Bestiary

The Unknown Threat

When a Rad-Storm is over the sector, the first time you leave camp, something in the fallout finds you wherever you were going. It cannot be avoided, so you either stand and fight or you do not leave camp. It cycles through three phases: a shrouded pulse (takes 50% less damage; the pulse ignores armor and dodge), an exposed round (takes 40% more damage) and a radiation burst (1.5× damage, reduced by a quarter if you are in cover, and your allies take 40% of it).

How to win: survive the shrouded rounds with HP and cover, burst it down on the exposed round and brace for the burst. Its hits give you radiation sickness (−30% damage), which you can cure at the Infirmary. See the weather guide.

Reward: 160 Scrip, 14 Tech Data, 12 Medicine and reputation.

Lady Midday, the Noon-Stalker

A pale, skeletal woman in a white shroud walks out of the heat shimmer carrying a burning thermal sickle. She finds Operators who go out thirsty at midday. Her signature attack is telegraphed: the air around the blade shimmers, and you must take cover before it lands.

How to win: a Guardian ally starts you in cover; punish her between swings. Better still, keep your thirst above 60% and she never appears.

Reward: 150 Scrip, 12 Tech Data and 10 Medicine.

Collar-Master Szhaar

A Reptilian overseer who fits captured humans with Xal'Korr's neural collars and marches them off as mindless labor. You can assault his compound head-on, or spend 8 Tech Data to cut the comms first so his guards never arrive.

Reward: Survivors, Tech Data, 140 Scrip.

Brass Jaw Dobrowolski

A former colonel with a jaw of welded brass, now a warlord who controls a road, a water source and a camp of deserters. A Mercenary or someone with high reputation can negotiate instead of fighting.

Reward: Scrap, ammo, 120 Scrip and a prisoner.

The Hive-Matron (Mist-Crawl Matron)

Every hound in the Deadwoods answers to one hulking alpha that Xal'Korr's bio-labs left behind. Her lair is a cave of bones and pelts. Burn down the hounds with thermal weapons and focus the Matron.

Reward: Raw Meat, Cloth, Tech Data and 90 Scrip.

Utopek-7, the Water Scavenger

A webbed, pale amphibian in rusted human gear and a red miner's helmet guards a flooded bridge in the Silesian Park, and behind it, a Water Purification Pump. You can trade with it (8 Cloth and 6 Food) or kill it and claim the pump, which gives your base clean water every day.

Reward: Option A: Tech Data, Scrap, Scrip and Medicine. Option B: 130 Scrip, Raw Meat, Water and the pump.

The Silica Reaper

A huge Reptilian sanitation walker that has been trampling the old rail yards, spraying acid into everything that moves. It is heavily armored: nothing small has ever scratched it. Armor-piercing talents are almost mandatory.

Reward: Tech Data, 50 Scrap and 110 Scrip.

The Bone-Sower Priest

Deep in a flooded shaft, a priest of the old serpent cult scratches glyphs into bone and buries them in the walls. His acolytes guard a slab of black stone covered in sibilant script.

Reward: Tech Data, 100 Scrip and a relic.

Vanguard Captain Zhor-Kaal

A forward patrol commander with a polished armor set and a shock pike that has not missed in a decade. The highest damage multiplier of any contract boss, so bring Armor and a medic.

Reward: Ammo, Tech Data and 180 Scrip.

The Zmora

The Zmora Protocol is a pre-war cyber-warfare payload built to put whole garrisons to sleep and never let them wake. From the camp terminal you can trace the broadcast to a buried mesh hub under a collapsed relay station, where glassy-eyed sleepwalkers ring the room and something formless folds itself over a sleeper's chest.

Two ways in: a skilled Netrunner (6 or more points in the Netrunner tree) can jack in and sever the broadcast at the risk of backlash, or you can breach the hub and destroy it by force, fighting the Zmora and its Sleepwalkers.

Raider Warboss

The leader of the raiders in the Sector 7 Den. Fight through his crew and expect the highest damage of any raider you have met.

Abattoir Warden

The final wave of the Slaughterhouse ends with the Warden. The earlier waves bring Slave Drivers, Cleaver Guards, Butcher Elites, an Overseer and Sanitation Drones that fill the room with toxic gas. Arrive with full HP and plenty of Medicine.

High Commander Kra'Voss

The apex predator of Silesia. Encased in obsidian-plated exo-armor powered by a heavy plasma engine, Kra'Voss views humanity as 'dust-worms' to be crushed. He commands the orbital dreadnoughts and ordered the devastating surface-ignition of Sector-02.

Commander Marek, the Scale-Sworn

Once a decorated human tactical commander, Marek concluded that humanity's defeat was absolute. Trading his allegiance for cybernetic augmentations and a reptilian optic, he now commands the human collaborator garrison, running the heavy labor camps with cold logic.

Vanguard Vashak, the Sentinel

A massive, 7-foot-tall Reptilian shock infantry warlord. Covered in slate scales and pre-war tank armor, Vashak holds the Katowice Highway Viaduct choke point. He relies on raw kinetic destruction, heavy artillery and a personal plasma-shield projector.

Inquisitor Xal'Korr, the Mind-Weaver

The Vanguard's chief neural architect. Operating from a subterranean cryo-vault in Sector-03, Xal'Korr is a sadistic bio-engineer who uses psionic projections and hallucinogenic toxins to harvest memories and re-wire the minds of captured resistance scouts.