Since that time, Arikel has mostly hated humanity for stealing his inventions. But he hates the Intercessor more. The Toolmaker is a jealous god; he wishes to be acknowledged for his brilliance, but never to be challenged. He hates humanity for inventing devices that exceed his own; but he is also fascinated. His ultimate goal is to be recognised as the owner and inventor of any technology exceeding paleolithic level [although this is certainly not justified] and, through his human proxies, he seeks to extend his influence over human inventors and engineers.
Over the years, the Toolmaker has attracted many worshippers. Some simply honour him as the ultimate source of all technology [they're wrong]; many more hope to persuade him to part with some valuable knowledge. Of all the gods, Arikel has the most human - like mind; he thinks like a fairly bright human [but he's not a genius, even by human standards] who happens to be immortal and possess divine powers. Many worshippers hope that he will help them with some device or idea. Most are disappointed; after all, Arikel resents every piece of technology that humanity gains, unless it is under his control. Occasionally, one is rewarded by some insight or divine assisstance. Even more rarely, someone is approached by an avatar of the Toolmaker, asking for an explanation of something they have built, in return for divine favour. After all, Arikel cannot bear ignorance; he fears it even more than losing control.
From time to time, Arikel's various agents have also been known to attempt assassination on an inventor or scientist making excessive progress. As a result, both the Clockwork and Steam guilds have something of a love-hate relationship with him; in their early days, both may well have been alternately threatened and encouraged by his worshippers.
When the Grey Order was founded, many of the Toolmaker's worshippers were a part of it. Ever considered suspect by their guilds, these fundamentalists hoped to gain power by fashioning a society subservient to their master. However, the Toolmaker became ambitious on their behalf; he advised them on how to create a machine that, he knew, would finally trap his old enemy. The Intercessor. When it was finished, the machine worked just as he had anticipated - at first. The Intercessor was trapped. But when Arikel tried to use his powers to infest the machine and do what he saw as right to the Intercessor, he found that he could not. And when he raged at his minions in the Grey Order, he found that they had lost influence, or rejected him. And he was angry.
These days, wherever many people dedicate their lives to technology, someone is bound to be a worshipper of the Toolmaker. Arikel is an inventor, convinced that everyone owes him for his brilliance, whatever he may choose to do with it; many believe him. Others just hope he will help them. He has several covert worshippers in the Guilds of Clockwork and Steam; and more in the Grey Order. His worshippers have a dominant position in none of these organisations. But Arikel is always seeking to change that situation. Particularly in the Grey Order. He wants to be much closer to the Intercessor...
Like most gods, Arikel is slowly dying. In his case, though, this takes a strange form. As humanity developes machines, ever more complex 'tools' that extend far beyond anything Arikel could think up for himself, he is slowly being subsumed into the phenomenon. In the long term he is doomed; he will be replaced by the technology he helped to create (however unwillingly). In the short term, he is being altered; his worshippers are turning him into a god of machines, rather than a Toolmaker. Arikel knows that this is the beginning of the end. But machines are so much more powerful than just tools. Some say that the Toolmaker cannot cope with this combination of power and slow loss of individuality, and that the dying god is going slowly insane.
Arikel's barge used to appear as a workshop, or series of workshops, with the scale (human-sized to gigantic) depending on the impression the Toolmaker wished to create on a given visitor. These days, several of the workshops seem to lead off into corridors of clockwork or steam tunnels. Unlike in the barge of the Intercessor, these do not trap the unwary. But the god himself is much more volatile than he used to be.
The Smith: the other of Arikel's apprentices tends to settle in one place. As his moniker suggests, he often establishes himself as a village smith. However, he swiftly sets himself up as a dominant force in local markets, sometimes in a gangster-like manner. This avatar has been driven out by Imperial forces on numerous occasions, but has so far escaped harm. In the past, people have sought out the Smith as a maker of legendary arms and armour; he has obliged them, for a price including fealty to the Toolmaker. Recently, advances in armament technology have superceded such baubles. But also recently, the Smith has not been found by any human.
The Engineer: the newest of Arikel's avatars. Iterech Alamar was a brilliant army engineer and inventor. Some hundreds of years before the present day, while the Emperor was founding the Imperial University, Iterech was appointed as the first head of the School of Mechnomancy. During ten years in this post, he succeeded in building a department; however, he also used his influence in the Empire to attack those he perceived as using his ideas without express permission. Over time, his malice and vindictiveness in this way increased. Finally, during a particularly cruel winter, he had the city guards tear apart a heating system in an almshouse which had been copied from a design of his. As the almshouse froze, the similarity of his act to that of the Toolmaker millenia previously granted him a union with the god that was unexpected to both of them. But Alamar was loathe to give up this contact, and agreed to work with the Toolmaker, on the god's terms. It was five years before that Emperor discovered that his prize engineer had become an Avatar; then, Uterech had to run for his life. Since then he has appeared from time to time, mostly when people have tried to find him, offering advice - for a price. He appears as a late middle aged man of proud bearing and mostly using a pseudonym. Various rumours place him currently in the Grey Order or the Imperial University. But for some years, no-one trying to find him has been able to.
The Dreadnought: Nobody knows where it came from, and nobody knows what it wants. It's a steam powered robot ten meters high that has appeared in the last few years. A few ragged refugees tell tales of the thing appearing and destroying whole villages in far flung parts of the four kingdoms. But so far, no one in major cities believes countryman's nonsense like that.