Taking on The Nothic's Eye GLÅUGUST 2025, challenge #5 is from a list by Archon - "Minor social movement" - we discuss below the Comission for the Ethical Sourcing of Construct Souls.
The recent arrival of 'brassbones' - also known as warforged elsewhere in the multiverse - has caused some debate among the artificers and clergy of Krarland and other parts. Before them everything was clear.
Everyone knew that a wizards staff does not have a soul, that a homonculus was just an extension of a wizards self and that familiars were just sparks of the feywild, mirrors to a wizards will.
For the longest time everyone knew that constructs like enchanted broomsticks, talking clocks and dancing chairs and the like were just clever tools, extensions of the wizards hands.
But once the constructs grew more and more versatile, and clearly were be-souled as they could ask and care about questions like 'did they have souls' then the troubling question arose of where were these souls coming from?
Were souls from the great cycle now being incarnated in metal forms - the artificers workbench standing in for the mothers womb? Or were these new souls being drawn from some source attuned to metal, wood and stone? Were these dwarves in different forms?
A quiet sense of unease spread among the temples and workshops, a sense that while the need to know the answer to the question is not yet critically necessary, something of potentially great import was being meddled with blindly. With a feeling that it might become very important to be clear on the answer suddenly and without warning, the commission for the ethical sourcing of construct souls was founded.
The commission can be a vehicle for introducing NPCs with a specialty in information-gathering or any arcanist or clergy. It could also be a vehicle for NPCs to know one another if necessary - or a reason why given NPCs are distracted.
The first 6 of the below can be placed anywhere - such as a dungeon - the Commissioners were either seeking privacy to discuss the matter or gathering information in this out of the way place.
d8 Things Commissioners Might be Encountered Doing
1. Complicated auguries - a group of otherwise perfectly respectable and upstanding clerics acting really suspiciously because they are worried the very existence of brassbones is disrupting some natural cycle with terrible consequences but they do not want to start a panic. Yet.
2. Interrogation of summoned fiends - a masterclass in dread summoning by some morally-grey conjurers supported by every forbidden tome ever confiscated by the major temples. The fiends trying to figure out why they are being asked these questions, how rich could this new vein of souls be. Conjurers trying to find excuses to use and possibly memorize tricks from these books they never get access to. Clerics trying to block both but wring useful answers from the fiends.
3. Attempted necromancy on a smashed brassbones - necromancers with a grim group of death clerics carefully studying what kinds of things raise brassbone corpses and how different they might be.
4. Comparative soul analysis - brassbones and volunteer civilians being brought on a tour of spiritually null, isolated, hallowed and desecrated places to witness and record their relative reactions.
5. Crowd sourcing ancient legends in 'old folk' communities - sages touring dwellings of the long lived - elves, giants, dragons, etc - and asking them about their ancient legends for any similar happening before.
6. A mixed group of arcanists, clerics and other interested parties attempting to collate various notes from all the above efforts into some sort of order - currently it is a mess of chalk scribbles, tacked up notes and lengths of red string with people standing within it pointing and arguing.
(Outside the dungeon)
7. An incredibly over-engineered hospital offer free treatment for any injured brassbones - hugely overstaffed, with far too many high level clerics present for the small handful of damaged brassbones. The place is festooned with divination magics.
8. Incredibly over-engineered temple to craft gods - brassbones being assembled amidst an array of divination devices, meditating acolytes and other things meant to give some indication of where the soul entered the new form from.
This is a fun concept!
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