Stannia
Tin Town, Tick-Tock Town
Location: Mechanus
Character: Stannia’s a busy place, considering that there’s nothing alive here. The people and animals here are nothing more than clockwork constructs, and even the trees shading the streets are just brightly-painted tin. The citizens whir and click as they march stiffly through the town. It’s a friendly place, if you can ignore the fact that the townspeople’s smiles are all painted on. Or the fact that each of them has a turnkey protruding from their back, slowly winding down.
Ruler: Stannia does have a Mayor, a jovial fellow with a large belly and a carefully oiled tin moustache. He goes through the motions of running the town, performing his work with, of course, clockwork precision. The town, of course, would run just fine without him. The Mayor is also in charge of the Key to the City, a large mechanical turnkey he keeps on a tin chain around his neck.
Being the Throne: There is no force behind the throne. Everything here works in perfect (click, whir, tik) order.
Description: The buildings and streets here are the only things that are real, with brightly painted houses lining wide, cobbled avenues. Everything else is tin—tin tables, tin chairs, tin beds. And the tin people, of course.
The people aren’t just mindless automatons, but they’re not exactly normal, either. They tend to repeat things, over and over again, as part of a routine. It is possible to have an intelligent conversation with one of them, if a basher is patient. Another oddity: no-one in the city has a name. They’re simply referred to by the job they do—the Baker, the Cobbler, the Mayor, etc.
Click, whir, tik.
‘Hel-lo!’ Click, whir, tok.
‘Wel-come-to-Stan-ni-a!’ Click, whir, tik.
‘En-joy-your-stay!’ Click, whir, tok.
‘Good-bye!’ Click, whir, tik.
‘Hel-lo!’ Click, whir, tok.
‘Wel-come-to-Stan-ni-a!’ Click, whir, tik…
Unlike elsewhere on Mechanus, Stannia has a day and a night. The ‘sun’, ‘moon,’ and ‘stars’ ride along gigantic tracks which stretch over the city. They’re a majestic sight, but close examination will reveal that they also are powered by clockwork and made out of (you guessed it) tin.
The denizens of the city pose no obvious threat; the whole thing could even be said to be quite jolly, like some fairytale story from the Prime. The place makes some people nervous, nonetheless. People say that the modrons don’t like coming near the place; when they have to tend to a nearby gear, they seem anxious and jittery, and hurry to finish their job and go. Greybeards wonder what it is about the place that could disturb the unflappable modrons.
Militia: The town guard are nothing more than overgrown toy soldiers. Their tin weapons are no match for a determined cutter with a real blade. The town has a more subtle defence than the guard, however. Anyone performing violence against the town or citizenry of Stannia will find their attacks to be ineffective. A basher who draws his sword in anger will find it to be made of tin, while a mage might find his spell components similarly affected. (After this, most bashers have the common sense not to try and attack barehanded…) The effect usually wears off once you leave the city, but stories have been told about furious planewalkers leaving with all their weapons turned permanently to tin. Other stories have been told about people not leaving at all…
Services: There’s a wide range of products for sale in Stannia’s shops, all for reasonable prices. Unfortunately, they’re all made of tin. Still, if it’s tin a basher wants, he’s come to the right place. Tin whistles, tin pans, and tin drums are all cheap and of the highest quality. A shopper lanned to the dark of things can even find tin magical items. Magical tin weapons and armour are next to useless, but a clever cutter might find magical tin amulets or talismans. And even if there’s no magic to be found, high-up mages will sometimes pay good jink for quality tin objects that can hold enchantments or can be used as spell components.
You’d think a blood could make a profit by purchasing his goods using tin coin, but no such luck; the shopkeepers take gold, silver, and copper, like anywhere else. No one knows what they do with it, though, because they’ll just give tin coin in change.
There is one other service a planewalker can find here. A wizened old man known as the Toymaker runs a shop off of Main Street. He’s human, or at least appears to be; it doesn’t appear to bother him that he’s the only human in a clockwork city. The Toymaker sells clockwork timepieces, weapons, and, of course, toys. All of the clockwork is fantastically complex, and of a very high quality.
No-one’s sure why, but there’s a good chance that a body will find an item at the Toymaker’s shop that perfectly fits his need at the time. For example, a planewalker in desperate need of a mount might find a beautiful mechanical horse, or a basher might find the perfect weapon to finally defeat his foes. The Toymaker doesn’t take jink for payment, though. The only thing he wants are knickknacks, baubles, and toys from the customer’s own childhood. A body bargaining with the Toymaker will find his pockets filled with things that he found precious in his youth — bright stones, bits of string, a favourite doll, etc. Some people pay without giving it a second thought, sure that they’re getting the top end of the deal. Others are peery, wondering what it is that they’re really giving away… and what they’re really getting.
Current Chant: Stannia’s a mystery, and no mistake. No one seems to know how an entire town of clockwork people came to be in the middle of Mechanus. Some folk claim that it’s a secret modron experiment, to make mortals more ‘manageable’. Other stories say that Stannia is the realm of a secretive power of order. The darkest of the stories, though, tells of a town long ago where the people were terrified of death. The townspeople used a powerful wish spell, wishing never to die. If this story is true, then maybe the townspeople got what they asked for…
Source: Pol Jackson. Author’s Note: Partial credit should go towards Stacy Vennema, whose Everway campaign inspired this location. Thanks, Stacy!