is a golden diadem which projects a hologram of Old Sol
from its highest tine, as well as the rest of Man's Cradle-System
orbiting about it.
2
is a hideous diamondoid mask made in the image of an alien demi-god from whom their esteemed house claims descent.
3
is an auroran magneto-cloth cape which flares with the oscillations of subtle fields.
4
is a porous meteoric amulet that echoes with the music of the spheres.
5
is a blade of enchained magnetic monopoles channeling
ouroboric tangles of plasma - ever-glowing, their patterned glows
expressing the cyclical yet self-degrading nature of the cosmos, able to
cut through all but the most unnaturally enforced materials.
6
is a scepter containing a degenerate micro-verse within its topping globe.
7
is a battered helmet pulled from the suit of one of the first humans to reach outer space.
8
is a battle standard bearing the heraldry of their
family, and topped with the head of a lion, preserved and animated to
roaring unlife by cybernetic tubes woven through its flesh and bone.
9
is a halo of abstract mathematics, written directly on the fabric of space-time rather than mere matter.
10
is a pauldron of fused silicon, the remains of an artificial intelligence which almost overcame humanity.
11
is a dilating-lens lantern of an indestructible,
orange-green alloy - fully unleashed, its actinic brilliance can guide
in a ship from high orbit.
12
is a vial of their own, genetically-perfected blood, crystallized into a ruby-like gem.
13
is a crown of golden rings hovering about each other, each engraved with the zodiac of a different solar system.
14
is a famous artifact of Earth preserved within a temporal stasis-orb.
15
is a set of infrasonic pan pipes that can manipulate the minds of men and machine alike.
16
is a holy book written by the first settler of their world, in an eclectic script unreadable by anyone yet living.
17
is a shield with a brazen, hypercubic boss and a rippling purplish forcefield about.
18
is a labrys bearing edges honed to subatomic sharpness
with whetstones hewn from the preternaturally dense heart of a collapsed
star.
19
is a bowl holding a fractal bonzai grafted with branches of every fruit-bearing tree of humanity's homeworld.
20
is the head-sized smaragdine egg of some voidborne
beast, the inevitable hatching of which is said to herald the end of the
universe.
D20
This staristocrat's holdings
1
lie under a dimming sun, weakened by its fusion-harvest which forms the foundation of the staristocrat's wealth.
2
contain no life-bearing worlds, its population sustained only by technocratic hydro-pneumatic despotism.
3
bear the glassy-green sheen and asymmetrical mutations left by ancient nuclear war.
4
are mineral-rich but poor in organics and water, expending most of their export-wealth on life-giving imports just to survive.
5
produce a unique and inimitable spice, and are thus coveted by an extra-solar rival.
6
are either watery or gaseous, with dry, solid ground an unimaginable luxury - the populace living on great rafts or aerostats.
7
have recently absorbed a mass of refugees fleeing a black swan xeno-threat.
8
were enclosed from the common space of comet-cowboys, who plague it with their raids to this day.
9
are nestled among the ruins of an extinct alien civilization, probed only gently for fear of waking their automatic guardians.
10
are slowly but surely having their life-giving
atmospheres stripped away by the rapacious solar wind of their red
gigantism-suffering sun.
11
are deliberately kept ignorant of the wider galactic
community to reduce their capacity to revolt, and so that the ruling
class can portray themselves as deific through their technological
capabilities.
12
are undergoing a long and delicate process of
terraforming which structures cultural and religious cycles around these
artificial seasons and critical thresholds.
13
are overgrown with a police state only nominally under
the staristocrat's authority, and the computational bureaucracy that's
arisen to process all their surveillance.
14
are infamous for their permissiveness, and abound in every sort of vice.
15
are torn apart on a planetary scale for the sake of
resource-harvest and industry, and what unruptured ground exists is
blanketed in choking smog outside sealed habitats.
16
were recently seized from a treasonous vassal and
bestowed upon this staristocrat - the old holder's sympathizers still
lurk within the population, evading the claws of inquisition.
17
exist mostly fictitiously, as moving shell-games of companies and titles.
18
are centered on an ecumenopolis with some roads paved
with stones hewn before humanity's ancestors came down from the trees -
its corners hide occultic dens of our darkest imaginings.
19
are generally scorching, deserts or liquid hells, their
structures mirrored and extending tubes of heat exchanges and radiators
like a seraphim wings.
20
are verdant in all forms of life - none go hungry, yet
many are eaten, and a clan of masked physicians go about the populace to
rebuke the tides of plague.
D20
This staristocrat is attended by
1
a harem of genetically-engineered Willendorfian
Venuses, bearing a continuous stream of heirs who will duel over the
matter of their inheritance in the arena of their crèche.
2
artful historians hunchbent over data-tablets,
preserving every moment and detail of the staristocrat's life in
imperishable crystalline records.
3
nigh-invisible bodyguards swaddled in light-bending
metamaterial cloaks, heat haze auras ready to strike down any offense
against their master.
4
clanking cyborg-knights - behind their cuirasses are
tanks preserving the most loyal and chivalrous parts of their mortal
brains.
5
slaves bearing explosive collars - the tribute of many conquered worlds.
6
a squadron of musclebound eunuch-janissaries raised
from childhood with size- and strength-stimulating hormones and non-stop
brainwashing.
7
clones of themself educated according to various traditions as diverse yet biologically-partial advisors.
8
the cryogenically-preserved heads of their forefathers, which sometimes dispense shivering, crackling counsel.
9
hovering laser-turrets fitted with targeting algorithms
able to anticipate their master's desire to kill before it's
consciously felt.
10
an enormous parrot with impeccable skill at mimicry,
whose mind has been overwritten with every song recorded by humanity up
until the time of its creation.
11
a pair of titanic wolfdogs, with metallic teeth that could rend apart a tank and hides that have turned aside artillery-shells.
12
the plush animatronic companion of their childhood, its digital personality updated to be a competent advisor.
13
a caste of butlers who've served their family for generations, bred like pedigreed dogs.
14
a choir singing their praises, the choir's lungs
replaced with cybernetic jet-intakes slatted between ribs, so that they
might sing unceasing.
15
a former whipping boy, their oldest friend, bearing the delicate scars of tremendously sophisticated tortures.
16
tumbling jesters dressed in patchworks of impossible colours captured from the coronas of half-real suns.
17
technotheologic angels dancing through the air on wings of incandescent blazons.
18
abductees from primitive worlds fitted with neural implants which make them believe they are simply in an extended dream.
19
a team of chefs who can prepare the delicacies of a dozen worlds, never repeating the same twice in their master's lifetime.
20
grey masters of anagathic science, whisper-arguing over the injections and ointments that will quicken them a while longer.
D20
This staristocrat's court
1
is entertained by a vapourous alien intelligence which takes possession of lesser courtiers through a fanciful hookah.
2
has its lesser members partially memory-wiped when they
attend it - able to recall their skills, yet unable to remember much of
their own identities, and so how to apply those skills for personal
benefit.
3
is deliberately, performatively humble, held in barns and suchlike.
4
is overlooked by a cine-dome showing stars, moons, and constellations in fortuitous alignments.
5
is addicted to novelty, and constantly seeks new performances and grotesques.
6
is made up nepotistically of their siblings who did not win the contest to inherit the throne.
7
are waited on hand and foot by fragile ceramic robots imprinted with the tightly-enchained engrams of political criminals.
8
takes place entirely remotely - members are provided
radio-devices with frequencies that trigger voice-like vibrations in
great bells this staristocrat is in the constant presence of.
9
were at first ironically and now legitimately entranced by a bloody cult of sacrifice and agonies.
10
has been forced to accept elected representatives from
among the populace by a revolt - to the grumblings of those who attained
their positions through inheritance.
11
is wracked by a scandal involving mistresses overspending from public coffers.
12
is perpetually-wrapped in augmented-reality projections of mythic mimesis.
13
is burrowed among the roots of the biggest mountain of
their throne-world, so that it could survive all but the most
devastating attacks.
14
are all accompanied by a member of an order of
courtesan-assassins implanted with acid-glands in case their charge
shows overt disloyalty.
15
solve disputes among themselves with duels, and drill daily with various weapons and fighting styles.
16
is held within a hollow pyramid, with this staristocrat
at the top point and many stairs and levels filtering petitioners
between them and the entrance at the base.
17
is largely taken over by a conspiracy to poison this staristocrat, and even the uninvolved have begun to circle like vultures.
18
is a ring of stone thrones built to scale with the
renown of the one who sits upon them - this staristocrat themself sits
like a small child on a throne fit for giants - their seneschal on a
stool.
19
is held around a colosseum, where gladiators and vicious alien beasts fight for their amusement and haruspexies.
20
is itinerant, a grand airship which hovers above the realms of hosting vavasours.
D20
This staristocrat's noble flaw
1
is hubris - they believe they can become like God by funding breakneck scientific process.
2
is bravery - they will fight to the last in the face of overwhelming odds, even if better options present themselves.
3
is honour - their thinking is rigid and totally un-utilitarian.
4
is generousity - they give without thinking, disrupting economies and fostering dependence with their largesse.
5
is parental love - they spoil their children on a terrible, cosmic scale.
6
is a thirst for justice - a continent has burned due to their need for a punishment fitting a truly awful crime.
7
is filial piety - their increasingly-senile dowager-mother has them tied around her bony finger.
8
is tolerance - they've cultivated cosmopolitan communities, yet failed to confront division and rising extremism.
9
is an aesthetic sense that is souring into decadence.
10
is persistence - they are a dogged obsessive.
11
is realpolitik - they've alienated possible allies with ruthlessness.
12
is faith - they lean often into outright zealotry.
13
is cautiousness - they often dive into outright paranoia.
14
is competitiveness - they're innovative, but often only in the tortures applied to defeated rivals.
15
is cleanliness - they have advanced to a purgative germaphobia.
16
is contentment - they have come to peace with all things, even if others demand their action.
17
is honesty - they will never lie, even if it benefits them and their people.
18
is is humility - they are overly-convinced of their own incapacity.
19
is romantic love - their spouse manipulates them to their knowledge yet total acquiescence.
20
is imagination - their fancies often end up unproductive or outright destructive.
I admit, I really like this. It has its own voice, not falling into 40k-style Grimdark grotesquery or sub-Dune Fauxtreides heroics.
ReplyDeleteI would be completely happy to start using 'Faufreluchean' in place of 'Feudal Future' - do you reckon we can convince people?