StriXern: Red Sea Intervention

Premise

The year is 77 of the Aeon of Orion (abbrev. A.O.), and humanity has begun the great projects to conquer the Orion-Cygnus arm of the galaxy. In preparation for the new era of exploration, much of humanity has emigrated from the overpopulated Earth and now dwells in the plates, disc-like worlds arranged around a near orbit of Sun in a Dyson swarm. Resources shortages, overpopulation and territorial disputes are seemingly exacerbated by influx of valuables being produced cheaply and cleanly by the plates, causing these habitats to become warzones for the various powers.

Politically the system is split between the militaristic neo-Byzantine and neo-Hellenic nation of the Hegemonia tou Alexandros (or simply, the Hegemonia) and the fiscally powerful Global Thirty-Thirty power bloc formed by the leading economies of Earth. Much of the world is in minor power blocs such as the United Solar Emirates that seek to resist Hegemonia incursions in the Middle East and recapture the Islamic golden age through their plateworld industry, or the upstart Union of Trans-Siberian Commonwealths which has usurped power from a now ecologically devastated Russian Federation (and the other CIS states) and finds itself embroiled with the Hegemonia for control of Crimea.

The remaining habitats in the Solar and countries on Earth are members of the neutral pan-national movement known as the Unaligned Constellation, which is made of former UN states that didn't join one of the large alliances in the wake of its dissolution, primarily lead by the an alliance of the United Kingdom, Switzerland and Japan and their fifty-two shared plateworld modules.

Character Generation

Character generation in StriXern involves first selecting a background for the character from one on the following list:

• Student: High school and college students are almost never what they appear to be, and if they are, never remain that way for long. You have inexperience but get 1 extra Deus Ex Machina.
• Military: Possibly a combatant from another colony or Unaligned Constellation, a supervisor training local defense forces or a mercenary hired from a G33 state-sponsored PMC. Get an extra 3 attribute points.
• Civilian: Soft and a little inexperienced in warfare but potentially a professional working on the campus or surrounding town, you are more skilled than your charges and the military stationed to oversee things at the colony. +3 skill points.
• Volunteer: A tourist, journalist or maybe something more sinister under the guise of the first two, you're removed from the events ungoing but have an outside perspective and contacts. Gains +2 Schema to spend.

After selecting background, characters must have their statistics determined by prioritizing categories between five categories for statistics, represented bellow. They are: attributes, skills, mecha, schema and deus ex machina. After assigning priorities, characters spend their pool of points to each of the categories, matching them to the general concept of their character.

Priority Assignment (First/Second/Third/Fourth/Fifth)

• Attributes: 24/20/17/15/14
• Skills: 6/5/4/3/2
• Mecha: 24/20/17/15/14
• Schema: 10/8/6/4/2
• Deus Ex Machina: 5/4/3/2/1

Attributes

Attributes are the basic building blocks of your character, representing the basic abilities and aptitudes of your character which are generally applicable to most situations. More specific skills are developed with skills below.

• Power: How physically strong and powerful you are.
• Grace: How good you are at dexterity tasks.
• Smarts: How quick witted you are.
• Knowledge: How knowledgeable and good at research you are in general
• Charisma: How good you are at persuading someone, smoozing and seduction.
• Rhetoric: How good you are in debates, at winning arguments and swaying a crowd.
• Perception: How good you are at spotting the unusual.
• Integrity: How strong willed you are.

Note: Characters begin with 1 point in every attribute spending, and cannot add more than 25% of the points granted by their priority on a single attribute without spending FP.

Derived Attributes

• Willpower ([Power + Integrity] x Size), Round Down: Because StriXern is a heroic game versus a gritty one, the combination of mental fortitude and physical health are a single attribute. Gunfire, sharp words and particularly traumatic experiences all weaken a character's resolve and may push them towards defeat, although none is more effective than another. Characters may act normally up until their Willpower reaches 0, at which point they can no longer take hostile actions in a confrontation. This does not necessarily mean death, although having a Willpower track filled entirely with physical damage might suggest that as an outcome.
  • NOTE: Social and mental influences are additive to the total a character can take before being defeated, but are largely situational. A character who agrees to a ceasefire or gives out after succumbing to mental exhaustion can react violently when betrayed or roused back to their senses, when similar opportunities might not be available for a decapitated character.
• Initiative (Grace + Smarts): Roll 1d10 and add this value. The characters with lower values declare actions first and act on them last.
• Speed Initiative/4: Especially fast characters can perform more than one action, firing two shots in the blink of an eye or delivering an impassioned speech to the crew of a ship while manning the wheel. The Speed rating of a character is the number of actions they may perform per round. Most characters (and non-named NPCs) probably only have 1.
• Protection (Power + Grace)/2, Round Down: All characters have a degree of 'armor' against physical attacks without necessarily wearing anything. A failed dodge into cover still puts the shooter's aim off the lethal mark, and bulging muscles can sometimes stop knives. The Protection stat subtracts the total damage dice made against a character when they are the subject of a successful attack.

Skills

Skills are special competencies a character has, representing formal training, higher learning or even instinctive skill. When relevant to a given roll, a skill adds its rating to the given attribute. In most cases, skills have ratings of 1-3, detailed bellow.

• Level 1 (Ability): Skills rated at 1 give situational bonuses limited in scope. Firearms 1 applies to all conventional applications of firearms, such as pistol-whipping with Power + Firearms or shooting with Grace + Firearms. In effect, these are buffers against receiving penalties from unfamiliarity with a given object or subject.
• Level 2 (Complexity): Skills rated at 2 represent broad knowledge and understanding. Firearms 2 allows a character to repair any weapons they have as if they possessed Gunsmith 1, or make use of weapons which are not exactly firearms such as LAW munitions launchers or artillery. The 'Complexity' tier in effect allows a player to argue for alternate skill applicability at a 1-dice penalty in the absence of relevant skills.
• Level 3 (Mastery): Skills rated at 3 represent the apex of human understanding and skill. Level 3 works identically to all lower levels, save that a character may also choose a specialization relevant to their skill that applies an additional +1 bonus in its purview such as Firearms (Pistols), Firearms (Disarming) or Firearms (Creating Obstacles in a Chase Scene).