diff --git a/.obsidian/workspace.json b/.obsidian/workspace.json index 7eb89c0..1d29326 100644 --- a/.obsidian/workspace.json +++ b/.obsidian/workspace.json @@ -13,12 +13,12 @@ "state": { "type": "markdown", "state": { - "file": "Avalon/05_Locations/Avalon Locations.md", - "mode": "preview", + "file": "Avalon/10_Canon/Leyline Crisis.md", + "mode": "source", "source": true }, "icon": "lucide-file", - "title": "Avalon Locations" + "title": "Leyline Crisis" } } ] @@ -155,13 +155,13 @@ "state": { "type": "outline", "state": { - "file": "Avalon/05_Locations/Avalon Locations.md", + "file": "Avalon/10_Canon/Leyline Crisis.md", "followCursor": false, "showSearch": false, "searchQuery": "" }, "icon": "lucide-list", - "title": "Outline of Avalon Locations" + "title": "Outline of Leyline Crisis" } }, { @@ -196,8 +196,11 @@ }, "active": "6e169ae6a9aed54f", "lastOpenFiles": [ - "Avalon/04_NPCs_Faculty/Kalen D'Serris.md", + "Avalon/10_Canon/Leyline Root System.md", + "Avalon/10_Canon/Leyline Crisis.md", "Avalon/05_Locations/Avalon Locations.md", + "Avalon/10_Canon", + "Avalon/04_NPCs_Faculty/Kalen D'Serris.md", "Avalon/02_Sessions/session_5.md", "Avalon/09_Student_Handouts", "Avalon/02_Sessions/session 4.md", diff --git a/Avalon/10_Canon/Leyline Crisis.md b/Avalon/10_Canon/Leyline Crisis.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..93fb147 --- /dev/null +++ b/Avalon/10_Canon/Leyline Crisis.md @@ -0,0 +1,266 @@ +# The Korrin Gate Crisis (Leyline Crisis) – DM Reference + +> Working name: "The Korrin Gate Crisis" +> Public names: "The Leyline Crisis", "The Korrin Blackout", "The Gate Disaster" + +## 1. TL;DR for You + +- Roughly 15–20 years ago, a major city built over a trunk junction – **Korrin Gate** – almost got erased when its node went into terminal cascade. +- Cause (public version): "overuse and mismanagement of leylines during a regional conflict." +- Cause (true version): military tried to weaponize the trunk; pushed it into a **state of emergent consciousness**, then lost control. +- D’Serris and his team saved the city by: + - Severing some subnodes (killing neighborhoods), and + - Performing a last-minute ritual that **shunted the emergent mind down into the Root**, smearing it across the network instead of letting it fully form and explode locally. +- That caged, half-born mind is the thing now clawing its way back via: + - High-traffic nodes (like Avalon), + - Vulnerable people (Soren, Fouadriel, etc.), and + - Old war-artifacts (like Pappy, Titan Lance tech, etc.) +- The crisis justified building the **Root Oversight Array** and gave D’Serris his trauma + authority. + +--- + +## 2. What Korrin Gate Was + +- **Location:** + Large inland city built on a natural convergence of three major leylines. Think: inland trade hub, university city, fortress, industrial center. + +- **Arcane role:** + - Served as a **primary trunk junction** for the whole region. + - Hosted a massive Node complex under the city: + - Civilian taps (lights, wards, transit). + - Military installations. + - Secret research projects. + +- **Political context:** + - Tensions between neighboring states / factions. + - Arms race in **leyline-based weaponry**: + - Instant bombardment rituals. + - “Surge lances” (prototypes of what Titan Lance later formalized). + - Sabotage of enemy subnodes. + +--- + +## 3. The Build-Up + +### Official story (what most people know) + +- Korrin Gate massively over-tapped its node to: + - Power shields, weapons, and industry during wartime. + - Add more and more “temporary” taps that were never decommissioned. +- Over years, stress crept higher: + - Minor brownouts, weird glitches, small wild magic surges. + - Complaints from engineers and druids ignored in favor of “national security.” + +### Actual cause (DM truth) + +- Deep under the city, a joint military–research team built the **Convergence Engine**: + - A ritual / device meant to: + - Tie together multiple branches of the Root. + - Focus Sap and **intent** into a single, coherent beam—an “arcane ICBM.” + - The prototype weapon was the conceptual ancestor of **Titan Lance**. + +- Side effect no one admitted publicly: + - The Convergence Engine didn’t just move power; it **forced coherence** on Root flows. + - The more they used it, the more the Root in that region began to: + - Behave in non-random ways. + - Show recurring “patterns” in its hum. + - Push back when pushed. + +- D’Serris at this time: + - Junior engineer / battle-mage assigned to the **Leyline Stabilization Corps** attached to the project. + - Kept raising flags that the pattern logs looked “wrong.” + - Was overruled repeatedly by senior mages and generals who wanted results. + +--- + +## 4. The Day It Went Wrong + +### The Catalyst + +- During a major offensive, high command ordered: + - **Sustained overdraw** through the Convergence Engine to power a massive strike. + - Multiple secondary taps were opened to feed it – including some not rated for that flow. + +- On the monitoring side (where D’Serris is): + - Every alarm they have is going off: + - Flow far above spec. + - Subnodes redlining. + - Heartbeat patterns in the Root going from “pulsing” to “structured” – like a flat hum aligning into something like a voice. + +### The Shift + +- The node doesn’t simply **overheat** – it begins to **organize**: + - Flows in separate branches sync up. + - Entire subnets start pulsing in time with each other. + - The Convergence Engine begins drawing in **more** power than it should be able to. + +- D’Serris and the stabilization team realize: + - They are no longer just pushing power through the Root. + - The Root (or something in it) is now using **their hardware** to cohere. + +### The First failure + +- Out on the surface: + - People see lights flicker, wards ripple, then reality *stutter*: + - Streets “double” for a second. + - Voices echo words no one said. + - Some people hear a single, overwhelming thought: **“I REMEMBER.”** + +- In the Node chamber: + - Sap pressure breaks containment on a few subnodes: + - Korrin Gate loses entire districts in instant flares of wild magic. + - One district becomes a glass crater. + - Another is frozen mid-motion, its inhabitants in a permanent stasis bubble (later evacuated with horrific side effects). + +--- + +## 5. The Decision D’Serris Made + +The options at that point: + +1. **Shut everything down and let it blow** + - Kill the Convergence Engine, cut the trunk, hope the emergent mind rips itself apart. + - Expected outcome: Korrin Gate destroyed, shockwaves along the trunk, unknown global consequences. + +2. **Try to "stabilize" it locally** + - Contain the emergent consciousness in the Korrin Node. + - Expected outcome: permanent haunted city, a god-egg in the basement, same problem later. + +3. **Diffuse it across the Root (what they actually did)** + - Use the Engine in reverse: + - Force the emergent pattern **downstream**, away from the Korrin Node. + - Smear its coherence across as much of the Root as possible. + - Expected outcome: Save the city; contaminate the entire network with a **thinned-out ghost**. + +The high command panicked. The Stabilization Corps proposed options. D’Serris: + +- Ran the numbers and backed option 3: + - “We can’t contain it here, and we can’t eat the blast. Spread the pattern until it’s too thin to act.” +- Helped implement the ritual: + - Severed sacrificial subnodes (killing power to, and in some cases killing, whole neighborhoods). + - Reconfigured the Engine to push pattern outward instead of inward. + +It “worked”: + +- The emergent mind did not fully cohere at Korrin Gate. +- The city mostly survived (minus the scarred districts). +- Casualty numbers still huge, but not apocalyptic. + +But: + +- A **fragmented consciousness** was now threaded throughout the Root. +- It could no longer manifest as one big city-killer… but it could **leak** into many places, slowly, wherever conditions were right. + +--- + +## 6. Aftermath + +### Public Narrative + +- Official line: + - “Korrin Gate was the result of reckless overuse of leylines during wartime.” + - “Our brave engineers and mages stabilized the node at great cost.” + - “New regulations and oversight will prevent such a tragedy from happening again.” + +- Korrin Gate today: + - Patchwork of rebuilt districts and scars: + - The **Glass Quarter** where nothing grows. + - The **Hums** where people still hear echoes. + - The **Frozen Mile** that was eventually dismantled block by block. + +- The Root is now treated as: + - Something powerful but **dangerous**. + - Something that needs **regulation** (Oversight). + +### What only a few know + +- D’Serris and a handful of surviving Stabilization officers know: + - They **instrumentally lobotomized** a rising mind by smearing it across the world’s nervous system. + - Oversight exists largely to: + - Monitor for that mind trying to pull itself back together. + - Kill nodes / branches before they can become a new Korrin Gate. + +- Classified docs refer to the emergent pattern as: + - “The Coherence Event” + - “The Underpattern” + - Or, in one terrified margin note by D’Serris: **“the thing that learned our names.”** + +--- + +## 7. How This Ties to Avalon & Your Campaign + +### Why the Valley Matters + +- The Avalon valley sits on a **secondary trunk** connected to the same network Korrin Gate was on. +- The Academy node is: + - Newish (installed post-Crisis). + - High-traffic (students, experiments, Titan armory not far away). + - Labeled in Oversight docs as a **“sensitivity probe”**: + - “If something like Korrin happens again, we want to see it early.” + +- Titan Lance Armory: + - Built as a formalized, “safer” successor to the Convergence Engine concept. + - Its cradle can, in theory, be repurposed: + - To try another diffusion. + - Or to deliver a killing strike to a localized manifestation. + +### Why D’Serris Is Freaked Out Now + +- Recent anomalies at Avalon (B2, Root whispers, etc.) **match low-level patterns** from the Korrin logs: + - Heartbeat goes from noise → pattern, then back. + - Student biometrics correlate with spikes. + - Certain “voices” reported by kids sound *too* similar to witness accounts. + +- When he sees: + - Soren’s behavior around the Root, + - Joe’s Pappy-possessions in a grid-tied field, + - Fouadriel’s weird passive influence on Heartbeat graphs… + + …he doesn’t see “teen drama” – he sees **Korrin Gate, Act II**. + +- His long-term fear: + - The fragmented Coherence from the old crisis is trying to use: + - **High-traffic nodes** (Avalon, Titan), and + - **Emotionally volatile adolescents** as anchor points. + +--- + +## 8. How Different People Talk About It + +You can use this for NPC color. + +### D’Serris + +- “Korrin Gate was not a blackout. It was the Root trying to stand up.” +- “We pushed it back once. We will not get another clean shot if it happens here.” +- “When I say ‘shut that node down’, I am speaking from experience, not paranoia.” + +### Old-timer Mage / Professor + +- “They played god with the world-tree and got their fingers bitten off.” +- “We were told to keep casting while the sky hummed. I still wake up hearing it.” +- “Oversight? I don’t like them, but I like melted cities less.” + +### Normal Civilians / Parents + +- “My uncle died in the Korrin Blackout. Don’t you dare mess with campus taps.” +- “That’s why we have all those safety drills. That’s why the lights flicker sometimes.” +- “They say it can’t happen again. They also said one city couldn’t overload a trunk.” + +--- + +## 9. Player-Facing Version (Optional Later) + +If you ever want to give them an in-game explanation (library article, teacher monologue), you can boil it down to something like: + +> **The Korrin Gate Crisis (History Textbook Version)** +> +> About seventeen years ago, the city of Korrin Gate suffered a catastrophic failure of its leyline infrastructure. Years of overuse, wartime strain, and experimental tapping pushed the city’s main node past safe capacity. +> +> When it finally broke, entire districts were scorched, frozen, or warped by uncontrolled magic. Only the emergency response of the Leyline Stabilization Corps prevented total destruction. +> +> The Korrin Gate Crisis led directly to the creation of the **Root Oversight Array**, new regulations on high-capacity taps, and strict monitoring of major nodes—such as the one beneath Avalon Adventuring Academy. +> +> Official reports describe the Crisis as “a tragic but instructive example of the dangers of magical overreach.” +> People who were there tend to describe it with fewer polite words. + diff --git a/Avalon/10_Canon/Leyline Root System.md b/Avalon/10_Canon/Leyline Root System.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9fd8e22 --- /dev/null +++ b/Avalon/10_Canon/Leyline Root System.md @@ -0,0 +1,261 @@ +# The Root System – DM Reference + +> Canon for AAA. If something contradicts this later, this wins. + +## 1. What The Root Actually Is + +- **Big Picture:** + The Root is a single, world-spanning **leyline organism**: + - Physically: a network of high-density arcane channels under the crust and through the air, like roots + mycelium + electrical grid. + - Spiritually: the “nervous system” of the world’s magic – semi-sentient, but not a person in the normal sense. + +- **Natural vs Artificial:** + - The raw leyline network existed naturally. + - Over centuries, mortals **cut it, braced it, and plumbed it** into something closer to infrastructure. + - The **Root Oversight Array** (D’serris’s thing) is the latest layer of software bolted onto that living hardware. + +- **Sap:** + “Sap” is just the slang for condensed Raw Magic flowing through the Root: + - In-universe: glowy shit in crystals, pressure in taps, the stuff that explodes when mishandled. + - Metaphor: electrical current + bandwidth + blood. + +--- + +## 2. Topology – How It’s Structured + +Treat it like a tree + power grid: + +- **Trunk:** + Massive, slow-moving leyline that runs under/through the region. Southern Trunk is D’serris’s jurisdiction. + +- **Branches:** + Large offshoots that feed cities, fortresses, Academies, Titan armories, etc. + +- **Nodes:** + Places where branches are **anchored and shaped**: + - City Node, Academy Node, Titan Lance Node. + - Full of stabilizing anchors, crystals, sigils. + +- **Subnodes:** + Local “breaker boxes” and fuses. + - Avalon’s A1–A3, B1–B3, etc. are subnodes off the Academy Node. + - Each subnode feeds a cluster of taps (dorms, labs, field, etc.). + - Subnodes can be throttled, shunted, or killed without taking down the whole node – that’s what B2 was. + +- **Taps:** + - Specific points where Sap is pulled off for use: + - Classroom conduits, Mageball field glyphs, Spin Alley lane runes, Mr. Magic’s pizza hellscape, etc. + - Controlled by **Runic Controllers** (hardware) and **Root Oversight** (software). + +--- + +## 3. Flow, Capacity, and Failure Modes + +### Flow & Capacity + +- Each branch/subnode has: + - **Baseline Flow** – what it’s designed to carry. + - **Overcapacity Margin** – how much abuse it can take before things go sideways. + +- When total draw > safe margin, you get: + 1. Minor: flickers, weird side-effects, illusions stuttering. + 2. Moderate: wild-magic-like anomalies, local structure flexing. + 3. Severe: **cascade** – Sap surges, containment sigils fail, subnode starts to crack. + +### What Happens When a Subnode Fails + +- **Controlled trip:** + Oversight kills the branch cleanly: + - Everything it feeds goes dark / inert. + - Sap is redirected deeper into the Trunk or to sacrificial buffers. + - You get power outage, scary alarms, but no explosion. + +- **Uncontrolled failure (like B2):** + - Sap surges and finds its **own path**: + - Into nearby taps (overcharging wards, animating junk, whispering to psychically-open students). + - Into the physical world (crystallized Sap, explosive outgassing, temporal glitches). + - You can: + - Stabilize and re-anchor it (what the kids *tried* to do). + - Or rupture the branch so it burns out (what actually happened when they “destroyed” B2). + +- **Root Memory:** + - The Root “remembers” patterns of failure. + - Repeated stress in similar ways makes it more likely to respond *on its own* next time (whispers, manifestations). + +--- + +## 4. The Oversight Array – What D’serris Can Actually Do + +### What Oversight Sees + +Think of it as a god-tier monitoring system with limits: + +- **Telemetry Only** – no direct mind-reading, just: + - Spell traffic that *touches the Root*: + - Schools of magic, approximate power, where/when. + - Node and subnode flow graphs. + - “Heartbeat” patterns: regular pulsing vs weird spikes/wobbles. + - IDs of oficially keyed users (students, staff, devices) when they authenticate to taps. + +- **Blind Spots:** + - Innate / personal magic that doesn’t use taps (small-scale, within your own aura) is fuzzy or invisible. + - Old, non-standard rituals that predate the grid can partially bypass it. + - Anything happening in a fully warded Faraday-style space (no taps in, no taps out) is opaque. + +### What Oversight Can Do + +From his command node, D’serris can: + +- **Throttle or kill taps/subnodes:** + - Reduce flow to specific areas (e.g., “cut power to Mageball runes”). + - Lock doors, shut off lab circles, brick enchanted devices tied to the grid. + +- **Inject commands:** + - Force safety protocols on hardware (“trip this breaker if flow spikes again”). + - Broadcast through certain taps (alarms, emergency lights, announcement illusions). + +- **He cannot:** + - Freely rewrite local reality. + - Target one specific random kid in a crowd without context unless they’re currently keyed into a tap as the user. + - Directly puppet people or read their thoughts – he only sees how they interact with the grid. + +This is important: the kids are right that he’s surveilling them; they are wrong when they assume “he sees everything we do.” + +--- + +## 5. Consciousness in the Root + +### The Natural Root + +- Has **instinct**, not a human mind: + - Wants equilibrium: no part over-stressed, no branch murdered if it can be re-routed. + - Responds more strongly to **emotionally-charged** magic (fear, rage, awe). + +- How it shows up: + - Subtle nudges: whispers, half-seen shapes, déjà vu. + - Synchronicities: lights flicker in rhythm with someone’s heartbeat, plants grow toward certain kids, etc. + +### The Caged Thing (D’serris’s Mistake) + +- During the old crisis, something malignant / emergent was: + - Latched onto / coalescing in a trunk. + - Half-born mind, half-parasitic entity. +- D’serris’ team **shunted it down into the Root** instead of letting it explode locally: + - It’s now **smeared** along the network, but clusters around high-traffic nodes. + - Think: virus in the operating system, not separate user. + +### Practical Difference + +- Root whisper = “turn the pressure down, reroute, nudge.” +- Caged thing whisper = “break this, hurt them, get more access.” + +You don’t have to decide exactly which voice is which every time yet; just know: + +- Soren’s violent urges are a **mix**: + - Her own shit. + - Root amplifying. + - The thing testing how far it can push through her. +- Pappy’s possession: + - Pappy was in a war-era Root-saturated environment; his action figure is basically a **keyed relic**. + - When Joe lets Pappy in, he opens a channel that the Root (and the thing) can hitch a ride on. + +Fouadriel is where this gets nailed down later: he’s the first point where the caged mind gets a **stable anchor**. + +--- + +## 6. How Everyday Magic Uses the Root + +### Big Buckets + +1. **Grid Magic (Monitored):** + - Anything that draws from fixed taps: + - Classroom rituals, Mageball field, Titan armory, city wards, Mr. Magic’s animatronics. + - Logged by Oversight. + - Safer in terms of blowback, but visible. + +2. **Personal Magic (Mostly Unmonitored):** + - Innate sorcery, smaller-scale bard tricks, druid nature magic not explicitly tied into infrastructure. + - Uses local ambient mana + your own reserves. + - Harder for Oversight to see, easier for the Root consciousness to piggyback if you keep poking the same spot. + +3. **Hybrid Shit (Risky as hell):** + - People who hack taps to supercharge personal spellwork. + - Contraband relics that route Root flow into specific items (Pip’s network, experimental weapons, etc.). + - This is where you get your wild magic, aberrant effects, and “B2 blew up” tier accidents. + +### Student Tech Layer + +- **Sending-stones / crystals / “phones”:** + - Piggyback on low-draw taps. + - Oversight sees metadata (who connected, when, how much traffic, broad type), not the exact conversation content unless someone has applied specific spy-rituals. + +- **Wi-Spell / Arcane WiFi:** + - Campus has its own subnet. + - Oversight can throttle it to free capacity for more important stuff. + +- **Games, entertainment, etc.:** + - Minor draw, only dangerous when a lot of them sync in one place (like Mr. Magic or Spin Alley). + +--- + +## 7. When PCs Mess With It – Guidelines For You + +You don’t need hard mechanics, just consistent rulings. Use these: + +### Detecting Anomalies + +- Any magical PC paying attention can: + - **Arcana** to interpret flow/anomaly (“this is a surge,” “this feels like a reroute,” etc.). + - **Religion / Nature** to interpret Root-as-being (“it feels angry/hurt”). +- Soren gets occasional **free vibes** because of prior exposure. + +### Intervening + +- If they try to “stabilize” a node / tap: + - Skill challenge: Arcana, Tools (tinker’s / mason’s), maybe help from Elias. + - Success: reduce flow, reinforce sigils; you decide if problem is fixed or just postponed. + - Fail: push anomaly up a level (minor → moderate; moderate → cascade warning). + +- If they try to **steal** from the Root: + - Short-term juice (advantage, bonus damage, etc.). + - Long-term consequence clock: + - More whispers. + - More anomalies following them. + - Oversight notices weird patterns and starts asking questions. + +### Oversight Response Ladder + +Rough escalation D’serris can take when he sees a problem: + +1. **Log + watch** – note anomaly, increase monitoring. +2. **Nudge staff** – send Larkvale/Elias “check this out” instructions. +3. **Throttle** – reduce capacity to specific zone. +4. **Lockdown** – hard lock on taps/doors, emergency protocols. +5. **Sacrifice** – kill a branch/subnode to protect trunk (what he fears having to do again). + +Where the PCs sit on that ladder is entirely about: +- Are they helping? +- Are they causing more anomalies than they fix? +- Do they cooperate at all? + +--- + +## 8. Quick Player-Facing Summary (Optional Handout Later) + +You can drop something like this into a “How Magic Works at Avalon” doc: + +> **The Root & The Grid – Student Version** +> +> - Magic in the valley runs on the **Root** – a huge living web of leylines under the ground and in the air. +> - The Academy is plugged into it like a **power substation**: +> - Big node under campus, smaller “subnodes” (A1–A3, B1–B3) feeding different buildings. +> - “Taps” in classrooms, fields, and town that pull Sap (magical juice) out of the Root. +> - Most big, flashy spellwork on campus **uses the grid**: +> - Mageball field, safety wards, labs, weird animatronics at Mr. Magic Pizza. +> - Those are monitored by the **Root Oversight Array** – essentially magical IT and safety inspectors. +> - Your *personal* magic – cantrips, small spells, stuff you do with your own reserves – mostly flies under the radar unless you hook it into a tap on purpose. +> - If you abuse the grid (overload a subnode, hack a tap, or run sketchy rituals off campus power), you don’t just annoy your teachers – you risk: +> - Blackouts, wild magic, and angry maintenance staff. +> - D’serris showing up on a projection and asking why the graph just went red. +> - The Root itself taking an interest in you. That’s not always good. +