Aeromantic Infadibulum

The final moments of a flying city of the Shory Empire.

Aeromantic Infadibulum (pronounced AIR-oh-man-tik ihn-fah-DIHB-uh-luhm), sometimes spelled Aeromantic Infandibulum, is the name modern researchers and historians have given to the magic used by aeromancers of the Shory Empire to create their incredible flying cities. It is believed to have been a combination of theoretical Hard Aeromancy and the Azlanti magic of electro-thaumaturgy.

Little is known of the practice of Aeromantic Infadibulum, although the ruins of the Shory cities of Kho and Ulduvai, and the crashing of the flying pyramids of Hakotep I into Osirion in 4714 AR, prove that it was not just the imagination of countless storytellers.

History

The Shory people of central Garund first learned the secrets of aeromancy from Black Heron, one of the Ten Magic Warriors of Old-Mage Jatembe in -2556 AR. During a war against cults of Rovagug, the Bekyar peoples, and charau-ka worshipers of Angazhan, the Shory people developed flying platforms to grant themselves a tactical advantage and allied with the winged derhii.

These advantages led them to victory against Djakobu, a lesser spawn of Rovagug controlled by the cultists of Rovagug. In the era of peace and prosperity that followed, the Shory refined their methods in aeromancy and began forming the principles into the first designs of the Aeromantic Infandibulum in the belief that they would rise above the reach of enemies and worshipers of Rovagug.

The first Shory city to rise from the earth was the capital of Kho, retrofitted with lighter materials to facilitate flight.

Design and technology

Even among the few surviving Shory people on Golarion and their descendants, their knowledge of the concepts of the Aeromantic Infadibulum has long since faded. Many who survived the fall of their cities were untrained nobles who lacked the engineering knowledge to revive the practice.

The four core elements of the Aeromantic Infandibulum in Shory flying cities were powerful magic items: a staff of rightful rule buried in the city's center, a great rudder of sails and magical ropes for steering, a bag of winds for infinite propulsion by means of elemental air, and an infandibulum key that bound the greater mechanism to Sussuran runes that demarcated the area to lift from the ground. Part of the Mwangi Expanse and central Garund still bear such runes, having once been marked for Shory flight but never implemented. To keep the structures habitable at high altitudes, electro-thaumatic hypocaust vents provided heat.

The flying pyramids of Hakotep I were powered by Aeromantic Infandibulum arcanotechnology.

What little is known about the functional design and function of Aeromantic Infadibulum devices is derived from the flying pyramids of Hakotep I, whose Aeromantic Infandibulum devices were designed, implemented, and maintained by Shory technologists-spellcasters and crashed into Osirion in 4714 AR.

The pyramids' system consisted of a centralized structure containing the Aeromantic Infandibulum system that could also remotely power the flight of other subordinate structures. The central structure was powered by a generator composed of glass and metal turbines filled with gear-driven mechanisms and unknown toxic gases.

For example, the generator room of the Great Pyramid of the Sky Pharaoh consisted of eight turbines, each nearly 30 feet tall and emitting powerful evocation and transmutation magics. All eight were required to sustain the pyramid's flight.

Subordinate structures received the power of flight from the central structure through control nodes located in the central structure. For the flying pyramids of Hakotep I, these nodes took the form of control pyramids in the Grand Pyramid that emitted powerful evocation magic. Power for the Infandibulum and any subordinate structures was remotely controlled from a set of illusory controls.

References

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