Balor
As is the case with most HORUS pattern groups, the Balor has a thousand faces. The Balor pattern group, like all HORUS PGs, doesn’t describe a single recognizable silhouette so much as it gestures toward a combination of schemata that share a role in combat. These schemata can be printed according to pilot specifications and applied to a fully custom physical scaffolding. Notably, the Balor pattern group is only stable on large platforms (Schedule 2 and up) that are able to provide the raw energy output it demands – preferably ones with multiple redundancies, in case of catastrophic systems failure.
The Balor PG was first encountered during the joint Albatross–DoJ/HR pursuit of the Maw – a Free Company turned decentralized hive-being — across Khayradin’s Blanca Desert after the end of the Sanjak Rebellion. It was there that the joint force encountered, engaged with, and ultimately defeated the Maw and its Balors – and there that Union’s CentComm hoped the nanowash outbreak could be contained. Of course, subsequent Balor outbreaks on Khayradin have proven this hope to be in vain, and the pattern group continues to terrorize Karrakin commanders throughout Baronic space.
In the field, the Balor’s neurosynced hellswarm and greywash nanites form an undulating shroud that can pour out of its chassis at a moment’s notice, swirling in maddening patterns to form both eschatologic defensive and offensive systems. A Balor in its most active state is held together more by undulating, flame-like masses of nanite swarms than any physical structure. This has the effect of distributing kinetic and coherent-particle energy out across and through the chassis – making attacks against a Balor “like shooting angry water”, as one after-action report put it.
Core System
HELLSWARM
In a moment, with aught but desire, the pilot of a Balor may quick-print a cloak comprised of countless minuscule drones: a hellswarm cloak – living shield and fluid-dynamic knife, cutting and guarding, in one shimmering wave. They become Hivemaster, and their will is obeyed by millions.
Hive Frenzy
Active (1CP)
Your nanites switch into a hyperactive mode, causing the following effects until the end of the scene:
- You and adjacent allies gain soft cover.
- Scouring Swarm deals 4 kinetic, instead of 2.
- Regeneration restores 1/2 of your total HP, instead of 1/4.
- If you would take structure damage, roll 1d6: on 6, your mech hellishly pulls itself together, taking no structure damage, returning to 1 HP, and gaining Immunity to all damage until the end of the current turn.
- You become Shredded and cannot clear this condition for the duration.
Licenses
License I
Hive Drone
2 SP, Drone, Quick Action
Hive Drone (SIZE 1/2, 5 HP, EVASION 10, E-DEFENSE 10, Tags: DRONE) This hive drone can be deployed to a free space within SENSORS and line of sight, where it releases a Burst2 greywash swarm with the following effects: • Allied characters at least partially within the affected area gain soft cover, as does the hive drone. • Hostile characters take 1 Kinetic AP when they start their turn in the affected area or enter it for the first time in a round. Damage from areas created by multiple hive drones does not stack. The drone can be deployed to a different space or recalled as a quick action.
It looks, at first, like a roiling cloud of gray fog, churning and fizzing – smoking soda water spilled across concrete. It advances with curious motion, stretching and snapping back. A confusion of snakes, writhing forward with speed that betrays intent.
Color flashes across the gray cloud, a swarm-luminescence – the light created by millions of nanites glowing with heat as they consume whatever they cross.
This is greywash, and it is never sated.
Scanner Swarm
1 SP, Unique You gain +1 Advantage on tech attacks against adjacent characters.
HORUS-coded scanner swarms establish oculus-form nanite protocols around defined objects or areas, ensuring constant circulation and data capture. The nanites ingest and process full-spectrum information, relaying it back to their pilot/parent in return for an endorphic code impulse that prompts continued scanning.
License II
Nanocomposite Adaptation
2 SP, Mod Choose a weapon: it gains Smart and Seeking
Nanocomposite weapons take aggressive drone swarms and condense them into individual rounds, a coherent beam, or the edge of a blade.
Adapted projectile weapons fire shaped CONSUME/HIVE rounds that shatter on impact, releasing their payload of autonomous nanite maniples. Once freed, the maniples begin eating away at surrounding tissue or superstructure. They proceed until burnout or total target consumption, whichever occurs first. In flight, the maniples are able to hive-link and make slight adjustments to the trajectory of their round, ensuring positive impact.
Coherent beam weapons transport maniples directly, while conventional melee weapons are replaced by analogs composed entirely of nanobots.
Swarm Body
2 SP, Unique, Quick Action After activating this system, a Burst1 swarm is released at the end of your turn. Characters of your choice that start their turn in the area or enter it on their turn must succeed on a SYSTEMS save or take 3 Kinetic damage. This amount increases by +3 damage for each of your turns that you have remained stationary, up to a maximum of 9 Kinetic damage. This effect lasts until you move, including involuntary movement.
What must it have been like for him? For the man who called himself Maw? For all of his followers? Certainly they had families before. Memories. Loves. Fears. Private thoughts. All gone. All of their bodies shattered. All of their minds spread across a billion lesser forms. Translated from the singular – all of its imperfections and lesser-lesser-thans – to become as air, and the clouds that fill it, and the wind that shapes the world.
License III
Nanobot Whip
Heavy Melee, 2 SP, Smart[Threat 3][2d6 Kinetic Damage] On Critical Hit:Pull your target to a free space adjacent to you, or as close as possible.
Using swarm-coding and legion directives, HORUS collectivists created a framework to organize a swarm of nanites into a whip-like weapon. Nanobot whips can retract into their base blister for stowing, detach in melee combat to restrain nearby enemies, and return to their base unit when summoned.
Swarm/Hive Nanites
Main Nexus, Smart, Seeking[Range 5][2 Kinetic Damage+ 2 Burn]
SWARM/HIVE nanites are among the more insidious weapons produced by HORUS:dispatched in maniples – single “swarm” units carrying enough nanites to fill a square meter – SWARM/HIVE nanites combine the systemic invasion properties of BOOST/HIVE code with the aggressive consumption of a CONSUME/HIVE maniple. Launched from mounted blisters, SWARM/HIVE nanite maniples fall upon their targets as great clouds of teeth, infiltrating sensitive compartments and modules before consuming any organic and inorganic material they touch.