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Episode 1 - Into the Otherworld

This version was saved 13 years, 5 months ago View current version     Page history
Saved by Adrian
on October 16, 2010 at 7:00:31 pm
 

The World of the Future

  • Constant wars erupting in the developing world, often instigated by the corporations
  • The Internet and most entertainment, (Movies, Television and Video Games), has been replaced by an online Virtual Reality (VR) Network called "the Net". Virtual real estate is as expensive as the real thing and just as exclusive to those with money and power. Powerful people, (the extremely wealthy and certain MegaCorps), have recently completed a secret addition to the Net, where the VR is so advanced that it is impossible to tell apart from reality. The ultimate purpose of this 'Otherworld' is yet to be revealed.
  • People access the VR 'Net' in many ways. The most basic access is through a standard console/keyboard interface. Higher levels of immersion require more expensive gear, VR Googles, Gloves, Immersion Tanks, and so on. The current top of the line method is a neural jack, which links the user's mind directly to the 'Net. The surgical procedure to have the jack installed at the base of the neck is fairly expensive and cannot be used on children or teenagers. There are rumors that people's minds have been killed or trapped online somehow, turning them into permanent coma patients.
  • It's possible to mindwipe people, especially the poor and vulnerable. These people sometimes end up as programmed Dolls, a shady operation in the developed world. The Dolls are programmed via a similar technology to the neural jack.
  • The major cities of the world are located in China and Europe, with central Paris enclosed in an arcology to preserve the Eiffel Tower and other landmarks. Outside this pristine arcology is slums.
  • Other centres such as London and Shanghai are sterilely-beautiful megacities.
  • The developing world is a rough place to live, especially due to the many wars. North America is a wasteland, sent spiralling into savagery after a massive financial crisis and in constant civil war.
  • Virtual Intelligence is common, if expensive, but true Artificial Intelligence has not (yet) been achieved.
  • Cybernetics exist, although the preferred and more expensive options are Biotics and developing nanotechnology.
  • Aircars exist, for the wealthy, but most people still travel by conventional ground transport, and aircraft.
  • An O'Neill station is being built in space, massively expensive and a space elevator connects Earth with an orbiting space platform.
  • Bases also exist on the Moon and one of Jupiter's moons.
  • Years ago a weather control device was tried, but went catastrophically wrong. The effects have been shunted off to the developing nations, giving them rain, grey skies and more rain most of the time.

 

Locations

  • Jingles - Online nightclub for the more adventurous Netizen. Strictly R18.
  • Jack Booth - a public access place for jacking into the Net, run down and unhygenic.
  • Paris Arcology - opaque dome over Paris' architectural sights, including the Eiffel Tower and Arc d'Triomphe. The exterior of the dome is covered on office space but from the inside it shows beautiful vistas.
  • The Reactor - Otherworld location representing a collapsing rusty Chernobyl reactor inhabited by mutated dog things and worse.
  • Space Elevator - Located in the Swiss Alps, this structure has meant that specialized craft are no longer needed to enter or exit earth's orbit.
  • O'Neill Station - Several MegaCorps have pooled resources to construct a massive space habitat, that will be able to create it's own gravity through rotation and house thousands of people. This station is several kilometres long and is still under construction. 

 

Situation as at end of Session 1

 

Player Characters

Dmitri Costanto (AP), recently-sacked Fraud Investigator. Goal: Expose Dr. Messina's illegal Doll operations

Status: Angry at Opex Corp; Injured by a golf club to the leg; RWA = 3/7/3, Able goal ticked.

 

Reza (JM), tracked, ex-Plessey Doll. Goal: Create a new life.

Status: Armed with a Heinkel Taser; Dangerous with alt. skill sets; Financed with credit chips; Hunted by Plessey handlers; Trapped in Otherland by Inner Core; RWA = 5/6/7.

 

Michael Wilks (DH), hacker by handle of Axeman, tall, black and wearing shades. Goal: Become a well known hacker.

Status: Connected to a INF4; Prepared with many escape procedures and codes for any online misfires; Impaired by being pulled into Otherworld, by the Inner Core; RWA = 7/4/4, Able goal ticked.

 

Errol Markham (MM), aka Michael Smith aka John Sands, burned out operative working for GenTech. Goal: Find a way to get out.

Status: Dangerous with a hidden gun; Burned Out by too long in the business; Coerced by Inner Core. RWA = 5/2/7, Ready and Willing goals ticked.

 

Wing (AM), 50 year old Chinese dealer of hallucinogenic software and Doll programs. Goal: Get his economic freedom.

Status: Equipped (with what?); Financed by Inner Core; Hesitant by info from Dmitri; Confused (by what?). RWA = 5/3/4.

 

Sian Chu (TS), aka Lamia, tech and Otherworld site designer (?) and spurned by her lover. Goal: Open the sealed Realm in the Otherland.

Status: Equipped in the Otherworld; Loved by her former Inner Core lover; Humiliated by lover's betrayal. RWA = 5/5/3, 1 Edge Die.

 

Session 2 Characters

 

Jarrod 'Stealman' Carsten (MM), hacktivist working with INF4. Goal: Enable Otherland access for everyone.

Status (end Session 2): Equipped with a Deck; Prepared by spying on Lamia; Humiliated by botched rescue of Wilks; Hunted by GenTech. RWA = 3/4/5

 

Factions

Sunshine Productions aka Sunshiners, drug dealing gang providing recruits and muscle for the Plessey Doll Houses. Psycho hippies. Goal: Find out who's trashing the Doll Houses and stop them.

Status: Dangerous with no sense of restraint; Enthused by Samson's violent encouragment; Injured by Doll House attacks. INF 4

 

Plessey Doll House, subsidiary shadow operation of Plessey running their Paris arcology Doll House, led by 3-man team. Goal: 'Reassign' Reza

Status: Equipped with a tracking van; Connected to Plessey. INF 4

 

INF4, hacker group. Goal: Obtain unlimited access for themselves to the Otherworld.

Status: Connected to many other hackers online; Financed by access to large numbers of bank accounts,(Some legimate, some not). INF 6

 

GenTech, massive international corporation. Goal: Win out over Plessey Corp

Status: Financed by company funds; Confused (by what?) INF 4

 

Doll Liberation Army(DLA) group of former Dolls. Goal: recruiting more Dolls and closing down the Doll Houses.

Status: Dangerous; Hardened by the need to get serious; Hunted (by who?). INF 5

 

Inner Core, shadowy cabal of Otherworld figures from powerful organisations. Goal: Complete control (of Otherworld?)

Status: Connected to their corps; Prepared with info from Wing. INF 7

 

Session 2 Factions

 

SegaTron, almost sentient antivirus program. Decommissioned when began allocating itself resources independently and believes in attacking viruses at their source, the hackers. Goal: regain position by any means.

Status (end of second session): Armed with Reza's taser; Financed; Prepared. INF 4.

 

Faction Relationship Summary

Plessey      > Plessey Doll House > Sunshiners

                > Opex Corp

 

GenTech > (INF4) > (DLA)

(GenTech hires INF4 to attack Plessey’s Doll operation, who in turn *may* have been using the Doll Liberation Army)

 

Inner Core: members include GenTech and Plessey reps

 

PC Relationship Summary (end of Session 1)

  • Reza – on own
  • Dmitri contacted by Errol (via Wilks), Dmitri – Errol relations strained
  • Dmitri and Wing in communication over Plessey PDA
  • Wilks/Axeman and Sian/Lamia in contact
  • Errol and Wilks connection not yer revealed. 

 

Current Deals

  • Wilks looking into GenTech’s involvement in the Dollhouses for INF4, (INF4 already know the involvement, this is to test Axeman).
  • Wilks and Sian tentative alliance against Inner Core
  • INF4 help Reza with money and a new identity download. Have INF4 given themselves a backdoor access to Reza's mind?
  • Dmitri and Wing agree to share information related to the Plessey Doll operation and Dr. Messina.
  • Wing sells information to Inner Core in exhange for cash and wiping his debts to Plessey, and promises them more info as he comes across it.
  • Lamia/Sian agrees to help INF4 take down the Inner Core, helping Wilks and Reza escape them in the process. 
  • Sian aware of Dmitri and Jarrod's plan to free Dolls and open up the Otherworld. Although no firm deal established, they have asked for help when the time is right.

 

Current NPCs

  • Wing's two unamed helpers, one with afro and 'attitude'
  • Dr. Messina (Goal protected) - unknown figure involved in Plessey's Doll Operation and reason Dmitri was fired from Opex.
  • Sian/Lamia's lover who spurned her, a member of the Inner Core with the avatar of Thoth.
  • 'John', a hacker colleague of Axeman's, and member of INF4.
  • 'Andy Warhol', hacker avatar of a member of INF4.
  • The Inner Core: 'Thoth' (JM), 'Shiva' (AM), Dragon (AP, Plessey), Thor (MM, GenTech), 'Horus' (DH, GenTech Space/New Horizons) and Protoss/Alienesque (TS, ??? Faction)
  • Sunshiners: Samson, scarred, bewigged and psychedelic leader.
  • DLA: Caleb Neilson, DLA cell leader
  • GenTech: Mr Bruce, CEO and Mr. Harris, Division head of New Horizons
  • Plessey Doll House team: Mr Sink, Mr Raven and Mr Lean, two unnamed operatives in limo posing as rich lushs.

 

Recap - Session 1

 

  1. Intro (AP): Dmitri is sacked from his job at Opex Corp over pictures of him taking bribes, but this is really about his investigation of Dr. Messina. Not sure whether Dmitri was accepting bribes.
  2. Intro (JM): Reza having shower, gets dressed hears Fire alarm. Enters smoky room - blood every where - searches for somthing finds body phone rings. Mysterious phone call to meet  someone out side the lobby, but he get a anxiety flash & flees by window. Out side, chased by a well dressed man stepping out of a Van, down an alley.
  3. Intro (DH): Wilks deals with another hacker 'John' in Jingles - gets rid of Hunted NCon from a past job gone wrong.
  4. Intro (MM): John Sands aka Errol disguised as a cleaner copying files in the Opex Corp building. Needs to incapacitate a PA and is established as Dangerous.
  5. Intro (AM): Wing talking to two employees of Wing Bros., tells them they have 60 days to sort out Wing's debts or they're taken over. Decide to sell to anyone who will buy.
  6. Intro (TS): Sian/Lamia is ousted from the Otherworld site she has created for the 'Inner Core' , led by her lover. However, her former lover still has feelings for her (Loved PCon).
  7. Intro (AP): Sunshiners boss Samson comes in mad because no one was guarding the Paris Doll House and it's been wiped out. Yells at gang and chops hand off one of them with a machete. Sunshiners are Enthused PCon to sort things out.
  8. Intro (JM): Plessey 3-man Doll House team reacting to the attack in disarray. Angry and call for Supported PCon from Plessey.
  9. Intro (DH): INF4 have been hired by GenTech to instigate attacks on Plessey Doll Houses. Have doubts and decide to hire Wilks to investigate GenTech's motives.
  10. Intro (MM): GenTech board meeting to discuss strategy against Plessey and decide whether to use the freed Dolls as agents against Plessey. Board in confusion, cannot agree an approach.
  11. Intro (AM): DLA rounding up Dolls after the Paris attack and escaping with them in the van. Mention one missing, Reza.
  12. Intro (TS): Inner Core discussing how a backdoor into the minds of Dolls is possible, e.g. to use them as assassins. by hacking them into thinking they are in the Otherworld rather than the real one. PCon Prepared.
  13. FaceOff (AP): Two wealthy lushs in a limo aircar try to pick up the escaped Reza for a good time. DLA operatives spot this and intervene, there's a fight and Reza leaps from the limo, taking money and a taser. DLA resolve to harden up in future.
  14. FaceOff (JM): Limo lushs turn out to be Plessey operatives, who decide to punish Wing for his role in the Doll House fiasco for supplying defective chips. Fly to London to confront him, learn Wing received the tampered chips from INF4. Plessey retaliate by leaving Wing Destitute (NCon).
  15. Deal (DH): Wilks is hired by INF4 through 'John' to investigate GenTech.
  16. FaceOff (MM): Dmitri is contacted by Wilks to meet Errol in the basement. Tells him Plessey operatives are here to kill him and that he should go with him if he wants to live. Implied threats of revealing him to Plessey leave Dmitri Coerced (NCon).
  17. FaceOff (AM): Plessey 3 man team looking to capture Errol and run over Dmitri. Errol spots the tail and tells Dmitri to jump out of the van at the next corner. Dmitri ends up firing his Dornier pistol wildly into the van and running, letting both of them escape. Dmitri gets a PDA dropped by Plessey, with evidence against Dr. Messina.
  18. Colour (TS): Wilks meets Sian in the Otherworld and they discuss an alliance against the Inner Core and to investigate GenTech.
  19. FaceOff (AP): Dmitri tracks down Wing and confronts him with the Plessey PDA, which mentions him in connection with the Doll Houses. Dmitri squeezes evidence from Wing and gets closer to his goal, and the two agree to share info. Unfortunately, the Plessey Inner Core member is able to trace the PDA and discover Dmitri and Wing's involvement.
  20. Deal (JM): Reza jacks in and is contacted by INF4. They give him a new program with a false identity and funds, but are able to exert some influence over Reza in the process (??)
  21. FaceOff (DH): INF4 hack into Dmitri's records and play havoc, wiping some of his research and evidence against Dr. Messina and Plessy (removing a goal tick)
  22. FaceOff (MM): Wilks on behalf of INF4 contacts the Sunshiners and pays Samson to arrange an attack on Dmitri. The off-scene attack ends with Dmitri nursing a busted up leg (NCon Injured) after a Sunshiner goes after him with a golf club, but Dmitri makes off before he can be attacked further.
  23. Deal (AM): Wing contacts the Plessy member of the Inner Core and gives them the Doll attack info in exchange for wiping his debts to Plessy and an extra consideration (NCon Destitute removed and PCon Financed gained). Wing promises to tell them of any future info coming his way.
  24. FaceOff (TS): The Inner Core meet to take care of business. After digesting the information from Wing, they decide to pressure Errol into working for them, try to trap Reza in their domain of the Otherworld and inconvenience Wilks with an attack virus/program. The Inner Core are successful in each instance, but unwittingly let Reza and Wilks closer to accessing closed areas of Otherworld, furthering their goals. Wilks exits their domain to find himself Lost (NCon) in a wasteland of an empty reactor inhabited by rabid mutant dog-things. Errol is also closer to getting away from GenTech, even though Coerced (NCon) by the Inner Core. The Inner Core is close to realising their goal of Otherworld domination with INF 6.
  25. FaceOff (AP): The Inner Core attempt to use the trapped Reza to tap into her Doll traits to spread their influence over Otherworld. After a tense standoff, the two sides are more or less as before: Reza's goal is reduced, and he is still Trapped (NCon), but he grows in power and becomes Dangerous (PCon). Meanwhile, the Inner Core are at INF 7 and on the cusp of completing their ambition...

 

To be continued... (next Controller is James)

 

Recap - Session 2

 

  1. FaceOff (JM): Plessey's 3-man team track Reza to a Jack Booth, to find Errol bending over him. Erol had inserted a chip slab into Reza, which is how the Inner Core had trapped him. Plessey tried to capture Errol and a fight ensued, Plessey tasers versus Errol's Karisaka ceramic holdout gun. Errol consciously avoids killing the Plessey team, causing chaos, scooping up one of their dropped ID passes and escaping, losing his Burned Out NCon by his newfound merciful response.
  2. Epilogue (MM): Errol achieved his final goal tick last scene and left the Paris arcology using the Plessey ID. Handing the ID and his wallet to a homeless man, he disappears into the Paris slums and out of the corporations' clutches for good. GenTech and Plessey lose a point of INF each.
  3. FaceOff (DH): INF4 contact Sian/Lamia in her virtual domain, a Studio 59-style disco where she sits surveying the dance floor from a balcony. A man resembling Andy Warhol approaches her, telling her that the Inner Core have captured a Doll. INF4 try to threaten her into finding Reza, Wilks and destroying the Inner Core, but Sian's defence (including calling upon her former lover 'Thoth' (Loved PCon)), shows them she is an equal and she willingly agrees to aid INF4, on her terms, convincing INF4 of the importance of the Otherworld.
  4. Intro (MM): Hacktivist Jarrod Carsten, watching the events from the previous scene. In Jingles, Jarrod approaches Andy Warhol from INF4. "She took the bait. What will we do about Wilks?"
  5. Intro (AM): SegaTron a rogue antivirus program intent on attacking viruses at their hacker source. On the verge of becoming an AI, back in the shot up Jack Booth Reza sits up suddenly, SegaTron programming flashing across the Doll's consciousness. SegaTron has possession of Reza's body while he's trapped by the Inner Core.
  6. FaceOff (TS): The Inner Core attempt to dissect Reza's consciousness back at their base in Mt Olympus. However, Reza fights back and removes the Trapped NCon, while the Inner Core lose a point of INF.
  7. FaceOff (AP): Dmitri and Jarrod approach Sian in a passenger plane 6 months prior to the events in the scenes above. Dmitri reveals he is a Doll linked to the DLA and about to go into deep undercover to bait a trap to catch Dr. Messina, who is behind the Doll operations. The Dolls and access to Otherworld are linked and Jarrod and Dmitri want Sian's help to open the Otherworld up and free the Dolls. Dmitri succeeds in Confusing Sian and gets a goal tick in the process. He then entrusts a copy of his true personality to Jarrod, and we flash forward to Dmitri in the present getting his knee fixed (Injured NCon removed) by a shady medic and dialling Jarrod's number on impulse.
  8. FaceOff (JM): Three DLA members bring Wing a bodybag containing a Doll and press him for info on the chip it has installed. Wing tries to stall but ends up Humiliated and they use the info from him to lose their Hunted NCon.
  9. FaceOff (DH): Wilks is stuck in the Otherworld 'Chernobyl' reactor and calls out for Stealman/Jarrod to get him out of there or he'll reveal his connections to the DLA. Jarrod risks his hacker rep being Humiliated if he fails to pull Wilks out, and guides Wilks away from the mutant dogs and out of the reactor interior. However, it goes wrong and Jarrod is Humiliated, Wilks ends up no longer Lost but his consciousness returns to a Doll's body rather than his own - that of one on Wing's operating table, just as Wing is about to make an incision.
  10. FaceOff (MM): Jarrod speaks to Dmitri by phone and convinces him that he is a Doll - Dmitri finds a hidden jack point - and to plug a chip into his head. The conflict rests on whether Dmitri can handle the information that he's not really who he thought he was, but he succeeds getting a final goal tick towards exposing Dr. Messina. However, Jarrod has double-crossed Dmitri and it turns out he was originally Dr. Messina all along.
  11. Epilogue (AP): Panicing, Dmitri Messina feverishly tries to retract the evidence he has sent to the authorities incriminating himself. Failing, he calls Plessey and demands that they come get him.
  12. Deal (AM): Wing hands Wilk's Doll-inhabiting consciousness to GenTech, asking what they'll give him for it. They refuse and Wing gets nothing out of the deal while they come to take possession of Wilks/the Doll and increase their Influence.
  13. FaceOff (TS): INF4 contact Wilks and warn him GenTech are on their way for him, using a mole they have in GenTech. They convince him to risk everything and use Wilks as a VR cruise missile against the Inner Core. This flame attack succeeds, increasing INF4 to 8 Influence and reducing Wilks to a Burned Out husk. Still, he gets a goal tick and his kamikaze run is viewed with awe by fellow hackers around the globe.
  14. Epilogue (TS): INF4 surveying their backdoor access to the Otherworld and congratulating each other on their achievement as L33t hackers.

 

We finished with a round of epilogues for the other PCs:

 

  • Reza (JM): He wanders through the Otherworld, passing through the background behind INF4 and muttering 'here again' under his breath.
  • Wilks (DH): A tall black guy suddenly sits up at his computer terminal, utters and strangled cry and falls face down onto the desk, his mind literally Burned Out.
  • Jarrod (MM): Enjoying the Otherworld - he walks around Mars, taking in the view without needing a spacesuit.
  • Wing (AM): Picking himself up from the wreckage GenTech left reclaiming what they thought was Wilks. He spies something, the residue of info from the Doll chip: there's hope yet, he's still in the game!
  • Lamia/Sian (TS): 'Mt. Olympus' is on the O'Neill station and a massive energy source explodes from the Earth below, burning Proteus and scattering the other members with the exception of Thoth, who is protected by a sphere of energy. In a penthouse suite somewhere two pods open and the real Sian and Thoth step out. He glares at Sian "Bitch. You should have warned me". She shrugs and it's clear they're not really angry at each other, and the scene dissolves into a James Bond-esque sex scene as the lovers reunite.

 

THE END.

 

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