THE CYPHER WARS
Approximately five months ago, strange
items began appearing around the globe. At first they were odd
archaeological finds, but then touching them sometimes – did things
that could not be explained at all. They were made of substances we
couldn’t identify, and in time the name ‘cypher’ stuck to them
among the few who studied them. They were rare and strange, and as a
result, a few wealthy people tried to collect them. The end results
of those actions were explosions, deaths, and tears in the fabric of
the universe. By the time it was understood that too many active
cyphers in one area was a very bad idea, the damage had been done.
Only the damage was never what people
thought. Because the cyphers changed people. Not everyone, but a few
people gained the ability to
focus
and take on powers and skills that weren’t native to this world at
all. Beyond that, some of them can touch the cyphers and have a far,
far better understand of what to use them for than other people do.
There are more cyphers appearing every day but the fact that people
are changed by them is still hidden. Because some of the changed
people can hide that from the rest of the world.
It
seems a stroke of luck, but luck doesn’t last forever. It’s not
only cyphers that come through now: creatures do as well, and they
are even less easy to explain or understand. Is this another
dimension? A war? Some kind of mass exodus to this world from another
world?
No one knows, and everyone is just trying to get by as best they can.
Some
manage it better than others.
The
Cypher Wars is a cypher system (Cypher System Rulebook (CSR),
Numenera, Strange) campaign starting at tier 1. The
city of Bridgeport – population 30,000 and one of the smallest
cities ot have its own subway system – is where the game begins,
set next to a lake in middle America. Game
time is Friday nights, ~6:30 pm PST.
The effort system should, ideally, mimic the feel of lighter anime. We'll see how it goes.
Characters
work as follows:
Your
descriptor
is who the character is in terms of personality etc.
Type
is self-explanatory. A type from any of the core books is allowed, as
is flavouring them via the CSR rules.
Focus
is your transformative power that taps into the Dimension X stuff.
You call upon it and transform, able to wield your powers and the
less mundane aspects of your type as well. How it looks is entirely
up to you, but it doesn’t pass as normal. Tapping into the lower
end of abilities is less noticeable, of course.
Setting
notes:
Thus
far, the existence of people touched/changed by these alien energies
has been hidden from the world. Because a certain portion of those
people changed – called Gatekeepers, among other terms – have the
ability to hide the
existence of focii and such from the world. Conceptually, they’ve
basically become artifacts and futz the mind of people so they
convince themselves they didn’t see someone, say, turn into a
creature of stone in the middle of the street. This ability is
passive and not perfect: continued exposure wears away at it and
deliberate demonstrations will work.
If
you want friends/family to know about your PC, they do. In general,
people will know something
is off. The Gatekeepers are pretty much trying to keep things on the
down low, though to what end no one is sure yet.
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