Monday, July 21, 2014

War Machines of the Toxic Wastes

There is a vast desert, a creation of the Great Wars, where ancient, giant war machines decay into the poison dust. Limbs rust-ravaged and twisted; ichor clotted in their arteries, they look dead. Their energies are long spent, but the machines aren't dead. A power source can awaken them from their millennia-long slumber. They once ran on energy distilled from the bones of gods, but the machines are versatile. Even blood will do.


The cults that worship them with sacrifices and the sorcerer's that seek to control them agree the machines can be made to serve, but all if the proper incantations, called "command codes" are uttered. Even knowing the proper incantations, commanding an ancient war machine is not without it's perils. The spells of the ancients that bond them to service have faded over time, and the war machines have become more willful, if no less violent.

[Hey, kids! Want to randomly generate your own giant war machines? Just use Jack Shear's Random Automaton Generator and embiggen the damage on account of giantness. Also, you might want to replace the "humanoid" rolls on the chart with some of the other body shapes suggested in the comments.]

6 comments:

Gothridge Manor said...

I wish my iPod worked like that. Well, without the giant death machine aspect.

Trey said...

@Tim - Oh, do they not have that option on AT&T?

Chris C. said...

Unlike Tim, I wish my iPod worked like that with the giant death machine aspect.

Anonymous said...

I thought this was a good example of what can go wrong when you jailbreak your Android.

Also sounds a bit like new material for Carcosa.

Trey said...

Not so much new material for Carcosa, but it could certainly be used that way. This is more my idea of what I would expect Carcosa to be like if it explicitly had the stuff people attribute to it.

Canageek said...

This reminds me of Keith Laumer's excellent Bolo books, several of which star Bolos that have been long buried underground getting accidentally exposed to power (They could recharge from a number of sources through their armour) and waking up.