Promontory.
A young world orbiting two suns, its surface a pristine mask of green and blue. Seas swimming with fish, skies flitting with birds, forests rustling with the signs of beasts unseen.
Banded around the equator by an impassable wall of steel, underpinned by the workings of massive gears and incomprehensible mechanics. An artificial world, scarred by war, its natural beauty barely skin-deep and its face ever changing. With the turn of a cogwheel, a mountain falls. With the workings of a piston, an ocean rises. Landscapes become unrecognizable in the space of five years. Ancient cities and ruins, where they remain, lie in rusting heaps. Ghosts of the great war long past haunt the corners of the world. The roar of engines sound through the wilds.
For, in the wake of the war that made and broke Promontory, humanity arose. Carried by ancient, scavenged engines, they roam the surface. To settle means, sooner or later, to find one's home submerged beneath a new-birthed river or consumed by a growing sinkhole. Those that do manage to find refuge do so in the wrecks of ruined cities, left alone by the restructuring programs that render the rest of the world unreliable. Wherever they dwell, humans live on the scraps - scavenging advanced technology from the Arasti that built Promontory, or objects imbued with potent psionic powers by the revolutionary Gedynthis.
It has been hundreds of years since the fall of Promontory and the rise of humanity. Atop a remote hill, days from the nearest city, the sound of engines can be heard.
Four vehicles pull to a stop on the hill. It's early morning, fairly cool, with not a single cloud in sight. Four people step out. None of them have ever met, but they find themselves here for the same reason: The cave at the base of the hill. An unexplored ruin, previously concealed beneath a dense forest. In the last few years, the surrounding land had rose to an altitude too great for the woods to survive and thus, the entrance was revealed.
The roll of thunder sounds in the distant, cloudless east.The four are scavengers. Treasure hunters. None know for certain what lies within. They hope for riches and glory. They fear subterranean beasts and ancient traps.
They expect a little of both.
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Name:
Anything else you think is important. Appearance?:
Starting Vehicle:
Starting Weapon:
Starting Mod:
Name: Dominic
Other: A pale man with burn scars covering his hands and arms.
Vehicle: Wasterunner
Weapon: Grenade belt
Mod: Hotwire
Name: Burt
Appearance: A balding man with a scraggly beard.
Vehicle: Scavenged pick-up truck
Weapon: Semi-automatic rifle
Mod: Arasti Monocle
Name: Yara
Other:A short woman with black hair, a gray walker’s eye where her left eye would be, and a green eye.
Starting Vehicle: Magbike
Starting Weapon: Flechette gun
Starting Mod: Gray Walker’s Eye
Name: Akkad
Other: Black curly hair and a moderately sized beard. Looks to be in his early or mid-30s. Brown skin.
Starting Vehicle: Wasterunner
Starting Weapon: Submachine gun
Starting Mod: Prosthetic leg
Choose one of each.
Vehicles:
Magbike: Provides two wheels, no cover, no luggage capacity, little stability, and moderate risk of fiery death. But only two things on Promontory can catch a magbike on the run: Bullets, and another magbike. Features stationary wheel acceleration, allowing quick deployment from the back of a moving vehicle such as a van or truck. This particular specimen is a little rusty, but it gets the job done. Alright, maybe more than a little rusty.
Scavenged pick-up truck: A truck built from sheet metal and rusty struts around the frame of an old Arasti service vehicle. Decent speed and off-road capability when unladen, two seats, and half a ton of cargo capacity.
Off-road vehicle: The same type of frame used to build trucks, reconfigured for heightened off-road capability at the expense of carrying capacity. Two seats, decent room for storage, and roll bars in place of a roof. The passenger and rear row of seats have been replaced by cargo space in the front and a gunner station in the back, complete with brackets for mounting a machine gun. Firearm not included.
Wasterunner: A favourite of marauding caravans, the standard wasterunner is a four-seater car modified with large tires and high suspension. One of the faster contraptions roaming the wilds of Promontory, though its off-road capabilities can't match scavenged trucks or ATVs. Roof-racks and a large sunroof over the passenger seat enables the passenger to fill a gunner role, standing on the seat with head and weapon well above the ground. Try not to be there when the vehicle rolls.
Weapons:
(Bracketed number is the weapon's accuracy under normal conditions at optimal range)
Double-barrel shotgun: A shotgun. With two barrels. Short range, high damage, optional two-round burst. (90%)
Semi-automatic rifle: A dependable mid-to-long range weapon using standard rifle cartridges. Medium damage, single fire. (90%)
Submachine gun: A small, close quarters weapon using pistol rounds. Fully automatic. Able to fire on multiple targets per turn. (90%)
Flechette gun: Less powerful but considerably quieter than a standard firearm, the flechette gun uses compressed nitrogen canisters to propel pointed steel projectiles at high speeds. Effective at short to medium range. Single fire. (95%)
Grenade belt: A belt. With grenades on it. To be honest, they're more like aluminum cans stuffed with explosive material and fitted with a fuse - actual grenades are expensive these days. But you have so many choices! Fragmentation, incendiary, high explosive, flashbang - two of each. What happens when you run out? Well, you throw the belt! When you run out of belts? You just die, I guess. Don't choose this.
Mods:
Prosthetic arm: One of your arms has been lost - in an accident or merely hacked off by the surgeon - and replaced with a metal prosthetic reverse-engineered from Arasti specimens. It's not as effective as the real thing, but still has a strength advantage over biological alternatives. This particular one is fitted with a spring-loaded blade under the wrist for melee combat.
Prosthetic leg: Another prosthetic copied and reconstructed by modern engineers. Run faster and jump higher with a literal spring in your step!
Gray Walker's Eye: a smoky black crystal created by ancient Gedynthis that once called the eye socket of a fearsome Gray Walker its home. Now it resides embedded in your sternum, its innate psionics causing you to become nigh-invisible when standing still.
Arasti Monocle: A device fitted to the side of the head, with a thin glass plate that slides out over one eye. Improves low-light vision and highlights moving objects, easing target tracking in combat. (+5% to weapon accuracy)
Embedded Hotwire: A thin cable affixed to your wrist and concealed beneath the skin. It can be pulled out and plugged into the ignition of a vehicle or ports in other mechanisms. Once attached, the wire allows for direct neural interface with digital systems such as security measures, any preset electronic targeting or monitoring features, and air conditioning.
Adrenaline Regulator: A cranial implant allowing its bearer to initiate an intense rush of adrenaline at will. While under the effect, combat ability and physical performance is enhanced at the expense of rapidly consuming the body's energy stores.
Mechanics: you don't really need to read these. Tl;dr Shooting at something will kill it. Shooting straight at a stationary target will probably work. Shooting at a rabbit out of a moving car or something will probably miss. You get the picture.
General rolls for difficult activities including passive perception use a d10 to which any relevant modifiers are applied. Accuracy rolls for firearms are the exception, rolled on a d100. The accuracy of a weapon is its percentage chance to hit under normal circumstances. Many variables modify this number. Burst fire weapons use separate accuracy rolls for each shot, but automatic weapons are rolled for once per turn as an average of all shots fired. The higher the roll compared to the accuracy value, the more projectiles meet their marks. Damage is approximated based on accuracy, weapon type, target armour and the like. Chunky salsa rule is in effect.
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Topic: Promontory [4/4] (Read 15538 times)