[Recruitment] Cthulhutech: The Borderlines of the World

[EarthScorpion]

I'm looking for players for a Cthulhutech game. It'll have some elements of a classic CoC investigation game, some of modern post-cyberpunk, and some bits, yes, of horror FPSes. One space is already reserved for Academia Nut, who suggested that I run this game, but the rest of the places are free.

You'll be individuals employed by the Armacham Charter, a co-operation group between the Ashcroft Foundation and the NEG. You will start by being sent to investigate a Charter installation, on the West Coast of Ireland, which has dropped out of messaging contact. The facility is not in any contested areas, but the Dagonites have been known to strike along the coast. As no formal warning was sent, the NEG as a whole has not been alerted, and you certainly get hints that the Charter would prefer it to remain secret. As a result, you're being sent to the nearby village of Ballydehob, to make your way to the facility and find out what happened.

As a group, a Werewolf transport will take you to the village. You'll be assigned a M-15 Ranger AAFV for the duration of the mission, outfitted with a Rocket Pod. Any players who take the "Power Armour Operator" Asset (see below) will be assigned a power armour of their choice, either human or Nazzadi, from either the Core or Vade Mecum. Likewise, you start with the starting gear for your profession, but you can ask me, for anything you think that would be appropriate, and if it's reasonable, it'll probably be granted.

Constraints: This is an infantry/ investigation scale game. That means, no Tagers, Engels, or Mecha. A player or two might be a power armour pilot, but not all the group, and in fact I'll be making Power Armour Pilot a + 3 point Asset (only usable by Soldiers), to show the level of advantage it could provide. Be aware that if you do take it, you'll be spending notable amounts of time outside of it, although I hope to make it so you will be able to use the thing that you paid for.

The following Assets and Drawbacks are mandatory:

Authority - 1 (Armacham Charter)
Duty - 2 (Armacham Charter)
Watched - 1 (Classified Security Rating)

That leaves all characters with two extra point, from the flaws. Note that these do count towards your maximum number of Drawbacks.

I'm not really looking for very abnormal characters; that's why I'm putting a restriction on Whites. They should have personality, be recognisable individuals, but they should also be plausible lowish level operatives. That does mean that, yes, the number of Eldritch Society infiltrators, secret employees of the Chrysalis Corporation, cultist dupes, "My Father was a Hybrid" and other such things should probably be kept in check. This may sound a little extreme in being so explicit, but I've tried to run a Cthulhutech pbp before, and found that, yes, you really do need to clamp down. If you do want to play that kind of character, contact me by PM to discuss it with your concept.

In addition, I'm bumping the timeline forwards, to 2091. Nothing changes, it's just to add a few years to the age of xenomix characters, to allow higher level of things like Education. However, I'd prefer not to see White characters, they're a rarity, and unless you have a very good background, I would ask you to consider what couldn't be done with a Human, Nazzadi or Xenomix parapsychic.

I'm looking for a wide range of characters, not just military types (although some would make sense). All characters should be able to handle themselves, at a low level, in a potential combat situation (1 to 2 dots of Firearms should do it), but there is no need to make every character a dual MP wielding gun ninja. It would be useful, for example, looking at what an investigation would require, for someone to be good with computers, given that it would be pretty bad for you to unable to extract the information when you're actually poking around.

[frigidmagi]

I think most of us are gonna need more information about the setting man.

[Academia Nut]

It is a published setting, so unless you're asking for relatively fine details like "Where on Earth will it be set?" or "Will we be going up against cultists, Migou Blanks, or Esoteric Cult of Dagon members as our primary assigned opponents?" sort of thing, then that question is sort of up there with asking about the setting of Exalted or Vampire or Battletech or other published game settings where the setting is part of the system.

However, since it sounds like you don't know, CthulhuTech is basically the Cthulhu mythos set in the late 21st century. Humanity has figured out how to tap into extradimensional energies by studying the underlying physical constants of the universe, leading to the D-Engine, a source of unlimited, clean energy... although the cost is the sanity of the researchers who develop the technology as their minds try and wrap around the math and implications and break in the process. Unfortunately, this development has freaked out the Migou, who steal the tech and then decide to wipe out the inventors to make sure they never develop anything else even more dangerous. Since they're afraid of waking up all the Old Ones slumbering on Earth by indescriminate bombardment, they decide to genetically engineer a warrior species out of human DNA and dupe them all into thinking they have a grand martial tradition and are an ancient and proud warrior species. They call their creation the Nazzadi, who are essentially a subspecies of humanity.

Cue war and explosions. There's some technobabble that depends on Mythos freakiness, but the D-Engines make mecha viable warmachines. Eventually some of the few Nazzadi who actually know the truth about their race get tired of obeying the orders of fungus and killing their biological cousins and lead a massive rebelling that essentially causes the entire Nazzadi military to defect to humanity. Understandably pissed at everyone, including themselves for not foreseeing that this might have happened, the Migou regroup and decide not to send a man to do a fungus' job and launch their own invasion about a decade after the first one. They take over much of the polar regions of the planet and position an armed planetoid in orbit, believed to be Charon, the moon of Pluto (or Yuggoth as they call it).

Then Nyarlathotep summons forth Hastur and sets off the Rapine Storm that rampages across South-East Asia, and the Esoteric Order of Dagon starts launching coastal attacks with Deep One support and their own mechs and powered armour. Old Narly is still hiding and working in the background as the CEO of one of the world's largest corporations creating human-mythos hybrids called Dhoanoids. However some of his creations go nuts in such a way that they are sane by human standards and break away, creating their own less malevolent human-mythos hybrids called Tagers to oppose Nyarlathotep's forces.

Meanwhile, the humans, organized into the New Earth Government (or NEG) are in dire straits with a four way war going on and various forces trying to undermine them from within. However, they figure out a new weapon by creating bioengineered cyborg mechs out of mythos creatures. The direct neural interface slowly drives the pilots insane, but these Engels can tear through regular mechs fairly effectively as they are stronger and have regenerative capacities.

If you are thinking that this whole thing sounds like a bizarre mixture of H.P. Lovecraft, Macross, the Guyver, and Neon Genesis Evangelion, then you would be correct, as all of those items are mentioned in the intro.

To EarthScorpion, I have a few ideas, I'm just going to stat them out first to see if I can make them work.

[EarthScorpion]

Okay, basically, CthulhuTech has been described as LovecraftianHorror-meets-TheDarkerSortOfAnime.

Ultimately, CthulhuTech is set in our world less than one hundred years from now, though as unrecognisable to us as we are to the people of the early twentieth century. One of the things you see in Lovecraft is that everything is just (with the exception of the Outer Gods like Nyarlathotep) sufficently advanced science. The setting deviating from what might be considered "real" in the 2010s, when people start working on combining Mythos tomes with modern science (in a similar way to Dreams in the Witch House. One of the products is the D-Engine, which is basically a power source that gives infinite energy, and constant (but finite) power. That leads to a widespread change in society as things powered by this "arcanotechnology" become widespread, including the development of mecha (there's some handwave in that a vehicle powered by a D-Engine feels, intuitively, right if it's same body shape as you are.)

Now, the Migou (alien fungoid bugs which have an outpost on Pluto) notice this. They're a Mythos race, but they're still humanish (in the way that they think, certainly not in physiology) in a way that things like, say, Cthulhu aren't. And they get worried, as the D-Engine (and the A-pod, which uses the same space-time warping technology to generate constant thrust) is a human invention, largely because they abandoned that direction of research as it's too dangerous. Thus, they decide that they need humanity back under control, trapped on Earth, as by 2051 humanity has begun to colonise the solar system. So, they use the human genestock they've accumulated from abductions and studies on the species to create the Nazzadi, who are basically Star-Trek aliens, humans with black (as in, really black) skin and red, nightvision possessing eyes, and create a false warfleet that looks like generation ships, cloning a population of all ages and creating a false culture. They're made very similar to humanity, so that if humanity wins, it's mislead about the nature of alien life.

Hence, the First Arcanotech War. Large amounts of humanity is wiped out by the Nazzadi, but the leaders of the Nazzadi warfleet were told the truth by the Migou, and they organise a rebellion (with reasoning along the lines of "these humans are more like us than the Migou, and they might get rid of us when we're done"), defecting to the New Earth Government. In the rebuilding, civilisation becomes rather post-cyberpunkish, with arcologies built over the ruins of the old cities. The Nazzadi are left in a sort of disorder after their defection, as they've just found out that their entire culture is a lie. Some assimilate fully, but most end up in ghettos, where they start trying to build themselves a society. One of the discoveries in this period (about 2065 to 2074) is that Nazzadi and humans are fully genetically compatible, producing xenomix children, who are basically just people with greyish-brownish (depending on the human parent's ethnicity and the degree of blackness of the Nazzadi parent). Basically, the Nazzadi are just people, but it's not always seen as so in universe.

Now, in the background, occult things are happening, cults are rising, and a bunch of rather complicated things that would be rather hard to summarise, but it will suffice to say that a cult, the Children of Chaos, take over one of the megacorprations, summon an avatar of Hastur, refound the Esoteric Order of Dagon (Cthulhu-cultists) as a distraction from their own activities, and generally make bad things happen. Largely because they serve Nyarlathotep, and the Crawling Chaos is a dick of Eldrad-levels.

So, basically, so summarise, at the date of the game (2091, bumped forwards so that people can have valid xenomix characters that have been through uni), humanity is down to about 2.2 billion humans (down from a high of 8 billion), and 1.8 billion Nazzadi (the invasion fleet, plus the breeding that they've done while they're there). Human society is regimented, packed with surveillance in arcologies that require regular blood checks and random brain scans. The former checks for Outsider Taint, such as being a Deep One hybrid, the latter for a thing that the Migou can do to captured victims that rewrites their personality so that they're devoted to the Migou, but otherwise exactly the same. The NEG military is involved in a four-way war between themselves, the Cthulhu-cultists who control much of the oceans, the Migou bugs with their loyalist Nazzadi allies and their reprogrammed Blank troops, and the Hastur cultists who have burned and raped their way through much of Asia and can be best described as "Firefly Reavers with Lovecraftian monsters on their side".

tl:dr version; H.P. Lovecraft-meets-Evangelion-meets-Robotech-meets-Ghost in the Shell-meets-Akira-meets-Guyver. A dark post-cyberpunkish setting with a light at the end of the tunnel which may quite well be humanity's transformation into a proper Mythos race.

There is a tvtropes page, which gives a longer-than-my-tl;dr-version-but-shorter-than-my-full-version version.

Edit: And I see that Academia Nut has explained it better than me using less words.

[Academia Nut]

Quick question, does the Watched drawback stack or accumulate if it comes from different sources? My gut says that if you have a military sorcerer with classified clearance (the 1 point Watched you already mandated) then it would just be a 3 point drawback for being a sorcerer, not 1+3 because the character is already heavily watched anyway. Still, your game, so you have final say on that sort of interpretation.

[EarthScorpion]

Yeah, that'd be right. The minor scrutiny from having a security clearance is sort of over-ridden by the "Oh Gods! Keep an eye on him so he isn't a source for horrible non-Euclidean monstrosities to enter our world."

That is to say that you can only have one level of Watched drawback, yes, with the highest level applying. In case of a military sorcerer, it would be a 3 dot drawback, not a 3+1 one.

[Cynical Cat]

Can I mercilessly rupture organs or set people on fire with combat castible sorcery?

[EarthScorpion]

That's the domain of parapsychics, introduced in Vade Mecum, the companion book. Sorcerers are much more support type characters; their spells all require components and extended rituals (even though they can do things like make someone invisible to anything but the unaugumented naked eye. Yeah, that giant robot with guns that could incinerate you with ease? Can't do anything to you. It can't see you with the explosive charge you're strapping to its legs. One of the reasons for combined arms in-universe.)

Parapsychics are basically free-form, within rigidly defined areas for the power level of that ability. It is possible, for example, for a starting parapsychic who boosted their Telekinesis to Adept (entirely realistic) to generate 4 invisible telekinetic limbs which are just as nimble as their own hands, as strong as a strong human, and can manipulate anything within 25 metres. Most of the really good abilities for parapsychics are out of the range of a starting character, but they can be competent in 1st Order powers.

[Academia Nut]

First pass character proposal, pending changes according to EarthScorpion's dictates.

Alex Campino

Alex is a rather unlikely commando sort of person, despite having a rather hefty set of medals on his chest. This is because Alex is a lazy, whinging, bastard at times. Infamous for whining at the slightest injury or potentially going days at a time without properly eating or bathing, he definitely doesn't look like the sort of man who once held off a Migou attack nearly single handed.

From a young age Alex has always been something of a wimp and a weakling if possessed with a keen intellect. A classic nerd archetype, if lacking the ambition of more intellectual individuals, he drifted through primary and secondary school before going on to a technical school with the original intent of being a system admin and spending his days managing email traffic in the London arcology. However, while in post-secondary school he was exposed to new ideas that challenged him for the first time in his life, and he began to explore the world of the occult, in part inspired by a slight obsessive disorder that caused him to occassionally focus on a topic with his full attention before eventually drifting on. The other part was an initial desire to 'cheat' and use magic to further his own laziness. While he eventually learned things didn't work that way, he did become a licensed sorcerer in the process while shifting his education over to the study of arcanotechnology.

In time he obtained a job with the Ashford Foundation as an attached technician for the NEG working on mecha weapons systems. It was there that he obtained his new obsession with powered armour. While he doubted that he could pilot the bigger mechs, powered armour appealed to him in that it could compensate for the fact that he had the muscle tone of a twelve year old.

While repeatedly told not to, he had a bit of a habit of 'calibrating' certain systems by either using some of his spells or getting inside the armour he was working on, since he never actually broke any major rules like fully powering anything up, his superiors never gave him any major reprimands as his work was always done well and on time.

While testing out the sensors of a suit of powered armour on his Ward of Solitude, a Migou sneak attack on the base released a strange mutagenic toxin into the air via a Blank infiltrator, causing horrible warping of the bodies of those exposed. In the chaos as the command and control of the base was killed, the Migou destroyed the primary defences in an aerial strike before sending in ground troops to capture and refortify the base to serve as the lynchpin of a new thrust along the European front.

Alex, warded and next to a functional suit of powered armour, was overlooked by the majority of the Migou scrying and managed to get into a sealed environment before the toxin did any damage. Trying to figure out what was going on, he blundered into an advancing Migou kill team. He had very little idea what he was actually doing, but they thought they had already accounted for all power armoured troops so they were not carrying the heavy weaponry necessary for dealing with power armour. The team was clumsily and messily dismembered in the close quarters fighting, putting a massive dent in the fungoid's plan as they shifted to accomodate this unexpected development.

The Migou took two minutes to get an anti-armour team to Alex's position, sufficient time for the NEG to scramble a rapid response team. With their position no longer tenable, the Migou were forced to retreat, the base personal killed and the local defences trashed, but if they tried to hold the base without the interior secure they would just get caught in the open and be massacred from the air.

When Alex was pulled from the wreckage, he was stuck in intensive care for two months, a Migou anti-armour round having holed his suit. During that time the fact that he had been technically been doing something he shouldn't have been at the time of the attack and he only actually hit anything with his weapons because it was a shooting gallery was quietly swept under the rug as he was used as a minor example of personal valour and courage.

Surprisingly, despite his severe aversion to pain, Alex actually put in a request to leave Ashcroft and join up with the NEG military proper as he had decided to become an actual combatant. Ashcroft instead chose to transfer him to the Aracham Charter as a specialist. While his boot camp instructors found him an endless whiner, he did have the tenacity to see things through this time, dedicating himself to learning power armoured combat, and his ecclectic skill set makes him a valuable support member.

Virtue: Imaginative
Flaw: Lazy
Age: 26
Profession: Arcanotechnician (he's branched out though)

Stats

Agility 7
Intellect 8
Perception 6
Presence 5
Strength 4
Tenacity 7

Net expenditure 37

English Expert
German Novice
Education Student
Literacy Adept
Technician Adept
Arcanotechnician Student
Munitions Adept
Computer Novice
Occult Novice
Dodge Novice + Powered Armour Focus
Marksman Adept + Powered Armour Focus
Fighting Novice
Artist Student
Regional Knowledge Novice (London Arcology, British Isles)

Authority
Duty Aracham Charter 2
Watched Sorcerer 3
Powered Armour Operator
Low Pain Threshold
Obsessive
Famous Incident 2
Commendation 3
Internal Clock

Net expenditure of 24 points

Cheats
3 for +1 to intelligence
1 for 2 extra skill points
2 to start with Ward of Corporeal Protection and Ward of Solitude

Secondary Attributes
Actions 1
Movement 11mph (27/6 ypt)
Orgone/Ruach 12
Reflex 7
Vitality 10
Drama Points 10

EDIT: Noticed I overspent on Literacy and my Focuses, so I added in German at Novice level so that I can read the original Mysteries Within

[EarthScorpion]

Looks good from what I can see. In all honesty, I'd never have come up with a power armoured sorcerer as a concept, but then again now that you've done it (and can I really thank you for being someone who writes up a proper character concept), it makes sense. It also makes pulling that old standby of the GM, the bait-and-blow-up-all-your-stuff harder (that was a joke, okay )

You left out a few free skills, though;

Regional Knowledge 2(Novice)
Agility 3 (Adept)
Intellect 4 (Expert)
Perception 3(Adept)
Presence 2 (Novice)
Strength 2(Novice)
Tenacity 3(Adept)

Also, which powered armour would you like? Depending on whether the one has Hyperedged Claws or a Hyperedged Blade, you might want to put a point in either Unarmed Fighting or Fighting, as one of the real advantages of PA is up close against vitality targets, where you're doing Integrity damage and no-one else is.

[Academia Nut]

I was intending to go with the Mk-5 Crusader with the AP cannon and the plasma rifle. There are a couple of reasons for this. The first is that the reason that Alex learned the Ward of Corporeal Protection was because he was tired of injuring himself on little things, so he keeps the ward up just so that he doesn't hurt himself when he stubs his toe. Thus between the Crusader and the Centurion, he would go for the one with more armour. It's also somewhat smaller and meant for actually getting in close, so that would mean that he has to take it off less, and since he dislikes getting hurt, the more places he can wear his armour, the better in his mind.

As for the weapon selection I see him as working more on the weapons systems for mecha and power armour in his previous life (hence why he has munitions as a skill) and why he is better with support weapons than other guns, and I think from the description the AP cannon counts as a support weapon. It also means that if he has to go without his armour he can still be the guy in the back with the machine gun providing covering fire, although he's going to want the loader or some sort of machine to carry everything since he's a wimp.

Then again, if you rule that the AP cannon is not a support weapon then I'll swap out those skills for something else and rethink the armour selection. Then again, since the Crusader has hands instead of hard mounts I might stick with it, simply because it gives Alex more versatility and options and he would have to get out to do work less often, seeing as he'll probably be the guy you go see if you need a laser cannon field stripped in the middle of a battle.

As to the bait-and-blow-stuff-up thing, why do you think I invested in spells? Oh, sure, if he doesn't have access to the proper arcane materials he's in the same boat, but he's constantly walking around in the equivalent of light combat armour even while naked.

[B4UTRUST]

Alright, to assist anyone who's interested in the game, I've got the books in pdf format in my collection. Ask me on IM and I'll transfer copies. I'll have to consider this game. I love Cthulhu and the Cthulhutech 'verse was interesting to me though I've never played it'.

[frigidmagi]

It is a published setting, so unless you're asking for relatively fine details like "Where on Earth will it be set?" or "Will we be going up against cultists, Migou Blanks, or Esoteric Cult of Dagon members as our primary assigned opponents?" sort of thing, then that question is sort of up there with asking about the setting of Exalted or Vampire or Battletech or other published game settings where the setting is part of the system.

Not all published systems are equal. Me asking for data on a new and somewhat unknown system is not the same as me asking about a system that has been going for a decade (or years in Exalted's case or decades in Battletech's) and have followings that could populate small nations on their own.

Otherwise, thanks for the data. EarthScorpin, tell me a bit more, is this a military unit we're playing? Free lancers? Bunch of guys off the street?

[Academia Nut]

Well, the setting has been out for about a year now and it got a fair bit of Internet discussion during development (in part due to the fact that there was a period where it looked like the company was going to go under with everyone's pre-order money).

And while I'm not the GM, I know enough about the setting to give you a vague answer. While I suspect the specific group is his creation, the Ashford Foundation is the largest company in the setting due to the fact that the researcher they are named after was the one who figured out the principles behind the D-Engine (and the battery version the D-Cell) before she went completely insane from the mental strain. The discovery basically gave them a monopoly on the energy sector for the next several decades, and it also let them finance a whole lot of other research, including the A-Pods, which are a form of inertialess drive, which are useful for pretty much anything that moves that can power them. So Ashford basically had a strangehold on all forms of energy, aerospace, civilian transport. There's other competitors now (namely Chryssalis) but Ashford has the money and political contacts to basically have the power of a nation in charge of a continent within a nation in charge of a planet (mostly). So I'm guessing a rough analogy would be a Blackwater type mercenary organization, only more so as Ashford builds gigantic combat mecha and huge guns and can supply them to their subsidiaries.

Also, EarthScorpion and I know our Lovecraft

[EarthScorpion]

I've just found the errata for the weapons classification, and, yes, AP cannons are a Marksman weapon for a Mecha/Power armour. This basically clarifies everything, so, yes, you might want to reconsider in that light.

For people and monsters:

• All Pistols, Machine Pistols, Submachineguns, Assault Rifles, Shotguns, Tasers and Sprays use Marksman.
• All Machineguns, Anti-Mech Guns, Grenade Launchers, and Rocket Launchers use Support Weapons.
• All hand-held grenades use Thrown Weapons.
• Mines and explosives use Demolitions to set.
• Fists use Fighting.
• All Batons, Stun Guns, Knives, Swords, Clubs, etc. use Armed Fighting.
• The alien Needlers and Assault Rifles use Marksman.
• The alien Energy Rifles and Energy Weapons use Support Weapons.
• Monsters and Tagers use Fighting when using natural weapons.

For mecha:

• Charge Beams, Flamethrowers, Laser Cannons, Lightning Guns, and Plasma Cannons use Marksman.
• Fists use Fighting.
• HE Blades and HE Spurs use Armed Fighting.
• Horns, HE Claws, Mandibles, Teeth, Pincers, Tails, Tentacle Sheathes, and Tongues all use Fighting, because they're natural weapons.
• Grav Bombs, LR Missiles, and Rocket Pods all use Support Weapons.
• Acid Sprays and AP Cannons use Markman.
• Acid Drips use whatever skill the weapons to which they are linked requires.
• Chaff Dispensers and Fog Projectors don't require Tests to use effectively.

[Academia Nut]

Okay, so I swapped out Support Weapons for Fighting at Novice while bumping up Marksman, although the allure of the hyper-edge blade is there, although the fact that I get at least one dice of damage so long as I hit means that if we encounter anything that would require more than 1-6 points of integrity damage to deal with I'm switching to Mr. Plasma and staying at range. I also added in the secondary attributes and the free regional knowledge.

[Losonti Tokash]

Definitely interested in this, thanks to AcNut, but you'll have to give me a day or three to research the game more since I had never heard of it as of an hour ago.

[Kurald Galain]

Here's my attempt. Tell me if I screwed something up.

My father, his name is Sorerta. He was ‘first generation’ Nazzadi – among the oldest who still had implanted memories rather then being party to the secret. The first Arcanotech War was hard, but finding his whole life was a lie was worse. I know that many among the Nazzadi have worked to establish a distinct culture of there own, but Dad was never a part of it. After the big turn about of the Nazzadi armies he walked away from it all. He won’t talk about it, but I think he remembers a family. A wife, kids. None of them real. Things he’s stopped himself from saying, see.

Mom’s political. You know the Kennedys? The Clintons? Same kind of family. Only mom wasn’t the one being groomed for politics. I don’t know why – she has the passion for it. I’m not sure how she found my dad, but he was her ticket. She married him so she could show herself as a ‘bridge between these scattered kin.’

Yes, it’s exactly as corny as it sounds. It also doesn’t exactly make any sense, but… Yeah.

Anyways, they hooked up. Her gambit paid off. What? Office? I’m talking about real political power, not votes or titles. Well, sometimes about titles, some titles matter. Mom was never ambitious enough to try for one of those. It’s never about votes though.

Don’t get me wrong, it should be. But its not, you know, it just isn’t. I meant to try and change that when I was older. You know, return the power to the people, that kind of thing. It might not be the kind of thing you can accomplish, but there’s value in the attempt.

I don’t know. Maybe Mom’s not as coldblooded as I make her sound. There is genuine affectation between her and dad. I’ve never gotten it, but its real.

Anyways, I was going to go into politics like my mom, when WHAM! I erupted, and not as something harmless. Well actually yes, it is fucking harmless. I could make my drinks cold sunny day. Wow, that’s really a great and immediate danger to all who live.

Fuck it. Either you know already, or you don’t.

Well. That little experience flushed my dreams down the crapper, and it made me think. It wasn’t fair – but not being fair to me isn’t really a big deal. I might not be pulling on my parents wallets at the moment, but if I need it they can still open doors. I could still find good jobs, could surround myself with people who either wanted my ‘gift’ or were uncaring on the issue. There are others who aren’t so lucky, yeah?

So I thought, I’ll still go into politics, but not aimlessly, like before. I’ll resurrect those old dinosaurs that were called the civil rights movements back in to day, and get people to remember what it was like when we weren’t afraid. I mean, Para-Psys aren’t the only ones being screwed, we’ve thrown away so much in hopes that it will lets us survive. I don’t know. People say it isn’t the time to worry about such things, but then, when will we have the time?

So that’s why I enlisted. If I’m to go into politics, I need more then my mom’s name now. Being a Para-Psychic makes everything harder, but if I get to be a war hero, well, everyone loves heroes. But don’t think that the fact I’m in this for glory, for certain definitions of glory, well, that it means I’ll be false faced, or weak willed. I’ll water the mud with my blood the same as the rest you. We’re all here for some reason, and anything worth building is worth building right, with hopes and tears and sacrifice. They’ve taught me a new trick, too. I always took a bit to much after my mom, but it makes me not quite as clumsy. It’s not considered a ‘dangerous’ ability, you know, but it’s more useful then the one that is. Ironic, that.

So take me or leave me. I might be unsuited for this kind of work, but I’m here to fight for humanity in all it’s natural and unnatural shades. I’ll make a difference here, and I’ll live to leverage it into something more. Just give me a chance to prove myself, and I’ll show you that.

Name: Tyche Forman,
Player: Kurald Galain
Storyguide: Earth Scorpion
Story: The Borderlines of the World

Allegiance: Aracham Charter
Profession: Para-Psychic
Race: Xenomix
Gender: Female
Age: 18
Virtue: Idealistic
Flaw: Naive

Attribute Rating Feat Level
Agility: 4 (2)
Intellect: 7 (3)
Perception: 4 (2)
Presence: 8 (4)
Strength: 4 (2)
Tenacity: 9* (4)
*+1 from Xenomix race.

Actions: 1
Movement: 7 miles an hour. 17 Yards per turn (Fast). 4 Yards per turn (slow).
Orgone: 13
Reflex: 5
Vitality:11
Drama Points: 10

Skills
Language (English) Expert*
Literacy Adept*
Bureaucracy Student
Culture (political) Novice
Misdirect Novice
Persuade Adept
Savoir-Faire Novice
Stealth Student
Surveillance Student
Survival Student
Dodge Novice
Fighting Student
Marksman Adept

*These skills start out with some number of points for free.
Four Cheats spent on extra skill points.
6

Assets
Alluring – 1 (Xenomix)*
Authority – 1 (Aracham Charter)
Driven – 2
Elite - 4
Innovative – 2
Latent Para-Psychic – 4
Erupted Para-Psychic – 2
Shrewd – 2

+7
Drawbacks
Duty - 2 (Aracham Charter)
Misfit – 3 (Para Psychic and Xenomix)*
Watched - 3
Shadow Walker - 3
*These Assets and Drawbacks have one point from the Zenomix race. It is not counted towards the max on drawbacks.

Psychic Powers
-Primary Environmental
-Secondary Somatic

Cryokinesis Student (When used hoarfrost breifly forms on nearby objects)
Hyperagility Student
* 2 Cheats to buy it.

[Kurald Galain]

Ok, I've slept, and I have my contacts back in, and I've looked over my sheet and fixed the glaring mistakes that I had left in it last night.

I really need to not post when I'm half asleep.

[Academia Nut]

Added on a few small details to my character sheet.

And while the oldest possible xenomixes would be about 25-26 at this point, I'm fairly certain the NEG wouldn't allow a 17 year old into a combat position. You'll probably want to bump up the age there a bit Kurald.

Also, for the unenlightened without Vade Mecum, how do the parapsychic powers work?

[Kurald Galain]

You can enlist at 17 with a parental wavier in today’s world, where we aren’t facing complete annihilation at the hand of unrelenting alien horrors. With something like over half the population wiped out already.

Plus Cthulhutech is anime. Anime horror, but anime none the less – it wouldn’t feel right if there isn’t at least one kid in the party, and I’m pushing the top age for that as is. (Of course I’ll revise it if EarthScorpion disagrees).

Psychic power can be mighty, but I don’t really have any at that level. I basically have two ‘spells,’ at my level of proficiency. I can boost my agility and reflexes, and I can cool things off.

My cool things off power, Cryokinesis, is basically useless at student, but because less so with every rank I buy up this skill. It’s ‘first tier,’ with each tier up (to a maximum of three) representing more profound powers. It’s considered a ‘dangerous’ power, though, so I would normally be required to wear an emblem warning everyone that I was a dangerous Psychic. However, the military can waive that requirement; hence my Misfit rating is three rather then four.

Incidentally, I am under qualified. An adept Cryokinesis is dangerous, a student on the other hand can keep a glass of lemonade cool but couldn’t freeze it, and I don’t have the mundane attributes that would let me be especially dangerous in a more conventional way. My other power makes me more agile, but agility is less useful in a gunfight in Cthulhutech then in most systems.

[EarthScorpion]

The character sheet works out, and it's a nice concept. I would prefer it if your character was older, though. I lean more towards the horror/post-cyberpunk/slight transhumanist themes in Cthulhutech, so bumping up to a legal adult (18) would be preferred. After all, when you look at the automation of the NEG military, it would be really interesting to see the percentage of the population under arms. I'd bet that it'd be quite a bit less than WW2, despite the total global war.

Also, what's your Manifestations for the powers? I know that Hyperagility doesn't have one (or rather, it's the whole "inhuman agility" thing), but what's the Cryokinesis Manifestation?

Manifestations are basically a Tell for when the ability is active. As an example, a Photokinetic might flash like a camera every time she uses a power, or the eyes of a Clairvoyant shrink to pin-pricks when he gets a reading.

Actually, looking at the description of Cryokinesis 1, it does say that you never get too hot. If you were to read that literally, that would imply that you're immune to flamethrowers while it's active. I wouldn't (because, frankly, that would be a bit silly). However, at the very least I'd say that you'd get 1 point of armour against heat-based attacks for each dot in Cryokinesis you have.

To summarise the nature of Parapsychic powers, Academia Nut, they're the spontaneous casting to the sorcerer's ritual magic. They're narrowly defined free-form abilities; you have a sphere of talent (so it might be cold for Cryokinesis, fucking with people's memories for Mindworm, or getting random flashes of inspiration for Clairvoyance), which is graded from 1 to 5, what you can do being guided by guidelines in the power description. You prime the powers by spending Orgone, which allows you to use them for a scene, then maintaining costs more orgone.

As an example of the free-form nature, a Pyrokinetic Adept could set fire to a person's skin (as a +0 weapon) with range 10 metres, while an Expert could do it as a +1 weapon at range 100m. However, that would cost them 3 Orgone to prime it, then another 1 for each minute beyond the first. They could, however, control a pre-existing fire with increasing precision, which could allow them to do more damage (say, they could make a chemical flare into, essentially, a lightsabre by stretching the fire into a sword), just make a flaming sword, or make that conventient pile of explosive barrels spontaneously combust. They get really scary at high levels. A master Pyrokinetic can set an office building-sized object on fire at will.

And, as a little note, the Infants in Aeon Natum Engel (of which Rei is the Third) were produced by looking at one of the four categories of parapsychic power (Somaticl, Manipulative, Sensory, Environmental), and going "Yes" for each of them in turn.

They get that from their mother.

[Kurald Galain]

I'll bump her to 18 then.

[Hotfoot]

Seems like an interesting setting. Not sure I'd be interested in playing right now, but I'd certainly be interested in watching and learning more about the material.

[Losonti Tokash]

All right, here goes. I'm not the best writer, but it seems okay to me and Academia helped me out with all the stats stuff.

Erik Thorson

When I was seven, my parents died.

The adults all knew it was coming, of course. Whether through incompetence, denial, or some misguided attempt to shield us from the truth, we still went to school on the day the bugs finally arrived. Not sure on the particulars, since I don't remember much of that day. I'm pretty sure I got hit in the head by my desk when the blackboard exploded but there's no way to be sure. What I do remember isn't the sort of stuff you really like to.

I lived in an orphanage for a while. It was okay, I guess. Honestly the only things I really took away from it were that you shouldn't piss off cops made of mercury or kids bigger than you. Especially if their name is "Bruiser." Who the hell names a baby that?

Never got the hang of talking to girls. Definitely got the hang of computers. Even went to school for it. On the side I learned some advanced prehospital care techniques, but never really had a chance to use them. Weapons being what they are, people tend to die instead of being wounded.

Right out of college, got picked up by the GIA. Never got to learn any of that cool field agent shit but they certainly refined my computer skills to the point where the idea of a password on a personal computer seems almost quaint. Worked as an analyst for a few months before I got assigned to this business with you Aracham folks.

More importantly, I learned the way the world works. When I was younger I always had this grand notion of "well, things should be better." Maybe, but it ain't likely and the sooner you can get over how shitty the world is and will continue to be, the easier it is to make it. I don't waste time trying to make everything about something perfect, since it's impossible. Long as it works, we're golden. If it doesn't, what's the point?

Erik Thorson
Human
Age: 23
Virtue: Pragmatic
Flaw: Insecure
Profession: Intelligence Agent
Allegiance: NEG


Agility: 6 (3)
Intellect: 10 (5)
Perception: 8 (4)
Presence: 4 (2)
Strength: 5 (2)
Tenacity: 4 (2)

Actions: 2
Movement: 9 mph (22/5 ypt)
Orgone: 13
Reflex: 8
Vitality: 12 (Bumped from 9 by Cheats)
Drama Points: 10

Cheats:
3 to Vitality
3 for an extra 6 points for skills

Skills
Armorer (Student)
Bureaucracy (Student)
Communications (Novice)
Computer (Adept), Focus in Hacking
Education (Adept)
Fighting (Novice)
Languages-English (Expert)
Literacy (Adept)
Marksman (Adept)
Medicine (Adept), Focus in Trauma Treatment
Regional Knowledge (Novice)-Manhattan Arcology, American East Coast
Research (Novice)
Security (Student)
Streetwise (Novice)
Trivia (Student)-20th Century Films

Assets
Acute Senses (Sight): 2
Egghead (Computer/Hacking): 2
Internal Compass: 1
Luck: 3
Authority: 1

Drawbacks
Coward: 2
Depressive: 2
Duty: 2
Watched: 1