Visha Kanya

## Tactical Analysis

* **Like a serpent:** A ground denial force, the Visha Kanya crews are capable of firing nausea gas shells across the battlefield, denying enemy infantry movement and slowing vehicles through the dust cloud.

* **Don't take too large a dose:** When they deploy, the visha kanya crews give their fellow soldiers a sense of security, which they typically use to lick their wounds and prepare for the next round.

* **What good is gas against a mask:** Sadly for the visha kanya, aircraft, submarines, and battlesuits are immune to their effects, meaning that they should probably not be left alone.

* **Slip in unseen:** When the teams learn enough about their weapons, they realize that they can effectively hide themselves when deployed as well as giving a sense of cover to their comrades. This also transfers to any Gharial Riverine/Civet Mobile Gun/Chaugnar they ride in.

## Background

*"Enjoy your free dose of Farah's Fragrance: good for your lungs and takes your breath away!"*

- A sarcastic Visha Kanya before firing nausea gas shells at Kingdom Watchmen.
Ancient statecraft was fascinating, to say the least. In ancient India, for example, there are stories about a group of assassins. Women who, from a young age, were given low-intensity poisons in order to build an immunity to any substance. Though many died, the survivors were the deadliest assassins in all India. The stories mention their own bodily fluids were the poisons they would use, and that they had a very "personal" method of delivery.

Sadly (but very thankfully for the men involved), statecraft no longer allows such methods. Backroom deals and blackmail are the means of political assassination now even among members of the Allied parliament. Poisons are now seen only on the battlefield, utilized by infiltrators and specialized troops to deny the enemy ground. India has their own poison, the rather unimaginatively named "nausea gas". Able to rack the victim with spasms and vomiting, the gas is technically non-lethal and perfectly within the guidelines of the Allies treaties on chemical weapons. Typically the gas is deployed in large doses via aircraft or artillery, but since India was having such successes with their field infantry they decided to see if a man-portable deployment system wouldn't be as effective.

Creating a mortar system able to be quickly packed and set up in the field, testing revealed that the weapon was light enough to be carried by a woman. Realizing this was a benefit to free up more men to carry the heavier systems, the Frontier Corps started training their female sepoys in use of the weapon. Most important was the gas' dispersion rate. If they fired too early, they would just waste shells. Too late, and the gas would have dissipated and allowed the enemy to push through. After intense training to learn the proper firing rate, the teams of visha kanya were deployed.

Deployed first to the Pakistan-Afghan border, the visha kanya showed themselves skilled in their timing as well as accuracy. GLA rebels directly in the impact of the gas fell hacking to the ground unable to move, their support vehicles caught in the gas and easy pickings for the Sikhs and Sappers. Impressed, the Frontier Corps had some of the teams deployed into the Atomic Kingdom, and again the effectiveness of the gas to essentially stop enemy infantry in their tracks and hold enemy vehicles in place prove to be vital as the Frontier Corps' strike forces maneuver to the enemy's flanks and strike.

The crews of the visha kanya have started to take a sort of grim joy in this new position, to the point where they often spend more time with their weapons and among themselves than with the other forces on base. Rumors even say that they spend their free time before lights out taking small, quick breaths of their shells. Frontier command has patently denied these rumors and set out to give non-judicial punishments to anyone spreading them. Simultaneously, highly placed members of the Syndicate within India have all reported sudden feelings of nausea, dizziness, and a sudden burning sensation.