“This is bullshit. I don't care if Amistad has a “Bad Feeling”, this thing is our ticket to the Good-times.
…No. No! It's a derelict, the best I've ever seen! If there'd been any sign of trouble whatsoever, I'd be hitting the charges as we speak and coasting back to the Swarm, but no, there's nothing. He's freaking out because the ship doesn't look like it an Autocannon used it as a tissue."
"Yeah, okay, finding a ship without anyone aboard is freaky, but there's no blood, no broken components, no sign that there was anyone on there to begin with. The crew were probably just ghosts in the system, and just left."
"Are you shitting me? He's scared there might be Spiders on board? He's going to piss all over our one good break in 3 years because he's a fuckin' arachnophobe?!"
"Alright, where the hell is he, we're going to have words.
What do you mean you can't find him on the spines? Crazy bastard must have hacked them. [size=10]Didn’t know he could do that.[/size]
Just go find him, I'll watch things from here."
"He'll turn up eventually.”
-Last recording of the “Penny Farthing” salvage tug out of the “Wild Black Yonder” scumswarm. Inspection drones sent to board the ship after it attempted to rejoin the swarm without mesh response found no-one on board. In accordance with quarantine protocol, the tug was destroyed via plasma lance.
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Exenters are a TITAN device who's existence has only been confirmed relatively recently.
Their body resembles that of a Redback Spider, with a bulbous “abdomen” connected to approximately spherical thorax with 10 long, spindly legs, and an arrow shaped head.
This has only been found due to examinations of destroyed specimens, as the entirety of the drone is covered with metamaterials rendering it invisible to sight and sound.
It sees through a dusting of nano-cameras on top of the shell, which communicate with the drone through magnetic resonance.
As such, it takes a -40 perception roll to tell whether there is something there at all, which allows the viewer to perceive occasional motion as light reflects off the flacks of dust, making the viewer aware of the Exenter's presence and gives a vague impression of it's shape, although this may not be more than "transparent thing with too many legs". The magnetic communication is dimly perceivable via electric sense; morphs with this upgrade may make a -20 perception roll instead.
Splashing the drone with a liquid or inflicting damage to it ruins the metamaterial properties, allowing the drone to be perceived normally.
Exenters do not engage in open combat, rather they engage on guerilla and psychological warfare. Their modus operandi is to approach their target, and when an opportune moment presents itself the abdomen splits into 6 “petals”, which engulf the target completely. Anyone who happens to be viewing the attack simply sees the morph disappear, but usually all that occurs is that a witness looks away for a second, only to look back to see that their comrade has disappeared.
The thorax is completely soundproof, and very sturdy – it takes a SOMx2 check to break free.
The Exenter then takes it's prey to a safe location, where it can begin it's work. Using the plethora of smartblades and utilitools within it's carapace, it begins to perform surgery on it's victim, methodically removing any and all artificial augmentations, and damaging or disabling bioware, all whilst being extremely careful to keep it's victim alive and conscious. It's skill is sufficient that it can completely remove any and all augmentations, including nanoware, with a minimum of blood loss.
It then leaves it's victim somewhere where the screams will attract others, and when they arrive it uses the distraction to take another, and the cycle repeats until no more prey is available.
If many targets are available, Exenters will usually attack targets with the least augmentations first in order to disrupt the others which may prove more dangerous.
Synthmorphs are not subject to the above behaviour, they are simply dismantled in their entirety.
Once all targets have been removed, the Exenter then dismantles the corpses with internal recyclers. Biomorphs are converted to normal feedstock, whilst synthmorphs or removed augmentations are used to assemble new Exenters.
Strangely, Exenters will not use any other source of materials for reproduction, only those taken from prey.
Cognition 10, Coordination 20, Intuition 15, Reflexes 20, Savvy 5, Somatics 15, Willpower 15
Initiative 7, Speed 2, Durability 30, Wound Threshold 6
Mobility System: Walker (7/28)
Skills: Climbing 70, Freefall 70, Freerunning 70 Fray 60, Infiltration 95, Investigation 40, Exotic Melee Weapon: Engulf 65 Perception 60, Unarmed Combat 55, Medicine: Implant Surgery 100
Notes: Armor 6/6, Unarmed Attack (1d10 + 2), Invisible. Implant removal is a task action with a time of 5 minutes, which removes one implant and deals 1DV ignoring armour and 1d10+2 SV, WILLx3 for half. The Exenter will perform this for every augmentation the morph possesses, after which it will perform another surgery check to purposefully disable the morph's mobility systems.
-Edit- Anatomy error corrected, Freefall and Freerunning skills added.
-Edit 2- Made less invisible.
What do you guys think? Are invisible surgery spiders creepy enough?
Feedback would be very welcome :D
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In the past we've had to compensate for weaknesses, finding quick solutions that only benefit a few.
But what if we never need to feel weak or morally conflicted again?