Last week we took a look at the creation of a Mecha Wasteland (and getting Baba O’Riley stuck in our heads). This week, we turn to some of the people and machines that might populate it. Sticking with the themes, I went with a crew of freelance operators picking up work in the Free Port of Suez and specializing in quick and discrete operations. This group can take on work from all comers, from desperate Free Cities, pirate lords, or be used as deniable assets by the two great powers as a cold war begins to warm.
Without further ado, let’s meet the crew of the Ulaid.
Draid Groht
Characteristics: Brawn 2, Agility 3, Intellect 1, Cunning 3, Willpower 3, Presence 1
Archetype & Ability: Survivor (Once per session spend Story point to add successes equal to ranks in Discipline or Resilience)
Wound Threshold: 12
Strain Threshold: 13
Career: Survivor (Once per session spend Story point to change personal or vehicle critical to a different one of the same category)
Talents: Background(Spacer)
Skills: Leadership 2, Cool 1, Gunnery (Cannons) 2, Mecha Operations 1, Piloting 1
Favors
Owes: USN (Minor)
Holds: League of Free Cities (standard)
Draid was an immigrant’s son, part of one of the horde of teeming massing that migrated to space only to find themselves cramped into housing that barely sustained life support, effectively treated as indentured servants as they increasingly were forced into debt to the company store. Draid wanted to break free, and though he had little love of the USN, signing on seemed like a better bet than asteroid mining, and enlistment would also bring him back Earthside. For a time he was happy, taking up a woman named Elena while posted in North Ireland. However, tensions finally boiled over as separatists seized control of colonial holdings and declared themselves the Lunar Hegemony. Called to serve, Draid found himself disliked on both sides: his friends and family saw him as a turncoat while many of his comrades mistrusted where his loyalties lay.
When the fighting ignited a volcanic winter, Draid was forced to watch as his superiors scrambled to save those they could, abandoning those few friends he had made on the Earth. Bitter and hollow, Draid served out his enlistment before turning to mercenary work. His travels brought him back to North Ireland where he made an astonishing discovery: Elena had survived long enough to bear a son. His son. The child was now wild and free, used as an informant and agent of a group of pirates. Something that Draid thought to be long dead flickered inside of him, and he resolved to make a new life, picking together through the rubble of his personal life to try to make something new. Using his contacts in the USN, he managed to haggle for a decommissioned scout craft, naming it for the land where he had briefly known happiness and the place he always wished to take with him, the old kingdom of Ulaid.
Aeden Groht
Characteristics: Brawn 1, Agility 2, Intellect 2, Cunning 3, Willpower 2, Presence 3
Archetype & Ability: Kid (Additional ranks of skills and upgrades, the first purchase of the Dedication talent increases two different characteristics, take threat on opposed checks)
Wound Threshold: 12
Strain Threshold: 13
Career: Buddy
Talents: Background: Mean Streets (Streetwise),Forager, Criminal Record
Skills: Resilience 1, Cool 1, Gunnery (Cannons) 1, Mecha Operations 1, Ranged
Favors
Owed: League of Free Citing (Minor)
Holds: Carrion Princes (Major)
Aeden doesn’t remember the world as any different than it is now. Others speak about the years people worried about the planet overheating, and of a stable world government that kept the lights on. Those seem as much of a fairy tale as the Gaelic warriors of old that his mother told him as a child. No, you did what you needed to do in order to survive. And if that meant learning to instinctually hustle, that’s what it took. When the Carrion Princes needed a public face, that was a small price to pay for a bed, warm food, and the glamor of a freebooter life.
Until the day his birth father fell out of the sky. Not that Aeden is complaining at any opportunity to leave home for the relatively balmy shores of the equator, but the return of his father has been bittersweet. On one hand, his father has come back from the dead. On the other hand, everyone thought he was dead because it assumed that there was no way he and his mother would be abandoned if Draid was alive. The relationship has been tense, to say the least, but that hasn’t stopped Aeden from making the most of the opportunity. No one expects the fresh faced kid to be the one out to wring every advantage out of them, and the Ulaid has a way of stumbling into some interesting opportunities.
Ulaid
Chassis Type: Scout
Chassis Effect: Upgrade chances to avoid detection
Characteristics: Brawn 2, Agility 3, Intellect 2, Cunning 3, Willpower 1, Presence 2
Silhouette: 5
Handling: 0
Movement Type: Ground
Armor: 2
Defense: 0
Upgrades: Maneuvering Thrusters, Armor Plating, Reinforced Hull, Dual Mode Weapon, Smokescreen
Weaponry:
- Turret Mounted Cannon (Dorsal Mounted, Fire Arc All)
- Anti-MS Mode: Damage 3, Crit 3, Medium Range, Linked 3, May run out of ammo on three threat or Despair
- Ion Sabot: Damage 0, Crit 4, Extreme, EMP 6
- Vulcan Gun (Bow Mounted, Fire Arc Forward): Damage 1, Crit 4, Medium Range, Auto-Fire
The Ulaid is an old scout ship, initially designed with the intention of reconnoitering terrestrial combat zones before an assault. These had been built expecting a planetary civil war, and were next to useless in the war against the Hegemony except as patrol vessels. Combined with a reputation for being tin cans, they have been discontinued. While using that as a base, the Ulaid benefits from a number of upgrades conceived by its mechanic: improved armor, a nasty cannon that can serve both as a devastating anti-mecha platform and disabling stun weapon, and a smokescreen for rapid exits.
Morassim “Mori” Abbav
Characteristics: Brawn 1, Agility 4, Intellect 2, Cunning 2, Willpower 2, Presence 3
Archetype & Ability: Evolved (Once per session spend Story point to add successes equal to ranks in Discipline or Resilience)
Wound Threshold: 11
Strain Threshold: 14
Career: Mecha Pilot (Cool, Gunnery (Missiles), Knowledge (Mecha), Mecha Operations, Mechanics, Melee, Ranged)
Talents: Background: Entertainer, Mecha Dualist
Skills: Resilience 1, Cool 1, Gunnery (Cannons) 1, Mecha Operations 1, Ranged 1
Favors
Owes: League of Free Cities (Minor)
Holds: N/A
MTP-002 Diarmund
Chassis Type: Striker
Characteristics: Brawn 3, Agility 2, Intellect 1, Cunning 2, Willpower 2, Presence 3
Chassis Effect: Once per turn when using the Aim maneuver, add advantage to the results of the next combat check.
Silhouette: 3
Speed: 2, 3 in Flight
Handling: 0
Movement Type: Ground, Air
Armor: 2
Defense: 2/2
Upgrades: Maneuvering Thrusters, Innovation, Reinforced Frame, Armor Plating, Reactive Plating
Weaponry:
- Vulcan Gun (Head Mounted): Damage 1, Crit 4, Medium Range, Auto-Fire
- Precision Beam Rifle (Right Hand Carried): Damage 3, Crit 1, Long Range, Accurate 2, Vicious 1, Unwieldy 2, Can run out of ammo on 3 threat
- Heavy Shield: Damage 0, Crit 5, Engaged Range, Defensive 2, Deflection 2, Inaccurate 2
- “Moralltach” Heavy Blade: Damage 6, Crit 4, Engaged, Vicious 1, Cumbersome 3
Born in the early days of the Forever Winter, Morassim was among the countless who were orphaned or left behind in the mad scramble for survival. Forced to beg from an early age, he managed to find work as a street performer to make meager ends. Desperate to supplement his livelihood Morassim volunteered to Suez’s militia getting scant training, but quickly showing a skilled hand at the controls. Still, the work wasn’t considerably more reliable than what he had going until a call went out for a mecha pilot for a free company.
For whatever reason Captain Groht took a liking to young man, who he quickly dubbed “Mori”, and allowed him to try out the strange machine with a strange name. Despite being an unconventional machine, Mori was able to pilot the mecha dubbed “Diarmund”
The Diarmund is a hotrod of a mecha, cobbled together from parts gathered across an unknowable amount of battlefields. It’s meant to quickly close distances and put down foes using a wickedly precise beam rifle or smash them with a powerful vibroblade, using a specialized reactive armor plating system to reduce incoming physical damage.
Grak Rakkan
Characteristics: Brawn 3, Agility 2, Intellect 4, Cunning 2, Willpower 1, Presence 3
Archetype & Ability: Heavy (Once per session spend Story point to increase ST by Brawn or WT by Willpower until end of scene)
Wound Threshold: 13
Strain Threshold: 10
Career: Mechengineer (Computers, Gunnery (Cannons), Gunnery (Missiles), Knowledge (Mecha), Mecha Operations, Mechanics Ranged, Resilience)
Talents: Background: Medical Technician (Medicine)
Skills: Mechanics 2, Computers 2, Knowledge (Mecha) 1, Mecha Operations 1, Medicine
Favors
Owes: USN (Minor)
Holds: Scavenger Guild (Standard)
MTP-001 Tinker
Chassis Type: Support
Chassis Effect: Has “the right tool for the job” for Computers, Mechanics and Medicine without leaving mech
Silhouette: 2
Handling: 0
Speed: 3
Movement Type: Air
Armor: 2
Defense: 2/2
Upgrades: Vacuum Seals, Towing, Innovation, Jump Jets
Weaponry:
- Vulcan Gun (Head Mounted): Damage 1, Crit 4, Medium Range, Auto-Fire
- Heavy Shield: Damage 0, Crit 5, Engaged Range, Defensive 2, Deflection 2, Inaccurate 2
Grak refers to himself as a walking casualty of the war. Initially a brilliant engineer, the war was a continual slog that wracked every ounce of his creativity to desperately jury rig solutions, coupled with constant trauma of watching friends die and the dread of an uncertain future. During the chaos of the end of the war, Grak was among the slew who walked away in a state of dubious legality.
Regardless, Grak was too useful to pass up and his skill could not be denied: one of the founding members of the Scavenger Guild, he designed the MTP-001 Tinker out of spare parts. Along with providing a proper working environment for mechanical, IT, and even medical work, the machine was simple and cheap enough to reproduce that it has become a standard model across the planet. However Grak brought his own personal baggage with him, periodically flaking or going on benders. His work began to fail at critical moments, and with great regret the Scavenger Guild revoked his standing.
From that new low, Grak was surprised to be recruited by a former junior officer from the USN who had struck out on his own. Grak found his new employer to be accommodating of his lapses, and with a new challenge began retooling the ship and beginning work on his magnum opus, a testbed of ideas that he had considered but never had the time or materiel to work on. With those issues solved, Grak finished this new machine, christening it the MTP-002 Diarmund, naming it for a mythical warrior who had supposedly hailed from the kingdom his new ship was named after.
How They Interact
Draid knows a few things about mecha pilots. He’s subbed in as one himself, in desperate times. He was around the pilots who were dubbed “aces”. There was an aura around them, something that he could never quite pin down. Mori might be raw, but he has that same aura. Given enough lead, Mori might become something truly dangerous. It’s too bad the kid is such a hard liner to a place that didn’t appreciate him, but Draid knows something about non-reciprocal loyalty.
During the war Grak must have saved his life more times than either of them could count, though Draid doubts that the man knows it. The stress his bosses put on the man was criminal, and it was no surprise that he broke. Now, it’s Draid’s turn to return the favor. Grak might need a tune up himself every once in a while, but they both have plenty of battles behind them that they want to forget. Draid is willing to crawl down into the metaphorical hole to get him back up.
Never in a million years would Draid have considered what having a son would be like. The issue had never really came to him until realization dawned that it had happened, and for some time. That Aeden came to him as a teenager means that their dynamic is nowhere close to normal, but there is so much of his mother in the boy. Draid wants to be close to his boy, wants it more than anything he’s wanted before, but he doesn’t know how.
Aeden has seen Mori’s type before. There are few who just shine brighter after being thrown into the fire, and of those there are few that Aeden would wish as an enemy. In spite of that, the man is pleasant enough, if not particularly interested in niceties, and can be counted on for some interesting acrobatic stunts. It wouldn’t do, however, to forget the precision with which Mori eliminated a few bandit patrols. Beware the quiet ones.
Draid is a complex relationship. While getting the hell out of a frozen hell was worth tagging along, there is deep seated resentment at his abandonment. What the hell was the man doing when Aeden’s mother was freezing herself to death in order to keep the pair alive? It’s unforgivable. But on the other hand, it’s the realization of a dream. Maybe it’s impossible to forgive, but maybe it’s something to move past.
Grak is like too many of the old sods that populate the survivor holdouts: capable but broken by the loss of the old world. Aeden has worked with worse, and Grak certainly is willing to go along with a wink and a nod with dealing out redundant parts for needed ones…and liquor. The man has become a “fun uncle” of sorts, and the pair may find themselves biting off more than they can chew if left unsupervised.
Mori doesn’t trust Draid. There’s just something a bit off from the way he moves, and his ties to the USN make him possibly choose them over the Free Cities. Mori has told the man in no uncertain terms that he is not fighting against Suez, and that has led to unspoken tension when certain jobs are offered. That said, it’s not as if Mori has been bursting with alternatives, and the Ulaid is the most stable berthing he’s known in a long time.
Grak is a marvel of contradictions: how the man can have stretches of absolute brilliance, knocking out new inventions and bringing machines thought long dead back to life with perceived ease is stunning. It is equally incredible how useless the man can be when he’s on a bender. The Diarmund is a piece of art though, and keeping it running is worth dealing with the man’s lapses.
Aeden is the one he understands best: both of them know the world as it is with little idea as to how it was and both are survivors above all else. However, Aden is as crooked as they come, and it’s mystifying to Mori how more people don’t seem to understand that. On the whole, the kid is a net asset, and the closest thing Mori considers a friend, but it’s a relationship that needs to be scrutinized. Carefully.
Grak has never seen anyone push the limits of his best work like he has seen with Mori. He started the tryout on the Diarmund with limiters on, only to remove them midway through. To Grak’s astonishment, Mori barely seemed to notice the increase. Grak is still tinkering on that machine and has no doubt that Mori can handle any upgrades that he installs. The man takes him to task for his drinking, which is an annoyance, but it’s good to have a project that can keep him focused.
Draid pulled him out of a bad place, and while Grak has backslid on some of his promises, it’s never been quite as bad with Draid to back him up. He is incredibly indebted to the man, and is willing to back him. They’ve both been in worse situations before, and Draid is willing to turn the occasional blind eye when Grak needs to let loose…so long as his work is caught up.
The Future
Work certainly doesn’t appear to be slowing down anytime soon. The Carrion Princes are appearing to make a play on Suez, and that’s just the beginning: the USN and Hegemony are pushing into territory that each side contests without much care as to what the current residents might think. And who knows what machines of war might be lurking beneath the permafrost that is beginning to thaw?
Cannibal Halfling Gaming 