CthulhuTech Ideas and Updates

[Scrasamax]

Super stoked, after nine some odd years looks like Scras is sitting down at the gamers table and running a face to face dice chucking campaign of mecha, cosmic horror, and sanity loss.

I like the overall game system, and the Framewerk rule set feels a lot like the WoD D10 system with a few D20 tweaks in it that i like. There are a few things I will need to change to suit my tastes.

The New Earth Government
The NEG has to go, one planet one government denies the basic appeal of people refusing to get along, and beaurocratic red tape. Instead the NEG is going to be replaced by a number of large super-nations. The Atlantic Federation runs along the basic NATO lines, and is most of the Americas and Western Europe. The Eurasian Alliance (name pending) is most of the old bloc Soviet nations. The Asiatic Co-Prosperity Sphere is most of the far east, China and SE Asia. Japan is a fence sitter, nominally belonging to both the Federation and the Co-Prosperity Sphere.

Following the First ArcanoTech War (Henceforth known as Global War I, or GWI, or the Earth-Nazzadi War) there was much loss of life and a realignment of priorities. The third world suffered massively as the First world powers drew their resources in to fight the alien Nazzadi and their Migou masters. Africa is a shadow of its former self, with most of the African nations dissolving. South Africa and Egypt remain, bastions of civilization and population on the continent.

The Co-Prosperity Sphere is largely beset by the forces of the Rapine Storm under the command of Hastur, the Ruined king of Leng. The Esoteric Order of Dagon also threatens the coastal areas and Indonesia in their search for R'lyeh. Most fighting here is with infantry, tanks, and powered armor, as aside from a few colossal horrors, most of the monsters are basically human sized. Insert atrocities and madness, and Chaos Space Marines.

The Atlantic Federation is more heavily engaged with the alien Migou, who have invaded northern Canada, Alaska, and the Antarctic continent. The Federation is also dealing with the massive Dagonite infestation of the NE states of the US, and facing Dagon incursions across the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean, and the Mediterranean.

The Victory Class Battlecruiser
Deep-sixing this monster hybrid battleship/ aircraft and mecha carrier. History has proven the two species dont blend. The battleship wades into battle, while the carrier avoids it. The ship in question is forced to share space, armor and heavy guns along with large spaces for storing vehicles, launching and recovering vehicles and workshops to repair and refit said vehicles. The Japanese tried it in WWII and their hybrid ships were both destroyed handily by the US Navy.

Replace with 4 shiplines:
A Destroyer Program, a smaller fast ship with limited armor and light firepower. Intended for scouting, recon, and supporting anti-fighter and mecha operations. Destroyers can also be refit for special tasks such as missile corvette, Electronics warfar ops and so on.

A Cruiser Program: A large ship with good armor and good guns, a mix of energy weapons and rail guns, principle use is anti-ship and anti-behemoth action. A behemoth is any sort of baddie like a super giant mecha, fortress, gigantic crawling horror, etc. The Cruiser is supported in action by several destroyers.

An Escort Carrier Program: A medium to large ship that deploys fighters and mecha while avoiding combat, escorted itself by several destroyers. The escort carrier has a compliment of 24 to 48 fighters and mecha but has limited ability to repair said machines.

a Marine Assualt Craft: a small ship capable of combat deploying mecha and power armor troops into battle and supporting them with light grade naval weaponry.

There are still going to be full fledged Battleship and Carrier programs, but these ships are the minority and form the nucleus of battle fleets, while the three capital ships above will form most of the active fleets. Rather than going Anime with a few super-ships, going post WWI era for building a few battleships every few years, and having maybe half a dozen dedicated carriers.

Carriers - named after presidents of the Atlantic Federation
Battleships - named after member nations of the Federation (the AFS Spain, the AFS Great Britain, the AFS Sweden, etc)
Cruisers - named after states and provinces of member nations (The AFS Burgundy, the AFS Quebec, the AFS Wales)
Destroyers - Named after cities (The AFS New York, the AFS Berlin, the AFS Mexico City)
Assualt Ships - named like WWII bombers

Nothing good ever happens to a ship named Agememnon, likewise for warships named Enterprise.

[Scrasamax]

Mecha Weaponry

The CthulhuTech mecha are pretty much only armed with lasers and 'lightning guns' and the ocassional rocket pod. Going to borrow liberally from Battletech (ignoring the BT rules mess) to bring in Autocannons. There isnt a situation that a big enough gun wont fix. Being less temperamental there are going to be plenty of base line and reservist mechs armed with autocannons. Also going to bring in a variety of gauss cannons, and smaller scale gauss rifles for anti-infantry weaponry. Lightning guns are out, particle cannons are in, also inserting variety if sizes and calibres.

[EchoMirage]

Don't forget flamers. Twin-linked plasma accelerators. Hellfire missile launchers. Multi-meltas.

[Scrasamax]

Warhammer 40K is a good point of reference, but a little smaller and less crapsack in scale.

[Scrasamax]

There is a lot of shadow warfare going on in CthulhuTech and it deserves some interest.

It is pretty much boiled down into Cults vs. the Evil Corporation vs. the Esoteric Society vs. Global intelligence

Revamped:

The New Factions:
Assorted Cults associated with Hastur and the Rapine Storm
Assorted Cults associated with Cthulhu and the Esoteric Order of Dagon
Assorted minor Cults

Atlantic Federation Intelligence Bureau
European Union/Interpol type organization
Assorted ACPS (Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere) government organizations

Chrysalis Corporation
Aegis Group (Umbrella Corp)
Assorted other megacorporations, plan to raid ShadowRun for stuff like AzTechnologies and such

Esoteric Society is concentrated mostly in Europe and North America.
Neo-Inquisition type Catholic faction, or militant order
Lin Keui (ninjas from Mortal Kombat, use parapsychic rules for non-martial arts moves)
White Lotus Society
Tekunnin (japanese cyber ninjas)
Something like Section 6 from Alias for a covert intel operation
 

[Scrasamax]

Factions:

Atlantic Federation
USA, Canada, northern Mexico, UK, Ireland, France, Germany, Poland

Eurasian Union
Italy, Spain, Russia, Israel, Switzerland, Czech Republic and other Balkan nations, pretty much south, central, and eastern Europe

Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere
China, Korea, SE Asia, Indonesia, Mongolia, Siberia

Secondary Powers:
Amazonia
Brazil, Columbia, Venezuela, Ecquador

Scandinavian Kingdoms
Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland

South Africa
(Controls most of sub-Saharan Africa)

[Scrasamax]

S-Cry-Ed
I've only seen the first four episodes of this anime and I am impressed. A group a people on an island have been altered by some sort of cosmic dingus event and now they evince parapsychic powers on a scale that can only by matched by Warner Bros, but in a grim and bloody scale as only anime can bring. These "Alter Users" are able to alter physical materials to create a physical manifestation of their power.

The main character rips metal from any source to turn his arm into a compact robot arm that has three increasingly powerful rocket propelled punches. Some others include a man who can turn almost any material info a functional artillery piece, his favorite basically being battleship scaled revolvers. Another creates a physical totem, that lashes out with razor arms and a defensive shield.

In a mechanical element, an Alter User is similar to a Zoner, in that instead of a steady progression of power growth, they start out fully loaded for bear. Their powers typically are restricted to elemental/telekinetic sorts, creating weapons, shields and other devices to suit their needs.

[Scrasamax]

Movies of Relevance:

Surrogates
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrogates_%28film%29
Work from home with your own drone. Amazing applications for law enforcement, soldiery, hazmat, extreme climate operations, playthings of the rich, elite, and wealthy. Of course thats not really the president, its his HRCV Surrogate. Rental bodies, become your online avatar with custom shells, and that hot blonde with the huge tatas could actually be a 350 pound comic book guy in his rec room

Strange Days
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strange_Days_%28film%29
Recordable memories for sale, or theft.

Johnny Mnemonic
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Mnemonic_%28film%29
Caching data inside your head, EM and computer viruses crossing over into biological systems, genetically engineered dolphin hackers, underground gangsta luddites. Some information wouldnt be trusted to encryption, and a courier can avoid most forms of detection. Shadowrun bonus points for other body mods.

Repo! The Genetic Opera
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repo_the_genetic_opera
Organ cloning, financed surgery and body parts, Zydrate addiction, the repo men.

The Matrix
Really? Who hasn't seen it? A basis for Synthetic Reality, log into Google via brain jacking. Add in Strange Days and you can buy other people's experiences. Why watch the Paris Hilton or Kim Kardashian sex tape when for $49.99 you can download it, load it into your feedback system and you get to bone celebutards. Porn gets a whole new angle, and with the tech from Surrogates meshed with this, you can buy tickets to a major sporting event, attend at the front line/row from your living room. Artificial Scarcity makes cheaper seats 'farther away' from the action. Add in the new phase of chat rooms... amazing. Holodeck +10

RoboCop
OCP, cyborg cops, gritty greasy and bloody. 1st movie only.

Aeon Flux
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%86on_Flux_%28film%29
The movie was garbled, but the idea of the government controlling fertility is interesting. Having real children is a legal action, requiring tests and applications, everyone else has to settle for either a hitomi robot child, or having synthetic children in sythetic reality programs.

Barb Wire
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barb_Wire_%28film%29
What's it like living in the slums away from the shadows of the Arcologies? Steel Harbor is a relict from the 21st century and retains it's freedom by being poor, wretched, and unimportant in the global game.

City of Ember
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_Ember
Whimsical and not fitting the tone I want, but an interesting look at life in an underground city that has been forgotten

Dark City
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_City_%281998_film%29
A real mind screw, this film gave up artificial memories. In a world of clones and replicated humans, artificial memories would be important, giving the new people a sense of past even if it is completely false. The kicker, is that the clones would not know that their memories are false, their Shell Beach is a shibboleth marking them as false humans.

Fortress
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortress_%281993_film%29
Dystopian techno prisons. While the Matrix/Synthetic Reality could be used as a fantastic prison system, its not going to be horribly deterring to criminals. Fortress allows megacorps to use criminals for technological and biological research, as well as removing said people from any sort of contact with bright shiny happy society

Minority Report
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minority_Report_%28film%29
High tech is ever present and overlooked (sick sticks, eye transplants, retina based advertising, nods to advanced pharmacueticals, etc) but the real gem are the PreCogs. CthulhuTech parapsychics with clairvoyance and other mental gifts. Less potent, but with more numbers, a psychic cop... toss in some cyborg cops, some surrogate red shirts...

Space Truckers
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Truckers
Because space is kinda junky and crappy before the aliens show up. Sex dolls, killer robots, hijacked cruise ships, and a crude mechanical penis gag

Screamers
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screamers_%281995_film%29
This is why self replicating, self adapting robot killing machines are a very very bad idea. Also an idea of what a non-human intelligence might evolve into given a familiar start

Soldier
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soldier_%28film%29
Vat grown, pre-programmed human soldiers, more flexible and innovative that robots, not requiring a constant network signal for surrogate soldiers, and dehumanized by brutal in-vatro false memories and training.

Total Recall
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_Recall
Space travel, slums on mars, genetic modification (three boobs are 50% better than two) and more for artificial memories for sale.

[Scrasamax]

Para-Psychic Technology

I want to bring some elements into the game from some sources beyond H.P. Lovecraft and Anime. One of the inspirations I want to use is video games. I've been doing some writing, and some evil scheming to see what I can do to make this happen.

Yotai
Originating in the ACPS, Yotai are spirit creatures that shujenga, yamabushi, sohei, and other mystics can summon into battle. Yotai are a grittier sanity dissolving variation of pokemon. The monsters summoned are more horrific and none are cute. Psychic attacks cause internal hemorrhaging, brain lesions, convulsions, etc. Yotai themselves are non-material entities and are hard to actually kill, but once drawn into our world they are perfectly lethal.  The AtFed and EurAl have summoned arcanotech as well, but the Eurasian Alliance stuff is cosmic horror scale, while the Atlantic Federation favors Final Fantasy level summons.

Haduo su Shintai
Or God Body Power, this is an ACPS arcanotech that has allowed them to distill 5000 years of martial arts history with cutting edge arcanotechnology to unleash the full potential of human martial arts. A martial artist can study a martial art and the Haduo su Shintai to unlock their chi potential. Thus a black belt in karate who learns the Shintai can start doing ranged attacks with hand and foot strikes, energy projectile attacks, move faster than can be seen for a few seconds (cough cough Street Fighter cough cough)

[Scrasamax]

Street Fighter

Delta Red -

international agency of paranormal law enforcement, employs parapsychics and parakinetics martial artists to deal with rogue agents and the sort of threats that cannot be dealt with by local law enforcement but not warranting the attention or collateral damage from mecha units or naval assets.

Shadaloo

Shady international crime organization. It employs all sorts, parapsychics, plain psychotics, drug and gun runners, and ranges from handling hypertech (human cloning) down to the most base matters (protection rackets). I want to deviate from the game canon and wedge Shadaloo into Indonesia and Bangladesh, and its main areas of operation are SE Asia, Indo-China, and the thousands of islands stretching from Sri Lanka to Japan. Most Shadaloo cells are typical organized crime groups, but the top end deals with the most dangerous aspects. M. Bison is an artificially erupted parapsychic (zoner) who has been driven nuts by his erupted powers. Vega and Sagat are trained PKs while Balrog might have some inhumanity lurking, where he can shift from a boxer into a hulking s**t monster. Blanka, technically, would be in the same category.

The element of Street Fighter I want to capture is the over the top martial arts and combos. The martial arts are physical only parapsychic abilites as laid out in Vade Mecum, but all have a somatic limitation. If you can't hit the stances and katas the hyperagility, speed, and strength cannot activate. Mixing in the elemental parapsychic abilities with martial arts (Martial Arts skill plus parapsychic ability = hadoken). This is going the opposite direction of the PS and PK characters from the core game that have more of a Firestarter or Scanners feel. PK = chi manipulation. Also by using this elevated power source, characters can deal hybrid damage with their strikes (damage that spans from character scale to vehicle scale).