Prohibition Index Character Generation

Process

• Select Archetype.
• Select History.
• Assign Attributes.
• Assign and Upgrade Talents.
• Complete any additional effects mandated by Talents.

Archetype

A character's archetype is a loosely defined combination of traits that represent what forces present in the era motivate them. The Archetypes are divided by ideology and social strata more than occupation, which is what the history section represents more clearly.

Hedonist

The era after the Great War is one of the richest known to mankind. Across the cities of Great Powers and their colonial holdings, the streets beat to the tunes of excess, luxury and the sound of jazz music. Hedonists have no universal standards, but are best demonstrated by the Speakeasy culture that arose first in the Americas, with its rum runners, backroom jazz musicians and the flapper girl. With the Prohibition in the Americas on liquor, drugs and cybernetics enacted to 'protect the soul of men', a vast underground culture has flourished and spread. The scene is simultaneously composed of the incredibly rich and influential as well as the poor and downtrodden, though the rampant criminality that Prohibition has made profitable has allowed anyone with sufficient ambition to close the gaps between them.

Hedonist characters receive the Moxie and Contact Talents for free at one point, though the first Contact given will always be someone with whom they trade with for their vice. In addition, Hedonists may choose one or more vices their character pursues (including alcohol, psionic stimulation, cybernetics, cosmetic alteration), which restore a point of Moxie per scene they indulge. However, resisting temptation and concealing their obsessions is stressful, preventing them from using Moxie in scenes where they are forced to act against their vices.

Concepts: Flapper girl, rum runner, black-market cyberneticist, high-class pimp, psi addict.

Revolutionary

The world is changing. Men are no longer required to bleed and die for distant kings, on foreign soil. Revolutionaries lead the charge in a changing world, freeing men from the shackles of tyrants, robber barons and God. Bolshevism has picked up momentum in Russia, though the age is uncertain even after the victories of the Red October, and other forces seek freedom. Pleasure is a fleeting thing when the mind and soul of man is at stake, and technology must be kept out of the hands of the oppressors before it allows them to make irrelevant the wishes of the masses. In Europe and the Americas, universal suffrage is a concern as women and ethnic minorities seek to get an equal vote in allegedly democratic states. Regardless of the rhetoric, the revolutionary is motivated by his or her ideology and its furthering. Such people are unlikely to ever slow down, moving from cause to cause as the world changes a little more each time.

Revolutionaries receive the Academics and Contacts Talents at a rating of one, and are considered to roll a number of automatic successes equal to their talent rating on any Academics and Contact rolls involving their chosen ideology. Active revolutionaries and politicos are well-connected and aware of the other players in their movements to stay competitive in an ever-changing world.

Concepts: Suffragette, ethnic community leader, Marxist author, Bolshevik agent-provocateur, liberal politician.

Innovator

The Martian invasion changed everything about humanity, and the Great War has brought the role of overtechnology to the fore. Groups like the Tesla Institute and International Society of Futurists are just vehicles for innovation, giving the brilliant minds of the era the political and economic power necessary to begin truly innovating. Prohibition in the Americas has done nothing to stymie the efforts of innovators in the fields of cybernetics, and the overtechnological arms trade is at its historical strongest despite the efforts to curtail proliferation. Besides the merchant-magnates and rum runners, the wealthiest men in the world are innovators of society, the industrialists, scientists and engineers who actively build a better tomorrow instead of talking about one like the Revolutionaries. Technology doesn't just given humans better tools- it actually makes them better, as evidenced by the improved abilities of cyborgs and the incredible powers of psi talents.

Innovators have two points which may be split between Cybernetics or a Psi Talent. In addition, they negate their total social penalty from all sources, including alienation from Psi, disfigurement from Cybernetics and being the member of a minority, as long as they present themselves as an innovator of society in a relevant situation. Among fellow innovators or other especially relevant situations, the penalties might be reversed.

Concepts: Tesla Institute psychic, captain of industry, arms dealer, reclusive savant, Wellscraft pilot.

Freelancer

Freedom is everything to some people. The self-employed, globe-trotting lifestyle glamorized by pulp serials might not exactly be the reality many mercenaries, couriers and private agents face, but many would not choose the alternatives if they were available. Some freelancers have no choice in the matter due to unsavory pasts or criminal backgrounds, while others work abroad to escape repression at home. Fame and fortune awaits the most successful, while most scrape by on meager successes and narrow escapes from death. It's a living.

Freelancers get two points in the Moxie talent. At generation, Freelancers also choose a reputation they've earned such as 'skilled marksman', 'deft negotiator' or 'incorrigible libertine charmer', which they may expand with another descriptor every time they buy another point of Moxie. Once per scene, any action which confirms that reputation without using rerolls or automatic successes returns Moxie.

Concepts: Adventurer-archeologist, private detective, globetrotting assassin, reputable courier, master thief.