⭗ REDIRECTIONS V ⭗

⭗ FAST STAR OF THE BLUE ORACLE ⭗

“There, that one,” Charred-Hand said, gesturing at one of the fast stars with his two remaining fingers. “That star. That’s where the Blue Oracle waits dreaming.”

Past-Tense looked up and shrugged her mechanical shoulders. “You’re sure she’s the one with the answers? You’re sure she knows how the Azure Age ended?”

“She has slept for thousands of years, but before that, she was awake and watching,” Charred-Hand looked at Past Tense. Reaching out, he touched her shoulder, picking at a spot of rust there. “There is a word to awaken her, but it was known only to the Machine-Priests of the Azure Age.”

“So then all we have to do is find one,” Past-Tense sighed, blowing dust and static into the coppery air.

“You were in stasis through the end of that age,” Charred-Hand reminded her. “We will find a Machine-Priest from your time. Somewhere, in all of this, we will find one, and then we will both have our answers.”

⭗

High above the world, the sky is full of satellites of different sizes made by different beings over the course of countless millennia. Some of them are huge, sprawling complexes nested within captured asteroids. Others are smaller, little more than habitats, castles, shuttles and temples. All are in various states of function or decay. The Fast Star of the Blue Oracle is one such satellite. Some say that the temple which rises from its surface predates both humanity and the gods, that it was found on the surface of some distant world, then raised and shoved into orbit so it could be studied easier. Others say that its construction was far more recent, that it was dreamed into being by the Blue Oracle herself at the end of the Azure Age. In total, the Fast Star of the Blue Oracle is barely large enough to have an atmosphere or a gravity field, but the lighter gravity of this little worldlet is actually quite pleasant and the fluorescent orange moss that grows across the surface generates enough oxygen and pressure to make short term walks possible with minimal protective gear.

At the center of the temple sleeps the Blue Oracle. Upright and suspended in the air, she is translucent and insubstantial, more like a holographic projection than a person. A visitor or a pilgrim could walk right through her and not disturb her or wake her. Her black hair floats as if in the gentle currents of a water bath. Beneath her blue eyelids, her eyes stir with a dream-filled sleep, and those dreams are full of things that have passed, things that are and things that are still to come. If she is awakened, she could speak of what she’s seen in her dreams, or so the stories say. The Blue Oracle is from a time so far distant that no one really knows who she is or how she came to be dreaming in the temple. Some have speculated that she might be a goddess, that she might have engineered the fall of humanity at the end of the Azure Age, or that she might simply be the visible projection of a powerful psychic sealed away in stasis until the time when her mind is needed most.

Whatever the truth is, the fragmented tales about her all agree on one point– to wake her, a word is needed. What the word is, no one knows. The word is said to be sacred, to be a secret zealously guarded by those who wish to have the Blue Oracle’s dreams all to themselves, or by those who fear the day when she will awaken again. The Machine-Priests of the Azure Age are said to have knowledge of the word, but how or why is not known. The Azure Age was so long ago that it is unlikely that such a priest could still be alive. Unlikely, but not impossible, for there are many places in the anthropocene layers of the earth where a stasis crystal or a dream-pod or a digital sentience might still survive, waiting to be awakened and convinced to part with the single, sacred word that will open the eyes of the Blue Oracle again, with ill results, or good ones. Who can say? 

⭗ OUR PARTY (SO FAR) ⭗

"Past-Tense", a golem from the Azure Age.

"Charred-Hand" a perfectly ordinary and unassuming wastelander

 

⭗ WHAT ARE REDIRECTIONS? ⭗

My goal with REDIRECTIONS is to add my own contribution to the Psychedelic / Heavy Metal / Ligne Claire art RPG space.  Much in the way that people inspired by Tolkien’s style helped give birth to the modern genre of High Fantasy, the style of Jean “Moebius” Giraud (and others like him) seems to be spawning a sort of genre of its own right now, and I want to expose more people to the wonders of it. I want to share it. I want to be a part of it. Most of all, I want it to grow.

    REDIRECTIONS is a collection of wondrous places and resources presented in story format (as a game in play, specifically traversing the universe of UVG (Ultraviolet Grasslands) but it is also kept more general for your own RPG characters to visit and explore regardless of the system you use. Each place is unique and wholly original, with a bevy of interesting stories, plot hooks and characters to color your experience. If you like these posts and find them useful, let me know! All art is generated on Stable Diffusion or Wombo because I can’t draw anything better than stick figures, so consider them homages to the genre and pretty pictures, but nothing more. This is a series, and each entry is numbered. If you like things like this, please support the true artists whose works are part of the genre, such as the works of Moebius, Luka Rejec's Ultraviolet Grasslands, Luke Gearing's Acid Death Fantasy and Raw Fury's game SABLE.