Armies of Order - the Clockwork Syndicate

Known only amongst the rabble of the higher worlds, The Clockwork Syndicate is a transmissible conformeme from the Realm of Order that transforms lesser creatures of order into members of the syndicate - a multi planar, multi world organization dedicated to removing possibility and replacing it with predetermination.  They largely accomplish these tasks by subversion of the dominant life form of an area through subtle alteration of fate, probability, and deep dream mind control and manipulation.  

In worlds without an abundance of or presence of magic, such creatures move unchecked in great numbers, able to shape and mold society without recourse to being discovered.   

Picture of one of Niven's Pak.  It gets the proprtions about perfect.  Just add a touch of this guy. 

Creature - Violation enforcer (clockwork syndicate)

Violation Enforcer : Init +0; Atk +4 Possibility drain melee touch attack (1d6 special); AC 14; HD 4d8; hp 25; MV 25; Act 1d20; SP Drain Tomorrows; SV Fort +4, Ref +4, Will +4; AL L.

Drain Tomorrows - the primary form of damage that the creature inflicts is not expressed in hit points. Literally it is an attack on all of the character’s inherent possibilities as they exist at that precise moment in time. (“Stealing tomorrows.”)  to the ultimate effect of dooming the target to one, singular future, and eventually that future will be ignoble death.  

On a successful attack  damage is taken from  an attribute called “Possible Tomorrows” which begins identical to the target’s luck score.  Having this score reduced to zero without injury may well render the target a 0 level character until such a time as the ‘stat’ can be regenerated.   

Perhaps most cruelly, this attack on a zero level character functionally dooms them to never gaining experience points no matter their acts.     

Appearing in a parody form of the target’s species as it appears at old age (a human would be attacked by the Enforcer in the guise of a wizened old caricature with knobby knees, bad posture, and bad or missing teeth and hair etc.  frex) often clad in a black or grey coat/cloak/cape that seems to act as its badge of office and only real identifier as to what it is.  Otherwise the being is apparently sexless, genderless, and otherwise incapable of imitating human life.

Creature - Drone Spider (Oneiric Sentinel)

(clockwork syndicate)

Dream Police (1-4): Init +2; Atk weapon +5 doom bite melee (2d6); AC 15; HD 5d8; hp 30, 25, 23, 15; MV 20; Act 1d20; SP Doom bite, ; SV Fort +4, Ref +4, Will +4; AL L.

Doom bite  - The bite attack itself does 2d6, is savage, and almost certainly will leave a scar where the mandibles attempted to rip away chunks of flesh.  Each of the four palps however is studded with microinjectors;  the Doom bite’s extra kick comes from this, the Ichor of Oneiric Control (see below) which they have a number of distinct uses for.  Do note that without a store of the ichor, the drones are unable to use the secondary abilities at all.  

He’s getting better can’t you tell - the ichor can also be used to punish ‘rogue thought’ in which case it stays within the victim’s system until three successive saving throws v. poison (DC 14) have been completed. Until that time they are -4 to spellcraft, attack, and thief ability rolls.   The character will be listless, lethargic, and confused much of the time.  

We told you what to dream -  dream police can use this power to plant deep hypnotic suggestions to later influence behavior or create spies.  

In desperation, they can overwrite their victims completely (DC 16 Will save, once a round to resist as it is ongoing), substantially but crudely altering their personality.  Most often used to selectively alter a target’s cosmological affiliation (congratulations you’re lawful now).   Can also be used to induce or remove (not cure) madness.  

Plant seed of coded suggestion - the drone can create and implant a time delayed perception alteration (read: hallucination) or effect.   Example - the best swordsman in the party can be implanted with the hallucination of a gunfighter directly lifted from a John Ford movie.  The warrior will be startled (tis only there but a moment), sufficient to incur a -3 penalty but only until the end of the following round.   Can also be used to aid but this selom occurs.

Appearing less like a spider and more like someone built a robot from an artist’s impression of a spider.  The drone is a vaguely arachnoid  brass and steel construct of pneumatic hoses and fluid filled tendrils;  Multi injectors line the pedipalps like teeth, waiting to program your sleeping mind and prevent Unacceptable Thought.

Drone spiders preferentially will wait to attack when the victim is sleeping if at all possible but they can do the attack even 12 hours ahead of time - it will still affect them later…..esp their bite. Quite literally they can induce one of these effects on a time delay.  

(Judge’s are advised not to abuse this for obvious reasons.  Don’t be that person. )

Yup about like that. 

Creature - Classification Drone XZ-C7/41180 aka  

dataindexfilenumberplease (clockwork syndicate)

Class Drone XZ-C7/41180: Init -1; Atk weapon +8 laser drill attack (8d4, range 600’); AC 16; HD 8d8; hp 42; MV 15; Act 2d20; SP Deresolution attack; SV Fort +6, Ref +6, Will +6; AL L.

The J3Zu5-99 gold laser brain drill can be used offensively an actual weapon (“funduscopic examination tool”) once every three rounds (for this is not it’s actual purpose).  Primarily it is used for two other purposes.

Inspection & analysis (‘seven laser scan’)- as a full round action the Drone can produce seven beams of light with which it will spend the round probing, scanning, and in basically all ways recording a given target.  There is very little game effect at this stage save that the Drone can be presumed to detect weaknesses or flaws which it files away for possible use later.   It is also a required precursor to it’s C&S attack (below) but otherwise is not an attack.  It almost certainly WILL flip the PCs out while they try to figure out WTF it is doing

Categorization & Storage (aka the DeRez attack) - Drone XZ can most efficiently study a phenomenon by reducing it to data and playing with that data in a conceptual realm.   This is the only thing XZ can do during a given round regardless of circumstance.   It begins at the top of the round and ends at the top of the following.  The target is permitted a DC 22 REF save to avoid being in the scan grid but failure means they are immobilized as they are loaded into a bizarre supernal realm made of data.  

Quite likely, most such who are “uploaded” are studied in a kind of stasis and later returned. Sometimes altered or “programmed” but many times not.   Those who are captured and returned, are returned 2d20 days later at a place associated with that character, and will appear free of injury or recollection of anything past the failed reflex save.

Once just a cog in a vast information processing think-machine thank, a chance encounter with existential chaos led to this cog becoming a singular entity and gaining massive power.

However even bloated with the power of the eggs of a dead god, all this being cares about is … filing, indexing, and categorization.  Unless new elements exist it will not persist, moving immediately to an area of the local omniverse in the direction of greater unexpressed novelty.

Some rumor suggests that this is a rogue chaos creature that has not so much infected as infested a filing drone and so now is subverting its basic purpose

Among those duties include a supervisory relationship with a cell of the above forms.   When it encounters something strange and new (like a player character) it’s most likely form of ‘attack’ will be to scan, then to storage, then to copy, and then (maybe) to remove the original from storage, often having edited the memory of the experience from their consciousness.

Tactics

Likely on any operation they take part in, XZ-C7/ will coordinate from a secure but reasonably close location

For a variety of reasons however, not clear to human philosophers, there are certain restrictions to these behaviors.

• They will always work actively to keep individuals or groups they have manipulated separate.  To the point of introducing mind traits that bring down the target’s Personality score and thus reducing any chance their victims might have to coordinate their efforts.  The Syndicate prefers to keep their pawns isolated and fearful.

While the Violation Enforcers in theory lead in the field, the drone spiders function as a single unit and do their thing independently until told otherwise.  Their general M.O. is to reduce all mortal meat beings to their most basic, less dynamic (o level or less) forms to maintain the stasis quo.

The drone spiders largely act as one, and on their own until/unless directed otherwise by either of the others.

XZ-C7 will always spend a round analyzing a target before taking action; there will be whirring, lights, and sound but there is no game effect, it is not an attack.  (See Inspection & Analysis above)   Further XZ-C7 will very seldom use it’s laser for direct attack unless it most directly serves its goals.  Remember, the drones are expendable.

Scenario use

A close acquaintance of one or more PCs (friend, lover, extended family member, etc.)  is, for some indecipherable reason of pure logic and order, being slowly transformed.  They have not been themselves of late and now they are clearly acting with what you think is someone else’s control.  Investigation will likely lead to some push back by the drone spiders ‘working’ their friend/ally.

The PCs are approached by a grinning elvish madman claiming to represent “an autonomous collective” called the Gatecrashers Guild;  an organization of thieves and sorcerers that opposes the syndicate. They seek the groups aid in ambushing a large (12 or more) group of Syndicate members believed to be gravid with Ichor.  Is he lying?  Perhaps they are merely seeking additional meatbags so that his people aren’t in any danger?  Possibly this is a trap?   Maybe he’s been reprogrammed by the Drone spiders to draw the characters out….

A magus known to the PCs is on an ethereal galavant, harvesting tiny doses of the Ichor or Oneiric Control from those dying in their sleep.   The Syndicate does not appreciate competition from chaos tainted meat bags with delusions of significance so they are now ….….Coming after the PCs.  Rather than act directly, the Syndicate will slowly begin messing with the party in their sleep, creating  dreams and urges to visit that section of the etherea / visit the magus in question.  This will continue across many nights until one or more PCs express intention to do so.

As multiplanar pandimensional beings they can pretty much appear anywhere they have work to do (as defined by them..or the Judge).   Many of their more elaborate schemes involve manipulating groups of humans and other ‘lesser creatures’ into doing their bidding, often criminal organizations that have access to their targets for greater flexibility.  Concerns of morality are not theirs to contemplate.

Magic item: the Ichor of Oneiric Control - the ichor can be harvested from the dying under the right circumstances. In microdoses the ichor will both last for a good long time as well as provide actual aid, especially to spell casters.  A single small dab of the substance is sufficient to grant a +1 circumstance bonus on any checks involving concentration (useful for Thieves, Magic Users, Elves, and Clerics) In any actual quantity however, it allows one experienced in it’s use an unprecedented ability to change, control, and direct the thoughts of the dreamer.  Behavioral alterations, idea binding and excision, memory alteration and ‘enhancement’ and the creation of spies and sleeper agents - all of these are common uses for the Ichor in the right (wrong) hands/pods/manipulators. Illusionists of the Oneiric school frequently fight for and over the ichor, sometimes gathering into bands of arch-illusionists to raid Syndicate holdings for the Ichor.

Parting Blather

There is a lot of potential for abuse in these encounters; the point (such as it is) is to provide a novel kind of combat, not to flay the players egos and frustration.

But if you need a gentle mindfrag for a session, here you go.

They are also GREAT as red herrings.

This fan work is an unofficial aid for the DCC RPG; the words and ideas are mine, the art and pictures are not. I am always happy to get feedback or especially to hear how you used it. Enjoy!