ENTITY 02: YOUR OWN SKIN


Human Resources departments across the country grow these parasites in underground labs. Seditious or subversive elements within the workforce are secretly injected using hidden hypodermic needles in their work phones. Soon, your own skin revolts against you. 

A parasite forms in the place between your skin and your muscle tissue. It roams around in there. If it isn't stopped in d6 days, it takes over your epidermis. Your skin swells and falls around you in loose folds, then constricts until you can't move without tearing it. The parasite controls it all from a knot of infected muscle at the back of your neck. Your skin will only go back to normal if you obey its demands.

After being injected with the parasite, you are now legally obligated to repay all costs associated with its care and upkeep. It's all in your employment contract. Killing the parasite or allowing it to starve is a violation of your terms of employment, and you will be fully liable for all damages.




As such, the people infected are forced to work harder and harder in order to pay off the bills of the ever-growing parasite, which has extremely expensive tastes. You will need to keep eating. Constantly. Stretching for more and more promotions. Richer and richer dishes. Stranger and stranger meats. None of it satisfies you. Nothing tastes as good as skin feels.

The parasite is not unkind. It will help you satisfy these exotic hungers. One day, Jim will come by your cubicle. "Did you get that email?" he'll ask. But it will already be too late. Your skin stretches from wall to wall. It envelops him in an instant. The skin goes over his mouth and down into his throat and drags him deep inside you. He doesn't have time to scream. 



It's ok. No-one liked Jim anyway. Skin devouring is an accepted occupational hazard. Later, you'll recieve a promotion to his old role. The parasite spurs you to keep climbing higher and higher up the ladder, always hungry.

The problem comes later. Stacy comes up to you in the break room. "Could we talk in my office for a sec?" You see something twist underneath the loose skin of her lower arm. She's always wanted your job.  

Over time the parasites have become a status symbol. Most middle-managers will have one, or pretend they have one. It becomes hard to tell who's actually infected, and who's pretending for clout.



ENTITY 02: YOUR OWN SKIN

Danger: Medium.
Number Appearing: 1 in every 3 low-middle level employees of most major organisations are infected. 
AC: Your AC. HD: Your HD.
Speed: Your speed.

ATTACKS: 

Anyone infected with a skin parasite gains access to the following actions, in addition to their normal abilities:
  • Infect. You attempt to touch the target. If you succeed, they must make a constitution save or be infected. The skin parasite will slowly germinate within them over the next 2d4 days.  
  • Devour. Your skin stretches to quickly engulf the target. They must make a dexterity save or be surrounded by skin and slowly pulled in. If they fail their save they are quickly pulled inside you and take 2d6 damage each round. You will be encumbered until they are digested. This ability can only be used in ways that align with the objectives of your organisation, and only when the parasite is hungry.
You gain a new stat: Hunger. Every day you fail to live up to expectations at your workplace, roll a d6 and gain that much hunger. When you are alone with someone in a stressful situation, roll a d20. If you roll under your Hunger, your skin attempts to devour them. You can only reduce your hunger by bringing in results for the company, or devouring someone. 


BEHAVIOR:

A person infected with the parasite will act to advance the goals of their organisation by any means necessary. They don't have a choice. 

If you have proven deleterious to the goals of the company, they will make casual small-talk with you and try to draw you away from the rest of the party. They will pretend to be harmless until the last moment. When they have you alone, safely isolated from the rest of the group, their skin will expand to wrap around the room. You will be engulfed and slowly digested. If necessary, several of them will work in tandem, attempting to isolate you before the attack. 

If their organisation ever faces an existential threat, all parasites within the workforce will reveal themselves at once and attack. Hostile takeovers can be bloody affairs.

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