Pariah

> *"It's difficult to believe that one of these abominations was formerly a regular person - somebody's neighbor, family member, or lover - now transformed into a horror biologically programmed to slaughter and consume humans with maximum efficiency." - Dr. Adams*
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## Overview

A Pariah is an infected enemy type in Our Worldly Woes. A pariah is classified as a super-infected type - infected who have undergone enormous amounts of mutation and are extremely dangerous.

## Description

The Pariah is the pathogen's penultimate infected form and one of the final stages of the pathogen's progression. The pariah is the result of an infected person, sometimes a metamorph, undergoing a horrifying mutation that creates a monster strong as several men, fleet-footed as a cat, and possessing the hunting instincts equivalent to a lion. This mutation finally created a perfect apex predator and a highly-efficient killing-machine. Pariahs are fast, strong, agile, durable, smart, sneaky, and deadly - they were perhaps the deadliest, most atrocious, and most horrifying form of infected one could ever have the misfortune of encountering. Contrarily, they were also the rarest form seen. These dangerous mutants are far and few between, as only a tiny percentage of the population carries the compatible genome to make one susceptible. However. their numbers were estimated to be steadily growing as the pathogen evolved.

## Appearance

The mutation caused the infected subject to undergo a number of significant physical changes to their body. The host grows a considerable amount of muscle tissue and shoots several feet taller in height. They take on a low, hunchbacked posture and grow disproportionately long and thick arms to aid in quadrupedal movement. If pariahs stood up straight, they might look akin to a gigantic metamorph from a distance, but up close, their ghastly mutations are unmistakable and very distinctive - rough, scaly skin that even provides a measure of protection against some firearms, long, thick claws protruding from the fingertips of muscular hands, teeth grow larger and longer and many begin protruding outwards, some even poking through the skin of the lower face. The eyes, now almost entirely white as a cataract, have grown a third eyelid for extra protection.

In most encounters, pariahs appears hunchbacked and low to the ground, oftentimes on all fours, but when standing up straight, they can appear to stand nearly 9 feet tall.

## Behavior

Though the pariah is blinded when it's third eyelids close, it remains just as deadly due to it's equally honed other senses.

Pariahs do not outwardly show any kind of emotion. A blank, wide-eyed, open-mouthed look remains on their face at all times, no matter the situation. While some infected display their emotions through facial expressions - baring their teeth and contorting their face in rage at the sight of an uninfected human, or grimacing in anguish due to the severe pain they are suffering from their affliction - Pariahs seem to be incapable of exhibiting any signs of emotion or feeling at all. Their blank expression remains even if heavily injured or dying. This leads many to wonder if pariahs are immune to pain or emotion, which some fear makes them the perfect apex predator. Pariahs move their facial muscles so seldomly, it's almost as if their entire face is paralyzed, seeming to only use their facial muscles for eating or vocalizing.

Since Pariahs are nearly static in their behavior - it can be assumed that they are not prone to being enraged. They act very deliberately and very precisely in all of their actions, and never seem to slow down or even speed up their pace regardless of what happens to them, by virtue of their assumed lack of emotions.

Pariahs seemed to have gained more cognitive ability back than most other infected, as they tend to show advanced behaviors like stalking, hiding, pouncing, moving quietly, or otherwise displaying a sort of hunting instinct.

## Gameplay attributes

#### Initial cautions:

Pariahs are extremely dangerous adversaries, not just due to their powerful and agile build, but also due to the fact that they behave as predators - while the more common infected would attempt to pummel and eat you as soon as they lay eyes on you, Pariahs possess an uncanny intelligence that allows them to quell their impulses and wait for the right moment to strike. This means that they are one of the only infected that may easily detect you before you detect them. Once you start getting the feeling that something horrifying is nearby, it may be too late - you're already being hunted. Staying on your guard and never letting it down becomes crucial when the suspicion is raised of a pariah nearby.

Pariahs can detect actively bleeding survivors - having a **bleeding** wound can cause a Pariah in the area to converge on your location over the course of around 1 in-game hour. Bandage up bleeding wounds as soon as possible to prevent this. This can be used to one's advantage, however - if a particularly tough bandit or other human enemy proves troublesome and there is a pariah in the area, one can inflict a bleeding wound upon them, escape, and then wait for the pariah to arrive and wreak havoc upon the enemy and their allies. This method must only be used on enemies who are more trouble to deal with than a pariah itself.

The most important strategy to keep in mind with Pariahs is knowing where they tend to be. Though a Pariah can be encountered hunting virtually anywhere in the city, many accounts speak that Pariahs tend to be encountered in the inner city most, where prey is abundant and easily found. Other areas that Pariahs tend to be drawn to are larger, open areas like malls, parking lots, and highways. This is probably due to the wide open space which lets them detect potential targets more easily. Pariahs will usually roam a small section of the area they have chosen as their hunting grounds, and will not leave until after a few days have passed, in which case they will take off in a random direction to settle down into a different spot and resume the cycle.

#### Combat:

Possessing the 2nd largest health pool of any infected type, below the Thresher, the Pariah is also the fastest of all the infected types and does the most damage per individual strike (only being surpassed by the Fester's explosion). The ground shakes when they are close to the player character, which can affect melee and ranged accuracy. Moderately resistant to gunfire and melee. Only stunned/staggered by small explosives for hardly a fraction of a second, but they can still be reliably used to interrupt the pariah's action. Immune to knockdown (except for larger explosives and ramming into them with a vehicle at high enough speeds, which guarantee knockdown). In melee, can only be kicked back or staggered for a very short moment, and pariah's can interrupt any attempts to stun-lock. Heavy melee weapons cause stagger more reliably, but are risky to use because of their slow swing speed. Shotguns, larger caliber or fully automatic firearms, and heavy machine gun emplacements are effective at staggering a pariah. Damaging the head enough will cause it to stagger and retreat for a few moments, buying survivors extra time. The limbs can be targeted as well - disabling the arms will limit the pariah's attacks to biting and stomping only. Disabling the legs will cripple and immobilize the infected - they basically become harmless unless approached close enough (within arm's or jaw's reach). The torso is a smaller and more difficult target to focus damage on, but has the highest multiplier for damage - the frontal area having the highest multiplier. Fighting a Pariah alone in close combat is suicide - it's attacks are rarely interrupted, and the speed at which it attacks combined with it's ferocious per-strike damage can kill any survivor, no matter how armored, in seconds.

Fighting Pariahs with melee is generally unadvised, as their greatest strengths lie in close-quarter combat. However, if one is brave and skilled enough to take on a Pariah in hand-to-hand combat, aiming at the legs is a good strategy. Attempting to take away the agility and mobility of the Pariah by disabling its legs could buy a few more vital seconds that can be used to escape, regroup, reload, or finish it off.

When pariahs are in active combat with a survivor (meaning they are not quietly stalking the survivor in hunting mode), their presence tends to frenzy nearby infected, which can make a bad situation even worse. It is smart to avoid fighting pariahs when large amounts of other infected are nearby, ESPECIALLY hordes.

The main takeaway that survivors should know about fighting Pariahs is that though they are quite resistant to most weapons, large or high-powered guns and fire-based weapons are effective equipment to battle them. They are not immune to fire, and even the toughest of skin cannot hope to ward off a concentrated spray of hot lead forever.

#### Special strategies:

While Pariahs do not "sleep", they have a short dormancy period at the same time every day where they will get down close to the floor, cease movement, and become still as a rock, presumably photosynthesizing. While they do not become completely unresponsive, during this period their senses are considerably diminished and it is possible to sneak past a dormant Pariah without waking it. Loud noises such as gunfire, explosions, alarms, and loud vocalizations from other infected can still wake it up and it can jump right back into action in an instant. If one discovers a Pariah in an area without being detected by it, it is a good idea to take advantage of knowing when it starts its dormancy period every day. Armed with this knowledge, one can now easily sneak past it or perform a sneak attack while its defenses are down.

The only good thing that can be expected of encountering a Pariah is that they behave as solitary creatures, and would sooner fight to the death with another one of its kind than work together with it to hunt down a meal. In this sense, as unpleasant and dangerous of an idea as it sounds, looking for a Pariah when being hunted down by another Pariah becomes a plausible, albeit a high-risk, strategy.

Traps are a great method of quickly killing a Pariah, but this is a process that requires some preparation first. One trap that can be utilized is to place propane tanks in a bottle-neck area like an alley or cramped street. Luring the pariah through this area and then detonating the propane tanks by shooting them can cause massive damage to a pariah, if not outright kill it. Another trap that can be created is to make a field of fire by pouring puddles of gasoline in an narrow area. Igniting these puddles while a pariah passes over them can make it impossible for the pariah to put itself out while it takes sustained fire damage the entire way through with no escape. With a large enough area ignited, the pariah will quickly succumb to the flames.

## Backstory

Applying also to all infected collectively, the reason why Pariahs attack uninfected humans is unknown and subject to speculation. It becomes harder to determine for Pariahs because of their expressionless demeanor. Some believe Pariahs are sentient and conscious of the cruelties they are inflicting, while others believe a Pariah is just a lifeless shell, or a tool to the Pathogen - a robot or killing machine, essentially, just like any other infected.

Around the time the first Pariah was encountered, it wasn't yet known that there were several of its kind. Rumors were spread of the pariah's incredible speed, said to have been spotted at opposite ends of the city with little time elapsed in-between sightings. In reality, survivors mistook two different pariahs as a single one.

## Notes

* Like Threshers, Pariahs are so large and heavy that they shake the ground when they move, with the shake becoming more intense the closer they are to the player character.