# Sept Design Notes: Unified Sept (Vail)

*ST working document.*
*Last updated: 2026-02-19*

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## Concept

The sept runs across two sites: the Timberline Hotel in Vail and the compound above town. The Wyld and Weaver sides of the operation are designed to feed each other, not just coexist. The detection network on the wyld side feeds into city infrastructure; the city's capital and connections maintain the compound. Two faces of one thing.

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## The Hotel

The Timberline Hotel is the primary face of the sept and its main gathering hub when in the city. All city locations are preserved as designed. City-focused skills (networking, finance, urban spirit work) are a genuine contribution. The hotel is the control center and the public seat of operations. The sept's financial engine, influence networks, and operations face outward from here.

#### Neutral

**Timberline Bar** - The hotel's primary bar on the first floor of the complex. Modern alpine lodge aesthetic, wood and stone. Open to paying guests. Spirits of calm and relaxation in the umbra actively dampen rage here. **(Rage -3)** Good for the sept to interact with the public and conduct business without the curse getting in the way.

**Selene Brew Café** - A well-liked café on Bridge Street in the village, backing up against Gore Creek. Owned and operated by a Glass Walker kinfolk, usually staffed by at least one Warder in the back. Glyph in the main sign marks it as a waystation for visiting Garou. Oversized basement for its footprint, stocked with essentials, talens, changes of clothes, and a couple of cots. Hidden doors including access to the creek. New arrivals and combat-ready visitors are processed here before being sent up to the hotel proper.

**West Vail Employee Housing** - North side of Highway 70, where the resort stacks its worker housing. Mix of rent-controlled apartments and flophouses depending on luck of the draw. Thirty-minute walk to the lifts in winter. Spirits here are a tangle of contradictions: pessimism and hope, satisfaction and despair, the texture of a lot of people living on top of each other. One dumpster hosts a node of the Great Trash Heap.

#### Weaver-Attuned

**Timberline Lodge Penthouse: Urban Caern** - The bawn and caern heart occupy the hotel's top floors, fed by separate infrastructure and accessible only by a restricted elevator spine. Security is thorough; the floors are acoustically separated and the windows can counter serious surveillance tech. The caern heart itself is a richly furnished office dominated by a large mahogany desk inset with gold-flecked obsidian glass. The Invisible Hand communicates through the stock ticker on an always-active laptop. The disposition and contents of the office shift subtly to reflect the totem's mood.

**Vail Village Streets** - The shopping district caters exclusively to the luxury market. Overpriced ski gear, designer brands, high-end galleries, expensive restaurants. Spirits of consumption and vice weave through calcifying Weaver webs. Not much practical value but useful for people-watching, making contacts among the wealthy, or conducting business in plain sight.

#### Wyld-Attuned

**Gore Creek / Ford Park** - An ordinance-protected natural corridor threading the length of town at the bottom of the valley, passing through Ford Park with its sculpture garden and amphitheater. In the umbra it expands into a lush mini-forest of tall pines and alpine plants, defying the Weaver's grip on the surrounding town. Spirits follow the mountain's rhythm: stillness and snow in winter, renewal in spring and summer.

**Gondola / Lift Area** - The interface between the mountain and the town at the base of the primary gondola. Wildflowers bloom constantly in summer; in the umbra the area is perpetually snow-covered regardless of season, with strong spirits of winter always active. The lift itself functions as a conduit, able to carry energies up and down the mountain like an antenna. Favored operational ground for the Warder pack.

#### Wyrm-Attuned 

**Eagle Mine** - Abandoned mine far south of town, dating to the 1880s Colorado silver boom. Officially closed decades ago due to EPA violations and toxic runoff, but that's not the whole story. The flooded mine now draws banes regularly, and the frequency is increasing. Joint responsibility with the other septs in the area. Few people still alive remember what actually happened in '84.

Notes: This overlaps thematically with the abandoned mine shaft. Perhaps we could utilize atta's writeup for the poor people housing and add a location of that sort for wyrm attuned. (Panos)

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## The Compound

### Architecture

Design the compound around **[Earthship Biotecture](https://earthship.com)** *principles* (passive solar, integrated water harvesting, thermal mass construction, food-producing grow spaces) but through a modern, refined architectural vocabulary. With spirit enhancement, entirely self-sustaining.

The aesthetic should read as a high-end alpine research facility or luxury eco-lodge, not a southwest commune. Clean lines, precision stonework, substantial timber framing, and expansive glass oriented for solar gain. Materials are local where possible. The sustainability is structural and mostly invisible; what registers at a glance is restraint and quality. Someone spent serious money on this. It shows.

Glass Walker construction discipline applied to Wyld-aligned design.

*Open: how much of the existing written description of the glass conservatory survives vs. is replaced.*

**{purple}Kat's thoughts on a write up for this section{/purple}**

{purple} From a distance it reads as a private alpine institute. Clean geometry. Stone pulled from the mountain itself and cut with almost obsessive precision. Timber beams thick as ancient ribs, planed smooth and joined without visible compromise. Glass walls angled for winter sun, reflecting peaks by day and constellations by night. No adobe curves, no commune clutter. This is capital and calculation in harmony with claw and root.{/purple}

{purple} The structure is partially earth-sheltered, terraced into the slope so that from the valley below it appears modest. From within, it opens like a lung.{/purple}

{purple}Solar gain is engineered, not advertised. Expansive south-facing glass feeds radiant stone floors. Thick insulated walls hide water reclamation systems and battery arrays. Meltwater is captured, filtered, blessed. Waste heat is redirected through hidden ducts that hum like a Weaver hymn beneath the floorboards. {/purple}

**{purple}The Research Wing {/purple}**

{purple}A wing of the compound houses labs that appear focused on alpine ecology, soil regeneration, and mycology. Stainless steel counters. Controlled grow racks. Data terminals built into reclaimed walnut desks. {/purple}

{purple}Behind the science lies something older. {/purple}

{purple}The Weaver is acknowledged here, not worshipped. Algorithms monitor humidity and lunar cycles. Soil microbiome reports sit beside hand-inked spirit sketches. Drones track wildlife corridors, but no drone crosses the caern’s inner boundary. That line is inviolate. {/purple}

{purple}A Glass Walker warder oversees infrastructure integrity, ensuring the Pattern never strangles the spirit of the place. Order exists to protect the sacred, not replace it. {/purple}

**{purple}The Wyld Core {/purple}**

{purple}Step beyond the polished corridors and the air changes. {/purple}

{purple}The land inside the protected boundary is deliberately underbuilt. Native grasses and wildflowers reclaim open patches. Aspen groves whisper without interference. A shallow stream threads through stone channels designed to look accidental. {/purple}

{purple}At the heart a clearing ringed with old growth pine. No glass. No steel. Just earth. {/purple}

{purple}Here the caern breathes. {/purple}

{purple}The architecture bows at its edge like a cathedral that knows when to fall silent. {/purple}

### The Heart Tree

The tree at the caern heart should be a **bristlecone pine**, not a spruce.

- Among the oldest living organisms on Earth (4,000-5,000 years)
- Trunk develops a massive, twisted, gnarled character with age
- An awakened specimen retains a full crown despite apparent ancient decrepitude (simultaneously looks dead and vital)
- Fits Owl well: patience, endurance, survival through stillness, age beyond reckoning

**{purple} The Silent Strider’s Spiritual Growhouse {/purple}**

{purple}Adjacent to the main lodge but slightly downslope stands the growhouse.{/purple}

{purple}At first glance it resembles a boutique alpine conservatory. Steel supports powder-coated matte black. Glass panes seamless and immaculate. Climate systems hidden within the framing. The scent inside is warm resin, earth, and something almost sweet.{/purple}

{purple}This is where the Silent Strider Theurge pours most of her waking hours.{/purple}

{purple}Rows of carefully cultivated cannabis plants grow in living soil beds enriched with compost from the land itself. No chemical intrusion. Each plant is named. Each row aligned not just for light exposure but for moon phase and spirit flow.{/purple}

{purple}Carved into the timber posts are subtle glyphs of Owl. Feathers hang above irrigation valves. Prayer ribbons thread along the interior beams.{/purple}

{purple}The growhouse is both enterprise and altar. Harvest nights coincide with rites of renewal, select strains are reserved for carefully guided spiritual ceremonies, and certain plants are never sold at all, but only offered as sacred gifts.{/purple}

{purple}The technology maintains stability. The ritual invites the Wyld to remain.{/purple}

{purple}At the center of the greenhouse floor lies a circular stone mosaic. Beneath it, a minor locus of energy hums softly. The Theurge claims the roots know the stories whispered to them. Some swear the leaves tremble when spirits pass.{/purple}

**{purple} End of Kats adds {/purple}**

### Compound Locations

#### Neutral

**The Earthship** - The main compound structure. Built into the slope using earthship principles: thermal mass walls, passive solar orientation, integrated water and growing systems, local stone and timber throughout. Comfortable, well-appointed, and quietly impressive without announcing itself. Communal spaces include a large common room, a kitchen, and a workshop. Garou resident here have private quarters. The building reads as a high-end private research retreat to any outsider who catches a glimpse; nothing about it invites a second look. The bawn occupies the interior, with the bristlecone pine and caern heart at its core.

**The Old Silver Mine** - Barred, posted, and officially condemned on the compound grounds. The tunnels dip shallow at first then twist into older stone where the Weaver never finished her work. Faint silver residue veins the rock and resonates strangely with Luna's light. Spirits here are echoes of labor, greed, collapse, and abandonment. The sept doesn't go deep. Owl has neither forbidden it nor encouraged it. Some knowledge is best approached only when you know why you're looking.

#### Wyld-Attuned

**The Cannabis Grove** - A small, legal boutique cultivation operation on an adjacent parcel. To the outside world it's an alpine grow project, the kind that turns up in lifestyle articles and draws no serious attention. To the sept it's a working spiritual resource: Wyld-touched strains used for ritual incense, spirit offerings, and controlled vision quests. The plants grow unnaturally healthy, leaves sometimes folding at night like resting wings. Ash-Born-From-Quiet maintains it. Her deed name Keeper of Living Offerings comes from this work: the idea that an offering doesn't need to bleed to be real, that sustained growth is its own form of prayer. 

### Wild Locations

All locations from the original wild side are listed below with status notes. The ones that need the most thought are flagged.

#### Neutral

**Pinefall Overlook** - Trail climb to an exposed cliff with constant wind. Non-aligned spiritually; a place for clarity and perspective. No push or pull, just height. Probably keep as written.

**Whispering Brook** - Small stream through moss and roots, constant soft sound. Calms rage and steadies emotion. Mechanically useful, good for scenes that need to decompress. Probably keep as written.

**Stone Circle Clearing** - Ancient boulder ring with no growth inside it. Memory and endurance spirits. Words spoken here carry weight. Good for oaths and formal conversations. Probably keep as written.

{red}**Fallen Log Trail**{/red} - Winding path through untouched deadfall. Growth and decay coexisting. Good for contemplative travel scenes; the forest doesn't rush anyone here. Probably keep as written.

**High Ridge Cabin** - Weathered safehouse on the ridge. Hearth-spirits, shelter-spirits. Not a home but a rest. Keep as written; practically useful.

#### Wyld-Attuned

{red}**Root Spiral Glade**{/red} - Multiple old trees whose roots converge into a broad spiral at ground level. Owl-spirits perch throughout. Time feels elastic here; lessons tend to arrive later than expected. *Needs review:* the current description was written with the old conservatory and spruce imagery in mind. With the compound redesigned around a bristlecone pine and earthship architecture, this location should be revisited to make sure it's distinct from the caern heart rather than redundant with it.

**Frostveil Grove** - Pines edged with frost year-round; breath fogs even in summer. Wyld spirits of endurance and adaptation move through the haze. Vision is unreliable here; paths shift, shapes double. The grove tests focus, not strength. Probably keep as written; independent of compound architecture.

**Mossroot Ravine** - A steep narrow gorge, moss-blanketed walls, unseen water below. The Wyld teaches through terrain rather than words here; wrong steps get redirected rather than punished. Probably keep as written.

#### Weaver-Attuned

{red}**Old Logging Outpost**{/red} - Shallow basin with reclaimed industrial ruins: foundations, rusted saw blades, collapsed frames. Pattern Spiders still reinforce joints in structures that no longer function. Wyld grows around the straight lines rather than over them. Good surveillance position for tracking human movement. *Worth noting:* this is a natural candidate for sensor network infrastructure (LoRaWAN nodes, a camera mount, mycelium interface points). The GW Warder would likely know this site well.

**Mountain Pass Communications Relay** - A precision-built tower on a ridge, anchored deep into rock. Weaver spirits of signal and sequence still transmit patterns with no receiver. Sightlines are unnaturally clean from here; even distant spirits appear sharper. Extended exposure narrows thinking. *Needs consideration:* there's obvious overlap between this site and the sensor network concept. The Warder may have repurposed or interfaced with it. Should decide whether it's been integrated into the network, left deliberately isolated, or sits in an ambiguous middle state.

#### Wyrm-Attuned

**Abandoned Mine Shaft** - A collapsed, condemned entrance with wrong-smelling air. In the Umbra, stone appears bruised and infected. Foul spirits, unreliable geometry, a festering node deep inside. Even brief exposure leaves a residue. *Note on mine locations:* there are three distinct mine-related sites in the territory. The abandoned shaft in the wild locations, the Old Silver Mine adjacent to the caern compound (barred, officially condemned, spiritually ambiguous), and the Eagle Mine far south of town (city-side, Wyrm-active, joint responsibility). These should remain distinct and not be conflated in write-ups.

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## The Sensor Network

The compound's detection and surveillance runs in layers, bridging the Wyld's mycelium substrate with Weaver radio tech. A standard Pentex technical team is not prepared for this stack.

### Layer 1: Mycelium Network (Wyld)

Old-growth forest mycelium mats cover vast areas as a single organism. They detect pressure (footsteps), heat, moisture, damage, and novel stimuli. Electronic sensor interfaces with mycelium already exist in real research; the sept pushes this further with spirit collaboration.

The mycelium is the **primary perimeter detection layer for the bawn**: no batteries, no RF emissions, no maintenance cycles.

- [Colorado Myco Flora](https://coloradomycoflora.org)
- [Mycelium bioelectronics (real research)](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0303264721002288)

**Spirit integration:** Mycelium spirits and Owl-spirits already observe continuously. The physical mat is their footprint in the Tellurian. Weaver interfaces read it; Theurges interpret anomalies. This is also where the Warder and Theurges naturally interface: same signal, different tools for reading it.

### Layer 2: LoRaWAN, Non-Camera Sensors (Weaver)

Environmental and motion sensors use **[LoRaWAN](https://www.thethingsnetwork.org/docs/lorawan/what-is-lorawan/)** rather than standard WiFi.

- Kilometers of range at very low power
- Star topology with mesh behavior; a garou carrying a LoRaWAN radio becomes a network node and extends coverage automatically
- Not a standard corporate stack; a typical Pentex technical team arrives unprepared
- Low RF footprint, environmentally appropriate, minimal interference with wildlife
- Handles perimeter motion, environmental triggers, temperature, and events the mycelium flags but can't timestamp precisely

[LoRaWAN bandwidth vs. range](https://www.thethingsnetwork.org/docs/lorawan/what-is-lorawan/bandwidth-vs-range.png)

### Layer 3: WiFi HaLow / 802.11ah, Cameras (Weaver)

Video surveillance uses **[WiFi HaLow (802.11ah)](https://www.howtogeek.com/what-is-wi-fi-halow-and-do-i-need-it)** rather than standard WiFi.

- Sub-GHz band penetrates terrain, buildings, and heavy vegetation far better than 2.4/5GHz
- Greater effective range eliminates access points scattered across the mountain
- Lower transmission power, more RF-friendly and a smaller environmental signature
- Camera nodes consolidate to fewer, smarter, less visible placements

### Layer 4: Ornithopter Drones, Warder's Mobile Asset

The Warder's drone complement uses **ornithopter drones**: drones that fly by flapping wings like a bird or insect rather than rotary props.

- Near-silent, no propeller acoustic signature
- Electronically low-profile, no standard prop motor EM signature
- Can perch for sustained surveillance or passive recharge
- Can be camouflaged with bird or insect markings depending on scale
- The Warder's mobile eyes look like Owl's
- Currently under active military development for recon, not speculative
- All standard drones in the complement should use low-noise props as a baseline

{green}Panos: My worry (though it could double as a good thing), is that such a high-end technologically advanced site out of the proper grid would be a magnet for weaver spirits and/or Pentex. We could always use that as a hook for storylines.{/green}

{orange}dorje: It sounds high tech, but for the most part, it's an optimization of lower level tech. There is always the argument that refinement/optimization of software with old hardware is higher level though. The RF and EM emissions from all of these things are significantly lower than traditional solutions, like regular wifi hotspots. I also tried to integrate them with the environment and they're less disruptive to wildlife than other solutions. It was a design goal to bring more weaver to the wyld with the merging of the city sept.{/orange}

## NPC Roster

Target: **5 NPCs, possibly 6.** Keeping ST burden manageable with a single primary NPC per staff member.

| Name | Tribe | Auspice | Role | Status |
|------|-------|---------|------|--------|
| Sky-Watcher-Who-Remembers | Wendigo | Philodox | Alpha | Confirmed |
| Ash-Born-From-Quiet | Silent Strider | Theurge | Beta | Confirmed |
| Tanith Vrana | Shadow Lord | Philodox | Truthcatcher | Confirmed |
| John Caldwell | Shadow Lord | Ahroun | Master of Challenges | Confirmed |
| Nazê Alzahim | Uktena | Theurge | Mistress of Rites? | Likely; important to Atta |
| Pretty Thing | Fianna | Ragabash | Hospitality | Suggest move to STPC |
| Glass Walker Warder | Glass Walker | TBD | Warder | Pending; not yet created, played by dorje |

*Count: 5 confirmed + Nazê (likely) + GW Warder (pending) = 6-7. Worth checking for role overlap between Nazê and Ash-Born before locking in the count.*

### NPCs Not Carried Forward

Eleanor Vance, Katrina Volkov, Jimmy Wren, Anastasia Rykova, Iron-Breaker-Who-Still-Stands, Laughs-With-Embers.

*These characters may exist in the background of the setting without ST-run presence.*

### The Glass Walker Warder

To be created. Domain is the compound's sensor network: LoRaWAN, HaLow, ornithopters, mycelium interfaces. A Glass Walker embedded in Wyld territory, running Weaver infrastructure through a biological substrate.

---

## Open Questions

- [ ] How much of the existing compound description survives the earthship redesign, if we take that route?
       {green}Panos: I think we need to omit one of the mine references, and also swap the city wyrm attuned to something  unrelatated to the mine, perhaps something that has to do with the poor man's area.{/green}
- [ ] Wild locations: Root Spiral Glade needs review for overlap with redesigned caern heart; Communications Relay needs decision on sensor network integration
      {green}Panos: I dont see why the second part of the above sentence is a problem. Imo we can go with the redesigned heart or merge both the descriptions into one.{/green}
- [ ] Simon: role to be specified or maybe I forgot {green}(Panos: Simon is an STPC cliath, John Caldwell is the NPC and he ll take over the master of challenges role as per writeup - i corrected the table above){/green}
- [ ] Figure out the roles for the two theurges
       {green}Panos: An idea here is to have one as Master/Mistress of rites and the other one responsible for Umbra sojourns and spending a lot of the time there. I dont know if its an official role by the book but we can make something up. (ie Dream-walker){/green}
- [ ] Glass Walker Warder: character creation pending, if this is deemed appropriate
       {green}Panos: We propably need some sort of garou that can actually interface with all the tech and the Lorawan, i m okay with this.{/green}
- [ ] Sept name: does a new unified name replace the two site names, or do both persist as location references {green}Panos: We should keep one name for the sept, caern and that can serve as an umbrella for all the locations.{/green}
- [ ] {green}Storylines: We need to define a rotation on storylines that we will seed as well as an overarching storyline (The Chronicle, though this could shift with time). We have too few players to wait for them to seed storylines and this is werewolf were internal conflict is usually toned down.{/green}