Motherboard

Location

Argent

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Argent has long been the target of attention across the valley. With the most well-preserved ancient skyscrapers, the best fortifications, and the largest collection of tame remnants in the Echo Vale, this heavily stratified city is also a bastion of wealth. Their strictly regimented guard protects the streets and borders, and their prison labor system keeps government scrap operations working twenty-four hours a day. In the wake of the Remnant's Fury, the leader of Argent, known as the Priv, sent messengers to all walled cities within the valley to try to unify and uncover a solution. There's talk that they will organize and attempt to enter the tower of the Motherboard, but this would violate many of the most devout orders of the Vale.

Location

The Wastes

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The Wastes are the overgrown, hostile lands between cities that are filled with wild remnants and ancient ruins. The average citizen spends most of their life within a walled or wandering city, but needs arise that require trips out into the Wastes. City defenders must stop attacks from wild remnants, messengers run between cities when portions of the Network need repair, and some cities rely on hunting parties for food. Out in the Wastes, travelers and remnants alike can still access the Network through free data wells. To access the vast information left behind by the ancient world, inhabitants both mortal and machine use the ports at the base of data wells, slender towers that reach up to the lines of the Network. Data wells can be found across the valley, but many exist within walled cities, rendering them inaccessible to the rest of the region. The wells in the Wastes that remain freely available become hotbeds of violence, as wild remnants use them like a watering hole for power and information. In contrast, the Pilgrims of the Spire are a group known to strongly value and protect free data wells, as they're considered sacred places connected to the Motherboard.

Location

The Motherboard

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The tallest spire at the center of the Echo Vale is the Motherboard, from which all threads of the Network originate. Though no one has ever been able to enter this daunting tower, each city has their own beliefs about its ancient power. Most citizens revere the massive presence within as a god, believing it was worshipped by the fallen civilization and carries their wisdom forward to bless today's information-scarce world. Others believe it is a "master program" the technomancers of the fallen world left behind, and is therefore as fallible as any other remnant. Though the Motherboard herself does not communicate with people directly, she shepherds all data and power through the Network. Without her operating system, the valley's technology would eventually fail. Despite what is commonly believed, some technomancers and pilgrims claim to speak to the Motherboard in the machine language, known as "kohd."

Npc

Remenenats

NONE

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Throughout the Echo Vale roam autonomous machines of the fallen world, called remnants. These automatons come in two primary forms. Some resemble animals, with features that match their living counterparts. Others were designed with a function in mind, such as defenders, builders, watchers, or domestic laborers that carried out tasks alongside their long-dead creators. Some remnants live within cities and are considered "tame," while others roam "wild" in the Wastes, often territorial and hunting for sources of energy. Some are large enough to hold entire wandering cities on their backs, while others are small creatures that serve no apparent function aside from supplying scrap parts for the working machines people need to use each day. These machines gain energy from a variety of sources. Remnants are drawn to power and information like organic animals to food; while tame remnants can gather theirs from connections to the Networks within cities, their wild counterparts must resort to other means. Remnants can produce energy through photosynthesis, kill other remnants for their power stores, or hunt people to siphon their energy. They act like other wild animals-always focused on their next meal, whatever they must do to get it. Rumors say that some wild remnants are able to harvest information from the brains of the creatures they kill.

Npc

Quantum

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Quantum is the currency that runs the Echo Vale's economy. How much quantum a person has is generally stored on a small black disc that can be inserted into devices throughout the valley. People often decorate and personalize their discs to distinguish them from one another.