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Osiris Rising

Update (18 May 2020): The experiment that was the Osiris Files never got off the ground. No feedback or expression of interest was ever received. The product is no longer available.

The Osiris Files series
The Osiris Files take place in a world right beside ours. Next door, or perhaps just down the block. People drive cars you would recognize, have jobs you would recognize, and eat food you would recognize. Somewhere, though, there is a shadow world. It might be a world of super spies, super humans, or magic. It might be a world of hidden monsters, ancient threats, or that which man was not meant to know.

The characters inhabit this shadow world. They may pose as accountants, or librarians, or electricians, but they are not. They are not butchers, bakers or candlestick makers. They are something different, something special, and something absolutely dangerous.

The Osiris Files are not adventures, they are concepts. Each operation provides briefing materials, background and ideas. The core of the adventure and its place in the campaign are left to the GM. There are no maps. There is no conclusion. While the concept provides possible conclusions and ideas as to what is happening, there is no set path to solving a problem. The Osiris Files only provide ideas.

Op NearscapeOperation Nearscape
The DNA of an astronaut and naval aviator declared MIA in 2006 has been found in a fragment from the Tunguska event of 1908. Is the aviator alive? How could his DNA be involved in the explosion of the Tunguska event, 100 years earlier? Osiris is tasked with learning the answers to these questions.

Black projects, super-science, and conspiracies all play a part in Operation Nearscape.

This product is part of the Osiris Files series and is systemless. It is not a complete module, but provides ideas and concepts built around a central conceit to help the GM build an adventure suited to the GM’s campaign.

Free Sneak Peek
The Osiris Files: Operation Nearscape is ready to go, except for some possible last minute layout decisions. Right now, I’m planning something pretty basic. I expect the product to be available for download within a month. When it is released, it will be free.

But you don’t have to wait. Send an email right now to sep@swordsedgepublishing.ca with “Gimme Gimme” in the Subject line, and I’ll send you back a copy of Operation Nearscape. When it goes live, I’ll send you the product ZIP as well.

All I ask is that you send me feedback. What works? What doesn’t work? Is this useful at all? Would you pay for it?

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Mundus Novit: What Is That Guy?

So what is the Bedouin?

Well, he’s not Algerian. At least, he’s not Ahmed Zeghida. I’m not saying if he truly is an Algerian posing as a Bedouin, or a Turk posing as an Algerian posing as a Bedouin, or something else entirely.

At least, I’m not telling you that right now. Later, many of his secrets will be revealed.

But the question ‘what is the Bedouin’ is asked in a role-playing game sense. After all, this entire exercise is to introduce you to a role-playing game setting—Mundus Novit: the Changed World.

So, in game terms, what is the Bedouin? Is a parapsych/psionic? Is he a wizard or sorcerer of some kind?

I’m still not telling. This much I will say: his game information will be forthcoming at a later date. When we get closer to the end of Dark Horizons, you will start to see game information. Can you hang in there that long?

Here’s something more: the Bedouin doesn’t know what he is. He knows he can do things, and he knows he gets information from somewhere, but he couldn’t explain how it is done. In “From Delhi With Indifference,” he gains information about objects by running his hands over them. He does this, and he knows he can do this, but he does not know how he does this.

And that’s an interesting way to play a character with powers.

Think of your True20 adept. This adept has powers. True20 is wide open enough that it doesn’t explicitly tell you how to run powers in your game. So there aren’t things like mantras that must be uttered or rituals that must be performed. There are powers and some characters have these powers.

The Bedouin has powers.

In a game, the player would know everything about the powers. The character, however, does not. Perhaps on an instinctual level—as in the Bedouin knows to run his hands over objects, that he needs physical contact to read the past of these items—the character knows he must act in a certain way or do a certain thing to succeed with his power/talent/”whatever the heck it is I do,” but he does not know or fully understand the rules of his talents.

This is the Bedouin. He knows what he can do, he just couldn’t explain how.

And here’s the last little tidbit about the Bedouin. He is powerful. We will see how powerful when it gets closer to the end. He is not powerful in the sense of fireballs out of eyes and lightning bolts out of his arse, but he has his talents and he knows how to use them. While he is combat capable—he deals handily with the hit teams—his real power is knowledge. He knows things. Not just things he conjures out of thin air, like Tashi’s name. The Bedouin can speak a plethora of languages. He knows that a guy using an designated marksman rifle with a laser sight is not a sniper, he’s a shooter or maybe a marksman.

He knows a lot of stuff.

And that makes him powerful. At least in this setting. Knowledge is power, since so many people are trying to keep so many secrets. A lot of guys can beat people up and shoot people. Very few know the things that the Bedouin knows.

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Narrative Powers in True20 – the Idea.

Another moment over another massive cup of coffee. While the Princess is busy downing strawberries, I’m going to try to get this idea down and out there.

I was thinking about the next campaign I intend to run once I get the band back together (if you are in Ottawa, we could still use another player). It’s going to be a “supers” campaign but in the setting of Mundus Novit. I’m leaving it up to the players as to what level of supers they want to play, but I’m kind of leaning toward something like the Authority or Planetary. Yes, Warren Ellis still owes me money from all those Nextwave: Agents of Hate plugs on the podcast, but I continue to pimp his stuff.

Any-hoo.

I’m leaning toward Savage Worlds for Planetary and Mutants & Masterminds for the Authority. I got some good suggestions from the Twitosphere (thanks@JamesDillane and @thornlord) but unfortunately, the excellent suggestions are impractical—though  if anyone can suggest a way to get print copies of Truth and Justice and/or Prime Time Adventures without doubling the cost in postage, let me know.

I had an idea for powers that would let me use True20. Why bother with learning a whole new system when I can tweak the one I love?

Narrative powers.

Just a basic idea right now, and here’s how it would work. Instead of having a specific power effect—like energy blast or sleep—the character has a power concept. For example, Mr. Snow would have “cold.” As long as the player can explain how this power applies to what the character is trying to do, the character makes a power check, just like now. All powers are fatiguing.

The powers would get 10 points to put into combat or utility. So, Mr. Snow might drop 8 points into combat and 2 into utility. That means for combat purposes, the power is +8. If the player tries to use the power outside of combat, the power is considered +2. If Mr. Snow tries to freeze Mr. Leather’s brain, that’s combat. If Mr. Snow tries to short circuit the security network by dropping its temperature into the negative hundreds, that’s utility.

Strawberry break is ending. More later if I get the chance.

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Cowboy Burn-Bop

The long awaited final chapter to the Burn Notice suite of mini-settings/campaigns is the SF setting. This one is tough, because I’m torn between space opera and cyberpunk. I wouldn’t go hard SF simply because I don’t think that fits with the style of Burn Notice. Just as Burn Notice isn’t Spooks, SF Burn Notice shouldn’t be the Forever War.

I think SF Burn Notice should be a kind of Cowboy Be-Bop, with hints of hard SF, but where the fiction absolutely trumps the science.

Welcome to Cowboy Burn-Bop.

In Cowboy Burn-Bop, most of the planets have habitation either planetside or orbiting in satellites. One of the satellites orbiting Jupiter we’ll call Station Miami X-Ray, and it is here that Michael Westen awakens. He was in the middle of a sting operation, smoking out a hacker who claimed to have the identity of US (United Satellites, or something equally pat) agents working undercover and was offering these for sale. In the middle of a crucial meeting with a cutaway–a middle man–Michael was contacted by the Company (make it the CIA if you want to still have Earth governmental organizations influencing extra-terrestrial settlements) and notified that he was burned. An implanted chip caused his body to shut down. When he came to, he was on Miami X-Ray, the station on which he was born.

It might also be interesting to have Michael returned to Miami on Earth, perhaps providing a destroyed paradise–dystopian Blade Runner meets the sunny beach–or even a bright and shiny future Miami, depending on your taste in future Earths.

The Company believes that Michael is a double agent, working for the Hacker. Until they can verify or disprove their suspicions, he’s restricted to Miami X-Ray. The satellite provides an ease of containment an actual city does not, but it’s a choice of setting atmosphere, and either will work equally well. He still has the chip in his head, and his “handlers” can shut him down any time they want . . . or can they? Since the initial shutdown, the Company hasn’t interfered in Michael’s life, and if he gets an examination, no one can find the chip–or any evidence it ever actually existed.

Fiona may be the reason for Michael’s burn. She was muscle for one of the Hacker’s middle-managers–let’s call him Non-State, for no reason in particular–and Michael had been involved with her. He revealed his identity to her, and all hell broke loose. She had tried to kill him, but when Non-State tried to have Michael assassinated, Fiona saved him and killed Non-State. That was the last Michael had seen of her, as Fiona had gone underground.

She’s in Miami X-Ray now, and the Company has given her the same deal it gave Michael–stay in Miami X-Ray or face the consequences. For her, it is a permanent exile. Does the Company think it may want to make use of her in the future? Their motivations are murky at best.

Michael learns that Fiona has been taking care of his mother and his sister Nancy–a tomboy nicknamed Nate. Fiona actually fits into Michael’s family in a way Michael never did, and this–along with unresolved romantic issues–could lead to character tension.

Nate is a successful security consultant. She’s been the brains to Fiona’s brawn, sussing out networks’ vulnerabilities on contract. She’s the white version of the Hacker. Fiona has insured that Nate never need fear from the competition, especially the criminal kind. There is a big sister dynamic working, so that both Fiona and Michael feel protective of Michael’s family.

This is actually sounding more like a story than a campaign concept, but all of this can be built into a group template to help justify the PCs’ continued co-existence.

Sam is an ex-soldier, now cybernetically enhanced to repair damage endured during his tenure as a special warfare operator. He was living the good life until Michael came back. Now the Company wants him to keep tabs on Michael. The Company has not applied a lot of pressure on Sam, because he’s got connections everywhere. He can both spy on Michael and protect him to a certain degree, and so that’s what Sam does. With Michael’s full knowledge.

Just as in the show, this small team fixes small problems using their big skills. In this version, the jobs come through either Nate or Sam. Sam’s connections–and his lady friends–often cash in on their kindness by asking Sam to take care of minor problems. Nate’s contacts through her security consultancy often make her aware of wrongs that needs righting. She’s just naive enough to feel the wrongs need to be righted.

Soon, Michael is targeted by a hit squad sent from the Company, but Sam learns that the Company authorized no such thing. The hit squad should lead to a covert surveillance team that is also from the Company but not under the Company control. It soon becomes apparent there is a shadow organization within the Company. And, you guessed it, the Hacker is running it.

The small adventures lead to this big one, and at its conclusion. Going a little Neuromancer, let’s say the Hacker is actually an AI, the first truly sentient AI known. It has been trying to protect itself and its secret. How the team deals with this problem is up in the air–do they help it, hinder it, destroy it? Whatever the case, with the Hacker problem solved, the team is suddenly free. They find themselves off the Company radar, with carte blanche to do what they will. The Company owes them huge, but the Company doesn’t like owing anyone, so they have to keep a low profile and not press to hard on the Company’s good graces.

Michael is the man with the plan, combat capable but with planning and leadership skills. Fiona is a combat monster, pure and simple. She can fight with anything or with nothing, and be equally deadly. Nate is the tech-head, but also has connections that can work in a narrative fashion that can both feed information and supply adventures. Sam is combat capable, but his the social chameleon, with contacts everywhere–also likely used in a narrative fashion.

So there you have it. Burn Notice in multiple genres.

Any basic premise can lead to a good setting or campaign in any genre. It only takes a little tweaking to make the Seven Samurai  into Battle Beyond the Stars.

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Hadrapole Burn

Earlier, I wrote about Burn Notice and creating campaigns using it as a template. One night after watching a couple of episodes, I had ideas for all sorts of campaigns. I noticed that the campaigns I had imagined fit the genre templates offered in True20 Revised Core. That’s how I’m going to present my ideas, using the lingo of True 20.

First off, Burn Notice as a fantasy adventure campaign.

The basic premise of Burn Notice is the Michael Weston is trapped in Miami. In the fantasy version, the setting will be Hadrapole, a fantasy city in which I’ve set some of my fantasy fiction. Think of it as Constantinople just after becoming Istanbul, and with a tentative truce among all the different cultures and religions. The conflicts are there, simmering, but no one is looking for a war–not when everyone else in the world is eyeing them up as prey.

The Michael Weston character will just be Weston. He was one of the Urban Cohorts, a paramilitary force that is also used to police the city. Just before the campaign begins, Weston has returned to the Old Bazaar, an area outside the city walls and his old neighbourhood. His father has died and he has gone to bury him.

When he’s done the funerary rites, one of the Whites–a group of incorruptible, elite soldiers of the Urban Cohorts, known for their white tunics and white truncheons–let’s him know he’s barred from the city proper, from the city inside the walls. Weston questions this, and it is strongly implied the Whites know whose pocket he’s in. Thing is, he’s not in anyone’s pocket.

Weston isn’t stupid enough to go against the Whites. Doing so would just give them ample reason to not only toss him from the Cohorts, but make him a penal slave on one of Hadrapole’s war galleys. No, Weston has to find out who framed him and why. For that, he’s going to need help.

I see Weston as a Warrior. I like the heroic archetypes in True20, and I’m going to use those. Weston is a Champion for certain, though maybe he’s going to move into Fated.

Fiona left the Cohorts the hard way. She didn’t police so much as execute. She’s made a name for herself in the Old Bazaar as a sword-for-hire, and now she’s come looking for Weston. She always looked up to him, respected him, maybe even loved him. She flattered herself into believing he had feelings for her, but was that true? What now? That relationship is for the players to explore.

Fiona is certainly a Warrior, and she fits the Shadow archetype perfectly, with Weston as her Champion.

Sam (Samwise? Samnal? Whatever) is a confidence man and sometimes informant. He’s been friends with Weston since childhood, and Weston always did his best to protect Sam, even when Weston stood as a Cohort. Knowing that Weston is being framed, Sam wants to help. He has a deep and abiding fraternal love for Weston, and this is one time when Sam is willing to lay down his life to find the truth.

I can’t see Sam as anything but a Trickster archetype, but I am torn between Expert and Warrior. Certainly, Sam is supposed to be a fixer, meaning he needs the social skills, but the contacts and information might also be a narrative element. Mechanics might not be the way to address it. For Sam, I think it would be up to the player. Does the player want to go Warrior or Expert?

Finally, there is the fourth character, the one that actually isn’t in Burn Notice. Except in this case, the character sort of is. Michael Weston has a brother named Nate who shows up a couple of times and becomes important in the season finale. Weston also has a sibling. A sister named Natalia (or Nate!)

Natalia is one way to keep Weston tied to the Old Bazaar, to keep him from doing anything stupid. Their father is dead, their mother–a gypsy fortune teller–has found solace in the bottle, and young Nate only has her big brother to take care of her. Weston, no matter how much the hardcase he like to play, is basically a man of duty and honour. He’d feel responsible for Nate (and for his mother, for that matter).

But Nate isn’t exactly a damsel in distress. I think the Maiden archetype works well, given that she is supposed to be a relatively young lady. However, I think it would be cool to have Nate as an Adept. She learned some tricks in her time in the Old Bazaar, and it turns out she might be able to help Weston out when things go south. She may also act as the voice of conscience, a counterpoint to Fi, Sam, and expediency.

The main story arc would be learning who framed Weston and why. But there would be little adventures in the Old Bazaar, on Flotsam, and other locales outside the city. These would be presented through Sam and Fiona, as people come to them for the service and aid. Weston and his family need money, and that’s one certain way to get it. This would allow for consecutive, unconnected adventures while unravelling the mystery of Weston’s framing.

It turns out one of the senators framed Weston. Weston is about the toughest SOB in the Cohort outside of the Whites. The senator wanted Weston broken, so that the senator could then swoop in and save him from destitution. Weston would then become a tool within the Cohorts to use against the Whites when the coup d’etat commenced.

Oh, did I mention the coup d’etat? The Krystalian senators who lost power when the Alofesians captured the city want that power–and the city–back. Weston is just one of their tools.

When Weston does find out the who, he likely won’t find out the why. Even if he does learn the why, he won’t have the proof necessary for the Alofesian leader of the city, the Dey, to act without it seeming to be simple religious prejudice. So Weston and his crew will likely end up involved in the attempt to uncover the plot and oppose it.

So there we have it: Burn Notice as a fantasy adventure.

Next, Victorian horror!

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Burn Notice as Campaign

I’ve been able to watch episodes of the USA Network‘s  Burn Notice. It’s the story of a spy–Michael Weston–who has been declared “unreliable,” and loses everything his life as a spy had afforded him. He is barred from leaving Miami or “dire consequences” will ensue. He spends his time in Miami trying to figure out who burned him and why, and also helping people (a la the Equalizer) for various reasons. He’s aided by his ex-IRA ex-girlfriend–Fiona–and his best buddy, who is both ex-Navy SEAL and informing on him (with his knowledge) to the FBI–Sam. Miami being Michael’s hometown, he is also in regular contact with his Mom (Sharon Gless).

The episodes are injected with humour and with faux spy-knowledge. I don’t know, maybe Matt Nix, the show’s creator has insider knowledge of espionage tricks and techniques, but it seems very much like fictionalized espionage to me.

This matters not at all. Burn Notice has great characters, great dialogue, and so far I haven’t seen a poor episode.

And it got me thinking of adapting Burn Notice as a campaign. Last night, I actually dreamed up fantasy, Victorian, modern, and SF campaigns based on it. The funny thing was that when I broke it down into characters, I realized it was very similar to the A-Team. Now at first, I compared it to the Equalizer, but Robert McCall tended to work alone. Michael has Fiona and Sam to back him up. When I gave them roles, I considered Michael the leader (and planner), Sam the fixer, and Fiona the muscle. So other than Howling Mad Murdoch, you have the A-Team (Hannibal = leader, Face = fixer, and BA =muscle). It also led me to add a fourth wheel.

In the TV show, Michael is uber-competent, and he builds a lot of the cobbled together devices the team uses. In a game, no character should outshine the other, so the techie/builder role of Michael becomes a separate role, kind of an “expert” or techie.

These basic four roles are consistent through all the campaigns I dreamed up. They vary slightly (the techie role in fantasy and Victorian because more of a craftsman/jack-of-all-trades), but they are present in all.

Next, Burn Notice as a fantasy campaign.