Chrome Hand (early concepts)

"When the Magi of Korash vanished a century ago, they left behind their great works - soaring machines, deep vaults filled with arcane marvels, and the race of sentient constructs that had so loyally served them. For decades these beings where seen spotted only rarely by the tribes - decrepit, addled hulks wandering in from the desert, or guardian automatons standing watch over the Magis' lost troves. But in recent years something has called these mechanical beings together. Now, they would call themselves 'tribe', and that tribe's name is 'Chrome Hand'."

Game Keywords: ARCHEO COHESION LOGISTICS

"Robots with capes" was the way my brother described them... Or rather aspects of the game's earlier iterations in general. And who doesn't like a good caped robot? Korash is a place strewn with ancient and arcane technology*, and Chrome Hand is the faction that most leans into that fact. If the explorers of Dust Flag seek to locate it, the scrappers of Rust Banner seek to disassemble/reassemble it, and the warriors of Thousand Spears fear and disdain it, Chrome Hand *is* it - they are the that technology manifest.

This doesnt mean that they possess the magic-like powers the Magi once possessed. So much knowledge has been lost; the eldest of their tribe barely remember their long past, their memory storage units battered and corroded with age. And this, of course, is a problem - they rely on that very same technology to maintain themselves, and to reproduce (in what very limited manner that they can). Whatsmore, many members of this tribe wish to turn away from the old sites of technological power, which represent a time when they where the automaton servants of human masters, shackled to the exploitative will of others...

...Not that this is the only consensus. Some wish to exhume and command the ancient technologies, to master it and wield it like their creators did before them. These factional differences of opinion create inner tension in what is otherwise a (literally) mechanically efficient group of beings.

Robots? With politics? And *capes*!? Absurd! And yet, here Chrome Hand is. At the doorsteps of the human tribes, demanding to trade, to parlay, and to claim territory. Although they are new to Korash's factional landscape, in the those senses they are recognisably more of the same.

(*"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." - Arthur C. Clarke).

Comments

Popular Posts