Welcome to the (Castle) Machine

Art by Jeremy Duncan

Castle Machina is the palace and workshop of Viola, the Clockwork Princess of the Country of Yanth. It sits at the center of a walled compound of laboratories, workshops, and barracks accommodating the Princess's gnomic associates.

The castle was built from the legendary Walking Castle of Mirabilis Lum. The old artificer reportedly chose the location because of the caves beneath. Using automaton workers, Lum turned the upper cave levels in laboratories--then disappeared into them, never to be seen again. His castle sat empty for a time, them artificers, tinkerers, and would-be treasure hunters descended upon it to scavenge Lum's secrets. Some fell to cunning traps Lum had left behind, but most lost their lives to simple heedlessness regarding the castle's dangers.

Over time, a tribe of gnomes was able to make a home in the castle and even began remodeling it to their needs. Their triumph only lasted a handful of years before they accidentally released a creature part-machine, part-ogre, Clanking Borgo, that made himself the castle's ruler. He enslaved the gnomes and exacted tribute from passing river traffic. This state of affairs lasted until the Princess arrived from places unknown to vanquish the ogre and very shortly thereafter be declared ruler of the whole country by the Wizard.

Despite being the center of the Princess's government, the castle has not being completely tamed. Oozes and slimes--the results of failed experiments and alchemical wastes--seep through the depths beneath. Dangerous automata and magical curiosities from all of Lum's travels lurk in forgotten rooms, waiting to be re-activated. There are even rumored to be unguarded portals to other worlds.