Council of Seven Information Services (C.o.S.I.S.) – Z

Project Kovoss was not an overnight success. The overall aim of the project was to fully understand the Plague and eventually render it controllable, but this proved more difficult than Kain ever imaged. There were countless setbacks, and on at least two occasions the virus – which seemed to have a sentience all of its own – somehow broke quarantines and almost began a full-scale outbreak. Thankfully, the research facility was guarded by elite Lu-Fan army troopers who were under strict shoot-first orders, and each instance was contained within well under an hour.

Kain’s first positive tests came three years after he first began work on Kovoss, when he successfully utilised Plague spores to ameliorate acceptance rates in a standard tissue graft. He followed this up by attempting a cross-species hybridisation, attempting to fuse alien body parts to a human subject. One tiny step at a time, his work progressed to the point where he could easily combine elements of multiple creatures, using the Plague’s mutagenic properties as a sort of glue to bind everything together. Once he was certain that he had neutralised its ability to self-propagate, he removed his subjects from their sealed environment and began to subject them to field tests.

Going undercover, Kain introduced his creations to the underground DreadBall scene as “Kovossian Mutants”, relying on the widespread ignorance of the Plague to ensure their true nature remained a secret. If the players sharing a pitch with the abominations knew what they really were, Kain would be strung up in seconds, but he sees this as a negligible risk; the crowds don’t care where the Kovossians really come from as long as they continue to display such obvious brutality and skill.

Some Corporate sponsors haven’t got easy access to bizarre aliens or giant robots to form unusual teams, and everyone wants something weird to draw in the crowds. Farbiketek scientists began experimenting with retraining cerebrally enhanced clones mainly for their own amusement when a supply problem marooned them on Shebentor IV’s outer moon for over two years.

By the time the rescue team arrived they found two teams of highly trained clones playing DreadBall and nothing more than a few bones of the original scientists. Not one to miss out on a potential profit, the commander of the rescue mission kept the teams intact and ran a league of his own on the way back to base. The rest, as they say, is history…

Zee teams usually rely on weight of numbers to succeed, and their coaches know it! BioNod Industries has been struggling to keep up with orders for more clones. After all, you can never have too many Zees! Don’t be fooled by the fact that they’re genetically modified monkey clones – the Kolossals’ underhanded antics make for great entertainment, to the delight of their fans and the DGB alike!

Zees love nothing more than “borrowing” valuables from anyone careless enough to let them. It’s no surprise that many of them are drawn to piracy; however, many find lack the patience to live in deep space, and drift into other pursuits such as zatjacking or playing in illegal sports games.

Of the various alien races that grace the DreadBall pitches across the Corporation, the Z’zor are one of the most worrying to watch.

If normal insects look a bit odd and move a bit strangely, the Z’zor have all that in far more abundance than leaves most humans comfortable. They move wrong, their body language is wrong and they can stop so suddenly and so completely that you have to blink to check that you aren't looking at a still picture.

Once they get past the shock of seeing a bunch of six-foot-tall bugs playing DreadBall, fans go crazy for Z’zor teams. You haven’t lived until you've seen one of their Guards charge down a fleeing Striker!

Gmorts Chaotica would like to thank James M Hewitt, Mantic Games, the Quirkworthy Blog, Titan Games and of course the Corporation for their invaluable assistance in the compiling of this encyclopaedia.