Carbon Skies Game - Interest Gauge

[TheMeanestGuest]

So! I'm sure some of you are aware of my continuous musing on whether or not I will run a game over these past few months.  I would like to say I am now fully prepared! But that would be a lie. I am marginally prepared! So it is time to gauge interest.

I am going to cap this at 4 players absolute maximum, as it is my first time ever that I will be DMing anything. We will probably begin play in July, assuming we get enough players. There is the potential for an introductory session in June. I'm really terrible at keeping things secret, so some of you have probably seen a lot of this already.

Anyways, here's some stuff to read! Exuberance!

 [ic=And It Never Changes]The War has raged unabated for three decades. And still the Throne waits, empty, and the world suffers all the more for it. Breah seeks to forge a new Empire, and will not sit until she has united all the peoples of all the lands under her rule. Alexander cannot sit, for the ocean has long barred his way, and his fleets are no longer strong enough to cross. Of the others, many are now dead, or they serve, or they hide in their secret places - watching for that perfect moment.

Breah has struck a crushing blow. At the Battle of Jinjiao the cream of Alexander's surviving forces stood bravely in defence of the Treaty, of their independence, and of their way of life. Though outnumbered, they fought on against that endless assault. Their bravery did not save them. They were utterly annihilated. The way north, to the heart of the Compact, is nearly open. Alexander fumes and rages and he raises new armies, but they alone will not be enough. For the first time in years the Nationalists march with dreams of ending the War, and the peoples of the south fly before them. But one obstacle yet remains to frustrate Breah's ideal of unity.  

The city of Kan Lang, the jewel of the equatorial regions, sits astride the Isthmus of Xixian. It is a city of industry, of technology and of progress. The hope of the entire Compact rests on its shoulders, and now it must bear an even greater burden. Breah's armies grind themselves against its bulwarks, they will not stop, and inch by grudging inch their advance continues. They know they must take the city, and soon. The toll grows higher day by day. Overseer Sy will not surrender, Alexander has given her clear orders. And so the famed automatons of Kan Lang are again put to use. The city's factories operate day and night without pause, churning out untold numbers of fresh soldiers to throw into the breach. As refugees flood past them, the aut legions march to confront the Nationalists. But unrest grows, demonstrations threaten to boil over into riots. For many, the war is already lost. They do not want its closing to be fought in their city, on their streets. Surrender, they say, is the only option. If this sentiment is not contained, Kan Lang may well fall before Breah's armies even arrive.  

For years, or decades, or even centuries you have been held in stasis beneath the city. Your crimes were deemed horrific, but you were too valuable to simply throw away. In the future, they said, we may have a need for men, for creatures, for machines such as these. It seems that need has finally arrived. Awareness blossoms, you sense nothing, but you know you exist. You cannot remember who you were or what you did. For the moment, you are simply content to know that you are. A single line of text appears in your mind's eye. It is blue, and pulses with a cold light: Welcome back, Executor.

-------

the remaining players

Breah: The second natural daughter of the Empress. From precarious beginnings, she has forged an unstoppable warmachine that, so far, has defeated all comers. When those of the Blood fall into her power she shows them no mercy. There are none that serve her save those that have from the beginning. Her sunburst is blue on white.

Alexander: Twin to Maximian, and third natural son of the Empress. As the eldest male of the Blood who yet lives, he claims the throne by the ancient right of primogeniture. Many Claimants have knelt before him and so joined their power to his. They know it is their only chance, as none but he still possess the strength to resist Breah's armies. His sunburst is green on white.  

Maxentius: On the Plains of Resh Maximian fell before Breah's strength. Seeing that all was lost his son, Maxentius, gathered what few men he could and fled. In the cold of the far south where drifting ice chokes the sea he has established his Seat. Far removed from the fury of the War he has rebuilt his power; he has bred new soldiers and built new machines of war. Secretly, he plots with Alexander to exact his vengeance. His only desire: to see Breah's nascent Empire fall to ruin. His sunburst is red on white.  

Torque: In the old tongue of the Karaxi her name is that of the force, they say, that will twist and rend the universe into oblivion. Now, she is simply Torque. Torque is no true daughter of the Empress, and she is not of the Blood. In the aftermath of that terrible siege she was found deep in the ruins of the city of Maxankaraxi. She was but a babe. Picking her up off the cold stone floor, the Empress gazed deeply into her eyes. Knowing her, she proclaimed Torque her daughter and heir. Her siblings who would come after have never acknowledged this fact. Spawn of the last of the Sorcerers who once ruled, her anomalous power is immense; with it, she staves off the inevitable fall of her fortress at Ond. Her sunburst is white on purple.

the Others: Of the Others who may still play, little can be known. They hide far away from the eyes that seek. Those long thought dead have risen before. Their subursts are of many and varied colours.
[/ic]  

You can find a basic world map that I have made here, you may also be interested in my  flags and my vehicles and platforms.  

Most of the stuff from my old thread here is kind of maybe still potentially applicable in some form. But sort of not really. Certainly thematically, at least.

I've developed the initial stages my own system that I am tentatively calling AN6 that we will be using for the game. You can find information that should give you a basic understanding of the system as it currently stands and of character creation  here.

The game will start with the players just coming out of punitive stasis, their sentences having been commuted in return for an unspecified term of service to the Compact as Executors. An Executor is an agent who traditionally operates under the direct authority of the Throne. All remaining Claimants maintain Executors, including Alexander, the man you will theoretically serve. As an Executor you will have a certain amount of privilege, which I will elaborate on further in game. For the moment you will still be subject to the laws of both the Compact and Kan Lang due to your introductory classification. Ignore them at your peril!  

Character possibilities are manifold. I'm really not going to place too many restrictions on who your character is, as he or she will have virtually no memory of who they used to be. However, your background will play an ongoing role in the campaign. It will certainly influence any bonus powers or abilities I give you, which is an element I have greatly enjoyed in Steerpike's Cadaverous Earth game, and so wish to incorporate in mine.

I realize that in a lot of ways I haven't given much thematic or historical material to assist in creating your characters. If you have any questions or just want to discuss something about a potential character with me, which I will strongly encourage even if you don't have any questions, I can often be found on the CBGs IRC channel. In any case, here's some ideas that might help start you in the right direction:

Perhaps you served one of the Sorcerers who ruled before the Empire. Or you were their enemy, kept in a deep sleep and tormented by unending nightmares, taken as a prize of war by the Empress in her victory. Perhaps you are a relic of a time before even that, one of the brutal machine intelligences who held the world in thrall; today's auts and programs a child's playthings compared to you in all your glory. You may have served a failed Claimant in the War that has yet to end, or perhaps even laid Claim to the Throne yourself. You may have fomented rebellion against the Empress at the height of her power, or  failed to crush just such a rebellion and so earned her wrath. You were a program gone rogue, and you brought a city to its knees. You were a serial killer, as clever as you were monstrous, the true extent of your crimes still unknown. You were a Black Project, you escaped from the laboratory that created you and were only brought down many years and many retrieval teams later. You were the perfect assassin, a tool of the Empire, thrown away when it no longer had a use for you.

Don't feel constrained by any of the suggestions I have written above. If you've got an interesting idea that you like, go for it! I'm perfectly open to the possibility of a character that would be 'new material' in Carbon Skies, although this is something I would want to discuss with you. As for really powerful characters that you might have served, like say, a Sorcerer or Claimant, feel free to make one up! There have been lots of them. If you want to be one I'm going to have to require you to discuss that with me beforehand (I really hate that my system and setting is in a state where I have to keep saying stuff like that, but alas, it is true).

I will be putting up more information, starting with the city of Kan Lang, on an ongoing basis. I am very new to trying to run a game, so any advice anyone can give on my terrible organization or distinct lack of information or anything else would be appreciated. If you've got any questions, comments, or criticisms post away!
   

[Xathan]

Since it's an IRC game I'm going to have to bow out - my schedule is too unreliable to allow for such. However, this sounds completely and utterly awesome, and I wish you all the most fun of it.

BTW, you said the old thread was out of date - is there a new thread somewhere I could read up on this setting? Because I want to read more so badly.

[TheMeanestGuest]

Well, I'm glad you like what I have actually managed to get out of my head and onto paper. Unfortunately, I'm generally pretty bad at committing things to writing, so, what you see is pretty much what I have available. That is, aside from my campaign notes. But I can't really show those to people. Secret.

One of the reasons I'm going to be running this game is because I think it will greatly help me in developing the setting and that it will enable me to actually communicate more setting information than I have before.

I just realized I totally didn't mention anything about time or place! We'll probably be playing on #celtricia at irc.otherworlders.org. Once we get going it will hopefully be once a week. As far as a day and time, I like the sound of Thursday in the evening, but that is obviously open to negotiation. I would of course want to find a time that works for everyone.  

[Steerpike]

I'd definitely be interested.  I've got a kind of working grasp of the essence of the setting but I'll have to read and reread some more before I can develop a character concept - I'll talk with you about it over IRC.  Character creation seems delightfully simple (pick a basis, pick skills, buy equipment), so once I've got a character idea I'll post one up.

EDIT: I will probably play some kind of nightmarish Cultivated that went Horribly Wrong.

[TheMeanestGuest]

That sounds like a great character idea! I'm sure we can cook up a custom frame for you if you'd like. I'm also aware that I'm a bit light on biological systems and weapons, so we can probably take a look at designing more of those too.

[Steerpike]

[ooc]Please let me know if I've got any details wrong setting-wise (or mechanics-wise) - I invented a couple of things.

EDIT: Switched some skills around.  While Reflexes would have been useful I feel that the character's strengths are probably going to be in sneaking/infiltration.  She'll now also be a slightly more effective fighter.[/ooc]

Executor '" Justine

[ic=Background]Justine is not a super-soldier or a vat-grown assassin: she was created not to kill or maim but to sustain punishment.  A specially Cultivated sex-slave purpose-built by the Serentech subsidiary Fetishware Inc. to cater to the sadistic pleasures of certain decadent individuals, Justine possesses augmentations that greatly increase not only her capacity to endure physical pain while remaining conscious but to rapidly heal even serious wounds.  Engineered for maximum sensitivity, with a hyperresponsive amygdala and an artificially low pain threshold coupled with an extremely high level of pain tolerance, Justine was (black)marketed as the "Ultimate Victim," a woman who could endure even the most hideous mutilations and restore herself to virginal purity, unscarred and perfect, only minutes later.  Unlike many Cultivated designed principally for pleasure, Justine was not intended to enjoy her function: quite the opposite.  Clients were very specific - they desired unwilling prey.

While Justine's physical recuperative abilities were perfected, however, her psychological resilience was not.  While she performed as intended for six months, the mental strain of so much trauma eventually caused her to snap completely.  During a particularly extreme session with the client renting her, the various neural fail-safes and memory-dampers her designers had installed in her wetware were overwhelmed and the submission protocols they'd implanted overridden: a surge of sudden, murderous rage filled her.  While her tormentor performed violent acts of sadistic perversion upon her body, she broke free of the restraints used to pin her down: the massive amounts of adrenalin surging through her body endowed her with extraordinary strength.  The deviant, disentangling himself, lashed out with the serrated blade he had been using to extract the screams he desired, but the wound he gave her was nothing compared to the injuries she'd already sustained.  Grabbing the knife from him she defended herself, pinning the man to the ground and hacking him to bloody tatters. When an attendant entered the room to collect her, she was waiting behind the door with the knife; as he entered she pounced on him, killing him swiftly and taking his pistol.  She proceeded to shoot her way out of the clandestine pleasure-den in which she'd been sequestered.

Taking to the streets of Kan Lang, Justine was at first lost and confused, but she proved adaptable.  Attempts by Serentech to retrieve her were somewhat half-hearted: though she was a valuable investment, the client's influential family would not pursue recompense for risk of tarnishing their good name, and the company had already recouped her costs several times over.  When the operatives they sent to reclaim her disappeared one after another, they eventually ceased their efforts - a decision which they would later regret.  Growing into life on the streets, Justine longed for vengeance.  She became a vigilante, hunting down pimps and predators, posing as a prostitute long enough to move in for the kill.  She lived off money stolen from her victims; her skills grew.  At a back-alley surgeon, one of the illicit biotailors, she had herself augmented with a subcutaneous blade of bone, with acidic saliva-glands, with a dentata, weaponizing her own sexuality. She killed with guns, with knives, with wire garrottes, with venomous lipstick and nails.  She became adept at concealing herself, at treading quietly, at disappearing suddenly into the shadows.  All this, however, was mere preamble - practice for her true mission.

When she deemed her abilities sufficiently honed, Justine sought out the past clients who'd abused her.  One by one she brutally tortured and murdered them, eliminating armed guards and security auts when necessary.  While police forces had previously ignored and perhaps secretly approved of Justine's activities, they now began to investigate.  Even this hit list, however, was a mere appetizer for the feast of violence to come.  Having slain her erstwhile rapists she turned her attentions to the technicians who'd placed her in their hands.  Embarking on a one-woman campaign of revenge, she left the halls of Fetishware Inc. drenched with corporate blood, destroying many expensive experiments in the process.  Cameras caught her in the act, however, giving the police the evidence they needed to arrest her.  The Overseer ordered a manhunt, and though the chase was not easy, eventually Justine was subdued and tried for her crimes.  Her Cultivated brain was extracted and placed in punitive stasis while her body was incinerated - though not before her gene-sequence had been fully mapped and archived.

Now, with open war upon the world and the armies of the merciless Breah knocking on the gates of Kan Lang, Justine has been brought out of stasis.  Justine's new body, a version of the Altus Effigy biological shell, has been modified using the genetic mug-shot taken before her mind was interred in the sepulchral depths of the city.  As a result, her second self is effectively a doppelganger of her previous semblance.  Physically she resembles an adolescent girl, dark-eyed and sublimely innocent, albeit with curvaceous contours.  Her face, usually a mask of perfect naivete and childish purity, twitches occasionally into a contorted expression of psychotic fury mingled with intense and nightmarish ebullience.  This look of frenzy, however, soon passes, such that the observer often concludes that they imagined it.  Though her memory has been purged, Justine has not reverted to her timorous "factory settings": the psychic damage she endured was too extensive, too permanent.  Such wounds never truly heal.[/ic]
Basis: Cultivated

Skills:

Primary: Targeting +2
Secondary: Concealment +2 (+1 ranks, +1 Smart Polymer Armour), Interaction +2 (+1 ranks, +1 Altus Effigy)

Equipment:

Frame: Modified Altus Effigy

Weapons: 2 Pistols (d2 each, 40 ammo each), Subcutaneous Osseous Blade (d3), Acidic Spit with Tongue Modification (d2)

Defenses: Smart Polymer Stealth Armour, Dense Bone Marrow, Osseous Hardening, Ancillary Organ Systems, Targeted Platelet Acceleration

Miscellaneous: Basic Night Vision Implants, Dentata

Initiative: +2

Integrity: 5 (heals 1 ever 2 rounds and 1 every half hour, to a maximum of half total integrity rounding up, i.e. 3)

Absorption: 1

Deflection: 0

[TheMeanestGuest]

That's great Steerpike! Detailed, and in a direction I would probably never take a character. Which isn't a bad thing. Everything is almost in order, but you are missing dense bone marrows, which is a requirement for two of your upgrades. I did kind of suddenly and arbitrarily change starting CRC from 25 to 24 the other day though. Llum already ran into the difficulty of being one credit short when experimenting with character builds so I've been reconsidering. I'll take a look at some other builds and see if I can't put it back up to 25.

To note, as your frame is an Altus Effigy, you receive a +1 bonus to interaction checks. I'll be thinking up a starting bonus to give to each character, too.  

[Steerpike]

I changed the modifications/equipment slightly, so you don't need to up it to 25.  She now has Smart Polymer Stealth Armour.  Am I correct in guessing that it will be possible to eventually purchase new equipment as missions get completed?

[TheMeanestGuest]

Absolutely, Executors will be rewarded with CRC based on their performance in completing objectives. At the start you won't be getting too much, as you'll be pretty low on the totem pole, but I think you'll still be able to find some things to buy.

Justine makes a really great low-profile killer, actually. Lure a target in, then while their face is melting from her deadly kiss, she stabs them with the osseous blade.  

[Steerpike]

That's the idea.  In a straight-up gunfight she'd also be pretty useful: soak up some damage while making shots, dart to cover using her reflexes, heal for a few rounds, then pop back up.  She wouldn't be able to take out any heavy artillery or go toe-to-toe with big mecha, of course, but hopefully other party members will fill that niche...

[Superfluous Crow]

I don't think I have the time for more than one IRC game, but wow, that is a nasty character concept and a badass character.
This does sound like a cool campaign though, I like the entire concept of using a succession war and a siege as the backdrop for the action that will be unfolding in the game. A severe geopgraphic restriction, to be sure, but it also increases the tension tenfold. And I'm sure Kan Lang is big enough to keep the party invested and interested.    

[Steerpike]

TMG, have you considered adding upgrades that enhance the senses?  Thermal imaging/night vision, enhanced hearing (echolocation?), scent abilities (for tracking, detecting foes, etc), targeting reticule bionics, magnifying sniper-vision, stuff like that?

Also, would sonic weapons potentially be viable?  Or gas-based weapons (smoke grenades etc)?

Does Carbon Skies have any kind of nanotech?  Or is that too advanced for the setting?

Just brainstorming!

[TheMeanestGuest]

All good ideas, and for the most part things I already intend to add in the future! I'm slowly adding things to my equipment listings, but it is difficult to get everything down while I am simultaneously working on everything else.

A basic nightvision package would be free if you want to add that to Justine.

True mechanical nanotech rapidly approaches as swarm auts grow smaller and smaller. Biological 'nanites' already exist in the form of tailored microbes, which are mostly used medically and for slower body augmentation processes, but they have varied and occasionally more nefarious purposes.

Sonic weapons are something I will add, as they are what I imagine Civil Enforcement uses for crowd control and subduing those who resist arrest. Of course, they would also be available to Executors, among others. Taser weapons will also be available.

I should have a post up outlining the city of Kan Lang itself sometime later today, I'm currently working on that, as I figure its something players will probably want to know about.