Chapter 1: Destiny of Steam and Steel - Part I: Neddirpik

Forum for online DragonMech game "Destiny of Steam and Steel."

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Charke
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Chapter 1: Destiny of Steam and Steel - Part I: Neddirpik

Post by Charke »

Destiny of Steam and Steel

Image

The Clock
Tick tock. Time moves a little bit forward. A small gear turns a cog that spins a lever turning a smaller gear syncro-meshed with a much larger gear with hundreds of tiny teeth. Brass. Steel. Silver. A long coiled spring. Things move. They click and whir. There is a dusty smell and the faint hint of oil, in thick black globs congealing around edges, squished out by the teeth of the gears.

Its just a clock.

Pan back. Take a look at the old wooden clock, carefully kept and restored to working order by the Captain. The little round glass window has been recently cleaned. The three hands are clear behind the invisible class. The clock is almost six feet high and sits on a little circle of carpet, up against a metal, rivet studded wall. Thick hemp ropes hold the clock in place. The room lurches.

There is a chair secured to the floor which can slide in and out under a wooden desk. Beside, immediately beside, the desk and the clock is a short bed, unmade. The pillow would fall onto the floor, if there were room. The room is less than ten feet by ten feet. A heavy iron door, showing hints of rust is the only exit. Luckily the door opens outwards or precious room would have to be cleared simply to enter and leave.

The Corridor
The Corridor The corridor beyond is tight. Two men could pass if they turned sideways, and not at all between the bulkheads. The walls, the floor, the ceiling are metal. It is like a mechanics version of the minotaur's labyrinth. Clean. Painted gray, or white. Functional. An axe and rolled up hose connected to a pipe make one corridor narrower. Heat radiates from the pipe but hot water puts out fires just as well as cold —and there is hot water pumping through every inch of this structure, this machine.

Pan back beyond the many narrow corridors. See the steam pipes grow larger and feed a myriad of gadgets, devices, weapons and even the fans that circulate the air. Look at the giant furnace, a furnace you could fit a village in, and watch it consume wood and coal. Pan down at the gear forest, a sea of spinning gears, each larger than the entire clock but serving almost the same purpose. Steam pouring down, enhanced by gravity, pushes leavers which push cranks which turn the largest of the gears, which turn smaller gears which turn levers, which spin hundreds of attached gears which work their way back up the mech sending power to every inch of the machine. It is a think of genius and beauty.

The Gear Forest
Someone once asked why the gear forest was in the legs instead of the torso. The answer exists only in part now. Scan out through a dirty yellowed glass window. There is a barren hill, brown and rocky. A dry creak bed drops over a short cliff, only a few meters high. There is a smashed wooden building with a large shattered water wheel that once spun as the water cascaded down over the waterfall. The image moves by. The mech moves forward.

The gears spin. Pistons pump. Legs the size and groves of ancient trees move. Children hold their breath. They try to keep from breathing from the time on of the great legs leaves the ground until it comes down again. Some will not be able to do it. A rock, a boulder, shatters as the great foot comes down.

The Bridge
Up. Past the legs, through the furnace burning with a heat that melts iron to butter, up into the inhabited areas, back into the narrow painted corridors. A crew sits in a command room with controls and windows looking out in front and using mirrors to see below, beside and behind. The captain drinks his tea out of an old tea cup, something created on the surface in the time before now.

Levels above him, above the crew wielding a steel plate into place, above the stow away trying to get into a food locker, is the roof. It is a roof like the back of a whale, covered in barnacles. Steel tents, wood buildings, cardboard homes. This is a shanty town. Here and there are a few proper structures, more near the front of the mech. Further to the rear is all smoke and oil from several gigantic pipes sticking up from the back of the mech. The roof is the most open part of the mech but also the dirtiest and smelliest.

Even here it is not quiet. There is the roar of the furnace, the bubble of water and hiss of steam. Fans drone on, barely able to provide enough air to breath in the deeper sections of the mech. It is always hot and loud, worse in combat when the vents and windows are ordered closed and sealed.

The Arms
The arms are gun barrels and vise-like hands with the smallest of access tunnels, storage closets and other necessities including an access way for those rare times this goliath encounters a docking port a hundred feet off the ground. Few remain in the arms for very long. If the weapons fire, those in the arm are pounded by the vibrations.

Look beyond the mech. Look at a forest burned to the ground, the earth black and scorched. A dry lake, only stones and clay. Brown. Black. Grey. No green in sight, even from the vantage point high atop the colossal mech slowly lumbering across the wasted landscape. A trail of black smoke slowly drifting upwards and slight impression of feet the size of building foundations mark the passage of the machine across the dead planet.

The sun is a dot in the sky beating down heat and light. Dominating the otherwise clear blue sky is the hulking white moon, many times too big, many times too close. It looks as though it is ready to fall out of the sky. It is.

Lunar Rain
Lunar rain, rock, gravel and hate, fall from the sky. It pounds on the enormous steel machine harmlessly. A shanty house is crushed but the occupants were wise enough to be under real cover. It is not much of a storm. It is barely noticed. Someone writes it in the log, an order send down long ago to record the occurrences in case a pattern can be found.

This is Nedderpik, a city mech, and the last hope for all living things on this muddy little dust ball of a world.

Chicken Little was right. The sky fell. It fell and fell and fell. It fell until the forests were destroyed and the seas were gray with dust. It fell until every living thing either died or moved underground. Only the unlucky, the insane and the brave remained on the surface. Most of them perished. Cities were destroyed.

Then it got worse. The invasion began. The lunar creatures arrived, white skinned beasts of different shapes and killing efficiency with vein-pulsing skin. The construction of mechs heralded the end of the retreat. There was little further to go. The denizens of the underworld moved a little deeper as the survivors moved underground and every cave became occupied.

A mech allowed a pilot to fight a lunar dragon with a hope of victory. Society slowly crept out of the underground. It was a simple idea—build a mech so big no lunar creature could challenge it. The first one took countless hours and effort to build.

Citymechs
The citymechs do two things. It gives people a place to live on the surface, smelly and oily as it is, that can move around and is virtually immune to the lunar rain and attacks of the lunar creatures. It also provides a weapon that has cleared entire treks of land of the lunar menace so that society can start rebuilding.

Welcome to the world of steam and steel. Welcome to DragonMech.

MCDM
Last edited by Charke on Thu Jun 30, 2005 11:09 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Charke
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Post by Charke »

Destiny of Steam and Steel
Those Aboard Nedderpik

Gerald
It was called an accident. It left Gerald in a bed, his spine broken and pelvis shattered. They had to amputate most of his legs when gangrene set in. Not enough circulation they said. A cannon barrel had slipped out of its sling and dropped a hundred feet before hitting him. Someone had yelled a warning, giving Gerald just enough time to look up and see it.

Sure, he was part of the worker’s guild. They would pay him a little money. He would be able to eat and lie in bed for the rest of his life. His arms were not working properly. The surgeon said it was something to do with the damage to the spine. Even though it was in the lower back it was affecting his arms, and ability to speak.

Agony was the word for it. Not the treatments. Not lying in bed. No. He made his own agony. Gerald had been a coglayer of considerable skill, passed over and ignored. Now he could barely hold a wrench steady. With two malfunctioning hands he rebuilt a steam engine. It took him months. It cost him every cent he had to get a surgeon to implant it in his back, grafting it to his spine. His wife left him when she found out what he had done.

He “borrowed” an automator from work. It had been intended for a cannon. He rewired it. He put himself in debt paying a surgeon to implant it. He rewired his arms, removing damaged nerves with tiny wires. It was not perfect but it worked. He wrote down the designs for the rebuilt automator and sold them to the guild. That paid off his debts and funded his new legs.

They were piston driven, black powdered steel. He could leap ten feet off the ground with them. He could run like a horse and he never needed to stop. The fact that his friends never came around and he was not welcome in the local bar anymore did not bother him. He replaced his spine next. It was having trouble supporting the weight of the steel steam engine.

Gerald found his way aboard Nedderpik where the staff eagerly hired him for maintenance. He found himself working alone for long hours in the bowls of the city mech. That suited him fine. The constant chug and belching smoke from his back did little to earn him friends. He ate alone and started talking to the mech and continued to build new devices. When it started talking back, perhaps he should have been worried.

Gerald sits on the boarder between abandoning his humanity. He is almost half machine. He depends on steam powered devices to move. He has no friends and works alone. Sometimes he wonders why he should retain his flesh at all. He has not given up though. He wears a long black robe to conceal his mechanical legs and help disguise his clanking steam engine. He is even working on a smaller quieter steam engine but he can not afford to have it implanted yet. He hopes it will allow him to blend in better so he can socialize again. It is the only thing that prevents him from turning down the path of the assimilated.

Gerald does good work and if the crew aboard Nedderpik knew what kind of mental turmoil he was in they would try help him. They know he spends too much time alone but they are disturbed by his presence. It is easy enough to ignore the problem for now.

MCDM
Last edited by Charke on Mon Jun 27, 2005 2:25 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Charke
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Post by Charke »

Destiny of Steam and Steel
Those Aboard Nedderpik

Image

Left Hook
Not all mechs are a good idea. Many mechs are built by independant builders. Often these are coglayers who build a mech for themselves on the side funding it with pay working on a major organization's projects.

The left hook is a classic example. It was constructed by the little known coglayer Splack Smith, named after the sound of dripping oil. He worked on Nidderpick during it's construction and for many years after as a member of its crew where he remains until this day.

Left Hook was a fairly crude steam mech, with a steam cannon in it's left arm and no discernable right arm. Instead much of the steam engine is in the left arm's location to balance the weapon in the right arm. Splack also installed living quarters in this "left arm" area. He planned to shuttle people from city to city, dignitaries and the wealthy, and make money that way. Unfortunately the living quarters are too hot and smokey because of their proximity to the boiler. When the steam cannon fires, the mech comes to a full stop. It can not fire and move at the same time.

Splack went well into debt to pay for his mech and it's absolute disaster as a ferry means it provides him with no income. Until he repairs the problems with the steam cannon it is useless as a combat unit so he can not even hire out as a mercinary. Splack is bitter but determined and this makes him one of the hardest working crew members on Nidderpik, taking double and tripple shifts when he can to pay off his debts sooner and get his mech up and running.

If he can make a little extra by leaving a portal open for something, looking the other way or causing a malfunction here and there he is open to these ideas if it will not unduly risk his job.

Splack is in great shape, always covered in grease and oil but his constant work keens him lean and strong. He is disgusted with steamborgs and could not imagine why someone who do that to themselves. He avoids them whenever possible. He has a common sense fear of their capabilities, but he is much more afraid one will knock him out and he will wake up as they are, with artificial parts and a steam engine stuck in his back, grafted to his spine which he must carry around until the end of his days.

Splack Smith
Coglayer 3, Mech Jockey 1: CR 4; Medium-size humanoid (human); HD 5+3d4+3; hp 16; Init +7; Spd 30 ft.; AC 16, touch 13, flat footed: 13; Base Atk +3; Mech Atk +1; Grp +2; Atk +4 melee (1d4+1 19-20/x2, dagger) or Atk +4 ranged (1d4-1 19-20/x2, dagger); SA —; SQ Machine empathy, Exotic Weapon Proficiency, Mech Weapon Proficiency, integrated parts, 6 steam parts, Extraordinary pilot, mech fingers-warrior instinct, hand speed; AL N; SV F+2, R+6, W+4; Str: 13, Dex 16, Con 13, Int: 14, Wis: 12, Cha: 10.

Skills and Feats: Climb +3, Craft (blacksmith) +9, Craft (mechcraft) +9, Disable Device +9, Knowledge (arcana) +9, Knowledge (local) +9, Knowledge (mechs) +9, Knowledge (Steam Engines) +9, Listen +8, Mech Pilot +11, Spot +4; Mechwalker, Quickdraw, Weapon Finesse, Power Attack, Improved Initiative

Possessions: Pilot’s armor, short sword, Left Hook.

MCDM
Charke
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Post by Charke »

MCDM
Last edited by Charke on Tue Jun 28, 2005 11:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Charke
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Post by Charke »

Destiny of Steam and Steel
Just Visiting

Image

http://www.charke.ca/DSS/mohican2.mid

The Hammer
A magical gate opens. It shimmers violet colors for a few moments and then explodes into flame. A single figure stumbles through collapsing into the sand to put himself out. He wears burned rags and carries a broken and bloodied sword. He spits blood and supports himself looking around at the baren, lunar devastated terrain.

"Not much of an improvement." He mutters.

One such as this does not die from burns in the desert wastelands. He walks across them for days, taking shelter in caves and under rocks when the sky reaches down and pounds the ground.

His first battle is against a thing he does not recognize, a white lunar creature trying to eat him. The little bit of a blade flashes in the half light and white turns red. Something dies. Someone lives.

When finally he is lost he holds up the shattered blade and wispers words of prayer. Just the faintest of tuggings leads him on. He arrives at a dwarven stronghold and beholds the mech guarding the gates. He laughs.

"Beautiful."

For six months the man with the broken sword works with the dwarves. His skills are revealed, and paid for. He is a healer, a smith and a mechanic unfamiliar with steam power. Now he is a mech jockey and coglayer working on building his own mech. It is something the dwarves are fascinated with, using techniques and ideas they have not seen before. Often his origin is inquired about but he remains silent.

For an entire month he works with a hammer and steel at the forge, folding and bending metal. Here it is clear he is an artist in metal. The likes of the curved metal blade he slides into a black laquered scabard after that month is unlike anything the dwarves have crafted. For the task of mech building, he humbly accepts advice and assistance.

Hemisphere II is activated for the first time with a hiss of steam and the thrumbing, rumble of massive pistons in it's back quarters. It walks forward on it's first try - an indication of skill and experience in any coglayer. The weapons growl and belch black smoke. With a firery explosion they test-fire. A target explodes. Pistons hiss, gears whirl and the weapon systems reload.

He smiles.

And with that he is gone. What he has shared remains behind, paying for the mech he walks away with. A hard worker, intent on some quest and unwavering in his dedication towards that end, the dwarves call him kin. It is clear he has an affinity for metal. The heavy warhammer he carries at his side, the symbol of his faith, further ingraciates him with the dwarves for now they are certain he worships the dwarven gods. For this they call him the Hammer. They are sorry to see him go but not a one would stop him.

MCDM
Last edited by Charke on Tue Jul 05, 2005 11:10 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Charke
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Post by Charke »

Desinty of Steam and Steel
The Bad Guy

http://www.charke.ca/DSS/tales.mid

Not all villians start out with a dramatic, tragically heroic begining. Some just fall down a flight of stairs, bang their head and land face first in a pool of grease and lay their until they are dead. That is what this one did.

It gets worse. I mean it had to get worse. A dead villian who died in a comical way is hardly the sort of career building adversary you all need - right? So here is where his sorry story continues.

Our dead villian was never found. This is mostly because the mech lurched and his corpse slid across the floor on the grease and he ended up in a set of gears which reduced him to goo. The only person who ever noticed he was missing was his boss, a rather greedy and overweight dwarf who was happy that he did not have to pay the guy and never asked why.

And so our villian greased the cogs of Neddirpik for some odd number of years until someone dropped an intelligent ring into the mix and it was ground into a find gold powered and our villian became an intellgent ooze, who spent some more years grinding around until he figured out how to move.

Sanity? Yeah, well that's gone. This guy is on one of those killing sprees where, like a moron, you realize you did not bring a gun or bullets but he has lots of hate. Oozes really are not that dangerous though. So the golden ooze left Neddirpik vowing to return and destroy the mech.

That was a while back. Have ooze, will travel and on his return visit the black oily ooze with gold flecks crawled up the side of Neddirpik and simply made his way into the first openning. And, why yes, this is the very same mech all you good (good?) folks will be starting out on in the next post. Wait for it. (No, not don't really, I'm going to bed.)

MCDM
Last edited by Charke on Tue Jul 05, 2005 11:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Charke
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Post by Charke »

Destiny of Steam and Steel
Enter the Heroes

http://www.charke.ca/Music/superman.mid

You are ushered aboard with a minimum of fuss. No, you can not cause trouble until you have at least begun the game and everyone starts with a more, or less, clean slate. You can dirty it up fast enough as you go along. So here you are on the mech.

You get one room. You'll only have to share it with five other poor sods who booked passage. There is a single washroom and you are reminded that you are lucky to get it! Not all the common rooms have a washroom. Now, by "common room" I mean pretty darned common.

You get a bed. It's about a foot and a half wide. Don't roll around in your sleep. There is about two feet between your bed and the next bed. Since the room is six feet wide feet wide this works out great! And the beds are bunks. The fellow on top does not have enough room to sit up unless he is a tiny little guy so take dibs while you can!

There is a third bunk shoved in behind the other two. It is harder to get out of the rear bunk but it allows six people to sleep in the room. The room is about 8 feet deep so there is a little give an take on moving the bunks. The beds all fold up to make a little more room but since all your gear goes under the bottem bunks, in footlockers secured to the floor, only lifting the top bunks really adds any room.

Why are you here? Adventure! - or some other twisted motive. Don't worry. The adventure will hit you like a wave you can ride or dive off of.

Places of Interest
If you have a mech you can travel down into Neddirpik's legs to the mech hangers where your mech will be stored.

There is a common/market area which is one of the largest internal areas. You can buy pretty much whatever you need here, including food and clothing and the basics. Cooking is done over steam heated pipes.

The shanty town on the top has fairly easy access. If the wind is blowing right it's a chance to get a breath of fresh air, but it is loud and usually smoke covered.

The military and crew are always hiring and you can find their office in the upper levels near the command deck.

You can go exploring the dark corridors until you get really lost but that isn't a brilliant thing to do, just an option.

There is a coglayers "guild" of sorts. It is a group of coglayers that use a relatively large area to work on designs and build stuff. They get such a large area because they repair and maintain a number of steam powers on board.

MCDM

PS: This is the main thread for the game until Chapter 2. Go ahead and start posting your character's actions here once you have posted a character!
Orin
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Post by Orin »

After spending the appropriate amount of time maintaining his steam powers, Glod asks Alpha Romeo if he'd be interested in visiting the Coglayer's guild. Coglayers like to share and show off new steampowers and we might learn something that we don't already know.

Glod also takes one of the bottom bunks.



(edited to third person from first)
Last edited by Orin on Sun Jul 03, 2005 6:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Alfa Romeo
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Post by Alfa Romeo »

Alfa, sat at the workbench having just finished going over his most recent invention, the elastic-self-articulating-upper-torso-mounted-bolt-launcher, to an untrained eye it may have looked like the end result of a crossbow mating with a mech-wreck, but to him it was a weapon of unspeakable power, or at least unspeakable expence. everything was in working order, save for the fact that he couldn't come up with a reliable targeting definition for the discriminator, but that could wait.

Leaning against the workbench was Alfa boomstick, the super-extream-pressure-anti-material-rifle Mk2 (handheld model), which had already passed his rigourous inspection. There was some minor pitting in the barrel from firing non-standard amunition, but it wasn't enough to warrent replacing the barrel yet.

Having nothing better to do Alfa began to wounder what would happen if he loaded his steamguns water tank with ale. Luckily someone with a less suicidal plan entered the room, It was Glod.
"hey, want to check out the gearwright's guild"
"well... i WAS just about to blow myself up, but sure"
Last edited by Alfa Romeo on Sun Jul 03, 2005 10:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Orin
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Post by Orin »

Before heading out the door, Glod asks Alfa if he remembers what was said when he came on board about the etiquette of carrying weapons around Nedderpik. Glod was so excited when he finally arrived on the CityMech (it being a lifelong dream of his to travel on one and perhaps even examine some of the technology) that he only heard every third word the embarkation official said.

Glod suggests that on our way to the gearwrights/coglayers we should also visit the military office near the command deck to get whatever licenses are necessary for our gear so that we don't put anyone's nose out of joint.
Alfa Romeo
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Post by Alfa Romeo »

"Hah! It's a good thing i don't carry weapons then! What? No that's not a steam gun, it's a ummm... hole puncher, punches holes in steel, now sometimes there are people behind the steel, but that's no reason to deny a tool it's purpose, now is it?"

"But you have a point, those military types, can't tell a boiler from a blade of grass. no doubt they can't appriciate the finess it requires to operate our tools, "Oh you can crack someones head with that, thats a weapon, give it here". may as well humour them."
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Post by Reese »

The door whips open, and a black haired gnome of average height, wearing simple clothes and a leather apron from which jangling tools dangle, darts into the room and slams the door as quietly as possible behind him. He leans against the door as the sound of running feet becomes louder and then softer as what sounds like a small number of people run past the recently closed door. As the sound of feet fades, the gnome breaths a sigh of relief and looks around the small room to which he has been assigned.

"Whew, you'd not think someone would get bent out of shape that i got the wrong room number." And how was I to know there's be a bathing lady in there, Ralnor thinks. It's not like i stared for more than a couple minutes, he shouldn't have taken offence at me seeing her. A grin streaks accross Ralnor's face as he throws his pack onto the left upper bunk.

(OOC: um, work bench in the room? I would have thought the quarters would be a bit cramped for anything more than the beds and washroom described... you two in the room or some work-space?)
Namfoodle "Sparklediver" Raulnor
{Wounds -12; HP = 11/23}
Charke
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Post by Charke »

Desinty of Steam and Steel
Walking around Nidderpik

http://www.charke.ca/DSS/UU01.MID

By "workbench" Alfa means he lifted up his bunkbed and is working, hunched down, on top of the two footlockers under it.

Rules of Engagement
Five minutes and ten corridors later you meet a big dwarf who is a member of the Nidderpik militia. He wears the traditional blue uniform and sports a couple of shortswords and a hand-steam cannon, thick with steam cables to a protable steam engine on his belt.

"Well hello. The rules for ordinance are quite simple - nothing big enough to damage the mech. I'm afraid that steam rifle, cough, cannon will have to be returned to your room or stored in our armory. Hand held weapons and blades are allowed. There are no restrictions on blades but you will find that larger weapons are quite useless in most areas."

"We can revoke your weapons privilages at a moment's notice. I think you are all smart enough to figure out what sort of things will cause that."

The Gearwright's Guild
Ten minutes and many dark narrow, low corridor's later and you find and poorly light area many times the size of your room. It is full of various odds and ends of equipment and a number of steam engines. It smells funny and there is a constant his of steam and chugg of machinery.

One overweight dwarf with double lens glasses bars the way into the guild. He does not look like he could fight he way out of a cardboard box but that device on his belt might help. It looks something like a taser.

"Hello there. My name is Twiddle. They call me that cause I twiddle my thumbs when I'm thinking and I do a lot of thinking. This is the gearrights. You are welcome to come in if you can show me you know something about engineering and you pay our membership fee. Its a gold peice every month. That goes towards drinks, tools and renting the room."

While you are talking a hunched over shape passes by the end of the corridor you are in. It moves with a limp and a draging shuffle and there is a lot of smoke as it passes by. It is too noisy to tell if the person (?) was carrying some kind of steam engine or not. Probably by the amount of smoke. He paused for just a moment to look your way and then kept going about his business.

One of the pipes above your heads moves. This is probably an indication that there is someone walking around above you. You can not hear anything because of the noisy area you are in. It is odd because the floor above you should be very solid. The floor should be inch thick steel mesh.

Finally you can smell warm baking cookies. With the cold steel around you, the stink of sweat and steam and grease, it is about the only nice smell. Even the warm cooky smell vanishes for a moment when an oiling can spills onto a steam pipe and oil bubles off the pipe for a moment giving off a thick black tar smoke.

Bad Guys
Grip was none too bright for a cogling. He was caught at a young age. He had no skills of any value but he was a hard worker. He would work at a task until he dropped from exhaustion and it was the only thing that kept him on Nidderpik. He was never much appreciated however and lived a miserable life.

That was until Goy showed up and promised him a better future. That sounded good to Grip. He attended a few meetings and soon was a loyal part of Goy's congregation. They said nice things to each other and everyone was made to feel they belong. Grip liked that. Grip likes Goy.

When Grip was asked to bring things to the meetings he did. When he got in trouble he did not talk. Everyone thought he was too stupid to steal stuff so he did not stay in trouble long anyways. When Goy asked Grip to take a wrench and hit another man over the head with it, Grip did as he was asked. Grip likes Goy. Goy knows what to do.

Things keep getting better and better for Grip. Now he has a small steam powered cannon. It has one button. Grip had to practise aiming it but he is sure he can do there job. He just has to push the button. He also has to point it at the man in the blue clothing. He reminds himself of that over and over as he walks through the corridors.

MCDM
Last edited by Charke on Tue Jul 05, 2005 2:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Orin
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Post by Orin »

Glod travells with the militia Dwarf and checks his improved steam-gun into the armory, being quite careful to ensure that he gets the appropriate receipts to get it back.

When Glod arrives at the Gearwright's guild and has listened to Twiddle's introduction, he shyly presents his looks and maps steam power to the coglayer for his opinion. It perhaps will also establish his bona fides.
Alfa Romeo
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Post by Alfa Romeo »

(OOC 1st off my name is Alfa, not 'Alpha' or 'Alfi', seccond I was using someone else's bunk for my workstation (the 6th player is gonna be sleeping on a grease matteress).

Having listened to the militia man's instructions on where to store high yeald ordinance Alfa decided it would be best to keep his "steam cannon" in his quarters. "heh, it looks like they may know a thing or two about mass and velocity, but better keep it somewhere where they can't accidently set it off".

Alfa made it to the gearwright's guild just in time to hear something about free drinks for a single gold piece a month.
"what's this? gears and guinness, sign me up!"
Cas
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Post by Cas »

Cas was walking around exploring this amazing piece of metal wonder when he happened upon three dwarfs standing in front of a door and stopped to listen to the one speaking. As the dwarf talked, Cas noticed a strange figure walk past him and took a closer look to try and discern what it was (spot 27). After the figure walked by Cas, he retuned his attention to the dwarfs. The one that had been talking seemed to have finished and one of the dwarfs seemed to be showing Twiddle something Cas couldn’t see. He decided to approach the dwarfs and see if they would be friendly, Cas has never before his arrival on this mech encountered a dwarf, and has yet to have had a conversation with one. As he approached the dwarfs he bowed timidly “Greetings master dwarfs… I am Cassius Black… I overheard what you were saying and I’m interested to see what steam powered wonders lie beyond those doors.” Cas held his breath, nervous to see what the dwarfs reactions would be…
Orin
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Post by Orin »

Glod shyly responds "Aye, but one of us is a gnome, not a dwarf."
Cas
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Post by Cas »

(OCC: I dont think the gnome is there yet and on you char sheet it says that you and Alfa are dwarfs)
Reese
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Post by Reese »

(OOC: true, that, i'm in the common room, and the dwarf overseerer you guys are talking with makes 3)

Namfoodle Climbs up after his pack and sits on the bunk. "I may as well lay low for a while, i'm sure they'll forget about me soon enough. Travel is always so exhausting." He curls up on the bed and takes a light nap.

(OOC: *in response to below* so long as it wasn't the mushrooms with little doors and windows in... and warn me if you start seeing any boxes on hundreds of little legs)
Last edited by Reese on Tue Jul 05, 2005 2:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Namfoodle "Sparklediver" Raulnor
{Wounds -12; HP = 11/23}
Orin
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Post by Orin »

Glod looks confused for a moment "At least I thought one of us was a gnome. Such worry. such confusion."
Alfa Romeo
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Post by Alfa Romeo »

"Who's a dwarf, who's a gnome? everyone looks the same when you're drunk"
Alfa flips twiddle a gold piece.
"here's my membership, now where has your ale gotten to?"
Cas
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Post by Cas »

Cas looked at the dwarf with new eyes, what his father had told him about dwarfs was definately not true. Holding out a gold piece for twiddle Cas asks "Please master dwarf, may I also be permited to enter?"
Charke
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Post by Charke »

Destiny of Steam and Steel
Coglayers

http://www.charke.ca/DSS/zorbas_2.mid

Glod receives one token of ownership for his improved steam-gun. They also take your picture and keep it on file for identification. You should never have any trouble getting the weapon back unless a shapeshifter steals it.

Cas sees a steamborg. It is not obvious at first. It looks like a man carrying around one of a hundred different steam powered devices. Then he turns and you can see that the steam engine is grafted into his back. There are still stitch scars around the edges of the steam engine in the pale skin.

Alfa: A mattress, even the hard lumpy,sweat stinking, ones you are using are not servicable as a work area. You require a hard surface.
If you are keeping your steam cannon in your room, I suggest buying a lock for your footlocker. The footlocker is sturdy enough and the room has a lock, but you all have keys.

Gearwrights
Twiddle laughs. "Gnome, dwarf, we all fart and work metal."

Tiddle catches the coin and rolls it through skilled fingers, testing the authenticity of the coin by its weight. "We work and then we play. Beer is at closing time and it certainly ain't here. We've got a little joint down the way that we call our own."

Twiddle also takes Cas's coin. "Sure come on in. Heck you can all come in. Pay now or latter. Now for the beer, later if you're just comming in."

A Lady in the Shower
http://www.charke.ca/DSS/back.mid

"And stay the hell out!" Lurn hisses, slaming the heavy steel door.

(The game just went PG 13)

"Backwards, medival, grease-head anyway."

She picks up a white ball that goes liquid and flows over her hand forming a white glove. It grows and stretches until her feet are covered in a pair of heavy white boots. She looks at the water sitting on the floor, left over from the shower and her run to the door and concentrates. Just for a moment her eyes turn red and the water boils off the floor.

She sighs. "I wonder if he is here."

Hammer
http://www.charke.ca/DSS/mohican2.mid

Some people are broken. No matter how strong or wise they get it is a trait that anyone who is aware can see in them. It is a burden some bear, a cost for something they did. There is such a man here in the gearwrights guild. He holds a hammer with the skill of an ancient master, one whose talents have long been lost, the last of his kind.

He wears a grey bandana to keep his long dark hair out of his eyes as he works. He has a widows peak, white hair at the front of his hair line. It makes him look older that perhaps he should. He does not look up when you arrive and continues to straighten a warped peice of metal. As skilled warriors, tradesmen and spellcasters you recognize in him skill, too much to just ignore others with considerable skill.

There is something almost divine about him. His shoulders are bowed but he looks like he carries some unimaginable weight. Perhaps he has killed more men than one can count in a lifetime. But that can not be it. This is a man other men would worship, if he asked. But his man, this broken man would never ask.

A Bad Cogling
http://www.charke.ca/DSS/tales.mid

"I'm no idiot." Mutters Grip. "I better test this peice of junk first."

He begins searching for some unsuspecting fool on their own he can blast with his steam cannon.

"Goy will be happy with me!"

The Mech Stops
Nidderpick grinds to a halt. It gives everyone land sickness. They are used to the constant motion of the mech. For those recently on board it might be a relief but everyone else feels safer and more familiar when their fortress is moving.

MCDM
Orin
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Post by Orin »

Glod pays his membership due to Twiddle and scouts out the other Coglayers, looking for new and unusual steam powers. Being rather shy, he prefers to watch. He won't start speaking unless another coglayer engages him in conversation. This doesn't stop him from grunting appreciatively when he sees something impressive.
Alfa Romeo
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Post by Alfa Romeo »

Alfa wanders around the guild with Glod, frequently remarking on the equipment other coglayers are tinkering with, however, he is gradually pulled towards the heavy weaponry, as if they generated their own gravity*.

*EDIT: by that i mean enough gravity to affect an average dwarf, rather that the micro-gravity tht they already produce.
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