Tower Power

Building significant clockworks from the 9/11 wreckage.

After 9/11, Ground Zero became a Mecca for dukes and terror-tourists alike. Some say that the Sleepers sapped the site dry before the first cliomancer arrived in the magickally unfriendly town, but they didn't slap down the wreckage -- and mechanomancers have been heading to Staten Island's Fresh Kills landfill to harvest materials.

Use the following guidelines for incorporating WTC components:

Twin Tower Steel: the most common component. Recast steel from a single tower's girders provides one significant charge, no matter how much steel is used. If the clockwork is built from both towers' steel, it gains charges from both of them. The nature of the old buildings makes this very versatile, good for being big and sturdy, or anything involving physical, social, or economic dominance.

Plane Parts: Generic wreckage from a single plane only provides a single significant charge, though a clockwork can incorporate wreckage from more than one of the four planes used in the attack. Only the three planes that reached their targets can contribute to a martial clockwork creation. Intact plane parts (good luck) with a specific function can provide additional charges, as random debris (see below).

Random Debris: Only intact debris provides significant charges for clockworking. As always, the object must be related to the clockwork's intended function. (eg: a police radio would be good for a message-carrying clockwork, but a firefighter's radio used at the site might not; one of the missing black boxes might give a clockwork an edge for aiming an attack, or tracking down a target, or spying.)

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Example #1: Clunk
This thick piece of machinery appears exactly like what it is: a killing machine. Its nastiest feature is a hydrolic fire axe (damage as firearms).

Body: 75
Speed: 65
Skills: Hack to Bits 75%
Costs: 4 significant charges

140 starting points (obvious clockwork) = 1 significant charge (WTC Steel from the first tower)

+75 to Skills = 3 significant charges (WTC steel from the second tower, debris from the first plane, and a fire axe.)

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Example #2: The Tanker-Ticker
The tanker-ticker was built by a clockworker from upstate New York. It features a housing made from re-cast Twin Tower steel, an hourglass full of WTC dust, a ticker display (ornamental) and a squeegee. The tanker-ticker plays the stock market, and does it pretty well. It's not great about knowing when to buy, but it's been dead on about stocks about to take a fall. (It's not always right, but it beats the market well enough to get the SEC to start a file on its creator.)

Body: 70
Speed: 10
Mind: 60
Soul: 10
Skills: Play the Market 60%
Costs: 4 significant charges

140 starting points (obvious clockwork) = 1 significant charge (WTC Steel from the first tower)

Sentient Intelligence = 1 significant charge (WTC steel from the second tower)

+50 to Stats = 2 significant charges (the ticker display from the old Nasdaq headquarters; and the squeegee a janitor used to dig through the elevator shaft and escape before the building collapsed.)

Materials removed from the Pentagon should also be good for a significant charge. It would be useful for war machines (like Clunk), but not for less martial ones (like the Tanker-Ticker). It may be that only items/wreckage from the damaged section of the pentagon would provide the charge. Then again, no one has taken girders out of the intact sections of the building, so who knows. Menzoa | profile | Aug 29, 02 | 6:04 pm