Fourth of four illustrations for the epilogue to Imperium Offtopicum IV, September 2010. Completing the trend of 'leaving no deficiency un-agonized', though the soldiers' poses are solid, I should've done more with the Abhorrents. When the game started to slacken, I had the bright idea of giving everyone nukes in the hope the warmongers would kill themselves off and a "winner" could be scavenged from the surviving wreckage. Turns out even *this* wasn't enough to push it through to the end, so I finally just pulled the plug. One of the players voiced interest in continuing the story, so I began drafting an epilogue as a springboard for a sequel that *I* would ultimately end up running. Despite xenophobic bluster, the Kaetif are ultimately fellow victims. Not so the "Abhorrents"—monstrous creatures that thrive in the irradiated Red Zones, and act as a universal 'barbarian' faction in the sequel game. Their origins and physiology were never made clear, but following one player's full-throated embrace of the villainous role in *The Aftermath*, they became a vector for super-soldiers in a never-realized revenge campaign. [Originally submitted to Buzzly.art](https://buzzly.art/~Thorvald/art/iot4-fighting-nightmares) November 2021; [reuploaded to DeviantArt](https://www.deviantart.com/el-thorvaldo/art/IOT4-Fighting-Nightmares-907732188) February 2022.