Posthuman Spiral

Premise

Setting

The Posthuman Spiral is large region in a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way, the playground of powerful posthuman nations and home of untold billions of sapients. Death and disease have been permanently abolished, with most Spiral dwellers having multiple backups or the ability to somehow regenerate from death. Fabrication technology and faster than light travel are ubiquitous and widespread, with traditional economies based around favors and information rather than material wealth.

Zero-time gates are commonplace over every inhabited world and in every system, and reality-compressing fold drives allow vast ships to cross immense interstellar distances beyond gate access in a matter of days. Whole pocket universes are created and harnessed as mainline power sources, and civilization itself has managed to control nearly all of the energy around it in on form or another.

Empowered by powerful exhuman ideologies, the vast majority of the Spiral's population exists in a transhuman or posthuman state, with enhancement and reconstruction of the body and mind not commonplace, but quite casual. The most simplistic and low-end bodies seen in public are often not baselines, but remote terminals for posthuman uploads with bodies too large to communicate effectively with others. Some individuals have wholly abandoned the concept of singular consciousness and exist as swarms of data strewn across vast networks, or operate hundreds of bodies separated by light-years of distance simultaneously.

The Spiral is simultaneously at peace and torn from within by sudden warfare wrought by singularity events and continuous onslaught by renegade terraforming fleets, progressing forward at a pace that defies all previous eras of scientific progress while at risk of devolving into techno-barbarism and petty tribal factions. Hundreds of billions continue their immortal and unaging lives, unaware of the great extinction hanging so low over their heads.

More worrying in recent times has been the sudden emergence of vast mega-structures that seem to be consuming entire systems at a time. Systems of all stripes, inhabited and barren, are suddenly overtaken by endless cities that threaten to crush entire planets within their many layers. Those who fail to escape are seemingly trapped forever, as most expeditions to the mega-structures maroon those who venture to such places and the many governments of the Spiral cannot come up with a viable solution to these emergent sprawls.

Your Character

Characters in the Spiral are built on the Personal and Epic Scale, and receive a total of 100 CP to spread between both. Between 20 and 50 CP must be spent on Epic attributes.

Level 1 - 1 CP - Hobbyist
Level 2 - 3 CP - Amateur
Level 3 - 6 CP - Professional
Level 4 - 10 CP - Skilled Professional
Level 5 - 15 CP - Experienced Professional
Level 6 - 21 CP - Expert
Level 7 - 28 CP - Master
Level 8 - 36 CP - Ancient Master
Level 9 - 45 CP - Superlative
Level 10 - 55 CP - Unmatched

In short, to improve a stat costs (current level + 1)

Note on Personal/Epic Interaction

For the most part, Personal and Epic attributes do not interact directly. A Personal-grade pistol will never of be of import against a battleship's armor and orbital bombardment is rarely accurate enough to mash a target (and the surrounding countryside) into submission.

However, characters operate machinery with their hands, control vast systems with their minds and command armies with their voices. When rolling to use an Epic Attribute, a character adds the dice of a relevant Personal-scale attribute, and any equally relevant specializations.

Personal Scale

The Personal scale is supposed to reflect the effective power of a character in a personal scale, fighting infantry and other small-scale threats. For character archetypes such as Joiners and Colonies, this scale is used to construct their interface-type bodies.

As with similar systems, characters may buy specializations in order to improve or round out their abilities, or better reflect a character's background.

Physical

Physical strength, endurance and durability against damage. High physical generally doesn't help against Might-based attacks, but generally gives a good base to work off of.

Smarts

General intelligence and study, garnered from years of accessing the Spiral's vast information networks or using skillsofts to ingrain knowledge. Smarts specializations are generally knowledge or technical skills.

Wits

Representing adaptive and intuitive thinking, Wits governs a character's ability to express themselves in art, devise new strategies and work out solutions to unusual problems.

Perception

Perception allows a character to read their surroundings, notice patterns and pick up hidden information.

Charisma

Charisma is the character's ability to convey ideas or feelings effectively and inspire various emotional reactions, using their appearance or people skills. The strongly exhuman ideology of the Spiral means that people run the gamut from disembodied infomorphs to inhumanly beautiful organic humanoids or even esoteric constructs made of glassy smart materials that resemble modern art sculptures.

Epic Scale

Epic scale governs combat of any scale larger than personal, from confrontations between tank battalions on open plains to grand space battles in the gravity well of a dying sun. In a confrontation, Epic Attributes have both a static and variable function, adding automatic successes equal to their rating, as well one die, representing the differences in scale between each level of an attribute.

Specializations may be purchased for Epic Scale, however these must be applied to a given context such as Might [Melee], Resilience [Shields] or Utility [Mining]. Points from specializations can only be applied into one of the two categories offered by an Epic Attribute and must make sense. Specializations may not exceed the level of the Attribute they increase, and are limited to three per Attribute.

For obvious reasons, Magnitude cannot receive specializations.

Magnitude

Magnitude reflects the size and number of a character's bodies, reflecting either an individual or copied intelligence with large numbers operating several sleeves at once, a single intelligence in a larger body or anything in between.

Magnitude 1 is considered to be the most basic body Number and Scale, consisting of a single body. A level of Magnitude increases the size or number of bodies by a factor of ten, meaning that a Magnitude 10 character could theoretically be a nation unto themselves or a vast battleship of untold power. In combat, higher Magnitude can effectively make a character effectively unkillable as remote bodies in adjacent systems or thousands miles or plating make it nearly impossible to be obliterated by direct attack.

When buying Magnitude, characters must split their points between Scale and Number. This number cannot be rearranged after chargen (unless certain perks are taken).

Might

Might reflect the offensive power of a character in Epic combat. For various reasons, Might is very loosely defined and is split into Piercing and Area, which functions similarly to the split between Number and Scale in magnitude.

A Might 1 character is considered to be as dangerous a well-equipped soldier slightly undermass on weaponry if their Scale is larger than 1. A level of Might increases the effective offensive power by a rough factor of 10, meaning a Might 10 character has a pistol that could wipe habitats from existence or Nova bombs that can boil suns.

However, when assigning Might points, characters must split their points between Piercing and Area. Piercing governs the ability to ignore the defenses of Resilience, while Area is a measure of range or effected area.

Resilience

Resilience determines a character's ability to negate damage and regenerate from it, represented by the sub-attributes of Defense and Immortality. Death is frequent in the Spiral, and it is only the ubiquitous mental networks and wondrous material and medical science of the region that keeps it from being truly tragic.

A Resilience 1 character is capable of weather dozens of wounds that would ordinarily kill a baseline, heal those wounds in a week and can be brought back from their most recent mindstate farcast (usually at death) within a few years. A level of Resilience increases their toughness or access to regenerative technologies, reducing months to days, or even seconds. A Resilience 10 character could have barriers powerful enough to deflect weapons that could boil suns, or could regenerate instantly by teleporting a perfect copy of themselves to the location where they were killed seconds after death.

Characters must declare whether they assign Resilience between Defense and Immortality, but may not reassign them freely without special perks, as with Magnitude and Might.

Utility

Utility reflects a character's ability to function outside of combat. For simplicity's sake, Utility is split into Drive and Function.

Drive is the character's access to FTL networks, while Function is their ability to do things besides run and fight. Owning an asteroid mining business, working at the Nessus biolabs every other tuesday or owning a theater full of modified forks (implanted with actor skillsofts) in your battleship's cargo bay might not be glamorous, but it allows a character to survive effectively in the post-scarcity service and IP-based economy of the Spiral.

A new level Drive removes 99% of the previous level's travel time, with Drive 0 implying a ship moving a 99% the speed of light. At Drive 1, a 17 year trip takes 62 days, while at Drive 2 the same trip lasts 14 hours. Advanced fold technology is extremely expensive, but the benefits far outweigh the issues.

Every level of Functions allows a character to sustain seven levels of another sub-attribute at full strength, allowing them to support allies if absolutely necessary.

Character Archetypes

Original

Originals simply refer to any individual that experiences reality in the subjective manner that much of humanity did before they settled the Spiral, and possess a single body. There is little else that Originals have in common with one another, other than the general shape of their bodies (which tends towards humanoid) and being the majority of the population.

Originals can be from any background and have any type of body, but are limited to Magnitude 1 no matter what. They also receive +1 to all Personal attributes.

Colony

Colonies are posthuman nations unto themselves consisting of either large gestalt consciousnesses (hiveminds) or maintaining cohesion through a mental synchronization cycle. Much as Originals have very little in common with one another, Colonies vary greatly in size and nature. Some Colonies operate as PMCs, using modified mindstate copies of a single individual recreated thousands of times.

Colonies receive +1 to Magnitude and +2 to Wits and Smarts.

Network

Networks are gestalt postsapient structures that behave similarly to Colonies, but rather than having a single intelligence spread between many bodies, a Network is vast group of distinct mindstates simultaneously operating a handful of terminals. These terminals are usually mechanical bodies or server hubs, as the Networked cannot live without continuous netsphere access.

Networks cannot expand their Scale beyond 1, but paradoxically receive +1 to Magnitude and Utility and +3 to Smarts.

Joiner

Joiners are effectively the opposite of Networks, and consist of a single intelligence in control of a structure far larger than a human body. Joiners operate space stations, starships, warbots and naval vessels. They are profoundly attached to their machines, considering them their true bodies, although most keep 'terminal bodies' to interact with other archetypes on the personal level.

Joiners cannot expand their Number beyond 1, but receive +1 to Magnitude, Might and Utility and +2 to Wits.

Xenomorph

Xenomorphs are wholly alien constructs who do not use bodies that are recognizably biological or mechanical. Xenomorphs transfer their consciousnesses into vast and esoteric structures made of exotic material such as glassy metamaterials filled with glowing red 'neurons' or take on shapes designed to survive life inside of suns or on the accretion disks of black holes. Their mindsets are often profoundly altered as a consequence (moreso than any other clade), but they still interact with the rest of the Spiral using 'terminal bodies'.

Xenomorphs assign three points into Epic attributes and and three into Personal ones, but take -1 to Charisma.