Inhuman Resources

I1.1Activation

Each spawn group has one token in the bag. When drawn, roll behavior once for the entire group. Activate models one at a time (closest to any player model first), all performing the same action. Hostiles ignore Out of Action models. Remove hostiles that go Out of Action.

I1.2Situation

• No LoS: Cannot see any enemy
• Has LoS: Can see enemy but not within 1"
• Engaged: Within 1" of enemy

I1.3Actions

• Attack: If Engaged, target an enemy it is Engaged with (best chance to hit; ties: the closest). Otherwise target the enemy with the best chance to hit (ties: the closest). Melee charges if not in range.
• Cover: Seek cover from the closest enemy, or move away
• Regroup: Move toward the nearest friendly model
• Flee: Move toward the nearest board edge (stops at edge)
• Wait: No action
• Frenzy: Target the enemy with the best chance to hit (ties: the closest). Attack twice.
• Patrol: Move toward the nearest Loot Marker. If none visible, move randomly.

A hostile that Attacks with a Power weapon rolls Wits against the target's Defense, then resolves damage as a normal attack. The Signal's -1 DT to Broadcast Powers does not apply to hostile Power weapons.

Some behaviors reference a faction's special rule (see each faction). Cross-faction spawns reference the named faction's table.

I6.1Feral Automata

Machines that forgot their purpose. They run programs written for a Complex that no longer exists, protecting assets that rusted away centuries ago. Their design predates the Tethering. The Founders built them to last. They lasted too long. Clean lines. Smooth casings. No patches. The Monks call them holy. The Untethered call them proof that the old ways worked. The Authority calls them malfunctions.

Their authorization codes are six hundred years out of date. They do not recognize current credentials. They do not recognize current humans. Their definition of "intruder" includes everyone alive today. Their definition of "authorized personnel" matches no living signature. They patrol collapsed infrastructure. They guard doorways to empty shafts. Their programming is perfect. Their context is gone.

Maintenance Swarms scuttle through conduits, cutting mandibles still sharp after centuries. Security Drones hover on whisper-quiet thrusters, pulse carbines tracking any movement. Targeting Units coordinate attacks with machine precision, neural lances striking bioelectric systems where they're weakest.

Heavy Units anchor defensive positions, mounted blasters covering kill zones that haven't changed since the Founders drew them. Hunter-Killers pursue targets through the depths, shredder blades designed for enemies that died long ago. And the Defense Platforms: the largest, most dangerous, still executing protection protocols for vaults the Authority pretends don't exist.

When damaged, they shut down. Then the backup systems activate. Then they stand up again. The Monks leave offerings at their patrol routes: fresh solder, premium cables, prayers etched in copper. The machines do not acknowledge this. The machines do not acknowledge anything. They simply continue. Have a productive day.

"INTRUDER DETECTED. LETHAL FORCE AUTHORIZED. HAVE A PRODUCTIVE DAY."
Feral Automata Standard Greeting

I3.1Feral Crews

Defaulted workers who refused collection. Their contracts were sold, resold, and eventually written off as unrecoverable losses. The Departments stopped sending collectors after the third massacre. Now they roam the lower tiers in loud, aggressive gangs, holding territory the corporations abandoned. Trespass is answered with violence. There is no negotiation. There is no payment plan.

Their skin is green. Generations of drinking leaked coolant changed them. Water is subscription-only; coolant drips free from the upper tier cooling systems. Their ancestors drank what was available. Now they drink it by choice, paint themselves with it, weld trophies to weapons, mark their sectors with torn debt notices. The green marks them as something the subscription system cannot touch. The green marks them as free.

Runts swarm in packs. They scream through corridors and overwhelm with numbers. Bruisers carve through armor with cleavers forged from industrial cutting equipment. Gunners and Torches provide covering fire with slug guns and jury-rigged flame rigs salvaged from maintenance levels. The Heavies are walking slabs of muscle and metal, carrying weapons too large for normal humans. And then there are the Bosses: massive, scarred leaders who earned their position through violence and hold it through worse. When a Boss calls the charge, every green body in earshot follows.

When one charges, they all charge. Together they are a wall of screaming metal. The Departments pretend they don't exist. The Departments are wrong. What the corporations call feral, the Crews call home. They will die before they go back to subscription. Most of them already have.

"Sector's ours. Die somewhere else."
Territory Marking, Crew 77-Null

I5.1Static Wraiths

Signal entities. Corrupted data given form. Echoes of transmissions that should not exist. They appeared after the Signal Crisis and have never stopped. The Founders knew what they were. That knowledge died with them. Or was buried. The Board has always known. The cables keep the air silent. That was always the point.

They phase through walls, flicker between moments, appear where they should not be. Killing one disperses it temporarily. The signal always returns. Some believe they are ghosts of the wireless age, echoes of a network that spanned the Complex before the Tethering. Others say they are something older, something that existed in the static before humanity learned to transmit. The Wave Callers believe they are messengers from the Wave Divine. The Maintenance Monks believe they are punishment for wireless heresy. Both groups are terrified of them.

Flickers are the smallest, barely coherent, darting through electronics and leaving corruption in their wake. Drifts manifest more fully, phase claws tearing through armor that should protect against physical threats. Echoes project signal flames that burn without heat, damaging the bioelectric signatures of the living.

Interference entities are dense knots of static that distort reality around them. Surges cut through matter with frequency blades tuned to disrupt molecular bonds. And the Broadcasts: massive amalgamations of signal and malice, rumored to be Wave Callers who achieved union with the static, or what remains of them after the Wave answered.

The Scrapers say they've seen them in the Roots, clustered around equipment that still works, waiting. They say the oldest ones hover near sealed vaults, near doors that haven't opened since the Founders. They say if you listen carefully, you can hear them transmitting. No one has survived long enough to decode their message.

"Do you hear it? The static speaks. It knows your name."
Final words of Signal-Touched Technician 7774

I4.1Wave Callers

Wireless cultists. They believe the Wave Divine will blanket the Complex, freeing everyone from cables and subscriptions. Air should not have toll booths. Data wants to be free. The cables are chains, not connections. Somewhere, somehow, signals can travel without permission. The Founders knew this. The Founders feared this. The cables were never just for profit.

Open Channel coordinates them: a voice on frequencies that shouldn't exist, broadcasting from somewhere the Authority has never found. Some say Open Channel is a person, others that it's a signal that thinks. The most unsettling theory: it's whatever the Founders sealed in the Roots, finally waking up. The most dangerous whisper: that Open Channel can reach beyond the Complex itself. That there is something out there listening.

Initiates carry severed cables as marks of their rejection, learning the hymns of static. The Antenna-Grafted have fused transmitter components directly into their flesh, receiving frequencies no baseline human can perceive. Turncoats are former Technicians who saw too much, who heard the whispers in the wrong frequencies, who cut their own cables and kept walking.

The Frequency Priests conduct the rituals, overloading systems with prayer-static until something responds. Signal Champions lead attacks with resonance blades that scramble electronics with each strike. And the Vessels: those who opened themselves completely to the Wave Divine, their bodies now channels for something that was never meant to walk.

The more Wave Callers gather, the stronger the signal. When enough chant in unison, the static responds. Something comes through when they broadcast. Something hungry. The Conduit Authority does not ask questions. It simply burns. But the signal always returns. Open Channel is always listening.

"Every cable is a leash. Every subscription is a chain. We will cut them all."
Open Channel Broadcast