The Ghost/Exalted Y2K
This is my modern chronicle, it follows the adventures of three exalts and their escapades in Ann Arbor Michigan.
Contents
The Current State of the World
It is the year 2000, in specific January 12th.
At precisely new years PST the world suddenly changed rapidly and essence returned to creation, and with it the Exalted. when the world unfolded the satellites all fell from the sky and the world became flat like a map and much of the former globe began to experience severe earthquakes. The world is rearranging itself and the fair folk once again prowl the edges of creation.
Flash Forward a few days to January the 11th. Over the past few days the news has been flooded with reports of 'Supers': people with strange superhuman powers who are robbing banks and things, or stopping people from doing so. These people are appearing all across the globe and creating mass panic and confusion: many thousands of people have committed suicide or locked themselves in fallout shelters to wait out the 'End of Days'. Meanwhile gods and elementals from across the world are trying to force people to worship them, but no one speaks Old Realm any more.
Ann Arbor
The past eleven days have been very eventful in Ann Arbor: Mayor Ingrid B. Sheldon was assassinated on the 3rd, her murderer brought down by the police swat team on the 6th and Mayor John Hieftje elected in a special election on the 10th. Meanwhile over a dozen 'supers' have appeared in the city of various stripes, including 2 lunars, 3 solars, one of the Green Sun Princes, 4 abyssals and at least 10 dragon blooded. This does not include any of the several exalted who are A: PCs, or B: not yet known to the public. In most other respects Ann Arbor is much as it was known to the people of our world in 2000, with the exception that it has just suffered through a 3 foot accumulation blizzard.
Meet our Heroes
Into this scene of confusion and chaos step 3 heroes: a British Lunar Hit-Man, an Orichalcum Caste Alchemical Magitech Engineer from Kamak, and a Renegade Infernal with the ability to grant Wishes.
Battleworn Moon
So far we know relatively little about this character: we know he is from the UK, that he works as an Assassin for hire, but has a strong ethical code: he will only take contracts on those who are guilty of destroying the lives of others: Murderers, Rapists, Drug Dealers, Pimps, and the like. (And apparently people who sleep around while being infected with lethal diseases like AIDS or Syphilis: seems it counts as attempted murder in his eyes.)
Furthermore we know that he received his vision from Luna in her Twin Faced Bride aspect and that he did not exactly ask to become a Lunar.
Lastly we know that he has taken the Deadly Beastman Transformation knack, that his totem animal is the Arctic Fox, and his tell is Fox Ears and Tail, or for forms that don't have tails other than humans his hair is all white.
Brilliant Gears of Artifice
Thanks to some shenanigans with the powers of the Infernal member of the party this alchemical is the only member of his small strike force/diplomatic delegation who knows English. This fact means he is the only person who can interact with the people of Ann Arbor directly.
His original role was as an Artificer and he is planing to work to upgrade the tech base of creation to match that of Autochthonia.
Brilliant Gears of Artifice is a very new alchemical, literally having been born yesterday, but he is quick on the uptake and skilled at both combat and engineering. He has risen to the role of translator admirably and is doing well as a champion of Kamak.
Ami Chalot
Our resident infernal is a tool of the Yozi's, weather she want's to be or not. She has a very low intelligence score, giving her a childlike demeanor and forcing her to rely on her wits to survive. She is manipulative in the extreme but not unkind, and is motivated to help those less fortunate than herself.
Ami has just recently been hired by the Mayor's office to liaise with the Kamakie' delegation and serve as the city's diplomatic Attache'. This has not changed her relatively low income much but has improved her health benefits, including giving her a dental plan.
Ami has made it a personal mission to help one of the AAPD officers deal with some deep seated childhood fears: specifically fears of Ghosts, Spirits, Oni, and Demons. So far she is doing well, having eroded a three dot negative intimacy down to one dot, but she still must erode it twice more to break the intimacy, and that assumes that nothing happens to rebuild it in the mean while. (Which is nothing resembling a safe assumption, though assuming that it WILL get reinforced is not a safe assumption either... "Trust in the heart of the dice", so to speak...)
Major NPCs
Bellow is a list of the major NPCs that the PCs have encountered in the game and a bit of detail about each one as well as a link to their pages. They are organized by which sociopolitical group they belong too.
The Kamakie Delegation
Led by three elder Alchemicals and consisting of these three, four young Alchemicals including Brilliant Gears of Artifice, Sixty Kamakie special forces troopers, and Battleworn Moon (As of yesterday initiated into the process of naturalizing as a Kamakie citizen.) this group are the main focus of the campaign at the present time, but will gradually fade into the background as the campaign gains steam and more elements from creation and Autochthonia come to the fore.
They Currently have 4 Fasheni APCs which are functionally equivalent to aerial skiffs except with gun ports and higher soak and hardness: as well as just having acquired and repaired an abandoned factory building on the edge of the city which will be their base of operations for the first interval of the campaign.
Murukane: the door
Murukane is an elder alchemical of essence 7 and long time champion of Kamak's militia. This member of the starmetal caste has long planed to rise to the status of Matropolis but has agreed to delay her transformation in the service of Kamak. Her body is thoroughly restructured from the human norm into a long segmented slug like structure which incorporates an unusual charm allowing her to open gates between herself and specialty built portals, as well as an experimental charm that has allowed her to transport herself to creation. Murukane is not in charge of this mission, serving as an adjunct to the alchemical assembly and special forces troopers. Among the many charms which Murukane has installed are a half dozen repulsion/tractor beams as well as levitation apparatus and potent Dexterity, Manipulation, and Intelligence charms. She also has three essence cannons in hidden mounts one on each 'arm' and one concealed behind the fore head of her mask like face.
Romantic Building of the State
Romantic Building of the State
The Chief Diplomat of the team that has come from Autochthonia: Romantic Building of the State is a starmetal caste member of about 60 years standing. She has been very busy in that time and achieved essence 5. She is considered one of the most accomplished of Kamak's diplomats. While she has the Charm which allows Alchemicals to learn languages quickly in her panoply she did not happen to have it installed at the time when the alarms that the Yozi's had breached the Seal of Ten-Thousand Divinities went off and the time to install it could not be spared. Thus she must rely on Brilliant Gears of Artifice to translate for her until she can learn the language the hard way. (Though she does have a talent for learning these sorts of things: it's what led her to being a diplomat in the first place....)
Though eminently suited to being a diplomat and skilled beyond the understanding of any mortal yet alive in creation Romantic Building of the State does not have most of her diplomatic panoply installed right now, having refitted herself for a season or two of industrial work, simply to help her better understand the populat. She therefore has the following known charms installed: Omni-tool Implant, Creator Fugue Construction Engines, and several Attribute Upgrades.
Dream of the Golden Dawn
Like Romantic Building of the State, Dream of the Golden Dawn has been an active alchemical for many years now, almost 100 of them in fact. He is an exceedingly experienced combatant, and has studied MA styles extensively. This Shining One wears Orichalcum artificer armor and wields Orichalcum Hooked Beamklaives or Orichalcum Plasma Tongue Repeaters. His charm set is built around his caste attributes plus Dex and Wits charms.
Dream of the Golden Dawn is debating weather to pursue ascension to the status of Patropolis or remain at essence 5 indefinitely. He does not see any benefit in becoming a colossus except to progress toward city status.
Archon of Corrected Behavior
Archon of Corrected Behavior styles himself a dissident recycler, and is motivated to be a protector of the state; guarding Kamak from threats both foreign and domestic. This Soulsteel Caste member is a quiet presence, not prone much to speech but don't mistake that for not having an opinion: he is a judge by nature and knows that words are transient, it is actions which have the more profound effect.
Warden of the Shifting Border
Warden of the Shifting Border thinks of himself as a cleric of Autochthon and is motivated by the desire to master the colossi charms that allow Wyld Shaping at the 4 gateways into the Wyld which mark the cardinal directions of Autochthonia. While preparing for that role his path will be set by eliminating void cults and ravagers who would threaten Kamak.
Lithe Pillar of the Community
Lithe Pillar of the Community thinks of herself as the Vox Populi, a speaker for the people of Autochthonia and defender of the rights and privileges of the average worker. She is motivated by the desire to expand the freedoms and capabilities of the average Kamakie citizen and improve their relationships and understandings of other lands.
Kamakie Militia Special Forces Troopers
Kamakie Militia Special Forces Troopers
These sixty or so elite citizen's militia members of the Kamak armed services are all functionally identical, being armed with Kamak manufacture assault rifles, Plasma Tongue Repeaters, a pair of hook swords, and armored with reinforced buff jackets and special artifact helmets. They are drawn from all of Kamak's walks of life but primarily were regulators and arbitrators who found that they had more talent for combat than investigation and administration. Though for the moment they all use the same stat block they are not in fact extras, they are all heroic mortals. Many of them have awakened essence and their officers each are students of a terrestrial MA style.
The Ann Arbor Government
The AAPD and the mayors office have and will continue to play major roles in the game as it progresses, their leadership is currently deeply involved in the story line.
Mayor John Hieftje
Newly elected as mayor of the city only a few days ago John is an affable man with a strong set of values who sees the big picture yet can count the leaves on the tree's too. He is of advancing years but vigorous still and fairly adaptable to changing conditions. One thing that he wants to work on with the Kamakie delegation is negotiating for some of the technologies that allow them to live in more dense and crowded conditions.
City Safety Director/Police Chief Carl Ent
Carl Ent is not well liked by the officers of the AAPD. He has an abrasive sense of entitlement and a certain arrogance that as chief of police he is somehow above the law, though he would never say so openly. He harasses his subordinates and takes a cavalier attitude towards the rules of decorum and decency that are expected of someone in his position. All that said he is an experienced administrator and leader, and has a degree of fearlessness that allows him to face all obstacles head on.
Lieutenant Silas J. LaRoque
Originally from Louisiana Silas parents moved to Detroit to work for GMC in the late 70s when Silas was 10. He had a fairly happy life until the mid 80s when Detroit began to implode as outsourcing stole all the jobs on which it depended. That was when Silas had a sudden change of heart and went in for police training, graduating from the police academy with high marks and being hired on to the AAPD as a patrol officer. He rose through the ranks relatively swiftly thanks to his near zealot work ethic and talent for bureaucracy.
Just recently Silas found himself wishing that he knew Old Realm and had his wish granted by Ami Chalot, now he is in an interesting position: he can talk to spirits and the autochthonians, but dares not reveal this fact because he has no idea how it is possible.
Silas is a lapsed Roman Catholic, but still holds to some of the tenants of that faith in a sort of superstitious, magical thinking, kind of way, such as keeping a talisman to Saint Michel on his person at all times and praying the rosary each morning. He has not been to mass however in years except on Easter and Christmas and the last time he had confession was 10 years ago when a crazed PCP user forced Silas to shoot him.
Silas is married to his second wife, and has two children, ages 6 and 4, both boys. His wife wants to have a third child but they have had no luck conceiving in the past four years and Silas is adamant that they will do it the natural way or not at all. Like Silas Mrs. LaRoque is a lapsed catholic but more involved than he is, taking the kids to church about once a month and going to confession at Easter and Christmas. She also is saving money to invest so that they can send the boys to catholic school when they are older.
Patrol Officer Matsuki Kaia-Mai
The Daughter of the senior professor of Japanese Studies at UofM and his very traditional wife; 'Kaia' as her friends call her is the eldest of four siblings, two girls and two boys. When she finally asked her mother why she had so many children the response was: odd... "Because I didn't want to have five."
Kaia precedes her younger brother in birth by six years, and has always resented him for taking away her status as the favored child. This is perhaps part of what has driven her to such a culturally abnormal choice of carers. Kaia's parents never approved of her strong aggressive streak nor her fascination with weaponry, and tried to discourage it with tales of bekemono and oni from their homeland. This worked to a degree, leaving Kaia with an abiding terror of the ghosts, spirits, ogres, and demons of Japanese legend, but in a perverse twist of fate drove her to become a warrior and officer of the Law exactly opposite to her parents desires as a way to prove that she had nothing to fear from the monsters in the dark.
"Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I shall fear no evil... Because I am the most badass fucking creature in the whole damn valley!" Is one of Kaia's favorite catchphrases.
Kaia is only 21 but already a respected member of the force, having joined right out of high school and made a name for herself by busting two crack dealers on traffic stops. She still is on the patrol circuit since it is department policy to keep new officers on patrol for at least 3 years but a promotion is coming up the pike for her if she keeps her nose clean and stays smart and everyone knows it.
In her personal life Kaia is something of a mess. She has just come off of a two year relationship which ended badly because she was more dedicated to The Job than her romantic partners and they finally had enough. She also currently has over 3K in unpaid credit card debt from a bad phase when she was still in her teens and didn't understand just how much trouble you could get in with unsecured credit. She is paying it off, but it's like grinding down a mountain with a nail file. She very much want's to buy a house: but with the market inflated like it is especially in the city she has relatively little chance of that with her poor credit history. Her current mode of transportation is an unmarked car that is on loan from the department because having her drive it around when off duty helps to conceal that it belongs to the department when they need it for under cover work. She also has a mountain bike that she uses for short trips to the store and the like.
Kaia lives in a third floor walk up at Evergreen Apartments on Scenic Lake Drive.
