Mechanik’s Union

The market for anti-jack devices has been a booming one since the full realisation of warjacks on the battlefield, and never more so than this decade. With proud and near suicidal mercs like the Devil Dogs and Steam Armored behemoths like the Khadoran Man-O-War going toe to toe with vastly larger and more powerful machines. This little device takes the tried and tested bounty hunters friend, the wrist harpoon, and combines it with the power output of a set of Steam Armor.

This wrist harpoon has been heavily reinforced with compound pulleys and increased torsion to make the projectile reach far higher velocities. This however has reached such a degree as to make the bow section almost impossible to cock by hand (Strength check DC25), the rewind itself is performed by the small steam engine within the shoulder casing of the armor as a move action. The cable itself is still limited to 40ft in length and the piercing head deals 1d4+2 damage. If used against a biological target, the damage remains the same on impact and the expansion effect is treated as a barbed weapon. However removing this weapon forcefully causes 1d8+1 damage rather than the usual 1d6+1. Creatures with a natural armor bonus above +5 find this expanding head far harder to dislodge, Heal Check (DC15 + damage dealt).

Its metal wire has been replaced by cable made from a combination of arcano-conductive cable and plaited serricsteel strands, the result of which is both arcanikly conductive and strong enough to take the weight of a heavy ‘jack. The piercing head of the harpoon itself has been replaced with a rare Quenched Serricsteel mechanism much like a reverse of the collapsing grapple hook, designed to penetrate warjack armor plates then spread like a flower within the ‘jack to prevent easy removal. The Quenched Serricsteel head ignores hardness up to 20 when it hits a target within 20ft, this is reduced to 10 hardness when hitting a target within 40ft. Removing the head forcefully from a construct target deals 2d8+2 damage to the target, removing it safely requires a Craft: Mechanika check (DC15 + damage dealt)

Finally the entire winding mechanism for the cable is built into the steam engine of a set of Steam Armor, providing far greater power when winding in the device than could be achieved by human muscle alone* . A final coup de gras comes in the form of the small convergence engine in the wrist gauntlet, which houses a Stalling Plate salvaged from a Devil Dog stun-sword. It is activated by a mechanikal trigger near to the release mechanism for the cable. If the harpoon deals damage to a target, and the plate activated any attached construct must make a Will save (DC 15) of become stalled until the plate is deactivated or the cable disconnected. Dexterity is reduced to 1 and -5 to AC, all melee attacks against the stalled construct gain +4 bonus to hit.

Additionally, the strength and power of the cable and its rewinding engine makes the device capable of pulling a suit of steam armor into the air if shot into a solid surface above the wearer successfully. This process is slow even with the more powerful power-plants available, because added power comes with added weight (see the note below for strength bonus engine uses to pull up the combined weight of armor and wearer). The rewinding cable moves the steam armor upward at a speed of 5ft per round. This increases to 10ft per round if the wearer incorporates a set of climbing claws into the boots of the armor set (100gp) and walks up a vertical surface towards whatever the head is embedded in.

This device has gained some approval amongst (of all people) wealthy police forces and militia units in major cites where steamjacks are a constant fixture. There are few who would want to try and stall a frenzied ‘jack from anywhere closer that the 40ft this weapon allows, and when combined with even small suit of steam armor, anything up to a light warjack and be disabled by a handful of brave (or foolish) men.

*[strength bonus for engine by power plant = normal +10, performance +15, over-sized +20, super-heavy +25. This replaces what the steam armor wearer themselves could do if they physically grabbed the cable and tried to haul it in manually, although considering the bonuses of some steam armors they might achieve greater results by doing so.]

*does not include heavy accumulator.