Butcher's Broth
Written by: Ripshot
Now I'm no stranger to drugs, what with being the sort of gal who keeps a few doses of Kamikaze on hand just in case, but there's some stuff out there that'll even give me the heebie-jeebies once in a while, and wouldn't you know it, the Howling Blades have done just that with their latest concoction. They don't have a name for it, but after the incident that led to the public becoming aware of this beast of a brew, most folk are calling it the "Butcher's Broth." Most of the ingredients are what you'd expect from a Barrens lab to stir up, being a mixture of condensed Jazz from stolen police-poppers and some homebrewed muscle-stims with a little jungle-juice to make it go down easier. The secret ingredient is something else, though: Scraped up biomatter mixed with Basilisk residue. Turns out the acid-clouds that straight up melted barrens-residents a couple of years back in the nasty 'Hell-Rain' incident left behind stains of disincorporated remains mixed with innert corrosives and melted concrete, and the Howling Blades, lovely folk they are, scraped some of it up and mixed it in with some drugs to see what'd happen.There's some reasoning behind this, however morbid. Background-count in that area's been fluctuating like hell since the Hell-Rain, and awakened individuals report feeling a sense of terror just being in the damn area, so the Blades must've figured the actual remains might have something potent to 'em.I was surprised as much as anyone else to hear that not only will this brew not kill you on the spot, but actually works as a poor psychotic man's Kamikaze. You need to quaff a whole glass of the bubbling, oily swill to get the full effect, but it turns even the scrawniest wretch from the barrens into a psycho who won't stop hacking at you even after you hack their arm off first. Weird thing is, this stuff doesn't just snuff inhibition and make you angry, instead it makes its users into straight-up sadists, with folks doing some mad fucked-up drek while on the high then breaking down from what they did afterwards. Maybe it's awakened? People started knowing about this stuff a few months back in the failure of 'Operation Swordbreaker', a Lone-Star op around putting a couple of undercover agents into the Howling Blades to figure out just what the hell they're all about. First one got found out and skinned in short-notice, but the second one, an Elf called Lander Alfaro, actually lived long enough to make it to the initiation-rites. Little did the poor slot know that the Blades made quaffing a pint of this stuff and picking a fight in enemy territory part of the rites, and Lander decided that risking the stuff was better than breaking the cover. Long story short: The fight turned into a chase, which led Lander back into civilized parts where he put his HTR training to use in gutting half a dozen officers and four bystanders before he got his legs blown out by a police-sniper. Managed to chalk up another kill even after that, creepy eh?
* When under the effects of Butcher's Brew, the user suffers from the Poor Impulse Control (Sadism) negative-quality (Chrome Flesh, Pg. 58) for the entire duration, in addition to going Berserk when wounded, in the manner similar to Bear Magicians.
When the Butcher's Broth wears off, the user suffers -2 Reaction, -2 Willpower and -1 to all limits for a duration equal to that of the initial effect. They also suffer 3S and 4P damage (unresisted).
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