Clockwork City


Advice


I would love some help/ideas fleshing out an adventure idea I have.
I wanted to put my players through a moving city that would move sections randomly. From there I thought of clockwork and having all the inhabitants to be clockwork constructs (heavily borrowed from the Dwarves of Skyrim) I had found an amazing site that helped get me started but it is not designed for Pathfinder so I had to make some changes but found it was mostly just a typical dungeon crawl with fighting monsters. I don't want to just have things for players to fight. I would love to incorporate some good puzzles and events the can RP that just give a general feel of unease rather than true horror.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Reference:
INKARNATE


You can mine Zobeck from Kobold Press for ideas about a clockwork city. There is a pretty extensive history of how the city created clockworks and how they came to comprise a large part of the populace.


Will not let me edit post or missing where I can edit. I linked to a sick free mapping site so not a waste but I meant to link this:
Corpathium

Thank you Brother Fen... I will definitely look that up.


if you write up a more thorough description of the city it'll be easier to come up with some specific puzzles or events.

here's a few general ideas

- a dangerous transport system designed for things not organic (causes nausea, sickness or shaken)

- Zones with no O2 (warnings should be very apparent and there should be a solution to the problem)

-signs all around of disabled clockworks/machines looking like they were in battle. at the end you could accidently turn them back on and they start tearing each other up again, the player characters must escape the battle field or fight their way out.

-giant fans/gear holes players need to time and jump through

-A.I awakens and tries to stop players doing something or encourage them to do something, they have to decide if to listen to it or not. A.I could turn out to actually be a gnome illusionist or something like that.

-to build suspense you can have eyes or security devices track the party as they move. doors shutting and opening on their own. all doors locking behind them.

-clockwork pets that you finally reveal are monsters that eat anything mechanical and destroyed the civilisation, even eating all the younglings.

-all rooms change every hour - just cycle like a clock - have a room number which is a multiple of 6 randomly assign each number to a room (so the numbers aren't in sequential order) and each ten mins move the rooms one number forward.

for example - you have 12 rooms. room 1 - library. after 10 mins room 2 - library. After 130 mins room 2 - library again


I will try to write a description, lol. I have so much that it may be tedious to read through, so I will try to summarize.

The sections of the city are divided into 12 parts. You enter through the Port which is empty devoid of any life or at least anything humanoid. Something is just off. From the port they enter into the market. From there everything shifts randomly. If they continue on they will end up in the center which is a weird big theatre, the sets are absurd, the automatons act as if they are auditioning for a part with exaggerated melodramatic flair. There will be trolleys shaped like carousal horses running on tracks that are riderless. This area is static and will not move. If they try to return to the port it is gone as the areas shift randomly, except the port is not an area that is part of the shift-- it cannot be returned to. The Thespian Quarter has 4 gates including the one from where the party came from.The other areas that shift are the Artists Quarter, Apiary, The Crystal Gardens, Residential, Magicians Quarter, The Eternal Library that has streets that wind through massive shelves of books rather than buildings, the sky instead of birds are books flying, and the area they started in, the market. The south gate is where they entered, the west and and east gate dead ends and the north moves the party forward. The intent is to get to the final area, the castle, which also does not move. There is the exit to escape the place. The gates for each area remain the same so there is a great deal of potential for them to get lost if they can't figure out the pattern.


A physical map that is literally numerous sheets of turning cogs should greatly help with the planning (Even if it is just for you to align gates).

The first thing you need is a good villain with a good motivation. Second is a reason for the players to care at all about that villain.

Clockworks are powerful tools, maybe have a master Alchemist Tinkerer (Archetype) obsessed with Brigh (Deity), who wants to make the whole world clockwork (A Wayang for something different?). Or maybe just create the ultimate clockwork weapon and they have threatened the parties home town with destruction.

Maybe a rival evil party is also racing through the city (from a different port?) trying to get to the legendary treasure at the heart of the strange city?

Out of control clockworks could also be an issue, rampaging into fields and small towns before exploding. The party needs to find the cause and shut it down before more are hurt! (Maybe Goblin or Kobold tribes messing with the auto builders).

Gremlins are great here, smashing tech and leaving nasty surprises for the inhabitants that are left.

Literal door keys could be useful as fetch quests, forcing the players to do whatever task the key master of the building requires. Or the party can waste time and smash through High hardness High HP brass doors that are repaired soon after (and risk missing the connecting gate they want).

Clockwork city implies safety systems. This means safety teams that have to clear the issue and reset the room, if a room is going haywire maybe they need to fix it for the doors to unlock and shelters to release so they can advance (Plenty for KNOW checks).

Clockwork smashing cult or quasi druids or a team of Bandits smashing things for loot that need to be chased down and stopped (With some anti construct items to help the party).

A clockwork thief steals something from the party from a crowded street of wandering clockworks and they need to chase/track it down to get the item back (only to realize it was programmed to help an innocent being, or is desperately trying to repair another damaged clockwork).

To combat flying, air patrols, brass guardians that crawl on ceilings and blast down, or massive electric arcs/wind surges that power grand mechanisms. (Flying is possible, but very risky).

Engineers access tunnels, narrow, filthy, and very hard to find but provide secret access to places or act as shortcuts. creatures like to inhabit these dark places the scrubber clockworks miss.

Clockwork guards that patrol looking for crimes (from an esoteric list of offenses the party has no real way of knowing about: eg no hats in the market [fine], no open flames in the library [jail], no boots in the crystal gardens after 6pm till 3am [hand over 1 molin which is something the people used that the party has no idea about], other silly crimes).

Just a few ideas.

Dark Archive

Sounds more like a dungeon. This would be a good example.

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