(a mini Mothership adventure)
This and the last post are repurposed bits from MNKRM, a MoSh newsletter I briefly did a while back. This one comes with a warning for a whole lot of body horror and death, including an instance of implied child death.
Also I wrote this before that Together movie came out (or the movie it allegedly copied) so if this is accidentally a ripoff of a ripoff I apologise. I don't watch scary movies anyway I'm a big wuss lol
Happy Hallowe'en!
Providence-09 was a peaceful colony world on the edge of the galactic core, now under level 1 quarantine and full media blackout. Rumours abound, none as terrible as the truth.
The planet is cursed, its atmosphere a miasma that causes any two people who touch to melt together, birthing a demon. These monsters rule Providence-09.
A cure was being developed in a hospital on the planet’s surface before it too fell to the curse. Parent company PacyGen Soft Drinks and Pharmaceuticals are hiring a covert freelance crew to extract it.
THE CURSE
Here’s what we know. Skin-on-skin contact while within Providence-09’s atmosphere results in death for both in 1d5 rounds, no save. The resulting demon, or “combie”, depends on the body parts that made contact.
Combies do not create further connections if touched. They are hungry for meat.
1D5 COMBIES
1 TWINS. The shape of two people holding hands. Faces torn in anguish, totters on mismatched legs. The outside arms extend, the weeping mouths are hungry. [C:50 Bite 2d5; I:20; W:3(18)]
2 PRIESTESS. Its torso is bulbous, a mass in place of arms where they held a baby. Propels itself on powerful legs, the head free to loll and bite and scream. [C:65 Bite 1d5; I:55; W:2(12)]
3 BEAST. One supported the other as the curse took hold, or else they fucked. Most of its many limbs reach the floor, scuttling and dragging, mouths at either end. [C:55 Bite 2d5; I:50; W:3(14)]
4 WORM. All that’s left of a final embrace. Faces merged into a pair of jaws, writhing bodies combined into one thick serpent, trailing gore. [C:75 Bite 3d5; I:55; W:4(18)]
5 AMALGAM. Above all else, this should not be. Strongest at its source, the curse took as many lives as it could and made their bodies one. [C:70 Consume 3d10; I:10; W:5(20)]
NEW MR GOODNIGHT™ HOSPITAL
1 ROOF. Rain-lashed helipad beneath a hellfire sky. Streets three stories below are strewn with car crashes, dismembered bodies and wandering demons. A fire exit door, not made to be opened from the outside, leads to a stairwell running down to the lobby with a door on each floor. A Worm hides at the bottom, rising slowly if it hears noise.
2 THEATRE. Quiet and empty. This floor is one room, with doors to the fire escape stairwell and a nonfunctional elevator shaft. Concentric tiers of seating surround a desk and presentational hologram machine. Loaded slides describe the health benefits of PacyGen brand coffee and soda. In a storage unit are 1d5 each sets of packaged scrubs with protective gloves, canisters of anaesthetic gas and individually packaged scalpels as well as a sturdy, fold-out operating table on wheels.
3 WARD. Corridor running the length of the building, 10 doors each side. At the far ends are the doors to the fire escape stairwell, and a set of elevator doors closed on a Twins which whimpers in pain. The elevator is broken down at the bottom of the shaft. ROOMS: 1 Empty bed, stimpak drip, bioscanner, fire extinguisher / 2 A Beast finishing a meal. Discarded revolver, 1 bullet / 3 Curtain drawn around empty bed / 4 Priestess waiting behind curtain / 5 Cleared out, stains on walls.
4 LOBBY. Entrance through gift shop, long since looted. Reception area and waiting room are trashed, bloodstains splattered across the tiles. A discarded arm behind the desk holds a surgeon’s saw. Roll for which combie still lurks here, rerolling a 5. There are doors to the bottom of the fire escape where a Worm lies waiting, and the elevator cab, unmoving at the base of the shaft. Inside is a Beast, trapped and angry. A third door, marked STAFF ONLY, leads downstairs.
5 BASEMENT. Emergency lighting, dull red glow. The smell of rot and electricity. A corridor lined with lockers, two ammo boxes and a hazard suit. Down the path, the smell gets worse. The path opens up into an underground lab, computer terminals strewn about, files shredded and soaked. A sigil has been carved into the floor with laser fire, and in its centre sits the Amalgam. Acolytes in hazard suits surround it, chanting. They are PacyGen researchers who opened this demonic rift deliberately, seeking power. There is no cure – the lead acolyte hands you the key, so the corporation can try again on another world.
