Cult Campaign

In the wake of this post I have decided I would like to run a cult of machina game. The earliest I would be able to start would be in a fortnight. The game will be set in the Eastern Bank, or at least will open there, since getting caught is not an option. Though if you do get an agent team set on you those same agents can be turned into valuable resources. That, combined with all the bad asses around, reinforces the proper sense of desperation into the cult outlook. Currently I am leaning towards Shanghai but I'm open to suggestions if you would like to begin the campaign somewhere else in the EB (such as Mumbai?). Expect irregular sessions, at most one every fortnight and I can take up to six players.

Cult!Oracle characters and OC's, original cultists, will be equally welcome. And while Oracle will exist in setting, you will not get to be from them. Oracle will make great antagonists in this game given their ease of access to everything that you, as a member of the cult of the machine, are denied. I will not be sticking entirely to Oracle's time line or established bases, though for obvious reasons.

As members of the same cell you will be a very close knit group. While cultists don't form attachments in quite the same way us regular folks do, your fellow cell members are the only ones you can rely on fully. As such I will expect the player characters to step on inter-party conflict should it occur, arguments are fine so long as they remain constructive. As wannabe machines you really ought to be above such fleshy weaknesses as recriminations and grudges, at least within your own cell. Individually you are but cogs in the machine, only together do you function. This applies even more to a cultist who has been dedicated into a single purpose machine.

It is worth bearing in mind that cultists are not evil, as a rule, simply uncompromisingly driven. And as a cultist approaches their goal of machine purity, removing more of their weak flesh and replacing it with the venerated machine, it becomes even more difficult to move undetected among the human cattle. Or to move at all, in some cases. I encourage you to create these unusual obstacles and tackle them creatively. Remember, murder is not the best solution, but it just might be the most viable one. I will not enforce a shared ideology between the cultists in the cell, but mutually exclusive ones are a no-go. I will leave it to the players to decide how long they have known each other or been together as a group but you will have all gone “underground” as a unit for three months at the beginning of the game.

The first session will begin halfway into a “mission” to help get into the swing of things but will be reasonably sandbox-y from there. I want to put emphasis on the gruesome decisions you make and the consequences thereof which will, of course, come back to bite you. The cell's survival should be considered a first priority and a constant cause for concern. No matter what you manage to get away with >=P

***

Character gen

Players have several options for character creation. You will get one custom cybernetic prototype of your choosing, provided I approve it and one extra training. Players will also start with 500c worth of additional equipment.

Option 1) Agent

Gen as a starting agent of your chosen corp, barring Oracle, Shi Yukiro, the UIG and the OTF. If you wish to be from a minor corp without a specified bonus then we can work something out.

Option 2) Employee

In this case your character was merely an employee of your chosen Corporation and never became an agent, the same corps as before are off limits. Gen using the basic security guard stats on core P229 (40 points) but with normal skills. You still get the company bonus, for example if from Takata you would still receive the disguise net. You will also begin play with 75000c worth of cybernetics but because of what it took to get them they will be condition 8, pay as book price. Custom cult appropriate cybernetics to boost stats/skills/av etc are allowable again, provided my approval. Employees alos start with three points of licenses.

Option 3) Outcast

One way or another you never worked for a corporation. Generate with Security guard stats but normal skills, however, otherwise normal people simply never have access to the variety of trainings that others do, so bear that in mind when selecting your trainings. You will begin play with 75000c worth of cybernetics but as before they will be condition 8, pay listed price, cult cybernetics are encouraged. Custom cult appropriate cybernetics to boost stats/skills/av etc are allowable again, provided my approval. Finally at the very most anyone taking this option will be an outcast rank-wise, due to the sheer amount of time and cybernetics they have put into being a member of the cult of machina. As such an individual you would be experienced at avoiding arrest and making illicit deals without having to go through the Ai-Jinn.

***

Having looked through the trainings in preparation there are some modifications I would like to make for the purposes of this campaign detailed below;
-The Scavenger (EB 12) and Salvager (MoW 12) trainings are being merged, so that you will be able to make use of a depletable toolkit without being completely dedicated to it, if so you choose.
-Cyberweapon affinity will no longer require mastered weapon.


And thats it. If you are interested even after all those words, please let me know in the space below & feel free to ask any questions you may have. However please also consider answering the following questions, as that would help me out immensely.

-Do you have a name in mind for your cultist yet? If so, what is it?
-Shanghai, yes/no? Alternatives?
-Would you prefer face to face sessions or roll20?

I'd be interested, but I might be doing too much anyway, and probably won't be able to do it once term starts....

My Cultist shall be called Regeneration, and she will be a close combat monster in addition to being an actual monster.

So, SO in. Gonna play Sustenance, outcast expert on not dying yet.

Shanghai sounds good to me, and I'd be happy with either face-to-face or Roll20 but if this is a less-frequent game then we should be able to sort out in-person sessions if we plan well in advance, and it'd mean not worrying about technical issues.

On the other hand, surely we should use Roll20 because otherwise you're actively excluding The Machine from the campaign.  

Progenitor reporting.

I'm definitely up for this! Personally I would prefer in-person, but am happy to do what the majority wants. I don't have a clear character as of yet, but I am working on it.

I'd love to be part of this, but I'm not going to be in Birmingham for at least a few more weeks and don't have a solid character concept as yet (though playing something like Archive might be fun...). As such, I'd probably need it to be over Roll20, and if there are lots interested in this, I should probably be one of the lowest-priority.

Silvia Tsukuda wrote:I'd love to be part of this, but I'm not going to be in Birmingham for at least a few more weeks and don't have a solid character concept as yet (though playing something like Archive might be fun...). As such, I'd probably need it to be over Roll20, and if there are lots interested in this, I should probably be one of the lowest-priority.

I did say six players, including you, that would be five at the moment. Besides, roll20 being an option was so people not being here or having travel difficulties (tunnels I am looking at you) wouldn't be a problem. For the most part people seem fairly ambivalent on whether or not to use roll20, so I'm considering running the campaign across both, so as long as no one minds being set up for both roll20 and face to face sessions. Which one each session would be run over would be dependent of people's availability and in exceptional situations, should one be more suited for a particular session. Not that I have any experince of roll20 to determine that from or anything. Certainly it would be an interesting experiment. =D

tldr; don't be dumb, of course you can play if you want to.

Silvia Tsukuda wrote:I'd love to be part of this, but I'm not going to be in Birmingham for at least a few more weeks and don't have a solid character concept as yet (though playing something like Archive might be fun...). As such, I'd probably need it to be over Roll20, and if there are lots interested in this, I should probably be one of the lowest-priority.

Be Archive be Archive be Archive yes yes yes yes.

Alright people, when/how would we like to do this?

YOUR MOM YOUR FACE
/helpful

Hugo wrote:YOUR MOM YOUR FACE
/helpful

....

Anyone else?

I'm still in Reading at the moment, so would have to be via Roll20. I can do pretty much any evening, not so good with daytime.

Alright so, it has been a long time. I would like to run the first session sometime during the week starting on the 21st October. Any evening other than Tuesday is currently good for me. I am waiting on finished characters from Ben and Chris. This has been your PSA and remember ~The Flesh is Weak.~

Okay so, as I am having ideas for the next campaign I would like to run I think its well past time we started this one. Especially since I have had all of your characters for a while now. That being said most of the term has gone by already so...
I would like to propose that we hold the first session on Friday the 29th in person, in my house at 7pm. Please let me know if this is suitable/no good. Thanks =)

That is fine by me. I may or may not have come up with a name for my character by then, (cult name that is), but i will be new enough to have not earned one yet, if that ends up being the situation.

29th should be fine by me.

yes

Though I did confirm on IRC, I feel the need to post here to say that yep, that's good for me too.

A reminder: Cult game is on tonight. 7pm be there or be... fleshy?

I would like to run the next session on the 7th of Feb rather than the 31st Jan as previously scheduled. It also occurs to me that the session after that would have fallen on the 14th of Feb, so yeah lets not do that. If it is amenable to people I would like to run the next next session on the 21st and then go back to the regular schedule.

So the next three games would be on the 7th, the 21st and the 28th of Feburary, if that works for everyone?

Thats fine by me.

Works for me - turns out I wouldn't have been able to do the 31st anyway.