Kalyr meets Invasion of the Bodysnatchers

Population: One: Monday Mashup #2

We have a new gaming meme, the Monday Mashup. And this week it asks:

Pick a roleplaying world and talk about how you'd use the specified book/movie/TV show/whatever as an inspiration for a campaign or one-shot set in that world. You can post on your own blog or LiveJournal or in the comments here, as you see fit.

This week, your mashup subject is Invasion of the Body Snatchers. (The 1978 remake is also valid fodder.)

I tend not to GM much using published settings, preferring to develop my own. So let's set Invasion of the Bodysnatchers in Kalyr. I ran a five year campaign using the setting a few years back, and currently run two on-line games set there. As well as the odd convention scenario.

For those of you not familiar with the setting, Kalyr could be described as a science-fiction setting dressed in fantasy clothes. Psionics is quite common, and technology has become more arcane, the principles by which devices work lost or obscured. And the whole world is ruled by secretive and sometimes hidden elites.

Kalyr already had a race of psionic shape-changing aliens, the Drarth. As a race they're not particularly malevolent, although a small percentage of them are insane, at least by human standards. So far, the 'bad' Drarth tend to be loners, so an organised Drarth conspiracy would not be expected. They're too few to attempt a takeover of any of the larger cities (and my games set in this world have so far been largely city-based), especially since any significant population of psis are likely to sniff them out pretty quick. A small outpost might be a different matter, if the Drarth can eliminate or subvert any psis present. Or perhaps one very powerful Drarth could do it on it's own, replacing one individual and using it's psionic powers to control everyone else? And just what might their agenda be?

Alternatively, we could go for the technological route. One secretive group in Kalyr possesses the technology to produce clones. Taking the Cold War metaphor into Kalyr's own Cold War, we'll have them in league with the "Evil Empire" of Kalyr, Karmork. Their agenda is much more straightforward, to expand their brutal and chauvinistic empire. (They're really closer to Nazis than to Communists) They'll be substituting their clones for important members of the societies they plan to subvert and soften up. Such a plan would be very long term, would need large numbers of agents to gather the required DNA samples of their chosen victims, and significant effort to remove them (by kidnapping or assassination) so as to replace them with the clones. They won't go to the trouble of trying to replace a large fraction of the population, just a small number of influential people; city administrators, military commanders or influential religious leaders. Can the heroes thwart their plans before the clones betray the city to the invading army marching out of Karmork?