Manticore
GUTS AND GEARS — THE BEASTS AND MACHINES OF THE IRON KINGDOMS
“In battle, there are not more than two methods of attack — the direct and the indirect — yet these two in combination give rise to an endless series of maneuvers.”
— Ossyris, the Sovereign of Conflict
The Manticore has achieved special prominence among the imposing myrmidons brought by House Shyeel to lend their strength to the Retribution.
This war machine perfectly embodies the Shyeel approach to design, which emphasizes versatility. It combines the crushing power of its arm-mounted glaives with considerable firepower. The present iteration of the Manticore is the latest in a long line of myrmidon models dating back to the first fighting machine created by House Shyeel artificers. Manticores stand vigilantly alongside the Homeguard Coalition all along Ios’ borders, but soon they will march to battlefields abroad. The Retribution’s call to war and House Shyeel’s alliance to the cause affords an opportunity for the Manticore to prove its strength against humanity’s steam-powered warjacks.
House Shyeel is synonymous with myrmidons; this house is the premiere myrmidon manufacturer in Ios. The stature of Shyeel among the hallytyr — the “high houses” that rule Ios together as the Consulate Court — is based primarily on this military production capacity. Although there are several other houses that produce myrmidons, none do so remotely on the scale of House Shyeel. Shyeel has transformed an entire city into a factory hub for this work. Lynshynal, once known for the beauty of its canopy of sheltering trees and the Fane of Lurynsar, is now kept warm even in winter not by the blessings of that vanished god of summer but by the forges and factories of House Shyeel. Given this it is easy to forget that myrmidons are, by Iosan standards, a relatively recent innovation.
The artificers who work on these machines do not dwell on the past. One fact in particular that is not widely discussed, particularly in today’s political climate, is the fact that myrmidons owe their origins to humanity. This topic could potentially stir a backlash of resentment from the most extreme members of the Retribution, as the sect believes all human mechanika causes harm to their goddess. Shyeel artificers insist their present work has no relation to this alleged disturbance, but this is a subtlety of distinction that would be lost on their more radical peers.
It was not until the arrival of the Orgoth that Ios began to view humanity as a potential concern and implemented efforts to gather intelligence about the strength of their neighbors. In observing the colossal machines sent against
the Orgoth and the battle-mages who controlled them, Ios realized these once-primitive tribes of savages had become far more dangerous.
Improvements to the smaller warjacks by the nascent Iron Kingdoms in later decades proved this technical innovation was not a fluke.
By this point House Shyeel was already recognized as the undisputed masters of Iosan arcane technology for the precision and ingenuity of their arcanika as well as the power of their battle mages. Military applications were its particular specialty. House Shyeel had a long-standing relationship with the Five Great Military Houses, each of which commissioned its services for the fabrication of special weapons and armor. It was only natural that it and similarly inclined houses, such as the occult-focused House Vyre, would take an interest in humanity’s most sophisticated weapons. It fell to House Shyeel to study these threats and determine a contingency against them in case the weapons should ever be directed against Ios’ borders.
In an incident remembered by few and unrecorded in human annals, a group of Iosan agents managed to seize a pair of labor steamjacks from Llael in 296 AR for study. Scholars gathered by the Consulate Court from Houses Shyeel, Vyre, and several subordinate houses with similar interests disassembled
and scrutinized these machines. They were surprised to discover the general technologies empowering the constructs were simple and grossly inefficient. Clearly Ios could do better. The one hint of genius they found was the cortex, an impressive device that could partially mimic the reasoning of a living mind.
Even in the cortex the Iosans saw considerable room for improvement, but they used what they learned of this human device as the basis for similar artificial minds to regulate the systems of the first myrmidons. After their initial analysis, Houses Shyeel and Vyre went their separate ways as each endeavored to be the first to put a practical design into operation. House Shyeel won this challenge by a wide margin with the creation of the first generation Manticore in 315 AR.
While these houses were pursuing this goal some rare few of their arcanists manifested a previously unrecognized talent. These individuals could sense the presence of nearby cortexes and would later learn how to mentally communicate with them. They would eventually use this talent to control the cortexes of the first generation of myrmidons.
A number of characteristics separate an arcanik cortex from a mechanikal one, but fundamentally they operate on similar principles. The radically different external shape, whereby the arcanika cortex is an inverted cone rather than a sphere, has more to do with manufacturing process and the means by which the arcane mind is integrated into the rest of a myrmidon’s systems than a distinction of operation.
Except for the cortex and its intended purpose in battle, myrmidons share very little in common with human warjacks. House Shyeel approached the design of its first myrmidon by applying long-standing arcanik techniques to empower an autonomous fighting construct. Most importantly, myrmidons are not powered by a fuel-fed steam boiler as an external combustion engine.
They rely instead on a more arcane and self-sustaining power plant that requires neither the burning of coal or other fuel nor periodic water resupply. Instead of creating energy from an exothermic reaction it uses an arcane condenser to siphon latent energy from the surroundings, a process augmented and regulated by certain subtle geomantic and celestial alignments. Condensed power is then accumulated into storage cells. Energy can subsequently be released to drive the motors powering a myrmidon’s limbs or diverted into other energy systems.
This arcane power source allows several related technologies, including the use of strong protective fields that can deflect incoming attacks as well as power energy-based ranged weapons. Applying arcanik techniques it had honed in the fabrication of other weapons, House Shyeel surpassed its rivals by a significant degree in this area.
The manipulation of kinetic and potential energies by arcane will has long been a particular aptitude of House Shyeel, albeit based on older principles used by other houses for such things as large-scale construction. The stones of the great fanes of Ios were lifted into place millennia ago with the aid of this type of arcane technology. These same principles are used in modern myrmidon factories to levitate individual parts and hold them together until arcanists can finalize their fusion and integration. Most of these power generators are extremely large pieces of equipment, and only through the genius of Shyeel artificers were these technologies reduced to serve as the core power generator of a myrmidon. In subsequent decades other houses borrowed heavily from Shyeel invention for their variant myrmidons, including adapting similar force field projection technology.
While the Manticore is respected for its tremendous melee capability, bringing to bear a pair of arm-mounted glaives, in this first generation it was more importantly proof that such a fighting machine and its power field could also generate devastating ranged attacks.
This required the modification and installation of several intricate firing focus aperture devices to manipulate the power field and send its energies as coherent bursts directed at distant targets.
The first generation Manticore was much less efficient and accurate than the current model. Although in the centuries Ios has been in relative isolation it has never waged war on outsiders, its houses have maintained strict military vigilance. No military technology has been allowed to stagnate. House Shyeel and others have diligently improved their weapons over these years. Even before recent events the hallytyr had been mindful that potentially hostile neighbors with considerably larger armies surrounded them and that an attack could come at any time.
Accordingly each of the various myrmidon chassis constructed by House Shyeel has experienced redesign and overhaul every thirty to forty years. The current Manticore is the eighth generation of myrmidons to bear that name. The latest includes several advanced systems expected to make it a key element of any Retribution assault. Only in the last three generations has the Manticore’s firing system become capable of sustained energy pulse bursts, providing suppression fire on enemy infantry or other light targets. Similarly, advancements in arcanik energy storage and regulation has allowed for the implementation of the force generator, a powerful device that adds the energy provided by a warcaster to its power field in order to supercharge the myrmidon’s arms with exceptional strength. Empowered by this energy, a Manticore can drive its glaives entirely through even thick plates of alloyed steel. When striking with both arms it can rip even a heavily armored Khadoran ’jack in half.
The current Manticore began supporting military garrisons across Ios in 575 AR. It was given the chance to join battle during the War of the Houses, a period of civil unrest that consumed Ios from 581–584 AR. Manticores fought alongside several of the involved houses, with the largest number joining the Dawnguard of House Nyarr. This war was notable in several respects but in particular for pitting the myrmidons of House Shyeel against those of its rivals in House Vyre.
Consul Ghyrrshyld of House Vyre was the instigator of the War of the Houses; the powerful politician, occultist, and warcaster sought to seize ultimate power in Ios with a bloody coup. The Manticore played a key role both in driving Ghyrrshyld’s forces from the capital during the initial skirmishes
and in numerous smaller battles. The rapid fire of its cannon proved to be particularly useful in the street-to-street fighting consuming the city of Iryss in the final year of the war. It was here the Vyre defenders were driven back for a last stand in their heavily armed house compound.
The benefit of actual testing in the grueling realities of battle gives the Manticore an edge over most of its newer counterparts and has led to improvements in House Shyeel’s other preferred chassis types. Certainly the arcanists and artificers of the house are eager for the additional field data that will arise as the Retribution advances its agenda abroad. The Manticore’s next test of battle is expected to be with the Winter’s Hammer task force led by Dawnlord Vyros, a force preparing to advance into Khadoran soil to find and liberate Nyssor, the god of winter.
Fonte: No Quarter 25
