Mawite Legend
The Wretchedness
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
- Intent: To expand on prior Mawite lore, and on the Brotherhood's plans for Lao-mon.
- Image Source: Acid Rain on Clash of the Dragons wiki
- Canon Link: N/A
- Permissions: N/A
- Primary Source: Bioweapon | Xenotoxin | Neurotoxin | A Rising Threat
- Name: The Wretchedness
- Manufacturer: Brotherhood of the Maw
- Affiliation: Brotherhood of the Maw
- Market Status: Closed-Market
- Modularity: Variable Delivery Methods
- Production: Minor
- Material: Viral Materials, Shi'ido Soft Tissue Proteins
- Classification: Bioweapon
- Method of Consumption: Skin Contact
- Average Life: 1 - 2 hours before dissipating
- Nutritional Value: None
- Allergies: Intentional severe skin and muscular allergies among Shi'ido
- Side Effects: Mild respiratory irritation in many species
- Purpose: To kill Shi'ido and impede their shapeshifting ability
- Genetically engineered xenotoxin
- Deployed via vapor cloud
- Gene-targeted to Shi'ido
- Shapechanger's Bane: In liquid or vapor form, the Wretchedness is extremely dangerous to Shi'ido. The compound is targeted to trigger uncontrollable shapeshifting in the aliens' malleable bodies, causing them to lose cohesion. If the compound successfully takes hold, an affected Shi'ido's skin, tendons, and bones become pliable as the compound soaks into their bodies, and the substance also causes nerve disruption that prevents the Shi'ido from controlling the change. As a result, the alien collapses into a jumble of skin, tendons, bone, and organs in no particular configuration, effectively paralyzed. They then begin to suffocate, unable to rearrange their organs into a survivable configuration. Even minor skin exposure quickly leads to this physiological collapse, and complete suffocation occurs in five to seven minutes.
- Shi'ido Only: Species other than Shi'ido are unaffected beyond minor skin irritation and coughing.
- Skin Contact Required: Shi'ido who are completely covered, as by an environment suit, are unaffected.
- Extreme Temperatures: The Wretchedness can be neutralized by burning or by extreme cold.
- Dissipation: Individual clouds of The Wretchedness dissipate within thirty minutes, and do not spread beyond a 50-meter radius.
- Force Intervention: The Force power Detoxify Poison can purge a victim of The Wretchedness, allowing them to change shape again.
- Other Intervention: A collapsed Shi'ido can be intubated and oxygenated so that they do not suffocate until the vapor wears off.
- One-Shot: A Shi'ido who survives The Wretchedness develops immunity to future exposures.
When the Brotherhood of the Maw initially invaded Lao-mon during their consolidation of power in the Nihil Retreat, they were able to take the planet through sheer numbers and overwhelming force... but they brought relatively few of the natives to battle. The Shi'ido simply melted into the jungles, abandoning their cities and using their shapechanging powers to escape pursuit. In the years that followed, tribes of marauders hunted the changelings across their homeworld, trying to capture them and brainwash them into service as sinister Fleshtaker infiltrators. At the same time, the Shi'ido began to rally in hidden camps all over the planet, mounting raids on Brotherhood outposts in an effort to free those enslaved there. These persistent attacks soon began to frustrate the Mawites stationed on Lao-mon.
Fighting off the slippery alien rebels was difficult, given their capacity for camouflage and infiltration, so the Brotherhood looked for a more efficient solution. Inspired by the work of the ancient Galactic Empire, which had long pursued the production of species-targeted biological weapons, the Heathen Priests and overseers began pursuing something similar. They closely researched the biology and physiology of the Shi'ido, searching for ways to selectively destroy the aliens. An early attempt created a caustic cloud of orange, acid-like rain, driving off the attacking freedom fighters by afflicting them with severe skin burns, but this was seldom fatal. As Shi'ido rebel activity continued to build, the pressure intensified to find a more deadly solution to punish the aliens for their defiance.
The ultimate result was The Wretchedness, a caustic mist that directly targets the proteins in Shi'ido soft tissues that allow for shapechanging. All Shi'ido have "hidden flesh" inside their bodies that allows them to take on larger shapes than their natural forms, such as turning into a whaladon. The Wretchedness disrupts nerve connections and then engages the pliability of skin, muscles, and tendons that allows for shapechanging. This causes an uncontrolled relaxation of all bodily tissues, causing afflicted Shi'ido to collapse in a pool / heap that resembles a liquefied body. Without any particular configuration to their respiratory and cardiovascular systems, and with their organs all out of position, Shi'ido taken by The Wretchedness rapidly begin to suffocate, and die in five to seven minutes.
The Wretchedness can be deployed by grenade, missile, or fan system, generally resulting in bursts no more than fifty meters in radius. The vapor becomes inert after about thirty minutes, and its effects come to an end, but by then most Shi'ido caught in it are usually dead; unless treated with a Force technique such as detoxify poison, taking several minutes to draw the toxins out of the sufferer's soft tissue cells, those afflicted remain in their nerveless flesh heaps for the full thirty minutes. Clever conventional surgery, such as carefully arranging a Shi'ido's limp body and then intubating and oxygenating them, can also save those affected by the toxin, though this is a difficult process. Fortunately for the Shi'ido, those lucky enough to survive one exposure develop an immunity to the vapor.
Despite the weapon's limitations, it has proven an effective tool of revenge, deterrence, and extermination.
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