New Idigam

[Acrozatarim]

I figure we could do with a thread for new idigam as examples for people to use whole-cloth or just as inspiration for their games

I'll be writing up the High Cromlech and the Operator from my Paris game in a bit, and maybe drafting up Afzu'Umm'Ia from the Bristol Hunting Ground as well - plus maybe some of the sample idigam mentioned in the rules section of the prey chapter.

[Acrozatarim]

Usual disclaimer, my players stay out, etc

So let's start off with the High Cromlech

High Cromlech
The High Cromlech is an Earth-Bound idigam, one that has laired where Paris now stands for millenia. It is a being of death, once so utterly fascinated by funerary rites and the transition from life that it gouged out a spiritual lair beneath the land to try and make its own little underworld, stealing away souls and ghosts and spirits and forging a little tomb-empire all of its own. Sometimes it would terrorise the living with its harvests; other times it interwove itself with the beliefs of the men and women who gathered at shrines and temples and offered honour to the dead and to the gods. At some point, it began to sleep, but by now its presence had so impregnated the consciousness of humanity in the area that they and it dreamt of dark, subterranean worlds of the dead together, and the Essence from their fears and beliefs of death poured down into its domain. Over time, the High Cromlech ceased to simply be an entity and became geography, fully becoming the realm it had carved out. Now it slumbers, only occasionally rousing what is left of its consciousness - such as when the graveyards of Paris so groaned with the weight of the dead that they began to dig down into the rock to stock underground galleries with the cadavers. Most of the time, it simply exists in dormancy, and the grotesque caricature of society within it caper and serve the dreaming whims that they catch from their lord and master's sleep.

The High Cromlech is fed from a network of leylines running from old cromlech sites around France; they form a nexus in Paris, which then drains the collected Essence of death and reverence down into the idigam's lair. This allows it to continue to survive in its dormant state, and to maintain the domain of High Cromlech. Now, though, the ancient behemoth turns in its sleep once more - the return of its fellow idigam and the simple increase in population of humanity are intruding into its dreaming state. In response to this, the cromlech lines are hungrily devouring down far more Essence, attempting to fuel the idigam's reawakening. The sheer level of power involved is causing reality to break down in some spots along the leylines, whether in the form of verges, interstitial terrain or outbreaks of sickness and death.

Access to the idigam-realm is possible but difficult. It roughly exists somewhere underneath Paris, connected to the catacombs, but where exactly seems to sometimes shift, and near where the High Cromlech touches the physical world, the passages' become Escher-like in their tangled madness. Even so, the rare explorer still stumbles upon High Cromlech from time to time. Most never leave, but a few escape with tales that seem utterly delusional. The servants of High Cromlech seem able to navigate their way to wherever the juncture is with utter ease, even if it's moved since they left the tomb-domain.

High Cromlech itself is an absurd, warped necropolis that coils in on itself, with insane geometry and monstrous, grim monoliths. It is a place of vast tombs, soaring architecture of marble and bone, twisting roads flanked by weeping statues and endless fields of the dead. It is a city of cadavers that the idigam has absorbed from Paris's graveyards, corpse and resting place and all, remade into the idigam's own flesh and sinew. The place is awash with deathly Essence; cold, glimmering lights bob and dance, while blazing blue gravefire crackles and dances in braziers and sconce; the shadows are thick with the faint, phantasmal shapes of fading ghosts. There are denizens here; some are dead themselves, powerful old ghosts that have retained much of their strength and will, becoming a mad priesthood overseeing the labyrinthine bureaucracy of High Cromlech and its utterly nonsensical laws and orders. Weaker ghosts that have fallen into the spiritual gravity well of High Cromlech and were unable to escape (or whom were stolen outright by the hunger of the tomb-city) are conscripted to serve the endless, circular patterns of the government's administration. There is no Twilight in High Cromlech, and so ghosts are all naturally materialised here.

Beyond the ghosts entrapped in the idigam's insane desire to be the human concept of death, there are also the living. Most of these are Claimed by grave-spirits, becoming warped horrors of bone, rotting flesh, carven granite and crumbling grave-dirt. Some are amazingly still themselves, although usually quite insane, and these 'prophets' are usually chained up by the rulers of High Cromlech who believe that the city's will can be discovered from their gibbering. Sometimes, at the subconscious will of the idigam, Claimed and ghosts march out into the real Paris to steal the dead or harvest the rich Essence at a tomb; other times, living victims are ejected out in a strange, random act of mercy.

If the High Cromlech wakes, then as long as the leylines feed it, it should be able to maintain its necropolis within itself; going on previous occasions, the idigam will likely manifest itself as an avatar of the tomb-city to go forth an enact its plans - whatever those might be. Without the Essence to maintain its realm, though, the High Cromlech will collapse with unforeseeable results, although the idigam itself will survive the event. It is likely to be hungry, whatever the outcome, and ambitious to rebuild or expand its underworld Empire.

The High Cromlech first Coalesced amongst early human priests who were enacting their rites amongst ancient standing stones. These shape its Ban and Bane, but the event in question was so utterly distant in the past that there's no easy way to research the Earth-Bound's origin.



I'll pop up some stats etc tomorrow, along with the High Cromlech's unique Essence Shaping and Dread Powers, and rules for how to harm it while it's a necropolis rather than a singular entity.

[Aiden]

This is so much better than most of the Idigam in the second edition core. With some of them it's only a little bit better than they are!

No offense intended to the writers, because the were all excellent. I'm engaging in hyperbole to express how I feel about how awesome this is.

[YeOfLittleFaith]

....
An idigam that is pretty much a necropolis. A living, protean tomb that hosts the dead and the living as prisoners and twists them to its purposes. In and of itself a physical underworld kingdom and dead city with a will of its own that would extend itself to become the very concept of death.

I'm sorry but I need a minute to process how amazing this is.

[nofather]

Wow, the High Cromlech isn't anything like I was expecting. It's particularly...weird. It kind of reminds me of the primordials from Exalted.

[strider1276]

I really wish I'd thought of something like that when I was writing my idigam in the book. Dammit.

[nofather]

Which did you write? I've only read the Heavenly Fire and the Endless so far but both are great.

[strider1276]

Which did you write? I've only read the Heavenly Fire and the Endless so far but both are great.

Those two, actually, and the Deceiver Lune.

[Barbrarilen]

Wow, the High Cromlech isn't anything like I was expecting. It's particularly...weird. It kind of reminds me of the primordials from Exalted.

Funny, my first thought was that it would make a great Gentry-reality-plane for Changeling.

[Octavo]

That's a neat idea from a Geist point of view too. I wonder if Sin-Eaters would see this domain as a particularly aggressive domain of the underworld?

[Leetsepeak]

That's a neat idea from a Geist point of view too. I wonder if Sin-Eaters would see this domain as a particularly aggressive domain of the underworld?

If nothing else, it's definitely messing with the Underworld and ghosts in the area, I could see Sin-Eaters being very concerned about it.

[Seidmadr]

Holy shit, this one is AMAZING.
Does the Cromlech-realm also connect to the Underworld?

Also... What does Cromlech mean?

[Acrozatarim]

Generally 'cromlech' refers to very old megalithic structures you get in the British Isles, France and Spain. Specifically, it usually means the stone tombs from that era though you also get cromlech standing stones etc.

Edit: Also, part of the specific inspiration for the High Cromlech are the occult theories that there are 'cromlech lines' running between the cromlech circles in France that all intersect in a nexus under the zero point of Paris

[Acrozatarim]

The High Cromlech
The High Cromlech has certain stats in brackets. Normally the idigam manifests as a large avatar from its own substance, but if the High Cromlech were to collapse its internal realm and fully remake itself, its size and Dread Powers are increased.

Rank 5
Attributes: Power 14 Finesse 13 Resistance 15
Willpower: 10 Essence: 100 Initiative: 28
Defence: 15 Speed: 30 (25) Size: 15 (60)
Corpus: 30 (135) Armour: 0 (15)
Influences: Death 5, Stone 3
Numina: Awe, Blast, Dement, Entropic Decay, Ghost Eater, Implant Mission, Regenerate, Stalwart, 3 Numina slots exchanged for Influence dots
Manifestations: Cromlech Gateway*, Gauntlet Breach, Materialise, Reaching, Shadow Gateway, Twilight Form
Essence Shaping: Essence Void, Forge Claimed, Forge Fastness*, Ghost Manipulation, Locus Manipulation, Shadow Warp
Dread Powers: Absorb Ghost*, Dreams of the Dead*, (Colossus), Puppet Cadaver*, Soul Furnace, Soul Slave
Ban: The High Cromlech cannot harm a human priest.
Bane: Stone from a dolmen or menhir at Carnac in Brittany.

New Powers:
Dread Power - Absorb Ghost: If the High Cromlech uses its Death Influence to Create or Mass Create death and kill normal human beings, then any ghosts created by the sudden and shocking expiration are immediately absorbed into the realm of High Cromlech; the souls of the dead are also immediately harvested as per the Forge Servant rules.

Manifestation - Cromlech Gateway:This unique Manifestation works the same as Shadow Gateway, except it opens a portal into the necropolis of the High Cromlech.

Dread Power - Dreams of the Dead:The High Cromlech can sense the presence of ghosts in a five mile wide radius, and can use the Implant Mission numen on any such ghost remotely. Since the High Cromlech spends most of its time in slumber, the implanted missions are usually very vague or even utterly nonsensical, resulting in crazed ghosts obsessed with inexplicable goals or impossible objectives.

Essence Shaping - Forge Fastness:This Essence Shaping power is rare but potent. An idigam with Forge Fastness can spin off a portion of the Shadow into its own Deep Shadow realm, a process that takes one month and costs 100 Essence. During this time the local Shadow buckles and warps before budding off the new realm, usually retaining one or two paths to reach it from the normal Hisil. Within a Fastness, the idigam can shape and sculpt its home to its own tastes and may use the Shadow Warp Essence Shaping at no cost as long as it only affects the Fastness's innards.

Beyond that, at an additional cost of 50 Essence over a month, the idigam may further change the rules of the Fastness's internal properties or how it interacts with the outside world. Every month, the idigam must expend 50 Essence to maintain the realm and prevent it from collapsing; each change of the Fastness's laws adds a further 50 Essence to the cost. The High Cromlech has made the following changes to its Fastness:
- The High Cromlech connects to the world of Flesh through a shifting maze of tunnels, which its Claimed can always sense the location of.
- Ghosts within the High Cromlech are always Manifested for free, and follow different rules to normal for expending Essence to survive; the High Cromlech is a favourable environment but, when a ghost is destroyed within it the idigam absorbs whatever is left of their memories.
- The High Cromlech has actually become its Fastness, and can create an 'avatar' of itself to send forth.
These three alterations mean that the High Cromlech must expend 200 Essence every month to maintain the necropolis realm. This largely comes from the font of Essence pouring in down the Cromlech lines, but servants of the High Cromlech are also sent out to harvest deathly Essence from tombs, graveyards and the like to feed the idigam.

Dread Power - Puppet Cadaver:At a cost of 1 Essence per cadaver, the High Cromlech can animate any number of dead bodies that it can perceive as an Instant action. These animated corpses are reflexively controlled by the idigam and it is able to perceive an area around each puppet cadaver; the animation lasts until sunrise. Upon animating a cadaver, the High Cromlech may also immediately resculpt them as if it had had two minutes of using the Divine Clay Dread Power on them. A cadaver that is 'slain' while the High Cromlech is controlling it cannot be the subject of this Dread Power again.

[YeOfLittleFaith]

Holy crap.

I'm sorry, I'm having difficulty coming up with a more coherent way to describe my feelings on this.