Monday, May 18, 2015

Blackrain: My take on the CDC

o/

A buddy of mine (Rosco) is working on his own mini-game (with the intent for an eventual Kickstarter) called Blackrain. He asked if I would play in another play-test game the past weekend I said sure. in looking thru his force generators and such, I saw that one faction is called the CDC. Yes, that CDC, or rather his post-apocalyptic world's vision of it. The Blackrain FB page has a small blurb on some of the factions, but at the time I was unaware of the page and came up with my own idea of a post apocalyptic-CDC.

Forwarding it to him, Rosco liked it and said a good bit of what I wrote may get written into the game's final fluff (and being a fluff-bunny player in general, this pleases me considerably). Thus without further adieu, here's what I came up with:

Any resemblance of the logo to a poison dart from is purely coincidental...

The CDC Unit Brief:


Far from a benevolent organization, the CDC's intellectual body sees itself as the savior of humanity. As such, when dispatching teams to the field, they have a firm belief in 'the ends justify the means' when it comes to accomplishing their goals. Indeed, aren't a few insignificant casualties a small price to pay if it brings the CDC one step closer to rebuilding a healthy and genetically-stable human society?

Exactly.

The CDC’s field teams themselves are an essential part of operations,  venturing beyond the safety of their fortress-like facilities to collect the raw materials of the CDC’s research. The composition of field teams often vary greatly from one to the next. For routine operations, field teams are usually lead by a scientist, though rarely Directors will also venture outside the wire when the need arises. In general, the leading Scientists are highly trained in a specific subject of study. These dedicated individuals know just what to look for and will stop at nothing to further their CDC research!

Their specialized associates will range from a personal coterie of interns and/or students, to exceptionally deadly bodyguards from the former US military (often with special forces backgrounds), to genetically modified humans from the top secret Darwin Project. These Darwinions are sometimes the whole reason for a field team’s excursion itself, testing whether or not their artificial evolution has resulted in yet another monster…or more rarely a masterpiece! Each team also includes at least a few volunteers who are little more than a cheaply paid street thugs with a CDC name badges.

Volunteers are fiercely loyal to the CDC cause, as in addition to a   regular paycheck, they receive regular medical injections, standardized survival gear, (seemingly) superior weaponry, and better quality rations than could otherwise be had. Little do they know that their vaccinations are often worthless placebos, or else experimental drugs with little known or understood side effects. Additionally their provisions are often of new genetically modified species so that the unsuspecting volunteers and their families provide the CDC with easily acquired long-term studies of their gene-splicing projects and their potential side effects (which are all too frequent). As such, the CDC sees these poor souls as little more than a variation of the common, caged lab rat.

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