Brass Man

The brass man is an ancient god reputed to have come from beyond Nul, and is thus considered heretical by every other religion and philosophy in existence.

## Appearance

The brass man looks like a dwarf-sized mechanical humanoid. In its current state, it is heavily damaged and incomplete. It has no legs, half its face is melted, and its chest is skeletal, revealing a glowing green crystal within. Engraved into its collar is "347H0R4LF27" written in a script vaguely similar to dwarven runic script.

## Myths

The brass man is reputed to have appeared in The Wastes in the distant past, and is said to have created the first grruuk from the souls of the worst humans to have ever existed. It wandered throughout the wastes creating and changing things to serve its desires, and is said to have been the one to acquire the names for the first four grruuk lords to demonstrate how they could better themselves. It is also said to have created the first daemons around the same time from creatures who disappointed it.

Many myths of the brass man have been lost due to the near-extinction of the grruuk and many of their descended species adopting other beliefs. One later myth is of the creation of the daemonlords. According to the daemonlords, they were originally hill giants who found the brass man in the Wastes. It was pleased with them, and told them that they were the result of millennia of work on its behalf, and that it was time for their ultimate evolution. The god then turned them all into the fiendish giants they are recognised as today.

The brass man is said to control its own plane of existence. This plane does not fit within the understood cosmology of the spheres, and it is unknown how it even exists.

## The Breakdown

The brass man irreparably broke down at some point between the creation of the daemonlords and the present day, and ended up within the buried ruins of one of its temples beneath the Wastes. There, it was found by Volibag, who had returned to the northern continent following the decimation of his crew as a result of the party's actions. He had used his mage to open an accessway to the rumoured source of ancient power, and when he turned up, the brass man was partially reactivated. Some of its surviving functionality saw the need to imbue Volibag with power to become its mortal agent. It transformed him into an undead warrior, and turned his followers into a new generation of grruuk, and then manifested a sword at Volibag's feet as well as binding demon armour to his skin. Volibag then swore loyalty to the brass man, and continued his usual actions of raiding and selling slaves. He had some of the more powerful spellcasting grruuk connect his fortress on the island of Ostrivabotorhovtsiv to the brass man's temple, using a series of demiplanes to make up the internal structure of the fortress. Volibag started offering more sacrifices to the brass man, some of whom died, others were turned into grruuk or chaos wretches, or otherwise just heavily mutated. The damage done to the brass man meant it was incredibly random what it did, and it only communicated in a language that nobody could understand. Volibag took inspiration from the brass man's varied powers and created thematic areas of his fortress for each one, partially to generate more revenue, and partially to improve the services his slave market could do compared to his competitors.

The party eventually came to the island, and some quick-talking by Aly got them to the brass man's temple unmolested. There, they fought volibag while the brass man flung random blessings at people, turning both Runfinn and Sagadina into its Chosen and turning Vago into a chaos wretch. When Volibag was defeated, the brass man blessed him by turning him into a daemonlord, allowing him to fight for a bit longer. Once the party defeated him, they left the temple, with Keeper annoying Giha to the point of getting the entire island superheated, causing all the demiplanes linking the island and the temple to be destroyed, sealing the brass man beneath the wastes once again.

Runfinn later managed to get all the blessings of the brass man removed by Sith after acquiring Keisara's master rune for her.

## Chosen

The brass man has had the following Chosen that the party knows of:

* Volibag the Ligurwian
* Sagadina
* Runfinn (Former)