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source: Kobold Press
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![[assets/cb42e426f6a5cb00e632787f060ec5fd_MD5.jpg|Tamás Patkós]]

The gearforged are an artificial lineage of living minds inside mechanical bodies of metal and wood

Gearforged are created one at a time in arcane workshops and foundries and come from a vast array of backgrounds. Nevertheless, they maintain rich traditions of history, culture, and spirituality all their own. Some find work mining in [[Brittle Hallow]], some invent in [[Windreach]]. Some seek adventure.

Made for a variety of reasons. Sometimes prolonging an aging body. Other times seeking servants. Regardless of origin, gearforged are quickly becoming recognized as their own people.

# Form and Function

All gearforged were once other creatures with bodies of flesh and blood, but their conscious minds were transplanted into articulated bodies of iron, steel, brass, and wood, driven by pistons and springs. Each is as distinctive in appearance as any person is. Some gearforged spend a fortune on these new bodies, while others scrape together anything that will work—especially if the subject is aging or ill.

All gearforged are made in humanoid shape, often in the likeness of the person’s original lineage, but not always. The vast majority of gearforged are created from and shaped like humans, who were the first creators of gearforged, but many other variations exist

Gearforged have articulated joints, hands, feet, and crystal-lens eyes. Gearforged mechanisms are more than mechanical, because gearforged are machines with souls. Their arms and legs are driven by everwound springs. T heir minds are actuated by memory gears, transverse cognition gearing, and the marvel of a soul gem connected directly to a maze of silver and mithral steam, spark, and magical conduits. These elements reside in a shell of iron, brass, and steel.

## Gearforged Components

The range of gearforged anatomy in all its variants is remarkable, but all gearforged share some common parts.

## Everwound Springs

These magical springs provide energy over long periods, effectively acting as the power sources for most of the gearforged’s moving parts. A broken everwound spring results in the loss of function in that digit or limb, much like a damaged joint or ligaments in a flesh-and-blood creature.

## Soul Gem

The mind of a gearforged creature is as sharp as that of any flesh-and-blood soul, but it is more portable. The animating, vital principle of a gearforged—its will, its personality, its mind—are retained in a soul gem. The destruction of this gem means the death of that gearforged.

## Memory Gears

These delicate constructions are scroll-like ribbons pierced with thousands of pin holes and wound about with tiny enchantments of great complexity. The memory of a gearforged for all the days after its creation lives in the memory gears. Older gearforged have many such gears, and the material component for the magic to create them requires one new gear for every 10 years of life. Installing a new memory gear requires one day’s work and 2,000 gp.

Other gearforged can read memory gears salvaged from a dead gearforged, but it’s a complex, time‑consuming process. It’s also viewed with some alarm by most gearforged, akin to peering into the most private details of a creature’s life. When a used memory gear is installed in a new or existing gearforged, the process takes three days’ work to avoid damaging the memories in the gear, and it takes one week before the recipient can fully interpret and understand the memories.

# Traits

Your gearforged character has the following traits.

## Age

The soul inhabiting a gearforged can be any age. If its new body is kept in good repair, there is no known limit to how long it can function.

## Size

When you first create your gearforged character, you must choose a different lineage option (like human, dwarf, minotaur, etc.) to inform the basic shape and size of your chassis—the outermost layer of your constructed body. Your size is determined by the lineage you pick. If you choose a lineage with multiple size options, you may choose between them. For example, if you choose to have a kobold chassis, you may choose whether your size is Small or Medium.

Your size and height are determined by the lineage design you choose for your chassis. On average, gearforged weigh twenty to thirty percent more than a typical creature of the lineage their chassis is modeled after.

## Speed

Your base walking speed is 30 feet.

## Hybrid Humanoid

Your Humanoid soul inhabits a machine, making you primarily a Humanoid. However, your constructed body gives you traits in common with Constructs. You are immune to disease, and you are resistant to poison damage. In addition, you have advantage on saves against being paralyzed, petrified, or poisoned.

## Constructed Vitality

You don’t need to eat, drink, or breathe, and you don’t sleep the way most creatures do. Instead, you enter a dormant state for 6 hours a day, when you resemble a statue and remain semiconscious. While in this dormant state, you have disadvantage on **WIS** (Perception) checks. After resting in this way, you gain the same benefit that other creatures do from 8 hours of sleep.

## Machine Speech

You can speak and understand Machine Speech, a mechanical language of clicks, beeps, and clacks spoken almost solely by gearforged and mechadrons.

## Upgrade

Choose one of the following traits to represent a specialized function built into your chassis:

- **Always Armed**. You can integrate a weapon into each of your arms (maximum of two weapons, one per arm). You can’t integrate weapons with the Two Handed property. If you integrate a weapon with the Ammunition property, you must still provide a separate supply of ammunition for firing and loading. You can integrate or replace a suitable weapon over the course of 10 minutes (which can be done as part of a short or long rest).
    While a weapon is integrated, you can’t willingly be disarmed of it by any means, though you can use an action to remove the weapon from your body (so it may be thrown or dropped). You can draw or sheathe an integrated weapon as normal, which causes the weapon to fold into or spring from your arm instead of a sheath. While an integrated weapon is drawn, it is considered held in that arm’s hand, for the purposes of determining whether you have a free hand available to cast spells or use similar features. You automatically succeed on any ability checks made to conceal an integrated weapon when it is sheathed
- **Bulk Up**. As a bonus action, you can activate a set of special gears inside your body to extend your limbs and temporarily increase your size to Large. This effect lasts for a number of rounds equal to your **PB**. While enlarged, your weapon attacks do an extra 1d4 damage and you make **STR** checks and saves with advantage. If you lack the room to become Large, this bonus action fails. After you use this trait, you can’t use it again until you finish a long rest.
- **Quick Fix**. When you are below half your hit point maximum, you can use a bonus action to apply a quick patch-up to your damaged body. You gain temporary hit points equal to twice your **PB**. You can’t use this trait again until you finish a short or long rest.