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Zocelot
2008-05-08, 07:36 PM
I had a concept idea for a game I was making. Basically a BBEG attempts to take over Mechanus because of the function of the entire plane. The PCs then have to journey to Mechanus to stop him. My problem arises here: what should the gears of Mechanus accomplish? In the DMG it says that no mortal knows what they do, but that seems like a cheap lack of creativity to me.

Any ideas?

senrath
2008-05-08, 07:38 PM
One idea is that they actually do nothing, they're just there for decoration/to mess with people.

Another is that they keep the plane functioning. If they're damaged or destroyed, things start going wrong (not sure exactly how, though) or the plane may even cease to exist. Damaging them would have to be really hard to do, if you chose this idea.

sikyon
2008-05-08, 08:02 PM
The entire plane is actually the engine of an incredibly powerful deity's clock. This clock keeps time moving forward. If the gears are damaged, then people from different time peroids start to appear as time and the associated space begin to mush together.

Or all the gears perfectly turn a songbox ballerina of an overdeity which was given to him when he was still mortal by his true love (who's soul was destroyed). Great plot hook.

Koji
2008-05-08, 08:03 PM
The planes are an outward expression of the abstract ideas they represent. In Mechanus's case, the gears represent function and order, though they don't actually seem to do anything. It is symbolic of the directionless nature of ethics without morals, just as limbo is.

It'd kind of ruin the point of it if they did anything.

Chronos
2008-05-08, 08:11 PM
The gears of Mechanus keep the cosmological Great Wheel turning. What the modrons and inevitables don't like to admit, though, is that it's the roiling chaos of Limbo which powers the motion, much like the chaotic explosions in a car engine which move the pistons.

RS14
2008-05-08, 08:13 PM
The planes are an outward expression of the abstract ideas they represent. In Mechanus's case, the gears represent function and order, though they don't actually seem to do anything. It is symbolic of the directionless nature of ethics without morals, just as limbo is.

It'd kind of ruin the point of it if they did anything.

I suggest that this point would be better made if they maintained their ancient, perfect cycle for something of absolutely no consequence. Measuring how many angels can dance on the head of a pin for every possible size of pin, for example. Order for order's sake.

Patashu
2008-05-08, 08:45 PM
Think of them as maintaining the physical laws of the multiverse, kind of like a computer's CPU.

FMArthur
2008-05-08, 08:47 PM
They keep super-powerful monster sealed off. You know the drill from there. :smallwink:

SadisticFishing
2008-05-08, 08:49 PM
Now, I'm fairly sure you've figured this out by now, but what they do is: Whatever the DM wants.

FlyMolo
2008-05-08, 10:10 PM
They're a giant difference engine. They calculate. What, and for how long? No idea. But part of the machine is a set of robots that modify the big wheels. Think Hex, from discworld, or that huge computer that calculated the meaning of life.

I kinda like the Great Wheel idea.

chiasaur11
2008-05-08, 10:23 PM
They're a giant difference engine. They calculate. What, and for how long? No idea. But part of the machine is a set of robots that modify the big wheels. Think Hex, from discworld, or that huge computer that calculated the meaning of life.

I kinda like the Great Wheel idea.

How many licks to the center of a tootsie roll pop?

Or...
They could be gears in a REALLY big steampunk mech.

Sstoopidtallkid
2008-05-08, 10:28 PM
Each particle in the multiverse has 6 gears, located together. Each movement a particle makes is represented(or enabled[or caused]) by the rotation of one of the gears, 3 for movement along an axis and 3 for rotation around an axis. The rotation of those gears moves them about Mechanus. All of the gears are connected by a system of pulleys and gears that is so far beyond human comprehension it's not even explicable. Those gears and pulleys represent things like gravity and EM force. The robots are constantly making adjustments to correct for magic, which utterly destroys any actual attempt to model the laws of physics. The system is perfectly balanced, and your players cannot affect it until 10th level, minimum. If they actually do cut a pulley or something, be creative when they try to discover the effects. After all, removing the strong nuclear force from an atom could make it go nuclear. Or do nothing of note. Either way, the robots will be pissed. :smallamused:

Bonus points for making the players not only learn all of this, but also contemplate either how they are represented since they are on Mechanus, or where the gears for Mechanus' particles are.

bosssmiley
2008-05-09, 04:36 AM
@Sstoopidtallkid: niiiiiice. :smallcool:

@OP: download "Planes of Law" from paizo.com, add the ideas presented in the Law Project on the DiceFreaks boards. The Great Gearworks is potentially one of the plot-hookiest planes in the multiverse. :smallwink:

Glorfindel
2008-05-09, 04:43 AM
They're calculating the Ultimate Answer to Life, the Universe and Everything.

Pienterekaak
2008-05-09, 09:56 AM
They're calculating the Ultimate Answer to Life, the Universe and Everything.

the answer is 42...
the question however.. thats a different story.

Heliomance
2008-05-09, 11:28 AM
No, I'm pretty sure Deep Thought actually made a rounding error. The real answer is actually 41.9997453 or so.

Ganurath
2008-05-09, 11:40 AM
The gears are powered by the Chaos of the multiverse, and their motion generates energy for a factory that makes Inevitables to counteract that Chaos with Law incarnate. The untimate objective of the denizens of Mechanus is to make the gears stop moving.

Telonius
2008-05-09, 12:33 PM
Some possibilities...

They grind into nothingness all of the excess "Walls of Iron" created by smarty-pants Wizards. Without this service, the law of conservation of matter would fail.

They power the cosmic printing press that produces all the splatbooks in the multiverse.

They push forward the alarm clock of the Overdeity, who is currently asleep. If gears stop, the clock rings, the Overdeity wakes up, and the multiverse - his dream - will end.

_Puppetmaster_
2008-05-09, 12:42 PM
No, I'm pretty sure Deep Thought actually made a rounding error. The real answer is actually 41.9997453 or so.

Actually, it's 54.

The question is "What do you get wmultiply six by nine?"

senrath
2008-05-09, 01:58 PM
Actually, it's 54.

The question is "What do you get wmultiply six by nine?"

In base 13 it is still 42 (at least I think it's base 13). Anyway, that's not the question. In one of the later books it is revealed that only the answer OR the question could ever be known in a single universe. So, if you know the answer, you can't know the question. And if you know the question, you can't know the answer.

Green and Red
2008-05-09, 02:18 PM
In base 13 it is still 42 (at least I think it's base 13). Anyway, that's not the question. In one of the later books it is revealed that only the answer OR the question could ever be known in a single universe. So, if you know the answer, you can't know the question. And if you know the question, you can't know the answer.

Oh and if you should somehow manage to get your hand on both, they would anihilate the universe and it would be replaced by something even more confusing and senseless

and this might already have happend a few times


As for the thread, i would simply say the gears ARE order in a sense, so if they are heavily damaged the plane starts to break down, and with too much the chaos of limbo begins to seep into the rest of the multiverse

Cainen
2008-05-09, 03:08 PM
The problem I see with your idea is this.

Primus is virtually a GOD.

Do you think ANY non-deific BBEG would be able to stand up to him in his own realm?

Why would Primus let him slide? He doesn't get distracted, and he's got unbelievable amounts of knowledge because he sees everything his Modrons do.

Randel
2008-05-09, 07:46 PM
Long ago in a cosmos that existed long before the Great Wheel, there was a race of hyperintelligent pan-dimensional beings. After eons of time (or rather a sort of hypertime, which has past, present, alternate present, and orange) which even the deities of today would find themselves unable to comprehend, the beings had cured every illness and acheived every task they could think possible save for one, finding the answer to the ultimate question of life, the multiverse, and everything else.


Unfortunatly, finding the answer to that question would involve finding what the actual question was... and to find the ultimate question they would have to calculate every know factor in the multiverse and then account for every unknown factor... including the factors involved with the computer tht would be doing the calculating.

So, the greatest minds of these pandimensional beings got together and tried designing a computer that could first detect, measure, and calculate every movement and bit of information in the multiverse... but after nearly going insane (or hyper-insane) they decided to just have a bunch of stupid robots to build a mock version while they break for lunch.

Mechanus is essentially the first part in attempt to build a machine capable of recording all data in the multiverse... or it would be if the desiners could get those first million kinks worked out. If it worked properly then all the gears would form parts of a giant computer which is calculating the design to build a sensor that can be used to record the movement of every atom in the cosmos. Then those movements will be recorded, extrapolated, re-calculated as a simple formula... then double-checked with the sensors readings for an eon to fine-tune it... then run the formula through ANOTHER infinatly complex computer to find out how everything began and how it will end.

However, the machinery isn't nearly hooked up enough or properly calibrated or even designed to fulfill its intended task... all those gears breaking from random chance and the occasional Rust Monster infestation don't help any. But a few parts of it are working pretty well and with some adjustments then it should start getting stuff done. Unfortunatly, nobody really can see the 'big picture' with the machine except for its pan-dimensional designers.

The designers are still off at lunch (which I should remind you is a hyper dimensional version of time... so they are actually both starting, stopping, going backwards, meeting themselves at two separate restaurants and being sidetracked at a not-quite-orange bookstore) and once they return they will probably look over mechanus and make the adjustments to get it working properly. A normal mortal mind would certainly explode if it tried to take in the whole design of it... but a sufficiently dedicated and intelligent mortal might see a few of the pieces and get them to work for him.

Devils_Advocate
2008-05-09, 11:37 PM
Each particle in the multiverse has 6 gears, located together.
Including the particles that make up the gears. Woah. That's exactly the sort of weird, trippy thing that can only be done by working with infinite numbers. (Mechanus has an infinite number of gears filling up its infinite space, or so I presume...) I like it.

Soup of Kings
2008-05-10, 08:08 PM
A story.

Win, my friend. Win.

senrath
2008-05-10, 08:19 PM
-snip-
Tell me, were you channeling Douglas Adams when you wrote that? It sounds like it came straight from one of his books.

Jack Mann
2008-05-10, 08:43 PM
Tell me, were you channeling Douglas Adams when you wrote that? It sounds like it came straight from one of his books.

Given that he almost directly invokes Deep Thought, I think it's a safe assumption that he had Douglas Adams on the brain.

They have pills for that, these days.

Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll
2008-05-10, 09:22 PM
I like the particle theory best.

Yay for particle theory.

Ohmygod, even better.

Every particle in the multiverse is made up of 1 plane of Mechanus. That's right. Every particle in the multiverse is made up of infinate gears. The plane of Mechanus just happens to be the mother-particle. And the gears are made up of particles, which is made up of Mechanus, which is made up of gears, etc...

Best. Fractal. Evar.

Fishy
2008-05-10, 09:24 PM
The gears are part of a set of giant thumbscrews, slowly torturing the god-being trapped in the center of the plane, who may or may not be evil.

The gears are entirely naturally occurring, they just washed up on the metaphorical beach one day. (Take that, Intelligent Design!)

The gears are an engine block for a higher-dimensional construct: A ship, or a weapon, or a giant robot. The robots that crawl through the insides, and the entire universe that sprung up in its planar shadow are just rats on the factory floor.

The gears are powered by love. Well, love and art, and rage, and sorrow, and all of the other emotions that make mortals behave chaotically. They are sucked in somewhere in the middle of the plane, and the gears grind them into a fine dust that can be safely burned away.

The gears are prayer wheels- each revolution bringing belief and divine power to Primus. Every one of the infinite gears has an inscription on the inside, except for that one right there, which has Primus' name. Hey, be careful with that hammer...

Randel
2008-05-10, 09:40 PM
Given that he almost directly invokes Deep Thought, I think it's a safe assumption that he had Douglas Adams on the brain.

They have pills for that, these days.

Plot hooks:

It turns out that several gods, demons, and religions have been manipulated since the dawn of time to go to mechanus and interfere with its functioning. Not destroy the place... but make it malfunction just enough that it never gets proper results. the master manipulators? Pan-dimensional philosophers who want to make sure that both the answer and questions to existence remains unknown... so they can write books and make up theories on what Mechanus will eventually find out.

One of the pan-dimensionals in charge of building and maintaining Mechanus was kind of bored while writing code for its prime function and spent some time making up odd video games and screensavers to amuse himself with. One of these is an erotic screensaver that depicts images of nude female pan-dimensionals (or at least the equivelent of females in regard to this particular pan-dimensional... The species has an irrational number of genders) . Only pan-dimensionals can see it for what it is... to normal three-dimensional beings it looks like a portal to a large extra-dimensional space filled with insanity inducing shapes along its boundaries. Some arch-mage or other person finds it and thinks its a portal to a failed Genesis bubble, they cover up the insanity shapes and make a secret hideout. When the pan-dimensional checks his screensaver, he gets upset about having 'some bug in the graphics' and kicks the mage out.

It turns out that several parts of the great wheel are also part of one giant machine. Mechanis is the computer, the positive energy plane is the power source, the plane of fire is actually an old component that got worked around when the designers found out that it got a bit hot when the thing ran for too long, the plane of water was a brief attempt a cooling unit to solve their plane of fire problem, the negative energy plane is the grounding unit where the positive energy goes... it turns out that several spheres of annihilation are just portals to the negative energy plane used to keep certain parts of the universe from getting too hot or clogged with gunk.

Deth Muncher
2008-05-10, 10:54 PM
-snip-


Ye gods, man! I agree with the other guy: You ARE Douglas Adams reincarnated. I need your autograph.

Shraik
2008-05-11, 11:01 AM
Mechanus is a very lawfully attuned plane. Possibly, the gears could represent the law within the universe. And if they break, oops.
Things start going haywire. Gravity become Subjective. The Inevitables shut down. Slowly, the lawful NPC's start to loose their sanity and become chaotic.
And what happens could all depend on what gear is broken. If one gear is damaged, it could damage the laws of physics(though, they need not apply).

Kami2awa
2008-05-11, 11:30 AM
The gears are a clockwork computer that has intelligence; and they are the only being in the universe that's TRULY all-knowing. However, the knowledge is driving it truly sane* and it wants to be destroyed. The BBEG is a worshipper of the intelligence and knows it wants to commit suicide, so is out to euthanise it. Turns out, he's not a BBEG, he's Neutral Good...

*Much worse than truly mad.

KazilDarkeye
2008-05-11, 01:29 PM
Don't forget that these gears are linked, so stopping or damaging even 1 could cause the ULTIMATE domino chain reaction ever.

Or you could say that one of the gears had some of its teeth broken, so occasionly it "skips", causing something to happen.

Another good one, in my opinion is having a smallish gear exactly 1 year's travel from the main gear (wherever that is) with a metronome on a pedastal. This metronome measures out 1 second on the Material Plane. If you tamper with it, time could speed up or slow down, but no-one who was on the Material Plane at the time would realise it. And if the metronome was stopped, time on the Material Plane would stop.

FMArthur
2008-05-11, 02:00 PM
The gears control and track chaos. Chaotic events, people, and things are all calculated in a supercomplex, predetermined, rigidly ordered fashion by the multiverse's largest supercomputer: Mechanus. So even chaos is born of order, and Mechanus is where the process happens. :smallamused:

Randel
2008-05-11, 02:16 PM
Ye gods, man! I agree with the other guy: You ARE Douglas Adams reincarnated. I need your autograph.

I'm flattered, but I did read all five books in the Hitchhikers trilogy and one short story that had Zaphod working on some scheme to steal toxic waste. And by toxic waste, I mean dangerous compounds, devices and creatures that were produced when someone made the mistake of adding unlimited funding to a team of engineers and saying 'go ahead and make whatever you want'

At least I think that's what happened... its been a while since I read it. Also, I think what happens is Zaphod and his accomplice get one of the devices that the engineers made and accidentally release one of the engineers when they turn off the security system.

But as for my contribution to this thread, its mostly me reading to posts of the guys who first mentioned Deep Though, and then me trying to fit in stuff from the books.

On a related note... perhaps the Far Realm was made by Pan-dimensionals who were working on an organic computer until they decided that it was stupid and shoved the plane off the side... mindflayers habits of eating brains was actually meant as a way to record data in a handy four-dimensional format... until someone invented the punch-cards used in mechanus which the designers agreed was alot less messy.

A faction of Mind-flayers are also trying to fulfill their original purpose to find the answer and question of everything. Either to eat the brains of great philosophers, to manipulate mortals into studying mechanus so the mind-flayers can steal some of the results for themselves, or conquer worlds and multiply the number of psionic abberations on the theory that they just need more computing power to get things done.

Meanwhile, on mechanus, one of the constructs in charge of scanning the universe gains free will and decides that its much easier to just simplify the universe to make it easier to calculate. So he works to subjugate mortals and other non-modron minds (he dares not challenge Primus since he is still Lawful) the construct dubs himself the Master Control Program to account for his new function. His ultimate plan is to destroy or dominate such 'untidy' places as the Abyss and the Far Realm... and with the resources of a tiny fraction of an unlimited plane of metal constructs, he might even upgrade himself to an Elder Evil if Primus decides that his militant plan could help them with their mission.

The MCP (from above) makes a move on the material plane (or perhaps the elemental plane of Earth due to its high mineral content) by sending constructs there to harvest metal to make more constructs. If they ever discover a way to extract the iron from someones blood to make usable metal then things could get messy. A few of the more adventurous modrons under MCPs command might supervise more combat-worthy constructs. (I don't have any of the monster manuals on hand... but I have a recent dragon magazine with the Chaturan chess monster constructs. I suppose the designs for chess-based monsters could have been taken from a pan-dimensional designers 'video game' ) MCP's plan is to use non-mechanus resources to make an army of near self-replicating robots (the rank and file constructs can't self replicate but modron engineers can make more modrons and then lesser constructs) then use this nigh-infinite army to conquer the other planes to make them orderly like mechanus.


Lets see... douglas adams for the hitchikers guide reference, an reference to the movie Tron for the MPC, perhaps even Kingdom Hearts if MCP starts conquering worlds with his 'heartless' constructs (or if the abyss and far realm start fighting back). Now to stick Star Wars and Doctor Who in here somehow... oh and Care Bears! The Celestials need an appearance if this should tirn into an Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny.

Though, if the plane of water starts leaking then I might already have Jumped the Shark. :smallwink: