Credits~ WRITING and Design: in a World Fallen Beneath the Shadow, They Are the Dreamers, Mark Carroll Shapers, Engineers, and Makers

Legacy of Shadow for Shadow of the Demon Lord ~Credits~ WRITING and Design: In a world fallen beneath the Shadow, they are the dreamers, Mark Carroll shapers, engineers, and makers. They study the mysteries of development and Art Direction soul and steel, crystal and consciousness, outwitting devils : Robert J. Schwalb and defying Father Death. They were the first to bind soul to machine, creating the clockworks. They are known to editing: Jennifer clarke wilkes outsiders as the Engineers’ Guild. Within the City of Wonders, they bear another name. They are the Gearsmen. Proofreading: Jay Spight Considered equals among the Pentad to outsiders, in truth LAYOUT: kara hamilton they wield enormous power within the City of Wonders. Without the Gearsmen, Lij would fall into utter decay and ILLUSTRATIONs: roena i. rosenberger disaster: buildings eaten by acidic rains, the living populace Of Gears and Ghosts is ©2020 Schwalb Entertainment, LLC. poisoned, and the innumerable clockworks corroded to ruin, All rights reserved. eternally trapping the souls within. As with all things in Lij, Of Gears and Ghosts, Legacy of Shadow, Shadow of the Demon Lord, the truth of the Guild of Engineers is far more than meets Schwalb Entertainment, and their associated logos the eye. They walk the edge between righteous creation and are trademarks of Schwalb Entertainment, LLC. blackest necromancy. Technomancers without peer, their Schwalb Entertainment, LLC creations affect life in Lij, the Nine Cities, and beyond. Yet progressSample carries a price the members of this Guild know all too file well. Theirs is a legacy built on the forbidden, a trade in awful secrets paid for in blood. Of Gears and Ghosts explores the inner workings of the PO Box #12548, Murfreesboro, TN 37129 Guild of Engineers: the Gearsmen of Lij, their Great Works, [email protected] www.schwalbentertainment.com the arduous process needed to become a Gearsman, and the deadly secrets that form the literal foundation of the Guild. Their machinations, both physical and political, have members of the Guild fell to corruption and madness repercussions far beyond the borders of Lij. They might as demand for their creations grew, fates attributable to hold the key to the salvation of Rûl or prove to be its the bargain that Arnos made. Such a change in policy damnation. was opposed by the Crown Gearsmen until the Prime First, the Gearsmen must overcome the consequences of Gearswoman Iuletia intervened. Her revelation of a new their rise to power, the treacherous politics of Lij, and the Great Work of the Movement Chronal silenced any dissent. rising tides of evil that threaten to tear down everything Theirs was not a physical Work, as was traditional, but a they have built in the centuries since fleeing to a place that warning. The chronomancers had sent an expedition of accepted their bizarre ideas and eccentric magic. The Guild powerful chrononauts into the future, further than any of Engineers is mighty, but will that strength prevail against dared go before. The sole survivor who returned spoke the Demon Lord? of a Rûl ravaged by demons and eldritch forces, the very Wind the mechanism, fire the boiler, and let the powers universe crumbling around it, before the expedition was of Technomancy join the battle for the fate of Rûl! scattered to the chronal winds. The scholars and philosophers of the Black Books work toward freeing the Guild from the powers of the Void. Foundations They operate outside the Movements, their members given absolute authority, answerable only to the Prime without Empire themselves. Whether Crown or Cog, the Black Books look only to skill and drive in prospective members. Once a The Guild of Engineers formed around a small group Gearsman joins them, the Guild strikes that name from of artisans, builders, and wonderworkers soon after the the rolls. They remain members until madness, death, or first foundations were laid for Lij. Banding together out corruption takes them. They ruthlessly and dispassionately of necessity to protect themselves from exploitation by pursue the twin aims of protecting the Guild and averting unscrupulous fellow refugees, the nascent Gearsmen the apocalyptic future at the heart of their creation. That ensured that their skills would be vital for the growth is not to say that the Black Books are without mercy, but and continued survival of the City of Wonders. Within a their mandate requires them to consider the implications of century, the Guild established itself as the impetus behind every action in terms of the future. Lij’s rising prominence, the ever-improving inventions of Summoning and binding souls from the Underworld the Gearsmen, both mundane and magical, transforming stains the soul of the creator, so they crafted the jade August what was once a community of outcasts into a thriving, Talismans to absorb the fell energy. When those could hold powerful trade hub. Gearsmen sat at the table when the no more, they created the Hell Core, hidden deep beneath articles of confederation for the Nine Cities were drafted. Lij, to turn the corrupted sickstone into fuel for the city and Their weapons helped drive the forces of the Pirate Isles the Guild’s Machinarium, their fortress. For the clockworks away from Crescent Bay and the Auroral Ocean. Within the created by the Gearsmen, they have trained philosophers to Nine Cities, their influence is felt everywhere, rivaled only aid in the soul’s transition into cold metal and mechanism. by the Black Hand of Azūl. Few suspect their reach; fewer still survive such a discovery. The Gearsmen almost fell during the pandemic of the Shuddering Pox that struck the city in the late third century. August Talismans From that tragedy arose the clockworks, the creation for These intricate clockwork-and-jade vests lie at the which the Guild of Engineers became best known. But heart of the Guild’s prodigious ability to produce lurking at the very core of the clockwork industry lies clockworks using the bind soul to machine spell. Arnos’s secret: the infernal spell for drawing forth souls The Black Books, knowing that the most skilled from the Underworld to inhabit the bodies created by the and powerful among the Guild inevitably fell to Engineers. Five centuries and more have passed since the madness and corruption, devised the first of these advent of clockworks, and for as many the Gearsmen have strange protections in the sixth century. Worn by those summoning forth the souls needed to experimented, researched, and sent agents into the darkest power a creation, each August Talisman can absorb corners of Rûl and beyond. They are attempting both to 1d3 Corruption (for lesser August Talismans) or redress the imbalance caused by breaking the cycle of death 1d6 Corruption (for greater August Talismans). and rebirth and to remove the stranglehold on the Guild Using a Talisman is not without danger—for held by the devil with whom Arnos first bargained. Only every point of Corruption it absorbs, its wearer the savviest Crown Gearsmen and the Prime are aware of must make a Will challenge roll with a number of banes equal to the total Corruption the Talisman this secret goal, as part of a select group of specialists called currently contains. Success means the Talisman the Black Books, created in 528 AF. functions normally. Failure results in the Talisman TheSample earliest experiments in creating clockworks proved immediately becoming sickstonefile, inflicting half of the need for a regulatory body among the Gearsmen, the Corruption it contains on the wearer. a concept that flies in the face of the freewheeling experimentation for which Lij is known. Too many

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