Scrappers
High above the coastal enclaves of the Stoneforged Assembly, where The Dawncrags meet the Devilspine mountains, lies a high plateau, strewn with rubble, scree and arid ruins of long forgotten cities. This is the home of a curious array of Stoneforged creatures, known collectively as Scrappers.
Scrappers are sentient, stoneforged creatures, hobbled together from the remains of magical mechanics, robotics and other materials scavenged from the ruins, or scraps discarded from the Assembly factories.
Some scrappers are built upon the core of sentient machines that have survived since before The Destruction, while others have joined them over the years - outcasts and fugitives from the confines of the Assembly. These are the constructs who don't belong, and they come to hide, or find solace with like-minded machines.
Basic Information
Anatomy
Scrappers are obviously mechanical: built from scrap metal, worked wood or even stone. The exterior construction is as variable as can be imagined and built. movement usually involves locomotion through limbs or wheels. Their appendages often include multiple tools or weaponry. Communication is often through audible means - often percussive patterns caused by their mechanics, and more rarely those who have adapted ancient recording and playback devices to include sound and languages other than their own.
The outer shells are not the true being however, but merely the construct that is used to interact with the world. They can range from tiny near insect sized creatures, to huge monstrosities.
The sentience, mental capacity and personality of Scrappers are controlled by the network of circuitry throughout their bodies, and concentrated in one central controlling system, or brain. This is held deep within the outer shell, and is what Scrappers consider to be their true selves.
by Midjourney
Genetics and Reproduction
A true Scrapper has not be born - or created - since before the Destruction. Those that live now in the Age of Shadowfire, are survivors. They do welcome newcomers into their communities - outcasts from the cities of the Stoneforged Assembly on the coast.
Growth Rate & Stages
Individuals change and morph over their long lives as the build, repair and rebuild their exterior forms.
Dietary Needs and Habits
Scrappers feed off magical energy to survive. There are three primary Scrapper 'types' based on the way they source their energy.
Miners
Miners burrow through the mountains or deserts and extract crystalline Uhd from the ground itself, and usually contain components that will pulverise and chemically dissolve the minerals to get what they need. Miners tend to to be more organised and collaborative than the other types, and many have established cooperative mines and trade with their neighbours. Lone minders do exist however, sometimes forever burrowing through the earth with their huge drill-shaped bodies.Hunters
Hunters kill and devour living things and extract the Crystal uhd from their blood or sap. These are the most feared by Kin and Bloodforged who encounter them, as some will hunt indiscriminately. They have been known to hunt both in packs and as individuals, and some clans have taken to farming of Uhd-rich crops and animals. by Midjourney
Baskers
Baskers are those who have found and adapted ancient solar panels that convert sunlight directly into energy to power themselves. These tend to be the more philosophical of all types, and their time is spent more on their inner contemplation or creative expression than on matters of survival. Other types jealously regard them as lazy and frivolous. An individual Scrapper may change and adapt its primary method of energy consumption many times over its life as fate, circumstance, desire and opportunity permit.Additional Information
Perception and Sensory Capabilities
Many Scrappers have devices that detect sound and visuals, while more rarely x-ray and infrared vision is accomplished. Still others can sense motion and tremors, or the presence of magic. These modules are considered add-ons and can change and be replaced many times over the life of a Scrapper.
Civilization and Culture
Major Language Groups and Dialects
Scrappers have developed a percussive language known as Scrapper cant using the beating of mechanical parts within their metal bodies to communicate with each other.
A few have audio recording and playback devices they use to communicate with other peoples. This form of communication consists of a collage of found recordings and words that they splice together, often with limited vocabulary, and consisting of multiple 'voices'.
History
The Scrappers are survivors from the pre-Destruction Stoneforged races. Unlike the more established communities of Stoneforeged on the coast of Dead End Drift, Scrappers have long forgotten how they were created - their memory having been damaged and rewritten perhaps many times of the longe aons of Shadowfire. Some catch glimpses of their past, but it is clouded by layers of time, where their memory has been written over time and time again.
Common Myths and Legends
The dominant religion of Scrappers is known as Edifism and the Eternal Threshold and many among the Scrappers have become mystics while following the edicts of Edfism. They explore their own buried memories of ancient times and are seen as both oracle and record-keeper for others.
They see power in the ebb and flow of obscured and incomplete memories that mark the aging Scrappers' long lives. The overlay of time requires subtle interpretations of their memories they see as a holy act in itself. The blending of aons within their memory banks is seen as the true nature of the Stoneforeged soul, and that eventually, all experiences will meld into a holistic view of all time and space - a paradise of the constructed mind that all Scrappers strive for. This holy purpose is known as the Eternal Threshold.
The Scrappers consider the famed cities, universities and factories of the Stoneforged Assmebly on the coast as being a corruption of this mystical purpose. And that the creations of the Assembly - those newer, cleaner constructs - lack a true soul.
They welcome the outcasts and discarded stoneforged who leave the assembly, as new souls just born who have begun their first foray into their ever growing future and their holy task of preparing for the Eternal Threshold.
Genetic Ancestor(s)
Geographic Distribution
Related Organizations
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