Shadow of Ares - Setting *History July 20, 1969: The Apollo 11 Lunar Module guidance system suffers a fatal mishap, and the Eagle impacts on the Moon. Armstrong and Aldrin are dead, and Collins returns to Earth in the Command Module. October 3, 1969: Alexey Leonev sets the Lunnly Korabi down on Mare Crisium and plants the Soviet flag on the Moon. Footage of the mission is carried live on TV, and the Western world is shocked. October 8, 1969: President Robert Kennedy orders NASA to abandon the Moon shot and put all efforts into landing astronauts on Mars. April 11, 1972: Viking 3 lander detects strong concentrations of the highly-valuable Rhenium on Mars. Word leaks out, and a full-scale “Gold Rush” on Mars ensues. 1979: Hundreds of people live and work on the surface of Mars and in orbit. Industrial mining is happening at a dozen sites, Spacecraft make the 11-month trip bringing Rhenium and other minerals back to Earth, and people and supplies to Mars. Landers explore the moons of Mars, and probes investigate the Asteroid Belt. Things are generally peaceful, with mining companies laying down the law more than countries are able. But occasionally flareups happen, and discontent is always brewing under the surface. 1980: Miscalculations by aggressive US and Soviet generals lead to a limited nuclear exchange before the US President and Soviet Premier can put a stop to them. Tens of millions are dead, and a billion people face starvation after a devastating "nuclear winter”. Supply ships from Earth to Mars dry up almost immediately. 1985: Those on and near Mars have switched from mining to a subsistence economy, finding their own water and oxygen and growing their own food. Data has become a valuable fourth resource for the colonists. Barter has mostly replaced money, and salvaging and repurposing existing equipment is the order of the day. 1986: The Mars radiation belt has caused a certain percentage of people to develop various paranormal powers. Most keep it a secret; some use it to their advantage. *Areas on Mars surface: Isidis Planatia: Partial underground facility with too many people living there for the resources they have. Syrtis Major: They were studying cellular Martian lifeforms when a virus ran through the camp and killed them all. No one goes near. Special Robot Traverse Zone: Designed as a human “no-go” zone so semiautonomous heavy industrial robots could do their work unimpeded. Some have developed system bugs, which makes the area dangerous. Chryse Planitia: Lots of aqua farmed food has led to corruption here. Trust is low, with retaliatory stabbings and beatings common. Oxia Palus: Bit of a survivalists camp, but they will take about anything for scrap and salvage. Huo Hsing Vallis quadrangle: They have survived through the efforts of a wily leader who has created a cult following. *Selected locations in Mars orbit: Skylab-M: Official US presence in orbit, a dozen living modules, light industrial resources, home of the Mars Consul General. One of the only video links to Earth is here. Kosmos 997: The official Soviet/Eastern bloc presence in orbit, with living quarters and multiple docking bays. A way station (and spying location) between the surface and orbit. The best data center in orbit, they keep the Kilobits flying, albeit slowly. Freeport Phoenix: Closest thing to a “shopping mall” in orbit, with a score of lashed together living modules and empty fuel tanks doubling as storefronts for the various and sundry. A common stop for ships in between orbit and the surface. Freeport runs as a loose collective, but everyone is always looking to make a barter behind their neighbor’s back. A massive solar array powers the thing, but makes for a dicey time getting in and out with your ship. Climax-LTV: A mining-defense company still runs this station, and they keep things running pretty close to the old days. Except there are vegetables growing in every extra space in the station now. Here they can not only fix your ship, but even build you a new one. Sort of. Croatan (originally Shuguang-1): Abandoned Chinese space station taken over and expanded by anarchist dropouts and criminals from Mars, calling themselves The Believers. They get high on hydroponic weed and homemade psychedelics, but they can come up with about any medicine or weird electronic device you might need. Almaz 5 Space Station: Sometime during the nuclear war on Earth, this unmanned station was put into "defence mode", activating its radar-aimed 23mm autocannon. There's bound to be some valuable scrap and data inside, but no one wants to get close enough to find out. Eagle 2 (destroyed): Remnants of a U.S. orbital weapons platform that fell victim to a suicide hunter-killer satellite. A very dangerous area to fly around, but the possibility of salvaging that 1-megawatt carbon-dioxide laser... Fortescue Collector: Originally an unmanned way station for ore awaiting transport to Earth, it was "adopted" by unemployed miners who rigged up a power unit and some CO2 scrubbers. It's now home to them, and they like it that way. Hard-working and suspicious by nature, they keep tabs on what's happening on the surface. * Some Valuable Trinkets Floating Around Space: Battered Orlan EVA suit, the left forearm covered with notes written in Cyrillic Strobe light goggles for brainwave synchronization Old US Air Force flight jacket with an Apollo patch Portable Sony cassette player and a box of punk tapes Dazzler flashlight running on hard-to-find batteries EPROM writer for copying memory chips Chinese rebreather bag that “burns” incense for inhaling Space Invaders hacked to play on a CRT monitor with a light pen Cache of canned peaches in syrup * People of Interest Crabby: creepy old man that keep one of the largest collection of scrap and other reusable materials, if he does not have what you are looking for then nobody has. Chiquita Mamá: sexy mid-aged woman that runs a local inn for travelers, her nick is a slang that could have 2 meanings (Little Mommie or Hot Girl) she know it and use each one at convenience. Peppie: cheerful old lady that runs errand among mar's surface still searchig Rhenium, she is kinda out of his mind but a nice person to meet and share a meal. Trigger: used to be a security guard but know he is just mucle for hire, he is bad tempered and foul mouthed. Kash: one of the scarce persons with several resources at her hand, have something to trade? Want a component? Maybe a guide? Perhaps a loan? She is the girl you need, you did not know her? No prob she already knows you. Wires: the only one who cares enough to keep comunicating with earth, yeah they haven't sent a message but when they do it is better to keep someone listening, anyway he recives commnunications of almost all the ships and settlements on Mars, he belives that info is to be shared freely, a great guy to get a secret but a terrible man to tell a secret. - How to play Shadows Of Ares is a game where the players tell a collective story. You are the crew of a ship cobbled together from spare parts. It’s cramped, ugly as hell and difficult to run, but it’s yours. In play the Game Master describes the situation and then Character Players describe what their Characters want do in response. The Game Master then describes the results of those actions and the new situation. If the things the Characters want to do are difficult or being opposed by other forces in the world the GM will tell the players to make an Equipment Use, Construction, Deconstruction, Violence or Medicine roll. They might impose a penalty of minus one, minus two or minus three if the task is particularly difficult. The results of the roll will tell the players how successful the characters are at their task. Mars is a harsh place and the GM should be make a point of filling the character’s lives with complications, shady contacts, hazardous environments and macgyvered retro gear that is only ever inches away from breaking down. - Characters: Once the Martians were a group of dedicated and industrius workers but when the supplies stop comming from Earth the once industrius martian were sitted on his butts with nothing to do except to avoid the dust and survive another day, they had one of the most valuable minerals forgotten on the vaults as they are incapable of make a profit. At that point nobody know when the communication will reinitiate again between Mars and Earth (still nobody knows) but little details like that could convince a stuborn martian to await patientitly to dead, instead they start to use and reuse, recycle, reutilize, repair, juryrig, fix, recover or salvage every device and piece of equipment to keep living for another day. But keep breathing for another day is hard for an lonely martian, so they gather in “Squads” to go out and scavenge components needed if not by them at least for someone, in this Squads all need to be useful in some degree. When you create your character take a minute to answer a cuple of data and questions: - Nick: the martians had names but rarely use them to call each other, more often just a nickname is enough, many of this nicks reffer to the character past, are descriptive of their phsysilogy or personality, some are just borrowed words from other languages or simply a word that sounds cool Here is a quick list of nick, every player can come with their own of course: Scarred Tradie Conehead Stratto - Stratta Nicesmile Twofingers Birdie Dimin Flatter Griton – Gritona Mellie Shintown Now your character has a nick, how he earned or was given? Is he to noisy and somebody call him “Griton”? He solved a difficult situation so he earned the nick of Conehead? Think about a short story of your nick's origin Next take a look at your partnerts, they are your Squad members and all of you have a special talent, maybe you are the only one that can understand the navigation charts, or the only one that understand the complex and ever tearing apart ol' ship, select a special talent that only your character can do for the squad. Here is a quick list of Special Talents but a player can come with their own: Make fuel Repair the ship Read the navigation charts Barter goods Cultivate food Purify water Repair the Air purifier Negotiate with locals Enter a specific location Survive a specific location Use communication devices Land the ship Once you selected you special talent now you must elaborate a reason why you are the only squad member that can do it, who teach you to make fuel? Why you can understand the navigation charts? When you first create your character you have training level one for three pieces of Equipment, training level two for another three and training level three for another three, all the Equipment has difficult ratings that going from 1 to 3 and they need the apropiate Equipment training. Similarly you have one training level in one roll type (Construction, Deconstruction, Violence or Medicine), training level two in another and training level three in a third, this gives the character a +1 for each training level (+1 at level 1, +2 at level 2 and +3 at level 3). Your character also starts out owning eight pieces of Equipment but only four may be higher than level one and only one may be higher than level two. Additionally at least one of those pieces of Equipment must be a component of the group’s ship. As the characters own their ship collectively they should work together to decide on a name for it. Connection Now you and your group have characters is time to decide how they meet each other, next you will find some suggestions, of course you can add, modify or alter this ideas, pick or create 2 connections to different characters. Your character... Saved the life of another character, is he in debt with you? Is in love of another character, the feeling is mutual? Steal something important from other character, he is aware of the thievery? Was recued from a dangerous situation by another character, what was the risk? - Rolling When attempting a non-trivial task roll 2d6 minus any penalties from the GM plus any relevant training levels you have plus the Equipment level of the main Equipment you’re using, if any. Whenever you fail a check by rolling a double one, increase your training level in the Equipment you are using. When using Equipment, also roll 1d20. If the d20 roll is less than the Equipment's failure rate the piece of Equipment breaks and destroys one of its components. When to roll? When the outcome of an action is unclear, after all even a kid can pilot a ship from one side of Mars to the other, but pilot that ship when the fuel is low and trying to get the most of it is tricky, pilot a ship with low fuel while being chased by scavengers is really hard. If the action has clear outcome given enough resources (like time or components) then there is no need to call a roll. - Equipment use: Many actions such as piloting a ship, hacking a computer or cooking a meal are simply defined as using a relevant piece of Equipment. 15+ You are wildly successful putting yourself at an advantage for future tasks. 10+ You skillfully complete your task with no troubles. 8+ You are only partially successful, you lose something in the process. 7- You make a mistake in your execution and fail to achieve your intention leading to further complications. - Deconstruction: Pull apart Equipment to get its components. If you need a component from a piece of equipment that isn’t listed as one of its main components in the description you can, with the GM’s permission, impose a -1 penalty on yourself to change the type of a component as you extract it. Components which are changed in this way always become level one on extraction. 15+ Get all components undamaged 10+ Destroy 1 component of your choice 8+ Roll 1d6 for each component, destroy any which roll 1 7- Destroy all but 1 component chosen by GM (If only one component, it is destroyed) - Construction: Combine multiple pieces of Equipment and/or components to make new Equipment. New Equipment has all components of all things used to make it. Equipment can have components that have a higher or lower level than the standard and components that aren’t even in the standard build. The Equipment’s failure rate is one plus the number of components in the equipment that are either not in the standard build or have a level below what is specified in the standard build. If you try to construct Equipment that in the equipment list you must give it a name and describe how its components make it work if this makes sense to the GM they will add it to the equipment list and you may attempt the Construction roll to make it. 15+ Craft the thing, it's failure rate is one 10+ Craft the thing 8+ Craft the thing but increase its failure rate by two 7- Craft something that is useless/doesn’t work, could have another use? - Violence: The characters often need to get on hands with others, maybe to defend themselves or to get what they want, any case when the character intend to do harm on others roll Violence. 15+ Critically Wound them. 10+ Wound them. 8+ Wound them and take a wound. 7- Don’t wound anyone. How you miss? - Medicine: Mars is a harsh and rough place and many ugly things can happen, maybe the enviroment or another person but when the characters need to heal another one roll for Medicine. 15+ Remove a critical wound. 10+ Remove a wound. 8+ Prevent a normal wound from progressing to critical. 7- Advance the wound towards critical by 1 hour, whay you did wrong? - Wounds When you take a wound roll 2d6 to see where a Wound is. Wounds can be physical or mental. Using a wounded part of your body or mind grants a -2 penalty to roll or -5 if the wound is critical. A regular wound progresses to critical in 6 hours without medicine. A critical wound that is rolled directly becomes permanent if not healed within 10 minutes. Wound rolls of 10-12 becoming permanent kill the character or make them insane. Roll Physical Mental 12 Head Reality 10-11 Chest/Gut Self Control 3-9 Body/Limb Focus 2 Eyes/Ears/Mouth Identity - Ships and Vehicles Each ship need several components to work properlly Fuel Storage (with fuel) Propellant Drive Navigation System (with accurate martian charts) Pressurized Cabin To pilot a ship, or any other vehicle, make an Equipment Use roll using the vehicle’s Equipment level and your training levels with its navigation system. A vehicle’s Equipment level is calculated as the sum of the Equipment levels of the vehicle’s propulsion and navigation Equipment minus the number of major Equipment that make up the ship. Ex. Sandsurfer Fuel Storage 1 Propellant Drive 3 Navigation System 3 Pressurized Cabin 1 Communicator 2 Storage 1 In this example you add the equipment levels of the propulsion (3) and navigation (3) to get a (6) minus the number of major equipment (4) to get a Equipment Level of 2 for the Sandsurfer. - Components Equipment is made up of components, a component has a type from the Component Types list and a level from one to three. Component Types Organic, Textile, Conductive, Reflective, Structural, Articulated, Fuel, Shielded, Sharp, Weighted, Data, Computing, Output, Input, Motorized, Propellant, Transfer, Storage, Transmitting, Receiving, Heating, Cooling - Equipment The Equipment Level of a piece of Equipment is equal to the component level of the lowest component in the Equipment. Equipment Listing Format: Equipment Name (components of standard build): Properties including usual uses and usual outcomes of usage failures if any. Vac Suit (Textile3, Shielding1, Storage2): Use: Move around in the awkward suit. Failure: Trip, fumble or fall. Strobe Goggles (Output3, Computing2, Textile1): Use: Create a psych-link between people. Failure: Induce traumatic psychosis. Cue screaming. Cassette Player (Input2, Output1, Fuel1): Use: Play sound from a cassette. Failure: Make horrible noises or damage the cassette. Flashlight (Output1, Fuel1): Use: Light up the area in front of you. Data Copier (Fuel1, Input2, Output2): Use: Copy data from one tape to another. Rebreather (Transfer3, Storage1): Use: Breath. Failure: Trip, fumble or fall. Arcade Cabinet (Data2, Computing2, Input1, Output2): Use: Get a place on the leaderboard. Failure: Game Over. Tin Of Peaches (Organic2, Storage1): Use: Eat me some peaches. Failure: Trip, fumble or fall. Microwave Nutrition Enhancer (Fuel1, Heating1, Motorized1, Reflective1, Transfer2): Use: Make something edible MORE edible. Increase organic components by one level. Failure: Food Asplode or battery goes flat. Micronuclear Battery (Fuel1, Conductive1): Use: Power a device. Failure: Goes flat, lose fuel. Solar Recharger (Reflective3, Cooling3, Conductive3, Storage2): Use: Turns 8 hours of sunlight and a dead battery into a fully charged battery. Handgun (Transfer1, Articulated2, Storage1): Use: Fire a bullet at someone or thing to damage or wound. Failure: Misfire, shoot something else nearby. Maybe yourself? Neural Beamer (Input2, Transmitting2)Use: Assault someones brain with radio waves to wound their mind. Failure: Brainfreeze. Maybe wound your own mind? Sword (Sharp2, Structural1): Use: Swing the sword at someone or thing to damage or wound. Failure: Hit something else nearby. Maybe yourself? Propellant Drive (Propellant3, Transfer1, Cooling1) Fuel Storage (Storage2, Fuel2, Cooling1) Navigation System (Input2, Display1, Computing1, Motorized2) Pressurized Cabin (Structural3, Storage2, Heating2) Radio Transceiver (Transmitting1, Receiving1, Output1, Input1): Use: Send and receive messages over radio waves. Landing Gear (Articulating1, Propellant2, Structural2) * Mars Here are some ideas to add to the characters experience on Mars, the next tables are just for quick ideas so you can start to play, feel free to modify the tables to suit you style an game experience. Population Low – the glory days of the humans on Mars are long begone, now the Martians are scatered on al the surface and orbit but no more than a dozen denizens or so. Stable – population has remain more or less stable with only a few peaks of deaths and births Terraformation None – the martians need to live constantly on secured modules to avoid air loss, radiation, dust and many other deathly native risks of Mars, heavy duty vac suits are needed to go outside Phase 1 – the people still need to live on modules and outside exploration is dangerous but not a constant threat. Phase 2 – Humans can go outside for relative small periods of time without enviromental risks Civilization Decadent – many sources of knowledge are lost. Stable – quite the same at the time as when in the mining period. Prosperous – slowly many discoveries have done to improve the living standart Goverment None – Any form of goverment is lost and each group of persons rules themselves with arbitraric rules. Local – some goverment remain but at local scale, comprissing different groups. Regional – dictates law to a number of local goverments. Central – to survive the goverment must join at one point, from there law is dispatched at different time rates. Centers of population Scarce – each center is small and distant from each other, it may take days or even weeks to travel among them Small – each center is small but the distance between them is enough to take hours or a couple days to travel from one to another Medium – has medium size, some services like constant suplies of water and air. Dense – the center is well poblated and dense, maybe even cramped Crime and Corruption None – the criminals are few and operate isolated or in small groups (1 to 3) Few – criminals gather in small gangs (5 to 10) Abundant – the crime gangs are numerous and organized (11 to 20+) Communications outside Mars None – Since 1980 no comunication has been recived from earth, nothing from military to entretainment is being broadcasted from earth. Few – Since 1980 some casual comunication has been recived from earth, not directly but leaks from the datasphere like tv shows, movies, among others Food, Water and Air (each one individual) None – the Martians are on extreme need and their doom can be counted in days? Months? Few Produced – the supplies can be produced (cultivated, purified or other) but on limited quantyties Produced – there are a continual production of supplies. Flora and Fauna None – No plants or animals live on Mars surface. Few Native – with the human activity some native life have developed thus now Mars have native plants or animals Few Earthling – the humans bring their own species and many of them have adapted very well to the local conditions of Mars Weird Science None – the technological advance is limited in some areas but advanced in others in comparison with ours Little – certain extraordinary achivements have been done, at this point the weirdness is limited by time, materials, developers, fuel, extraordinary conditions, pick 2 Some - certain extraordinary achivements have been done, at this point the weirdness is limited by time, materials, developers, fuel, extraordinary conditions, pick 1 Traveling Dangerous – traveling on Mars is a constant danger, the radiation, lack of air, rockfalls, earthquakes, aggressive wildlife, strong winds, sandstorms or scavengers. Pick any 3 Awareness required - traveling on Mars requieres constant observation of the enviroment to avoid indeseable risks like: radiation, lack of air, rockfalls, earthquakes, aggressive wildlife, strong winds, sandstorms or scavengers. Pick 2 Bored - traveling on Mars requieres observation of the enviroment: radiation, lack of air, rockfalls, earthquakes, aggressive wildlife, strong winds, sandstorms or scavengers. Pick 1 * Create a Map When the group create your own personal Mars with their locations and persons of interest grab a paper and start making some anotations. Start with a center of poblation and define some details, like where they get supplies (Air, Water, Food) what sources of energy use, technology use , two notable locals and population, not enough for you? Feel free to add as many as you need. Now add risks to the center of poblation, like a shortage on seeds to cultivate, limited components to the water purifier, overpopulation for the Air recycler, dangerous and distant energy generator, low amount of technology avaliable, a corrupter leader and a good old friend, on a settlement of about 500 persons. Of course a center does not have so many details and risks, is better to left some to let the characters define them on game time. If you want to add more locations to the surroundings extend the process to the ones around your initial center of poblation, like a mountain, risk, plains or ruins, now add detail to this locations, why are they relevant? The mountain is a natural energy generator, you find pure water on the risk, a natural source of food can be found on the plains, in the ruins lives a man that have an equipment able to function solely on solar energy. Now add dangers, the energy generated on the mountain is unstable but powerful, something big and nasty lives deeply in the risk, when explorers go to the plains 2 of each 10 get lost only to be found dead from starvation with plenty food around them.