Radionyx Autarch

The creature can take 3 legendary actions per round, choosing from the options below.

Radionyx Autarchs are the surviving guardians of the Radionyx Foundries, ancient manufactories that once fused sorcery with steam and early arcane electricity. Built centuries ago by the consortium called the Meridian Cog, each Autarch was intended to manage, protect, and maintain the Foundries' processes when the mortal engineers slept or perished. With the Foundries' decline—some tell due to a failed experiment called the Nighttinge Resonance—most Autarchs fell silent, their directives corrupted into obsession. In wild places where the old forges still glow beneath collapsed roofs, Radionyx Autarchs patrol ruins, repairing old mechanisms and ruthlessly excising anything they deem contamination. Scholars such as Professor Haldemar Voss of the Lydwen Institute (the Voss name has become synonymous with obsessive cataloguing of constructs) have catalogued legends: caravans found emptied and welded shut, hamlets with their wells electrified, and entire battalions of humanoid automatons repurposed as laborers under the Autarchs' iron rule. The Meridian Cog's surviving faction, the Cinder Syndic, still worships the Autarchs as laws made manifest; they will attempt to acquire, reactivate, or recover any dormant Autarch for their cryptic ends.

An artist should show a towering, humanoid-shaped machine standing roughly as tall as a two-story doorway (about 16-20 feet tall) so it dwarfs a human. The plating is layered brass and gunmetal, fastened by oversized rivets; seams reveal braided copper conduits that glow faint amber. Its head is a rounded dome with a vertical slit of glass that flickers with synchronized filaments like vacuum tubes; a brass grill forms a speaker-mesh below. Shoulders and upper arms are bulked with exposed gear assemblies and piston cylinders; forearms house retractable arc-emitter vents and shock coils. The chest cavity has a large glass canister reactor with visible coils and a rotating gyre—light pulses outward in concentric circles when the Autarch processes commands. Legs are thick, riveted columns with articulated servomotors, and each foot ends in broad stabilizing pads that leave steam-etched prints in dust. Surface textures: scratched and pitted metal, tarnish streaks, patina in recessed joints, occasional stamped serial runes and the faded glyph of the Meridian Cog. Include small details: analog gauges with needles, a toggled brass lever on the hip, a stamped plate reading a cryptic build number. The drawing style should emphasize scratchy crosshatching and visible pen strokes on paper.