Approved Droid The Hollowmen: Those That Stalk

[Prefsbelt Commander]

THE HOLLOWMEN OF PRFSBELT IV
Only the meek HOLLOW shall inherit the Earth!​

“You don’t hear them. You don’t see them. But before you know it, they’re on top of you. And there’s no running. You either fight, or you die.”​

Dergan “Remus” Twigg
Former Prefsbelt Special Warfare
Current Scavenger​

OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION

• Intent: To create some NPC baddies for some DM’d threads I’m doing.
• Image Source:
  
  • Zef Halo with edits provided by Cesare Demici
  • Wookieepedia [x]
  • Duck and Cover [x]
• Canon Link: Linked in Sub.
• Permissions: I made it, so it’s all G bruv.
• Primary Source:
  
  • Fall Untöter (x)
  • Naraka I worksuit (x)
  • Naraka II worksuit (x)
  • Naraka III worksuit (x)

“If you’re lucky, they’ll kill you outright. But it’s the ones that drag you further into their hidey holes. Through the vents. Those are the poor bastards I feel for.”​

-May “Mama May” Toravik
Propietor of The Regent
Former Scavenger​

PRODUCTION INFORMATION

• Manufacturer: Prefsbelt Command (x)
• Affiliation: Prefsbelt Command (?). No one knows why they do what they do, only that they exist.
• Market Status: (Closed-Market )
• Model:
  
  • The Suits
  • Hollowmen
  • Narak'da'shabi
  • Hollowthrall
• Modularity: To the increasingly abject horror of Prefsbelt IV’s nascent scavenger economy, the Naraka Worksuits are increasingly improving their suits. With either makeshift armour, ammunition storage or broadcast equipment to improve signal coverage while engaging in occasional long range operations.
• Production: Limited
• Material:
  
  • Flex-Armour, Environmental/ Vacuum/ Compression - sealed Armourweave [x]
  • Duravlex Insulation [x]
  • Integrated Shockpadding
  • EMP/Ion Resistant Materials
  • Fire Retardant Textiles
  • Military-grade Electronics [Exo-Skeleton/Comms Unit]
  • Lightweight Carbon-Nanofilament Exo-Skeleton [x]
  • Droid Brain
  • Electronic Components

“They just stare. There’s no face. No emotion. Just that black faceplate. Eyeless and unblinking.” ​

Hakim Lay
Former Prefsbelt Naval Warrant Officer
Current Aid Worker, Nova Avalonia​

TECHNICAL INFORMATION

• Classification: Class 4
• Weight: Heavy
• Height: Average
• Movement: Bipedal
• Armaments: None.
• Misc. Equipment: None
• Resistances (Optional):
  
  • Energy: Average
  • Kinetic: High
  • Lightsabers: How much protection does the armor provide against this type of damage?
  • Other: How much protection does the armor provide against this type of damage? (Examples: Sonic, EMP/ION, Elemental. You must disclose each specific type that applies to this submission with its own rating.)

SPECIAL FEATURES

• The Naraka Suits: Devised originally to wring productivity out of every body, even the dead the Naraka Worksuits are the physical manifestation of the Hollowmen. They are the faceless face and physical hand which visits death upon all who come into contact with them.
  
  • Naraka Model I: This iteration uses corpses to work. Plugging itself into the brainstem and then using that to control them. Using the muscle of the corpse to perform labour. The suit then harvests the body within, stripping it of non-necessary tissue and organs, then melting them down into nutrients to keep muscle density up until the body is completely decomposed.
  • Naraka Model II: The most infamous variant. Used as a torture device, the model II uses live victims. Although they tend to end up like the poor souls trapped in the mark 1.
  • Naraka Model III: This variant is a non-combatant iteration. It uses the body within to breed midichlorians and broadcast a general malaise to disorient any unfortunate to stumble across it.
• Central Computer System (x): Somewhere deep in the bowels of the Final Redoubt, Prefsbelt Command’s former stronghold exists a central computer system which links the myriad of black sites, bunkers and barracks which command the Hollowmen. Syncing them under one mind.
• The KriegGeist (x) Speculated by some to be what has improved the tactical acumen of the Hollowmen. Hooked into the Final Redoubt and broadcasting orders along with a central computer system, the KriegGeist has improved the tactical “thinking” and ability of the Hollowmen. Turning what would just be a moderate danger into an existential one. Turning them from a largely brutish force into a cunning army, defending the depths of Prefsbelt IV and occasionally raiding smaller settlements.
• Exo-Skeletal Structure: While most exo-skeletons don't require a wearer, the Naraka I actually needs one. The Exo-Skeletal Structure needs a body to form around and keep in place.
• IFF Transponder: Kept in the spine of the suit is an IFF transponder used by security and workers alike to keep track of the 'passengers' and be able to address them appropriately.
• Environmental Seals: While it does seem to look like a typical environmental or hazmat suit, the Naraka is in fact meant to be sealed as so the 'passenger' does not contaminate the outside world, rather than protection for it.
• Droid Brain [x]: Unsurprisingly, the movements of dead people tend not be particularly graceful. Ergo, the need for a droid brain to assist in ensuring optimal mobility.
• Protein and Nutrient Recycler: Politely put, the Naraka recycles non-essential proteins and vitamins from the 'passenger' into the muscular structure. Organs such as the brain, liver, stomach, eyes and lungs are deliberately corroded to their base nutritional value and intravenously injected into the bones and muscles used for motor control. Eventually this is done to the skin, until the muscles have atrophied too far and the rest of the body is swapped for a fresh 'passenger'.
• Midichlorian Breeder: One of key parts of the Naraka III as a sort of, 'overseeing' module is its artificial force manufacturer. The bodies piled within the Naraka III are pumped full of chemical compounds and toxins designed to simulate the formation of the foetus within the womb. These same chemicals pump up the levels of midichlorians and breed them to such a degree, that it can simulate force use.
• Force Transmitter: Using organic midichlorians pumped through long dead veins, the Naraka III is able to simulate force sensitivity, and uses this, along with computer consoles imbedded in the brain to project this sensitivity.

The Naraka Worksuit. ​

STRENGTHS

• Stealthy: Without needing to talk, and with rubber soled boots the suits walk almost silently with no effort. Meaning that a group can set upon a target without ever being located. It also assists that they do not appear on infared thanks to the lack of body heat.
• Evolving Intelligence: Whatever is behind the worksuits has allowed them to develop better tactics and improvisation. The Hollowmen now create improvised armour, improve their tactics and operate equipment and materiel far beyond what was ever deemed capable of them. Even when engaged in combat, the Hollowmen will evolve their tactics and behaviour dependent on how the hostile entity has engaged them.
• Coordination: With all the Hollowmen being linked with one computer network, they are capable of organising far better than any other force on the planet. This combined with knowledge of the facilities they guard means they are able to quickly create containment solutions to any interloper foolish enough to enter their domain.

WEAKNESSES

• Degraded “Passenger”: The Naraka suits require bodies to function, as without them there’s no fuel to continue. With a steep decline in the planets population most of the suits “guests” are either in advanced states of decomposition with even the fresher bodies suffering acute malnutrition. By and large the suits are sluggish and slower in movement.
• Individually Weak: Individually the Hollowman is weak. Their suit, even if modified does not offer much in the way of protection. And their combat skills one on one are not extensive. This means that alone, they can be destroyed quite easily.

“They’ve spread like a cancer. Pockmarked all over the place. I saw the plans, the authorisation orders. It should’ve only been one site deployed at best. How the [EXPLETIVE REDACTED] did that get all over the place?!”

CAPT. Luther Marcen
Former Stossjaeger Staff Officer
Present Arms Dealer​

DESCRIPTION

The prospectors of Nova Avalonia talk about them with hushed voices. Villagers have fled their homes entirely because of them. No one can talk to them, no one can reason with them. And yet they stalk the planet, from the halls of Rausgebergrad to the highest peaks. Silent and unwavering in their dedication to keeping Prefsbelt IV running, and killing all who stand in their way. The Hollowman has inherited the earth.

The Naraka worksuit was initially dreamt up by the sadists of Prefsbelt Command to account for the appalling work conditions in their camps and gulags. Where starvation, disease and insubordination were rife. The phase 1 worksuit was conceived as the means to allow even corpses to be used for labour, working them until the flesh was eaten by the machine. Denying them dignity, the corpses are placed into a crude frame and perfect for menial labour on an assembly line. The phase 2 suits were for the infirm or rebellious, s torture device with the same end. While the mark 3 was the byproduct of scientific meddling, and deployed to pacify troublesome work units with an artificially generated “Jedi mind trick”. Designed to pacify work groups.

As wars beset the Galactic Empire, Prefsbelt Command set in place a number of contingencies. Fall Untöter was one of these. It was a scenario where while under planetary siege Prefsbelt Command would liquidate entire prisoner blocks and workforces in order to put them into Naraka suits. Augmenting their defence forces with a large body of crude force to reinforce and operate basic emplacements. Effectively it would increase manpower by an additional 40% assuming 95% effectiveness in liquidation.

In 897 ABY this contingency was triggered. This decision would prove consequential and one of the ignition points of what became known as “The Prefsbelt Calamity”. By what command or whose authorisation is still to this day unknown. But the plan was activated on that date and never wound down. When the Naraka suits reached a critical mass they began to turn on their masters massacring them with unrelenting efficiency and brutality. Large bases and fortresses turned into graves as the desperate, damned and delirious fled for refuge. Overnight what had been redoubts of safety turned into ruins, garrisoned by the Naraka, or Suits.

The term Hollowman was coined by the first scavengers coming from off world to loot what they could from Prefsbelt IV’s festering corpse. They initially believed that the Naraka worksuits were hostile scavengers, only to discover upon inspection the grisly truth. The term spread and Hollowman has become the name culturally appropriate term along with Suit, Hollowthrall and Narak’da’shabi in Pa’Deshi. Between rival scavenger firms who’ve cropped up on the planet, paranoid imperial remnants, industrial waste, marauding gangs of ex-convicts and the odd cannibal cult, the Hollowmen are considered the greatest danger to sentient life on Prefsbelt IV. There is no reasoning, no mercy and no hesitation. They strike silently and with absolution.

​

Hollowmen caught on recording, patrolling a Prefsbelt facility.

While initially considered to be little more than a base annoyance to the enterprising scavenger, the Hollowmen have grown in ferocity and number. While they could initially be overpowered quite easily, the Hollowmen have become craftier and capable of basic to intermediate tactical planning. Setting bait, traps and ambushes for any unfortunate enough to crawl into their domain. There have also been signs of evolving equipment use, with some Naraka suits being found modified with crude plastoid plating appropriated from stormtrooper armour, bandoleers and signal boosters for outdoor operations. Individually they are still easy to dispatch, but the more who arrive the stronger they become, often times engaging in protracted battles of attrition. Wearing down those unfortunate enough to tread into their domain with shear bodies rather than acumen. Able to corner trespassers thanks to their intricate knowledge of facility outlines and schematics.

The Hollowmen have also acted as an impediment to the rehabilitation and reconstruction of the world. Initially this was simply thanks to them manning turbolasers and making intraplanetary travel difficult, but has expanded further in scope and capacity. Prefsbelt IV bristles with anti-capital ship armaments hidden beneath shields. The Naraka suits have developed the ability to operate and coordinate barrages from these batteries, firing at any vessel larger than a frigate. Such obstacles make protracted military operations extraordinarily difficult. It also prohibits the planets scavengers from escaping with substantive hauls of scrap and materiel. This in turn has hindered Prefsbelt’s ability to draw in commerce to invest in the renewal of the industrial hellscapes Prefsbelt Command left behind.

The Hollowmen have also increasingly become mobile. While no cases have ever been witnessed firsthand, entire villages and worker communes in rural Prefsbelt have been found empty by traders and resupply caravans. With not a soul in sight but there being signs of a scuffle with the automatons, some speculating that these are ‘recruiting’ parties. The Hollowmen harvesting settlements for their manpower to fill the suits before returning whence they came. This of course has sewn massive instability on the world, with most communities living within hiking distance of some sort of locked cache or bunker complex and no clue what lies within. This has led to isolated communities abandoning their homes for the refugee camps in Nova Avalonia or doubling down and fortifying their settlement with armaments and mercenaries.

On a world ravaged by hackneyed terraforming and wanton industrialisation it is the Hollowmen who exist as Prefsbelt Command’s most toxic legacy.

 

[MANIAC]

Prefsbelt Commander

Very creepy and cool.

Approved.