Man-Machine Protocols

Similar in power to Terrestrial Circle Sorcery, Man- Machine Protocols are the most common form of pattern-weaving protocols among Autochthonia’s Exalted. Even so, Creation’s sorcerers would recognize only a handful of its effects. The protocol Charms built into the Alchemical Exalted produce magic that is mostly unknown in Creation, and many of its effects are clearly for use in Autochthonia. Weaving a protocol is very similar to casting a spell.  Man-Machine Protocols require the weaver to spend 1 point of Willpower to make initial contact with the design weavers in order to change fate. Most spells have a minimum Clarity requirement.

This represents the lowest degree of communion the Alchemical Weaver can have and still expect the design weavers to process his protocol.

 

Automaton Override Protocol

Cost: 5 or 15 motes

Target: One nearby automaton, or all automata in a 30-foot radius.

Duration: One scene

Minimum Clarity: 3

Alchemical pattern weavers use this protocol to control animated creatures, soulless intelligences and minor machine spirits. These include golems, zombies and automata (such as smoke cobras, hounds of the five winds and the like) as well as items of advanced technology, such as First Age ships, skyships and weapons. This protocol may affect spirit machines, including most of the mechanical wildlife denizens of the Reaches (such as custodians) if their Essence rating is 2 or less. The Exalt weaving Automaton Override Protocol instantly takes control of the affected automata, directing them to do his bidding, whatever it may be. This includes stopping such creations from attacking or causing them to attack the Alchemical’s enemies. The Alchemical weaver overrides any other programming the automaton might have, replacing it with her own.

The Exalt focuses her Essence, then speaks a short command phrase. A whorl of bright-green arcane symbols flow from her mouth or, in some cases, her soulgem and infuses the form of the target automata, suspending all prior commands and making her will the target’s new purpose. For 5 motes, the sorcerer takes control of a single automaton. By spending 15 motes, the sorcerer may take control of (Essence rating x 2) automata or technological devices in a 10-yard radius. Automaton Override Protocol may be countered by Emerald Countermagic, by Essence Draining Defense or by any Alchemical Exalt with a permanent Essence exceeding the weaver’s by 2 or more. This protocol has no effect on natural creatures, elementals or machine spirits with Essence ratings of 3 or higher.

Only the Alchemical invoking this protocol has override authority. Others trying to interact with the automata are ignored or dealt with as the weaver sees fit. If the automaton was summoned by another Exalt and the other Exalt has a higher Essence than the Alchemical, make a contested Willpower roll for the pattern weaver and the other Exalt. If the other Exalt’s player wins, he maintains control of the automaton. If the Alchemical’s player wins, she wrests control of the automaton from its summoner.

Note that the consequences of this can be particularly hazardous if the other is riding in the automaton when control is wrested away (as in the case of the summoned warstriders used by necromancers, for example).

 

Binding Filament System

Cost: 10 motes

Target: One person

Duration: Indefinite

Minimum Clarity: 0

On completion of this protocol, the target is instantly wrapped in fine strands of silvery filament. The metallic threads are extraordinarily tough. Very strong individuals might be able to break out of these threads as a feat of strength requiring a Strength + Athletics total of 10, but doing so causes the strands to act as garrotes on the flesh, cutting the escapee to ribbons (inflicting levels of lethal damage equal to the weaver’s Essence). This damage can be soaked.

For reasons unknown, some sorcerers know this protocol as Her Glistening Silvery Strands.

 

Crystal Lotus Of Repose

Minimum Clarity: 2

Except that the protective containment is made of crystal and strongly resembles a lotus flower, this protocol is identical to Sleep of Stony Safety.

 

Docility Assurance Field

Cost: 25 motes

Target: One individual

Duration: One scene or one hour, whichever is longer

Minimum Clarity: 0

Upon invoking this protocol, the Exalt binds his target in a shifting mesh of luminous filaments. This web of light in no way impairs the target’s mobility, but any time the target spends Essence, he suffers damage. The sorcerer determines the kind of damage inflicted at the protocol’s weaving, either one level of bashing per mote of Essence spent by the target or one level of lethal damage for every 2 motes of Essence spent (in which case the expenditure of a single mote causes no damage). This damage can be soaked only with the target’s Essence rating. This protocol in no way interferes with activities that don’t require Essence expenditure, nor does it interfere with Essence the target has already committed. This spell cannot target beings of greater Essence than the weaver character’s.

 

Driving The Shadow Machine

Cost: 20 motes

Target: Weaver

Duration: (Weaver’s Essence rating x 4) hours

Minimum Clarity: 2

This protocol reconfigures physical reality to bring into being a floating pocket of roiling shadow, an incorporeal machine that feeds on Essence and ambient light — and in which the pattern weaver and his companions can ride. This machine, commonly called a tenebrapede, may carry 200 pounds of additional cargo or passengers per point of the weaver’s permanent Essence rating.

The tenebrapede is perfectly silent and goes where the Alchemical wills it to go. All he need do is step into the roiling mass of shadows and assert his will. The view from within the tenebrapede is crystal clear in 180 degrees, but those trying to look in see only darkness.

The shadow vehicle flies at a rate of 200 miles per hour (nearly 600 yards per turn). If time runs out before the voyage is finished, the tenebrapede comes to a rest in the nearest city or safe section of the Near Reaches, and the weaver and his companions have one minute to unload their possessions before the tenebrapede and anything left inside it fades back away into the shadows. For all its ephemeral nature, the tenebrapede is remarkably solid. It has 25 health levels and a soak of 25L/35B. The tenebrapede provides 90 percent hard cover to those who ride in it. In addition, the shadow machine’s speed makes attacking its passengers exceedingly difficult. Only one attack can be made against the tenebrapede or its occupants unless it is matched in flight by the attackers. Attacking out of the chariot is similarly restricted.

The vehicle protects its occupants and cargo from all but the most extreme climatic conditions, though the environment of some of the elemental poles or the most inhospitable of the Far Reaches might be more than the shadow vehicle can counteract.

Aside from disappearing at the end of the protocol’s duration, the tenebrapede lasts until it reaches its commanded destination, until it is commanded to land prematurely or until it is dispelled.

 

Elsewhere-Evoking Asana

Cost: 20 motes

Target: Area of effect

Duration: The longer of one hour or one scene

Minimum Clarity: 5

The weaver must assume a seated meditative posture to weave this effect, which allows her to manifest a small portion of the great Void to which the Machine God exiled himself. For many Alchemicals, this protocol is as much a spiritual exercise as anything, allowing a weaver to contemplate the ordeals suffered by the Great Maker over the course of his exile, but the protocol creates, as a byproduct, a powerful defense field around the weaver.

Once cast, the weaver is surrounded by a sphere of cold, airless, aphotic void to a radius of (Essence rating x 5) feet. This void instantly snuffs all fire. Entities that need air suffocate, and visibility is equal to heavy snow at night. Moreover, the life-sapping cold of this field is extremely damaging, equal to standing in a bonfire. Within the field, there is neither up nor down (i.e., no gravity). The players of those caught within must get three or more successes on a Dexterity + Athletics roll for their characters to propel themselves through this void. Once a character makes herself move, she continues floating in the direction she propelled herself until she exits the field, at which point she falls to the floor. Fewer successes than that indicates that the character cannot muster enough coordination to propel herself in any direction. Items entering this protocol’s sphere of effect from without lose all momentum: An arrow fired into the sphere of effect is brought to a total inertial null the moment it breaches the void. Likewise, a lunging man would find himself relieved of all momentum and would need to somehow propel himself to escape the field generated by this reality-weaving protocol.

The Alchemical pattern weaver, maintaining the asana, floats serenely at the center of the void, immune to all of the effects of Elsewhere-Evoking Prana except for the visibility penalties. The sorcerer can bring the protocol to a halt instantly by breaking the posture, but while she maintains the posture, she regains Essence as if she were meditating (since that’s exactly what she’s doing).

 

Entropy Manipulation Protocol

Cost: 25 motes

Target: All automata within range

Duration: One scene

Minimum Clarity: 4

More than any other denizens of Autochthonia, Alchemical Exalted make forays into the gremlin-infested Far Reaches. This potent protocol allows a weaver to temporarily knock all nearby automata offline. When an Exalt weaves this protocol, all gremlins, golems, zombies and all other forms of automata within (Essence x 10) yards take the weaver’s Essence in bashing damage and fall inert. At the beginning of the next scene, the affected automata will resume functioning, but they may be confused about where they are and what they’re doing. The automata may or may not return to what they were doing before the protocol took effect. While the Entropy Manipulation Protocol doesn’t shut down warstriders or other forms of powered armor, it does deaden the armor’s limbs somewhat if they’re not shielded. The basic mobility penalty imposed by this protocol for Artifact ••• armor is -2. Each additional dot of Artifact lessens the mobility penalty by 1. Artifact ••••• armor, therefore, is not affected by this weaving.

 

Essence Reallocation Protocol

Cost: 25 motes

Target: Special

Duration: Instant

Minimum Clarity: 0

Inefficiency is dangerous in a closed system, and the denizens of Autochthonia can be extraordinarily efficient with regard to what they reuse and how they reuse it. Like Emerald Countermagic, Essence Reallocation Protocol is a reflexive protocol that counters Terrestrial Circle Sorcery, but it also affects Man-Machine Protocols and Shadowlands Circle Necromancy. The protocol does this by absorbing all the Essence out of the cancelled spell and channeling it into the Alchemical’s Essence reservoir. If the absorbed Essence puts the weaver over his maximum rating, the Alchemical’s metal Charms flare up and emit sparks for a moment as they shunt away the excess Essence.

 

Lightning Elemental Concatenation Protocol

Minimum Clarity: 0

This Alchemical protocol is identical to the spell Lightning Spider, known by Creation’s sorcerers. It is suspected that Autochthon himself may have given this spell to the sorcerers of the Exalted.

 

The Maker’s Basic Defense Array

Cost: 20 motes

Target: Weaver

Duration: 12 hours

Minimum Clarity: 3

Upon invoking this protocol, hundreds of small polished metal spheres surround the Exalt, rapidly whirling and flowing around her in a perfect defensive sphere. The sphere moves with the weaver, and it can change shape to accommodate tight passages or the like. The Maker’s Basic Defense Array functions like armor in that it knocks aside blows aimed at the Alchemical. It has an effective hardness of 5 and adds 10L/10B to the character’s soak.

When a physical attack comes at the weaver, the spheres flow swiftly to intercept the blow, knocking it aside with the loud report of hundreds of metal balls slamming into their target. The impact is tremendous. Every time a weapon that is not made of the Magical Materials takes this kind of battering, the Storyteller rolls one die to determine the damage the Defense Array inflicts on the weapon. Normal weapons shatter on any roll of 7 or less, while exceptional weapons shatter on a roll of 5 or less. Perfect weapons are immune to this damage.

Even if the weapon sustains no damage, the player of the attacking character must make a Dexterity + Melee roll (difficulty 2) to prevent the impact of the metal spheres from knocking the weapon out of the character’s grasp. Characters making unarmed attack upon the sorcerer suffer 10 dice of bashing damage. This damage is soaked normally.

 

The Maker’s Instantaneous Forge

Cost: 20 motes

Target: One conjured automaton

Duration: (Essence) weeks

Minimum Clarity: 0

This protocol can be a strange one for Alchemical Exalted to use as it’s a weak and distantly related variant of the protocol that animates the Alchemicals themselves. By performing this protocol, the weaver creates a powerful automaton to serve her. Alchemical sorcerers don’t need to build or create the shells of their golems. The shell appears out of the ground upon weaving, a gift of the Machine God. The sorcerer’s power is necessary mainly for binding a spirit into the vessel to animate it. Each shell is animated by an Autochthonian elemental assigned to the Chosen by the Divine Ministers. So long as the elemental is bound into its shell, it has no will of its own and performs the weaver’s will as its own.

The automata summoned by this weaving vary in Traits and appearance based on the type of elemental bound into them. In addition, a golem will have two Charms unique to its type. These Charms cannot be learned by Exalts who would otherwise be able to learn Charms not native to their Exaltation.

An automaton of this type will serve its summoner for (summoner’s Essence) weeks before merging once more with the substance of the Maker. A weaver can have as many of these automata serving him at one time as she has points of Essence.

 

Optimized Component Integration Protocol

Cost: 5 motes per target

Target: The weaver and all willing targets in a 10-foot radius

Duration: The longer of one hour or one scene

Minimum Clarity: 5

Upon invoking this protocol, the weaver and all

participating individuals become models of perfect cooperation and interdependence, like the components of a well-oiled machine. They intuitively know what is needed to optimize the group’s performance and achieve their shared goal. So long as they are working on one shared task (usually something that would require an extended action, such as building a device or opening a tunnel), all benefiting members gain one die to their dice pools for each additional member of the group up to a total of (Wits + Essence) individuals (i.e., if a group has five members, each member gains an additional four dice to her pools to accomplish that one task). This protocol ends if the group accomplishes its task before the time expires.

 

Phlogiston Web

Cost: 15 motes

Target: Area of effect

Duration: (Essence) turns

Minimum Clarity: 0

Upon invoking this protocol, the weaver expels an enormous blazing red net of phlogiston — sticky solid fire — from his body, usually from his mouth or from the palm of his hand. The phlogiston web is enormous, covering an area of 100 square feet per point of permanent Essence, but the exact measurements are up to the sorcerer. An Exalt with an Essence rating of 4 could create a web 20 feet by 20 feet or 10 feet by 40 feet or whatever best suits his purposes. The blazing net inflicts (the weaver’s Essence rating) + 4 health levels in lethal damage every turn.

Cutting the net is possible only with a weapon made of the Magical Materials and requires four successes on a Strength + Melee roll. Using pure strength to break the strands of netting requires a Strength + Athletics roll, difficulty 5. Characters immune to fire take no damage from this protocol.

 

Plague Of Bronze Snakes

Minimum Clarity: 0

Except that the snakes wriggle out of the body of the Alchemical sorcerer at the protocol’s commencement, this is the same as the spell found on page 112 of Savant and Sorcerer.

 

Probability Degradation Matrix

Cost: 15 motes

Target: Enemies in a 10-yard radius

Duration: One hour or one scene, whichever is longer

Minimum Clarity: 5

An Alchemical enacting this protocol pulls all the slack from the strings of fate connected to her enemies, depriving them of grace and good fortune and making their every word and gesture an invitation to disaster. In effect, it turns fate itself against the weaver’s enemies.

When the Alchemical weaves this design, her soulgem radiates an angry red glare that makes the eyes itch. Enemy familiars with a Familiar rating less than 3 flee the area of effect. The Storyteller must succeed on a simple Valor roll for any hostile spirit with permanent Essence of less than 2, or it will flee as well, overcome by a sense of dread. Such beings will flee at their full movement rates for two turns per point of the weaver’s Essence and will not return until the protocol is complete.

This protocol has no effect on the Alchemical weaver’s allies, but all those working against her, directly or covertly, are afflicted with extraordinary bad luck. For the duration of the protocol, the target number of all rolls for those afflicted increases by one, 10s count as only a single success, and every 1 rolled negates one success.

 

Sonic Hammer Vocalization

Cost: 12 motes

Target: Area of effect

Duration: (Essence) turns

Minimum Clarity: 0

The Alchemical opens his mouth, and a devastatingly shrill wail issues from his throat. The vibration caused by this attack shakes bone, rattles teeth and shatters glass. Hearing over the noise is impossible. Items of glass or crystal suffer 10 levels of bashing damage. In all other regards, this protocol is identical to the spell Thunder Wolf’s Howl.

 

Soul Archiving Protocol

Cost: 10+ motes

Target: Ghost

Duration: Permanent

Minimum Clarity: 0

This ancient and classified protocol preserves the efficiency of Autochthon’s soul recycling by capturing loose souls (i.e., ghosts) in a soulgem. It’s rarely used, as soulgem recycling is so efficient in Autochthonia, but on those rare occasions when a soulgem has been left on its corpse for so long that the soul has escaped the soulgem (usually two weeks or more), this protocol corrects the oversight by recapturing the loose soul in its gem.

The weaver need only weave this protocol while holding out the soulgem. His player makes a contested Willpower + Essence roll against the ghost. If the ghost’s will is strong, the weaver can spend 5 motes of Essence per each additional die he wants to add to his dice pool.

Ghosts captured in this way remain safely in the soulgem and have no chance of escape until the death of their next incarnation.

This protocol controverts Luminor dogma, and its very existence is a carefully guarded secret given only to old and trusted Exalted. Learning this protocol requires Backing of at least 4 from the Luminors.

 

Static Essence Absorption Protocol

Cost: 5 motes

Target: One item

Duration: Instant

Minimum Clarity: 2

One of many tasks assigned to the Chosen of the Machine God is the prevention of excessive Essence buildup in locales that are prone to it. This protocol channels Essence build-up into the Alchemical’s tanks. It also pulls Essence charges from devices that have been charged through magical means. The sorcerer drains (Essence rating x 2) motes of Essence from one device that gathers or stores Essence (i.e., a Hearthstone or an Essence-containing gem) or from an item that has Essence committed to it (an attuned weapon). Any Essence stored in the drained item wends its way to the weaver as a glistening tendril and seeps into her Essence tanks. Hearthstones drained in this fashion stop working for (6 – Manse rating) hours. Essence-containing gems must be recharged, and weapons holding committed Essence must be reattuned before the wielder gets the benefits of attunement again.

For the purposes of this protocol, Essence is Essence, and the source — Hearthstone, Essence committed to a necromancy or sorcery effect, etc. — is moot. This protocol cannot drain Essence from an Essence-users Essence pools. That power is held too closely for this attack.

 

Summon Autochthonian Elemental

Cost: 10+ motes

Target: Elemental

Duration: Up to one month

Minimum Clarity: 0

This protocol is exactly like the Terrestrial Circle spell Summon Elemental, but only the elementals common to Autochthonia — crystal, lightning, metal, oil, smoke and steam — may be summoned with it

 

Summon Machine Spirit

Cost: 15+ motes

Target: One machine spirit

Duration: Instant

Minimum Clarity: 0

This protocol is very similar to Summon Elemental, but instead of an elemental, it captures a machine spirit. As with summon elemental, the weaver can designate the machine spirit she wants based on any criteria she chooses, and the Willpower contest is the same. The machine spirits serving the Great Maker are often dedicated to their function in Autochthon and don’t like multi-tasking. Consequently, many larger spirits are very likely to send subroutine spirits to serve in their stead, much in the way that greater elemental spirits are wont to do.

 

Theoplastic Engineering Protocol

Cost: 15 motes

Target: Terrain

Duration: One scene

Minimum Clarity: 0

The Machine God’s techno-organic metal landscape is itself the environment surrounding all denizens of Autochthonia, and the Alchemical Exalted are empowered to shape that landscape as necessary. Upon invoking this protocol, the Alchemical need only point his hands in the direction of the material he wishes to work and the local terrain flows to accommodate his will.

Alchemicals use this protocol to seal off tunnels in the Reaches, to make room for expanding cities, to pull inaccessible veins and conduits closer to the surface (a service they perform frequently for the miners of the Illustrious Conductors of the Consecrated Veins) and to accomplish similar tasks. Given time, a group of Exalted pattern weavers working in concert could open up whole new open veins within the Maker (for putting in a new tram line, for example). One weaver can shift an area equal to 500 cubic feet of material per turn.

When used in Creation, this protocol can create trenches, mounds, dikes, berms, reservoirs or pits in soft earth or sculpt up to (the weaver’s Essence rating x 100) square feet of stone. Repeated use can create tunnels, bridges of stone or even small islands. It can even pull veins of ore to the surface, so long as they were not located more than (Alchemical’s Essence rating x 100) feet down (and the weaver has to know the vein is there in the first place).

This protocol could be used to immure an enemy, but it’s slow (5 turns) and the target can struggle to free himself (Strength + Athletics, difficulty 2, +1 to difficulty for every turn the sorcerer shapes the ground around the target).

In theory, it might be possible to use this protocol to shape the tunnels of the Underworld’s Labyrinth or the landscape of Malfeas as well (both being forms of Primordial flesh as well), but neither of those speculations has yet been tested.

 

Vat Surrogate Reweaving Technique

Cost: 10 motes

Target: One Alchemical Exalt

Duration: Instant

Minimum Clarity: 4

If the weaver has Charms on retainer at the Vats, this protocol allows him to instantaneously swap one of his currently installed Charms for one of those stored, bypassing the need for downtime or visiting the Vats.

 

Vision Transmitting Protocol

Cost: 10 motes

Target: One creature

Duration: One message

Minimum Clarity: 0

Upon invoking this protocol, the sorcerer spits forth a fist-sized crystal dodecahedron. The crystal grows for a moment as the weaver finishes shaping the Essence. Once the crystal is fully grown, around the size of a human head, the weaver may speak a message into it. This protocol then functions exactly like the Terrestrial spell Infallible Messenger, except the recipient can see the speaker’s image in the crystal as well as hear him, and may even view events taking place in the background.

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