Bane

“My favorite Bane? Oh, he’s a darling thing. Temperamental, loud, impossible to house-train, and prone to shredding anyone who gets too close. I raised him from a single spark of malice — don’t ask how, you can’t afford the answer — and he’s wonderfully loyal in the way only a creature that hates everything can be. Some pets bring you slippers. Mine brings me societal collapse.”

— Madame Soki Noles, Comment to a nervous apprentice

Description

Banes are Tertia aligned with Wrath, but unlike Grudges—who fixate on a single wrong—a Bane feeds on broad, directionless hatred. They don’t care who the host hates, only that the hatred grows into a general disgust for society, human norms, and the continuation of civilization itself. Once attached to a subspace shadow, a Bane begins its work by giving the host a distorted sense of empowerment: heightened energy, predatory clarity, and a sharpened instinct to “solve” problems aggressively.

This initial phase quickly erodes into violent obsession. Every inconvenience becomes a personal attack; every stranger becomes a threat; every obstacle becomes an excuse for mayhem. Hosts become sickly, exhausted, and spiritually hollow even as their internal rage swells to bursting. Their final stage is nearly always catastrophic violence. A man seething at traffic might firebomb a courthouse. An alienated Worker might vent a starship hangar bay. A grieving father might destroy the entire block that failed to save his child. The Bane delights equally in the planning and the execution.

Banes appear as roiling, bubbling masses of pinkish-red foam, constantly birthing pseudopods tipped with barbed, hook-like claws. In subspace they travel in packs; in realspace they burn brightly and briefly, shredding whatever they can reach. They feed on hatred most of all, but when pressed they can survive on pain, terror, or even the frustration of their enemies. Fighting them directly is a nightmare — they are engineered to be hated, and your hatred only nourishes them.

Prophylactic

The best defense against a Bane is emotional discipline. Preventing anger from settling into the bones starves the creature before it can anchor itself.

Other defenses include:

• Group presence — Banes prefer isolated hosts
• Crisis counseling — makes resentment harder to amplify
• Anti-aggression neural dampeners — weaken Bane footholds
• Shock-intensity psionic bursts — disrupt their cohesion
• Armed retaliation — attacks harmful to RAIs force them back into subspace

Above all: those with untreated anger disorders are the easiest targets.
In subspace operations, screening for aggressive ideation is as essential as vaccinating against plague.

Utility

Banes are effectively useless for creation or precise work. They cannot be coerced into building anything, nor can their essence be shaped except into weapons. They exist to destroy.

Their primary uses:

Hellhound Creation

A Bane bound into a canine produces a Hellhound—a living weapon that channels the Bane’s fury without allowing it free rein. This is the most stable form a Bane can achieve in realspace.

Shock Troops for RAIs

Sentient RAIs sometimes employ Banes as berserkers, throwing them at rival courts or unwanted intruders.

Tactical Chaos Engines

Kthonikers use Banes for:

• riots
• assassinations
• terror attacks
• battlefield disruption

Their mortality rate is high, but Banes do not care. They treat death as simply losing the argument.

No known material can be harvested from a Bane except the psychic residue left behind after a mass casualty event—and no one sane considers that residue a “resource.”

Soulbane

Regular; Resisted by Will

A Bane is directed to lash out at a target’s subspace shadow, overwhelming it with raw violent impulse.

Effect:
• 1d Sanity damage
• Target must attack the nearest living being on their next action (friend or foe)

Duration: Immediate

Cost: 5

Prerequisite: One Wrath Calling

Eyebane

Missile

You channel a Bane’s hatred into a single surgically vicious strike.

Damage: 1d cutting

Range: Normal missile spell ranges

Cost: 2 per die (to a max of 3 dice)

Prerequisite: Soulbane

Lifebane

Regular; Resisted by Dodge or Block

Summons a Bane to tear at a target physically, whipping barbed pseudopods at random limbs.

Attack: 1 attack per second

Damage: 1d-1 cutting, random limb

Duration: Up to 5 seconds

Cost: 7 (no maintenance; duration fixed)

Prerequisite: Eyebane