I had a thought to mix up the special zone sector For a Mouthful of Water, and was hoping to get a little input from the crowd
Obviously this contains spoilers, so if you're playing the game and not a GM then best steer clear.
So I was thinking, what if the creature in the water tank in the purification plant was more than just a big slathering beast - what if it was a Real Threat.
Legion, a nightmarish convergence of mutant, radiation and nightmare. Originally developed as a biological weapon, the Legion Virus was designed to be a waterborne contagion that brought on violent stomach cramps, hallucinations and madness. In the dying weeks of the war it was unleashed by a desperate nation, but the ultimate consequences were far worse than anyone could have imagined.
For years after the war it lay dormant, its initial thousands of victims long dead. Then one fateful day, a desperate, mutated survivor drank from the fetid pool that the Legion virus called home. During those eternal years that it lay in that pool, its carefully engineered biological structure started to degrade, and then mutate. Once it hit the poor unfortunate mutants digestive system, it mutated again, and again, and again - Legion was born. The newborn Legion retreated back to the water to grow, and plot. Legions mind was not complex, but it's drive to survive was strong - to survive and spread.
After yet further years of roaming the waterways, Legion discovered the water purification plant - and its attendant Zone Ghouls. rather than lash out in mindless violence against the Ghouls, instead Legion spread. Legion released its eggs into the water supply, eggs that had been designed so many year sago to bypass normal water purification scrubbers. The Ghouls took Legion into themselves without even realising they were under attack - within days Legion was everywhere. The eggs attached themselves to the Ghouls intestines and grew, twisting and clawing into their hosts who were incapacitated in agony. Legion reached out with its mind to its children and knew all was well - it was home and it's progeny would thrive.
Whilst the Zone Ghouls are not under any kind of direct mind control, the larvae within them are capable of inducing excruciating pain at the behest of the hive mind. Over time the Ghouls learned that to resist was to suffer, obedience came quickly.
But Legion was not satisfied - it needed to grow and spread its influence, but apart from the occasional straggler investigating the water plant there were no new hosts. Then the water trader came along, and Legions world unfolded before it. The trader succumbed easily to Legions children, and he now had a new purpose - to spread Legions influence.
One cold, frosty morning the Water Trader arrives at the gates of your ark, his cart of lashed together shopping trolley loaded down with bottles of water - each bottle loaded with Legions children. What will come of the people, will they track the trader back to the water plant - can they survive a final encounter with Legion when their own friends fall under its influence.....
So what do you think folks ? Too mean ?
