Denizens of the Wicked City 3: Brass Men (playable character class)

The Brass Folk are a self-perpetuating race of intelligent brass and clockwork automata. They claim to have been created by a woman whom they call the Cogwheel Sage: they worship her as the mother of their race, and claim that she still lives somewhere beyond the mountains, having long since replaced her frail flesh-and-blood body with a superior frame of indestructible brass. (Occasionally, especially devout Brass Folk set out on pilgrimages to find her, although they either return empty-handed or not at all: the mountain passes are not kind to those who are heavy of tread.) They travel the land in great clanking caravans, pulled by enormous bronze horses. They are expert in all forms of clockwork and metalcraft, including the repair and creation of their own kind, although building the brain of a new Brass Man or Brass Woman from scratch is so labour-intensive, and requires so much ultra-fine clockwork, that most Brass Folk caravans only expand their own numbers in times of great prosperity.

When the Brass Folk come to a community, they will offer to carry out mechanical repairs, make or fix metal objects, sell guns, clocks and pocket-watches, and manufacture clockwork prosthetics for anyone who has lost a limb. In return, they always want the same things: metal and coal. They avoid violence whenever possible, but a community which treats them poorly can expect to find itself afflicted with a severe clockroach infestation the day after they depart.

Game information for Brass Folk PCs is as follows:

• You must have a strength and constitution of at least 12 to play one of the Brass Folk.
• You may use any weapons or shields. Your bulky mechanical body grants you +5 AC, but prevents you from wearing any other armour.
• You gain 1d10 hit points per level.
• You gain a bonus to all your to-hit rolls equal to half your level, rounded up.
• You gain a bonus to technology rolls equal to half your level, rounded up.
• Your heavy brass fists allow you to inflict 1d4 damage with melee attacks even when unarmed.
• You get a -2 penalty to REF saves (included in the table below), and a -2 penalty to initiative rolls.
• The whirring and clanking of your heavy brass body makes a hell of a lot of noise. Your enemies are never surprised, and you always fail any attempts to move silently.
• You do not need to eat, drink, or sleep, and you are immune to poison and disease. 
• You need winding up in order to function. All brass folk have steam-powered auto-winders, normally built directly into their bodies; when fed a supply of wood or coal, these auto-winders will spin rapidly, turning the brass man's key in the process. They must sit still during the winding, or else they risk damaging their delicate internal machinery. One hour's auto-winding will power three hours of activity. If fuel for it is unavailable, the key may be turned by hand, but doing this rakes six times as long, is amazingly boring, and risks causing strain injuries. For obvious reasons, they cannot wind themselves up.
• When you have been wound for a number of hours equal to your Constitution score (thus permitting three times your Constitution score in hours of continuous activity), your main-spring is fully wound and further winding has no effect. If you reach the end of your 'powered' time without having a chance to rewind, you can stumble on for one extra hour, getting slower and slower: you have -4 Dexterity and Strength during this time. At the end of this extra hour, you shut down entirely until rewound. 
• You do not feel pain. Normal healing does not help you, but you can repair yourself when damaged, regaining 1 HP per day for field repairs carried out on the march, and 3 HP per day for a day spent doing nothing else. These numbers each rise by 1 if there is someone with a technology bonus of 3 or higher around to lend a hand. 
• If you are reduced to 0 HP, you are too badly damaged to be repaired in the field, but with the right tools and expertise you can still be repaired in a well-equipped workshop, and will retain your memories and personality unless your clockwork brain has also been damaged or destroyed. 

Brass Folk Summary Table

Level	Hit Points	To Hit Bonus	Technology Bonus	Fortitude save (FORT)	Reflex save (REF)	Willpower save (WILL)
1	1d10	+1	+1	14	16	14
2	2d10	+1	+1	13	15	13
3	3d10	+2	+2	12	14	12
4	4d10	+2	+2	11	13	11
5	5d10	+3	+3	10	12	10
6	6d10	+3	+3	9	11	9
7	7d10	+4	+4	8	10	8
8	8d10	+4	+4	7	9	7
9	9d10	+5`	+5	6	8	6
10	10d10	+5	+5	5	7	5

Starting equipment: Huge two-handed hammer (1d10 damage), 2 pistols (1d8 damage, 3 rounds to reload, one built into each forearm), compass (built into palm), bronze horse (twice as strong as a normal horse but slow and very clumsy, eats coal, needs winding just like you do - replaces default riding horse), box of tools and spare parts, bag of coal, 2d6x10 sp.