326: Soma Fruit

ENTRY 326: Soma Fruit

The genetic codes for opium, tobacco, coca, coffee, and marijuana have been in the public domain for a long time, and the basic mechanisms for the production of caffeine, nicotine, morphine, codeine, cocaine, and cannabinoids are so well known that genescript kiddies have pre-written programs to help them hack together chimera plants that produce the drugs they want in the quantity they want. Hypercorp genetic engineers and drug artists tend to focus on more obscure plant and animal species, and instead of crude script-kiddy software splicing coca genes into space tomatoes they focus on taste, texture, consistent dosage, and aesthetic appeal.

At the consumer level, these drug-infused genetic chimera plants are known as soma fruit, covering everything from the bland "speedball cherries" (cherry tomatoes which codeine and cocaine) popular on Luna to the Superdark Chocolate (mildly hallucinogenic datura-cocoa beans) popular among hypercorp executives on Phobos and Extropia's trademark Munchies (cannabis-potato chips that stimulate appetite and cause mild euphoria). Given that there are no controls on genehacking beyond the technical difficulty involved, both independent and corporate genehackers are in a constant game of one-upmanship to produce the latest and greatest soma fruit, with occasional collateral damage in the form of overdosing customers. 

Mechanics

Soma fruit are generally recreational drugs (Eclipse Phase 320), most of which are based primarily on classical drugs (opiates, stimulants, and cannabinoids), just in combination and different forms - small fruit, chilies, edible tubers, flowers, etc. On the low end, these are functionally the same as Buzz, Mono No Aware, or Orbital Hash. Many soma fruit combine different drugs in their genetic makeup, or higher concentrations, and vary from toxic to the equivalent of speedballing to Grin and Kick at the same time and hoping your morph's heart doesn't explode. Since a full description of effects is impossible, gamemasters are suggested to use the drugs and effects in Eclipse Phase as a guideline - soma fruit tend to be cheaper, but more unpredictable. Players that want to make their own soma fruit can find starter software packages and open-source/public domain gene sequences available for free on the Mesh, they'll just need access to an appropriate kit or lab and a successful Skill Test (probably Interest: Gene Hacking) to design and produce a handful of seeds - actually growing the plants will take time.

Using Soma Fruit

There are good reasons why certain drug-producing plants have been perrenial favorites throughout transhuman history: access, abundance, and effectiveness. However, the advent of genehacking and the trans-Solar Mesh has made the production of classical drugs ridiculously simple and ubiquitous - at the point when anybody can do it (local lows and resources permitting), transhumans in search of a new and better drug experience will turn to effervescent chimeras that promise them novelty. Soma fruit are popular among DIY autonomists and hypercorp wageslaves alike, from the junkie that will consume anything to the drug gourmand that demands only the finest chemical high. For all practical purposes, soma fruit are a way of showing off the difference and occasional casual decadence of the Eclipse Phase future, where re-engineering food to contain drugs is cheap and easy, but doing it well is a technical and artistic challenge.

238: Antimirror

ENTRY 238: Antimirror

Chrome roses budding from a length of barbed wire, each bud and thorn tipped with rust, antimirror tastes of stale blood and ozone, with overtones of burning rubber as the flowers dissolve that seem to fill the head and overwhelm the senses. This petal is favored among masochists and exhumans, for whom pain is but one more sensation to be experienced and savored in all its million shades and combinations.

Each antimirror trip is a revisitation of some crime—a rape, a murder, a mutilation. The scripts tend be simple, the characters flat and mechanical. The non-player characters and settings are filled in from the user’s memory, pulled at random: friends, family, lovers. Familiar faces on empty shells playing pat parts. The user, of course, is always the victim, and suffers the worst of the events until the hallucinatory narrative ends.

The petalcrafters of antimirror pass themselves off as harmless enthusiasts, entertaining each other with their simple games, but the XP recordings that form the backbone of antimirror are culled from their vast archives of pain and fear. While they may or may not be torturers and sadists of themselves, they hoard and barter the memories of those that suffered and died at the hands of such depraved individuals, and vicariously cherish that anguish. While some are relatively harmless, others on the shadowy networks have been connected with kidnappings, unlicensed and unwilling augmentations, sexual assault, and premeditated surgical alteration on many habitats. Still, because of the disparate and secluded nature of the group, it is difficult for any legal authorities to stop their trade and barter of such materials, disguised as it is within accepted and perfectly legal peer-to-peer networks.

Antimirror Mechanics

Type	Application	Duration	Addiction Modifier	Addiction Type	Cost
Nano	O	1d6 hours	+3	Mental	Moderate

Antimirror has about a 1 in 10 chance of causing a “bad trip,” inflicting 1d10 Mental Stress on the user. Common derangements caused by antimirror addiction include paranoia and self-inflicted wounds.

Sweets

• Let the Blood Run Out (30 or more doses of antimirror in the last 30 days): Prolonged users find cathartic release through self harm; by inflicting 1d10 damage to themselves, the character can remove 1d6 Mental Stress that they have accumulated in the past 24 hours.
• Mind Numb (60 or more doses of antimirror in the last 30 days): The user develops a mental resistance to traumatic imagery and experiences; reduce all Mental Stress the user accumulates by half.
• Become the Victim (5 bad trips with antimirror): The user’s last hallucination made it onto the Mesh, and they have become a minor celebrity among the petalcrafters and users of antimirror. These individuals push the user to use the petal more often; the cost for them changes to Trivial.
• Witness (Random): The petal isn’t the typical narrative, but the XP recording of a recent unsolved violent crime. The user’s hallucination may hold clues to catch the perpetrator, or help identify the whereabouts and status of the victim.

237: Holder

ENTRY 237: Holder

Gatecrashing is a different set of logistics from space travel. No one worries about another couple of grams more or less as long as everything vital is accounted for, and most of the gatecrasher hypercorps are willing to look the other way if their people decide they need a little something extra. So in the demimonde of hangers-on and specialized services that have cropped up around the Gates there are people like Holder, dealing out drugs, petals, narcoalgorithms, and whatever else people might need. Holder is the one-stop pharmacy outlet of the Pandora Gate, self-incorporated as his own microcorp and with silent pipelines to all the big pharmacorps and petal artisans, who push him product samples and literature with witty soundbites and quick taglines—enough business that he has five people in an office-cum-warehouse space handling the logistics, keeping track of inventory, quality control, and making deals for promoting their product.

No one wants to buy drugs of hazy legality or possible experimental status from a corp-backed salesman who operates under the blind eye and quiet blessing of the powers that be. Holder knows this, and cultivates the genially scruffy mystique of a low-level hustler that says he can get his clients anything—and, amazingly enough to them, he can actually deliver. Holder’s gatecrasher clientele don’t need to know that he’s probably hooked into their employers through discreet backchannels, and that they approve of anything that Holder sells them. All the better to protect their investment if they can get them what they want and need, and in such a manner that the gatecrashers don’t go dealing with people they can’t trust. So Holder maintains his niche.

COG	COO	INT	REF	SAV	SOM	WIL	MOX
17	12	15	13	13	10	14	-
INIT	SPD	LUC	TT	IR	DUR	WT	DR
6	2	28	5	80	30	6	45

Morph: Splicer

Skills: Academics: Chemistry 40, Academics: Economics 50, Academics: Pharmacy 40, Blades 35, Climbing 25, Fray 45, Free Fall 27, Hardware: Nanotechnology 45, Infiltration 60, Interfacing 25, Interests: Experimental Drugs 65, Interests: Gatecrashing 35, Intimidation 33, Kinesics 33, Kinetic Weapons (Holdouts) 45, Language: Native Czech 84, Language: Japanese 55, Language: English 55, Language: German 44, Language: Russian 44, Networking: Criminals 25, Networking: Hypercorps 48, Palming 55, Perception (Taste) 37, Persuasion (Sell Drugs) 42, Profession: Drug Dealer 60, Scrounging 20

Implants: Basic Biomods, Basic Mesh Inserts, Cortical Stack, Enhanced Pheromones, Enhanced Taste, Medichines, Neurachem (1)

Traits: Unattractive (1)

Using Holder

The Holder most player characters meet is a street-level hustler transplanted into weird future of a Pandora Gate complex; the kind of character that can seem at ease but out of place almost everywhere. He’s never exactly dirty, just scruffy and mismatched enough not to quite fit in, even with the dingiest of the technicians or the most rumpled of the suit-wearing flacks that seem to hang around the gate and collect a salary for nebulous services rendered under vague titles like “special consultant.” He is, in fact, the person that everyone around the gate will point the PCs to if they’re looking to score anything remotely strange, illicit, or illegal, and he tries hard to look and act the part, though very attentive PCs will probably question how he maintains his business and the quality of his goods in the midst of all the hypercorps and security. If caught out or confronted about it, Holder will smile and drop the act as a compliment to their detective skills; after all, most customers are happy if they think they’ve figured out the trick and don’t look for the next one.

196: Biomimetic Sampler

ENTRY 196: Biomimetic Sampler

Pain and pleasure are evolutionary advantages that have helped transhumanity survive for hundreds of thousands of years. Early synthmorph designers soon learned they needed to include analogues of satisfaction and discomfort into the morphs they were designing, both to ease resleeving and as a necessity to help users live and thrive in their new bodies. While it never completely mimicked the biological neuroreceptors, it was close enough to activate the old hardwired survival instincts in the transhuman ego—the instinctive drawing back of a body part away from a source of damage, cradling an injured part, etc.

These same pleasure/pain analogues, along with the other sensory input data, later became the focal point for the development of narcoalgorithms—because while a synthmorph may have no physical need to get drunk or high, the mental desire and addiction to do so still remained with the ego. So many synthmorphs and infolife have sought out means of getting off in their new technological forms. Needless to say, they have found them in all manner of digital drugs. But digital drugs, even with all their tricks and advantages, have never quite come close to the vast spectrum of experiences offered by physical, analog drugs.

The biomimetic sampler is an augmentation designed to address that issue. A chemical drug is applied to the input of the sampler, where it is vaporized by a laser and its structure analyzed. Using a software emulation of a simplified human body and mesh-based XP recordings, the sampler then synthesizes a narcoalgorithm approximating the physical and mental effects of the drug. Initially a psychiatric tool designed to aid addicts who had resleeved, it was quickly co-opted by the black market and less scrupled hypercorps.

Mechanics

The Biomimetic Sampler is a cyberware augmentation for characters with a cyberbrain with a cost of Expensive. If a dose of chemical, drug, or toxin (see Eclipse Phase, p.317) is fed into the sampler, that dose is destroyed and the Sampler produces a narcoalgorithm that approximates the physical experience of the drug or toxin to the user, allowing synthmorphs to enjoy the same benefits of various drugs…to a point. Narcoalgorithms created by this drug can only give the perception of the physical effect, but without working muscles and endocrine systems cannot enjoy the bonuses. Mechanically, this means the character can enjoy any boosts to purely mental attributes like COG, INT, WIL, or Lucidity, but not physical attributes REF, SOM, Durability, Perception, Speed, etc. Sampler-derived narcoalgorithms also never cause damage, which means morphs with this augmentation can mainline digital emulations of toxins without danger. All narcoalgorithms created by the Biomemtic Sampler have an Addiction Type of Mental and share the Addiction Modifier as their original drug (if no Addiction Modifier is listed, that would be zero).

The gamemaster has final say on what chemicals and chemical effects translate over; while a synthmorph could mainline a capful of exotic hydrocarbons or an alien venom, odds are the XP library is going to be a little short on those. By design all biomimetic sampler-created narcoalgorithms are one-shots, but a clever and skilled hacker can probably find a way around that—if a character does manage to hack their own biomimetic sampler for a supply of “infinite narcoalgorithms,” remember to apply the full duration, side effects, and risk of addiction as appropriate.

158: Hush

ENTRY 158: Hush

Capture is worse than death, in many ways. There’s not a lot that can be done to an ego after death. Of course, these days death is cheaper than ever—and with cortical stacks, an unfriendly can dismantle you a thousand ways and still have a back-up copy to play with.

Interrogation techniques have come a long way. Physical torture, sleep deprivation, all the “enhanced interrogation” techniques are primitive, generally counterproductive, and with no guarantee of results—no matter how unpleasant your preferred method is, there’s never any way of knowing that you’ve got the truth out of somebody, because after suffering enough an ego will say anything—do anything—to make it stop. They’ll repeat back what you want to hear. They’ll read what you want them to read in front of the camera. All to make it go away.

For some people, that’s enough. For the rest, things get clinical. Statistics and biometrics (or psychometrics, for synthmorphs) are still the preferred “soft” methods; “hard” interrogations skip the foreplay and go straight to brainhacking, but not everyone has the skill and tech for that. Torture may be cathartic to the sadist’s soul, but ultimately useless, often distorting and degrading the very memories they seek to uncover. Statistical interrogation involves simply getting the subject to talk, and continue to talk. Their speech (or text signal) is recorded and analyzed, compared against their metrics, weighted with probabilities; new questions are asked. The more they talk, even if it has nothing to do with the subject of interest, the more data they feed into the machines. In time, after the database is built up enough, they won’t even need you to speak. They’ll ask the questions, and your reactions will be enough to tell them what they want to know. It’s a science, and it isn’t perfect, but it’s close enough. The software is free, anybody can download it off the Mesh.

Organizations whose employees are likely targets of capture and interrogation know the risks, and at some point they take their people aside and give them a sit-down talk on the realities of it. Instructions differ at this point; compassionate employers tell them to spill everything immediately, less compassionate agencies offer a variety of self-destruct implants. Realistic employers stress only the possibility of holding out as long as possible; for soft interrogations, this means screwing with the data that the sensors and software are getting. Garbage in, garbage out. The preferred option for those that can afford it is Hush.

Hush Mechanics

Type	Application	Duration	Addiction Modifier	Addiction Type	Cost
Nano/ Narcoalgorithm	INH, O	Special	+0	Mental	High

Hush is a narcoalgorithm and nanodrug that institutes a controlled form of neural damage which causes the user to operate under the delusion that whatever they say is the truth. The user is under no compulsion from the drug to give out information, but at the same time any statement they make they will perceive as true, no matter how false or ridiculous it may actually be—even if the subject had intended to make a false statement, in the process of making it they will become absolutely convinced of its truth. As the subject never gives off the signals that indicate lying to interrogation software, “soft” interrogation becomes exceedingly more difficult against the subject (-30 modifier to Interrogation tests). The effects of Hush are permanent, though they may be removed with psychosurgery. At the gamemaster’s discretion, cognitive dissonance from the subject believing too many contrary “facts” may cause additional mental stress to the Hush user.

133: Drooga

ENTRY 133: Drooga

For three weeks, drooga was the most popular tipple in Phelan’s Recourse, before the Fireeater Riots broke out. Drooga next showed up in Nova York, sold in double-bulb squeeze-bottles and labeled as “Friendmaker;” it lasted six days before the Long Night of Tears, a series of carefully choreographed murder-suicide art projects. On Profunda, an “energy injection” called Anyana maintained an underground presence for six months before statistical analysis determined a strong correlation between its use and clinical depression; chemical studies of captured samples proved Anyana’s near-identical composition to drooga. So it is, throughout dozens of habitats over a decade, drooga continues to pop up, in a number of forms and names, usually to quick acclaim and eventual catastrophe.

On the surface, drooga is a flavorless alcoholic spirit, nearly identical in appearance, smell, and lack of taste to higher-proof vodka. Chemically, things are more complex: while there is alcohol in drooga, it’s little more than a delivery system for a cocktail of strange carbon-structures, long-chain peptides, and traces of synthetic neurotransmitters. Firewall has identified components which parallel sequences of the Watts-MacLeod Virus, and combined with its effects the general consensus among those secretive groups familiar with the exsurgent virus is that drooga is some form of psi drug. Of course, that just begs several more disturbing questions, such as who has the know-how and capabilities to make such a drug, and why they would do so. Studies of past drooga “outbreaks” have not shown any definite connection or distiller, leading most to assume the worst-case scenario: the recipe is out there somewhere on the Mesh, just waiting for someone to find and make it again.

Mechanics

Type	Application	Onset Time	Duration	Cost
Bio	Inj, O	20 minutes	1 hour	Typically Low or Trivial

Drooga is a weak psi-opener (Eclipse Phase¸ p.325) which boosts latent telepathic potential and receptivity, while the alcohol content impairs judgment and lowers inhibitions. The result is that drooga users in close proximity begin to experience each other’s emotions, which tends to lead to the quick formation of deep emotional bonds; treat this as temporarily gaining the Empathic Scan sleight (p.226) and the Psi Vulnerability trait (p.151) for the duration of the drug’s effect. The duration and side-effects of drooga mimic that of alcoholic drinks of similar volume, but bypasses toxin filter augmentations; users take 1d10 mental stress when the drug wears off, usually masked by the hangover. Chemically, drooga is mostly alcohol by volume and does not register differently to casual chemical analysis. Like alcohol, drooga is mentally addictive with an addiction modifier of -5.

Seed

• Firewall has captured a supply of drooga and wishes to experiment with it as an interrogation tool. The player characters are asked to participate, subjecting themselves and the target to the psi drug by various means and running through a series of interrogation scenarios (good cop/bad cop, a friendly fellow prisoner, etc.) The target is a suspected lead to the drooga manufacturer.

119: Blackballs

ENTRY 119: Blackballs

It’s all fun and games until the first accidental overdose. Police and security forces have been looking for effective non-lethal deterrents for over a century now, in a technological arms race with no end in sight. A popular pre-Fall option were blackballs—a compact missile of artificial snow laced with staining and soporific agents, which could be carried around in an insulated compressed-air pistol. Initial designs were promising: low impact velocity, with force equivalent to a thrown snowball even at point blank range; the artificial snow crystals dissolved quickly at human surface temperatures, and were laced with both a long-lasting chemical dye and short-lasting reuptake inhibitors that cause drowsiness and sexual dysfunction. Blackballs were especially popular on Luna, and employed en masse in a few instances in reply to miners’ strikes, and were even sold to civilians for personal protection.

Blackballs fell out of favor after a series of fatal accidents: a “group suppression release” of blackballs decimated a flock of neo-avians, it turned out the staining agent was toxic to them; blackballs were recalled and re-formulated, but the new mix proved fatal to a group of three neo-hominids dosed during a non-violent protest of the canceling of “Benny the Banana,” a genetically-augmented high-protein savory fruit product and affiliated cartoon program, video games, and merchandise line. Rather than pay to dispose of the blackball stock and weaponry, the parent microcorp Jonez BB Ltd. sold the goods under the counter far afield, to burgeoning habitats towards the Rim. Eventually litigation forced Jonez BB to close, but by then datapirates had liberated the weapon schematics and chemical formulations and posted them to the Mesh for anyone to find. Blackball weaponry can still be found for sale in many Rim communities.

Mechanics

Firearm	Armor Penetration (AP)	Damage Value (DV)	Average DV	Firing Modes	Ammo	Cost
Blackball Pistol	-8	Special	Special	SA, BF, FA	10	Low (Rim), Moderate (Everywhere else)

* A chemical or vacuum seal provides complete protection from blackballs.

Blackball pistols are fired using the Kinetic Weapons skill. By themselves, blackball pistols resemble heavy pistols except for a larger (6 centimeter) barrels and oversized external magazine; the blackballs themselves appear as large lozenges of compact black “snow” held within clear, insulated gelcaps. Blackballs deliver a fast-acting (1 Action Turn) dermal toxin; affected characters must make an immediate SOM x 3 Test or be rendered unconscious. Non-human biomorphs, particularly Neo-Avians and Neo-Hominids, take 1d10 damage as well. Medichines or circadian regulation implants render a character immune to blackballs, as might other appropriate toxin-filtering gear or sleep-suppressants at the gamemaster’s option.

At the gamemaster’s discretion, blackball pistols may fire similar loads featuring other dermal drugs and toxins.

Seed

• A local voyeur has been using home-made blackball loads mixed with hither (Eclipse Phase 321) instead of the usual soporific, targeting large number of biomorphs at parties and then recording the ensuing flash-orgies and for their personal enjoyment. Needless to say, the victims are not amused; anyone that can catch the voyeur in the act can expect a substantial rep boost.

116: Scale Tree

ENTRY 116: Scale Tree

A dinosaur-skinned pineapple, leathery green-grey scales embossed with buried circuit-patterns. Banned in most habitats, ostensibly because of its addictive properties, Scale Trees are popular in the underground as the gateway to the bloodiest, raunchiest squad-level tactics and combat simulator game in the Solar system. Users are injected into an alternate reality, taking the place of one of a small group under siege in an endless city under a broken dome, fighting each other and a series of waves of alien machines. Outnumbered and outgunned, the players are forced to work together achieve their mission objectives before the petal fades or they die, forcing them to log out of the game. So far, meta-analysis of the game on a strategic level shows that several human teams have not only driven the aliens out of parts of the city, but have used their gates to invade the aliens’ world as a guerrilla force. New weapons, enemies, and locations appear regularly, which is part of what makes the game—and the drug—so addictive.

The actual reason for the banning of scale trees has less to do with the nature of the game than some of the consequences of playing it. Habitual users may not suffer physical damage from the simulated warfare, but develop Post Traumatic Stress Disorders based on their experiences, which become more severe and marked as the user becomes more and more addicted to the game. Further, the highly realistic nature of the game is in part due to the programs tapping into the users’ memories to fill in details, some of which are stored locally in the user’s wetware—memories which can bleed through into their real-world perceptions as terrifying flashbacks where they relive the gruesome combats they have endured.

Scale Tree Mechanics

Type	Application	Duration	Addiction Modifier	Addiction Type	Cost
Nano	O	2d10 hours	-10	Mental	High

Periods spent under the influence of this petal encourage the development of skills related to squad-level tactics and military professions, such as Academics: Military Science and Profession: Military Ops, and characters receive 2 Rez points that may be spent towards improving such skills for every 50 hours under the influence. Every 10 hours of play, the character gains 1d10 mental stress.

Sweets

Achievement of mission goals, demonstration of team-work and skills, and certain bloody actions unlock certain sweets for users of scale tree petals.

• Promotion (subjective, leadership displayed): The user’s squadmates take note of their abilities and informally promote the character to the next rank; a promoted character halves the number of hours needed to gain Rez points from scale tree (25 hours for the 1^st promotion, 12.5 hours for the 2^nd, etc.). Characters who screw up can also be demoted, which doubles the number of hours needed.
• Scalphunter (objective, 30+ kills in a single session with trophies taken): The user gains the Brave trait, if they did not have it already, and 1d10 mental stress.
• No Pacifists In The Trench (objective, Combat Paralysis trait): Users with the Combat Paralysis trait that take a scale tree petal enter into a mild coma for 1d10 days. When they emerge, they no longer have the Combat Paralysis trait. Instead, they have the Modified Behavior (Bloodthirsty, boosted) trait and 1d10 mental stress.

110: Risk

ENTRY 110: Risk

The universe of transhumanity is too large to contemplate every angle before making a decision, but few transhumans make it to old age by being rash and impulsive. Many transhumans, especially older ones or with cyberbrains, tend to become stuck in working through their problems rigorously, contemplating and evaluating each possible action for so long that they miss out on small and immediate opportunities. The lack of decisiveness is especially devastating in the battle, when those who dare may win, while those who play it safe or stop to work out all the probabilities before acting may lose the initiative, and their lives. For those transhumans that recognize this failing in themselves, there is Risk.

Risk was first marketed by Oldtel, a pharmaceutical hypercorp out of Luna that repackages and repurposes centuries worth of medications as cognitive and health drugs. The one-shot inhalers, based off drugs to combat Alzheimer’s, stimulate risk-taking behavior. Originally marketed to military professionals, business people, and the elderly, Risk was phased out of general production after disastrous trial run pairing it with a cognitive focusing agent led to several cases of permanent brain damage. The formula for Risk was hacked and posted to the Mesh, where it continues to find an audience in a small network of users and producers, where user-focused support groups and programs help users to handle the potential outcomes of using Risk. Detractors point out that the Risk community are basically enablers for negative behaviors like extreme sports, gambling, unprotected sex, and greater experimentation with more dangerous drugs.

Mechanics

Type	Application	Onset Time	Duration	Addiction Modifier	Addiction Type	Cost
Chem	Inh	1 minute	8 hours	-	Mental	Moderate

Risk provides mental flexibility and drive needed to take advantage of immediate opportunities, but it also reduces the character’s judgment and ability to discern and avoid risky behavior of all types. Risk provides 1 temporary point of Moxie to the user; if not used within the duration of the drug, this point expires and is lost. However, Risk users also take a -10 penalty to Will tests for the duration, which may become permanent with extended use. Other common effects of long-term use of Risk include addictions to gambling, unprotected sex, daredevil stunts, etc.

Seeds

• Experiments with a Risk nanoalgorithm by Oldtel have been fairly positive…until a synth went mad and started humping major appliances. The poor transhuman is stuck in a permanent Risk-high, impulse control dropping by the day. Oldtel asks the player characters to quietly capture the synthmorph before ze does too much damage and return hir to Oldtel for treatment.
• A minor chemist in the Belt has been experimenting with Oldtel’s folly, combining Risk with other drugs to focus the risk-taking behavior, and she’s made a bit of progress. Unfortunately, the samples she’s sent out have induced temporary obsessive compulsive disorder-type behavior with regards to their high-risk behavior of choice. Relatives and friends of the afflicted ask the player characters to track down the source and cut it off. Of course, the easiest way to do that is to infiltrate the Risk community itself.

102: Voodoo Puffs

ENTRY 102: Voodoo Puffs

For many, drugs provide a way to step out of themselves, to mentally distance their ego from the actions that they undertake. Social mores on getting fucked up are relaxed, expectations of behavior lightened; transhumans still believe that when intoxicated a morph is not fully under the ego’s control. Some exploit this to indulge without hindrance of conscience, while others merely use it as an easy excuse for behavior they don’t have the courage to do sober. Some societies have taken this principal even more literally, seeking to incite ecstatic states through drugs, dancing, music, meditation, and flagellation where the user literally becomes someone else. Once the province of tradition, possession has now become a dark science promulgated through petals called voodoo puffs.

They resemble pale gray translucent dandelion seed heads which quiver on the slightest of breezes, the sphere-shaped florets a little too perfectly geometrical in their arrangement, and take on a bright green phosphorescence under ultraviolet light. Users typically snort the florets off the head, though they can be consumed any number of ways. Early signs typically involve a flushed appearance, tics and tremors, and the eyes rolling back in the head as the drug takes effect. The nanobiological payload creates a temporary network that piggybacks the user’s brain while loading a pseudo-AGI template. To the user and anyone nearby it appears that the user’s ego has been replaced by a foreign ego that is in complete control of the ego’s morph, with the ego an unwilling passenger not in control of their actions. In actuality the template program merely overrides the user’s perception of being in control, while lowering inhibitions and (depending on the quality of the programming) providing temporary personality cues and traits. So for the next few hours the user will move about as a voyeur in their own morph, appalled or delighted at what they do under “external influence,” speaking with strange accents and alien body language as they run loose.

As the name suggests, the majority of voodoo puffs are loaded with pseudo-spiritual entities inspired by syncretic religions like Vodou, Santeria, Obeah, and Candomblé, though that is a matter of programmer taste, and users have been reported to be “possessed” by everything from aliens and werewolves to prominent celebrities living and dead under the influence of voodoo puffs. The pseudo-AGI templates are rarely historically accurate, often remixes or original creations based on old concepts and imagery, and loaded with just enough information to give the impression that the entity in question is authentic—often supplemented by surreptitious real-time research via the ‘Mesh, if possible.

Voodoo Puffs Mechanics

Type	Application	Duration	Addiction Modifier	Addiction Type	Cost
Nano	INH, O	1d10 hours	+1	Mental	Moderate

For the duration of the drug, the user is treated as if they had the multiple personality implant (Eclipse Phase, p.301-2), with the second ego being an NPC with the same stats as the PC under the gamemaster’s control; the NPC ego is generally unwilling to relinquish control.

Sweets

• Le Cheval: A character whose addiction to voodoo puffs progresses to Major must make a WIL x 3 Test the next time the take a puff; if the test fails they
  permanently gain the multiple personality implant with the NPC ego from the hit that, as well as the advantage Immunity (Voodoo Puffs) as the drug finishes permanently re-wiring their brain.

033: Octopus Slipper

ENTRY 033: Octopus Slipper

In their efforts to combat the psychological trauma and mitigate the integration experience associated with resleeving, the psychosurgeons of Glitch have begun experimenting with artificial experience narratives to ease the transition between sleeves, or from physical morph to infomorph. Essentially immersive roleplaying games with psychosurgical analytical tools and scenarios embedded in them, the transhuman player slowly becomes adapted to their new existence by scenarios that run the gamut from leveling up and changing class to ritual initiation and spiritual reincarnation to birth and puberty analogues.

The original suite of resleeving therapy psychosurgery programs were pirated by enterprising hackers and eventually found their market as a breed of petal most commonly known as Octopus Slipper, a bluish-pink artificial orchid with eight slipper-shaped pouch-like petals surrounding a coiled pseudo-stamen that smells like cinnamon and old papyrus. Aside from being mildly addictive roleplaying scenarios, users of Octopus Slipper are still subject to the subtle psychosurgical therapy routines embedded in the petal code.

Both petal and psychosurgery can help transhumans transition to new sleeves easier—or cause alienation as the user’s self-image shifts out of synch with their current morph. Users may end up feeling like an octopus-morph trapped in the body of an Olympian, unable to recognize the body they inhabit as their own, and attempt self-harm or retreat into the fantasies of Octopus Slipper to escape the prison of their own morph.

Resleeving Therapy Psychsurgery Mechanics

Resleeving Therapy follows the usual Psychosurgery rules from Eclipse Phase, pp.229-32)

Timeframe: 1 week per +10 (max. 3 weeks/+30)

PM: +0

SV: 1 per +10

Resleeving therapy is design to acclimate transhumans planning to resleeve to their new bodies by using specialized roleplaying software to experience a narrative transition and familiarize the character with the new form. A successful Psychosurgery Test provides a +10 bonus to Integration and Alienation Tests for the character’s next resleeving.

Resleeving therapy is aimed at acclimating the character to a specific type of morph; the bonus does not apply if they choose to resleeve into a body of a markedly different type.

Octopus Slipper Mechanics

Type	Application	Duration	Addiction Modifier	Addiction Type	Cost
Nano	O	4 hours	-1	Mental	Low

Each dose of Octopus Slipper provides a cumulative +1 bonus (max +30) to Integration and Alienation Tests (Eclipse Phase, pp.271-2). However, if the user does not resleeve within (20 – cumulative bonus) days of taking the dose, they must make an Alienation Test (Eclipse Phase, p.272) as if they had resleeved into their current form, with a -30 penalty.

Octopus Slipper acclimates the character to a specific type of morph; the bonus to the Integration and Alienation Tests counts as a penalty if they choose to resleeve into a body of a markedly different type.

Sweets

• Hardcore (spend 16+ hours a day on Octopus Slipper): The user unlocks additional transformation options. They may effectively choose which morph the bonus from Octopus Slipper applies to.
• Extra Levels (random once addicted to Octopus Slipper): The maximum bonus the user may accumulate from Octopus Slipper increases by +10.
• Coupon (character gets +30 bonus and successfully resleeves into the appropriate morph): Character stumbles receives a coupon code for free psychosurgery sessions, redeemable at the original resleeving therapy clinic on Glitch, in exchange for answering a brief questionnaire.