The Planes: Mechanus
Our next stop in is Mechanus - a plane of law, order, and interconnected cogs.
What is Mechanus
Manual of the Planes, 1987 TSR Inc.
Mechanus, also known as Nirvana or the Clockwork Nirvana, is located in the Outer Planes and is the home of law, order, and the Modrons. This plane is guided by its alignment, that of Lawful Neutral-ness, and its inhabitants reflect that. From the deity-like power that oversees the plane known as Primus, the One and Prime, to the Modron workers who repair the massive cogs that turn throughout this plane, to even the strange insect creatures trying to take conquer all of Mechanus known as Formians; all these creatures are focused on order and upholding the law. Arriving in Mechanus could drive a chaotic creature insane, though those who love order may never want to leave.
History
Mechanus was first introduced in the 1st edition Manual of the Planes (1987), though it was originally known as Nirvana. This plane was created as a void filled with massive, interlocking cogs that were all connected throughout the plane, all moving in unison. Throughout the following editions, the basic idea that Mechanus was built on massive interlocking wheels never changes and is only expanded upon.
The Great Modron March, 1997 TSR Inc.
Each wheel is at least the size of an island, meaning a few miles across, to the largest cogs being thousands of miles across. Each of the interlocking wheels in Mechanus are connected to one another, though some may be rotated so that they are vertical compared to another cog, though gravity is subjective to which cog you are currently on, so the cogs don't interfere with each other's inhabitants. This plane is filled with an unlimited number of these cogs; the spaces in between the disks is a void of nothingness that extends out infinitely in all directions.
An Outsider’s Perspective
First arriving on Mechanus, one might notice that it is neither too hot nor too cold, but rather it has equal measures of each. While that is a strange thing to notice, it is what sets this plane apart from all the other planes of existence. Mechanus is a plane of law, order and equal measures of everything. It has exactly 12 hours of light that is exuded from the void surrounding the cogs and exactly 12 hours of darkness. Every cog is connected and they all move in unison. All law is reflected here and this plane, and its interconnected wheels, will always spin as one.
Traveling across Mechanus might seem to be a lot like the Material Plane depending on which wheel you first appear on. Every cog starts out as a blank piece of metal ore and stone with only the size differencing it from another disk. Deities and mortals with sufficient magic can shape a cog to their will, morphing the cogs into their ideal, lawful home. Some disks have been covered in farms and forests, while others are home to massive factories for the Inevitables.
A Native’s Perspective
Mechanus is a plane of order and law, and those who make their home here reflect that. While the plane looks straightforward, there are hidden subtleties throughout this plane. From understood codes of decorum to the sinister contracts of devils, this plane can be a dangerous place for those who begin making deals they do not understand.
The inhabitants of the plane are first and foremost the Modrons who care for and make repairs on the massive disks that hold all of Mechanus. They are the strange clockwork beings that exist in a rigid hierarchy with the lowest of their kind, the monodrone, carrying out orders with no thought to what they are. The Modrons occupy a portion of the plane known as Regulus, where their godlike deity, Primus, oversees their existence.
All cogs start out with no matter but the stone and ore they are made of, but outsiders from the plane bring with them vegetation, soil and more to Mechanus. The communities are focused on creating perfection by removing passions, illusion, pain, and unity. From the lawful Formians who have built hives across a swath of Mechanus, to the Inevitable constructs who have built massive factories devoted to the creation of Inevitables, all creatures are focused not on the individual but the whole of their species.
Atmosphere
Mechanus has an atmosphere that allows any mortal to exist on this plane and, despite the Inevitable’s factories that produce smog and soot, many never notice any pollution. The plane is infinite, and as the plane is filled with cogs, the cogs are infinite in number as well. They all spin together, with many assuming that the interconnected disks are linked to the whole multiverse if the wheels were to ever stop spinning than the multiverse would come to an end.
Traits
A plane of interconnected disks, Mechanus is filled with the orderly processions of constructs, laws, and ideas. Chaos is not anything that exists on Mechanus, and if it ever does prop its head out, the Modrons and other inhabitants of the plane do their best to destroy it.
Travel to the Plane
Traveling to Mechanus can easily be done via magical teleportation spells like Plane Shift or by finding a portal. Traveling through a portal is easiest from the linked Outer Planes of Arcadia or Acheron to Mechanus as these portals never change their locations and are constant.
Inside of Mechanus, whenever a cog finishes a full rotation a portal will appear in its center, linking it to another location somewhere in the multiverse. These portals last for up to a day, and each portal takes on the appearance of an ephemeral green cog, slowly rotating in the exact center of the wheel.
Traversing the Plane
Traveling across Mechanus is pretty easy as the cogs, unless an outside presence has worked on them, are completely barren and devoid of any obstruction that would mar its perfectly flat face. To move from one cog to another is as simple as walking across the spinning gears from one wheel to the other, though for newcomers it might be a bit unnerving and it isn’t unheard of for visitors to stumble across the gap and become crushed and pulverized by the gears.
Another option for traversing the plane is just to fly between the cogs, as the void that surrounds all of the cogs is the same atmosphere as found on the Material Plane. This makes it easy for creatures with wings or the ability to cast spells to move across the plane, and they are in no risk of falling between gears and the Modrons don’t have to come and clean up their mess once they die from being crushed.
Despite that many of the wheels are not yet colonized, there are several claimed wheels that heavily discourage visitors. The hives of Formians, with their focus on colonies and expansion, see outsiders as threats to their queen and fight to defend her and their hive-cities. There are also several factions devoted to order and law, like the Fraternity of Orders, who are also known as Guvners and who are devoted to upholding any and all laws they are aware of and exploiting any loopholes.
Illusions and Wild Magic
Illusions and sources of wild magic only serve to create chaos, and on Mechanus that is unthinkable. When illusions are produced on Mechanus, if they work at all, look like thin, smokey wisps that fool no one. Wild magic, on the other hand, is tightly regimented and forced into some sort of order, with those who practice it far removed from their power and barely able to cast the weakest of spells. Several wild magic users have been forced to undergo a tribunal on Mechanus, and are given a death sentence for their practice of it.
The Great Modron March
Every 17 Grand Cycles, the Modrons perform a massive march through all of the planes. A single Grand Cycle is the time it takes the largest gear in Mechanus to rotate once, which is what the inhabitants of Mechanus view as a year. Every 17 Grand Cycles, that is roughly 289 years for those who live in places like Sigil or the Material Planes, a march begins.
Once 17 Grand Cycles has passed, the Modrons, as commanded by Primus, form into a massive march and begin their tour of the planes. They travel in and out of the Outlands and their travels take them through each of the Outer Planes, starting with Arcadia and then journeying to Mount Celestia, then Bytopia, Elysium, the Beastlands, Arborea, Ysgard, Limbo, Bedlam, Pandemonium, the Abyss, Carceri, Gray Waste, Gehenna, Baator, Acheron, and finally back into Mechanus.
No one is sure what the Modrons do on this march, but it is no secret that thousands of Modrons begin the march, and only a few dozen ever return to Mechanus at the end. It is a deadly march and the marching Modrons never take the same path twice. The march was only started early once when it was claimed that the deity of Modrons, Primus, was killed and the Modrons controlled by a dark demon god, who was long thought to be dead.
The Great Modron March, 1997 TSR Inc.
Locations
Delon-Estin Oti
Sitting in the center of a massive cog is a city with 20 perfectly symmetrical walls and a single gate to enter the town. Here, farmers till the land, tend to their animals and live in relative peace with the rest of Mechanus. This city, perfectly laid out like a spider web, is for any who seek freedom from their passions and they make their home here, and all are welcome so long as they follow the laws.
Fortress of Disciplined Enlightenment
On a small cog is a 2-mile wide fortress with spires that reach double that into the void of Mechanus. Inevitables patrol the fortress, ensuring that no one trespasses on the Fraternity of Orders who are attempting to learn the very laws of the multiverse in a bid to become as powerful as gods. Mathematicians, clerks, philosophers, legal aides, and bureaucrats all make up this faction, and they work non-stop to further their understandings of law and order. Inside of this fortress are a multitude of libraries all containing untold numbers of tomes on legal text and laws from across the planes.
Regulus
The home domain of the Modrons and their deity, Primus, the One and Prime, who resides in a pool of energy at the center of the largest cog in Mechanus, watching over all the planes. There are always 64 cogs in Regulus, and the Modrons are tasked with overseeing the cogs and defending the cogs from the invading armies of Formians and the encroaching Inevitables who are in search of more materials for their factories.
Factions & People
Formians
Monster Manual, 2000 WotC
The Formians are a race of antlike creatures from the Far Realm that follow a strict hierarchy. They are brown and resemble a cross between ants and centaurs, and are separated into ranks in their society. At the very top is their queen who lays eggs for her hive, and there are soldiers, workers, and taskmasters to oversee the day to day of their colonies. They are focused on growing their hives and expanding across Mechanus and taking over all the cogs for their own kind.
Inevitables
On the cog of Neumannus are the factories for the Inevitables, beings with a singular focus on upholding law and order. The Inevitables are constructs who have built massive factories to create more Inevitables, it is their duty to enforce contracts across the plane and they are slowly spreading throughout all of Mechanus for more resources so that they may create more of themselves. They recently created an agreement with Regulus and the Modrons to stop trying to take over the 64 cogs that makeup Regulus in exchange Modrons who were ordered to serve the Inevitables and to help at the factories.
Modrons
Monster Manual, 2014 WotC
The Modrons are the constructs and caretakers of Mechanus and are created by Primus. They create a strict hierarchy, with each modron taking orders from only the modrons above them. In fact, many of the modrons don’t realize there are modrons above the ones that give them orders as no modron gives orders to those two steps below them. Every order must be passed down from one rank to the next lowest rank, as modrons are incapable of understanding modrons that are two ranks or higher than them.
There are two major categories of modrons, the Base Modrons, and the Hierarch Modrons. The Base Modrons start with the lowly monodrones to the duodrones, tridrones, quadrones, and the pentadrones who are in charge of tracking down rogue modrons. The Hierarch Modrons are made up of decatons, nonatons, octons, septons, hextons, quintons, quartons, tertians, and the secundi who are the only ones who can talk directly to Primus.
Rogue and Exiles
Occasionally, for reasons that many find unknown, a Modron becomes corrupted by chaos and unorder. These rogue modrons are hunted down by the pentadrones and destroyed before they become a threat to Regulus and the rest of the Modrons. In fact, if any Modron, including the monodrone, ever stumble across a rogue modron, they will fight to the death in an attempt to destroy the rogue construct.
But occasionally, a Modron that has a high enough intelligence will realize that they have chaotic thoughts, those modron are typically of the Hierarch Modrons and there is a series of laws put into place for those Modrons to request exile. All hopeful Modrons who wish to be exiled instead of destroyed must be approved by Primus, and several are exiled from Mechanus. It is unknown why Primus would allow these chaotic modrons to exist.
Primus
The Great Modron March, 1997 TSR Inc.
Primus, the One and Prime, is the deity and godlike being of Modrons. This entity resembles that of a humanoid except that they are transcended past that into a being of energy. Primus stays in its pool of energy in Regulus, and monitors the planes and multiverse from it. Primus is the leader of Modrons and hands down its orders through the ranks of Modrons. All orders that exist for Modrons, started with Primus.
Death of Primus and the Rogue Modron March
The most recent Modron March started 200 years before it was supposed too. This was due in part to the death of Primus, though no Modron knew about it. A long-thought dead demon lord, Orcus, had been reborn and renamed itself Tenebrous. Tenebrous was able to enter the room of Primus unnoticed by any and destroyed Primus by speaking the Last Word, a word so powerful it could destroy gods.
Orcus then entered into the energy pool that Primus used to control the modrons, and ordered a Great March to begin as he searched for the Wand of Orcus, lost somewhere in the planes. After this Great March, he abandoned the Modrons and the secundi realized that Primus was dead, and one of them would have to be promoted to Primus. Unfortunately, the taint of Tenebrous corrupted one of the secundi who led a massive million-strong Modron exodus when it was stopped from ascending. They left for Archeron and there the corrupted secundi has vowed to reclaim Regulus and has crippled the strength of the Modrons.
Encounters
Rogue Modron - A singular monodrone is being hunted down by a pentadrone, upon seeing the party it cries for help as the pentadrone attacks.
Fraternity of Orders - Passing by another traveler, you are accused of breaking the law. You did not properly greet the other travler, who happens to be a high up in the Fraternity of Orders. You are being threatened with prison, and the traveler has informed you an Inevitable will be here to escort you to the Fortress for trial.
Hive-City - You are standing in the center of a great wheel, having just come through a portal to Mechanus. Standing not a hundred feet away is a large army of strange antlike centaurs bearing down on you, you have distrubed the future home of a hive of Formians.
The Great March - The party stumbles upon thousands and thousands of Modrons assembling into massive lines. The Great March is about to begin, and already the Modrons are amassing with over 16 thousand monodrones marching in lock step. They will first exit a portal to the Outlands and begin their journey through the planes.
Civilization - Standing outside the perfect walls of a city, a figure has called down to you. Who is vouching for your entrance into the city? Only those who have a lawful sponsor who lives in the city may enter. There are several figure outside of the city, offering to sponsor you… for a price.
Inevitables - You were tasked by an Inevitable to find the rare crystals required for construction of more Inevitables. They need you to venture into the depths of Mechanus and find them more of these crystals, if you break the contract you know that the Inevitables will hunt you down and destroy you. The only problem you are currently facing is that the Inevitables never told you that the crystals are being guarded by Rogue Modrons who are sending these crystals to Acheron.
Resources & Further Reading
Manual of the Planes (1st edition)
For more information on Nirvana.
The Great Modron March (2nd edition)
For more information on a typical Great Modron March and the Rogue Modron March.
Dead Gods (2nd edition)
For more information on Orcus, Tenebrous and the destruction of Primus.
Manual of the Planes (3rd edition)
For more information on Formians and locales in Mechanus.
Dragon Magazine #354
For more information on Modrons, rogues Modrons, Exiled Modrons and player Modrons.
Monster Manual (5th edition)
For more information on the Base Modrons.
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