“ This is the Morgue Daily, live from the Lifelines. On today’s podcast, we’ll be featuring a very special Taker today on our podcast. It’s the one that all you Lost have been chomping at the teeth for. Gnat, the esteemed leader of the Moths herself! And as we always say here on the Morgue, remember, the Loss is your gaiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnzzzztttttttttt”
Your eyes flutter open at the tail-end of the broadcast. The radio begins to warble like an off-tune opera singer and then descends into a beehive of static. A flabby fist pounds it to no avail as the driver begins conjuring up a storm of swearing.
“ Stupid friggin’ wireless.” The driver grumbles, a hint of a fiery East coast accent that threatens to slip out from the veneer of civility he puts up. “ I swear this damn storm messin the signals up there. Cali’s getting wetter and wetter by the months”
Ah, that jolts your memory. You’d spent a sizeable portion of your Bounty hitchhiking yourself and your close ones from the North. Trying for the Mid-West was damn near imposssible thanks to the Rockies. The only choice was to head for the Golden State and hire a trafficker to bring them to the Crest. Travelling alone wasn’t a risk you were willing to take, even with your experience.
Luckily, it seemed like you picked the right smuggler. There was a sense of personality in the humid interior of the bus as it trucked alongside the pot-holed asphalt of California 1. Little scratches or grooves made with nails or spare pennies into the metal to spell out crude jokes or names. Damp paper adverts stuck to the floor of the bus. Duct tape and super glue had been used to patch up decaying bus seats and some of the cracked windows were plated with thick floorboards ripped straight out of a house.There was a sense of security to be had in its seeming insecurity. The tour bus had been repurposed into an armoured truck, welded parts of other vehicles and corrugated steel bolted onto the sides.
Shifting your head, you take a peek through one of the slits in the boarded up window. You can barely make it out but the blue is unmistakable. That roar of the waves crashing and gulls squawking combined with the sea salt permeating the air reminds you of the times when you stared eagerly in front of your Grandma’s oven. It suddenly occurs to your window that you’ve never seen the ocean before. In person. You’ve had a taste of it in public swimming pools and suspicious water parks but there’s a border to them. A limit that returns you to the hard Crash of modern life where you surrender for lesser. Out there, past what remains of Monterey Bay’s sunny beaches is a veritable expanse of blue that peaks past the horizon, sunlight pooling into little divots where the waves roll and crash into the beach, dissipating their energy into white froth. It’s hard to imagine that before the Crash, these beaches used to be filled with people who would laze on there just to get a tan. Now, such behaviour is bound to either get you labelled as Bait or a privileged member of the Loss.
“ Alright, we’re ‘ere.”The driver shifts stick and the bus slows to a lurching crawl. “E’rybody come up and fess up the fee. Otherwise, you’re welcome to disagree with Buckshot with that’s what you want.”
A man near the bus door - Buckshot, presumably - stands up straight from where’s he’s leaning. He’s cut like a football linebacker and wears a baggy poncho that hangs on his frame like a window curtain. Dark gimlets of green peek out above a sleek NBC filtration mask that covers up his entire mouth. He pumps his shotgun (Ithaca 37, your memory helpfully provides) in a show of intimidation and waves the barrel as if asking everyone to get a move on.
By the time you make it to the front and pass up the Bounty, the driver seeks to make conversation with you.
“ Hold up……” His features scrunch up in concentration, yellowed nicotine-stained teeth grinding together. You can almost hear the rusted gears in his brain turning. “ Haven’t I seen you around somewhere? You’re that Taker….ehhhh……Capuchin? Brero? Jarhead? Weren’t you with me on the Travajo Job?”
[] - Choose a reply.
[X] - “ Come on, bud. Don’t you remember reading one of my op editorials on the Lifelines about the Mid-West StopLoss sites last March? It was a hit all over UbiqNet!”
Begin as Beatnik, the Gonzo Taker Journalist
[X] - “ Nah, nah. You must be confusing me for some other thief - I mean, teeth! Tooth fairy! Yeah, that’s my name. Tooth Fairy. I...sell teeth for a living! ”
Begin as Mousetrap, Scavenger Extraordinaire
[X] - “ I paid your price already. I didn’t recall personal questions as part of our arrangement.”
Begin as EpiPen, The Immune Lone Wolf
“ Hey, relajante. I was only pryin’. You know how it goes ‘round these parts.” He cocks his head in curiosity, looking at your equipment with a hint of jealousy.
[] - What piece of item on you did he comment about?
[X] - “Dios mios, what I would do to finish the last season of Indomitable if I had those glasses of yours. ”
(Start with Ubiq AR Specs.)
[X] - “ Gosh, an actual Gerberman! You a mechanic of some kind çause I’m kind of looking for a guy to repair my toaster….”
(Start with Multitool)
[X] - “ Did you come here to bird watch? If so, you should have gone to Parajo Plains to see the blue jays instead of here.”
(Start with Binoculars)
Start by choosing an action for each prompt and post them in the OOC. For example, if I provided the following prompts:
[] - Choose an action
[X] - Kick
[X] - Punch
[] - Choose something to say
[X] - "Holy shit"
[X] - "Holy fuck"
You would post in the OOC.....
[X] - Kick [X] - "Holy fuck"
Whichever action gets the most votes by players automatically wins. Tiebreakers are determined by the QM (me) with a roll of the die.
Tough Spot: Independent Scrivener (+2 on all Research checks but all heals to Humanity cost 1 more Bounty) - Scoping out for a good story doesn’t come without severe mental issues. Whilst you are effective at what you do professionally, the same can’t be said for how you take care of yourself.
Weak Spot: The Truth is Out There - You’ll stop at nothing to get the truth with wild abandon. No compromises, no half-measures. The only way to cure the world of the Blight is to reveal the truth to the public, one blog post at a time.
Soft Spot: Rebel In Your Heart- You view those who try to fight back under the yoke of authority with a sympathetic eye.
Dependents:
Asp: A crippled Immune permanently stuck in a wheelchair due to the DHQS harvesting program. Was and is still your primary source of information for DHQS Immune harvesting operations.
Skills and Potentials
STR: 2/Haul: 2
Melee 1
Unarmed 0
Resistance 0
SPD: 1
Shoot 1
Stealth 1
Athletics 1
ADP: 1
Awareness 1
Self Control 1
Scavenging 1
Drive 0
Criminality 1
INT: 2
Foresight 0
Research 2
First Aid 1
Mechanics 0
Profession: Journalist 1
CHA: 3
Negotiation: 2
Persuasion: 2
Sensitivity 1
Deception 0
Intimidation: 1
Leadership: 1
WILL: 2
Inventory
Upkeep: 1
Charges: XXXXX XXXXX
Effect: Allows Takers to have HAUL and REFRESH
Qualities: Essential, Static
Essential (Cannot be sold)
Static (No Charges required to use item)
Upkeep: 1
Charges: XXXXX XXXXX
Current Amount: 10
Effect: Spend to buy-a-roll for physical feats
Qualities: Essential, Charged, Addictive
Charged: Extra charges can be spent for advantage.
Addictive: After failing STR check, Takers must undergo Self-Control/Stress check everyday they go without addiction
Upkeep: 2
Charges: XXXXX XXXXX
Effect: AR glasses
Qualities: Memory, Hungry, Capped
Memory: Reduction of 1 Charge for every app you have installed.
Capped: No extra charge usage per round.
Hungry: Cost of two charges for one charge.
Background
Your plans of achieving a double degree in History and Journalism in Seattle University fell apart when a taxi driver in San Francisco started coughing one day and caused the Blight to blossom on the West Coast. You stayed in the bowels of your locked apartment, working on research assignments for lecturers who were either dead or had fled to the East, whilst subsisting on dried packaged ramen, canned foods and cheap candy for a month or so.
When you logged onto the LifeLines, you began plying your trade as a journalist, writing up articles on your little forum blog and exposes on DHQS communiques and private e-mails you received from a sketchy band of black-hat hackers and anonymous informants who lived multiple states away from you. It was then that you decided to become a Taker yourself and get the best scoop of your life up close and personal with Casualties.
Your last contract led you to finding a veteran Taker named Asp who turned out to be hiding from a DHQS cell in Seattle. Unfortunately, when someone ratted out on the both of you in the enclave you were both staying in, shit hit the fan. Fast. Burning up the last good will of connections you once had in Seattle, you managed to smuggle your loved ones to the Crest and hitch a ride with Asp down the West Coast.
Physical Condition
Head: XXXXX XXXXX
Torso: XXXXX XXXXX XXXXX XXXXX
Right Arm: XXXXX XXXXX
Left Arm: XXXXX XXXXX
Left Leg: XXXXX XXXXX
Right Leg: XXXXX XXXXX
Humanity
Trauma: XXXXX 1 XXXXX 2 XXXXX 3
Detachment: XXXXX 1 XXXXX 2 XXXXX 3
Stress: XXXXX 1 XXXXX 2 XXXXX 3
Bank Account
N/A
[1] - Ubiq Specs
Upkeep: 2
Charges: XXXXX XXXXX
Effect: AR glasses
Qualities: Memory, Hungry, Capped
Memory: Reduction of 1 Charge for every app you have installed.
Capped: No extra charge usage beyond one.
Hungry: Cost of two charges for one charge.
“ Look, are you going to let me pass or not?” You then tap on the side of your specs playfully as you begin to speak in a sing-song voice. “ I’d hate to put a bad review up on the Lifelines about nosy driv-“
“ Yeesh, chica. Don’t need to become a total Karen.” He leans back and wags two fingers towards Buckshot who then wordlessly moves out of the way. You take a moment to look at yourself in the mirror. Your long tangles of brown hair are uncombed and frizzy, burs of knotted hair poking out underneath an faded green Old Navy hoodie. Your muddy eyes thankfully aren’t bloodshot and your black eye has stopped swelling. Your jeans, the knees clasped with scratched velcro pads, are caked with dried gore and dirt. A hundred miles of sitting inside a repurposed tour bus with a whole collection of other Lost like you doesn’t do wonders for your personal hygiene. You adjust your jacket for a moment to hide the bandage strapped across your lower collarbone before stepping off onto the curb.
“ Hey, Beatnik, a little help here? These things aren’t exactly wheelchair accessible.”
You turn around. Asp was sitting there, arms crossed. The Taker was dressed in an oversized parka with his lower mangled legs disguised by a picnic quilt both of you had stolen. His beard was trimmed finely, wisps of pepper grey hair staining the sandy strands. He’d looked as though like a deflated balloon, his arms two sizes smaller than a man of his age would have and his cheeks sunken like overstretched gum.
“ Right. Sorry, Asp.” You manage a sheepish smile as you strain to lift Asp’s bulk, wheelchair and all, off the bus and onto the pavement. Buckshot eventually gets tired and both of you lift him by the wheels on either side. You try to say thanks but the bus already departs, smoke trailing in the wind. They’ve left you on the outskirts of the Marina. Luckily, the area has already been surveyed for any Casualty and bandit activity by the enclaves of these areas. It’s a good 5 minute walk, though, as you and Asp travel aimlessly to Fishbowl’s outpost, the roaring of Monterey’s waves onto the berm and the rows of abandoned gauche seaside real estate projects to keep you company.
“ Hey, while you were leaving, I noticed you dropped some of your bag.” Asp pulls it out from a blanket on his lap and stares at you with a lackadaisical smirk. “ Try not to drop it again or else, you’ll see your gear passed around on the flea market.”
[] - Every Taker needs to harvest Casualties for their bounty and you can’t do that without a weapon. What’s the weapon you’ve been most comfortable using all these years in the Loss?
[X] - A good old fashioned axe.
[X] - A fashionable sports bat.
[X] - A pistol.
[X] - A shotgun.
[X] - Write in………(Beatnik does not specialise in any weapons whatsoever. Think about weapons that don’t require much training to use.)
[] - Your escape from Seattle was rushed. You barely managed to make it out as DHQS cells tried to hunt you and Asp’s ass down the West Coast. What did you manage to bring with you?
[X] - You and Asp managed to sneak a Gen 2 BTU off the DHQS goon squad they sent to try and bring Asp in. Sucks to be them, good to be you.
(Get Blood Testing Unit)
[X] - Ah, the Old Reliable. You may have failed your driving test two times in a row but your days spent cycling in Hot Rain were well spent in preparing your cardio for the apocalypse.
(Get Bicycle)
[X] - It’s not much but your trust Maglite has saved your ass mroe times than you can count when you were traipsing through the Casualty-infested ruins of Seattle.
(Get Upgraded Flashlight)
[X] - You just didn’t manage to salvage your priceless UbiqSpec Slivers. You have over a terabyte of articles and databases stored on these hard drives and you weren’t going to leave it for the spooks to take.
(Get Laptop)
[X] - Write in ………..
“ A bounty a week? Before my first job?” You slap your hand down onto the table. “ This is bullshit!”
“ Hey, hey, easy there.” The landlord takes a puff of her cigarette and looks at you, one elbow on the table as she blows out a ring to the side. Tattoos bleed out from the sides of her tanktop, one strap stitched together, as one of her sliver eyebrows raise in question. “ It's the standard price for every Taker that wants to rent in Fishbowl. This is a discount all things considered. Take it or leave it, what’ll it be?”
[X] - Your landlord can tone the price down a little. Can’t he? [Persuasion Check]
[X] - Accept the rent for what it is.
[X] - Write in………
“ Now that it’s settled……..” The landlord takes out a key from a cupboard and slides it across to you. “ Room 202. Only rules you need to remember are - “ She points up three fingers. “ No noise. No mess. No murder. Got it?”
You nod, satisfied.
“ Good. Now, get out of my site.” She puts both of her legs on the table and pulls out a folded magazine, returning to the page she was reading before you interrupted her. One eye parses the page whilst the other trails you as you walk into the motel corridors.
“ Are you sure they’re here, Asp?”
“ Beat, you’ve checked your DMs several dozen times over the course of the trip. Stop freaking out and just open the door.”
You stop. 302. Your fingers close around the bronze door-handle with trepidation. Slowly, with bated breath, You open the door and you see……..
[] Choose 2 options.
[X] - A blonde woman biting the tip of a syringe and hocking it away before tightening a strap around her upper arm. Her fingers are ready to depress the plunger when she sees you and her face lights up with a vulpine smile.
“ Oi, ma chere. Would you mind helping me with my insulin? I’m having trouble pinpointing my axillary”
(Pick Tattle)
[X] - It’s like looking at a miniature you, only with a heck of a lot of more baby fat. His cheeks press together in a dimpled smile as he raises his right hand towards his forehead in an angled salute. The collar of his turtleneck almost encircles his shoulders with bloodied bandages unfurled out of the sleeves.
(Pick Junior)
[X] - A dog and a mousy looking girl currently wrestling with one another for dominance. The dog eventually ends up winning, covering his opponent in a mass of black fur and drool.
(Pick Rat and Cheese)
[X] - A snoring old man lazing on a broken down massage chair. He’s currently holding his M1 Garand as if it’s a teddy bear with his prosthetic arm.
(Pick Old Man Guntherson)
Here’s a breakdown of that little sheet I just posted.
Name and Taker Name: Most Takers use a pseudonym as a means of dissociating themselves from the horrors of the Loss. Josephine is a ‘seperate’ individual from Beatnik even though they’re the same person. Just treat it as the norm.
Tough Spot: Every character you will encounter within the quest has a tough spot - aka a background or association that has allowed them to persist in the Loss as long as they did. Mechanically, for your Taker, it provides both a benefit and a bonus to certain rolls. Following your Tough Spot will allow you to regain a point of WIL or boost skills temporarily.
Weak Spot: A Character Flaw that defines your personality and what everyone knows you to be. Choosing or writing in actions that express your weak spot will allow you to regain a point of WIL or boost your skills temporarily.
Soft Spot: A deep passion or belief that your character holds. Choosing or writing in actions that contribute to your soft spot will potentially allow you regain a point of WILl or boost your skills temporarily.
Your character’s stats consist of Potentials (Think of the SPECIAL system from Fallout) and Skills (self-explanatory). Skills underneath a potential cannot be higher than the Potential. For example, if you have STR 2, your Melee cannot be higher than two.
STR - General measure of your physical capacity. Your STR determines the amount of HAUL you can have aka the amount of loot you can carry on you from contracts or from items that are physically strenuous to carry. Also determines Health and Infection checks. SPD - General measure of a character’s speed and agility. Affects Athletics checks and refreshment of rations when taking a turn to rest. ADP - Aptitude for awareness and general ad hoc improvisation under stress. Affects Refresh INT - Long term planning and general knowledge. Used for checks that gather information. CHA - Ability to convince and communicate with other people. All consequences of CHA skill checks are one-time-only. WIL - The only potential that is used as a resource. Will allows you to alter failed rolls and accomplish a number of things.
Switch the values of Black and Red die Upgrade success to critical success or reduce critical failures to normal failures Get another narrative benefit to a critical success Jump in front of initiative during combat Negate the critical roll of another opponent
These are your skills. Skills are used as a means to make checks in all of your character’s interactions. Remember that you cannot make a skill check if your skill is 0. Your skill must be 1 or above. Some skills can be specialized and others cost resources to use if you want to make a check. Some skills allow specializations which are sub-sets of skills that are required to operate specific items or achieve specific contextual actions.
Melee - Self explanatory. Specializations can occur. (E.G - Bojutsu, Fencing) Unarmed - Self explanatory. Specializations can occur. (E.G - Krav Maga, Boxing, Wrestling) Resistance - Ability to withstand damage and physical stress. Shoot - Ability to handle firearms or ranged weapons. Specializations can occur. (E.G - Archery. Operating crew mounted weapons. Grenade launchers.) Athletics - Ability to be dexterous and run like Speedy gonzales. Stealth - Self explanatory. Self Control - Ability to control your own emotions and well-being. Scavenging - Self explanatory. Drive - Ability to operate vehicles. Specializations can occur. (E.G - Planes. Motorcycles. Boats. Helicopters) Criminality - General knowledge of illegal and illict means of behaviour. Can be used to effect the chance of Scams. Foresight - The ability to plan contingencies and tactics beforehand. Research - Surveying or getting intel about something or someone. Mechanics - Ability to repair or operate electronic and mechanical items. First Aid - Self explanatory. Profession - A skill that consists of studying in a specific field of knowledge. Examples would be Profession: Lawyer or Profession: Neuroscientist or Profession: Programmer. Networking: Finding the right person for the right job. Persuasion: Convincing a person. Can be used to affect Sway during Negotiations. Sensitivity: Your empathy and ability to figure out a person’s Spots. Deception: Ability to tell lies. Intimidation: Make someone piss their pants. Leadership: The ability to influence and make wide changes on a community. Also, generally used to determine length of negotiations. Basically, the more you have of this, the more of a politician you are.
Humanity
You’re only human after all. The state of your mental health and composure is divided up into three main categories: Trauma, Detachment and Stress. Whenever you experience something that might be mentally traumatising or isn’t good for your wellbeing, the QM asks you to roll a check for either one of the three categories below.
Stress: XXXXX XXXXX
Trauma: XXXXX XXXXX
Detachment: XXXXX XXXXX
Welcome to the Profit System!
All rolls, combat encounters and skill checks are rolled using two d10 die; the RED die and the BLACK die unless stated otherwise by the GM. If the value of the BLACK die is higher than the RED die, it’s a success and a fail if RED is higher than BLACK, if the RED die is higher than the BLACK. Skills, items and other factors can add negative or positive modifiers to your black die or red die to increase or decrease the chance of failure or success.
Mental and social actions are free and do not cost anything but are One and Done. This means that during an important negotiation or attempting to bullshit, you can only succeed at it once or fail it once. There are no take backs.
Equipment can be used to influence rolls by spending the inherent Charges present within the item. Extra charges can be spent beyond one charge to add a +1 for each charge to the BLACK die.
In order to make a skill check to influence your die, your character must have at least one point in that skill. So, no, you can’t hotwire a car and learn on the spot to drive it if your Drive skill is 0.
Ties on both die before any modifiers are considered to be the equivalent of a natural 20 or a critical. If it’s a tie on an even number, then, it’s a critical success. If it’s a tie on an odd number, it’s a critical failure.
If your BLACK die is lower than your RED die and your natural modifiers are unable to surpass it, there are 3 ways to still roll for success.
One way is to succeed at cost. Posters can do this by providing alternative narrative options to get out of a situation, albeit at a cost. For example, let’s say you get bitten in the arm by a Casualty and are about to be infected. You can post an option like so.
[X] - SUCCEED AT COST - Cut off my arm and seal off the bleeding.
The QM (me) will ask you to make an appropriate skill check or use up your equipment. An example of this would be a First Aid check by rolling your die or using up your entire medical kit by expending all of its charges. The requirements would be posted in the OOC and the player group has the majority decision of either accepting the cost or not of succeeding.
Another alternative pathway is to spend a point of Will. Will is one of your Potentials that you can burn to automatically influence the rolls of your die. Be careful about using up all of your Will. Spending a point of Will can allow you to flip the results of die, upgrade successes into critical successes or reduce the consequence of critical failures into regular failures.
If you are in a roll where narratively, you have the time and ability to call someone up for help, you can tap References. Tapping references allows you to succeed at a non-combat roll. Tapping References will cost a certain amount of Bounty. Keep in mind that you can tap a Reference every time. Time and help isn’t cheap and if you abuse your references too much, they might not respond. References will vary between each character you choose.
For the purposes of this quest, your first die is the RED die and your second die is the BLACK die.
Now, you might be asking, how will dice rolls happen in a quest format with multiple voters? Well, it’s simple.
Players first democratically choose votes to occur. After that period has passed, , the QM will ask the players to roll Red and Black for actions that require a check or a dice roll. The roll of the one that posts first is automatically chosen to influence the roll.
For players that do write in options, the QM will first engage with them in the OOC about the skill required to achieve that check or option and then, ask whether they’re still willing to proceed. If so, the QM will ask the players to roll die.
Everything degrades. It’s the law of entropy. The only way to keep stuff from degrading is constant maintenance. That’s how equipment and gear works in Red Markets. Ammo, fuel, battery, durability and the lifespan of an product is abstracted down into charges. Refreshing an Equipment allows you to gain new charges whilst Upkeep is required to maintain your equipment between contracts and out of the field.
Charges: The abstraction of the number of times you can ‘use’ an item.
Upkeep: The price required to maintain an item in bounty.
Effect: Self explanatory.
Qualities: Description of the items utilities or extra bonuses that influence its effects negatively or positively.
Upkeep and Purchasing New Items
The Upkeep of an item is the amount of bounty required to maintain an item between contracts and refresh charges. The price of buying a new piece of equipment is generally the Upkeep multiplied by 2. Paying your Upkeep allows you to refresh all charges expended. If you don’t pay the full price of Upkeep, you must make a malfunction check. Partial payment of the Upkeep can be used to influence the check. For example, if the Upkeep is 3 Bounty and you spend 2 bounty, you get +2 to your roll.
If you roll a success on a malfunction check, there is no refresh of charges and you lose one upgrade due to malfunction.
If you roll a critical success, there is no refresh of charges.
If you roll a failure, the equipment loses two upgrade, doesn’t refresh any charges and will not function without a check on an appropriate repair skill.
If you roll a critical failure, you’ve permanently screwed the item up and it is rendered unusable.
