Cryptic Alliances: The Harbingers of Doom

Sometimes images are bad, sometimes images are decent, sometimes images are good and sometimes images are... images. That blow you away. That spark your creativity and that blow your nerve fibres into a state of total exhilaration. For me this happened a couple of days with the picture depicted below.

The Harbingers of Doom

Brought to you by Dreamstime.com and Jesse-lee Lang. I totally love this image and for me it oozes mood. Really spooky mutant cyborgs on the top of some skyscraper in front of a ruined city of the Ancients. And you know you are in trouble. In real trouble.

I immediately had to start writing the entry for "The Harbingers of Doom" - one of the cryptic alliances that will be included in Gaia Gamma. Here you go (although it is not yet complete):

The Harbingers of Doom

This sinister cryptic alliance is feared throughout Gaia Gamma. Its membership seems to consist of imhuman cyborgs or mutants, radically altered to represent the worst traits devastated Gaia has to offer (see the image above for a tactical Harbinger strike team). The sole goal of the Harbingers of Doom seems to finish what the Final War did not manage - to utterly destroy every living being on Gaia Gamma. 

While bent on chaos and destruction this brotherhood operates far from mindlessly. Its agents tend to infiltrate communities by preying on the greedy and mentally weak, promising them great gains, power and might, in exchange for their service. Whatever the detail deal, the Harbingers always seek new ways to destroy life. Usually they operate by indirect means, poisoning wells, convincing living beings to seek the blessings of the Glow (thus puttting them into a strange position towards the Church of Oppenheimer, which sees the Harbingers as misguided children - telling you a lot about the Church of Oppenheimer itself) and so on.

The Harbingers of Doom will probably be the one truly evil cryptic alliance of which characters might be able to become members (officially I will not support the Army of Purity as an organizations for PCs but they make for wonderfully stupid and evil villains) and they harbor a number of dark secrets concerning Gaia Gamma.

BTW I just noticed that I occasionally find it oddly unnerving how much James over at Grognardia tends to think in similar lines than I do. This has happened a couple of times since I started Gaia Gamma and I find his Open Friday's post on the use of art in games a very appropriate match to this one. See my opinion on the general topic in the comments to his post.