"There is no happiness under the crimson sun...."
THE ROTTERS: LAST DENIZENS OF RAUSGEBERGRAD
"This is an official directive from the Prefsbelt Reclamation Authority. Industrial Zone X-4 or Rausgebergrad is under quarantine. If you enter the city, we cannot help you. Penetration of the exclusion zone at your own risk will not have us rescue you. You will die."
Prefsbelt Reclamation Authority Directive G-7
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
- Intent: To create a horrifying race of diseased NPC’s for some threads I’m DMing.
- Image Credit: Lucas Hardi (x), Reddit (x), Outlast Wiki (x), GameLeap (x)
- Canon: No.
- Permissions: None
- Links: Found within the submission.
Rotfaces; The most common variant of Rotter.
GENERAL INFORMATION
- Name: The Rotters
- Designation: Sentience is dependent on the individual specimen. For some, they can still think, plan and retain their personalities. But for others, they’ve lost all sense of self and behave little more like animals.
- Origins: In 897 ABY the Prefsbelt Calamity occurred. The entire system of gulags, factories, bunkers and shipyards that Carlyle Rausgeber’s imperial remnant had built collapsed overnight. For the denizens of Rausgebergrad, the largest industrial settlement on the planet, this meant a massacre of the citizenry by a mix of automated systems and fanatics commanded by unknown orders. What followed this in Rausgebergrad was an overload of the reactor and air filtration systems. This lead to everyone inside being exposed to industrial carcinogens, pollution and radiation which has horrifically disfigured everyone who lived within.
- Average Lifespan: 10 years.
- Estimated Population: Planetary; The confines of Rausgebergrad (x), Prefsbelt IV (x).
- Description: The Rotters appearance really depends on the level of exposure. For the Brainses, this is just rashes, sores and lessons of the skin along with minor cases of necrosis or rot. For the Rotfaces, wholesale they’ve lost a lot of muscle mass and are malnourished and emancipated.
- Breathes: Type III
- Average Height of Adults: 170cm
- Average Length of Adults: 25cm
- Skin color: Any
- Hair color: Any
- Distinctions: The Rotters by and large are humans who have been horribly disfigured by pollution and radiation. Brainses are the least disfigured but they typically suffer from acute cases of necrosis, lesions and horrific burns. Rotfaces suffer the same but may actually have missing limbs. For the ferals, they’ve devolved and suffer all the same effects, but now suffer severe scoliosis and stunted growth. They also typically move using all four limbs. Finally the megas have evolved, and become substantially larger.
- Races:
- Brainses: These are individuals who either have experienced lesser degrees of pollutants or have a higher tolerance. They maintain most of their faculties, but are prone to savagery and brutality. Unless secluded in a safe space, Brainses tend to evolve into Rotfaces.
- Rotfaces: These are individuals whose exposure is greater than the Brainses but maintain some base instincts. They have however experienced severe cognitive impairment as their faces and limbs rot, leaving the physically weaker. But without nerves, or feeling of pain. Some are still sentient, but most are declining into an animalistic state. They can understand certain words and commands but are frantic and frenzied. They are the most common variant.
- Ferals: These are those exposed to great amounts of radiation and carcinogens. Typically descended from former maintenance workers or the thousands of slaves who tirelessly fuelled Rausgeber’s mania. They’ve devolved entirely, with no ability to reason with them. They prey either on Rotfaces or Brainses who get cornered by them.
- Megas: In the dying days of Prefsbelt Command new steroids were given to the Stossjäger garrison of Rausgebergrad as part of a nutrition experiment. These supplements upon interaction with the radiation from Rausgebergrad has transformed them into hulking beasts. They now stalk the halls, enforcing their version of order. These are the rarest of Rotters.
- Force Sensitivity: Rare.
One of the Brainses, one of the more sentient variants of Rotter.
Strengths:
- Endurance: With their nerve receptors largely burned out or rotted the Rotters largely don’t feel pain or exhaustion.
- Adrenaline Gland Enlargement: For most Rotters, their adrenal glands have mutated rapidly, almost Doo Hmong their size. This allows the Rotters to attack and engage for longer than ordinary humans.
- Necrosis: Limbs falling off, cancerous lesions and rashes plague the Rotters. Some of the more advanced stage Ferals and Rotfaces have lost limbs and mandibles to the thick fog.
- Cognitive Decline: The Rotters are not a smart lot. The carcinogens have massacred their brainwaves and capacity for thought. By and large they are below average intelligence.
CULTURE
- Diet: Omnivore. With a particular penchant for cannibalism.
- Communication:
- Technology level: Fairly basic. Being confined in the city of Rausgebergrad their technology is limited. Some are able to make use of blasters and terminals. But for the ferals and the like they’re only capable of using melee weapons.
- Religion/Beliefs: For most of the Rotters particularly the Megas and Rotfaces, they labour beneath the mysterious Director. An individual who still commands the production lines to stay open irregardless of supply shortages. The Directors Diktats at the start of each day are jumbled and maddened commands, delivered with manic panic and incoherence. Often times to meet his quotas, the Rotfaces will dismantle last weeks output and feed it back into the furnaces for fresh metals. Quotas for weapons and parts change daily. With the Rotfaces working diligently to oblige as manual labour.
The Megas act as the enforcers, and act once more as soldiers. Following the Directors draconian security protocols. They will murder and maim even their own “subordinates” if their leader has decreed it.
Some of the Brainses work for the Director, desperate for the meagre rations metered out or some normalcy work for him. Often as the management or alternatively as medics and skilled labourers. those not slaving away on the production lines often are trying desperately to get out. And if not doing so, help those also trying to escape.
Those who don’t adhere to the Director are the Ferals. Their inability to follow orders, communicate and hostile demeanour mean they attack their fellow sufferers. The Ferals themselves seem to commune in animalistic packs, with the largest often leading.
Some Rotfaces don’t labour for the Director either. They stumble through the ruins of Rausgebergrad and attempt to kill and loot anything they can grab from any unwary traveller. Often times lost in their maddened ramblings.
- General behavior: The Rotters are broadly speaking a hostile species. They react and attack any who come into their domain. If they haven’t outright killed and eaten any intruder, then the poor sod is put to work on the production lines. Slowly joining the flock as radiation and waste gnaws at their humanity. They are also rife with inifighting with the Ferals attacking anyone who approaches, even their own kind. Scuffles within the species are also common, and is not unheard of for Rotters to turn on each other for a meal.
When the dust settled after the Prefsbelt Calamity in Rausgebergrad the city was in ruins. Vast portions of the city’s environmental controls had been destroyed or disabled flooding the vast underground tunnels and bunkers with inhuman levels of pollution and radiation. Those who died were fortunate in the quickness of their death. But those who didn’t were irreparably changed by the choking smog.
Those unfortunate enough to survive the Calamity in the slave pens were the first to change. Their proximity to the reactor and ventilation systems meant they turned the first. These poor souls became the first generation of ferals and began to escape through Rausgebergrad.
The malaise of pollution infected all who lived in the city. Most fell under the sway of the Director who vacated several levels of the complex as the threat of Hollowmen and Ferals became too fierce. The Directors edicts were erratic, but in lieu of any authority most fell in line. Producing increasingly improvised weaponry in order to meet his quotas as their brains rotted. Often times more fearful of escape than anything.
Those who disobeyed or attempted to leave were hunted by the Megas, who continued to serve as the jackbooted fist of order. However instead of the typical arrests, there came beatings and wanton murder. Savagery is the norm. Some of the Rotters who maintained their humanity hold their own enclaves away from the Megas and the Director but they are constantly competing with Ferals and Hollowmen who stalk the halls.
Broadly speaking most of Prefsbelt Iv and wider Galaxy are ignorant to their plight. Very few Rotters have made it to the surface although those that do struggle to reacclimate to the cleaner atmosphere. Conversely most scavengers who enter Rausgebergrad never leave, and those that do are chased out either by Ferals or Hollowmen.