First appearance: Into the Mirror Session 4 (YouTube parts 12–13) - Royal Audience and Otherside · watch it on YouTube
The Orrery of Dreams is a legendary artifact of the land beyond the mirror, whispered about at a royal court of the dead as the thing that might finally let them leave. It is said to give whoever finds it what they want most, and some believe it is a door back to the living. That made it the prize of the search that Cerys, Flynry and Vythorn later took up. When they finally studied it, they found a stranger answer: it is only one part of something much bigger.
Description
Before anyone had laid eyes on it, the Orrery was pure rumor. Nobody at court had ever seen it, and it was only said to rest in “an adjacent realm.” It was expected to be something mechanical, all rings and orbs. Queen Cantressa described it as “a wondrous item that can deliver you what you want the most.” She also repeated the hope that made it precious to her people: “some believe even a way out of this plane, back to the living.”
Later study gave the legend more detail. The Orrery was crafted in the Sands and holds “immense power capable of shaping reality.” The queen believed it could open a doorway between planes. Script running along the inside of one of its rings told a less tidy story. It named the Orrery a key, part of a larger machine, so it was not the whole way out on its own.
It is also a stubborn thing. When the party tried a sword near it, nothing happened this time. Speaking the city’s name over it did nothing either.
History
The Orrery first came up during a royal audience, when Cerys asked the queen what was known about it. Cantressa told her what the court believed and shared her own plan. She hoped her alchemists and mages could use it to “create a path home for all of us, that I might deliver my people back to the living.” Cerys asked whether she meant everyone in the city. The queen’s answer was quietly generous: “many of us have been here a long time. I think a second chance is in order.”
The search picked up again once Vythorn joined Cerys and Flynry. He asked Cerys for a scholar, and she looked to Flynry. Flynry had come to a blunt conclusion: the goal was to get back, and what happened to the people here did not matter. He gave her a nod. Cerys told Vythorn about the king, laid low by an ailment, and the queen, “the one that kind of sent us on our way to try to look here.” Vythorn made clear how much was at stake:
“If you knew the Shadow King like I know him, then you would know that the Grandmaster is not safe, and neither is the Void.”
He meant The Shadow King, the Grandmaster and The Void.
Knowing now what to look for, the search turned to the shelves. After much shuffling and page-flipping, a huge tome was hauled out and slammed onto a table. It catalogued “a number of items with special properties in this place,” most of them mundane-looking scientific artifacts, statues and the like. As the pages flew past, one showed the Orrery of Dreams, and Cerys asked to hold it there.
Closer inspection showed that the Orrery was not the whole machine, only a key, part of a larger one.