Bestiary

Sometimes the deepest madness lives right next to us, moving through our world without a whisper until some unexpected disaster forces us to realize what was already there. In the case of Hive, that madness has many faces too – all of them working toward some unfathomable end.

Hive isn’t a single Marauder… or rather, Hive is a single Marauder permanently co-located in several locations at once, with all of those selves linked through a hive-mind spell. Thankfully, Hive remains unaware of this fact. As far as Hive is concerned, Hive is an office drudge working at a dead-end job… at several places simultaneously. Each self has a different name, a different face, and a different identity. Essentially, Hive is a living Multiple Personality Disorder who’s consciously unaware of the tremendous power Hive commands. If Hive became aware of that power, life could get extremely difficult for a whole lot of people.

The few people who know of Hive theorize that Hive was once a powerful wild talent, an even more powerful Virtual Adept, or a Technocratic employee who quietly snapped. Instead of exploding into the typical pyrotechnics, Hive manifested its low self-esteem as an embodied “human resource” rather than the powerful mage Hive could be otherwise.

How, then, do people know Hive exists? Because Hive plays pranks on, and occasionally sabotages, Hive’s employers.

“Hive” is a name attached to various exposé emails, blog posts, and leaked documents. Folks who’ve met Hive in the Digital Web recall a collection of fractal images that shift constantly – not an especially strange thing in Netspace, but memorable nonetheless. In material reality, Hive is a collection of nondescript office drones. If you met any of them, you’d never know that the particular drone is anyone of note. Especially observant characters (Perception + Awareness, difficulty 9) might pick up a tremble in Hive’s aura and hear a variety of voices buzzing in the vicinity of an otherwise unremarkable person. Beyond that, Hive answers only to the name of each individual person Hive embodies. On a conscious level (and to a surface Mind Sphere scan), those various minds seem dull, insecure, and utterly unremarkable. Only on a subconscious level does Hive realize what Hive truly is.

Several of Hive’s manifestations work for Technocratic offices – not as extraordinary or Enlightened personnel but as mundane drudges. As a result, Hive leaks occasional Union secrets without even consciously realizing that the individual manifestations have even heard of a Technocracy to begin with. If and when Hive trips over some of the nastier skeletons in the Technocratic fruit basket, things could really get ugly… especially if, in the process, all of Hive’s selves wake up simultaneously…

Suggested Attributes (per manifestation): Strength 2, Dexterity 2, Stamina 2, Charisma 1, Manipulation 1, Appearance 2, Perception 2, Intelligence 5, Wits 5

Suggested Abilities (likewise): Academics 3, Alertness 5, Awareness 5, Computer 4, Cosmology 2, Drive 1, Enigmas 2, Hypertech 3, Stealth 2, Sciences 3, Subterfuge 5, Technology 3, plus various individual skills appropriate to the various identities (treat as the Background Dream 5).

Willpower: 8 (apparently 2)

Health Levels (each manifestation): OK, -1, -1, -2, -2, -5, Incapacitated

Armor Rating: 0 (two soak dice, total)

Arete: 7

Spheres: Correspondence 5, Entropy 2, Forces 2, Life 5, Mind 5, Prime 2, Spirit 2, Time 3

Equipment: Smart phone, laptop, pens, flash drives, and other tools of the modern office worker’s trade.

Image: As mentioned above, Hive manifests as a number of low-tier office workers who – aside from their uncanny intellect and grasp of various skills – seem remarkable only by their complete ordinariness. These selves comprise several different sexes and ethnicities, each with complex backstories about their individual home lives. Some of these Hive entities even work in the same offices, apparently unaware that they’re all the same entity.

Roleplaying Notes: Life’s so boring. If only something exciting would happen…

Focus: Like many Mad Ones, Hive operates in a plane beyond conscious focus – unaware, in this particular case, that Hive’s even doing magick at all.