The Lost Wars and the Mists:

The Final Human Empire came together as the product of a long series of wars. Details, such as the exact number, nature and location of these wars have long since been forgotten. Peoples, generals and heroes that lived through and fought these world shaking conflicts exist in current day memory only as shadows and allusions, hidden in the myths passed down from later eras.

The endless, eldritch ages the Earth had endured before the coming of the Lost Wars are collectively referred to as The Mists; little or nothing is known of these times.

There can be no doubt, however, that powerful artifacts from these forgotten ages exist. Even so, the scholars and explorers of the current day Metal Earth are far more likely to discern a particular item’s use than the context form which it initially emerged.

The Eternal Empress

The Eternal Empress, ruler over the final Human Empire, was cursed during the Lost Wars by an enemy remembered now only as Stranger 7. This curse visited unnaturally long life upon the Empress- and her people are said to have lived as long as stones under normal circumstances. The Empress watched millennium pass; her twilight kingdom flourished and waned and flourished again- only to expire at last in the Wars of Unreason, which broke the power of men and the world with it.

During her long, long life, the Empress watched all that she loved wither and die, and she loved much and she grieved much- such was her nature, and this, of course, was the true power of Stranger 7’s curse.

A long line of husbands and consorts lived, died and fell away to dust while the Empress remained as fresh as the first day of spring. It is said a deep sadness fell upon her and she did not smile for over a thousand years. At the end of this time, in an effort to break the hold of her despair, the Empress called together her scientists and sorcerers; her necromancers, cyberneticists, shamans and surgeons, too. After working for a year and a day, the savants unveiled the product of their labor to the Empress: the now legendary Men of Metal. Indestructible, deathless beings comprised of the most advanced sorcerous and scientific components. No one knows how many the made for certain, some say there were ten, others say that ten times ten times that number were created. What is known, though, is that from that day forward, the Empress resumed the practice of taking husbands and concubines. When a man grew to an age where he could no longer satisfy Empress’ lust, she gave him over to the artificers. These technicians would strip away the man’s flesh and lock his consciousness within the invulnerable form of a Metal Man. Forever.

So well made were they that many of the Men of Metal survived the Wars of Unreason. They remain in the world still, some infamous, others hidden and unknown, all growing stranger and more inscrutable as they pass the aeons locked away from feeling and death within their indestructible roboforms.

Grax Iré Lord of the Waste (Monster/ Man of Metal)

AC: 19 [0] Special: Fireburst, Radiate

HD: 20 Move: 30

Attacks: Smash HDE: 20/ 4000 xp

Grax Iraé is 12 meter tall humanoid of burning chrome. Iré resides in the remains of an ancient starship, located somewhere in the Desert of Rust. A greedy and cruel being, Grax Iré is said to have a horde of powerful artifacts from the time of the Final Empire.

Fireburst :Once a round Iré can attack with a 40’ cone of fire. Anyone trapped in the cone must make a saving throw. Failed save takes 10d6 fire damage; successful save takes 5d6 damage. Characters who drop below zero hit points as a result of this attack must take a result from the wound table.

Radiate: Once a day, Grax Iré can radiate heat. He can use no other attack while radiating, but the process can not be stopped, unless Grax Iré is killed.

During the first round, heat is transmitted through stone, metal and similar materials in a circle of 100m diameter (with Iré as the center point). Anyone standing within the circle takes 4d6 damage (save for half damage). Space suits, magical armor and other sorts of special gear may provide complete or partial protection.

During the second round, the circle expands 100m in diameter. The damage increases to 8d6 (save for half damage). Air becomes too hot to breath properly anyone within the circle must save or suffer ½ movement (androids and robots excepted). Again, spacesuits and other gear may provide some protection.

During the third round, the circle expands 200 more meters and the air catches fire. 20d6 damage (save for half). Save or movement is reduced by ½. This effect lasts for 1d6 rounds and then the fire flares out and conditions return to normal.

Weather and related climatic hazards:

Climate varies a good across the breadth of the Metal Earth, but for millennia prior to the Wars of Unreason (The semi-mythical Age of Gold), there was a worldwide network of weather control stations. Powered by a combination of atomic and arcane energy, this station worked to homogenize climate conditions across the face of the entire world. The system was broken during the war, but normal patterns did not reassert themselves. Quite the opposite in fact- weather went wild- breaking and reshaping the world all at once. Efforts were made by sorcerers and scientists stop this from happening- but if they had any impact it was only to make things worse. Eventually, an ice age commenced- that has never really ended. It also but violent storms are common, which brought with it a modicum of climatic stability. This ice age has never really ended since that time, although there have been some slightly warmer periods. The time of the shattering is long over but extreme weather is more the norm than the exception. You are far more likely to get a blizzard than a light snowfall or a torrential downpour than a light rain, although mild weather is not completely uncommon in some microclimatic areas.

Beyond the extremity of most storms, the breaking of the weather control network and the resultant release of ungoverned arcane and atomic energies into the world’s climate system had other ongoing effects as well: Curse Squalls and Timestorms.

Timestorms:
Timestorms are not common, but they do occur with some frequency. Fortunately, most of them occur over water and are relatively if not always, harmless. Timestorms are usually preceded by the formation of dark cloud funnels, which are crisscrossed with purple cloud-to-cloud lightning, as the storm grows in intensity so to do the electrical activity. It is at the peak of the electrical activity that the storm really gets underway. Time vortex open up- sometimes one, sometimes one hundred or more, depending on the intensity of the storm. There are two kinds of Timestorms, takers and givers.
Takers: During a taker storm, things are sucked into the time vortexes and moved to a distant temporal location, past or future- it can go either way.
Givers: during a giver storm, things emerge from the time holes. What kinds of things? Just about fucking anything really, from dinosaurs to toasters to people.
Note: it is entirely possible to whisk a party of adventurers off into time during a taker storm; it is also possible to bring in a new PC (say a 20th century human into the Metal Earth with a giver storm.)


Curse Squalls:
Curse squalls (or storms), are far more common than Timestorms, and usually more dangerous. Curse storms look like normal rainstorms (albeit of an extremely violent nature, even for the Metal Earth) except the raindrops have faint green luminescence.
Anywhere curse rain falls horrible shit happens. Sometimes the dead rise from their graves (corpse burning is a near world wide custom due to this). Other times simple field crops mutate into horrible carnivorous plants. Good men caught out in the curse rain sometime turn completely evil. Other times the rain is like acid burning and destroying all it touches. Nobody can say what will happen for certain when the Curse Rain falls, but whatever it is it wont be good. Sometimes these effects last only until the rain dries, or until sunrise of the next day- other times they last forever.
The magical element Arcanum can help protect crops and many other things from the curse rain. Farmers often sprinkle small amounts onto their crops as they plant them, and it is also an integral ingredient in the brick making and construction in general. Arcanum is naturally occurring in many rock formations and can be mined. It isn’t debilitating expensive, but it isn’t cheap either, though. Because of this, despite the dangers sometimes corners are cut- with predictably disastrous results, such as buildings turning into huge carnivorous stone monsters.