Animated objects

Animated objects are things that some will set moving and then left behind: a candlestick that rocks after you, a teapot that scalds, a broom that scuttles, a rug that closes over you. They go for the living who come near and leave everything else alone.

• Household things are almost harmless, and worth killing for what they are made of. A silver candlestick is a prize at any level.
• Deeper, a sword, an axe, or a staff dances alone. This is an animated blade: quick and fragile, and its weapon is the prize.
• Deeper still walk the composites. Animated armour is a suit with nobody inside that fights with its gauntlets. The animated panoply is the full kit of a knight with no knight. It wields and wears real magic items, and their powers are its own. A panoply is among the most dangerous things in the game, and among the most rewarding.

What they are made of

Household things. An animated household thing is a real household object. An animated candlestick is a candlestick, of brass, iron, pewter, or (rarely) silver. Its colour on the map is its material’s, and look mode names it: “an animated candlestick of silver (hostile, unhurt), rocking”. A clatter of cutlery is three to six pieces of cutlery at once.

Blades. An animated blade is one real melee weapon, of a kind found at its level or below. It wields itself as anyone would wield it. It strikes with the weapon’s damage, threat, and any magic on it (a flaming blade burns), with the blade’s Strength and a rank in the weapon’s skill that grows with its level. The deeper it is met, the likelier its weapon is magic, and from level 15 it is now and then rare.

A blade shows on the map as its weapon does: ) in the colour of the weapon’s material. Look mode names what it wields as it would for anyone: “an animated blade (hostile, unhurt), wielding a steel long sword”. Like any weapon a monster carries, it is unidentified until you hold it.

A blade is hard to hit because of its thin edge. It shrugs off thrusts (piercing) and breaks under heavy blows (bludgeoning). It floats without a sound.

Armour and panoplies. Animated armour and a panoply are made of several real things at once:

• always body armour, a helm, a shield, and gauntlets;
• for a panoply, also a melee weapon, and the deeper it is, boots, a cloak, an amulet, and (from level 50) a ring on each hand.

Each piece is drawn as a blade’s weapon is, and worn or wielded as anyone would. The armour gives its Protection, the shield its Defence, the weapon its blows. A panoply that wields a two-handed weapon carries no shield.

Both show on the map as A, in the colour of their body armour’s material. Look mode names what they wear and wield: “an animated armour (hostile, unhurt), wearing a bronze cap and a padded coat”.

Animated armour has no weapon: it slams with its gauntlets. Both are slow and loud, and both open doors. Animated armour shrugs off some of a thrust, which passes through the hollow. A panoply holds a rank in its weapon’s skill as a blade does, and with a shield it has ranks in Sword and Board.

One kind each. All blades count as one kind of creature in every way that matters. You learn of animated blades once, and a quest to kill them counts every one. They are drawn onto a floor as one kind, at the level of the floor’s danger: a blade of level 12 on a floor of danger 12, never below level 5 or above 20. All animated armours count as one kind among themselves, and so do all panoplies.

When one is destroyed, half the time what it was made of falls whole, as the object it was (a silver candlestick you can sell). Otherwise it breaks into the parts it was made of:

• a gem set in it falls loose;
• every other part falls as pieces of its material (a silver candlestick as pieces of silver, still worth something);
• paper and wax are lost.

Whatever magic it had is gone with it. They leave no corpse and never bleed.

What they are

They are constructs. Nothing lives in them to sicken, they have no blood or breath for poison, and nothing in them bleeds. So they are never diseased, poisoned, or bleeding. They can still be frightened (rarely, since their will is not their own), held, staggered, or transfixed.

What they are made of decides what hurts them most. Wood and cloth burn, metal takes lightning badly, and glass, stone, and bone shatter under heavy blows. Nothing can be stolen from them: what they carry is what they are.

A few have a trick of their own:

• The animated rug, the rug of smothering, now and then closes over what it wraps. You are engulfed until you struggle free or it dies, and it costs you 1 hit point a tick. (A charnel heap’s costs 2.)
• The bellows’ gust may leave you staggered.
• The animated lantern’s oil bursts as it dies, burning everyone beside it (death throes). Step back from a dying one.

Blades, like most creatures, come in grades. One in six is notched, weaker than its kind, and one in six is keen, stronger. Look mode says which. No other animated thing is graded.

What their magic does for them

Whatever an animated thing wears and wields works for it exactly as it would for you, rings and amulets too. A Flaming sword burns, a ring of the Bear makes its blows harder, an amulet of the Ox gives it more life, armour of the Salamander takes the edge off fire, and a ring of Light makes it glow, so you see it coming. There are only a few gaps:

Where they are found

• The barrow of Cealdhlāw keeps candlesticks, cutlery, teapots, and cooking pots among its grave goods.
• The drowned minster of Fennmynster keeps its candlesticks, books, lanterns, and rugs.
• Blades dance in the barrow’s lower floors and all through Fyrdelf, where the duergar smiths’ work wakes. Empty suits of armour walk Fyrdelf’s deeper floors (they are of level 12 at least).
• Blades and empty suits also walk Ūtgang, the way up from the drake’s deep.

They never stray anywhere else.

Their homes are two special rooms, which may turn up in any dungeon with a danger, whatever lives there:

• An armoury has weapon racks along its walls, with blades, hollow armour, and panoplies asleep among them. They are drawn as if the level were four dangers deeper.
• A workshop has workbenches along its walls, with the household things of a house’s work asleep about them.

Fyrdelf favours armouries, and on its bottom floor an armoury is where a panoply stands. No dungeon of the Ascmearc goes deep enough for a panoply to walk its halls.

In numbers

Every animated type’s numbers come from its tier and its body, by the formulas below. Each part is rounded down.

• Strength: 11 + 0.4 × level
• Toughness: 12 + 0.4 × level
• Dexterity: 10 + 0.25 × level
• Willpower: 16 + 0.35 × level
• Intelligence and Presence: 2 (they are mindless)
• then the tier’s adjustments to all of these
• hit points beyond Toughness: 2.5 × level × the tier’s factor
• damage dice: whichever of 1d2, 1d3, … 5d12 is nearest to 2 + 0.55 × level, moved by the tier’s steps

A blade has no dice of its own, since it strikes with its weapon. Its speed is 1200 + 5 × level (at most 1600), and its natural Defence is 2 + level / 10.

Every animated type: faction Animated things, tags animated, construct, darkvision eyes (sight 8 cells), hearing 10, immune to diseased, poisoned, bleeding; no corpse and no blood. What it is made of falls whole with 50 %, else it breaks into its parts: gems loose, 50 % of each other part’s weight in pieces of its material (one at least), nothing of paper or wax.

By level

Speed 1000 is a normal pace. A household thing moves at its body’s own pace.

Stats: St Strength, Dx Dexterity, To Toughness, In Intelligence, Wi Willpower, Pr Presence.

Blades

A blade’s weapon is drawn among the melee weapons found at its level or below, by how common each is. Then:

• by the first chance below it is made at least magic, and a magic one may come out rare, as any find may;
• or by the second chance it is made rare outright;
• otherwise it is plain, of a material drawn as a monster’s gear is.

A magic or rare weapon is made at an item level equal to the blade’s. The blade’s rank in the weapon’s skill is 1 + level / 10, at most 8.

Animated armour and a panoply draw each of their pieces the same way, slot by slot in the order below. Each line is tried at its chance, from the level it names, as many times as it says (a ring for each hand). A slot already taken is skipped, such as the off hand beside a two-handed weapon. Animated armour’s gauntlets strike with the dice of its level, and its Strength is the role’s. A panoply’s rank in Sword and Board beside a shield is level / 15.

What they leave

For each family: what a creature of it is made of on average (a household thing is its one body), what of it falls whole under the drop rule, and the chances that each piece is at least magic and that it is rare. The rest falls as its parts.

The household things

Speed 1000 is a normal pace. A thing’s Protection, resistances, and death line come from the material its object is first made of. One drawn of another material (a silver candlestick of a brass kind) changes its colour and worth, never its numbers.

By material

What they break into

What each household thing falls to when it breaks, by the material it is made of. The pieces weigh half as much as the part, counted in pieces of that material (see pieces), one at least.

See also: Creatures, Animated things and mimics, and Mimics.