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| Body Betterment Through Steel, Clockwork, And Steam |
Short version:
Transhumanist scientist - replace limbs with metal - arcanengineers - mercenariesLeader : Maximilian Trevithick (son of the inventor of the steam locomotive)
Goal: Find a to replace limbs with motorised mobile prosthetics
Dramatis Personae: Hellukas Tornquist (dwarf engineer from Scafell Pike), Dr. Reginald Malt (surgeon)
Peculiarities: All member have at least one limb replaced by steel, a weapon or a steam machine
Secret: Their main surgeon (Dr. Reginald Malt) uses an arcanum to implement the Steel and have the body accept the graft. Without that arcanum, no graft would work. Every month of the first year, each graft must be re-arcaned by the good doctor
Long version:
The Ordo Mechanicus is on one hand a society of crazy scientists, doctors and engineers, but on the other side also a very effective mercenary group.Their Steel-body-modifications give them an edge in hand to hand combat, but also intimidate a lot. You don’t react the same to a guy wearing a mallet and another one who has a freaking big Hammer replacing his left forearm.
The Ordo Mechanicus is organised as a Guild, offering a range of product and services reaching from farrier work to precision machining over clockwork commissioning and including debt retrieval and other mercenary work. The guild share of the incomes is invested in mechanical research (including the acquisition of metal and forging tool or even foundries) and retrieval of arcana.
Maximilian Trevithick is a very young and enthusiastic leader and the Ordo Mechanicus is always in movement, always researching new technologies, new ways to combine knowledge, new experiences. All the money of the guild goes to projects. Their few buildings are always very spartan and functional, dedicated to one of the activities of the guild (smith, foundry, operating room, laboratory, factory)
Hellukas Tornquist is the main precision smith of the guild, and a repository of ancient dwarven smithing handcraft. He is well respected in his home community of Scafell Pike in Cumbria, even though he left. He is the point of entry for all dwarves in search of adventure in the “The Big Smoke”, and most of them end up working, one way or another, for the Ordo Mechanicus. He is renown for his precision handiwork and the finery of the engravings he can add to a metal piece. He likes to add dwarven runes on the objects he smithes, but no one knows if these are magic or not (Hellukas always says “If you can’t make the runes work, then it is as if it were not enchanted, you human moron!”)
Non-dwarves in the guild all have at least on prosthetic enhancement. Most were recruited coming back from a war (against the U.S. or Napoleonic France) and having lost everything, and giving them the missing leg or lost hand back, as well as a new purpose in life, is normally enough to ensure a perfect loyalty to the guild. The fear to lose the replaced limb if it is not tended for by the “good doctor” is also a good reason to stay in the guild.
Dr. Reginald Malt is not only the main surgeon of the guild, he’s the only reason why the steel stays attached to the bodies of his patients.
He was his first patient himself and implanted on his left hand 8 razorblades, mobile and articulated, to replace the missing phalanges that he had lost to a cannon ball in the Caribbeans. He is unbelievably nimble and precise with theses claw-like blades. He wears some caps on them when in society, where he seldom take of his gloves anyway.
His razor-hand was developed by Maximilian Trevithick, the engineer and leader of the group and forged by Hellukas.
Maximilian on his side is more of a founder of the guild than a real leader. He has the power to veto any project or research topic, but has never used that power, on the contrary… He tends to add new side-projects and research goal, with a higher stipend than was asked for, on the condition that the development belongs to the guild and that it has practical uses. This is the reason why the prosthetics of the Ordo Mechanicus are highly advanced: this is the main research field that interests Maximilian, and if a research grant is allowed, he makes sure that at least one of the research goals, even a secondary one, is related to “Body Betterment Through Steel, Clockwork, And Steam” (which is the motto of the Guild).
When not working, members can be found in public places (taverns, speaking corners) ranting about the future of the flesh and it’s replacement with Steel…
Typical member:
Smith:
iron-ore & smoke smell - Leather work coat - big hammer
STR 15 - 4HP
a few horseshoes, nails and other steel objects
Mercenary:
Long dark coat over leather Armour - Steel prosthetic
STR 14 - DEX 12 - 6 HP
Sword and 2 Pistols
Arcane retriever:
Long leather coat
Dex 12 - WILL 14 - 4 HP
2 Pistols, sword-cane
magnifying glass, tarot deck
Sources:
- Richard Trevithick (inventor of the steam locomotive and mining engineer) is an historical character. Maximilian would be older than all his real existing children
- Hellukas Tornquist (a warhammer-ish dwarven engineer)
- Scafell Pike (actually the highest “mountain” in England, peaking at its Highest point at an elevation of 978 m [3,209 ft]). Having dwarven (and elvish) communities spread around the country and the world, but secluded is from the “Bastard of Kosigan” books by Fabien Cerutti
- Dr. Reginald Malt (Dr Ronald Malt is the first surgeon to ever re-attach a hand, 1962). His hands are an homage to Edward Scissorhands.
- Cyberpunk and GURPS transhuman Space for the transhumanist theories
