Let's read: CthulhuTech

Best Selling RPGs - Available Now @ DriveThruRPG.com
Ah yes. C-Tech. The game that started my fascination with collecting infamously bad RPGs. Out of all the bad games on my "shelf of shame" Cthulhutech is probably one of the most frustrating. In spite of all its flaws, the core premise is really compelling. The idea of this apocalyptic cyberpunk-mecha-cosmic horror mashup sounds like fodder for a great campaign. It's clear that the authors and artists were really passionate about this project. It's a shame that the execution is just so poor.

The rules are a combination of barely functional, overly-complex and gimmicky. The mech combat is just poorly handled overall and just like Baeraad said even the most compelling part of the game (the Eldritch Society) manages to be weirdly boring in execution. The fact that Taeger types are pre-set and do not change, advance or grow with your character takes a really nifty idea and makes it boring.

Overall Baeraad has pretty much echoed my views of this game exactly.

I'm glad to see that the Second Edition is in fact being worked on. I was under the impression that it was basically abandonware at this point.
 
Last edited:
I'm glad to see that the Second Edition is in fact being worked on. I was under the impression that it was basically abandonware at this point.

I'm sorry to say that it probably isn't. The Beta is still up on drivethrough, yes, but the last change logged is four years old. It's a pity, because like I said - while it still had some of the first edition's flaws, they apparently were in the process of fixing up some of the more glaring ones. In particular, there was a clearer difference between Tager manifestations and also a whole new way to customise the way your Tager worked so that two Tagers of the same manifestation would have similar but not identical powers. Oh well. :sad:
 
That's sad. Like I said, it's a frustrating game because you can see the kernel of good ideas buried under a landslide of cow crap, but it's just too much to dig through all the sh!t to find those kernels.

Big Purple claims another victim.
 
What the hell. Let's do Vade Mecum too while we're at it. It adds a lot of stuff that really should have been in the core, so arguably you need it to have something resembling a complete game.

Vade Mecum, chapter one: Welcome
So, Vade Mecum, or as it is less pretentiously known, The CthulhuTech Companion. It's basically a collection of bits and bobs that should really have been in the core but that they had to cut because they were insistent on cramming two and a half games into the core all at the same time.

The chapter starts with a long badly written fiction piece about an OIS sting operation on a business deal between a crime syndicate and the Chrysalis Corporation. The Dhohanoids tentaclesplode and eat their business partners when they notice that the shit has hit the fan, then almost kills one of the OIS agents when he goes after them but he's rescued by a Tager. Highlights include:
  • A female OIS agent changes into body armour in public and isn't wearing any underwear. Her male colleagues ogle her. Real professional by everyone involved. And no, she's not a Nazzadi.
  • The OIS clear out all the guests from a restaurant and somehow expect the people in the private room upstairs not to notice. I could be mistaken, but I don't think this is how sting operations work.
  • Much attention is paid to how the crooks the Dhohanoids are doing business with are trashy and gauche. "As the old saying went, you can take the girl out of the trailer park, but you can’t take the trailer park out of the girl." Stay classy, CT. Also, one of them shits himself just before dying, just in case they had any dignity left.
  • Two OIS agents in power armour burst through a wall. Subtle.
In fairness, the way the 'noids turn into creepy-crawlies and become more than the OIS can handle is pretty cool. There is something wonderfully creepy about people in business suits who are secretly monsters.

The chapter proper is mostly made up by a list of new terms. From it we can deduce that we're going to learn about xenomixes (Human-Nazzadi crossbreeds), para-psychics, dream magic, and various agencies of the NEG. Aside from the OIS, there is also the FSB (Federal Security Bureau) and GIA (Global Intelligence Agency). They're basically the FBI and CIA only in a world where demons, aliens and magic exists.

Oh, and of course:

If You Downloaded This Book
So if you’re one of the people who has downloaded this book illegally off the internet, bla bla bla bla I'm a mouth-breathing neckbeard who don't realise what an utter tool I come across as bla bla bla bla.

Bite me. I bought this PDF fair and square, if you must know, but the more you condescendingly lecture me on intellectual property rights, the more I feel like running off and pirating something just to spite you. :tongue:

The source material section just adds two works, one academic book on parapsychology and one anime called Akira that I am not familiar with beyond knowing that apparently at some point someone turns into a giant pile of ambulatory ooze. Probably other things also happen in the anime, but that part is the only thing the Internet seems to think I need to know about.
 
I think Vade Mecum is a great supplement for CTech, and really rounds out the material. But I don’t agree that its contents should have been in the Corebook as well. Given the already fractured nature of the game, which you have commented on, adding everything from VM would have made this worse. I see that there is a logical dividing line between what made it where.
 
Could some of the items that were in the core book have been cut for the material in Vade Mecum to help focus the material in the core book, and those disparate parts moved to Vade Mecum?
 
That is what they are looking to do in 2e effectively by having 2 core books act as sister RPGs. Though there are still some fringe items in VM that look like they will be relegated to supplements (and that seems sensible).
 
I think Vade Mecum is a great supplement for CTech, and really rounds out the material. But I don’t agree that its contents should have been in the Corebook as well. Given the already fractured nature of the game, which you have commented on, adding everything from VM would have made this worse. I see that there is a logical dividing line between what made it where.
Could some of the items that were in the core book have been cut for the material in Vade Mecum to help focus the material in the core book, and those disparate parts moved to Vade Mecum?

Yes, this, basically. If they'd thrown out all the mecha, they could have fit para-psychics and xeno-mixes in here, easy. The core is overloaded because it is fractured. It keeps trying to be too many things at once. Instead of writing two books for two games, we get two games that are both effectively unplayable without having two books. :tongue: Admittedly that's not unprecedented, D&D requires a minimum of three books, but there you have that clear from the start.

Vade Mecum, chapter two: Less then, more now (part one)
We start with more detail on the Ashcroft Foundation. Jooooooooy. :tongue:

You know the drill. The Ashcroft Foundation is wise and awesome and the best at everything. They invented arcanotech, used that to worm their way into a position of control over the NEG (they are explicitly referred to as "the power behind the throne") and somehow we're not supposed to see that as the least bit corrupt or sinister. Ashcroft scientists are better at science than everyone else, because... I don't know, they can afford to pay more, I guess? They run mental health facilities to either cure people who have gone cuckoo for cocopuffs from all the Mythos weirdness or at least keep them comfortable and contained. They have an education branch that has developed a self-help program that makes people better, healthier and happier. Yeah, you know all those thousands of years of philosopher and psychologists trying and failing to come up with a more perfect way of living? The Ashcroft Foundation solved it off screen.

Excuse me for a moment.

*smacks book against the table* DIE, ASHCROFT FOUNDATION!!! DIE, DIE, ASHCROFT FOUNDATION!!!!! :argh::argh::argh::argh::argh:

Ahem. Sorry about that. Anyway, I think the idea is that the Ashcroft Foundation is the sort of saviour figure that me and my snotty New Atheist pals used to fantasise about in the aughts, that would ride in and overrule the crooked politicans who were pandering to moronic low-information voters and make sure that all policies were scientifically founded and therefore objectively correct, because of course the only reason anything had gone wrong in the entire history of forever was that decision-makers weren't rational enough. I'm pretty sure I would have loved this idea back then! Being an older and wiser man now, though (not to mention having seen New Atheism bicker itself to pieces once it was discovered that two people could agree on religion being bad and still disagree on literally everything else), I find it intensely annoying.

And I mean, from a game perspective, what are these smirking bastards for, exactly? They're supposed to be the Big Good, but why can't the NEG and the Eldritch Society be the Big Good instead? They're the ones who are actually doing stuff, while the Ashcroft Foundation is just sitting in the background being objectively correct about everything. Take them out, and what changes? Nothing whatsoever.

Xenomixes! They're people with one Human and one Nazzadi parent. Instead of having black skin, they have grey skin, and instead of seeing in the dark, they just have slightly better night vision than humans. Some people are prejudiced against xenomixes and call them "starchildren." Er, shouldn't a derogatory term sound less, well... complimentary? :tongue: I mean, it's not unprecedented, 'cause, y'know, "social justice warrior" and all, but still... :tongue:

There are no quarter-Nazzadi or tenth-Nazzadi. Once a xenomix has entered the lineage, all future children will be xenomixes. Unless a line attempts to consistently breed in one specific direction to get back to pure Human or Nazzadi over generations, some of the physical characteristics may change slightly, but they will fundamentally stay xenomixes.

I... but... the Second Arcanotech War ended twenty years ago! There are maybe a very few second-generation xenomixes around, but it's biologically impossible for there to be any "tenth-Nazzadi" at this point. (it is also mathematically impossible for there to ever be any, but never mind that for now...) There should be no way that anyone has this information at this point. And what's more, what does it even mean, there are no quarter-Nazzadi? Every child of a xenomix is precisely the same shade of grey as the xenomix parent? This is stupid. And it seems to have no relevance beyond playing into some vague sci-fi trope about how in the future all races will have blended together and therefore racism will no longer exist and won't that be nice.

Nazzadi are prejudiced against xenomixes because they are desperate for a racial identity and xenomixes threatens what little of one they have managed to cobble together. They are more okay with it if the xenomix is raised to think and act as a pure Nazzadi, though. What does that mean? Well...

Those raised in Nazzadi tradition walk, talk, and act Nazzadi, and consequently get white-work tattoos and have no nudity taboo and therefore dress provocatively.

That's... that's all you've got, huh? Tattoos and boobs. That's what "Nazzadi tradition" comes down to. CT, you fail at creating cultures.

White xenomixes are a rare mutation who are, well, white instead of grey. They are also weird and unearthly and all of them are para-psychics from birth. Ooookay.

Speaking of which, we then get to para-psychics. They can do magic instinctively. In comparison to magic, para-psychic powers are easier to use but more limited in scope. Para-psychics need to register with the OIS, and the ones with abilities deemed dangerous have to wear a visible identifying mark. You're allowed to make it stylish, though, which I suppose is at least something. I do kind of like the ambiguity in having to be marked out as powerful and dangerous - one the one hand, it puts you above the crowd, but on the other, it also sets you apart from it. The fact that the government both enforces your alienation and is willing to give you lucrative job opportunities using your powers for them just enhances it. Are you the glamourous elite, or are you the barely tolerated outsider? A superhero, or a freak? I can imagine para-psychics going around feeling like an uneasy mix of both, with different ones tending towards one or the other perspective, and that's evocative and has a lot of roleplaying potential in it. As such, it is almost certainly unintentional, but I'll take it. :tongue:

There's one particular type of para-psychic known as a Zoner, who have been transformed from exposure to the Zone (that weird eldritch location that has eaten Las Vegas). They are more powerful than regular para-psychics, but also more insane. Unlike the rest, they also aren't born with the gift but develop it suddenly, which I imagine might be upsetting. The existence of Zoners is kept secret by the NEG.

The Zone was caused by an experiment with teleportation. It was originally developed by an Ashcroft scientist, of course, because they're the bestest, but the rest of the Foundation realised that it was too dangerous and shut it down. Then the government got hold of it and performed the experiment, and now we have the Zone. But the important thing to remember is that the Ashcrofts totally would have stopped it if they could, because they are wise and perfect and always right about everything.

*smacks book against the table some more* DIE, ASHCROFT FOUNDATION!!! DIE, DIE, ASHCROFT FOUNDATION!!!!! :argh::argh::argh::argh::argh:

Ahem. Anyway, the Zone is here, bad things keep coming out of it, people sometimes turn into Zoners just from going near it, and oh yeah, it's growing. That's pretty cool, I'll grant you.

Next, the various alphabet soups of the NEG.
 
I think CTech is playable from the corebook. It does require the GM to fill in some gaps but that isn't always a bad thing IME. I actually kind of saw it as a golden age for the RPG given that the quality of the material in later books, especially the metaplot books, was unreliable. The scenarios I wrote all were conceived in that period and I prefer my embellishments for the most part.
 
Its interesting to see your take away on the Ashcroft Foundation. Its been a while since I have read the books in detail, but I came away with the impression that they were a lot shadier than you make them out, and the presentation of the Foundation as pushing humanity forward as making them only more suspicious. Maybe that impression was influenced by my knowledge of Lovecraft, Evangelion and Guyver as well, where such organisations are outwardly shining beacons, but inwardly are insidiously corrupting. Many people were inherently suspicious of an organisation that deals with "benevolent" Mythos entities to the point of binding people to them :smile:
 
Its interesting to see your take away on the Ashcroft Foundation. Its been a while since I have read the books in detail, but I came away with the impression that they were a lot shadier than you make them out, and the presentation of the Foundation as pushing humanity forward as making them only more suspicious. Maybe that impression was influenced by my knowledge of Lovecraft, Evangelion and Guyver as well, where such organisations are outwardly shining beacons, but inwardly are insidiously corrupting. Many people were inherently suspicious of an organisation that deals with "benevolent" Mythos entities to the point of binding people to them :smile:

Oh believe me, I've searched high and low for any hint that that might be how they're meant to come across. There aren't any. I mean, the 2E Beta comes right out and says that the Ashcroft Foundation is "the White Tower" and stand for all that is good and right and true in the setting. Now, don't get me wrong, if and when I get around to running the game I'm totally playing up how insanely creepy it is that there is a super-powerful, completely unaccountable organisation that is controlling offering strong opinions on everything from the minutae of the federal budget to whether you should get a divorce. But there is absolutely nothing in the books to support that perspective. As near as I can tell, the Ashcroft Foundation is part of the wish-fulfilment aspect of the setting (which is a very prominent aspect, no matter how much it claims to be dark and pessimistic). All those icky world religions went bye-bye when aliens were discovered, and noble scientists rose up to take their place and make society actually work for once. The smugness, it burns. :irritated:

Vade Mecum, chapter two: Less then, more now (part two)
The OIS, again. You know the drill - they police sorcery and para-psychic powers, and anyone who they suspect of breaking the law isn't just guilty until proven innocent but not human until proven human. Everyone's scared of them but few people ever run into them. They also deal with otherworldly critters who have gotten into arcologies. OIS agents can be part of investigative two-person teams, be undercover in the arcane underground, be part of response teams of military-trained commandos, or be part of a two-person Special Powered Armour Team, or SPAT. So they run the gamut from "subtle and sneaky" to "brute force and lots of it."

Since we're supposed to like the OIS, there is a shrill paragraph about how noble and stalwart OIS agents are, how loyal they are to each other, and how they never play politics except for those filthy desk jockeys at headquarters that we all hate. So you should totally not hold it against them that they're the ones who lock up people for life because they didn't register the fact that they could regulate their own body temperature! Jesus, watching the CT writers try to manage reader reactions is like watching someone try to pick up a single grain of rice with a pair of three-foot-long chopsticks. It's obviously a hopeless task and it's far from clear that it wouldn't be better to just not bother, but you can't resist just a hint of admiration for all the furious effort that is going into it. :shock:

Next is the FSB, who is apparently the only spook squad with good publicity. They're clean-cut and respectable and people like them. Of course...

The laws restricting wiretapping and privacy of electronic transmission are loose at best and the FSB has programs that log nearly all calls and e-mails throughout the NEG – just in case.

OUR HEROES, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN! :tongue: No, seriously, I don't object to this from a game perspective. You're supposed to want to roleplay a FSB agent, and what's the point of playing a government agent if you can't tap-dance merrily all over people's civil liberties? I ask you! :tongue: Having the heroic factions be a bit skeevy and morally ambiguous is good for a game, because it grants the players more agency and more room for creative solutions. I don't even necessarily disagree with it from a moral perspective. Humanity is fighting for its very survival - perhaps privacy is just one of those things we're going to have to do without until such a time as the doomsday clock is no longer about twenty seconds to midnight? I'm just frustrated at the way the CT writers keep taking morally questionable things and insisting that the people doing them are the finest people who ever lived and you should love them sooooooooo much or else you're a stupid hater who just don't get it. :irritated:

Agents of the FSB tend to be clean cut, well-mannered, and dedicated – the picture of government service – and they treat the public with dignity and respect.

While reading your mail. They treat you with dignity and respect WHILE READING YOUR MAIL. :tongue:

You know that dude I linked to who complained that CT was unplayable because you had to play some sort of icky government stooge instead of a bold, dashing anarchist like all sane people would of course want to play as? Well, I don't agree with him, but I can definitely see why reading the CT books might have been actively traumatising for him. Reading this mindless worship of authority makes me want to go out and, I don't know, maliciously litter in the park or something - and I normally love authority! :tongue: I really can't even imagine how a twitchy don't-tell-me-what-to-do individualist must feel about it.

Anyway, the main areas the FSB polices are organised crime, cult activity, restricted technology (that is, arcanotech, along with things like cloning, artificial intelligence and nanobots), terrorism, fraud (including the sort of literal identity theft you can perform with sorcery) and illegal drugs, as well as violent crimes that take place across regional borders. They also do profiling and keeps track on everyone, and step in to take charge during major crises, such as when a few million people need to be evacuated because the Migou is about to take over their city.

Also, despite the book telling us just before that the FSB is the popular one, apparently they are also unpopular because they are the ones the public actually interacts with.

These dissidents claim that the FSB is an Orwellian “big brother” watching the every move of the population the agency “protects.” They believe that the Federal Security Bureau goes too far, that no one agreed to give up those kind of daily rights in order to stay “safe,” that they profile people and unjustly arrest those who fit within them, that the arcology security measures they help create also keep tabs on the comings and goings of people, and more. Such dissidents claim that privacy is unjustly a thing of the past.

Yeah, and, er... they're completely right. I mean, you get that they're completely right, right? You spent the last two pages describing them being completely right.

Fortunately for them, such criticism does not fall under the sedition laws of the New Earth Government as it does not directly attack war policy.

See, the government isn't repressive, because if it was, then it would jail people who said that the government was repressive! It doesn't, so therefore it isn't! CHECKMATE, SUCKERS! :grin: Aaaaaarrrrgghhhh. And again, I'm all about benevolent authority! One of my favourite games is Blue Rose. But in Blue Rose, the authority is genuinely benevolent and careful to respect the rights of the citizens, even when those citizens aren't using those rights as responsibly as one might hope. Stop, just stop telling me that the horrifying police state you're describing is good and noble and desirable! You want to tell me that it's a necessary evil, I'm all ears, but stop pretending that it's completely unreasonable for people to complain that you're oppressing them just because you happen to be oppressing them! :angry::angry::angry:

The GIA are spies and secret agents who keep track on all enemies of the state. The most game-relevant part is GhOST, which stands for Global Operations, Surveillance and Tactics (no, I don't know where that lower-case h is supposed to come from either). They're the actual James Bonds of the setting, going undercover in occupied territory or launching black ops missions to assassinate priority targets. The other branches are effectively data retrieval (which includes doing alien autopsies when possible), data storage and analysis, and administration. All in all, not very interesting, but certainly servicable.

The arcane underground! You know all those rules the OIS enforce? They're the people breaking them. If you want to have a curse placed on an enemy, hire a para-psychic to fry your competitor's computer systems, find out the blasphemous truths of Earth's ancient history or acquire some of the grislier ritual ingredients, the arcane underground has you covered... well, strictly speaking they will probably end up robbing you, killing you and raising you as a zombie slave because you showed yourself to be an easy mark, but if you actually know what you're doing they have you covered. This is also where summoned monsters hang out after they've completed their contracts, along with unlicensed para-psychics and Outsider-tainted pariahs. Consider it the seedy underbelly of the NEG - everyone's looking to get rich at the expense of everyone else, competition is literally murderous, and in case human greed coupled with cosmic power isn't enough, the cults are hanging around to take advantage of desperate or gullible people.

The arcane underground has three layers. The first is the small-time operators and street-level dealers of illicit goods and services, all of whom are scrambling to survive and stay more or less sane and not get grabbed by the OIS. The second are dilletants who play with magic because they're bored, usually with predictable results. The third is the "real" arcane underground, the one where people wear nice suits and make the big bucks catering to crooked politicians and corporate executives. Either way, getting in is a time-consuming process where you need to hang out with occult posers for a while before the people with access to the real deal take notice of you and make contact if they decide you look serious and profitable.

All in all, this chapter is useful albeit uninspiring. There's a lot of words being used to say very simple things, the text keeps contradicting itself (either because the writers aren't sure themselves what they want to say or because they keep trying to paint a nuanced picture but end up just wavering from one extreme to the other and back again) and of course there is the fact that it's hard not to hear the narrative voice speaking in a soulless drone and probably while breathing through its mouth. :tongue: But yes, you could definitely make a game out of a GhOST team that keeps getting sent on dangerous missions behind Migou lines or OIS or FSB agents having to navigate the arcane underground in search of the really dangerous cultists or rogue sorcerers.
 
Last edited:
"hire a para-psychic to fry your competitor's computer systems" sounds cool...

Overall, this setting seems like it has some cool stuff to steal. Thanks for the thorough report!
 
"hire a para-psychic to fry your competitor's computer systems" sounds cool...

Overall, this setting seems like it has some cool stuff to steal. Thanks for the thorough report!

It definitely has its highlights. :smile:

Vade Mecum, chapter three: Alternative egos
There is yet another one of those interminable fiction pieces, this one about a bunch of recruits being yelled at by a drill sergeant who's supposed to teach them close combat. They question why they need it, he opens a door to a room where he's got a Gaunt trapped and when it charges out he kills it with a sword. Well, I can at least agree that you should definitely know some close combat in this game, because the rules for firing into melee or when part of a melee are unforgiving, and most of the monsters are really good at close combat and so will be getting up close and personal at first opportunity. Also, katanas do more damage than most guns, so there's that, too. :tongue:

New Assets! They include Erupted Para-Psychic, which requires you to have Latent Para-Psychic for you to take it, for a total of 6 Skill Points. That frankly seems steep, given how modest your starting powers are going to be, but okay then. There's also Lucid Dreamer (lets you protect yourself against dream magic - which, as we'll see later on, is more useful than you'd think, because some dream magic spells are kind of brutal), White (required to play a white xenomix) and Zoner (lets you start with some para-psychic powers that are actually not too shabby, but at the price of starting with 5 Insanity Points).

New Drawbacks include Call of the Void (makes you start with an Insanity Point and you need to roll to avoid gaining more each month, just like if you were a Tager or an Engel pilot), Dream Barren (makes you more vulnerable to dream magic) and Misfit (you get treated like a freak by some or all people). There is also Shadow Walker, which causes supernatural stuff to be drawn to you, but I think that one is really a bit of a cheat - I mean, if you're a PC, you're going to be neck deep in supernatural stuff no matter what you do, aren't you?

Xenomix is a new race. It's kind of like being a Nazzadi but you get 1 free Skill Point and only low-light vision instead of complete night vision, and you also have Alluring and Misfit of the first level. Because you're a sexy, tormented outsider. Also, you can place your extra Attribute point in either Tenacity or Agility, instead of having to put it into Agility like a full-blooded Nazzadi.

White Xenomix is another new race. It forces you to take the White Asset. Okay, if you can't take the Asset if you're not of the race, and you can't be of the race if you don't take the Asset, why do you need both a race and an Asset to represent the same damn thing? :tongue: I mean, it's not a critical flaw or anything, it's just a weird thing that makes it seem like no one actually thought this through. Anyway, Whites are automatically para-psychics, and they're Alluring, and they get +4 to Fear Tests, and they get proper Night Vision... Okay, they do get Misfit and Watched on high levels, so I guess it more or less evens out, but still, someone went through a lot of effort to make these bastards look good. :tongue:

New Professions! Arcane Investigators do your basic urban-fantasy paranormal sleuthing. They get a mix between knowledge and investigation skills, naturally enough. Ashcroft Foundation Advisor are smarmy bastards who don't have to worry about what the stupid voters think and can get away with everything, neener-neener-neener, ppppb! They obviously have decent persuasion skills coupled with knowledge skills, and...

... and...

... and it appears that they start with Education at Expert (4), or Master (5) if Human. Even though the rules state that no one can start with anything above Adept (3). But why should the Ashcroft Foundation have to obey the rules of the game, when the whole point of them is that they don't have to obey any rules whatsoever?

*smacks book against the table hard enough to dent both of them* DIE, ASHCROFT FOUNDATION!!! DIE, DIE, ASHCROFT FOUNDATION!!!!! :argh::argh::argh::argh::argh:

Federal Agents are your basic lawkeepers, and are assumed to be with either the OIS or the FSB. I guess the Intelligence Agent back in the core was supposed to be with the GIA, so ooopsie for making Derek Frost be an OIS agent. They're not really that different, though, they still get a mix of fighting, investigation and surveillance skills.

Para-Psychics and Zoners are the ones who start with para-psychic powers. The sample Para-Psychic given is a therapist, for the record, healing troubled minds with the power of telepathy. I guess that's nice. And... she's also got Education: Master (5). Okay, now I'm just confused. At least the Ashcroft bastards being better than everyone else made sense, because of course they would be, the author loves them too damn much. Why are para-psychics allowed to be academic geniuses? :errr:

Well, I guess that's going to have to be a question for the ages. That was it for this chapter. Next up is more rules. Those at least tend to be less likely to make me rage out.
 
So, I'm not clear on this... what's your take on the Ashcroft Foundation?

:weep:

Vade Mecum, chapter four: Optional framework
The chapter starts out with optional advanced injury and healing rules, because the old ones weren't brutal enough, I guess. Essentially, if you get brought down to Serious Wounds or Death's Door (that is, lose more than 60% and 80% of your Vitality, respectively) you have to make a Tenacity Test or suffer a "permanent" injury. "Permanent" in quotes, because this is of course the modern day of 2085 and doctors can fix just about anything given the time and funds - if you lose a limb, they can clone a new one for you, and if all else fails there's always arcanotherapy. The only problem is that all that costs money, and hospitals are busy enough putting soldiers back together so they can be sent back to the front. There are helpful notes by every injury explaining whether the NEG's socialised medicine covers the treatment for it, and if so how long you're going to have to wait in line.

All in all, I guess this is fine for adding some detail beyond "you have to wait X number of months to get all your hit points back," but it's really a bit too fiddly for something that probably won't actually matter beyond downtime fluff. I mean, it's kind of cool and badass to be able to say "my war veteran character is walking around with a cloned left arm and he had to undergo arcanotherapy to put his broken spine back together," but do you actually need this much of a system for that? I dunno.

Either way, Tagers, Dhohanoids and other things that can regenerate don't suffer permanent injuries, so that's a nice perk.

Next is an optional hit locations rule. If you want to make combat crunchier, you can take the highest die used for a successful attack and use it to determine where the attack landed. This means that if you are trying to hit someone in, say, the leg, you will have an incentive to use a lower die than you normally would, which I admit is a neat idea that brings some additional strategy. Then you roll for additional effects based on the hit location - hitting someone in the leg might cause them to fall down, for instance. Incidentally, hitting someone in the head can knock them out, and if they're a Tager it means their symbiont takes over, so I guess that does happen whenever a Tager gets knocked out. Good to know.

Cascades! If you have a Focus in a particular fighting style, you can use its associated Cascade, which gives you a number of possible series of actions to perform in a round. As long as you stick to one of those series, you not only have access to certain special moves that are part of it, but you get a reduced multiple action penalty. For example, if you have a Focus in Eldritch Society Ninjitsu and 3 actions in a round, you can do a combo of punch - kick - push opponent back, with a penalty of -4, -2 and -2 respectively, instead of getting -4 to all three. If you only have 2 actions you have to stick to the two-part Cascades, and if you only have one action you can't do any Cascades but you still get access to the individual special moves that are part of them.

That's cool and all, I guess, but I feel like it leaves a few things unexplained. For instance, can you abort a Cascade when you're in the middle of it? Also, one special move is "draw weapon," which you have to roll to do besides. Does that mean that you can't draw a weapon unless you are Focused in its use? :tongue: I assume not, but I don't know what else to make of it. Possibly drawing a weapon is a full-round action without the use of a special move? I don't remember any rules from it in the core, and I do remember looking for them.

Anyway, the Cascades are Hun-Zuti (a Nazzadi martial art), NEG Military Unarmed Combat, Eldritch Society Ninjitsu (which includes Cascades where you start from hiding), NEG Military Kendo, Gunplay: Handguns, Gunplay: Rifles and Gunplay: Submachine Guns (which includes one memorable move where you hold a submachine gun in each hand and spin around to lay down suppressive fire in a 360-degree arc. Okay, that is genuinely kind of cool :grin: ).

All in all, I guess this chapter is okay for adding some more grittiness and detail to combat and its aftermaths. If you're going to be running a high-combat game, I can see it being useful for keeping the whole thing from being an endless string of "I attack again." It does seem a little vague and half-baked, though. The ideas are sound, but I don't know how well it would play in practice.

Next up is para-psychic powers. We're getting to the good stuff. :smile:
 
Vade Mecum, chapter five: Explorers of the mind (part one)
We start with another fiction piece. Le sigh. This one isn't completely horrible or anything, it's about a woman who had a nice life and then turned into a Zoner. She accidentally smushed one of her coworkers because she could hear him thinking insulting thoughts about her and went on the run from the OIS. She wants to die, but she can't; when she tries to jump from a rooftop, she just gently drifts down to the ground, and when the OIS shoots at her the bullets just stop in mid-air. It's still very badly written, but it does paint a vivid picture, and as near as I can tell it's even kind of in line with what the rules allow? Like, you could make this woman as a starting character, at least from the time she first went on the run - presumably by the end of the story she's wracked up a bunch of XP.

Para-psychics are born with their powers, unless they're Zoners, and usually manifest them either during puberty or following some traumatising event. Para-psychic powers are classified by the OIS as either Acceptable, Invasive (ones that can violate people's privacy, like reading their mind or walking into their dreams) and Dangerous (ones that can be used to do physical harm). If you only have Acceptable powers you can just go about your business, but if you have Invasive or Dangerous powers you need to wear a badge in public.

I wonder if para-psychics feel a little like this:
112294.gif

Anyway, the OIS watch registered para-psychics like a hawk for the slightest sign that they're being naughty and need to be locked up and use for experiments in suppressing para-psychic powers. Which is horrifying. But also cool. I mean, let's face it, there is a dark thrill in the idea of being mercylessly oppressed by The Man because you're so shiny and special, isn't it? It's a lot more fun than the life situation of most of us, in which we are being half-heartedly exploited by The Man because we're regular, worthless, dime-a-dozen schmoes and The Man doesn't care if we live or die. :tongue:

So I like that this is here, but I'd feel a lot better if the text actually acknowledged what a horrible situation this is - para-psychics having to live in fear of being turned into guineapigs because they made the slightest misstep (or worse, because some OIS grunt made a clerical error and your file got mixed up with that of CT's version of Magneto), and regular people having to live in fear of being smushed because a para-psychic didn't like what they were thinking. I mean, that's horrifying. Which is good for something that is supposedly a horror game. But I keep getting the feeling that the writers honestly don't see what the big deal is, because the OIS are the heroes and anyway good para-psychics get registered and behave themselves and have great lives. I swear, Warhammer 40,000 books get accused of not getting that the Imperium is supposed to be a fascist dystopia, but they usually do a far, far better job at being honest about the sucky aspects of the setting than CT does.

Just another example of how the game has a lot of good stuff in it, if and only if you completely ignore the authorial intent and actually portray the way it would look like to an actual human being.

Anyway, para-psychics who don't get dragged off to black sites do have a number of lucrative job opportunities, either in the private sector or being recruited by the military or some agency. And again, I like the contrast there, between power and vulnerability, between privilege and alienation. I'd like it even more if I thought it was actually intentional, but I'll take it. :tongue:

Para-psychic powers comes in four talents, in which individual para-psychics have different aptitudes. Environmental powers affect primal forces like heat, electricity or gravity. Manipulative powers mess around with other people's heads. Sensory powers gives you psychic insights. Somatic powers increases your body's physical abilities. They also have orders, same as spells - first order powers are the weakest, third order powers the strongest.

Every power is a different skill (based on Tenacity), and you need to make two skill tests to activate it. The first is at a set difficulty, the second is at a difficulty the GM sets depending on how hard the thing is that you're trying to do. There are no apparent guidelines for how to set the second difficulty. Also, you don't need to spend orgone if you fail the first test, which implies that you spend orgone to attempt the second - but then later it mentions spending orgone after you succeed at the second test. Some powers also have a "load time" that apparently affect how long it takes to get it going, measured in turns, but it says nothing about that one in the description of how to use powers. Do you make the second roll immediately, or after the load time? Do you need to concentrate for the load time, or is the effect just delayed for some reason? This is all terribly unclear! :irritated:

Some powers can be maintained, at the cost of more orgone per fixed time period. Again, there's no discussion on what is and is not an extended effect (if I light a fire with pyrokinesis, does it keep burning on its own, or do I need to maintain it?). It's all very handwavy - there's the bones of a decent system here, but it all looks half-finished.

You can make powers easier to use by spending more orgone on them. You can also choose to take a die of damage in return for regaining 4 points of orgone immediately. Several para-psychics with the same power can cooperate on using it, or can attempt to shut down each other's attempts. Magical rituals can interfer with para-psychic powers too - a Ward Against Sorcery protects against para-psychic powers just like it does against other sorcerous spells, for instance.

Rolling a Critical Failure on a power, running out of orgone or using your powers too often (the GM decides what is "too often") can cause you to Burn. That means that your powers activate randomly for few hours or days, and have effectively unlimited orgone. Precisely how and when and to what effect is up to the GM. If you really go around spamming powers, there's a 10% chance that a Burn lasts for months instead, or even becomes permanent, turning you into a Burner. Either way, Burn can be cured with a simple Purify Form spell, but of course any credible sorcerer will report you to the OIS so you'd better have a good excuse... The GM should make sure to keep Burn dangerous but not to the point where it takes all the fun out of being a para-psychic. Are you starting to see a theme here? :tongue:

Now, I am being very critical here, because this is all so damn handwavy in some ways while at the same time being annoyingly restrictive in others. Still, I want to state one thing for the record. Ettin, in the readthrough I linked to, whined long and hard about how useless para-psychic powers and sorcery are. I said before that I do think that sorcery would be quite useful in an investigation-focused campaign; probably not in a high-octane action campaign, no, but in one where you can afford to spend an afternoon on giving yourself witch-sight before going to examine a crime scene? Sure. I will likewise say that I think that a lot of para-psychic powers do look like they'd be fun and useful. Even the first-order powers get pretty overwhelming on the Master (5) level, and the higher-order ones are even better. A master gravikinetic can fly, fling cars around and shrug off bullets. It'll take you a while to get there, but para-psychics are potentionally the most powerful people in the setting.

But let's have a look at how you start out. The Erupted Para-Psychic Asset lets you start with one first-order power at the Student (1) level. You can spend 4 Cheats to bring it up to a maximum of Adept (3). Browsing through the power lists, that means you can potentially start with the ability to do one of the following:
  • Light something or someone on fire with your mind.
  • Freeze about a bathtub's worth of water solid, or give someone a nasty case of frost bite.
  • Lift and manipulate things with your mind with about average human strength and dexterity.
  • Make your emotions unreadable to other powers, and get +1 to social actions.
  • Create a strong emotion in up to three different people.
  • Read surface thoughts.
  • Get +3 to social actions by reading someone's emotions.
  • See auras and magically invisible things.
  • Read an object's history up to a year back.
  • Get +5 to Agility.
  • Triple your running speed.
  • Get +3 to Strength and Tenacity, and triple your jumping distance.
None of which is what you'd call world-shaking, but it's not exactly useless either. In fact, it seems like fairly typical starting-level powers. Yeah, it doesn't compare to Tagers, but nothing compares to Tagers, get over it. (and at least some of these are powers that Tagers will never have access to, so there's that)

Zoners, meanwhile, start with one third order power and one first order power of their primary power type (you have one sort of power - Environmental, Manipulative, Sensory or Somatic - as your primary, another as your secondary, and the last two as your tertiary), and one first order power of their secondary power type. So about the same, only they might also be able to feather-fall off of rooftops or teleport to a spot they can see with their naked eye. So again, not overwhelming, but definitely not the sort of power you want a complete nutcase to have, especially since they are likely to grow over time. Though here I must get negative again and note that, by a strict reading of the rules, this means that Zoners can only have Environmental or Somatic powers as their primary, because the Manipulative and Sensory third-order powers have prerequisites that are second-order powers. I suppose by a slightly more liberal reading, you could allow starting with a second-order power instead of a third-order one, or meeting the prerequisite by spending Cheats for the second-order power?

Next up, I'll go into the powers in detail.
 
Vade Mecum, chapter five: Explorers of the mind (part two)
Powers, then. First up is the Environmental power set, which is the most straightforward - you just snap your fingers and the primal forces of creation do things for you. The first-order powers are pyrokinesis (power over fire), cryokinesis (power over cold) and telekinesis (lifting things with your mind). The first and the second start out exceedingly humble; the Student (1) level lets you control your own body temperature and the Novice (2) level lets you function as a living air conditioning. Now, what I'd like to know is... is that applicable regardless of the outside temperature? Because if so it could be kind of useful when you were performing covert operations behind Migou lines in the Antarctic wasteland, or going on patrol through the Iraqi desert looking for Rapine Storm troop movements. Anyway, at Adept (3) you can fling the occasional fireball that does +0 damage, but emphasis on occasional, because it's got a load time of two rounds. All in all, those two almost seem like traps for the sort of players who go straight for the flashy powers. :tongue: Telekinesis strikes me as more useful, being able to pick things up at a distance comes in handy quite often in my experience, and if all else fails you can use it to deliver telekinetic punches to the face. They also do the same damage as pyrokinesis and cryokinesis of the same level, and have no load time besides.

The second-order Environmental powers are electrokinesis and photokinesis, which are rather more impressive. Electrokinesis not only lets you throw lightning bolts around, but also lets you fry electronics, overhear digital transmissions and be really scary-good at hacking stuff. Photokinesis lets you create illusions, blind people, light areas up or throw them into darkness. Also read "optical media," apparently, which is another one of those super-nerdy things that the writers have thrown in, apparently under the general assumptions that all sentient beings should know the difference between alternate modes of storing data. :tongue: Yeah, I think not. Just tell me if I can talk to those computer thingies or not, thanks. :tongue:

The third-order Environmental power is gravikinesis, which at Student (1) level lets you feather-fall safely to the ground from any height or levitate a puppy (puppies hate it when you do that, though!). On higher levels, it lets you fly, lift cars, manifest personal armour and make attacks that do area-of-effect Hybrid damage. This would be the reason why the OIS are so twitchy about para-psychics. :tongue: It has telekinesis as a prerequisite, which is just another reason to take that in favour of the flashier powers.

The first-order Manipulative powers are aura masking, empathic projection and telepathy. Aura masking lets you give fake readings to other powers that try to sense what you're feeling, and also lets you give yourself bonuses to social rolls by making your aura especially vibrant. At higher levels, it also lets you make yourself invisible to machinery, which, again, is a pretty cool power to have in a high-tech surveillance state. Empathic projections let you enflame existing feelings at low levels and create entirely new ones on high levels, to the point of swaying a crowd of fifty at the highest level. There are no rules for just what sort of effects that has, though. Telepathy lets you read surface thoughts or communicate mind-to-mind.

The second-order Manipulative powers are dream projection and probe. Dream projection lets you step into someone's dreams. You can't control the dream, but at higher levels you can use other para-psychic power as if you were physically present. Probe has telepathy as a prerequisite and lets you really drill down into someone's mind to bring up any information they have. Both fairly useful things for PCs to have, and deeply creepy things for villains to have.

The third-order Manipulative power is mindworm, which has probe (and therefore by extension also telepathy) as its prerequisite. It lets you rewrite memories and implant compulsions. Yaiks. An advanced Manipulative para-psychic would be scary. If you combine mindworm with dream projection, you essentially have someone who can rewrite your personality through your dreams, and as long as he's physically touched you just once, he can do so from miles away.

The Sensory first-order powers are empathy, ESP and psychometry. Empathy lets you feel people's emotions and possibly also their cause and how to change them. It gives you bonuses to social tests and attempts to use psychology, which is a nice touch but I'm not sure how often that will come up. ESP lets you see auras, which reveal a thing's dominant emotion and physical wellness, and also lets you pick up on supernatural influence on higher levels. Psychometry lets you pick up "emotional residue" from objects you touch, such as feeling hatred on a knife used in a brutal murder. All three are Acceptable, making them the first ones so far that you're allowed to keep secret that you have.

The second-order Sensory powers are clairvoyance and retrocognition. Clairvoyance is a completely open-ended "you sometimes know stuff about stuff" power. Retrocognition is more defined, it builds on psychometry and lets you see the past in the location you're at. Clairvoyance is Acceptable, but retrocognition is Invasive. The third-order power is Precognition, which builds on Clairvoyance and lets you see some version of the future. Having a crystal ball or a deck of cards or something is required on lower levels. It's Acceptable, so I guess people don't have the right to privacy for things they haven't done yet? :tongue:

The first-order Somatic powers are hyperagility, hyperspeed and power boost. The first gives you Agility buffs, the second increases your running speed, and the third gives you Strength and Tenacity buffs and some natural armour on higher levels. They give you some other buffs as well, but those are the major ones. All three are Acceptable, so apparently light superpowers aren't considered a problem. You can pretty easily maintain them for hours on end, so they're pretty handy for a combat-oriented character.

The second-order ones are magnetism and psychic healer. Psychic healer just lets you speed up someone's healing, though not to the point of actual regeneration. Magnetism is super-charisma, enhancing your raw animal, well, magnetism to superhuman levels. It gives you bonuses to social tests. Okay, I really feel like there's a glut on "bonuses to social tests" powers here, especially since they aren't very mechanically diverse or even well-defined. I get that the idea is that they're different approaches, but still, was it really necessary for three out of four power sets to include some version of superhuman people skills? Anyway, psychic healer is Acceptable while magnetism is Invasive. The last third-order power is teleportation, which is always handy. It's classed as Dangerous.

All in all, I think this is a decent system at its core, but it could have use some considerably tighter editing. It can't seem to decide whether it wants to be light and freeform or whether it wants to be hard and crunchy. There's a lot of unanswered questions and ambiguities. The whole "load time" thing also feels like nothing but a spoilsport there to make sure that people don't go into battle throwing fireballs around even though that's the whole point of pyrokinesis. :tongue: You can use this, certainly, but it'll take some cleaning and houseruling to make it actually coherent.
 
Vade Mecum, chapter six: Arcane expanded
Another damn fiction piece. This one is about two magicians investigating a case of someone allegedly causing his ex-girlfriend to kill herself by invading her dreams. The art, as usual, is quite nice, but firstly, why is that woman brown? She's supposed to be a Nazzadi, aren't they supposed to be black - like, literally black? Did someone not tell the artist that or something? Secondly, the American-Indian with tribal face tattoos looks seriously cringy to my jaded 2020s eye. Honestly, the whole ethnic-cultures-are-magic thing was pretty dumb even when Star Trek: Voyager did it in the nineties... leaving it unsaid, admittedly, whether our current way of looking at ethnic cultures is a whole lot better, but I digress... Anyway, the dude they're investigating turns out to be a N'athm and is implied to end up snacking upon their feeble human flesh.

New rules for magic! You can speed up learning spells if you really study around the clock. Sorcerers can also earn more orgone by taking damage, same as para-psychics. There's a loooong bit about waxing philosophically about the mystery of dreams, yadi yadi yadda. Also, the Old Ones can mess with you in your dreams. Yes, I pretty much figured. Also, Gurathnaka is still a thing and it still ate the Dreamlands. Precisely what you're supposed to do about that in your own games remains unclear. Also, Morfean / Hypnos may be a Forgotten One associated with dreams, but no one knows what he's up to, either.

Dream magic is a new form of magic, to be added alongside Scrying, Warding, Summoning, Enchanting and Transfiguration. Its first-order spells are Call the Night's Terrors (causes nightmares to a target, giving him penalties on everything he does because he's not getting any restful sleep), Command the Slumbering Shell (causes a target to sleepwalk and do whatever the sorcerer wants as long as it's reasonably uncomplicated), Insight of the Sleeper (gives you dreams that has some relevance on your personal issues; no mechanical effects, though I suppose it could be used to make the GM give you hints about what he figures you ought to be doing) and Traverse the Land Beyond Dreams (transports you to the Dreamlands. Which don't exist anymore. So it kills you. Basically this is just a great big landmine that assholes in the arcane underground sell to clueless newbies for the lulz). All of which sounds good, though I'm not sure why we needed rules for the last one. Still, the first two are super-creepy and looks like they'd be really handy for villains, and like I said, the third could at least be used to justify getting some hints ("it's only your deep-rooted trust issues from your abusive childhood that makes you wary of Lieutenant Marcos. Deep in your soul you feel that he's probably a good guy. You should ask him for help with your investigation already! Er, I mean, that's what your inner-most instincts tell you.").

The second-order spells are Conjoin the Adrift Psyche (lets you step into someone's dream, same as the dream projection para-psychic power), Delve the Mind's Caverns (kind of like Insight of the Sleeper, only it affects another person; combined with Conjoin the Adrift Psyche it lets you drag up a person's deepest secrets while giving yourself a front-row seat to them) and Influence the Naked Spirit (brainwashes someone through their dreams over the course of a week). Again, that's reasonably cool.

The third-order spells are Master Imagination's Realm (gives you complete control over dreams. If you couple it with Conjoin the Adrift Psyche, you can completely control someone else's dreams, either to help them recover from trauma or to drive them out of their minds. Eeep.) and Probe the Universal Mind (lets you tap the collective unconscious to give yourself a theoretical skill at Expert (4) or a practical skill at Adept (3) for a week). Both sound like they could be pretty handy.

New Enchantment spells are Imbue Glamour Lock (first order; lets you craft an item that... changes a single physical detail about the wearer, like their eye colour. Huh? I fail to see what this one is meant to be good for...), Craft Ruach Well (second order; lets you craft an item that can store orgone, up to twice the sorcerer's maximum orgone. I guess that's handy if you want to be able to perform spells without a bunch of assistants?) and Craft Weeping Orb (third order; like Craft Woeful Orb, except they make lethal attacks instead of stunning ones).

New Warding spells are Ward of Cool Spirit (first order; gives bonuses to Fear Tests and resistance towards having your feelings enflamed to the wearer), Ward Against the Summoned (second order; protects an area against summoned creatures, which is a more narrow category than all forms of creepy-crawlies) and Ward of Sanctuary (third order; gives two dice of armour to everyone within the warded area). Fair enough. Ward Against the Summoned would be handy for the Eldritch Society to install in their safehouses, since it doesn't keep Tagers out (though it admittedly also does not bar Dhohanoids).

New Scrying spells are Know Passion's Flame (first order; basically the sorcery version of para-psychic telepathy and empathy), Call Ancient Soul (second order; lets you learn a set number of skills from your previous lifetimes) and Commune with the Beyond (third order; directly contacts the likes of Cthulhu or Hastur. Yes, this is a very bad idea). Sounds good.

New Summoning spells are Leash the Summoned (first order; lets you piggy-back on the senses of a summoned entity), Summon Superior Fetch (second order; like Summon Fetch, except the fetch you get is... well, take a wild guess... :tongue: ) and Call Forth N'athm (third order; summons a N'athm for you to send at people you don't like). Fine, fine... but I'd really like a bit more variety in the critters sorcerers can summon. Other than fetches and familiars (and the mystical unborn, admittedly) that's just three different kinds now. Can't you let us summon ghasts, at the very least? :tongue:

New Transmogrification spells are Beckon the Unexpressed (first order; changes the sex of the target. Apparently students enjoy using it to prank each other. So fratboys still suck in the Strange Aeon, then? :tongue: ), Path of the Silver Chord (second order; it allows astral projection. Not sure why this is a Transmogrification rather than a Scrying spell...) and Migrate Soul (third order; body-swaps two people, permanently. Evil sorcerers make use of this to live forever. Evil sorcerers also suck, but I think that's part of the job description). Fair enough.

All in all, a decent array of extra spells that build on the themes of the ones in the core book. It would have been nice if all that waffling about dreams had contained some solid, general rules for what you can gain from dreams, though, since all sorts of spells, outsiders and para-psychic powers make use of them. It's like the writers realised that they needed something to provide some guidelines, but as usual they're not very good at filling those holes; what you end up with mostly amounts to, "er, dreams are all, like, dream-like and stuff." :tongue:

And like I said, I think there should just have been a single monster-summoning spell with the note that each monster required learning a different version of it (and possibly a list of which monster required which order). Now, to the game's credit, CT is pretty consistent about how bakhi, gaunts and n'athm are the only monsters that non-Rapine Storm sorcerers can summon, because those are the ones that turn up in published modules (not that you should use those, mind you. Ever. I can not stress this enough. :tongue: I'm just saying, at least the worldbuilding is consistent), but I still don't see why you can't summon ghasts. For that matter, ghouls, migou or deep ones would be interesting; since they already physically dwell in the material world they wouldn't need a sorcerer to let them in, but there might be other blasphemous favours they could extra in return for a period of service? I mean, canonically that is how the deep ones generally operate - take away the fish, and wait for fishermen to get desperate enough to start casting Summon Deep One spells... I suppose it's not too burdensome to add, though.

Next up, more mecha and Tagers.
 
Vade Mecum, chapter seven: Machineries of War
Ho hum, the mecha chapter. I'm feeling somewhat less than enthusiastic.

We start with a fiction piece about a bunch of mecha pilots descending into the murky depths of the ocean to take out a Deep One base. Then they get eaten by giant sharks. I guess it's at least a bit flavourful, and it makes the somewhat disturbing point that unlike the Migou, the Deep Ones aren't actually alien invaders trying to take over the planet. They are a native species of the Earth as much as we are, and three quarters of its surface is and always has been theirs. If anything, they are the ones who have the home field advantage in the Aeon War.

Acquatic mecha, as promised in the core! The regular NEG standards are the Falcata (all-rounder, the cousin of the Broadsword), the Khopesh (giant bruiser, related to the Claymore), the Makhaira (power armour) and the Xiphos (ranged specialist). They all obviously have full acquatic capabilities, including torpedo pods for everyone but the Makhaira.

Nazzadi acquitic mecha include the Cyclone (the long-range torpedo-lobbing one, supposedly... though I'm not sure why, since it seems to be virtually identical to the Monsoon with a second torpedo pod instead of a laser cannon, and faster decceleration in return for slightly lower Frame), the Monsoon (the standard model, equivalent of the Storm), the Tsunami (big bastard with tons of cannons) and the Undertow (power armour). Like all Nazzadi mecha, they are quick bastards but somewhat more fragile than their NEG peers. All but the Undertow also have amphibious chaff dispensers.

New Engels include the acquatic Hamshall (basically humanoid, but with a stinger tail and tentacle mustaches) and Ish (a weird manta-like thing), along with the Chasmal (like a big metal gorilla with acid-dripping claws; one of the biggest mecha around, with quick regeneration and a ton of weapons) and the Shinnan (big heat-resistant scorpion thing, with grav bombs and charge beams - a pretty rough customer all around). As usual, Engels are a bit badder than other mecha.

The Migou get a bunch of new mecha, including two types of powered armour, the Cockroach and the Paddlebug. The Paddlebug is acquatic, but otherwise they are much the same, just another type of unit that will squash everything that's not a mech but get squashed by anything that is a mech. :tongue: There is also four larger acquatic mecha, the Crayfish, the Flea, the Spider and the Tapeworm.

THIS IS SO BOOOOOORINNNNNGGG!!!! :weep:

Just because of that I'm going to go on a tangent and talk some more about Fatal & Friends, the Something Awful-based collection of searing readthroughs of roleplaying games. Like I've said before, the one Ettin did on CT made a couple of points I largely agree with, but it also wailed incessantly about, essentially, actually having to play for a while until you get the really earth-shaking powers. While CT's advancement scheme is anything but fine-tuned, I don't know that it's the worst thing in the world that it takes you 10-20 sessions before you can burn down entire office buildings by snapping your fingers.

And that seems to be a theme with F&F, no matter who is doing the readthrough. I'm reminded of the one about Deathwatch, the game of Warhammer 40,000 Space Marines, which was almost positive. The readthrough for that one made a few fair points (for example, the game offers a lot of fiddly tactical options, but weapons do so much damage that brute force is going to win the day most of the time), but what struck me was that the person doing the readthrough apparently really liked that you got to mow down tons and tons of enemies, and also really liked what he perceived to be an invitation to meditate on the pointlessness of war and the awfulness of the Imperium (he apparently felt that the game fumbled that part a bit, though. Gee, you'd almost think he projected his own intensive hatred of the setting onto the writers of that book, or something...).

This, then, would seem to be the F&F crowd's idea of a perfect game: one where you spend half the time effortlessly dispatching simple challenges, and the other half sitting around feeling bad about yourself and lamenting the violence inherent in the system and your complicity in all manner of evils. And that's interesting to me, because it seems like the polar opposite of the OSR, which seems to be all about making sure that you never have to step out of your comfort zone but also that that comfort zone is as, well, uncomfortable as possible. The OSR, it seems to me, is all about being a mean little bastard who's scrambling to survive just to spite the world. F&F seems to be all about being a big bastard who feels really ashamed of being such a big bastard (but not ashamed enough to actually stop being a bastard, of course - that would just be unreasonable! :tongue: ).

So basically, I guess the OSR is Conan the Barbarian, and F&F is Elric of Melniboné. :grin:

What does this have to do with CT? Honestly, not terribly much, since the game seems indecive about which aesthetic to emulate. The design philosophy seems to be vaguely zero-to-hero, but that's offset by the fact that you can easily start out as a Tager or an Engel pilot. The fiction pieces tend to portray a grim and dangerous world, but the setting description is practically stumbling over itself in its eagerness to offset that with gushing descriptions of how cool and awesome and powerful the heroic factions are. And admittedly also by equally gushing descriptions of how cool and awesome and powerful the cults are; the writers seem to be very anxious to reassure us that no part of the setting can possibly be changed, possibly because even they can tell that they are describing a terribly unstable situation where all sorts of factions are wide open to all sorts of attacks. Either way, everything is fixed and immutable and there is nothing to hope for but also nothing to worry about.

Like... here's how the OSR would do CT:

"There are monsters everywhere! The world is falling to pieces! Fight for your life! Use every dirty trick you can think of, stay moving, sell your soul to anyone who's buying, and maybe you can keep off the apocalypse for just a little bit longer!"

And here's how F&F would do CT:

"You rip apart the Dhohanoids! They can't stand against you! You are a blasphemous god of death! Those innocent bystanders are looking at you in horror, and worse, you feel yourself thinking about how delicious they're looking! Oh God, what have you become?!"

But here's how CT does CT:

"You fight the Dhohanoids for a bit. Just when you're losing, a bunch of NPCs come in and kill them all. But the one with the important documents got away. No, you can't find him again. Also, there's always more Dhohanoids. So, y'know, you've lost nothing and also accomplished nothing. Isn't this interesting."

Yeah, I'm really not sure why the writers thought that that was a good stance to take. I mean, it's a fairly simple thing to adjust the setting for either one of the more interesting playstyles as long as you ignore the metaplot (as you should definitely do), but still...

FINE, I'll go back to the mecha. Grumblegrumblegrumble...

The Esoteric Order gets some more mecha. Firstly, they get the Leviathan, which is a big bastard with lots of guns and tentacle-hair. There's also the Merrow, Selkie and Siren, three different suits of power armour. The Siren does a lot of short-range Vitality damage, the Merrow does a lot of long-range Integrity damage, the Selkie does a little long-range Integrity damage. The Merrow can jump somewhat further than the others. The Merrow and Selkie have claws, the Siren has tentacles. Other than that, they are pretty much identical.

New Tagers! That's at least somewhat interesting. The Echo is a great big eel-shark-thing made for underwater missions. It can spurt clouds of ink and its Limit Weapon is that when it's smelled blood, it can freak out for 1d10 turns and attack-attack-attack until everything is dead. That's kind of cool. The Mirage is the most common Tager alongside the Phantom, and its thing is that it can create illusions of itself to confuse enemies. It also causes the illusion that it's standing a few steps away from where it's actually standing, which mostly means that it can't be surprise-attacked. I'm not entirely sure that that makes sense, but okay... They also have tentacles with big claws at the end, which is nice and creepy-looking.

Spectres are even creepier. They walk through walls, and their natural weapons are touching people with the chill of the grave and spewing a cloud of charnel stench that makes everyone around them sick. Their Limit Weapon is them phasing their hand into someone's chest and then turning solid again. Eeeeek. :shock: Finally there's Vampires. They're big, they're strong, they fly, they make your blood boil in your veins by touching you. Their Limit Weapon is dropping a bomb from the air that causes internal hemorrhaging.

Okay, that took some doing, but at least we're done with the stupid mecha. Next up is new monsters.
 
Banner: The best cosmic horror & Cthulhu Mythos @ DriveThruRPG.com
Back
Top