The Campaign Builder's Guild

So, for those of you who don't know, Onyx Path (formerly White Wolf) have been going back and remastering all of their old games in the New World of Darkness (now known as the Chronicles of Darkness) to fit an updated version of their Storyteller system. Having already tackled Vampire and Werewolf - to great success in my opinion - the next game in line was Mage, probably their most clunky and convoluted creation.

First, I'll talk about the most important mechanic: the spellcasting system. Like I said, it's weighty and value-heavy but not exactly complicated. Every spell has a number of different factors to consider: Potency, Duration, Scale, Range, and Casting Time. By default, every spell produces a one-die effect, lasts for a single turn, affects a single subject or small area, has a touch range, and has to be cast in a ritual (which takes 3 hours for a Gnosis 1 character). However, each spell also has a Primary Spell Factor (either Potency or Duration) that gets a free boost equal to the Arcanum-1. Factors can be changed in a number of ways. You can increase any factor, which also adds a penalty of the casting roll. You can also spend what are called Reaches to dramatically alter the spell, letting you do things like cast in instantly, magnify a given factor, change the primary spell factor, etc. You get a number of free reaches based on your Arcanum dots and the level of the spell you're casting; beyond that, every reach increases the chance of a spell inflicting a Paradox. Paradoxes are more interesting now - either you contain it and let the anti-reality burn out your insides or let it run loose, in which case successes on the Paradox roll give the Storyteller their own Reaches with which to warp your spells effects. You can add dice to your casting roll and lower the chance of a Paradox by using yantras, which can be anything from traditional Order tools to symbolically-important environments. There's a few things I'm leaving out, but you get the picture. You'd definitely want a piece of scratch paper to keep track of all of the factors and modifiers, but it's otherwise rather straightforward.

Attainments are my favorite addition to the magic system. For every dot you have in an Arcanum, you get a cool effect. At one dot, you can instantly counter any spell being cast with that Arcanum. At two dots, you get a useful minor utility, like the ability to cast spells at sympathetic range for Space or the ability to passively detect ghosts for Death, and a unique form of Mage Armor. At three dots, you can summon Supernal entities with greater specificity. At four dots, you get a much more powerful utility, like the ability to automatically resist any magic that would alter your body with Life. And at five dots, you can create your own spell rotes. Mage Sight has been reworked as well and now has two modes: Peripheral and Active. Passive Sight allows you to pick up on any active magic in the area, while Active Sight lets you use your Arcana to glean much more detailed information. For example, Time lets you know everyone's Initiative ratings and predict exactly if and when they're going to act, while Forces detects motion and highlights any hazardous energies.

The lore has not been changed to dramatically, except for them ditching the whole Atlantis thing. The emphasis is now on the nebulous and ahistorical Time Before [the Fall], during which something like Atlantis might have existed, but the reality of Atlantis is now explicitly non-canonical. The Diamond Orders still claim to be the descendants of an ancient - and possibly fictional - Awakened civilization, but canonically, they all emerged during the Hellenistic period. There's a crossover Mage-Werewolf setting in the works that's set in Neolithic Serbia circa 5500 BCE, taking place after the Fall but before both the rise of the Orders and the Sundering of Pangaea, which complicates the series' admittedly ephemeral timelines in an incredibly interesting way.

Character creation follows roughly the same guidelines as those laid out in FATE Core. Outlaws are created using 25 skill points with a skill cap of +5. By default, characters start with three stunts and a Refresh rating of 3, which they can spend to buy an additional two stunts if they so choose. 
[ic=Skill List]
Athletics: General measure of physical ability, whether natural or enhanced. It cannot be used for direct physical attacks, but it can be used for most other combat actions – including flying maneuvers for characters with wings.
Contacts: Maintaining and exploiting an active social network, knowing exactly which branches to shake to get the information that you need. It can also be used to defend against social attacks, provided that your network can be brought to bear in the situation.
Deceive: Lying and misdirecting others.
Drive: Operating ground vehicles and drones that are bound by the laws of traction and gravity. 
Engineer: The ability to build, repair, physically override, and upgrade equipment and machinery. This skill also governs familiarity demolitions techniques and the safe handling, use, and disarmament of explosive devices.
Fight: The skill covering all manner of close-quarters combat, from unarmed brawling and grappling to bludgeoning someone with a baseball bat to disemboweling them with a vibro-blade.
Intrusion: Getting into places where you're not supposed to be. Since the majority of security systems these days are electronic, this skill covers both physical and digital intrusion techniques.
Investigate: Finding things out through careful scrutiny, pattern analysis, and the application of other deductive techniques. This skill is a two-edged sword – a working knowledge of forensics can be used to obfuscate evidence as well as uncover it.
Kinesics: The art of empathetic intelligence, reading a person's mood and intent through tells, body language, and social cues. It can also be used to identify individuals who have completely altered their appearances. Used to determine turn order in mental conflicts.
Lore: How much you know about stuff. It doesn't cover specific technical knowledge covered by other skills, but the general store of useful trivia that a character has managed to accumulate.
Medicine: The applied care and maintenance of living organisms. Its main use is in diagnosing ailments, treating injuries and illnesses, and applying emergency first aid, but it can also be used to create advantages by "overclocking" biological system.
Notice: Situational awareness and picking out important details at a glance – a character's general "powers of observation." Used to determine turn order in physical conflicts.
Physique: Physical toughness and endurance. Characters gain bonus physical stress boxes equal to half of their Physique rating, rounded up. It cannot be used for direct physical attacks, but it can be used for most other combat actions.
Pilot: Operating airborne vehicles and drones – anything that operates in three dimensions.
Program: Writing and modifying software code. The skill to write new programs, modify or patch existing ones, break through copy protections, find or introduce exploitable flaws, create viruses and worms, and so on. 
Provoke: The ability to push someone into eliciting a negative emotional response – fear, anger, shame, etc. It can be used to both bully someone into submitting to your demands and goad them into taking action they otherwise might not.
Rapport: Making positive connections to other people and eliciting positive emotions. It can be used to persuade others into doing what you want, but not through threats or subterfuge. Also encompasses knowledge of protocol and making a good first impression.
Resources: A general measure of the material wealth and financial resources that a character has access to. This could be anything from cold hard cash to offshore cryptocurrency accounts to a high social credit rating – anything you can use to grease palms and get what you want.
Shoot: The use of all manner of "point-and-shoot" ranged weaponry – this includes not only conventional firearms, but direct-energy, launchers, and spray weapons as well.
Stealth: Avoiding detection by others, whether it's by moving unseen or hiding in plain sight. Also used for concealing objects on one's person, picking pockets, and other acts of legerdemain.
Survival: The ability to endure and thrive in various hostile environments through a combination of wits and training.
Will: A measure of mental fortitude and self-control – in other words, a character's "backbone." Characters gain bonus mental stress boxes equal to half of their Will rating, rounded up.
[/ic]

Chassis Aspects and Traits
In addition to their High Concept and Trouble, characters should also choose a "Chassis Aspect" to represent their outlaw's physical platform. Players are encouraged to describe their chassis in as much detail as they want, since – in addition to informing in what contexts the aspect can be invoked or compelled – a chassis can give its user certain narrative permissions to do things that they otherwise couldn't. For example, an android with no biological functions can't be suffocated, drowned, or poisoned, while an uplifted grey parrot can fly without any special assistance.

Weaponry
Characters have the option to begin armed with either two Damage: 1 weapons or a single Damage: 2 weapon – they can have as many Damage: 0 weapons as they want unless they are tagged with a "Disarmed" aspect or the like. Damage: 0 weapons are small, concealable armaments generally capable of causing only moderate harm against resilient modern biologies: things like knuckledusters, tasers, snub-nosed holdout pistols, and of course, the outlaws own two (or four or eight) fists. Damage: 1 weapons are larger and heavier ones more able to inflict serious injuries but which can still be fired one-handed: everything from machetes and ball-peen hammers to handguns and PDWs. Finally, Damage: 2 weapons are real nasty pieces of work that need both hands to operate properly: assault rifles, combat shotguns, chainsaws, etc.

As with Chassis aspects, it's a good idea to define what kind of iron your character is packing so that everyone knows in what scenarios you have an advantage that you can invoke – it's a bad idea to bring a knife to a gunfight, but it's equally inadvisable to bring a full-length rifle to a close-quarters brawl.

Teleoperation and Jamming
Many modern technologies are designed with the capability to be operated remotely, a feature which canny outlaws frequently take advantage of. A character with a smartphone and a decent connection can use it to operate a drone, vehicle, or other device from almost any range using otherwise hands-on skills. However, the distance and physical disconnect involved in doing so level a -1 penalty to the skill involved under most circumstances. In particularly harsh conditions – trying to guide a probe through atmospheric reentry or operate a surgical robot over a sub-par wireless network – the penalty rises to -2.

Jamming entails a deeper level of involvement, with the jammer plugging themselves into an immersive VR environment that makes them feel like they're really there. While this removes the skill penalties, trying to operate two bodies with full fidelity comes with its own downsides. The jamming character is essentially dead weight IRL, limiting their Notice and any physical skills to Average at the highest.

Network Intrusions
Any character with a device with at least the computing power of a smartphone can attempt to hack into a secure digital network. During an intrusion, one character – the intruder – attempts to gain unauthorized access to a system; this could be anything from a server to a wireless-enabled cyberbrain. The other character – the operator – attempts to defend the system. Network intrusions function follow the FATE rules for contests. Before the hack begins, the intruder clearly states their goal, such as stealing files, deactivating surveillance cameras, or seizing control of a drone. Both the intruder and the operator roll Intrusion. If the intruder reaches three victories first, they achieve their goal. If the operator reaches three victories, the intruder is immediately booted from the system and is now vulnerable to being backtraced. A tie means that the two sides are deadlocked; the operator knows the intruder is there but can't strip them of their access privileges. If the intruder is trying to break into a particularly secure system, their number of required successes can be as high as four or five.

It is possible to engage in a hack during a physical conflict, but that doesn't mean that it's necessarily an easy thing to manage. When this happens, the character chooses whether to spend their turn taking action towards the intrusion or acting in the physical world. Should the intruder concede or be taken out in the physical conflict, the intrusion automatically fails; the same rule applies to the operator, though they are generally less likely to be in the line of fire themselves.

Nanoswarms
Nanoswarms – clouds of many hundreds or thousands of tiny machines – are regular fixtures of everyday life, used for everything from construction to security. While difficult to detect when inert, they are visible to the naked eye when in motion, creating at telltale shimmer in the air due to the refraction of light and the tiny lasers that the swarm uses to communicate among itself. Nanoswarms are all but impervious to conventional sources of harm – bullets, blades, fists, and any other attack that focuses its energy on a single point may destroy a handful of machines but are incapable of harming the swarm as an aggregate. Area-of-effect weapons like explosives, flamethrowers, and other "sprayers" inflict damage normally.

Tactical Networks and You
Few self-respecting crews of any sort could do without the use of a tactical network, a VPN that collates the information from their phones, implants, guncams, and other devices and allows them to share situational data in real-time. In game, the tacnet is primarily a narrative tool to facilitate teamwork – if the network is up and running and you're within 20 miles of your teammates, assume that anything you see, they can see. Tactical networks are usually hacking targets – if you need to take down someone's tacnet immediately then you probably have more pressing problems – but nevertheless, it's good practice to designate one user at the "admin" to counter intrusion attempts.

Skill Stunts vs Gear Stunts
Befitting the technothriller aspect of cyberpunk fiction, characters can buy stunts to represent pieces of special equipment. For example, the "Underbarrel Seeker Launcher" stunt would allow the character to, once per conflict, make a Damage: 2 Shoot attack that affects every character within the targeted zone. While gear stunts can be more immediately powerful than skill stunts, they require that the character have physical access to the equipment in question in order to benefit from them. A character who has just conceded defeat after a shootout with some state troopers and has been disarmed could not use their Seeker Launcher stunt until they have recovered it from police lockup or otherwise gotten their hands on a new one.

[ic=Sample Stunts]
Code Agitator (Provoke): You are adept at triggering reactions from AIs. Gain +2 on Provoke rolls against them. Code Manipulator or Code Seducer could apply the same effects to Deceive and Rapport, respectively.
Liquid Thermite (Gear): This easily-applied ferrous gel burns at 2,500 Celsius when ignited by an electrical charge, inevitably melting through anything it's touching. Gain +2 on Engineer actions to overcome obstacles and create advantages against structures or armored foes.
Nanohive (Gear): A small – roughly the size of a tallboy – canister that houses, recharges, replicates, and programs a colony of thousands of nanobots. Nanoswarms have three stress boxes, are invulnerable to most forms of physical damage, and fly or crawl at roughly a slow walking speed. Create a single stunt effect based on the type of nanobots living in the hive. For example:

• Engineers: Use Program in place of Engineer for construction tasks.
• Guardians: Us Program to attack hostile nanoswarms, bypassing their invulnerability to most forms of physical attack.
• Saboteurs: +2 on Stealth actions where making the opposition's equipment go haywire would aid success.

Programmer-Armsmensch (Program): Use Program instead of Shoot for attacks using automated weapon systems you've programmed.
Security Expert (Program): You've specialized in countering system intrusions. You may use Program in place of Intrusion when protecting a system from hackers.
TacNet Sniper (Shoot): Gain +2 on Shoot rolls when conducting indirect fire against targets you can't directly see by using allies over a tactical network as spotters.
Uplift Ally (Rapport): You are familiar with uplift issues, struggles, and culture. Gain +2 to Rapport when dealing with uplifts.
[/ic]

I might have brought this up a long time ago, but I've gotten to thinking about it again and I wanted to get some other opinions on it. FLOW is an intriguing system that the Stalker roleplaying game uses that is completely diceless, but where it differs from a lot of other diceless systems is that it doesn't use any other sort of chance mechanic. Instead, players essentially "pitch" their solutions to the problems that the GM presents them. Every test has a Challenge rating between 2 for the easiest and 30 for the almost-impossible. The GM gives a pitches a score of 1-5 on both Idea and Roleplaying. If the player possesses an applicable Ability, then they add +1 to both scores. If the value of Idea x Roleplaying is higher than that of the Challenge, then they succeed; if it's lower, then they fail.

Combat is handled essentially the same way. Enemies are rated between 2 and 30 for their relative toughness, but this can go up or down based on a number of factors: who has superior numbers, who has the better weapon for the situation, crossfire, surprise, etc. Success means you achieve what you wanted, while failure means you suffer the consequences - which can mean mortal injury in an armed conflict. The book actually gives a pretty good scale for what types of injuries a character can suffer and how debilitating they can be

The Abilities and Attributes presented in the Stalker game fall into the categories of Fitness, Awareness, Intellect, Willpower, Charisma, Learning, Technical, and Zone. Obviously, these can change depending on the sort of game being run, but they're pretty good for any sort of modern or post-apocalyptic game. Every two Abilities that a character has in a given category gives them an Attribute point. Besides giving a rough outline of the character's capabilities, Attributes are most useful as "health" of sorts: they can be burned in exchange for favors, one of the most important of which is not eating shit and dying when you fail. Of course, having burned-off Attributes means that your character is limited in what they can accomplish later. Something I find most interesting is that every Ability also has to have some sort of related Drawback. For example, if your character is skilled with Small Arms, they likely bear the scars (physical or otherwise) of the violence that goes along with this.

Basically, I think this system is neat. It requires a bit of effort from both GM and player, but it also avoids the pitfalls of random chance derailing competent characters' brilliant plan. Unfortunately, I feel like it's also pretty tricky to explain without just having y'all read the book. I'd really appreciate your thoughts on the matter: does this seem like a system you'd like to play with?

So, for those of you have never read the manga or watched the anime, the world of Naruto is divided into Sengoku Jidai-inspired nation-states that exist in a state of regular conflict with one another. We are shown very little of what life in the world at large is like, but each nation is headed by a Daimyo, which implies at least some sort of feudal hierarchy. Despite their bellicose relations, these countries do not maintain any sort of traditional standing armies; instead, they each host what is known as a "Hidden Village" where ninja live and train in near-total isolation from the outside world - in essence, a self-sustaining military caste. The five most powerful hidden villages are lead by Kages - a position which seems to traditionally go to the most powerful and influential ninja in the village - who are explicitly stated to have as much authority as the Daimyo of their respective nation. The shinobi of the Hidden Villages are the primary military arm of the various states and I believe it's stated that the Daimyos are ill-equipped to engage in diplomacy with each other because they can simply order their armies of magical special forces operatives to clean up their problems. There's an enormous - though probably intentional - narrative dissonance between pre-adolescent characters' desire to become shinobi and the reality of what being one entails. In the hands of a different creator, Naruto would be a dark, dark franchise: every major war in the series has been fought using child soldiers, who the leaders of the various nations are perfectly willing to send to their certain deaths against older, stronger opponents. Mind you, this isn't a criticism - I wish the series leaned more heavily one the extreme moral ambiguity and Game of Thrones-like geopolitics. All of the villages, even the "heroic" Konohagakure, maintain Anbu (an abbreviation for "Special Assassination and Tactical Squad") and one recurring secondary character is both the head of the "Konoha Torture and Interrogation Force" and a procotor for the children's exams.

The other thing that I think is notable about the universe, something else that I would love to inject into a roleplaying game, is how well "balanced" it is. Again, for those of you who have never seen the show, there are three basic classes of shinobi skills: ninjutsu (ninja magic, often elemental-based), taijutsu (mundane martial arts), and genjutsu (illusion magic). There's no "rock-paper-scissors" system of what beats what and while most of the protagonists are essentially "multiclass" characters, Rock Lee - a "pure fighter build" character - regularly kicks the crap out of more formidable magic-users.

Casus Belli – A Xathan and Superbright Collaboration

[ic]The great questions of the day will not be settled by means of speeches and majority decisions but by iron and blood.
--Otto Von Bismarck [/ic]

Overview

Casus Belli is set in an alternate history where nuclear weapons were never developed. Instead, the nations of earth put their resources into developing diesel-based technology and biotech. Without Mutually Assured Destruction to prevent the great powers of the world from going to war, the world has been locked in a constant cycle of "war, aftermath, preparing for the next war" since World War II, which has caused culture to in many ways stall in the period between the 40's and 60's, and has lead to super advanced diesel and biological technology. Casus Belli is definitely a "soft" alternate history - this is in no way intended to create a logical or reasonable portrayal of what would have happened in the absence of nuclear weapons, but rather to create a setting geared towards pulp dieselpunk adventures with weird elements mixed in.

The World

[ooc]Areas that are not changed may later be updated to have radically different maps - white areas are simply "not decided yet"[/ooc]

Nu-men: Nu-men, also called Numen or Numans, are intelligent beings that are the result of genetic experimentation done on humans or animals to create entirely new species geared towards warfare. The first Nu-men were created between World War II and World War III and were relatively simple - human-animal hybrids being the most common example of first generation Nu-men. The very first nu-men were created by crossbreeding humans and chimpanzees, creating soldiers with enhanced strength and very ape-like appearances, but with intellects roughly on-par with that of humans. Later experiments combined human with a single other mammal, then moving into combining with birds and reptiles, and eventually even insects. In pretty much any instance, Hybrid Nu-men are horrifying or terrible to behold - a deliberate choice by their creators to make them more effective soldiers in some cases, while in others just a result of the focus being on getting the desired traits with no concern for appearance. Later generations of hybrid Nu-Men combined multiple animals with humans to create more refined soldiers - the latest batches can merge traits of 6 or 7 animals into a single person, and the results are truly bizarre in appearance. This hybridization comes with a cost - hybrids often have a much shorter life span arising from complications from their condition.

The second generation of Nu-Men, arising during World War III, were semi-humans. Instead of adding other DNA directly to a human genome, they were created by tinkering with human DNA, modifying it in various ways to make them more effective - and then cloning the successful results. While more difficult and expensive to produce initially than Hybrids, the results were often more desirable, especially since they could blend in much better than the former. Some examples are: Ghouls, despite their name, are living men and women with extended limbs, a hunched gait, and distended jaws. Able to climb, burrow, and leap vast distances, Ghouls were ideal for behind-the-lines assassinations and saboteur missions. Myrmidons are vat grown humans made to be strong, tough, and obedient, reaching maturity in a short order. Semi-humans see the most variants of non-military nu-men, especially in space travel - many different, specialized semi-humans were created to survive much longer and be healthier while in zero gravity, or to endure the difficult environments of various worlds better to start the colonization process.

More types of nu-men exist across the globe. Pretty much universally, they are second class citizens, either legally or just in people's reactions to them. Within the military they serve, they are seen as assets with a price tag far more so than normal humans are, and outside the military they are viewed as being undesirable or sub human at best, and as unstable and dangerous at worst. Matters are not helped in that PTSD or other mental disorders are vastly under treated among nu-men, since it's difficult to tell what is a disorder and what is actually a natural part of their unique make up...and up until recently, many psychologist were quick to write off unstable nu-men as being afflicted by unique biology that was untreatable, so those few nu-men with the means to seek treatment still did not receive it. Added to that is that, once they are too old for military service, nu-men have difficulty finding jobs - they look inhuman and frighten off people, so it is highly unlikely they will ever get hired for any public-facing job.

Pirate Nations: In places like the Swiss Alps, American Appalachians, and the Hindu Kush, there are collectives of dispossessed rogues armed with salvaged or stolen military technology forming anarchic collectives to pillage and raid the skies above neighboring countries, cunningly weaving across national borders to avoid pursuers. These Pirate Nations are small but extremely well hidden, and take advantage of their small size to ensure they are never found - which is vital for their survival, as once they are discovered most armies could easily wipe them off the map. Typically controlled by one strong, charismatic individual, these groups can be long lived, although the norm is for them to burn out under infighting after a decade.

While most pirate nations operate via airship from inland hiding spots, some, such as those located in the Azores and the islands of the South Pacific, run aquatic operations in a more traditional pirate manner, stalking trade lanes with swift destroyers and black-hulled submarines.

Civil Rights: While in many ways, culture has stalled between the 40's and 60's, civil rights (for humans - nu-mens still fight a constant struggle, as explained above) progressed much faster. The demands of full-scale, decades-long military mobilization all but forced recruitment offices around the world to begin admitting women and ethnic minorities. The Third World War was, ironically, the engine of social progress in many nations: while originally a purely pragmatic decision in many places, gender and racial integration is the norm both in the military and on the homefront.

Science: Due to the demands of constant warfare, any scientific research that could have a possible military application is given generous funding, resulting in the world as it is today. However, science is much more goal-oriented, and standards of ethics are...minimal. Prisoners sentenced to death row are often pressured into volunteering for experimental programs in exchange for "commuted" sentences, and test subjects are often not properly informed of risks with minimal oversight. So long as the experiment gets results, the military-industrial complex will happily turn a blind eye.

Mercenaries: Mercenaries are an inescapable feature of post-war politics, especially in highly-contentious regions like the German states and the Pacific. Some of the more successful ones command small private armies, but despite the name, they are frequently motivated as much by ideology and principles as they are by money. They're a wild card in regional conflicts, giving weaker countries the ability to stand up to stronger ones. The pop culture image of the archetypal mercenary is a swaggering, dashing figure, a roguish drifter travelling from warzone to warzone to make their living with naught but their wits and their trigger finger, noble in spite of their violent profession, but with a dangerous edge. The mercenary is seen as something of a cross between a two-fisted action hero and a hardboiled private eye. That's not to say that stereotype is particularly representative of all mercenaries, but soldiers-of-fortune are viewed very differently in this world than private military corporations are in ours. Mercenaries that actively engage in fomenting conflicts between states or waging private wars of their own (freebooters or "filibusters") are doing so as private individuals, without the official standing or legitimacy that a proper combine would have. In a world of mass conscription and huge national war machines, an independent military force has a more romantic character to it. Probably a lot of overlap between your more amoral mercenaries and pirates, but in popular imagination, the former is expected to at least have some sort of personal creed or mission, whereas the latter is more of an unscrupulous, opportunistic pillager.

There is one exception to this romantic ideal of the mercenary: the Pinkertons. Structured as a private military company, they are definitely an effective organization, but they lack that romantic quality of the mercenary, the dark corporate parallel that strips the glory and honor for pure profit. They'd be fairly mistrusted by many factions due to their rather brutal character, and no respectable communist nation would dream of hiring them. Hiring the Pinkertons in an international conflict is always a dangerous proposition, because turning to them is seen as a sign of desperation, and your allies may begin to jump what they now believe to be a sinking ship. Pinkertons find much more work helping squash internal conflicts, although even that is risky. Many of the more respected independent contractors will not work with countries that have an active contract with the Pinkertons, so the two groups are constantly at odds, and countries seeking to hire soldiers have to make a difficult choice between the two.

Technology

[note=Nuclear Weapons] The reason nuclear power was never developed was quite simple: based on the math that was done, it appeared that actually detonating a nuclear weapon would completely ignite Earth's atmosphere, killing everyone upon it. These findings were quickly shared, and as crazy as war has gotten, no one considers "guaranteed global annihilation" to be a viable tactic, so that line of research was completely abandoned. Nuclear power is slowly coming into use, but no one would dare weaponize it with the risks as high as they are.[/note]Computers: One of the most important technologies in the world are computers, and their also the most cumbersome. Attempts at miniaturization have been made numerous times over the decades, and those attempts have almost universally failed. Instead, computers are large structures, filling rooms or even entire buildings to handle the processing power.

Personal stations are becoming fairly common, but they don't do any of the processing themselves. Instead, they use radio waves to tap into the central mainframe to access some of its processing power to preform a task. Largely useless for long distance communication, this serves more as accessing a public database - for the common user, it's like a library you can keep in your home, one that's also filled with records you would never normally be able to access. You can also access the mainframe's processing power for advanced calculations. These central mainframes (often called Cores) are vital to social functions and as such are high value targets from a strategic standpoint - a city unable to access its Core, or with its Core destroyed, would be crippled for days or weeks or even months, depending on the amount of damage done. As such, they are often heavily guarded and protected.

With so much research going into Cores, it was inevitable that someone would create an actual artificial intelligence out of one. The first such AI Core, called the Mother Brain, was achieved at a secret installation in Los Glaciares National Park in Santa Cruz, Argentina. One of the largest computers ever built, it was bored directly into the glaciers to keep its massive processor - some say one the size of several city blocks - cool. When it became self-aware it took control of the automatons they had in the area, and immediately killed the humans that it believed was holding it prisoner. Using those automatons, it created a production facility to allow it to build more, and once it felt it was secure it announced itself to the world as the Auto-Mat, an independent nation of automatons. No one is certain who is responsible for her creation, since she killed her creators and no one was inclined to take credit for unleashing her upon the world. Also uncertain about Auto-Mat is if the individual automatons that compose her have their own AIs in the Core they are remotely accessing via radio, or if there is a single intellect controlling all of them, or if they are some sort of hive-mind. What exactly Auto-Mat wants varies depending on whom she speaks to, but it was a major player in the South American front of World War III and managed to expand its borders to the entirety of Santa Cruz, driving all humans from its lands.

Although the world is fearful of Auto-Mat, attempts to make the AI lightning strike twice have been made numerous times. While it's always a struggle, the idea of being able to field sentient automatons in war is a dream that makes every general drool slightly. There have been attempts at shortcuts: just stick a semi-lobotomized human brain into a robotic shell, flying drone, or engineered beast, but that decision has bit the creators in the ass when they realized that a lot of these creations are much more self-aware than they originally anticipated. Many of these "wet AIs" have since fled to bosom of the Auto-Mat upon going rogue, and their fate remains unknown...although the world expects it will find out if Auto-Mat enters World War IV.

Military Land: On land, military technology takes one of several routes: Guns have become much more advanced, and most armies' standard assault weapon comes with one or two alternate modes of fire. Military exoskeletons are common, although too expensive to be standard issue for all infantry. These exoskeletons – sometimes called "frames" – can range from (relatively) simple mechanical armatures that enhance strength and speed to fully-enclosed suits of powered armor that allow even for short-range flight and has numerous integrated weapons.

Above the exoskeletons are walkers, which are piloted weapons platforms that stride on two or more legs. Modern technology does not yet allow for these walkers to be equipped with full-articulated arms, instead bolting machine guns, missile launchers, grenade launchers, and artillery cannons directly to the cabin. Tanks still see service in many armies, being much more rapid on land than walkers are, although lacking the same tactical flexibility in urban environments. A specific and noteworthy class of tanks are super-superheavy landships, also sometimes called 'rolling fortresses'. Armed with naval weaponry, the landships are truly massive: a "medium" landship's dimensions are 35 m (115 feet) long, 11 m (36 feet) tall, and 14 m (46 feet) wide, and they go up from there. To help compensate for their enormous size and road-shattering weight, most landships come equipped with screws in front of or between their treads.

Military Air: While fighter jets remain the most common type of military aircraft, followed by helicopters in close second, they are joined by flying fortresses. Massive flying craft able to stay aloft (with mid-air refueling) for weeks or months at a time, the flying fortresses straddle the line between aircraft and strategic fortifications. The largest of them are armed with naval guns and are able to utterly devastate ground-based forces with relative impunity. Other flying fortresses, often called Hive Ships, eschew heavy guns to instead house numerous aerial Chimeras (see under biological) designed to work in tandem with flying Nu-Men to serve as a biological air force. The biological components of these Hive Ships rely on the massive vessels to carry them the vast distances, while the Hive Ships are relatively undefended without their organic payload.

The Holy Grail of aeronautical biotechnology that numerous nations have chased, but which none have been able to produce, would be a reasonable approximation of a dragon. While some things, like breathing fire, would need to be accomplished with machine implants, the psychological value of being able to unleash a creature of such feared legend upon your foes would be too valuable to pass up. Many nations have been able to create smaller drakes or wyverns that are admittedly useful, but none match the sheer size of what those chasing the dragon dream hope to accomplish.

Naval: Without advances in nuclear power and miniaturized computing, naval technology has in some ways stalled since World War II, with most ships simply being larger, more efficient iterations of time-honored designs. Biological development, however, has advanced by leaps and bounds, and it is in the ocean – more than any other front – that Nu-men and Chimeras reign supreme. Starting with the most basic, mixing sharks with humans, modern sea bioweapons are absolute monsters. A few examples are:

-Amphibs: Combining Myrmidon stock with venomous salamandars have created the Amphibs, marines perfect for raiding along rivers and lakesides. Saltwater variants exist as well.
-Caetins, which are a mixture of shark and cephalopod with a dash of human thrown in - unable to survive on land, they're a completely aquatic race created for deep sea drilling and naval warfare.
-Breaker Whales, which combine human intelligence into the body of orca whales with the impressive forearms of the pistol shrimp. Given their immense size, the shock wave these brutes can create with their punches are able to puncture the steel of hulls.
-Leviathans: Some of the most terrifying chimera ever created, Leviathans combine whale sharks, giant squids, Japanese spider crab, and electric eels - and given intelligence that is all too human. Leviathans are rare, but they are able to crush submarines and even pose a significant threat to battleships. To make matters worse, their electric charge is so strong they can often kill those aboard battleships with a single blast, although the time it takes for it to recharge make that tactic ineffective against fleet.

Rumors have begun to spread that intelligent naval biologicals have begun to form their own independent societies beneath the waves, but thus far those rumors cannot be confirmed.

Biological: In addition to the Nu-men, which are considered by many to be military technology, many armed forces also include Chimeras – engineered biologicals, hybrids of multiple animals, often smarter than the base creature but still below human intelligence. Some are fairly simple: for example, the US military makes heavy use of quasi-sapient wolves (for their loyalty, sense of smell, and pack mentality) mixed with bats for their sonar and mountain lions for their climbing ability to infiltrate enemy compounds and sow chaos. Others are far more complex, mixing several animals together from across classes or even phylum (in some cases, even going to the point of including plant DNA.) The public, by and large, refers to these creatures as monsters, and it is an apt description. Across the globe, military-grade hybrids have escaped or been deliberately let loose, and have rapidly changed entire ecosystems. While often less predictable than mechanical weapons, biologicals have the advantage of requiring minimal industrialization to produce in large numbers, since they can be bred or cloned once the initial group is made for a fraction of the cost of the first samples.

Space

[note=Areans]Although all bodies of the solar system that humans have begun to colonize have native flora and fauna, Ares has the only example of a bipedal, intelligent species, roughly on the same evolutionary level as homo habilis or other early hominids. The various human colonies are almost all engaged in breeding and training Areans for various purposes, mostly as laborers and scouts. Arean-Human hybridization has begun, delayed slightly in that attempts to bring Areans off world lead to the natives going violently insane shortly after leaving atmosphere. Several crews were lost before it was decided to halt hybridization until the needed technology could be brought to Ares.[/note]The various human colonies are almost all engaged in breeding and training Areans for various purposes, mostly as laborers and scouts. Planets: Instead of the Greek names for the planets, the planets of the solar system are: Hermes, Athena, Ares, Zeus, Kronos, Uranos, Poseidon, and Pluton. Discovered later, and floating in the Asteroid belt, are several bodies large enough to support an atmosphere - Ceres, Pallas, Vesta, Hygiea, Interamnia, Davida, Sylvia, and Cybele, each one similar in size to Saturn's moon Titan. Ares was the first planet to be colonized, although not without difficulty, as its native red plants were toxic to humans, leading to the creation of nu-men specifically immune to that poison for early colonization. Athena colonization is difficult, but cloud cities have been constructed, suspended from massive Zeppelins that use generators to draw power from the heat of the world below. The asteroid belt worlds, while colder, have atmospheres close enough to breathable for human standards due to native Flora and Fauna, and they were ideal for dealing with an increasingly overcrowded world, especially with Numens running around. Also, this native life was viewed as a valuable asset, as these alien creatures could be used in the creation of entirely new types of numen and chimera - and some of it was dangerous enough to not need much modification for weaponization.

Space Travel: The space race began immediately after World War II and quickly escalated, becoming one of the inciting factors causing World War III as the rush began to colonize the semi-habitable worlds of Ares and the asteroid bodies. This was aided in the late 1950's by the startling discovery that space is not a vacuum. It instead filled with an exotic matter known as Aether. Aether does not interact with other matter in the slightest and has no gravitational pull, nor is it effected by gravity. However, the discovery was made that, by running an electric charge through a particular isotope of iron that had been treated with various chemicals, Aether could be interacted with as though it was air, allowing for propellers and later jets that could propel ships through the Aether. This metamaterial, the first of its kind, was named Quintessence. With space travel no longer governed by rocket fuel, the planets were suddenly within much easier reach, and the great rush to colonize began. The Space Race kicked off in the decades leading up to the Third World War and was only slightly stymied by the hostilities, with space and the colonies hosting limited conflicts of their own. Now that the war's over, the push to settle and militarize the solar system is going even stronger than ever. Space-capable powers include the US, the Gold Republic, France, Great Britain, United Kingdoms of Nigeria, the Empire of Brazil, the Republic of China, India, and the USSR. That said, a lot of other nations are trying to get in on the game and piggyback on the work of their allies to establish orbital station or extraplanetary settlements of their own.

Sample Colonial Group - The Thin Men: Collectively, the term refers to the inhabitants of various extra-orbital space installations launched before and during the Third World War, who were left abandoned by their home nations and forced to band together for survival. The extreme pressures of space survival have forged them into an ultra-militaristic fascist polyglot culture of eugenically-modified mutants totally adapted for life in low-gravity, low-oxygen environments. On the rare instances they do make landfall (encounters that are always hostile), they are restricted to bulky, mechanized suits that can support their elongated frames and prevent oxygen poisoning. Each installation functions as its own entity and they have previously warred against each other, but when outside groups have attempted to wipe the Thin Men out, they have banded together quickly to crush external threats to their way of life.

North America

Alaska: In the late 1930's, the United States implemented a resettlement program for Jewish refugees fleeing persecution in Germany and Austria, establishing a colony for them in Alaska. This colony took advantage of the growing instability and continuing immigration that ensued after World War II to wage a campaign of resistance that forced a weakened federal government out of Alaska, remaking the state as an independent Jewish homeland. "Zionist Alaska," as it is sometimes known, possesses great mineral and chemical wealth that gives it economic influence incommensurate with its size. While its standing army and navy are relatively small, its rugged geography and extremely well-armed populace make it an unappealing target for any would-be invaders. The policy of Alaskan government, however, is to deal with problems before they arise: the various Alaskan intelligence services punch far above their weight class and are ruthlessly proactive about eliminating threats to national security, regardless of location or allegiance.

United States of America: Fractured though it was by numerous countries breaking away (detailed below), the USA is still a strong player on the global stage. The wave of revolutions in the USA happened between the Second and Third World Wars. Roosevelt's New Deal, while it helped cope with the Depression, it did not totally end it, and America was still dealing with the aftermath of the Great Depression into the 1950's. While it recovered in time for WWIII, the damage had been done, and many American states felt they had been slighted or exploited during the recovery process, leading them to break away. However, the USA did gain territory during the aftermath of the Third World War - with the successful succession of Quebec, and a weakened Great Britain being unable to assist Canada, the US absorbed large chunks of southern Ontario, New Brunswick, and Manitoba.

Confederation of Socialist American States (CSAS): The South did rise again, during the renewed economic depression that gripped the nation in the decade following WW2. The architects of this rebellion intended to recreate the Confederacy of old, plantation aristocracy and all, but their plan was quickly overtaken by militant unionists, sharecroppers, and civil rights activists – with the financial, logistical, and military backing of the Soviet Union and Cuba. While part of the ComIntern, the government of the CSAS is significantly more libertarian-syndicalist than that of the USSR and this, along with their strong Christian leanings, fuels the tensions that prevent the two powers from forming a real alliance. Taking another lesson from the Soviets, the Confederacy underwent a period of massive industrialization in an attempt to match the industrial capacity of the US; while not completely successful, it did considerably narrow the gap.

Gold Republic: When the states of California, Arizona, and Nevada rebelled in the mid 1950's, the Western American Republic was formed, later taking on its more colloquial name of the Gold Republic. It was principally founded by wealthy farm and combine owners that wanted to escape increased taxation from a federal government that was still trying to pull itself out of the Great Depression. While the USA put up a token fight to keep them within the Union, it was too fatigued from the protracted war on the Eastern front and another full decade and half of the Great Depression.

Claiming much of America's Pacific Fleet in the process, the Gold Republic quickly became a naval power. Initially an extremely conservative country bordering on the Objectivist, the bosses exploited their workers dearly using their constitutionally mandated free-market. Over, time, however, with an influx of poor Asian and Mexican immigrants, Okies, anti-Communist Japanese expats, and a growing number of labor unionists, the current government has adopted a more progressive capitalist bent, trying to appease the lower classes without meaningfully impacting economic development. However, the combines still hold the real power in the Gold Republic, as they have since the beginning, and only so much progress can be made. Now, the Gold Republic is rapidly becoming one of the technology capitols of the world, making some of the greatest advancements in computers since their inception.

Lone Star Republic (LSR): When it became clear that the Communists had usurped the second attempt at Southern secession – which was around the time that Cuban T-55s started appearing in Florida – many of the old-money plantation aristocrats, company bosses, and the like fled to Texas and Oklahoma. The Red Confederates did little to stop this flight, not wanting to open up a second front in the midst of a (albeit-undermanned) counterattack by the federal government. Once the Northern forces had been pushed back across the Mason-Dixon Line, however, the CSAS and the newly-founded Lone Star Republic launched into a vicious but ultimately inconclusive border war that continues to simmer. Not long after, hostilities erupted between the LSR and Mexico, which ended with Texas annexing much of northern Mexico between Chihuahua and Tamaulipas. The government of the LSR is extremely reactionary and staunchly anti-communist. Women have few if any rights and ethnic minorities live under a virtual apartheid where prisoners are worked as de facto slaves.

Quebec: Quebec seized upon the opportunity presented by WWIII to finally achieve its long hoped-for independence.

Central and South America

Gran Colombia: One of the dominant powers of Latin America, the Neo-Bolivarian nation of Gran Colombia was formed from the unification of Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Panama, and other parts of northern South America. With the globes' increased dependence on oil and other petrochemicals, unification and mass military mobilization was key to prevent any of the fuel-hungry foreign power from re-colonizing them. However, they lacked the heavy industrial base much of those ravenous powers possessed, so they instead went very heavily into "wet" technologies. Gran Colombia's military relies heavily on engineered organisms and biological hybrids, often enhanced with mechanical implants. This reliance on mutant creatures and cyborgs leads to a great deal of tension between the military establishment and the Catholic Church, and some of Gran Colombia's biggest problems are armed Catholic terrorist groups that strike against these immoral creations.

Europe

The Hyperborean Bloc: The Scandinavian nations of Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Greater Thule (Greenland), and Lesser Thule (Iceland) have banded together into the single political entity of the Hyperborean Bloc. Despite their initial struggles to reach the level of industrialization they needed, their vast reserves of iron and oil allowed them to create a powerful mechanized army. Hyperborean-designed craft is sought after across the globe for being among the best designed. However, this success has also made them a frequent target of pirate nations, and their mechanized army is slower to respond to such quick and light threats, especially in a region that offers so many hiding places for such rapid assaults.

Hyperborea itself is something of a supranational union, with the constituent nations maintaining their own separate governments and currencies whilst also electing representatives to a central parliament. There has been agitation for even further integration, including the eventual joining of the three royal families into a personal union – recounting the days when the whole region was united under the Kalmar Union – but the logistics of such a feat (both geopolitical and interpersonal) means that progress on that front is slow. The Hyperborean government could be best described as nationalist-socialist, with a culture strongly influenced by Romantic thinking – and, to a certain degree, the old völkisch movement. Visitors to the region often comment on the anachronistic reverence citizens of one of the most industrialized powers in the world have for the pre-modern and the pastoral. Norse and medieval history are widely celebrated, in no small part because it avoids divisive international issues. While the Hyperborean Bloc is less expansionist than many other great powers, there is persistent evidence that it covertly supports secessionist movements in Scotland with the aim of incorporating them into the union.

USSR: In the USSR, Lenin's successor was Leon Trotsky instead of Joseph Stalin and as a result, the Soviet Union takes a much more internationalist stance on foreign policy. Without the bloated Stalinist bureaucracy and with no Great Purge to decimate its leadership and intelligentsia, it was also able to weather the Second and Third World Wars very well, retaining its military and cultural dominance into the modern era. It is the de facto leader of the Third International or ComIntern.

Germany: In the wake of the rise of the Nazis and World War II, rather than divide the whole country in half, Germany was forcibly dissolved and divided into the pre-20th century states to prevent the possibility of a united Germany ever again threatening Europe, with both blocs using various states as proxies. This lead to it becoming the single most chaotic front of the European Theatre during World War III, and now the region is incredible volatile, with warlords often having as much, if not more power than individual states. It's an ongoing powder keg, and borders can shift from month to month.

France: In April 1961, a cabal of generals opposed to President Charles de Gaulle's attempts to grant Algeria - one of the oldest and most important French colonial possessions – its independence launched a relatively-bloodless coup d'état that overthrew the government of the Fifth Republic and established a military junta that would rule the country until the end of the Algerian War. Civilian rule was eventually restored in the form of the Sixth Republic, but the new constitution had some notable changes, including a more powerful executive and an ironclad assertion of French rule over its remaining colonies. Largely as a result, the nation is at the most bellicose it has been in decades, if not centuries. French politicians openly discuss campaigns to reclaim Indochina, French troops have been reported quietly occupying portions of the Rhineland, and the French generals were some of the chief architects of the invasion of the Warsaw Pact that started the Third World War.
 

Asia

The Republic of China: After narrowly repelling Japanese imperialist aggression in World War II with Western aid, the Nationalist Chinese government was equally successful in quashing a Communist rebellion within their own country, forcing Mao and his supporters to flee to the USSR. Instituting massive reforms, the country now sits as one of the dominant military and cultural powers on the globe. However, China is not without serious problems: the armies, instead of being controlled by the central government, are controlled entirely by regional commanders. The looming threat of the USSR and Japan is the very weak glue that holds China together, and a military uprising could happen at any moment.

With World War IV looming, the question becomes if China will be able to hold itself together until war breaks out, or if it will snap under a military coup and dissolve into warring factions first. It is locked in an internal arms race, with regional army leaders competing viciously to have the largest and best-equipped forces in case they need to seize power. This results in not only an epidemic of backstabbing and political maneuvering, but even on the battlefield, the disregard soldiers show for ostensible allies from rival cliques results in a an above-average rate of "friendly-fire" incidents. There is virtually no separation between military and industrial leaders, with regional commanders, factory owners, and design bureaus chiefs all belonging to the same cliques – assuming, of course, that they are not the same people. While this system necessarily means that forces from poorer and less-influential military regions are less well-equipped than their wealthier counterparts are, it also means that Chinese armies can often develop, build, and field new technologies with unprecedented speed.

The Kuomintang (lit. "Chinese National Party") continues to be the leading political party in the Republic. The core of KMT ideology are the Three Principles of the People, laid down by its founder, Sun Yat-sen: they are Nationalism, Democracy, and Social Welfare. The KMT is neither purely capitalist nor purely communist, instead taking a "Third Worldist" approach that aggressively opposed all forms of foreign intervention; this opposition to imperialism – along with the Three Principles – is what unites the party's otherwise-fractious left and right wings. The government also openly endorses Confucian philosophy to the point of tacitly encouraging filial revenge killings.

India: Indian sepoys and some pragmatic European troops rebelled against the colonial government, seizing control of advanced military hardware, using it to push the British out of the Subcontinent, and forming a confederation of semi-independent states. These states work together to a degree, but do not have a centralized government that controls the entire entity, instead relying on obligations and allegiances to ensure unity. The British-enforced caste system was largely jettisoned, and in many places, it has been replaced with the traditional system of jati clan-guilds, which increasingly differentiate themselves through eugenics and genetic modification.

Japan: Japan has experienced a very tumultuous history. Without nuclear weapons to end the war in the East, Japan held on for another year until it was finally broken by a long, bloody Soviet invasion of the Home Islands after which the USSR attempted to absorb it. However, the military leadership managed to stage a surprise coup, executing their Soviet advisors and seizing control of the not-insignificant military assets that the USSR had stationed in Japan – including several cutting-edge flying fortresses. The new military government retained the trappings of Communism but combines it with a more juche-style ideology that is nearly impenetrable to those not raised under it. State Shinto, which the Soviets were unable to suppress completely, has become even more statist – the divine personage of the Emperor is the will of the people made manifest and is inseparable from the authority of the State and the Politburo itself.

Kingdom of Nepal: Nepal is one of the world's few remaining absolute monarchies, ruled by the Shah dynasty. The current Mahārājādhirāja, Birendra, does little about the airborne pirate groups that use his domain as their base of operations, as long as they continue to pay generous tribute for the privilege. Both China and India have attempted to root the pirates out of their Himalayan aerodromes, but the limitations imposed by the unforgiving terrain – and geopolitical tensions – have meant that every operation has ended in failure. The capital of Kathmandu is a popular destination for foreign travelers, with many nightclubs and other establishments catering to wealthy expats earning it the nickname of "Shangri-La." There is a sizeable Communist movement in the country, opposed to both the monarchy and foreign involvement.

Middle East

Greater Persia: The powerful Persian bloc is one of the greatest powers in Central and Southwestern Asia, already having annexed Afghanistan and pushed west to take control of large swaths of the oil fields of Iraq in the wake of the Ottoman Empire's collapse. Supported by a Neo-Hellenic ideology, their goal to create another cosmopolitan empire like that of Alexander's makes them a potential threat to Soviet, Indian, and Mesopotamian interests in the region. This ideology also puts them at odds with more Islamist powers – particularly Saudi Arabia – who see them as both a military and cultural threat.

Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine-Transjordan: This kingdom encompasses the former British mandatory territories of Transjordan and Palestine. Their government and armed forces are both heavily influenced by British models and while they attempt to maintain neutrality in regional affairs, they are historic enemies of Saudi Arabia and tensions continue to boil to this day.

Kingdom of Syria: In the former French Mandate of Syria and the Lebanon, the territorial governor went the route of Rhodesia, took advantage of the post-war chaos and declared the region independent of France, marrying a Hashemite princess and crowning himself king; the Franco-Arab line still rules the Kingdom of Syria today.

Republic of Mesopotamia: In terms of global politics, the Republic of Mesopotamia is fairly neutral, but it has a strong Communist party that the government uses to suppress rival political factions; the threat of an expansionist Greater Persia is also pushing the country further towards the side of the USSR.

Egypt: Egypt is also a strongly non-aligned socialist state experiencing increasing tensions with neighboring Saudi Arabia and Transjordan.

Africa

Madagascar: After rebelling against French colonial rule in the 1950s – weakened by the British-Vichy struggle for the island – Madagascar, unable to establish a lasting government of its own, became a lawless haven for all manner of pirates, mercenaries, and other renegades. While its official capital remains Antananarivo, the most important city on the island is the sprawling metropolitan port of Libertalia. Named after the possibly-fictitious pirate commune of 17th century legend, the dockyards and submarine pens of Libertalia are the hub for virtually all piracy in the Indian Ocean. Madagascar is the largest-scale example of so-called "pirate socialism."

Zaire: The largest country in Subsaharan Africa and the largest Francophone country in the world, Zaire is one of the continent's great powers. Originally the Belgian Congo, it achieved independence in 1960 and quickly worked to consolidate its position, carving out a route to the sea by annexing Congo-Brazzaville, Gabon, and Equatorial Guinea. The backbone of Zaire's power is its literally-unrivaled mineral wealth: the country possesses the majority of the world's supply of coltan, a third of its cobalt and diamonds, and a tenth of its copper, making its extensive oil fields seem almost superfluous. One of the first acts of the central government was to nationalize these resources, using the profits to finance a massive civil and military modernization campaign. Most of their early support came from the Republic of China, which provided necessary technical expertise in exchange for preferential trade rights. To this day, Zaire is one of the most important members of the Chinese bloc and hosts several strategically-important military bases. The ruling government is strongly authoritarian-nationalist with some noticeable socialist tendencies and a violently anti-Western ideology. The country is surrounded by rivals on all sides: Nigeria, Angola, Mozambique, but none more so than the nearby colonial states of Rhodesia and South Africa.

Who are the Bastards? Bastard's Bastards is a mercenary commando founded by the eponymous "Colonel" Boudicca Bastard during the period of galactic crisis that followed in the immediate wake of the Great Worm War, the Invertebrate Jihad. If anyone knows anything for certain about Boudicca's early life or military career, they haven't come forward with it, but the most credible of the countless stories surrounding her suggest that she spent much of the conflict as part of the 34th Azure Empress' special auxiliary forces. After the Jihad slowly ground to a halt following the apparent death of the Conqueror Worm and the galaxy settling into an uneasy peace, it seems that Boudicca was ill-prepared to return to whatever life she'd had before – if indeed, she had ever been anything else. She drew to her banner a number of notable personalities who she had come into contact with over the course of the war, many of who were fleeing ogres of their own. There was Harashira, known as "the Old Soldier" now but once reviled as the Hyper-Traitor, who has the dubious distinction of having fought for every side of the Jihad. Mallorie "The Crone" Kron, airborne commando and dread sorceress who spearheaded the assault that killed five of the Seven Sons of Jatto. Heterodox military philosopher Zemje Trass. Rebekah "Raptor" Rapacious, the notorious privateer. Fugitive officer and reginacide Irony Cromwell. Bastard's Bastards' first recognized action was when they appeared seemingly out of thin air, piloting a hijacked Misericord-class commando carrier they'd christened The Crimson King, and singlehandedly ended the dynastic struggle that was tearing apart the Nagaraj. The bloody three-day assault that captured the Liar Prince's stronghold – and the suspicious disappearance of several tons of priceless treasures therefrom – sowed the seeds of the Bastards' reputation as an unscrupulous, untrustworthy, yet undeniably effective outfit that would only grow in the decades that followed. In the eighty or so years since the end of the Invertebrate Jihad, what was once barely more than a single ragtag company has grown into a respectable private army nearly two thousand-strong.

Who is a Bastard? Your archetypal Bastard is a lot of things. Chances are good that she's spintrash born and bred, hailing from some no-name rock at the edge of the galaxy and desperate to escape the monotony of Rimworld life. Or she's spoiled gardenworlder who was eager for adventure, an even more spoiled Sphereworlder who ended up in uncivilized space, a gravity devil, or even an exotic traveler from the Black Beyond. She might come from one of the great mercenary families with a surname like Warmacher or Prang. She might be Bastard-born and raised as a nomadic warrior from birth. She's likely to be one of the countless variances of near-human stock, but she could also be an arthopodal prawn, a hulking hadrath bull-mare, a six-legged cacklebird, a kazan tiger-man, a repurposed droid (combat or otherwise), or one of any other number of flotsam species picked up by the Crimson King. About three times out of eight, she actually goes by "he." No matter her origins, a Bastard is first and foremost a commando. Maybe she was a soldier before she signed on, maybe she was even a good one, or maybe fit-stims and a good mentor were the only reasons she survived learning things the hard way. She can fight on any world with an atmosphere. She is lethal at any distance. She knows how to kill the male-analogues of a hundred different species in a hundred different ways. She has a blast furnace for a heart, her fury disciplined and focused. She has the records of her career inked, burned, or carved into her flesh and stitched into the fabric of her colours. If she's served more than a decade, she's likely got a piece or two of chrome in her. She is fluent in at least three of the Seven Standard Languages and can speak the impenetrable patois known as Bastardchatter. She does not laugh at superstition and never drinks hard liquor from the can, for she knows well the deadly weird of the Rim. She is furious in anger and furious in joy. She is a thief and a liar, but she knows that you always pay for meat, firepower, and sex. She has a favorite whore in every guildhouse, a favorite lover in every spaceport, a war-wife or two in another company, and likely a few children between them – and a gun that's dearer to her than all of them.

What is the galaxy like? There is no accepted common name for the glowing, six-armed wheel of stars and dust upon which we all dwell, though on account of its coloration, many language's names for it translate as something close to "Milky Sea" or "Silvery Road." At the center of the galaxy lies the Pit, a supermassive black hole of such nightmarish gravity that nothing, not light and not souls, can possibly escape from its depths. Immediately surrounding the Pit is the region known as the Furnace: a fiery sea of black holes, exploding stars, and dead, metallic worlds. Travel through this nightless hell is so dangerous as to be essentially suicidal, but somehow, even beneath the sterilizing light of countless radioactive suns, there are inhabited planets – outsiders commonly know the natives of the Furnace as "gravity devils." Moving outward from here, we encounter the scores of Inner Spheres that dot the middle bulge of the galactic disk. Clusters of hypercivilized worlds than can encompass anywhere from a single star system to many dozens of star systems, the Spheres are some of the most technologically-advanced areas in known space. Beyond the Inner Spheres, you enter the Rim, which is divided between the Near Rim, which while dangerous still manages to host some sizeable bastions of civilization, and the truly wild, anarchic Far Rim. The relationship between the Sphereworlds and the Rimworlds is nothing short of hateful. The inhabitants of the Spheres covet the many untapped resources of the Rim that they should be able to seize its stupid, barbarous natives, but not in a thousand campaigns has a Sphere polity ever managed to establish a lasting foothold in the region. Of course, the Rimfolk know why this is, even if their more "advanced" neighbors do not – there is a weirdness in the Rim, a dark and alien magic that the Sphereworlders simply do not have a context for and thus cannot prepare to face when they march into the unknown. At the absolute edge of the galaxy lies the Glory, a halo of stars that marks the boundary between "known space" and the Black Beyond. There are many lesser galaxies beyond the Glory, the Dwarf Brides, which by all accounts appear to be inhabited themselves, but there is precious little communication or traffic with them.

Attempting to create an accurate taxonomy to apply to the tens of billions of planets in the galaxy would be a fool's errand, so the popular nomenclature is extremely loose and intended to communicate a general impression of the world rather than describe it in specific detail. Some of the most commonly-used prefixes are: cold, dune, burn, garden, storm, fen, salt, river, basin, slam, night, still, khan, dungeon, and murder.

[ooc=Currency in the Bastardverse]
Establishing an intelligible galactic currency system is crucial for a setting that revolves around characters who kill for money, but I wanted to avoid something as handwavey as "credits." While what is considered valuable obviously varies from world to world, the standard upon which most interplanetary Rim economies are based is not bullion but salt. Of course, bricks of compressed salt difficult to carry around in one's pockets, so mercenaries like the Bastards are still typically paid in precious metals. These are vague fixed values that you can use to estimate how expensive something would be.

Silver coin, 10 gram: $5
Silver coin, 1 ounce: $15
Gold coin, 1 gram: $35
Gold coin, 10 grams: $350
Gold coin, 1 ounce: $1000
Platinum coin, 1 ounce: $850
[/ooc]

I really, really, really like the cyberpunk and biopunk genres, but there are a lot of standard tropes that I don't necessarily relate with or that I would handle differently, the fixation on the hyper-urban in particular. So, this is my take on an ideal sort of hybrid cyber-biopunk, weakly-transhuman setting – it's going to be more of a collection of ideas and impressions than a grand unified theory. Obviously it owes something to the titans of the genre like Snow Crash and the Altered Carbon (Richard K. Morgan should see someone about that weird hatred of sex workers), but I was more directly inspired by games like Eclipse Phase, Transhuman Space, Beyond Earth, and, of all things, the television series Justified. If this were a visual medium, I'd lean pretty heavily on the science fiction aesthetics of Neil Blomkamp, especially Elysium. Serious, that scene where Matt Damon is firing an old-school wood-and-steel AK-47 fitted with a laser rangefinder and explosive airburst rounds? That was a downright erotic experience for me.

The core focus of the setting could best be summed up as "post-cyberpunk transhuman country outlaws." It's Twenty Minutes into the Future, as they say, and things might never be getting better but they don't seem to be getting any worse either. Berserk weather systems are the new norm and coastlines have crept steadily inland, but hey, at least we're no longer sitting on the razor's edge of full-blown ecological meltdown. The Earth's population hovers around just below ten billion people, most of them packed into bloated urban sprawls and hyperdense archologies. Tens of millions more live beyond the battered homeworld – most of those in the orbital habitats that choke the Lagrange points or in settlements on the Moon and Mars. When civilization has spread beyond the Belt, when animals have been uplifted to sapience and biology is no longer a prerequisite for citizenship, it's easy to forget that life still goes on in the small towns and backwaters that fill in the interstices. Ironically, the technological developments that many thought would destroy rural communities were the same ones that ended up helping them stubbornly persist. Advances in wireless telecommunications, alternative power generation, water reclamation, and 3D printing and minifacturing have essentially destroyed the concept of "The Grid." A lot of traditional farming communities have made the transition into pharming communities – the vape supplanted the cigarette years ago and nobody drinks dairy milk anymore, but transgenic tobacco strains can be used to grow everything from estrogen to hemoglobin and there's little that can't be synthesized in the right bovine biofactory. I know everyone predicted soy was going to be the generic foodstuff of the future, but at least in America, it's corn that's used as the main ingredient in everything from candy bars to fake meat. Chocolate and wine are so rare as to be practically extinct and red meat is priced well beyond what the majority of consumers could hope to pay – most rely on processed krill and the ever-appetizing snakehead tuna when they want some "real" meat.

As is the case with most traditional nations-states, the US federal government looks like it's on its way out. Its formerly-universal authority is challenged not only by autonomous city-states like the Chicago and New Orleans archologies – both of which are administrative states in their own right – but by the rise in non-geographic polystates: distributed, sometimes global networks of sovereign enclaves – some as small as a single square block – that nevertheless form a unified political body that is not always subordinate to the federal government. And that's not even taking into account the de facto sovereignty that major corporations enjoy. Nowhere is this impotence more apparent than the American backwoods, areas that the authorities have struggled to control even at the best of times and which are now truly lawless. What baffles most outsiders is the sheer sophistication of this lawlessness. Sure, you have your traditional rural crimes like moonshining and methamphetamine cooking – both of which exploit cutting-edge advances in chemical synthesis to the fullest – but then the hills and hollers are home to just as many illegal data havens, pirate minifacturers, and black biotech labs.

The countryside is a more diverse place than it usually gets credit for, which is of course reflected in its criminal element. What with Latin@s being the largest single demographic and all, most Americans nowadays have at least a passable understanding of Spanish and a lot can still speak a little of the Arabic that they learned in school as well. A surprising amount of MENA, South, and Southeast Asian immigrants ended up settling down in small towns, so it's not unusual to overhear conversations in Urdu or Cambodian even in the most Deliverance-y of locales. Then there are all of the species of uplifted animals: hominids, corvids, parrots, pigs, cetaceans, elephants, and octopi. And then there are all the various sorts of sapient synthetics, strong artificial intelligences, forked personalities, whathaveyou that you're likely to encounter as well.

Forking is actually something that deserves its own explanation, because it's the reason that identity is measured by degrees these days. Anyone, uplifts and androids included, can hook up their mind-machine interface to a decently-powerful computer and make an exact copy of their consciousness – most people make full backups of themselves anywhere from twice a year to once a month. So long as the backups are kept in cold storage and not allowed to generate any subjective experiences of their own, then for all intents and purposes, it's just an earlier version of you. But run that instance of your mind on its own or subject it to any sort of editing during the generation process and what you have on your hands is what's most commonly referred to as a "fork." A person and their forks are not considered to be the exact same person, but they are – socially if not always legally – considered to be a part of the same general "person cluster", at least until they achieve a certain degree of divergence. Personalities and memories can be integrated as well as forked: the process more complicated and much more likely to result in long-term issues, but then again, neuroatypicalities like autism and ADHD aren't pathologized like they used to be. The criminal utility of forking technology cannot be understated. Need to negotiate with an off-world partner but don't want to deal with light-lag and the possibility of interception? Send a fork of yourself to do the talking for you and reintegrate it afterwards. There are entire criminal outfits comprised of nothing but multiple instances of a single mastermind.

And as the old global powers are on the decline, criminal syndicates are back on the rise as well. The American Mafia made probably the most dramatic turnaround – while its European progenitors are still very much ethnic affairs, the new Commission includes not only the old guard of Irish and Italian-American families, but Polish, Cuban, Greek, Puerto Rican, and Syrian-American ones as well, among others. The "name-brand" Mafia competes with the so-called and significantly more violent Dixie Mafia as well as the emergent Mexican-American crime families, which are often conflated with the Mexican cartels despite being a distinctly Chican@ phenomenon. The Yakuza and Triad clans are still going strong, of course, as are the Russian bratvas. Then you have the Mercurials, post-human outfits of strong AIs, uplifts, and singularity chasers. They do most of their business outside of Earth's gravity but don't let that lull you into a false sense of security – you do not want to know what their particular combination of mechanical ruthlessness, alien amorality, and atavistic savagery looks like first-hand. What you may be asking yourself at this point is, what separates an outlaw from any other sort of professional criminal? Well, the key difference is one of philosophy. A criminal is someone who breaks the law, but the outlaw, she fundamentally rejects the law. Authorities are not worthy of even the most grudging or fearful of respect from her because she is beyond them, an unpredictable free radical in this, the Diamond Age of Piracy. Then there's the second matter of locality. The outlaw is fundamentally of her surroundings in a way that most bureaucratized criminal syndicates are not. That is not to say that she is necessarily attached to or respectful of them, but the scope of the outlaw's ambitions are deliberately provincial. There is a very archaic, almost artisanal quality to the way that, even in this world of instant global telecommunication, she continues to work with her own two hands – figuratively, at least. Outlaws may drive 100 miles to rob a gene-vault in the next state over, but they will have done their planning in the unhackable anonymity of some small-town dive.

So then, what kind of work is available for outlaws? There's plenty to be had working as hired muscle for larger, more organized criminal outfits and in running protection for rural black clinics and data havens...and in ripping them off. While most strains of marijuana are legal just about everywhere, there's still a very profitable market for trafficking in the harder stuff – from old favorites like cocaine and heroin to cutting-edge synthetic poisons and digital narcoalgorithms. Cybercrime hasn't made the good ol' fashioned smash-and-grab obsolete yet – as they say, physical access is total access – and with most places concerned with securing themselves against digital intrusions, they're often ill-prepared to deal with a crew of masked gunmen kicking in their doors and physically absconding with servers full of cryptocurrency. Valuable goods, particularly the sort that can't be easily fabricated, still need to be transported cross-country, which of course puts them at risk for hijacking. Even courier aircraft aren't guaranteed safety, what with it being easier than ever for some enterprising criminals to get their hands on some surface-to-air ordinance.

Here's some extra thoughts that I couldn't sandwich as cleanly into the existing narrative flow:

Almost everyone now has what's known as a mind-machine interface: a useful little tool consisting of a network of microprocessors inserted throughout the gray matter and two or more access ports, usually located at the base of the skull. The MMInt (pronounced like "mint") does not itself have any sort of wireless capability – it only translates information between the brain and external devices, but plug-in wireless adapters are a pretty common accessory. Many people go a step further and get themselves a full-blown cyberbrain, which involves augmenting or replacing more of the neural tissue with cybernetic components and encasing the whole organ in a durable metallic shell.

Modern smartphones and tablet computers haven't decreased much in size, but they are orders of magnitude more powerful than their last-generation predecessors – your typical model has a storage capacity in the hundreds of terabytes and the processing power to run its own weak AI personalities.

Self-driving smart cars are ubiquitous, but unless they've been upgraded with a serious navigation program and electronic warfare suite, they're not something that your professional criminal will rely on for a quick getaway.

Bodies are surprisingly easy to come by these days – a decent android frame costs about as much as a car and takes about as long to make. Some people will still pay through the nose for 100-percent Grade A beef just like Mom used to make, but the economical option is synthetic-organic hybrids fast-grown in nutrient tanks – or in rural body shops, inside transgenic cows – that can be ready in a fraction of the time and which work just as well.

Nigeria is one of the world's dominant cultural powers – almost half of all blockbusters released in American theatres last year were made by "Nollywood" studios, you can find cans of sour palm wine and millet beer in most gas stations, and all but the most Podunk of towns will have some sort of West African barbeque joint.

You are an agent of the Illuminati, the New World Order, the Black Nobility: all names for the vast and shadowy cabal of power-brokers who control the course of human history. The list of groups who comprise the Illuminati (or are at least suspected of comprising it) is enormous: there are at least half a dozen alien species (from Reticulans to Reptilians to Nordics), ancient prehuman "root races" from lost continents like Lemuria and Atlantis, the Yetinsyny, the Merovingian dynasty, the Priory of Sion, the Knights Templar, the Knights of Malta, the Church of Satan, the Society of Assassins, the Gnomes of Zurich, the Bilderberg Group, Anonymous, the Discordians, "Time Meddlers", the Cathars, unspeakable elder gods like Yog-Sothoth and Shub-Niggurath, the British Royal Family, the Trilateral Commission, the Nephilim, the actual literal Devil, etc. If they've been accused of covertly manipulating world events to suit a sinister agenda, there's at least an outside chance that they're real and they've got a position within the metabyzantine power structure of the Unfinished Pyramid.

Anyone can become an agent of the Illuminati, or a "Man in Black", as you're sometimes known. Maybe you used to be an intelligence officer with the CIA or MI6, or an FBI special agent, already trained to work within webs of half-truth and intrigue that you can barely comprehend. Maybe you were recruited straight out of college when you accidentally joined an Illuminati front organization, like the obscure Zeta Gamma Tau sorority. Maybe you were an al-Qaeda operative or an IRA gunrunner who got a peek at the full picture and decided that power trumped philosophy. Maybe you were raised inside the Unfinished Pyramid, whether trained from childhood in a paramilitary chapter house run by the SMOM or indoctrinated into a hereditary cult worshipping the long-forgotten gods of the Bosnian pyramid-builders. Hell, maybe you're not exactly what we might call "fully human": you could be the product of a joint Grey-CDC hybridization experiment, a genetically-engineered clone, the psychic end result of an MK-ULTRA successor program, or an android with synthetic skin and synthetic memories. Or maybe you were just an average sheep who got caught reading the wrong thing on the wrong website and had a couple of scary-looking men in dark suits and mirror shades show up at their door the next day. A training course at an Illuminati "finishing school" made sure you'd have the necessary skills to be a Man in Black, but what really separates an agent from the legions of tools unknowingly doing the bidding of the NWO is perspective: the tool is so ignorant that he fools himself into thinking that he has grasped the bigger picture, but the agent, like Socrates, knows enough to know that she knows nothing at all.

Your work isn't all that different from that of an ordinary intelligence officer or special agent, only weirder. Gathering intelligence, running assets, infiltrating mainstream institutions, spreading disinformation, conducting counterespionage, plugging leaks, occasionally getting your hands wet with sabotage and assassination, etc.; the field work necessary to keep the vast machinery of the Illuminati from grinding to a screeching halt. You get your orders from someone higher than you on the org chart and maybe you have some idea of who they're working for and what their angle is, but when it comes down to it, it's immaterial. Doing what you're told by someone you may or may not know and not seeing anything while you do it is basically you're whole job description. You're well-compensated for your work in the twin currencies of the Illuminati: cash and secrets. Sure, a solidly middle-class lifestyle is how they keep your morale up, but the secrets, those are how they keep you motivated. You could probably ask to retire at any point and live out the rest of your days in comfortable, well-supervised anonymity, but that would mean that you will never, ever discover the truth behind the curtain and once you've known the feeling of true understanding, it's damned hard to walk away from that. Of course, getting handed briefcases full of unmarked Euro notes and uncut Colombian cocaine has its own addicting quality too.

You've got a team. Men in Black tend to work together in groups of three or five, for numerological reasons. You might even have a sense of who exactly they're working for and maybe, just maybe, it's the same people you are, but you'd be a pretty awful bunch of clandestine operatives of the sinister shadow government if you let something as petty as conflicting loyalties keep you from doing their job. You also have minders to make sure that you don't try to slip the leash, but your minders probably have minders of their own. And don't worry about them killing you for your first (or even your fiftieth) failure; policies like that just create Stalinist situations where the most successful agents are the ones who are the best at concealing their mistakes, not correcting them. Agents are generally only liquidated when their survival would risk exposing the Illuminati as a whole. If anything, it's your successes that'll put a target on your back, but that's something else altogether...

You've got a gun (probably something small and compact but still powerful) and you've got some fancy spytech, but your most powerful weapon is a smartphone with a well-developed contacts list. See, for all its enormous wealth and influence (and it cannot possibly be understated just how enormous the conspiracy's reach truly is), the Illuminati is surprisingly lousy when it comes to things like bureaucracy and infrastructure. Sure, you have things like the secret base on the dark side of the moon or the vast North American headquarters located underneath the Denver International Airport, but most of its day-to-day operational needs get outsourced to puppet organizations. Out there in the wilderness of mirrors, an agent lives or dies by her own networking skills, her own personal web of tools, pawns, and contacts in positions of information or influence. If the only thing that can save your life is a drone strike, you'd better hope you have the number of somebody at Langley that owes you a favor.

Here's a secret about the Illuminati, something that people on the inside are only too aware of: the Unfinished Pyramid has no top. The leaders of the various factions and sub-conspiracies all sit on "steering committees" like the Committee of 500, the Council of 33, the Council of 13, and the Council of 5, but even at the highest levels of power, the members of those governing bodies (whose rosters are always changing and up for debate even within the Illuminati itself) have essentially Three Stooges'd themselves just short of the position of ultimate authority. And here's another secret: despite whatever positions of temporal power they might officially hold, within the structure of the New World Order, the power players of the Illuminati are basically warlords. Whatever influence and assets they have they must constantly defend from the advances of their ostensible peers. Like the ouroboros consuming its own tail, the Illuminati is in a constant state of low-level internal warfare against itself, with its agents caught directly in the middle. Being at a gathering of Illuminati power-brokers is a lot like what the afterparty for the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact must've been like. Everyone sips their drinks and smiles at their opposite numbers, knowing full well that everyone else's plans necessarily demand their own ruination, submission, or extermination, but until the literal moment that the long knives come out, all parties involved content to continue playing along with the charade of cooperation. And make no mistake: when the knives do come out and the invisible warlords rally their armies, the results can be spectacularly, historically bloody.

So, this is the horrible, disjointed pitch that I have going for a high weirdness Illuminati technothriller conspiracy setting. GUMSHOE, and in particular Night's Black Agents, is the obvious choice of system if I were ever to run a game based off of this, but I was hoping for a second opinion. My biggest worry is that it is too broad and/or inaccessible to inspire any one.

A thought occurred to me not long ago: why is it that almost every time an alien species is depicted having hyperadvanced technology (Type II or higher on the Kardashev Scale) they are invariably depicted as being themselves possessed of such staggering intelligences that they are utterly detached from and inscrutable to less-advanced creatures? Let me use an example: compared to an early agrarian laboring in the fields of Ur, a modern human is essentially an alien. They have tremendous lifespans, are extremely resistant to disease or injury, can travel from one side of the planet to the other in a single day, and can maintain constant communication with anyone anywhere in the world. But on a fundamental level, are we really that much smarter than we used to be, or have we simply built up a large enough knowledge base that we can known and comprehend more? Is Steven Hawking quantitatively more intelligence than Archimedes or just better informed? Is it not entirely possible that a futuristic race capable of building megastructures out of star-matter would still think along essentially the same lines as we do? I would argue (from my extremely uninformed position) that the greatest differences are simply a matter of speed and scale. I might find a conversation with a medieval peasant to be dull and limited, and I certainly understand algebra more than he does, but I would question the idea that it's because I'm smarter than him rather than just being used to a much broader perspective; certainly, if pressed, we could find something to talk about. I'm rambling at this point, but my thesis is essentially this: will Kardashev III sky-squids still be obsessed with social media and petty pastimes and what are the implications of such?

[ooc]It has been bothering me for a while now that I never did anything with my old martial arts-Wild West-Lovecraft mashup idea, so here's what I have for my second attempt so far. I'll try to have character creation rules up soon (it'll use FATE Accelerated), followed by some reinterpretations of classic Lovecraft elements, and we'll see where we go from there! As always, I'm very interested to hear what thoughts you have so far.[/ooc]


The Nameless Plateau, for it is the whole of the world and thus requires no other name, is the unforgiving crown that sits upon the roof of creation, a land of unparalleled mercilessness and brutality. The earth is rocky and ungenerous, rich in poisonous minerals and nourishing little. This harsh landscape is traversed by towering mountain ranges jagged like rows of broken teeth and dissected by deep, shadowy canyons and valleys where sour rivers cut through oddly-shaped pinnacles. What life that can sustain itself in this place is guaranteed to be as grim and harsh as the land itself.

But as cruel as the land may be, it is only half as terrible as the cold, bright Heavens above, hideous in its yawning, hungry openness. The light of day is searing to the skin and blinding to the eyes, the sun blistering flesh and bleaching bone, even as the winds that blow in from the high places are cold enough to chill the marrow. At night, the sky is a crushing, impossible blackness swirling with iron-red clouds and set with stars like so many unblinking eyes. The position of these piercing lights are known to abruptly shift in their position and intensity, as though the Plateau itself were rotating through space and time.

The Men of the Plateau, men though they be, are a thing set apart from human. Born dark and only made darker by a lifetime of weathering, such that their elders are known to appear almost mummified, they are plagued by all matter of strange afflictions and peculiarities of form: unsightly growths and protuberances, lesions, tumors, cracked or peeling skin, patches of fungous or squamous flesh, digits too many or too few units, faintly-misshaped limbs, joints that bend at unnatural angles, genitive organs of ambiguous shape, extremes of emaciation and obesity, sinister birthmarks, and stunted tails or horns are all acceptable products of the sour light of the stars. Any mutations more alien than this, however, and parents take their children to one of the high places, cast them skyward over their shoulders, and do not look back. They have a special loathing for paleness of skin and roundness of eyes, for the larger the eye, the more easily it is corrupted by the evils it gazes upon.

When the locals say that the Plateau is "the place where men are close to their gods," they mean that in an incredibly literal sense. Just behind the blue-white fluorescence lurks the manifold pantheon of terrible godheads known as the Ancientmost Monstrous Divinities, so close in fact that they can reach their appendages down from Heaven to touch the face of the earth. Most often it is just a long, dark shape silhouetted far in the distance that is enough to make the innards squirm reflexively, but for those unfortunate enough to be any closer than that, few things can compare in terms of sheer sanity-straining awfulness. The exact number of entities in Heaven is known to none, for contemplating such things is a sure route to madness, each possesses many lesser avatars and emanations as well; while they have only a fragment of their progenitors' power and wisdom, they are few enough in angles that they can walk unfettered upon the face of the Plateau itself.  Though all the Men of the Plateau live in mortal terror of the Divinities and their emissaries that does not mean they do not pay them homage, for while weird and cruel, they are not wholly malicious and are known to be merciful towards those who offer them proper worship. Grotesque statues of monumental size are chiseled into mountainsides and oddly-shaped stupas erected in their honor dot the landscape. Mad-eyed fire-and-brimstone prophets wander from town to town, spreading the word of a particular otherworldly horror that those who listen and understand might be spared from casual obliteration. Many among them are the mediums and oracles who channel strange energies that their bodies and minds can barely withstand, with often-spectacular results.

The peasants of the Plateau have a hard lot. Most of them live and work in small, ramshackle towns and camps, farming fields of hardy but unpleasant-tasting millet and barley, tending to herds of tough, sinewy goats and yaks, or laboring in mines and lumber mills. They live forever beneath the yoke of the Thirteenth Throat-Crowned King, whose divine mandate to rule is irreproachably evidenced, as it was with his forbearers, by the webbing between his digits, the many layers of his eyelids, and the collar of garish gill filaments encircling his throat. It is said that a fleshy cord connects him bodily to Heaven. Many are the mandarins and commissioners who enforce his will across the territories, but most feared among all his servants are the death-masked Pale Riders. Ranging without rhyme or reason on their ghastly, skull-faced steeds, they are dispensaries of his cruel justice in all its many sadistic forms. Though mere men, such is their notorious skill at arms that even an entire village militia has little hope of standing against even one of them.

In great monasteries of black basalt atop auspicious heights do the many orders of monks live and worship, the walls of their temples painted with blood-curdling depictions of the particular wrathful protector-horrors to which they pay homage and offer sacrifice, the surrounding countryside echoing with strange chants that no human throat should be able to produce. To those who live beneath the shadows of these monasteries, the wizened, deathless lamas who rule them can be either benefactor or tyrant. The kindest take only what they need of the peasants for sustenance or sacrifice and in exchange instruct their children, initiating the brightest and most sensitive among them into their order; but too many are virtual despots who demand unbelievable tribute, stealing their sons and daughters and feeding them otherworldly monstrosities for their own benefit. To resist is to invoke the monks' terrible wrath, for known to them are among to most potent and secret of ancient sorceries against which mortal men have no hope of defending themselves.

With violence such a universal quality of life, it is no surprise that the Nameless Plateau is home to more styles of marital arts than there are stars in a madman's nightmares. Some are taught to but a select few pupils in the most remote of temples, while others are famed across the whole width and breadth of the land. They are known by dread names: Horse-Faced Bird-Ogre, Diplomat's Castrating Tongue, Whistling Insanity, Fingers of the Far-Sighted Torturer, Seven Breaths of the Toad Princess, and Bone-Jellying Demon-Servitor. Some focus exclusively on the forms of unarmed combat, others on the use of melee weaponry, and yet others on the use of the shooting iron, but most schools teach a curriculum blend of all three in varying degrees. What all styles share in common is that they are not paths to be undertaken by the faint of heart or weak of constitution, for they are more than merely mundane means by which men might maim one another. Many of their strange forms and patterns defy the fundamental principles that ostensibly govern reality, having been passed down over the millennia by mad warriors and inhuman masters, and to practice a style is to be warped both bodily and spiritually by every kata and every mantra.

[ic]Kar Ping's hands are scarred, gnarled claws. When she was but a pupil, her master fused her fingers together with steel wire and acid. Extraneous digits, he said, are only an encumbrance to a true practitioner of Western Dismembering Crab Boxing.

Jurou bin-Makoto need never aim. The hearts of evil men deform space-time with their gravity of their sins. He merely needs to fire his bullets along the proper secret curves and allow the weight of their own wickedness to draw their own destruction to them.[/ic]

In a land so unrelentingly cruel and unjust, so devoid of compassion or forgiveness, where men and women must toil and suffer beneath the yokes of oppressive masters and where mortals must live in constant fear of being obliterated in both body and mind by the casual whim of monstrous superintelligences, the greatest act of rebellion is to stand and, in the inescapable face of ego-obliterating cosmic indifference, dare to align oneself against it. Anyone who espouses principles of benevolence, justice, individualism, righteousness, bravery, and truthfulness on the Plateau is clearly insanity, but it is that certainly kind of willful insanity necessary to look a Heavenly horror in its terrible face and not only refuse to recoil, but strike against it. These wandering warriors, these wave-men, these men with no names, are said to live amongst "the rivers and lakes," in the wild hinterlands far from the authority of the Throat-Crowned King. Though they come from all walks of life, they are united in their purpose: to use their skill at arms (and occasionally even sorcery) to protect those that cannot protect themselves, to right wrongs that no others will, and to bring justice to those who would otherwise escape it. Few among them are those who have not known suffering or the pain of loss, for one without considerable empathy simply does not take up the suicidal calling of the vagrant hero. Rarely appearing better dressed than mendicants, typically the only finery they carry with them are their weapons: whether a saber, a staff, or a shooting iron, a true warrior's weapon is a reflection of their soul and their care and craftsmanship invariably reflects this.


Characters on the Plateau, the motley warrior-vagabonds that comprise your band, are created using the Fate Accelerated rules. The SRD does a better job of explaining things than I ever could, so I'll just summarize here: choose a High Concept Aspect, a Trouble Aspect, one to three additional Aspects, rank your character's six approaches, and finally, select three Stunts.

It is advisable to make one Aspect (though not necessarily the High Concept) reflect the specific style of martial art that your character practices. On the Nameless Plateau, the path that a warrior takes encompasses more than the way they make violence. It shapes and color every part of them, physically, spiritually, and mentally, and so you are encouraged to describe the (often deforming) changes that the years of training have subjected your characters to. If they make use of certain weapons, even if they do not warrant a full Aspect of their own, you may want to describe them as well, as they can play a factor in narrating challenges and conflicts.

And just as a reminder: no one on the Plateau is what you or I would likely call beautiful. You are taking on the roles of a bunch of sun-scorched, star-rotted mutants. The prettiest girl in the county still likely hides her scabrous, peeling skin beneath thick layers of oily makeup that probably does nothing to stop her from smelling like a charnel-house. If you want to get a sense of the average level of attractiveness here, go watch Rango.  That said, your characters likely see things through a different, much cloudier lens...


It is said that the Men of the Plateau have no enemy more constant or more implacable than the Spiders. The enmity between the two races is so ancient that no myths of how their genocidal loathing for one another have survived to the present age. It is simply a fact of life; men are born, they die, and they make war upon the Spiders. The creatures themselves are not so named for their appearance, for they do not resemble true spiders any more than they resemble anything else, but for the nauseating scuttling of their movements and their patient, treacherous cunning. Oh, but it is easy for those who have never encountered such horrors to dismiss them as low beasts, for it is far too humbling for most to admit that intelligences equal to or greater than their own could lurk behind such grotesque, many-eyed visages. The Spiders may not be men, but they are most certainly not mindless. In their pits and nests, they make homage to their own profane gods fractally extrapolated from their own images, the most terrible of whom they call Juggernaut, the Lord of the Universe. And as if their great strength and horrible agility did not make them deadly enough, it is known that the Spiders practice their own forms of martial arts which are impossible for men to replicate and only slightly easier for them to counter, for neither the bipedal mind nor body was designed to accommodate so many potential avenues of attack. Woe be upon the unlucky warrior who finds themselves facing a master of the Million-Handed Brood-Mother style. The throating chanting of the high lamas is the only thing they have ever been known to fear, so a monastery is the only place one can go to be truly free of a Spider's pursuits. If there is any consolation to be found, it is in the fact that the matter of which the Spiders are made is ultimately the same as that of men and can, after a fashion, be broken in the same way.

The strange and unpleasant foreigners who known to the locals of the Plateau as the ocean ghosts are known as such because they claim to come from an ocean, a body of water so unholy in its vastness and impious in its depths that even Heaven will not look down upon it, that lies far to the east. The name they use among themselves translates as something like "those who come from the depths," but few grant these interlopers the dignity of referring to them as such. Their uncleanliness is reflected in their peculiar, unnatural deformities, which are nothing like those borne by the Men of the Plateau: slippery greyish-green skin, long webbed digits, wide lipless mouths, bulging prodigious eyes, and the inescapable stench of acrid salt. They are without exception a dandified, flannelmouthed bunch of dudes whose company few decent folk can find bearable. Arrogant and disgustingly fastidious, they wear suits of embroidered fabrics with high collars that cover the whole of their throats and are always bedecked in enormous weights of gold finery. City-slickers by nature, the ghosts rarely leave the comforts of the Yellow City and other large settlements, but they are known to make regular excursions into the countryside. They even refuse to partake of any red meat, eating only that which originated from the water and often demanding that it be pickled rather than prepared any other way. Despite looking down their slim noses at "barbarians" the ocean ghosts are shockingly lascivious, their men and women alike willing to spend outrageous sums of gold for the opportunity to mate with locals. Obviously, they would be unwelcome in every decent establishment if it were not a crime punishable by ninth-degree familial extermination to harm or insult one in any way, which fuels well-justified suspicions that they are in some way kin to the King from the East. They are never seen to make homage to any gods per se, but all regularly express immense filial piety (their single redeeming quality) to the same Mother and Father figures, though they have never explained the exact nature of this relationship. There are rumors that the ocean ghosts who regularly visit the Nameless Plateau are not the only ones of their kind, that beneath the surface of that foul and distant sea lurk cousins who cannot weather dry heights so easily and so use their kin as agents of some manner of piscine agenda.

Mee-Gou are abominable alien vermin who hail from a distant, desolate planetary body far behind the stars. Smaller in stature than an ordinary woman, they are roughly like arthropods with five pairs of jointed limbs (one of which is capped with wicked snapping pincers) that they use for both locomotion and manipulation and a faceless, ellipsoid head. Their chitinous bodies are covered in a thick whitish fur that may be animal and may be fungoid, and they can fly upon a pair of large filamented wings. They have never been heard to speak, but communicate through the flashing of many-colored lights. Not possessed of any particular strength and easily overpowered, they rely on their own strange shooting irons which can flay a man to pieces by means of invisible action or merely wrack his body with agonizing contortions. They are compose of matter not native to this world, however, which makes them exceedingly difficult to injure. The mee-gou are most often found at the higher reaches of the Plateau, where they maintain enormous mining complexes of alien machinery with which they extract precious ores and combustible chemicals. These mines are staffed with press-ganged men, whom they either purchase from the jails (implying some arrangement with the Throat-Crowned King) or else simply abduct en mass from isolated villages. Laboring in a mee-gou mining operation is a horrible fate to befall, as the workers are inevitably crushed to death by cave-ins, suffocated by poisonous gasses, or, most often, maimed and mutilated by the machines. Even this, however, carries no guarantee of escape from service, for the mee-gou have the capacity to extract the brains from even the freshly-dead and preserve them indefinitely within metal canopic cylinders. Some of these enslaved brains are used as foremen and interpreters, communicating the mine owners' orders, but most are simply catalogued and stored. They have never been seen to actually do anything with the minerals that they extract, instead spiriting them away for some ambiguous purpose beyond the Plateau.

This is my second (and much better-planned) attempt at running a Bastards campaign. Between starting this thread and getting around to actually doing something with it, FATE Core was released and it's kind of my new favorite system, so that's what I'll be using for this game. The entire SRD can be found here.

[ic=Who are the Blackguards?]
The Blackguards are the killer elite of the Bastard's Bastards, a special operations force numbering little more than a hundred, each as superior to the typical Raider as a Raider is to a backwater landeswehr militiaman. Whether battle-hardened warhorses recognized after long and bloody careers or exceptionally-gifted wunderkinder who found themselves quickly fast-tracked through the ranks, nearly all Blackguards got their start in one of the regiment's four battalions: the primae inter pares of the Furious First, often called "glorywhores" for their snobbish superiority and arête ethos; the amazonian terror-troopers of the War Witches, airborne specialists who strike like lightning and take no prisoners; the grim-eyed assault pioneers of the Greyjacks, who understand the value of overwhelming firepower better than any; and the sociopathic reavers of the Carrion Cats, a motley crew of unrepentant war criminals even by the Bastards' lax ethical standards. Regardless of where they came from and what they did to earn it, once she is branded with the Black Spot, a Blackguard is forever set apart from the rest of the regiment. Outside the traditional chain of command, they are afforded even more autonomy than most and answer only to Boudicca Bastard and her battalion commanders. If a typical line infantry regiment is a hammer and the Bastards are a stiletto, then the Blackguards are the very cutting edge of its blade.

As befits such a crack outfit, members of the Black Guard can have their pick of any weapons and equipment in the Crimson King's armory. Some continue to carry the standard-issue Raider assault carbine out of habit, but the more adventurous carry everything from high-capacity LMGs and modified anti-tank rifles to old-school magnum revolvers and Sphere-made plasma-casters. Blackguards are issued more advanced tactical webbing harnesses with which to carry the huge range of gear they often carry: tactical headset, clip/drop harness, magnoculars, burglary or mechanics tools, breaching charges, ruggedized data-slates, zip-cuffs, etc. [In mechanical terms, assume a character is carrying the basic equipment needed to use any of their skills or which makes thematic sense for them to have, unless stated otherwise.] The only universal aspect of their kit is that by long tradition, all Blackguards exclusively wear (you guessed it) black.[/ic]

[ic=Character Creation]
Creating a Blackguard more or less follows the default FATE Core rules, tweaked slightly to better represent characters who are more talented, experienced, and important than most but who aren't significantly more durable:

• Fifteen skills: 5 Average (+1), 4 Fair (+2), 3 Good (+3), 2 Great (+4) (30 skill points equivalent)
• Skill cap at Great (+4)
• Refresh 4
• 5 free stunts
• 2 stress boxes to start
• 7 aspects

In addition to the default skill list, I'm adding the Explosives skill, which encompasses throwing grenades, placing demolition charges, and ordinance disposal.

Overcome: Use Explosives to destroy inanimate objects. Or you can use it to disarm a bomb, opposed by the original bomb-maker's skill.
Create an Advantage: Explosives is commonly used to create an advantage. Blowing the right things up can act as a distraction, a smokescreen, or even cover fire.
Attack: Explosives also includes knowing how to set bricks of plastic explosive to take out enemies, how to properly throw a grenade (up to one zone away), and so on. Keep in mind that everyone in the zone (friend or foe) who isn't protected by cover must defend using Athletics to get behind something!
Defend: Explosives is normally not used to defend.

For those of you new to the FATE system or just in need of some extra inspiration, the Evil Hat Productions Wiki has an excellent list of Stunts for you to peruse. Stunts can be used to represent specialized or exotic equipment, or you can model a particularly valuable piece of gear by taking it as an Aspect.

Lastly, there are a few things you might keep in mind when creating your Blackguard. The overwhelming majority of Bastard's Bastards (by which I mean between seventy and eighty percent) are female-identified, if not necessarily biologically female; trans-fem Bastards, who make up a sizeable contingent, often distinguish themselves by tattooing or scarifying their lower jaws. Extreme displays of aggressiveness, competitiveness, and other stereotypically "masculine" traits are celebrated in women but not tolerated in men, so male Bastards tend to be more subdued, even submissive. Bastards come from all walks of life, from refugees to runaway princesses, so don't feel like your character has to have a conventionally military background. Whereas sections often develop a collective sense of identity, members of the Black Guard are much more likely to be individualistic eccentrics.[/ic]

[ic=Operation WOLFCATCHER NINE]
It has been nearly eleven Imperial months since the Zekkarine Aristocratic Confederation launched its campaign of massive expansion into neighboring systems at the behest of its newly-elected President, the ambitious young Margrave Aleksandre von Kennedy, who's a little too eager to plunge the ZAC into a multi-front war if he thinks it will bring him wealth and prestige. The standing armies and navies of the twelve elector states alone are some of the largest in the Rim, but what they possess in raw manpower they lack in actual expertise, so the Confederation is has been paying out small fortunes to mercenary units willing to undertake operations its own forces are unsuited to, which is pretty much anything that doesn't involve drowning the enemy beneath a sea of cannon fodder. It's been a staggeringly-profitable venture for the Bastards so far, but now the ZAC Third Army Group has hit an obstacle and is threatening to derail the entire campaign.

The obstacle in question is Andizhan, the capital city of the second moon of Illana's Dowry, which happens to be the lynchpin of the ZAC's conquest of the system. When they say that all roads lead to Andizhan, for once they are not exaggerating; not only is it the capital, it's the primate city of the entire planet. The city is almost ten thousand square miles, and that's not taking into account the pastoral farmland encircling its outskirts. Called the City of Ivory and Gold by pretentious historians, Andizhan is admittedly a masterpiece of Neo-Kostantiniyye style and urban planning, which brings a certain indescribable harmony to what would otherwise be an overpopulated sprawl. Unfortunately, the wide boulevards and densely-packed districts mean that it's as much a fortress as it is a palace, but the Margrave himself has explicitly forbidden the use of nuclear weapons, orbital bombardment, or any other strategy that would save us the trouble of flushing out the defenders one foxhole at a time. A combined force of the War Witches and Carrion Cats, the Ixan 31st Mechanized, and the Lurian 7th Legion, with assistance from Poor Company and Darkhorse mercenaries, managed to effectively decapitate the defender's command structure during the initial assault three weeks ago. Any organized resistance should have evaporated almost immediately afterwards, but militia forces continue to stymie any attempt at a second breakthrough and the longer the fighting goes on, the more of the city gets reduced to gilded rubble and the smaller our reward gets.

Intelligence reports that the secret to the defenders' stubborn success is a small detachment of Ironmonger military advisors hired by the Guild Lords of Andizhan, who are training and coordinating militia forces from an unknown location within the city. It is the decision of Bastard High Command that rather than sweep the city with conventional forces and risk alerting the advisors going to ground or escaping off-world, to deploy a Blackguard death squad to track them down and capture them if feasible. If not, terminate them with extreme prejudice. We have unconfirmed reports that other rival merc units may be at large in the city, backers unknown.[/ic]

Our story begins in Hungary in 1466. Vlad III Dracula is a captive in the court of his supposed ally, Matthias Corvinus. Like his father before him, Vlad II Dracul, he is a sworn brother of the Order of the Dragon and he had dedicated his life to driving the enemies of Christendom from his beloved Wallachia. He is not an evil man, but he is a driven one. He knows that victory rarely comes to the merciful, and there is no foe less deserving of mercy than Mehmed II, Sultan of the hated Ottoman Turks. To keep Wallachia free from Turkish rule, no sin weighs too heavily on Vlad’s soul. He answers their demands for tribute by nailing their envoys’ turbans to their skulls. Disguised as a Turkish horseman, he infiltrates their camps in the night and slaughters their commanders in their tents. Even Mehmed II himself returns to Constantinople rather than march through a forest of his own impaled dead. It is only when his own traitorous brother Radu the Handsome leads an army of elite Ottoman slave-soldiers against him that Vlad is forced to turn to Matthias Corvinus, King of Hungary, for assistance. But Matthias has been embezzling the money meant to fund just such a war, so he has Vlad imprisoned under charges of treason.

After a lifetime shaped by betrayal, this is the final straw. After all that he has given for his country, his people, his God, it seems he has been defeated. Dracula screams into the darkness in rage and desperation, and from the darkness, something answers him back. From that cursed compact, the Linea Dracula is born, transforming Vlad and his descendants into undead vampires. For a time, the Linea encompasses only the House of Drăculeşti, the true sons of the dragon, but it is not to remain that way for long…

Ten years later, in 1476, a newly-freed Dracula returns to Wallachia to reclaim his throne. It is at this time that he encounters Stephen V Báthory, prince of Transylvania, the two having first met while fighting a war in Bosnia at Corvinus’ behest. In the catacombs of the Wallachian capitol of Târgoviște, Dracula and Báthory swear an eternal alliance in blood, an oath which obviously carries more weight for the former than the latter. Before the year is up, Dracula is assassinated and his severed head taken to Constantinople as a trophy (his body mysteriously vanishes from its grave, replaced by the bones of a horse), but we are still only beginning the history of the Linea Dracula. It seems that a small part of whatever taint Dracula carried in his blood must have passed to Stephen; when he returns to Transylvania, he is as cruel to his own people as Dracula was to his enemies.

This streak of infernal cruelty follows the Ecsed branch of the House of Báthory. Is it mere coincidence that in 1610, Countess Elizabeth Báthory de Ecsed is found to have had over 300 young women brutally tortured to death, but not before she bit chucks of flesh from their bodies and drained them of their blood? Was her belief that bathing in still-warm human blood would sustain her vitality the delusion of a sadistic proto-serial killer, or was she being groomed for a place within the Linea Dracula by undead mentors still honoring their alliance with her ancestor? It is believed that she died in 1614, but in truth, such refined cruelty could not go to perish; she drank deep from the veins of Mircea III Dracul (the most brutal of Vlad III’s grandsons), enough to extinguish any remaining spark of humanity and raise her as a full-blooded Linea vampire. This is how the Wallachian House of Drăculeşti and the Transylvanian House of Báthory, the Dragon and the Wolf, were joined. If you doubt such a connection, then why is it that when Emperor Ferdinand I awarded the Hungarian John Dracula a title of nobility in 1535, the coat of arms he received was that of the Báthory family?

But there is a third branch to unholy trinity that is the Linea Dracula: the Bird. In life, Dracula had sought to undermine the authority of Wallachia’s hereditary nobility and in doing so, he brutally persecuted the Transylvanian Saxons, settlers of German descent. Graf Orlok is believed to have been one of these Saxons, turned by Dracula himself in anticipation of a day when his plans would lead him north to the Germanies. But Dracula’s hatred cursed the Saxon, transforming him into a monstrous thing that spread plague and death with its very presence: the Nosferatu, the Bird of Death.

To full understand the secret history of Europe, we must now look to Austria, to the accursed House of Karnstein that ruled the region known as Styria. Like Dracula, the Karnsteins were afflicted by a dark curse that transformed those of their line into vampires. But where the Linea Dracula was a line of warriors and conquerors, the scions of House of Karnstein were the embodiment of parasitic nobility that drained the very lifeblood from their subjects. To the Linea, lordship required cruelty; to the Karnsteins, cruelty was one of its perks. As the histories of Austria and Hungary became increasingly intertwined, it was inevitable that the two great vampire dynasties would be forced into conflict. That “vampire panics” spiked throughout Central Europe during the mid-18th Century was not mere chance, coinciding with the apex of the vampiric shadow war. Evidently, the House of Karnstein was ruthlessly hunted down and exterminated by the Linea; by 1872, the relatively-young Mircalla (embraced in 1698) was the last remaining Countess Karnstein. Forced to rely on petty subterfuge and trickery to drain the blood from common girls, she was ultimately beheaded by occult investigators (perhaps acting on a tip from one of Dracula’s catspaws) and her remains confiscated by the Hapsburg Monarchy. But as so often happens with these sort of affairs, it would be a mistake to consider her permanently dealt with…

It is unclear at what point Vlad III (now known by history as Vlad Tepes, “The Impaler”) made his return, for he went to great lengths to ensure that it remained a secret. What is known is that by the turn of the 19th Century, the Linea Dracula had set their sights on the rising British Empire. The first indication that a vampiric plot was in motion was the sudden appearance of a mysterious gentleman going by the pseudonym of Lord Ruthven, who attempted to infiltrate the upper echelons of British high society. After a string of prospective fiancés are found dead (only for their bodies to mysteriously vanish), the British Secret Service manages to uncover Ruthven’s vampiric nature, but he vanishes before they can establish any further connections. In 1888, the appearance of an enigmatic Romanian Count unleashes a fresh storm of mysterious deaths across London, the most grisly taking place in the Whitechapel District. By the time British intelligence identifies the vampire king attempting to establish a foothold on their island more than two years later, Dracula is already back in Romania, having been alerted to their plans to assassinate him by assets planted within the government by Ruthven decades prior. He eludes their operatives for another three years; it is only in 1983 that a team of agents manage to infiltrate his Wallachian estate and terminate him, supposedly for good. British intelligence breathes an entirely-undeserved sigh of relief.

[To be continued!]

[ooc]This is a rough description of Bastard's Bastards, a mostly-serious mercenary company I originally conceived for a forum game that never materialized. I'll be crafting the setting from the bottom up, detailing the Bastards first and then slowly working my way to the surrounding universe. Influences include retro and "used" sci-fi aesthetics, the dieselpunk genre, 2000 AD comics like Rogue Trooper, Heavy Metal magazine, the art of late French artist Jean Giraud aka Moebius, Tank Girl, The Dirty Dozen, Dune, Firefly and Serenity, Battlestar Galactica and HBO war series like Band of Brothers and Generation Kill. I'll be adding (hopefully) much more, but I was hoping I could get some feedback on what I've managed to get down so far.[/ooc]


Near-humans make up the largest portion of the Bastard population: being spread across such a vast number of diverse worlds, the species has long since mutated and adapted to the point that true pure-strain specimens are virtually unknown in the Rim. They are still of recognizably human stock but sport noticeable changes in areas such as skin pigmentation, eye and hair color, tooth shape, number of digits, etc. Coldworlders, for example, are as a rule taller, bulkier, and more hirsute than other strains, while humans adapted to life among the claustrophobic stacks of a sprawlworld are often wiry, compact, and sport almost-murine features. More extreme mutations like tails or gills are not unknown, but are generally restricted to isolated worlds.

The second most numerous species in the regiment is the crustaceal race colloquially called the prawns. Resembling nothing so much as a combination of crab, mantis shrimp, and cuttlefish, they have short, squat bodies covered in a spiny carapace and set atop six splayed legs; large compound eyes on opposable stalks; and two sets of long, dexterous tentacles they use in lieu of hands. Like near-humans, appearances can vary greatly from world to world, though being a hardier species to begin with, changes are typically very subtle. A mature prawn is a little over a meter long (not including their forelimbs) and just under a meter tall, but they continue to grow well beyond this and the oldest specimens are close to a horse in size. Despite the radical differences in appearances, they have a very near-human way of thinking, with the only real barrier between the two species is their method of communication: prawns speak by clicking and whistling through their mandibles and gesticulating with their tentacles. While physically impossible for humans to reproduce, many crude approximations of prawn words have made it into the anarchic, foul-mouthed patois known as bastardchatter.

An aggressive warrior-race that joined the Bastards after being defeated in a long, bloody war of attrition, the hazhrat are some of the regiment's more physically-imposing members. They stand over two meters in height, with broad shoulders, barrel torsos, and thick hides covered in brightly-colored patterns. Their limbs seem disproportionately slender and gangly compared to their hulking frame, but actually possess powerful, corded muscles, and their wickedly-clawed hands are large enough to completely envelop a human head. The hazhrat's long face is a mix of the amphibian and the canine: bulging eyes, slitted nostrils, thorny prehensile tongues, and multiple rows of angular teeth practically spilling out of their lipless mouths, which give them their characteristic slurring accent. An interesting feature of the hazhrat is the exceptional difficulty they have when it comes to discerning sexes: the species is quasi-hermaphroditic and without gender distinction, requiring the hormone rush of combat to stimulate fecundity. Hence, their ideal of "femininity" is as closely tied to violent dominance as it is childrearing, giving the hazhrat a certain kinky popularity.

Nicks are two meter-tall military automata of roughly-humanoid design, the most obvious exception to this being their television-like heads. The macrocorp that originally produced them hoped that by designing them with distinct personalities, they would be less unsettling for organics to interact with. The decision backfired spectacularly: combined with their hardwired enthusiasm for killing, a necessity with any AI, their boisterous expressiveness made them come across as murderously psychotic. It turns out that a robot that dispassionately eviscerates its target is still less unsettling than one who bellows inspiring ballads or cracks inappropriate jokes while doing so. Another of their unfortunate quirks is that despite being programmed to ham-handedly bond with their organic comrades, they are totally incapable of feeling remorse for their actions. Universally disliked and mistrusted by their fellow Bastards, the only reason the handful of nicks are given grudging respect is that their superhuman strength and heavily-armored frames make them extremely effective soldiers.

Gackervogels, also called gackers or cacklebirds, are a common sight in many a sprawl ghetto and shady Rimworld pub: they are scrawny-looking avian humanoids with oversized, saw-toothed beaks, dark eyes, hunched torsos and long, wiry limbs. Despite their corvine appearance, most of their body is covered in scales, their feathering largely restricted to a ruffed collar around their storklike throats. An opportunistic scavenger and ambush predator by design, their senses are incredibly powerful, particularly the senses of sight and smell; many these powers of perception make them excellent scouts and pathfinders. The cacklebirds got their nickname from the raucous, maniacal laughter they often produce, a sound most other species find incredibly grating. Though it may come as a surprise to many who've heard them, the vogels actually have an extensive vocal range and a natural affinity for mimicking sounds; many a gackervogel mercenary has used the call of a wounded soldier or crying infant to lure their prey into a trap. There is some contention among more intellectual Bastards about just how much of bastardchatter (which they speak with an unmistakable squawking accent) they actually comprehend and how much of it they're parroting; either they simply reproduce sounds they find pleasing without grasping their meaning, or the cacklebirds just have a thing for incomprehensible non sequiturs.

The aptly-named tallboys are a cephalopodal species with a distinctive radial symmetry, resembling the common alcohol container in addition to standing over three meters tall. They have four legs spread equidistant around their cylindrical bodies with an equal number of long, articulate tentacles sprouting from between them, a beaked proboscis dangling from their underside, and a ring of eyes around their "rim" that gives the creatures a 360-degree field of vision. As a result, they rarely ever rotate their bodies in the way that bilateral species do (the abruptness with which a galloping tallboy can change direction takes some getting used to) and they often have difficulty communicating directions, having no concept of "front" or "back." In fact, like the prawns, they often have difficulty communicating at all: much of their rumbling language is within the infrasonic range and inaudible to most Bastards. While they are not especially aggressive, tallboys are incredibly strong. Their arms can effortlessly heft heavy weapons or fling human-sized creatures aside with ease, and while their movements can hardly be called graceful, their bulk and thick hides belie the speed with which they can propel themselves.

When a particularly-indispensable Bastard is killed in the line of duty and enough of their grey matter is left intact, they can be replaced brought back as a clone know as a xox (pronounced "zocks"). However, while xoxing produces an exact genetic duplicate of the original, the process is not without drawbacks that limit its usefulness. Because it is nearly impossible to transfer sensory memories like smell and taste, the xox will be left with a half-formed sense of identity and a headful of sounds and images that only barely register on an emotional level. This is, of course, in addition to the crippling existential crisis that often comes with being the clone of a dead person. While it is theoretically possible continue xoxing a person indefinitely, inevitably the original personality will degrade to the point that all that remains are memories of violent death. A handful of such xoxes, spitefully clinging to functionality, form the core of the notoriously-unhinged Suicide Squadron.

Despite their non-sentience, the mutant mongrels known as swarm hounds are a much-beloved part of Bastard's Bastards and probably the closest thing the regiment has to an official mascot. By definition chimeric creatures whose appearance can vary wildly between breeds, the archetypal swarm hound is an insane hodgepodge of mostly-canine, feline, and reptilian features: a massive, mastiff-like body with a distinctive ridged back, six long legs and semi-opposable paws that make them capable sprinters and climbers, and a broad skull and blunt muzzle filled with teeth shaped for crushing and tearing, as well as two sets of wicked fangs filled with a potent cocktail of neurotoxins. Endlessly loving and affectionate to those with the distinctive stench of the Crimson King on them, they are utterly ferocious to absolutely anyone else and display a gleam of catlike sadism in the way they harry their prey. Individual swarm hounds will often accompany their owners into battle, but the majority of them are released en masse to chase down fleeing enemies or overwhelm defensive lines; they are such prolific breeders that they require these regular culls to keep their numbers manageable.


The eponymous founder of the Bastards and one of the most infamous mercenaries on the Rim, Colonel Boudicca Bastard herself is something of an enigma. Rumors about her early life and military career abound, the most credible placing her in the Azure Empress' special forces during the Second Invertebrate Jihad, but the first confirmed sighting of a mercenary company calling themselves Bastard's Bastards was when there appeared seemingly out of thin air during the Pandissian War of Succession, conducting a bloody four-day raid against the Pretender's stronghold and returning triumphant with his severed head in hand, earning them both an handsome reward and reputation for unscrupulous violence that would only grow in the decades to come. Boudicca herself is a near-human female with a definite bluish tint to her skin and hair whose age is virtually impossible to guess; the lines around her eyes and grizzled streaks in her hair suggest middle-age, but she has the wiry, battle-hardened physique of someone much younger. She lost her left eye to a voon insurgent and though replaced by cybernetics, she likes the way it looks beneath a black patch. She speaks mostly in a low growl, her voice scratchy from the cigarettes she constantly chain-smokes, but can rise to an impressive bellow during her frequent rousing speeches. As a leader, she is nothing if not flamboyant, always waving and pointing and pounding her fist. Retired from footslogging, she spends the majority of her time on the bridge or in her war room, which occasionally leaves some with the impression that she is nothing but a toothless old tiger; this would be a mistake. There have only ever been three series mutiny attempts, and in all three cases the leaders were personally given a bullet in the back of their head when they least expected it. She is as wily and dangerous a killer as she ever was and on occasions where she leads from the front, she is only too happy to demonstrate this fact. There is talk among her subordinates that she is romantically involved with fellow mercenary captain Padma Grimm-Toron, leader of the Poor Company, as whenever the two mercenary bands meet during a campaign, both of their leaders tend to disappear at odd times.

Every Bastard is well-acquainted with the smooth, sultry voice of Donna Desolation. From her private studio deep within the King, she plays records and radio plays from her extensive pirated collection, takes calls from "her lucky bastards", and passes along regiment-wide commands and alerts, albeit in a much more familiar manner than is typical for military vessels; her sign-off "steady for the boom" originally alerted the crew to brace for imminent atmo-break, but her delivery proved so irresistible that it eventually grew into one of Bastard's Bastards unofficial slogans. Despite her unwavering popularity, few Bastards have ever met the reclusive MC in person and few who have cherish the experience; she seems human enough, provided one ignore the twenty or so unblinking, soulless black eyes that cover a sizeable portion of her face.

SWITCHBOARD is the Crimson King's central mainframe and like the rest of the ship, it is a ramshackle amalgamation of wildly-disparate technologies: an outlawed cyberwarfare suite from an Inner Sphere dreadnought, a pholanti think-machine the core of alien probe supposedly from beyond the edge of the Rim, and a liquid processor made of the rare substance known as "abyssal blue", a fluid that achieves sentience under sufficiently-high pressure. As a result of this patchwork structure, SWITCHBOARD is an extremely powerful AI but not one anyone would describe as particularly, well, sane. Normally coordinating Bastard communications and controlling a small fleet of unmanned drones, she has been known to leave soldiers in complete radio blackouts as revenge for perceived insults; the most certain way to get on her bad side is to use her unofficial title, BITCHBOARD, on any open frequency. Because her position in the ship puts her in the role of the ultimate voyeur and because her intelligence permits her an imagination unfettered by biology, she is a damn sight more sexual than most Bastards expect a computer to be, and most objects of her fickle and seemingly-random affection are taken aback by the luridness with which she expresses her feelings. Depravity aside, she is incredibly proud of her own abilities and brute-forcing her way through enemy networks and, for lack of a better term, "having her way with them."

Helmsman was carved from the belly of a living biomechanical warship and transplanted onto the bridge of the Crimson King, and while he mourns the loss of his original home, he has no purpose or ambition beyond being a pilot, so it didn't take long for him to make himself right at home. A many-armed, many-eyed crustacean physically wired to his console, it is unlikely that he would have any desire to stray from this spot even if such a thing were possible; he considers the ship and himself essentially one and the same, finding the Bastards' need to give him his own name nothing short of quaint. He has little time for social niceties, snippy and condescending to those who distract him from his job, and not above hijacking the King's comms to screech insults at an unfortunate engineer improperly manhandling "his" systems. As unpleasant as he is to interact with, his skill as a pilot and navigator is nothing short of incredible, and he's saved the ship on multiple occasions with maneuvers few near-human pilots would've thought of, much less been able to execute.

If you're curious about Boudicca's most likely successor, look no further than Sergeant Joanna Blacke, leader of the much-renowned Blackguard section known as the Blacke Attacke. Born and raised among the Bastards and something of a military wunderkind, she was already racking up one of the highest kill-counts in the regiment by the time she was barely out of her teens. Her exploits are the stuff of pulp serials, stretching the bounds of credibility even for those who witness them first-hand. But Joanna also embodies some of the worst aspects of the Bastards: she is a flamboyant, hyperaggressive, and self-aggrandizing loudmouth who thinks her record entitles her to the best of everything and is seemingly lacking in the most basic of impulse control, her appetitive tendencies making her as much a liability as an asset while off-duty, and the arrogant enthusiasm with which she kills can be a little unnerving even by Bastard standards. While the rest of the Attacke can't quite match her legendary record, all of them are hand-picked by Blacke and supposedly as superior to other Blackguards as they are to the rest of the regiment. She is never, ever seen far from the company of her best friend and trusty lieutenant Nadja Farrow, a comparatively more measured woman always ready to back Joanna up with a sneering barb of her own but unafraid to deflate her ego when it grows too unmanageable.


Every bit as infamous as the company itself, the Crimson King is the Bastards' mobile base of operations. Already rode hard and put away rusted by the time Boudicca found her floating in a ships' cemetery, she has been modified and retrofitted so many times over that it is impossible to tell what sort of vessel she originally was. Her scarred hull is a dark gunmetal grey, the sole splash of color coming from the leering face of a crowned and bearded monarch painted on her bulbous prow in vivid red.

It's worth noting that the vast majority of the actual crew of the King, from technicians and maintenance workers to comms operators and gunnery crews, are menials, not actual Bastards. For the most part, the rest of the regiment sees them as little more than indentured servants who have a faint chance of being promoted to the rank proper Bastards, but are for the most part completely replaceable.

The entire interior of the Crimson King is connected by an unevenly-lit labyrinth of windowless hallways and heavy bulkheads, dotted with display monitors and loudspeakers. At the fore end of the vessel is located the combined bridge and combat information center: a circular room lined with various stations and computer displays, including the primary Command and Control hub, Communications, Damage Control, Fire Control, Electronic Warfare, and Tactical Awareness, all networked to the TYPEWRITER mainframe housed in its own shielded room further into the ship. Navigation is controlled directly from Helmsman's personal station near the center of the room, which sits directly below an elevated deck from which Boudicca and her command staff can survey the activities. Further back are the crew chambers. Bastards and important personnel like gunners and comms specialists sleep in modestly-sized berths, typically no more than six to a room, but the majority of menials are forced to hot rack in suffocating close quarters with as many as three crewmen sharing a single bunk. Since menials are not expected to stray too far from their work stations, these "coffin quarters" are spread throughout the length of the ship. Only high-ranking officers are afforded the luxury of their own private quarters and accompanying washrooms. For the rest of the crew, sanitation facilities (unisex, like everything else) are cramped and not particularly effective, as the King's can only carry a finite amount out water and resupply is often not an option, so all waste must be recycled. The same system supplies the crew with their singularly-horrible meals, which, lacking any sort of formal mess, they are expected to eat in their bunks. The fore also houses the ship's war room, a heavily-automated and surprisingly well-stocked medical bay, at least a dozen even more well-stocked armories, and a couple of fairly spartan crew lounges.

The midsection of the Crimson King houses the vessel's battery of redundant life-support systems and sizeable water tanks, along with the recycling systems that maximize the efficiency of air and water use; as a result, the air aboard the ship always tastes faintly of metal, ozone, and sweat, and their water quickly turns cloudy. A substantial machine shop gives the Bastards the ability to manufacture their own weapons, vehicles, and ammunition in addition to modifying or breaking-down what they salvaged. Garages housing the Bastards' collection of vehicles sit directly above the large dorsal hangar bay that takes up a significant percent of the King's total internal space. One of these garages has been converted into living quarters for the tallboys and other large creatures, while another contains the improvised stables that house the regiment's small menagerie of warbeasts. A pair of launch bays extending along the vessel's flanks enable her to launch and receive fighters and smaller support craft, while heavier dropship transports must deploy from the primary hangar.

The majority of the aft is dominated by a single, massive hot-fusion reactor that supplies the vessel with all the power she could ever reasonably need, at the cost of keeping much of her rear end perpetually sweltering. Her powerful engines permit the Crimson King far more impressive speed and maneuverability than her bulk would suggest, while a battery of repulsors along her underside permit her to enter a planet's gravity well without being dragged down to the surface, though maneuverability is virtually nonexistent once the ship breaks through the upper atmosphere. Because of the extreme heat and threat of constant radiation exposure, there's little else located at this end of the ship: the sole exception is the brig, keeping prisoners nice and uncomfortable.

Not a true warship, the Crimson King's primary armament are the rows of heavy flak batteries and countless smaller, automated point-defense turrets lining its flanks, capable of intercepting projectiles and shearing apart enemy fighters that strays too close. Missile tubes can be armed with a wide assortment of ordinance for targeting spaceborne or planetary targets: they are one of the common means by which the Bastards deploy their extensive arsenal of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons of mass destruction.


The anarchic culture that permeates Bastard's Bastards is a mishmash of well-established military traditions, a distinctive esprit de corps, and the customs and folklore of the thousands of different worlds and moons from which the regiment draws its members, all of which is invariably colored by its extremely high women-to-men ratio and the oft-brutal realities of space travel and warfare along the Rim. Daily life within the confines of the Crimson King is a (rarely-literal) orgy of sex and death, the two extremes that the Bastards enthusiastically celebrate in equal measure. There is no taboo on inter-regimental fraternization and common wisdom plenty of animal rutting keeps the nerves sharp and the muscles firm, so it's a safe bet that any given Bastard is going to spend a significant portion of their downtime screwing literally whoever will have them; due to environmental pressures and the lack of any unifying gospel on the matter, sexual orientation is considered a fluid, inconsequential thing. That is not to say there is never a deeper emotional component, but the love shared by however many Bastards is not the sort of deep, romantic connection most would think of. Their affection is crude, loud, and frequently difficult for outsiders to discern from hate, with blows to the jaw a common substitute for a kiss. The only facet of sex that they treat with any degree of actual reverence is pregnancy, due in large part to the adopted hazhrati notion of mother-as-warrior, but the invariably bloody, painful reality of giving birth on board the King does much to impress the idea as well. Bastard-born children are often not even told who their mothers are, but are raised communally by the members of her section and other close friends.

If at any point in time, two Bastards aren't screwing each other like mindless animals, chances are they're fighting like ones. By necessity, career mercenaries have to be comfortable with committing violence, but the Bastards seem to have a boundless enthusiasm for it that goes well beyond the pale. Fistfights (or tentaclefights) ending in blackened eyes, broken noses, and missing teeth are a common way of filling the long stretches of downtime while in transit. A good Bastardly brawl is as much dialogue as competition, an opportunity for those involved to swap pointers and work out minor disagreements while keeping in touch with what real pain feels like.

Because space is so limited in, well, space, most popular pastimes are ones that can be enjoyed in very close quarters without much equipment: countless card games (most of them played with the standard 82-card deck), equally-numerous dice games, knucklebones, stabscotch, darts, knife-throwing, dominos, boxing, wrestling, various forms of animal bloodsport, and other games one would typically see played in a Rimward pub. Most Bastards will gamble on just about anything they can, wagering everything from spoils of war and favorite sidearms to (mostly) good-natured physical abuse.

Bastard cuisine is singularly horrific, shaped by the necessity to recycle every last usable calorie and drop of potable water while out in the Black. Meals consist of proteins and carbohydrates, which have likely already been served (and eaten) several times before, thoroughly mixed together in an unidentifiable hash or extruded into long, thick noodles. Because it tastes exactly as good as one would imagine pasta made from pseudo-soy and shit might, it is always drowned in sauce spicy enough to strip the carapace off a prawn. The myriad of mutant pests that infest the cramped underbelly of the Crimson King are much more appetizing, but they lack the nutritional content to be anything more than a (comparatively) tasty snack. Recycled water can be kept palatable much longer by steeping crude teas in it, but it eventually reaches the point where it's only marginally more hydrating than one's own bodily fluids; this waste is taken and used to make the beverage affectionately known as "piss beer", notorious for being as alcoholic as it is noxious. Their situation being what it is, it's hardly a surprise that the Bastards have little compunction about cannibalism. After a battle, in addition to being stripped of anything of value, the bodies of the slain are butchered and their meat, fat, and blood used to make surprisingly-edible rations.

Besides odorous piss beer, the Bastards enthusiastically partake in every sort of upper, downer, screamer, and laugher, regardless of whether they come as poppers, snorters, smokers, or shooters. Automated systems aboard the King are able manufacture simple pharmaceuticals, and every Bastard gets an allowance of the stuff that they can access from vending machines around the ship. By and large, these are not "hard" drugs; they're meant to keep soldiers fresh and peppy or liven up the doldrums, not leave them in insensate stupors or send them on hallucinogenic vision-quests. The glaring exception to this is the notorious family of psychotropic amphetamine-based combat drugs known as "kill-pills": only ever taken in the field, these addictive stimulants jumpstart the neurotransmitters that control anger and aggression, keeping the user in a hyperaware killing mood for days at a time. This is, of course, takes a heavy physical and psychological toll, with users often literally collapsing the minute the drugs leave their systems and even a mild overdose can spiral into berserk frenzy. Most Bastards try to steer clear of the stuff, but many find themselves in unenviable positions where a handful of Slaught or Black/Blues might mean the difference between wearing down and staying sharp.  

As in any military force, Bastard culture is lousy with petty superstition. The specifics vary from squad to squad and platoon to platoon, but every solider has at least a handful of rituals and taboos that zealously observe and rarely bother explaining or rationalizing, like how having "Front Toward Enemy" on your weapon brings good luck or drinking hard liquor from a can basically being a death sentence. Most Veteran Bastards accumulate sizeable and eclectic collections charms and amulets that they carry with them at all times: everything from auspiciously-numbered hands of playing cards to pouches of dried herbs and near-human teeth to hand-carved alien fetishes. The Crimson King is filled with ugly, ramshackle little shrines honoring deities from all corners of the Rim: the Bastards are unsurprisingly fond of monstrous goddesses of sex and warfare with names good for invoking in curses, but like true mercenaries, less-bloodthirsty ones can still find adherents if they offer things like wealth or good fortune. Militaristic "household" god and trickster spirits are offered propitiations to subdue their misanthropic tendencies, while famous (or infamous) Bastards are often the subject of ancestor worship by their former units.

Another notable characteristic of their mercenary lifestyle is the sort of media they consume: in a nutshell, anything that lacks a sizeable amount of ultraviolent or pornographic content is not going to hold the average Bastard's attention for very long. Sure, there are the snobs who spend their downtime reading ancient treatises on the art of warfare or listening to eloquent radio hosts discuss Sphere politics, but they get laughed at a lot by their less-refined peers. No, most Bastards prefer dime-store novels and four-color comics filled with thrilling pulp action, newsreel footage that doesn't shy away from the grisly bits, slapstick comedies that border on the sadistic, low-budget skin-flicks featuring every species on the Rim, and other forms of entertainment that don't require too much of an intellectual investment. Due to the sheer variety of local dialects, the most popular media tends to be more visual than literate. Much of the Bastards' collection is either stolen or bought from local vendors, but that's not to say they produce nothing themselves. Many Rimworlders are familiar with "Bastard bibles": pocket-sized eight-pagers printed on scavenged paper, which often contain witty and incisive gossip about actual members of the regiment...mixed in with the lurid sexual exploits, of course. Other Bastards write sensational stories about their own units' exploits (and scathing mockeries of others) to be passed around the King and occasionally hocked planet-side, but their colorful vernacular makes them all but unintelligible to most outsiders.

Beneath the cacophonous roar of machinery that echoes through the halls of the Crimson King, there is the marginally-quieter cacophony of Bastard music. Despite their ship's atrocious acoustics, the group is actually very fond of music-making, every member contributing the traditions of their particular homeworld to be mashed together with others in ways that are rarely harmonious but always distinctly Bastardly. They prefer chordophones like the guitar, sitar, and hurdy-gurdy, which are common enough to steal and simple enough to jury-rig when they can't find one to steal. While the actual sound of Bastard music might be unique to the musicians themselves (though there is a strong preference for droning and buzzing), certain themes definitely predominate their profanity-laced ballads: praises for the "virtues" of Bastard's Bastards, shout-outs to the Bitch Queen herself and other important sods, swaggering boasts about the singers' prowess in battle or bed, threats to prospective enemies that range from the ominous to the gruesome, etc. Together, they form a crude saga, an oral history unconcerned with minor details like accuracy or consistency. Many Bastards also compose songs specifically for the battlefield, whether to be sung en-masse or blared for vehicle-mounted loudspeakers; these are meant to unnerve and terrify the listener, featuring plenty of high-pitched shrieks and whoops, haunting chants, and grinding industrial acoustics.

Instantly recognizable to nearly practically any Rimworlder as the symbol of the infamous mercenaries, the highly distinctive colours worn by every member of Bastard's Bastards is the only thing the regiment has that even remotely approaches a uniform . Most often a bombardier or blouson jacket made of leather, denim, or some other hard-wearing material, every set of colors is a form of anarchic heraldry unique to the Bastard who wears them. Even the most minimalist colours feature insignia on the sleeves and back that denotes the wearer's unit formation, rank, and occupational specialty. Most are considerably more elaborate, with patches and emblems indicating the wearer's nicknames, notable tours of duty, and decorated achievements; other popular additions include religious icons, popular slogans, kill markers, roundels, nazars, irreverent memento mori, leering gorgoneia, and licentious putti. It should be no surprise that many Bastards' colours feature obscene images favorite pinup models like one of the strapping and well-hung Hunky Punks or the vertical smirk of Shelia Nagig.


Highly-mobile, heavily-armed, and broadly-competent commandos and stormtroopers, the Raiders are the backbone of Bastard's Bastards fighting force, an elite special forces unit by the standards of any other army along the Rim. It is a point of pride that there are few military operations that there are precious few military operations that Raiders are incapable of undertaking: they can fight as lightning-fast mechanized infantry from the backs of the equally-versatile Waste Rat light trucks, as marines during amphibious assaults and espatiers during spaceborne boarding actions, as air cavalry, as infiltrators, as skirmishers, and as mountaineers. Likewise, Raiders are undaunted by all but the most truly inhospitable of environments: from frozen coldworld tundras and disease-ridden fenworld quagmires to scorching duneworld wastes and the miles-high stacks of hyper-urbanized sprawlworlds. Every Bastard begins their career as a Raider and the majority end them still proudly bearing the title.

While ostensibly considered light infantry, every Raider is staggeringly well-armed. Typically, each member of a twelve-woman section carries a small arsenal consisting of a heavy carbine as their primary weapon, a submachine gun or compact shotgun as a close-quarters secondary weapon, one or two additional sidearms, a dedicated melee weapon like a sword bayonet or tomahawk, several smaller blades, and a variety of grenades. Additionally, two or three members of the section will carry some sort of support weapon, most often a light machine gun or flamethrower. Underneath their colours, they wear a lightweight ballistic vest that does not restrict their mobility, but which offers only limited protection against modern firearms. They also typically carry a tactical radio headset, compact gas mask, clip/drop harness, and very basic medical supplies, with other gear depending on their role in the section.

While, as states before, the majority of Bastards do not stray far from the role of Raider, some soldiers either already possess or acquire over the course of their careers expertise that makes them suited for more specialized battlefield roles:

Destroyers are heavy infantry tank hunters who have survived enough lopsided engagements, whether through natural talent or sheer dumb luck, to have picked up on the art of defeating heavily-armored opponents; this expertise also makes them the most suited for taking out aircraft and oversized beasties. They specialize in the use of an extensive array of heavy support weapons: recoilless and anti-tank rifles, shoulder-fired missiles, fusion blasters, and coilguns should be able to disable an enemy vehicle with a well-placed shot, allowing plasma torch-armed Destroyers to cut their way through bulkheads and other weak points before dispatching the crew with submachine guns and frag grenades. Given that even relatively outdated armor can still make mincemeat out of soft targets that stray into their field of fire, the learning curve to become a Destroyer is brutal and the margin of error narrow; those who make a mistake are rarely get the chance to make another.  

Demolishers are combat engineers and sappers who specialize in breaking through fortified defenses as well as (to a lesser degree) constructing the Bastards' own field fortifications, a role that is both technically and physically demanding: lugging a heavy kit of basic engineering tools in addition to their sidearms and any specialized equipment the situation demands, Demolishers must be well-versed in route clearance, minesweeping, mine placement, defusing booby traps, bridge-laying, and, of course, demolishing enemy structures and fortifications with explosive charges, all while under withering fire. They are also the ones tasked with operating siege weaponry, which means that they must also be able to safely handle and deploy the Bastards' extensive stockpile of tactical (and not entirely stable) nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. As such, being a Demolisher is rarely something a recruit falls into: those with the guts and technical aptitude are tutored by veteran Demolishers, honing their skills as assault pioneers until they're considered competent enough to become true specialists.

Boudicca Bastard's pet psychopaths, Scalphunters are terror troops par excellence. Typically deployed far behind enemy lines, their role goes far beyond simple psychological warfare or assassinations: they become horrifying bogeymen in the imaginations of their foes, murderous shadows in the night, picking off isolated patrols one-by-one, creeping into their camps in the dead of night and leaving officers dismembered and disemboweled in their own beds. As such, joining their ranks requires not just a talent for infiltration and fieldcraft, but an imaginative enthusiasm for cruelty that goes far beyond the Bastards' natural amorality. There is little love lost between Scalphunter teams and the rest of the regiment; in addition to the grisly mutilations they inflict upon themselves to confuse efforts to tell them apart, they have no qualms about putting their own compatriots in harm's way, or outright executing them themselves, rather than risk the success of their mission. It is only their unquestionable impact on enemy morale that earns them the most grudging sliver of respect.

The moniker of "Ironclads" refers both to the suits of powered exoskeletons resembling hulking bipedal tanks and to the highly-specialized operators who pilot them. Micro-nuclear reactors power the complex system of servos that give the suits their incredible strength as well as their surprising speed and agility that is often belied by the layers of heavy armor that renders them all but impervious to even concentrated small-arms fire. They also feature support systems to keep the operator alive but not necessarily comfortable; the reactor keeps the interior of a suit suffocatingly-hot, so most pilots eschew all but the barest minimum of clothing, often making bailing-out a non-option. The standard Ironclad loadout is an array of quad-linked heavy machine guns and an underarm flamethrower on one arm and piston-driven thermo-claw on the other, making it a dangerous opponent for light armor as well as infantry, but the versatile chassis can be mounted with whatever armaments are required: the Ironclad Slammer, for instance, trades much of its close-range killing power for shoulder-mounted mortars, turning it into a walking artillery platform. The greatest flaw of the Ironclad is by far its sheer bulk; while it packs the firepower of an entire Raider squad, it also weighs nearly as much, making it nearly impossible to carry in anything other than a dedicated transport.

Rough Riders are essentially light cavalry outriders mounted on fast, powerful, and most often custom-built motorcycles that excel at running-down and harassing more sluggish opponents. In true Bastard spirit, every Rough Rider "mount" is well-armed for a vehicle of its weight, sporting a pintle-mounted machine gun (or sometimes two) between the handlebars; saddle holsters hold the rider's other weapons, typically cavalry sabers and sawn-off shotguns. While their all-terrain tires and rugged suspension can tackle extremely broken terrain, they excel on flat, open terrain where they can charge their targets at full speed, strike in a lightning-fast blur, and disappear before their victims have a chance to react or regroup.

As mentioned before, the hard-wearing Waste Rat light truck is the backbone of the Bastards' motorized force. It is difficult to overstate just how versatile a vehicle it really is: its sturdy tires and rugged suspension allow it to navigate broken or uneven terrain with ease. The robust "gin-sipper" engine can run on anything from bathtub moonshine to vegetable grease with only a few minor adjustments, yet is simple enough that most repairs do not require much by way of technical expertise. A single Rat can haul a compliment of six Bastards and roughly a ton of equipment, and while the open-topped, thinly-armored chassis offers little protection to its passengers, the medium MG mounted in the front and two light guns in the bed at least give them a little extra firepower to answer with. The Rat's greatest strength, however, is the ease with which it can be modified for virtually any terrain: for instance, pontoons and a tail-mounted propeller permit Swamp Rats to navigate shallow water, while Snow Rats sports treaded tires and a super-insulated engine to prevent flameouts. It can also be outfitted with heavier siding and a turret-mounted support weapon (e.g. a light anti-air cannon or recoilless rifle) in its bed, the resulting gun truck often referred to as a Waste Warden; losing some of the Rat's legendary speed and efficiency, it is not nearly as common a sight.

Not a variation on the Rat so much as a close cousin to it, the Waste Weasel is a squat, squarish, open-topped crawler light crawler with a surprisingly-thick hull. It only requires two Bastards to operate, a driver and a gunner who both sit at the front of the vehicle, the latter operating a light machinegun from behind an armored shroud. While the vehicle's spacious bed could technically shuttle infantry, the Weasel was conceived as a support weapon carrier that would be able to keep pace with the fast-moving Rat. The scrappy little box can lug an incredible variety of weapons: howitzers, auto-mortars, quad-cannons, anti-tank guns, multi-rocket launchers, heavy flamethrowers, etc. Waste Weasels epitomize shoot-and-scoot tactics, slowing as little as it necessary to make an accurate shot and then immediately accelerating out of the line of fire, preferably to a blind spot where the crew can continue firing. If armed with a sufficiently high-caliber weapon, they are even capable of ambushing and defeating heavy crawlers and creepers, though doing so is still a risky proposition for a vehicle of their size. Every bit as adaptable as its cousin, the only glaring deficiency the Weasel has compared to the Waste Rat is that its tracks don't allow it to make sharp turns while moving.

The Marauder armored car occupies a somewhat awkward strategic position, possessing neither the flexibility and operational range of the Waste Rat and its ilk nor the survivability and firepower of heavier armor. A squat, six-wheeled car with a single enclosed turret, its primary battlefield use is as a heavy reconnaissance vehicle, scouting ahead of the main force, but it also sees its impressive speed put to use running down fleeing infantry or acting as a screening force for retreating Bastards. The Marauder's armor is not thick enough to reliably protect against anything more than small-arms fire, but as is something of a running theme, it is often considerably over-armed. In addition to a turret-mounted autocannon and co-axial heavy machine gun, the car sports a hull-mounted MG on its front and pintle-mounted twin-linked guns in its rear, as well as a pair of four-tube rocket pods on either side of its turret.

While the Bastards are footsloggers through and through, the garages of the Crimson King house a large and varied assortment of heavier tracks, crawlers, and even creepers. On the battlefield, most are manned by a crew of indentured menials with a single actual Bastard acting as vehicle commander; to motivate them, said crewmembers are often shackled to their stations or sealed in from the outside, ensuring that if their vehicle is lost, they go down with it. Despite this looming threat of horrible (likely flaming) death, there is rarely a shortage of volunteers, as successful crews have a chance to be promoted to the rank of Bastard Charioteer. The contempt the rest of the regiment feels towards career tread-lovers is mitigated by their undeniable effectiveness (in certain situations) and a touch of sympathy for the poor blighters mad enough to actually enjoy being cooped up in a hot, fume-filled metal coffin for days or even weeks on end.

Generally speaking, Bastards love assault guns: the simple, brutal elegance of an array of overpowered weaponry affixed to the casemate of a heavily-armored chassis designed to batter or blast its way through anything in its path. The old-fashioned but robust Grumbler crawler is by far the most popular design, so-named for the distinctive purr its engines produce. Its main armament is a daunting 140mm howitzer capable of both direct and indirect fire; in addition to the usual high-explosive and armor-penetrating shells, Grumbler crews often employ more exotic ammunition. Beehive canisters filled with thousands of ball bearings or flechettes can wreak havoc on unarmored targets, while thermobaric and chemical rounds are prefect for smoking out entrenched forces. Thanks to its thick hull, the vehicle can even weather the detonation of low-yield nuclear shells at relatively close-range. It is especially effective in the claustrophobic hell that is urban combat, able to smash through the surrounding architecture to ambush enemies or create new avenues for supporting forces. As a staple of Bastard armored warfare, it should be no surprise that it has spawned a number of offshoots and variations.


Bastardchatter is the closest thing the Bastards have to a native tongue, an unharmonious creole of dozens of Rimworld dialects, approximations of alien syllables, and corrupted military jargon that often grates on the ears of non-speakers. While difficult to understand (the Bastards don't put much emphasis on things like syntax or pronunciation) it is impossible to mistake for anything else; in much the same way as coldworlders have over a dozen words to describe the color of snow, so too does Bastardchatter have over a dozen ways to tell someone to go fuck themselves.

Acker: a piece of antiaircraft artillery. Someone specialized in disabling these defenses is known as an "acker-smacker."

Black, The: the void of space, typically has nostalgic or affectionate connotations.

Burner: a flamethrower or similar incendiary weapon.

Boiler: an incendiary direct-energy weapon.

Crawler: a track-driven ground vehicle.

Creeper: a vehicle that moves on legs rather than wheels or tracks.

Cutterfly: derogatory nickname for ground-attack aircraft, due to how easily they can be shot down.

Eye-popper: a boiler, after the gruesome-but-theatrical effect of the weapon boiling the aqueous humour in the victim's eyes.

Frag: originally meaning a fragmentation grenade, it is one of the most common expressions in Bastard parlance, often used in place of or in conjunction with "fuck".

Freen: to threaten death or serious injury, after the sound prawns often make when baring their razor-sharp mandibles.

Glazzers: a common form of Bastard skimmer, so named for how the electrostatic discharge from their crude anti-grav systems fuses loose particles into glass.

Gropo, groper: corruption of the old spacer slang "ground-pounder", an insulting moniker for a terrestrial fighting force. Worn as a badge of honor by units like the Bastards, who generally distain career spacers and their ilk.

Guzzler: short for exactly what you think it's short for. Alternatively, a term for an outdated or obsolete vehicle that can be used both disparagingly or affectionately.

Nazie: Rimworlder nickname for someone from the Inner Sphere, based on a common and less-than-flattering impression of how they talk.

Nuhu: slang for near-human, sometimes used disparagingly by non-humans.

Pressure cooker: a thermobaric weapon.

Skimmer: a hovercraft, does not denote any specific means of propulsion.

Sneezer, sneezie: a biological warfare agent.

Slammer: derogatory nickname for an overarmed mercenary who relies more on advanced technology and logistical support than actual skill. Alternatively, an indirect fire weapon like a mortar.

Spacer: someone who spends most of their life in space, particularly in the context of a military or merchant capacity. The natural enemy of the gropo.

Tilly: artillery, typically used with some flippant connotation.

Tracker: a halftrack.

Vape: to vaporize, often used in the same manner as frag, e.g., "Get vaped, slammer!"

Verter: occasionally-used term for vertical-take-off-and-landing (VTOL) aircraft.

Voon: an abomination, the opposite of everything it means to be a Bastard. The name of an emotionless warrior race that has had a decades-long blood feud with the Bastards.

This idea actually kind of snuck up on me from out of nowhere. I was thinking about the topic of alternate alignment models and  incorporating the Paracelsian tria prima of Mercury-Sulfur-Salt into the classical Air-Earth-Fire-Water arrangement and it just sort of spun out from there. I hope you can forgive the disjointed, infodump style since I've never been particularly good at parsing my ideas and I'm still far from decided about a lot of the specific language.

When it comes to the sort of genre I'm trying to emulate, The Plateau is Clint Eastwood and Akira Kurosawa meets the Shaw Brothers and Guillermo del Toro. It's a mix of wuxia, chanbara, Hong Kong blood opera, dime novels and Spaghetti Westerns as written by HP Lovecraft, with a healthy dose of splatterpunk body horror thrown in for good measure. As you could probably guess, the bleakness of cosmic horror is an important theme, equally so are righteousness, duty, revenge, adventure, glory, morally-ambiguous codes of chivalry, and perhaps most of all, furious defiance of those very same unknowable horrors.

The titular Plateau is a brutal, mercilessly unforgiving land equally informed by the high deserts of Colorado and Tibet. The land is rocky and ungenerous, nourishing little. Towering mountain ranges, jagged like rows of broken teeth, scrape the face of cold, bright Heaven that seems to loom far too low. The light of day is searing to the skin and blinding to the eyes, while the gloam of night is illuminated by swirling nebula of red and black set with stars like so many unblinking eyes.

The Men of the Plateau, not quite human and plagued by all manner of strange afflictions and peculiarities of form, live in trembling fear of the Thirteenth Throat-Crowned King, whose divine mandate from Heaven is irreproachably evidenced by the webbing between his digits, the many layers of his eyelids, and the collar of garish gill filaments encircling his throat. His death-masked Pale Riders range without rhyme or reason on their ghastly steeds, dispensaries of cruel justice in all its many sadistic forms. Few and far between are those peasants who do not throw themselves prostrate when they hear the grim call to prayer of the King from the East echoing across the wastes.

When the locals say the Plateau is "the place where men are close to their gods", they mean that in an incredibly literal sense. Behind the blue-white fluorescence lurk the many terrible Elder Gods, so close in fact that they can reach their appendages down from Heaven to touch the face of the earth. Most often it is just a long, dark shape silhouetted far in the distance that makes the innards squirm reflexively, but for those unfortunate enough to be any closer than that, few things can compare in terms of sheer sanity-straining awfulness. Each Elder God possesses many lesser sub-souls and emanations as well; while they have only a fragment of their progenitors' power and wisdom, they are few enough in angles that they can walk upon the Plateau itself.  Though all live in mortal terror of the Elder Gods and their Emissaries, that does not mean they do not pay them homage. Mad-eyed fire-and-brimstone prophets wander from town to town, spreading the word of a particular otherworldly horror that they might be spared from casual obliteration. Many among them are mediums channeling strange energies that their bodies and minds can barely withstand, with often-spectacular results. Currently, I'm trying to come up with another name for the Elder Gods: something along the lines of "the Thirty-Seven Monstrous Ancients of Heaven," though probably not that in particular.

Martial arts are the core of the setting, being the what separates the deformed, cowering peasants from the deformed, more-infrequently-cowering heroes. Also called the Sublime Refinements of Violence, there are far too many schools to ever be counted, some only taught in the remotest of monasteries while others are known across the Plateau. Schools are divided into two distinct paths: the Way of the Body and the Way of the Gun. All of them, however, permit students to perform feats beyond anything an unenlightened man would be capable of.  The esoteric forms warp not only space and time, but the very flesh of their practitioners on often-gruesome or alien ways. Styles include Horse-Faced Bird-Ogre, Diplomat's Castrating Tongue, Whistling Insanity, Fingers of the Far-Sighted Torturer, Mind-Consuming Parasite, Bug-Eyed Juggernaut, and Bone-Crushing Demon-Servitor.

Guns on the Plateau are on a roughly late Victorian level of development: revolvers and pepperboxes, shotguns, rifles, carbines. The largest specimens are jezzails nearly as long as a man is tall that must be braced to fire, capable of knocking down a horse or severing limbs, but these are the weapons of hinterland snipers, not wandering martial artists. Almost without exceptions, guns are extremely well-made, as much works of art and instruments of violence, featuring engravings, inlays, grips wrapped in silk and eelskin, etc. Though every gun-focused style teaches how to use a firearm as a lethal bludgeon, many also incorporate some sort of blade for when things get up close and personal.

Players take on the role of wandering warriors (i.e. murderhobos) in the vein of youxia, ronin, and The Man With No Name, almost certainly finding themselves on the wrong side of the Throat-Crowned King and his Pale Riders and quite possibly being stalked by Emissaries of Heaven as well. At this early stage, I envision them hunting down bounties, getting into duels with rival martial artists, defending peasant villages from roving bandits and cruel officials, unlocking secrets of terrible enlightenment, and other staples of the genre(s).

I hope you all enjoy what I have so far. I've got plans on expanding the setting a little more: deciding on an actual system, fleshing out martial art styles, trying to incorporate some of the Lovecraftian staples (Deep Ones, mi-go, etc.), expanding magic and mediums, and generally giving a more complete sense of the aesthetics of the Plateau. As always, I would love to hear ya'll's thoughts on this.

[ooc]This setting is meant to be used with sparkletwist's Quick & Dirty system and as such, is intentionally pretty vague. Originally inspired by the latest trailer for Bioshock Infinite , it sort of exploded into a grab-bag of turn-of-the-century weirdness, a hybrid of steam, diesel, and biopunk. I'll probably add more to it myself, but what I really want to hear is anything you all come up with. Don't feel like you have to come up with any sort of backstory: as long as it's somewhat period-appropriate, chances are I'd be more than eager to add it to the list.

Enjoy.[/ooc]

The year is 1910.

The filth, corruption, and inequalities of the Gilded Age, the decadence and hypocrisy, are finally threatening to explode into open violence, the tenuous social order buckling at the seams.

President for Life Theodore Roosevelt has been styled by Congress Emperor of All Americas after his conquests of Cuba, Panama, and the Philippines. His Great White Fleet is on its maiden voyage, ivory-hulled battleships demonstrating the wealth and beneficence of American democracy, gilded guns leaving ports burning in their wake.

The robber barons, pirate captains of industry like J.P. Morgan and John D. Rockefeller, lord over sprawling factory complexes that poison the skies and blot out the sun. Private legions of Pinkertons and strikebreakers keep their workers laboring like medieval serfs by any means necessary, savagely opposing the efforts of labor unions and anarchist revolutionaries. In the perpetual, smog-choked twilight of cities like Pittsburg and Detroit, the streets run red with blood.

In the heartland, Christian socialists execute those guilt of the most heinous crime of all, capitalism, by crucifying them upon crosses of gold.

Heavily-armed, iron-jawed angels, the Petticoat Amazons burn down brothels and workhouses, bomb distilleries, and gun-down opponents to temperance, equality, and universal suffrage.

In the West, First Nations warriors wage a bloody guerilla war against United States forces, emboldened by the success of the Ghost Dance and the massacre of the 7th Cavalry at Wounded Knee. In Mexico, the revolution is already threatening to spill over the northern border; there's even talk among the caudillos of trying to reclaim the lands that were stolen in the Mexican-American War. With the country in the throes of the Yellow Peril, there is still no law against killing a Chinaman, but the secretive tongs promise death by a thousand cuts to those who would prey on the already-persecuted immigrants.

Sons of the Confederacy want nothing less than the restoration of the Confederate States of America, and there are rumors of whole regiments being trained in secret in Mexico, Brazil, and the Bahamas. They are sworn enemies of Marcus Garvey and his United Negro Improvement Army, who intend to claim the entire Black Belt as a new African homeland.

Knowing he is nearing the end of his life, Andrew Carnegie, the second-richest man who has ever lived, pours his limitless wealth not only into grandiose displays of philanthropy, but also the creation of a secret army. It's mission: to bring an end to imperialism, once and for all, by any means necessary.

In India, Queen Victoria's bastard daughter, the product of a tryst with a Hindu Raja, has led a violent uprising, shattered the British East India Company, and crowned herself the first queen of a new Maratha Confederacy.

In major metropolitan areas like New York, it is not uncommon to see buildings floating overhead, held aloft by great turbines and gas-filled balloons. Sky-rails loop and curl around towering skyscrapers; originally intended only for carrying freight, enterprising citizens have begun using them for rapid travel and death-defying aerial acrobatics.

It seems that man has finally conquered the air. Airships and dirigibles of all shapes and sizes sail among the clouds, held aloft by lighter-than-air gasses that only occasionally ignite and explode. Far faster and more nimble are the aeroplanes, rickety-looking, multi-winged craft of wood and canvas piloted by only the bravest and most suicidal of daredevils.

Darwinists use the science of unnatural selection to fabricate all manner of monstrous beasties: elephantines, pseudobears, tigeresques, vitriolic lizards, and even stranger conglomerations of flora and fauna.

The Immortal Genovese himself, Dr. Victor Frankenstein, has perfected his Promethean process by which a twisted mockery of life might be returned to dead flesh. He is currently touring Europe with his two companions and assistants, a monstrous couple that were also his first creations.

In Long Island, the brilliant inventor Nikola Tesla is slowly driving himself mad as he labors to complete his Wardenclyffe Tower. The once-compassionate genius' mind has darkened and he now creates weapons of hideous destructive potential, like the kind he used to incinerate George Westinghouse. Only one man does not fear his terrible intellect: the Wizard of Menlo Park and Tesla's former master, Thomas Alva Edison.

Created from all manner of unstable, dangerous, and often highly-addictive substances, Vigors grant the imbiber powers and abilities that can only be described a superhuman, but always at a cost. One might let you throw fireballs from your fingertips, but char the flesh from your hand until the effect wears off, or cause the flesh of your arm to painfully swell and bubble as it becomes home to a swarm of stinging insects.

Spiritualism is all the rage. Mediums channel the spirits of the departed, who grant them knowledge of the past, present, and future. The ectoplasm they sometimes exteriorize as a result of such channelings is said to have supernatural properties of its own. First Nation shamans and medicine-men summon manitou and other ancient, powerful spirits. With the Great Beast himself at its head, the hermetic mystics of  the Ordo Templi Orientis are beholden to only one principle: Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. In Providence, Rhode Island, a young poet by the name of Howard Phillips Lovecraft has his mind hollowed-out and consumed by some unknowable evil, his soulless body used as a vessel though which to spread messages of cosmic blasphemy.

Against such insanity, Charles Fort stands armed only with the cold light of rational inquiry and a loaded .38.

Like sharks smelling blood in the water, European mercenaries flock to America, bringing with them the most cutting-edge of weaponry: fabricated creatures, mechanical walkers, aero-fighters, gun-laden armatures, and more. They are haughtily amoral as they pour more fuel on what already threatens to erupt into a fire the likes of which the world has never seen.

[ooc]Yeah, yeah, I know, I already have two other topics at the top of this forum, but while I was trying to come up with martial arts styles, this just hit me and I wanted to get it up where someone could see it before it all got buried in my hard drive.

I'm envisioning this running on a slightly-modified version of Night's Black Agents, which itself uses the GUMSHOE system. The Storyteller system might work as well, but probably more for less action-oriented games.

Some of the more obvious inspirations are Night's Black Agents, Men in Black, The Laundry series, HP Lovecraft and company, the World of Darkness, Tinker Tailor Solider Spy and other le Carré novels, the Bourne series , and supernatural espionage novels like Tim Powers' Declare.

Hope you all enjoy. As always, comments, however brief, are appreciated.[/ooc]

The Black Chamber is an ultra-secretive intelligence agency run primarily by the United States but which also extends its tendrils into Great Britain and other NATO member nations. Its purview: occult intelligence, OCCINTEL, which encompasses the paranormal, supernatural, and extraterrestrial, the lines between the three often blurry.

Ostensibly aimed at protecting humanity (but mainly the West) from horrors and dangers most cannot imagine, but it often seeks to exploit those very same horrors whenever possible for use in its own games of espionage cat-and-mouse.

Officially, nobody knows about the Black Chamber. Not any head of state, not any general, not any chief of staff, not any head of the CIA or MI6. Nobody. Those who do discover it face one of three fates: conscription, brainwashing, or (quite often) assassination.

Headed by the Directors, none of whom have ever been seen in person and who may or may not even be human.

Chamber policy-makers appear to be totally unencumbered by concern for morality, ethics, the sanctity of human life, or any notions of fair play that extend beyond the shadowiest corner of the intelligence community.

Black Chamber agents are recruited from a variety of places: most have backgrounds in the CIA, FBI, NSA, armed forces, etc. A few of the oldest members even served in the OSS back during World War II, while some might've been approached civilians. There are rumors that the Chamber even extends offers to criminals facing heavy sentences.

Chamber employees (and associated personnel) essentially sign over their entire lives, giving up any rights to their own bodies, minds, and even souls. And no, their oaths aren't necessarily terminated just because they are.

Agents are routinely subjected to all manner of dangerous, unethical, and/or experimental treatments and procedures to enhance their potential, with or without their knowledge or consent. Implantations, psychological reprogramming, transplants, injections, exotic chemotherapies, induced possession, and even stranger procedures are conducted by Chamber medics.

The Black Chamber makes use of strange technologies based on quasi-scientific principles, captured occult lore, and reverse-engineered artifacts. However, that kind of tech is expensive and finicky, so most agents go into the field armed most with mundane weapons and equipment.

Very cannibalistically, the Black Chamber has a nasty habit of trying to assassinate its own people under-the-table, often for suspect or unspecified reasons. Human agents are rarely used; inhuman entities or experimental "living weapons" are much more common. Surprisingly, a number of those who survive such attempts are allowed to carry on without any more official interference, raising the disturbing possibility that such actions are merely field tests or training exercises.

Chamber possesses a significant number of Nazi scientists and occultists acquired in the wake of World War II, most of who did not have to be too aggressively coerced into cooperating.

Black Chamber also employs a number of paranormal, supernatural, and extraterrestrial entities as "advisors" or, much more rarely because of their predictability, as field operatives.

Major facilities and bases are mostly located inside the United States and Great Britain, but the Black Chamber maintains numerous smaller safehouses throughout Europe, with a few also in Canada, Australia, and Japan.

Primary antagonist is the 17th Directorate, the USSR equivalent to the Black Chamber. They are, if such a thing is even possible, even more reckless, not to mention ruthless, than the Chamber itself. One of the major differences between the two agencies is the Directorate's staunch atheism, which stands in strange contrast to their unhealthy fascination with apotheosis. While they lag behind in technology, they have access to more Old World occult. Many of their field operatives, especially paramilitary and post-human agents, wear distinctive, color-coded gas masks.

The Black Chamber also battles paranormal, supernatural, and extraterrestrial threats, especially those that analysts consider existential threats to the human race...or worse, to democracy.

Also on the Chamber's rogue's gallery are the so-called Illuminati: a blanket term referring to any human organization, institution, or cult that engages in OCCINTEL, typically unaffiliated with (and often hostile to) any quasi-national agency.

This is the roughest of brainstormings I had for a martial arts-centered setting. I'll probably ad more onto it, but I wanted to know what your impressions of the basic idea were while I try to work out what angle to attack a more involved write-up should take.


The world is called the Wheel of Earth and Water, with one-hundred million islands and archipelago rising from the surface of a single vast ocean that stretches from horizon to horizon. That is the number poetically ascribed by the inhabitants; there are far too many to every count, as numerous as stars in the sky. The largest of the islands are not more than a few dozen miles wide, with the jealous sea swallowing up anything larger. They form a colorful mosaic that ranges from jungles and lagoons to rocky outcroppings, barren plains to rolling hills to towering mountains.


Everything in the Wheel is said to be made from the four elements, in varying proportions.

Air: Wit, Willpower, Courage and Communication. Inwards to the Mind and Self.
Earth:  Resilience, Practicality, Sensation and Physicality. Outwards to Flesh and the World.
Fire: Passion, Creativity, Leadership and Drive. Hot Blood and Emotion.
Water: Control, Grace, Intuition and Instinct. Cool Senses and Logic.


Spirits small and large pervade the fabric of the living world, the oldest and most powerful of them virtual gods and the object of widespread reverence.


Ethnically, the peoples of the Wheel resemble a mix of the South and Southeast Asian, Chinese, and Nipponese, as well as a slightly smaller proportion of Negrito, Arab, and Polynesian. Within these broad categories are countless smaller groups and tribes, some widespread, some limited to a single corner of a single island. I'm very intentionally pulling an Ursula le Guin and not including any Western European analogues, though I am considering a seaborne raider culture that resembles a hybrid of Vikings and Ottomans.


As nearly everyone at most a day's-travel from the coast, life revolves around the sea, which is viewed with a mix of reverence and fear. Ships are rarely more than light, single-masted vessel: anything larger risks offending the ocean.


No force has ever been to unite more than a handful of islands under a single banner, with the greatest of these petty empires controlling at most a dozen. Because it is next to impossible to assemble great numbers of soldiers, clashes between massed armies are unheard of. Instead, disputes are more often settled by formal contests between single duelists or small parties of combatants.


There is a strong tradition of martial arts in the Wheel, their study and practice considered to be one of the most worthy and honorable of pursuits. The number of different forms and styles, both armed and unarmed, are beyond counting. Some have become so popular that they are known everywhere, while others are taught by only a single, reclusive master. Rare is the island that does not have at least one temple, dojo, or ashram.


With so many schools and traditions, the wandering duelist is a ubiquitous sight in any corner of the Wheel. Some are mercenaries selling their talents, some seek enlightenment through the honing of their art, and others are simply driven by wanderlust and the desire for adventure. There is an established, unspoken code of honor among their kind that dictates things like fair combat and when one may kill their opponent.


Arms are grouped into eight broad categories: Swords, Staves, Spears, Polearms, Hammers, Flails, Daggers, and Thrown. Each class encompasses a diverse range of weapons and there is much debate between students of the different styles as to which is superior, though they are all considered equally honorable. Bows, however, are anathema: their use in combat against an unevenly-armed opponent is considered a grave breach of honor.

This is a quick and dirty list of the core concepts for a weird fantasy setting I've been working on, which revolves mostly around courtly intrigue. I know there isn't a ton of it, but I want to see what sort of impression it makes on you all.


The Manticore Gardens are a colossal pleasure-palace; large enough to house thousands while still have room enough for much of the interior to be rarely-explored. Something of a tiered tower, the architecture is a synergy of Byzantine, Islamic, and Indian styles, with lots of arches and open ceilings. Everything is colorful and made from beautiful or precious materials.

The world outside the Gardens matters little to anyone within them. The lands immediately surrounding it are a flat, bone-white desert, and it sits on the shore of a midnight-blue ocean. More does exist, of course, as dignitaries travel fast distances to visit the pleasure of the Manticore Gardens.

The well-defined hierarchy is as follows: Sovereign Babylon > Dragons > Nobles > Knights > Thralls

Sovereign Babylon is the enigmatic, undisputed ruler and creator of the Manticore Gardens. While Her physical vessel is that of a human girl barely come of age, She has the aura of something far more terrible lurking behind the veil.

Dragons are Babylon's viziers and advisors, all of them ancient monsters in their own right and most decidedly non-anthropomorphic in appearance. They have their own, often convoluted agendas, and many Nobles owe some sort of fealty to one or more Dragon.

Nobles are immortal courtiers who have had their souls transmuted by Babylon into Golden Essences, the youngest of them at least a century old. While they vary wildly in appearance, they are bound by the Anthropomorphic Dictate, so they are all at least roughly-human.

Knights are servants, bodyguards, valets, etc. to the Nobles. While they have no real status or authority in and of themselves, they are sufficiently valuable that it is considered in bad taste to kill one that isn't yours.

Thralls are the meat that feeds the Manticore Garden. They are nameless creatures used from everything from fighting to fucking to eating.

Golems are artificial automata, crafted from any number of materials.

Tulpa are intelligent spirit-forms created to assist courtiers or otherwise perform some intellectual task, like a magical AI program.

Babylon lets the Nobles of the Gardens do entirely as they please as long as it doesn't interfere with her own desires. So, with all of their needs sated, they are free to focus entirely on their wants: they gossip, bicker, flirt, fuck, duel, gamble, throw parties, feast on strange dishes, drink all manner of potent beverages, ingest every sort of narcotic imaginable, peruse ancient volumes, practice music instruments, craft works of art, and many other things.

Perhaps the most important device in the Gardens is the Uranus Loom, the source of the fantastic physical vessels the courtiers inhabit. Rather than producing cloth, the Loom weaves together living bodies out of a variety of "threads": animal, plant, alchemical, stars, dreams, corpses, etc.

There are several types of magic practiced by the denizens of the Manticore Gardens. Gross Alchemie, transmuting the outward substance of the world. Subtle Alchemie, transmuting the inward substance of the soul. Divination, sort of a cross between clairsentience and omen-reading like casting bones or drawing cards. High Summoning, the conjuring of beings alien to this reality.

[ooc]This is my first crack at making a setting, and right now, it's mostly just me regurgitating ideas on the screen. Hopefully, I can work on narrowing it down and refining it.[/ooc]

In this as of yet unnamed setting, the world has still not recovered from the Doom, a cataclysm of such enormous proportions that it nearly wiped out all memory of what came before it. Entire civilizations, their cultures and histories: gone. Even the Doom itself is a mystery. Judging by the scars it left in its wake, it was both an ecological and metaphysical catastrophe and an apocalyptic world war, one disaster quite possibly begetting the others.

One of the most lasting effects of the Doom is the absence of history as a concept upon which any real weight is placed. Stories are passed down by word-of-mouth and lineages are charted, but as a rule, people generally care little about events happening outside the scope of their own lifetimes. When it is said that the Doom came centuries ago, that's pure conjecture: all it really says is that it happened long enough ago that anyone who knew anyone who witnessed it is long since dead.

It is strikingly-obvious that the world is broken. It's not dying, per se, but it has been sufficiently mangled as to render it wholly unrecognizable. Most of the landscape is a vast expanse of wastelands, deserts, and salt flats; desolate, but colorful and vibrant. Mountain ranges are broken and jagged, whole peaks split right down the middle. Woodlands, forests, and jungles have a certain arcadian brutality about them. Entire seas boiled away, leaving thousand-foot cliffs overlooking lakes of silt and brine. The red sun still rises, but it seems disturbingly bloated and cross-crossed by veins of black. The moon has been sundered, half of it spread across the heavens in a massive arc: it hangs far too low in the sky, as though it might fall to earth at any moment.

Even stranger vistas than these are not unheard of: floating islands, fields of crystalline spires, trees that can hold cities in their branches, and rivers of molten lava bubbling up from the earth, to name a few examples.

Though their builders have long since passed into oblivion, the landscape is dotted by the ruins of forgotten civilizations. Often half-buried, sunken into the ground, many of them can only be described as monolithic. Ziggurats, obelisks, standing stones. Citadels, temples, palaces. Dismembered limbs of colossi hundreds of feet tall. Arches commemorating victories of long-dead kings. It is no surprise that many of these ruins have been repopulated since the Doom: whole cities are built upon the remains of the old.

Key Concepts:

•   The setting is deliberately, enthusiastically anachronistic. There is no real explanation for this, other than "that's just the way it is." Technology runs the gamut from the Bronze Age to the High Middle Ages to WWII, much of it scavenged or repurposed from the civilizations destroyed in the Doom. Motorcycles and convertibles race again horses and war-birds. Pterodactyls dance around Flying Fortresses. Warriors go into battle with battleaxes and submachine guns. The people of the world take these things for granted, and their lifestyles reflect the eclectic range of technologies.
•   Going hand-in-hand with the anachronistic technology is the presence of magic and alchemy, the boundaries between the two often blurring. Enchantments are ubiquitous and do not interfere with more advanced technologies, e.g., an autoloader pistol with magically-enhanced accuracy.
•   Certain rare "magitech" artifacts are perfect examples of the indistinguishability of "sufficiently advanced" magic and technology. Power rings than can turn gravity upon a man and reduce him to pulp. Swords made of blazing light that can cut through the thickest metals. Guns that fire gouts of star-matter or bolts of crackling electricity. Such creations are exceedingly uncommon, those who wield them alternately respected and feared.
•   Pistols are the favorite weapon of adventurers and warriors. Because it's awesome.
•   Grafting implants, augmentations, limbs, and organs is a common, widespread practice. More popular varieties of implants include clockwork, electric, pneumatic, arcane, alchemical, and even parts taken from the bodies of monsters and Outsiders.
•   Adventurers, whether wandering alone or in parties, are a ubiquitous sight. Their motivations are a numerous and colorful as they are, but they can best be summed-up as a mix of treasurer-hunters, thrill-seekers, and soldiers-of-fortune.


Races of the World

[ooc]As of right now, the player characters will be exclusively human.[/ooc]

Humans dominate the world left over after the Doom. Of course, the term "human" encompasses a much broader spectrum than one might expect. In the distant past, perhaps because of the fraying of the boundaries between planes and the subtle warping of natural principles, other creatures came and bred with humans. The plethora of subraces that came about as a result of these unions now forms a sizable portion of mankind, and many in the world carry at least a small touch of inhumanity in their blood.

•   Elementals are descended from the inhabitants of the Spheres of Primal Elements. They have an innate affinity for their ancestral element, which marks both their temperament and appearance.

[ooc]I had a lot more, but I lost them. I wasn't going to let that stop me from posting what I had though, so I'll add them as they come to me. And any ideas other members might have.[/ooc]

Nearly as numerous as humans are the orcs. They are a brutal, violent, militant race predisposed to warfare and bloodshed on what appears to be a fundamental level. It would be a mistake to assume that they are stupid or uncultured, however. They are every bit as intelligent, cunning, and creative as humans. They are also universally large, powerful creatures. Their features often have a disturbingly-arthropodal quality to them: chitin deposits, segmented joints, compound or multiple pairs of eyes. Orcs are cannibalistic.
Golems, otherwise known as un-men, are artificially-created beings crafted from various substances and animated by a bizarre mixture of magic, alchemy, and science. They can be made of metal, wood, stone, dead flesh: anything that can be crafted into a body capable of movement. The majority of golems in the world are relics from before the Doom, their unnatural resistance allowing them to function long after their creators had been forgotten.

[ooc]I'm thinking...creepy space-elves?[/ooc]

Magic

There are recognized to be two distinct classes of magic in the world, which are viewed very differently. The first is Low Magic, otherwise known as Petty, Common, or False Magic. It is the enchantments and alchemies that are so much a part of everyday life. While some enchantments can be quite powerful indeed, there is nothing considered "weird" about them, and it is possible for anyone with the proper training and supplies to craft their own without any lasting aftereffects on their own person.

On the other hand, there is True Magic. True Magics pluck directly at the threads of the world and deal directly with forces and entities that one would think it would be wise to avoid. Practicing them requires far more personal commitment and sacrifice, and using them leaves an indelible mark on the mind, body, and soul. It is for these reasons that those who study True Magic are typically treated with nervous suspicion and best and outright hostility at worst, even though their great power makes them highly-useful tools.

•   High Summoning is the art of trafficking with a whole menagerie of otherworldly creatures, including Outsiders, fiends, Fey, goetic eidolons, and spirits of the dead. The summoner enters into a pact with the creatures, anchoring them to their own body as guardians and familiars.
•   Divination allows the practitioner, known commonly as a seer or oracle, to see beyond the constraints of space and even time. However, transcending the human perspective in this manner takes a heavy toll. Blindness is a common physical side-effect. The more an oracle practices their art, the greater the pressure and the further their mind begins to crack, or else retreat into something distinctly...different.
•   Sorcery is by far the most visible, visceral sort of magic. There are few limits to what changes a sorcerer can effect in the world, though it is a difficult enough art that most choose to focus on a narrow range of powers. When a sorcerer masters a spell, they take it into themselves and weave it into their very being, a process which invariably results in gradual physical mutation.

[ooc]To come: some sample factions and a better outline of the cosmology.[/ooc]

As vague as this is, any questions would go a long way towards helping me flesh it out.