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Blightedmarsh
2013-06-10, 01:23 PM
I am building a Norse mythology inspired setting an I am kind of drawing a blank on a machine race I want to include. They are kind of the Warforged of my setting but I want them to have a flavor of their own.

background flavor of the world

The world is a convex shield borne girdled by a giant snake atop a chariot of bone and pulled across the havens by a void dragon. The sky is a blue cape held aloft by four double headed four armed titans.

This is the setting I am currently working on. What follows is the creation myth. (spoilered for length)

In the beginning:

The after the end and before the beginning

In the beginning there was the love of two people. They were Gaia (the earth mother) and Kaos (the skyfather) and their love transcended the boundaries of time and space, life and death.

They lived in the aeons before time, rampaging across the sea without stars; twin novae in the primordial night. Their strength beyond comprehension, their skill beyond measure and their pride only equalled by their love.
This was the age of the primordials. The survivors of the end of days; creatures of unparalleled might and cunning locked in an eternal struggle to the last. In this age the lovers where supreme; together none could best them, all fell before their blades.

The end of the end and the beginning of the beginning

All things pass, all must end. And so it was that Gaia was blessed in this godless age; their love had kindled new life within her, the first conception in long ages without time. The lovers knew that they must quite the field and thus ran and hid; seeking shelter in the furthest ruination of what was once.

Their hopes in vain; they were fools to think that they could hide. Their great foe was the void dragon; a cruel and jealous wyrm. Her inky scales glistened with the light of a million dead suns, her eyes glinted with intelligence and malevolence tempered with terrible wisdom, her breast swelled with the bitterest of venom; she was death manifest.

The wrym of the end times with honeyed words, foul bargins and dreadful oaths gathered forth her forces; a legion of unspeakable horrors to harry the lovers to their retreat and there lay siege. And so it was that they were followed across the trackless wastes of infinity, hounded to ground beyond the edge of the vast expanse and in the fringes of the wild devastation.

Six times did the horde assail them and six times did the lovers repel them. And finaly as the moment when Gaia lay gravid and labour wracked cross Kaoses bulwark did the wrym herself come fore and challenge the skyfather.
Alone, bloodied, exhausted; kaos fought the dragon amongst the relics of their war. Kaos and void where even match, his blade could not find her and her claws would not rend his mail. Suddenly he hew from her a grasping tail and she recoiled shrieking. Sensing triumph at hand he raised forth his axe to slay the beast; but the old wyrm was cunning, feigning weakness. Like quicksilver her viperous jaws lashed out to drive her pinions deep into his breast and poor forth great gouts of the vilest toxins.

Gaia screamed as new life burst forth from her. Her cries carried forth all of her strength and will to her mate and rekindled his dying flame, filling his arms with new vigour. He raised his axe up one last time and bit deep into her hide; channelling the power of life and love within his blade and destroyed her down to bone and ash.

And so it is that all things must pass, all must end. The wyrm lay dead, her army ravaged. Gaia, the last of her strength spent fell into a deep slumber and woke no more. Kaos, victor yet also vanquished; poisoned unto death.

The ordering of the earth

The skyfather set about surveying what was left of his life, what was left of his family. Eight children had he, four sons and four daughters; scarce moments old yet already speaking, already walking. His bride, his love had become a world; a primal potential, more and yet less. Her sleeping flesh became the earth, her bones the mountains, her blood the lakes and rivers and her birthing waters the seas.

Kaos took the severed tail of his foe and girdled the rim of Gaia’s shield world with it. He gave his belt life, commanding it to be a snake and encircle his beloved in a ring of gold. Kaos gathered up the remnants of his vanquished foe and found within her a clutch of eggs, given life with her death; these he took and from her. From the wyrms bones and sinuses kaos fashioned a chariot to set his shield bride atop to bear her creation ever more.

The primordial Kaos Sat astraddle his wife. He plucked out his orbs and gathered the dragon eggs in his lap. Kaos gave his blue cape to his sons as well as one of their weapons. Naming his sons in turn Kaos bade them to protect their mother from all harm, he also commanded them to hold his cape
across as their shroud for as long as she sleeps.

With this the skyfather immolated himself, consuming his dying flesh in a final act of love and creation. His ashes snowed across the earth and became the soil. His bones took root and became ydrasil; the world tree that tents the sky and fathered all trees and things that grow. His smoke filled the sky shroud and gave breath to the shield world. His blood ran down and caused the earth to spring forth all that lives and moves across it. Thus in blood and pain and loss and love and fire the world was born.
The ordering of the heavens

The pyre that devoured him could not consume his heart for it was the heat of his passion. His heart was as resplendent gold; untouched, burnished as it was radiant. It lit the new world in the first light of day.
The heat of the fire fertilized, incubated and hatched the four dragon eggs; these grew quickly to full size. The largest of the Kaos dragons Malkieth the red -almost as big as his mother, was tethered to pull the chariot across the heavens. Of the remaining three the female Taibal and the males Bahamut and Bhaal where set to hold the skyfathers heart and orbs respectively. These became the sun and the moon.

Tiny sparks from his pyre scorched thousands of holes in his cape. Through these the otherworldy light of the void beyond was able to shine down on the world bellow and thus the stars where born.

The titans

The four sons of the skyfather are the cardinal titans. They stand at the four corners of the world and hold down the skyshroud. Because of this each grants its name to its cardinal direction.

The titans each have two heads and four arms (in effect the front side of their bodies is mirrored on the back from the hips up); one face watching over creation, the other standing sentinel against the void. With one pair of hands they hold on to the sky and the other they strike down their foes.

They have the ability to detach any part of their bodies and send them hither and yon, able to do anything they could when still attached. They can make these detached body parts shape shift, taking on humanoid, animal or monstrous form. This is how they can get up all kinds of shenanigans and spawn so many scions without abandoning their posts.

Each is associated with a weapon, an ethical philosophy, an element, a type of magic, a season, a number, a semi divine race as well as one of the old empires. Each titan stands against is opposing number.


So far I have got them being created by/from my settings dwarfs and nearly causing their extinction; beyond that and the fact I am at a loss.

Background stuff about the dwarfs

Dwareg

The children of Nord and the custodians of law. The dwareg are defined by their principles and their ambition; they are a people who believed very much in the power of progress but they were always mindful of where they had come from. Their society was based on a strict hierarch, the importance of clan ties, and meritocratic advancement within the framework of a strong caste system. The four founding principles of dwareg morality were Industry, Honesty, Loyalty and Property.

Culture

They operated a strict but flexible caste system. They are borne into a caste and require the sponsorship of the elders to change it. No one caste is given primacy over the others and significant advancement is available within the caste structure. The castes are particularly broad with multiple avenues of study and industry. There are no given warrior, noble, priest or mage castes.

They were known for being racial supremacists, imperialists as well as being systematic and unrepentant slavers. They view outsiders as less cultured, less evolved and by far less civilized. They saw it as their Nord given right to conquer, to enslave and to “improve” humanity. For the dwareg the act of imposing their “order” is both an act of charity and duty. Dwareg technology is based on runecraft, artifice and alchemy.
Dwareg lands. Dwareg civilisation was built up of a sometime fractious alliance of clans and city states.

Each clan would build a fortifide tower (sky spear) out of stone, metal and glass and live together with their slave therein. The wealthier the clan the bigger and more impressive the tower they build. The clan lords hold absolute sovereignty over the tower and its contents. Clan law holds and only clan members, their slaves and guests are permitted entry.

Dwareg cities are a collective of clans ruled by a council of clan lords. The cities take the form of a collection of towers, parks and roads. Beyond the towers themselves they possess little if any defensive structures. In the event of a siege the tower doors and lower windows were sealed shut and the open ground surrounding them used as a killing field. Attackers where generally forced to fight their way up a tower floor by floor with the main lobby being used as a bottleneck and killbox.

The hinterlands of the dwareg empire where ruled over by (usually human) feudal lords. They were vassals of given clans and where expected to tithe levies of manpower, agricultural produce and natural resources in exchange for the continued support of the clan over their fief. The empire itself was held together by a network of “iron roads”.


And this is the bit where the dwarfs tear themselves apart of the creation of the machine men.

The fall of the towers

They always had a serious problem maintaining control over their vassals. As the hinterlands grew in size sophistication and power they began to exert increasing amounts of influence and independence. The flashpoint came when the population pressure and the burdens of tribute became more than the land or the people could bare; a problem compounded by climate change, soil exhaustion and the pollution of dwareg industry. More than a few wars where fought to regain control and more than a few of them where lost. The real wakeup call came with the sacking of the city of Azhurg to human invaders and revolting slaves. A debate began as to how best to combat this growing threat to Dwareg supremacy and (more to the point) the security of their food supplies:

The mechanists felt that it was the flesh that was the problem. They felt it was best to turn potentially rebellious and perpetually hungry slaves into near mindless gholems. Mechanist extremists went further by stating that the problems of pollution and starvation could be sidestepped entirely by abandoning venerable flesh and blood in favour of metal and gear.

The alchemists felt that the solution lay in “bludromancy”; the alteration of the body. They had developed it over a long history of breeding “improved” livestock and slaves. They felt that the best way forward was to breed a hardy race of slaves (goblins) to take back and work the lost lands, to dramatically improve the physical prowess of the dwareg to ensure their supremacy; the so called Ettin protocol.

No firm resolution was reached on the correct direction to take. In the end each faction set about enacting its own plans independently.

[place holder]
They set about doing their own thing. Tensions rise between them and there is a war.
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The mechanists plots had pulled a significant head start over the alchemist projects. To capitalize on this they struck first and within a few months drove the alchemists from the majority of their towers. In answer to this the alchemists began mass breeding their goblin warriors before the process was fully complete.

Within a twenty years the alchemists struck back with massive overwhelming force against the mechanist dominated cities. Mechanist gholem legions fought a living tide of goblin warriors in the open battle and extended sieges; all the while the hinterlands were ravaged by infighting, revolution and the goblin hordes.

Faced with this the mechanists began consolidating their forces. This involved liquidizing the remaining slave population, abandoning untenable positions for more defensible ground, the deliberate destruction of cities and poisoning of soils and water sources in a policy of scorched earth as well as the forcible conversion of unaligned clans. The mechanists retreated to old mine workings, There they rebuilt their civilisation in total darkness> safe from their enemies they were free to recreate their vision of Dwareg society as a perfect sterile order.

The alchemists where left in absolutely no position to enjoy their victory. The cities where all but destroyed and bereft to an enemy their alliance began to tear itself apart. To compound matters they found that they were no longer able to maintain control of their armies; the latest generations of goblins having been born with monstrous mutations. These however were the least of their problems.

The ettin protocol was supposed to turn the dwareg into magically and physically powerful immortals; in this they succeeded but at awful cost. They found that their children could not abide the sun, cared nothing for the pillars, nothing for tradition. Worse was the fact that they had become physically mutable and filled with an insatiable hunger for raw bleeding flesh. In the end the Dwareg alchemists fell, devoured by their own ettin children.
Those dwareg alive today are the decendants of those who fled into exile or the inhabitants of a few periphery cities that managed to stave off both the alchemists and the mechanists.


They are kind of inspired by the dwemer constructs X warforged X cybermen under a kind of Hyperberia.Any thoughts? Ideas? In all seriousness I can't even think up a good name for these guys.

Razanir
2013-06-10, 05:10 PM
Don't change the crunch, only the fluff. They can still act just like Warforged, just with a different flavor.

Blightedmarsh
2013-06-10, 10:09 PM
Exactly what I am stumped on. I had not even begun to conciser crunch.

Morbis Meh
2013-06-11, 10:04 AM
Well let us consider some very important pieces of Norse Mythology: The coming of Ragnarok the final battle; it seems like this campaign does not have an Asgaurdian Pantheon but you could still employ the Ragnarok end of days scenario via the return of the great wyrm. Now how is this going to be stopped? The Einherjar of course, the souls of the fallen warriors who earned their place in Valhalla. So in this world maybe the Einherjar were given new life inside the warforged body, sentient machine soldiers with the souls of dead warrior standing guard, preparing for Ragnarok? You could rename the entire race to Einherjar and give the option to players to play as one if their character dies, just have a ritual and cost to the process.

Blightedmarsh
2013-06-11, 02:01 PM
The coming of Ragnarok the final battle

I have got ragnarok down pretty much pat already. In this setting its a cycle where the various giant tribes fight the dragons and kick their tails. Then the giants fight each other until one tribe is victorious. They then rule the world (in fire, ice esctra) until the next generation of dragons come along and burn the snot out of the giants. The last surviving humans claw their way out of the roots of the wold tree and the whole cycle of the world begins again.


it seems like this campaign does not have an Asgaurdian Pantheon

There are four divine races beyond the giants and dragons; Alfar (elves) Valnar (Once humans who have ascended to gods) Fyrse (Ogre/Djin) and Dwareg (dwarfs; created the first of the machine race, goblins as well as d/evolving into trolls).


Now how is this going to be stopped?

Trust me; it ain't....No not even then.



So in this world maybe the Einherjar were given new life inside the warforged body, sentient machine soldiers with the souls of dead warrior standing guard, preparing for Ragnarok? You could rename the entire race to Einherjar and give the option to players to play as one if their character dies, just have a ritual and cost to the process.

What about this:

-The Einherjar live in castles in the sky.
-They are sentient machines made from the souls of the dead.

-They choose new members by selecting dying warriors who they find worthy
-They capture the soul using mirrored crystals and lights to burn away the flesh and contain the reflection (spirit).
-A spirit/shadow self is always opposite gender to ones physical self (established in universe principle) and since the bulk of the chosen where male (as battlefields are prime recruitment grounds); the bulk of the Einheraj are female (insomuch as a living metal statue can be described as female)
-The process is imperfect; many souls are lost or damaged.
-Damaged minds are used to power gholems.

-They spend most of their existence in a shared illusory spirit world.
-As they are they find it harder to pull themselves out of the spirit world
-They are the servants of the Dwareg (dwarven) artificers who where the first of them.
-These creators have gone far beyond the point where they can leave the spirit dream. They seldom communicate with their successors.

Morbis Meh
2013-06-11, 02:28 PM
A bunch of fluff

Hey man it is your setting, I am merely acting as a muse and it seems that I am relatively successful so huzzah for me!