The Impact of the Wild Realms Upon Arcane Engineering
This tome proves to be the most lengthy volume yet that was found by theexplorers in the library of Stalto, having very finely written text on bothsides of every plate, and the amount of new terms introduced gives greatlytests Kia's ability to translate, based on the language's similarity to theSkeek tongue. The basic purpose of the book is to showcase the writer'sproposals for some new style of quantum stabilizer system to protect devicesfrom "rare but devastating instances of quantum fluctuation." In order tofully appreciate what this writer is proposing, presumably the reader wouldalready need to be familiar with the topic, but fortunately for Kia, thewriter is verbose enough to include a considerable amount of supportingmaterial and background – not that it helps her understand any betterwhether his design is valid, but in that it provides a few more detailsabout the history of Stalto and the Moltpaa Empire as a whole.
With references and overly florid language scattered throughout the text,the following story emerges, with perhaps a few assumptions made to fill inthe gaps here and there:
Once upon a time, a nation of rodent-people settled within a wildernesscountry full of monsters and ferocious beasts. The land was fertile, butthe winters were harsh. The rat people were divided into many squabblingtribes, competing for resources and generally never at peace with eachother. Although they were ostensibly the subjects of an empire of felines,they had little contact with the foreign cats except that the latter wouldcome now and then to demand tribute during the more bountiful seasons.
It was the practice of these felines to encourage the worship of theirdeities, and to seek out some of the Skreek people who seemed especiallyfavored by the gods, and give them some modest training in the ways ofprayer and miracles. One of these wise men was known by the name of Kroz,of the Clan of Moltpaa. He had been a great warrior and a hero in hisprime, and also a skilled maker and layer of bricks. With the encouragementof one of the foreign priests, he was taught the most basic of prayers tothe gods, though he himself felt the strongest bond to the gods of earth andfire.
Then, during one particularly harsh winter, the wise man discovered amarvelous place – a cavern in which bubbled cauldrons of hot water, and inwhich grew marvelous glittering crystals and edible mushrooms.
He satisfied his great hunger with the choice mushrooms, melted snow toquench his thirst, and bathed in a tepid pool to take the chill from hisbones and dirt from his fur, and, while his fur and clothes dried, he tookpains to make a map of the location of this place, and to set up marks tohelp him find it again. He took up his belongings, set out, found his clan,and led them to this place, so that they might find refuge there. Theyfound a great bounty there, and while their enemies were left to fend forthemselves, his clan flourished, and he was recognized as the savior of hisclan, and crowned its king. So began the reign of King Kroz over the Clanof Moltpaa, and if the legends are to be held at face value, he was a verylong-lived Skreek indeed, sustained by the mineral pool he had bathed in,which – legend has it – possessed remarkable powers to do more than merelywarm weary bones. With his naming as king, the Moltpaan calendar began,ushering in what to them was the Modern Era, starting at Year 0 (rather thancalling the first year "Year 1" as most cultures are inclined to do as theymark calendars.)
Under the guidance of Kroz, the Clan of Moltpaa built their kingdom aroundthis cave, setting up rune-stones around the border of their domain aboveground to ward off their enemies, and fortifying the cavern as a naturalfortress from which to defend against invaders. The industrious Skreeksfurther expanded their underground domain, exploring the network ofwater-worn tunnels and cul-de-sacs to their further extent that any Skreekcould hope to squeeze through, and using their tools to widen passages andlevel out floors and walls and ceilings.
The imperial felines still came to demand tribute now and again of thoseSkreeks who still lived on the surface, but they had no idea that any ofthem had moved underground, and thought the Clan of Moltpaa to have beenwiped out during the winter. Kroz declared to his people that foreign godshad not saved them, foreign gods that the felines were the solerepresentatives of, but rather elemental forces just as present here in theunderground land – which they came to call Moltpaa, deeming the whole of itthe domain of their clan. Though the felines had not taught King Kroz thewhole mysterious rituals that their priests and priestesses worked to calldown miracles from the gods, Kroz expanded his own knowledge of ritual andsupplication, defining his own rituals, focusing around the inscription ofrunes of power in blocks of stone, and the harnessing of the power of fire.
The foreign names for the gods were spoken no longer, for Kroz determinedthat the great forces of nature were not heavenly Skreeks or Khattas, nordid they have the likeness of any other being. They did recognize theexistence of "spirits," for they from time to time came across elementals orspirits of the dead, but these they did not believe to be "gods," since theywere limited in form and power. Nonetheless, they came to respect greatlythe spirits and elementals, and to go to great lengths to appease them.
At some point – and it is not clear whether or not this was still duringthe reign of Kroz – the Moltpaans became aware that they were not the firstto dwell within thus underground land, but that a previous people had beenhere, whom they dubbed the Xylphrim. The book even has a very abstract,stylized image of just what a Xylphrim looks like: a centauroid figure witha tall, elongated upper body, a long snout like that of a Skreek, but withfour long ears (quite unlike that of a Skreek), four arms (each handholding a sign of one of the four elements), four eyes, four legs, fournostrils, and four wings sprouting from its back. None of these creatureswas ever met in the flesh, but only their ghosts were sometimes encountered,warning the Moltpaans away when they were about to dig into places sacred tothe Xylphrim.
In time, a kingdom flourished underneath the ground, as the Moltpaansdiscovered yet more wonders, not the least of which being flows of rock andfire – lava – that was strong with the power of the elements. Theyharnessed the power of steam, and used the power of runes and craftsmanshipto stabilize the energies that would cause such contraptions to break apart.Their great alchemists developed processes of making epoxy and resin, andways of sealing contraptions so that they appeared to be solid stone, yet aspecial chemical releasing agent would reveal the seams and allow suchstructures to be taken apart with little trouble. (Alas, the book onlyprovides some vague hints as to some of the compounds that might actually beemployed, as it appears the making of these substances was held as a closelyguarded secret by the elite of the alchemists.)
Some time is spent boasting of the great achievements of the Moltpaans,their architectural triumphs, and their making of statues capable ofmovement. It would seem that devices such as the "railway" are a relativerarity, for the Moltpaans have more of a preference for constructingcontraptions that walk or crawl upon legs rather than rolling on wheels,fashioned in the likeness of living things.
It seems that during the period around 2800-2900 ME, there was a markedincrease in appearances of ghosts and animated corpses, and hence a greatmany engineering triumphs were dedicated toward steam-powered "armor"inscribed with wards of protection, used by very brave warriors (for thesedevices many times exploded) to do battle with such monsters.
It also appears that during this time, the felines of the foreign landsstopped visiting the lands of the Skreeks, and the power of Moltpaaincreased such that their influence extended to dominate the various species – not all of them Skreeks – still living on the surface as well. It alsoappears that at some point by now, the Moltpaan people have divided intothree kingdoms: the Western Kingdom of Vrixt, the Middle Kingdom of Stalto,and the Eastern Kingdom of Naochi.
But eventually, after much preamble, the book gets to the matter of the WildRealms, the place to the north where elementals and spirits have goneinsane, and even the most carefully constructed mechanisms of stonework andsteam break down spectacularly. By more specific dates that are attached tosome incidents, it would appear that this book may have been written a fewyears shy of the Moltpaan century of 3800 ME. (The Moltpaans, alas, areisolated enough that there just aren't any hints to give a clear picture ofwhere this would be placed in comparison to other world events.)
It appears that, at the time of this writing, there is a belief that thereexists a realm to the north of the lands claimed by the Moltpaans where thepowers of magic grow more strong – and harder to control – and mechanismsare more prone to break down – and that there is a perception that thisdomain is expanding. The writer contends that in many cases the morecomplex mechanisms are more hardy at resisting the powers of the WildRealms, though there is some uncertainty as to just how or why this works.Ultimately, it seems that some of the Moltpaan tendencies toward elaborateornamentation of their machines, and making them in the form of livingbeings actually contributes to making them more hardy in their resistance of"Wild" influences – though the writer indicates that this is not a commonlyheld belief, because of some tales from the northern reaches with suchinstances as a machine in the likeness of a monster springing to life anddevouring hapless Moltpaans.
There are also some references here and there that suggest a contemporaryspirit entity who has – in a time contemporary with this document – takenupon himself the name of Kroz, who has come from the north, but who isnot a Skreek, but who has nonetheless presented himself as a god andclaimed to be the one and the same Kroz that was responsible for "creating"Moltpaa ages ago.
It would seem that the idea of worshipping their ancestor, Kroz, is alargely alien concept to the writer and his culture, but that a cult hassprung up of the Krozites, its members denoted by strange mutations thatmark their bodies – mutations that they keep hidden so that they may freelypass amongst Moltpaans and work subterfuge and sabotage. (A considerableamount of fear and paranoia is evident in the writer's references to thishidden menace, as cloaked as it might be by his attempt atintellectual-sounding phrases to refer to the problem.)
Here it also becomes clear that the writer is a citizen of the Kingdom ofStalto, and believes that the Kingdom of Naochi has worked out some unholydeal with this so-called Kroz. As for the Western Kingdom of Vrixt, thewriter refers to it as having fallen to the forces of the Wild Realms, andthe whole of it sealed by the surviving engineers as a tomb for the fallen,with traps to dissuade looters.
