Deathbringer

The Deathbringer is a category of machine in Horizon Zero Dawn. A large Chariot Class machine, it is not a contemporary machine; rather it is one of three machines of the ancient Chariot Class, manufactured by the robotics and technology corporation Faro Automated Solutions during the mid 21st century. As such, it was designated by FAS as the FAS-FSP5 Khopesh. However one swarm of Chariot robots, including Khopeshes, went out of control, becoming the Faro Plague, and ultimately eradicated all life on Earth.

History
The FAS-FSP5 Khopesh was designed by Faro Automated Solutions, and developed as part of FAS’ Chariot line of combat robots (ironically named Peacekeepers). Khopeshes were the heavy firepower units of a swarm. Additionally, they could consume biomass as fuel in the event of fuel line interdiction, and their OS’s security was virtually unbreakable.

In 2064, a swarm owned by the Hartz-Timor Energy Combine stopped responding to commands, replicating at an alarming rate, and defaulting to biomass conversion as its fuel supply. The swarm came to be called the Faro Plague, and began to relentlessly consume the biosphere, ultimately eradicating all life. With no chance of containment or regaining control of the swarm, Project Zero Dawn was implemented to eventually brute force the swarm’s deactivation codes, shut the robots down, terraform the ravaged Earth and reestablish life after its extinction. The Khopeshes and other Faro robots that had overrun the planet numbered in the millions before they were shut down and buried by the system.

Centuries passed. Zero Dawn, managed by its governing AI GAIA, successfully terraformed the planet and reestablished life, including the human species, though through no fault of its own, they lived primitive, tribal existences. Meanwhile, the millions of Khopeshes and other Faro Plague robots lay buried. Following GAIA's self-destruction, the rogue subordinate function HADES began pursuing its objective of destroying the new biosphere. Denied the use of Zero Dawn, HADES was forced to resort to other methods, and it decided to use the Faro Plague. To do so, it manipulated the leaders of the Shadow Carja into forming a cult in its service, the Eclipse. It had the Eclipse acquire numerous Faro Plague robots, including Khopeshes, which it reactivated to bolster the cult’s strength, as it planned to use the cult as an army to reach a Zero Dawn transmission array, known to the new humans as "the Spire", sited nearby the Carja capital Meridian to reactivate the Faro Plague robots worldwide.

In accordance with HADES’ command, the Eclipse acquired several Khopeshes and other Faro Plague robots. Khopeshes were exhumed at ancient ruins such as Maker's End, and extracted from within the colossal derelict Metal Devils that had manufactured them, at sites such as the Grave-Hoard and in The Jewel. They were used by the Eclipse in their large-scale operations such as their invasion of the Nora Sacred Land. While some recovered Khopeshes could not be restored, the Eclipse were able to scavenge machine guns from their chassis and use them in combat. Due to their incredible firepower, the Eclipse named these ancient machine as "Deathbringers".

Appearance
A Deathbringer is a large and very powerful mobile weapons platform, comparable in size to the largest contemporary combat machines. Unlike Zero Dawn machines or even the other machines in the Chariot Line, Deathbringers have no resemblance to any fauna. A Deathbringer’s means of ambulation consists of four stout legs, each with a vertical piston at the end. Each leg is equipped with a stabilizer. The legs are connected radially to a circular swivel that allows the head, which is laterally wider than the span of the legs, to turn 360 degrees. The head carries several formidable weapons: a flamethrower, a grenade launcher, a gun turret, a heavy cannon turret, a swarm launcher and a repeater cannot turret. The head also carries cooling rods and the machine’s CPU. Tough armour plating covers the entire chassis. Two optical sensors are located centrally at the front of the head, in a vertical location, on each side of the CPU’s housing.

Behaviour
Being an ancient war machine, a Deathbringer has no behaviour other than hostility to enemy forces as defined by its master. In the case of the Faro Plague Deathbringers, enemy forces were any human forces and any machines that were not part of their swarm. In the case of Deathbringers that had been reactivated by HADES, enemy forces were any enemy of the Eclipse.

Abilities
While Deathbringers are incapable of any ambulation beyond short mechanical steps, their powerful array of ranged attacks compensate for this limitation. Additionally, they have a high capacity to sustain damage, comparable to the most powerful contemporary machines, and their extensive armour plating prevents restraining weapons such as Ropecaster lines from gaining purchase on their chassis; thus, they cannot be tied down.

Like their fellow Chariot machines the Corruptors, centuries of burial underground have given them two significant weaknesses: they are particularly vulnerable to weapons that utilize fire, and are prone to overheating. When they overheat, they expose their cooling rods and CPUs. Ranged attacks against these components inflict significant damage. Additionally, they expose the stabilizers in their legs when overheating and during some of their attacks. Destroying a stabilizer temporarily incapacitates a Deathbringer.