Gentry/The Chronicler of the Shifting Sands

The Chronicler of the Shifting Sands

The Chronicler is a Gentry local to the New England area created by Ian.

Description

A great behemoth, the desert octopus, this eight-tentacled clockwork creature dwells beneath the Shifting Sands, commanding its great airships that sail across the Everchanging Sea, a realm of vast deserts and deep oceans from which rise fantastical and marvelous landscapes which slip in and out of time as though their very existence was being poured through an hourglass. Its tentacles can sometimes be seen, reaching out and pulling entire cities back beneath the sands.

Realm - The Everchanging Sea

The Everchanging Sea is a seemingly endless expanse of deep ocean and desert sands that rush up against one another in a constantly shifting rise and fall. Caught in a realm where time seems to run backward, forward, and skip altogether as though a smooth stone skimming across the surface of the water, entire cities may rise and vanish from the oceans or the sands. Some are pulled back under by the Chronicler, while others rise, fall, appear, and vanish seemingly all on their own. At one point, they may seem as ruins, and then on their next cycle up from the waves, they may seem as brand new. All of them, magnificent clockwork creations filled with steam-powered automatons.

An armada of airships of varying shapes and sizes navigate the time and distance with specialized engines that allow them to navigate. Most of the Chroniclers creations travel on these airships from place to place as they appear and disappear. To each ship, an observer is bound by chains, doomed to document the fantastic adventures and lands that those on the ship discover and explore, but never to touch them.

Methodology

Victims are taken from places of curiosity, dusty old bookshops, mysterious antique stores that appear in small strip malls and then disappear again -- usually strange little temporary places that turn up, lure in the curious, and then vanish again. The Chronicler has a way of reaching out tendrils through time and distance, though it had its beginnings in those first ships that began to travel the seas during the age of exploration, and eventually found a wealth of victims along the coast of New England where its primary "feeding ground" is located.

Suggested Themes for Escapees

Those who survive are generally those who are employed on the armada of steam powered airships that traverse the sands and seas. Those within those fantastical landscapes and cities when they are dragged beneath the surface are usually quite permanently lost. Escaping from one such land onto an airship before one's home is lost is also a potential option.

• Beast - Creatures of the desert and the sea that can survive the constantly changing landscape might be common, as well as those who might have served on the ships.
• Darkling - Scouts to be sent out to explore newly exposed lands, usually expendable. Antiquarians may be produced from those bound to the ships to document events and maintain the Chronicler's collections.
• Elemental - Air-touched, Sandharrowed, Waterborn, and Mannikin are common among the Elemental kiths that might come out of the Chronicler's realm.
• Fairest - Tellurics are common on the ships as well as Larcenists sent down after the scouts to explore and retrieve anything of interest.
• Ogre - Water-dwellers can be found within the great oceans, but Ogres are not common among the Chroniclers minions.
• Wizened - A wealth of Wizened proliferate the crews of the air ships. Everything from repairs to ship's cooks are often fashioned for the Chronicler's expeditions.

Escapees

Aeros, Hope, Miranda DesRosiers, Morgaine LaVey, Paz Arenas, Reggie Danger, Tallahassee, Tristan Darrow, Whisper