| No one really knows where the now abundant gas plants had begun their life - no one cares. All that they know is that they are dangerous and are now considered almost an epidemic throughout many of the underhive areas.
The gas plant is one of marvelous genetic design. Its life starts off as most other plant forms - weak and small. Most of all it is dependant of decaying life or carbon based materials for nutrients in the ever-darkness of the underhive. Trash heaps, refuse pits, and other unwholesome locations are perfect seeding grounds for these tremendously dangerous plants.
Unfortunately, there is no way to avoid them - where ever there is life, there is refuse and excrements that go hand-in-hand.
The gas plant has either been mutated with cross polination from the toxic pools or other pollutants filtering through the underhive and they have grown much larger and a great deal faster than anyone had expected.
Taking only hours to mature, the gas plant will swell with the buildup of gasses in internal bladders which stretch and deform almost to the point of bursting. These matured gas plants will often rise off of the ground, uprooting their roots from the soft soil beds which had bore them. They remain aloft at a reasonable level as the air pressure equals out and sail along on updraft currents or through forced air ventilation systems.
A gas plant will slowly deform as the floating popule grows older. Often times this deformation will result in the bladder rupturing and spewing it's contents for great distances, thus spreading immature seed pods and the deadly gasses which had filled the plant bladders. Overall the skin that makes up the bladders is relatively strong - sometimes being able to withstand the bursting of other plants nearby or even an occasional run-in with sharp objects as the plant floats along on a leisurely pace.
However, these skins are very suseptable to damage from other forms such as lasers, flames, explosions, and high frequency vibrations. They have also been known to burst upon contact with other living creatures, however the relationship of living creatures and nonliving object causing these ruptures is still unknown.
Many plants may share a variety of properties within the same object - for example, one gas plant may have several bladders which have a different type of gas in each bladder. Some may even have the same gas in every bladder. It is theorized that the composition of the bedding soil has an overwhelming hand in how the plant itself develops. However, since these plants often uproot and roam through corridors and open areas alike, knowing what one plant carries is very difficult to judge decisively.
Using the gas plants
To use a gas plant in your games, it is recommended to have multiple plant stands representing the base. In our example here, a CD-ROM has been turned into a gas plant root system.  The base itself will remain stationary and the bladders will block line of sight if they are drifting to low on the table. The root system used to tether the great bladders to the main root system will not block line of sight in any way.
Any model which moves through, touches, or otherwise interferes with the base of the gas plant (i.e. shoots through, moves through, close combats, etc.) through, inside, or even over a gas plant base will have a chance of setting off some of the bladders. The bladders may also be targetted at a legitimate target and counts as a large target gaining the shooter a +1 to hit bonus. Once a bladder has been hit, it will automatically be wounded due to its fragile nature.
Once a bladder detonates, roll a D6 to determine the number of bladders which have been ruptured by the activity.
Each ruptured bladder will result in the possibility of a different type of gas being released. Roll on the gas release table below to determin type. The effects of each gas are detailed below.
Gas Release Table |
1 |
Scare Gas |
2 |
Choke Gas |
3 |
Halucinogen Gas |
4 |
Gas Plant Spores |
5 |
Photon Flash |
6 |
Chlorine or Methane Gas |
| Gas Effects |
Scare Gas |
As scare gas grenade |
Choke Gas |
As choke gas grenade |
Hallucinogen Gas |
As hallucinogen gas grenade |
Gas Plant Spores |
As smoke Grenade |
Photon Flash |
The gas contained inside of this bladder had reacted with some trace chemical in the atmoshphere and ignited in a blinding flash. Treat as photon flash grenade |
Chlorine/Methane Gas |
A heavy concentration of green gas has emitted from this bladder. If it was a flame weapon which had set off the bladder, then roll for setting the bladder on fire. If the bladder does catch fire, then the gas which has just vented will ignite -- explosively. Roll scatter by 1D6 inches distance, use the small blast template to indicate the area of effect from the FIRST blast. From the first template, roll the scatter die again to determin where the SECOND template will contact the FIRST template. Do the same for the THIRD and final template. Anyone caught within any of the templates are automatically hit, those who are partially covered will be hit on a roll of 4+ on 1D6. Each model hit will suffer 1D3 S4 hits from the massive concussion and flaming gout of noxious gas.
If the weapon or disruption of the gas bladder was not due to a flame weapon, treat it's area of effect as the small blast template in size and will act like a smoke grenade form drifting and shrinkage - except for further effects. Any model passing within the area of the gas cloud may be effected by the gas if not properly equipped. Filter plugs, gas masks, etc. are the only form of protection for the momentary exposure to the concentrated gas. Those improperly equipped, they will suffer an automatic S4 hit with no save possible (since armor doesn't protect against gas.) Those who loose their last wound and are wounded by the gas will go out of action with a 4+ on 1D6. Those models with multiple wounds will loose only one from the momentary exposure. |
Modeling the gas plants
Of course modeling the gas plants can be done in many ways, however, the plants demonstrated here have been made with an AOL CDROM disk, some coat hanger guage wire, some various sized styrofoam balls, and a hot glue gun.
Firstly, take the wires and twist them togethger around each other. This is what gives the dynamic nature of the floating orbs as well as some strength.
The orbs are attached to the wires by cutting out a small hole in the orb and hot glueing the wire into the orb. A vein like surface is created by using the hot blue to run in thick stripes radiating out from the stem of the wire. They are created with various branching veins of smaller sizes running off randomly whith each tapering to a point about half way around the orb.
You should then hot glue the wires to the CDROM base in the center of the disk. Once the glue on top has dried sufficiently, you can turn the base over and drop a few blobs of glue through the center hole to add a little extra bonding support. Cover the base with the necessary basing material (flock in our case), and paint the plants a suitable colour. Viola - your done.
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