grow fat in the eating, and eat more than can ever be. Imagine a mouth a million light-years long, a mouth that can - with time and effort - encompass all of existence. This is the force which Travelers have named Kharybdis.

Kharybdis is more properly classified as a chronophage - a creature entirely subsisting on Aion. Other than this, its nature is almost totally unknown. Some people say it's some sort of Traveler, ancient and hungry for Aion. Others say that Kharybdis is simply a natural phenomenon, an intended counterpart to the Stream. But it manifests itself in a few obvious ways - firstly, the Mouths that it opens in the Stream, which consume excess timelines and purge them of Aion, creating Divergences. Only very few timelines are strong enough to exist after their Aion is consumed, and even after that, they only appear as vestiges and scraps, waiting for Aion to revive them and make them true places again. The people tossed into the Mouth become the servants of Kharybdis - its arms and eyes in the physical world, snapping up every remaining fragment of loose Aion that it can find. Its power is not unlimited, however - the mass quantities it consumes from alternate timelines presumably go to feeding it. And a good stock of its consumed Aion must be purged to allow any significant capacity of real-world operation. But, to find a particularly powerful Traveler or to get its hands on an Ovum, it will gladly do so.

And what is the goal of Kharybdis? Simple: to gather as much stray Aion as it can. To feed off the scraps that Travelers break from the normal flux of the timeline, and to slowly gather strength. And, presumably, one day it will finally eat all that is. After all, Travelers crack the timeline, constantly feed Aion to the Stream or to their own devices. And when that Aion is lost or broken, Kharybdis eats it.

And, presumably, one day, Kharybdis will have its fill.

Traveler/OpposingFactions

2013-02-26T09:13:03Z

Darkgloomie:

=Antagonists and other opponents=
[[Traveler the Stream|Main Page]]
__TOC__

==Ananke==

If the Stream- time- is considered as a body with Aion as its blood, a Traveler could be called a sort of virulent disease, infecting and feeding off the flow of events. They squabble with the order of things, fight among each other and cause paradoxes.

To counteract this Anankes exist. Nobody quite knows where they come from or how they are made; they are the antibodies of the Time Stream. Creatures of order and linearity, they are blessed with an instinctive ability to sense snags in the timeline and an absolute willingness to do anything it takes to resolve them, which usually doesn't end well for anybody involved: the Stream is their only preoccupation and so any possible obstacle is to be dealt with swiftly. They oppose Travelers everywhere, everywhen, unless a bigger threat is present. But what could be worse than beings who- accidentally or not- strain the Stream with their very existence?

The shape of an Ananke varies wildly based on individuals; some are whirling snakes, others are rotary saws of tooth and hair, and still others are toothed-gear aberrations swinging pendulums and gears. A few, but for the blue circles in their serpentine eyes and the shimmer of their skin, could very well be human. Some theorize that humanoid Anankes are the result of mortals being lost in the Stream- humans condemned to the abyss of Time acclimate to the place and become its servants, become changed by its brass and ice.

Anankes come in five different types: Mechanisms (living clock-people which act completely automatically), Chronophages (creatures that consume Aion like food), Stutters (balls of memory doomed to repeat the same stretch of time for all existence), Paradoxical (beings spawned from paradoxes that cause contradictions wherever they go) and Clock-eaters (humans infused by the Stream to become its psychotic, time-obsessed servants). Each has some way of manipulating Aion- Mechanisms measure out time and use Aion to control machines, Maws eat living flesh to absorb its Aion and substitute Aion for food to send it back into the Stream, Stutters force time to enter self-regressive loops, Paradoxicals can survive the side effects of paradoxes and are capable of causing them more efficiently, and Clock-eaters... well, they look and can act mostly human, and that might be the worst threat of all.

==Kharybdis==

"...All of our history...Our art and science...All to meet the needs of that...beast..." - Chrono Trigger

Imagine a hunger. Imagine something that wants to eat and eat and grow fat in the eating, and eat more than can ever be. Imagine a mouth a million light-years long, a mouth that can - with time and effort - encompass all of existence. This is the force which Travelers have named Kharybdis.

Kharybdis is more properly classified as a chronophage - a creature entirely subsisting on Aion. Other than this, its nature is almost totally unknown. Some people say it's some sort of Traveler, ancient and hungry for Aion. Others say that Kharybdis is simply a natural phenomenon, an intended counterpart to the Stream. But it manifests itself in a few obvious ways - firstly, the Mouths that it opens in the Stream, which consume excess timelines and purge them of Aion, creating Divergences. Only very few timelines are strong enough to exist after their Aion is consumed, and even after that, they only appear as vestiges and scraps, waiting for Aion to revive them and make them true places again. The people tossed into the Mouth become the servants of Kharybdis - its arms and eyes in the physical world, snapping up every remaining fragment of loose Aion that it can find. Its power is not unlimited, however - the mass quantities it consumes from alternate timelines presumably go to feeding it. And a good stock of its consumed Aion must be purged to allow any significant capacity of real-world operation. But, to find a particularly powerful Traveler or to get its hands on an Ovum, it will gladly do so.

And what is the goal of Kharybdis? Simple: to gather as much stray Aion as it can. To feed off the scraps that Travelers break from the normal flux of the timeline, and to slowly gather strength. And, presumably, one day it will finally eat all that is. After all, Travelers crack the timeline, constantly feed Aion to the Stream or to their own devices. And when that Aion is lost or broken, Kharybdis eats it.

And, presumably, one day, Kharybdis will have its fill.

Traveler/OpposingFactions

2013-02-26T09:09:25Z

Darkgloomie: Created page with "Main Page ==Ananke== If the Stream- time- is considered as a body with Aion as its blood, a Traveler could be called a sort of virulent disease, infecti..."

[[Traveler the Stream|Main Page]]

==Ananke==

If the Stream- time- is considered as a body with Aion as its blood, a Traveler could be called a sort of virulent disease, infecting and feeding off the flow of events. They squabble with the order of things, fight among each other and cause paradoxes.

To counteract this Anankes exist. Nobody quite knows where they come from or how they are made; they are the antibodies of the Time Stream. Creatures of order and linearity, they are blessed with an instinctive ability to sense snags in the timeline and an absolute willingness to do anything it takes to resolve them, which usually doesn't end well for anybody involved: the Stream is their only preoccupation and so any possible obstacle is to be dealt with swiftly. They oppose Travelers everywhere, everywhen, unless a bigger threat is present. But what could be worse than beings who- accidentally or not- strain the Stream with their very existence?

The shape of an Ananke varies wildly based on individuals; some are whirling snakes, others are rotary saws of tooth and hair, and still others are toothed-gear aberrations swinging pendulums and gears. A few, but for the blue circles in their serpentine eyes and the shimmer of their skin, could very well be human. Some theorize that humanoid Anankes are the result of mortals being lost in the Stream- humans condemned to the abyss of Time acclimate to the place and become its servants, become changed by its brass and ice.

Anankes come in five different types: Mechanisms (living clock-people which act completely automatically), Chronophages (creatures that consume Aion like food), Stutters (balls of memory doomed to repeat the same stretch of time for all existence), Paradoxical (beings spawned from paradoxes that cause contradictions wherever they go) and Clock-eaters (humans infused by the Stream to become its psychotic, time-obsessed servants). Each has some way of manipulating Aion- Mechanisms measure out time and use Aion to control machines, Maws eat living flesh to absorb its Aion and substitute Aion for food to send it back into the Stream, Stutters force time to enter self-regressive loops, Paradoxicals can survive the side effects of paradoxes and are capable of causing them more efficiently, and Clock-eaters... well, they look and can act mostly human, and that might be the worst threat of all.

==Kharybdis==

"...All of our history...Our art and science...All to meet the needs of that...beast..." - Chrono Trigger

Imagine a hunger. Imagine something that wants to eat and eat and grow fat in the eating, and eat more than can ever be. Imagine a mouth a million light-years long, a mouth that can - with time and effort - encompass all of existence. This is the force which Travelers have named Kharybdis.

Kharybdis is more properly classified as a chronophage - a creature entirely subsisting on Aion. Other than this, its nature is almost totally unknown. Some people say it's some sort of Traveler, ancient and hungry for Aion. Others say that Kharybdis is simply a natural phenomenon, an intended counterpart to the Stream. But it manifests itself in a few obvious ways - firstly, the Mouths that it opens in the Stream, which consume excess timelines and purge them of Aion, creating Divergences. Only very few timelines are strong enough to exist after their Aion is consumed, and even after that, they only appear as vestiges and scraps, waiting for Aion to revive them and make them true places again. The people tossed into the Mouth become the servants of Kharybdis - its arms and eyes in the physical world, snapping up every remaining fragment of loose Aion that it can find. Its power is not unlimited, however - the mass quantities it consumes from alternate timelines presumably go to feeding it. And a good stock of its consumed Aion must be purged to allow any significant capacity of real-world operation. But, to find a particularly powerful Traveler or to get its hands on an Ovum, it will gladly do so.

And what is the goal of Kharybdis? Simple: to gather as much stray Aion as it can. To feed off the scraps that Travelers break from the normal flux of the timeline, and to slowly gather strength. And, presumably, one day it will finally eat all that is. After all, Travelers crack the timeline, constantly feed Aion to the Stream or to their own devices. And when that Aion is lost or broken, Kharybdis eats it.

And, presumably, one day, Kharybdis will have its fill.

Traveler the Stream

2013-02-26T08:35:10Z

Darkgloomie:

Germelshausen

2013-02-26T08:33:18Z

Darkgloomie: Blanked the page

Chronologia

2013-02-26T08:32:42Z

Darkgloomie: Blanked the page

Introduction

2013-02-26T08:31:43Z

Darkgloomie: Blanked the page

TimeTravel

2013-02-26T08:31:10Z

Darkgloomie: Blanked the page

TravelerCharacter

2013-02-26T08:30:32Z

Darkgloomie: Blanked the page

Traveler the Stream

2013-02-26T08:29:42Z

Darkgloomie:

Traveler/Chronologia

2013-02-26T08:28:14Z

Darkgloomie: Created page with "Main Page =CHRONOLOGIA= '''Entropy''' *Discord (•): Success adds power to an attack roll. *Atrophy (••): Use the force of temporal decay to turn ba..."

[[Traveler the Stream|Main Page]]
=CHRONOLOGIA=

'''Entropy'''
*Discord (•): Success adds power to an attack roll.
*Atrophy (••): Use the force of temporal decay to turn bashing damage lethal.
*Delete (•••): Directly deal lethal damage, or use Atrophy at a distance.
*Fifty Year Sword (••••): Consume the Aion of other Travelers or Anankes.
*Severance (•••••): Attempt to induce Disjunction in a target.

'''Anachronism'''
*Circa (•): Disguise your Distortion or Crux as that of another Zeitgeist.
*Visionary (••): Direct Distortion to cloak someone as a person from your Zeitgeist.
*Nostalgia (•••): Warp an object to alter its appearance and functionality.
*Superimposed (••••): Use Distortion to warp the thoughts of a subject.
*Reprise (•••••): Make a change caused by Anachronism semi-permanent.

'''Linkage'''
*Hook (•): Create a binding thread of time between people, allowing them to share Aion when Jumping.
*Latch (••): Bind Aion to an object, creating a Time Bottle.
*Chain (•••): Channel the Crux's Aion through an object, combatting Disjunction and allowing distance operation.
*Cable (••••): Use Aion bound in Time Bottles to use more Aion than your per-turn limit or capacity.
*Lifeline (•••••): Attempts to temporarily "catch" Castaways and those Jumping, tying them to a single place.

'''Cognition'''
*Pierced Veil (•): Expand Understanding to improve perceptions of an area or situation.
*Preview (••): Catch a glimpse of the place that you're Jumping to before you arrive.
*Common Knowledge (•••): Understand a wide range of professions, removing the penalty for untrained skill checks.
*Eyes of Time (••••): Understand an event in the future or the past.
*All-Seeing Eye (•••••): Completely Understand a wide area

'''Continuum'''
*Ride (•): Allow Jumps of up to your Inertia in days without spending Aion.
*Saint's Shoes (••): Jump immediately, as an instantaneous rather than an extended action.
*Step (•••): Jump through physical space as well as time.
*World Tree (••••): Attempt to Jump without use of a Crux.
*Into the Abyss (•••••): Jump larger objects, conducting the Jump through the Crux. (Usually, you can only Jump with up to your Size in equipment; this allows you to add your Inertia to this carry limit.)

'''Surge'''
*Reaction (•): Increase or decrease the speed of time in a single localized area; outside, time passes slower or faster.
*Fleet-footed (••): Move at higher speeds by spending Aion.
*Stilling (•••): Slow down time around oneself to a near-dead crawl.
*Van Winkle (••••): Slow down your own organic systems enough to exist in a suspended animation-equivalent.
*Purgatory (•••••): Completely freeze time over an area by damming the Stream.

'''Disruption'''
*Ripple (•): Sense the occurrence of a Jump or use of Chronologia.
*Enigma (••): An Ananke can masquerade as a Traveler, and vice-versa.
*Page of Dust (•••): Force an Ananke to obey a command.
*Vas Domum Temporis (••••): Direct the Stream to disable a Solace temporarily.
*Butterfly Eater (•••••): Assimilate a target's detached Crux to steal its powers.

'''Stability'''
*Protection (•): Use Aion to boost your Armor rating by rewinding damages.
*Prevention (••): Catch onto a target and prevent a Jump.
*Binding Venom (•••): Infuse the target with a force that prevents the use of Chronologia.
*Coiling Staff (••••): Use a Crux to prevent Disjunction in a target.
*Stillness (•••••): Completely seal all usage of Chronologia and Jumps within an area.

'''Clockwork'''
*Multitool (•): Rework your Crux into a common tool, such as a screwdriver or hammer.
*Sickle (••): Rework your Crux into a melee or ranged weapon.
*Reconstruct (•••): Reconstruct your Crux to heal its Structure and add Durability.
*Serpentine Bone (••••): Make your Crux denser and harder to damage, in combat and out, by spending Aion.
*Seal the Doors of Infinity (•••••): Transform an ordinary object into a Crux, temporarily.

==OUTPOST CHRONOLOGIA==
'''[[Signal]]'''
*Alarm (•): Send out a distress signal to all Travelers within 100 years.
*Radio (••): Send a message to any Traveler throughout time.
*Detection (•••): Memorize a target's temporal weight, allowing you to track them nearly anywhere.
*Upload (••••): Speak to all of a specific group of Travelers who have ways to "receive" the information.
*Harmonize (•••••): Set a "telepathic network" between a number of Travelers, allowing perfectly synchronized actions.

'''Reversion'''
*Stitch (•): Heal the wounds of a given target by reversing them to their natural, undamaged state.
*Redo (••): Spend Aion to reroll failed dice.
*Regression (•••): Transform a physical object into an earlier version of itself, repairing damages and changing appearances.
*Undo (••••): "Redact" a dice roll you recently made, returning things to before you did as if it never happened.
*Burning Wheel (•••••): Choose a scene and a condition; until this condition is fulfilled, you choose or someone works out a way out, the scene loops at the end and returns to the beginning.

'''[[Liberation]]'''
*Freeroam (•): Allow an instantaneous, semi-random Jump for a flat Aion cost.
*Forgettable Face (••): Make your appearance, countenance and actions vaguely forgettable and neutral.
*Eye of Stars (•••): Read the past of a target, allowing you to understand them better.
*Lethe's Wine (••••): Become completely forgettable; once you have left, nobody will ever remember you were there.
*Masque of the Red Death (•••••): Occupy the temporal space of a dead person, giving you access to their resources, knowledge and face.

'''Redaction'''
*Shift (•): Alter one certain minor detail of the past without needing to roll for alteration or memory retention.
*Mnemosyne (••): Use a temporally grounded mnemonic to permanently memorize an event, no matter how it's altered.
*All You Zombies (•••): Utilize a slightly deranged hypnotic state to prevent the Causality issue from meeting one's past self.
*Martyrdom (••••): A killed target has their influence on the timeline removed, with lesser historic damages.
*Undoing (•••••): Completely alter the past of a target, temporarily, to give them different characteristics.

'''Horology'''
*Liber Temporis (•): Spend Aion to read information from the Archive, giving 9-again on most intellectual rolls.
*Breeze (••): Introduce the gale of the Stream into reality, eroding physical objects and blowing inexorably in a given direction.
*??? (•••): Probably does something.
*???? (••••): Boy, this will do a cool thing.
*????? (•••••): Wow, that is such a cool thing that this does.

Modi

2013-02-26T08:27:39Z

Darkgloomie: Blanked the page

Traveler/Germelshausen

2013-02-26T08:25:36Z

Darkgloomie: Created page with "Main Page ''this article is a stub. Please help expanding it. See the [[http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?668083-Brainstorming-Traveler-the-Stream|rpg...."

[[Traveler the Stream|Main Page]]

''this article is a stub. Please help expanding it. See the [[http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?668083-Brainstorming-Traveler-the-Stream|rpg.net thread]] for the latest version.''

==Germelshausen==

Disjunction's a powerful force. And when it hits those with high Inertia- giants of the Stream, era-lords, kings of twelve hours- it's amplified, massively powerful and ready to destroy and undo in moments. Such damage occurred to the Crux of an unidentified Traveler in Germany; the force of the cracking of the Crux caused a massive Disjunction that killed the Traveler and propelled the town he or she was in- people and all- into the Stream. Though many died in the process, those who did not managed to form a defense using a Wellspring; the Aion it produced kept the town from being destroyed, and allowed them to return to the linear version of time once for every hundred years, or equivalent.

Most of those citizens of Germelhausen are now dead, those who are not having become Anankes. Travelers, though, have found Germelhausen, and over time, they've built on it, brick after brick shielded by Aion- from Wellspring and from Travelers- from the erosive force of the Stream. Now Germelhausen is slightly larger, a little town in the endless field of time... and the place where you can go when you've got nothing but the Stream left for you, or you need the services of a man with a rifle and a pair of Time Shoes. Often, Castaways blunder into Germelhausen, half-blind from the cosmic wind of time and half-mad too. Those who can get rehabilitated, do. Those who can't... get the merciful thing to do done to them.

Traveler/TimeTravel

2013-02-26T08:24:29Z

Darkgloomie:

[[Traveler the Stream|Main Page]]

'''''this section is still under construction. See the [[http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?668083-Brainstorming-Traveler-the-Stream|rpg.net thread]] for the latest rules.'''''

== Time Travel ==
1 point of Aion = Up to 30 years of travel.
Once away from your native time, spend 1 Aion per week per every fifty years you're removed from your anchored time, plus one (For example: Lacey Jumps from 2000 to 1944. Since it's more than fifty years back, but less than one hundred, she spends 2 Aion per week to maintain her presence. Brian Jumps from 2000 to 1980. Since it's less than fifty years back, he spends 1 Aion per week.)

*If Aion runs out, you may roll your Inertia + Resolve to attempt to remain Jumped; you may do this every day up to your Resolve + Composure in days.
**Dramatic Failure: Your resistance is futile, and the snapback is particularly harsh. Take 1 lethal damage, and your Crux takes damage and causes a Disjunction check.
**Failure: The snapback occurs despite your efforts. Take one bashing damage.
**Success: You resist the snapback, and remain in the given time. Take one bashing damage.
**Exceptional Success: You're completely inured to the forces of the Stream. Take no damage and remain in the given time.

You may also Jump into the Stream- or out- for 1 Aion. In the Stream, you require 1 Aion every day to remain protected from the Stream's temporal energies. If the time comes and you have no Aion remaining, your Crux suffers 1 Structure damage for every day spent inside.

*It is possible to re-anchor yourself- to change your new-found home permanently, as it were. Once in the time you wish to make your own, spend a dot of Willpower and a dot of Inertia and make an Inertia + Resolve check.
**Dramatic Failure: Your attempt to re-anchor yourself fails completely, and you're catastrophically snapped back to your current anchored time, and suffer three points of Aggravated damage as well as Structure damage to your Crux and a Disjunction check.
**Failure: Your attempt fails, and you must make a Strength + Inertia check to resist being snapped back. If you fail, suffer a point of lethal damage.
**Success: You re-anchor yourself, fastening to your new-found time period.
**Exceptional Success: Your anchorage is so successful and so firm that you regain a point of Willpower.

*You can also attempt to make Seven-League Jumps- Jumps over massive distances of time- by using Willpower. If the Jump exceeds your maximum Aion, roll your Wits + Inertia and spend a dot of Willpower.
**Dramatic Failure or Failure: Absolutely nothing happens, and the unreleased strain forces you to make a Disjunction check.
**Success: Spend your entire pool of Aion and Jump to your chosen destination. For every 150 years that the destination exceeds your **Jumping limit, plus one, roll your Inertia. On a failure, take a point of lethal damage.
**Exceptional Success: As above, but take bashing damage instead.

Once you've arrived, you have a "grace period" of three days, in which the temporal energies struggle to catch up with you. After this, however, each day you must pay a point of Willpower and a point of Aion to avoid snapping back, and the number of days you can remain without this is halved.

Aion is the breath of the Universe, that which keeps the gears of Time turning. Everything which exist in the Linear Plane* just exudes the stuff, burning through their reserves in a self-perpetuating cycle that keeps them anchored to their time. Aion is the fuel of cause and effect, and they in turn produce more of it.

A Traveller has many ways to harvest this precious energy. He may find some each new day when Anchored, a meager payback for the life which was eaten when he came to be a Nomad. Or he may leech some off strangers with subtle acts of manipulation- gratuitous acts of pettiness or kindness may leave some Aion to be syphoned, as Time rearranges itself. Rumor has it that there is a lot to be gained from great acts of pettiness, the greatest of which is also one of the Traveller's heaviest taboo: forcibly sending one of the Settled, the non-Travellers, into the Stream. It is not discussed much, as it puts much strain on the fabric of Time, and It does not like to be toyed with...

When Anchored, as the energy that fuels the change of time flows through the universe and today becomes tomorrow, the Crux accrues said energy as Aion.

Aion can also be collected by altering events that have happened in the past; the reorganization of cause and effect unbinds Aion as the timeline prepares to change; a canny Traveler can latch on to the loose forces. When you know how a past event goes and you alter it, roll your Wits + Inertia; on every success, regain a point of Aion that the event would use to change, and the event "reasserts" and goes back to normal. You can only do this once per scene. (Note: It is possible to change the past, but it requires a fairly high Inertia, and in any case tends to cause paradoxes.)

You can also sacrifice a target to the Stream in order to completely unbind their future- all the Aion devoted to propelling them through time, devoted to their possible futures and fate, is broken open, free for the taking. Choose your target and roll your Intelligence + Inertia contested against their Resolve + Composure in an extended action. Whoever wins, add the number of successes of the winner over the loser's to a pool. When either pool equals the Resolve + Composure of the other, the one who filled it wins- if it's the one who's sending into the Stream, they are successful, and if it's the one who was resisting, the Traveler loses a point of Willpower and cannot try again for the scene. If the one Streaming is successful, roll your Wits + Dexterity + Inertia. The result becomes Aion, which you should note on a piece of paper; this Aion can exceed your total limit.

Traveler/TimeTravel

2013-02-26T08:19:33Z

Darkgloomie: Created page with "Main Page '''''this section is still under construction. See the [[http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?668083-Brainstorming-Traveler-the-Stream|rpg.net t..."

[[Traveler the Stream|Main Page]]

'''''this section is still under construction. See the [[http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?668083-Brainstorming-Traveler-the-Stream|rpg.net thread]] for the latest rules.'''''

== Time Travel ==
1 point of Aion = Up to 30 years of travel.
Once away from your native time, spend 1 Aion per week per every fifty years you're removed from your anchored time, plus one (For example: Lacey Jumps from 2000 to 1944. Since it's more than fifty years back, but less than one hundred, she spends 2 Aion per week to maintain her presence. Brian Jumps from 2000 to 1980. Since it's less than fifty years back, he spends 1 Aion per week.)

If Aion runs out, you may roll your Inertia + Resolve to attempt to remain Jumped; you may do this every day up to your Resolve + Composure in days.
Dramatic Failure: Your resistance is futile, and the snapback is particularly harsh. Take 1 lethal damage, and your Crux takes damage and causes a Disjunction check.
Failure: The snapback occurs despite your efforts. Take one bashing damage.
Success: You resist the snapback, and remain in the given time. Take one bashing damage.
Exceptional Success: You're completely inured to the forces of the Stream. Take no damage and remain in the given time.

You may also Jump into the Stream- or out- for 1 Aion. In the Stream, you require 1 Aion every day to remain protected from the Stream's temporal energies. If the time comes and you have no Aion remaining, your Crux suffers 1 Structure damage for every day spent inside.

It is possible to re-anchor yourself- to change your new-found home permanently, as it were. Once in the time you wish to make your own, spend a dot of Willpower and a dot of Inertia and make an Inertia + Resolve check.

Dramatic Failure: Your attempt to re-anchor yourself fails completely, and you're catastrophically snapped back to your current anchored time, and suffer three points of Aggravated damage as well as Structure damage to your Crux and a Disjunction check.
Failure: Your attempt fails, and you must make a Strength + Inertia check to resist being snapped back. If you fail, suffer a point of lethal damage.
Success: You re-anchor yourself, fastening to your new-found time period.
Exceptional Success: Your anchorage is so successful and so firm that you regain a point of Willpower.

You can also attempt to make Seven-League Jumps- Jumps over massive distances of time- by using Willpower. If the Jump exceeds your maximum Aion, roll your Wits + Inertia and spend a dot of Willpower.
Dramatic Failure or Failure: Absolutely nothing happens, and the unreleased strain forces you to make a Disjunction check.
Success: Spend your entire pool of Aion and Jump to your chosen destination. For every 150 years that the destination exceeds your Jumping limit, plus one, roll your Inertia. On a failure, take a point of lethal damage.
Exceptional Success: As above, but take bashing damage instead.

Once you've arrived, you have a "grace period" of three days, in which the temporal energies struggle to catch up with you. After this, however, each day you must pay a point of Willpower and a point of Aion to avoid snapping back, and the number of days you can remain without this is halved.

Aion is the breath of the Universe, that which keeps the gears of Time turning. Everything which exist in the Linear Plane* just exudes the stuff, burning through their reserves in a self-perpetuating cycle that keeps them anchored to their time. Aion is the fuel of cause and effect, and they in turn produce more of it.

A Traveller has many ways to harvest this precious energy. He may find some each new day when Anchored, a meager payback for the life which was eaten when he came to be a Nomad. Or he may leech some off strangers with subtle acts of manipulation- gratuitous acts of pettiness or kindness may leave some Aion to be syphoned, as Time rearranges itself. Rumor has it that there is a lot to be gained from great acts of pettiness, the greatest of which is also one of the Traveller's heaviest taboo: forcibly sending one of the Settled, the non-Travellers, into the Stream. It is not discussed much, as it puts much strain on the fabric of Time, and It does not like to be toyed with...

When Anchored, as the energy that fuels the change of time flows through the universe and today becomes tomorrow, the Crux accrues said energy as Aion.

Aion can also be collected by altering events that have happened in the past; the reorganization of cause and effect unbinds Aion as the timeline prepares to change; a canny Traveler can latch on to the loose forces. When you know how a past event goes and you alter it, roll your Wits + Inertia; on every success, regain a point of Aion that the event would use to change, and the event "reasserts" and goes back to normal. You can only do this once per scene. (Note: It is possible to change the past, but it requires a fairly high Inertia, and in any case tends to cause paradoxes.)

You can also sacrifice a target to the Stream in order to completely unbind their future- all the Aion devoted to propelling them through time, devoted to their possible futures and fate, is broken open, free for the taking. Choose your target and roll your Intelligence + Inertia contested against their Resolve + Composure in an extended action. Whoever wins, add the number of successes of the winner over the loser's to a pool. When either pool equals the Resolve + Composure of the other, the one who filled it wins- if it's the one who's sending into the Stream, they are successful, and if it's the one who was resisting, the Traveler loses a point of Willpower and cannot try again for the scene. If the one Streaming is successful, roll your Wits + Dexterity + Inertia. The result becomes Aion, which you should note on a piece of paper; this Aion can exceed your total limit.

Traveler/Modi

2013-02-26T08:16:20Z

Darkgloomie: Created page with "Main Page A Traveler begins with 4 dots to be spent on Modi. Every dot can purchase one dot of Modus inherent in the Traveler or two dots of Modus within..."

[[Traveler the Stream|Main Page]]

A Traveler begins with 4 dots to be spent on Modi. Every dot can purchase one dot of Modus inherent in the Traveler or two dots of Modus within the Crux. You must spend one of these points on the Zeitgeist-assigned Modus and one on any Modus in the Crux. Your dots in any inherent Modus cannot exceed your dots in your Zeitgeist Modus. You cannot buy dots of your Zeitgeist Modus in your Crux.

You receive one Modus from your Zeitgeist and one from your Outpost. You may also purchase dots in a third Modus which is not affiliated with either a Zeitgeist or a Crux. A starting character cannot purchase Disruption Modus.

you can have a number of Modii activated equal to your Inertia; for every Modus above that, roll one die. A success deals a point of damage to your crux and causes a Disjunction check. So, if you're Inertia is 2 and you have two Modii up, activating a third one causes you to roll one die. If you then activate a fourth one, you must roll 2 dice, because you have 2 more than your Inertia running.

Entropy Modus: Allows the traveler to see the effects of entropy on physical objects, and to speed up the process. Adds a bonus of your dots in the Modus to attacks that damage objects.

Surge Modus: Allows the traveler to slow themselves down in the Stream, making the world around them appear to move in slow motion. Add modus dots to Initiative score, and multiply the traveler's Movement by (Modus dots +1). In addition, the traveler's dots in this Modus act as armor against firearms attacks of which the traveler is aware and actively attempting to dodge.

Anachronism Modus: Attunes the traveler to the spirit of the times. Adds a bonus of your dots in the Modus to disguising oneself or others, or to other physical deceptions, to blend in to the time period. In this state, one may spend 1 Aion to disguise any object as another object from the time period (a traveler's clothes counts as one object for these purposes.

Cognition Modus: The traveler opens her mind to the collective unconscious of whatever time period she's in. Adds a bonus of your Modus dots to purely information-based mental rolls to understand the current time period; for example, fact-finding or analyzing objects. In addition, once per scene, the traveler may attempt to pull a fact directly from the Stream, rolling only her dots in this Modus.

Stability Modus: Protects a traveler from the ravages of the Stream. Allows use of a dice pool of Stability + Inertia to rein in temporal paradoxes and damages and to rolls to resist forgetting changes made to the timeline.

Disruption Modus: Attunes the traveler to disturbances in the Stream. Anankes and Travelers, as well as phenomena within the Stream, appear as obvious to the travelers perceptions.

Continuum Modus: Reverses a traveler's interaction with the Space/Time continuum. When jumping, every dot in the Modus becomes five miles she may teleport, co-temporally (i.e., within the current time period). While this Modus is active, temporal jumps become impossible.

Linkage Modus: Aion appears as streams of glowing smoke to the traveler. Allows a roll of Linkage + Inertia to infuse an object with Aion, tying it to a time period and allowing it to resist being affected by temporal phenomena, with a dice pool equal to Modus dots. Additionally, a traveler may add her dots in this Modus to the size of objects she may bring with her on a jump. Finally, travelers may jump together with a number of other travelers equal to the highest Linkage Modus in the group, pooling their Aion to make greater jumps.

Horology Modus: Allows its user one die per Modus dot to identifying temporal phenomena as physical phenomena. Also allows the user to see Aion as physical accretions.

Liberation Modus: Provides a penalty of one die per Modus dot to all actions made to affect or notice the user by non-supernaturals.

Redaction Modus: Provides a bonus of one die per Modus dot to retain changes made to past events.

Clockwork Modus: Provides a bonus of one die per Modus dot to resist Disjunction and damage to the Crux.

Reversion Modus: Allows the user to see the past of an object- up to 50 years per Modus dot. This provides bonuses to mending wounds and repairing damages as well.

Signal Modus: Provides one bonus die per Modus dot to track objects and people, and allows one to see the unique signals created by living minds and differentiate between them (humans, Travelers, mages, etc.) with a roll of Wits + Signal.

Traveler/Introduction

2013-02-26T08:15:30Z

Darkgloomie:

[[Traveler the Stream|Main Page]]

== Introduction ==

''Time. God dammit. Don't talk to me about time.

''I doubt you've seen what I've seen. In fact, I'm sure. I've been places you wouldn't believe, done things you've only ever read about. I was there when Caesar was felled. I was there when the Empire rose. I was there at the invention of gunpowder, the discovery of the Daniels-Calviner Effect. I saw the moon die, like a lightbulb burns out. And now I'm sitting in a cafe, drinking coffee that tastes like you pissed in it.

''I was born when the nation was still young and I grew up against a fledgling society. I was rich, young, powerful… I had friends in high places. I knew artists, circus freaks, scientists... one guy swore he was onto something, gave me a metal door bolted to the wall covered in gears and embossed script. I said what the hell, sure. I fiddled with the dial, pulled the switch. And what happened? I had this glimpse of… of-- of movement-- I was in this place like blue fire and blurs in the distance, and men who stared at me like they were snakes, not snakes, monsters shaped like men--

''And I woke up and I knew what a car was. Do you understand me? I was raised before Henry Ford was a gleam in anyone's eye. I was raised in a world where the horse was it. And I woke up knowing what a car was, what a 401k was and how to manage it, what stocks were, how to work computers, phones… I had a perfectly clear memory from the year I was born, 1978, to the present date. And I had an equally clear memory of being born in 1784, yeah, that's right, seventeen-eighty-god-damned-four, and leading up to that door. And the antique doorknob, apparently a prized heirloom. So what do I do? I sit at my desk and I do taxes with sums that are completely ridiculous- huge dollar values, hundreds for a single meal- and that are reasonable and moderate. I eat food that wouldn't go to a horse. I eat takeout curry, which is what I have every Thursday night. I know that, and I know that it's dishonest heathen food, and I know those things are contradictory and I hate myself for knowing them both. For a while I thought I was going crazy.

''One day I woke up and the portrait on the wall had changed. It had been a New Yorker cover. Now it was this minutely detailed little piece of parchment, cranked out meticulously by a hand press, with a political cartoon about King George. No sign of the old thing. I panicked. I almost burnt it. I reconsidered. I keep it in my pocket now.

''I took the doorknob off my desk, recognized the design. The little dial on the top with a list of dates and titles- "The Creation", "The Nation's Founding", everything. I turned it back to where I had come from in the first place, turned it in the air and vanished through blackness, the sensation of falling. I went home.

''What did I find? Happy strangers. Nobody knew who I was. Nobody was even remotely aware that I was gone. My position and my company had vanished. My parents had never had children. I left. For a while I just… drifted. Visited everywhere I could find in my books of Classics. Talked to a few famous figures. Saw a future, the stars up close to my face, held in my hands. And I snapped back.

''I was young and rich and I owned the New World, and here I am drinking lattes in a cafe. And a year ago I didn't know what either of those words meant.

''Hell. Keep the change. Yes, the coins are old stuff. Not modern quarters. Keep them anyway. Probably worth a mint.''

=== A Game Of Temporal Displacement ===

Time travel is risky business. And when you time travel- when you Jump for the first time- you are fighting the Stream that is time itself. Most people burn up, pushing against the flow or moving too fast. Some manage to survive, but lose their temporal anchorage; they fall through time like the Rabbit Hole, move from era to era without comprehension or meaning and lose their senses of time and self. But some manage to hold on. Just a few little pieces- the pocket watch, the chalked runes in the dirt at the core of the device, the Tau Drive. They keep the core of their Time Machines, anchoring them to a single time and place- filling their heads with a perfect comprehension of the era of arrival, pressing them down like a lead weight on the rubber sheet of Time and distorting everything around them to fit the past. These are the Travelers.

What they learn first is almost invariably that there is no place for them back home. Second, there is no place for them whatsoever. A Traveler can never go back home- not to the home in their memories- but can't leave it behind, because it's snapping at their heels, turning an alarm clock into a pocket watch, a lightbulb into a torch, a new friend into a familiar-seeming stranger. A Traveler can move through time, but everything they do makes things worse, and in their travels Time bends and curves around them, forces them out and rips away their ability to remain. Worse, there is the Stream- Time itself, made a place of constant movement and momentum, an endless wave of temporal force constantly pointed Forward, a sea of inertia. Things live in the Stream. Things that want Time ordered and unbroken. Things that hate humanity for its capacity to ruin cause and effect, for wasting time and saving time and most of all for traveling through time.

All of time is open, and none of it wants you. What's next?

=== What Is A Traveller? ===

A Traveller is born when a person attempts time travel and succeeds- building a real, bona fide Time Machine. Maybe they unknowingly tapped into a Wellspring, or perhaps another Traveller helped them, knowingly or accidentally. However, their understanding of time is necessarily flawed; the Time Machine simply can't swim against the currents of time and invariably gets destroyed.

But the person, they can survive. Maybe she was good at piloting, or he was lucky and found a calmer patch of the Stream... but they still survived, stranded into an unfamiliar time that, yet, they know as if their own.

Soon, every Traveller finds out that they have no more place in their original time- all their existence was burned up and turned into Aion by the Time Machine to allow Time Travel. They're just another stranger in a familiar land.

A Traveller's power is measured by their '''Inertia''': basically, it's how important they are to the Stream of Time. Every action they take is closely regarded by the forces that control the Stream, and as they grow in power Travellers find out that, for them, there's no such thing as a deed with no consequences. A low Inertia Traveller may be able to steal something or kill someone without changing the Stream too much, but as their Inertia rises forgetting to nail a horseshoe may well lead to the downfall of a great kingdom...

=== What Is Aion? ===

Aion is the breath of the Universe, that which keeps the gears of Time turning. Everything which exist in the Linear Plane* just exudes the stuff, burning through their reserves in a self-perpetuating cycle that keeps them anchored to their time. Aion is the fuel of cause and effect, and in turn is created by them existing.

A Traveller has many ways to harvest this precious energy. He may find some each new day when Anchored, a meager payback for the life which was eaten when he came to be a Nomad. Or he may leech some off strangers with subtle acts of manipulation- gratuitous acts of pettiness or kindness may leave some Aion to be syphoned, as Time rearranges itself. Rumor has it that there is a lot to be gained from great acts of pettiness, the greatest of which is also one of the Traveller's heaviest taboo: forcibly sending one of the Settled, the non-Travellers, into the Stream. It is not discussed much, as it puts much strain on the fabric of Time, and It does not like to be toyed with.

A Traveller can also try to tap into a Wellspring- a naturally occurring conglomerate of Aion whose purpose is to allow Time to keep moving- but they shouldn't be greedy with it, or risk heavy consequences...

=== What Is A Crux? ===

When the Traveller first attempts to swim against Time, they have a fully functioning Time Machine but no knowledge of how to work it. After their disastrous maiden voyage their vessel is a wreck, good only for scraps. Except for one piece, which still works. Maybe it was a necessary piece, around which everything was built, or the Traveller just held into it, and as the currents of Time changed him so did they change it. That's the Crux.

A Crux can generally only sustain small travels- up to 30 years for Aion spent, capped by Inertia. But a Traveller can and should try to improve this tool, making it better, stronger, more capable to withstand Time.

Now they have the knowledge; can they build back their Time Machine?

== Character Creation ==
Steps 1-4: Concept, Attributes, Skills, Specializations
Ho-hum. It's nWoD; you know the drill.

Step 5: Apply Traveler Template
A Traveler is no longer entirely human. Part of her- the place where she belongs, the sense of existing concretely- is stripped away by the flows of the Stream. Only her Crux and the power of Aion sustain her in a single place.

'''ZEITGEIST'''

-''Satya Yuga, or the Nobility'' (Golden Age): Gregarious, carefree and a bit narcissistic, the Nobility come from times of luxury, wealth and culture. They pay special attention to the capacity of the Crux to support a number of people. An exaggeration of this type can be found in the Eloi. (+1 Capacity; the Nobility can support one extra person with their Crux when Jumping or in the Stream.)

-''Philosophes, or Sophists'' (Silver Age): Intelligent, inquisitive and prideful, the Sophists come from times of intellectual advances, technology and thought. Their Cruxes are designed specifically for the sake of pushing the boundaries of knowledge; they have no need for limitations on the knowledge it grants. (At character creation, choose a Mental skill. Any Traveler who holds the Crux has their Understanding expanded, and can take 9-again on this specific mental skill.)

-''Miles, or Soldiers'' (Bronze Age): Imperial, destructive and focused, the Soldiers are from periods wracked by destruction or war; generally, they participated in some way, and the Distortion of violence feeds into them. Their Cruxes are combat-designed: durable and capable of taking a hit or stray round. Anyone who travels back to assassinate Hitler will probably fit. (Bronze-made Cruxes receive a free point of Durability and Structure at creation.)

-''Viandanti, or Seekers'' (Heroic Age): Obsessive, optimistic and ruthless, Seekers come from transitional periods, when humanity has found a new place or a new world to reach and are making strides toward a new world; their focus is on the world that's ahead, and they put their all into exploration... in more ways than one. Imagine a space colonist or- for that matter- Marty McFly, going somewhere he doesn't understand at all for the sake of going. Anyone who's climbed a mountain because it's there. (A Seeker-made Crux can spend Willpower in lieu of Aion when Jumping, using force of will and the Crux's capabilities to rip Aion from the environment.)

-''Proles, or the Oppressed'' (Iron Age): Downtrodden, heartless and guarded, the Oppressed come from painful, repressive cultures- dystopias, caveman times or ages of war and lifelessness. They design their Cruxes as an escape from the world; it's certainly not intended to ever send them back... though a complete lack of a place to go weighs more heavily than one might think, and in the World of Darkness, there aren't many places that aren't painful. Think Donnie Darko, Morlocks or anyone from 1984. (An Oppressed-made Crux gives a +1 to resisting snap-backs, and extends the time one can remain by one day.)

'''OUTPOST'''
The Y-splat. Essentially, groups for supporting you in whatever purpose sent you out of your timeline.

''Department of Linear Enforcement'' (Enforcers): Time cops keeping reality from breaking. They catch those who abuse Jumping, both morally and as relates to the timeline, and punish them. They have access to Signal Chronologia for organization of their forces.

''Homecoming Society'' (Recidivists): People trying to go back to their home times; they organize Travelers, support them in need and try to ease their lives. They have access to Reversion Chronologia, returning things back to their natural states.

''The Bacchanalia Club'' (Dionysians): Temporal hedonists using Jumps to live it up- this club of Travelers, full of joie de vivre and desire, uses Liberation Chronologia to keep themselves free and happy.

''The Organization for Temporal Samaritans'' (Saviors): People preventing past catastrophes- people who Jump in order to prevent catastrophes form this loose confederation. To change the past, they utilize Redaction Chronologia.

''Interval Archive'' (Annalists): The Annalists live to understand Aion and compile facts from all of time; each endeavors to understand in his or her own way. They study Aion and the Stream directly via Horology Chronologia.

'''CRUX'''

*how to mechanically design the Crux here*

Traveler/Character

2013-02-26T08:14:57Z

Darkgloomie:

[[Traveler the Stream|Main Page]]

==Zeitgeist==

'''Satya Yuga or the Nobility (Golden Age)''': Gregarious, carefree and a bit narcissistic, the Nobility come from times of luxury, wealth and culture. They pay special attention to the capacity of the Crux to support a number of people. An exaggeration of this type can be found in the Eloi. (+1 Capacity; the Nobility can support one extra person with their Crux when Jumping or in the Stream.)

'''Philosophes or Sophists (Silver Age)''': Intelligent, inquisitive and prideful, the Sophists come from times of intellectual advances, technology and thought. Their Cruxes are designed specifically for the sake of pushing the boundaries of knowledge; they have no need for limitations on the knowledge it grants. (At character creation, choose a Mental skill. Any Traveler who holds the Crux has their Understanding expanded, and can take 9-again on this specific mental skill.)

'''Miles or Soldiers (Bronze Age)''': Imperial, destructive and focused, the Soldiers are from periods wracked by destruction or war; generally, they participated in some way, and the Distortion of violence feeds into them. Their Cruxes are combat-designed: durable and capable of taking a hit or stray round. Anyone who travels back to assassinate Hitler will probably fit. (Bronze-made Cruxes receive a free point of Durability and Structure at creation.)

'''Viandanti or Searchers (Heroic Age)''': Obsessive, optimistic and ruthless, Searchers come from transitional periods, when humanity has found a new place or a new world to reach and are making strides toward a new world; their focus is on the world that's ahead, and they put their all into exploration... in more ways than one. Imagine a space colonist or- for that matter- Marty McFly, going somewhere he doesn't understand at all for the sake of going. Anyone who's climbed a mountain because it's there. (A Searcher-made Crux can spend Willpower in lieu of Aion when Jumping, using force of will and the Crux's capabilities to rip Aion from the environment.)

'''Proles or the Oppressed (Iron Age)''': Downtrodden, heartless and guarded, the Oppressed come from painful, repressive cultures- dystopias, caveman times or ages of war and lifelessness. They design their Cruxes as an escape from the world; it's certainly not intended to ever send them back... though a complete lack of a place to go weighs more heavily than one might think, and in the World of Darkness, there aren't many places that aren't painful. Think Donnie Darko, Morlocks or anyone from 1984. (An Oppressed-made Crux gives a +1 to resisting snap-backs, and extends the time one can remain by one day.)

==Outposts==
*Department of Linear Enforcement ([[TtS Enforcers|Enforcers]]): Time cops keeping reality from breaking
The Department of Linear Enforcement exists to prevent paradoxes, Disjunction and the over-interference of Travelers with the timeline. They prevent damage to the timeline, hunt down Travelers who sin against Causality too heavily and otherwise attempt to regulate the past. Unfortunately, they've gotten a bit corrupt in recent years, and the employees they hire tend to enjoy the work more than they should... as well as causing fairly heavy collateral damages. Almost entirely composed of Soldiers, Searchers and the Oppressed.
Homecoming Society (Recidivists): People trying to go back to their home times

*The Homecoming Society ([[TtS Recidivists|Recidivists]]) is mostly people who had it good back in their home times, and who have now dedicated their time and lives to returning.
They're mostly composed of Soldiers and Nobility; as a group, they've got a sort of brutal cunning, and dedicate themselves to pragmatism for the sake of returning home. They also function as a sort of "acclimation group"; due to their devotion to going home, members are often young, and new Travelers tend to gravitate there in a sort of Eternal September effect.

*The Bacchanalia Club ([[TtS Vagabonds|Vagabonds]]): Temporal hedonists using Jumps to live it up
The Bacchanalia Club's single tenet is: "Why live in one time when all times are available to you?" They sip the finest of wines, buy and constantly resell the "lost" paintings of famous artists, and otherwise make their lives happier through use of Jumps. It's a bit of an old boy's club, and the Traveler equivalent of high society; generally, it's the more beauty-loving Sophists, Nobility and others who love the world.

*The Organization for Temporal Samaritans ([[TtS Saviors|Saviors]]): People preventing past catastrophes
A Savior's job is to fix the past in order to make the future better; their creed is that Jumping exists to help people and improve lives. They tend to martyr themselves, and to immediately assume that they can improve the lot of wherever they go- compensating for the damage they deal to time by making it better for people. Searchers and the Oppressed are a good portion of the Saviors.

*Interval Archive ([[TtS Annalists|Annalists]]): Compiling and studying Time to understand it
Almost entirely Sophists, the Annalists believe that time should be understood so that it can be controlled; a functional, unbreakable Time Machine exists in potentia, and all that it takes to create it is to fully understand the Stream and how it flows. Thus, Annalists create records of knowledge- not just pertaining to time, but also to all fields that can be understood better by time travel- history, futuristic technology and even the arts.

Traveler/Character

2013-02-26T08:13:30Z

Darkgloomie: Created page with "==Zeitgeist== '''Satya Yuga or the Nobility (Golden Age)''': Gregarious, carefree and a bit narcissistic, the Nobility come from times of luxury, wealth and culture. They pay sp..."

==Zeitgeist==

'''Satya Yuga or the Nobility (Golden Age)''': Gregarious, carefree and a bit narcissistic, the Nobility come from times of luxury, wealth and culture. They pay special attention to the capacity of the Crux to support a number of people. An exaggeration of this type can be found in the Eloi. (+1 Capacity; the Nobility can support one extra person with their Crux when Jumping or in the Stream.)

'''Philosophes or Sophists (Silver Age)''': Intelligent, inquisitive and prideful, the Sophists come from times of intellectual advances, technology and thought. Their Cruxes are designed specifically for the sake of pushing the boundaries of knowledge; they have no need for limitations on the knowledge it grants. (At character creation, choose a Mental skill. Any Traveler who holds the Crux has their Understanding expanded, and can take 9-again on this specific mental skill.)

'''Miles or Soldiers (Bronze Age)''': Imperial, destructive and focused, the Soldiers are from periods wracked by destruction or war; generally, they participated in some way, and the Distortion of violence feeds into them. Their Cruxes are combat-designed: durable and capable of taking a hit or stray round. Anyone who travels back to assassinate Hitler will probably fit. (Bronze-made Cruxes receive a free point of Durability and Structure at creation.)

'''Viandanti or Searchers (Heroic Age)''': Obsessive, optimistic and ruthless, Searchers come from transitional periods, when humanity has found a new place or a new world to reach and are making strides toward a new world; their focus is on the world that's ahead, and they put their all into exploration... in more ways than one. Imagine a space colonist or- for that matter- Marty McFly, going somewhere he doesn't understand at all for the sake of going. Anyone who's climbed a mountain because it's there. (A Searcher-made Crux can spend Willpower in lieu of Aion when Jumping, using force of will and the Crux's capabilities to rip Aion from the environment.)

'''Proles or the Oppressed (Iron Age)''': Downtrodden, heartless and guarded, the Oppressed come from painful, repressive cultures- dystopias, caveman times or ages of war and lifelessness. They design their Cruxes as an escape from the world; it's certainly not intended to ever send them back... though a complete lack of a place to go weighs more heavily than one might think, and in the World of Darkness, there aren't many places that aren't painful. Think Donnie Darko, Morlocks or anyone from 1984. (An Oppressed-made Crux gives a +1 to resisting snap-backs, and extends the time one can remain by one day.)

==Outposts==
*Department of Linear Enforcement ([[TtS Enforcers|Enforcers]]): Time cops keeping reality from breaking
The Department of Linear Enforcement exists to prevent paradoxes, Disjunction and the over-interference of Travelers with the timeline. They prevent damage to the timeline, hunt down Travelers who sin against Causality too heavily and otherwise attempt to regulate the past. Unfortunately, they've gotten a bit corrupt in recent years, and the employees they hire tend to enjoy the work more than they should... as well as causing fairly heavy collateral damages. Almost entirely composed of Soldiers, Searchers and the Oppressed.
Homecoming Society (Recidivists): People trying to go back to their home times

*The Homecoming Society ([[TtS Recidivists|Recidivists]]) is mostly people who had it good back in their home times, and who have now dedicated their time and lives to returning.
They're mostly composed of Soldiers and Nobility; as a group, they've got a sort of brutal cunning, and dedicate themselves to pragmatism for the sake of returning home. They also function as a sort of "acclimation group"; due to their devotion to going home, members are often young, and new Travelers tend to gravitate there in a sort of Eternal September effect.

*The Bacchanalia Club ([[TtS Vagabonds|Vagabonds]]): Temporal hedonists using Jumps to live it up
The Bacchanalia Club's single tenet is: "Why live in one time when all times are available to you?" They sip the finest of wines, buy and constantly resell the "lost" paintings of famous artists, and otherwise make their lives happier through use of Jumps. It's a bit of an old boy's club, and the Traveler equivalent of high society; generally, it's the more beauty-loving Sophists, Nobility and others who love the world.

*The Organization for Temporal Samaritans ([[TtS Saviors|Saviors]]): People preventing past catastrophes
A Savior's job is to fix the past in order to make the future better; their creed is that Jumping exists to help people and improve lives. They tend to martyr themselves, and to immediately assume that they can improve the lot of wherever they go- compensating for the damage they deal to time by making it better for people. Searchers and the Oppressed are a good portion of the Saviors.

*Interval Archive ([[TtS Annalists|Annalists]]): Compiling and studying Time to understand it
Almost entirely Sophists, the Annalists believe that time should be understood so that it can be controlled; a functional, unbreakable Time Machine exists in potentia, and all that it takes to create it is to fully understand the Stream and how it flows. Thus, Annalists create records of knowledge- not just pertaining to time, but also to all fields that can be understood better by time travel- history, futuristic technology and even the arts.

Traveler/Introduction

2013-02-26T08:10:30Z

Darkgloomie: Created page with "== Introduction == ''Time. God dammit. Don't talk to me about time. ''I doubt you've seen what I've seen. In fact, I'm sure. I've been places you wouldn't believe, done things ..."

== Introduction ==

''Time. God dammit. Don't talk to me about time.

''I doubt you've seen what I've seen. In fact, I'm sure. I've been places you wouldn't believe, done things you've only ever read about. I was there when Caesar was felled. I was there when the Empire rose. I was there at the invention of gunpowder, the discovery of the Daniels-Calviner Effect. I saw the moon die, like a lightbulb burns out. And now I'm sitting in a cafe, drinking coffee that tastes like you pissed in it.

''I was born when the nation was still young and I grew up against a fledgling society. I was rich, young, powerful… I had friends in high places. I knew artists, circus freaks, scientists... one guy swore he was onto something, gave me a metal door bolted to the wall covered in gears and embossed script. I said what the hell, sure. I fiddled with the dial, pulled the switch. And what happened? I had this glimpse of… of-- of movement-- I was in this place like blue fire and blurs in the distance, and men who stared at me like they were snakes, not snakes, monsters shaped like men--

''And I woke up and I knew what a car was. Do you understand me? I was raised before Henry Ford was a gleam in anyone's eye. I was raised in a world where the horse was it. And I woke up knowing what a car was, what a 401k was and how to manage it, what stocks were, how to work computers, phones… I had a perfectly clear memory from the year I was born, 1978, to the present date. And I had an equally clear memory of being born in 1784, yeah, that's right, seventeen-eighty-god-damned-four, and leading up to that door. And the antique doorknob, apparently a prized heirloom. So what do I do? I sit at my desk and I do taxes with sums that are completely ridiculous- huge dollar values, hundreds for a single meal- and that are reasonable and moderate. I eat food that wouldn't go to a horse. I eat takeout curry, which is what I have every Thursday night. I know that, and I know that it's dishonest heathen food, and I know those things are contradictory and I hate myself for knowing them both. For a while I thought I was going crazy.

''One day I woke up and the portrait on the wall had changed. It had been a New Yorker cover. Now it was this minutely detailed little piece of parchment, cranked out meticulously by a hand press, with a political cartoon about King George. No sign of the old thing. I panicked. I almost burnt it. I reconsidered. I keep it in my pocket now.

''I took the doorknob off my desk, recognized the design. The little dial on the top with a list of dates and titles- "The Creation", "The Nation's Founding", everything. I turned it back to where I had come from in the first place, turned it in the air and vanished through blackness, the sensation of falling. I went home.

''What did I find? Happy strangers. Nobody knew who I was. Nobody was even remotely aware that I was gone. My position and my company had vanished. My parents had never had children. I left. For a while I just… drifted. Visited everywhere I could find in my books of Classics. Talked to a few famous figures. Saw a future, the stars up close to my face, held in my hands. And I snapped back.

''I was young and rich and I owned the New World, and here I am drinking lattes in a cafe. And a year ago I didn't know what either of those words meant.

''Hell. Keep the change. Yes, the coins are old stuff. Not modern quarters. Keep them anyway. Probably worth a mint.''

=== A Game Of Temporal Displacement ===

Time travel is risky business. And when you time travel- when you Jump for the first time- you are fighting the Stream that is time itself. Most people burn up, pushing against the flow or moving too fast. Some manage to survive, but lose their temporal anchorage; they fall through time like the Rabbit Hole, move from era to era without comprehension or meaning and lose their senses of time and self. But some manage to hold on. Just a few little pieces- the pocket watch, the chalked runes in the dirt at the core of the device, the Tau Drive. They keep the core of their Time Machines, anchoring them to a single time and place- filling their heads with a perfect comprehension of the era of arrival, pressing them down like a lead weight on the rubber sheet of Time and distorting everything around them to fit the past. These are the Travelers.

What they learn first is almost invariably that there is no place for them back home. Second, there is no place for them whatsoever. A Traveler can never go back home- not to the home in their memories- but can't leave it behind, because it's snapping at their heels, turning an alarm clock into a pocket watch, a lightbulb into a torch, a new friend into a familiar-seeming stranger. A Traveler can move through time, but everything they do makes things worse, and in their travels Time bends and curves around them, forces them out and rips away their ability to remain. Worse, there is the Stream- Time itself, made a place of constant movement and momentum, an endless wave of temporal force constantly pointed Forward, a sea of inertia. Things live in the Stream. Things that want Time ordered and unbroken. Things that hate humanity for its capacity to ruin cause and effect, for wasting time and saving time and most of all for traveling through time.

All of time is open, and none of it wants you. What's next?

=== What Is A Traveller? ===

A Traveller is born when a person attempts time travel and succeeds- building a real, bona fide Time Machine. Maybe they unknowingly tapped into a Wellspring, or perhaps another Traveller helped them, knowingly or accidentally. However, their understanding of time is necessarily flawed; the Time Machine simply can't swim against the currents of time and invariably gets destroyed.

But the person, they can survive. Maybe she was good at piloting, or he was lucky and found a calmer patch of the Stream... but they still survived, stranded into an unfamiliar time that, yet, they know as if their own.

Soon, every Traveller finds out that they have no more place in their original time- all their existence was burned up and turned into Aion by the Time Machine to allow Time Travel. They're just another stranger in a familiar land.

A Traveller's power is measured by their '''Inertia''': basically, it's how important they are to the Stream of Time. Every action they take is closely regarded by the forces that control the Stream, and as they grow in power Travellers find out that, for them, there's no such thing as a deed with no consequences. A low Inertia Traveller may be able to steal something or kill someone without changing the Stream too much, but as their Inertia rises forgetting to nail a horseshoe may well lead to the downfall of a great kingdom...

=== What Is Aion? ===

Aion is the breath of the Universe, that which keeps the gears of Time turning. Everything which exist in the Linear Plane* just exudes the stuff, burning through their reserves in a self-perpetuating cycle that keeps them anchored to their time. Aion is the fuel of cause and effect, and in turn is created by them existing.

A Traveller has many ways to harvest this precious energy. He may find some each new day when Anchored, a meager payback for the life which was eaten when he came to be a Nomad. Or he may leech some off strangers with subtle acts of manipulation- gratuitous acts of pettiness or kindness may leave some Aion to be syphoned, as Time rearranges itself. Rumor has it that there is a lot to be gained from great acts of pettiness, the greatest of which is also one of the Traveller's heaviest taboo: forcibly sending one of the Settled, the non-Travellers, into the Stream. It is not discussed much, as it puts much strain on the fabric of Time, and It does not like to be toyed with.

A Traveller can also try to tap into a Wellspring- a naturally occurring conglomerate of Aion whose purpose is to allow Time to keep moving- but they shouldn't be greedy with it, or risk heavy consequences...

=== What Is A Crux? ===

When the Traveller first attempts to swim against Time, they have a fully functioning Time Machine but no knowledge of how to work it. After their disastrous maiden voyage their vessel is a wreck, good only for scraps. Except for one piece, which still works. Maybe it was a necessary piece, around which everything was built, or the Traveller just held into it, and as the currents of Time changed him so did they change it. That's the Crux.

A Crux can generally only sustain small travels- up to 30 years for Aion spent, capped by Inertia. But a Traveller can and should try to improve this tool, making it better, stronger, more capable to withstand Time.

Now they have the knowledge; can they build back their Time Machine?

== Character Creation ==
Steps 1-4: Concept, Attributes, Skills, Specializations
Ho-hum. It's nWoD; you know the drill.

Step 5: Apply Traveler Template
A Traveler is no longer entirely human. Part of her- the place where she belongs, the sense of existing concretely- is stripped away by the flows of the Stream. Only her Crux and the power of Aion sustain her in a single place.

'''ZEITGEIST'''

-''Satya Yuga, or the Nobility'' (Golden Age): Gregarious, carefree and a bit narcissistic, the Nobility come from times of luxury, wealth and culture. They pay special attention to the capacity of the Crux to support a number of people. An exaggeration of this type can be found in the Eloi. (+1 Capacity; the Nobility can support one extra person with their Crux when Jumping or in the Stream.)

-''Philosophes, or Sophists'' (Silver Age): Intelligent, inquisitive and prideful, the Sophists come from times of intellectual advances, technology and thought. Their Cruxes are designed specifically for the sake of pushing the boundaries of knowledge; they have no need for limitations on the knowledge it grants. (At character creation, choose a Mental skill. Any Traveler who holds the Crux has their Understanding expanded, and can take 9-again on this specific mental skill.)

-''Miles, or Soldiers'' (Bronze Age): Imperial, destructive and focused, the Soldiers are from periods wracked by destruction or war; generally, they participated in some way, and the Distortion of violence feeds into them. Their Cruxes are combat-designed: durable and capable of taking a hit or stray round. Anyone who travels back to assassinate Hitler will probably fit. (Bronze-made Cruxes receive a free point of Durability and Structure at creation.)

-''Viandanti, or Seekers'' (Heroic Age): Obsessive, optimistic and ruthless, Seekers come from transitional periods, when humanity has found a new place or a new world to reach and are making strides toward a new world; their focus is on the world that's ahead, and they put their all into exploration... in more ways than one. Imagine a space colonist or- for that matter- Marty McFly, going somewhere he doesn't understand at all for the sake of going. Anyone who's climbed a mountain because it's there. (A Seeker-made Crux can spend Willpower in lieu of Aion when Jumping, using force of will and the Crux's capabilities to rip Aion from the environment.)

-''Proles, or the Oppressed'' (Iron Age): Downtrodden, heartless and guarded, the Oppressed come from painful, repressive cultures- dystopias, caveman times or ages of war and lifelessness. They design their Cruxes as an escape from the world; it's certainly not intended to ever send them back... though a complete lack of a place to go weighs more heavily than one might think, and in the World of Darkness, there aren't many places that aren't painful. Think Donnie Darko, Morlocks or anyone from 1984. (An Oppressed-made Crux gives a +1 to resisting snap-backs, and extends the time one can remain by one day.)

'''OUTPOST'''
The Y-splat. Essentially, groups for supporting you in whatever purpose sent you out of your timeline.

''Department of Linear Enforcement'' (Enforcers): Time cops keeping reality from breaking. They catch those who abuse Jumping, both morally and as relates to the timeline, and punish them. They have access to Signal Chronologia for organization of their forces.

''Homecoming Society'' (Recidivists): People trying to go back to their home times; they organize Travelers, support them in need and try to ease their lives. They have access to Reversion Chronologia, returning things back to their natural states.

''The Bacchanalia Club'' (Dionysians): Temporal hedonists using Jumps to live it up- this club of Travelers, full of joie de vivre and desire, uses Liberation Chronologia to keep themselves free and happy.

''The Organization for Temporal Samaritans'' (Saviors): People preventing past catastrophes- people who Jump in order to prevent catastrophes form this loose confederation. To change the past, they utilize Redaction Chronologia.

''Interval Archive'' (Annalists): The Annalists live to understand Aion and compile facts from all of time; each endeavors to understand in his or her own way. They study Aion and the Stream directly via Horology Chronologia.

'''CRUX'''

*how to mechanically design the Crux here*

Germelshausen

2012-12-31T08:44:14Z

Darkgloomie: Created page with "''this article is a stub. Please help expanding it.'' ==Germelshausen== Disjunction's a powerful force. And when it hits those with high Inertia- giants of the Stream, era-lord..."

''this article is a stub. Please help expanding it.''

==Germelshausen==

Disjunction's a powerful force. And when it hits those with high Inertia- giants of the Stream, era-lords, kings of twelve hours- it's amplified, massively powerful and ready to destroy and undo in moments. Such damage occurred to the Crux of an unidentified Traveler in Germany; the force of the cracking of the Crux caused a massive Disjunction that killed the Traveler and propelled the town he or she was in- people and all- into the Stream. Though many died in the process, those who did not managed to form a defense using a Wellspring; the Aion it produced kept the town from being destroyed, and allowed them to return to the linear version of time once for every hundred years, or equivalent.

Most of those citizens of Germelhausen are now dead, those who are not having become Anankes. Travelers, though, have found Germelhausen, and over time, they've built on it, brick after brick shielded by Aion- from Wellspring and from Travelers- from the erosive force of the Stream. Now Germelhausen is slightly larger, a little town in the endless field of time... and the place where you can go when you've got nothing but the Stream left for you, or you need the services of a man with a rifle and a pair of Time Shoes. Often, Castaways blunder into Germelhausen, half-blind from the cosmic wind of time and half-mad too. Those who can get rehabilitated, do. Those who can't... get the merciful thing to do done to them.

Traveler the Stream

2012-12-31T08:43:11Z

Darkgloomie:

Introduction

2012-12-31T08:34:58Z

Traveler the Stream

2012-12-31T07:49:11Z

Darkgloomie:

This page is for the fan-made nWoD supplement, Traveler: the Stream - a Storytelling game of Temporal Displacement.

The original thread can be found [http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?668083-Brainstorming-Traveler-the-Stream| here]

If you want to help, head over to the [[Introduction| Introduction Page]]
== Introduction ==

Time. God dammit. Don't talk to me about time.

I doubt you've seen what I've seen. In fact, I'm sure. I've been places you wouldn't believe, done things you've only ever read about. I was there when Caesar was felled. I was there when the Empire rose. I was there at the invention of gunpowder, the discovery of the Daniels-Calviner Effect. I saw the moon die, like a lightbulb burns out. And now I'm sitting in a cafe, drinking coffee that tastes like you pissed in it.

I was born when the nation was still young and I grew up against a fledgling society. I was rich, young, powerful… I had friends in high places. I knew artists, circus freaks, scientists... one guy swore he was onto something, gave me a metal door bolted to the wall covered in gears and embossed script. I said what the hell, sure. I fiddled with the dial, pulled the switch. And what happened? I had this glimpse of… of-- of movement-- I was in this place like blue fire and blurs in the distance, and men who stared at me like they were snakes, not snakes, monsters shaped like men--

And I woke up and I knew what a car was. Do you understand me? I was raised before Henry Ford was a gleam in anyone's eye. I was raised in a world where the horse was it. And I woke up knowing what a car was, what a 401k was and how to manage it, what stocks were, how to work computers, phones… I had a perfectly clear memory from the year I was born, 1978, to the present date. And I had an equally clear memory of being born in 1784, yeah, that's right, seventeen-eighty-god-damned-four, and leading up to that door. And the antique doorknob, apparently a prized heirloom. So what do I do? I sit at my desk and I do taxes with sums that are completely ridiculous- huge dollar values, hundreds for a single meal- and that are reasonable and moderate. I eat food that wouldn't go to a horse. I eat takeout curry, which is what I have every Thursday night. I know that, and I know that it's dishonest heathen food, and I know those things are contradictory and I hate myself for knowing them both. For a while I thought I was going crazy.

One day I woke up and the portrait on the wall had changed. It had been a New Yorker cover. Now it was this minutely detailed little piece of parchment, cranked out meticulously by a hand press, with a political cartoon about King George. No sign of the old thing. I panicked. I almost burnt it. I reconsidered. I keep it in my pocket now.

I took the doorknob off my desk, recognized the design. The little dial on the top with a list of dates and titles- "The Creation", "The Nation's Founding", everything. I turned it back to where I had come from in the first place, turned it in the air and vanished through blackness, the sensation of falling. I went home.

What did I find? Happy strangers. Nobody knew who I was. Nobody was even remotely aware that I was gone. My position and my company had vanished. My parents had never had children. I left. For a while I just… drifted. Visited everywhere I could find in my books of Classics. Talked to a few famous figures. Saw a future, the stars up close to my face, held in my hands. And I snapped back.

I was young and rich and I owned the New World, and here I am drinking lattes in a cafe. And a year ago I didn't know what either of those words meant.

Hell. Keep the change. Yes, the coins are old stuff. Not modern quarters. Keep them anyway. Probably worth a mint.

== Character Creation ==
Steps 1-4: Concept, Attributes, Skills, Specializations
Ho-hum. It's nWoD; you know the drill.

Step 5: Apply Traveler Template
A Traveler is no longer entirely human. Part of her- the place where she belongs, the sense of existing concretely- is stripped away by the flows of the Stream. Only her Crux and the power of Aion sustain her in a single place.

'''ZEITGEIST'''

-''Satya Yuga, or the Nobility'' (Golden Age): Gregarious, carefree and a bit narcissistic, the Nobility come from times of luxury, wealth and culture. They pay special attention to the capacity of the Crux to support a number of people. An exaggeration of this type can be found in the Eloi. (+1 Capacity; the Nobility can support one extra person with their Crux when Jumping or in the Stream.)

-''Philosophes, or Sophists'' (Silver Age): Intelligent, inquisitive and prideful, the Sophists come from times of intellectual advances, technology and thought. Their Cruxes are designed specifically for the sake of pushing the boundaries of knowledge; they have no need for limitations on the knowledge it grants. (At character creation, choose a Mental skill. Any Traveler who holds the Crux has their Understanding expanded, and can take 9-again on this specific mental skill.)

-''Miles, or Soldiers'' (Bronze Age): Imperial, destructive and focused, the Soldiers are from periods wracked by destruction or war; generally, they participated in some way, and the Distortion of violence feeds into them. Their Cruxes are combat-designed: durable and capable of taking a hit or stray round. Anyone who travels back to assassinate Hitler will probably fit. (Bronze-made Cruxes receive a free point of Durability and Structure at creation.)

-''Viandanti, or Seekers'' (Heroic Age): Obsessive, optimistic and ruthless, Seekers come from transitional periods, when humanity has found a new place or a new world to reach and are making strides toward a new world; their focus is on the world that's ahead, and they put their all into exploration... in more ways than one. Imagine a space colonist or- for that matter- Marty McFly, going somewhere he doesn't understand at all for the sake of going. Anyone who's climbed a mountain because it's there. (A Seeker-made Crux can spend Willpower in lieu of Aion when Jumping, using force of will and the Crux's capabilities to rip Aion from the environment.)

-''Proles, or the Oppressed'' (Iron Age): Downtrodden, heartless and guarded, the Oppressed come from painful, repressive cultures- dystopias, caveman times or ages of war and lifelessness. They design their Cruxes as an escape from the world; it's certainly not intended to ever send them back... though a complete lack of a place to go weighs more heavily than one might think, and in the World of Darkness, there aren't many places that aren't painful. Think Donnie Darko, Morlocks or anyone from 1984. (An Oppressed-made Crux gives a +1 to resisting snap-backs, and extends the time one can remain by one day.)

'''OUTPOST'''
The Y-splat. Essentially, groups for supporting you in whatever purpose sent you out of your timeline.

''Department of Linear Enforcement'' (Enforcers): Time cops keeping reality from breaking. They catch those who abuse Jumping, both morally and as relates to the timeline, and punish them. They have access to Signal Chronologia for organization of their forces.

''Homecoming Society'' (Recidivists): People trying to go back to their home times; they organize Travelers, support them in need and try to ease their lives. They have access to Reversion Chronologia, returning things back to their natural states.

''The Bacchanalia Club'' (Dionysians): Temporal hedonists using Jumps to live it up- this club of Travelers, full of joie de vivre and desire, uses Liberation Chronologia to keep themselves free and happy.

''The Organization for Temporal Samaritans'' (Saviors): People preventing past catastrophes- people who Jump in order to prevent catastrophes form this loose confederation. To change the past, they utilize Redaction Chronologia.

''Interval Archive'' (Annalists): The Annalists live to understand Aion and compile facts from all of time; each endeavors to understand in his or her own way. They study Aion and the Stream directly via Horology Chronologia.

'''CRUX'''

*how to mechanically design the Crux here*