Six Golemic Chassis from Wermspittle

Golemic Chassis (n.)
A physical framework designed to be a conveyance for an incorporeal being (or group of such beings) as well as a means for them to interact directly with the material world. Often powered by a magnetic engine. Some chassis are created as a means of defense, posted at the gates of certain ghost-cities or deposited in some treasure-filled vault not found on any extant map of the Underworld.

Gorgonmilk

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1. Miss Penzer's Pre-eminent Pummeler (Mk IV). Posters proclaiming the pugilistic prowess of Miss Penzer's singular golemic fighter can still be found plastered across the fences, boarded-up storefronts and walls along the Low Streets. The little lady threw a mean punch and was undisputed champion right up until the night the Pruztians rolled in and shot anyone who 'resisted.'
   

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   Pummeler Four (unique) [Huge, Golemic Chassis; 500hp, AC 1, Damage: 3d4 with a 30% chance of an immediate follow-up for 2d4.] The old magnetic engines in each limb require some maintenance, but a competent mechanic could have this old hulk moving again in a few hours. The control pod is unusually small, having originally been designed for a young girl. Inspecting the pod will reveal a small cache of old documents, including the schematics for all five Pummeler models, Miss Penzer's diary, several hundred marks in no longer valid banknotes, and a small zinn-plated box containing an opal...

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2. Ruggio's Colossus. Twice the height of a typical Franzikaner-style iron golem, Ruggio's Colossus was once the pride and joy of the ringleader of a world-renowned travelling circus. Half of the circus made it through the tunnel before the airships bombed the rails into a twisted mess. Ruggio and the other half of his performers were trapped in Wermspittle. Ruggio did not survive the subsequent Occupation. His troupe staked-out a makeshift camp-site within the Burned Over District. You can always find their camp's location by spotting the rusting colossus draped in Red Weeds. On rainy evenings you can sometimes hear the ghost of old Ruggio singing morose Ylashian folksongs from within the colossus. The echoes from within the chassis-shell aren't so bad, but the guy still can't carry a tune, even in undeath. It can really make the dogs howl.
   

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   Ruggio's Colossus (unique) [Very Tall Golemic-Chassis; 260hp, AC 4, Damage: 1d8.] The old Colossus will require a great deal of work to get it running again. The collector-array is corroded into blue grit and the internal muscle-cables need to be re-strung. The ghost is unlikely to permit any such tampering, however.

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3. Executioner Three. A hated and feared part of the Pruztian Retaliation Korps active during the First Occupation, Executioner Three was hijacked by the Resistance who wrapped it with heavy chains and then sunk it beneath one of the waste-water ponds full of Spectral Brine and worse. It has remained submerged and forgotten for decades. Until now...
   

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   Executioner Three (unique) [Massive Imperial Pruztian Golemic Chassis; 650hp, AC 2, Damage: 3d6/3d6.] Blackened by its long submersion in the strange chemistry of a waste-water pond, this golemic chassis has changed. It knows regret for what it was forced to do during the Occupation, leading some to speculate that it may be haunted. A lingering, palpable sadness radiates from it in a 90' radius. Those mediums that have attempted to make contact have been assaulted brutally, so it is assumed that the coterie of geists lodged within it are not interested in discussing things, such as why they prowl the Western Section of the Outer Wall every night.

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4. Borridan's Tiger Fighter. Everyone knows that Borridan was killed by Pidro Peeto. The golemic chassis was recovered, hosed down and stored in a warehouse for the last twenty-seven years. Now Borridan's son has managed to arrange for the funding and support necessary to refurbish his father's chassis, and he intends to make some much-needed improvements to the thing. He hopes to use it to hunt down and kill the tiger that slaughtered his father all those years ago.
   

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   Tiger Fighter Prototype (unique) [Huge, Golemic Chassis; 300hp, AC 3, Damage: 2d6/2d6.] The prototype is missing one arm and the control pod in the chest cavity has been thoroughly slashed and torn to shreds. It has also been sitting in a warehouse for nearly thirty years where it has sustained water damage from a leaky roof and a pair of dodos has raised a dozen clutches of eggs in the nest they've built inside the thing. Borridan's spirit is so deeply imprinted upon it that no one else can use it and his son may have to abandon the thing and start over from scratch. The spirit is also quite insane...

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5. Brazen Hellion. It was meant to strike fear into the Pruztians. A volunteer operator, Mazrik Caldron, took the thing into the Baffles to test it out and the chassis returned without him. It has stood beside the Eastern Keep along the Inner Ramparts ever since. Everyone knows it isn't haunted. That was tested and confirmed a dozen times over. But no one has ever been able to explain how the thing made it back without an operator...
   

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   Brazen Hellion (unique) [Huge, Golemic-Chassis; 260hp, AC 2, Damage: 3d4/3d4.] Weathered, pitted and heavily rusted, this golemic chassis remains right where it stopped upon its return from the Baffles. It has been maintained and kept clear of weeds and such by the Yellow Hawks who have watched over the thing in anticipation of its master's return. A small group of invalids, cashiered out from the unit, have remained behind to tend to the chassis despite everything else that is going on.

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6. Diver Two. The Sewer Militia has been busy adapting a specialized golemic chassis suited to operating in the dark, frigid waters of the Underground Reservoirs beneath Wermspittle. If this model survives its test-run, they are planning to build a few more...
   

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   Diver Two (unique) [Huge, Golemic-Chassis; 220hp, AC 1, Damage: 2d6/2d6/2d6/2d6.] The bottom assembly was derived from a salvaged Tripod, the lower sections of the three limbs having been fitted with retracting fin-panels. There is a water-tight sphere at the center of the thing that can hold an operator and two riders. The whole thing has been heavily reinforced and armored in anticipation of whatever it might run into down there...whatever it was that claimed Diver One...

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Another form of Golemic Chassis was featured in our recent post Six Lions in Wermspittle.
Entry #2, Ridolphe, is a Golem Chassis animated by a soul-bound opal...

One of the Open Community Projects being hosted by Gorgonmilk for Underworld Lore is a series featuring Golemic Chassis. We thought that we'd offer a few examples from Wermspittle. What kind of Golemic Chassis do you have running around in your game? This community project is still open to contributions from interested parties...

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From the Zones...a few things

Here are six photos of phenomena recently encountered within Visitation Zone Three.

Slicks
Viscous pools of a mercury-like substance. Slicks are attracted by bright lights and loud noises. Coming into contact with a slick tends to be fatal--the fluidic metal rapidly spreads across every surface with which it comes into contact. Within seconds it will completely coat the interior surfaces of a Stalker's lungs, making it impossible to breathe. For some unknown reason Slicks only seem to act this way when they come into contact with a living creature, whether it is an insect, a cat or a person. It also has become notorious for somehow 'falling through' any container made of glass or ceramic. Scientists are very eager to acquire a sample of this stuff, they just don't know how to contain it. Yet.

Furrows
Possibly some version of gravity fluctuation. The ground suddenly rears up at a steep angle and remains that way for several days. Then it either subsides or collapses. Time-lapse photography has shown this effect to be similar to waves moving through the ground, but Stalkers prefer to call the phenomena 'Furrows,' based on the original report by the Stalker known as 'Spaz,' may they rest in peace.

Blue Light
This seems to be primarily a nocturnal phenomena. It also tends to only be spotted or encountered among trees, never within structures. It makes a distinctive warbling sort of hum. Some Stalkers report experiencing a thoroughly unpleasant buzzing sensation through out their soft tissues. Some batteries exposed to the Blue Light quickly grow hot enough to melt into slag. Others go inert and cannot be recharged under any circumstance. The Light is described most often as seeming to flow through the air like weightless oil. The sole Stalker who managed to actually touch the Blue Light was carbonized instantly. Their body has been sealed with a transparent polymer coating and positioned in the front reception area of the Institute as a warning.

Flash Floods
There's only been one photo taken of this phenomena, and this image was captured accidentally when a team's camera was dropped. At first you might hear a gentle, even pleasant tinkling sound, like a babbling brook. Then a spontaneous torrent of water slams through an area with a thunderous roar. And it's gone. Just like that. The water level rarely goes above the knees of most Stalkers who've gotten caught in one. Based on analysis of field reports, this phenomena tends to last for only a few seconds. There's never any mud or moisture left behind. Only one Stalker has drowned in one of these events, completely by accident, of course.

Crawleys
There were several reports by various Stalkers of grotty old drains that seemed to move of their own volition. No one took any of these claims seriously until this photo was taken. Soon afterwards the ambulatory drain clamped down on the photographer's left foot. They lost their leg to the drain. They were the lucky one. The rest of their group was chewed to bits by the thing before it finally had enough and slid away. No one knows just what can be done about these things. How do you deal with what is essentially a mobile hole that can bite? Scientists are clamoring for more observations, more data, as long as they don't have to deal with the things.

Black Wisps
That patch of cold incandescence on the left used to be a Stalker's hand. They died a few minutes later, completely frost-bitten from the inside out. Do not touch the Black Wisps.

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From the Zones is a community project hosted by John Till over at the FATEsf blog. This community project is inspired by the novel Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, which was the basis for the movie Stalker.

There is a handy index of the current Field Reports from the Zones that features posts from across the Blog-o-sphere, as well as a nifty guide explaining how you can participate in this ongoing Community Project.

Petty Gods and Our Imminent PDF

I've been caught-up in getting the Space-Age Sorcery PDF done, so I've fallen behind on making posts here at the blog. Ever since I saw that Gorgonmilk had taken up the reins and was hard at work getting Petty Gods revived, revised and released, I have intended to contribute something to the effort. I missed the boat the first time around and I certainly don't want to miss out this time around. Jody has completed her proofreading and editing chores, so now I'm in the final stages of making all the corrections and revisions and all that fun stuff. We limited this free pdf to 26 pages of content, with a front and back cover (you don't have to print those if you don't want to), featuring a weird miscellany of spells with a few handy random tables that can be adapted or plugged into any number of games, campaigns or settings. Think Lovecraftian Space Opera, or Skeletor facing-off against Darklon in a post apocalyptic Amber-shadow of Arduin or Skaith, or something like that. But with shoggoths. Everything is better with shoggoths; Irving is pretty adamant about that. Ahem. In any case we're formatting the Space-Age Sorcery pdf using Swords & Wizardry, mostly because it's pretty easy to convert and/or adapt stuff from that over to any other OSR-style RPG like say Humanspace Empires,  Mutant Future or some unholy mash-up of Metamorphosis Alpha,  Hulks & Horrors Realms of Crawling Chaos and X-Plorers or Bandits and Battlecruisers, or whatever old school Sci-Fantasy/Space Opera game(s) you prefer. Heck, it wouldn't take much effort to port these spells over to Rogue Space or Stars Without Number. You could also use these spells for special NPCs or monsters, or build a whole post apocalyptic campaign where Thundarr-like wizards have used these spells to devastate dozens of worlds...

So, once we have Space-Age Sorcery out there as a free pdf, I'm hoping to have some time to write-up a Petty God or two. Then it's on to the Worldboats pdf and the expanded and even weirder Space-Age Sorcery sourcebook/supplement that we're hoping to make available in print because Brutorz Bill asked for it. Irving was pretty insistent that we do this as well.

EDIT: Serious OMG! Moment--Over the course of the last week or so, Grogonmilk has managed to elevate the Petty Gods project from a simple revival of a stalled-out community effort to a truly amazing (and effective!) rallying cry for old school gamers everywhere. And he has somehow managed to get Michael Moorcock to join in the fun! Wow! Way to go Gorgonmilk! This is the most mind-blowingly exciting OSR project ever...which just goes to show how much can really happen in a week. Incredible, simple incredible.

Go Check It Out!

Trouble with Troglodytes: Community Project at Rended Press

Matthew over at Rended Press is hosting a Community Project titled 'The Trouble With Troglodytes.' It's an Old School dungeoncrawl with an emphasis on troglodytes. There's still plenty of un-keyed spaces on the map to be filled-in, so if you have an idea or two you'd like to contribute, drop by Rended Press and have at it!