8680's Game

The world is controlled by three megacorporations: Clarion, which specializes in electronics and telecommunication; Hardinger, which specializes in vehicles, weapons, and construction; and Nintao, which specializes in biotechnology. You might defect to another megacorp, join or start a revolution, try for global domination, just stay with Clarion, or (almost) anything else.

The megacorps are mostly neutral towards each other; each megacorp allows the others to conduct limited amounts of commerce in their territory.

The megacorps don't have direct control over cities; each city has a city council and possibly a mayor. Some cities are hostile towards the megacorps. There hasn't been any overarching government since the old government collapsed several decades ago.

In Clarion's territory, the people are generally somewhat impoverished and slightly oppressed by our standards. In Hardinger's territory, the people are generally quite impoverished by our standards, but Hardinger doesn't interfere with their lives. In Nintao's territory, the people have a high standard of living by our standards, but very few basic rights.

Finally! A mission! No more mountains of paperwork for you! No more sitting behind a desk typing until your finger bones snap and have to be replaced! No more having to smell the rotting corpses of people who drank themselves to death in an alley after a life of being cheated while taking out the trash! At last, you're going to get to shoot people and blow ftek up!

You are freshly-trained agents of the Clarion Corporation, more commonly referred to as just Clarion. After months of languishing in a tiny office in the middle of nowhere waiting for the air conditioning system to be fixed (needless to say, it never was) you receive emails directing you to come to Clarion Headquarters immediately for briefing and transport to the task site.

Just before noon, you board a ftekky little turboprop airplane that somehow manages to get you safely to Clarion City Airport, despite the pilot spending more time reading lurid tabloids than flying his bucket of bolts. It is only once you step out of the airplane, out onto the concrete blackened by the exhaust of many thousands of aircraft, out into the air polluted by the same, that you, for the first time, see the full glory of Clarion City, the cathedrals of lucre, the temples to greed, built of glass, plastic, chrome, and the hard-earned savings of the cheated millions, rising miles into the smoggy afternoon sky, the sight uplifting your spirit and electrifying your mind.

But your awed sightseeing is cut abruptly short by four people of indeterminate age and gender with gray suits, mirrored sunglasses, chromed assault rifles, and Clarion insignia who silently escort you through the deserted airport terminal to a similarly deserted subway station. You sit in the cold metal seats of the harshly lit subway car for what seems like hours, trying not to stare with mixed envy and fear at the guards' shiny guns.

Eventually, the subway stops and you step out into the station. The sign over the display showing the time until the next train says Clarion Headquarters Floor 760... Wait, what?! 760?! You turn around to see Clarion City spread out before you... there's the airport... there's the ftekky little turboprop with its tabloid-addicted pilot disappearing into the smog... that subway must have had gravity modulators in the floor... once again your train of thought is shoved off its rails by the guards, who escort you through a labyrinth of plastic and chrome hallways, speakers in the ceiling numbing your brain with endlessly looping corporate slogans, to a waiting room outside a door marked Central Briefing in menacing blood-red letters. After a few hours of chatting (if you're into that kind of thing), reading magazines, and playing games on your phones, the door opens and you walk inside....

Your mission is to check up on Survey Platform Q-14, currently stationed over Matreka, which lost communication with Headquarters this morning. Your transport is a sleek black airplane with the latest in silenced, fully-tiltable, afterburn-capable ducted turbofan technology, contrasting starkly with that ftekky little turboprop. Around midnight, the plane lands at the platform, deactivating its stealth field as it touches down on the dimly lit airdock. A section of the plane's fuselage dematerializes and rematerializes as a ladder reaching to the ground. You disembark, and the game begins....

Clarion : The Clarion Corporation, which specializes in electronics and telecommunications.
Clarion City : A metropolis mostly owned and completely controlled by Clarion. Clarion Headquarters is here.
Datachip : The predominant portable data storage device. Appears to be a flat, solid square of metal, ranging from 2 cm on a side for 20 TB chips to 1 m on a side for much larger capacities.
Hardinger : The Hardinger Corporation, which specializes in vehicles, weapons, and construction.
Facility Alpha-0 : An extensive underground complex containing Hardinger Headquarters.
Matreka : A small (i.e. Paris-sized) city in Clarion's territory. Survey Platform Q-14 is currently stationed over it.
Nintao : The Nintao Corporation, which specializes in biotechnology. Can also refer to the continent of Nintao, whence the Nintao Corporation takes its name and which it mostly controls.
Nintao Sands : An island owned by the Nintao Corporation. Nintao Headquarters is probably here, but all that can be seen from off the island are houses on the beach, presumably those of Nintao's high-ranking officers. Beyond these houses, only dense jungle can be seen.
The Powernet : Several decades before its fall, the old government installed a network of magical power nodes that transmit magical power (duh) to any magical engines within a hundred miles or so.
Survey Platform : Clarion's Survey Platforms are large, magically floating, semi-mobile structures typically stationed over cities and equipped with stealth field generators. Their purpose is to telepathically harvest data from the minds of the people over which they float and transmit it to Clarion Headquarters, where it is processed and stored for later use in marketing, espionage, blackmail, and war.
Survey Platform Q-14 : A Survey Platform, currently stationed over Matreka, that has lost communication with Clarion Headquarters.

I'll be using 2d10.

There is no major/minor restriction. Actions must be bolded, and in-character speech must be bolded, italicized, and enclosed in quotation marks. Actions and speech not in this format will be ignored.

You can attack multiple targets in a turn, but you take a -1 penalty to accuracy for each target after the first.

Scenarios can be missions you've been sent on, adventures you've sent yourselves on, or situations you've found yourselves in. Between scenarios, all characters' Status Meters are restored to their maximum values, characters can learn new abilities, new characters are introduced, and bits of plot are revealed.

There will be six player slots. I reserve the right to, at any time, kick any player to the waiting list or out of the game entirely and kill or take control of any character.

Feats are gained on critical successes, and give conditional bonuses.

Each character starts with 3 Equipment Points to "buy" starting equipment with. You'll get more equipment as the game progresses. "Cost" is how many Equipment Points the item costs. "Limit" is how many of the item one character can start with.

Item	Cost	Limit	Notes
Smartphone	0	1
Bottle of Regenerix Chewable Tablets	0	1	One bottle contains 20 tablets. One tablet restores 0.2 Health. Taking tablets imposes a -1 penalty on all other actions that turn for each five tablets taken.
Bottle of Vitalix Chewable Tablets	0	1	One bottle contains 20 tablets. One tablet restores 0.2 Stamina. Taking tablets imposes a -1 penalty on all other actions that turn for each five tablets taken.
Bottle of Claritex Chewable Tablets	0	1	One bottle contains 20 tablets. One tablet restores 0.2 Focus. Taking tablets imposes a -1 penalty on all other actions that turn for each five tablets taken.
Knife	1	2	Accuracy 0, damage 2.
Sword	2	2	Accuracy 1, damage 3.
Axe	2	2	Accuracy 0, damage 4.
Hammer	2	2	Accuracy 0, damage 4.
Spear	2	1	Accuracy 0, damage 3. Long.
Glaive	4	1	Accuracy 1, damage 4. Long.
Halberd	5	1	Accuracy 1, damage 5. Long.
Mini pistol	1	2	Accuracy 0, damage 2. Short range.
Pistol	2	2	Accuracy 0, damage 4. Short range.
Submachine gun	4	1	Accuracy 1, damage 5. Short range.
Rifle	6	1	Accuracy 1, damage 6. Medium range.
Assault rifle	8	1	Accuracy 2, damage 7. Medium range.
Sniping rifle	11	1	Accuracy 3, damage 8. Long range.
Mini rocket launcher	13	1	Accuracy 0, damage 12. Long range. Small area.
Mini missile launcher	17	1	Accuracy 4, damage 12. Long range. Small area.

Each character starts with basic knowledge of one type of magic (aka discipline of magic, branch of magic, etc.). This can be almost anything — Fire Magic, Electricity Magic, Motion Magic, Mental Magic, Data Magic, etc. Things humans created (e.g. guns, looking at you Flamelasher) are not allowed. You can try to do anything with magic, but unless you keep it reasonable you won't live long. Creating matter is one thing that is very difficult, and drains a lot of Focus for a small amount of matter.

Each character has three status meters: Stamina, Focus, and Health. Doing physical things (e.g. dodging) drains Stamina, doing mental things (e.g. using magic) drains Focus, and doing unhealthy things (e.g. getting shot) drains Health. Health is also drained when Stamina or Focus would normally be drained, but are at 0. You take a -1 penalty on physical rolls for each point by which your Stamina is below 10. You take a -1 penalty on mental rolls for each point by which your Focus is below 10. You take a -1 penalty on all rolls for each point by which your Health is below 10, and you die at 0 Health.

Name : ? (Required. You wouldn't have got the job otherwise. And don't use your username.)
Magic Type : ? (Choose one. Examples: Fire Magic, Electricity Magic, Motion Magic, Mental Magic, Data Magic. Things humans created (e.g. guns, looking at you Flamelasher) are not allowed. Things that just don't happen in real life (e.g. teleportation) are also not allowed... yet.)
Inventory : ? (See Equipment section.)