Mawite Legend
The Fleshtakers
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
- Intent: To incorporate lore from BotM territory, and to give the Brotherhood thematic ground forces.
- Image Credit: Hessyst, by Ryan Alexander Lee on Deviantart
- Role: Infiltrators, Saboteurs, and Assassins
- Permissions: N/A
- Links: Shi'ido, Lao-mon, Lament for Lao-mon, Goshen War Camp, A Rising Threat (Objective 2)
- Unit Name: The Fleshtakers
- Affiliation: Brotherhood of the Maw
- Classification: Black Ops
Description: Almost no one who has encountered one of the Fleshtakers knows that they passed close to one of these deadly assassins. They are one of the Maw's most closely-guarded secrets: brainwashed Shi'ido, tortured and conditioned into serving the Brotherhood. Operating in teams of three, they operate behind enemy lines, or even in the midst of enemy military camps. They kill, sabotage, and spy with impunity, because they wear the faces and uniforms of trusted soldiers. Named for their ability to take on the flesh - or at least guise - of virtually anyone, they are the ultimate infiltrators. Almost no one who becomes aware of them survives, for they only reveal themselves in the instant before they strike, sinking their monomolecular blades into throats, spines, and vital organs.
COMBAT INFORMATION
- Unit Size: Small
- Unit Availability: Rare
- Unit Experience: Elite
- Equipment: Molecular Stilettos, Dioxis Grenades, Detonite Blocks, Fusioncutters, Computer Spikes
Combat Function: The Fleshtakers aren't battlefield units; they are infiltrators, doing their best work behind and among enemy lines. When deployed, their goal is to disrupt enemy forces so that future Brotherhood operations against them can be more successful. To that end, they work to shatter the chain of command by killing key enemy officers and administrators. They also sabotage enemy vehicles and equipment so that they cannot be used against the Maw, and plant explosive charges on key defensive points like bunkers and turbolaser towers. Given the opportunity, they also work to destroy enemy industrial production, demolishing factories, killing foremen, and gassing as many workers as possible with their dioxis grenades. They never engage in a direct fight, changing forms in order to escape if detected.
- Ultimate Infiltrators: The Fleshtakers are all Shi'ido, and have honed the natural shapechanging abilities of their species to great heights. They are capable of looking like anyone, easily mimicking faces and body types to pass among their enemies undetected. Their natural telepathy projects the image of rightness to those they try to deceive, making even their scent seem correct for the species and individual they are imitating. This, along with training to carefully direct and conceal their thoughts, also makes their true nature more difficult to detect through the Force. The Fleshtakers also assume animal forms for swift movement and disguise, or even change their skin to resemble rock or tree bark in order to hide. Only high-grade biological scanners and gifted telepaths can detect that they're not what they claim to be.
- Saboteurs and Assassins: Fleshtakers are well-trained in demolitions and sabotage. They can bring down large structures, cripple enemy vehicles, and booby-trap equipment with ease, using their detonite and electrical tools to wreak havoc behind enemy lines. They are also gifted assassins, working in teams to distract and eliminate their targets. They know the locations of all vital organs on dozens and dozens of species, and can cripple or kill with a single stab of their long-bladed molecular stilettos. These weapons have monomolecular blades, which are so sharp that they can easily sink through anything up to heavy armor plating. It is child's play for a properly-used molecular stiletto to open throats, sever spines, and pierce hearts. The assassins also employ dioxis grenades, using the poison gas to kill multiple targets or cover their escape.
- Ambush Killers Only: The weapons wielded by the Fleshtakers are extremely deadly, but they are designed to be used from stealth, not in prolonged combat. The fragile blade of a molecular stiletto is extremely easy to break if improperly used, and improper use includes something as basic as trying to slash with it rather than stab or slowly cut. Detonite is utterly impractical to use in a firefight, and while dioxis grenades can kill an enemy who is trapped in an enclosed space, they are mostly area denial weapons. As a result, the Fleshtakers rely on disguise and quick, overwhelming strikes on isolated targets to survive and accomplish their objectives. If they are identified and pinned down, they have little recourse but to try to use their dioxis grenades to create cover while they try to assume new forms. They cannot fight alerted foes.
- Few and Far Between: Fleshtakers are rare because their "recruitment" and training is so difficult. The Brotherhood would dearly love to field a legion of them, but these elite assassins operate in teams of only three, and the Maw has only a handful of such teams at its disposal. Every Fleshtaker that is lost represents a significant resource cost to the Brotherhood, so they are cautious about deploying the assassins. The violent, literally torturous conditioning that turns a Shi'ido into a Fleshtaker slave-soldier is also not absolute or irreversible. The minds of the Shi'ido are as adaptable as their bodies, and with skilled use of Force-based healing - or long months, even years, of medical therapy - it is possible to free them from the Brotherhood's brainwashing. This represents yet another reason that the Maw uses them sparingly.
When the Brotherhood of the Maw established its main base of operations in the Nihil Retreat, one of the first worlds to fall to their conquest was the Shi'ido homeworld of Lao-mon. The Heathen Priests were eager to break the changelings to the will of the Maw, but this proved more difficult than expected; while the Brotherhood easily captured the planetary capital of Goshen and the other Shi'ido cities, the locals themselves melted away into the jungles, escaping the conquest. Hunting parties of marauders were dispatched to locate and capture bands of Shi'ido refugees, but it was slow going; even with the mass deforestation of the Brotherhood's strip mining efforts proceeding at a brutal pace, the planet's tropical forests were still vast, with many places to hide. And the changelings could assume many forms, even that of animals or tree bark.
Gradually, more and more Shi'ido were captured and brought back to Goshen War Camp. There, in the dank cells beneath the central fortress, the Brotherhood's taskmasters gradually broke them through intense physical and mental torture. Their personalities were slowly reforged so that they would serve the Dark Voice without question. It was a grueling task, for the changelings' minds were as malleable as their bodies, and struggled against the rigid conditioning. Further, operations in the camp were constantly disrupted due to attacks by Shi'ido freedom fighters, striking from the jungles in an attempt to free their captured brethren. As a result, it was a long time before the first Fleshtaker units were ready to deploy, and they were not yet prepared for early key battles such as Csilla, Outlander Station, and Ilum. Further, they were very few in number.
Still, once they were ready to deploy, the small but lethal Fleshtaker teams were bound to make their mark...
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