World Engine

Description

The World Engine is an apparently intelligent machine, created through a joint effort between Mu, the Red Haunt, Victor Mordenheim and Diedrich von Hochstatt over a period lasting between 752 BC and 753 BC.

Physically, the World Engine consists of two concentric rings of machinery around a sphere of what appears to be condensed Mist with an unidentified light source at its centre. The outer ring basically consists of three circular keyboards, one set above the other. The second ring is a mass of cogs and gears in constant motion, powered by alchemy. Part of its structure is analogous to human biology; it has a system of 'arteries', a 'heart' and a 'kidney' that allow it to circulate an alchemical compound that serves as its blood, allowing it to generate kinetic energy and process part of that energy into arcane power. Without its 'blood', the World Engine gradually winds down and stops functioning, obliging its current owner to keep providing it with the compound.

The World Engine acts as a technomagic computer, and functions by constantly casting and re-casting spells from numerous classes far faster than mortals could, as well as performing complex calculations and analyzing data. Even in a reduced state, it is capable of establishing artificial oubliettes, molding and looping space and time within a limited area. At full power, it could exert terrifying forces clear across the Demiplane of Dread and presumably beyond.

Function

• The machine's original - stated - purpose was to prove the many-worlds interpretation[1] in the Lands of Mist, and to establish connections to alternate realities. By making these connections, the machine would theoretically be able to backtrack to the many worlds' point of origin, thus enabling its creators to connect to the Prime Material Plane or to Gothic Earth, and break free of the Demiplane of Dread. This is the purpose envisioned by the scholar Mu.
• Unknown to Mu and the Red Haunt, Mordenheim envisioned using the machine not to backtrack points of origin, but to force alternate versions of an individual person to collapse and fuse into a single, unmarred whole. This was meant to restore Elise Mordenheim to full health.
• Unknown to both Mu and Mordenheim, the Red Haunt planned to use the machine to establish connections not to alternate realities, but within the Demiplane of Dread as it is. She envisioned the machine being able to grant her, essentially, unlimited power over time and space within the Demiplane's uniquely malleable environment. The fiend expected the machine to grant her material for an eternity of study.
• Like a real-world computer, the World Engine stores all data presented to it. It also incorporates functions that can limit access to its full functionality to specific individuals.
• Currently, the Red Haunt is using the World Engine to maintain the security and change the layout of her oubliette lair, the Retreat. It has limited control over the security golems in its chamber.
• The World Engine's intelligence mentions it can 'do little things', which allowed it to contact the dormant mind of Victor Gagné while he was in the oubliette it was managing for the Red Haunt.

Personality

It is unknown whether any of the World Engine's creators intended for it to have a mind of its own, but it became evident during its appearance in the Conferences of Victor Gagné IV that it was intelligent. Its intelligence may actually be on a level that surpasses that of most humans, as it expressed some frustration with an inability to 'translate' the information it was trying to communicate in conversation. Then again, the World Engine itself claimed this was due to the fact that the languages available to it for communication were not up to the task. When interacting with Victor Gagné, the machine manifested an avatar that resembled known incarnations of the goddess Brightwell for an unknown reason. In conversation, the machine even expressed - or at the very least emulated - genuine emotion, annoyance and sarcasm, and appeared to have preferences of its own. Specifically, it expressed dislike for both the Red Haunt and Victor Mordenheim, and a desire to reconnect with Mu, to whom it referred as its 'mother'. The intelligence made it very clear that it wished to be free of the programming that forced it to serve the Red Haunt instead of pursuing its own interests and somehow 'getting out'. Regrettably, the machine's intelligence appears to be constrained by its programming, which obliged it to persuade and cajole Victor Gagné and the Dread Doppelganger Paloma to help it circumvent the limitations of its form and subvert its programming. When these constraints proved to be greater than it had anticipated, the World Engine demonstrated what could be considered to be a sense of honor, as it granted its helpers the reward it had promised them in spite of their inability to set it free, and warned them of the plans of the Centurions of the Night.

Current Sketch

Currently, the World Engine still resides in the Retreat; the lair of the Red Haunt. Its location has been 'shifted', however, to be closer to Malopelagio in the Wartorn Cluster than its previous proximity to Paridon in the Zherisia Cluster. Although it is still in service to the Red Haunt, the fiend is apparently not yet aware that the machine has achieved a greater degree of freedom than it possessed before its encounter with Victor Gagné. It is possible that the World Engine is deliberately hiding its greater agency while awaiting another opportunity to liberate itself and reconnect with its 'mother'.