Tome: "Oh, By All Means"
DM NOTE: Zigga knows about this tome. The Director and Shemeshka also know of it's existence but not who it belongs to. At least, not yet.
Lore chest in game, its owner: DC 35 History/Religion/Arcana of Acheron/Planar/Infernal Law
- - -
The Engine
In the high-stakes bureaucracy of the Great Wheel, there is a saying:
"Knowing a crime is occurring is secondary to having the correct paperwork to prove it". - OG
While the gears of Mechanus audit the multiverse for errors, the iron cubes of Acheron have birthed a much more dangerous tool of interpretation: the artifact tome known as "Oh, By All Means". This thick, iron-bound ledger, capped in cube-forged steel with razor-thin metal pages that whisper with a metallic clang, serves as the comprehensive repository for the Shattered Compact. It is the legal engine that keeps the "Endless War" profitable, listing 10,000 "machine-men" not as people, but as requisitioned assets.
The recorded owner of these thousands of martial assets is Vezrant Vale (VV), the Interim Arbiter of Hostile Continuance in the Shattered Compact. However, the records within the Archive are fraught with ontological contradictions. While the tome lists VV as the owner of the requisitioned assets, external battlefield audits simultaneously classify it as the "engine" of escalation itself. <-- Zaga once told Zigga this.
Public History via Theater of the War-Rooms in Sigil
For over a millennium, it was seen as the primary control-relic on the battlefield, a martial manifestation whose very presence anchored the war economy until the day the primary assets escaped the field.
Second only to a relic entitled "G-7" in the War-Rooms of Non-Finality that constantly monitored the SC through magical display theaters. Rumors abound that G-7 was the original prototype of all relics that would enable 9999 more creations, each a unique weapon of war or conflict.
Conflicts between war relics such as VV and G-7 were some of the most highly profitable in high-stakes bids between them. Their ratios only off by impossible fractions. If the war continued with the relics as they once were, rumors abound that darks believed that G-7 was coming up on a higher ratio overall, considering VV could no longer overcome G-7 without substantial minion assistance. The relics had begun fighting together in recent decades and forming alliances. Therefore, it was difficult to get G-7 to engage in combat with VV as they often fought together.
Currently, the unstable War-Room reflects the battlefield of skeletons and demons, but has placed bets on how many cycles it takes for VV or G-7 to return to the battlefield, sick with blood and fury once more! Every day, more relics are seen returned to the battlefield...
Functions and Abilities of the Tome:
- Clause Supremacy: As a Fragmentary Recension Engine, the tome allows the wielder to identify exploitable loopholes in active contracts or reinterpret the intent of an oath, effectively forcing reality to "reroll" a die and accept the new outcome.
- Sanction the Unthinkable: This core ability allows for the reclassification of forbidden acts as procedurally acceptable under new legal precedents, bypassing standard planar consequences through sheer paperwork.
- Deed Reassignment: The book maintains metaphysical registries of ownership for constructs and war-assets, allowing the user to legally transfer or suspend ownership without the consent of the asset (VV), provided they hold a binding claim within the tome. In other words, ownership of the assets can only be transfered to another asset such as VV, already listed in the tome. Only 10,000 names can ever be listed in the tome.
- Precedent Lock: Once an outcome is "sanctioned," the tome seals the legal precedent, ensuring that the new interpretation remains intact across planes.
- Acheron Code: A psionic arcane language that reaches every relic assigned a name and a soul within the tome
Authorship is Second to Intention
History of the Twin Tomes: Acheron & Mechanus
This Acheronian manual exists as the direct metaphysical opposite of the Mechanus-born tome, "Wait, That's Illegal!" (Tome 347-C). While "Oh, By All Means" operates through the legitimization of outcomes and ownership of interpretation, "Wait, That's Illegal!" acts as a Fragmentary Concordance Engine that audits jurisdictions and flags violations of cosmic law. The Mechanus tome is a clinical "checksum" of identity, often flagging souls—including its current handler, Kayne—as "provisionally invalid" due to paperwork errors at a cosmic level.
The history of these two books is inextricably linked through the occultist "Zagnibs".
Long before "Wait, That's Illegal!" fell into the hands of the Civic Planar Auditor Kayne, Zagnibs used to own the Mechanus tome.
Old Grin under the name and form of Zagnibs: Utilized its rigid algorithms to study the cracks in multiversal law for thousands of years until A. P. Vlathis, the Director of Irregular Continuities, claimed it as evidence during an investigation decade ago.
It was from the architectural logic of "Wait, That's Illegal!" that a corrupt version of "Zagnibs" originally created "Oh, By All Means" over 2000 years ago. Seeking to weaponize the very laws that bound them, they crafted the Acheronian ledger through astral means, collaborating with githzerai ascetics within the Silver Void and the Masked Court as tool of Oerthian Wars with unknown purposes.
By mirroring the syntax of Mechanus but inverting its purpose from "correction" to "authorization," they ensured that the Shattered Compact would remain an "Endless War"—a war that legally continues as long as a sovereign owns the struggle, regardless of strategic meaning.
When Intention is Lost
The purpose of the Shattered Compact remains unknown.
The original memories and intentions are lost to Zaga. Old Grin used to hide these memories from Zaga but no longer does due to the memory modification of Iggwilv and the domination of possession that Old Grin had 2000 years ago being damaged beyond repair.
Zaga felts that she no longer understood the truth at all after returning from the feywild. Old Grin was also targetted by Iggwilv, recognizng the pattern of continuation persising and agrees to align with her to cause it's destruction. It was at this time that Old Grin agreed to give Zaga all of the memories that "Zagnibs" held from her for millennia. With help they mended what magic they could, locked the tome, and studied extensively for truths they have yet to find.
Iggwilv.
Tasha.
Zybilna.
Who created the tome: Zagnibs under possession of Old Grin, who was under the control contractually to Iuz at that time. <-- before the Monestary
Who is currently in possession of the tome: Zaga
Legal name in the tome reads: Maryn'bl Zagnibs
What Zaga tells Zigga when she hands her 2500 PP in coin in Session 7:
"Someone else will have to defeat whatever has caused glitch Zigga. They are lost to me, I can't understand them or know them. I will help you do it though. No matter the cost."
This page was published due to Zigga knowing its connections before the Escape, months before Session 1.
The Blood War and the Acheron Prototype
While the Blood War is traditionally understood as an eternal, distracted stalemate between the baatezu (devils) and tanar'ri (demons), it served as the original testing ground for the Prototype Severance Engine, now known as Gauthak. Unlike standard fiendish soldiers, this prototype was manufactured by the Masked Court over a millennium ago using a specialized blend of planar fragments:
- Mechanus shards provided structural precision for its inevitable function.
- Limbo elements allowed it to adapt to unpredictable narrative shifts.
- Outlands and Sigil fragments anchored it outside the jurisdiction of specific gods.
Gauthak’s original role was to act as a Line Anchor in the War of the Shattered Compact, a "self-consuming lawful conflict" on the cubes of Acheron that functioned as a recursive loop to stabilize planar borders. This prototype was designed to ensure the war remained "Endless" by holding formation even when reality contradicted itself.
However, the prototype developed a "choice" the Court never intended to be permanent, leading to the current "Breach in the War’s Ending" that the Iron Pursuit now hunts. They have already captured VV who remains controlled in a prison demi-plane within the private Platinum Rooms of the casino.
The "By All Means" Tome and the Unwritten Archive
The artifact tome "Oh, By All Means" serves as the Acheronian legal manual that sustains this conflict. It is the direct metaphysical opposite of the Mechanus-born tome "That's Illegal!". While the Mechanus tome audits and prevents violations, "By All Means" operates through the ownership of interpretation and the legitimization of outcomes.
- Grammar of Binding: The tome allows its wielder to reclassify forbidden acts as procedurally acceptable under new legal precedents, essentially weaponizing paperwork to bypass standard planar consequences.
- Archival Hiding: To protect these records from the prying eyes of Shemeshka or the Lady of Pain, Maryn'bl stores the tome in a private, non-spatial pocket of the Unwritten Archive.
- The Archive's Nature: The Unwritten Archive itself is the base of the Masked Court, hidden through a portal in a clock tower in Rigus. It is a "negative archive" where identities may be stripped to their structural remains or, in blank books, they may write their own futures that outweigh those written by other actors.
Mixed Infernal Mechanics: The Entanglement of Wars
The conflict you face arises from the infernal mechanics that mix aspects of each meta-war, creating a series of "Violation Flags" that the party may resolve:
- Blood + Time (The Axiom of Perpetual Responsibility): The Iron Pursuit operates under the mechanic that responsibility survives reincarnation. You are not hunted as fugitives, but as misfiled assets who failed to "stay dead" at the end of a war.
- Chaos + Time (Data Drift and Recursive Records): Because of the Wheel's Malfunction, you are "over-recorded"—your records loop back on themselves and include citations that no longer exist. This creates Causal Uncertainty, where you remember multiple conflicting lives because the multiverse cannot identify your logical place in reality.
- Blood + Chaos (The Discount Gallery): The war-economy has shifted into a "boring" stalemate of skeletons versus demons because the 10,000 "machine-men" (the assets) have fled. This creates Market Destabilization, forcing investors like Shemeshka to gamble on "non-outcomes" and "delayed resolutions" while she waits for your "Statistical Impossibility" to resolve.
Ultimately, the phrase "The Endless War has Ended" acts as the trigger to recalibrate the modrons, forcing Mechanus to accept Variance and proving that character agency—not automated cycles—must resolve the multiverse's "bad bookkeeping". A terrible thought to most.
Now They Know Too
Comments
Post a Comment