Grimoire:Places

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The following is a list of Places entries for the Grimoire:

Venus

Ishtar Sink

The Ishtar Sink region looms large in our surviving knowledge of Venus. Guardians come hunting the ruins of the legendary Ishtar Collective, a sprawling Golden Age scientific project. But the ancient ruins that brought the Collective to the Sink have awakened again.

We aren't the only ones interested in the Collective. The Fallen House of Winter has hurled its assets into pillaging the ruins, hunting for some advantage - whether from the Golden Age, or forgotten times beyond. The House of Winter's presence includes constant Skiff overflights in support of ground teams and hints of an improvised command post or staging area in the volcanic Cinders.

The situation is degrading into a race against time. We must claim the Collective's ruins for our own - and hope they will warn us what other threats now rise from Venus' acid seas and ancient stone.

Earth

Earth

Once our cities lit the whole world. Now we huddle under the shadow of the Traveler, in the last place it protects. It is so very fragile, this small blue ship, our home.

Old Russia

The Cosmodrome was where humanity took to the stars - first in search of what lay beyond, and at the end, in hope of escape. Today it is a graveyard, picked over by the Fallen House of Devils. But buried among the detritus of the Golden Age are the pieces we need to forge a new future

Ghost Fragment: Old Russia

SABER GREEN this is ICE MINARET. We have your launch. Com check.

/ICE MINARET this is SABER GREEN we read you. Lattice is tight. Com secure. Abort advisory check?

Check is all nominal. You are now on internal power. SABER GREEN, please human-verify your payload status.

/Acknowledge human verification request. The words are RIGOR, APEX, SKYSHOCK. I will repeat the payload status now: RIGOR, APEX, SKYSHOCK.

Those are the words, SABER. Human crosscheck complete. Fly safe.

/Copy your last, MINARET. We are go for final count.

We affirm, go payload, go flight, go final count.

[interruption: masked voice]

Yes, it's RIGOR. Yes, I believe that's correct. Yes, it is, uh, it is an antimatter payload, a strategic asset. Specifically? Ah, I believe it's an annihilation-pumped caedometric weapon.

[masked voice]

Yes, it's covert, it's under SECURE ISIS. We have good confidence in the vehicle. We are not scrubbing civilian launches or clearing the range. Public inferentials would catch that, it's a security risk.

/Six at a hundred. Here we go.

Godspeed, SABER. You're all nominal here.

[masked voice]

We both know where the order came from.

The City

The City

"From across the ruined earth they came, seeking shelter from the storm."

— Card blurb

Every wayward soul unlucky enough to be born outside The City's protecting arms whispers its truth across the wastes: A metropolis, risen from the ashes of the Collapse, sheltered by the Traveler. It is a promise and a dream, the only refuge from the Darkness.

The Tower

"Swords were joined to give refuge to peace."

— Card blurb

The Tower is the only home many Guardians ever know. To the people of the City, it stands as a promise that we can endure. The merchants and citizens who fill its plazas and halls are as dedicated to the reclamation of our worlds as the Guardians who venture into the Darkness beyond.

The Golden Age

The Traveler changed everything. It reshaped our solar system as decisively as it shattered our scientific and philosophical frameworks. To our ancestors it must have been a hammerblow - a glimpse beyond the horizon of expected possibility and into a realm of transcendent power.

The Traveler kindled the Golden Age. But we built it. We remember this with pride, even after so much else has been lost. We settled our solar system and filled it with our work.

Today Cryptarchs and scholars work to distill the legends of the Golden Age into truth. We know that humans lived longer, flew further, and knew more. We know that countless ancient diseases and hatreds were extinguished forever. Human aspiration gives birth to vast engineering projects, sweeping social movements, and even new forms of life.

The Golden Age was not without challenges. Sources speak of internal strife, philosophical rifts- particularly around questions of machine intelligence and 'mind forking' - and enduring scientific enigmas. But humanity and its machine children tackled these problems with pride, vigor, and a contagious sense of pluralist compassion.

The Dark Age

The Golden Age burned bright - and the night that overtook us after the Collapse was swift and total.

The tally of suffering may be beyond comprehension. But the City lifted itself from the ash, gathering survivors. Guardians rose to challenge alien hordes. The Dark Age swallowed so much of our history... but hope never died.

Ghost Fragment: The Dark Age

"No one knew what had happened to the Traveler. No one understood what had happened to the world. But they heard the whispered call."

— Card blurb

They came from the wild lands, gathering in secret enclaves, slipping through the howling ruins of shattered cities, hoping to find the coast, find a ship, pick up the trail of an impossible dream.

From the deep black came the Awoken, their eyes haunted. Exos marched in the refugee columns, cloaked in moss and shattered memories. And among them came the Ghosts, beginning their search.

It was a time of vast suffering and terrible evil. But there was one hope: the promise of a refuge beneath the Traveler.

The City Age

When did the City Age begin? Perhaps when the bulk of the world's survivors lived beneath the Traveler, rather than in the wilderness. Or when the Titans raised the first wall. Or at Six Fronts, when the City first faced coordinated, overwhelming attack - and repelled it decisively.

The City did not rise without struggle. Warlords and wilderness fiefdoms clung to power. Starvation, disease, and anarchy menaced. But the Guardians held the frontier, and the children of the Golden Age kept the fire burning through the long climb back.

Legends walk through this history. The Iron Lords. Saint-14's crusade against the Fallen. The mask of the Speaker. The great Ahamkara Hunt. Toland's madness. Terrible Faction Wars - and the horrifying, disastrous effort to retake the Moon.

As the City learned to walk again, it found a world overrun by alien menace. It faced disaster and defeat. Even in recent years, as Guardians begin to venture back to the Moon and the inner planets, the City's territory has withdrawn - outer sections abandoned and converted into fortifications in the wake of the Battle of Twilight Gap.

But the City's shipwrights and foundries hum with energy. The probability kilns and work cooperatives produce new wonders. The Darkness is rising again. But so is the Light.

Ghost Fragment: The City Age

"And so it is agreed. The Concordat shall no longer be recognized among the Consensus. We'll begin the dismantling right away. But what of those Guardians who have pledged to them? We can't afford any more banishments."

"I'm sure Zavala can see to their realignment."

"We'll do our best. Lysander chose his followers wisely. It may take some time."

"Lysander will not back down. He'll continue his crusade from wherever we stuff him."

"And so we'll need to find some new ideas to replace his."

"The Symmetry has been gaining a strong following..."

"Ulan-Tan's teachings are too dangerous. Too much fear. Who knew he'd be more trouble dead than alive?"

"We'll need to refocus our collective minds on combat. The Speaker's anxious to regain ground we lost after the Gap."

"There is the War Cult."

"Too secretive. Have you ever tried to talk to one of their 'soldiers'? Like a child. Answering questions with questions."

"They are dedicated to the war."

"Which one?"

"Good question."

"Zavala?"

"They seem focused. Strong. More interesting than worrisome."

"Let's take it to a vote. All in favor of the ascension of the Future War Cult?"

"Unanimous? Good. We'll grant the Future War Cult access to the Tower and a seat among us. Ghost, please offer the Speaker this proposal."

"Now onto the next order of business...Shaxx is here with another proposal for his Crucible."

Moon

The Ocean of Storms

"...Yet I fear the moon's jade mansions are much too high and cold for me. Holding tight my midnight shadow, I would not leave the human world..."

— Poem Excerpt, 蘇軾, Chinese poet, Song Dynasty, Old Earth

The support base centered here was likely the first off-Earth colony, though it has long been left in ruin. In the centuries since, Hive temples have begun to breach the surface, exposing entrances to their fortress below. It was here that we came face-to-face with Crota and his legions, a force so powerful that we abandoned the Moon. Now Guardians venture into its depths seeking revenge, most never to return.

Mars

Meridian Bay

"A great city is a place where man competes with the Gods."

— Alton Bray, "Trials and Triumphs"

Under the shifting sands of Meridian Bay are the ruins of the magnificent Freehold, a testament to the glory of the Golden Age. Great secrets remain hidden in its crumbling towers.

Jupiter

Jupiter

Lord of worlds, massive Jupiter and its moons must have been a cornerstone of Golden Age civilization. But the nature and extent of human presence there is now unknown. Old records refer to cities in ice and world-spanning oceans, but perhaps this is only poetry.

The City's ships have rarely attempted any journey to Jupiter or beyond.

Ghost Fragment: Jupiter

Even the largest body lets itself be pushed where it needs to be, seduced into nice, warm loving orbits. Persistence is the key.

Seafloors transform and then yank themselves skyward, shattering the icy crust. New worlds awaken in the swirling depths.

You build homes around this half-born sun ripped by storms and supersonic wind