2801 Apocalypse

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• System: D&D 4E

Group Specialties

• Avianpilot
  • Starship Engineering
• Bogy
  • Psychology
  • Quantum Physics
• Jarvis
  • Hydroponics
• Mikeejimbo #1
  • Biological Anthropology
• Mikeejimbo #2
  • Electrical Engineering
• Nukie
  • Cybernetics

Campaign Background

Since the War of Unification humanity has spread even further amongst the stars. The discovery of Folding Technology allowed humanity to explore a large number of the solar systems in the Milky Way galaxy. Some missions were even sent to begin the exploration of distant galaxies in a similar fashion to the ancient Voyager Program. Humans have terraformed many solar systems and set up remote space stations throughout the galaxy. Life has been found in other solar systems, just nothing remotely intelligent to date.

Humanity has created true artificial intelligence through several generations of attempted. The program itself was primarily led by the need for more automated recovery of wrecks on hazardous planets as well as exploration. The military took this concept further allowing the creation of artificial soldiers known as Warforged. These warforged earn the right to become citizens of the United Colonies upon completing a 20 year tour of duty. Nearly all warforged choose to continue their service indefinitely as they literally knew no other life.

Meanwhile humans seem to be degrading as a society as many warforged are apt to point out. To counter-act this degrading a mandatory term of military service was implemented for all who cannot afford warforged exemptions. This service typically includes serving as a police force, a customs agent, and a border patrol agent keeping the Colonies safe from the lawless fringe colonies.

The date is now June 28, 2801, the date of the next Apocalypse. The group is serving as marines aboard the CSV Clint Eastwood.

Galactic Politics

United Colonies

Main Article: United Colonies (The Apocalypses)

House Rules

• Alignment will be ignored by the DM as a whole. You can use it if you want but I have a feeling that over the course of the campaign your alignments would change possibly several times. Also there is no real benefit to alignment other than as a guide for the player.
• Attacks, Ranged
  • When using a rifle against an opponent that can hit you with a melee weapon you receive a +2 circumstance bonus to hit that opponent. If you move in any form more than 1 square beyond the melee reach of the opponent before the attack you lose this bonus.
  • When using a non-thrown or non-rifle ranged attack, such as an attack with a pistol, against an opponent that can hit you with a melee weapon you receive a +4 circumstance bonus to hit that opponent. If you move in any form more than 1 square beyond the melee reach of the opponent before the attack you lose this bonus.
• Bluff
  • Play Dead - New use, immediate reaction to initiate, takes full round to complete. Bluff vs Passive Perception. An enemy focusing on you may make a direct opposed roll (for instance if you are still in his scope).
• Divine powers are not derived from a divine source but rather from the self.
• Friendly Fire
  • Replace the term enemies with creatures in ALL powers. No power will exclusively hit enemies.
  • When firing a ranged attack at an enemy that an ally has entered melee combat with, the enemy is treated as having cover against you. If you miss your attack on the enemy you make the same attack on your ally who is also considered to have cover. If an attack consists of more than one attack this applies to each individual attack (Twin Strike for example).
• Implements are re-flavored for a future type setting. You may choose the exact focus you want though it may not under any circumstance be a ranged or thrown weapon. For instance you could choose to be using a police night-stick for your implement and choose to use the orb benefits. The exception to ranged weapons being implements shall be the class has it built in as a possible implement, no feats to enable it.
• Magic items are re-flavored as pieces of technology that enhance an item or power.
  • Boons and Tattoos become cybernetics.
  • Intelligent items become items imbued with an artificial intelligence.
• Opportunity Attacks
  • Leaving cover will provoke an attack of opportunity from enemies using ranged weapons. If you have a melee weapon equipped (in either hand) you lose this attack of opportunity.
• Rituals for the most part become a technological achievement of a temporary nature where possible.
• Stealth
  • Garrote - If you successfully sneak up on an opponent who is unsuspecting of your attack it is treated as though it is a minion for the purposes of the attack. The enemy is treated as being helpless.
    • If you use a short blade for the attack you may make a stealth roll to remain hidden.
    • Success Example: You sneak up on a sniper who thinks he has all enemies in his sights. This could be he successfully shot you and presumed you were dead (Bluff vs passive perception).
    • Failure Example: You sneak up on a sniper who lost track of several group members and is actively being cautious about an attack (Available even to PCs but at a -4 penalty to all attacks).
• Teleportation abilities and powers as well as similar effects will simply not exist. This includes but is not limited to several Warlock and Assassin powers.
• Warforged cannot wield any form of magic. If you choose to be a warforged and take a class that is inherently magical you must provide a technological justification for each individual ability.
• Warlord Abilities:
  • Abilities that allow people to make a melee basic attack are to be used for any basic attack. This is required due to the way modern/future warfare would focus on ranged weapons.
• Weapons:
  • Assault Rifle - take the Repeating Crossbow.
  • Pistol - take the Hand Crossbow.
  • Rifle - take the Crossbow.
  • Sniper Rifle - take the Superior Crossbow.

Backgrounds

Choose a background and benefit that matches your character. The DM reserves the right to overrule the benefit if he deems it is not fitting for your character.

Races

Humans

• Dwarf - The descendants of humans who settled on the highly industrialized world of New Pittsburgh which has a very high gravitational pull. Replace the love of rocks with the love of engineering.
• Eladrin - The descendants of humans who settled on space stations in the void between star systems. Modify the racial power to read "shift" rather than "teleport".
• Elf - The descendants of humans who settled on the harsh wilderness colonies beyond the Sol system.
• Cross-Breed or Gen-Mod Human - Choose Human and one other compatible race (Dwarf, Eladrin, or Elf) to take racial benefits from. This is a replacement for the Half-Elf which can be rebuilt through this "new" race. Stats as Half-Elf.
• Githyanki - Your family has spent 3+ generations living aboard deep space stations.
• Githzerai - Your family has spent 3+ generations living aboard deep space stations.
• Goliath - The result of genetic engineering to create a stronger mercenary.
• Human - Humans are the descendants of those who chose not to leave the Sol system and kept the genetic line of humanity unaltered by the mixing of other races or genetic modification.
• Orc - The result of genetic engineering to create a stronger mercenary.
• Revenant - The result of the "resurrection" of soldiers who have fallen on the battlefield. Many of their organs are synthetic or outright cybernetic.

Other races available if human-like and a reasonable (non-absurd) explanation can be provided. For instance trying to be a race with animal-like qualities is something I consider absurd.

Non-Humans

• Warforged - Most warforged pursue a life of exploration be it of the universe, how to better their kind, how to integrate with other warforged species, or how to understand organic life. Warforged are very expensive and generally rare.

Character Creation

• Choose any playable race from the list above.
• Create a character of level 8.
  • Starting Stat Array: Dex of base 16 (pre-racial bonuses), 16, 14, 13, 12, 10
  • Standard equipment (1@9,1@8,1@7,gp of 1@7)
  • Stealth as a trained skill is mandatory. This can be gained through a background benefit (ex: Occupation - Hunter has it), a class skill, or skill training feat.
  • Proficiency in any form of crossbow (firearm) is required. You would fail basic training without it so take a class or feat to gain proficiency please. Exemptions can be made for classes that have good at-will ranged attacks through a form of "magic" (arcane, divine, etc)
• Your character is serving time in the military. It's your choice whether you are just starting your mandatory military service, well into it, or a volunteer serving past the required minimum terms of duty.
• You are all part of a customs team that typically boards vessels in search of contraband. Some of you may be marines, some of you may be techs, others may be medics. I don't particularly care as long as your military profession makes sense to send on boarding parties.
• Stealth will be VERY important in this game as it is in real modern warfare. Bear in mind class powers that enable you to stealth or go invisible when you have cover. Cover is a critical aspect in my future games as I'm sure many of you remember quite well meaning it'll be available more often than not. Also I intend to have stealth based missions during the course of the campaign where you must sneak into or out of things.
  • Several quests have already been planned that are very reliant upon stealth.

Skill Uses

• Acrobatics - Zero-Gravity maneuverability
• Athletics - High-Gravity maneuverability, jumping from one ship's hull to another.
• Dungeoneering - Also used for architecture and guessing locations of items on a ship.
• Heal - Anatomy and crap.
• Nature - Physics is now pretty much a common sense item as its well understood by now.
• Streetwise - Doubles as Computer-wise for searching for files or through archives that have some sort of AI assistance (99%).

Secondary Character (Optional)

All players are allowed to build a second character to play during the campaign. Typically this character will stay aboard the ship but there may be times when a mission specialist is required for various purposes.

• The character is required to have one or more of the following skills as trained: Dungeoneering, Heal, Nature, Streetwise.
• The character is required to spend every possible feat improving trained skills.
• The character is required to take gear primarily geared towards improving trained skills.
• The character may not be a "hit that guy" type character.
• Unless specializing in heal, the character may not take powers that directly assist other characters, let them heal, or let them attack. Basically no leaders unless its a pure healer aka medic.

Entertainment

• Extreme Football - A spin off of football in which the use of any hand-carried technologies or special powers are allowed so long as they do not lead directly to the injury or damage of players. Offensive linemen in this league tend to be frail nerds with technological gadgets that can erect force shields to prevent an opponent from crossing through, Linebackers tend to carry EMP grenades, and running-backs tend to be warforged constructed with lead shielding and built-in jets. To tackle a player one must simply immobilize their opponent by any means. This sport has led to many technological innovations and carries sponsorships from militaries, mercenaries, and intelligence agencies.
• Football - Football was quickly adopted by the various species in the galaxy and the season has been extended to be 6 months long with a 3 month playoff period to allow for the Superiority Bowl to be between the best teams in the galaxy. The traditional Super Bowl is still a huge hit on earth as its best football teams compete for its automatic bid to the playoffs (the only individual planet to be given such an honor). The only species not permitted to play are the Warforged who would later found Extreme Football.
• Mega-Golf - A spin off not of the original sport, but rather of mini-golf. This sport tends to take place in asteroid belts which serve as extreme obstacles over the long distances of space.
• Quidditch - First made popular by the classical Harry Potter novels written in the days of paper fiction, this sport became a reality as humanity reached the stars with ease. The sport is played in low orbit over a planet with players riding on space scooters resembling the ancient broom.
• Spherical Hockey - Hockey evolved to occur inside of a spherical arena with two goalies on the rink per team to defend a hole in the ice. To keep the puck from leaving the rink it was magnetized to prevent shots from going directly from point A to point B bypassing all of the players. To keep the spirit of fights and checking in the sport several walls are erected on the sphere that are constantly moving at a slow pace.

Technology

Cloning

Cloning is a fairly common practice for those who can afford it. It is most commonly used for cloning various animals be they pets or food. The majority of meats that are eaten are now the result of cloning factories rather than raised on farms. Through the use of cloning factories the industries have minimized their expenses in terms of real estate, feed, and vaccines by simply cloning the tissue that would be consumed rather than the entire animal. Farm raised animals are now considered to be a delicacy.

Humans are sometimes cloned by those who wish to create a perfect copy of themselves through a combination of cloning and genetic engineering. A large percentage of CEOs and politicians are the result of this technology. The more religious types fear that humanity will lose its soul through cloning while others fear that eventually humanity may become dependent upon cloning to reproduce. For the most part clones are widely accepted within society and in come circles not being a clone is considered as having a disability.

Another result of cloning is that the need for organ donors has become fairly rare as new organs can be grown for a person within a week depending upon the individual organ in question. One organ that has been difficult to clone is the human brain. While the brain itself is cloned, the memories and information contained within are not. For that reason cloning brain tissue is considered to be a last resort and typically patients will have a digital imprint of their memories taken so that they can be recovered by browsing through the memories that they deem to be important enough to regain.

Finally, cloning occurs periodically for the military when their fail to gain enough recruits and there is a shortage of warforged. These clones are typically treated as highly expendable and typically are given the worst possible missions. Any soldiers that are clones are required to complete 20 years of military service before they are discharged. They are not able to receive an early discharge due to the military having had to spend alot of its own money on the individuals.

Folding Technology

The quickest method of travel is not to make more powerful engines capable of accelerating mass much faster but rather to bend reality in such a way that the distance itself is shortened. Such technology is incredibly power consuming and requires extreme precision. Using the stars to navigate is a very bad idea as from one location you are viewing stars where they were years, centuries, or even millennium ago. As such a massive database and processing core is required to ensure that a ship will not fold directly into a star. Upon successfully reaching a new star system most ships update their databases with the local starports to ensure that they have the most up to date records available. It also allows ships to not require as large of a processing core as might otherwise be required. To get an idea of the complexity consider that galaxies are travelling through the universe at a given rate, within that galaxy a star system is moving at a given rate, within that star system the planetary bodies are also moving at a given rate, also consider that each body in existance has a gravitational effect on the others affecting their trajectories. If a star goes supernova thousands of light years away from your destination how has that affected where your destination is now located?

It is possible to fold extreme distances and perhaps make the jump to a distant galaxy in one jump, however this is not recommended. For instance if one were to jump to the Canis Major galaxy which is 25,000 light years from Earth, one would have to remember that where they see the Canis Major galaxy is where it was 25,000 years ago. As such a single jump is not recommended. Most consider jumps of more than 10 lightyears to be far too risky.

Genetic Modification

Genetic modification of all things living has become common practice as humanity seeks to eliminate all genetic disorders and further enhance the species. Adaptions are also made so that new generations can live more comfortably on colonies that were poorly terraformed. This has led to the average life span of a human being 150 years with fertility having been expanded outwards to 75 years in most cases. This has led to booming human populations which have allowed humaity to quickly colonize other planets.

Holograms

Holograms are the "illusions" of the era. They are commonly used as a replacement for the ancient television or computer screen. Holograms can be projected from nearly any piece of technology that has a holo-projector attached to it. This can be as small as a wrist watch or as large as a sports arena.

Nano-Technology

Nano-Technology is commonplace by now with cell phones having been turned into a nanite that is injected into the body.

Terraforming

The process of terraforming a planet is one that makes the environment of a planet more similar to that of Earth. Scientists usually study how the individual star system can be made to support a hospitable planet. Planetoids are only chosen if they have an acceptable gravitational force as adjusting the gravitation pull of a planetoid is incredibly hazardous to those living on the planetoid as well as the star system itself.

The second determination that is made is whether or not the orbital properties of the planetoid will need to be adjusted. This is always an adjustment to push the planetoid further from its star rather than closer. Complex gravitational models are completed to ensure that the orbit adjustment will not have any adverse affects on the planetary system. Orbital adjustments are the most costly aspect of terraforming a planet as it involves physically moving it. This is usually accomplished with massive bursts of atmosphere if one is pre-existing, otherwise materials must be imported from elsewhere in the star system or worst case another star system.

Once a planetoid's orbit is acceptable the process of rebuilding the atmosphere to human friendly levels begins. This always involves the importing of materials from within the star system due to the economics of importing materials from elsewhere. Once the air is breathable a process begins in which the atmosphere is made to be of an acceptable average temperature. This is usually accomplished by warming a planetoid with greenhouse gasses or cooling it with orbiting solar shields to block portions of it's star's sun.

The next phase involves importing enough water to sustain life on the planet. This usually involves the retrieval of comets within the star system though its not unheard of to harvest ice from nearby planetoids. At first the planetoids typically just contain water in lakes but over decades streams and even rivers form as the water spreads through evaporation and rains occur.

The final adjustments that need to be made are the preparation of the soils to support plant life. Usually planets are chosen that have acceptable soil, but other times soil must be imported from elsewhere in the star system. The soil is usually very poor for several generations as it typically contains no natural organic materials so fertilizers become critically important.

Once the planet is totally adjusted planets and animals are imported that are known for adapting quite easily. Fish are usually in the form of Bluegill though Crappie are sometimes used as well. Imported animals typically include goats, rabbits, and crows as all of the species are highly adaptable. Plant life typically includes various grasses and genetically modifies crops.

Time Travel

Time travel is a very real possibility but it is not recommended under any circumstance. This is even more complex than calculating a fold to another star system as you have to calculate the exact location of where the planet you are time travelling to was located on the date of your attempted travel. One minor screw up and you would die in the cold vacuum of space, vaporize in the center of a star, burn up in the atmosphere of your destination, or even find yourself embedded within solid rock. Most time travelers require a massive starship capable of producing the energy necessary to create the portal to the past. It is also the safest method as you can plot your travel to the time you want but target a vast void in space from which you can then travel to the planetary body required.

It is currently unknown if time travel can affect the modern time as if it were modified who would know it had changed? Even the individual who went to the past to change it would not know of the event he/she was sent back to change as it would have never occurred. For this reason the only sanctioned reason for time travel is purely scientific.

Transporters

See folding technology for details. Transporters exist and are used to create smaller folds in reality to move individuals or items across reality. Due to the natural drift in the universe and the need for extreme precision it is rarely used beyond the surface of a planet and its higher orbits.