Vulgar Engines

Vulgar Engines

A game set in the far future, some time after the rise of a resurgent Neo Roman Empire and its conquest of much of the Solar System, which has imposed its New Latin, slavery and a permanent social gulf in the form of the Patricians of the Empire elite and the Plebeians who encompass all of common and foreign birth. An exodus of humans fleeing the repression and social stratification of the inner system settled around Jupiter. There they discovered the relics of the Visitors and their seemingly magical, reality-altering technology.

The Empire looms at its strongest, enormous and unstoppable, poised to crush the rebels beyond the Belt, but even stronger are the Vulgar Engines, the weapons of those free people who reject the Latin language and its speakers.

Nation Building

Assign your points to each of the categories until you run out. That'll give you the basis around which to write up the details of your nation.

Modifiers listed apply bonus points towards a particular rank, rather than directly modifying the Rank itself. For example, (Infrastructure +3) means that three bonus points are automatically added to the Infrastructure category, and (Growth -2) means that two points are subtracted from Growth. The player must make up the remainder to gain a new rank; if only part of the point cost is fulfilled; excess points are wasted.

Negative modifiers do not need to be bought up to zero, though values below 0 can be assumed to be particularly exaggerated.

Population

Commune (24 Points to spend): An isolated group with a few hundred members at most, with few aspirations on the outside world until they successfully built their Vulgar Engine. Prosperity and Visitor Adaptation are half-cost.

Minor Enclave (25 Points to spend): A small station with a few thousand aboard, potentially representing a small ethnic group or fringe ideology. Adds +1 to Prosperity.

Major Enclave (27 Points to spend): A large station with several thousand people aboard, the very largest a space station can get without substantially devoting itself to habitation. Adds +1 to National Advantages.

Minor Orbital (30 Points to spend): A station of import with tens of thousands of people aboard living in rotating habitation cylinders or a single large ring or sphere, designed to recreate the environment of the lost Earth. Modern designs might be more splendid and exotic. Adds +1 Wealth and +1 Infrastructure.

Major Orbital (29 Points to spend): A massive station with hundreds of thousands of residents living in a fully-formed terrascape with discrete towns and cities inside these spaces, a metropolis in space. The largest possible size without being dispersed, and adds +1 Wealth and +2 Infrastructure, but receives -1 to Prosperity.

Diaspora (27 Points to spend): The remnants of a culture and nation on Earth, banished to the stars or willingly escaped on their own with millions now living spread across several stations. -2 Prosperity, +3 Infrastructure and +2 Homeland Support.

National Advantages

Rank 0 (0 points): Your nation has no advantages. Everyone should have something to feel special about :(

Rank 1 (1 point): Your nation has a single National Advantage.

Rank 2 (2 points): Your nation has two National Advantages.

Rank 3 (4 points): Your nation has three National Advantages.

Rank 4 (6 points): Your nation has four National Advantages.

Rank 5 (9 points): Your nation has five National Advantages.

National Disadvantages

This field returns points, instead of costing points.

Rank 0 (0 points): Your nation has no unusual flaws, just the usual minor problems.

Rank 1 (+1 point): Your nation has a single National Disadvantage.

Rank 2 (+2 points): Your nation has two National Disadvantages.

Rank 3 (+3 points): Your nation has three National Disadvantages, plus one chosen by the GM (!)

Rank 4 (+4 points): Your nation is a hellhole; expect to get hammered by whatever the GM feels to throw at you. It is entirely out of your control at this point.

Prosperity

Rank 0 (0): Lacking even the most basic means to produce food and other provisions, and completely exposed to the elements. Your people desperately need to invade the Empire and claim territory, or starvation and ruination from cosmic radiation are all but inevitable. Raids on other colonies is a fact of life. Adds +1 Military Support.

Rank 1 (1): Your people live in austere zero-gravity shelters and subsist off of aeroponics and tasty chemical-laden rations.

Rank 2 (2): Your people live in spin or artificial gravity, eating tasty facsimiles of real food under an artificial sky. At this level population growth begins to hit positives.

Rank 3 (3): Your society lives in a comfortable, Earth-like environment within which your people may prosper.

Rank 4 (4): The people of your nation struggle to find reasons to actually invade the Earth, and live in splendid luxury. Adds +1 Wealth.

Rank 5 (5): Your society is a utopia where all needs are met and all wants are fulfilled. Unhappiness is abolished. Adds +2 Wealth.

Going beyond the maximum level has no additional benefit.

Wealth

Rank 0 (0): Yours is a pauper nation that was nearly bankrupted by its Engine. Wealth Rating 20

Rank 1 (1): Wealth Rating 45

Rank 2 (2): Wealth Rating 70

Rank 3 (3): Wealth Rating 90

Rank 4 (4): Wealth Rating 110

Rank 5 (5): A major trading power in the Outer System. Wealth Rating 125

Every additional Rank of Economy adds 15 to the Wealth Rating.

Infrastructure

Rank 0 (0): Construction Rating 20

Rank 1 (1): Construction Rating 45

Rank 2 (2): Construction Rating 70

Rank 3 (3): Construction Rating 90

Rank 4 (4): Construction Rating 110

Rank 5 (5): Massive, well developed planetary and spaceborn industry. Construction Rating 125

Military Support

Rank 0 (0): Your people simply do not see the value in the deployment of weapons beyond your Vulgar Engine, or perhaps lack the desire to do so. Your non-Engine military is halved for your size.

Rank 1 (3): Recruitment and deployment forces is about normal for your size.

Rank 2 (8): Everyone fights! Nobody quits! Your non-Engine military is doubled in size.

Military Quality

Rank 0 (0): Your troops and crews are disorganized militias of extremely poor quality. The Empire laughs at your army of old men and mewling infants.

Rank 1 (1): Your troops are well-trained and coordinated, and can be counted on to get the job done.

Rank 2 (3): Very little ever goes wrong that can legitimately blamed on human error. Your soldiers are generally respected by the Imperials, who see you as showing your own lesser Roman virtue.

Engine Size

Rank 0 (0): Knight. A standard 'hero unit' vehicle, with 1-4 pilots.

Rank 1 (2): Dragon. A splendid starship or similarly-scaled unit.

Rank 2 (4): Leviathan. That's no moon!

Engine Complexity

Rank 0 (0): Your engine is a simple design. Its metric-adjusting technology is discrete and limited in scope.

Rank 1 (1): Your engine displays the basics of metric-adjustment technology borrowed from the Visitors, allowing for some control over a single physical phenomenon or a particular gimmick.

Rank 2 (2): Your engine's metric-adjustment is pretty potent for its scale and can affect a wide area.

Rank 3 (4): Your engine is especially advanced and can effect two types of phenomenon at once. Such machines are widely feared for their versatility, although conflicting systems may create weaknesses if their functions can only be accessed one at a time.

Rank 4 (6): Your engine's design is at the apex, with three metric-adjustment permutations or gimmicks that give it tremendous power and flexibility.

Homeland Support

Rank 0 (0): You are landless pariahs, without ties to the people living under the Imperial thumb. With the gulf of space separating you, espionage actions are likely to take very long or be very slow.

Rank 1 (1): You have some ties, either because very few of your people stayed behind or because you are seen as untrustworthy. Espionage is feasible and information trickles in occasionally.

Rank 2 (2): You have decent ties to several populations living in the Inner System. Your covert options may even include infiltrating the Imperial bureaucracy and information about daily life in the Empire is common.

Rank 3 (3): Your networks are extremely well developed. You may covertly sponsor insurrections and terror attacks, steal information, sabotage public works and carry out assassinations.

Rank 4 (4): The people await revolution. Some go as far as sell themselves into concubinage with officials and members of the high court simply to position themselves better for you.

Visitor Adaptation

Rank 0 (0): These changes will take time. Your people only make use of Visitor technology within your Vulgar Engine.

Rank 1 (4): Some advances have begun to percolate. At this level your standard units have the same basic material composition and structure as your Vulgar Engine.

Rank 2 (8): Your society casually incorporates advanced Visitor technology at all levels of design. If your Vulgar Engine possesses any metric alteration effects, your regular units may weakly incorporate any single of them in some way.