Faction Introduction: The Mechana

The Mechana Plan

The Mechana are the most singleminded of all of the factions. They have their plan – their Grand Design, if you will – and they're sticking to it. And that plan is Constructs, Constructs, Constructs! The Mechana are all about building things – their god is The Builder, after all – and their plan of action against The Fallen One is no different. They seek to assemble a massive machine of such power that it can drive back the invading monsters itself – just as soon as they work all the bugs out...

The gameplay of the Mechana is fairly straightforward – buy Mechana Constructs early and often! Much of the power for the Mechana faction lies in the interactions between the parts of their massive machine. Some cards, like the Burrower Mark IV, make every additional Mechana Construct you acquire that much better, since they replace themselves as soon as they come into play. Others, like The Grand Design and the Rocket Courier X-99, make it that much easier to assemble the machine itself by helping you acquire the pieces and put them into play right away. Once you have the machine going, the Hedron Cannon lets you put all of the pieces to good use, blasting away even the biggest Monsters you might face.

There are some important things to watch out for when you're going the Mechana route. Some Monsters have rewards that can ruin all of your hard work by forcing you to discard your Constructs from play. Look out for the Corrosive Widow and the Sea Tyrant, and if they do come up, try to defeat them before your opponents can! For this reason it can be worth investing in some Power cards so you can kill them first, or go the Enlightened route so you can use cards like Seer of the Forked Path to banish them straight up.

The Mechana works especially well with the Lifebound because both factions focus on generating Honor without killing Monsters, the Lifebound directly and the Mechana through the huge Honor value of their Constructs. Additionally, the Rune production that Lifebound provides can give the Mechana player the boost he needs to start buying the bigger Constructs, which can help buying more Constructs, which help you buy more, and so on.

What Makes the Mechana Tick?

There is one venerable and divine cosmic force that sees the very dimensions themselves as cogs in one glorious machine. Intricately-crafted worlds, floating in oceans of stars, are the larger gears of all existence. The levels of complexity below them- civilizations, cities, households, individuals, and the multitudinous biological systems that maintain mortal bodies, are yet smaller and more delicate examples of the same order. Though impossibly small and intricate relative to the macrocosm, the mortal will and heart are little more than infinitesimal components subject to the meddling of the watchmakers that dwell in the higher realms.

The greatest of artisans, creator of the extra-planar realm of Hedron (and indeed, it is literally an ever-turning mass of gears and sprockets), is the god Euloth, The Builder. Those beings that follow his blueprints are known as the Mechana.

On the ever-shifting surface of Hedron they dwell, a people to whom life is the fulfillment of the “blueprints” of one’s superiors. The Mechana exist by the thousands on an irregular metal sphere, forever-expanding the Hedron gearworks with add-on mechanisms authorized by their god. At the core, they tunnel through an endless mass of earth for clues and artifacts left by Euloth for their finding- a carrot, dangled enticingly before the mechanical donkey of their ever-curious populace. For the Mechana there is no greater triumph than a new idea, no nobler pursuit than invention.

The Mechana are a stout and gritty race of clambering, teeth-clenched engineers who seldom bathe or spend any time outside of their custom-fitted safety-suits. Hedron is a constantly-shifting and hazardous work environment that makes dozens of careless engineers ‘obsolete’ on a daily basis. Work-related accidents are seen as a noble end, and the families of incinerated, irradiated or oil-drowned inventors are always eager to take over for their unfortunate kin.

To the Mechana, the mortals of Vigil are biological artifacts left behind by the ancient contemporaries of their own god, Euloth, and are therefore suitable for study. Architects and machinists from Hedron are happy to aid in the rescue of Vigil from Samael’s hordes for the same reason that you or I might want to prevent an endangered owl preserve from being flattened by a cadre of bulldozers. In addition to the value they see in learning from the humans of Vigil, they have no doubt that Vigil is home to many of the “secret” artifacts left behind by Euloth. They can’t wait to start digging once the current bothersome crisis is over.

All of Hedron is powered by a huge reactor that turns various forms of organic and inorganic material into energy. This is achieved via a process that no Mechana claims to full understand, but one thing is certain- if you descend to level 5436A and put Material A into Feeder Port B, the lights stay on. They also know that descending into the Hedron Reactor is dangerous, as the very environment will kill any unshielded biological life form as dead as a coffin nail within two hours.

Those brave few who volunteer to carry feeder materials down to the Reactor are not necessarily brave at all. Many are actually insane, inventors who wish to perform tests in the radiation, “obsoletes” with no other purpose in Mechana society, or all three at once. That said, there is one sect that is entrusted with keeping the sacred Reactor operating instructions as well as ensuring that radiation-mad volunteers don’t stuff the power conveyor full of explosives. These brave souls are known as Reactor Monks- and to them, the maintenance of the Hedron Reactor is a religious experience.

Euloth’s favor does not fall exclusively upon the keepers of the machine, though- the acclaim of the Builder is also eagerly sought by those who create new machines and works of architecture.

To the Mechana, plagiarism is the most capital of crimes, and all others are tied for second. In order to prevent the outright copying of ideas, all designs, whether they’re schematics for an inefficient siege-tank or a recipe for a new mossroot-flavored nutrient paste, but be “run past the man upstairs”. Each day, hundreds of hopeful inventors gather at a Watchmaker’s Altar, lay out their blueprints, and pray to Euloth for his blessings. Only inventions with Euloth’s blessing are authorized to be made.

It’s by this function that Watchmaker’s Altars serve as social centers for enterprising Mechana whose collars are a bit less grime-stained than their oil peers. Often, inventors bounce ideas off of each other before and after their prayers- and these impromptu think tanks have led to the creation of many of Hedron’s greatest technological triumphs, from the shock-resistant golem saddle to the Burrower Mark II industrial-strength drill.

While it’s true that these inventions and others meant for the Mechana have little application in the war against Samael, let it never be said that the Mechana aren’t doing their part to aid the war effort. In fact, they’ve come up with a “surefire” plan to end hostilities in one shot.

So, above you can see the blueprint- let me walk you through it. Prepare to have your mind blown. The plane on the lower-left is Hedron- it’s tens of thousands of miles in diameter. What this document proposes is to build a cannon so large that it sprawls across one entire side of the Hedron sphere…a cannon that takes aim across the dimensions to destroy the entire realm of Deofol, ending Samael’s invasion once and for all by destroying the source of his hordes. It will be the universe’s first “Plane-Mounted” dimensional cannon!

While the design is only in the planning stages, Mechana inventors are confident that once certain logistic obstacles are figured out it will prove a practical strategy. Don’t worry, hero- this is exactly what your resistance effort has been needing. We’ll work out the kinks after lunch.