Progenitor Virus

The Progenitor, also known as the Mold or the Scarlet Rot, is an immensely ancient pathogen, as well as a sentient ultraterrestrial fungal entity.

Overview[]

The Mold as it is dubbed is suspected of being hundreds of millions if not billions of years old, and is considered to have both aided and hindered evolution of Earth's ecology through the extremities of its resulting mutations. Progenitor is capable of infecting the cells of any organism, whether animal, fungal, plant or bacterial and is the biological basis for superhuman attributes of the Sarkics.

History[]

Origins[]

The Progenitor Virus found its way to Earth through the Chicxulub asteroid, sent by Yaldabaoth, which struck the planet approximately 66 million years ago, ending the reign of the dinosaurs. It is believed that the asteroid originally carried vast amounts of the pathogen within the composition of the celestial body but upon penetrating the atmosphere, much like any hypervelocity impact, some of the impactor and some of the target material (Earth's crust) must have vaporized into an extremely hot, bright fireball, which, at the scale of the Chicxulub impact, would have radiated vast amounts of energy and in turn destroyed a large mass of the pathogen, though a small percentage of it would also be scattered through stratosphere, with at least some of the virus being present in some form throughout seventy percent of the planet.

It was not long until the mold would be discovered by early human settlers. Upon its discovery, the virus became tied to human history, as beginning with the Neolithic, the Progenitor viral disease was contracted by the West African Ndipaya tribe. Though Progenitor was in the genome of many organisms, it was almost universally inactive junk DNA.

However, within a series of caverns on the coastline, certain environmental conditions triggered viral expression within Sonnentreppe daisies. In rare instances, men within the Ndipaya tribe would survive the extreme effects of the disease, and gain superhuman abilities ranging from enhanced strength to genius intellect to unnaturally long lifespans. As a result of this viral disease, the Ndipaya flourished as a complex civilization within the caverns long before the Pyramids, effectively millennia ahead of their time in terms of construction practices. The tribe would technically be regarded as the first ever Sarkic kingdom.

Extinction Through Horrors[]

Over time, the Ndipaya experimented with Sarkic weaponry, deliberately infecting animals with the virus through flower consumption, and are known to have performed sacrificial rituals to them, tossing people into a pit to be consumed. Eventually, however, these mutant animals escaped their pit and devastated the city, killing their King. Without any guidance, and unable to find any more among their tribe capable of surviving infection, the Ndipaya migrated out to the marshlands to disparate, distant lands, though a few soldiers remained in the ruins of their civilization to ward off any intruders who may consume the flowers.

While details of what occurred next are sketchy at best, historians believe that the Ndipaya's biology would continue to mutate, albeit slowly, through the passing of time, with each future member of the tribe adapting according to their new environments. In this time, the Ndipaya split into two main groups, one that would eventually settle Europe, and a lesser-known group that would reach the Americas and populate the Yucatan Peninsula, reaching these distant lands through expansive cave systems hidden within the Hollow Earth.

Once in South America, or Mesoamerica, the Ndipaya's descendants came to discover the source of the Progenitor Virus, having come in contact with the Chicxulub impact zone while traversing the subterranean passage to the new world. This exposure to the source would taint the first generation of Aztecs, resulting in their transformation to monstrous abominations; this event being described in the legend of the Five Suns of Aztec mythology. According to legend, the goddess Chalchiuhtlicue was so disturbed by the monstrosities she witnessed, she cried a river of blood that drowned and killed the infected masses of the humans. The destruction of the proto-aztecs was in part thanks to Tezcatlipoca, who took greater precautions by making the rivers of blood boil , seeing as how the infected humans would not allow themselves to so easily be destroyed. Eventually however, this combined might drove whatever few survivors back underground, taking with them their knowledge of the viruses origins.

Kalmaktama Empire[]

The virus found its way again in 1200 BCE where the Sarkicism would fully be established for the first time in human history. The Sarkics discovered the virus from stumbling upon the impact of the Chicxulub asteroid where its power was at its most concentrated but hidden far beneath the first layer of the Earth. The Sarkics then used the power of the virus which emanated from the caverns below to create and establish their own glorious empire all while spreading their beliefs of Sarkicism as well preparing the arrival of their god, Yaldabaoth. Having reached its zenith, the empire began to spread into the Caucasus, Anatolia, Balkans, and parts of the Levant and Mesopotamia. This semi-mythical state would come to refer to itself as the "Kalmaktama" or the "Deathless".

The Sarkic empire began to establish colonies throughout vast regions and in each of the regions laid a great many monstrosities of flesh, disease, and terrible power. In modern days, these viral monstrosities would come to be known as the Mold which is a fungal superorganism. The Kalmaktama Empire established a foothold in the Mediterranean, invading/colonizing the islands of Cyprus, Crete, and Gyaros. However, there was resistance for an alliance or coalition of kingdoms and entities was formed in response to the Sarkic threat, resulting in a war around 1200 BCE. The war resulted in the total destruction of the Kalmaktama Empire but also sparked the beginning of the Bronze Age Collapse.

Modern Age[]

In the modern days, the virus was classified as the "Mold" and took the appearance of a fungal organism and was found by a team of researchers in the late 19th century who learned of Ndipaya religion and folklore regarding magical flowers. Among those who were first infected was a woman by the name of Vivian Durant-Croÿ in a village somewhere within the Eastern Europe mountain range. After coming into contact with the mold, which caused her to mutate, she started experimenting with the Mold.

She eventually gave the Mold sample to an industrialist by the name of Cornelius P. Bodfel III so he could develop a new form of bioweapon. It was a success in terms of a bioweapon, since it could turn enemies into allies, or hostiles into servants, eliminating the costs of sheltering prisoners-of-war and even combat. Eventually, this led to the surfacing of several Sarkic cults, which when pulling their resources together, discovered the Virus originally seeped from the Chicxulub asteroid and the viral properties within the asteroid are the virus at its most pure. Thus, through several illegal negotiations, they constructed a mining and industrial complex, called Garganta, used to dig out undiscovered variants of the Progenitor Virus for further testing all while having the resources of Santonian Industries, their own mining company. However, a majority of the research teams are unaware of the true purpose behind Garganta which tragically resulted in the contagion leaking out and contaminating the facility and its inhabitants.

Unfortunately for the Sarkites, their activities garnered negative attention from the bioweapon market as well as the Federal Bureau of Control and the Global Occult Coalition who raided several facilities and destroyed the samples that detained the Mold though the FBC acquired several samples themselves for further testing without the knowledge of the Coalition. Among these sites that were raided was one that was stationed in Hope, Idaho where Al Simmons and his team were tasked by Jason Wynn to retrieve the last few samples of the virus before the Coalition arrived though Simmons and his team had no knowledge of the contents inside the facility and this resulted in their capture and execution at the hands of two GOC agents.