smallbird games

109X TERRA

RULES

PLAY: Players describe what their characters do. The GM advises when their action is impossible, requires extra steps, demands a cost, or presents a risk. Players only roll to avoid risks.
ROLLING: Roll a d6 skill die — higher with a relevant skill, or d4 if hindered by injury or circumstances. If helped by circumstances, roll an extra d6; if helped by an ally, they roll their skill die and share the risk. Take the highest die.
INFECTED ARTS: If Infected, forego use of an Arts unit to roll 2 of your skill die and take the higher, but take consequences of both dice if present.

1–2 Disaster. Suffer the full risk. GM decides if you succeed at all. If risking death, you die.
3–4 Setback. A partial success or lesser consequence (e.g., not dead, but hurt or ill).
5+ Success. The higher the roll, the better.
If success can’t get you what you want (you make the shot, but they’re bulletproof!), you’ll at least get useful info or set up an advantage.

LOAD: Carry as much as makes sense, but more than one bulky item may hinder you at times.
ADVANCEMENT: After an operation, increase a skill (none ➡️ d8 ➡️ d10 ➡️ d12), get d4 x 100 LMD.
DEFENSE: Say how one of your items breaks to turn a hit into a brief hindrance. Broken gear is useless until repaired.
HARM: Injuries take time and/or medical attention to heal. If decisively removed from play, make a new character to introduce ASAP. Favor inclusion over realism.

RUNNING THE GAME: Lead the group in setting lines not to cross. Fast-forward, pause, or redo scenes for pacing and safety; invite players to do likewise. Present dilemmas you don’t know how to solve. Move the spotlight to give everyone time to shine. Test periodically for bad luck (e.g., run out of ammo, or into guards) — roll d6 for (1–2) trouble now or (3–4) signs of trouble.

CHARACTERS

► Choose your character’s specialty.

MEDIC: Skilled in (d8) any 2 of Medicine, Reading People, Intimidation, or Science. Take a medkit, and a staff or healing drone.
SNIPER: Skilled in (d8) any 2 of Gun Arts, Crossbows, Stealth, or Explosives. Take a bow, grenade launcher (bulky, 4 grenades: any of fragmentation, smoke, flashbang, EMP) or crossbow.
ENGINEER: Skilled in (d8) any 2 of Engineering, Hacking, Smithing, or Science. Take a repair kit, and a drone or hacking tools.
CASTER: Skilled in (d8) Arts, and any one other skill. Take an Arts unit.
DEFENDER: Skilled in (d8) any 2 of Intimidation, Stamina, Medicine, or Leadership. Take a shield or vest.
GUARD: Skilled in (d8) any 2 of Hand-to-hand, Blades, Arts, or Stamina. Take a sword or polearm.
VANGUARD: Skilled in (d8) any 2 of Stealth, Survival, Tracking, or Blades.
ADMINISTRATOR: Skilled in (d8) any 2 of Bureaucracy, Connections, Deception, or Persuasion. Take a terminal.

► Choose your character's origin.

TECH: Apply any 3 skill increases (from no skill ➡️ d8 ➡️ d10 ➡️ d12). You can take new skills and/or increase skills you already have.
WEALTH: Start each session with 500 LMD.
HARD LUCK: Apply a skill increase to Survival, and 3 increases to mundane skills like Cooking, Cleaning, Sewing, Agriculture, or Animals. You can take new skills and/or increase skills you already have.
INDUSTRIAL: Apply a skill increase to Stamina, and 3 increases to mundane skills like Repair, Machines, Jury-Rigging, Sabotage, or Demolition. You can take new skills and/or increase skills you already have.
SARKAZ: Once per session, pick a skill to increase by 2 for a scene no matter what it is (maximum d12), and ignore any hindrances.
SANKTA: When using the Empathy skill with other Sankta, act as if it’s two increases higher. Take a patron firearm that applies an increase to Gun Arts when used (maximum d12).
UNCANNY: Invent one trait such as or on the approximate level of many-bodied, water doubles, living drawings, memory manifest, or telekinetic crushing hands.
AEGIR: Apply a skill increase to Engineering and Science; take the trait water-breathing or natural poison.
ABYSSAL: Apply a skill increase to Strength and Stamina; moderate injuries take a scene to heal and heavy injuries take one session. Take the trait called by We Many, and one other you invent. Don't choose an Arts technique; you may not use Infected Arts.

Optionally (unless otherwise specified), take the trait Infected, which allows use of Infected Arts.

► Choose or invent skills (if prompted by origin).

Arts, Athletics, Bureaucracy, Connections, Crossbows, Deception, Driving, Hacking, Electronics, Empathy, Explosives, Gun Arts, Hand-to-hand, Intimidation, Leadership, Medicine, Persuasion, Reading People, Science, Sleight of Hand, Stamina, Stealth, Strength, Survival, Tracking, Weapons

► Choose an Arts technique.

Cursing, elemental (invent something like fire, lightning, plant, water or wind), explosive, fortifying, illusion, freezing, healing, heavy-hitting, long reach, overdrive, pacifying, pulling, pushing, revealing, shielding, summoning (choose one of eldritch, natural, mystical, robotic), shielding, silencing, slowing, stunning, toxic.

GEAR

► Take a radio (compact, short-range), chrono, and 200 LMD. Most items and upgrades cost 100 LMD each. Ignore small transactions like a knife or a crowbar or standard ammo or a meal when not in the barrens.

ARMOR: Vest (break once for defense), battle armor (200 LMD, bulky, break up to 3x), hazard gear (500 LMD, bulky, break up to 3x, hazmat, respirator), shield (bulky, directional, break up to 3x, can be applied to another party).
TOOLS: Long-distance radio, medkit, drone (healing or combat), medicinal tinctures, repair kit, sledgehammer, survey gear (climbing gear, flare gun, recording equipment), hacking tools (small laptop, flash drives, intrusion scripts), lockpicks (non-improvised, professional), terminal.
CLOSE WEAPONS: chainsaw (bulky), heavy sword, dual light swords, polearm, scythe, gauntlets, staff, swordstaff, lance, axe.
RANGED WEAPONS: Arts unit, sniper rifle, shotgun, gun (restricted), crossbow, longbow, swordstaff, Lateranian patron firearm (restricted), flamethrower, annihilation tech (bulky, horrifying, roll as with 2 skill increases), EM tech.
EXPLOSIVES AND AMMO: Grenades (4, any of fragmentation, smoke, flashbang, EMP), etched bullets (100 LMD each), mines (4, any of trapping, explosive, pushback, sonic).

Restricted items may draw scrutiny if you're not authorized to have them, and can be acquired via DIY, theft, or shady dealers. Horrifying items will draw scrutiny and alarm regardless.

► Vehicles and unusual items may be issued by your employer, acquired, invented with effort, stolen, or bought.

VEHICLES: Motorcycle (seats 1, 1000 LMD), car (seats 4, 2000 LMD), light all-terrain transport (seats 8, 3000 LMD), helicopter (seats 6, 10000 LMD).
STRANGE TECH: Arts dampeners, assistant robot, experimental transmitter, illusion projector, living painting, radioactive material, supercomputer terminal, stasis unit, unreal space portal.

DETAILS

► Invent or roll for personal details.

CODENAME

DEMEANOR

HISTORY

PERSONAL ITEM

QUIRK

RHODES ISLAND, READY TO DEPART—

Originium: the world's greatest asset and its greatest curse. Originium powers modern technological marvels and human Arts, but stirs up city-destroying Catastrophes of black crystal and spreads the deadly disease, Oripathy. The landship Rhodes Island crosses the barrenlands between nations and brokers treacherous deals with local elements to provide medical aid and paramilitary defense where no one else can.

► Contacts, targets, or people of interest

1 Shen or Herefordshire, local governor with hidden motives
2 Ol' Marnie or Old Wu, restaurant owner who knows everyone
3 Flash or Nada, miscreant in over their head
4 Gorecki or Lewis, nervous corporate junior employee
5 Mimi or Gav, street kid who hears everything
6 Bradford or Arriola, researcher with a contentious rivalry
7 Thompson or Su Yin, straight-laced government investigator
8 Min or Penny, harried licenseless street doctor
9 Trench or Hex, tired seen-it-all merc
10 Rita or Flavian, pizza parlor owner and crime witness
11 Ernst or Fritzi, hapless Arts atelier student
12 Dragica or Nicanor, shrewd black market dealer
13 Lidia or Ignac, local phenomena researcher
14 Coronet or Timpani, soldier caught in internal politics
15 Jean or Cianna, making extra coin passing secret missives
16 Agam or Liron, Sarkaz trying to make a quiet living abroad
17 Moran or Noam, leader of nearby nomadic settlement
18 Lelise or Ife, mobile city engineering lead
19 Nina or Edel, noble's earnest seneschal
20 Shufen or Marikit, sharp-eyed neighborhood leader

► Cities and Neighborhoods

1 Sleepy town with a hidden secret
2 Magnificent city with long history
3 Quiet lanes lined with blooming flowers
4 Run-down slum tenements
5 Tiny off-plate farming hamlet
6 Abandoned catastrophe-ruined plate
7 Forgotten underground complex
8 Brightly-lit metropolis
9 Traveling black market for mercs
10 Weathered industrial platform
11 High-security mobile prison
12 Sequestered community in isolation
13 Tropical tourist destination
14 Newly-built mobile city in transition
15 Survivalist base in a large cave
16 Too-tidy research facility
17 Sprawling noble estates
18 Desert or barrens trading hub
19 High-tech university city
20 Secluded mountain village

► Operations

1 Deliver a valuable package that many people want
2 Resupply or repair a stranded mobile city
3 Break someone innocent or useful out of prison
4 Guard an international summit against attacks
5 Assist with worsening illnesses in the Infected neighborhood
6 Infiltrate a forbidding den of assassins and murderers
7 Map poorly-known territory in dangerous conditions
8 Track down an operator gone off the grid
9 Local government requests help stopping terrorists
10 Rescue a VIP from a Catastrophe zone
11 Get to a treasure before other hunters find it
12 Ferret out cultists in a small, insular town
13 Evacuate civilians from disaster or violence
14 Investigate a murder as uninvolved outsiders
15 Guard a bank or government office against riots
16 Secure resources from an abandoned mobile city
17 Find a recluse in a remote or strange location
18 Escort civilians safely through a war zone
19 Stop a rogue mobile city from causing harm
20 Aid a resistance movement against a corrupt regime

► Twists

1 Old friend or relative on opposite side of conflict
2 Enemies turn out to have sympathetic motives
3 Employer is using you to do dirty work with bad optics
4 You come across a lot of people you want to help but lack time or resources
5 Inadvertently running afoul of organized crime operations
6 Enemy has weird unknown tech at disposal
7 Strange paranormal phenomenon surrounding payload
8 Large cultural event obstructing mission
9 Corrupt local authorities interfere
10 Item involved turns out to be highly dangerous
11 Contact with main base lost
12 Situation becomes politically complicated
13 Employer turns out to have done something terrible
14 Figure from someone's past finds them
15 External forces or realities intrude
16 Case of mistaken identity
17 Local fauna uneasy and behaving strangely
18 Framed for crime you didn't commit
19 Third party with conflicting interest gets involved
20 Area is center of natural or man-made catastrophe