Sunday, October 2, 2022

Put Your Body Upon the Gears (GLOG Class: Wizard)


Entropy is the system's tendency towards chaos.
In mechanical systems entropy converts useful work into useless heat and noise.
In informational systems entropy converts useful data into useless corruption and compression.
In political systems entropy converts useful legitimacy into useless human suffering.

    Practitioners of the First Art, that called Manufacturing, might have learned at a private military school, or at a for-profit orphanage, or as part of some state-sponsored program — but however they got it they got it from the vast and anfractuous NGO their sort will breezily call "the Academy", with palliness not entirely appropriate.

Source: the inimitable Mr. Locheil N's. Eye.



Class: Manufactory


    You are a Manufactory, a wizard of fire and metal and industry. You manipulate the element of Hot Metal, exploit the principle of introduction-of-material, and make things. Manufactories are very practical wizards.
    As a Manufactory you can wear all types of armor, but may not use shields unless another class gives you that skill. If you have at least one template in this class you never fumble while using hammers, clubs or knives.

Skills: 1. Metallurgy, 2. Military History, 3. Court etiquette.
Starting Equipment: Heavy leathers (as leather, weight like chain, half damage from fire), a small, skittish pony (HD 1, Morale 5) and two-wheeled cart (10 inventory slots), three pounds of high-grade coke.

  • A Academy Primed, Basic Education, +1 HP
  • B Advanced Curriculum, +1 AC
  • C Expanded Interest, +1 HP
  • D Seignurage, +2 save

Academy Primed
    You still owe the Academy money for your fine education: to the tune of 50% of your adventuring earnings until the DM says otherwise. If you fail to pay, you cannot run far enough in this world to escape the collection team. Standard postal service will be perfectly adequate.
    It isn't all bad news though! Your education gives you a class resource called substance, with maximum equal to your HP. When you would heal a point of HP, you may choose to regain a point of substance (up to your maximum, obviously) instead. You can also regain 1 point of substance by eating 5 inventory slots of green wood (an hour or two of a cheery fire), or 4 of real firewood, or 1 slot of coal, or ⅓rd slot of specialized chemical fuel. It takes you ~a round to eat ~a slot of fuel. Bug your DM about it.
    This substance fuels your other abilities. Gain one such ability now by rolling 1d6 on the list of Basic Techniques.
Basic Education
    With a wave of your hand (which is really a careful measuring and designation of the target area), you can produce objects from thin air. These objects appear within your reach, are made from basic materials, cost 1 substance per 1 inventory slot, and appear at a rate of 10 slots a minute. They're of one piece, one material and solid. If it comes up their details are as fine and dimensions consistent as if cast in wet sand on a beach (i.e. not very).
    The basic materials, which all Manufactories are trained to work with, are potmetal (an undifferentiated non-ferrous metal alloy with a low melting point), clay of a sort appropriate for firing or making molds, and 3/4-inch Type M copper tubing.
    Making useful things out of this crap is up to you, but off the top of my head I can suggest: sling bullets, shot, low-quality ring chain, impressions of a complicated object, a copy of a key you're holding (or you've got a good impression of), work-hardened copper spearhead, fragile shovel head, fragile saw blade. Use your imagination you feckless zoomer bastard. Get your nose out of your I-phone.
Advanced Curriculum
    The Academy recognizes five types of knowledge, and arguably the greatest (they're all "arguably the greatest") is the hearty and reliable phronesis one gains from blowing stuff up tae fuck. You've made great progress in phronesis. Roll 1d8 and gain that advanced technique. You have also learned the use of advanced materials; these include brick and other ceramics, glass, igneous and sedimentary rock, concrete, wireframe, cast iron, gunmetal (the kind that's useless for guns and essential for steam fittings), lead and other elemental metals and metalloids (but not lanthanides or actinides) (and not silver or gold), stone wool, asbestos, and brasses and bronzes in many varieties and grades. These are created under the same restrictions as basic materials, but cost 2 substance per inventory slot of objects, and if it comes up their details/dimensions are as fine as proper lost-wax casting and real machining.
Expanded Interest
    Your loans are paid off, and your professors suddenly remember who you are. Meanwhile, you've learned a lot out in the field. Pick two advanced techniques and two basic techniques.
Seignurage
    You've learned about as much as you can easily learn from blowing stuff up tae fuck. You've gained the use of the master materials; military-grade steel, powdered or liquid basic or advanced material, and composite metal foam. Master materials cost 3 substance per inventory slot.
    You also learn Make GP and one other Master Technique off the list. Choose wisely, because it'll be real hard (probably a long quest involved, probably a dragon) to get another, and the one you pick will define you as you move on to the next stage of the Manufactory lifecycle: trying to make a living while the ol' Ardens Mater sends you letters politely asking for money.
   

Basic Techniques

  1. Eat Fuel. 1 substance is a day of food and water for you.
  2. Puff Fire. You can ignite flammable material between your hands. For 1 substance, you can project flame in a 10' cone, dealing 1 damage and igniting flammable material.
  3. Identify Ash. With a taste, you can determine the age of ash down to the minute within 24 hours and down to the day after that. 
  4. Speak with Metal. Metal can't really perceive the world around it, but it can tell you how old it is, who crafted it, and might be able to offer some advice. It isn't always obvious if you're talking to the metal or yourself.
  5. Puff Poisonous Smoke. "Poisonous" is a strong word, but prolonged exposure will probably lower life expectancy. For 1 substance you can produce a puff of invisible, noxious vapor from your hand. If this gets in someone's face they must make a save against a minute of weeping blindness and speechless coughing and wheezing.
  6. Wrap Band. You can produce a band or belt of material up to [substance]*5' in circumference, starting from your hand. It cinches tight, so it can be used as manacles or emergency-barrel-repair.
  7. Drill Hole. Spend 1 substance to drill an eight-inch deep, one-inch wide hole in stone or wood. Takes about six seconds to do this in wood, or one minute in stone. If you can produce tempered steel you can drill holes in metal in ten minutes.

Advanced Techniques

  1. Produce Twice. You can produce an object with each hand simultaneously for their normal cost at normal speed, or a single object in double-time.
  2. Summon Machine Spirit. You can summon a ghastly assistant to help you with your work. They have a vague human form and a clear human voice, 8 AC, [substance] HP and enough effect on the world to carry [substance] inventory slots of items. By default you may only have one machine spirit (always the same one) summoned at a time, though you can perhaps apply to the Academy for more. Spirits don't have the motive force to swing an axe, but they can light the fuse on a cannon. Machine spirits dissipate instantly when they reach 0 HP or after [substance] days and they fear this more than you fear death. Wherever they go to between summoning must be unpleasant. In any case, they are eager to assist.
  3. Powder Actuate. For 2 substance, produce a three-inch iron spike and launch it with enough force to pierce and bind in concrete or thin sheets of metal. If used in combat, this is an intelligence-based attack for 1d10 damage at 30'.
  4. Fuel Food. For 2 substance, produce one ration of vegan paleo "apple sauce" and one gallon of potable water.
  5. Cut by Hand. You can produce an eye-searing beam of extreme heat from your hands for 3 substance per round. Hot enough to liquefy, amputate or scorch. If used in combat, this is an intelligence-based attack for 2d6 damage at 5'.
  6. Sunder Metal. You can shatter, rust, twist and generally destroy [substance] cubic inches of non-noble metal with a touch. If used on someone's gear, or on a person made out of metal, they get a save to avoid this.
  7. Bombard. Over the course of [substance] rounds, a large potmetal sphere grows in the air over your head. It then throws itself up to [substance]*30' and explodes for [substance] damage within 30', save for half. If you take damage while producing the sphere, it disintegrates and the substance is lost.
  8. Spray Garbage. For 3 substance, raise your hand and blast a 20' line of shrapnel and burning propellant. Targets in that line save or take 3d6 fire damage.

Master Techniques

  • Make GP: For 6 substance, make 1gp.
  • Fall Out. For [substance], render a [substance]*30' radius around you uninhabitable. The air is poisoned, dealing [substance] damage with every breath. Structures become treacherous and liable to collapse. Roads tear themselves to pieces. The effect lasts for decades. You are not immune.
  • Work Earth. For [substance], raise or lower a 10' square of earth by [substance] feet. The effect is rapid geologically speaking, but still pretty slow; creatures in the target area may save to maintain their balance.
  • Simplify Maths. All materials you know are basic materials for you.
  • Repair and Replace. You can heal HP in yourself and others with a touch, as if hitpoints were inventory slots of stuff. For 20 substance (you might need a fuel-line hookup for this), you can replace someone's missing limb with a clockpunk version. This limb is better in every way, because it's fireproof and durable and grants +1 AC and +1 strength to the bearer, with the sliiight inconvenience of requiring 1 point of substance per day to fuel it. The lucky recipient doesn't need to worry about that, though, as long as you're feeling generous, and they stick close.