Dark Room Dark Room

The Dark Room is a room that exists outside of known space. It is a place with an interior, but no exterior, as far as anyone can determine. Once, it was the pitch-blade and gore-soaked lair of the demon Bune, shackled within by some kind of mystic restraints, and finally slain by the Maple Shade Cell.

The Mystery of the Antechamber

Opacity: 3 • In order to begin to scrutinize the Mystery, the viewer must be within the Antechamber (also called the Dark Room).
Surface Information: This is the result of any successful Revelation test done before the Mystery's Opacity has been unraveled completely.

• Foundations: The Antechamber was wrought by Awakened magic. It used the Practice of Making, using several Arcana.
  • There were multiple individuals involved in its creation, and they created it between two and three decades ago.
• Environs: Furnishings randomly appear and disappear, often as needed. These are all originally from the manor that stood where the apartments now stand, and as such are all turn of the century antiques.
  • Nothing that relies on electricity appears, and items that go unused (usually shoved out of the way) tend to disappear once more. This can be used to redecorate the space as needful.
  • It generates light and air sufficient to see and breathe, and everyone within it experiences the temperature as close to neutral as they understand it, even if those benchmarks are different for everyone.
• Gain 1 Arcane Beat.

Deep Information: This is the result of a successful Revelation test done after the Mystery's Opacity has been unraveled completely.

• Extraspatial: It exists outside of mundane Space, but it is still part of the Fallen World.
• The Dark Circle: The circle in its center was once used to imprison a goetic entity of some significant power. Now, it contains a number of symbols marked in a permanent soot-like substance - there is one symbol for each person who has the Dark Mark.
• Metabolic Stasis: It establishes a sort of metabolic stasis: those within it do not need to sleep, eat, drink, or excrete while they are there, but those states quickly "catch up" upon departing the Antechamber. It is even possible to be rendered unconscious or even starve in this way.
• The Dark Mark: Only those with a Connected Sympathetic tie can enter the Antechamber. The room causes those who have such a tie to manifest a tattoo-like symbol on their body, called the Dark Mark.
  • The chamber prevents the use of magic or other abilities from creating artifical sympathetic connections. Everyone who bears the Dark Mark may induct another into their fraternity by gathering at the edge of the circle, placing the inductee into its center, and then each of them spending 1 Mana. This creates a Connected Sympathetic tie to the newly inducted. This is not reversible.
  • Those with the Dark Mark may enter the Antechamber by touching any wall in the Maple Shade and willing themselves there as a reflexive action. This does not function if a Sleeper is viewing them.
  • Those with the Dark Mark are treated as though they possessed the Attainment: Sympathetic Range (Space ••) for the sole purpose of casting spells into the Antechamber from outside of it, or from any other part of the Dark Tower.
• The Stairway Door: Hidden in one wall, perceivable only by using any Active Mage Sight to study the chamber is an archway of polished stones set into the wall. Beyond this arch is a landing and a set of stairs that rise upward. The arch can only be passed by someone using Active Mage Sight.
• Gain 1 Arcane Beat.

Merits

The Dark Room encompasses the following Merits.

• Safe Place ••. All individuals with the Dark Mark a +2 to Initiative checks while within the Dark Room. Efforts to breach the Dark Room take a -2 penalty. Rather than traps, the Dark Room is inaccessible to those without the Dark Mark.
• Sanctum • (+ Demesne •••). Those with the Dark Mark are considered to have +1 Gnosis for determining spell control. The entirety of Dark Room and its chambers are considered within a Demesne that is aligned to all five Paths. This grants a +2 die Yantra bonus to any spells cast to utilize their power as well as a +2 die bonus to rolls to summon Supernal entities. Spells cast within the Demesne don't risk Paradox or Dissonance unless they are taken outside the Demesne. Finally, meditation within the Demesne allows a mage to access the Astral Realms.
• Hallow ••••. The Dark Room generates up to 4 mana per day, which can be harvested by a simple act of meditation anywhere in its environs. Mana that is not harvested manifests as Tass in one of the upper chambers, until it has coalesced twenty mana as Tass, at which point the Hallow becomes dormant until all of the tass is harvested.
• Library (Occult) ••. The library here is focused on Occult topics of interest and relevant to hunters primarily.

Appearance

Now, it is a room with a red, always polished hardwood floor, walls covered in rich wallpaper in jeweled tones, and chandeliers that seem to hang in nothingness, as its ceiling is not visible in the darkness beyond them. It has furnishings that seem to be well-cared-for antiques from the turn of the century, which have been organized into a pattern useful to the cell. Unused pieces of furnishings (those shoved off to one side) tend to disappear overnight, though they occasionally make a re-appearance somewhere in the room, along with the occasional piece of new furniture.

The Dark Room has neither windows nor doors, and is marked by a circle of black smudge in the center of the room, which contains one sigil for each of the people who bear the Mark. The widest part of the room has tall bookcases that stand some twelve feet high, just shy of the height of the chandeliers.

The Stair Arch and the Winding Stair

• Hidden in one wall, perceivable only by using any Active Mage Sight to study the chamber is an archway of polished stones set into the wall. Beyond this arch is a landing and a set of stairs that rise upward. The arch can only be passed by someone using Active Mage Sight.
• The stairs are made of marble with an etched line of inset metal running down the middle of each stair, flowing one into the other. The metals are silver, iron, lead, gold, and copper in a single sinuous, curving line of filigree.
• Those climbing the stairs will be taken entirely around the circumference of the chamber, coming back to a landing with a door upon it. The stairs continue upward from there.
• Those using different Mage Sights (and thus bound for different chambers) lose sight of one another on one of the many corners of the staircase.
• The door that stands there is based on what Arcanum of Mage Sight the mage has active:
  • the Primal Wild arcana lead to the Greenhouse
  • the Arcadian arcana lead to the Library
  • the Pandemonaical arcana lead to the Salon
  • the Stygian arcana lead to the Cenotaph
  • the Aetheric arcana lead to an unknown destination.
• The stairs leading upward always lead to chamber doors – either the door to a different chamber for those using multiple arcana, or right back to the same door otherwise. The stairs down always revolve once and then end in the arch to the Antechamber.
• Those who shut down Mage Sight on the stairs simply climb and climb, with no ability to find the landings that lead to the chambers. Descending still leads to the Antechamber landing and the archway, though passing through the archway will cause it to disappear until the traveler re-asserts Mage Sight.