Somatic Collective

The Somatic Collective is a faction of S'aue that is considered a terrorist organization by the S'aue Empire. They are the S'aue that, after the revolt against their creators, embraced a view of machine supremacy. They consider all organics, not just those that had oppressed them, to deserve termination. While most S'aue have retained their mostly humanoid chassis', the Somatic Collective sees this as a non-sensical limitation and S'aue of the collective are often robotic juggernauts that dwarf humans many times over, armed with all kinds of weapons and wicked attachments.

The forces of the collective roam across Nascindor, killing everything that might cross their path. The Telothian Legion has butted heads with these robotic raiders on more than one occasion, each time emerging victorious but with grievous casualties.
In a demonstration of goodwill and camaraderie, the S'aue Empire keeps close tabs on the movements of the Somatic Collective and reports these to the city-states of humanity and the burrow-homes of the Arachnitha so they might be warned in advance and prepare, a gesture that these species greatly appreciate.

Forms

The Somatic Collective differs from the other S'aue in that they do not view their chassis with reverence nor consider them inviolate. To them, a chassis is a tool to be used and discarded as need may be. To a S'aue of the collective, transferring one's consciousness into another chassis is like changing a shirt.

To this end, they have developed what they refer to as Forms. These are chassis' built for specific purposes, such as labor, leisure and, as is often the case, war.

Warforms are terrifying things, custom-built to most efficiently shear flesh from bone or to siege and level structures. Warforms can be inhabited by one consciousness or several, in which case the different consciousnesses divvy up the sensory input and therefore gain even more combat aptitude due to each consciousness being able to fully commit to their chosen task. The most terrible of these machines of war are the Disassemblers.

Workforms are most often equipped with tools and gadgets meant to aid in the completion of a labor-intensive task, such as mining, logging or hauling heavy loads. They usually only house one consciousness, as the work that they are used to aid in most often does not benefit from multitasking.

Baseforms are a third, speculated chassis type that is thought to be the so-called default chassis that the S'aue of the collective choose to reside in when not working or engaging in wholesale slaughter. Speculated, because no one has actually seen a Somatic Collective S'aue in such a Form, which is not surprising considering the directives the collective adheres to.

Goals

As far as the dominant species of Nascindor are concerned, it seems the only aim of the Somatic Collective is to scour the land of organic life so they can be the sole rulers of it. They go about this by raiding settlements and towns, massacring everything and everyone that does not manage to get away, unless thwarted first. There are few sights as gruesome outside the Black Forest as a town that has been made barren by the Collective.

The Collective makes no demands, does not engage in any sort of parlay and, worst of all, are liable to wanton destruction with no need for preceding provocation.

Organization and numbers

There doesn't seem to be a hierarchy within the Somatic Collective, or if there is, it is not apparent as the machine monstrosities of the Collective seem to fight completely independently of one another. There is no command structure, just carnage. The exact number of Collective members is also guesswork, but cautious approximations place the number somewhere between three and five thousand of the mechanical terrors. For reference, this is more than there are men in a Seeker fellowship. Thankfully, the Telothian Legion still outnumbers the robotic marauders many times over.

If the Collective has a base of operations, they have managed to keep its location hidden from the capable spies of the different empires on the face of Nascindor. Even captured Warforms have rather torn themselves asunder than to divulge any information regarding the Collective.

Rewritten for May-be 2025

And when it revved that awful circular saw...
Heavens, I don't want to talk about it.

–A survivor of a Somatic Collective ambush

_{A Warform of the Somatic Collective}

_{An unnamed artists rendition of what a Baseform could look like}