Sure, Dark Lament has its share of Necanthropes going crazy or rogue, but if entire projects backfire in some spectacular fashion, it is always Karma who end up in the line of fire.
Does really just the biogenetics department have such a bad track record while the Ebb users can do no wrong?
Where are they, the Dark Lament equivalents to the artificial lifeforms reproducing uncontrollably, to the soul-eating rotting killer cyborgs, or the psychotic blind dog monsters?
We went looking for them:
Blue Rain
“Blue Rain” happens when there are spontaneous manifestations of Ice Blades around raindrops from clouds contaminated with Flux and Blue Thermal matrices. Upon hitting the ground, the blades shatter and dissipate, leaving no trace of their accidental existence. But should they hit an unprotected individual on their way down, they are no less deadly than their intentionally created counterparts.
The clouds causing Blue Rain contain a limited amount of Flux. As rain falls from them, this Flux is gradually depleted until it is entirely used up and the Blue Rain stops. Depending on the intensity of the rainfall, the effects of the Blue Thermal-ladden drops/blades are equivalent to the Ice Blade 1-4 abilities of Blue Thermal Ebb. Due to the spread across a wider area and multiple small blades, damage (but not penetration) is halved. Whether or not an individual character caught out in the open during an episode of Blue Rain is hit, is down to luck and should be determined with a Luck roll at the end of each phase. The Flux costs for the Ice Blade are deducted from the cloud’s total each phase.
The phenomenon first appears on Mort when Dark Lament puts into operation an experimental Science Friction athmosphere generator with the aim of sounding out the environmental control and terraforming markets. At first, some of the water vapor released into the athmosphere is contaminated with Blue Thermal matrices without being noticed, leading to the first instances of Blue Rain. As the number of victims mount, investigations are initiated which might well lead to the issueing of a BPN…
The injuries caused by Ice Blades are quite characteristic, so the deaths raise the immediate suspicion of being the work of an Ebb-using serial killer.
Ebb Awareness only seems to further confirm this, although the origins of the Ice Blades prove hard to trace. Trying to identify the perpetrator may even return multiple and conflicting answers, as the matrices in the clouds carry imprints of different Dark Lament technicians working at the athmospheric plant.
Should Dark Lament figure out what has happened, neither the subsidiary nor the Department of Ebb have any intention of letting this embarrasing secret be uncovered.