Heretic

ENEMY STAFF
Heretic	Access: Wherever your job has access to Additional Access: Wherever you can break into or teleport to. Difficulty: HARD Supervisors: Forgotten Gods Duties: Find influences, notice they all have been taken. Sacrifice people and ascend as a vessel of your god Guides: This is the guide. Quote: ADMINS HALP HOW DO I SACRIFICE PEOPLE

"Forgotten, devoured, gutted. Humanity has forgotten the eldritch forces of decay, but the mansus veil has weakened. We will make them taste fear again..."

So you're a heretic? Well, get ready for some magic and battle. Grab those influences, make some sacrifices, and ascend to godhood.

Basics

You are a nasty little bookworm in search of truth and power, and you have arrived on a station ripe with opportunities. The ultimate goal of a heretic, aside from completing their standard traitor objectives, is to gain power points to unlock their abilities.

You can increase your power in two ways: harvesting magic energies from the eldritch influences around the station, or by sacrificing any crew members your dark patrons may hunger for. To aid this task, you start with two items and a spell:

• The Codex Cicatrix, used to draw runes and research.
• The Living Heart, used to transmute and find your targets.
• Mansus Grasp, a modular spell that, without upgrades, lets you touch a target to cause knockdown and light burn damage on a 15 second cooldown. As you grow in power, your Grasp will gain additional effects.

All of these are critical to your ascension, so don't lose them, and keep them hidden from security! Should you lose these occult items, you can transmute new ones using your victims, and items around the station.

• In order to transmute a new Codex Cicatrix, you'll need human flesh, a pair of eyes, a bible, and a pen.
• Transmuting a new Living Heart requires a new heart, a splatter of blood, and a poppy flower.

Influences are the easy way to gain power points. Whenever there are heretics aboard Space Station 13, influences will randomly spawn across the station after sometime into the shift. Initially, influences flicker with bursts of energy similar to electricity, have randomized names, and can only be seen by heretics. To harvest an influence, simply hit it with your codex and remain still for four seconds. After being harvested, the influence will lose it's electric-like bursts, gain a yellow glow with a rainbow border originating from the middle, change their name to pierced reality, and become visible to the entire crew. Influences can only be harvested once, so don't waste time trying to collect those that other heretics have already taken!

An already harvested influence. Notice the glow.

Once you have some power points, it's time to research! Simply use your codex in-hand to open the research menu and spend your points on abilities. The research menu forms a branching tree (see below), and your first selection will be to commit to a path that defines your initial abilities and final ascension. You'll also immediately gain the Heretic blade of your associated path. You can earn abilities from other paths to a limited degree, but overall your chosen path will heavily influence your playstyle.

Eventually, you'll need to start using proper magics. By hitting any empty tile with your codex, you'll begin to draw a transmutation rune, which takes 8 seconds. These runes are green and take up a 3x3 area, and while they can go under other objects, it's best to keep them clear for transmutation purposes. You can remove runes by hitting them with your codex again, and freely use other heretics' runes. To transmute, simply click the rune with an empty hand while the appropriate object(s) are on top of it, making sure that nothing else is in the way. You can only have one transmutation rune active at once, so creating a new one will destroy the old one.

The Heretic Blade will be your first unlocked research. It can be created by transmuting a common knife with a secondary ingredient based on your path, and serves as a powerful melee weapon. As with the Mansus Grasp, your blade will be upgraded by your research over time. If you lose your blade, simply transmute a new one. A shank can be quickly crafted and used in all transmuting ingredients to make a new Heretic blade. While you do begin your path to ascension with one, it can help to make more, as shattering one can providing a quick escape to a random, safe part of the Z-level. It takes two seconds to break the blade, so make sure you have the time to do so!

In addition, the blade has the added benefit of shield-breaking and a ranged option. If your blade manages to strike a target who carries a shield, the shield will be destroyed. Furthermore, the blade can be used as a ranged hook on a 3-second cooldown. Hitting a target pulls them to you and immobilizes them for a very short duration: just enough to let you get a hit in. With good good, armor penetration, and wound chance, the blade is your bread-and-butter of dealing with unsavory individuals.

The most important use of your rune is sacrificing. To get a sacrifice target, drop your living heart onto a rune and transmute it with nothing else present, making sure your codex is in your inventory. You'll be given a target, and can then squeeze your living heart by using it in-hand to get a vague idea of where your target is. Kill them, drag them back to a rune, and transmute their body along side your living heart to messily sacrifice them and earn a power point.

Between influences and sacrifices, you'll eventually unlock more and more abilities; the last ability will be your ascension, which guarantees a greentext and gives you massively powerful benefits or transformations. Once you've ascended, all that's left is to unleash your fury upon the crew! Use all of your powers to slaughter everybody who dares stand up to you, or just bask in your dark glory.

Paths

There are different aspects of the arcane to which you can devote yourself. While all rituals and spells can be learned, your first and most important choice will decide how your weapon and grasp will evolve, and how your final ascension will transform you.

Path	Name	Description
Path of Ash	Nightwatcher's secret	The Path of Ash revolves around fire, mobility, crowd control and being a sneaky fucker that can jaunt while handcuffed. It grants the most forgiving abilities for a new heretic, such as the aforementioned jaunt and a potential mass heal, and is highly recommended for first-timers. It doesn't have the most powerful abilities until the later game, but it is still enjoyable. Ascending gives you the power to burn down the station in a living tornado of flame.
Path of Rust	Blacksmith's Tale	The Path of Rust is about healing, corruption and brute forcing through all obstacles, at the cost of stealth. Rust gives you abilities that can one shot silicons, fry any electronics, destroy any turfs and take down any non-living being, while creating rusted tiles and healing while standing on them. Rust also grants access to some pretty powerful spells, making it a difficulty middle ground. Ascending grants you unparalleled healing and survivability.
Path of Flesh	Principle of Hunger	The Path of Flesh focuses on resurrection and summoning player-controlled minions. Heretics on this path gain almost no offensive or defensive abilities and rely heavily on stockpiling corpses, but Flesh offers many fun and powerful tools to those who can make it to the end, making it the hardest path overall for inexperienced heretics. Ascending allows you to shed your human form and become something much greater.

Abilities

Below is a table with all your abilities. Upon choosing a path, you begin at the top of the tree, moving straight downwards; the first few abilities you unlock are thus based on your path. However, some abilities are located between paths, and can be unlocked by moving sideways once you're adjacent to them. With enough points, you can theoretically unlock all of these 'neutral' abilities, as well as dipping into other paths' abilities, but you can only ever unlock one Mark and one Blade/Steel ability, and you can only unlock the ascension that matches your starting path.

In the below tree, dark colored abilities can only be obtained by starting on the corresponding path, green abilities are "neutral" abilities that you can use to cross paths, and light colored abilities can be earned by any path by first going through the neutral ones.

	Path of Ash		Path of Flesh		Path of Rust
	Locksmith's Secret		Principle of Hunger		Blacksmith's Tale
	Follow the ashen path. Transmute a knife with a pile of ash for an ashen blade. Gain 40% heat resistance.		Follow the flesh path. Transmute a knife and a pool of blood into a flesh blade.		Follow the rust path. Transmute a knife and a trash item into a rusty blade.
	Grasp of Ash		Grasp of Flesh		Grasp of Rust
	Your mansus grasp now flings opponents away from you.		Your mansus grasp now raises dead players into subservient ghouls, this does not work on husks or mindshielded people and husks the person it's used on.		Your mansus grasp now deal 500 damage to inorganic matter. Rusts any surface it's used on, and destroys any surface that is already rusty.
Priest's Ritual	Ashen Shift	Ashen Eyes	Imperfect Ritual	Armorer’s ritual	Leeching Walk	Priest's Ritual
Transmute a tank of water into a flask(50u) of eldritch water. Heals a bit of everything, harms others a bit in everything.	A jaunt spell that makes you immaterial and pass through walls. Very short duration, you will only manage 5-6 tiles in a straight line.	Transmute a shard of glass with eyes organ to produce an amulet of heatvision. You can see better in the dark, and can see living beings through walls.	Transmute a corpse and a poppy into a voiceless dead: follows the same rule as ghouls (doesn't work on husks, husks the victim on use, doesn't work on people with mindshields) but they are mute and have 50hp. Limit of 2 at a time.	Transmute a table (built) and a gasmask to create a suit of armor. The suit more or less halves damage received.	You slowly heal while standing on rusted tiles.	Transmute a tank of water into a flask(50u) of eldritch water. Heals a bit of everything, harms others a bit in everything.
	Mark of Ash		Mark of Flesh		Mark of Rust
	Your grasp applies ash marks on hit. Touch a marked person with your blade to apply 2 firestacks and ignition. The burning spreads to other people, becoming a bit stronger each time.		Your grasp applies flesh marks on hit. Touch a marked person with your blade to make them bleed profusely.		Your grasp applies rust marks on hit. Touch a marked person with your blade to deal 100 damage to the majority of the gear they are carrying.
Curse of Corrosion	Curse of Blindness	Curse of Paralysis	Raw Ritual	Blood Siphon	Aggressive Spread	Curse of Corrosion
Transmute a knife, a spill of blood, a heart, left and right arm, and an item that the victim touched to curse them for 2 minutes of vomiting and slight organ damage.	Transmute a pair of eyes, a knife and a pool of blood with an object that the victim has touched to curse them with 2 minutes of complete blindness.	Transmute a knife, pool of blood, left and right leg, a hatchet and an item that the victim touched to curse them for 5 minutes of leg paralysis.	Transmute eyes, a left arm, right arm and a pool of blood into a Raw Prophet. Raw prophets have increased seeing range, as well as Xray. But are very fragile and weak.	A touch spell that steals a bit of life from others to heal you.	Spreads rust to nearby turfs. Destroys already rusted walls.	Transmute a knife, a spill of blood, a heart, left and right arm, and an item that the victim touched to them for 2 minutes of vomiting and slight organ damage.
	Fiery Blade		Bleeding Steel		Toxic Blade
	Your blade adds 2 firestacks to those you attack, as well as igniting them.		Your blade causes additional bleeding to those you attack.		Your blade additionally injects its victims with a small amount of eldritch water.
Cleave	Fiery Rebirth	Ashen Ritual	Lonely Ritual	Rusted Ritual	Entropic Plume	Cleave
A ranged spell that gives bleeding wounds to the target and those around them.	Drains nearby alive people that are engulfed in flames. It heals 10 of each damage type per person. If a person is in critical condition it finishes them off.	Transmute a pile of ash, a head and a book to summon an ashman. Ashmen have ashen shift, and a spell that lets them send off a great wave of fire.	Transmute a knife, a flower, a pen and a piece of paper to summon a Stalker. Stalkers can shapeshift into different creatures to blend in, inheriting their stats.	Transmute a vomit pool, a head and a book to summon a Rust Walker. Rust walkers can walk around and shoot waves of rust.	A spell that creates a cloud in front of the user, confusing and blinding anyone caught inside as well as rusting anything it covers.	A ranged spell that gives bleeding wounds to the target and those around them.
	Ashlord's Rite		Priest’s Final Hymn		Rustbringer’s Oath
File:Heretic rune.png	Transmute 3 corpses to ascend and become immune to fire/cold and space. You gain two spells: to surround yourself with fire for a minute, and to send off a massive fire wave like ashmen.	File:Heretic rune.png	Transmute 3 corpses to ascend as Lord of the night or summon a terror of the night.	File:Heretic rune.png	Transmute 3 corpses to ascend. While on rust tiles, your healing is tripled. Rust also spreads from the ritual's rune.	File:Heretic rune.png

Tips

• If your transmutations are failing, make sure your codex is on your person!
• Many unlockable transmutations require body parts or whole corpses. You can get these from your victims, as well as by raiding the Morgue, or with the correct access, turning monkeys into catatonic humans.
• Even if you never fight other heretics, you're inherently at odds with them. Each influence can only be harvested once, so the heretic that goes the fastest and grabs the most influences first has to do less killing and sacrificing to reach their ascensions.
• As a heretic, access is more important than ever! The more areas you can easily access, the more influences you'll be able to snag. Getting all access can be a godsend, and knowing how to either hack or talk your way into other departments can help you beat other heretics to the free points.
• Even after ascension, you aren't completely invincible. Don't get too hasty and end up eating a barrage of deadly lasers to the face.
• Crew will attempt to block off influences and keep an eye on them. Do not get caught standing near one for too long or you might be asked for a shake down.
• As mentioned before, no matter which heretic blade you choose, each one will have an option to destroy it. Afterwards, it will teleport you to a random spot on the Z level. This provides a very good last ditch option for escaping the authorities. As it takes two uninterrupted seconds, make sure you're clear before you use it.
• With rust, you can practically melt through walls. Use this to your advantage when you and other heretics end up in the Brig.

Game Modes on Yogstation

Traitor, Internal Affairs and Blood Brothers

Changeling

Bloodsuckers

Nuclear Emergency

Revolution

Gang War

Blood Cult

Clockwork Cult

Shadowling

Wizard

Malfunction

Heretic

Other Modes