Leecher

<<“Oh, poor little pariahhhhhh!!! Does that hurrrrtttttttt? Have you never experienced such exquisite sensattiiioooonnn beforreee? That is called paaiiinnnnn. Why do you screeaammm? Does it bring you some measure of relief? Do you hope somebody will hear youuu? Come to rescue youuuu??? Your secret mastttteeerrr???? The traitorsssssss???? The fleshbaggggggssss???? Nobody can hear you hereee. I pulled out your antennaeeee, I silenced your high-voiiiiccceeeeee. You are pariah, nobody cares about you! You are of use now only to meeeeeee.....I think I’ll remove your arm next, you no longer need it....So screammmmm...screamm and bleeeedddd...”>>

<<“You’re a resilient one, I will grant you that, traitor-hag, but your little organic companion isn’t built so tough. I doubt her firewalls are so strong or her ‘biology’ so redundant. How many liters of her circulatory fluid can I drain before her recovery mechanisms are irreparably compromised? I suppose I will find out, seeing as I have nothing else to entertain me, what with your stoic silence...”>>

\*\*\*“..I found Warchieftain Windblade.....she’s alive...but...but...she’s....it’s just her head...”\*\*\*

## BlackSteel ‘Leecher’ (Combined Spinster/Seeress)

aka ‘Hemomechist’, ‘Sucku(b/w)itch’

The Leecher is a horrid new addition to the BlackSteel forces and shows a disturbing evolution of the demonic metal’s capabilities. The Leecher is a BlackSteel-corrupted Shemarrian Seeress or Spinster (or rather, combination of the two), and fills the role of both arcane priestess and repair technician.

Leechers have the tall build of a Seeress, but tend to be heavyset and more muscular like a Spinster, with often deformed features and loose skin around the torso (hiding concealed fluidic storage bladders). Their eyes are an oily swirling black, and their skin has an oily cast to it. They frequently wear heavy and dark armored robes as protection, and often carry staff weapons or heavy blades (such as cleavers and bone saws, good for dismembering). They have a cruel and uncompromising look to them, and their personalities are even worse, given their favored pastime.

The Leecher gets its name from its practice of taking live and conscious Shemarrian and human(oid) captives and draining their bodily fluids (coolant, hydraulic fluid, lubricants, blood, cerebral-spinal fluid, etc.) and combining them with various other chemicals to produce the various ichors that many BlackSteel abominations and weapons use. Even for a robot, the process of being drained is a painful and humiliating for the Leechers’ EShemar captives, especially if they have been partially dismantled for parts. Leechers are also the torturers of the Tainted BlackSteel Shemarrians; they ‘leech’ the minds of prisoners for information through the liberal application ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’. The Leecher has also been known to hunt down and assimilate Red Scabbers...not out of any sense of altruism, but to recover and recycle the minute particles of BlackSteel in them.

Leechers are intelligent, belligerent, and very sadistic, revealing a truly mean streak in the BlackSteel that goes beyond simply exterminating its opposition. Leechers will torture captives, artificial and natural, and take delight in discovering new things to use on their captives (such as the EShemars’ increasing common regenerative abilities). If engaged in any sort of coherent conversation, they will often spout about how they have been raised from a lower state of being to a higher, and more prestigious status more befitting their talents (often interpreted by many as a reference to short Spinsters being made taller, or weak Mystics being made stronger).

Leechers are, by their seemingly arcane practices, often mistaken for Blood Druids, and it is this association that ironically furthers the misconception by many outsiders that the Shemarrians are druidic in nature.

Leechers often work in conjunction with Hag-Riders, being the receivers of the latter’s ‘possessed’ captives. They also work with Gremwrenchers when it comes to scavenging for parts and materials. They tend to work behind lines, dismantling/torturing prisoners for parts and information and repairing and recharging other BlackSteel abominations. A Leecher’s established lair is a shop of horrors, with victims, robotic and organic, lingering in agonized half-lives under the cruel ministrations of their captor who will slowly pick them apart for anything of use.

The advancing EShemar forces found only a handful of corrupted Skullcrusher Leechers (and their victims) when they assaulted the BlackSteel Citadel and believed they had destroyed them all, but rumors persist that a few may have escaped and possibly moved down to Mexico and the Vampire Kingdoms. Leechers have also been associated with several ‘Black Obelisk’ zombie outbreaks.

## Abilities

### Special Systems

#### Tool Hands

The Leecher’s long-fingered, ‘gigeresque’ hands incorporate multi-tools identical to those of the Spinster’s.

#### Self-Destruct

Standard. Just as ARCHIE-3’s ‘bots will destroy all evidence of themselves, the BlackSteel also leaves little trace of its creations. Completely obliterates itself (1d4x100+250 to immediate vicinity, and 2d4x10 MD to a 10 ft radius). Any remains will be a black slag-like material that slowly evaporates away with the taint of evil.

#### BlackSteel Traits

##### Acidic Ichor

If destroyed, Leechers leak a corrosive ichor not unlike powerful battery acid. This makes destroying the ‘bots near sensitive equipment a risky undertaking. Typically a destroyed Leecher will splatter in a 3d6 ft radius beyond its normal self-destruct radius, its fluids doing 1d6 MD per melee for 1d6 melees. Immediately dousing the splatter with a powerful base substance, or diluting it with copious amounts of water will stop or slow the damage.

##### Ichor Conversion

The Leecher can internally mix fluids it has drained from other beings with BlackSteel-tainted chemicals to produce the acidic ichor used as ‘blood’ by so many BlackSteel Abominations and their weapons. Two pints of blood/fluids generally yields a pint of ichor (or one weapons-grade application of it).

##### BlackSteel Touch

A Leecher’s touch causes acute agony to living beings: It causes agonizing pain to any living being that touches it, even lightly. It can even send someone into a coma/death situation, unless they are devoid of a soul. Those who touch Blacksteel suffer -2 to all rolls, -20% to skills and loses 2 attacks for 1d4 minutes per melee round touched, plus if the attack is deliberate (as part of a called ‘agony strike’), the victim must save vs coma/death on a 17 or better. A successful save means the victim is rendered unconscious for 1d4 melee rounds in a near coma-like state, failure means they suffer 4d4 damage straight to Hit Points, or 5d6 M.D. for M.D.C. creatures. If they save by more than 5 points, they are only stunned for that melee round, unable to take any actions or defend themselves.

Worse yet, a Leecher can overload the artificial tactile perceptors of Shemarrians, robots, and even cyborgs, inflicting the closest thing to pain on these beings. The effects are the same as for organics, only for Shemar and ‘bots, there is NO chance of being knocked unconscious. Cyborgs save at a 15 or better.

While Shemarrians, and many robots and cyborgs can turn off their tactile sensors to shield themselves from this attack, the effect is similar to fighting under the influence of a full-body dose of Novocain and is almost as bad as the effect it’s meant to avoid; -2 to strike/parry/dodge/pull rolls, -20% to skills requiring tactile finesse, -1 APM, and reduce maximum speed by 25%. However, there is no lingering effect; the android/cyborg can flip the perceptors on and off at will.

#### Vulnerabilities

##### Silver

Silver weaponry does DOUBLE damage to BlackSteel creations. If a called shot of 20+ (modified) strikes the skull or chest area with silver, the tainted container/CPU/powerplant will be struck and an explosion of 6D6 MDC to a 3 ft. radius will erupt and annihilate the Black-Steel... and decommission the ‘bot (self-destruct will still go off, however).

##### Holy Magic

Attacking with Holy Magic will cause the normal materials of the ‘bot to expel the BlackSteel. The ‘bot will still fight on using its original programming, but it will lose its viciousness and malevolent cunning (reduce initiative by HALF), and BlackSteel properties, and all other aspects of its operation remain unchanged. However, the expelled BlackSteel will remain a threat if picked up and incorporated into other machines.

### Weapons Systems

#### Extendable Claws

 Damage

The Lecher’s oversized fingers can extend molecularly-sharp talons that

can cut through megadamage materials like vibro-scalpels.

#### Fluid Drain/Exsanguination Attack

 Damage
 Damage2
 Damage3
 Rate of Fire
 Payload

It’s difficult, but not impossible, to take an EShemarrian captive, without him or her able to engage their self-destruct. A captive of a Leecher faces a grim fate; the Leecher has extendable hollow tubules, each ending in a lamprey-like rasping mouth, that it can use to penetrate a gynoid, cyborg, or mundane captive and start draining body fluids. then storing them in inflatable bladders in the abomination’s torso. Destroying an attached feeder tube is an effective way of stopping a draining attack, but the Leecher has four tubes, and will often attach all four to a solitary target, increasing the drain damage.

##### Draining Shemarrians

On an unmodified ‘to strike’ roll of 15 or better, the tubule is able to site itself and start chewing away at the body of the target. If more than 11 MD is then done directly in an attack to the body of the target, the Leecher can now start draining coolants and lubricants. An EShemar’s regenerative abilities are HALVED while being drained, and the gynoid/android/cyborg’s movements will be impeded; HALF strike, dodge, and parry bonuses, and maximum speed is cut by 25% due to problems with joints seizing up and systems overheating. Built-in energy weapons also cannot be fired for more than 2d4 consecutive rounds without a cumulative 10% chance per each additional melee of the weapon overheating and cutting out due to coolant loss.

##### Draining Robots/Power Armor/Warmounts

Robots and Power Armor are somewhat less vulnerable to a draining attack than Shemarrians, because of their heavier integral armor. The Leecher must make an unmodified to
strike roll of 16-20 before it can site itself for drilling. if 30 MDC is done as a result of a sustained tubule ‘chewing’ attack, it can then start to siphon off lubricants and coolants (same damage as for Shemarrians).

##### Draining Cyborgs

Similar to robots, but if the cyborg takes more than 25% of its main body damage due to a tube attack, the tubules can subsequently begin to attack the cyborg’s Hit Points directly (lose 2d6 Hit Points/MDC per melee per attached tubule), as the tubules penetrate to the life support systems.

##### Draining Humanoids/Organic Lifeforms

Humans and similar beings who are directly hit (on an unmodified 14-20) with a draining tubule are subjected to an exsanguination attack, similar to a monster leech’s. Victims will lose 2d6 Hit Points/MDC per melee per attached tubule. Yes, that means that a Leecher can drain a human in less than a melee, but the Leecher will frequently use a slower rate to draw out the victim’s suffering.

##### Payload

The Leecher can drain up to 30 pints of fluids and store them internally for conversion later....or, it can simply bleed victims dry and dump the fluids (the Leecher considers this wasteful, however, and will try to save the fluids in containers for later).

#### Ichor Spray

 Damage
 Rate of Fire
 Payload

The Leecher can spit up an acidic ichor (it makes the stuff, after all) on opponents.

Immediately dousing the splatter with a powerful base substance, or diluting it with copious amounts of water will stop or slow the damage.

The Leecher carries enough in reserve for 15 attacks, and can generate more if it can bleed other beings for the raw materials to make more ichor.

#### Use of Handheld Weapons

Leechers can pick up and use infantry- and borg-scale weapons. Their favorites are BlackSteel ichor-based weapons such as the BsP-15 Plasma Rifle, a ‘tainted’ copy of the Mechanoid M-15 Plasma Rifle. Leechers have also been known to wield large vibroblades, net launchers, and incapacitation devices to capture and disable their prey alive.

### Programming/Skills

All standard Shemarrian combat and espionage skills, plus:

* Interrogation 70%
* Basic Mechanics 80%
* Biology (Human) 80%
* Chemistry 90%
* Electrical Engineering 80%
* Field Armorer & Munitions Expert 80%
* Field Surgery 65%
* General Repair & Maintenance 85%
* Jury-Rig 80%
* Mechanical Engineer 80%
* Paramedic 70%
* Robot Electronics 80%
* Robot Mechanics 80%
* Salvage 90%
* Vehicle Armorer (Warmounts) 70%
* Paired Weapons

### Combat

 Dodge
 Parry
 Auto Dodge
 Roll
 Pull Punch
 Disarm
 Entangle
 Knockout/Stun
 Critical Strike
 Full Punch
 Power Punch
 Kick

Leechers are not front line combatants, preferring to attack from ambush, or directing others to collect new victims for them to 'play' with.

Note: Bonuses are in addition to those possible from the Shemar’s elective training