Clockwork Nirvana of Mechanus
“The song of harmony rings sweet and true on the plane of Mechanus like nowhere else in the multiverse. Truly it earns the name nirvana – a peaceful serenity settles over the clockwork gears and moving pieces of the landscape. Everything moves with purpose, determination, and singular focus, and nothing is left to chance. If there’s a blueprint for peace, I can see no better guide than Mechanus, though even such a perfectly working mechanism has its own problems from time to time. The constant tune-up and maintenance, though, is part of the intricate cycle that is, in a word, breathtaking.”
Issilda the Unbreakable
Absolute order brings absolute harmony, at least in the Clockwork Nirvana of Mechanus, the most orderly plane in all the multiverse. There is no subtlety or guile present in this plane of stark truth and fact, but neither is there passion or emotion. Everything moves and happens with deliberate and driven purpose according to a plan, though most, including many of the residents and gods, are blind to that plan – a situation that suits the inhabitants just fine.
Mechanus is a plane filled with enormous gears, like the internal working of a clock, each gear moving in perfect concert with adjacent gears. Some gears are as small as 10 feet across, while most are larger, spanning hundreds or thousands of miles across. They all move, though many are so expansive that their movements are imperceptible to those moving and living on them.
In this plane of constant motion, of gear teeth moving with absolute precision, everything is in perfect balance. Day and night, light and dark, they are all parceled out in equal portions without change or deviation. The sheer scale of the operation on Mechanus is mind-boggling and has thus far eluded attempts at deciphering, though some have dedicated their lives to understanding its meaning. The Confederacy of the Cog are a group of brilliant artificers who are wholly devoted to understanding not just how Mechanus works, but why.
Life exists in the Clockwork Nirvana as well, though most of it is mechanical or constructed in nature. The most numerous and recognizable of Mechanus’ resident races are the modrons – legions of geometrically shaped creatures living, breathing, and operating to keep Mechanus ticking and running smoothly. From the sphere-like monodrones, to the cube-like duodrones, all the way up to their supreme god, Primus, they are all devoted to keeping the gears running. They don’t know why, they don’t care why, and usually they only have the barest hint at what exactly their duties accomplish. But they accomplish them with focused intensity and child-like glee.
The clockwork precision of Mechanus is not just found in the continually running gears and moving pieces. There’s a sense of rigid order that pervades every facet, and affects everyone equally that travel its realm of endless gear. The regular variance of chance is dampened to an extreme degree, so that the predictable outcome is the most likely, even in an otherwise unpredictable situation. Warriors swing their weapons with the same amount of force, regardless of how much they want to inflict more or less. Magic and spells are affected in similar fashions.
There are many comparisons between Mechanus and Arcadia, and the insect-like formians are found on both in great numbers. However, whereas Arcadia relies upon a complex set of legal laws and regulations maintained by the Lex, Mechanus’ laws are ingrained in the very fabric of the plane. For many of these laws, breaking them is simply not possible, or at least not to the general populace. Certain magical artifacts and beings are said to affect the laws of Mechanus, but these individually powerful aspects rarely visit the Clockwork Nirvana.
There are other, stranger manifestations in this plane of absolute order. The Word of Law is an enigmatic figure that twists the natural power of Mechanus into immensely powerful written words, like scrolls. Few has seen this strange being face to face, and most believe it is an entity from another plane pushing into the Clockwork Nirvana. The Glass God is another one of these powers though its origin is more overt – it comes from the Far Realm and seems to be enforcing a kind of unknown, alien order into the rigid structure of Mechanus, spreading and infecting out like a disease.
It surprises some to learn that there are portions of Mechanus devoted to junk and refuse, along with the raw materials that make up the gears. These are, of course, all perfectly orderly and organized, and the modrons that tend to them and many other realms in the Clockwork Nirvana take their jobs very seriously. They have strict rules preventing outsiders from taking scrap or raw materials outside of the designated zones.
The great machine of Mechanus is constantly moving, in perfect synchronization with countless delicate gears across hundreds of thousands of miles. Or at least, that’s the image. The reality is that there are any number of parts that break down across the gear landscape, and a great many outsiders work to harvest the valuable metal for their own purposes. Mechanus exists as the pinnacle of order in the multiverse, but it is not perfect, and there are plenty of cracks in its façade for many to exploit.
Powerful & Mighty
As the plane of rigid ordered structure and clockwork precision, Mechanus draws and generates a variety of interested powers. Some look to exploit the weaknesses inherent in such a massive machine, slipping between the cracks, while others try to harness the capabilities of the gears and cogs that fill the landscape. Mechanus is also home to one of the oldest beings in existence, Primus, who is said to rival Asmodeus in age and sheer influence.
- Helm (Toril)
- Horus (Egyptian)
- Mystra (Toril)
- Nai No Kami (Japanese)
- Primus (modron)
- Psilofyr (myconid)
- Rudra (Indian)
- Shang-ti (Chinese)
- Varuna (Indian)
- Yama (Indian)
Confederacy of the Cog
Artificers from across the multiverse are drawn to Mechanus. It’s an entire plane of constructed material, on a scale unfathomable anywhere else, with living creatures of metal and stone existing naturally in such an unnatural environment. As they came to study, the artificers shared their knowledge, and from that original community came the Confederacy of the Cog. The original founding members built the Transcendent Academy to share their discoveries and inventions, and to train new members.
Overall, the members of the Confederacy have done much to advance the artificer art in the multiverse. Individuals and groups within the group have documented many of Mechanus’ internal processes, though the sheer scale of that project is going to likely require generations of artificers working and expanding their documentation. Cog Confederates (as they are also known) have expanded the Transcendent Academy into a massive sprawling site, with dozens of large laboratories and hundreds of personal chambers to house their experiments and findings. The Confederacy of the Cog are led by a thirteen-member Cog Council, who are made up of members voted upon by their peers once every five years. There is no leader, so each individual on the Cog Council has equal voice in all matters brought before their chambers, though strong members tend to dominate such meetings. Committees in the Cog Council meet regularly to approve new members, settle disputes, and hear reports on the advancement of artificer work within the academy and the multiverse at large.
The vast majority of the Cog Confederates are clockwork engineer artificers, but they welcome all who wish to learn the artificer art into their halls. Gnomish gem binders from Bytopia, elven livewood sculptors from Arbora, battlesmiths from the world of Eberron, goblin alchemists from Ravnica, and the strange wonderkin from the Plane of Dreams can all be found in the Transcendent Academy. It is a place of invention and creation, but under strict guidelines – chaotic artificers chafe under the mounting list of rules and regulations that guide everyday life in the academy and Mechanus as a whole. Few last long.
Formian Hive-Cities
The ant-like formians are one of the few non-construct creatures native to Mechanus. They are as industrious and focused as the insects they resemble, and on the cogs of the Clockwork Nirvana they have built enormous hive-cities. Each cog consists of a single colony of formians, and each colony is ruled by a single queen. The colonies themselves are constructed of compacted metallic dirt pulled together from creation vats operated by formian drones – other drones bring scrap metal to the vats, which are then broken down and used to build the colony. Most colonies resemble smooth-sided towers stretching up hundreds of feet.
The vast majority of the hive-cities on Mechanus are clustered around a large cog that houses their largest colony – Arkitan, which in the clicking language of the formians means “center.” It is the home of the Scion Queen Mother, the greatest and most powerful of the formian queens in all the multiverse, and it is by her will the formians expand out, both through Mechanus and beyond. Large colonies have been established in the Peaceable Kingdoms of Arcadia, and there are rumors of hidden hive-cities within select cubes floating through the Infernal Battlefield of Acheron.
The Scion Queen Mother encourages the queens of the hive-cities to push forward and expand, and this results in a lot of conflict between the individual colonies. This is perhaps the only reason the formians haven’t proved a greater threat, for while they are utterly focused on the health and safety of their individual colonies, they seem to have little thought for their species on a whole. The Scion Queen Mother in Arkitan is of a different mind, however. She has clashed with the modrons of Regulus, and sees the arrival of the Glass God as nothing more than a nuisance. Her desire is to colonize the multiverse with formians, thus making everything perfectly ordered and working harmoniously together. Even if it’s against the will of the people in the multiverse.
Glass God
Strange things have been seen appearing in Mechanus recently. Some smaller cogs and gears have transformed seemingly spontaneously from metal into strangely prismatic clear glass. The gears continue to move in the same way as they have before, and the sudden changes haven’t prompted the modrons of Regulus to do anything more than a cursory check – to their rigid minds, the gears are functional and that’s all that matters.
At the same time, devotees have appeared in the Clockwork Nirvana claiming to speak for a new power they call the Glass God. This being comes from outside the plane of Mechanus but has a wonderful future planned that incorporates everything great about Mechanus into a new form. These devotees are accompanied by warriors carrying strange glass weapons, along with more sinister creatures known as glass hounds. Everything about the Glass God as spoken about by these speakers and warriors refers to a harmonious convergence of machine and glass.
The truth is far more sinister, however. The Glass God is an alien intelligence from the Far Realm who has penetrated Mechanus and seeks now to convert the entire plane into something different. The Glass God and its most fervent followers, including the glass hounds, have strange abilities to jump between sharp angles, which are plentiful on Mechanus, and they can see things through the glass gear spreading out across the Clockwork Nirvana. Sects of warriors calling themselves glass eidolons have taken up the arms of the Glass God, most not knowing the exact nature of their mysterious patron, but the speakers and devotees seem to be knowledgeable about the grander scheme – assimilate, and destroy those that resist.
Inevitables
Constructs are prevalent in Mechanus, but there are constructs that have evolved beyond the relatively simplistic golems found across the multiverse. The modrons are one type who have evolved to serve the will of Primus and keep the Clockwork Nirvana ticking, but there is another class of intelligent constructs in Mechanus that enforce laws rather than simply maintaining them. These are the inevitables, and though they appear at first glace like golems, they are intelligent creatures with hyper-focused wills all bent on enforcing laws across the multiverse.
The most commonly encountered type of inevitable found outside of Mechanus are the marut, who dwell within Halls of Concordance in several major planar metropolises. These iron constructs are incredibly powerful and built with the singular purpose of enforcing the terms of a contract. It can be any contract agreed to by separate parties at a Hall of Concordance. Each Hall of Concordance is run by a Kolyarut, a specialized version of the marut that arbitrates on behalf of the individuals and assigns a marut to keep the terms of the agreement by all parties.
Maruts originate in massive factories on Mechanus. Each factory is given a three digit number to differentiate it from others, though the largest and most expansive is Factory Zero-Zero-One, the first, where inevitables build more inevitables in titanic life molds within the factory. Other factories produce armor, weapons, and the internal workings of the creatures, but Factory Zero-Zero-One puts them all together and creates the form itself.
Other types of inevitables exist as well. The hadrut are less powerful than the maruts but still capable creatures that are built on a larger scale. Their purpose is to enforce borders, so they are often found around factories, and many can be found around the Scrap Tracts in Mechanus guarding against scavenger tribes. Other inevitables enforce other laws of the multiverse, including the law of death, the laws of time, and the laws of reality itself. These other types are more rare but just as powerful as the marut.
The first inevitables were believed to be created by Primus as a tool to enforce order in Mechanus. The modrons have an enormous population but they are built for maintaining the workings of the Clockwork Nirvana, and even then they are too few to handle all of the plane’s inner machinations. Primus needed something to bring order to the wider planes, and the inevitables were the result. The first inevitables quickly gained sentience and started building more themselves – they were the ones that constructed and now maintain the factories, not Primus, though enigmatic logic being seems to approve of the advancement.
The Mathemagician
Manipulating arcane energy to create magic requires complicated rules and conditions. This is why wizards have to devote so much time to study, and also why some are tempted to make bargains with otherworldly powers to circumvent that required work. The plane of Arcadia contains Nomos Prime, a powerful enigmatic force that most believe embodies these arcane laws, but there is a competing force in Mechanus that is pushing the boundaries of logic and magic to their utmost. This is the Mathemagician, a constructed humanoid known as a warforged, who has become an incredibly powerful wizard driven insane by dabbling in the cosmic power of the multiverse.
The Mathemagician believes words are the key to unlocking the laws of magic, and that those words originated somewhere in Mechanus. It has built the Palace of Perfect Precept on a distant cog where he is attended by helmed horrors of its own creation. Few people visit the palace, and the Mathemagician seems perfectly content with this, but the power that it wields has attracted some attention. Specifically, nomomancers from Arcadia have been studying the warforged wizard for some time, secretly observing from a distance.
For its part, the Mathemagician seems content to study and experiment. The helmed horrors that assist it are a useful addition to any wizard’s guardian arsenal, though the secrets of their creation are jealously guarded by the crazed warforged. The Mathemagician is completely obsessed with law and how it applies to arcane magic, and it has visited Primus in Regulus on numerous occasions, though each time the warforged leaves with more questions than answers. How close is the Mathemagician to unlocking arcane secrets lost to the multiverse? How much of a threat are those secrets? What are the true motivations of Nomos Prime in regard to the warforged? No one has these answers yet.
Primus and the Modrons
Order is a major defining force in the multiverse. It’s what tamed the raw chaos of existence at the beginning of everything into the structure of reality, and most planar scholars agree that this lawful power is embodied wholly in the singular being known as Primus. As an entity, Primus is one of the oldest things in the multiverse, with records dating back as far as records go detailing its influence over the planes, just as Asmodeus has spread the influence of evil and corruption.
Primus sits at the literal center of Mechanus, at least as defined by the modrons that serve it without question. These geometrically-shaped creatures are living constructs, similar to inevitables, but they are built for maintaining the order of the Clockwork Nirvana and keeping everything running smoothly. Their rigid hierarchy prevents lesser modrons from even interacting with higher modrons – they don’t even speak the same language. At the top sits Primus, the being of pure law and order, who is said to dwell within every cog and gear in Mechanus. The Tower of Primus is at the center of Regulus, the realm of the modrons, where it contemplates existence and watches over the multiverse.
As a being of pure law, devoid of good and evil, Primus is difficult to understand at times. Its goal is to bring ultimate order to the multiverse, and the tools it uses are the modrons, but it also experiments from time to time. Primus is responsible for several strange acts – it created the stone that now sits in Limbo that created the slaadi, for example, creatures of absolute chaos and destruction. And, there are the occasional modrons that go “rogue” and develop independent thoughts of their own. Some say these are explicitly created by Primus as a way to test its most loyal subjects. It’s a puzzling situation that has interested planar sages for generations.
It is said that Primus sees everything in Mechanus, and can manifest in any gear or cog across the plane. This level of planar control is nearly unheard of anywhere else in the multiverse, suggesting Primus has a unique relationship with the Clockwork Nirvana. But it rarely exercises this power openly, preferring instead to set plans into motion and then watch them unfold.
Scavenger Tribes
There are many small communities of creatures of all kinds that live, work, and die in the cogs of Mechanus. Most of these communities are built on a single gear, and the residents – whether they be archons from Mount Celestia, devils from the Nine Hells, or planar transplants from across the multiverse – strive to stay in harmony with their clockwork surroundings. Chaotic tendencies are generally weeded out naturally, for few of a non-lawful mindset can withstand the sheer enormity of order and synchronization of Mechanus.
The scavenger tribes are the exception, however. These roving bands of anarchists, free thinkers, warriors, and tinkers roam about the gears and cogs of the plane, collecting scrap for their own use while staying one step ahead of the modrons that continually chase them. Mainly comprised of humanoids, the tribes are usually less than 50 people, as the smaller the number the more nimble their movements, and the easier it is to escape from modrons trying to shut down their activities.
The members of the scavenger tribes call themselves the gearlost, and they are quite adept at taking scraps from the plane and turning them into useful pieces of mobile equipment. They don’t make permanent settlements, but they do meet irregularly on a cog called the Plain of the Gearlost, near an abandoned Scrap Tract far from the modrons’ home of Regulus. Tribal leaders meet here to discuss new tactics from modrons, valuable yards for scavenging, and any new hazards or dangers they face. They aren’t inherently dangerous, but there’s a rebellious streak in most of them that sees a great machine like Mechanus and simply wants to tear it down.
Many gearlost have replaced parts of their body with mechanical bits, usually hands and legs but sometimes as advanced as an eye or complete spine. The artificers among the gearlost are adept at melding machine with flesh, which the modrons and inevitables look upon with great shock and horror. There is, however, no such law against such a melding so possessing a gearlost modification is not an automatic sentence for death.
Word of Law
In the plane of ultimate law, ultimate justice is meted out swiftly and without mercy, compassion, or malice. Primus was the original arbiter of justice, but over time it created another power to oversee passing sentences for those that break the law in Mechanus. The Word of Law was born from this, and from the Scriptorium of Law it hears cases and swiftly deals justice.
The Word of Law is a strange being. It is three massive faces on a floating upside pyramid, with each side representing a state of justice – passive, guilty, or innocent. Its passive face is used while it hears cases, and then it renders verdict by switching to its guilty or innocent face. Inevitables of Mechanus work with the Word of Law but its primary tool for handling criminals brought before it are creatures of liquid living metal, silver or gold, known as metal agents. Silver metal agents are the rank and file servants of the Word of Law, and they are responsible for guarding the Scriptorium of Law and watching over prisoners. Gold metal agents are the ones that seek out criminals in Mechanus, and some have even gone so far as to travel beyond the Clockwork Nirvana in their duties.
The punishment for breaking any law on Mechanus is death, meted out swiftly and impartially by the Word of Law’s silver metal agents once sentence has been passed. The Word of Law is impartial and it hears cases clearly without inherent bias or prejudgment. Nonetheless, criminals brought before it at the Scriptorium of Law are usually found guilty. In the alien mind of the Word of Law, and by extension Primus, no lawbreaker can be allowed to live, no matter the scale of the crime.
Creatures & Denizens
Constructs abound in Mechanus. Many are formed naturally on the plane, while others – such as golems – are created by deliberate action from inhabitants of the plane. Many of the creatures of Mechanus have an absolute view of law and order, regardless of good and evil, and see no difference between a fiend breaking a law or an angel.
Aberrations
The perfect harmony of Mechanus serves as an enticing force for beings from the alien plane known as the Far Realm for some reason. The Glass God is a powerful entity from the Far Realm that has pushed into Mechanus like a plague, and its glass hounds use the perfect angles of the gears to move quickly around. The modrons and inevitables seem oblivious to the machinations of these aberrant forces, so only time can tell what ultimately happens, but the Glass God’s influence grows regularly.
Constructs
The vast majority of all inhabitants of Mechanus are living constructs. Golems of all kinds can be found in abundance, many of which having found their way from their original home to live in a plane of absolute order and precision. Buzzflies are mechanical insects that eat gears and cogs of all kinds, destabilizing regions with their vermin-like appetite. The metal agents of the Word of Law are liquid metal creatures capable of forming weapons from their natural body parts, and they blur the line between construct and ooze in unique ways.
Inevitables. Vast factories are hidden among the gears of Mechanus, each one manufacturing individual components that come together to create inevitables – powerful constructs that enforce the laws of the multiverse outside the bounds of Mechanus. Breaking the universal laws of life, death, and truth could result in an inevitable coming to find you, though such transgressions usually must be larger in scale to catch their attention, while a whole subset of powerful inevitables are used to enforce contracts signed in the various Halls of Concordance in major planar metropolises. Hadrut inevitables are the lesser type of inevitables charged with protecting the factories on Mechanus and enforcing laws around property, so they are the ones commonly encountered in the Clockwork Nirvana.
Modrons. Modrons are a strange race of mechanical creatures that look like geometric shapes with humanoid-like arms and legs. They are vast in number and tend to most of the functions of Mechanus, serving as the will of Primus, a supreme deity of logic and order that supposedly created the plane at the beginning of time itself. Modrons can be found anywhere in Mechanus, repairing broken gears and protecting regions, though Regulus remains their most populated city. Visitors are welcome in Regulus assuming they complete the proper documentation and submit it to the right departments. The various castes of modrons are highly organized and literal-minded, and they cannot interact at all with modrons greater than one category removed either above or below them in the hierarchy.
Humanoids
Any humanoid that recognizes the absolute authority of law can be found on Mechanus, and there are plenty of small settlements, castles, and fortresses all over the plane occupied by these organized people of all races and types. Silversprocket is the largest and most welcoming and easiest to locate, but others remain isolated for various reasons. Some residents follow the darker side of law, owing allegiance to evil powers such as Asmodeus, while others skew more towards the benign side, honoring gods of justice and order.
However, there are those that see the ordered structure of Mechanus and fight against it. They form roving bands of scavenger tribes, trying to stay ahead of the modrons and inevitables while salvaging junk to create useful tools to aid in their survival. Many are anarchists that seek to bring down Mechanus from the side, but most are simply survivalist trying to eke out an existence the only way they know how.
Warforged. In the clockwork realm of Mechanus, warforged remain a strange enigma. It is widely believed that they originated somewhere on the plane, and pockets of communities can be found across the gears of Mechanus, but there are no known factories that produce these constructed humanoids. Where do they come from? Who created them? That central question drives many warforged to search Mechanus for answers, but the lure of the Iron Voice on the plane of Acheron draws many out with promises of answers among the great iron cubes.
Monstrosities
Some unusual monsters can be found in Mechanus. Sphinxes of all kinds are drawn to the perfect harmony of the plane, and usually setup their homes among complex gears that form towers and castles. There they contemplate the vast nature of existence, crafting riddles and stories that encapsulate the fragility, pointlessness, and even purpose of life itself. Rarely they entertain visitors though most enjoy philosophical conversations with likeminded beings.
Formians. Formians are ant creatures with single-mind pursuits of colony expansion across the multiverse. Mechanus is their home, but they’ve been steadily pushing out across the planes, and have made great progress in claiming territory on Arcadia as a result. Their major hive-cities remain on Mechanus, and Arkitan is there great. The Scion Queen Mother commands a force that swear their lives to queen and colony and obey every directive without question or hesitation. Only the fractured nature of the hive-cities, where each looks out for their own interests, prevents the formians from being a greater threat to the stability of Mechanus and the wide multiverse.
Hazards & Phenomena
The great machine of Mechanus is a vast, moving plane of interconnected gears and cogs, all ticking in synchronization, like the inner workings of a massive water clock. The operations are so enormous in scale that they create unique environments not found anywhere else in the multiverse, at least on the same scale. Travelers to Mechanus quickly become aware of these factors as they affect everything from communication to combat effectiveness.
Great Modron March
One of the strangest phenomena of Mechanus is the Great Modron March. Once every 289 years, Primus orders the modrons of Regulus to march across the multiverse. They leave the Clockwork Nirvana and navigate the planes, traveling along well-established routes that use gates and portals to cross between the planar borders.
The Great Modron March is a massive operation, with thousands of modrons marching, and their path never wavers, regardless of the obstacles. Cities may have sprung up since the last march, or natural hazards or barriers, but none of that stops the single-minded modrons from their task. Some difficulties require construction to bypass, which are handled by specific modrons, and include things like building bridges, repairing gates, and removing hostile forces. Unfortunately, the modrons are not especially skilled at this last part, and many that go out on the march do not return to Mechanus.
There are several lesser marches that happen between each Great Modron March where Primus sends out smaller teams of modrons to venture forth to a series of specific planes. These lesser marches occur in regular patterns, like everything the modrons do, but the scale is difficult for outsiders to comprehend.
Why does Primus send modrons out on these marches? The question has baffled planar sages for generations. Most assume it’s some sort of checkup on the state of the multiverse, a kind of update to a larger plan known only to Primus, but there are conspiracy theories that suggest a more sinister motivation. It is well known that Primus’ goal is to bring absolute law and order to the multiverse, and the modrons are its most successful tool to date in this effort. Do the modrons march to test the defenses of the multiverse in advance of some predetermined war for total domination? Or perhaps they march to charge up some force or power within Mechanus and they wait for the right time to unleash it?
Grinding Gears
Mechanus is in constant motion, and the gears and cogs that make up the bulk of the plane move by connecting precise interlocking teeth. It’s a ballet of motion, but it can also be dangerous if a person were to be caught in the gears.
Gear sizes in Mechanus come in five broad categories – small, medium, large, huge, and gargantuan. While these sizes correspond to creature sizes, the gear sizes are on a much larger scale. Getting caught in the interlocking teeth of a gear inflicts bludgeoning damage based on the size of the gear. The chart below shows the relative size and damage.
| Mechanus Gear Sizes | ||
|---|---|---|
| Category | Gear Size | Bludgeoning Damage |
| Small | Up to 5 feet diameter | 7 (2d6) |
| Medium | From 5 to 100 feet diameter | 17 (5d6) |
| Large | From 100 feet to 1 mile diaemter | 35 (10d6) |
| Huge | From 1 mile to 50 mile diameter | 52 (15d6) |
| Gargantuan | 50 mile or more diameter | 70 (20d6) |
Creatures must be close to a gear’s edge for any damage to occur, and even then the relative gravity of Mechanus makes falling into it unlikely. It is possible to shove a creature into a gear which would then inflict the listed bludgeoning damage. Gear damage is based on the size of the adjoining gear, which can be up to one size category bigger or smaller than the primary gear.
For example, if a group of adventurers were facing off against a foe near the edge of a large gear, the DM could determine an adjacent grinding gear was medium, large, or huge, and if a creature were to be shoved into the gear they would suffer bludgeoning damage based on that adjacent gear’s size. It’s worth noting that modrons never think of pushing creatures into the gears – there’s a chance, however remote, that the gear could get stuck, and so this tactic is strictly forbidden by the modrons.
Law of Averages
Mechanus runs on an edict of well-defined structure and order. Randomness is reduced and chaos is kept to a minimum, or eliminated entirely. Creatures that engage in combat on Mechanus quickly find their attacks and spells create predictable effects regardless of luck and timing. While on Mechanus, all creatures use the average damage for spells and weapon attacks. The average damage on a die is reflected as half of the die’s maximum value plus 0.5, though rounding always occurs down. For example, a longsword inflicts 1d8 damage, so the average would be 4.5, round down to 4. A greatsword inflicts 2d6 damage, so the average would be 7 (3.5 x 2). Apply modifiers as normal.
Linguistic Equality
Communication can be a barrier on any plane, but on Mechanus the language laws are broken down intrinsically to their base values to facilitate easy understanding. Regardless of the languages spoken, while on Mechanus all creatures can understand the spoken words of other creatures as if it were a language they could speak. There is no inherent ambiguity in this instant translation and most creatures don’t even realize it’s happening because of its subtle effect.
Sites & Treasures
The Clockwork Nirvana of Mechanus is filled with wondrous sites that simply cannot be replicated anywhere else in the multiverse. Some of them are dangerous, some are beautiful, but all are part of the massive machine that makes up the plane and its coordinated synchronization.
Cogmaze
The vast majority of Mechanus is filled with gears and cogs of an enormous scale, many stretching hundreds of miles across. Regions overhead and below are just as filled with gears, but there is an openness to the spacing that can create an illusion of emptiness. In the region known as the Cogmaze, however, this illusion is dispelled as the individual gears are close enough together to form walls, corridors, and rooms.
The Cogmaze is a complicated region that spans several miles of tightly compounded small gears, moving and grinding at variable speeds. It isn’t known if the site is a naturally occurring phenomena, or if it was deliberately created to house something specific or dangerous. Creatures have been found in the Cogmaze, usually variations of the clockwork golems, buzzflies, and other natural inhabitants of Mechanus, but there is a sinister undercurrent to the monsters that differentiates them from their wild fellows. Modrons have an irrational fear of the Cogmaze with most refusing to go near it, though they can’t say why – they simply say it is a decree from a higher authority.
Adventurers that have gone into the Cogmaze report encounters with insidious traps and clockwork monsters that seem to exist only within the grinding corridors. Treasure too has been found, strange mechanical devices of a mystic and wondrous nature, almost as if something were using the Cogmaze to store precious items – or to lure in unsuspecting adventurers. What lurks in the heart of the Cogmaze? Is there a greater power behind its construction, or does it house scavengers and opportunistic creatures looking for a new home?
Crimson Clock
For a plane known as the Clockwork Nirvana, there is a surprising lack of actual clocks around Mechanus. The modrons that maintain the gears and cogs of the plane don’t need them, as they are in tune with the plane itself, and many of the local communities learn to tell time by the chiming of the Nirvana Bells and movement of nearby gears. One of the few actual time pieces on Mechanus is a massive red obelisk known as the Crimson Clock, which is tended by cultists of Asmodeus, the Lord of the Nine Hells.
As a supreme power in the multiverse, Asmodeus has a vested interest in the inner workings of Mechanus, and he seems as interested in discovering the ultimate purpose of the plane as any planar scholar. To that end, the Crimson Clock was built on a red-stained gear, constructed by specially created golems imbued with Asmodeus’ infernal powers and magically linked to the machinations of Mechanus. The result is a complicated clock that requires constant tending by red-robed cultists, who have taken no ill action against other planar inhabitants. The modrons leave them alone since they aren’t breaking any laws, and the Crimson Clock continues to tick.
The clock itself records the passage of time, which is meticulously tracked by the attendant cultists, but it also has a countdown feature that was not originally planned. None of the cultists know the end result of the countdown, and their inquiries to Asmodeus have been met with silence. The Crimson Clock has a vast inner working that the cultists and a legion of chosen devil work to maintain, but there are secret workings that most of them are not aware of. Is it a doomsday clock that counts down to some great calamitous event?
Glass Spire
The Glass God is an alien entity from the Far Realm that has found a crack between the greater dimensional barriers and is now slowly leaking into Mechanus. It is a vastly malevolent entity bent on the total corruption of the plane, a subjugation that would be manifested as everything on the plane transforms into glass-like versions of their original shape. Already, some cogs on Mechanus have transformed into glass, and the modrons responsible for repairing and maintaining the machinery seem not to notice the difference.
The transformative spread doesn’t seem to be localized in any specific region on Mechanus, but the Glass God’s greatest stronghold is the Glass Spire, a spike of strange glass growing out of the middle of a great glassy gear. It is here that the glass hounds congregate in larger numbers, and the devotees of the Glass God – strange multicolored eyed humanoids of persuasive tongue and purpose – undergo ritualistic changes to become more in tune with their supreme entity. The Glass God itself doesn’t seem to have a physical presence in Mechanus, not yet at least, but it’s unfathomable power is on display in around the Glass Spire.
The multi-tiered interior holds corridors, halls, chambers, and room, all constructed of the same strange prismatic glass as the spire and gear around it. Everything is sharp angles, and some of those angles defy easy logic, a clear violation of Mechanus’ natural laws. But the Word of Law and its metal agents has not moved against the Glass God yet. Is there something in the Glass Spire that shields their lawlessness from the eyes of the plane? Primus has been strangely silent on the appearance of the entity and the site as well. How far does the glassification have to spread before the powers of Mechanus take note?
Hive-City Arkitan
Formians are an ant-like race of rigid structure and supreme hierarchy. Everything they do is for the betterment of their hive with no thought to the individual. The sole exception is the individual at the top of each hive, the queen, who directs the drones, soldiers, and others in an ever-expanding quest for territory. Hives can be found all across Mechanus, but the greatest is the central hive-city of Arkitan, home to the Scion Queen Mother.
Arkitan is a massive complex built around a mile-high tower, all of it constructed of hardened metal-like mud produced by the drones by dissolving natural food and transforming it into construction material. The result is as strong as steel with a natural cave-like structure, and Arkitan is the largest of all the hive-cities on Mechanus. The Scion Queen Mother dwells in a massive central cave at the tower’s base, attended by a legion of queenguards and soldiers, and she has swarms of flying formians that communicate with the other hives.
Arkitan is highly organized, with all of the formians inside operating according to the whim of the Scion Queen Mother. They live, work, and die with no other thought than for their queen, which is true of all formians, but the ones in Arkitan are even more fanatically loyal. Arkitan formians take no prisoners in warfare, fighting to the death in every conflict, and voluntarily give their lives for the good of the hive. And the Scion Queen Mother takes full advantage of this force at her beck and call, and she has a plan to expand the formian power across Mechanus – and into the wider multiverse.
Within the great spire of Arkitan, specialized drones produce a magical secretion that the Scion Queen Mother hopes will accelerate her expansionistic plans dramatically. It’s kept under tight security now but some of the scavenger tribes, who clash regularly with the formians over scrap, have been subjected to its use - a powerful mind-control vapor distilled from formian essence. To date, the incidents have resulted in madness and death but the formians working on perfecting the formula and the Scion Queen Mother are not dismayed. The end results far outweigh the potential cost in non-formian life it takes to get there, or so they believe logically.
Life Molds of Factory Zero-Zero-One
Inevitable factories are located all across Mechanus. Each one is assigned a three-digit identification number and a specific task in the creation of more inevitables, from Factory Two-Seven-Two where the eyes are created to Factory Nine-Three-Four where cloaks are stitched together. It is possible there are 999 factories, though they all dwarf in importance to Factory Zero-Zero-One, where final assembly is completed and the inevitables are given the spark that turns them into creatures rather than simple machines.
Factory Zero-Zero-One was the first assembly plant built by the inevitables to create more inevitables, and it houses the supremely important life molds that are key to the entire process. There are 10 known molds for each type of inevitable, all housed in Factory Zero-Zero-One, and kept under the tightest security to prevent tampering or even close inspection. Non-inevitables are simply forbidden from entering the factory under penalty of death.
The factory is run by inevitables who take shifts operating and guarding the facility, along with the other factories that assemble the individual components. Parts are shipped between each location in the great assembly line, and during transport the crates are heavily guarded and watched over closely. There have been some incidents with scavenger tribes hijacking an inevitable shipment, but the powerful constructs usually deal personally with seeking out punishment rather than waiting for the metal agents of the Word of Law to come in. Primus decreed that the inevitables would have the ability to govern and police themselves outside the typical Mechanus power structure.
And there are plenty of interested parties in the multiverse that would love to get a hold of the secrets contained within any inevitable factory, but Factory Zero-Zero-One is the motherlode. No one outside of the inevitables knows the details of the spark that imbues them with life and sentience, a power normally reserved for gods, so to able to harness and control that power is the dream of many beings and organizations, good and evil.
Magnetic Obelisks
Traveling Mechanus is straightforward, because the risk of falling off of a gear is low thanks to the relative gravity each cog holds. Navigating and finding a specific place, however, is a different matter entirely. The modrons have their own grid-based system that maps out the entire plane relative to Regulus, their realm and home of Primus, and they maintain the grid through carefully placed magnetic obelisks all around the Clockwork Nirvana.
Each magnetic obelisk appears as a rectangular block of glossy smooth black stone, exactly 10 feet high, 5 feet wide, and 5 feet deep. They each hum with electrical power as the inherent magnetism contained within each vibrates on a high frequency, and metal objects brought within 100 feet of a magnetic obelisk are drawn towards it inexorably. Creatures holding a metal object and resisting the pull must succeed on a DC 15 Strength saving throw each round or be pulled 10 feet closer to the obelisk; metal armor wearers suffer disadvantage on the saving throw as they fight against their worn gear. Modrons know the location of each obelisk and only approach within 100 feet by wearing special gem-studded belts that produce an opposite magnetic charge to counteract the pull.
Scavenger tribes wearing and carrying no armor have managed to chip away pieces of magnetic obelisks, which they use in their hunt for valuable junk in the various Scrap Tracts around Mechanus. They’ve learned important information about which types of scrap are attracted to what size magnetic obelisk shard and at what range, so they use it to quickly find the pieces that are the most valuable to them. Modrons are concerned about the destruction to the magnetic obelisks as it throws off their navigation and the entire grid becomes unstable, though their emotions are largely flat on the matter (as they are with most things).
Nirvana Bells
Mechanus is a noisy plane, with countless gears grinding into one another on a constant basis. In many areas, the sounds are synchronized, creating a natural cadence, but just as often the sounds are drowned out by the sheer volume. Residents get used to it, but it can be a bit of a shock for travelers who have to shout to be heard in some sections. What’s never drowned out, anywhere on Mechanus, are the clear ringing of the Nirvana Bells that chime every eight hours.
Each Nirvana Bell is housed in a special open-framed cube, about 20 feet tall, and the bells themselves are nearly as grand. They are constructed of highly polished gold inlaid with intricate patterns of gears and cogs in delicate silver etchings. The golden clapper inside is motionless and immobile under normal circumstances – no known force can ring a Nirvana Bell outside the appointed time. They ring out to signal the cycle of time on Mechanus, one ring to start the day, two rings to bring in morning, and three rings to herald evening.
The modrons tend to the Nirvana Bells, polishing them and keeping them in good physical condition, but they do not ring them. No one has ever been observed ringing them – they simply ring at the appointed time. Most planar scholars believe they are in time with the running of the plane itself, and therefore an extension of Primus, though there is no evidence beyond conjecture to support this theory. Cryptic prophecies across the multiverse refer to disruptions in the ringing of the Nirvana Bells but there are no recorded incidents of a change in their timing or tone.
Oil Lakes
Modrons keep the gears of Mechanus moving by tending to the cogs and cylinders that are in constant motion. Their greatest tool in this regular upkeep is oil, fetched from enormous lakes in a region close to Regulus, and then distributed in special dispersing cans by modron oil teams. These oil lakes sit in stacks of gears that have had their centers removed, creating deep wells that replenish on their own power.
Oil jellies are a regular problem in these lakes, though their exact origin isn’t known. It’s not likely they came into being accidentally on a plane where everything happens according to a plan, but no one has found a plan for the oil jellies that makes any sense. Modron teams have to be on the lookout for the dangerous oozes, and some of the slimy creatures have learned to seek out sources of fire and return to the oil lakes to deter further removal of the precious liquid.
Orrery of the Infinite Planes
Regulus contains exactly 64 massive gears, all populated by modrons of all types, but the center of their realm consists of two buildings. One is the Tower of Primus, wherein dwells the physical manifestation of the orderly god, and the other is the Great Modron Cathedral, standing next to Primus’ dwelling on the central cog of Regulus. The Great Modron Cathedral sees visitors from all across the multiverse who are welcomed as long as they come peacefully to see a fantastic artifact – the Orrery of the Infinite Planes.
Housed in the central dome of the Great Modron Cathedral, the Orrery of the Infinite Planes is a mechanical model of the planes themselves, spinning and moving around in perfect synchronization with each other. It’s a working model of the multiverse, miniscule in scale but still covering hundreds of feet in the cathedral’s massive dome, and it is widely believed to be the only functional “map” of all the Inner and Outer Planes. Scholars come to study the patterns and movements, with the aid of specialized modron workers who tend to the orrery’s upkeep, though the great artifact set rarely requires any maintenance.
The Orrery of the Infinite Planes is useful for visualizing the relationship between the planes, though it is just one possible interpretation of the vast and unending multiverse. What’s found in the Great Modron Cathedral is also only one half of the whole orrery. The other half is directly below the floor of he dome, accessed only by special allowance by the modron governors, and this half depicts the Material Planes. It is far more vast, owing to the infinite variations of Material Plane worlds, and covers hundreds and hundreds of feet.
The two halves of the Orrery of the Infinite Planes share a single master cylinder crafted of adamantine, so the movement of one affects the other directly. Those who have witnessed the Material Plane side of the orrery say the models of each world are perfect in every detail and could be used to create maps and uncover lost regions, but the modrons who run it only allow brief visits.
Palace of Perfect Precept
The Palace of Perfect Precept is the home of the warforged wizard known as the Mathemagician, who seeks to understand and master the laws of magic by understanding the laws of reality to their finest point. Its palace is bult from marble and designed in an octagon pattern on a vast gear, with eight towers rising up at each angle in the octagon, and a large central keep in the center. The Mathemagician is tended to by numerous golems of variable construction, though its favorite are iron golems, and the enigmatic warforged has not taken any apprentices or passed its knowledge on to date.
The Mathemagician is largely preoccupied with the study of magical law, which takes its attention away from the general upkeep of the palace, so those duties fall to the golem staff. Majordomo Max, an advanced iron golem, keeps the operation tight and on schedule, and does not allow anything to bother the Mathemagician during the warforged’s many experiments.
The palace’s layout is a massive focus for magical energy meant to harness and refocus the powers of each arcane magical school, and each tower is devoted to the Mathemagician’s work on a particular school. The libraries are extensive but entirely closed off to outsiders, though the warforged has entertained guests from time to time, normally open-minded archmages from across the multiverse with an interest in pushing the boundaries of arcane knowledge to their absolute limit. Followers of Nomos Prime on Arcadia, whom the Mathemagician refers to as “sheep under an arcane wolf’s eye”, are expressly forbidden from entering the Palace of Perfect Precept.
Plain of the Gearlost
Scavenger tribes scrounge and eke out a living amongst the gears of Mechanus, running a low-grade anarchy game on the plane of ultimate law. They are constantly on the move as the modrons and inevitables have orders to remove them on sight, by force if necessary, and the free-spirited tribes never have an interest in going quietly. The tribes, each usually no more than 50 or so humanoids of all types, build temporary fortifications and steal scrap from the Scrap Tracts and junk cogs to use in their own devices. Rogue artificers, junk runners, gear thieves, anarchist priests, and many more fill the ranks of the tribes who make no permanent structures.
Except for the Plain of the Gearlost. This huge gear, far removed from Regulus, is kept hidden by makeshift scrambler towers that keep its location safe from the constructs of the plane. It is a sacred site to the scavenger tribes who gather on the gear to share stories, rest, and swap news of Mechanus and their quest for anarchy. Statutes constructed of scrap metal stand all around the Plain of the Gearlost, each depicting the leader of a tribe, and when a leader falls the statue is painted with specially prepared black oil paint to mark their end.
Regulus
No other place in Mechanus better represents the ideal of Clockwork Nirvana than Regulus, the home of the modrons and their enigmatic god-force, Primus. The realm consists of 64 huge gears, a number that never changes or wavers, each connected and moving in synchronization with the adjacent cogs. Modrons of all shapes and sizes live and work endlessly in Regulus, tending to the duties of managing their ordered society.
Food is grown and harvested in Regulus for the modrons to eat, though the form the food takes is not natural vegetation. It appears as long-bladed steel grass and grows in perfectly ordered rows on the four food cogs, and nowhere else. Modron houses are blocky simply constructs of metal stacked dozens high, each with just enough room for a single modron to sleep and spend their allotted 15 minutes of leisure time each bell cycle (8 hours). Modron soldiers patrol both the borders of Regulus and the interior regions, as there have been incidents of some modrons going rogue and learning to think independently. While this isn’t a crime itself (though modron lawmakers are working to push through legislation to make it illegal, a process that has been held up in the Higher Ethics and Moral Ambiguity Committee for over one thousand years), rogue modrons are asked to leave for free of their independence spreading like a disease, disrupting the ordered structure of Regulus.
Every modron has a place, and many of those places are in the offices and factories of Regulus. Depending on the caste, the modron may have many duties or few. Those that tend to Primus, their god-entity, are complicated modrons with multifaceted bodies, but even their capability for independent idea is hampered. Which seems to be the way Primus built them, so it’s all according to the grand plan.
The Tower of Primus and the Great Modron Cathedral sit on the largest and most central gear of Regulus. The Great Modron Cathedral houses the Orrery of the Infinite Planes, a stunning model of the multiverse that attracts visitors from across the planes, while the Tower of Primus is strictly off limits to non-modron personnel. Anyone coming into Regulus on peaceful terms must submit their application to the Department of Border Allowances and Registrations, and if approved the visitor will be issued a guest pass that identifies them as allowed into certain areas of Regulus. Exceptions are flagged and reviewed by the Board of Exceptions to the Border Allowances and Registrations Department, though several subcommittees may have to take up the matter. The entire process is needlessly complicated bureaucracy but the modrons pull it off with cheerful smiles and a never-ending positive attitude towards “The Plan.” Whatever “The Plan” may be.
Scrap Tract Gamma Eleven
The Scrap Tracts of Mechanus are where broken gears and other refuse are stored, neat and ordered away from the rest of the plane, until it can be broken down, processed, and recycled into new gears and mechanical parts. There are theoretically an infinite number of Scrap Tracts throughout Mechanus and each has a code designation, such as Scrap Tract Alpha Three and Scrap Tract Omega Thirty. Most house simple scrap pieces from the region they are closest, but a few have specialized purposes. The most famous of these is Scrap Tract Gamma Eleven, a secret repository for anything magical found on Mechanus.
The modrons responsible for cleanup across the plane occasionally find magical odds and ends, usually left over from travelers who have met an untimely end somewhere on Mechanus. When objects containing inherent magical properties are found, the modrons take the refuse to a sorting facility, and eventually the magical scrap is sorted from the regular scrap and then teleported magically to Scrap Tract Gamma Eleven. This teleportation is unique among the collected junk, as the modrons usually deposit refuse directly into the correct Scrap Tract.
Rumors abound about the magical treasures found in Scrap Tract Gamma Eleven. The modrons are no help in finding it, as they truly don’t know its location at all, though some inevitables are said to know where it can be found. It has been theorized that the regular reprocessing of junk does not occur in Scrap Tract Gamma Eleven, which means that hidden cylinder contains all of the magical detritus found on Mechanus since the beginning of the multiverse itself. It has become an obsession for a number of Cog Confederates in the Transcendent Academy, some of whom have spent multiple generations trying to locate the elusive site.
Scriptorium of Law
The greatest courthouse in all the multiverse and the largest repository of lawful documents is the Scriptorium of Law, which is where the Word of Law passes judgment on criminals and its legion of metal agents carry out the justice of Mechanus. The building is a series of enormous blocks with no windows and only a single set of massive double doors leading to the interior. The exterior is plain gray stone, unadorned and without decoration except for the symbol of infinity (a sideways 8) etched above the doors.
Inside, the Scriptorium is just as sparse as the exterior, at least for the main levels wherein the courthouse is contained. The Word of Law itself hangs suspended in a fantastically huge chamber in the center of the complex, with adjoining wings holding prisoners awaiting trial and final judgement. Death is the usual verdict for guilty charges of any kind, but there is an appeal process, so canny creatures with knowledge of the law can delay their final sentencing for days, weeks, months, or even years.
The lower sections of the Scriptorium of Law contain the written laws of Mechanus. Each law decreed by Primus magically appears on a thin sheet of paper-like metal in the Sciptorium’s archives, where they are catalogued by the metal agents and preserved for eternity. No being is allowed into the archives, though representatives of an accused can request laws be brought forth for clarification and evidence. This isn’t necessary for the Word of Law but it understands that lesser beings are not as in tune with every facet of Mechanus law as itself.
Everything is neat and ordered in the Scriptorium, and scuffles are strictly forbidden by the Word of Law. The metal agents, silver and gold, fulfill the duties of the office, such as bringing in prisoners and carrying out sentences, but the Word of Law itself serves as both prosecutor and judge for any criminal case. Some planar scholars have argued that this is an inherently unfair situation, but the Word of Law is a being completely devoid of bias or personal interest. Or so it would seem, at least.
Silversprocket
The most accessible city on Mechanus is Silversprocket, located on an adjacent cog to the Transcendent Academy. It is a well-ordered city of gleaming steel and silver buildings laid out in neat rows, neighborhoods, and districts, with a multitude of residents bustling about their busy lives. Everyone has a job in Silversprocket, from growing and harvesting food to support the city to maintaining law and order, but the vast majority supports the nearby artificers of the Confederacy of the Cog.
Visitors are required to check in with the Welcome Board, stationed in small buildings around the most commonly used city entrances, but the process is not onerous and most visitors are allowed into Silversprocket with no problems. The city boasts a number of manufacturing plants that can only be found in Mechanus, so they receive deliveries of goods and products from across the multiverse on a regular basis. The artificers of the Transcendent Academy regularly spend leisure time in Silversprocket, and also purchase most of the raw materials and manufactured goods produced by the city. The two share a positive relationship of reciprocity.
Silversprocket is run by an elected governor who is attended to by the Silversprocket Senate, with individual members elected by the populace. The Silversprocket Senate handles most of the day to day legislation of the city, and they are responsible for the city watch and most of its public service departments. The governor is largely a figurehead with little actual responsibilities, though some have taken a more tyrannical approach to their position than others. The current leader, Governor Kedaja Darlan, is a female dwarf originally from the city of Ravnica. She was elected on a platform of fair operations and good working relationships with Ravnica, the City of Guilds, but some worry that her close ties to the guilds of that city may compromise Silversprocket.
Transcendent Academy
The Confederacy of the Cog may be the largest organization of artificers in the multiverse, and they hone their skills and practice their craft at a massive facility in Mechanus known as the Transcendent Academy. Multiple towers rise up above the dense collection of laboratories, workshops, lecture halls, and living quarters that make up the bulk of the academy’s base. The Transcendent Academy rests on a large gear, not as huge as others, and it rotates perpendicular to a larger gear that holds the city of Silversprocket.
Enterprising artificers from all over submit their applications to join the Transcendent Academy and become a member of the Confederacy of the Cog. Space is limited, but a fair number of students, faculty, and alumni come and go on a regular basis, creating a fluctuating population within the academy grounds. Teachers of all kinds instruct students on the wondrous ways of artificers, touching on subjects such as golem making, armor infusions, alchemy theories, and hundreds of others. Students enrolled in classes at the Transcendent Academy must complete rigorous academic papers and studies in order to keep their place from semester to semester.
It is all overseen by the Board of Regents that dwell in the largest tower in the academy grounds. Membership in the board is by board approval only, and by ancient bylaws the number must be a prime number. It’s been as low as 7 in the past, but the Board of Regents currently sits at 17 today. Each voice on the board is as equal as another, as no president or ruling force sits above them, but they do have to answer to suppliers and a host of underwriters that work with the academy across the multiverse.
Fantastic works of engineering are produced every day by the students and faculty at the academy, and the place has a well-earned reputation for producing competent and worldly members. Students that attend the Transcendent Academy are not automatically inducted into the Confederacy of the Cog, and in fact many students leave without having any interest in joining the artificer organization. For the Cog Confederates, however, the Transcendent Academy functions as their de facto base and the home to their greatest experiments.
Highlights & Impressions
The below listings include notes on highlighting the nature of Mechanus as characters explore and travel through it. These are suggestions of elements that can be used in descriptions of the landscape and denizens with the goal of actualizing the “outside” nature of the multiverse beyond the Material Plane. Use them to incorporate into encounters and adventures on Mechanus.
Moving Gears. Every natural wall, floor, and ceiling in Mechanus is comprised of countless gears of varying shapes and sizes. They are all moving, some slow and others fast, with the interlocking teeth in perfect synchronization with adjacent gears, like the workings of a vast clock. The moving of the largest gears, some of which rival continents in size, is barely perceptible, while the smaller ones move much quicker, and these components create a perfect symphony of constant motion. The movement is not just visually striking, it’s also quite loud, especially in regions with many smaller gears.
Chiming of the Bells. The Nirvana Bells placed strategically around Mechanus chime in perfect time with one another every eight hours, and serve as the best measure for the passage of time. One chime for the start of the day, two to ring in the morning, and three to start evening, before returning to one to start the next day. They are clear and loud without being obtrusive to daily life.
Machine Logic. Mechanus is governed by supreme laws of logic that resemble the vast workings of a titanic machine. Nothing is done randomly and everything happens for a reason, though the reason itself may be too large to understand for some. This ordered reasoning quickly affects travelers who begin to think clear and concise ideas when traveling through Mechanus. Those that resist this order find themselves mentally taxed without realizing it as they push against the very fabric of the plane.
Lay of the Land
Mechanus consists of a single layer, infinite in size across all directions, with no natural ground to be found. Everything is manufactured, though in such a strange mechanical plane, the metal is natural, so perhaps it would be more accurate to state that there is no natural vegetation. One particularly strange aspect of Mechanus is the gravity – it’s subjective based on the gear you’re traveling on. Many gears and cogs are perpendicular to one another, but a traveler can move from one to the other by simply stepping onto it. They are re-oriented to the new flat surface as “down” while everything else remains in place.
The effect is strange but the natives are used to it, and the constructs that move around the plane are completely unphased by the shift in gravity and perspective. This does mean that the concept of direction is difficult to convey, but there are tools built by modrons and other natives that help anchor and reference using magnetic obelisks around Mechanus (see the Traveling Around section for more details).
Though Mechanus has a single vast layer, it is divided into geographic realms, identified by planar scholars and adopted by natives for a common vernacular. The Great Gears and Scrap Tracts are all part of the vast machine of Mechanus and can help travelers navigate around.
Great Gears
The vast majority of Mechanus is comprised of a broad region referred to as the Great Gears. This is the core of Mechanus, consisting of innumerable gears and cogs, all moving in synchronization with one another. There is no region of open sky in the Great Gears, as there are always more cogs above and below any particular cog, usually within sight. The closeness of the gears makes some regions almost building-like in their structure, with moving cogs functioning as walls.
Most of the population of Mechanus are found in the Great Gears, including the modrons and the factories that produce the inevitables. Some of the larger cogs are populated by transplanted populations from across the multiverse, including devilish outposts and angelic watch towers. The formians and their expansionist tendencies create conflicts with the local populations wherever they go, which is partly why they have moved into Arcadia.
Scrap Tracts
Sometimes, gears break down and need to be replaced. The maintenance of the cogs across the plane is left to the modrons. They dispose of broken gears and pieces into the regions known as the Scrap Tracts. There are multiple Scrap Tracts housing the refuse and junk produced by the natural processes of Mechanus, and each one is contained in a vast cylinder of gray steel.
The cylinders are hundreds of miles across with multiple entrances, and inside are the vast collections of scrap metal from across the plane. Metallic golems patrol the interior and exterior, but each Scrap Tract is so large as to be impossible to patrol thoroughly. Scavengers of all kind regularly raid the cylinders for parts to fuel their own purposes, the most numerous and tenacious being the Gearlost.
Each Scrap Tract is assigned a unique serial number for identification, from Alpha One to Omega Ninety-Nine. Some of them house specific types of scrap, such as Scrap Tract Gamma Eleven where all magical refuse is contained. Finding a specific cylinder is difficult, however, as the modrons are the only ones who know, and they are forbidden from sharing this information with outsiders.
Eventually, the refuse in each Scrap Tract is broken down and turned into new gears and cogs, which are used to replace worn gears and shore up destroyed sectors. As with everything on Mechanus, there’s an ordered time for this conversion, but the scale and relative isolation of the Scrap Tracts makes understanding the exact timing difficult for outsiders.
Cycle of Time
Time passes normally on Mechanus, perhaps more normally than anywhere else in the multiverse. A day in the Clockwork Nirvana is divided perfectly into three segments, each consisting of eight hours, but there is no sun or change in light to mark the passage of time. Instead, placed around the plane are massive golden bells, known as Nirvana Bells, that chime out in perfect synchronization to mark the new segment (ringing once, twice, or thrice depending on the segment). They are clear and loud, and the residents usually have smaller devices timed to the Nirvana Bells to help them stay in synch with the movements of the plane.
Surviving
The geography of Mechanus is not inherently dangerous to travelers. However, getting caught in the cogs can pose a serious threat to life and limb; details of this are found under Hazards & Phenomena.
Getting There
Portals and gates leading to Mechanus never randomly appear or disappear. They may have extremely long cycles of inactivity, but they always operate on a regular schedule in cadence with the cog they lead to on the plane. A gate leads to the center of a specific cog somewhere in the Great Gears and its opening is tied to the movement of the interlocking gears. Some may open for a minute every hour, some open for an hour every day, while some open for exactly 13 minutes once every decade.
Without the greater context, the opening of these gates can feel random, but anyone who knows Mechanus knows that it is anything but haphazard. It simply requires a wider understanding to fully grasp.
Portals to the Clockwork Nirvana are normally marked by a constructed archway of some sort, usually metal, often containing a gear-like pattern on the surface. Opening these portals usually requires completing a set of verbal and somatic gestures within 5 feet of the opening while possessing a small cog in hand. Aspects of the ordered regulation of Mechanus often bleed through the multiverse, and it’s not uncommon to have buildings of industry built around these portals, regardless of actual knowledge of the portal’s presence.
There are certain gates that are activated by events that occur on regular schedules. The most widely known of these are the gates along the path of the Great Modron March. During this time, the modrons of Regulus march across the multiverse in a massive line, following a predetermined path that flows through multiple planar gates. As with everything on Mechanus, the Great Modron March occurs on its own ordered schedule, but few have the scope of knowledge to understand that schedule.
Traveling Around
For a plane of moving gears and grinding cogs, movement around Mechanus is surprisingly straightforward and easy. Everything in Mechanus is connected to something else, usually gears connected to adjacent gears via cog teeth, so it’s possible to reach any destination in the Clockwork Nirvana from any starting point. It may take some time, but there is a path.
Part of traveling around Mechanus is moving along the faces of the gears. A person standing on a gear is standing upright, but gravity is situational, so that same person could step onto an adjacent perpendicular gear and orient immediately to the new “up and down” without any ill effect. This all makes moving physically relatively straightforward, and it’s coupled with the fact that the movement of the gears – all are in motion – are not felt by a person or object on the gear. Nothing flies off, regardless of how fast the gear is moving.
Because of Mechanus’ three-dimensional landscape and no set horizon, concepts such as north, south, east, and west do not make sense on the plane. Instead, the entire plane is divided up into an infinite coordinate system developed by Primus, the god of the modrons and one of the oldest beings in the multiverse. Using the magnetic obelisks around Mechanus along with devices that resemble sextants, a person can find out where they are on the great grid of the plane, a location identified by three numbers known as the exx, wyy, and zee. Primus, in the center of Regulus, is at [0,0,0], and the numbers increase out to infinity from there. They can be negative or positive reflecting the relative direction from Primus.
Every site and gear in Mechanus has coordinates on the exx-wyy-zee grid relative to its distance to Primus. Every 1000 feet is marked with 1, so the point [1,1,1] is 1000 feet from Primus in three directions, while [-1, -1, -1) is 1000 feet from Primus in three directions in the opposite direction. To the modrons and other natives of Mechanus, the coordinate system of exx-wyy-zee makes perfect sense, and they have a hard time adjusting to the relatively flat landscape of the rest of the multiverse.
Creatures by Plane of Existence
The multiverse is a wondrous, strange place populated by all manner of creatures both fair and foul. Each plane of existence hosts its own unique creatures of some variety along with the more mundane types of monsters found in the Material Plane.
The below tables offer details of the unique creatures found in each plane, but it should be noted that most planes feature biomes common to the Material Plane, many with exaggerated or unique features. Consider looking to the encounter tables for each biome as well as the below tables for populating the planes with creatures to both threaten and aid characters during their extraplanar journeys.
The creatures listed pull from the following sources: Monster Manual, Volo’s Guide to Monsters, Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes, and Monsters of the Infinite Planes.
| Clockwork Nirvana of Mechanus | |
|---|---|
| Monsters | Challenge (XP) |
| Duodrone | 1/4 (50 XP) |
| Myconid adult, tridrone | 1/2 (100 XP) |
| Bronze scout, quadrone | 1 (200 XP) |
| Clockwork golem, myconid sovereign, pentadrone | 2 (450 XP) |
| Buzzfly, oil ooze | 3 (700 XP) |
| Hadrut, iron cobra, stone defender | 4 (1,100 XP) |
| Oaken bolter | 5 (1,800 XP) |
| Medusa, silver metal agent | 6 (2,300 XP) |
| Gearwraith | 7 (2,900 XP) |
| Glass hound, gold metal agent | 10 (5,900 XP) |
| Gynosphinx | 11 (7,200 XP) |
| Androsphinx | 17 (18,000 XP) |
| Marut | 25 (75,000 XP) |
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