Cogspawn

Cogspawn

Cogspawn are the “Unclaimed” of Mechanus. The easiest analogy would be to say that cogspawn are to Mechanus what larvae are to the Lower Planes. If a berk did not worship a specific deity in life, and he was lawful neutral, he forms on Mechanus as a cogspawn. Such beings appear as cogs in the great machinery of Mechanus. Like other neutral Unclaimed, they don’t evolve into other life, (cogspawn aren’t the source of the modrons). Cogspawn are gears of various sizes and intellects, but all have vaguely humanoid faces on one side.

COMBAT: Cogspawn are all over Mechanus, as plentiful as larvae on the Lower Planes. They are rarely encountered though, because they do not wish to be. Dealing with other life-forms tends to ruin their meditations. Their faces are obscured by a form of permanent invisibility. The face can be seen only when the cogspawn has been injured, or if a speak with the dead spell is cast upon the cog. True seeing and detect invisibility have no effect. Cogspawn can only be hit by a weapon of +2 enchantment or better. Spells have no effect on them. 

Cogs have no attacking capabilities, but if they perish, it causes disharmony in Mechanus. Therefore if any cog sustains even 1 point of damage, it can instantly gate in 1d10 pentadrones to defend it. All will fight to the death, until the attackers die or leave Mechanus. If the offending party manages to defeat the pentadrones, no new ones will be sent, as long as the offenders do not attack any Cogs.

HABITAT/SOCIETY: Cogspawn have about as much of a society as a pile of larva. They form at the edges of Mechanus, slowly absorbing the essence of the plane. They begin as small cogs, a foot across and non-sentient. As the aeons pass, they gain more of an understanding of pure lawful harmony, and grow bigger (gaining another point of intelligence, another foot in diameter, and another hit die). Upon reaching an intelligence of 20, they merge with the plane, and the face vanishes from the cog forever. The cog may still continue to grow, however, into enormous sizes.

ECOLOGY: Like other neutral Unclaimed, the cogspawn does not become part of the plane’s ecology, but rather its geology. Cogspawn feed off the essence of Mechanus, which also sustains such creatures as the modron. The few sages who know about the numerous yet almost unheard of creatures suspect that all the gears of Mechanus were, at one time cogspawn. Whatever the case, many larger cogs do not respond to any of the above methods for revealing cogspawn.

VARIANTS: A barmy wizard named Morrack has attempted to capture a cogspawn for his experiments in breeding a law-based imp (the opposite of the chaos imp). So far, modron militia have chased him off, but he keeps coming back with bigger spells and nastier minions.

Source: James Bronaugh and Jon Winter-Holt. Author notes: The cogspawn wasn’t meant to be big, or impressive. It was meant to fill a niche in the ecology of the planes. The book On Hallowed Ground very briefly mentions the fate of those who didn’t worship a Power in life. The book Faces of Evil: the Fiends detailed what I had already assumed, that the Godless (whom I dubbed the “Unclaimed”) reformed as larvae if they were lawful, neutral or chaotic evil. Because I like definition, I have designated “petitioner forms” for all Unclaimed:

[LE, NE, CE] = Larva (can grow into baatezu, hordlings and tanar’ri)
[LG, NG, CG] = Lanterns (can grow into archons, but Unclaimed forms of guardinals and eladrin are unknown)
[LN] = Cogspawn (alternate name: coglings)
[CN] = Chaosspawn (alternate name: chaos-clump)
[TN] = Takes form, but not memories, it had in life (landspawn)