The Centre Cannot Hold

• Type: a blend of a Heaven, an Other World and a Battery, leaning heavily towards the latter.
• Origin: TSR’s Planescape line
• Admission: followers of the deities who live there, or those of lawful alignments.

Imagine a world of perfect harmony. Perfect order. This is Mechanus.

The cosmic ideal of law and order, where there is a place for everything and everything is in its place, and never ever leaves its place. It is not a soul-crushing order, or at least, it does not set out to be. It is however, an order as lacking in mercy as it is in malice.

This is Mechanus, inhabited by a race of beings who are little more than Euclidean solids given life. One would describe it as ruled with an iron fist, only rulership implies decision-making, and all the decisions here were made so long ago no one remembers who made them, nor much cares, so long as the ancient rules and traditions are followed to the letter, without deviation.

Unfortunately, the John Lennon-inspired vision the phrase “Imagine a world of perfect harmony.” calls to mind for most of us is far from the reality of Mechanus. You’re more likely to hear the music of the cogs than the music of the spheres here.

You’d really need to be a serious techhead – and I mean ‘grafting untested technologies to your living flesh’ type techhead – to get much out of this place. And unless your patron deity lives here, you are not welcome in any case – tourist detract from the order of Mechanus, and are politely discouraged. At best.