Trauma and Treads

I've been wanting to do a Chariots of Steel quest for a while now, and a recent one that just started finally gave me the inspiration to try one of these. The only quest I've been able to stick to is my other Himmelgard one, so I hope I'll be able to with this one too. Time for another trauma filled story I might publish as a novel someday! For this adventure, we need our officer, whether they be in charge of a tank or a squad. Let's pick what they were and who they are!



[ ] Farmer -A naive farm boy/girl with the potential to be one of the best commanders, if they can get over their aversion to hurting people.
[ ] Soldier -A young officer raised in a society based on militaristic merit. Your stiff upper lip will make relationships difficult.
[ ] Fischer -A devoted follower of the Gods of the Dark Sea with a team of similarly minded individuals.
[ ] Survivor- A survivor of the end of the world, having escaped a dead city in either a tank or on foot.
[ ] Skyborn -One born in the sky on an airship with a deeply different culture than the rest of Himmelgard.
[ ] Believer -Someone fanatically devoted to The Cause with a team of similarly committed individuals.
[ ] Scion -A rich heir having left home to prove yourself to your ruling parent, willingly or unwillingly.
[ ] Worker -You've tried every other avenue for work. Mercenary work is just another job.
[ ] Student -A member of a university who will be commanding a ground force to write your Thesis. Or to procrastinate writing it.
[ ] Witch -A magic user with the capacity to gamble with reality with a stacked deck.

[ ] Tank Commander (Command a tank)
[ ] Squad Commander (Command a squad)

Guess we're keeping the title. Now, there's a decision to make. There's two ways to play Chariots under our circumstances. We can either play in Officer mode, where you get double your starting Thaler, but have to outfit your own squads and tanks, or you just play as a survivor with another couple of like-minded people willing to be mercenaries with you. It would mean the other commanders as PC-grade fellas. To be honest, being able to shell out a straight 100þ would be unthinkably powerful. You could buy any tank in the game with a complimentary squad. Rolling out of a dead city in a Vikki and 20þ change to arm some hirelings would be incredible. One issue though. As a survivor, you have a maximum of 4 other crew or squad members. So keep that in mind when picking your tank. You can hire more crew toaster though, or just not have secondary gunners or something.

[ ] Officer Mode (100þ Budget, Command Points, capacity for more than one tank/squad)
[ ] Part of a Whole (50þ Budget)

Tank vote!

[ ] Feldmaus, Tiny Predator. (20þ, 1 upkeep. Agile devil with a shotgun starter and able to reverse as fast as forward)
[ ] Viktoria, Baby Leviathan. (80þ, 6 upkeep. You are the boss fight. Hard to kill but not easy to live as)
[ ] Mannschaftswagen, Basically A Chimera. (20þ, 1 upkeep. [Mann does what?!] can carry 20 people)
[ ] Drachentöter, Accurately Named. (80þ, 4 upkeep. Size of a bus and needs a crew to match. But you RULE the field)
[ ] Wächter, Him. (50þ, 3 upkeep. Perfectly sized for your crew, truly ahead of its time, lots of gadgets)
[ ] Panzerstampfer, Tank Made for Walking (40þ, 3 upkeep. It walks! Stay on stable ground though)
[ ] Gletscher, ~Menacing~ (25þ, 2 upkeep. Extra tank terror, big gun, but literally cannot see anyone within 10 meters)
[ ] Bergsteiger, Shed's Death. (50þ, 4 upkeep. No explosive shells, hits like a truck with precision. Perfectly sized for you)
[ ] Write In

[X] Part of a Whole (50þ Budget)

[X] Panzerstampfer, Tank Made for Walking (40þ, 3 upkeep. It walks! Stay on stable ground though)

You spent your entire life in a part of the world that simply seemed unapproachable, or unthinkable in general. You don't remember much of your childhood. You had your mother, and your father. For a long time at least. You think you were five when your father just didn't come back from going down the tower's ladder. Then, when you thought you were ten, your mother didn't come back. You don't remember either of their faces. They didn't leave you with nothing. They taught you to read and write, told you what the City was like before the gas bombs fell and killed nearly everyone. It was unbelievable to you that there existed other people at some point, at least when you were very young. It was just you three, until it wasn't. They mainly taught you Gottisch, but you had enough of an understanding of Macchian to read the signs around the City. After that you had to fend for yourself. Canned food and water was plentiful. You stockpiled it whenever you could. You didn't like going down into the City.

At one point, when trying to pry open a back door to a warehouse that could have gas filters fitting your mask's dimensions after avoiding a shade's predicable routine, you locked eyes with another person that looked like they were about to do the same. The first person you'd seen since your parents. They had a suit that seemed much older than yours, made of leather and sealed with wax rather than your rubber mask and plastic suit. You didn't speak to each other, they just helped you break open the warehouse door and get inside. There were sparing crates, some opened, some not, but in the middle of the warehouse was an enormous… vehicle, you thought. It was painted a camouflage grey, stood on four legs, and had a cannon on the front like a proboscis. You knew at that moment you'd do anything to ride in one of those. You'd be just about invincible.

Your new friend asked you your name at that time. Your birth name seemed like a far off concept. You told them your name was…

[ ] Jäger (+3 Hard, +3 Keen, -2 Calm, -2 Daring)
[ ] Maus (-4 Hard, +3 Keen, +2 Calm, +1 Daring)
[ ] Spinne (-2 Hard, +3 Keen, +3 Calm, -2 Daring)
[ ] Hans (0 Hard, +2 Keen, -2 Calm, +2 Daring)

which wasn't a lie, exactly, just the nickname your parents gave you when they were still around.

You made plans to leave. The tank, you later found out, was not operational, but could be. You committed yourself to fixing it with your new friend so you two could leave. Then you picked up someone new. And then another. And then another. You found more people than you ever thought you would, four friends, four people wanting out just as bad as you. You felt responsible for them, in some way. You would help them get out with you. Skills came with age, helping you to protect yourself and to protect your crew. They unanimously voted for you to be the commander, your work paid off in them actually, fully trusting you.

Pick three. If you want complex origins, pick one from another playbook and vote for one to be crossed out.

[ ] Cornered Animal: Roll keen to look for a way out. Failure, +2 hard forward, partial, +2 Keen forward, success, use that hold to leave.
[ ] Tough It Out: Never pass out from injury.
[ ] Scavenger: When searching a wrecked vehicle or ruin, roll +Keen to try and find something that would reasonably be there.
[ ] Make Do: You personally coat 0 upkeep.
[ ] Expendable: Make the enemy attack you and only you and give advantage to someone else.
[ ] Paranoid Sense: Make a pessimistic prediction, +1 Stress, take advantage forward.
[ ] Gone Feral: When you brawl viciously, everyone in the fight, including you, takes +1 Injury.
[ ] Of Two Minds: Select another stat line from a playbook, while your mask is off, you may use that other stat line instead. Could also be used to represent a plural character if we'd like to make our protagonist that.

[ ] Write in your four crewmates. Everyone gets to make one, give their nickname, what their gas protection looks like, and a notable habit, dream, or personality trait they have.

[X] Spinne (-2 Hard, +3 Keen, +3 Calm, -2 Daring)

[X] Scavenger: When searching a wrecked vehicle or ruin, roll +Keen to try and find something that would reasonably be there.
[X] Cornered Animal: Roll keen to look for a way out. Failure, +2 hard forward, partial, +2 Keen forward, success, use that hold to leave.
[X] Tough It Out: Never pass out from injury.

[X] Keller (She/Her). Wears a scavenged mask cobbled together out of broken parts, wrapped in oilcloth. Habitually checks the gas seal at her neck when she's nervous-it's failed her before.
[X] Schatz (She/Her). Military mask and ill-fitting wax-sealed coat, as if made for someone bigger. An eternal optimist.
[X] Feuer (They/Them). A large black gas mask that is also fireproof. An pyromaniac that rarely takes their mask off to hide the burns on their face. Quiet but smarter than one would think.
[X] Blick (He/Him). Standard civilian mask, like you've seen on countless bodies, but well kept. When he stops moving it's hard to tell he's alive, either.

You five spent four months of bearable Macchi winter piecing the tank back together. You essentially had to rebuild the engine from scratch, but after reading enough handbooks to consider yourself an engineer and using your knowledge of the City to find the parts necessary, and helped rebuild the complex hydraulic joints necessary for the structure itself to move. You assigned Schatz as the driver. None of you had driven before but you gave her the pamphlet on how go operate it, and told her that she'd be the one to get you five out of there. You assigned Feuer to the field cannon on the front. You'd need to blast yourself out of this City, and you had confidence he'd be able to. Keller and Blick were assigned to the machine guns on either side for similar reasons. It would be basically impossible to stop you, but you needed to stop the shade soldiers you'd have to avoid from blowing you apart. The only issue is you didn't have a loader, which would make using the main cannon harder. You only really needed one shot to blow the city's wall open, if even that. You might be able to just plow through it with how unstoppable your beast of war was. You made another modification to it, adding some gas filters from one of your shelters to the cabin to give the walker clean air at positive pressure. It didn't make anyone want to take off their masks, but it was at least helpful in making everyone feel safer.

You cracked open a sealed barrel of petrol in a military bunker near City hall, still fresh despite being nearly forty years old. Thank Sigvird for wartime preservatives. Hopefully just enough to get you to the town over to the south you'd set as your goal. Honestly, just breaking through those walls and finding yourself among the trees, just once, would be enough for you. You slept in your gas suit the night before it was time to go. It reminded you of your mom. It was her spare anyway. It helped you sleep, and helped you feel less nervous about tomorrow. When you awoke, it was time to go. You needed to gather whatever you could carry with you. Whatever you valued.

Pick three

[ ] A loyal dog or scrappy cat (gets a gas suit for them, name them)
[ ] Relatives, somewhere out there.
[ ] Improvised homemade armor (Thickness 2 Chestplate and Leggings made of street signs)
[ ] Salvaged of homemade gun (write in what you found)
[ ] Two more survivors (Non fighters, make profiles for them like the others and say their roles)
[ ] Flare gun for signaling
[ ] Location of valuable salvage.

Pick at least 3 in a plan

[ ] Needs to find the exits to every room
[ ] A little jump every time you're addressed
[ ] Long routine of checking your gas seals
[ ] A habit of hand wringing when nervous
[ ] A pathological need to avoid arguments
[ ] A compulsion to hoard food
[ ] Inability to meet anyone's eyes
[ ] A noticeable stutter of overly quiet tone

I have nowhere else to put this. What was the nature of the gas in your city, and how was it a complex threat?

[ ] The gas turns all organic material to stone. The dust in the air required daily cleaning or it would choke out your gas filters.
[ ] Luftane based gas fucks with buoyancy, induces constant acid rain and high concentration regions have some buildings or objects floating.
[ ] Hyper-oxygenation mixture that oxidizes everything relentlessly, causing exposed un-treated metal to rust in hours and makes your cells melt from hyper-oxygenation
[ ] Not actually toxic, but frenzies insects to attack and consume any animal they can smell. You die from blood loss as mosquitos drain you in minutes.
[ ] Causes people exposed to be able to think of nothing but murder. Everyone in the city killed each other, and the shades are more akin to World War Z zombies than anything, but still use weapons with suicidal aggression.
[ ] Write in, get creative.