Shadowborn Omen
A White Wolf
The Children of Eden
Many decades ago, Earth sent a ship out to colonize a distant planet. The mission was dubbed the 'Ark'. On board was everything the colony would need to turn the planet into a nearly identical copy of Earth, including terraforming building schematics and embryos from thousands of species that existed upon Earth.
The Ark successfully completed its mission, making it to the distant planet (Now called 'Eden') and beginning another human civilization. After just a few years of introducing the species to the new planet and building cities (built by machines pre-programmed to build them), the humans on board the Ark began repopulating. Using their own diverse ethnicities as well as the genetic code of thousands of other humans, they began a new generation of children on Eden of various ethnicities and genetic backgrounds. These children grew up to be the first generation born off-Earth. They were dubbed the 'Children of Eden.’
However, some years later, communication from Earth abruptly stopped. Cryptic messages came through for a few weeks, but after that, nothing. Complete silence.
The Children of Eden, many of which now approaching their 30s, had no ties to the alien world known as Earth other than it being their ancestral home world. However, still they gathered a flight team and built a ship to transit the cosmos to the foreign planet in an attempt to find what happened to the planet that birthed their species. The mission was called "Homecoming."
Now, the Homecoming mission has reached its destination: The "Sol" System. They are now close enough to Earth that they can see it with their naked eyes. Still, no radio contact. Nervous yet excited to return to the homeworld of their species, the Children of Eden had no idea the hell they would encounter on the surface.
Dr. Marr was a researcher on Earth, apparently alive around the same time humanity's extinction came. Below are some of the files recovered from his research, giving insight as to what is on the surface. (The characters will not have access to this information at the beginning of the RP, this is just for potential players to understand what the primary, albeit not sole, threat will be on the planet.
- Warning: Data Corruption Detected -
July 16, ####:
We’ve lost control of th##. ### ######sms have broken containment. I see little hope of survi###. I will doc###nt what I can, I don’t forsee being around for much longer.
It all began with a simple, color-shifting goo. Typically, it is black by itself, but in contact with life it often becomes vibrant in colors. We have named it Substance C37, or just simply C37. On its own, C37 is useless. It is when it comes into contact with life that it begins executing its dark purpose.
[Data corrupted]
July 16, ####:
We’ve lost control of th##. ### ######sms have broken containment. I see little hope of survi###. I will doc###nt what I can, I don’t forsee being around for much longer.
It all began with a simple, color-shifting goo. Typically, it is black by itself, but in contact with life it often becomes vibrant in colors. We have named it Substance C37, or just simply C37. On its own, C37 is useless. It is when it comes into contact with life that it begins executing its dark purpose.
[Data corrupted]
If contained and isolated, C37 seems like an ordinary, sludge-like liquid. It is black in color during this state. It will just lay there until it comes into contact with biological life.
Upon contact with life, C37 infects and integrates with it. Slight changes in color can be noticed in this state, but the effects are barely noticeable to the naked eye. For animals, C37 integrates with the nervous system and gains slight control over the animal’s impulses, it also integrates with the animal’s reproductive system and infects reproductive cells. In plants, C37 simply spreads throughout the entire organism. It has been noted in more transparent subjects, C37 can be seen continuing to change color over time, slowly changing from its dormant black color to a vibrant, nearly glowing, neon orange.
In the event of it infecting a male animal, C37 seemingly lays dormant and increases the animal’s sexual impulses, pushing it to mate. transferring the infected reproductive cell into a female. In the event an infected male mates with an infected female, the infected reproductive cell will merge with the female reproductive cell. C37 will then infect the rest of the female animal as well. Over time, C37 will begin to break down the organism at the cellular level. In plants and male animals, the entirety of the animal begins to break down and be molecularly reorganized to match C37, leaving a pile of the substance where the animal or plant once lived. After breaking down, the new C37 can then begin to infect any organism it then comes into contact with. This cycle will repeat until an organism with an egg-like reproductive cell is infected (this almost exclusively being a female animal).
Upon contact with life, C37 infects and integrates with it. Slight changes in color can be noticed in this state, but the effects are barely noticeable to the naked eye. For animals, C37 integrates with the nervous system and gains slight control over the animal’s impulses, it also integrates with the animal’s reproductive system and infects reproductive cells. In plants, C37 simply spreads throughout the entire organism. It has been noted in more transparent subjects, C37 can be seen continuing to change color over time, slowly changing from its dormant black color to a vibrant, nearly glowing, neon orange.
In the event of it infecting a male animal, C37 seemingly lays dormant and increases the animal’s sexual impulses, pushing it to mate. transferring the infected reproductive cell into a female. In the event an infected male mates with an infected female, the infected reproductive cell will merge with the female reproductive cell. C37 will then infect the rest of the female animal as well. Over time, C37 will begin to break down the organism at the cellular level. In plants and male animals, the entirety of the animal begins to break down and be molecularly reorganized to match C37, leaving a pile of the substance where the animal or plant once lived. After breaking down, the new C37 can then begin to infect any organism it then comes into contact with. This cycle will repeat until an organism with an egg-like reproductive cell is infected (this almost exclusively being a female animal).
When C37 infects a female animal, it infects the reproductive cells too (assuming it did not infect the reproductive cells initially, as is the case when infected males mate with uninfected females). When the female animal begins to be broken down by the substance, the reproductive cells seemingly remain intact. The cells lay dormant until long after the animal has been completely decomposed, leaving the cells in a pool of C37. The cells will then develop a creature, using C37 as a sort of universal biological building block.
All of these initial creatures are the same, and they have been codenamed “Queens”. They start off rather small, usually limited by the amount of C37 available, as it is condensed very tightly to form bones and an exoskeleton. Most of their external body is dark or black, but many Queens have intricate patterns of bright orange which fade as the Queen grows larger. Queens have been noted to be very aggressive initially after hatching. They will relentlessly attack anything that moves near it for the first few hours.
After hatching, the Queen then hunts its first prey. Using pseudo-fangs made out of a hardened version of C37, they inject C37 into their prey then finish incapacitating them, waiting for the C37 to begin decomposing the animal. Once the prey has been mostly turned into C37, the Queen consumes it and uses the C37 to grow larger. Once the Queen has grown to a considerable size (roughly the size of a very large lion), the next animal it consumes no longer goes to growing the Queen larger, it instead lays inside of the Queen until it accumulates enough C37 to begin creating a colony - called a “Hive.”
Studies suggest that Queens have the capabilities to grow much larger, possibly once their Hives are well established and C37 is in much greater supply.
All of these initial creatures are the same, and they have been codenamed “Queens”. They start off rather small, usually limited by the amount of C37 available, as it is condensed very tightly to form bones and an exoskeleton. Most of their external body is dark or black, but many Queens have intricate patterns of bright orange which fade as the Queen grows larger. Queens have been noted to be very aggressive initially after hatching. They will relentlessly attack anything that moves near it for the first few hours.
After hatching, the Queen then hunts its first prey. Using pseudo-fangs made out of a hardened version of C37, they inject C37 into their prey then finish incapacitating them, waiting for the C37 to begin decomposing the animal. Once the prey has been mostly turned into C37, the Queen consumes it and uses the C37 to grow larger. Once the Queen has grown to a considerable size (roughly the size of a very large lion), the next animal it consumes no longer goes to growing the Queen larger, it instead lays inside of the Queen until it accumulates enough C37 to begin creating a colony - called a “Hive.”
Studies suggest that Queens have the capabilities to grow much larger, possibly once their Hives are well established and C37 is in much greater supply.
Once the Queen has accumulated enough C37, it digs a hole in the ground and seemingly vomits a small, black egg into the hole. Afterwards, it vomits up a significant amount of C37 on top of the egg, filling up the hole. The Queen will repeat this process 3 times in total. Afterwards, the Queen rests and protects the egg pits. Over the next few hours, two of the eggs will grow very quickly, becoming roughly a meter in diameter before they hatch. The third egg grows much slower, and takes many times longer to fully grow.
The Hive will grow as more C37 is brought out from outside sources (more information on this later).
The Hive will grow as more C37 is brought out from outside sources (more information on this later).
From the first two breeding pits hatch two creatures, already fully grown upon hatching. These two creatures have features very similar to Queens, being quadrupedal and almost cat-like. However, these creatures have a few distinct differences: They are seemingly more lightweight, having a lighter exoskeleton and less armored body than the Queen. They are also much smaller than a Hive-possessing Queen.
These were dubbed the “Hunters.” They live, like all organisms created from C37, for one purpose: Serve the Queen. The Hunters would leave the small hive in search for prey. Any prey the Hunters killed would be brought back to the Hive, where the Hunter would put the prey into the breeding pit to be broken down into more C37. The Hunters would continue to do this, supplying the Queen with more of the substance to perpetuate the Hive, until they perish.
In some circumstances, Hunters seem to enter breeding pits and deanimate, decomposing back into raw C37. It is not clear whether they hit a biological ‘death switch’ or if they are just aware they are dying so they enter the pit to be decomposed.
These were dubbed the “Hunters.” They live, like all organisms created from C37, for one purpose: Serve the Queen. The Hunters would leave the small hive in search for prey. Any prey the Hunters killed would be brought back to the Hive, where the Hunter would put the prey into the breeding pit to be broken down into more C37. The Hunters would continue to do this, supplying the Queen with more of the substance to perpetuate the Hive, until they perish.
In some circumstances, Hunters seem to enter breeding pits and deanimate, decomposing back into raw C37. It is not clear whether they hit a biological ‘death switch’ or if they are just aware they are dying so they enter the pit to be decomposed.
Shortly after the Hunters, the third creature would hatch from its egg. This creature is much smaller than the Hunter, and it is very apparent that this creature is not built for combat. It lays, with dozens of legs, very close to the ground. This creature was dubbed the “Drone.” From the underside of its abdomen, the Drone secretes a filmy version of C37. It crawls into the egg pits and uses this film-like substance to line the bottom. From there, the Drone uses its legs to morph the silk-like goo into walls, building them up around the egg pits to make them more like pods. The Drone then begins digging new pits, lining them with this silk and building up the walls, allowing the Hunters to drop the decomposing prey into the pods to fill them with C37 to create more creatures.
Drones have been shown to begin building more complex structures once around half a dozen breeding pods have been constructed. They always seem to stay busy on something, always building up the Hive.
One Drone seems to be enough for small hives, but once a Hive gets beyond a certain size, the Queen begins producing more.
Drones have been shown to begin building more complex structures once around half a dozen breeding pods have been constructed. They always seem to stay busy on something, always building up the Hive.
One Drone seems to be enough for small hives, but once a Hive gets beyond a certain size, the Queen begins producing more.
From this point, no other creature has been named. This is because every creature beyond this point is a mutation, and not yet documented enough to be named. An animal is killed or a plant is collected, and the animal or plant is brought back to the Hive. The organism is placed in one of the breeding pods, where C37 breaks it down and weaponizes its genetic code. Then the Queen places an egg within the breeding pod, and the egg is fertilized by C37, and the creature that grows within the egg is a hybrid of the original animal and C37’s weaponization transformations. C37 seems to do this with every organism it comes into contact with, taking its genetic code, weaponizing it, and then storing it. It then mutates the creatures it creates with weaponized versions of the genetic code of animals that have been consumed by the substance, creating more and more creatures. It continues to do this, creating more and more diverse organisms. C37 and its creatures continue this process as much as possible, even to the extent of taking over an entire planet. Possibly even further, if it ever developed the capability to get into space.
Occasionally, creatures with different Mutations will gather together in one of the breeding pits and seemingly die (like in the case of Hunters, it is unclear whether they trigger a biological death mechanism or if they simply gather because they know they are all dying). All the weaponized genetic code combines within the pit, and the creature that grows within it contains multiple mutations. In some cases, these mutations combine to create an even more unique one. Creatures birthed this way are, like the mutations listed above, generally not named. They are all listed under a category of “Advanced Mutations.”
Occasionally, creatures with different Mutations will gather together in one of the breeding pits and seemingly die (like in the case of Hunters, it is unclear whether they trigger a biological death mechanism or if they simply gather because they know they are all dying). All the weaponized genetic code combines within the pit, and the creature that grows within it contains multiple mutations. In some cases, these mutations combine to create an even more unique one. Creatures birthed this way are, like the mutations listed above, generally not named. They are all listed under a category of “Advanced Mutations.”
- Liquid C37 acts as a sort of circulatory fluid for C37-based organisms
- While the C37 that makes up the exoskeleton and exterior pieces of a creature are usually dark, the internal C37 is brightly colored, typically being a neon-like orange. This contrasts greatly.
- C37-based organisms seem to be able to sense active C37 ('active' referring to when C37 becomes bright --- usually in response to coming into contact with life or from bleeding out of a C37-based organism).
- C37-based organisms seem to react negatively to active C37 in their proximity. This seems to only not be in effect in the Hive.
- Healthy C37-based organisms act aggressively towards injured C37-based organisms. It seems signs of weakness are not tolerated.
- A C37-based organism that is bleeding liquid C37 will be targeted and attacked by other C37-based organisms, usually by multiple, and killed.
- C37-based organisms that die due to attack (be it from another C37-based organism or from another animal) are not returned to the Hive to become more goo. Possibly due to existing organisms seeing that one as a failure, though this is anecdotal.
Okay, so for those of you who haven't caught on or aren't familiar with the franchise, this roleplay idea has some fairly heavy inspiration from the Aliens franchise, as well as various levels of inspiration from other sources. Just figured I'd get that out of the way. Regardless, this is an idea I've had boiling for a little while and decided I'd finally get it up to see if people are interested. The characters in this RP are obviously going to be members of the flight, probably with each one having a field they are the expertise in (flight crew, environmental, security, etc.) Let me know if you're interested, and if you have any question or ideas to ask or add, feel free to tack them on below!
Last edited: