Stitchman Excerpt

Here's a quick preview of the section on the malevolent Stitchers. Each major faction now has at least 10 pages of un-edited content completed.

The Stitchmen are ancient beyond the most basic comprehension of the majority of people during the Resurgence, and possess knowledge and technology that most can't even dream of. While the basic archetype of a Stitcher is one of malice and a vampiric nature, some Stitchers still hold true to their original Hippocratic Oath, and will work in conjunction with communities, doing good even as they seek to ensure their own survival. The vast majority have their own crews and their own enclaves, ruling with a paranoia and manipulation; carefully doling out medical care, bio-engineered enhancements, food, and weapons to those who serve their "master" well. Warped by centuries of narcissism, paranoia and ruthless self-interest, rare is the Stitcher who maintains trust for another living being, least of which are those who share their skills and were once their colleagues. The culture that is bred in most Stitchmen communities is very much "do unto others, before they do unto you". Backstabbing, murder, and coups are all fairly common within a culture that is motivated by the quest for everlasting life, and rife with dementia and paranoid tendencies.

Most Stitchers will not work with another of equal power to them, and they will never serve another living being. Whether their goal is manipulation, knowledge, or simple survival, they will typically travel that path alone, or with a few trusted servants. They oftentimes prey on those they once swore to serve and heal, taking any opportunity to gather tissue and organ samples, slaves, technology, or the raw materials that will allow them to brew their drugs and safely operate on themselves and their henchmen. As humanity emerges from the Dark Times, the Stitchmen emerge with it. They come in all shapes and sizes, some barely recognizable as human, some too bloated to move, male and female, as varied (if not more so) as the rest of humankind, though most of their number have long since given up the right to be called human by common definitions of the word.

While they are now fractured and scattered, the original Stitchmen all can trace their origins back to a single Exodus ship, which due to a malfunction, was forced to crash land outside of Tucson. This accident helped shape events for centuries to come.

Other than fresh organs and ‘foodstuffs’ the Stitchmen strike out for medical supplies, especially those that will keep their tools sterile, as infection and organ rejection are two of the main fears of the Stitchmen overlords. Cannibalism was sometimes adopted fairly early on for some crews, primarily out of desperation, as the food supplies were dwindling as Dark Times approached. The physicians were ‘wasting’ quite a bit of biomass in their organ harvests, and protein and calories were easily gleaned from human sources in the early days of the Stitchers.

Through medical technology and the constant supply of fresh organs and tissues, the Stitchmen are able to extend their life to well beyond anything that would have been imaginable in the 21st century. However, there are limitations; the only organ that can’t be replaced is the brain, which will still go through the process of decay and decline, albeit at a greatly decreased rate due to vitamin shots, blood transfusion and preventative surgeries. The brain-span is estimated to be approximately three hundred years... with dementias beginning to creep in after about the two century mark.

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Galactic Force Demo Day

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Drifters First Pages

Once again, this is not complete, but it is close (proofed, not edited, requiring some tweaks). Here is some info on the Hy Plains Drifters! Hope you like it, feel free to post comments either way

From an outsider's perspective, the nomadic Hy-Plains Drifters may look like nothing more than barbaric raiders, like blood thirsty marauders who take all they want and who leave only carnage and death at their heels. Certainly, elements of their nomadic lifestyle and their warrior caste society lend credence to that description, as do the horrific stories told by anyone lucky or cursed enough to survive a Drifter assault. There remains, however, an unexpected, storied past and a complex cultural foundation beneath the ties that bind these warriors of the Wilds together.

Despite their nomadic and ruthless vagaries, the Drifters trace their ancestry to men and women who were incarcerated during the time of the Big Push… and Drifters venerate that lineage. They do so both in their voracious resistance to the old world orders that castigated and persecuted their ancestors, through their will to destroy, and in their remembrance of those sacred individuals.

The Hy-Plains Drifters tribes of the Year Zero are all common descendents of one tribe, a massive tribe that endured a great splintering at the end of the Push. Once known as the Iron Bars, the division of this tribe changed the life on the plains irreparably. As time progressed, many of these original tribes further fractured into ever-smaller groups, yet each tribe vigorously follows the Drifter code and lives life in an astonishingly similar manner, although there is room for creative interpretation and digression from tribe to tribe.

Though often dubious and perhaps even mythologized, significant members of a tribe will invariably be able to trace familial derivation from generation to generation, and so on. The most prestigious can identify an ancestor among the oldest, most distant forefathers from the splintering of the Iron Bars, as an atavistic claim to perversely noble lineage. Though nearly impossible to prove, Drifters often use this factual inconvenience to imagine ancestry in ways that seem apocryphal at best. Nevertheless, ancestry remains a potent ideological cudgel for the aspiring Drifter warrior.

In step with the veneration of ancestry, each nomadic tribe is woven together in an intricate network of familial loyalties combined with an intuitive worship of brute strength. While generally fractured and splintered by nature, a motivated leader will understand and work quite diligently to create these complicated patterns of familial or tribal alliance and to sustain loyalty through a rewards system of carefully shared spoils. Thus, any worthwhile leader must always win, and always continue to do so as the first principle in the Drifter code. Failure is often devastating, both for the leader (who is almost always immediately deposed) and for the tribe, which would be lucky to remain coherent through any significant, sustained calamity. Strength, in this sense, is invaluable, but it is oddly matched with some shrewd element of devious cunning and rude political practicality that exists among the ranks of the Drifters.

To a Drifter tribe, there can be no true death while one’s bloodline still lives, and Drifter warriors will often memorize massive and detailed chains of lineage in order to honor those that came before them among the warrior caste. Only in the pure violence of battle can a warrior unlock more knowledge of ancient ancestors, with an elaborate oral history of feats and behavior used to determine what historical (or neo-mythological) persons they may add to their line. It is common for a tribe to call a number of kings, generals, khans, and outlaws members of their bloodline- with nothing more than a vague perception of that character in mind. Accomplishment matters. Violence matters. Although knowledge and literacy are not commonly respected among the tribes, Drifters are always hungry for the telling of heroic feats from ages past, with authenticity taking a backseat to epic scope of the narration, and to the rich, evocative characters in that tapestry.

In motion, a Drifter band acts like a plague of locusts on the land, an analogy taken either from the plains they now call home or from half-remembered lore that they have grown to admire in peculiar ways, a subtle influence reflected in Drifter language. Young Drifters are often called “locusts” for their thinner stature, lust for loot, and the manner in which they swarm the battlefield with little regard for life, theirs and others. These warriors are occasionally called "grubs" as a pejorative, but for the most part they embody the Drifter disposition of massive movement and violence with the combined will to consume.

Staker Chapter Excerpt!

Here is a small slice from our Stakers chapter from the upcoming rule book! Please note that while this has been proofread, it has not finished the editing phase:

Unlike the other factions that organize and unify under the banner of their group’s auspice, very few Stakers really bother to refer to themselves by the term. There are no meetings, no grand design or collected faction history. A ‘Staker’ is what other people call these hardy, home turf individuals and their extended families. Being a Staker just means that unlike most of the poor souls still scratching out an existence in the wilds, you have a place to rest when the day’s work is done – a place with walls and roof and a decent chance of still being there tomorrow.

When a Staker travels far away from home, it is often with an eye to found a campsite or to claim a piece of land in the wilderness. The wayward Staker will look for some place with good community potential, a spot with access to water, resources, shelter and/or sources of food. Some have a preference for defensibility, while others try to blend in with the environment and hide their foundations.

Still, every new site starts with the same simple act: either planting a wooden stake at the center point of the intended territory, or building the cornerstone of a building with an inscribed message. These spots are considered the heart of the new settlement and never moved again. It serves as a historical reminder of when the founding members of a community began the process of reclaiming the land from the Wrecked Earth. Everything that comes after that first act of claiming is built around that simple focal point.

Stakers create -that is what defines them. Stakers usually have long family lines that they can trace back to their settlement, or they will at least be likely to name the places their ancestors lived prior. Alongside this genealogy, Stakers will know and inherit the knowledge of a trade from their ancestry. Though not every Staker is a skilled craftsman like a carpenter or a metalworker, Stakers nevertheless value skill and discipline. As such, they keep many kinds within their communities, the thread that weaves them all together being the cooperation that binds them.

Let us know what you think in the comments!

-Matt

WIP Adepticon Boards

Brian is doing a great job on these, excited to show them off!