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The Factorum Malleus, also known as the Creator Hammer, was an Aeorian invention during the Age of Arcanum designed to defeat divinity.

Description[]

The Factorum Malleus looked like an immense contraption surrounded by all kinds of devices, some mechanical and others made of glowing crystal.[1] The massive construction had two rotating plates, a lower one with four arms and an upper with three.[2] The Latimus Princeps, Aeor's ward against divinity, was built before the Factorum Malleus and incorporated into its design. The seven wards were designed to hold back different parts of the gods' powers from Aeor: prowess, vigor, awareness, resistance, vitality, magic, and potency.[3] Each arm of the Factorum Malleus contained a different ward.

The Eravox Protocol was established as a failsafe to disseminate the knowledge of how to recreate the Factorum Malleus across Exandria if Aeor was attacked by divine forces. If anything happened to the Obtenebrator Engine, which blocked divine sight within Aeor, the Protocol would be triggered automatically.[4][5] There were also banks of backup scroll batteries containing the knowledge of the Factorum Malleus near the weapon's chambers within the Genesis Ward on level B-9.[6] Due to operational security, only three archmages held enough knowledge of the project to be able to recreate the Factorum Malleus: Cassida Previn, Primarch Selena Erenves, and Adamar Cadrow, the Prince Chancellor of the Cogence.[7]

According to Cassida, if all seven Latimus Princeps wards were broken, the weapon was designed to trigger immediately and destroy all gods within the city unless the Factorum Malleus itself was somehow dispelled;[8] the weapon also contained enough energy to destroy Aeor if not redirected appropriately.[9] Secretly a member of the Society of Primes, Cassida and her co-conspirators placed hidden blocks within the Factorum Malleus with the intention of using the weapon solely on the Betrayer Gods.[10] However, the archmagi in charge of the project were aware of the Society and their goals thanks to their spies, and had secretly countered their efforts, being prepared to kill all the religious engineers involved as soon as they finished their part of the job.[11]

History[]

The Calamity[]

The floating city of Aeor despised divinity, questioning the utility of the gods and theorizing that mortals had created them, not the other way around. By the point when the Calamity started, the city was willing to use the weapon against the gods, and Aeorians such as Devexian saw the device as a protective measure rather than as a weapon. However, the deities saw the Factorum Malleus as a very dangerous and ambitious invention, and after it was successfully tested,[12] the Betrayer Gods and Prime Deities called a temporary truce and worked together to annihilate Aeor.[13][14] Several of the gods, from both sides of the Schism, embodied mortal avatars in order to infiltrate and dismantle the Aeorian defenses against the divine.[15] These avatars simultaneously destroyed the Obtenebrator Engine and the scribe mechanism the Eravox Protocol was dependent on which prevented the Aeorian failsafe from disseminating knowledge of the Factorum Malleus. The Arch Heart's avatar S.I.L.A.H.A. absorbed the scribe mechanism's copy of the knowledge within himself.[16]

The Factorum Malleus

Screenshot of the Factorum Malleus diorama from "Downfall: Part Three" (3x101).[art 1]

The divine avatars then overcame the might of Aeor in an ensuing battle in the chamber of the Factorum Malleus and destroyed the wards of the Latimus Princeps, allowing them to regain their divine powers and forms. This also allowed them to disenchant the Factorum Malleus which then unleashed a great wave of energy that spread ruination across the city including the disenchantment of the brumestone holding Aeor aloft. Immediately before the Factorum Malleus was destroyed, Primarch Selena Erenves used the Wish spell to seed the knowledge of how to recreate it within all flesh and blood wizards of Aeor with the order to flee the city. This action doomed the Aeorian citizens since it meant the gods could allow no survivors.[17] During this conflict, both Prince Chancellor Adamar Cadrow and Archmage Cassida Previn were killed;[18] however, the Arch Heart protected Primarch Selena from the Factorum Malleus energy blast and shoved her through a magical gate out of the city.[19] The Arch Heart also shared telepathically the poem of the Factorum Malleus with the Knowing Mistress.[20] The Lord of the Hells attempted to steal the final backup scroll containing the Factorum Malleus knowledge but The Everlight destroyed it.[21]

In the moments before the destruction of the Floating City, some Aeorians tried to access the room of the Creator Hammer, but others, including the aeormaton F.R.I.D.A., stopped them with lethal force.[22]

Post-Divergence[]

After the Divergence, Aeor was remembered as a cautionary tale, known primarily for their interest in defeating the gods.[23][24][25][26] Some documents about the Creator Hammer survived the fall of the city, and in 836 PD Caleb Widogast of the Mighty Nein found some notes on the satisfactory results of the Factorum Malleus Project.[27]

During approximately the same time period and continuing through 843 PD, Ludinus Da'leth of the Cerberus Assembly, with the aid of the Ruby Vanguard and other "Assembly defectors", began bringing pieces of Aeorian technology to the scientists of Kreviris on Ruidus, notably pieces of the Factorum Malleus. He planned to use this technology to break through the glass barriers created by the gods to keep the God Eater Predathos sealed within the red moon, seeking to free Predathos and allowing it to seek revenge against those who imprisoned it.[28] The technology used in the Hammer was uniquely able to unravel the weave of divine magics, and could therefore be used to create tools to burrow through the magical shell holding the God Eater.[29]

Quotations[]

  • (Directed to S.I.L.A.H.A. after he wrenchs the Eravox Protocol scribe's knowledge within): "You are able to metabolize as the knowledge enters your chest, the heart of the Arch Heart. You hold within you a poem so beautiful that it could convince reality to kill a god."[30]

Trivia[]

  • The name Factorum Malleus comes from Latin: factorum comes from facere (to make), and malleus means "hammer".
  • It was theorized that the weapon Aeor wanted to test against Lathras was their Factorum Malleus (or at least connected to it).[33] However, although it has been confirmed that the Factorum Malleus was successfully tested,[34][35] by the eve of the flying city's fall they were preparing for said test, so Lathras was not destroyed because of the Factorum Malleus.
  • The gods, before striking the flying city down, were convinced that Aeor would use the Eravox Protocol to preserve the knowledge of how to create the Factorum Malleus which led them to target the Protocol before the Factorum Malleus itself.[36]
  • In both "Downfall: Part Three" (3x101) and the episode's Cooldown aftershow, Brennan Lee Mulligan emphasized that Selena's Wish sent the Factorum knowledge to every "flesh and blood" wizard within the city.[37][38]
  • During 4-Sided Dive: Oh My Gods, the cast had a realization about the implications of Hallis escaping Aeor after Selena's Wish.[39]
  • Ludinus Da'leth's Malleus Keys share both a word and an apparent function with the Factorum Malleus. The archmage's plan seemingly involved using the machines to free Predathos, which would threaten the gods with destruction.[40]

References[]

  1. See "Escape From The Past" (3x58) at 3:07:05.
  2. See "Downfall: Part Three" (3x101) at 0:56:31.  Brennan reveals the battle map of the Factorum at 1:35:37.
  3. See "Downfall: Part Three" (3x101) at 2:03:57.
  4. See "Downfall: Part One" (3x99) at 4:04:51.
  5. See "Downfall: Part Two" (3x100) at 0:12:35.
  6. See "Downfall: Part Three" (3x101) at 0:48:01.
  7. See "Downfall: Part Three" (3x101) at 0:59:58.
  8. See "Downfall: Part Three" (3x101) at 0:57:00.
  9. See "Downfall: Part Three" (3x101) at 5:26:39.
  10. See "Downfall: Part Two" (3x100) at 2:27:36.
  11. See "4-Sided Dive: Oh My Gods" (4SDx26) at 0:57:50.
  12. See "4-Sided Dive: Swordgate" (4SDx24) at 0:36:53.
  13. See "The Neverending Day" (2x125) at 2:15:54.
  14. See "The Genesis Ward" (2x135) at 2:15:55.
  15. See "Downfall: Part One" (3x99) at 3:55:56.
  16. See "Downfall: Part Two" (3x100) at 3:27:44.
  17. See "Downfall: Part Three" (3x101) at 5:08:37.
  18. See "Downfall: Part Three" (3x101) at 4:07:28.  Cassida's body was discovered at 5:20:30, apparently killed by Asmodeus, now appearing in the form of Amaris, Trist's mortal husband.
  19. See "Downfall: Part Three" (3x101) at 5:31:32.
  20. See "Downfall: Part Three" (3x101) at 5:19:00.
  21. See "Downfall: Part Three" (3x101) at 5:21:14.
  22. See "Escape From The Past" (3x58) from 3:00:35 through 3:09:40.
  23. See Explorer's Guide to Wildemount, p. 121.
  24. See "Frigid Propositions" (2x109) at 3:28:53.
  25. See "Dinner with the Devil" (2x110) at 1:39:21.
  26. See "The Neverending Day" (2x125) at 0:42:40.
  27. See "The Genesis Ward" (2x135) at 1:11:20.
  28. See "Broken Roads" (3x92) at 0:31:20.  See also "Broken Roads" (3x92) from 1:16:15 through 1:19:44.
  29. See "Broken Roads" (3x92) at 1:18:41.
  30. See "Downfall: Part Two" (3x100) at 3:29:12.
  31. See "Enter Vasselheim" (1x16) at 2:50:04.
  32. See "The Genesis Ward" (2x135) at 2:15:55.
  33. See "Excelsior" (E3x01) at 2:04:06.
  34. See "The Genesis Ward" (2x135) at 1:11:20.
  35. See "4-Sided Dive: Swordgate" (4SDx24) at 0:36:53.
  36. See "Downfall: Part One" (3x99) at 3:23:17.
  37. See CR Cooldown C3 E101 (subscription required) Transcript. "Selena has sent to all these flesh and blood wizards of the city a seed of the knowledge of the Factorum"
  38. See "Downfall: Part Three" (3x101) at 5:08:37.
  39. See "4-Sided Dive: Oh My Gods" (4SDx26) at 1:01:42.
  40. See "Bawdy Basement Belligerence" (3x44) at 3:04:33.

Art:

  1. Screenshot of the Factorum Malleus diorama from "Downfall: Part Three" (3x101). This file is a copyrighted work. Its use in this article is asserted to qualify as fair use of the material under United States copyright law.
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