Rot-Engine

At a glance: Machine-Graft Scourge elite siege platform · plants at range and dissolves the lane with a corrosive bile lance · swollen front bile sac is both the threat and the weak point · appears in Deadlane / Scourge-Survivors / Redline.

A Machine-Graft Scourge elite built from a conquered heavy vehicle — transport, hauler, or field-artillery chassis — gutted and reborn as a bile-artillery platform. It never needs to close in. It plants at range and dissolves the lane.

Behaviour

• Stops at distance and holds position; unlike Graft-Breacher it does not advance into melee.
• Primary attack: sustained bile lance from a toxic-green sac fused into the former engine cavity — a pressurised stream of corrosive fluid that eats through tower armour and fortified walls over seconds of dwell time.
• The lance is a structure-killer and zone-denier, not an infantry weapon; it cannot track fast-moving targets.
• Secondary: when pushed into close range or flanked, the sac vents radially — bile burst that injures clustered infantry and coats the ground in toxic slick, slowing any advance.
• Acts as fire support in mixed waves: the swarm rushes while the Rot-Engine pins defenders behind corroding cover that is already buying the rippers time.

Gameplay Read

• Low, wide vehicle profile — ground-hugging, tracked or multi-wheeled chassis; reads distinctly from Graft-Breacher’s upright walker frame.
• The bile sac dominates the front mass: it is the threat and the obvious weak point simultaneously.
• Counter-play has two correct answers, each with a cost — shoot the sac at range to force a detonation that splashes bile onto nearby Rippers and Spitters; or advance past its minimum range to deny the lance entirely (closing into the blast radius of the vent).
• High-value variant: the chassis sometimes carries a Choir relay node, extending the Choir’s reach into the lane. Destroying this variant frenzies severed units nearby for a short window. Flagged by a second active toxic-green node on the hull.

Visual Motifs

• Former vehicle chassis — low, wide, track- or wheel-mounted; machine origin still legible beneath the infestation.
• Cockpit hollow and breached: no operator, no glass — fibrous wet tissue packed into the cab.
• Bile sac swollen past the burst bodywork of the engine bay, held in place by ribs of split chassis metal.
• Black chitin crawling up the hull panels from axle to roofline, heavier on one side.
• Organic ducts where fuel lines were — thick, pulsing under pressure, bile-green through semi-transparent tissue walls.
• Old vehicle markings — load ratings, caution stripes, fleet numbers — barely legible under the growth.

Sprite Brief

• Views: front, side, back.
• Must read as wheeled or tracked vehicle, not a biped — wide, low, close to the ground. Clearly distinct from Graft-Breacher.
• Front: bile sac is the dominant mass; hollow cockpit sits behind it; threat and weak point both immediately obvious.
• Side: low ground clearance; organic ducting along the chassis length; sac pressure visible.
• Back: least consumed — intact hull plate, the safest approach angle.
• Scale: similar footprint to Graft-Breacher, significantly lower.

Art Master

• Status: v02 candidate master attached for review. Strong vehicle / siege sac read; next pass should pull more hull mass into rust, verdigris, and gunmetal.
• Art master index: Scourge Foe Art Masters

Prompt Seed

Scourge elite ranged siege unit, low wide tracked or wheeled vehicle chassis consumed by parasite, toxic-green bile sac swollen in burst engine bay, hollow breached cockpit packed with fibrous wet tissue, black chitin crawling up hull panels asymmetrically, thick pulsing organic ducts replacing fuel lines, old warning-stripe markings and fleet numbers barely visible under growth, blood and rust and gunmetal, DOOM-like heavy shadows, no neon.

Appears In

• Deadlane — ranged fire support; pins Warden tower defenses from distance while the melee wave closes; must be prioritised before the sac corrodes through the outer wall.
• Scourge-Survivors — mid-to-late elite; occupies a corridor entrance and saturates it with bile; players choose between the long shot on the sac or charging through the lance to deny it.
• Redline — a lane-saturating bile platform that floods a stretch of the route with corrosive spray; the runner threads a gap or boosts through before the sac corrodes the lane shut.