HMS APPOLYON - Sample Boiler and Plate (Magic Item)

The heaviest armor aboard the HMS Appolyon is not the ornate, custom fitted steel plate armor of accomplished Passenger Class warrior fops, but rather rare suits of powered armor.  While the best known of these machines are the handful of elegant Boarding Suits in possession of the Marines, ancient bone white armors, with elongated limbs and twisting rounded surfaces now much repaired and rarely seen, powered armor suits are still being manufactured using the limited mechanical and magical resources of Sterntown.  Boilermail ranges from light exoskeletal suits that offer protection little better than plate mail, but dramatically increase the wearer's strength (allowing the mounting of heavier weapon or increasing melee damage) to fully enclosed heavy suits that can mount cannons and wield swords and axes weighing a few hundred pounds, often augmented with hydraulic penetration aids or voltaic generators that release a deadly charge on impact.

Jubilee Class Boilermail with the insignia of the Stewards

Crude, clanking, stinking and possessing no beauty beyond it's brutal mass, modern suits are labeled Boilermail, Stemplate, or Boilermail or Boiler & Plate as they are most often powered by magically augmented steam turbines, though some are powered by captured devils (diabolic battery), Horolomantic Regression Engines, Enslaved Fire and Water Elementals (elemental boiler) and fueled with refined oils.  Each suit is custom made by an entire shop of artisans and can take 10,000 - 500,000 GP to manufacture employing armorers, blacksmiths, engineers, enchanters and a wide variety of specialized craftsmen.  More advanced suits can take as long as a year to make and require tens of thousands of pounds of high quality steel and or bronze.

Sterntown is not the only force within the hull to possess Boilermail armors. The Fishmen apparently make similar armor formed from the shed skins of Shub-Niggurath and controlled by the souls of sacrificed thralls rather than clockworks and difference engines. The Plague Dead have captured many of humanities treasures over the centuries and armors of all generations have been reported, crudely repaired and powered by necromantic energies as either possessed ghost armor or driven by reanimated pilot. The most powerful and technologically inclined Wild Devils sometimes wear hell armor, though it's a rare devil that can long justify to his masters the binding of a greater devil to a suit of armor, even if it is a devil of another Nomenclatura.

Boilermail is classifed by generation, with newer generations being the most crude, most prone to malfunction and least effective.  Since the loss

1st Generation: (Ancient Artifact Armor): Marine Boarding Suits, Steward Venerable Riot Suits, Fishman Archon Armor.

2nd Generation: (After the Great Marooning): New Army Steward Armor, Converted Service Suits, Advanced Black Gang Armor.

3rd Generation: (Post Catastrophe) Steward Post Flood Suits, Marine Vengeance Armor, Internal Combustion Suits, Hell Armor, Black Gang Runic Boiler Plate.

4th Generation: (Stable Years) Steward Peacekeeper Exoskeletons, Marine Utility Armor, Pre-Retreat Private Boiler Plate, Fishman Exalted Thrall Battle Symbiote, Possessed Armor, Black Gang Heavy Armor.

5th Generation: (Sterntown) Great House Vanity Armor, Modern Steward Artillery Exoskeletons, Civilian Bronze Boiler suits, Merrowman Bone Juggernauts, Frogling Living Totems.


"Reliabilty" - Every Suit of Boilermail has a "Reliability" indicator.  This indicator is used for two purposes.  First it determines how likely the finicky armor is to break down in combat, and second it is use to reflect damage to the armor.  Every time a wearer of steamplate rolls a one in combat or movement (really anytime) they must then roll a D6. If the roll is below reliability then the armor suffers a malfunction and rolls on the malfunction table with a penalty equal to the current reliability score    Most often this is a temporary hiccup or running out of fuel, but it can include things like catastrophic boiler explosion and joint damage. The reliability number is modified by +1 each time such a roll must be made, when the powered armor takes a critical hit, and by the wearer's skill with powered armor.

EXAMPLE ARMOR - STEWARD JUBILEE SUIT
Manufactured in the last desperate days of the retreat from amidships, and resigned and manufactured in the port side foundries and machine shops after the fortification of Sterntown, the Jubilee is named after the purported jubilee of jubilees of The Queen.  These suits are the best Sterntown has been able to offer since the catastrophic last war with the Plague Kings, though compared with armor produced only 50 years ago they are clumsy and crude parodies.  Hulking, slow and prone to mishap the Jubilee suit never the less represents a proud achievement of humanities depleted abilities.  Originally designed as a stop gap armored suit that could be stamped out by the Amidship factories at a rate of ten a day, and sent quickly to the frontlines, after the retreat it took months for the Portside Shops to produce a single suit painstakingly by hand from salvaged plate or carefully laminated armors. Each suit is huge, and

When the shops were lost, the ability to make more of this armor was also lost, as even the best armorers in Sterntown lack the machines and furnaces to prepare the inch thick steel plating that a Jubilee Suit requires.  While the Jubilee Suits remain the most common heavy armor in the Steward's armory, there exact numbers are a closely guarded secret, but surely there are no more than fifty.  Most were destroyed in the retreat, which raises some ominous concerns with the War Dead massing outside the Rust Gates, and several have been lost to maintenance troubles since. Currently it is clear that these armors will not be available for routine or even extraordinary use as they are concentrated in the uptown precincts, and worn by pilots form the most influential of the Steward families.  Lieutenant Dormace of the Rustgates has been heard more than once making a wry remark about how clearly Sterntown is better served with its entire complement of heavy boiler & plate protecting the highest parts of Uptown from pigeons than with that mobile firepower pushing out on patrol and reconnaissance of the Buried Vault. 

Jubilee Armor – Heavy 4 and 1/2 Generation Boiler Plate
Armor Class : (Negates Dexterity Bonus)	0
Damage Reduction:	(-3 to Physical, -1 All Other)
Strength:	20 (+5 Melee hit and Damage)
Initiative:	-6
Move:	10'
Value:	10,000 GP Salvage Bounty – Cannot be purchased
Reliability:	4
Dimensions	9' Tall x 6' wide x 6' deep
Weight:	12 tons (24,000 lbs)
Other Limitations: Illegal (ownership punishable by exile at sea), Cannot surprise any enemy, cannot wield man sized weapons, cannot be operated in more than 4' water, size an weight makes it unsafe in smaller companionways.
Standard Load Out: Huge Shield (-1 AC/-2 Missile AC) and Boiler Cutlass/Axe (1D12 Damage) [often Voltaic or Kinetic] with optional Disposable Mitrailleuse (As Heavy Machine Gun with reload by assistant after every round)