Tek

Tek is the catchall term applied to the devices, machines, artifacts, phenomena, and installations whose understanding has either been lost or degraded with time. In most cases, this refers to the leftover remnants of the beings known as the Ancients, one or races of beings that wielded god-like power and knowledge over the fabric of reality itself. The detritus of their civilizations litter every corner of Aramanth--some of it is benign, if inscrutable, while much of it is dangerous, even lethal.
While this type of tek is the majority of what is found on Aramanth, there is a second type notably different in source, but often effectively the same in practice. This other type comes from more modern societies and peoples who once weilded machinery and knowledge of considerable power, but have since lost their understanding of to the degree that it is equivalent, if perhaps a bit more familiar, to the tek of the Ancients.
Tek associated with the Ancients is called oldtek and is often the more inscrutable, unpredictable, and potentially destructive in its power. Oldtek has a greater likelihood to command power over the very laws of reality, altering them in fundamental and potentially catastrophic ways. This is the tek that the Gnomes most revere, and the Dwarves seek to guard against.
The other type of tek, newtek, is likely to be powerful, even fatal, but usually in ways and forms that are more easily understood. The intricate components of a void ship that had the capability to grant flight, for instance, would be newtek. Conversely, a smooth hard-light sphere that inverted time and created a hostile clone of its target would be oldtek.
This difference is ultimately academic, and for the average denizen of Aramanth effectively irrelevant. For them the delineating lines between oldtek, newtek, and sorcery are non-existent. Sometimes they provide great utility, often they present considerable danger, and a person who commands any of these with any appreciable understanding or skill is usually someone to be feared.
One other term worth noting is drit, which is the eons of leftover advanced materials and pieces of castoff tek that have broken down to almost nothing. Drit almost every corner of Aramanth, and is often fine enough to be mistaken for common soil. Rarely more substantive pieces of tek can be found within drit, but rarely is it more than a working cypher or two.

FINDING TEK

Cyphers, relics, iron flesh, oddities, and discoveries are often found in Ancients’ caches or in the hoard of a conquered monster that previously visited an Ancient’s cache.
Locations include those containing machines and machine scrap, functioning or dead installations, integrated machines, crashed or working vehicles, automatons (a kind of construct), or caches of alchemical substances or other materials.
Monsters with such devices include those associated with a particular vault or cache, or creatures who have previously looted such a place or otherwise obtained arcana of the Ancients.
SALVAGING The salvaging process includes extracting a functioning device of the Ancients from some larger device, machine, or even a defunct construct or creature with devices integrated into its flesh. This process also often includes manipulating what is found to cobble together something that works (though identifying what it does before it’s used is a separate Intelligence (Arcana) check). For example, the PCs’ search might entail not just finding a device but also figuring out that if they hook it up to a nearby energy-producing object, open a small panel, and fiddle with the workings, they produce the device’s effect (which might not be the device’s original use at all).
When the PCs come upon an area where salvaging tek might be possible, the GM may call for a Wisdom (Perception) check or an Intelligence (Investigation) check. It’s ideal if characters can devote at least ten minutes to an hour to exploring and poring over a suitable source. Characters skilled in Intelligence (Arcana) can apply half their regular proficiency bonus.
The GM sets the salvaging DC, usually 10.
Tek devices have rarities that correspond with magic items: common, uncommon, rare, very rare, or legendary. These rarities provide a rough gauge on each item’s relative power. If the GM is in the habit of using treasure hoard tables, those rarities roughly correspond to magic item rarities in terms of relative power. However, they do not correspond to actual odds of being found as part of random treasures, because all Ancients items are extremely rare, usually only associated with Ancients’ vaults and caches, or in the possession of NPCs or creatures that have looted such a cache.
IDENTIFYING TEK Once the PCs find or salvage a device of the Ancients, identifying what it might actually do ahead of time, before the item is first used, is an additional Intelligence (Arcana) check (halved proficiency, unless the Ancients Arcana optional rule is used).
The GM sets the check DC, usually 10 for cyphers and oddities, and 15 for relics and iron flesh. The process takes 1 to 10 minutes. If the attempt fails, PCs may retry, but all identification retry checks have disadvantage.
A character can attempt to use a device that is not identified; this is usually a DC 15 Intelligence (Arcana) check. Failure might mean that the PC can’t figure out how to use the device or that they use it incorrectly (GM’s discretion). Of course, even if the PC uses the unidentified device correctly, they have no idea what its effect will be. Most of the time, using an identified Ancients device is one action, unless specified otherwise.
Regardless of the overall classification, Tek is most often classified into one of the following forms:

CYPHERS

A cypher is a leftover device from an advanced time so advanced that even the remaining cast-off technology provides amazing effects. While it is often a mystery (especially with oldtek) what the original intention for the device was, the effects still present within them provide vast amounts of possibilities. Cyphers are often found in groups of one to six.
Cyphers are consumable items. Using a cypher usually requires an action, but could take longer, as specified in its description. Once used, a cypher takes effect immediately, leaving behind a defunct device with no further obvious function. Cyphers that can be used to make attacks include a relevant save DC in their descriptions.
CYPHER LIMIT If too many cyphers are carried by the same PC—usually more than 3—a strange and dangerous resonance builds between the devices and the PC’s mind and body. Most don’t wait to find out what happens if that resonance goes to completion, because it’s usually bad... if not right away, then eventually. When things finally go bad, the cyphers that exceed this limit are destroyed. More serious consequences involve permanent reduction in the PC’s physical stats when all their cyphers melt together into a burning slag heap, a horrendous war machine of the Ancients spontaneously arising at the location, or the character being sucked through a brief, tiny singularity and destroyed beyond recovery.
CYPHER FORMS Cyphers have different forms based on three parameters: internal, wearable, and usable. Internal cyphers are things you ingest or inject. Wearable cyphers are articles of clothing, jewelry, or other things you wear on your physical body. Usable cyphers are basically anything else. Individual cypher descriptions present the most common form they are found in. Most cyphers can exist in more than one form, but all forms work the same way. For example, an antivenom can be found in the form of a pill, an ingestible liquid, or an injector.

RELICS

Relics are the devices left over from the civilizations of the past. These are devices of a more permanent nature than cyphers (unless they run out of power) with more straightforward applications—weapons, armor, utility items, and so on. Still, they are rarely straightforward in actual use. Rather than find a device that was meant to be used as a weapon, the PCs are far more likely to find an item that was originally intended for another purpose but that has been modified (as best as contemporary understanding can manage) and now can be used as a ranged weapon.
Remember that relics are incomprehensible devices, likely powered by transdimensional siphons using nanotechnology to rewrite reality on an atomic or subatomic level. Even to someone who understands a great deal about Ancients arcana, most relics appear to be more magic than machine. Some relics require attunement to use. You can be attuned to no more than three attunable relics at a time. If you bear more than three attunable items (including attunable magic items and iron flesh), only a subset of them will provide their functions and/or magic abilities, depending on which you’ve selected.
RELIC DEPLETION Many relics have a chance of power depletion per use, rather than having a set number of charges per day like some magic items and iron flesh. If a relic with a depletion is used or activated, the player rolls the designated die (1d6, 1d10, 1d20, or 1d100). If the die shows the depletion number(s), the item works, but that is its last use. Some devices never deplete, some require attunement, and those with an entry of “automatic” can be used only once.
For instance, a mephitic staff has a depletion of 1 in 1d20. When a player rolls a d20 to check the depletion and gets a 1, the relic depletes, and that usage is the last time the relic works. If a relic with a depletion could be used in a way that doesn’t require a depletion roll, the circumstances under which the depletion must be checked are specified.
RELIC QUIRKS Relics often aren’t entirely what they seem. An item that functions like a weapon in the PC’s hands once might have been a part of a very different device with a very different purpose. Another relic might be a cobbled together mess of various parts, created by someone who didn’t really understand what they were doing. Thus, sometimes relics don’t do what is expected, or they do something in addition to their desired function. These are relic quirks.
Quirks might be a requirement for activation. They could be side effects that happen all the time with the relic, either continuously or each time it is activated. They might also be something that only happens occasionally.

IRON FLESH

Some machines discovered in the crypts of the Ancients latch onto explorers, implanting their flesh with a sparking iron device. The intruding object could slowly render the explorer to a fine powder, insinuate their mind with horrific images, or enact some other unwanted change. However, the implant could instead grant an all-new beneficial capability.
Such beneficial implants are known as iron flesh.
Though the abilities conferred by an iron flesh implant may seem supernatural, iron flesh is not magical. Iron flesh almost always requires attunement to use. You can be attuned to no more than three iron flesh implants at a time. If you bear more than three attunable items (including attunable magic items and relics), only a subset of them will provide their functions and/or magic abilities, depending on which you’ve selected.
Once attuned with your iron flesh, you gain an intuitive understanding of how to use it. Using iron flesh usually requires an action, but could take longer, as specified in its description. Once used, a capability granted by your iron flesh takes effect immediately.
Iron flesh implants use charges of internal energy that must be expended to activate their properties. The number of charges an implant has is revealed when the iron flesh is identified. A user attuned to iron flesh also always knows how many charges are available. If the last charge is used on a given day, nothing untoward happens other than the object becoming inert until the following day when some of its charges renew.
IRON FLESH QUIRKS Iron flesh follows the rules set forth for relics for quirks.
IRON FLESH EXCLUSIVITY You can have multiple instances of iron flesh, except in cases in which common sense would argue otherwise. For instance, you could have up to two iron flesh eye implants (one for each eye), two iron flesh gauntlets (one for each hand), but only one helm, spine, or heart. If you have an iron flesh that comes in the form of a spine implant, you could later replace it with a different spine, but lose the first.
Normal rules for attunement also continue to apply.
REMOVING IRON FLESH Using iron flesh requires more of a commitment than other items, given that iron flesh essentially becomes part of the creature using it. Sometimes someone with iron flesh wants to remove it because it has stopped working, because a PC wants to put a different implant in its place, or because it is doing something unexpected. The procedure for removing iron flesh is akin to pulling out a minor organ. Unless a machine of the Ancients is found that can accomplish the procedure somewhat safely, removing a piece of iron flesh drops a character to 0 hit points, at which point they must begin making death saving throws each round until they stabilize (three DC 10 successes) or die. Of course, allies with healing abilities could step in with immediate assistance so the character never has to face death saving throws.
ODDITIES Sometimes PCs find things that are interesting but have no real game value. They don’t help in combat. They don’t grant amazing powers. They don’t protect the user. Not everything the Ancients created was a combat device or can be used as one now. These devices are called oddities.
MUTATIONS A mutation is a change in a creature’s genes that makes it different than the genes from its parents. Some mutations are minor and inconsequential, like having blue eyes instead of brown eyes; some are significant, like being able to create a slippery slime with your skin; and some are detrimental, like a hand missing fingers or an eye that can’t see color. A creature might be a mutant from birth, or become a mutant later in life. A mutant’s abilities might manifest early on, or lay dormant until triggered by a stressful event. It is possible for any sort of living creature— including a PC—to be born as or become a mutant. Having a mutation doesn’t change a creature’s species. A mutant high elf is still a high elf, a mutant bugbear is still a bugbear, and a mutant red dragon is still a red dragon.
A mutation might be accidental or deliberate. Exposure to powerful energy sources such as radiation and extradimensional energy can cause tiny changes in a creature’s genes that manifest as a mutation. Exotic chemicals and certain poisonous substances (including wastelands) are known to cause mutations in creatures who survive exposure to them. The Ancients dabbled in creating and altering life, and some of their experiments used strange processes and devices that created specific mutations in their subjects.
Mutants with similar traits sometimes band together. Those with hideous deformities face discrimination and derision. Some are outcasts, and others are revered, flaunting their mutations as a sign of superiority, power, and influence. Their mutations are seen as a blessing, not a curse. Some people believe them to be divine. Mutations are often hereditary, passed down from parent to child like any other trait, such as a hawkish nose or red hair. Over many generations, a mutation may spread throughout a community, and multiple mutations might change a group of creatures enough that they truly become a new species—chirogs, killisti, and margr may once have been creatures like humans, goblins, and orcs, changed over time by mutation and inbreeding until they stabilized in their current forms.
Five categories of mutation exist. Beneficial mutations bring about changes that are neither physically obvious nor extraordinary. Powerful mutations are like beneficial ones, but more potent. Harmful mutations are physical changes that are usually grotesque and somewhat debilitating. The fourth category, distinctive mutations, also provides significant abilities, but they mark the character as an obvious mutant. Last, cosmetic mutations bring no special capabilities at all and are merely cosmetic (although sometimes dramatically so).
In theory, there is a sixth category that might be called crippling mutations, but player characters never have this kind of mutation. Mutants with crippling mutations might be born without limbs, with barely functional lungs, without most of their brain, and so on. Such mutations prevent a character from being viable.
Though the abilities conferred by mutations may seem supernatural, they are not magical. Mutations are always rolled randomly (no matter what type of mutation they are).