The three types.
Lich
Spoiler:
Liches are the most simple of the three types, these skeletal wizards from days long passed have come to raise an army of skeletons as they further their research into the nature of Life and Death.
- -Having rejected much of the Acadamy's teachings in their quest for power, Lich's lack ranged spells. Their starting spells and equipment are black robes, a magical dagger, an AOE blind, ethereal jaunt, and the a long-cooldown spell to gib a corpse and create a wild skeleton mob (this is wasteful, consider it a last resort). In addition, they carry two piles of bones in their packs for their first summons.
-The dagger is used to create runes, as well as self-defense. The lich only has two runes, a sacrifice rune, and the teleporter rune
-Sacrifice corpses/use the starting bone piles to create a Calcium Conscript, equipped with a blank maint-access id, gladiator armor, a wooden shield, a bone spear in their hand and on their back, and a bone dagger at their hip. In their pockets are two Sinew Zipties. These basic troops are your primary source of new corpses and captives.
-Sacrificing W, X, Y, and Z number of LIVING victims on the rune will advance you by a tier.
-First advancement, Lich's dagger becomes a more-powerful sword. Sacrificed corpses now add the option of creating a Skeletal Skirmisher instead. Armed with only a crossbow and several boxes of bolts, consider these your early bodyguards/auxiliaries.
-Second advancement. Lich gains a magical arbalest that slowly regenerates bone bolts. Corpses can now be used to produce Skeleton Warriors (clad in recolored crusader armor) armed with shields and swords.
-Third advancement. All existing tiers of Skeleton gain increased armor. Lich gains blink.
-Flypersons are instead turned into durable Cursed Carapaces (Think Crusader armor without the tabard) armed with a shield, a crossbow, and a bone dagger.
-Plasmapersons are turned into Damned Dullahans, (Cad in purple Crusader armor). Armed with a sword that deals burn damage in one hand and their own flaming skulls in the other. Thrown skulls knock the target down and set them ablaze. Damned Dullahans can use the Recall Item spell to keep themselves from losing their heads. If the head is somehow destroyed, the Dullahan is destroyed as well.
-At the final advancement, the Lich can compose his great thesis on one of two subjects.
-Life: The lich opens a third eye socket and gains a staff of animation. All sentient corpses are reanimated into Calcium Conscripts or their respective racial variants.
-Death: The Lich assumes mastery over the dead, all current and future servants are turned into Death Paladins, clad in full armor and armed with powerful two-handed claymores that can be used to pry open doors. The lich himself dons a similar suit with an iconic helmet (bat wings? A crest? A different style of helmet entirely?) and the same claymore (with the recall item spell attached as well).
Spoiler:
These lone cultists wear robes from the scales and skins of acolytes who failed in their transition into their new forms as unusually dark green digitigrade lizards. They seek only to spread plague and death across the galaxy in order to assert the Wyvern's dominance.
- -Distinct lizard appearance
-Distinct robes, required for spellcasting
-Blowgun with darts covered in zombie powder
-Spawns/starts disguised as a crew member.
-Generates resource at a low base rate, rate is increased depending on the number of individuals infected with Sanke's Gift
-Can revive any non-sentient mob to be hostile against everyone but themselves
-Can grant these mobs sentience at immense resource cost. Revive a mouse, have it be your spy using Sanke Chat.
-Can create shrines to conduct rituals on sentient corpses and produce additional darts
-Human, flyperson, catperson, and lizardperson corpses can be turned into one of two types of zombie
-Jubilants, aka Boomers. Slow, fat, and able to projectile vomit a trail of slippery acid that will infect any unprotected individual with the Gift. Explodes into a foamy mess of the same reagents upon death.
-Brutes, essentially the Tank from l4d, fills a similar role to the Nar-sian juggernaut
-Plasmamen, lacking any flesh, are instead turned into several Holy Incense Burners. Smoke grenades that spread the Gift along with hefty hallucinogens
-Still-living offerings are turned into tremendously slow skinless slaves able to transmit the Gift via bite
-Can turn lizard tails (and cat tails, if those function similarly) into venomous serpents
-Sanke's Gift is initially benign, without any symptoms at first but slowly progressing to itching, skin loss, and tissue necrosis/death. Can be cured or its symptom's suppressed with holy water, but you can't vaccinate against divine bacteria/viral agents.
-Once a certain amount of the station is infected/at immense resource cost, the cultist can choose the fate of the station.
-Sanke's Blessing: All infected immediately progress to the later symptoms of the Gift. The priest's robes become powerful armor but cannot be removed as they merge with their wearer's flesh. A green bo-staff that allows the user to spray smoke spreading the Gift is granted to the priest.
-Sanke's Wrath: The priest becomes a Decay Drake, a green rotting Ash Drake that instead of breathing fire, breathes a noxious blast of bile that instantly converts anyone struck by it into a non-infectious Zombie mob loyal to the Basilisk
Spoiler:
The most powerful but most vulnerable individuals among the three types, these inhuman fiends use dismembered remains to create various monstrosities to serve them as they seek transcendence through slaughter.
- -Vulnerable to light (maybe with more tolerance than a shadowling, though)
-Monstrous appearance
-Blood as a resource/means of advancement
-Three tiers, each reducing cooldowns and increasing the max blood pool
-Blood Jaunt is your primary means of traversing the station safely
-Can use changeling arm/armor/shield abilities but only for brief periods with a cooldown.
-turn gibs/meat chunks into blood leaches, sentient blob/borer esque mobs that crawl around the station and through vents, sucking spilled blood and attacking crew. A small amount of the sucked blood is magically added to the Vampire's own blood pool.
-If a Blood Leach manages to bore into a subject, then reside inside them much like a borer (only located in the chest instead). They have no ability to control their host but can taunt them as they slowly feast on their blood and organs, dealing minor brute damage and causing vomiting
-If a Blood Leach consumes a certain amount of blood, they will evolve into a Blood Lamprey, a larger and much more dangerous version of the Blood Leach.
-If a Leach reaches this point while inside a living host, it will gib the host and transform into a Blood Basilisk, a flying serpent with a twisted maw and wings of stretched skin. Beware its freezing spit! Now you will know why you fear the night
-Severed limbs and tails can be turned into Blood Lampreys
-Severed limbs can be combined with skins to produce Blood Basilisks (sentience for an additional blood cost)
-Heads can be turned into Head Octopi, weak strangling mobs that, if they manage to kill their victim or latch onto a corpse for long enough, decapitate the victim and turn the body into a slow walking husk.
-Surgically removed brains can be turned into Blood Squids. Attacks with ranged burn projectiles of boiling blood. Can possess people or corpses to assume complete control, puppet corpses can be exploded into gibs, dealing high burn damage to anyone nearby and spraying blood everywhere.
-Multiple limbs and torsos (however many it would take it to be balanced) can be used to create a Crawling Chaos (something like a changeling horror form)
-Even more limbs and torsos can be used to create a Blood Goliath, which is like a regular Goliath, only scarier.
-Since plasma people lack blood or flesh to work with, the Vampire has to get creative. Skulls become Lost Souls, extremely weak flying burning skulls that can ignite those they ram, very fast. Limbs become Brands, single-use weapons that stun, and do high burn damage to the target, as well as apply a debuff that only the bible can heal. Torsos (ribcages) can be turned into bear traps that set the victim on fire for as long as it is attached.
-After reaching tier 3 and maxing out its blood pool, the vampire can choose one of two final steps towards transcendence.
-Blood Pact: The vampire rejects the mortal plane entirely, becoming a Slaughter Demon and summoning several of its new kin to ravage the station.
-Sublime Ascendance: The vampire focuses all of its knowledge and power into reshaping itself into the ultimate being (a beautiful human). Gains great health regen and stun resistance, is no longer vulnerable to light, learns Sleeping Carp style, and can stop time. Loses Changeling-style powers but keeps Blood Jaunt.