Please have first draft characters ready by the 1st March, and I will start running around the 7th March. I will fill the following section in by the 1st March
Current players:
Reservists:
The purpose for the recruitment thread was to get the feeling for the rules and character creation sorted. I got the view that a lot of people had problems making characters feel 10,000 years old, and the few characters I saw showed why. This is now quite a bit more powerful than I had planned on playing, but hey at least I can make the monsters tougher. The following is the current set of character creation rules, it has changed since the recruitment thread, so please read carefully. I will bold the important change (starting magic = 7)
If you have problems making your character feel powerful, please PM me, or post. A couple of characters have done this, and benefited from it.
[ Spoiler ]
General: Unless otherwise stated, the standard character creation rules are to be used except as noted below:
Build Points: Everyone has 450 Build Points and 20 bonus Karma to spend. You are not required to use all of the Karma during character creation, and may save it for future use instead. You can spend the karma on anything (even initiation at 0.6*cost)
Knowledge Skills: Instead of the normal allotment, you gain (Logic + Intuition)x10 Knowledge Skill points. Build Points can be spent to gain even more as per the standard rules. You also gain General History as a free Knowledge Skill at a rank equal to your Logic attribute. Other history-based skills are highly advised.
Contacts: You gain (Charisma)x4 points to use on Contacts. Build Points can be used to purchase additional points.
Relationships/Factions: You gain (Charisma)x2 points that you can use to bolster your relationships with various immortal factions. Negative values are permissible as appropriate.
Wealth: You start with (Willpower)x10,000 nuyen in addition to any other resources you purchase normally.
Availabilties & Gear: If you have access to an appropriate skill or ability to explain how you created or obtained the item, you can exceed the normal limit of Availability 12 on a case-by-case basis.
Cyberware and Bioware: All cyberware and bioware that you have is deltaware, but costs the same price as standard.
Initiation: Everyone begins as a Grade 4 Initiate, and as an immortal elf/drake/weird thing you start with magic 7. You may also be completely mundane if you so choose, gaining +100 Build Points in compensation. Technomancers may instead submerge four times,and start with resonance 7.
Metamagic: Everyone starts with 3 metamagic techniques plus Masking. You may exchange a metamagic technique for either one additional Power Point or Magic point, for a maximum of +3 of either. If you are a free spirit you can get a metamagic as a spirit power for 1.5 spirit points. This means you can use edge instead of initiate level
Racial rules
Drake:
This will cost 30 build points, the armour (hardened and mystic) will be raised to 6 points. The drake stat bonus's increase maximum stats by 1.5*the bonus.
Immortal Elf:
This costs 0 points. Same bonus's as for an elf + immunity to age
Free spirit:
This costs 30 points. You buy attributes exactly the same way that all other players buy attributes. All attributes start at two. Your natural maximum for attributes is your force, which is capped to 6 + initiation level, and is also capped to 5 + minimum physical or mental attribute. Remember to raise an attribute to the natural maximum costs 25 points. Note that in many historical places there will be a background count that is negative, and this will affect your force, and hence your natural maximum. You gain karma like regular characters. You cannot gain karma by selling spirit pacts.
There are two new spirit powers. 1: "Resist background" costs 1 spirit point, lets you ignore 1 point of background. 2: Metamagic, you can select a metamagic that you would be normally allowed to learn, and learn it as a spirit power. Cost 1.5 spirit points, but you use your edge not your initiate grading.
Choices I would like you to make:
How did you survive the last horrors?
What roll did you take in the Egyption period?
What roll did you take in the Greek period?
What roll did you take in the Mayan/Aztec period?
What roll did you take during the reformation, and the growth of technology?
Where were you during world war II
What is your view on technology?
What is your view on Monarchy vs rule of the masses in a world where the monarch is immortal
Rule system modifiers: hopefully short
[ Spoiler ]
Clarifications / Optional rules
- Mostly RAW: SR4A, Unwired, Augmented, Arsenal, Streetmagic, Players companion, Digital grimoire. If you want something from War! flag it to me
- Extended tests: each extra roll is at -1 die
- Shapeshift clarification: You can turn into a normal critter. Your natural maximums don't change. Your equipment mostly falls in a heap on the ground
- The attribute used with the Arcana skill is the same as your traditions drain resistance attribute
- A physical quickened spell stays on the body it was cast on
Modifications
- Martial arts are not qualities
- Watchers don't suck at watching. Not sure how this will work, would appreciate advice
- Empathy software doesn't exist
- Resisting possession is willpower + highest mental stat.
- Possessing creatures add half their force (or for free spirits half their attribute) to the hosts, and the augmented max physical attribute of the hybrid creature is that of the host
Damage spells do your magic stat as damage. Removed- No multicasting of spells
- Quickened spells that have been dispelled a bit (successes reduced) can be repaired by recasting the spell (successes in spell casting will add to existing successes). If the spell is reduced to 0 successes by dispel its gone though
- If a quickened spell goes into an area with a very high background (more than its force), it is not dispelled, its just operating at 0 successes until it comes out of the area.
Relationships:
[ Spoiler ]
You have Charisma*2 points of relationship (you can spend 1 bp for 1 extra pt) for the following factions:
- Queen Alachia
- Harlequin
- Ehran the Scribe
- Prince Sean Laverty
- Prince Jenna Ni'Fairra
- High prince Lugh Surehand
- Dunkelzahn
- Hestaby
Rating 0: They don't like you, and will occasionally go out of their way to cause unpleasantness
Rating 1: Neutral-mild dislike
Rating 2: Neutral
Rating 3: Neutral-mild like
Rating 4: Mild friendship
Rating 5: Mild friendship + respect
Rating 6: You can knock on their door, and if they are in a good mood and not busy, they will invite you in for a chat.
A brief history
[ Spoiler ]
All of you were alive during the peak of the last mana surge. You need to decide how you survived the horrors:
- In a dwarven kaer
- In the elven wooden kaers, which became the blood woods. This means you lived around 500 years in agony
- In a secret dragon lair as a dragon servitor (need relationship 4+ with that dragon)
Some other way that you think is credible
Just before magic left the world, you all took part in a ritual of hiding. You vaguely remember something went wrong with the ritual, but it was so long ago, you cannot quite remember what. Elves and drakes morph into human appearance (duration: until magic returns). The free spirits hide in jewels. While in the jewels they are protected from the worst effects of the mana loss.
Although magic mostly left the world during the 5th age, there were places in the world where magic did not totally leave. In game mechanic terms, the 5th age varied between -10 and -5 mana. Some places are +/- around 3 on this scale. Most of the remnants of the 4th age naturally gravitated to the most mana rich places (or more specifically the least mana poor places).
During the period -5000 to -2000, magic decayed from -5 to -10 average it was highest in some parts of Egypt, but even there it was was pretty low.
From -500 to 500 magic was strongest in Greece and Italy. There was a temporary 100 year blip in mana around -400 AD, taking magic levels to average -5, and in parts of the greek islands, -2.
From 500 to 1500 magic was strongest in south and central america. The average level was -10.
During 1500-2000, magic was highest in Germany and the UK. The magic level started climbing in 1900. By world war 2, it reached -6, and stabilised there until the dawn of the 6th age. World War II was a particularly disturbing time. The Nazi party came out of nowhere (to Elven eyes), and Hitler was a being of vast magical, charismatic and technological might. The Nazi search for occult treasures was real, and scary. Many of the greatest magical treasures were stolen by the Nazi's and have not been recovered. Many people feel that Hitler was a rogue elf or drake. A few claim it is Queen Alachia, but she refutes this, and no proof has ever been recovered.
From the point of view of the remnants of the 4th age, the years up to 1500 were mostly the same. It was something of a surprise to them, that from 1500 onwards, change started and kept happening faster and faster. The two important themes during this time were the movement of power from monarchs to the masses, and the rise of technology. Some of the elves (led by the queen) generally opposed these trends. Although their magical powers were dramatically reduced, most of the remnants maintained a very small amount of magic which gave them an advantage over mortals. In addition they had a very high level of skill compared to most mortals. Technology basically reduces the advantage they have over normal mortals, and the movement of power from Monarchs (themselves) to the masses was not very palatable. Others (a minority) elves saw the rise of technology as a way to eventually destroy the horrors. Despite everything the Elves could do, tech kept getting more powerful. By the end of the victorian age even the Queen felt that it wasn't really possible to put the genie back in the bottle. With the atomic bomb and the promise of powerful augmentation for the masses, the dream of killing the horrors seems plausible. Other elves remember the dreams that the wooden kaers would hold out against the horrors, and think that this tech is just another crazyness like that.
You are all aware that the Horrors may be returning early. Harlequin has placed the voice of Theyla to stop the enemy, but Theyla has failed before, and may fail again. Dunkelzahn has done something clever to stop them, but even so the horror may be back soon. It is not clear that the kaers will work this time. Technology is good at finding things and at breaking through magical wards. Even the dragons may not survive, as technology is capable of finding their lairs
A few notes on the nature of the world
[ Spoiler ]
Power level is the cap of the number of BPs that you can easily gain. After you meet this cap, in order to gain stuff you have to loose stuff. i.e. in the 15th centuary you were probably a dab hand bladed combat. Today you have forgotton those skills, but learn Electronics.
Tier 1 creatures: The great immortals (Harlequin, Ehran, Queen Alachia) have 800-1500 bps.
Tier 2 creatures: You. Have settled at your current power level and have been at this very respectable level for around 10,000 years.
A basic premise of the game is that for sentient beings memory fades with time: 100 years ago is a long time, 200 is a very long time, and 1000 years is so far back that mostly you remember once remembering things about it.
Fortunately there are two ways for you to recall long ago times: you can write things down (I suspect most of you will be avid diary keepers) or you relive the memories using a varient of astral questing. This varient means that you literally relive the experience: you (with companions) project into the past and reenact the events. You remember you are from the "future", but you also remember things from that time. Mostly the reenactments follow the same line as they did originally. You can get hurt there, and if you die in the past, it is very bad for you in the present.
When you go into the past, you can shuffle all of the BP that you spent of skills around. Please do it in a sensible way and stay recognisably the same. In the past there will usually be a different base mana level. Cyberware will probably not be there (you almost certainly were not cybered when you were there).
You can be opposed in your search for memory. Other people reliving their memories may well be in the same astral quest as yourself, especially if they are trying to hide memories.
How many remnants from the 4th age are there?
A few hundred. The skill 4th age remnant is useful if you want to identify some of them. The problem with memory again
Killing immortals
No one wants a blood bath. Kill one immortal (which is often harder than it looks), and they have friends who will take revenge. Anyway its much more satisfying to embaress and fool.
The first post will look something like this:
[ Spoiler ]
Location: Somewhere in south America. Underneath Aztechnology research pyramid code name Huitzilopochtli.
Whose crazy idea was it to arrange for us to be arrested and shipped out as prisoners to Tzetlan camp 23? Well the idea had worked, and both the prison camp and the pyramid were inside the extremely challenging security cordon.
No one was absolutely sure why Tzetlan camp 23 was so close to the Aztechnology research pyramid, but statistical analysis had shown that for the last three months over 10,000 prisoners had been moved into the camp, and satellite imagery suggested there was probably only space for a few hundred. Ehran’s “guess”, and he was rarely wrong, was that the prisoners were being fed to a horror. Well he probably had some other information, and wasn’t going to share it with us!
Being blackmailed by Queen Alachia was nothing new. You remember her saying “Just pose as prisoners, tunnel into the pyramid, and then you have three tasks. I trust you will be adequate for this simple job:
1> Kill the occupant of room 5
2> Deny any occupants access to storage room 27a”
3> Hold until we capture the place”
“Why us” you asked. “Whats in room 27a” you asked. “What is the source of your information” you asked. “Need to know…and you don’t” was the answer. You considered protesting, but you suspect it would be futile. The phrase “control freak” was invented just for her. You have to wonder where the council gets their information from. The only good thing about this mission is working with the group again. That doesn’t happen often enough. The last time this happened must have been over 120 years ago.
At least you have been promised good Matrix cover, and a hot backup if you ask for it. The Queen may be a bitch, but you’ve never known her go back on her word. The external matrix will be controlled by her, but you will have to deal with any disconnected systems. You will be very surprised if the internal security is not on a separate isolated system.
At midnight on the 27th, the dark of the moon, you started tunnelling. 10 minutes later and here you are. The inner wall of the basement of the pyramid is shattered in front of you, the darkness of the reactor room only lit by the light of the two torches that you smuggled with you. If Ehran is right, and there is a horror here, it will be the first time you have been near such a thing in over 5000 years. You hope you are ready.
Things to think about for the start:
[ Spoiler ]
You will be wearing prison fatigues. You were not heavily searched so items with good concealability / collapsability can be taken. Quite a bit of the game will be in flashbacks, so it is worth working out what sort of armour/equipment you normally wear.
I would like you to think what hold the Queen has over you. As an example, if you are a free spirit it is probably a copy of your formula that she will give back to you.
You have the first approximate post in the above spoiler, and I recommend you think about flashbacks in which you remember chasing down information and doing stuff. The council is Ehran, Lugh Surehand and Queen Alachia (I know this isn't the public facing Council of Princes, but you are fairly sure you know who holds the real power in Tir). Harliquin and Hestaby (in full dragon form) were present (but silent) for your briefing (short though it was) and you had the distinct impression that you were not the only group involved in this operation.
Your last three days looked a bit like this:
- You had about 12 hours notice to get to the council, which was in Tir Tainglire
- The council meeting lasted about 10 mins
- One of you (probably the troll enchanter) is given a magic ring that enables magical tunneling. You thought this type of magic couldn't work at this level of magic: well you learn something every day.
- You were taken straight from the meeting with the council to Aztlan, by a Nape of the earth helicopter
- You had 6 hours to get arrested
- 24 hours after being arrested you were in the train on the way to Tzetlan camp 23
- You arrived at dawn
- During the day three bus loads of 20 prisoners each were taken to the research facility. The prisoners were selected at random it seemed. The prisoners didn't come back. If that's blood magic involved...its a lot of power.
- Lights out at 8pm
- You started digging at midnight
If this feels a bit like a railroad: it is. Some seriously powerful people want to use you as pawns and you don't have to like it, or just lie down. You do all end up in the tunnel though: the nice thing about a GM is that you can pick where to start the story.
Posting guidelines
[ Spoiler ]
I will be following the post or die rules.
If 7 days elapse from the date of your second to last post, your character dies! and someone from the bench moves up. You can always make a new character and get back on the reserve list. Rule 2. If the GM fails to post in the same timeline, a reserve GM can step up and take over (anyone can get on the GM list too). Sign up now!
Unlike post or die if you say "I cannot post for two weeks because..." that will be ok.
I will try and do the GM posting at least three times a week
Your initial security briefing
left from starting money (i.e. the Willpower cash), to have gear fitted to pixie size
) but I think some of the programs might be doable? It fits my concept of being a progeny of Celedyr (should I take him as a faction or fiddle with the contact rules for him?) with access to Transys' top stuff...