Slightly bemused by his lack of direction Came to this world by Caesarian section Chooses his clothes to match his pallid complexion Now it takes him all day just to get an erection Hey you, things aren't what they seem Makes no sense at all.It's horrifying how casually cruel people can be. How the "to-whom-it-may-concern" violence common to large cities can annihilate the human spirit. How the rejection by ones peers can slowly kill you inside, driving you to violence, suicide....or the numbed half-life of a shambling sleepwalker. How the iciness of parents who resent your existence can reduce you to the spiritual level of a houseplant. There are many out there who could tell you a long, sickening litany of the scars endured at the hands of supposedly normal, loving, well-adjusted people...if you could see them, or hear them.Placebo, "Burger Queen"
Dirk Allen met them, or a small cell of them under Chicago. Between "The Greatest Secret of Them All" and "Dead Harlots of the Western Sky," Allen wrote a short story of people so crushed by violence, ignorance, and lack of love and hope that they failed to register with people visually, audially, or in memory. According to Allen, they congregated in out of the way, abandoned building in extended, dysfunctional families. Most of their time not spent on simple survival was spent nursing old wounds, cursing the darkness impotently, shivering and moaning, staring off into space, or turning on each other in fits of rage, resulting in violence, rape, and murder. But sometimes they turn their hatred and bitterness outward, against those who made them the way they are, and then the true terror begins. How many murders are ever solved, or even discovered? How many rapes are reported versus the number committed? How many people end up spending a short season in hell because they crossed someone they didn't know or remember? How many haunted buildings actually are? When released, Dirk's short story, "The Zero" was favorably compared to Harlan Ellison's "The Whimper of Whipped Dogs" as an allegory of urban alienation. No one, of course, thought it could be true.
Dirk Allen knows better, and so do quite a few people in the Occult Underground. And wouldn't it be nice to find a few of them, the perfect assassins who would do just about anything for a little recognition, a little respect, a little attention and maybe (God forbid!) affection or friendship? Of course, finding one in the first place is damn difficult, and you always run the risk of finding a Zero (singular and plural) who's so far gone that s/he would torture and kill anyone who showed him/her anything resembling attention or interest. Of all the Occult Underground, it's rumored that only Jeeter has made any lasting alliance with them...and anyone who hurt Jeeter will end up facing down an angry mob of people s/he never knew existed. But lots of weird things are rumored about Jeeter.
The Zero generally look like human beings, except they always dress in black (or go naked; after all, no one's watching) and their skin is always pallid, no matter what their ethnicity. They always look anorexic. All of them have 5 Failure marks in Self or Helplessness, and may have more Failures elsewhere. They are tempermental to the point of violent bipolarity. Establishing communication with one of them, let alone any sort of relationship, is extremely difficult. This is because they somehow never quite register visually....or audibly...or on film....or in forensic evidence...or in memory, even among former friends or relatives. The most disquieting of them are the children, usually born of rape, who've never known what it's like to be a "regular" human.
Dirk Allen sure doesn't like talking about them. It might have something to do with the fact that the 'leader' of the Chicago cell told him, "You'll be one of us soon enough." Among Zero circles,it's the nastiest insult that can be given to an ooutsider.
Points: 180-200
Body: 30-70
Speed: 30-70
Mind: 30-70
Soul: 5-15(max)
Annihilism: This is a Soul-based score that all Zero possess. It is different, though, in the fact that it's uppermost limit is 100 *minus* the Zero's Soul score. It represents how hard it is to remember the Zero, find any evidence of his/her existence, or remember him/her for any length of time. No one knows what happens to those Zero whose score in this skill reaches 100% (Ascension, of a sort? Or a permanent annihilation?) Many in the Occult Underground would love to learn this skill...until they realize what it costs. Use it to determine how little an impression the Zero makes on the world around him/her. Note that other Zero aren't immune to these effects. Note that the effects are *always* on, unless the Zero dies. Some fun, huh?