The Toymaker's Mansion

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Gerzel's picture
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factotums
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The Toymaker's Mansion

Below is a starting write up of a location which will feature in an adventure modual that I am working on to eventually post to planewalker. I am sharing this to get feedback and see if anyone has ideas they would like to share. So enjoy and comments welcome.

In amongst the other ruins of the slags is a large mansion that has been renovated and turned into the home and workshop of an elderly mage, and former member of the Fraternity of Order, Rossom Ironheart. The mage specialized and excelled in the study and creation of golems, constructs and all sorts of mechanical and alchemical devices, but never rose much inside the Fraternity's ranks due to his tenancy to follow his emotions doing what he thought was good rather than the law. After a long career he retired from the fraternity having given fifty-seven years of active service.

Still in the first few years after that upset he never let his membership dues laps and he attended many meetings. As time went on his friends in the order noticed that he seemed to be more and more troubled about something and that he attended fewer and fewer meetings, even those discussions on his favorite areas of study. About a month after the last meeting he attended in person, he began to send small constructed flying drones to watch and record meetings for him as well as to do simple errands.

This relieved many in the order who cared about him as a friend and colleague as the drones were well made and were soon regularly coming and going fulfilling the old mage's duties as a member of the Fraternity. Through the small constructs Ironheart's career took on a second life as he participated in the order and shared much of his research. Several of his designs were so well met that replicas of them as well as constructs partially based off of them are still found in use today by several members of the Fraternity.

On many occasions braver members of the Fraternity would make the trip into the slags to visit with the old man. However as time went on even these personal visitors were greeted by his constructs. While visitors were never turned away, nor were any of his official responsibilities ever allowed to lapse, the man himself was seen and heard from less and less, automation taking his place.

A few years before the faction war, worried for his health and unable to get a reasonable answer from his messenger constructs a group of fraternity members ventured to the mansion and insisted on meeting with the man in person. Rossum's construct staff took quite a bit of reasoning to work with but eventually logic prevailed and the group was shown to the mage's private study and quarters. They found him dead in his bed and were finally able to ascertain that he had died peacefully about a month earlier and that the machines were simply running on their prior programing believing the mage to be asleep. The body was then properly collected and given all due recognition for the old man's years of work and many contributions to the order.

In his will Rossum left his estate to the Fraternity of Order, Sigil chapter, and the order went about reprogramming many of his constructs, taking some for study and use elsewhere, and leaving others to take care of the mansion and its grounds. The functioning of the mansion had been entirely automated and many of Rossum's experiments and long term projects were still being run perfectly well by his constructs even after his death. At first the Fraternity kept a small contingent of members at the mansion to further study the constructs and make use of the mansion's facilities. However following the events of the faction war the order stopped keeping a constant presence at the mansion.

Recently, in the past months, a disturbing development has arisen. Children have gone missing from the areas around the slags and several were later found in and around the mansion. While missing children from the hive normally isn't considered very surprising the trend for them to be found in and near the mansion has caused some concern. Also it seems that children from other parts of the city have started to be drawn to the mansion. Several children have been found sleepwalking to the mansion and several have come not knowing exactly why. The automations inside the mansion generally will take care of and protect any children they meet. Some have even reportedly been found giving small groups children lessons on music, crafts, mathematics, reading and even magical and arcane lore studies. Still not all missing children are found and rumors abound about darking things happening to some of the children that find their way to the mansion.

Jack of tears's picture
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Namer
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re

Good stuff. So, the question is: What is happening to those lost children?

Perhaps nothing .. perhaps they are vanishing for a completely different reason and the house makes a good scapegoat.

Perhaps the machines have decided to try and rebuild their maker in the only way they know how, as one would build a machine.

Perhaps the machines, in an attempt to improve their design have begun killing children and reanimating them with internal mechanical parts. Many of the children which "return" from the house are actually the first wave of these advanced models, observing city life as children, which are easily overlooked. The children which don't come back are either failed expiraments or used as replacement parts when one of the "skin suits" is damaged.

You probably have your own answers, but I thought I'd throw out a few ideas even so.

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factotums
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The Toymaker's Mansion

The Neighborhood – The mansion is located fairly deep in the slags, at least a five minute walk, if you walk fast, from the scratch wall. The place is easy to find as it is one of the tallest buildings around, and it is made even easier to find as it is the only building that is both clean and in good repair. At any given time there are usually around two to four medium sized constructs roaming on the outside walls and roof making minor repairs and on occasion repelling the pests and vermin that make everywhere else in the slags uninhabitable. Furthermore, the outer walls support a wide array of mechanical weaponry. The facade is decorated in the usual Sigilian style of stylized blades along the tops of walls, however the difference is that it seems all of these blades are mounted on articulated arms and able to attack or scrape off any would-be invader.

These defenses also extend to the surrounding street attacking anything that the constructs of the house deem hostile. A berk generally will not be attacked for walking by the place or even climbing up its wall, but as soon as a fight breaks out or it looks like a fight is going to a loud siren will sound from the side of the mansion, as a warning. If the fight continues the place's defenses will send out either shots from some projectile(which are notoriously accurate) or for larger disturbances a squad of armored constructs to break up the fight. Recently, in the past months, the Guvners have programmed another squad of constructs to march on a regular patrol back and forth through the slags, escorting personnel to and from the place, allowing it to be much more active. Any children found by the Guvner caretakers are escorted back to the hive, and often to their parents' doorstep or to the gatehouse by these routine patrols. While the escorts will allow anyone who is peaceful to walk along with them entrance into the mansion (at least through the door) is entirely at the Guvner's discretion.

Looters and Thieves – One problem that even the house's outer defenses hasn't entirely solved is the vandalism and sabotage of looters and thieves coming into the place to steal valuable parts (constructs inside the mansion sometimes incorporate gems or rare metals in their construction) or the more professional thieves come into the place to steal plans or rare bits of equipment. Some rather great lengths have been made to give these thieves access to the mansion, including one where a nearby tower was made to topple down onto the mansion itself.

The constructs of the mansion will generally give free access to children who come wandering to the place letting them in through parts of the wall that slide open or taking them through one of the four entrances. It is these children who are responsible for the bulk of the interior vandalism.

Control Keys – Each Guvner assigned to the place is given a “key” that allows him or her to be recognized by the place's mechanical inhabitants. These keys resemble short wands made up of small gears stacked one on top of another. There are several ranks of keys the lowest simply allowing access to most of the mansion while the highest allows a berk to literally go in and change the way the constructs think. When Rossum's will was brought out and resolved a single “master” key was given to the Fraternity of Order allowing them to take control of the mansion. However, this key was taken from a deposit box held by a banking house in the Lady's Ward, and was not Rossum's own personal key. That key has yet to be found and certain areas and parts of the house still are locked with even the Guvner's key unable to unlock them. With the disappearances of more children this fact is something of a growing concern for the Fraternity.

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factotums
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The Toymaker's Mansion

Here are my Plot ideas/Darks

What happened to the old man? -- Rossum's last communications with the outside world showed that he was concerned over something, some great rising danger that needed to be stopped. Something had convinced him over the years that he had to protect the children from some grave threat. His personal journal's and notes show a deep concern for the youth of Sigil in particular those living in the hive. Also as he grew more insane and paranoid he began to believe that he himself was under attack, and that whatever was doing it was sending things in the forms of children.

Classes. -- Taking Rossum's programming and ideals to their mechanical hearts many of his creations are now actively working to help those children that find their way to the mansion. On several occasions the place's Guvner caretakers have discovered the machines teaching lessons or caring for small groups of children, almost all of them from the hive, but occasionally from other wards or taken from outside of Sigil entirely. Because these caretakers simply do not have the time to reprogram this behavior out of the mansion's many constructs—as well as a mild approval of the children put to better activities than being on the street—the Guvner caretakers rarely interfere with these classes.

Building – The mansion is still building itself. The place is obviously larger on the inside than it should be from the outside, but in Sigil with the place's history this rarely bothers its caretakers. The constructs that inhabit the area are still constantly making additions and changes to the place according to some arcane mathematical formula or another. Before he died Rossum seems to have given constant direction to the building progress but after his death the machines have continued on working out his plans to the best of their knowledge and ability. This means that occasionally a building crew of constructs will move through an area that people are in. Working at a frighteningly efficient speed, these crews are often able to demolish and recreate entire sets of rooms and hallways. While people are rarely, if ever, sealed in routes to other places in the mansion can be changed and long detours are often necessary. Fortunately there is a pattern behind most of these changes and many of the Guvner caretakers have started to figure it out and are able to find their way around and even predict these additions. Most of the major rooms such as the entrance hall, Rossum's quarters, and many libraries, and laboratories are not touched by these crews.

Plumbing and Raw Materials – The mansion is known to have several gates in use by the constructs living there. One is a gate to the plane of water and the plane of steam bringing in both fresh water and heating to the mansion. Through a vast network of pipes most areas of the house have a source of fresh water nearby. Furthermore, an automatic waiter system is found in many of the rooms. It consists of a sliding door cabinet set into a wall with a panel of many knobs and switches. If operated correctly, a small trolley will arrive with some sort of food. Both of these systems are being studied by the Guvners but what they are really looking for is the system which delivers raw Materials, wood stone, glass, and metals to the mansion's building crew constructs and the portals where these Materials are obtained from.

Rogue Constructs – Not all of the constructs found inside Rossum's mansion are friendly to either children or adults who run across them. Some of these constructs are specimens collected by Rossum during his studies while others are hostile due to a fault in their programming, while still others seem to have taken on minds of their own. The most disturbing class of these are the “Snatchers.” So-called from the reports of children found in the mansion who have had members of their groups taken away by these constructs often to reappear changed with clockwork seemingly fused into their bodies. Some children have been lucky enough to escape with only a clockwork fused leg, hand or arm, but some are given clockwork heads or other organs that might or might not work. Not all of these children return.

Gerzel's picture
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factotums
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The Toymaker's Mansion

Here is a bit more, the starting lines of an actual module.

Adventures
Party is 0th level children from the Hive – This is a different approach to a Planescape game than is normally taken and it should be discussed with players before hand to make sure everyone is on the right track. Each player makes up a 0th level child PC, who's age is from 8 to 16, who has been drawn to the strange mansion and now finds themselves lost deep in the mechanical labyrinth with the constructs slowly becoming more and more frightening. Trapped it is up to the PCs to use their wits and skills to stay together, unravel the mystery of the mansion and find a way out.
The motivation of the PCs will be slightly different from that of a normal adventuring party as they are not a hardened team, but a gang of youths. Sheer curiosity and fear are both likely to play a much greater role in such a character's behavior. As with any Planescape game each player should have a basic idea of what motivates their character and what their hopes and fears are, but for a child PC this is doubly important. It might be a good idea to choose an archetype, such as a bully or timid but crafty pickpocket before choosing a race or class.
As a child PC the race selection should also take some more thought. Races such as tiefling and aasimar should defiantly be allowed, but bear in mind that magical abilities possessed by the adults of these races might not yet have fully matured, along with other racial hit dice and other abilities. Also with all races generally as youths the PCs should have -2 strength and +2 dexterity as well as being shorter than their adult counterparts. Dwarfs, gnomes and other small sized races will probably remain small. Elven children would generally also be small sized. Humans could be either small or large depending on their age and gender(girls tend to mature slightly sooner than boys).
For classes the basic 0th level apprentice classes listed in the DMG should probably be used. However other classes might be acceptable based on the character and GM's permission, such as the Aristocrat for a rich kid type character-though such a character should only start with a fraction of the classes normal starting gold. Child characters also should be limited to what kind of weapons they have available. Even in Sigil it is harder for a kid to get a sword. Clubs, slings, slingshots, bricks, and the occasional knife will probably be the weapons at hand for the PCs—basically what they can make, have with them as toys, or can steal is what the characters will have.
For both Pre and Post faction war most factions recruit early but none of the PCs should be beyond namer or taken very seriously, except maybe fleetingly by the chaositects. Also at this age faction affiliation shouldn't be very strong at all and might very well change based on the whim of the kid at the time(I wanna be a doomguard! No you got to be the Doomguard yesterday!).

Starting Off
The PCs in the opening scene are all being herded into a classroom area by one of the well meaning constructs of the mansion. Each kid has had most of their toys taken away from them, especially any clubs or other objects that could be used as weapons. A bluff check DC 12 will convince the construct teacher to allow them to keep a harmless toy such as a doll; while anything that might be dangerous would have to be concealed with either a pick-pocket[DC15-18 depending on the size of the item] or a bluff check for smaller items(the constructs don't search that throughly). Any metal objects will be found as the teacher has the ability to detect metal. The construct is of medium size and made to look like a four-armed humanoid teacher with spectacles wearing a long skirt that actually conceals rollers and storage for texts and other items. The lesson is on Sigil's history—who was factol when and what they did—and is very boring except maybe for the brainier members of the party. The lecture drones on and on with the construct only stopping to question one or another of the PCs on what it has been talking about or to call for any tom-mephit-foolery to stop. It anyone is really bad-say getting into a fight-then the construct might resort to giving a slap on the knuckles with its long flexible pointer.
The room itself is locked[DC 20](the teacher has the key, as well as what it confiscated from the PCs). However, there is both a small bathroom(yes flush toilets) and a door to a small office with a large latticework window into the teaching room on the opposite wall from the door. At the back of the room near the door the wall is lined with pegs and a bench with cubby holes underneath to put articles of clothing, boots coats etc, and the front of the room has the standard blackboard and easel with maps and charts.

Gerzel's picture
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factotums
Joined: 2004-05-10
The Toymaker's Mansion

I have started to put out stats for monsters and NPCs the first of which can be found for the snatchers here: /forumtID=21656#p21656

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