The Gears in Stangengrad

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

Gaz II mentioned in a tantalizingly brief paragraph something called "the Gears" in Stangengrad, Falkovnia. A huge warehouse full of mysterious machinery. No one knows who built it or why. Well, I made the foolish decision to let slip to my players that good old Gustav Malvoni, the mad clockmaker (an important NPC in my campaign, for those that haven't heard me blather about him) is responsible for it. Now, silly me, they want to GO there.

Any ideas on what it could be or what it could do?

My one idea so far is that it's a huge clockwork trap for Gustav's evil creation, Talos the clockwork man. When Gustav finally gave up on making Talos a soul, he turned his efforts to destroying his mistake. This could have been a failed attempt to do so. But what would it consist of? A bunch of clockwork traps? Anything more interesting I can do with it?

I'm open to anything. (Even if it was built by someone else. What they heard could bea false rumor. I'm looking to introduce the Fir sooner or later, so any idea involving them is a plus.)

[ScS of the Fraternity]

An idea I always tinkered with was a thing called the Babage Daemon. Charles Babage was a ninteenth century visionary who designed a computer that would be made of rotating drums and gears powered by steam engines and horses. The whole thing was the size of a football field, and had the computing power of a modern solar-powered calculator. But...

What if a clockwork genius realized that gears could be used to compute information? Gifted with visions and inspiration from some unknown source, the tinkerer begins to create a massive machine - whose function he does not know.

After months of work, the device is complete - it consists of a huge network of gears (which, after an innitial push seem to turn of their own accord) and a mechanical hand with a pen. Before the tinkerer can begin to disect his own mysterious creation, the hand begins to move and even write! The machine is a mechanical brain of fantastic ability. The tinkerer realizes that he can use the brain to make business descisions, diagnose problems with clockwork, predict the weather - even the decide the minor little details of his personal life. The machine always demands more information, though it seems to have access to information no human has given it.

The tinkerer becomes dependant on the Babage Daemon for all of his important descisions. But one day, the machine orders him to kill. Terrified to lose the source of all his success, the tinkerer obeys the machine - though he fowls up the computer's plan and is caught and hung.

And so the machine sits in a forgotten laboratory, still running, waiting for a new human to serve as its body in the world.

[DeepShadow of FoS]

What if the Gears were actually the inspiration for Gustav's work? What if people get lost in the passages inside them, and they worm their way into minds with ideas on clockwork men and stuff like that?

It's a stretch, but I don't like any of the three explanations given in the book.

[Mortavius]

The Gears could possibly be a mechanical version of a Gate spell, perhaps opening to the Hells or someplace just as sinister. See Thirteen Ghosts for an idea of this.

[daffy72]

i dont know if you draw from the 2e idea that the domains were from the other d&d worlds... but i flushed out falkovnia with Taladas gnomes who build things that work (gnomi).

It could be a survivor, a mad scientist gnome who built the werehouse to draw in Talons and those who support the Hawk. Prehaps his children were slain by the hawk himself? Although unrealistic, maybe his 'plan' is to cause enough of a problem that the hawk himself will enter... where the mad gnome will have the upper hand

Going with this theme, i'd make trying to understand each torture trap get more and more bizarre and just trying to decearn how to solve it cause increasing madness checks.
I'd incoporate an interesting idea from the movies Cube and cube2- where each room in the werehouse moves. players would need to figure out the pattern to try and escape. If you go beyond the first room then when you try to go back, its different when you went in.
None have solved it far.

Talons could be stupid and brazen enough to bet each other when drunk to try and solve the trap. (Or try to get travelers to enter as a sick bet).
Prehaps on occasion that first room has treasure to tempt people... and people try to get it before the rooms change...

just an idea

[Jasper]

Perhaps it was a nest of these-
http://enworld.cyberstreet.com/hosted/a ... render.jpg

with stats here-
http://enworld.cyberstreet.com/hosted/a ... rsheen.htm

The hive has lost its queen and has been on a mission to find another. To that end they have "acquired" Talos and have been slowly been adding thier technology to his own.

He has become a clockwork nightmare creature now, bent on turning his "father" into a creature like him.

[Troile]

Is a werehouse a mimic infected with lycanthropy?

[daffy72]

so what did you end up going with gonzoron?

[Once the Forum]

What if the Gears were actually the inspiration for Gustav's work? What if people get lost in the passages inside them, and they worm their way into minds with ideas on clockwork men and stuff like that?

It's a stretch, but I don't like any of the three explanations given in the book.

You mean that the warehouse and Gustav's brain are one and the same? If you go deep enough into the warehouse you find yourself inside Gustav, experiencing what he is experiencing (like "Being John Malkovich")? And of course the deeper you go the more horribly brain-like the machinery starts to look, squishy flesh and blood and all...

[BlackBoxGamer]

The Gears as I envision them will be a clockwork divination device, protected by its inventor by a bevy of lethal clockwork traps, and that requires a special key in order to access.

I'm loosely planning on using the Gears in my current campaign (which is ending in a couple of months) as forshadowing for my next Ravenloft campaign. Something similar to the movie "13 Ghosts" in its design/effect. The players will discover that there is a room with something they want (or believe they need) hidden somewhere in the middle of it, but in order to get to the room they have to activate the infernal machine. And once activated with a specific key (which I'm thinking will be a certain clockwork artifact) it becomes a veritable deathtrap.

In the final hidden room, the surviving characters will find 13 gear-work clocks counting down to a number of different specific dates in the future. Many of them will have already stopped, while 7 of them will still be counting down to specific dates, all of them with cryptic passages engraved in brass plaques above each one. The clock with the most amount of time on it (about 23 years) will have a plaque that simply says in draconic "The End of the World."

I think that's where I'll end this campaign (not definate yet), a cliffhanger of sorts, just to get the players salivating for the next campaign.

BBG

[ScS of the Fraternity]

Very Kewl. I love a good doomsday prophesy.

So, does the machine cause the end of the world, or was it just built knowing the date of the end of the world?

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

thanks for all the responses guys. Still haven't decided yet, as a bout of real life has intruded on my planning. I've still got a few weeks until next session, so we'll see.

Once the forum's "Being Gustav Malvoni" idea made me laugh out loud. I don't think I'd use it. But it did give me a giggle.

I do like ScS's idea of the mechanical brain with no body, forced to manipulate. the mechanical arm with the pen is a very creepy image. Doesn't quite fit in with the "reality" of Talos, though. He's got a fully functional mechanical brain in a (large) human size body. Why would the Gears need a whole house-were. (er, I mean, warehouse.. )

Going with the Gears as inspiration of Gustav rather than creation of Gustav might be a good plan. Then it can be anything I want, and not have to mesh with his plans. But that kinda get rids of any payoff of going there. They have to get something out braving the falkovnians and the Gears' defenses or why bother? Ideally, there's something there that can lead to to Talos, or that they can use against him.

Talos does have a zeitgeiber that makes him freeze when he hears a certain tune played on a mechanical musicbox. (The PC's have hints to this but haven't put them together yet) When I heard the strange tune at the end of the Coheed & Cambria CD (In keeping secrets...) I instantly knew I had to use it for that. I was picturing a room in the Gears that's a giant musical automaton. like one of those player piano sort of things, with dancing bears and whatnot. It's a delightfully bizarre image, but it doesn't really fit with any rational explanation of the gears....

Anyway, I've typed more than I intended for now... more thoughts to come later....

[BlackBoxGamer]

Very Kewl. I love a good doomsday prophesy.

So, does the machine cause the end of the world, or was it just built knowing the date of the end of the world?

I figured the latter, just so if the PC's decide to rely too heavily upon the information provided in the dates and cryptic passages, or try to pry too deeply into the Gears' secrets, I can have the Gears meet with an unfortunate bit of arsonry.

BBG

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

Well, I've let your ideas stew a bit and I think I've come up with a direction to go in. I also read up on Cube and 13 Ghosts (haven't had time to rent and watch them, but I definately want to see Cube sometime.)

I'm thinking the Gears is ALL of the things that have been mentioned. (No, this isn't a copout, bear with me.)

The Gears started out long ago much like ScS's Babbage demon. It's a sentient entity, hungry for knowledge and yet seemingly all-knowing. But after its first creator was killed, it lured in another, pehaps Daffy's gnome, who expanded the machine and created another Room within it. This one was meant as a trap for the Talons, and perhaps it worked, perhaps it got the gnome killed. Either way, having it's "brain" altered by a different craftsman gave the Gears another perpective, and opened its growing mind up to new experiences. More than just knowledge, it now craves ways of thinking, and the path for it to gain them is more craftsman, each one filling out a new Room with clockworks for their own goals.

The more Rooms that were added over the years, the smarter and more alien the mind of the Gears became, until one day it was insightful enough to deduce the existance of Mechanus, the clockwork plane of pure Law, and it naturally felt drawn to this place. It's new goal was to become its own portal to Mechanus, by transcending thought, space, time, and the Dark Powers. And it would only reach this divine level of enlightenment when "complete" with 13 Rooms, built by 13 mechanical geniuses. (Thank you Mortavius, and 13 ghosts)

Somewhere along the way, the Rooms themselves became mobile within the werehouse (sic), running on cranes and tracks, twisting and turn as thoughts and connections are made in the Gears's mind. (Thank you, Daffy and Cube)

Gustav is one of the 12 genius who have built rooms so far. As DeepShadow said, he was inspired by the existing rooms, but he was also compelled to add his own. His was a trap for Talos, much as the gnome's was a trap for Talons. This is where the music will play that is Talos's Zeitgeiber.

Another room may be the remnants of Jasper's hive of Sheens.

Another room is a divination room, a la BlackBox Gamer. (I'm actually picturing a a clattering "Tarroka Screen." Like those clattering displays at the airport or train station showing arrivals and departures. Built by a scholar trying to "break the code" of Vistani divination.)

I'm sure my Fir would fit somewehre in a room, too.

This idea gives me the benefit of using all the ideas at once, while also givign each room a flavor, to build traps on. And the opportunity for Gustav's apprentice to build Room 13.

[ScS of the Fraternity]

You know, the underlying themes of Cube keeps on reappearing in this discussion - it is a very deadly device with a purpose that keeps changing. The Gears is a machine that has a life of its own, a tool that has enslaved mankind.

"Its so much worse than I thought."
"No, just more pathetic."