#but idk if anyone else is going to find it gameable haha

[keganexe]

Meet The Agents of Rot

I've been working on Blister City, an upcoming far future setting guide for playing survivors on the last city of Mars, for what feels like an eternity now. I want to start sharing some of my favorite factions, npcs, locations, and mechanics from the guide just so I have something to point to if folks want to know more about it as I ever approach finishing the game.

Follow that link up above if you want some basic information on Mars and the setting, because I'm gonna dive right in like you know everything else already.

So first up, lets meet one of my favorite factions, The Agents of Rot.

Who Are the Agents of Rot?

In the simplest form, The Agents are a doomsday cult devoted to the teachings of a long dead and unnamed scholar. They believe the destruction of humanity is already happening, and unstoppable; and they long only prepare everyone for the oncoming end times, without any desire to hasten the coming end.

In 2143, The Agents of Rot first landed in the city of Ambition (which would later become Blister City) after having been chased off earth by The Crusade for their heretical religious beliefs. With them came the first of the Prophet Machines, cobbled together old tech that spits out endless streams of numbers and letters, from which adherents claim the future can be known and prepared for. Upon their arrival to Mars, The Agents had a dire portent, Mars would fall in 2191.

Their portents were ignored, but history would go on too stare back in wonder as their preaching was true. Down to the minute. Ultimate Mars does fall, and today The Agents of Rot occupy a strange space in the city, their heretical beliefs seemingly true, but their message still unpopular for the folks in the last city.

Where Are the Agents of Rot?

In The Mids, the second layer of the three layer Blister City, sits The Smokestack District. In The Lowers, directly under this district the industry of the Blister is booming. Miasma is refined, plasteel is produced, and the toxic smoke of industry pushes up through the levels unstopped by those with the power to demand better.

It is in the worst of this toxic runoff we find The Smokestack District, and herein find some of the worst of the city. The folks who call The Smokestacks home are a combination of those with the expensive lung bionics that make breathing here safe, trading a lifetime of debt for an opportunity to live in an apartment they can afford; and those chased out by the rest of the city, largely unmodified and suffering short lives as the air toxicity kills slowly but painfully and surely.

In The Smokestack District you can find The Rot Chapel, one of few wooden buildings in the city, although the building itself is dilapidated, rotting, and covered in soot. A walk through the church shows mildewed religious statues, sitting undisturbed next to rack after rack of advanced computers; each beeping away at impossible maths. Cries echo out across the church as more prophets discover portents of the future in the hodgepodge of numbers lighting up across screens.

The Agents of Rot in Play

In Blister City, you can find yourself working alongside or against any number of factions in the city, each with a list of pros and cons for helping or harming them. While the factions usually only provide these boons and banes during missions for or against them, The Agents of Rot instead always provide boons and banes for players.

If You Make an Ally of The Agents

+1: The Agents consider you a fledgling acolyte of their faith. Rot Shops are open to you, as are their churches for those looking to lay low.

+2: The Agents consider you a true believer. You gain a discount in Rot Shops, and gain access to their medical centers.

+3: The Agents have begun to see prophecies of you. Once ever you can go to them, and have them tell you a terrible but true fact about events yet to happen.

If You Make an Enemy of The Agents

-1: The Agents of Rot are scared of you and your crew. You are actively turned away from Rot Churches and Rot Shops, violently if necessary.

-2: The Agents consider you persona non grata, and take to the streets preaching of the dangers of being near you, and your allies.

-3: The Agents have begun to see prophecies of you, and it terrifies them. The Agents pool all of their resources, and will hire whoever it takes to kill you, and challenge the hands of fate.

Final Thoughts

The Agents of Rot are but one of 25 named factions, and have (like all the factions do) complicated ties to the city and the other factions. They frequently find themselves allied with The Children of The Red Sands, other religious outsiders to the city; and working against The Rusakli, a quiet order of well liked healers who The Prophet Machines keep spitting out warnings against.