Primus

Description

(from Planescape Campaign Setting Monstrous Supplement - 1994):

Primus is the ruler of all the modron realm. It and it alone understands the whole structure of the modron race, since it sits at its pinnacle. From there it decrees what is order, writes the laws, and establishes the rules and regulations. All other modrons exist to carry out the plans and obey the rules of Primus. Failure to meet this powerful creature’s standards will result in a modron being declared rogue and sentenced accordingly.

Primus is a huge being who rises from an energy pool in the central part of its great tower at the center of the plane (although Primus also may appear as a normal androgynous human). In giant form Primus’s hands are unseen, for the right one is swathed in bright rainbow hues and the left is covered with inky dark clouds.

Within Mechanus, Primus has the status of a greater power, except it is possible for Primus to die, albeit only under near-impossible conditions. Its sole concern is for the modrons. It does not send avatars to other planes or even take part in the normal bickering and wars of the planar powers. All modrons with priestly powers gain their spells directly from it.

The death of Primus does not break the link in modron society, for like all gaps, the vacancy is filled by promotion of the one of the secundi. However, the process usually creates turmoil since, without a Primus, chaos is allowed to enter into the perfection of modron society. Some scholars have mistakenly interpreted this chaos as civil war within this orderly race. The first act of the new Primus is to return order to its race, a process which can take some time.

(from 1st Edition Monster Manual II - 1983):

Primus is the ruler of all the planes of Nirvana. Primus, and Primus alone, sets the order, wntes the laws, and establishes the rules and regulations. All others carry out the plans and obey the rules of Primus. Failure to meet this powerful creature's standards means a return to the energy pool at best as a monodrone.

Primus is a huge being who rises from the energy pool in the centraI part of his great tower at the center of the plane, although the Prime One may also appear as a normal human. In giant form, Primus' hands are unseen, the right swathed in rainbow-bright lights, the left clouded in inky darkness. Those creatures struck by the light hand must save vs. spe tls or be teleported to Arcadia, those struck by the left must save or be sent to Acheron.

Primus casts spells as a 30th-level cleric and a 25th-leve magic-user. Primus may communicate immediately with any of the creatures of Nirvana: this allows Primus almost total knowledge of the plane.

(from Planescape: Hellbound: The Blood War -1996):

A power less impassioned - but no less lawful - is Primus, the neutral patron of the modrons of Mechanus. It views the Blood War as chaos on a mammoth scale. Primus hates the tanar'ri, but it has no love of the baatezu, either. It sees them as a mockery of law - the fiends constantly look for a loophole, a way out, an interpretation that best suits their own purposes. But when the time comes to choose a side, when the tanar'ri get a little too close to stirring up trouble on Mechanus, Primus subtly sets events in motion for its unquestioning followers to take action. Usually, all the god need do is make apparent the movement of the tanar'ri (which it casts as an undesirable shift in the cosmic balance). The modrons then work to set things right, often through their Army of the Blood War.

(from Planescape Adventure: The Great Modron March - 1997):

The secundus left the chamber after communing with the One and the Prime. It scuttled off to and relay its orders so that Primus's directives would work their way down the chain of command/communication. The required tasks would then be completed in an orderly and timely fashion. Its pace was even, its steps unhurried. Everything in Regulus operated smoothly, efficiently, and by the lawful pattern. It always did. 

The One and the Prime was left alone in the central chamber hidden away in the bowels of the Great Modron Cathedral. It was, as always, connected to the latticework of waxy strands called the Infinity Web, which provided it with information from throughout the gears of Mechanus - and, to a lesser extent, much of the entire multiverse. Through its connection to the web, Primus saw through the eyes of all of its subordinates - even those it had dispatched throughout the planes and those it had commanded to gaze into the Cathedral's Orrery and observe the actions of creatures everywhere. The One and the Prime observed as much or more than any other being in the multiverse. Everything within the central chamber (and indeed, all of Mechanus) was operating smoothly, efficiently, and by the lawful pattern....

(from 4th Edition Dragon Magazine #414: Ecology of the Modron - Campaign Setting Monstrous Supplement - 2012):

PRIMUS, THE ONE AND THE PRIME:

An enigmatic being of godlike power, Primus alone sits at the pinnacle of modron society. As both the supreme ruler of modrons and the literal embodiment of the race, Primus represents the ideal of perfect logic. Its true goals remain inscrutable, but many presume it seeks to spread logic and the rule of law throughout the multiverse.

In its natural form Primus is a being of gargantuan size, dwelling within the pool at the apex of its tower in Regulus. Humanoid in shape, Primus is silent and impassive, its face devoid of emotion. Its upper torso and head appear fashioned of solid gold, its lower body fading into the energy of the pool.

According to obscure planar lore, individual modrons are merely components of the vast distributed body that is Primus. At the end of each Cycle, the One and the Prime undergoes disassembly and renewal. This process gives rise to thousands of new modrons, replenishing those that perished in the preceding Cycle. The new Primus, formed from one of the secondi that attend it, spends some time familiarizing itself with its new existence, then begins directing underlings according to its inscrutable plan.

A century past, the One and the Prime met an unscheduled demise. Seeking his lost rod, the demon lord Orcus infiltrated the tower of Primus and disintegrated the supreme ruler with a word of power. Orcus then bent the modrons to his foul purpose. Once the would-be god had gleaned all he desired, Orcus cast off his facade and abandoned the leaderless modrons. Yet, as has happened innumerable times before, a secundus quickly rose up to claim the mantle of the One and the Prime and restore order.

This new Primus, seeing Mechanus invaded, its city in ruins, and its subjects corrupted, turned the modrons’ attentions inward, calling all survivors back to Regulus before sealing the borders. Few modrons had been seen in the century since, but inexplicably thousands have been spotted more recently. Primus is clearly up to something, but its motives remain mysterious.

Prime Architect:

Many cultures of the mortal world have myths recounting the origins of the universe. Though the details of these legends are colored by cultural bias, most share key events, such as the war between gods and primordials. Yet few can recount the story of an even earlier time in the history of the multiverse, the epoch that witnessed the molding of the Elemental Chaos itself.

Accounts chronicled by the Fraternity of Order in Sigil speak of a time in which the Elemental Chaos was still in its infancy, an Age of Creation when primordials shaped and destroyed worlds at whim, unchallenged by the gods. It was an era of wondrous invention on a cosmic scale, but without a frame¬ work to give them permanency, these creations were fleeting.

One primordial stood apart from the others. This being’s true name is lost to the ages, but Fraternity archives name it the Prime Architect. It is written that this primordial was the first to peer beyond the veil of the Elemental Chaos to behold something Outside—a region of perfect order and harmony the Prime Architect named the Accordant Expanse.

Enraptured by this vision of perfection, the Prime Architect began to shape the Elemental Chaos on a massive scale. The first phase of the grand design required distilling the chaotic maelstrom into four base elements: air, earth, fire, and water. To achieve this end, the Architect enlisted four mighty elemental lords as overseers. As the framework took shape, the elemental lords in turn tasked their subordinates, the archomentals, with crafting the latticework of the final structure, incorporating mixtures of the base elements.

At last the Prime Architect beheld its momentous creation, raw elemental power molded by symmetry and order. By drawing on this cosmic arrangement of elements, the grand creations of the primordials could persist, allowing mortal life to flourish at last.

Rise of the Modrons:

Even as the Prime Architect proudly surveyed its handiwork, subtle blemishes began to mar the nascent realms. At first barely perceptible, the minute imperfections began to multiply rapidly, forming fleshlike strands of corruption writhing in bluish slime. The Prime Architect watched in mute horror as a nearby world was dragged into the mass of tendrils and devoured by a colossal wormlike entity lurking within. Finally shaken from its immobility, the primordial moved quickly to intercept the aber¬ rant behemoth before it could chew its way farther out of its dreadful Far Realm.

Fraternity documents are sketchy on the details of this colossal battle with the entity now called the Nine-Tongued Worm, but in the end the Prime Architect proved victorious. Just barely. It was mortally wounded, no longer able to stabilize the Elemen¬ tal Chaos. It called one last time on the Accordant Expanse, bathing in the cosmic energy of absolute Order. The Prime Architect surrendered its flesh and was re-created as innumerable mechanical life forms, each a distinct entity but inseparable from the whole.

Thus the modron race was born.

The horde of newly created modrons mobilized into a hierarchy, then quickly spread across the cosmos to seal the remaining breaches to the Far Realm. Once this task was complete, they shifted themselves to the Accordant Expanse en masse.

There they set immediately to work engineering a home for their kind, a bizarre realm of gears and cogs they named Mechanus.

Year by year, decade by decade, and century by century the modrons toiled, constructing their capital city at the heart of Mechanus. Sixty-four interlinking cogs rest atop each other like a colossal, mechanical ziggurat to form the clockwork metropolis of Regulus. At the heart of their clockwork home the modrons erected a grand cathedral in honor of the Prime Architect. Then, the four highest-ranking among them submerged themselves in a scintillating pool of pure Order and conjoined, triggering an unex¬ pected apotheosis. From the pool arose the vestige of the Prime Architect, given new flesh and purpose: Primus, the One and the Prime.

Home Plane

Mechanus

Stat Block

1st Edition:

- Monster Manual II 1st Edition (1983) - Archive.org