Welp, nobody told me to stop after the last one, so I'm back with another Trinity Continuum character. This time for Trinity Continuum: Æon!
This shouldn't be as long as my Trinity core post, though like the Trinity Continuum game line as a whole it does assume some familiarity with the process as presented in that post. Not that I'm gonna skip important stuff, but I'm not going to explain as much.
As I mentioned in that prior post, Trinity Continuum: Æon (which I'm gonna abbreviate as either TC: Æon or just Æon depending on how the mood takes me) is a sci-fi setting that encompasses many genres. The book picks up in the year 2123, and Earth is staring down multiple threats from the stars. First there are the Aberrants, quantum-powered metahumans who first ushered in a golden age and then turned on humanity over the course of a few decades. (This is extremely reductive, but I'm trying to keep the elevator pitch short here.) They were driven away but have since returned with a vengeance, menacing Earth and a few of Earth's colonies elsewhere in space. Next are the Chromatics, an alien species that came out of nowhere with light-bending powers and declared war on humanity. And then there's the Coalition, extraterrestrial conquerors coming for Earth with dark designs.
But fortunately humanity has psions, humans whose natural psychic potential has been activated by tanks of biotech goo called the Prometheus Chambers, and with the help of the Psi Orders and organizations such as the Æon Trinity are the first line of defense against all of these threats.
But I mentioned before a broad range of genres, and that's because different corners of the setting lend themselves to different styles of science-fiction. You can take to the stars in the Leviathan jumpships for Star Trek-style exploration and diplomacy, you can do cyberpunk dystopia in the Federated States of America or Nippon. You can do military sci-fi in the style of Starship Troopers fighting Aberrants or the Chromatics, or even get into some kinda-sorta post-apocalyptic wasteland stuff dealing with the damage the Aberrants' return has done to central Europe. Or you can delve into the more secretive threats and mysteries of the setting a little more in the style of Babylon 5. There's others but you get the point.
The first edition leaned a lot more on the mysteries and conspiracies stuff. As good as the game was, it's easy enough to look back and see just how very... 90's White Wolf it was. While a much more positive setting than, say, the World of Darkness, it was laden with a lot of morally-gray conspiracy material typical of the era. Pretty much every faction had (or was implied to have) a sinister 'doing evil for the greater good' element to it. The closest thing to an exception was ISRA, the Clairsentient Order, who were led by someone whose plans were so circuitous and inscrutable (due to a complicated relationship with linear time) that it was difficult to trust them.
The modern edition, TC: Æon, does a 180º on this element, making it clear that even the sneakier good guys are still good guys. I mean, it's not all space rainbows and cyber-daisies, but by default a player character from the main allegiances isn't going to suddenly discover that they're the baddies.
Also, before I get into it, I've got a bit of a personal history with Æon. The original edition was the first non-D&D RPG I got into back in high school (yeah, that's right, I was familiar with Trinity years before I'd ever heard of the World of Darkness), and the first RPG I played where the group actually got past the character creation session and played a story. Not only do I still have my original core book, I still have the free quickstart I picked up at Waldenbooks that led me to it. Which made it all the more meaningful when I was fortunate enough to get to work on several TC: Æon books, including the core. In fact, that story we played back in high school was a major inspiration for the opening fiction I wrote for Prometheus Unbound.
And with that, I think I'll get into it. Again, if you have any questions, comments, so on and so forth, feel free to comment here or anyplace else I'm active online. (For example I wouldn't be averse to writing up a different type of character for TC: Æon, like a Talent, psiad, alien, etc., if there's any interest.) As with my previous character, I'm probably going to stick with material from just the TC core and Æon core, but we'll see.
Step One: Concept
Actually, now that I'm thinking about that game I played in high school, I think I might do a character loosely inspired by the one I played in that game. That one was a Telepath from the FSA working for the Ministry of Noetic Affairs, a quasi-independent Chinese government agency, sort of on loan to the Æon Trinity to investigate reports of an Aberrant cult in the area where he grew up. He really played up the 'government spy' angle, had a system for secretly communicating with his superiors through coded messages on a TV show's forum, the works. Honestly, he was kinda cringe for a number of reasons in retrospect, but I was a teenager.
I'm gonna keep the thing where this character -- actually, hold up, gonna name him now. I'm actually tempted to suggest he's in some way descended from or related to Martin from my previous post, I'm just worried it'll look silly. But unless I change my mind and edit all this, I'm gonna go ahead and do it. Let's name him... I dunno, Adrian. Adrian Taylor. Maybe he goes by 'Ryan' as a nickname -- not that it fits with how his first name is pronounced, but maybe it's a fake name... actually, lemme start over.
He's from the Federated States of America, a future version of the US that fell completely to fascism during the Aberrant War, run by a military junta and metacorporations (what some settings call megacorporations). (This isn't as deliberate commentary as you'd think -- the FSA changed very little between editions, and the first time around it was written in the mid-90's and the current edition was written during the Obama administration.) The big cities are advanced arcologies, but Adrian's not from those. He's from one of the areas that's probably not fundamentally a hell of a lot different from daily life now, though not as bad as some parts of the Midwest that more closely resemble Pandora from Borderlands.
I'm thinking he had kind of a hardscrabble life, probably had to do some sneaky/shady stuff to get by growing up, maybe he got involved in some underground resistance groups. Nothing too intense, probably mostly low-key surveillance and maybe a little smuggling, probably picked up some infiltration skills in the process. He started using 'Ryan' as an alias when tinkering around with this stuff.
During all this he also got a bit of an education through the 'Knowledge In Motion' program maintained by Orgotek (an FSA-based metacorp that's also the Electrokinetic Psi Order and is actually a force for good), which is like a bookmobile except it's an entire mobile school and not just a library. And one day, he partook of the offered free latency testing that's part of the KIM program, and tested with a strong telepathic latency.
So he got his free ride out of the FSA with plans to come back later and do what he could to help the people there, trained with the Ministry, but didn't stick with them. But he didn't go back to Orgotek, either. Either because of stories passed down through the family or having trust issues with a metacorp or both, he instead drifted to another organization with its home in the FSA -- the Æon Trinity, the 2123 incarnation of the Æon Society.
I'm thinking he's found a home in Proteus Division (Æon's security and operations section), using the skills he developed when he was younger for bigger things along with his telepathic powers. Actually, rereading the Æon Trinity write-up in the Æon core, I'm reminded that within Proteus is Section Juno, which consults for and collaborates with law enforcement to solve crimes, track terrorists, that sort of thing. Perfect.
I'm gonna summarize this concept as "Telepathic detective."
Okay, and now I'm gonna do Aspirations. Since I'm not building him for a specific game, I'm going to write him up assuming he'll be where I figure he'd be when he gets dragged into a story -- in the FSA, near either Trinity HQ in Chicago or where he grew up, which would be the Appalachian District. I'm sort of going with the mindset of what his informal to-do list would have been before plot intervenes, which occurs to me is a solid way to handle that for these posts.
Also, the more I think about Adrian, I'm imagining he's still got that rebellious streak. The first short-term Aspiration is going to be "Make contact with a local resistance group." Either this'll mean checking in with a group he already knows and just making sure they're okay, or touching base with a new group he's trying to get in good with. Again, making no assumptions about the game, but if it's taking place in the FSA he'd be at least wanting to funnel information to them.
The second short-term Aspiration is "Do something to undermine the FSA." Depending on the Storyguide, this could be a largely symbolic gesture like distracting a cop away from someone putting up anti-FSA graffiti, or something a little more substantial like making one of the local government suits late for work. Though that said, while I haven't picked out exactly what abilities he'll have, I think as a general rule he's not going to use his powers for that sort of thing -- he's not going to screw around in someone's head unless it's going to save lives. (But if saving lives happens to coincide with a little bit of rebellion, then so be it.)
The long-term Aspiration is... gonna need a little more thought. Actually, let's go with something broad that can apply to a few different scenarios. "Advance my career within the Trinity." He'll want to get to a point where he's got some pull to direct resources against the FSA and/or help the place where he grew up, as far as the Trinity would allow him.
I'd also pick his psi order if he were sticking with one as part of this step of character creation, but we've already been over that actually.
Step Two: Paths
Okay, three Paths, each with their own Skills, Edges, and connections. As a reminder, check my TC Core character post for more detail on the process.
First, Origin Path. TC: Æon and its supplements have some new Origin Paths, but I'm gonna go back to the core for this -- Street Kid hits the right tone for what I've got in mind. So I'm going to put two dots into Larceny and the third into Survival. His Street Kid Edges are going to be Always Prepared and Danger Sense, which respectively mean he's effectively immune to the consequences of losing ambush rolls, and can, um, sense danger. Pretty much what that one says on the tin.
His Street Kid community connection is going to be a local resistance group, maybe someone he's not tight in with yet but he can at least make a few calls and try to wrangle a favor. His contact will be Anna Kutcher, a friend from his troubled youth (who conveniently happened to relocate to Chicago, if he's bumping around there), but he's made the effort to keep in touch and she still knows people who know people and thus will have the 'Well-connected' tag.
Next, Role Path. I'm tempted to go with The Sneak but I feel like maybe his past should be more prologue than necessarily who he is now. In other words, he's an investigator, not a spy. So instead his Role Path is going to be Detective. So with that, to his Skills I'm adding a dot each in Aim, Enigmas, and Integrity. His Edges will be... y'know, I was waffling on this as it came up under Street Kid as well, but I'm gonna take a one-dot Alternate Identity, and maybe turn 'Ryan' into a full-blown false persona (named Ryan Anderson) with enough credentials to pass cursory inspection -- enough to rent a hotel room without being noticed or get past a police checkpoint, but not enough to get a government job or infiltrate a cartel. His other Edge dot is going into Swift, meaning he can be fast when he wants to be -- if he's running to a place and speed is of the essence, his Speed Scale is increased by one. I'll probably get more into Scale when I do an Aberrant character, but basically this means all other things being equal he's going to outrun most humans without the Edge.
His Detective community connection is going to be local law enforcement, with whom he's expected to maintain a cordial working relationship. His contact, however, will be someone completely unrelated, a reporter named Darrell Turner. Adrian and Darrell come from similar backgrounds and regularly (albeit discreetly) trade information for their respective jobs, making Darrell a good candidate for the 'Informant' tag.
And now, Society Path. And there is an Æon Trinity Society Path in the Æon core book, but I think for this one I am going to open up the excellent Mission Statements supplement and take the Proteus Division Society Path. Where Triton Division is the mind of Æon (research and science), and Neptune Division is the voice of Æon (communications and administration), Proteus Division is the hand of Æon... or sometimes the fist. (for the record, that 'fist' line is in the book, smarter people than me came up with it) I'm gonna put his Skill dots into Close Combat, Humanities, and Pilot. His Edge dots are going into Far-Reaching Influence, which appears in the Æon core. Being a member of a famous humanitarian-aid organization with a reputation for saving and helping people can open doors, and he gets the benefits of being able to say "I'm with the Æon Trinity, we're here to help."
(Far-Reaching Influence is actually required for people taking the core version of the Æon Trinity Society Path, and I don't know if that applies to more specific Paths like the one in Mission Statements, but it's good so I'm taking it anyways.)
His Society Path contact is going to be Matthew Harrier, his recruiter and early mentor. Proteus Division normally leans towards psions with more actively-physical powers -- biokinetics, psychokinetics, and teleporters. Telepaths are usually picked up by Neptune Division, and I suspect that Adrian's inquiries into working for Æon might have led to some nudging in that direction, until Harrier -- an older agent, possibly even a veteran of the Aberrant War -- stepped in. Matthew picked up on something in Adrian's background, maybe the conspicuous 'shady activities with resistance groups'-shaped gaps he left in his application, and headhunted him for Proteus. He doesn't spend as much time in the field as Adrian because of his age, but he's the helpful uncle Adrian never had growing up, ready to offer advice, help him go over data, or even just serve as a spare pair of eyes. He'll have the 'Investigator' tag.
(Honestly, thinking about it and looking back over, I can see a slightly-alternate version of Adrian being recruited into Section Minerva, which doesn't officially exist and doesn't do sneaky underground stuff for the sake of plausible deniability and may or may not be connected to Pharaoh's Lightkeepers. In fact, forget I mentioned it and I'm not at all thinking it may be an interesting long-term career path for him. If they existed, which they don't. Wink.)
His community connection is going to be UN security -- I'm not sure if there's a particular division or office he'd be working with, that's a little beyond my knowledge. But the UN and the Trinity work pretty closely together and I can see him being a regular consultant for them on their own security stuff but as well as working with them on counter-terrorism assignments. I can easily imagine him being a Path contact for a UN-aligned character, in fact.
Before we move on, for reference's sake: right now, Adrian's Skills are Aim 1, Close Combat 1, Enigmas 1, Humanities 1, Integrity 1, Larceny 2, Pilot 1, Survival 1. (Real jack of all trades, this one) His Edges are currently Alternate Identity 1 (Ryan Anderson), Always Prepared, Danger Sense, Far-Reaching Influence, Swift.
Step Three: Skills, Skill Tricks, and Specialties
Now I get six more dots of Skills. Let's put two more into Larceny, a dot into Empathy as part of his telepathic training, a dot into Enigmas since he's in theory supposed to be solving crimes and mysteries... lemme see, two dots left... one into Athletics and one into Culture. That gives him a final spread of Aim 1, Athletics 1, Close Combat 1, Culture 1, Empathy 1, Enigmas 2, Humanities 1, Integrity 1, Larceny 4, Pilot 1, Survival 1. Pretty broad, even for me, but I like flexibility.
Now I get a Skill Trick for a Skill at three or higher, and as I only have one of those let's have a look at the Larceny list... Oh, lovely. Set a Thief lets me spend a Momentum to add Adrian's Larceny Skill as bonus dice to an Enigmas or other relevant Skill roll for preventing or detecting uses of Larceny or other method of intrusion. That tracks. And he gets a specialty for Larceny as well, and lets go with Infiltration.
Step Four: Attributes
Okay, first, one dot in each Attribute and then I prioritize the Arenas to distribute the rest. It's kind of a coin toss between Physical and Mental here... eh, let's go Physical. So those six dots are going to be evenly spread between Might, Dexterity, and Stamina. Mental will be second with four dots, which will be one Intellect, two in Cunning, and one in Resolve. Finally is Social, which is going to be a dot of Manipulation and a dot of Composure.
Now I pick a Favored Approach, which is going to be Finesse -- this is a character who doesn't approach problems head-on, who always looks for the other angles. So that'll add a dot to Dexterity, Cunning, and Manipulation.
So we wrap up Step Four with Might 3, Dexterity 4, Stamina 3, Intellect 2, Cunning 4, Resolve 2, Presence 1, Manipulation 3, and Composure 2.
Step Five: Apply Psion Template
And now we get into the powers, which all come in this one step rather than being divided up like with Talents. Though for the record, I could play a Talent if I wanted -- Talents and the human excellence they represent exist in every era of the Continuum, which is why they're in the core book. But this character is going to be a psion with the Aptitude of Telepathy.
He starts with a Psi trait of 2, which determines some base statistical stuff and sets him up with some points he can spend on powers. All psions get basic powers depending on their Aptitude, and Adrian's no exception. The first basic power of Telepathy is Mindscan, which lets him detect minds within a certain range, can recognize specific minds, and tell the difference between humans and other species. He can use this at no cost, though he can spend a Psi point to increase the range. Then there's Mindspeak, which lets him open up a communications channel between himself and other people in his line of sight (as long as they consent to it).
And, going by the order this stuff is presented in the book, he gets a free dot in one of his Favored Approach Attributes -- a side-effect of the Prometheus Chamber activating his powers and just generally enhancing him. So that'll be a fourth dot of Manipulation.
And now I get four dots among the Telepathy Modes. Those Modes are Rapport (empathic senses and control), Mindshare (thought transmission and mind reading), and Psychbending (mental influence over others, which can be used to control or heal). Each dot comes with a power, as in many 'Dots & D10s' systems, though unlike many of them (including first edition Æon), TC: Æon psions aren't strictly limited to these powers. The book encourages using them as guidelines for alternate effects (with deeper rules in this regard in the Prometheus Unbound supplement, linked above), but psions can also spend extra points and increase the Difficulty of their rolls to access higher-dot effects. Which, if you're familiar with these sorts of games, is actually a Pretty Big Deal.
First is going to be a dot in Psychbending. He wouldn't want to get past that first dot, but the first dot power is Mind Shield and he's definitely going to take that. Then I'm taking a dot in Rapport, which has the listed power of Sense Emotion, which... um... lets him sense emotions. The other two dots are going into Mindshare, the first level of which is Network and is almost a must-have power in a game because not only does it allow for a telepathic 'group chat,' but it also facilitates psions' ability to combine their powers for greater effects. It almost feels anticlimactic to mention the second-dot power of Mindshare, called Surface Skim, which lets Adrian read surface thoughts (though he can talk to someone to try and get them to think about certain subjects).
As an aside, I could have put one (but only one) of those dots into an Auxiliary Mode, which would have given him a single dot of a single Mode of another Aptitude. It would give him the basic powers of the Aptitude and that single power, but he would be limited to that one dot and wouldn't be able to push beyond the limits of his dots like he can with Telepathy. Also, he wouldn't be able to combine that power with Telepathy in any meaningful sense.
But as I'm not doing that, that leaves Adrian with an allocation of Rapport 1, Mindshare 2, Psychbending 1.
Step Six: Finishing Touches
So first I get an extra Attribute dot I can put anywhere. Or, being a psion, I can instead take a third dot of Psi. I'm going to do that, because I don't see any Attributes that desperately need to be higher than they are (he's weak in Presence, and that's fine for this character, but on another I might take the Attribute dot), but also because a Psi dot costs a little more than Attributes in experience points and unless you plan to never buy Psi above two there's little reason not to take the free dot now.
So that sets him up with a final Attribute lineup of Might 3, Dexterity 4, Stamina 3, Intellect 2, Cunning 4, Resolve 2, Presence 1, Manipulation 4, and Composure 2.
(Incidentally, if I'd made Adrian a quantakinetic, a teleporter, or given him an Auxiliary Mode from either Aptitude, I'd be required to increase his Psi because they require a certain 'strength' of latency and are thus rarer. That's why the option is there.)
And now he gets four more dots of Edges. I'm tempted to take some psion-specific Edges, but not really seeing anything that really fits because I feel like Adrian sees his Telepathy more as a tool to be applied to... hold up. Checking... ah-hah. Okay, revising that thought. Prometheus Unbound has an Edge that lets him apply Mode dots to mundane Skill rolls when appropriate (up to the level of the Edge or Mode, whichever is lower). So as much for effect as anything else, I'm putting a single dot in Consolidated Effort. But I'm gonna go full-mundane stuff from the TC core for the rest, with two dots for Tough Cookie, which gives him a level of Soft Armor (think extra soak, for those of you familiar with other Dots & D10s games), and the last dot in Iron Will, which helps him resist pain, interrogation, etc.
So that gives him a final Edge spread of Alternate Identity 1 (Ryan Anderson), Always Prepared (1), Consolidated Effort 1, Danger Sense (1), Far-Reaching Influence (2), Iron Will 1, Swift (1), Tough Cookie (2).
And now, looking at health levels, Adrian starts with the standard Injury conditions but since he has Stamina 3 he also gets an additional Injured level. So between that and his Tough Cookie Edge, he'll be a little tougher to take down in a fight.
And, of course, his starting Defense is 1. I think this step in the book is just to note that it's a thing, because I don't think there's a lot that increases the default rating. (Watch, whatever character I make next is going to somehow start with a Defense of 8 or something)
One more thing, the book doesn't go out of its way to point this out but it's on the sheet so for context... Adrian, like any living thing capable of formatting biotech, has a Tolerance rating that determines how much gear he can synch up with his noetic pattern and benefit from. I'm not getting into equipment on this for simplicity's sake, but I'm going to note that his Tolerance is his Stamina + Psi, so it's 6.
But there we go. Adrian Taylor, aka Ryan Anderson, grew up kinda rough until his discovered latency got him a ticket out. But he came back with new skills, powers, and connections, hoping to do something -- anything -- for the people he thinks need it most, however long it takes. I'm thinking he's probably somewhere between 25-30 at the start of a game, in good shape with a few interesting scars, keeps his hair short, and mostly dresses in nondescript grays and blacks so as not to stand out. (My mental image of him keeps coming back to David Call as Nick Lane on Fringe.) His most distinguishing feature is probably his Æon Trinity pin, which he always wears unless inadvisable for security reasons like sneaking into someplace a Trinity operative shouldn't be.
And as always, we finish with the character sheet. Thanks for reading.
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