31 Days / 31 Characters - HINATA 'HELLCAT' NEKOMOTO

As mentioned, there is no way I am going to be able to complete this year's 31 Day Character Challenge by Wednesday. Nonetheless I am going to keep going until I hit the full 31, however long that takes me. I am motivated, enjoying myself, and I at least beat the number of posts I made last January so I'm calling it a win.

Yatta! 

 

Character: Hinata Nekomoto

AKA: Hellcat, Nekomoto-9, N9

Player: Victoria (Can't remember her last name but it was Japanese). 

System: Cyberpunk 2020 / Mekton II - Interlock System with Houserules

Additional campaign ideas and mechanics were borrowed from the magazine Mecha Press. 

Nature: Short Campaign: Neo-Tokyo Boomrunners: INTERSPEC

Gamemaster: Adam Dickstein

Circa: 1992-93

Origins: Sometime in 1988 I had the idea to run a campaign titled, 'Neo-Tokyo Crimebusters: Freelance Police'. This was a Cyberpunk Action/Comedy inspired by Japanese Anime and Manga such as Appleseed, Akira, Bubblegum Crisis, Dominion Tank Police, and Mobile Police Patlabor. It went over really well, though we only got about a dozen sessions out of it before various schedule changes caused it to dissolve before its time.

You can expect to see a 31 Days /31 Characters entry from this campaign down the line. 

Roughly four or five years later I was talking Anime with some friends and we came up with what we thought would be a cool premise for a series. Then it dawned on me that it would also make for a great RPG campaign. The group agreed and we met that weekend to create the characters. To speed up the campaign prep time I resurrected my source materials from Freelance Police. Boomrunners was to be set in the same Neo-Tokyo as Crimebusters.

Backstory: POSSIBLE TRIGGER WARNING.

This game dealt with some darker and more mature subject matter than my usual campaigns. I used to dip into this type of thing more often but less so as I got older. I was extra cynical in the 90s. 

Viewer Discretion Advised.

Hinata is a Nekomoto-9 Pleasure Bioroid, found discarded in a pile of organic refuse with a gunshot wound to the chest. Discovered and called in by Agents of Interspec's Division 3, they were instructed to bring her back to HQ by Chief Medical and Biosciences Expert Dr. Shun Sasaki.

Dr. Sasaki treated the Nekomoto-9, nursing her back to health (which involved quite a bit of bio-engineering repair) until she was awake and able to move about on her own. Healing increasingly quickly after Sasaki's initial treatment, 'N9' proved surprisingly intelligent and knowledgeable. Digging into the doctor's file, N9 discovered he'd had a daughter, Hinata Sasaki, who died a few years earlier in a Boomer rampage. Dr. Sasaki joined Interspec right after. When he found out about her 'investigation', Sasaki wasn't upset at all and was happy to answer any questions she had. This led to a close 'father-daughter' relationship between the two of them, with N9 trusting Sasaki over anyone else in the world. Sasaki in turned asked N9 to honor him by having her take the name 'Hinata'. 

Not long after taking on her new identity, Hinata Nekomoto decided to make some cosmetic alterations to look the way she wanted to, instead of having the appearance someone else paid for. Additionally, there was still the mystery of who shot her, why, and what her life was before being found by Interspec (she had no memory of anything before that). Best not to look like someone who was supposed to be dead. 

Left: Pleasure Bioroid Nekomoto-9 or N9 / Right: Agent Hinata 'Hellcat' Nekomoto

 

Hinata applied to join Interspec herself, training for three years before going into the field. Two years after that she was recruited into the 'Boomrunners', a group of Special Agents operating out of Division 3. 

Overview: Set in the year 2092, the campaign followed the Boomrunners, a team of crimefighting operatives working for Division 3 of Interspec. Interspec is an Interpol-like organization that battles high powered android, bioroid, robot, and cyborg focused crimes. They are almost always brought in to deal with renegade Boomers (See previous post). 

Each member of the five person team had their own special skills and abilities, as well as a unique (custom) powered battlesuit. When in their suits, the team members are usually referred to by a codename or callsign. Hinata Nekomoto, who's callsign is Hellcat, is an extremely talented acrobatic, contortionist, and climber. She is remarkably adept at hand-to-hand combat. Hinata turns out to be a competent detective and has skills in stealth, infiltration, disguise, and seduction. 

Adding to her martial arts training, her armored powersuit is equipped with razor sharp claws capable of tearing through most materials easily. They also give her enhanced climbing ability (there are similar retractable ones in the feet). Additional features of the suit include increased leaping ability and a power cord 'tail' that can connect to energy outlets and temporarily super-charge the armor. Like all battlesuit users, Hellcat has increased strength, speed, and a sensor heads-up display. 

Hellcat had some additional abilities related to her bio-engineered origins. She had a heightened sense of hearing, excellent night vision, and a regenerative healing factor that only kicked in if she was reduced to 3 Hits or less (which is what helped save her from the gunshot mentioned in her Backstory). 

The rest of the Boomrunners team consisted of:

Killjoy: Incredible at reading people. Armed with a Samurai Sword similar to Hellcat's claws. 

Lighthouse: Team leader. Excellent detective. Tracker/Ranger type. Laser weapons.

Nightlight: Extreme stealth. Communications, Hacker. Special short-range laser weapon.

Pepperjack: Landmate style Mecha 'suit'. Gattling gun, Missiles, Buckler Shield. Jump Jets.

Lighthouse and Nighlight were brother and sister I believe (the characters, not the players).

Killjoy was a Cyborg. 

Highlights:

I really loved how the player, Victoria, gave the character a 'Noir Detective Story' feel while simultaneously completely fitting in to the over-the-top Anime action scenes. She, as well as most of the other characters, also totally bought in to various romantic subplots, even if they didn't all end positively. Their hardsuits could stop high caliber weapons but nothing deflects a broken heart. 

Many of Hinata's subplots were about questions of identity as much as trying to unravel her origins. We explored some deep ideas. How did N9 end up where she was and who she was really? What was her life like before someone tried to kill her? Why do I keep saying 'her' life? Isn't she me? Aren't Hinata and N9 actually the same person; why does it feel like that's not true anymore? Was N9 ever really a person; was she her own entity or was she just a doll who someone bought then grew tired of playing with?

One great fight I recall had Killjoy, Lighthouse, and Hellcat fighting a Boomer who had disabled Pepperjack (Nightlight was in a nearby basement tracking a signal that had hacked the Boomer). The teamwork was top notch, with Nightlight hacking the hack and throwing off the Boomer's sensors as Hellcat flipped and spun around the big brute occasionally rending a cable or other component. At some point she squatted down, balanced on the Boomer's arm as it began to shift the limb into a machine gun. Hellcat does a backward somersault/leap off the arm, damaging it with her feet claws, and creating an opening for Killjoy to charge in a slice off the arm with his sword. Super Cyberpunk Anime Badassery! 

Game Info:

It's been so long that, as with many of these entries sadly, I just don't have those character sheets anymore. It was primarily a Cyberpunk game, with Mekton II used for many of the Mecha elements and some tweaking to make it all fit together. In addition, I used articles in Mecha Press Magazine that covered Bubblegum Crisis and other Anime to get things to feel just right. Interestingly, the second issue (and one or two later ones I think) had an original mini-RPG called Techno Police 2100 AD, which was surprisingly close in concept to the game that preceded Boomrunners and set the stage for the world. 

This was also one of the games, maybe the first one, that used my alternative 'Humanity' mechanic as mentioned in this ol' post on Blade Runner. The basic idea being that while Humans who replace their organics parts with cybernetics are in danger of losing their Humanity and Empathy, Androids and Bioroids (similar to Replicants) start with with very little Empathy/Humanity and are trying to gain point in it through life experiences. While the goal is to be 'truly Human', it can also result in moments of desperate, passionate or panicked outbursts. A true Human can feel anger, fear, and sorrow but paramount above all else, they don't want to die. 

Roy Batty would approve. 

Notes:

Hinata is a gender neutral Japanese name that means Sunflower or 'Facing the Sun'. As for Nekomoto, Neko means Cat, while moto refers to a Book or 'true words'.

Dr. Shun Sasaki. His name means 'Talented and Wise'. 

The battlesuits of the Boomrunners, the term Boomers, and many other aspects of this setting were lifted (then customized) from Bubblegum Crisis and its many spin-offs. I would say that IP was the single biggest influence on the game. 

In the Bubblegum Crisis universe, 'Boomer' is a derogatory term for what is more property called a Voomer, an artificially created bio-mechanical life form. Voomers may be designed to be maids, waiters, soldiers, or any other vocation.

If one malfunctions and goes on a murderous rampage it is dubbed a Boomer. Some people call all Voomers Boomers, implying they believe every single one is destined or at least likely to go crazy. 

In this campaign only the term Boomer was used and these beings were almost exclusively created for combat related jobs. Other vocational roles were filled by androids, bioroids, and cyborgs.

The bright yellow hair Hellcat has while suited-up (See image below) is a hologram. It can be altered or deactivated on command.

Legacy:

Its been a very long time since I've thought about this character or her campaign, partly because its been a long while since I've felt particularly inspired by a Cyberpunk Anime or Manga. Certainly not enough to dig out my almost 30 year old notes on the subject. 

Now, with recent Anime titles like Metallic Rouge and Pluto, it may be something to consider revisiting in the not too distant future.

If you have some free time after school, how about joining our club and ya'know, saving the world from evil? Great! You can learn all about it from club Vice-President ICHIKO YORUHIME. 

AD

Barking Alien

Do Android Salarymen Dream of Electric Cherry Blossoms?

Cyberpunk.

When Anime first made in-roads into the Western entertainment market in a way that made serious film buffs pay attention, it was with a Cyberpunk film called 'Akira'.

Akira, the 1988 animated motion picture written and directed by Manga icon Katsuhiro Otomo took the West, particularly the United States, by storm. Released in the US in 1989, Akira made over 2 million dollars during its run in movie theatres. It was positively regarded by both fans and film critics alike and is, to this day, considered on of the greatest animated films of all time. 

Akira was by no means the first Japanese animated feature to be shown in the West but it was the landmark title that (one could argue) opened up gates for the cavalcade of titles to come after it. Akira was the first Anime to not only be widely accepted but widely appreciated. Adult Americans who viewed cartoons as media for children were hit head-on by a sticker covered red motorcycle sliding into them at high speed. 

Personally, I love this film. I had already been a fan of Anime and Manga for (roughly) five years when Akira came out in the States. While others around me experienced surprise, even shock at what the medium of animation could do if treated as a serious artform, I simply felt validated in what I'd already known. Looking back on it now I find one element of the movie and its reception very curious. It is considered an Anime in the Cyberpunk genre and while I would agree, it isn't exactly Cyberpunk as we often view it here in the West. 

Then again neither is Blade Runner, another movie I adore that falls into the same category of non-cyber Cyberpunk. Neither film is overly concerned with the 'Net', cybernetics, or mega-corporations (though they exist and play a role in the world-building). While both films do make commentaries on modern society, the focus is on the characters, not so much the setting. It's about people whether they are embracing their humanity, trying to find it, or losing it all together. There is the idea that power corrupts and turns people into monsters, while asking if monsters can change back into people. 

These are very common questions throughout Japanese Cyberpunk. Indeed, it's an example of how the Cyberpunk fiction of Japan differs from its Western cousin in a number of ways. 

Western Cyberpunk is often focused outward; it looks at society from the characters points of view and said characters are often trying to change society or save it from itself. The protagonists are radicals, rebels, even criminals, and they're going to overthrow the status quo and save the world.

That's rare in Japanese Cyberpunk. Akira aside, most Anime/Manga Cyberpunk stories are centered on police, military, or heroic secret organizations trying to protect the citizens of their society from bad elements that would plunge it into chaos. There is often a strong theme of society effecting the protagonists but the protagonists being unable to make a major impact on society as a whole.

Take a look at another quintessential Cyberpunk franchise, Ghost in the Shell; the main characters are former police or military personnel serving as a special operation task force called Public Safety Service 9. They are part of the status quo charged with protecting innocent citizen and, by association, maintaining the status quo. In the two seasons of the animated TV series Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, the team investigates and solves various crimes but the major arcs running throughout series deal with uncovering government corruption with which the Public Safety Service is entwined.

No spoilers here but just Imagine that Major Kusanagi and friends successfully uncover the officials behind the lawbreaking and arrest them. Awesome, the bad guys are caught and eventually punished. Government and society-wise things go back to normal...and normal is a Cyberpunk dystopia. The heroes win and therefore nothing has changed. . 

This brings us to two really excellent new Cyberpunk titles: Pluto and Metallic Rouge.

Pluto is a modern and dark retelling of the story The Greatest Robot on Earth, originally written by Osamu Tezuka in the Manga version of Tetsuwan Atom - The Might Atom aka Astro Boy. This story was written and illustrated as a Manga by Naoki Urasawa and serialized from 2003 to 2009 before being adapted into an Anime in October of 2023.

The story deals with a world in which robots abound, living among and working with Humans in a near-utopia of advanced technology. The plot involves a mystery killer hunting down and looking to destroy the seven most powerful robots in the world. Gesicht, Europol's top detective is on the case; a case that has his path cross with the planet's mightiest boy, Atom! 

First and foremost, I absolutely loved this series. I highly recommend it. 

One aspect I found especially interesting about its worldbuilding was how it portrayed the different types of robots and how they were treated by others in Robotkind and the more widespread and authoritative Humanity. While many Humans harbor a prejudice against all robots, those that look like Humans often get more of a pass than those who look like half-faced, six armed, giants among normal people. Of course, any robot known to have performed admirable feats for the benefit of Humanity and the world they live in are viewed in an especially positive light. Many smaller, more 80s robot toy looking mechanicals are often overlooked and seen as inconsequential. At best they are pets and at worst disposable tools. 

Robots themselves, to no great surprise, view each other quite differently. The nuances of how though, that's what makes the setting so intriguing. Without giving away too much, more advanced robots and androids see their less complex and capable brethren the way we might think of an orphaned child or an abandoned animal. 

Personally, I'd love to run or play in a game that explored this take on the role of robots in a Human dominated world. For a similar yet more action packed take on this idea...

Metallic Rouge is a very recent Anime series that is only up to its third or fourth episode as of this writing. Originally scheduled to start in March of this year, it began early due to an unforeseen opening in this season's schedule.

The series is produced by the animated studio Bones and written by Yutaka Izabuchi, a long time veteran of the Anime/Manga scene and a personal favorite creative person of mine. It's not surprising I like this show as I tend to love most of Izabuchi work. He is best known as a a Mecha Designer, coming up with looks for the robots in Patlabor, Mobile Suit Gundam: Char's Counterattack, and Panzer World Galient. In addition he's been a director, producer, and the costume designer on many Tokusatsu series, including various iterations of Kamen Rider. 

Perhaps its not surprising then that his latest series is a cross between a Tokusatsu show and Blade Runner, a Cyberpunk Sci-Fi Action tale of two female agents traveling to Mars to hunt down nine renegade artificial beings hostile to the government. Here again we see the governing body, while still possibly up to something, the victim in danger from rebellious robots. It may turn out that the androids, or Neans, have every right to be angry but we are still following heroes who work as government/law enforcement agents.

If you can picture Rick Deckard as a cute Anime girl capable of transforming into a superpowered battle robot to face off against Roy Batty you have a pretty good idea about the core concept of the show. In many ways it reminds me of a campaign I ran with a very similar premise back in 1992-93, which was also inspired by Blade Runner in addition to Anime classics like Bubblegum Crisis, Appleseed, and even some Battle Angel Alita. The next 31 Day Character Challenge entry with cover this game. 

Rouge Redstar and his alter ego Metallic Rouge

As in Pluto, the non-combat oriented Neans are commonplace, a regular part of daily life for the people of Mars. They are generally treated as second-class citizens at best, slave labor at worst, with rare individuals earning the respect one sentient should show another. There are also rare Humans would generally see Neans as people in their own right but it doesn't appear a common outlook. 

Highly recommended.

With that I hope you have some greater context for Japanese Cyberpunk in general and my next post specifically.

Until next time...

AD

Barking Alien

31 Days / 31 Characters - AKI RUSH

Some Japanese Tabletop RPGs are intrinsically 'Japanese'; understanding and appreciating the premise of these games requires knowledge of and an affinity for Japan's culture and storytelling devices.

Others are just universally freaking AWESOME! 

Imagine a setting that combines Cyberpunk, Giant Robots, NASCAR Racing, and Space Travel. Sounds like a fun premise for a game, right? 

Character: Aki Rush

AKA: 'Go Psycho' (a pun on the Japanese word 'Saiko' meaning Maximum or Ultimate)

Player: I forgot his name. A friend I'd made through work I believe. So sorry I can't recall. 

System: Mobile Racer Championship

Additional rules from Metal Head, Mekton, and Cyberpunk. See Origins for details. 

 

Nature: Short Campaign: The Off-world Colonies 5000.

Gamemaster: Adam Dickstein

Circa: 2010-2011. I think. Pretty sure.

Origins: Mobile Racer Championships is an RPG that came out in monthly installments published in Hobby Japan Co. LTD's RPG Magazine from sometime in 1997 to sometime in 1998. Unfortunately I don't have exact dates in this respect. I have several issues featuring the game but sadly no where near all of them (More on that in a moment). Each installment added to and expanded both the rules and the setting.

Mobile Racer Championships logo scanned from the April 1998 issue of RPG Magazine, No. 96

Recolored by me.

I loved everything about the concept and the artwork inspired me even further. I really wanted to run the game but I was unable to find all the issues I needed to create a complete game. Luckily, I noticed many similarities between the system and setting and that of the Japanese TRPG Metal Head, also from Hobby Japan. Hmm. On further examination, MRC seems like it might be a spin-off of Metal Head's post-corporate war milieu. With the help of some friends I was able to splice Metal Head into Mobile Racer Championships, filling any gaps with the first editions of R. Talsorian's Mekton and Cyberpunk. 

Backstory: Following the death of his father in a racetrack accident, a very young Aki wanted nothing to do with mecha, racing, or his father's legacy as an Off-World Colonies Champion. That's until he was 18 and received a message from his dad's old partner and mechanic Tetsuo Smithson which said that the senior Rush's death was no accident! Instead, he was murdered in connection to the father's service during The Corporate Frame War. Aki didn't even know his dad had served in the war!

Aki took a year off from school, traveled to the Colony World where Tetsuo was located and spent the next year learning everything he could about Mobile Racing. Meeting two other Frame Drivers with connections to the situation, the four men and a female manager formed a racing team to solve the mystery and win The Off-World Colonies 5000!

Overview: Following the Corporate Frame War, the Earth, the Solar System, and the various Off-World Colonies were divided up among the remaining major Megacorporations, Humanity found itself in a situation not unlike that post World War I, with lots of trained pilots and their planes but no real use for them. Far too many qualified Frame Pilots and Mobile Frames (Mecha) were still around with nothing for them to do. This lead to many people trying to find work and doing so as Deep Sea Miners, Construction Workers, Firefighters, Mercenaries, and Colonial Militia. Even so, unemployment and Mobile Frame crimes became rampant.

To remedy this situation, a group of Sports Entertainment Megacorporate concerns created the sport of Mobile Racing; high speed contests were former 'Heavy Soldier' Battle Frames are converted into fast moving, agile Racer Frames to outrun and outgun each other to the delight of fans across Human Space. 

25 years later...

The campaign started en media res, with the three PC Drivers and their Mobile Racers blazing down a racetrack on a desolate moon (desolate except for the hundreds of fans cheering from the seats above the track). Rolling randomly for their positions, Aki 'Go Psycho' Rush was the furthest ahead of his team but third place out of a dozen on the course. Through some seriously tricky and 'visually' exciting maneuvers, two of the PCs moved into position to block attackers from targeting Aki. Aki went full throttle and straight up tackled the second place Racer INTO the first place Racer, badly damaging both. Unfortunately, his Mech was also damaged, allowing the fourth place Racer to get really close. The two then competed to finish the final lap first, with Rush just barely crossing the line ahead of his opponent. 

The win results in a massive payout to a local bookie who then gives the team some key information that leads them to the next clue or revelation. This became the basic pattern; win a race or do a favor for a contact, get a clue, and learn the next piece of puzzle. Sometimes they'd have to sneak in to a place to help someone, that would give them a clue, then they'd have to hurry back to the track in time for the next race. Mixing it up were little character development moments between the various Player Characters and NPCs. 

Unfortunately, the campaign ended on a cliffhanger, with the PC team finding Aki's father alive but in Suspended Animation for some nefarious purpose. So bummed we never got to the end of the story.

  

The Highlights:

Aki and the gang didn't win every race and when they lost they had to get creative in order to accomplish their goals. After losing on race to an attractive female competitor, the team's bad boy/smooth talker tried distracting her so Aki could sneak into her Mobile Racer and download a map from it. He stops just before doing it, walks back to where the  race winner and his pal are talking, and he confesses their scheme to her. He also apologizes profusely, leaving his buddy dumbfounded and her amused. 

She asks why they need the map, Aki tells her honestly, and she decides to just give it to him. She then kisses his cheek before sashaying away. Aki turns red while the 'ladies man' dies of embarrassment. Sooo Anime. 

In another session Aki is sure to lose, lagging behind the lead Racer with his speed dropping due to a busted leg. Using another member of his squad as a jumping off point, Aki hops up and then leaps his Mech through the air to land on top of the Racer ahead of him. Aki's Mech basically rides the other one piggyback, then tumbles off to cross the finish line first. Hilarious and nail biting at the same time.

Game Info:

Ugh. I can't find any of my notes for this. Haven't been able to for years and trust me, I've looked. I'd love to run another Mobile Racer Championships campaign. I could probably convert it over to my homebrew Mecha System Variant game but I'd be missing one key component. THE key component to be honest. 

The game had a mechanic for figuring out who was in what place in the race at the end of the first lap. Then, you would take action to speed up, overtake another racer, attack another racer, and other moves. There was a also a neat 'speed resource management' system to figure out who would win purely by speed and driving. Of course, every action taken by PCs and major NPCs would throw this calculation off, which was the point. 

Notes:

The players loved the setting so much they participated in its world-building. One guy kept designing racetracks. A couple of them kept coming up with Megacorporation logos to sponsor decals on the mecha like tthose all over modern race cars. The lot of them kept suggesting other civilian/commercial uses for the Mobile Frames. Everywhere we went the player would say the farms must have Farming Frames, the news channels should use News Satellite Frames, the Cyberpunk city had to have Sanitation Frames, etc.Very fun. 

Legacy:

I haven't tried to run MRC game in 12 years or so. Not being able to recall the racing mechanics is a big part of why. If I could figure out or find a system that gives the same feel of speed, tension, and excitement as the original game I would definitely give it another go. 

Ho there fellow adventurer! Journey with me to the world of Forcelia and traverse the continent of Alecrast as to reach the Western City-States known as The Ten Children. Our guide throughout these perilous lands will be none other than BOON BRUSHBORN! Verily! 

AD

Barking Alien

31 Days / 31 Characters - The RED RIDER

This character has one of the strangest origins of any I've come up with. 

When I was 6 years old - maybe 7 or 8 - I got a Tank Top shirt as a gift that I loved like no other. It was a white shirt with a character on it in a red outfit on a red motorcycle and he looked awesome. He was a mix of superhero and Evel Knievel and I needed to know who he was.

The truth of course is he was no one. It was just a 1970s graphic but as I was already a fan of comics, Star Trek, and all of that, I was certain he was someone. My older cousin, who was well known to tease me and make up stories to tell my naive younger self, told me who he was. He was called, 'The Red Rider'.

That's all I got and my imagination went wild. I envisioned a mysterious, daredevil motorcyclist who showed up from time to time, seemingly out of nowhere, to help those in need before disappearing once more.

Now, what to do with that...

Character: The Red Rider

Player: Non-Player Character

System(s): Boot Hill, 1st Edition - Seriously modified.

Later Cyberpunk 2020, Champions, and Mutants and Masterminds. 

 

Campaign(s): The Legend of Boot Hill, Champions: The Age of Heroes, The Black Neon Memoirs, and Dynamos Unlimited.

Gamemaster(s): Adam Dickstein and William Corpening

Circa: First created and appeared around 1979. Later appearances in 1986, 1990, 2003...

Origins: I've only ever run one long term Wild West game and it was so good, such a perfect execution of what I was going for, that I've never been able to do it again. Well, more accurately I've never tried to do it again. I've run one-shots, even a string of them but never another dedicated campaign. How could I top 'The Legend of Boot Hill'? 

One element that made it special was the inclusion of possibly supernatural elements that were kept vague and unquantified. No one was really sure if magic was real or if it was just fantasy and superstition. Additionally, if it was real, what was its true nature? A big part of that was the late but powerful inclusion of The Red Rider, a seriously spooky character inspired by the fellow from my shirt.

Backstory: The Red Rider's backstory is completely unknown, largely because I never made one. Throughout his various appearances the Red Rider's in-continuity origins have simply not come up. The sense of mystery around the character is the key to what makes him interesting and special. He works without a background. 

Overview:  During the aforementioned Wild West campaign, the PCs tried to save a stagecoach being hijacked by a group of bandits. The heroes rode off after the bandits while the town Deputy and a posse chased the heroes, sure that they were the criminals trying to rob the stagecoach. If this sounds a little like the situation Frankie the Ferret found himself in it's because this chase scene inspired that one. I love a good multi-faction chase. 

The PCs stalled the law, got ahead, and reached the bandits just in time. A shoot out and some fisticuffs - not to mention some fancy horse ridin' - enabled the party to get to the stagecoach as it careened round a treacherous mountain turn, just short of falling off a cliff. Two of the PCs had been injured or delayed and two of the bandits had hoped atop the stagecoach. The coach driver had been thrown to his death and one of the desperados had the horse's reins. As The Masked Cowboy and The Medicine Man tried desperately to catch up, a cloud of red dust kicked up in the distance. The sound of hooves striking the ground like thunder echoed around them.

"You can make out a rider and his horse heading in your direction. His path is diagonal to intercept the coach it seems. His horse is a dark cinnamon color. His pants are a deep maroon or brick red, caked with clay and...perhaps blood? Red blotches stain his shirt. His hat matches the horse and a bandana covers his face...not like the bandits but more completely, like a mask. Two holes are cut in it for his eyes."

This mysterious man rides up to the stagecoach, leaps off his horse, and motions to The Masked Cowboy to get the passengers out of the vehicle. With some help from his Shaman friend he manages to do so, fighting one of the two coach robbers while their unknown ally tussles with the other. Finally, the criminal upfront shoots the stranger in the chest and he slumps over. The Masked Cowboy spins and shoots the crook, who falls off the stagecoach and goes over the cliff. Placing the passengers on his and The Masked Cowboys horses, the Medicine Man moves away from the edge of the deadly mountain path. The Masked Cowboy turns the horses and then releases them, enabling them to run free to safety. Unfortunately, momentum is going to carry the heroic Cowboy to his death...

Just then, The Masked Cowboy is grabbed and tossed from the driver's seat by a pair of hands possessing incredible strength and moving quick as lightning. As he awkwardly landed on his horse, he saw the mystery man sitting back up and nodding to him as the blood caked rider, the stagecoach, and the rider's horse all went over the cliff. 

Later, after recounting the events with locals in the town saloon, an old prospector said, "Ah, so you seen him too. That there was The Red Rider."

Mask of The Red Rider

The Highlights:

The Red Rider would appear in the Boot Hill campaign once more in the next-to-last episode. He appears in a nearby canyon to aid The Masked Cowboy in tracking down the campaign's Big Bad, an evil Rail Baron responsible for numerous deaths and hardships throughout the game. Once more The Rider is shot but when The Masked Cowboy returns to the spot where the body fell sometime later...it's gone. 

Some years of real time later, during a campaign of Cyberpunk 2020, as the PCs hunt down their Corporate Exec target on the highway between two cities, they are informed of an urban legend...a motorcycle riding vigilante Nomad who takes out criminals from the city traveling on 'his stretch of road'. Sure enough the group is forced to race against time to capture the Corp before the biker gets him. As I described the cyclist, with his crimson cycle and scarlet helmet, one of the players who'd been a PC in the Boot Hill game screamed - yes, he actually screamed - "Holy S***! It's the F***ing Red Rider!". Just as in the previous campaign the Red Rider took severe damage, appeared to slump over his bike, then he rose back to life seconds before he crashed and then rode away. 

I told the story of the Red Rider to my friend and fellow gamemaster William Corpening, who ran the greatest game of Champions I was ever in (see Champions: Age of Heroes and Age of Chaos on this site). He loved the idea so much he secretly built a Red Rider in Champions (he didn't tell me). Many months later when our Champions PCs toured the United States to meet different Superheroes across the country, the Red Rider appeared to team up with us somewhere between Nevada and Oregon. 

I would use this version of him myself - red Harley Davidson, crimson leather outfit, and ruby metallic helmet - in sessions of Champions set in Will's universe and in my own Mutants and Masterminds games. While he is never encountered (I never got a chance to run a planned appearance), he is mentioned in a World of Darkness campaign I ran as well.

Game Info:

There is no surviving (pun intended) Character Sheet for the Red Rider and in point of fact, he never had one in his original appearance. He is more of a Plot Device and a tool for injecting setting color then he is a full-on character. That said, I absolutely love him. 

His abilities are generally undefined but there are some interesting consistent elements. He appears to be unkillable, likely because he is already dead. Some sort of zombie, ghost, or other supernatural entity, he is known to be a solid being and does bleed when shot or stabbed. It usually takes him a couple of minutes at most to recover from minor wounds but much longer for more egregious injuries. 

He originally carried two copper-plated revolvers but subsequent versions of him over the ages have been equipped with a wide variety of weaponry. He is physically stronger and faster than a normal person, with limitless endurance except when damaged. Originally he did not speak, using only grunts and hand signals to communicate when it was necessary. More modern and future appearances have him speaking with an economy of words, his voice deep, low, and gravely. 

His horse or motorcycle, called 'Blood', appears to be as abnormal as its rider. Both are red in color, with the beast a dark cinnamon red and the cycle a deep red. Specifics of the horse and motorcycle vary. Notable are the horse's eyes which usually appear similar to those of a shark. Sometimes they are described as glowing red in the dark. Both animal and machine can travel much faster than normal for their respective modes of transportation but never visibly go supernaturally quick. No, it seems they can only do that when not being directly observed. 

Legacy: I promise you the world of Tabletop RPG gaming has not seen the last of The Red Rider. He is out there somewhere and he'll definitely be back. 

Come back soon and meet another supernatural savior, though he'd never call himself that. If this private eye is on the case, you've got nothing to fear but the bad guys sure do. Meet SHADE of the Wardens - Death can't keep a good detective down..

AD

Barking Alien 

31 Days / 31 Characters - DAVID MYERS

One of the best campaigns I've run in the past decade [In My Humble Opinion] has to be my ALIEN FRONTIER game, played once a month over the course of seven months, beginning in 2019 and having its seventh session in the beginning of 2020. The grand finale, the eighth session, was supposed to be completed last year but it was interrupted and delayed by a global pandemic.

 
Frighteningly ironic as the campaign itself was about a dying Earth suffering from a ruined climate, environmental decay, a lack of resources, and yes, illness and disease run rampant. 

Humanity and its homeworld were not without hope however. Orbiting the distant star of 18 Scorpii, 'above' a bleached, burning planet designated SA-2, the Smithsonian Institute Terran Revitalization Initiative - SITRI - had placed a Scientific Research and Survey Station to determine how it was that life had survived in the desert wastes of this forsaken world. If life could thrive here, perhaps it held secrets to adapting to similar conditions on Earth or even repairing the damage. 

Part of the team charged with determining this was Doctor David Myers. What he uncovered was everything he wanted and much more than he bargained for...

Character: Doctor David Myers

Player: Nicholas Kosky

System: ALIEN RPG

 
Campaign: ALIEN FRONTIER

Gamemaster: Adam Dickstein 

Circa: 2019-2020 

Origins: For context, I did not originally introduce the ALIEN FRONTIER game as a game set in the ALIEN universe. Rather, I noted the information above on the condition of the Earth and the purpose of the SITRI Project and described it simply as a 'Dystopia, somewhat Cyberpunk setting; yet one with hope."

In regards to creating his character for THAT game, Nick recalls: "When you described the setting  to us, I noticed that you hadn't said anything about aliens in the setting so I thought a first contact specialist could be an interesting character to play in a universe where humanity was still pushing the boundaries of space.

I decided to go with Archeology as a discipline because I guessed there was a better chance of us encountering alien ruins than aliens themselves.  This is effectively how some 'Humans only' Sci-Fi settings like Altered Carbon and the Expanse (sort of ) handled it. Though I'll add that archeology was specifically on my mind because of Stellaris, a space opera strategy game I'd been playing, which had just released an expansion that added archeology sites to planets."

Basically, not knowing if aliens existed in the setting, Nick had made a character who hoped to find proof of aliens, the discovery of a lifetime and absolutely career changing. Little did he know...

Backstory: Directly from Nick: David Myers is a Canadian male in his early 30s of European Jewish ancestry. He holds a PhD in Archeology from McGill University and completed postdoctoral work at Tharsis University on Mars, excavating the early Human settlements on the planet.  While on Mars, he got involved with a department of the Smithsonian that was establishing S&P for the discovery and excavation of hypothetical alien ruins (Basically, the proposed rules were designed to stop such ruins from being destroyed or looted before the SI could investigate.  I doubt they were ever implemented as anything stricter than guidelines.).  I had been thinking David's immediate prior posting was as part of a team sent to examine potential ruins discovered by a mining operation on a different world, but which had turned out to be natural formations.

David Myers was noticed and hand-picked for the SITRI Project on Frontier Station by Project Director Rebecca Jorden. After Myers and company discover a pyramid-like structure on the surface of SA-2 and find clear evidence of an extrasolar intelligence and civilization, the survey team also encounter a Xenomorph, an alien creature that was neither native to the planet nor distinctly a sentient life form. 

All of this is revealed to Director Jorden who shares that her deepest fears have been realized. This is the real reason SA-2 and the 18 Scorpii system was chosen as the site of the SITRI Project. Jorden confides in the team and Myers in particular that she knows something of the Xenomorph they encountered and that's an understatement. She encountered a very similar entity as a child on Acheron, also known as LV-426. Rebecca Jorden is 'Newt' and things just got a whole lot more complicated.

Overview: I remember Myers is initially crushed by the knowledge that aliens exist and that Jorden, her small band of colleges and associates and elements of the Weyland-Yutani Corporation already know this. The chance to make first contact with the first alien intelligence Humanity has ever seen is lost as it has already occurred. At the same time, the mysterious pyramid structure was clearly not constructed by the Xenomorphs, now identified as XX-121. Nor was it constructed by the starfaring 'Space Jockeys', XX-120, another alien lifeform recorded in Jorden's secret database ("Oh come on!", exclaims a frustrated Myers. LOL). 

As it turns out, Myers did discover something no one had before this, another starfaring extraterrestrial species possibly in conflict with the Space Jockeys that he dubbed 'The Thinkers'. The Xenomorph the group faced off against in the depths of the Thinker pyramid was a variant believed to have been genetically engineered by the Thinkers to fight the Space Jockeys and the standard XX-121 creatures. 

The Highlights:

One of my favorite sequences in the game was when our Security Chief, our Scout, and Myers get into a kind of armored jeep/off-road vehicle and drive toward this massive crater where they see two people wrestling at the cliff edge. When I say massive, I mean Australia-sized. They stop some distance away and then the Chief and Scout run over to get the two away from the lip before they fall in. Myers waits in the car. 

While getting the two people to safety, the four of them are attacked by these armored worm/lamprey creatures. The Security Chief and Scout fight them off and eventually come up with a plan to distract them and run. Myers decides to get into the driver seat and drive the jeep closer to pick them up. "Do you have dice in Driving?", I ask Nick. 

"I do not."

Nick manages to get lucky and pulls up a bit erratically as the other book for the car. Myers returns to the back seat as the Security Chief and Scout get into the front, the Chief driving. In the back with Myers are the two people who were fighting in the sand; a young woman who seems kind of scratched up and a somewhat wild-eyed man mumbling to himself. The man pulls out a gun. Nick says he wants to take the gun from the man. I ask him if he has Close Combat?

"I do not."

Doctor Myers fails his roll and also panics, flailing his hands around and yelling, "Gun! He's got a gun!" The Chief makes a hard right and then a left, banging the man's arm against the car door. As he winces in pain, the Scout turns, reaches into the backseat area and punches the guy if the face, knocking him out. 

This is as much a highlight of Nick as it is Myers. Nick does what he feels his character would do not just as a PC in game but as a person in a situation. He is concerned with the logic of the moment more so then the stats and skills on a character sheet. Nick thinks of the person and the place and what is going on and reacts accordingly and I love that. 

The other great moment was when the players first realize they are in the ALIEN universe. Myers sees the technology of the alien pyramid's interior, if it can even be called technology, and says, "This is some kind of Weyland-Yutani facility". Now that wasn't really in-character. That was intended to be Nick saying that. However, the response from one of Jorden's assistants was, "Are you kidding? This is way beyond anything they have. Weyland-Yutani wishes they had tech like this. I'm sure they'd love to study it though." To which everyone stopped and looked at each other and me, "Wait...are you saying there IS a Weyland-Yutani in this setting?" 

"Of course. This is ALIEN." Priceless. 

Legacy: The campaign isn't over! We ended on a massive cliffhanger with one session to go, the grand finale yet unrealized! I can't wait to see what happens...

Game Info: Here is Dr. Myers' character sheet from the campaign. 

Like my Red Dwarf game, I added the idea of Specialties to this campaign. If David Myers performs an action directed related to First Contact - communicating with or understanding the culture and/or language of an extrasolar intelligence, he adds one Action Die to his Dice Pool for the appropriate roll. 

The Talent REVEAL is similar to the Scientist Talent ANALYSIS, found on Page 77 of the ALIEN RPG Core Rulebook. The difference is, by assembling information, observations, and notes on things already encountered, REVEAL allows you to ask the GM a question regarding the nature or connection the data has to each other or to the mystery at hand.

More simply, ANALYSIS can be used to look at something alien or strange and get insight. REVEAL lets you take several ANALYSIS instances and find out how they are or aren't connected. 

***

Well alright, this has been fun so far and we're just getting started. Next up, we go from Frontier Station in the future to the North American Frontier of late 19th century Michigan. Strange things are going on in the woods and logging camps of the Great Lakes Region and only 'DUSTY' DIBBS can get to the bottom of it! 

AD

Barking Alien

Don't Call It A Comeback! I've Been Here For Years

We interrupt our regularly scheduled Barking Alien blog to bring you this important announcement...

This past Saturday - July 6th, 2019 - I went back to my roots so to speak and started a new campaign at my FLGS, The Compleat Strategist. 

In the process of doing so a pretty amazing thing happened. I got my groove back. I felt like my old gaming self again. I didn't second guess myself or my players, no one second guessed me, and I didn't pull any punches. 

It was pretty damn glorious.

The campaign is titled, simply, FRONTIER.

Based on an idea I've had for over 30 years now but could never quite figure out how to put into motion, I was lucky enough to get a large group of players to buy in on what I described as, "A Science Fiction story about scientists at the very edge of known space trying desperately to save a dying Earth. Our home world needs a miracle. It's up to you to find or make one."

The setting is basically a Hard Science Fiction, Space Exploration universe with a look and feel reminiscent of late 1970s and 1980s Sci-Fi films like Alien, Aliens, Blade Runner, Outland, The Abyss, and The Thing.

The game's setting has more advanced technology than is seen in many of the aforementioned movies, with artificial intelligence, robots, cybernetics, genetic engineering, and laser weapons being a bit more common place. A bit mind you. I wanted to keep things grounded in real and current speculative science with allowances for the game's year of 2212. 

What makes the game special and rather unique for me is that it includes elements of dystopian fiction and horror, two things I generally avoid except as a little seasoning here and there. FRONTIER on the other hand truly comes alive by telling the players that the Earth is a hair's breadth from either dystopian ruin or a new utopian age. It's all up to their PCs. At the same time the job is hard, space is dangerous, alien worlds are deadly and unforgiving to those who come from somewhere else. The players need to be smart, they need to be decisive, and they need to deal with bureaucracy, the greed or ego of government officials, and finite time and resources. 

Saving the world is not going to be easy. 

There is so much more I want to say about the setting and how the first session went but I will save that for another post. Suffice to say I had a fantastic time and the group seemed to really enjoy it as well.

More than anything else, it just feels like this is MY kind of game. I feel in my element. I feel like this is going to be one for the ages. It's been a long time since I felt this way. 

This is Frontier Station, SITRI Project HQ, from SA-2, 18 Scorpii system, signing off...

...for now.

AD
Barking Alien