Dimensional Shamblers

There is only one nature - the division into science and engineering is a human imposition, not a natural one. Indeed, the division is a human failure; it reflects our limited capacity to comprehend the whole.
- Bill Wulf

History

Ancient History
     Millions of years ago, Mi-go investigated sites on Mars and discovered strange, organic cities. They took the cities apart and analyzed them. Their actions disrupted these City-beings.
     City-beings are massive interdimensional organisms. Their biology operates through a variety of organic and inorganic reactions, expressed in angles, geometry, and dimensional flux. Their cells consist of plant-like fronds, cubes, angled rooms, vents, crystals, rat-like animals, humanoid beings, and other components.
     By breaking apart and mining the City-beings, the Mi-go disrupted their thoughts and life cycle completely. Dimensional Shamblers spilled from passageways and dimensional roads, like blood corpuscles or neurotransmitters writ large.
     The Shamblers, equipped with intelligence that had a function within the City-beings, tried to understand what had happened, what they were.

Recent History
     Millions of years later, one Dimensional Shambler decided to fix matters, and began to work out a plan. Of average human intelligence, it knew it would need major help.
     It chose the name Michael to facilitate communications with humans. Through Alzis, Michael made contact with Delta Green in 1998, procuring an amount of weapons grade plutonium. Michael created an intense explosion from the plutonium to blow up the infestation of Mi-go at Cydonia. Michael continued his contact with DG, so he could learn more about human civilization.
     Eventually, Michael's small organization of Shamblers gave DG some ideas. Beyond basic help in missions, the Shamblers were the key to pursuing the Mars project.
     By 2030, use of Shambler transportation had enabled a coherent installation of manpower and equipment on Mars. Dimensional Shamblers refused to transport munitions or active hypertech, but it wasn't difficult to transport machine goods and inactive hypertech component equipment to Mars. The Shamblers did not seem troubled by these work arounds. It was theorized that the hypertech causes interference with their transportation method. This was not confirmed before the end of human civilization.
     In the 2050s, the human assistance to the Shambler reconstruction effort had succeeded as much as was possible. The Shamblers became less visible as they incorporated back into the City-beings and attempted the recovery. Decades later, beings similar to the Shamblers were the mouthpieces of the City-beings with Martian humans.

What is Known

     By 2040, the basic details of the history of the Shamblers and the City-beings was known to Delta Green and relevant USO operations managers, as well as Rebels who dealt with Shamblers. In addition, the following outlines what these groups knew about Shamblers:

Psychology
     Humans group concepts by sets, internal and external. Thus, a dog is a part of the set of animals and the set of pets, but a particular dog has a set of associations unique to it.
     Dimensional Shamblers easily perceive, in a variety of supernatural as well as natural means, relationships between objects and external sets. However, they have much greater difficulty with internal sets. A Dimensional Shambler can perceive a dog as an animal or as a pet, in the abstract. The same Shambler finds it difficult to conceptualize the dog as an individual with history and unique qualities. They have a basic difficulty with uniqueness as a concept, beyond that of location or construction.
     It follows that they would have difficulties with concepts based on events and situations. The behavior and communications of the Shamblers seems to contradict this, however. Shamblers are able to plan out events and understand decision trees. It is possible that they perceive time and events as inherently distinct from objects and sentient beings.
     Dimensional Shamblers quite easily perceive topology and shape, though they have great difficulty interpreting color, odor, and sound. Their perceptions of shapes and space are not limited by solid matter, as their sense extend in many dimensions. Shapes tend to be simplified, so that a Shambler perceiving a human will see a convulted sphere (head), and a series of contorted cylinders (neck, torso, arms, legs).
     A Shambler can tell the difference between different colors, odors, sounds, and particular shapes, but has trouble distinguishing fine details. The penetrative aspect of their senses may account for difficulties with focusing on surface features.
     Shamblers tell humans apart mainly by the different proportions of body parts and skeletal structure (which they can measure with great precision), rather than facial features.

     Psychics find it rather easy to locate and contact Dimensional Shambler minds. The minds of shamblers are dangerously disorienting, however. A SAN check is required when contact is made.
     If successful, the psychic has the option to cut out and leave the mind. If the San check fails or the psychic opts to stay in the Shambler's mind, D10 SAN loss occurs. It will also require Intx2 rolls to make any sense of the Shambler's mind. For every minute spent in a Shambler's mind, another SAN check is required.
     If the Keeper is using Trait Sanity rules (see Endtime PCs), SAN loss due to Shambler mental contact may be avoided by an appropriate insanity. In this case, if an Insane (rather than Imbalanced) result comes up, the SAN loss is averted. Alternately, if the character is suffering from a term of insanity, the SAN loss is averted automatically. An appropriate insanity would be, due to earlier exposures, the belief of the character that the character is one of the Shamblers.

Communication
     Dimensional Shamblers can not vocalize, but have some perceptive abilities that, with training, allow them to understand human speach. Vocoders were designed as early as 2015, allowing shamblers to communicate directly with humans. At first requiring a keypunch system, vocoders were quickly developed that could interface with a Shambler's natural communication.
     Shamblers communicate between each other in several different ways. It is unclear which of these methods predate their exodus from the City-beings, and which developed over time or were copied from others. Shamblers communicate through hyperspacial vortices. These disruptions in spacetime can be picked up as gravity waves. They also have a form of sign language based on subtle positionings of their body. In addition, most shamblers have a low level psychic ability, able to communicate thoughts rather directly. At least when used with humans, it takes a fair degree of focus to pick up on the faint impressions used in this communication. It takes the form of an almost dream-like sensation of intent, rather than words or sounds, popping into one's head.

Biology
     Composed of terrestrial matter, Dimensional Shamblers are astonishingly similar to humans. They have cells with DNA, specialized organs and cell structure, at least one circulatory system, a central nervous system, and a skeletal structure. Still, a number of differences are clear. The DNA behaves oddly, there is no observed ingestion of food, the tissues seem terminally dry (about 1/5 the amount of water in tissues as in most terrestrial organisms), the CNS fires erratically, and the body as a whole does not seem to metabolise nearly enough to account for Dimensional Shambler behavior.
     Most of the strong anomolies are probably due to hyperdimensional protrusions of DS physiology. Although to a casual observer Dimensional Shambler biology is very different than human biology, from a strict scientific point of view, what similarities exist are amazing and suspicious.

Campaign Stuff

Game possibilities:

• The Mi-go are using shamblers to monitor events around Earth from a safe distance. The agents may have trouble distinguishing normal from abnormal shambler behavior.
• Dimensional Shamblers can still be summoned by sorcerers or cultist, shamblers which are not part of the group mentioned above. Many shamblers are not sentient enough or disinclined to join the group and its efforts. They remain as 'free agents'. This may cause confusion.

     Dimensional Shamblers could have more malign intentions for humanity, which will influence Alzis' handling of them:

• Humans could (or did) serve as vital components of the City-beings, and the Shamblers are preparing the humans on Mars to be integrated into the City-beings.
• The Shamblers actually wish to build new City-beings on Earth. Either the story about their history is false or the City-beings cannot be repaired, only remade. Information revealing shambler efforts on Earth can be spun as disinformation, evidence of other beings, or as a rival faction of shamblers.

PCs
     If an adventurous Keeper wishes to allow dimensional shamblers as PCs, or have some sort of all-shambler campaign, feel free. As a suggestion for mixed parties, have the player roll up human stats, and then adjust to fit within shambler ranges. That is, max Int of a Shambler is 12, min Str is 14, and so forth.
     Keep in mind that these beings have 0 Edu, 7 Move, but do have the claw skill and other abilities (double attack, armor, teleportation). This means a shambler PC will be very skills light, though the skills known can be quite odd.
     Shamblers do not age like humans do. Stats do not drop, but Edu also does not increase. In addition, every skill drops by 1% per year until they reach their default levels. As unaging beings, unused skills are slowly wiped from their minds.
     It is suggested that a campaign with shambler PCs heavily involve affairs on Mars. Shamblers are resistant to vacuum, but not to pressures of more than 3 atmospheres, and survive in temperatures from absolute zero to 250 degrees celsius.

     Shambler teleporation is as mentioned in the main CoC book. The distance the shambler is travelling sets how much open space is needed to 'land' in. Distance in miles log base 10 (same as creating/using a Gate, main CoC book) is divided by Intelligence, result being the radius (roughly) in miles that must be relatively open. Under most situations, this requires relatively open landscape.
     Note that under 10 miles, the shambler can teleport into a close fitting cannister, if desired. Also, while 'inbetween', a shambler can 'feel around' for an open area, so never is in danger of getting stuck. A shambler can decide to turn back or choose a new location, but the distance travelled is cumulative.

     Shambler PCs in a Trait Sanity system will have from -1 to 3 City-regen. Instead of Humanity, shamblers have a hope and belief in the recovery of the City-beings, of regenerating and reincorporating back into their previous existance. This hope is lost to most shamblers, who are driven by survival and insanity.
     Shamblers also start with Imbalance of -1 to 2, more dominated by insanity than imbalanced behavior. The player should define quirks and other odd behaviors that make the shambler truly alien, many of which apply in any Trait. The insanity of shamblers renders them immune to Mythos or spell-based SAN loss, and they are somewhat functional while insane. Most, however, will flee any perceived danger while insane.
     Psychology is an important skill for shamblers wishing to interact with humans, as it allows them to avoid antisocial behaviors that otherwise come naturally to them.
     Shambler PCs are nervous around Elder Signs and hypertech. They cannot teleport into or out of areas infused with either, and approaching these forces makes them feel ill. Shamblers similarly dislike spells. Learning spells is at 1/2 chance and requires a SAN check each time the shambler attempts one. If the SAN check fails, the cost is still taken but the spell is aborted before taking effect.
     Shamblers will resist attempts to implant them with cybernetics, though only have an instinct that it would be wrong. If a shambler is sedated or somehow restrained, a cybernetic implant will cause the shambler to loose Con equal to the implant's weight rating per day. At 0, the shambler will die.
     Toxins have half effect, drugs have 1/4 effect against shamblers. With research and Pharmacy skill drugs can be made fully effective.