The Strange
“If your heart graft gets ideas of its own, you’re probably already dead.” ~a message discovered in the All Song
For years, the Ankaseri faction sold an artificial heart graft, one that increased the stamina and strength of its recipients. Like many grafts available in Ruk, the Ankaseri heart required little in the way of medical support to transplant; it was “self-installing.” A graft recipient need only lie back, unseal the graft membrane, and take a tranquilizer so as not to experience anything untoward. Hours later, the recipient woke with a stronger, better heart and only a scar to show for it. No one thought to ask what would become of the original heart.
As was later revealed, Ankaseri secretly weaponized their heart grafts. Upon receiving a proper phrase or passcode, followed by instructions given audibly or while the recipient was connected by umbilical to the All Song, a heart would leave off its duties in a recipient’s chest, dig its way out, and attack a designated target from ambush. Afterward, it would crawl away and hide. This tended to leave two corpses, neither of which had hearts—just clawed-up, empty chest cavities.
After the Ankaseri faction was eliminated for other reasons, many transplanted heart grafts remained, all of which were hungry and able to reproduce.
Motive: Hungers for hearts, reproduction
Environment (Ruk | Weird Science): Usually among the populace of Harmonious
Health 9
Damage Inflicted: Moderate wound (4 points)
Armor: 2
Movement: Immediate
Modifications: Stealth as level 4; Speed defense as level 4 due to size.
Combat: A “transplanted” angiophage need merely burst forth to kill an unsuspecting host. Against fresh targets, the angiophage prefers to use stealth and ambush, possibly even waiting until a target is naturally asleep.
The angiophage can make two different attacks, each a separate action. One attack is an anesthetizing bite. If the victim fails a Speed defense roll, it takes just 1 point of damage and must succeed on a Might defense roll. On a failed Might defense, the victim falls unconscious for one minute. Left undisturbed, the angiophage opens up the target’s chest, carefully feeds on the target’s heart as it equally carefully replaces the functions of the original heart, and sews itself into the target’s chest. This process, thanks to enzymatic healing and anesthetizing mucus, leaves behind only a slight scar, and the target may not even realize what’s happened. Once installed, an angiophage is content to remain quiescent for several weeks, at which point it grows hungry again, and emerges to feed.
The angiophage’s other attack is a bite attack that deals normal damage.
Interaction: The angiophage is about as sophisticated as a virus.
Use: A contact the PCs have traveled to see is found dead with no heart. Alternatively, he stops midsentence and a hungry angiophage bursts out of his chest.
GM Intrusion: As a PC leans in to loot a defeated NPC, an angiophage emerges from the NPC’s chest.
Certain angiophages might answer to cryptic passphrases and do the bidding of a controller, but all such passphrases are assumed lost with the Ankaseri faction.
The difficulty of Might-based tasks is reduced by one step for a PC with an angiophage heart. A PC who recognizes the danger of the heart can get it removed and replaced through a standard heart transplant operation (preferably conducted in Ruk, where the prognosis for such procedures is almost 100%).