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ValhaHazred — Captain Cassilda of the Grand Byakhee
#byakhee #kinginyellow #oc #cassilda #rwchambers #biotech #biotechnology #cthulhu #cthulhumythos #hastur #kaiju #lovecraftian #sciencefiction #transhuman #weirdfiction #livingsuit #livingspaceship
Published: 2020-03-06 04:07:19 +0000 UTC; Views: 6020; Favourites: 77; Downloads: 0
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Description
The Petals of Hali are one of the hazards of The Rim. Followers of the Yellow King, they seek to spread the influence of Hastur throughout the Sol system and beyond. At their boldest they've held entire colonies hostage in exchange for an audience for their performances. They do not spend much of their time in-system, using the Hune-travel of their Grand Byakhee to visit distant stars and spread their worship.Converts who fail to properly serve the cult are traded to the Mi-go colony in exchange for restricted technology, advanced broadcasting gear in particular. Pirate broadcasts of The King in Yellow certainly keep the SDF's Cognitohazard Containment groups busy when Cassilda returns to her home system.
Boojum aren't the only things out in the Voids Between that can accommodate a crew. The Grand Byakhee is a particularly singular example, a member of the byakhee clade so large it dwarfs entire habitats. What price Captain Cassilda promised in order to call and contract it must have been truly staggering.
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Comments: 11
You know you're dealing with a nasty group of pirate-cultists when merely listening to their broadcasts can permanently destroy your mind.
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Fortunately most people are smart enough to have broadcast barriers that hard shutdown com receivers when certain keywords and phrases are encountered. Otherwise you'd better hope a good psychosurgeon can remove the memories before they form too many connections.
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i love the captain and that Byakhee is one great space beast!.
also you finally used the SCP term cognitohazard, a feature of many eldritch entities is something like that, with Y'golonac's name perception being closer to an infohazard, i need examples of cognitohazards that many eldritch horrors use.
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I think I'm using it a little differently. In SCP it's something that is dangerous to perceive, which I'd call a Basilisk. In my universe it refers specifically to invasive thought patterns. They don't always seek to propagate though, so you can have a cognitohazard that isn't also a memetic problem.
Cthulhu and the Star spawn are one of the main ones of course, with people exposed to their psionic network becoming primed towards awe and devotion in regards to the spawn.
The children of Lloigor are another similar example. They enjoy a psionic atmosphere of human suffering so they rewire humans in their proximity to be predisposed to depression and hostility.
Some possessor spirits (usually class 3 or below) are cognetohazards, instead of controlling a person directly they'll plant new instincts and behavioral patterns to suit their desires.
A lot of spells can also be used to permanently alter brain function, so almost any wizard, sorcerer or esper is technically a cognitohazard. Think Joseph Curwen, who planted Sothic triggers in his descendants so he could reincarnate himself through an appropriate host.
As for the Basalisk type, Ghatanathoa is an obvious (and literal) example. Looking on it turns the observer to a calcified stone like substance and grants their trapped mind immortality. This is of course because Ghatanathoa is an Elder Thing bioweapon meant to capture and store shoggoths for reconditioning. There are a few other Elder Basalisk weapons around, like the star stones that Deep Ones can't approach.
There are also a couple anti-eldritch Basalisk effects as well, like the Elder and M'nar signs. I really gotta brainstorm how those work and what their limits are at some point.
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She looks incredibly fine, especially in that suit.
Is it possible to explain the crimes? I understand piracy, brain trafficking, and the yellow sign. But what about "conducting unlicensed seance" and "non-consensual body death?"
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Sure!
You need a license to perform a seance because of the risk of calling up ghosts the medium can't control or drawing the attention of some kind of Astral Elemental. Whole stations have been lost to Saiitii spirits and nobody with any sense wants to accidentally call on a Destructor, no matter how unlikely that would be. Any seances are also recommended to be overseen by SDF Astral Guard (military ghostbusters) but it's not illegal not to have them.
Non-consensual body death is distinct from murder because the brain is taken first. Consensual body death is pretty common, since people can be transplanted into vat-grown/cyber bodies and who wants to pay to store a bunch of useless meat? Either cremate it or dump it into the Marsano katakombon for the Ghouls. On its own it's not even that serious a crime but combined with brain trafficking it's pretty bad.
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hey Val, what are exactly Saiitii spirits and are these ectoplasmic?, that name sounds neat.
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Saiitii are a powerful form of Elemental Haunting (a haunting caused by astral entities that were never corporeal or mortal) that can spread rapidly by assimilating ordinary matter. Most standard astral defenses don't work on them immediately following their primary manifestation. They can't assimilate high energy matter so vaporizing infected matter is pretty much the only way to break their bonds to our spacetime.
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