Timothy Byron

“Dad, you’re the best!”

Timothy Byron was the son of Tritonian billionaire Hugh Byron who was born with an incurable genetic disorder called Late infantile NCL (LINCL, or Jansky-Bielschowsky disease). Timothy began showing symptoms of NCL at three years-old when he began suffering from a loss of muscle control (ataxia) and seizures that would not respond to medication. However, despite Tritonia’s hospitals and the efforts of Hugh’s own cutting-edge medical facilities they were unable to decipher a cure. Desperate, Hugh even resorted to new age treatments such as “swimming with the Dolphins” and seeking out supernatural and spiritual aid from practitioners of magic and psychics. However, nothing was fruitful. It seemed that Tim’s genetic condition was no more curable than his brown hair or blue eyes.

It entire ordeal was harrowing for Hugh but so much more so for Tim; who spent most of his life bed-ridden and whose only friends were doctors and nurses. It was a difficult life, at least until Hugh happened upon the Zenith Day Project. Concealing his sons illness, Hugh enlisted Timothy and found an instant turn around. The treatments not only revitalized the boy but put his NCL into remission. Unfortunately for Tim, it was not long before his condition was discovered and he was deemed unfit as a candidate and expelled from the project.

Although technology stolen from the project allowed Hugh’s cutting-edge labs slowed Tim’s deterioration, it was not enough to cure him; something Hugh only believed achievable if Timothy was able to absorb the superhuman powers of the other children of Iméra and become the perfect man. To this end, Hugh had hired professionals working for his company abduct the other test subjects and (unwilling to kill innocent children) took DNA samples from Alabac Mohammed the Amphib, Crank the Junk Crab, Dagon the Amphib, Gobi the Lemurian, Robert Castell the Sea Titan, and Tyson the human and processed an accelerant that would serve to temporarily empower his son long enough so that he would be able to kill them and absorb their abilities permanently.

However, the children escaped before the treatment could be completed and his Tritonian doctors, many of whom were leading professionals in their fields, were still unable to synthesis a lasting formula in their limited window; especially without being able to study and test their results on the other candidates. Worse, where the temporary formula did in fact renew Timothy’s strength for a time, the inclusion of the Iota ability had also given personification to Timothy’s disease, mutating it so it could spread wildly throughout Timothy’s body in the form of weeping tumors and visceral throbbing flesh.

Tim 2

“At last… I am born! Look upon me and tremble man-things; the root of a contagion destined to swallow cities and engulf nations in the theater of hybrid pestilenceSss.. Look upon me and know that by the consecration of thy unhallowed rites you have begun a grinning march that will rot you all to fungal abnormalities too hideous for the grave’s holding. Sss… Sss… Sss…”

The nightmarish birth of what would come to be known as Tim 2was a truly horrifying event, with what remained of Timothy hanging from the shapeless tumorous mass screaming for mercy or laughing with madness. Although his first incarnation was destroyed by flame throwers by the remaining security in the employ of Timothy’s father, the abomination survived by infecting as a common cold and has since fled Tritonia in search of the Children of Iméra so it might become the perfect being

Tim 2 is an intelligent disease, able to spread from host to host in a number of different ways. It can conceal itself as lesser illnesses and even ride within a host without them showing any symptoms whatsoever. However, it can only manifest itself in a single host at a time, meaning that whereas Tim 2 can mutate a host body into a cancerous mass of writhing abomination it cannot maintain mental control over more than one host at a time. However, Tim 2 can freely inhabit multiple hosts and shift its consciousness around at will. Meaning that even if the current host body is killed, he can shift to another he has in reserve. Destroying this monster would require a monumental effort and require identifying and quarantining all those infected and then curing (or destroying all traces of) the T-2 virus.

Tim 2 is not Timothy Byron and has none of his memories or personality traits. It is an unnatural parasitic mutant disease given life by super science. It has no soul and no redeeming qualities, its only goal is to spread like a virus bring plague and pestilence to everyone and everything.

The Sickness
Although Tim can only possess one victim at a time, it can infect as many people as it comes into contact with; assuming of course they fail a saving throw vs disease (15 or higher). The incubation time of the disease is controlled entirely by the will of the virus, allowing it to stave off death in a host long enough for it to make its way through the wilderness to a new community and infect others or it can be much more rapid, resulting in death within 3D6 days is not treated (twice as long with medical attention). Curing the disease is possible but it requires a special treatment that can only be developed by a Body Fixer similar specialist in genetic disease (such as Biomancer Gene-Mages or Gene-Splicers, etc.) of 10th level or higher. Once a cure has been formulated it can be administered to kill the virus, however this is often a race against time and can be quite a struggle because given enough time to adapt T-2 can actively mutate itself to become resistant to known cures. Symptoms include everything from headaches and aches and pains to swollen tumors that sometimes sprout hair or eyes/mouths that function (even speak gibberish) independent of the host body.

“Copyright © 1990, 2005 and 2013 Palladium Books Inc. & Kevin Siembieda; all rights reserved world wide. No part of this work may be sold, distributed or reproduced in part or whole, in any form or by any means, without written permission from the publisher. All incidents, situations, institutions, governments and people are fictional and any similarity to characters or persons living or dead is strictly coincidental."