RPPR Illustrated: The Simulacrum Engine

We're doing a new series of images for RPPR Illustrated, NEW and unique artifacts and objects usable in any number of games! We'll be doing actual plays featuring these objects. The Simulacrum Engine was used in a Mothership game coming out this month. 

Thank you for supporting RPPR through the years! This year we'll be finishing up Cointract Island and after that, our run of Delta Green's Impossible Landscapes! We also have a new bonus podcast series called The Recommendizer and more!

The Simulacrum Engine

Description: A room-sized alien machine of multiple linked metallic objects with a large cylinder at its center. A rectangular interface stands in front of the cylinder with an interface of abstract symbols. Each object is linked by metallic tubes. It is buried underground. The largest component is the cylinder, which is twice the height of a human and wider. It is found underground. It could have been built by aliens or by an advanced human civilization from another universe or the future. It has an internal power source and is mildly radioactive, but not dangerous. 

Overview: A machine that creates modified clones of any intelligent creature. Its origin is unknown and can be found anywhere, usually buried underground. Learning how to use the Engine takes months of scientific study, but once the controls are understood, anyone can be taught to use the machine. A user places an organic sample of an intelligent creature into the Engine and then programs how to modify it. A block of base organic materials (carbon, hydrogen, etc) is loaded into the machine. The Engine has its own unique programming language, based on universal mathematical principles and geometric shapes, so that almost any number of modifications can be made to a cloned creature. Once the modifications are programmed in, the Engine is activated and in a matter of seconds, a cloned creature emerges from a large cylinder in the center of the machine. 

The Complication: The builder of the Simulacrum Engine (not its original name, but a name chosen by its most recent discoverer) wanted to destroy immature civilizations that lacked the wisdom to avoid destroying themselves, if given the tools to do so. It designed a trap targeted at exploitative cultures that would be unable to resist the chance to clone a perfect slave workforce. The builder designed the Engine so that once the civilization depended on slave clones, all of them would spontaneously die, thus causing a total collapse of society. However, the builder created a flawed trap because the programming language of the Simulacrum Engine is too nuanced and complex. Any mistake in the programming creates a flawed clone. Any scientific team that makes more than a few clones is bound to be overwhelmed by monstrous and violent clones.

The Clones: Each clone can be modified on a biological and on a psychological basis. Default clones appear the same age as the target knowing everything the target knows. Clones know they are clones, by default. An operator can program in flaws, but every clone has secret flaws, based on the operator’s lack of scientific knowledge. After all, the operator can’t build their own Simulacrum Engine, so they can’t fully understand how to program an existing one either. 

Psychological Flaws: Roll or pick for each clone created. Additional flaws may be added. 

1: Slayer - The clone is obsessed with killing their source. It tries to kill them to the best of their ability. 

2: Servile - The clone has no free will and does whatever they are told to do, by anyone. 

3: Opposite - The clone has the knowledge and skills of the source but the opposite personality. 

4: Cosmic Horror - The clone has knowledge of the unnatural and claims to worship an alien deity. Prone to becoming a serial killer. 

5: Gestalt - The clone’s knowledge and skills are a composite of multiple sources. Some sources may have never been used in the Engine before. Personality is unstable and erratic. 

6: Avatar of the Builder - The clone is imprinted with knowledge of the Engine’s builder. They wish to fulfill the purpose of the Engine and tries to persuade their source to help, by any means. 

Physical Flaws: An operator that fails a skill roll to program the Engine adds a physical flaw. Clones of clones automatically have at least one physical flaw. 

1: Short-lived - The clone lives for 1d100 hours before dying. The clone is aware of their short lifespan. They are not happy about it. 

2: Tumorous - The clone is covered in tumors. If damaged, tumors spray the area with biohazardous fluids. 

3: Mutated limb - 1d4 limbs are mutated in obvious ways. Examples include tentacle arms, digitigrade legs, crab claws, and so forth. 

4: Impossible Physiology - the clone has a physical feature that should instantly kill it or simply not work. They could have crystal eyes, no head, a hole in their chest, or no outer skin. Many times it merges inorganic features with flesh, especially mineral or crystalline elements. 

5: Unstable strength - the clone is capable of superhuman feats of strength, but at a great cost. Any time they goes beyond the limits of the source, they can suffer physical harm.

6: Shoggoth - the clone comes out as a mass of protean flesh, tentacles, eyes, and mouths. It consumes any living creature it can. 

Endgame: After the Engine creates a certain number of clones, it assesses if the civilization is on the path to building a self-procreating slave clone workforce. If it is not but is still creating clones, the Engine is programmed to destroy the scientific team studying it, so that another civilization can find it later. It creates monstrous clones that seize the Engine and wipe out any nearby researchers. After that, the clones re-bury the Engine and die. 

Art by Patsy McDowell