Frankenmobster: A New Hero Type for Deadlands
Up to Inhuman Heroes Frankenmobster  
 

A Deadlands: Weird Wars Character Type

 
  by T. Jordan "Greywolf" Peacock

 


Edge: Frankenmobster (Cost 5 points)

Frankenmobster This concept is a translation of the "Frankenmobster" scenario from the "Nocturne" PC shooter game put out by Terminal Reality. The character in question might have nothing to do with the mob, and might rather think of himself as a "golem" or a "reanimate" or something like that, but for rules purposes, that's what they're being called here.

The premise behind the existence of the Frankenmobsters is that Al Capone resorted to some downright nasty tactics to try to get control of Chicago. A little known episode in history is that he employed the services of a brilliant but quite mad scientist who came up with a means of reanimating dead tissue. It had a few drawbacks, but Capone could live with them.

He put the scientist to work reanimating some of Capone's thugs who had been shot full of lead. Soon, they were back in the world of the breathing ... more or less. The foul chemicals that animate these bodies have quite a bit of liquefied ghost rock in them, and this process isn't quite scientific. While there aren't any manitous powering these patchwork revenants, and while they can eat, sleep and breathe (and need to do so in order to keep running), they really aren't that far removed from the Walkin' Dead.

If your hero has this Edge, for some reason he was part of this dastardly experiment, before the Men in Black destroyed the factory where these chemicals were being produced -- lest it go into full production recycling corpses.

On the plus side, he is immune to pain, and he goes up one Size level. (This can be cumulative with Brawny.) He no longer takes Wind from normal damage or blood loss, though he can still suffocate, and die in various other interesting ways. He doesn't have to take Vigor tests when wounded, since he can't be stunned. He may ignore up to three levels of wound modifiers, and even past that, if it's a wound modifier in a given limb, it only affects the use of that limb; it just represents structural damage, not pain. If an arm gets blown off, he can march right on, using his remaining arm (though at the appropriate penalties if it's not his favored hand, and all that). Damage to the head or torso still can cause wound penalties - just at three less levels. However, a Maimed wound to the guts or head still means death, quasi-undead or not.

On the down side, he's Ugly as Sin from being all shot up, hacked up, and then stitched messily together. He no longer heals naturally, and he can't benefit from miraculous healing or "first aid", either. A Mad Scientist with Medicine: Surgery can perform repairs on him, regardless of how much time has passed since the wound was inflicted, even to the point of attaching limbs that got blown off. (So, if your arm gets hacked off, be sure to grab it and save it for later!)

He's pretty well pickled, so he doesn't smell putrid or have varmints crawling around in his innards, but he has a constant chemical smell about him. These chemicals in his system, incidentally, are highly flammable. It's basically like he's not only soaked in gasoline, but has it running through his system. If he so much as burns his pinkie finger on a candle flame, he's going to go up in flames, and catch fire immediately. Furthermore, he takes double damage from any fire-based attack (or from burning). Don't play with matches.

It's important to note that he's not truly undead. He's got mad science keeping his organs running, but he still needs those organs! He suffers the usual penalties for suffocation, for going without eating, and he can still be affected by poisons. All the pickling in his system, however, makes him immune to mundane diseases, but that doesn't necessarily stop the supernatural.


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