When G&S first entered into mech design, they did so with the John Henry.
The GMS Attakulla served as the base- an industrial mech mass-printed by GMS as a worker’s frame during Blink Gate and Naval Yard construction that had been delivered en-mass to Lonely Cradle during first contact. As part of their contracted work to supply raw labor and standard materials for the construction of their system’s Blink Gate, Grimm & Sons to a shine to mechanized frames as a concept, rapidly modifying and rebuilding their Attakullas into something else- the John Henry. In every way an improvement to its predecessor, the John Henry license near-eclipses equivalent GMS designs in the industrial mech field- even the dyson panels of cradle have John Henrys working the line.
So, how does the most popular industrial mech in the galaxy end up on the battlefield? Simple, G&S knows its common and knows that it may be the only mech a worker may have access to: the Emergency Printing Schedule allows any industrial-license to be upgraded into a full combat license for the John Henry in case of disaster or emergency. John Henry is a worker first, a rail-driver and a plate-hammerer, a maker of life out in the cold of the void- but the worker can defend himself and what he cares for.
The hammer builds paradise, and it casts judgement on the wicked.
Lore written by @nightmare-works!
This is a story of the Fall.
This is a story of a man who lost everything to that most dreadful of our sins. His family. His community. His name. His world. It all burned. It all turned to dust. All that was left to him was this- to wander the wastes and seek a worthy cause to die for.
This is a story of the Little Wars.
This is the story of men and women who lost more than they could know. Who were broken by the First and Second Traumas. Who had no family. No community. No names. No world. Nothing of their own. It was all turned to blood. All that was left to them was this- to take up the name of another and wander the wastes- to seek a worthy cause to die for.
This is a story of Now
You do not need this weapon, o Kin of the Mountain. We tell these stories and remember them as a dirge. This is no place for us, this is no way for a Child of Mankind to live. This should not exist, but as a memory of our Past and our Flight.
But take it, take it if you must.
The Black-on-Black.
Last of the Mark Eight Interceptors
Road-Warrior, Fury-Driven
Holy Combustion, Damned Destruction
This is Max.
Lore written by @nightmare-works!
The Volk is the answer to a problem G&S has,
conceived of by the Guild of Mechanists and Clan Rockstansky- the gunsmiths and armorers of the republic of toil. The Volk is what Grimm & Sons created for generalized colonial militia use, essentially making it the Line Mech of G&S. As a line mech, the Volk makes up the bulk of military licensing the clanners engage with- it is most commonly seen in frontier militias, colonial defense forces, and worker’s militias on recent contact worlds that have yet to achieve the sort of government Clanners agree with- namely one that allies to their understanding of the Union Pillars.
That is not to disparage the Volk as some backwater, reserve unit, weekend-warrior type of mech produced without much of a care.
The Big Bad Wolf has that sort of name for a reason, and even a single Volk in skilled hands is a nightmare of howling jet turbines and screaming saws. Capable of extreme speed and strength despite its strange, spindly frame, the Volk’s iconic Fenrir Shredders are a pair of limb-mounted adamant compound bore-saws derived from mining and hyperflora harvesting tools that allow the Volk to casually behead foes who happen to stand with arms’ reach.
Lore written by @nightmare-works!
“King of the Wild Frontier.”
That’s the sales-line Clan Rockstansky used for their marvelous little giantkiller. The gunsmiths and armorers of G&S needed a milspec mech that was printable by the kinds of low-schedule foundries that colonial holdings often have. Sure, you can print a military mech from any industrial printer, but that takes time- time better served printing housing, hospitals, infrastructure. Thus came Jack, whose most intensive printing requirement is the ‘Fabled’ Class Coldcore. Everything else about the mech is cheap to print, easy to tool, and ready for combat. Even then, you can go from no mech to a rowdy little giantslayer in 48 Cradle Hours on any low-schedule printer, and 6 Cradle Hours with a milspec printer.
The Jack’s size and speed benefit its role as a giantkiller, allowing it to move through underbrush, incoming fire, the legs of its prey, anything and everything the frontier can throw at Jack, it can move through. It can hunt through. It can clamber up on the hulls of pirate mechs and hyperfauna and deliver its killing blow with lethal accuracy. Utilizing upscaled infantry support weapons, Jack is the King of the Wild Frontier.
there ain’t nothing out in space it can’t bring down.
Lore written by @nightmare-works!
In the stories, who slays the serpent?
Who saves the princess? Who leads the charge? A knight in shining armor does, of course. A knight needs honor, a knight needs speed, a knight needs power. But there are few knights trusted with the panoply of the Orlando- G&S’ top-of-the-line voidcombat frame. Built under commission for an Albatross Maketba, the Orlando is Grimm & Sons’ answer to high speed combat frames from the coreward companies with notable convergent design with the Cataphract class of mechanized frame.
As a linebreaker and high-speed cavalry unit,
the Orlando is without compare, its specialized Roncenvaux Overboosters and CURTANA Kinetic Shield allowing it a freedom on the battlefield near unrivaled- plowing through enemy mechs, drones, and with its core charge dumped into the engines, through entire ships. The most common license-holders for the Orlando are its original commissioners- Knights of the Albatross who have done some great service defending the Clanners and their colonies. Though, it is not uncommon to find the odd Orlando among the mercenary companies who work closely with G&S, especially those dedicated to planetary defense or the elimination of spacebound threats to colonial holdings.
Lore written by @nightmare-works!
Once upon a time, long long ago,
Old Master Grimm went and sought the Thing Beneath the Mountain. The Thing had lived for forever and a day, and died every thousand nights, and it knew the shape of the universe. Old Master Grimm offered the Thing a bargain, he would trade it a thousand thousand stories, a lifetime of labor, and he would make sure it got to see all the galaxy at the hands of the Clanners. In exchange, the Thing would serve the Clans, the Workers, the Promise. The Thing Beneath the Mountain, its flesh made of quicksilver, its voices like silver bells, its mind trapped in reflections- it accepted the pact, and made itself into a Mirror. The Mirror showed Old Master Grimm a thousand and one lives he might live, and he took its advice when he could, when he must. In time the pact would come to a certain fruition for the Clanners and the Mirror- Scheherazade was born to defend the Clans and their colonies after the loss of Urt-Agaan to a spontaneously generated Metavault. Though the colony was well and truly lost, G&S used the Mirror to guide their rescue teams through the madness of the depths to save as many of the colonists as they could.
The Clanners know not to truly trust the Mirror,
for it exists to trap ideas and destinies in its reflection, but they know the Mirror’s power can offer them sight beyond sight, reason beyond sanity, and the esoteric powers required to defend hearth and home. Scheherazade, as a mech, is a vessel for the Mirror and its Logic, warping fate and destiny to fit its reflections at the behest of the pilot inside. The pilots themselves offer varying reports of deja vu, jamai vu, and General Temporal Confusion Syndrome (GTCS); well in line with Union medical standards for unsafe levels of paracausal energy exposure. Rarely are licenses for Scheherazade granted, and they’re never for sale.
The only way to get one is to have always had it.
To look upon all the galaxy, and see only the reflections.
Lore written by @nightmare-works!
The Machine-Minds of Lonely Cradle were strange cousins to the more common Comp/Cons of Union
when First Contact finally occurred, close enough to seemingly hew towards the recently established Deimos Accords with little trouble or fuss from the Clanners. The lineage of these artificial demi-intellects carries forward into modern Grimm & Sons design, their own descendants helping shape and design the hyperfauna hunting mechanized frame named Ananasi by Clan Vediovis, whose programmers see joy and wonder in the potential of their little Br’er Spider Combat/Computational Demi-Intellect. With Br’er Spider’s guidance, the Mech and Pilot sit at the center of a vast informational web, constantly fed and updated moment to moment with everything a hunter could need.
Ananasi sees wide usage in frontier conflicts
where overwatch and close-range fire support remain difficult to supply otherwise: the high-powered “monster hunting” rifles G&S offers are simpler to print and tool than any kind of artillery. And there are plenty of monsters to hunt out on the far frontiers- and worse besides. Anansi licenses are exceedingly popular among colonial self-defense forces, Far Field Teams, and the occasional mercenary company all of whom appreciate accurate, long range firepower backed by the rugged survivability of a Grimm & Sons mech.
Lore written by @nightmare-works!
Every Clanner wears a Rig,
a light cybernetic exoframe designed to aid them in whatever work they do. It is from these Rigs that Clan Zahedi derived the general design shape and purpose of the DOROTHY, a warzone-rated search-and-rescue mechanized frame. G&S is famous for the sturdiness of its designs, and Dorothy is no exception! Boasting a surprising bulk and survivability for its size, the Dorothy is often described as a “second skin” to its pilots, who find themselves naturally in-sync with a mech that fits more like a suit of armor than a walking tank.
Designed for Search-and-Rescue work first and combat second,
the Dorothy comes equipped with the Emerald Emergency Response Kit and Everready Drone. The Emerald ERK allows the Dorothy and her flash-printed drone companions to survive extreme temperatures and dangerous environments without breaking a sweat, using rapid-learning demi-intellect systems to adapt to whatever environment a pilot may find themselves working in. The Everready Drone, on the other hand, is a modular, wire-guided, demi-intellect that is built to answer any disaster the Dorothy may find itself in, allowing for unparalleled flexibility in the field and out-performing equivalent GMS disaster work mechs and hardsuits by almost 44%.
Lore written by @nightmare-works!
When the Clanners seek to tame a world, truly tame it and make it part of their sprawling Promised Land...
They send Bunyan.
The Grimm & Sons Bunyan is a gargantuan machine, barely missing the Size 4 Designation by Union standards. One notorious part of the Bunyan's build is, in fact, its cockpit. The Bunyan is intended to last for months at a time on colonization expeditions, often in hostile terrain, some of which is barely hospitable by man. To minimize the amount of excursions that the pilot may need, and to make work as efficient to perform as possible, the Bunyan features a small studio apartment modeled after the same homes once used on the Armstrong.
To access the Bunyan's cockpit, the pilot is either intended to be in zero G or to use the power lift; the lift reaches the ground when the Bunyan is kneeling, which is its intended resting position. Upon entering the restroom and shower is to your immediate right. The kitchen is to your immediate left. To the right of the abode is a bed, designed as a sleeping area, and to the left is the hangar bay where the pilot may maintain the BABE drone housed in the heart of the Bunyan.
Up the stairs is a small loft, which leads directly to the cockpit, which has its own escape hatch just overhead; even a machine as rugged as the Bunyan has failsafes.
All parts of the Bunyan home are designed to be locked down when the mech is in motion, with special care to keep all loose items stowed away.
It's equal parts cozy and spartan. A home away from home.
You live in Bunyan just as the ancestors lived on the Armstrong.
--
This time, the words are by me!
Arise, ye pris’ners of starvation!
Arise, ye wretched of the earth!
The revolution calls!
And Rockstansky, the gunsmiths of the revolutionary industry, answered the call with Noel- a creation of material necessity as G&S foundries sing and boom with the sound of hammers and lascutters. A revolutionary, seeking freedom, often does not have the materials nor printers capable of producing weapons that will dissuade the reactionary and the tyrant. So the Clan of Bullets took their industrial recycling rigs and started up scaling them, seeking more power, more ability, more and more to turn the tide.
Where Volk breaks his saws, Noel repairs. Where John Henry’s nuclear heart runs hot, Noel soothes. Where Bunyan’s armor sunders, Noel patches. Where the enemy bares his sword, Noel beats it to a plowshare. The Red Revenant, a P-G of drone rapidly assembled by Noel’s Demi-Intellect and graywash repair swarms from the wreckage of battle, follows in Noel’s wake as the mech marches ever forward.
Noel’s role was designed along the political ideology of “good soldiering” within G&S, relics from the Clans' happy endorsements of conflicts such as the Tien Shen Ring and the Fall of Au Bao Qu, battles fought to liberate and place more of mankind beneath the Crimson Banner of Humanity. Current critics of the frame cite this origin as a poisoned chalice- a sign of how the Clans’ own societal traumas become easily warped to anthrochaunist ends. The Clanners point to its record of service, and ask of the workers of Yllmire should not have been liberated from debt-bondage.
If the lasrifles and bayonets of the IntRev Brigades should not tear down the machines of the workers’ enemies and transform them into new rifles and new bayonets, until the work is done-
and Paradise is built.
Lore written by @nightmare-works!
I hope you enjoyed following our big ol' communist mechs!
All the mechanics and lore are by @nightmare-works!
All the visual art direction and visual flair (and some other lore) are by yours truly!
They're currently in playtesting, and all of them (except the NOEL) are playable here!
Next up is gonna be our attempt at making a big mechanical addition to Lancer.
Now if you've been following the GnS project since its inception waaaaaay back in 2018, you might notice that one particular friend is missing.
He'll be here soon.
