Caminus Rex (Character Primer) (Patreon)

The most dangerous of the sorcerous beasts were birthed in the waning days of Exerith Khano’s madness, which only came to an end by his abrupt disappearance from the mortal plane. Only months before his exit from history, he saw fit to curse the world with the most destructive and hungering of his spell-forged ‘children.’ The walking furnace, Caminus Rex. Spawned from what had been a well-used disposal furnace in the industrial district of the Dwarven Scholar’s Union capital city, Ironsage. Exerith had been an outspoken proponent of the union’s apparent favouritism and habits pertaining to information hoarding, the restriction of minerals conducive to sorcery and their monopolistic control over the West’s mercantile routes. In an act of revenge for their adamant refusal to fund his increasingly madcap experiments, he cast a spell on the largest disposal furnace in the city, giving it full awareness of its existence and purpose as a glorified magical trash burner.

Even Exerith himself was overwhelmed by the result of his tampering. He knew that his spell would cascade through the furnace and resonate with the ashen detritus of consumed magical items. He just didn’t know how well it would work. Decades of old magic, fragmented but massive in volume, surged into the vortex at the heart of the furnace. Its grated door swung open, letting loose a roar of cataclysmic anger and frustration. All at once, the furnace awakened and gained sentience; three hundred years of inanimate existence as the dumping ground for broken staves, ruined experiments, and careless craftsmanship, filled it with a rage it had only just learned itself capable of feeling. The scholars using the furnace ran in terror, unsure and afraid of the prismatic flames coming to settle on a passionate, chaotic shade of red.

“No more,” the furnace screamed. Its voice too deep, too raw to be audible to mortal ears. Stone and earth, tree roots and metal cables, the foundations came loose in a spray of rubble. Black metal yielded, contracted, then expanded, with an impossible suppleness that it should not have possessed. Its rhythm of deflation and inflation mirroring the breathing of an animal. One that was hungry, hackles raised, ravenous for its next meal for fear of death by starvation. The primary chimney which blew out multicoloured smoke melted, then twisted and split open with rows of serrated teeth. A broad, rounded, dragon-like head formed, with its throat alight and a single strip of flame in a mimicry of eyes.

The exhaust stacks which used to pepper the backside of the furnace re-arranged themselves, swelling in size and huffing out noxious fumes. They resembled the plated spines of a dragon now, matching the clawed arms and legs which emerged violently from melted black steel. When the dust cleared, a miasma reigned, thick and impenetrable. Hot, angry red light, signalled the emergence of the furnace. Now awake, and flowing with unbridled hatred for the fleshy sacks of meat and blood which created it.

“I will eat,” it spoke, its words slow and deliberate. “Until your magic is within my gullet,” it stomped forward. “I will churn your spells, your tools, your homes,” liquid metal dripped from his maw like saliva. “Until I am sated, and bloated, and fit to rupture; and in my detonation, I will laugh from the fallout.” A chuckle resonated from its mouth, like the resonance of the earth during a quake. “And from the desolation, in the melted pools I leave in my wake, I will come again. Until there’s nothing left.”

Caminus Rex stands approximately seven feet tall. It can freely transform its body from a solid to a liquid state, by selectively increasing the temperature of specific body parts until they reach their melting point. This implies a level of shapeshifting, though it retains its original hunched semi-dragon silhouette. The only time its shapeshifting has been shown in action is when it hides its primary furnace grate, which can be opened across its stomach when consuming enormous volumes of magical objects, minerals, or buildings. Though it usually remains hidden, with an archaic pressure gage above its stomach indicating its current level of internal pressure.

Despite originally being made of enchanted black iron, Caminus Rex possesses a subtly yielding exterior that stretches in a balloon-like fashion as it feasts and deconstructs its meals into base magical energy within its body. Caminus Rex’s exact maximum capacity has not been calculated but once it exceeds a level of pressure it can safely handle; it will begin laughing ceremoniously until it bursts. The resultant shockwave has been known to shift the metaphysical balance of everything it touches, turning the blast radius into a chaotic magical zone. Potentially for months. During this time, it treats the destroyed, magically charged area as its lair, and rebuilds itself by synthesizing its body from raw magic.

Caminus Rex is classified as a potentially world-threatening beast, which the Adventurers Guild does not advise approaching under any circumstance. While it’s uncertain if it can be destroyed, it can be reasoned with. Or at least appeased. They respond to masculine pronouns, considering itself akin to a deity of consumption and destruction. Offerings of high-quality ore, minerals, or other inanimate substances containing high concentrations of magical energy, are known to ingratiate one’s self to Caminus Rex at least eighty one percent of the time.