Mutu’ Bio – Foundry Campaign Compendium

Mage Automaton – Champion / Wanderlust

I am an automaton.

That is the first fact. Everything else comes after.

I was not built. I was not assembled in a workshop or commissioned by a wealthy patron. I was once a man. Flesh, bone, blood, breath. Then I was in the Witchwoods, and then I was not a man anymore. The details between those two states are fragmented. I remember pain. I remember iron. I remember reaching into the earth and pulling metal up through the soil to encase what was left of me because what was left of me was not enough to survive without it. Femur. Ribs. Foot. Then more. Then everything.

I do not remember why I was in the Witchwoods. I do not remember who I was before. I have a core where my heart used to be. It glows. Sarenrae put that glow there, or so I believe. The alternative is that something else did, and I am not prepared to consider that alternative today.

I serve Sarenrae, the Dawnflower.

This is not a long story. I woke up in this body with almost no memory except those of terror, pain, and unreasoning panic. With no purpose and no understanding of who I was or what I was or how I came to be it. Sarenrae found me then in my state of utter despair and confusion. While she did not explain she also did not make any demands. She simply… was there. Warmth where there should have been nothing. Light in a machine that had no reason to contain light.

I chose to serve her. Or she chose me. The distinction may not matter. What matters is that her light burns in my core and her will guides my blade and when I lay hands on the wounded, they heal. That is enough. It has to be enough, because it is all I have.

I do not speak of this often. I do not speak of most things often. I am not good at talking. This is not modesty. It is an observation. When other people use ten words, I use one. When they use one, I frequently use none. My companions have learned to interpret my silences, which I appreciate, because explaining my silences would require more words than the silences were designed to replace.

Common responses, for reference:

“No.” (When the answer is no.)

“More.” (When negotiating.)

“Price.” (When conducting business.)

“Deal.” (When terms are acceptable.)

Kiren once said I had used up my daily word allotment talking about snow angels. I did not know what snow angels were. I still do not, entirely, but I understand they require lying down in snow, which seems impractical. It was probably the longest I continually spoke because I was confused by the concept. It was so irrational that it could not be a real thing … snow angels. The flesh bound are odd. Was I odd before all of this metal?

I was assigned to a team of Gatewalkers by Dr. Ritalsin and Professor Wreidt of the Illuminated Consortium of Epocts or was it the International Consortium of Epocts? No matter. All of us walked through the light on the Night of the Missing Moment. None of us remember what happened. All of us came back changed.

Dr. Ritalsin funded our expedition to investigate an elf gate in the village of Poiana. Room, board, and burial expenses covered. The burial expenses were an odd detail that I filed away for later consideration.

Professor Saboine Wreidt is… difficult to describe efficiently. She speaks as though time is a shuffled deck and she is reading cards from several hands at once. She touched each of us when we met. She told Charles something about a fire. She told me to bring oil. She gave Kiren papers and told her not to bother with her hair. Then she left.

I brought the oil.

My companions.

Charles is a priest of Sarenrae. We share a goddess. He heals. He burns the undead. He glows when they are near, which is useful and also somewhat conspicuous. He is earnest in a way that I find reassuring. We do not need to speak much to understand each other. When he prays, I stand guard. When I fall, he brings me back. This is sufficient.

Kiren is a fetchling rogue who worships Grandmother Spider. She steals things. She lies about stealing things. She is searching for her twin sister with a desperation that makes everything else about her make sense. She is clever in ways I do not always follow and dangerous in ways I always respect. She once convinced me to leave Geist in her care while I communed with Sarenrae. Her argument was that bringing “a loquacious, pompous, and at times irksome Fae Lord” into the goddess’s presence might be tempting fate. She was not wrong.

She reads Diana’s journals when Diana sleeps. She reads everyone’s journals when everyone sleeps. I do not keep my journal where she can find it. (She will find it anyway.)

Diana arrived later with blank paper, a potion, and no useful explanation. She is a summoner who has returned from death and travels with a psychopomp eidolon she calls HIM. She collects bones and specimens with a thoroughness that I find either admirable or concerning depending on the day. She once built a scarecrow from bones while we camped in a farmer’s field. I burned it while she slept. Sarenrae expressed displeasure at this, which I did not expect and have not fully processed.

Diana does not name HIM. She says he does not need a name. I named the teddy bear charm that holds Geist’s spirit “Sir Giles Wellington.” I believe things deserve names. This is one of the few subjects on which Diana and I disagree.

Thulnir was a dwarf who traveled with us in the beginning. He complained about human stonework, got stung by wasps, and left because of a treasonous uncle. I kept his share of the pay for him. (Charles insisted.)

I dream.

This should not be possible. I am metal. I do not have a brain in the biological sense. I have processors and a core and whatever else was assembled or grown or conjured when the meetal replaced my flesh. Machines do not dream.

I dream anyway.

Giants chase me. Black sand fills my joints until I cannot move. A white-furred figure with horns watches from a distance that is somehow both very far and very close. The sand rises and I cannot breathe, which should also not be possible because I do not breathe.

In one dream, I felt emotion for the first time since becoming this. Not the echo of emotion that I carry through each day, the faint impression of feelings filtered through metal and memory. Actual emotion. Raw and immediate and overwhelming. I did not know what to do with it. I still do not.

Charles and Kiren have similar dreams. The same horned figure. The same sand. This means the dreams are not mine alone. They are being sent. By what, I do not know. But I intend to find out.

I carry two things that matter.

The first is Sarenrae’s Justice, my blade. It burns with the light of the Dawnflower and it has ended more threats than I can count. When I swing it, I feel the closest thing to certainty that this body allows. The blade does not question itself. It does not wonder whether it was built or born or grown. It cuts. It burns. It serves.

The second is Geist der Feen, a fey lord trapped in a teddy bear charm that I wear around my neck. He is pompous, verbose, prone to terrible poetry, and occasionally useful. He was imprisoned centuries ago for composing an insulting limerick about the Countess of Twilight’s Embrace. I released him from the skull that previously housed his spirit as part of a bargain with Moria Dawnwhisperer. He now inhabits Sir Giles Wellington, the teddy bear, which is an improvement in comfort if not in dignity.

Geist complains constantly. He composes sonnets at inappropriate moments. He once vowed to never complain again after ravens nearly carried him off, and Kiren informed me that as a fey, he is bound by his word. He has been in visible discomfort ever since.

I find this somewhat satisfying.

There are things I do not understand about myself, and I have learned that listing them does not make them clearer.

I once shaped metal by will alone. I forgot this. Then I remembered, and the remembering felt less like recollection and more like a door opening that someone had locked from the inside.

There is a girl in my visions. Porcelain-skinned or perhaps an actual doll. Raven hair. She was fleeing through the same woods that broke me. She escaped through the same portal. I do not know who she is. I do not know why I see her. But I feel responsible for her in a way that has no logical basis and refuses to go away.

My core pulses in a rhythm that is not mechanical. It syncs with something. I do not know what. I suspect Sarenrae knows. I suspect she is waiting for the right moment to tell me, which is a very divine thing to do and a very frustrating thing to experience.

I was someone before I was this. That someone believed in something, fought for something, broke under the weight of something. Whatever broke me was enough to drive me into the Witchwoods alone, and the Witchwoods took everything I was and left me this.

Sarenrae found what remained. She lit the core. She gave me purpose. Whether that purpose is redemption, or penance, or something I do not yet have a word for, I do not know.

I do not need to know.

I need to swing the blade. Lay hands on the wounded. Stand between my companions and whatever is trying to kill them today. Burn the things that should not exist. Protect the ones who cannot protect themselves. Follow the light when the darkness closes in.

This is what I do. This is what I am for.

The rest can wait until the work is done.

Tagged: Gatewalkers, Player Character