G.N.O.M.E. Incident Report

Knockback Rebuilt

The problem was discovered after a Void-armored intern was struck during a field trial and vanished through a wall that had been standing since the First Age.

The armor was recovered.

The intern was not.

Investigation revealed the old knockback system relied on a filing method so fragile that one unfamiliar source of violence was enough to confuse it completely.

Several engineers suggested adding more categories.

A junior artificer instead asked why the armor needed to know what had struck the wearer at all.

The room went quiet.

The old system was burned, buried beneath the workshop, and warded against resurrection.

The replacement follows a simpler rule:

If the world tries to throw you, resist.

Trials were repeated with warhammers, cursed machinery, hostile creatures, and one relic that should never have been removed from its shrine.

The armor held.

Mostly.

The Knockback Division has since been renamed the Order of Remaining Where One Was Standing.

The missing intern’s boots were found three days later.

They were still upright.