Bioweapons, anyone?

Game Masters
#1

My campaign is about to take an interesting turn with bringing bioweapons to the table, with an introduction to them using the Rescue from the Vector adventure module found in the site resources.

If you’re unfamiliar with this adventure, it deals with the Blackwing Virus, a bioweapon developed by the Empire to achieve immortality. Except, it doesn’t do that. It turns people into zombies instead.

Obviously, there is this bioweapon, and the Rakghoul one from the Old Republic, but are there any more that you guys have used or know about?

Has anybody ran this adventure module/anything containing the Blackwing Virus, how did it go, and what should I expect from my players?

#2

The opening sentence sounds like what’s happening in Ukraine. xD

Catastrophic real-world events aside…

This involves MAJOR spoilers for Kandosii Beroya’se, one of my games, so for my players, you’ve been warned—stay away.

Night Breath

Night Breath was developed by Lok Durd as a biological extermination agent, designed to annihilate clone troopers AND Jedi (with civilians being an un/fortunate side effect, depending on your perspective).

Expanding on his previous projects as a base, Lok Durd tapped into some ancient knowledge from Sith Alchemy (relayed to him via a dark Jedi and his Sith holocron) to increase the potency of his weapon. Released as a gas, the black cloud billows out rapidly, killing everything living that it touches almost immediately. How? By targeting midichlorians. It binds with them and kills them, subsequently destroying the host.

Plants, people, kyber crystals—all dead. More Force-attuned (read: higher midichlorian count) beings show significantly more external damage. Once the weapon has run its course and the cloud decays, it leaves behind a thick layer of black dust which is relatively non-toxic. Exposure gives no harmful effects beyond what could be expected from breathing in large quantities of ANY dust.

Oh, one more thing: The compound actually works like putting food dye in water. When released to the atmosphere, the atmosphere itself serves to propagate the weapon, out to the maximum range of the quantity brought. In the case of the game, several canisters were used to kill the crew of a Venator as an experiment.

This project was subsequently shut down (for multiple reasons), and Lok Durd eventually went rogue. He paid to have Nuvo Vindi broken out of jail, and they continued to perfect the weapon, as well as various other projects.

Non-spoilery stuff:
Lok Durd created an unnamed “damotite bioweapon” on Lanteeb.
Nuvo Vindi manufactured the Blue Shadow Virus
The Separatists experimented with Trihexolophine1138, which was accidentally released on Honoghr
The Separatists used “Swamp Gas” on Ohma D’un, killing the Gungan inhabitants.

These were just the ones I could think of off the top of my head, and was personally aware of. If you want more examples, I’d suggest looking through this Wookieepedia category and its sub-categories: Category:Biological weaponry | Wookieepedia | Fandom

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Moral Conflicts
#3

Yes, I ran the Rescue from the Vector for my PbP group. They loved it! I liked the mechanic of rolling a Challenge die and tell me if you got a Despair. It helped to impart the pending risk, and made the droid PCs feel superior. In hindsight, no one got even close to becoming infected that way (of course I didn’t tell my Players that until the end); prob should have reduced the # Despairs required. The NPC who “turned” in front of them was a good emotional point.

I placed a medical droid in the ship who had devised a cure, because I didn’t want a PC who got infected to have no way to recover from effective player death. I also ruled that immediate (post encounter) amputation would work, too. Though I found that the unarmed strike required to infect a player was difficult to get through soak. Might want to rule that any player successfully hit (but not damaged) increases their risk of infection due to “germs” on their person-- make them roll 2 Challenge, for example.

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#4

@P-47Thunderbolt

I really like that. I might use something like that. It would fit almost perfectly into what I have planned.

@Filbert66

That Droid NPC sounds like a good idea just in case. I think I’ll morph that idea into an injection that they find in the Medical Lab so that they have access to it anywhere.

These are awesome. Thanks for your guys’ help.

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#5

Do you mean turn like change sides or turn as in turn into a zombie?

#6

Zombified.

If you’ve never read Death Troopers, I highly recommend it. It’s an excellent book, but also does a good job of highlighting the medical horror, and because it’s a book rather than a movie it gives you lots of ideas for good prose.

If you have read it, then hopefully you retained all that.

3 Likes
#7

@P-47Thunderbolt, approximately how long does it take for Night Breath to kill someone?

#8

How I use it, nearly instantaneously. The bodies drop where they stand.