Corporations are people. So when a corporation is murdered, it leaves behind a ghost. A vast invisible presence that slowly rolls across the country. Spectres like this commonly rise after a company has been gutted by a private equity firm. If you could see it, it would look like a rolling wave of pale corpse-fat stretching across the horizon.
When you walk through a normal ghost, you feel cold. But these ghosts are so huge that people sometimes spend their entire lives inside them. For these poor souls, their entire life feels distant and foggy, like it's happening to someone else. They always feel cold, without knowing why.
As it rolls through an area, a curse of decay falls upon the land. You're laughing with your friends in the mall when you hear them fall silent. You turn to find it empty, dark, and full of stagnant pond water. The amusement parks are all abandoned. The stores are suddenly bankrupt. Reality dips by as much as 20%. These are null-zones, blank spaces on the map where benevolent Lord Mammon cannot pass, and the invisible hand of the free market drags all businesses into their graves.
These roving Abandonment Zones slowly move across the country. Elite hedge funds employ trained haruspices to track their movements, so they can buy and sell accordingly. Insiders are given tip-offs just before the ghost hits, allowing them to divest their holdings in the area. Like birds fleeing before an earthquake, the wise start packing their bags when they see the limosines leave town.
ENTITY 04: GHOST BRANCH
Danger: Medium.
Number Appearing: 1.
Speed: up to 6 miles per day.
As a ghost branch slowly moves over an area, it becomes more dangerous. Torches and sources of light last half as long and don't shine as far in the thick darkness. Items corrode and decay at double their normal rate. Safe areas will often have suffered some kind of decay. For example:
- Old doors are now stuck. New doors, windows or other entrances appear at odd angles in the walls or ceiling.
- Room is flooded with stagnant water where deadly creatures may lurk.
- Room is covered in flammable, sticky grease.
- Room is filled with fog, can barely see the hand in front of your face.
- Room is occupied by d8 corporate wraiths. They will ignore the PC's and continue to work at their fake jobs. Walking through them saps your strength - d4 STR damage if you walk through one.
- New chasm opens up in the floor - room is harder to get across.
- Floor is unstable, likely to fall away under feet like a pit trap.
- Roof has collapsed, room is covered in debris that makes it hard to get through.
- Walls open out onto howling void beyond time and space.
- Room has been twisted around. The walls or ceiling are now the floor.
Directors commentary: This is a good way to change up a dungeon once the PC's have explored it a bit, or to make a previously safe space suddenly terrifying and unsafe. It shifts things around, blocks off the old safe paths, and makes things more dangerous. I would roll for one of these for something like every 1/4 rooms. Hazards should be extended across multiple rooms (eg, flooding across 3-4 rooms).
Any friendly NPC's in the area has a 40% chance of disappearing into the ghost realm. You can see glimpses of them as ghosts where they once stood, and hear echoes of their voices. They will reappear normally when the Ghost Branch moves on, with no memory of the incident.
Monsters and enemies become shrouded by fog. Their presence is heralded by screeching static in the smashed TV's that clutter the area. They each gain 1 or more abilities (DM's choice).
- Successful attacks drain 20% of the money from your bank balance.
- On a successful attack, you lose 1 important memory.
- +d6 damage, attacks leave you feeling cold and drained.
- The enemy doubles, refracts and reflects over itself like a vision in a shattered mirror. +d6 AC.
- Gets up with d6 HP the first time it dies.
- As it approaches, the floor slowly creeps up over your feet to drag you down into the earth. While in the same room as it, make a save to keep moving each round or be slowly dragged under.
- It can take on the appearance of one of your loved ones. Make a Wisdom save to attack.
- Corrosion and rust blankets the room before it. Items and weapons rust and break in your hands when they touch it.
- Vision flickers and fails as it approaches. Disadvantage on any check to see things or attack at range while you can see it.
- Strength drains and fails as it approaches. Disadvantage on strength checks and melee attacks while you can see it.
- Powerful depression washes over you as it approaches. Machines and spells are likely to fail or go haywire.
- Thick smoke makes it hard to see. Enemy disappears when hit and reappears in the smoke at another space within 15 feet.
- The environment twists and contorts itself to the monster's will. It can change the environment once per turn - doors open, walls rise from the ground to box you in, windows appear, etc.
- Flammable oil-slick spreads across the floor as it approaches, save or fall when you move. Fire doesn't hurt it.
- Toxic fumes and corrosive smoke flood from it. d4 damage per turn while you're in the same room as it.
- Multiple ghost-limbs. Gains +1 action per round.
- When it dies, it explodes in black fog, dealing d12 damage to everyone within 10 feet.
- Enemy is attended by d6 smokey corporate wraiths. Wraiths have 1 hit point and latch on to you, draining d4 STR each round.
- Enemy can walk through walls as if they were not real.
- Enemy appears in the reflection of dark TV screens, mirrors and puddles - not in the real world. It can hurt you by attacking your reflection. Can only be forced into the real world by destroying all reflections in the room.
The Ghost Branch can be banished or convinced to move on by a trained corporate exorcist. However, the only way to remove it for good is to get revenge on whoever or whatever killed the company. The area within the ghost branch will be filled with files and a ghostly paper trail that leads to the perpetrator.
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