At the moment I'm trying to think of a friendly familia for the Ally Gate that you've got. I'm imagining about three members - I know one will be the Noble of the Forge, to help out with your weapon experiments. I'd quite like another one to be the Noble of History or Knowledge, if Kuro doesn't mind - it'd be nice to have your rival close at hand (bit of a coincidence - I wonder if Antipathy Jones engineered it to further his Estate Geoff?). What sort of idea did you have for History Kuro? Anything specific?
As a lover of absolute truth, I'd imagine he'd associate more with practical, concrete Estate Nobles, even if his academic mindset makes it hard for him to get along with them well...
I'm not sure who the other Noble would be. I've had a rather sudden idea of what the Chancel would be like though - in fact, the Chancel and the Imperator would kind of be the same thing.
The Iron Monitor, a vast and ancient Aaron's Serpent nested deep below the earth. It has fed for so long on the molten rock and metal of the Earth's core that its entire body is now formed of these materials, and it has grown truly huge, even by the standards of Aaron's serpents. The main part of the chancel is suspended over the ever-flowing river of lava within the beast's stomach.
This dependence on lava and heat has made it impossible for it to ever return to the World Ash, and because of this, once every fifty years, a great tear of magma spills out of its eye and mixes with the metal of the core, causing tectonic upheaval and volcanic eruption in the world above. The Iron Monitor now spends its time asleep, dreaming of its lost home, though its Nobles can commune with its sleeping mind by taking a secret route through its red-hot bones and entering its cranium, where a blinding, searing light takes the place of a mortal brain.
Many other parts of the Iron Monitor's body have inhabitants, from the strange white Golems that protect its blood (a stream of super-hot plasma) from interlopers, to the weird Tapewyrms - themselves of draconic length and majesty - that parasitise its gut.
The Iron Monitor's nobles and Chancel-folk are all immune to the effects of the heat, and can craft amulets that pass this effect onto others when within the Chancel, allowing visitors to come. The city in the Monitor's belly is made up of hundreds of iron steps, gantries, walkways and platforms, with buildings standing upon them. In the centre of it is suspended the Great Forge, where a huge variety of metal artifacts are crafted by the Noble and his underlings.
The Ally Gate actually enters the Monitor in the creature's nasal cavity. However, those that enter without an 'Asbestos Amulet', (as the Noble of the Forge jokingly refers to the gold talismen, also known as Phoenix or Salamander amulets) are reduced to ash in moments. Even ghosts are blasted from the face of Creation by the awesome, miraculous heat.
This is the reason for the ancient gate's assocation with Suicide and Hell - until a Power blessed with Immortality tried the gate some three hundred years ago, the folk of your Chancel regarded it as one of the few ways that the ghosts could end their long eternity, and sometimes even now a weary ghost takes the Longest Step out of their undeath.
Only one of the Amulets is allowed to be kept in Locus Balthial - in the event of a direct attack, this can be used to summon help from the folk of Locus Monitor. Other amulets may be brought from Monitor when you make official visits to it.
I think I'll make the last Noble Volcanoes, actually. I know the whole under-earth chancel has been done by the example Aaron's Serpent in the book (the Gravelling Wyrm), but this is sufficiently different to be ok, I think.
Phew, I think that's enough ideas for now. Some questions :
Can anyone see any mechanical problems with having the Imperator and the Chancel as the same thing? I'm planning on the creature having Spirit 5 and the Chancel having Defender's Blessing 5, which should simulate its Auctoratitas nicely. I'd also rule that the city and the Monitor's other stomach contents (and possibly some of its other fluids, like its blood and tears) don't count as being part of it for the purposes of direct miracle immunity.
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