The Lendorian Astrochron

Adventures in the early days of Obsidian Bay.
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setanta14
Posts: 3880
Joined: Wed Jun 29, 2005 1:57 pm

The Lendorian Astrochron

Post by setanta14 »

A magnificent timepiece (or, more properly, an orrery) is stored in 27 custom-made crates, each weighing between 100 and 500 pounds. All of the crates have built-in handles to facilitate moving. It becomes obvious from studying the accompanying manual, titled the Libram Astrochronium, that the device is both ancient and advanced. A wonderment of metal gears, clockwork armatures, crystalline spheres, and undulating pendulums, once fitted together with the aid of the Libram, the device will accurately keep time, date, positions of celestial bodies (the moons, planets, sun, stars, and other objects within Oerth’s crystal sphere, called “Greyspace”), and can also be used for esoteric speculation on future happenings like eclipses, weather patterns, and population fluctuations by putting events into a much larger multi-millennial cycle.

It is built as modular pieces, each capable of working independently, though they synchronize and gain synergetic functions as more and more pieces are combined, the completed device taking up most of a large room. The heart of the device is a large hourglass of ever-flowing liquid mercury, some arcane force driving the fluid from the "bottom" volume up through a series of tubes back to the "top" volume, though the flow is not disturbed in any way regardless of the hourglass’s orientation. Very precise etchings on the various pieces depicting a crescent moon superimposed on a full moon and surrounded by fourteen stars (the holy symbol of Lendor, the Suloise god of time, tedium, patience and study) seem to be for aiding in the alignment of the separate modules.

Folded within the inside cover of the Libram are some sheets of loose parchment of a much younger age than the Libram itself, perhaps only a few decades. They describe the discovery of the Astrochron within the ruins of a temple on the other side of the Hellfurnace Mountains in the Sea of Dust by an adventuring party sponsored by the Iron League, and that it was intended as a gift to the Lendore Isles (an area settled by refugees who fled the doomed Suel Imperium) to entice that country to join the alliance against the Great Kingdom. Apparently the Astrochron was en route to the city of Lo Reltarma when it was apprehended by the smugglers who previously held the caverns where you found the device. It must be worth an Overking’s ransom if it would have been enough to sway the political alignment of an entire country. Finding a buyer was apparently something the smugglers never considered.

Spelljammer supplement SJR6 "Greyspace" https://drive.google.com/open?id=1FwD9a ... fIiSIvp806


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Fen's Ego
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Re: The Lendorian Astrochron

Post by Fen's Ego »

Once again, life imitates...the Dark Crystal.
"Good, bad, I'm the guy with the gun."
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