Kwangchow, Illinois

Originally this was going to be a recycling of old material used to prep for an old, failed, campaign (because, in lieu of a proper hook, the players spent the entire thing cuckolding, murdering and trying to hide the corpse of a random bartender), hastily half-converted to sboob because of that one Archon’s Court post..

Then I ended up putting way too much effort into it all and there’s like, 0% old material surviving here now, it’s like, almost entirely new. Note that this assumes a fairly different mode of superheroic existence than the cyberpunk hellscapes of Bayport or I-Re… this is because it’s in the middle of the rust belt and the corporations have largely left this place to rot, so the main supermen-employing organizations are street gangs rather than megacorps or technofascist paramilitaries. Adjust your mission tables to match or whatever - you’re hitting licks, not taking jobs.  

    Still haven't figured out how blogspot formatting works, sorry for the wonky text spacing and stuff

——————————————————————————————————————

Kwangchow is dying. That is to say, Kwangchow - not Guangzhou, China, Kwangchow, Illinois. Kwangchow IL is in every respect dramatically inferior to its namesake, a small city of sixty-six thousand souls and a perfect model of the rust belt in microcosm. It’s a city that’s been in decline since the 60’s - June 6th, 1966, to be exact, the day Marx Steelworks finally shut its doors. You won’t find anyone in town that doesn’t have the exact calendar date drilled into their skull deeper than the day of their own birth, from the tweaker dying on the street corner to the gilded office of Mayor Ding-Marx herself. 

What if Brockton bay was Gary, Indiana

Founded in 1902 by Friedrich Wolfgang Marx of Marx Steel Industries, Kwangchow, like a few other american cities, took its name from its supposed geographical antipode. A former model company town, it lived and died inseparable from the industry that supported it, in many ways a model of the rust belt as a whole. Marx was an interesting figure - chiefly in the fact that he never sold, never merged, and never, ever, unionized. The city’s unique makeup is a testament to his legacy of racial tolerance - whites are still the majority, at around 55% of the population, and african-americans make up most of the rest, but there's also large hispanic and asian minority groups. The latter category is, unusually, composed mostly of hui and uyghur chinese- who first came as muslim warlord Ma Ding and his soldiers, personally invited to Kwangchow by Marx after their defeat by the KMT, whose collection of oriental artworks was been built up chiefly through purchase of Ding’s looted artifacts. The community has since been reinforced over the years by successive waves of muslim chinese migrants, the Uyghur community in particular migrating in large enough numbers to justify a rare piece of federal support (in the form of over a million dollars in grants to establish a local branch of the East Turkestan Government in Exile). 

The steelworks still lies rotting, picked over by crows, raccoons, and bored teenagers. The rest of town fares little better, crumbling  houses with overgrown yards and peeling paint. Economically, the only options left for those without pensions or social security to live off are to fight over the few jobs left in government and the service industries, commute two hours to Chicago, or turn to crime. Pump gas and flip burgers for senior citizens, teach timetables to the offspring of anyone still stupid enough to have kids in Kwanchow, or start stealing copper wire and dealing meth - the 2nd option is substantially less soul-crushing. It’s no wonder, then, that Kwanchow has an absurdly exaggerated Supervillain per Capita ratio - which means, of course, that there’s no shortage of opportunities for cape-work, for any enterprising super who walks into town. Someone, perhaps, much like yourself? 

Places of Interest

Marx Steelworks - The factory-complex that birthed the town and served as its beating heart until it was finally shut down in the 60’s, when the bottom fell out of the steel industry - the Marx family saved from bankruptcy by a diversified portfolio, the workforce not so much. Deserted, fenced off, and the frequent target of urban explorers - every square inch covered in graffiti, periodic sweeps by the city police force evicting homeless squatters.

Absalom K-12 Academy - The integrated charter school that serves as the only public institution in the city for primary and secondary education, with a history rooted, unsurprisingly, in the privately-operated schools Marx had built when he first set up the company town. Notable for having had at least one bomb or shooting threat a year every year since 2002, and for the shoestring budget it’s operating on after payouts of several million dollars in child abuse settlements in a continuous string of scandals involving multiple different teachers and administrators (but mostly campus security). 

Wolfgang-Marx Museum of the Orient - Inside the red-brick walls of a romanesque villa lie the only reason anyone would ever willing visit Kwangchow… an actually really good collection of chinese and central asian art, every single part of which was purchased illegally and which the Chinese government has demanded the repatriation of on an annual basis since 1949. Technically held in trust, the museum and everything else it manages are still entirely controlled by the Marx family, and the entire museum is not infrequently closed to the public for special events. The stuff on display is only ever a fraction of the full collection, the vaults below holding many pieces individually worth millions and the entire sum of the collection worth who knows how much more… museum security is tight, but far from impenetrable, and several ambitious heists have been foiled only seconds from completion. 

Mosques - There are three different mosques in Kwangchow, the Islamic Center of Kwangchow, the Kwangchow Holy Mosque, and the WD Fard Moorish Temple. The Islamic Center is the older institution, founded by the hui community, the Mosque the second oldest, originally a Nation of Islam institution which was converted to mainstream sunni islam under Wallace Muhammad’s leadership and entered into communion with the existing hui community. The Moorish temple is the smallest but most militant of the temples, founded by those who rejected joining the islamic mainstream and entering into co-religionist relations with the Hui - fiercely independent, they’ve additionally refused to align themselves with Farrakhan’s revived church, and have largely degenerated into a criminal cult. 

 Other- Walmart super center #2,389, East Turkestan Government in Exile branch office, Kwangchow Municipal Hospital (exceedingly high complication rates), Kwangchow City Hall, Kwangchow public library,  Kwangchow Jail, the headquarters of the Kwangchow Sun (only newspaper), Kwangchow Municipal Airport (incredibly tiny), Kwangchow savings bank, DMV of Kwangchow, Elysian Garden Residential Apartments (referred to by the locals the Lil’ O, as in O-block) 

 Read blood syndicate plz

Factions

Volunteers (AKA: The United Volunteers for the Defense of Public Order and the Muslim Faith)

Kwangchow’s premier superhero group, vigilante peacekeepers who claim strict adherence to sunni islam and a purely charitable status, being, according to themselves, entirely funded by donations from “the community”. They are technically funded by donations, in the legal sense, being a registered charity, but the greater part of their funding comes from local business and wealthy elites , rather than ordinary citizens.. on account of the Volunteer response time being weighted substantially in favor of their sponsors. Allegations of Volunteer-legbreaking for the Ding-Marx family have been proven unfounded by multiple winning libel suits. 

Symbols - Their emblem (literally just their full title in “oriental” font), Green and white spandex uniforms 

Henchmen - Most of their official member-roll consists of local citizens who donate and report criminal activity.. there’s a few unpowered employees who run the call center, manage finances, keep the headquarters in order and such, but only the supperhumans handle the actual crimefighting (and only they get paid full salaries) 

Leader - Golden Horde, 2Σ (Martial I [+WIS, CHA], Shift II [Brawn I, Durable I, Zap])

Transforms into a 6’8 proto-turkic steppe warrior-demigod whenever in contact with a equine, gaining superhuman strength, durability, and a bottomless quiver of shining golden arrows which explode like anti-tank grenades on impact. Fancy high-tech compound bow that requires super-strength to draw back fully, 3 pedigree warhorses imported from turkmenistan at great expense, samurai horse-archery trick riding bullshit that lets him shoot people accurately while hanging upside-down and sideways with one foot on the saddle.   

In his “true form” a 4’10 uyghur woman in her early sixties, Turan doesn’t really have a costume on account of every moment he spends crimefighting being in his war-shape, the bulletproof, bronze-skinned black-maned giant with washboard abs and rippling biceps and such. Is the formal leader of the volunteers, and a strong personality both as cape and civilian, though with a charisma that expresses itself quite differently between the warrior-king and the elderly chinese woman who founded and ran the team behind the scenes before awakening her superpowers. Though intelligent, is somewhat handicapped by a combination of vanity, greed, and a loose grasp of the english language (though fully fluent in mandarin and uyghur). 

Volunteer superhumans

Ottoman, 1Σ (Durable I, Brawn I) Like 7ft tall, strong enough to tear off limbs with bare hands also physically impossible endurance.. will keep fighting with both legs broken, intestines on the sidewalk, and heart utterly vaporized by laser-gun

Safavid, 1Σ (Ace I, Durable I) Totally fireproof, asbestos skin, can make anything he touches extremely flammable.. making concrete and glass burst into flames like they’re cotton balls soaked in rubbing alcohol 

Mughal, 1Σ (Create II) Can produce enormous quantities of shaped biodegradable sandstone on the fly, enough to raise small minarets and onion-domes in seconds - useful for putting up barriers, getting places by quick-bridging, encasing people in stone

Timurid, 1Σ (Percieve I, Zap I) Well-developed pineal eye which can see in infrared and also fire invisible death-rays 

Crossburners (AKA: The Kwangchow Crossburners, The Invincible Insane Cross-burning Nation)

A violent, all-white criminal syndicate with a few superhuman members, exactly as racist as the name suggests. Single largest group in the city, though outnumbered by the many smaller outfits.  Still, hands in a lot of different pies - they deal a lot of drugs, do a lot of ordinary burglary and armed robbery and stuff, but they’ve got a few more complicated rackets they inherited when they absorbed the remnants of the Kwantung mob. They’ve already fucked up most of them, though, on account of most of the new generation have had their capacity for delayed-gratification totally fried by methamphetamine abuse. 

Symbols - A burning cross, the confederate flag, the colors white and red
Henchmen - Stereotypical white trash, men and women, with rotting teeth and a fondness for white wifebeaters, red plaid, and shotguns
Leader - China White, 1Σ (Zap II [Fly I])
Telekinetic control over any and all porcelain objects within 15 feet, with a lifting capacity near half a ton. “Flies” by telekinetically lifting his several-hundred pound suit of ceramic armor, floats a couple of old, dirty toilets behind him to throw at people - more damaging if he has time to spin them up to speed before he lets go.
He rarely lets himself be seen outside the armor, but when he does he’s just an extremely fat, extremely pale white guy in his late 40’s… lack of fitness and excessive paleness both caused by spending most of the day levitating around inside rather than like, walking normally, with some amount of bare skin showing. Not the brightest guy, though he is the leader - he’s arrogant as hell, but not actually that smart, mostly just ruling through fear and brute force. 
Crossburner superhumans
Black Tar, 1Σ (Martial I [+DEX, STR], Ace I) , Combustion (gunfire included) fails in 30-ft radius, attempts jam machinery with black slime, fast as a racehorse, dual-wields machetes

Go-fast, 1Σ (Weird I, Martial I [+DEX, Con]) Daily “resets” to exact location, physical, mental, state, where he last had sex.. fearless, immune to pain, runs around nude with sawn-off shotguns 
Bolivian March, 1Σ (Ace I, Create I) Can turn human corpses into clones of himself and his stuff (dissolves into corpse-dust when killed again), who walk in lockstep and repeat all his actions exactly…  uses literal 19th century rifle-and-bayonet tactics 

Moorish Native Mujahideen (AKA: The Moorish Native Mujhadeen, The Almighty Moorish Nation) - 

A criminal syndicate from the south side of Chicago, the windy city’s largest and most powerful. They credit their success to the practice of a heterodox form of afrocentrist “islam” that appropriates doctrines from a bunch of other groups, but in practice it functions more as recruiting tool than actual moral code. They’ve tried taking over Kwangchow twice before, both times failing miserably. They’ve got a new guy trying it, though, a smarter guy.. under Poprock, they’ve been moving slower, more cautiously - still distrusted, but they’re making inroads, getting to know the city, recruiting locally.. at the moment, nobody thinks them a big enough threat to throw everything at, and by the time they change their mind, it’ll be far too late to matter. 

Symbols - the letters MNM, scimitar and star, ankh and skull, stylized candy, rainbow-patterned clothing

Henchmen - Mostly older black guys with rainbow-bandanas and glocks, almost all imported from chicago.. very few local recruits atm

Leader -  Poprock, 2Σ (Martial I, [+WIS, DEX] Ace I [Fly], Durable II)

Can reverse gravity for himself and anything he’s carrying, falling upwards into the heavens until he decides to stop. Ultra-tough, flexible flesh stops most bullets and makes him nearly immune to blunt force trauma, which he takes advantage of to let him get places quickly by just anti-gravving high up and then crashing to the ground wherever he needs to be. Proficient in dual-wielded uzis. 

The leader of MNM’s expeditionary group, an older, but still lithe and agile black guy who’s been with the syndicate since its foundation. Sunglasses, fancy suit and shiesty, the latter two bleached-white and covered in swirling patterns of colorful rhinestone. He’s a seasoned criminal, and he didn’t get that way through being an idiot.. he favors a methodical, reserved, and cautious approach to criminal enterprise, or at least as cautious as one can be in a business like this. Really, there’s something in his calm, professional ruthlessness quite a bit more frightening than the in-your-face hostility of the stereotypical bloodthirsty lunatic.  

MNM superhumans

Pixie-stick, 1Σ (Zap I, Durable I) Superheated plasma instead of blood, erupts as jet from any cut or breach and annihilates anything nearby.. Paper-thin skin, easily torn, but heals ultra-fast to close wounds, doesn’t help with internal injury though.. rapper of exceptional talent, only still robbing guys for the love of the game

Jolly Rancher, 1Σ (Create I, Martial I [+CON, CHA]) A cow-whisperer of exceptional skill.. can painfully vomit up a live, full-sized texas longhorn in about a minute, usually has a decent sized-herd built up to stampede 

Airhead, 1Σ (Think I, Shift I) Instinctive knowledge of in-situ production of chemical weaponry, which she’s immune to because of the gas mask fused to her face  

Read Marshal Law but not this far

Immortal Soul (AKA: The Immortal Soul Disciples) 

The second-greatest of Kwangchow’s supervillain groups, with a body of unpowered members on par with the crossburners and certainly exceeding MNM’s current presence - relegated to a secondary role by their lower number of superhumans, largely due to higher turnover rate. Mostly african-american, but a small latino minority - their relative inclusiveness being one of the things differentiating them from their archenemies the Black Mambas, with whom they’re constantly engaged in low-level territory war. 

Symbols - Heart with halo and wings, the colors white and blue 

True Immortal, 2Σ (Shift III, Martial 1 [+INT, CHA])

Whenever he takes an actually substantial amount of damage, True Immortal transforms into a 12-ton mass of spiny red tentacles, strong enough to pull down concrete walls, fast enough to outrace most cars, and just about immune to anything short of high explosives. In this state, he is totally uncontrollable and fully non-sentient, and will attempt to kill and eat everything in sight. 

The leader of Immortal Soul, a black guy in his late 50’s who goes about in diamond-studded chain and balenciaga, no costume other than raw wealth. His abilities are widely known, and he’ll try tactics like holding his enemies hostage by holding a gun to his own chest - generally not in his best interests to actually transform, due to the inevitable damage to his own side, but when push comes to shove he won’t hesitate to pull the trigger. 

Baroque, 1Σ (Zap I, Shift I) 

Constantly and involuntarily emits a blindingly bright light from her eyes, strong as a football-field floodlights when not blocked by her sunglasses.. with concentration, can focus into a single coherent beam powerful enough to flash-carbonize flesh at a range of several hundred feet. 

Black woman who goes about in a hoodie, a black balaclava, and extremely thick flip-up-sunglasses (to protect everyone else ).. In her early 30’s, is actually True Immortal’s niece, has been trying to work up the courage to run away and go “hero” for ages now. 

Coraźon, 1Σ (Shift I, Brawn I)

Ordinary super-strength allows him to go around cavorting around in extremely heavy metal armor without collapsing. Can dial up super-strength to substantially higher-levels, but starts sweating like a waterfall -  has to throw back a bottle of gatorade every 6 seconds to avoid dying of dehydration while in super-state, more afterwards.

Immortal Soul’s remaining superhuman, a mexican dude whose recruitment was the reason Immortal Soul started letting latinos join at all - True Immortal thought he was too good to pass up, Cape muscle being relatively rare even in Kwangchow. 

Black Mambas  (AKA: The Almighty Mamba Nation) 

Kwangchow’s third-ranking super-gang, Immortal Soul’s greatest rivals.. have fewer unpowered members and a smaller territory, but just as many capes, and a slightly better rep among the younger generation. For the most part the two gangs are bitter rivals, fighting constantly over territory and blood-debts and things of that sort, but they’ve collaborated once before, in the semi-recent past.. joining hand-in-hand to foil MNM’s second attempt at taking over the city. This time, though, there has ben and will be no alliance - not unless someone convinces them otherwise.  

Symbols - A serpent with fangs bared, the colors black and red 

Grootslang, 1Σ (Shift II [Durable I, Fly I, Brawn I]) 

Can, at will, take on an obviously draconic form, gaining a coat of black scales that turns knives and slows bullets and a pair of membranous wings which let him fly like a really large eagle. Flapping of wings creates deafening thunderclaps, can sweep up dustclouds and blow away light wheeled vehicles and small animals.  

The leader of the black mambas, in his human shape a somewhat obese, heavily tattooed african-american male in his early 30’s, with a great deal of ambition but lacking the power or skill to match. Spends every night cursing the name of his younger brother, who he spent his childhood bullying for his interest in music, up until said brother attained actual success as a rapper and moved away to fame and fortune. Carries an M-16 with an underbarrel grenade-launcher.  

Lazy Eye, 1Σ (Durable I, Percieve I) Extremely obese black man, with enough padding to reflect most blunt objects and cushion from sudden impacts. Can rotate eyes independently, see though own flesh, including back of head, giving effective 360 degree vision - surprisingly good at shooting backwards. 

Antipatrick, 1Σ (Durable I, Create I) Immune to most poisons, can turn any water he looks at into a writhing mass of extremely aggressive venomous serpents which crawl as a living flood towards him until he reverts them to water. African-american, never been to europe, affects a faux-irish accent as part of the gimmick. 

Have I mentioned you should read Blood Syndicate

Fire and Ice

A smaller gang founded and led by twin sisters Pyroclastic and Cryoplastic, who have matching superpowers and luchado-styled costumes. It consists of them and a few henchmen, engaging mostly in low-level violent crime - smash-and-grabs, muggings, home invasions, corner-store stickups, etc. They’re both white (soundcloud rappers), but the gang itself is multiethnic on account of being a purely money-making operation. 

Symbols - A burning ice cube, the colors blue and red 

Pyroclastic, 1Σ (Zap I, Ace I) Can project blasts of flame from her hands, except her fire has the strange property of making whatever it heats more rigid, not less - everything solidifies, hardens, becomes inflexible, even ice. 

Cryoplastic, 1Σ (Zap I, Ace I) Can project blasts of liquid nitrogen from her hands, except her cold has the strange property of making whatever it freezes more plastic, as the name implies - water becomes more malleable as it freezes, somehow. 

RED EYE RISING OVER THE ICE - GLOG SETTING & CLASSES

    It’s hard to believe that for most of human history, our ancestors looked up and saw the heavens - the forbidden abode of celestial gods sipping on peach-wine and star-nectar, living with nary a thought to the short lives of the mud-men below. When human artifice at last breached the dome of the firmament, when we broke past the prison of gravity and strode out into the infinite blackness, we thought ourselves Prometheans and deicides, breaking past the final barrier and sending us literally rocketing into the infinite future, joining our gods to dance forever among the stars in perfect transhuman bliss. Clearly our ancestors were fucking morons, life in space is just as shitty as it is on earth.  

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

     The Gallilean moons, the icy jewels studding jupiters crown, are just about the last outpost of real human life in the solar system - any further out and you get nothing but hard vacuum and dead matter. Sure, technically there are “people” in Neptune’s orbit, but you’d be hard-pressed to call an existence in the Titanian Emirates “real life”, not when you’re more microplastic than flesh and your every nerve-twitch is regulated by Larouchite-Wahhabism. If you want to live - really live, fighting and fucking and cells dividing, biting strangers for scraps of meat and exulting wild and free - then more than the lichen-steppe of Mars or the blimp-cities of Venus, more even then the infinite fractal Kowloons of the original motherworld, it is the Gallileans you seek. Here there are hard men and harder women, here there is a life unbound by any laws save those of the ever-hungering void - here there are spider-legged ships dancing through gossamer rings, here there are outlawed extremists and gene-warped monstrosities and  everyone and everything that’s ever run away. Here there are lead-suited convicts hauling volcanic ore into Io’s ever-moving mineships, here there are the reg-crete  spires of Callisto, here there are icebreaking trawlers sailing through fog-covered straits under the glint of Ganymede’s thousand mirror-suns and here there are pressure-suited scientists speaking to alien minds beneath Europa’s ice. Here, there is, in short, never a shortage of tasks, never a dull day… heaven this may never be, but to some of it’s peoples, that’s a positive, if anything.

Killborg: The first two humans to ever disagree beat each other to death with sticks and stones, each one pitting it’s own body against the other, contesting the strength of their sinew. As the eons passed, we changed our weapons, we changed our tactics, we even invented new reasons to kill each other, but we still used the same old bodies that had first started lobbing bones. Incredible anyone managed to die at all really - we’re long past such things now.

You’re a Killborg, a biomechanical cyborg literally built for combat. You may have started out human, or have been grown in a vat - it’s impossible to tell now. Some institution did this to you, and you probably worked for them for a while, but your term of service is up now - you escaped, somehow, were discharged for poor conduct or obsolescence, or just had whatever body you were serving collapse. The marks of your service still weigh heavy on your body and mind - literally in the former case. 

Starting Items:

Discharge papers, one 2-handed gun (your choice, any off the list), additional large weapon (other 2-handed gun, 2-handed melee weapon, or tactical shield), gun an ordinary person would need to use a mount to for (machine-gun, anti-materiel rifle, infantry mortar), a shitload of ammo

Starting Skill:

1. Murderin’
2. Slaughterin’
3. Butcherin’
4. Ending lives
5. Extinguishing the flame vital, cutting short the golden thread, stopping hearts and quieting brains
6. Killin’

A: Cybercop, Murderbot

B: Juice Cleanse OR Moonshine

C: Deprogramming OR Sovereign Citizen

D: Reach Heaven OR Through Violence

Cybercop- There are a set of rules. You understand them, deep in your five artificial hearts, because they made you understand them. Deep enough you need a CHA roll to disobey any of them, actually. Gain 50 XP whenever you succeed on a CHA roll to disobey one of these commands. 

• Destroy evidence of wrongdoing by the Worthy Three - the Company, the State, and the Soldier (other Killborgs).  
• Follow the commands of the Worthy Three, unless it would immediately harm you, harm your finances, or return you to their service.
• Respond to any provocation with immediate and exaggerated violence. Show not a shred of mercy to those outside the Worthy Three. 
• Do not accept advice nor pay respect to those outside the Worthy Three. Go out of your way to do the opposite, actually.  

Murderbot- You were made into a tool, more machine than man. Literally, by weight most of your body mass is artificial, all those composite plates and hydraulic muscles and rare-earth batteries are really godammn heavy. 

• You have [the maximum armor for non-vehicles] and can make yourself immune to poison, vacuum, and drowning by sealing your breathing valves - which is convenient because you sink like the 600 pound amalgamation of metal and ceramic you are.
• Your CON is 18, you can hold your breath for 15 minutes, and you never tire of exertion - as long as you consume your daily 5 gallons of Certified Acceptable™️ biofuels. Note that the latter might be difficult to acquire as they’re somewhat of a controlled substance, and if you get a criminal record you won’t be able to purchase it anymore.  
• Your STR is 18, and you can carry any weapon as if it were a size smaller (a rifle in one hand, or a tripod-mounted machine gun in two) - though your overwhelming strength limits manual dexterity, you can’t even use 

Juice Cleanse- You’ve gained the ability to live off of regular sugary beverages instead of military biofuels, and gained just a bit of understanding of non-Three scum, enough to show a bit of respect for them them and their advice. The poorer diet has unfortunately negatively affected your abilities though - reroll your Constitution score, change your HP to match, and remove your immunity to exertion. You can now hold your breath for up to an hour though so that’s a positive. 

Moonshine- You’ve broken the corporate leash of your own metabolism - no longer do you need special military biofuels, you can now digest any old thing so long as it’s also biofuel, like the stuff algae farms use to run tractors. You’ve also learned to be able to actually listen to the advice of ordinary people instead of disregarding it out of hand - not that you’ll show it, still need a CHA roll to outwardly display respect to anyone, even, no, especially the Three.  

Deprogamming- The so-called “honor” code which bound you to serve Evil and hide it from the public is gone, you’re free at last. As a symbol of that freedom you’ve come out of your shell - literally, the tracking chips in it meant you had to pry it off, the outer hard layers at least. The inner padding that remains is only enough to give you a natural armor of [shitty armor class], but shedding the weight of all that means you’re now actually lighter and more agile than an ordinary human - your DEX is now 17 if it wasn’t already higher, and obviously you no longer have to deal with sinking. 

Sovereign Citizen- You’re no longer enslaved to serve the interests of anyone save yourself, no more protecting and serving the big Three- though you are literally forced to serve your own interests, you’re incapable of any kind of purely altruistic endeavor - gotta be something in it for you. You had to damage your armor a bit to pry out their bugs and the vacuum-seals no longer work but it still grants you a natural armor of [next-best armor class].

Reach Heaven- Your hands are no longer mere tools of destruction, you’ve bent your artificial muscles into something capable of actual creation, of drawing an image and sculpting a pot and typing up a manuscript. Nor are you psychologically bound to destruction - not only do you need not retaliate, not only can you now forgive and forget, you can expertly maintain calm during the most heated of arguments and have Deescalation as a skill. The flip side though is that you’re no longer nearly as proficient in the dealing of death, incapable of firing a mortar from over your shoulder and other such feats - in fact you’re no longer even capable of violence at all except in self-defense. 

Through Violence- You’ve freed yourself entirely from the will of lesser men, no provocation can force you to act unless you will it. In fact, nothing and no-one can force you to act except at your own leisure - should a gun be pressed to your temple, you will not, can not do what is asked unless you want to - impending death does not justify action, only positive reward. Your artificial muscles decay, slightly from lack of maintenance - your STR score is now only 17 - but you gain Resilience as a skill. 

Painted Devil: You’re a Painted Devil - a knight of the underworld, an outlaw soldier who marks their profession by extensive body modification. No two of your kind look the same, but the combined image is unmistakable  

Starting Items:

Customized synthleather jumpsuit, one two-handed weapon of your choice, two one-handed weapons of your choice, 2d4 boxes of ammunition, fuel, or batteries as appropriate to prior weapons, thousands of ₱ in cosmetic surgery

Starting Skill:

1. Heraldry (gang signs)
2. Equestrianship (motorbikes)
3. Music (music) 
4. Calligraphy (graffiti)  
5. Liturgical latin (old-earth spanish) 
6. Tea ceremonies (The “tea” in question being more akin to Ayahuasca than matcha) 

A: Looks of Lucifer, Style of Satan, +1 to-hit

B: Eye of Ibis, +1 to-hit

C:  Devil’s Due, +1 to-hit

D: Ahriman, +1 to-hit

Looks of Lucifer-  You’re a Painted Devil, and look the part - you bear an extensive array of cosmetic surgeries that makes both you yourself and your choice of profession unmistakable. You win automatically the enmity of corpo, cop, fed, and the rest of the “law”, and the respect (and fear) of everyone else.  Walk alone, at night, in the most dangerous part of the worst slum and nobody will give you shit - can’t say the same if you walk into city. hall. Any kind of organized criminal is obliged to offer you parley, and is likely to offer you a job. Also, of course, your look is distinct, personal, unmistakable - choose how you look, what modifications you’ve had done and what you look like as a result - and gain double XP for every 100 nupesos you spend on additional cosmetic surgery.  

Style of Satan  You are a student of the art of killing. You get a +[template]s bonus to-hit (already marked in the templates of course) and know two Styles - that is,  some kind of fancy combat technique, like martian chainsaw juggling or freefall jiu-jitsu. A list of such is provided below. You gain 10 XP every time you learn another Style. 

Eye of Iblis-  You may now Recognize Styles. You Recognize any Styles you already know yourself, as well as any used by someone you’ve already defeated in a fair fight. Note that even if someone doesn’t know a capital-S Style of the type with actual mechanics, anyone with any sort of combat training will be using some sort of style which you can Recognize if you’ve defeated them before - kill one marine and you can Recognize anyone using the MCMAP, for instance. Attacks or Maneuvers against you by someone currently using a Style you Recognize have Disadvantage. Whichever Style someone last used is considered the one they’re currently using for all Attacks and Maneuvers, unless they choose to switch to another Style. To be clear you should write down what Styles you Recognize. 

Devi’s Due-  You’ve advanced further in the art of killing. +3 to any Attacks or Maneuvers by you against someone using a Style you Recognize. You may now attempt to Recognize a Style you don’t already know while it’s being used against you in combat, with a successful INT roll granting Recognition.

Ahriman-  You’re now a true master of the art of killing. You now immediately know and can use any Style you Recognize, adding it immediately to the list of those you know. 

Styles: Not a complete list, but a bunch of examples. Note that these are not Painted Devil Styles, they’re Styles which Painted Devils have collected - GM’s should be giving these styles to regular NPC’s who fit the bill of the Style’s users 

Halogen knife-fighting: A “dirty” close-quarters style originating among Atlantean maintenance divers, focused on tactical use of light sources to stun opponents and create openings for knife attacks. You have +[templates] to any Maneuver to blind someone with your flashlight or headlamp or what have you, and when you succeed on such a Maneuver you may immediately make a melee attack against them with advantage. 

Martian chainsaw juggling: A gimmicky style from the underground bloodsport scene of the Mars. Users can juggle up to six-hands (three two-handed, six one-handed, one two-handed and four two-handed, etc) worth of chainsaws or other similar powered blades (ie buzzsaws and such). Anything being juggled can be thrown as an attack - treat as equivalent melee attack with the weapon, just with longer range. Requires at least moderate gravity to work, since you can’t juggle in freefall. 

Freefall jiu-jitsu: A melee style developed in the terran langrage-point stations for fighting in zero gravity - its techniques only work in frefall. Users move twice as fast while “climbing” or pushing themselves along and whatnot in zero-g and on successful melee attack can sweep their target into an aerial spin- anyone spin-pinned can’t move unless they have like, thrusters or wings or something and have disadvantage all rolls until they can grab hold of a surface and stablize themselves (dex roll).

Lunar gun-jumping: Developed by outlaws on the lunar colonies, a style that exploits the recoil of one’s own weapons in low gravity-environments as a mobility method. You can sort of fly by just shooting at the ground repeatedly, but you’ll run out of ammo pretty quickly. Also you can try to dodge attacks by shoot-jumping in the air (DEX roll, don’t take damage on success). . 

Pygmy Spacer:  You come from a long line of spacers, tracing your descent back to the first rock-rats of the modern late 21st century. Spacer instincts have been stamped into your blood  and drilled into your mind, and you’ll boast as much. Sure, you’re a bit shorter than average - the result of selection for those capable of fitting in the cramped quarters of the early days of space travel - but your ego isn’t nearly as small as your frame. 

Starting Items:

Cheapest space-suit available, flight-suit bearing your family crest, (probably baseless) claim of descent from some pygmy tribe, tools of whatever your skill is 

Starting Skill: 

1. Life support technician (basically just a fancy way of saying plumber)
2. Engineer (in the engine maintenance sense, not the machine design sense)
3. Programmer (for physical machines, ships have computerized systems obvs)
4. Astrogator (like navigator but in space)
5. Gunner (includes lasers and missiles, not just ballistics) 
6. Pilot (self explanatory)

A: Small, Spacer instincts

B: Vacuum-hardened

C: Family ties

D: White whale

Small-  You’re less than 4’10 feet tall, and as a result you need less air, food, water, and living space, and can wriggle through crevices and such, but you’re less strong (-3 to your STR score) and have only half (1/2) the carrying capacity of a normal person.  

Spacer instincts- You have a 2+[templates]-in-6 chance to sense stuff like deadly radiation, carbon monoxide, and leaks in the hull immediately whenever you enter a room or craft or compartment in which such flaws present themselves. Gain 100 XP whenever you totally humiliate someone through demonstration of your superior spacer knowledge. 

Vacuum-hardened- You treat your rolls as [templates] lower for saves against damage from decompression, carbon monoxide poisoning  radiation, microgravity damage, and claustrophobia-induced psychosis. (roll-under)

Family ties- Whenever you’re in a major spaceport and you have a vaguely space-related job you need you have a 1+[templates]-in-6 chance to get a cousin who just so happens to have the exact skillset needed for the job. Cousins are like hirelings but they’re also one template Pedigree Spacers and since they already have family loyalty they’ll be willing to do more for you, like not running away, selling you out, and helping out in firefights and such, but if you get too many killed or like sell them into slavery or whatever your family will shun you and you can no longer hire more cousins until you make amends, probably via a lot of very expensive gifts. 

White whale - Whenever you’re next crewing a spaceship, you get a blip on the sensors that you recognize - a signal from a family stake-beacon, placed on some orbital object. You know this one, from family stories. It’s famous, the one that got away, a huge haul one of your ancestors came across, marked, and then lost forever. It’s within your grasp, now - if you can catch it, you’ll be rich beyond your wildest dreams, but fail and you’ll never see it again. . Also it’ll maneuver in wacky ways even though it doesn’t have thrusters because it’s on a really fucked up weird orbit, and it’s guaranteed to be on a path right through some sort of hazard, like a radiation belt, a cluster of micrometeoroids, or a bunch of space pirates. 

White whales (d4) 

1. A deep-space observation telescope, the antenna meant to control the thing snapped when it launched and it’s been spiraling through space for like a decade but it’s still carrying a bunch of really expensive scientific instruments and shit, Moore’s law has been dead for centuries so stuff obsoletes slower  
2. A 21st century spaceship, VOL Nederlands written on it’s side in sun-bleached letters. Though it’s hull is breached and it’s engines broken, it the historical artifacts remaining inside - especially the mummified corpses of it’s crew - would be worth a fortune to the right collector. 
3. A snow-white comet, streaking through the heavens in a trail of sharp dust - spectroscopy shows immediately that the “white” is because the comet’s regolith is 80% composed of rare-earth oxides - honestly like, geologically this probably shouldn’t be possible but you’re not complaining. 
4. A life-support pod, still sealed, still functioning.. inside is an albino neocete of exceptional size, custom-grown in Ganymede’s seas by a biotech firm as an experiment in superintelligence through brain-enlargement -  they or anyone else  

Quack:  For much of history, the vast majority of medicine was derived from natural life - medicinal herbs, poultices made of crushed insects, bezoars from the bellies of the Ox. Earth’s biodiversity has long been exhausted - most of it annihilated by climate change and pollution and habitat loss, etc, etc, and what survived quite thoroughly studied and catalogued. Europa’s rich ecoystem’s, then, presented an incredible opportunity for medical pioneers, drawing in visionaries from across the system. As it turns out though, not everyone manages to hack it in the ultra-competitive “institutional” research sphere - quite a few end up as itinerant doctors, developing their own… “unique” treatments while muttering to themselves about how they’ll show all those small-minded doubters. You’re one of them.  

Starting Items:

Plastic goggles, box of rubber gloves, fake-looking lab uniform, a suitcase filed with basic chemical equipment (graduated vials, pipettes, tongs, thermometers, hot-plate and centrifuge and still and such), and 2d6 doses of your first Treatment

Starting Skill:

1. Science fiction (writing, genre knowledge)
2. Philosophy (self help brand) 
3. Theology (broad range, inaccurate knowledge of most religions) 
4. Theology (specific religion - choose -  heretical personal interpretation) 
5. Traditional medicine (as opposed to working medicine) 
6. Actual medicine (somehow)

A: Alternative medicine, Naturopathy 

B: Accept no Substitutes
C: Goat Glands  

D: Patent medicine 

Alternative Medicine- You’ve developed a Treatment - some kind of incredible elixir, a drug of your own devising with some effect on the body when ingested, injected, inserted as a suppository, or whatever other delivery method you’ve chosen. This drug has some desirable effect, some neutral or negative side effect, and some rare, unique ingredient you used to create it. Because of the “experimental” nature of your Treatments, whenever you administer them, you must roll for Complications whenever it is used. Any Treatments you have the recipe for (have already made yourself or have stolen from another Quack) you may attempt to produce again, if you can obtain another sample of whatever ingredient was first used, but as it won’t be an exact copy and won’t have the exact characteristics of the original blend, this requires an INT check. Total failure means the new batch just doesn’t work at all, total success means it works the same as last time, partial success (succeeding but with a margin of 3 or less) means the new batch works but already has an extenuating circumstance on it. 

Naturopathy- If you obtain some interesting, exotic base material - wastewater dripping from the hull of some old ship’s reactor, a delicate crystal from an Ionian lava-flow, or the venom of some Europan spider - you may attempt to develop a new treatment with it as the base material. This process takes 1d4 weeks, and requires an INT check at the end of the process to determine whether or not the treatment actually has any effect. If you do succeed, you produce 2d6 doses of your new Treatment. As they say, you learn more from failure than success - gain 100 xp at the end of a failed research process, and 50 at the end of a successful one. 

Accept no Substitutes- You’re no longer limited to copying the Treatments of other Quacks whose recipes you’ve taken. You can now attempt to reverse-engineer normal, professionally-made pharmaceuticals, with a decent sample of the drug, a week of study, and an INT check - still have to roll Complications whenever their taken due to your less-than-professional manufacturing, but if they work they’ll have the same effects as the normal stuff. 

Goat Glands-  Following in the tradition of the old greats of your profession - such as Brinkley and Voronoff - you have taken not only to the temporary miracle of the pill and elixir, but to more permanent enhancements. You can now, in addition to producing Treatments, perform Operations - surgically implanting some foreign organ into them in order to enhance their natural abilities. Whatever your subject is, a process that takes several hours and requires 1d4 weeks of rest to recover from. Your subject, the canvas for this work of art, must make a constitution check then, and then again at the start of each new month for 1d4 months, or suffer some effect of Rejection (consult the table). Following that, it adjusts and they’re fine, if they’re still alive. 

Patent medicine - Choose one of your Treatments. You stumble on a method of producing and administering it in a stable and reliable manner. You no longer have to roll for complications whenever the new stuff is used unless there’s Extenuating Circumstances or serious faults in the manufacturing process. If you can set up an actual factory for the stuff you’ll be able to actually market it, maybe even be acquired by a real pharma firm, in which case you’re set for life. 

Complications: d12 + [templates] - 1 for every Extenuating Circumstance 

1. Immediate death from heart attack or brain aneurysm or something 
2. Severe allergic reaction, will die in a few minutes without immediate medical attention
3. Side effect magnified to dangerous proportions (dm interpretation)
4. Has exactly the opposite of intended effect
5. Just straight up doesn’t do anything at all 

  6-12. Works as intended 

Extenuating Circumstance: Basically anything which might cause complications with the Treatment. An incomplete list of extenuating circumstances (gm can and should come up with more if relevant to situation)- 

• Treatment has been stored in poor conditions, or is really old  
• Administered by someone with zero medical knowledge, or who is mentally compromised (ie inebriated, distracted, etc)
• Recipient is already under the effects of another Treatment 
• Recipient is of abnormal body-size (messes with dosage obvs)
• Recipient is not human or lab-rat 
• Recipient is, in addition to not being human, not even like a mammal or anything
• Recipient is, in addition to not being neither human nor mammalian, not even of earthly origin, but is of an alien with vaguely compatible biochemistry (ie Europan)

Rejection: For Operations, of course, if the subject fails their Con check. roll 1d6 and suffer the effects if they do.

1. Implanted organ fails to take, dies, severe allergic reaction will kill recipient within minutes unless immediate medical attention given
2. Implanted organ fails to take, dies, starts rotting and will cause sepsis if not removed quickly
3. Implanted organ fails to take, dies, starts being absorbed by body
4. Implanted organ takes, but severe allergic reaction saps energy and causes breakouts of rash and such, recipient is bedridden for 1d6 days
5. Implanted organ takes, but allergic reaction causes constant pain, inflammation, Disadvantage on anything that requires concentration until rash goes away (1d6 days)
6. Implanted organ takes, but integration is hampered - cannot benefit from ability for 1d6 days

Example Treatments:

Dr. Wang’s Wunderfuuuul Carotenoid Elixir:

Ingredient: Tuber of a century old Europan “anemone”

Effect: Improved night-vision, aiming, advantage on ranged weapon attacks in low-light conditions 

Side-effect: Eyes glow in the dark 

Dr. Wang’s Incredible Revivifying Serum:

Ingredient: Salt-crystal crystalized and fished out of an abandoned reactor pool

Effect: Injected into intact corpse dead for less than an hour, prompts immediate reanimation for a period of 1d6 minutes 

Side effect: Ressurectee incredibly, violently, and permanently enraged

 Dr. Wang’s Miraculous Nootropic Suppository :

Ingredient:  Radiotrophic fungus growing on the corpse of a spaced mummy

Effect: Recipient feels like a genius, mind instantly works out a solution to any problem. Said solutions are generally impractical, of poor quality, and based on fundamental misconceptions as to the nature of said problem.

Side-effect: Insanely addictive, single dose will have you hooked for life. 

Example Operations:

Rhesus monkey ovaries implanted in thigh, hormone release alters muscle tone such that DEX score counts a 3 higher for any roll involving dancing, climbing, feces-flinging

Tongue replaced with proboscis of Europan Shell-Demon, can shoot tiny darts containing lethal neurotoxin (Small ranged attack w/ range of 10’, no damage but if hit target has heart attack in 3d6 minutes)

Additional whole human arm partially sewn onto base of existing arm, recipient now 3 armed - no dex bonus or extra attacks or anything but can like, hold three one-handed items at once or one two-handed and one one-handed and such

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

This is technically the first post of this blog, so uh, welcome. I wrote like 90% of this a year ago and just, never finished or published it - now's a good as time as any, though.  Unsure whether or not I'll actually return to this setting, given it's been a while since I've really thought about this - honestly more a cathartic exercise than anything. 

Apologies for the use of "advantage" and "disadvantage", this was all written before I'd really deprogrammed from 5e.. such is life

Look forward to - something - once in a blue moon, maybe.