#This reminds me of that wierd japanese horror? Tetsuo

[chuchotements-de-le-radiateur]

DnD character concept: Artificer

So, despite my interest in DnD I have never had a chance to play it. This means jack shit to my fantasy, which immediately latched to the whole concept and started imagining characters, locations, etc.

So i just decided to go through the classes and come up with some interesting concepts for them. Let's go alphabetically and start with the Artificer.

"The clockwork heart"

Cracked glass and bent gears. Pocket watch dropped by a careless nobleman, stomped and forgotten, picked up and traded by a curious kid. Traded for what — you don't remember. The glass is removed, the shards are melted and cover is reformed anew. The gears are taken out one by one, by steady hands holding the tiniest of pincers. There is rhythm and order to things. You know that. You feel that. Hands keep moving, pick up the pieces and slot them into their place. A clank of metal, a tug of a spring, a turn of a screw. Then another. Three more and the hands rest. The ticking is rhythmical, steady, but something is amiss. Your eyes follow the hands with curiosity, watching what they will do next. After a brief pause the cover is removed again, the edge of a spring is bent just a tiny amount and everything is covered again. And pause. The ticking continues, but there is a note there now, one that you feel more than hear. All is right. Your hands rest. For now, the panic subsides. But soon the the chaos will become to much again, demanding to be ordered, to be fixed, and the hands will start moving again. You hope you will find something to fix by then. The ticking inside you used to be soothing, calming, reassuring, but lately you can barely sleep, as it grows louder and louder with each passing day, and subsides ever slower.

There was an explosion. Or so you've been told. You were an apprentice to a talented artificer, helping them make their ambitions a reality, push the limits of what is possible, weaving magic and technology together in ways you couldn't imagine. You weren't as well educated, as experienced, as driven, but you were talented and willing to put in the work. They inspired you, and though it was hard, you kept working. But days, weeks, even months prior to that day turned into a blur, with shattered fragments flashing in the dark. Fire. Pain. Sound. Hands. Their voice. You were found in the smoking ruins of their laboratory, alive but covered in bruises, cuts and burns. One wound was different — a big scar on your chest, almost healed, but one that was not there just a day ago. And the artificer was nowhere to be seen.

Days spent trying to remember what happened, you finally realized: whatever you did together, whoever made a mistake, you paid for it with your life. You remember dying. And then their hands, their voice, arguing with someone. You don't know what your master did to save you, but you are alive, and they are gone. And where you once heard heartbeat, you now hear ticking of gears and twisting of springs.

But as the days kept flowing, you understood that that's not all that changed. You see the world differently, understand it more clearly, sharper, ideas filling your head and your hands being more precise than ever. You build things you never thought you could. Except that you are getting less and less certain, if it is an ability, or a compulsion.

What you don't know, is that your master did not save you, or build the heart that keeps you alive. You were not a victim, You were a sacrifice. A price that your master paid for their communion and ascension with something beyond your comprehension. But whatever it was, it wanted you alive. It gave you this heart, it filled your head with ideas and kept your hands steady. And as you encounter more danger and make mistakes, as you fall in battle and come close to death again, even after your allies bring you back, even after you heal, you feel the ticking getting louder. And one day, as an dagger cut your hand deep as it could, as you were pushing the assassin away, you could swear that instead of the white bone, under the blood flowing from your hand you saw a dull shine of bronze and gold.