Ian "Ironwing" Farthing
The only son of Dr. Nicholas Farthing, Ironwing has dedicated himself to the destruction of his father's Fabulous Engine.
Appearance
With his silvery scales of steel, his vast, and shining wings, and long and terrible claws, Ironwing is a sight to behold, a great dragon made all of iron and brass, belching steam from his fanged mouth.
History/Background
Born well after Dr. Nicholas Farthing built his first Fabulous Engine, Ian Farthing had succumbed to the strange sicknesses that raced through the lands where his father's factory stood. His body was a twisted, and awful thing, even as an infant, and his crabbed arms and legs would never walk, nor would his malformed mouth ever speak. And to give birth to this monstrosity cost his weakened mother her very life.
Enraged at the gods for taking away his wife, sickly though she was, and twisting his son, Nicholas swore that Ian would not die, but rather, transcend mere humanity. And he began to draw his plans, and to build. A new body he built for his twisted son, in the form of the most powerful creatures of myth, and at its heart he placed the most refined of his Fabulous Engines, before splicing his own child into the machine's head.
It was long before Ian learned to appreciate this vast, and powerful body, spending much of his time shying away from the fear of the town's citizens, though his ability to work with this new form was surprisingly great, and he never quite lost his kinship with those who suffered from the strange diseases and maladies.
For a time, his father used him as an enforcer, the only human who seemed to appreciate him, to protect his factory, especially against the new idea of 'unions', until the reason for the sicknesses became understood. The "magical" material at the heart of the Fabulous engine was poison. Enraged, he turned upon his father, and slew him, destroying the very factories that birthed his mighty body. He swore that his father's engine would die, and began the process of hunting for them, and for the engineers that knew to build them...
Roleplaying Notes
Ian "Ironwing" Farthing is on a mission, and the accomplishment of that mission is everything to him - Even the lives of individuals mean nothing, if they stand in the way of saving humanity from his father's legacy. Unfortunately, lacking any particular way to sense the presence of the Fabulous Engine, he must rely on allies and spies to find them, so he cannot simply rampage over cities, much as he would prefer to - it would likely cost him his helpers.
He is able to identify each of those directly taught by his father to build the engines, and the engines themselves, when in operation, but will require additional information to find any further passings of the art.
Indeed, Ian's senses are relatively poor, due to the primitive, clockwork organs that are spliced inefficiently to his own to provide him with sight, sound, scent, and a parody of touch. Even so, he is formidable in combat, his mechanical construction lending him a strength and durability exceeding even that of the legendary beast he is patterned after, only enhanced by the broiling, radioactive steam he can discharge from his mouth, as if he were breathing flame.
Steampunk!
Any sort of steampunk at all from thaumatech to simple old-fashioned steamtech.
Wind up your imaginations and start the kettle boiling!
15XP for each submission with 100XP for 1st and 50XP for second.
Not Registered Yet? No problem.
Do you want Strolenati super powers? Registering. That's how you get super powers! These are just a couple powers you receive with more to come as you participate.
- Upvote and give XP to encourage useful comments.
- Work on submissions in private or flag them for assistance.
- Earn XP and gain levels that give you more site abilities (super powers).
- You should register. All your friends are doing it!
? Responses (5)
Inspired by Anne McCaffrey: The Ship Who Sang, and related books.
Wow!
Nicely done Siren! Kudos indeed.
The image that I have is less shining steel and brass, and more, after his obsession has truly set in, a monstrous creature of a rusty and tarnished hue, looming suddenly from a thick pea-souper fog.
Imagine, as rad-sickness and cancers set into him, being trapped so close to a live and leaky nuclear reactor all the time; each encounter, he gets weaker and weaker, until, in an encounter, he suddenly collapses, stone dead.
And as the party exchanges looks, bewildered, they hear a thin, raspy voice. "I ain't done yet..." And the mechanical abomination lurches upward again, tougher than ever because now there's nothing /alive/ in it to get rid of.
I've got a question. Wouldn't it have made more sense for him to keep his father alive so that the old man could have been tortured into divulge the locations of the other reactors? Killing the inventor of the machines strikes me as a rather wasteful way of disposing of such a potentially useful resource.
Only in as much as he knows who he's sold them to. However, blind rage is not always the most ... sensible of emotive states. One of the things that may drive Ian as he goes on in his mission is running from the guilt of patricide.