Cyrepunk: A Forger Police Story

Metrol needs you!

You are a Warforged citizen of the city of Metrol, deep within the cursed wastes of the Mournland that has become a haven for your kind. You have been recruited by Charter, one of Metrol's leaders, to be part of a new kind of organisation - one that places community service at the heart of its mission. You have been charged with creating the city's first official police force. You might have a range of reasons for joining this elite unit, from noble intentions to desperate need. How you shape this organisation will have lasting consequences for Metrol and beyond...

Design a level 3 warforged character, and enter the City of Metrol.

You are creating Metrol's first police force, founded on the principle of preventative policing. Police forces have been part of large societies for thousands of years. Ancient Egypt, India and China had systems of constables, thief catchers, watchmen, and detectives charged with protecting public places, catching criminals and investigating crimes. Police departments were present in Europe in the 17th century, but most were extensions of the military.

This campaign is more modelled on the British police forces in the 18th and 19th Centuries. In 18th Century London, most law enforcement was carried out by part-time constables, night watchmen, citizen arrest, or mercenary thief-takers. The public was deeply distrustful of the millitary having a role in policing, fearing the tyrannical rule they observed in France. Henry Fielding established the ‘Bow Street Runners' that eventually became the Metropolitan Police Force. Fielding's idea was that the police derives its authority from the consent of the people, and should work with the community to prevent crime. The Runners invented strategies such as cross-examining suspects and some of the first forensics of firearms. Around the same time, a police force was established in Glasgow, complete with uniforms, officer IDs and a commitment to preventative policing.

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The Missing Piece

Queen Boranel's fingers itched. For anyone else, this might have meant nothing more portentous than a change in the weather, but those with dragonmarks were far more sensitive. They were the type of people who could feel a pea on a sheet beneath a dozen mattresses. And a queen with a dragonmark could detect a typo on the fire tag of a sheet beneath a dozen mattresses. Boranel knew that, somewhere, trouble was brewing.

She was in the royal library, sitting at a magnificent table inlaid with dozens of materials to make a grand map of the continent of Khorvaire. As was her custom when some intangible uneasiness arose, she closed her eyes and placed her fingers on the table, moving them across the surface to find the rich, smooth walnut of her own country of Breland, the heart of the continent. She found the divot with a sapphire that represented Castle Arakhain, where she was currently residing. Now, where was the problem?

She moved her fingers south, where they juddered over the resin of the Dagger River, then slipped into the cold copper groove of the Lightning Railway. She imagined riding the rail all the way down to the great city of Sharn, the city of towering skyscrapers swarming with airships. The jewel of the continent was represented by a glassy, sharp emerald.

There was always trouble in Sharn. Only recently, House Cannith had been caught spying on House Phiarlan and, even more scandalously, House Phiarlan had retaliated by raising the price of spies. Still, there was nothing at present that couldn't be handled by that magnificent force of law, and her personal patronage, the Sharn Watch.

Her fingers were still itching, so they roamed the borders of her kingdom, circling like the hours on a mechanical clock. To the West, the sleepy morning nations of Droaam in warm chestnut and the Eldeen woods in brittle cork. Fledgling nations, no pressing matters there. To the north the upright 12-o'clock-sharp nation of Aundair. The regular grooves of Teak reflected their pragmatism, even if their insistence on an exclusive Eastern transport deal was becoming tiresome. She instinctively avoided the Arcanix University and crossed the border into the more uptight, afternoon-tea nation of Thrane. They were easy to please as long as you didn't offend their God, the Silver Flame. Hence the most diplomatic of all woods: oak. But nothing troubling there either.

Instinctively, she aimed to skip down to the evening nations: the goblin nation of Darguun captured in rough green heartwood and Zilargo in a dark mahogany reflecting its mysterious seclusion. But the edge of her little finger caught on an area of untreated wood to the East. A shiver ran down her arm. Whatever material had previously represented the nation of Cyre had been removed, and now there was just a slender missing puzzle-pice in the centre of her world. Apparently, nobody had determined which material would make the best replacement for the desolate wastes of what was now called "The Mournland".

She paused for a breath. Here was the source of her uneasiness and, now she thought about it, a splinter in several leaders' fingers. A land harsher than Darguun, as mysterious as the forests of Zilargo. And the tip of its sharp edge: the sinister Warforged automata. They had been created for the Great War, but the sudden peace had taken that purpose away. They were heathens, much to the resentment of Thrane, and lawless, much to her own concern. They seemed immune to diplomacy, like the West, yet apparently were also attempting to open the old lightning rail to the East, threatening Aundar's lucrative transportation deals. What were they? Neighbours? Enemies? Competitors?

Boranel opened her eyes and found that Delack was sitting opposite her. It took all of her regal training not to flinch. How did he do that?

"Worrying about something, your majesty?", he drawled idly. Perhaps, thought Boranel, discreetness was not a bad quality in her chief liaison with the Breland parliament, but whatever happened to reverence and awe for one's rulers? Their eyes met, and then moved down to the space beneath her fingers.

"Have you ever seen the border of the Mournland, Delack?" She challenged, knowing full well that Delack preferred candlelit desks to the real world.

"I've read many reports, your majesty", he said.

"I've seen it, Delack," she said, drawing her index finger down the hard line at the edge of Breland.

"A cloud of ash roils at the border, rising a mile high and hiding everything beyond. My cartographers showed me a small island in the sound, half of which used to belong to Cyre. There was a column of ash sculpted around the very edges of the island, following the exact border. "

Boranel withdrew her hand from the fissure on the table and sat back in her richly upholstered seat.

"I can understand cursing a place", she said. "And gods know that people have enough reasons to curse each other. But to curse a country? Barbaric."

Delack nodded, bored, "The cause of the Mourning remains a concerning mystery."

"How do the Warforged survive there?"

"They have no organic parts, your majesty, nothing for the spell radiation to mutate."

"But they are not simply machines?"

"No, your majesty, our friends who serve the Silver Flame contend they have humanoid souls. And I believe they just prefer the term 'Forgers' by now. You know, 'forging their own destiny' rather than being someone else's creations. Ungrateful, if you ask me."

"What do they eat?"

"Nothing as such. But they require various minerals, oils and a little water each day to function."

"Are they immortal?"

"Far from it. The Forged who work in Sharn's mines are frequently destroyed by falling rocks or fire or lava. As machines they need repair or they stop functioning and their soul leaves their body. But in principle they can live a very long time."

"Do they reproduce?"

"They do not have biological sexes. But they refer to themselves with various grammatical genders. And they apparently experience the full spectrum of humanoid emotions, including falling in love, if various gutter press scandals can be believed."

"How many of them are there?"

"It is difficult to say. There are several hundred in Sharn, and several hundred more working as servants and labourers around the five kingdoms."

"That's lower than I expected. Weren't thousands made for the Great War?"

"Yes, but many emigrated to the Mournland following the Lord of Blade's call for forgers to gather there after the second Thronehold concordat. We hear that most head for the old Cyre capital, Metrol. By now we estimate there may be as many as thirty thousand forgers there."

The queen's eyebrow arched as she drummed her fingers on the Straits of Shargon.

"How do they support such a large population?"

"At first, they simply salvaged property. But when they had stripped the palaces and parlours, they started mining. That's when they discovered seams of Mournstone and all of its magic enhancing properties. They turned from scavengers to mining entrepreneurs overnight, and now they sell to whoever is willing to pay."

The Queen's hand balled into a fist above Glamer Bay.

"Whoever indeed. How many Mournstone devices do we find in the hands of spies and criminals?"

"Too many, your majesty, though we've had some success in apprehending buyers on our borders."

"Don't they police their own citizens?"

"They have a crude system of justice at present, based mostly on the goodwill of their citizens or the professional interest of mercinaries."

"You're saying they are lawless vagabonds?"

"Not exactly, I believe that, because of their potential to live for so long, even the most persistent thief will consider ending the life of a fellow forger utterly unconscionable."

The Queen narrowed her eyes and asked "And do these former weapons of war extend that noble feeling towards us?"

Delack waved his hands. "I doubt they have the capacity to be a serious threat to Breland. They are forbidden from raising an army and honestly the Mournland provides a welcome barrier between us and the Eastern nations. Besides, few of the original Warforged created by House Cannith have survived the last 100 years. These days, most are designed for industrial purposes."

"Designed?"

"Yes, the forgers have reclaimed a few of the creation forges lost in the Mournland. Most forgers are created with a particular purpose in mind - mining, repairing, navigating the wilds of the Mournland - and their body is designed to suit that purpose. There is a large amount of variation in body designs. As I understand it, the Church of the Forged control the manufacture of new members of their congregation."

"So they have a religion?"

"The beginnings of one, yes. I understand they are still negotiating for a patron God."

Delack chuckled, but deftly transmuted it into a cough as he watched the queen rise from her seat.

"So what you're telling me, Delack", she said, "Is that our neighbouring country has thirty thousand souls who need daily resources to stay alive. They have sophisticated social organisations and they control a powerful magical resource. What diplomatic relations do we have with this nation?"

"A nation? Your majesty, they are only a gang of machines. By law, Cyre still belongs to the heirs of House Cannith."

"You are underestimating them, Delack. Where there is need, there is exploitation. And where there is exploitation, there is an accumulation of power. And where there is power, there is ambition for more power. That's politics, Delack. A political force on our doorstep with which we have no political relations."

The queen surveyed the table in front of her.

"What is stopping a raid on our dear city of Aruldusk? Or an assault on Vathirond? Or a full invasion from the east? What forces of law and order govern the Forged? What are they punishing? What are they promising?"

Delack throat was drying, so he simply shrugged.

"Perhaps," she said, "it is time to find out."

Meanwhile, in the Forger City of Metrol ...

Heavy metal pounds over moonlit roof tiles. Shining steel blurs through blood-red mist.

"Stop, thief!", shouts Commander.

But the thief leaps effortlessly between rooftops, leaving faint traces of oil. He steps sideways and vanishes.

"Docent! Thermal scan, now!"

A pearly orb floats alongside, flickers with arcane energy and bombards the streets with laser light. The beams bend and fracture.

"I'm sorry Commander, high mournspace fluctuations are obscuring my senses." chants the orb.

The cable elevator to the overcity bursts upwards through the fog. The thief crouches on the roof of the elevator and drags something up through the service hatch. A burst of speed. She launches from the edge of the towering building. Fingers clamp onto the sides of the rising elevator. The city disappears into the red fog below. A silhouette above holds a limp hostage.

"Let them go. There's nowhere left to run."

"I wasn't made for this. I wasn't made for any of this."

Lightning flashes. The thief jumps in on direction, letting the hostage fall in another.

Possibilities fork.