Tenebrae game

Setting: AIF - special subset: a near-utopian republic

Referee: RooK

Player(s): Dave - playing GORBY, a fledgeling member of the Tenebrae...

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SETTING: planet Sarooj

Sarooj is a special class of city planet the locals like to call a "park planet". Park planets have managed to cultivate large segments of their original biosphere back into a flourishing state, usually by removing large sections of global urban sprawl to accommodate the parks. These efforts are often criticized as being cosmetic, as the capability of those biospheres to remain stable has been long lost and therefore are intensively curated - usually erring on the side of being picturesque over bio-diversely functional. Proponents point to improved sense of general wellbeing instinctively felt by evolved biological beings, which is reinforced by the tourism elements associated with the parks. Critics cite the difficulty of policing the wild areas as being potential for dangerous activity. The critics are usually dismissed as being anti-fun, and the sort of people who never get invited to parties in the park anyway.

More than just a "park planet", Sarooj has managed to relocate the majority of its urban volume off-surface to a lattice of habitat encaging the entire planet, anchored by thousands of space elevators. This leaves the vast continents of the surface of Sarooj itself to be almost all quasi-park status, with only historically significant sites remaining with permanent residences and un-park reservations.

The tourist flux for Sarooj is enormous. Consequently, the Saroojian Police force is continuously busy dealing with the various bullshit that a high volume of strangers coming and going entails.

Things to keep in mind:

• Sarooj is technically lawful - most citizens are non-combatant, and weapons are not legal for civilians.
• Police response time is typically 5-10 minutes in most inhabited areas. Other areas may vary.
• Police response is typically non-lethal - to start. Escalation to intermediate scale support changes that.
• Most information is sourced from civilians, which means that there is highly variable levels of awareness distributed around.

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CIRCUMSTANCES: the Tenebrae

As an advanced society and being a natural nexus of travel has allowed Sarooj to flourish. One of the paradoxical aspects of Sarooj's circumstance is that the success is too tempting a target for less-scrupulous types, of many kinds and scales. Because the success is a by-product of the vast majority of people having confidence in the systemic integrity of the republic's structure and mechanisms, which has to be done by being open and transparent, which in turn makes those structures and mechanisms vulnerable to gamification and manipulation by less-scrupulous types.

This paradox has been meticulously tended by a secret self-appointed society for centuries - the Tenebrae.

The Tenebrae function as a sort of anti-Illuminati. Their intent is to hunt down and eliminate any organization that attempts to secretly subvert or control Sarooj's republic, to let the natural distributed will of the majority maintain its self-correcting mode. More than that, they must do so in a manner that never belies their collective existence, such that the majority of the populace has reason to believe in the apparent corruption-resistant nature of the republic - thereby continuing Sarooj's intrinsic success.

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CHARACTER ORIGIN...

Standard character generation: 30 points.

2^nd stage: 1 stage combat, 1 stage science/tech

Tenebrae fledgelings are orphans, raised in standard republic creches. They are modified at a very young age to have non-standard nanoscopic robots. These have two main traits:

1. Alternate Ether communications - initially 10m range. Fledgelings are generally unaware of this function until/unless they are contacted by another Tenebrea via that alternate etheric channel.
2. Cosmetic modifications are difficult to accomplish. Thus most Tenebrae tend to have some "odd" feature or features. Please have something interesting and not-obviously beneficial as a physical aspect of the character.

As an upside of being a contacted Tenebrae during training, the initial combat stage is at maximum bonuses, and the initial science/tech stage has and additional +1 to the main feats.

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2019.12.06 - Initiating Initiation

• FLACK, Gorby's Tenebrae sponsor, sends xim to a bar called the Ugly Pigeon in the unsecured section of Spaceport 7.
  • Instructions are to verify that a Trop police officer named BRODY is participating in a new illegal organization, and if the being he is conspiring with comes through into the secured sections of Sarooj to intercept it and question it. And silence it.
  • Gorby has a nutmeg cappuccino - everything after this point might be a caffeine hallucination.
  • BRODY meets with two beings - one human and a zygroten.
  • The zygroten has sufficient awareness to spot Gorby's skulking about.
  • Based on observation, Gorby is worried that the human might be a mentalist manipulating the trop's mind.
• BRODY leaves the bar with the zygroten.
  • Gorby followd the pair to the nearest docking ring, and briefly lost them when they boarded a docked vessel. When the Trop cop re-emerged, Gorby decided to flank around the port structure - at a dead run.
  • Stalking the Trop back in the atrium area towards the security checkpoint, the Trop becomes paranoid and looking in Gorby's direction without spotting him.
  • While hiding from the Trop, the Zygroten snuck up on Gorby and tried to skewer him with a force blade.
    • The Zygroten is surprised at how difficult it is to kill Gorby.
    • The Trop Cop is conflicted about what to do, but eventually flees.
    • Gorby takes a horrifying hit to the vitals, and retreats towards the security checkpoint.
    • The Zygroten breaks off the attack and flees as well.

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PLOT 01 - You OK Little Fella?

Gorby makes it through the security check point. The hulking intermediate scale battle robot mentions in a surprisingly kindly voice, "You are a lot tougher than you look. Is there anything that you would like to report?"

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Flack pings Gorby after he shambles through the security check and back into the periphery of the space port. "That was a very unexpected development. The human was the known element, and they are pure poser-class as a combatant, with some diplomat and medic. The zygroten was a surprise, and indicates that there might be more going on than originally surmised. There is a medical facility nearby with a very helpful medic/biologist that could fix you up quietly. Or there is a potential mathematician contact we could attempt to establish a rapport with if you want to try chasing that police officer."

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"Oh, I'm totally down for chasing after that cop. And that Zygroten needs to face me when I'm actually armed."

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Flack: "Tally-ho! The potential mathematician resource is a groten named Sheffald, but there are a few caveats about cultivating him. The reason why we are considering associating with him is that he's extremely secure, information-wise. But that's because he's incredibly paranoid. He's worried about the existence of secret societies, so maybe don't lead with that angle. Just mention that you are concerned about a police officer, and aren't sure you can actually go to the police about it. It's at coordinates i,j,k."

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