The Hell Where Watchmakers Go

Monstrous note: I had planned on using this location for a Bleaklands/Carcosa Wacky Racers game, but ended up scrapping it at the last second for a different route. While I'm on the subject, go follow Richard's Dystopian Pokeverse, because I think his blog is really awesome and I think he and I are on the same wavelength about a lot of things.

Hell is, as is commonly known, positively brimming with the souls of sinners. It's landscape is choked with countless lakes of fire, forests of torture racks, and immense cities to house the sheer number of devils needed to satisfy the needs of a torture based economy. In recent years, under direction of the devil administration in Pandemonium, certain hells, which is to say, those with a lower case 'h' as opposed to the capital 'H' Hell, have been relocated to areas of the prison dimension known as the Bleaklands.Traditionally smaller hells, those that are less populated and thus produce a smaller output of torture, are those chosen first. The False Woods of the Face-Stealers, for example, is a hell designed for the torture of those elves hailing from the island of Dyfed who have committed the sin of pretending to be that which they are not. As the elves of Dyfed maintain a very small population, and the sin is such a major cultural taboo, the False Woods are notoriously under-stocked with tortured souls.

Another relocated hell is called, simply, the Hell Where Watchmakers Go. Specifically designed for the souls of those watchmakers who maintained their profession as their identity, it is inhabited sparsely by clans of particularly devoted and respected watchmakers. To reach the Hell Where Watchmakers Go from Blighttown is fairly simple; one must simply take a boat heading Curseward, bearing at least one broken watch per traveler, and throwing bolts or nuts or bits of manufacturing flash forward out of the boat every few dozen yards.

Once the waters begin to sizzle slightly the hull of the boat, and the air is full of the smell of pennies, travelers can be sure they have reach the battery acid sea which encircles the island, which is, no doubt, already in view. The cavern housing the island is massive enough that from the center of the island, a traveler can turn in all directions and not see the far wall, but, of course, this is nothing unusual in the twisting tunnels of the Bleaklands. The island itself has never been mapped, but to be sure, the landscape makes it immediately recognizable. The shores, the hills, the earth itself is no more than a truly gargantuan pile of broken machine parts, most long ago rusted and corroded beyond use or recognition.

Coastline of the Hell Where Watchmakers Go

 Few trees, their bark indistinguishable from rusted iron, dot the landscape, and no shrubs or grasses have the tenacity to take hold. Huge pipes jut from the ground without uniform height or angle, quietly burning the noxious chemicals that build up beneath the heaps. A handful of buildings, old factories or construction yards, dot the landscape, each a mishmash of architectural style and technological level. Many have been inhabited by the watchmakers, and have plumes of acrid, ashy smoke rising from the foundries and manufacturing centers they have set up.

Manufacturum Delta 12, home of the warlord Heinrich Wagner

 The watchmakers of the Hell Where Watchmakers Go must make do in this terrible wasteland, condemned to work tirelessly to build exactly one functional, aesthetically pleasing watch. To do so, they must pick over and dig through the island for not only parts, but also things to make into tools. Countless years working towards this task has driven all of the watchmakers terrifically insane. Many locations in the Hell Where Watchmakers Go are ridden with plagues of organized abdead, bearing crude post-apocalyptic armor and wielding the same bloody wrenches, spanners and lengths of pipe they were clutching before they died, who, as abdead do, delight in sabotaging the efforts of the shade, assuming, of course, they do not simply attempt widespread murder. The devils themselves routinely monitor the shades of watchmakers on the island themselves and swoop in, harpy-like, in battalions of broomstick riding soldiers to destroy the workshops and steal the components from the watchmakers who appear to be close to completing their task.

Ever wary of each other, but nonetheless more frightened of devils and abdead, the watchmakers have taken to travelling in small packs like brigands, and routinely set about attack one another to steal materials. Internecine conflict is high, and most bands only stay together as long as one shade does not progress too far in building their watch, because at such a point, the group invariably falls to infighting and self-destructive behavior before splintering into smaller competing groups.

Jon of Overthehillshire, respectable watchmaker

Monster's notes on how to run the Hell Where Watchmakers Go:

The landscape should be horrible. Every hex should have at least one environmental hazard, such as the following examples:
(Format: "Roll X; result" means that everyone in the group rolls, and at least half of the party need to succeed, or the entire group suffers the effect)

1. Area is the site of an old watchmaker siege, and is covered in trenches and barricades (Roll STR; Leaving hex takes twice as long, so roll another random encounter)
2. Field of tetanus laced scraps (Roll DEX; 1-6 damage)
3. Heavy black smoke billows out of the ground (Roll CON; 1-3 damage)
4. Still active mechanical defenses from watchmakers (Roll INT; 1-6 damage, or 1-4 if carrying a shield)
5. Chlorine gas vents must be timed to avoid being blasted (Roll WIS; 1-6 poison damage and lose 1-3 points of Constitution)
6. Stumble across a devil on spying mission (CHA; Devil thinks the party are delivering supplies to the watchmakers. He will demand to search their belongings for mechanical devices, which he will confiscate)

Random Encounters:

1-2: No encounter

3-4: Watchmaker patrol (2-16, 50% that one is a level 2 fighter, 25% that one is a level 3 fighter)

5: A skulk of skeletons (5-20)

6: Your choice! Consider the following: Slimes, oozes, insect creatures made of metal, rusted iron golems, particularly gross mephits, weird elementals

Watchmakers: Use normal human bandits or berserker stats, but use the post-apocalyptic armor rules from here, and give them pistols and pipe rifles by either stealing gun rules from a sci-fi retro-clone, or just reskinning crossbows. As a backup for when their gun runs out of ammo or breaks, they carry wrenches, pipes, crude spears, or any cool post-apocalyptic weapon you want. They should travel in small groups, sometimes with a couple of motorcycles or armored cars, and attack anyone they find on the off chance they have a 8# screw or a CS360 Case Back Screw. They default to hostility, but might parley if the group seems threateningly powerful, or if they are losing a fight. Any given encounter with watchmakers has a 1 in 4 chance of the watchmakers falling to internal conflicts and attacking both the player characters and themselves.