Hello Hello! Welcome to Niel's LobCorp Abno Explanation and Creation Guide!
When making an OC Abnormality, there are a couple specific ranges that are immensely important: Breaching Damage Output and Risk Level. While all breach kills or immense damages should be talked out first or at least notified, damage output with Abnormality presences alone and collateral lead to damage type and output being important. Damage type and severity are hard to calculate for those who haven't/can't play, so I'll be specifying amounts below.
To note, on DAMAGE TYPES:
RED is direct damage to the body of an agent. This usually refers to the types of damage that can be done with weapons or the body, and envelops most forms of harm capable by weapons in the City. Despite being common, those who deal Red damage typically have much higher output in sudden bursts and should not be underestimated. (EX. Scorched Girl, All-Around Helper, Nothing There)
WHITE is psychological damage. It attacks the psyche, usually working to petrify or take away the mind of an agent, either on purpose or not. This is usually dealt by Abnormalities that work to convince employees to stay with them or who are particularly horrifying. White Damage can take a physical form by some EGO or Abnormalities in a cloud of white, choking smoke. (EX. Happy Teddy Bear, Child of the Galaxy, Blue Star)
BLACK is supernatural weakening of the mind and body of an employee. Abnormalities with magical attacks, health hazards like slime, mucus or rot, or medical influence that causes infectious harm to those around them. This causes a piercing and increasing pain much like gathering and constricting thorns, and can cut across bodies and weaker EGO like hooked thorns. (EX. Void Dream, Snow White's Apple, The Mountain of Smiling Bodies)
PALE is the most painful and dangerous damage and it directly damages the soul of agents. There are only two Abnormalities in-game whose work deals Pale damage .. and one of those is WhiteNight. In Ruina, this is shown through the status effect Erosion. It's a gradual and near unavoidable death of all who stay around this Abnormality, beyond black's rot and erosion, by enveloping their entire essence in the Abnormality's perspective. It's comparable to having your being shifted and taken away by an external force beyond your soul or body. (EX. Judgement Bird, Servant of Wrath, WhiteNight)
If you don't know damage numbers, it's okay not to use them! Saying "a small amount, a decent amount, a high amount" is more than enough! In roleplay, it's all by estimate anyway.
Now for RISK LEVEL!
ZAYIN:
The second rarest Abnormality type and very highly valued.
These Abnormalities either portray themselves as harmless, or are completely harmless without the direct fault of the Manager's command. They are not prone to breaching without external input and cannot directly lore agents to themselves. When working, they have a low damage output and will cause harm to Agents in other ways, either by entrapment or becoming a part of their presence.
Zayin Abnos, more often than not, have an immensely beneficial effect to the employees that use them or to the facility they're contained in. This can influence stats, EGO, power generation, or regeneration.
Despite this, due to their beneficial nature, Zayin non-item abnormalities are often those who would be the most dangerous should they choose to harm the facility or if the Manager somehow breaks their typical nature to strike their ire against a target.
The death counter of their negative effects will nearly always be 1.
TETH:
Any Abnormality classified as Teth instead of Zayin has earned it through their capabilities to cause harm and work types which Will set them off. Many Teth have specific work methods that allow them to stay calm however, and a Manager will be quick to prioritize those or find the consequences.
Most Teth Abnormalities aren't ranked higher due to their ability to be ignored and have predictable consequences with manageable death toll. Should their counter lower, it will either be breach or remain inside, with most having tracable breach patterns and/or will return to their own containment after a set period of time.
More often than not, Teth abnormalities will generally be friendly or try to be beneficial to those they come into contact with, only with a few exceptions. It's their attempt to be friendly, assist or help which causes the damage outside of their intent.
The death counter of their breach or effect in a typical facility will usually be 2 or above.
HE:
Abnormalities classified as He have an innate existential drive to harm by default. Whether they have good intents or not, their actions and the effects of their existence can and will harm Agents. This usually comes through the Abnormality thriving and benefiting off the consumption of employees, lowering the counters of nearby Abnormalities, or causing a breach/harmful entity through the utilization of an employee.
The one factor keeping He abnormalities from being Waw is that they require direct interaction to cause harm and oftentimes are on the line of not getting out of hand when breaching.
Helpful He abnormalities will have high assistance with weighable drawbacks. Their use will be very helpful, especially in strained situations, and the use will usually outweigh the cost - no matter how high. Their assistance is measurable and won't get out of hand without the Manager actively allowing it to.
Agents are more likely to be attached to He abnormalities than any other, with the attachment being something often unregulated and beneficial to the abnormalities and agents in a symbiotic relationship.
The most complex Abnormality type.
WAW:
The most common Abnormality label.
Best summarized as "You can work on/use this abnormality, but Watch Out!" and because of that, Waw abnormalities are oftentimes very predictable. They will have specific requirements when being worked with or else they'll spread from/during work, or they will breach on their own in direct response to other happenings in the corporation/neglect.
When breaching, they're actively influenced by the actions of the agents and managers to either increase their damage, their numbers, or their attack weight. Their work requirements and counters usually can't be ignored without facing consequences.
Waws that are helpful usually have immense and outweighing drawbacks if they are disrupted in any way, and will be turned against the facility tenfold. They can either instantly kill agents to take them into their own numbers or become an active antagonistic force.
Typically, if an Abnormality isn't very helpful enough to be a He but not harmful enough to be an Aleph, Waw is a loose label that can fit without being questioned.
ALEPH:
Aleph are the highest energy output Abnormalities, but that's for a reason. Every work with an Aleph abnormality or every moment spent not working on them could be a day's last before a reset. Work behaviors of either a department and the surrounding ones or the whole facilities need to be changed to accommodate them.
When made, Aleph abnormalities embody the sheer loss of self-percieved humanity witnessed in their creation, leading to the embodiment of a concept far outreaching their individual existence. They are no longer human even in the slightest anymore. Those that hold even traces of human appearance are merely manipulation points used to draw others in, but upon even the slightest freedom, it's shed in the overwhelming collapse of body caused by their concepts.
These entities could destroy the city if they got loose. The Pianist, an entity which destroyed a whole district's backstreets in less than an hour, in a single song's playing, who was able to flood into the backstreets and bring in hundreds upon thousands of bodies into his own performance was a high WAW. He wasn't even an Aleph. A single mid-grade Aleph would be WORSE than The Pianist by a decent margin.
With ABNORMALITY GIFTS:
Abnormality gifts are very simple in comparison to classifications. Despite rank, many low level given gifts can be more useful than higher level gifts, as they scale with the agent rather than with the Abnormality.
They embody the wavering and unstable existence of Abnormalities tying into the being of an agent. While some can be physically given, others can be formed through an agent resonating or being influenced by the Abno, quite literally taking a piece of them along.
While gifts can be removed and stored, they immediately become a part of the employee's being as soon as it's gifted as much as a piece of clothing on an Abnormality is a part of them. Agents will nearly never want to take them off or remove them unless forced. Forced removal can occasionally lead to detrimental reactions unless replaced with another.
Agents with 3 gifts or more can be considered closer to Abnormalities than humans. Main Branch agents' gift amounts would be seen as terrifying elsewhere.
High benefit gifts can usually come with consequences, as it's considered forming an agent closer into the image of the Abnormality, along with the mental and physical detriments or advantages that come with it.
Hired AGENTS:
Agents are hired through a simple criteria - reading of trauma. Through information and resources gathered from the Head, Lobotomy Corporation reads across the City to find those who have been negatively changed and transformed through their lives in the City, into trauma.
People in the City aren't as likely to be traumatized by things, let alone being affected in the long run due to conditioning and mental/spiritual exhaustion through their loss of humanity and self. This is the sickness of the mind that the corporation was founded to cure. Those who can express a factor of lasting humanity, even a little, are rarer and may be selected to be hired through Hokma's City record searching.
While it provides easier link and influence by EGO into usage without direct corrosion, it's also largely for their use later in the Well. Only those with a specific mental and physical criteria can be made into Abnormalities and even less will. Thus, the hiring range is wider.
Level 5 Agents are equal to Grade 1 Fixers or Colors in combat capability.
Quick FAQ:
Q: Why aren't more Abnormalities human-looking if they represent Humanity?
A: This is because of the process which creates them. Humans, half-dead or subdued, are placed into coffins nestled below the corporation, slowly stewed much like mummies in honey but instead with cogito. This slowly disperses their mind and concentrates it into their bare cognitive parts, effectively making what is called a Nameless. All Nameless together create the Well. Their concetrated, raw and City-unburdened perspectives are what allow for the perspective of any Abnormality to be made.
Nameless, when selected through Hokma's record process, are injected with enough cogito and a blend of enkephalin to churn and dissolve their body from the inside out, allowing the cogito to shift their body into a shape that the Well percieves them as through the eyes of a representation of a concept. They end up deformed or with terrifying aspects, and those who are somewhat more human looking end up with aspects which show as very, very uncanny. The Well isn't human after all, but they are the very perspective and beating heart of what makes humanity into itself.
Those that stay human-looking or who grasp and claw for their original humanity once injected either become failures or that becomes the embodiment of their existence as an Abnormality, such as what happened with Dr. Christopher when he became Nothing There.
Q: What makes an Abnormality containment grade?
A: Their use when contained, how easy they are to keep contained, and how catastrophic the breaches can be.
Q: Can my Abnormality deal multiple types of damage?
A: Yeah! Many Abnos change damage dealt between containment and when breaching. Some deal more than one- and even some Teths pull some tomfuckery out of nowhere with it. If they've got a knacker for violence, they're considered standard.
Q: What about (Random detail) with Plague Doctor?
A: Plague Doctor's an outlier and should never be counted for Anything-
Q: I want to make my Abnormality cool and dangerous, and Teth/He abnormalities aren't much of either.. Should I go with Waw instead?
A: Teth and He ARE very cool! They're very dangerous! They can instakill some level 5 agents, breach out of nowhere, or make a whole company panic if you're not careful! Plus, you can make them friendly and people are more likely to work with them. It's a myth that the lower the risk level, the less dangerous the abnormality - but all abnormalities are immensely dangerous and scary when not very prepared for them. Imagine Scorched Girl in a nest- huough.
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