The Soul Engines, a product of the Ethergaunt War of last century, are devices of cruel efficiency in harnessing and channeling life energy. Many survived the dreadful conflict, and have been salvaged for usage by mages and powerful lords.
These arcane machines are forged of otherworldly metals and ceramoplastic substances, as well as large, glowing crystals with a blue radiance. They usually attach to their 'donors' with heavy cabling that stick to skin as if by magnetic force. The donor's life essence is leeched out permanently, 1 hit point per hour on the lowest setting, and up to 1 hit point per round at the fastest setting. 'Donors' are often paralyzed or restrained while being leeched, and these hit points cannot be restored without healing magic of at least 7th level spells. Those who have been leeched in such a way often appear shriveled and emaciated, if they even survive. The tenders of such devices often remove dessicated corpses from the leeching cables if they are not cautious. The life essence is stored in crystal batteries, some small and portable (about carrot size), while others are gigantic (the size of a human standing up). They can be used to fuel arcane devices, at the cost of (1 hp x spell level x spell level) of life essence, so recharging an empty wand of 50 charges for a 1st-level spell would cost 50 hit points, while fuelling a device that maintains a Private Sanctum spell would cost 25 hit points' worth of life essence each 24 hours. Ethergaunt arcanotechnology is based on this transaction of life essence, and before the war last century, they had ventured across galaxies and realities, harvesting millions of civilizations and eradicating their deities. They have no ethical qualms about this process, seeing it merely as the cost required to fuel their magnificent expansion. How you can use Soul Engines in your game: - Salvaged Soul Engines might fuel colossal arcane cannons to defend a city. Citizens who volunteer a portion of their life essence are released from some of their obligations to pay taxes for the year. In times of emergency, prisoners might be conscripted to fuel a cannon's more regular use. - A mage who has found and accessed one of these devices might try to build up life essence by taking those who will not be noticed- orphans, the homeless, or less-privileged races. This might provide a way for Player Characters to find out about one of these devices. - In a situation where charging some kind of MacGuffin device is required, your Player Characters might be forced to use a Soul Engine to source the enormous amount of energy required. Whether they rely on donations from others, or donate life energy themselves is up to them... Also posted on Game Masters Stash on 14 April 2019. Comments are closed.
|
AuthorI'm Luke. He/him pronouns. Archives
May 2022
Categories
All
|