Undercarriage

The best way to get from place to place in Bloodmarsh is to avoid going through Bloodmarsh. The Undercarriage system involves carting wealthy people and expensive cargoes through what appear (at the lighted start and end points) to be vast tunnels underground. There are costs, dangers, complications, and limits which are only fully understood to the more gifted students of geology and transmutation.

Function

Undercarriages are only a human-habitable vessel which give value to what's known as a Vochwitz tunnel. Together with ghurduun sages and conjurers at the different ARSEs, stable paths can be maintained which pass through "the souls of the bedrock formations" according to one informant.

"You know how people have spirits, or, at least, essence? Or there's a sort of gestalt existence to things which have a history and a story? You can imagine a sort of mute character to a thing just based on its age and grandeur, and there's a reason to this - there is a dimension, a path of thinking, where these unreal spirits are meaningful and useful. Well, the lumps of rock we walk around on each day, which pile up on one another and get laid open with valleys and so on, they have a sort of essence too. The Hellborgen Sandstone which underlies Sutyr a few dozen feet down stretches all the way north to Stonehome. The Hansel Limestone which breaks the surface at Krull runs underground all the way to Bridebid Coatrack, albeit covered by a limb of the Hellborgen and a couple of interspersed mudstones and chert beds. There's really a lot of socialization down there, or, I mean, interleaving, right? And if we know their stories and their extents, their strike and slope, we can plot a path through one, like running through your vein from your fingertip to your eye."

— Arnold Sputum, T.W., Bolry

Through an arcane process known as Tunnelling, an intangible, temporary passageway can be erected in the vague pit of potential reality which fills the gaps between actualities. This becomes visible in the form of a blank, dark passage which blinks into being in the wall of a purpose-dug Carriage Trench which is placed so as to cut through the maximum number of formational layers at the host ARSE. The passage leads from one point in a rock formation to any other. It takes a massive flux of thaumic power and a huge arcane machine to maintain the passageway, or rather to keep it connected to the real world. When the charge is removed or expended, the tunnel winks out. It is unknown what becomes of any travelers within the path; none have ever been recovered after a projection failure.
There are a number of considerations which factor into the choice of whether to travel by Undercarriage. Advantages:

• The path is almost completely safe from road hazards, such as immortals or raiders.
• The tunnel is much more direct. Though the drivers are obligated to make multiple turns during travel which don't seem to add up to the same real-world displacement one would expect, the total travel distance is always identical to that in a straight-line course from the origin to the goal.
• The length of time needed to complete the journey is very reliable.

Disadvantages:

• There is a small but not negligible change of projection failure if conflict or accident occur at the origin ARSE
• Certain dangers are known to still afflict the trains once in the passage. The nature of these hazards are not disclosed to the public, but statistics suggest that one in five expeditions encounter at least one such obstacle, and one in about twenty-five is damaged or destroyed by the encounter.
• The possible start and end points of Undercarriage journeys are limited by the specific character of the stratigraphic column in the desired start point, and the availability of space at the projector of the origin ARSE.

Weapons & Armament

None of mundane nature, though the crew transmuter always seems tensely vigilant and holds the end of a post-mounted blocky-looking doohickey on the rear deck of the lastmost carriage. This he refers to as a "Fenestrator."

Armor and defense

None evident. The transmuter will tell you that it would be no use, and that a little more speed in a pinch is worth much more.

Communication Tools & Systems

Famously absent. Once embarked and underway, nobody is allowed to exit the carriages, nor even attempt to look outside. Those who do report absolute blackness. There is an articulated tube which allows inhabitants of any carriage to speak with the denizens of the others, normally reserved for the transmuter's instructions to the drivers.

Additional & auxiliary systems

Each carriage in the train is linked by a hefty coupling and the articulated speaking tube, but otherwise each is quite isolated from the others. Each has a small cluster of arcane doodads on the ceiling near the peak, included among which are

• Two permanent lights of arcane nature. They emit a gentle, slightly yellow approximation of sunlight and keep the canvas-surrounded interior compartment well-illuminated.
• A lesser daemon in charge of a small thimble and a cloth-wrapped hard sphere of some sort. This object intermittently emits a prolonged hissing sound from the sphere followed by a whoosh of minty-smelling air from the thimble.
• A lever marked "Emergency Only" with a bright yellow handle. There's normally a twine tie which prevents this from being inadvertently thrown.
• A coin slot which emits a lead coin and a gallon of water when fed with a piece of eight.

There are also chutes in a curtained curtain at one corner for use as a latrine, a small wash-basin which can be filled from the coin slot by means of a swiveling spout, and long cabinets lining both long walls which double as both benches and beds. Two more beds can be lowered from each long wall to accommodate additional passengers.

Nickname

The Tubes, Nightland, Cashcart

Motto

We never said "No Danger," don't look at us like that.

Price

Around 5 lbAu per trip.

Rarity

Only available at ARSEs and a few capitals.

Width

8'

Length

2-5 15' carriages in a sort of train.

Height

8'

Speed

About 4 mph

Complement / Crew

2-4 drivers and a Transmuter

Cargo & Passenger Capacity

Standard for mid-sized carriages.