Shattergrounds

The detonation of the artifact known as the T’zechi Digester by the Spiral Corps led to the creation of a surrounding Quantum Anomaly Zone (QAZ), an area of space where reality itself appears to have been damaged. In addition the T’zechi artifact had spawned a number of probes, stand-alone recording devices that act as smaller Digesters, that were sent to various research facilities scattered all over Concilium Prima. These probes, probably due to some mechanism similar to quantum entanglement, reacted in the same way as the Prime Digester when it detected a threat: they detonated and created their own QAZs.

Within the QAZ’s waves of quantum energy known as “Quantum Swells” disrupt the very fabric of space causing widespread damage to buildings and infrastructure and warping living organisms into terrifying new forms. The damage is so severe that the structure of the planet itself is being affected with tectonic disturbances reaching down through the mantle and even to the planet’s core.   

These areas, where satellite surveillance is impossible and remote exploration with aerial drones or surface remotes is unreliable, have become a sort of terra incognita that can only be explored by operatives entering them on foot. The information that can be gathered from within the zones is limited, however the few reports that have emerged describe buildings twisted into impossible shapes, harsh environments that can kill instantly,  areas where the normal laws of physics no longer seem to apply and most terrifying of all strange creatures who attack all on sight. 

Exact descriptions of these creatures have been hard to verify as there have been very few operatives who have encountered them and survived. Reports describe beings of indeterminate forms, ranging in size from tiny to truly colossal, which at first appear to be static or docile before viciously rending apart any living object that comes within an indeterminate distance seemingly without any warning. Whether these creatures are capable of leaving or even existing outside of the QAZ’s is unknown, but there exists a nightmare scenario in the minds of many where these entities swarm out of the QAZ’s and lay waste to the surviving population of Concilium and perhaps beyond.          . 

The true nature of the QAZ’s and the entities that inhabit them is unknown, the only thing we know for certain is that they are threatening the very existence of Concilium Prima and all those who live on it