A Mechanical Transcription of the Limbs

This is a short post about the building of mechanical bodies using ball-and-sockets joints - a practice and obsession specific to some of my favourite artists in the world: Hans Bellmer and Heinrich von Kleist. I have recently become fascinated (again) by these bodies; by Bellmer's hypermobile erotic sketches and by Kleist's 'pure pendula' of the limbs. By their inhuman grace, dictated by a total/directional gravity, in place of the more or less neurotic conscious will. The post is an addendum to the Mannequin class (though the rules could be useful for any number of bodies and beings in the Barony), and should be read as 'as well as' and not 'instead of' the rules for that class as originally conceived. The additions are simple: an artificial body built in the human form using ball and socket joints, and animated by something that does not quite cohere into a conscious mind (Mannequins yes, angels and demons usually no), gets a base +1 to rolls to hit in melee, and to any check that…