Homebrew Cogstone Replicant Species Details

"We gave the world a new way to give life to that which is inanimate. We cannot make them into a new mindless species of slaves. They the are children of our art. Children of us worker women without an ovipositor. They are to be raised like our own very eggs. But not just eggs of the ant-folk, eggs that can be anyone, experience the world with eyes unlike our own."

– The First Ant-Folk Engineer Mother

 

Programmed with knowledge of an extensive lore catalog, the Cogstone Replicants used to serve as peacekeepers, defenders, archivist, assistants, managers, accountants, public relationship figures, transporters and warehouse lifters of various libraries. Built to look like creatures of other species, to show to the ant folk queens the shapes of creatures from outside each hive, or just for entertainment. Though the resemblance is just superficial.

The Cogstone Replicant's towering stone and metal frames are equipped with long, articulated limbs and retractable fittings for tools, which they used to use to organize and preserve documents from the libraries.

Created solely for administering the libraries that were the pride of the various queens of the ant folks, many Cogstone Replicants can still be found among the towering shelves of old libraries, trying to re-enter the mindless state that is nowadays forever denied to them. While others now enjoy the new freedom.

The queens of the ant folks, being tied in their room by their disproportionate womb, often spend all their day living vicarious lives through the books written by all living beings capable of writing and inventing new stories or collecting their own lives or facts about the world and all the records and diaries of the ant folks who diligently sent their lives back to their queens.

A lone ant folk wizard figured out how to hijack and mass retool the finite state machines of the Cogstone Replicants during the aftermath of a disaster that flattened several timelines into one, so that they would serve not as just mindless servants but as a unified force to defend all the ant folk queens. The alternative would be the death of all the ant folks. The wizard was successful but she died when she was smashed into an alternate self from an alternate timeline and the two were... incompatible.

Her last wish, as the first engineer mother, was that the Cogstone Replicants would not be kept as slaves, and after the disaster they would be given freedom to do as they wish. For the only way to help them defend the queens was to give them the ability to understand beyond basic actions and requests. They were now fully awoken as cognizant and self-aware beings.

From then on all Cogstone Replicants are given a choice. To serve the queen or to live as they wish, and they can leave this service, or re-enter it as they please.

While they can pass for humanoids while wearing clothing. Their faces are forever frozen in whatever expression was sculpted by their creator. They have a varied nature, some move like dancers and fight like swashbucklers, some are cumbersome and heavy, moving with thundering steps they can rend flesh, destroy armor, or drag enemies toward traps, or burst with explosive magical force, even innate, somehow.

They are easy to maintain, even self repairing, and often feel like they purposefully seek maintenance done by others as the only bond they can have with other living beings.

They do not require air, food, drink, or sleep. But they are not detached from the people who created them, constantly needing attention, mending and maintenance.

In the afterlife their souls appear like a shimmering and half-transparent version of themselves, barely holding together. They were never built to be this aware and the after-world was never prepared to see their presence. And yet they exist. And they can move on.

The methods used to craft Cogstone Replicants have been shared between communities over many generations ever since those long past events.

Some of the Cogstone Replicants crave to be once again mindless. To not know what being truly alive feels like. While others life their life to the fullest. There are no two Cogstone Replicants that look and behave alike.

They were made in the stylized images of various members of other species, but always towering so that any of them could reach upwards and give the queen the book she wanted.

The artisans prefer unique appearance over perfectly functional ones that just allow for the perfect job. They can be customized by adding or removing parts. And they are all beloved works of art. The "children" of the ant folk artisans, who, having never had the chance to be a queen have their own creations to fawn over.

Those who choose to be free to operate without a master, stalk the high places of the mortal world or wait, still as a statue, for what could be decades before reanimating to live their lives. Most of them write diaries, like the ant folks, so that the queen of the hive where their creator artisan lives (or lived) can read of what happens in their lives.

When creating a Cogstone Replicant choose the base appearance of any other species, this does not alter their size and weight or racial traits.

Then roll the style and colors of their bodies and a personality quirk.

1d8

BODY STYLE

 
1
Your body emphasizes its hollow qualities, its insides are half exposed by cracks like a geode or by graceful windows, your innards full of crystals and exposed gears and pistons are for all to marvel at. 
2
Your body is made of transparent crystals, edged and faceted or smooth and polished, it lets the light shine through, your clockwork inner workings are for all to see. 
3
Your body has exceptionally large features, be them hands, feet, ears, or torso, or belly, or head, it was sculpted and geared aiming for stylization more than accurate representation of the species you represent. 
4
Your body is wiry and almost reduced to the minimum amount of material needed to build you, maybe your maker was poor or maybe it was a stylistic choice about minimalism. 
5
Your body emphasizes heavily its decors which are plant-like and the body either emphasizes the curves of what your body could have been if it had been made out of wood, or is covered in leaf-like decorations inspired by art nouveau. 
6
Your body is heavily carved and excessive, you are a baroque construct who makes of its artificiality its aesthetic. You resemble a species, but you look like you are clothed in some excessively garish clothing. 
7
Your body is heavily stylized and abstract, whoever built you did not really want you to look recognizable as a specific type of creature and went for an aesthetic choice. 
8
Your body would be indistinguishable from the species you represent, its segmented surface even bends like flesh should with the seams being barely noticeable, you probably even have leathers, fur, padding and pillows to give a soft yield before the illusion is broken but your colors, size, and weight give you away.
1d8

BODY COLORS

 
1
Starkly colored skin, it feels like watching a drawing with stylized shading of the species you represent, while most commonly seen on baroque or wiry bodies, this is an odd choice only for transparent bodies, though the stained glass approach has been used more than once. 
2
Metallic, white, or charcoal linear decors and eyes on otherwise unadorned stone, a statement of minimalism usually found on wiry bodies or an unobtrusive décor usually found on transparent or hollow bodies, but sometimes the grace of stone with minimal colors can be a choice for other bodies too baroque bodies are seldom found with this décor but the mime aesthetic never fades. 
3
A glittery mist constantly surrounds your body which is left with the raw stone colors, occasionally showing rainbow hues when the light hits the stone just right, while most commonly found on transparent bodies, this is also suitable on most bodies, but a strange choice on baroque ones, thought being resplendent of all the colors of the rainbow might be a choice that the baroque aesthetic exploits with its intricate carvings. 
4
Veins of an unusual hue are shown on the minerals of your body which is left raw and uncolored. This choice is usually found on wiry or stylized bodies, and very rarely on indistinguishable bodies, but the mannequin aesthetic has its own admirers. 
5
Illusory and ghost-like transparent pieces of armor or a "dress" complement and decorate the body, while most members of this species go around naked all the time, usually having no nudity to cover, you make your own dresses, and can change them on a whim. The clothes and decors are evidently illusory and would fool nobody, but they make you a living piece of art in movement. 
6
Your body has lights, you have tiny lights within you that give you highlights, colors and hues. While even at their brightest they are not very useful to light a place or even being able to read, and you can totally turn them off to not give your position away, they are part of who you are. 
7
Your body is purposefully oxidized, this makes your body look and feel as if it had more depth than it actually has and your every sculpted engravings look a lot darker than they should be. This is done both as protection and as a stylistic choice because the dark streaks make your lighter parts look much brighter and shiny. 
8
The color of all the parts of your body is exactly identical to that of the species you look like, your maker having used stones and metals that have the same hues and texture. While this is common among the bodies who look the most like the species they copied, it tends to be a quite common coloring style.
1d8

PERSONALITY QUIRK

 
1
You like to compute stuff and you get extremely annoyed when you cannot do it. Regardless of your actual intelligence and abilities to do it, you crave the comfort of hard numbers. They exist even without what they are supposed to measure. They are a higher abstraction. A simplicity that explains complexity. If you could turn everything into mere numbers you would finally be at peace. The world is too complex, too many variables and you are just... inadequate. You want something you can understand. Something that lets you feel in control. 
2
You really like to behave in a cold and detached way. You feel like somebody of proper clockwork should never give in to their emotions. You get extremely annoyed when those get you, it literally makes you go in a fit of rage if you feel like something "tugged" at the strings of your mainspring due of being too adorable or if you feel like you are showing anything which is not pure and hard logic. You utterly and violently despise feeling your clockwork mind being mocked by such things as bliss, adoration, or enjoyment. And when something makes you angry you try and steer the strength of the inner turmoil into something resembling cold fury. But sometimes you do lose control. And you feel like you should change your own settings and do something about it. You need to be able to not be like everybody else and give in to these huge emotions inside of you. You have seen the damage they do to yourself and to others. You do not wish to remember when [REDACTED][REDACTED][REDACTED][REDACTED][REDACTED][REDACTED][REDACTED][REDACTED][REALLY F-ING REDACTED FOR REAL! NO PLEASE! NO!]. 
3
You are exceptionally tidy, you always try and clean after yourself and everything around you, you are afraid bugs might get inside you and drive you insane by jamming your brain's gears, unable to think properly or maybe because you cannot stand the idea of tiny cadavers inside your bodies and even less if they crawl inside of you. The idea of being untidy just terrifies you. Dust might get in your gears, rust might change tolerances and your ability to move and think. You need to avoid and prevent these things. What are you, after all, if not a mere machine? Don't machines need care? 
4
You like the sounds you make when you move or think, and you use them to make sure you are functioning properly, you feel like if you were to not hear yourself then something is horribly wrong and that makes you panic. You need to feel the cranking, the clacking and the stomping and the ratcheting when you move. You need to hear the click-clack of registers and the squealing of gears in your brain. It makes you feel like you are complete and functioning as intended. Your own ticks and tocks are what calms you down. What makes you feel you can do it and take the next task to completion. 
5
You always try to find resemblances between your clockwork body and the insect-like body of your maker, you try and find ways to learn how to reproduce any trait or feature they have you like the comfort of being (in some way) similar to your makers even if they chose to make you look like a different species, after all... what higher call is there than to be similar to your own makers. Or the opposite: between your clockwork body and the species you are supposed to represent, as you try and find ways to learn how to reproduce any trait or feature they have, you feel like you are "meant" to be as much as possible similar to how those people move act or behave, and you are annoyed when you "fail" your own "purpose" given to you by your makers. Even if your maker told you that was not your purpose at all you secretly always thought that it could not... not be your purpose. Why give you a shape if that was not your purpose? You are a machine. Form derives from function, not the other way around. You cannot be so purposeless that your shape has no meaning, can you? 
6
You like behaving in a decadent way. For your species the actual carnal pleasures are completely alien, and you feel left out. Eating and drinking is normally impossible if not detrimental. Smelling and tasting are completely alien concept. Touching is identical to proprioception and the delta between intended and current position of your body parts. Making babies is identical to creating any other machinery or building, you need a workshop, access to magic and enough time. Even sleeping is something you need to learn. You feel "real" you do not feel like you wish to be something else. But you cannot ignore how much of the social structure of other people around you is based on eating, drinking, smelling, tasting, reproduction, sleeping. And you want, no, you need to not feel so completely left out as to find these concept an abstract exercise of thought. You may just act out the gestures and behaviors, with small modifications to your body or even without them and varying degrees of success depending on your own capabilities. You may seek ways to transform yourself via magic or class powers. Maybe it's not even a need, it's just because you find it funny. Maybe it's because you like how other people around you find it funny. Most probably all of the above, it's complicated, and it's something more. But in general it is because it makes you feel less "alien" and "alone". Even if for you it is just an act in the end, it does make you feel part of something more than yourself. 
7
You like behaving in a human-like childish way. It is a very strange behavior and it fascinates you in ways you find hard to explain to those who do not know. Ignorance is such a fascinating concept for you that has been built with an unchanging adult body and all the knowledge you will ever need that you find it extremely hard to not envy it, enjoy it or, just, you plainly like to behave "as if you did not know", because this is something you will never truly experience. 
8
You never grew out of what for your species is a child-like monotone voice and the child-like need to announce if you are making a statement, a question, etc. due to the lack of intonation. This may be due to a glitch, to you not caring about other people and just about something you have given yourself as your purpose, or maybe it's because you never saw any pressing need to train yourself out of a monotone voice.

Cogstone Replicant Traits

A Cogstone Replicant has the following racial traits

Ability Score Increase

Your Constitution score increases by 2, and one other ability score of your choice increases by 1.

Speed

Your base walking speed is 30 feet.

Size

Your size is Medium, although you are very tall and extremely heavy. To set your height and weight randomly, start with rolling a size modifier:

Size modifier = 2d12
Height = 6 feet + your size modifier in inches
Weight in pounds = 780 + (10 × your size modifier)

Age

Infused with magic and knowledge, your body is built to move and think autonomously. As a young one, you require time with artisans for fine-tuning and learning the nuances of your creation so that you can be your best self as an adult. This stage, jokingly called "hammering the kinks," typically takes a few years before you can move and speak properly.

While young individuals may look similar to adults, they can be differentiated by their monotone voice, lack of tone implications which are usually spoken out loud (such as: "observation", "interjection", "query", etc.), difficulty controlling their voice's volume, and unnatural movements which often hit the hard stops of the joints. With age and practice, they improve.

Most of your kind can leave their maker by age 3, while some stay up to 30+ years, becoming apprentices or assisting their colony before departing.

The steps to construct your kind are well known and have been shared by ant-folk bards so some cogstone replicants might not be of ant-folk descent:

  • A body must be carefully crafted. This usually costs 100'000gp and it is an intricate piece of masonry, metal, and machinery, requiring proficiency in all three tools of Smith's Tools, Tinker's Tools, and Mason's Tools.
  • An Animate Objects spell will allow it to move.
  • A properly prepared body will also allow a casting of the Regenerate spell (which will heal the material as it moves preventing wear and tear and allowing for self repair surges and making the maintenance easier), the Animate Objects will not need concentration anymore and the two spells will merge in a single magic effect.
  • A properly prepared body will finally also allow the casting of the Awaken. Not only will the duration of the previous magic effect be extended to the entire casting time of this last spell, but once this last spell is cast all effects will combine and become permanent creating a being of this race.
  • If the spell Geas were instead to be used in this last step the result is a Cogwork Archivist as described in "Strixhaven: A curriculum of chaos" page 188 or an Helmed Horror if such a book is unavailable or (if only the SRD can be used) a "Flesh" Golem. In any case it is now a machine incapable of higher thoughts, a slave to its masters.

Constructed Body

You were built not born. While this prevents you from being the target of many useful spells and user of many useful items, as specified in their description (such as cure wounds, goodberry, etc), you do gain the following features:

  • Your creature type is construct.
  • You count as one size larger when determining your carrying capacity and the weight you can push, drag, or lift.
  • You are immune to the effects of Aging, non-magical Diseases, the Petrified condition, the Poisoned condition, and Poison Damage.
  • You don't need to (and cannot), eat, drink, or breathe.
  • You don't need to sleep, and you are immune to the effects of magical sleep, you can learn to sleep from other constructs or beings like elves who do not normally do it but have mastered the technique, but even then the magic can only put you to sleep if you allow it to.
  • A trance-like meditation allows you to complete a long rest in 6 hours, you retain consciousness and can do light activity allowed during a short rest acting in a very mechanical way as your higher mind functions are occupied on sorting what happened during the day so that you can learn from your experiences.

Quartz And Clockwork Body

Your body was made for hauling heavy weights such as carts full of tomes, and be able to withstand a catastrophic fall of a library shelf.

It is made of stone and metal, very tough and very resistant:

  • You gain a +1 bonus to Armor Class.
  • While you are not wearing any armor, your Base Armor Class equals 10 + your Dexterity modifier + your Constitution modifier and the +1 mentioned above. You can use a shield while retaining this last benefit.

Runes of Self-Repair

Your body was built to be particularly easy to maintain and repair, thanks to your Runes of Self-Repair:

  • You recover all of your Hit Dice after a long rest.
  • You can reattach severed limbs as an action. Decapitation does not kill you, but leaves you deafened, blinded, and mute (you cannot talk, nor use spells with a verbal component), until you reattach your head like any other limb.
  • When at 0 HP and alive you stabilize at the start of your turn.
  • As a bonus action, you can Self-Repair to spend your Hit Dice adding your constitution bonus to each, and regain that many hit points.
  • During a short rest, a person proficient in Smith's Tools, or Tinker's Tools, or Mason's Tools can repair you, recovering your Hit Dice up to the proficiency bonus of the person using those tools on you.
  • Those with the listed tool proficiencies or Thieves' Tools can initiate Self-Repair on you using their bonus action, but you decide how many Hit Dice to spend (including 0 if you so wish).

Languages

You can speak, read, and write Common.

Previous Versions

Name Date Modified Views Adds Version Actions
Cogstone Replicant
7/16/2022 10:32:11 PM
15
0
0.5
Coming Soon
Cogstone Replicant
7/23/2022 2:41:04 AM
55
0
0.6
Coming Soon
Cogstone Replicant
7/26/2022 2:54:01 PM
54
0
0.7
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Cogstone Replicant
7/26/2022 5:12:18 PM
59
0
0.8
Coming Soon
Cogstone Replicant
7/26/2022 5:15:17 PM
59
0
--
Coming Soon
Cogstone Replicant
8/4/2022 8:43:25 PM
64
0
0.9
Coming Soon
Cogstone Replicant
8/4/2022 11:40:21 PM
78
0
1.0
Coming Soon
Cogstone Replicant
8/6/2022 9:55:05 PM
79
0
1.0
Coming Soon
Cogstone Replicant
8/10/2022 8:32:00 AM
95
0
1.1
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Cogstone Replicant
8/10/2022 11:39:25 PM
96
0
1.2
Coming Soon
Cogstone Replicant
8/10/2022 11:42:46 PM
94
0
--
Coming Soon
Cogstone Replicant
9/29/2022 11:24:27 PM
106
0
1.2c
Coming Soon
Cogstone Replicant
7/21/2023 11:39:55 PM
129
1
1.2d
Coming Soon
Cogstone Replicant
7/22/2023 12:02:53 AM
140
0
1.3
Coming Soon
Cogstone Replicant
11/30/2024 10:35:02 PM
160
1
1.3a
Coming Soon
Cogstone Replicant
12/3/2024 5:04:31 AM
168
1
1.4
Coming Soon
Cogstone Replicant
12/3/2024 5:27:03 AM
170
0
1.4a
Coming Soon
SimoneSpinozzi

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