The Riders are sentient viral colonies. They are invisible to the naked eye, and normally exist only as an infection within a living being. They are completely undetectable without advanced equipment. Individuals who have spent a great deal of time opposing the Riders say that there's an indefinable "ridden look" to the Riders' hosts that can be recognized by persons experienced with them.
Absolutely nothing is known about the Rider homeworld. When the Riders infect a creature, they share its environmental preferences and limitations.
Advantages and Disadvantages
Riders have no ST, DX or HT of their own. Riders have IQ +2 (20 points). They have the advantages Racial Memory (40 points), and Transference (40 points — see sidebar). They have the racial disadvantages Greed (-15 points), Intolerance (-10 points), Overconfidence (-10 points) and Parasite (-15 points).
A Rider can possess any carbon-based life form. Possessed individuals assume the Rider's IQ, personality and skills ... though, of course, physical skills will be of little use in an unsuitable body. For details on skill transference, see the sidebar. A Rider has its host's ST, DX, HT and physical advantages.
It costs 50 points to be a Rider. The Rider's points can be spent only for IQ and skills; in some hosts, a rider will have a quantity of unspent points, which he won't be able to use until he finds a new host. Note that the Rider pays no points for his host, whatever its status or physical abilities. The cost of the Transference ability covers the average value of a host.
Names
The Riders never use any names except those of their hosts. Even different colonies refer to each other according to their host identity.
Psychology
Riders are driven by the need to take over and control other beings. Any carbon-based animal life can fall under Rider control. They have a conqueror's mentality — they want what others have and they'll use any means to take it.
Riders are extremely subtle and crafty. They are masters of fifth-column style subversion and infiltration. Riders will never attack frontally. Instead, they'll live quietly among their victims, infecting one after the other, until one day everybody who is not immune (see sidebar) is ridden.
Since it is easier to impersonate an animal than an intelligent personality, Riders will take over pets and domestic animals, using them to spy on members of the dominant race. When they can, they will take over couples or families at the same time, so that those who know a new victim best will themselves be victims and unable to give anything away. If this is impossible, they may pretend sickness or accident to cover the sudden loss of memory and personality change.
Riders do not have access to their hosts' memories after the first few hours, but the host's subconscious remains functional. This means that Riders actually assume much of their host's personality, including behavior patterns, speech patterns, tastes and inclinations. Riders have been clandestinely observed displaying such behavior even when they didn't need to protect their cover. If Mrs. A. never missed an episode of her favorite soap opera, she'll continue to watch it faithfully, and with apparent enjoyment, after she's ridden.
Each Rider colony is a unique personality, but it retains its parent-colony's
Ecology
It is not known where the Riders evolved. They appear to have been spread throughout the galaxy by during earlier epoch of galactic civilization. After the earlier civilization died out, the Riders survived on many worlds by riding the native creatures.
A Rider host can reproduce normally with another member of his race, ridden or not (sexual congress is one of the most efficient ways to spread the Rider virus). The offspring of a ridden individual will always be ridden unless it is immune. Riders customarily exterminate the immune offspring of their hosts.
Any carbon-based animal life can serve as a host to the Riders, from certain of the higher bacteria to the most advanced civilizations. When a host dies, his Rider dies with him, but there are ways to kill a Rider without affecting the host. Riders do not appear to age independently of their host.
The virus is anaerobic, which means it cannot survive exposure to open air. (This is not treated as a Disadvantage, because the Riders' daily life is within hosts, which are not harmed by oxygen.) The Riders must transfer through a liquid medium. Blood transfusions are almost 100 % effective and are a common method of infecting captured victims. Seduction or rape is about 75 % effective (the victim rolls vs. HT-2) and is a frequent tactic used on unwitting victims. This has proven particularly effective among the remarkably sexually active humans. Saliva transfer (e.g., through a kiss) is only about 25 % effective; the victim rolls vs. HT+2. Unless the victim is a PC who knows the Riders are attempting an infestation, the GM rolls in secret.
When an infection is effective, the Rider virus multiplies, building a neural network of viral cells throughout the victim's body. The Rider's memories, both personal and racial, are then "unpacked" from the transfer virus and "loaded" into the new Rider brain. The Rider personality becomes self-aware and takes control within 24 hours, usually during sleep or rest. If the victim is awake, there is a period of about 5 minutes during which the victim appears fevered and disoriented, but the Rider's first action is to paralyze the vocal chords so the victim can't speak. Telepathy who have been in contact with victims at the moment of takeover report that it's an ugly experience, but those who have been through it will be qualified to identify the ridden.
Culture
Riders are cooperative, and they appear to be able to recognize other ridden individuals with 100% certainty. They can only communicate with one another through their hosts' modes of communication or by making a direct body-fluid contact. Riders have been observed holding a "kiss" for three hours, in order to share racial memory between two "unrelated" specimens. On another occasion, to save time, two Riders slashed themselves and joined manipulators for a faster exchange of fluids and information.
Though they work together, Riders are as ruthless among themselves as they are with their victims. Several years ago, the Fasanni intelligence service got an unexpected inside look at a Rider invasion in process. One of their low-level agents, unbeknownst to himself, was equipped with a miniaturized audio/video recorder. When he missed a check-in date, the recorder was activated remotely and transmitted its data. It turned out that the agent had been taken by Riders!
In the three-week period covered by the recording, the Riders took over an important government offical and brought him to their rendezvous. The unlucky Rider in control of the official could not remember certain information that the Riders needed . . . so the other Riders overpowered him, tied him up, and injected him with the Gerodian serum! This killed the Rider, but left the host conscious . . . and ready for an unpleasant interrogation. After he had finished talking, he was re-infected. Fortunately, the Fasanni were able to destroy that infestation totally.
If their invasion is successful, the Riders retain the culture of their hosts, but after a few generations extremely bizarre and repellent customs begin to appear. Some of this has to do with the fact that a Rider in an animal body is the "social equal" of any other Rider ... which leads to some very peculiar sights ... but some of it is simply that the Riders are a cruel and inhuman race. Ridden cultures tend towards decadence, diminishment and extinction over the course of no more than a few centuries.
Politics
Riders are aggressively hunted by the current galactic society. The Gerodians have perfected a treatment which will destroy the Rider, leaving the host unharmed and immune. Unfortunately, the Riders know of this treatment —it's a simple injection — and will kill their hosts and themselves rather than submit to it.
Should a Rider be overpowered or injected by surprise, though, the virus will be paralyzed within 5 seconds, and will die within a matter of minutes. The host's personality will then emerge, unharmed! The host will have, at most, fragmentary memories of the period during which he was ridden. On a successful IQ-2 roll, he will have such dreamlike memories; if that roll is made by 2 or more points, he may actually remember something which will be useful in fighting the immediate infestation, such as the location of the local Rider command group. If the IQ-2 roll is failed, the rescued victim remembers nothing.
Riders prefer treachery to violence, but they will defend themselves when cornered. Several small wars have been fought between ridden civilizations and the galactic military. One particularly horrible engagement ended in the mass suicide of over three hundred million beings when it became clear that the Riders were destined to be overrun.
Some have expressed hope that the Riders can be shown the error of their ways and incorporated into galactic society, occupying animals or blank clones. Experience seems to show, however, that the race's insane malevolence is too deeply rooted for any rapprochement to be possible.
Riders as Player Characters
Yes, a Rider can be a PC. The race has no psychological disadvantages more severe than Intolerance. They're not insane, just ruthless.
A Rider who decides to cooperate with the unridden will be an instant deadly Enemy of all normal Riders it meets. Also, unless the campaign is particularly cold-blooded, the PC will have to confine his transferences to animals, the brain-dead, and (best of all, if he can afford them) blank clones. The PC Rider should only transfer to a sentient host under the most extreme conditions.
Of course, a PC can be ridden by a normal, vicious Rider. Such a character would naturally begin to infect the rest of the party first thing (it would behoove the GM to see that the best roleplayer in the group gets infected first). If everybody gets infected it's no great problem; they'll just start to play vicious Riders, concentrating on spreading the invasion
Unique Advantage:Transference
Transference is an advantage unique to Rider characters. A Rider may transfer to a new host body at any time through an exchange of blood, saliva or other bodily fluid. The former host is still possessed by a Rider, but becomes an NPC under the GM's control.
A Rider may also at any time elect to infect an new host, without transferring to that character. If the new host was an NPC, it remains one. If it was a PC, it still is ... but the player must be told that he is now playing a Rider!
When a Rider infects a new host, it may choose to forget any of its currently-known skills. The points that this frees up may be used to learn any physical skills known by the new host. No new physical skill may be learned at better than (Host's Level minus 1). So, for example, if the Rider did not know Acrobatics, and the host knew it at DX + 3, the Rider could pick up the skill at DX+2 . . . if it had enough free points to learn it at that level.
Mental skills may not be gained this way. The Rider has a foggy access to its host's memories for the first few hours of the takeover . . . enough to learn its name and its daily routine, but not enough to learn any skills. After that, the rider has no access to die host's memories. To remember a specific fact from host memories, the Rider rolls vs. its IQ, at -1 for every hour since the takeover, and further penalties, at die GM's discretion, for complex information. Only one attempt is allowed for any one memory! A Rider in a new host, especially an intelligent one, will spend its first few hours in what appears to be a trance, plundering the brain for information and, if possible, writing it down . . . a Rider's personal memory is no better than anyone else's, though the racial memory is strong.
If the host had psionic abilities, the Rider retains the power, but not the skill. However, a Rider in a psionic body can learn skills; if die host knew it was a psi, the Rider will know it. These skills, once learned, can be carried into future hosts, but cannot be used until a host is found with the innate power.
Riders in the Campaign
Riders can provide the campaign with an "enemy within" race, the kind that can look like your sister or your neighbor but they're really ... monsters!
The rumored "ridden look" of the Riders' victims is quite real, the sum of many tiny behavioral and biochemical changes that occur when a person catches the Rider virus. The first time a PC meets a Rider, he rolls against IQ-5 (those with Empathy roll at IQ). Roll at +1 for an acquaintance, up to +5 for a boon companion. On a success, the observer notices something wrong about the person. Once someone realizes what he's up against, he can buy up his "Spot Rider" ability as a Mental/Very Hard skill. On a critical failure the character will mistake a normal person for a ridden victim.
The Riders should be played creepy, like a horror movie. For inspiration, see The Puppet Masters by Robert A. Heinlein or the classic horror films Invasion of the Body Snatchers and Invaders from Mars.
Immunity
A significant percentage of individuals are completely immune to the Rider virus. Artificial immunity to disease includes immunity to Riders, and some individuals are naturally immune. The exact reason is not yet known, but it seems to be genetic and recessive. Higher-IQ persons seem to be more likely to be resistant. For that reason Riders tend to avoid highly intelligent individuals in the early stages of an invasion. It's also easier to pretend to be someone who's dumber and less skilled than someone who's smarter and more skilled.
The final phase of a Rider invasion is the rounding up and elimination of all the resistant individuals. After that things go on pretty much as normal ... people go to work, things get built, holidays are observed, messages go out . . . and anyone who comes to visit goes home ridden.
Everyone checks once to find out if he's immune to the Rider virus. The first time a Rider tries to infect any character, have the character roll vs. HT-3, with ~ + 1 for IQ over 12. If the roll succeeds, the character is immune, and all subsequent infection attempts will fail without any roll necessary. Note that all high-tech HT modifications, such as panimmunity, will also work against Riders.
Riders gains skills through transference, and furthermore has access to the memories and experiences of its most remote ancestors. Riders cannot normally be detected psionically, except by a very powerful telepath with personal experience dealing with them.