Darkspawn

EXTRATERRESTRIAL STAFF
Darkspawn	Access: Wherever your job has access to Additional Access: Anywhere you can break or sneak into Difficulty: High Supervisors: None Duties: Consume people's will and turn into a screamy-monster-thing Guides: This is the guide

Gamemode in rotation

Darkspawn begin in a similar fashion to the shadowling gamemode, disguised as a normal crewmember with the ability to reveal their true form. If they refuse to do so within 30 minutes, the Darkspawn will be forced to reveal themselves.

After divulging, the Darkspawn get access to the abilities: Pass, Devour Will, and the Psi network. Starting with 3 lucidities, the currency of the Psi network, the Darkspawn can purchase additional abilities from the Psi network. To gain more lucidity, using the Devour Will ability on a humanoid will grant 1 point.

The win-goal of the Darkspawn is to use the Devour Will ability on 15-30 unique individuals (scaling with population), unlock all passive abilities, and use the Sacrament ability.

Use .w to communicate with other Darkspawn.

Abilities

Icon	Name	Description	Psi Cost	Lucidity Cost
	Devour Will	Baseline. Puts a dark bead in the user's hand that they can use on a conscious human to drain psi and lucidity. The dark bead lasts 3 seconds after being prepared, you have to hit someone before then. Successfully devouring a human's will completely refills your psi and grant an additional lucidity, as well as knocking them out for 30 seconds. You can only gain one lucidity per unique individual, but devouring one again will still refill your psi. Careful! every point of damage they take means one (1) second of sleep taken away. Attempting to cuff them will instantly wake them up.	5	Baseline ability
	Pass	Baseline. Morphs a free hand into a mass of tendrils that have many uses. Examining the tendrils will detail their effects on different intents. On help intent, clicking a tile will throw you to it for 10 psi. On disarm intent, clicking an airlock will force it open for 15 psi. On disarm intent, clicking a bolted airlock will destroy it for 30 psi, with the time it takes being reduced if you have the passive pass upgrade. On harm intent, will throw the tendrils, knocking over whoever it hits for 4 seconds. Hitting a Cyborg with the projectile will deal 10 damage, cut their headlamp, and stun them for 2 seconds. The tendrils themselves deal 15 damage and break lights instantly in melee.	0	Baseline ability.
	Demented Outburst	After five seconds, unleashes a shockwave that blows over everyone nearby and sends objects flying. Not interrupted by movement and can only be cancelled by going unconscious.	50 psi	2
	Simulacrum	Creates an illusion that mimics you and runs forward for ten seconds. The illusion is revealed when examined.	20 psi	1
	Tagalong	Melds with a nearby target's shadow, allowing you to "ride" them into lit areas. Use this in any way you can think of; spying, stealth. This ability is cancelled if the target enters a dark area, as they won't have a shadow anymore.	30 psi	2
	Silver Tongue	Recalls the emergency shuttle if the Darkspawn has access to a comms console.	60 psi	1
	Creep	Prevents you from dying in the light as long as the ability is active. Once cast costs 5 psi per second.	5 psi	2
	Time Dilation	Makes you immune to slow down and do actions faster for a minute	75 psi	3
File:Veil mind.png	Veil Mind	Converts nearby non-implanted people who have recently had their will devoured into veils, which are loyal to the Darkspawn but can be deconverted with mindshield implants, their body and face will be covered in sigils that will need to be hidden underneath clothings and masks. Veils have 60 maximum health, but this is reverted upon deconversion.	60 psi	2
	Crawling Shadows	Turns you into a near invisible form that can ventcrawl and has a melee stun attack for 1 minute, can be ended early. Dying in this state will cause you to actually die.	60 psi	2

Passive Abilities

Name	Effect	Lucidity Cost
Mending Sigil	25% Faster Healing in Darkness	1
Lightward Sigil	Halved burn damage from light and resistance from dimmer lights.	2
Psi Sigils	25 extra maximum psi.	2
Recovery Sigil	Psi regeneration activates faster and regenerates up to 5 more psi.	1
Starlight Sigils	Allows the Darkspawn to move safely in space, giving immunity from starlight.	3
Duality Sigils	Upgraded pass tendrils, allowing them to drag people to you and stunning them twice as long on harm intent.	1

The Sacrament

After devouring enough individuals, the Sacrament ability will be unlocked. Upon using the sacrament ability, the Darkspawn is trapped in a 5x5 square and a global sound starts to alert the crew. After approximately 30 seconds the Darkspawn will turn into a progenitor and the emergency shuttle will be called with a 1 minute timer that cannot be recalled.

Tips

• Get together, stay together! People will arm up and travel in groups to fight darkspawn, and one darkspawn is never strong enough to fight a coordinated security force with armory gear.
• If you can wipe out security, you're in the clear for the rest of the round. All the more reason to be ready and in force when they come hunting. Of course, picking them off one by one would be ideal, but you can't always rely on them splitting up.
• Incendiary weapons are your bane. You recover slower from burns than from brute. You don't take damage from heat, but you do from light, and fires glow. This is especially bad if you're grouped up with friends, as the fire will spread among you: so, get a fire extinguisher before you divulge.
• Also get maintenance access before you divulge. Hacking and Pass-Disarm are good and all, but maintenance means you can move through and between hideouts stealthily and under time pressure. If security is searching your maint, just run across the hall into the next one over!
• Use Devour Will in combat. It's very quick to cast, and can easily be pulled off while Pass-Harm has them on the floor. Anyone you devour not only counts to your Psi and Sacrament, but is out of the fight for 30 seconds if left undisturbed. You can also crit them before they wake up if you hit fast enough.
• Unlike shadowling thralls, Lucidities are not shared between darkspawn. Try to make sure everyone gets a taste of whoever you're able to subdue. Devour Will can't be cast on someone who's still asleep from being devoured, but other darkspawn can hop onto the same victim while Devour Will is being cast.
• The Duality sigil is strong. Not only can you now knock people down with Pass-Harm, but in the same move, you get them into Devour Will range. It also doubles your melee damage output.
• Lightward and Mending sigils are also strong, just for keeping you on your feet. You'll need every sigil eventually for Sacrament anyway, but Duality, Lightward and Mending are the best.
• Veils have no tells. The only way to know one for sure is to try to mindshield them, which deconverts them.
• If you get veils, give them any weapons you pick up. You don't need a stunbaton or cuffs to keep anyone down (Devour Will), you can't shoot guns, and you probably don't have room to carry a spear. They can use all of these to bring you more prey.
• Darkspawn don't have hearts and don't passively revive in the dark light Nightmares do. If they die, the only ways to revive them are cloning or revival surgery, both of which require a fairly heavy hold on medbay. Veil Mind is helpful for this, too.
• Plasmaman helmet lights can be extinguished by Pass tendrils, but this leaves them without a helmet - which means they catch fire - which means you have limited time to devour them before they go into crit, they're still glowing, and they can set you on fire. Don't.
• Darkspawn have no particular mobility powers except Crawling Shadows' Vent crawling, which is useless in maintenance where you will be spending most of your time, and Pass-Help, which is just a lunge. Don't get pincered. Be wary of your surroundings, including and especially what's offscreen.
• Knocking out lights all throughout the station is more of a shadowling thing. You can break any light that bothers you, are considerably more durable against light than shadowlings are, and don't rely on the dark to fly through walls, because you can't fly through walls. Don't fret too much about power, although a blackout sure doesn't hurt.
• Darkspawn's greatest strength is their mobility, tentacles and lowered damage from light with sigils. Go for maint access or try and bolt open maint doors everywhere. Hopping from one maint to another is your friend, even though light-filled corridors. Darkspawn don't have good choices against multiple targets that don't require bought abilities, so your best option is to throw tentacles or help intent and fly away.
• Duality sigil is the most important upgrade. Allowing you to throw your tentacle and have them be dragged to you. While also being dragged to the tile Infront of you, increases the paralyze from 2 seconds to 3, meaning they can't do anything, and the knockdown from 6 to 8. This gives you enough time to sleep them or reform tentacles and disarm strike to turn off their lights. Perfect for throwing at someone and running away. Also increases action speed when opening/destroying airlocks.
• Veil mind is useful if you rush after putting a point in duality. Allows thralls to play sneaky as they have no visual tell outside of their actions, and forces security to focus on mindshielding all of crew instead of hunting you down. Focus on it, or don't go it at all. With 15 being the most likely number of people you'll need to devour will, most of your 18 lucidity will be spent towards the 10 required for all of the sigils required to ascend, leaving little room for defensive abilities.
• Demented outburst. Big cost, long cast time and noise that gives you away, but perfect as a defensive move. At 100 psi, up to 125 with the sigil, using it twice is about all you have in you.
• Creep is good for switching between areas, to jump out from maints to devour someone.
• Silver tongue allows the darkspawn to call the shuttle no matter what time it is at making this a very powerful ability especially if you are doing the veil mind rush.
• Tagalong. Useful if you jump on someone, jump on sec as they're hunting you, or jump on a thrall. Stops working while you're in darkness, good for espionage.
  • Always Acquire maint access. Always make sure you have a way out of, and into, maintenance. Pick a quiet spot to divulge, you'll have a 3x3 area around you of purple sparkles. Careful of capes, some emit light. Pick up duality and lightward sigil. Now you have a longer stun and less burning from light. Your go-to combo is to have your tentacles ready on harm intent, throw them, wait for the person to fly TO you (if you walk forward, you can be hit and stunned by them as if they were thrown AT you) and hit devour will to create an orb in your hand to click on them with. They're slept. Take their ID if they're sec/high ranking, and bolt. Sleeping people wake up in 30 seconds, each second reduced by each point of damage they take while sleeping. Disarm intent to hit lights so you don't throw yourself or the tentacle. Switch maints often. As you gain more lucidity, either pick up faster healing, faster psi regens or a defensive ability such as demented outburst. Your ascension requires UNIQUE sleeps, so don't be afraid to poke out of maints for a thrown tentacle. You WILL be found out, but darkspawn thrive on being mobile in light and their stuns. Throwing tentacles at Borgs WILL stun them and turn off their light, but you can't fight them consistently without a flash. While in maints, always have a second escape route and avoid fights where you're outnumbered. If in doubt, throw tentacles and disarm-attack people if they're hit and down, which will force them to retreat without a light. You are fast but are weak in light, meaning you need to be smart about picking your fights. Thermal vision is your best friend, and helps you poke out from maints for people staring gawk-eyed at the door.