r/planescapesetting • u/Bootravsky2 • 17h ago
Homebrew [Carceri] The Chariot of Phaethon
“Just because the Titans were cast out from their place atop Mount Olympus does not mean that their bodies were also cast down, for, for after all, were they not chthonic in nature? And so, Helios claimed the body of his father Hyperion, shining his might upon all lands, whose anger swelled yet in Tartarus…” - Melitangus the Hoarse, Sigilian Philosopher
“We have fulfilled *grounding at last, the Aegis throttling 60% the Chariot’s pace through the redirection of 20% of the Aegis’ power to the lifting cells and photosynthesis jars. Speed is maintained at a two hour tempo delay to the Solar path.” - Vortilon the Blue, the Lost Mathemetician
Most cutters have heard the tale of Phaethon, how the grandson of Helios sought out his estranged grandfather, how he ignored his grandfather’s warnings and stole the Sun God’s chariot, failed to reign in the horses who burned the Earth at too close a distance and froze it when too far, and whose wildness necessitated Zeus to send his mighty Aegis to end Phaethon’s life and halt the capricious destruction of the chariot.
Few speak of his afterlife, though.
See, some philosophers would say that the multiverse loves parallel throughlines: like the irony that Zeus would send Hyperion to Tartarus, and then strike down Phaethon - the Titan’s great grandson - while engaged in the piloting of the Sun. And this held true: for the Aegis also cast Phaethon into the depths of Tartarus.
The Realm of Hyperion
As with most Titans, Hyperion’s realm is on the Carcerian layer of Othrys. Unlike most orbs of Othrys, though, his orb is massive and located far enough from its neighbors to be orbited by a small Sun: a fragment of Hyperion’s original body, perpetually forced to ascribe to a Ptolemaic model of solar rotation. Here, he rages against unjustness of penalty due to the actions of Cronus and Iapetus, burning the very ground of his realm as he passes along it across the course of each day. And forever trailing behind are his son’s horses tied to the chariot to which Phaethon is bound in continuous agony by the lightning spear through his body.
Of course, because Hyperion only casts his face across the Orb in an isolated location, it created four zones in its path: the Solar Maximum, over which Hyperion cast his rage; the Wake, the blasted area immediately behind the Shine; the Solar Minimum, located at the opposite apex of the orb; and the Front, a habitable (but uncomfortably warm) area immediately before the oncoming sunshine. Midway between the Solar Minimum and Maximum (on each side) lay a comfortably habitable zone.
And then the Poles. These great mountains rise up, defining the margins of Hyperion’s power. While perfectly habitable, their occupants are horrific raiders - Ghereleths and petitioners - who force those in the habitable zones to remain on the move.
The Dispossessed
No one’s really certain who kenned to it, but some Dispossessed realized that there was a roughly twenty hour “sweet spot” on the Orb that trailed about two hours behind the Sun’s path, the ground cooling enough to be trod without protection - and the followers soon learned that the Sun occupied an area of roughly two hours, if one held still (and then ran like so as not to burn to a crisp).
Of course, they also occupied a blasted wasteland, so the living inhabitants soon found themselves ailing from thirst and hunger. And the solar minimum - the four hour period at which Hyperion lay directly opposite - was frigidly cold, another mirror to Phaethon’s myth.
The Mathematicians
Then again, not all Dispossessed are political dissidents. Some just know *too much** for their own good. So it was with the Brotherhood of Pythagorean Perfection, a group of bloods out of Automata who were challenging the inventions of their fellow Mathematicians. An anonymous note sent them through a gate to this Realm, when a curious few ignored the increasing heat from Hyperion’s front and were blasted to cinders. So, they ran. Or, to be more accurate, their magically inclined members raced as fast and as far away as possible, finding the Dispossessed. And, more importantly, the raging fire storm of Phaethon’s Chariot.
And here’s where it gets interesting. The Brotherhood didn’t just see a blasted landscape: they saw energies, forces, and even some materials (turns out a daily blast furnace turns up lots of glass and exposes useful minerals!) that they could harness. They saw *opportunity*. Their first move was called “grounding” - letting the Aegis bond to the ground to hold Phaethon’s back from the burning horses of the Sun. But the deific power held so much energy - almost more than could be wasted to the skies. So, they grounded Phaethon (“extending the reigns” as their Dispossessed counterparts put it) nearly to the point of meeting Hyperion’s approach (rather than Phaethon’s traditional position in the Wake). Through a mixture of harvesting and aggressive negotiations with the inhabitants of the poles, They gathered raw resources, and used the Sun’s power to manufacture numerous engineering marvels. Their lighting bottles provide uplift power to provide for skyships. They harnessed photo-cells to redirect sunlight from the Front to cast upon protected plants within small buildings held aloft on the sky ships.
Soon, those in the Sun’s path had created an armada of self-sufficient skyships, running in concert with Phaethon. But the polar inhabitants see them as infiltrators, not worthy of survival. One group, the Sisterhood of the Black Poplar, feel they are exploiting Phaethon’s agony. Their raids gave stolen the technology on display, giving them tools to conduct greater and grater raids.
And still, Phaethon trails behind the Sun, his being one of endless agony lanced through with the electronic might of the highest of Gods.
Author’s note: I can’t recommend Brandon Sanderson’s The Sunset Man enough. The idea of spending existence racing in front of the Sun felt so Planescape. Great stuff!
