Backer Post: The Daemons of the Deep Engine

 

This turned into a longer project than I expected.  When I began Undercity Noir, one player wanted to play as a Zathan, a Ranathim Sorcerer, with connections to the Deep Engine, the monumental, necromantic infrastructure left over by the fallen Eldoth race. (Yeah, this is pretty "insider baseball"). But he didn't want to mess with Dimensional Induction, he went straight for a Daemonic Contact.  That is, he wanted one of the sentient servitors of the Deep Engine to act as his interface with the Deep Engine. Rather than risk exposure to the corrupting power of the Deep Engine itself, he'd ask the Daemon to do it.

"But I need some details on what Daemons are like."

Hence a month of working on this.  I dove into some of my weirder sources, and came up with at least three ideas.  Oh, but technically I'd need to cover military protocols, oh and more than one security daemon would be nice, oh and how did they handle transits between Deep Engine sites? Oh and I forgot Zathare daemons! Oh, and what about Corrupted Daemons!  And shouldn't you be able to fight them? And do you have to invest in them to interact with them? The result blew up from a quick three samples to a full treatise on the topic and ELEVEN daemons.

• The Carrion Lord: A surveillance daemon tasked with commanding, maintaining and building the the Ash Crows of the Deep Engine.
• The Cyber-Angel: A zathare daemon that exploits the Deep Engine to hack into physical computer systems, but has been corrupted with a messianic complex.
• The Knight of the Black Sun: A bored military daemon who once monitored the materiel of the Eldothic Union as well as commanded some its engines of mass destruction.
• The Lady of the Symoblic Donative: A vain daemon tasked with handling transactions and issuing Deep Coins.
• The Lethean Archivist: A data-collecting daemon that will exchange valuable information for memories.
• The Mysterious Stranger: A zathare daemon dedicated to helping sorcerers evade the security of the Deep Engine and, sometimes, to find love.
• The Slender Sentinel of Nightmares: A former security daemon now monstrously corrupted by the false Exarch, the Orphan King
• The Sorcerers’ Nemesis: A paranoid daemon tasked with securing the Deep Engine for zathan sorcerer infiltration.
• The Star Weaver: An overzealous daemon tasked with governing the transportation networks of the Deep Engine.
• The Unconquerable Wyrm: A zathare daemon that defeats the security of the Deep Engine through sheer, brute force.
• The White Magistrate: A corrupted security daemon once tasked with cleaning up necrokinetic overflow, but now uses its position to command the ghosts and dark gods that arise from broken Deep Engine sites.

I've been drip-feeding this to my backers for awhile, to give them a sense of momentum, but it's ready now.  You can read the entire work if you're a $3+ Patron and Subscriber. It clocks in at a bit more than 20k words. Once again, thank you to all my backers!

• Daemons of the Deep Engine (SubscribeStar)
• Daemons of the Deep Engine (Patreon)

Wiki Highlight: Federation Remnant Culture (Galactic Culture)

 The winner of this month's "Release the Balloon People" poll was Federation Remnant Culture, a lengthy document detailing the "standard" Galactic Culture of Psi-Wars.

I wanted to write it for a few reasons.  First, whenever I read up on a sci-fi game, I find myself at a loss as to how the world works.  With a fantasy setting, I assume it works like every fantasy novel ever written unless told otherwise (for example, I do not need to be told that taverns exist or how they work). For games set in the modern world, I can draw on real world experiences and cultures (and likewise, I can research historical settings).  But when it comes to sci-fi settings, I need to be grounded in how the day-to-day life works. Do kids go to school in Trinity: Aeon? What's a day of work look like in Transhuman Space? What does romance look like in Eclipse Phase? How do people dress in Sufficiently Advanced? And so on.

The answer to these questions in Psi-Wars are "pretty much just like you'd expect," and I wanted to emphasize that, to set the reader's mind at ease. Psi-Wars is to space opera what D&D is to fantasy, after-all, but I find it helps to be told that explicitly, so I don't have to worry.

That said, there are almost certainly in-universe things that tend to be very specific that players would like the option of name-dropping.  What TV shows do people watch in Psi-Wars? What drink does Space James Bond what shaken, rather than stirred? What game does a smuggler get caught cheating at? In principle, these don't matter: the character likes some TV show, the spy likes some drink, and the smuggler plays some game, and we can abstract this away (Current Affairs (Pop Culture), Connoisseur (Alcohol) or Gambling) but players often like to name-drop.  So the last section of culture mostly references these things and consists of a variety of names and simple concepts and some traits that a player might tie into them.

I released it as a draft to my backers rather than on the wiki because the real reason I wrote it was to settle on a baseline before I started writing Lithian culture, which is the next big project (and likely most important non-standard culture in the setting), and I wanted to know what I was contrasting it with, and what topics I should cover.  So I wanted that written up, and then once I had Lithian culture written up, I could compare, contrast and edit them to work better.  But once my backers overwhelmingly chose this as an option, I realized they're probably right: I can always go back in and edit Federation Remnant culture, it's extremely useful already, and it's going to serve as inspiration and a foundation for Lithian culture anyway.

So, I hope you enjoy it.  You can read it here.

Wiki Highlight: the Psion Template

 As one of Christopher Rice's patrons, I can participate in a regular poll where he releases on of his patreon specials to his blog.  I really appreciate it, and I thought it might be a nice option to do on my own blog, given how many of my specials are explicitly just previews: material that's likely useful or interesting, but isn't yet ready for the prime time for one reason or the other.  However, some tend to collect there for no particular reason, so I thought I'd offer to let people release one, and this month they chose The Psion Template.

Assassins: A Backer Roundup

 I'm terrible at advertising my Patreon/Subscribestar pages. In part, it's because I'm not really doing this for the money, and I feel like I'm sending around a collection plate every time I post advertisements for it, and that's not really the intention. It feels awkward.  I also tend to go long periods (though rarely more than a month) without posting to them, as I'm busy with the wiki or setting up a playtest, which is still content, just not exclusive content, but I think this turns some people away.  

Sometimes I create burst of content that ends on Patreon and/or Subscribestar and then I don't advertise it, because most of my backers are on discord and see it, and because I'm lazy so it doesn't always get on the Blog.  Even so, perhaps you're interested in supporting me or in seeing this content, but you want to know what you're getting, so I thought I'd draw your attention to it.

I've been working on material for the Undercity Noir playtest, set on Kronos, and this has created quite a burst of content, mostly focused on psychic powers, assassins, exotic weapons and hackers.  All of this is available on the $3+ tier except for a poll which is available to anyone.  Of course, anyone who subscribes gets access to my entire back catalog, if there's something in there that interests you.

Patreon or Subscribestar?

Chances are, if you're thinking about subscribing, you're thinking Patreon, and that's fine. But I also have Subscribestar (both because some of my backers asked for it, and because keeping all of my eggs in of one basket is not especially resilient).  The chief problem with Subscribestar, though, is that I currently only have 2 subscribers, and I need 5 before they'll let me pull my money or do other things.  So if you have no preference, if all things are the same to you, consider Subscribestar, though note that it's slightly less convenient as it doesn't use Paypal.  I will probably run a recruitment drive later this month to see if I can persuade enough people to sign up or swap over to start pulling my money from it. If you'd rather Patreon, though, that's fine.  I'm honestly glad to have anyone.

If you're interested in joining either service, you can follow the links in the "So you want to support this blog" sidebar, or you can just click through on what interests you and I'm sure the site will help you figure out what you need to figure out.  If you'd rather just give me some money for one-time access rather than set-up a long term relationship, hit me up in discordn or e-mail me and I'm sure we can work something out.

The Content Update

New Templates

The Psion Template: If there was ever a place with an excess of psychics, it's Kronos, with its weird spires and alien population. Psychics in Psi-Wars are closer to the characters from Push or to low-key X-men than the classic depiction of Force-wielders of Star Wars, and so I felt a template exclusively associated with them would be a nice way of emphasizing it.  I created the Psychic Power-Up packages in part to support them. This content likely won't be exclusive for long, as it's winning a poll for being released to the wiki.

• The Subscribestar Link
• Patreon Link

The Assassin Template: This is from all the way back in Iteration 4, I believe.  The idea of the Assassin was always to be a space ninja, closer to the Action 4 Ninja or Weapon Master than the Action 1 Assassin.  The problem in Iteration 7+ is that we need proper martial arts for them to explore, and exploring that has been much of my focus for the past few months.  Thus, I've been preparing for this particular template.  It still needs more work, mostly in tightening up the martial arts, so it'll be awhile before this gets on the wiki, but you can check out the rough draft of it now.

• Subscribestar Link
• The Patreon Link

The Mechanic and the Hacker: I've been tinkering with expanding an idea I introduced before (but many people seem to have missed, so it might be worth revisiting) with half-cost "sidekick" templates for niche concept that don't fit full adventurers.  I'm also toying with "Cross-trained" skillset packages, and we needed a Hacker skillset that someone could slather over the Criminal template, so I worked on that too.  You can find previews of both at the link.

• The Subscribestar Link
• The Patreon Link

New Martial Arts and Weapons

Awhile ago, I pondered how best to handle melee weapons that weren't force swords.  See, run-of-the-mill vibro just doesn't cut it.  The exotic weapons of the assassins would need to occupy their own niche, or they would need to be extraordinarily powerful in some highly specific way.  The overwhelming consensus on my discord agreed with this, so I've been brainstorming a variety of weapons and martial arts that the assassin could deploy when engaging in the brutal art of murder.  These aren't complete yet, mostly rough drafts and thoughts, and when they're finished, they'll end up on the wiki, but for now, if you want to see them in advance, here they are. They're especially useful if you want to play as an Assassin.

The Nuclear Knife: the poison-metal blade of Dungeon Fantasy inspired my first weapon.  I thought as I read it that it sounded a bit like polonium, but nobody would make a knife out of polonium, right? Well, why not? The Blight Blades of Acheron draw inspiration from that idea, but slather on some space-fantasy-tech radiation powered by both the metal and energy cells within the blade to create a unique weapon that is fantastically lethal, and as dangerous to the wielder as the target.

• Subscribestar Link
• The Patreon Link

The Ceramic Katana: One reason I struggle with non-melee force swords is physical swords, especially the katana, occupy a legitimate place in the sci-fi settings, but how could they possibly compete with a force sword? Arguably, they couldn't, but there are some possible niches they could exploit that the force sword couldn't.  This explores more than just such a weapon, but also explores what might happen if you take the tactical math of Combat Calculus and Shineido and apply it to the ancient art of Kendo.

• Subscribestar Link
• The Patreon Link

The Monowire Whip: This isn't really a new weapon, as it's just there in GURPS Basic.  However, it's a weapon I have previously discarded as "not very Star Wars."  However, Psi-Wars has evolved into a setting that can support more cyberpunk tropes, and so I think the monowire whip could fit well.  I've come up with a power-up martial art inspired by (but not the same as) Monowire Mugging from Pyramid #3/9.

• Subscribestar Link
• The Patreon Link

The Killing Arts of the Umbral Rim: Iteration 6 features "Janura," a Keleni assassination technique inspired by the real-world Sicarii, Assassin's Creed, and elements of the Keleni culture.  All it really needed was an update to a power-up structure. While I was at it, I thought I might return to Reaver's Hand, a set of power-ups I made when Christopher Rice's patreon special dropped.  The style that came out is pretty different from what he did (my power is different too), and I think this one is still evolving, as I stumbled across some interesting ideas, and received some interesting criticisms, while working on this one.  You can find both at the link.

• Subscribestar Link
• The Patreon Link

Setting Material

Mithna Zatharos: Ages ago, I had a poll for "the Fourth Mithna," a noble house of the Ranathim.  Mithna Temos won, and is on the wiki now.  But I really wanted to explore the Witch-Kings of Kronos, as they would really fit into the adventure I was prepping. I came up with my own material, a "false Mithna" that used sorcery to steal the secrets of aristocracy from the other Mithna of the Ranathim Tyranny.  This one is a little complicated, and you'll need some knowledge of the Deep Engine to fully understand it.

• Subscribestar Link
• The Patreon Link

Polls

Release the Balloon People: Christopher Rice has a regular poll, "Release the Balloon People" where you can vote on a Patreon special and have it released on his blog.  It's a nice concept and I love the name, and it's especially appropriate for Psi-Wars as most of the backer material are previews rather than exclusives, so this is more about getting material out sooner than later.  This is open to all Patrons, so if you're curious what you can get for $1, this is where you start. But act soon! I think the poll ends in the next couple of days.

• The Subscribestar Link
• The Patreon Link

Buckets of Disadvantages?

We had "session zero" of Undercity Noir, which mostly involved discussing characters and getting a little additional prep-time for me, but part of the discussion turned to Templars and a perennial problem that faces them: fitting their disadvantages into a disadvantage point limit.  Templars are mystic warriors of a secret society, so that gives them a lot of disadvnatages! A Templar has a Secret that could get them killed: that they are Templars, which is a good -20 points.  And they have a Duty to their Templar Chapter, which is extremely hazardous, so it can easily clock in at another -15 to -20. They also tend to have Disciplines of Faith which will clock in easily at -10 points, which is required for them to access Communion, which is the whole point of being a Templar.  So we're already sitting at around -45 to -50 points.  That gives you at most -5 points to define whatever unique negative traits you have, and your quirks, and that's it.

"Why not use buckets of disadvantages?" Shinanoki suggested.  Well, he didn't use that term exactly, but that's exactly what I got from his suggestion.

Wiki Spotlight: Hacking in Psi-Wars (with Backer Special Preview)

 

Hacking has turned out to be much more important than I originally thought it would when I first put together Psi-Wars back in Iteration 1.  If you watch Star Wars, or even most Space Opera out there, Hackers don't play much of a role.  After all, Space Opera is action where square-jawed heroes punch evil warlords in the jaw and rescue the scantily clad damsel; the pallid nerds who hide from the sun in their basement while hacking even corporations is something more appropriate to Cyberpunk.

But I should have known better.  "Slicer" is a major concept in pretty much every Star Wars RPG I've come across, and indeed I'm pretty sure the term comes from the extended universe, and if you pay attention, there's actually a ton of hacking being done in the Star Wars films, it's just generally by robots. I had originally pushed that concept onto robots, but in practice, I find that it becomes pretty central to the action.  Because all security systems are controlled by a computer, the easiest way to bypass systems is to find a terminal and just hack the systems (open the door, disable the cameras, etc).  This makes the hacking robot much too important to leave to just an NPC, and much too interesting to deny to players.  So, we need hackers.

There's another problem with hacking, which is what made me reluctant to give it much of a treatment: a lot of RPGs that have hacking in them treat it as an entire subgame.  You must invest a ton of resources and time into hacking, and whenever hacking comes up, it takes a big chunk of the game.  I definitely didn't want that: Psi-Wars is a game about space knights dueling, not about a deep exploration of cyberspace that takes an hour.  Fortunately, Action handles this nicely: you just spend an hour and roll Computer Hacking; done.  The only problem with this is we lose some individualization: all hackers have high levels of hacking and everything else (nerdy computer, mischievous anarchist, calculating criminal).  GURPS Cyberpunk (at least as per Pyramid) gets around this with techniques, but those techniques assume the sort of deep investment in cyberspace that I want to avoid.  So I came up with something else: inspired by the magic perks, I thought we could spice up the gameplay with some player-activated perks.  Rather than worry about a ton of details, we just have our base system, and the player can introduce complexity via little bonuses that, ideally, don't take up too much time.

So, where do we get our hackers? Do we have a hacker template? That feels a bit big for me.  The Spy could certainly be a hacker, but that's just one of the spies many skills. So, instead, a skillset feels more reasonable to me, especially if we slather it over something like the Criminal Sidekick Template that I put up on Patreon awhile ago. This left me thinking about Skillsets, as I've been exploring them as an optional set of power-ups, but the more I mess with them, the more it feels like they should be more like the 50-point cross-class templates from Dungeon Fantasy than the Skillsets of Action.  The Action Skillsets are just a slightly chunkier way to build a character.  You can do that, but it tends to blur niche, which isn't necessarily a problem (and not something I worry about in Psi-Wars) and I find that the general thrust of Psi-Wars tends indelibly towards a sort of specialization: if you're psychic, you could easily invest 100+ points in psychic powers; if you're a space knight, you could easily invest 100+ points in your force swordsmanship.  Couldn't skillsets work in a similar way? So I'm going to try an approach of a "50 point" lens, where there's 25 points of minimum investment and 25 additional discretionary points, to allow a little more variety among the characters, and to create a list of things a player might invest in, if they want to dump another 50 points into a particular skillset specialization.

Of course, all of this was inspired by the Undercity Noir adventure, as we have at least one Hacker in the mix (and, I noticed, a lot of NPC hackers as sysads).  Thus, I wanted to get this out sooner than later.

The biggest change made to gear and the hacking rules is the removal of "superior" hacking gear that grants a bonus.  As I worked on the rules (especially using the surprisingly superior Thinking Machine rules which I had previously unfairly dismissed) I noticed that the typical computer that players would hack would ultimately be mainframes, which meant you need a pretty powerful machine to even attempt to hack.  This also eliminates one of my complaints with UT, which is that money can buy skill and character traits.  Now, your ability to hack is determined entirely by skill, not the wealth necessary to buy superior hacking hardware.

• The slightly updated hacking rules are found here
• The hacker gear is found here
• The Hacker skillset is going to be a Backer Exclusive for now, with a bonus "Mechanic" sidekick template.
• SubscribeStar
• Patreon

Wiki Highlight: Psychic Vampirism Power-Ups

 

I've been pretty busy behind the scenes working on Undercity Noir; the PCs are beginning to come together, but I feel like I'm still behind on a lot of elements.  One of those elements was psychic power-ups.  I wanted to have both Psychic Healing and Psychic Vampirism up, as the Ranathim and Keleni were going to feature prominently in the one-shot (though I didn't realize how prominently until I saw the proposed PCs), but my goodness are these power-up sets exhausting and time-consuming.

Why Psychic Vampirism and Psychic Healing? You're not buying the Keleni/Ranathim argument above? Well, I find that the act of writing material teaches you how to write better material.  The best RPG material of an edition tends to come more towards the end, rather than the beginning.  If I started with beloved abilities like Telepathy and ESP and ended with abilities most people don't care about, like Psychic Healing, then the most loving detail and cool ideas would end up in the least used abilities, so I'm trying to "learn the ropes" with these less popular abilities.

Psychic Vampirism was especially frustrating, as it forced me to confront overpriced afflictions, deal with weird, overly broad detection abilities, and a difficult cost structure that puts most "work horse" Psychic Vampirism beyond the budget of casual, minor psychics. In particular, I still find myself struggling with Power Theft and working that into more affordable categories.  Sure, I know, some people point out that if something is powerful, it should cost a lot of points, but a lot of people like the "Zero to Hero" journey of discovery their psychic powers and then slowly unlocking their abilities with them.  The cheapest you can possibly get for Steal Power is 55 points, which means you go from Weak Latent Psi (Psychic Vampirism) to absolutely minimum Steal Power with a little skill in about 12 sessions at 5 CP per session (which is pretty generous) without getting anything else.  There's a reason I break down upgrades down into 25 point chunks, and a lot of people still find that overly chunky.  So I'd like to break down Steal Power too, if I can.

I ran out of time.  I wanted to have more Rare Powers (Karmic Theft and Unstable Power Theft) but the end of the month is racing up at me, and it's better to have something than nothing.  I can always go back and add some more abilities.

You can check out the new psychic vampirism power-ups here.