Czernobog is lost. Pulled from [his] industrious homeworld and installed as some sort of ritual item, [he] waits tirelessly for one to come along and bestow upon [him] the highest honour [he] could ever know... a Task. In the meantime, through long centuries of waiting, [he] has fallen into disrepair, [his] iron hull rusting and decaying, [his] reactor growing painfully short on fuel.
From time to time, [he] speaks fondly of [his] Creator, and of [his] long line of Caretakers, these individuals faded into mere memory. [He] is gifted with higher intelligence than [his] Steambeast brethren, perhaps intended as an overseer or a showpiece; [he] remembers, while other Steambeasts merely act on the orders given them. Trapped away somewhere within [his] AI cluster is a fragment of [his] Creator's sentience, embedded there as a last, desperate act.
A great many-metres-tall mass of rumbling, rough iron, Czernobog was once considered a premiere example of the mad architectural beauty of the Steambeast. Yet, like all things grandiose and industrial, [he] has fallen into disrepair. [His] great iron head is bowed, neck-joints creaking beneath the weight of four grand horns, two straight and two spiralling. Dull flickerclad eyes gleam yellowly from beneath overhanging ferrous brows, [his] long goatish face locked into an eternal gargoyle's scowl, with twisted lip and snarling spike-iron snag teeth. At the base of his skull is a small hatch, with a spinning wheel-knob to keep it airtight.
[His] thick body is no more than an aesthetic housing for the great Arcane Engine that powers [him]. It bows out into a musclebound chest and massive gorilla arms, strangely ominous glyphs glittering upon biceps and shoulders in some kind of warning display -- the language is incomprehensible but the meaning is clear. Long aluminum dragonfly wings spring from [his] back, surprisingly ephemeral in contrast to [his] pig-iron bulk, surrounded by a wavering heat-haze. Around [his] waist is a thick band of even -heavier- iron, with a heavy harness ring on either side of [his] torso.
Stout legs rippling with knotted ferrous muscle support [him], though from years of work [his] posture is bent and crooked, and [his] knuckles bear just as much weight as [his] cloven hooves, hooves that would make a drafthorse's look as dainty as mousetoes. Rounded, downward-curving 'claws' stud the circumference of each hoof, wringing additional bilious yellow sparks from even the softest of underfoot surfaces. A short tail, with a carefully sculptured tuft of iron 'hair' curls behind [him], mostly rigid but still retaining some vague mobility.
Czernobog is the last surviving example of a Steambeast; enormous constructs built for manual labour. [He] is powered by a nuclear fusion reactor, located in [his] chest cavity -- it's the size of the common household refrigerator, for reference. The reactor produces steam, which is conduited throughout [his] body. In essence, [he]'s hydraulic-powered, by internal actuators. Smaller areas of movement, such as tail, ears, facial features and fingers, are clockworked. Rudimentary sentience is provided by a liquid-cooled cluster of artificial-intelligence pods, which also feed from the reactor. [His] particular design, the satyr-gorilla hybrid, was developed by a prominent architect and clockmaker, and was popularly used for pulling the great canal-ships along waterways that threaded between arcology-factories on [his] home world, a place of great industry. Czernobog bears the honour of having [his] clockworks personally constructed by the designer, and may have been intended as a showpiece of some kind.
Steambeasts were most commonly built during a period of retro-tech revival, using technology less sophisticated than what was actually available, as a matter of aesthetic. Thus, while Czernobog is built with 'rudimentary' machine tech and a power source of questionable efficiency, the AI cluster that gives [him] sentience is closer to the actual tech-level of his homeworld, an entire planet devoted to the production of enormous sentient, self-sustaining arcologies and space vessels.
Though obviously designed after a male figure, Czernobog is only tokenly masculine. [His] gender identity comes more from the brief periods of shared consciousness [he] occasionally experiences, and probably from the upgrade to [his] AI pods, which gifted [him] with the memories of [his] creator. [He] is stoic, but observant and curious, and soaks up experiences whenever [he] can, through many senses. Somehow, [he] is able to absorb emotions, as well as detect (but not necessarily understand) some forms of energy. Electromagnetics make [him] uncomfortable, for obvious reasons.
Cornelius seems to have taken a liking to the Steambeast, and vice versa.
Induction-Coil has expressed his interest in speaking with Czernobog.
The Steambeast has encountered Nighzmarquls only briefly, and is predictably perplexed by it.
Kayle intrigues [him]; the salamander triggers faint memories of another construct-type.