Shade
Monster Junkie
This thread will focus on converting the sheens found in Dragon Magazine #258 and #270. Some of these have already been converted in 3e, but I think it would be best to start from scratch.
Here's the overview...
Here's the overview...
Dragon Magazine #258 said:Living Machines
With infinite Prime Planes and the means to traverse them, elements of one Plane sometimes infect another. On many Planes, clockwork lore advanced well beyond iron springs and gears. Constructs that unlock energy from matter and sunlight were developed as tools on some Planes. The lore of the machine builders is vast, and some of their mechanisms serve as remote servants for mighty exploratory vessels.
Some of these vessels foundered in the tide pools of the universe, “sinking” on planes where technology is subservient to magic. In some cases, the living crew and their machine servants survived the catastrophe; in others, only the machines survived. A few damaged but functioning machines—without the guidance of their living masters—bypassed safeguards and mimicked life, replicating themselves to insure survival.
In every case of unsupervised machine cyst formation documented by the Vital League, self-replicating machines are inimical to the ecosystem because their single goal is their own expansion—at the expense of local resources. Machine life regards living creatures as dispensable and easily eradicated competitors.
Even more frightening is a truncated report describing biological masters of the machines. Apperently, they are Wizards who long ago embraced both magic and technology. The goals of these “sheenmasters” are a source of much debate within League and Coalition circles, but they remain enigmas.
An Abridged Apparatiary
To catalogue the reported incidents of machine life, the Vital League has created a machinery bestiary or—as they call it—the Apparatiary. The Apparatiary is updated as Sheenchasers discover new cysts from different origins.
At least two points of origin for machine life cysts are currently known, the Barrier Peaks and the Rael cysts. Many more are suspected to exist, but they are as yet undiscovered. Each of the confirmed sites includes several different types of free-roaming machines. Worse, it’s not uncommon for each machine type to modify itself and its “progeny” to become better equipped to deal with their environment.
There are currently over one hundred entries in the Apparatiary, but this record relates only the four most common forms of machine life encountered by Sheenchasers. These are the forms that most often leave the cyst to probe for new resources. As yet, no Sheenchaser has found and entered a machine cyst and returned to tell the tale.
Machine Healing
All forms of machine life possess self-repair subroutines. Thus, a machine left for dead might eventually repair itself. Sheens effect internal repairs at a rate of 1d4 hit points per twenty-four hours. Moreover, sheens continue to effect repairs even when brought below 0 hit points. Self-repair subroutines are scrambled if a sheen is brought below -10 hit points, at which time it is truly “dead.”