Train Tuesday P27: The Cloaker

Life is good when we continually look forward to Tuesday of all days each week and get to share a fresh installment of Train Tuesday! Today, we’ll introduce a new mysterious rail line Construct called “The Cloaker.”

Behind the scenes, we’re continuously strategizing, printing, assembling, clamping, priming, and, excited to say, even now painting the mighty Forgotten Rails hovertrains — twenty-five cars in all, for starters! It’s a huge endeavor — truly fun but also so much work (because of the initial scale of the project). All that to say, it’s essential that we also have the right opening mix of NPC and scatter terrain. Otherwise, it’s just a bunch of empty train cars. And where the heck is the fun in that?!

So, we’ve called up marvelous mini-maker Brite Minis for this latest character. We love these guys even though some of their latest releases are only modular and require all this extra work. We want single sculpts. Please save all those insane tiny-piece printing, assembling, and gluing to the Warhammer crowd. 😉

Brite Minis is still one of our absolute favorite Patreons and this Warforged Mage practically jumped onto our printer when we saw the release post!

We like to give all our Constructs cool names: The Fixer, The Pulverizer, The Mover, The Accelerator, etc. The Cloaker fits here because we want some intrigue in the game. Not everything is as it seems on the surface here in Waterdeep, and some of this hovertrain appears too good to be true to certain residents. Plus, conspiracy theories and sleuthing always make for fun storylines.

As we’ve mentioned, the hovertrain and all its serving Constructs run on a powerful arane magic (generated from Corederite rock deposits). Each train station and mighty hovertrain engine serve as the power source. If a particular Construct isn’t within a specific range of them, the machines simply power off.

That arcane tether doesn’t sit well with the three co-founders or Omin Dran. They feel it hamstrings profits and growth, so they’re actively searching for ways to eliminate this annoying barrier.

So, that’s where this Cloaker miniature comes into play. Citizens are beginning to report seeing these large, mysterious brutes stomping throughout Waterdeep. No one knows what they are or what they do exactly. They just see these large armored figures with an arcane staff that emits a pulsing blue light and humming sound. It’s just creepy.

Reports have started trickling in from Corederite mining sites that these strange figures are appearing more frequently. They stand perfectly still for hours at a time, moving a little farther from the hovertrain’s engine or station each time.

As a DM, what’s the end game here? Well, DM Ben wants the players to slowly reveal a plot that someone or something is trying to take the passive Constructs and turn them into a ruling force. As we say in the ad game, “That’s the red thread here.” Plus, it’s cool to relate a real-world concern like AI and infuse some of that into an actual D&D campaign.

Novice painter DM Ben colored up this miniature to ensure we had something fun to show you come press time, but obviously, it’s no masterpiece. We’re always the most concerned about getting cool, 3D-printed miniatures and scatter terrain into our TTRPG games as fast as possible. We can’t get the most out of our 3D printers if the pieces just pile up in a box, right?!

DM Ben isn’t quite sure about the Cloaker’s stats yet. He knows they will have a very high armor class and probably only attack if provoked. Their job is simply to extend the arcane signal from the hovertrain’s engine to the service Constructs working farther out in the field. Maybe the players will form their own theories, and they’ll be so good that DM Ben will actually incorporate one of them. As initial encounters play out, there is nothing wrong with pivoting on a concept. That’s part of the fun!

Until next time!