Just found this guy. I can't find much about him, other than he died in the 30s. Some seriously awesome stuff, though - I've just spent the last hour surfing from one image to the next.
(as pointed out below, the picture above is actually by Sidney Sime, who went on to have a unique collaborative relationship with Lord Dunsany. http://www.sidneysimegallery.org.uk/simepix-magazine.shtml ) I'm leaving it here to avoid confusion by future readers.
The Setting Time is Entropy, Gravity is Death ~ The Cursed Creed
There is a grinding certainty to life since the Black Sun Ascended. Day over day, those that stand out are measured and reduced by the unrelenting pressure of existence, until a smooth surface is all that remains. Soon even memory fades, and life, such as it is, continues, ultimately undisturbed.
Those unfortunates condemned to this harsh existence measure out their days in terms of length and depth - the lengths they are willing to go to survive, and how far they can burrow. There used to be Life, but no longer. Now there is only the Sun and It's Thoughts, and the Cursed who dig deep in a futile attempt to escape Their Wrath. The charred remains of What Was are all around, scattered like spoiled meat across an unending plain, while the Black Sun looks down with sanguine menace.
The Black Sun has always been there, but It once had a balancing force. What happened to the Light Sun, no-one knows, but it's gone, and nothing exists to protect Life from the disinterested loathing of it's dark twin.
Direct exposure to the light of the Black Sun causes agony and death, stretched into infinity by the weight of its Thoughts. The only living beings that survived It's Ascendance were those below ground. Those who currently live are the direct descendants of those unfortunate few. Light is an inexorable force, though, and the Black Sun's light has been chasing the survivors ever since.
The Cursed, as they call themselves, are the blasted remnants of life in a universe of decay. Cannabalistic parasites, sucking a meager existence from the corpse of a long-dead reality. Once they had nations, races, goals. Now they are one, scattered though they may be. United at last in the unending struggle for survival in a reality that abhors them.
Once they had names, but names, like much else, have no use in this world. There are many words that have gone extinct, like Love, Happiness, and Rest.
Now, all there is only The Crawl.
Each day is the same as the last - all one can do is dig, while the deathly rays of the Black Sun beat upon their backs, worming their way through the cracks and tunnels, chasing the damned souls farther and farther from the surface. If they stop, they are assaulted by manifestations of the Sun's Thoughts.
The History
The door between This and Everything Else slammed shut when all that was good fled in the face of the overwhelming force of the Black Sun, hoping to trap It within a prison of existence .
Now, all that remains are those who weren't quick enough to get out. The Sun squats in the center of a black and broken land, it's baleful gaze so strong that it has pulled reality itself around it. Now it shines down upon everything, crouching in the center of a hollow universe. Day by day, the All is constricted, pulling tighter and tighter around the Sun, and one day All will be pulled within it, finally ending it's eternal evil.
Unless...
The Punchline: The Black Sun is using the characters, and all those still Crawling. They dig to escape It's Black Light, but their escape provides tunnels for It, pathways that It can use to dig into the foundation of It's reality. The characters' struggle for survival will ultimately result in the release of the Black Sun from It's prison, as their efforts will weaken the mortar of existence enough to allow the Terrible Thoughts to shatter it completely, and doom everything Beyond.
Black Thoughts should torment the players with this knowledge in any encounter, making sure they understand the futility of their actions, their struggles, and their very lives.
The Game:
Identity is Meaningless in the Face of Oblivion - Characters have no names, no races. They are only Cursed.
Only the Strong Survive - Roll 5d6 for your attributes.
Knowledge has no Value in a Fallen World - there are no mages.
Possessions are Meaningless in an Impermanent World - there are no thieves.
If There Is a Higher Power, It Does Not Care - there are no clerics.
Life is Endless Conflict - All characters start as 1st level fighters.
Entropy is Absolute - Each hour of real time gameplay, each player rolls 1d4 and deducts that number from a randomly chosen attribute. If any attribute reaches zero, they die. Yes, even Charisma.
Existence is Random and Without Meaningful Purpose - If they roll a 1, they gain a level. They still lose the attribute point, though.
Any Respite From Reality is Temporary - Blackrock is a rare metal that can hold back the rays of the Black Sun for longer than normal earth (approximately 6 hours). Normal, solid earth only provides 1 hour of resistance. Six hour rest restores CON/STA score's worth of HP and 1 randomly determined stat point (never exceeding the original total), 1 hour 1/6 of that amount, but with no stat regeneration.
Even Evil is Banal - There are two types of Thoughts - Black Thoughts and Terrible Thoughts. Black Thoughts worm and slither, sliding through the cracks. They can be driven off, and sometimes even destroyed. Thin and flimsy things, they flutter and shiver, preferring to take their enemies unaware, while they sleep or are otherwise distracted. Terrible Thoughts break and smash. Huge and Solid, they cannot go where the Cursed have not already been to loosen the earth for their passage. They cannot be destroyed, only escaped.
Everyone Digs Their Own Grave - Anyone without a strength modifier can dig about 15 cubic feet per hour. For every point of Strength modifier, add 5 cubic feet.
Sample Events
The party breaks through into a city, hidden so deep that they are unaware of the catastrophes that have happened above. The party has to convince the town elders to evacuate before the Thoughts catch up with them
The party's tunnel connects with a tunnel being dug by a family. The father is almost dead, and the child and mother ask to join the party. A quick examination determines that they will not be able to keep up.
The party encounters an abandoned avatar of a long-forgotten god. It is flickering in and out of existence, it's power almost depleted. It offers to use the remainder of its power to heal the party, but discovers that he cannot, and flickers out of existence, apologizing as he goes.
Cave In! Anyone who fails a Dexterity check is pinned under a large chunk of rock. They can amputate their leg, reducing CON/STA by 1/4, otherwise they must be left behind
Today marks the 68th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima, and while I enjoy playing games about the devastation that comes after this sort of thing, it is sobering to be reminded of what that actually means.
PANORAMA. Photographed by Shigeo Hayashi from a watchtower of the Hiroshima Prefectural Commerce Association, October 5, 1945. Location: Moto-machi. Distance from hypocenter: approx. 260m.
The ruins of Hiroshima, as seen from the air, after the Japanese city was hit with an atomic bomb on August 6, 1945. The photo was taken a month later, in September 1945. Photo by Life/George Silk
Wandering through Half Price Books yesterday, I happened to spot this book sitting on a cart. It's plain cover, sitting amongst the garish colors of its neighbors, caught my eye, and I picked it up.
Commissioned by the Department of Defense, these books were first published in 1951, but were updated several times since, expanding in size as our knowledge grew. Originally only 99 pages, by the time the 1993 revision came out, it weighed in at over 5500 pages across 27 volumes. I picked up the 1966 edition, which was the last edition compact enough to be held in a single volume.
Much of the information presented within is quite obviously not designed for the layman, while some is so stark it could be understood by almost anyone.
Of particular interest, however, was what I found at the back of the book. Tucked into a paper envelope glued to the inside back cover was what is billed as a "Nuclear Bomb Effects Computer".
At the time this was published, you could send the US Government $1 and they would mail you one of these puppies if you weren't lucky enough to get your hands on this book. Basically, by specifying the weapon yield (kT or MT), the crater depth and radius can be determined. By also specifying the range, the maximum overpressure (PSI), the maximum wind speed (MPH), the estimated dose (rem) and the thermal radiation (cal/cm2) can be determined. The weapon yield can be determined from the radius of the fireball, or vice versa.
Of course, when I saw it, the first thing I thought was that it was a really advanced version of this bad boy:
Seeing as how it's government issue, and as such copyright free, I'm surprised Twilight 2000 didn't slip one of these in their box sets - as crunchy as it was, it would have fit right in, and I doubt anyone would have batted an eyelash.
I've had an idea percolating in my brain for the last week or so. I think it started with Edgar J's posts about how his DCC RPG adventure was based on songs by the Doors, heated up as I continue to play in Ark's Redshirts Stars Without Number game, and came to a boil yesterday as I was listening to Queensrÿche's Operation: Mindcrime. I'm going to pitch this to my group, although I have a suspicion many of them are probably unfamiliar with the album...
I Remember Now...
It's 1984, and the Cold War is in full swing. In America, it's a time of greed, paranoia and murder, awash in neon lights. Big Business, Big Government, Big Media, Big Religion - monolithic organizations are everywhere, and the distinction between them blurs more and more each day. Urban desperation grows as domestic spending plummets, the money being funneled into foreign wars to protect interests that seem to have less and less to do with the common man. The rich sit in their towers of steel and glass, their cocaine-fueled orgies keeping them blissfully unaware of apathetic to the plight of those below. Crack is just starting to hit the streets, hollowing out the ghettos. The AIDS virus is spreading like wildfire but few know and even fewer care, terrorism is still something that happens in other parts of the world, and the threat of nuclear annihilation hangs over the country like a palpable shadow. Marvin Gaye and John Lennon are dead, while Reagan and Thacher live, despite the best efforts of would-be assassins. Smoking is allowed in public buildings, but if someone offers you drugs, you Just Say No.
You're a good citizen, you believe in the American Dream, but when you look around, all you see are people and organizations perverting that dream, taking advantage of the weaknesses of others. It's gotten to the point where even someone like you can see that something is wrong, that the system is broken, that there needs to be Change.
But what kind of an impact can one person have on an entire system? The thought haunts your dreams at night. Who are you? Are you perpetuating the system by participating in it? Even if you chose not to participate, what could you realistically do? Do you even have any choice at all, or are you just playing out the part you were destined to perform from the day you were born?
Revolution Calling
Doctor X has the answer. The figurehead for a mysterious organization known as the Underground, he preaches a gospel of change. All he needs are some dedicated operatives, and he can bring an end to the insanity. He can make you certain of things again, make the world make sense again. All you need to do is join the cause. Through a series of injections and indoctrination techniques, you're able to leave the questions behind. You can rest at night again. Things make sense for the first time in a long time, and you leave your life, your job, your friends and your family behind to join the cause.
Speak
Doctor X's treatments have turned you into something more than human. You're an Operative now, one of many, a part of a Movement, dedicated to a single purpose: Change. You have been Chosen, and you have a duty - carry out the orders passed along from high above in the Underground, no questions asked. Deliver a package, kill a man, it's all the same. They call, you answer.
As time passes, though, the doubts are starting to creep back in, the edges of your certainty curling before the flame of your misgivings. You can't help but think that you've lost something along the way. Days, weeks spent in a chair by the window in your run down apartment, waiting for the phone call that will activate you, give you purpose again. Is this the best you could have done?
Then the phone rings, the voice whispers, "Mindcrime", and all the questions are washed away.
Breaking the Silence
There are whispers of operatives that have gone rogue, went crazy - Fallen. Occasionally you wonder, is it the treatment that broke them, or a fundamental flaw within themselves? Do you have that flaw within yourself? Will you Fall? You find yourself thinking of these things even while on Missions, when you should be filled with Purpose. You seek out ways to alleviate your stress between Missions. Maybe it's booze, maybe it's something harder. Maybe it's just human contact.
Regardless, you feel a void within yourself, where once you were filled, and you seek out something, anything to make the hurt go away.
Waiting for 22
As the Fallen continue to multiply, the Underground realizes that they must change their ways of doing things. Lone Wolves can only be kept on leashes for so long before they turn on their masters, and so they shift to a cell-based system. One day there was a knock at the door, and an unfamiliar face shuffled inside. Then another, and another after that. You recognized them immediately, not because you'd met them before, but rather because of the Look - the same Look that you see in the mirror every single day.
Now you spend your nights, all of you, staring at the same phone. It has a speaker attached to it now, but its purpose is the same. When They call, you answer, and you're given your Mission.
Eyes of a Stranger
You're starting to feel uneasy. It's getting harder and harder for you to make it through the day. The doubts are multiplying, and you're asking questions not only about yourself, but about the Underground. You ask, but silently, to yourself, always to yourself. You wonder - who is Doctor X? What is the Underground, and whose interests do you serve, really? Are you creating Change? And if so, what is that change creating? You think that maybe, some of the others might be thinking the same thing, but you don't dare ask them, because what if it's just you? Have you Fallen? Are the haunted looks in their eyes signs that they're just as desperate as you, or are they waiting for someone to reveal themselves? What if they're only here to root out the Fallen before they Fall?
Every morning, you see yourself in the mirror, and you recognize less and less of yourself, and you wonder - how long until I'm gone completely? How long until the Me that I remember is gone?
Anarchy-X
From a system perspective, to make things easier, I'm thinking of running it using Sine Nomine's Stars Without Numbers ruleset. Obviously, no psychics, you're either a warrior or a specialist, and no Tech above Level 3. Further, some of the Background packages won't make sense in this setting either, but I think there's enough in there to make this work. I may write up a few new backgrounds to fit the game more solidly into the setting, but for now the only things I'm adding are two Attributes and a Skill.
Attribute - Purpose. This represents your level of indoctrination. The higher your score, the greater your devotion to the Underground, and the more willing you are to do what is asked of you, without question. Your Purpose is what gets you up in the morning, keeps you going during the day and allows you and your party to work together. Your natural inclination is to be alone, to work alone, but your Purpose unites you.
Attribute - Sanity. Doctor X's treatment works, but at the cost of the mental health of the subject. The treatments are sandpaper, working the wood of the subject's mind to get it to conform. Every time a subject is forced to do something that runs counter to their nature, they lose a bit of who they were. The Sanity attribute is rolled with 1d12+2, rather than 3d6 - the Underground doesn't pick people they can't control - only those who are already unstable are chosen.
These attribute scores should never be shared by the players with each other, nor should the results of any rolls associated with these attributes - these should be between the player and the GM. None of the party should ever be truly sure of where the loyalties of their compatriots lie.
Mechanically, the Purpose attribute should always be rolled before Sanity, and the Purpose modifier subtracted from the Sanity Score. So if you have a -1 modifier to your Purpose attribute, add it to your Sanity Score. Conversely, your Sanity modifier is always applied to Purpose checks.
Skill - Relationship - Yeah, I know it's not technically a skill, but it fits within the context of what I'm going for. Your relationship is the grasping hands and last few breaths of a drowning man. It's what you use to remind yourself that you're human. A friend, a family member or a lover, your relationships act as a bulwark between you and Doctor X's treatment, a tenuous link between who you are and who you were. Your skill level reflects the intensity of this relationship, for good or for ill (not all relationships are necessarily good ones). Your score in the relationship can be used to modify a Sanity or Purpose check once per hour. This skill cannot be chosen as an initial skill for any character, it must be developed as progress. Further, the skill can be lost, and the loss of that relationship can be deadly. A loss of access to a relationship results in a permanent loss of 1d3 Sanity points.
"Mindcrime" is the keyword, implanted in every member of the Underground. When the PC is activated, they should make a Purpose check. Again, to reiterate, the result of the check should not be shared with other PCs. How you proceed on your mission should be determined by how you roll. If you pass the check, your goal is the success of the mission. If you fail the check, the choice is yours - do you carry on with the mission, or do you try and undermine it, somehow? Either way, you must keep up appearances, for fear that the other members of your party will turn you in to your superiors.
Any Purpose check that succeeds by 5 or more points results in a loss of 1 Sanity point. This is permanent. For example, if the difficulty of the Purpose check is 10, and a 3 is rolled, the character loses 1 point of Sanity.
If a character's Sanity level reaches zero, they snap. How that happens is up to the player, but it should be consistent with the character's background, and how they have been played up until that point. It need not be an instantaneous action, they may continue to try and hide within the group, but it should be increasingly obvious to the rest of the party that something is wrong.
The Mission
Murder, infiltration, robbery, assassination, you do what you're told, in the name of a better tomorrow. But who's better tomorrow will end up being shaped? That should always be ambiguous. You don't know your superiors, you can't trust the members of your cell, you can't even trust yourself.
The main themes of the game are Identity and Change. Here is a list of questions that should be asked as the game progresses:
What is the nature of the organization you're working for?
It promises Change, but what type of change?
Can it accomplish that Change?
As bad as things are, is change inherently good?
Who are you?
Are you the master of your own destiny, or have you turned it over to the Underground?
Will you ever break free of your conditioning, and even if you do, will there be anything left of your old self?
At the end of it all, will you be sane enough for anyone to believe what you've got to say?
Why Am I Here, and For How Long?
The Underground recruits all types of people, from all walks of life. Police Officers, ex-military, office managers, receptionists, artists, doctors, scientists, accountants, priests, the homeless, there is room for everyone in the Underground, and they all serve a purpose.
Sample characters:
Nikki - A heroin addict and would-be political radical frustrated with contemporary society, he was manipulated into joining a supposed secret organization dedicated to revolution. He will beat, rob or kill anyone, if they only ask nicely, and promise him a full needle when he's done..
Sister Mary - At the age of 16, she ran away from home, and ended up working live S&M shows in Times Square, until she was taken in by Father William, an associate of Doctor X. A member of the Our Lady of Pain Cloister, she does the bidding of the Underground. She's quick with a knife, but she knows that violence isn't the only way to get a job done - sometimes a caress can wound just as deeply as a blade.
Joe Palumbo - Until recently, he was Officer Palumbo, but he had a temper, and a bad habit of beating the suspects. Folks looked the other way when it was junkies that he was smacking around, but when he put the hurt on a suspected child murderer who also happened to be the heir apparent to the Lockwood fortune, he was kicked off the force, and Lockwood went free. It didn't take much convincing to get him to sign up.
Dr. Adam Peterson - Angered by the unwillingness of the pharmaceutical companies to fund research into a groundbreaking cure for the disease that killed his wife, he began looking into the whys and wherefores, and found that the problem was even larger than he had thought. The government, the companies, they were all in it together, and the media kept the story quiet. Now he works from the inside, gathering information for the Underground, making sure they know what's going on, and when.
Dogman - Nobody ever pays attention to Dogman. Dogman lives on a heating grate at the foot of the Billings Building. Every day, he watches the rich and powerful go in and out, laughing and clapping each other on the back as they celebrate their success. Nobody knows that Dogman has a photographic memory. Nobody except the Underground. Now he collects license plate numbers and faces, and every once in awhile, he does a little more for them. If the cops ever found his stash of trophies, he'd be in big trouble.
But nobody ever pays attention to Dogman.
John van Meeter - John had a family. He had a good job. He had a home, and a dog, and he was happy. But the company he worked for was testing drugs on the unsuspecting populations of third world countries, and they got caught. He lost his job, and his wife, and his kids, and his home and his dog, and now John doesn't have anything.
Having nothing to lose makes him a perfect candidate for the Underground.
Spreading the Disease
Further resources to aid in getting the "feel" of the setting:
Visual:
Music Videos from Operation: Mindcrime - straight from the source
Revolution Calling
Operation Mindcrime
The Mission
Suite Sister Mary
I Don't Believe In Love
Eyes of a Stranger
Pink Floyd's the Wall - Ever wondered what a descent into madness looks like? I think it's safe to say that Operation: Mindcrime owes quite a bit to the Wall. It's thematically similar, and there are passages from the album that seem to be lifted almost whole cloth. You can't have one without the other, so if you're not familiar with both, familiarize yourself.
Wall Street - the greed and excess of the 80s, encapsulated in two hours.
Cobra - pure Stallone cheese, but it's got the gritty 80s vibe down pat, and the cult is pretty creepy, what with the axes and all.
Falling Down - Not 80s, but a good look at how a normal, average citizen becomes fed up with society
Basic Instinct - Another one technically not in the 80s, but close enough
Print:
Just about anything by Bret Easton Ellis - yes yes, American Psycho, but there are other works that are more relevant here - Less Than Zero and the Rules of Attraction in particular. If you're the tl;dr type, there have been movies made of all three, but I'd recommend the books over the movies.
The Punisher MAX - an adults only version of the Punisher, written by Garth Ennis. Not the Marvel Knights version (although that is great, just not relevant), the series after that. Two story arcs in particular stand out - In the Beginning is a tale of obsession and murder, while The Slavers shows the depths of depravity capable of those with power.
The Manchurian Candidate, by Richard Condon - The 1962 movie is worth watching, if only to see sweet old Angela Lansbury portray one of the most terrifying female villains of all time, but I'm putting it here because the book is much more of a psychological thriller. Sergeant Shaw is a bit of a jerk even before he's turned, and never fights too hard against his programming, but it's an interesting look at brainwashing from the inside.
The Atrocity Exhibition, by JG Ballard - Years ahead of its time, if you don't know, now you know.
Music:
Queensryche- Operation: Mindcrime - obviously.
Pink Floyd - The Wall - Yep, again. The album is different from the movie, and they're both more than worthy.
Joy Division - Closer - released two months after Ian Curtis' suicide, the album was influenced by the Atrocity Exhibition, listed above, and is every bit as nihilistic as you might imagine.
Dead Kennedys - Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables - it has a little more sardonic humor than I'm shooting for here, but the message is there, and it's potent.
My wife and I finally finished our epic road trip late Saturday night, and spent all day Sunday doing pretty much nothing. We're watching Babylon 5 for the first time, so most of the day was spent working through Season 2.
Before we left, we generated a massive, 1200 song playlist on Spotify to accompany us on the road as we traveled. I've already described one instance where the music synchronized with our experiences, but it happened again late Saturday.
We pulled through Oklahoma City after dark, and set off down the road towards Dallas, and as we rode, Johnny Cash's turn came up on the playlist, and he sang us through the night. Ghost Riders In the Sky set my mind racing as we drove through the black plains, the tale of damned cowboys forever chasing the Devil's Herd calling to mind the tales of the Wild Hunt.
For a brief bit of time, I was free. The window was rolled down, the air was sweet and the world seemed like it went on forever, that there was nothing to hold me back, nothing to keep me from doing anything I could imagine. Ideas popped and snapped in my head like fireworks, and I could see it all.
And then... and then... the lights of Dallas started to appear in the sky. The darkness was pushed back, and I started seeing the overpasses and the buildings and the cars and the construction. It turned out my playlist had one final joke to play, one last bit of irony to share...
That isn't my favorite recording, I think the guitar line in the middle betrays the solemnity of the song, but hopefully you get the point. Honestly, though, hopefully you don't.
Ages ago, I used to game with a group that had a member who was out of town frequently. He drove an eighteen wheeler for a living, and would spend weeks at a time living in hotel rooms in one horse towns. Like airline pilots, truck drivers can't drink when they're on schedule, and there were only so many days he could sit in a room and read or watch television. So his friends, the great people that they were, jury-rigged a setup to allow him to role play with them. They hung a microphone from the ceiling in the middle of the table, and sat a speaker on the table in front of the seat where he would sit when he was with them, and he would play right along with us.
These were less technologically adept days, the phone line was analog, we took his dice rolls on faith (although the general consensus was that he rolled a suspiciously high number of critical hits compared to the rest of us), there were lots of, "Wait, what did he say?"s from us, and even more, "Could you repeat that?"s from him, and the general feeling was more like sitting on a conference call than playing an RPG, but hey - it kept him sane, it kept the GM from having to come up with in-game reasons for the guy's character's absences every couple of weeks, and it kept the group together. It wasn't ideal, but it pretty much kinda almost worked, most of the time.
Flash forward to the present, and I'm hearing about playing on g+, and the first thing I think of is all the nights spent shouting into the microphone and trying to figure out whether he said, "I hit it with my axe", or, "That pit is full of cats!"
I received lots of positive responses from my previous post regarding online gaming, so I've been keeping my eye out on g+ looking for games and my god, I had no idea there were games going on at such odd hours. A good part of it is time zones, I'm sure, but it seemed like half the games were either happening while I was working or sleeping. Then along came an opportunity too good to pass up. Edgar Johnson and Adam Muszkiewicz run a game on Thursdays using DCC RPG called the Metal Gods of Ur-Hadad. They were wrapping up the first adventure, the Crypt of the Lizard King. Reading further into it, I discovered that it riffed off of Jim Morrison and the Doors, and I was sold.
Despite some technical difficulties (from what I've read online since last night, Roll20 doesn't always cooperate with the Chrome browser - switching to Firefox, check), I had a blast. I was officially inaugurated into the ranks of the experienced when Michelangelo Aggrosong, the crowbar swinging cooper fell in glorious battle, followed shortly by Miff Sapsipper, the Elven Navigator. Crag Beerbeard the Dwarven Blacksmith and Lardo Cutpurssian the merchant lived to die, er... I mean fight another day, and collected 5 xp each for their troubles, setting them on their way. The highlight of the evening was a wonderful example of Death By Treasure when another party member discovered, to their horror, that a magic helm did one point of damage per round to non-chaotic characters who wore it. He was lawful. He only had 1 hp. He died.
At three hours, the timing was just right, I had a blast, and I'm looking forward to the sequel, Slaves of the Silicon God!
\While the article admits that most of the movement in military robotics is confined to drones currently, more and more, the US military is looking at ground based replacements for fleshy soldiers.
Strangely enough, the designers of the non-humanoid robots seemed to have taken their visual cues from the line of Starriors toys, that I love very much..
Anyhow, here's the article - run to your local store for some 2 million sunblock now!
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Wandering through Half Price Books yesterday, I happened to spot this book sitting on a cart. It's plain cover, sitting amongst the garish colors of its neighbors, caught my eye, and I picked it up. 
Doctor X has the answer. The figurehead for a mysterious organization known as the Underground, he preaches a gospel of change. All he needs are some dedicated operatives, and he can bring an end to the insanity. He can make you certain of things again, make the world make sense again. All you need to do is join the cause. Through a series of injections and indoctrination techniques, you're able to leave the questions behind. You can rest at night again. Things make sense for the first time in a long time, and you leave your life, your job, your friends and your family behind to join the cause.
Doctor X's treatments have turned you into something more than human. You're an Operative now, one of many, a part of a Movement, dedicated to a single purpose: Change. You have been Chosen, and you have a duty - carry out the orders passed along from high above in the Underground, no questions asked. Deliver a package, kill a man, it's all the same. They call, you answer.
As the Fallen continue to multiply, the Underground realizes that they must change their ways of doing things. Lone Wolves can only be kept on leashes for so long before they turn on their masters, and so they shift to a cell-based system. One day there was a knock at the door, and an unfamiliar face shuffled inside. Then another, and another after that. You recognized them immediately, not because you'd met them before, but rather because of the Look - the same Look that you see in the mirror every single day.
You're starting to feel uneasy. It's getting harder and harder for you to make it through the day. The doubts are multiplying, and you're asking questions not only about yourself, but about the Underground. You ask, but silently, to yourself, always to yourself. You wonder - who is Doctor X? What is the Underground, and whose interests do you serve, really? Are you creating Change? And if so, what is that change creating? You think that maybe, some of the others might be thinking the same thing, but you don't dare ask them, because what if it's just you? Have you Fallen? Are the haunted looks in their eyes signs that they're just as desperate as you, or are they waiting for someone to reveal themselves? What if they're only here to root out the Fallen before they Fall?
Attribute - Purpose. This represents your level of indoctrination. The higher your score, the greater your devotion to the Underground, and the more willing you are to do what is asked of you, without question. Your Purpose is what gets you up in the morning, keeps you going during the day and allows you and your party to work together. Your natural inclination is to be alone, to work alone, but your Purpose unites you. 
Attribute - Sanity. Doctor X's treatment works, but at the cost of the mental health of the subject. The treatments are sandpaper, working the wood of the subject's mind to get it to conform. Every time a subject is forced to do something that runs counter to their nature, they lose a bit of who they were. The Sanity attribute is rolled with 1d12+2, rather than 3d6 - the Underground doesn't pick people they can't control - only those who are already unstable are chosen.
Skill - Relationship - Yeah, I know it's not technically a skill, but it fits within the context of what I'm going for. Your relationship is the grasping hands and last few breaths of a drowning man. It's what you use to remind yourself that you're human. A friend, a family member or a lover, your relationships act as a bulwark between you and Doctor X's treatment, a tenuous link between who you are and who you were. Your skill level reflects the intensity of this relationship, for good or for ill (not all relationships are necessarily good ones). Your score in the relationship can be used to modify a Sanity or Purpose check once per hour. This skill cannot be chosen as an initial skill for any character, it must be developed as progress. Further, the skill can be lost, and the loss of that relationship can be deadly. A loss of access to a relationship results in a permanent loss of 1d3 Sanity points.
"Mindcrime" is the keyword, implanted in every member of the Underground. When the PC is activated, they should make a Purpose check. Again, to reiterate, the result of the check should not be shared with other PCs. How you proceed on your mission should be determined by how you roll. If you pass the check, your goal is the success of the mission. If you fail the check, the choice is yours - do you carry on with the mission, or do you try and undermine it, somehow? Either way, you must keep up appearances, for fear that the other members of your party will turn you in to your superiors.
Murder, infiltration, robbery, assassination, you do what you're told, in the name of a better tomorrow. But who's better tomorrow will end up being shaped? That should always be ambiguous. You don't know your superiors, you can't trust the members of your cell, you can't even trust yourself. 
Dogman - Nobody ever pays attention to Dogman. Dogman lives on a heating grate at the foot of the Billings Building. Every day, he watches the rich and powerful go in and out, laughing and clapping each other on the back as they celebrate their success. Nobody knows that Dogman has a photographic memory. Nobody except the Underground. Now he collects license plate numbers and faces, and every once in awhile, he does a little more for them. If the cops ever found his stash of trophies, he'd be in big trouble.
We pulled through Oklahoma City after dark, and set off down the road towards Dallas, and as we rode, Johnny Cash's turn came up on the playlist, and he sang us through the night. Ghost Riders In the Sky set my mind racing as we drove through the black plains, the tale of damned cowboys forever chasing the Devil's Herd calling to mind the tales of the Wild Hunt.
