Bleakers

The Bleakers are an organization of Dalmer whose aim is to solve the energy crisis' of the Empire.

## History

### Origins

The Bleakers were a faction of Dalmer who took it upon themselves to solve the energy crisis in the Empire. They went about this by running “Extraction cults”; operating brain scans on members of the other races, including children, and using these UC’s to create Pearls.

The Bleakers were a team of researchers, operators and assistants who worked on UC energy. Their reasoning was that gathering UC’s from the other races posed no problem to the Dalmer as they detested the other races on principle (by willingly ignoring the lonely stance and guest theory). They also assumed they would be forgiven by the Empire and allowed to continue as they would have a monopoly on energy soon enough, although this turned out to be false.

The Bleakers started as a stealthy outfit, a small business who occasionally kidnapped members of the other races to extract their uploaded conscience and create Pearls with it.

The market for the Pearls immediately exploded as they were longer lasting and had less negative externalities than any other power source. As the market expanded and demand rose, supply for the UC’s began to dry out, the Bleakers began infiltrating settlements at night. The new tactics made the Bleakers a superstition amongst the other races, and with it the Empire came to want to question the Bleakers. Eventually the Bleakers had to hide their operations and become more organized.

### Rise

The Bleakers operation became a large business, aided by the relative ease of production and high return profitability of the energy market. The main operations area of the Bleakers was their enormous factory in Wargold.

The Bleaker company’s main duty was to provide all citizens in the Empire with energy in the form of Pearls (and later, Gems) collected from adults and children of the other races. They accomplish this by warping into the other races territory and brain scanning them to the best of their ability. The uploaded consciousnesses are then collected in special conchiolin canisters for later refining and use as energy in Pearls and Gems.

The Bleakers brain scanned the young of the other races in the hope that the death of these children as a result of the brain scan would be attributed to child mortality.

Some children of the other races survive the brain scan, why this is is unknown to the Dalmer, creating the myth of night monsters killing children among the other races. The fact that children could survive and later live normal lives was used as an argument by the Bleakers to continue this practice. In reality they intended to revisit these survivors to study them and figure out why they survive, in order to “breed” a sustainable power supply for the Empire.

The bleakers had to be mobile in order to continue with their operations, but as the organization grew, their need for a permanent base became unavoidable. They eventually came across an opportunity, the factory.

### The Pearl Factory

Built in 35 the factory was the largest other race factory ever designed, a kilometer across at its widest, three stories tall throughout, with a seven story tower by the front gate. Designed to be the ultimate factory town, capable of taking care of every need, including those of workers. People could be born, work, live, and die, without ever leaving the confines of the Factory. Everything from cattle raising and slaughtering, to textiles, to siege weaponry is made in the factory.

The floors are engraved with arcane symbols, only visible when blood flows across them. The factory made its money on the blood and sweat, and sometimes body parts of the workers. Considered less than cattle, the slave workers were only fit to serve the will of the factory’s owner.

And so members of the other races flocked to the Factory so great were the quality of its goods and its high demand for slaves made many a tribe rich. Working hours and conditions were harsh, the security force sadistic. Factory workers were forced to work 16 hour days, work only shutting down between sunset and sunrise. Workers were not given individual rooms, instead sharing rooms with eight other people, sleeping in shifts of three. Medical attention was unheard of. Workers injured in the course of  duties, which was frequent, were expected to just keep working. Anyone too injured to work was dragged off by the security, never to be heard from again.

For forty years, the Factory cranked out all sorts of things for people. Meat, clothes, weapons. Never mind that the beef might be mixed with other race flesh, the weapons were forged in blood. But the products were good and cheap, so not much bother was given until someone got out.

The one who managed to escape, which in turn caught the attention of the Dalmer Empire, and, in 75, a hundred and fifty Dalmer S.T.A.M.P. soldiers were sent to investigate the factory. What they found was people chained to the line, living next to dead, children working underneath machines, the majority of the flesh scoured from their bones by the great wheels and cogs breeding pits. The injured workers were experimented on. Male and female members of the other races with multiple arms, sewn together, some of them combined with animals

A week was spent cleaning the place out, putting down the things found in the basements and many lightless rooms. Useful things were pulled out, stocked in a house near the gate. The Dalmer would use these things, these objects, to hunt down some of the things they couldn’t control, the other monsters the world had to offer, and use this factory as a main base, as a place to contain these things, find a way to make them work for the Empire’s benefit, or at least protect the Empire from having to deal with them.

#### Modern day factory

The factory was abandoned, as its cursed nature required too many resources to be of interest to the empire, and remained a district for a long timpe. eventually the site was bought and invested by the bleakers.

One newly created department got to work cataloging the items. One ensured the team kept healthy. One dealt with training the troops (Disposables, test subjects). Another was in charge of figuring out how to take advantage of the items, without making it obvious.

A city was built around the Factory, which was called Site Alpha, it became self supporting. Agents, researchers, operatives of all sorts were created as the organisation grew. The Factory, given its secretive location was repurposed as a massive complex with an enormous underground warehouse to house the 4000+ subjects found inside.

The factory is now an immense facility equipped to fulfill the needs of its employees. Brain scanning operations take place in large rooms called work floors, where the Bleakers warp into the other race’s territory to kidnap its target and perform the scan on site. The warp coordinates are stored in an immense vault and are brought to and from the work floor by an automated system. Each Bleaker has an assistant to help coordinate the energy collection. Any warp coordinate belonging to a other race settlement who has discovered the Bleakers are promptly removed from the vault, as returning to collect uploaded consciousnesses would bring unwanted attention from the Empire (who was unaware of the Bleakers methods).

#### Inside a Bleaker facility

The bleakers often make their operations outside towns and cities where they will not be easily noticed. They are particularly fond of castles and manors far from civilization and will spread rumors of vampires and savagery to keep people away.

Bleaker facilities cover what they call Altars, where they extract anima from their victims. Altars all use the same system to enter. Bone dust, Salts and Soul gems are placed in a holder that opens the pathway to the factory floor.

Once inside, there are many black structures all over the hidden area, with the boundaries clearly defined as a shimmering blue magical barrier. There are black skeletal trees and bushes, with soul husks the only plant that can be harvested growing within the Altar. There are many upright black stones similar to overly large grave stones and bones and skulls scattered throughout.

Fissures appear throughout the land, which happens when the victims of the bleakers, which were buried alive, die and their anima escapes, to be captured by soul gems. The keepers are responsible for siphoning power from souls to maintain the barrier surrounding the Altar, preventing discovery, as well as providing power from the souls. Fissures are another common feature of the Altar; they are cracks in the ground with air rising visibly out of them, which causes them to emit a hissing noise. When a soul gem is near a fissure it will fill the largest soul gem in hand. Using these fissures will attract hostiles if not protected by a barrier.

Given the nature of bleaker facilities, they tend to be prime mining sites for corpsestone.

Gigantic crystals absorb power from souls, even those of the Bleakers, who must consume Husk (a plant), or Husk extract to counter these effects.

Well structures dot the Altar landscape. Most of these emit a purplish-white glow from the top. Standing in these causes health to regenerate. There are smaller wells that will teleport the user to a nearby area.

### Downfall

Later in its operating cycle the energy company fell on hard times, and uploaded consciousnesses are becoming increasingly difficult to obtain in large amounts because the other races are begin to adapt against the Bleakers tactics and increasing imperial pressure for accountability. Facing a worsening energy crisis, the company sought out new, cruel means by which to create Pearls in large quantities. This led to the development of the low tech Gems that were wireless energy emitters powered by uploaded consciousnesses. These inventions were so simple the other races made widespread use of this technology, to the dismay of the Empire at large.

This was eventually put to an end by imperial agent Yeanes Whitestreak Pullivan, who had discovered the company's gross violation of Guest Theory and shut down the company. Despite this Pearls using other race uploaded consciousnesses are still used in the Empire.

### Rebirth

When the production and sale of Pearls was outlawed, the Bleakers disbanded. However, much later it was found that some dalmer do not trigger the negation effect and they can interact with objects that became sentient due to Pearl leakage. These dalmer were actively sought out when Pearls were declared a forbidden technology and objects given sentience were actively sought out and destroyed. These Dalmer would later be known as the second generation of Bleakers.

The second generation of Bleakers company have two main missions, the first is the ITE department which undertakes systematic investigation, tracking and elimination of any and all sentient objects found in the empire, the other department is the FEP department dedicated to the fastening enclosing and preservation of sentient objects. There is no clear border of which case will go to which department, but generally ITE deals with cases of near military intervention levels, and FEP deals with individual or less dangerous sentient objects.

The new Bleakers now function more as an anomaly and a marginal supplier of power, but they still have their advocates.

## Stories concerning the Bleakers

### Object Tribalism:

Over time, some of the objects grew consciousnesses and social structures, these were the androids, the Gno, the Dee bears and the Nequins. These tribes became widespread all over the Empire and fought each other mercilessly. These objects, when found became immobile when seen by all sentient beings, leading to genuinely creepy situations for hate other races and the Dalmer alike.

### The Speech:

Two nearby dalmer settlements simultaneously developed a way to be around sentient objects, without triggering the negation, effectively being able to be around the sentient objects. In fact this speech they developed had the opposite effect, the objects would become immobile when no Dalmer was present to speak to them.

But when the two settlements met, they both told the other to stop, for fear of attracting the Bleakers, until they eventually mutually destroyed each other. Now all the sentient objects can do is wait and listen. Wait and listen for someone to talk to them again.

### Sentient house hunter programs

Popular tv show in dalmer households, the program is one of the rare ways the second bleakers company attempts to make itself appear palatable to the public.

### The haunted radio

A chilling story where a sentient radio system made for forester services guided stranded hikers straight into the dens of dangerous creatures.Once, a gas mask turned sentient and helped the wearer by leaving it messages using the mist created from breathing on the visorA significant proportion of the Bleaker company’s workload is determining if an object is indeed a sentient object or a ghost/soul/spirit/UC. If it isn’t a sentient object they leave the scene immediately and let emergency workers do their part.

### Household Monsters

Water heaters are known as household monsters, for their tendency to launch themselves into the air, able to tear through two story houses with ease.

This was found to be the doing of a terrorist cell operating out of a boiler company who was purposefully leaking Pearls next to the machines, making the boilers into ticking time bombs.

### Power

*Main article: Power*

The Bleakers were antagonists in the origins of Power.

## Bleaker technology

Bleaker technology is extremely advanced and refined given their specialization in the extraction of brain scans and pearls. These technologies exist as a result of the massive funding they receive from the energy market.

### Extractor

The Extractor is a portable brain scanner machine built and maintained by Bleakers. It is intended to perform brain scans on unwilling victims (members of the other races and their children) much more efficiently than traditional kidnapping techniques, which have become increasingly ineffective for the Dalmer as the other races become suspicious of the disappearances in the middle of the night. As such, the extractor was developed to leave a body behind for the other races.

### Conchiolin Canisters

Conchiolin Canisters are objects whose purpose is to store the uploaded conscience extracted from performing a brain scan on a person that the Bleakers collect. After being filled by an Extractor, each canister is taken to a different room in the Bleakers factory, where the UC is then extracted and refined before being poured into Pearls to be later used for energy.

### Bleak simulator

As part of their training, Bleakers use fake robotic children. These are used by Bleaker instructors as demonstrations for infiltrating other race households to collect the children's UC to novice Bleakers that aren't used to these stealth operations. They resemble animatronic children who only have upper torsos and their pelvic areas are completely bolted to a bed inside a fake bedroom, with one of the walls being able to come down to resemble a real bedroom without any monsters outside noticing.

The dalmer use warp doors, that look like closet doors in a bedroom. These must remain closed so that children who survive will not escape into the Dalmer power plant.

### Warp doors

Warp doors are the secret behind the Bleakers ability to go from settlement to settlement in other race territory to brain scan adults and children alike.

If a door led to the bedroom of a child that survived the brain scan, then it is declared "reusable" and the location is immediately marked on the map to ensure a return to the area at a later date. If a warp door led to the bedroom of a child that died due to the brain scan, then it is declared "dead" and the location is marked as unusable for a period of time.

### Leaderboard

A testament to the Bleakers warped minds, The Bleak Leaderboard was a big leaderboard that measured the amount of UC’s collected.

The monitor shows the Bleakers' names on the left and how much energy they produced from the UC’s collected on the right, followed by a world map. Above the leaderboard is a counter showing how many members of the other races that the Bleakers collected so far, along with the mortality rate.