"Exterminate!" (A Dr. Who-inspired idea for modrons)

[GQuail]

Rather than exterminators, having them as self-styled and invasive "guides" telling people how to live and wanting to RE-E-DU-CATE dissenters could avoid recasting them as lawful evil (more like LN with evil tendencies).

Something a bit Borglike, too. ASS-I-MI-LATE.

Hey, what if beneath the Modron Armor, the being is actually some Prime who needed reeducation? The Modron apparatus becomes a combined brainwashing device and power armor!

I like this a lot. It keeps them LN while still making them a clear threat to the PCs, and giving them more sinister overtones. Discovering what's /really/ inside a Modron could make for quite a tense adventure for the PCs - since no-one who has travelled into Regulus has ever reported back...

This would make the Modron energy pool from which they emerge in core history as, what, some sort of Royal Jelly-esque material that prospective Modrons are dunked in to blast away all chaotic thoughts? Remoulds them to fit the power armour, physically and mentally? (Remember that Daleks, while humanoid once, are nothing short of little blobs now: the process may leave Modrons nothing but a handful of protoplasm)

Mouseferatu, Would you feature any of the other LN denziens of D&D's cosmology in this set-up, or not? Would you render them merely as LN/LE constructs and keep Formians as the default outsiders of Regulus or what have you? Hmm, in traditional Who mythos the Daleks became the way they are during a war with another people who lived on their homeworld: what if the opponents of the Modron's converted themselves into some sort of Homo Formicidae shape?...

 

[Upper_Krust]

Hey all!

So does this mean the Inevitables would become akin to the Cybermen?

 

[GQuail]

Hey all!

So does this mean the Inevitables would become akin to the Cybermen?

I was instead pondering them being Time Lords.

1. The Inevitables could represent a softer, but still unyielding set of laws to the Modrons - arguably, Time Lords in the old series are often shown to be pretty cruel when it suits their goals.

2. There's an Inevitable in Fiend Folio (IIRC) to do with time.

3. The thought of a Marut in a question mark jumper cracks me up. ;-)

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I've had a comparable problem with the modrons since the beginning. I think making them into Daleks works just fine. I disagree that making them hostile to other forms of life inherently makes them evil; slaadi aren't evil, after all. I think evil requires a world-view that the modrons don't have.

 

[Tonguez]

I like Gez' idea - Modrons taking over the world to impose their concept of perfect order for the benefit of the lesser races

Afterall the Modrons gave me hours of pleasure as a young child of 23 even Mr Silly deserve respect!

 

[demiurge1138]

I like the premise, and I also like Gez's idea.

They (the modrons) wouldn't kill unless they have to (no "exterminate"). Instead, have them act as though they are the ultimate beings of law who have decided that the pursuit of a lawful (and orderly) life is the epitome of perfection. They realize that other races are simply not capable of their perfect order, so they have decided to put non-ordered races to work in other ways in service to the perfect order. Those that comply will be treated well (well fed, comfortable accomodations), but have no freedom (i.e., slavery, though the modrons would define it as non-modrons "filling their niche" in society). They wouldn't see it as an evil act, but rather (almost) a good act since they have helped the chaotic creatures become better ordered.

That's how I've always played up formians, oddly enough.

Likewise, although the modrons-as-Daleks sounds pretty fun, I've always assumed (and treated) clockwork horrors as the Daleks of D&D.

Demiurge out.

 

[Maldin]

I wouldn't use the Dalek flavor on the standard modrons at all... daleks are clearly evil, and modrons are not. However!! The latest Dragon article talks about the tainted modrons that got up and left for Acheron(?) and who wish to return, "cleanse" away the inferior modrons (and anything else, I'd venture to bet), and seize control of Mechanus. I think the dalek idea would fit that group quite well!

Denis, aka "Maldin"
==============================
Maldiln's Greyhawk http://melkot.com

 

[The Grumpy Celt]

(Grumpy produces his own horn and begin to play a tune…)

I included a Dalak/Cylon Centurion homage in my book, Mechamancy II.

They are the LOW, or the Locust of Worlds. To most prime material creatures, they appear to be identical, regardless of their power or position. These creatures are all metal spheres, gray in color, and about five feet across. They are coved with about a dozen or so hemisphere, which can roll back and into the body of the LOW and a weapon or appendage come out of the orifice.

They are strictly mechanical, that is living machines, and have a mad on for wiping out all the “life” in the omniverse, live, undead, extraplanar, microbial, etc. They themselves are extraplanar – no one seems to know where they come from – and attack everything alive that is not a LOW.

They fly and uses lasers.

 

[Cabe Zeree]

On a similar note: has anyone read Peter Hamilton's Commonwealth Saga (wiki info with spoilers down the page)? In it he features an alien race called the "Primes," that I felt had passing similarity to the Modrons.

As a race the modrons were on-again off-again for me, and I've been looking for a way to "make them work" for years.

Thoughts I've had:
Confine them to the symmetric simple shapes (spheres, cubes, and polyhedrons)
The higher order modrons may be complex polyhedrons complex polyhedrons
They don't have legs and arms -- locomotion is magical -- but they can manifest faces to communicate

Dunno, they're on the drawing board with a lot of other things.