Sta.sh
Sunday, 5th of February 2026. Captain John Fitzgerald Jones, citing audio log on infectious beasts.
Matriarchs are Trenestrians who have contracted "The Infection," or, in Trenestrian religious terms, Varhiin. Typically, they are still scaled, but the scales are darkened to either dark brown or pitch-black. Their eyes match their Trenestrian form's. They are unusually hairy in usual forms, and their bodies are often covered with a coat of unkempt hair that makes the beasts look almost apelike.
Matriarchs are the only known infected that can infect other lifeforms, and are able to infect any creatures with a strong enough immune system (some unhealthy humans die in the process of infection). If they are killed, their infected victims die as the undead in question did, be it a flesh wound or bleeding out... or come back as humans in about ten minutes. Whichever comes first.
These are the absolute most feared of all "common" Infected. There are many, however, that surpass it in strength, much to the dismay of human survivors of the infection. Those Matriarchs that don't bite the humans and move on... their victims aren't as lucky as the ones who go zombie.
Field scientists report that these creatures may retain some of their sanity from human times. Recordings of their shrieks show that they often plead for death or for help. The Trenestrians that are Matriarchs are not evil - but whatever is controlling them is.
The following is a direct excerpt from the files of Infection expert, Lieutenant Baye. Circa 2023.
When I was fighting a Matriarch with the H-7D4 IUSOM Military-Grade Five Barrel Shotgun, or "Hydra," as the soldiers tend to call it, I discovered its weakness to corrosive substances by complete accident when I loaded an acidic 25 gauge shell into the fierce weapon among my other four regular ones. It was his in its massive chest by the corrosive blast, though it staggered and its very skin boiled and melted, as its bones and internal organs were revealed... Oddly, the same thing happened to its infected human hosts.
This shows that the beasts do indeed have some form of weakness. This being corrosive acid. Their skin is... how you say, flaky, even with their scales. I'd suspect that they're also vulnerable to flames. Incendiary rounds, however, are scarce in all forms in the IUSOM military. But my assistant has found a few 25 gauge incendiary shells. I'm going to test them right now.
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