Apr

The release date for the PDF of The Day After Ragnarok is coming up soon (we’ll be announcing the exact date next week), so it’s time to get back on track with some previews from the book. Today we’re going to look at some of the strange technology developed from material retrieved from the rotting corpse of Jörmungandr, the Midgard Serpent: Ophitech! From the text:

The Serpentfall not only reshaped the geopolitics, and even the geography, of the Earth; it also reshaped the sciences. Quite simply, the Serpent should be impossible: Nothing that large should exist, or be able to move. And it certainly shouldn’t breed monsters when it’s dead, or while alive have responded to magical rituals cast by deranged Nazis in amphetamine fugue states. Understanding the “how” of the Serpent is the goal of ophiurgists from Grahamstown to Gorkiy—but they’re not even sure about the “what” yet.

But the tiny pinpricks of knowledge the ophiurgists have drained from the Serpent’s corpse have created an increasing flow of “ophi-tech,” which some people (and governments) are willing to use without knowing anything else.

Fiber Bomb

Among other things, the Serpent has been a cornucopia of bizarre long-chain organic molecules. One polymer found mostly in its parasite species is such an enormous molecule that it is actually visible (barely) to the naked eye, nicknamed “pythine” by the researchers who isolated it. It shows a marked tendency to attract other organic matter. Loading a compressed-air capsule with pythine and mineral oil creates a “fiber bomb”; when the capsule breaks, the air propels the pythine out in a blast to cling to whatever organic material (skin, clothing, leather, hydrocarbons, rubber, wood, plastic, etc.) it touches. In the field, agents travel with a “starter” of pythine and decant it (very carefully) into capsules; the mineral oil makes sure it doesn’t start clamping onto them. Small capsules just affect a single man-sized target; larger ones affect a Medium Burst Template’s worth. Even a man in full plate armor will soon discover just how much of plate mail consists of tiny crevices with leather straps behind them; at the GM’s discretion, all-metal targets like robots or totally sealed bathyspheres shed pythine without effect. Eventually, pythine breaks down in the air, but cleaning it off even then is slow going.

Activating a fiber bomb is as simple as a Throwing roll; spending 2 Power points means you threw a small capsule, spending 4 means you threw a large one. The throwing range of a fiber bomb is Agility, not Smarts (unlike the normal Entangle in the Savage Worlds rulebook). Loading more fiber bombs from the starter (“recharging” the power) is what requires the Ophi-Tech roll (or Lockpicking at -4).

Malfunction: On a malfunction, the fiber bomb has either gone off without effect (the pythine became inert for some reason) or goes off prematurely and affects the thrower; GM’s choice.

Atomic Overmind News, Savage Worlds, The Day After Ragnarok