Item Reports use "infoboxes" as a quick reference that briefs Chaos Insurgency operatives on the basic and relevant characteristics of a particular anomaly.
In our wiki's infancy, the infobox was among the first innovations that we implemented to establish a new identity for the Chaos Insurgency. Since then, the infobox has stayed a static and undeveloped part of the standard Item Report, in which the process of writing it is akin to filling out any ordinary form for your public documents.
Authors have come to me expressing how cumbersome it is to decide what to include in their infoboxes. I, myself, understand their concerns. Sometimes, the section is too sparse. It's dryly-written and barren of engaging content. Other times, it appears disorganized, a collection of random or meaningless facts. It could also simply be a problem of standardization of the statistics: "what exactly are Item Types? What do we call our Locations? How do we classify the Primary Anomaly?"
All of these problems, I posit, can be fixed if we, as a community of writers, understand two things about the Chaos Insurgency: its vision and personality.
The Insurgency, of course, can be molded to different archetypes: the ruthless warmongers who seek to rule the world through the anomalous; the liberators of Teal entities; misunderstood radicals who wish to advance humanity to the next step of its evolution; true goalless vectors of Chaos; or any combination of the above. I will be writing at length about the many archetypes that the Insurgency can embody in another guide.
For now, let us begin to uncover the art towards making better Infoboxes. We will begin with two presumptions:
- The infobox can set the Tone, Imagery and Central Purpose of your Item Report.
- To achieve good Tone, Imagery and Purpose in your reports, you must understand how the Insurgency's vision and personality is infused into your article.
If these problems are addressed, the Infobox can be a powerful vehicle for storytelling, and a boon, rather than a liability, for writing and reading Item Reports.
We will be exploring statistic by statistic, starting with a few "flavorful" stats that can help you add personality to your next Infobox.
But first…
Let's touch on the Insurgency's vision and personality, as seen in your Item Reports, a bit more.
Why? Simply put, your choice of words and statistics in the Infobox will provide readers with a reflection about the Insurgency's way of thinking. Consider the following prompts:
- Two researchers from different Insurgency cells are tasked with categorizing the Type statistic of a typical horror-movie ghost. Researcher A describes it as a "spectral entity," a rather clinical term that reflects his cell's inclinations to science. Researcher B calls the ghost a "daemonic being," as is the case with Sekhmet's report, suggesting that his cell has leanings toward mysticism.
- The captured Foundation researcher might instead refer to the ghost as "ectoentropic." Researchers A and B nod in thoughtful agreement, before harvesting the infidel's organs for testing.
- Reading through another infobox, you realize that the Item is a small, adorable living garden gnome who tends to its facility's rose garden. And then you realize it has a Kill Grade.
- On the flip side, another Item is typed as an "oceanic cryptid" the size of a skyscraper. You'd expect to read about a destructive new lifeform, but then it's revealed under the Item has no Potential/Current Hazards, explaining that its "indoctrination" has been successful. What on Earth…?
The first example gives you an opportunity for worldbuilding, as you shape how various factions, cells or agencies within the Insurgency choose to approach the anomalous. The second makes the reader interested in answering "why" an innocuous gnome has a statistic for how many casualties it can cause during a single activation/mission. And the third offers a glimpse into the Insurgency's capabilities as written in the rest of your article.
There are, of course, many more ways to use your Infobox's statistics to achieve various ends.
Next, let's approach some unique statistics, starting with…
Kill Grades
Some articles, you might notice, have uncommon statistics such as "Kill Grade" that are marked in red. The red is simply a stylistic choice; a means to highlight the nefariousness of their data's nature. And, by extension, these statistics are also a stylistic choice for establishing the Insurgency's black morality and fatal tendencies.
Kill Grades are excellent metrics for an organization that doesn't shy away from creating havoc and destroying lives. It is a shorthand for an Item's power, lethality, and danger.
The barest implementation of a "Kill Grade" measures the likeliest magnitude of total casualties that can ensue from a single activation of the Item. As a writer, you may play around with the scale of each Kill Grade, with the following briefing to serve as a rough guide:
Kill Grade I
Estimated Casualties: 1-10
Can apply to:
- Assassination specialists;
- Items who prey on only one or a handful of targets before they are sated or deactivated;
- Biological anomalies that must regularly transfer to a new host before killing the old one;
- Awiti, who is uniquely suited to mauling their enemies;
- Shapeless Knave, who is a covert operative that excels in dispatching single enemies in the shadows;
- Satire Truck if it hits a stranger every time it goes on the road again.
Kill Grade II
Estimated Casualties: 10-100
Can apply to:
- Tactical offensive units;
- Items that excel in skirmishes where their Primary Anomaly can dispatch squads of enemies, or, put another way, kill squads of Insurgents if they ever escape, such as the Candle Wax Child, Togalai, or Ward of Zephyr;
- Items that cause limited but lethal area damage, including Antonio's Cigars;
- Archangel of Scorn after being fused to Ignitia's Sabre.
Kill Grade III
Estimated Casualties: 100-1,000
Can apply to:
- Anti-Facility siege specialists that can shatter a rival organization's bases and leave it vulnerable for an Insurgent assault;
- Anti-Swarm or Lethal Crowd Control units;
- Items with mind-jacking effects to which hundreds of potential victims can easily be exposed;
- Items whose lethal effects are propagated through sound, aerosols; eye contact; etc.;
- Local Area Denial anomalies, such as a feral cat guarding a narrow mountain pass that can cause never-ending avalanches to fall upon an enemy assault force;
- Glittering Gold when deployed to flush out an entrenched SEPIA facility;
- Charybdis, a modern-day Kraken.
From Kill Grade III onward, an Item's destructive power can be so severe that its activations risk a retaliatory strike from rival groups who are concerned about the Insurgency "breaking the veil" and exposing the public to anomalous activities.
But if your Item is being handled by a particularly savvy commander, director or researcher, there is little to fear. Of course, if you'd prefer shattering the veil that blinds the sheeple to the gospel of the Insurgency's anomalous might, that's fine as well.
Kill Grade IV
Estimated Casualties: 1,000-100,000
Can apply to:
- Local to Regional Area Denial anomalies, such as a pair of fully-transformed Blood Rain infectees that can mutate nearby trespassers, and whose victims can cause an infection cascade that affects nearby towns.
- Items that can cause major natural disasters, e.g. the Seismic Rodents
- Pathogenic Items, like Sporal Contagion and the aforementioned Blood Rain
Kill Grade V
Estimated Casualties:100,000-1,000,000
Can apply to:
- Weapons of mass destruction;
- Particularly virulent cognitive hazards;
- Items capable of causing prolonged or several natural disasters;
- Items with an effective range the size of a country, a continent, or the entire world;
- The Bell of Entropy unleashed upon an unsuspecting Foundation once more;
- Sekhmet if enough of her heart's ichor leaks and touches the soil, which can fully depopulate an area the size of Australia as all of the lifeforms there rot into black goo;
- The End of Days Engine.
This is the proper syntax for adding Kill Grade to your infobox:
||**##crimson|Kill Grade:##**|| I/II/III/IV/V||
| Kill Grade: |
I/II/III/IV/V |
Now, onto another Sadistic Statistic. We have…
Attack Usage Priority
This is a shorthand designation of how inclined we are to employ the Item for combat operations compared to other possible options. It could be understood as the result of the Insurgency's analysis of the risks of Item usage relative to its reward.
As a statistic, Attack Usage Priority is most relevant in military contexts; ergo, its presence in the Infobox reflects the Item's overall predisposition to combat usage.
In many cases, the IRUS (Item Research, Usage and Storage) specialist tasked with writing the Item Report might have consulted with a Beta or Gamma-level military officer on the best ways to use the anomaly from a tactical, operational, or strategic standpoint.
AUP is a great way for you, as the author, to explore the headspace of an Insu cell's war council.
Fortropp
Etymology:
Norwegian noun for "vanguard," the foremost part of an advancing force.
Applies to:
- Reliable, generalist Items;
- Items that are expected to deal with a highly-varied range of combat situations while being fairly cheap to deploy, maintain and repair;
- Organisms or constructs which can easily be regenerated or replaced, while providing an average amount of utility in combat, at the very least;
- the Imperial Sharks, fast and reliable deep-sea shock or rapid-response units that can wreak havoc on enemy fleets.
- Tuskbore, a highly durable ambusher who can reconstitute vehicle scrap into tusk bone tissue, and regenerate in combat.
Anathemic
Etymology:
Ancient Greek for "thing devoted (to something)"
Applies to:
- Like its namesake, Specialist Items that are the dedicated first strike option against specific nemeses or rival factions, and may or may not be that effective for anything else;
- "Thaumiel"-class SCP objects are Anathemic, if our dear cousins over at the Foundation weren't a whimpering litter of pups and actually dared to use them properly;
- An immortal but reclusive samurai who will only agree to joining missions if it involves killing yokai (daemons) is a textbook case of an Anathemic Item. In this case, we could say that it is Anathemic to daemons.
As you can imagine, an Anathemic AUP opens up possibilities for discussing the history and background of your Item.
Fini
Etymology
Modern French adjective for "finished."
Applies to:
- Items of Last Resort. In basic words, the true Weapons of Mass Destruction, whose activation is usually only approved after all other options have been exhausted.
From a literary standpoint, Fini should be reserved for Items that are either rarely used, or rarely brought up to their full potential, and must therefore be afforded the appropriate level of gravitas when finally activated.
In being activated, there should provide a significant strategic benefit to the Insurgency. To that end, I propose including a "plan of attack" in your Fini Item Report that illustrates any sort of procedure the Insurgency may execute to get the most out of the anomaly.
Note that contagions, reality warpers, and severe cognitive hazards are not necessarily Fini-level anomalies if they are simply very dangerous to restrain. The Insurgency must have, at the very least, a reliable means to utilize the anomaly effectively to be considered Fini. Otherwise, they are just liabilities.
Correct syntax:
||**##crimson|Attack Usage Priority:##**|| Fortropp/Anathemic/Fini ||
| Attack Usage Priority: |
Fortropp/Anathemic/Fini |
I believe there is plenty of room to expand in terms of Attack Usage Priority classifications. I invite you all to experiment, and be sure to explain your inventions in places like your Item's discussion page.
Weaponization Potential
This is, I believe, the most nebulous of the three Sadistic Statistics that I originally envisioned.
Its original name was "Weapon Potential Index," which was introduced in Charybdis. I had given Steffie the idea, although she was responsible for elaborating on it.
One way to interpret Weaponization Potential is that it measures how easily an Item's Primary Anomaly can be directed into combat applications.
Using Charybdis' own data as an example, it has a Weaponization Potential of 550. Combined with the description of its combat abilities in the report, we can assume that a WP of 550 means that Charybdis can wreak havoc as naturally as a human might eat a slice of bread.
Let us attempt to quantify Weaponization Potential for our own uses. I have devised the following simple formula, which divides WP into three factors:
Weaponization Potential = Ease of Use * Scope of Combat Effect * Relative Combat Ability
Each factor quantifies a particular aspect of Weaponization Potential and converts it into a score. These scores will then be multiplied to find the final statistic.
Ease of Use
Score Range: 0.01-0.10
Description:
This evaluates how much an Item's Primary Anomaly naturally lends itself towards combat uses. Consider the following rough examples:
- 0.01: A naturally homicidal, knife-wielding scarecrow that can only swing their weapon a few times before their straw in their arms break off. Unwieldy and fragile.
- 0.03: A titanic cryptid who can shatter cities, but has zero cooperative tendencies and the emotional maturity of a reticent two-year-old. Can only be plied with several tons of maple syrup pancakes. Incredible power, but hard to activate.
- 0.05: A combat droid from another dimension, with the firepower of a handful of tank platoons. Regardless, it has to recharge every ten minutes. Good in limited exchanges, bad in prolonged conflicts. Maintenance issues are another worry.
- 0.07: Ward of Zephyr. Proficient in his weather-changing abilities, but relatively inexperienced due to his young age and inferior in skill to his father.
- 0.10: Charybdis. Unleash it and it will rip and tear until it is done. Or recalled. Or destroyed.
Scope of Combat Effect
Score Range: 100-1000
Description:
In practical terms, Scope refers to how far you have to go to stay away from the Item's mayhem. An Item might be powerful enough to tear through city blocks or vast swathes of the open ocean, or they might cause an apocalypse that only affects their backyard or apartment building.
Rough examples:
- 100: Person-to-person. A mischievous daemonic being that stalks its victim for a week before it kills them.
- 200: Person-to-group.
- 300: Local, city-wide.
- 400: Local, encompassing several cities.
- 500: Regional or local, encompassing several districts or provinces. Charybdis falls here, as it is fast and lethal enough to prey on enemy fleets over large stretches of the sea.
- 600: Regional, state-wide.
- 700: National, encompassing one or several countries.
- 800: Continental
- 900: Global
- 1000: Extra-Global. A catch-all term for an Item whose effects extend to beyond the Earth.
As you might notice, the score is weighted heavily towards the Item's scope, as its combat abilities affect enemies in larger and larger areas as its score becomes higher.
Relative Combat Ability:
Score Range: 1-20
Description:
This estimates how well the Item fares in combat against baseline and anomalous threats.
I will presently try to keep this score arbitrary, so you can make your own estimates on how effective your Item is. Several aspects can play here, from offensive capabilities, speed and durability, to an Item's tenacity, synergy with other Items or fighting forces, and other unique traits.
I will provide some very loose estimations of my own, strictly as a rule-of-thumb:
- A score of 1-3 means that the Item will need to expend a lot of effort just to defeat baseline humans, ranging from lightly-armed cops to squadrons of professional soldiers.
- A score of 4-7 might be serviceable for many combat-oriented Items, who can handle both baseline attacks and fight rival anomalies with varying levels of competence.
- A score of 8-10 suggests that an Item can shrug off the punishment from entire battalions, air squadrons or naval fleets, or come out on top in engagements with several enemy anomalies.
- A score of 11, as with Charybdis, might signify the threshold above which an Item can be considered a superweapon. It is powerful enough to be unstoppable in most engagements, but is likely inevitably mortal if caught in the wrong circumstances.
- A score from 12 to 20 would refer to various superweapon-level anomalies. The Bell of Entropy, End of Days Engine, and Sekhmet all fall somewhere within this range.
Returning to our Charybdis example, we can plug in its scores to get 550:
Weaponization Potential = Ease of Use * Scope of Combat Effect * Relative Combat Ability
Charybdis Weaponization Potential = 0.10*500*11 = 550
The correct syntax for Weaponization Potential is as follows:
||**##crimson|Weaponization Potential##**|| 500 ||
| Weaponization Potential |
500 |
