Enjoying it so far, looking forward to more!

Basic version of them at least.

Every participant in a battle are allowed Two Action per round(post), which can be taken in any order of each other. Movement, attacking, defending, and using an item are the four basic actions, but others of course exist. Readying one of your spikes is considered an action, grappling with an opponent, so on and so forth. Fairly straightforward rules for actions, if it requires a bit of time, it consumes an action.

Once combat is joined fully, I will provide a basic information section in the posts, which will give your current hp, along with the identity, condition and distance from targets, like so:

Marionette(Temp)- HP: 24
Thug 1- Healthy, Dis: 0
Thug 2- Injured, Dis: 1
Thug 3- Critical, Dis: 2

Fairly simple, the closer to death an enemy is, they move from Healthy to Injured, then Injured to Critical, then Dead. Dis(used in place of Distance) is how many move actions it would take to reach a target. So Thug 1 is within range, Thug 2 requires one move action to reach, and Thug 3 requires two. If additional information is desired, simply let me know, and I'll gladly add it in.

how big are we relatively? i basically thought we were like, doll sized. so about knee high.

You stand roughly six feet tall, and just for clarifications sake, currently are androgynous and effectively gender-less in all regards(ie: body type, voice, the way you move, etc), appear to be mostly composed of iron, and possess rather large gauntlets on your hands. This isn't considered odd for a automaton first waking up, but an owner does usually choose a gender for it to identify as eventually, and will make modifications to the frame to accommodate the decision.

You, obviously, have far more freedom of choice in the matter.

Knee high automatons existed at one point, but were considered not marketable to a large enough population of consumers once it was discovered that, after applying certain special gears to an automaton, one could appear human-like, people began to go nuts over customization of their own personal slave.

Considering how many people there are the buy and own toy dogs as substitutes for children I'd be greatly surprised if there aren't people who wanted child-sized automata customized to look like children of the owners. What happened?

Societal differences mostly. While our society does place emphasis on such things, automata within this world were seen as lesser things to be used and discarded as needed. There was no real concept of treating it like a family member or child. Tack on the fact that there is only so much space for the necessary gear-work to make it truly human-like, especially for the all important "heart", and size constraints begin to exist for getting certain levels of functional ability.

The rather massive War that erupted didn't help the economy much either.

>>90594
not making on just for the sake of it. or instance, a woman lost her son, and has an automaton facsimile built to look like him to she can pretend he never left.

>>90595
I think Orianna is a pretty good summary of what people would think of someone who did that.
"That's creepy, and you're crazy!"

>>90596
well yeah, they are grief striken by the loss of their son and asked for something crazy.

I'm not saying it wasn't done. It just wasn't a common occurrence. Your entirely right in assuming someone somewhere would have done it. You, however, were built as a combat machine, one designed for sheer power, and it helps if one can add more gears to increase that power, which means more size was needed.

I'm not saying you are wrong. Far from it, just that generally, most automata were built to human sizes, particularly those built during the war.

How much is this past war, and this Citadel, being carefully kept dim and hazy for mystery and progressive-discovery purposes? I.E. should we find out in quest, or ask questions here?

Both are relatively well known subjects, at least among humans, and I have no issue responding to questions posed here. I am, however, going to assume the newly minted Thorne does not have access to this information until it would actually have access to this information. When you do gain it in the quest, feel free to use whatever you'd learned here to whatever ends you like.

Well, if it were just me I'd want to limit that to after we would reasonably know about it. The reason why is to avoid hamstringing our ability to make useful inferences by giving ourselves an albatross of, "You officially don't know this," stuff to pretend we don't know.

Known as the Great War, the Clockwork War, the Aether War or simply the War, it was a conflict that occurred some 300 years prior to the awakening of Thorne. Consisting of two major sides, the war was the first major use of automata in open conflict, and lasted a little under 200 years of off again on again combat.

Originally started over the growing need for aetherium, the conflict officially started when the Old Kingdom(Records of any other name were lost in the Aether Field Incident) invaded a aetherium rich neighboring region, desperate to replenish its dwindling supply of Aetherium thanks to it over reliance on automata to continue its every day existence. They hadn't counted on the local population being so adverse to hostile takeover, or so good at resisting the invaders. With little alternative, clockwork began to be put to military use, draining already strained aetherium reserves, which then forced the Kingdom to push harder to retrieve more of the precious metal, and so on. Vicious cycle emerges.

200 years later, and with no end in sight to the fighting, hope seemed all but lost for peace to reign once again. Then, in an odd twist, an event called the Aether Field Incident took place, causing massive damage to the environment in all direction and leaving both sides of the conflict decimated. No one knows exactly what happened, but theories suggest an odd fluctuation in the Aether fields caused the event, although again, just a theory.

Eventually, the survivors of both nations, as well as a few surrounding ones caught in the event, came together and formed the Citadel. More information on that will come in a later post.

Great War basics complete.

Aether Fields(or the Ebb and Flow if you're Thorne) are "natural" phenomenon that are invisible to humanity as a whole and seemingly constantly in contact with everything. Reactive to Aetherium(hence the name of the metal), the Aether Fields are capable of seemingly fantastic feats, although primarily associated with both time and motion. The most obvious example of this is the existence of automata, who draw from the Aether Field as a power source through interaction with the pure Aetherium gear that acts as the very center of their "heart". The same phenomenon is also used to produce vast amounts of seemingly endless energy through the constant turning of aetherium gears within power plants, as well as used in factories to keep machines running. Other forms of energy have largely died out due to the sustainability of these Aether Field dependent facilities, although those who can't afford more sustainable energy have turned to coal and steam for the most part, such as those living within District 1.

The Aether Fields are still largely understudied, mainly due to the Clockwork War, but advances are slowly being made. Despite the Aether Fields natural connection to time and motion, other uses have been discovered, including control over heat, manipulation of standard laws of physics and limited control over biochemistry. All are noted as being somehow derived or comparable to motion or time, however, and as such further study is still being done, although with limited success. Direct interaction with the Aether Fields is difficult, making more direct study also difficult.

Since the Aether Field Incident, however, there is a small number of humans capable of somehow interacting with the Aether Fields. These people, marginally referred to as "Aether Sensitive", are still relatively small in number, and possess varying degrees of this sensitivity. Most, when discovered, are given names reminiscent of Pre-War era gods, taken from texts recovered after the end of the war and stored in Citadel Libraries. This is to differentiate them from normal citizens. Most are transported to District 7 so that they may live in a safe environment, and to keep other citizens safe from any possible danger. Currently there are some 200 Aether Sensitive individuals, most of very low practical sensitivity, capable of little more than feeling fluctuations. Others can perform minor feats of interest, such as commanding automata not registered to them.

Aether Fields basics complete.

A coming together of the survivors of a total of six decimated nations. After the Aether Field Incident, most of the landscape was rendered inhospitable, mostly due to continuing fluctuations in the Aether Fields. One region, however, was saved thanks to the efforts of the first Regents, who would each take control of one of 7 Districts and run them as governors, until such time as the Aether fluctuations ceased.

In the 300 years since, the Districts have remained much the same, with Regents in control of each. District 1 is currently under the Regency of Gregory, who prefers the term "Boss", boorish as he is, and he runs his operation much like some small time gang, very simplistic rules, and everyone reports to him. Like every other Regent, he was appointed by the previous one, and there really isn't anyone around capable of stopping him. It is similar in other Districts, although precise management methods and practices may differ between each.

The most common currency in the Citadel is silver, most standard citizens can make anywhere from 50-100 silver in a month. This is considered normal, and one can live off this, plus have a little extra saved up on the side. District 1 is much lower, many survive by scavenging, and those that do have work make anywhere from 10-40 silver. Refined Aetherium is the only other "currency", if it can be called that, since it is used mainly among the rich and among engineers almost exclusively. No one else has any use for it.

>Most, when discovered, are given names reminiscent of Pre-War era gods, taken from texts recovered after the end of the war and stored in Citadel Libraries
'Inari' was some kind of Japanese fox deity. If it was the name given to her with the powers she isn't comfortable with, or that she blames for upending her life, that might be why 'Berry' isn't comfortable using it. More than just needing an alias while on the lamb.