Lore · Šumava Incident Mitigation
The zone is fiction.The mechanics are not.
FF Horror ships the systems and assets of Spooks 2, a mission set one year after the High Density Energy Incident in the Šumava. This section is the in-world material: ŠIM, the three divisions, the documents, the leaflet bestiary and the research that the soul system is built on.
The incident
HDEI, twelve months later
01The event
A failed experiment in the Czech Republic detonated with enough energy to saturate a wide area with mytoplasmic energy. Entities of unknown origin entered the territory. Residents became aggressive vessels or mindless reanimated corpses attacking living creatures.
The incident is called the High Density Energy Incident — HDEI. Documents are dated “HDEI + 12 months”.
02The response
Czechia, Germany, France and partner nations funded containment. ŠIM — Šumava Incident Mitigation — coordinates it: the perimeter, the checkpoints, the scientific directorate and the three specialist formations.
ŠIM is a joint coordination cell, not a nation. Its authority is what lets the Board sign an order nobody else can see.
03FOB Barbados
A forward base inside the containment picture: four months to build, operational for two. Strong infrastructure, the launch point for zone operations, and the hub for supply runs across the checkpoints.
A checkpoint delivery does not confirm an expedition has returned. That line in the field order is the whole tone of the mission.
04Operation ORIGIN
One authorised expedition to the research site where the experiment failed. Specific exception B-14 to the general stand-down G-13. Investigation, evidence recovery, and a return that the Board already assumes may not happen.
B-15 defines what happens if it fails: no attribution, no acknowledgement, no rescue.
Formations
PDU, SITF, SERE
Three formations, three jobs: understand the anomaly, enter it, bring people back out.
Substances
Three materials, one chain of confusion
| Substance | In-world description | Addon expression |
|---|---|---|
| Mytoplasm | Common. Detectable by chemical detectors, harmful to living humans; concentrated inhalation causes pain, suffocation and unconsciousness. | The CBRN danger model: fog density, hazard zones, filters and supplies. |
| Cytoplasm | Less common, recovered as spilled liquid near infused entities; suspected byproduct of interaction with human flesh. | Pickup item FF_Horror_Cytoplasm; research props. |
| Ectoplasm | Exceptionally rare, transitions between liquid, gas and plasma, some samples appear able to move independently. | Pickup item FF_Horror_Ectoplasm; the soul system's in-fiction basis. |
Why this matters to a developer: the lore explains the design. Mytoplasm became the fog model, ECP-1 became the soul shield capsule, the totem became the respawn anchor, and the pulse became the gravity visual plus the electronics-destroying mission mechanic.
Threats
The bestiary is a field-leaflet set
Each archetype has a recognition leaflet with a threat line and a prescribed response — and a weight in the atmosphere director.
Walker
Baseline host.
weight 0.15Shambler
Ten outweigh fifty Walkers.
weight 2Smasher
Extreme threat, ranged.
weight 16Goliath
Immediate combat at 45 m.
weight 50The soul system
ECP-1: the reason death is not the end
In the fiction
E-04 describes a pocket capsule of concentrated ecto-cyto-plasm. Poured onto a recently deceased human, it lets the subject enter an ethereal state and voluntarily seek a reanimation anchor — a shrine, crucifix or column shrine with enough combined concentration.
Three intervals stay separate: exposure, death-to-application, and transition. No universal timer exists, which is exactly why the addon has no automatic timeout respawn.
In the addon
FF_Horror_SoulShield is the capsule. Another living player applies it through ACE on your body.
The orb is the ethereal state. The destination object is the anchor, and arrival materializes you beside it.
Documents
Everything that was on the desks
Orders, bulletins, witness statements, leaflets and manuals — with their full text.
Reading rules
What is canon, what is art
ŠIM, PDU, SITF, SERE, the divisions' emblems and every document here are fiction written for the Spooks mission. They are not real organisations, insignia or records. The addon mechanics documented elsewhere are real code; when the two disagree, the code is the contract and the lore is the flavour.
Canon for the mission
Dates relative to HDEI, order numbering (G-13, B-14, B-15), document codes, division roles, symptom descriptions and the ECP-1 procedure.
Deliberately unresolved
What caused the experiment to fail, who the shadow figure is, why ectoplasm accumulates at holy sites, and whether the pulse has a purpose. The documents say “unconfirmed” on purpose.