Automata of Avlor Aten

The automata of Avlor Aten are the working machines of the Geroni city of Avlor Aten, in the campaign Yeni Dünya ("New World"). Already in the painting of the city, driverless four-legged golems carried citizens about; the Geroni keep many mindless automata that do the tasks they are given, just as they are told, so that people can give their time to philosophy, the sciences and the arts of war.^{1 2}

In the streets

In the city the band saw automata keeping watch at important points, carrying loads in shops and working in gardens. The head consul named three kinds apart: the armed guards, called tahsildar; the servitors who serve; and the labourers. The city's wealth made Finli want to stay, though the others did not take it for a perfect place.^{3 4 5}

The chief arcanist rode in a carriage drawn by a large four-legged golem instead of horses; a tabaxi in the carriage held a ring the arcanist had given him and watched the golem closely.^{6 7}

The tahsildar

The tahsildar seen at the band's place of holding were long-legged, bronze-like suits of armour with great metal swords, helmed faces without eye-slits and glass set in their chests. Their design goes back to a war between the Geroni and the Inran. In the band's escape the old copper- and brass-coloured war machines resisted the spells meant to still them; no living hand guided them, and they fought by written battle protocols. One raised a blue barrier of energy in its free hand; another drew in magic around it to charge its blade. Each burst into flame as it was destroyed.^{8 9 10 11 12 13 14}

Ownership and wealth

According to the head consul, the first automata worked the fields, and that change in production freed time for schooling. The machines of defence belong to the city-state; the other costly automata belong to the rich, and he reckoned that only five or six in a hundred are built for war. Some city-states, he said, have made others dependent on them through trade, and the cities have fought and occupied one another; war between automata costs above all in metal and money.^{15 16 17 18}

Despite the wealth they bring, there are people in the city who live in bad houses, or have no house at all; the head consul said he had never seen anyone starve.¹⁶