The Chronoheart OOC

In a parallel universe...

At the centre of the Earth lies the Chronoheart. It is an immeasurable, incomprehensible piece of machinery. And it is alive.

The Chronoheart keeps the world turning and keeps time perfectly in order. It is secure in it's cocoon of molten lead and blazing quartz. Cogs and gears, each miles high, crunch in deafening sound. Thousands of pendulums, scales, bolts and wheels turn in a blur of movement. Pistons pump tirelessly and rivers of oil flow through gullies and moats. Towers of quartz and steel chime and thrum. It is the source of all time.

But on the surface, the Chronoheart is a mere myth. The last religion to worship it disbanded and faded away millenia ago. Only a few select scholars know of the clues to it's existence. Nothing is for certain. It's just a possibility. And they pursue it because... if there was a way to control time, to harvest the energy of the Chronoheart, then if time is infinite, they would have limitless energy.

The Supreme Energy Chancellor has been very interested in this project. However, when a strange shaft leading deep into the Earth was discovered, so were several large tomes, the largest collection of Chronoheart scripture ever found. Once translated, it revealed horrible prophecies about time fracture, freezes and electrical floods.

"Time is time's", it said, "not for you or thine."

But the Chancellor ignored the warnings of the scholars, and sent down a small army to investigate the deep hole in the Earth. Twenty miles down they found it blocked, but the walls were covered in glowing quartz. The energy alone from these was enough to power their Scaler vehicles all the way to the surface. Mining began immediately.

And deep in the Earth, the Chronoheart began to growl...

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The costume here is strange, almost final fantasy style, many influences but no distinct style. The villages are cobbled streets and Tudor style housing, whilst in rural areas there are huts and cottages. The industrial districts and Council structures are magnificent steel structures that seem to pierce the sky.

Machinery is largely clockwork, and the advent of the charged quartz crystals increased energy performance by 1000%. The large cities threw themselves upon this magnificent source of energy as if it were diamonds. And the scholars attempts to warn people were ignored.

One of these scholars, Georgo Rin, was quite old. Old enough to have grandchildren. Which was a lucky co-incidence, because otherwise he might not have understood the significance of a small drawing at the back of one of the Chronoheart tomes. It was one late night in the workshop, and he was trying to solve the puzzle. The language next to the picture seemed even older than the rest of the language of the tomes, and was indecipherable.

But the picture... it was of a small group of people, barely adults, each of them with vivid clockwork gears etched onto their arms, stomachs or necks. And he thought of his grandaughter, with that odd birthmark that looked like a wobbly gear...

"Oh... my...", he said, running spindly, frail hands through his white hair. Then the phone rang.

"Rin..." an urgent voice hissed. Georgo's eyebrows knitted together. "Phosphor?"
"The Supreme Energy Chancellor. He's on his way. He's got about fifty soldiers with him. He plans to silence us. You must save the documents! The world must know how to stop this! If the prophecy is right... Future generations need to know how to stop it... You must hurry-or-". There was the sound of a scuffle, yelling, loud noise. Rin's eyes went wide in terror. The line went dead.

His heart was beating so fast it felt like one long drone. Immediately he began putting the tomes and scripts back in their box, all the artifacts in another, and all his and his colleagues notes in a third. His weak muscles straining, he lifted them onto a strange steel panel in the floor, and spoke a strange sounding incantation. There was the crunch of gears and the panel sunk into the floor, only to be replaced by paneling similar to the rest of the floor. Just then an urgent banging sounded at the door. Georgo reached for a small box on the table, opened it, and took out a small tablet. He swallowed it.

By the time the soldiers had broken through the door, Georgo was dead. The panel under the floor was linked to a complex mechanism that delivered whatever was placed on it to a safe in the nearby Kingley's Bank. The safe was under the name of West Mershire's Fishing Group, co-incidentally all the members being the very same scholars that had worked on the Chronoheart project...

And what with all these Scholars being very good with their Wills, the keys were to be given to their grandchildren in the event of death...

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It is twelve years later. The shaft leading down into the Chronoheart has been made longer and deeper, and while quartz is still in plentiful supply, strange electrical storms have been happening. Some people have seemed to age very quickly, others seem as young as they were ten years ago. Flowers have been seen to bloom and die instantly. Time is becoming irregular. The Chronoheart is a huge clock, and it's components are being dismantled.

You can be the still strangely youthful Chancellor, a soldier in his army, local authority figures, or the descendants of the scholars. When Rin spoke that incantation, he was using the language of the Chronoheart. Anyone who learns this language can control clockwork machinery, quartz and metal.

All of the scholars descendants have the strange cog wheel mark somewhere on their body, and live in the same town. They have met up to see what's in the safe all their grandfathers shared.

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Types of weapons/attack

There are two types of Clockwork Warriors; Mage CW and Fierce CW.

Mage warriors possess a casting item; a gauntlet, wand, etc, that in itself does no damage. They simply use this casting item to manipulate time/quartz/metal objects around them.

Fierce warriors use weapons with incantations already spoken or carved into them. So just by thinking what they want it to do releases the attack. They can also use bog standard melee attacks. Fierce warriors have less attacks and are limited in their command of Chronoheart language, but they are much better prepared for battle, and quicker fighters.

Please make all weapons and casting items time-themed. For example a wand could be a large clock handle. Or you could have pocket watch grenades or a bow that fires clock handle arrows.

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When the descendants find the book, and the scholars translations, they teach themselves the language to some extent, and figure out where another shaft is. They follow that down until they reach a huge underground temple, still thousands of miles away from the Chronoheart of course, but in there are all the weapons Chronoheart has designed for the "chosen" Clockwork Warriors. A strange metallic orb speaks in a chiming, tinny voice saying it is their destiny to save the world from the Time Fracture. If the Time Fracture is allowed to reach a critical level, there is no turning back. It is already beginning. Times are superimposed, people grow old or younger, and the same plant both dies and is reborn.

It's pretty epic...

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Profile Skeleton

Name:
Age: (around the twenties please, few years either way)
Gender:
Personality:
Weapon details:

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I'm at a music festival for a few days so I won't put up the IC until it's all sorted out. In the meantime feel free to really work on your characters, add any information necessary, etc. Don't forget that the Chancellor and his soldiers have access to quartz technology. It's not as advanced as the Clockwork Warriors, but by sheer numbers they make up for it. The Chancellor also has control of the charged quartz, and Fierce Clockwork warriors still need energy to power their weapons. This is where Mage Clockwork Warriors have an advantage, but incantations take so long and there isn't always any metal or time machinery to manipulate. Also if the Chancellor DOES learn any Chronoheart he can put defensive incantations on his soldiers weapons. Just some food for thought. Thanks for reading ^_^_^.

Name: Tessandra Rin
Age: 20
Gender: Female
Personality: A natural leader, she can be quite aloof. She has a cheeky sense of humour but is never sharp with it. She has a thirst for knowledge and likes being in a team. She has limited patience with moody people.
Weapon details: Her weapon is called Chronoture

(Bear in mind I am using exaggeration of the properties of quartz and tuning forks. For example quartz this size would not easily resonate when struck, and the piezoelectric properties of quartz mean it cannot “store” electricity. But… artistic license ^_^)

Chronoture is a tuning fork approximately 25cm long that fits into a dagger sized scabbard on a belt round her hips. The inside of the scabbard is plush pastel green velvet, the outside is bright stainless steel, plain. The tuning fork itself is steel for the most part, the U shape being made by two sharp blades of quartz being embedded in the handle. When struck, the fork emits a clear, high A note. If it is struck on the steel outside of the scabbard, it triggers the transformation of the tuning fork.

The fork becomes larger and heavier, and the plain steel handle changes into a more textured, easier to grip pommel, although still free of superfluous decoration.

Each time the sword strikes a hard surface, whether it’s being dragged along the floor, or striking another weapon, it emits a lower A. The harder the strike the more energy is produced, which is stored within the fork. Once a certain amount of energy is reached, Tess has the option to use one of three attacks.

Sonic Wave – a wall of sound that can cause waves in water, or internal bleeding, depending on the strength. The usual level causes severe pain in the ears that lasts for about a minute, although it does no lasting damage, and makes it difficult for the person to see until the waves have faded due to their eyeballs vibrating.

Chronotricity Strike – Due to the piezoelectric properties of quartz, when it is under enough “pressure”, an electric current is generated. This can be discharged in a single bolt either through an enemies weapon or aiming it at a specific person or place. The longer she waits to use it the more damage it does.

Chronotricity Orb – This turns the energy on herself and uses the time properties on the weapon to create a miniature time machine around herself, effectively making her move very fast. In theory she could keep doing this as each new strike of the sword would recharge the field, but the effects on her body mean after a while she starts to lose focus in her vision and her heart begins to hurt due to beating too fast. Because of this each Chronotricity Orb usually lasts 10-20 seconds, with a maximum being about two minutes. Heart pains begin at 40 seconds, vision blurring begins at 1 minute. At two minutes she’d have a heart attack and her eyes would be bleeding.

However if she has a break of about a minute between each Orb, she’s usually ok. But generally she isn’t up against an opponent of superhuman speed, so uses different attacks instead.

When she is finished with the sword, she simply imagines it getting smaller, and the weapon does, so she can fit it back into the scabbard.