The Iskelorm Dredge is the vehicle within the Skelirroth Fleet that isn't inhabited by humans.
Background[ | ]
Despite no signs of permanent habitation by humanity, on occasion, Iskelorm is visited by embassies from the Fixers' Guild. Other human groups come to the dredge under the belief that it holds the secret means of controlling thew entire fleet. The dredge is also heavily populated by automatons, as it contains the flooded compartments in which they were built. It's currently unknown how it's decided where every automaton is assigned, but some believe it happen through emergent behavior.[1]
Vooritwor's Realm[ | ]
The sole exception to humans not settling within Iskelorm is a male nano named Vooritwor, thanks to his ability to communicate with machinery. He's a hunched man with silvery hair who resides within a compartment towards the rear of the dredge. Vooritwor decorates his home with all sorts of oddities and artifacts that were deposited from the seafloor. Sometimes, the elderly nano will allow brief consultations with vising ambassadors from the Fixers' Guild, but never with the Traders' Guild. This is because Vooritwor is secretly a fugitive from dry land and fears that the Traders' Guild will discover his secret and rat him out to the surface-dwelling Aeon Priests. In a similar fashion, he also considers any visitors to the fleet to be secretly spies from the Aeon Priesthood. Unless convinced otherwise, he'll most likely eject them into the surrounding waters.
Vooritwor personally doesn't believe in the existence of any Command and Control Room, mainly because the resident automatons aren't aware of one. However, that doesn't stop him from leading on those who actually do believe, usually for his own herding purposes.[2]
Command and Control Room[ | ]
Despite none of the aforementioned automatons knowing of any such chamber, the room does, in fact, exist within the dredge. For some reason, however, it's been removed from their databanks. Thus, the only hope of finding it lies within deep, precise exploration of the dredge's interior. Unfortunately, most expeditions have been interrupted by Iskelorm's automaton population, who will more often than not expel any people they find onboard. Other means of finding the room involve asking the datasphere or using one of only a handful of keys that point the way to it. Such keys resemble flat, metallic disks which, either dropped or thrown, will always land closer to the Command and Control Room, now matter where they might be in the world. Located behind a level 7 bulkhead, lies a chamber of cracked monitors, exposed synth cables, and shin-studded control surfaces. At its exact center is a large, sealed aquarium from where all the synth cables seem to originate. The aquarium itself contains green and opaque, stagnant water. Unsealing the aquarium would require at least a difficulty 5 Intellect task for one trained numenera, otherwise it would require a level 5 difficulty Might task to smash through. Any of these actions would reveal the presence of water and jellied brain material - having long bean dead but now pickling - within the aquarium. However, any action that tries to pierce through the aquarium will instantly trigger a horde of 5 spidery defense automatons.[3]
References[ | ]
- ↑ Cook, Monte, et al. “The Skelirroth Fleet.” Into the Deep, Monte Cook Games, LLP, 2018, pp. 85. Numenera. ISBN 978-1-939979-45-2
- ↑ Cook, Monte, et al. “The Skelirroth Fleet.” Into the Deep, Monte Cook Games, LLP, 2018, pp. 85. Numenera. ISBN 978-1-939979-45-2
- ↑ Cook, Monte, et al. “The Skelirroth Fleet.” Into the Deep, Monte Cook Games, LLP, 2018, pp. 85-86. Numenera. ISBN 978-1-939979-45-2