Miasma

“A Miasma is grief with a will. It enters quietly, feeds politely, and leaves you with nightmares polished to a mirror shine. People fear Gadflies because they bite; they fear Mimics because they whisper. But Miasmas? They make you remember every mistake you’ve ever buried—slowly, thoroughly, and in exquisite detail. They are the only Vermin that can make the strong beg for unconsciousness.”

— Madame Soki Noles, Lecture on Parasubstantial undefined, vol. III

Description

The Miasma is among the most insidious Verminous RAIs, appearing as a low-lying cloud of pale vapor that drifts along floors and bedding like an anesthetic fog searching for lungs to inhabit. Its form is porous, almost particulate, and its movement is unsettlingly purposive despite lacking any obvious anatomy. Once inhaled—often during drowsiness or sleep—it pours into the alveoli and clings like a soft, numbing weight, dulling the host’s coughing reflex with a subtle analgesic effect that allows it to linger.

Inside the body, a Miasma suppresses neural function. Victims experience heavy-limbed fatigue, drifting consciousness, waking paralysis, or involuntary sleep. While it feeds, the entity dredges up memories associated with grief, regret, abandonment, failed obligations, or loved ones lost. These recollections play vividly in the host’s mind—sometimes as replayed memory, sometimes as hallucination, and at times as a hybrid nightmare so real that the victim wakes screaming. Individuals with trauma linked to bereavement or guilt are particularly vulnerable. In such hosts, the Miasma gorges.

Though unintelligent, Miasmas are opportunistic: they prefer sleepers, people lying down, individuals in mourning, and anyone medicated into drowsiness. Higher RAIs often employ them to incapacitate targets or soften their will, while kthonikers have been known to inhale willingly—using Miasmas as crude living anesthetics to prevent death by shock.

Prophylactic

A Miasma’s primary weakness is its physical fragility. A stiff wind, circulating airflow, or constant ventilation scatters it easily. Simply keeping the air moving in a sleeping space can prevent intrusion. Atmospheric sealing—either through sealed suits or purified chambers—provides complete protection. If inhaled, a host can purge the Miasma through a sustained, deliberate coughing fit, though the numbing effect often necessitates external encouragement or medical prompting.

Psychologically speaking, grounding rituals and emotional stabilizers help limit the severity of hallucinations. Medical teams sometimes use counter-stimulant protocols to keep victims conscious long enough to cough the entity out. Seekers of Wisdom teach “grave-mind breathing”—a focused technique to resist the oppressive emotional dredging. Higher RAIs directing Miasmas often reinforce their grip, making expulsion more difficult and necessitating pharmacological intervention or rapid atmospheric change.

Utility

Material Uses

When dispersed, Miasmas leave behind a faint, greasy residue collected by kthonikers to create loolaboo—a balm inducing a deathlike stupor. Though the victim remains alive, only high-grade medical scanners can detect signs of life. The dreams suffered during this stupor are among the worst a mind can experience, and remain sharply remembered for weeks afterward. As such, loolaboo is used for:

• interrogation
• surgical shock resistance
• faked death
• ordeal-induced hallucinations for “initiation rites”

Captured Miasmas may also be employed by mages and kthonikers to induce sleep, numb pain, or trigger emotional collapse in a target.

Miasma’s Grip

Regular; Resisted by HT

Induces overwhelming drowsiness in the subject, slowing their reactions and fogging their mind. On failure, the subject suffers a heavy-lidded torpor equivalent to the Drowsy condition. On a critical failure, the subject falls fully asleep.

• Duration: 1 minute.
• Cost: 3 to cast; 2 to maintain.

Miasma’s Salvation

Regular

You channel the numbing calm of a Miasma into the target to shield them from physical shock. Grants High Pain Threshold for the duration, and stabilizes a target at or below 0 HP, preventing death by shock penalties.

• Duration: 1 minute.
• Cost: 4 to cast; 2 to maintain.

Miasma’s Strangulation

Missile; Resisted by HT

You conjure a concentrated verminous Miasma and direct it at a target. If it hits, the target must spend a full turn coughing to expel it. Failure to cough results in suffocation, losing FP each turn as if breathing toxic vapor.

• Damage: No HP damage; instead induces suffocation rules.
• Range: 20 yards.
• Cost: 4; cannot be maintained.