Mad Architects of Thume

## Introduction

The Mad Architects believe unquestionably that they are all the distant descendants of Thume the Inordinate, otherwise known (appropriately) as Thume the Mad. The legend of Thume states that he was the first humanoid wizard (specifically, half-elven alchemist) to ever set foot in the Dungeon. Through a combination of his own magic and powerful artefacts collected from the Dungeon’s deepest horrors, Thume is said to have begun cloning himself as soon as it become clear that escape was not an option. Note that these descendents were not magical copies, but rather true scientific clones: children both male and female grown from embryos imbued with Thume’s genetic makeup.

With generation after generation of Thume clones with just as such mad genius as the original, the clan realized that with their combined intellect and magical ability, they could make the Dungeon theirs. They became the Architects: crafters of arcane contraption and pseudomachincal wizardry, with the dream to one day convert the entire Dungeon from a hell to a home.

## Practices

Like their ancient ancestor, the Mad Architects have no desire to leave the Dungeon.

The Architects believe that what they are doing is beneficial to all sentient life in the Dungeon: making it safer, more habitable - more like “home”. Unfortunately, after multiple generations and hundreds of years of what is essentially inbreeding within the Thume clan, the children of Thume clones become increasingly insane with every generation. Today, the order invests a huge amount of time, research, and resources into the design and construction of magical and mechanical ‘improvements’. In reality, these ill-conceived constructions are just as harmful as they are helpful to both Denizens and adventurers, and could only be seen as beneficial by the truly psychotic.

Although the true number of Mad Architect inventions is entirely unknowable, as they tend to forget about their constructions just as quickly as they come up with new, crazed ideas, several examples of their projects are as follows:

1. An entire branch of the Dungeon where gravity was made to focus on a central point: an impossibly dense orb of pure obsidian. While on the East side of the orb you are forced to walk on the West wall, while on the West side you walk on the East, etc.
2. A machine which creates golems which creates machines which creates golems. Although the original machine designed golems which were powered by oil, later generations of the automaton began to design machines which would build golems that run on blood.
3. An artificial sun, designed to provide natural light but instead provides blindness and death by heat and radiation.
4. A hall of mirrors which show the observer as standing in one of dozens of paradisal, faraway places - except for one, which shows you as in an unknown afterlife and kills you if you look into it.
5. An amphitheatre which has been converted into an enormous funnel, with a food-processor-like contraption of whirring blades at its centre. Original intent unknown.
6. A roomful of superintelligent brains in vats - all connected to a central mechanism which will answer any question of morality it is asked. The answer takes the form of a psychic compulsion which the asker must follow through, whether or not they agree with it, otherwise their mind will melt under the power of the geas.
7. A portal which teleports one’s skeleton - and only their skeleton - to the Theatre of Bones.
8. A half-biological lung-machine which expels an atmospheric gas. Any who take a single breath of this air no longer require physical sustenance to survive, however, the atmosphere of the rest of the Dungeon becomes forever toxic to them.
10. A grand machine - easily the size of a city block - which allows the user to affect the outside word (yes, outside the Dungeon!) in very, very subtle ways. One can modify the shape of clouds (not into letters, but into vague shapes), influence the formation of mushroom growth, whisper a single syllable on the wind, that sort of thing. However undramatic its effects, this amazing device may very well allow for the only interaction Denizens of Dungeon 26 can have with the rest of existence.

The Trapsetters Guild speculate that, at a certain point in their lifetime of unregulated experimentation, the mad wizards bestowed sentience upon the Dungeon itself. The Wax Collectors of course suspect that the Dungeon 26 was sentient to begin with, and that the Architects just so happen to be able to ‘hear’ its thoughts and desires.

## Home

At a certain point some hundred-odd years ago, the Architects began allowing outsiders into their midth to help achieve their ultimate goal of Dungeon mastery. Once accepted into the order these outsiders are treated with as much respect as original descendents, except are never allowed to create children with a Thume clone. Being absent-minded, however, the Architects often forget which of their members are clones and which are conscripts. There is next to no competition or hostility between members, and typically each individual within the Architects have their own personal, insane agenda which really isn't affected by trivial factors such as ‘the reality around them’.

Certain children of two Thume-cloned parents are born with such extreme and bizarre magical ability that they lack the ability to live alongside their clan. These genetic mutations arise after years and years of combining the same mad-wizard-DNA, and manifest in uniquely terrible ways each time. Either banished by their elders or having cast themselves out, these uber-powerful Thumians wander the Dungeon in despair and confusion. They can be intensely powerful adversaries from a very young age, and due to the reputation they have made for themselves other humanoids refer to them as the Radiant Children, or more colloquially, “Thume’s Last Laugh”.