Character Primer

Things fall apart...

No one knows how the nano-plague got started, not really. Rogue AI? Some experiment that escaped a lab someplace? Any of that is likely. What we do know is that suddenly, stuff started breaking, from the ball popping out of you ballpoint pen to planes with perfect maintenance records falling out of the sky - and that's just the mechanical things. There were other problems too... mutations, monsters, call it what you will, but people changed. Not mentally.. or, not only mentally, but physically too. It seems to have started in central Asia and spread outwards from there. Efforts were made to contain it but the world is too interconnected, borders too porous, for that to do anything other than slow things down.

Eventually, the powers that be decided that the situation was untenable and the world could not be saved. A plan was set in motion to put all those gadgets that DARPA money had paid for to use and send multiple teams of volunteers - soldiers, scientists, technicians - forward through time to help rebuild. The target time is 3 years from the departure date.

You are part of one of those teams.

You said goodbye to the life you had known, boarded a C-17 cargo plane, climbed into the sky, and flew through a Quantum Singularity Tachyon (QST) Gate - essentially, a "time portal". It is a one way trip, and you knew that when you signed up.

How you fit into all this

You are a human from the present day who went through the QST gate.

Class

In game terms, you are one of the following character classes:

• Combat Engineer
• Combat Medic
• Scout
• Special Agent
• Sniper
• State Liaison
• Technician
• Trooper
• Psionic
  • Yeah, we have those. You just weren't cleared to know that until this very moment.

Occupation

In addition to the above class, you had a life before this - even a student who enlisted would be a "student" who became a "trooper".

• Academic
• Adventurer
• Athlete
• Blue Collar
• Celebrity
• Creative
• Criminal
• Doctor
• Investigator
• Law Enforcement
• Military
• Religious
• Rural
• Student
• Technician
• White Collar

Advanced Skills Training (ASTs)

I'm taking the GM perogative and breaking the rules here.

In addition to the normal class-based character advancement, this setting, as written, features Advanced Skills Training (ASTs). These are additional training which your character has taken. The thing is... they happen at level intervals. So, suddenly, at level 6, you realize that you had taken Firefighter training and just hadn't mentioned it until now. Yeah, I don't buy it.

You get 7 AST picks at levels 2, 3, 6, 9, 12, 16, and 20. So, what I'm going to have you do is pick 2 at character creation, and skip the picks on levels 2 and 3. By then, hopefully, you will have adjusted to being in The Ruin and there will be some sort of continuing education where you pick up skills along the way (and getting that instruction may be an adventure in itself).

The AST list is as follows:

• Airborne
• Air Assault
• Competition shooter
• Diver/SCUBA
• Driver
• Advanced Diver/SCUBA
• Advanced Driver
• Drown Proofing
• Drone Operator, “Small”
• Firefighter
• Paramedic
• FISTers/Forward Observer
• Mountaineering
• Hacker/Information technology
• Leadership School
• Inspiring Leader
• Linguist
• Locksmith
• Advanced Languages
• Martial Artist
• Marksman
• Weapon Proficiency
• Armor Proficiency
• Parkour
• K9 Handler
• Operator
• Radio Operator
• SERE, “Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape”
• TACP/JTAC, “Tactical Air Control Party/Joint Terminal Attack Controller”

Noes on guns and ammo

1. Ranges are given in the D&D standard of feet, not the real life standard of yards/meters. This does make weapon ranges quite short vs. real life, but we're going to use the rules as written because I assume they playtested it and it is a game balance thing.
   1. Note that scopes exist.
2. When using firearms, you add your Dex bonus to attacks as normal, but you do NOT add your Dex bonus to damage because they use a chemical propellant rather than muscles.
3. Whatever you take as your primary weapon comes with a "standard combat load".
   1. For magazine fed weapons, this is 7 magazines (1 in the gun, plus 6 spares).
      1. Since every loaded magazine weighs 1 lb, this is a 7lb load.
   2. For belt (linked) fed weapons, we'll look up what the standard is for each weapon and note it here.
      1. M249 SAW: 3 belts of 200 rounds each in a soft pouch (1 in the gun, plus 2 spares).
         1. Since every 50 lbs of linked ammo is 3lbs, this is a 36lb load.
4. Whatever you take as your secondary weapon comes with 3 loads of ammunition
   1. For magazine fed weapons, this is 3 magazines (1 in the gun, plus 2 spares)
      1. Since every loaded magazine weighs 1lb, this is a 3lb load.
   2. For a normal 6 shot revolver, this is 18 rounds.
      1. If these are loose rounds, since 18 rounds is 1lb, this is a 1lb load.
      2. If these are in speed loaders, the 2 speed loaders are 0.5lbs each, so this is a 2lb load.

Notes on gear

1. The coffee equipment entry is stupid. It's 1lb of coffee, but is one 16 oz serving, plus the container. This is dumb, you would never do this. You would bring grounds or instant in your pack and make coffee in camp. Therefore 1lb of coffee (ground or instant) makes 15 16oz cups of coffee (which has the effects detailed in the rules). The only difference is really convenience - instant is easier, but ground tastes better.
2. MRE's weigh 2 lbs, provide 1200 - 1500 calories, and are assumed to be 1/3rd of your operational calorie necessities.

Getting ruined

This is a big, fat warning for the players.

Guess what? That nano-plague? Yeah, it's not gone, and the longer you stay in this world, the more likely that it is going to change you into something else. The game calls this "the Ruin reveals". There are a few different options, but the one I'm going to go with is the random one. Periodically, I will roll for all the characters and will let you know how your character is changing. It also means that other members of the expedition will change too.

The reason I'm explicitly mentioning this is because I don't want players to be caught completely unaware that things like this can happen. You will retain control of your character and no changes will be made that make your character unplayable - your character will just be different.

Death

You just flew through a time portal with a number (groups sent were apparently between 12 and 200, depending on branch of service and combat discipline). For our group, we'll be going on the large side. This serves a few purposes:

1. Gives a pool of people from which to draw replacement characters if you die (especially the door kickers and trigger pullers).
2. Gives some additional support (drones, mortars, other special weapons teams, etc.) accessible by radio.

I am therefore going to be making up some NPCs - some of which will be higher in rank than you, and many of which will be of equal rank.

• The ones of higher rank are your officers - effectively, the "quest givers".
• The ones of similar rank are your teammates. Being a military unit, instead of hirelings, you get PFC's Bert and Ernie who are your trigger pullers. These will be assigned out to other players who are playing other soldiers - subject to GM veto of course. PFC Bert might throw himself on a grenade to save his comrades (plausible), but it's unlikely that he would open a vein to distract something pursuing you (but he might volunteer to stand and fight it to buy you time).
  • These NPCs will advance at the same rate as the players, so if your character dies, you can take over one of them.
  • Alternatively, you will draw up a replacement from elsewhere in the element, and can make up a completely new character of equivalent level to the one who died.