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Slaughterhouse of the Cell: One Man's Trash Pt. 2

Mod Priority: Optional

Desired Timeslot: Saturday/Sunday Day

NPCs Required: 2-3

Content Type: Away/Exploration/Combat

Summary:

Havoc has reverse engineered one of the components recovered from the degraded Ossuary Device and wants to use it to zero in on the network its a part of. This will lead to a functioning Ossuary buried in Zekiah Swamp. Whatever group goes out to get it will need to dig it up while fending off attacks from individuals who have been fully assimilated into the Cell and escaped containment.

Hooks:

Havoc's research will give them a time when they knows the signal will be strongest and easiest to follow to the nearest point in the network (whenever the mod is scheduled for). This will obviously require a little bit of advance coordination with Havoc so they can get a team together to either go with or send out. UPDATE 3/14: Sig also has this information and can be used to help hook.

Details:

Pretty straightfoward. Group will go to Zekiah Swamp and triangulate the signal to a point under their feet. It will take them 30 minutes to excavate the device, minus 1 minute for every level of Salvaging the group has in total (Avontuur counts as a level). If its a really huge group that's stacked with Salvaging feel free to bump the base time up to 45 minutes just so they still have to invest at least a little time. While they are digging characters with Telepathy, Biogenetics, or Faithful Patterns will get a weird feeling of something being off, the nearby tendrils of the Cell consciousness probing for threats and growing like a tumor in the psychoscape, inflicting a call of "By My Voice: Environmental: Downsurge 5 Mind." At this time the Cell Assimilates will begin attacking. 2-3 waves should be sufficient unless its a really chonky group, in which case feel free to add one for good measure. If they succeed in digging up the Ossuary during an attack wave and attempt to escape the Assimilates will pursue but otherwise nothing bars their leaving. If recovered, the Ossuary does contain a trapped Aberrant in a state of horrific agony. If removed from the device they will be considered Shattered. Up to the characters if they want to try to treat them or just let them die and allow them to sink outside the Ossuary.

Guide Info: Ossuary Device

Relevant Lores: Infection/Mortis, Wasteland Science, Aberrants.

An Ossuary Device is a medium sized box covered in tubes and wires. It is designed to have a living Aberrant placed inside it (the confines are not comfortable, this is an agonizing process) and used as a power-source. When placed throughout a given geographical area in a three dimensional network (minimum four devices with more for better results) they will "ossify" the Mortis within the zone of their network. This effectively creates a closed system where if an individual has been implanted with a special spinal graft connected to the network, their Infection remains within the closed system and does not cycle into the larger Mortis. If an individual with such a graft dies outside the confines of the network their Infection cycles normally. Individuals who die within the confines of the network but who have not been implanted with the graft will not have their Infection trapped, but their Mortis experience will likely be a difficult one as they fights their way through the ossified barrier, contend with the malnourished necroscape it surrounds, and encounter traumatized or insane imprints trapped there.

Rewards:

The Assimilates have Rare Herb on them from their trundling through the Swamp, as well as ID cards belonging to several workers from the State Farm (can be represented by local plot item cards, no special prop necessary). The characters will also have an intact Ossuary Device to research as they want or to destroy. If stripped for parts the Ossuary will yield 6 Rare Scrap, 4 Mechanical Components, 4 Psionic Crystals, 2 Recovered Electronics, and 2 Infectious Material.

Threats:

Assimilate Brute

Body: 60

Skills

Skill	Uses	Call	Effect
Strong Limbs (All)		No Effect: Strong Limbs	As per NPC ability
Proficient Unarmed Combat			As per Skill
Defend	2	Defend	As per NPC ability
Basic Mental Endurance	2	Mental Endurance	As per Skill
Balance	2	Balance	As per Skill
Take Down	2	Take Down	As per Skill
Break	2	Break (Target)	As per Skill
Proficient Malicious	2	Mangle (Limb)	As per Skill

Attacks

Attack	Base Damage	Effects
Brawling (Large Brawlers or Tentacles)	2	swing 5 Aberrant Bane once per flurry

Keywords

Assimilate, Aberrant, Lineage, Local

Notes

RP: You are a person who has mutated into a horrible goopy body horror monster. You are intelligent but you aren't capable of communicating. You are basically part of a hive mind, psionically linked together with your fellow monsters into a single organism, and you only understand the world in terms of "You" (encompassing yourself and your fellow monsters) and "Not You" (literally every other form of life). The existence of "Not You" is both a threat and an insult to "You," therefore it must be eliminated.

Assimilate Shield

Body: 40

Skills

Skill	Uses	Call	Effect
Strong Limbs (All)		No Effect: Strong Limbs	As per NPC ability
Iron Shield		Iron Shield: No Break	Shield cannot be broken
Proficient Unarmed Combat			As per Skill
Defend	2	Defend	As per NPC ability
Interfere	2	Interfere	As per Skill
Take Down	2	Take Down	As per Skill
Basic Biogenetics	2	Psionic: Heal 5	As per Skill

Attacks

Attack	Base Damage	Effects
Brawling (Large Brawlers or Tentacles)	2	swing 5 Aberrant Bane once per flurry
Shield (Meatier Shield physrep)		blocks melee strikes

Keywords

Assimilate, Aberrant, Lineage, Local

Notes

Guide Info - Assimilates

"Assimilates" are the end stage of Strains afflicted by a psionic disease that gradually mutates them into hyper-specialized extensions of a singular organism know as The Cell. They can communicate telepathically and instinctively with one another but cannot speak or understand non-Assimilates (though in some instances an Osteotome procedure might reveal information from one after death). Non-Assimilates are viewed as inherently threatening to Assimilates and as foreign invaders which must be eliminated.

For more information on the psionic disease that creates Assimilates see the Cytozation Syndrome box out (note that this disease is not intended to be transmissable to PCs at this time, though that may change as the plot progresses).

Costuming notes: Go for body horror as much as possible. More monstrous and inhuman-looking masks are the easiest go-to, but also intense Retrograde-style make up to emphasize sloughing flesh and cancerous growths if you have time and you're feeling ambitious. If possible try to tuck weapons and tentacles into sleeves to give the impression of them physically growing out of you. Before mutation Assimilates were predominantly Red Stars and Nuke Fam if you want to add that to your aesthetic.

Disease: Cytozation Syndrome

Description: A psionically-transmitted disease that gradually spreads through a group with a strong communal identity, slowly transforming them into a gestalt consciousness and amalgamating their bodies into single modular organism. This disease originated as an unintended result of an experiment conducted by the Proctors on a group of captive Red Stars and Nuclear Family pitted against eachother for increasingly scarce resources. The goal was to see which communal identity would prove stronger and how they would adapt to extreme adversity. The outcome was the Cell, an assimilation of its constituents into an apex ecosystem, and its precedent Cytozation Syndrome. Its not clear which group developed the condition first, but by the end the Cell had eliminated or assimilated all sentient life within the experiment compound, including its observers. Not knowing how to kill it, the Proctors simply left it contained and continued to study its development. Then the containment devices were damaged in the most recent Great Cane and parts of the Cell escaped confinement, interacting with Nuclear Family and Red Stars elsewhere in the Bailey and introducing Cytozation Syndrome into the population.

Transmission Vectors: Any Faith Anomaly skill that engages in a Psionic Attack on a single Target. Either user or target may be infected if the other has the disease. Only capable of infecting baptized Nuclear Family and Red Stars (for now).

Stages: Each stage compounds the last.

Stage 1: No symptoms.

Stage 2: Irrational paranoia about those not in your Faith or Society.

Stage 3: Visible lesions and growths on skin. Must use or be the target of a Faith Anomaly skill once per 12s or lose 1 Resolve.

Stage 4: Loss of individuality. Inability to differentiate oneself from an extension of their Faith or Society. Gain special Brawlers representing mutated appendages and may not use weapons. Maximum Mind pool reduced by 10.

Stage 5: Total absorption/transformation into the Cell. Character death.

Duration between Stages: 2 months.

Resolution:

Identifiable after research with Basic Medical and Lore: Aberrants.

Treated at Stage 1-2 with Basic Telepathy, 10 Mind, 30 minutes roleplaying psychic surgery on the patient's mind.

Treated at Stage 3 with Proficient Telepathy, 10 Mind, 30 minutes roleplaying psychic surgery on the patient's mind.

Treated at Stage 4 with Proficient Telepathy, 10 Mind, 30 minutes roleplaying psychic surgery on the patient's mind. Must Mangle all patient's limbs to represent the removal of extensive mutations.

Treatment at Stage 5 is not known. Patient dies.

Remission versus cure: Treatment reduces disease stage by one. Treatment at stage one puts disease into remission.

Cure: Must be researched. When patient is in remission may be cured with Proficient Telepathy by spending 1 Resolve and 30 minutes roleplaying psychic surgery. Inflicts a Fracture on the patient at the end of the procedure.

Return from the Mortis cures disease: No.

Rumors/Contract:

N/A

Created by

Brendan Sherlock.

System

Dystopia Rising RPG

Statblock Type

{DEPRECIATED} DR Module

Link/Embed

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Dystopia Rising RPG {DEPRECIATED} DR Module: Slaughterhouse of the Cell: One Man's Trash Pt. 2