Alluvion

Alluvion is the ever-expanding epicenter of intelligent activity in The Drift and the spiritual center of the worship of Triune, the god of technology. The city has a roughly ovoid shape and rests atop a relatively flat asteroid, beneath which is an expanse of impossible darkness. An accretion disk composed of chunks of other planes claimed by the Drift spirals slowly into the city, gradually adding to its mass. Over time, these accretions have formed distinct rings—the innermost are reserved for the elite, while new arrivals must settle for territory at the newly added edge of the city. A massive gravity well beneath Alluvion draws in this stream of planar detritus; Triune’s faithful believe the god has harnessed a black hole with a combination of technology and magic, which would explain the unfathomable blackness beneath the city. Whether or not this is true, the gravity in the city itself is comparable to that of Absalom Station and other constructed environments, and a carefully filtered atmosphere supports most oxygen-breathing life.
Sometimes wryly called “the city at the center of the Drift,” Alluvion in fact travels throughout the plane. Whenever Triune wills it, or at least according to no predictable timetable, obelisk-like beacons throughout the city glow faintly green and repeat a seven-tone melody for several minutes. The surrounding purple-pink hyperspace then seems to fold in on itself, and the city is instantly transported to a different part of the Drift—often near a newly plucked portion of a plane. Those who have experienced such relocation while in Alluvion compare it to entering or exiting the Drift, which has led to speculation that Triune held back a key component of Drift-engine technology when it sent out the Signal, one that might allow even faster travel among the stars if it were discovered.
ALLUVION N holy city of Triune Population 26,000 (70% Android, 20% Anacite, 5% Verthani, 2% Ysoki, 3% other) Government theocracy Qualities devout, remote, technologically advanced Maximum Item Level 20th QUALITIES Remote Reaching this settlement is very difficult, often requiring secret knowledge or very specialized skills.

Government

As home to Triune, god of the Drift, the city is ultimately ruled by the All-Code and its high priests, though the latter concern themselves primarily with collecting, organizing, and interpreting the galaxy’s near-infinite amount of information. Beyond the many potent technomancers who make up much of the high priesthood, Alluvion’s primary defense is its indeterminate (and quickly changeable) location—generally, only those whom Triune summons to the city can reliably find their way there. Thousands of modular anacite servitors called animotes crawl incessantly through Alluvion, harvesting portions of other planes from the accretion disk and incorporating them into the ever-growing city, extending the city’s infrastructure into newly formed areas, and repairing damage. On the rare occasion that hostilities break out, animotes join together into building-size enforcers bristling with improvised weapons.

History

Alluvion serves as a microcosm of the Drift, not only incorporating portions of the multiverse’s planes but also functioning as a proving ground for the kinds of advanced technology that make travel to the plane possible in the first place. Technological advancement rules every aspect of the communities here, including developing technology to a point where it mimics biological life. Alluvion has a number of public and private facilities devoted to virtually every facet of technological research. In addition, the city boasts a surprising diversity of cuisine that results from a healthy supply of modified plants and animals, as well as widespread interest in molecular gastronomy.
Soon after the Signal went out, Triune called many of its new faithful to the city, as did its component gods, Brigh, Casandalee, and Epoch. Androids make up the bulk of the population, though there are significant populations of anacites and of those verthani whose embrace of cybernetic augmentation borders on fanatical. While Alluvion is the holy city of Triune, some of Alluvion’s faithful continue to worship one of its constituent gods. Such worship generally falls along predictable lines, with androids devoted to Casandalee, god of artificial life and reincarnation; anacites to Epoch, god of machine evolution; and a few ysoki to Brigh, god of invention and machinery.

Tourism

The following are but a few points of interest in the city at the center of the Drift.
The Array: There is little as important to Triune and many of its worshipers as collecting and interpreting information. The Array is a series of several dozen large cylindrical silos where Triune’s priests collate unthinkable amounts of information about every conceivable aspect of the multiverse. Each silo’s walls are ringed with physical drives held in technomagically protected slots and connected to a vast network. Remote access to the information on these drives is strictly limited, and physical access even more so. While most drives are filled with reams of exhaustively detailed data about a single subject and virtually worthless if removed from their context, a few contain incalculably valuable information, such as the dark secrets of the galaxy’s most powerful organizations and the coordinates of star systems full of untapped natural resources. While some briefly entertain the idea of stealing such information, these notions are quickly dispelled by Monitor (N agender android technomancer), the Array’s no-nonsense primary guardian.
Brigh’s Bend: This L-shaped building on the banks of the Source is a combination tavern and museum of clockworks. Dedicated to Brigh, one of Triune’s aspects, the establishment is open at all hours (though the concept of time can be a bit nebulous within the Drift) and serves a wide variety of intoxicants for nearly every known species. “Going ‘round the Bend” is a popular colloquialism in the city for drinking to excess, and though sometimes the celebrations can get very rowdy, several clockwork bouncers keep the clientele in line. No one is certain how proprietor Maia Whisperworks (N female bleachling Gnome mechanic) maintains these ancient pieces of technology, but some whisper that she is descended from priestesses of Brigh.
The Dark: This large, blasted area is devoid of power and most infrastructure, and those who enter soon find their technological items failing and their batteries drained. Creatures with significant biomechanical components have a hard time staying conscious in the area, though a small contingent of unaugmented ysoki live in a shanty town constructed from spare parts and material plucked from Alluvion’s accretion disk. Few agree on the origin of this inhospitable zone; some believe a rogue pocket of the Negative Energy Plane devastated the area, while others think the site represents a demonstration Triune’s divine wrath, incurred by a nonconforming sect of worshipers or overzealous colonists. Whatever caused the Dark, it’s unlikely Triune would permit its continued existence in the city unless it served some purpose, though any such purpose remains a mystery.
The Manufactory: A significant number of the Drift beacons that expedite interstellar travel are constructed in this complex, using a largely automated process overseen by a handful of anacite priests of Triune. The beacons are essentially useless until they are placed in an ordained location on the Material Plane and activated by the All-Code’s faithful, but some believe the mundanity of the facility is meant to hide deeper secrets about the function of the Drift in plain sight.
The Source: This slow-moving, salty river was once part of an undersea current on the Elemental Plane of Water, but it became an integral part of Alluvion early in the Drift’s existence. It originates at the base of the Temple of Triune and bisects Alluvion, flowing off the edge of the outermost ring and into a massive reclaimer that pumps it back to the source. The river is both tribute and laboratory; the preponderance of recorded instances of abiogenesis (life spontaneously forming from nonliving matter) in the multiverse has driven Alluvion researchers to attempt to replicate the process, using the primordial water of the Source as an incubator for their constructed precursors to life. There are even rumors of a successful experimenter who secreted her creation away with the intent to seed an otherwise lifeless planet and become the sole creator of a living world.
Temple of Triune: Also called the Nexus, this enormous tetrahedral structure is Triune’s metaphysical home and the center of its worship. At each corner of the pyramid, an entrance extends into a long hallway that leads toward the center of the temple. Each of these tunnels is dedicated to one of the gods that joined together to form Triune (Brigh, Casandalee, and Epoch), and the walls are paneled with interactive art that depicts the god’s history leading up to the unification. The tunnels terminate in a large hall that forms a perfect circle linking all three entrances (though they are separated by thousands of feet). The ceiling of this hall is the angled roof of the temple itself, and hundreds of niches are nestled in the walls, each containing a touchscreen panel and a physical input jack. While the standard-issue panels give any visitor cursory access to Triune by allowing him to contribute data and donate credits, it is via the jacks that true worshipers of Triune commune with their god. These connectors range from the most common cable sockets used in the Pact Worlds to organic orifices that reach out to meet any appendage in proximity. Devotees with the appropriate biomechanical hardware can plug in and upload their consciousness to an entirely virtual version of the temple. Each worshiper experiences a unique version of this alternate reality, whether as an open-air shrine in a verdant forest, an ornate stone cathedral, or a space station orbiting two colliding stars. Some visitors report their experiences, even claiming to have spoken with Triune itself, but for most the journey is a deeply private one. Priests of Triune make a slow circuit through the hallway, pausing to help adherents find a niche with a compatible jack or to interpret their experiences in the neural network. The main hallway is in fact the first of several concentric circles, but even those called to Alluvion are rarely permitted beyond the first ring and into the temple’s innermost sanctum—though there are those who say one must win the right by hacking the network.
The Tethers: Alluvion’s ceaseless growth makes any kind of permanent starship dock impractical, yet it doesn’t have enough gravity to hold ships in orbit, so visitors make use of a system of nanocarbon tethers along Alluvion’s southern edge. These cables are strong enough to tow even larger starships, and automated trams run along the length of each tether, transporting crews to and from their ships.
The Track: One of the sole venues for entertainment in an otherwise research-focused city, the Track is a hovering flat track that twists into a Möbius strip, upon which high-speed drone races, complete with obstacles and drone-versus-drone combat, are regularly held. An informal gambling scene has built up around the events, which began as a way to encourage the technological experimentation, innovation, and iteration that competition naturally inspires. Bettors usually stake information rather than credits, and they base such bets not on mere hunches, but on extensive analysis of all available data about the drones, their controllers, the configuration of the course’s obstacles, and innumerable minor factors. Winning drone pilots gain very little prestige, but those who can correctly predict each drone’s finishing time win admiration—and sometimes a discreet job offer from an anonymous firm.

Natural Resources

Alluvion’s greatest resources by far are its vast repositories of the multiverse’s information, along with its biotechnological innovations. Interconnected research facilities with labs chock full of cutting-edge equipment allow multidisciplinary collaboration and research. Researchers perform endless experiments with universal polymer bases, which are in nearly unlimited supply here (though institute heads carefully apportion them), and even the multifunction units themselves are constantly being experimented on. Rumors abound of quantum-state UPBs, which can serve several functions simultaneously, and biological UPBs that may finally eliminate the already-blurry line between biology and technology at the molecular level. Other minor industries revolve around the rare minerals sometimes drawn into the city’s accretion disk.
Alluvion’s power supply, whether a result of energy harnessed at the city’s core or a divine gift of Triune, is seemingly limitless, given that it never falters despite the constant and significant draw on it.

Type

City

Location under

The Drift