Brockton's Celestial Forge

Fanfiction
Title:	Brockton's Celestial Forge
Author(s):	LordRoustabout
Date(s):	July 2019 -
Length:	1.58 million words
Genre:	Crossover
Fandom:	Worm, Jumpchain
External Links:	https://archiveofourown.org/works/23949661/chapters/57598366
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Brockton's Celestial Forge is an ongoing Worm Jumpchain fic by LordRoustabout, started in 2020. It's hosted on SufficientVelocity, fanfiction.net, and Archive of Our Own. It is notable for popularizing the original Celestial Forge concept/list, which has also been used by other fics. It is also notorious for it's slow pace - chapters ~10k words in length regularly cover short time periods of a few hours, and there are very few time skips.

"The Celestial Forge is the greatest combination of crafting powers in Jumpchain, meaning it is the greatest combination of crafting abilities in all of fiction. In Brockton Bay a forgotten side character's trigger event ends with him linked to the Celestial Forge rather than his intended shard. His slowly expanding collection of tinker abilities and the influence of his new benefactor pulls him into the heart of the conflict about to rock the city and decide the fate of the world.

As part of a writing experiment that turned into a narrative. Perks and items form the Celestial Forge (pastebin.com/35AJD9Lj) are selected randomly based on progress through the story. Ultimately an excuse to explore the technology and crafting abilities of multiple sources of fiction."

author's note, chapter 1

Contents

Summary

Jozef "Joe" Duris, a college dropout in Brockton Bay, gains a unique superpower that grows stronger over time. Joe, not trusting the Protectorate, strikes out as a mercenary, trying to do good for the city even while working with the Undersiders. In roughly a week's time, Joe's powers begin getting strong enough to upset the balance of power in Brockton Bay. Joe struggles to retain his humanity and stand up for himself as his powers grow.

Writing Style

The story uses a slow pace, and occasionally will feature the same event from multiple perspectives in interludes. Part of the reason for the slow pace is the perk-gaining mechanic - a new perk is rolled for every 2000 words, and if a perk is gained, the ramifications of it are typically explored in detail by the narrative.

All perks are from Jumpchain documents for other works of fiction, creating major crossovers. Settings that have been particularly impactful include RWBY through Dust and Aura, Transformers through Joe gaining memories of being a Cybertronian, Percy Jackson through blessings of the gods, and Gurren Lagann through gaining Spiral Energy, among others.

Quotes

"I’d had my mighty pseudo-tinker powers for all of a week and had not accomplished much in that time. Mostly I’d been focusing on sorting out the mess of my life that had resulted in my trigger event. I wouldn’t exactly say bridges were burned, but there were some close relations that it would be awkward to deal with for a while. Triggers don’t really fix anything. Well, they might if it’s one of the ones that turns you super strong to deal with being crushed by a car, but for anything that has a longer buildup there’s no amount of power that is actually going to fix the problems with either you or your life that led to that situation. Accepting that at least let me start to move on."

chapter 1

"I turned my full attention towards the Butcher. By that I meant my full attention. Not just the focus of my conventional senses or the way they were complemented by the Dragon’s Pulse and my feel for thermokinesis. Everything. Vague danger awareness and spiritual senses that extended from Aura. My own perception of magic and the flow of parahuman energy. The rapid fire of my new tinker powers.

Even senses that had only just begun to develop. Senses that extended through reality in an intrusive fashion, ripping information from the fabric of existence rather than reading patterns already in place. It was the same sense that caused every object I touched to flake away before my eyes as its function, past and future, was revealed to me. Psychic abilities had barely arrived and only just begun to be developed, but they were still there. Only with the weakest of potentials, but still something that was mine to use. And with the help of Do One Thing at a Time I could just feel it. I could sense enough information to be sure."

chapter 81

Reception

The fic has a solid readership, and has been the inspiration for many other fics with similar premises or mechanics, as well as recursive fanfic. In the wider Worm fandom it has mixed reception, commonly ascribed to it's slow pace, the protagonist's lack of initiative, and the "perk per 2000 words" mechanic.

Fanworks and Fan Activity

Related Fanworks

• Flowers for Apeiron by Hart5andstars is a recursive fanwork of Brockton's Celestial Forge, diverging with Joe getting a perk that gives him a non-human mindset, and makes him much more proactive. Something of a fix-it fic. (2022)