Healthy: Add 1 to the points you regain when you make a recovery roll.
Mechanical Assistance: You gain 4 additional points to your Intellect Pool through the use of implants and tiny processing devices. Enabler.
Stored Memories: You are trained in one area of knowledge (geography) of your choice. Enabler.
Minor Effect Suggestions: You foresee your foes' moves so well that the difficulty of Speed defense rolls for the next round is decreased by one step.
Major Effect Suggestions: Processing surge! On your next action, you can use points from your Intellect Pool rather than your Might or Speed Pools.
Esoteries
Onslaught (1 Intellect point): You attack a foe using energies that assail either his physical form or his mind. In either case, you must be able to see your target. If the attack is physical, you emit a short-range ray of force that inflicts 4 points of damage. If the attack is mental, you focus your mental energy to blast the thought processes of another creature within short range. This mindslice inflicts 2 points of Intellect damage (and thus ignores Armor). Some creatures without minds (such as automatons) might be immune to mindslice. Action.
Ward: You have a shield of energy around you at all times that helps deflect attacks. You gain +1 to Armor. Enabler.
Equipment
Clothing
light weapon (dagger)
Extra light weapon (change)
A book about the Numenera
4 shins
Connection Notes
Pick a PC. They are immune to your esoteries unless they want to be affected
Cyphers:
Emoacoustic weapon level 4
Change emotion of single target in short range. Choose 1: anger, despair, fear, joy, calm, hungry, aroused - 10 min
Security Clamp level 4
Place on object that can be opened & closed, now prevent it from opening unless destroyed
Tether Level 5
Fire metal spike - 2 damage ea, 2 targets, they are tied together. 1 action to remove for both targets
Oddities
A jar of oil that, when spread on metal, makes the metal glow with a faint radiance. The 8-oz jar replenishes the oil every day.
fluffy parts:
APPEARANCE
Mechanus looks like a young human male in his prime, at least he tries hard to. The man knows that something has been done to him and tries his best to hide the tell-tale signs of the ‘modifications’. The reinforced sheeting underneath his skin is easy enough to hide, unless someone grabs his limbs or strikes him. When that happens, Mechanus is well aware of the pliable metal that is underneath his skin. He’s seen it when he’s been cut, only a dull grey sheet of less than 1 mm thick but enough to offer some protection.
What is harder to conceal is the circuitry that runs down his neck and then disappears into his upper body. The young man wears his hair long to try and hide the coppery metal lines that sometimes flare to life. He then has to worry about a couple of openings in the back of his head, usually concealed with a hooded cloak or his long hair. The palm of his right hand also shows a round metal surface for which he almost always has his right hand in a fist.
But what he cannot conceal is the fact that he’s very much aware of a Numenera device inside his head. He hears it humming and whirring at times and he feels its impact on his entire body. The device can charge up his metal sheeting and project a field that repels almost anything, making him even harder to damage (ward). He can also allow his charge to run down his right hand and unleash an electrical pulse that can damage both organics and machines (onslaught).
BACKGROUND
Mechanus is very aware that he was not born with a whirring Numenera device in his head. But his memories of how that is now part of him are sketchy at best. He remembers some sort of dungeon underneath a large building or some sort of laboratory, maybe a fortress. And that he spent what seemed weeks or months strapped to a cold metal table. And he wasn’t the only one. [Plenty of hooks for the DM]
Priests or doctors or some sort of mechanics worked on his body. He remembers the painful weeks when his metal sheath sort of grew under his skin, consciousness coming and going at random intervals while his body was pumped full of liquids. He also has some recollection of his head being sawed open and something implanted in his brain. He can still run his hand through his skull and find the scars.
There are some memories of being trained in his new augmentations and being told that he now served a higher power, a power to change the world. He was also told that new powers were also embedded in his being, ready to emerge as soon as he gained mastery over them.
He then remembers a platoon of humans that broke into the lab and interrupted the experiments. The men and women fought the priest-doctors and set him free. He wasn’t sure that he was a captive at the time. He was told to run and hide, that they would be looking for him, to try and bring him back to the fold again. His liberators would be in contact with him again
Hurt and confused, he ran. With sketchy memories of who he was running away from, he continued to run. And they chased him, just like his liberators told him they would.
They came mounted on fast reptilian steeds called brehm; they didn’t stop chasing him until he crossed the Sadara River and into the frozen wastes of the south. [A tale for another time…]
He quickly learned that he had to hide and not only from his alleged pursuers but also from the common folk. He remembers finding himself in what people called the Cold Desert. The first village he found himself in was not welcoming of people who were different from them. He was almost beaten to death as soon as they saw his neck light up and saw the hole in the back of his head.
He then wandered the desert for a few months and honed his survival skills. His implants helping him stay alive in fights where a normal person should have perished. But by that time, Mechanus knew full well that he was not a normal person.
He worked in a mine where his resilient body served him well. He then hired on as a caravan guard. The caravan brought precious stones and metals from the mine to the trade city of Aian. [Possible connection with other PCs]
PERSONALITY
Mechanus is quiet and reserved, interested in how and why things work. He has excellent skills with Numenera/mechanical things. He is a risk-taker who lives for the moment and is uncomplicated in his desires. Loyal to his peers and to his internal value systems, but not overly concerned with respecting laws and rules if they get in the way of getting something done. Detached and analytical, he excels at finding solutions to practical problems.
The young man is very self-conscious of his appearance and tries to hide his ports and plugs by wearing some sort of hood and/or keeping his hair long. He worries that the whirring in his head will be audible to others. He’s also very concerned with people touching him for fear that they will feel his endodermic plating.
He is of two minds when meeting new people. On the one hand, he’s interested in getting to know them because they might be his liberators but, on the other hand, he’s very worried that these could be the people hunting him. His paranoia usually wins out and he’s always looking over his shoulder for the brehm riders.
caravan journey:
The sun set was particularly mesmerizing this day; the stones turned from blue to grey as the light dwindled. It was cold again, which was a good thing for Mechanus. No one asked you why you were wearing a cloak when it was cold.
The procession continued toward some destination he knew not nor cared. Aneens, tall and gangly, carried their fair share of the stones and supplies but a lot of people had to walk. Not him though. He got to sit at the edge of the floating platform, his legs dangling a few feet off the ground. And that was fine because he earned that right, given to him by Muur, the caravan master…
He had been walking with the rest of the guards up until a couple of days ago when the platform screeched to a halt. It had tilted to one side, with most of its cargo sliding off to land amidst the blue stones of the Cold Desert. There was only one person who had any idea how to fix the ancient piece of equipment, but it soon became clear that he was not good enough. After a few hours where everyone else was thankful for the break, Muur was furious.
The short man had turned all shades of color as he screamed at the poor man trying to fix the transportation device. Muur commanded respect, well fear more than respect. It was not easy to see why people feared him, but it was easy to see that they did; they all kept their distance from him. So Mechanus also stayed away from the angry man but something whirred inside his head and Mechanus stepped away further from people lest they also hear what was going on.
But images flashed in front of his eyes, of similar floating platforms and schematics and instructions…
The nano approached the platform and took the technician’s tools, who was only too happy to have someone else be the focus of Muur’s anger. Mechanus seemed to look away but was only concentrating on the images in front of his eyes, images no one else could see. With skill he did not know he had, he expertly used the tools at his disposal to fix the platform. In a matter of seconds the platform was humming; in a minute it had regained its horizontal position and was ready to continue the journey. In a couple of minutes, Mechanus had become one of the most valuable persons in the entire caravan…
He smiled at the smooth ride. It was slow going, but he would arrive in style. Wherever they were going.
