QHW, Day 7: Humanoid Races

Baseline Humans, True Men

• Citizens of the few arcologies that were not damaged or destroyed.
• Cults of pure blood are rampant, with all other strains of humanity seen as only good to be enslaved or purged.

Cyborgs, Shellers, Aug-Men

• Second-class citizens of the arcologies, super-soldiers and specialized slave-workers. Dependant on the few skilled surgeons and remaining auto-docs, thus kept in line.
• Out in the Rad Wastes, they either die of implant rejection, or thrive as invincible warlords.

Robodroids, Mech-Men

• They never were human and thus don't cling to a humanoid shape. Intelligent vehicles, buildings, etc.
  
• Immune to hunger, thirst, asphyxiation, fatigue, poisons and diseases, but suffer from nanites, malware and EMP.

Chimerae, Splicers, Beast Men

• Humans cross-mutated with animals via careful gene-engineering, gaining useful perks with minimal downsides.
• Range from a human with a few animal characteristics to a humanoid animal.
• Unlike mutants, they breed true, including with their parent species. Many splicer tribes roam the Rad Wastes.
• Radiation exposure often times turns them feral and mindlessly hostile before resulting in mutations.
  

Synths, Fake Men

• Shapeshifters. A brain-box suspended in metamorphic synth-flesh.
• Can also spend their biomass for various effects, like fabricating bone items, breathing toxic gas, shooting enamel-bullets, or creating independent, non-intelligent life forms.

Replicants, Vat Babies

• Their DNA was hand-crafted to make them peak human, and it shows. Their brains were pruned to make them obedient and happy to serve, but it didn't work. They have no belly buttons.
• Created in batches of hundreds of clones. Some pre-Turn sites will have tribes of people that all share the same face.
• Extremely vulnerable to radiation due to their delicate DNA.
  

Holograms, eGhosts, Hollow Men

• They all have a phylactery, a tiny piece of tech containing their mindstate, a holo projector and a power source.
• Can freely switch between soft- and hardlight, but hardlight drains their power reserves fast.
• Most were once powerful people who sought immortality. Now they are the tyrant kings and queens of the Rad Wastes.

Blighters, Zeds, Chem-Men

• Gene-plagues and chemical superweapons depopulated whole countries during the Turn. A tiny fraction of a percent of the victims survived, albeit changed.
• Extremely resistant to diseases, toxins, chemicals and radiation. Basically unageing. Their bodily fluids swiftly kill most lifeforms.
• Shunned by all, they live in isolated villages or abandoned pre-Turn sites deep in the Rad Wastes.

QHW, Day 6: Radiation

Dreamers

• Humans with a non-intelligent symbiont which grants them psionic powers.
• The symbiont can cross from one host to another, usually on the host's death, taking some memories with them.
• A single host is sometimes called an incarnation, with the switch between hosts being a reincarnation.
• Strong emotions carry over the best between incarnations. It is not unheard of feuds or affairs between Dreamers that span multiple reincarnations.
• Like an unborn baby, a symbiont absorbs any radiation the host is exposed to. This makes the host mostly immune to the Rad Wastes, but it also affects the psionics of the symbiont, increasing their power at the cost of stability and reliability.
• Some Dreamers purposefully expose themselves to radiation in hopes of getting a temporary power boost. However, an overdose will leave the symbiont broken, with their powers unshackled and uncontrollable. Such monstrosity is known as a Nightmare.
• Awakening is a rare and dreaded quirk where the symbiont gains full sapience. An Awakened takes over the host body and subsumes the self of the host completely.
• An Awakened will sometimes quickly jump from one body to another to gain the skills and knowledge of the hosts.
• Awakened are mortally afraid of Nightmares.

QHW, Day 5: Towers

27. 5. 1897
Yesterday late at night, the gate has finally succeeded in connecting to a new world. We ventured through earlier today.

We emerged into a room within a man-made (or mayhap I'd better say entity-made) megastructure. A thin tower that stretches upwards and downwards as far as the eye can see, with a single large room taking up every storey. The walls are built of large blocks of grey stone, with many tall slits that serve both as windows and doors to the outside. The floors are connected by a spiral staircase running on the outside of the tower.

There are more towers clustered everywhere around this one. All constructed in a similar manner, though the architectural features differ from one to another. Some are merely several paces of empty space apart.

There is only darkness both above and below. No sky nor ground. The only light comes from the air itself, the source of which seems to be some form of an airborne plankton-like substance. I brought back samples for Dr. Zimmermann, but it seems harmless to humans, so masks should not be necessary on subsequent visits. Dr. Strauss has also noticed some larger floating organisms, though they fled before we could capture any.

We have explored several floors up and down from the gate room, but so far everything has been empty save for several patches of moss and fungi I also took samples of. Tomorrow, we will return with equipment to traverse the frankly terrifying void between towers and see if we don't have more luck in one of the neighbouring structures.

27. 5. 1897
Yesterday late at night, the gate has finally succeeded in connecting to a new world. We ventured through earlier today.

We emerged into a room within a man-made (or mayhap I'd better say entity-made) megastructure. A thin tower that stretches upwards and downwards as far as the eye can see, with a single large room taking up every storey. The walls are built of large blocks of grey stone, with many tall slits that serve both as windows and doors to the outside. The floors are connected by a spiral staircase running on the outside of the tower.

There are more towers clustered everywhere around this one. All constructed in a similar manner, though the architectural features differ from one to another. Some are merely several paces of empty space apart.

There is only darkness both above and below. No sky nor ground. The only light comes from the air itself, the source of which seems to be some form of an airborne plankton-like substance. I brought back samples for Dr. Zimmermann, but it seems harmless to humans, so masks should not be necessary on subsequent visits. Dr. Strauss has also noticed some larger floating organisms, though they fled before we could capture any.

We have explored several floors up and down from the gate room, but so far everything has been empty save for several patches of moss and fungi I also took samples of. Tomorrow, we will return with equipment to traverse the frankly terrifying void between towers and see if we don't have more luck in one of the neighbouring structures.

29. 5. 1897 (likely)
I have noticed my previous entries only now. We have just returned from our initial exploration of the tower, which was apparently repeated for the third time.

I have send for Dr. Zimmermann. We need to discuss the possible causes and likely ramifications of this post haste.

Dr. Strauss has argued for immediate sealing of the gate, but I don't want to act prematurely. It is unknown whether we could re-establish the connection later.

We will leave that decision for tomorrow and the whole team.

27. 5. 1897
Yesterday late at night, the gate has finally succeeded in connecting to a new world. We ventured through earlier today.

We emerged into a room within a man-made...

...

QHW, Day 4: Weather

In the ruins of Tolti-Aph, there lies a beautiful grove where the royal gardens once used to be. A songwood grove. The trees are slender and silvery, with leaves like green-tinged glass. As they sway in the wind, they all chime in a haunting harmony. When the rain comes drizzling down, it is as if a thousand master musicians played an endless cantata on the world's largest cimbalom.

Any bard or spellsinger would give a fortune for some songwood. It is said that a songwood instrument makes wild animals approach and listen in awe, that it makes statues weep in joy.

Be careful in that songwood grove. When even a single twig is snapped, a dissonant, discordant sound will reverberate throughout the forest. Then you will hear a wail, and another, as the banshees are roused from their slumber among the roots.