The Book Of Fire/Forger
The Heartless Forger of Ornate Designs in Steel and Shadow
HISTORY: In life, he was one of the most gifted of Twilight artificers. One of Bright Shattered Ice's favorite protegees', he Exalted too late to learn from Autochthon, but sought out and studied under those Gods of Invention that the Great Maker had left behind. Coming up in times of relative peace, however, he had little taste for the martial nature of his fellows, and sought only to remake Creation into a paradise of whimsical wonders. For this, he was given the title of The Munificent Toymaker, perhaps meant in jest, but he adopted it with pride.
Unfortunately, his brilliant innovations in entertainments and games were usually reverse-engineered by other Solars, their principles then being applied to weapons of warfare, despite his protests. When many of them were used to horrible effect in Operation: Wyldhand, the Toymaker finally quit the society of the Chosen in disgust, and settled in a Factory Cathedral he raised in the far Northern Threshold, attended only by some Mountain Folk loyal to him, and perfected the craft of Automata design. So completely did he master this art, that none among his fellow Solars even suspected that the reclusive inventor who mostly avoided them during his mandated stay on the Blessed Isle was in fact a remote controlled automaton. It was this doppelganger that was "slain" when the Usurpation occurred, much to his great shock.
By the time the Terrestrials came for him, they found his colorful manse and its clockwork toy parades rigged with all manner of deadly traps. The Dragonblooded died by the dozens until their Sidereal leaders succeeded in penetrating to the Central Control of the building...where they were shocked to find the craftsman mysteriously already killed. Deactivating his Manse, they converted it into his tomb, hoping to give his spirit rest. And, eventually, the Neverborn came to his ghost, who needed little convincing, giving away his name ere before the Neverborn finished their pitch. Reborn as The Heartless Forger of Ornate Designs in Steel and Shadow, he immediately set about his dark work...
DESCRIPTION: The Heartless Forger appears as a 7ft tall Soulsteel skeleton, with visible Orichalcum organs pistoning, pumping and cycling, all bound by Moonsilver "nerves", and motivated by a Jade "musculature"; his eyes are pure Starmetal (true to his name, the heart is the one organ conspicously missing). Within each finger is a different tool, and his hands duplicate the effects of Bracers of Universal Crafting. His voice is a flat, buzzing thing, each word precisely modulated.
The Forger's weapon of choice is a Grand Goremaul he calls Ringing Triumph; in addition to the standard abilities of such a weapon, it can pound any object or life form into any shape the Forger desires, without actually harming it (it's size and mass remain the same). If forced into battle, he will also summon about him a version of Celestial Battle Armor, with all of the Soulsteel features.
CITADEL: The Forger's Citadel is The Bone Factory, an elaborate Factory Cathedral closely modeled on the tomb he was buried in, albeit with suitably death-themed trappings. Teams of ghosts and zombies tirelessly work there mass producing his creations, while the R&D teams try them out on the outskirts of his territory. He raised the Bone Factory in the mouth of an extinct volcano on a tropical island in the Southwest, where he bases his operations.
GOALS: The Forger is insane, even by Deathlord standards. He seems little concerned with the extinction of Creation, and moreso with the crafting of the means to do so. As far as he's concerned, nothing much has really changed since he was alive. He pursues many projects, to the point of finishing few. If another, even a Solar dedicated to stopping him, were to share his crafting passion and show genuine interest in his projects, he would cheerfully show them off!
SERVANTS: The Heartless Forger is unique in that he has no Deathknights. He prefers to experiment on his share of Solar shards and has plans to use them to power a gargantuan Colossus Warstrider that his Artificer Corps is currently building. He does entertain the Abyssals of other Deathlords, however, and happily constructs arms for them in exchange for their services in fieldtesting his weapons and gathering exotic ingredients.
Otherwise, the Forger is well-served by an elaborate network of ghosts, most with various Crafts skills useful to him. His interest in the living world is low, but occasionally he arranges for the execution of some genius savant whose work he admires. His most disturbing workers are Nemissaries who Ride the bodies of Necrocrafted children, perhaps some grotesque attempt to recreate the memory of the Mountain Folk who used to serve him...
His army is small, but arguably the best-equipped of all the Deathlord's forces. The Forger has created an Underworld equivalent to virtually every Artifact listed in WotLA, esp. the vehicles and weapons, and has improved upon the Mask of Winters' Loathsome Osseus Shells. He has also extensively outfitted his zombie armies in a blend of Necrotech and Magitech and has a special class of Nemissary who specialize in Riding arms, armor and unliving objects instead of dead flesh...
His most fearsome troops, however, may be the Thunder Brigade. His island has a much higher population of Tyrant Lizards than most areas in Creation, and he long ago located the elusive Tyrant Lizard graveyard. This spot has provided him with many materials to construct a large herd-army of Necrocrafted Tyrant Lizards of every size and shape. When on the march, virtually the entire island shakes with their undead footfalls...
The Toymaker's far Northern Factory-Tomb still exists, although the Forger shows little interest in it, despite the fact that he could easily reclaim it. Perhaps he remembers the secret of his murder there...That he, in fact, ordered his automatons to kill him, facilitating the download of a perfect copy of his mind into the Manse's systems, where it hid beyond the ability of the Sidereals to find its presence. The Factory is now Sentient, although undoubtably mad after all these eons keeping watch over its own grave, with only the company of brilliantly crafted automata, golems and crafted consciousness, all acting out a charade of daily life for its Maintainance...
