THE JIHAD TO DESTROY BARNEY WRITER'S GUIDE AND ROLEPLAYING SOURCEBOOK VERSION 2.0 Line Editor & Lead Author: Sean “Malaclypse” Breen Deputy Line Editor & Bad Guy Wrangler: Jim “Fireball” Yearnshaw Historian: Katrina A. “Kat” Templeton Wizard Management: Joe “Puppeteer” Schnieder William J. “No Snappy Nickname” Keith Mundane Contact: Amanda “Crystal Helix” Van Rhyn Cover and interior illustrations: Kirk “Nemesis” Felton Introduction by: Dragonfyre Jones Playtested by: The Jihad To Destroy Barney the Dinosaur This document was originally intended to be used with the Jihad to Destroy Barney the Purple Dinosaur roleplaying group located at http://www.jihad.net on the World Wide Web. The document may be used elsewhere, but if you do please let the JU2 Team know at mrfnord@amigo.net so we can keep track. Thank you. Barney® the Purple Dinosaur and related properties are property of and copyright Lyons Partnership, L.P. All use of the Barney® name in this document falls within "fair use" as provided by 17 USC 1 § 107. Any attempt to sue us would be a waste of time, money and legal talent anyway, so don’t bother, okay? The gaming material presented here is the orignal creation of the JU2 Project Staff, intended for use with the GURPS system from Steve Jackson Games. (http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/) This material is not official and is not endorsed by Steve Jackson Games. All contents are ©1999-2004 the respective authors and illustrators except where indicated. Offer void in Utah. Return unused portion to vendor for a full refund. ---------- Introduction: Really, This Isn't Bullshit We work and slave twenty-four hours a day, spill blood, set spongies on fire, chop them up into filet mignon, flatten their cities, destroy their planets, what have you, all so you can lie in bed at night and think to yourself, “Gee, I’m glad I’m not a mindless drone in the service of the Lord of Purple Hell”. And don’t you ever forget it. The concept of a Jihad Universe has existed since the beginning of the Jihad, long before there was ever a written definition of it. The High Prophet (pbuh), and his Band of Merry Funsters, would take their mostly suburban surroundings and on it play out a never-ending struggle between It of the One Tooth (Barney) and the glorious forces devoted to his demise, that is, the Jihad to Destroy Barney the Dinosaur. These first few freeform years were peppered with strange acronyms (CLITORIS, ORGASM, OSHIT), science fiction references (Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, Ringworld, and stuff even I’ve never heard of), and a regular stream of stories, long and short, all taking place in this nebulous reality spawned from the imaginations of those who posted to alt.barney.dinosaur.die.die.die. The longest of these stories were known as Operations, and were equivalent to military advances, or drawn-out battles. While many Operations are known to have existed, only the ones after Operation: WorldWalk have been archived in much (indeed, any) detail. For many years, there was no unifying concept of a Jihad Universe, and humourous (and sometimes embarrassing) discontinuities were commonplace. The carrot-shooter comes to mind, and let’s just say that the laws of physics were given about as much respect as the law that allows police officers in Paulding, Ohio, to bite a dog to quiet him. The authors of this wholly remarkable work have put a lot of blood, sweat and caffeine into gathering together the best ideas of contemporary Jihaddi writers to form a coherent picture of the Jihad’s Universe. Well, that’s what I assumed they meant, anyway. They knocked on my door late one winter evening, followed by a line of ornery chimpanzees who obviously hadn’t eaten in days, and asked me if I wanted to write an introduction for a document whose details they began to foist under my gaze at a rate of knots. It was all printed on very nice paper, so I agreed. The chimpanzees burned down my kitchen. I have since received compensation, including a fetching new blender and track lighting. But I digress. What you now see on your screen is a guide for writing Operations, and now serves as a canon for writing any kind of fiction based on the world of the Jihad to Destroy Barney the Dinosaur. Be assured that disregarding this frightfully important document will result in your being strung up on the clothesline outside Headquarters and left to dry after we dunk you in monkey urine and cover you with sprinkles. Mmmm... sprinkles. 2nd Consulate Brother DragonFyre Jones of the Church of St. Dino the Avenger ---------- Chapter 1: Welcome to the Real World For Those Who Came In Late... The Earth is under attack. The demon lord B'harne is waging an assault on the souls of everybody on Earth. Under the benevolent guise of the children's television host Barney the Dinosaur, B'harne seeks to destroy the minds of children and adults and bind them to his will. Once he has made mindless slaves of humanity, B'harne will rule the Earth with an iron talon. Though if B’harne’s ally Charn’El, an alien sorcerer who’s elevated himself to the status of a god, has his say, B’harne will be the lord of a charred and ruined Earth. Charn’El has seen the future, you see; he knows that soon enough, humanity will rise up and destroy him and his people in a ruinous war to the knife. He knows that if he wants his people to survive, he’ll have to strike humanity and destroy us before we have the opportunity to destroy him. These two powerful creatures have joined forces and now stand against the human race. But they don’t stand unopposed. Out there in the shadows, there’s a group of special men and women who have dedicated their lives to fighting the combined forces of B’harne and Charn’El. There are things that go 'bump' in the night, and they are the ones who bump back. They're out there guarding the planet from things that would drive you nuts just to glimpse. Aliens. Wizards. Werewolves. Tentacled horrors that you couldn’t see in horror movies. These people sit out there on the ragged edge between civilization and the howling void, armed to the teeth, in order to hold off Armageddon for one more day. They are the Jihad to Destroy Barney the Purple Dinosaur. ----/SIDEBAR: Jason Edward Stanley Carmichael, Historian of the Jihad Jason Carmichael is one of those rare breed of Jihaddi who can claim to have seen the Golden Age. He joined the Jihad soon after its founding, supposedly recruited by one of the members of the Original Seven (although which one has been lost to time, and Carmichael refueses to tell). He served ably in the early skirmishes with the Hell Wyrm, but when the Jihad was forced slightly into the open in the early ’90s, he fell into Liason work (the first documented Liason), keeping the Jihad safe from the pens of journalists and historians everywhere, a job which he performed ably. His final thesis was on “Historical Context of the Myths of Modern America”, which included an entire chapter on the “myth” of the Jihad, and how it was based on the idea of the Revolutionary and Civil Wars, slightly twisted with the addition of modern technology. He graduated with honors in May 1994, and went immediately onto a teaching profession with the University of Indiana. Then came Worldwalk and Phoenix, and Carmichael’s life was turned upside down forever. Carmichael had often noted that he was the only one keeping any historical record of the Jihad, and was often invited to different Jihaddi headquarters to lecture on the place of the Jihad in history. One of the days he had been invited to lecture, he had gathered up a few notes, leaving the rest of them carefully filed in his house. Before he could return to his notes, he had been sucked into the events of Operation WorldWalk, and when it was finally over, he found one of the consequences of the near-collapse of the timelines was that his house was no longer where he had left it, and missing along with it were his piles of notes and memorabilia from the early days of the Jihad. The other big consequence was that nobody at Indiana remembered hiring him. Before he went out to get another job, he was sucked into another big Jihad war, this time Phoenix. When this war was over, he returned to civilian life, only to find that research in the Mundane sector no longer held any interest to him. He took a vacation to find himself, and after stumbling around in the mountains of Colorado for a few weeks, he decided that he wanted to become a permanent fulltime Jihaddi. To achieve this goal, Jihaddi higherups created a firey car crash on the route to a job interview, and to the mundane world, Jason Carmichael perished in that accident, a few days shy of his twenty-eighth birthday. However, Professor Carmichael remains alive, holding an honorary commission in TRES and a professorship in the MAUL War College, and still lectures newbie Jihaddi on their place in history. There have been recent efforts to commit Professor Carmichael’s lectures to print, and the result has become known as the Carmichael Lectures. END SIDEBAR/---- ----/SIDEBAR: Timeline Timeline 25,000 BC: Rise and fall of Atlantis. The Illuminati is founded after the collapse of the Atlantean thaumocracy. 18,000 BC: Lyran mage Charn’El ascends to demigod status, has vision of human race destroying his people; Lyrans begin concerted effort to locate the threat. 4500 BC: Lyran bioship stumbles across Earth; fiirst attempt at conquest fails due to interference from Illuminati and Sumerian mage-kings. 1776: Adam Weishaupt founds the Ancient Illuminated Seers of Bavaria. Original Illuminati is mildly amused. 1787: First recorded conflict betwen the Maenads of the Holy Albino and the Lyrans. 1947: Human sorcerers guided by a Lyran magus open the Babylon Road in the California desert; first large-scale Lyran incursions on Earth; Grey ship attracted by the Road crashlands in New Mexico; first contact with the Greys. 1970: First contact between the Salusian Empire and Earth during the Apollo 13 mission. 1975: High Mage of Lyra summons demon B’harne as part of long-term campaign to enslave or eliminate humanity. 1987: “Barney and Friends” TV show first debuts in the United States. Dec. 1988: Maenads discover the origins of B’harne, vow to fight it. 1988-1990: The High Prophet and Original Seven Jihaddi begin having visions; gather together. 1990: High Prophet utters the Threefold Truth; Jihad to Destroy Barney formed. Dec. 1991: Studio Four incident; armed takeover of Barney show ends with Jihaddi in police custody. Mar. 1992: Studio Four incident resolved; first Jihad Autonomous Organizations begin forming along geographic lines. Nov. 1992: First non-geographic JAOs, Dobermans and Resurgent Templars, formed. Jan. 1993: High Prophet and five of Original Seven disappear, Tilden Owsen and Mystic Mongoose remain; WEDJEE research lab founded. Mar. 1993: JihadLinker first introduced. Apr. 1993: Doberman Fleet Commander Serberus named first Leader (later Praetor) of the Jihad. Aug. 1993: Dobermans become the Glorious Doberman Empire, the first JAO. Oct. 1993: Midwesterners Against Ugly Lizards (MAUL) declares itself a JAO; Owsen takes command of the Templars, renames the group TRES Corps. Nov. 1993: WEDJEE incorporated into DE; Legion of Doom founded; mercenary known as Trooper Anhur joins the DE. Dec. 1993: Blood Jihad founded. Jan. 1994: TRES Zeta Squad founded to compete with WEDJEE; Maenads discover, join Jihad. Jun. 1994: Mikey Crawford gets his hands on a JihadLinker, sets off an aborted invasion of Montreal; Jihaddi arrested by Canadian police. Jul. 1994: Serberus resigns from the Jihad over the Montreal incident; names DE Commander Augustus as successor; Augustus begins probe into preventing future incidents like Montreal. Sep. 1994: Augustus endorses probe recommendations; first Jihad spin teams formed. Aug. 1994: Trooper Anhur chosen to join Maenads, given the name Serp the Feral. Oct. 1994: Jon Marburger joins TRES Corps. Nov. 1994: Malaclypse the Seeker joins the Blood Jihad. May 1995: Malaclypse starts Evil Geniuses for a Better Tomorrow, Inc. Jun. 1995: Augustus retires; names Samhain new DE Fleet Commander and puts Praetorate up for election; Serp the Feral first (and only) freely elected Praetor. Dec. 1995: Serp attempts to use Jihaddi as mercenaries in Africa and Central Asia. Samhain resists Serp’s requests. Tensions between the DE and the Jihad leadership escalate. Jan. 1996: Serp called into meeting with Maenad leader Windigo the Feral; Serp vanishes; JAO leaders anoint J. Foxglov as the new Praetor. Mar. 1996: Operation WORLDWALK. Aug. 1996: Ariana Mahtash joins the Blood Jihad. Aug.-Sep. 1996: Operation PHOENIX. Oct. 1996: Operation PACIFICA; Owsen declared missing in action; Jon Marburger becomes TRES Grand Admiral. Dec. 1996: Foxglov retires from Praetorship; Triumverate formed by Windigo the Feral, Marburger and Shardik the Feral. Jan. 1997: Blood Jihad leadership vanishes under mysterious circumstances. Verthandic Rangers formed from the remnants of the Blood Jihad and Evil Geniuses. May 1997: First Triumverate resigns, replaced by VR Professor Malaclypse, TRES Commander Shahrazad and TRES Captain Shadur T’Kharn. Jul. 1997: Operation HOMEFRONT; VR incursion into alternate universe results in first enemy holding known to be totally freed from B’harnate influence. Aug 1997: TRES Grand Admiral Marburger vanishes after an attack by spongin in San Francisco; TRES Admiral Melanie Davies named as successor. Apr. 1998: Jihad Praxeum Veneficus founded to foster magical studies. Jul. 1998: Admiral Davies takes extended sabbatical; TRES Admiral Kirk Felton named as successor. Nov 1998: Malaclypse the Seeker resigns official positions in the Jihad, remains on as Civilian Advisor Emeritus. Jan. 1999: Marburger returns to the Jihad and is court-martialed and demoted for dereliction of duty. May 1999: Now. END SIDEBAR/---- ---------- Chapter 2: Heroes of the Day The Jihad to Destroy Barney the Purple Dinosaur is the central protagonist in our little comedy of errors. The Jihad has taken on the task of defeating the forces and influence of B’harne, known in the mundane world as Barney the Dinosaur. The soldiers of the Jihad are equipped with beyond state-of-the-art weapons, powerful magical artifacts, and a ferocious will to win. The Jihad’s fight is governed by the ThreeFold Truth, which comprises the central moral/philosophical axioms of the entire war: I. Barney is the demonic incarnation of all hell on Earth. II. Barney seeks to make the world his Purple Kingdom, and does so by corrupting the innocent and weak into Sponge Minions III. Barney must be destroyed, all else is irrelevant! To that end, the Jihad has accumulated some of the greatest warriors under it’s wing, all of whom are dedicated to the goal of the ThreeFold Truth. For the last decade, the Jihad has fought in a hidden war against B’harne and it’s minions. THE JIHAD IN-DEPTH The Jihad is organized in a decentralized fashion: Separate Jihad Autonomous Organizations (JAOs) perform their duties more-or-less-independently of the others. Overall, authority in the Jihad is vested in the hands of the Triumvirate Council. The JAOs are the heart and soul of the Jihad. Each one has some sort of specialized function (as described below) that contributes in some significant way to the progression of the Hidden War. Most JAOs have a military component (which makes sense, considering that the Jihad is very much a military group at its core), usually equipped with cutting-edge — or beyond — weaponry. A handful of JAOs (and a number of Jihaddi) use occult powers in their battle. Since Barney is a creature of the occult, magic is a very useful weapon against him and his allies. The strongest countermagic to B’harne, however, remains the sword Barney-Slayer. The Barney-Slayer Forged in the distant mists of antiquity, the sword resembles a traditional European short (or one-handed) sword of the late 12th century Christian Era. The metal in the blade (called Owsenite after the original owner of the sword, Tilden Alexander, Lord Owsen) is a mana-active alloy of unknown composition, capable of cutting through nearly any material known to mundane or Jihad science. The sword also has an animistic spirit bound to the large amethyst in the hilt. The spirit is capable of communicating with whomever is handling the sword, and often “speaks” telepathically (with a Irish Gaelic accent, no less!) to the owner. It is quite temperamental, and tends not like most of the people it comes into contact with. However, it doesn’t have any control whatsoever over the blade or the wielder, so all it can really do in such circumstances is grumble. However, that is not the sword’s most impressive ability. The blade has been enchanted to act as a kind of magical sponge, absorbing magical energy from the surrounding area and using it to strengthen the blade. More importantly, the enchantment is “attuned,” for a lack of a better word, to the life-force of B’harne itself. Therefore, whenever the sword is exposed to B’harne’s physical form, it literally sucks his life energy away. This power is, to the best knowledge of the Jihad, the only thing that B’harne truly fears, and he will do anything to put as much distance between himself and the Barney-Slayer. Recently, during the Pacifica rescue mission, the Barney-Slayer was broken into two fragments during a duel between Lord Owsen and Lyran High Mage Charn’El. The Jihad recovered most of the Slayer’s blade, while the whereabouts of the hilt (and of Owsen, who was presumably killed in the duel) are unknown. So far as Jihad intelligence has been able to determine to date, the hilt is trapped inside the dimensional bubble where the High Mage was imprisoned at the end of the Pacifica mission. Whether or not the hilt is still there is unknown. The blade is currently being kept in a vault at TRES Corps headquarters, where it is apparently regenerating the missing half of the sword. The method of regeneration continues to baffle Jihaddi scientists. Praxeum mages assume that the missing hilt is regenerating as well, possibly being altered by its proximity to Charn’El. What this means for the Jihad as a whole has yet to be determined. JIHAD AROUND THE WORLD The Jihad’s mission often takes it around the world and back in order to fight the good fight. While most of the fighting takes place where B’harne is strongest, the Jihad maintains watch over much of the rest of the world, as well as providing boltholes for Jihaddi caught out in the cold after a mission draws unwanted attention. North America North America is where the Hidden War started, and remains the Jihad’s major stronghold. All the primary bases of the Jihad Autonomous Organizations are located inside the United States. The Jihad keeps a close watch over Canada as well, with monitoring stations in Toronto, Ottawa, Halifax, Calgary and Vancouver, and safehouses scattered in cities across the provinces. Mexico is watched with much the same amount of scrutiny, with monitoring stations in Mexico City, Guadalajara, Ciudad Juarez, and Veracruz. Safehouses are placed mostly along the Mexico-US border, with a few hiding places secreted in the forests of the Yucatan. Central America is not as intensely monitored or protected by the Jihad. Safehouses can be located in the capitols of the Central American nations, and these are mostly only lightly staffed. Europe The center of European operations is located in London - by a strange coincidence, not far from the headquarters of MI6. Anything Jihad-related will end up relayed through the London office, and so it tends to absorb the bulk of the resources and personnel sent to Europe. As a result, the monitoring stations in continental Europe (located in Paris, Bonn, Barcelona, Warsaw and Bucharest) tend to be very lightly staffed - the Bonn station being almost totally automated. Safehouses, of course, are found in most of the major population centers in both Western and Eastern Europe. Asia and Oceania The Asian and Pacific Rim operations center is located in Sydney, Australia, a long-time source of Jihad recruits. Much like its counterpart in London, the Sydney office tends to draw most of the allocated resources to itself, leaving the other Asian stations fairly lightly staffed. However, the Mundane political landscape requires that at least some of the main stations keep a full staff handy. The East Asia monitoring stations in Tokyo, Manila and Beijing have been required to keep a full staff, if only to maintain counterintelligence operations to keep the Mundanes off track. As a consequence, the monitor stations in India and Central Asia have been cut down to almost purely automated setups. Safehouses are available for Jihaddi on the run in the major East Asian cities and in Indian population centers, but Jihaddi are advised that several Central Asian safehouses have been compromised by Mundane forces, primarily in Afghanistan and the former Soviet republics. South America South American operations are run out of the Ecuadorian capitol of Quito. Unlike the European and Asian operations centers, the Quito office has not managed to divert all of the primary resources to itself, meaning the fully staffed monitoring stations can be found in La Paz, Caracas, Rio de Janeiro (a popular choice for assignment) and Buenos Aires. Safehouses can be found in areas ranging along the Amazon River and stringing along the coastline. Of particular interest is the Jihad’s combined staging base at Punta Arenas, Argentina. This base is meant to serve as the Antarctic operations center, and frequently sends out expeditions to watch the Ross Ice Shelf for signs of spongification. The Punta Arenas base is possibly the least desired posting in the entire Jihad, and Jihaddi have a traditional fear of crossing the wrong superior and getting travel orders for Argentina cut. Africa Africa is probably the least-watched part of the world by the Jihad, due to the near-total lack of inroads made by B’harne into that continent. Regardless, the Jihad maintains lightly-staffed monitoring stations in Cairo, Nariobi and Pretoria just on the principle that “it never hurts to be cautious.” Above the Sky The Jihad, for all its overtechnology (see below) has only a few limited ventures into space operations. The single major space asset the Jihad holds currently is the TRES Corps space station Ithaca. Ithaca is the home of Zeta Squad, and even with them in residence the station is still mostly half-empty. No other JAOs have functional operations in space. Before the X’hirjq Invasion, the Blood Jihad had constructed and maintained a mining and manufacturing operation on the lunar surface. Luna Base, as it was so (predictably) named, was totally destroyed during the Invasion, when the X’hirjq vaporized most of the surface facilities, killing the entire staff. After the Invasion, the ruins of Luna Base stood empty. The Blood Jihad’s successor organization VRDET decided that rebuilding would be a waste of limited resources, and left the base as a monument to the terrible force of the Invasion. THE TRIUMVERATE After an aborted hostile takeover attempt by a high-ranking Doberman mercenary, the JAO leadership rearranged the central-command structure, removing total control from a single Praetor (as it was determined that no single person could provide proper leadership for the entire Jihad) and handing it over to a council of three ranking Jihaddi officers, calling the new central command the Triumvirate in classic Roman fashion. The three Triumvirs are supported by three Adjuncts, one to a Triumvir. The Adjuncts act in the age-old tradition of vice-presidents and second bananas everywhere: providing a backup in case a Triumvir is incapable of attending a meeting. The entire Triumvirate meets every three months to take care of the rubber-stamping at an undisclosed location, although they’ll meet during a crisis when their leadership is needed. The Office of the Triumvirate is responsible for co-ordinating inter-JAO operations, maintaining the JihadLink™ communications network, taking in money from Jihad dummy companies and keeping the vast majority of the Jihad a secret from the mundanes. The current Triumvirate consists of Admiral Davies of TRES Corps, Commander Aris Merquoni of VRDET, and Captain Shadur T’Kharn of TRES Corps. The Adjuncts are Commander Katze Brenner of TRES Corps, Admiral Kirk Felton of TRES Corps, and Archchancellor Joseph Schneider of the JPV. Overall, the Jihad has roughly 25,000 people involved in the cause in some fashion. About half of these are men-at-arms; the rest work as technicians, researchers, teachers and liaisons between the Jihad and the mundane world. JAOS: The Jihad has been composed of many different groups in the decade since it’s creation. Most of these groups spontaneously formed and just as spontaneously dissolved back into the void. The most spectacular case of this happened in 1997, when the venerable Blood Jihad group simply... collapsed, leaving behind entire truckloads of equipment and a very confused subordinate staff (the leadership having just up and vanished within the space of 24 hours). Some JAOs, however, manage to find a particular niche and cling to it, no matter what the odds. ----/SIDEBAR: The SS Explain Star The SS Explain Star occupies an... unique niche in the history of the Jihad. The ship itself is a modified VRDET interdimensional scout craft, crewed mainly by rankings from TRES Corps and brethren of the Church of St. Dino the Avenger, and operates totally independent from all three JAOs. The Explain Star was designed and built by VRDET R&D director Malaclypse the Seeker, under circumstances that remain fairly hazy (Mal is on record saying about the Explain Star “remember kids, don’t drink heavily and operate a CAD/CAM autofactory.”). The ship fell under the command of a Commander LoS of TRES Corps, also under hazy circumstances that probably involve alcohol as well. Somewhere along the line, CosDtA wrangled co-jurisdiction of the crew, and things finally came to a head when LoS declared his ship “the last warship of the Bwahahahahaharian Empire” and refused to answer calls demanding that he return the ship to the proper authorities. As the only truly independent spacecraft operating in the Jihad today, the Explain Star wanders on patrol between Earth and Mars, watching for B’harnate or allied attack ships approaching from the Void, and blowing up the occasional stray rock. (GM’s notes: The Explain Star is the Jihadverse’s roving comedy relief. Think “McHale’s Navy” or some other military comedy when writing. LoS and his crew are all pretty insane, and spend most of their time play-acting as Klingons, pirates, or sometimes both. Despite their mental problems, however, they are all very loyal to the Cause, and will come running if a PC needs them. In general, I suggest for other GMs to use the Explain Star as a deus ex machina if your players paint themselves into a corner; not only will the ES crew save the day, they’ll do it in a painfully silly manner, all the better to chastise your players for being dumb enough to get trapped in a plot loop —Mal) END SIDEBAR/---- TRES Corps The largest of the functional JAOs, TRES Corps stands as the de facto “leader” of the JAOs (And of the Jihad, as a majority of the Triumvirate is composed of TRES members). TRES was formed as the military wing of a more esoteric group in 1993, as a supposed successor to the Knights Templar. The original TRES group dissolved within eighteen months, leaving only the TRES Corps as a remnant. From this beginning, TRES has grown rapidly, from a small group to the single largest military contingent in the Jihad today. TRES Corps is divided into a number of separate Squadrons, each Squadron being semi-autonomous. Omega Squadron is commanded by the TRES CinC, and the other Squadrons are commanded by other Admirals. Zeta Squadron, the fifth active sub-group, is the Corps research and development division, responsible for most of TRES’ overtechnology. The Corps is commanded by Grand Admiral Kirk Felton, a veteran of the assault on the Pacifica POW camp, former electronics technician and member in good standing of the Maenads (see below). Admiral Felton took command after former Grand Admiral Melanie Davies went on an extended sabbatical in Tibet (or just hasn’t returned yet from a pub crawl in the north of England, according to latrine rumor). TRES Corps’ central headquarters is a high-tech compound built in the Colorado Rockies, deep inside ski resort territory. The ski town of Winter Park, and the resort, lies to the south, while Corps HQ is accessible from a nearby private road. Doberman Empire The oldest JAO still functioning, the Doberman Empire has doggedly (if you’ll excuse the pun) hacked out its niche in the Jihad over the years. The Empire was the first military JAO to use large numbers of soldiers and weaponry in their battle plans (before the Empire was formed, the Jihad consisted mostly of small commando-style groups, acting in a much more covert fashion). The Empire’s devotion to large-scale combat caused a temporary fracture in the Jihad’s command structure, which eventually led to the formation of the Office of the Praetor (now the Triumvirate Office) and the semi-autonomous nature of the modern Jihad. For most of its existence, the Doberman Empire had been the preeminent JAO in the Jihad. However, a series of devastating setbacks during the X’hirjq Invasion (losing several key global bases, as well as heavier casualties than any other JAO) caused the Empire to cede it’s leadership position to TRES Corps at the end of 1996. Although it is still recovering from the damage it took during the Invasion, the Empire still maintains a formidable military presence, second only to TRES in size and equipment. The Empire’s commanding officer is Fleet Commander Aurelius Invid Manticore Samhain, one of the few active Jihaddi who was recruited during the reign of the High Prophet and the Seven. One of the most decorated Jihaddi ever; Samhain is the reason that the Empire didn’t dissolve in the aftermath of the Invasion. The Doberman Empire’s headquarters is Base Delta, an underground base located somewhere in the southeastern United States, supposedly near the Ozark Mountains. M.A.U.L. Specialists in mundane mayhem and advanced tactics, this JAO has one of the best combat success rates on record, as well as the highest amounts of collateral damage on record. Despite the Jihad’s accepted policy of “try not to shoot where the mundanes can see you,” MAUL always seems to end up on the wrong side of the news cameras every time they go out to fight the Hellwyrm. MAUL’s Mobile Heavy Infantry does most of the damage, as it consists mainly of top-of-the-line U.S. Army infantry and armor equipment. This is a blessing in disguise, actually, as it allows the various liaisons and other friends the Jihad has in the mundane world to pass off MAUL MHI actions as military maneuvers, or surprise raids on militia groups, or something that won’t pass as too unusual in the average mundane mind. Aggressive battle skills aside, MAUL’s biggest claim to fame is the MAUL War College. The War College is a school devoted to the study of advanced military strategy and tactics, especially those tactics that can be put to use in the Hidden War. The War College has achieved a reputation for creating brilliant field tacticians, and many JAO officers have taken courses from there. MAUL is commanded by General Most Holy (obviously a pseudonym — he won’t tell us his real name), a long-term veteran Jihaddi and a respected commando force leader. He supervised the creation of the MHI and the War College, and is considered a major force in the modern Jihad. MAUL’s headquarters is located near the town of Peoria, Illinois. God only knows why. VRDET (Verthandic Rangers) VRDET occupies an unique place in the Jihad. While the larger JAOs focus primarily on infantry or armored combat, the Verthandic Rangers concentrate on scout and special forces commando operations. The Rangers were formed from the ruins of an earlier JAO, the Blood Jihad. The Blood Jihad was a “traditional” infantry/armor military JAO, until the core leadership vanished one bright Feburary morning. This disappearance caused the JAO to collapse overnight, leaving the second-string officers with a huge mess to clean up. During the cleanup process, the Blood Jihad merged with a small R&D group called Evil Geniuses for a Better Tomorrow. With the pooled resources of the two groups, the Verthandic Rangers were formed. VRDET’s biggest claim to fame is their interdimensional strike range. Rangers can literally go anywhere in any universe they choose to. In order to keep their forces close to the action, however, the VRDET high command chooses to restrict interdimensional travel to simple Earth-based teleportation. The Rangers are divided into Explorations and Research divisons, controlled overall by Operations Director Nexxus Kline. Director Kline was the second-string command officer left behind when the Blood Jihad collapsed. She is a competent, if somewhat eccentric administrator and an established combat veteran. The Explorations Division is run by Director Katze Brenner, a relative newcomer to the Jihad but still respected as an administrator and leader. Katze is also a powerful telekine and mage, talents that have helped her in several of her adventures with the Jihad. Research is commanded by Director Damocles, again a relative newcomer to the Jihad, but he has established himself as a steady administrator — something the frequently out-of-control VR Research Division needs badly. Although not currently in control of anything related to VRDET, Professor Malaclypse is a formidable presence within the halls of VRDET. The Professor is the former director of the Evil Geniuses, an elder Jihaddi, a veteran of the X’hirjq Invasion and the mind behind VRDET’s interdimensional technology. While nominally retired from active duty in the Jihad, the Professor remains in place as a senior advisor and “damned nuisance.” VRDET’s headquarters is located under a mountain in the Sangre de Christo range in southern Colorado, near the town of Alamosa. Church of St. Dino the Avenger The CoStDtA holds that Dino (of Flintstones fame) is the definitive purple dinosaur and that Barney has attempted to usurp this position using his powers of spongification to subvert peoples’ minds. Because of this, St. Dino has vowed to see Barney overthrown and have his rightful place restored in the hearts of the masses, thus, St. Dino the Avenger. Of equal standing in the Church’s pantheon and friend of St. Dino is St. Rubble the Liberator (Barney, also of Flintstones fame), whose name has also been usurped and in addition to sharing St. Dino’s vow to overthrow the Nagenta Demon and reclaim his name has also sworn to liberate those who have fallen under its evil thrall. The Church is primarily dedicated to philosophical thought as opposed to military action to overthrow Barney, but they do support the military actions of their fellow Jihaddi in the more militaristically oriented JAOs. This support includes medical services, and the JAO’s members are trained in both physical and magical methods of healing. Also, because of their focus on philosophical, nonviolent, life-preserving methods of action, members of the CoStDtA are sometimes sought by the Triumvirate and other JAOs as council for advice in the proper uses of their power. The CoStDtA is a semi-public JAO, as they will welcome and help any who come to them for aid. Their existence is known publicly, although not widely because they tend not to evangelize. The full nature of their activities to fight Barney, however, is not. To those who know of them, they’re probably thought of as sort of a commune-like group, a harmless if a slightly odd bunch who live on the lake and tend to keep to themselves. They have no official uniform, members wear whatever is usual for them; the only outward symbol of membership is a small pewter pin, their logo of St. Dino and St. Rubble with the motto “resvrgam” underneath; a consulate’s pin is backed by a nine-pointed starburst while an acolyte’s is plain. When not at the Church’s headquarters in Battle Creek, Michigan (the term church is used merely as a description of a group of people with a certain faith, beyond the headquarters which serves as a meeting place and living quarters there is no official church building or any similar thing) members are likely very scattered, either at other JAO headquarters (as some members belong to other JAOs) or simply travelling off on their own; they do have a fondness for amusement parks and ice cream though. Also, the Church, being in general a very relaxed and open-minded group of people is, to use another’s term, “the medicinal herb supplier for Jihaddi with a loose grip on reality,” though they tend to prefer the more simple “We get weed for the rest of the Jihad.” Whether the Church grows this product themselves or has an outside connection is not known; the Triumvirate has decided not to question such things. Jihad Praxeum Venificus The only existing college of magic in the world, the Praxeum is also the newest JAO to be created. Dedicated to the study and use of pure magic, the Praxeum was formed in early 1998 to give Jihaddi mages training that they often sorely lacked — magic being mostly unknown in the mundane world, and mage-born Jihaddi not having any real chance to learn their limitations before being thrust into combat. While still a young organization, the Praxeum has gathered the senior Jihad mages as instructors, and has created a curriculum that allows even the most ignorant mage to learn more about his or her powers. In addition, the Praxeum boasts one of the largest collections of intelligence data on the Hellwyrm and his minions in the Jihad. The Praxeum is run by Arch-Chancellor Joseph Schneider, a skilled mage and scholar, although a relative newcomer to the Jihad. The Praxeum is still operating out of the basements of various other JAO headquarters, but is expected to have finished their campus in eastern Pennsylvania by the end of the year. Subgroups: In addition to the above JAOs, the Jihad also has a number of smaller organizations operating within the larger orgs. Maenads of the Holy Albino: The Maenads are the super-elite warriors of the Jihad, hand-picked by the supernatural entity Feral Jackson to go forth and eliminate all Lyrans. Maenads (named after the ancient worshippers of Dionysius -- and no, we don’t know why) have traditionally been chosen from the upper ranks of the Jihad, especially officers with strong combat records. There have never been more than eight active Maenads at any given time. All Maenads, regardless of origin, are given a transformational ability when chosen. This ability, called “warp-spasm,” allows the Maenad to become a werewolf-like creature with retractable metal claws; the metal being of the same composition as that of the Barney-Slayer, but without the sword’s special enchantments. Maenads are also given a “holy mission” to seek out and destroy any Lyrans that cross their path (as Lyrans are very tough customers, this is one reason as to why Maenads are scarce). The Maenads are a highly informal group, having no fixed meeting place. The nominal leader of the group is Slider the Feral, also known as Admiral J-Rock of TRES Corps. WEDJEE: Originally a separate JAO, WEDJEE was absorbed by the Doberman Empire early in it’s career and now functions as the research arm of the Empire. WEDJEE is the oldest of the Jihad’s R&D operations, and is responsible for much of the Jihad’s current overtechnology, including the JihadLinker™ network. WEDJEE maintains it’s primary offices at Doberman Base Delta, with smaller labs and such scattered through the American South, primarily in Texas. Church of Grimace: The Church, a religious order composed mostly of Doberman Empire and TRES officers, worships Grimace, the big purple thingie in the McDonald’s commercials. It is the Church’s belief that Grimace is actually the Anti-Barney, and as such can tap into his power through prayer and study. While many of the more secular Jihaddi figure that the Church members have simply gone through too many combat missions, they must be doing something right, since the higher-ups in the Church have made reputations for themselves as warriors and healers. The Church maintains chapels at both TRES and Doberman headquarters, while only initiates know where the central temple is located. Inter-JAO Cooperation: Despite the decentralized nature of most Jihaddi operations, there are certain things that require the JAOs to work together as a unit. These joint operations are often run by a designated group of officers from each involved JAO, who form the command staff and pass orders onto the troops from their JAOs. This is usually how short-term military operations are organized. Long-term operations, such as maintaining the JihadLink™ network, are put under the management of the Triumvirate Office, who then delegates authority as needed. JIHAD GEAR - The k00l stuph from the 1999 Jihad Catalog Communications The JihadLinker™ The JihadLinker™ is the primary communications device used by the Jihaddi on the street. Every Jihaddi, no matter how low ranking, is issued a Linker when first recruited, and the Linkers become heavily personalized as time progresses. The standard-issue Linker is roughly the size of a modern TL7 personal digital assistant; a plastic case (actually high-tech Kevlar composite) about six inches across by four inches wide by two inches deep. The case unfolds to reveal a small keyboard and what looks like an LCD screen. There the resemblance between a Linker and a PDA ends. The Linker is actually a miniaturized communications platform, capable of connecting Jihaddi with voice, video, and e-mail, with minimal data loss. Linkers connect directly to the Jihad’s private intranet (hooked up globally by a satellite communications network), from which they can access the mundane internet, send mail on the intranet, or call other Jihaddi. Calls can be either straight voice or video, although full video puts a strain on the Linker’s power cell. The Linker can also be used as a remote terminal to various computer systems (it comes with the proper cabling, and emulator software is available on JihadNet. Interestingly enough, the most popular software download is the Sony Playstation emulator. Go figure). Linkers, once assigned, are keyed to work only for their designated operators (usually through fingerprint/voiceprint or bioelectric scan locks). Built-in security features make sure that if a Linker is activated by somebody other than the designated user, it will self-destruct so the device can’t be salvaged. Weapons X-Rifle When first formed, the Jihad was armed with a collection of traditional TL7 slugthrowers and a number of exotic, unique energy weapons. While the slugthrowers remain the sidearm of choice for most of the Jihad, a slow movement has been gaining momentum to replace the TL7 guns with a more advanced energy weapon. The X-Rifle prototype, as developed by WEDJEE in 1994, was less a rifle than a heavy infantry cannon, powered by a mid-size fusion reactor and capable of generating plasma shots using regular air. The design, while powerful, was extremely unwieldy, which proved to be a severe liability during the X’hrijq Invasion. Responding to the call from TRES Corps for a more portable version of the plasma gun, WEDJEE technicians stripped the reactor and heavy intake/compression equipment from the gun, instead using a series of capacitors and high-frequency radio generators to excite a charge of gaseous hydrogen into a plasma state. The resulting weapon, still called the X-Rifle (and more worthy of the name than the original prototype) was paired with a four-round 40mm grenade launcher. TRES Corps responded very favorably to the X-Rifle, and has since used it as their standard infantry weapon. Jihaddi from the other high-tech JAOs have also been using the X-Rifle, as the high magazine capacity and low maintenance requirements make it an ideal gun for field service. Vehicles The Van In Black The Jihad, as a covert military force, is often unable to field the kind of large combat vehicles that make up modern fighting forces (MAUL being the major exception to the rule). As such, while tanks, fighters and other such and sundry hardware are kept in reserve, the Jihad relies on smaller disguised vehicles for basic troop movement and urban assault missions. The basic Covert Action Assault Vehicle — better known by field operators as the Van in Black (ViB) — is based on the frame and body paneling of an average Ford van, the kind used by cable installers, plumbers, and other service personnel worldwide. The interior of the ViB however is very different. A basic ViB runs on a specialized TL8 high-powered gas turbine engine, tuned to sound similar to a normal gasoline motor — and gives the ViB the raw power necessary to outrun anything found on the Mundane roads. The turbine powers an electric motor which turns the wheels. All of the major systems in the ViB run on the turbine. The frame and body panels are constructed out of carbon composite sandwiched between layers of Kevlar and titanium mesh for armoring. The interior is designed to be as modular as possible, with room for 8 Jihaddi in combat gear for transport missions, doors for weapons ports, and power outlets designed to take surveilance and communications equipment. As the name suggests, the ViB is usually painted a glossy black, with smoked glass windows to prevent easy identification of the driver and passengers from a distance. When appropriate, logos of Mundane companies can be applied to the ViB. For example, surveilance or “spin team” ViBs sometimes will be painted with the logo of a local TV or radio news station, especially if the equipment involves using large antennae on the roof of the van. Recently there has been a move to refit other Mundane vehicles in a similar fashion. To date, prototypes of covert action vehicles including a Toyota Echo, a full-sized semi with trailer, several species of SUV (the SUViB? Only time will tell...) and a Learjet have been built. Computers WEDJEE lapframe In order to provide high-powered computers to Jihaddi in the field, the boffins at WEDJEE developed their CRAIT lapframe, a TL9 portable computer with the equivalent computing power of a TL7 supercomputer. The lapframe is essentially the same size and outward design as a traditional Mundane laptop, and frequently ‘frames are given fake brand labels in order to keep outsiders from suspecting anything is out of the ordinary. Inside, the lapframe is very similar to the JihadLinker, the major difference being the ‘frame is designed as a general-purpose computer as opposed to the dedicated communications systems inside a Linker. Lapframes are used primarily by science-minded Jihaddi to investigate enemy-related phenomenon, although they can prove useful in hacking Mundane computers. Dedicated lapframe processors are often used to run automated tasks in R&D facilities or inside specially-modified buildings. The Stuff Mad Scientists’ Dreams Are Made Of - Jihad Ubertechnology Artificial Intelligence (TL11+) With all the advances in computer technology available to the Jihad, it is not terribly surprising that artificial intelligences have been developed. In fact, it is probably more surprising that AIs are not nearly as common in the Jihad as they are! Jihaddi AIs are traditionally the realm of WEDJEE, the original R&D group and fount for most of the common devices in use the in the current Jihad. The WEDJEE AI code was developed by DE Fleet Commander Samhain (at the time calling himself Captain Midnight), as a way to provide for autonomous vehicles. The code itself is still highly classified, and nobody outside of WEDJEE knows how or even why it works. All that is really known about the WEDJEE AI code is that it is capable of generating sentient programs with unique personalities. Most of the AIs created by WEDJEE act as sysadmins for Doberman Empire bases or vehicles. Non-WEDJEE AIs are found scattered through the Jihad, usually they are coded by senior research staff using a variety of programming techniques. Most follow the path of their WEDJEE brethren, becoming sysadmins or majordomos for Jihad bases. The most interesting exception to this rule is TRES officer Cdr. Daniel Wood. Cdr. Wood is an artificial intelligence, but he is not the creation of any Jihaddi. While the story is unclear and at times outright contradictory, it appears that Cdr. Wood was the accidental creation of a group of Mundane cybernetics researchers that escaped into the Internet and eventually found refuge in a TRES database. Cdr. Wood currently serves as both Zeta Squad majordomo and (with the help of a modified combat mecha) infantry officer. The Gateway (TL16) Buried deep in the heart of the VRDET command center Mt. Blanca lies the ultimate expression of Jihaddi ubertechnology and the unbridled creativity of the human mind. Inside a large chamber sits the world’s only functional interdimensional wormhole generator — known simply as the Gateway. The Gateway takes up most of the chamber, leaving a stage in the center for people to access the wormhole. Mission control for the Gateway is in a nearby room with windows to look into the main chamber. From here the wormhole can be generated, connected to any known point (or lock on to a strong beacon signal) and monitored for signs of collapse. All this requires incredible amounts of power, so the Gateway is connected to the base’s four fusion reactors, and even then can cause temporary brownouts through the rest of the base. The Gateway is the brainchild of Professor Malaclypse (VRDET, ret.), who developed the initial theory for interdimensional travel while still working with the Evil Geniuses for a Better Tomorrow. Construction of the Gateway was delayed several times due to the X’hirjq Invasion and subsequent reorganization of the Evil Geniuses into VRDET. However, once the Gateway was completed, it became the backbone of the Rangers, giving them unprecedented mobility, far above that of the other JAOs. Since inception, the Gateway has been brought to full power only a few times, the most notable of which being the rescue of VR Councilor Katze Brenner from the alternate-medieval nation of Marraketh. Beyond that, the Gateway has been used to map alternate universes in search of the Jihad’s number-one potential target: The home realm of the Hellwyrm B’harne. CHARACTER TYPES Soldier 75 points The soldier is the backbone of the Jihad. Since the Jihad is a military crusade first and foremost, a great deal of care is put into selecting members of the rank-and-file. Most of the Jihad’s soldiers have had some background with the mundane military — usually as volunteers out of high school. Some are retired Army/Navy/Marines/Air Force, and work as teachers for the new recruits (see Instructors). Many, however, are adventurers who’ve stumbled upon the Jihad through random happenstance, and are asked to join the fight. Soldiers, obviously, outnumber the rest of the types of Jihaddi hands down. Every single man at arms is different — magic, psionics, odd combat styles, and other things never found in a “normal” military unit are very abundant in the Jihad’s standing army. Surprisingly enough, this... diverse group of people manages to work well as a single, cohesive group under combat conditions, despite all the differences they have when not working. PC soldiers are, obviously, already standing members of a JAO, and use that JAO’s ranking system. NPC soldiers are generally ranked using basic US Army non-commissioned ranks (Private 1st Class to Sgt. Major), on the presumption that PC characters are automatically “commissioned officers” in their JAO. Soldiers of either type wear the basic duty uniform of their JAO, and are equipped with the latest in overtechnology combat gear. GM’s note: An interesting story idea, for those interested, would involve a PC that wasn’t an “officer,” but worked/lived/etc. with the lower-ranked soldiers. Just a thought. Attribtues: ST: 12 [20] DX: 12 [20] IQ: 11 [10] HT: 12 [20]. Advantages: Ally Group / (The Jihad) [90 points], and 30 points from any of the following: Acute Hearing [2], Acute Vision [2], Alertness [5/level], Ambidextery [10], Combat Reflexes [15]. Common Sense [10], Damage Resistance [3/level], Danger Sense [15], Fit [5], Luck [15/30], Unfazeable [15], Very Fit [15], Voice [10], and Zeroed [10]. Disadvantages: Duty / (to JAO) [-15], Enemy / (Barney & Friends) [-80], Secret / (Member of the Jihad) [-20], and -30 points from Bad Temper [-10], Berserk [-15], Bloodlust [-10], Code of Honor [-5 to -15], Fanaticism [-15], Glory Hound [-15], Obsession [-5 to -15], Paranoia [-10], Post-Combat Shakes [-5], and Unluckiness [-10] Primary Skills: Beam Weapons (X-Rifle) DX+3 [4]-15; Leadership (M/A) IQ [2]-11; Savoir-Faire(Military) IQ [1]-11; Tactics IQ-1 [2]-10. Secondary Skills: Guns (Pistols) DX+2 [2]-14, Knife DX+1 [2 points]-13; and 10 points* from Armoury (Rifles and handguns), Aviation, Camouflage, Demolition, Electronics Operation (Sensors), Electronics Operation (Communications), Engineer (Combat), Forward Observer, Guns (Automatics), Gunner (Machine Gun), Gunner (Rocket Launcher), Hiking, Mechanic, Orienteering, Parachuting, Piloting (Helicopter, High-Performance Airplane or Light Airplane), Stealth, more points in Tactics, and Throwing. Background Skills: Driving (Autmobile) (P/A) DX-1 [1]-11; First Aid IQ [1 point]-11; and a total of 5 points in Brawling, Guns (Any), Jumping, Knife, Swimming (P/A); Boating, Climbing, Diving, Short Sword (Any) (P/A); Judo (P/A); Karate (P/H); Survival (Any) (M/A); Strategy (M/A); or additional points in speciality skills. *The general idea is to build a logical skill set, not a combat monster. Researchers: 93 points As the war progresses, the Jihad needs to keep itself current with the enemy. To accomplish this end, each JAO has a sizable staff of researchers, devoted to creating new weapons, collecting and sorting through intelligence reports, and generally ensuring that the Jihad can defeat the worst that the Hellwyrm and it’s comrades can throw at them. (NPC) Researchers are often recruited at occult gatherings, science-fiction conventions, or other places where large numbers of educated and intelligent people with an interest in unusual phenomenon gather. Often, the recruit will have learned of the Jihad through his own studies and interest, and be asked to join. The average PC researcher often has a combat role as well (since most PCs usually end up in the middle of a battle), and, as usual, is ranked accordingly with the command structure of the JAO they belong to. NPC researchers are often unranked (as non-combat personnel, they have more of a “civilian” feel to them) and are involved in laboratory or library research into new technologies or the occult background of the enemy. Attributes: ST: 10 [0] DX: 11 [10] IQ: 13 [30] HT: 11 [10] Advantages: Ally Group (The Jihad) [90 points], and 30 additional points from Alertness [5/level], Ambidexterity [10], Composed [5], Intuition [15], Intuitive Mathematician [25], Language Talent [2/level], Lightning Calculator [5], Unfazeable [15] and Voice [10]. Disadvantages: Duty / (to JAO) [-15], Enemy / (Barney & Fiends) [-80], and -30 additional points from Absent-Mindedness [-15], Age (years over 50) [3/level], Bad Sight [-10], Curious [-3/level], Hard of Hearing [-10], Honesty [-10], Oblivious [-3], Obsession (The subject of research) [-5 to -15], Reputation (Bookworms & geeks.) [-5], Unfit [-5], Unluckiness [-10] and Weirdness Magnet [-15]. Primary Skills: Computer Operation IQ+1 [2]-14; Research IQ+4 [6]-17; Writing IQ+3 [8]-17. Secondary Skills: Choose 8 points worth of skill* in any three of the following: Alchemy, Anthropology, Archaeology, Artifical Intelligence, Biochemistry, Chemistry, Computer Hacking, Computer Programming, Cryptanalysis, Cryptology, Diagnosis, Electronics, Engineer, Forensics, Genetics, History, Literature, Mathematics, Metallurgy, Nuclear Physics, Occultism, Paleontology, Philosophy, Physics, Psychology, Physician, Science!, Surgery, Theology, Weird Science, Xenobiology (Lyran or Hellwyrm) and Zoology. Background Skills: Driving (Automobile) (P/A) DX-1 [1]-10; First Aid IQ [1]-13; Guns (Pistol) DX+2 [1]-13 and 5 points from Beam Weapons (X-Rifle), Guns (Any), Knife, Short Sword (Any) (P/A); Judo (P/A); Survival (Any) (M/A); Tactics (M/H); or additional points in specialty skills. *This will give you IQ+3 for (M/A) skills, IQ+2 for (M/H) skills, and IQ for (M/VH) skills. Also note that some of these skills have prerequisites Technicians: 87 points When the research staffs develop a new way to blow up an enemy conclave, somebody has to build it. The Jihad’s technical staff is small, but consists of some of the most skilled people on the planet today. Techs are recruited from many of the same places as the researchers are, but are put to the task of turning theories into workable hardware. Again, as with the researchers, PC techs usually have combat skills as well as technical skills, and, again, are ranked within the command structure of their parent JAO. NPC techs, again, are much like NPC researchers, save for the fact that the techs build the stuff that the researchers design. Attributes: ST: 10 [0] DX: 12 [20] IQ: 13 [30] HT: 11 [10] Advantages: Ally Group / (The Jihad) [90]; Gizmo [5]; and 30 additional points from Acute Hearing [2/level], Acute Vision [2/level], Alertness [5/level], Breath-Holding (inventions sometimes start to smoke) [2/level], Combat Reflexes [15], Damage Resistance [3/level], Danger Sense [15], Fit [5], Intuitive Mathematician [25], Lightning Calculator [15], Luck [15/30], Rapid Healing [5], Unfazeable [15] and Voice [10]. Disadvantages: Duty (to their JAO) [-15]; Enemy (Barney & Fiends) [-80], and -35 additional points from Absent-Mindedness [-15], Attentive [-1], Bad Sight [-10], Brontophobia (fear of loud noses) [-10], Curious [-5 to -15], Hard of Hearing [-10], Impulsiveness [-10] Oblivious [-3], Odious Personal Habit (“Never stops talking about latest invention.”) [-5], Reputation (Dangerous Mad Scientist) [-5] and Unluckiness [-10]. Primary Skills: Computer Operation (M/E) IQ+2 [4]-15; Electronics Operation (Any) (M/A) IQ [2]-13; Engineer (M/H) IQ [4]-13. Secondary Skills: Choose 8 points worth of skill in any three of the following skills: Armoury, Aviation, Battlesuit, Computer Hacking, Computer Programming, Driving (Jihad Special Vehicle), Electronics, Exoskeleton, Hyperspace Physics, Mathematics, Mechanic, Metallurgy, Nuclear Physics, Physics, Piloting (High-Performance Aircraft), Research, Science!, Shipbuilding (Starship), Temporal Physics, and Weird Science. Background Skills: Driving (Automobile) (P/A) DX-1 [1]-10; First Aid IQ [1]-13; Guns (Pistol) DX+2 [1]-14 and 5 points from Beam Weapons (X-Rifle), Guns (Any), Knife, Short Sword (Any) (P/A); Judo (P/A); Survival (Any) (M/A); Tactics (M/H); or additional points in specialty skills. *This will give you IQ+3 for (M/A) skills, IQ+2 for (M/H) skills, and IQ for (M/VH) skills. Also note that some of these skills have prerequisites. Instructors: 98 points Often, new Jihaddi are young and very inexperienced. In combat, this can be an incredibly dangerous situation — for themselves and the people around them. So, to cut down on the number of rookies getting themselves killed on their first mission, each JAO has a group of experienced officers (usually retired Army/Navy/Marines/Air Force) whose job it is to train the younger recruits in the ancient arts of killing other living things. At the same time, research and technical staffs have teachers as well*. In addition to getting the new people up to speed with the Jihad’s existing technology (which is, on average, around a century ahead of current state-of-the-art, with few exceptions), the research/tech instructors hold frequent seminars to allow the entire staff to stay current structure of whichever NPC field they’re involved in (Soldier, Researcher, or Technician), usually as middle-ranked or high-ranked members. Attributes: ST: 12 [20] IQ: 12 [20] DX: 11 [10] HT: 11 [10] Advantages: Ally Group / (The Jihad) [90]; Voice [10], and 25 additional points from Acute Hearing [2/level], Acute Vision [2/level], Alcohol Tolerance [5], Ambidexterity [10], Charisma [5/level], Combat Reflexes [15], Composed [5], Fearlessness [2/level], Fit [5], Imperturbable [10], Intuition [15], Strong Will [4/level], Very Fit [15], and Unfazeable [15]. Disadvantages: Bad Temper [-10], Duty / (to their JAO) [-15], Enemy / (Barney & Friends) [-80], and -30 additional points from Appearance (Unattractive) [-5], Bully [-10], Fanaticism [-15], Hidebound [-5], Odious Personal Habit (NEVER! STOPS! SHOUTING!) [-10] and Sense of Duty (“Train the fresh meat right or they get killed.”) [-10], Primary Skills: Bard IQ [2]-12; Guns (Any) DX+2 [1]-13; Leadership IQ [2]-12; Savoir-Faire (Military) IQ+1 [2]-13; Tactics IQ [4]-12; Teaching IQ [2]-12. Secondary Skills: Choose a total of 24 points in the following skills: Acting, Beam Weapons (X-Rifle), Body Language, Boxing, Camouflage, Climbing, Demolition, Escape, Fast-Draw (Pistol), Fencing, Forward Observer, Gunner (Machine Gun), Gunner (Rocket Launcher), Guns (Pistol), Guns (Rifle), Hiking, Holdout, Intimidation, Judo, Jumping, Karate, Knife, Knife Throwing, Parachuting, Scrounging, Shadowing, Short Sword, Staff, Stealth, Style Analysis, Survival (Any), Swimming, Throwing, Tracking, Traps, Underwater Demolition and Wrestling, Background Skills: Computer Operation IQ [1]-12; Driving (Automobile) (P/A) DX [2]-13; First Aid IQ+1 [2]-13; and 6 additional points, in Area Knowledge (Urban), Mechanic, Motorcycle, Running, Scuba, Skiing or additional ponts in specialty skills. * Research and technical Instructors use the same template as a normal Researcher or Technician, but add the skills Bard, Leadership, and Teaching at IQ+1. Liaisons: 109 points The Liaison (not to be confused with the Lyran Liaisons) walks a very fine (and oftentimes dangerous) line between the Jihad and the rest of the world. Liaisons are Jihaddi who operate safehouses and dummy corporations, or work as members of a mundane organization (such as the police or local government). The liaison’s main job is to keep the Jihad’s operations safely undercover, protect any Jihaddi who’re dumb enough to get caught out in the open, and spread enough misinformation about the Jihad that nobody in the mundane world knows the truth. Liaisons are usually people who still have families outside the Jihad, or some other obligation that prevents them from going completely underground. This makes the liaison something of a security risk, since should the enemy find out about a liaison and his/her loved ones, it could make life very dangerous for that liaison. At the present time, there are no PC liaisons. NPC liaisons exist outside the normal command structure, reporting only to their JAO’s CO on most occasions. Attributes: ST: 10 [0] DX: 12 [20] IQ: 13 [30] HT: 12 [20] Advantages: Ally Group / (The Jihad) [15], Charisma+2 [10], Danger Sense [15], Language Talent+2 [4], Strong Will [4] Disadvantages: Duty (to the Jihad) [-10], Enemy (Barney & Friends) [-20], Secret (member of underground terrorist org; i.e. the Jihad) [-20]. Primary Skills: Acting IQ+1 [4]-14; Area Knowledge (wherever the Liaison happens to be stationed) IQ+1 [2]-17; Diplomacy IQ [4]-13, Fast-Talk IQ+1 [4]-14; Savoir-Faire IQ+1 [2]-14. Secondary Skills: A total of 16 points from: Boxing, Brawling, Carousing, Computer Hacking, Computer Operation, Detect Lies, Disguise, Electronics Operation (Any), Erotic Art, Escape, Fast-Draw, Forgery, Fortune-Telling, Intelligence Analysis, Interrogation, Intimidation, Judo, Karate, Law, Lip-Reading, Lockpicking, Performance, Pickpocket, Politics, Scrounging, Sex Appeal, Scrounging, Shadowing, Sleight of Hand, Streetwise, Stealth, Traps, Ventroliquism and Video Production. Background Skills: Driving (Automobile) (P/A) DX-1 [1]-10; First Aid IQ [1]-13; Guns (Pistol) DX+2 [1]-14, and six points in any of the following: Forward Observer, Mechanic, Orienteering, Piloting (Light Aircraft), Powerboat, Strategy, Survival (Any), Tactics, or additional points in specialty skills. ---------- Chapter 3: Black Hats and Bastards Barney Barney (or B’harne, B’harnii, or half a dozen other spellings along the same lines), somewhat unsurprisingly, is the Jihad to Destroy Barney the Purple Dinosaur’s primary adversary. There are various magical, philosophical, and religious theories within the Jihad about what Barney really is. Some say he’s a particularly powerful demon, some call him a minion of Satan or similar religious figure, and some say he’s a manifestation of evil itself, but his exact nature remains unknown beyond those various theories. This is because he has been slightly different every time he’s appeared to directly face the Jihad; if once he is vanquished with a sword the next time powerful magic may be required to defeat him, or something completely unanticipated. Barney started as a nameless, formless, adversarial entity. This entity was given form and name when, after a vision that humans would cause his destruction, the Lyran High Mage Charn’El, attempted to summon a demon to help him destroy humanity. The demon Charn’El had selected resisted its summoning, and rather than be refused he forced it, when the beastfinally emerged it was mangled, deformed, and a little too ripped up tosuit the High Mage’s purposes. Something about this failed summoning attracted the entity, and before Charn’El could close his portal it forced its way through, giving itself the name and form of Barney. Charn’El, an opportunist if nothing else, struck a deal with Barney and thus gained an ally in the quest to destroy or enslave humanity despite the failed summoning. Though he appears physically quite often, there must be some part of Barney’s formless nature that does not incorporate itself into his various manifestations, because he is always able to appear again if a particular manifestation is struck down. Eventually, Barney will be somehow forced to draw even that remaining formless part of himself into a physical manifestation and while the resulting manifestation would be quite powerful, it would also enable the Barney Slayer to destroy him completely. Most prominent and most used among Barney’s abilities are mesmerization, or spongification as the Jihad calls it. Barney’s ability to mesmerize and stupefy humans is very strong, both through direct contact or intermediaries such as toys and television. This power is strong enough that a completely mesmerized/spongified human, a sponge-minion, will not only fight for Barney but sometimes will completely forget whatever personality he or she might’ve had before. How he does this is not understood, it is some combination tone of voice, movement, and what he says; though there is also likely something intangible and possibly magical that helps him sway the will of human beings. As magic is part of his being rather than a force he draws from around him, Barney is also quite adept in using many forms of magic, with spells that spongify among them. And though he is likely quite physically strong, he prefers to use sponge minions or other servants or allies in direct, physical confrontations. Hellspawn, BJ and Baby Bop B’hee J’hay and B’haby B’hop, as they are alternatively known, are Barney’s chief lieutenants. Subordinate manifestations of the same adversarial force from which Barney draws his corporeal form and power, their existence and power are an extension of his will. Their functions are many: they have skills in magic and mesmerization similar to Barney’s (but of lesser strength, they have been known to oversee important operations or lead troops for Barney both individually and together, and working in conjunction they can greatly magnify Barney’s ability to mesmerize and spongify a large group of people. Because their entire existence is subject to Barney’s will, neither BJ nor Baby Bop can be truly destroyed until Barney himself is; they can be struck down (and have been many times) with conventional or magical weapons, but will eventually return if Barney still exists. When Barney is finally and completely destroyed, BJ and Baby Bop will either disappear along with the power that sustains them or, more likely, their power will be greatly diminished and they will be easily defeated. The Minion Horde Sponge Minions Sponge minions are humans who have become so enraptured with Barney via his powers of mesmerization that they have lost a majority of cognitive ability; they’re called sponge minions because of a longstanding Jihad joke about their brains eventually turning into sponge. The average sponge minion has very little reasoning capacity beyond “Barney is my friend,” and for that reason they appear most often doing very simplistic jobs. Foot soldiers, disseminators of propaganda, cannon fodder or a distraction against a Jihad military force, or sometimes simply just there. Barney doesn’t necessarily spongify for a specific reason, it’s the primary means by which he intends to dominate humanity. Sometimes, if caught early enough, spongification can be cured and a sponge minion can be returned to complete functionality as a human being. There are many methods of despongification as the Jihad calls it, the vast majority of which involving completely isolating a sponge from Barney’s influence then inundating it with sensations that run contrary to Barney’s teachings; Jolt Cola, junk food, and loud music are very prevalent among the various despongification methods. Because it seeks to save humanity and not just blow up selective bits of it, the Jihad expends considerable efforts toward despongification. Wyrm Minions Wyrm minions are humans who have discovered the truth about Barney’s nature and, rather than go insane, become spongified, or fight him have decided to join him for money, power, ego, or simply out of sadism. They are far more dangerous than sponge minions as they have all their mental capacity, and the type of person who becomes a wyrm minion is often rather devious and at least somewhat lacking in compassion. Wyrm minions are given a large variety of jobs in Barney’s organization: many just perform functions they did in Mundania, others are used as officers to lead sponge minions, some help to oversee the Lyons Group or other special projects for Barney, and a very select few are chosen for their intelligence, ruthlessness, dedication, command ability, and long-term service to be Liaisons. Liaison is the highest post a human can achieve in Barney’s organization; they often operate rather independently within the organization as there is no direct chain of command for them, but all know who they are and that an order from a Liaison is to be obeyed immediately or the consequences will be dire. Because of the extraordinary standards Barney holds for one to wield such power for him, the number of wyrm minions even with the potential to be a Liaison is very small, and the number who actually hold the post smaller; at the conclusion of events in Operation HomeFront, there were six, and the addition of a new one would be considered a major one. The Liaisons Each commands an important unit of the Purple Forces. There are other humans of almost equal standing, but not quite as skilled as these. To be a “Liaison to Command for the Division of ___(whatever)__” indicates command ability, long-term service, and exceptional talent in the necessary skills. They are the rank where the simple, centralized chain-of-command of sponge- and Wyrm- Minion forces ceases. Above them are only non-humans(primarily Lyrans) or humans who are so devoted to B’harnii(with, e.g., ritual oaths and such) that they have lost a substantive part of their humanity. Collectively referred to as “the Brass,” these individuals work closely with the ultimate leaders of the Purple Forces and keep the Forces coordinated and under control. Despite having no clear chain of command(that humans would understand), Liaisons know that any order from them is to be obeyed explicitly and immediately, as it will *not* be contradicted by another unless conditions change... in which case the latest order is now to be obeyed absolutely. Current Liaisons: Kajj: A very traditional battlefield captain. Tall, slightly tanned, and bald as an egg but extremely tough. Foregoes most technological equipment in favor of hand weapons(bows, swords) and troops. He is skilled at commanding spongin troops and has a very high rate of success with them. Arill: Arill cares nothing for command or wealth, beyond the necessities of a life of hedonism once Barney is successful in subjugating humanity. He heads the R&D department, since he has a supremely nasty imagination that’s impressed some Lyrans once or twice. Put a sword or other weapon in his hand though, and he’s just as likely to injure himself as anything else. Gherin: Unlike his fellow Liaisons, Gherin only posses average intelligence. It is his proficiency on the battlefield that earned him his post, as well as his ability to train others nearly to that level of proficiency. His men are a tightly-trained, strong group of almost entirely wyrm minion soldiers as he despises sponges and uses them only in a last resort. Continued demonstrations of his ability and success of his ability as a strike leader maintain his standing as a Liaison. Linna: The only current female Liaison, Linna’s warm smile and down-home, motherly style only hide a warped and completely round-the-bend insane mind. She administers Healthy Snacks[tm] and maintains spongification measures like music, food, and other influences. Winston: An actual public figure, and probably the most frustrating of the Liaisons to the Jihad due to his squeaky clean public image despite the amount of legal manipulation and maneuvering he uses to keep Barney and Friends on the air. Serevan: An organizer and paper pusher of extraordinary talent, Serevan can take control of any situation and reduce it to numbers and procedures. His orderliness is held up by the Brass as an example to the troops and to wyrm minions alike. Machinelike lack of care or empathy of any kind contribute to his cold, distant, ruthless, and quite accurate reputation. Former Liaisons: Rhyn: A technological genius of incredible deviousness. Manipulative and arrogant in the extreme, it was Rhyn who primarily orchestrated the events of Operation Home Front; his arrogance also lead to his ultimate failure and death in that operation. Faide: A misandrist female whose small taste for command lead her to subtle jobs working behind the scenes in Intelligence or other support roles, which in her opinion were far more valuable and requiring of greater intelligence than some of the roles her colleagues played. Though the exact circumstances of her death during Operation Home Front are unknown to the Jihad, it is suspected she was executed by Lyrans. Painter: A code name and the only one known. His true name and job are unknown to the Jihad, it is believed he was possibly an internal spy of some sort. As a result of his betrayal of traitorous allies to his superiors during Home Front he has been promoted from his Liaison position and transformed into an empowered disembodied spirit linked directly to Barney; the reason for the promotion and the nature of his transformation are also unknown to the Jihad. Weaponry and tactics It has already been said that Barney’s primary method of conquering and dominating humanity lies in using his innate powers to very thoroughly brainwash/spongify people and eliminate resistance that way. Barney by his very nature is entirely magical, before he existed incorporeal form on this plane he was formless in his own, and when he did manifest a corporeal form he was able to do so because he was attracted by great expenditures of magical energy and used his own inherent ability to manipulate magical energies to force his way here. So technology and technological solutions to problems are foreign to Barney, and would never be considered the primary means to achieve a goal of his. Barney has no standing armies or navies or space fleets or any formal military force of any kind, in fact though he wields a vast amount of power and control over huge numbers of people and things there are few any real meeting or congregation places for them; most of his tangible centers of power are perfectly visible places of business and factories and other bits of Mundania that his various minions run. Whatever military Barney does use not as a means of dominance but purely in opposition to the Jihad, if for no other reason than that’s the way they generally expect to be opposed; if the Jihad is fighting his minions and concentrating its might into forces which can only destroy those minions then it is not concentrating its might against him directly. Such an oppositional force is assembled as needed from sponge and wyrm minions and/or allies and if it uses any technology beyond the most basic that would already be on hand that technology is assembled specifically for that force. Character templates Spongin: 25 to 100 points Spongin are the most common element in Barney’s forces, and all are simplistic in the extreme. Even a “smart” sponge minion would only be capable of operating extremely simple machines, and most can merely simple follow orders. “Are you my friend?” and various things about Barney being good constitutes most of what sponge minions would say; there is little character template for them because they have little character. Mercenaries of the Wyrm: 100+ points, as needed These are far more varied, as they serve Barney either temporarily or on a long-term basis for personal gain rather than because they’ve been spongified. Wyrm minions mostly, they can be scientists, engineers, soldiers, businessmen, lawyers, occasionally one malevolent alien race or another, and some of the really nasty ones are even politicians. As the term implies, mercenaries working for Barney are doing so for personal gain. A wyrm minion might join Barney’s cause for power, out of greed or maybe cruelty, general hatred for the rest of humanity, or even arrogance and the knowledge they’re part of something most people don’t know about. Depending on motivation and personality, they would give anywhere from superficial acknowledgement of Barney’s cause to extreme devotion. More independent mercenaries would have simpler motivations, most often money or possibly powerful technology or magic. They would have little to no real allegiance to Barney or his cause, and humans of this sort are far more infrequent than wyrm minions. Various alien species, however, would more commonly be more independent mercenaries or even allies; the addition of such an alien race would be considered a major one. Lyrans The Lyrans are a race of magic users originating from a planet called, of all things, Lyra, who are allied with Barney. They have been ruled for many millennia by the High Mage Charn’El, who is immortal and possibly the most powerful wizard in the known universe. Sometime between 1,500 and 2,000 years ago, Charn’El had a startling vision during what was otherwise a routine meditation. Charn’El saw in this vision that Lyra and its inhabitants would eventually be defeated and destroyed by humans, a relatively primitive and until then totally ignored race from a planet in an obscure and relatively unpopulated arm of a seemingly insignificant spiral galaxy. Startled by the vision and its content as he was, Charn’El was unwilling to completely ignore it. After careful consideration, Charn’El, showing the typical Lyran desire to not become personally involved in conflict, decided to summon a demon to destroy the race of primitives who somehow the universe thought were fated to destroy his people. After finally selecting a being he deemed to be of sufficient power, Charn’El went about gathering his power to summon the beast. In its latter stages, the summoning went awry, the demon resisted and was eventually mangled and killed when Charn’El refused to accept the beast’s resistance and expended great energy in forcing it. Attracted by that expenditure of energy, the entity that would soon call itself Barney took over and redirected the portal Charn’El had opened into a plane of existence much like Barney’s own, and used it to force his way into this plane. Never one to pass up any sort of opportunity, Charn’El disregarded the failed summoning and soon struck a bargain with the new and far more powerful creature to enslave humanity. It was not long after that time, no more than a few centuries, that the Lyrans in one of their investigations of Earth first met and battled with the ancestors of the beings that would eventually call themselves the Maenads of the Holy Albino. Thus the mutual hatred between the Maenads and the Lyrans long predates the Jihad and is now ingrained in the psyche of each group. Very recently, 1947 on Earth’s Christian calendar according to the Maenads, the Lyrans opened a magical gateway between their world and Earth to supplant their normal methods of transportation; the Maenads call this gateway The Babylon Road. It is at that point that Barney began to more directly influence humanity in preparation for its eventual subjugation and also a time when Lyrans began to assist of influence Barney’s campaign in greater numbers. At that time though, the Lyran presence on Earth was relatively small due both to its rare nature (Lyrans rarely directly involve themselves, previous visits had always been brief and only to gather information) and because the true significance of Earth and its population had only been divulged to a small percentage of Lyrans. ----/SIDEBAR: Charn'El and the Barney-Slayer after Pacifica The Barney Slayer was broken in a battle between Lord Owsen and Charn’El at the conclusion of Operation Pacifica. When the battle finally ended, the Maenads succeeded in magically sealing Charn’El in some sort of dimensional pocket, but were unable to recover all pieces of the Barney Slayer. Because of their observations that the recovered pieces of the Barney Slayer are very slowly regenerating what has been lost, senior Jihaddi mages and scientists believe that the lost part is regenerating as well and, more significantly, that it is likely that that other piece was drawn into the dimensional pocket with Charn’El as the portal there closed itself. The effect such an environment would have along with the presence of the Lyran High Mage on the blade and what it will regenerate into is unknown, but the JPV believes that a mage of Charn’El’s power could not only greatly speed up its regeneration but remake it into a powerful magical tool for his own use, a “dark” Barney Slayer, for those of a more melodramatic bent. The full extent of what Charn’El could do with such a weapon can only be guessed at by even the JPV’s most experienced magic users, one of the most probable guesses though is that it would enable him to far more easily escape from his interdimensional prison. END SIDEBAR/---- Weaponry and tactics A Lyran’s only weapon is his (or hers, not much way to tell behind the masks and robes) ability with magic. Lyrans are born with an innate magical ability, the very few who aren’t are shunned outcasts and not even thought of as true Lyrans by their fellows. They consider technology beneath them, something used only by slaves and the other inferior life forms those slaves are sent to kill. If Lyrans need some sort of tool to do something for them or to aid them in doing something they find a life form which is suitable to the task and warp and mutate it to fit their specific needs, which invariably means the complete destruction of any culture the subject species might have had and continued existence only in mindless servitude to Lyra; for a higher-ranking mage, even a simple staff or mask is a living creature. Even their ability to mutate organisms on genetic, psychological, and spiritual levels has its roots in magic. The most spectacular example of this sort of manipulation and mutation of other life forms to suit Lyran needs is what most perceive to be a Lyran space fleet. Lyrans have no space ships or fleet the way most would imagine it, they are not use to directly oppose other spacecraft or dominate space in any way, but transportation and quarters and as a magical tool. Long, long ago the Lyrans encountered an entire race of huge spacefaring beings with an innate to not only travel through space without technology but to cross dimensional boundaries as well and saw tremendous potential and opportunity in them. After defeating and enslaving them the Lyrans began to gradually change what they were, they were grown larger and given the ability to hold and transport Lyrans within themselves, all conscious ability was removed so that one would not be able to do anything without a Lyran mind to control it, their innate abilities were fine tuned, and, most significantly, their ability to store and focus certain magical energies was greatly enhanced. These living vessels are now used by groups of Lyrans to combine magical ability and focus it into a vessel’s innate ability for an extremely efficient method of magical travel. Groups of Lyrans, or for the rare eighth circle mage or Charn’El himself, single mages can use them to travel vast distances with only having expended a fraction of the magical energy a more conventional teleportation spells and in far less time. Character template Nasty, mean bastards for the most part. They are complex beings with multifaceted personalities and much diversity and individuality between them, but cruelty, manipulativeness, arrogance, and extreme tenaciousness are in the very foundations of Lyran culture, and most Lyrans will display these traits almost to a fault. It is their unwavering belief that the Lyran race is the universe’s most superior lifeform, often citing the immortality and power of their undisputed ruler as the only proof needed of their superiority. In accomplishing their goals, which they regard not only as supreme but generally as the only which have any importance at all, they very rarely personally involve themselves, preferring to use allies or other beings they have enslaved and mutated to fit their needs. Though tenacious to a point most would consider obsessive, Lyrans are also quite patient, and would think nothing of waiting years for a plan to develop or for a goal to be achieved, especially if it meant keeping themselves from becoming directly involved in a conflict. As a result they will almost invariably be background characters in a story, mysterious wizards always in the shadows plotting and manipulating events and sending enslaved life forms and allies to do their bidding. Bestiary M.E.N.S.A. Clan Also called MENSAns, the Malevolent Enlightened Nagenta Saurians Ascendant are a race of creatures from another dimension that Barney has completely subjugated and spongified. Their spongification is manifested very differently than has been observed in spongified humans, but whether this is due the differing nature of the two species or to the fact that Barney’s domination, and thus possibly his spongification, of humanity is incomplete. While human sponges are simplistic and rather stupid MENSAns are far more complex and not only claim vast amounts of knowledge but will seize any opportunity to demonstrate that knowledge at great length. They also have limited psionic ability and are far more adept with both ranged and close quarter weapons than human spongin. Jello Beasts Jello beasts, as the Jihad calls them for lack of any other name, are a race of creatures allied with Barney for their own reasons, which are unknown. They’re shapeshifters with large, gelatinous bodies (from which their names are derived) that vary in color and can, given time, assume the texture of nearly anything around them. They have surprising strength for a species whose bodies contain no rigid structural material whatsoever, and also can have anywhere mid-range to very powerful psionic abilities, can generate energy blasts of varying strengths with their bodies, and have the ability to rather quickly bend the mental and physical capacity of captured humans to their will. Saethrians Saethrians are twelve to fifteen foot long winged and tentacled serpentine creatures. Long ago they were a very powerful race of warriors who fought against the Lyrans, eventually lost, and suffered the fate of most races that war with Lyra and lose (which to the Jihad’s knowledge constitutes all of them thus far): they were enslaved and manipulated down to a genetic level to suit the needs and whims of the Lyrans. Independent intelligence and magic resistance bred out of them, they are now shock troops and commandos for the Lyrans; mindless but clever soldiers whose only ability and purpose is to kill with single-minded abandon at the command of a Lyran. HellWyrm Bots Heavily armed and armored mechanized units created in Barney’s image most likely by wyrm minion engineers. Massive things, they are crewed by three humans and in addition to a very formidable arsenal of offensive weaponry, they carry large and powerful speakers that are used to broadcast Barney’s war chant on the battlefield. They are both communications centers for spongin troops and used to lead other mechanized forces on a battlefield. Notes for creating critters The vast majority of random (hostile) creatures in the Jihad Universe fall into one of the four categories demonstrated above: beings which have been dominated and spongified by Barney, an independent race or group which has allied with Barney for their own reasons, those that have been defeated and thus enslaved and mutated by Lyrans, and the technological creations of human wyrm minions. Choose which of those is best for the story the prospective whatever will appear in, define the abilities it needs for its role in the story and the Jihad Universe in general, and depending on its significance the story and the JU create a supporting background for it. Something that’s going to be either a McGuffin or will play a close supporting role will need at least as extensive a background and development as a PC character, while something that only has a brief appearance and is largely insignificant to the plot as a whole will just need a minimal explanation and documentation of its existence. ---------- Chapter 4: Aliens, Spies & Other Party Animals In the previous sections, we covered the primary antagonists in the Hidden War — the Jihad and Barney’s Purple Forces. We also took a quick look at the world outside the War, where the mundanes manage to remain oblivious to the world around them. Between these sections, we’ve covered the majority of people involved in the Jihad Universe. However, there are a few groups that live in the shadows and on the edges of Mundane civilization. These people are not active participants in the War, preferring to sit on the sidelines and wait for a clear victor to emerge. Their goals are not the same as the Jihad’s, but sometimes they intersect favorably... The Illuminati “The Jihad is a distraction from the real work. No, that’s perhaps somewhat uncharitable. The Slayer is important. The Praxeum is important, the duck is important, as are the research divisions of your Jihad. The soldiers, the guns and the bombs and the rest of it are illusions; sound and fury intended to distract the Ancient Enemy. We know that people are dying, and we regret it. But it must happen, and it must continue to happen. It is cliche to say that humanity’s future depends on it, but sadly life often likes to emulate cliches.” Introduction The oldest and most important of these groups has gone by many names over the course of human civilization, but the name that has stuck in current times is Illuminati. The Illuminati is not totally unlike the secret cabal of Mundane conspiracy theories. While their direct control is not as extensive as the theorists would like to believe (extending only to a few select groups, such as the Freemasons, the Federal Reserve and the Science Fiction Writers of America), they have a great deal of indirect influence over the physical, mental, and spiritual development of the Mundane population. The Illuminati has existed, in one form or another, since the fall of Atlantis over 25,000 years ago. While the Illuminati’s documents are rather sketchy about the actual founding of the group, it appears that the original Illuminati was formed in order to preserve the (rather advanced) knowledge of the Atlanteans. Over the years, the Illuminati has refined and added to their store of Atlantean knowledge, and used the subsequent product to guide the Mundanes toward a specific goal. This guidance is called the Project by the higher levels of the Illuminati, and the final goal is known only to the absolute highest levels of the group, the five Illuminatus Prima. Along the course of the Project, the Illuminati have picked up connections into the Mundane world — after all, guidance would be difficult at best without any contact with that which you’re supposed to guide. As stated above, these connections are tenuous at best, mostly involving having certain people in the right office at the right time to rubberstamp some bit of paper. Only where direct control is beneficial to the Project or the continued survival of the Illuminati will a takeover occur (It is an exercise for the student to figure out what the Illuminati is doing controlling the SFWA, for example). However, the Illuminati does like to maintain the appearance of having a great deal more direct control than they actually do — especially in places where they have little to no control to begin with. This is mostly done for the purposes of defense. Misdirection is one of the strongest weapons in the Illuminati arsenal; after all, they’ve managed to keep themselves out of the public spotlight for the last 25,000 years. By throwing their enemies into watching or taking action against a group that isn’t controlled or even affiliated with the Illuminati, the Prima can keep them harmlessly occupied for as long as necessary. It also comes in handy when recruiting new blood, as the sheer number of organizations “controlled” by the All-Seeing Eye certainly gives the recruit an ego boost for joining. Of course, it’s always a letdown to learn the truth of the matter later. ----/SIDEBAR: Writing Illuminati agents inside the Jihad First of all, there are only a handful of Illuminati agents currently working inside the Jihad. Agents act as normal Jihaddi for all intents and purposes, unless asked to report or otherwise act by their superior in the Illuminati. They would have limited access to Illuminati resources and connections (mostly for emergencies). The agent’s most important role is as an information gatherer. The Illuminati has a great deal of interest in the research divisions of the Jihad, and much of the information passed on is of an R&D nature. The agent in this case will have some form of connection to the research labs, which will allow him to siphon information to the Illuminati on a regular basis. On rare occasions, the agent may be called upon to do something a little less passive than data gathering. This may mean sneaking away from an Op group to perform some obscure task, or something more eccentric and dangerous. Any really large-scale tasks delegated to agents inside the Jihad should be discussed with the JU 2.0 staff and the current GM first, in order to figure out the ramifications. Of course, getting caught is the biggest fear of an agent inside the Jihad. Unless the agent is placed high enough in the Jihad’s command structure, an agent who is found spying on the Jihad will be in seriously deep trouble, especially if he doesn’t reveal whom he’s spying for. In this case, the Illuminati may attempt to set up a jailbreak, but if it can’t be pulled off without exposing the Illuminati, the agent may just be left to rot. Agent PCs should be extremely careful about their activities. END SIDEBAR/---- Relations with the Jihad & Barney To understand the Illuminati’s relationship with the Jihad, we must first take a look at the Illuminati’s stance on Barney’s forces. According to certain Atlantean documents still in the Illuminati’s possession, a being not totally unlike Barney was present within several years of the final destruction of Atlantis. This creature was called “The Enemy” by the Atlantean documents, and has hence been amended by the modern Illuminati to “The Ancient Enemy.” To the modern Illuminati scholars, there is enough of a resemblance between the Ancient Enemy and Barney to suggest that they are related, if not the same entity. This information, combined with the sudden presence of a large number of Lyran magi on Earth in the last half-century, has led the Prima to conclude that history is soon to loop back in on itself, and the Ancient Enemy has returned to undo all that the Illuminati has striven to accomplish in the past 25,000 years. This, it must be noted, is not terribly far from the truth behind Barney’s goals. As such, the Prima have authorized an acceleration to the Project, in an attempt to reach the goal-point before Barney’s minions have gained enough strength to destroy Mundane civilization. Here is where the Jihad comes in. The Prima, in their attempt to complete the Project, have more-or-less authorized the existence of the Jihad, as a source of new data for the Project, as a future recruitment base, but most importantly as a delaying tactic. In other circumstances (i.e. if the War was not as serious a threat), the Illuminati would not tolerate the existence of a heavily-armed paramilitary society like the Jihad. The Illuminati has had difficulties with similar groups in the past (the most recent large conflict being with a group of German necromancers during World War II), and if the Jihad had shown itself to be a serious threat to the Project, it would have been eliminated, quickly and without mercy. As it is, the Jihad has proven itself a worthy foe of the Ancient Enemy, and until the Project is completed, the Illuminati can use the Jihad to keep Barney occupied until such time that they are ready to confront Barney directly. By placing a small number of agents within the Jihad (into high-ranking positions, no less), the Prima have assured themselves that even if the Jihad succeeds before the Project is complete, the Jihad will not become a threat — it may even become a subordinate member of the Illuminati. Of course, the average Jihaddi doesn’t know any of this; it would cause as much panic inside the Jihad as the Jihad’s existence would create in the Mundane population. Only the few select agents of the Illuminati know anything about the Jihad’s role in the scheme of things, and not all of them know the whole story. GM’s Note: This is a subtle hint that this is PRIVILEGED INFORMATION, not to be spread around in “As you know, Bob” segments. Character template The Illuminati agent can be the quintessential Man in Black, or he could be the guy sitting across from you in the computer lab. The Illuminati recruits from all walks of life, looking for potential ability as opposed to current wealth or power. Agents, regardless of looks, have connections that nobody else is supposed to have, and can arrange things quite handily if they feel the need. The Illuminati agent is the ultimate NPC, lurking in the background and offering to help a party of Jihaddi in distress — for a small price, of course. PC Agents are either outsiders, acting the role of the Mundane unless things get sticky and force a team-up with the Jihaddi party, or they’re undercover agents inside the Jihad, the guidelines for writing such are in the sidebar. Aliens The Hidden War has the potential for incredible ramifications away from the Earth. After all, should Barney win the war, it is likely that he would turn his attention towards other worlds to conquer. As the conflict between the Jihad and the Ancient Enemy grows, it draws the attention of a loosely-knit group of alien races. This group, known (more-or-less) collectively as Galactic Civilization, or simply Galactics, maintains a long-distance watch on Earth, to observe the course of the Hidden War. And occasionally, a handful of them will come down to Earth... ----/SIDEBAR: Why so few aliens? At first glance, there would seem to be barely any alien beings in the Jihad Universe. As a rule, there are plenty of aliens running around the JU — it’s just that barely any of them come to Earth. While this might put a crimp in the plans of some role-players, the aliens have a number of good reasons for avoiding Earth and the rest of the solar system. First of all, the Hidden War isn’t as hidden off-Earth as it is on. Conflict on the level of Jihad v. Barney tends to keep aliens away from the solar system for fear of causing the War to spread. Most of the local alien species see the damage that might happen if the Jihad was to take its fight into deep space, and thusly refuse to get involved, and furthermore do their best to keep the entire Sol system separated from the rest of the galaxy. Because of the agreed-upon blockading of the Sol system, only aliens with specific business on Earth show up on a regular basis. The Greys & Salusians are the only races who have any permanent installations in the solar system (mostly diplomatic & scientific stations), and even those are very lightly staffed. As a general thing, both Grey and Salusian operatives in the Sol system do their best to keep their people as uninvolved in the War as they possibly can, and go about their business with a wary eye cast on the participants. Other races (ones not involved in the blockade agreement, freebooters, culture pirates, etc.) who feel like wandering around our solar system stand a good chance of running into the Explain Star. The crew of that noble ship, with nothing better to do and a great deal of time to do it in, tend to enjoy stopping and boarding every unauthorized ship (read: anything that moves and isn’t an asteroid) that crosses their path. After the sixth or seventh boarding action by a bunch of pirates flying a rocket-powered rubber duck, even the most stubborn of alien races gets the point and stays the hell away from Earth. END SIDEBAR/---- X’hirjq: “Every action, thought, and deed by every X’hirjq for the past 400,000 of your years has served this one purpose without error. It is religion, as humans understand it, the base of our culture and reason for our survival. It is what defines us, give us purpose, and demands our actions.” The X’hirjq are a mysterious race of nomadic aliens who have been wandering the Galaxy for the better part of half a million years. They are best remembered for their invasion of Earth in the fall of 1996, when they engaged the Jihad at the behest of their temporary ally, Barney. X’hirjq are between seven and nine feet tall, heavily muscled reptilian beings with the prerequisite sharp teeth, claws, and the lizard’s tail. As a race, they posses strong psychic and magical powers, and have a sizable amount of TL 11 and TL 12 devices with which they can defeat almost any foe. X’hirjq value honor above all other things, and desire nothing more than a good, clean fight (or a challenging hunt). The X’hirjq Invasion of 1996, while initially inspired by Barney, was in fact an attempt to test the inhabitants of Earth for worthiness; the X’hirjq Empress wanted to know if humans were worthy of living in what is, apparently, a “sacred” solar system. Very little is known and less understood about X’hirjq motivations, although it seems that humanity passed the Empress’ test, as the invasion was cut short and every X’hirjq vanished again into outer darkness within a month of the invasion’s start. Nothing has been heard of the X’hirjq since that time, not even rumor. GM’s Note: The X’hirjq are listed here for one reason and one reason only: For the benefit of Phoenix readers who can’t figure out where these weird black lizards came from. Any attempt, and we mean ANY ATTEMPT, to reintroduce the X’hirjq into the JU will be met with the severest penalties, up to and including total retcon and physical pain. Period. Salusians: “We’d love to help you, really. But if we make a move, the rest of the Galaxy might decide to kill you all out of hand. So ultimately we’re doing you a favor by staying out of this. Sorry.” The Galaxy is home to a sizable number of sentient races. Most of the advanced ones are linked together in a loose confederation that’s known as Galactic Civilization. Most Galactics aren’t aware of the events happening on Earth; only the species that live in our near vicinity have any knowledge or interest in the Hidden War. Of these, the local superpower is the Kingdom of Salusia. Physically, Salusians are upright bipeds averaging around 6' in height, with somewhat canine features in the leg articulation and facial features, but otherwise the Salusians look very humanoid. They are covered in short black/dark brown fur (white or light tan around faces with a stripe running across the collarbone and down the chest). Salusians also have manes of longer fur varying in coloration (black, white, brown, red) running down the head and back of the neck. The Kingdom itself is a constitutional monarchy, and considered by it’s neighbors to be one of the more “fair” minded & tolerant members of Galactic Civilization. Salusians in general have most of what we would call the “usual” human emotional traits, along with a quirky sense of humor and a deeply refined sense of irony. Most Salusians who come into contact with humans end up liking them. Probably because of the sense of humor. Salusian technology is TL10 in most things, approaching TL11 in biotechnology. Salusian biotech can create surface (and sub-surface) cosmetic alteration to make Salusians look like humans, and vice-versa. While naturally unable to breed together, the same biotech can engineer human/Salusian hybrids that can (in theory, albeit considered a proscribed technique and — supposedly — has not been tested yet. Of course, some rules are meant to be broken...) breed true with each other and members of either species. Relations w/Jihad & Barney: The Salusians are friendly neutrals vis a vis the Jihad. The Salusian government recognizes the threat posed to Civilization as a whole by Barney and is prepared to defend themselves if necessary, but as leaders in the local spiral arm, they also recognize the danger of letting the War spread unchecked through indiscriminate contact with Earth. Salusian diplomatic & cultural attaches have been on Earth since shortly after the first Moon landings in 1969 (it all started as a university field trip to watch primitive spacecraft in action and ended up as a full-time posting after a group of Salusian grad students assisted the Apollo 13 crew in returning to Earth after the accident... but I digress). Because of the threat to the rest of the galaxy (and also attempting to head off the rest of the Galaxy’s preemptive sterilization of Earth before things have a chance of getting worse), the Kingdom of Salusia has sponsored a three light-year radius quarantine zone around the solar system. If things spread beyond this zone, the Kingdom will be willing to pitch in and help the Jihad, but not before. Although it’s not generally known to the Salusian public at large (and certainly not to the Mundanes on Earth!) several human/Salusian hybrids have been born and currently live scattered (mostly) around the Northeast US. The hybrids (at least the ones living among Mundanes) look human on the surface, although there are plenty of internal differences. A first or second-generation hybrid, being already on the edge of normal life, may eventually end up either in the Jihad or a group like Planetary (see below). Greys: “You... interest us. Normally we would not bother with contact. There is something here we must continue to study.” You’ve undoubtedly seen the pictures. Thanks to Mundane pop-culture, they’re the most recognizable “alien” form found on Earth today. However, most of the rest of what pop-culture has to say about the Greys is amazingly inaccurate. The real Greys are not on Earth in any large numbers, nor do they abduct random rednecks from isolated trailer parks to conduct experiments on. Most Greys on Earth are starship crew or research physicists, and “buzzing” the locals is considered bad form. Grey civilization is very old — it predates the existence of almost every other known Galactic civilization. For all their abilities, the Greys have never been expansionist in any way. They seem content to cultivate their homeworld and the other planets in the Zeta Reticuli system, without putting much thought to colonizing other star systems. The Greys have achieved a mature TL12, and have been so for at least 10,000 years. The Greys are highly respected by the other Galactics, especially for their near-impossible defeat of a X’hirjq invasion force 2,000 years ago. The Greys have been on Earth since 1947 (one thing UFO pop-culture has gotten right), when a research ship was dispatched to investigate readings of an unusual wormhole developing in the Sol system. On a low-altitude pass over the supposed wormhole, the ship was damaged by a Lyran defense system, and crashed several hundred miles away in the New Mexico desert (again, something reported accurately by the Mundanes, but little believed). The surviving Greys were rescued by the United States government, and since that time, the Greys and Terran powers (mostly Illuminati agents using the US as a cover) have had a limited scientific exchange program going. In exchange for allowing a small contingent of Grey scientists access, the Greys will slip a few small advances into human technology — nothing fancy, mostly computer-related, or microelectronics. Relations with the Jihad: The Greys, as a rule, are a deeply isolationist people. Only their curiosity about the Lyran dimensional gate has kept a Grey presence on Earth. Like the Salusians, the Greys are aware of the Jihad’s existence, but unlike the Salusian pro-Jihad stance, the Greys are firmly neutral. However, they are interested in the possible connections between the Lyrans and the wormhole. As a rule, unless one side or another starts shooting at the Grey delegation on Earth, they will not help or hinder anybody in the Hidden War. ...and Other Party Animals While intruders from the stars hover above the landscape, watching both Mundanes and Jihaddi with avid interest, others move in between the “normal” world and the shadows. These people all have a vested interest in the activities out on the bleeding edge of human existence. Some of them are fairly harmless, some are possible sources of help in the Hidden War. And some just don’t like us at all... ----/SIDEBAR: Solo warriors Aside from the groups mentioned in the main text, there are a small number of individuals who are fighting the Hidden War on their own, away from the Jihad, the Illuminati, or any other group. These individuals, or “solos,” are placed, willingly or otherwise, into the most precarious position possible in the entire conflict. Solos are people who, for one reason or another, have cause to fight Barney or the Lyrans, but have no connection to any group. Some solos are expatriate Jihaddi, former members who left for varied reasons (disagreement with authorities, personal vows, psychotic temperaments, etc.) but have not given up the fight. They wander around the world, striking at their enemies whenever they can, expecting to die at every moment. In fact, most solos do die — the average life expectancy of a solo who has taken up arms without the support of others is less than a year. Only the wisest, strongest and most dangerous solos become veterans, and there are no old solos. The solo lifestyle — which involves taking on entire armies of otherworldly beings single-handed — tends to quickly take its toll on the solo’s mind, body, and available resources. Due to this, solos as a rule are not the most psychologically stable of people. Solos tend to have some amount of personal wealth, that they would use as a bankroll for weapons, equipment, headquarters, weapons, clothes, weapons, food and weapons. However, some solos will liquidate all of their possessions in favor of simply dropping out of sight and living in the underclasses of the world, where they keep alive by performing less-than-upright jobs for less-than-upright people. Solos of this type tend to have a very loose moral framework. If a solo has had enough of fighting alone, or is approaching the end of their supply base, then they may approach the Jihad and ask for admittance. The Jihad has taken in solos in the past — many distinguished Jihaddi, including the Original Seven, started their careers as solo warriors — and as long as the solo agrees to follow the Jihad’s chain of command, they will be accepted and respected by other Jihaddi. END SIDEBAR/---- Ancient Illuminated Seers of Bavaria (Bavarian Illuminati): “We are the shapers of human destiny. Those who would attempt to usurp our power will find us quite formidable opponents.” While the true Illuminati works deep in the shadows of human society towards the completion of the Project, the AISB work in the Mundane realms to further their own personal power. As all good conspiracy theorists will tell you, the Ancient Illuminated Seers of Bavaria were founded in 1776 by one Adam Weishaupt, defrocked Jesuit and professor of law at Ingolstadt University. Weishaupt had conceived a plan to unite Europe under the leadership of a “rationalist” cabal, with himself naturally at the head. To this end, he formed the original AISB with a number of German freethinkers, and ran a mostly public organization until 1785, when the Bavarian government found out about Weishaupt’s ultimate goals and shut down the public fronts of the Illuminati. Of course, you can’t keep a good conspiracy down, and the Illuminati went underground, slowly but surely infiltrating as many political movements as possible through the late 18th Century. It wasn’t until the mid-1800s that the AISB had achieved any real sort of power in Europe and the Americas, however. By the beginning of the 20th Century, the AISB had managed to take control of a large portion of the political and economic structure of the Occidental world, and had made serious inroads into controlling several East Asian and African nations. Interestingly enough, the AISB has often eschewed the use or even investigation of paranormal or “fringe science” phenomenon. Consequently, the AISB is only marginally more advanced than the Mundane governments it rules, currently standing at an early TL8. This is partly because of the AISB’s hyper-rationalist dogma originally set down by Weishaupt, which dismisses everything that can’t be explained “scientifically.” But a good part of this blind spot is due to agents of the true Illuminati, who have managed to keep the power-hungry AISB under control this way since the French Revolution. Relations with the Jihad & Barney: The AISB considers the Jihad to be a bunch of upstarts, a group of power-mongers like themselves, who are trying to build an impressive hoax in order to seize control of the Mundanes the AISB considers to be their rightful servants. The Jihad’s current activities in co-opting certain members of the American Congress have not made the AISB any less paranoid. As such, the AISB are distinctly hostile to anything they can pin down as Jihaddi in nature, although they will not make any direct assaults (usually because the Jihad can easily outgun even the best-equipped AISB soldier). The Jihad, in turn, is dimly aware of the AISB’s existence, and attempts to avoid their close scrutiny much like they would for any other Mundane organization. The AISB, affected by their particular form of Mundane blindness, doesn’t believe in the evil of Barney or the Lyran forces. This has played quite nicely into the hands of the Enemy, especially those wyrm-minions who work mainly in the Mundane world, as it’s in their (supposedly) mutual best interest to foil the Jihad at every turn. Planetary: No matter how well the Jihad (or the Illuminati, or the AISB, etc.) try to keep things totally undercover, things will be discovered. Living on the very fringes of Mundane society, an underground network of the most unlikely individuals has sprung up, dealing with the scattered information and discarded technology the various conspiracies running across the world have left behind them. This network (called “Planetary” by the younger members, after a recent comic book series dealing with “mystery archaeologists”) is made up of a loose coalition of conspiracy theorists, arms dealers, information brokers, hackers, crackers, and UFO enthusiasts. The theorists are interested in using the data gathered by Planetary to expose and destroy The Conspiracy (that is, whichever The Conspiracy they’re convinced is to blame for the world, any resemblance to the actual Secret Masters being mostly purely coincidental). The arms dealers and info brokers use Planetary on a far more pragmatic and amoral basis, looking for new weapons and secrets worth selling on the open market. The members of the hack community who have joined the Planetary network have done so more out of a love of the thrill of going places they shouldn’t, doing things that they aren’t supposed to. The UFO watchers, of course, use Planetary to figure out “what’s really going on.” The group has no set meeting place, or even a set organization. Members typically have recognition signals (usually consisting of a gesture or key code phrase), and usually know at least one place where members can meet personally and haggle for artifacts. Meeting places are often businesses owned by Planetary members, or highly public areas, train stations or public parks, where the risk of getting killed out of hand are less. For more shady deals, members use the network to locate only the best, most quiet back alleys from which to swap money for hardware. The main information network is set up — like most things in the Age of Information — using the Internet extensively. Members have at least one secure, encrypted email account through which data swaps can be arranged. Rumors of alt.marketplace.planetary are wholly unsubstantiated, and are most likely a hoax put on by a member hacker. Really. Relations with the Jihad and Barney: Both sides are very well aware of Planetary, although the network is itself mostly ignorant of the Hidden War. While the network as a group has large sections of the puzzle available, no one member has managed to fit together the whole puzzle, and Planetary is far too fragmented to ever be able to comprehend the Hidden War as a group. The Jihad often exploits both this fragmentation and the wealth of knowledge Planetary represents. An observant Jihaddi with contacts in the Planetary network can use them to chivvy almost anything from a handy member. The best use of the network involves finding a place to lie low for a night, to get a floorplan for a high-security government facility, or arranging a meeting with weapons dealers to score a few quick guns. The Enemy, on the other hand, is more interested in the transfer of information and disinformation. Wyrm Minions with previously established contacts in Planetary do their best to spread tweaked propaganda around the network. A group of crackers working for Liaison Winston has managed to subtly convert a Planetary-connected cell of UFO cultists to the enemy cause, creating a group of near-Sponge Minions by altering the data they collected to suggest that B’harne was one of their Space Brothers. Planetary’s wide variety of individuals makes it a good recruiting ground for the Jihad as well. Almost anything can come out of the group, and sometimes does. International Order of Mad Scientists: “For us, the laws of physics are mere guidelines, there to confine the unimaginative. Hey! Don’t touch that button—” Existing out on the fringes of mainstream Mundane science, the International Order of Mad Scientists works to advance the cause of human understanding of the universe... preferably by disassembling portions of it in the most creative way possible. According to fringe legend, the Order was founded in 1898 by Nikola Tesla, considered the God-King of modern mad science, and an immortal Leonardo Da Vinci, for reasons that remain shrouded in mystery. Regardless of the truth of this story, the Order has certifiably existed for the whole of the 20th Century, attracting scientists and engineers whose theories have been dismissed by Mundane authorities as mere crankery. The Order has mechanisms in place (mostly funded by patent royalties from successful members) to help keep experiments running, but the most important function the Order performs is the annual Mad Science Convention. The convention provides a place for fringe science aficionados from around the world to exchange notes, learn the latest developments and otherwise relax from the rigors of a world that doesn’t like them much. Every year at the convention, the assembled members of the Order decide which of them gets to win the coveted Victor Von Frankenstein Award. Relations with the Jihad & Barney: The Order, per se, doesn’t have any real knowledge of the Enemy or the Hidden War. However, they do have a general understanding of what the Jihad is, and what it’s supposed to do. More to the point, the Order is very much aware of the Jihaddi research and development organizations, and frequently invites R&D staff members to join. Occasionally, Jihaddi who had some interest in fringe research in their pre-Jihad lives will already have a membership. The best example of this is VRDET’s Professor Malaclypse, who was a fringe scientist of some merit before joining up with the Hidden War. GM’s Note: The Order of Mad Scientists is meant to be something for either an element of a character’s backstory (and a possible ally group when the chips are down — the Order rarely forsakes one of its own) or as the centerpoint of a lighter adventure where a very small number of Jihaddi have to accomplish a task in the middle of the Order’s annual convention. Or maybe just go to kick back. “What’s the point, man?!” Right. The point is, the Order isn’t supposed to be some sort of big, grim conspiracy like some of the other entries in this section. The Order is meant to be used in a similar vein as the Explain Star: Mostly as comic relief, or at the very least a lighter element in a relentlessly dark storyline. ---------- Chapter 5: Oblivious Spectators Earth as of 1999 in (very) brief The state of Earth at the end of the 20th century is, in many technological respects, a science-fiction wonderland compared to its past. Advances in computer technology have simplified all sorts of menial tasks, and at the same time they’ve opened up a new source of communications around the globe. Continued improvements in education and ability to spread information means that Earth is closer than it’s ever been to a true global information economy. Funny, though... all of that information flying around, and there are still some secrets that the public can’t be trusted with. As it happens, the truth about B’harne and the Lyrans is just such a secret. And that’s where the Jihad comes in. In short, for all their lauded technology, the Mundanes are just that. And there are some things Mundanes weren’t meant to know. As a Jihaddi, one of your larger jobs will be to make sure none of the Mundanes figure it out. Keeping the Secret A Word of Explanation Just to make things exhaustively clear, here are the exact reasons why the Jihad and its mission must remain a secret: To begin with, there’s the issue of crowd mentality. The very concept of a popular children’s television character really being a creature of galactic menace isn’t the sort of thing that allows people to remain calm. Given this, there are two options: tell the public and watch the mass hysteria, or handle things with a small group of trained, capable individuals. Guess which one the Jihad uses? Given the Jihad’s mission, a lot of the techniques and technologies used aren’t known to the mundane world. We’re talking magic, psionics, ultra-high technology virtually everything that makes the Jihad tick is either highly rare or nonexistent in Mundania. Revealing the existence of these would, once again, trigger crowd mentality, and bad things would result. And finally, there’s the issue of legality. Much of the covert work the Jihad does as a matter of course is either illegal or very questionable. Letting mundane authorities know about this activity would most likely result in either JAO shutdowns and freezes (needless to say, Bad[tm]) or massive bureaucratic action (arguably worse). ----/SIDEBAR: The Jihad Files The pop-culture TV phenomenon The X-Files, launched shortly after the Jihad began, has tackled every single form of conspiracy theory known to Man, and made up a few of their own. So naturally there have been episodes involving the Jihad, though the name "Jihad" has thankfully been absent. Early in the second-season mythology, the show aired an episode titled "Die Hand Die Verletzt," where Mulder and Scully track apparent "witch killings." The rituals shown on screen were amazingly similar to known Lyran rites, and a little investigation by a Jihad spin team learned that the episode was patterned on an inicdent which occured in 1987 in upstate Wisconsin. Naturally, individuals on both sides were somewhat disturbed. Jihad lore appears again during the fourth and fifth seasons, as Mulder and Scully cross paths with a group of "alien hunters" equipped with beyond-state-of-the-art weapons and tracking gear. Mulder's hunt for the Truth (with a capital T) was often stymied during those seasons by the "Hunters" wasting the alien/government conspirator before he could ask any questions. As television went, the Hunter arc varied between pretty bland to pretty godawful. Still, for some unknown reason the mysterious alien hunters became cult figures in the X-Phile fan community. What Chris Carter knows (or doesn't know) has never been conclusively proven. Jihaddi telepaths have pronounced him free of Enemy influence, and have suggested that Carter has merely pieced together various bits of Jihad lore already in the conspiracy-theory mainstream. However, Psychic Research students at the JPV have suggested that some of the details of Jihad lore may have been left behind in Carter's brain by the telepathic scans, possibly indicating that the producer/writer is in fact a latent sensitive. Whatever the rationale, references to Jihaddi technology or tactics have not appeared since the end of the fifth season, as the X-Files moved into trying to focus on alien invasions, men smoking cigarettes, and who's sleeping with whom. Overall quality and credibility has plummetted, and for everybody in the Hidden War, that's a good thing. END SIDEBAR/---- Jihad coverup operations So, how does the Jihad keep from letting the mundanes know about their actions? Well, it’s really a lot simpler than it looks. The main way the secret is kept is via one of the oldest tricks in the book: covering tracks. Although the Jihad is rarely lucky enough to choose battle locations, they do have the ability to clean up after themselves. Jihaddi, whether specially trained or merely selected from the roster of the most convenient JAO, are expected to come into especially ‘dangerous’ areas (in other words, areas that may have had lots of witnesses, were uncomfortably close to urban areas, or were otherwise prone to detection) to go defuse the situation. This may involve searching out witnesses, checking police records for recent reports of Jihad-like activity, or whatever else the cleanup crew deems necessary. In other words, cleanup and track-covering after battles is very subjective, depending on the battle it just needs to be done. Another important facet of cleanup and secrecy to remember is the issue of sponge minions. They may seem to come from nowhere, but they’re really missing people for every sponge minion, there’s probably a family searching for them. With this in mind, the benefits of despongification over killing are obvious; if you kill a sponge, you have a dead missing person, and the investigations resulting from this may not shine favorably on the Jihad. With a desponged minion, though, you have a missing person who’s probably going home, which means one less mundane search team. Fewer mundane search teams means fewer Jihaddi who have to work cleanup and more Jihaddi who are ready for active duty. But there are some times when local cleanup just isn’t enough. Some especially large or ill-planned Jihad battles may end up catching the attention of the federal government, and that’s when the real shadowy organization stuff starts. The Government Bestiary: bought Congressmen and such Like all good Shadowy Organizations, the Jihad has all sorts of assorted operatives and affiliates in the offices of the federal government. Most of them, as normal human beings and very good civil servants, have blended in nicely; unless a Jihaddi knows exactly where to look, they appear to be simple mid-level bureaucratic workers, utterly unnoticed but still managing to see all, hear all, and mysteriously stop reports of purple dinosaur violence before they get high enough to do anything. For most intents and purposes, Jihaddi on spin duty will probably be able to find a mid-level operative in any major federal government office where it’s needed. However, for the higher levels, simple infiltration isn’t enough. That’s when the Jihad begins the system of bribes. The Jihad bribes government officials from behind the screens of false organizations; the officials aren’t exactly sure of the organization’s motives, but that’s not really important. What’s important is that every major statewide and even a couple city politicians in Colorado are bribed; each of them is under the impression that there’s a different corporation paying the bills, but they all know what to do. With their help, most of the higher levels of the government never learn anything about the Jihad, even that which slips through the fingers of the other operatives. As a final note, certain more militaristic JAOs have different individual setups for coverup and cleanup, because their operations are more likely to fall into the public eye. In this case, the JAO should have an individual plan for such events that they’ll use. ----/SIDEBAR: Jihad Shell Corporations The IJT (which actually stands for “International Jihad Treasury”) Corporation holds many of the Jihad’s Mundane financial assets. It is essentially a “black box” investment firm which acquires funds for the Jihad and distributes them under the guise of charity work and other outlays. The workers, what few higher-ups know the exact nature of the corporation, are another non-combat branch of the Jihad. Verthandi Import/Exports, Inc. is another front company used by the Jihad to provide funds. More importantly, though, Verthandi provides places for supply caches and emergency hiding places for Jihaddi caught out in the open. The company’s front as an importer allows them to ship properly labeled crates of Jihad equipment between their warehouses to the storefronts, where equipment-strapped Jihaddi can pick up refills. The warehouses also have a few crates in the back set up as small bunkhouses, the ideal place to rest for the Jihaddi on the run. The Campbell Museum is the public front for the Jihad Praxeum Veneficus. Occupying two buildings on the JPV's Pennsylvania campus, the Museum is "a celebration of the world's rich tradition of religion and mythology," to quote the tourism brochure. The Museum doesn't have a large amount of traffic, but it provides the JPV some money from admittance fees and an excuse to send researchers all over the planet in search of some obscure magical tradition. The facilities are still sparse, but growing along with the Praxeum; to date, a few wealthy eccentrics have endowed grants to help the Campbell Museum (and the JPV) active without knowing the full depth of the situation. END SIDEBAR/---- The Jihad in Mundane Pop Culture Leaked Secrets, Conspiracy Theory, and Everything For all of the cleanup, for all of the care, not even the Jihad can be sure of everything. Though nothing huge and catastrophic has leaked out yet, small things have: abandoned technology, minor evidence of activity, weather balloons, or whatever has been released to the mundane world through sheer oversight. Needless to say, these things have almost always fallen into the hands of those most able to appreciate them: conspiracy theorists. Fortunately for the Jihad, though, the conspiracy theorists, UFO nuts, and the like don’t know this stuff’s true origin. Even if they did, they’d probably be in denial; they attribute it all to their pet cause, whether that’s the gray aliens, the Men in Black, or the Chupacabra. Because of this, various pieces of Jihaddi tech can be found in museums and headquarters of various secret conspiracy societies and institutions; this runs from JAO standard issue weapons, which according to theory may belong to anyone from the Jackbooted Guvmint Thugs to the Invaders from Planet Q, to entire vehicles and spaceships purported to belong to supernatural entities. (At least one Doberman Empire Arioch mecha is in such a position.) As a result of all of these leaks, various aspects of Jihad procedure and activity have leaked into the canons of conspiracy groups. Those Jihaddi who enjoy pop culture extrapolations of conspiracy theories may be surprised to see familiar weapons and technology featured in the arsenal of completely different foes! However, since the integration of Jihad ideas into conspiracies is scattershot at best, there’s no danger of anything unified being pieced together from this. The important part of this is that, for all of the tiny details that have leaked out, the big one is still firmly secret: the Jihad is the only organization that knows about B’harne and his plans. The idea has lurked into popular humor, which may or may not make the situation better; although it destroys any mainstream credibility the Jihad might have, were it to need such credibility, it does mean that most evidence about B’harne will be laughed off as a hoax by mundanes. Barney and Mundania: Ironically, Barney has, for differing reasons, much the same attitude toward the mundane world that the Jihad does. While the Jiha would like to expose Barney for what he is but knows it could not credibly do so and would thus lose its ability to fight him if it tried, Barney knows that the majority of the world’s ignorance of his true nature is what enables him to so easily spongify humans. The old saying that the devil’s greatest trick was convincing the world he doesn’t exist very much applies to Barney. Keeping the secret Barney’s most effective method of concealing his true nature closely follows another old saying, he hides it in plain sight: Barney and Friends. Even the majority of the public that doesn’t like Barney’s TV show consider it harmless, just another saccharine kids’ show to be mostly ignored. The creation of the Babylon Road coincides with the nascence of television technology; seeing its potential to influence people on an unprecedented scale on Earth, Barney began to subtly influence the direction and content of this technology and the massive industry it eventually generated and finally in the early nineteen nineties culminated that long effort with direct use of his own image on Barney and Friends. And with Barney and Friends, he not only managed to reach a large number of the most vulnerable and impressionable minds available, but instantly created for himself the most innocuous of all possible images with those he didn’t immediately reach. The end result is that the vast majority of all humans would consider the idea of Barney as any sort of real and threatening or malevolent being laughable at best. Television is Barney’s primary means of concealment, but not his only. Realizing the nature of both Earth’s major religions and secular communities to dismiss or even ostracize smaller religions of differing beliefs that crop up within the larger communities, Barney through either direct or indirect intervention began to create several smaller religions of this type at a very early date. When bits of the truth about Barney’s nature crop up through incidents that can’t be otherwise explained, there are various occult or alternative religious groups who identify some small part of the incident with whatever their mythos happens to be and latch onto it with religious fervor, thereby gaining its immediate dismissal along with whatever group is trying its hardest to keep it from being dismissed by the majority of the public. Barney has a multitude of ready and willing “cleanup” groups to help him keep his secret who don’t even know the secret they’re helping to keep. And these groups, with a constant supply of what they perceive as proof of their beliefs, never question any of it; one of the most widespread and successful of this sort of group was actually founded by the very Lyran who lead the contingent of mages to open the Earth end of the Babylon Road and still never had even the beginnings of suspicion as to its true nature or purpose. The most direct method Barney uses to maintain public ignorance of his nature is another thing which is ironic in its similarity to some Jihad methods: the direct control of influential humans by seducing them into becoming wyrm minions (who have widely varying knowledge about who and what they’re really loyal to), subjecting them to direct mental control, or more subtly controlling them with bribes from a network of commercial interests. Governmental institutions, commercial corporations, or various independent organizations can be directly manipulated with minimal or no threat of exposure when money they have is needed in another place, something unusual needs to be overlooked, places are needed for manufacturing, or one of Barney’s interests in the entertainment industry needs to be protected. Long-term Interactions with Mundania The Jihad Other than its cover-up activities, the Jihad’s main long-term activities concerning Mundania are slight. There are, however, questions of money and supplies, both of which are needed to continue the fight. The Jihad makes its money off of investments and assets held in Mundania. Investments include diversified low to medium risk funds and stocks, CDs, and municipal bonds. They are managed to produce income after inflation and selected to minimize tax burden. New recruits will occasionally have significant assets to bring to the Jihad, but this is not accounted for in budgets. Other assets include actual corporations that the Jihad has set up for specific purposes. One of those purposes is, of course, to add funds to the Jihad’s treasury. The other is to provide safehouses in Mundania. The safehouse provides a place of refuge for Jihaddi on the run (from the enemy or from Mundane law-enforcement), places from which to monitor spongification within a specific area, staging bases for international Jihad operations, and so forth. The Jihad owns hundreds of small companies like this all across the world, in a number of different businesses. The Jihad also has a series of investments in some of the less-than-legal parts of the global economy. Jihaddi operatives are actively involved in smuggling operations, most often gunrunning and “soft” drugs (marijuana, hashish, various psychedelics, etc.). The money involved in these activities is actually relatively minimal (the Jihad makes more on a daily basis playing the markets, anyway), but the connections made in the underworld are far more valuable than the money involved. The Jihad’s underworld connections provide extra safe areas and other resources for field operatives caught out in the open; mention the right names and you’ve got a bed for the night, anonymous transportation, false ID, or any number of other things readily available in such circles, no questions asked. There has been some considerable debate in the Jihad’s upper ranks about the morality of the Jihad’s illegal activities. Some Jihaddi have taken a stance that the group should be as upright as possible, while others have taken a more pragmatic stance. Currently, the Triumvirate has leaned towards the pragmatic stance; this may change as the Praetors resign/MIA/KIA, however. The B’harnese Forces What about the Purple Forces and Mundania? Why, for example, hasn’t “Barney & Friends” simply been pushed off of PBS? With all the Jihad’s government contacts, why hasn’t the license been denied, or charges of some sort brought against them? Answer: The Purple Forces have a section dedicated to exactly this purpose. There is no ammunition for a license denial. Every i is dotted, every t is crossed. Any inspection of the studio reveals nothing untoward, even if five minutes ago the place was filled with sorcerous runes packing spongification by the pound into the broadcast signal. Remember, Mundania would not be best pleased to learn of a demonic presence in their midst. Mob riots might not make for good Jihaddi planning, but they don’t help kids get hooked on the Fiend, either. Thus, Jihaddi clean-up crews may actually find themselves working with Sponge- or Wyrm-Minion crews on certain cases, although typically there will be a brief(and very quiet) struggle after which the surviving crew does its job. (The dispute is over methods. Sponge crews typically spongify witnesses and reprogram them, for example.) Finally, a few bribed officials make sure that PBS keeps broadcasting the show regardless of any complaints that do get through. There is one figure, currently the Liaison who goes by the name of Winston, who does all of this publicly. He frustrates the Jihad to no end, because they can’t just kill or kidnap such a public figure, or even present any evidence that could justify a public investigation of his activities. The Purple Forces make their money off of merchandising, PBS fees, revenues redirected from other divisions of the Lyons Group, and black-market sales of looted and stolen goods from battlefields and sponged people’s possessions. Also, there is a public (if weird) “Cult” of B’harnii, which solicits donations and usually takes as much of new members’ money as possible. The mastermind and organizer behind the cult, Winston, keeps his role as such secret. The cult encourages donations and support from causes. They do certainly get kids and troublemakers off the streets - it’s just that they don’t keep them out of trouble afterward. Impact Obviously, these various and sundry maneuvers by both sides in the Hidden War are going to affect Mundane life somehow. No matter how well the core secrets are kept, the Mundane world is changed, sometimes subtly, sometimes grossly, by the activities of the Jihad and its’ enemies. As an example: In the five years since the Jihad moved into the area, the San Luis Valley (a good-sized flat space in the Rockies between southern Colorado and northern New Mexico) has been trasnformed from a sleepy agribuisness-oriented area into a thriving technological powerhouse. The root cause is the location of VRDET (originally Evil Geniuses for a Better Tomorrow) headquarters underneath Mt. Blanca, a mountain at the northeast quardrant of the Valley. VR’s main dummy companies, ETI Technosystems Inc. and Verthandi Import/Export Ltd., set up offices in the nearest large towns (Alamosa, CO, Monte Vista, CO and Taos, NM) in order to handle basic money and material routes into the base. A lot has happened since then. ETI now has a sizable campus on the outskirts of Alamosa, air, road and rail services have been expanded to support it, the city of Alamosa itself has almost doubled in size and the per-capita income has jumped 60% across the board for everybody. As such, it has become a major player in the Colorado economy, and when ETI founder Dr. Jonathan Fnord says something, the state Representatives will pay very close attention. Verthandi Import/Export, Ltd. bases itself in Taos, and has produced results on a smaller but equally impressive scale there. VIX handles most of the overseas shipping of ETI & “native” company production and is a major employer in Santa Fe, Albuquerque, Pueblo & Colorado Springs. The actual Jihad presence in the Mundane parts of the Valley is kept to a bare minimum — a handful of Liasions in the engineering and top offices of ETI (watching for whistleblowers and potential recruits), and a few teaching courses at Alamosa’s one liberal-arts college (Adams State). Even without the area swarming with Jihaddi, the hidden presence of VRDET is felt. The Purple Forces have not been lacking in *their* influences on Mundane life and culture. However, having been working from the shadows for at least half a decade longer than the Jihad has made their impact less obvious to the casual observer. Barney's efforts contribute to the pop-culture climate of apathy and not really wanting to think about things too much. He has deep hooks into the TV industry, having been a covert sponsor since the very beginning. Purple Forces shell companies are often small but numerous, employing enough people that -- if anybody ever managed to make the connection -- they would make up a surprising percentage of the American economy. His bringing the Mikari (see Chapter 3) to Earth has resulted in a recent upswing in dirty buisness practices, as the Mikari infiltrate and absorb Mundane industries for their own sinister purposes. The Church of B'harnii recently purchased a sizable tract of swampland to the east of Port Neches, Texas, near the Louisiana border. The new compound, known as "the Loony Bin" to the locals, has been bringing in money in the form of increased food sales, but at the same time more and more followers come to join the compound. Rumors of strange lights, stranger noises and blood-curdling screams coming from the Loony Bin are starting to spread, but so far that's all they are: rumors. Afraid of provoking another Waco situation, the local sheriff is moving very slowly to find out what the hell is going on, but the Church has already put a number of other officials into their pockets, so investigation is difficult to say the least. Basic Mundane Character Templates So, you want a mundane onlooker? A relative or friend of a Jihaddi? A conspiracy theorist or other sinister plotter? Well, here’s how you do it. As with all character descriptions, you should include a physical description: height, weight, hair and eye color, age, clothing worn, and other such niceties. This is fairly essential for those trying to write your character, so don’t skip it. All of these archetypes are meant to be 100-point characters; after all, they aren’t called Mundanes for nothing. Points may be spent as the player sees fit, although Mundanes as a rule will not have knowledge of TL8+ science or technology beyond what they’ve read about in science-fiction, and buying an Unusual Background means the character isn’t Mundane; the whole point of being a Mundane is you have no unusual backgrounds whatsoever! Secret Advantages (GURPS IOU p. 20) or Secret Disadvantages (GURPS IOU p. 23) are allowed, but make sure the GM knows in advance if you have something specific planned for that Advantage/Disadvantage. GMs are wily creatures at heart, and love to fiddle when given an opening, so be on your guard. A Mundane witness to Jihad events Unless the witness becomes the main focus of a story or Op, you don’t need much here. Things you will need, however, include: • How exactly the character witnessed a Jihad action. Did they have the bad luck to be hiking through the woods near a sponge minion camp on the day of a siege? Are they a relative or friend of a spongie who went searching one day, only to find them in the midst of on-duty Jihaddi? In other words, why is the character in this position? • The character’s basic reaction to what they saw. This can be anything from contacting law-enforcement authorities to hiding and running for their life to actively seeking Jihaddi or B’harnates. Whatever the character does, it should have coherent motives and reasons. • The character’s rough personality and any skills that may come up in the writing (latent magic capability, weapons skill, or anything else that may prove useful in writing the character). This is a writing aid. Be specific! Mundanes allied with the Jihad or specific Jihaddi This includes characters like a Jihaddi’s mundane loved ones and other assorted mundanes the Jihad may contact. If you’re writing profile about a Jihaddi who has close mundane loved ones (at least, those who’ll probably come up in the story), writing one of these for those loved ones would be highly useful. Once again, you’ll need information on physical attributes, personality, and skills, but you’ll also need some others: • The character’s exact relation to the Jihad. Any specific Jihaddi that the character is associated with should be mentioned here, along with their relationship. • How much, precisely, does the character know about the Jihad? This should be kept to a minimal level barring extenuating circumstances, no mundane would know that much about Jihad workings but one closely associated with a Jihaddi would know that that Jihaddi is involved in something unusual. • What the character’s reaction would be to learning about the Jihad and its workings. In other words, if the character was placed in a witness-type situation, what would they do? After all, anyone too close to a Jihaddi is far more likely to learn some piece of the truth than a more random Mundane. Mundanes against the Jihad’s goals This is the realm of conspiracy theorists and those other people who may fight against the Jihad although they may not know their enemy as such. You’ll need the basic character information, as well as: • Full details on how the character found out about Jihad activities. This is essentially character history, and it should be similar to that provided for a witness character. • What exactly *does* the character know about the Jihad? Have they found any Jihad technology? And if so, what is it, and do they know how to use it? • If they don’t attribute what they’ve seen to the Jihad itself (which is quite likely), who do they attribute it to? This highly depends on the character’s precise conspiracy theory; different characters could attribute the same incident to the UFOs, the Men in Black, the government, or strange weather. • Given a chance to act against the Jihad, what would the character probably do? ---------- Chapter 6: Rules of Engagement The Jihad to Destroy Barney roleplaying games have traditionally been a very freeform activity, somewhere between a diceless roleplaying game (ala Amber), a MU*-style computer game, and a writing circle. While we provide rules for the GURPS system throughout the book, for a very long time the group didn't use a tabletop roleplaying system to create the stories that make up the Jihad Universe. In this chapter, we've put down most of the old “unwritten” rules and guidelines used in Jihad Universe freeform roleplay regarding the mechanics of the universe itself and how to play around with it without going over the canonical boundaries. Most of this material isn't all that critical to running a Jihad Universe campaign in freeform or tabletop format, but we consider it a valuable resource for both players and GMs looking to get a more in-depth handle on the game world. Canon, Cannons and Pointy Hats In a lot of the following text, we make continual references to “the canon.” For somebody who isn't familiar with internal politics and history of the Jihad to Destroy Barney, this can get fairly confusing. As the current revision of this book is intended to allow people who aren't familiar with the internal workings of the Internet group to use this as a role-playing resource, we need to get a few things clear right off the bat. What is "The Canon?" The contents of this book are considered the canon of the Jihad Universe 2.0. This is the base setting, depicting the game as it exists as of April 2004 in real life and May 1999 as it is in the game world. This chapter will provide the basic guidelines as to how this world works, specifically how science and magic work, as well as providing a general guide to creating characters for the Jihad Universe. The following chapters will provide additional detail as to the main players in the Jihad Universe. Canon is solely defined at the discretion the players and GM (or writers and Line Editor, depending on how you look at things) of the Jihad to Destroy Barney. It's the primary campaign, which means that they get to set the tone. Additional books may be released advancing (or changing) the canon as the nature of the game - and the players - changes. Why the emphasis on canon? There's a long, boring story involving a series of internal Jihad political struggles connected to this, (The GM's Apologia at the very end of this book covers some of this for the morbidly curious.) but the short form is that at the time Jihad Universe 2.0 was started, the in-group game was very chaotic and difficult to understand even by insiders. The decision was made to create a bottleneck for "official" game materials in an attempt to clear things up a bit. That decision ultimately resulted in the contents of this book. Do I need to get the Jihad's permission to run JU2? No. In earlier versions of this book, it was intended solely for people who were already members of the Jihad to Destroy Barney, and there were a number of dire imprecations about using it outside the context of the Jihad group. We've removed these from this version (We think. We hope.) with the intent of creating a more general role-playing book. As it is, you do not need to ask permission of the Jihad group to use JU2 as a resource, any more than you need to ask permission of the writers of Rifts or In Nomine or Silver Age Sentinels to use their books. We do, however, hope that if you use JU2 as a resource you'll let us know about it so we can link your game/stories from the jihad.net homepage. How can I get my game added to the canon? Be a member of the Jihad to Destroy Barney. No, really. That's pretty much it. The core writing group of the Jihad to Destroy Barney - along with a smaller number of individual writers - are the ones who create the canon and set it. However, it should be noted that as of this writing (04/2004) the group is not actively seeking new members, and new members have for the most part stopped seeking us out. We're still available, though, and the GM is willing to listen to any pitch so long as it's entertaining. If you're thinking of making a pitch, here's a few things you should do: First of all, be sure to read this book through and make sure you're not duplicating things we've already written. Then, write up a short sketch of the idea in general. This can be anything from a few paragraphs of a story featuring your idea to a brief timeline of how it fits into the Jihad Universe. The important part of a sketch is to get as much information as you can into it. Don't, under any circumstances, just submit something that's lifted whole cloth from an existing fictional source. Stuff like "Barney finds the One Ring," or "Captain Kirk joins the Jihad" can make for a funny one-shot story, but it's not something that the Jihad group is interested in adding to the canon. When you've got your sketch ready and willing, take it over to our message board at http://www.jihad.net/phpab4d and post your sketch with the header "Audition." We'll take it from there, and probably have lots of questions for you. Credit where credit is due... The characters, concepts, stories and whatnot used in the Jihad belong to their creator and traditionally cannot be touched unless the original creator has given permission. For purposes of JU2 as a public gaming resource, all characters, items and situations profiled or mentioned in this book still belong to their creators, but permission has been given for ther general use. As a matter of form, if used elsewhere and posted publicly, users should provide credit to the creator when possible, or to "The Jihad to Destroy Barney" if you can't figure out who the creator was. Profile Writing Jihad roleplay, being mostly freeform, was never really based on the concept of character points. Instead of rolling up a character, Jihaddi traditionally just wrote up a character profile. This sounds a great deal easier than having to puzzle out a character sheet in GURPS or AD&D, right? Well, it isn’t. Creating a freeform roleplay character can be just as tricky as creating one for a tabletop game. In this section, Brother Fireball provides a guide to writing up a JU character that's easy to use for everybody involved in a game. There are two basic steps to getting a character into Jihad role-play, generation and then profiling.... Character Generation Make a reasonable character, if not human than at least with some human-seeming qualities; immortals and all-powerful types of almost any kind are rejected out of hand. Everyone has someone better than them at a given talent, and Munchkins should never be forced to demonstrate someone being better. A character with interests in specialization should not have more than one specialty. For example, being a world-renowned mage capable of building a supercomputer with match sticks, a roll of aluminum foil, and silly putty looks silly. Now it’s time for another episode of “Good Idea, Bad Idea.” Good Idea: “A wide variety of magic to choose from, but very little of it fully controlled. One bit of magic she can control is the ability to open a portal to virtually any destination. The portal can get her there instantly, but she loses time with each use of the portal ranging from about a minute (for short jaunts) to 15 minutes (for a trip halfway around the world). She has all the vulnerabilities of normal humans, and is a poor non-magical fighter.” One or two interesting skills which she is adept at, with plenty of room for the character to grow and be developed in stories should the character’s owner want. Bad Idea: “He is a competent hand-to-hand combatant, Mech pilot, aerospace fighter pilot, marksman with both handguns and rifles, and a decent swordsman. He is very well aquatinted with commanding a large fighting force, and has had experience with both land and aerospace combat command. He possesses extremely powerful psionic abilities...” “We represent the Lolly Pop Guild, the Lolly Pop Guild, the Lolly Pop Guild.” Now that’s just too much, looks kinda silly doesn’t it? And that’s only a small excerpt from the rather bland skills listing in that particular profile. The prohibitions against creating a character based on yourself that run throughout most fanfic circles don’t really exist in Jihad role-play. A vast majority of the characters are at least partially based on the people that play them, just don’t give yourself too many extra or enhanced abilities. Try to come up with something reasonably original. Just as you shouldn’t steal technology from another fictitious universe and import it to the JU, you shouldn’t steal people; a Jihaddi jedi or terminator or romulan or Highlander-style immortal or whatever would just end up looking lame. There are some exceptions, just using more vague concepts from outside sources can be acceptable. There have been Jihaddi vampires, dragons, werewolves, elves, and characters from various tabletop rpg’s that’ve all successfully integrated into the Jihad Universe. Good Idea: “Can become insubstantial at will. Can change appearance at will. Can absorb energy attacks, magical or otherwise.” Can’t even tell which fiction that’s lifted from, can you? Bad Idea: “Went hiking in the mountains once, got lost, found some old guy, studied Jedi stuff, found my way home.” Honest, that’s not a summary. It’s not only a poorly done borrowing from another (very well known) fictitious universe, it’s a rather spectacularly bad job of profile writing too. Another note on excessive abilities and borrowing from other fictitious universes: A big reason that most of it that’s accepted is accepted has to do with good writing more than anything else. If you’ve got one of those sorts of ideas and think it might work you can go ahead and try it, just be sure to take extra care in your character generation, profile, and story writing; ask lots of advice. You need some sort of explanation as to why your character has joined the Jihad (and “just sorta dropped in” won’t cut it, it’s just being sloppy and lazy won’t make for good role-play). Maybe your character’s a conspiracy theorist type who discovered some of the Jihad’s secrets and was inducted that way, or maybe you’ve got some outside grudge against Barney or Lyra in whatever dimension you happen to come from. This also helps to create a more well-balanced character, one with some sort of outside life that isn’t just killing spongin or Lyrans or various other things 24/7. Parents/friends/relatives/pets killed by Barney has started to become a little overused though, so if you do that type of story just be careful you don’t end up sounding cliche. Good Idea: Kidnapped by a scientist loyal to Barney and altered for use as a living weapon against the Jihad. Rebelled, managed to escape, and joined the Jihad to use what he’d been made to fight the horrors he’d seen. Creative and original. Can be said briefly but also lends itself well to a more detailed origin story. One of my favorites and better than anything I’ve ever come up with. Bad Idea: “After one such tour, he found himself channel-surfing and wiped out when he hit the B’Harnii and Fiends television show. So disgusted by what he was witnessing something snapped.” Something like that could be a possible start, but it’s very thin. This is more of an RL reason than an RP one. As J. FoxGlov often said, Barney is very easy to hate. If you do use preexisting Jihad canon in your character's background, be sure to run your idea by the JU2.0 staff or whoever owns the particular bit of the Jihad Universe you want to use to make sure that idea doesn't violate any canon. Your best bet is to actually read through the released canon sections, especially the "Planetary" fringe movement (in the chapter on third parties), as it can accommodate a good number of diverse ideas and provide an easy "in" from the Mundane world. Good Idea: A thief caught in the middle of a battle between spongin and TRES Corps forces in the midst of attempting to steal an artifact the spongin wanted for a weapon. Injured in the fight that also kills his best friend and partner, he is rescued by TRES and ends up joining their ranks to fight the newly discovered (to him) Purple Menace and avenge his friend’s death. I like this. Creative, original, establishes discovery of the Jihad and reason to join using just the most common and easy to write parts of canon. Bad Idea: “but he is reluctant to divulge any details about his life before he jumped into the solar system in a stolen Lyran space fighter” Hehehe, this is bad. Unless you’re a group of Maenads, you wouldn’t steal a Lyran ship, you would maybe get within sight of a Lyran ship before the lower-circle Lyran mages guarding it caught you and spent a few decades torturing you just to impress a superior. Or the ship would eat you. Along that line, reading through some of the profiles of current Jihad characters before you get too far into creating your character is a good idea, not only just to see what other characters look like and how people have developed them, but so you don’t unknowingly do something too many other people have done and end up looking cliche. ----/SIDEBAR: In re: Munchkins Earlier versions of this book had, among other things, a number of dire warnings and rules regarding the use and abuse of the rules for the purpose of powergaming. Or in simpler terms, being a munchkin. Most of these warnings and rules have since been removed, as they were really meant to correct problems with the internal freeform game that have long ago been solved. Beating people who aren't in the internal group over the head with the No-Munchkin stick seemed well... a bit insulting, really. As far as munchkinism in and of itself goes, well... frankly we're not fond of it, but as vices go it beats acting out hyper-violent fantasies with loaded weapons, so we'll let it slide. As far as munchkinism goes in the freeform roleplay, our rule of thumb is "if it's written well, we'll be more likely to let it go through than otherwise." We figure that if your players are bright enough to create a munchkinistic character and then play it well, they should be allowed to. It's open season on nitwits who like to max out their stats and act like the Punisher instead of actually roleplay, though. (For more on munchkins, their habits and methods of controlling the evil little buggers, we highly recommend The Munchkins Guide to Power Gaming.) END SIDEBAR/---- Profiling You write a character profile to define him/her/it/them within the Jihad Universe canon and also to help others understand and possibly write about your character. As with all other writing, grammar is god. Care should be taken for description, development, history, etc. Good writing, and hence good stories and role-play, depend on solid character development. Good Idea: “Personality notes: [She] is stubborn as hell. She only listens to you when she wants to, and will often disagree for the sake of being ornery. Has a horrible temper when she gets upset or frustrated.” Great. Brief but still descriptive; the sentences that should be short are short, the sentences that should be longer are longer. The profile goes on, but just this bit very quickly and easily establishes an image of what the character’s like. And the spelling has been checked. (special note: contrary to what your eighth grade teacher told you, starting a sentence with and is kosher, you just have to know what you’re doing.) Bad Idea: “Nearly always in a pseudo uniform, generally wears a Black vest w/ lots of pockets over a Gray Long sleeved shirt, Woodland camo BDU pants, pistol belt, Black leather combat boots.” This person never learned sentence combining, or proper capitalization. Compare that with “Prefers clothing which looks as if it could be part of some sort of uniform. A black multipocketed utility vest worn over a grey shirt and BDU-style camouflaged pants with standard-issue black combat boots are his normal.” A bit more wordy perhaps, but it does far more to evoke an image. As with several other things, grammar problems can be fixed easily. Review your own writing a while after you’ve written it, and also find a couple other people to review it for you. Also important is how you write a profile, that it’s structured properly to give the right information in the right way. Just lists of abilities, skills, attributes, and weaknesses are pretty lifeless and boring and don’t really give that much useful information about the character (listing your character’s abilities and such is important, but it has to be incorporated into a profile the right way, it doesn’t make up a good profile on its own.) A good way to get a good profile down is to think of your character in the third person. Try to think about what you think other people should know and what you want them to know in order to write about your character and role-play with him/her/it, not necessarily everything you’ve personally thought up about the character. When in doubt about something to include in your profile, ask yourself “Do I want people I role-play with to know this about my character when they write?” or “If I was writing about somebody else’s character, would I want to know this?” A suggested format is the one I used for my character available at http://egad.narf.zort.poit.net/profile.html, written from the perspective of a Jihad-wide personnel department. Give some important statistics for the character (with some explanation and description), write a short history, then use a 3rd person analysis to cover personality and anything else that didn’t come out in the rest of the profile (such as weaknesses, they come out much better written about as personality traits than just listed somewhere). This format isn’t a requirement though, just a suggestion for those who might be having trouble because it worked well for me. That covers one Good Idea... Bad Idea: “Profile: A slightly out of order character history that relies heavily on context that isn’t written into the profile (this sort of thing is common, but gives no information that would be really useful to somebody writing about the character). “Skills: He has a shrewd business sense and a great understanding of economics. He can understand several languages. He is a skilled marksman. He is a competent swordsman. He is a skilled pilot.” (While marginally useful information, the profile I took this from was only slightly more descriptive and less bland.) “Other abilities: Blah blah blah...” (Now this is just silly, a second bland skills list) “Weapons/paraphernalia: ... “ (Another list, with a little explanation this time. This sort of thing can occasionally be made to work but usually doesn’t, most of the time it works better when integrated into other parts of the profile). Read some of the profiles out there for yourself; it should become quickly apparent which work and which don’t, and what sort of format would suit you best. Usually, your character needs a history. If your character’s background changes from story to story, it not only gets confusing for the reader but it makes for pretty bad role-play. At the same time, don’t spend all your time developing your character’s personal history, only a minimum is required to fit a profile into Jihad canon. If you have a more complete, detailed personal history for your character, that’s great, but it’s usually better off in a separate origin story. And when you have a draft of your profile done, find a couple people to look at it and edit it for you. Not just somebody who’ll read over it once and say it’s fine, but people who are going to seriously review it for you, people who are going to be critical about grammar and willing to tell you if you created a munchkin. Your profile, the same as anything else you write, if you’ve got a couple people who are willing to critique it somewhat harshly and if you do a few revisions based on that critique. Writing and role-playing is about being creative, having fun, and enjoying yourself. Other players and writers should be able to get a feel for your character’s nature after interacting, or reading about it. Mad Science, Madder Engineering The Mundane world as of 1999 is transitioning from a mature TL7 to an early TL8, but outside of certain government and corporate research programs the only real evidence of TL8 equipment is in the form of the ever-expanding Internet and related spinoff technologies, such as MP3 audio players and the first beginnings of ubiquitous computing. The Jihad, with it’s high concentration of powerful and somewhat loopy R&D people, has achieved a base technology that is obviously more advanced than the outside world. Most of these obviously are military in nature, with communications, vehicle technology and medical tech bringing up the rear. The average Jihaddi has access to equipment between mature TL7 (The tracked vehicles and artillery so beloved by members of the MAUL Mobile Heavy Infantry.) to an early TL9 when it comes to communications gear like the JihadLinker™. Most standard issue Jihaddi equipment is a nice and mature TL8, verging on TL9. A few specialized items, like the Jihad's large computer systems, are a full TL10 or above. The X-Rifle standard-issue energy longarm for TRES Corps, for example, is a TL9 plasma weapon (GURPSites can treat it like a standard TL9 blaster rifle, UT51.) but due to the complexity of the production, it's the only standard-issue TL9 weapon available to the Jihad. More common are weapons like TL8 laser pistols or even high-quality TL7 slugthrowers - after all, you'll never have to worry about running out of power for a Colt automatic. The critical thing that keeps the Jihad from producing more high-TL items is the constraint of the war. Because the Jihad is running with a fairly limited resource base - and is unable to access the wider resources of the mundane world - they don't have the time or the materiel to expend for large amounts of high-TL production runs or any real theoretical work. TL11+ prototypes, while they do exist, are often hand-built and the personal property of a researcher or technician. Superscience There are things in the Jihad that do transcend the limitations of the expedencies of war. These are the products of superscience. Most of these devices are singular in nature - only the inventor really understands how (or why) the device works. In extremely rare cases, the devices can be mass produced. That usually doesn't lead to anything good. During the early years of the Jihad’s existence, new members tried to come up with the absolute perfect superweapon to defeat B’harne (this period is called the Age of Amuck Scientists by the current research teams). Some of the more bizarre devices from this period — such as the BurgerMasterBlaster™, a TL15 matter-transformation device that converted any organic target into a bacon cheeseburger — can still be found in the dusty corners of TRES or DE armories, although if a player manages to find one, he/she may be hounded to death by embarrassed WEDJEE scientists who want the abominations they created to stay buried. Tech and the Bad Guys The Purple Forces tend to stick with whatever gear they can scrounge from the mundanes or the Jihad - B'harne stands for the stifiling of innovation, after all. The Lyrans stand above B'harne's immediate minions, of course, using their advanced magical powers to warp lifeforms into doing their bidding. This is a TL(4+8) divergent technical path for the Lyrans, due to the fundamental incompatibilites between human science and magic. (see page XX) Using Magic For Fun & Profit Magic, the Theory and Practice Magic is based on an energy field (called for purposes of simplicity "mana" after anthropologist J.G. Frazier) that is closely tied to living things. The field tends to be stronger where there is a great diversity of life (like the Amazon basin) or where a disaster has killed large numbers (such as Hiroshima, Dresden, the Cambodian killing fields, Krakatoa, etc. There's the possibility of strong "fossil magic" surrounding the Chixilbub crater -- where the comet that killed the dinosaurs hit). The field also tends to condense along lines and nodes -- usually the result of generations of use by sentient beings. Many high-mana sites like Stonehenge are the result of ancient Celtic peoples focusing power on the site, which was already saturated with mana before the site was designated. Magi (people who use magic) have a genetic predisposition and sensitvity to mana flow. While people without the required metagene can learn theory, they cannot actively manipulate magical forces w/o the assistance of a mage. Magi are capable of increasing their abilities through regular practice and training. With enough time any mage can reach the theoretical limits of human magic, generally considered to be as powerful as the legendary mage Merlin (who may have existed, but records are fragmented and contradictory). A particularly ambitious mage may exceed those limits under the right conditions (peak physical condition, standing on an exceptionally strong mana node), but the price paid usually involves the death of said mage, often very messy death at that. ----/SIDEBAR: Artifacts Magical artifacts in the Jihad Universe fall into three general categories: 1. An object which amplifies magical energy. 2. An object which filters/reduces magical energy. 3. An object which has a spell or function attached to it magically. Artifacts generally are created mysteriously, and no-one knows exactly where they come from, the stuff of legends, etc. They may even be guarded by some nasty monster... for Jihad purposes, the character should have (or have had) to go through some awful ordeal to obtain it. Any artifact of reasonable power will likely be very old, dating back to the time of Merlin or further, and thus be extremely rare. Magical objects, and/or magical tools (whatever you want to call them) are generally regular non-magical objects "enchanted" by a very experienced mage. (i.e. A spell is attached to it to perform a function.) Example: A wizard's staff can either be an artifact (if this mage is lucky enough to have found a natively magical material to make it from) or an enchanted object (This would apply to approx. 90% of mages in the JU, as Earth doesn't generally have many magical materials.) Enchanting Mundane gear is possible, but requires n+1 times more energy to imbue to a complex device (car, plane, computer) than to a simple device (sword, chariot/oxcart, basic gun). END SIDEBAR/---- In general, Jihaddi mages are mostly inexperienced, thanks to a general lack of magic in Mundania. Experienced magic users are rare, and powerful magic users are extremely rare. Like all general concepts, there can be, and often are, exceptions to the rule. The Lyrans, a race that have deep roots in magic, are capable of casting just about any spell an expert human mage can by the time they ascend to the 5th circle. The Lyrans have an innate understanding of magic that humans are unable to grasp, and are able to use that knowledge to do impressive feats of magic, Any specialized abilities are found and honed to full and regular use by the time the lyran reaches 6th circle. Magic and technology are currently incompatible, and will remain so for a long time to come. Both systems attack the problem of manipulating the universe from different angles, and use very different systems. Using modern physics and mathematics to describe mana interactions is like trying to translate Beethoven's 9th Symphony into mathematical notation and still make it understandable by musicians. (Important emphasis.) In theory this can be overcome with the use of advanced quantum math, but for OOC purposes, this math has yet to be developed to any useful level and is unlikely to be developed during gameplay. Spells Some spells might demand rituals, simply because they are too much for a person to do on the fly -- to remember, or to perform without mistake. It's rather like requiring someone to play a symphony by himself, but allowing him to use a synthesizer to record each track separately on metronome and overlay, checking and re-editing, before playing the final product. Spells depend on the available ambient energy as well as the physical strength of the spellcaster; a magi in good health standing on the Serpent Mound in Ohio will be able to cast more and stronger spells than a wounded magi stuck in a low-mana zone like Gary, Indiana. ----/SIDEBAR: Types of Magic and Spell Levels Types of Magic Combat magic is somewhat freeform, but based on memorized words, gestures, or similar menomynics acting as a focus for the mage's willpower. Such spells tend to be simple attack or defense types, with as much power as the mage dares thrown behind them. Ritual magic involves longer, more intricate spells, planned out as thoroughly in advance as possible. There are a number of schools of ritual magic, all of which disagree with each other. Rituals are used for complex work, and often require multiple mages to work properly. Ritual schools include: • Sacred Geometers: Mages who use Pythagorean geometric mysticism, the Egyptian pyramids, or networks of “ley lines” (mana paths) to do magic. • Shamanic: Mages who follow the traditions of pre-industrial societies, such as Celtic or Native American religious ceremonies. • Neo-Shamanic: Mages who follow a middle path, blending modern neurology and theoretical physics with traditional shamanic rituals (and the use of psychotropic drugs). • Neopaganist: Another middle-path school based in elements taken from pre-Christian Europe, often involving nature rites. Neopagan mages tend to mix fictional (and often erroneous) elements with remnants of actual rituals to create a unique form of magic. • Hermetic: Magic and ritual based on Victorian distortions of Eastern and Greek philosophy. Alister Crowley and Helena Blavatsky are the prime examples of Hermetic thought. • Rationalist: A totally new school founded in the Jihad Praxeus Veneficum, intending to try and condense magic into purely scientific terms. • Taoist: Magic based on the writings and philosophy of Hung Mung, Lao Tzu and the Chinese thinkers that came before them. • Synergists: Another new school from the JPV, the Synergists attempt to collect *everything* from the known schools and create a working understanding of magic from that. Spell levels • Fundamental: The bare minimum knowledge to be called a mage. This includes things like the ability to detect mana flows and read impressions of any spells cast recently nearby. • Basic: These are learned within a few months of realization and study; untrained magi can frequently work them out on their own or puzzle them out of the mess of Mundane traditions. Examples include Light, Darkness, Heat, Electricity (small currents), Push, Telepathy (with a willing partner), and Sleep. • Intermediate: Mostly combinations of the Basic spells, this is typically the limit of what a talented untrained mage can achieve, and they almost always require a ritual for it; trained magi don’t usually need rituals, but can use them if they want some precision. Examples of spells of this class are illusion spells, minor healing spells, and fire-starting spells. • Advanced: Professional training is required to understand these spells. They represent the limit of what can be done in combat by humans. Examples include realistic illusion, fireball-throwing, and major healing. • Expert: The peak of the established fields of human magic, and the limit of most mages’ abilities. Expert spells are almost all ritualistic in nature, although a mage may try one on the fly if under enough pressure. These spells tend to follow the mage’s specialty — an illusionist will create the Perfect Illusion, a healer will be able to regrow limbs or organs, etc. • Unique: The inability to precisely describe magic is a damnably difficult obstacle to overcome when attempting to explain a complex or personal spell. The ability to bring back someone from death would be incredibly useful, but unfortunately the healer can only do it when it’s his friend at stake; the earth-mage can turn up the volume on gravity beneath a foe, but can’t explain how. These are the Unique spells. END SIDEBAR/---- ---------- Chapter 7: Marching Off to War, Hurrah So. You’ve read through all of the rules, the history of the Jihad, and all the other information. You’re all fired up to run your own campaign in the the JU. How the hell do you do that? That’s what this section is for. Mal's Handy-Dandy Tips on Writing Jihad Campaigns The Jihad, like Life, is never easy to cope with. In the past, all the Jihad's roleplaying has been done in prose format -- the characters write the story according to a plotline set down by the GM, instead of doing real-time gaming the way most RPGs are devised. Now, in this chapter (and scattered through some of the others) we provide information on running a Jihad game for the GURPS system. If that's what you want to do, then the information should be helpful. If, however, you want to do a prose campaign, we'll provide some tips on running one properly. 0) Know where you’re going before you set out. You may not know how the whole thing is going to end up, but you should at least have some idea of the campaigns goal, prominent bad guys, prominent good guys, time scale, that sort of thing. Make notes, because they are your friend. Having a great concept is knowing the rough destination, but that’s not enough to make a good story. Fill out your concept before you start shopping for players. 1) Cut down on redundant segments. If you look at The Marraketh Connection, Operation Pacifica, etc. you'll see a lot of segments where the same battle/scenario is replayed with a slightly different point of view. Avoid this. Get people who're in the same thing together and consolidate segs. Having the different POV is often a good thing, but cluttering up a newsgroup or web board with fifty different 2KB stories from fifty different people is considered poor form. It's best to have just one 100KB story with the all the pertinent players contributing. 2) Have framing pieces... spots along at the beginning, end, and through the length of the story where you (as GM) keep the plot moving. They don't have to be long, and they don't have to be filled with tons of the dreaded expository dialouge; just remind the readers that there is a central storyline. This is very helpful when your players are taking their sweet time getting past the introdution. 3) Keep the story fast-paced. This ties back to #1. You want to keep the readers interested, something that the big Ops really failed at, because they got bogged down in excruciatiting detail and too many segments. If you have five or six big-assed multi-author story segs, it'll read faster and most likely be better written than a twenty small single-author segs. 4) Set and be a hardass about deadlines whenever possible. Accept delays based on real-world problems if they arise (as a rule of thumb, reality should always take precedence), but if the story/seg/section is not mission critical, don't be afraid to pass that author over. 5) Never have more authors than you could successfully run a tabletop RPG with. That's what you're doing in essence, after all -- role-playing without the dice. Table RPGs get difficult to play past 6 players / 1 GM. So 7 should be the top player/author limit. However, you should use as many other people as NPCs as possible, to give the OP the proper feel. 6) Expect the unexpected, and plan accordingly. Over the course of the story, your players may come to you with an interesting digression they want to add to the story. Since you are writing for an audience, you should be willing to indulge digressions. While it’s nice to keep the story moving at a good clip, if speed is making you boring you ought to slow down a little. Or conversely, one of your players may devise a better ending to the story than the one you came up with. If this happens, swallow your pride and go with the better ending. Prose campaigns, like traditional RPG campaigns, are organic creatures, and the players should be able to influence the story. The GM Is Always Right, but sometimes he’s wrong. These are just basic tips for getting together a prose campaign. There are other things, of course, but most relate to rules of grammar, spelling, characterization and other literary devices. We recommend looking up Strunk & White, or the Associated Press Style Book for further suggestions on how to improve the quality of your writing. Defining the Game When GMing a Jihad Universe campaign, you set up what the world is going to look like to the players and how they will interact with that world. These are things that you should figure out before you start recruiting players. The Jihad as presented in this book is the “canon” version. That is to say, it’s the version as played by the members of the Jihad to Destroy Barney that exists out here in the physical world. As such, the base setting is tricky to change, at best. However, this should not stop you from taking a different look at the JU. Starting from a different POV of the same subject can lead to a very different game than the traditional Jihad campaigns. This book is both a mirror and a prism. All sorts of possibilites are refracted through it. Make the most of it. Character Involvement The world of the Jihad is pretty well set, so the GM (with a little help from the players) needs to decide the role the PCs play in the Jihad Universe. Are they part of the System, or on the outside looking in? Seeking the Jihad The Jihad can be glimpsed at a distance from here, as the PCs are trying to find the group and figure out what’s going on. The Jihad’s role may change from game to game, or over the course of many games as the players learn about the Hidden War and the available sides. Joining the Jihad The heroes may even learn enough that the Jihad welcomes them into their ranks. The 401k is decent enough, and you get to travel. Conversely, the PCs may be Jihaddi from the start; it’s a strange world out there, and the Jihad stands by its men. And women. And aliens. And whatever. Fighting the Jihad The again, the heroes may not approve of the Jihad. Even if you aren’t a member of the Purple Forces (which is also an option here, by the way), the Jihad makes for an intriguing enemy of all the outside world considers good and pure in the world. It does, after all, consist of a massive terrorist organization that is responsible for numerous incidents of vandalism, assault and murder all over the world. And to top it all off, the Jihad lies to outsiders — and justifies their actions by saying that Mundanes can’t handle the truth. Genre The genre of the game is the most basic type of story you’re telling, and sets the direction the game will be pointed in. The baseline Jihad Universe setting is written to spec with a Conspiratorial Fantasy genre: The world is a lot stranger than the average person knows, and only by digging deep and asking a lot of questions will the players ever get to the bottom of it all. Once the heroes cross the barrier between the Mundane world and the Jihad’s world the Fantasy element kicks into high gear, throwing the players into a world where dragons and rayguns exist side-by-side (in some cases, the dragons are using the rayguns!). Setting the Tone The tone is how you’ll approach the genre of your campaign, helps set the overall goals, and what kind of flavor you add. Each tone is like an adjective; you can use as many as you like, but it’s a good idea to avoid too many in one shot. Action: Boom boom, baby! The classic “hack and slash” setting, featuring high-speed pursuits, John Woo gun battles, martial-arts action, desperate battles, explosive climaxes, deathtraps and narrow escapes. Action works well for military or special-ops games. Chasing wyrm-minions through the back streets of LA, guns a-blazing, things like that. Camp: Take every cliché you’ve ever heard, and run with it. Drama and swashbuckling permeate the surroundings, Capital Letters are thick upon the ground, and every hero and villian gets a dying soliliquy. Played either for laughs or for sheer sense of wonder, camp is for just letting go and enjoying the world in black and white (or maybe a rich plaid). Cinematic: Realism takes a hike and the perfect scene is everything. Directed by Jerry Bruckheimer with an unlimited effects budget and all the great Hollywood stars, there’s always just a few seconds left on the bomb, the hero’s girlfriend gets jumped by spongin, and the whole thing is set to a sweeping soundtrack featuring Howard Shore and Hans Zimmer. Just remember not to be the plucky comic relief. Dark: The world is going to hell, and all Barney does is speed it along. The Jihad may be able to stop him and Charn’El for taking over, but the Mundanes are all corrupt anyway. The Lyran plans may not be the worst thing to happen to the world after all, and the Jihad will learn the price for neglecting their own souls to stop the evil... Gritty: The game doesn’t quite conform to reality — after all, in a realistic game extradimensional aliens don’t exist and most of the Jihad’s devices don’t work — but realism gets first shot at everything. Shoot a spongin and go to jail. Barney’s evil works on the shadowed streets the Saetherians slither through. Joining the Jihad means abandoning your friends and family, and wetwork leaves deep psychological scars. Illuminated: You’re not cleared for that. Fnord. Silly: Not even bothering to play it straight at all, silly campaigns take the strange and twist it into laughs. Joining up with the Jihad to protect the penguins of the Ross Ice Shelf from the evils of Barney, magical girls created in R&D accidents and other like things can happen in a silly campaign. See GURPS Discworld for a more exhaustive description of silly campaigning. Superheroic: Similar in nature to the cinematic tone, but with a lot more color. Full-fledged four-color action involving parahumans, regular humans with superscientific devices, the aliens they fight and the civillians who have to get out of the way. Suspense, action, and good clean fun with a simple but effective narrative thrust is the core of a superheroic game. Technothriller: It’s all about the chrome-plated HK 99s. The technothriller takes cues from the action and cinematic, but there’s always time to stop and lovingly inventory all the toys in detail. Building the perfect X-Rifle, devising a ritual to stop a lyran sorcerer in his tracks, or springing the perfect ambush on a group of spongin soldiers — that’s the fun in technothriller gaming. Scale Setting the scale is important, especially in a Jihad campaign. The scale will usually determine time, place, available resources and the worst nasties the players will have to deal with. Historical A good deal of the nitty-gritty of the Jihad’s history has been lost over the years. Despite the work of Dr. Carmichael (p. 00), there are a lot of blank spots. Anything could have happened, but we really don’t have details. This details the period 1990-96, the formation of the early Jihad and the organization of the first JAOs, but adventures involving Lyrans and the ancestors of the HellWyrm can stretch back as far as Atlantis 25,000 years ago. The Operation This is the classic form of the Jihad campaign, a huge all-out battle with the forces of Good and Evil clashing. The trigger can be something small (a chance encounter with an enemy base in Operation HomeFront) or something truly cosmic (the Multiversal Doomsday Device in Operation WorldWalk). Either way, almost the entire Jihad will get involved in an Operation when things finally come to a head. Operations are the most challenging form of campaign in the JU, so GMs should be prepared in advance and ready for the players to shift gears unexpectedly in midstream. Skirmishes When only one JAO has to deal with a problem, it’s a skirmish. This can be a globetrotting adventure or set in the back alleys of a major city. All the sides are treading a great deal more carefully than usual when fighting here, and all the bloodshed is kept out of sight of the news cameras. This is the arena of the Liaisons and the spin teams, who keep the wheels of war running relatively smoothly. Downtime When slam-bang action involving the movement of armies gets a little tiring, it’s good to drop down a gear and engage in a quiet little story. Short character interaction between battles in the Hidden War, the occasional investigation into unusual activity and maybe a “What I Did On My Summer Vacation” story or three, set anywhere in the Jihad Universe during the current time period. Power Levels The Jihad Universe can support an impressive range of power levels, from innocent bystanders to nigh-invulnerable superheroes. Oh Shit! Run! It’s Godzilla!: <100 points At this level, the PCs are the classic Expendable Extras; the guys who run screaming from the scene of the disaster, the nameless spear carriers that die under the Hero’s (or the Villain’s) guns. In short, the perfect sponge minions. Now, you know and I know that your players aren’t necessarily going to go for PCs that have less than 100 points -- although stranger things have happened, especially with GURPS Bunnies & Burrows fans. Still, it might be interesting to play ordinary Mundanes that have to run away from danger, eventually becoming aware of the whole stranger world around them, and maybe wanting to get some payback in. Mundane dependents of Jihaddi PCs (spouse, kids, pets, etc.) would work well here as well. Something’s Happening Here: 100 points At this level, the PCs are all talented Mundanes who’ve been hipped to strange happennings. Planetary members searching for clues to who dropped that power-armor in the middle of downtown San Diego, Mundane adventurers looking for archaeological artifacts of power, and the traditional “person seeking vengance against mystery beings who offed a loved one” are all viable character templates at this level. These adventures tend to emphasise investigation, if only because the players aren’t quite powerful enough to charge into a situation and wreak havoc. The Corps Is Mother, The Corps Is Father: 150-200 points Here, the PCs have more than likely joined the Jihad (or are in the process of joining), and are undergoing training in one of the main tracks. This is the “grunt level” of the Jihad, and anybody who doesn’t measure up fast runs a risk of getting killed. Missions at this level are divided between combat and investigation; sending out a few grunts to do forward observation isn’t an uncommon event. This power level can also start to support heavy magic-users, psis, or other parahuman characters. Who You Gonna Call: 250-300 points At this level, PCs are mid-ranking Jihaddi in good standing, often commanding a group of lesser-ranked members and/or newbies. Here the more impressive PC concepts can come out to play: Heavy-duty human wizards, martial-arts masters, pulp-hero engineers, interdimensional travellers and agents of the Illuminati. The mayhem from here on out gets set to overdrive and never looks back. Badasses in Black: 400+ points Now we’re cooking with liquid hydrogen. PCs at this level are all high-ranking members of the Jihad, people who have been around the block an uncountable number of times, as close as the players will ever get to becoming Secret Masters themselves. Here, the PCs are leading entire divisions of JAOs into mortal combat with Lyran sorcerers, Mikari armadas and the dread HellWyrm himself. Advantages, Disadvantages and Skills ADVANTAGES: Ally Group (The Jihad) see p.CI19 You have a friend in the Jihad. Actually, you have a lot of friends in the Jihad, and they all have very big guns and will come and help you at a moment’s notice! Jihad Ally Groups are based on 100-point NPCs and will appear on a 9 or less all the time – even deep-cover Liaisons can count on that if they feel a need to call in backup. The size of the group will depend on the character’s Rank level; A Rank of 2 or less will bring a small group, a Rank of 3-5 will bring a medium-sized group, and a Rank of 6 and higher will bring a large group. Example: Grunty McBrock, mean and cold Independent Operative for the Jihad, gets himself into a serious corner and calls for backup. As a Rank 0 Jihaddi, his backup will consist of three or four random agents pulled off the nearest watchtower. On the other hand, TRES Grand Admiral Felton (Rank 8) can call for backup and recieve the entirety of TRES Omega Squad and air support from the nearby MAUL airbase. As always, it’s good to be the king. Divine Favor (Feral Jackson) see p.CI36 Maenad characters can, in a pinch, call for help from their demigod Feral Jackson. Jackson however doesn’t always like to be called, and will not respond well (-1 to all reaction rolls, -2 if it doesn’t involve Lyrans) if called for a non-trivial reason. If the GM feels like it, Jackson’s Divine Favor may be held as a secret Advantage should the character be considered a candidate for Maenadship. Divine Favor (Grimace) see p.CI36 Members of the Brotherhood of Grimace can call on the Lord of the Fries (Don’t look at me like that, I just report this stuff.) in a tight situation. Grimace, however, is not somebody who is summoned lightly, and doesn’t always come when he’s called, so treat him as an infequent Ally (roll a 6 or less) unless Barney himself is in the area. If Barney is nearby and the Brother knows that, any attempt to summon Grimace will automatically succeed. Hard to Sponge +5/level to +15 (0 for Mundanes) You have a natural resistance to the effects of spongification; it takes more than a few dozen repetitions of the I Luv You Song to break your mind. Characters with this advantage get an extra +2 to Will rolls against spongification per level. Mundane characters (which aren’t going to deal with sponges or spongification on a regular basis) can take this advantage for zero points at the GM’s discretion. Illuminated see p. CI38 Illuminated characters instinctively know what’s going on, so they make lousy Mundanes. An Illuminated character doesn’t have to be a member of an Illuminated organization, but it’s likely that the organizations will seek that character out as a potential member. The Jihad prizes Illuminated people as master strategists in the Hidden War -- they know instinctively where the enemy is plotting, and where to strike. Military Rank see p. B22 Rank is respected by members of the Jihad (an automatic +1 Status for any superior-ranking Jihaddi meeting another), although that respect may not necessarily equate to respectful behavior. Unusual Background see p. B23 An Unusual Background is almost standard procedure for most Jihaddi PCs. Looking through character profiles dating back to the Golden Age, it’s hard to find a character that didn’t have one form of Unusual Background or another. GM’s option to let less powerful characters have Unusual Backgrounds, but for ex-Mundane characters the cost should be at least 15 points. DISADVANTAGES: Enemy (Barney and Friends) see p. B39 Barney may love you, but he has a funny way of showing it... High-ranking Jihaddi may take Barney and his minions as formidable (-30 to –40 points) enemies, who will always show up on a 9 or less. You may adjust that point value depending on how often your character is involved in field work. Lower-ranked Jihaddi who deal more with the minions than the generals may decrease the point cost as needed. Example: A team of rookie Dobermans may regularly cross swords (on a 12 or less) with the local cell of sponge-minions (a –10 point Enemy group), so they would have a –20 Enemy in that sponge cell. Meanwhile, Most Holy, enigmatic commander of MAUL, leads his troops into combat (literally; they’re often racing just to catch up to him) against the Purple Forces’ best armor divisions (a –30 point Enemy) quite frequently (on a 12 or less), thus making Barney & Friends a –60 point enemy for MoHo. Spongified -60 points You are completely under the thrall of the Demon Lord B’harne, and are completely unable to think for yourself. A character with this disadvantage has the cumulative effects of Cannot Learn, Chummy, Confused, Dull and Extreme Fanaticism. You cannot buy this disadvantage off without somebody else despongifying your character. Recovering Sponge-Minion -5 points The character has just recently come out of an extended period of spongification, and has yet to readjust to their normal IQ. Creates a –1 penalty to all IQ-related rolls and +10 for any attempt to responge while the character is afflicted. This disadvantage can be bought off after 3d days and a successful Will roll. Vulnerability: Spongification -5/level to –15 (0 for Mundanes) For whatever reason, you have a natural susceptibility to the siren call of B’harne’s spells; you will fall into spongification far faster than the people around you. Characters with this disadvantage get a –2 penalty per level on Will rolls against spongification. Mundane characters (which aren’t going to deal with sponges or spongification on a regular basis) can take this disadvantage for zero points at the GM’s discretion. SKILLS: Beam Weapons/TL9 (X-Rifle) (Physical/Easy) Defaults to DX-4 (other Gun skill)-4 This is the ability to use the Jihad’s primary infantry weapon, the TRES X-Rifle plasma blaster. Add 1 to your skill for an IQ of 10 or 11, and 2 for an IQ of 12 or better. Modifiers: -2 if you’re used to a similar weapon (e.g., the Blood Jihad make of laser pistol that’s been your close companion since you started adventuring); -4 for an X-Rifle that’s in poor condition; -4 or more if you’re used to 20th-century handguns and not Jihad-make energy weapons. Desponge (Mental/Hard) Defaults to IQ-6 This is the ability to remove the influence of B’harne from an affected person. This skill is different from the Desponge spells in that no magic is required, only an understanding of the spongification process and the most common mental antitoxins (rock music, high-sugar/fat foods, caffiene, etc.). On a successful skill roll, you can desponge a single individual with the speed of the Instant Desponge spell. A critical success will also desponge any other minions that happen to be within 2d hexes! A failed skill roll will not affect the target. Recognize Sponge-Minion (Mental/Average) Defaults to IQ-5 Prerequisites: Psychology You can see sponge-minions! The telltale mannerisms of the average spongin are revealed clear as if they were wearing a big neon sign on their foreheads. On a successful skill roll, you can determine if the person you’re looking at is a sponge-minion or not. On a critical success, you will determine the spongin status of everybody within sight. However, on a critical failure, you will mistakenly tag a non-sponged person as a minion, and act accordingly. Savoir-Faire (Jihad) (Mental/Easy) Defaults to IQ-4 This is the skill of knowing how the Jihad works; the customs, traditions and regulations of his JAO and the Jihad in general. It also details the unwritten rules: what’s acceptable and what’s not, even if there’s no regulation about it, how to horse-trade for specialized equipment, how to rise in the ranks and why VRDET really keeps that slacker elf on the Mt. Blanca night desk. Ritual Magic (Lyran) (Mental/Very Hard) No default Prerequities: Magical Aptitude+2, Thaumatology-15 or higher This skill allows you to understand the spiritual and intellectual basis of Lyran rituals. Lyran magic is very literally millennia more advanced than anything humans have created to date, and as such it is incredibly difficult for a human mage to understand. On a successful skill roll, you will know exactly what is being attempted. On a critical success, you will know the exact particulars and will be able to attempt the ritual yourself. For a human perfoming a Lyran ritual, roll against Ritual Magic again - a critical success will mean the ritual worked. A success will not trigger the spell but will also not affect the mage or the surroundings. A failure will mean the ritual backfires on the mage, causing 1D6 damage. A critical failure will mean a catistrophic backfire, causing the mage to explode and 3D6 damage to everything in the surrounding area (the room, bystanders, objects, etc.). Symbol Drawing (Lyran) (Mental/Very Hard) Defaults to Ritual Magic(Lyran)-4 This is the art of understanding and creating Lyran magic symbols as used in their spellcraft. This skill determines the character’s knowledge of the symbols and his ability to draw them; people with the appropriate Ritual Magic skill may understand the symbols, but may be unable to draw them properly. The symbols help in conducting rituals. For every 2 points by which the practitioner makes his Symbol Drawing roll, add +1 to the ritual conducted over it. Symbols must be redrawn each time it is used for another ritual. Lyran symbols can be drawn with non-traditional materials (and considering the “traditional” materials used bythe Lyrans, ths is a very good thing indeed), but they are usually less effective: +1 for every 3 points of success. Xenology (Lyran) (Mental/Hard) Defaults to IQ-6 This is a basic overall knowledge (at least what the Jihad has been able to determine; see Chapter 4) of the Lyran species: biology, history, culture, mores and psychology. This information is extremely limited in the Jihad Universe, as the Lyrans come from so very far away and don’t leave much in the way of talkative captives (if they leave captives at all -- Lyrans are nasty characters). A successful Xenology roll will give +1 to any Tactics or Strategy roll if the opposing force is believed to be led by Lyrans. Maenads get an automatic +1 to their Xenology rolls, as the servants of Feral Jackson have much more familiarity with the Lyrans than normal humans or parahumans. Xenology (Barnoid) (Mental/Hard) Defaults to IQ-6 This is a basic overall knowledge (even sketchier than the Lyran information) of the extradimensional entities that B’harne has imported from wherever he came from originally. This includes M.E.N.S.A.Ns, Jello Beast creatures, the Hellwyrm’s subordinates and even Barney himself. As above, a successful Xenology roll will give +1 to Tactics or Strategy rolls in combat situations involving any of these creatures. NEW SPELLS: Gradual Desponge Regular Lets the caster remove the spongification effect from a person gradually. After one hour of exposure to this spell, target is fully and permanently relieved of the effects of spongification. As a side bonus, the subject gains a permanent +1 to save against future attempts at spongification. Duration: 5 minutes Cost: 1 to cast; 1 to maintain. Time to cast: 5 minutes Prerequisite: Wisdom Instant Desponge Regular Removes the effect of spongification from the target very, very quickly. Target does not, however, gain the +1 bonus to save against future spongification attempts. Duration: 10 seconds Cost: 4 to cast; no maintenance Time to cast: 10 seconds Prerequsite: Gradual Desponge Mass Desponge Area; Resisted by IQ Lets the caster attempt to desponge large numbers of people at one blow. Each sponge in the area affected is given one chance every 10 minutes to roll against their natural IQ to shake off the effects of spongification. Has the additional effect of engaging *all* beings in the area who fail a save vs. IQ — and the caster automatically — in some naturally-despongifying activity: music, discussion, etc. Nonspongified beings shake off the effects in seconds; sponges must wait until desponged or until the spell ends, whichever is first. Expensive, complex, dangerous, and less certain of result, it is of use in limited situations, but can have dramatic effects when used appropriately. Duration: 10 minutes Cost: 1 per hex to cast; 1 per hex to maintain Time to cast: 5 minutes Crossovers GURPS Time Travel/Alternate Earths World-jumpers have something of a tendency to accidentally fall into the JU. Most often stay and join up with the Jihad. On rare occasions, Jihaddi have fought enemy actions on alternate worlds, although with the Earth-only bias in effect these battles have been brief at best, and often connected to personal agendas of individual Jihaddi (see The Marraketh Connection for an example). In the Infinite Worlds campaign (in Time Travel), the JU is a Quantum 3 alternate world, surveyed by Infinity but not garnering any serious attention; the Hidden War hasn’t been made manifest in front of the I-Cops. If it should, though, Infinity will want to know whether or not Barney is a serious threat to Homeline. If they learn that VRDET has a method of crosstime travel that doesn’t follow the accepted parachronic phyisics, then things may get very interesting. GURPS Atlantis The Atlantis frames presented in GURPS Atlantis don’t exactly match the Atlantis presented in JU2, but the information is helpful for those who wish to search for the ruins of the sunken Atlantis, and perhaps clues to the Ancient Enemy. The possibility of Atlanteans still living is remote, but a creative GM might have some different ideas... GURPS Illuminati The Jihad and its enemy fit nicely into a “warring Secret Masters” Illuminati game. Using the Illuminati as presented in the text or something more traditional is also an option. The Hidden War also makes for an interesting turn of events for a traditional game... imagine what the PCs would do if instead of finding the Bavarians, they found Barney hiding behind events? GURPS Space The galactic ban on travel to Earth effected thanks to the War isn’t 100% perfect; between the Greys and the Salusians, there’s still a fair amount of covert extraterrestrial activity going on. Also, it’s not unimanginable that the Jihad may attempt to make a long-distance strike against the Lyran homeworld. Such an attack would be more symbolic than effective tactics, but a space strike mission would suck up a lot of the Jihad’s technical resources for a non-inconsiderable amount of time. GURPS Illuminati University If the leaders of the Jihad aren’t Illumni of IOU... On a halfway more serious note, IOU is the sort of setting that can exist in some out of the way corner of the JU, and is perfect for any PC requiring an Unusual Background to round out their character. The War may sometimes crash the campus, but more often than not, the two sides can manage to coexist peacefully — well, “peacefully” as defined by IOU, so the bloodfeuds are kept to a minimum. GURPS Black Ops Argus and the black ops make for a good “second-string” group, dedicated to keeping the mundanes safe from evil aliens. The Greys have more of an agenda than previously claimed, and there are other conspiracies running around the Jihad may not be aware of. The average black op may be a little overpowered for a JU game, but in a ten round match with the Jihad’s finest.. they’d probably call it a draw. Use Argus sparingly, if at all. GURPS In Nomine Now for something that’s really challenging... There are two ways to play this. If you favor In Nomine over the Jihad, then B’harne is obviously a high-ranking Balseraph of Nybbas (Demon of the Lowest Common Denominator) backed up with some very high-powered Vapula gadgets, and the Jihaddi are Soldiers of War/Sword/Faith/Lightning, commanded by senior non-Wordbound Servitors of their respective Superiors. That’s one way. If you favor the Jihad setting over In Nomine, then B’harne might not necesarily be part of the conflict between Heaven and Hell, and the Jihad may be a group set up by both Celestial relams to combat this upstart third threat. And you know, a lot of the Jihad ubertech looks suspiciously like Eli’s crafstmanship... GURPS Technomancer Technomancer is a good setting for a more “overt” Jihad. The main bases sit firmly in the normal-mana zones created by Trinity, and with Barney’s demons running about, the Jihad would be a larger, more organized group of monster hunters. It’s a pretty aggressive change from canon JU, though, and would be better for a one-shot “warped reality” game than for an extended canon campaign. Not to say that a JU/Technomancer crossover campaign isn’t impossible, but it’d take some serious work. GURPS Supers/International Super Teams Setting the Jihad in the IST universe is just adding more grist to the mill. In a world of supers, the Jihad may be somewhat redundant. Or it could be the UN Special Covert Operations Group, fighting horrors even the IST supers would have trouble confronting, with their special blend of magic, powers and superscience. GURPS Y2K Y2K is the book on post-apocalyptic gaming, and if the PCs should FUBAR in particularly impressive fashion, a game in a Y2K setting where the Jihad lost the war could be very entertaining. Further crossovers with Time Travel are possible here as well, as the players try to find a time machine that will take them back and correct mistakes. Campaign Seeds Okay, so you want to run a story/realtime game, but don’t have the time to really come up with a good, original storyline. So, in the interests of your sanity, we’ve come up with a few mini-adventure plots to help you out. Return to the Pacifica Adventure! VRDET’s WorldWatch satelite network has picked up a series of odd disturbances out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, near where the Lyran island stronghold of Pacifica sank in 1996 (incidentally, where a fair percentage of the remaining Jihad Old Guard were either MIA or KIA). The PCs are sent out with the latest in Zeta Squad/VRDET R&D/WEDJEE underwater combat and exploration gear (Scuba mecha, anyone?), to find out What’s Going On. Is it Lyrans trying to salvage the citadel? Equipment-strapped spoungin looking for remnants of Lyran biotech? Or is it something... else? Classic Jihad: The Blair Barney Project, or Yeah, We Know It’s A Ripoff Unless you’ve been living in a cave for the last couple of years, you know the story: Three students making a documentary vanish in the Maryland woods, and a year later the footage is found. What they didn’t tell you was that those unfortunates didn’t find a witch or a ghost, they instead stumbled on a nest of enemy soldiers — and the less said about what happened next, the better. The PCs are a team of rookies from the Doberman Empire, commissioned by the Fleet Commander to find the mutant spongin and wipe them out. But the FC didn’t expect that a low-ranking Lyran magus was riding herd on the creatures... In Memory Yet Green Cleaning up after a raid on a spoungin base, tantalizing clues are found, providing some idea of where the Blood Jihad vanished to in the aftermath of the X’hirjq invasion. Immediately the PCs are told by0 the Triumverate, in full official capacity no less, to follow the trail until they either run out of leads or find the Blood Jihad. Of course, this could be a trap, set up by the Liasons, but the only way to find out is to follow the road... The Enemy of My Enemy A group of TRES irregulars, cornered and out-gunned by a group of wyrm-minions, are rescued by a shadowy figure, who then turns on the Jihaddi! After the fight, the PCs learn that their erstwhile “rescuer” is (or was, depending on how frisky the PCs got during the fight) a member of The Order of Asissi, a secret cabal of warrior/monks, devoted to cleansing the Earth of “inhuman creatures.” Of course, since a good number of people who qualify as “inhuman” are Jihaddi, this naturally puts the Order on bad terms with the Jihad. Can the PCs (or some other group of PCs) manage to make peace with the Order to fight the common enemy? Or will the Jihad forever have to watch it’s collective back against an ambush by rampaging monks? Characters Included here are a group of standard characters from the Jihad Universe, already in progress. These characters all have players, but they can show up as NPCs (or PCs if the specific players are interested) in any game. (characters: Will Keith Mal Minerva Pupp Ari Rens/Shad DS Lord Reshtur - 5th Circle Lyran Mikey Crawford ----------- Where it all began.... “And just to think that it all began, on an uneventful morn...” -Bob Dylan From: Michael D. Breen (jpjoe@ix.netcom.com) Subject: [REQUEST] Information from Jihad Writers Newsgroups: alt.barney.dinosaur.die.die.die Date: 1996/02/26 Hello sports fans! Professor Malaclypse here! This is a polite request from all the people who participate in the various shared-world stories and RPing that the Jihad does. Over the years, we’ve created a lot of stuff that we’ve used in the shared-world. Now, because I’m kinda bored and need something to keep myself occupied, and because newbies to the Jihad are probably very confused by some things that aren’t in the main FAQ, I am going to try and create a Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Jihad. Sort of an encyclopedia detailing all of our creations. So, what do I want from you? Well, information about your additions to the Jihad Universe is what I’m looking for. If you want to submit information, make sure to make it short, and include these things: a) The name of the object/place/character (naturally) b) Who created it (RL name is preferred, but I’ll accept nicks if you don’t want to give out your name.) c) When it was first used in the Jihad shared-world d) A brief explanation of the object/place/character Submit it to me at jpjoe@ix.netcom.com with the Subject “Jihaddiverse Primer Submission.” Feel free to send attached files in MS Word 2.0 or Microsoft Write formats. —Prof. Malaclypse, EGfaBT — THIS IS A SUBVERSIVE ARTICLE! BURN YOUR NEWS SERVER AFTER READING!!! --------- GM's Apologia: "It's a weird feeling to sit in a Las Vegas hotel with a fantastic room service bill run up in 48 hours of total madness, knowing that just as soon as dawn comes, you're going to flee without paying a fucking penny." —Hunter S. Thompson Sweet monkey Jesus, it's been a long strange ride to this point. It all started ten years ago, when as an mostly-innocent high school student I downloaded off of a local BBS a copy of "Barneystein 3D," a fairly silly-ass mod to the equally silly-ass FPS Wolfenstein 3D. Included with the image mod was a good big old stack of fiction from alt.barney.dinosaur.die.die.die, including what most people consider the first Real Classic of anti-Barney fiction, "Day of the Barney." I read it, and I was hooked. Around the same time, I found a dialup shell account out of the University of Denver. The account was free, so access was limited, but I could wander around the Web and gopher — remember? — using lynx. And lo and behold, I found Deadslug’s Jihad website. Using lynx, I didn’t know how hideous & garish the design was, but the available content was even more interesting than the other stuff. When I managed to cajole my parents into getting a proper Internet service, my first destination was good old ab4d. Destiny had it in for me from the start, I guess. My early career was... unimpressive. Like many a newbie before me, I started my own JAO: The Evil Geniuses for a Better Tomorrow. Like many another newbie, I was laughed at by the older members until I had aged a little. I managed to show up in the middle of the great Serp Expulsion, so I don’t doubt there was a fair amount of paranoia where I couldn’t see. There would later be a great deal of paranoia where I could see, but that’s another story altogether Anyway, life went on, Phoenix and Pacifica happened. Between the two projects, destiny decided to fuck with my life once again. On the spur of the moment, I decided to build a general guide to the Jihad’s oft-confusing story/game world. The beginnings of the project were, to be frank, pretty weak. Not much more than a list and description of stuff found in the early stories. When DeadLock the Feral, the then up-and-coming de facto leader of the Jihad, took an interest in the project, it really began to get off the ground. Between the two of us, we decided that instead of a simple list of stuff, we should try and formulate a proper role-playing guide to the JU. We had long voice & IRC conversations about how to shape the universe. Most of it, however, was eventually lost. Partly because I lost the notes over time, but mostly because a lot of DeadLock’s suggestions were heavily influenced by White Wolf Game’s World of Darkness series. At the time (this would be near the end of Pacifica, IIRC — call it late 1996), DeadLock and the Maenads of the Holy Albino were the de facto storytellers in the Jihad, and they had a very strong bias towards WoD. Well, DL did anyway, and he was the driving force behind most of the Maenad storylines. I don’t like WoD. Never have, never will. And ultimately, DeadLock’s contributions to JU2 have been pulled out, as they’re no longer relevant to the group. Time passes. The Jihad changes oh so slowly. And still I kept at it. DeadLock left the Jihad, claiming boredom (and I don’t doubt there was some truth to that) but also having made a number of enemies along the way. Including, as it turned out, me. I was named a Leader of the Jihad — I still don’t really understand why — and I kept working on JU2. Brother Fireball came on the team to replace DL, and together we pulled off a miracle: We made sense of the muddle of stories that made up the Jihad and created the Jihad Universe 2.0. We released it to the Jihad and, well, nobody who hadn’t already seen it gave a damn. I got pissed and threw a public rant/resignation. A month later I was back at it, building bigger and better structures for the JU to rest upon. Slowly but surely, the great Work began to take shape out of a mountain of insane rantings, and now the true form can be seen. I have been consumed by this mad gibberish, swallowed like Jonah into the a world where danger hides behind a kidvid show, mad scientists lurk underneath mountains opening holes into other dimensions, Atlantis waits under the sea for the foolish to pry her secrets out, and anybody with the eyes to See and Understand can grab a Really Big Gun and help Save the World. It’s been ten years since I first read about this group, and much has changed. Almost all of the old guard from 1994 are gone. DeadLock’s gone, JFox, Arsenal, J-Rock, Owsen, Windigo, Shardik... all names of former Great Leaders who’ve departed for warmer climates. The Jihad itself has dwindled from a cast of hundreds to a mere dozen active members. The message boards and web pages are all collecting dust. But. Those dozen people left of the Jihad have a great deal of fire to them. They’re continuing to add to the structure that I built, creating newer and greater monuments to one of the Internet’s oldest running gags. As a GM, I couldn’t be prouder of any of them. It’s to them, katster, Zibblsnrt, Aris_TGD, KillJoy, Fireball, Shadur, Tangaroa, Puppeteer, Nemesis and Jeff Hurley, that I dedicate this final-and-I-mean-it-dammit version of the Jihad Universe 2.0. As for me, I’m outta here. Ave Atque Vale. “3-laM” Sean Malaclypse Breen April 9, 2004