Meet the PIP, or Perambulatory Incantation Peon, a magical automaton for your Dungeons & Dragons campaign. Beep bop boop!
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Beep, Beep, Boop!
The Perambulatory Incantation Peon, or PIP, looks like an iron spider. It has four tracked legs and a wand protruding like a nose from a socket below its bulbous glass eyes. It has a large metal tank for an abdomen that contains most of its working parts and its complex machine brain.
The first PIPs were built as helpful automatons by Atlantean mages, who later gave them arcane-fueled sentience. Since then, PIPs have been able to build more of their kind, even improving on their initial design. PIPs remain useful and friendly, and often seem childlike in their innocence. This illusion is only broken when the PIPs’ iron loyalty is tested, as they are fearsome defenders of their friends and masters.
Each PIP draws power from a wand that it carries in a specially designed socket. While PIPs are usually careful to never expend their wands, sometimes dire circumstances mean that they must. A PIP without a charged wand powers down until its wand regains charges again.
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PIPs are versatile NPCs that you can use to help your party or the big bad guy. Because of their modes, they’re useful in many situations, but can easily be taken out of combat with a successful Dexterity check to yank their wand away. Put some thought into how you’ll use them and they’ll be a lot of fun.
Hey there, I’m Rodney!
I’m a writer and editor of tabletop RPGs and a painter of Orks. Welcome to Rising Phoenix Games!
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