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    Zeph
    Zeph

    ARMA Faction HQ

    The former North American HQ of the Order of First Light, the New York Federal Reserve building is, despite appearances, one of the most heavily fortified and defended buildings in the world. Protected by powerful enchantments, golems, and ARMA's best personnel, it has now been turned against those who originally seized it after the Shift, and now serves as the base for the young faction, both in their war against the OFL and their duty to protect their city.

     

    NOTE: As of October 2020, this branch has fallen victim to a vacuum of power as the founders have gone missing, rumor has it even some of the enchantments are beginning to fail the building.

     

    ARMA is composed of most of the members of the Order who once operated out of this building for the Vatican. The building now serves as ARMA's HQ, and the wards and golems have been re-worked to disallow Vatican agents, as well as those mages who chose the loyalist path.

    References to the Order in this document are historical, the Order no longer has personnel in or control of this building.

     

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    MAIN BUILDING

    Located in the heart of New York's financial district, the Order took over the old Federal Reserve building at the time of the collapse of the old American Empire.

     

    The choice was simple, since the Order involves itself with the retrieval and safe keeping of dangerous magic artifacts, demons that are a nuisance to life, harmful Meta humans and last but not least, the harboring of the secrets of Magic and its uses.

     

    180px-NYOUnight.jpg

     

    It was a perfect choice due to its construction; large bricks of solid stone make up the walls lending a secure foundation that is augmented by magic. Any attempts at breaching the walls of any part of the building (above and below ground) from the outside by force are thwarted by dimensional magic. Any intruder will be teleported to the opposite wall, just to the exterior of the building. Whether or not they materialize inside the wall or foundation of another building or even just under ground (in the case of anyone attempting to tunnel their way in) they will be unable to breech the walls due to the warding enchantments placed upon them. The same can be said about any weaponry being fired at the building itself. The Order has spent months and literally pints of the blood of its own magus in order to imbue the building with the impregnable dimensional magic. The preservation of the secrets within are so important that a sacrifice was made by no less than six magus (one for each side, including the roof and lowest basement level) of the building in order to safeguard the secrets contained within.

     

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    The first floor of the building is typically open to the public, even though it is carefully guarded by no less than twelve agents and a supervising officer. In the large and lavish reception area, a secretary is there to grant or deny access to the other parts of the building. Wards can also be triggered at a moment's notice, shutting down the main hall from the other parts of the building. Intruders will be trapped inside the main hall with the agent, Magus and the two Golems that are typically there, as well as suffer the discharge from the various gargoyles poised at strategic locations around the periphery.

     

    Since their break from the Order, ARMA has kept the building running at more or less its usual level of operation. The decline in available personnel means that they have taken in many non-Magus employees, though these are generally limited to the less secure areas. Tagging on the wards has been painstakingly re-worked to deny access to those with OFL badges who previously held clearance, allowing access only to those in the ARMA group. Many floors are divided into shielded areas for computer servers and the like in order to protect them from the magic used elsewhere in the building.

     

    The Federal Reserve Bank has 22 floors.

     

    Basement (five sub levels)

    The Basement levels contain the Armory, Tock's Workshop, and the central Mana Nexus that supplies the majority of the building's magical energy. An adjoining Nexus also supports the New York City Barrier. The Vault is also located within, though its exact location is known only to a few, and is said to change periodically. The second level also contains the building's backup generator and self-contained water system, installed for possible siege situations.

     

    Floors 1-10

    The first floors of the building house the public-friendly areas of the building, Public Relations, along with several offices for security. The Cafeteria and the building's training facilities are also housed on these floors.

     

    Floors 11 - 16

    The next set of floors contains the offices for the majority of Arma's field operatives, the former Swords and Shields, as well as advanced training facilities and a smaller Armory for the personal use of the agents stationed here.

     

    Floors 17 - 20

    These floors are the core of Operations Support and Planning - here the former Eye Magi and other agents support the field agents by collecting information and facilitating communications, coordinating the many operations taking place in the city and beyond at any given time.

     

    Floors 21 - 22

    Office of the Commanding Officer and the old offices of the First Sword, Former home of the Phylactery Storage Room. The 21st floor also contains the storage vault for classified missions.

     

    Prior to the civil war, the OFL's best mages worked numerous defensive and security spells on the building - those have largely been maintained by ARMA, though the access rights to loyalist mages have been revoked. The elevators and all doors that the public cannot enter have been closed off with wards that are triggered to unlocked in one of four ways:

     

    One is by the presence of a badge that all Arma operatives have been given. They are also given as guest badges and are to be worn at all times. These are the BLUE wards. Breaching these wards without a badge will trigger a building wide alarm, and the door is magically locked, turning into a YELLOW ward.

     

    The next set of wards is unlocked not by the badge itself, but is keyed to the aura of certain personnel. These YELLOW wards are attuned to the channeling properties of the magus, and will open in the presence of a magus or centurion only. When there is an attempt at a breech of this ward, it will turn to RED and a building wide alarm will sound. Since non-mages cannot activate these wards, the group has still been working on a way to allow those without a mage's ability to unlock them.

     

    A third colored ward, RED is triggered by blood magic. Only a First Inspector Magus or higher rank can open one of these doors, and typically the vaults and the ten upper floors are sealed by these wards. The RED wards are reserved for the most sensitive areas of the building, and therefore are the most potent. Touching an active ward by an unauthorized person results in complete paralysis for an hour and in some cases, unconsciousness. The ward will also trigger a building wide alarm and the golems throughout the building will be activated. The spellwork to create a ward of this type is extremely advanced, and available only to a few members of the Order - and none of those who defected to Arma. As such, only those who possessed access prior to the schism can currently pass through Red wards.

     

    The final kind of ward is ORANGE. This ward is malleable to who first touches it. It is typically reserved for guest rooms such as the one exemplified in Solemn Blood, in which a room was presented to Slate when he came to the Order. The ward will only unlock for that one person till the individual releases the ward. This ward is usually on the offices of higher ranking magus as well. The magus must put his hand into the ward in order to open it.

     

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    GOLEMS

     

    At various strategic locations, particularly outside the vaults and the archives, hidden floor wards will trigger the activation of Golems.

     

    The golems are fifteen to twenty feet tall, extremely tough. Weighing in at fifteen tons each they will fight till the moment of their destruction to protect what area the wards triggered. Four are found outside the subterrenean vault, and two are found outside the archives on the sub-first floor. Two are also found in the main chamber of the entry way from Liberty street as well as one at each entrance of the entire building for added security. The golems deeper within the building are not necessarily made of stone, and many have incorporated technology from Alistair and Tock's collaborative works.

     

    Outside, there are golems carved into the side of the building that will only be activated under the most dire of circumstances. The brainchild of the magus known as "Tock", these golems are not at all humanoid, but formed into the very bricks and mortar that hold the building together. When attacked, these bricks will rearrange themselves, forming arms and shields to protect the building - and to retaliate with physical force and blasts of mana to defend the building against any assault.

     

    On the outskirts of the island of Manhattan, there is also one more defense, perhaps the most important duty of the group. A shield that covers the entire city of New York. This shield is powered by twelve towers strategically placed, and would begin as a streak of violet through the sky that would first form a twelve spoked wheel in the sky, then the energy would spread out to engulf every inch of the sky above. To cross this barrier would take strong knowledge of magic and wardings, so there would be no traffic into or out of New York City until the shield was lowered by the order. While it might be possible to destroy the towers, they can still function even when two or three of them were destroyed. Heavily guarded by a troop of magus and centurions each, it would be difficult at best to breech the grid without triggering a full assault from the Order. More importantly, this shield's more passive effect wards and keeps out the majority of supernatural creatures and monsters that dwell in the countryside outside the City, lessening the need for constant defense against attack from such creatures. Arma has committed to maintaining this barrier, as the central nexus for the barrier remains in the deepest and most secure level of the Reserve building.

     

    OTHER SECURITY MEASURES

     

    Various enchantments upon inanimate objects, allowing surveillance of the entire building. Magical 'tags', similar in function to the magnetic or RFID technology, working as an early defense system against 'tagged' objects such as tomes and other items of importance being stolen. Staged at various locations throughout the building are triggers that will set off alarms if the item in question is carried across, such as the threshold of a door out of the room in which an item is meant to be contained. This will trigger the various security systems, and alert the entire building to send Centurions and Magus to that location.

     

    Automatic detection of unauthorized magic and active abilities. Always in effect in every square inch of the HQ.

    Automatic surveillance of BLUE, YELLOW, RED AND ORANGE ward alarm triggered areas and lock down of said areas with red wards on all exits.

     

    The only entrance that is open to the public is the Liberty Street Entrance. The others are magically warded, as well as having the nearly impregnable 'mage lock' on them. They are Yellow wards, and only open for authorized Magi.

     

    Golems will protect their areas, and prevent new breeches into the other entrances.

     

    VULNERABILITY

    While the building is exceptionally well defended against attack thanks to years of magi working their protective spells upon it, many of these spells are taught by the Order - as such, while the keys HAVE been changed, there is considerable concern among Arma that skilled Order infiltrators may be able to disable these wards. For this purpose, a substantial team of the rebel mages have been devoted to re-working the magical enchantments, both to prevent this and to produce ways that non-mage recruits may access certain secure areas.

    Edited by Zeph

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