Major Factions of the Deepest City

The Gas Bottling Guild
The main industry of the Deepest City is providing glass containers filled with noxious, luminescent fumes.  The work is dangerous as the concentrated fumes are toxic and the muscle driven compressors are primitive and prone to sparking explosions.  Even so the trade is very lucrative and those who live, live well.  There are very strict controls on the size and style of the glass bottles which must be manufactured in the upper reaches of the city where the gas isn't dense enough to be flammable.  Each bottling house has its own strictly defined rights to customer bases and products.  These are supported by a sizable staff of scribes and solicitors.  Some years ago there was a bloody war over the patent rights to flexible glowing tubes and such have become very rare and illegal as a result.

The Black Court
Among the thieves and beggars there is also a rule of law.  There is an order that is imposed upon the weak by the strong.  It is not known who backs the black courts of the scavengers but its enforcers are strong and loyal and none who are called to make account in the legendary court have ever returned to tell of it.  Some guess that the very gendarmes themselves are secretly behind The Black Court but others hint that something worse lurks beneath those shadows, an ancient nemesis of The Creator itself.  Of course such ideas are not only ridiculous but also blasphemous.

Merchant Houses


The Falling Ducat Company
The Rising Tarpaulin Company
The Chain and Gear Company
The Lightning Bottling Company
The Loaf and Juggernaut Company
The Blade and Corslet Company
The Bolt and Spindle Company

There are many shafts and lifts scattered around the city and those who control these control the trade in manufactured goods from above.  There is constant jockeying for position among these houses and at least one hot and deadly feud.  It happens that a promising young merchant man from the House Of The Rising Tarpaulins became infatuated with a moneylender from The House of the Falling Ducat and the series of trysts and unsanctioned reproductive acts resulted in numerous bloody confrontations until the day both offenders were found dead.  Some read it as suicide but others called it murder and as a result both houses lost esteem and even worse money over the whole ordeal.  It is rumoured there is a small fortune that is still missing.

Unsanctioned Breeding
There is great social esteem that is carried with the scars that mark those who have been chosen to pass on their genes in the crucibles of The Birthers.  Tales are told of the exquisite esctacy and suffering experienced by those who submit to the extraction process.  Naturally, wish to have this experience and glory for themselves and there is an underground trade in it that is closely tied to other illicit pleasures.  Sadly the techniques are poorly understood and the devices rather crude.  Infections and parasites are common risks but given the sensitive location of the reproductive gland a punctured lung or ruptured cooling tube can cause swift and painful death.  The Shrouded Ones seem to avoid illegal reproduction facilities, quite possibly because suicide is seen as its own punishment.

Note
Yes, this contradicts what I said before about reproduction but somehow I like the idea that it involves cutting and syringes and other instruments of glass and brass.  It emphasizes the inhumanity of those who inhabit The Great Work as well as their genderlessness.

The Great Fountain

At the very center of The Deepest City, quite some distance above the noxious cesspool at the bottom, is a great chamber which houses an enormous fountain.  The baroque grotesquerie is decorated with all manner of fanciful creatures like horses, deer, elephants and fabulous humans exquisitely unreal in their naked congress.  It is told that the fountain was brought from another world by The Creator itself and the pure waters that pour from the fountain flow out of that unimaginable realm.  The tunnels within the fountain house an unusual cult of amphibious folk who count the time with their ritual, keening songs that measure and count the flow of the water.  In spite of their small numbers and exclusive tenants, control of the pure fountain water makes that cult both rich and powerful.

The King of the Pit

The lips part and words drift out in a mocking, sing song tone, "How do I know you?  Even how I know everything.  They are with me in the darkness as they are with you in the darkness.  They speak to me and taunt me with their knowledge of a living world beyond this dead and mouldering pit.  They mock me as they serve me.  The secret masters know it well, so they stop up their ears with wax lest at any time they might hear the truth of all things and become mad."

There is a winding path that starts in a ruined shingle shack in the most choked and crowded heart of The Deepest City.  The way is secret and known only to a few select oligarchs of the arcane and obscure orders who tread the hidden way, at times selected by complex sets of equations and signs, to consult the mad oracle known as The King of the Pit.  The spirals of this path are lined with piled bones and desiccated exoskeletons.  Brass widgets and joints poke out from the charnel crypts and unwholesome things skitter about among the rags.  Far below the lowest city tunnels the spiraling corridor opens upon a vast and dank pit and continues as a crumbling path.  The center of the pit is directly below The Great Fountain and water drips and sprays on the lower spirals.  At the bottom of the pit is a dismal island in a fetid lake where sits a broken throne of stone.

On that crumbling, mildewed seat sits a massive figure in rotted velvet robes of deepest purple.  A weighty but tarnished crown of gold and set with jewels rests on its weary brow and an unkempt beard hangs in tangles about its gnarled hands and feet but its eyes gaze keenly into the darkness.  It will call those who come to its dark island by their true names and can speak with some authority on matters long past and things to come.  If asked of itself it will only tell that it is bound there to serve The Creator until it has atoned for all the misdeeds that ever come from its rebellion.  That ancient, fallen king is a mighty sorcerer beyond measure and those who seek to slay or rob it will be beset by haunts that rise from the lake and fiends of the outermost void which will tear themselves from the darkness itself with blood curdling cries.

Note
The King in the Pit should not be an easily found exposition device.  Instead it should be one of those things the Newly Risen find out long after and high above the Deepest City.  It's a hook to draw them back down into consequences of past actions looking for clues to their being and nature.  Really, other than The Creator, there is nobody else who can tell them who they were and what really happened.

Breeding Pits
The stately white halls of the birthing crucibles are the ambition of all young folk and the horror of all those who have been so honoured.  Every population center has a number of these hallowed institutions where genetic material is siphoned from the internal organs of the progenitors of the new child.  These fluids are combined in a spinning orb warmed by a slow burning candle as the cells join and share and multiply in the special gelatinous media on which they are fed as they grow.  When the candle is burned down, a quivering mass of protoplasm is removed from the orb with steel tongs and plunged into a ceramic basin where it is shaped with cunning hooks and paddles.  Splinters of resinous extrusions are placed to encourage the formation of bones and joints, and at times brass fittings which will be required by their trade and station later in life.  All the while the protoplasm is fed with a constant flow from a great work of tubes and boilers which is mixed with a constant draught of the progenitor's blood.

For the parent / progenitors the experience is agonizing and often causes ecstatic fits and seizures.  For those who have bred, there is no fear in any pain which may come in life.  They have faced the worst their skin and bone can offer.  Even so, most compulsively continue to seek the honor again and again until at last they are used up and perish.  Their ruin flung into the refuse pits with no greater honor than the lowest of the lowly.

Children
It is fitting that all folk pass through a period of education as they grow into their fittings and are fitted for their roles.  There are specialized institutions called Children's Gardens where this work is done.  Only the children destined for the upper stations of society actually have gardens but the name is traditional and comforts anxious parents who are prone to wantonly indulging their offspring if they are permitted.  The wayward and silly quirks of childhood are remorselessly beaten out of them by the Wardens and their staffs of Nurturers.  These are generally individuals who are being punished for failure in their own position and can never hope to breed or be entrusted with children of their own.  This bitterness and dishonor are considered fitting goads to produce a properly stringent and realistically rigid upbringing.  Children are released to their progenitors at festival times after which they are carefully debriefed by agents of policy to detect any deterioration in their parent's enthusiasm and zeal for the great work.  Where such deterioration is found expediently sharp rebuke and dissolution are sure to follow as the replacements are well on their way.

The Shrine of the Brilliant Shaft

There is a particularly beautiful and well appointed shrine in the upper districts of The Deepest City.  In the nave of this little place of worship a brilliant beam of light descends from a shaft in the ceiling and strikes a large prism so that it fills the place with a fractured rainbow that shifts and circles in beautiful geometric patterns on the flawless white walls and the white robes of the initiates.  The keepers of the shrine tell that the shaft falls directly down in a straight course from the very Spire of The Creator itself, unbroken and unbent to guide the paths of those who dwell in darkness.  The truth of this has never been determined because the shaft is extremely narrow and smooth.  The shrine is reputed to be a particularly relaxing place for contemplation and meditation and the expected donation is shocking.  None the less it is also rumoured that those who attend often are somehow in the sway of the keepers and no longer their own masters.

The Gallery of Torment
A popular attraction in the upper chambers of The Deepest City is open to the public for a small donation for the upkeep of the facility.  The walls of this gallery are decorated with folk held to the walls with staple and slowly dying from every known form of torment.  The artisans of the gallery are professional and silent in their blood red robes as they go about their business with a well placed blow here or a screw twisted there for the pleasure of the audience.  New attractions are deposited into a cage filled with a mild acid by a chute that opens far above.  What crime the attractions committed that has deposited them here to die is unknown and their tormented deaths are a matter of course and tradition as much as anything but there is a certain delight taken in the finery of their attire and their shocked declarations as the artisans first cut their tongues out and mount them in their frames.  It is widely believed that the attractions believed they were being rewarded richly when they entered the chute long miles above in a higher place.

The First Ascent
Near the Great Fountain, a wide and slowly sloping course begins which leads to the higher cities of Records, Accounts, and Rulings.  There is always heavy traffic on this, the first major road that unites The Great Work as a society.  Slowly drawn wains rise and descend in lanes on the road way, carefully watched by road wardens who deliberate matters of traffic and trafficking.  Heavy fines and tolls are laid on those who travel the road for while there are many shafts and stairs leading onwards, none are as true nor as wide as the great tunnel of the first ascent.

Numerous way posts, quarries, and mines branch off of the great road as do fungus farms, monastaries , tangled cave complexes and cavernous parklands where sporting events uncouth and precious are held for the delight of frothing fans.

The Triple Cities
Hundreds of miles above The Deepest City with its teeming, squalid masses and natural cave formations are three neatly executed and ordered cities which keep the records of The Great Work.  These cities are known for their function: Records, Accounts, and Rulings.  Each has three sectors surrounding a great central archive shaft where lifts and ladders are keyed to complex lexical systems that allow almost any detail to be dredged up in slightly less than a life time.  These cities are spaced widely enough that the majority of great shafts and chutes leading to The Deepest City are avoided by their clean and methodical architecture.  There is nothing decorative in The Triple Cities.  The strict pursuit of function is the highest order and the only locked doors belong to the gendarmes stationed here.  There is a terrifying sense of openness, a constant dread of being seen out of place or time under the cautious watch of the observation posts above every major concourse and chamber.

The folk of the triple cities wear robes that denote their position, station, and rank in a rigid and regimented fashion.  Hats are the thing of fads and ridiculous headgear is commonplace.  Fruits and birds and festoon the haberdashery, though no hatters are permitted in the three cities and the local constabulary make extensive use of hat snatching monkeyrats and rattatats in removing illicit, smuggled headgear.

The Trifold Roadways
The ascent roads that leave the triple cities are so complex as to be maze like with the on and off ramps, exits and out ways being so extensive that hiring a pilot is necessary to navigate them and the road wardens will not permit anyone to enter the road without one.  The Guide himself is a well known and certified pilot though even he must pay the heavy gratuities and tolls required to travel the main roads, and thus he prefers a route of winding stairs and lost lifts and passages which avoid the notice and visibility of the roadways for a slower but more dangerous passage towards the lower sumps.

Note: The Role of The Guide
Throughout the ascent of the Newly Risen, the guide will reserve comment on the morality of society or the fairness of life in The Great Work.  That is not to say it is without bias, it will unfailingly lead its charges to see the worst the world has to offer.  Given a choice between a hostel that fosters escaped children and helps them to find a new place in society and a pit where small animals are smashed for the sake of entertainment, The Guide will always choose the latter.  After a dangerous encounter it might suggest some light entertainment and then lead the way to the Gallery of Torment.  If challenged on this it will only point out that such places were favored by previous clients and ask if their tastes are more exotic or refined.  There are always worse horrors to be found.

While it should not be pointed out or declared, The Guide is welcome in all walks of life.  There is no establishment or station it is not able to enter freely or give access to but this fact will not be explained or declared.  If pressed the guide will say "In my work I meet many people from many places and my name is good where I have passed because I am good at what I do."  No other explanation will be offered.

Escher's Prism
Level 5 Spell
Requires at tetrahedral prism
This spell briefly divides reality into four symmetrical planes outside creating four potential courses of action.  This allows the duplicate individuals in the four realities to take four individual courses of action in response to a situation with the caster selecting the most preferable result as the true path.  It is not known whether the other courses carry on as discrete universes after the spell ends only that the caster exists in the one where the most desirable result occurred.

Escher's Mirror
Level 3 spell
Requires a two sided mirror
When cast, the situation before the magician becomes a super imposed double reflection.  As such the number of individuals in the plane of effect is doubled. This incongruous state persists until the spell ends.  If a duplicate individual dies while thus affected, the living party remains when the spell ends.

Spray of Disconsolate Tears
Level 2 Spell
The magician's eyes shower the area in an atomized yellow liquid.  This seeping horror weakens natural armor and burns at soft tissue.  The targets in the affected cone suffer 1d6 damage and any natural armor class is reduced by two until that damage is healed.

All Consuming Absence
Level 6 Spell
A Horror of the Void is conjured.  This seething mass of tentacles and filaments of all shapes and sizes is black and chill as the void itself. Virtually invisible in darkness it attacks everything it can reach but most especially those bearing lamps or torches.

Huge Void Aparation
The void may seem empty yet there are unseen beings dwelling there-in.  It is believed that the void is their natural habitat, yet such beings hate the light and the living.

Move 6"
HD 6d12
Attacks 2d6 at +1
Damage 1d12
Armor Class 24 in darkness 18 in shadow 12 in light

Dissolution
Level 3 Spell
Duration 1 hour
This spell fills a 5' radius with a viscous acidic spray.  Those who are bound or fail a Dexterity saving throw suffer 1d6 damage per round for a full hour as chitten, flesh, and bone melt away into a greyish sludge.  Dissolution cannot be washed off with water but it can be burned off by fire, the fire must burn for at 1d6 rounds, causing 1d6 additional damage per round.  This spell is primarily used by the gendarmes to execute victims that are bound or grappled by a stalker.  It is known to a few outside the gendarmerie but seldom practiced as there are better combat spells.

Among the Roots of Crystal

The great crystal spires are deeply rooted, yet even those roots are far above the smelting pits.  The crystal roots are uncut and unpolished but still have a glittering, multifaceted appearance.  Light flows softly through their rough surfaces where chambers and tunnels cross their way.  An unusual culture thrives in those softly lit spaces where prisoners and favored servants rub shoulders amid treasure troves and wine cellars.  Perhaps, most tellingly, the rank, role and station of any given person is not readily apparent from their form and attire.  An amiable lawlessness permeates the conversations and idle pleasures of the underclasses who live with the good will of their masters and enjoy the privilege of an open and unafraid society.

It may be that the servants and favored prisoners are beneath the gendarmes and constabulary or perhaps their master's favor and privacy shelters the root dwellers but such authorities are not found here.  Peaceful public houses and glistening lakes provide entertainment and camaraderie for the local folks who are generally suspicious and unfriendly to outsiders who might well bear word to the people in charge and ruin the excellent circumstances.  Most shockingly children are often seen at large and playing freely among the glimmering shadows.  While there is a certified Children's Garden, its masters have heretical views on the rearing of children and are more likely to give them sweets and kind words than a proper whipping.

That this frightening Bohemian community exists at all is surely as deadly a blow to the established social order as any lurching things crawling their way up from the depths of chaos.  While The Guide is well aware of the roots and their progressive social order, it will never willingly lead the Newly Risen there nor abide the place for long.  Like the Gendarmes and Constables there is something utterly repellant to the Guide in the halls of the broken rainbow.

The School of Universal Light

Scholarship is reserved for the upper classes and even then is tightly monitored and controlled.  There is only one institution of higher learning in all The Great Work.  It's campus is set in the base of three great spires and the light they emit is so bright that all the students and professors must wear dark glasses in order to see.  Here the dictates and work of The Creator are taught but never discussed or questioned.  The three gendarmes assigned to monitor the school at all times see to that.  Here, speculation brings a swift and ruthless dissolution.  Much can be learned in The School of Universal Light and the great luminaries of society have all studied there but less than half of those who enroll live to graduate.

The Free Gazettes
These simple sheets of paper, folded four fold have been the death of many.  Printed at a hidden location, the gazettes discuss history and philosophy, questioning the justness of the Gendarmes, revealing corruption, and speaking of change.  Naturally these crimes are an invitation to a swift execution without trial. The Free Gazettes can be purchased from furtive street vendors or be found in small stacks on public benches or in latrine stalls.  The Gendarmes have been known to purge entire districts with bale fire just to destroy large caches of the Gazettes.  The presses have never been found nor have the infamous writers and illustrators behind the seditious truths there-in.

The reality is that there is no secret press. The presses of the triple cities are used by a small cabal of anarchists bent on liberating the masses.  Working from their roles as artisans within the great bureaucratic engines of they secretly compile the Gazettes using a rotating cell system which permits their goals to proceed.  If the Gendarmes knew about their secret libraries and the books which collect and collate every issue and many items thought safely purged from the records, the reaction might be enough to topple the social order by its very ferocity.  The Free Press Gang know they are engaged in a serious work and have little use for rebels and incautious maniacs who would throw away generations of careful planning and preparation for a brief but demonstrative struggle.  They war with The Creator itself and their methods have stood them in good stead against an immortal and all but omniscient foe.  They are still here when revolutions and revolutionaries have come and gone and been swept clean from recorded history since the first spire rose from the depths of chaos.

The Court of Universal Justice

There is a level of public justice for the people of the triple cities and the spires.  The Creator in its wisdom has permitted the creation of a great outdoor court where the morality of justice can be viewed by the people for their education, edification, and entertainment.  The Court is held up as a great and public proof of the fairness and wisdom of society.  The Gendarmes are very careful in selecting cases that will produce the proper social results.  As such acquittals are almost as common as convictions and the punishments are generally fitting and merciful, after all, any truly serious crime by persons of low standing are dealt with out of hand with no recourse to a fair trial.  In any case, no trial goes to the stand before the verdict and sentence have been assigned.  The judges are chosen from the best students of law coming out of the School of Universal Light.  The constabulary provide the prosecution and witnesses while the plaintiff is required to present their own defense unaided.

Note: Magic In Society
The Great Work exists in the terminator region that lies between primal chaos and the absolute void.  This exotic local creates a powerful tension in which a focused will can create and mould matter.  Indeed, this is clearly how the Creator proceeds in its own work.  The very matter of the world is structured by the will and mind of the creator and thus there is magic everywhere.

The School of Universal Light is the only official and sanctioned place in which the magical arts are taught.  Not surprisingly the arts taught there work with what the creator has woven and do not meddle with the delicate balance of energies drawn from the void and chaos.  Most students and graduates of The School will have a few skill levels in Magic and know a few spells relating to their profession.  Magistrates and Governors are capable magicians in their own right.  There is a small cabal of true professional sanctioned wizards who carefully oversee the use of magic in general.  The Creator knows every spell in the book and perhaps even more.

But there are other paths of magic.  There is the simple magic of the common folk.  Spells picked up in their trades or even on the streets.  Most of these are minor tricks or novelties that make life simpler by finding lost items or changing the color of cloth or the flavor of food.  There are renegade sorcerers who pass their knowledge of the void to a lone apprentice and treacherous warlocks sworn to the power of chaos, who meet in secret covens and strive to tear down The Great Work and replace The Creator itself.

In practice there are three realms of magic which are used to determine the availability of spells to Magicians, Warlocks, and Sorcerers.  These are Light, Chaos, and the Void.

Excerpt From The Catechism of The School of Universal Light

What is chaos?

Chaos is the raw stuff of imagination as flowing and formless as the sea.

What is the void?

The void is the absence of thought, the absence of being, the absence of purpose.

What is light?

Light is the will and intelligence to shape chaos into the open void and impose order.

What is The Creator?

The creator is the light of The Great Work.

Who is The Creator?

The creator is the one true thing in the world of Its own dreams.

Who are we?

We are instruments of pure light in The Creator's hands.

Squams
The endless tiny things that breed freely, laying their eggs and feeding on filth and refuse are collectively referred to as Squams.  In the city of Records there is an entire library dedicated to the taxonomy of these vital but repellant creatures.

Squams
Tiny Creature
Number Appearing d%
Hit Dice d4
Strength -4
Dexterity +4
Intelligence -6
Wisdom -4
Charisma -6
Natural Weapons do 1d4 damage, roll 10+ to save verses 1d6 poison damage

Festerlings
These small, stunted creatures are the result of illicit breeding attempts gone wrong.  They are about half the height of an ordinary person and have long sharp teeth and just enough intelligence and imagination to be bitter, hateful, and cunning.  As absolute rejects from society the Festerlings haunt the dark lower tunnels feeding on Squams and lost souls.

Festerling
Small Creature
Number Appearing 2d6
Hit Dice 1d6
Strength -2
Dexterity +2
Intelligence -4
Charisma -4
1d3 random traits rolls of Large Size or Heavy Build are lost automatically with no reroll.

Laborourious
Folk who have been bred to hard labour are found in most parts of The Great Work.  They are generally placid and quick to follow orders but if ordered to attack by their superiors they can be deadly foes, attacking with picks, shovels, and crude clubs.

Laborourious
Large Creature
Hit Dice 1d10
Strength +2
Dexterity -2
Constitution +2
Intelligence -2
Charisma -2
Heavy Build

The following spells originate with the Birthers but over the ages they have fallen into the hands of a few other cabals.  The unsanctioned use and knowledge of these spells is highly illegal and those who violate that law are subject to dissolution without holding, questioning, or trial as a matter of course.  They are simply too dangerous to live.

Drawing genetic material by means of a syringe causes 1d4 damage.  Digging it out with a blade causes 1d8 damage.

Only Sleeping
Level 5 ritual

Drawing genetic material and blood from a newly fallen corpse, the magician weaves a cocoon about it.  As the body is dead the genetic pouch can be accessed with a sharp knife.  The body lies in the cocoon for 3d6 x10 cycles before clawing its way out, restored but changed.  Reroll the creature's Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Charisma, and all of its Traits but it keeps its Intelligence, Wisdom, Skill Levels, and any known Spells.

Extension of the Self
Level 4 ritual
By drawing genetic material and blood from the subject the magician creates a protoplasmic lump which can be shaped into any physical Trait except Size modifiers.  While they can be attempted, The amount of material needed to increase or reduce Size kills the subject in the process. The added trait is ungainly and rarely fits the subject properly so Dexterity is reduced by 2 points.  Any necessary mechanical fittings must be supplied.  These can be crafted, supplied by a merchant, or looted from a corpse.

Flesh Binding
Level 3 ritual
By drawing their own blood and the subject's genetic material the magician closes and mends wounds with a slurry of protoplasm.  The magician takes damage equal to the amount of damaged healed.  Flesh bindings are never beautiful as the half living slurry boils up and welts as it squirms and fights to take on its own existence before it is absorbed into the subject.  Flesh Binding also leaves the subject susceptible to Suggestion and Mind Binding by the caster, giving them a one point penalty per point healed to saving throws against those spells when cast by the healer.

Suggestion
Level 1 Spell
1 Round Per Magic Skill Level
The magician speaks a few words and they take deeply in the subject's heart and mind.  They must make a Wisdom saving throw or act on the suggestion immediately and must make continued saving throws each round to act on it until the spell ends or they do so.

Mind Binding
Level 5 Ritual
Permanent
The magician injects a tiny amount of their genetic material into the subject.  This material flows into the blood of the subject into their brain where it forms a tumour of protoplasm bound to the magician's will.  This reduces the subject's Intelligence and Wisdom by two and makes them permanently subject to suggestions made by the magician.  A Wisdom saving throw can be made against each suggestion but must continue to be made each round until it is acted upon.

Ever Seeping Wound
Level 2 Ritual
Permanent
The magician teases out a wound in their flesh that provides constant and easy access, by means of a short tube, to their genetic material for use with other spells.  This permanently reduces their maximum hit points by three.

The Spark of Life
Level 6 Ritual
Permanent
The magician conjures a tiny spark of life force from the Emperym and binds it to a growing mass of protoplasm.  This provides the sentient soul to the protoplasm allowing it to become a person instead of an animal.  The protoplasm must still be shaped and bound into its form to become a fully developed person instead of a twisted and deformed monster.
Level 6 Ritual

The White Room
At the highest level of the Deepest City is an exclusive resort for the upper crust of society.  The heart of the club is The White Room, a cylindrical chamber with a domed roof all in the purest white tile.  A soft, even, magical light radiates from every surfaces, leaving only the barest of shadows to delinate the features of the chamber.  There are motifs of gardens and parklands all in faint white.  Circular tables of white wood and covered in white spreads set with white dishes and cutlery.  The serving staff are all pure bred albinos dressed in white livery.  The kitchens are well supplied with fresh food brought at great expense from the Harvest Lands by the most swift and expedient lifts and shafts.

Here Gendarmes, Magistrates, Hierophants, Breeders, and Wizards meet to discuss and plan the forwarding of The Creator's Will.  None would ever suggest their deeds forwarded their own wills though a surprising number of hot debates occur.  Out from the White room is a balcony that wraps half way around and juts out precariously over the chamber of the fountain.  Providing the revelers a beautiful view of that radiant, unearthly beauty.

Behind the White Room lie the spotlessly clean kitchens and larders where enough wasted food to feed thousands is fed into a sump shaft every day.

The master of the White Room is a powerful Wizard known as The Fallen Star.  Those who disturb the peace of his private paradise will face his wrath.  He is utterly condescending of lesser beings and even considers his patrons the lowest sort of minor functionaries of his supremely important role.  The patrons respond to his sharp rebukes by fawning and grovelling for his favour and forgiveness.

The Fallen Star
Strength 16
Dexterity 18
Constitution 12
Intelligence 20
Wisdom 16
Charisma 18

Big Head, Large Size

Fighting 6
Hit Dice 6
Lore 12
Magic 12
Resist 12
Dodge 6

White Rock Quarries
The white rock, so favored in The Great Work's architecture was quarried from large deposits in the lower reaches.  These are now depleted and it seems there is no more of it coming.  The vast, empty chambers where every last sliver of white rock has been removed have become the parklands, parade grounds, and market squares of the depths. The structure of these valuable open spaces has been reinforced girders and panels of steel at many points as steel is more available and cheaper than wood so far beneath the surface.

White rock has a character much like marble but without the veins of color.  A small piece of white rock is a common material component in light spells but it has no natural luminescence of its own.

A Description of The Creator
The Creator is reclusive and seldom seen by even the upper echelons of society.  Its close aids direct much of the governance of the folk who dwell within its Great Work.  There are no statues or paintings of The Creator, nor does It require or desire worship, only the orderly and peacefully continuation of society.  Even so written descriptions exist and seem to be in accord.

They tell that The Creator is a tall black figure with black, feathered wings.  So black is its countenance that details are hard to discern in any light.  There is no halo or aura about the figure and while it has been seen to fly it generally walks with a slow, unhurried stride.  The most famous accounts come from the incursion that lead to the construction of the great outer wall around The Harvest Lands and the other at the great tulip riots where its very appearance quelled the disruptive uproar of destitute flower sellers.  In both scenes The Creator was said to bear a great sword in the blackness of which, points of light swirled and flickered.  The blade is absent in the many, less thrilling appearances of The Creator.

A great volume is kept in the Chamber of the Conclave where every known word spoken by The Creator but the words incite more arguments as to Its intent and purpose than they clarify.

Words Of The Creator

Art for its own sake is seldom practical but a work of engineering or architecture is judged not only on its ascetic value but on its functionality.

As volume increases at the cube of the linear dimension it should not be surprising that the effort involved in producing a small change in a large work is often greater than what is required to produce a large change in a small work.

An autonomous system requires some degree of free will.  Without it the time involved in adjusting the individual elements of any reasonably complex system will exceed the functional operating time of the whole.

The void is a single infinite point that divides many worlds like a veil.  Chaos is the sum total of existence when viewed without the illusion of conscious thought.

In the beginning, in my thought, I conceived of a perfect world and the first shining spire burst forth from the abyss but even then, in the depths of chaos did the leviathan stir.

Note
I'm thinking to use these as chapter heading blurbs.