SUETHULU: Specialist Snowflake

Right.

Now we get to where I made my character, and finally I can work from memory.

I knew, from the prequel campaign, that we had a fairly high probability of, at some point, being cut off from any of the technology our characters might come to rely on. Admittedly the party wasn’t mechanically equal to the last one, but I was still counting on being banished to somewhere undeveloped.

At the same time, Darya was running into problems; her weaponry, while highly effective, was also highly illegal, and she was slightly naïve about buying weapons on the black market. This was partly a run of bad dice rolls on her Streetwise checks, which Marty interpreted to mean she would walk into a bar, order a beer, and ask the bartender, sotto voce, if (s)he happened to have any grenades that would fit a 40mm launcher “like this one here.” This did not go over well. Curiously, neither their GIA employers nor their extensive contacts had any ability to supply them either. So I wanted to make a character who was good with tools, in order to ameliorate the inability of our veterans of organized crime to find black-market guns in Chicago.

I also had to accommodate Marty’s addition to my character: in order to fit me into the plot, I had to be a member of the Scions of Forever. Ohh, boy.

The Scions are a cult of Yog-Sothoth, and they’re unrepentant trolls. They believe the future is inevitable, but work to bring it about “more easily” according to some divinely ordained and thoroughly inscrutable plan. In practice, this means they do whatever the GM wants, and are collectively worse than Eldrad for “just as planned” foolery. They also have a blanket exemption from pursuit by the Hounds of Tindalos, no matter when they go or what they do.

Okay, fine, I’m game. What, precisely, does Yog-Sothoth want me to do?

“You have no idea.”

Um…what?

This is Marty’s elaboration on how the Scions work. Apparently they have no cult structure as such; they just get visions from Yog-Sothoth that they must then interpret, and they’re left to their own devices to act on their conclusions. The above-mentioned freedom from the Hounds does not imply they’d ordinarily attract their attention, but if they are transported through time through some other means, they won’t get eaten. In effect, you get nothing for being a Scion; it’s just a volunteer organization with ritual magic and semi-random activity.

Okay. Fine, whatever. So I have to be a Scion, which means I need the Ritual skill to be able to check if Yog-Sothoth has new visions for me. At least it’s only one skill.

I also have to be parapsychic, to test that part of the system. This is a problem, because “eldritch casting” is far from done, and it replaces half of your class features with dangerously draining sub-sorcerer casting that gets worse as you level. Parapsychics in particular have a “burn” mechanic that works entirely by GM fiat, at least in Marty’s game. At any time, in response to any stimulus, all of my powers might activate for an indefinite period. “It’s more likely if you use them a lot.”

Well, isn’t that just dandy.

I also have to be favorably disposed toward Tagers, because I’m going to serve as the mediator between the Tagers and the party just as the party are mediating the Tagers’ introduction to the GIA. This, I have no problem with at all. He also wanted me to be secret-agent-like, but I couldn’t be too involved with the government or the Tagers wouldn’t trust me. Well then.

I sleep on it, and come back with the following: Given that the OIS forces parapsychics to publicly identify themselves (and face serious stigma) and imprisons them indefinitely if they do not comply, I figure it’s not unreasonable to think that there exist people who live as far off the grid as possible to avoid OIS attention. Altruistic people might even help others do the same.

I proposed being part of a small group of unregistered parapsychics who worked to mitigate OIS interference with their lives. I envisioned a toned-down, slightly more serious Liberal Crime Squad as run by the ideological offspring of V and the best of the Joker. Since the Tagers, and their support system the Eldritch Society, were in the crosshairs of the OIS just as much as we were, I thought it plausible that we might at least have the phone number of a Tager pack, which in combination with my SoF affiliation would explain what I was doing facilitating the Tagers talking to the GIA agents of the party. Given the Scions’ precognitive capabilities, it struck me that sabotage was infinitely more feasible than combat – and given their beliefs, an individualist Scion obsessed with personal freedom seemed deliciously ironic, and something to struggle with as the plot went on.

The above was what I asked Marty about, stressing that I’m totally fine with abandoning this and coming up with something less involved; I’m fully conscious of my tendancy to let a good idea get away from me and define a character that might not fit. He was receptive, although he pointed out that nothing I could make would pierce OIS power armor. I was hoping for this; I didn’t want to hurt people who weren’t personally responsible for oppressing us, and he quite readily confirmed that the agents in the field had no capacity to modify their orders. Judging from his face, I don’t think he wanted me to be okay with this. More restrictions came; I couldn’t have done anything particularly noteworthy, because then I’d have been killed by the OIS. I had “only” a few dozen people in this “fool’s errand,” and anyone else who knew would consider us traitors and possibly insane, because “the OIS is not evil, dude.” This was also fine by me. If they were benevolent, I was tilting at windmills, and I was already quixotic, ha ha.

I did make a point of asking him if this was okay. I had bought a lot of science Knowledge skills, applied sciences, and demolitions skills, and as I told him, if he let me play this I was going to play it to the hilt and be as creative as he let me—partially to test the system, partly to lend verisimilitude to the character, but partly because it’s just what I do.

He said, and I quote: “Well, this is a system test. Go ahead, do your worst, dude.”

What followed was a lot of me trying to figure out the mechanics of waging a guerilla war against the OIS in an arcology, from the chemistry to the strategy. It was Marty who reacted to my questions about the availability of high-proof alcohol by asking if I was planning to be Irish. Well, I am now; if he’s going to assume I’m drinking it, so will his NPCs, and I’ve suddenly got a reason to carry around several liters of flammable fluid. Ditto cigarettes; smoking kills, but it’s an excuse to carry a lighter.

As for outfit, I asked if Chicago was the sort of city that had only one fashion. Emphatic no. So would, say, a greatcoat go unnoticed? Apparently it would.

So how much stuff can I hide under a greatcoat, anyway? Oh, so they don’t like greatcoats now?

 I ended up with this, although I swear I had no idea the game existed when I started:

http://cerovida.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/The-Saboteur.jpg

It was generally agreed I looked more like Walter Kovacs, though. Actually, “[my] 16 charisma was more force of personality than visual appeal” for no given reason, and that was fine by me. I don’t like playing pretty characters, usually.

I ended up with anomalously high stats, although Marty declined my offer to reroll them so as to be a more useful test of the system. Randomly rolling two 16s and two 17s does not a particularly valid test make. For the curious, my Strength and Wisdom were 11 and 13, respectively; everything else was just amazingly high. I know it sounds all virtuous and self-sacrificing, but I knew Marty; high stats make him nervous.

Thus was Cael O’Caelleigh put together. I wasn’t allowed to have founded the “little parapsychic underground railroad” that I promptly called the Underground Slidewalk, so instead I was the grandson of one of the founding members, and had been in New York until the NY arcology fell to the Nazzadi’s all-mecha armies in the first War. It was there, Marty decided, that I attracted the attention of the Scions of Forever, although he left it to me to define how.

Apparently the only thing the Scions notice is furthering their plans, which of course I could not know before I join. I suggested having done something to save my own hide that had, coincidentally, helped the Scions advance their plans. Approved in theory. Okay, say I, how long could we have stayed in the city after it supposedly fell? Apparently no time at all; there were no survivors at all. In that case, could  something set off in the sewers for an unrelated reason destabilized the ground sufficiently that one of the mecha tripped? They are apparently very fond of “badass” jumps where they land hard, and in any case they move far faster is safe given their ability to stop. That speed is why the above sequence of events is apparently impossible – but then, it was a stretch anyway. Similarly, I can’t have come across an injured/trapped Scion during the fighting and helped them out. “Seeing the future is a great way to avoid getting shot.”

At this point he threw up his hands and said I was recruited because the Scions saw me helping them in the future, because “that’s how timey-wimey stuff works.” If I didn’t understand it, it was because my rank in the organization was too low to think “in that particular flavor of crazy.” Okay, fine. The Scions were also somehow the reason I was parapsychic “because paradox.” This extended to having been behind the powers I’d chosen – suggestion, force bolt, and Mass, which let me use either of the former two on two targets at once.

Suggestion was hilarious, by the way. I had to be within 30’ of the target and verbally say what I wanted them to do while testing vs. being knocked unconscious by my power. If I succeeded, it might get the target to do something “if it’s in line with their basic nature and they already want to do it.” Huzzah, I can be sort of persuasive.

That, “obviously unreal, small visual-only illusions”, and the ability to create a mental pistol shot were apparently worth half my class features. At low-to-mid level. To be fair, it was supposed to be Force Bolt, Illusion, and Telepathy. Then I asked about eventually using high-level Telepathy to, for example, assist an ally in staying focused on a task despite distractions by continuously reading their mental state, damping their extraneous thoughts, and writing it back to them. Boom, Telepathy is now three different powers: Suggestion, Reception, and Communication. Also, I was told “telepathy doesn’t allow access to the ‘mental hardware’ of the recipient. You’re influencing the mind, not the brain.” Okay then. Force Bolt was similarly redefined several times after I asked if it could dent things or detonate shock-sensitive explosives. It is now “just a projection of damage.”

Apparently the OIS does a lot more scanning of the arcology than one would think. The only ‘realistic’ way for my character to exist was by hiding in an abandoned bar in the undercity, which suited me just fine. Then it was the structurally unsound shell of an abandoned bar right next to the actual city so I couldn’t do “anything noticeable”, which I didn’t like as much. It stayed that way.

So that’s Cael: freedom fighter for parapsychics (and small-time Dibbler-esque con man) by day, individualist Scion by night, lives in a bar/chem lab with (now) a dozen similar “activist hobos”. He joined the Scions because they said if he proved he was responsible he might get a Puppy of Tindalos. Good at improvising, especially energetic things, thanks to having made the Computer Use check to have all the old Army technical manuals on improvised munitions. Never without a messenger bag full of tools, which cost most of my starting wealth – which, by the way, he cut in half “because your character wouldn’t be this maladjusted if he were rich.” What, and I never stole anything? I’m vaguely insulted.

This character was built to be hard for the GM to shut down without specifically trying, and I don’t like building characters that way, but I liked Cael. He was easy to fit into things, and he filled a lot of gaps in the party’s skill base without overshadowing anyone. He also had obvious buttons to push, and maybe had some plot hooks with the Slidewalk if there was a gap in the plot, but his ideology was broad enough not to conflict with the party. I mean, it was almost literally “FREEEEEDOMMMM!” Ordinarily I’d shy away from making a character with an entourage, but Jin had his GIA underlings and Darya had contacts so it seemed weirder not to.

Besides, he was fun. Anyone can walk away from an explosion, but there’s a certain amount of style to walking away while whistling a David Rovics song.

Okay, enough of my nostalgia. Next time, plot.

SUETHULU: The (Very) Strange Aeon

Right. Time to meet our players.

Rick is now Darya, who is Rick with some additional silliness. This was my fault. He asked me once if I knew of any particularly anti-authoritarian criminal organizations, and having thought about it, I suggested the vory v zakone – in my defense, I never thought he was trying to make a character, since most of his oddball questions relate somehow to his military fanfiction. Astute readers may pick up on a bit of a problem here.

I have no idea whose idea it was to make a female ex-Spetsnaz ex-Vor Triad member. I’m guessing the latter third was at Marty’s insistence to make her fit in and the special forces bit was to justify her being good with inconveniently heavy weapons. Somehow. We never learned which brigade she served in, forty years after Russia ceased to have an army (and how that was cool with the Vory), but honestly my eyebrows hit the ceiling at the idea of a female Vor, let alone a female Triad member who isn’t ethnically Chinese. You’d think it would kind of conflict with all the horrifying sex trafficking, but apparently Marty refuses to believe the mother****ing Chinese and Russian Mafia equivalents actually do anything “that criminal”. Incidentally, this is why I don’t let my players make characters with ties to expies of actual organized crime: I don’t want that kind of evil in my collaborative storytelling, except maybe implied in order to give the players a reason to indiscriminately massacre everyone involved. It’s one of the unwritten rules of my games: You see mafia, you go nuclear. Admittedly the substitute networks of gun runners and hackers put forward as options for player involvement have slightly schizophrenic moral codes, but I’d rather work back from that than try to sanitize slavery.

Leaving that behind before I’m reduced to incoherent rage, she acts a lot like Rick did; her player certainly has a type. She is Heavy Weapons Gal, and these are her weapons: at varying times, everything from an automatic grenade launcher to an anti-materiel rifle. Apparently these skills were useful to her adopted organization, subtlety be damned. No disrespect intended, but her impact on planning was minimal; she solved tactical problems and left the strategic planning to others.  

By others, I refer primarily to Jin, at least initially. A GIA agent undercover in the Triads at campaign start, he was more or less the polar opposite of Darya. He was not a pacifist per se, more of a coward, and generally stuck to filling the role of decker.  His player…likes to control things, and was my co-DM in the Deadlands game. Here, he controlled the party, and never got near the actual fighting unless forced. He also made it his business to get as much blackmail material on every other party member as possible, just to play mind games with us. If you were wondering, he and Marty are very, very good friends, and he was afforded latitude the rest of us were categorically denied – but, being not totally deranged, was sparing in how he abused it.

The third player was Tera, a Tager. Tagers are humans who have bonded to an eldritch symbiont, which lets them take on monstruous forms at will. On the side of the villains are their opposite number the dhohanoids. Same idea, but they’re always monsters; different symbionts simply eat the human and somehow gain the ability to adopt its form at will. It’s not perfect, but somehow they evade the DNA scans every citizen is routinely subjected to in order to verify their mortality by being members of the monolithic Chrysalis Corporation, your standard megacorporation employing three out of ten people on the planet. I’ll go into this more later, but for now: Tagers are good guys, Dhohanoids are bad guys, and the OIS can’t tell the difference despite Tagers being verifiably human.

Tera, fully cognizant of this, was also an expert martial artist so he didn’t need to transform to be useful, and was unique in having no affiliation to organized crime. He came in via some guy with a red beard who told Tera where to go to learn what had happened to his parents; apparently that was a thing with him. The same guy also saved the life of the fourth and most briefly relevant character, Jame, by having him order a different sandwich and therefore avoid being hit by a speeding car. Cthulhutech veterans have probably identified his cult affiliation, but that’s for another time.

Now, the campaign started just before Hastur’s armies began a push into China, and the characters were dealing with the incipient evacuation. Being criminals, they were dealing with it by profiting off of the chaos; they were facilitating the handover of a bootleg ebook of the unabridged Necronomicon for a million Tn. Bear in mind this is their first month on the job. Jame and Darya were bringing the money; Tera was watching from the warehouse roof and Jin “happened to be walking outside” when the shooting started. Apparently they botched some kind of thief countersign thing, and lo and behold the buyers are dhohanoids. Tera beats two to a pulp, killing one and reverting to human form to stab another. Conveniently, the rest of the party only saw the latter and couldn’t tell claw marks from blade wounds. This left them in possession of both the book and a million Terranotes. As I understand it, they claimed they lost the money while Tera resolved to steal the book from the Triads and hand the Necronomicon exactly as written by Abdul Alhazred to his superiors in the Tagers. This is a book so dangerous the OIS circulates abridged copies in the arcane underground to frustrate efforts to find the real thing, and they’re passing it around like it’s a hacky sack.

Somehow, they survived telling their bosses they’d blown the deal, and while a giant furry Dhohanoid with eye lasers nearly killed Tera, he ran with the book out of the ensuing fracas, 1 hp left and nowhere to go but with the party, who was being given a mission to redeem themselves. They had to steal something from some liquor store, and while it was specific they were told nothing but that “you’ll know it when you see it.”

Hilariously, it was an invisible box, and they totally missed it. Tera, having thought ahead, had brought along a sheet with eyeholes in it under cover of which to transform. This actually worked, and so The White Phantom started becoming a minor local celebrity, because of course you can hide eight feet of sinewy, inhumanly jointed killing machine under a crappy Halloween costume. Oh yes, they made the news. They made the news frequently, especially as Jin finished his entrapment operation to force them into the GIA properly and they started hunting dhohanoids. They were, in effect, celebrity spies, and it was all Jin could do to confuse official inquiries into their activities and keep them employed. From what I can tell, they were all having a ton of fun running roughshod over their enemies at Jin’s instruction; although Marty kept saying nothing they were doing mattered, he was at least content to let them waste time; he had other campaigns sucking up his planning time.

This lasted about two sessions. Then the lich happened.

Cthulhutech has liches, oh yes. They’re fairly pointless, since Cthulhutech has dozens of monsters to fill the “bastard trolly planner” role. This one is, appropriately enough, named Dick, and he comes from New York and likes throwing fireballs around. They’re sorcerers, not parapsychics, but somehow they’re D&D style magic users. He’s also got a Yog-Sothoth’s Guard up as a matter of course, so naturally the party can do nothing against him. Tera jumps in front of a fireball to buy the party time to escape, except for Jame, who had wanted to leave anyway – and at the same time, the goddamn Infinite Improbability Drive fires “somewhere” and teleports a spherical cow above the melee.

On it rides Ian, who is Tera’s replacement, and he carries a book with ice-based magic spells in it. The book is Lily’s, from the prequel campaign – although, since it’s set later in time, the book was sent back in time, with the only justification being the IID firing somewhere. Ian, on the other hand, is from Earth Prime, and is an exact expy of his player. This, and nothing less, is what Marty requires to let a player use anything other than his stupidly involved rituals in the Cthulhutech setting.

He survives the landing. The lich sets the cow on fire, but it was squished in the first place. Things get a bit chaotic after that, and Darya messes up and screams Jin’s real name over their comm.

And there goes his cover.

They flee Nanjing, and China, for the Chicago Arcology, with their entire livlihoods going down in flames. Jin somehow gets a promotion out of the whole fracas – and to be fair, the party did kill a lot of dhohanoids. Their flight and subsequent integration into Chicago was facilitated by their new membership in Blackspire, the “best of the best of the best of the whole GIA”. Their assignment is to help unify the Tagers and the GIA in their hunt for the Dhohanoids, since they apparently have the most experience dealing with Tagers in the field. The fact that that got the Tager in question killed is apparently inconsequential.

The campaign was to get more serious at that point, and coincidentally, that’s when I was to come in, but that’s for the next post – and for the record, I knew almost nothing of this but the highlights when I started.

Yes, I get my own post. I’s a special snowflake, y’know.

SUETHULU: It Begins

It would probably help, before launching into the next campaign, to explain the setting he’s using, because good lord is it bad.

Marty actually started out all right; he got his players together and asked for criteria for the setting for his new SUE System game. He got the following:

1. "rituals and shit" and perhaps some sort of part-human otherworldly entity

2. Something thematically similar to Call of Cthulhu

3.  "I wanna be a Russian gangster in the future". Thanks, Rick.

There was also a general wish for science fiction.

Now, as a Gedankenexperiment, I’d like you, dear reader, to consider those criteria, and the setting you’d select based on them. Please do share your conclusions before reading on.

I, looking at them, would go to Eclipse Phase, especially given that the mechanics are being swapped out. It doesn’t have ritualized magic per se, but it fits everything else, especially the CoC-like feeling of being completely out of one’s depth. The TITANs can be amazingly Lovecraftian.

And here’s where Marty’s train of thought raced off the nearest cliff. He picked Cthulhutech.

Have a review/rant/sporking by a better writer than I:

http://tradwiki.foxxtrot.net/index.php/FATAL_%26_Friends:_B-C#CthulhuTech_.28by_Ettin.29

If ever there was a game created especially for Marty, it would be this. It’s one of a very short, sickening list of games that I categorically refuse to run. Every time I read it, I find something new to avoid.

Others have gone into the many reasons why marrying poorly implemented Lovecraftian mythos to anime is a horrible idea. They’ve noted the creepy, repugnant obsessions of the authors with using sex crimes as a plot device and preventing the players from intervening. The adventures are railroads, the magic is useless, the history makes no sense and the goddamn art is vomit-inducingly sexist. It’s three RPGs in one and a tabletop strategy game strapped on top of them, all using a ruleset that can’t decide what the hell power level it wants.

Marty literally described the setting as “Cthulutechwithoutthesexstuff!” because I’d turned around and started walking away at the first word. Okay, sanitized CT might just suck in the usual way. Color me more curious than disgusted. He needn’t have, though: he didn’t use all of CT, just the worst parts.

I feel like a riff. Have his “general knowledge briefing”:

Introduction

The year is 2085.  Humanity, and their genetic ‘cousins’ the Nazzadi, are now unified into a single global government, though all is not well.  The world is embroiled in war.  The alien migou, creators of the Nazzadi and the formerly-hidden menace of humanity, have invaded from their home of Yuggoth, determined to enslave humanity and exterminate the Nazzadi.  Cultists, influenced by forbidden gods, have also begun to summon horrible creatures and are tearing across Asia.  They are known as the Rapine Storm. 

The Mi-go are the BBEGs? What the hell happened to the mythos? We should be dead, not engaged in a war.

Though not all is lost.  Magic is well known to the populace, though it is highly regulated.  More importantly, though, arcanotech – magical and scientific principles unified into technology – has touched every walk of life. Vehicles now operate on clean energy, handheld devices have amazing power capabilities, and mecha have become the choice tools of war.  Further, with higher-power batteries (known as D-Cells), many walks of technology have dramatically improved.

…you aren’t going to let us have any of this, are you? And mecha aren’t limited by technology, they’re limited by bipeds being a horrible shape to build large fighting machines in. Falling forward without falling down is a hell of a locomotion system to try on a giant metal thing.

With alien and monstrous invaders, human differences have been put in perspective.  Religious beliefs, sexual preferences, race, sex…  We’re all human’ish.  The Nazzadi, though created by the migou, have since been very helpful in all walks of life, and now are only barely a minority, comprising 40% of the population.  There are occasionally harsh feelings, especially in more rural areas, but more on that will be discussed later.

History

Think history class from High School.  You probably know that stuff.  9/11 is now a historical event taught in school and such, but what matters more is the recent history.

We learned very different things in high school history class, Marty. Tell me again how Alexander the Great conquered Europe.

The New United Nations (NUN) was formed as a stronger version of the original United Nations in 2015.  Around 2030 was when arcanotech was first invented.  Specifically, the D-Engine.  That’s the inexhaustible energy source that provides power to your house, that runs the big mecha on the front lines, etc. 

Its introduction, though, sparked the New Cold War.  All those oil producing countries were worried, and rightly so, that their main export was in danger, so they seceded from the NUN.  China joined them.  Why?  Because their communist country didn’t like the democratic nature of the NUN, and they felt it was a good enough excuse.  Nothing really came of it. 

Communism and democracy aren’t necessarily opposed, Marty. Also, “all those oil producing countries” like…us?

During that time, we also created some undersea bases and some colonies on the moon, Mars, and various moons of Saturn and Jupiter.  We lost the space colonies during the time leading up to the First Arcanotech War.  Speaking of which…

The First Arcanotech War started in the late 2050’s or maybe the early 2060’s.  If you’re good at history, it was 2059.  The First Arcanotech War was when the Nazzadi landed from their spaceships.  They started the war, and it was then that the New United Nations put aside their differences and unified under a single government.  China and all them signed up quickly as well, with the threat of alien invasion and all that.  That government is our own benevolent New Earth Government (NEG).  It only lasted for about 6 years, but it was one hell of a bloody war.

Turns out that the Nazzadi didn’t know that the migou made them, well, except for the top generals or something like that.  This dude called Field Marshal Vreta apparently realized how similar we are in the long run, and started telling the Nazzadi the truth.  They were pissed, and a full ¾ of the Nazzadi broke away and joined up with the NEG after a very short peace talk.  The remaining loyalists didn’t stand much of a chance after that.

So we started to rebuild.  The NEG tried very hard to integrate the Nazzadi into the cities and the NEG, and even gave them the land of Cuba/Haiti as their own state of Nazza-Duhni inside the NEG.  During this decade of reconstruction is when most of the arcologies went up.  The arcologies are, of course, the giant buildings that house cities.  They’re big giant buildings, built like fortresses without, and are designed to mimic outside conditions within themselves to keep people from feeling like their perpetually indoors.  LCD screens show clouds and sun movements, fake breezes blow through the streets, and it even ‘rains’ from time to time.

Then the migou attacked.  We thought it would be round two of the Arcanotech War.  That’s why they called in the Second Arcanotech War in the history books.  …we were wrong.  Ground zero of the invasion was a bloodbath.  Then the Cults showed up.  The Esoteric Order of Dagon destroyed the underwater bases and captured coastlines around the world.  The Rapine Storm showed up out of nowhere and killed a huge chunk of southeast Asia.  It was then that we stopped calling it the Second Arcanotech War.  We call it the Aeon War, now.

We’ve survived this long, though.  (stop it stop it stop it! Stop making the mythos survivable!) The migou have captured Russia, Greenland, Alaska, and a large portion of northern Europe and Asia.  They also own Antarctica uncontested.  The Rapine Storm has cut a swath through central Asia, and has pressed down through Indonesia to aim for Australia.  The EOD holds miles of coastline along South America and Africa.  But so far, we have held firm to the vast majority of the Americas, Africa, Australia, and have been making our foes pay in blood for each foot of Europe and Asia they take. (Quit making Call of Cthulhu into Call of Duty.)

Then the Ashcroft Foundation, they’re the ones who invented Arcanotech in the first place, figured out how to make Engels.  Engels are big ol’ mecha.  And they’re powerful.  Damn powerful.  They’ve turned the tide of this whole damn war, or at least that’s what the media says.  We’ve been holding the line since they came into play.  It’s just a matter of time before we start pushing back.

Marty, you’re doing the thing where you try to sound folksy. “Well, these are just big ‘ol inherently unstable fightin’ vehicles powered by Ma’s Homestyle Pan-Fried Dimensional Generators. Jeb’s got one on blocks in the front yard. Gonna add a spoiler to it.”

Magic and Para-psychics

Once arcanotech was figured out by the Ashcroft Foundation, it was kind of hard to deny the fact that there was magic.  With acceptance, came government regulation.  Some magic is legal, some magic is legal with a permit, and other magic is outright illegal.  Also, occult tomes follow the same classification.  In addition, anyone who practices magic has to register with the government.  It is not generally advisable to break these laws.  Most carry an automatic life sentence.  Despite that, there is still a thriving black market for all things magical, generally known as the Arcane Underground.

Magic is exclusively ritual based.  (From a mechanics standpoint, the Arcanist class is unavailable, at least in the beginning.  Scholar with assets focused on Ritual is probably your best bet as a sorcerer, though this also means that it is easier to dabble in the available magic.) 

Then there are para-psychics.  These folks have an innate ability to wield magic.  No ritual, no expensive digital documents to study, no assistants, none of that stuff.  Just a thought, and there you are.  (Mechanically, I’m probably going to work on the Sorcerer class and tool it towards this effect.  Spontaneous caster requiring special genetics?  Check.)  Para-psychics are born, not trained, though many may go some time without displaying that they have any sort of inner power.  There are three classifications of these powers:   Acceptable, Dangerous, and Invasive.  Para-psychics with exclusively acceptable powers are the lucky ones.  They can go about their lives as normal.  Dangerous powers that can harm others, or Invasive powers such as mind reading or mind control, require their owner to wear visible identification at all times.  This hurts their social lives about as much as you might think.  Also, they can be sure the OIS will watch them for the rest of their lives.  More on those folks when we talk about the Government.

What a benevolent government you have there, with the mandatory public identification.

All kids go through aptitude testing for magical and para-psychic potential while in school.  Those who score high are put on a watch list for later.  The former especially can often get scholarships and such if they choose to pursue sorcery later (if they properly register, of course), and many colleges have classes in occult theory and teach basic magical rituals.

Government

The NEG is the government for all humans and Nazzadi on Earth.  Well, the ones that haven’t gone mad and joined a cult, or the Nazzadi that haven’t betrayed all of us by going back to the Migou.  It follows a basic federal system.  The capital of the NEG is located in the Chicago arcology, and then there are a number of individual states that each answer to the central authority of the NEG as a whole.  The whole thing works like the old USA’s system of states and feds. 

So, how about those feds?  Well, you’ve got at least the OIS, FSB, and GIA.  The OIS is the Office of Internal Security.  They’re responsible for dealing with enforcing magical law.  They’re the ones who go after rogue sorcerers, put down things that creep into this world through illegal rituals, and find unregistered para-psychics.  It’s said that dabbling in illegal magicks get your status as ‘mortal’ rescinded until they can prove otherwise.  If you’re found mortal, then you can stand trial for crimes.  Inalienable mortal rights only apply to mortals.  The movies sure like to play up the dark OIS folks from time to time, but really, you’ve got nothing to fear if you’ve done nothing wrong…

Right. We get to fight the OIS, right? Because “you’ve got nothing to fear if you’ve done nothing wrong” is the mating call of the common yellow-bellied authoritarian.

By contrast, the FSB are the good guys.  Crisp suits and good manners get these agents where they need to go.  They act much like the USA’s old FBI, but the Federal Security Bureau is all about keeping people safe.  They go after cross-state criminals, serial rapists/arsonists/killers, terrorists, etc.  Most importantly, they have the job of hunting down and breaking up cults.  Cults aren’t just on the outside, there are some that hide inside the walls of arcologies, too.  The FSB are the ones hunting them down so you can sleep well at night.

So the good guys are the ones doing warrantless sneak-and-peeks and invading our privacy. Good guys, I can tell.

Then there’s the GIA, the General Intelligence Agency.  Well, when the NEG formed, all the biggest and best spy networks in the world got to play together to face off against a single enemy.  Mossad, MI6, the CIA…  One big happy family now.  These spooks can be a bit scary, but at least they’re on our side.  And hell, if information can win this war, more power to them.

Marty… Mossad are never “on our side”, let alone the goddamn CIA. Spies are never on your side. They’re just against your enemies. You’re just handing me targets, here; I can’t tell who’s more likely to be tapping my phone.

Nazzadi

The migou created the Nazzadi, gave them false memories of a false homeworld, and sent them to conquer us so that we humans wouldn’t know that they were out there.  Maybe they were just lazy, but they decided not to reinvent the wheel.  They just took human DNA, and gave their creations jet-black skin, red eyes, and some slightly sharper teeth.  Besides their great night vision, they’re basically identical to us.  I guess it was supposed to be scary or some such.

Wait, what? These are the Mi-Go, the brains in jars guys, and they just left the human genome alone? That isn’t lazy, that’s suicidally stupid.

When they found out from Vreta that their whole life was a lie, they didn’t take it well.  Most of them couldn’t sign up with us fast enough.  I think we all would have been more suspicious of them if they didn’t personally lead the charge to root out and kill any of their kind still loyal to the migou.  Whatever the case, we’re the same species by biological definition, and there are plenty of Xenomixes out there to prove it. 

They represent a full 40% of the population now, so most people don’t look twice anymore, even those of us old enough to remember the First Arcanotech War.  Some of the folks in the rural regions are still a bit prejudiced, but the country folk are never quite as accepting of others as the city goers.

Right. Because urbanites are always so progressive.

The Nazzadi culture had no taboo with regard to nudity.  They’ve always worn clothing for practical reasons, but they also have always maintained their fashion on the risqué side.  Modern fashion in recent years has been embracing the Nazzadi fashions, and many designers have been bringing less fabric to their lines.

Marty you said you were getting rid of the creepy shit what the hell are you doing

Just sucks to be the xenomixes, though.  If you couldn’t get it from context, they’re the kids from a mixed human/Nazzadi couple.  The Nazzadi don’t like them:  something about the Nazzadi race being too new to be diluted or something like that.  They don’t mind the mixed kids as much if they are brought up in the burgeoning Nazzadi culture, but that usually rubs the human parent the wrong way, and makes the xenomix fit into human society poorly.  Damned if you do, damned if you don’t, I guess.

What the hell? There’s no prejudice, but there’s still issues with miscegenation? How dissonant can you get?

Then there are the Whites.  Sometimes, instead of the expected shade of grey, a xenomix comes out stark white.  They aren’t albino’s, just white as snow.  They’re an odd bunch.  They’re distant and antisocial.  …and para-psychic.  Every last one of them.

Because white people have to be special.

Crime and Entertainment

Though these may seem like a dichotomist, or at least ironic, pairing, the intention is partially to discuss how the government has softened many illegal activities to the extent of them being entirely common place in the modern day.

War is hell, so they say.  Enough people getting Aeon War Syndrome these days would probably agree.  Either the government didn’t want to deal with arresting people for more stuff during this time of war, or they just wanted to keep our minds off things.  Either way, they legalized a bunch of stuff.  It’s even socially acceptable, now. 

Most soft drugs have been opened up.  They’re government regulated, just like any food or medical industry is, but it’s easy to get Ecstasy at a party, or find some joints in a grocery store.  Cigarettes are also still around, but the NEG made those companies strip out all the addictive things from them. 

More addictive stuff is more closely regulated.  The feds only let you get so much of them per month to help lessen the risk of addiction.  And of course, they’ve got people to help you quit if you want to.  There aren’t ‘addicts’ in the same way as there used to be now.  Well, very few of them, anyway.  Some of these regulated drugs are things like Percocet and Vicodin, Cocain, Opium, etc.  It won’t kill you to do a little, and as long as you don’t get more through the black market, you probably won’t be addicted.

Then there are the hard drugs.  Methamphetamines and Heroin, especially, are still illegal.  That shit will rot your brain on top of being highly addictive.  If you’re looking for a high, go find something sold at a club, or maybe try one of the designer drugs out there.

Cracking my knuckles over here. Finally, something I can talk about intelligently! First thing: It’s not ecstasy. It’s 3,4-methylenedioxy-N-methylamphetamine. It’s not a fun drug; it causes suicidal depression once the acute effects wear off and it’s playing merry hell with your serotonin levels. Tuesday Blues are not the kind of thing you want when you’re trying to distract your populace from their hellish lives in a goddamn police state.

And joints? Seriously? Setting aside the effects of tetrahydrocannabinol itself, smoking is bad for you. Dumping particulates into your lungs leads to dead lungs, eventually, and in any case is a ridiculously inefficient way of getting anything into your system but crap. Very few pharmaceutical compounds are designed to be administered by setting them on fire.

Cigarettes…I will assume he means tobacco cigarettes, in which case the “addictive stuff” is primarily nicotine and we’re left with little cylinders of what? Tar? Marty, no one gets addicted to lighting a stick on fire and holding it in their face. If there’s no nicotine in cigarettes, there will be no tobacco cigarettes.

It gets worse. Opioid abuse is just ten different kinds of nasty, and I’d love to know how they’re not addictive when “controlled”.  

In addition, prostitution is legal, now.  Government keeps track of it to screen the workers for health issues, and to make sure that everything’s on the up and up.  ‘Escorts’ all work out of bordellos, which can be found in most non-residential districts.  And similarly, pornography has lost the stigma.  As long as it is consensual, and involves neither an animal nor an individual under 16, it’s legal, and probably exists for sale somewhere.

Because we can definitely legislate the stigma away. Get your Rule 34 out of my game, Marty…

Technology

Arcanotech is an obvious place to start, here.  Ever since Teresa Ashcroft first started pioneering the way for the discipline, arcanotech has been the key to our technological progress.  The main thing we’ve got out of it is the D-Engine.  This is an unlimited clean energy source.  It’s big, so most cars and powered armor can’t use one, but our mecha and cities are run by them.  And if that wasn’t awesome enough, there’s something called the Operator Extension Side Effect.  When you pilot a D-Engine vehicle, the vehicle seems more like an extension of yourself than something you’re piloting.  That’s why mecha are the new tool of war.  They take far more advantage of this than something like a tank.

Do tell. “I can really feel it when my giant upright target gets hit in the chest; it’s just like being stabbed myself! This is so much better than a nice boxy tank!”

Honestly, it doesn’t matter. You’re still handing control of multiple tons of killing machinery to a fragile bag of squishy tissues. It’s already a huge waste of mass and volume on fighter jets, as well as the lowest limit of their maneuverability. Something with limbs has even less expendable space and requires even tighter control of its mass to stay balanced; look at how much of our musculature is devoted to stabilization. Throwing a few hundred kilos of pilot, life support, armor, and interface onto a biped is just so much more trouble than it needs to be when you don’t want a pilot in the first place. That’s not to say legged vehicles don’t have their place, but less Gundam, more AT-TE.

Now, human-sized humanoid robots are another matter (assuming you want them to use existing machines designed for human morphology), but unless you want to create the 1^st Mechanized Piggy-Back Riders they’re not being piloted.

There are two types of D-Engines:  Class A and Class B.  Class A engines are BIG.  They’re generally only used on either the big battle-cruisers of the military, or cascaded together to provide power for a city.  The Class B’s are the smaller version,  and those are what are used for mecha and larger commercial A-Pod (see below) vehicles.

For smaller things, though, we have D-Cells.  They can’t make their own energy, but these little cells can hold a lot of power, and be recharged a lot.  Most cars, and just about anything else that’s portable use these.  The operator side effect isn’t really a factor here, either.  They have allowed for some really awesome personal computers, though, known as PCPU’s or ‘Peeks’.

D-Cells do allow for little tiny mecha that are just barely taller than a person.  These are generally known as powered armor.  Alright, so nine to ten feet tall is a bit taller than a person, but still, compared to the 20+ ft tall full-size mecha, they’re pretty damn tiny.  They are the match of an entire squad of normal troops, while still being useful in close quarters like inside arcologies.  The police use them for really tough resistance.

No, no they are not. Try flanking someone with one soldier sometime. This is better than the ridiculous mecha, at least.

There are three classes of D-Cells.  A Class 1 D-Cell is typically used for smaller vehicles or non-integrated mecha weaponry, as well as back-up power for hospitals and similar important locales.  A single cell can easily drive a standard vehicle 48 hours before recharging, though most vehicles employ multiple cells.  The Class 2 cells are usually used for powered armor or motorcyles.  They are about the size of a brick.  Devices with very small power consumption, like hand-held weapons and PCPU’s, use Class 3 D-Cells.  These can power such devices for over a year without recharging.  A D-Cell can be recharged at any D-Engine recharge station in 1-15 minutes.

Another wonderful application of arcanotech are the A-Pods.  Full antigravity technology has made commercial flying even more practical, since the craft no longer need to rely on traditional forms of lift, allowing for much larger and much heavier flying machines.  Further, A-Pods are usually used to provide horizontal thrust for cars and other ground vehicles.  Between D-Cells and A-Pods, cars effectively are completely unreliant on the old combustion engines.  It’s also emission-less, which helps improved air quality relative to the past couple centuries.

Wait, what? Antigravity definitionally works one way. It works up. How the hell are you converting that to forward motion? If it’s just a thruster…efficiency much? You can have as much power as you want, but maybe you’d get more than two days of runtime out of your car if you pushed against the road rather than the air.

Outside of arcanotech, though, there are also great advanced that have been made in nanotechnology.  Nanotech is highly regulated, and there are MANY safeguards in place to prevent it from being tampered with.  Generally, it’s just used for manufacturing, and for a moderate cost, you can buy your own nanofactory.  Still have to buy whatever you want before the factory will make it, but hey, instant delivery, right?  And not only that, but some uses can be purchased permanently, like programs to repair a damaged part or a ripped piece of clothing put into the home nano-factory.  The actual size of these home units is usually about the same as a washing machine. 

Ha…hahahaha… you keep using that word and it does NOT mean what you think it means. We have nanofabrication, and we only use it to manufacture conventional goods on pay-per-use liscences? Where are the deconstructors? Where are the scanners? Heck, where’s the open source nanite control software? You cannot expect me to take seriously the idea that we have the ability to build a shovel from the molecular level up and we aren’t using it everywhere.  

Medicine has also met with leaps and bounds.  Nanotechnology allows for non-invasive surgery, as well as allowing doctors to rapidly fabricate organs and limbs created directly from the patient’s own genome.  As this implies, cloning is within our current capabilities.  It has, however, been outlawed by the NEG to avoid dealing with a potentially morally grey field during this time of existing hardship.

And I’m quite sure no one violates the law, right? This is the War on Drugs all over again, only now it’s the War on Clones. Or, dare I say it…the Clone Wars? Seriously though, it’d be nearly impossible to trace, and in any case I can hand you a list a mile long of narcissists who want to raise themselves. Heck, I dated one once.

Psychiatry and psychology have also made great leaps due to the unfortunate tendency of those working on arcanotechnology to suffer psychological damage from the strain of things humans were not meant to know.  Additionally, the so called Aeon War Syndrome is common both in and out of the warzone.

Additionally, Automated Patient Diagnostics Machines (APDM’s) are located in most work places or public kiosks.  If you feel ill, you can go to one of these machines, and it will download your medical profile from your PCPU (see below).  Just select your medical symptoms from a list, and place your hand on the sensor pad.  The APDM can quickly diagnose the nature of most illnesses, the best possible treatment based on your profile, and any recommended prescription medication.  The hand sensor measures pulse, temperature, and can take small blood samples and run genescans.  Other sensors scan the remaining vital signs.  The APDM can forward any prescriptions to the pharmacy of your choice, and make appointments with clinics for any necessary follow-up care. 

Oh, joy. I really want to use WebMD to prescribe myself medication based on self-reported symptoms, especially with medical equipment battered around by years of idiot users. Besides, how long before the Vicodin addicts up there hack the kiosk for infinidrugs?

Computing has changed over from solid-state gates to molecular switching, gaining a great deal of increased efficiency and speed.  This also reduces size greatly, allowing people to literally wear computing devices as jewelry.  Containing personal and encrypted information, a person’s Personal Central Processing Unit (PCPU) can interface to any Public Area Network (PAN) access point located throughout most major cities.  People can remotely access stocks, bank accounts, and web pages pretty much at any time, especially arcology residents.  PCPU’s also manage wireless subscriber account information, and act as gateways for any personal telecommunications device, typically utilizing wireless earpieces with built-in microphones. 

PCPU’s come in many shapes and sizes from wrist-strapped devices to decorative pendants.  Some sport internal displays, while others rely on wireless devices to connect to.  All PCPU’s come with voice command features that allow for executing simple tasks such as voice calling and browsing web favorites.  Holo-Interface Units (HIU’s or Hi-Yous) are quite popular.  About the size of a pen, then can be placed on a flat surface to project a holographic keyboard and monitor display.  Larger holographic systems also exist for places needing more robust functionality, such as flight control centers and military command centers.  Manipulation of holo icons is supplemented by Augmented Reality, which can be built into just about any form of glasses or other head-gear.

Limited artificial intelligences (LAI) are found everywhere from robotics to the programmed ‘personality’ used for PCPU’s.  These LAI, though ‘smart’ and able to recognize casual voice commands, are fundamentally limited.  Though they imitate it fairly well, they cannot actually think for themselves, and are not self-aware.  This generally limits their use, especially in robotics.  Generally, the only robots you will see are children’s toys.  Developing true AI has been ruled illegal by the NEG, for similar reasons as cloning.

We have LAI, and we still have piloted mechs. I’m not even touching the frequency crunch in a box, the lower limit of electric computation element size, or the species-wide lobotomy needed to confine robotics to toys.

Finally, we have weapons.  Though those big mecha have energy weapons, we can’t generate enough power for small scale to have hand-held energy weapons.  That said, there have been advances in good ol’ projectile weapons.  Electrokinetic weapons are frequently used, especially for rifles, for their increased range and damage.  They are virtually silent besides the crack of breaking the sound barrier.  Gas-powered needlers have also been produced.  Using highly compressed gas, they fire sub-sonic needles almost silently.  The one downside to needlers is that they don’t deal as much damage, and the magazines come pre-sealed with rounds and a gas cartridge, making battlefield reuse impossible.  Plenty of chemically fired projectiles still abound, especially in handguns.

Wait, we have railguns but not electrolasers, dazzlers, or…okay, fine. Whatever. I’m still getting over the subsonic lethal paintball guns from hell up there.

Currency

The currency of the NEG is the Terranote (Tn) is roughly twice that of the old USA dollar.  Fractions of a Tn are counted in Terracoins (tc) with 100 tc being equal to one Tn.  From the time of the early 21^st century, inflation has raised costs by approximately 40%.  As such, a $35,000 car would cost about 24,500 Tn.

‘K.

So there we go. Next time, our players!