Page 187 - Chronicles of Darkness

from the God-Machine worked. The Mechanists were able to
modify, amplify, and power the purloined devices to a degree
Inspiration that they started to provide serious opposition to agents of
the God-Machine that came to put an end to their meddling.
The God-Machine Chronicle Anthology is a
good source for getting a grip on the setting. The Even so, the threat to the God-Machine remained minimal.
stories describe how the God-Machine and the Then came the computer.
hidden system operate and can provide inspira- Modern Mechanists aren’t content to simply steal a piece
tion for Storytellers and players. or two of the God-Machine. They still do that, but they’ve
also started fiddling with its programming. The results are
less than predictable. A farmer Mechanist that has been
getting by controlling the weather around his farm using a
power from being rerouted to other dimensions where the device cobbled together from parts of the God-Machine might
angel was next scheduled to appear. suddenly decide he can do better. The lackwit attempts to
Stories set in the cosmic tier don’t automatically equal reprogram the section of the God-Machine he found when
science fiction, either. In the Chronicles of Darkness, magic digging for a new well, using half-remembered coding he
is frequently more potent than science. It’s entirely possible learned in high school. He might get rain showers or he
that the God-Machine is a magical construct, rather than an might open a gateway to hell.
actual machine, and has promoted the use of science to blind If the results of their meddling remained local, this new
humans to the reality around them. The entirety of creation attack on the God-Machine might not cause more than a few
could also be faith based, if that tickles your fancy. Pick a god hiccups. The reality is that every time they tinker with the
(plenty to choose from) and declare it, him, or her the one that God-Machine’s programming, they risk corrupting entire sub-
created the God-Machine. Maybe the deists were right after all. systems, which could eventually destabilize the entire system.
Though it isn’t mandatory, picking a “truth” behind the Applied to Mechanists, the term organization is mislead-
God-Machine can be part of the cosmic-tier experience. This ing. Most work singly, a few in pairs and even fewer in groups.
is what is commonly referred to as “learning that which man- It’s the net result of their work that places them in a single
kind was not meant to know.” Maybe religion is the key and category. The majority of Mechanists recognize the name,
prayers are what keep the God-Machine turning. All religions either from some sort of collective gestalt or from having
were created by the God-Machine to ensure a steady supply borrowed it from the angels that hunt for them. Many are
of fuel. Miracles and angels are basically just a show put on just tinkerers, content with having a leg up on their fellows
by the God-Machine to ensure compliance. Whatever your thanks to owning (or controlling) such an advanced piece of
troupe’s “truth” happens to be, simply having an inkling as technology. A rare few, maybe one in a hundred (making the
to what’s really going on can be sanity destroying (depending number around one for every billion people) wants more.
on the character). These Mechanists have delusions of being techno-mages.
They want to travel in time, visit distant planets, or step between
Cosmic Organization: Mechanists worlds. They actively seek out and exploit any section of the
God-Machine they can find, sometimes fighting turf wars against
Assume for every 101 people that see the God-Machine other Mechanists to gain access to a particularly juicy segment.
and manage to acquire a piece of it, 100 of them are dis- Mechanists with this sort of ambition are highly dangerous, hav-
patched by angels or otherwise don’t survive the night. ing fought angels and won. All it would take is one Mechanist to
That still leaves one person that managed to tinker with the plug in the wrong device at the wrong place at the wrong time,
God-Machine and avoid the consequences. Even then, that in an effort to hack the God-Machine’s programming, and the
one person isn’t likely to have any idea what just happened. world — worlds, maybe — would pop like a bubble.
Every so often, though, that one person knows (or learns
about) exactly what he’s done and what he’s found. That’s
when the real trouble begins. Assembly Required
The original Mechanist probably emerged around the
time the first complex machine was invented and likely in For a God-Machine Chronicle, the first step is to choose
China. Archaeologists have found evidence of complex ma- a chronicle track (if you’re planning on playing long enough
chinery in the Middle Kingdom as far back as 2,550 years to complete one) or to choose a Tale. For purposes of this
ago. Early uses for the odds and ends pulled off the God- section, it doesn’t much matter, because the setting and
Machine were fairly limited, right up until people figured character creation aspects work the same either way.
out the simplest form of batteries, roughly 600 years later. What part does the God-Machine play in the chronicle?
Even then, the juice provided by these protobatteries wasn’t How about the hidden system, cogs in the machine? Asking
enough to produce more than a couple sparks. some questions is a good headspace to get into before delv-
The first, serious, issues arose with the advent of modern ing into specifics.
electronics. For the first time in history, Mechanists began How much of the God-Machine will the characters witness
to at least partially understand how the parts they’d stolen firsthand? Have they ever heard the term “God-Machine?”

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Shards of the Divine-Building the God Machine Chronicle