Manual of the Planes

CHAPTER 7:THE OUTERPLANESAdditional Immunities: Fire, cold.Resistances: None.Other Special Qualities: None.MOVEMENT AND COMBATMovement in the Clockwork Nirvana of Mechanus ismuch like movement on the Material Plane. Walkingbetween turning cogs seems daunting to the uninitiated,requiring a Balance check (DC 10). This is a relativelyeasy check, but failure by 5 or more means a fall betweenthe cogs, which deals 20d6 points of damage each round.It takes a Climb check (DC 20) to emerge from the teethof the cogs.Travelers can move between the cogs by flying orteleporting through thevoid, of course.Formian Hive CogsThe formians build fabulous hive-cities on both faces of acog they colonize. Each colonized hive-cog holds thousandsof workers, warriors, and taskmasters, as well asseveral dozen or more myrmarchs. However, each coghas only one queen, whose commands are absolute lawon the hive cog.Other queens rule other cogs. Usually two queenscooperate with each other, unless each wishes to colonizethe same cog, in which case the law of the formiansdemands warfare. If a queen chooses to colonize a cog bysending a contingent guarding a precious queen larva,she is not swayed if other creatures already reside there.After all, what are warriors for, if not to make a cog readyfor formian colonization?Luckily,the birthIllus. by M. Cavotta128FEATURESOF MECHANUSMechanus is a single infiniteplane without definedlayers. The void is filled with gargantuan interlockingwheels, like the internal cogs of an ornately carvedclock. Some connect at right angles, and others connectalong a single plane. The wheels, also called cogs,are composed of stone, earth, and metal ores, as if a deitycarved them from the mantle of the Material Plane.Many of the cogs are more than a thousand milesacross, and they turn so slowly that their rotation isimperceptible. Yet turn they do, as witnessed by muchsmaller island-sized cogs that interlock with the muchlarger wheels.These smaller cogs seem to turn at an almost dizzyingpace, although inhabitants feel no centripetal forceonce on the surface of a small cog. The objective directionalgravity means that inhabitants won’t be spun offthe edge of a cog unless they’re standing within 10 feetof the rim.Vision is normal on Mechanus. The plane is lit by awhite, all-encompassing light springing from the veryvoid for 12 hours, and is dark for 12 hours. Hearing is alsonormal, though the bass rumbling of cog turning on cogis sometimes audible near the edge of a face.of a fledgling queenfrom the many eggslaid happens only onceevery one hundred to one thousand years. Otherwisethe formians would hold much more of Mechanus thanthey already do.The Center: Travelers who move through the void ofMechanus in the direction from which the formiansoriginate find that the formian-colonized cogs becomemore and more frequent until noncolonized cogs arenonexistent—millions of cogs, or perhaps more, allcrawling with formians.At the heart of the formian realm, surrounded in alldirections by colonized cogs, lies the centermost cogwhere the Scion Queen Mother resides. Formian myrmarchsbelieve that the Scion Queen Mother’s cog,which has a diameter of at least three thousand miles, isthe center cog for all Mechanus and imparts movementto all the other cogs of the plane.Whether true or simply a belief, the grandeur of thetwo-sided hive-city that covers the surface area of the cogis godly in its splendor. The Scion Queen Mother herselfclaims the power of an intermediate deity, though thisclaim is difficult to scrutinize. Thirty-three gargantuanformian queens of maximum advancement attend the