Exsurgent Strains | Eldrich Host

The exsurgent virus is amazingly effective and infectious. As an information virus, it is highly intelligent and adaptive, able to mutate into new forms. Much like certain viruses are able to cross species boundaries or change their vector from contact to airborne, it is also a self-morphing omnivirus, capable of altering itself and its transmission vectors to bypass infection safeguards. Like a retrovirus that incorporates genetic information into the genome of the target cell to subvert the cell to do its bidding, the exsurgent virus does the same but on a more complex level. It is also known to rewrite a host’s neural code in a similar manner, in effect restructuring the target’s mind and personality.

While it began as a digital computer virus—the manner in which it infected the TITANs—it has transformed to be communicable via at least three other forms: biological nanovirus, nanoplague, and basilisk hack.

Babel

Though babel normally spreads as an aural basilisk hack, it is sometimes transmitted via bionanobots or the digital exsurgent virus. This virus infects muses and some other limited AIs as well as egos.

Brancusi

This strain transforms its victims into exsurgent infrastructure, immobilizing and transforming them into sculptures and machines meant for a larger TITAN project. The victim’s mind remains intact throughout the transformation until it is rewritten as a complete exsurgent.

Chrynalus

The chrynalus strain follows the common exsurgent pathology of digital intrusion, fabber subversion, and nanoplague production. It’s packaged with an aural basilisk hack to incapacitate transhumans until they are completely infected by the nanoplague.

Haunting

This strain is the most insidious of the exsurgent viruses. Over time, it rewrites the target’s personality and motivations, slowly but surely subverting and taking control of the victim’s mind.

Mindstealer

Very similar to the haunting virus, the mindstealer strain is much quicker acting. Instead of slowly subverting the target’s mind over the course of months, the mindstealer virus rapidly recodes the victim’s brain in a matter of minutes. This infection is much more invasive and brute-force, often causing significant side effects to the target’s mental state as a result.

Moabite

The Moabite strain functions exactly like the haunting virus (p. 366, EP), except that the character of the hallucinations and altered mental states experienced by the victims is explicitly religious.

Skrik

The skrik strain is a variant of the mindstealer virus (p. 367, EP) that over time enforces an internal physical change.

Stockholm

The stockholm virus is a variant of the xenomorph virus (p. 368, EP) that transforms the mind of the victim before it transforms their body. Stockholm characters view xenomorphs as beautiful and perfect beings and wish to aspire to become them. They become willing allies of xenomorph exsurgents, aiding and concealing them as long as possible.

Vittrad

The vittrad strain functions like the haunting virus (p. 366, EP), except that the altered perception of the victim acutely emphasizes weaknesses, exploitable aws, cracks, damaged areas, poor craftsmanship, and similar imperfections in both biological and nonliving things. Upon reaching stage 2 of infection, the infected character acquires the Spot Flaw sleight (p. 180, XR).

Watts-MacLeod

The Watts-MacLeod strain is a strangely benevolent version of the exsurgent virus, seeming to imbue its victims with psi abilities without any of the other transformative elements typical of other strains. Perhaps created as an accidental mutation of the exsurgent virus, there are many who wonder if the true detrimental effects of this strain simply have yet to reveal themselves.

Xenomorph

The xenomorph strain transforms the target’s body in addition to their mind. It is only spread as a biological nanovirus or nanoplague (not as a digital virus or basilisk hack). Over time, the victim’s morph physically transmogri es into some sort of alien life form. Different variants of this strain produce different xenomorphs.