Snooze

“You’d be amazed how many doors a Snooze can open for you—mostly by making sure the guard never opens their eyes.
Paying off a sentry costs money. Putting him gently into apathy costs nothing but a smear of slime, and you don’t have to worry about that one humorless Bommen who reports bribes like it’s a moral crusade.”

— Madame Soki Noles, Advice to a client too proud to sneak properly

Description

Snooze is a Tertia aligned with Sloth, though “sloth” fails to convey the oily, oppressive lethargy it spreads. Snooze appears as a shimmering opalescent sludge, like spilled liquid mother-of-pearl, creeping with glacial indifference. It is unclear whether Snooze is a single distributed organism or a collective of identical lumps that share one psychic identity. Blobs separate, merge, retreat, or spread without the slightest sense of individuality or conflict—an organismal democracy where no one ever bothers to vote.

Calling Snooze an ambush predator oversells their ambition. They ooze quietly into corners, under doors, into vents, or simply spread across floors until the air itself turns thick with their soporific influence. Proximity brings overwhelming drowsiness, lassitude, and apathy. Victims slump where they stand, fall asleep mid-task, or drift into comas. Snooze then glides over to feed on their diminished will and fading vitality. In subspace, Snooze spreads across a host’s shadow like woolly fungus, instilling procrastination, depressive inertia, and emotional numbness.

Wild Snooze is placid to the point of existential vacancy—communicating with it is like trying to converse with fog. It responds slowly, reluctantly, and minimally, as though any exertion is an affront to existence. Its hunger is passive: it does not hunt so much as allow prey to fall into it. This extreme non-aggression is exactly why both RAIs and kthonikers adore Snooze as a tactical tool. It incapacitates without resistance, allowing surgical strikes or infiltration without violence.

Prophylactic

Snooze’s influence is subtle but has weaknesses:

• Airflow and ventilation disperse their “radiation”
• Bright light and loud noise can counter creeping drowsiness
• Caffeine and combat stimulants delay onset (but only delay)
• Emotional engagement, especially anger, breaks their apathy field
• Psychic awareness training identifies the approaching haze early

For Subspace Shadows, maintaining active will—through mantras, emotional anchors, or adrenaline—prevents the fungal spread of their lethargy.

Utility

Kthonikers and RAIs both use Snooze for:

Infiltration

Snooze disables guards without visible wounds, noise, or suspicion. Entire station wings have been compromised because a Kthoniker “accidentally” dropped a Snooze ampoule into the ventilation system.

Coma Induction

Distilled Snooze slime becomes a potent anesthetic. Criminals use it for kidnapping; kthonikers sometimes use it to survive cramped smuggling compartments too small for a cryopod. Death is a known side effect.

Containment

Some Hellfire Cabal mercs smear Snooze gel on containment tools to pacify volatile captives.

Counter-Riot Use

Certain black-bag operations have used aerosolized Snooze to quell mobs. Publicly, they deny the practice vehemently.

Apathy

Regular; Resisted by Will

You direct a Snooze cluster toward a target’s subspace shadow. Their internal drive collapses into a heavy fog of apathy.

Effect: Every action requires a Will roll. Failure means the action is skipped.

Duration: 1 minute

Cost: 5

Maintenance: 2

Prerequisite: One Sloth Calling

Snooze

Regular; Resisted by HT

Summons a Snooze mass partially into realspace. Its influence envelops the target.

Effect:
• Failure: Drowsiness irritating condition
• Critical Failure: Coma

Duration: 10 seconds

Cost: 6

Prerequisite: Apathy