A THICC SICKNESS
A 2021 SHOTGUN SCENARIO ENTRY
A THICC SICKNESS
On a stretch of tropical storm lashed beach near Key West, sixteen narcos of the Cuidad Oro cartel of Miami huddle in their fleet of eight jeeps and vans for their delivery, a metric ton of uncut cocaine. It's a risky delivery organised over the past two hours.
The cyclone has knocked out the Coast Guard from the joint COast Guard-DEA operation. In a rush, other agencies were asked for personnel. The Program or Outlaws heard applicable rumours from Mexican sources and volunteered the Agents. The Agents lie in the rain-drowned sand around the beach when the minotaurs appear.
The churning surf is opaque ten minutes out from the torrent and dimmed dusk light. An LED strobelight flashes and the vehicles flash their spotlights. The vehicles trundle down to the lapping waves when the ten milky-white minotaurs stride out the Gulf of Mexico dragging buoys supporting one hundred 10KG reinforced bundles of cocaine among them.
As soon as the minotaurs get out of the surf and onto the beach, the narcos nope the fuck out of there. Blocking their exit starts a running-away shoot out. The minotaurs attack the agents. Regardless, the narcos aren't staying if they can GTFO.
THE AGENTS’ ORDERS
Agents are asked to secure the cocaine only. The DEA are dealing with the narcos only. Don’t let the cocaine get taken back into the sea.
THE DEA
The DEA has organised a pincer move to surprise the narcos and push them into the exit-road traps. The narcos panic before this so the DEA pincer chases them.
BAD STORM CONDITIONS
The rainstorm and dim light modify all ranged combat attacks and skill checks by -20%.
WET SAND
People can only run through wet sand at half speed. Walking speed is unaffected. Soaked gear becomes uncomfortable but doesn't penalise the wearer.
CUIDAD ORO NARCOS
Use typical park ranger stats for the sixteen Cuidad Oro narcos (HG 350). They carry either a shotgun or pistol for weapons. They are decked in kevlar body armour and waterproof ponchos. They are nervous and vulnerable. They can't handle what they see coming out the ocean.
Cuidad Oro cartel is one of the coke players in Miami. They run professional security services for entertainment events and establishments. They cover law enforcement problems by employing cops for protection services at lavish rates. A secret network of compromised police officers forms the cartel’s primary source of muscle and intelligence.
The Cuidad Oro cartel caters to high-end and low-end clients – no one’s money is turned away.
MILKY-WHITE MINOTAURS
The minotaurs are milky-white, naked obese bodies with taxidermied cow and bull heads bolted on with medical staples. The heads are sodden and soaked with sea water. Their bodies glow at around 40°C under infrared even after walking out the cold ocean.
Of the ten minotaurs, two are female and one is swollen as if pregnant (it is). One of the male minotaurs holds a waterproof LED-strobing spotlight used to signal the narcos. The spot is dropped if combat starts.
The minotaurs are here to deliver the cocaine and attack the Agents. If the battle goes against them (definitely if five are lost), they retreat back into the gulf without the cocaine and vanish under the waves.
APPENDIX: O AKELON
A corpse has its head cut off and a special alchemical fluid injected down the oesophegal tract. The fluid is a poisonous distillate of mercury formed by an elaborate recipe over a specific series of nights over two in the year only known as A TWINNED SENNIGHT FOR THE GLUTTONOUS LABYRINTH.
The corpse is left to percolate. The mercurial distillate suffuses throughout the dead tissues, blackening the bones, reddening the muscles but reducing the skin of all colour. The corpse becomes hot to the touch, almost feverish. The red tissues can be seen under the vague, translucently pale skin. It is during this time the corpse incorpulates swells and expands as strange humours are generated and stored in gel form under the skin as lipids once were. The result is a obese behemoth of an animate corpse that is terrifying in strength, difficult to kill and intelligently obedient. The entity is warm to hot to the touch and shines under infra-red cameras at about 40°C.
Organisations employ akeloi mainly as a ritual tool of sexual indoctrination, abusive submission and putative discipline. There are inferences of an entity, Igolon, which is probably related to the Oklahoma Syndeme known as Y’golonac. Akelon is Greek for Headless One.
The Twinned Sennight manuscript was believed to have been lost in a firebomb attack in the 1970s by covert anti-unnatural, anti-socialist irregulars once secretly organised inside the Catholic-Mexican totalitarian political movement, El Yunque.
The akelon is a type of tank zombie. It is solid and determined but not unnecessarily slow. Akeloi can understand commands and situations with fair reasonableness. It can assess situations and may resist overly risky commands. The akelon can be delegated to obey other people — managers — and it performs its duties with loyalty to the manager. The akelon's primary loyalty is to the maker.
SKILL CHECK: OCCULT
Ancient occult traditions speculate that alchemists would have to use astrological and alchemical knowledge to manufacture a secret azoth or magical oven in order to bring forth a homunculus into the world. Secret collections of Sir James Frazer’s recovered correspondence mention an old Ionian mystery cult centred around the queen of Minos and the magical bull that inseminated her to produce the minotaur. Frazer suspected the cult originally had stronger necrophiliac themes.
Rare stories of Templar necromancers sexually using corpses of women to bring forth special children into the world are known. It is a known linguistic antecedent of Snow White in which Snow White isn’t woken by the stolen kiss but by producing a living heir for Prince Charming. Sinister Islamic heretics discovered in 1250 CE Baghdad by the inquisitorial bureaucrats Bayt al-Hudd, found similar recipes for birthing Al-Dajjal from Umm Al-Juj.
SKILL CHECK: UNNATURAL
Male and female akeloi are sexually fertile. Female akeloi can gestate an embryo to term and give birth to it. Male and female akeloi can breed with each other in this way.
Children born of akeloi unions are physically normal except that they roll 6+2d6 for POW. The Handler can apply extra features as needed or wanted.
APPENDIX: O AKLEOI
The akeloi featured in A THICC SEASICKNESS are products of a determined cult to produce a godlike messiah. The attached cow and bull heads represent this religious symbolism as dictated by the alchemical tract, The Twinned Sennight of Thy Gluttonous Labyrinth. Like all unnatural operators in the cartels, the cult provides a useful service for money.
STR 20 CON 20 DEX 10 INT 10 POW 10 HP 20 WP 10
ARMOR: See SHOCK-ABSORBING CORPULENCE below
SKILLS: Alertness 20%, Athletics 60%, Stealth 75%, Unarmed Combat 40%.
ATTACKS: Grapple (see RIP APART), Punch: Damage: 1D6+3.
REASONABLE SENSIBLE: Akeloi function as if they hear or see as well as an adult human in daylight – even if it’s completely dark, full of noise or otherwise obscured.
Akeloi can hear and understand complex commands in any language and do untrained labour. Complex tasks can be done under direction. If akelon is given a suicidal or stupid command by it's manager, it can spend 1WP to ignore it. If attacked by its manager, it can spend 1WP to retaliate.
BASIC REGENERATION: Akeloi regenerate 1HP of simple tissue injuries a day. Amputations do not regenerate.
MAKER'S MARK: An akelon can only attack its maker if it spends 1WP.
SHOCK-ABSORBING CORPULENCE: An akelon takes half HP damage from all non-hypergeometric attacks. Lethal attacks only do the highest of the two dice in damage.
UNION IN SILENCE: Two or more akeloi automatically organise as if they can speak and hear each other.
UNDEAD: The Akelon is immune to cold, vacuum, suffocation, extreme pressure and radiation.
RIP APART: After a successful grapple attack, an akelon does 1d6+3 damage to its opponent every turn until the opponent is freed or akelon is made to stop. Body armour only helps until more damage is dealt than the armour covers at which point it is considered to be ripped off.
SAN LOSS: 1/1D6.
Credits
A Thicc Sickness was written by Mechristopheles for the 2021 Shotgun Scenario contest.
Source: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jfm_5I6_Z49dXkpVzKheXq74FibqUevnk_VZ7ZvVbHY/edit