It is 1984. As the Cold War reaches new literal heights thanks to the deployment of the Soviet PERUN outpost on the Moon, America must extend its reach without unsettling an already fragile balance.
To this end, the Dreamland Project has been chosen among many. Its goal: To conduce R&D of non-conventional warfare, applied parascientific disciplines and prevent the Objket Program from pursuing Marxist ideological incursions in NATO. The sky is not enough. We must go above and beyond, into the great wild black yonder. And possibly get there before the Soviets, the Chinese and perhaps even the NER do.
OSR-AS & You:
The Office for Scientific Rigor & Analytical Sciences was first fielded in the 1940s, when it successfully extracted and processed several high-profile German scientists from the European front. Ever since then it has been at the forefront of scientific development and censure, collaborating with civilian and military interests both to ensure a healthy, Soviet-free and ever-growing American scientific community.
Project Dreamland is just yet another iterative step in this process. Its primary function is the development of a point-to-point transportation system, a "portal network", if you will. This pursuit is just the most high-profile one of many, ranging from further refining magnetic levitation technology for personal-scale development to developing autonomous combat units and enhancing them with ESP capabilities.
Your role in all of this can be summed with a quote from the President himself: " Dreamers, pioneers and all around good people, who've the future of mankind at heart, and are at the heart of it. To explore the most distant frontiers, and above all, home."
-Explore vistas unknown to man, plunge the depths of the ocean and the heights of the sky! Venture out in rain-choked jungles and searing deserts to uncover the machinations of the terrifying Objekt operatives and their networks of shadows. Clash with mecha-riding nobility from the Amur river, and hunt down unkillable gurus peddling mindware to the masses.
-Tinker with experimental technology like maglev jetpacks, trasforming power armor and multi-terrain walkers! End up crashing them, then stealing their Soviet counterparts to make up for the loss. End up crashing these as well, and settling for stealing some Mitsubishi Heavy Industries mobile construction array! Get chased down and shot at by hitmen! Get a replacement cyborg arm, tinker with it, get slapped with a fee for voiding the warranty!
-Meet interesting characters, work with them, double-cross them and wake up in the middle of the Arizona desert wearing only (slightly) radioactive body paint. Engage in a vodka-fueled revenging spree from Bombay to Cuba to the deep sea habitats of the North European Republics!
-Develop a drinking habit to cope with the amounts of paperwork involved! Realize it's not enough, and try out cocaine, because meth is for pussies! Try out a drug that lets you see- And taste!- Four additional dimensions! Accidentally discover something in said extra dimensions!
-Get giggy with it!
The Game:
Star-Spangled Spooks will be about the personnel manning Project Dreamland. This will pan out in a sort of grand old quasi-pulpy psychadelic experience. Think Stargate by the way of Dan Simmons or Stross, and you'll be close.
It's going to be a game about discovery, its consequences, and the thrill of adventure. Thus, a focus on roleplaying both adventures and the downtime between them. They're gonna be varied in setting and themes, and so oughta be your Pcs.
In terms of nitty gritty mechanics, there'll be a d10 resolution mechanic, with a roll-over target number. Skills and items/powers/etc will add to the dice. But it'll be used sparsely, with more emphasis on the shift system. Which represents your character's mental and physical reserves, and you'll need to expend these to achieve results.
It will be run on Discord , using multiple channels to represent things like the Project Dreamland's main base, research wing etc. There won't be sessions, IE Post when you can.
Nationality: (Preferably American. If you want to play stuff like a NATO expat or a Soviet defector etc, do sound off in the thread. )
Age: (The average age in Project Dreamland is around 30-40. Teen genius and youths are allowed, as long as they are more like Eleven- The character, not the age range. )
Gender: (Project Dreamland does not discrminate.)
Background:
Personality:
ORIENTATION QUESTIONS:
(Use these to orient yourself when making a character. They are not mandatory, mind you. )
Where do you come from? American heartland, the Pacifican coast, the East Coast?
What was your previous job? Why did you join- Or was made to join- The OSR-AS? This will be useful to determine your character's skillset.
Do you believe in the supernatural? Miracles, aliens, etcetera. Do you feel you have proof of it? This is a hook to determine what sort of level of knowledge of IC weird stuff your character has.
Coke or Pepsi?
Do you have any hobbies? Do you follow any TV serials, or music groups? This will be useful for what your character'll do when they're off the clock, and to flavor SoL stuff. Reminder: The setting is broadly equivalent to IRL eighties in terms of available media.
Do you dabble in politics? Have you ever held a position in the federal or local government?
Shifts:
-All characters start with 1 mental and 1 physical shift, regardless. To determine how many - And what kind of- Shifts our character has, think about how they interact with the world. Are they trained soldiers? Athletes? Are they detectives? Socially conscious? Leaders? Psychics?
-Example shift distribution:
--Soldier: 2 mental, 3 physical.
--Bureaucrat: 2 mental, 1 physical, 2 Social.
--Researcher: 3 mental, 1 physical.
--Investigator: 2 mental, 2 physical, 1 social.
Skills:
-You can give yourself as many 1-point skills as you want. That's right, go wild, you piggies. Be reasonable, though. Ask yourself "Is this flavoring my PC? Is this going to be something I'd use, even just for SoL?"
-You oughta tie your 2-point skills to your PC's career, past or/and present, hobbies your PC excels at, or something that you feel makes up the most of your PC's competences. There's no hard limit about these, but I'd say maybe seven or eight is where you oughta start asking yourself questions.
-Your 3-point skills is stuff that makes your PC stand out from people in a similar context. Maybe they were the star athlete of their college, or they're a top ranking bureaucrat. A good point to cap the number of 3-point skills is half of the number of your 2 point skills.
-You can take one 4-point skill, if you so wish, no strings attached.
Example Skills:
Animal Handling
Bartering
Biology
Burglary
Cartography
Cooking
Car-Driving
Diving
Forensic Analysis
First Aid
Gunnery
Gnosticism
History
Long arms.
Lying
Martial Arts
Parkour
Performing Arts
Persuasion
Pickpocket
Sneaking
Sniping
Surgery
Toxicology
Traits:
-Again, think of what your character does. Traits are basically a summary of their capabilities. Are they immune to poison or psionics? Heavily cybernetic? Can they do something without the need for tools?
-Resistances to specific form of damage or influence are okay to have without drawbacks. Immunities need at least a small drawback.
-Combining multiple effects in a single trait is encouraged. Mark such a trait with the Major prefix.
Example Traits:
-(Major) Ordained: You are an ordained member of a specific faith, and know all the common trappings of your religion. Plus a few more...Exoteric tidbits that can legitimately help you in dealing with the supernatural. More mundanely, you know the intricacies of your faith, letting you catch onto hidden meanings and coded messages. Even more mundandely, you've got access to your clergy's records.
-Party Animal: Parties seem to spontaneously start when you're around, and you've yet to find a crowd you can't cheer up with some effort. This is much of a habit as a learned skill, and you must indulge it every week, least you lose your more unearthly spirits. On the other hand, though, you don't need party supplies to REALLY party.
-Irwinity: Your zoological obsession has paid off, letting you read the moods, behaviours and intents of animals other people consider utter mysteries. This doesn't apply to cryptids, of course.
-Stonecold: Nothing really fazes you. Both for ill and for good. Sights which leave hardened cops dry heaving leave you neither hot nor cold, and display of genuine human emotions are interesting to you as quantum physics is to a dung beetle.
-(Major) Rasputiny: A sliver of the mad monk's puissance lives in you. Things that oughta have killed you were on par to a pesky cold. Unfortunately, this pseudo-immortality requires you to indulge in antics most people would find...Disagreeable. Yet you exhude an aura of dark charsima, and eldritch lore comes easy, almost istinctive to you. People flock to you to hear your sermons, and deep down, you know you are destined for greatness.
-Boozer Beast: You can ingest quantities of alcohol must human beings would falter at, and suffer no negative effects. In fact, you must ingest at least a shot's worth of alcohol every day, or your liver will begin to "act out" at inconvenient times.
-(Major) Hobocop: You are trash. Trash is the law. Thus, you are the law. Your filthy exterior and scrounging demeanor makes you repulsive to some, but one man's garbage is another man's undismissable forensic evidence. You automatically gather clues and gain strength from indulging in your not so metaphorical trash heap of a lifestyle. Which comes easy to you, your habits finely honed into disgusting most well-to-do-folks on a deep level.
-Chrome Dome: You are the recipient of an experimental cybernetic implant that makes you immune to all but the strongest forms of "mind reading." Unfortunately, the metal plate in your head tends to disagree with even low voltage currents.
-Sticky Fingers: A learned habit, or a reflection of inner kleptomania? Either way, you find yourself pilfering trinkets, small items and belongings from people's pockets without either of you noticing.
-(Major) Workhalic: Work isn't as much as a refuge as your entire life. You can effortlessly put in hours and hours into your job. to the point you've developed a sort of sixth sense of anything pertaining your position- Like archival systems, common mistakes- And task. Unfortunately, this comes at the expense of near-constantly fretting when you're away from your desk.
Much of the American public is polarized between interventionism and non, as political unrest grows all over the globe. China's leapfrogging space program and unrest in South America are just two of the newest talking points on radio and TV. They seldom are spoken of without mentions of the ballooning military industrial complex and its vertiginous budgets, and even less without mentions of miracles like Japan's uninterrupted growth, and Canada's vertiginous ascension to space power.
This is a time of plenty, no doubt. Electromagnetism-based communication and storage devices are now common, everyday items, installed in even the more basic models of hovecrafts and maglev cars. The first underwater hotels have opened off the coast of Flordia, to accomodate the whims of the noveau riche.
They are the children of corporate bourgeoise, the titanic industrial transpacific keiretsu and the Alaska mining concerns. It's to them that the average American owes much of the new roads, the massive dams and wind turbine farms and tokamaks powering things like the Houston spaceport and the Tranquility Research Complex. Universities on both sides of the USA provide these places with legions of engineers, bureaucrats, inspectors, while academies train stratopilots and coursers aplenty. There's always a job available, if you know where to look.
Yet..
Yet talk shows about UFO sightings and the paranormal and the unexplicable triple every year. So do the memberships of cults, evangelical churches and hedonist communes, ranging from harmless to black stains on the OSR-AS' history. The mind, the body and the soul are nothing but a frontier now, and the average American- If there is such a thing- Is more now than ever drawn to explore them.
Even the most hardened, "rational" of police departments in the utmostly urbane of places are prone to admitting to having a fair few "Psychics" on their payrolls. All the better to counter the modifications, the hardcore drugs that spread and seep through organized crime that went from stealing guns to stealing mechanized infantry. Paranoia about foreign involvment has turned to paranoia about corruption and backroom deals, faith in the government shaken regularly by this or that inquest.
Things That May Help With Background:
-The Souls of America: Everyone in the big city knows someone who's saying they got ESP or psychic powers, and there are enough "inexplicable" crimes that the existence of such things is sort of tacitly accepted by the public. Few universities openly study these phenomena, and the research produced so far is beyond complex. So the average American has turned to religion and new age commercial spirituality to make sense of this. It's not uncommon for tourist agencies to offer tours of "Places of powers" and wellness gurus to sell legally murky "enhancing" pills. And while many of them are ineffective, there's more than a few that legitimately do have some effect...Positive or not.
The OSR is currently struggling to curb, redirect and reshape these impulses. The organization as a whole has launched awareness and recruitment campaigns, enlisting the aid of other federal departments and organizations. Liasons from the CIA and the FBI are a common sight in most OSR facilities, with NSA working closely to develop a legal framework for psychic powers. This has had... Mixed results, with whispers of forced recruitment programs aimed at teenagers and worries about the sanctitiy of the human mind.
-Spilling The Alphabet Soup: After a string of awkward, high profile and worst of all costly PR disasters, faith in the three/four letter agencies is at an all time low. While polls show that the average American considers CIA, FBI, OSR and NSA as a necessary evil, many do believe they need to get back into shape. It's not an uncommon belief that near unlimited budgets and poor oversight have made the intelligence community a flaccid cariacture of itself. Among the lambs there is NASA, spared from these sorts of judgements by virtue of a healthy space program, with a Mars colony being planned as an end of 80s goal.
This distrust breeds conspiracies, and the average American sees ntervention by these agencies in everyday affairs such as county governance, human rights and economy matters as intrusions by near-eldritch forces. Best left undiscussed, left unmentioned, with potential life-altering side effects. The use of cutting-edge psychic-based technologies by certain parties does not help matters any in this context.
-Synthetic Dawn: Everyone's getting their synth-pop on and their perm up thanks to wave after wave of consumer electronics, experimental beauty products and luxury goods. The promise of long, healthy lives marked by endless entertainement seems more now than ever a done thing. Between cheap computational devices and cheaper consumer goods built by grand facilities, the average American is spoiled for choice on what to eat, what to listen to and what to look at.
Provided they can put up with the endless cycle of price inflation, provided they live near the biggest cities. The rural areas are undergoing a different sort of growth: Massive energy-producing complexes, quarries and megascale engineering dominate the landscape, the countryside. Ecological worriers are often shut down with excessive force by lobbyists in the government, and activists are equally stonewalled by local police forces. All while the garbage dumps pile up and grow, and rustyards the size of cities become a common sight.
-Lazarus, Thy Name Is Called: Medical care is becoming more and more advanced, but the true marvels are only for those willing to pay a hefty price. Rejuvenation treatments and no-sweat muscle bulkings are just some of the options listed on the advertisements of many a Floridan or Californian clinic. The unlisted options tend to be more subtle, on top of being far more of a grey area. "Intelligence"-boosting neuroalterations, pineal gland enhancements and subdermal cybernetic implants.
For while replacement prosthetitcs are hailed as one of the greatest triumphs of modern medicine, "augments" or enhancement prosthetics are a far more controversial area. To loop off perfectly good arms and replace them with titanium and polymers is seen as something almost Soviet, something violating the sanctity of the human form. Or so the Evangelists say. Despite this, and often in spite of stringent regulations, augmentations are on the rise among all parts of society. Especially in the Pacifican coast, in which new controversial programs aim to convince workers to obtain said implants on a lease with the company.
The Long Winters were four years of what can be loosely described as a micro-ice age that struck the USA mid-1800s, and resulted in widespread famine and damage to the mid-western and eastern states. Only the Pacifican coast was spared damage to its foodstocks, eventually resulting in the much-maligned Pacifican Secession Attempt. Far from being the only geopolitical shakeup, the PSA is perhaps the most widely known one to folks outside America. The other subtler, and perhaps even more enduring ramifications implications of the Long Winters are still being analyzed by the OSR and the DoD, with the latter working with the FDA and several states to prepare for a possible "Second Winter."
The Pacts Of Blood were long thought by the public at large to be an urban legend. A particularly gruesome one, implicating several towns and even cities in the Rockies in what the press of the time described as "Cannibal cults." What they actually were was closer to a gentleman's agreement about the origins of meat and other necessary foodstuffs, with gangs of town-designed "Butchers" preying on unsuspecting travelers and Pacifican workers to stock their pantries. The actual amount of cannibalism done varies from source to source, but the OSR is more interested in the successors of said agreements. The Rockies are one of the biggest sources of what the OSR labels as "Hemopaths", psychics with a substantial amount of control over their own circulatory system.
"Skinwalkers" started appearing in the press not long after. Despite having little to do with actual Navajo myths, the term stuck and is now used to refer to what the parascientific community identifies as either practitioners of black magic or cryptids with a high degree of intelligence. The actual scientific consensus points to the parasitic teratoma known as "LNAM-12" as the most likely source. This resilient, often maligned entity produces deep-strata alterations in the host, going as far as to influence the sensescape. Quantum and pandimensional attributes are believed to be fueling the teratoma, as it would merrily ignore the law of conversation of mass otherwise.
Colgrave's Stead is a series of valleys straddling the Rockies, known for the presence of old Pacifica-side experimentation sides. Mass graves filled with the bodies of early "cyborgs" , rustyards clogged with "land monitors" and towers that bear the hallmark of attempts at harnessing lighting as a DEW are just some of the attractions of this otherwise quaint, sleepy part of the mid-west. Locals have learned to live alongside "unexplained" electrical phenomena, and it's not uncommon for legends about ghost-machines and alien devices lost amdist the rubble to attract fortune-seekers. More often than not all they come back with is thetanus and scrap, but the OSR has seen enough germane artifacts dug up here to warrant keeping a closer eye.
Project INSIGHT was one of the first documented attempts by the OSR to use psychics in an intelligence context. The original candidates were more than 100 psychics surrepetitiously drafted from army branches and government organizations, with the explicit intent of testing, training and eventually deploying them. Results were mixed at first, but the OSR remained undeterred, and the first alumni of the program begun seeing action in the late fourties to early 50s, mostly in humint contexts. A second batch of trainees, and soon a third followed. These three "alpha generations" helped define what psychics were thought capable of, and prompted "specialist" programs on the OSR's behalf.
The Unlucky 13s were actually 20 or 30 candidates from the first and second batch that were benched due to perceived lack of potential. Officially, that was that. Unofficially, the OSR continued studying the quirks and often self-destructive nature of their powers. They ranged from the extremely useful only in very specific circumstances- Such as long range near perfect telepathy, but only if holding the same items- To the completely normal-if-it-was-not-for-the-side-effects, such as a pyrokinetic who experienced the burns he inflicted on targets on his own body. Many of these brave if short-lived men and women helped write the OSR's playbook when it comes to psychic self-care and first aid.
The ghost of Olivia Spark was one of the first truly documented mass phenomena of unscheduled psychic interactions. For some reason or ranother, a rumor about a candidate that'd commited suicide in the living quarters started to spread among the first batch. Official and unofficial OSR records show no traces of such an event, but candidates kept reporting what felt like an aura of pure misery emanating from certain spots, among other "common" signs of a haunting. Lab testing showed that this was indded a psychic phenomena. And as a response, the OSR decided to keep quiet. A few decades and several candidate batches after, Olivia Spark's ghost is just one of many shades haunting the INSIGHT facilities, casually racking her artificial misery-drenched shadowy fingers across generations of guillible minds.
Project SAGITTARIUS is one of the longest-running OSR initiatives, and it concerns itself with long-range military capabilities. Clairvoyance-assisted bombings, drones "smart" and accurate enough to snipe pilots off enemy aircraft and astrally projected strike teams are just a few of the capabilities this project has been trying to foster for decades. Success rates vary greatly across the board, and for every succesful prototype that goes on to be mass produced, five more experiments are quietly shuffled under tarpaulin and into hangars. For now, SAGITTARIUS is working on the Dreamland portal network, at a pace best described as glacial but effective.
"Helldivers" was the apt nickname for SAGITTARIUS' personal-scale displacement strike teams. Running from the late 60s to mid 70s, the Helldivers would use ritualized metadismenional skipping to reach priority targets. Although effective, the strain on both morale and minds was deemed too much by the OSR, and the DoD had trouble finding willing candidates to replace those who'd suffer from sometimes literal burnout. Most of the equipment was repurposed for possible deep-space exploration and interventions on Martial soil, with a few of the artefacts accidentally retrieved from the jumps being kept for further study by the OSR.
The Grey Baron is an urban legend that is far too close to reality for the SAGITTARIUS higher-ups. This UFO has hounded the program's pilots for more than thirty years, taking on various forms and engaging pilots in nerve-wracking, intense spars and battles. It haunts its targets for weeks before striking, ill-tolerating outside interference as it spins up storms and psychadelic vistas as backgrounds for its chases. The tally is even between victories and losses for SAGITTARIUS, with very little actual victims. In fact, many who've faced the Baron report on feeling invigorated in the aftermath, having reached some sort of acceptance.
aseline Archetypes:
-The hardened intelligence agent with some guilt and doubts about how the system works.
-Metadimensional science under-grad interning because there's no better perspectives.
-The very gifted janitor of the facility who's a DARPA washout.
-Military brat who got exiled to the OSR after yet another fuckup.
Some Weirdness:
-Cybercop haunted by their partner's memories. May or may not be a legitimate case of ghost in the machine.
-Affluent runaway teenager from well-known corporate family who wants to do something with their huge psy potential.
-UFO-loving self-made researcher who actually came very close to the truth and has been drafted.
-Metadimensional physics professor who was just done backpacking in Tibet.
Gimme All The Weirdness, Daddy:
-Deformed superpowered test subject of corporate superscience projects.
-Immortal cannibal found frozen in a block of ice in the Rockies.
-Laplace's character.
-A witch from Salem. Like an actual witch. With familiars.
RED STAR RISING: I bring a star.
I bring a song.
I bring a warmth from the end of time.
-Written in cyrillic on the outside of Vladivostok's containement caulk N°4A.
Despite, or really, because of its sheer available manpower and projection capabilities the Soviet Union is experiencing unprecedented internal turnoil. The Nomeklatura commands one of the greatest militaries in the world, and yet this same military is as resource hungry as the rest of the Eastern Bloc's infrastructure. Megascale engineering projects such as the Siberian Reclamation and the PERUN mobile outposts are both a reason for the Warsaw Pact countries to try and ape the Union and a reason for the Union to expand further out.
This expansion requires more than workers and apparatchiks. The Union is banking its future through the so-called "Science Cities", massive complexes that train the equal-sized legions of technicians needed to keep its infrastructure working. While they've provided the average Russian citizen with a greatly improved quality of life these cities still take a lot out of the system, especially in terms of oversight. And when that oversight falls short, things explode, weapons are smuggled to China and Europe and ì̭̯͓̋ͩ̾ͦ̉̈͜n̻̓̇́͑ͬͧͩṫ̤̦̯̾ȑ̻͉͚̯̻̇̊ͤ̐̀̎͢ű̱ṡ̯͍̝͙̮͓͂̇͛͋i̖̫̪͆̃́o͛̋̅̍͑ͮ̅҉n̩̼̬͖ͤͤͦ̍̎̓̏s̷̳̮̖͖̦͉̏͗̀ͩ ͕̠͕ͩḩ̥̲̲̬̤͙ͭͧͮͯͣͬá̷̬̦͍͓̃͒͑̂ͫ̋p̵̹̩̩͈̗̭̂͊̍p͈̦̯̖̞̲̻̒ͦ̏e̻̳̥ͤ̑n̔̎.̮͈̠͎͎̯̻
THE NORTH EUROPEAN REPUBLICS:
THree decades of endless vigilance against the perceived Soviet threat has left the constituent members of the NER with an authoritarian and often aggressively expansionistic bent. On one hand, they've chosen to manifest this impulse by relentlessly expanding into waters and mountains and subterranean space, meaning no international aggression. On the other, it's a small comfort for all the NATO members poised to deal with them.
While officially a signer of the treaty, the NER members ill-tolerate NATO and their technology. The Danish and Swedish governments've set up their own industrial enterprises to make up for the lack of sharing, resulting in an economic boom that has kept the population content and pliant.
They have to be- Or at least so political parties claim- In the face of increasing Soviet pressure. Megascale project is matched with megascale project, and while the NER has managed to keep up remarkably well, many are unsure of what the future holds.
Clarification: This is a different Discord than the SB one. I've decided to run two concurrent games 'cos my games usually last fuckall, so rather than wait for one to die and try my luck on the twin forum, I decided to do both at once.
Soviet propaganda plasters the rotund bodies of the 56 everywhere, be they television screens or posters or wood carvings and statues. It is not the most common of automats, but it was one of the first designs that came out of the R&D processes with all kinks sorted out. Its omnipresence is due both to this claim to fame, and to actual modularity. The 56s all share a basic spherical chasis, but everything else- From cockpit to power-plant and locomotion- Can be swapped out as needed.
The most common variants use a tripod/hovercraft locomotion system, with three stubby legs padded with cushions. Additional maglev plates and/or hovercraft fans add up to a comical if terrifying land speed. A land speed that's good enough for illegal tundra racing and transiberian rallies, often punctuated by violent brawls between mechs. There, the pilots make use of everything they load into the 56, running the gamut from spidery assembly-limbs to "requisitioned" flak cannons and literal drills. Replacement parts aren't hard to come by, and neither are new hardpoints: Just take a blowtorch to the chasis.
IA-66 "Laika":
Originally developed as a single-seat quadruped mech for cosmonauts, the Laika soon found several earthside uses. A reinforced spinal column and augmented joints let it carry as much cargo as its moonbound counterparts can, with advances in synthetic muscles allowing for smoother transversal. One thing that proved harder to replace, though, was the "head-seat". Original Laikas had very little in the way of a cockpit. In fact, it was mostly protective glass over a harness outfitted with shock dampeners. Whiel fairly functional in lunar environs, this kind of set-up wouldn't literally fly on Earth, and so, a solution was fought.
Many were found. "Coffin" cockpits, built into the body of the mech and parallel to the ground, requiring camera assitance to maneuver. "Rider" seats on top of the mech, half between beast of burden and motorcycle. This eventually translated to a host of different models, such as the up-armored, up-scaled NER-retro-engineered "Fenris" and the curious luxury export, turbine-outfitted, Ferrari-designed Greyhound. Right now, the latest craze has come from the Amur regions, and it involves hunting for genetically modified fauna on top of garishly colored Laikas. There's even rumors of several of these mechs being retrofitted into power armor for equally gigantic beasts.
PERUN Mobile Outpost:
Classified as a MTUV- Multi-Task Utility Vehicle- The PERUNs are yet another common sight in Soviet imagery. Unlike the 56s, though, they often loom in the background, easily mistaken for yet another part of the gigantic industrial complexes of the Union. Which they are, in more than one way. Like uprooted armatures, wherever the PERUN go utility piping soon follows. Different shapes and sizes betray different intents: The smaller specimen- Twelve or sixteen meters- Act as surveyors and delivery units for specialized tool parts. The sheer size of their brethren meanwhile is a declaration of intent by itself.
It's no mystery that these machines have been built to counter the NER's own engineering capabilites, and on more than one front. More than a few world records in engineering and earthworks shifted from NER to Soviet holders. Just like the technology powering the floating outposts. It's their literal base, topped by a jungle of cooling pipes and radiators plugged into miniature tokamaks. They provide energy for a multitude of instruments, from communication/interception array to hydra-like megascale assembly tools.
The crews required to fully use such machinery are stationed in pods built in and around the superstructure of the MTUV, with some of the bigger specimen carrying a small town's worth of technicians, operators and navigators. In fact, the fate most likely to befall one of these titans is to break down and end up as the core of an actual settlement. They're soon followed by their old crewmembers, who smoothly transition to groundbound life thanks to a mixture of stokholm syndrome and actual attachement to the machine. It's not thus uncommon for Soviet expansion to be built on the back of wave after wave of PERUNs, like gigantic shifting goalposts.
Mecha Marvels of the NER:
ICV IVALDI:
The NER's undersea infrastructure wouldn't be possible without the robust maintenance provided by the IVALDI. These octopus-like mechs are employed both in civilian and military roles thanks to a literally-flexible hardpoint-laden structure, sturdy chasis and their silent running capabilities. Pilots capable of using the multi-tool limbs at their fullest in high demand, scoring some of the most lucrative contacts available to NER engineers.
But it's far from easy money. The three-dimensional piloting skills needed to operate an IVALDI aren't common, and neither is the endurance for the long and grueling turns. Deep down below the surface light is ever precious, and the quiet, all enveloping silence of some of the more extreme postings have led many a pilot to breakdowns. Thus it's no wonder that people do not bat an eye at the strange rituals and modifications many IVALDI operators undergo, either as a form of stress relief or a necessary prerequisite.
Stranger yet are the military variants of the IVALDI, fielded from cocoon-like bases tucked away in the darkest corners of fjords and underwater mountain chains. The bright primary company colours have given way to cold hues and lysergic patterns. The cutting limbs have been retained, enhanced with diamond drills and surgical to-point plasma perforators. It all adds up to a disquieting, eerie reputation. One that is rooted perhaps in a most earthly concern: That of ambushes to civilian freighters and deniable flase flag operations.
America's Automated Armies:
GM Tauros:
A mainstay of NATO peacekeeping forces all over the world, the Tauros is instantly recognizable due to its profile: Shoulders linked by a semi-circular modular set of hardpoints, forward-slanted, neckless sensor pod and thick locomotion array. What it lacks in outstanding armor or weapons it makes up for the ability to deploy wheeled pseudo-limbs that allow for a "centaur-like" road cruise mode. While not a patent technology or much of an innovation, General Motors has refined this system into one of the cheapest and most reliable features on their mechs.
The ability to swap out the pseudo-limbs for stabilizers, replace the wheels with offroader variants and even hover/maglev units have led to dozens of Tauros variants, both civilian and military. They're a common sight as much as in the American midwest as they are patrolling Italian roads, and large quantities have been exported to South America in recent times. Though, all of this tends to pale in comparison to the newest contract the GM Skunkworks managed to score: An order for several Tauros modified for lunar and zero-g capabilities, to be fielded by NASA.
Name: Marco Suarez
Nationality:Argentinian
Age: biologically 25 lived 36 Gender: Male Background: Marco is a born and raised Argentino, he studied Programming in the UNLP of La Plata, and in his third year in university at the age of 21 he found a small black book inside his backpack which taught him the basics of spell and ritual casting, since then he has spent most of his time researching ways to integrating programming into magic and vise-versa, he is also interested in other scientific pursuits but magic has taken the majority of his time, he moved to USA to join Dreamland in hopes of furthering magical research and proving that it can be understood just as any other science. One of the fist spells Marco focused his time to learn is one that stop him aging for 7 days, and he's been constantly casting this ritual once a week every Friday at midnight for 11 years,
Personality: Marco is an energetic guy, he LOVES magic to an extreme degree, he is rather soft and forgiving but has learned the hard way to not be pushed around, he enjoys to use his magic in front of people as a way to say look at me isn't this amazing, extremely possessive over his little black book, and has stipulated in his contract that NO ONE but himself is allowed to touch it nor take it from him, beyond magic Marco is a very rational and objective person, but when magic comes into question this quality tends to fly of the window
Appearance: 1.73 meters tall, White, curly long black hair, blue eyes, in decent shape but not muscular nor lanky, spends one hour and a half two times a week in a kickboxing class.
Shift: 3 Magic, 2 Mental, 1Physical
Skills:
1: Car driving, Drawing, Geometry, Math, Lying, Pencil Twirling
2: Biology, Kickboxing, Programing, Creative Process
3: Mystical Lore, Researching
4: Magic
Traits:
Eternal: as long as Marco can cast magic once every seven days he won't age a day, he is still vulnerable to harm but he is working on fixing that pesky problem.
(Major)Magically fascinated: Marco is fascinated by all things magical and can't resist to study them and understand them, this is a double bladed trait of him since he can't say no when offered something new and magical to study but this fascination allows him to concentrate on studying and understanding magical phenomenon in any situation, years of this kind of behavior has left him with untold broken relationships but allowed him to intrinsically understand the basics of any magical object (book, ritual, artifact, etc) after studying it for ten minutes.
Where do you come from? American heartland, the Pacifican coast, the East Coast?
Argentina
What was your previous job? Why did you join- Or was made to join- The OSR-AS? Independent researcher, sold magical trinkets on the side to keep up with a decent living standard
Do you believe in the supernatural? Miracles, aliens, etcetera. Do you feel you have proof of it? Magic Hell Yes, Miracles Are magic/technology we don't understand yet, Aliens maybe exist but I haven't seen one so who knows
Coke or Pepsi? Water keeps you healthy my boi
Do you have any hobbies? Do you follow any TV serials, or music groups? My is mostly magical research but when I needs to unwind I watch or read fantasy/ sci-fi shows or books
Do you dabble in politics? Have you ever held a position in the federal or local government? Big no, way too messy in Marcos opinion, but he is not against picking a side and offer his support if he feels they deserve it
Water also doesn't let you reap the rewards of sweet capitalist possibly neurochemistry-altering, definitively hyperglicemic tastes. (I am talking about irl cola or SSS' own colas? WHO KNOWS. NOT ME.)
>Selling magical trinkets on the side.
An entirely legal, totally super duper okay undertaking. (It's really fairly common pretty much anywhere. By anywhere I mean anywhere on Earth, including NER undersea habs.)
Background: Jonathan grew up in a middle class family in new york, nothing about him was very remarkable except for the fact that he possessed a small ESP power, he could detect magic in objects when touching them, not it's potency or what they did just if they were actually magic. Such power doesn't have many practical applications unless one finds themselves in front of a magical item, and so it wasn't until he was 20 that he discovered his power.
Not very interested in the magical or occult Jonathan simply used his ability with the purpose of earning some much needed extra money to help pay Med school and maybe give himself a few luxuries. Magical object flipping had a good market, specially if you could detect which ones were fake and could comb through thrift stores and flea markets for good unappraised products.
It wasn't a lot of money given that he couldn't tell much about the items other than that they were magic, but enough that he would keep looking for some. Eventually misfortune struck, in hindsight touching objects of unknown power with your bare hands wasn't a very bright idea since you could end up very messed up.
Jonathan doesn't remember much about the sickness that took over him after touching the old locket, only that it lasted a couple of the worst weeks in his life and that at the end of it he was changed, he was still himself, but not himself.
It took months and a couple of experts for him to realize exactly what happened, he had turned into a skinwalker by whatever magic was in the locket that had caused the sickness, his body was his but his bones weren't anymore. It wasn't long after that that the ORS found him and offered him protection and a job.
Personality: After being turned into a skinwalker Jonathan became a very cautious man, realizing that he had lucked out in not being dead. Nowadays he always wears gloves when around magical objects. He isn't a very energetic kind of person given that his life prospects are to simply work for the ORS until he dies or try his luck for himself in the world. He does keep a few hobbies and the work the ORS has for him isn't that bad so his life isn't boring, but it still takes a lot to forget that his situation is quite fucked up.
Where do you come from? American heartland, the Pacifican coast, the East Coast?
New york
What was your previous job? Why did you join- Or was made to join- The OSR-AS? There few better prospects for a new skinwalker.
Do you believe in the supernatural? Miracles, aliens, etcetera. Do you feel you have proof of it? Absolutely in the supernatural, he has believed in magic since his twenties as a result of his power and being a skinwalker is almost irrefutable proof of it. After believing in magic it's hard to be skeptical of life in outer space. As for religion, while he was raised jewish he hasn't tried to enter any Synagogues since changing, no need to test how true are the religious protections.
Coke or Pepsi? Coke
Do you have any hobbies? Do you follow any TV serials, or music groups? Jonathan enjoys reading and flea market combing (although not for magical items anymore), after the insistence of his bosses he has taken up some acting classes and does think they are quite fun.
Do you dabble in politics? Have you ever held a position in the federal or local government? Never, although he does suspect they are going to make him supplant someone if a political figure dies in complicated circumstances.
Skinwalker (Major): You're no longer human, after a strange form of magical cancer your true form is that of a slime of tissue that appropriates someone (or something) else's bones in order to be functional but whatever body you form with those bones needn't be exactly the same as the one it's original owner had.
Body issues: Just because your body isn't your own doesn't mean you can stop taking care of it, reshaping yourself is a lengthy process that takes a couple of hours just to be able to move and up to a week if you are trying to copy someone, minor alterations can be made on the fly but anything aesthetical requires a mirror and time for anything resembling good results. Perhaps if you trained more it would be faster but no one wants to be stuck as a slime for any length of time.
Freestyle: Given that your true form is that of a slime all the equipment necessary to keep an human alive isn't mandatory for you, which means two things. For one you can actually shift yourself into not so human anatomies although inexperience might make controlling them hard, for another you are much more resistant to slashing and piercing damage since bleeding out and hitting vital organs aren't much of a concern but breaking any bones can be specially neutralizing for you as can fire and acid.
Magic detector: You still have your original ability to detect the presence of magic with a touch, very minor talent as it requires skin contact and can only tell you if there's magic or not, but it has its uses.
Nationality: (Preferably American. If you want to play stuff like a NATO expat or a Soviet defector etc, do sound off in the thread. )
Albion, in the age of heroes and legends
Age: (The average age in Project Dreamland is around 30-40. Teen genius and youths are allowed, as long as they are more like Eleven- The character, not the age range. )
"Older than the roots of the mountains." Physically old in appearance, see background.
Gender: (Project Dreamland does not discrminate.)
Male
Background:
Quite literally charged into the Dreamland facility out of an erroneously activated portal (the janitor responsible was later dismissed). Claimed to have been imprisoned "in the land East of the sun and West of the moon" by an entity called Morgana Le Fay for an indeterminate amount of time. Is apparently indebted to TOSRAS, and has pledged to "protect thee and thine earthen plain from foul sorceries and mortal machinations." Has been allowed to remain at the facility mostly because the rest of the organization has absolutely no idea what to do with him.
Physically, Hautdesert, or simply "The Green Knight" as he prefers to be called, resembles an animated wooden carving, complete with beard, wearing heavily rusted armor that he has categorically refused to take off. In place of eyes the Knight has two emeralds, which glow in periods of intense emotion.
Personality:
The Knight bears less resemblance to historical English knights than to modern popular culture's interpretation of them. He is chivalrous and curtious to a fault, but quick to anger if he perceives he's being insulted. Will recount to whoever is even slightly willing to listen about the "age of heroes" and his various adventures with the Knights of the Round Table. His interactions with technology range from confused to adversarial, with one notable time he axed a computer for "insulting his honor."
Shifts: 2 mental, 3 physical.
Skills:
1 Point: Singing, Resist Alcohol, Inspiring Speech, Resist Despair, Summon Flower, Camaraderie, Dueling, Chivalric Code, Throw, Jump
2 Point: Tactics, Leading the Charge, Perceive Illusion, Hold the Line, Axemanship, Lore: Ancient heroes, Lore: Ancient Monsters, Commune with Magical Being, Knightly Armour
3 Point: Unbreakable Will, Skirmishing, Unnatural Physicality, Protect the Innocent
4 Point: Evil Will Not Win This Day
Traits:
Break Enchantment: long experience fighting the enchantress Morgana Le Fay has given him the ability to resist and disrupt malevolent magical effects, both directed at himself and at others.
Evergreen(major): while only slightly less vulnerable to attack than mortal humans, he can reattach severed limbs and even eventually regrow them if necessary, and can even operate independently of his head (although he would require it to see and speak). He can also, if he chooses, root himself in place and grow branches. This will essentially takes him out of a fight, but projects his healing abilities to nearby allies. An unfortunate downside is that he is extremely vulnerable to fire, being made out of wood and all.
Mistletoe: His trusty steed, which he can summon and demanifest at will, although if it is killed it will take to regrow and does not share his regenerative abilities while also has his vulnerability to fire. Has a slightly higher than animal intelligence.
