Saturday, 7 March 2026

City of 100 Gods Part 9: Temples of the Engineer (ward 50)

This post is the in the City '26 series and continues our ongoing exploration of the City of a Hundred Gods: 


This post examines the Temples of the Engineer.

Bas relief of Thoth from the Temple of Kom Obo.

But first, here's a City '26 update:

The following blogs, wikis and website have been added to the City '26 Mega Post:
As ever, please let me know if you wish to have your own City 26 Projects shared on the megapost with a comment below.

The Temples of the Engineer 

(50th ward of the city, last of the Artisan's Quarter)

Who lives and works here?Who visits?

The artisan priests of the God of Engineering, priests of Sekyalmek and Kaab, adminsitrators from the Temple of Literature.
 

What are its principal features and architectural motifs?

Dressed stone, arches, colonnades, aqueducts...a panoply of architectural marvels... alongside explosions, collapsing scaffolding, stone dust and perpetual undoing and remaking of a thousand student experiments going awry.

There are quite a few aerial walkways and bridges, relating to the ward's topography: the "mound" of the city's more affluent neighbourhoods begins to rise. However, it's also a consequence of the engineer's proclivity towards excessive construction, 


Encounters

Day

    1. Street food vendor
    2. Gang of 2d4 student engineers
    3. Gang of 2d6 student engineers
    4. Parchment/papyrus/paper vendor
    5. Tool vendor 
    6. vendor of nootropic entheogens, mainly quickleaf
    7. Students engaged in construction project or land survey
    8. Preacher of heretical mathematics
    9. Akilomek (see NPCs, below)
    10. Kyrusa (see NPCs, below)
    11. Kalahim (see NPCs, below)
    12. Roll twice more and combine
Night
    1. 2d4 apprentice masons either pranking or spying
    2. 2d4 engineering students, drunk
    3. 2d4 engineering students, drunk
    4. 1d4 Spies from the temple of Literature (ward 60)
    5. 1d8 Escaped giant locusts
    6. Errant Dusk Spirit
    7. Tetula's disembodied spirit (see NPCs, below)
    8. Lekla in giant bat form (see NPCs, below)
    9. Kalahim (see NPCs, below)
    10. Roll twice more (using 1d10) and combine
    11. No encounter
    12. No encounter



Priests

Priests of the engineer outfit themselves in garb alike that if the Temple of Literature: long, poncho-like linen robes with embroidered gold detailing denoting rank. Like their counterpoints they also wear pointed hats with ear flaps: "teaching" priests wear their hat so it points upwards, "building" priests wear it flopped over to one side. Priests wear beards if they are able to grow them.

There are multiple sub-orders of the Engineer known as "rites": these work collaborate with priests of other orders, aligned to their particular discipline. Thus, those who are learned in the arts of structure and architecture seek the priests of The Mason (ward 48) and Sekylamek (the 6th God, outside the city). Hydrologists seek out the Priests of Pulukhu. Nonetheless, a strong element of secrecy governs the transmission of knowledge, being a salient feature of all the Artisan Priests.


Prominent Factions

As stated, Priests of the Engineer align themselves with certain rites particular to their discipline, but one faction transcending such rites is knowns as The Servants of the Dusk. These priests the Engineer not as an avatar of the creator God but as a manifestation of the DUSK, the ancient spirit presiding over the city's Western Gate.

The Servants if the Dusk chew cactus buttons and brew hallucinogenic tea to establish dialogue with this entity and inject its will into the other rites of the Engineer.

Goods and Services
  1. Papyrus, parchment.... even the primitiv epaper from the Wasp-Priests of the Grub-Farms (43) 
  2. Charcoal, ink, quills: writing materials
  3. Measuring rods, squares, plumblines
  4. Sacks, bags and baskets
  5. Ropes and cords
  6. Obsidian blades, flint scrapers 
  7. Liquid fire in glass flasks
  8. GRanite axes and hammers
  9. Portable rock spirits or clay automatons
  10. Beasts of burden, always one of the following (roll 1d6): 1-2 1d6 donkeys 3-4 1d4 auroch 5-6 1d3 elephants. 10% chance of an exotic creature (roll 1d6) 1-3 trained bear 4-5 quadrupedal dinosaur 6 ogre slave labourer
  11. Navigation, survey work, mapping or construction services
  12. Hydromancy & geomancy
NPCs

Akilomek high-priestess of the Academy. The most senior of the teaching priests, this tall, dark-skinned woman with long silver hair oversees the education of all the apprentice priests. The consummate planner, Akilomek spends her spare time making elaborate strategy games which she plays with the leaders of the Nine Noble Houses (Wards 81-89).

Royal Game of Ur



Burylum: olive-skinned, middle-aged woman of short stature and sturdy build. A shrewd, senior Priestess of the Mason on a sort of secondment to the Priests of the Engineer. During her time her she has become associated with the SERVANTS OF DUSK, but her experiments with CACTUS BUTTONS has brought her to the attention of THE HIVE TYRANT and she is slowly extending her influence into the accursed metropolis. Unaware that the goddess she now serves is not the Dusk Spirit.

Kalahim, Physic of Numerals: a gaunt, long-faced man, copper complexion increasingly sallow as his title of Chief Mathematician becomes a n ever-heavier burden. For six months the ever-more pronounced decline in his mental faculties has been cause for concern among followers of Akilomek. Kalahim seems to have surrounded himself with a rabid hoard of obsequios acolytes, all to keen to strike against those who would challenge his increasingly nonsensical polemics on geometry.

In truth the real Kalahim has been dead for more than a year: the shape-shifting spirit that took his place was created by The temple of Numerals, and administrative enclave within the temple of Literature. While the Engineers struggle to comprehend the weirdness of the unfolding situation, "Kalahim" continues to pantomime his way through his performance as senile engineer, utterly lost within his role.

Kyrusa, acolyte: gangly, androgynous, bald but for a single-braid of black hair, preternaturally intelligent. An orphan, they began their tutelage 2 years after leaving the CHILDREN OF THE SEA (ward 37). Unlike many engineers, they have strong ties outside of the ward and Kyrusa is a good conduit for business, though they have no commercial or political interests: they just want friends. 

Lekla the Draughter is a gifted artist who has pioneered the use of charcoal and hornet-paper n the production of engineering drawing. Indeed, in her short career as a Priest of the Engineer she has established the graphics standard to which all apprentices aspire. Of average height, pale-skinned and bearing a bald pate beneath her pointed hat, few would suspect that at night she transforms into a bat and eats people.

Norin is a a renowned builder-priest of the Engineer, known as The Paver for his knowledge of footway construction and the underlying substrate of the City. Tall and athletic, his maroon skin belies his ancestry among the eastern herders who still pay tribute to the City of 100 Gods.

Norin's research into GEOLOGY is leading him to forge something like his own rite, especially given his experiments with tunnelling. These experiments may lead him into contact with entities buried before the Age of Chaos: Titans, demons, crashed spaceships...

Tetula: tall, bald, wiry and brown-skinned. Usually barefoot. Nominally of the Bridging Rite but essentially now a sorcerer conjuring insectoid spirts through his association with the Servants of Dusk. Has recently taught himself how to GHOST WALK, and does so continuously through the night. Can train others to do so, too.

 

Plot Hooks

  1. SHADOWY AGENTS (actually priests from the Temple of Literature) would like to get Kalahim back: preferably alive, but dead and intact is acceptable, so long as the Engineers don't notice he's gone until he's safely ensconced in their laboratories.
  2. There's been a string of murders of various students and the Engineers would like this solved quickly and discretely. It's Lekla, which is going to upset them.
  3. An automaton created by some enthusiastic students has gone on the rampage: it must be stopped before it escapes into another ward. 
  4. Burylum has inadvertently summoned a nest of hive-swarm entities which have converted a wing of the temple of the Engineer into an extensive labyrinth; extirpate them!




Links


City '26 Megapost


City of 100 Gods Part 2... Gates and Ladders

City of 100 Gods Part 3... Further Along the Ladders

City of 100 Gods Part 4... The Last Ladders

City of 100 Gods Part N.... Navigating the City

City of 100 Gods Part  5... Traders Wake

City of 100 Gods Part 6... Final Traders Wake Wards
 
City of 100 Gods Part 7... Artisans Quarter

City of 100 Gods Part 8... The Serpent of the Sky

Iwar of The Birch and Wolf is creating WogatiĆĄpurk

Eli is hosting their city-building effort on Google Docs:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PYOwEVRlfm9ItiTW3vlNOqaE4YMOms9M4CnPWqrMEMY/edit?usp=sharing


Unexpected Entities



Mutagenic Hive Swarm



























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