The Story Guide Posted October 8, 2013 Share Posted October 8, 2013 Nova Terra Friday October 13th, 2023 ,, When the end came, it wasn’t terrorists or global warming or even lasers from space. It was aliens, but they just appeared, all over the world, all at once. ,, They didn’t come in peace. ,, I was in school, learning about dead British poets and other things that wouldn’t matter in the world that came after. I was lucky – the closest xenos were only a few blocks away, but they appeared in a Walmart parking lot. They had other people to kill and buildings to destroy before they got to where I was. We heard the screaming and saw some fliers pass overhead; the teachers tried to round us up and herd us into the basement like it was a tornado drill. I ran. Turned out running was the right choice – if you could run fast enough. ,, They never tried to talk to us, never told us why they invaded or what they wanted or even who they were. Maybe they can’t. A Walker told me once that she’d heard one speak, that it knew French and had a horrible accent (of course), but then Walkers are all crazy anyways. But that was years after the Invasion, so even if it’s true it doesn’t really matter anymore, does it? ,, The first few weeks were all chaos. Xenos in every major city across the globe, everyone panicking, and then there were the superheroes. Real people, people other people knew suddenly picking up xenos the size of trucks and tossing them around like footballs, or shooting fireballs down the street, ripping through whole throngs of the aliens. Supermen (and women) seriously doing the “faster than a speeding bullet, jumping over buildings in a single bound, flying through the air” bit. ,, No one knows who was the first, though everyone’s got their favorites. I remember the first one I met: Kevin, who could run like a bad Flash knockoff and could call a storm and lightening out of a sunny day. He saved my life, the lives of everyone in my band, for six months, got us through the worst of the war and kept us from being taken for gorgons before… ,, …before we knew we were going to lose and the people with the big red buttons and launch codes decided if humanity couldn’t have the planet, no one could. Kevin caught a nuke for the rest of us. Literally. He flew up into the air and caught a nuclear warhead on its way down. He couldn’t stop the timer on it, though. ,, A nest of the large fliers, the kind some people call dragons, burst out of a phage near us and swarmed him, carried him and the bomb so high up we barely saw it when the flash went off. Only time I’ve seen us and them work together. Kevin never made it back down. Neither did the dragons, so I guess that’s something. ,, We heard about survivors near Seattle a few days later. We almost didn’t go: everyone knows the cities are dead, and usually there’s a large phage, xeno central, somewhere nearby, but winter was coming ‘round again and even if the fallout wasn’t killing all of us, we were pretty far north. And the canned food and bottled water was starting to run out. We lost about half the group in the run through Seattle and a couple more getting across the water to Vancouver Island, but there were people waiting for us. Nova Terra, with enough supers there to keep the xenos and the phage off the island. ,, For nearly two years I was pretty sure we were the only humans left on the planet. Then the Walkers started showing up. Usually they’re supers still fighting the war as hot as they can, looking for a place to spend the night or heal up. Sometimes it’s a group of norms, crazy as shit to be running around, but convinced that someone’s gotta keep the ragtags of humanity talking to each other. Like the Pony Express, only with aliens trying to eat you most of the time. ,, They told us about the East, all the nuclear plants pluming up within a few weeks of the Final Strike. Only xenos can live anywhere east of the Mississippi now. Well, maybe some supers, but not norms like me. Even the xenos mostly just send in Sin Eaters to soak up the radiation. So much for college in New York. ,, From what the Walkers say, we’ve got it pretty swank here in Nova Terra: running water, even if it’s cold most of the time, temperate climate from the ocean so we aren’t freezing or dying from the heat like the people that won’t leave their farms or whatever in the Midwest, enough supers around to be sorta safe, and some cities to raid for when we need other stuff. ,, They say Benji’s a blessing too, being a scientist genius sort, but they don’t have to live with him. He hates being called Benji. That’s all I call him. Kitty actually is a blessing and doesn’t mind it when I call her Kitty. She’s Major Kataskapos to everyone else, especially the troops under her and especially especially Benji and Titania. ,, And yeah, we have someone that actually goes by Titania here. I don’t think anyone believes that’s her real name, but she just sort of gives you this look if you try to say so and then you don’t want to. Between the three of them, they keep Nova Terra going. Titania’s even the one that suggested I keep this journal. Benji would say it’s a waste of resources and Kitty would just shrug and probably think it was a waste of time. Titania says we need to ‘talk to the future.’ ,, I’m pretty sure she means that we need to leave some records for the kids that won’t remember the world before the end and the ones that are being born afterwards, something more than Benji’s boring science journals. It seems kinda mean, though. ‘Hey, here’s all the great stuff we had before the Invasion that’s all gone now. Blame the xenos, if they haven’t killed us or taken us for gorgons by the time you can read this.’ ,, Who knows. It’s almost winter again and there’s not much to do but wait it out. Maybe she just thought it was something to keep me out of trouble until it’s time to plant again. She probably remembered me saying I wanted to go to NYU for journalism, just like she remembered it was my birthday today. She’s like that, remembering details no one else cares about when there are aliens slowly covering the world in phage, stealing it from us one DNA strand at a time and the only way we even have a chance of winning is giving up bits and pieces of our own humanity. ,, Huxley was right: It’s a brave new world. Just not quite the one he imagined. ,, Cassandra Verdad ,, ,, ,, General Game Information Setting: Post alien invasion apocalypse, near future. Genre: Horror, Survival, Supernatural Powers System: Modified Changeling: The Lost, God Machine updates for some of the rules Status: ST-driven game always open to new players. ST: Nova Terra (aka Malachite in chat) ,, ,, The Set-Up Five years ago aliens invaded Earth. Appearing out of thin air all over the planet, they used the power of vortices, convergences of lines of power crisscrossing the planet, to invade. Humanity has instinctually built major settlements over large vortices, resulting in the immediate invasion of every major city on the planet when the aliens invaded. ,, In the first weeks of the Invasion, people on the frontlines of the war began to manifest superhuman powers. This surge of power briefly turned the tide of the war, until the aliens began to kidnap humans instead of simply slaughtering them and used their biotechnology to create superhuman monsters of their own. These grotesquely changed victims came to be known as gorgons and to date have shown no knowledge or care for their human origin, serving the aliens, nicknamed xenos, with single-minded destructiveness. Once the xenos have conquered an area, they spread the phage, a combination of alien plants and animals that terraform the area into what most assume is the ecosphere of wherever the xenos came from. ,, Nearly a year after the Invasion, the remaining heads of state of the major powers of the world admitted defeat in the face overwhelming losses against the xenos. In despair, they opted for mutually assured destruction, launching a massive nuclear attack on all areas infested by the phage. ,, The Final Strike failed. ,, The xenos managed to stop most of the warheads from ever reaching their targets, deflecting them away from Earth and destroying the satellite system around the planet (it’s assumed that was just an added benefit for the xenos and not a planned result). The detonation of nuclear power plants around the globe did manage to do significant damage, but the xenos were able to keep the nuclear fallout from spreading over the entire planet and have even bio-engineered ‘Sin Eaters’ (as the people of Nova Terra call them) to absorb and process radioactive materials into non-reactive waste. The process is slow and the phage follows in closely behind, allowing the xenos to claim the land immediately after it becomes viable for life again. ,, Deterring nuclear holocaust was not without its strain on the xenos, though. They have become nearly as scattered as humanity, giving the native race more even footing in the ongoing war and reducing battles down to local skirmishes instead of massive conflicts. Cities are no-man’s lands, raided by both sides for supplies. The phage seems to have difficulty claiming the concrete jungles, but the vortices in those areas make both xenos and supers more powerful, so neither side has been willing to concede the territories. ,, The wildernesses of Earth are patchworks of phage and native life, too dangerous for most normal humans (norms) to survive in. Small communities, usually villages from before the Invasion, are the havens of humanity now, while the xenos crouch in suburbs or covetously defend rural vortices claimed at the start of the Invasion. ,, Nova Terra is one of the larger human settlements left on Earth. Located in what used to be the bedroom community of Mill Bay on Vancouver Island, the burgeoning community is protected by several superhumans and the waters surrounding the land. Three people have come together in a tumultuous but ultimately functional tribunal of leadership: Major Katherine Kataskapos, the highest ranking officer of the military and police forces that survived the destruction of Seattle; Dr. Benjamin Lightman, self-proclaimed xenobiologist and actual scientific and medical genius; and Titania, a woman of political savvy and spiritual charisma that is often spoken of as the ‘heart’ of Nova Terra. ,, ,, ,, The Xenos Other than murderous and monstrous, not much is really known about the xenos. They come in a dizzying array of different types. Those seen most frequently have been given nicknames by the residents of Nova Terra: ,, Dragons – Enormous flying creatures that gain buoyancy by taking in air and somehow converting it into lighter elements in large gas sacks along the sides and underbelly of the creature. Large leathery wings allow the dragons to direct their motion in the air and led to the moniker, along with the ability to expel gas out the mouth of the creature and set it on fire, creating ‘dragon’s breath’. Dragons also have four retractable limbs that end in large three finger/toe talons. They are a bit unwieldy on the ground, but highly deadly once airborne. ,, Sin Eaters – Worm-like creatures that range from dime-sized to (the largest reported) semi-truck size, they have pale, nearly translucent skin that oftentimes gives of blue, purple, or white glow depending on what the Sin Eater is currently digesting. Sin Eaters are not usually violent, but instead gravitate towards radioactive materials as food sources. They will defend themselves and can somehow be called and controlled by other types of xenos. ,, Titans – Large xenos often found fighting in skirmishes. Titans have six limbs and a segmented body that allows them to move as easily on two limbs as on four or six. All limbs end in “hands” of three opposing digits, allowing them to either lay flat as tripod supports or grip objects as needed. Their “mouth” is located on one side of their center mass and lacks any sort of vocal chords, while their head is a lump at the top of their body comprised of four eye-like organs that allow them to see omnidirectionally. They lack any sort of hair, fur, or scales, but their skin is incredibly tough. Of all the xenos, Titans are the most studied as they have borne the brunt of human attacks in battles. ,, Gorgons – A diverse group in their final forms, all gorgons share one truth: they were born human. While other xenos are terrifying for their alienness, gorgons shake even the most battle hardened of human warriors because the remnants of their humanity can still be seen. No matter what other traits are inflicted on a gorgan, they are still humanoid in form. Often they enter battle with all-too-human screams; while titans are focused on to remove the greatest threat on the field, gorgons are the next in line for a bullet to the head. Out of pity. ,, (More to be added as the game progresses) ,, ,, ,, The Supers (Player Characters) The appearance of superheroes on the battlefronts rallied humanity against the xenos; for a time, it seemed like they would be the saving grace of the human race. Swedish scientists were the first to discover the disturbing truth: the superheroes were ‘super’ because they had become infected with xeno biology. Their expanded abilities and impossible powers were a direct result of becoming both less and more than human. They submitted their findings to the EU and Italy seized on the research to create the first “supersoldier” serum from xeno DNA. ,, As the xenos responded to the appearance of superheroes with stronger creatures and the horrors of gorgons, the great nations of the world set aside their squeamishness about the origins of super powers and went to work on creating more powerful and more predictable serums for the war effort. Meanwhile, “wild” supers continued to appear, either from infection on the battlefield or from phage-infected food or water. ,, Infection is a highly complex process that requires a human come into contact with xeno biotech or DNA that is perfectly suited to interact with that human’s specific DNA code. This meant that change on the battlefield or in a contaminated area usually only affects a single person out of thousands. A person could also be exposed to numerous types of xeno biology without reacting for years, only to wake up one day after having breathed in a microscopic xeno creature and find themselves suddenly endowed with superhuman abilities. It also meant that each supersoldier serum had to be crafted for individual soldiers and couldn’t be mass produced. ,, The people of Nova Terra are aware of the origin of super powers, thanks in most part to Dr. Lightman’s strident belief that knowledge is the greatest power humanity can possess. However, governments did not broadcast this information during the war, leaving many communities left in the world either in complete ignorance of the truth or wondering just how reliable the information relayed through Walkers really is. ,, Most superhumans seem genetically stable despite their infection by xeno biology; a few, however, have continued to mutate or show from the moment of contact some inhuman trait. Rumors also circulate through the Walkers of supers that have gone completely insane, turning to total destruction of both human and xeno populations near them. And the darkest rumors are that eventually supers become xenos themselves, though no one has more proof than rumors to back this up. ,, Supers can also sense the "xeno lines", lines of power that criss-cross the planet. All major human settlements, past and present, were founded on vortices, major crossing of xeno lines. The xenos seem obsessed with controlling vortices and the xeno lines themselves; supers also gain the ability to sense the lines and benefit from the power of the vortices. This is another reason the cities are constant war zones, as neither side is willing to let the other gain a permanent place of power to work from. ,, The Mechanics – This is a work in progress that will progress as people submit character ideas and we build the setting up as we go along. I’m not trying to figure every detail out beforehand mostly so I don’t drive myself nuts and so that there’s room for player input and flexibility as the game finds its niche. ,, Books used: (Everything is still by approval only, these are here to point you towards where mechanics can be found.) Changeling: The Lost God Machine Winter Masques ,, Lords of Summer Chapter 2 – Seasonal Contracts Chapter 3 – Entitlements ,, Rites of Spring Merits – Pg 87 Chapter Four for cultivating xeno plants and creatures. ,, Equinox Road Merits – Pg 14 High Wyrd effects – Pg 16 Creating a New Contract – Pg 30 Contract of Reflections – Pg. 39 Eldritch Orders after above. ,, Swords of Dawn Dawn Court – Pg 131 Contract of Potential – Pg 138 Entitlements – Pg 142 ,, Dancers in the Dusk Dusk Court – Pg 136 Contract of Entropy – Pg 141 Entitlements – PG 145 ,, ,, ,, Character Creation Rules - Standard character creation mechanics for Changeling: The Lost, except where noted as different below. Pick a Seeming (and optionally, a Kith) – This colors the basic change your character has gone through as their power manifested. Gain the Seeming/Kith advantage and ban. See me if you want to mix and match/make a new kith. While you can have your character manifest some inhuman trait along the lines of their Seeming/Kith, this is not necessary. Your character can look entirely human, and there is no Mask. ,, (Optional) Pick a Court – Courts in this game act like belonging to a “clan”; it indicates both a flavor of powers and general personality type of the character. While changing a Court is possible, it will take a major personal storyline and represent a fundamental shift in personality of the character. Characters may only belong to one Court at a time. Court hierarchy does not exist in the game (no Court Status), but Mantle is still in effect and Court pre-reqs for Contracts are still used (Court Goodwill can still be purchased to meet Contract pre-reqs). Characters gain a +1 on a Wyrd roll to recognize other members of their Court (if it’s not obvious through Mantle). ,, (Optional) Pick an Entitlement – If Courts are clans, Entitlements are families. Entitlements follow the same rules as Courts and reflect an even finer focus of the character. Most characters will not be able to begin play in an Entitlement. Supers of the same Entitlement will feel a kinship to one another and gain +1 die on all social rolls with other members of their Entitlement. ,, Contracts – Catches are not being used for Contracts. Characters pick one Contract as their “inherent” Contract (it does not have to be the one dictated by kith, but it will then replace that one) and gain the xp break on it. Contract dots do not have to be bought in order. When buying with starting dots, characters have 11 dots to spend, but must purchase each Contract separately. Five-dot Contracts still cost double. Court and Seeming pre-reqs are still in effect for Contracts; I am willing to discuss exceptions based on character concept, but I do not guarantee approving any. ,, Merits – Merits use the “simple Merits” rule for all Merits except those listed as graduated (such as 1 through 5 dot merits). Not all Merits will be appropriate for the game and many will need to be flavor-tweaked to work; I’m going to work with them as I get character submissions, so the House Rules section will be constantly updated. ,, The Haven merit will be used in place of Hollow. The Harvest merit only applies to recovering Glamour when dealing with phage areas (collecting "goblin fruit" such as phage plants or animals, or absorbing power from the phage itself). ,, Fae Mounts Additional Rules: Fae Mounts are real creatures and always exist. They do not require time in not exist solely the "Hedge" (read: phage), but will require access to phage areas to forage or hunt for food. For an additional dot in the cost of a Fae Mount, a Fae Mount may gain xp in the amount of 10 x the final dot cost of the Merit to use on the Fae Mount's base template. This may only be done once. Despite how it is listed in the book, Fae Mount is a progressive (1 through 5) Merit, not a Simple Merit. “Goblin fruit” and other products of the Hedge that are allowed are found in phage areas. This does allow for “hedgespun” or otherwise unusual materials for building items (essentially the excuse to have some Tokens in the game). ,, ,, Recovering Glamour The first three methods of replenishing glamour (evoking emotions, mucking about with dreams, and fulfilling Pledges) are not used in this game. The fourth method (Hedge Bounty) does work, with Hedge again essentially meaning "phage" and goblin fruits being phage plants and animals. There is no Wyrd restriction on how much phage material the character can carry (no restriction on how many "goblin fruits" a character can carry). ,, Characters will regain a number of Glamour points equal to their Wyrd rating each day that they are at full Health and Willpower; this represents their natural storing of Glamour (xeno magic power-ness). When in a phage area, they gain a point of Glamour for each hour they remain within the phage, regardless of Health or Willpower. Characters may also make a Wyrd roll once per scene to pull more power from the phage: dramatic failure results in the loss of any current Glamour, inflicts a Health Level of bashing damage; simple failure garners no Glamour; each success up to four grants a point of Glamour; exceptional success (five successes or more) completely replenishes the character's Glamour pool. ,, Characters may also make a Wits + Occult roll to detect xeno lines and vortices; if they locate one they may make a Willpower roll to tap into the line and harvest Glamour as well, but this is a tricky proposition at best. A dramatic failure has the same effect as attempting to pull from the phage above along with the loss of a temporary point of Willpower; simple failure garners no glamour and also drains a temporary Willpower point; successes up to the character's permanent Willpower rating grants one Glamour per success, but any successes over that instead inflict a Health Level of bashing damage. Xeno lines are fairly common, though usually the stronger ones are prime phage areas; weaker xeno lines also may only grant a certain number of Glamour points regardless of the number of successes rolled, though this does mean that extra successes do not cause damage. ,, Vortices grant two points of Glamour per success rolled. Characters may also attempt to avoid overload damage by sharing energy gained from the lines or vortices. This requires physical contact with those that the channeling character is attempting to share with, though they may form chains of characters with the energy travelling through the entire the line. This "sharing" may also be done as an attack, requiring the channeler to grapple their victim (and will fill up the victim's Glamour pool before inflicting damage). "Norms" have no Glamour pool and immediately take damage from a channeling attack. ,, ,, Note: Many things in the Changeling game will not be used in this game, as they simply don’t apply. Some powers will be more or less useful in the game than in a standard Changeling game. Clarity is replaced with Humanity; I will put up the Humanity chart – it is not the standard one out of Vampire. Wyrd is still used, but does not represent a connection to Arcadia (which doesn’t exist in the game) and will have effects adjusted as appropriate in gameplay because of that. Also, there is no Mask, no Bedlam, no Pledges, and no Enchanted Mortals. ,, ,, ,, God Machine additions/replacement rules: A note on "sessions" and "chapters". In a PBP format, it can be hard to determine what is a "session" and what is a "chapter". For Nova Terra, I am declaring that plot threads are "chapters", as they'll generally go on long enough to accomplish or fail at least one of the goals presented at the start of the thread. "Sessions" will be more fluid, but generally follow the "scenes" within a thread. Sometimes this'll mean that a "chapter" has only one "session", most of the time it'll mean at least a couple of "sessions" per "chapter". ,, ,, Note on Specialties You may only purchase one instance of a given Specialty, although multiple Specialties may apply to a given roll. For example, Surgery and Cardiology may apply to a Medicine roll to perform heart surgery. ,, ,, Aspirations Determine Aspirations as part of the “Final Touches” stage of character creation. Choose three Aspirations for your character. Aspirations are goals for your character. They’re also statements to your Storyteller that show the types of stories you want to play through. Aspirations are simple statements of intent; things that can be accomplished within the scope of the game you’re playing. If you’re playing a single session, be sure to choose realistic and short-term goals or goals that are already very close to fruition. If you’re playing a single story arc that should span a few weeks of game time, choose similar short-term goals, with one expressing longer-term interests. Even if you’re set to play a game you intend on running a year or more, don’t choose more than one very long-term goal. Ideally you should be able to accomplish at least one of these Aspirations per game session. It’s important to phrase Aspirations as active achievements or accomplishments. Do not phrase them as avoidances. “Do not betray my friends” isn’t really an appropriate Aspiration. Instead, consider “Prove my loyalty to my friends.” Phrasing as an action as opposed to a lack of action helps to determine when the Aspiration is met and when it should be rewarded. When choosing Aspirations, use them to help to customize your character and give her identity and purpose outside of whatever plots the Storyteller cooks up. Find a balance between being general enough that the statements can be fulfilled realistitically, and being specific enough to inform on your character’s identity. Use the listed examples as a jumping off point. In many World of Darkness games, we explore the strange and horrific. This can often mean visiting those things upon our characters. If you’re interested in seeing certain things happen to your character, note them as Aspirations. Or if you expect something to occur, it would be worth noting it. If you know tonight’s story will deal with an angry ghost with a penchant for eating human flesh and you never seem to roll well when your character’s using her Medium Merit, it’s worth using as an Aspiration. In that example, you might phrase it, “Fail in communicating with the dead.” That way, while your character might fail in her efforts against the ghost, you’ll be rewarded for achieving the Aspiration. Changing Aspirations: For the first session of play, you might not have a good enough sense of your character to choose Aspirations. We recommend you give it a try anyway, and if during the first session the Aspirations you’ve chosen just don’t fit with the way you’re playing the character, change them. No harm, no foul.After you’ve started playing the character, you might still find that an Aspiration becomes inappropriate or that it becomes impossible to fulfill. For example, a character might have a long-term Aspiration of “buy back our ancestral home.” During the third chapter of the story, the home burns down. Buying it back is now impossible. Or, for a less dramatic twist on that premise, what if the character discovers that his family has been using that land to conduct unholy overtures and sacrifices to the God-Machine for decades. Maybe the character doesn’t want the place anymore. What does that mean for the Aspiration? If circumstances warrant it, a player can change Aspirations between chapters with the Storyteller’s approval. This shouldn’t become a way to ditch goals that aren’t coming together quickly enough. Rather, it’s an option to keep the character’s goals in line with the natural flow of the story. ,, ,, Sample Aspirations Achieve a promotion at work Make something that’ll outlast me Prove my loyalty to the team Show myself I’m not cursed Give something important to someone in need Put myself in mortal danger Forget responsibility and enjoy myself Get a new car Show restraint when tempted Indulge my addiction Say my last goodbyes Volunteer at the cancer center Meet a ghost Interview my idol Plant a garden Show respect to my enemies Establish a new identity Learn what hurts shapeshifters Have a one-night stand Escape jail Replace my broken guitar Tell a long-kept secret Say no without regrets ,, Sample Long-Term Aspirations Put my daughter’s ghost to rest Take control of the company Become a parent Take down the mayor Outlive my boss Pass on my most important skill Become fully independent Bring an end to the Chosen of Mammon Find the witch that cursed my family Become independently wealthy Master my chosen art Become a vampire Find my soul mate Prove my father was wrong about me Buy back our ancestral home Show the world that fairies are real Open a branch in three nations Become psychic Uncover my mother’s killer’s identity Find an unknown biblical gospel Prove my uncle wasn’t insane Discover the cure for mortality ,, Virtues and Vices in Play When a character acts in accordance with his Virtue or Vice during a scene, his sense of self is reinforced and his reserves of inner strength are refreshed. If the Storyteller judges that your character’s actions during a scene reflect his Vice, he regains one spent Willpower point. Note that in a change to the rules in the World of Darkness Rulebook, acting on a Vice does not need to pose difficulty or risk to your character. If the Storyteller judges that your character’s actions during a scene reflected her Virtue while posing her difficulty or risk, she regains all spent Willpower. She may regain Willpower up to twice per chapter/game session in this way. Virtue/Vice Merits Virtuous (••) Effect: Your character is a light of good in the World of Darkness. She has two Virtues. The limitations of how many times she may refresh Willpower using a Virtue remain the same, but it’s up to you which Virtue she uses each time. Vice-Ridden (••) Effect: Your character is one of the worst examples of humanity in the World of Darkness. He has two Vices, although he may still only regain one Willpower per scene in which he indulges himself. Sanctity of Merits While Merits represent things within the game and your character, they’re really an out-of-character resource, a function of the character creation and advancement mechanics. These Merits often represent things that can go away. Retainers can be killed. Mentors can get impatient and stop dispensing wisdom. So while Merits may represent temporary facets of your character, Merit points continue to exist. At the end of any chapter where your character has lost Merits, you can replace them with another Merit. For example, your character has three-dot Retainer, a loyal dog, and an eldritch horror eats that dog out in the woods. At the end of that chapter, you may re-allocate those Retainer dots. You may choose to purchase Safe Place, to reflect your character’s choice to bunker down from the monster, and perhaps Direction Sense (one dot) so your character is less likely to get lost in those woods in the future. When the character leaves his Safe Place, you can replace those two dots with something else. Merits such as Ambidextrous, Eidetic Memory and the various Fighting Style Merits reflect abilities and knowledge that your character has and therefore shouldn’t be cashed in or replaced. Then again, if an Ambidextrous character loseshis left hand .... When replacing a Merit, consider what makes sense in the story. Pursue the new Merit during the course of the chapter if possible, and make the new tie something less superficial than a dot or two on a sheet. Merits The Merits listed in the GM update (starting on pg 161) add to or replace the standard book Merits. I'm not going to list them all out here because guh. As per the rules listed with the Merits, no supernatural template may take the Supernatural Merits; sorry, guys, you all count as Changelings. Integrity We will be using Integrity (pg 184) and Breaking Points (pg 155) instead of Clarity. Integrity will begin at 7 and follow the same rules as Clarity for xp costs and trade-in value at character creation. Again, it's really too much to c/p here and all this information is available for free. On the roll results for a Breaking Point, these are the results, which are different from what's written in the book because I'm not using Beats or Conditions: Dramatic Failure: The character's fundamental worldview has been shattered. They automatically gain an appropriate temporary Derangement, curable by time (ST discretion) or therapy, and roll their new Integrity rating; a failure on the roll makes the Derangement permanent until the character raises their Integrity back up to the lost rating. Failure: The character’s world view has been shaken and he probably questions his sense of self, his ability to relate to people, his own moral worth, or his sanity. Lose a dot of Integrity and roll the character's new Integrity rating to determine if they gain a Derangement. A failure on the roll indicates a temporary Derangement that can be healed through time, or more quickly with therapy. A Dramatic Failure on the roll indicates a permanent Derangement that can only be cured through purchasing Integrity back up to the rating lost when the Derangement was gained. Success: The character has come through the breaking point intact. He might feel guilty or upset about what happened, but he can cope. Exceptional Success: The character somehow manages not only to survive the breaking point, but to find meaning in it, to reaffirm his own self-worth, or to pass through fire and become tempered by it. The character regains all temporary Willpower points. Also, character submissions must include answers to the five questions for Integrity: What is the worst thing your character has ever done? What is the worst thing your character can imagine doing themself? What is the worst thing your character can imagine someone else doing? What has the character forgotten? (This is likely some blocked out memory from the Invasion or after, though I will allow other memories if something neat pops in your head during character creation.) What is the most traumatic thing that has ever happened to your character? (If this is what they've forgotten, describe the most traumatic thing that they remember.) Combat Combat rules start on pg 195 and make a lot more sense to me than the standard WW rules, so we'll be using them. Some highlights for character creations: Attack roll successes + weapon bonus = # of Health Levels of damage. If you're using a weapon, it's lethal damage. Defense is now the lower of Wits or Dexterity + Athletics. Defense is reduced by one each time a character defends in a turn and resets at the start of the new turn. Actively Dodging (using an action to dodge) doubles the character's current Defense as a dice pool to be rolled. Each success cancels out a success from the Attack roll. Defense applies to all attacks except Ranged (guns and bows). Note: We will be using Tilts in combat, but we're not using Conditions out of combat. ,, Equipment The Equipment section is also nifty and will be used with a few caveats: sometimes Availability for an item will change due to game circumstances. Right now, there are still pretty large piles of everything laying around if you can get someone to/make your own run into a city. Resources reflect having access to these items without having to scavenge for them "onscreen". Also, none of the supernatural items listed are available or actually work (e.g. salt's available, but it's just salt). ,, ,, ,, Questions? Comments? Anyone interested? Send me a PM to Nova Terra or catch me in chat (my log-in is Malachite). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
z022 Posted October 8, 2013 Share Posted October 8, 2013 This is the ST account for the game. Sorry for posting under the wrong account! >.< Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SalmonMax Posted October 8, 2013 Share Posted October 8, 2013 Changeling! Clever! ,, Loved the description of the game. VERY interested! Must break out the old book and trawl for ideas. Will get in touch with you soon! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ali Badren Posted October 8, 2013 Share Posted October 8, 2013 I believe Ali Badren will make a return for this game... Wizened Chirugeon that has Stone as a major contract, mixing his medical abilities with 'do unto xenos.' Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
z022 Posted October 12, 2013 Share Posted October 12, 2013 Some NPCs: Cassandra Verdad ,, One of the many teen/twenty-something young adults that make up the main age-block of Nova Terra, Cassandra is often seen around the settlement carrying messages for the leadership during the day and dancing with others her age at night. Recently, she's started carrying a canvas laptop bag stuffed with notebooks and pencils. Beyond acting as a page for the leadership, she also trades sketches for favors and tidbits. She is intensely curious and sarcastically optimistic. She coined the phrase "After World" for referencing life after the Final Strike. ,, ,, ,, Titania ,, Titania is one of the few actual natives of the island left. She's claimed professions from local politician to aspiring actress to spiritual adviser, and she's certainly used skills from the entire spectrum in her interactions with the people of Nova Terra. She always seems to know where the center of action in the settlement is at any given point of time, as well as having a seeming sixth sense for knowing when someone needs a shoulder to cry on or someone to distract them from the many sorrows of the After World. She's often in the center of community activities and has organized the more spiritually inclined of Nova Terra into claiming one of the larger buildings as a spiritual center for the community. Her 'soft' approach to life in the After World often annoys the two other leaders, but her popularity and political savvy keeps her as a center of power in Nova Terra. ,, ,, ,, Dr. Benjamin Lightman ,, Formerly a think-tank scientist working on ways to defend against bio-terrorism based out of Los Angeles, Lightman is the epitome of arrogant, self-involved, and irritatingly correct scientist most of the time. When the Invasion began, he stayed in his labs well after the other scientists had abandoned the facility out of fear or to seek out family and other loved ones. He spent three weeks hiding in the facility, living off of vending machine food and using the labs' resources to enact the catastrophic protocols for Wikipedia and also consolidating as much information as he could save onto field-work laptops designed to survive in the most hostile and remote parts of the world (including built-in solar power panels). Once he emerged from the labs, most of LA was a war-zone wasteland. He headed north, a cautious trek that skirted the major cities while he collected as much information as he could with his SUV full of experimental equipment. He was picked up by a military convoy lead by Major Kataspokas shortly before the Final Strike and taken to Vancouver Island after the fall of Seattle. While he resented the rough handling at the time, he is now thankful for the rescue and relocation, as well as the Major's support in Nova Terra and in acquiring materials and information from the metropolis across the water to further his research. He is disdainful of Titania personally, but tolerates her as the "requisite babysitter of the masses". ,, ,, ,, Major Katherine Kataspokas ,, Stationed in Seattle, Katherine is, as far as she or any of the other surviving military in Nova Terra know, the highest ranking officer left of the United States or Canadian military. A tough but fair-minded and serious woman, Katherine leads the surviving soldiers and guardians of Nova Terra. She organizes all raids into Seattle and the patrols of Vancouver Island to ensure that neither the xenos nor the phage gain a permanent foothold on the island. She watches the 'supers' with a conflicted unease: on the one hand, they are an immensely powerful force against the xenos, on the other most of them are civilians that, in her opinion, lack the proper discipline and training for the power they've been handed by random chance. She supports Lightman's curiosity about the supers and xenos as the most efficient way to learn about the enemy and to hopefully learn enough to counter any 'super' that goes rogue or worse. While not as popular as Titania, she has earned the trust and loyalty of much of Nova Terra for her unwavering commitment to military protection and not military dictatorship in the settlement. While some of the soldiers grumble that the risks they take should earn them more privileges than the civilians, Katherine manages a fine balance of just enough free time to stay sane and more than enough action to keep everyone too busy to organize a coup. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
z022 Posted October 19, 2013 Share Posted October 19, 2013 I am currently reading through The God Machine rules updates released by Onyx Path (available as a free download here) and will be using some of the rules out of it for Nova Terra. I'll be c/p'ing them here and adding them to the top post for easy reference. If you don't see a rules change from the GM update here/in the top post, then assume we're not using it. If you're confused, just ask! ,, First, a note on "sessions" and "chapters". In a PBP format, it can be hard to determine what is a "session" and what is a "chapter". For Nova Terra, I am declaring that plot threads are "chapters", as they'll generally go on long enough to accomplish or fail at least one of the goals presented at the start of the thread. "Sessions" will be more fluid, but generally follow the "scenes" within a thread. Sometimes this'll mean that a "chapter" has only one "session", most of the time it'll mean at least a couple of "sessions" per "chapter". ,, ,, Note on Specialties You may only purchase one instance of a given Specialty, although multiple Specialties may apply to a given roll. For example, Surgery and Cardiology may apply to a Medicine roll to perform heart surgery. ,, ,, Aspirations Determine Aspirations as part of the “Final Touches” stage of character creation. Choose three Aspirations for your character. Aspirations are goals for your character. They’re also statements to your Storyteller that show the types of stories you want to play through. Aspirations are simple statements of intent; things that can be accomplished within the scope of the game you’re playing. If you’re playing a single session, be sure to choose realistic and short-term goals or goals that are already very close to fruition. If you’re playing a single story arc that should span a few weeks of game time, choose similar short-term goals, with one expressing longer-term interests. Even if you’re set to play a game you intend on running a year or more, don’t choose more than one very long-term goal. Ideally you should be able to accomplish at least one of these Aspirations per game session. It’s important to phrase Aspirations as active achievements or accomplishments. Do not phrase them as avoidances. “Do not betray my friends” isn’t really an appropriate Aspiration. Instead, consider “Prove my loyalty to my friends.” Phrasing as an action as opposed to a lack of action helps to determine when the Aspiration is met and when it should be rewarded. When choosing Aspirations, use them to help to customize your character and give her identity and purpose outside of whatever plots the Storyteller cooks up. Find a balance between being general enough that the statements can be fulfilled realistitically, and being specific enough to inform on your character’s identity. Use the listed examples as a jumping off point. In many World of Darkness games, we explore the strange and horrific. This can often mean visiting those things upon our characters. If you’re interested in seeing certain things happen to your character, note them as Aspirations. Or if you expect something to occur, it would be worth noting it. If you know tonight’s story will deal with an angry ghost with a penchant for eating human flesh and you never seem to roll well when your character’s using her Medium Merit, it’s worth using as an Aspiration. In that example, you might phrase it, “Fail in communicating with the dead.” That way, while your character might fail in her efforts against the ghost, you’ll be rewarded for achieving the Aspiration. Changing Aspirations: For the first session of play, you might not have a good enough sense of your character to choose Aspirations. We recommend you give it a try anyway, and if during the first session the Aspirations you’ve chosen just don’t fit with the way you’re playing the character, change them. No harm, no foul.After you’ve started playing the character, you might still find that an Aspiration becomes inappropriate or that it becomes impossible to fulfill. For example, a character might have a long-term Aspiration of “buy back our ancestral home.” During the third chapter of the story, the home burns down. Buying it back is now impossible. Or, for a less dramatic twist on that premise, what if the character discovers that his family has been using that land to conduct unholy overtures and sacrifices to the God-Machine for decades. Maybe the character doesn’t want the place anymore. What does that mean for the Aspiration? If circumstances warrant it, a player can change Aspirations between chapters with the Storyteller’s approval. This shouldn’t become a way to ditch goals that aren’t coming together quickly enough. Rather, it’s an option to keep the character’s goals in line with the natural flow of the story. ,, ,, Sample Aspirations Achieve a promotion at work Make something that’ll outlast me Prove my loyalty to the team Show myself I’m not cursed Give something important to someone in need Put myself in mortal danger Forget responsibility and enjoy myself Get a new car Show restraint when tempted Indulge my addiction Say my last goodbyes Volunteer at the cancer center Meet a ghost Interview my idol Plant a garden Show respect to my enemies Establish a new identity Learn what hurts shapeshifters Have a one-night stand Escape jail Replace my broken guitar Tell a long-kept secret Say no without regrets ,, Sample Long-Term Aspirations Put my daughter’s ghost to rest Take control of the company Become a parent Take down the mayor Outlive my boss Pass on my most important skill Become fully independent Bring an end to the Chosen of Mammon Find the witch that cursed my family Become independently wealthy Master my chosen art Become a vampire Find my soul mate Prove my father was wrong about me Buy back our ancestral home Show the world that fairies are real Open a branch in three nations Become psychic Uncover my mother’s killer’s identity Find an unknown biblical gospel Prove my uncle wasn’t insane Discover the cure for mortality ,, Virtues and Vices in Play When a character acts in accordance with his Virtue or Vice during a scene, his sense of self is reinforced and his reserves of inner strength are refreshed. If the Storyteller judges that your character’s actions during a scene reflect his Vice, he regains one spent Willpower point. Note that in a change to the rules in the World of Darkness Rulebook, acting on a Vice does not need to pose difficulty or risk to your character. If the Storyteller judges that your character’s actions during a scene reflected her Virtue while posing her difficulty or risk, she regains all spent Willpower. She may regain Willpower up to twice per chapter/game session in this way. Virtue/Vice Merits Virtuous (••) Effect: Your character is a light of good in the World of Darkness. She has two Virtues. The limitations of how many times she may refresh Willpower using a Virtue remain the same, but it’s up to you which Virtue she uses each time. Vice-Ridden (••) Effect: Your character is one of the worst examples of humanity in the World of Darkness. He has two Vices, although he may still only regain one Willpower per scene in which he indulges himself. Sanctity of Merits While Merits represent things within the game and your character, they’re really an out-of-character resource, a function of the character creation and advancement mechanics. These Merits often represent things that can go away. Retainers can be killed. Mentors can get impatient and stop dispensing wisdom. So while Merits may represent temporary facets of your character, Merit points continue to exist. At the end of any chapter where your character has lost Merits, you can replace them with another Merit. For example, your character has three-dot Retainer, a loyal dog, and an eldritch horror eats that dog out in the woods. At the end of that chapter, you may re-allocate those Retainer dots. You may choose to purchase Safe Place, to reflect your character’s choice to bunker down from the monster, and perhaps Direction Sense (one dot) so your character is less likely to get lost in those woods in the future. When the character leaves his Safe Place, you can replace those two dots with something else. Merits such as Ambidextrous, Eidetic Memory and the various Fighting Style Merits reflect abilities and knowledge that your character has and therefore shouldn’t be cashed in or replaced. Then again, if an Ambidextrous character loseshis left hand .... When replacing a Merit, consider what makes sense in the story. Pursue the new Merit during the course of the chapter if possible, and make the new tie something less superficial than a dot or two on a sheet. Merits The Merits listed in the GM update (starting on pg 161) add to or replace the standard book Merits. I'm not going to list them all out here because guh. As per the rules listed with the Merits, no supernatural template may take the Supernatural Merits; sorry, guys, you all count as Changelings. Integrity We will be using Integrity (pg 184) and Breaking Points (pg 155) instead of Clarity. Integrity will begin at 7 and follow the same rules as Clarity for xp costs and trade-in value at character creation. Again, it's really too much to c/p here and all this information is available for free. On the roll results for a Breaking Point, these are the results, which are different from what's written in the book because I'm not using Beats or Conditions: Dramatic Failure: The character's fundamental worldview has been shattered. They automatically gain an appropriate temporary Derangement, curable by time (ST discretion) or therapy, and roll their new Integrity rating; a failure on the roll makes the Derangement permanent until the character raises their Integrity back up to the lost rating. Failure: The character’s world view has been shaken and he probably questions his sense of self, his ability to relate to people, his own moral worth, or his sanity. Lose a dot of Integrity and roll the character's new Integrity rating to determine if they gain a Derangement. A failure on the roll indicates a temporary Derangement that can be healed through time, or more quickly with therapy. A Dramatic Failure on the roll indicates a permanent Derangement that can only be cured through purchasing Integrity back up to the rating lost when the Derangement was gained. Success: The character has come through the breaking point intact. He might feel guilty or upset about what happened, but he can cope. Exceptional Success: The character somehow manages not only to survive the breaking point, but to find meaning in it, to reaffirm his own self-worth, or to pass through fire and become tempered by it. The character regains all temporary Willpower points. Combat Combat rules start on pg 195 and make a lot more sense to me than the standard WW rules, so we'll be using them. Some highlights for character creations: Attack roll successes + weapon bonus = # of Health Levels of damage. If you're using a weapon, it's lethal damage. Defense is now the lower of Wits or Dexterity + Athletics. Defense is reduced by one each time a character defends in a turn and resets at the start of the new turn. Actively Dodging (using an action to dodge) doubles the character's current Defense as a dice pool to be rolled. Each success cancels out a success from the Attack roll. Defense applies to all attacks except Ranged (guns and bows). Note: We will be using Tilts in combat, but we're not using Conditions out of combat. ,, Equipment The Equipment section is also nifty and will be used with a few caveats: sometimes Availability for an item will change due to game circumstances. Right now, there are still pretty large piles of everything laying around if you can get someone to/make your own run into a city. Resources reflect having access to these items without having to scavenge for them "onscreen". Also, none of the supernatural items listed are available or actually work (e.g. salt's available, but it's just salt). I know this adds another book to have to look through, but at least on my run-through of the new/updated mechanics and on the new materials presented, I think it's worth it. Again, the mechanics section of the book, which is the only bit of the material I've included here, is available for free download at DriveThruRPG. Just follow the link at the start of this post or do a search on the site for God Machine, should be the third link down. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
z022 Posted October 25, 2013 Share Posted October 25, 2013 I've had two questions asked repeatedly, so I'm providing official answers here. ,, 1) Integrity starts at 7. No lowering it for xp, no buying it up with Merit dots or something. You all start at 7 and can move from there during gameplay. ,, 2) Court Goodwill is still an option for purchase. It acts as an affinity for xenos of that "Court" and allows the purchase of Seasonal Contracts per the rules in the book. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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