1965, 30 full years after the initial discovery of the machine, we are still no closer to discovering its purpose than we were back then. It is simply too vast, too alien, and according to most scientists, too impossible to be understood. We realized this after the first ten years, since we hadn't even managed to map out 1% of the machine, much less gotten anywhere with understanding how or why it worked. A machine this large was simply against the laws of physics. Since we realized we would never be able to understand it on our own, someone came up with the obvious solution. We'd find the blueprints.

There had to be some kind of schematics somewhere, and if we could just find them, maybe we could better understand what all of this was about. Governments all across the world declared that they would pay good money for any information regarding the origins or mechanics of the machine, a system for clearance was developed, and so the great rush to the center of the Earth started.

The year is now 2008 and we're still not much closer to figuring the machine out. We know how parts of it work, but it's the barest of fractions of knowledge. Still, the exploration continues. Every now and then, some adventurer finds an arcane piece of machinery of one of those weird folding cubes with that squiggly writing that gives you a migraine all over them, and gets handsomely rewarded. Sure, you have to look out so you don't end up crushed between two giant gears, and sure, if you get too close to some parts of the machine, those clockwork engineers will rip you to pieces, but come on, did you see what they're payinf for one of those electric rods? And my buddy Tom says that he's found a place with hundreds of them! All we have to do is somehow shut down the generator momentarily, get in, grab the rods, look out for the mecha-dragons and get back out.

Well, what do you say?

that was awesome! I wish I was competent enough to say anything more, have an internet

Looks pretty slick.

Too bad you decided to post this in Summer-time...

The great machine is sick, somehow. Parts of it have turned black and churn out machines that look like nightmares. Like cancer they take control of other sectors and corrupt them. If you see the shadows move on their own, run.

I say we blow it up and see what happens.

>>4812655
I'll be damned if I'm gonna let summer keep me from posting.

Cool story bro.

Also, it changes viewpoints.

>>4812671
That was actually an idea I had. There would basically be this group of people who for various reasons wouldn't be able to stand the concept of the entire world basically being a giant machine and who decided that, fuck it, it has to go. This, of course, might or might not be a really, really stupid idea, depending on what it does. Not to mention that there's a reason the machine's stayed intact for what we can only assume is at the very least millions of years.

>>4812708

And lo, God parted the sky and sayeth:

"Kids, I gave you nukes for a reason."

STEAMPUNK HOMEBREW DUNGEON CRAWL LOW MAGIC HIGH FANTASY I AM AWESOME

>>4812657
That's really not a good idea.

I approve of this - but what who has the history of Mankind developed? Is there still a British empire? Or some other one? French Empire, American perhaps?

Not to mention the tech-savages. It seems the Aztecs found the passage long before we did. And seeing as how they had a head start of a few hundred years, they've actually managed to make some sense of small parts of the machine, even if it is in an extremely primitive and shamanistic way.

They worship the machine, you see. They've somehow harnessed parts of it for their own use, and have melded their 15th century technology with that of the machine itself.

Unfortunately, living underground for so long have made them quite insane. Lord only knows how they even survived down here, seeing as it's all metal, machine oil and steam no matter where you go. But apparently they know things. And they don't want to share their knowledge either.

I tell you, you haven't seen anything until you've seen a 6 foot tall albino Neo-Aztec kill a man with an electric spear.

>>4812776
It's pretty much identical to our world. The machine wasn't discovered until the 30's, so the only thing that's changed are past 75 years.

Essentially what happened was the following:
Machine is discovered. People go "Whoa, dude, that's fucking insane".
People fight like they always do. Who has the rights to what, and so on. Eventually they decide on some kind of mutual right, where the major world powers share access to the machine.
Eventually, this becomes a full-blown union, where most of the world's countries work together to try to understand the machine, since it's quite obviously an important part of human existence.

So yeah, no WWII, no Cold War, but otherwise, things are pretty much the same. Nations bicker over discoveries, try to screw each other over and generally act like they always do, but still get along pretty well, since they really, really want to find out just what the fuck is going on.

Some people have found these large rooms and inside of them are what appear to be mechanical fetuses. After watching them for a few days they appear to have spawned new parts, oraganic looking gears, pipes, chains, and such when no one was looking. Sometimes they take up the room so much that delvers can't get through. Even worse, some rooms were found empty.

This sounds awesome.

That's really all I can say. Tell me more about the machine and what's in it. Is it all clockwork and gears? Are there buildings and offices inside of it, workbenches and labs?
Is it all mechanical, or is it also magical? Is it some fusion of alchemy and engineering?
What awaits the explorers of The Machine, besides these mechadragons? Also, where is it?

>>4812853

from what the OP said I think it is the core of the earth. somehow it must be responsible for tectonic activity as well. but why? why create volcano and earthquakes?

People have strange things on the fringe of the machine. By strange of I mean strange for the machine. Since the human interference it appears the machine has "grown" add-ons of things clearly caricatures of the above world: giant gear and steam based ships wedged right into the center of mechanics, home appliances of magnificent sizes but of a strange construction, even entire small neighborhoods entirely built of machine parts. Just be careful if you find the last one, we don't know who populates them.

>>4812876
That's the heat-management system. It vents excess heat via volcano.

After discovering atomic weaponry and testing them on everything else maybe someone had the best idea to test one on the machine? The details could be secret but something horrible could have happened at the same time somewhere else in the world.

>>4812843
>>4812918
Poster here, these are more in the machine having a semblance of responses to intruders, possibly even sentient. Maybe not what OP had in mind but it seemed like a do-able variant setting.

But why the fuck would an ancient machine that is the reason the earth goes be built with gadgets that resemble the technological level of the Victorian era?

>>4812978

Because its cool. I mean, c'mon, do you really NEED a logical explanation for a campaign world?

One could make a game varying from steampunk to horror to scifi from this setting. Very awesome indeed.

God did it.
Demons did it.
Powers not good or evil did it.
Aliens did it.
Humanitys forefathers did it.
Asshole did it: party gets close to unraveling the machines secret but then they die.

>>4812853
Alright, I'll try my best.

The machine is, well, a machine. Parts of it are clockwork, others are steam powered and some would best be described as Nikola Tesla and HR Geiger's bastard lovechild. It's large enough that there's a lot of diversity.

There doesn't appear to be any structures apart from those made by humans who have ventured down there. It all just appears to be one gigantic machine, and just that. Of course there are what appears to be maintenance tunnels and what appears to be control rooms, but it really doesn't seem like the ones who built it had any intention of sticking around.

As for how it works, nobody knows. Most scientists maintain that the machine actually is physically impossible, and by all means should have broken down long ago, but it exists and is whole as far as we know. It might be magic, it might be SCIENCE! and it might be something completely different. All we know for certain is that it is more advanced than every single piece of technology we've ever invented.

>>4812978
IT UPDATES AS THE WORLD PROGRESSES

>>4812978
probably that was the level of it they were able to understand when they first discovered it. Most likely, as time went on, they started to recognize things like Babbage Difference Engines and so on.
Also, steam power is the type of power most feasible for direct use from materials found entirely underground

>>4813034
As for where it is and what it contains, both answers are similar. The machine is pretty much everywhere and contains pretty much everything. It's too large to imagine without having actually seen it. There are three major obstacles most explorers will encounter sooner or later. First come the Engineers. They're some kind of mechanical automatons who take care of the machine. They mostly don't even care about anything but the machine, but if you end up in the wrong place, they'll tear you to pieces. It's generally assumed this is to protect vital parts of the machine from damage. The main problem with the Engineers is that their unpredictability makes them dangerous, but their position as caretakers of the machine means most governments are reluctant to let people actually destroy them out of fear of the machine breaking down. Next are other people. There's a lot of competition for the next big discovery, and there are always people willing to lie, cheat, steal and even kill for artifacts. Last are the mecha-dragons. These are giant clockwork monstrosities who are as enigmatic as the rest of the machine. They're ferocious, though, and seem to work like the white blood cells of the machine. Entering dragon territory is pretty much suicide.

Of course, that's not all, but these are the three most common threats. There are rumors of intelligent electrical fields, bizarre machines that hook their wires up directly to your head and things far stranger still. With the machine, it's kind of hard to tell if these are stories by half insane explorers or if there's actually some substance to them.

The question arises on what material it is made out of. Would it be stronger then most elements we know? Or would it be steel or iron?

so far humans have only penetrated a short distance inside it. attempts to find a route to the core have so far met with failure. a private foundation has created a contest with a 100 million dollar prize to anyone that can build a robot which can travel to the center of the Great Machine.

>>4813080
Only problem is robots keep getting "absorbed" by the Machine before progressing very far...

>>4813068
What we do know is that it's been here for a long time. We know it's made out of some kind of metal that doesn't exist anywhere else. We know it's extremely durable. That's about it.

OP lacks literary depth, however the idea is sound and has great potential.

The metals are immune to rust, and appear to have strange magnetic properties

>>4813115

Hey, come on, lets not NANITES NANITES NANITES this thing up. It's way cooler than that anyway.

Seriously, NANITES are this generations RADIOACTIVITY!. I'm getting a bit tired of it.

Who says the machine is powering the continents? Perhaps it is drawing its energy from volcanoes, earthquakes and continental drift?

The main difficulty of exploring the Machine is that the structure changes over time. Rooms and hallways move, shift, and rearrange themselves. This process is usually slow but can be very swift as what seemed to be a safe tunnel suddenly opens to let burning steam vent. Some of the more superstitious people are convinced that the Great Machine itself is trying to impede their progress.

>>4813115
This kind of goes against what I had in mind. The machine is ancient, and if we fuck it up, it will have consequences. The machine is static. It's probably been there for millions, if not billions, of years and it looked the same back then as it does now. Nanite growth kind of undermines the entire point of it existing in the first place.

>nanites

Agreed. Although I do like the mechanical fetuses. The machine has to have some way to create new parts.

Stop trying to make the contraption come alive with robots and dragons. It's not really needed

Sounds like the bastard lovechild of Roadside Picnic and Journey to the Center of the Earth.

I'd marry this thread.

So, the Entrances, how many are there?

Who guards them?

What to you have to do to get permission to venture down into The Machine?

I think half the danger will come from rival groups of explorers.

I mean, you'll have radical anti-machinists, quite possibly extremist Christians and the like, who view the Machine quite possibly as the personification of Hell itself. An utterly soulless world without any of the life or personality of humanity. They probably want to stop all exploration, maybe going so far as to attack the Machine in Crusade.

There'll be people who want to exploit the Machine, to use it to power god knows what, without concern for what consequences their meddling may have. Doubtless, these will be from the sinister GLOBOCORP.

Then of course there will just be rival adventurers who will stop at nothing to be the first to explore the depths of the Machine.

>>4813174
The machine needs a way to take care of and protect itself. Clockwork Automatons can do either job. They can be small and quick and solder parts of themselves to the machine to fix broken parts, or they can be fuckhueg and keep invaders out.

>>4813201
As far as we know, there's just the one entrance in South America. At the moment, a Union military base is placed right on top of it. To get a license, you'll need to apply for evaluation and then go through a 6 month training program. It's very similar to military service, actually. The conditions for getting a license are fairly simple. Any artifacts you find belong to the Union, in exchange you will receive compensation. By no means are you allowed to cause harm to the machine. Don't get in the way of the Engineers.

>>4813268
If the entrance is in South America, then are the albino Neo Aztecs offically part of this? If so, awesome, cause I like the sound of them.

God machine?

>>4812671

I agree; it is obviously a Communist creation.

>>4813239
Nope, it takes care of interlopers in its very own way. Some people say that they've seen the screaming faces of vanished explorers in the sides of some gears...

The International Machine Head Organization of Terrestrial Exploring and Production, IMHOTEP, has a entire sub-section devoted to treating the poor souls that have been Down There for too long. It seems that the Machine somehow "infects" these people, making them hallucinate, babbling about "seeing how everything works" and such nonsense. Patients become obsessed with engineering, and scribbles nonsensical blueprints over every blank surface the can reach. The media calls it the Deep-Down Dementia, or Machine Madness, and it is as big a mystery to medicine as anything they find down there.

Would any of it be falling apart from years of neglect? Or is the whole thing going to be shiny and new? Because you could relate the climate change and earthquakes etc to the degradation of the machine. As it falls apart so does the rest of it. Kind of puts me in mind of that Terry Pratchett novel strata.

A big thing to consider is what kind of global technology would we have? If there was no WWII or Cold War then our war-time exploits have probably been nil. Jet aircraft, weaponry, and nuclear research are probably far behind, as well as computers.

More importantly, I doubt we'd ever do something as petty as dick around with space travel or go to the moon with this thing below ground. Space exploration is probably limited to token satellites, at best, and everything that came from it probably doesn't exist either.

tl;dr what kind of equipment can an explorer expect to have access to?

>>4813312
Too preachy.

How does gravity work in there?

This reminds me of a game I was told about, Septerra, or something.

Regardless, you win one Nikolai Tesla Seal of Approval. [See: pic]

This is awesome. Out of curiosity, WTF does gravity come from?

Also, those talking about religiosity types wanting to destroy it, keep in mind, there will probably be an equal amount wanting to preserve it, from the 'Don't touch it, we don't know what it does' to the 'It's god's will!'.

>>4813364
It simply works. No further explanation. Stuff gravitates towards the center.

>>4813312
The machine is physically pristine. Some have speculated that earthquakes and other terrestrial disasters are simply side-effects of the machine's ongoing processes. Earthquakes allow for additional emergency ventilation and volcanoes are its way of dumping waste (ever wonder why only volcanoes produce certain unique materials? Now you know).

Although, I find that magical shadow cancer theory rather intriguing, I won't lie.

>>4813401
Silence in the Library, I'd say. Vashta Nerada.

>>4813373

>Also, those talking about religiosity types wanting to destroy it, keep in mind, there will probably be an equal amount wanting to preserve it, from the 'Don't touch it, we don't know what it does' to the 'It's god's will!'.

Oh well obviously. I can see the existence of this huge, clearly pre-human Machine causing major splits in the big Religions between Machinists who see the Machine as proof of Divine purpose and anti-Machinists who see it as something else entirely.

>>4813293
The Machine+Soulpunk.

>>4813423
Oh fuck you, now I'm afraid of shadows for the day.

>>4813316
While it's true that military technology, and by an extension technology derived from military technology, never did get much of a boom the way they did in the real world, the need for machines capable of storing vast amounts of data and calculating dimensions, power output and the like means that computers advanced pretty far. There's no satellite-based technology as we never went into space, nor is there nuclear technology, as scientists are working on duplicating some of the more easily understood power sources hooked up to the machine. What's really come far, though, is various ways of preserving food and water, as well as communications, as both are vital for explorers.

An explorer can be expected to have some kind of basic firearm (not that it will do him much good, but people seem to find having it around comforting), some rope, shitloads of freeze-dried rations, tools, flashlights, a radio and tablets for purifying urine. Essentially what an explorer today would bring, minus any technology relying on satellites.

Beyond the Mountains of Madness.

How about control room(s)? A central control room that functions as a manual override for everything, or maybe a bunch of control nodes that give command over a sector of the machine?

Maybe there's someone or something in the central control room, pulling great levers and pushing gigantic buttons.

His name is Joe.

If any sensible or knowledgeable Christian thought that the machine was hell then they would have a damn GOOD reason to keep the machine in proper working order. Granted this means that "You are going to have to put all those parts back heretical scum! Are you trying to release the deamons from their cage!"

One the other hand Masons will likely have a heyday with this machine as some kind of allegory of...well everything ... unless they knew about it already?

Gnostics will definitely try to break the shit out of it as the obvious handiwork of the Demiurge and a possible soul anchor or sustainer of the material evils.

This idea is cool. I am going to have to integrate it into my GURPS universe. Somehow. It seems to have the same theme and yet a different feel from Project LONG STAIR. Unlike subterranean fantasy fucking vietnam you could run this with no magic at all. Even things that seem like they might be magic could be explained with enough Science.

How about a cult of machinists who have found their way into the gears to be closer to their 'god'. They even believe they have to become part of the machine to be closer to god, so have begun experimenting with the gears and surgically impanting them into their own bodies. Meaning they wont be destroyed by the engineers, as it will see them as part of the machine. Might even upgrade a few of them if they get enough surgery.

>>4813531
Awesome. They'd see the engineer's additions as acceptance from their god, and those who receive it are highly honored.

Eventually, they are fully integrated into the machine, and spend the rest of their lives functioning as part of it.

>>4813531
>>4813495
This is exactly why the Union made sure you need a license to get to go down to the machine. Sure, there's no way to keep all of the nutjobs out, but a fair share of them are caught at the evaluations. So the cults are mostly located on the surface where they're guaranteed to be virtually harmless.

The prime rule is "don't you ever under any circumstances as much as touch anything that moves or looks like it might have a 1/10.000 chance of breaking, because you might accidentally the whole world".

>>4813495

>If any sensible or knowledgeable Christian thought that the machine was hell then they would have a damn GOOD reason to keep the machine in proper working order. Granted this means that "You are going to have to put all those parts back heretical scum! Are you trying to release the deamons from their cage!"

>sensible or knowledgeable

There's the problem.

Not to imply that all Christians are like this, but there are a sizeable minority who would.

Zathras Approves of this thread.

Are we also going to be looking at animals that have found their way in and have evolved to live in that world, even integrating into the machinery?

Zathras also approves of this thread, yes.
Zathras does.

I only wish there were undead Nazis down there.

this is fucking win.

Maybe the machine was/is God.

Our ancestors were like unto angels once, and when they saw the depredations of the creator they vowed to crush First Father.

They grasped his infinite form and wound it into a ball, giving him form and shape, defining the indefinable as a crude machine. Never again would the Divine toss away universes like rotten fruit when bored of them. Our ancient reality bending ancestors then covered him in hollow ball of matter, binding him to the elements, forcing the infinite inside the finite.

Explorers can enter God safely because it is confused. It's infinite form layered over and over itself, plus the power-muting effect of the earth's crust, have hampered both it's omniscience and omnipotence.

I'm making that part of my Kult game. Would also work well for a weird Unknown Armies or NWoD game.

>>4813640

Why not?

With no WW2 the Nazi Party is likely still around and a major world player.

The religious impact of the machine cannot be overstated. Once it was discovered, it was a major blow to everything we thought we knew.

The Christians quickly had to take a stance on whether the machine was made by God, was God itself, or simply was a way of tempting mankind. The same went for all other major religions, since a giant machine at the center of the Earth, which might or might not power something really important, was kind of hard to reconcile with most traditional beliefs.

As hard as it was for religion, it might have been even harder for science. Suddenly, most of what we thought we knew about the universe was invalidated. Goodbye gravity. Goodbye tectonic shifts. Goodbye big bang. Of course, science quickly recuperated, but it's just not been the same ever since, since nobody can even begin to explain the biggest piece of the puzzle.

>>4813640
shut up. shut the fuck up.

>>4813657
Authoritarian parties like that don't exist in the middle. They're either fringe or growing/dominating.

They explode and shrink rapidly.

>>4813654
This is almost what most modern Christians believe. The unofficial Catholic stance is that the machine is indeed God, and that He chose this form so that he could be close to his creation. After all, an ancient, unbelievably large and advanced machine that's worked for longer than human civilization without breaking down pretty much has to mean divine involvement, right?

IMO, Hitler would be a very strong proponent for the exploration of this underworld.

I also think that all the technological advances would be directed downward instead of upward and outward. So instead of the Moon landing, there was the Race to 2 miles deep. Perhaps extensive environmental suits have been developed, since the machine can suck the air out of a room, or drop you into a magma pit, or negate the gravity in a whole section. Explorers would need to be prepared, and I think that people would cater to that.

>>4813716

This!

>>4813716

Perhaps entire sections are filled with water as a cooling mechanism, necessitating the use of modified aquanaut suits to explore. Normal scuba gear would work, if that water wasn't... you know... boiling.

OP's setting reminds of Yugioh. Pardon my reference I don't mean to troll, only to make a observation.

>>4813800
Yu-gi-oh would have been a better anime if it'd focused less on kids playing card games, and more on the barely even hinted at assumed in game universe.

Course, it might have not as been a good of a game. Say what you will about GX, I like that if a card works a way in GX, it works that way in the actual card game.

I have to thank the OP, you just mind fucked my next DH campaign "Depths of Mars". I love you and if you're ever in brisbane, by god I will have your children

There should be subterranean South American animals that have lost their eye sight due to lack of light underground.

Hai guize wuts goin on? Did ju know that the DAF (english: german workers front) used a swastika in a cogwheel as their flag?

>>4813821
Yu-gi-oh before the card game was awesome tier. They played anything and everything, and it was far grittier.

>>4813844

I declare this thread judenfrei.

>>4813846

Take your mudpeople game back to /cm/, faggot.

how about the machine powers the magnetic feild that protects us from geting flash fried by the sun...just like the real core!..... or is that too underwelming?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Workers_Front

Yep... Nazis...

>>4813864


Ohhh, Good idea.

>>4813864

that is merely a side effect. most people believe it has to do something more. it remains to be seen if that is true or not.

>>4813864

I like it.

Drop hints that it's something far more spectacular or sinister. Have an evil cult convinced the Machine requires bloodshed on the surface to keep some horrible ancient God trapped there. Have scientists convinced that the Machine is increasing in power exponentially. The readings indicate that the whole thing gives out more radiation than was thought survivable, and yet people can walk around perfectly happily. Have a hardcore splinter sect convinced the machine is the countdown to Armageddon. A growing field of parapsychologists postulate that the machine is responsible for taking the souls of the dead, ghosts are spirits who have broken through.

And in the end its just a solar shield.

>>4813907

that still leaves the question of who put it there? god? aliens?

are there giant machines at the heart of any other planets or just ours?

if so why is earth special?

>>4813907

That would be a pretty fucking massive solar shield, dude.

I like the "unseen cosmic horror" approach of not knowing what the fuck it is, only that it's here, and it works.

>>4813907
> just a solar shield.

RIGHT! BECAUSE JUST AVOIDING A HORRIBLE RADIOACTIVE DEATH IS KIND OF LAME.

Suddenly one day every man woman and child on earth receives telepathic message from the machine.

"How many roads must a man walk down?"

The same message appears on all electronic media, and is being broadcast across every known radio frequency.

>>4813931

Unimaginative. It would result in your typical "The Happening" type story, defeating the purpose of having a machine in the center of the earth.

>>4813948

If you don't get the joke, your really in the long dark tea time of your soul.

>>4813965

I browse 4chan, this surprises you?

I am not sure why WWII and, sebsequently, the cold war didn't happen.
Hell, it's probably more fun if it did:

Far across the world from the State's opening is Naukograd 28 ('наукогра́д-28') - the legendary soviet science city built to cap the second shaft that was cut in 1961. The Soviets where the first to attach generators to the churning gears, effectively creating free and seemingly endless energy. They where also the first detonate a nuclear charge inside the Machine - the offical rumour is that they were attempting to destroy a 'factory' producing 'sentinels', attack-automatons who stuck out at soviet generators.
Military spending versus the automated defence system is partially responcible for the fall of the USSR.

>>4813965
>HURP DURP hitchhikers series FAPFAPFAP you dont get reference so you FAIL HAHAHAHHA

Go wank off to that shit somewhere else, oh and dont forget your cumstained towel.

>>4813975

Hitchhikers guide, Earth was a giant computer built to compute the ultimate Question, because an other planet sized computer was built billions of years ago to computer the Ultimate Answer, which was "42".

Sadly the earth was destroyed by vogons to make room for a hyperspace bypass moments before the Ultimate Question was produced by the earth.

>>4813965
>>4814011

everyone gets the joke...everyone ever
what are you 8?

>>4814005

Nicely Done.

>>4814011

Which is why your idea kinda blows. You're basically turning an intriguing campaign/story idea into Doug Adams fanwank.

>>4813931
42! 42!

And then the Vogon Constructor Fleet arrives, having corrected the wrong turn it made at Proxima Centauri, wipes out the Earth anyway.

>>4814046

You seem to have no sense of humor, it was obviously a joke dude

1933 -Columbian US Shaft
1948 -Mid-Western US Shaft
1961 -Siberian USSR Shaft
1994 -Eurozone EU Shaft
2008 - Chinese PRC Shaft

>>4814071

A very sad attempt at a joke, if that.

If you wanted it to be funny, then you'd have the Machine explorers discover that the Machine simply produced license plates for Rhode Island. Not really funny-haha, but better than a forced Doug Adams reference.

>>4814046
Which is why your idea kinda blows. You're basically turning an intriguing campaign/story idea into Doug Adams fanwank

>>4814120

Hey, thanks for the vote of support, dude! I fail to see how the pic is relevant, but still. Thanks!

>>4814134

If we shadows have offended, Think but this, and all is mended, That you have but slumber'd here While these visions did appear. And this weak and idle theme, No more yielding but a dream.

>>4813080
>>4813087
Because of this very reason, the tech and tools brough by explorers tend to be simple in design. Electronics tend to be very quickly absorbed by the great machine, as do modern alloys and polymers. As a result, many of the tools and weapons are crafted from steel, woodl and brass, and tend to have a self titled "steampunk" style. The Delvers tend to play this style up, and relish it.

Speaking of which: the delvers.

Some people have some instinctual knowledge of parts of the machines functions, or an unerring sense of direction in the mechanical tomb. This phenomenon is still unexplaned and might possibly be some racial or genetic memory. Whatever it might be, it is capitalized by the explorers, who wish some modicum of guidance in the bowels of the earth.

There are stories too...The deeper into the machine you go, the more control the delvers have over the machines... Its said some can command the engineers, or shape pieces of the machine into whatever they might need... Some might even very well, be able to create a path....

But hey, they say you have to go REALLY deep. Besides, its just stories...

>>4814250
Not op, but I fully support this.

>>4814150
Puck you.

>>4814312


Nicely Done ^___^

>>4812626

>All we have to do is somehow shut down the generator momentarily, get in, grab the rods, look out for the mecha-dragons and get back out

facepalm.jpg
facepalm.jpg
facepalm.jpg

>>4813640
Nazi Zombie Bugbears?

If space is involved, have them find that mars has a similar tunnel. Much easier to find via skimming around a blank planet with no foliage to hide the gaping hole.
Except their machine is broke...

Archive this thread now.

>>4814383

So they could explore, take apart and possibly break that machine to find out more about Earths.

>>4814410
Sure, if you had a million years to research. I don't think you quite realize how fucking huge the volume of even a small planet like Mars is.

>>4814430

Well, I really meant more being able to do and try things with the machine on mars that they would never try with the one on earth.

>>4814410
BUT!!!

What happens when they take parts from The Dead Machine back to interact with Earth's Living Machine?

Machine Plague?

... or Necrons?

>>4814455
Yeah, but that would be like cutting apart and learning the function of a single transistor.

In the LHC.

Point is, there's no feasible way to ever learn what the thing actually does until you've at least got post-human. It's supposed to be an unsolvable, not-quite-so-cosmic horror of a mystery.

MACHINES

The Machine, in all of it's myriad components, from the massive and grinding gears to the most supremely attuned electromagnetics to the tiniest cogs to the autonomous Sentinels and Engineers has confounded advancing human science in many ways. Not least of this is where it gets its ultimate power source, and who or what constructed it.

The most pressing problem presented is that while humankind has developed more advanced machines using transistors, there is no such component in the Machine. When the parts are looked at under microscopes, they reveal no tiny electronics of any sort. The whole system is a finely tuned and complex electric-magnetic-mechanical system. It is, in essence, analog rather than digital.


The Mechanosystem

Just as on the surface we have a biochemical ecosystem, a great Gaia composed of organic compounds, up through self-replicating DNA, up through simple cells, up through multicellular lifeforms, up through societies, beneath there is the Mechanosystem. Here the organisation seems to spread down, not up. There is the Machine itself, down through the gears and driving belts, down through the factories, down through the Sentinels and Engineers, who ultimately defend and repair the components higher up. Even humans have been incorporated into this system, as the natives show.

So, while all have been asking the question of who and why and how such a Machine was created, perhaps a theory of natural selection can be applied to it. It has been observed that Sentinels will attack other components, and Engineers will 'repair' the work of other Engineers to thier own specifications. So they are competing for the electrical and motive force provided by the Machine. And this competition drives natural selection.

>>4814462

I was just thinking that maybe earths machine is breaking down, and maybe Mars is the spare parts we need.

>>4812655

I'm going to say this once. Say whatever you want about summerfags, but the real nuisance are people like you screaming about summer at the top of your lungs every chance you get. If you could just shut up the problem would go away.

>The Final Boss

>>4814492 here


The Natives and the Roaches

Biological life can live within the Machine, not just above it on the surface of the earth. Humans, the Natives, can survive here, barely, by interaction with the components of the machine. Other life can also survive here, the Roaches.

Roaches range in form and size from the smallest insect, which here is around an inch long, to the largest wyrm, up to a kilometre long. Bacterial life, indeed anything smaller than around an inch, seems to die off if isolated. It is known that one way in which the Machine deals with hostile life of this type, corrosive bacteria being one example, is the generation of a massive electromagnetic field in the area. Natives know to keep on the move, as do Roaches.

The Wyrm is massive, observed at up to a kilometre in length, and resembles nothing more than a cross between a centipede and a dragon. It tears through the Machine on a thousand legs, without damaging components. It seems to have been incorporated into the workings of the Machine, a kind of cleaning systems to weed out smaller biolife. When smaller examples of the Wyrm were brought to the surface, they died in a few days.

OP, this is one of the best ideas i've heard in a long time.

thank you kindly sir.

No, I really think the Machine should be utterly devoid of life and utterly static. Sterile, unchanging, completely ALIEN. Giant bugs and robots aren't horror, they're fantasy. This is not a fantasy dungeon. This is The House of Leaves.

Machine components would be more than enough danger for explorers. Have seemingly unnatural (BUT NOT LIVING) phenomena occur the farther in you go. Unexplainable pockets of electromagnetism, cold, heat, un-illuminable darkness, vaccuums, places that drive men insane instantly etc. Could just be the workings of the Machine, could be something more horrifying. But none of it is alive. It is a Machine, it is vast, it is ancient, it is a mystery, and we are microbes.

>>4814455
>>4814430

My point in the mars suggestion was that we'd see what happens to a broke planet. Hints at mars once having life. Also their machine isn't steampunk, it's goopunk and made from what looks like honeycombs.

>>4814664

I'm thinking we have some life around the edges. The deeper you go, the less biolife you will see. And the mobile machines are required, since it is not biochemical it needs something of that sort to repair and maintain itself.

>>4814673
>goopunk
Stop making shit up.

>Machine made from honeycombs.
...wat

How about the machine was originally used to create matter. But due to some malfunction it created excess which caused the earth to be created around it. Then it somehow stabilized or something

ITT: Mortal combat between horrorfags and adventurefags.

>>4812657
sounds like /b/

>>4814705
>And the mobile machines are required, since it is not biochemical it needs something of that sort to repair and maintain itself.

No, they're fucking not. It shouldn't follow the rules of known technology. One of the major horror-inducing elements is that it DOESN'T need maintenance. Every piece has been dated to the exact same ancient time period.

Stop trying to treat it like a mundane human-made machine. That leads to "oh, we're in a giant clock lol OH LOOK ROBOTS COOL", not mindbreaking horror from seeing a machine that shouldn't exist, couldn't have been built (let alone all at once), shouldn't still be working, but it is.

>>4814707
Honeycomb as in, honeycomb structure. Endless hexagonal tunnels.

>>4814738
Stop trying to grimdark this up. The OP made this to be a fantastical steampunk adventure, not gritty, Lovecraftesque horror.

>>4814738

Without the mobile machines or native life, where is the game in this? Do you see the players going through the environment only to have the GM dispassionately describe a list of things they see? Or perhaps you imagine the conflict arises from inter-player rivalries, in which case please describe?

>>4814764
>the conflict arises from inter-player rivalries,

This. I don't see why everyone thinks every fucking story has to have fantastic creatures or robots or shit. Humanity is horrifying enough, and you stick a bunch of humans in an even more horrifying situation and SHTF hard. The "expedition" parts of House of Leaves are a good example of this. Barring the [strike]minotaur[/strike] that only eats dead things, everything horrible that happened was because of the people's sanities breaking down in the face of something incomprehensible.

Remember, humans are plenty monstrous. You don't need non-human monsters.

>>4814796
>>4814764 here

I have no problem with a game that focuses on inter-player conflict, but the OP seemed to describe a more adventure-type game.

In what way would you imagine this setting encourages inter-player conflict? Mechanically, how would you handle it?

Not surprisingly, several attempts have been made to link the Great Machine with the Ancient Egyptians to prove that they really were aliens.

Analysis of the writing and design style has been inconclusive. While the text is not in hieroglyphics, and there are no pyramids, there is something about the Great Machine that feels similar to ancient Egyptian writing and architecture.

>>4814826
Mechanically? I dunno. I refuse to play games with rules.

Narratively? That depends on the GM's writing/manipulating ability. Have horrible, gruesome accidents occur, tell the players they see shadows moving out of the corner of their eyes, only for it to be an unusually placed cog. Play up the psychological horror, the EXPECTANCY of something coming to kill them. Make sure the players play actual human characters (ie, panicky, irrational dipshits) that betray, fear, and get screws knocked loose by screws the size of skyscrapers.

Either they all kill eachother, get themselves killed by running off alone, or maybe, JUST MAYBE, reach the center and discover the thinly veiled answer to it all.

>>4814883
>refuse to play games with rules
That explains it, then.

>>4814893
What do you mean?

I'll look through the thread in it's entirety later, I'd like to throw out ideas while they're fresh in my head, apologies if some are already presented in one form or another by other posters.

- Varying levels of machine activity, the outer 'levels' of the machine are quite slow moving, this movement is easily visible to the human eye but does not hamper travel badly. As one moves closer to what is only assumed to be the center of the machine and the Earth, it intensifies and the environment becomes a deadly obstacle course, entire areas closing off and new ones opening frequently. While there is a pattern, a general lack of properly observed reports on these movements thanks to casualties and the low percentage of explorers delving so deep to do so means that these areas are labrynthine in nature. Scientists theorize that the core's movements correspond to the Earth's rotation and orbit.

- There is a strengthening movement among the world's scientific and religious communities. Members of both, irregardless of creed or field, have begun congregating and pooling ideas, just as the religious can no longer deny the potency of science as a driving force in the universe equal to the divine, the scientific community faces undeniable proof of an creative entity on the scale of God.

>>4814883

I only ask because in most successful games i've been involved with that include inter-player conflict, the conflict itself was based around a morality play. Such as in Dogs in the Vinyard. And to have PvP, you need to have them disagree on how to act, and to have the only way to resolve this disagreement is either mechanically, through a diceroll, or narratively, though arguments at the table. In a horror game, in which the players are all aware of the nature of the game, the tendency is always to play in a genre-savvy fashion. They will cooperate first, compete second. It's very difficult to get them to stick to opposing positions for long enough to cause conflict.

Jus' saying. Games in which PvP is a natural evolution of setting and system; Paranoia and DitV. Both with varied, morality play-type, stories.

>>4814912
>irregardless
ಠ_ಠ

>on the scale of God
Not really. God is universe-scale. Aliens are planet-scale.

>>4814912
remember that the volume of the earth is 1,083,207,317,374 km3, it would take millennia to map out 1% of this. And that you would have to travel around 6,000 km in a straight line to get to the centre. Best case scenario, if you can get there at walking pace, is that it takes over 60 days, non-stop, to get there. This is further complicated by needing to climb down through a maze, an obstacle course, which may or may not be actively trying to kill you. I don't think anyone will be getting to the centre anytime soon. Best to have it is a constant mystery, saved for a much later campaign.

>>4814928
Never said it would be easy, and I personally doubt it could be done. This is why I prefer just writing stories instead of having a bunch of idiots try and act it out*

*I don't mean railroad them into a specific story, I mean that they would undoubtedly act in a way unsuited to the game or setting, thus ruining the mood.

>>4814883
>>4814928

it could easily be adventure in the outer 1%, with 'biolife' and natives and machines and robots and nazi expeditions and so on, becoming non-euclidian (or super-euclidian) horror as you descend to the depths. Now everyone is happy.

>>4815015
This. There is something to be said in favor of ill-defined ambiguity.

>>4815015
>biolife

I don't think I've ever seen anything so redundant.

>>4814928 here
>>4815015

I actually like this. The outer workings of the Machine are the result of the unknowable workings from below interacting with the normal world working above.

>>4814738
Even if the machine normal is self sustaining, without some repair mechanism you run into the inevitable "now what?" when people become involved. if someone gets crushed in the gears, who/what cleans them out? If a scientist takes out a part for analysis, what is done about it? If someone (ie: a player) tries to mess with the machine, who/what undoes the damage?

Are you suggesting that it is completely unchangable? You can't stick something in the gears because I, the GM, will not allow it?

>>4815057
It's a perfectly appropriate appellation when dealing with nonbiolife or machinelife or energylife.

>>4814943

Yea I missed that, I don't normally use imaginary words. Also, the scientific community doesn't know just how far this goes. What they do know is they've discovered something that flies in the face of everything they'd established on their own - AND IT WAS UNDER THEIR NOSES THE WHOLE TIME.

>>4814996

I was under the impression that the machine was the core of the Earth - not merely something lurking a few hundred thousand miles underneath the lowest point on the surface of the Earth. That makes the machine still very large but not like what you are talking about. Additionally I never said they'd even gotten anywhere close to the center - they only think that's the direction the latest expeditions have been moving and where they have been encountering these phenomena.

Finished looking through the thread, glad to see people were quick to realize the sort of effect this would have on established belief systems. Also I'm on the side of 'no crazy tech monsters/caretakers or underground life'. The inherent dangers of crawling around in an alien machine and conflicts with other human factions should be enough.

>>4815057

I disagree. In the Machine we have a massive, self-sustaining and replicating system. A mechanical life form, in essence. As opposed to this, we are biological life.

Besides, in real life, I find it non-useful to define life only as chemical life, such as us. It is perfectly possible for meteoroligcal 'life' to exist in a gas giant, as self-sustaining and replicating weather patterns of ever increasing complexity, or nuetronic 'life' to exist as interactions of nuetrons in a nuetron star, or even electro-plasmic 'life' to exist as vortexes in a main-line star such as our sun. So there.

If there is anyone still here..

I don't think anything should be deliberately out to get you. This machine is.. unimaginable. The pressure and stress it must withstand. It probably doesn't need to protect itself.

No no. The caretakers are merely that. Caretakers. Upkeep.

The danger comes from the fact that they cannot discriminate a mechanical malfunction from something made of flesh wandering around. You don't look like you are in the right place.

So it'll rip you in two and figure out how to rebuild you and put you in the right set of gears.

Course then it can't rebuild you and just moves on.

Cold unfeeling machinery.

>>4815078

>without some repair mechanism you run into the inevitable "now what?" when people become involved. if someone gets crushed in the gears, who/what cleans them out?

Unknown. The machine is so vast that the mess would disappear within a few days and it could be centuries or even millenia before it would ever show up in the place where it was first stuck. With organic matter then it obviously will have decomposed by then. With inorganic material, who knows, perhaps it worked free at some unseen point in its journey through the machine.

>If a scientist takes out a part for analysis, what is done about it? If someone (ie: a player) tries to mess with the machine, who/what undoes the damage?

Easy solution here - the machine is made of an unknown material, that much has been established. It simply cannot be damaged or taken apart by any methods available to man. It's possible nuclear weaponry could - but no one would ever allow an attempt at such a thing for fear of the repercussions.

>>4815113
That there are 'dragons' is a mere coincidence.

They come in all shapes. Some of the mechanical janitors are humanoid.. cause hands are convenient for fine manipulating and detail work and using a variety of unique tools and other things.

Then the skittering insectoid ones. They could just be scouts for the most part. Capable of repairing small things on their own.. but mostly just out and about to search for anything that needs to be put on the repair checklist. Only dangerous in large numbers. Unfortunately they always come in large numbers. It is a big place, afterall.

Then large DRAGON type ones. They are movers of BIG THINGS mostly. Akin to construction equipment, but they also have internal forges(and can belch this fire for the purpose of clearing debris...).

If they pull off your legs, don't take it personally! They just don't know why you aren't built like a right proper spinny gear with fancy lights and steam shooting out your butt. They just want to fix you.

>>4815151

Thats so... so very...

Boring.

Where is the game in that?

>>4815113
This is the best. It provides more danger beyond mashing gears at deeper levels, but reinforces the non-fantasy setting.

>>4815094

I understand. I merely meant that players should always be remote from an explanation.

>>4815151

If it decomposes, that means there is bacteria. If there is bacteria, there is biolife. If there is biolife, there ought to be more complex creatures as a result of evolution. Unless some other, mechanical system disposes of them.

>>4815094
> was under the impression that the machine was the core of the Earth - not merely something lurking a few hundred thousand miles underneath the lowest point on the surface of the Earth. That makes the machine still very large but not like what you are talking about.

This line confuses me, and it brings up a point we need to clarify. There is no way to get to the "core" of the Earth without going through the mantle. If the mantle is not also part of the Machine (ie, not molten) there is no way to pass it, and this whole thing is moot.

Therefore, the Machine must constitute the entirety of the inside of the Earth below the crust, or else humans would not be able to reach it.

>>4815200

1. It's also already established that there's a way to get to the machine from the surface since before 1933, it was merely 'discovered', not dug. Obviously micro organisms have been able to get down there but that doesn't mean they would have developed into anything. It's possible the passageway opened only within the last 2000 years after a particularly violent earthquake in the area.

2. Stop saying biolife. It's not that there's a problem with distinguishing mechanical life from convential life, but biolife is a retarded word because it's just 'life life'. Use organic life or organolife if you need some stupid shortened term to use.

>>4815192
I just disliked the idea of things roaming about specifically just to kill anything moving. Felt too.. forced? Unnecessary?

The danger in exploring should be.. incidental. Is that the word I'm looking for? The machine isn't trying to hurt anything deliberately.


>If they pull off your legs, don't take it personally! They just don't know why you aren't built like a right proper spinny gear with fancy lights and steam shooting out your butt. They just want to fix you.

What mechanical janitors there are(and what they look like) could be left up to the individual campaign.

Though I like the idea of 'dragons' that aren't dragons. They don't look anything like dragons. They are just fucking big and strong and belch fire. So people started calling them that despite it being more of a very big box with arms.

>>4815151

There needs to be inhabitants, be the biological, mechanical, or what not. Things need to go wrong that people can set right.

Otherwise as a game setting, all you have a giant dungeon that is filled with what are essentially unchangeable endlessly boring "Danger rooms"

Oh this empty room is full of spinning bladegears, like the last 15 rooms.

Oh this room is full of super hot steam....*yawn*

This room is super cold, with spinning blade gears.
*skillcheck* ok on to the next room.... *yawn*.

>>4815178
You need to play a well run sandbox game, really. Those can be the best kind of fun. You are also forgetting politics, internecine warfar between the various factions who want to make sure their discovers are both the most important and also the onle ones that can be useful, sabotage, and all sorts of things. The Machine is not what makes the game go.

>>4815228
i agree biolife is stupid :/

>>4815228

I choose the term, 'chemolife', d'accord? I know, biolife is quite redundant, but it's a shortening of biological life, which means 'studying life life', so...

>>4815242

I think the only outright hostile things should be the roaches and natives I described earlier. The mobile machines, the Engineers, should be totally oblivious to us except where we interfere with the machine. Then they dispassionately repair the damaged components, likely destroying any humans nearby, but quite by accident.

>>4815178

Exploring. Finding new shit while trying to avoid being killed. Pretty much everything there is unknown and only gets stranger and more deadly the deeper you go.

>>4815244

It's not a goddamn DnD dungeon. It would go more like "Oh no, series of rolling cogs I must safely navigate, here we go *skillcheck skillcheck skillch-* wait I could've sworn I counted 3 cogs but now there's only two and...what's that sound? And where's the exit I just came through?"

>>4815250
again. Boring.

Look at it this way.

What is more fun. Exploring a giant clock... and that is all it is... a giant clock. Empty, sterile... big.

Or Exploring a giant clock with several societies living in it. From Machine men, to Ancient Romans....

>>4815315
If you think there's an obvious answer to that question, you're an idiot who has never read any literature outside of DnD rulebooks.

>>4815267
That works fine, I guess.

I mean if you actually start interacting with anything, they'd take more notice of you. Then they'd thing, "hey this thingy isn't quite right" then set out to 'repairing' you. Otherwise.. even if you are aberrant.. you aren't effecting anything else(and it has an eternity sized to-do list). Bits sticking out here and there are too small a thing. The machine needs to work.. not look good.

Yeh.. I still think any deaths via the machines should be incidental. They aren't designed or supposed to kill anything. They just lack.. social grace.

Also, I'm imagining insectioid types. Scorpions. Manipulator claws.. skittering legs(for getting around all kinds of terrain).. and a stinger tail. The stinger tail is actually a welder and cutting torch. Try not to give them a reason to think they need to cut anything off you(cause they'll be confused as hell why they can't weld it back on how they think it should go).

>>4815315

The problem is we're envisioning different clocks. I see a giant unknown monolith with a wealth of mysteries and inherent dangers.

You see a giant monolith that's already a known thing to one sort of creature or another.

It's an opportunity for a really different sort of adventurous game. Adding existing inhabitants that just make it just like everything else under a different guise.

This thread is endlessly fascinating. Can anyone recommend any good books with settings/themes like this?

>>4815356
Journey to the Center of the Earth, House of Leaves, etc.

>>4815356
>>4815373
And Contact, I suppose.

>>4815331

To be fair, even Call of Cthulhu, a game centred around sanity-defying non-Euclidian horror and people going batshit like the proponent of the "giant empty mindfuck clock" theory describes, relies on having horrific abominations to at least some degree. Why? Because it's mechanically impossible to play a game without SOMETHING to run INTO at some point or another. It doesn't have to be a dungeon-delve, it doesn't have to be high adventure, but you can't be the only ones down there if there's a system being used - and, since it's /tg/ discussing it, having a system of some sort is pretty much a given.

>>4815356

Cube. Not the greatest horror film around but pretty fun and has a pretty similar idea of "Oh god we're exploring this giant death trap that we have no idea what the fuck is made for."

Also for a similar theme of 'what the shit we just discovered something alien that's been on earth for ages what is going on', check out Sphere (Michael Crichton, if you don't like him then avoid I guess, your choice), either the book or the film, they're both pretty good.

>relies on having horrific abominations to at least some degree
Except this was the one thing that always ruined Lovecraft for me. It was scary up until LOL GIANT OCTOPUS/FISH PEOPLE/etc.

> mechanically impossible to play a game without SOMETHING to run INTO
Not true. As said before, your fellow adventurers are enemies enough.

And as has been mentioned before, look to House of Leaves for a VERY good example of how it CAN work. The very fact that there IS nothing down there besides you CREATES monsters from shadows, noises, and eachother.

>>4815389
This isn't even a case of 'it would work in book.. but not RPG'.

Even a story needs something to happen wandering in the vast space. Even if nothing else happens 90% of the time, that 10% has to have some actual conflict with something to work. Even just a tiny itty bitty bit.

Well, it could work in a purely visual medium where you can dazzle the audience with this vast machine. Throw in some visual puzzle computer gaming and you are set.

In text and description? Not.. going to work.

Have all attempts at dating anything from the machine result in a date 10 years AFTER the machine was discovered.

>>4815331

Ok, you made it in to the next tunnel, you find a doorway to the next room, which is more terribly mysterious then the last...

How So?

Well its got more gears, and some symbols and you have no idea what they do, or what they mean.

Is there an exit?

Yes....do you go in?

Ok.

You make your way to the next room, which is more terribly mysterious then the last...

Is there anything in here?

No...

Is there an exit?

3, counting the one you came in.


Or


You enter the tunnel... as you proceed down its length something catches you eye.. one the wall in what looks like faded chalk you find a message, hand written of course... however its in a language you cant read, but it is clearly a human language and different from the hieroglyphs found elsewhere in the machine.


Wait my character speaks and reads Russian, and Latin.

Ah, good... after letting your eyes adjust to the light in this room it becomes clear the message is written in ancient latin.. you can make out that is something along the lines of "Beware the serpent that does not sleep."

>>4815421
Also: 2001: A Space Odyssey. The archetypal monolith of horror.

>>4815342

also to expand the definition of mobile machine, and to blur the line between them and the Machine. Some would be attached to long wires that stretch between points, they run along them. Some operate on tracks, some affix themselves to the edges of gears and transfer between touching gears, and so on. Some parts of the Machine which we have explored turn out to be mobile within the larger Machine, we have been exploring within them all along.

>>4815438

House of Leaves is fucking amazing, I'll agree with you there.

>>4815459
Dude, just shut up. You're not really offering anything constructive other than saying "HERPDERP I CAN'T UNDERSTAND HORROR GOTTA BE LIKE EVERY DND CLONE EVER"

>>4815493

The game you describe is an aspies wet dream, that is if they could have wet dreams.

What you propose works for like, 2-3 games tops.
The Horror we are all going MAD, MAD I TELL YOU!

>>4815459
There is puzzles and endless traps, but again this only really works in a visual medium where you can SHOW it and the insane scenery.

In purely words? Just as you described. It becomes "yet another _____."

Limitations of a medium, folks. There needs to be some kind of adversary to move this along.

It can work SPARINGLY though. Doesn't need to be OH NO MONSTERS EVERYWHERE. If anything, finally running into something after tons of wandering and thinking MAYBE you aren't going to die makes the encounter all the more exciting.

>>4815459
You enter the next room. In this one, the cogs and gears are set at diagonals for the most part, along one wall. Their shafts are made of the same material as everywhere else, but there is a viscous black fluid sliding down the shafts. The other wall is simply a continuation of the last room's massive c,lockwork structure, only the paneling nearby markign it as any different than the last five rooms. Doctor Pembury, true to form, is walking into this room with the same aplomb and carefee fascination as he has the entire time. The floors and celing are not too unusual - the glass ceiling still shows you the thick intermixed clockwork and gears they have the last two rooms. That centipede-thing that has been following you ever since you entered the glass ceilinged section is still there, watching you all like a curious puppy.

Jordan is carefully taking samples of the viscous liquid, while Jose is nervously staying as close to the middle of the room as he can.

(players take samples.make sketches/talk to the professor)

Jordan cries out loudly - he's caught his shirt in the gears he was standing next to. Jose is on his knees praying and sweating bullets. Doctor Pembury runs back into the room.... (What no one knows, and may never find out, is that Jordan was pushed by Jose, who has been bribed by the Doctor's rivals to make sure he must return to the surface before they do, or Jordan is self-inflicting the wound to get the female pc's attention, or...)

Get a good DM, man. You're a little jaded.

>>4815493

Who said this was horror, again? This is clearly a fantastic steampunk setting dungeoncrawl, just look at the first 2 posts. Sure, there can be insane mysteriousness, but there is no reason why that should dominate the setting other than personal preference.

>>4815517
Then again.

This could come down to what different folk find scary.

Me? To be properly freaked out I actually have to SEE the baddy. Shadows and noises do not scare me one bit. I'd go to sleep waiting for the shit to hit the fan.. only for nothing to happen.

>>4815553

Meh, could take place in any setting.

and what happens when they analyze the goo, why its terribly mysterious I tell you.

You know, I keep thinking of the end of the Mechanicum novel in the Horus Heresy series. Namely, the OH GOD INSANE GEOMETRY THE ANGLES ARE WRONG IT'S NOT A CAVE AT ALL IT'S THE FUCKING VOID DRAGON IT'S EVERYWHERE AND NOWHERE OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD bit.

Someone mentioned the notion of it being "God" wrapped up and layered over itself to disorient it and render it unable to comprehend itself, and it reminded me of what the Emperor did to "seal" the Void Dragon under Mars.

>>4815553
>That centipede-thing...

Would be an example of exactly what you say isn't needed for suspense, you artless beef-witted barnacle.

>What no one knows..

Is your following examples are all adversaries dropped into the 'dungeon'.

You yourself could not come up with anything that is interesting that completely lacks enemies to run into.

Include something like this fucker. Its a whale turned into a machine that's a vehicle with crab legs.

>>4815610
This sounds good.

>>4815593
Looks like this is a difference of preference. Physical monsters don't scare me; if they're physical, they can be destroyed, trapped, outrun, whatever. Remember, humanity has fucking split the atom, fused the atom, and converted matter to pure energy. It's the shit you can't see that terrifies me. Moving shadows, unexplainable sounds, a breath on the back of your neck. The stalker in the dark, as it were. But the stalker IS the dark.

>>4815647
>artless beef-witted barnacle

Will you marry me?

>>4815553

For a horror aspect have the caretakers that rip you up actually apply your body parts to the machine. So when adventurers walk in they see a cog with an arm melded into it or a face. With blood, and weird fleshy tissue..

>>4815459

Who do you think you're talking to? Because fyi it's not this guy, because that's me. And I never said there should be a lack of adversaries, I said there shouldn't be pre-existing fantastical inhabitants.

>>4815647
>>4815345
>>4815271

I do agree with him on one other thing, though:

>>4815609

You really are jaded. I don't think you can actually enjoy PnP at all anymore, you're just convincing yourself you can.

>>4815669
>Physical monsters don't scare me; if they're physical, they can be destroyed, trapped, outrun, whatever.

So you'd rather be paralyzed into inaction by illusions? Tricks of your own mind? Manifestations of your own cowardice?

Unable to think because you are scared witless of that which you aren't even sure exists. Maybes and perhapses and could bes.

That's pathetic. Scared of what might be. Scared of what most likely isn't even there.

OP: You done good.

>>4815609
Ah, so you're just an ass. Got it.

>>4815647
I'm the one advocating a Lovecraftian horror story with no enemies. I did not write that, that was someone else. I wouldn't have included the centipede.

>>4815683
>Will you marry me?

You liked that, huh? I have tons more. Many that make no sense at all.

>>4815704
.....THIS IS ONE OF THE REASONS I HAVE A NAME.

DAMN YOU, ANONYMOUS IMAGE BOARD.

>>4815699
Yes. We have nothing to fear but fear itself.

>>4815699

Oh Fuuka, you're just so clever with the way you play with the feelings of the too-serious anons, I bet all the boys love you.

>>4815720
I shall be satisfied only when I can stare my enemy in the eye.

GHOST STORIES AND MIST SHALL NOT SCARE ME. IF HE IS BUT A FIGMENT, HE POSES NO THREAT. LET HIM FACE ME IF HE EXISTS.

I SHALL ONLY CONSIDER FEELING FRIGHT WHEN I HAVE BEEN GIVEN THE OPPORTUNITY TO MEASURE HIM.

SO BRING HIM CLOSE.

SO THAT I MAY KICK HIM IN THE BALLS AND RUN LIKE HELL.

>>4815761
But seriously, I think I'm in love with you. I don't even care what gender you really are.

Heres something.

What if you had to sneak past the engineers, because if you were seen, you werent flat out killed, but instead taken further in where you were...reconditioned and "repaired". You could do a big long thing in your campaign about people who became the machines.

Or even better. The engineers are people who were integrated into the machine long ago. Now they are the custodians of the machine they sought to explore.

>>4815734
I shall not be taken in by bawdy flap-mouthed foot-lickers.

What is your game, sir?

>>4815788
I, a random anon, do not approve of making this a Borg cube inside the earth.

>>4815791

No game, aside from your own.

>>4815719

This is why /a/ is retarded. They hate us because of the trips. It doesn't make any sense at all.

>>4815858
Name =/= Trip

Trips are for fags. Names are acceptable.

>>4815858

Oh let's not get into shit like that, the thread's pretty much dead anyways. There's arguments for and against and I can understand both but I value one more than the other, so I don't use the name field or tripcodes.

>>4815849
>aside from your own.

Oh well then, carry on.

Though I shall be retiring soon, and I will be taking my Shakespeare insult kit with me.

just throwing some ideas here, i apologize if its been mentioned.
- after 300 years of observing and studying the machine in Shaft 145, we have begun to realise its purpose, it is an engine. it draws power from another section of The Machine but it is undoubtedly an engine. What its powering and/or where the rest of it is, is uncertain and pending investigation. It rests beneath a volcano/tectonic plate juncture which seems to sit directly above its exhaust. Just as this discovery is made.... it moves. it delves deeper into The Machine and we realise the Engine was merely a 100+ mile long repair facility (perhaps one of many), the Engine being what drives it motive units... what was it repairing, and where did it go? When it left, it took with it an entire city (that grew from a small research facility... time passed, it became a city, popular spot for delvers to move into the Machine, blah blah ... perhaps its on a popular trade route between the surface and the Machine, meaning it would have lots of survival equipment and digging machines (DRILL TRAINS!) and could be a adventure hook.. )

>>4816068 cont.
- Drill Trains - trains with drills on the front. dont run on rails but on treads like tanks. Brings people to and from the surface into the depths.
- Machine Madness is a common psychological problem affecting long term adventurers. People suffering from this affliction dig endless tunnels in the ground. They are terrified of the surface and always seek out small dark spaces. Light and having nothing above them freaks them out and if forced into the outdoors, they will dig at the ground with their bare hands to the bone to escape it. They all ramble on about different things so asking them any questions usually brings about no conclusive or even interesting information. No one has yet tried to return these people to the Machine.....
- Engineers are constantly changing machines themselves. Even a stationary Engineer will be constantly in motion. Its limbs constantly reconfigure themselves, adding more and reabsorbing old ones into its body. New tools constantly unfold from its limbs and its "head" is in constant flux. New lenses and "eyes" form and are lost as cogs rotate and close. Its entire body structure keeps moving so watching one for any period of time is unnerving. They whirr, buzz and click with the constant motion and can sit still for years before springing into action. damaging and/or destroying one is not advised as other things come along to repair it....

>>4816096
also, the best artist for this would undoubtedly be Keith Thompson

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