Spotlight on:

National Flag

The Brazen Panoply of Steam and Clockwork

“A God in every Machine” Archsophist Archimedes Babbage

Category: Corporate Bordello
Civil Rights:
Excellent
Economy:
Frightening
Political Freedoms:
Excessive

Regional Influence: Eminence Grise

Location: The Horde

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3

A New Organ

"A nation sprung from the mind of god, this kingdom of steam and clockwork"
–Petro Circassia, "Collected Travelogues of a Cossack Merchant"

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"A land long divided, must unite; long united, it must divide. Same as it ever was."
–Luo Guanzhong, "Romance of the Three Kingdoms"

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"Man’s control over things depends wholly on the arts and sciences,
for we can’t command nature except by obeying her."

–Francis Bacon, "Novum Organum"

Genesis

Known to the outside world only through various titles – the Brass Kingdom, the Land of Anachronism, the Kingdom of Steam and Clockwork – the location of this obscured country, known to its people as Organum, is vague at best. 'Central Asia' is as close as one can determine from the sources, with the general vicinity of the Caspian Basin being a frequent marker. When the country actually finds its way onto ancient maps, the old cartographers variously assign it to one of a number of historical regions, including Bactria, Chorasmia, Khorasan, Turan, Sogdia, and Ferghana. After reviewing all of the maps and documents, it is quite understandable that, for a long time, historians doubted the veracity of its existence, categorizing it alongside Hyperborea and the Kingdom of Prester John as just another mythical land, propagated by the tales of old sailors and wandering raconteurs.

The surrounding region rose to prominence along the Silk Road of old, benefiting from the relatively free and safe exchange of people and goods, the arriving caravans bringing to them distant goods, news from afar, interesting stories, and pestilential rodents. This ancient trade route stitched an entire continent together, with individual threads sewn into the refined kingdoms of eastern Cathay, the confederated steppe nomads of Tartary, the boundless realm of Indica, the polyglot empire of Cyrussia, the Sublime Porte of Ruthantium, and the fertile coast of Aethiopia.

Organum, itself, initially developed as just one of the many oasis towns which the caravans stopped at as they went their way through this mountainous and arid region. The town sits along the foothills of the Tengri Mountains, near the mouth of the sole pass through the range, variously called the Gates of Dzongaar or Altain Gap. An ancient forest, called Severwood, lies to the north, and the sweeping expanse of steppeland lies beyond.

It sometimes happens that one particular discovery
is so useful to mankind that the person who made it,
and thus put the whole human race into his debt,
is regarded as superhuman;

so how much higher a thing it is to discover something
through which everything else can easily be discovered!

The Man Who Would Be King

Organum would develop at pace with the other oasis towns which dot the ancient trade routes, until the coming of the conquests of Iskandar and the establishment of a Greek kingdom in Bactria. Lying at the eastern extent of that frontier, Organum benefited from the influx of trade and wealth, as well as artisans and other tradespeople, brought about by this exchange of people and culture. Tucked away, as it was, in the foothills of the Tengri Mountains, Organum was distant enough from the core of Bactria as to remain independent and mostly overlooked, while still of sufficient proximity to benefit from its developments.

Early legends of the country describe visits by delegations from the Celestial Kingdom. The first involved the explorer and military officer Zhang Qian, who had history with the region and the nomadic peoples who controlled the area. In his youth, he was taken captive by members of this nomadic steppe empire, being enslaved by them for over a decade and thus learning much of their language and ways. Eventually, Zhang Qian would escape his captors, finding refuge in the remote towns of the deserts and mountain passes which lay between him and his eastern home. One such remote town was Organum, its people leaving an impression on the fugitive slave. Thus, when he would later be tasked by the Emperor of the Celestial Kingdom to explore the west for the purpose of establishing trade routes and alliances, Zhang Qian would recall Organum and make a point to visit the remote town.

A couple hundred years later, another delegation from the Celestial Kingdom would impact the town, this time led by the renowned Kongming. The great scholar, inventor, and tactician was traveling to the west in search of support for the strife inflicting his homeland. Relying on many of the very same maps described by his predecessor, Kongming wound up in Organum while passing through the country. Impressed by the quality of the people he encountered there, and smitten by the terrain of its natural shelter, Kongming would go to lengths in the hope of nurturing the enterprising spirit of the land. He would founded an academy in his name, leaving behind a number of his attendant scholars and pledging to return himself, periodically, to oversee its development.

This academy would serve as the foundation stone for the later history and culture of the kingdom. Eventually acquiring the name, Herald Academy, this institution - associated as it was with its illustrious founding father - would go on to become the primary focus of Organum, holding sway over both the imaginations and the purse strings of the country.

Covenant

The output of the Herald Academy, and its effect on the surrounding region, would be immense. Books, articles, translations, treatises, and inventions would pour from out its ivory doors as would produce from any bountiful farmland. Cities and kingdoms and even entire civilizations would rise and fall about Organum, creating in its people a very real sense of refuge and oasis, as though they existed as a safe harbor in an otherwise-treacherous sea. They would maintain their libraries and academies and workshops, while worlds collapsed around them. They would maintain their memory. They would hold the line.

There was one particular avenue of research which would prove especially fruitful for Organum, and which would go on to influence all of its subsequent development and efforts: Psychonatural History. A research team, comprising a mathematician named 'Seldon' and a historian named 'Gibbon', would engage in a decades-long project into the cyclical nature of 'Rise and Fall' throughout the history of human civilizations. And their findings would be somewhat troubling, for everyone involved.

“I picked the perfect flower, my dear, a jewel.
With luck it should last us for several days.”

A frown touched his brow, and he glanced
involuntarily at the wall.

“Each time now they seem to come nearer.”

His wife smiled at him encouragingly and
held his arm more tightly.

Both of them knew that the garden was dying.

The Harrowing

When war came to the heavens, it came in its midst. The heavenly host divided, a third of God's angels marched in open revolt against his supremacy. The leader of the rebellious angels, known to us as the Adversary, devised a great many devilish engines, from materials dark and crude, their hollow bellies pregnant with infernal flame, their throats belching deep fires and engulfing all heaven in their smoke. When the Harrowing came, the rebellion faltered. The rebel angels fell, with the Adversary falling alongside them, plummeting through the firmament into exile below.

Some time later, Man was born in the garden. He knew the face of God, and conversed with the angels. He knew the names of every beast, and every bird which flew in the sky. He knew the laws of God, and knew to obey them. But Man also knew the serpent, and listened to the adversarial words from its forked tongue. So Man came to the tree of knowledge, stole its fruit, and knew the knowledge from its roots. Like the wind on the face of the deep, Man heard the call for the Harrowing. Man was banished from the garden. He would forget the face of God, and would lose the language of the angels. But he kept his knowledge, and the Adversary followed them into their exile.

There, man built great cities, the greatest of which was Babylon. In that city, and in their adversity, a tower was devised, built from materials dark and crude, which would coil upwards into the sky to again commune with God. Higher went the tower, as Man threw up ever more battlements and bastions, parapets and turrets, until he was sure it would scrape the heavens. But God wished not their company, and called his angels for another Harrowing. Sending his host into the city to confound them and confuse their tongues, leaving the population shattered and the tower in ruins. The Adversary watched mankind scatter in the wind, and determined to aid them in their journey and alleviate some of their suffering along the way.

So mankind dispersed into the world, spreading into the furthest corners, and into the deepest crevices. They gathered in even greater cities, accumulating even greater knowledge about them as they did. Great teachers rose among them, the greatest of whom taught in the Empire of old. But the Emperor, wreathed in laurel, was displeased by his teachings, finding adverse effects among those whom he taught. A death sentence was announced, and as the teacher passed through the crowds on his way to his execution, the Adversary fell in line behind the condemned. It was not long before he would hear the call on the wind for the Harrowing to begin.

The Empire would eventually fall, its peoples broken and scattered, and in its place arose a new Kingdom. The King was good and fair, and strove to unite the divided peoples. He fought many battles, in barbarian lands, wielding a sword that had been forged from materials dark and crude. It shone with a light like a beacon in the darkness, and the disparate peoples rallied to this banner. The king smiled, knowing the divided land would be reunited, and Man again know peace. But peace was not in the cards. The heavenly host rode out on a divine wind, hoofs beating a clarion call for the next Harrowing of Man to begin. The king fell, his sword lost, and his kingdom shattered. And again Man went into exile, divided one from another, and the Adversary watched as they went.

Fortunate Fall

The scholars of Organum would return Man to their rightful place before the Fall. But not as before, when he was naive and innocent of the machinations of heaven and earth. Rather, heralds would announce their homecoming, ahead a great triumphal procession, and they would assume their rightful place beside heaven's throne. The equality of Creation would lift them.

However, in order to one day achieve this aim, Organum would have to put an end to the cyclical Harrowings. These periodic cullings of man cut short their ascent and hobbled any future progress.

And so, Organum would send out heralds of its own - a cadre of missionaries, science-apostles, who would wander the earth bringing news of the impending Harrowing, and providing service in the mitigating of its impact on that local community. If another Great Flood was approaching, Organum would build an entire fleet of Arks to buoy mankind.

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