I requested a theme for a dungeon from Garamondia, and was given: Machine.
Zywy Island is a small shoulder of rock in the subterminal regions of the archipelago of Zaramirond. Zaramirond is the origin point and spiritual home of brutalism and related philosophies.
Zywy is swept every day by outgoing rains in Spring and Summer, buried every day by ingoing snows in Autumn and Winter. The shoreline is marshy, the heights are rocky, leaning firs fight for life in a narrow strip between them.
The easiest access is taking a boat from the fading manufacturing port of Ulkarina. On the old stone wharfs, lobster pots are stacked high, flanked by coils of blue polymer rope, and the smell of flaking paint and fuel oil. Beton brut furnishes her love to the fisher’s districts, which stand tall, while the delicacies and theatrics of the much-photographed old town slump into the sea.
On clear days, the world’s Boundary becomes semivisible in the east, resulting in severe migraines or even seizures among the unprotected. Luckily, the days are rarely clear. When they are, the people walk head down.
The boat takes you northwest out of the sheltered Karia Sound, onto the whale-roads. Outward from here is the Transkaria Oil Field, middle-aged rigs booming out foghorn calls to distant neighbours, like a herd of reindeer in blizzard.
Then, the island. You have to land on a sodden beach at the south side. The weather-smoothed ruins of a scientific outpost stand here, established to study this place forty years ago, or so. Between now and then politics have been turbulent, and maintenance has slipped.
You can feel the rattling through the gravel of the beach.
Encounter Table - Only begin rolling encounters in room 6 (Machine Womb) and beyond.
A Koule, patrolling the hallways.
1d4 Koule working on repairs to the walls or floor.
A Vrátná, hauling broken Koules and slag out of the Machine Womb, back down towards Ex Nihilo.
The Chirurgyně, curiously investigating the disturbance.
The Chirurgyně, repairing a damaged (1. Koule 2. Vrátná)
The Myslivec, here to kill intruders.
The entrance is guarded by a trio of brick walls, a corrugated roof partially blown off, and a wire-mesh fence gone red with rust. A small iron gate has fallen off its hinges. A little set of signs clustering next to the door say “ATTENTION! TRESPASS IS FORBIDDEN AND PROSECUTABLE” in six languages.
Inside the walls, the rocks and soil pull back from the mouth of a smooth, metallic tunnel.
The lighting inside the machine is provided by a series of cunningly arranged mirrors, and casts long, dark shadows. It smells of mazut, heavy chemicals and metal.
The walls and floors are made of the same resilient, slightly reflective dark-bluish metal, arranged in smooth and organic lines. Doors are huge metal irises, like a camera shutter, with sharp edges. Stairways are smooth metal ramps, almost comically like playground slides. Ceilings are high and ribbed.
The walls and floors of the structure are made of an extremely resilient dark bluish metal unless otherwise stated. Unless
UPPER LEVEL
The Tunnel - There’s a metal iris open at the tunnel-mouth. The tunnel itself is smooth enough to be used as a slide. The end of it is so smoothly continued into the floor of the next room you’d almost think it was designed for such. Deep, scalloped crescents are set in regular pairs on the tunnel’s walls, useful as handholds - though they seem to be designed for far larger hands. There are no tool marks or obvious signs of manufacture in the tunnel
Measuring Station - The tunnel splits in two here - straight-ahead continues unabated down the slide, right goes through an open metal iris doorway. At the relatively flat floor of the junction, various instruments in bulky old-fashioned cases of brown phenolic resin are balanced on bricks. The instruments are powered by a fairly kitbashed and venerable system of cables running deeper into the Machine. Instruments include a Seismograph, Amberometer, Psychograph, Necromonitor and Cosmograph (all 1 slot each, requiring electricity, if you unplug them they’ll each work for an hour). Furthermore, a Rocket-propelled Grenade is leant here against the bricks which support the psychograph, for emergency usage. The RPG is not, except by a very permissive definition, a measuring instrument.
Exhaust - A metal iris door is sealed at the end of this room. It’s 20ft across. The conical shape leads to the floor proceeding downward. The iris can be opened from Controls, or crowbarred open with great difficulty. Beyond the iris is not, as you may expect, a cave, but instead a parahylic space of unclear diameter, mostly full of toxic gas, darkness and vacuum. It rapidly exchanges breathable air for carbon monoxide and other unpleasant substances, rendering this chamber and Measuring Station extremely unpleasant to be in. If the outermost door in the Tunnel is sealed, this can completely remove the Machine’s interior atmosphere.
Launchpad - Metal irises clearly show this room can be sealed on all sides except the entry to the Tunnel. At a command from Controls, fills with hot pressurised gas and fire, launching whatever’s in here out of the mouth of The Tunnel.
Maniples - This room is lit by large mirrored disks reflecting light from the next room. Huge, ten-fingered manipulator claws hang from the organically arched ceiling of this large metal chamber. They are damaged, but continue to sweep back and forth, curiously grasping at metallic materials. If you’re wearing enough metal and aren’t quick, they’ll grab you and try to rip it off you. This can result in you being crushed to death. Standing in the middle of the room, on a hovering disc, is a half-constructed Automach of the so-called Obří form, inactive and lacking its crystalline core. This is lucky, as the Obří are (for those in the know about Automachs) famously dangerous. The floor thrums. The Measuring Station’s power cables run through here.
Machine Womb - Mirrors light the room with reflected light from the Luminance Tunnel. Circular holes in the floor feature scything metal plates that slide in and out with a regularity like breathing. Chemicals and materials from the Reservoir and Foundations are levitated through these holes in time with the plates, forming floating “bubbles” of raw metals and chemicals. A huge, translucent machine, roughly egg-shaped, accepts bubbles of material with an anbaric whine, processing them into beautiful rootlike strands of hot metal, which take shape and cool into the shell of new automachs. However, the machine is malfunctioning - it produces a new form, then becomes unsatisfied with it, breaks it down and starts again, expelling poisonous gases and slag around the room. Once per minute, everyone in the room must save (with CON) or be poisoned and lightly burnt. The circular holes are also perfectly sized to admit the Koule, who never fail to match the timing. The cables powering the instruments run through here.
Signalling - Once apparently above ground. Huge “windows”, multifaceted and multicoloured, can revolve in gigantic brackets, casting a broad array of lights into the igneous cave beyond. The room’s function and form suggests that the machine either possesses a frightening age, or that geographical models start wrong and get wronger.
Remove - Inaccessible except via the aperture in the ceiling of Controls. A huge, spherical chamber of metal, where 10 Koule are always present, hovering in a neat circle. A skeletonised body with destroyed climbing gear and notched bones mars the symmetry. On the body, a wallet with an IBU chequebook to an extant bank account, a picture of a smiling man with his two children, an unused, a membership card for the Ultranor Determination Society (proto-revolutionaries), and an ID card for a Dr. Wei Kuncheng. Also on the body, an unused hand grenade. Overhead, an exit aperture to the surface-level of Zywy Island is blocked by rocks.
The Luminance Tunnel - Huge, smooth tunnel, descends, and widens as it does. At the far side, a circular piece of perfect, bulletproof glass admits searingly bright light from the Core, to enter a complicated series of mirrors and be reflected around the Machine to light the interior. Pulling the phallic lever on the south wall causes the whole array to fold up like a flower, plunging the Machine into darkness. casts from the Core, refracted throughout.
LOWER LEVEL
Parahylic Cavitation - Curiously empty. If you bring the Cosmograph in here it starts going absolutely mental. There is a lever in Control which causes whatever is in this room to vanish.
Funereal Fire - In the centre of this chamber there stands a cylinder of suspended gas which is hot enough to dry the eyes of those entering the room. Dead automachs are dragged here and flung into the flames, to be melted down and have their constituent elements melted down and sent to Ex Nihilo.
Foundation - Huge hexagonal pillars of metals and other solid elements are stacked in a jigsaw. Narrow paths between them exist, and you can scuttle overtop of them due to their irregular heights.
Reservoir - Huge spheres of suspended liquid and cooled gas fill this room like rogue planets. Moving through here is extremely dangerous - you have a chance of simply intersecting with acids, suffocatives, strong alkalines or even flammables - and at least you can see the spheres of liquid. Koule dart agilely through the gaps.
Chemical Processing - This small chamber is full of hovering cylinders, which suck in “rivers” of liquid chemicals from the Reservoir, reacting them in bubbling organs of bulletproof glass. Koule hover around, shoving the cylinders up into the vaults to let them bubble away, or dragging them down to receive chemicals. Two shattered human skeletons in decayed clothing lie on the floor, showing signs of blunt force trauma and acid damage. One has a very decayed handgun tucked into the remains of their leather coat. The handgun is marked with a symbol resembling an animal’s teeth.
Controls - This massive chamber has a ceiling aperture to the Remove. Features a fucking gigantic reclined mechanical throne-chair, which is currently empty. It is shaped as if for a long-limbed human twenty feet in height, who would have to crawl through the Machine’s tunnels like a human going caving. Usually home to the Chirurgyně, hovering with its limbs retracted peacefully - it’ll be here if not yet encountered. If attacked, it will signal to the Myslivec then exit through the ceiling aperture via levitation. All around the throne are gigantic levers, mechanical interfaces and blinking, hovering spheres of hard glass, which together operate the Machine. There is no manual.
Pistons - Hot gas from the core is funneled via invisible forces into glowing hot “rivers” running through the air. The “rivers” terminate in the chambers of these massive, organesque, thrusting pistons, which connect horizontally to the Generator. If you were trying to get to the Generator room without passing the Zamek, you could, if there was no other choice, crawl through the pistons (DEX Check, toss a coin. On a success, you get through. On a failure and a heads, you take 2d6 fire damage from a hot gas river but scuttle through. On a failure and a tails, you are caught in a piston, take 5d6 damage, and are still in the machine next turn - repeat the check if you’re alive.)
Zamek - This chamber is small, with thick doors and little murderholes into the corridor which arches around it. If not yet encountered, this chamber contains the instantly-aggressive Myslivec (it assumes you are here to pass by the tunnels towards the Core, and therefore desires to kill you.) It will try to stab you through the murderholes first of all.
Generator - Gigantic ovoid elements crackling with anbaric energy revolve like giants in sleep above your head. This room is dangerous to pass through if you are made of flesh, because bolts occasionally leap off the generators into the walls and floors with a crack and a whine. All of the Automachs occasionally come here to be struck by the bolts and charge themselves up.
Ex Nihilo - Pure, molten elements are funnelled from the Core through an incomprehensible series of gnashing machines, buzzing anbaric bolts hanging in thin air, swirling spheroids of hot metal and gas held by force hover between metallic formations like stalactites and stalagmites. Produces infinite (for a human timescale) base elements. Extremely valuable, but incomprehensible to humanity. The door at the far end is a massive triple-layered iris.
The Core - This room contains a tiny star. Entering it through the massive door from Ex Nihilo will kill you in a round. The worth of this living star is incalculable.
ITEMS
Seismograph - Drum-shaped, small square mechanical display with an attendant (inactive) paper ticker printer. Detects tremors. Could detect the heavy footfalls of an Automach in the next chamber, also. Has a constant background hum from the Machine’s rumblings.
Amberometer - Has a handle, looks like a bad drawing of a fork. Detects electricity when the contacts are touching something, displaying the amberage via a dial. Also detects ambient electrical surges.
Psychograph - Cubical, capped by a small glass capsule of caligin surrounded by filaments and contacts. Exceedingly fragile. Detects thought within 150ft, displays them in an unclear way via sliding glass beads, a ticker printer and a mechanical display. Constantly going off the charts inside the Machine, but not in a way which even a skilled psychophysicist could make use of.
Necromonitor - Little dish on top. Detects antivitals, displays the nearest antivital presence in a 100ft radius circle with a compass-like pointer-arrow and a dull pinging that increases in rapidity with closeness. Luckily, there are no antivitals on Zywy or inside the Machine.
Cosmograph - Large, cubical, carrying handles. Label on the side says “WARNING: KEEP SEALED. DAHLER BOTTLE WITHIN”. Small ticker printer sits poised. Detects pragmavariance, decausation, reality-foam cavitation, and other things to do with the structure of existence. Knowing what those even are, nevermind reading the instrument, is a specialist skill.
RPG - Point at thing, zzzzew, KABOOM. 4d6* damage to things directly hit, damage explodes outwards, reduced by 1d6* per foot from the detonation. Those expecting it can save for half. Automachs are almost never expecting it.
STATBLOCKS
Koule
1HD (6HP), AC16 (Automach Armour), Morale 11 (Has little concept of retreat.)
Perfect spheres of dull bluish metal, with no visible external markings, either of tool or art. Small circular apertures open to extend complicated mechanical devices from their glowing interior (or just cones of light). Only found within structures akin to the Zywy Machine.
No. Appearing: 1d4 (2d6 inside particularly large ancient machines)
Movement: Slow, persistent hover, accompanied by a subsonic drone.
Senses: No sense of smell or touch, but has 100ft radius “sight” which penetrates everything but the bluish metal of their own construction. They have muted hearing.
Morality: Fussily interested in protecting their “parent” machine, otherwise placid. Machine hierarchy.
Intelligence: Like a cat, except in cases of architectural maintenance, where it far exceeds any human.
Attacks:
Laser, autohit, 1d6 damage. Damage halved by reflective layer, reduced to 0 by perfect mirror.
Strobing - A Koule can use its turn to project a cone of violently strobing light, temporarily blinding anyone in the cone who is facing it. Targets with tinted goggles or a GLAZBLOK helmet are immune.
Automach Armour — Koule are immune to light weaponry of all sorts, and take half damage from anything that isn’t armour piercing, explosive or a laser. Fireproof.
Maintenance — The Koule can lift objects up to 20kg by manipulating physical forces via an unclear mechanism, and can extend machinery that allows for the seamless repair of metal. The Koule can project cones of light about as bright as a halogen bar light and can play holographic recordings of things it has seen.
Luminous Core - Inside the outer metallic layer and mechanical innards, the “mind” of the Koule consists of a glowing, radioactive metallocrystalline tetrahedron. Automach cores are highly valuable for study.
Vrátná
3HD (18HP), AC12 (Automach Armour), Morale 11 (Has little concept of retreat.)
An irregular ovoid body, from which project four heavy, flexible metallic legs, ending in splayed starlike gripping claws. Like the Koule, apertures can open across their ovoid body to project mechanical devices or allow access to their internal cargo chamber.
No. Appearing: 1 (1d4 in large ancient machines, 3d6 in the “herds” of the Cozmai Waste)
Movement: Slow, thunderous walk, stable but unagile. 2-second bursts of levitation accompanied by deafening droning sound.
Senses: No sense of smell or touch, but has 100ft radius “sight” which penetrates everything but the bluish metal of their own construction. They have muted hearing.
Morality: Completely task-focused. Machine hierarchy.
Intelligence: Cattle, save for adeptness at lateral thinking.
Attacks:
Clawed Limb, +2 to hit, 2d6 damage. If either dice shows a 6, target is pinned by the weight of the Automach.
Automach Armour — Vrátná are immune to light weaponry of all sorts, and take half damage from anything that isn’t armour piercing, explosive or a laser. Fireproof.
Cargo Core - The Vrátná has an internal chamber which can store up to 20 slots of equipment in a perfectly environmentally-controlled, anti-entropic environment. The Vrátná can “beam up” weights of up to 500kg via unknown mechanisms, lifting them up into the Cargo Corge or up out of the top of it, above them.
Luminous Core - Inside the outer metallic layer and mechanical innards, the “mind” of the Vrátná consists of a glowing, radioactive metallocrystalline cube. Automach cores are highly valuable for study.
Chirurgyně
4HD (24HP), AC16 (Automach Armour), Morale 3 (Not, by any metric, designed for combat.)
Tall ovoid body, ring of ten slender mechanical leg-arms attached to the bottom. The arms are retractable, and end in precise and delicate “hands” consisting of a ring of five gripping “fingers” and five slender manipulators.
No. Appearing: 1 (per Machine)
Movement: Agile skittering, or slow persistent hover accompanied by a subsonic drone.
Senses: No sense of smell or touch, but has 300ft radius “sight” which penetrates everything but the bluish metal of their own construction. Has extremely keen and selective hearing.
Morality: Curious, pacifistic, reasonable. However, Machine hierarchy.
Intelligence: Superhuman, but lacking language capacity.
Attacks:
Punch, -2, 1d4 blunt damage, shoves target.
Automach Armour — The Chirurgyně is immune to light weaponry of all sorts, and takes half damage from anything that isn’t armour piercing, explosive or a laser. Fireproof.
Medicomechanic - From its “hands” and body, the Chirurgyně can project complicated devices which effect the speedy and efficient repair of fellow Automachs (1d6HP per round of attention). They also have devices for the healing of biological creatures, though this is less consistently effective (1d6-1HP per minute, save vs. illness per five minutes of treatment).
Luminous Core - Inside the outer metallic layer and mechanical innards, the “mind” of the Chirurgyně consists of a glowing, radioactive metallocrystalline dodecahedron. Automach cores are highly valuable for study.
Myslivec
4HD (24HP), AC16 (Automach Armour), Morale 13 (Literal killing machine.)
A large spheroid body, like an overgrown Koule, with two radial bands of six long, exceedingly tough and flexible arms attached to it. Shiny mirror-blue.
No. Appearing: 1 (per Machine)
Movement: Fast, agile three-dimensional flight, accompanied by earsplitting mechanical whine. If necessary, slow but stable walking on its arms.
Senses: No sense of smell or touch, but has 200ft radius “sight” which penetrates everything but the bluish metal of their own construction. Has extremely keen and selective hearing.
Morality: Kills threats to their machine with no compunction. Machine hierarchy.
Intelligence: Extremely high in the areas of pursuit, destruction and bypassing enemy defenses, otherwise nonexistent.
Attacks: 4 attacks, of which at most two can be Lasers.
Laser, autohit, 1d6 damage. Damage halved by reflective layer, reduced to 0 by perfect mirror.
Slashing Claw, +4 to Hit, 2d4+4. A result of 4 on either dice indicates the Myslivec has grappled the target. Double 4s indicates an impalement.
That Goddamn Sound! - When the Myslivec enters the scene, all characters are deafened by its mechanical whine, and must save vs. fear or become disoriented until they spend a round acclimating themselves.
Automach Armour — The Myslivec is immune to light weaponry of all sorts, and takes half damage from anything that isn’t armour piercing or explosive. Fireproof.
Mirror Finish - The Myslivec is immune to lasers.
Luminous Core - Inside the outer metallic layer and mechanical innards, the “mind” of the Myslivec consists of a glowing, radioactive metallocrystalline octahedron. Automach cores are highly valuable for study.