Chrononaut

A chrononaut wields temporal aether by building ships or other machines out of saturnium and/or littany metal in order to move through time. Almost everyone who has ever done this was killed by the watchers of Chronur in order to prevent them from destroying reality.

Time Machines

There are several ways to build a time machine:

1. A ship with a saturnium shell and littany metal core.
2. A ship with a littany metal shell and saturnium core.
3. A ship made only with saturnium, but the core or shell is specially designed.
4. A ship made only with littany metal, the design of which is only theoretical.

To build such a ship (or other device), one must be able to find these metals. Saturnium can be found in the Low Mines, in mines near Chronur, and in a few other rare spots in Mahad, western Dabusen, and southern Wymmera. It is also sometimes found in meteorites and asteroids. Littany metal only exists in the presence of paradox. Thus it can be anywhere or nowhere at any given time.

Saturnium

Saturnium is a part of the copper series. There is also a form of it known as living saturnium, which has consciousness. Most shimisi refuse to work with saturnium, as it will kill them to do so one way or another, so chrononauts must learn to work it themselves. Forging and shaping saturnium requires either tools made of littany metal or impeccable timing, as forging requires hammer blows or similar timed to exactly 1/24 minute without fail for 24 minutes, per piece shaped or forged. Most invent machines for this.

Littany Metal

Littany metal is a paradoxical alloy of living titanium and living saturnium, named for the Littany family and created by the mythical smith Obiefune. It can only be shaped or forged if worked on backward.

Ship Designs

There are some standard designs for time machines:

Velocipede

The original time machine was basically a bicycle made of saturnium attached to a littany engine.

Finship

A finship is a time machine shaped like a big metal fish, which dives under the flow of time in order to navigate it. This design requires both kinds of metal.

Temporal Jet

A literal, but small, jet, fueled by liquid time. This design requires both kinds of metal.

Time Sails

Sails made of either metal attached to a ship made of the other metal can catch the flow of time and sail on its river.

Propellered Ship

This is the only ship capable of working without both metals. A purely saturnium gyrocopter is essentially a giant clock that can fly through time.

Littany Rail

It is theorized that one may build a rail system entirely out of littany metal that would travel outside of time on a regular schedule.

The River of Time

Time is a river, or so it is said. Most time machines assume this is so, and it has worked before. Rivers, of course, are not 2D. They have depth, width, length, and flow. How one moves through it affects when they end up. It is not necessarily as easy as going backward or forward, but finding the rich tributary, avoiding eddies, and going over waterfalls. Some common features:

• Maelstroms: timestorms, places where time is violent and disturbed, and one can get stuck or thrown to eras they do not wish to go, or to alternate paths.
• Tributaries: alternate timestreams merging with the main flow.
• Branches: splittings of the time line.
• Rapids: where time speeds up.
• Stillwaters: where time stops.
• Waterfalls: where time erupts and becomes unnavigable, and you end up making a massive leap, skipping over time periods.
• Shallows: places where there isn't much time.

Eels

Giant eels swim in the timestream, and some chrononauts with little sense make bridles, reins, and/or saddles of littany metal or saturnium and try to ride them. While this can in fact move you through time, it is so fraught with danger few ever survive it. Those that do are usually powerful, cunning, or lucky enough even to avoid watchers, so there are a handful out there.

Subjective and Objective Time

Subjective time is time as you experience it. It is the ticking of your own clock, and it follows you no matter what time period you are in. It is why you age as you time travel instead of shifting to the age you were when you went back to. Objective time is the time from the start of the cosmos, objectively, counted by rotations of the universe. Broken down into localized numbers, it is whatever time it is in the period you are in. One's subjective time can be altered to cause a person or object to alter, slow, speed up, stop, etc. Objective time can only be affected by massive shifts or changes, and then only after a great deal of build up. Once someone starts time traveling, their subjective time becomes vulnerable, and they can become lost in the timestream, outside of time, or stuck somehow. Once outside of their own timeline, their subjective time starts to run out unless they return to their own time eventually. This requires they keep track of their subjective time, and any of the abovementioned affects may affect how much of it gets used up or at what rate.

Watchers

The watchers of Chronur are tasked by Father Time to make sure the timestream is not broken or altered in any way, and thus, part of their job is to police or prevent chrononauts. They can control time through their own personal powers and will do anything to catch a chrononaut, so most chrononauts do not survive long. Many are erased entirely to prevent their machines from existing.

Paradox

The creation of a paradox because of changes to the timestream is very likely for an uncareful chrononaut. This can cause... massive problems. Like the end of all that is. Or the creation of new timelines, Divines, or the loss of trillions of lives.

Guidelines

These guidelines help chrononauts avoid destroying reality:

• Do NOT fall off or otherwise exit your ship or leave your eel when in the timestream. Your subjective time will blend with objective time, creating massive distortions down the line.
• Do NOT take off your poncho. You will lose so much time and become stuck.
• Do NOT cut or stop the wrong time. Be careful of which targets you attack with your rifle or scythe or time machine. Be VERY careful.
• Do NOT step on a bug. This will make everything different.
• Do NOT get caught by the watchers. Not if you want to have existed before.
• Remember: you are on your own.

Inventory

All chrononauts need a handful of tools to take with them through time:

Clocks and Watches

All time machines need three clocks: one that shows the time from the era they left, one that shows the time from the era they are in, and one that shows their own personal subjective time. One must also have some kind of personal time piece to carry with them, made of saturnium, that handles their subjective time, or they will become untethered and flow into the timeless void.

Scythes

Many chrononauts create scythes made of saturnium or littany metal as a reflection of Father Time's tool. This allows them to alter time in any period they are in other than the one they were born into, or to affect the subjective time of their targets.

Rifles

Like the scythes, the bullets of a clockwork rifle will affect the targets' subjective time. They also work outside the timestream or within it, or within paradoxes, because they have a clockwork that gives them independent subjective time for the rifle itself.

Ponchos

A poncho made of special cloths from spaces untouched by time allow a chrononaut to maintain their subjective time better, keeping it from flowing away unchecked.

Variations

Some variations include

• Anguestrian: those chrononauts who choose to be eel riders.
• Ohasera: those who use their time machines to attach to the Metanet and alter time there, using timing to hack other systems.
• Ordogopoios: those who make clocks and watchers for chrononauts.
• Ratkahthos: a watcher who hunts rogue watchers and thus uses their own powers to move through time.

Similar Occupations

Other users of temporal aether:

• Karahkwaka'aion-tha: those who make and use the clockwork rifles.
• Rogue watcher: a watcher who rebels against Chronurian society and moves through time to try to escape it.

Persecution

Some states have attempted to create their own time machines, and every time, they have been destroyed utterly. Many never existed because of it. Chrononauts are hunted down by watchers because they threaten all of reality.

Skills

Some common skills include

• Mathematics
• Physics
• Temporal Science
• History
• Scrying
• Firearms
• Clockmaking
• Mechanics
• Engineering
• Sailing
• Piloting
• Riding

Stats

Modifiers from base of nation/species:

PRO +5
ATH +3
STR /
AWA +7
WIL +5
STH +3
PRS /