Mechanized Armors

At their core, the vehicle constructs known as "mechanized armors" are an evolution of those customized suits of armor crafted by those practitioners known as "qi conductors". Those who master the 2nd Age craft of "akashtech" begin their path by crafting pieces of armor with mechanical features, and then enhanced by conducting their qi into them. The akashtech magi of ancient Xian crafted larger and larger suits of armor until they reached the point where their wearers coould no longer move in them under their own volition. The next stage of akashtech development was ushered in by the invention of the chakra gear.

Chakra gears could serve like any mundane mechanical gear, but these were intended to act as gates through which the wearer can channel their qi through in order to control their unwieldly suits. Now seated in a cockpit for their suit, qi conductors could now move and act in these "mechanized armors" ("mechanarms", "mecharms", or just "mechs" for short),moving from being wearers to pilots.

All things being equal, mechanized armors, essentially vehicles in the shape of creatures, are just too mechanically complex compared to focus-built vehicles that only need simpler mechanics. Why go through the struggle and expense of crafting legs and fingers when simpler wheels and clamps are quicker and cheaper to build? Why deal with the difficulties of designing a vehicle to balance upright like a person when simple, flat shapes suffice your vehicular needs? Any one thing a mech can do is more efficiently and easily accomplished with a vehicle or engine purposefully crafted to do so.

Where mechs truly shine is that by adopting a form instinctually familiar to its pilot, the pilot is able to fully channel and perform martial and magical arts through the mech. Doing so scales the arts to greater potencies relative to the mech's size. Now, threats larger than life will have to face foes of their own size.