Smoke and Mirrors
Background
The world didn't end in 1968, or 2012, or 2020. Or at any date when it was predicted to end. But always, doomsday seemed to be creeping ever-closer. First it was the threat of nuclear Armageddon, then the threat of bioweapons, and then and most damning, the threat of economic collapse and a depression to end all depressions.
But humanity was strong, and has survived despite the rot at its core, a rot that had been festering for thousands of years. There are those who seek to end the world, and those who seek to preserve it. This shadow war has been fought for uncountable millenia between groups that have stayed hidden in the shadows. But as 2038 draws closer, this battle has finally spilled into the streets. Gangs of cultists duke it out with paramilitary commandoes. Creatures that were once human, enhanced by grafts from extradimensional beings, stalk the streets, fighting to preserve what they have willingly sacrificed, or fighting to destroy what they can no longer have.
The masquerade is wearing thin, and the war is being revealed for all to see.
Choose your side.
Conspiracies
Ever since ancient times, men and women have banded together to fight the unknown, the creatures that lurk in the darkness. Over time the knowledge has become codified, these groups have become more effective, and they have disappeared deeper into the shadows, as not to alarm the ones who are unwilling or unable to deal with the reality of the situation. And as this has gone on, they have become ever more like the foe they fight, skulking in the shadows, using unsavory tactics, hiding from a populace which would not be able to tell the difference between destroyer and savior. But protection requires sacrifice, and there are still those who are willing and able to make that sacrifice.
Origins
All of the current conspiracies have origins in a handful of major groups, splinter cells that no longer know much of their past history. However, every one of these groups had fought the enemy in their own way, and each one of these new compacts similarly has access to specific abilities based off of their parent group. The groups are united, however, in their ability to gain access to equipment that would be illegal or restricted, as well as their infiltration of .
Task Force NEMESIS
Created: 1940
Special Advantage: Advanced Armory
Origin Country: United States of America
The youngest of all the compacts, TF NEMESIS supposedly started as a department of the US military, circa WWII. Originally created as the "Department of Occult Warfare", in the 1950s and 1960s, NEMESIS disappeared as an official organ of the government, as the Department of Occult Warfare had been perverted into hunting suspected Communists and seditionists, rather than dealing with threats to the human race-or so they say. Having gone underground and lost most of its resources and funding, the Department of Occult Warfare suffered hard times for a decade, but its ex-FBI and ex-military roots allowed it to rebuild itself.
Renaming itself Task Force NEMESIS in 1980, it functioned under that name until it split into multiple subgroups due to internal bickering and disagreements.
Fundamentally, a Nemesis agent cannot match those who implant unidentifiable parts of alien beings into themselves, nor a mage or a psychic. However, Nemesis has its own tricks and the pick of the heaviest mundane hardware, plus some experimental equipment that might impress even the other compacts.
In a Nutshell
Advantages: Cheapest military hardware, front companies, legal income sources.
Disadvantages: Worst quality agents, low Occult knowledge.
Archetype Mechanics
Starting Points: 250
Infiltration-
Judicial Infiltration: 5 SP per 1, max 6
Military Infiltration: 4 SP per 1, max 10, starts with 1 free level
Media Infiltration: 12 SP per 1, max 5
Fronts-
Starts with 2, additional cost 10 SP per 1.
Infrastructure-
Income (Illegal): 1 SP per 2
Production: 5 SP per 3
Personnel: 1 SP per 20
Advanced Armory: 3 SP per 1
Stealth-
1 SP per 50 SP of Infrastructure, starts w/25
Assets-
Equipment: 1 SP per 25 points
Combat Agents: 5 SP per 1 (max 10)
Intelligence Agents: 8 SP per 1 (max 5)
Knowledge-
3 free points
+2 Tactics, +1 Assassination, -1 Occult
Maximum Occult of 1
Praetorian Guard
Created: ~10 BC
Special Advantage: Relic
Origin Country: Roman Empire (now Italy)
Formed in ancient times to protect the emperor from all threats, the Praetorian guard naturally also protected him against the supernatural. With weapons blessed by their own gods and prayers, they were effective against all sorts of arcane threats. When the Roman Empire collapsed, the Guard still soldiered on, their mission changing to protecting humanity against the threat-whether they liked it or not. They have long had feelers in the military, but their political savvy has shown through, and they can fight a war equally well whether it is on the battlefield of the media or the battlegrounds of the world.
Praetorians can access significant amounts of arcane tools to assist their fight-magically enchanted weapons and armor dating from the Roman era to equipment as recently blessed, by sweat and sacrifice, as the mid-20th century. These relic weapons and gear are extremely powerful but also nigh-irreplaceable. Where Nemesis and the Kiryu-Kai are "leave no man behind", for the Praetorians that takes a close second to leaving no relic behind where it might be destroyed or used against them. After all, these devices are intensely difficult to acquire.
In a Nutshell
Advantages: Powerful relics for use by Agents, extremely cheap illegal income.
Disadvantages: Relics are extremely expensive, expensive stealth.
Archetype Mechanics
Starting Points: 250
Infiltration-
Judicial Infiltration: 10 SP per 1, max 6
Military Infiltration: 8 SP per 1, max 8
Media Infiltration: 8 SP per 1, max 8
Fronts-
Starts with 1, additional cost 12 SP per 1.
Infrastructure-
Income (Illegal): 2 SP per 5
Production: 5 SP per 2
Personnel: 1 SP per 15
Relic: 5 SP per 1
Stealth-
1 SP per 40 SP of Infrastructure, starts w/25
Assets-
Equipment: 1 SP per 15 points
Combat Agents: 8 SP per 1 (max 5)
Intelligence Agents: 8 SP per 1 (max 5)
Knowledge-
2 free points
+1 Tactics, +1 Occult
Kiryu-Kai
Created: 1350
Special Advantage: Arcanotechnology
Origin Country: Japan
The Kiryu-Kai were originally a samurai order tasked with ensuring peace between the spirit world and humanity. They could often do this by negotiation and diplomacy, but also occasionally had to step in and cut heads off. Empowered by the gods to fuse spirits and souls into wondrous works of craftsmanship, they survived nearly unchanged until the 1920s-when patriotism and nationalism came to a head and the original goal of the Kiryu-Kai was replaced with a far more militant one, to ensure the dominance of the Imperial Japanese Empire, even if it meant leaving their old duties to ones who were less qualified. In WWII they clashed with the Department of Occult Warfare in the Pacific, fighting over ancient artifacts and occult sites. Kiryu-Kai arcanotech was superior to the equipment wielded by the DOW, but the latter had significantly more resources and each of their agents was far more expendable.
Almost completely gutted in the '50s at the behest of the DOW, the Kiry-Kai were reduced to a skeleton of their former self. When it was seen that there was a critical need for a group to protect Japan, they were again reformed, with retired members literally being drafted into service, but that was nearly 70 years ago. The modern Kiryu-Kai has nearly no relation to the old except for the same penchant to fuse mundane craftsmanship with magic. Whereas the original were warriors first, philosophers second, the new one is mostly academia, resembling more of a research and development group than a hunter group. In some ways this allows it to apply what it finds in the field more easily as well as giving it significant access to manpower.
However, this also decreases its effectiveness because of the relative lack of secrecy.
In a Nutshell
Advantages: Arcanotechnology. Only group that can field non-purchasable vehicles. Excellent industrial ability
Disadvantages: Arcanotechnology requires significant industrial input, lowest stealth rating. Lowest max infiltration ratings.
Archetype Mechanics
Starting Points: 250
Infiltration-
Judicial Infiltration: 15 SP per 1, max 5
Military Infiltration: 15 SP per 1, max 5
Media Infiltration: 15 SP per 1, max 5
Fronts-
Starts with 1, additional cost 15 SP per 1.
Infrastructure-
Income (Illegal): 1 SP per 1
Production: 1 SP per 1
Personnel: 1 SP per 30
Arcanotechnology: 3 SP per 1
Stealth-
1 SP per 15 SP of Infrastructure, starts w/15
Assets-
Equipment: 1 SP per 20 points
Combat Agents: 12 SP per 1 (max 3)
Intelligence Agents: 12 SP per 1 (max 3)
Knowledge-
3 free points
+1 Occult
Anu Foundation
Created: <4000 BC
Special Advantage: Mana
Origin Country: Sumer
Originally the Order of Anu, the Foundation was the earliest group to step up and fight the darkness. Shrouded in mystery, even its members know little of its ancient history, save that it was originally a group of Sumerian priests which fought to drive away the horrible monstrosities in unexplored lands. Having reinvented its public face sometime in the 18th century as a business and a charity, it recruits those with magical talent-those with the blood of the original priests flowing through their veins-and uses them to fight a war. It only recruits those with magical potential, and trains them to use it.
But despite the expectation of mages being divorced from reality, they know that sometimes problems are solved more cheaply with applications of military hardware.
In a Nutshell
Advantages: Magical Aptitude, powerful spells. Extreme Occult knowledge, heavy Judicial infiltration. Lighter infrastructure means easy stealth, extremely powerful Agents.
Disadvantages: Mana is quickly expended in combat, very expensive personnel.
Archetype Mechanics
Starting Points: 250
Infiltration-
Judicial Infiltration: 10 SP per 1, max 8
Military Infiltration: 20 SP per 1, max 3
Media Infiltration: 12 SP per 1, max 6
Fronts-
Starts with 1, additional cost 12 SP per 1.
Infrastructure-
Income (Illegal): 1 SP per 1
Production: 5 SP per 1
Personnel: 1 SP per 5
Mana: 2 SP per 1
Stealth-
1 SP per 60 SP of Infrastructure, starts w/40
Assets-
Equipment: 1 SP per 10 points
Combat Agents: 15 SP per 1 (max 2)
Intelligence Agents: 15 SP per 1 (max 2)
Knowledge-
2 free points
+2 Occult
+1 Negotiation
SV8
Created: ~1890, reorganized 1920
Special Advantage: Biotics
Origin Country: Russia, former USSR
SV8 originally was the Circle of 8, an order of knights sworn to protect Russia from foul beasts and eldritch abominations. Chivalry being rather out of fashion after the Communist revolution, the Circle of 8 became the Group of 8 in the 1920s, and eventually took the name "SV8" in 1931. They fought using the very tools that the enemy had, for what is the best counter to monsters but other beings with identical ability? SV8 greatly expanded during WWII, and had a bitter rivalry with the Karotechnia of Nazi Germany, one that did not end with the surrender of Germany.
SV8 survived many incidents of intense supernatural activity, but was no match for time and corruption. With the collapse of the USSR and the cutting of funding in many places SV8 was one of the first casualties, a group that didn't seem to do anything at all save soak up money and taking healthy sons and daughters, returning them with missing limbs and unsound minds. To survive, they had to go into the criminal business-and it has done very well. Although technically fighting for humanity, most who know of its existence would not shed a tear if SV8 was annihilated tomorrow.
Biotics is the technique of grafting eldritch, alien matter to human bodies. Far superior to even top of the line cybernetics, these implants carry a heavy cost in the destruction of the user's mind and body over months or years.
In a Nutshell
Advantages: Biotics creates incredibly powerful one-man armies. Highest Judicial infiltration, cheap illegal wealth. Easy manpower.
Disadvantages: Those one-man armies generally end up insane too. Being a criminal organization it has very low military/media infiltration. Rusty, broken-down equipment.
Archetype Mechanics
Starting Points: 250
Infiltration-
Judicial Infiltration: 8 SP per 1, max 10
Military Infiltration: 20 SP per 1, max 3
Media Infiltration: 20 SP per 1, max 3
Fronts-
Starts with 1, additional cost 10 SP per 1.
Infrastructure-
Income (Illegal): 1 SP per 3
Production: 5 SP per 2
Personnel: 1 SP per 40
Biotics: 5 SP per 1
Stealth-
1 SP per 40 SP of Infrastructure, starts w/30
Assets-
Equipment: 1 SP per 5 points
Combat Agents: 10 SP per 1 (max 4)
Intelligence Agents: 10 SP per 1 (max 4)
Knowledge-
3 free points
+1 Streetwise
+1 Negotiation
Company of Jesus
Created: 1540
Special Advantage: Faith
Origin Country: France
The Company of Jesus was formed to perform missionary and hospital work throughout the world, but also to go "without question" to wherever the pope might direct. The founders believed God had brought them together-and so He did, but for something else entirely than helping create hospitals and schools. A close-knit brotherhood is naturally one of the most effective tools against the horrors that lurk in the shadows, and the Jesuits became a major player in keeping Europe safe for centuries. Expanding and changing to match advancing technology and the march of history, they are still major players today.
Scholars and priests, they nevertheless know that they may have to take up the sword. It is not a task the ones initiated into the hidden purpose of the organization take lightly. They are made strong by personal faith and divine favor, but also with their extensive libraries of hidden research on the supernatural.
In a Nutshell
Advantages: High Occult Knowledge, cheap infrastructure.
Disadvantages: Most of that infrastructure is hard to hide.
Archetype Mechanics
Starting Points: 250
Infiltration-
Judicial Infiltration: 10 SP per 1, max 7
Military Infiltration: 10 SP per 1, max 7
Media Infiltration: 10 SP per 1, max 7
Fronts-
Starts with 2, additional cost 10 SP per 1.
Infrastructure-
Income (Illegal): 1 SP per 3
Production: 5 SP per 2
Personnel: 1 SP per 50
Miracles: 3 SP per 1
Stealth-
1 SP per 30 SP of Infrastructure, starts w/20
Assets-
Equipment: 1 SP per 10 points
Combat Agents: 10 SP per 1 (max 5)
Intelligence Agents: 10 SP per 1 (max 5)
Knowledge-
4 free points
+1 Occult
+1 Negotiation
Mechanics
Infiltration
Although people know that something might not be completely right with the world, you're still illegal and working in the shadows. Therefore to get anything done, you must infiltrate organs of government or corporations to ensure that you are not exposed and killed off, whether by the people you wish to save or by your enemies when you are made vulnerable. Infiltration allows you to manipulate the organs of government in your favor. Beware, other groups can do the same. Each infiltration score goes from 0 to 10, where 0 means you have no contacts in that group and 10 means you have a significant presence inside that allows you to basically do what you want as long as you don't do anything too crazy.
Judicial Infiltration
Judicial Infiltration represents how well you can bend the law to your will. When discovered committing a crime (and you will be committing crimes, lots of them), Judicial Infiltration can get an agent out of jail, or keep them from ever seeing trial. Furthermore, having access to police assets makes information-gathering much, much easier, and makes it easier to siphon off promising detectives and human intelligence sources.
Military Infiltration
Military Infiltration allows superior access to replacement combat agents, as well as access to heavier weapons and equipment. Furthermore military infiltration also assists in botched operations because if you have feelers and moles inside their command chain the chances are that special ops commando team they dispatched to hunt you down is busy kicking down doors on the other side of the world, chasing red herrings.
Media Infiltration
Media infiltration lets you cover up your actions by having someone "debunk" them, printing them in tabloids so outrageous people reject the truth, or just plain releasing an official-looking press release that gives a plausible explanation for everything happening. People fundamentally want to believe everything is all right, and media manipulation allows you to keep that veil.
Fronts
Similarly, front companies can be very useful in many ways. Front companies are run by your compact, and generally do not know what their upper management really does. However, they are an excellent source of resources, especially legal income. Each front company you purchase generates 30 income for your cause, which can be used as you see fit. However, this being legal income, it has a significant paper trail and can only be safely used in legal outlets (defense fees, medical care, some types of hardware purchases and maintenance, etc). It can be used for illegal purchases but that always comes with a risk.
Infrastructure
Even hidden compacts need to have their own facilities to build what they cannot easily acquire. The three basic types of infrastructure are Illegal Income, Production, and Personnel. Furthermore all organizations have a organization-specific type of Infrastructure that allows them to build certain items that are exclusive to them.
Illegal Income
Sometimes you need money that does not leave a paper or electronic trail. This is necessary for purchasing black market material, paying people who shouldn't exist, funding local terrorist groups, and other acts that would leave a red flag in your bank accounts normally. Illegal income is safe to use in any situation, insofar as buying illegal weapons or funding terrorism or putting out hits can be "safe".
Production
Production is used to build things you need built that you really, really don't want to buy openly, like IEDs, anti-tank satchel charges, silver bullets, assault cannons, and things that generally would arouse at least some suspicion. Most compacts will not have sufficient production to construct anything particularly large very often, but it'll likely be enough to arm a few groups.
Producing illegal items is often safer than buying them on the black market, and having very little of it makes it difficult to acquire the gear necessary to hunt down the menaces that lurk in the dark without bringing up flags. For the enemy, too, can use many of the tactics you do.
Personnel
Personnel are men and women who know about the compact and are capable of assisting it. Your personnel pool is where you recruit spies, saboteurs, and soldiers from to fight in this invisible war. A compact may have access to much more manpower than just the personnel pool, but the pool represents people who know at least something of what waits in the night and their enemies.
Special
All archetypes have a differing special infrastructure type that represents their ability to make use of their exclusive equipment or capabilities. Although expensive, without this equipment you will generally be outclassed by foes who do use occult rituals and foul arcanotechnologies to enhance their agents. Be aware that at least for some groups, they require production capacity alongside their special infrastructure to make use of it.
Stealth
Large conspiracies are harder to hide. The stealth rating maxes out at 100, in which case you are completely invisible, nobody knows you exist. At 0, you have gone public, and that means bad, bad, bad things are going to happen. The higher your stealth rating the easier time you will have furthering your infiltration, weaseling out of negative consequences, and spending time fighting the enemy instead of the judicial system.
Knowledge
Not all groups have similar aptitudes. In Smoke and Mirrors, there are five basic group aptitudes, rated from 0 (base) to 5 (incredible). Aptitudes are relatively versatile but only provide moderate boosts to abilities in their areas.
Tactics: Tactics is how well you do when you're kicking down doors and hitting things in the face, whether they be a bunch of cultists armed with AKs and RPGs, or the spawn of an Elder God. Although this is useful, one caveat is that kicking down a door is going to draw a lot of negative attention, and any type of attention is bad attention.
Assassination: An entirely different aptitude, assassination improves your ability to eliminate single targets in covert operations. Because why take on that Elder God with small arms when you can shoot the guy who plans to summon it before it happens?
Negotiation: Negotiation makes buying things less costly and also is vital for convincing people that you don't exist. This can represent charisma, or just a hell of a lot of blackmail material available on everyone.
Streetwise: The mundane equivalent of Occult, Streetwise is a knowledge of who to talk to, which black market dealer sells what and how to get them to sell you what you need, who has the juiciest rumors, who's reliable and who's not...
Occult: Occult is critical for outplanning and outguessing the enemy.
Assets
Agents
Agents are the people in your organization who go far, far above and beyond the call of duty. They are heroic figures who don't die easily and are much more likely to accomplish a mission. Although your personnel can be trained, equipped, and given duties, Agents generally do them far, far better. Agents make better use of equipment, are less likely to be discovered, and far less likely to get killed off than mooks are. Given the expenses of items such as arcanotechnology, relics, and advanced armory equipment, Agents are far more likely to recieve high-end equipment.
Combat Agents
Dutch. John Matrix. Rambo. Jack Bauer. You know combat agents by many names. Every one of them is an investment to be treasured, and will mow down fields of mooks. Combat Agents specialize in kicking ass, whether it's with knives or with a suit of power armor and a rocket launcher in each hand.
Intelligence Agents
James Bond. Sam Fisher. Solid Snake. Altair, even. Intelligence Agents are much better than normal spies at infiltrating enemy hideouts and foiling their plans. However, if caught in a fight most of them can handle themselves fairly well, and have significant combat ability of their own. They make excellent espionage agents, as well as deadly assassins.
Equipment
Equipment is used to give your mooks something to fight with. Bare hands versus horrible extradimensional claws is generally not a winning prospect.
Personal Equipment
Legal
Civilian Pistols (100 units per 1 wealth): Good civilian pistols are cheap and reliable-excellent tools for people who only need minimal self-defense capacity that can be easily concealed. However when I say minimal, I mean minimal.
Civilian Longarms (100 units per 1 wealth): Although not capable of using high-velocity armor piercing ammunition, nor equipping many of the accessories military-grade firearms are, civilian firearms are reasonably useful against weaker enemies like unarmored humans.
Marksman Rifles (10 units per 1 wealth): Highly accurate rifles, these can be used for hunting animals or hunting cultists just fine.
"Elephant Guns" (5 units per 1 wealth): "Elephant Guns" are a broad-ranging category of extremely large-caliber unwieldy weapons. Although difficult to use effectively against eldritch horrors that may shrug off entire magazines of standard rifle fire, they will often be the only legal recourse.
Nonlethal Weapons (20 units per 1 wealth): There are times where you want someone alive, instead of dead. There are times when that person might fight back. These are weapons for those times.
Concealable Body Armor (10 units per 1 wealth): High-grade concealable armor can stop most civilian pistol rounds, edged weapons, and a handful of military AP pistol rounds without being easily visible.
Heavy Body Armor (5 units per 1 wealth): Heavy Body Armor is much more effective at stopping bullets and blades but is not concealable.
Nightvision (5 units per 1 wealth): Nightvision systems make the dark a lot less scary. This just means you have more time to be afraid of what's in it.
Surveillance Equipment (2 units per 1 wealth): Bugs and the like are legal to purchase, if not always legal to use. When the enemy is also hidden, you may want to invest in it.
Paramedic Kit (2 units per 1 wealth): Most agents are going to need patching up, unless they're cybered up to the eyeballs or biotically enhanced. Paramedic kits increase the chances someone will survive long enough to get there.
Illegal
NOTE: Illegal weapons may often be marked up depending on your relation with the black market.
Small IEDs (50 units per 1 wealth, single-use): Generally not purchased, Improvised Explosive Devices are buildable with the contents of a decent chemistry lab and electronics store. These IEDs are generally smaller designs, capable of booby-trapping a room or wounding human-sized foes. However, their backyard engineering makes them not nearly as reliable as military-grade explosives.
Large IEDs (5 units per 1 wealth, single-use): Larger IEDs can be used to destroy vehicles if properly emplaced, as well as kill larger, more dangerous foes.
Very Large IEDs (5 wealth per unit, single-use): When subtlety is completely out the window sometimes the only recourse is a truck bomb. Beware, Very Large IEDs are extremely dangerous to one's own secrecy and are likely to bring the wrath of a god (or at least government special operations groups) down on you.
Machine Pistols (50 units per 1 wealth): Machine pistols are like standard pistols but with full automatic fire. Only truly effective against weak foes, their high rate of fire lets you at least pretend to defend yourself against eldritch horrors.
Machine Guns (10 units per 1 wealth): Excellent antipersonnel weapons, machine guns are useful for mowing down hordes or pumping larger creatures full of lead. Either way, they are fairly effective weapons against all sorts of foes.
Grenade Launchers (1 unit per 1 wealth): Advanced grenade launchers can fire a variety of payloads against enemies. Useful against groups, armored enemies, buildings, and the occasional vehicle.
Antimateriel Rifles (2 wealth per unit): Antimateriel Rifles are generally advanced weapons firing large-caliber armor piercing munitions. Normally they might be overkill, but sometimes there are eldritch horrors that just don't quit unless you hit them with a 20mm shell.
Anti-Tank Weapons (1 unit per 1 wealth, single-use): Ranging from advanced rocket-propelled grenades to smart missiles, sometimes you really want to throw subtlety out the window. Usable against tanks and things that take as much punishment as tanks, unless you want to face off some horrible demon spawn with just rifles, you might want to invest in a handful.
Enhanced Imaging (1 unit per wealth): Combining IR, light amplification, lidar, and a host of other senses, EI or "Gargoyle" gear provides a soldier with an impressive view of the battlefield.
Adaptive Camo Systems (10 wealth per unit): Expensive, but well worth it, adaptive camo allows an agent to reduce their visibility. Although still visible to close inspection, especially when not hiding behind cover or shadows, it allows them to stay relatively undetected in many situations.
Combat Armor (5 wealth per unit): Combat Armor uses lightweight polymer plates, combined with ballistic fabric and shear-thickening fluid to create armor that is light and very protective, although extremely difficult to acquire and almost always questionably legal at best.
Powered Armor (15 wealth per 1 unit): Highly expensive, power armor only sees use in the militaries of first world countries. Acquiring one on the black market would be extremely difficult to attempt without good connections. However, its combination of mobility, protection, and ability to wield heavy firepower makes it a very desired device for any hunter.
Vehicles
Vehicles are a necessity for getting around in a postmodern city rapidly, as well as getting anywhere with serious hardware. Most vehicles will only be used for transportation, but some can be valuable in a combat situation in their own right.
All vehicles have an upkeep cost that must be paid over the specified interval. Military vehicles will generally also require you to purchase the requisite equipment from the black market, or produce it, which makes them very difficult to keep in working order.
Legal
Civilian Cars (1 wealth per unit, upkeep 0.25 wealth/year): Civilian cars come in many shapes and forms, but all generally are similar enough to be essentially interchangeable. Fuel cell powered, capable of carrying 4 and a driver, with a trunk that's just about the right size to keep a few machine guns or a corpse inside. Civilian cars come with 2 slots for equipment.
Sports Cars (5 wealth per unit, upkeep 0.5 wealth/year): Luxury vehicles, sports cars have superior handling but generally sacrifice in trunk size and passenger capacity. Toys for the rich and wealthy, these vehicles are often used when one needs speed and maneuverability-in a car chase, for example. Designed for customizability but often smaller and with lower reliability than normal vehicles, sports cars have 1 upgrade slot.
SUVs (2 wealth per unit, upkeep 0.5 wealth/year): SUVs are about as fast as civilian cars and have a lot more room in them, enough to carry a fully armed and loaded squad of soldiers in relative comfort. With tinted windows and some judicious driving to avoid police (or just bribes), nobody will notice the armed and armored assault team until they get out, even. SUVs also make excellent technicals, with 3 upgrade slots.
Trucks/Moving Vans (8 wealth per unit, upkeep 1 wealth/year): Fullsize vehicles can carry more personnel and heavier equipment, and if you are bored out of your mind, can be modified with a fairly nasty arsenal of other gear. Trucks have 4 upgrade slots.
Hovercars (15 wealth per unit, upkeep 0.5 wealth/month): Another luxury toy, spinners are "flying cars" as it were. Although with less cargo capacity and upgrade capacity than civilian cars, and far less affordable, they are useful for extreme speed of response, capable of making speeds easily triple that of a tweaked sports car, and not having to worry about roads or traffic.
VIP Sedan (15 wealth per unit, upkeep 0.25 wealth/month): A VIP Sedan is a civilian car, uparmored to give protective qualities, equipped with an overcharged engine, and sometimes with integrated firing ports for the bodyguards inside. The increase in cost is significant-so much so that the authentic leather seats and integrated minifridge pretty much come free. VIP Sedans come with 1 equipment slot.
Illegal
Police Cars (8 wealth per unit, upkeep 1 wealth/year): Although not as capable of performing as sports cars are, police cars are armored sufficiently to resist light small arms-fire, as well as having reinforced bumpers for ramming. Police cars come with 2 upgrade slots. Police cars are also illegal mainly because of their sirens and the ability to use one to masquerade as legitimate law enforcement. This use is extremely important for many operations.
Military Jeeps (10 wealth per unit, upkeep 0.25 wealth/month): Designed with integrated armor, a weapons mount, and overpowered engines, military light vehicles are dangerous but not precisely subtle, although an unarmed variant can often be confused with the street-legal kind. Furthermore they aren't exactly maintenance-free, either, and cost a fair amount to keep running in top form. Military Jeeps have 3 upgrade slots and are already equipped with the capability of carrying a vehicle weapon.
Black SUVs (25 wealth per unit, upkeep 1 wealth/month): Sometimes you need a combination of both discreetness, transport capacity, and combat capacity. A Black SUV is what happens when you take a regular SUV, give it the most powerful engine you can, load it with enough armor to stop anything short of an antimateriel rifle, active defense systems, and hidden compartments, as well as potentially a hidden weapons mount for when you absolutely must hose people down with heavy machine gun fire. Black SUVs can carry a vehicle weapon and have 3 upgrade slots.
Cargo VTOLs (100 wealth per unit, upkeep 5 wealth/month): The future equivalent of Black Hawks or Ospreys, Cargo VTOLs can drop a dozen heavily-armed, power-armored specialists wherever you need them, when you need them. Equipped with ballistic armor and active defenses, they're also extremely survivable, although they can be taken down by even fairly cheap firepower. Cargo VTOLs have 2 upgrade slots and can carry a pair of vehicle weapons.
Attack VTOLs (150 wealth per unit, upkeep 10 wealth/month): Most organizations embrace subtlety, but some prefer to have firepower available right now. Attack VTOLs are a perfect blend of speed, survivability, and firepower, but are the worst thing that ever existed when it comes to being subtle. Normally armed with anti-armor smart missiles, a turret mounted cannon, and equipped with AI targeting assistance, an attack VTOL is what you use when you either have no other choice or have utmost certainty that you can explain away what just happened. Attack VTOLs have 2 upgrade slots, but automatically come with both Anti-Armor Missile Launchers and a Vehicle Coilgun.
Special Traits
Advanced Armory
Task Force NEMESIS has the ability to requisition highly experimental weapons and equipment to use against its foes. Although nowhere near as powerful as the gear others can use, NEMESIS has some of the most highly trained and motivated field agents in the business. Furthermore, its experimental weapons are often specifically targeted at supernatural threats, although their use of science as we know it weakens their combat usefulness.
Etheric Rounds
Cost: 1 Advanced Armory, 1 production for 100
Type: Weapon Enhancement, Single Use
Radiation-treated, Etheric Rounds emit dangerous levels of hard radiation shifted into a spectra that allows them to affect ethereal targets. Although they are still solid rounds, the soft silver-polonium alloy they use is not nearly as effective as dedicated military-grade ammunition against most non-ethereal foes.
Pheromone Damper
Cost: 1 Advanced Armory, 2 production
Type: Equipment
Pheromone Dampers are designed to mask the scent of the user, making them difficult to detect by enemies who use smell. Many foes have senses that extend beyond sight and sound, making these critical for covert operations.
Cyberbugs
Cost: 2 Advanced Armory, 1 production
Type: Surveillance Equipment (single-use)
Cybernetic insects fitted with recording and sensors gear, cyberbugs are sometimes used when conventional bugs cannot be easily planted.
Hunter Goggles
Cost: 5 Advanced Armory, 1 production for 1
Type: Sensor Equipment (Implantable)
Nobody knows why, but most supernatural occurrences have a "tell" that can be scanned for. Ghosts for example often cause anomalous radiation signatures or strange electromagnetic interference. Shapeshifters leave an odd pheromone trail, and mages have their own tells. Hunter Goggles pair advanced sensors to a computer system that can correlate these tells to detect evidence of the supernatural. You cannot, after all, hunt what you cannot see, and unlike many of the other groups they do not have mystical relics or magical powers that allow them to do so. The Implantable version costs 5 production and requires access to hospital facilities.
Reactive Armor
Cost: 2 Advanced Armory, 1 production for 1
Type: Body Armor (Implantable)
Reactive Armor uses advanced materials engineering to create a flexible, elastic material that is almost completely unencumbering but highly protective when struck. Enhancing conventional armor, Reactive Armor can greatly add to the survivability of a person so equipped. The implantable variant costs 5 production and requires access to hospital facilities.
Smartgun System
Cost: 5 Advanced Armory, 1 production for 1
Type: Weapon Enhancement
Most modern military arms come with aim-assistance programs and devices. However, the Smartgun system, designed to deal with enemies which are supernaturally fast and dextrous, takes that to an extreme by almost entirely cutting the human out of the loop. Instead of a trigger the Smartgun has a toggle, which if removed will allow it to automatically track and fire on any target that does not match a preprogrammed database of exceptions. It uses a variety of sensors-infrared, motion scanning, radar, and geiger, to ensure that it will fire when it's supposed to and not when it doesn't. However, against foes which may disguise themselves as humans with reasonable accuracy it will often refuse to fire, causing the death of its wielder. Field agents have found a modification that removes the safety overrides, but in this case the Smartgun is literally a loose cannon, and will target and fire on just about anything in the frontal arc of the user. Field agents who are found using this modification are, at best, immediately transfered to noncombat duty. More often harsher consequences are inflicted.
Man-Portable Laser Weapon
Cost: 15 Advanced Armory, 5 production for 1
Type: Weapon
Upkeep: 1 production/use
An advanced if experimental and unwieldy weapon, the man-portable laser is designed to counter enemies that are resistant to projectiles due to their structure-certain types of shapeshifters have no vital organs to damage, while many other creatures are difficult to wound with bullets because they are distributed swarms, or similar structures. A heavy laser weapon solves these problems, even if it is expensive to field and each shot costs a fortune in high-powered capacitor packs.
Equalizer Grenade
Cost: 1 Advanced Armory, 1 production for 1
Type: Single Use
Shapeshifters and sorcerers are both common foes, but both require concentration to take advantage of their greatest advantages. The Equalizer is intended to deny them this, by using pulses of both sound and light to cause seizures. A mage that cannot chant or move cannot cast easily, and a shapeshifter that is uncontrollably altering shape is vulnerable for a few precious seconds-long enough to take them down using specialized weaponry. Fortunately or unfortunately, Equalizers are not guaranteed effective, and are expensive to produce and use.
Neural Scan System
Cost: 30 Advanced Armory, 10 production for 1
Type: Heavy Equipment
A NSS is a lie detector, a fairly powerful one. It allows one to accurately tell whether someone is telling the truth or a falsehood, but it can't give you the truth if you don't already know it.
Relic
The Praetorians have powerful Relics that can turn the tide of battles. However, Relics are comparatively rarer than reproducible items, and similarly more obvious. A man with a new and unknown weapon is just corp security or military. A man carrying a golden shield and sword are very different. Praetorians discover new Relics from museums or archaeological digs, taking items with great symbolic value and then performing rituals that turn their symbolic value into usable enhancements.
The Eye of Truth
Cost: 2 Relic
Type: Implantable
The Eye of Truth is a brass-gold replica of an eye, presumably created for a king which lost his in ancient times. When implanted into a field agent, the eye allows them to see if a person they are looking at has a major secret to hide, as well as if someone one is talking to is lying. However, the eye does not discern between irrelevances such as cheating on one's spouse or being a secret sadomasochist, or planning to summon an elder god to wipe the world out. Furthermore, as a portable lie detector it also has one major issue-it cannot tell you the truth.
Arcanotechnology
Fusing magical power with cutting-edge technology, Kiryu-Kai can create some inordinately impressive equipment for its agents, but it is similarly expensive.
Mana
Unlike the others, these are not items, but magical abilities that can be activated. Mana can be used to create small effects, like warping probability, or large and obvious effects, but the latter are not recommended if one wishes to stay discreet. A "multiple-use" spell only must pay the activation cost once for a given sim, but a single-use spell must pay once per activation.
Healing
Cost: 1 Mana, multiple use
A basic spell, the ability to heal wounds in the field is inordinately powerful, something that other groups would generally kill for. As long as a mage can continue to cast, he can cure light to moderate wounds instantly but not someone who is at death's door.
Zap
Cost: 1 Mana, multiple use
A simple attack spell, this takes many forms from electrical bolts to fireballs to wounds simply spontaneously appearing on the target. About equivalent in firepower to a civilian longarm, Zap has one significant advantage in that it cannot be detected and can easily be snuck into secure areas.
Jinx
Cost: 1 Mana, single use
Cursing someone with poor luck is a oft-attributed power to magicians. In this case the bad luck is short-term, but almost immediately manifests. Guns misfire, electronics crash, people trip and fall off stairs-and bad things happen to the unfortunate.
Biotics
Implanting the parts of eldritch abominations into one's agents is useful, but also dangerously risky. All Biotic components have an Insanity rating, which is how much damage they do to the user's psyche. Obviously the higher the level is the more likely someone is to go cuckoo and jeopardize your mission objectives.
True Faith
Similar to mana, True Faith can be used to cause miracles, from the subtle to the extreme.