In Eastern Europe, something is hunting and killing tanks.
At least, that's what the evidence suggests. Refugees and free traders carry stories of wrecked armored fighting vehicles found in the wilderness, destroyed recently enough that the remains of the crews are still fresh. Most appear to have taken hits from large-caliber guns; many are riddled with machine gun fire. All are missing significant chunks of armor or major components, torn away with massive force. The ground around the hulks is churned by the marks of treads. Sometimes, a few of the tread prints contain bloody puddles flecked with things best not dwelt upon.
The few survivors of such encounters have a few more details. A foggy night, suddenly pierced by the glare of a searchlight and the growl and rattle of a diesel-powered tracked vehicle in poor repair. A silhouette looming on a nearby ridge, then slowly drawing nearer. Someone's resolve breaks and a shot rings out, answered immediately in equal measure. RPG gunners are torn to shreds by machine gun fire; missile teams and vehicles hammered with cannon shells. Ordinary riflemen are simply run down, vanishing under the stained and muddy tracks.
One rainy spring night outside Lublin, a Polish gunner spiked the beast with an AT-5. It burned until dawn, when the flames suddenly guttered out. When scouts approached, no wreck could be found. For the next two weeks, it stalked the company's perimeter, picking off a fighting position or a few men each night. It caught the first two patrols sent out; their screams lasted for hours. No one was willing to be the third patrol to look for it. When the shattered survivors broke and abandoned their firebase, they found it blocking their route on the first night of their flight.
The thing doesn't have much of a mythology around it yet. Few people are in a position to put together reports from multiple encounters. A handful of survivors have a name for it, though: Koschei the Deathless.
Description:
Koschei the Deathless is rarely glimpsed directly (except by characters about to be run down and flattened). The most common images are described above: fog, the glare of a searchlight, and muzzle flashes. Closer observation is problematic, but reveals a T-55 main battle tank in battleship gray paint with no unit or national markings. Its hatches are closed and no crew personal gear is visible on the turret exterior. On thermal imaging, the tank appears to be cold, despite all evidence to the contrary.
Characters downwind from Koschei may smell diesel exhaust mingled with carrion.
Activity:
Koschei the Deathless strikes seemingly at random anywhere in Eastern Europe. It seems to be attracted to groups of a hundred or less, almost always current or former soldiers with at least one armored vehicle in their possession. Functional main battle tanks seem to draw its attention the most, as if it considers them some sort of challengers.
Koschei never shoots first. In fact, it does nothing more than approach until someone's trigger finger gets itchy, at which point it responds in kind. Of course, its very presence tends to induce cascading morale failures, so few observers retain enough wits to realize this. If no one initiates combat, Koschei will shadow the group until dawn, staying between Medium and Open range. Any attempt to approach closer than Tight range results in Koschei withdrawing to Open range again.
Koschei only appears at night. At dawn, a swirl of thick fog briefly obscures its position, then dissipates to reveal nothing but tread marks in the earth.
Mechanics:
Koschei functions as a standard T-55 operated by veteran NPCs. However, crew hits have no effect on it and it never suffers morale effects. It never runs out of fuel or ammunition. When attacking with its main gun, Koschei functions as if it has good stabilization. It uses HE ammo on soft targets and HEAT or APDS on bunkers and armored vehicles. Koschei suffers no terrain penalties to movement and never gets stuck in soft ground, even swamps.
Koschei's presence counts as one threat condition, increasing to two threat conditions within Medium range and three threat conditions inside Tight range. No character can sleep within Extreme range of Koschei. For (10 - RES) nights after an encounter with Koschei, any character receives only half the normal benefit from sleep due to recurring nightmares that elude all recall upon waking.
If Koschei is disabled by suspension, engine, fuel, or ammo hits, it explodes and burns until dawn. The flames cannot be extinguished and nothing can be salvaged from the wreck. It subsequently appears to the same group for the next 1d20 nights, seemingly unscathed from its previous destruction, aggressively stalking and killing 1d6 victims each night. If a group somehow manages to immobilize it without actually attacking it directly, it vanishes at dawn and will never again appear to anyone who participated in the encounter. However, its hatches (including its fuel tanks) are impossible to open, and any external fixtures removed vanish as soon as no one is watching them. Dismounting the pintle-mounted machine gun at the commander's hatch is feasible, but anyone who fires it (or uses its ammo in another weapon) may find himself intangibly but permanently marked by something.
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