The Necronauts

Necronauts

- they came from Undead Space!

From a universe within the negative material plane where the dominant life form is undead, comes an (early) technology adopter, and it has breached the dimensional plane!  

Inspired by equal parts the Micronauts, a few bad TOS Star Trek episodes, and  Judge Death and the Dark Judges, come negative material explorers here to explore, to conquer, and to feast!

Rising up through the Lifewall, these technologically advanced explorers from the Negative Zone, a parallel universe beyond the Negative Material Plane, come here to explore, to conquer, and to feast!

Appearing as semi humanoid transparent armored shells, often manifesting a multicoloured halo or aura (of the kind shown in kirlian photography but in normal sight) up to three feet distant from them.  

Being negative material creatures, they are both undead and, ultimately, made of antimatter.  Their suits allow safe non-corporeal projection with limited interaction in the “mysterious positive material universe.”

Note - as they do originate from the Negative Zone, YES they  can be turned as though undead.  

Necronaut traits

Made of antimatter

Any kind of flesh to flesh or normal campaign matter to necrotic anti-flesh will set this off.   Add both party’s total hit points together.  Roll that many 12 sided dice and inflict that damage on everything in about a kilometer radius.

The Necronauts will not get out of their suits for ANY REASON WHATSOEVER.

Any character destroyed thus should be allowed a DC 20 will save; if successful that character has a 50% of being spontaneously reassembled but now made of antimatter and on THEIR side of the Lifewall.  If the entire or most of the party translates across you have your work cut out for you.

Removing one of these creatures from their suits would be a catastrophically bad idea.  But it will. end the threat (and several player characters likely) and possibly stop any more from coming (maybe.  It might guarantee a larger, heavily armed, squad in future.

Beyond the lifewall

The reality raiders come from a place where evolution works in reverse;  ancient complex forms rot and decay giving rise to lesser ones;  on their homeworld, evolution is based on decomposition.  Functionally, they are undead.   They can be turned like undead, and attempting to heal them will inflict damage.   Conversely, their healing arts inflict damage on all things in the campaign world.  

Turning will simply end the encounter; after the turned immediately depart back to their origin point, the rest of the team will also depart in an organized manner.   This return to base however will almost certainly lead to a larger more actively hostile force returning in 12d100 days.  

They will not understand the turning or any of that; they do not have gods where they come from and certainly no clerics so the entire class will be alien to them.

The Negative Zone - From whence they came; a parallel universe located on the far side of the Negative Material Plane, presumably made of antimatter.  AT least one of the equivalent worlds in that universe is advanced enough to attempt to send voyagers “up” through the soft space area for various purposes.  It is of note that the rules of magic are very different in that universe and so certain things that are impossible here are not there.

It is possible that the entire plane is inhabited by the forces of undeath.  Living beings seem offensive to them.   A peculiar form of necrotic evolution is common to beings from this area of their universe.

Attempts to voyage into their universe, breaching the barrier of negative energy (the “lifewall” as the natives call it, the “death-wall” from Jaldipoor’s perspective)  that prevents such transit magically, invariably bring back bizarre necrotic parasites, and possibly diseases.

Role playing these bleak explorers and very Judge Death-like Conquistadors
In  a way you are lawful - you act per a particular hierarchy of orders in a milito-scientific manner.  BUT natural law to you means necrotic evolution resulting in a form of undeath, likely animated by the soul fragments of those living beings in our universe killed via energy drain.   LIfe and all it’s forms to them are terrible alien monsters;  tho samples should be taken back to their universe for analysis.  

The Encounter  will likely begin fairly abruptly as the two types materialize in a flash of blue and indigo translocation energy, some 2d100 feet distant at the closest. They will appear in a tight organized grouping all within 20’ of one another.

Anyone who is actively seeing the etheric plane (or any other type of multi-spectral seeing the unseen seeing into the other worlds ability really, at the Ref’s option) may first see the scout or scouts seemingly rise out of the ground semi translucently and take position before the remainder seem to do so, as if rising out of some great hidden pit.  Once they are all in position the rest of the party will be able to perceive them as they complete their voyage.  

Type One Necronaut - scout

Necronaut Scout  (1-3): Init +;  Atk +5 Waveform blaster fire (2d8+2, 300 ‘); AC 15; HD 3d12 ;hp 33, 28, 23; MV 25’; Act 1d20; SP Analyzer, necronaut traits; SV Fort +0, Ref +1, Will +3; AL  Lawful - functionally Chaotic.

Description - a transparent humanoid figure, perhaps five feet in height, apparently glowing from within with a rosy-golden light that makes it difficult to concentrate on.  Nonetheless, waves of chill radiate out from the figure, which seems to float or levitate, rather than walk upon the ground.   Two golden eyes BURN as they look upon you….

The figure floats in a slight envelope of apparent antigravity;  looking into the light it’s eyes shed will inflict a one time -2 penalty on immediately subsequent action.

Analyzer - a handheld advanced sensory device; it maps and attempts to categorize all of these strange alien forms of matter.  It has a variety of functions

• Inert Materials Analysis - Scans up to 60 cubic feet of inanimate non living matter / round, disintegrating it in the process.  May later be reintegrated or stored as a data pattern for later analysis.   Simply does not work on “bizarre alien life” i.e. the player characters and the living.
• In the unlikely event that a character is made of nonliving material (an Imperishable Body for example) they will find their consciousness lives on for a time in a place of utter nothingness they will eventually perceive as darkness until reintegrated or the analyzer or it’s are destroyed
• Energy Field Analysis - The primary tool for exploring “this strange new universe of living things made of strange positive energy.”  Will identify advanced technology, magical items, and active clerics, elves, and wizards immediately though indiscriminately.  May also be used to analyze one of the energy fields (spells) so created; well enough that subsequently, the Analyzer may be able to functionally create a dispel magic for purposes of Spelldueling. Attempting to neutralize such a spell operates as a normal spellduel save for the following

• The Scout’s turn tracker begins at 8 not 10.  The scout can only counter with a dispel magic like effect.   Their action dice for this purpose is a d16.    (Subsequent encounters with the necronauts will move the tracker’s starting position to 9 and move the action die to a d20.)

The Scout’ spellduel ability is Intended as more of an interesting annoyance than existential threat; needless to say do not expect scouts who engage in this behavior to survive long.   In play, scouts tend to annoy the party wizard or whomever for a round before most die rolls lead to the scout getting mysteriously (to the players) vorped out of existence.

Neutral Waveform blaster - an energy weapon firing directed beams of short lived ‘neutral’ (protomatter) jacketed particles that work equally  well on all forms of being - living and unliving alike.   

Does absolutely nothing v. conventional inert matter (if the analyzer can break it down, then the Waveform blaster can’t affect it)   

Dmg 2d8 +2 to living or undead matter. (Even medieval armor is proof against it under the circumstance)

Type two - commander

Necronaut commander  (1 or 1-6 number): Init +3; Atk Field projection blade  +3 melee (2d8) and/or lasersonic rifle +6 missile fire (1d12+2, 1000’); AC 18; HD 5d12+/-x; hp 53 or  hp  46, 45, 44, 40, 39, 37;  MV 35 (hover); Act 1d24; SP necronaut traits; wave field nullifier  SV Fort +1, Ref +2, Will +5 ; AL Lawful (chaotic).

Larger, bulkier versions of the other units, these seem to be made of nested shells of semi transparent material with the faint outline of a skeleton located deep within;  in fact a thin veneer of bright red flesh exists but tightly over those bones.  More detail is difficult to ascertain due to a small box carried in both hands that is sending out waves of alternating black and white light that distorts everything around it.

The military end of the operation; essentially shock troops here to assess and protect the scouts during initial recon.  Subsequent expeditions will see more of them operating on their own, establishing a secure base of scientific operations.

Wave Field Nullifier

Allows them to create negative energy fields heal their injured and, in theory, to resist the effects of channelled positive material energy but they as yet have not had to figure that out yet.

Can also inflict damage on the living of course.

Device functionally has 5 stored charges that each inflict 3

Lasersonic Rifle

A strange and apparently foreign technology to that carried by the rest of them, this is a “conventional” energy weapon made out of a magical protomatter matrix; allowing it’s use by the Necronauts; presumably they have secured control of its manufacture from some third party…..

A dual focused sonic attack using a super pumped targeting laser to deliver the attack and with precision.  

Rifle setting one is an overwhelming stun force sonic attack.  One target at a time must succeed a DC 20 Fort save or be rendered unconscious after taking 1d4 points of damage.

Setting two (provided it hits the target’s ac) inflicts 2d6 heat and light damage, as well as 2d4 sonic damage.  Characters may save Fort DC 18) for half in both cases.

Some will carry a Field projection blade - a blade shaped projected force field that allows for melee combat and will not cause a matter antimatter explosion. Good things to have.   The force field is not radiant but instead seems to be made of the absence or warp of light around it.  It does 2d8+1 on it’s own to living things and can safely be assumed to be able to chop through most things of light density and tensile strength.

Type three - Conquistador of Unlife

Monster Name (xx number, if applicable): Init +3; Atk weapon +6 touch (2d8 xp drain) or TriGun +5 (varies see below, 450’); AC 20; HD 7d12 ; hp 63  MV 30; Act 2d20; SP Touch of death; Effect Fields, necronaut traits; SV Fort +2, Ref +2, Will +8; AL Chaotic..

The most easily mistaken for undead, these green glowing spectres seem semitransparent and only semi material at all times, though anything they touch or pass through seems affected.   Once they become engaged in some manner of interaction however they change colour, from white, to red, to black. Sometimes appearing to be two or three different beings at once. (All of which comes from the various distortion effect fields)

The Type Threes wear much more advanced “Effect Field suits” that allow them to interact with almost any material thing safely - but on contact with the living the effect creates a life energy drain.  

Type threes only manifest when violence has repeatedly been visited upon the explorers, especially once most of a team has been killed.   They pursue with single minded purpose the destruction of that which caused that, and is quite thorough in assessing and cleansing ‘secondary threats’ as well (it considers most life inimical however so….)

Tri-Gun - has three settings’

1. Negative blaster +5 to hit, does 2d8 necrotic damage
2. High explosive +6 to hit, fires 1d4+1 mini missiles each doing 1d5, target is on (chemical) fire for three subsequent rounds taking 1d3 each round, fort save dc 14 negates damage.
3. Deathgun a single target must make a DC 20 fort save or drop, possible survival subject to later rolling the body results.

Also has Target seeking - the Type III can name a single target which the weapon will strike at for +7 inflicting an additional 2d5 damage above and beyond the above.

Effect Field Generation

Death Field - drops everything in a 50’ radius unconscious and with but 1-4 hp remaining.

Vampirism Channel  - drains 6 hd/round from one target at a time;  stored life energy is used to power abilities, recharge weapons, and stored in anti-energon vac tubes for later analysis.

Touch of Death - the field is set to “spectral” and the touch of the type III inflicts a bizarre form of necrotic cancer on contact with living flesh, tumoring the afflicted character with rotting sores for 2d6 hp damage, a point each of Stamina and Strength damage,  and a DC 16 Fort save or be struck dead.   These sores will likely require the work of a great cleric or an even greater quest to heal if one survives the attack.

Hope they aren’t contagious.

Should the / a type III be defeated or if for any reason at that point additional forces are mounted, at that point you are looking at something akin to an actual invasion.   At that point the fragging lifesies will be sent Patient Company.

Patient Company, should you want stats for it, would likely consist of

at least several “type IVs” - the Death Marines,

and at least one Type V - an Agent of the Necro-Singularity, the last of which should be a match for a very high level party on their own.)

And scads of the above.  

Comments:

The Type III is, even though statted wildly inconsistently (like the rest) is a party killer.  Pure and simple.   I should pro’lly have dialed back a bit but as it is….it doesn’t really feel butch enough to me.   Add or subtract those fields all you like. I was going to give it an advanced form of the Scout’s analyze (aka disintegrate) power but that seemed just...excessive.

Not something I’d throw at a party less than six honestly. Note: have yet to run a game that got higher than third level so take my comments with a grain of salt.

Also the Type III is actually based more off of Judge Death than Barzon Karza but I couldn’t find a suitable image - the colors in the Karza one are spot on tho.

I include the idea of Patient Company for completeness but that sounds like a game ender to me.  Maybe a good one?

If you have the  2015  gong farmer's almanac (and...why don’t you?), consider also using the Anti-matternaut from Volume 2 (which also inspired this encounter!) .  I might suggest having the anti-matternaut appear a few rounds prior to the rest of them, in anticipation of colossal energies being released.    If they have been seen in proximity to the anti-matternaut any consulted sage or loremaster may suggest they may be the same thing from different ‘avenues of spacetime’ - different timelines from the same weird universe perhaps.  

Loremasters.  *snort*

And because this hasn’t gone on long enough……..an Optional extra

Qualzarius Rann - Explorer and adventurer

Qualzari Rann, Quantum Scout  Init +5; Atk weapon +2 vibroblade (3d6) or lasersonic blaster +5 (variable, 130’);  AC 16; HD 5d10+3; hp 51;  MV 90 flightpack, running speed ⅓); Act 1d20 + 1d16; SP whatever the Ref wants; SV Fort +5, Ref +3, Will +4; AL Lawful.

Vibroblade does 3d6 per hit/ 60 minutes run time before recharging

Lasersonic blaster - identical to the lasersonic rifle above but stage the damage dice one one step each.

Flight pack - cool flying device; partly antigrav, partly reactionless thrust, part jetpack.  Likely cooler than you.

Enigma field generator - aka fistfuls of plootwavium;  at the least it’s likely what they used to pursue the necronauts to the character’s homeworld and plane.  Go wild with it tho, make him the champion of his people…..

Rann hails from one of the seven nested Microscopic universes known to sages; his is presently being invaded by the same anti-matter universe that has sent the Necronauts to the campaign world.

His initial appearance is diminutive (likely he may be mistaken for a tough talking heavily armored pixie or such at first) no more than a few inches high, but as he spent centuries exploring various quantum realities prior to the invasion, he is used to strange environments and thinking on his feet.  

At the Referee’s option he may, in subsequent encounters, be joined by:

Martwinette Vau, dual plasma pistol wielding valkyrie princess of her Necronite occupied homeworld,  

Kublau Kinse’ the Farseeker heir to his Grom/earth elemental worshiping warrior race, wielding a mighty sword of his ancestors, and  

Zzz’kkkk’llip (Called Cricket by her companions) - an exotic but jocular insectevroid who has fled her homeworld under an assumed identity to dodge out on her obligation to birth millions of offspring - instead serving as the Farseeker’s  spear maiden against the Necrothantic Invasion (and she fights and flies with the rocket lance of her people).

Afterlife the War of Overworld

Inspired somewhat by the Light and Darkness War and a bit of the Princes in Amber. And Tron.  And a bit of 40lk and some Luther Arkwright for flavour.

Not everyone who dies is dead.  Depending on where you are in the omniverse, sometimes as many as one in a thousand deaths are not deaths at all - they are recruitment.

You are pulled out of your cozy little smudge realm; your conception of the universe to that point by the great and terrible clockwork angels of ceramic and steel, iron and endless spinning wheels.

You have been recruited, drawn into the True Reality, and made to fight in the Great War.

The great war is not law v. chaos, it is Progress v. Destruction.

Your side - the architects and caretakers and coders of the omniverse, the clockwork angels seek to create to organize and then to diversify all of reality.  

Destruction seeks to prevent this.   

Perhaps at some point the War began when destruction’s forces did a thing and that created the various imperfect universes?  Or at least affected the many birthing universes at that time.

The conflict primarily occurs in the Overworld, a vast hyperspatial void. The True Reality.   Great Angel Grid Ships sail out and imagine-create new possibilities and then the Formatters attempt to organize them before they are Destroyed.  This is the First Front of the War.  IT is strategy and computation and endless fighting.  

The whole of the Clockwork Angels inhabit this realm and nothing more.   Their great ships are vast and spread out enough (And, well, the backdrop of all Reality is theirs) and so many never encounter conflict.

And it is onto one of these ships you have been recruited. You and other dead folk from across the near Omniverse.

You will train and then you will travel through the Gridway that allows each of the ships of the Angels connected and interconnected, and one.  And then you choose a front.

Most meat beings wind up going back into material reality. Few can manage to remain in the sterile backdoor reality for long without suffering ill or undesired effects.

Possibly some sacrifice themselves to become new angels.  This is kept secret.

Lots of Fronts in the Shadow worlds (like the universe you came from but many many others)

Chargen

How did you die

1. Drug overdose Become Healing Alchemists
1. Can transform anything; can use their bodies as foodstuffs and drugs for allies
2. Hate crime Become Thoughtcrimes
1. Trained invasive investigative telepaths who are psychically dependant on their friends to keep them in line.
3. Swivel chair syndrome - Slow slide into self destruction become Grunts
1. Unremarkable in life, you are only chosen for utility.  Faintly gargoyle like.   Plug and play clas
4. Suicide Become Martyraces
1. Flying battle angel types;  designed to go solo in combat and take a lot of fire. Showy as fuck.  
5. Participation in Warfare become Nifilfrit “smoking death”
1. Half face and form is death incarnate, half is burning spirit of first creation.   You walk, death follows.   You are hollow however and long for the missing parts of your previous existence. Love, empathy, joy.
6. Abuse of authority Become Blindfuries
1. Chosen and deliberately twisted by psychic surgery into truthspeakers and incarnations of justice itself.  Quasi group mind making up the Goddess Justice.   They are all blind or blinded regularly and from this they derive their strength. Incapable of acting unethically as they believe it in any given situation.  

How do you feel about the Angels

1. Second Chance. Now you can do something that matters
1. ARe given clairvoyance abilities that work across the omniverse
2. Religious contextualization problems
1. Are empowered with a “show the light” ability allowing them to force / share their viewpoint on another
3. SF  does not go for any of the heaven / angel trappings at all
1. Are given first grade logician training.  You have uncanny flashes of insight as your subconscious mind is slowly evolving into a super computer; one day you will be called to battle school where only the best will survive to the Second Level
4. Suspicious
1. Are given the ability to determine, unerringly, when someone is being knowingly deceptive.
5. Antagonistic
1. Are given the power to heal their allies, friends, and loved ones if any.
6. refusal/red pill/ wants to go back
1. Are given window opening abilities, allowing them to see and transit to anywhere in the omniverse save their own home.

How do you wish to fight the forces of destruction?

Because of pointless ideas of parity thanks to years of white wolf abuse, I insist there’s a third group of thingies (backgrounds or stuff) one gets from having opinions on this. Like above, dig?

Good Clean Fun for Dagger 9mm

Drugs

What would a street level cyberpunk game be without a bullshit list of made-up drugs?  

Note:  Save where specified, all drug effects are completely cumulative.  

All of these (save poss. Ophelia, though any tech with a sample could rig that up in minutes) can be loaded into a Needle gun.  And will be.  After being shot by corporate security  with six micro-flechettes tipped with Blab, you’ll likely be wishing they’d just put a bullet in you.  

Blab - when you absolutely positively cannot afford a real truth drug.  The Repopulation Zones have dispensers on the corner that gives these out for 5 chits.   Ten minutes after this hits your system you simply  WILL NOT SHUT UP.  You will just carry on, babbling incessantly about whatever comes to mind for the next six hours.  Also you will sweat and you will probably get the runs afterward.  A truth drug only in that someone with half a clue can probably lead the conversation where they need it to go.  Will saves are at -2 for the user over the duration and everyone around them will want to shiv ou.

Cognition - small blue capsules, swallowed intact.  Takes effect in ten minutes.  

Each hit of Cognition increases your Intelligence score by one.  There is a 1 in 20 chance this is permanent.  If permanent, int gain will continue at the rate of one point (permanently) a month until the character’s intelligence reaches 19. Then they’ll see the pretty pretty yellow and blue lights and ever after spend the rest of their days, drooling and pissing themselves

Fuzz - a nasty little cocktail, it came about during one of those central american conflicts of the 21st century.  Ingested capsule holds the contents separate and stable, the mix occurs internally.  So called because of the marked swagger and brutality that users experience about ten minutes later. Also because it pretty much turns you into a ‘dick with a badge’ for some two hours.

Fuzz users feel powerful and stick to tried and true behavior models.   Users sense of self is also distorted so their movements will be greatly exaggerated.  

Take an additional 2d6 hp, and a plus one bonus to your AC due to simple insensitivity.  The ref is entirely valid in making you Will save to avoid random bouts of dicksihness to people and inappropirate outbursts of violence.

Helidol-9  aka DrugAThug sold commercially in one offs (slap patches and needler rounds, each 50 chits a pop, must be a citizen)  or in “industrial grade” - this was made by Denmark Pharmaceuticals as a riot control agent for the UN.  While the gas form never cleared trials, a single needler load of this ends your evening real quick.

Effects take on minute to begin.  Helidol-9-9 is a multispectrum tranquilizer that medicates the body into a sleep like state, and dulls the mind so that formulating complex ideas (like escape, or fighting back, or resisting whatever is done to you for any reason) is basically impossible.  

As it is pretty much the “Game ending instant capture” of drugs* in setting it is ridiculously expensive and Denmark Pharm. Sits on a massive stockpile of the stuff.

If there is a neutralizer agent, Denmark is keeping it to themselves.

*Referees are advised to know what they are doing and not be a giant dick about this.  Don’t come crying to me when no one will play in your game any more you monster.

Heisenburg - For decades a necessary part of any interrogators kit’s’  Heisenberg works well in combination with other drugs (esp truth drugs) and often is used thus. Users experience palpable waves of doubt and uncertainty for 1d4+3 hours.   Has been known to induce heart attack in those with anxiety disorders.  

Overdoses quite infamously trigger psychosis and death.   

A 1 for 3 ratio combination of Heisenberg and Blab by a a Medtech (or other skilled person) will make the user Your Actual Best Friend for the next few days as regards trust and friendship…... after which they will begin to brain bleed. This cocktail is a common tactic of intelligence operatives in the City.

Untreated, the brain bleed will be fatal in d3 days.  Fun.

Jump or Jump Up - once billed as the ultimate solution to social anxiety; Jump makes you the life of the party, your brain hums and and your nerves burn cool. So long as they feel the burning tension behind their eyeballs, users will be functionally fearless for the next d12 hours.  During that time the brain is chemically altered so that feels of anxiety, fear, or terror are simply impossible.  Confidence flows like wine.

Save v. will on the come down though.  Your veins feel like they are made of breaking strands of glass, your chest is pounding and if you fail the roll, 2d24 hours of the worst night of your life is about to begin.  (See: the Long Dark Night Of Londo Mollari, or the last thirty minutes of All that Jazz….or fuck it and just watch Pink Floyd’s the Wall. Go from there. )

Any cocktail of jump up and heisenberg will  on a successful (Fort save DIF  20 leave you purging your system from all orifices immediately for 24 hours.   

A failure leads to stroke and cardiac arrest in minutes.  

Nyborg, Plutonian - despite only a tiny sample of the stanky pinkish goo being brought back by the Chinese Metal Pig probe of 2109 almost 85% of the raw substance mass was on the streets before the sample had even touched down for analysis.  

And they say corruption isn’t rampant in the Chinese Orbitals.   

A small dusterplus 9 unit (75 chits at any corner Duty Free kiosk) is sufficient to process the raw material into a powdery candy like material that can be snorted or smoked.   

Direct injection of nyborg is known to be lethal.  \

Now believed to be the literal gooey remains of some extinct precursor species scraped off a cave wall on Nyx, it is believed an entire valley of this stuff exists in frozen crystalline form on the southern pole of Pluto proper.  

Should anyone manage to bring even a tenth of that back…….

Odeus Hungerous - appetite stimulant;  discontinued as non-lethal crowd force control gas when rioting students in Buenos Aires spontaneously began engaging in random acts of cannibalism and oral sex.

Still available on the civvy market though. Like mace!  Mostly used by juves to prank one another...until one tries to eat the other.

Urges can be resisted for up to four hours on a successful Will save (DC 15)  Failure throws social convention and possibly lives, out the window.

Ophelia Ballers -  a nasty nasty street drug. The bath salts of 2117.   Bat guano, baking powder, rat poison, many are the legendary and rumored ingredients.  The active ingredient is actually something called Compound 2112, which Denmark Pharmaceuticals holds a 75 year secret patent on.  Compound 2112, known internally as Guildenstern, was developed to ‘release inhibitions.’  In attempting to make either the perfect weapon of non violent conquest or the ultimate party drug, they made a horribad thing that draws out ALL of the character’s repressed urges and desires.  

Trip lasts 12 + 1d12 hours that wander from giggling silliness to mind gaping horrors.   Just do fistfuls of angel dust, it’s better for you.

At peak (after only an hour or so)  just add two to all of your physicals, take two off your intelligence, and four off your Pers and give in to whatever the fuck comes to mind until someone hits you with 44 doses of DrugAThug.  Otherwise you are an invincible, unstoppable, freakazoid monster with no guilt or accountability.  Also featuring dangerous random personality shifts (alignment becomes firmly chaotic for the duration, no matter what.)  

Street rumor suggests that Denmark maintains a capture squad to clean up the worst excesses this drug can unleash. What happens to those captured is unknown.

Philosopher - bizarre experimental drug never put into full production; Rumor on the street has artificially increased demand to unprecedented levels however.  Hard to find because no one knows how (Call the lab that makes it. They’ll sell it to you, a hit for 250 chits)  It’s not even illegal

Philosopher takes up to ten hours to take effect during which time sleep is impossible   At some point during that period (roll a d10 already) their very very very specific trip begins.

No one outside of the small private lab that makes the stuff has the slightest idea how it works or how it was made.  When the trip begins roll a d6.

1 - 2   Albert Einstein appears within five feet of you in a flash of harmless blue radiation.  The first time, he will engage the character in a discussion of how the character has an identical twin on their way to Altair. Sometime into the story, Einstein will claim to be the God of Special Relativity and, darkly, threaten to smite their twin, wondering out loud if this would kill the character as well?  Otherwise can be engaged with as though actual Einstein were actually present.   

Side effects - for a week thereafter the user will see random lights shift in colour one shade towards red.

Optional high weirdness - if the character trips alone with Einstein they may find that, a much longer amount of time has passed in the outside world than they experienced.   

3 Roger Bacon would like a word with you about the optics in the laser you carry, or your artificial eye, or the prism that he just pulled out of  your guts.  Bacon will alternate between high medieval scholarly lecturer in advanced light physics …. And interrogating the character about magic and the new age.  

Optionally he may attempt to instruct the character in the binding of spirits and other basic necromantic and alchemical arts.  Whether they work in the game world is another matter.

4. James Joyce, already incomprehensibly drunk, insists that you are going to the public house with him RIGHT CUCKING NOW.  IF you go along with your hallucination, you will meet Walt Whitman and Oscar WIlde while out drinking.  50% Wilde may take a liking to you.  

5. HAIL Carl Sagan LORD OF SPACE, the Seeker and the Way  High Lord Carl of Sagan beams down from the mothership, on assignment from the Science City.   Berates character for their indulgence in superstition and violence - though if they behave he may offer his Secret Sagan Stash with them. (Game effect - Character wins.  Wins what?  The Game of Life.  worth lots of experience points...but not transferable to the real world of course.)

Very likely side effects - post trip the character reacts as though they have had a religious and spiritual awakening.  Likely to join (or in the absence of a local branch, found) a variation of the Church of Carl Sagan Everlasting.   

6. At last the walls of the labyrinth fall away and your quest is complete.  But behold!  On the chamber’s far side two other figures appear. No! It cannot be!  Some of the greatest minds from the dawn of magick now stand here, before you.  Merlin Ambrosius and Aleister Crowley.

From above a booming voice commands - Only One Shall Pass - SPELL DUEL!

Immediately, he three of you share a sheet of high power blotter acid beforehand as the battle will take place in the highest reaches of the astral planes…..

(Mechanics:  Really?  Welcome to the potentially endless feedback loop that is Philosopher.  Roll Percentile dice again and know that that thinker will aid, or fight, the character as well, in addition to the other two.   At the very least you are likely going to just keep tripping until you work through all the results on this table and then some.  Don’t make any plans.  Alternatively you may have just had a psychotic break.  Don’t worry, the Copr has Drugs for That.)    

Pop Culture no. 9 - another designer drug; street lore says it opens the brain’s neural pathways to allow “mass experience” - hard fact identifies it as Lot 47 from NASA’s Deep Cryogenic Activity experiments with astral projection in the 2050s (shame about that info pollen accident)..  No one really knows but particularly astute City chemists might be savvy enough to tell you it’s probably   

Users experience bizarre hallucinations where the media they consume seems to directly interface with as though it is a part of the user's real world.   

Further, multiple users from the same batch that dose together are known to share hallucinations, and sometimes thoughts, with one another.   Some users also experience a disturbing…loss of inhibitions but this is relatively rare (1 in 6, 2 om 6 if the character has a history of amphetamine use)

Some groups have been known to intentionally do especially large batches of this together and then attempt social activities. Pub crawls Fan conventions (Cosplay will MESS YOU UP!!!) ,Carnival, a baptism, a film festival, )

1 in 12 chance per use that the character will continue to experience pop culture based hallucinations (Cerebral drippings from the Noosphere!) for the next d10 weeks, often obscure ones that the character has no direct experience of (

Rumors that use makes the user susceptible to media propaganda campaigns and subliminal control messages are probably bullshit right?  Nah you’ll be fine. Your dealer said so.

ZIP - is your basic high end stim.  Relatively easily available as the manufacturing corp’s offices and manufactory are in City limits.   Very pure amphetamine, with a load of nanobots to provide additional cortical stimulation and to offset somewhat the effects of the stimulant on the body. “Very clean burning.”  Many criminal professional are frequent Zip users for the edge it gives them with minimal side effects.

Obviously this probably causes cancer. More importantly, after around 100 hours of use, most users begin to experience a gradual but non-critical loss of bladder and bowel control.   Former users for this reason often call the drug Prolapse.

THERE IS NO GREEN RADIATION FROM SPACE

THE ECONOMY IS FINE

The Revolution is over

RECYCLE YOUR DOG OR CAT WHEN YOU ARE DONE WITH THEM

Take your meds

GRACIAS,

MANAGEMENT