Eclipse Phase - Before The Fall

(Originally intended to be the only Monday post this week, I present the first post in the Before the Fall campaign design sequence.)

Eclipse Phase is a fantastic science fiction game; it's about transhumanism, horror, and conspiracy at the base level, published by the fine folks at Posthuman Studios and made available via Creative Commons so that if you can't afford to buy the game, you can still legally acquire copies to play. That said, if you can afford it, buy at least the PDFs. The Posthumans need funding to make more books, after all.

The default timeline of EP is set several years after the events of the Fall, with humanity seemingly stable in the aftermath of what amounted to the apocalypse. 99% of the world was wiped out, the remainder are smeared across the solar system in a thin film of life, and Earth is essentially uninhabitable.

I'm presently designing a short campaign set to take place during the Fall itself, with prebuilt characters to enable everyone to sit down and get used to playing without having to worry about any of the mechanical components of character creation before they're used to the way the game plays. Posts in this series will be about the premade characters, the situation the PCs begin in, the circumstances of the pre-Fall world, and - when my group eventually plays this - the scenarios that I use and a review of how things go.

Cast

An uplifted gorilla who specializes in heavy weaponry; grumpy, grudging, proud, and very defnitely with a mercurial attitude. Not overly fond of the nickname 'Tarzan' that has been applied, but accepts it as better than HU-LS-66903.

A splicer with significant body modification and a winning personality in spite of singularity seeker philosophies; the face for the team, able to schmooze with diplomats and hypercorp execs as easily as with old-world royalty and rank-and-file grunts in any line of work.

An infolife who resides primarily on the primary computer systems of the team's transport; serves as the infosec specialist and the researcher for the team, and sees no reason to be embodied when they can easily jam a drone to do whatever physical work needs doing.

An old-world recon specialist whose moderate biochauvanist streak doesn't keep them from being instantiated in a ghost morph. Chameleon skin and integrated biological armor work well with their lack of any sense of modesty, letting them hide in places that more modest individuals wouldn't be able to handle.

An AGI in a combat-rated synth morph designed as a smart weapon system that was so complex that it was uplifted and hastily indoctrinated to ensure it would at least recognize the value of transhuman life. The AGI's personality may have some similarities to HK-47, alongside a willingness to cheerily assess and classify anything that moves via combat priority.

A research scientist in a synth morph, working to pay for their education and body after an unfortunately lab accident killed their birth body. They've become fascinated with consciousness, sapience, and the process of death and continuity of self in the aftermath of their own first death. A little morbid, but not nihilistic by any stretch.

Rough Synopsis

The PCs are a group working for the United Nations in a future where the UN has manage to achieve some greater level of power simple because the traditional nation-states have begun to fall apart, rent by various disasters and struggles and split open by the behemoth megacorps; hypercorps have begun to take off, capitalizing on openings the emgacorps are too sluggish to really do anything about. Ego backups, cortical stacks, and resleeving are all relatively new, with the team being one of the first groups all outfitted with this kind of technology.

The initial scenario is that of a diplomatic mission, with the group being sent there to look into claims that assassins are stalking a would-be corporate dictator who happens to be wealthy enough to be of value and generous enough to the UN to be a priority. No one seriously expects assassins, but field testing the latest technology is a good enough reason to dispatch them to the site. Of course, hoping for a peaceful situation on a world teetering on the brink of global war, famine, and ecosystem collapse is just too much to hope for...

Restrictions

No character will be an async.
No character will have high-end nanotechnology.
The world is still in a scarcity-based monetary economy.
Firewall and other x-threat-related groups do not yet exist.
The TITANs aren't a thing as yet.

Stay tuned if you're interested!
Next Entry: Setup, Part One