KILL SIX BILLION MOTHERSHIPS: PRELIMINARY THOUGHTS ON HOW TO HANDLE SPACE KUNG FU

MOSH's combat is designed to be a highly lethal fail state.  Squaring that with a game where players also have magical space kung fu (or combat sleeves) that set them apart from a random NPC with a gun presents some challenges.  With sleeves, I've addressed this issue by giving players better tools in the fail state in exchange for risking permanent death and a panic death spiral that makes combat harder to avoid.

Space kung fu presents a slightly trickier problem but here's a preliminary set of rules (note that I'm assuming the rules on hits and weapon damage released on the MOSH discord are in play -- players have hits and weapon damage is more constrained:

SOME SIMPLE RULES FOR SPACE KUNG FU:

1. Remove all stat bonuses for combat sleeves and the like and let players describe their cybernetic implants however they want.  All the players are similarly powerful.  In the grand scheme of things they're still nobodies: the background ninjas, axe gang mooks, etc., but relative to a random NPC on the street they're tremendously dangerous.  Some NPCs probably warrant reduced hits and stats.
2. Give everyone a single extra hit with HP generated as normal (Marines will have 4, everyone else will have 3).  Unlike a player's other hits, losing this one has no consequences and doesn't entail a roll on the critical hit table.
3. Permit players to defend against ranged attacks with an opposed combat roll and counterattack against any opponent they're aware of and can see.  You could view this as a Jedi deflecting blaster bolts but you could also view it as Jackie Chan making creative use of his environment or a combat sleeve's superior reflexes allowing it to shoot someone popping out from behind cover before they get a shot off.  
4. Abstract weapons and damage a little more; gear really shouldn't matter as much except for certain standout specialist weapons like the smart rifle and combat shotgun or a sword with a legendary pedigree.  
5. Permit combat maneuvers (2 successful combat rolls) 
6. All players have a "style" (it needn't be a formal martial art but you should probably name it like one because space kung fu and give a brief description).  When performing combat maneuvers consistent with their style, players roll 1 of their 2 combat maneuver rolls at advantage.  A player may learn other styles as they would an expert skill  
7. Adjust narrative permissions to reflect more capable characters; they can jump higher, run faster, do ridiculous parkour, etc.  

SCRATCHING THAT K6BD ITCH WITH WORLDBUILDING THROUGH INVENTORY

 

 Combining Kill Six Billion Demons with MOSH has been a persistent itch (and Lancer really isn't my speed).  At a certain point you just have to get writing and worldbuilding through inventories is a great way to start.  Broadly, the goal is a setting with characters who are powerful compared to a random person on the street but dwarfed by real threats.  On some level that's consistent with my approach in my implied meatpunk setting: combat sleeves, bonesuits, and cybermagic set player characters above a random NPC but don't really change the fundamentals of combat against real threats.  There's no particular reason you can't add magic swords and space kung fu to that mix (and human/meat horrors who also know space kung fu is certainly a concept with legs).  But my instinct is that this is a separate setting even if those other elements also stay.   

Probably, space kung fu requires some rules supplements but I aspire to keep it about as light as sleeves and lighter than the GLOG magic hack.  But that's a problem for another post.

So without further ado and with credit to Phlox and deus ex parabola for the sword names:

WHAT DO THEY HAVE IN THEIR POCKETSES?

Naringit, Fourth Lion of the Golden Dome:

1.  God From Ellipses, an elegant tulwar with an oilslick sheen and a cedar scabbard covered in brass charms; its wounds are ideograms that foretell calamities.

2.  Nineteen Broken Seals Treatise on archival-grade pulp-paper; margins carefully annotated in black pen

3.  Quilted impact suit with a cermet breastplate; filled with titan rocsnake down and thousands of fingernail-sized silicon wafers etched with paracausal ideograms; offers excellent protection against both DEWs and paracausal dangers.  

4.  Nice robes (still in the drycleaning bag)

5.  Travel meditation pillow; buckwheat filling

6.  The address to their hotel written on the back of a scrap of paper

7.  All-day subway card decorated with tourist-friendly art

8.  Black nylon duffel bag

9.  Monthly public net terminal subscription 

10.  Half-eaten faux egg salad sandwich in a takeout box

11.  Pine resin (for chewing)

12.  Two pairs of sandals

13.  Gold necklace depicting the Black Abbess

Tirangle, escaped clone nun:

1.  Secondhand OWRE 4300 tapecomp, controller peripheral, and three tapes of bootleg arcade games

2.  Flatpack submachinegun still in its vacuum sealed bag along with three single-use magazines

3.  Good Noodle! gift card (129 kWh on the card)

4.  Secondhand field jacket (standard issue among the forces of the Iron Garden); all insignia removed and small hole in the elbow (badly mended); doesn't match the rest of her outfit

5.  Patch (false firefern frond)

6.  Spacer's utility knife; prying tool is well-used, blade isn't

7.  Zero-gee sleeping bag; rolled tightly

8.  Silver nose piercing (she hasn't got around to getting her nose pierced yet)

9.  One-way OTV ticket (downwell)  

10.  Shopping bag full of fresh vegetables and cleaning supplies; it's her turn in the hostel kitchen

11.  Hairpins (package of 12)

12.  Velcro slippers 

13.  Small foil sachet of hand cream (a free sample)

Ras the Tailor, wandering blade:

1.  None Save Saviors, well-used boarding axe decorated by colorful ribbons; the blackbox cell in the haft drives a highly illegal inertial spike; presently slung over his shoulder
2.  Short barreled Iskra 994 automatic pistol in a travel case.

3.  Batik shirt; stylized geometric flower pattern

4.  Personal inertial compensator concealed in a cloth pouch worn at the waist

5.  13,500 kWh in large-denomination physical tokens

6.  A pocket full of energy bars and instant coffee packets and a plastic cup

7.  Smart sunglasses connected to a portable computer with a coil cord

8.  The receipt from his last night out; folded to fit into his wallet

9.  A nice pair of real leather boots (needs a new pair of laces)

10.  Cannabis infused gum

11.  Military surplus backpack

12.  Illustrated Ten Thousand Arrayed Iron Horrors Style manual 

13.  Well-used sewing kit and a handheld sewing machine

50 PLANET NAMES

 

d50 PLANET NAMES

1. And Then Some
2. Aramida
3. Ashwind
4. Belphegor
5. Broken Oars
6. Creche
7. Contact!
8. Dale
9. Dragonsteeth
10. Dreaming of July
11. Elkwood
12. Failsafe
13. Fins In The Surf
14. Foxhole
15. Gar
16. Gale
17. Giant's Neck
18. Hayek II 
19. Hands Down
20. Iris
21. Juliette 
22. Justice
23. Kallash
24. Kepi 
25. Kilo
26. Libera
27. LVXI
28. Make Haste
29. Mantou 
30. New Marie Byrd Land
31. New Omsk
32. New Wollongong 
33. New Zeeland 
34. Orthanc
35. Oscar
36. Painted Rock
37. Qullasuyu
38. Red Sands
39. Rest At Last
40. Roscoe
41. Saltsea
42. Simla
43. Sunset
44. Tailsitter 
45. Uralia
46. Ushanka
47. Vindication
48. Westward Track
49. Zarephath 
50. Zeal

13 ITEMS IN THE ALIEN'S POCKETS (PART II)

 

THE TINY TYRANT SPECIES: [QUICK HANDS (SYSTEM 0506)] 

As a matter of official policy, the largest TTS polities view their citizens as machines; so one's occupational designation usually follows their creche-name.  Quick Hands is a 'system' that performs administrative auditing tasks and oversees public health projects.  This gives him a degree of autonomy that laborers and clerks generally lack but exposes him to considerable danger.

1.  Juice box (berry-flavored in a plastic-lined cardboard container).  Unopened.  Branding is subdued but the label indicates it was made at an industrial plantation outside a neighboring city-tower.  This is practical food; Quick Hands eats fresh fruit but is careful not to flaunt that fact in public. 

2.  Koenig-Seidel B24 backpack computer.  A copy of TTS computer technology manufactured in human space as a trade good.  Handheld-sized for a human.  It's designed not to reveal any technological developments to TTS polities but humans can apparently make devices like this for a fraction of the price.  

3.  Screw-top plastic jar full of powdered soap.

4.  PPE kit (respirator, face shield, and several sets of gloves.

5.  Child sling (no child in it)

6.  Vitamin supplements (label written in English, Hindi, and several local languages).

7.  Leather document pouch made from recycled Tiny Tyrants (indicates that Quick Hands is an auditor and a symbol of high status).  While people eatin' is frowned upon (as a public health hazard), sanitary recycling of corpses is an important part of life in a city of several tens of millions packed into a space the size of a a few human city blocks.

8.  Plastic bag full of water. 

9.  Elaborate bead-and-string map of the major thoroughfares of the city-tower when strung between the hands just so.  A very efficient way of representing a complex 3d space.

10.  Pamphlets (propaganda, public health advice, and best practices for proper document control)

11.  Belt with several pouches (lightweight nylon).

12.  Ledger stick (also usable as a cudgel)

13.  Ballpoint pen sized for a 4kg Bat Fascist.  The improvements in industrial processes that made this pen possible were licensed from humans but the pen was made locally.  Quick hands prefers pencils but the Health Department switched to pens and its archival unit punishes severely for reports written with improper media. 

8 BANDS FOR YOUR CHARACTERS TO OBSESSIVELY COLLECT PATCHES FROM

 

8 BANDS FOR YOUR CHARACTERS TO OBSESSIVELY COLLECT PATCHES FROM

бо (aka. бытовой отсек, "BO" or "orbital module")
Spacers don't listen to shanties (don't be silly).  But they still need music to focus while doing the plumbing and electrical work that keeps everybody alive and breathing and distract them from the constant ambient noises aboard a spacecraft.  BO often performs over helmet frequencies at shipyards, spaceports, and asteroid mining sites while in spacesuits themselves.  An ambient synthwave concert where everyone including the band is in a spacesuit is definitely an experience.   

Bugalow Deathsquad

A radical anarchist take on corporate subliminal pop music.  Banned in Corp space because it's subversive.  Despised by real revolutionaries because revolution by mind control isn't a revolution at all.  Despite the controversy, the band is only really popular among edgy teenagers.    

EATING THE TREE

Extremist Neo-Shugendo ascetics who have decided to spread their take on the correct path to enlightenment through music.  Despite numerous accusations that their music is a supernaturally-enhanced memetic hazard, they just make a really compelling case for ritual suicide by self-mummification. 

Get Out Of My House.

Music derived from gibbons' territorial marking calls.  A small following among other non-gibbon ape uplifts but it's really a niche genre.  They make some iconic fight songs (at least if you're a gibbon).  

[SKINFLAP]

Canid uplifts are very rare and also don't care for space travel.  They don't have much in the way of common culture.  [SKINFLAP] is a rare exception.  The band advocates a rejection of human (ape, strictly speaking) language among canids.  Have created their own language and begun popularizing it through music.  Banned as subversive as a result.   

Corpse Extruder

28th century retro death metal based on the collection of original Old Earth metal music and reference material in the Neocatholic Church's archives.  Strong focus on historical authenticity and known for their respect for Old Earth traditions such as the Mosh Pit Ritual and use of historically accurate instruments and recording techniques.  Responsible for a revival of certain ancient styles of electric guitar and a lot of modern music using ancient guitars.  Strong ties to the NCT and independent academia; a very respectable band.  

EMAG

The equivalent of the narcocorrido genre for corporate operators.  Set to acoustic guitar and with lyrics lionizing corporate violence.  Sponsored by a number of large security corporations including, most notably PanSec, which views itself as a patron of the arts.

Entity 7

A one-man band made of Meat.  Performed by a single custom-made sleeve/musical horror created by ex Horizon Neurogen engineer Raheem Chen.  Entities 1, 4, 5, and 6 have been retired due to . . . technical issues but the other sleeves still make an appearance when Raheem wants to shake things up.  Great variety of noisemaking abilities and many, many different throats, sacs, and bony protrusions.  While many expected Horizon to shut Raheem down, they have instead embraced his pet project.