The Strange Bestiary
Barrage crusaders are "the face of the fall." According to the context that created the apocalypse in Cataclyst, cloned soldiers are the reason why the world was unable to pull back from complete disaster. Hyped up on a cocktail of experimental military drugs, cybernetic enhancements, and training via direct neuronal implants, they had no reason not to fight to the end. The most powerful clones were designated as barrage crusaders.
These enhanced soldiers survived nuclear bombardments, compromised robotic drone swarms, and emerging military AI instances run amok. In the aftermath, a few barrage crusaders survive here and there amid the ruins, ruling tiny kingdoms of piled rubble, radioactive craters, and dangerous mutant flora and fauna. A deployable jetpack allows a barrage crusader to fly high above a field of battle and rain destruction down on everything within range.
Barrage crusaders aren't "evil" so much as the result of a purposeful dysfunction. Their deceitful, manipulative, and outright murderous behavior is genetically programmedÑ they were literally cloned to be bad.
Motive: War games
Environment (Cataclyst | Weird Science and Magic): Scattered through the ruins, rarely together unless fighting each other
Health: 30
Damage Inflicted: Moderate wound (6 points)
Armor: 2
Movement: Short when walking or flying
Modifications: Perception as level 7; knowledge of old military systems as level 7; reasoning and tasks related to empathy as level 2.
Combat: Implanted with mRNA neuronal training while being grown, each barrage crusader is matched only by a brother or sister clone. Most carry two long black blades that spark with electricity. In melee the blades can be used to attack every foe in immediate range as a single action every other round, or up to two foes in immediate range every round.
For targets farther away, a barrage crusader relies on a squadron of orbiting drones that can fire beams of collimated neutrino hard light at a range of up to a half mile (0.8 km) away. When all the drones focus on a single target, a successful hit deals 9 points of damage and moves the target one step down the damage track. The drones can make such an attack once every other round. Otherwise, the barrage crusader can split the drones to make up to four long-range attacks as a single action, each of which deals 3 points of damage.
Interaction: A barrage crusader might negotiate, but only if promised that it will get to engage in some kind of war game.
Use: A mutant army under the command of a barrage crusader called Omni has launched into the Strange and threatens various recursions in the Shoals of Earth.
Loot: A useful weapon or two can be salvaged from the cold, dead hands of a defeated barrage crusader.
GM Intrusion: A character who attempts to target an orbiting drone instead of a barrage crusader is partly successful; the drone is hit. But before it explodes, it zooms toward the character, who must succeed on a Speed defense roll or suffer 6 points of damage from fire and shrapnel.