Modrons
Made with Hero Forge
(from D&D 5th Edition Monster Manual - 2014 - [credits])
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Modrons are beings of absolute law that adhere to a hive-like hierarchy. They inhabit the plane of Mechanus and tend its eternally revolving gears, their existence a clockwork routine of perfect order.
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Absolute Law and Order. Under the direction of their leader, Primus, modrons increase order in the multiverse in accordance with laws beyond the comprehension of mortal minds. Their own minds are networked in a hierarchal pyramid, in which each modron receives commands from superiors and delegates orders to underlings. A modron carries out commands with total obedience, utmost efficiency, and an absence of morality or ego.
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Modrons have no sense of self beyond what is necessary to fulfill their duties. They exist as a unified collective, divided by ranks, yet they always refer to themselves collectively. To a modron, there is no “I,” but only “we” or “us.”
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Absolute Hierarchy. Modrons communicate only with their own rank and the ranks immediately above and below them. Modrons more than one rank away are either too advanced or too simple to understand.
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Cogs of the Great Machine. If a modron is destroyed, its remains disintegrate. A replacement from the next lowest rank then transforms in a flash of light, gaining the physical form of its new rank. The promoted modron is replaced by one of its underlings in the same manner, all the way to the lowest levels of the hierarchy. There, a new modron is created by Primus, with a steady stream of monodrones leaving the Great Modron Cathedral on Mechanus as a result.
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Rogue Modrons. A modron unit sometimes becomes defective, either through natural decay or exposure to chaotic forces. Rogue modrons don’t act in accordance with Primus’s wishes and directives, breaking laws, disobeying orders, and even engaging in violence. Other modrons hunt down such rogues.
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A rogue modron loses the Axiomatic Mind trait and can have any alignment other than lawful neutral. Otherwise, it has the same statistics as a regular modron of its rank.
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The Great Modron March. When the gears of Mechanus complete seventeen cycles once every 289 years, Primus sends a vast army of modrons across the Outer Planes, ostensibly on a reconnaissance mission. The march is long and dangerous, and only a small number of modrons returns to Mechanus.
(from Planescape Campaign Setting Monstrous Supplement - 1994 - [credits])
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What's a mortal to make of the modrons, those strange creatures of absolute order who whir and click on the plane of Mechanus? Theirs are not like other lives - even the infinitely subtle baatezu are more comprehensible than these thronging drones. To an outsider it appears the modrons have no existence other than as a whole. Indeed, there is a saying: "To look at one modron is to look at all of them."
It is only logical, as it is with all things modron, that they are native to the orderly plane of Mechanus. The two, plane and modrons, probably would not exist without each other — modron society defines the plane, just as the plane shapes them. To understand the modrons, a being must stop thinking like a person, like an individual. Only then can anyone hope to comprehend the patterns of modron life.
Modrons are strictly divided into fourteen castes. Castes are hardly unique, but the modron approach to them is. Not only does each rank have its own functions, but each also has its own body shape, so the rank of any modron can be readily identified by the creature's appearance.
Ruling over the castes is Primus, the One and the Prime. It and the plane are one in thought and deed; as Primus turns, so do the wheels of Mechanus.