I'm presently rearranging the Obsidian Requiem section of the site as a weblog. For now, please visit the old Obsidian Requiem index.

The schedule looks to be relatively set up until I switch to my Nobilis game, Delphinium and Larkspur. Since Obsidian Requiem alternates with Chris McGuire's Mutant's and Masterminds game, we only play every other week. Here's the schedule that I've worked out:

• June 13th - O.R. Session 17 “Sijan”
• June 20th, M&M
• June 27th - O.R. Session 18

• July 4th - No game
• July 11th - M&M
• July 18th - O.R. Session 19
• July 25th - M&M

• August 1st - Gathering for Nobilis Chargen
• August 8th - M&M
• August 15th - Delphinium and Larkspur, Session 1

It doesn't look as though I'm going to get a chance to start the Abyssals segment of this game until we come back to Exalted. Half of the Abyssal characters are not finished, and as it is I'll barely be able to bring the Solar portion to something resembling a good stopping point.

Speaking of which, I think I've got a good name for the Abyssals segment: Aureate Chorale. Yes, I realize that the Solar section is therefore named for a “Black Dirge”, and the Abyssals section is named for a “Golden hymn”. Call it Irony if you like, or call it Contrast if you will.

Here are a few renders that I did of the Schnellvögel, Haupt-Captain Albrecht Torsten's Haslanti Air Boat:

This first picture is from the other day, before I started texturing the model. The lights attached to the masts are filling in for lanterns for the time being. On my screen here at work, there seems to be some major compression artifacts going on ... dunno what's up with that. It's just in this one picture. It's probably caused by the corruption on the disk I used to bring these to work.

Picture Number two is an early textured Front View. I was playing with Skytracer for the background.

Picture Three is the latest side view, made with HDRI lighting. I didn't want to wait hours and hours for this to render, so it has a fairly low radiosity setting (and thus, some blotchiness).

This is a quad view of the mesh in Lightwave Modeler. You will notice that I still haven't added canvas to the rudders. The wood texture looks awful here in the OpenGL preview, but it looks decent enough when rendered (still tweaking it though). I think I may remove the small glyph towards the rear of the gas balloon, leaving only the large one (which flickers when the model is animated .. the illumination you can see in the previous pictures is caused by the burner inside, in theory).

You will also notice a small rectangular object in front of and to one side of the ship itself. This is the approximate size of a human. The ship is slightly too small relative to the person for my tastes ... I'll probably scale it up a bit once I get finished. It is presently 9.5m (71') long or so, and about 7m (52') across.

I had more images, including some rear views showing off the prop coloration and the burner exhaust trails (you can see just a hint of these in the side view above), but unfortunately since the floppy is partially corrupted I can't get to them. So you'll have to wait until I get internet access back at home (which will hopefully happen before I'm at work next).

Here are the pics I couldn't upload the other day:

The one on the left is the rear view showing the exhaust trails and propeller. The one on the right is an untextured radiosity render under a skydome, showing off the rear section of the ship (including the side cabins that I've added since I made the first set of pictures). You can also clearly see the Exhaust pipes in this shot, on the deck next to the charthouse.

The first hint of Sijan's proximity came when the Schnellvögel passed over a lonely tomb, and the temperature began to fall. As the Threshold was already feeling the chill of Winter, this made things quite cold indeed.

Start Date: 19 Descending Air

The solitary monument on the plain was soon joined by another … then another, then a group of three at once. As the other circle-mates joined the watch at the bow of the air boat, the burial fields of Sijan began to unfurl before them.

Tombs. Tombs with obelisks. Tombs with statues. Tombs stacked like layers of sediment. Tombs the size of entire towns. They stretched nearly to the horizon, in all their myriad styles and shapes and sizes, unified only by their similarity of materials (marble, alabaster, onyx, and such) and the utter quiet that covered the land like a thick blanket.

Once the ship had crossed the River Avarice, with its twin bridges, they finally arrived at Sijan proper. An old city, Sijan. It was hardly distinct from the mausoleums surrounding it, excepting only the fact that it was raised above the level of the plain and surrounded by a high, white, moss and ivy covered wall. And far denser. Staired gates provided entrance into a labyrinth of jumbled architeture in styles taken from all over Creation and many different eras. But always, always rendered in the ever-present, subdued white and black color scheme, owing to the materials used in its construction.

And it was silent. Solemn. There were no throngs. No festivals. No demonstrations. No open markets. The few people seen going about their business from the vantage of the air boat did so unhurriedly, without fuss or bother.

Anchoring the ship proved to be a problem. The ground around Sijan was covered with burial vaults stretching to the horizon in every direction, save only the rivers to the West and South, and the Black Chase to the North. They lay thickest near the city. There were paved walks between them, to be sure, and clear ground about them, naturally. But neither seemed like good prospects for anchoring, since the paths were presumably there for official business, and the ground probably consecrated. Best not to risk offending either the living or the dead residents of Sijan. With a sigh, Albrecht turned command of the ship over to his cook, ordering that the Schnellvögel circle the city until called for.

Once in Sijan proper, they discovered that the city was possessed of a solemn and restrained demeanor. After witnessing a funeral procession, they spoke to someone who directed them at a Sijanese museum.

At the museum, they are informed that the cultural museums are open to the public for a small fee, but that the libraries are difficult to access.

Ultimately, they meet up with a familiar face … the man known as Jiunan Nightwarden, who they last saw in Seven Willows.

End Date: 19 Descending Air

I have a bunch of old material sitting in my email from various players, and I'll be gradually posting it to this weblog format. (Once I'm done with that, I may take all the old static HTML content and move it in here as well).

In any case, whether because I'm anal about knowing when stuff happens (which is why all my game logs have real world dates) or just because I want to keep my pretty airboat pictures near the top for the time being, I'm backdating such material as if it were submitted here all along. Therefore, there will be posts on this weblog that are far older than the weblog itself. I'm also attributing it to the appropriate author (though nobody has really submitted anything here yet themselves).

The first batch of stuff is Jenna's backstory of Ourna and Tremaen, All the Luck in the World, from back in March.

I have finished posting most of the information from the players of the game. I consciously omitted Tonanti's background, as it is still a mystery to the other players.

Apologies to whoever was attempting to access the links on the sidebar while viewing the archives. I didn't realize they were broken, but they should be fixed now (I forgot to change the links to relative urls when I put the side bar in the archive templates).

If anyone finds anything like that, here or anywhere on niflheim.net, feel free to leave a comment.

The players have had no luck getting into the library by the polite route, and Jiunan certainly can't do it for them due to his history with Sijan. He's also not all that great at breaking and entering, but he IS Night caste. There's a Night Caste in the PC Circle (Develan), but he is illiterate, and anyway, Jiunan isn't sure which volume he's looking for, specifically. So they concoct a plan: Jiunan and Develan will sneak in, grab the book, and then sneak back out. The rest of the group will create a huge distraction to draw the guards away from their escape path.

This plan is implemented. It Does. Not. Survive. Contact. with. Sijan.

On level 3, the first level that they are restricted from entering, guards that are in their path are led away by Develan's elemental familiar, but a sijanese guy comes around the corner just in front of them. He goes the other way, but after a few steps, he stops and whirls around. Develan attempts to knock him out with a throwing baton, but he botches. Triple botch.

The knife (not baton; Dev grabbed the wrong weapon in his haste) slices the guy's jugular, which DOES silence him, but not in the way that was intended. (Develan is trying to distinguish himself from his First Age identity, who was a vicious assasin.) This paints the hall with blood. (The human body contains several gallons of blood under high pressure, as any anime fan knows.) Then the knife goes skittering down the hall. The noise attracts one of the guards. Whack … the guard is down, possibly with a fractured skull.

So now, not only will the dead Sijanese and the guard soon be missed, but the hall itself is a dead giveaway that something is up, and a pointer straight to the bodies. Except for one wall, which is the outer wall of a crypt. The blood on that wall seeps into it and disappears, which unnerves even Jiunan.

The pair enter the library through a crypt that Jiunan knows that has a hole in the wall that can be uncovered to provide entrance into the library. Jiunan has used this route before, and doesn't believe this tomb is a danger (it's also their only option.)

Synopsis of the remainder: Ultimately, they meet a ghost, battle the Dragon-blooded in a subterranean Library, and come away with some promising leads on more info on Shadowlands and the Ties-that-bind, only to have several of the books stolen by one of the Night-forged.

End Date: 20 Descending Air