Eclipse Frame

[Acatalepsy]

Eclipse Frame
Welcome to the future. Welcome to the war.​

What is this nonsense? Sometimes you want long character creation, with in depth personality, and complex decisions to make about tactical viability. This is for when you don't. This is for when you want to combine the best of narrative mechanics and player-driven games, with a shocking level of indifference to (trans)human life, swords, guns, powered armor and biotechnology.

This is a setting inspired by Eclipse Phase and Takeshi Kovecs, with elements of Blacklight and Warframe for the gameplay and characters.

Who are the players? Players are free corporate warriors, members of a declining social caste of private military operators centered around the use of powerful combat hardsuits and xenotissue-derived combat morphs. They are called in when one of the corporate houses require someone to apply violence to a problem. If they don't have a current contract, they feel free to spend their precious credits on anything their heart desires, seek out battle (and loot) on their own, or pursue their own quixotic agendas.

Hardsuits? Xenoframes? Bwuh? That's not a question. But a 'Hardsuit' is a purely synthetic military unit controlled by a pilot, a braincase, or more rarely, a full AI. They frequently stand twice as tall as a human, and are bulky, heavily armored, and pack extensive firepower. They were the pinnacle of military technology, over a century ago, and have maintained that position until recently.

Conventional human-based combat morphs (a 'morph' is a body that houses a human mind) can do little against a hardsuit; but recently advances in xenotech biology and nanotechnology have made it possible to build a human-sized combatant out of synthetic biology and alien tissue; these are Xenoframes, and most free warriors seeking to avoid obsolesce have switched over.

What game system? The system is Donjon, a free system available here (http://open.crngames.com/src/donjon.html ). It is, as advertised, a narrative game about looting and pillaging. Some changes have been made to fit the more science fiction setting, as described in the system overview document.

How does this work? You make a character. There's a handy template in the same folder this file is in; please use it. Get the sheet to Acatalepsy somehow (post it in the thread or find me in the IRC), then you put down your name and your character here ( https://titanpad.com/yPjgBhEyOP ) under 'Pending'. After that, whenever we have enough people (2 minimum, 3 preferred, 5 max) and the GM ready to go, we go – games will be hosted on irc.sorcery.net , channel #EclipseFrame .

The full folder describing the game, the system overview, the lore, and character sheets are to be to be found here.

 

[Acatalepsy]

Eclipse Frame​

Eclipse Frame takes place two hundred years after The Seeding, an apocalyptic event that seeded the solar system with Pandora Seeds, incredibly advanced self-replicating machinery. Humanity fought back against the invasion with advanced self-improving intelligences, experimental exotic physics effects, and adaptive computer viruses. In the end, we did almost as much damage to ourselves as the seeds themselves.

Though the Pandora Seeds were initially incredibly destructive, releasing vast amounts of energy and hostile life forms or technology, they have, in their own way, been a massive boon for humanity. A Pandora seed, the small glassy orb, will eventually grow - into, among other things, a Pandora Gate. A Pandora Gate is a black fractal spiral cage, capable of generating a wormhole to link itself to other Pandora Gates. Hundreds of Gates have been established in Sol alone, and millions more exist out there in the universe, just waiting for someone to step through them.

With the Pandora Gates, humanity has spread itself throughout the solar system and beyond. With confidence in pan-national governments shattered by The Seeding, megacorporations led the expansion to the stars. Despite nominal adherence to bodies like the United Nations, companies like Monolith, Tyrell, Weyland, and Rauner-Kruger, and Ares were kingdoms unto themselves, organizing political and economic power around a network of subsidiaries backed by corporate armies. These armies frequently resembled nothing more than a collection of independent warriors in powered armor, fighting for the highest bidder. Social conventions grew up around these armies, enshrining privilege and respect for those who could demonstrate skill on the battlefield.

At first, lacking the tools or theories to use them, and hardened against the use of alien technology by The Seeding, many powerful alien artifacts were ignored or destroyed. Gradually, though, the early mysticism and fear that surrounded alien artifacts have been replaced by ruthless exploitation, and the development of advanced xenobiological and nanotechnological weaponry. Chief among these weapons are Xenoframes, an organism combining nanotechnology and alien biology into a humanoid chassis, and piloted by a digitized human mind. Though expensive, they are slowly replacing the current queen of the battlefield, the Hardsuit, an entirely synthetic battlesuit piloted by a (frequently cybernetically enhanced) human, or even a human brain integrated directly into the suit.

It is a time of change and reformation. A century and a half of dominance has led the leading Corporate families to stagnation and complacency. Within the past decades, humanity has established contact with two alien races, the Factors and the previously thought extinct Iktomi, as well as hostile human-derived life such as Exhumans and TITANs. The newly formed UN Shock Corps is slowly bringing the Corporates into line, raiding labs and kidnapping leading Corporate family members under the guise of enforcing centuries-old rules.

The days of the free corporate soldier are ending. The transhuman warriors of the past era are being eclipsed by drone armies, aerospace dominance and manpower-intensive mass armies. Those remaining are members of a dying breed; killed as much by their own complacency and a life spent extracting value and assumed social status as by any external enemy. And yet there are some that remain; destined to wield their martial skill to the last; to make what difference they can, to stand defiant and damn the consequence, or to just get rich while they have power remaining.