Shit Kicker...Prime

Ok, to explain this ridiculous image I found in my head tonight I first have to explain a few things. Just as a warning, its not even that funny. Anyway.

I have always liked the idea of Warforged in DnD, basically mini-golems or fantasy robots first appearing in the Eberron campaign setting. Now, I put them in my current campaign but I wanted to do something other than rip them off blatantly. There is a race of undead in my campaign known as the Fallen, as in The Fallen Empire of Man. They cannot actually die, you can turn them to ash and cut off their heads and such but they don't die per se. There is always a little bit of residual...unlife I guess, left in their bodies or remains or whatever is actually left. Their race is dying out because they have no way to create more of themselves (fully sentient undead), so they created something called the soulless to fill in the ranks of their ever shrinking armies. Soulless are Warforged, what differs is the creation process and the aesthetic. The warforged are smooth and well designed and very human-like, the soulless are basically bolted together plates of metal covered in rivets and weld marks and rust. They appear humanoid, but they are very clearly metal monstrosities covered in spikes and jagged metal. Their creation involves taking the ashes of "dead" Fallen and enclosing them in the metal frame of a soulless and using arcane rituals to fuse their power to the metal shell. The ashes basically become the soulless' "blood" and animating force. What it amounts to is cramming six or seven undead personalities together into a metal body and hoping everything works out alright. It's actually kind of neat, my fluff has the personalities occasionally causing the soulless to blurt out their (the personalities) thoughts or do something they want. It also has what I consider a neat side effect that makes the soulless sound like a bunch of people are saying the same thing slightly out of time with one another whenever it talks.

Now, next part of the set up. Back when we played d20 Modern Shadow Chasers the group was a paranormal detective agency specializing in the killing of magical creatures and whatnot. Eventually it was decided that they needed transportation so I gave them a battered Dodge (I think) van from the 80s. It was dubbed "Shitkicker #1" (there was going to be a fleet) and a bat-winged penis was drawn on the hood, as is the standard procedure in such situations. I vaguely remember them running over a troll or something with it.

Final bit here. I was doing research for my campaign on steam wagons and I came across a picture of a decent looking one. I immediately began writing an email to Jeremy regarding my ideas for Shitkicker Mark 000. Then I had a sudden image of a soulless built in the shape of a steam wagon with a ranger-esque Jeremy character atop it with a rifle in hand and the soulless bellowing "Roll out!" and mowing down a horde of goblins, and that is how I came up with Shitkicker Prime. That image had me giggling like an idiot for a good five minutes.

Music: Set Fire To The Face On Fire - Blood Brothers