Fulcrums are humans ‘recycled’ by the Corvo, into semi-autonomous machines. Robots can be hacked and turned against their owners, and designing an AI is taboo (while semi-AI are extremely expensive). The solution found by the Corvo is to install a deceased human with an intact brain to operate the machine. Their personality and other traits are turned off and everything else is wired into the machine.
In principle, what is left of the human is only the ‘hardware’ - so it is basically like donating a body to science. Still, there have been stories about how some fulcrums speak the names of people they should have forgotten about.
Humans are not forced into this, as corvo despise slavery and value free will - though they think anything is acceptable if everyone involved agrees to it.
Security companies offer big pay cheques to living humans so that they can use their bodies when they die to create a fulcrum. Some shady companies offer quite gruesome deals to very desperate human immigrants in exchange for their bodies, such as 10 years of housing and care in exchange for a prompt euthanization afterwards.
At this moment, there are only human fulcrums due to limited and specified research. However, as more and more poor corvo request to be part of these programs out of desperation, research is being made to allow them to take on those kinds of deals.
Level 2[]
A Level 2 NPC card was in the Core Set Deck.
Level 3[]
A Level 3 NPC card was in the Core Set Deck.
Source Material[]
The Fulcrum was introduced in the Core Set Deck.