Time to submit for the Horror/Science FIction Crossover. This year to make it easier, by October 31st submit your favorite beastie. Optional adventure thread can be included in the format of 1001 Patron Encounters.
ie. Alien larva
stats: 5A100-G
Habitat: On the jungle world of Confer there exists tiny larva creature no bigger than a Terran silkworm. This creature is attracted to psion energy emissions. Therefore, almost imperceptibly the larva will crawl into a hosts ear or nose (in the case of a sleeping individual) and burrow into the victim's brain. For this reason, it is attracted to higher orders of sentient life. Once in the brain centre, it will attach itself to cerebral cortex responsible for dream production. In the night, the host will experience wild dreams of an inexplicable nature with increasing frequency these dreams will manifest as nightmares, as the larva increases in size. A side effect (other than the effects of sleep depreciation hence increased paranoia) is to actual boast the Psi potential of the host by 5pts (to the point of even activating dominant psi potential) at a rate of 1pt per night (hence giving the player the illusion of greater success).
At the end of the 6th night, there is a loss of basic characteristics at a geometric rate:
6th night: Str, Dex, Int all drop by one
7th night: Str, Dex, Int all drop by three
8th night Str, Dex, Int all drop by six
9th night Str, Dex Int all drop by twelve
etc.
A an artificial psi shield will not hamper the feeding of the larva. However, a natural psi shield will cause the larva to seek other areas of the brain to feed upon - a concerted effort of 3 days of continuous shield will cause the larva to vacate the host.
Neural weapons cause the larva the fragment and regenerate at a rate of 1pt per week. A mind assault will have a similar effect.
The only effective treatment is surgery by the end of the second day.
Adventure hooks:
1. Players have been contacted by the local police constabulary to hunt down a raving psychopath. The psychopath is a respectable Zhodani Noble psychologist by day and by night turns into a raving monster when the larva has sufficiently regenerated from the damage of a continuous combination of mind assault & shield. The doctor does not want his racial ancestry to be known fearing the Imperium more than the larva but at the same cannot restrain the Hyde personality that has developed.
2. Players are charged with spending a night in a "Haunted House" in reality a lab where several specimens of larva were bred by SuSag for their possible use in psi drugs.
3. Players are charged with protecting a village from the local indigenous lifeform which has recently determined to be sentient. Unscrupulous offworld traders infected the natives with the larva and now the natives are stark raving mad and will in 3 days potentially die off, unless a cure can be found.
4. The larva is but a single organism that will undergo metamorphosis, the players have been captured and drugged and subjected to forced pairing with the larva by Imperial scientists who want to see the next stage of this remarkable creature's evolution.
5. The players are part of survey mission of Confer and encounter the larva in its natural habitat. One of the guest scientists (in reality a Zhodani spy) begins to go mad.
6. A trader that has been all shot up and adrift in deep space has a cargo load of larva in its hold in containers marked as Hiver delicacies. Up to the Referee what happens next when the containers are different states of being open. As vacuum would certainly kill these creatures were it not for the fact that some were in stasis and others were roaming free the pressurized cargo hold.
ie. Alien larva
stats: 5A100-G
Habitat: On the jungle world of Confer there exists tiny larva creature no bigger than a Terran silkworm. This creature is attracted to psion energy emissions. Therefore, almost imperceptibly the larva will crawl into a hosts ear or nose (in the case of a sleeping individual) and burrow into the victim's brain. For this reason, it is attracted to higher orders of sentient life. Once in the brain centre, it will attach itself to cerebral cortex responsible for dream production. In the night, the host will experience wild dreams of an inexplicable nature with increasing frequency these dreams will manifest as nightmares, as the larva increases in size. A side effect (other than the effects of sleep depreciation hence increased paranoia) is to actual boast the Psi potential of the host by 5pts (to the point of even activating dominant psi potential) at a rate of 1pt per night (hence giving the player the illusion of greater success).
At the end of the 6th night, there is a loss of basic characteristics at a geometric rate:
6th night: Str, Dex, Int all drop by one
7th night: Str, Dex, Int all drop by three
8th night Str, Dex, Int all drop by six
9th night Str, Dex Int all drop by twelve
etc.
A an artificial psi shield will not hamper the feeding of the larva. However, a natural psi shield will cause the larva to seek other areas of the brain to feed upon - a concerted effort of 3 days of continuous shield will cause the larva to vacate the host.
Neural weapons cause the larva the fragment and regenerate at a rate of 1pt per week. A mind assault will have a similar effect.
The only effective treatment is surgery by the end of the second day.
Adventure hooks:
1. Players have been contacted by the local police constabulary to hunt down a raving psychopath. The psychopath is a respectable Zhodani Noble psychologist by day and by night turns into a raving monster when the larva has sufficiently regenerated from the damage of a continuous combination of mind assault & shield. The doctor does not want his racial ancestry to be known fearing the Imperium more than the larva but at the same cannot restrain the Hyde personality that has developed.
2. Players are charged with spending a night in a "Haunted House" in reality a lab where several specimens of larva were bred by SuSag for their possible use in psi drugs.
3. Players are charged with protecting a village from the local indigenous lifeform which has recently determined to be sentient. Unscrupulous offworld traders infected the natives with the larva and now the natives are stark raving mad and will in 3 days potentially die off, unless a cure can be found.
4. The larva is but a single organism that will undergo metamorphosis, the players have been captured and drugged and subjected to forced pairing with the larva by Imperial scientists who want to see the next stage of this remarkable creature's evolution.
5. The players are part of survey mission of Confer and encounter the larva in its natural habitat. One of the guest scientists (in reality a Zhodani spy) begins to go mad.
6. A trader that has been all shot up and adrift in deep space has a cargo load of larva in its hold in containers marked as Hiver delicacies. Up to the Referee what happens next when the containers are different states of being open. As vacuum would certainly kill these creatures were it not for the fact that some were in stasis and others were roaming free the pressurized cargo hold.
