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One of the players in my game is looking to possibly play a Mystic Study character, and I suddenly realized that for as wonderfully detailed the Century Station books is, I didn't see anything about Ley Lines. Did I miss mention of Ley Lines? If not, should there be any? If so, where might be a good spot? Or some good spots? I'm going to look over the maps and think on this myself once I can sit down with the book, but I thought I'd collect other opinions on the matter as well.

I don't recall the main book doing it, but I heard part of Armageddon Unlimited deals with CS again, and I haven't had time to go through all of it yet so I'm wondering if it might mention that somewhere.

Century Station says nothing about ley lines. Armageddon Unlimited "doesn't" say there are ley line
in the city, but typically the Chaos Generators are put in places where they are located. So I'm
wondering if Carl "unofficially" is saying ley lines are there without saying so.

Reagren Wright wrote:Century Station says nothing about ley lines. Armageddon Unlimited "doesn't" say there are ley line
in the city, but typically the Chaos Generators are put in places where they are located. So I'm
wondering if Carl "unofficially" is saying ley lines are there without saying so.

I thought perhaps there was a ley line mentioned in one of the 101 Adventures, but I guess I am wrong.

Looking through the description of the City, I'm thinking that Century Station may have two Ley Lines.

One is around 5-10 miles long (what's really the scale of these maps?) and it goes from somewhere within the Rattle Ridge District, extending through all the other boroughs of the city and into the water to end on, within, or just North of the grouping of 5 islands off of Victoria Beach. It goes through or remarkably close to a couple of notable points: The Hannigan Junkyard (Brisby Flats), The old Zericho Wax Museum (Brisby Flats), Bloody Monday Memorial (Center City), Theater District (Center City), Century Park (Society Hill), and Brass Castle Estates (Society Hill).

The second is smaller at 1-2 miles long and is only in the Society Hill Borough. It begins at or just North or Century Street, extends through Century Park and ends at or just South of Century Plaza. Those few mages/wizards in the City who know of this line refer to it as the "Century Line."

This creates a nexus point in Century Park, not unexpectedly at the area in the park known as The Grand Lady & Her Hand-Maidens - an area of trees long rumored to house supernatural or magical creatures, such as faeries.

NMI wrote:

Reagren Wright wrote:Century Station says nothing about ley lines. Armageddon Unlimited "doesn't" say there are ley line
in the city, but typically the Chaos Generators are put in places where they are located. So I'm
wondering if Carl "unofficially" is saying ley lines are there without saying so.

I thought perhaps there was a ley line mentioned in one of the 101 Adventures, but I guess I am wrong.

In the G.M.'s Guide there's an adventure called "Trouble Down the Line" which features a Ley Line, perhaps you were thinking of that one?

In Century Station, the only magical sort of adventures I could find were an adventure idea that involves a cyber-pagan ritual (#16), a supernatural creature coming to town (#37), a kid with a magical stone (#40), a re-animated dead artist and a mysterious building (#48), a demon living in the Silver Hill Arcology (#49), mystical benefactor conference (#70), ritualistic murders (#73), and vampires (the "bonus" adventure). And you're right, none of them involve Ley Lines.

Glistam wrote:Looking through the description of the City, I'm thinking that Century Station may have two Ley Lines.

One is around 5-10 miles long (what's really the scale of these maps?) and it goes from somewhere within the Rattle Ridge District, extending through all the other boroughs of the city and into the water to end on, within, or just North of the grouping of 5 islands off of Victoria Beach. It goes through or remarkably close to a couple of notable points: The Hannigan Junkyard (Brisby Flats), The old Zericho Wax Museum (Brisby Flats), Bloody Monday Memorial (Center City), Theater District (Center City), Century Park (Society Hill), and Brass Castle Estates (Society Hill).

The second is smaller at 1-2 miles long and is only in the Society Hill Borough. It begins at or just North or Century Street, extends through Century Park and ends at or just South of Century Plaza. Those few mages/wizards in the City who know of this line refer to it as the "Century Line."

This creates a nexus point in Century Park, not unexpectedly at the area in the park known as The Grand Lady & Her Hand-Maidens - an area of trees long rumored to house supernatural or magical creatures, such as faeries.

So... Assuming the map of the Century Station boroughs comprises the entirety of the 300 square miles that Century Station is listed to be, and assuming that the water is NOT included in that square mileage, then the map in the book on page 38 of Century Station scales such that each side is about 20.5 miles. Based on that, the first Ley Line I described earlier would actually be around 18 to 19 miles long. The Century Line would still be 1-2 miles long.

I'm still working to turn the Century Station book maps into one quality map; until I do, I drew an approximate map for the Leylines running through Century Station and uploaded it here: Century Station Ley Lines

AFAIK, IIRC, they do mention that magic users are attracted to the city?
Which wouldn't make sense if there were no ley lines.

A couple of the adventures from the back of the book mention a group of Wizards, and one in particular says "There are more here than one might think!" I've decided that there will be the two Ley Lines I've been discussing and I placed them on the map of the city I've been piecing together.

As far as "more wizards than one might think," I'll probably have between about a half-dozen to a dozen or so spell casters, all different classes. Definitely a Heroes Unlimited Mystic Study or two, but probably also a Sorcerer (from the Nightbane book), one or two folks with spells from Magic Objects, possibly a Flesh Sculptor and/or Cybermage (from the Nightbane book), an Illusionist (from HU Revised), and maybe a Channeller (from the Through the Glass Darkly Nightbane book) or a Chaos Wizard (from the Chaos Earth Rise of Magic book). I also think it could be neat to have a Wu Shih (from the Mystic China book) and an Arcanist (from the first edition of Beyond the Supernatural) also, but the Wu Shih I need to be extra careful with since I really don't want to pull in N&SS and Chi into this game.

The player who has chosen to play a mage will be a Nightbane Sorcerer, so I look forward to being able to slowly introduce some of the subtle (and not-so subtle) aspects of the Nightbane setting into the game. In a world of modern super heroes I don't want to have an official "Magic Guild" so to speak, but I want the player to be able to have mystical support/friends so I'm going to have most of these mages I mentioned above affiliated in a loose organization called "The Telestic Society." My working idea for them is that they're a "support group for wizards in a modern world".

This reminds me, did ArmaUn upgrade the PPE levels from ley lines to the massive RUE/PF levels? Or are they still at the low RMB/Nightbane levels?

I don't believe so.

Here's my first pass at the group known as The Telestic Society.

Regarding Ley Lines in Century Station, I looked at the adventures in the back again and saw that #70 mentions something that I consider odd (bold emphasis mine):

Xian plans to steal their life essences (P.P.E.) to rip wide the interdimensional gate lying dormant in Arcadia and truly make Century Station Hell on Earth when he invites his lords, the Yama Kings, to come by for a visit.

Looking through the book, the only mention of "Arcadia" is in reference to the Archipelago, and no-where in that district's description is there a mention of an interdimensional gate. I wonder if this is another changed reference, like the "109 freeway," that didn't get properly reflected/edited everywhere in the book? But if there is an interdimensional gate laying dormant somewhere in the city that would attract an immortal sorcerer, that would seem to me to be another candidate for a Ley Line Nexus. Thoughts?

I've decided to ignore that comment in the adventures section. This is my current map, with the scale hopefully correct this time and showing the Ley Lines I've inserted into the city. It's not perfect but it gets what I want to have displayed across.

Glistam wrote:Here's my first pass at the group known as The Telestic Society.

Regarding Ley Lines in Century Station, I looked at the adventures in the back again and saw that #70 mentions something that I consider odd (bold emphasis mine):

Xian plans to steal their life essences (P.P.E.) to rip wide the interdimensional gate lying dormant in Arcadia and truly make Century Station Hell on Earth when he invites his lords, the Yama Kings, to come by for a visit.

Looking through the book, the only mention of "Arcadia" is in reference to the Archipelago, and no-where in that district's description is there a mention of an interdimensional gate. I wonder if this is another changed reference, like the "109 freeway," that didn't get properly reflected/edited everywhere in the book? But if there is an interdimensional gate laying dormant somewhere in the city that would attract an immortal sorcerer, that would seem to me to be another candidate for a Ley Line Nexus. Thoughts?

Gamewise: Since it's described as dormant, I'd say a mage would have to be almost on top of it to have a chance of detecting it. Even then, the mage would have to be actively looking for it, not just stumbling across it.

Reality: Yeah, it was probably changed during editing of the book.

Since its an optional adventure hook anyway I'm not going to worry about it and just keep things how I have them for now.

The Bloody Monday Memorial should be a Prime location for a nexus.

Personally, I didn't see it as Nexus worthy, but I did ensure one of the Ley Lines went through there. I think if any other location was to be a nexus it would be the Zericho Wax Museum. The description for that place is more mystical. In my game I left both locations as "places of power" though. The two places came to that designation by very different means, however.

Making another Nexus would mean making another Ley Line, and what notable locations in the city (if any) would lend themselves to having a Ley Line pass through them?

Okay, so if I were to make the Bloody Monday memorial a Ley Line Nexus, then looking at the map I'd have the connecting Ley Line start North at the stadiums, run through the memorial and then continue on to Sun Street.

If I remember right the locations I chose the Ley Line to run through were just a little off from being a straight line (the map I put together for my game shows this). I could also see breaking that Ley Line into two separate Ley Lines that run nearly parallel, but both end shortly after intersecting with the Zericho Wax Museum.

There's a bunch of different options for this, ultimately. There could also be stand-alone Ley Lines in the city or surrounding area as well. It's a city around the size of Chicago - how many Ley Lines should such a city have?

I have ruled in my game to have just the two that impact the game, and those are the two I drew on the map. I wanted to keep the mystical low-key, but still have a presense. Due to the odd (mystical?) nature of the grove of trees in Century Park I also rule that these Ley Lines only provide half the usual energy, because the other half is constantly being taken.

I may have rethink the location of a nexus. The Site of the Ground Zero Explosion might be a better location.

Well what I wrote above was all just my interpretation, and what I came up with based on the game I wanted to run. The book doesn't mention Ley Lines in any way so you're free to come up with whatever works best for your game.

Considering the number of magically empowered characters in the two books (CS and GI) a line or two, at the minimum, is definitely the right call.

FreelancerMar wrote:I may have rethink the location of a nexus. The Site of the Ground Zero Explosion might be a better location.

If there was a nexus at Iron Mike's base of operations then you might want to consider what effect, if any, the explosion and death of everyone at that compound had on the connecting ley lines. Were there any ripple effects from the sudden release of all that P.P.E. at a Nexus? Did that in any way contribute to the Bloody Monday riots and chaos?