Saturday, June 16, 2012

Dystopic Basic Character Concepts

So far we have a number of different character concepts that are nicely distinct from each other with their own niches.

We have a Luciferan Portals Fiend in the body of a SWAT team guy from a near-future-tech tyrannical police state London. It's a benevolent tyranny though the citizens don't realise this. They'll shoot your six-year-old dead if the paperwork comes in ... they won't tell you that she's been Claimed by a spirit and is dead anyway. They'll deny you access to your own bathroom and have a guy standing out the front ... they won't tell you they've sent in a werewolf to drain the locus. It's a werewolf-human integrated society that's coping quite well with the spirit world, all told, and is thus considered to be an Integrated Society by the para-faction that leads them.

We have a Reconciler Ghosts Slayer in the body of an Assassin's Creed-style assassin who kills for ideals rather than money and who is in a tyrannical communist sector in Russia that has gathered up power to the very few and cripples or kills those who defy the Authority. The true nature of the Authority is as yet unknown. It is rated as a dystopia as it's more malevolent than anything else.

We have a Cryptic Scourge in the body of a hacker - infiltrator who's good at getting in and out of places with information who's come from Cyberpunk Tokyo. She works for a relatively 'nice' mega-corporation not too dissimilar in style with Sarif Industries. Sure, they're willing to do some really bad things but they don't do it routinely and are generally trying to make the world a better place. Cyberpunk is always somewhat dystopic but cyberpunk Tokyo isn't an evil society, just a callous one, so it just rates as a Marginal Dystopian Society.

We also have a is a smuggler / trader-type who runs equipment and contraband between west and east coast America. America is one of the Nuke Nations (China, U.S.A. and India all nuked each other when the masquerade crumpled) and its west coast is irradiated, nearly overrun with zombies and mutants, though it still has a number of communities and farms who have fortified and survived (often with cancer). The east coast was spared the nuclear bombardment and erected massive walls to keep the zombies and the refugees out (as they have limited resources of their own). The west coast is a bit like Fall Out and has a range of societies (supernaturals aren't open members), integrated societies (supernaturals are openly members, at least to the upper echelons, or sometimes to all), and dystopias (an unnecessarily cruel or callous society). The east coast is fairly Cyberpunk and runs a lottery whereby those west of the wall who participate in the economy enter the draw to win their family a life in the east coast cities.

We also have a Patterns Fiend (likely Cryptic) investigative occultist, likely Defiler or Devourer, in the body of a private investigator in a Noir-meets-Cyberpunk mix up in east coast America, Miami. It's less of a dark Noir and more of an L.A. Noir. His city rates as a dystopia as it really is all about the powerful feeding off the weak (this isn't true of all east coast cities as they can differ quite a bit).

While the players picked their hosts, in-game the super-faction selected them and thus I gave them each 85xp on the sheet (they get 10xp you can add to either fallen or host side of it) so they felt free to pick someone suitably skilled. They all needed Stealth and Athletics as it seems to be a focus of this team and stealthers fail if you're not all at least capable of it.

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