FISSURE

FISSURE: A kitchen-sink city-state RPG in a post-apocalyptic world

Background

Before the apocalypse, there was a Golden Age. Or at least a Gilded Age-the records are unclear and often twisted for the ends of various strongmen. Mankind reached impossible heights with its mastery of the sciences, learning more and more about the universe. Laws of physics could be bent, ignored, or even broken. Or so they thought.

It is unknown what caused the ripples to open, but one day, reality buckled. Cities were erased, continents changed, and things appeared. Creatures of magic and legend. Powerful aliens and alternate races. Long-dead species. Earth has become a patchwork of abrupt dimensional

Premise

Players in this game play

Citystate Generation

Core Stats

Prioritize Affinities, Terrain, and Populace as primary, secondary, or tertiary. You get 10/8/6 points to spend on the primary, secondary, and tertiary categories respectively. All subcategories start at 0.

Affinities

Technology

Technology has been mankind's birthright for millenia. It has been a way to even the odds against nature, and with all the new and dangerous things floating around

Superpowers

Rift Radiation is unlike actual radiation and does things far more akin to what people believed radiation might do in the early 20th century. Rift Mutants oftentimes end up twisted, pathetic things-but this is by no means the only fate, and quite often they become gifted with incredible powers. There are other ways to get things which seem to be out of comic books as well. Transhuman enhancement programs were commonplace for the wealthy pre-apocalypse, and some of the most advanced genetic engineering programs could create truly amazing beings capable of impossible feats of strength, speed, intellect, and toughness. Cybernetics labs and chop shops still exist t A nation that heavily focuses on Superpowers will be dependent on its

Terrain

Terrain governs your local territory. As a city-state, your polity is built around an important and heavily defensible core, which is generally where you get your old world knowledge, mystical power, or strange mutant rituals from.

Citadel=

How good your core city is. More points = more defenses and swag.

Infrastructure

Your infrastructure. Population, industry, and the like.

Resources

The resources you have. Scrap (Tech), Magical Go Juice (Magic), and Mutant Go Juice (Superpowers?).

Populace

The Populace stat describes your people. Are they fanatical converts to your cause? Are they rebellious barely-subjects? Are they healthy or frail? Are they barely literate or do they have educations equivalent to old worlders?

Education

Education is a measure of your people's average education and schooling. Education is critical if one wishes to use Advanced units or

Health

Health is a measure of your people's physical (and to some extent, mental) fitness and ability to survive. High-Health peoples are generally descended from powerful inhuman creatures or wealthy transhuman enclaves, while peoples of particularly low arete are often suffering from diseases and malnutrition. Higher Health allows for more of your people to become soldiers and gives minor combat bonuses to your personnel.

Morale

Morale is a measure of your people's loyalty. Low morale forces are likely to break and surrender in harsh fights, while high morale forces are likely to fight to the death. A drastic advantage in morale can allow for a technologically inferior force to win massive victories against one with superior firepower and technology (like Caesar's Legion versus the NCR in Fallout). Civilizations with low morale will also need to keep significant numbers of their forces home, to ensure that domestic dissent does not become open rebellion.

Traits

Choose some number of traits. Traits can come in a few types:

Replacer-lets you substitute a stat for another stat. e.g. allowing you to build a certain unit type with an alternative affinity or the like.

Bonuses-generic bonus to an affinity or unit type.

Fun stuff-dunno yet, this is a super-basic sketch right now.

Adventurers

Blah blah something about adventurers who go around looting shit for you blah blah.

Unit Types

Simple units are units which need minimal technical education. Guys with AK-47s for example. Advanced units, like tanks, powersuits, and giant robots, are units which need significant amounts of technical understanding.

Generic

Militia: Guys with patchwork armor and weapons. In this lawless post-apocalyptic world, often double as cops. Militia normally cost nothing to have-they're a last-ditch method of defending your city-state, but militia with special abilities (often representing internal security forces of some sort)

Troopers: Troopers are formally trained and inducted light infantry, armed with basic (but often standardized) weaponry and

Cavalry: Guys on horses, dinosaurs, or whatever. Even high-tech polities make use of these, because hypercapacitor chargers and microfusion plants are few and far between and a guy on a horse with a gun can move faster than a guy with a gun who doesn't have a horse.

Unwieldy: Because of their size and momentum, cavalry are difficult to use effectively in enclosed, broken, or heavily built-up terrain.

Technological

Battlesuits: Battlesuits combine the protection of light armored vehicles with the size and mobility of infantry. Battlesuits are formally particularly heavy examples of power armor, standing around 2 to 3 meters tall and massing anywhere from a quarter of a ton to a ton. Half-vehicle, half-infantry, battlesuits are often prized possessions because of their brutal effectiveness in close quarters.

Advanced: Battlesuits require high-tech maintenance and infrastructure and thus are Advanced units, requiring technically savvy personnel.

Hardened: Battlesuits are resistant to critical hits and thus are difficult to defeat with inferior foes.

Super-Strength: Battlesuits have enhanced strength and are extremely potent in close quarters.

Armor: Tanks are a fairly rare sight on post-apocalyptic Earth because of their upkeep requirements and the fact that the vast majority of things don't need tanks to kill. An Armor unit is maybe ten tanks (and that's assuming they're relatively cheap, light ones) and for the vast majority of threats is an unstoppable behemoth that can roll over almost anything.

Magical

Mystic Beast: People with the power of magic can often

Elementals:

Summoned: Elementals are summoned creatures and require mages to keep them in control.

Affinity: Elementals have an elemental affinity and are resistant to attacks which are reminiscent of that affinity.

Immunity: Elementals are nearly immune to simple weapons. You need advanced weapons, ridiculous superpowers, or

Superpowered

Brutes: Mutants (or cyborgs or transgenes) with absurd strength and toughness, Brutes are sort of like a step in between battlesuits and regular soldiers. They're not as tough, but they're more agile, and definitely stronger.

Super-Strength: Brutes have enhanced strength and are extremely potent in close quarters.

Agile: Brutes can jump very high and scale nearly vertical walls, giving them improved mobility and defense in tight terrain.