Wednesday, December 9, 2015

A Mirror, Darkly: The Primacy for the Cypher System





In 2006, reclusive billionaire, Hogarth Sydow turned 103.  He was a self-mad man and though he enjoyed a full and good life, he'd outlasted his beloved wife and both of his sons.

He was alone and there was nothing left to hold him back.

To mark the occasion, he had his brain, just as sharp and potent, as the day he was born, transplanted into a biosynthetic body.  One that wouldn't age and that, theoretically, would preserve his mind for as long as it lasted.  Disease,  fatigue, maybe even death were removed from his life that day.

This wasn't his life's goal, but the older he got, the closer he marched toward oblivion, the more it made sense to use his fortune to try to beat the Reaper, himself.

His psychiatrist, Dr Anne Flower, would tell you that Hogarth's experience led to a psychotic break, but that's not how Hogarth understood it.  As a mere mortal, he'd been weak and frail and never even known it.  But once his brain experienced the wonders of his new body...well he understood how weak he'd truly been.  And how weak the rest of us were.  And like any great apex predator, he had the primal urge to prey upon the rest of us.  He hadn't meant to snap Dr. Flower's neck, but humans were so very frail, after all.

Part one of his plan was recruiting.  Only the best and brightest and only of a certain vintage, if you will, deserved this gift.  Only someone who had achieved some level of greatness, only to grow old and weary, to have seen better days, could handle this responsibility.  Would fully appreciate this gift.

By 2007, his chosen had grown in number to four.

By 2010, they had grown to eleven.

By 2012, they were at twenty-one.

His team, his equals among sheep, could now begin to shape this world.  To weed it, to sew it, to harvest it.  Time wasn't a factor any longer.  They had all the time their new bodies gave them.  And they understood patience in ways the young never could.

However in 2013 they discovered the others.  The recursions, the parallel worlds, the multiverse.  

Hogarth realized how small his ideas had been.  Now time and space were on his side.  He was always a lucky bastard like that.

His ilk, his brood, his primal brothers and sisters had whole worlds to sway to their way of thinking.  No need to rush though, the Primacy had all the time in the world.



PRIMACY BIOSYNTH 6 (18)

Motive: To engineer a better world
Environment: Anywhere
Health: 20
Damage Inflicted: 6
Armor: 2
Movement: Short
Modifications: Initiative 7, Might defense 7, Speed defense 7

Combat: Biosynthetic beings are stronger and faster than humans.
Venerable: If their target rolls a 1-2 on a defense roll, the biosynth inflicts 3 points of damage to them.
Use: A Primacy agent has been tailing the characters, curious what their resources are and how they my prove beneficial.  They may even insert themselves into one of the characters lives to fully exploit them.
Loot: A dead biosynth has 1d3+1 cyphers.


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Monster Monday: Obstrevoi for Shadowdark

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