Otherspaces for dukes with class, and without.

AGADE (THE PURPLE)

Description
The Purple is a large stately mansion and grounds. Everything within the purple screams wealth, luxury and nobility, from the luxurious beds in the guest room, to the fabulous artworks on the walls and the sumptuous feasts in the dining room. The weather outside is pleasant, and the gardens well manicured and neat. Inside, not a speck of dust can be seen, and the food in the dining room is always warm, and delicious, and laid out ready eat (although no servants appear to exist).

A number of older dukes, well past their prime, and tired of the petty squabbles of the underground have moved in here permanently, content to relax their final years away, cut off from the mundane world. They keep a very tight control over the manor, its valuables and its secrets. Their society can best be described as a classical gentleman’s club; Egalitarian to those who meet their standards (which does not preclude based by race or sex, though only three of the thirty permanent residents aren’t old white men), cold and distant from those who don’t. A few of them are friendlier than the rest, and kindly inform visitors of the rules of the otherspace, and show them to a room. Many dukes resent these old fellows control of this luxurious paradise, and it’s secrets, but while most of the residents are on the slow decay stage of their mystical power, they retain more than enough wisdom and mojo to hold the place against those who would attack it.

There are no servants in the purple; the grass just stays mowed, the gardens kept, and the house clean. Fresh food just appears in the dining halls when people aren’t looking (their doesn’t appear to be any kitchens) and beds are made while a rooms occupants are out- a duke can even leave dirty rumpled clothes in his room to discover them cleaned and pressed and waiting for him later in the day. A duke who entering the purple who is not immediately offensive or hostile to the residents (who jokingly refer to themselves as the house of Sargon, after the inscription over the front door) will be told all this, and shown to a room, for a fee, as they use the purple as a kind of expensive otherspace hotel. When people arrive in groups, the Sargons stress the no servants part. Pointing out that servants don’t belong upstairs, and if the visiting duke has brought any, he had best leave, as people who consider themselves servants (or slaves) or are employed as such tend to disappear if they stay here to long, and none of the missing have ever been recovered. There is one door, beneath one of the stairwells, which should theoretically lead to servant areas. It is kept locked at all times, as on the other side is an empty black void. The Sargons have been known to send people who offend them through it.

The house of Sargon isn’t just an exclusively occult hotel though. Dukes who don’t understand good manners, aren’t habitually neat or polite or are otherwise socially inept are not allowed to stay, mystic knowledge or no. Many guests have applied to the Sargons to join them as a permanent resident, but the admissions for this are exceptionally exclusive. Beyond the good decorum needed to merely rent a room, the prospect must bring something useful to the house, have no history of “untoward” activity (they have never to date accepted an entropomancer, pornomancer or annhilomancer for example), and pass through more hoops than the most elitist of mundane country clubs. Interestingly their dimensional isolation, coupled with their social elitism/separation, has led to a strange mystic affect. No avatar may use his channels while in the purple. None of the Sargons are avatars anymore (although few ever were), and any avatar who spends too much time here will weaken his connection to the archetype (through separation from the global subconscious).

While the food and accommodation are all perfect, the prices are steep, so more often than not dukes come to visit the purple not for a rest, but for access to its library (which comes at an additional fee and only under careful supervision by the Sargons). The library of Agade contains birth and property records for the entire world, and perfect historical archives dating back further than some of the places it describes had writing. Every single person’s genealogy stretching back over a thousand years is listed here, as well as exactly who legally owns what land (and who owned it in 1930, or 974AD). Less scrupulous dukes use this to aid them in tracking down people’s families to kidnap/manipulate, a practice the Sargons disapprove of. Still a convincing lie (or a little stealth from a guest) can get a duke access to potentially valuable information. The Sargons themselves have many things worth a look; as a large group of long time mystics, they have a sizable collection of mystic rituals and artefacts, which they might sell for the right price.

Entry

Putting on the Purple 5 minor charges

To perform this ritual the ritualist must not have performed any strenuous labour, nor worked for anyone but himself for the previous 24 hours. He must ritually cleanse himself in a large bath filled with specially prepared oils and unguents. Once cleaned, the ritualist must put on a robe made from purple velvet (he may where other clothes underneath) and a gold signet ring marked with a specific occult symbol. In the pockets of his robe must be the keys to at least 3 thing he owns outright (it doesn’t matter if they are house keys, car keys, or the keys to the padlock he chains his bike with, as long as the adepts owns that which is guarded by the lock/key). He then need only recite his matrilineal and patrilineal lines of descent (with as much flourish as possible) as well as any official titles he has, then open and walk through the nearest door, which will lead into the main foyer of Agade. To leave Agade a duke need only walk through the front door while expressing a desire to leave. The duke exits back into the world wherever he entered from.

ERGASTON (THE GREY)

Description

Ergaston, the Grey, is a bleak town, filled with large assembly line factories, and even larger warehouses. The streets are cobbled, and heavily worn, from the constant tread of workman’s boots. The temperature outside is pleasantly cool, the overcast sky seemingly ready to flood the streets with a rain that never comes. The buildings, roads, carts, and even people of Ergaston are covered in white-grey dust, from the smoke and steam coming from the factories’ smokestacks. There is no countryside around the town of Ergaston, its winding streets reach around into each other, a tangled mess which never exits.

Apart from the smoky air, the most notable sensation a duke is likely to feel when he first enters Ergaston is the quiet. Most of the time there is almost no one on the streets, and no litter or other signs of inhabitants. Searching a duke is likely to come across a delivery van or two, carrying box loads of goods from inside the closed up factories to the similarly locked warehouses. These vans are all of an old model (circa 1920), and they travel in predictable patterns. The drivers of these vans a silent heavy set people, with sober expressions and dull grey clothes. The majority of the inhabitants of Ergaston, won’t be seen by a wandering duke, unless he is lucky enough to be about during shift change. Whistles blow from the factories, and in seconds the doors open, and a massive throng of people exit out, an even orderly march, that has been liken to a human wave. The crowds split up, intermingling as they walk the streets (though none speak, or acknowledge the others presence in any way) making it very difficult for a duke not to get swept up in one part of the crowd or another. Luckily this lasts less than 2 minutes, by which time the streets are empty again. The workers aren’t headed home however (indeed there are no residences in Ergaston, only factories and warehouses), they are headed to their next shift, at a different factory.
Shift change is the easiest time for a duke to get a look in one of the factories; it’s just a matter of walking in with the crowd. The workers all sit on stools before assembly lines, piecing together or packaging any number of things. There are no supervisors, nor managers, everyone works the line (at least no one goes into or out of the door marked “office”). The delivery trucks wheel in crates filled with pieces from warehouses, and return to them with crates filled with assembled items.

What the workers assemble in Ergaston are models. Of cars, houses, people, animals, everything. Curiously although a single factory will only be producing models of one thing (whether its pine trees, sports cars, or people). They often aren’t producing identical stock. Indeed an enterprising duke can discover that factories producing models of standardised manufactured fare (like cars, chairs, etc) will produce perfect replicas, while factories making models of living creatures never produce two models that look exactly alike (the animal models are creepy to watch, the first man on the line assembles a skeleton, with different organs being slipped into the body by each man along, then muscles, and finally a man paints the skin and fur on). Factories building houses are also prone to a more varied output, although they make many duplicates. The end result of all the models is the same however, packed into crates and driven to one of the warehouses. Dukes who break into the warehouses (or slip in with the delivery trucks) find an image straight out of Indiana Jones. A massive stockpile of unlabelled crates.

The first dukes who found Ergaston very nearly didn’t return, and many who here of it don’t bother going at all, A dull empty reflection of industry, a lost city of workers, toiling endlessly without break on a seemingly empty task, not necessarily the most useful resource around, as the workers don’t respond to outsiders unless directly threatened, and they can not easily be made to perform other work. That was until someone noticed a house he had seen construction plans for being packed into a crate. Further study showed up other examples of this phenomena, the models being made were of things soon to be built, creatures soon to be born, trees due to rise. This realisation showed that perhaps there was some use to Ergaston, and that there was definitely danger, for if they built models of everything (and they seem to), then somewhere, packed away in an unlabelled crate in a warehouse, was a model of him.

Now dukes who know of Ergaston keep the information as quiet as possible, or spread misinformation, encouraging people to believe that the grey is nothing but a hollow reflection of the industrial age, producing nothing of value, an echo of the past that is soon to fade. It’s been discovered that the models Ergaston produces are strong magical links to the real world creatures/items (when they come into existence shortly after), but does this mean that Ergaston is the town where the future is made, or has an enterprising being controlled an entire city, and turned it to creating replicas of the world, for some dark mystical purpose? Some dukes scour the grey for the answer to this pressing question, while others come here for the models, searching the warehouses for the terrible “Ergaston voodoo dolls” of themselves and their enemies, or searching out the models being built to represent children of their enemies and destroying them, striving to stop dynasties before they ever begin.

Entry

Clocking in 2 significant charges

This ritual creates an artefact time card, which allows people to enter Ergaston.

To create the artefact, the ritualist needs to create a grey-brown powder by grinding down coins of the smallest 3 denominations available wherever he is. This powder is then turned into a paste by mixing it with blood, sweat and tears, all of which must have been gathered from a poor but honest blue-collar worker, while they were working. Then, with a splinter of wood pulled from the wall of a factory that has gone out of business, use the paste to write the phrase “the work never ends” in seven different languages on the card.

To activate the time card, the ritualist must not be carrying any form of identification, money or books (excluding instruction manuals and product catalogues). Then he need simply use the time card to “clock in” to work. Any working punch clock will do, it does not have to be where the user actually works. As the user pulls the punch card out of the machine, he disappears, and appears on the streets of Ergaston. Leaving Ergaston is done the same way, so it requires entering one of the factories (difficult outside of shift change), to reach a punch clock.