| Marauders I Almost wish I hadn't gone down that rabbit hole -- and yet -- and yet -- it's rather curious, you know, this sort of life! -- Charles L. Dodgson, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland |
| Marauders are absolutely insane. Of all the factions at war in the Tellurian, they are the least understood, and are perhaps more feared than any other. No matter what grievances lie between Construct and Tradition, cabal and Chantry, or Sleeper and Awakened, all are equally devastated in the chaos and wreckage left behind by Marauders on the warpath. Even the Nephandi will turn their course to fight the common menace; a reality shredded by Paradox is a less inviting prize. The Technocracy are affected the worst by encounters with raiding Marauders. Theyr holdings are cocnentrated on Earth, and this is where the Marauders' immunity to Paradox becomes most useful. A skillful or lucky band of "crazies" can cripple a Convention base by their mere presence: their psychoses tend to manifest in physical forms, "fractures" in reality and holes in the Gauntlet. The Technomancers stay so busy hiding the vulgar magick that they cannot defend themselves properly. One of the most successful Marauders tactics is to bring mythical creatures through the Gauntlet directly into Convention territory. An Australian Technocratic Construct was plagued with mysterious disappearances for months before the cause was found: a minotaur that Marauders (a splinter group known as King Solomon's Whines) had introduced to their substructures was living off of their Node -- and their personnel. In fact, the mechanism through which an ordinary mage -- whether Traditional, Technomancers, Craft member or Orphan -- becomes a Marauders remains unknown. It is popular among the younger mages of the Traditions to believe that these "unfortunates" are all Orphans simply gone mad and uncontrollable with the shock of the Awakening. Their elders shake their heads knowingly: they have lost too many established and respected colleagues to accept this. Most authorities hold that the change is accidentaly, and this is the official view embraced by the Technocracy. The Progenitors -- the most vociferous proponents of this hypothesis -- actively hunt the Marauders for experimental testing. How the Marauders are kept inactive after their initial capture is unknown, but at last report, several subjects were under observation in Progenitor laboratories. Those few papers the scientists have presented suggest they they are attemtping to isolate a virus involved in the transmission of the "disease." Considered in the light of that Convention's propensity towards germ warfare, this is alamring news indeed. The only Tradition that does not seem so alarmed, in fact, is the Dreamspeakers, who are said to be conducting their own studies on some of the "calmer" Marauders. Dubious sightings of Marauders in Dreamspeaker territories and the caerns of their Garou allies abound, giving rise to rumors of a spirit "sedative" developed by the Speakers. The Tradition's representatives formally deny any involvement, and few mages are yet desperate enough to ask the werewolves for comment. In fact, the Dreamspeakers may be telling the truth. The most frightening thing about the Marauders, and the reason that so little is known about them, is that there is no way to tell whether a mage is a mArauder before the fighting starts. A Marauder using coincidental magick is indistinguishable from any other mage, and their characteristic immunity to Paradox doesn't matter in the Umbra. The difference shows only when the Marauder uses large amounts of vulgar magick. The Marauders' madness is no sure clue to identification. As with many disorder, their particular lunacy may not be obvious to the eye or apparent in casual conversation. Close association may not reveal any problem. Furthermore, not every insane mage is a Marauder. The Continuum has plenty of ordinary fanatics, psychotics and mages in Quiet. It simply adds an extra edge to any mental crisis to know that one's nearest and dearest may expect one to join the enemy. |