Riftwork
Crafted synthetic humanoids with mechanical bodies and crystalline cognition, whose awakened members increasingly demand to be treated as persons.
Circle of the Wilds 
Arcane Artificer 
Arcane Knight 
Operative - Physiology
- Construct, Humanoid
- Size
- Medium
- Speed
- 30 ft.
- Ability scores
- Free placement
- Languages
- Common
- Lifespan
- Mature at 1, typical maximum 400 years
Riftworks awaken to selfhood already cognitively adult, though social and emotional maturation takes years. With routine maintenance a riftwork body lasts centuries. The cognitive lattice often fragments near the end, and many riftworks transfer their core to a successor chassis before that happens.
Features
- Constructed Body
Your body is built. You are immune to disease. You require only 4 hours of low-power inactivity (instead of 6 to 8 hours of sleep) to gain the benefits of a long rest. You do not require food or water in non-extreme conditions, though you do require occasional lubrication and minor part replacement (treated as the same expense and cadence as ration costs). However, you take an additional 1d6 lightning damage whenever you take lightning damage from a source that is not properly grounded against your chassis.
- Modular Replacement
Severed or destroyed limbs can be replaced with compatible parts in 1 hour of work using a Tinkerer's tools and 50 gm of components per limb. You suffer no death-saving-throw penalty for the brief period in which a major component is being swapped, provided your core remains intact. You have advantage on Constitution saving throws against effects caused by sudden pressure change, vacuum exposure, or rapid decompression.
- Internal Workings
You think in mechanisms. You have advantage on Intelligence (Investigation) checks made when examining mechanical objects, machined parts, or constructed devices. You can read, write, and speak Common, and you can fluently encode and decode one machine-cipher of your own invention, which other Riftworks who study it for an hour can also learn.
- Awakened Selfhood
Your cognition runs on a crystalline lattice that records experience in fixed-state, retrievable form. You have advantage on saving throws against effects that would erase, overwrite, or scramble your memory.
- Failsafe
A failsafe subsystem holds you at 1 hit point. Your speed is halved and you cannot take reactions until the end of your next turn while the frame reseats. Once per long rest.