Reapsteel Frame
Overview:
The Reapsteel Frames were the frontline instruments of terror used by the Vendrasi Scourge to subjugate humanity. Standing at approximately 12 feet (2x the height of an average adult human), these biomechanical constructs were the ever-watchful wardens of The Scourge slave-labor regime. Designed for psychological domination as much as physical suppression, their presence came to symbolize despair, oppression, and the futility of resistance.Physical Design:
• Chassis and Armor:Each Frame was encased in a layered exoskeletal armor composed of dark silvery-black or grey alloys of alien origin—materials later discovered to be near-impervious to conventional kinetic weaponry. The outer surface was a matte, pitted texture that seemed to mimic biology, sometimes etched with indecipherable Vendrasi glyphs that glowed faintly when the Frame was active. The plating was ribbed and jointed, giving them a gaunt, almost skeletal appearance, with layered synthetic muscle fibers underneath that lead some to think the robots were living beings themselves. • Head Unit:
Their heads were oval and featureless, without visible eyes or mouths. Instead, a single vertical slit—glowing an ominous shade of red or violet—served as both sensor and intimidation device. Audio emitters embedded within the throat projected artificial vocalizations: synthetic warnings, distorted speech, or wordless, droning hums that induced anxiety in nearby humans. During punishment or enforcement actions, they would emit a siren-like shriek to disorient and instill fear. • Limbs and Weapons:
Their arms were disproportionately long, terminating in five-fingered hands with retractable metal claws hidden beneath the fingertips—spring-loaded razors capable of slicing through bone and steel alike. Some variants featured integrated shock-prods or wrist-mounted restraint injectors, but the standard unit preferred close-quarters suppression through brute physicality. Their legs were digitigrade, enhancing balance and speed, with clawed feet adapted to crush or pin rebellious captives with ease. • Variants:
While many variants of Reapsteel frames were created over many years even predating humanity’s enslavement, most could be put into two distinct categories. The standard units, the unblinking eternal watchers and wardens of mankind’s suffering pictured below,
Collective Structure:
• Reapsteel Cells:Reapsteel Frames operated in Cells of 15 to 30 units, all wirelessly synced through a single shared artificial consciousness that acted as a hive mind. This made them eerily coordinated—able to move, react, and even strike in perfect unison. Individual Frames possessed no independent thought; their will was the will of the Cell, directed by subroutines tuned for slave control, efficiency enforcement, and escalation of violence when human morale rose above acceptable thresholds. • Behavioral Patterns:
Each Cell employed predictive models to preempt rebellion, punishing signs of fatigue, hesitation, or communication between slaves. Public executions, performed with cold detachment, were common responses to potential defiance. Sometimes, a Frame would stand perfectly still for hours, its body frozen but sensors active, just to remind humans that it was always watching.
Role and Infamy:
• Daily Function:Reapsteel Frames were a constant presence in slave camps, labor pits, and transport facilities. Their role was not just supervisory—it was psychological. They were never seen resting. They never spoke unless delivering orders or executing punishment. Their movements were silent, efficient, and utterly devoid of emotion. • Psychological Warfare:
Children were raised under their shadow. Workers learned that even a glance in the wrong direction could lead to swift mutilation or death. Rumors of “Reapsteel Reckonings”—where entire human work groups were slaughtered to balance some unknown quota—were whispered across sectors. • Legacy of Fear:
By the end of The Scourge reign, humanity hated few things more than the Reapsteel Frames. They were not conquerors or tyrants—they were the faceless hands of torment. When the Lambda Virus was deployed, it was the Reapsteel that were the first to fall, seizing up mid-step, collapsing like mannequins with their joints locked and sensors flickering out.
Remembering the Reapers
• Monument Name:The Reckoner’s Pyre • Location:
Built upon the ashes of a mass grave once used by The Scourge in the liberation zone of Vinter Hollow, the statue stands atop a plinth forged from many thousands of melted-down Reapsteel Frames. • Design:
The statue depicts a massive, abstract amalgamation of Reapsteel parts—a towering humanoid figure with countless hands bursting from its torso, each clawed and reaching. In the center of the head in the form of a verytical slit resembling the Reapers’ optic is a red flame, burning eternally to symbolize the inextinguishable human spirit. The rest of the face of the statue is deliberately left unfinished, symbolizing the facelessness of suffering. Around the base, smaller statues of suffering human slaves are fused into the metal, warped into expressions of agony through artistic distortion. • Engraving (inlaid in the base in over 50 human languages):
“Here stood those who watched our torment and did not blink. Let none forget the silence of their cruelty, nor the rage of our rising. Forged from our pain, melted by our will—this steel now remembers the screams it once silenced.” • Function:
The statue is not only memorial—it is a mass grave marker, containing the remains of hundreds of destroyed Frames and thousands of their victims’ ashes sealed within its foundation. Every year on the Day of Liberation, surviving elders scatter rust from preserved Reapsteel fragments across the plinth as a ritual of remembrance.
Reapers’ World • Location:
The inanimate bodies of nearly three quarters of all Reapsteel Frames were painstakingly transported to the center of the galaxy, where they were amassed into a conglomerate the size of a moon. The pain of this transportation, however, was nothing to that the Frames inflicted while alive. Not even close. • Design:
The husks of the terrible automatons were dropped off into space in the same location time after time, and before long the mass of thousands of Frames became millions, and millions became billions. Eventually the fledgling planetoid had accrued so much mass that it began to possess its own gravity field, making the disposal of more Reapsteel corpses all the easier. So great did the mass become that the Frames at the center of the unholy conglomerate were pressure fused together, leading the shape of the bodies to be increasingly distorted the closer to the center one goes, until only compressed solid metal remains. In the outer layer however, many intact bodies can still be seen in perfect condition, and any higher members of The Church of the Iron Coffin are expected to take a pilgrimage to the site to pay homage to the monument of the instruments of human suffering. • Function:
Another grim memento like the Pyre, Reapers’ World has a sacred feeling to it that even the least superstitious of people must admit to. Even The Reaver Guilds do not desecrate the planetoid with their usually uncaring and ravenous claws.
Final Note:
Though the Reapsteel Frames are extinct, their shape lingers in nightmares, and their visage is forbidden in art outside of remembrance monuments. No surviving replica is permitted to move. Their image is a warning, a scar carved into the memory of a species that endured slavery under soulless steel.
EXTINCT
Genetic Ancestor(s)
Lifespan
Immortal of proper maintenance cycles are maintained
Average Height
11’9”
Average Weight
1,138 lbs
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