CURSE

acronym for Chiroptera (kye-rop-ter-ah) Ultimate Robotic Subhuman Eradicator - greatest threat to all life. The military in the Unified Districts of Novus Mundus began working on new weapons to deal with Normals, being that they backed the Ascendants. They experimented with biological weapons. In time, the Curse was created, a weaponized pathogen. Originally created as a biological weapon/weaponized designer virus/pathogen hundreds of years ago during the End War and intended to manipulate the immune systems of Normal humans. The virus is harbored inside an advanced bot that closely resembles a flying fox bat. Ascendants were eventually  created to be immune to the virus (although in the following centuries, the virus would evolve and mutate to be able to infect them too), which guaranteed their victory. When CURSE infects their victim by bite, that person becomes a carrier to spread the infection for a short time before they perish. When a person is infected, they undergo dramatic physical changes over a 24 hour period (during which time, the body can be burned to prevent reanimation and change). After the transformation, they become known as a Human Altered Viral Organic Contagion, or HAVOC.

 

Defense and an early warning system were crucial, so most any settlement had an alarm system in place, be it a siren, bell, or horn, with a team of lookouts employed to survey the skies with binoculars and telescopes. Most countries kept good relations to ensure open communication and disclosure so that information on the Curse and its last known whereabouts could be divulged. Some of the more wealthy cities had specially-trained militia that consisted of skilled archers or sharpshooters, and their citizens were additionally protected by flying suicide bomber automata that would launch themselves toward the Curse colonies and detonate on impact, which caused great explosions in the skies

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HAVOCs

After transformation, a person becomes known as a Human Altered Viral Organic Contagion, or HAVOC. When the virus attacks a person, it uses the DNA in their host cell to replicate, then leaves behind its own genetic information, which changes their internal organs and the entire physiology of the host, transforming them into monsters. HAVOCs resemble a grotesque naked humanoid with bat-like wings for arms, a prehensile trail for snatching victims, long ears, a long jaw with sharpened teeth, and digitigrade hindlegs. They may only vaguely resemble their previous human selves. A HAVOC’s main agenda seems to be biting humans, and they are mindless creatures, IP pressing in sheer instinct. They will not actively seek out sustenance and will even deny themselves sleep and thus expire after around 1-2 weeks. They infect their victims by bite. If they are fed and watered, they will continue to live and change further to vaguely resemble dragon-like creatures and lose all resemblance of their prior human selves. They also become able to spit large amounts of their saliva that harbors the virus in it and is corrosive, eating away at flesh to infect any victims it makes contact with. 

 

When a CURSE bat or HAVOC bites and infects a person, it uses the DNA — or the material that carries all the information about how that person will look and function — in the host to replicate and leave behind its own genetic information. This, in turn, changes the host’s internal organs and entire physiology at an accelerated pace, transforming them over the course of just twenty four hours into monsters.