Get your own Free Home PageHistorical Background:
The following adventure background is based largely on a weird combination of Mayan history, computer science, and steam punk fiction. As such, some research into these areas may be needed to use the idea to its fullest extent.According to many modern theories, Mayan civilisation collapsed after a change in the traditional style of warfare. During the height of Dos Pillas, Copan, and the other Yucatan cities, the Mayans stopped practising the RITUALISTIC form of battle in which the king and a handful of his best warriors would fight a ritualistic battle at a predetermined time and place. The losers would then offer a number of people to the opposing side as slaves. This ensured a minimum of loss of life on both sides, and the civilian population would be spared the ravages of war.
Historically, this changed and the powerful cities would slaughter huge numbers of their enemies, attacking civil centres directly, no longer taking hostages.
The adventure:
One of the modron Orders has had its kernel corrupted, and the integrity of its program has been compromised. This order no longer possesses the set of restrictions on their actions in the continuing Modron Wars. This lack of ritualistic tendencies has begun to have dire effects in one part of Mechanus and is quickly spreading.Instead of just assimilating the opposing order's modrons, the "degenerate" order has begun fullscale slaughter. After dismembering the vanquished modrons, the "Degenerates" scavenge their parts and use them to augment their own forms, in addition to great new partially organic demi-modron entities. These warped modrons lack the clear lines, and orderly outward appearance of their brethren.
Worst of all, the current modron Orders are incapable of doing anything to stop them. Every effort they take just adds to the numbers of their opponents. The Orderly Mechanus we all know and love is changing into a smooth runing machine which threatens to crush any interloper in its impersonal gears.
"Since soul cannot fend off the sins of the flesh, grace can be regained through its denial."The Flesh Mongers are a group of planars who have developed a macabre fascination with the links between the body and sin. They have taken it to be the case that the body is corruption, and that the soul must be cleansed through its denial. Living in the clockwork wastes of Mechanus, this sect found the answer to its prayers.
The Flesh Mongers actively replace their organic bodies with mechanical
devices, maintaining only the minimal amount of their original bodies
as possible. At low levels they resemble humans having only a limb
or two replaced with implants. At higher levels they gain in both size
and weight as they replace compact organs with giant devices. The leader
of the Flesh Mongers has reached the size of a small castle, which travels
across the churning gears of Mechanus on giant treds. His blood flows
through tubes on the walls, as he has nerves throughout his new form.
Silicaton is not only the sect's founder, leader, but also headquarters.
The Flesh Mongers got their name from the sale of their own body parts. In part to pay for the elaborate surgeries required, and partly because of their beliefs... Selling their bodies for the sake of their souls.
Benefits: When in close proximity all Flesh Mongers share a common set of senses. This allows them to act as one single unit as Modrons do.Hindrances: Flesh Mongers lose not only their sanity, but also their identities as they gain experience. As such they cease to exist as individuals at about 10th level. After 5th level they can no longer pass for humans or any other creature for that matter.
© 1996 D. Goehrig
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