Hearts Now Cased in Steel (GLOG class: Monk)

Another installment in my Unfinished World bootleg series.

Manufacturing, the First Art. The magic of making something out of nothing. The working of Hot Metal. The Manufactories and their Academy are the highest authority in the world regarding it, as far as anybody is concerned.

It's embarrassing how wrong they are. Creation is a parlor trick for impressing lords. Its power is temporary, a mere toy. Even the airships and the artillery and the standardized currency. No, true power lies in becoming. The flesh is weak, and steel is strong. Even the Manufactories understand this, though their best attempts are nothing but an unrefined mockery of what you'll become. 

THE STEEL SAINT

Starting items: A hammer (medium), three chunks of anthracite, a straw cape, a big hat, and two Tools of the Trade.

Skills: 1. Metalsmithing. 2. Classical alchemy. 3. Yoga.

+1 HRTS per template.

A Manipura, Mettle

B Refinement

C Spirit of Industry

D Perfected or Alloyed

You can't wear any armor at all, even if you multiclass into something that would normally allow you to. To wear armor is to admit that your own perfect form is inadequate, and to forfeit your power.

You can use shields, though, and are proficient with hammers, axes, flails, sickles, your own fists, and other weapons that were initially intended to be hand tools. Swords are all right out, but machetes and knives are okay. Just use them for their intended purpose every once in a while, okay?

Manipura

Much like the Manufactory, you have a resource called substance with a maximum equal to half of your max HP. There's no point in rephrasing the rules, so I'll just quote them here:

When you would heal a point of HP, you may choose to regain a point of substance (up to your maximum, obviously) instead. You can also regain 1 point of substance by eating 5 inventory slots of green wood (an hour or two of a cheery fire), or 4 of real firewood, or 1 slot of coal, or ⅓rd slot of specialized chemical fuel. It takes you ~a round to eat ~a slot of fuel. Bug your DM about it.

Unlike the Manufactory, you are beholden to nobody, don't owe anybody anything, and only have yourself to blame if those two facts change. Manufactories hate you on principle, because you're an embarrassing older paradigm of the Art that still dares to imagine itself superior. They look down on you the way a guy who makes bombs for Lockheed Martin would look down at a guy who drinks mercury and boils his own piss, except the former guy hates the latter guy even more because the mercury-drinking piss-boiler is somehow getting results. Good luck multiclassing between the two.

But I digress. You use substance to do Kung Fu tricks.

• Spend [substance] for an equal bonus to physical challenges such as MOVE checks, attack rolls, and the like.
• Reduce incoming weapon damage by [substance]×2.
• Mold [substance] slots of mundane metal in your hands like clay.
• Levitate [substance]×10 feet in any direction on spectral wires attached to your chakras. 
• Breathe a puff of fire for 1d6+[level] damage in a [substance]×5’ cone or [substance]×10’ line. This ignites flammable material.

You may only spend up to [level]+1 substance each round.

Mettle

This is how Steel Saints get their name. Your flesh is as hard as steel, because it is steel. At A template this is partial, patches of steel running up your arms and legs and branching like veins across your face. By D, you're all metal, organs and everything.

You have a natural AC of 12+[level], take half damage from slashing weapons and normal fires, and your unarmed strikes do 1d6 damage. You are also insanely heavy. Let's just say you weigh [level]+1 times what you normally would. This is pretty generous for steel, and it doesn't impede your mobility or make you take more damage when falling, but being a magical Kung Fu master helps. You're definitely unable to swim, though, and you're definitely not going to be able to safely walk on rickety bridges, tightropes, or other fragile things.

Refinement

This is it, the path to eternal life: to not only have a body of steel, but of sacred steel. Choose one of the following colors:

• Pale. Gain +2 to hit, and your unarmed strikes deal an additional +2 damage. Your critical hit range is expanded by [level]. You are, however, terribly brittle: your natural AC is now 10+[level].
• Chardun. The metal parts of your body no longer produce any sound at all, which is at least advantage on your stealth checks. If you catch someone by surprise, your unarmed strikes deal maximum damage.
• Bronte. You now have a +1 bonus to every check involving the body, including attack rolls. The jack of all trades may be no master, but he's never out of a job.
• Ossgold. Gain +1 to hit and damage. Your unarmed strikes deal full damage to the undead and other unholy creatures, and they take 1d6 damage if they try to attack you in melee. You are immune to fire, acid, and lightning. Your weight now impedes you, though, to the point where you suffer a -[level] penalty to initiative, stealth, and other fine motor skills.
• Adamant. This would make you completely indestructible, and would make your unarmed strikes always deal maximum possible damage. It would also make you dangerously insane. The Refinement of Adamant is lost knowledge, or may have never been found in the first place. If anyone ever did discover it, they must still be around. There's nothing on the g_ds’ green earth that could kill them.

Spirit of Industry 

You are immune to poisons and diseases, and no longer need to breathe. This is good, because you've learned the method to coax a disembodied soul into your lungs, what the Manufactories call a Machine Spirit. When in your lungs, the spirit can see through your eyes and speak through your open mouth, offering advice and observations. If you'd like more tangible assistance, you can create a physical form for it much like the Summon Machine Spirit technique:

They have a vague human form and a clear human voice, 8 AC, [substance] HP and enough effect on the world to carry [substance] inventory slots of items. Spirits don't have the motive force to swing an axe, but they can light the fuse on a cannon.

Your spirit dissipates instantly when reduced to 0 HP or after [substance] days, returning to your lungs as a cloud of glowing cinders. You can also prematurely inhale your embodied spirit, regaining substance equal to its HP, but this tends to annoy them. Most Machine Spirits are forced into service, but yours does your bidding willingly. Don't abuse that trust, because you only get the one.

Some possible spirits and their talents:

1. Metatron. Allegedly. Regardless of their actual origin, this spirit has an eidetic memory, a frighteningly in-depth knowledge of improvised explosives, and a tendency to frighten small children and animals. When embodied, they can appear as a slightly-off duplicate of you that speaks with a pretty good impression of your voice. Less of a doppelganger and more like an identical twin.

2. Manufactory. This is what you get when you don't pay your student loans, a fate which they bemoan constantly. Unerringly identifies the flaws in machines, then poorly guesses at their function. An incompetent engineer but a gifted saboteur- when embodied, they can ruin most mechanisms given a few minutes to mess with them.

3. Armature. An utter coward now that they're no longer spiritually bolted to a ten-foot-tall automaton body, but will eagerly inform you of possible escape routes and will even serve as a distraction when given a physical form. Likes to smoke very bad tobacco, for nostalgia's sake.

4. Steel Saint. A little more foolhardy than you are and must be carefully instructed if you want to avoid unnecessary risks. Has one of the skills that you don't, and when embodied, they have the Manipura feature and count as first-level, but must spend their HP in place of substance. 

5. Virtuous Saint. Thinks that your Kung Fu is weak. Thinks that everyone's Kung Fu is weak, such that their commentary will inform you of someone's AC, HD, to-hit bonus, or Morale given a minute of steady observation. Still unable to fight while embodied, but can trip people, throw sand in their eyes, or perform other distracting maneuvers.

6. Hard Worker. Not particularly bright, but follows instructions well, never tires, and won't screw up if left unattended. When embodied, the Hard Worker retains enough power to properly use tools but remains next-to-useless in a fight. Always chewing on a grass stalk or a toothpick, when they can find one.

7. Wretch. Fearless, devoid of any morals, and miserable. Can identify poisons by smell. Will do anything you ask when embodied, even if the command is outright suicidal- especially if the command is outright suicidal. “The first death is a shame, those after are a torment, but the last is the greatest joy of all.”

8. Dead Timotheos. Certainly is not the Third Brother, but he answers to no other name. Possesses an exceptional knowledge of dungeon architecture, from the recent to the antecataclysmic, and claims to have made all of it himself- which is only mostly a lie. When embodied, he can guide you through dungeons and other structures towards vague things like “a place where weapons are kept” or “where the most dangerous thing lives”, but never towards safety.

9. World Adventurer. Spent their short life bedridden, surrounded by stacks of books. Excited to see everything and everyone. Speaks, reads, and writes all common languages. Has a 3-in-6 chance of getting the basic gist of more obscure tongues. When embodied, they can… not do much besides translate, really, but they're always grateful to be out and about.

10. Liquid Yi. A former tomb-ranger, honestly confused why they aren't accompanying another as a ghost friend. Most of their old talents are gone or of no use anymore, but they can track the undead like a bloodhound through your nose, and fit through any space smaller than a human head while embodied.

Perfected

This is it. You're all metal, now, and all sacred. Perfect in a way that the g_ds must have never intended, or perhaps a perfection they once hoped for before settling for good. As long as you do not move, you do not age. Also, the Refinement you chose advances further:

• Pale. The damage of your unarmed strikes is tripled on a critical hit.
• Chardun. Unless you would will it otherwise, no sound exists within 20’ of you. You can weigh as much as a normal person does, if you wish.
• Bronte. Remember that +1 bonus you got? Now it applies to anything advantageous to you. Attack rolls. Damage rolls. Saves. Reaction rolls. Anything. And have another +1 on top of that, because the greatest strength is no weaknesses.
• Ossgold. You lose all the disadvantages previously incurred from your Refinement. You cannot be moved against your will. Any light reflecting off of you is sunlight.
• Adamant. I'd say that the g_ds only know- no, they wouldn't. True, unconditional immortality. Not g_dhood, but something better. You'd be a bulwark against the end of everything. You wouldn't be insane anymore, if only because your mind would no longer resemble any on this earth, or anything at all.

Alloyed

Perfect is the enemy of good. Let them sit in their monasteries and cells, quiet and still! They are little better than the dead. As long as you are moving under your own power, you do not age. Choose another Refinement in addition to the one you already picked. If your Refinements have any disadvantages, they no longer do.

Tools of the Trade:

1. Hammer. Cross-peen, flat on one end and a wedge on the other. Good for working metal or cracking skulls. A medium weapon. 1 slot.

2. Anthracite. High-grade coal with an almost metallic lustre. Worth a point of substance if you eat it. 1 slot.

3. Straw Cape. A good one, no less, that protects you thoroughly from the wind, rain, and hail. 0 slots worn, 2 slots carried.

4. Big Hat. Keeps the sun off your head and out of your eyes. Has a decorative embellishment of your choice- I, for one would pick little dangling beads on the brim.

5. Cold Food Powder. A drug made from cinnabar, arsenic, stalactite milk, and a bunch of herbs that range from pleasant spices to actual poison. When taken, gain 1d6 temporary HP (or substance), even over your maximum, for 24 hours as your body is suffused with a pleasant heat, and take an equal amount of damage to a random stat as you suffer from a fun assortment of poisonings. Taking more than a dose per 24 hours just causes the stat damage with no benefit. Lost stat points recover at a rate of one per day of rest. Comes in a little clay jar with 3 doses. 1 slot. I didn't make this up, by the way.

6. Pick Mattock. A heavy weapon that can scour through soil, rock, and flesh alike. 2 slots. 

7. Ossgold Monocle. Brightens anything seen through it. See darkness as dim light, dim light as sunlight, and sunlight as photic retinopathy. Staring at a fire, even a small one, through this thing is like looking directly at the sun. If hit or otherwise jostled while wearing the monocle, save to keep the thing held in your eye.

8. 20’ of iron chain. Get creative. 1 slot. 

9. 10 iron spikes. I said get creative. 1 slot.

10. Sling blade. Some folks down south call it a tsar blade, probably because one got decapitated with one of these during one of their numerous civil wars. A medium weapon used for clearing brush. 1 slot.

11. Bronte gloves. Ridiculously durable and ergonomic. +1 to tests involving grip strength and whatnot. Not technically armor.

12. 3 sticks of dynamite. Not invented to harm people, technically, so throwing dynamite around is a martial art for you. One stick of dynamite explodes for 1d6 damage in a 10’ circle, two sticks explode for 2d6 in a 20’ circle, et cetera. 1/3rd slot each.

13. Miner's Helmet. Has a little tray with a spike on it that you can stick a candle on to keep your hands free- thank G_d the company made this thing so cheap, because it doesn't count as armor. Comes with a pack of 3 candles that shed 10’ of light for a half hour each. 1 slot for the helmet, 1/3rd of a slot for the candles.

14. Chisel. A little tool for scraping, wickedly sharp. A light weapon, in your hands. 1/3rd of a slot.

15. Gilded Mask. In the shape of a cupped hand, with thin slits between the fingers to see through. The gold leaf is scuffed in places, revealing whittled Applewood underneath. Grants +1 to reaction rolls, for some reason. 1 slot.

16. Sack of concrete mix. About a third of a cubic foot of material, just add water and wait for an hour. 2 slots.

17. The Pyrologion. A foundational text of the Steel Saints and of the First Art in general. A glimpse into the world burning, gleaned from the whispering of man's oldest friend. When referenced from in one hand, you can spend one additional substance per round. Fireproof, of course. 1 slot.

18. Wheelbarrow. Carries 10 slots of items, but struggles with mud, uneven ground, and stairs. 

19. Sack of ball bearings. You can roll heavy things on them, trip people with them, play marbles with your friends- you just can’t go wrong with a sack of ball bearings. 1 slot. 

20. A curio! Roll 1d6:

1. Ossgold tablet. About hand-sized, covered in extremely obscure Written Monkey glyphs, and hung on a fine chain like a lanyard. When worn, it gives you 1 MD to command the angel Locate Traps with. 1 slot.
2. LAST TREE CONSORT. A medium nail (+2) of bronte and adamant, wielded like a thrusting sword. Can be driven into any material short of adamant with enough hammering. Pierces wood as if it was soft clay, stone as if it were wood, and metal as if it were stone. 1 slot.
3. An adamant steel femur. This has a lot of implications, all of them troubling. A medium weapon that always deals maximum damage, but curses its wielder with hubris- save to not seize an opportunity for power. Comes in a lead-lined reliquary. 1 slot each.
4. For Their Raising. A translation of a pre-Cataclysm book of moral fables for children. Of particular note is one story: a giant steals fire from the g_ds to create his own race of men, with gravel for flesh and naptha for blood. Poorly made, his creations are shunned by other men and run wild across the world. For his crime, the giant is chained up under a mountain with all his creations, so that they may torment him until the end of the world. An X-marked map is scribbled in the margins. It's close.
5. Coward Boots. Allow you to run at full speed backwards. Watery eyes are painted on their heels, which the wearer can see through. 1 slot (they refuse to be separated.)
6. Deinosauros tooth. As long as a forearm and wickedly curved. It's been hollowed out into a horn or a funnel, and covered with scrimshawed scenes of gruesome monkey wars. Any blood poured through it becomes fresh water, and any water poured through it becomes fresh blood. If blown through, it lets out a terrible roar that inflicts a -1 penalty on enemy morale rolls. 1 slot.