2024-06-27

d33 Troika Backgrounds for What Was Manila

WELCOME TO WHAT-WAS

The Kapitol Wastes of Once Manila! I don’t want to make a new system or intimidate newbies with B/X. Plus I didn’t want a setting exposition dump. The solution was Troika! And, yes, I ripped the characters from Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2. Then I made them into more specific backgrounds for this post. The Force even has an analog here.

The reason was that after playing Dogs in the Vineyard, I wanted to make a setting inspired by it in the post-apocalypse. So I came up with Pigs in the Graveyard. I wanted to develop over time, but now I think the best way to build the world is with Troika. Yay!

I’ll be running Smells Fishy, Jack!. Players, don’t click if you want to avoid all spoilers. I’m evidently excited. Yay (1).

11 FORGOTTEN INITIATE

You thought you yourself a chosen one. You had always wanted the role of selective pacifist. The Order of Readers graced you with their ordainment and that opportunity went out like a candle. Roaming the What-was Wastes is a lonely endeavor. Chin up, you’ll find friends one day.

POSSESSIONS

• a soldier’s rifle* ripped from a stiff corpse
• entrenchment tool from the same dead dude
• a stolen gas mask
• A vice flask with a homemade concoction. Take a swig and Test Luck. On a success, you have medium armor for the next hour.
• An untrained connection to The Echo

ADVANCED SKILLS

• 3 Gun Fighting
• 3 Jerry-rigging
• 3 Athletics
• 2 Survival
• 2 Stealth

SPECIAL

Get a funny feeling whenever anything significant, however vague that sounds, is about to happen.

12 WELL-READ COUNCILOR

Your clerical status once granted spare time you spent discussing the problem of evil and other fun quandaries with your peers. Now, nearing extinction, you teach literacy to anyone in the hopes that one hears the Echo. They better listen, you bear mystic arms.

POSSESSIONS

• a big iron, 6 shots, damage as pistolet, and only fires in your hand
• 4 crystal sacraments, atomic edged glass blades (ignores armor, damage as sword)
• heavily annotated historical texts on their ecclesiastic e-readers
• 8 silent veils, sheer black handkerchiefs to anoint the dead or soon-to-be

ADVANCED SKILLS

• 3 Teaching (choose pedagogy or andragogy)
• 3 Power—Guiding Words
• 2 Medicine OR 2 Engineering
• 2 Blade-fighting
• 2 Science (choose field)
• 1 Athletics
• 1 Gun Fighting
• 0 Common Sense

SPECIAL

You perceive the Echo. A phenomenon emerged from the Pride and Fall. Did the bombs unleash what was always there or were our ancestors witness to its conception?

Manifest psychic premonitions of danger or other significant events. Divine nebulous, but correct answers to problems after 15 minutes in uninterrupted meditation. Your body is a temple fortress reinforced by your attunement: regardless of what you are wearing, you always have light armor.

GUIDING WORDS (1)

Speak a plainly stated command. Roll Versus. On a success, the target follows your words to the spirit. Otherwise, they gain a migraine and, if familiar with it, become aware of the power.

13 HIGHLY LITERATE EXILE

You’d spill blood again. Waging war to save others is where you excel, General. Though your soul, haunted by (gloriously) violent victories, is on an extended sabbatical.

POSSESSIONS

• a forged big iron*, 7 shots, blessed to never hurt you (damage chart below)
• inked outcast brands on side of neck
• 2 cestus laced with crystal shards (ignores armor, damage as mace)
• Lord of the Flies paperback with its binding coming undone

ADVANCED SKILLS

• 3 Gun Fighting
• 3 Medicine
• 2 Science (choose field)
• 2 Mixed Martial Arts
• 2 Athletics
• 1 Stealth
• 1 Power—Guiding Words
• 0 Love for the councilors

SPECIAL

Your are uniquely synchronized with the Echo. In addition to everything else a Councilor has, you read the minds of people you touch or empathize with.

21 REGRETFUL ASSASSIN

The Pigs let you give into your rage. Killing became a sport to this sadistic you. You never ran out of “enemies.” Yet, when one wished to save you, their empathy broke you. Deserter! Running away is a slower death. Letting your savior die, an unforgivable sin.

POSSESSIONS

• flagellation scars from training
• a pendant touched by The Echo, heightening your “sense” (+1 to max luck while in possession)
• a crafted macuahuitl grafted with artificial obsidian, crystals play a discordant tune as it’s swung (ignores armor, damage as Greatsword)
• 2d6 doses of phlogi-tonic. Take a swig to heal 2d6 stamina. It burns like lambanog going down.

ADVANCED SKILLS

• 3 Stealth
• 3 Gun Fighting
• 3 Melee Fighting
• 3 Athletics
• 2 Tracking
• 1 Computers

SPECIAL

Roll luck to find people. On a success, you know where they’re going even before they’re there. You intuit danger. You always have light armor.

22 SOLDIERLY TECHNICIAN

You choosing to become death, destroyer of worlds still echoes in your heart. The General’s orders were clear and you had always wanted revenge. Though you died that day you decided to kill. Now wandering What-was, you help others but don’t even save yourself.

POSSESSIONS

• Uranium glass capacitor necklace
• A rarely used journal embossed with “Mors Ab Alto”
• a War Boar stun baton you restored when you were younger

ADVANCED SKILLS

• 4 Engineering
• 4 Science—Nuclear Physics
• 3 Computers
• 2 Gun Fighting
• 2 Athletics

SPECIAL

You are tougher than most, you always have light armor on. Roll luck, on a success, it’s medium armor. You have a gut feeling before danger strikes.

23 WAR BOARMAN MERCENARY

Your people survived after the Pride and Fall through the domestication of kaboars, mutated beasts of burden. A century later, Ordo Tona of your clan invented kargadenza, the bio-fuel. The tradition of nomadic caravans driven by these two traditions survives. Your peoples’ attempted conquering of What-was still scars many too.

POSSESSIONS

• Bedu, a loyal kaboar and friend that heeds your every order
• a spear (ignores armor, damage as spear), its head is a crystal sacrament taken from a Reader you killed in the war
• 2d6 volatile phlogitonic grenades*, your own invention
• mobile lab equipment

ADVANCED SKILLS

• 4 Riding
• 3 Gun Fighting
• 3 Melee Fighting
• 3 Athletics
• 2 Science - Chemistry
• 2 Vehicle Mechanics
• 2 Driving

31 BLIND SEER

Your people, all born without sight, truly see through The Echo. Your true-sight didn’t spare you from the wrath of the Pigs. As the last of them, you were paraded as a mascot of mercy by your family’s murderers. You left that prison soaked in your jailers’ blood.

POSSESSIONS

• a braid of petrified fingers, one from each Pig you killed and one from the one you hunt
• a stolen saber made from red obsidian, it hums a tune with every strike (ignores armor)
• a bastardized ritual mask from a dead Pig

ADVANCED SKILLS

• 4 Saber Fighting
• 3 Power—Echo Sight
• 3 Athletics
• 2 Stealth
• 1 Thieving

SPECIAL

All your people attune to the Echo. You always have light armor and sense danger before it happens. They’re also famous for their mystic song that heals or bolsters. When singing you or one ally regains 1d6 stamina whenever you spend a whole turn singing. Or give one ally +2 to a contested roll or +1 to a damage roll.

However, you’ve felt the call of The Howl and have let it surge through you once. You could call upon it again When you do, you sing at a frequency subtle enough to create unstable resonances that rend molecules apart. All who hear this take damage as below*. Roll luck too. On a failure, allies receive the same damage. If you choose to not roll luck, gain +1 to the damage roll.

ECHO SIGHT (0 or 1)

You sense people through walls even without activating the power. You always know where people are, regardless of distance for as long as you have anything of theirs. Spend 1 stamina to sense a thread of future outcomes for any action.

32 BRAINO 3000

The new worker replacement series meant to thwart the efforts of workers’ rights even before the Pride and Fall. Under new rulers, your kind are servants for the warlords of What-was. As part of secret experimental batch 3000, you excel at deadlier tasks. Once the bombs fell, your assassination protocols remained but your brothers and sisters didn’t.

POSSESSIONS

• duraplate chassis (as medium armor)
• pain matrix emitter, transmits visible waves that only targets a meatbag’s (any organic being) pain receptors without visible marks or harm done to the target
• concealed arm-spike
• jump jets
• incomplete location data of a secret Braino 3000 factory

ADVANCED SKILLS

• 4 Gun Fighting or Sniping
• 3 Melee Fighting
• 3 Agile Servomotors
• 2 Adaptive Translation Software
• 2 Military History
• 2 Computers

33 TRAGIC SELF-LIBERATED SLAVE

Saved by a slaver who kept you alive but ruined you. The life-debt your tribe holds so dear tarnished by an irredeemable evil. You killed them all to see your family again. Having escaped bondage, you expected a hero’s return. Then the elders banished you for having murdered those you owed a life-debt. You accepted your fate, which is why you slaughtered everyone you could overnight and set the village ablaze.

POSSESSIONS

• The shrunken heads of the elders who wronged you
• a collection of petrified slaver tongues
• The traditional Colt M16 of your people (damage as rifle)

ADVANCED SKILLS

• 4 Survival
• 4 Strength and Agility
• 3 Awareness
• 3 Gun Fighting
• 2 Melee Fighting
• 2 Demolitions
• 1 Riding