In the far frozen reaches of the world of progress, deep into the southern polar cap, a creature unlike any other roams the vast glaciers, bringing terror and destruction to the far-flung colonies.

In the beginning of the world of progress, when the golden age of progress was still in its infancy, SLA made many advances in the field of biogenetics and the related fields. Many of these experiments failed, many more were discarded, and only the few fortunate enough to have the best minds working on them ever succeeded beyond any blueprint.

One such project was the Stormer regeneration plan, at first an idea to give all the newly engineered soldiers the ability to repair themselves in battle. The ideas were not always as sophisticated as the end result, in built, self-sustaining regeneration was an ability not even considered at this stage. At this point it was thought a better idea to give each Stormer the ability to consume its kills, thereby replacing its own bodily damage. The first prototypes of this were field tested in the initial phases of the age of progress, when hundreds of experimental Stormers were dropped onto war worlds and left to scour the surface, consuming and destroying all before them like a swarm of locusts. The initial reports came back with resounding reports, and the project was deemed to be a success.

However, a storm is on the horizon.

In what was to be a routine sweep and clear of a possible terrorist threat went suddenly, terribly wrong. The officer in charge of Stormer one squadron that was sent made his final report to Almighty, the air team covering the mission:

"Stormer One to almighty."
"Almighty responding."
"Mission has suffered hideous casualties, the Stormers are eating each other, I can't get them under control" "We read Stormer One, move to rendezvous one-one-four, we'll be ready to pick you up."
"That is a negative Almighty, I'd never make it, they'd just get you as well."
"Very well Stormer One, please advise."
"Never thought I'd have to do this, but Let It Rain Danger Close, come down on this transmission, suggest you load Plasma torpedoes, should put them down long enough to kill them."
"Roger that Stormer One, you will be remembered."
"Tell that to my wife and kids."
"Understood."

Over sixty plasma torpedoes landed on the position of the leader of the squad Stormer one. The initial impact wiped clean a one mile radius of life from ground zero, melting several million tons of the polar ice cap and forming an artificial lake of plasma for a few seconds before the cold of the cap reduced the plasma to a churning poisonous sea. Within two days, the lake had re-frozen, and all elements of the disaster had been thought to be covered over.

Would that all the problems of the world could be removed so easily.

Nine hundred years went by, the Stormer projects continued, the new variants were made and shipped out to their various locations, but then from the south came the reports of the mass destruction from the southern colonies. SLA took notice after the third such problem, and dispatched the operative team Infinite Law to the scene of the devastation. Extensive property and collateral damage was noted at the locations where the colonies were. The damage was made more noticeable by the absence of the casualties within the settlements, in fact, no bodies, and indeed, no colonists. All life within the colonies had vanished. An idea as to what may have happened presented itself when the operatives prepared to move off and make their report. From the air, the pattern of devastation resembled huge circles, perfectly spaced, and moving from the south to the north. At that point, a distress call was received from Tinas Prime, the largest colony to the north.

The operatives responded with all due speed, and reached the outskirts of the colony within minutes. What they found there defied belief. A forty feet high colossus of flesh and tissue rampaged within the colony walls, indiscriminately attacking all the life within the settlement. Disembarking from the speeder, the operatives launched an attack upon the creature. It responded with deadly force, instantly slaying the operatives who had closed to short range, then moving to attack the other operatives who were firing upon it. Absorbing most of the weapons damage without cause, it slew two more operatives before the wraith scout, Hangfire, switched to incendiary rounds. The creature reacted with fear at the sight of fire, fleeing the scene of the devastation without any further pause.

At this point, Hangfire was debriefed by Cloak Division operative Tarius

TARIUS:"Tell us in your own words what happened"
HANGFIRE:"We responded to the distress call within Tinas Prime and set down just outside the main walls"
TS:"What did you see at this point?"
HF:"A thing, maybe thirty feet tall, killing and mangling everything in it's way"
TS:"What did it look like?"
HF:"Like a Stormer, but different, it looked like it had no skin, and there were faces in it's body"
TS:"Faces?"
HF:"Yeah, faces, like all it's muscles were made out of heads. I could see the mouth's moving when it was in motion, it was like they were all trying to talk through the skin"
TS:"What else did you notice about the creature"
HF:"It was slow, it didn't seem to care about how long it would be there, there was no urgency in it's actions, it was as if it was enjoying the carnage it was causing"
TS:"Go on, describe to me how your comrades met their end"
HF:"Well, Jones and Def charged it and tried to engage it in close combat. It just reached out and touched them, I've never seen anything like it, the skin on its arms seemed to stretch over them, before I could do anything to save them, it'd just absorbed them, like you would with two pieces of putty. I could see their faces moving around under the skin. I guess I must have frozen, because it came for us then, M'nth'n was firing full auto with a Dante issue 808, Lorus was firing on it with a MAL assault cannon. None of the rounds were penetrating"
TS:"So what gave you the idea for what to hit it with?"
HF:"Well, it seemed like direct shots weren't doing anything, so I thought of the only rounds that I had left, which were those heavy duty 212 incendiary shells, I popped a few in it's path, see if I could slow it down"
TS:"And the results?"
HF:"It seemed terrified of the fire, It ran, well, as much as something that size could be seen to run, it didn't stop until it cleared the walls of the colony, at that point, I lost track of it and called for backup"
TS:"Do you have anything further to report?"
HF:"It was making a noise, continually repeating the same thing, over and over"
TS:"What did this noise sound like"
HF:"Like a Krrrr, maybe Core or something, that's all I remember"
TS:"Very well, wait here, one of my colleagues will be along to take care of you shortly"

Following this, SLA dispatched a cloak team to the southern polar cap to attempt neutralisation of the creature. They found no traces of further destruction, but followed the trail that the beast had left to a huge crater within the huge glacier. Cross-referencing the location with historical databases revealed the fact of the Stormer one squad mishap. Entering the creature's lair, several of the cloak squad were killed before the squad was repulsed. What they managed to observe forms the only basis of knowledge regarding the creature. A quarantine zone has been established in the southern pole, several plasmatic fire throwers have been erected in a one mile radius from the entrance to the creatures lair, and extensive seismic searching of the whole area revealed no other entrances or exits that the creature could leave through. It is assumed that the creature is contained within it's cage.

The creature known only as Core is a huge amalgamation of several hundred lifeforms, originally merely the members of Stormer One squad, it has since grown and mutated further. When the original strike was called down on the ill fated squad, one Stormer by the name of Kor had been underground at the time, and escaped the majority of the blast, knocked into a state of dormancy by the impact wave. It's body floated to the surface, buried under thousands of tons of rock, it remained alive only due to a freak pocket of air in the depths of the ice mountain, when the water cooled into ice, the creature was deep frozen for hundreds of years. Upon the thawing of the ice, the Stormers enhanced metabolism kicked in and brought the creature back to some semblance of life. Remembering something from the dim recesses of it's memory, the creature clawed its way to the surface, finding that it's skin was now hardened and rocklike in it's consistency, and that it's heart beat with the fury of the plasma that nearly destroyed it. The creature clawed its way to the surface and began its hunt for those that had killed it. Finding one of the smaller villages, it saw food and moved to take what it wanted. However, it found that it had a new ability, when it reached out and touched living matter, some strange mutation caused it to absorb any new living matter and make it a part of it. As it did so, it began to hear new voices in it's head, the souls of all the dead, and it grew in power and strength as it absorbed more and more of those who would destroy it. The voices reached a crescendo and the creature that had been Kor raged at all the new voices that confused it, he began to cry out his name, desperate to keep itself in one piece, desperate to remember what it had once been. The creature now roams on instinct alone, trying to find the members of the squad it knew, the life it once had, all the time roaring it's name to an uncaring heaven, in the hope that someday it will find peace.

Core - The Statistics

STR 30
DEX 5
DIA 5
CONC 12
CHA 0
COOL N/A

Skills
Unarmed Combat: 9
Stomp/Crush: 6
Pistol: 3
Swim: 10
Tunnel: 12
Tactics: 2
Survival : 15
Absorb: 20

Special Abilities:

Absorb: If core makes physical contact (skin to skin) with any living lifeform, it will immediately begin to absorb that lifeform at the rate of 10 hit points per round. When all the creatures hit points have been absorbed, the creature will have been completely consumed by core. Once consumed, nothing will be able to separate the two.

Core also has the ability to absorb abilities and skills from races that it absorbs. This is done when the creature has been completely absorbed. Any skill that core does not already possess, or if the creature has a skill that core already possesses but the creature had a higher proficiency in the skill that core currently possesses, then core can learn something from the creatures genetic material. In game terms, core takes one point from any three of the skills that the creature has higher ratios than core in.

There has been no mention made of all the other skills that core would have picked up in it's time rampaging through the cities, these are up to individual GM's. Furthermore, when core absorbs a creature, it also regains all the creatures hit points to add on to it's own, this bonus can and often does take core above it's normal hit points level, if this occurs, the hit points total is retained until core sustains damage.

Natural Armour:

Core has a natural PV of 15 against all weapon types, this is unaffected by any type of weapon, even armour depleting ones.

Natural Weapons:

Besides its absorb ability, Core can strike with its fists at DMG 15, PEN 10, AD 6. This will only come into effect against non-living targets If Core chooses to, it can make a single stomp attack on any target under eight feet tall. This attack is DMG 30, PEN 15, AD 10.