Threats in the Post-Reckoning World
| White-Eye Plague | Soul Storm | Madlands and Taint |
| Most of the threats the characters face -- disease, marauders, animals -- can be conjured from any number of sources. Setting-specific threats can be found in the Eden Studios books of the Witchcraft RPG and Armageddon RPG lines, and include: Black Magicians, Ferals, Shaitan, Arisen, Acolytes of the Mad Gods, et al. Below are some setting-specific dangers which were created or modified for my chronicle. | ||
| White-Eye Plague | ||
| More feared than any other illness is the mutagenic disease commonly known as White Eyes. The disease first appeared during the winter after the Reckoning, and is believed to be a hypermutated version of rabies. Like rabies, it is transmitted through mammalian bodily fluids, usually saliva. Infection usually occurs when a bitten victim wards off or kills the attacker, or when a shot or stabbed White Eye sprays blood in a victim’s face. A couple of days after infection, the victim grows increasingly aggressive and belligerent. Within a week or so, the victim’s irises turn white and he becomes light-sensitive. About the same time, the higher brain functions shut down, and the victim becomes a ravening monster with a hunger for flesh. Other changes include an increase in strength and overall toughness. They avoid, but are not damaged by, direct sunlight, and usually only hunt at night, spending their days in tunnels, caves, or buildings. Because of their habits, they have been nicknamed “trolls.” Though not prone to abstract thought, they do exhibit enough cunning to stay alive. They can learn from the habits of prey, and although trolls seldom give up on prey in their territory, they can learn to avoid traps and other mistakes made by their fellows. Human trolls sometimes use tools (mostly of the clubbing, hacking or impaling variety) but proceed to biting as soon as the victim has been subdued. Carnivore species of troll are most commonly encountered; troll deer tend to die quickly. Human trolls are more common than any other species of White Eye because humans are more likely to survive any attacks. Trolls seldom act aggressively towards each other unless in direct competition for meat. Most normal animals can smell the disease, and give White Eyes a wide berth when possible; those who don’t are infected or eaten. As a result, territories with long-term troll residents may be notably lacking in fauna – a trait that survivalists are always watchful for. | ||
| Some communities become colonies for White Eyes. No one has reported cohesive behavior or leadership among these groups, but having two dozen trolls trying to kill you simultaneously may make unit tactics unnecessary. Rumors of breeding among the trolls have cropped up, but if true the chances of these brain-damaged, virus-laden creatures bringing young to term (let alone raising them to adulthood) are vanishingly small. | ||
| As a troll ages, all pigmentation fades to whiter shades; the few White Eyes who have survived from the original outbreak are like white as porcelain dolls, the only dark spots being their pupils and the hungry maw. | ||
| A handful of medical facilities have developed vaccines, but the drugs are not commonly available Many settlements have “quarantine” facilities to hold strangers for the first three days of their visits, just to make sure they show no signs of the disease. | ||
| Systems for Infection | ||
| When there is a chance for infection (skin contact with infected fluids or tissues), failure on Con test indicates infection. | ||
| Mundanes: Difficult Con Test | ||
| Gifted: Simple Con Test | ||
| -1 per 5 Life Points lost in infectious attack (e.g., bite) | ||
| Typical Troll | ||
| Str: 2-6 Int: 0-2 | ||
| Dex: 1-5 Per: 0-4 | ||
| Con: 3-7 Will: 0-4 | ||
| Life Points: 20-62 End: 20-56 | ||
| Essence: 6-28 Speed: 10-26 | ||
| Soul Storm | ||
| Death is a fact of life. Once the soul slips the bonds of the flesh, it fades from the world, traveling through the Threshold on its way to other planes of existence. This process continues unabated, even when people die in droves from war, disease, or natural disaster. | ||
| But even the Threshold has its limits. With the meteor impacts, and later with the nuclear strikes in the US, China and Russia, tens of thousands died instantly in town-sized areas. Unable to press through to the other side, the released souls swirled, crowded together, and began to merge. The semi-fused souls whirled in a tornado-like vortex, unable to separate and move on. These abominations remain, feeding on Essence, and promising death to sensitive souls who stray too close. They are known as Soulstorms. | ||
| A soulstorm is a vortex of spiritual energy that stretches from a given locale into the local Threshold. They typically sit near the center of an area (perhaps a few square miles) where tens of thousands died in a few seconds. To normal senses, it is imperceptible, although within the vortex plant life withers and dies, and structures decay slightly faster than their surroundings. The Gifted can sense the concentration of Essence, but also a disturbing hunger, like an undertow that threatens to pull you under the calm surface. | ||
| To spirits, and those with Deathsight, the soulstorm appears as a swirling tornado, dark gray with flashes of light inside the cloud. The vortex spans several yards to a quarter mile wide and rises hundreds of feet before fading away. Looking too closely, one may glimpse figures or faces in the cloud. The whispers of thousands of mingled souls join to create a mighty and constant roar. | ||
| Even ten years after their origin, most soulstorms continue to whirl where they formed, whether in the center of a city or on a bombed-out plain. Some – those in barren places with no spirits to keep them fed– have begun to dissipate. A rare few have broken loose from their point of origin, and now wend their slow, erratic way across the countryside. | ||
| Effects and Systems | ||
| The vortex draws spiritual energy from a fair distance away; the radius of its sphere of influence is 4 times the diameter of the vortex (so a 10 yard vortex will draw Essence and spirits from 40 yards beyond the storm’s edge). Within the sphere of influence, nothing can regain Essence by any means. Within the vortex, all living things (and consecrated items) lose 1 Essence per minute. | ||
| Disturbed people are much more likely to act on their suicidal or self-destructive impulses (Simple Will Test within the sphere of influence; Difficult Will Test within the Vortex). Spending too much time inside the vortex makes even the emotionally stable susceptible to dark thoughts and fatal decisions. | ||
| For the dead, however, things only get worse. Like the similarly-named firestorm, the vortex draws its fuel towards it with a strong spiritual wind; it sucks Essence in all forms, consuming energy and merging spiritual beings to its collection. | ||
| Ghosts and other spirits are drawn towards the vortex. When inside the sphere of influence (either in this world or the Threshold), incorporeal spirits must make a Difficult Willpower Test every turn using the following modifiers: Outer ¼: -0, Outer ½: -1, Outer ¾: -2, Inner ¼: -3Touching Vortex: -5 | ||
| Success allows the spirit to maintain position, while additional success levels allow the spirit to fight its way out. Failure drags the spirit one level deeper. Although to observers the spirit’s hair, clothes, etc., appear to be whipped by a gale, the struggle is actually psychic; the vortex is a siren, seducing the ghost no matter how mentally repulsed it might be. | ||
| Moving Vortex | ||
| A moving vortex can travel D6 miles/day, and may slowly veer to a new heading once or twice a day. Sometimes they seem to head towards any major sources of Essence (like a Place of Power) or an area with a high mortality rate (like a static line of battle), but others show no real pattern. | ||
| Defense | ||
| So far, no one has learned how to dispel a soulstorm, nor how to free a particular spirit or ghost from one. If the releasing of Essence is truly an attractant, it could prove to be an effective (if dangerous) way to draw the storm towards or away from a target. | ||
| Story Seeds | ||
| Death Cult | ||
| A naïve medium believes the local vortex to be a voracious Death god which consumes/transports the local community’s dead. It hungers for more, so in order to spare the locals any more death than is natural, the local cult finds sacrifices from unwary travelers or nearby villages. | ||
| Wayward Deathwind | ||
| A 50-yard swath of cropland is withering in the far fields of a farming village, and the strip of yellowing wheat is moving towards the community; it will reach the village center in a couple of days. The Gifted must figure out what the vortex is; then they may try to turn it or convince the villagers to vacate their homes until the danger has passed. As the deadly but silent storm veers towards a rival village, will the characters try to warn them? Will they listen? | ||
| Mad Minion | ||
| A powerful minion of a Mad God has been summoned by cult members (or perhaps the Church of Revelations). Can the characters figure out a way to bring the Minion in contact with the vortex? Will the Essence and Taint destroy each other? Knowing that they risk destroying the spiritual energies of tens of thousands, can the characters morally take the chance? | ||
| Madlands and Taint | ||
| Madlands | ||
| At first, only an Essence-sensitive being would notice they were crossing into a Tainted zone. The blue sky seems a shade darker, and individuals feel a vague unease that they may well attribute to the ruined landscape – for most Madlands are located around large impact craters. Almost no wildlife is found here, for animals can sense the unnaturalness of the place. Those that are encountered are usually Tainted themselves, and highly dangerous. | ||
| As one journeys farther into the zone, everything grows darker – shadows are sharp and contrasts as distinct as normal, but all appears to be viewed through a progressively darker filter. The growing, oppressive feeling is unmistakable, and the stress beings to take its toll. Some become withdrawn, depressed, or jumpy, but the wrongness of the zone is clear to all. Only those with the proper supernatural defenses in place can shrug off the psychic malaise. Animals forced to enter the Madlands soon begin acting oddly, and then unnaturally. | ||
| Halfway to the heart of the Madlands, the fading light takes on a purplish tinge. Any living thing is either dead or twisted beyond recognition. The laws of physics start to come loose. Gravity may vary slightly from moment to moment, and radio transmission is no longer possible. The ground undulates in very slow yet perceptible waves. These effects grow more pronounced as the distance to the center decreases. | ||
| At the heart of most Madlands is a crater spanning a few meters to over a mile. The meteoric fragment sits (improbably) on the ground at the bottom of the crater, its hard surface pocked and eaten away in places. The crater is in perpetual night, the only illumination coming from the slow, regular pulses of purple aurora emanating from the fragment. Only those whose minds and bodies have been transformed by Taint can survive the extradimensional energies as this close range; others feel their minds and later their bodies gnawed by the lethal force. But most are mad long before reaching this point. | ||
| Taint Exposure | ||
| Spending time in the Madlands or around any significantly Tainted being is anathema to beings of this plane. In humans, such exposure to the mystical “radiation” causes malaise, psychosis, and eventually death – a pattern commonly knowns as Madlands Syndrome. | ||
| System: At regular intervals (as per the Exposure table, below), make a Difficult Willpower Test, using any applicable modifiers. After each failure during a given exposure, increase the next roll’s penalty by -1. If the Exposure Test is failed, roll a d10, reverse the modifiers from the Exposure Test (add the penalties and subtract the bonuses), and consult Effects table, below. | ||
| Defenses | ||
| Within the Madlands, all beings native to Creation must face possible Taint contamination. Taint is an utterly alien energy, best described as Anti-Essence, and has a corrosive effect on this reality. Most sentient beings will suffer psychic trauma from Taint exposure before they feel the physical effects. However, there are a few ways to stave off the worst of the mental trauma | ||
| Invocations: Essence Shields partially block the effects of the Taint Contamination, giving a +1 to the Exposure Test for every 5 points of Defense in the Shield. | ||
| Seers: Mindrule and Mindsight can block the mental effects, giving a +1 to the Exposure Test and a –1 to an Effects Test for every level of Strength (a Seer with both powers must pick one for the Test). The power must be must be active and used defensively to apply | ||
| Tainted: Those faithful to the Mad God or who are already Tainted (including Mockers and Believers) have varying degrees of immunity to the effects of contamination. Mockers and Believers have a +1 bonus to Exposure and Poisoning tests; Adepts receive an additional +1 per Circle, and they only have to make Simple Tests. Adepts of the Fourth Circle and above are sufficiently transmuted to be able to face the Crater with no ill effects. | ||
| Taint Effects | ||
| Essence and Endurance Loss cannot be recovered until the victim returns to an unTainted area. They then return at the normal rate. Penalties due to Essence loss factor into future Taint rolls (making the downward slide progressively faster). | ||
| Taint Poisoning occurs when an unshielded body is subjected to the effects of a strong Taint force. Much like radiation, the Taint begins to break down the body. Acute Taint Poisoning looks much like radiation poisoning – bloody stools and vomit, hair loss, lesions. Untreated ATP acts as a corrosive poison, acting hourly for a number of hours equal to the hours (for Heavy Ambient Taint) or minutes (for Lethal Ambient Taint) of exposure. Essence Shielding can nullify the effects, while supernatural healing (fueled by Essence) will halt the progression of damage. Damage from ATP heals more slowly (-1 to healing rolls), and may have permanent damage (-1 to a Physical Attribute permanently if more than ¾ LP were lost to ATP). | ||
| Example: A Mundane soldier with 40 Life Points ambushes some Cultists carrying a crate containing a fragment of the Beckett Comet. The minions counter-attack, and in the ensuing firefight he has to hunker down behind a few feet from the crate. The fight lasts about five minutes, plus two minutes of checking bodies, and then he heads out to rejoin his unit. Seven minutes in a zone of Lethal Ambient Taint results in seven-hourly Tests for a Strength 5 poison. An hour after initial exposure, the soldier is feeling a little weak (loses d10 LP). By the fourth hour he’s vomiting, and by the seventh he’s developing bleeding sores all over his body, his hair sloughing off and major systems are on the verge of breaking down (he’s down to 5 LP); he feels like dying, and nearly does. He slowly but eventually heals, but his nerves are shot (permanently loses 1 point of Dexterity, since he lost more than ¾ his total Life Points). This is, of course, in addition to any other effects of contamination. | ||
|
Exposure to Taint Contamination |
||
| Condition | Example | Effects |
| Light Ambient Taint | Edge of Madlands, windblown miasma | 1 Contamination Test/Day |
| Moderate Ambient Taint | Over a mile into the Madlands | 1 Contamination Test/12 Hours |
| Heavy Ambient Taint | Less than a mile from the crater; within a Temple | 1 Contamination Test/Hour; Str 2 Taint Poison/Hour |
| Lethal Ambient Taint | Inside crater; within 10 yards from a Beckett fragment | 1 Contamination Test/Minute; Str. 5 Taint Poison/Minute |
| Physical Contact w/ a Shaitan | Close combat | Instant Test, -0 to -3 to Test |
| Suffering Taint burns | Blasted by an Adept | Instant Test; -1 per 5 LP of damage |
|
Effects of Taint Contamination |
| Success Level | Effect |
| 1 | Lose 1Essence and 1 Endurance |
| 2 | Lose d4 Essence and d4 Endurance |
| 3 | Short-term Disorder, Lose 1 Essence and 1 Endurance |
| 4 | Lose d4 Essence, d4 Endurance; temporary loss of 1 Willpower |
| 5 | Long-term Affliction, lose d4 Essence |
| 6 | A Short-term disorder and a Long-term Affliction |
| 7+ | Becomes permanently Tainted (See Abomination Codex, p. 115) |
| Short-term Disorders are mental disorders which may last a few seconds or a few hours. The Chronicler may chose one of these, or make up another effect. |
| Exposed Character Flaw |
| An existing low-level Mental Drawback is temporarily increased a level or two. The mental strain of hiding in the Madlands may cause a mildly Covetous (Lust) character to attempt rape a friend, for example. |
| Hysterics |
| The character freaks out, screaming in terror and either running away or thrashing about. |
| Automaton |
| The character’s mind, overwhelmed, short-circuits. He loses all concept of self, and goes through the motions of whatever he should be doing, while only vaguely aware of the world around him. A soldier in combat may advance into fire, shooting at a walking pace and ignoring cover, orders, or falling shells; a looter may walk down a street picking up worthless objects or breaking every window without paying any attention to where the street leads or who is drawing a bead on him. A wound or sudden shock may or may not break him out of his trance. |
| Long-term Afflictions cover afflictions that last an indefinite period of time, even after the character leaves the Madlands. Most of these only last a few hours or days, although the Chronicler may decide that some the brush with madness was enough to make some stick (nightmares, for example). |
| New Mental Drawback |
| The character acquires a new Drawback. It should be related in some way to his experience in the Madlands. For instance, witnessing a group of cultists engaged in torture, the character may become Cruel. After surviving an encounter with a Shaitan, the character may “realize” that Hellbeasts are loathe to harm him (Delusion). Nightmares are also very common. |
| Hallucinations |
| Hallucinations may involve any or all of the senses. Again, they should probably be related to experience (recently killed friends reappear; the sky begins to change color as in the Madlands). |
| The Voices |
| This is more specific than just auditory hallucinations. The victim hears the seductive whispers of Madness. Referred to by some survivors as Madlands Molly, the soothing voices alternately play on the fears and the desires of the hearer, driving even the strong-willed towards. . . |
| Surrender |
| The victim impulsively commits a final stupid act. This could be suicidal (like stepping in front of a vehicle or hopping over a balcony rail), murderous (trying to knife close companions), or completely insane (heading deeper into the madlands, trying to find the Temple). The character may seem outwardly normal up until the moment of surrender. |
| Permanent Taint |
| For rules on dealing with the horrendous consequences of acquiring permanent Taint, see the sections on Mockers and Taint Powers (p. 78 and 115, respectively, in the Abomination Codex). |
| Decontamination |
| The short-term effects of Taint exposure fade with time spent in an un-Tainted area. In general, the effects of Taint exposure fade are the rate of 1 day per increment on the Exposure chart. So the malaise from week spent in the outskirts ring of the Madlands will gradually fade over the course of a week of rest in more “normal” lands, while exploring a Temple for a couple of hours would require two days before the worst of the nightmares ended. |
| Another method is for a Ritual of Cleansing to flood the subject with Essence in an effort to flush out the Taint; each two Essence spent equates to one day in gradual decontamination. The Ritual is painful to the subject at first, but it is a “good kind of pain” that leaves the cleansed person exhausted by the end. The subject loses d4 Endurance for every two Essence the caster spends. |
| Unfortunately, permanent effects are permanent; some scars never heal. |