Ruin Way

     The Ruin Way is a major astral current running through Chunky Space. It is a realm of barren grandeur, a huge wasteland monument to the grotesque power of time. They say this realm wasn’t born ruined, that it was once a great astral city in the time of the Phantsmagorics. But even if such a golden age really existed, it has long since passed through calamity into a great cosmic twilight.

Astral geography

    The Ruin Way is composed of an uncountable number of fixed points, connected by the broken remains of a roadway. It is said that there is a road connecting every point to every other point, though you wouldn’t know it by sight .No road is visible from any other road. When someone leaves a fixed point, they are assigned a road and a destination at random. Experienced navigators can influence the destination towards a specific factor (IE a location with water, or a location without any living beings) but the outcome is still fundamentally random. 

    In order to stay on a road, you must be traveling slightly faster than a running adult human. Slower moving objects find themselves in the neon wastes, a barren sub-dimension. The neon wastes is also where those who stray from the road find themselves. It is an infinite expanse of eye searing sand. Sometimes moving objects on the Ruin Way can be glimpsed in the distance, but the Ruin Way proper can never be reached. Nothing can. And when a trapped creature dies, they are buried beneath the glittering sand, never to be seen again. 

The Peregrine

    The Peregrine maskforms that live here are always on the move. Their cities are huge convoys that travel together. The Peregrine believe that their home exists to impart moral wisdom on its inhabitants. The study and contemplation of the Ruin Way is their chief spiritual enterprise. Each time a Peregrine makes a pilgrimage to a holy site or performs an act of service for the city, it is recorded in the book of deeds. This forms the basis of their governmental hierarchy, with their place in the concentric rings of bureaucracy determined by their “deed score”.

Osar - The vast treads of the vehicles of Osar are powered by the honored dead. The masolems of Osar hold dead maskforms from all over the Ruin Way and even beyond. They are well cared for and given monthly offerings. In return, they turn the wheels that keep the city moving through the desert. 

Orkess - At the heart of the city there is the Melody Reactor, a one of a kind piece of astral technology that converts music into energy. Around the reactor is the Orchestral Array, a series of concentric wire circles, each with a track mounted musician platform. When active the musicians orbit the reactor, allowing the conductor to control how much music is reaching it. In combat situations the array is used to focus the music into powerful sonic attacks.

Flar - The city of Flar is easy to find; with its burning plumes of light and the clouds of crystalline ash it leaves in its wake. The engines of the city burn light’s blood, a glowing white fluid found in the ruins.

Fison - This city is the center of tech gnostic study in the Maskform Federation. The central reactor runs on Utopian ore gathered from the Ruin Way; the rest of the city houses the satellite reactors that run off the by-products. The reactors are run by the reactor priests, an order that exclusively recruits from a lineage of asexual Maskforms that reproduce by budding.

Formations 

Orb works - Massive spheres of incomprehensible, grebled technology. Ruined factories from the first city, or dreams of failed industry. These formations are an important source of utopian ore.

Vesicular pipeline - Long stretches of pipes like veins, branching and coming together in fanciful arabesques. Some still contain a thin trickle of light’s blood.

Monolith Warren - A huge housing complex, long since abandoned. Supplies from the lost world can be found here, along with strange lurking remnants.

Cosmic interchange - An impossible tangle of roads, the ruins of what was once a great nexus in the first city. In the caves formed by overlapping highways there are dark, dismal oasis of dripping water and slime.

Pilgrimage sites

The last convenience - A single sign, “last stop for eternity”. A simple brick and mortar store with a bored shade working the counter. They sell end cakes and brightly colored elixirs. Out back there is a restroom and in that room there is a hole in the wall. On the other side is cosmic glory. Any appendage placed in the hole is transformed into a cosmic energy tendril.

The lighthouse of the end - At the top/bottom of a massive mountain/chasm that is both high and low as a matter of perspective. The area is shrouded in black ultraday beyond the visible light spectrum. Titanic moths circle the lighthouse, partially veiled by the void.

The martyr - A giant figure in chains, run through with hollow harpoons. A trickle of light’s blood flows from the ancient wounds

Dream creatures 

Walking Storms - These powerful elemental beings were almost hunted to extinction by early Peregrines until Saint Scowl the pitious gave their life to stop the practice. Now walking storms are revered as pilgrimage sites in their own right. Recently, Father Corp raiding expeditions have been harassing the storms, stealing portions of their astral mass. This one issue has done the most to push the Peregrines into the Maskform Federation. The most common types of walking storm are plasma, sound, light and paint. More esoteric storms such as blood, darkness and void are often considered mere legends, though encounters with them are still found in the books of deeds.

The Last Rain Storm - The only walking storm of its kind and the highest rated pilgrimage. The rains create a transitory oasis in the desert. It is guarded by the joyous worms, giant sand dwellers who erase the storm's green trail. 

Remora orb - A floating chrome orb. They attach themselves to moving objects and feed by siphoning off their momentum. Mostly harmless by themselves but large flocks can reduce anything to a standstill. Popular pets among the Peregrine, who use wild empathy to channel their kinetic manipulation abilities

Pigment phoenix - A large avian made of paint. No two are the exact same shade. Flies in swarms of 50 or more individuals. Defend their territory by diving into enemies. When a surface is covered in three different shades of pigment, it forms into an abstract artwork, then explodes into a dozen more phoenix. Peregrine braves use the pigment as war paint. A warrior wearing two shades shows they are unafraid of death, as exposure to a third shade would cause them to explode.

Lost Titian - A giant wearing ancient metal armour. Spends most of its time in torpor. When awakened they persecute long forgotten and possibly fictional wars. They can shoot lasers from their eyes and their roar can shatter eardrums.

Chrono Vulture - A black and tattered avain. Eats carrion. Can project a time dilation aura that speeds up the flow of time, which it uses to create carrion.

Engine Cultist - A lost soul that has chosen to forsake their old form for the power and grace of an engine. Initiates have machine parts in their flesh. Acolytes live in the engine blocks of their war machines. They live for chases and violence.