While most warlocks serve capricious masters, these warlocks have bound themselves to a force for knowledge, rationality, and science. In some societies, this may be a creation of the most powerful arcanists. However, even these devices come to express themselves in manners similar to Great Machines known elsewhere. It is assumed by most that this entity is a greater spirit or minor god from the plane of Mechanus. It is possible that they are unknown types of truly mighty modrons acting in a manner similar to other outsiders; providing power for their own ends. Regardless of its actual nature, this patron describes itself as a computing machine with vast repositories of knowledge located within the folds of time and space. Its vast knowledge and perspective, along with its utter dispassion, renders its true designs inscrutable to its supplicants.
However unknowable its objectives may be, and whether its professed intentions are believed, it seems strongly bound by structure and order. Several formal and repeatable processes for petitioning to become a warlock of the Great Machine have been documented. Many are connected with places or artifacts associated with this patron or its servants, as might be expected. The most common are processes of initiation by an existing warlock. As a result, warlocks of the Great Machine have occasionally established enclaves, schools, and even cults, depending on their various approaches to their patron.
Warlocks sworn to the Great Machine nearly always take the Pact of the Tome. The most common form for this boon appears to be little more than a featureless tablet of slick, unnatural material hinged together with another plate whose inner surface is covered with odd, mechanical buttons. Under the manipulations of its owner, the blank inner surface can be made to show nearly infinite pages worth of information. Still stranger tomes have been granted, however, including simple slates that appear similar in effect to the blank half of the tome and small crystals which project the information into the space above them.
Occasionally a warlock will instead receive the Pact of the Chain. Such familiars are strange, obviously artificial creatures. Their outer coverings are made from the same sort of slick, unnatural material as tomes so often are, and through the gaps metal, mechanical components can be seen. Despite their appearance, these creatures are not treated as constructs as their complexity exceeds what is apparent and their mechanical systems effectively replicate many biological systems. Frequently creatures summoned or produced by the magic of the Great Machine have this appearance.
Great Machine Patron Summary
1st; Expanded Spell list, Technomancer, Arcane Sight
6th; Clockwork Universe
10th; Wheels within Wheels
14th; Dust in the Gears
Expanded Spell List
The Great Machine lets you choose from an expanded list of spells when you learn a new Warlock spell. At 1st level the following spells area added to the warlock spell list for you.
Expanded Spell list
Spell level Spells
1st Alarm, Identify
2nd Animal Messenger, Augury
3rd Leomund’s Tiny Hut, Phantom Steed
4th Commune, Commune with Nature
5th Rary’s Telepathic Bond, Drawmij’s Instant Summons
Technomancer
The mechanical processes of your patron are unswayed by emotion or appeal. Starting at 1st level you do not gain proficiency with Charisma saving throws, instead gaining proficiency with Intelligence saving throws. Similarly your spellcasting ability is Wisdom, rather than Charisma. Any class feature which uses Charisma instead uses your Wisdom.
Arcane Sight
Warlocks of the Great Machine view the use of their magic as the summoning and directing of power through the construction of commands input through a splinter of the Great Machine bestowed upon them. These commands are provided through gestures and vocalizations, much like the vocal and somatic components used in other types of spellcasting. Additional power and information may need to be drawn from outside sources, which are provided through the consumption of material components or encoded within reusable physical devices used as foci.
All of this is managed through what they describe as the “arcane sight,” an overlay of information related to their interactions with the Great Machine. Other uses of the arcane sight include the results of divination and other awareness spells.
Starting at 1st level, you can use an action to expand the information provided by your arcane sight. If you do this, it extends its display to show existing effects of magic within 30 feet of you. If there is magic in this area, you can use your action to see a faint aura around any visible creature or object in the area that bears magic, and you learn its school of magic, if any.
The effect lasts for one round and penetrates most barriers, but is blocked by 1 foot of stone, 1 inch of common metal, a thin sheet of lead, or 3 feet of wood or dirt. After using this ability you cannot use it again until you complete a short or long rest.
Clockwork Universe
At 6th level you can take an action to touch a creature. You may cause one of the two following effects on that creature. You cannot use this ability again until you complete a short or long rest.
* The target must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw or suffer disadvantage on attack rolls against you. This penalty persists for one minute.
* Once within the next minute the target can roll a d4 and add the number rolled to one ability check of its choice. It can roll the die before or after the ability check. The effect then ends.
Wheels within Wheels
Starting at 10th level, you choose a creature you can see within 90 feet and mystically mark it. As long as you concentrate on this effect, to a maximum of one hour, you deal an extra 1d6 damage to that target whenever you hit it with an attack. Further, you have advantage on any Wisdom (Perception) or Wisdom (Survival) check you make to find it. If the target drops below 0 hit points before the effect ends you can use a bonus action on one of your subsequent turns to transfer this mark to a new creature within 90 feet of you.
You can use this ability once, and regain the use of this ability after a short or long rest.
3. Magic happens as spells from deliberate users
I don't think this is an assumption of its own. I think this is a particular expression of what happens when you assume magic is a force separate from nature. I certainly won't say that not making up entire systems of magical effect based on location/time/etc is lazy, because that sort of effort would be daunting at best. Madness is probably a more accurate statement. In fact, I prefer systems that let this type of work be shared.
5. Magic works regardless of morality, ethics, or other intangibles
However unknowable its objectives may be, and whether its professed intentions are believed, it seems strongly bound by structure and order. Several formal and repeatable processes for petitioning to become a warlock of the Great Machine have been documented. Many are connected with places or artifacts associated with this patron or its servants, as might be expected. The most common are processes of initiation by an existing warlock. As a result, warlocks of the Great Machine have occasionally established enclaves, schools, and even cults, depending on their various approaches to their patron.
Warlocks sworn to the Great Machine nearly always take the Pact of the Tome. The most common form for this boon appears to be little more than a featureless tablet of slick, unnatural material hinged together with another plate whose inner surface is covered with odd, mechanical buttons. Under the manipulations of its owner, the blank inner surface can be made to show nearly infinite pages worth of information. Still stranger tomes have been granted, however, including simple slates that appear similar in effect to the blank half of the tome and small crystals which project the information into the space above them.
Occasionally a warlock will instead receive the Pact of the Chain. Such familiars are strange, obviously artificial creatures. Their outer coverings are made from the same sort of slick, unnatural material as tomes so often are, and through the gaps metal, mechanical components can be seen. Despite their appearance, these creatures are not treated as constructs as their complexity exceeds what is apparent and their mechanical systems effectively replicate many biological systems. Frequently creatures summoned or produced by the magic of the Great Machine have this appearance.
Great Machine Patron Summary
1st; Expanded Spell list, Technomancer, Arcane Sight
6th; Clockwork Universe
10th; Wheels within Wheels
14th; Dust in the Gears
Expanded Spell List
The Great Machine lets you choose from an expanded list of spells when you learn a new Warlock spell. At 1st level the following spells area added to the warlock spell list for you.
Expanded Spell list
Spell level Spells
1st Alarm, Identify
2nd Animal Messenger, Augury
3rd Leomund’s Tiny Hut, Phantom Steed
4th Commune, Commune with Nature
5th Rary’s Telepathic Bond, Drawmij’s Instant Summons
Technomancer
The mechanical processes of your patron are unswayed by emotion or appeal. Starting at 1st level you do not gain proficiency with Charisma saving throws, instead gaining proficiency with Intelligence saving throws. Similarly your spellcasting ability is Wisdom, rather than Charisma. Any class feature which uses Charisma instead uses your Wisdom.
Arcane Sight
Warlocks of the Great Machine view the use of their magic as the summoning and directing of power through the construction of commands input through a splinter of the Great Machine bestowed upon them. These commands are provided through gestures and vocalizations, much like the vocal and somatic components used in other types of spellcasting. Additional power and information may need to be drawn from outside sources, which are provided through the consumption of material components or encoded within reusable physical devices used as foci.
All of this is managed through what they describe as the “arcane sight,” an overlay of information related to their interactions with the Great Machine. Other uses of the arcane sight include the results of divination and other awareness spells.
Starting at 1st level, you can use an action to expand the information provided by your arcane sight. If you do this, it extends its display to show existing effects of magic within 30 feet of you. If there is magic in this area, you can use your action to see a faint aura around any visible creature or object in the area that bears magic, and you learn its school of magic, if any.
The effect lasts for one round and penetrates most barriers, but is blocked by 1 foot of stone, 1 inch of common metal, a thin sheet of lead, or 3 feet of wood or dirt. After using this ability you cannot use it again until you complete a short or long rest.
Clockwork Universe
At 6th level you can take an action to touch a creature. You may cause one of the two following effects on that creature. You cannot use this ability again until you complete a short or long rest.
* The target must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw or suffer disadvantage on attack rolls against you. This penalty persists for one minute.
* Once within the next minute the target can roll a d4 and add the number rolled to one ability check of its choice. It can roll the die before or after the ability check. The effect then ends.
Wheels within Wheels
Starting at 10th level, you choose a creature you can see within 90 feet and mystically mark it. As long as you concentrate on this effect, to a maximum of one hour, you deal an extra 1d6 damage to that target whenever you hit it with an attack. Further, you have advantage on any Wisdom (Perception) or Wisdom (Survival) check you make to find it. If the target drops below 0 hit points before the effect ends you can use a bonus action on one of your subsequent turns to transfer this mark to a new creature within 90 feet of you.
You can use this ability once, and regain the use of this ability after a short or long rest.
Dust in the Gears
At 14th level you gain the ability to banish a creature that you can see within 60 feet into a labyrinthine demiplane. The target remains there for up to 10 minutes, unless it escapes the maze or your concentration is broken sooner.
The target can use its action to attempt to find the path out. When it does so, it makes a DC 20 Intelligence check. If it succeeds it escapes, and the effect ends. Creatures with particular attunement to mazes, such as minotaurs or goristro demons automatically succeed. When the effect ends, the target reappears in the space it left or, if that space is occupied, in the nearest unoccupied space.
Once you use this ability you cannot use it again until you complete a long rest.
~~*~~
I recently came across an interesting article on "Breaking Out of Scientific Magic Systems." It has some outstanding advice for bringing wonder back to magic in games and other systems. Without having articulated it fully, I've been using some of these tricks for years. Others I find difficult to embrace directly, but have found what I find to be elegant and effective work-arounds. Always, though, I've judged systems against how they use various parts to create a coherent whole. Where I've found a game lacking has often been some of the richest veins to mine for new systems.
1. Magic is a known system and thus non-mysterious
At its best, this is baked into worlds more than rules. Even at worst, there is a range between which these things fall.
At 14th level you gain the ability to banish a creature that you can see within 60 feet into a labyrinthine demiplane. The target remains there for up to 10 minutes, unless it escapes the maze or your concentration is broken sooner.
The target can use its action to attempt to find the path out. When it does so, it makes a DC 20 Intelligence check. If it succeeds it escapes, and the effect ends. Creatures with particular attunement to mazes, such as minotaurs or goristro demons automatically succeed. When the effect ends, the target reappears in the space it left or, if that space is occupied, in the nearest unoccupied space.
Once you use this ability you cannot use it again until you complete a long rest.
I recently came across an interesting article on "Breaking Out of Scientific Magic Systems." It has some outstanding advice for bringing wonder back to magic in games and other systems. Without having articulated it fully, I've been using some of these tricks for years. Others I find difficult to embrace directly, but have found what I find to be elegant and effective work-arounds. Always, though, I've judged systems against how they use various parts to create a coherent whole. Where I've found a game lacking has often been some of the richest veins to mine for new systems.
1. Magic is a known system and thus non-mysterious
At its best, this is baked into worlds more than rules. Even at worst, there is a range between which these things fall.
The World of Darkness, in all its incarnations, runs heavily on the unknown. There are a few catalogues of known spells and mystical forces. But true wizards are mostly on their own, struggling and scrambling to scrape together mystical knowledge. Rotes, well practiced spells, exist. But most magic is ill-defined and mostly experimental in nature.
On the other hand, D&D worlds generally run on a caste of wizards, sages, and their ilk who have gone to great lengths to apply something very like the scientific method to magical forces. And, while the day-to-day of magic use is rigidly codified, magical experimentation (creation of new spells) has been covered regularly throughout D&D's history.
2. Magic is a force separate from Nature
This is something I've always embraced. I've very specifically made rules to unify "magic" and "myth" in all sorts of ways. In D&D this has been one of the purposes of Feats for a couple editions- granting demi-magical and mythical powers. Though I've probably been more prolific at that than WOTC, something I wish they'd adjust. Generally, though, I feel meeting the intent of this assumption comes down to balance and the LFQW problem. If you make a non-magical class it shouldn't be weaker than a magical one just because it's not magical.
This is something I've always embraced. I've very specifically made rules to unify "magic" and "myth" in all sorts of ways. In D&D this has been one of the purposes of Feats for a couple editions- granting demi-magical and mythical powers. Though I've probably been more prolific at that than WOTC, something I wish they'd adjust. Generally, though, I feel meeting the intent of this assumption comes down to balance and the LFQW problem. If you make a non-magical class it shouldn't be weaker than a magical one just because it's not magical.
This assumption bleeds into the next.
3. Magic happens as spells from deliberate users
I don't think this is an assumption of its own. I think this is a particular expression of what happens when you assume magic is a force separate from nature. I certainly won't say that not making up entire systems of magical effect based on location/time/etc is lazy, because that sort of effort would be daunting at best. Madness is probably a more accurate statement. In fact, I prefer systems that let this type of work be shared.
But, even without complex systems or knowing what mystic effects every place might have, I've found that introducing places that have their own independent, naturally occurring magic effects that are either freely observable or being tapped into by others goes a long way to adding depth to the sense that magic is a part of the world and not a weird overlay.
4. Magic obeys conservation of (magical) energy
This is where I disagree with the original author.
Conservation of (magical) energy is a requirement of both interesting stories and power balance. Whether creating a game or writing a story; magic users that have an unlimited reservoir of power quickly become uninteresting as characters. There's a reason that even gods/godlike beings are generally show-stealing walk on parts or only engaged with when weakened or able to be exhausted.
This particular rule is one of the reasons I so dearly love D&D 5e's Warlocks. They expand on a conversation Clerics have always quietly murmured about. Something that runs very deep; that power has to come from somewhere. I talk about this obliquely in A History of Magic, the exploration of various sources of power leading to new and varied types of magic. Numenera goes deeper with this, hand waving whole segments of hyper-technology, psionics, and what may well be "magic" together as one big group of effects to be (maybe) understood only by those who use them, but drawing energy nonetheless.
I think about this like light switches. With the arcane gesture of a finger or wrist flick across an arcane device you create illumination. Where the power for those lights comes from is, in most places, unseen. Why that particular gesture works in that place is known only to those who have been initiated into its secrets. Move forward from that to the use of the flashlight function on a smart phone. Because this is the world in which we all live we all know exactly what's happening and where the power comes from. But, imagine being a time traveler from 100-150 years ago, before batteries, power lines, and electric lights were commonplace things. It would seem we all live in a magical world where everyone knows the light cantrip.
Now, I do agree with the results they suggest searching for; a solution to the LFQW issue.
5. Magic works regardless of morality, ethics, or other intangibles
I agree that this definitely helps put the wonder back in "magic." But the author admits that intangibles are difficult to track and measure. How do you know actions are taken from the adventurer's "purity of heart" rather than the player's "desire for victory"? While I fully support the use of complex ethical situations to tell stories and develop characters, rooting a full magical system in that sort of discourse becomes unwieldy. I do like the example the author provides. However, for a system like that to be used beyond a subset of DMs that are invested in making it work and knowledgeable enough to prevent abuse requires more mechanistic underpinning than the description outlines. This sort of thing works best when writing stories than running games, and even then needs to be handled with care.
Meanwhile, they also point out that most real-world magical traditions were rooted in faith. However, in a world where magic is an observable, natural phenomenon rather than a subtle, occulted art of unseen effect there's little reason to take its existence or effect on faith. Of course, there is still space in worlds of active gods granting magical powers for those sort of faith based conflicts- where the gods set their followers upon those of another for whatever jealousy or ambition. Similarly, there have been a few hints in various D&D worlds at alternate ways of looking at arcane magic that conflict, while a core part of both World of Darkness Mage games have been differences in arcane worldview. To quote a magic card, "debates between wizards are never purely academic."
Perhaps the most useful tack on this question for me has always been "what separates magic users from everyone else." I've found the easiest intangible to manipulate in games is some manner of initiation. Whether this initiation is as simple as a spell to cast (re: variations on arcane mark), the mark of a being of power (a la warlocks or clerics), a natural effect (ie dragonmarks), or a formal ritual of induction. The more ways the results of initiation can be perceived the more it means. On the other hand, this is a place where assumption 1 works for making magic more naturally a part of the setting. The use of regular, formalized magic as part of life, even if it's not an everyday occurrence, helps integrate it into the world. Births, name days, coming of age, weddings, and other events have rituals and rites associated with them which can easily, in a world of magic, get tipped into Rites.
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