Backgrounds
You get seven points at character generation to spend on these. We'll playtest things to get the kinks out.
Acquisitions.
In the wake of St. George, money holds no value. Wealth, however, still holds sway in a simpler form. This Trait describes your ability to acquire needful things, whether necessities (food, water), conveniences (functioning electronics, pencils and paper, tools), or resources (gasoline). This may take the form of skill at personally finding good scavenging sites and pulling out the items of worth, of holding status and pull in a society of survivors to bargain out or be rationed what you need at a given time, or other means of acquiring what you require.
o: You don't even know where to find food or clean water, and had better find somebody who does and get on their good side.
●: You can keep yourself fed, although your diet is distasteful and not very nutritious, and you can acquire very simple conveniences like pencils.
●●: You can keep yourself on a moderately healthy diet, and can acquire items like calculators, cleaning equipment, and objects fit to be used as makeshift weapons.
●●●: You're on a healthy diet. You can acquire specialty goods like power tools, sports equipment and hunting rifles. If you know somebody with a generator, you can get appliances to plug in.
●●●●: You're a top-notch looter, or you've got a lot of sway with people who are making the best of things. You're able to acquire complicated goods: scientific equipment, kevlar vests, cars and gasoline.
●●●●●: You eat foie gras for dinner. Give you a year and you can ferret out nuclear launch codes.
Allies.
In the grim future of the post-cyberpocalypse, the weak need allies to prevent the strong from bullying them for their last Neo-Shekel. Civilization has fallen in the wake of the loss of mankind, and the survivors need all the allies they can get. Allies may be friends, friends of circumstance, or people who owe your character a favor. An ally's assistance shouldn't be taken for granted; an ally is a person with his or her own feelings and agenda, and may look to your character as much as you look to them - and if they are refused, they may not be so happy to help out the next time. Each dot purchased in Allies either buys another ally or makes an existing ally stronger. For example, three dots of Allies may buy three moderately useful allies, one moderately useful ally and one particularly useful ally, or one extremely helpful ally. One-dot Allies are likely to be archetypes without supernatural capabilities, but higher-level allies may be archetypes of high status, other seeds of varying strength, or potentially even the other strange things walking the earth since the coming of St. George.
o: It's you against the world.
●: One ally of moderate power.
●●: Two allies or one more powerful ally.
●●●: Three allies or a combination of more powerful allies.
●●●●: Four allies or a combination of more powerful allies.
●●●●●: Five allies or a combination of more powerful allies.
Fissure.
The weave of Earth has come undone in places as a result of the influence of St. George, and there are now thin spots where it is possible to take one step from one part of the world and find one's foot coming down on the other side of the world. Some of these thin spots can be very dangerous, but some enterprising souls, upon finding a fissure in the spatial weave, undertake to watch over it and make use of it for their own purposes. A few seeds who have done this have already succeeded in creating new trade routes, although the face of trade is a little different after St. George. Of course, there is nothing preventing others from 'stepping across the thin' at a fissure you control except anything you may personally make or set down, such as traps, walls, guards, etc.
o: You have never stepped foot in a thin spot, or you have a healthy fear of them which prevents you from noting their locations for future use.
●: You control a thin spot to an especially dangerous area, or which goes across the state.
●●: You know a thin spot that leads to a fairly unremarkable destination, or one that crosses state lines.
●●●: You've found a thin spot to a moderately useful destination like a friendly settlement or Refuge, or one which crosses national boundaries.
●●●●: You can use a thin spot which leads to a useful cache, crosses oceans, or is in a particularly convenient location for you.
●●●●●: A thin spot which exits into an abandoned survivalist's compound with a full rations supply, ready for war.
Followers.
People have to band together to survive. Allies measures individual people your character knows who are capable of helping out in major ways. Followers are capable of helping too, but they are more modest; followers are always archetypes, never possessing supernatural capacity, and their mundane abilities also tend to be modest. Followers are regular people, blue collar workers, housewives, grocery baggers and cubicle monkeys. But extra pairs of hands are essential when the social infrastructure has broken down. Followers allow you to split up, divide responsibilities, set guards, carry heavy things along with you, and other important unsung abilities. Followers understand the need to stay together and organized to survive, and are not mercurial in their loyalties, but may still be alienated by too extreme callousness or other behavior disregarding their needs. Properly armed, they may also serve as a fighting force, but unlike allies, require a numbers advantage or a good strategy to come out of a skirmish without losses. A mass of Followers must be cared for; Followers whose loyalties have lost may be able to be swayed again, but a follower fallen dead is not coming back.
o: You have not connected with any throng of survivors, or if you have, they sure aren't listening to you.
●: Five followers.
●●: Ten followers.
●●●: Fifteen followers.
●●●●: Twenty followers.
●●●●●: Twenty-five followers!
Pack.
Only corrupted seeds may take this Background. St. George touches man and beast alike, and your character has bonded with one of the sympathetic beasts who roam the Earth, an animal that has been warped by St. George the same way you have. The sympathetic beast obeys your orders unfailingly, and the beast manifests some useful mutations, like greater strength or speed, almost human intelligence, the ability to speak, or stranger warpings. Of course, you'll have to keep the beast fed. But that's not hard for you, is it? There are still plenty of survivors...
o: Sympathetic beasts? Oh, yeah, they make great coats.
●: One sympathetic beast with one mutation.
●●: Two beasts with one mutation, or one with two mutations.
●●●: Three beasts with one mutation, one beast with three, or one beast with two and one beast with one.
●●●●: Four beasts with one mutation, one beast with four, or other combinations.
●●●●●: Five beasts with one mutation, one beast with five, or other combinations.
Refuge.
Places of quiet are a precious thing when society's promises of safety have broken down. Your character has found some refuge where they are generally safe from outside predation and the elements. They may have set traps around an abandoned house, or found a fairy mound where they've forged a contract with the Good Folk to set up camp under their protection, or anything else. For whatever reason, hostile visitors, strays, and sympathetic beasts will effectively not intrude on your refuge unless they are led there by some means.
o: You can run, but you can't hide.
●: A cramped, filthy refuge with no conveniences to recommend itself.
●●: A modest, cozy refuge.
●●●: A multi-room refuge with an average stockpile of acquisitions (cleaning supplies, utensils, canned foods).
●●●●: A large refuge which can easily support a number of people, with safety measures or unusual stockpiles, such as a bomb shelter.
●●●●●: The best place to ride out the end of the world in style. The refuge may have its own generator or stockpiles of valuable resources such as gasoline or a lifetime's supply of rations.
Remembrance.
The strange Reflections which seeds manifest are the one edge they have to exploit to survive in this world, but they feed from the memories of human society and culture from before the coming of St. George. Memory, therefore, is a precious thing to the seeds that walk the Earth, but some realize it better than others. This Trait reflects the clarity and power of a character's memory of the time before the seeding. A character with a strong Remembrance holds precious their time as part of a civilization greater than the shadow it has left, and is determined to carry that small flame of memory onward into the long night.
o: You live in the now. Your character might be too young to remember much of the time before, or else never truly lived life before the seeding gave them a swift kick in the ass.
●: The time before the world ended echoes in the back of your head. Recover an extra point of Memory whenever you fulfill your Compulsion.
●●: There are powerful moments of your life that you draw upon in the hard times. Recover two extra points of Memory whenever you fulfill your Compulsion.
●●●: Your memories of the life before are especially vivid and visceral. Recover three extra points of Memory.
●●●●: The time before haunts you, and you seldom spend much time without thinking of it in some way. Recover four extra points of Memory.
●●●●●: You live in the past. Your life before the world ended consumes you, and you live only in the bleak hope of rebuilding it. Recover five extra points of Memory whenever you fulfill your Compulsion.
Acquisitions.
In the wake of St. George, money holds no value. Wealth, however, still holds sway in a simpler form. This Trait describes your ability to acquire needful things, whether necessities (food, water), conveniences (functioning electronics, pencils and paper, tools), or resources (gasoline). This may take the form of skill at personally finding good scavenging sites and pulling out the items of worth, of holding status and pull in a society of survivors to bargain out or be rationed what you need at a given time, or other means of acquiring what you require.
o: You don't even know where to find food or clean water, and had better find somebody who does and get on their good side.
●: You can keep yourself fed, although your diet is distasteful and not very nutritious, and you can acquire very simple conveniences like pencils.
●●: You can keep yourself on a moderately healthy diet, and can acquire items like calculators, cleaning equipment, and objects fit to be used as makeshift weapons.
●●●: You're on a healthy diet. You can acquire specialty goods like power tools, sports equipment and hunting rifles. If you know somebody with a generator, you can get appliances to plug in.
●●●●: You're a top-notch looter, or you've got a lot of sway with people who are making the best of things. You're able to acquire complicated goods: scientific equipment, kevlar vests, cars and gasoline.
●●●●●: You eat foie gras for dinner. Give you a year and you can ferret out nuclear launch codes.
Allies.
In the grim future of the post-cyberpocalypse, the weak need allies to prevent the strong from bullying them for their last Neo-Shekel. Civilization has fallen in the wake of the loss of mankind, and the survivors need all the allies they can get. Allies may be friends, friends of circumstance, or people who owe your character a favor. An ally's assistance shouldn't be taken for granted; an ally is a person with his or her own feelings and agenda, and may look to your character as much as you look to them - and if they are refused, they may not be so happy to help out the next time. Each dot purchased in Allies either buys another ally or makes an existing ally stronger. For example, three dots of Allies may buy three moderately useful allies, one moderately useful ally and one particularly useful ally, or one extremely helpful ally. One-dot Allies are likely to be archetypes without supernatural capabilities, but higher-level allies may be archetypes of high status, other seeds of varying strength, or potentially even the other strange things walking the earth since the coming of St. George.
o: It's you against the world.
●: One ally of moderate power.
●●: Two allies or one more powerful ally.
●●●: Three allies or a combination of more powerful allies.
●●●●: Four allies or a combination of more powerful allies.
●●●●●: Five allies or a combination of more powerful allies.
Fissure.
The weave of Earth has come undone in places as a result of the influence of St. George, and there are now thin spots where it is possible to take one step from one part of the world and find one's foot coming down on the other side of the world. Some of these thin spots can be very dangerous, but some enterprising souls, upon finding a fissure in the spatial weave, undertake to watch over it and make use of it for their own purposes. A few seeds who have done this have already succeeded in creating new trade routes, although the face of trade is a little different after St. George. Of course, there is nothing preventing others from 'stepping across the thin' at a fissure you control except anything you may personally make or set down, such as traps, walls, guards, etc.
o: You have never stepped foot in a thin spot, or you have a healthy fear of them which prevents you from noting their locations for future use.
●: You control a thin spot to an especially dangerous area, or which goes across the state.
●●: You know a thin spot that leads to a fairly unremarkable destination, or one that crosses state lines.
●●●: You've found a thin spot to a moderately useful destination like a friendly settlement or Refuge, or one which crosses national boundaries.
●●●●: You can use a thin spot which leads to a useful cache, crosses oceans, or is in a particularly convenient location for you.
●●●●●: A thin spot which exits into an abandoned survivalist's compound with a full rations supply, ready for war.
Followers.
People have to band together to survive. Allies measures individual people your character knows who are capable of helping out in major ways. Followers are capable of helping too, but they are more modest; followers are always archetypes, never possessing supernatural capacity, and their mundane abilities also tend to be modest. Followers are regular people, blue collar workers, housewives, grocery baggers and cubicle monkeys. But extra pairs of hands are essential when the social infrastructure has broken down. Followers allow you to split up, divide responsibilities, set guards, carry heavy things along with you, and other important unsung abilities. Followers understand the need to stay together and organized to survive, and are not mercurial in their loyalties, but may still be alienated by too extreme callousness or other behavior disregarding their needs. Properly armed, they may also serve as a fighting force, but unlike allies, require a numbers advantage or a good strategy to come out of a skirmish without losses. A mass of Followers must be cared for; Followers whose loyalties have lost may be able to be swayed again, but a follower fallen dead is not coming back.
o: You have not connected with any throng of survivors, or if you have, they sure aren't listening to you.
●: Five followers.
●●: Ten followers.
●●●: Fifteen followers.
●●●●: Twenty followers.
●●●●●: Twenty-five followers!
Pack.
Only corrupted seeds may take this Background. St. George touches man and beast alike, and your character has bonded with one of the sympathetic beasts who roam the Earth, an animal that has been warped by St. George the same way you have. The sympathetic beast obeys your orders unfailingly, and the beast manifests some useful mutations, like greater strength or speed, almost human intelligence, the ability to speak, or stranger warpings. Of course, you'll have to keep the beast fed. But that's not hard for you, is it? There are still plenty of survivors...
o: Sympathetic beasts? Oh, yeah, they make great coats.
●: One sympathetic beast with one mutation.
●●: Two beasts with one mutation, or one with two mutations.
●●●: Three beasts with one mutation, one beast with three, or one beast with two and one beast with one.
●●●●: Four beasts with one mutation, one beast with four, or other combinations.
●●●●●: Five beasts with one mutation, one beast with five, or other combinations.
Refuge.
Places of quiet are a precious thing when society's promises of safety have broken down. Your character has found some refuge where they are generally safe from outside predation and the elements. They may have set traps around an abandoned house, or found a fairy mound where they've forged a contract with the Good Folk to set up camp under their protection, or anything else. For whatever reason, hostile visitors, strays, and sympathetic beasts will effectively not intrude on your refuge unless they are led there by some means.
o: You can run, but you can't hide.
●: A cramped, filthy refuge with no conveniences to recommend itself.
●●: A modest, cozy refuge.
●●●: A multi-room refuge with an average stockpile of acquisitions (cleaning supplies, utensils, canned foods).
●●●●: A large refuge which can easily support a number of people, with safety measures or unusual stockpiles, such as a bomb shelter.
●●●●●: The best place to ride out the end of the world in style. The refuge may have its own generator or stockpiles of valuable resources such as gasoline or a lifetime's supply of rations.
Remembrance.
The strange Reflections which seeds manifest are the one edge they have to exploit to survive in this world, but they feed from the memories of human society and culture from before the coming of St. George. Memory, therefore, is a precious thing to the seeds that walk the Earth, but some realize it better than others. This Trait reflects the clarity and power of a character's memory of the time before the seeding. A character with a strong Remembrance holds precious their time as part of a civilization greater than the shadow it has left, and is determined to carry that small flame of memory onward into the long night.
o: You live in the now. Your character might be too young to remember much of the time before, or else never truly lived life before the seeding gave them a swift kick in the ass.
●: The time before the world ended echoes in the back of your head. Recover an extra point of Memory whenever you fulfill your Compulsion.
●●: There are powerful moments of your life that you draw upon in the hard times. Recover two extra points of Memory whenever you fulfill your Compulsion.
●●●: Your memories of the life before are especially vivid and visceral. Recover three extra points of Memory.
●●●●: The time before haunts you, and you seldom spend much time without thinking of it in some way. Recover four extra points of Memory.
●●●●●: You live in the past. Your life before the world ended consumes you, and you live only in the bleak hope of rebuilding it. Recover five extra points of Memory whenever you fulfill your Compulsion.