Roadbuilder

The roadbuilder (a.k.a. the Prometheum) is an Ancient Titan Artefact.
Provenance: Purple
Nominal Guild valuation 50,000 sp.
GM: Michael P.

PC's involved - Kern, Aryan, etc.

Appearance: This is a golden chest containing a titan-metal "tiara" and wires that glisten like fine palladium. It may only be destroyed by an arcane method, currently unknown. It weighs about 12 pounds when carried by a thaumaturge or an earth-mage; twice than when carried by any other elementalist or non-mage. If an Entities mage tries to possess the Artefact, it seems to weigh 120lb and its weight doubles until the evil Entity is crushed or abandons it.

USE: Tiara is worn on the head (gold chest must be within 30'). Tiara will expand as required — e.g., to fit the head of a titan or guild-member. User must

• know items ITN (supplied to party by HyBrasil's priests)
• be a Mechanician of at least Rank-8
• speak Titanic or Dwarfish at Rank-7 or higher
• NOT be pacted to a demon, nor to any other power of darkness, nor to a power of the Olympian pantheon

The effects below are as on Alusia, excluding the apostate Ellenic states. The effects will be greater on Purple (or any other Titan-allied realm)

Minor effects:

If user is an Earth-mage and casts in Titanic or Dwarfish [i.e. rank-8+] then

• their rank in that language is added to either range or duration rank of any spell
• Wall of Stone (S-13): the thickness, length, height, or radius (or ht/rad of piller form) is doubled, after ranks added, and spell is cast without preparing and at General-spell fatigue costs
• Binding Earth (R-1): becomes a 5-minute ritual, however the sacrifice must not be an innocent nor a follower of power(s) of light

User may command Mechanician Stoneworking, or Earthworking, or Earth/stone Architecture, or Earth/stone Fortifications, to be constructed, at a speed of 1 pulse being 1 minute's work by [user's Rank of Mech. + U.R.o. Titanic/Dwarfish + U.R.o.Mason] skilled mason-giants or Dwarven sculptors, or that many workgangs of 10 dwarves, or any combination thereof

• although bound earth, places of power, or areas/buildings consecrated to a power may NOT be effected, even if the power is evil or dark
• existing buildings and earthworks may be decorated, carved, reworked, or even deconstructed — but not in a way that would endanger people, even bad people, such as removing what they are standing on or causing beam or tiles to fall on them
• Earthworks require the area to already be cleared of trees, people & large animals (although grasses or small plants & animals may ignored); left-over woodwork, etc, may be shifted but not incorporated into a new structure using the artefact (real tradesmen are needed for that)
• exposed rock may be split into stone blocks
• normal observers see the earth & stones move & construct/carve themselves; those with Mana sight or witchsight will see indistinct humanoid phantoms doing the work
• Skilled mason-giants NEVER up blocks of stone and drop them on people no matter how badly provoked ... although, naturally, they may carve stone in to large giant balls or mill-stones to roll down on the unworthy or trespassers.

Grand Effects

the User may ritually create a Town or City from living rock (i.e. the solid bedrock of an area)

• existing trees etc are pushed outwards around the new Town
• the Town must be of a regular shape (preferably round or rectangular), either flat or upto moderately pyramidal/mound-like, and is sufficient to house [U.R.o. Mech. + U.R.o. Titanic/Dwarfish] hundred people
• the buildings within the town are of good quality, of a style familiar to the creator, but no more than one floor high (albeit with optional cellar) — however mundane workers or minor effects of the Artefact may be used to create higher buildings, towers, embellishments, etc
• the Outer wall is bound stone, deep-set within the bedrock, and up to 30' higher than the town's ground level at that point. The interior walls & buildings are merely normal stone
• for additional defence, the town may be either surrounded by a ditch (up to 30' wide, 10' deep) or raised on a plug 5-15 feet high, as the creator deems fit
• the Town wall may have up to 8 gates, which may be fortified but that requires extra time. Such gates may have drawbridges or steep approach ramps
• time required is 1 hour ... plus, if the bedrock is not already exposed, a further hour for every fathom of earth/clay/swamp/etc between the surface and the bedrock, and the resulting Town will sit on an upswelling of bedrock. The ritual may be split into 6-hour blocks with no more than 24 hours between blocks
• if the ritual time is trebled, the creator may instead create a City that houses up to [U.R.o. Mech. + U.R.o. Titanic/Dwarfish] thousand people and the outer wall may be up to 50' high, with up to 12 gates
• Up to one bound-earth fortified gate-house may be added over each gate: 1 hour per gatehouse
• a New Town may not be created within 20 miles of any other created Town/City or within 10 miles of a mundane City or Town
• the interior layout of the town, including any aqueducts, sewers, etc, is at the whim of the creator who must have sufficient mechanician knowledge or experience to design those features

The User may ritually create a Highway from living rock (i.e. the solid bedrock of an area)

• the Highway must proceed from a town/city [mundane, created, magical, whatever] in a direct line to another town/city, with the creator ritualising in the source city and the front of the Highway growing quasi-organically until it reaches the target town/city or the creator stops that particular highway
• the Highway proceeds about 40 miles a day when the bedrock is exposed or just under the surface, down to 10 miles a day if the bedrock lies deep; however terrain irregularities will slow it further
• the Highway at least 30' wide and is normally elevated on arches 20-40' above the landscape. The Highway may be restrained by its creator to ground-level but will only be generated at a quarter the normal speed (as such a pedestrian design is contrary to the Dwarfish/Titanic ethos of the Artefact)
• the Highway is paved/faced/embellished as if created by artisans of creator's Mechanician rank or better, but in an acceptable Dwarfish style
• the Highway will span ravines but additional time must be spent as if creating bridges by means of the minor effects, although the resulting structure will function as a Highway.
• should the Highway meet a mild ridge or rise, it will either rise or become a cutting (reinforced if necessary)
• should the Highway meet a high ridge or [non-volcanic] mountain, it will usually become a Tunnel with structural features as the creator wishes
• the Highway proceeds in straight lines, except near volcanoes, where it detours around, regardless of the creator's wishes.

Highways normally act as mana conduits in the direction that they were created, i.e., from a source city to its target city. Only when a city has two or more Highway sources, either from different Highways or as concatenation of Highway(s), does this effect become noticeable. If the cities are of roughly comparable population: ALL sources go down one mana level and ONLY the ultimate target goes up: 1 mana-level for 2 sources; two levels for 4; 3 for 8; etc.

• there is no adjustment if the Target is smaller than the sources; but if the Target is significantly larger then the population of sufficient cities or towns must be summed up to create the effect of each source city
• the same effect and rule of comparable sizes is noticed for towns
• The conduit effect may be mitigated or even negated by creating [directional!] loops in the Highway network: if there is no Ultimate Target then those sources do not suffer.