War Machines (WM)

As the name implies, war machines are machines that ancient Rythulians once used to do war with each-other.

Behavior
Once active, War Machines fly around in search of cloth creatures to collect. While on the hunt, War Machines project a searchlight from their eye. If a cloth creature - or Wayfarer - comes within their searchlight, their face changes, and they charge in to collect the fabric.

While a War Machine will try to consume a cloth creature in its entirety, it will only try to collect the Scarf of a wayfarer, and will only manage to collect half of it (unless the scarf is REALLY short). War Machines will still try to charge after Wayfarers without scarves, but will only knock them around instead of doing any lasting harm.

In Snow, a War Machine is seen attacking a dolphin without collecting it.

History


A mural in the Pink Desert suggest that, before they were used for warfare, the War Machines might have been used for transportation.

Construction
The factory in the Pink Desert is used to assemble War Machines.

According to The Art of Journey, they are created by inserting Dolphins into them.

In the beta
Dummied out murals from the beta suggest that War Machines collect cloth creatures partly as a means of powering themselves. When the War Machines use their powers, however, it consumes the cloth creatures inside, turning them into Sand.

In Fanon
Black Cloaks may have the ability to control - or at least influence - the behavior of War Machines.

Trivia
After getting up after a War Machine attack, a Wayfarer will limp for a short while.

The War Machines that fly near a player as they head toward Paradise turn into Whales once they actually reach Paradise.

Speculation
A likely reason for the use of War Machines in, well, the war, was to try and gather as much cloth as possible before the other side did.

Between the fact that you can release creatures from War Machine pieces and that the last two machines that you see turn into whales, it's likely that the cloth collected inside of these machines is still alive and aware.

The machine that attacks a dolphin without collecting it may suggest that some of these machines have been online so long without anyone to repair or direct them that they've started to malfunction. It may also mean that they were not programmed to stop attacking creatures once they were full.