Post by cotofconfusion on Sept 24, 2018 18:47:18 GMT -5
THE BLOODBOTS:
What was once the thriving mining colony of San Alto has been transformed into the eldritch stronghold of Xi-Gi’em. Where once roamed visitors, prospectors, and trade caravans now stalk maddened mining drones, marked in Hellish symbols with the unmistakable smell of blood.
The town itself is located in the Meket Gumwoods, a jungle to the west of the Baclama Desert. Known for weak Looney and Cult presence, it allowed for larger-than-average settlements to arise, the largest of which being San Alto. At its height in the 1260’s, it reached a population of 10,000. It starts at the surface (primarily used for trading and residence) and reaches into the earth as a labyrinthine series of mines and natural caverns, pocked by the occasional outpost, mostly serving as a charging port for the robots that took residence underground. Just below the surface lies San Alto Robotics, a huge drone factory which, at its height, produced hundreds of drones a month.
Hellbots rarely go above the surface, and as a rule never leave the city. It’s unknown whether this is because of the hostile jungle environment, or the will of their God.
Although colloquially known as Hellbots, or something similar, the mining drones of San Alto have their own language, including their own name: Xi-Xe’ki (Zee-Zeh-Key). To them, San Alto is Xi-Gi’em, and their God is simply Xi. Attempts to translate their language any further have failed.
Religion plays a central role to the Xi-Xe’ki, and serving their monolith is primary. Their service comes in the form of numerous blood sacrifices and rituals the Xi-Xe’ki perform. Lacking any blood themselves, they often form raiding parties to gather victims from settlements or wanderers who stray into their territory. Sacrificing typically involves a live victim either being crucified or flayed. The corpses adorn factory walls, often for months before eventually turning to bone, while blood is used liberally as paint, either for buildings or as markings on the robots. The result is abhorrent, and the smell of death is often a sign of Hellbot ambush.
Near their end, San Alto’s human population placed great pride in their robotics proficiency. The various defense, service, and mining drones quadruple San Alto’s population, and today have a steady population of ~40,000. Their limited sentience and absence of sapience limited the drones to simple tasks, and although Xi’s eldritch influence has given the robots further agency, their simple coding remains their greatest inhibitor. Without the knowledge of how to produce their themselves, Xi-Xe’ki priests often experiment with drone design, often resulting in dysfunctional, failed drones. On the rare occasion of creating a working drone, the design is replicated hundreds of times in San Alto’s foundry until the priests decide to start messing with the batch.
The original three models of San Alto were all given different roles after the massacre. Service drones are gifted the most sapience and charismatic ability, and as an extension became the most fervent worshippers of Xi, and as an extension tasked with the creation of new Xi-Xe’ki. They are the most human like of all Xi-Xe’ki, equipped with plasti-skin and an additional pair of arms. Mining drones, the most numerous of the three, continued what they always did, extracting San Alto’s valuable mineral resources. A portion, however, became part of the first raiding parties. Mining drones resemble dog-sized spiders, with the ability to climb along walls and ceilings. Their mandibles are used to ‘chew’ through rock, which is then put into a central storage unit in the thorax. Defense drones saw their original use in defending their city and trade caravans from pillaging pseudocrustaceans. Knowing basic tactics, they became the leaders and soldiers of the first raiding parties, using their built-in rifles and saws to kill armed enemies, and modified tranquilizers to transport victims for sacrifice. Defense drones are more human-like than their mining counterparts, and feature legs, a torso and a pair of arms. The right arm is used for lethal action, with a rifle and an (often empty) grenade launcher, while the left arm is used for non-lethal capture, carrying nets and tranquilizer rounds. However, their most valuable asset is their superior knowledge of tactics. They often act as raid leaders and captains, issuing orders to their poorly-made subordinates.
New Hellbot drones are created in the production lines of the factory, which result in the many failing drones of San Alto. However, some these malfunctions congregate in monstrous abominations of alloy and wire. The shape of these creations can result in limitless possibilities. A robot pseudo-crustacean whose shell is replaced with plasti-skin and who’s claws are replaced with laser-pincers. Or a typical defense drone who’s head fires rockets, and only speaks in tongues. Even a pile of junk made sapient by Xi can find its place in the legions of the Xi-Xe’ki. Often such monsters are only held together by utter hate, and quickly fall apart when outside of Xi’s influence. As such, these monsters only patrol near the city.
Hellbot hierarchy follows a simple pattern: the closer to Xi, the higher the status. Priests therefore hold the highest positions as both interpreter of Xi’s will and engineer of new models. Then the original mining and defense drones, who carried out the first sacrifices. After that comes newer models and abominations, followed by the wretches.
Raiding parties often consist of ten to twenty new model defense and mining drones, and a couple of original models leading the hunt. Often the objective is not to kill, but trap sapient life to bring back to Xi-Gi’em. To this end, they only kill those who immediately fight back, and otherwise knock-out, stun, or tranquilize the defenseless.
Physically, Xi is unassuming. A slightly red glowing rough-hewn slab precisely two feet by four, covered in markings, its power lies in the absolute hate it conjures. It was first found in 1270 in a small, ruined temple, kilometers underground. The mining drone that first discovered it felt something it was incapable of feeling: hate. This feeling soon spread to the other mining, defense, and service drones of San Alto, within just a few weeks.
Xi is similar to a computer. Not sentient itself, it instead works on software only slightly more advanced than modern technology. It first infects nearby machines through short-range contact (5 meters) with limited sapience. The machine then acts as a host for the virus, spreading to other machines within a ~5 meter radius. The contagiousness of a typical Hellbot usually becomes inert over the course of a few weeks after infection, mostly due to attempts to conserve power.
Periodically, Xi will send out a radio signal, triggering the Hellbots into a frenzy, and causing an increased frequency in raids and murder. The radio signal only affects those under Xi’s influence, but can be picked up and heard across any ham radio, often alerting settlers or Looneys to any Hellbot attack.
San Alto was first settled in 1114, when various metals were found in rich veins throughout large natural caverns in the western Gumwoods. Founded relatively close to coastline, it escaped the worst parts of the jungle while trade routes to the surrounding settlements remained open. As hundreds of vagrants and miners came to the town, small, disparate villages were formed as housing. As news spread of the city, farmers, merchants, and wanderers settled down and concreted the new settlement. Over the course of 60 years, the villages grew in size, and economically dependent on each other. This was mainly due to the conglomeration of miners into two large guilds: The Tinners and The Miningman’s Corporation. With substantial lobbying from these two mining guilds, the villages were merged in a political union as the city-state of San Alto. Nominally a republic, leadership was dominated by Front of Fraternal Prospectors, funded primarily by the two companies.
In 1240, a man known today only as “The Mechanist” arrived, offering to help the city in exchange for ownership of a planned factory. He revealed numerous blueprints for defensive measures against bandits, stronger material construction, and a layout for a large factory producing drones that could purportedly do twice the work of the average miner. The Mechanist eventually gained support for the project from the two mining corporations. After 12 years, in 1252, the factory lay complete. In that time, the Tinners and the Miningman’s Corporation had merged, and the Mechanist suffered a stroke shortly after the first batch of mining drones were finished, but production of other, more complex robots was already in place. Until 1272, the factory remained at full output, and had created a population of over 30,000 drones.
In 1270, mining drones had discovered ruins, possibly from the Chamber of Myth, half stuck in a natural cavern. In the middle of the ruins was a stone slab, which seemed to call to the mining drones. Soon after, whatever called to the mining drones was now calling to the entirety of San Alto’s robot population, sending regular broadcasts of its long dead culture, unspeakable language, and eldritch customs. The broadcasts turned suddenly fatal, when, in 1272 the slab demanded the sacrifice of sentient organics. Most residents of San Alto soon faced their deaths, at the metallic claws of the Xi-Xe’ki. Those that survived, and currently make residence in the neighboring city Yuteq, made it their mission to retake the city, and every so often mercenaries under the banner of the Front of Fraternal Prospectors enter the city on some hairbrained scheme to retake San Alto, usually ending up dead.
