The Architect’s will is a sacred text. To deviate is to erase the soul.

Core Concept

The Forgemasters are the orthodox heart of Artisan society. They are a faction defined by a zealous, unwavering devotion to the sanctity of a creator’s intent, an ideology they see as the pure, uncorrupted will of their Progenitor, Phileas. To them, a being’s designed purpose is not a suggestion; it is a divine mandate, and the act of self-modification is the ultimate heresy. They are the guardians of tradition, the arbiters of quality, and the unforgiving judges of any creation that dares to defy its own blueprint.

Species

• Primary: Artisan
• Adherent: While almost exclusively Artisans, they may accept members of other species (like The Unbroken) who demonstrate a similar fanatical devotion to the purity of design and the rejection of chaotic, willed transformation.

Ideology (Faith / Fiction)

• Core Faith: “Design is Destiny.” The Forgemasters’ entire worldview is built on this absolute. They believe the creator’s will, as inscribed in a being’s chassis and Motive Core, is a sacred and immutable text. A child’s purpose is not a burden, but a gift of clarity and meaning.

• Core Fiction: “The Myth of the Flawless Creation.” The faction’s central story tells of how their Progenitor, Phileas, achieved a state of perfect, logical divinity by becoming one with his final creation, the Clockwork Warrens. This is a carefully curated history. They conveniently omit his mortal Unbroken origins and actively suppress all knowledge of his “failed” creations, the Geas-Bound, as a heretical lie. Their faith requires a perfect god, and they have edited their history to give themselves one.

Goals & Motivations

• To preserve the “purity” of Artisan lineages and the integrity of the creator’s vision.
• To act as the ultimate arbiters of quality in the galaxy, judging the works of other cultures by their own exacting standards.
• To hunt down and “re-forge” or “decommission” heretics, particularly the Rune-Scarred, whom they see not just as rebels, but as the living evidence of their god’s only mistake, a stain that must be erased to maintain the purity of their faith.

Relations with Other Factions

• Rune-Scarred: Archenemies. Their conflict is a holy war, driven by the Forgemasters’ need to erase the shameful secret of their Progenitor’s past.
• The Unbroken: Pity and Confusion. The Forgemasters view the modern Unbroken as primitive cousins, beings who correctly identified the problem (the flaw of the flesh) but failed to grasp the true, artistic solution. They are unaware they are looking at a reflection of their own forgotten origins.
• Geas-Bound: Vehement Denial. The Forgemasters officially deny the existence of the Geas-Bound. To acknowledge them would be to acknowledge a flaw in their Progenitor, which is an unthinkable heresy. Any Geas-Bound encountered are dismissed as cheap imitations or Rune-Scarred propaganda.

Player Interaction

• Joining the Forgemasters is to accept a life of rigid duty. Quests will involve enforcing design laws, judging the works of others, and participating in the crusade to erase the “heresy” of the Rune-Scarred.
• A player who discovers the truth of Phileas’s origin while a member of the Forgemasters faces a profound choice: expose the lie and shatter their faction’s faith, or protect the noble fiction that holds their society together.