Kingdom Story Seed -- DarkRun

Story Seed – DarkRun

This story seed is intended to be used with Kingdom as a means of quickly assembling a game session setup for 3 - 5 players.

The future has arrived in a long black limousine with windows so deeply shaded that you can see the reflection of the nothingness over the city. Cybernetics are old hat; you can go out to grab a cheap Chinese dinner and get the colour of your eyes changed as easily as a crappy tattoo. Behind the dirt and the hustle, the old dance between corporations, governments, and the individual still turns, as brittle and stately as a retired debutante.
The chrome and plastic and clean concrete hide something altogether different that only a few see but everyone feels. Some go just a little bit mad and rip open tiny holes between worlds to let their madness out. Some ignore the lure of implanted steel for grafts from creatures no one has ever seen walking the Earth. A few make deals with alien gods and demons, trading a little bit of blood, a handful of screams, or a miserable life for power or worse: knowledge.
No one runs alone, though. Not if they want to do more than scratch out a meager living in the street. Not every corporation is millions strong, not every government agency has a black budget, and not every cult has sacrificed their humanity for the almighty dollar.
At least yours hasn’t.

Customize

• The Kingdom is [a mid-sized startup company | the remnants of a US State government | a growing, influential cult devoted to a star-god].
• Ultimately, they have one goal: to [dominate the world and subjugate all who might oppose them | gather enough personal power and influence to make their home a relative utopia | demonstrate the superiority of the philosophy they’ve worked their whole lives to manifest].
• Cybernetics [cause irreparable harm to the bodies and minds of those who would dare tamper with the sanctity of flesh | are nothing compared to the power of the Dark Side | are the secret weapon of those who would oppose the infestation of man by alien intruders].
• Magic and sorcery [hold the key to humanity’s eventual ascension to the stars and beyond | erode the tenuous hold of Man on this island, Earth, and will eventually destroy us all | are merely a reflection of mathematical truths that have existed, do exist, and will exist forever, and are only a tool with no moral aspect beyond the wielder’s intent].
• Aliens [are but the merest reflection of horrors known by man throughout history, the vampire, the werewolf, the ghoul, and more besides | deny comprehension, truly alien in flesh and mind, only spoken to by those who’ve passed beyond the limits of humanity | are only travelers in the space between the stars, carrying their own languages, technologies, and needs like our own].

Threats

• A blood-letting cult is establishing itself among the inner city youth, promising easy power if only they sacrifice a few of their own every year.
• Cybernetics have become more expensive every year as materials vital to their manufacture and maintenance become ever more contested in international markets.
• “Runners,” street criminals paid off by rivals organizations, are becoming ever more intrusive, bold, and destructive.
• A powerful extra-dimensional entity seeks to become our patron – like it or not.
• Rumours circulate about the true nature of our organization, but more worrying are the rumours of a rogue element of our organization.

Locations

• The Boardroom. Meeting place of the organization, dimly lit around the perimeter, bright in the middle.
• Baron Street Pizza. Down the street from the HQ and one of the local favourite dives.
• Vorago Tenebris. The blood-splattered ritual space where demons, gods, and men speak.
• Facility 1432. One of the best appointed cybernetics laboratories in the region.
• 1717 Maltrans Ln., Apt 4-A-2. Just one faceless apartment in a faceless apartment building full of faceless people.
• Choombaland. A run-down, filthy, back-street bar full to the brim with filthy, run-down, back-street hoods.
• Basketball Court on the Corner of Fifth and Pike. Kids, dogs, and old-people abound, and at night, sometimes other things.
• An organization-owned limo. Long, black, mirror-finished, riding in style, comfort, and unknowability.

Character Concepts

• The hard-charging leader-of-men who takes no prisoners.
• The bitter scientist, frustrated by the madness beginning to infect the world.
• The security muscle, with a comm in one ear and probably a black turtleneck.
• The street Samurai, one hand on a silvered sword, the other on their trenchcoat.
• The hacker, eyes full of visions of things that are not real outside their head.
• The visionary, possessed of a dream that keeps them awake at night.
• The seducer, silver-tongued enough to charm the devils into heaven.
• The magus, packing both insanity and a PhD.

Crossroads

• Hire runners to infiltrate our biggest rival for power and plant incriminating evidence?
• Negotiate with the thing that claims to be from beyond the Veil which offers to give us a way to move toward ultimate success?
• Support Dunkelzahn for President?
• Pass an order to forcibly evacuate one of the arcology-blocks downtown?
• Take the organization dark for a year in order to have searching eyes pass over them safely?
• Invest heavily in less-than-ethical research into opening portals between locations on the same world?
• Destroy all evidence that a member of the organization had ever been alive?
• Make a political overture to a rival organization with the malicious intent to betray them?

Notes

Inspired by:

• Cyberpunk – The original cyberpunk RPG, with all the grunge, dirt, anti-corporate obsession, and criminal romanticism that implies.
• ShadowRun – The fantasy-hybrid heartbreaker version of Cyberpunk that ended up being far more influential than the original. And still being published. Orcs, elves, mages, cybernetics, sorcerers, and dragons. Who run for president.
• Dark Conspiracy – The horror-hybrid heartbreaker version of ShadowRun, and possibly the least influential but most interesting of the cyberpunk-genre RPGs. Aliens from beyond the universe, psychics, sorcerers, bio-grafting, it’s got it all with an X-Files asthetic. (If that sounds good, go check out the novel series by Stackpole, which combines everything in a blender on frape.
• My friend Kate Kulig, author of the Bloody Murder series and unabashed ShadowRun, D&D, and other trad-game stuff. Maybe now she’ll finally try a real game!