Today, I come bearing gifts of destruction. Charged with steam, clockwork, alchemy, or the essence of the storm itself, mechanika are fearsome tools. This overview will describe how a player builds and maintains mechanika in the Iron Kingdoms. For the full rules, you’ll have to look forward to the release of the Iron Kingdoms Requiem Campaign Setting book!
For now, here is an excerpt from the Mechanika section:
Steam-powered constructs and other advanced technologies have existed in one form or another since the first colossal strode across the field of battle, crushing Orgoth invaders beneath its immense metal fists. This science has proven as potent as the Gift of Magic and has progressed just as swiftly. As a result of centuries of innovation and study, magic in the form of mechanika has become commonplace today throughout western Immoren.
Mechanika is the application of magic to augment physical science. Steam pistons and hydraulics work in concert to provide power to magical conduits. Mechanika runes enable arcane mechaniks to create devices that function consistently and are easy to use despite their extraordinary workings.
Mechanika technology can be utilized to make any number of arcantrik-enhanced items, including such things as weapons, scopes, spell engines, and armor. If you have enough money, you might even be able to deck your character out in nearly entirely mechanika items. (Just be careful not to let the charge drop to zero!)
There are three components to every mechanika: housing, runeplates, and capacitor.
The housing is just the baseline item. Unpowered, a mechanika housing is generally worse than an item that isn’t designed to be charged with arcane power. For example, a mechanika weapon will still work without a charge, but you can expect to be severely disadvantaged trying to swing around a weapon with the added weight required of mechanika. Some items, like an Arcantrik Scope, can still be used for its original purpose—in this case, as a telescope—but it won’t offer the considerable benefit to your aim without power.
Runeplates are magic inscribed into your device. When raw arcane power is channeled through a runeplate, it creates the desired magical effect. Since runeplates are rather delicate items, they are housed within the mechanika. Don’t think you can just keep powering a runeplate or mechanika up with infinite runes, however; only one such plate can be added to each item, and a plate can only hold a certain amount of runes. Also, some particularly powerful runes will take up more space on a plate than others. Each time you use a weapon, you can choose to invoke some (or all) of the runes, depending on how much energy your capacitor can produce. If you don’t want to dwindle the charge of your mechanika, you can even choose to not activate any runes at all—this would mean that the mechanika is nothing more than a magical weapon.
The capacitor is what powers your device. Some capacitors use fuel, be it coal and water for the Arcane Turbin or physical force for the Clockwork Capacitor. Others are one shots—once the power is exhausted, that’s it; you’ll have to go get a replacement. And some fall somewhere in between; the Alchemical Capacitor, for instance, is quick and easy to replace once it burns out. A capacitor determines three critical numbers that inform how much and how long you can use your mechanika.
Mechanika are governed by these three numbers depending on their capacitor: Charge, power output, and lifespan.
Charge is a lot like ammunition—once you are out, that weapon is officially just a heavy, mundane version of the housing. Each time you use a rune, it will cost from 1 to 5 charges.
Power output is how much energy the device can create all at once. Put another way, it is the number of runeplates that can be charged in any single use of the item. A rune that uses three charges to activate will also use 3 of your power output. Most capacitors have a power output between 2 and 5, so if the need is dire, you can usually power multiple runes.
Finally, lifespan determines how long the capacitor can be active before it needs to be replaced or recharged. Lifespans are usually days, weeks, or months, not minutes or hours. That time only ticks away while the device is active, so most capacitors can last quite a while.
So, to wrap this all up, I thought I’d make a mechanika item for you to see what the final product will look like!
Alchemic Mauler
Capacitor: Alchemical Capacitor, Power Output: 3, Charges: 15, Lifespan: 1 week
It requires 4 hours of work and Alchemy supplies worth 10gp to replace this capacitor once its charges or lifespan is exhausted.
Runeplates: Accuracy (1), Corruption (2), Flame (2)
Accuracy: As part of an attack, you can expend 1 charge of the item’s capacitor to gain advantage on the attack roll.
Corruption: As part of an attack, you can expend 2 charges of the item’s capacitor to deal an additional 2d8 acid damage.
Flame: As part of an attack, you can expend 2 charges of the item’s capacitor to deal an additional 1d8 fire damage. A creature hit by this attack takes an additional 1d4 fire damage at the start of each of its turns. The creature can use its action to make a DC 10 Dexterity check, extinguishing the flames and ending the additional damage on a success.
Each time my character attacks with this weapon, I can choose to power the Accuracy, Corruption, and/or Flame plates. I can also choose to not activate any of the plates, which will cost none of my charge. I can’t charge both the Flame and Corruption plates at the same time because that would require 4 energy, so I would need a capacitor with a higher power output to do so. I can, however, activate the Accuracy and either the Corruption or the Flame plates, maxing out the power output of my capacitor. Each time I use a runeplate, it deducts a number of charges, as stated in the rule. Once all my charges are used up, I will have to replace the alchemical materials that empower my mechanika. Alchemical Capacitors are easy to replace, but more powerful capacitors require a great deal more time and money to replace. The grand total price and time required to produce this item is 760gp and 5 weeks to make the runeplate.
There you have it: a taste of mechanika!
The Requiem Kickstarter is still live for a few more days, so if you want to get involved in our 5e compatible Iron Kingdoms Roleplaying Game, now’s the time to check it out!
