Bliss Stage

Players

This is the home of Bossmuff's Bliss Stage game.

FBH:

Emily Jones

Pilot

Age - 15

Rising Hero

Emily Jones is a very dependable person. You can always rely on Emily to come through for you in a tight spot, or that's what they say. No matter how bad the situation she always seems calm, collected and with an idea of what to do.

She's a bit quiet though, and likes to be alone, read books, going up to the top of the CN tower alone to listen to the lack of radio waves. In combat she's as collected as ever, talking in clipped military style phrases and trying to operate as efficiently as she can.

Hanna Oakland

Comforting

Age 17

Background and Personality

Hanna tries to be nice and good to everyone, but it's so hard. Part of her longs for the day when she can just go to sleep. Her older sister already did that, disconnecting herself from the medical systems and just keeling over.

Hanna still doesn't know quiet why her sister did it… but she can feel the same urge, the urge to not watch any more death, to not lose anymore friends. To just give in rather than face the daily grind of survival. It'll be her turn soon enough.

Kerrus:

Kael Michenzo

Age - 19 "Tells people he's 17"

Gender - Male

Archetype - Seasoned Veteran

Appearance -

Kael survived the Bliss at the age of 12. Together with a small group of survivors, he fought the gangs, and began rebuilding, even as he struggled to understand what had happened to him. When the alien machines attacked, he found himself embroiled in a plot to capture one of them. The plot succeeded, and the strange old man in charge of the camp managed to design a weapon out of it.

The Alien Dream Dive Vehicle Armament Numina Transcorporial Alter Generator ADDVANTAG

Note - The ADDVANTAG is basically an ANIMa, but built out of the remains of a different drone type that the Toronto group hasn't encountered yet. Kael remains unwilling to pilot the IC ANIMa units, because he's afraid that being over the 'age limit' will cause it to reject him and the truth to come out.

An imperfect adaption of alien technology, a system was developed for people to pilot the machine into the alien dream world and fight them. Kael ended up as one of several pilots of the machines, and fought valiantly. However, eventually the aliens managed to isolate and destroy one of the pilots- extracting the real world information location of the piloting base from her shattered mind. The following attack was swift, and Kael only managed to escape thanks to the dying effort of his Authority Figure, who gave him the keys to an intact and more importantly, fueled transport truck, and bade him "Go east. There are... others there."

It took nearly a year for Kael to cross country and reach the ruins of Toronto. He still has the ADDVANTAG, though it is in a considerable state of disrepair and needs to be used sparringly- as the lack of a real anchor (Kael hallucinates his previous anchor nearly nonstop) means that any severe losses in the dream world could mean his end.

(GM Note: That Kael is over the age limit is a secret – his cover-story is that he’s 17, and that’s what everyone will know (beyond the Doctor). His actual age will not be known by the players.)

Laren Ihlzha

Anchor - Type Driven

Age - 11

Appearance - Loli. But seriously, light blond hair, green eyes.

Personality: Driven, very forward, lost her previous pilot on a mission that turned her from the happy and eager to please anchor to the driven... person she is today. An intellectual prodigy, she considers childhood behind her, and is ready to move on to adult things. Far more adult things.

As an anchor and a person, she is determined not to lose anymore partners through indecision, or mistakes, which influences her personality- however this is a mask for how she really feels- she does want friends, and someone to love, but with the loss of her previous pilot so fresh in her mind, she isn't sure she can commit the trust she once had.

Aeon

Wallace Kirkman, Pilot

Rising Hero

Wallace is a slender, wheelchair-bound young man of sixteen, with short, dark hair and a shy, slightly nervous demeanor. A former gang member, he was caught in a drone attack three years ago and suffered a severe head injury, which drove a shard of bone into his brain. He would likely have died, had he not been rescued by the Doctor. Though physically crippled, he soon displayed considerable talent as an ANIMa Pilot. Despite his natural piloting skills, Wallace is anything but arrogant, and actually becomes extremely uncomfortable in the face of any sort of praise.

Agatha Rilie, Anchor

Tempestuous

Agatha is a tall, somewhat lanky fifteen-year-old girl, with long, red hair and pale green eyes that seem set in a perpetual scowl. The loss of her parents to the Bliss affected her deeply, and she never entirely recovered. Over time, her fear and despair transformed itself into intense feelings of bitterness and rage. She blames the aliens and their drones for the Bliss, and eagerly joined the Doctor’s program, believing it would give her the opportunity to strike back at the invaders. Unfortunately, she was found to have absolutely no talent whatsoever as a Pilot, something which still infuriates her. She hates working as an Anchor, but consoles herself with the knowledge that she is helping to harm the aliens, if only indirectly.

Silence:

William Grant

Veteran Soldier.

William Grant was one of the first ANIMA pilots is one of the few survivors for it. The constant fighting has made him bitter and vengeful as he seen most of his comrades die to acheive little in return. He talks little of his history before the war, and is roughly athletic teenager of 17 years.

Vanessa DuBois

Daughter of a famous movie star, she had grown up having a very independent and comfortable life. When the ANIMA project started, she attempted to join to regain some control over her life, but due to some issues, she wasn't able to be a pilot. So she is doing the next best thing and is being an anchor.

OmegaPaladin

Madeleine Lucille Coastwell, Pilot and Possible Anchor

Age - 12 (and she has the school record to prove it!)

Appearance - Long dark brown hair, bright blue eyes, and looks young for her age.

Innocent Sweetheart

Incredibly bright, a child prodigy, going to discover the cure for cancer. That's what the grownups said about little Madeleine when was in school. She lived up to her wealthy family's expectations by surviving for several years in her old school. She continued her education while living off of school lunch supplies until she ran into Andres on a scouting expedition a couple years ago. She still likes to spend her time with her nose in a good book, which have included training workbooks for being a pilot and anchor, but have lately been self-help books on lucid dreaming and her beloved collection of library books. Despite this bookishness, she really loves having people to talk to and play with after being alone so long. People call her MLC (Emmellcee) or Lucy fairly often, as well as her real name.

Andres the Exorcist, Anchor

Age - 20

Appearance - Hispanic man with jet black hair cut short, brown eyes

Comforting

Andres graduated early from high school back when he was thirteen, and continued helping out at his Dad's pharmacy in a Western suburb of Chicago. He was up all night studying for an exam when the Big Sleep hit. He stayed up a long time trying to help his parents before falling. His dreams took elements of his Catholic school education and twisted them horribly. His nightmares involved horrible scenes of all of the blissed out individuals being tormented in hell, with the devil promising that such a fate awaited him as well. He continues to regard the aliens as demons and horribly evil. After he saw his older sister bliss out a year later, he took action. He used components from the hospital for make a continuous infusion system for caffeine, in addition to an emergency alertness system that would keep him awake. Unlike most adults, he had the luxury of time. Eventually he perfected the system, and managed to grow accustomed to the effects of long term sleep deprivation, while supplying drugs to a gang. He later helped the gang try to control a drone they had captured. That went well, until the drone malfunctioned and the entire group blissed out, all except for him and the girl he had kept away from the project. His vague knowledge of alien "technology" led him to be trained as an anchor and thrown into the fray. He is the kind of person who is insanely dedicated to his task as anchor - in training with his pilot, he continued providing reassuring guidance despite being set on fire by malfunctioning equipment.

MJ12

Alyssa, Pilot

Concept - The poor little thing

Archetype - Innocent Sweetheart

Age - 14

Originally a young member of the Girl Scouts, Alyssa used the skills it taught to survive the onset of the Bliss. However, horrible things have happened to her and to people she knew. Horrible horrible things. Now she's mute from the trauma, never speaking a word. They wouldn't have known her name if it wasn't for the nametag she had in a pocket. The only things she seems to do when out of battle is either stare out at the world, crying, or bake and offer cookies that almost always taste horrible for lack of the proper ingredients, but nobody refuses as they would hurt her feelings more. Given how broken she is already, nobody wants to do that.

Brock Anderson, Anchor

Concept - Glory Hound

Type - Driven

Age - 15

Brock Anderson is a little shrimpy kid who's always been living in the shadow of his war hero father, who was a pretty big fan of the "tough love" theory, up to borderline abuse when he didn't measure up (which was often). So now he has his own little war and he's finally got a chance to impress his now-catatonic dad. Even if it means being a massive glory hound and primadonna. Even if his pilot dies. All that matters here in this war is to make his father proud.

Bliss Stage Game Characters

Authority Figure

Doctor Bach McAllister

Bio: A neurosurgeon prior to the bliss, Doctor McAllister worked in a Toronto hospital when the first people entered the slumber. The first Toronto cases were taken to him, considered to be neurological ailments, but every test showed no indication of the coma’s causes. He did not have much time, however, as the condition quickly spread. The sudden influx of sleeping patients provided a dire predicament, but also a wealth of test subjects. Studying their brains, he learned much about the effects of the Bliss on the physical brain, and devised a procedure to stave off the Bliss – by burning out the sleep center of his brain, preventing him from ever falling asleep.

Today, Doctor McAllister runs the Bacchante Coalition, the organization designated to fight the drones. From the remains of the robed Monk Drones, he constructed the ANIMa crèches in order to create psychic projections on the newly-discovered dreamworld. Unable to operate them in any capacity due to his inability to sleep, the Doctor maintains the organization and studies the Drones and dreams, collecting data using the machines he has rebuilt. He is mostly confined to the Orpheus System, an apparatus that rejuvenates his body to counteract the wear of never sleeping.

The doctor is a tall, thin man with a graying beard and mane of hair. His appearance and mannerisms are bizarre and even unnatural; he has a strange aura of beauty around him which fluctuates. His age seems variable – he appears ragged and lined of face at times, and other times youthful and smooth-skinned. According to him, this is a side-effect of the treatment, gleaned from the remains of various drones.

Secondary Characters

Annette Williams, Assistant to Doctor

Annette is a bossy, taciturn girl of fifteen, chosen by the doctor as an assistant. She takes her position seriously, and often orders around the pilots or delivers commands from the doctor. She believes she has a responsibility to the other children, and has a condescending attitude towards them. In truth, Annette suffered during the years before joining the Bacchantes, hiding from roving gangs and Drones.

Bryan Crystal, Technician

Bryan assisted the doctor with running the base, repairing equipment and maintaining the weapons systems. The only thing he does not understand is the ANIMa crèches, which the Doctor repairs himself – he waits for the day when the Doctor will trust him enough to handle these devices.

Lindsey Matthews, Medic

Lindsey is a soft, kindly personality that truly cares about everyone. Trained in first aid, she is responsible for helping injured pilots. Her positive exterior is nearly unbreakable, enduring even in the most horrific of situations. She is slightly annoying in this regard, but endures; she is surprisingly strong for someone so kind-hearted. Perhaps because she does not suffer for herself….

Marty ‘Snipe’ Gerty – Gang Leader (Yonge-Bloods)

Marty is a good-hearted but firm leader of the Yonge-bloods, named for the street where the gang dwells. A friendly, open individual, he openly cares for his members, rescuing stray children from the Rockies and the Drones when he can. He has little tolerance for those too infirm to survive, though, and regretfully leaves behind those too crippled or insane to survive in the harsh conditions. He is at war with the Rockies, mostly defensively to protect the society he has built and to gather vital resources.

Johnny Cutter, Gang Leader (the Rockies)

Johnny is the top dog of the Rockies, a vicious gang operating out of Bay Street. A flamboyant and harsh leader, he leads with threats and bravado, reminiscent of 50’s ‘greaser’ gangs and bad rap videos. Despite the absurdity of him, he and his goons are a force be reckoned with, and are known for their vile acts of murder, rape, and theft. They are situated in the Bay Street district, and war with the Yonge-bloods. They are known for their tough-as-nails bruisers and packs of vicious dogs.

• Pilot types: 51
• Anchor Traits: 58
• Game Values: 65-71
• Actions: 74-80

• First Action: 83-86
• Mission: 89
• Mission Climax Roll: 96
• Trauma and Threatening: 97
• Consequences: 99-101
• Bridging: 102
• Special consequences and rules: 106-108

• Interlude actions Consequences: 117
• Special rules: 122-123