Spell: Summon Weird Machine

Summon Weird Machine
Level: 6
Duration: Depends on Machine Summoned
Range: Touch

Caster constructs the appropriate geometrical figure corresponding to a particular Weird Machine and then invests the Attractor Pattern at the center of the design with the designated sacrifice in order to call forth the Weird Machine they have decided to summon.

See the Weird Machine Table for options and requirements.

Necrocondenser (Weird Machine)

Obscure in its origins, which are muddled and confused by conflicting experts and competing opinions, the Necrocondenser is a Weird Machine few have ever heard of, and fewer still have ever seen.

Jadris, Korliz, Vaduphon...there are more than a few dead worlds known to sorcerers and scholars alike. But not all dead worlds were overthrown by hordes of zombies, nor enslaved by vampire tyrants, nor subjugated by armies of any of the other known forms of undead. No, not all dead worlds died through violence, plague or the usual forms of ruination and destruction. Some worlds, such as Thaldria rotted away like a titan succumbing to the ravages of Jotuniflukes, others collapsed under the increasingly unsupportable burdens imposed upon their fragile ecologies by the rampant technologies of the living, such as how Faldrume and Myrcidria both died. And badly at that.

What few people aside from the abdead necrolectuals of Ellonduz realize is that each of these worlds were hastened on to their apocalyptic demise by the workings of a Necrocondenser.

Most of the scrolls detailing the construction of the original thirteen Necrocondensers have been destroyed by Horla, consumed by Thysanurians or even stolen by certain Predatory Projections for what can only be assumed to be nefarious schemes. Of the original thirteen machines, only six are still intact or summonable.

There are fewer than four scrolls containing the complete, accurate ritual for summoning a Necrocondenser known to be in circulation currently, according to the Scribes of Jaondix and the Psychonauts of Undrozzille, if those sources can be trusted in such a matter.

What is known about these particular machines can be summed up as follows:

• This machine creates an artificial vortex of inverted ablight at its center and uses this central vortex to attract, accumulate and condense necromantic energies into a specialized capacitor-assembly where these energies are stored until processed or released.
• When activated, a Necrocondenser sets up an energetic field that extends in a 100 mile radius and increases in range by another 1d10 miles per 100 hit points of energy it drains from all forms of undead. All undead caught within this field of effect suffer a loss of 1d4 hit points for every hour they remain within the field. Any undead drained to zero hit points is destroyed.
• These machines do not affect the abdead, proving conclusively that there is in fact a distinct, demonstrable difference between undead and abdead.
• Once set in motion these machines run like preternatural clockwork and are all but unstoppable.
• In the event that a Nercrocondenser becomes damaged, it can siphon off its accumulated necromantic energies to repair itself. Doing so sets up a secondary field of interference that causes 1d4 damage per hour to all living things within a 10 mile radius. This effect intensifies by +1 additional point of damage per HD of damage so repaired.
• Holy Word will make this machine pause for 1d100 hours, but will require the caster to be within 1 mile of the machine.
• Once a Necrocondenser extends its field of effect to encompass an entire world it requires 1d100 days to recalibrate its internal systems. Once recalibrated, the machine will either release a massive world-girdling vortex of necromantic energies, begin to drain all life energy from the world, explode with such force as to reduce the world to a ring of blackened rubble orbiting its sun, or possibly some other effect based upon the parameters established at the time of its activation. In at least one instance the machine established a black corona of negative energy at a height of 10,000 miles that encircled the entire world of Aldrosia. Every living thing that died upon that world has had its energies stripped from it within seconds of dying. No one is sure just why, or what the Necrocondenser/Black Corona is doing with all this accumulated energy.

Mass Necrocondenser Details
Primary Reference: Obsidian Tablet of Horphoo
Prescribed Geometric Figure: n/a
Requirements: 1) A stable negative energy vortex consisting of no less than 1,000 hit points, 2) Necroliths and other heavily-infused necromantic objects and energy-sinks are rumored to be helpful adjuncts to the summoning process, but no details are provided in the primary sources.
Cost to Summon: see above.
Chance of Success: (1d8)% per 100 hit points used in preliminary negative energy vortex.
Failure/Backlash: Everything within a 1d100 mile radius is drained of all energy. The machine either goes dormant, or teleports away to the next world.

A Few Rumors
According to the Annals of Doomed Vylusha, a Necrocondenser was summoned to that world by the Vizier of Wollovia as part of a scheme to break the grip of an undead aristocracy that had dominated her country for over a thousand years. The machine did eliminate the undead nobles, but then it ended all life on that world as well. Whether this was due to tampering, sabotage, some revenge-contingency of the undead nobles, or something else entirely is unknown at this time.

The paladins of Xorlu have been searching for the means to summon a Necrocondenser to their world ever since an armada of undead invaded their world. They believe that they can use one of these machines to eliminate the undead invaders without destroying their world in the process. Perhaps they know something others do not, possibly they are just zealots willing to make the ultimate sacrifice in order to defeat their enemies.

A defunct or damaged Necrocondenser is alleged to be buried deep beneath the crust of Adalasha, somewhere on the 312th level of the Macrocthoneum. So far no one has been able to confirm this rumor.

Weird Machines

Weird Machine: Rust Apparatus

Rare tomes, censored scrolls and a number of outre and often banned journals tell of the Rust Apparatus, a transplanar mechanism that certain spells and rites can call forth, should the caster be so determined to risk their own destruction. The Rust Apparatus is a Weird Machine of which many have heard tall tales and wild speculation, but few have ever truly encountered one. This is very probably for the best.

Terrible Things Come In Small Packages
When first summoned, the Rust Apparatus can fit in the palm of the caster's hand and weighs (1d4) pounds. It hums softly and will only become active with an infusion of (4d6) hit points. These hit points can come from any source designated by the caster, so long as the victim is in direct contact with the machine. For as long as the summoner can lift it, the machine can be wielded as a melee weapon (+2 to hit, 2d6 damage, Target must make Save or suffer corrosion of all metals on their person. Magic items/armor/weapons gain a 10% chance per plus of enchantment to escape the corrosion effect unscathed.)

The Rust Apparatus gains 1 permanent Hit Die for every 50 hit points infused into it. With each Hit Die it gains, the machine will gain (1d100) pounds and the caster will need to make a Save or the machine will anchor itself immediately, becoming immovably anchored.

An Inexorable Process of Corrosion
Once anchored, the Rust Apparatus requires 1d4 hours to fully warm-up and begin to do the work it was designed to do.

Once fully activated, the Rust Apparatus begins to emanate a fluctuating, rippling field of energy that causes everything caught within its area of effect to quickly oxidize, decay and corrode. Every hour spent within the area of effect of this weird machine requires a Save to be made, or else all metal objects are degraded, rusted and pitted so as to be weakened, diminished by -1 if they are magical, and eventually rendered inert and useless as they crumble into flakes of rust.

Silver will tarnish and eventually crumble into a black grit. Copper will quickly crack and decay into a fine powder. Bronze will turn sickly milky-green and then go black right before it collapses into junk. All metal corrodes under this machine's terrible field of influence. Even the iron in one's blood (1d4 damage per hour within the area of effect). But gold is immune. Only gold remains proof against the effects of this weird machine.

The Rust Apparatus extends its area of effect in 10 foot increments radiating out from its center at a rate of 10 feet per hit point infusion. Each hit point infusion requires 10d10 hit points being sacrificed to the machine. It will continue to function for one hour for each infusion. After 4 hours without receiving another infusion, the machine will go dormant and in another 1d4 hours it will transition to another plane or stratum of existence.

Known Rust Apparatus Activations
Only the most foolhardy or supposedly clever spell-caster would dare to call upon the Rust Apparatus, but as with all such things, there is always someone, somewhere, who thinks that they can control such powerful forces or make use of them in their petty schemes.

So far there are three definite instances of an encounter with a Rust Apparatus that have been recorded. One was allowed to run amok until it destroyed an entire planet, reducing it into a scabrous belt of dust, rust and debris encircling a lonely star long abandoned by all living things. There are dark rumors to the effect that this particular Rust Apparatus might have somehow changed in the course of completely destroying the world it was anchored upon, that it may have awakened into a strange form of sentience and that the vast swath of corroded particulate matter it now occupies might be developing into some weird sort of rust-based ecosystem or possibly a single, genesistrine-like orbital organism.

Another was presumed destroyed, at a terrible cost, by a band of heroes who eventually all turned upon one another as they conspired to keep the weird machine that they had captured and somehow disabled as a sort of memento or potential trump card that they could possibly fall back upon if things went against them. And things most certainly did go against them as they bickered among themselves, assassinating the weaker members of their once-secret cadre and playing an ever escalating game of brinksmanship that centered on whomever had knowledge, possession or control over the device that they had once fought alongside one another to defeat all those years ago.

The third device was removed from the world of Adrigar and sealed within a stasis sphere locked away within a secret place known only to the Mechanosmashers of Lyraxis Vela.

Concerning the Removal or Elimination of a Rust Apparatus
The Rust Apparatus has no mind, no emotions, no soul and no scruples. It is a machine and it does one thing and it does that really well, if someone provides it with the power necessary to carry out its destructive purpose. Anyone seeking to drive off the Rust Apparatus could attempt to use Holy Word, but the machine won't budge unless the caster attempting to banish it has at least twice as many hit points as the machine. Even then it gets a Save.

Banishing an anchored Rust Apparatus is an intensely difficult matter and has never been successfully accomplished from what records remain of previous encounters. There is encrypted and incomplete evidence of a possible fourth instance of a Rust Appararatus that was shunted away from the world to which it was originally summoned by the use of a particularly potent version of a Uchronic Displacement spell, but most recognized authorities discount this as either a bit of wishful thinking or an outright fabrication.

It is conjectured that the most effective means of destroying one of these infernal devices might take the form of restricting or eliminating their access to oxygen, as they are designed to be massive oxidizers.

One could also attempt to seal a Rust Apparatus within a stasis sphere or paratemporal bubble, but that would not destroy the machine, and allowing it to remain suspended indefinitely is a bit like like a deferred death sentence for an entire world.

Rust Apparatus Details
Primary Reference: The Red Scroll of K'thoodrim
Prescribed Geometric Figure: Reversible Trapezoid of D'nahl
Requirements: 1) One pound of rust salvaged from a corroded Wall of Iron spell not cast by summoner, 2) One dram of ichor from a Ferric Blob, 3) Summoner must personally cast Molten Iron Mass before attempting the summons.
Cost to Summon: Minimum of 100 hit points.
Chance of Success: (1d4)% per hit point sacrificed.
Failure/Backlash: Everything within a 20' radius of the would-be summoner is instantly corroded to minute flakes of rust and dust. Caster must make Save at -2 or be completely disintegrated. Making the Save means that the caster is transformed into a living mass of rust and is now a servitor to the Rust Apparatus.


(It is alleged that the Corrodim and possibly the Scabrous Shades of Milgao may in fact be a form of transformed servitor to the Rust Apparatus, but this is unconfirmed and purely unsubstantiated speculation.)

Spell: Summon Weird Machine

Weird Machines Overview & Index