Vostatok Blendcoat
Hershel's starter jacket — refractive slicker that blends into bright light or heavy rain. Poetics +1. The only starter piece with a pure positive bonus.
Stats
| Slot | Jacket |
| Acquisition | Worn at start |
| Poetics | +1 |
Strengths
- +Free — you start with it
- +Pure positive: Poetics +1, no penalty
- +Lore-flavored — ties to Hershel's pre-game ops
Costs
- −Beaten by Faux Fur Coat in raw stat package once you find it
Description
Game flavor: "Lightweight and practical, this specially woven slicker almost disappears under direct sunlight and heavy rain. Its refractive properties sparked rumours of a haunting in Satellite Facility B."
The best starter piece, statistically. The Vostatok Blendcoat is the only one of Hershel's three starter items with a clean positive bonus and no penalty: [Poetics](/wiki/skills/poetics) +1.
Poetics is the Intellect-cluster skill for language, imagery, and the symbolic layer of dialogue. It's the skill that reads metaphor as data. Useful in any conversation with a writer, a thinker, or anyone who speaks in stories — including basically every NPC in Quisach.
Keep it. The trade against [Faux Fur Coat](/wiki/items/faux-fur-coat) (Grey Matter +2 / Cold Read +1) is real if you find the Faux Fur, but until then there's no reason to swap.
The "haunting in Satellite Facility B" reference is unique worldbuilding. Satellite Facility B isn't a documented location on the launch wiki. The implication: a refractive coat made Hershel temporarily invisible to whatever surveillance Facility B was running, and the people in the facility logged the dropout as a haunting. That's Vostatok craftsmanship as a brand promise — and a worldbuilding tell about the kind of operations Hershel has done before this assignment.
Acquisition
Worn by [Hershel Wilk](/wiki/characters/hershel-wilk) at the start of the game.
Builds & playstyles
Default early-game jacket — keep until Faux Fur is in hand