What happens when you take the souls of the long-dead and place them in an intricate machine? You get Clockworks.
Clockworks stand apart from other ancestries in that they are a people created, their bodies assembled in workshops and given the semblance of life by souls stolen from the afterlife and bound to their mechanical forms. The soul tethered to the machinery can only control the body and perceive from it while its inner mechanisms move.
Once the cogs stop turning, the components stop moving and the clockwork stops, becoming an object, albeit one of many intricate parts and possibly of great beauty. Engineers and dark magicians create clockworks for a variety of reasons. Some are built to serve as guards and soldiers, others to help further magical research, and others used as laborers, though the costs of their creation makes clockwork workers rare outside the wealthiest houses.
Most clockworks’ makers wisely included a key, although it is possible to build them without one. This mechanism allows control over their creations and ensures that clockworks can never turn against their creators. The gradual unwinding of this key causes clockworks to shut down on occasion, and it is always set in some out-of-reach place to prevent them from winding themselves up.
Creating A Clockwork
Starting Attribute Scores Strength 9, Agility 8, Intellect 9, Will 9
Perception equals your Intellect score
Defense 13
Health equals your Strength score
Healing Rate equals one-quarter your Health, round down
Size 1, Speed 8, Power 0
Damage 0, Insanity 0, Corruption 0
Languages and Professions You speak the Common Tongue.
Immune damage from disease and poison; asleep, diseased, fatigued, poisoned
Key You have a key somewhere on your body that you cannot reach. When the key is cranked and turning, you count as a creature. When it stops, you become an object. Your key stops turning when you become incapacitated. It also stops turning at the end of any round in which you got a total of 0 or lower on an attack roll or challenge roll.
While you are an object, you cannot use actions, move, talk, or perceive your surroundings. Any creature that can reach you can use an action to wind up your key. If you are not incapacitated, you become a creature once more. If you are incapacitated, roll a d6. On a 3 or lower, there is no effect. On a 4 or higher, you heal 1 damage and become a creature at the end of the round.
Although you are an object while you are incapacitated, you are still subject to the rules for incapacitated creatures.
Mechanical Body You do not eat, drink, or breathe. You do not age and you cannot be transformed into an undead creature. Your mechanical body makes it impossible for you to swim, so you sink to the bottom when you are submerged in liquid.
Repairing Damage When you are a creature, you heal damage as any other creature. If you are an object, a creature can use an action to start repairing you with a tool kit. The creature must work for at least 4 hours. At the end of this time, it makes an Intellect challenge roll with 1 bane. On a success, you heal damage equal to your healing rate.
Level 4 Expert Clockwork
Characteristics Health +5
You either learn one spell or gain Grind the Gears.
Grind the Gears You can increase the number of actions you can use on your turn by one. When you finish your turn, roll a d6. If you roll an odd number, you become an object at the end of the round.
Clockwork Age
| d20 | Age |
|---|---|
| 3-8 | You are new, 5 years old or younger. |
| 9-12 | You are experienced, 6 to 10 years old. |
| 13-15 | You are old, 11 to 50 years old. |
| 16-17 | You are very old, 51 to 150 years old. |
| 18 | You are ancient, more than 150 years old. |
Clockwork Purpose
| d20 | Purpose |
|---|---|
| 1-4 | You were built for war. Increase your Strength or Agility by 2. |
| 5-8 | You were built to work. Increase your Strength by 2. |
| 9-12 | You were built to use magic. Increase your Intellect or Will by 2. |
| 13-16 | You were built to gather intelligence about or assassinate targets. Increase your Agility or Intellect by 2. |
| 17-20 | You were built for an inexplicable purpose. Increase one attribute of your choice by 2. |
Clockwork Appearance
| 3d6 | Appearance |
|---|---|
| 3 | You have a strange and unsettling appearance. |
| 4 | You appear crude and ill-formed. |
| 5-6 | You appear battered, broken, and in poor repair. |
| 7-8 | You have no facial features or distinguishing markings. |
| 9-12 | You have a mere suggestion of facial features. |
| 13-14 | You appear well made and in good working condition. |
| 15-16 | You have a stylized and ornate body. |
| 17 | You have an ornate body festooned with etchings and ornamental jewels. |
| 18 | You have an exquisite body festooned with elaborate etchings and ornamental jewels, and trimmed in precious metals. If you are dismantled, your body parts are worth 1d6 gc. |
Clockwork Background
| d20 | Background |
|---|---|
| 1 | Your soul came from Hell. Start the game with 1d3 Corruption. |
| 2 | Your soul was plucked from the Underworld before it could forget its former life. Start the game with 1d6 Insanity and add an extra profession. |
| 3 | You spent 1d20 years in a dormant state. |
| 4 | Your maker treated you poorly. You escaped and now fear your maker will find you. |
| 5 | Fire, plague, or monsters destroyed your home and you are the sole survivor. |
| 6 | You were stolen from the workshop where you were made and lived as a slave for 1d6 years. |
| 7 | Goblins captured you and almost took you apart for scrap materials. You have replaced your missing components with bits of wood, old weapons, and other rubbish. |
| 8 | You were left to find your own way in the world when your maker died. |
| 9 | You fell off a boat and spent 2 years walking to shore. |
| 10 | You worked to fulfill your purpose for 1d6 years. |
| 11 | Choose a member of the group. That character found you and turned your key. You owe that character a debt. |
| 12 | You were one of 1d6 other clockworks made at the same time. You hope to find them one day. |
| 13 | You were made to be a translator. You can speak one additional language. |
| 14 | You were made to be a scribe. You know how to read and write the Common Tongue. |
| 15 | Your maker set you free to find your destiny. |
| 16 | You can’t remember your past. You don’t know where you came from or how you came to be where you are. |
| 17 | You built a lasting monument in your community. |
| 18 | You found a cryptic message inside your body. You have not yet deciphered its meaning. |
| 19 | You have a sword grafted to one of your arms. |
| 20 | You came into money and start the game with 2d6 cp. |