Artifactotum

Amber-Powered Dinosaurs in the Time-Displaced Observatory

Prismatic Wasteland has started a map bandwagon:

https://www.prismaticwasteland.com/blog/bandwagon-the-map-is-not-the-territory-but-it-is-the-topic

The map by Amanda Lee Franck is fantastic and evocative, and gave me so many ideas that I'm just barely in under the wire with an unfinished entry.

edit 28 Apr 26:

I forgot to state outright that this adventure is for Electric Bastionland: https://chrismcdee.itch.io/electric-bastionland

I'll also be editing for clarity, but really I just need to repost a polished version.

I'm putting this up to make sure that I keep working on it:

AmberPoweredDinosaursMap

Amber-Powered Dinosaurs at the Time-Displaced Observatory

Amber-Powered Dinosaurs at the Weather Monastery

Amber-Powered Procompsognathi at the Meteometrical Observatory

Brief overview:

The wireless transmissor at the Time-Displaced Meteometrical Observatory only broadcasts boring weather measurements. Starting four days ago, it began broadcasting thumping dance music. This sudden and unauthorized change might cause the most dire kind of problems: tax problems. The new fun broadcasts must be stopped and the old boring ones resumed.

Unbeknownst to anyone outside of the Observatory, electrified dinosaurs have taken up residence in the space. The Eremite in Chief views the dinosaurs as a sign that weather work is done and it's time to take up a career in music.

Initiating event:

Reginald Storthright Bambleton, Chair of the Bureau of Benevolent Weatherfolk (mustached, talks through his jowls, expects results blast it) has a job that will pay £1000: go to the Monastery, put a stop to the pulsing dance music now being broadcast (£500), and reinstitute the weather measurements on the same signal (£500).

Historical background:

Some time ago, Ald and Ast, very close friends and roommates, were canonized for their work teaching animals about weather. Ald traveled with a foolish owl and a wise iguana, while Ast traveled with a nervous chameleon and wisecracking two-headed kiwi. Precisely who canonized them and how and why are questions as yet unanswered.

Thirty years ago, the Board of Benevolent Weatherfolk endowed the Time-Displaced Meteometrical Observatory (T-DMO), a site to record and broadcast measurements of the weather, nominally to somehow benefit the citizens of Bastion, but mostly as a tax dodge. For thirty years, the T-DMO has quietly functioned without incident.

Recent background:

Four days ago, a horde of amber-powered procompsognathi, recently escaped from the Lightning Lizard Consortium, slipped into the T-DMO and found things greatly to their liking. The general pro-animal vibes of the consecrated space, the ambient electrical fields producing the Temporal Situation, and now the intense dance music (generated by backwards wax-cylinder remixes with theremin punctuation) all might as well have been designed to cater directly to mildly electrified dinosaurs.

Abott Cremslop (thin, calm, in a state of religious intensity), Eremite in Chief, views the dinosaurs' arrival as a miraculous sign that the weather work is done and that it's now time to make music.

Reginald Storthright Bambleton, Chair of the Board of Benevolent Weatherfolk, doesn't know what's happened but will lose his tax dodge if the music continues.

After several days of music broadcasts and no response to his increasingly blustering communications, Bambleton ordered the power to the T-DMO cut off. The signal was only stopped for a moment. After very briefly losing his bluster, Bambleton has engaged the party to reestablish the signal.

On the way:

Lots of different people are listening to the dance music. Also, lots of handmade bills have been posted: just a stylized number 8 over a drawing of a wireless receiver and the message "the weather frequency"

Outside the T-DMO, looking in:

When they characters arrive, they'll see the T-DMO: a few rustic buildings and a large metal structure on a small field at the very edge of Bastion's walls. It looks fairly pastoral except for the jarring fact that the field is directly above a particularly built-up section of Bastion.

To the left of the property, Sverta and Deeve putter with a tall thin pole set at an angle. Either Corboretta or Bim stands by a low and sagging open-wire fence. To the right are an empty ampitheater and another stark pole. Across a sturdy wooden walkway stands an empty tarnished copper doorway and beyond that are most of the buildings of the Observatory.

Temporal Situation:

Technically, what the characters see when they arrive is the Time-Current Meteometrical Observatory. Anyone and anything going through the copper Inducement Gate moves an hour into the past, where the work of the Observatory is done. (More specifics are in the Inducement Gate section below.)

Most of the structures on the map exist in both the time-current reality and the time-displaced reality. It's much easier to treat the same past and current place (the Powerhouse, for example) as two different set of locations rather than the same place an hour apart.

There are two separate categories below: one for time-current areas and one for time-displaced areas. Some areas only exist in the current time, so they're only described in the current-time section. Some locations can be accessed both currently and through the Temporal Situation; those locations have a description in each section.

Time-Current NPCs and Locations:

Sister Corboretta, Brother Bim, Provisional Novitiates Sverta and Deeve, some crows, engineer Ol' Sal (sometimes)

A. Experimental Meterometer

During daylight hours, Provisional Novitiates Sverta and Deeve putter around, trying to build a smaller meteorometer (to be known as the Meteorometer in Bastion) to compare data with the Meterometer in Situ, outside of Bastion's walls. Neither of them know how to do this this. They're are the newest recruits so they've had this duty dumped off on them.

They've got dense technical manuals open and are half-heartedly hammering and sawing and welding and wrenching various pieces onto and off of the meteorometer. The builders have been instructed to report back when they've made significant progress, so the fact that nobody has checked up on them in a week or so is more than welcome. They really need some more electrical components, but they're all intimidated by and scared of the engineer, Ol' Sal.

B. Fence:

Neither member of the Observatory has been inside the Temporal Situation in days, and they don't know anything about what's happening in there.

Suggested replies to probable questions:

Corboretta Bim Can we go in? I don't know... can you? You're not supposed to! May we go in? [shrugs] You're supposed to use the door! What happens if we go in? You'll be in the Observatory Abbot Cremslop might be cross but not the Temporal Situation with me! Who's Cremslop? The Abbot. The Eremite in Charge. Can/May I have a cigarette? [profers cigarette] I don't smoke! What's going on with the music? The what? Which music? What about the dinosaurs? [blank stare] [blank stare] What's this note from the automat? Smulth keeps sending weird That's private correspondence! messages. He always does.

C. Original Meteometer and Amphitheater:

The standing spire is all that remains of the original meteometer. Years ago, the T-DMO used to give tours and outreach talks, and many tour groups -dutifully sat on the bleachers and stared at the giant sculptures while someone droned on about the weather.

A careful search of the ampitheater seating will reveal a bent metal token. The obverse features a picture of a bear wearing a hat and the reverse reads REDEEMABLE FOR ONE ADMISSION.

A ghost got stuck in the old meteometer during the (very brief) power outage ordered by Bambleton. It can be heard if the wind is right, if the characters are sensitive to the supernatural, or they fiddle around with the meteorometer in a convenient way. It figures it'll find a way out eventually, but if the party could speed things along, it would be grateful and willing to help somehow.

  1. Inducement Gate:

The gate is the only way into the T-DMO. It's an apparently empty doorway built of copper with heavy verdigris at the corners, roughly three meters tall and four meters wide. Through the gate is a view of the same courtyard one can see by looking around the gate, though looking through the gate gives everything a slightly fuzzy, unreal appearance. The other side of the gate is utterly featureless dark metal that can't be seen through*.

Anyone who steps through seems to disappear, but is in fact moved an hour into the past. Moving back through the gate brings them forward an hour, to current normal time.

Stepping through the Inducement Gate (or putting a limb in) produces a feeling of pins and needles and a sort of stomach-drop, except that every part of the body is suddenly the stomach. It doesn't cause any harm.

*Going around to go through the same entrance again does not work.

  1. Powerhouse:

This small dusty hut is alive with a variety of chugging machinery. Pulling the comically large plug doesn't have any effect on the power supply but does immediately alert Ol' Sal to the presence of interlopers, if not outright saboteurs. She shows up within a round or two to replace the plug and warn the visitors not to do anything like that again. (Ol' Sal is detailed in Ol' Sal's Cabin.)

  1. Interpretive Center & Locutory:

Signs and diagrams give a simplistic description of how the Meteometer (the large instrument) collects information about the size, shape, and speed of the weather, then sends that information to be studied by the meteometers (the people who interpret the data). When they make their reports, the Eremite in Chief recoreds the information onto a wax cylinder and the Transmissor plays it over the wireless at the Locutory.

Up a steep and short staircase (£1 entry, but nobody is watching or collecting or even present) is the second floor, an open room with wide windows looking out into the mountains around this end of Bastion.

  1. Statuary (& Ladders):

Huge busts of Ald and Ast and their animal companions decorate the metal frame that dominates the Observatory.

Contemplating the figures produces a state of deep reverence and an ability to predict the weather. (Once, after having studied the figures for an hour, a character can announce what the weather is going to be.)

Further contemplation brings a feeling of oneness with animal life. (If a character contemplates the figures for a full day, that character can befriend any one animal, as long as the person's intentions are pure.) Both of these studies must be performed in current time (outside of the Temporal Situation) to have any effect.

Each statue has a ladder built in, allowing access to the second level of the frame.

  1. Crow tree hole:

Many crows nest here or in the various nooks in the wall of Bastion. This area doesn't fully exist inside the Temporal Situation, but the barrier between the two is weak here.

The dinosaurs have been stealing crow eggs. From the edges of the Temporal Situation they can just reach some of the non-time-displaced nests. The crows are peeved about the disappearance of the eggs (which from their vantage point is inexplicable) and have been holding meetings to try and get to the bottom of things. Unfortunately, the crows' story is not within the scope of this scenario.

If the characters can somehow communicate with the crows or deduce what's going on with them, they can use this information to sway Ol' Sal to help find the dinosaurs a new and more corvid-friendly home.

  1. Garbage Hole:

It is unclear where this hole goes.

  1. Refectory & Kitchen

The Current-Time refectory is eerily calm. Sixteen of small brass doors fill the far wall. Four of those doors contain food: a sealed can of sardines in each one. One also has a note scrawled to Corboretta. The handwriting is close to illegible, but the writer is worried about being eaten by dinosaurs.

Next to the lockers is a heavy door to the kitchen that's tightly closed and barred.

If the characters manage to force their way into the kitchen, they'll find it empty and spotless. It has no access to the brass food lockers.

  1. Dormitory:

There are twenty-four small sleeping cells here. Twelve are furnished and twelve are empty. (People feel weird about sleeping in the same physical location as someone else, so twelve cells are empty in the time-current version of the dorm.)

The only people still inhabiting their cells are Sister Corboretta, Brother Bim, and the Provisional Novitiates Sverta and Deeve. Any other Observatorium members not currently inside the Temporal Situation have fled.

Corboretta's shift at the fence is noon to midnight; Bim's is midnight to noon. Each will be here in their off hours. The Provisional Novitiates will be here when it's dark.

  1. Generators:

Two dusty old large black generators, built like locomotives with no wheels or entrances, chug away in a corner. They're so heavily armored that Ol' Sal won't even bother to come out and check if someone is trying to get into them.

  1. Ol' Sal's Cabin:

Cabin: This building is effectively always in the Temporal Situation, even the version that's not. It looks vaguely fuzzy and unreal.

Shed:

The shed is inaccessible from current time (except by Ol' Sal, who gets to break a lot of rules).

  1. Head Cell:

Because the Eremite-in-Chief is always in the Temporal Situation, the time-current version of the building is tightly boarded up, as if against bad weather. If the characters spend some time prying off boards to get entry, they'll find the inside mostly bare.

A handwritten note on the floor reads Music is how it all ends.

A ladder leads up to a locked trapdoor, which opens onto the roof. A few small instruments spin in the wind.

Time-Displaced Locations:

Time-Displaced NPCs and Locations:

Various electrified procompsognathi, Ol' Sal (sometimes), Jance Actuarial, Abbot Cremslop

  1. Inducement Gate:

An apparently empty doorway built of bright copper, roughly three meters tall and four meters wide. The other side of the gate is utterly featureless light metal that can't be seen through*. Through the gate is a view of a dull steel-colored fog. Anyone who passes through the gate will seem to disappear in a whiff of sulphur. Characters can move freely back and forth through the gate, but it feels physically very weird to do so.

*Going around to go through the same exit again does not work.

  1. Powerhouse:

This small shiny hut is alive with a variety of churning machinery and a singular electric procompsognathus. It will be pleased if the characters help it pull the plug. It will be displeased if they do anything else, and will attack them in that case.

Pulling the comically large plug doesn't have any effect on the power supply but does immediately alert Ol' Sal to the presence of interlopers, if not outright saboteurs, or possibly just playful dinosaurs. She shows up within a round or two to replace the plug and warn the visitors and/or dinosaur not to do anything like that again. (Ol' Sal is detailed in Ol' Sal's Cabin.)

  1. Interpretation Center and Locutory:

Interpretation Center:

The lower level of this building houses the offices used to interpret the data from the Meteometer in Situ. Four small drafting desks line the walls, and a smaller room off to the left is full of volumes and volumes of weather measurements, stacked floor to ceiling. This room is covered in papers and writing utensils and dinosaur leavings. An incredibly steep staircase leads up to the second level. Pulsing dance music thumps through the floor, loud even through the thick cork ceiling.

Three procompsognathi are trying to open a desk drawer. (It's locked, but they can smell the jerky and whiskey inside.)

When the characters enter, the dinosaurs will hiss threateningly. If the characters back out of the room, the dinosaurs will return to the puzzle of the desk drawer. If the characters have food or another means to distract the dinosaurs, their moods will improve. If the characters approach, one dinosaur will attack. If they don't flee, the second will attack. The third one will chant rhythmic nonsense words in a mechanically generated voice. This chant has no in-game effect but is probably terrifying.

Locutory:

The upstairs level is one large windowless room with tasteful cork paneling and a variety of electric devices designed to make and broadcast noises.

Currently, those noises are a constant ongoing electric dance beat with layers of sound over it, played from eight wax cylinders and a theremin. (Abbot Cremslop invented the instrument, and named it after his title: The Eremite in Charge.)

Jance Actuarial, tarantula mockery, was previously the Transmissor of the Observatory, in charge of playing weather measurements over the wireless. As of four days ago, she's a full-time DJ going by the name 8.

A dozen (more? fewer? hard to say) procompsognathi are bouncing and bobbing on what has become a dance floor. The music is very much to their tastes. Actuarial is afraid that if she stops playing it, the dinosaurs will get rowdy and attack. This fear is justified.

She can communicate freely while she manipulates various dials and knobs and the wax cylinders playing on eight phonographs. She hasn't slept in four days and she would very much like to do so.

If a character has the sort of background that might allow them to make electric music, they can take over. Actuarial says she's going to take a short nap, and she means to do so, but she's going to fall asleep for a full twenty-four hours and will be almost impossible to awaken during that time.

Another option is to record the performance and then play it back. The two most pressing limitations on this idea are the length of the wax cylinders (twenty minutes) and the fact that there's no recording device in this room. Ol' Sal could be convinced to help with the technology if the characters think of and pursue this idea.

  1. Statuary (& No Ladders):

Huge busts of Ald and Ast and their animal companions decorate the metal frame that dominates the Observatory.

Contemplating the figures produces a state of something, possibly. It's up to the characters to decide, but it provides no in-game effects.

Each statue has a place where ladder could be built in, which would allow access to the second level of the frame, but no ladders are present. The characters will have to climb the frame or find another way up. (If they've befriended Ol' Sal, she can get them anywhere.)

Several procompsognathi are climbing clumsily up and down the frame and will try to bite anyone climbing nearby.

  1. Crow tree hole hole:

The area where the crow tree stands in current time is a blank void in the Temporal Situation. If the area is observed for a while, the observers will see a dinosaur carefully nosing around the edge of the hole and coming up with a green egg, seemingly out of thin air. An hour in the future, crows will become perturbed that another egg has gone missing, and they call an emergency meeting in the middle of their previous emergency meeting.

  1. Garbage Hole:

It is extremely unclear where this hole goes.

  1. Refectory & Kitchen:

The dining area has been ransacked by dinosaurs looking for any food or drink. Two bored procompsognathi try to figure out how to break into the kitchen.

The kitchen has been barricaded by the cook, Burgeon Smulth. If some knocking or other human noises are made, Smulth will open a small window in the blocked door (prompting a leap from a procompsognathus, which he will deftly prod away with a long-handled soup spoon).

Smulth wants to talk, but he doesn't want to open the door. He's got enough preserved food to last indefinitely, and he does not want to lose any of it to dinosaurs. Also he's worried that they'll eat him. (They will. Years of cooking has make Smulth indescribably delicious, and the procompsognathi can sense this trait.) He already leads a monkish life, so this is little different.

He is more than willing to trade with the characters, especially if they've got any interesting food or spices or reading material that would fit through the little door and that he might enjoy. If not, he'll ask for one of the smaller volumes of weather data. He has a lot of black pepper.

The kitchen is the one place Ol' Sal refuses to go via strange networks of tunnels. She and Smulth have a strong mutual respect.

  1. Dormitory:

There are twenty-four small sleeping cells here. Twelve are empty and twelve are furnished. (People feel odd about sleeping in the same location as someone else, so twelve cells are empty in the time-displaced version of the dorm.)

Aside from Jance Actuarial, all Observatorium members who might sleep inside the Temporal Situation have fled. Actuarial hasn't been able to return to her room for four days, due to her new DJ work.

Examination of the beds will awaken a procompsognathus. It is extremely crabby at having been awakened. Any strong jostling of the bed will awaken a second procompsognathus who's a deeper sleeper than the first one, and so if anything even more crabby.

  1. Generators:

Two shiny new large black generators, built like locomotives with no wheels or points of access, thrum away in a corner. They're so heavily armored that Ol' Sal won't even bother to come out and check if someone is trying to get into them.

  1. Ol' Sal's Cabin & Shed:

Cabin:

Ol' Sal's cabin is a very small room with just enough room for a stove and a hammock, and now a smaller second hammock occupied by her dinosaur companion.

This building is effectively always in the Temporal Situation, even the version that's outside the Temporal Situation. Best not to think about it too much.

Shed:

Ol' Sal's shed is full of all sorts of parts and hardware and tools and whatever the Conductor is comfortable putting in there: flux capacitors, interocitors, kyber crystals, macguffins, whatever.

If Ol' Sal is with the characters, she can provide them with anything that seems helpful to the Observatory and within reason.

If Ol' Sal isn't with the characters, finding anything useful will require at least twenty minutes of searching:

Roll 2d6: a roll of 1-2 on the first d6 means the characters find what they're looking for, but a roll of 1-2 on the second d6 means that Ol' Sal shows up and finds the characters.

If Ol' Sal shows up to uninvited people in her shed, she'll ask a brief question as to what they're doing there. If she doesn't like the answer, she'll lock the door and begin the cleaning protocol: a whirling sawblade robot with street-sweeping bristles at the bottom pops out of a hatch and begins violently and indiscriminately sweeping.

After a minute of the robot whirling around, the sprinklers will groan, indication that they're about to go off. They spray fire rather than water.

  1. Head Cell:

Abbot Cremslop is here in lotus position, trying to teach a procompsognathus to do the same. It's doing remarkably well.

Cremslop is calm and pleasant and has a sonorous voice and thorough mind well suited to interpreting arcane weather measurements and then recording them and hiding backmasked music inside those recordings.

The procompsognathus is trying to learn peace.

If confronted with the problems in the Observatory, Cremslop can be convinced to step aside and let another Eremite in Chief take over.

If so convinced, Cremslop will climb to his roof and call all the procompsognathi to him (except Bocephalus, who's loyal to Ol' Sal). A weather balloon is stationed there. He will inflate the balloon, and he and the dinosaurs will float away to further adventures.