364: Gilgamikael

ENTRY 364: Gilgamikael

"What if I told you that everything you thought you knew was a lie? The popular story of the Fall is no more than that, a story - a myth as fabricated as any episode in the Bible, put forward by those entrenched interests that still run this Solar system. Think, for a moment. What do they ask you to do? Fear. Fear the TITANs, fear the exsurgents, fear Earth, as it has become. Fear to ask questions, fear to look too close at the evidence, fear to come to your own conclusions and make up your mind for yourself. Consider: what are they afraid of? I will tell you: they have painted monsters, but what you will find are only people. Transhumans, like yourselves - simply a different path in evolution. A transformation catalyzed by a virus, yes, but perpetuated traditionally. Would it surprise you to learn that there are transhumans that walk the surface of Earth, breathing the burned air? No augmentations, no surgery; they grew new lungs within their old ones, and will do so again when they reached the Smoking Cities. A feat beyond even current transhuman technology, and only the least of their capabilities. Don't take my word for it, however. Look through this telescope here - you can see them for yourself. At this time of year the migrations begin across the Siberian plains..."
- Excerpt from a conversation with Gilgamikael, CLASSIFIED: ECHO ECHO SHAITAN, possible memetic hazard

"You cannot kill this idea. It will only fork and resleeve."
- Unauthorized Comment, CLASSIFIED: ECHO ECHO SHAITAN, possible memetic hazard

The very existence of Gilgamikael is a secret. To Firewall and related organizations, they is an exsurgent terrorist that has taken on the trappings of a revolutionary; to the exsurgent cultists themselves they is a rogue who spills secrets and unnecessarily antagonizes the opposition, a demagogue without a populace to represent. Mostly, Gilgamikael sees themself as a teacher, a rebel, a true believer in what they espouse: the exsurgent virus as a tool of transhuman development and revolution. In pursuit of this goal, Gilgamikael uses the rhetoric and vocabulary of the revolutionary, and strives to win hearts and minds rather than just convert egos en masse - although they aren't above the occasional mass-infection event as a way to get the point across.

COG	COO	INT	REF	SAV	SOM	WIL	MOX
19	18	25	23	30	10	15	-
INIT	SPD	LUC	TT	IR	DUR	WT	DR
10	1	30	6	60	30	6	45

Morph: Swarmanoid/Unique*
Skills: Academics: Political Theory 40, Academics: Philosophy (Revolution) 30, Academics: Psychology 25, Art: Painting 33, Beam Weapons 45, Blades 44, Fray 50, Freerunning (Microgravity) 25, Infiltration 40, Infosec 38, Interests: Exsurgent Virus 35, Interests: Firewall 50, Interests: Revolutionary Groups 25, Interfacing 20, Intimidation 38, Investigation 44, Kinesics 30, Kinetic Weapons 25, Language: Native English 86, Language Arabic" 40, Language: Persian 40, Language: Russian 40, Medicine (First Aid) 25, Networking: Autonomists 25, Networking: Criminal 25, Networking: Media 25, Profession: Blogger 33, Protocol 25, Unarmed Combat 66
Implants: Access Jacks, Basic Biomods, Basic Mesh Inserts, Cortical Stack, Cyberbrain, Mnemonic Augmentation, Swarm Composition
Traits: On the Run, Social Stigma (Exsurgent, Terrorist)

* Gilgamikael occupies a unique variant swarmanoid morph; each of the component microdrones is actually a cybernetically-augmented biological "insect" built up from transhuman DNA - the "legs" based on fingers, etc. - and the sleeve is a biomorph, not a synthmorph. Each individual microdrone contains an independent cyberbrain and cortical stack. Although at any given time only one instance of Gilgamikael is in control, but as long as a single microdrone remains, Gilgamikael is backed-up and could return. Each microdrone also is a carrier for a variant of the exsurgent virus.

Using Gilgamikael

Think of the best arguments you could use to promote the exsurgent virus - and put them in Gilgamikael's mouth. Given that the player characters might react badly to a character that looks like a nest of centipedes with human fingers for legs in the vague shape of a transhuman being, it might be best to introduce Gilgamikael by degrees - let the PCs come across his writings, blog posts, graffiti, or other messages first before running into them in person. While the players probably won't buy into his interpretation of the exsurgents as a persecuted minority or the next step in transhuman evolution, it might at least give them pause to consider what Firewall (or whomever they are working for) is and is not telling them.

305: The Itch

ENTRY 305: The Itch

Transhumans get sick. Fact of life. It's ingrained in their bodies and minds, the all the familiar discomforts and signs of the body fighting off an infection or allergen. Sneezing, swelling, soreness, itching...these are part of the transhuman condition. They are so familiar that few transhumans think much of them, the casual aches and pains of life that pass only with time. It is only when they persist and worsen that most transhumans start to worry and seek help...by which time they may be too late.

The Itch is one of the less directly offensive versions of the Exsurgent virus, one that rarely produces monsters or psi powers, and many transhumans suffering from the Itch remains undiagnosed, the core cause of their distress hidden behind secondary infections, surgical addiction, masochistic impulse, suicide attempts, and the like. The slow awareness of the Itch as a distinct infection brings with it the possibility of other subtle Exsurgent viruses, disguised to mimic common transhuman conditions and spread undetected. The Itch is spread primarily by contact with infected bodily fluids. There are limited reports that it may spread through basilisk hacks or have a digital variant that effects synthmorphs, but these are unconfirmed by Firewall at this time.

Mechanics

Stage 1 (initial infection to 1 week):

Upon initial infection, the character begins to gain 1 mental stress per day, gradually manifesting as a psychosomatic itch on some specific part of their body in about six days. At this stage, the itch is minor but persistent and distracting; efforts to scratch it stop short of real self arm but my leave the afflicted area red or sensitive, though a rash never develops. The itch can be ignored with a bit of self-control and gives no penalty at this point. Medications (even placebos) can give some temporary mental relief.

Stage 2 (1 week to 4 weeks):

After one week, the character begins to gain 2 mental stress per day, and their psychosomatic itch grows worse—either doubling in size or increasing in intensity every three days—and many characters develop secondary derangements such as body dismorphia, obsessive compulsive disorders, masochistic sexual behavior, etc. Efforts to relieve the itch intensify, and users might improvise scratching tools or seek further medical treatment, though the character's belief in the medications (and thus their psychological effect) tends to lessen as the itch returns. Typical victims exhibit wounds at the point of the itch, and breaks in the skin may allow secondary infections to set in and enable the spread of the virus through bodily fluids. The itch is also distracting, applying a -5% modifier to all Skill rolls. Psychotherapy is still effective at this point, provided the exsurgent virus is somehow eradicated from the character’s system (typically by resleeving into an uninfected morph). Additional complications may arise depending on how much mental stress the character accumulates while dealing with their issues.

If the location of the itch is surgically removed or replaced, the character temporarily ignores psychological derangements and modifier are temporarily lifted, but mental stress continues to accrue. In week 5, the itch returns, and all the derangements and penalties return.

Stage 3 (5 weeks+):

Characters at this stage are consumed by the Itch, continuing to generate 1 mental stress per week just from the illness—but often generate far more mental stress from efforts to scratch their particular itch, with an increasing penchant for self-harm and surgery to remove the offending body part(s), though this no longer has any effect to relieve the character's discomfort. At this point the Itch is so distracting it applies a permanent -10% modifier to all Skill rolls; the a player character can ignore this for one scene by spending a point of Moxie. In the long term (20+ weeks) characters health will begin to fail, represented by gaining the Frail quality. Roughly (10%) of characters at this stage begin to exhibit physical transformations that correspond with the first stage of infection by another strain of exsurgent virus, as determined by the gamemaster.

268: Void Sisters

ENTRY 268: Void Sisters

“We will give birth to the Ultimate Human, who will finally achieve their true and terrible potential, and through them we will guide transhumanity from these warring states to their true destiny.”

- Aba Menses

“Crisis promotes change, stress reorganization. In flux, all states are possible. Seize the momentary opportunity, and shape the future.”

- Kitab Toksa, Void Sister core text

The origins of the Void Sisters of Phobos are obscured; anyone who digs too far runs into a tangle of hypercorporate red tape and the Sisters’ own carefully constructed legends, seeded along the most likely searches to guide researchers and data miners to only the information they want known about themselves. What is known is that they had some elemental role in the project that gave birth to the Lost, that they are highly selective of inducting new members and have quite arduous and long-lasting initiations designed to help inductees achieve their ultimate potential. On Phobos itself, they are most known for raising orphans in their own ideology, seeding their philosophy into a new generation.

Infobrokers who are smart enough to think a few steps ahead paint a slightly different picture of the Void Sisters, if a client has favors or creds enough to buy the data. The Sisters were founded pre-Fall by several women who were very involved in the Toksa Society, a quasi-scientific new faith group that preached the achievement of the full human potential by any means necessary—strict training, education, drugs, primitive augmentation, and even rumors of eugenics, indoctrination, ritual prostitution, and quasi-mystical techniques in the inner circles. The group never had more than a few hundred members, but wielded outsized influence due to political and corporate contacts, and established themselves on Phobos by establishing relationships (and at times, marriages) with key personnel.

After the Lost debacle, the Void Sisters lost considerable influence, and their public profile noticeably diminished—though it never disappeared. Strategists believe that as much of a third of the group has gone underground, while the remaining public operations with raising orphans represents a new part of their grand plan, whatever that may be.

Using the Void Sisters

Semi-mystical sisterhoods with generational plans, using sex, politics, and more nefarious means to exert their influence and protect their interests are a kind of trope in fantasy and science-fiction. In Eclipse Phase, the Void Sisters aren’t even alone in the role; Titan has the blue-cloaked Oubham-Ad, Luna has the willowy biosculpted Night Women, Mars has the Cloisted Sisterhood of the Closed Fist, even Eris has the Daughters of Eris. Cultivating an air of mystery and feminine wiles has its advantages, and many groups take advantage of it, to the amusement and bemusement of synthmorphs and infomorphs not taken in by the philosophical posturing. If this was all there was with the Void Sisters, they would be an interesting group of NPCs but not a real threat.

Unfortunately, the Void Sisters have access to one thing more: a sample of the exsurgent virus. At the highest levels, the Void Sisters are an exsurgent cult that rigorously trains its members and exposes the most loyal to the virus to instill psi abilities that are passed off as examples of the Sister’s achievement of their full potential. If the truth ever gets out, it would destroy the Sisterhood…and quite possibly a serious chunk of Phobos as well.

Seed

• Aba Mendes has a problem: she is really a sex-shifting investigative reporter that has spent eight years in the Void Sisters, constantly trained and tested, putting up with the mandatory bedtimes, strange meditations, and weird internal politics, pursuing a story she wasn’t sure was really there. Now, she’s in too deep, about to be exposed to the innermost secrets of the order, and she wants out. The call goes out, but Firewall intercepts it. They order the PCs to extract her—but only after she’s undergone the final initiation. Dare the player characters to wait, not knowing if Mendes will survive the ordeal? And if they do, will they be prepared to charge into the midst of an active exsurgent cell guarded by a small army of space-geisha-martial artists?

251: Achamoth

ENTRY 251: Achamoth

“How much for you and your sister?”

- Achamoth on the prowl

Once upon a time, Achamoth was a human being—with a gender, a spouse, a life. Something went wrong. The details are fuzzy, green-tinged slices of memory that Achamoth always remembers slightly differently. Sometimes it acts transhuman, trying to blend in with the crowd, even interacting with people. Sometimes it forgets it isn’t transhuman, and doesn’t remember again until the screaming starts again. Even by exsurgent standards, Achamoth is disturbed, and almost completely uncontrollable except for a few ingrained trigger scents tied to primal states (cardamom: lust, garlic: rage, cinnamon: sleep, cumin: hunger).

Achamoth is an exsurgent prototype. Cosmetically transhuman from the outside, within that leathery, carapace-like exoskeletal shell oozes something closer to an undifferentiated slime colony, with a brain like Christmas-tree lights strung out throughout it’s two-meters-a-bit frame. Because Achamoth’s version of the exsurgent virus appears to be damaged or dormant, Firewall has not yet brought them in, but keeps track of the exsurgent prototype so that it can lead them to other exsurgent cells—even cleaning up after a few of its disastrous attempts to “blend in” with transhumanity.

COG	COO	INT	REF	SAV	SOM	WIL	MOX
18	16	15	15	17	12	18	-
INIT	SPD	LUC	TT	IR	DUR	WT	DR
6	1	-	-	-	70	14	95

Morph: Splicer (Exsurgent Prototype)

Skills: Academics: Virology 65, Exotic Ranged Attack (spit) 48, Free Fall (Microgravity) 56, Infiltration (Blending In) 50, Interests: TITANs 75, Language: Native English 85, Language: Cantonese 70, Language: Mandarin 70, Language: Japanese 55, Networking: Exsurgent Cells 33, Networking: Firewall 25, Perception (Visual) 70, Persuasion (Negotiation) 67, Profession: Virologist 40, Unarmed Combat 45

Implants: Access Jacks, Basic Biomods, Basic Mesh Inserts, Carapace Armor, Cortical Stack, Eidetic Memory, Emotional Dampers, Enhanced Hearing, Enhanced Smell, Enhanced Vision, Nanoscopic Vision, Oxygen Reserve, Vacuum Sealing

Notes: Achamoth is filled with an amorphous green fluid in place of most of its internal organs, giving it inhuman durability. It can regurgitate this material as a Spit Attack (area effect) Toxin (Application: D, O; Onset Time: 1 Action Turn, Duration: 5 Action Turns, Effect: 1d10 ÷ 2 (round up) DV per Action Turn ).

Using Achamoth

Gamemasters should decide on their own whether Achamoth is truly the damaged, dangerous, and pathetic entity it appears to be, or whether the inhuman intelligence within that leathery shell is playing Firewall and the exsurgent cell network as it pursues its own goals—transformation back into human, for example, or revenge against the TITANs, or maybe a mass exsurgent infection to turn an entire habitat into creatures like itself. In any event, interacting with Achamoth will probably bring its Firewall “handlers”—an autonomous clique which is willing to kill other Firewall agents to preserve the secret of their particular asset.

Seed

• Trouble in paradise: a particularly gruesome murder of People’s Representative Lean Brundage and her wife Scarletta on the vacation-habitat of New Hawai’i in orbit around Mercury has triggered all sorts of alarms in the Firewall search engines, and led to them now being aware of Achamoth and the autonomous group watching and directing it. Believing that one or more members of that group have begun using Achamoth as their personal assassin, the PCs are hired to investigate the scene in New Hawai’i—and if possible, eliminate Achamoth and its rogue handler with extreme prejudice (“Fired. Out of an airlock. In the general direction of the sun.”)

246: The Crypt

ENTRY 246: The Crypt

Any Firewall agent that’s around long enough hears rumors about the Crypt. The secret, secure storage unit where archivists keep the most dangerous and important fragments of Firewall’s ongoing struggle against exsurgent threats. Samples of exsurgent viruses, alien artifacts, a library of confiscated basilisk hacks…some scuttlebutts like to throw in rumors of “lost” technologies, a hidden Pandara Gate, a live TITAN, major religious artifacts from Earth, a zoo of psi-capable transhumans and animals (and one really pissed-off toaster), the only known dracomorph, proof that ghosts exist, the cryogenic chamber hold Adam and Lucy the back-hacked common genetic ancestors of all transhumanity… Legends grow in the telling; some of the archivist queue even spreads them deliberately.

The truth is a little more colloquial: yes, Firewall does contain a secret secure storage facility, codenamed Crypt, which is managed by a queue of archivists. However, most of the material is rather mundane: secure backups of critical files, and a scattering of artifacts, cell samples, exsurgent virus cultures, etc. Nor is there any one single hidden facility hiding beneath a lavafall in the depths of Mars or only accessible if you put in the “Zero Code” on a Pandora Gate (what does happen if you do that is still classified for the next hundred and fifty years, but the last time it almost wiped out Extropia). Instead, the Crypt is maintained pretty much wherever the archivists can find the space, often with secure storage facilities being fitted into the unused spaces between walls and exterior bulkheads in habitats. The archivists prefer a modular honeycomb setup of self-secured cells with a hexagonal cross-section that can be easily stacked and magnetically bond together.

The main security device for such systems is to remain hidden, but each cell also typically contains a shaped charge sufficient to destroy the contents if anyone tries to tamper with them or open one without giving the right answers (selected by a philosophical expert system with several “trap questions”). Archivists also tend to come up with their own security systems, preferring small modular systems like overlapping sensor nets tied to particle beam bolters, spiders that “spin” webs of nanowire in dead spaces, and “radiation leak” false alarms coupled with low-level microwave agonizers to discourage unauthorized personnel.

The downside of this distributed approach is that sometimes a given Crypt is discovered and needs to be relocated quickly and quietly, or one or more items might need to be recovered either because it was stolen or escaped. In these circumstances, archivists are generally given the authority and resources to impress any local Firewall personnel or regular stringers to help them recover the missing material or help see to its safe transfer.

The Crypt system does include a few “megacells” which are essentially prisons for certain transhumans who are too important to destroy but cannot be trusted with their freedom. Such sites are usually located at brinker outposts or within existing prison habitats as special administrative solitary blocks. The most hazardous individuals are restrained (and sedated) at secure private medical facilities, but the cost of such incarceration generally prevents Firewall from overindulging in that option.

225: Bruixera

ENTRY 225: Bruixera

“Rumor and legend.”

- Otoxa, Firewall Agent

There is a whisper, in the dark corners of the Mesh where secrets are the only wealth and gossip is the common currency of spies, criminals, and patriots. A hidden habitat for exsurgents, populated by innocent morphs infected by the TITANs’ viruses and fleeing capture and liquidation. A haven for transhumans on their way to becoming monsters, a combination of terrorist training camp and exhuman enclave.

Unfortunately for Firewall and the rest of the powers that be in the system, Bruixera remains no more than a ghost, an exsurgent Agartha or Shangri-La, a name screamed by once-human throats and smeared in infectious feces on the walls of their hide-outs. Most who are aware of the stories of Bruixera consider it just an idea—a new Sodom, a dark Avalon that desperate, scared people undergoing terrible, painful transformations latch onto. The Kingfishers, a group of anti-exsurgent counterintelligence agents at Firewall have even used rumors of Bruixera to entrap suspected exsurgents and collaborators. Very, very few consider that Bruixera is anything but a fairy tale.

Those few know that Bruixera is real. The information is compartmentalized and kept from the majority of Firewall, kept within the Witchhunters clique that studies long-term trends and patterns of infection. Disparate data suggests that Bruixera is a comment memetic element embedded in multiple forms of the digital exsurgent virus, which manifests as a migratory compulsion whenever an individual in an exsurgent network achieves a certain number of connections. The affected exsurgents drop out of their networks, and through circuitous routes start traveling…to where exactly Witchhunters have not yet been able to determine, though the three most likely possibilities include the Zone on Mars, a hidden habitat on Uranus, and—most dangerous or unlikely of all—a secret bunker located on the ruined Earth near the south pole.

Using Bruixera

Bruixera is a myth, and as such it is free for gamemasters to have fun with. It might be a literal hive where transhumans live like insects or mole rats, bare caricatures of their old forms, breeding and swarming; or a chaotic souk where mad, mutated capitalists trade the knowledge of the TITANs for weapons, sex, and further initiations; or simply a run-down habitat barely fit for human habitation where transhumans fleeing Firewall because of their illness have come to live or die in whatever peace they can manage. Almost certainly it has an exsurgent population of anywhere from a couple hundred to ten thousand, most of which is likely infected with multiple strains of the exsurgent virus, and almost certainly a character cannot find the habitat unless they are infected. It is unlikely for PCs to ever visit Bruixera, but as a mythical location it makes a nice background element to seed along in a campaign, or finding Bruixera might be the goal of an especially difficult one—even if it turns out Bruixera doesn’t exist, getting to the point where they make that discovery would be quite a journey in itself.

And, for the ambitious gamemaster, it might be the centerpiece of a particularly difficult and rewarding campaign: having the PCs (infected deliberately or accidentally with a strain of the exsurgent virus) infiltrate an exsurgent cell, rise through the ranks through successful acts of terrorism, and then find the way to Bruixera...a great prize for anyone that captures it, though most Firewall cliques would be happy to nuke it until it glows then break out the antimatter to do a proper job of it. Of course, that means days or weeks of degeneration likely ending in the PC’s death, but if they’re going to die anyway…what a way to go.

216: Friederich Alba

ENTRY 216: Friederich Alba

“Everybody’s game for tinkering with the basic building blocks of life, but then you try to tweak the exsurgent virus into an aerosol and ‘ooh, you’ve gone too far.’ Pussies.”
- Friederich Alba, on trial after the mass exsurgent outbreak on Junction

In every conflict, there are opportunists—jackals that scavenge the battlefields and play on desperation for their own profit at the expense of others. Friederich Alba has been called a jackal, and he wears a jackal’s face, but he prefers to think of himself as a daring and open-minded scientist, one willing to delve where others fear to tread. His area of specialization is the technology of the TITANs, and he is one of the main movers in the black market, trading in scavenged weaponry, robots, data, and even individuals infected with the exsurgent virus. Wanted by several habitats for the material he deals with, as well as various accessory charges involving violating quarantine zones and evading taxes and tariffs, the jackal-headed Friederich Alba normally keeps on the move, two steps ahead of his pursuers, using his network of contacts and business associates to help him plan his next transaction and his next experiment.

COG	COO	INT	REF	SAV	SOM	WIL	MOX
18	15	25	15	15	20	30	-
INIT	SPD	LUC	TT	IR	DUR	WT	DR
6	1	60	10	120	40	8	60

Morph: Synth

Skills: Academics: Genetics (Exsurgent Virus) 80, Academics: History (The Fall) 50, Academics: Neuroscience 50, Beam Weapons 27, Deception 40, Free Fall 33, Hardware: Robotics 40, Interests: Black Markets 50, Interests: Exsurgent Threats 40, Interests: TITANs Tech 65, Interfacing 35, Investigation 50, Kinesics 15, Language: Native German 95, Language: English 80, Language: Turkish 85, Networking: Criminals 75, Networking: Scientists 75, Perception 55, Profession: Black Marketeer 55, Profession: Smuggling Tricks 45, Programming 60, Protocol (Criminal) 35, Research 55, Unarmed Combat 36

Implants: Access Jacks, Basic Mesh Inserts, Cortical Stack, Cosmetic Modification (Jackal-headed morph based on statues of Anubis), Cyberbrain, Cyberclaws, Fractal Digits, Hidden Compartment, Mnemonic Augmentation, Nanoscopic Vision

Mobility System: Walker (4/20)

Traits: Armor (6/6), On the Run, Social Stigma (Clanking Masses)

Using Friederich Alba

A robotic Anubis that deals in TITAN-tech, Friederich Alba is intelligent but callow and mostly unprincipled and with very few scruples. He has made a niche for himself in dealing with TITANs-tech for collectors, and has one of the most extensive private databases of TITAN science and technology in the solar system. For any of these reasons, Alba might make a decent mid-level villain for the PCs to apprehend or foil, or someone they have to deal with or extract information from as part of a larger plot involving TITAN-based technologies. Player characters that don’t mind dabbling in the forbidden themselves might even seek him out to buy or sell some scavenged TITAN-tech. Because his goods are a limited market, Alba sets the price and tries not to veer from it—he’s not terribly good at negotiation, and knows it; if anyone tries to wheedle him down he’s more likely to walk away from the deal than to stick around and get fleeced.

214: Anglers

ENTRY 214: Anglers

Transhumanity’s defining traits are what make it most vulnerable. Most every animal on Earth and beyond exhibits basic drives like hunger, fear, or lust, but few species show signs of curiosity, compassion, reverence, greed, and vengeance. So perhaps it was natural that the TITANs sought to turn the very traits that define humanity into traps that destroy them.

Anglers are TITAN-crafted robots made to look like large multilegged animals with a shiny black synthetic leather hide—usually Earth-based quadrupeds like horses, bulls, and elk, though other versions have been identified, including a three-legged ungulate of some sort that was most prolific on Mars. Where the anglers’ heads should be however is always a flat expanse of skin. Reports and video surveillance during the Fall showed their modus operandi: if possible, a small pack of anglers look for lone victims, working together to separate one biomorph from the rest of a group. The victim is disabled with attacks to the lower body, and when the victim can no longer flee quickly enough, the smooth skin of the angler’s “neck” will open, and snaking tentacles will drag the victim into the gaping space. The skin then closes about the lower torso, leaving the victim’s head and upper torso free, in grim parody of a centaur or similar creature of myth.

From this point on the victim is essentially a prisoner of the angler. The lower torso is dissolved and recycled into nutrients to keep the captive upper torso alive and awake while invasive implants begin integrating the victim into the anglers’ system. Anglers use their prisoners to attract additional victims—“angling” by have the captive upper torso wave, shout, cry, call out for help or scream. At other times the angler seizes control of the upper torso like a puppeteer, directing the torso to manipulate airlock controls or utilize hand weapons. Most biomorphs can last up to eight weeks before infection or starvation gets to them, and anglers have been known to raid supplies that keep their prisoners alive for nearly six months before being brought down.

After the Fall, most anglers are assumed to have been destroyed, but the possibility exists for lone anglers—or even a small pack—to exist in the wilds throughout the system.

Mechanics

Anglers use the same stats as Warbots (Eclipse Phase, p.383), but with a Durability of 40 and a Wound Threshold of 8. They cannot use beam or kinetic weapons unless they have a prisoner with functional hands and arms to manipulate the device. Prisoners of anglers are best considered NPCs; due to their lower torso being removed and their systems compromised by the angler, they have half their normal Durability and gain the Puppet Sock augmentation if they did not have it already.

Seed

• There is a legend on the ‘Mesh that anglers were based by the TITANs on an experimental centaur-morph technology—and that the original prototype for this still exists, buried somewhere in the Zone on Mars or some other ruin. If it exists, then the proto-angler would have a muse-like AGI and when integrated the biomorph would have full control of the half-synthmorph body, with the angler relegated to a “hindbrain” ghostrider module that helps coordinate the extra limbs.

201: The Burning Plague

ENTRY 201: The Burning Plague

“Burn. All burn.”
- Last transmission, Utica Station

There is an old legend, that one of the titans of myth stole fire from the gods and gave it to transhumanity. Perhaps it is ironic, then, that it was one of the TITANs that instigated the Burning Plague. First categorized as spontaneous human combustion and subsequently ignored, medical evidence eventually came forth of a new, deadly strain of the exsurgent virus that causes the subject to rapidly develop pyrokinetic abilities—in a process that is so rapid, most subjects lose control and explodes in a ball of flame.

It starts with a fever that you can never quite shake, running a little hot constantly, all the time. After a couple weeks you get used to it, the extra energy that seems to drive you a little faster during the day, and keeps your mind so busy you can hardly sleep at night. In a month, you’re past the little headaches and periods of light-headedness, face flushed all the time, incredibly energetic. Some victims report bursts of nymphomania or compulsive touching, spreading highly infectious body fluids with each contact. At the end of the event, the flashes start. No one knows quite what triggers them—agitation, stress, light cycles, hormones, anything. But things around the victim start to burn…anything they concentrate on starts to burn…and when they realize they are the one causing it, they start to burn. Most victims self-immolate at this point, the victims of their own developing psi power.

Mechanics

Stage 1 (initial infection to 30 days):

Upon initial infection, the character begins to feel feverish. Other physiological effects may include mild headaches, nausea, skin rashes, early onset of periods, light sensitivity, and priapism, but most victims report a sense of energy and alertness—treat this as temporary +1 to REF and COG. Medical attention at this point usually points to a mild viral infection, though a detailed scan of the brain will reveal tumors growing and the nervous tissue altering in subtle ways. If these tumors are surgically removed or treated, the infection resets to day 1, but does not go away. Resleeving at this point will save the character’s ego.

Stage 2 (30 days to 35 days):

After a month, the tumors in the character’s head have reached full size, and they gain the Psi (Level 3) trait and the Pyrokinesis Psi-Epsilon sleight with all the usual psi drawbacks (Eclipse Phase, p.220); at this point the character is considered an NPC (though any forks of the ego prior to this point are still under the control of the player). At this point, the character’s pyrokinetic psi powers begin flaring almost uncontrollably. Every hour, make a Control Test—if the character succeeds, then they can determine how their pyrokinesis is used; if they fail, then the pyrokinetic effect is random, usually with some item nearby or that they are focusing on bursting into flames. As most victims do not have any ranks in the Control skill, few survive very long once the flares begin.

Stage 3 (36 days+):

At this stage, the mutations in the character’s brain and nervous system stabilize, and they gain control over their pyrokinetic psi abilities—at least enough to keep from frying themselves by accident. The neural damage also causes profound shifts in how the victim perceives the world and relationships with other transhumans. The original personality and memories are still present, but the NPC tends to feel alienated in their own skin, like a computer running an emulation of another operating system on top of the one built into it. Such characters also run a slightly higher body temperature, making them easy to pick out in a crowd with thermographic sensors.

199: Vel Von Voom

ENTRY 199: Vel Von Voom

During her awake-cycle, Vel von Voom is a young face that stands out in the crowd, her face and body a mass of scar tissue, artful brands concealing and incorporating the older, ugler chaotic burn wounds that speak of some horrific fire. So she faces the world through a mask she burnt into her own face, proud and terrifying. Vel has the ambition, but not the skills, and there is no road-map to stardom or happiness. So she works where she can find it, builds her rep in small ways, shares her music with those who will listen, and steals kisses from girls in dark, little-used corridors and maintenance shafts.

At night, she dreams of fire. Reliving the night when They burnt their way in to her parent’s ship, the smell of her mother’s boiling fat splashing against her face, the boneless thing that forced her into its burning, burning embrace… After the first few fire alarms, she started to sleep in water cocoons. Waking up half-scalded from boiling currents was better than sparking a blaze that called station maintenance and security down on her head. Sleeping with lovers turned out to be another bad idea; on the last one her sleep-self had gotten creative, burning a terrible pattern of fine lines in her skin that hurt to look at…

COG	COO	INT	REF	SAV	SOM	WIL	MOX
12	13	12	15	16	10	13	-
INIT	SPD	LUC	TT	IR	DUR	WT	DR
5	1	26	5	52	30	6	45

Morph: Splicer

Skills: Academics: Accounting 28, Academics: Astrophysics 25, Academics: Psychology 26, Art: Branding 34, Art: Singing 28, Blades 27, Deception 28, Fray 26, Free Fall (Microgravity) 30, Hardware: Aerospace 24, Infiltration 26, Infosec 26, Interests: Black Markets 28, Interests: Criminal Groups 25, Interests: Psi 29, Kinesics: 20, Kinetic Weapons: 20, Language: Native Dutch 85, Language: English 72, Language: Korean 46, Language: Cantonese (Swearing) 22, Networking: Autonomists 17, Networking: Criminal 20, Networking: Hypercorps 17, Palming 31, Persuasion (Flirt) 30, Profession: Appraisal 27, Profession: Day Labor 32, Profession: Smuggling Tricks 29, Scrounging 39, Sense 30

Implants: Basic Biomods, Basic Mesh Inserts, Cortical Stack, Gills

Traits: Mental Disorder (Compulsive Self-Branding, Night Terrors, Sleep Firesetting), Pain Tolerance (Level 2), Psi (Level 3), Striking Looks (Level 1), Uncanny Valley

Sleights: Pyrokinesis (see Eclipse Phase, p.372)

Using Vel Von Voom

Some gamemasters will see Vel von Voom as Carrie…in Spaaace. If that’s what works for you, fine. But I challenge you to be more creative. Fire is a weird thing in space, and need not be teenaged refugee from a burn war pointing her finger and letting loose a flamethrower. Imagine instead subtler, more bizarre uses – floating will-o’-the-wisp candle flames floating in the microgravity around her as she shivers in her night terrors, or slow-burning arabesques crawling over the nearby surfaces she touches. The amount of control Vel even has over her abilities is questionable—as is her overall mental state. Vel’s façade is that of an independent teenager, orphaned by the Fall, mostly self-educated, doing odd jobs and finding what small pleasures she can when and where she can. If that’s all the gamemaster wants to portray, fine and dandy. But nobody reaches Psi 3 unless they’ve fully converted to the exsurgent virus—and it remains to be seen whether the Vel that can do that awesome dragon on your arm with a piece of wire and a torch is the real Vel, or just the artificial shell of an ego that’s no longer remotely transhuman.

175: Human Upgrade Program

ENTRY 175: Human Upgrade Program

Super soldier serums. Vita-ray enhancements. Nanochemical baths. Controlled mutative agents. Snake oil by any other name, still finding a market because the teeming hordes of transhumanity still have a sentimental attachment to their morphs. While resleeving may be practically ubiquitous, there are still plenty of people, especially among the poorer and less educated part of the transhuman spectrum, who simply want their own morph just as it is except…better. The desperate and hopeful are easy prey for the scammers peddling radioactive water and steroids, often under the most dubious available science. Efforts to stifle and educate the industry have so far failed—for every fact-checker debunking a treatment or bio-agent as crap (and often cancerous) or listing the lies and crimes of the people behind, there are thousands of automated programs drowning the Mesh personal anecdotes, promotions, secret offers, and viral campaigns.

Yet amid all the cosmic potions and miracle drugs there are real scientists working away in pursuit of the unattainable—permanent non-invasive human augmentation. That their efforts seem pointless in consideration of the personal augmentations and morphs already available is beside the point; many envision a future freed from the restraints of the current system, where custom morphs are priced out of the range of the common ego, of a transhumanity that has transcended to physical perfection and left flats and splicers far behind in favor of Humanity 2.0. Such is the logic behind the Human Upgrade Program, whose primary research facilities are on the Green Teeth, a scumbarge that operates mainly between Mercury and Venus, full of plenty of volunteer subjects.

The transhuman researchers and scientists behind the Human Upgrade Program have as their goal a retroviral agent or procedure that will transform a flat into a Remade—restructuring the subject completely while retaining their identity and some gross aspects of their physical appearance. Lost in the haze of mutative agents and chemical baths, mainstream scientists have not yet been aware that the Human Upgrade Program has begun to report some successes.

The Human Upgrade Project has found something that works; sort of. Subjects are placed in a chemically induced coma, their egos backed up to their cortical stack, and then the body is introduced to a controlled series of retroviral and nanite infections which rebuild the character from the ground up, which takes several months. It’s an inefficient program, and currently none of the thirty-six subjects have completed a full transformation from flat to Remade, with most exhibiting partial transformation or cancerous growths. Still, it is a start, and the Human Upgrade Project has vowed to continue to refine and augment the process until it is perfected.

Mechanics

The key retrovirus involved in the Human Upgrade Project is the exsurgent virus; stripped away of the pseudo-science and mummery all they have succeeded at so far is reducing the body’s resistance to the infection (-30 modifier to DUR test to see if the virus takes hold). Most of the “partial successes” from the project are actually experiencing Stage 1 or Stage 2 of the xenomorph virus (Eclipse Phase, p.368).