The Cypher Gate
Divine ways are not meant for mortal minds
In the first post about gods and the Cypher Gate in my upcoming Riddleport campaign several readers supplied great ideas. Thanks to that feedback, I have a better picture of how things are in the pirate city. The secrets of the Cypher Gate as it is in my game, with reader feedback interwoven, are now revealed.
If you are a player in my campaign, please stop reading, as spoilers await thee.
A massive stone arch that spans Riddleport’s harbour. It seems to be indestructible, though it is a bit weathered, revealing unfathomable lengths of time or other forces could wear the gate down.
Three wagons can travel abreast over the arch, and locals say it is 3000 paces long. Measurements reveal the arch is twelve cubits tall at both ends, which appear to be buried miles deep into the bedrock of the world itself, and 8 cubits tall at the peak.
It does not radiate magic, though true relics never do.
Strange glyphs, the height of a man in his prime, span the arch on both sides. The glyphs seemingly have been carved out of the arch. They are interspersed unevenly, with gaps of varying distances between them, making some think runes exist out there that will fit into the spaces, while others think the arch awaits new carvings.
The brightest and wisest and most knowledgeable of Golarion have studied the arch over the centuries without the slightest idea of why it exists.
A guild of mages dedicated to unraveling the Cypher Gate’s secrets has formed in the city that lies in the arch’s shadow. Known as the Order of Cyphers, it welcomes new members who seek to study the phenomenon for themselves. A huge bounty is offered to anyone who can glean any insight into the gate’s existence or purpose. The guild jealously guards access to the gate, however, and all who might take a close examination must be granted the privilege by the guild’s strange leader, Syzzinar.
The truth
The Cypher Gate is actually constructed of the immortal remains of the Primals, explaining its near invulnerability, and its weathering, as the Primals are imperfect beings.
The arch is a member of a series of arches that litter the planes of existence. It and its brethren were crafted by the Primals as a mechanism for elevating mortals to divinity. The arches form a primordial switchboard, allowing Ascended to draw power from their plane to maintain their exalted status and powers.
Each Ascended is attuned to the arch of their home plane. And each plane has its own gate, often buried and lost in time and memory, though the Divine and Ascended never forget the gate they are attuned to.
The glyphs are created at the time a mortal Ascends. A rune is carved out of the archway through the blind power of the Primals, and this becomes the attuned shard of the Ascended. With a small expense of power, an Ascended can change the physical properties of their shard to better hide, carry or wield it. As the shard is part of the arch relic, it does not radiate magic either.
The glyphs are free morphemes of the Divine language. This language is power unto itself and drives the structure and state of the universe. Mortals can never understand this language, and to just glimpse the partial meaning of a single character is enough to drive a mortal insane.
The Ascended draw power from the shards, which are safely regulated and downgraded to a controllable level by their associated arch. Distance does not diminish the link between shard and Ascended, though a shard cannot leave the plane of its gate, with one notable exception.
An Ascended can transport their shard to their Divine patron’s plane by expending ongoing power. As divine power is costly to recoup, few do this, and when they do it is only for an hour, day or week at most.
The Cypher Gate is aligned to the cardinal points, though not the cardinals of its plane but to the universe itself. A rune’s location on the gate signifies an Ascended’s immutable orientation:
Law – East
Chaos – West
Good – North
Evil – South
As the arch has finite dimensions, which implies limitations on the number of Ascended a plane can support, and the portfolio mix of alignments is fixed.
The Ascended know they must protect the gate at all costs (even though it is seemingly invulnerable) because if it goes, they all go. Divine or Primal power could be spent to damage or destroy a gate, but that has never been successfully accomplished.
If an Ascended is slain, their shard returns to the arch and the glyph disappears, ready for another similarly-aligned mortal to Ascend. For the arch on Golarion, this has not happened in centuries, though it was witnessed by a few whose journals (in various forms) have been lost through the ages.
The Divine connection
Embedded in each glyph is a representation of the affiliated Divine. This connects the Divine with his agents. For mortals it facilitates direct communication, domains and spell imbuements. For Ascended it allows at-will travel between their home plane and the plane of their Divine, bequeathment of Divine power points, and telepathic communication between Ascended servant and Divine master.
Any Divine can attune themselves to any Cypher Gate and use it as a portal to enter the plane. Divine also draw Primal granted powers, power points and other boons via any gate except those that are diametrically opposed to their alignment.
Few know that Ascended can be killed by mortals. Fewer know that each Divine has a unique weakness that can be exploited by mortals (such knowledge is usually accompanied by a Divine hunt, some sport and then a long and painful death).
And even fewer throughout the planes know that, with proper ceremony, a glyph on a gate can be turned into a scrying portal using its associated shard. A mortal must hold the shard of an Ascended to its glyph on the arch. This will reveal the true name of its linked Divine (the meaning of the glyph). Speaking the true name will gain the mortal speaker instant knowledge of the Divine’s Achilles heel. Unfortunately, the Divine is instantly alerted to this and can use the arch to determine the identity of the blasphemer.
Finally, the descendants of the Servants of the Primal are still around as aberrations and the like. Some work (ala the Serpent Priests in Raymond E Feist’s novels) to release their masters from their confinement, while others work to maintain their current state of independence. This puts the Cypher Gates in jeopardy from time to time as a cult successfully learns how to tap into the power of an arch and turn it back on itself, usually through imprisonment and abuse of an Ascended as the key.
Plot ideas
My Riddleport campaign does not yet have a plot. I’m still crafting the major pieces, such as figuring out the Cypher Gates and defining a few factions. However, here is a list of potential gate-related plots I could draw from, either as epic campaign threads or short term developments. If you have any ideas, please leave a comment and I’ll add to this list.
- As Mike pointed out, there is irony that arcane casters control and study a divine relic. Should the divine nature of the arch be gleaned, the temples and mage’s guild would conflict. The Order of Cyphers depends on the gate, as discussed, [https://www.campaignmastery.com/blog/mage-guild-mastermind-survives-pirate-haven/]. Plus, it’s unlikely the arcanists would allow the balance of power to shift to the current balkanized temple factions.
- False shards. Information about a false shard could pop up at anytime. It could just be another relic, a magic item or a piece of junk. Either way, it will be wrestled over, experimented with, studied. Rumours will abound and a spotlight will be cast upon the gate in the game.
- Someone has a glimpse of understanding of what a rune means and goes insane. Can the PCs help decipher the madman’s ramblings/drawings/prophecies? Perhaps the NPC leads them to several adventure sites or encounters of conflict within the city.
- A journal of someone who spotted a glyph being created or destroyed is recovered but it’s cryptic. Another fight over an item and information, drawing the PCs into conflict. Likely they are the ones who discover the journal, but they might be hired to steal it or examine it as well, regardless of the owner’s intentions.
- An NPC in Riddleport is coming close to becoming an Ascended. While they consolidate their power, other Ascended are concerned such an event would remind Golarion what the Cypher Gate does, and jeopardize the balance of power they currently hold on the plane. Meantime, the would-be Ascended has yet to choose a patron diety, and several Ascended have been instructed to convince the NPC using any methods possible.
- A mad god and his Ascended seek to destroy the gate. An aberrant cult comes to town and stirs up all sorts of crazy.
Thanks to C. Rader, Robert and Mike for the ideas and feedback.
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January 5th, 2010 at 7:56 am
Measurements reveal the arch is twelve cubits tall at both ends, which appear to be buried miles deep into the bedrock of the world itself, and 8 cubits tall at the peak.
Arches are taller in the middle, right? And 8 cubits = 12 feet in the Googleverse. Sorry to nitpick, nothing productive to add.
January 5th, 2010 at 8:14 am
Nice one. Let me noodle on that. Either I fix the arch, or it remains as-is and that is part of its strangeness.
January 5th, 2010 at 2:17 pm
A couple of thoughts. First, regarding the size of the gate: relativity states that the more energy something has, the more it distorts space around it. So perhaps the gate has a similar effect, being smaller (when measured) when a divine being is actually using the power of the gate. Or maybe it’s elliptical. Or maybe it’s round but partially on a multidimensional axis and hence the part of it that’s in the prime material plane seems to be elliptical, as though it were being viewed at an angle. The latter would definitly attract attention to it – and the inability to ever look at it square-on no matter what angle it is viewed from would never suggest that it was hiding something, would it?
Second, about the divine nature of the gate itself. Perhaps one or two of the more enlightened religious orders have discerned or learned of the true nature of the gate and secretly but actively encourage the arcane misconception of it to deflect attention away from the vulnerability of the Gods. If anyone seems to be actually striking too close to the truth, they might take steps to first discredit them and then arrange an ‘unfortunate accident’.
Thirdly, where do devils and demons fit into the cosmology that you’ve constructed? Do they have symbols on the gate, or do they have their own gate somewhere else, or do they simply have neither the vulnerabilities nor advantages of the gate? The answers could have a big impact – on their capabilities, on their tactics, on their goals, and on the approach of the Churches to them. Perhaps they do have symbols on the gate, in the same space as that of the gods, or on the back side of the gate, but these are only viewable in a certain light or under certain conditions. Or perhaps, if they have their own gate and one or more Churches know it, they have deliberately chosen not to exploit it (or even go looking for it), choosing the security of the Gods over exploiting the vulnerabilities of their enemies – something that many would consider a self-serving betrayal of everything the churches are supposed to stand for…
January 5th, 2010 at 3:28 pm
“Or maybe it’s round but partially on a multidimensional axis and hence the part of it that’s in the prime material plane seems to be elliptical, as though it were being viewed at an angle.”
That strikes an idea. What if all the gates also extend to another, single place, such that they all stack and form a sphere? That implies a fixed amount of gates and planes. I wonder what the sphere does, or what happens inside? Perhaps the sphere is the universe in some kind of paradoxical way.
“where do devils and demons fit into the cosmology that you’ve constructed?”
I’m using Planescape. So they’re critters like everything else, including humans. That does pose a problem though, as I want some demon lords and arch devils involved as factions in Riddleport, but they wouldn’t be Ascended tuned to the Riddleport gate according to my rules, as their home planes would be elsewhere. Shoot. A wrench.
“Perhaps one or two of the more enlightened religious orders have discerned or learned of the true nature of the gate”
Nice.
January 5th, 2010 at 3:32 pm
A thought. What are my motives for involving named critters, such as Lloth, Asmodeus, Tiamat and others? Nostalgia, for the most part.
Perhaps I’ll reskin these monsters and create Ascended who are native to Golarion, and make original personalities and whatnot for them.
January 6th, 2010 at 7:47 am
Johnn Wrote:
and then later, wrote,
These grive rise to another couple of possibilities for you to consider.
1. Perhaps the “stock standard” Demons and Devils are different in nature, ie Mortal and not Divine, as would be expected from the Planescape setting, but the Demon Princes, Llolth, Tiamat, etc, are entirely seperate in origins. You can have your cake and eat it too.
2. Perhaps the Demon Princes et al were once Ascended Beings like the Gods who have had their natures divided into Mortal and Demi-mortal/supernatural componants – with their memories fragmented enough so that they only dimly percieve what they have lost. This would explain the ‘family fued’ that these beings have going with the Gods in a way that ties inherantly back into this particular campaign.
3. It’s even possible, if (2) is correct, that the beings known as Demon Princes etc are the remains of a prior Pantheon that the current pantheon has displaced – violently. They might even have been a fairly normal bunch of good guys and bad guys and those in-between. Perhaps the gods have even absorbed/appropriated the non-mortal componants of the former pantheon, and the mortal componants of the former pantheon attack the Gods in perpetual attempts to regain what was once theirs and reclaim their place as the Divine Beings of the cosmos. Of course, the experiences they’ve been through would unhinge even the strongest minds, and the things they’ve had to do in order to survive would corrupt the noblest soul – so their success would definitly not be in the best interests of the mortals who lived to see it.
All of these serve to broaden the moral and philosophical essence of the religious groups (of course, I would assume that only the highest-ranking would have access to the truth, and might even be bound to commit ritual suicide before they divulge it). They also give the religious orders so much to keep a handle on that not only would ‘little things’ fall through the cracks all the time (giving adventurers something to do), but that they wouldn’t have the resources to maintain control over even something as important as the Cyphergate – the best that they could do would be to maintain a state of political anarchy and maintain a popular delusion that the gate was Arcane in nature.
That would make the entire political structure of Riddleport, and the head of the Arcane Guild that’s studying the gate, unwitting pawns of the religious orders – or, more properly, the shadowy back-room elements within the religious orders. Religious fanatics are always worth dropping into a campaign….
January 6th, 2010 at 6:31 pm
I like this line of thinking. I’m not sure exactly what (2) means though. Could you explain your ideas more?
I like the devil/demons are former (rival) pantheons, warped and twisted. Perhaps the Cypher Gate has something to do with their past fallout and downfall, which is why the Arch Devils and Demon Princes continue to besiege the area.
Maybe the twisted memories or lore of a few of the Arch Devils and Demon Princes tells of the Cypher Gate in Riddleport being their salvation. To them, it’s interpreted as ultimate power, but in reality it will turn them back to their true Divine form. There should be a cost associated with this, but I’m not sure what.
Some of this still seems a bit cobbled together. I hate it when my plots feel like they’ve been forced to just tie up a few inconsistencies. More ideas and input is welcome!
January 7th, 2010 at 9:24 am
To clarify point 2: I was looking for a way to bridge the conceptual gap between the theory of the powers of Greater Darkness being mortal within the game setting and having previously enjoyed full divine status.
This implies some sort of change or transformation, and it seems unlikely that it would have been undertaken willingly. So I thought about someone using the gate to seperate out the differences between the two statuses, producing (effectively) two seperate beings where once there was one. Both are incomplete, and would be vulnerable as a result.
This then raised the question, if what is running around is the mortal part, what happened to the rest? Is it still also on the loose?
The idea of the current crop of gods using that power to raise themselves from high-powered mortals to divine status followed from that question, and tied the motive for the overthrow of the former Gods, who now linger as Demon Princes, etc, plotting and scheming to get their power back and ‘do unto others as they have done to you’ with extreme prejudice.
It seems likely that the reason the idea still seems cobbled together is because this is all foundation and background; you would still have to assess the implications for the modern campaign elements (the holy orders etc), who knows what, and what impact it would have on the various elements of mundane society. The ramifications apon the actual game world have yet to be determined, in other words; this is all behind-the-curtains metaplot.
There are a few implications to ponder, as well. Unless the previous deities were inherantly evil (which would show up in folklore and myth), the current gods inherantly corrupted themselves somewhat by casting down the old gods and taking their place – as I said, unless their divine forebears were inherantly and unspeakably evil, this would have to be considered a corrupt act.
There’s a quote that comes to mind, but I’m not sure where it originates (I think it may have been Numb3rs): “Corruption of the best is the worst”…