Terra Mechanica
From Axalon RPG
Terra Mechanica is a fantasy based Transformers world unique to the Axalon RPG. Both RPG boards within its continuity are now archived, but there is a good chance it will appear again in future projects. The [Terra Mechanica forum] currently contains even more background info than what is below.
Scroll Of Enlightenment copied from http://www.axalon.org/viewtopic.php?t=339
Latest Updates:
New Places: Downpour, The Crushing Range, Crombec’s Well, Crombec, Inmaken, Stormwatch, Vendrebah, Leaden Dunes
New Factions: Far Go Trading Company, Desert Druids
New Beast: Gorgon Darts, Lead Scorpions, Gryphons, Gutsuckers, Kubichi
Section Expanded: Monetary System, Goblins
New Magic: Time Magic, Sap-Craft
The Scroll of Enlightenment is a magical thread that establishes the reality of Terra Mechanica. The physical laws that govern this textual universe are embossed here, a firm definition that will govern existence forevermore, or at least until we think up something that sounds cooler.
This is not required reading, but you should probably skim the first the categories to get a general idea of what this world is like. The Scroll will be added to as time goes on and we find out more from exploration and player input. If you have any ideas you want to add please submit them to me at acorfman@speakeasy.org or Psyckogod at psyckogod@earthlink.net.
Transformer Society
Transformer Biology
Every shell is unique and handmade. Terra Mechanicna has not yet developed a method of mass production. The basic design is completely up to you, though they all need some manner of fueling the spark. Most transformers are powered by coal, wood, or oil. They have a chute that drops fuel directly into the spark chamber and an ashtray below that they empty once a day. Some classes have different methods of refueling. Magicians run off magic. Druids photosynthesize and dip their roots in water, like all trees. Gemstone mages and glass transformers can have special focusing facets around their sparks that let them run off solar power. If you have original ideas about how your bot is powered by all means implement them. We can have wind-up transformers, wind powered transformers, or transformers that run off potato batteries. Animal forms will also require nourishment if a transformer remains in them for too long.
Many manufactured transformers have light, windy voices, reminiscent of flutes. This is because they talk using a set of bellows imbedded in their chests. The system of bellows is called the L.U.N.G. (Lightweight Unassisted pNeumatic Generator) by the blacksmiths who produce them. Most of the time they are nestled behind the spark. Emerging from the L.U.N.G.s are gustpipes, long cylinders leading to the mouth pitted with thousands of small holes that open and close to produce the many nuances of transformer speech. To speak a transformer needs to pull air into his or her L.U.N.G. and whistle it out through the gustpipe, holding his or her mouth in the correct positions for the appropriate noises. The first transformers communicated through whistling and language evolved from there.
Voice boxes are a comparatively new invention, they’ve been around for a while, only not near as long as L.U.N.G.s. Shells that can’t incorporate a bellows system, like glass and fabric ones, come with square devices filled with many, tightly drawn strings and a tiny bow mounted on a mechanism powered by the spark that darts back and forth across the strings, producing the noises transformers make to communicate. Every box sounds different, which is why every transformer sounds different. It’s possible to imitate another transformer’s voice by adjusting your own box or stealing theirs. Removing the box renders a transformer mute, fortunately they are fairly cheap and easy to replace, unlike L.U.N.G.s. The only expensive ones are specialized boxes bards use that are both high quality and easily removed for tuning.
Transformers have an average life span of three hundred years. Adulthood is reached around sixty.
Sparks
The spark is the alpha and omega of the transformer. It’s the acting soul, mind, memory, and power source that gives the body mobility. A transformer’s body can be obliterated, but as long as the spark is recovered, he or she can be built again. Transformers can also switch bodies by swapping sparks. This process is hard to do without both parties’ consent since you generally can’t remove an unwilling spark without wrecking the shell. However, there have been reports of successful body snatching.
All transformers need to go dormant every now and then for their sparks to process energy and circulate it to areas that can’t get enough while the transformer is awake. If a transformer goes on without recharging for too long parts of the shell will start slowing down and locking up. When it senses the exhaustion reaching permanently damaging levels the spark will forcibly lock up the entire body.
Social Structures
Terra Mechanica is a Europe sized territory backed up against the sea by elven forests and dark mountains. It has five large cities and innumerable villages. Most of the villages are small mining towns, the transformian equivalent of small farming villages. They export coal and oil to the cities in exchange for modern commodities and the great wheel of commerce turns. Since coal and oil is a finite resource the villages are always moving. The deposits within Terra Mechanica have actually started drying up lately so there has been a move for expansion, much to the irritation of the goblins and elves who live in the mountains and forests that surround Terra Mechanica.
The five cities are ruled over by a council of five. For those with stunted addition skills that’s one representative from each city. Their names are Excalibur, Merrilyn, Deimos, Grutha, and Widget. It has been this way as long as anyone can remember. Sparks die, but the shells of the five council members are preserved and their descendants take on their titles. Rulers have inhabited the same bodies and been called the same names for sixty-eight generations. New sparks are selected from the ruling family of the city when its old council member dies. Each member handles a different branch of the government and they only come together to make large decisions that affect all of Terra Mechanica.
Alloy/Caste List
Due to the lack of shell factories or advanced personal procreation mechanisms, the Cybertronians who originally crash-landed on Mechanica had to construct new Bots with whatever raw materials were handy. The substance a Bot is made out of is a determining factor in what class they're in and how they're treated.
- Gold - Royalty
- Silver - Nobility
- Bronze - Servant
- Iron - Fighter
- Steel - Soldier
- Carved Wood - Mage
- Grown Wood – Druid
- Bones – Black Mages
- Lead – Commoner
- Granite – Berserker
- Molten Rock – Mage Guard
- Glass – Courtesan
- Kite - Scouts
- Gem - Uber Powerful Mages (Not allowed for PCs)
- Clay – Slaves
- Combination – Blacksmiths
Transformers of the incorrect material can try for other classes, but generally they’ll encounter problems. Glass fighters don’t work out well and no one would want an iron courtesan. When a transformer changes class he can either have a new body made or could get his current body imbued with metal from the caste he is promoted or demoted to. For example, if a noble were to become royalty he or she would have gold stripes melted onto their shell. When prospective parents think they’re ready they contract clockmakers in Pendulum to make a child for them. The shell is made and shipped and the spark is inserted when the body arrives at the parent’s home.
Monetary System
Transformer currency consists of small square coins made of molybdenum. They are silvery white and have small square holes in the center. Depending on where they were minted they will have different designs around the edges. There’s a Council sanctioned distributor in every city. Coins from different cities tend to be more highly valued than coins native to a city.
There are three types of coins with different markings and different sizes. Klinks are the smallest, about large as a cornflower. If you accumulate one hundred and thirteen klinks you could go to your local Council sanctioned distributor and exchange them for one klonk. A klonk is about the size of an elf’s palm and two hundred and thirty seven of them can be exchanged for one klunk. A klunk is the size of a small wagon wheel. Ten klinks will buy you a bag of rock candy. Ten klonks will buy you a horse. Ten klunks will buy you a castle. Weaker castes, such as wooden mages and glass courtesans, understandably prefer to trade with gemstones.
It is against the law to make transformers out of molybdenum. Years ago, there was a scandal in Quartz Canyon where a group of alchemists were caught melting down other transformers to forge coins and the Council decided it was unwise to have people made of money.
To prevent counterfeiting, each klonk and klunk has an irreplaceable seal placed on it: the face of its native city’s Zonarch. Klunks have a Zonarch’s whole profile pressed into the side, while klonks only have a handprint. The authenticity of the prints is easily checked by simple spells to ascertain the identity of the printer. Such spells can also identify in what era the coin was minted, since the identity of the Zonarch will change with the spark. This is also a guard against inflation, since the Zonarchs always weigh very careful whether the need for more money is dire enough for them to spend and afternoon having their faces pressed into molten molybdenum
Noble Ranks:
- Prime: The near-mythical ruler of a unified Mechanica. A Prime has not existed in Mechanica in thousands of years.
- Zonarch: This was originally one of the hand-picked servants of the Prime. Today, they are the hereditary rulers of Mechanica in His absence. The title Zonarchs comes from the division of the empire into five ‘Zones’ of the Empire, i.e., one of its major metropolitan areas and the surrounding country. Each Zonarch manages one of the Zones, regulating trade, dealing with local concerns, maintaining laws, and making sure everything doesn’t descend into chaos. There are five Zonarchs (Excalibur, Grutha, Deimos, Merrilyn and Widget).
- Overlord: A sane nobleman given power of ownership over a tract of land, varying in size from a large village to a small country. In practice, they function in much the same way as Zonarchs, but have less land and thus less power. They go by many different names, often giving themselves self-styled ranks of their own devising, such as Mayor, Governor, Admiral and others more ridiculous. They report to whichever Zonarch reigns over their Zone and can be stripped of land or title at the Zonarch’s will.
- La Compagne Nobilee: Translated: the Company of Lords, but best known as The Gentry. The Gentry consists of all the various ranks of noble that nobody really understands. The arrangement of classes and superiority is a complex combination of birth, rank, accomplishment, possessions, and how you pronounce your Rs. Most of the Gentry are locked in a perpetual battle to achieve a higher social standing within their little world, some just sit back and watch the others fight it out, all of them are irretrievably insane. The Company of Lords acts as a repository for the less presentable portion of the aristocracy- dukes, duchesses and duchi, marquises and marquises, barons and baronets, and so on and so forth. The Gentry are kept under strict guard in their plush Port Cullis estates. As long as they are fed and catered to they will probably never emerge from their self-contained world of rank and court intrigue. Thank god.
- Underlord: An Underlord has a simple job: Keep the Gentry happy, content and above all quiet by saying and doing whatever is necessary. One who performs his duties well is eventually promoted to the rank of Overlord. While they are allowed to live in relative luxury their jobs are mentally taxing and more than one Underlord has joined the gibbering, inbred mass of the Gentry before achieving promotion. Those who manage to survive are generally highly qualified for management.
- Knight: A knight is any person who has proven himself superior to others in his particular field, be it combat, wizardry, mining, medicine or crafting. It is a measure of great respect, and allows him a certain amount of influence in matters of Court. It can also be exploited, as Knights can charge more for their goods and purchase their supplies for less.
- Imperators: Agents reporting directly to the Prime. However, they are often thought as little more than jumped-up messengers, and once traveled across the land constantly, reading declarations and generally being pompous. They are now believed, happily, extinct. This may or may not be the case.
Historical note: The nobility has for ages been obsessed with retaining the purity of their sparklines and so kept their breeding closed within their ranks. About 200 years ago, Lord Excalibur couldn't help but notice how many of his subordinates were completely insane. He ordered some of his (sane) Overlords to look into it, and after much study they concluded that inbreeding was probably a bad thing. Lord Excalibur consulted with the other Zonarchs and reforms were decided on. The Company of Lords was created, a culling of the ranks instituted, and a public awareness campaign launched. The Great Sift, as it came to be known, was greeted with great resistance from the established gentry and great enthusiasm by young nobles who could now marry the peasant girl they were in love with (not their ugly cousin Blockra) and take over their crazy uncle's barony while they were at it.
Today, eccentric nobles live in constant fear of Competency Exams, and even the sane ones (now in the vast majority outside the Company) feel pressure, both from Zonarchs trying to consolidate power and commoners that are increasingly winning control of towns and villages and spreading this strange concept of "democracy" from a few renegade towns.
Religion
Terra Mechanica is currently rent in two or more by opposing viewpoints upon religion. The wood-grown druids believe in the supremacy of nature. Being an individualistic society there is not one doctrine for the druids, but they all believe green things are pretty damn important. Meanwhile, the Church of Primus has taken the legends of the "Ark" to develop a monotheistic religion based on the one god Primus, who will lead them into a new era of technological wonder. Unlike the wooden druids, the followers of the Church of Primus emphasize much more mechanical bodies and are always seeking new technology. In the middle is everyone else, who tend not to attribute magic or creation to any one deity or group of deities.
Terminology
- Length Measurement: The divide is the standard length measurement in Terra Mechanica. It is the original distance from the south side of New Cybertron to the north. The city has expanded since the unit of measurement was established, but there are still markers establishing the length. The unit is named such because the road it runs along is named Division Street because it bisects New Cybertron exactly. Architects have been very strict about maintaining this and coordinate their projects. One divide is about equal to a mile.
Short distances are measured in widgets, named after the Pendulum city Council member. One widget is equal to the length of the distance between the end of Lady Widget’s finger and its first joint. In order to preserve the measurement, the finger of the original Lady Widget was removed and replaced. The original finger is on display in the Museum of Mechanica in Pendulum. One widget is about equal to one inch.
- Weight Measurement: Transformers derived their units for measuring weight from the goblins. They first became concerned with exact weight when trading coal with goblins, who measured value by how heavy a shipment was, not how many piece of coal it contained. Goblins use a unit called a head. Each goblin tribe has a special citizen called the headmaster, just below the shaman in importance. This goblin goes through extensive training in which he is taught a special technique that allows him to actually remove his head from his shoulders and reattach it without suffering any detrimental effects. Headmasters preserve their heads very carefully, making sure its weight remains constant as accurate measurement of weight is integral to trade and in it rests the honor of the entire tribe. They preserve weight by eating certain foods and zone in on the correct weight by cutting their hair to certain lengths. Transformers have not adopted the practice of headmasters, but do use heads. One head weighs about a pound.
Places
Azure Forest
A large, open forest covering the north-west section of Terra Mechanica near the base of the Windshear Spikes, Azure Forest's main distinction is that almost all its vegetation is various shades of blue, ranging from deep indigo pine to periwinkle moss. The exact reason for all the blue coloration is unknown, though it's suspected that it has something to do with certain magic-bearing mineral deposits in the area. The majority of the trees in Azure Forest are large silverwoods, hardwood trees with mottled silvery-grey wood and sky blue foilage. They flower in the spring, their small flowers a light blue-violet color that gradually fades to white. The undergrowth around the base of the silverwoods is mostly made up of azure grasses, low growing bushes colored either a deep blue or blue-green, vines ranging in color from purple to powder blue, and smaller immature silverwoods.
The local wildlife has adapted and evolved to suit this environment, coat colors ranging from black to blue to silvery gray, along with some deep purples and the occasional blue-green. Such species include the blue fox, the marbled hare, and the great frosted owl.
Azure Forest is protected by the local druids and a number of the Steelwind Rangers, who have their main base somewhere within the forest's boundaries.
Crombec’s Well
Crombec’s Well, named for the Quartz Canyon prospector who discovered it, is a vast chamber, half a divide tall, with a massive network of enchanted crystals at the bottom that blows forceful wind perpetually upward. The top of the chamber has been excavated and the column of wind rises hundreds of feet into the air.
Crombec
Crombec is an outlying settlement of Quartz Canyon in good standing, noted for the high quality of its gems and precious metals. Most of the ramshackle town is built around the lip of the Well, with a network of sheltered stairs and ladders that leads down inside. Hundreds of tunnels have been made, radiating out from the hundred-foot central shaft. Some are abandoned, dead ends, or stripped of all useful materials. But a few are still rich with gems, or gold, or large deposits of iron ore. Crombec attracts many miners who wish to get away from the fevered competition of Quartz, but still want to work independently. Despite the treasures to be found in Crombec, overland travel is difficult, and the route claims a few lives every year. High winds interfere with transport by magical means, driving costs through the roof for teleportation, lightning travel, and even magic carpet rides. The route underground is convoluted and unreliable, frequently riddled with cave-ins and subterranean monsters.
The current overlord of Crombec is Lady Kearce XII. Lady Kearce has outlived most of her descendants, and she has a marked reputation for being tough. She can, and has, held a grudge for centuries. Above all else, she is concerned with preserving the town’s freedom, its rough frontier character. No one, not even family, is allowed to interfere with that.
The Crushing Range
Northeast of the Windspear Spikes, the wind grows stronger. Mountains rise like fingers, pitted by erosion, spidered with gigantic stress fractures, avalanches become frighteningly common, and the weather changes dramatically from moment to moment. These are the mountains known as Crushing Range: home to the mining city of Crombec and the great Stormwatch Towers.
Downpour
The town of Downpour is not far from Everfall, unless you measure vertically. It changed a great deal once Everfall rose and the shadow fell, but after settling back down, little changed in the thousands of years to come. It is an odd, secretive town, full of strange business. The buildings are huddled close together, situated around the chains that bind the school. The structures resemble pagodas, with overlapping roofs and complicated systems of eavestroughs and drainpipes, diverting the constant rain that comes from being situated below Everfall. Yet though the streets are kept relatively dry, they are rarely used. Downpour is a rather ominous place, with inhabitants who rarely venture out of doors. Its inhabitants are venerable wizards who keep to themselves. There is a small indoor marketplace at the center of town, where servants of the wizards are occasionally sent on errands. There would be little of interest to outsiders if not for the auction house, which sometimes carries magical items of great rarity. There is a single inn, which gets few visitors, though it is frequented by a number of wizards.
Everfall
Council Member: Lady Merrilyn The city of Everfall is actually one huge school. An immense academy for mages built on one of the traditional floating islands that every successful fantasy world needs. The surface of the island is a massive deposit of sapphires and while the underside is veined with crystal. They have a bit of earth sandwiched between them.
The city hasn’t always floated. It was founded on solid ground by the original Lady Merrilyn due to the pockets of valuable gems that speckled through the area. Over time, magic seeped down into ground, enchanting the raw jewels and one morning the inhabitants of the city rose to discover they were airborne. The crystal veins below them had become one HUGE levitation spell gem and they were slowly rising. The Academy was quickly secured to the ground with huge chains so it didn’t float off into the atmosphere.
A few months later the same phenomena occurred with the sapphire deposits and water began to gush up from the ground on top of the floating island. The current Lady Merrilyn quickly responded by having the streets carved into an intricate maze of reservoirs and hire shipwrights to build boats that could ferry her students to their classes. The giant waterfalls that run off all sides of the island give the city-school its name.
The buildings of Everfall are tall, tightly packed, and honeycombed by open, curving and twisting staircases. There are walkways running in networks across the whole city, some of them hundreds of feet above the watery roads. They are very hard to navigate without intimate knowledge of the city or the ability of flight.
Forest Heart
Druids are naturally antisocial creatures, living alone or in pairs in patches of forest they’ve sworn to protect. However, there is one place they gather. Forest Heart is a mysterious location where druids socialize and teach and gather in times of emergency. No one but druids knows how to reach it and it’s one of the most closely guarded secrets of the naturally secretive class. The most any one of them has ever said about it was when Archdruid Juniper was asked about it by lord Excalibur. Her response has been recorded in the palace log: “It is a blade’s breadth from all that is green.”
Inmaken
A goblin temple. The name means ‘morning powder’ in the goblin language, called so because it is usually located in the direction of the rising sun. Goblins who live on the Spikes, on the other side of the temple, call it Onumaken for similar reasons. It is a converted salt mine and the proving grounds for many goblin rituals.
Leaden Dunes
The Leaden Dunes are a large patch of desert a long ways north of Quartz Canyon. This sprawling desert is notable for its strange coloration; lead deposits in the soil have turned all the sand an ashy gray, and given the area its name. The sand is especially hard, and the sandstorms are especially harsh due to the properties of the sand. There are only a handful of creatures indigenous to this region, most notably the lead scorpion. The only major settlement in the area is the city of Vendrebah.
Transformers do not function well in the desert due to the sand. One of the harshest punishments possible in Vendrebah is exile to the Leaden Dunes. Normal transformers can walk for about a mile before their joints become entirely clogged with sand. Then they die slowly of starvation, unable to move at all. Wooden transformers, like mages or druids, often wear down into nothing, if caught in a stand storm, before they have a chance to starve. Kites just die.
Transformers traveling outside the city have to wear huge cloth suits with multiple layers to avoid freezing up. Glass goggles are fastened over the eyes, but no actual openings exist. The suits, called (Bourkas), are sewn on and the outside layer is replaced every morning to prevent them from wearing away. There are small pouches on the inside with coal and oil flasks in them so that the entombed transformers don’t starve. Vendrebah has been working together with Pendulum to create new, less awkward, methods of traveling through the desert, but this remains the most common.
New Cybertron
Council Member: Lord Excalibur The biggest, brightest feather in the cap of Terra Mechanica with sweeping bridges and immense steel streaks of buildings. It looks like a splicing between a medieval fantasy kingdom and a futuristic cityscape. Most important political figures live here as well as more than half of the nobility. The city is built around Castle Beryl. A magnificent structure of white, yellow, green, and blue carved entirely out jewel for which it was named.
Old Cybertron
Council Member: Not an Officially Recognized City Located in Crescent Valley, Old Cybertron is a tumbledown collection of hovels made of refuse from the Ark. The Ark is the focus of the city, it is a towering wreckage of fantastic, though ruined, metal work, guarded by tubes that shoot fire and deadly light with frightening accuracy. It is death to venture within a hundred paces of it. The “city” is inhabited by fanatics who view the ruins as a holy place and protect it passionately.
Pendulum
Council Member: Lady Widget Pendulum is the Sister City to Quartz Canyon. It is the destination of most of the Canyon’s materials. It is the manufacturing center of Terra Mechina and the best place to go if you want a first class new shell. Bots in Pendulum say it feels like living in a giant clock, which makes sense since they are living in a giant clock. An immense ancient clock with gears the size of Ferris Wheels and an immense Pendulum in the center that swings gently back and forth. Robots live between the mechanics and, over time, have absorbed them into their lifestyle. The huge gears transport bots from level to level, the meshes are used to grind powder, and the pendulum acts a giant saw that cleaves hundreds of metal bars and blocks into neat little slices on every swing.
Port Cullis
Council Member: Lord Deimos Port Cullis is a thriving center of trade that links Terra Mechanica to the rest of the seafaring world. It is often called the “City of Lost Dreams”. This may be because it never stops moving-from midday to midnight the markets and docks pulse with activity as goods are unloaded, sorted, bought, argued over, and stolen. Or perhaps the name comes from the city’s tendency to attract bright young transformers seeking their fortune and then crush them utterly, dashing their dreams across the rock littered shoals and leaving them bleeding in alleyways. Cullis is not a nice place, but it can be quite profitable if you know how to look after yourself.
Quartz Canyon
Council Member: Lady Grutha A city dug into a gigantic crevice. Huge networks of wooden walkways connect giant buildings carved into the rock face. Tunnels spider web all deep underground, in fact, the mining city is said to span half of Terra Mechanica. Many minor earthquakes have been attributed to faulty supports in deep tunnels.
Stormwatch
A ‘temple’ that uses giant parachutes to float on the wind above Crombec’s Well. It is currently the property of the Far Go Trading Company, though it retains the school that the monastery was built on. Bots from across the world come here to learn the martial art of Tae Foon Do, or to study wind magic under the Maestro, Cumulo Cirrostrati. Various academic subjects are also offered at the school, if you can afford tuition.
Windspear Spikes
A steep, jagged mountain range to the north of Terra Mechanica that is occasionally breached by goblins on scavenging raids. It is patrolled by the Terra Mechanica Expeditionary Force. Most goblins are on favorable terms with the guard and it has developed into a minor trading post.
Vendrebah
Vendrebah was founded due to oil discovered in the Leaden Dunes. In the beginning, it was a Spartan base of operations for enterprising transformers who coveted the valuable liquid, but it has grown, against immense obstacles, into a thriving, self-contained metropolis. The ruler of the city is called the Grand Site Supervisor, an awkward title left over from when Vendrebah was just a site for oil drilling. They added Grand to try to add an element of style, but couldn’t change the basic construction because they weren’t an officially acknowledged city. Terra Mechanica recognized them as an oil drilling site and oil drilling sites have Site Supervisors, not Zonarchs. Due to the surplus, everyone there lives on an almost pure diet of oil, which is dirt-cheap. Coal is rare and considered almost a delicacy.
All citizens of Vendrebah carry veils. Many wear them even inside of the city. Veils are considered the most important article of clothing as they protect the face and throat, two objects necessary to scream for help. There are patrols circling Vendrebah at all times, searching for citizens somehow trapped outside, but if frozen transformers can’t make any noise, the goggle bound patrols probably won’t notice the partially buried body.
Because of the massive inconvenience of the environment, the entire city is indoors. Vendrebah is a maze of streets and alleyways and all those streets and alleyways have ceilings. Living in Vendrebah is almost like living in one huge house with the rest of the populace. The architecture reflects this; stairs weave in and out of houses, hallways connect buildings, and living rooms open out on to the street. The closed, close nature of the city forces familiarity between the citizens. This familiarity breeds a certain amount of trust: you need to have a great deal of confidence in your fellow citizens before you expose your living room to crowded streets. People who violate this trust, such as con men and thieves, are dealt with harshly. Vendrebah employs a unique aesthetic design, somewhat similar to Earth's medieval Persia. This can be attributed to the third Grand Site Supervisor, Zentara VI, who was the first to begin construction on Vendrebah as more than a utilitarian drilling site and who had a distinctive vision for how it looks. That vision remains today.
Technically, the Sand Castle is the Palace at the center of Vendrebah where the Grand Site Supervisor lives. However, most transformers, including the inhabitants, also use the name to refer to all of Vendrebah, as the buildings tend to bleed into each other and the palace is only minimally differentiated from the houses surrounding it. The name Sand Castle comes from the materials with which Vendrebah was constructed. When transformers first came to the Leaden Dunes, they built their houses out of stone, hoping the hard substance would stand up to the vicious, lead laced sandstorms. It didn’t. The stone wore away with alarming quickness. Fortunately, transformers quickly found a way to fix that.
Apothecaries developed something called soft stone, a substance made from lead sand treated to produce a spackle-like product that was pasty when wet and dried very hard. Transformers patch holes and regularly reinforce outer walls with soft stone. Since transformers never go outside to apply the soft stone, the city is slowly shrinking, inch by inch, as the outside wears away and layers are added to the inside. To compensate for this, every ten years there is a huge building project where a new layer is added to Vendrebah. The construction is a celebrated event that boosts employment and gives everyone more legroom. New layers start out about a half a mile wide and shrink to a fraction of that in a decade. Druids do most of the construction work. Unlike normal transformers, druids have no joints for sand to worm its way into. Deciduous druids are quickly worn down by the harsh sandstorms, but the Leaden Dunes has its own breed of durable druids, developed from palm trees.
The current Grand Site Supervisor, Zin Quar Mali, has been in charge for the past fifteen years and is known as a small, eccentric little man who would love to ditch his title in favor of something elegant-sounding, like Sultan.
Verdanian Forest
An elven forest to the far east of Pendulum. It’s famous for it’s large population of goldenberry trees. Thin, aspen shaped trees that produce golden-yellow berries in late spring. These berries much loved by the local insect population and are often used by elves to brew Golden Wine. This drink is occasionally exported to Terra Mechanica, smiths in Quartz Canyon have developed a way of mixing actual melted gold into Golden Wine, making it quite tasty to a mechanical pallet and popular in the circles wealthy enough to afford it.
Factions
Bards
Bards are transformers who earn their living entertaining others for money. Of all the professions this one has the highest acceptance rate, since all you have to do is proclaim yourself a bard to enter it. Bards aren’t organized enough to administer quality control. Most of the time you can recognize bards by their instruments, which are built directly into their bodies. Their fingers are hollowed out into whistles and their arms can become flutes. Some store their sparks in their heads and turn their bellies into drums. Strings can be attached most anywhere and stretched into guitars or fiddles. Some have their wind instruments permanently affixed to their faces, so that they can’t talk only forever play the trumpet.
Bards have few organized institutions, guilds can form around theaters or pubs, but mostly they’re independent wanderers. There is a loose code, more a set of guidelines really, that governs their actions toward each other. They stick together on the road, buy drinks, share coal, share hiding places from enraged mobs of music critics. Experienced bards often take on apprentices to make them high quality instruments and teach them some interesting, near-magical tricks they can do with music.
Council of Light
The Council of Light was founded several hundred years before, by a former member of the Church of Primus. Then the Council of Light was called the Adepts of Unicron, and the Prelate of the Adepts is the same Prelate who currently leads the Council; the same technique used by the Council of Five in regards to the members of the council is employed by the Council of Light. The Council of Light, in addition to their goal of establishing a magocracy, seeks to plunder the Ark for its knowledge, and to spread the word of the Great One, Unicron. It is to Unicron that the sparks of deceased Council members, as well as the sparks of those killed by a Council member and offered up through ritual go. The Council believe that when the Great One has enough sparks, He will come and bring enlightenment.
All council members know a silent language of subtle body movements that allow them to communicate without speaking.
Druids
Druids are wanton naturalists and regarded as slightly eccentric by most other factions. They grow their own shells, placing sparks in trees and bushes and using special techniques to make the plants grow into bodies around them. Druids were the ones who figured out how to give transformers beast modes and most new transformers undergo a baptism-like ceremony where their animal is carved into them. Druids themselves are masters at this shape shifting and all have two alternate modes, one normal beast mode, and one enhanced beast mode. The enhanced mode is the same animal only larger, much larger, with longer teeth, sharper claws, bigger muscles, faster movement. They generally look big and scary. Druids are also the only transformer who can use a mythical animal for an animal form, as it requires a large amount of skill to magically bind a creature who is already magical.
Druids are found in the wild and all have basic knowledge of natural skills such as foraging, camouflage, tracking, and forest lore. Animals aren’t frightened by druids and won’t attack them, however they may try to nest in them.
Druids don't go much for organization, it goes against nature. They're a community of individuals whose main goal is to protect nature and they each do that in their own unique way. The older ones are treated with a certain amount or respect and the younger ones with less, but there's no clear hierarchy. New druids are educated casually, older druids are obliged to impart knowledge on the younger ones whenever they have time so they develop gradually, absorbing information through osmosis.
They generally live alone, staking out a territory of nature to protect. Sometimes they’re found in twos or threes. They meet and socialize in a place called Forest Heart that no one else knows how to reach. Young druids tend to live in Forest Heart, learning from the older druids, until they think they're ready for the outside world.
Spirit Bind
The process through which druids bind animal spirits to shells, giving transformers their alternate form. The ritual requires at least three druids depending on the animal. It also requires a real animal of the species they intend to use for the shell’s beast mode. One druid draws the spirit out from the animal. A painless, but disconcerting process, which is why the second druid has the job of keeping the animal calm. The third druid carefully carves an image of the spirit into the shell using the real spirit as a reference. Sometimes additional druids are needed for the first two jobs for particularly ferocious or spiritual creatures.
When the carving is done the shell is brought over to the animal and the animal’s spirit is pressed into the carving, leaving a permanent imprint of the animal on the shell. Then the animal is released and the shell is delivered. Druids like performing the ceremony with the spark in the shell since that binds in a bit of the transformer as well. This makes it easier for the transformer to change into his or her animal, but harder to switch shells. Druids use a variation of magic putty to numb the pain while they carve on a live transformer.
Magic Putty
Magic putty is a substance used by druids to heal wounds. Its main ingredients are black clay and quartz sand, but has a myriad of other components that are, as always, a closely guarded secret. When put into a cut in wood, it makes the surrounding wood grow in to replace it, even if that wood was formerly dead.
Sap-Craft
Sap-Craft is a new technique for channeling the power of nature, being developed by the druid Gurin. A druid stores and mixes various saps within his own shell he is able to produce an array of useful waxes and ointments. A druid can produce an ointment to guard against fire, a wax to trap a transformer in robot mode, or a potion to manipulate a bot’s emotion’s. ap-Craft requires an assortment of sample bottles, spatulas, leather pouches and other equipment to perform and, of course, a druid.
Desert Druids
Desert druids are more tightly knit than their deciduous brethren. They live by oases and are well known for rescuing passing caravans. They have very good relations with the Grad Site Supervisor and much of Vendrebah’s survival depends on them, one of the only transformers who can survive outside unaided. It is because of this dependence that the oil drilling around Vendrebah has remained so contained. The Grand Site Supervisor can’t afford to piss off the druids by damaging the environment they protect.
Far Go Trading Company
A trading company that spreads far and wide, through village shops and city guilds and island wharves and merchant counting houses and pirate holds and bandit halls, wherever money goes. It is not that Far Go is entirely corrupt - it is simply that the company is expansive, and there isn’t much they don’t dip their fingers into sooner or later. Far from owning everything, they are a fairly loose affiliation. It is more of a string than a chain, joined by a tenuous trickledown effect, with money eventually falling into the hands of several major merchants. But that money adds up.
Mages
Mages have shells made of wood Mages are carved out of wood due to the material’s natural magic conductivity. For instance a mage made of ash would specialize in fire based spells while a mage made of willow would be better in healing magic. They wield spells by enchanting spell gems, inserting the stones into compartments in their body, and using their shells as living wands. All mages are made out of dead carved wood, the living wood of the druids can’t use magic. It’s like trying to control electricity using raw veins of metal. All circles of magic have their polar opposite, black and white, fire and water, earth and air, and there is traditionally intense rivalry between those circles.
Mages congregate in schools across Terra Mechanica. The largest of these is Everfall which actually qualifies as a city as well.
The Magical Arts For Dummies
To perform a spell, a mage needs to prepare a special kind of gem called a spell stone. A mage can only create a spell stone that’s in his or her circle of magic and must use the type of gem correct for that circle. For example, only transformers made of pine can create water spells and only those made of ash can make fire ones. And water spells must be infused in sapphires and fire spells must use rubies.
To cast a spell the mage inserts its respective stone into a carved hole in his body and activates it through a series of hand movements. Spell stones have a limited amount of uses before they run out and need to be recharged. The recharging process varies from circle to circle. Mages of one circle can use pre-made stone of another circle, but their wood won’t conduct the magic as well so the spell won’t be as powerful and is likely to fizzle.
Every mage’s dream is to some day procure a shell carved completely out of a precious gem. Gem mages don’t need spell stones, they just enchant facets of their body with spells. They also conduct magic far better than wood, increasing the power of the spells as well. They are only given to highly trusted, highly rich citizens who are tight with the council.
The Circles of Magic
Elemental Fire
- Wood Type: Ash
- Gem Type: Ruby
- Recharging Process: Roasting the stones in an open flame.
- Description: Fire based magic, offensive and destructive. Fire mages are powerful, but considered slightly insane given the fact they’re made out of wood.
The Academy of the Fire Circle at Everfall is by far the smallest of the seven, even smaller than the obscure Hex Circle. It is, however, a very noticeable minority. Most entering students are crazy, violent teenage males, though there is a sizable contingent of experienced mages who want to expand their knowledge for whatever reason. The dropout rate in the first year is phenomenal, because to be a successful fire mage you must be in the right range between too crazy and not crazy enough.
Much of the weedout takes place at the inaugural Fireproofing ceremony. The accepted method of fireproofing oneself is to set oneself on fire and then jump into a lake. The charred outer layer will then be fire resistant and you're going to burn yourself anyway, so might as well get it over with. There's a specific cliff at a specific lake that is the traditional and ceremonial place to do this. First year students do "first immolation" every fall, and it is of course a measure of honor how long you let yourself stay aflame before jumping in. A few every year overdo it and die.
The academy at Everfall requires all Fire mage students to have a secondary wood of pine, and they learn water spells like Douse, Watergun, and Deluge before proceeding to certain levels of fire spells. This rule is, of course, widely despised. Not only because teenagers hate adults forcing to take even the most minimal safety precautions, but because having woods of opposing magics may weaken both, so making it a ready made excuse for any flunky.
The Fire Mage Academy has gained notoriety over the years. Its professors scare even the quirkiest and evilest mages of the other circles, and at least once a generation, one of its advanced students gets out of control and almost burns down all of Everfall. Most recently, all stadium sports in Everfall had to be cancelled indefinitely because of drunken Fire Mage students throwing flaming missiles at the players and spectators.
Elemental Water
- Wood Type: Pine
- Gem Type: Sapphire
- Recharging Process: Soaking the stones in water.
- Description: Water based magic. Specializes in illusions, includes ice spells
Elemental Air
- Wood Type: Aspen
- Gem Type: Crystal
- Recharging Process: The stones gradually recharge as long as they’re exposed to open air. Since the element of air is by nature less concentrated than other elements it takes much longer for those stones to recharge, a day as opposed to an hour. Recharge time is halved in windy areas.
- Description: Air based magic, traditionally travel magic. Includes spells for teleportation, flying, and weather control.
Elemental Earth
- Wood Type: Oak
- Gem Type: Topaz
- Recharging Process: Bury the stones for an hour or so. Be sure not to forget where the hole was.
- Description: Earth based magic, defensive. An earth mage’s roster contains many warding and armor spells
Necromantic White
- Wood Type: Willow
- Gem Type: Pearl
- Recharging Process: Let the stones sit in sunlight for a few hours.
- Description: Traditional sorcery of the good guys. Healing magic and holy smiting.
Necromantic Black
- Wood Type: Hemlock
- Gem Type: Opal
- Recharging Process: Let the stones sit in moonlight for a few hours.
- Description: Traditional bad guy magic. Nasty icky spells that raise the dead and make people’s eyes explode.
Hex
- Wood Type: Ginkgo
- Gem Type: Diamond
- Recharging Process: Immerse the stones in boiling water. Try not to burn yourself.
- Description: Curses and hexes. The turning people into frogs branch of magecraft. A subtle, but imaginative art.
Time
- Wood Type: Sequoia
- Gem Type: Quartz
- Recharging Process: Just wait.
- Description: Manipulation of time. A very powerful, very dangerous branch of magic that takes longer to learn than most transformers have to live.
Steelwind Rangers
An organization of bots who patrol the wilds of Terra Mechanica much the same way the TMEnF patrols the more civilized areas. These Rangers roam across most of Terra Mechanica, helping the TM Expeditionary Force with their border patrol duties and also lending a hand to the Elves and the Druids in protecting their forests from intruders. Most members of the Rangers are skilled archers and expert hunters and trackers, constantly on the move. Rangers usually travel singly or in pairs, though sometimes a pair will have with them their offspring so they can train them. Rangers live off the land as they travel, most of them being comfortable with their beast forms and generally using it to supplement their energy needs.
There is no real hierarchy in the Rangers, since they're generally too spread out to maintain any kind of order, and wouldn't react well to enforced rules anyway. They have a main base somewhere in the Azure Forest and smaller outposts scattered across Terra Mechanica. Rangers put in their intended patrol routes with the closest outpost and report in whenever they're in the area. Most Rangers are naturally loners, but angst-laden brooding loners are discouraged from joining by the simple method of pointing and laughing at them.
There are a large number of kites in the Rangers; due to their ability to fly, they can cover great distances at speed and so their main purpose is to act as messengers and aerial scouts. Often the kites are the only way Rangers can contact each other, so they're well respected, and anyone harming a kite will usually bring the wrath of all the Rangers in the area down upon their heads.
One can normally tell a Steelwind Ranger on sight by the longbow they carry and the black and steel armband they usually wear around one bicep. Rangers are welcomed in the small villages that dot Terra Mechanica because they bring with them interesting news and gossip from all the other areas they've traveled through.
The Terra Mechanica Expeditionary Force
The closest Terra Mechanica has come to a standing army since the Firegem Wars. The TMEF patrols the borders, prevent smuggling and watch for any signs of foreign aggression. They have stations on Windspear Spikes and various other areas of frequent goblin or elven activity. They have fairly low standards for recruits; if you can swing a sharp pointy thing, you can join. It’s populated largely by people who don’t feel at home in regular society, they don’t have to deal with it in TMEF since they spend the bulk of their time in isolated forts. It’s also one of the government’s favorite dumping grounds for bots they don’t like having around New Cybertron.
The Terra Mechanica Enforcement Force
Named by Lord Excalibur who has never been exceptionally masterful in the field of literature. Despite its unfortunate designation the TMEF (often confused with the TMEF) does an effective job of enforcing the laws of the council and keeping the peace inside Terra Mechanica’s borders. In contrast to the TMEF the TMEF is extremely selective and trains its troops rigorously. They have bases in all the major cites, encampments in many minor ones, and groups of enforcers patrol the roads and byways.
Zephyr Hall
Zephyr Hall is a Guild and social club for Magi who specialize in Air Magic. It’s nothing more special than that. Being a “card carrying” member of Zephyr Hall simply allows one to make use of the rooms they have available if he’s on the road away from home. It also allows one to discuss the finer points of air magic with others who practice in it.
In Everfall, Zephyr Hall is based out of the Tower of Four Winds, which is the primary building. Other, minor guild halls exist in the other major cities. Those guildhalls are called Tower of the North Wind, Tower of the East Wind, Tower of the South Wind and the Tower of the West Wind. The Towers of Zephyr Hall are easy to recognize, being that they are spiraling crystal structures of great beauty. Even on the calmest of days, the pennants and banners of Zephyr Hall are always flapping in the wind. At the apex of each tower, is a large open chamber. It is here that members of Zephyr Hall communicate with the other Towers, through the use of a modified Whispering Winds spell. The spell is modified to have greatly increased range and is always active.
The Towers of Zephyr Hall provide many services to their host city. On a government level, Zephyr Hall is called upon to control the weather around the cities, to make sure that the days are sunny when they are supposed to be sunny, and to make sure it rains where it is suppose to rain. In addition, Zephyr Hall provides a private teleportation service. For a hefty price, a person or group of persons can be transported to the Tower of choice. And as they do with most spells, the Tower uses the entire crystal tower as one giant spell stone; teleportation is dead on accurate and safe.
