Café de Nuit

This might be too late, but here's a few things you might do with it:

-Children of the Night: The Created had a mechanical golem possess a house and an adventure based on it. The cosmopolitan culture of that adventure might not work in Falknovia though.

-This option would only be if you don't mind some higher fantasy Ravenlof and don't mind blending in some Planescape. Some inspiration taken from Malhavoc Press's Beyond Countless Doorways , which has a demiplane which is basically a sleeping god of law's mind. The surface of the demiplane in the book was totally baren and glassy from when the god killed everything on the surface to give it a place to hide from its pursuers. The underground of the demiplane was machines representing the inner workings of the sleeping god's mind. You might be able to do something similar, instead though of a sleeping god you might have a corrupted marut who fell to Drakov's way of enforcing laws or some other sort of twisting of laws. The marut could not stand this corruption, so it knocked itself into a state of unconscious denial rather than dealing with what it did. Another option here might be to have a rogue modron who did the unspeakable by trying to create a new, better modron hierarchy than the one it was kicked out of. Gustav could be the caretaker of the sleeping outsider's mind and soul in exchange for inspiration for his tinkering.

-The place might be a special training ground for the talons, Knights of the Shadows, or similar groups gone awry.[/i]

The Lesser Evil wrote:This might be too late, but here's a few things you might do with it:

Never too late until after it's over.

-Children of the Night: The Created had a mechanical golem possess a house and an adventure based on it. The cosmopolitan culture of that adventure might not work in Falknovia though.

Yup, I know and love that adventure, and used it already, casting Hoawrd Lumley as Gustav's mentor. Above all, I need to make this adventure different enough that it's not repetivtive.

-This option would only be if you don't mind some higher fantasy Ravenlof and don't mind blending in some Planescape. Some inspiration taken from Malhavoc Press's Beyond Countless Doorways , which has a demiplane which is basically a sleeping god of law's mind. The surface of the demiplane in the book was totally baren and glassy from when the god killed everything on the surface to give it a place to hide from its pursuers. The underground of the demiplane was machines representing the inner workings of the sleeping god's mind.

That's basically what I'm thinking except without the god. As fantastical as this is, I'd like to keep it a bit grounded in RL. So the mind is something that organically emerged from the clockworks, not an alien or outsider presence. It may be becoming an outsider, and want to be one, but it didn't originate as one. Not being too up on planescape, I'm not sure what modrons and maruts are. But I do have the manual of the planes, so I'm thinking I might put in an Inevitable, who slipped through as the lines between the Gears and Mechanus blur. (In MoP-speak, it's becoming a vortex, not a portal.) Naturally, the DP's don't like this, so they are corrupting things....

Gustav could be the caretaker of the sleeping outsider's mind and soul in exchange for inspiration for his tinkering.

That's kind of what I'm thinking. It's a symbiotic relationship between the 13 caretakers and the mind that is the Gears.

-The place might be a special training ground for the talons, Knights of the Shadows, or similar groups gone awry.[/i]

Interesting idea... like the danger room. I don't think the Talons, though. I think ig Drakov knew about this place, he'd have it demolished...

Well, it's 10 months later and my PC's still haven't gotten to the Gears yet, so I'm bumping this old thread. Maybe some of the new members have some ideas or some of the previous contributors have stewed up some new additions. They're in Lamordia right now, and unless I come up with some fun in Darkon for them, they'll definately get to the Gears next session, which will be in mid-January. So I've got until then to push this mish-mash of ideas into adventure form.

Campaign update: Talos has been destroyed. Tragic, I know. But it had to happen eventually. And of course, this is Ravenloft where, much like Marvel comics, no good villian can stay dead for long. But there will be a nice peaceful and rewarding Talos-free time for a bit before a Fir digs up his parts and fixes him. So there's a need for a different payoff for going to the Gears (rather than finding out his zeitgeiber). The story can be the same, but any ideas for what they can find out as a reward for braving the Gears would be helpful, as well as any ideas for traps or weird/creepy rooms, or challenges they can face.

A Marut is an inevitable nowadays (3e, MoP). They are huge contructs who serve the gods.

As for Modrons check out this Web enhancement to MoP. Basically they are (one of) the exemplars of Mechanus. This thread on WotC gives some more information.