Gearforged
Overview
Some of the earliest creations of Novus are the Gearforged -- automotons of various complexity, design, and function -- imbued with life and animation with a level of technology that defies comprehension. The Gearforge live a tricky existence, plauged by the prejudice and suspicion from those of religous persuasion. Despite this, the gearforged work hard with the guilds of Novus to repair and rebuild, living lives as stories a life as any in Novus.
It is speculated that they were originally created as powerful soldiers, but now gearforged must now find their own paths. Many devote themselves to civil service, others to their gods. Some dedicate their lives to the pursuit of knowledge. A few, naturally, seek out lives of adventure.
The gearforged are an artificial race. More importantly, the knowledge on how to make more gearforged has been lost to time, so in a real way, every gearforged alive today is the last of its kind. Nevertheless, they maintain rich traditions of history, culture, and spirituality all their own.
Form and Function
It is speculated that all gearforged were once other creatures with flesh-and-blood bodies, but their conscious minds were transplanted into articulated bodies of iron, steel, brass, and wood, driven by pistons and springs. Each is as distinctive in appearance as other people are. Some experience memories and recollection from these past lives as flashbacks or hazy memories, unable to fully recall or remember what or who they once were. Perhaps they gearforged were created by paranoid mages seeking to transplant their consiousness into a longer-living, machine body. If so, it does not appear that their plans work and most gearforged can't meaningfully remember anything from those lives. Some have experience no such memories, leading them to believe that they always were gearforged, imbued with a distinct soul at the date of their creation.
All gearforged are made in humanoid shape. The vast majority of gearforged are shaped like humans. Gearforged have articulated joints, hands, feet, and crystal-lens eyes. Gearforged mechanisms are more than mechanical, because gearforged are machines with souls. Their arms and legs are driven by everwound springs. Their minds are actuated by memory gears, transverse cognition gearing, and the marvel of a soul gem connected directly to a maze of silver and mithral steam, spark, and magical conduits. These elements reside in a shell of iron, brass, and steel.
Gearforged Components
The range of gearforged anatomy in all its variants is remarkable, but all gearforged share some common parts.
Everwound Springs. These magical springs provide energy over long periods, effectively acting as the power sources for most of the gearforged’s moving parts. A broken everwound spring results in the loss of function in that digit or limb, much like a damaged joint or ligaments in a flesh-and-blood creature.
Soul Gem. The mind of a gearforged creature is as sharp as that of any flesh-and-blood soul, but it is more portable. The animating, vital principle of a gearforged—its will, its personality, its mind—are retained in a soul gem. The destruction of this gem means the death of that gearforged.
Memory Gears. These delicate constructions are scroll-like ribbons pierced with thousands of pin holes and wound about with tiny enchantments of great complexity. The memory of a gearforged for all the days after its creation lives in the memory gears. Older gearforged have many such gears, and the material component for the magic to create them requires one new gear for every 10 years of life. Installing a new memory gear requires one day’s work and 2,000 gp. Other gearforged can read memory gears salvaged from a dead gearforged, but it’s a complex, time-consuming process. It’s also viewed with some alarm by most gearforged, since it is akin to peering into the most private details of a creature’s life. When a used memory gear is installed in a new or existing gearforged, the process takes three days’ work to avoid damaging the memories in the gear, and it takes one week before the recipient can fully interpret and understand the memories.
Gearforged Traits
Your gearforged character has certain characteristics in common with all other gearforged.
Ability Score Increase. Two different ability scores of your choice increase by 1.
Age. The soul inhabiting a gearforged can be any age. As long as its new body is kept in good repair, there is no known limit to how long it can function. However the rigors of life, wear on their machine parts, availability of replacement parts, and financial difficulties in finding not only parts but person of expertise that can install them all become limiting factors on the lifespan of the gearforged. The average gearforged with moderate means can live to be 100 before repairs become cumbersome or untenable. In this instance, the gearforged's machine body ceases to function, while the soul gem inside lives on. Effectively, the soul gem is inert, not truly concious without a body to reside in.
Alignment. No single alignment typifies gearforged.
Size. Your size is small or medium.
Speed. Your base walking speed is determined by your Chassis.
Construct Resilience. Your body is constructed, which frees you from some of the limits of flesh- and-blood creatures. You have resistance to poison damage, you are immune to disease, and you have advantage on saving throws against being poisoned.
Construct Vitality. You don’t need to eat, drink, or breathe, and you don’t sleep the way most creatures do. Instead, you enter a dormant state where you resemble a statue and remain semiconscious for 6 hours a day. During this time, the magic in your soul gem and everwound springs slowly repairs the day’s damage to your mechanical body. While in this dormant state, you have disadvantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks. After resting in this way, you gain the same benefit that a human does from 8 hours of sleep.
Living Construct. Your consciousness and soul reside within a soul gem to animate your mechanical body. As such, you are a living creature with some of the benefits and drawbacks of a construct. Though you can regain hit points from spells like cure wounds, you can also be affected by game effects that specifically target constructs, such as the shatter spell. As long as your soul gem remains intact, game effects that raise a creature from the dead work on you as normal, repairing the damaged pieces of your mechanical body (restoring lost sections only if the spell normally restores lost limbs) and returning you to life as a gearforged. Alternatively, if your body is destroyed but your soul gem and memory gears are intact, they can be installed into a new body with a ritual that takes one day and 10,000 gp worth of materials. If your soul gem is destroyed, only a wish spell can restore you to life.
Languages. You can speak, read, and write Common, Machine Speech (a whistling, clicking language that’s incomprehensible to non-gearforged), and a language associated with your Chassis.
Gearforged Subraces
Battlebot Chassis
Abitlity Score Improvement Your Constitution increases by 1.
Speed Your speed is 30 feet.
Always Armed. Choose a single weapon that doesn’t have the two-handed property. You gain proficiency with this weapon. You can integrate this weapon into one of your arms. While the weapon is integrated, you can’t be disarmed of it by any means, though you can use an action to remove the weapon. You can draw or sheathe the weapon as normal, the weapon folding into or springing from your arm instead of a sheath. While the integrated weapon is drawn in this way, it is considered held in that arm’s hand, which can’t be used for other actions such as casting spells. You can integrate a new weapon or replace an integrated weapon as part of a short or long rest. You can have up to two weapons integrated at a time, one per arm. You have advantage on Dexterity (Sleight of Hand) checks to conceal an integrated weapon.
Engineering Chassis
Ability Score Improvement Your Intelligence increases by 1.
Speed Your speed is 30 feet.
Repair Specialist Once per day, you may cure wounds at first level. The effect of this healing is doubled when used on constructs. Intelligence is your spellcasting modifier for this use. You must complete a long rest before you use this feature again.
Mechanical Affinity Gain proficiency with tinkerers tools. When you are making an investigation check involving machinery -- such as diagnosing why a machine is broken or attempting to determine where a faulty part is, you have advantage on investigation checks.
Protocol Chassis
Ability Score Improvement Your Charisma increases by 1.
Speed Your speed is 25 feet.
Translator Choose two additional languages that your character knows. Once per day, as an action you may cast comprehend languages.
Socially Adroit Gain proficiency in insight or persuasion. Once per day, when you fail on a charisma based check to persuade or influence another, you may add 1d4 to the failed roll, potentially causing your failed roll to become a success.
