Boneyard Cats

A game about cute dead girls doing cute dead things. Ask Exhack about joining.

Premise

The Great Boneyard, a city of the dead and not-quite damned. A city that as much as it changes- always seems to stay the same. People go about things called lives, doing work, making deals and attending school... although that was never your thing.

Your gang is the XXIXth Boneyard Cats, named so because you're the twenty-ninth group of people in the city to pick a name like that. Your boss is the legendary delinquent and inexplicable high-school ace Yamanaka Itsuki has gone missing after supposedly heading out to square things with a rival from the last century.

After a week of searching, you've found a single clue...

Setting

The Great Boneyard

The Great Boneyard is a great megalopolis nestled within the Underworld, the dead mirror image to the real world. A modern city, it is composed of bygone structures and codes of dress but fixtures and conveniences only a few months out of date, its citizens various races of the dead. Visitors from the world of the living and other faraway realms sometimes travel the bazaars for goods found only in the realms of the dead.

The city is officially ruled by the Calendar, a court of immortal and puissant beings who each embody a specific time in the world. At the top of this hierarchy are the Millennium Emperors who each dominate a specific thousand-year era and the subsequent city sections that were built or discovered at the time. Subordinate rulers each follow a succession in powers of ten, from the powerful Century Kings, lesser Dukes of Decade and finally the Yearling Earls who each only hold sway over the dead who joined the city in the year of their own death. There is no electoral system, with some older eras preferring monarchs out of tradition while those dead of the Enlightenment might have inclinations towards democratically electing their various superiors and representatives.

The Boneyard is also notable for holding many gates to the world of the living, with some races that have particular rapport with them often hoarding these structures to themselves. Ghosts with unfinished business frequently seek out their relatives in life when possible, while vampires in particular are loath to remain in the underworld too long, as going without blood can result in them falling into torpor or decaying into other, less pleasant forms of unlife.

The Gentry and Calendar Kingdoms

One would imagine that a world ruled by the dead is one of profound stratification and stagnation, but it is rarely so, even with the ancient rulers of the elder millenia still ruling over their people. Constant contact with the outside world through new arrivals and constant forays by the various vampire houses have caused constant cultural and social import. Rebels vindicated by history or those born in eras of abundance are often catalysts for social change in the Underworld.

Many dead are eager to acquire the benefits of modern convenience, even if it is at their own pace. Ancient rulers once bored by the former emptiness of the world of the dead have become increasingly placid with the growing populations and intelligentsia providing them with fodder in the early Renaissance, and now consume mass media with gusto.

Social mobility is likewise not impossible, if difficult. Many dead only awaken in the Underworld when their bodies are exhumed by scientists thousands of years after they have died, causing them to become mixed into the earldoms of modern people. Others patronize and often live in eras outside their own and merely pay a tithe of valuables to their liege, though a few centuries do not allow this for reasons known only to their rulers. Escaping a court is harder still, possibly involving marriage, politicking, needing to take care of a younger descendant or rarely trying to manipulate events so that they are re-interred and pass into slumber, re-awakened at an appropriate time.

For those unhappy with these solutions, there are always the rivers of the Underworld or the places of judgement, which might offer respite in the form of another life among the living or in some faraway realm.

The Races

The races of the dead are myriad and unending in number and variety, although many can be classified into a number of basic structure and metaphysical families. The simplest classifications are twofold, between those races that can masquerade as humans and cannot, and those races who are primarily physical or spiritual of nature.

Vampires and other varieties of blood-drinking, walking corpses exemplify the former of the two categories, despite deformities and strange abilities that might inhibit prolonged stays among humankind. Homunculi are flawless humans recreated from a single (or sometimes multiple) corpse, but the faint whisps of a soul they possess make them almost entirely physical in nature. Freshly-deceased fleshy dead such as zombies, ghouls and ghasts might likewise go about their business as normal but will begin to decay without some restorative agent like vampire blood or alchemical solutions.

Little distinguishes the various races of a primarily spiritual nature, as very few can present themselves as living humans. Liches sometimes gird their remains in revitalized corpseflesh to momentarily indulge in various pleasures, while the races of ghosts might, at times use specific sacred sites, oneiromancy or powerful illusions to appear real to those they wish to approach.

Chargen

"Gimmies will be punished via summary transformation into an ashtray." -Your GM

Chargen Summary

Before assigning attributes, all characters must define a race to which they belong, such as a vampire, ghost, etc. Geographical variations are allowed and encouraged, but should have their area and subtype defined in backets e.g.: Strigoi (Romanian Vampire).

Each race has specific qualities, so each player is required to take two weaknesses to represent the means by which they were or can be defeated in literature and mythology, such as vampires craving blood and being harmed by holy symbols and sunlight, or zombies decaying and being clumsy. Every additional weakness a player takes (to a maximum of five) gives them an extra point that can be put into Status or an Attribute.

Physical Attributes

Each player then spends 13 points between three Attributes, listed as follows.

• Scary: The physical attribute. The human average is 3, while strong zombies and vampires usually have around 5.
• Spooky: The mental attribute. The human average is 3, while old liches and ghosts have around 5.
• Sexy: The social attribute. The human average is 3, while skillful vampires and homunculi have 5.

In addition to increasing the dicepool of the attribute, each point of an attribute after the first gives a talent, such as Scary (Motorcycle), Spooky (CSI) or Sexy (Nightclub Singer) which adds +1 die when used and implicitly gives the character the relevant item or social connections. If a character has more than 3 different talents, they may raise the ratings of two these talents to a maximum of 2. If they have 6 or more, they may raise one of their talents to 3. Somehow having an attribute at 9 gives no other benefits.

Supernatural Attributes

In addition, each character must also assign 10 points between two supernatural attributes.

• Stability: The state of the deceased person's body, acting as both a defense against supernatural harm and sometimes representing superhuman physical qualities such as speed, strength or regeneration. The average human has a rating 9 due to diseases and general health, while Homunculi almost always have a rating of 10. Zombies and other types of mundane moving corpse generally have high Stability ratings in spite of their decaying bodies, due to the sheer damage they can withstand.
• Supernatural: The possession of genuinely supernatural abilities, such as hypnosis, shapeshifting, summoning and controlling animals or base elements. Humans usually have a rating or 0, or rarely 1 in the form of weak esper abilities. Liches tend to have high ratings of 7 or more, while ghosts and other entirely spiritual creatures have ratings of 9 or 10. Having high supernatural is dangerous however, as it makes the character vulnerable to bindings by necromancers.

Similar to regular attributes, each point of a supernatural attribute gives a character a power relevant to their supernatural type, so long as it does not neutralize the penalties caused by their racial weaknesses. As with talents, each interval of 3 raises the maximum rating for supernatural powers, capping out at 6.

Misc Attributes

Finally, each character has a Status rating of 2 to start, representing their place in society and relative means. These points may be increased via taking more weaknesses.

For the sake of resolving combat, a character can take an amount of net combat successes against equal to twice their stability rating+1 before being forced out of combat. This being the underworld, death isn't much of an obstacle to continuing to participate in the campaign afterwards.

Combat

Normal combat involves pools of the relevant attribute being rolled against eachother, with the higher number of dice coming up at 6+ counted as successes.

Using powers involves first rolling the power attribute (Stability or Supernatural). The number of successes can be spent two ways: a scenelong buff which adds those successes as dice to a specific type of action (superstrength for hitting things, superspeed for dodging), or providing 'charges' for magic attacks, in which case each charge grants a single usage of the power (which is rolled as mundane Attribute + the 1-3 value on it) until the end of the scene or all charges are expended. Successes on these rolls may be stored to do one-action boosts (which add flat successes but only work for that one action), adding autosux to power usages or widening the scope of a power (0 sux spent this way is 1 target, 1 sux is a 'small group', 2 sux is all onscreen enemies, 3 is possibly the whole environment).

This is mostly relevant because characters only get 3 fate points and a number of uses of supernatural or stability powers per session equal to their relevant scores.

Also, all three attributes are technically social attributes, although Sexy includes things like social savvy, likeability and politicking. Approach determines what pool is rolled.