I was thinking about a one off encounter, the lair of a mad gnome tinker by the name of Calliope who’s skills with arcane energies are only matched by his metal crafting and both are topped by his insanity.
Driven deep into the mountains by those who cast him out he started crafting his animates. The first one was of course rough and crude given he was driven out without any tools but that one helped him build a better one and that one and so on. As time went on he started researching the necromatic arts and came up with a way to use brain tissue from animals to expand the ‘intelligence’ of his creations. None were truely alive or thought but could react to stimuli and execute commands of greater complexity than standard homonoculous and golems and the like. Calliope called his creations Ticktocks after his first love of clocks.
Calliope’s knowledge grew and so did the sophistication of his creations but as with all living things, he could not out run Time. Before his death he crafted his last and greatest creation and set in motion events that resulted in his own brain being used as part of it. Again this ultimate result of the tinker’s skills and research was not truly alive and thinking but nor was it truly dead and merely programmed responses. It sits still in the lair of Calliope and oversees the creation and direction of the animates. Lacking the intelligence and spark of creativity it none the less can still continue with the status quo.
And thus Ticktock Minions continue to keep the lair in pristine shape, Ticktock Borers continue to drive into the earth mining the metals and gems that go into the creation of their kin while Ticktock Crafters replace those that wear out and Ticktock Destroyers keep them all safe from those that would harm them.
My thoughts on this were an encounter of level’s in the 6-9 range. Some encounters with mining and resource gatherer ticktocks as they worked their way into the lair, the landscape empty and barren and very post-industrial war torn as the machines have stripped it bare. Inside encounters with more powerful units, borers with grinding claws and flame spouting furnaces, crafters that can damage armour from their ability to sense the weak points to the Destroyers that come to repel the invaders, culminating in a solo boss encounter with multiple environmental hazards and waves of minions coming in over time to the summons of the big boss.
In terms of unique loot I believe a small animate would be in order, something on the order of the tiny bot from Spy Kids, something that’s on the order of Cool but not gamebreaking or anything. People love Cool.
