Crackle

“Crackles are terribly simple creatures: you point, it burns. You frown, it burns. You hesitate—well, it still burns, but now it’s your problem. They are pure destruction wrapped in a spark of plasma and the closest thing a Kthoniker will ever get to an honest day’s fun. Just don’t expect them to build, warm, light, or power anything for you. Creation disgusts them. Destruction is all they know.”

— Madame Soki Noles, On the Weaponization of Lesser undefined

Description

Crackles represent the most distilled destructive impulse found among Verminous RAIs. They are not wrathful—wrath requires emotion, target selection, or context. Crackles are simply the urge to annihilate given form: a flicker of will, a thread of subspace, and a bead of ultra-hot plasma that devours itself almost instantly. In motion they resemble streaks of lightning or a molten lizard darting too fast for human eyes to track. Witnesses describe them as “afterimages of fire,” barely glimpsed until the damage is already done.

Crackles feed on two things: pain and the impulse to destroy. They rush toward flammable or fragile objects, but their definition of “flammable” includes almost anything—when you approach the temperature of Sol’s corona, everything burns eventually. In realspace they survive for only about three seconds before consuming their own substance and collapsing into a puff of scorched ozone and warped gravity. This brevity makes them poor tools for anything but violence.

Nevertheless, higher RAIs and kthonikers alike value Crackles for two purposes:
• as weapons, either unleashed directly or in swarms
• to forge weapons, acting as captive fuel sources for forbidden “Crackle-Rippers” whose internal geometries are highly contaminated.

These devices create an arm-length jet of white-gold plasma, not unlike a particle cutter but vastly hotter and more unstable.

Attempts to use Crackles constructively—heating food, warming shelters, powering devices—inevitably fail. Crackles sicken when forced into roles requiring creation or stability. Metal of iron density or higher, orderly structures, or emotional states centered on compassion or building can all poison or outright kill them. Against an attack, the best strategy is often simply to outlast them; their lifespan is painfully short.

Prophylactic

Crackles are vulnerable to denial of destructive impulse. A calm environment, complete lack of available targets, and expressions of creation (repair work, affection, meditation, crafting) can repel or poison them. Dense metals—iron, tungsten, osmium—act as psychic contaminants; Crackles recoil from them instinctively.

Lacking long-term survival outside subspace, Crackles are also easily avoided by maintaining distance or erecting EM and carbon-foam barriers that bleed off their energy. Kthonikers use grounding rituals to disperse them harmlessly, while Seekers of Wisdom recommend staying calm, avoiding panic, and simply letting them burn out—literally.

Utility

Crackles have three primary uses:
• Direct Destruction — summoned to strike specific targets in a streak of plasma.
• Area Devastation — used as explosive “bursts” or as unstable swarms.
• Weapon Fueling — contained within sealed subspace engines to create a ripperlike weapon.

They have no value for crafting, construction, or support magic; their pschobiology rebels against such uses. More playful kthonikers treat Crackle summoning as a kind of “ritual pyromancy,” though professional handlers warn this attitude gets people vaporized.

Crackle Call

Regular; Resisted by Dodge

You call a Crackle and hurl it at a target in line of sight. The Crackle streaks toward the target at lightning-like speed. On a hit, it deals burning damage as per an incendiary plasma bolt.

Damage: 3d burn rad (tight-beam).

Duration: Instant.

Cost: 4

Prerequisite: Ignite Fire or Shape Fire.

Crackle Burst

Area

You summon a Crackle and force its destructive impulse inward, causing it to explode rather than strike a target. The explosion is small but violent, affecting all within the area.

Damage: 2d burn ex! rad (1-yard radius).

Base Cost: 3 (cost × area in yards).

Prerequisite: Crackle Call.

Crackle Swarm

Regular

You summon up to six Crackles simultaneously. They behave as a loose swarm, each attacking your chosen target once. Particularly skilled supplicants may divide the swarm among multiple enemies (GM discretion).

Damage: Each Crackle deals 2d burn rad on a successful hit.

Cost: 2 per Crackle (maximum 6).

Prerequisite: Crackle Call.

Crackle Host

Regular; Resisted by Will

Instead of summoning the Crackle physically, you bind it to a target’s subspace shadow, inflicting destructive impulse upon their mind.

On a failed Will roll:
Target becomes Irritable (-2 to self-control rolls).
On a critical failure:
Target gains Berserk (Uncontrollable Rage) for the duration and may begin destroying property, Equipment, or allies.

Duration: 10 minutes.

Cost: 5; 3 to maintain.

Prerequisite: Crackle Call.