Disintegrator

Description

This device, assembled by George Pelfry, resembles an overelaborate, electrically powered, tripod-mounted and long-lensed movie camera, with a high forward-pointing metal shark’s fin rising where the film reels should be mounted. The camera-like ensemble is connected by a rope of copper cabling to a small gasoline-powered electrical motor, about the size associated with heavy-duty lawn mowers (from which it has in fact been converted). The device weighs about fifty pounds and is extremely sturdy in construction, with the fueled generator on its cable leash adding another twenty pounds to the overall weight. Any hero with experience of the Great War will likely find the whole arrangement uncomfortably reminiscent of a water-cooled Maxim gun, particularly the firing mechanism, which comprises two handles with a firing push-plate trigger set between them.

Removing all of this elaborate "casing" and "staging" would take quite some time and require specialized tools but, if done, it would reveal at the center a lever system connected to a strangely twisted metal rod.

When the disintegrator is fired, by pressing the trigger plate, a high-pitched motorized whining sound and a clattering of spark contacts somewhere within the machine can be heard, while valves set in recesses within the casing light up and a pale beam of light, slowly growing in intensity, is projected otherwise soundlessly from the device’s aperture. First appearances would leave the viewer unimpressed, the light (a strangely colorless white-grey) is no brighter than even a conventional battery torch, except for one hugely unsettling factor: the beam of light passes through solid objects out to its length, some ten yards (thirty feet), completely unimpeded by them—the light strikes them, illuminates no more than at the point of contact, and then passes through on the other side. The action of the beam has no apparent further affect for several seconds, at which point matter through which the beam passes begins to suddenly turn brittle and crumble to powder with a soft crackling noise. Liquids flash freeze during the process before also turning into powder, while volatiles suffer partial ignition or explosion—but even this is swiftly collapsed into silence. Objects caught in a prolonged beam after an initial hole is bored into them suffer a rapid cascade effect throughout their volume: up to about a cubic yard of matter is destroyed, splintering into cold ash as the dancing ghostly light ripples through them.

While the beam is being fired, nearby electrical power (about a half mile around it) is intermittently disrupted. In addition, automobiles stall, active radios blast discordant undulant howls of static, magnets lose their strength, compasses spin wildly, and animals capable of perceiving high frequencies react in a frenzy.

The base chance for firing the disintegrator is 35% to hit a moving or small target (stationary targets are simply a matter of shining the ray on them, and so require no roll). Stripped of the fakery and crackling machinery, the twisted metal rod is even easier to use, requiring an Intelligence roll to locate the "on" switch and only two successful Dexterity rolls to hit a target.

Inflicting harm with the disintegrator requires the beam to be held on the target, a fact represented by needing to make two successful DEX rolls in two subsequent rounds. On the first round nothing happens, but on the second round, the target suffers 2D100 CON damage (note this is Constitution not hit points) or, if an inanimate object, the equivalent in hit points. The damage is rolled every round thereafter if the beam continues to shine on the target. Anyone reduced to zero CON is dead, with nothing of their physical form remaining.

The damage stops if the beam is broken or switched off (of course, any item used to break the beam takes damage the following round). The beam affects all matter it passes through, equally up to its length, which is around ten yards (30 feet or just under ten meters). Conventional armor offers no protection, nor does a resistance to energy sources such as fire, radiation, or electricity, as the beam counts in essence as being a magical attack. Creatures entirely incorporeal, outside of time, or simply incomprehensibly vast (such as the Great Old Ones themselves) may be protected against the ray by their very nature or probably simply shrug off its effects like a bee sting—but this is left to the Keeper to fathom.

Using the disintegrator is not something meant for human hands. Every time it is fired for more than a single round, the Keeper should roll 1D6 for each living creature within six feet (2 meters) of the target object: on a roll of 1, each creature suffers 1D10 temporary CON damage from the unknown and unknowable emanations of the device—this loss stacks if exposed to repeated uses—CON lost in this manner is regained at 1D10 points per week thereafter. If CON is temporarily reduced to 25 points or less, those affected must succeed in a CON roll or be rendered comatose for 1D4 hours; in addition, they also suffer the permanent loss of 1D10 CON points. Note that this is not conventional radiation and the likes of lead will do nothing to shield the beam’s harmful effects from repeated use.

There are other risks of using the disintegrator of course, not least of which is the notice it attracts by those things with the senses to perceive it—as far away as the outer solar system. Additional environmental concerns, damage to the fabric of reality, and so on, by its repeated use in a confined area and, of course, the possibility that its original makers may return for it, are all left in the Keeper’s hands.

Appearances

Call of Cthulhu scenario: The Disintegrator