Amazing! Warehouse, Part 3
Character Creation
Page from “Emerald Alley,” written by me, painted by Journeyman. A very cool scene, please note the mouse, Toto, in the middle of the page.
Writer’s Note
Tired, feeling a mix of pride but also that nagging feeling that I could have done more. I have to remind myself this is a very rough draft, a first pass, and that judging yourself as you write is a great way to get writer’s block.
I’ve only got a few parts left:
More on the setting and villains
Scenario seeds
GM and play advice
One week for each. At least that’s my plan. Then revisions, which could take 2 or 3 weeks, or less. Then layout and art and creating a PDF and printing.
Maybe 8-10 weeks to a finished product. I’m proud of that.
Character Creation
Concept
Your characters are animals—birds, lizards, rodents, possums, cats, dogs, bugs, and so on— that live in the Amazing! Warehouse, a cavernous labyrinth of a building with boxes piled high and workers both human and robotic moving efficiently and relentlessly like cogs in a clock. But in the shadows and nooks and crannies, the animals live, and in the liminal space between the shadows and the light, the animals sometimes meet human allies who provide them with food, comfort, and even, on occasion, medical care.
Your characters have human-level intelligence. They can communicate with each other, but in some key ways they are different from humans. They cannot communicate easily or well with most humans, and, for the most part, concepts such as numbers over three, the exact meaning of human speech, and the operation of human technology are difficult for them if not beyond them outright.
But these animals can make plans, can understand the basics of human interaction, and have their own natural advantages.
The PCs have animal “powers” as well as mutant powers, but they also have animal disadvantages. It’s not easy living in an Amazing! Warehouse.
Traits
As a reminder, “The basic rule of resolution is that you compare a trait +/- modifiers to a difficulty number. If you meet or beat that number, you have succeeded. Otherwise, you fail.”
This is the reason that Traits are important.
Common Traits
In the Amazing! Warehouse, your characters have certain Traits that are common to all player-characters (but not necessarily game-moderator characters).
These Traits are Territory, Lair, Instincts, Humanology, Contacts, and Allies. Each of those traits needs to be defined for your character. For instance, your Territory might be the garbage bin for the employee break room.
Specialties
In addition, you must assign a Specialty to each of your Traits. Most Specialties give your Trait a +1 modifier in certain circumstances, the ability or skill to do something that others can’t, or ownership of a special item.
Specialty as Modifier
An example of using a Specialty as a Modifier bonus is a dog whose Instinct Specialty is Menacing Growl. Any dog can growl, but your growl gives you a +1 bonus to your Instinct when you try to intimidate or frighten others.
Specialty as Ability or Skill
An example of using a Specialty as an ability or skill is an animal that can count due to its exposure to humans. That animal would have the Specialty of Count under Humanology. The character receives no bonus due to its specialty. The bonus is the ability to count, a powerful ability in a warehouse. If a species has a unique ability, you only need Instincts to access it. For instance, possums are experts at feigning death. This is an instinctive ability that they do not have to buy as a Specialty.
Abilities and skills are never magical in nature. For that, see Powers.
Specialty as Item
An example of using a Specialty as an item is a raccoon who owns a nasty spear / shiv made from a discarded razor blade attached to a fiberglass rod. Items can be Specialties of almost any Trait, though it’s rare for that Trait to be Instincts. An item can give you a bonus or ability in a particular situation, depending on the item. Using a Specialty on an item means that the item is attached to you in the setting. Even if the item is stolen from you or broken, you know where to get another one or how to make another one. This doesn’t mean that it’s easy to re-equip, just that it’s within your ability to do so. Which Trait should you use? That depends on the source of the item. Did you get it from a human or from your Territory or from an Ally? Is acquiring such items part of your Instincts? Is the item mostly associated with your Lair?
Common Traits and Specialties
Common traits are only common to player-characters. Some game-moderator characters (GMCs) won’t have them. These traits not only define your character, they also help to define the setting.
Instincts — This is your ability to act as an animal of your species. Specialties include Track, Sense Hidden Items, Fight, Run, Climb, Leap, Slither, Fly, Hiss, Bark, Roar, Purr, Sneak, and so on.
Humanology -- This is your ability to understand humans and their technology as well as to be understood by them. Specialties include Speech, Count, Writing, Electronic Items, Body Language, Cute,
Territory -- This is your corner of the warehouse, the area that you control, whether by yourself or as part of a family or gang. Barter is the rule in the Amazing! Warehouse, so defining your Territory is important because defining your Territory defines what you have to trade. Items are common Specialties associated with Territory, but a characteristic of the Territory could be a Specialty too, such as Well-Defended, Central Hub, or Obscure Corner. Your relationship to the Territory could be a Specialty as well: Respected, Knows the Secret Places.
Lair — Also referred to as a nest or home. This is your most prized possession. The higher your score, the more comfortable and secure your home is. This is where you rest, where you have a cache of food, where your family lives, and it should be the safest place you’ve been able to make for yourself. Anyone trespassing is starting a deadly fight or simply looking to eat you or maybe be eaten. An animal with a poor lair is in dire straits, and an animal with no lair is either in great danger or greatly dangerous or both. Most Lair Specialties are about characteristics of the Lair: Well-Defended, Hidden, Electrical Access, Luxurious, Climate Controlled, and Guarded.
Allies — This measures the animals or people you can count on for help in a season of play. Your score in this Trait measures the effectiveness of these allies -- friends, family, or even just someone who owes you a debt. You can call upon two allies, once each per season, and they will help you for a scene or two, and by help, I mean they’ll put their lives and reputations on the line for you. You’ll owe them after that, and if an ally gets killed or seriously hurt or screwed over helping you, your Allies score goes down by 1. Specialties for Allies can describe their relationship to you: Family, Loyal, or Shared Experience or the expertise of an Ally: Diplomacy, Seduction, Killing, Protection, or Tracking.
Contacts — These are the people or animals who are in the know who will tell you stuff, whether it’s gossip, industrial secrets, secret lore, and so on. Your score in this Trait measures the effectiveness of your gossip network and how willing they are to help you.
Some people in your life are “Contacts” if you ask for some information and “Allies” if you ask them to put themselves at risk for you. You can use Contacts once per game session per point in this trait.
When you use a Contact, your request is rated on a scale of 1 to 4. If you make a request that is higher than your Contacts score, you’ll have to do the contact a favor, give them a useful or interesting item, do some investigative work of your own, or otherwise put yourself out. Similarly, if you want to use your Contacts more often than your Contacts score would allow, you have to do the contact a favor, give them money, do some investigative work of your own, or otherwise put yourself out. Contacts have Specialties similar to Allies, though their area of expertise tends to be more information based: Comings and Goings of Workers, When the Good Stuff Enters the Warehouse, Secret Passages, and so on.
Powers
Powers are magical abilities, and they never come without a cost. Powers are literally unnatural. They are the intrusion of Chaos into a world of Order, or the capture of a sliver of Chaos by a being of Order (hey, that’s you!). In this game, everyone has a power, and a few maybe more than one.
You can give your character any single power you like, but your power must have a flaw that limits it. These powers are often dangerous or uncomfortable to use.
Here are some examples:
Mimicry -- When you activate this power, humans treat you as if you were not just human, but a comrade or co-worker as well. Your Humanology increases to 5, but your Instincts decrease to 1. Nothing about your actual appearance changes, and humans only imagine that you are giving proper responses to social cues and such. When you stop mimicking a human, your Humanology score returns to its normal value, but your Instinct score remains at 1 until you have spent the same amount of time as an animal that you did as a human. You fear that if you mimicked a human too long, you’d never regain your Instincts.
Astral Sense -- You can perceive the Astral Plane. This lets you perceive auras rather than the physical world, and you can use Instincts to interpret these auras. While using Astral Sense, you cannot sense anything in the real world, including time. This is a dangerous activity to attempt alone since you may spend hours or even days lost in Astral space. Wise practitioners have friends or allies who wake them after a specified amount of time. Astral Sense is not limited to sight. Some animals hear the songs of the Astral forest or sniff out the scent of the Astral ocean or something similar.
Walk through Walls -- You fold yourself and enter another dimension, seeming to slip through a tear in space-time. While in this other dimension, you can perceive the real world as through a dark glass. This is where the chase begins. You cannot stay in this dimension. You are an interloper, and something in it wants to hunt you. You run and run, and make your exit, having traveled seemingly instantaneously and avoided any obstacles in between your entry and exit. One day, the hunter in that other dimension might follow you out.
Building a Character
Building a character merges your personal creativity with the game’s rules. As you create a character, you are also creating details that your GM can and should use in the game. Which Territory is important? The Territory of your characters. Which animals are common in your setting? Probably others like the animals you chose. Which humans are important to you? Any you chose as Allies or Contacts.
You start by choosing an animal, which can include insects or other bugs. It does not matter how little your animal is, as long as it can be seen. It does not matter how large it is, as long as it can hide.
Be careful of choosing an animal that is clearly dangerous or vicious. It might be amusing to create a tiger, but the Amazing! Warehouse would likely call an expert hunter in to deal with you, and your character would simply not be that powerful anyway.
Build Points
You have 60 Build Points (BP) with which to create your character. You can spend these as follows:
Common Traits cost 4 BP per point.
Specialties cost 1 BP per Specialty. Remember that each Common Trait you have comes with one Specialty for free.
Powers cost 4 BP per power. Although Powers are Traits, they are not rated. Instead, they simply allow you to break the laws of reality.
If you put 0 or 1 points into a Common Trait, you’ve created a weakness for yourself. 0 in Contacts, for example, means that you are shunned or no one wants to help you except for an Ally or two (and 0 in Contacts and 0 in Allies means you are completely shunned). This isn’t bad, necessarily. It can be interesting. Why do you have that weakness?
Similarly, if you put 3 or 4 points into a Common Trait, you’ve created a strength. Why is your Instincts 4 with a specialty in Fight? Have you lived a brutal life in which you test yourself against everyone, and you often win, and when you don’t, you don’t mind taking a beating? How did you come to be this way?
You may buy certain Common Traits -- Lair and Territory -- more than once if you wish. You could buy Lair 4, for instance, to show that you have a secure, spacious home, but you could also buy Lair 1 as well, a little bolt hole that you can run to if your better-known Lair is ever assaulted. Similarly, if you have Territory 2 (Cardboard Box Storage Area), you could also buy Territory 2 (Snack Room Garbage Bin), and now you have two items to trade. Each additional Common Trait also comes with a Specialty.
A Note
Each choice you make in character creation helps to define the setting and the season of play for that setting. Have fun and get creative. Imagine the Amazing! Warehouse, the nightmare, capitalist version of Borges’ infinite “Library of Babel.” There is no way to map the Amazing! Warehouse that would fit every play group, but as you and your fellow players create your own corners of it, you create your own map, your own set of friends, rivals, and enemies.