... Holy moly, this is some hard-core stuff. That'd be good to put into the magitek setting I'm working on. Essentially, Earth is destroyed by nuclear war, and the survivors of the human population of Earth travel through a number of portals to invade what is, essentially, a fantasy world populated by the standard-issue races ( orcs, elves, humans, dwarves, etc.). After a long, horrifically bloody series of wars known as the Exodus Wars, the invading Coalition of Democratic Nations, and its rival organization, the Pan-Asian Alliance, have conquered great portions of the world, and have begun the process of bringing technology to the newly-ravaged world. However, huge portions of the globe are still left up for grabs, as some tech (mainly military) ends up in the hands of various third-world tyrants and monarchs, and a cold war begins between the CDN and PAA. In essence, a near-future Magitek setting.
They way I see it, this fortress is the capital of a human kingdom that is highly resistant to both of the main empires, and has been involved in an especially brutal war against the Coalition Marine Corps and its troops. Recently, though, the Marines have managed to push the enemy forces back into their fortress, and have laid siege to the fortress itself. However, a problem has come up- no matter how much ordnance the Marine artillery launches at the fortress walls, the walls simply will not fall. The Marine's mages have deduced that the walls have been heavily augmented with enchantments, and have decided that the only way to get into the fortress is to either take the walls by storm (which could lead to horrifying casualties), or to send elite teams of personnel into the crypts beneath the city to emerge on the inside, overwhelm the main gate, and let in the Marine infantry. However, while the mages knew of the 'enchantments' made to the walls, they did not know about how these enchantments were created- nor of the vengeful ghost army that could be called upon by the castle's lord.
Qeue the players being sent into the catacombs, wherein the game would turn into a survival-horror race to the gates while being pursued by nigh-unstoppable spirits in an attempt to see the mission through to completion and survive.
Ah, somebody here likes Five Finger Death Punch, eh?
I really like this race. In fact, I might use it in a campaign I'm thinking of. There's an area in it called the Volskari Dominion, which is essentially like Magic North Korea... With larger guns. The people there are fanatically loyal to the ruling regime, and have repeatedly marched to war for the dumbest reasons and for the smallest slights imaginable, like if someone declared war on the U.S. because they held the Olympics in Seattle. Anywho, I was originally going to have the Volskari people be humans with weak immune systems (Volskaria is highly volcanic, and the air there is so high in temperature that very little bacterial life can survive- no doubt I'm butchering my biology, here, but I'll work on that later), but I have to say that the Shalari are a way better fit for that sort of horrifying, utterly insane regime that I'm looking for. Also, the idea of a group of Death Seekers fighting an elite unit of CDN Marine commandos is pretty awesome.
Just to tell you, the CDN and PLAA are factions in a world I'll be posting up here sooner or later.
Hell to the yes, I have fansubs! I really ought to just write a whole series of stories about these guys. The only problem is the sheer amount of cussing.
One quick things about ascetics, though- their whole deal isn't that they only stay calm to put on a good public face. Instead, their main flaw is that instead of letting off wee bits of anger to take off the overall pressure, like pressure off a fault line, the Ascetic tries too hard to keep all that energy bottled up until, one fateful day, it just plain implodes on the poor fellow and he goes on a rampage.
Therefore, if Dante here was an Ascetic, he'd try to store up all that anger until, at some point, he'd just go off like a hand grenade with Tourettes. Also, Rage Mages just plain don't make for good politicians- they generally just don't have the patience, and the time they spend campaigning could just as well be put to use getting really, REALLY angry about stuff and becoming more powerful.
Just FYI., dude.
Now, one thing I'm wondering is what time setting this is supposed to be in. I'd assume that you're focusing on a more modern army, with assault rifles and tanks and stuff, but a lot of the officers you mention seem to be based on 18th-19th century armies, where rank was either hereditary or bought. In a modern-day army, like the US Army or Marine Corps, divisions such as class or prior rank wouldn't be much of an issue. So, is this more old-school, or some sort of fusion of army types?
Either way, great work.
An ingenious invention, without a doubt, and perfect for a dystopian fantasy session, much like the series of games I'm planning to run which mix magic and tech. In this setting, the two main sides are based off of Communist China and NATO/ the UN, but there are numerous smaller, third-world nations between the two belligerents who would pay top dollar for a product like this. One angle might be that the players are working fro the Covert Actions Directorate (pretty much the CIA), and they're tracing a shipment of this potion in order to assassinate some enemy leaders or something. Or, if you're feeling REALLY grimdark, the player characters might actually be assigned to administer the stuff secretly to a rebel leader.
NPCs (Minor) (Criminal/Espionage)