Imera Teaser

More of a way for me to keep information in one place while I work, but also gives you a little insight into the world as it is. And yes, I made this campaign its own logo. Took a while, since this is one of the first times I've used GIMP.



Background

Imera. A shining world, founded over 200 years ago by the UN to exploit the rich deposits of silicon and iron found there by probes. Standing united under the greatest minds on the planet, protected from the harsh realities of the rest of the galaxy, producing the finest computer equipment and software known to the human race. And it all worked perfectly, until the first colonists arrived. Like a swarm of locusts, humanity took to the new world and devoured it, as it had done so many times before.

The population grew exponentially, with new settlers arriving each year, children born knowing Imera as their home, and even thriving android companies. With this population boom, drastic measures were taken, and huge cities were constructed – towering blocks of pig-iron and concrete, bedecked in lights and glass fronts. But with the crowding this created, corruption grew rife, crime skyrocketed, and soon each city was an island unto itself – literally, in many cases.

Within 2 generations, Imera was socially ruined. The technocracy they had foreseen fell into corruption, with money directly correlating to political strength for the first time. Cities were no longer in control of the councillors, but the mega corporations. One such corporation – Paragon Research, took control of the major shipping city of Licentas, and quickly transformed it. Security cameras adorn every street corner, police presence tripled in the space of months, and the crime rate dropped, at least for a while.

But eventually, as with all attempts to control humanity, the problem only got worse. Gangs of “Runners”, people who devoted their lives to evading security, both real and virtual, to deliver information, items, weapon and drugs, sprung up all over the city. This, combined with the almost total lockdown of information leaving the city, meant that the criminal gangs held much of the actual power over the city.

However, Paragon did bring one great change to the world of Imera. The cybernet, a glimmering paradise of data, freedom and information was finally more than a dream, as they researched the first methods of transferring human consciousness directly into the machines they’d worked for centuries to create. For many, this was a revolution, and certainly the runner gangs saw it as such. Within days the first countermeasure system was created, given the acronym ICE – Intrusion Countermeasure Electronics. Once again, what had been envisioned as a new avenue to freedom was sealed off as more and more companies began to seal parts of the net off for their own use.

Dumped into this dystopia with almost nothing but the clothes on your back, you must rely on your wits to survive. Of course, you’ll meet others with the same goal, but when it comes down to it, who can you really trust? Betrayal and treachery are the first order of business here in Licentas, and it’s here you must fight to survive. With the megacorporations on one side, gangs and the brutal world of the streets on the other, with the lucrative lifestyle of the smuggler or trader between, newcomers could be forgiven for their initial confusion. But they learn fast. Or at least, the survivors do.

Rules and Stuff

50 character points.
40 disadvantage limit.
$2000 starting wealth, with no increases allowed (ruins the genre if you start with money)
TL9, with some exceptions.
LC3, with very few exceptions.
Don't ask me about the timeline, okay. Just don't.

Hints

Perception is useful. In all games. Especially this one.
Have a hacker on your team.
Have a human on your team.
An AI is not required, but helps.
Do your research. In game, that is.

Features

Semi-new cyberspace combat system, if you want it!
Some degree of realism.
Totally sandbox world. (Seriously, I've got a little chronology of events that'll happen over time)
Multiple teams.
A snazzy logo!

General Information

Contact me if you want to join, send me a character sheet for me to pick over if you know how.
Previous knowledge of the system isn't required, new players are invited.
Timing will be nights, most likely 9.00 on whichever night is best for everyone.
It'll be IRC based for pretty much every session, only requirement is internet access.

Ah nice. Try dis stuff at Fanboy or wutevers.

Nice...very nice indeed
I carnt wait for this to start! Its awsome how the three GMs we have so far that I've been a part off: Dorian, me and you take completly diffrent approaches to our games
Oh and btw, should I send you some background to the ACAU units?

Please do, yes. And thank you, like the logo?

INdeed I do. The face looks plastic and Artificial in just the right way to make it creepy...

Thank you. I blended the lips slightly, blended the nostrils shut, then averaged the lighting of the eyes. Then applied greyscale, then messed with the transparency. Not a nice job, but a productive one.

Well. This promises to be a fucking awesome campaign. Also, good job on the everything, it looks great!

Thank you, anything you'd like me to add? PM me with anything you'd like to keep secret - your past, political beliefs, that sort of thing. I'll tailor the missions accordingly for added fun.

i would love too but i already have most nights on IRC and taylor will be pretty pissed if i keep going home early

A few screenshots of the program for you - should help with immersion, as well as provide a neat minigame. I figure it's more fun than a skill check, aye? So far the program is 2.38 megabytes, which is damn small. For comparison, the GURPS Basic Set is 15.8 megabytes. Also included is a help file, should help you get used to the controls.


A shot of cyberspace, featuring a lovely data node right there, all cold and alone. Maybe you'll have to loot it sometime?


A shot of the network screen, using 20 nodes and the seed of 21. Using the normal colour scheme.


Another shot, still with 20 nodes, but the seed is 20. Notice the new layout and everything? Using the alternate colour scheme.

Well...that looks fecking awsome...

Dude. Wow. Just, wow. This is so awesome, I'm genuinely lost for words.

On another note, I've got a character concept! Now, it's very basic, but how does this sound: A charismatic rebel with some hacking skill? Human, probably, but I'm not playing a robot and unless there are aliens, my choices are kinda limited, aren't they?

“Gentlemen! If I may please have order!”
A hushed, if somewhat forced silence fell upon the council as the chief chancellor rose from his seat, his grey eyes hard as steel as his voice echoed from the voice box that had replaced his lower mouth, every word tainted with an electronic buzz that gave off a very uneasy atmosphere around him. He stood still for a minute, moving his impossibly harsh gaze from face to face as he stared down ever member of the council in turn; ensuring there was no doubt that he was in charge of the meeting.
“Thank you” He said after he was done, his voice bursting into static at the end of his sentence and forcing him to return the dial on the side beneath his right ear with a huff of annoyance “Now, I know you are all annoyed at being called here at such short notice but I believe that you will all leave this room believing that this was more than worth your time and patience”
“What’s this about?” someone called out from the far end of the table, a man with a long beard who seemed to believe that tapping his finger against the wooden table would make the answer come faster “I was on a holiday with my family”
“And I am sorry that you were unable to continue that” The Chief Chancellor replied, his tone of voice more than enough to show he really couldn’t care less “But events are taking a turn for the worse and you must all hear about this in person”
Before anyone could reply, he spun his chair round and a large screen on the wall of the council room burst into life, showing a holographic image of a group of well know criminals from across the sector. Rapists, murders, terrorists, even a couple of petty thieves flashed alongside each other like I.D. pictures in some sort of game, each with note of text running alongside of them giving points of information about the crimes they had committed and the different trademarks they left behind at the scenes of their crimes.
“Now” The chancellor said as he stood and walked towards the screen, adjusting his electronic voice so that it boomed out with enough of an authority filled tone to quell any desire to whisper among themselves that may have arisen among the gathered council “At first glance, none of these men seem to have anything in common. They are all from different planets, different backgrounds, and different cultures and so on. It is also incredibly unlikely that any of them have even met each other. However, they do all have one thing in common. As soon as any of the local authorities get anywhere near arresting them, they seem to completely vanish from the planet, leaving not a trace behind them. Now…I ask you, how can this be?”
A silence fell among the council as they looked among each other, none of them daring to reply to the chancellor. Men fidgeted in their seats and used their facial expressions to plead others into trying to answer whist others simply looked down and begun to straighten their ties and take long, exaggerated gulps from the glasses of water they had all been provided with. None of them knew why they were to scared to try and answer the question, but damned if they would be the ones to risk pissing of the chancellor…
Finally however, it was the new comer to the council that dared to speak out.
“Err…because they….they had someone helping them…sir?”
“Correct” was the only reply as the chancellor turned back to the bored, not seeming to notice the massive sigh of relief that emitted from everyone behind him or the nods of sudden respect that were nodded towards the one who had dared to actually speak “It appears that everyone of these individuals have had aid from an unknown party in their miraculous escapes from the law. We have spent months trying to find out who this party is or what they gain from helping these criminals, let alone the petty ones…but every time one of our agents draw near to finding anything out…they turn up dead on the door step of the local police station. With their faces terribly mutilated”
“What do you mean mutilated sir?” The council was beginning to get confident enough to actually speak out now
“I mean half their face looks like they have been revenged with a blade” The chancellor sighed as he flicked another button and an image of a man’s face flashed onto the screen. It was clear that he had once been very handsome, but now a full half of his face had been slashed into bloody tatters in the crudest ways imaginable and, as one, the entire council cursed and swore, a couple even looking like they were about to lose their lunch for a second “Every agent we sent out on this case, a full dozen, has returned looking like this”
“Why would anyone do that? It’s…it’s not human…”
“Oh it’s human” a new voice sounded out as a pair of people emerged from the shadows, both wearing long lab coats “And it has a simple explanation”
“Gentlemen” The chancellor said “This is Professor Isaac of the android enhancement division and Professor Bloss of the Psychology department. They have been asked to present a proposition to us for what we are to do about this case” Nodding towards the two scientists, he turned and walked back over to the table, retaking his chair with a sigh.
“Thank you chancellor” Professor Bloss nodded as he stepped forward, repositioning his glasses as he pointed to the mutilated face behind him “This is not a simple act of violence but an act of the subconscious, a thirst for vengeance towards a specific group of people…i.e. us. The mutilation is the work of someone who feels hatred towards servants of the law of police force that is unlike that of any petty criminal. It is the work of someone who believes all those who dare to stand against him to be less then worthy of life or even to bare the resemblance of humanity. In total, we believe these behavioral patterns to point towards a single man”
Now the screen behind them flashed into a clip of CCTV footage of a man walking out of a building before pausing and zooming straight onto his face as he looked in the direction of the camera. There was a spray of static for a second before the camera was able to focus again and the man’s features were became visible.
Again, the council cursed among themselves as they saw the terrible image on the screen, a man whose face had been destroyed on over half its side by a terrible burn mark that left nothing but flattened and flaked skin with massive gashes that formed a crisscross pattern, leaving the second half of his face completely unscratched.
“This man is known to the locals of his planet simply as ‘Butcher’” Bloss continued “He is the self proclaimed ‘Don’, seeming to be a fan of old school crime as the title suggests, of the sectors criminal organizations and yet we know nothing about him. However, we do know that this wound on his face was caused in a police raid and that he blames all enforces of the law for it. Thus, he is our prime suspect. Mind you, even if he was innocent of helping others, he is confirmed to be the head of a major drug and weapons trade system and often runs illegal drag races in his planets government sector every other month”
“Then why not just take him? Arrest him and be done with it”
“Impossible. For starters we have no idea where he is and he is most likely surrounded by nothing short of an army. Then you have to take into account the huge amount of crime war raging upon his planet and the huge variety of skills that he surrounds himself with, hackers, gunmen, techno maniacs, pryro-maniacs and whatever you can think off….even the local baker man has been seen to carry a shotgun beneath his shirt.
“So what do you propose we do about it?”
“It’s simple” Professor Isaac suddenly grinned as he pushed his glasses up his nose and pushed his way past the annoyed looking Bloss “We send in an agent that we can trust to both find the target and to take the needed action needed to bring him to justice”
As he spoke, the very air behind the council began to shiver and bend in on itself as something seemed to appear out of nowhere. Before anyone knew what was happening, a metallic hand, painted a pale blue shot out and clamped around the body of one of the council members, pulling him out of his chair with a powerful tug. Men cursed and lunged from their chairs as the shimmering light began to fade and ran up the metallic arm and curled along a heavy, pale blue body until something that resembled a large, four-legged metallic spider stood in the centre of the room, its left claw holding the scared councilor up its white, bowling ball like eye.
“Allow me to demonstrate”
“Victor Crita” The spider said in a low voice as its claw tightened “You have been found guilty of selling confidential information to criminal organizations. Sentence: Termination”
And as the council members tried to put as much space between themselves and the metallic spider that bore the police badge icon on its hood and the numbers 105 on its hull…a large funnel rose from the centre of the spiders hand and pressed against the terrified Victor’s chest before a hail of bullets reduced his torso into nothing but bloody ribbons…


ACADU UNIT 105 was one of the first of the ACDU units to ever be manufactured by the galactic police force and was thus programmed to learn and think for itself in battle in order to live longer, whereas this has changed since government funding has allowed for the second batch of units to be programmed to follow simple orders as their creator number resulted in them being seen as more ‘expendable’. Still, the higher level of A.I. that 105 was gifted with made it a natural unit leader for the lower class units during the assault of the mafia flagship in the Omaga quadrant last year. There it proved beyond doubt that the weaker A.I. of the new units were not to be expected to have a long life expectancy in combat against heavy enemies with their lack of enough intelligence to take cover. However, they blindly followed orders and the corrupt government of the sector liked that.
105 was adopted by an elite division of the police force which operated in single man missions behind enemy lines and gifted with a humanoid body which it now uses when in the field. The hunt for Butcher is his first mission with this division and thus he is unused to the newly required protocols of stealth and blending with the local society as his past missions simply required firing many, many bullets into the enemy and then arresting them.
However, having seen the new generation of ACADU units become simple slaves to the force, 105 has begun to question just what his true reason for existence is and whether or not the protocol he has followed since the day he was manufactured is truly justice…

A vid to show the things 105's Arachnid unit is based upon

comingdarkness wrote:his past missions simply required firing many, many bullets into the enemy and then arresting them

I like the way they do things I like the story too, consider it canon.

There are constant rumours of aliens, although none that humanity wouldn't shoot on sight. With many many guns. Including some guns that shoot smaller guns. There's also some evidence of a hyperspace dwelling race, dubbed the Wraith, although they're not really suitable as player characters. Reason being, they cannot exist in realspace, and secondly, the smallest of them are about the size of a fighter spaceship. As I mentioned, having a hacker is pretty important, and charisma is as powerful as you roleplay it. And from what I've seen, it'll be good.

This should be very interseting

Also, please overlook the fact that the cyberspace nodes show the map of earth. Umm, it's for diplomatic reasons, to pay homage to humanities homeworld? Yeah, that'll do.

Looks like they've sent some security after me. This could be a problem, but thankfully I've got my new deck!


Cyberspace looks a lot grittier now the code is transparent and different heights. At least I can jump over it, and even fly for a short while.


My god, this is what it's become. Just so you know, this is all the code I could fit on the screen, it's roughly 1/4 of that required to make the network screen. The 3d code is even worse. And yes, I overuse the word "node".

That's all for today, but it should be enough to whet your appetite for delicious campaign setting, and delicious program to make it all the better. Program's gone up to 3.37 megabytes now, so still pretty damn tiny. I've kept a version without the 3d gubbins, for those who genuinely care about those 2mb. As for system requirements, I'm pretty good at controlling that. Chances are that if you can load up Legion, you can load up this.

Just to let me know, I'd like to ask 5 things of each of you.
1. What colour should the fog be?
2. Should there be built in music, and if so, what?
3. What element of the program should I work on next?
4. What element of the campaign should I work on next?
5. Would you bake me a small cake?

1. i like the green...its a good effect
2. I would probily be playing my own music
3. Whatever makes it moer awsome!
4. Gives us backstory to the various crime familes in operation
5. you deserve it for this!

One of the most secretive, but also one of the smallest runner groups in Licentas is reVert. They claims their manifesto is to return the world to how it was before the corporations took over, and do so through superior technology, as they believe the founding principle of Imera was – strength through silicon. Their leader is a man known as “Byte”, although his real name is known – Markus. He is ruthless in his progress, not hesitating to use Flatline and Black ICE when hacking. He tries to instil this in his men, although the prevailing belief among hackers seems to be that the opponent should be alive to see their defeat. Nobody is sure of their precise date of origin, although given that Markus looks to be in his 40s, they are most likely around 20 years old. The group has no particular limits on age, and so teenagers are frequently among their ranks.

The Data Rats are a relatively new gang on the scene, specialising in the production of narcotics and illegal firearms. Rumours about that they have an underground factory for this production line, although multiple scans of the city have turned up nothing. One thing is for sure – they produce and deal at least 60% of the drugs on the streets now, and they are beginning to topple reVert in terms of power. While reVert clearly wins in cyberspace, the Data Rats make increasing use of isolated computers to handle the running of their operations, and still use speech to convey most messages. Most of the gangers have a tattoo of a rat on their neck or arms, serving as a method of identification to other gangers, yet also as an effective arrest warrant for the police and corps. They occasionally raid reVert turf, although the skirmishes are rarely more than that.

Switchblade is another young gang, not featuring largely in gang politics. They have a largely youth composition and use knives quite frequently, although firearms are not uncommon among the higher ranks. They are relatively neutral with the other gangs, even to the point of being used as a cover for reVert or Data Rat operations. Their income is mostly theft and extortion, although reVert typically pays higher for their assistance in a dangerous mission. Despite this, Switchblade is often caught up in turf wars, as the other two, older, gangs claim Switchblade turf as their own, believing Switchblade to be weak. However, they have almost unparalleled knowledge of the city underground, a fact that has frequently led to them winning in fights even when greatly outnumbered.

The final gang is possibly the most dangerous, led by nothing short of a madman. Conflicting often with the Data Rats for the monopoly on drugs and weaponry, they are possibly the most armed group in Licentas after the military police. They also hold frequent street racing tournaments, on some occasions racing on top of, or even through, buildings. The leader of this group, “Butcher” seems to delight in pain, especially pain caused to government officials such as the police. He is physically disfigured due to a police raid some years ago, and inflicts similar injuries on his high ranking men as a test of their loyalty. His organisation is run similarly to Earth’s mafia, with him referring to himself as the Don. They control much of the south side of Licentas, although the actual location of Butcher is unknown.

Now, all of those gangs sound rather interesting, but how hard would it be to join one of them? Like, the Data Rats. I've got a rather epic character idea, one that'd work really well in their gang. Check this, ok: A black market merchant that deals in info and narcotics. Sound fun?

Switchblade is very easy to join, usually just asking a ganger and showing you're useful will work. The Rats are slightly more difficult, especially since they require the tattoo for all but fresh bloods. This'll mean qualifying for a stigma, naturally. The other two gangs are very difficult to join, Buthcers because of their violent streak, reVert because of their sheer technical skill - anything they disagree with will count you out.

Nice gangs...guessing they wont react well to my kind hanging around...
Awsome!

It does look unlikely. Unless you go as an undercover robot, which opens up a few whole new methods of approach.

This sounds like it's gonna be an awesome campaign! Also, beng a ridiculous merchant guy, how hard would it be to join a gang and form a splinter cell? 'Cos I was thinking of making a section of the Data Rats that deals specifically with info and simmilar goods. Well, that is if I ever get to join them, of course!

Data Rats might work, although converting some of the Blades might be easier - they're more young and naive. Either way you'll need charisma, streetwise, leadership, and then prove your worth. They're not stupid - doesn't matter how charismatic you are, if you're not good at what you do, they won't obey.

Also, it's sandbox. My planning is mission based, not session based. For example, you might be given 24 hours to steal something from this place. What you do with the time is yours. After that, there's no need to get another job/hit/contract right away, explore the city, see what I've created. Which also means that you can feel free to walk away from, or even kill, the plot hooks, because I have a city of millions for you to explore. Joining a gang is easy.

Now, taking over the entire city, the legal and illegal side. That's somewhat harder.