A cathedral-sized walking mechanism that has crossed the world for centuries, carrying a city of pilgrims toward an unknown part of Earin.
Overview
The Pilgrim Engine stands on twelve articulated legs and carries terraces, chapels, gardens and workshops upon its back. Its footfalls are days apart when climbing mountains and only minutes apart on open ground.
No resident controls it. Pilgrims maintain mechanisms they understand and perform rituals for those they do not. Entire families have lived aboard for generations without knowing the destination.
History
The Engine first appears late in the Age of High Artifice, already old and walking west. Early records call its passengers penitents who believed the machines of the age had wounded creation.
It stopped throughout the Silence, kneeling so gently that no building fell. When motion returned, its route changed and it began moving toward Gizmagrad.
The present record
The Engine now crosses the old inland trade country, accepting pilgrims at lowered stairways but never allowing more than a fixed population. When one person boards, another decides to leave.
Its navigators claim the destination is not Gizmagrad itself but something beneath it that has recently begun to call.
Notes and record
This article combines campaign record, spoken lore and the mythic account preserved in the Earin archive.