The Hand of Moloch are emerging power players in the Shadow War. This highly secretive cabal of wealthy hyper-elites, are obsessed with immortality, and the occult. They will take any obscene measures to extend their wicked lives and increase their reach of power. The megacorps, often dismiss them as "eccentric gentry", but increasingly, conflicts of interest run hot. In these cases a cyberrunner team might be called up to infiltrate a Hand compound, in order to perform espionage, wetworks, or relieve them of a contested asset.
- Sect of elite, enormously wealthy, occult obsessed decadent hedons. Many come from “old money” families. They are bankers, investors, corporate board members, and wealthy philanthropists.
- They believe their history, wealth and genetic lines place them above the mortal cruft as “superior beings”. They seek nothing less than the keys to immortality, and the prerogative to revel in the most decadent and debased pleasures imaginable. They want to control the world, because it is owed to them. They are gods on earth, unconstrained by laws, morals and material need. Soon death itself will be defeated.
- The inner circle consists of impossibly rich ancients kept alive for two centuries through genetic engineering, organ replacement, cybernetic implantation, etc.
- In secure facilities, they keep stockpiles of clones in suspended animation. Adult clones in the peak of their physical health are kept in suspension vats for the purposes of organ harvesting, and body replacement. Cloned children are raised in highly secretive boarding school until they reach adulthood when they will be put into the vats.
- A branch of the Hand seeks the means to upload consciousness into a digital matrix. They have already come close to perfecting AI simulations of their personalities, but the actual “transference of consciousness” still eludes them. Shadow War artifacts are of particular interest in this regard. They believe that some alien “canister” like devices from the moon and elsewhere might hold the key.
- They exist above the laws of men and corporations, but will use these institutions to further their own agendas.They siphon off occult assets from the corps, or through their own networks. They also employ sorcery, but possess a shallow and incomplete understanding. The Typhonists take pains to protect their knowledge. What the Hand does with their occult assets and minor sorcery they exert influence toward their own agendas, which are usually insular, personal, obscene, & criminally weird.
- They have occult ritual pageants, elaborate masquerade balls, where they engage in sex/ drug orgies, and sometimes human sacrifice. Costumes, masks, and archetypal enactments of their mythology is a component of their rituals
- Many of these parties center around the selling and trading of “dolls”. Human trafficking rings provide men and women who are mentally conditioned with implants and drugs for obedience. Cybersurgeons perform hormone augmentation and surgery upon them to make them perfect physical specimens. These dolls are docile, compliant & willing servants. They can be reprogrammed for certain behavior profiles (using headchips) as desired.
- The Hand's base of operations are mostly in the Fortress Estates, where large ancient complexes are built in seclusion behind electric fences,15’ foot hedges and state of the art security systems. Sometimes on large yachts out to sea.
- These locations are Faraday cages, information cannot be broadcast from within them, without the express permission of the admin. No external AR or Grid connection. On site servers operate a private host/ AR node network, which would need to be tapped/ hacked from within for infiltration.
