The Metal Die
written by Dee, the Weaver in Green
illustrated by Sin, the Weaver in Blue
The Metal Die looks from the outside like a featureless block of bronze, and nothing moves inside it. When rolled, after a moment or two, the topmost face opens up and a mechanism raises a tiny platform displaying the rolled result. Is it balanced? Only the engineer who designed it could say with any certainty.
Metal means different things to different people, but for the Gemfolk who founded the shining city of Heliopolis, it represented a relationship with the earth and the mountains that gave them life. Fire gives it the ability to bend and reshape itself, and a skilled craftsman knows the potential of good materials.
Go to the shining city and you will see it: gleaming on the walls of the Spire of the Sun; carrying people across miles in a matter of minutes on the Electric Rail system that weaves its way through the city; moving water to homes and restaurants and public gardens all over. The careful work of engineers, the best of whom still remember where the bronze came from and what it represents.
Metal is used for destruction, too. Weapons of war, armored instruments of devastation, devices built to level cities or topple mountains. The world remembers all of these things, with pain and sorrow.
When you roll the Metal Die, consider:
- When was the last time you looked to the mountains?
- What do you carry that has metal in it? Where did it come from? Who made it? Why?
| Roll | Effect |
|---|---|
| Bend | An electric hum, barely audible to those who aren't listening for it, fills the air. You can taste it on your tongue, you can feel it in the back of your throat, filling you with anticipation. But nothing happens. |
| Weave | The perfect tool appears in your hand, emerging out of the air from woven strands of bronze. It's like nothing you've ever seen. When you're done with it, the tool unravels and disappears again. |
| Fray | The earth rumbles beneath you as the world remembers a mountain that once stood here, that longs to rise again. Jagged pieces of iron might burst up from the ground as well, desperate for the sky. |
| Tear | The world remembers the tearing of the earth in pursuit of raw materials, the painful gashes that bled silver and iron until there was nothing left. The ground opens up like an empty scream, threatening to swallow everything to fill a void that cannot hope to be satisfied. |