195 - Reefer Madness

Unnatural Phenomenon: Reefer Madness

A yearning for the sea, a sense of communion with a greater whole, an ache for an aquatic heritage never before known. H.P. Lovecraft wrote of the deep one taint, an ancestral curse of the blood that called his protagonists back to the sea with batrachian transformations into the gilled monsters that had spawned their forebears. Reefer madness is inherited not through the lines of lineage but an infection which courses through the connections we choose.

It is based out of a small coral reef formation, slightly too far out from the coast and not colourful enough to be popular with tourists. It looks as though it has been bleached a chalky white in the places it isn’t a soft, fleshy pink but make no mistake, it is as vibrant as ever. Just ask the people who visit it, swimming out furtively and fully dressed to sit for hours in the ocean spray.

The reef converts people in physical contact with it into additional biomass at a rate of 1d10 wound threshold per visit. It doesn’t take this away from their existing wound threshold but instead converts that many points of flesh into hard, calcified coral growths which do not heal naturally and can only be restored by future visits at the same rate. In the early stages these growths an undetectable outside of intimacy but in the later stages those undergoing transformation look like shuffling coral monsters. Unnatural checks range from 1 to 6 ranks depending on the grade of transformation and who it is happening to. When a person’s entire threshold is converted they are absorbed into the reef permanently, the only physical reminders being the occasional tooth or eyeball. Why would anyone do this? All their friends and family did it first.

Those absorbed into the coral biomass retain their relationships and can psychically reach out to those people in their dreams and quieter moments, drawing them in. This effectively acts as coercion against the target’s Isolation gauge using the relevant relationship’s percentiles (but does not reduce them), with the caveat that on a matched success or critical they’ll find themselves sleepwalking unbidden towards the sea instead. Drawn into the ocean, people are called to the reef that has absorbed their loved ones time and time again.

Visits to the reef are a surreal experience. Physical contact allows telepathic communication with the minds of the converted. They speak joyously of boundless communion, never knowing the fear of death or loss and a desire to share this bounty with their visitor. This is magickally soothing and allowing them to assuage your existential fears and speaking with the people you’ve lost once again acts as an automatic matched success on a long-term therapy roll, it also increases your relevant relationship by 5%. Choosing to resist provides no therapeutic benefit but still converts flesh. Sometimes the reef will ask favours from would-be converts before their transformation is complete, sometimes it is sought out for the wealth of occult and ritual knowledge it is rumoured to keep by those willing to risk partial conversion to negotiate for it.