Black Belcher
The Black Belcher is a more powerful variant of the Stoker-type zed found in and around Rust City. It shares the same fire-based construction as its lesser cousin: jagged metal cages jammed onto stumped hands, pipes punched through the rib cage, and an internal fire that belches toxic smoke. What separates the Black Belcher from a standard Stoker is its size, its durability, and its ability to project that fire at range.
Where a Stoker can only scorch what it touches, the Black Belcher hurls incendiary projectiles capable of igniting targets at medium distance. The firebombs detonate on impact, spreading burning debris across a wide area and forcing defenders to scatter or burn. Combined with the same superheated smoke clouds and scorching claws that make the Stoker dangerous in melee, the ranged capability makes the Black Belcher a threat with no safe distance.
Heavily armored and resilient even by Stoker standards, the Black Belcher shrugs off punishment that would drop lesser zed. Squads that have learned to contain a Stoker through coordinated flanking find that tactic useless when firebombs are raining into their formation. The Black Belcher is everything the Stoker is, with the added horror of a walking mortar that does not stop firing until it is put down permanently.
Where a Stoker can only scorch what it touches, the Black Belcher hurls incendiary projectiles capable of igniting targets at medium distance. The firebombs detonate on impact, spreading burning debris across a wide area and forcing defenders to scatter or burn. Combined with the same superheated smoke clouds and scorching claws that make the Stoker dangerous in melee, the ranged capability makes the Black Belcher a threat with no safe distance.
Heavily armored and resilient even by Stoker standards, the Black Belcher shrugs off punishment that would drop lesser zed. Squads that have learned to contain a Stoker through coordinated flanking find that tactic useless when firebombs are raining into their formation. The Black Belcher is everything the Stoker is, with the added horror of a walking mortar that does not stop firing until it is put down permanently.
Civilization and Culture
History
No one is certain how Stoker-type zed evolved in the first place, and the Black Belcher's origins are equally mysterious. The Dead Furnace of Rust City consumes countless undead to generate power for Rail City, and the prevailing theory holds that both Stokers and Black Belchers are zed that adapted to fire rather than being consumed by it. The Black Belcher appears to represent a further evolution, a specimen that internalized enough combustion to weaponize it at distance. Whether this is an individual mutation or evidence of directed evolution by the Gravemind remains an open question among Ironworks zombologists.
A heavily armored Stoker variant that hurls incendiary projectiles at range.
Type
undead
