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.
Setting
BosWash Conurbation, formerly owned by America, Incorporated. Made of towering skyscrapers and idyllic suburbs, it is sterile and perhaps the closest thing one can get to utopia in this world, but that merely lets the citizens inside ignore the horrible poverty of the outside. Outside the fences and automated guard turrets there are the slums, the secondary economy of criminals, prostitutes, and vagrants who came here to find riches and ended up becoming one of the dregs of society. Although life was never good, rumors of horrible things have been spreading recently, and slum-dwellers have been going missing, one by one. The police don't care, and if anything have gotten more hostile to the poor lately.
It all comes down to the Umbrella, a protective dome being grown over BosWash by experimental nanotech to protect from ultraviolet radiation. Designed to be selectively permeable to most types of radiation, it would mean that people could finally walk out in the open without requiring high-SPF sunscreen or getting horrible cancers and disfigurements. Of course, there is a cloud for every silver lining, and there are prophecies of an "Undying God" which will rise again once "the sun sets forever upon the dead heart of a nation's power". And what is BosWash but a new the capitol of the defunct United States? Vague as the prophecies are, preventing them from coming true is your job.
You are invisible warriors, fighting an invisible war against a foe which seeks nothing less than to resurrect a god.
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
Mechanics
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.
Combat Agents can carry up to 2 weapons, 1 armor, and 3 miscellaneous items. They have no limit to implants or specialized training.
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.
Intelligence Agents can be given 1 weapon, 1 armor, and 3 miscellaneous items. They also do not have implant or training limits.
Personnel
Personnel are your lifeblood. Although Agents are far more powerful, they are also much rarer. Personnel can play multiple roles, and a compact without personnel is one that will soon collapse. Personnel can be assigned to duties, each of which has a requisite of support staff-personnel assigned to support staff cannot be assigned to a role.
Combat Jobs
Militant
Training Costs: None
Support Staff Requirement: None
Maximum Implant Limit: 1
Maximum Special Skills: None
Maximum Items: 1 Weapon, 1 Armor
Your basic mook with a hoodie, an AK-47, and way too much confidence in their ability. They aren't terribly competent but man they're motivated. Although capable of handling expensive equipment they are generally poor at using them effectively.
Soldier
Training Costs: 1 Wealth
Support Staff Requirement: 1 per 1
Maximum Implant Limit: 2
Maximum Special Skills: 1
Maximum Items: 1 Weapon, 1 Armor, 1 Other
Soldiers are professionals, well-trained and better equipped, but still a bit overmatched by the enemy. However, they're perfectly good against the vast majority of cultists, who are basically about as competent as Militants.
Elite
Training Costs: 5 Wealth
Support Staff Requirement: 4 per 1
Maximum Implant Limit: 3
Maximum Special Skills: 2
Maximum Items: 1 Weapon, 1 Armor, 1 Other
Elites are the hardcore soldiers that have a half-decent shot at taking out an eldritch abomination in a one-on-one fight. Generally ex-Marine or ex-Ranger types, or just trained from a young age by the order, they are extremely deadly with anything you give them.
Special Operations
Training Costs: 10 Wealth
Support Staff Requirement: 9 per 1
Maximum Implant Limit: 5
Maximum Special Skills: 3
Maximum Items: 1 Weapon, 1 Armor, 2 Other
Special Forces aren't much more deadly than elites on the field of battle. Their main additional expense comes from being extremely skilled in unconventional warfare, including assassinations, blending in with locals, and other duties that elites are not trained for. However, they also require an immense staff of assistants out of the field to assist them.
Intelligence Jobs
Spy
Training Costs: 5 Wealth
Support Staff Requirement: 4 per 1
Maximum Implant Limit: 2
Maximum Special Skills: 3
Maximum Items: 1 Weapon, 1 Armor, 2 Other
Spies are your main way of finding things out. Most are completely combat untrained, although with some additional training they can at least defend themselves, or work as serviceable assassins.
Analyst
Training Costs: 5 Wealth
Support Staff Requirement: None
Maximum Implant Limit: 1
Maximum Special Skills: None
Maximum Items: 1 Weapon
Analysts do signals intelligence, poring over documents for hints of the enemy's plans or hideouts. They don't go out in the field and are therefore much more poorly equipped and trained in fieldcraft.
Other Jobs
Cleaner
Training Costs: 2 Wealth
Support Staff Requirement: 1 per 1
Maximum Implant Limit: 2
Maximum Special Skills: 1
Maximum Items: 1 Weapon, 1 Armor
A "Cleaner" is a PR agent, trained mostly to help cover things up. These are critical to your functioning as a conspiracy instead of a publicly observable organization.
Recruiter
Training Costs: 5 Wealth
Support Staff Requirement: 4 per 1
Maximum Implant Limit: 2
Maximum Special Skills: 1
Maximum Items: 1 Weapon, 1 Armor
Recruiters are critical to expansion, as they are skilled at finding the ones who would both be enough to further one's goals and trustworthy enough to allow in on the secret. Each recruiter brings in 1 person per month as additional manpower.
Worker
Training Costs: 1 Wealth
Support Staff Requirement: None
Maximum Implant Limit: 1
Maximum Special Skills: None
Maximum Items: 1 Weapon
Workers run your factories. For every production you have, you must have 1 worker.
Businessmen
Training Costs: 1 Wealth
Support Staff Requirement: None
Maximum Implant Limit: 1
Maximum Special Skills: None
Maximum Items: 1 Weapon
Businessmen run your illegal income. You must have 1 per illegal income.
Special Skills
Special skills are specialties that allow personnel to deal with specialized circumstances. Giving a unit a special skill adds an additional surcharge for special training.
Combat-Related
Advanced Combat Training (Cost 1): Primarily available to spies, Advanced Combat Training allows them to defend themselves as competently as a soldier. This is also available to Cleaners and Recruiters. Obviously military types already have combat training and do not require any additional.
Black Ops Training (Cost 3): Black Ops training is only available to spies and allows them to fight about as well as an Elite infantry unit. Black Ops Training requires the spy to have Advanced Combat Training as well, and supercedes that ability.
Combat Engineer (Cost 1): A unit with combat engineer capability is capable of dealing with things like IEDs, booby traps, alarms, and other commonly used deterrence methods. Whether they're planting them or defusing them, they're still experts.
Sniper Training (Cost 5): A unit with this is an expert marksman and has improved accuracy with all weapons.
Defensive Driving (Cost 5): A unit with this capability is an expert in handling a vehicle in a combat situation. This is not a requisite to piloting vehicles in general.
Airborne Infantry (cost 2): A unit with this advantage can rapidly deploy, via parachute drop or fastrope, from VTOLs.
Combat Diver (cost 2): A unit with this advantage can undertake amphibious operations.
Technical
Medical Training (Cost 3): A person with this skill has the ability to use medical equipment to stabilize wounded friendlies or bystanders.
Electronics Training (Cost 3): A person with electronics training can plant bugs, hack computers and otherwise do technical stuff related to electronics.
Observer Training (Cost 3): A person with this training has learned to look for and memorize important details by instinct, like faces, license numbers, and the like.
NBC Training (Cost 5): A person with this skill knows how to deal with nuclear, biological, and chemical threats. Quite useful, really.
Pilot Training (Cost 10): A person with this skill knows how to make effective use of Military Jeeps, LAVs, Cargo VTOLs, and Attack VTOLs. Kiryu-Kai members with this skill are also qualified as GOLEM pilots. This is not the same thing as Defensive Driving.
Full Cyborg Adjustment (Cost 10): A person with this training has fully adjusted to being a full conversion cyborg and can have as one of their implants a full conversion cyborg body.
Illegal Activity Training (Cost 3): This ability allows a person so equipped to deal with criminals more smoothly. This is most commonly found on spies that are used to keep in contact with black market arms dealers.
Interrogation Resistance (Cost 1): A unit with this ability is much more resistant to interrogation methods including torture and will take longer to break.
Zeroed (Cost 5): A person with this does not exist in official databases and is not easily traced back to you.
Equipment
Equipment is used to give your mooks something to fight with. Bare hands versus horrible extradimensional claws is generally not a winning prospect. Equipment can be bought, or it can be produced. 1 Production can produce 1 wealth worth of equipment, however it only costs 2 wealth to use 3 units of production. Therefore, producing your own equipment has a notable cost advantage. Furthermore, equipment that is produced does not suffer from black market markups.
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 military PDWs, using rounds designed more for armor penetration and low recoil than stopping power. Only truly effective against weak foes, their high rate of fire lets you at least pretend to defend yourself against eldritch horrors.
Assault Rifles (25 units per 1 wealth): With advanced electronics integrated, and normally using high-velocity rounds for maximum armor penetration, ARs are the staple infantry weapon, and excellent general-purpose tools for dealing with enemy combatants when subtlety has gone out the window.
Machine Guns (10 units per 1 wealth): Deadly 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 sniper rifles 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 3 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.
Augmentations
Augmentations are fairly common in 2038, although they are not ubiquitous. Originally military in use, civilian cybernetics is still an immature field (save for cosmetic enhancement), with most augmentations dealing more towards making someone better in combat. Augmentations are generally a combination of genetic treatments (to prevent rejection and reduce negative side effects) and hardware.
Civilian Augs
Muscle Boosters (2 wealth): A person with muscle boosters is enhanced by grafted synthetic muscle as well as cardiovascular capacity boosters. As cheap strength augmentation, it works well, moderately increasing one's capability in melee combat.
Agility Boosters (5 wealth): A more expensive modification, agility enhancement is a combination of treatments to reduce reaction time, as well as modifications to muscle chemistry. Agility boosters increase one's movement speed and defense.
DNI (5 wealth): A DNI is used for many situations, including interfacing with vehicles and computers. DNI-equipped soldiers make excellent pilots,
Backup Systems (5 wealth): A backup set of vital organs/systems allows one so implanted to survive more grievous harm than normal.
Sense augmentation (5 wealth): Improved senses increase the ability to see things that are "off". They also provide nightvision which allows you to no longer carry around a set of NVGs, freeing up that item slot for something else.
Cosmetic Mods (2 wealth): Cosmetic mods are normally used to look good, but they also have one important use-hiding other cybernetics. Obviously certain full-conversions cannot be hidden (like the Dragoon).
Military-Grade Augs
Wired Reflexes (5 wealth): Adding a second neural net of wiring and implanted computers that take over the body when certain stimuli are met, Wired Reflexes allow a soldier to react extremely quickly to predetermined events.
Myomer Body Augmentation (5 wealth): Myomer artificial muscles are implanted in the user's body, as well as support struts for bone. The end result is a person who is much stronger than normal.
Skul-Gun (5 wealth): You have a gun. In your head. That shoots bullets. You can kill at the speed of thought now, you no longer need to worry about punks that can draw a pistol before you can draw your assault gun. The days of complaining about being a target practice backstop are over!
Dermal Armor (10 wealth): Although extremely expensive the additional protection from dermal armor is well worth it, as it supplements armor. Alone, it is only as protective as concealable body armor but this protection is cumulative with whatever additional armor or warding you have, allowing someone with it to shrug off incredible amounts of punishment.
Talos Full Conversion (20 wealth, maintenance 0.5 wealth/month): The Talos is a full cybernetic body, replacing every organ but the brain and spinal cord. Superior to just building around the flesh (but not superior to esoteric augmentations such as Biotics), the Galatea as it comes is human in size although not necessarily in looks, and masses at a fairly dense 130 or so kilograms. It can be further combined with other augmentations, the most common being cosmetic modifications. Talos bodies are normally used by paramilitary security, as they are far too maintenance-intensive for military special forces teams.
Dragoon Full Conversion (40 wealth, maintenance 1 wealth/month): Full Conversion 'borgs are the deadliest cyborgs of any type, and are exclusively military. The user is literally reduced to little more than a brain in a box, then built into a vehicle. Dragoons are extremely lethal, agile, and deadly, but their size (2.3 meters tall) and mass (2000 kilograms) make them difficult to field. Dragoons can use vehicle-grade weapons and applique armor owing to their powerful limbs, and also have smaller manipulators that allow them to still use personal-scale equipment. The Dragoon prevents the use of other cyberware.
Vehicles
Facilities
An organization needs facilities to function. Facilities are bought like just about anything, and house your infrastructure as well as other equipment. Facilities require security, so too many of them will spread you thin. Too few, and you put many eggs in one basket.
Warehouses (cost 10): Warehouses are fairly cheap facilities built on cheap land. They are fairly good places to store things relatively discreetly, although excessive activity inside may cause suspicion.
Workshop (cost 25): A workshop is a place where people work. Workshops are differentiated from factories owned by front companies because they are generally run by people who know that they're hunting monsters for a living.
Business (cost 25): Whether they have a cover story or operate out of a shady alleyway, businesses generally house your illegal wealth infrastructure.
Laboratories (cost 30): Labs are used for R&D, which generally means dissecting live examples of extradimensional beings for fun and profit. Analysts double as lab workers, which is unrealistic but we're already looking at this in very high detail.
Clinics (cost 30): Clinics are useful for recovering agents. You can send them to regular hospitals but most wounds in the line of duty are going to be very unusual and draw attention.
Safehouses (cost 10): A safehouse is a place to stay that'll let you keep yourself from being discovered before the heat dies down.