The Marvelous and Revolutionary,
The Sweet Fruits Wrought of Genius
Of the Doctor's countless handiworks, both inventions of his own mind and improvements upon the works of others, none are more so important than the ones he carries with him when on business. They range from simple but useful curiosities to great and powerful enchanted items that rival legendary artifacts of ages past.
The White Coat
The brocade coat that John Dee is almost never seen without is in fact a powerful magical item he constructed. Using the conversion of ideas to a more tangible form the doctor lined an otherwise ordinary coat with "the fabric of space" creating a garment that is, simply put, bigger on the inside than the out.
The area within the coat is a small cube-shaped room, roughly twenty five feet in each dimension with a white and silver brocade pattern on its walls, hence the appearance of the coat's liner when observed, and a door on each wall with their mates grounded in various locations across real-space.
This provides the Doctor with a few advantages beyond the obvious storage space.
Objects striking the coat are intercepted by a buffer-space which is quite large compared to it's wearers apparent form and which he occupies only a small part of, thus rendering many forms of attack against him imprecise or even useless as they pass into the coat and back out the other-side without ever coming close to meeting their mark. In that same vein the Doctor can merely roll his shoulders and slip his arms to disappear into the coat's internal room, dropping it to lay on the ground without him as he vanishes.
From within he can also pull the coat inside out by grabbing the wall and tugging as he exits through one of its internal doors, which retrieves the coat by pulling it through the door while crushing any unwitting pursuers into oblivion as the space it occupies is warped and re-compressed.
The area within the coat is a small cube-shaped room, roughly twenty five feet in each dimension with a white and silver brocade pattern on its walls, hence the appearance of the coat's liner when observed, and a door on each wall with their mates grounded in various locations across real-space.
This provides the Doctor with a few advantages beyond the obvious storage space.
Objects striking the coat are intercepted by a buffer-space which is quite large compared to it's wearers apparent form and which he occupies only a small part of, thus rendering many forms of attack against him imprecise or even useless as they pass into the coat and back out the other-side without ever coming close to meeting their mark. In that same vein the Doctor can merely roll his shoulders and slip his arms to disappear into the coat's internal room, dropping it to lay on the ground without him as he vanishes.
From within he can also pull the coat inside out by grabbing the wall and tugging as he exits through one of its internal doors, which retrieves the coat by pulling it through the door while crushing any unwitting pursuers into oblivion as the space it occupies is warped and re-compressed.
Two Arguments of a Less than Gentlemanly Nature
the Doctor also carries a pair of mismatched antique firearms, an eight barreled pistol holstered under-shoulder on the left arm and a shortened blunderbuss slung across the lower back. Both weapons appear fairly typical in their general design, though they are decorated heavily with silver scroll work and unpolished precious stones set into their ivory grips. However suffice it to say as mundane, albeit fancy, as they appear they are not.
The Pistol The first of the two firearms is mostly unremarkable in its construction, with its only real modifications being barrels reinforced with irregular material for its time of production
What is however remarkable about it is the reason it was reinforced, that being so that it can handle alchemically altered powder and spell-infused loads. The gun's barrels are most usually loaded with eight incredibly potent alchemically enhanced rounds with disproportionately high stopping power for their size, which can be further enhanced via transmutation. |
The Blunderbuss.... By contrast is quite heavily modified. Simply put the already impressive bore of the blunderbuss is more than twice as large internally, giving it the capacity of a ship-board cannon instead of a handheld firearm.
On top of this it is loaded with an alchemically treated grape-shot round and double loads of heavily Aether-infused powder. The result when fired is a massive cone of disgusting miasma, unfettered lightning, and incandescent plasma that instantly obliterates anything in front of the barrel, leaving an even mix of gross blue flame and mutagenic arcane toxins in its wake. |
The Chirugeon's Assistants
A series of devices of the Doctor's own invention , in the form of a harness often worn under his brocade overcoat, where its otherwise great bulk is concealed. This harness is the support frame for a series of three pairs of almost insectile mechanical arms for specialized uses. Like Midas' Envy they socket into the doctor's body, in this case through his back (see the diagram under Form and function), and become an extension of his body which derives power from his Aetherious bloodstream. Below are the specifics of each pair.
Over the shoulder- The primary chassis is roughly the same width of the average man's arms, but twice as long and with an extra elbow joint. They are supported and motivated by high speed pneumatic pistons and Sport large powerful and vaguely sharp claw like hands with three equally spaced fingers. Each of the hands houses a different device built into its center which can retract along an internal sliding rail. In the palm of the left is a rack of six vials linked to a large syringe needle which can both expel and draw fluid. In the right is an impact-augur and powerful engine, capable of drilling or punching through nearly anything given time. These were the first limbs constructed and the oldest part of the harness.
Alongside - Thinner more delicate limbs that use wire guiding instead of pistons for quick and silent motion, made for fine-tuned precision work. The right is a folding brass rack with securing clamps to hold an open book across its center, with a trio of other limbs sprouting from its edges: a spindly finger to turn the pages, an array of magnifying lenses and a pressurized pen with multiple wells to store the appropriately enhanced ink for the task at hand. The left is a thin facsimile of a human hand with two additional fingers and reversible joints. These were added shortly after the first two arms.
Hanging at waist level- two stiffly jointed arms with shorter more powerful frames and heavy hydraulic support. The left sports a large multi-chamber canister and adjustable pressure nozzle with which to expel various chemicals at force, be they liquid or gas. The right is an archaic heavy bore drum-fed gatling cannon. This pair was added much more recently, when the doctor's research took a markedly more dangerous turn in which he had to put down his own experiments with greater frequency.
Over the shoulder- The primary chassis is roughly the same width of the average man's arms, but twice as long and with an extra elbow joint. They are supported and motivated by high speed pneumatic pistons and Sport large powerful and vaguely sharp claw like hands with three equally spaced fingers. Each of the hands houses a different device built into its center which can retract along an internal sliding rail. In the palm of the left is a rack of six vials linked to a large syringe needle which can both expel and draw fluid. In the right is an impact-augur and powerful engine, capable of drilling or punching through nearly anything given time. These were the first limbs constructed and the oldest part of the harness.
Alongside - Thinner more delicate limbs that use wire guiding instead of pistons for quick and silent motion, made for fine-tuned precision work. The right is a folding brass rack with securing clamps to hold an open book across its center, with a trio of other limbs sprouting from its edges: a spindly finger to turn the pages, an array of magnifying lenses and a pressurized pen with multiple wells to store the appropriately enhanced ink for the task at hand. The left is a thin facsimile of a human hand with two additional fingers and reversible joints. These were added shortly after the first two arms.
Hanging at waist level- two stiffly jointed arms with shorter more powerful frames and heavy hydraulic support. The left sports a large multi-chamber canister and adjustable pressure nozzle with which to expel various chemicals at force, be they liquid or gas. The right is an archaic heavy bore drum-fed gatling cannon. This pair was added much more recently, when the doctor's research took a markedly more dangerous turn in which he had to put down his own experiments with greater frequency.
Midas' Envy-
Glory of the King's Right-hand
A mechanical hand and forearm crafted to fit the right arm from the elbow down, covered in beautifully inlaid silver scroll-work and a variety of occult and mystic symbols, with a large translucent crystal orb that dominates the center of its hand, visible from both the palm and back. Midas' Envy is usually worn in place of the Doctor's more passable arm in any situations where he will be away from his atelier, concealed beneath a black leather glove and the sleeve of his shirt when not actively in use.
While the piece is itself a marvelously durable and articulate mechanical limb which integrates flawlessly with the Doctor's form its value is in its magical applications. The doctor's naturally Aetherious bloodstream in flowing through the precision crafted and arcane-minded paths within the arm as well as the sigils inscribed on and within it enhances spell work performed with it as a somatic contributor to an insane degree, making grand feats of spellwork easier to achieve than they have any right. Should that not be enough the doctor also has the option to draw forth auxiliary pathways from the sockets on his back and drastically increase the flow of aether to the device by way of the infusion tubes, turning it into an even more potent casting medium and supercharging his spells.
As useful as these functions are however they are not what makes it invaluable, it's true value is the crystal embedded within the core of the hand and the powerful concept it presides over. The Crystal exists as a miracle, distilled from the fabric of its namesake, the legend of King Midas, by acts of high sorcery and absolute mastery of both the hermetic and alchemic disciplines to be given physical form. But this was not enough, the crystalline legend was then destroyed and recreated again and again, rigorously reconstructed improved and perfected over the course of more than a century to utterly surpasses its base nature and exist as the ideal of transmutation its very self.
When supplied with Aether the crystal projects an utterly sterile field of malleable time within a few meters of itself, freely shape-able by its master, which can exert and facilitate near any sort sorts of chemical and physical changes upon an object with surgical precision nigh instantaneously as he wills. With the proper understanding of the objects affected and a tight focus this allows its master to in essence perform any process an alchemist might ever have need to upon his subjects nigh instantly, placing the entire instrumentation of a magician's atelier within the palm of his hand in the most literal sense.
The only failings of this seemingly miraculous object when compared to the atelier it replaces, are the lack of spaciousness of a proper work area and the autonomous nature of most instruments he employs in his atelier. Thus it cannot perform automated duties on the large scale that is possible in the atelier, nor does it benefit from the carefully prepared magic circles or leylines present within it.
While the piece is itself a marvelously durable and articulate mechanical limb which integrates flawlessly with the Doctor's form its value is in its magical applications. The doctor's naturally Aetherious bloodstream in flowing through the precision crafted and arcane-minded paths within the arm as well as the sigils inscribed on and within it enhances spell work performed with it as a somatic contributor to an insane degree, making grand feats of spellwork easier to achieve than they have any right. Should that not be enough the doctor also has the option to draw forth auxiliary pathways from the sockets on his back and drastically increase the flow of aether to the device by way of the infusion tubes, turning it into an even more potent casting medium and supercharging his spells.
As useful as these functions are however they are not what makes it invaluable, it's true value is the crystal embedded within the core of the hand and the powerful concept it presides over. The Crystal exists as a miracle, distilled from the fabric of its namesake, the legend of King Midas, by acts of high sorcery and absolute mastery of both the hermetic and alchemic disciplines to be given physical form. But this was not enough, the crystalline legend was then destroyed and recreated again and again, rigorously reconstructed improved and perfected over the course of more than a century to utterly surpasses its base nature and exist as the ideal of transmutation its very self.
When supplied with Aether the crystal projects an utterly sterile field of malleable time within a few meters of itself, freely shape-able by its master, which can exert and facilitate near any sort sorts of chemical and physical changes upon an object with surgical precision nigh instantaneously as he wills. With the proper understanding of the objects affected and a tight focus this allows its master to in essence perform any process an alchemist might ever have need to upon his subjects nigh instantly, placing the entire instrumentation of a magician's atelier within the palm of his hand in the most literal sense.
The only failings of this seemingly miraculous object when compared to the atelier it replaces, are the lack of spaciousness of a proper work area and the autonomous nature of most instruments he employs in his atelier. Thus it cannot perform automated duties on the large scale that is possible in the atelier, nor does it benefit from the carefully prepared magic circles or leylines present within it.