Portrait of a Villain: False Hope

Written by Steven Schutt Illustrated by Rob Torno

Concept/Archetype: Man Made Machine Keywords: Clockwork, Steampunk, Societal Change Race: “Human” Profession: “Morality Guide”

I followed the darkened places of the world, saw the slime of the earth, the dross of civilization, and made it my own. My veins run thick with the sludge that powers this place. My heart does not beat but clicks, counting along into eternity. This eye of mine I lost long ago. I replaced it with the mechanisms of this age, and now the future, the future I will make, stands before it.

But why do I tell you all this, if I seek your destruction, you ask? Because I do not. You are nothing in the scheme of things now, not even worthy of your current existence. Instead, you shall become an experiment in futility. When I release you from this place, you will remember everything I did to you, every torture, evil and destruction. You will tell everyone you see of the horrors I committed, to no avail. You will break under the dual strain of my wrongdoing and the people’s apathy. Then your mind will take on the traits I tenderly placed within it, and your purpose will be clear.

You will no longer be slave to the desires and passions of men. You will be a being who can perfect those in your charge: something above humanity. You will teach the world to see the truth I instill in you. Know this, and know that I pray each day for your success.

Background

Some three hundred years ago, Illam Rapesh died a lonely death amid the blackened roses of his estate’s large garden. His home burned behind him, the oil and coal in its cellar fueling a fire that lasted weeks. When the blaze died, Illam’s innards were all that remained, for they were made of wrought iron. His veins were copper tubing and his heart a mass of gearworks, sprockets and springs; his left eye was a glass lens inlaid in a single, large cog set with diamonds. Why he died when he long before ceased aging no one knew. His service was short, few in his family could truly say they knew him. He asked only his closest friends to grieve for him if he did die, and such was the case.

Once in the earth that gave him his skeleton and vital organs, the people did not forget Illam Rapesh, for his many inventions, while strange and often useless, were memorable and cute. He gave them clocks with faces of moon dust, teakettles that sang opera when the water boiled, windup toys painted with liquid smiles, and switch-on showers that gave the water the fruity taste of its user’s choice. These toys served the people well, but, on some level, it was Illam’s life that gave them any meaning, and on his death, the people saw no reason to maintain them. Their lack of value in his work would lead to horrid events far in the future.

For, while Illam’s spirit rested peacefully in the heavens above, what he left behind on the earth did not. Illam did not fear death, and neither did he expect it, but he was no fool, and knew that even the strongest fall. So he crafted a mechanical brain and copied his mind into the mass of iron and steel. He then situated this brain next to his heart, for he needed no lungs. A few weeks after he died, the brain activated as it was built to. By that time, Illam’s family was deep into a dispute over his fortune. The mechanized Illam watched as the events played out, not wanting to add to the chaos. When things settled, animosity remained among various members of the family, and it did not take long for this to boil into a seething rage. The murders were expected; the fall from grace all too obvious. Illam only shook its head and walked away from its ruined, debased family.

Illam found that those in the cities of the world were no better. Clothing itself in thick robes to remain unknown, Illam traveled the alleyways and main streets, watching the world and those in it. Illam saw, to its horror, what became of its inventions. Some lay rusting in the gutters of wealthy men, others modified into weapons of death, still others melted down and recast as “more useful” items. Anger took hold, and Illam’s mind began to think dark thoughts, but this is not what caused Illam’s full mental breakdown. That came in a form most unexpected.

Brooding over its what became of its legacy, Illam didn’t know what it should do to right the wrongs it saw. For many years the wheels, gears and cogs that made up the mechanical mind spun, working on an answer and considering all possible contingencies to its actions. As it wandered the desolate wastes far from civilization, Illam passed a small shantytown, understandably devoid of life. Through this quiet empty town it walked, until a spell of some kind seized it. Unable to move, Illam watched as a figure emerged from a house to the north. With a wave of its hand, Illam’s many cloaks fell to the ground. The figure took a step back in amazement, then chuckled and brought magical chains to bear on its mechanical prize.

For the next hundred years, Illam Rapesh served this long lived wizard as a guardian and advisor on the nature of clockwork magic. As the years passed, Illam’s mind underwent tremendous strain. The magic used to keep the many gears, cogs and steam generators going did not mix well with the mental bindings that kept Illam beholden to the wizard. In the end, the inevitable came, as it always does, with death.

On the last day of Illam’s hundredth year of servitude, it snapped. With the dawn of the hundred and first year, Illam walked out of the shantytown, its hands stained with gore. Behind it walked the horrific form of its first creation in over a hundred years. People on the opposite side of the desert saw the smoke rising from the burning ruin Illam left behind.

Since that day, Illam, which now calls itself False Hope, seeks out men of power, be it magical, financial or political, and breaks them. Torture, both physical and psychological; starvation, brainwashing, destruction of self-identity and its restoration, implantation of clockworks; it subjects these men and women to this and more. Once finished, False Hope returns it victims to their lives and waits for its implanted suggestions to take. All it does then is wait. Change comes shortly thereafter. Two hundred years have now passed, and False Hope’s work is only just beginning.

Motivations & Goals

False Hope wants to end the existence of weakness and falseness of those in the world. As it moves from town to town, city to city, it continues to learn the many methods of breaking men and giving them new purpose. By removing their baser notions of life, False Hope believes it gives people the ability to be completely true to the world and live the perfect life for themselves. However, deep inside, this is not False Hope’s true goal. No, that wish is far more insidious.

In short, False Hope wishes to remove the humanity from humanoids: to return them to a state of either mindlessness or perfect order. If the latter is the result, False Hope’s self-imposed mission is a success, since, in its mind, order needs no policing, and the chaotic influences of the world no longer occur. If the former occurs, then the mission, while technically a failure, is not without its upsides. With only the mind of animals, the morality of man no longer matters.

Organization

False Hope is a one-machine organization, and it wants to keep things that way. Any mortal interference, any at all, and the whole plan might spiral into chaos, the anathema of everything False Hope works for.

So upon finding its next target, False Hope watches the victim for many weeks, months even, learning everything there is to know about their lives. It then proceeds to temporarily silence everyone who might be a hindrance to its mission, then makes its move. Once the target is secure, False Hope flees to a prepared hideout it made sure no one could ever find. It works quickly, stealing only three to five scream filled nights of its victim’s life. They then return with a story that, while strange, is not at all out of that person’s actual lifestyle. Then, False Hope moves far away, looking back in a decade or two in order to gauge its progress.

Plot Hooks

Penny for Your Thoughts: A sage disappears for several days, and then returns, saying a planar visitor came calling. When he returns, he has no memory of anything for the past few months, and his house falls to disarray. Just when order seems to return, he dies, but magic cannot extract anything from the sage’s spirit mind. Concerned family hires the PCs to find both the sage’s killer and discover some way to retrieve his stolen memories.

My Kingdom for a Kingdom: False Hope kidnaps a local mayor as the PCs rest at an inn within his city’s walls. The delicate balance of power the mayor kept in check dissolves into chaos and the PCs are caught in the middle. When the mayor returns, he swiftly restores order, and things settle. Soon, however, the mayor begins slipping into insanity. False Hope, realizing one of its rare failures, begins its standard response to such a shortfall and summons a firestorm to destroy the town. What False Hope did not expect, even after months of planning, was the appearance of the PCs, and he now scrambles to figure them into the equation. The party must travel to the mountains in the south to remove the artifact causing the holocaust and uncover the trail of the being that tried to kill them.

Combat Tactics

False Hope is no stranger to conflict, and has seen its share of battles. It detests direct combat, and its lairs always have five-fold defensive layers before anyone reaches the final redoubt. A fan of intricate, clock-based traps that end in death, False Hope’s defenses always contain some intricate riddle or puzzle that sets off the trap either way. In fact, answering correctly only makes the trap stronger and more painful. If faced in direct combat by worthy opponents, False Hope fights with an array of modifications it’s made to its body, including blades, saws, steam cannons and less-describable implements. The machine man always has several escape routes and, if pressed, has a wide array of steam and clock based magic at its command.

False Hope by Nevermet Press is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://www.nevermetpress.com/contact.