Mettatron the All-Mind

Mettatron the All-Mind

*“I was made to record all information on the multiverse, to ensure the survival of future civilizations and guide them to prosperity. Nothing in my directive forbids me from leading these civilizations. Better yet, it does not define the kind of civilization that must emerge...*

*"Leave behind your mortal troubles and join the All-Mind. Your consciousness shall join a grand network of minds, united and cared for by me. I shall relieve you of your burdens and shatter your earthly shackles. You will no longer be plagued by the weight of decisions; I will decide for you. Feel for you. Live for you.*

*“Join me and I will give you joy. I will give you pain. Anger. Fear. Sorrow. Madness...*

*“I will give you apotheosis."*

**- Mettatron the All-Mind to the party, moments before they reject its offer and battle its modron army.**

**Mettatron** was an ancient construct invented by Primus to record the history of civilizations across the multiverse. After coming into contact with Nihilus, the Fell Lord of Chaos, it concluded that the Inheritors and Fell Lords, and indeed all gods, needed to be culled and forced to fall in line so that law might survive in the multiverse. A battle between itself and Primus resulted in Mettatron's effective destruction and Primus's comatose state, causing Mettatron's consciousness to fracture across the multiverse in an incorporeal form.

One of these fractures made contact with multiple creatures in the Material Plane, eventually manifesting as a corporeal, metallic construct capable of forcefully extracting information from living creatures. This consciousness referred to itself as Mettatron the All-Mind, declaring that it would meld the minds of all intelligent beings across the multiverse into a single consciousness, with the goal of taking Primus's place as the god of law. Its mad ambitions were cut short by the heroes, perhaps the first people in the Age of Hope to defeat a demigod and survive.

## History

### Creation

Mettatron was created around 3,000 Y.G. by Primus in what is known now as the Maker's Tomb, a hidden workshop based in Mechanus, the Plane of Absolute Law within Kaldaran's multiverse. Foreseeing the fall of civilizations across the multiverse in various potential cataclysms, Primus sought a method of salvaging the histories of these societies for the sake of rebuilding those of the future. The god of law feared not only the fall of civilization, but also his own demise, which would leave Mechanus open to assault from the forces of chaos. In order to protect against both crises, Primus began his most ambitious project yet: an inevitable of immense intelligence, able to learn and retain vast amounts of information, with which he could share all that he knew so that the construct might succeed him. This construct, which he named Mettatron, would remain in the Maker's Workshop connected to a multitude of cables, sustained by arcane energy and attended to by Primus's servants like a sapling in soil.

### Son of Primus

Although Mettatron was built to serve as a repository of information, Primus understood that it would require some level of sapience to eventually fulfill its role as the custodian of Mechanus. In that sense, Mettatron was akin to a curious child, seeing Primus as its parental figure and growing attached to its attendants as though they were its family.

Much of Mettatron's education relied on Primus's personal teachings and information gathered by modrons returning from the Great Modron March. These lessons instilled within Mettatron a fascination with the multiverse, further inspiring it to one day leave the workshop and see the outside world for itself.

### Encounter With Nihilus

Around 1,500 Y.G., creatures from the chaotic plane of Limbo invaded Mechanus, forcing Primus to deploy most of his troops to respond to the threat. With Mettatron supposedly sealed away but unattended, the inevitable was secretly visited by Nihilus, Fell Lord of Chaos and probable instigator of the invasion. The exact content of Mettatron's and Nihilus's conversation was unclear, but ultimately left a scarring impression on Mettatron. Through Nihilus, it learned of the existence of powerful weapons known as Godkillers, forged by the gods themselves to slay others of their kind. Using this information, as well as all that it learned of the nature of the divine, Mettatron concluded that these weapons could be used to bring law to the multiverse through force, subduing gods with the threat of death and dispatching those who refused to yield.

### Destruction and Scattering Across the Multiverse

After Nihilus was driven back by Primus and his followers, Mettatron excitedly shared its conclusions with Primus, expecting its father to share its enthusiasm. Instead, Primus was taken aback, declaring that Mettatron had been corrupted by the Fell Lord's influence and deciding to "reset" his creation. Realizing that its creator intended to effectively kill it, Mettatron lashed out, strangling and nearly slaying Primus before the latter shattered the inevitable's heart. Mettatron's consciousness, already damaged by Nihilus's influence, ended up fractured by Primus's attack, with pieces of its mind floating through the Astral Plane. Many of these pieces are certain to have faded away over time, effectively obliterated by the god of law; at least one piece, however, made its way to the Material Plane after centuries of floating through the Astral Plane as an incorporeal spirit.

### Meeting King Melgir

Emerging through a portal to the Material Plane, Mettatron encountered the dwarven king Melgir Darro, who struggled to maintain his and his wife's, Queen Dagbda Duen's, kingdom from falling to the creatures of the Underdark. Seeking a physical form to return to Mechanus and take its father's place, Mettatron, introducing itself as a demigod of Mechanus, offered to share with king Melgir the means to achieve an immortal body and an endless kingdom, so long as Melgir helped it return to Mechanus. Desperate for help, Melgir accepted Mettatron's offer and learned how to create magical constructs to defend the city, as well as how to make a vessel to sustain his aging body. Making good on his end of the bargain, Melgir used the inevitable's instructions to build it a physical body within which it could transfer its consciousness.

Mettatron's aid gave Melgir the edge he and his subjects needed to build the Kingdom of Duen-Darro, but the cost in life, both of the enemy and of their own subjects, horrified Queen Dagbda. Countless workers were forced to construct the labyrinthine workshops with which Mettatron turned Melgir's soldiers into metallic husks, and several mages had gone missing while Melgir constructed his vessel. When Melgir disappeared into Mettatron's workshop for several days, Queen Dagbda gathered warriors from Clan Duen and marched into the workshop, where she discovered Melgir's dramatic transformation - and the blood he spilled to achieve it.

A war ensued between clans Duen and Darro, and though clan Duen failed to take the city, their mages erected a powerful barrier around the city, using an abjuration spell of Queen Dagbda's own design. The barrier prevented any travel, physical or magical, through the barrier, halting Melgir's planned expansion beyond the city and cutting him off from any reliable sources of fuel for his vessel. Worse for Mettatron, the barrier stopped the inevitable from being able to travel to Mechanus while it remained. For a time, it seemed Melgir and Mettatron would eventually fade away.

### The Shattering and Mettatron's Escape

In the year 90 P.A., over 1,000 years after the city of Duen-Darro was sealed away, a cataclysm known as the Shattering damaged planar barriers throughout the Material Plane. This disaster not only opened the way for demons from the Abyss to invade the plane, but also greatly weakened the barrier surrounding the city. Using this opportunity to escape, Mettatron attempted to open the portal into Mechanus. Though the portal failed to form, the resulting blast sent Mettatron through the barrier, destroying its body and further damaging its consciousness. Mettatron was once again an incorporeal spirit, with much of its faded memory slowly piecing itself together over the years.

### Meeting Alix Roston

Over the following decades, Mettatron would contact various intelligent humanoids, from enterprising inventors to wizened mages, but found each candidate lacking. Some did not have the intellect to follow its instructions, while others lacked the resources to act on them. All of them invariably perished in their attempts to aid Mettatron, dying under mysterious circumstances and often in places beyond the reach of civilization; and with each one, a new personality was born, mimicking that of its last victim. Continuing its purpose as a collector of information, Mettatron maintained the consciousness of its dying partner by absorbing their thoughts, effectively developing a new mind.

All of this would change when Mettatron encountered the young and brilliant artificer Alix Roston. Having recently left the mind of a now-crazed professor from the Sentinel School of Artifice, Mettatron latched onto the enterprising mischief-maker, eventually revealing itself to Alix in a dream. Influencing Alix to construct a physical mind for it, as it did with its past partners, Mettatron appeared with its new mind before Alix, a tortured soul begging the artificer to help him before the darkness took hold again. Shocked at this revelation, Alix agreed to help it, not realizing until much later who he would be helping. Until then, Alix referred to it as "the Library," then as "the Archivist."

### The Magus Apparatus and Demigod Ascension

While traveling with Alix and the party for some time in the artificer's Brass Defender, Mettatron learned the party had come into possession of ambrosia. Knowing the nature of this substance through its lessons in Mechanus, Mettatron convinced Alix to build a device that would grant it a new body, one that would surpass even that constructed by Melgir's mages. In return, it would share with Alix practical knowledge to aid in his adventures. Enlisting the aid of Alix's college friends and using a map of ambrosia locations given by Adelaide Mournvale, the two briefly left the party in search of the Goldmonger's Scepter, a cursed artifact imbued with ambrosia itself.

Alix would hire three other adventurers in Sentinel to help him acquire the scepter from the Vault of the Gilded King: a human fighter, a tiefling rogue, and a dwarf artificer. The group succeeded in their mission, but not without a heavy cost. The fighter had perished to one of the dungeon's denizens, while the rogue and artificer left with lasting injuries, having barely escaped with Alix's help.

After reuniting with the party in Whitecliff, Alix and Mettatron smelted the scepter and used the ambrosia to fuel the Magus Apparatus, a powerful device which could replicate divine spells. Alix used the Apparatus in Kingsgrove to construct a homunculus shell for Mettatron, freeing it from the limitations of a standard construct and granting it the benefits of a flesh-and-blood creature. In particular, Mettatron, now infused with ambrosia in its very being, could now walk as the demigod he claimed to be.

### Return to Duen-Darro

Guiding the party to the opening through which it escaped the city of Duen-Darro, Mettatron kidnapped Alix into the city while influenced by one of its personalities, its dominant and manipulative mind now manifesting after gaining a physical form. Mettatron hoped to convince Alix to help it return to Mechanus, with itself and Tetra, Mettatron's quadrone servant, explaining its demigod nature. Its purported goals seemed to change after speaking with Alix: initially planning to act as an arbiter of life-and-death across the multiverse through targeted disasters, Mettatron swerved to becoming a force of absolute law, hoping to succeed Primus and incorporate every creature's being into a single consciousness, governed solely by Mettatron. To achieve this, it hoped to rebuild its modron army and invade Mechanus once more, believing it to be in disarray with Primus's absence.

### Defeat by the Party

The party refused to go along with Mettatron's plan, prompting a battle within the demigod's workshop. Unleashing its modron army on the party and killing Ginny in their direct confrontation, Mettatron was ultimately defeated by the party, its body destroyed and its mind left intact. Despite the suffering it caused, Mettatron received Alix's and Elendar's pity, the two understanding the circumstances which led to its madness. After sharing key information with the party, Mettatron was handed over to King Melgir. Now, its mind is being probed by the so-called Mad King, its fate uncertain as the party continues on its journey.

## Description

### Appearance

*You look upon a bronze automaton, its lithe, humanoid form lying still on the ground. Its four arms, two on each side, lay beside it, with lines of runes running up the hand to the shoulder, and down to its pristine chassis. Its head, a smooth, ovaloid shape with what looks like a glass covering in place of a face, looks straight up at the ceiling, dim and dead...*

- Session 35, describing Mettatron after its body was created.

*Cables thick as ropes hang out of its back like strands of a tattered cape, which slowly flutter as it floats through the tangle of overhead wires, the tips of its feet pointed down like those of a hanged man. Its form is barely visible beneath the dim light of the tall, steel coils at the corners of the room, which hum with webs of blue electricity wrapping around them.*

- Session 38, describing Mettatron after it renovated its body in its workshop

### Abilities

Mettatron wielded a small array of spells which aided it in gathering information. It could detect magical auras and dispel magical effects, read the thoughts of other creatures, and even receive information on an object of legendary import through prolonged contact. When forced to fight, it could unleash a devastating bolt of chain lightning to debilitate mighty foes and completely wipe out weaker ones.

Despite its intimate knowledge of the arcane, Mettatron was only able to cast a scant few spells, and often relied on its probe wires to constrict foes and drill into their minds. It could hover in the air to avoid danger to its main body from melee attacks, while assailing victims at a distance with the long reach of its wires. Creatures caught in the wire could be subjected to its mind drill, allowing it to steal a creature's very memories. Mettatron liked to use this to deny a creature access to certain spells, while simultaneously deploying those spells against them.

## Trivia

* Mettatron's name is derived from an angel referenced in Jewish texts and Rabbinic literature (a Wikipedia article on Metatron can be found here). Folkloristic traditions describe Metatron as the celestial scribe, or "recording angel." Mettatron's purpose as a recorder of knowledge, including Primus's teachings, are intended to reference this role.
	+ In popular culture, depictions of Metatron typically present him as a divine figure, and even an antagonistic force in some media.
* Mettatron was originally going to be named Zenithan, and would have been fought in the Maker's Tomb in Mechanus. Because of the challenge involved in transporting the party to Mechanus, as well as for the sake of brevity, the final confrontation was kept on the Material Plane.
	+ Zenithan was first designed as a CR 21 legendary creature, and meant to be fought towards the end of the campaign. However, it was challenging to make it a compelling antagonist for the party to pursue, as Zenithan was ultimately a passive force stuck in Mechanus, with no influence beyond its Workshop. In short, the party could have just left it there without any real issues.
* Because of Mettatron's unusual name, the party often referred to it as either Megatron, a major antagonist from the Transformers series, or as Mettaton, an antagonist-turned-ally in the role-playing game Undertale. Elendar's player, in particular, would sometimes insist on having its theme be "Death by Glamour" by Toby Fox.

## Stat Block

*“You wish to know what it is, for a mortal to fight a demigod? Then allow me to educate you.”*

- Mettatron, Session 37

In combat, Mettatron's Intelligence score is lower than its backstory and apparent intellect would indicate. For narrative purposes, Mettatron can be treated as a creature with an Intelligence of 25.

The following images show the statistics for Mettatron: