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Grod_The_Giant
2022-03-20, 08:10 AM
I'm running a short Exalted game, and the party is set to go exploring inside a gigantic magitech clockwork engine. I want to have some scenes that emphasize the idea that they're in a still-functioning machine, but... I'm having trouble coming up with things that aren't either small-scale cliches or video game platforming challenges. Can you fine folks help me out?

(For those not familiar with Exalted, think high-level D&D. The players are explicitly overpowered demigods with skills and abilities beyond mortal imagination)

Melayl
2022-03-20, 09:21 AM
I'm running a short Exalted game, and the party is set to go exploring inside a gigantic magitech clockwork engine. I want to have some scenes that emphasize the idea that they're in a still-functioning machine, but... I'm having trouble coming up with things that aren't either small-scale cliches or video game platforming challenges. Can you fine folks help me out?

(For those not familiar with Exalted, think high-level D&D. The players are explicitly overpowered demigods with skills and abilities beyond mortal imagination)

I don't know if Grimtooth ever made magitech traps, but his series of book on outlandish (and often vicious) traps could at least give you inspiration.

Sneak Dog
2022-03-20, 10:12 AM
Exhaust vents seemingly make excellent clear pathways.
The fold-out arm to do detail work has to go somewhere internally. Might as well double up as internal defence system.
You've seen the Indiana Jones boulder. In this machine, it's just the transporting mechanism for replacement cogs.
Took down the security controller keeping the control room locked? Entire machine falls over, turn your map 90 degrees.
There's little clockwork bots, barely more than collections of cogs, needing to be places all the time, ignoring the party. They fold up into and out of the internal clockwork machinations of the big machine.
There's a hermit living inside the machine in an alcove, has been for the past thirty years. Might've made the thing. Got his own little space with patchjob clockwork massage couch and is seeping magic from the machine to get a nice live television show scrying feed from the outside.

Cluedrew
2022-03-20, 11:08 AM
For some reason the one that popped into my head was some internal drones or other mechanism that just tries to clean the players. Literally, it is just trying to minimize the small scale contamination and if they stand still and let it do its work, nothing else will happen. If they really try to fight them off and damage them then the security system might be brought in.

Another idea I had for a visual are bodies of "water" (lakes and rivers) that are actually lubricant or coolant.

Grod_The_Giant
2022-03-20, 12:00 PM
You've seen the Indiana Jones boulder. In this machine, it's just the transporting mechanism for replacement cogs.
You're right, that's way too classic not to include.


For some reason the one that popped into my head was some internal drones or other mechanism that just tries to clean the players. Literally, it is just trying to minimize the small scale contamination and if they stand still and let it do its work, nothing else will happen. If they really try to fight them off and damage them then the security system might be brought in.
I love it.


Another idea I had for a visual are bodies of "water" (lakes and rivers) that are actually lubricant or coolant.

Actually, the machine in question was built* to keep the city of Ascension from freezing solid, so maybe lakes of *lava*...


*Well, not built, as it turns out. The whole thing is actually a third-circle demon who's been enslaved and buried in ice for centuries, because that's the kind of idea that seems reasonable when you're a First Age Solar. This might not be the most comforting realization when the players figure it out.

Telok
2022-03-20, 01:07 PM
Maybe riff off dwarf fortress stupid dorf tricks.

People have made functional small calculators & logic gates for 2bit memory using minecarts, levers, pressure plates, and doors. There's the "wave motion" cannon in which minecarts & ramps are used to accelerate & launch water at destructive speeds (also works with lava). Players have come up with some rather excessive ideas. I once carved away all of a volcano except the lava tube and constructed a grid of aquaducts at the top in order to drop lava from 20 stories up, anywhere on the map.

Tvtyrant
2022-03-20, 01:54 PM
So my thinking is that large parts of machinery would be housed in sub dimensions or connected through portals to save space. Lot's of portal traps, things living inside other dimensions (like anti-rust monster guardians) etc.