Eclipse Phase - Ego Hunters.pdf

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EGO HUNTER

An A d ve n tur e fo r T h e Ro l ep la yi ng Game o f T r an s h um a n Con s pirac y an d Horror

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EGO HUNTER

Ego Hunter

is a convention scenario for

Eclipse

Phase.

It is unique in that most (possibly all) of the

player characters are forks of the same person who

work together to track down their original (alpha)

self. Intended as a one-shot, stand-alone adventure,

it can easily be converted into a mission for an

ongoing campaign.

The scenario begins with several beta forks of the

same person—Achjima Yai—all awakening in a

body bank after being successfully sleeved into new

morphs. Days ago, each of these forks was egocast

away to conduct business and research in remote

habitats. Upon egocasting back, their missions

complete, these forks should have been collected by

the Achjima from which they originated to be merged

back into her ego. Instead, Achjima apparently left

instructions and paid a small fortune (borrowed from

a local criminal group) for these forks to be resleeved.

A message left by Achjima tells the forks that some-

thing has happened to their alpha ego. They must

put together the pieces of the puzzle and track their

original self down.

MISSION HOOK

It is expected that most players of this scenario will

be playing a beta fork of Achjima. Forking is detailed

on p. 273,

Eclipse Phase.

Beta forks are mind clones

of the original person with some parts inhibited

(skills) or deleted (memories).

Though copies of the same person, each fork differs

in small but distinct ways. The neural pruning used to

create them varied slightly, as each fork was tailored

for its specific task. This means that some forks might

retain memories that others do not. It also means that

small differences in personality or even skills might

exist between forks.

Throughout this scenario, the designation (alpha)

will be used to refer to the original Achjima from

which these forks emerged. The character forks will

be identified as (B1), (B2), (B3), and so on, as noted

below. Other forks of Achjima will be noted in the

text by the type of fork and a numerical designator

(for example: B6, B7, and B8). Character sheets for

each fork can be found starting on p. 18.

Not all of the players need be a fork of Achjima.

Several suggestions are provided for other characters

to be included. Most of these are characters who

egocast in with the forks from a remote location.

Character information for Nkeka is provided (p. 28).

It is recommended that one of the Sample Characters

from the core rulebook (p. 154–169,

EP)

be used

for each of the other characters (Roque and Park);

specific suggestions are provided and sheets included.

CHARACTER BACKGROUND

Writing, Editing, and Art Direction: Rob Boyle

Development: Rob Boyle and Brian Cross

Layout and Maps: Adam Jury

Artwork: Danijel Firak, Joe Wilson

Playtesters and Proofreaders: Joe Altepeter, Seth Bacon, Josh

Boys, Brandon Bricker, Karl Hauber, Evan Jeffrey, Ryan Jeffrey,

Robin Meyer, Micah Stoutimore, plus everyone who played it

at Gen Con 2010 and PAX 2010.

Musical Inspiration: Fla Vector, iVardensphere, Mono no Aware

CREDITS:

Version 1.0 (March 2011) by Posthuman Studios

or via http://eclipsephase.com

or search your favorite social network for:

“Eclipse Phase” or “Posthuman Studios”

Posthuman Studios is: Rob Boyle, Brian Cross, and Adam Jury.

Creative Commons License; Some Rights Reserved.

http://eclipsephase.com

—Eclipse Phase website and blog

http://del.icio.us/infomorph

—Eclipse Phase-related news and links

http://posthumanstudios.com

—Posthuman Studios website

http://eclipsephase.com/store

—Online Ordering and PDFs

RESOURCES:

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-

Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of

this license, visit:

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/

What this means is that you are free to copy, share, and remix the text

and artwork within this book under the following conditions:

1) you do so only for noncommercial purposes;

2) you attribute Posthuman Studios;

3) you license any derivatives under the same license.

However—you may copy, share, and remix the audio included for

commercial purposes.

For specific details, appropriate credits, and updates/changes to this

license, please see:

http://eclipsephase.com/cclicense

http://www.humanityplus.org

—Humanity Plus

OUTSIDE RESOURCES:

CHARACTER LIST

This list assumes a game of up to 8 players. The char-

acters are listed in the order they should be assigned;

if a game has only 5 players, for example, only use the

first 5 characters listed:

1. Achjima (B1):

This fork was sent to research

various xenobotanical samples recovered from

exoplanets accessed via Pandora gates in the

possession of argonaut researchers.

2. Achjima (B2):

This fork was sent to discreetly speak

with an expert in uplift genetics regarding the

effects of certain chemicals on smart monkey brains.

3. Achjima (B3):

This fork was sent to investigate the

recent activities and disappearance of a singularity

seeker named Arman Usupov.

4. Nkeka Adesoji:

Nkeka is an agent of Firewall who

has infiltrated some singularity seeker circles.

5. Achjima (B4):

This fork was sent to research the

durability of various botanical and mycological

strains on Mars.

6. Roque Vera:

Roque is a collector and dealer of

unusual things—usually illegal and sometimes

dangerous. Recommended: Hypercorp Black

Marketeer, Extropian Smuggler, Mercurial Scavenger

7. Park Soon-Ok:

Soon-ok is Achjima’s only local

friend. She knows nothing of recent events. She

simply received a message that Achjima was in

trouble and to join her forks at the resleeving

facility. Recommended: Criminal Hacker, Scum

Enforcer, Anarchist Techie

8. Achjima (B5):

This fork was sent to investigate and

appraise a set of experimental cognitive enhance-

ments being offered by a group of renegade genete-

cists in the Main Belt. (This is a red herring.)

EGO HUNTER

IN AN

ONGOING CAMPAIGN

The easiest way to use this scenario as part of an ongo-

ing team is to make the various forks of Achjima into

NPCs, run by the gamemaster. In this case, the player

characters would be taking on the role of Achjima’s

allies. If the player characters are part of Firewall, they

can take the role Nkeka occupies, replacing her as a

group. If the characters are not Firewall, they can fill

in Park’s position, with the assumption that one or

more know Achjima from past dealings. If handling

multiple Achjima fork NPCs at once is too much for

the gamemaster, the scenario can be altered so that

only one or two of the forks are resleeved while the

rest are brought along as infomorphs.

One way to still have fun playing the various forks

and mesh this mission in with an ongoing campaign is

to wait for a time when some of the player characters

are separated from the team for a short period, In this

case, the players whose characters are away can take

on the role of Achjima’s forks. This also works if you

happen to have some guests over for a game session or

two and you want to hand them characters to play.

If there are fewer than 8 players, the higher Achjima

forks should be ignored (alternatively, the gamemaster

can combine some of the forks together). Roque, Park,

and Nkeka, if not used as player characters, should be

run by the gamemaster as NPCs.

ROLEPLAYING ACHJIMA

It should be an intriguing challenge for the players to

all roleplay the same character. Though we have pro-

vided some details on Achjima’s personality, the play-

ers will have a limited amount of information to work

from and it is likely that each player will approach the

character in their own individual manner. While the

players should make an effort to all come across as

the same person, don’t sweat it if it doesn’t come off

perfectly. There are many reasons why the different

forks of Achjima might manifest different aspects of

the character’s personality. The neural pruning pro-

cess is far from perfect, and each fork was pruned in

separate ways that can lead to variation. On top of

this, the longer the forks remain apart, the more they

diverge from each other in experiences and personal-

ity and become distinct and separate individuals. This

process of divergence is in fact a key element of the

roleplaying this scenario encourages.

What matters is that the players make an effort

to portray roughly the same character. One way

for them to do this is to play off of each other’s

presentations and mimic each other. If one player

starts off with a specific speech pattern, the others

should emulate it. If another player coins a specific

amusing catch-phrase that Achjima uses, the others

should adopt it. If a player invents a specific memory

from Achjima’s past while narrating a tale, the others

should feel free to expand on that story. In a sense,

Achjima is a group identity, fleshed out by the coop-

erative manner in which the players bring her to life.

If for some reason one of the players fails to stick

to the character, as portrayed by the others, there

are in-game ways of explaining this. As noted under

Neural Pruning (p. 274,

EP),

precise manipulation of

the ego is still an art form and subject to errors. It is

quite possible that one of the forks in question has

been significantly altered by the pruning process, to

the point of having a mental disorder (p. 150,

EP)

simply some distinct mannerisms that make them

stand out.

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1.1

.1.1.1

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EGO HUNTER

This scenario takes place in the domed Martian

settlement of Anyang, in the region known as Hellas

Planitia. Originally founded as a terraforming outpost

by Chinese settlers, Anyang is now an administra-

tive center home to some 300,000. Many of these

residents are hypercorp personnel, drawn to a cluster

of research parks, mostly focused on genetics and

biological sciences. Anyang is a focal point of culture

and night-life for the dozens of smaller outposts and

settlements in the region.

Anyang is laid out much like a city on Earth would

have been, except that it is covered by a large pres-

surized transparent dome that holds in a breathable

atmosphere for transhuman biomorphs.

STARTING SETTING

Achjima Yai is a singularity seeker. Fascinated with the

TITANs and the possibility of bootstrapping her ego

to transcendant levels of intelligence, she has made a

career out of scavenging, studying, and trading TITAN

relics and other curiosities from the Fall. Her activities

have landed her in trouble several times, forcing her to

move often and keep to the fringes in order to avoid

too many questions from the authorities. Her illicit

technological interests and need to keep her activities

clandestine are expensive, however, and so Achjima

has become indebted to a triad crime syndicate. In

exchange for their assistance, she lends her scientific

PLOT SYNOPSIS

expertise to their projects and sometimes passes them

items of interest.

In recent months, Achjima has been forced to

relocate to Anyang in order to work off some of

her debt to the triad, who have her assisting in their

soul-trading and black market morph operations here.

While here, she recently received a package, hand-

delivered/smuggled by a sufi nomad, from another

singularity seeker named Arman Usupov. The delivery

consisted of a specimen container with an unusual

biological sample and a short message from Arman,

who simply said that he had “discovered it under

interesting circumstances” and wanted her to help

analyze it.

Achjima began investigating the biological

material. During this testing, one of her smart

monkey pet/assistants was accidentally exposed

to spores from this sample. Achjima isolated the

creature and placed it under study, where she noticed

it was exhibiting some odd changes in behavior.

After several days, the monkey died. Achjima

autopsied the animal and detected several chemical

changes to the monkey’s brain. Shortly thereafter,

she observed a strange set of biological growths

extending from its corpse. She strongly suspected

the biological substance had been manipulating the

smart monkey’s behavior in order to facilitate its

own best chances for replication and survival.

Achjima decided to research this unusual sample

more. To this end, she pruned several beta forks

FORKING LEGALITY

Forking is a tricky matter when it comes to legal in-

terpretations. Given the patchwork nature of trans-

humanity’s holdings, legal views of forking vary

almost as much as social attitudes. Even within the

Planetary Consortium, individual habitats may have

nuanced approaches to the legal standings of forks.

The habitat of Anyang, in which this scenario

takes place, approaches forking legality in a

manner similar to most Consortium settlements.

Specifically, alpha forking is illegal, beta forking

is legal for up to 4 hours (not counting remote

transmission lag time), and delta forks are legal for

unlimited periods. The time limit on beta forks is

rarely enforced, however, unless it is abused. Forks

are considered the legal property of the originat-

ing alpha. The alpha is responsible for any laws the

forks break and is legally accountable in other mat-

ters as well. Forks are, however, prohibited from

signing legal contracts or otherwise entering the

alpha into any binding legal agreements without

the alpha’s express permission (and secure digital

confirmation). Forks are not considered to have

personal or civil rights of their own. Alpha forks,

betas that exceed their time limits, and other diver-

gent forks are considered legal non-entities.

It is customary for forks to be given limited credit

from the alpha’s accounts. The alpha’s rep scores

apply equally to their active forks.

In the context of this scenario, Achjima’s forks

are already breaking the law by existing longer

than 4 hours. Should they run afoul of the law, they

have no rights to speak of—and in fact no right to

exist any further. Without the approval of Achjima

(alpha), they also have no authority to legally

access Achjima’s credit accounts or other prive

affairs, nor can they speak on behalf of Achjima in

any legal sense.

If the gamemaster wants to explore forking

legalities, they may desire to change Anyang’s laws.

Enforcement of forking limits may be more strict,

for example, which could spark an investigation

into Achjima’s recent activities by the local militia.

Or forking may be more permissible and legally

supported, perhaps creating the opportunity for

Achjima’s forks to achieve their own legal indepen-

dence and existence.

.1.

1.1

.1.1.1

.1.

of herself and sent them off on research missions.

Somewhat paranoid and precautious, she was careful

to trim each fork’s memories so that it only knew

the bare minimum it needed in order to pursue the

investigation, in case they happened to fall into the

wrong hands.

Just a few hours after these forks were egocast away,

Achjima made a horrible discovery. She herself has

been exposed to the spores just as the smart monkey

had. Though her initial tests on herself had shown

she was unaffected, she was now detecting signs of

the material in her system—a substance she fears was

created by the TITANs.

In fact, the biological sample is an alien life form

most similar to the terrestrial Cordyceps fungus.

Cordyceps is a parasitic fungus that (usually) preys

on insects and sometimes has the ability to affect

the host’s behavior by directly infiltrating its brain

and neurological system. Recreated and modified

by exsurgents during the Fall, the xenofungus in

Achjima’s possession has been specially tailored

to affect transhumans; the spores of this parasitic

xenofungus can infect biomorphs. When a victim

breathes in the spores, they attach to the inside of the

throat, lungs, and sinus cavities and germinate. From

there, they grow thin tendrils into the victim’s body.

Once these tendrils penetrate into the brain, they

begin releasing mind-altering chemicals that affect

the victim’s perceptions and behaviors. The infected

become slightly dazed, highly-sensitive to odors, and

concerned primarily with finding the ideal location

from which the fungus can spread its spores. The

ideal location is one that is warm, moist, and subject

to strong winds. Once the parasite kills the victim, it

replaces its host’s tissue, sprouts from the body, and

fruits into maturity. The entire process takes just

under a week. Even though the victim is doomed

to die, the xenofungal infection prevents them from

contemplating suicide or pursuing similarly self-

destructive measures.

Unfortunately for Achjima, she discovered her

infection too late. The xenofungus was already

manipulating her behavior more than she realized.

Unable to kill or restrain herself, the best she could

do was to arrange for the forks to be resleeved when

she returned (a large expense that required a tempo-

rary loan from her triad connections) and hope they

would put together the information they needed to

track her down and deal with the problem. She also

created three new beta forks (B6, B7, and B8) and

sleeved each, but due to the xenofungus’s influences,

she was incapable of creating either until their new

sleeves had been similarly infected. Though neither

has reached the stage of infection that Achjima

(alpha) has, all three are effectively under the para-

site’s control. As Achjima (alpha) succumbed to

the infection, these forks carried through a plan to

infiltrate the habitat’s air plant. This scheme involved

abducting an air plant engineer (Scott Wai) and

hiring a hacker (known as T-Faktor) to oversee the

infiltration and hide their tracks, so that they could

place the sprouting Achjima in the best possible

position to spread spores.

Meanwhile, the activity of one of Achjima’s forks

has drawn the attention of Firewall. Achjima’s past

activities reserved her a spot on Firewall’s watch list

some time ago, as did the interests of Arman Usupov.

When Arman began poking around in the TITAN

Quarantine Zone, Firewall started paying closer atten-

tion. His recent disappearance, and the sudden arrival

and interest of Achjima (B3) in the matter, prompted

a proxy to dispatch three sentinels to investigate what

was going on. One is doing what they can to find

Arman. Another, Nkeka Adesoji, made contact with

Achjima (B3), pretending to be another singularity

seeker. After doing what she could to help research

Arman’s disappearance, Nkeka has egocast with the

beta fork to Anyang.

The third sentinel, named Kjell Hoff, took a

more direct approach to researching Achjima.

Unfortunately, he drew the attention of the paranoid

singularity seeker and was murdered by Achjima

B6. This killing was very public, and Achjima is now

wanted for questioning for aggravated violence and

property destruction.

At the time the scenario begins, Achjima (alpha)

has fully succumbed to the alien fungus. Her infected

corpse lies hidden within the habitat’s primary air

recycling and circulation plant. Large fungal growths

already sprout from her body, growing larger by the

hour. In approximately twelve hours, the xenofungus

will spore. The characters have until then to track the

body down and contain the infection.

Here is a quick summary for the gamemaster of the

NPCs that play a role in this scenario:

Dolma Gope (p. 12):

A genehacker who runs a

black clinic linked to the triad. Achjima sometimes

works at this clinic. Dolma helped Achjima (alpha)

acquire three morphs just recently (for B6, B7, and B8).

Kjell Hoff (p. 9):

A Firewall agent sent to inves-

tigate Achjima ahead of Nkeka’s arrival. Achjima

(alpha) was alerted to his snooping and so Achjima

(B6) murdered him.

Scott Wai (p. 11):

A technician who maintains

Anyang’s air plants. Achjima (alpha) had him

kidnapped to gain entrance to one of the plants.

T-Faktor (p. 11):

A mercenary hacker, perhaps the

best in Anyang. Achjima (alpha) hired him to help

gain access to one of the air plants.

Yao Xie (p. 13):

The local triad boss to whom

Achjima is indebted. He is aware that Achjima is

in trouble and want to know the details. He also

possesses Achjima’s backup.

MAJOR NPCS

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1.1.

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EGO HUNTER

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