Perry Rhodan in Cortex Prime Heroic - Part 2

Disclaimer

All rights regarding Perry Rhodan and any parts belonging to the series of novels under that name belong to Verlag Pabel-Moewig in Rastatt. This page is a fan product as described here by the series' editor in chief.

All rights regarding Cortex Prime are licensed to Magic Vacuum Design Studio. The Cortex Prime Heroic System is in a beta/testing state right now and details can be found on the Kickstarter page here. I would like to thank Magic Vacuum Design Studio for the permission to write about this and to publish the following character files.

 

Perry Rhodan in Cortex Prime Heroic - Part 2

Last week I ran my Cortex Prime Heroic scenario in the Perry Rhodan setting at a local con (HeinzCon) again. So, I decided to share the remaining three character files I prepared for that session.

Sample character files

IRMINA KOTSCHISTOWA

Affiliations:           
Solo   D10     
Buddy D6 
Team D8


Distinctions:        
Not an old lady
“I can create life”
Smart but controlled temper

Power Sets:               

Mutant
                     
Cell Control D8
Psionics D8
Empathy D8
Psychic Resistance D6

SFX:  Healing. Add D8 to dice pool when helping others to recover stress.  Spend 1 PP to step up physical stress or trauma of someone else.
SFX:  Focus.  If a pool includes a Mutant power, you may replace two dice of equal size with one die +1 step larger.
SFX: Reprogram cells. Add a D6 and step up your effect die by +1 when inflicting physical complication on a target using Cell control.
Limit: Exhausted. Shutdown any Mutant power and gain 1 PP. Recover power by activating an opportunity or during a transition Scene.
Limit: Shaken Confidence. Step back all Mutant powers by one step to gain 1 PP.  Activate an opportunity to recover.

Special Agent of the Cosmic League
Energy Shield (Enhanced Durability) D8     
Fly (Combat Powersuit) D6
Combined Beam Pistol  (Weapon) D6
                     
SFX: Cell activator. Ignore stress, trauma, or complications caused by aging or poison.
Limit: Gear Shutdown any Cosmic League power and gain 1 PP. Recover power by activating an opportunity or during a Transition Scene.


Specialties:
Medical Master D10
Science Master D10
Psionic Expert D8
Psych Expert D8

Milestones:       

“But where is the ethics in this”
1 XP When you use your mutant power to alter the genes of a non player character or refuse to do so in a dangerous situation.
3 XP When ...
10 XP When you use your mutant power to kill a living being or cure a deadly disease.                                     

“Never call me old”
1 XP When you ...   
3 XP When you ...
10 XP When you ...

Bio:

Irmina Kotschistowa was born on April 26th in 3412 on Terra (Kirgisistan). She is an excellent scientist on the field of bio chemics and worked with the Cosmic League League's leading scientist Geoffry Abel Waringer on the planet of Last Hope.

Irmina Kotschistowa is of medium height, slender but rather curvaceous. Her hair is long and very dark with grey strains. Although her biological age is 175 years and her real age is some centuries she despises to be called an old lady.

Her special ability is called metabiological grouping, i.e. she can control biological cells. With this ability she is able to cure diseases, but also to cause deadly cancerous mutations. Moreover, she can reprogram the DNA to condition the cells for a specific long term behavior, even when she isn't there.

Each time she uses her mutant abilities to harm other beings Irmina feels a strong guilt.

PERRY RHODAN

Affiliations:      
Solo   D8
Buddy D6
Team D10

Distinctions:
Knight Of The Deep
Risk Pilot
Heir To The Universe

Power Sets:        

Elected Representative of IT
Superhuman Intuition D10
Enhanced Reflexes D8
Enhanced Stamina (personal cell activator) D8
Psychic Resistance D6

SFX: Instant Situational Awareness. "Instant Switcher". Spend one 1 PP to reroll.
SFX: Aura of a Knight. Ignore psychic stress or trauma for 1 PP
SFX: "The Terranian". Ignore the highest die of your roll. On a success step down the highest die in the doom pool by one for 1 PP
Limit: Exhausted. Shutdown any Mutant power and gain 1 PP.  Recover power by activating an opportunity or during a Transition Scene.


Speaker of the Cosmic League
Energy Shield (Enhanced Durability) D8
Fly (Combat Powersuit) D6
Combined Beam Pistol (Weapon) D6

SFX: Cell activator. Ignore stress, trauma, or complications caused by aging or poison.
Limit: Gear Shutdown any Hanse power and gain 1 PP. Recover power by activating an opportunity or during a Transition Scene.

Specialties:    
Combat Master D10
Cosmic Master D10
Covert Master D10
Psych Master D10
Menace Expert D8
        

Milestones:        

"The scar itches..."
1 XP When you
3 XP When you
10 XP When you

?
1 XP When you
3 XP When you
10 XP When you

Bio

Perry Rhodan (born June 8, 1936, in Manchester, Conneticut) is a Terran and wear a cell activator. He was the first person to fly to the moon. With the aid of the Arkonides and their superior technology that he found there, he united humanity and led them to the stars.

He is tall, of slender, almost gaunt stature. The eyes are gray-blue, his hair is dark blond.

On the one hand Perry Rhodan's tremendous logical thinking, his sense of cosmic connections and the ability to adapt to new circumstances in no time at all - Rhodan is therefore repeatedly referred to as an "instant switcher". On the other hand, a dry sense of humor characterizes the human being Perry Rhodan.

For bystanders but especially his intuition is legendary, which has led him to nearly always make the right decisions based only on fragmentary pieces of information, the scope of which he could not estimate at the time.

Currently, Perry Rhodan leads a fleet of Galactic ships that has set out to investigate the Frostrubin and the Endless Armada.

ICHO TOLOT

Affiliations:      
Solo   D6
Buddy D10
Team D8

Distinctions:
Former Agent of Seth Apophis
A Friend of Mankind
Carries the Heritage of the Beasts

Power Sets:        

Halutian
Godlike Durability D12
Superhuman Strength D10
Superhuman Speed D10
Superhuman Intellect D10
Superhuman Reflexes D10

Superhuman Stamina D10

SFX: Planning Brain. Step up or double a Haluter die against a single target. Remove the highest rolling die and add three dice for your total.
SFX: Focus. If a pool includes a Haluter power, you may replace two dice of equal size with one die +1 step larger.
SFX: Increase Cell Structural Density. Spend 1 PP to ignore physical stress or trauma unless caused by psionic attack.
Limit: Urge Laundering. Shutdown Superhuman Intellect for 1 PP. Recover power by activating an opportunity or during a Transition Scene.
Limit: Oops. Turn a Haluter Power Trait into a Complication to gain 1 PP. Recover on an opportunity or during a Transition Scene.

Scientist from Halut
Fly (Red Combat Suit) D10
Combined Beam Pistol (Weapon from Halut) D10

SFX: Cell activator. Ignore stress, trauma, or complications caused by aging or poison.
SFX: Hyperphysical tinkerer. Add a d6 and step up your effect die by +1 when using Scientist from Halut to create assets involving hyperphysics
Limit: Gear Shutdown any Hanse power and gain 1 PP. Recover power by activating an opportunity or during a Transition Scene.

Specialties:    
Combat Master D10
Cosmic Expert D8
Psych Expert D8
Science Expert D8
Tech Master D10
Menace Expert D8
        

Milestones:        

"My little one"
1 XP When you
3 XP When you
10 XP When you

Honest Character
1 XP When you
3 XP When you
10 XP When you

Bio

Icho Tolot is a Halutian scientist who became one of humanity's most loyal friends. It is a typical Halutian. Its size of about 3.50 m at almost two tons of weight under terrestrial conditions impressed almost every opponent.

Tolot is adventurous, sincere, sincere and, like all Halutians, loves its independence. After a brief study of humanity, its enthusiasm for humans grows. As - like all Halutians - two-sexed beings, in time it develops a kind of maternal instinct for the Terranians, sees them as its "children" and loyally supports them. It often calls them "my little one". It has an intimate relationship with Pucky in particular.

His notorious laughter is so loud that it can sometimes lead to health damage in his environment. For example, the left eardrum of a ship's commander burst when Tolot laughed out loud next to him.

Halutians have two brains separated by a horizontal bone plate: The upper one is called the Ordinary Brain and takes care of the bodily functions and feelings and thus corresponds approximately to a human brain. The lower, the Planning Brain is an organic computer with the power of positronics. It allows the Halutians to draw absolutely logical conclusions quickly and precisely and perform complex calculations. A Halutians smallest perceptible time unit is ten nanoseconds.

In case of danger, thanks to their special metabolism, Halutians can deliberately transform their body structure on a molecular-atomic basis. There body is thus harder than Terkonit steel, so it already requires a heavy ship's gun to hurt a Halutian in this state. Thanks to their metabolism, they can survive five hours without a protective suit in a vacuum.

My Review of Justifiers - Das Abenteuerspiel for #RPGaMonth

My Review of Justifiers - Das Abenteuerspiel for #RPGaMonth

This month, February, I am reading an older game from 2010 called Justifiers - Das Abenteuerspiel. Some may remember that there was a Science Fiction game called Justifiers released at the end of the eighties.

Part 1

Markus Heitz whose name is very prominent on the cover is a successful German fantasy novelist who was an avid player of said game. When the opportunity presented itself he bought the rights to the setting and wrote two great novels in the Justifiers universe. Moreover, he was the editor of a series of about 10 book from other authors in the same cosm.

So in 2010 a new German edition of the Justifiers game was released by Ulisses Spiele (which may be more known for the new Torg - Eternity nowadays) and that is what I am reading right now.

It is a 300 something page hardcover in DinA5 format, i.e. about half US letter format. It starts with a 20 pages short story by Heitz which puts you right into the world.

The setting itself is a very grim Sci Fi world in 3042 AD where large corporations are in control of complete planets. Since not everything such a corporation does is legal or achievable without violence  they employ a special kind of soldiers, called Justifiers. The rpg is about squad level military actions done by those Justifiers who are more often than not half-man half-animal characters. These products of genectical engineering of animal DNA into humans are called Betas and they get some of their characteristics from the type of animal like Cat, Armadillo or Bison.

Part 2

Pages 52 to 156 contain the chapters on Rules and Character Creation. The rules part is rather short, only 34 pages and of those eight pages dwell on explaining what a pen & paper is and the obligatory text example of a group playing the game.

The rules are rather simple. Each character has three attributes Physical, Mental and Spiritual and subordinate to the attribute there is a number of skills. Physical skills are athletics, ranged and close combat, survival and resistance. Mental skills are computer usage, stealth and some more. Spiritual skills include intuition, perception and so forth. In total there 15 skills. Skill checks are done by combining the attribute and skill value and taking the corresponding number of d6 into the dice pool. Modifiers can increase or decrease the number of dice. Each 5 or 6 in a roll gives one success point and you need a certain amount of successes to achieve what you had in mind.

Combat is as you would expect, but with very few hit points. Some things are special nevertheless:

1. at the beginning of a fight each player gets a roll and with a success all players get the complete stats of the enemy
2. initiative is done by going clockwise round the table, rotating the starting player like in a traditional card game.
3. characters never die from hits instead become unconscious in the worst case.
4. besides the standard actions in a combat like move, defend, attack. There are also certain special actions depending on the scene which are prepare by the GM and for which special action cards are dealt.

The last point is a bit puzzling. The idea is that you run premade scenarios which will already include such special action cards, but one could imagine preparing such before the game in other cases as GM. To add a certain action feeling each character has fate points that work in the usual way.

I have not played this game, but I played another game called John Sinclair from the same author with similar rules (without the special cards) and must say that it generally works very fine. Combats are fast and fun.

The next chapter is about character creation. Character creation starts by picking a race, i.e. the type of animal that was used to enhance the human dna. The rules has 10 such beta types: armadillo,  bison, polar bear, fox, cat, rhino, chimpanese, tiger, racoon and wolf. Each type has certain specialities. Armadillos have body armor, bison charcters are strong etc. Interestingly the book also shows images beta types that  are known from the novels but for which there aren’t rules like a badger beta. Next you pick the specialization of the character within the squad like pilot, field medic, technician, weapon expert. Specialization gives certain perks/advantages, equipment and skill points. Next you distribute points to the attributes and certain skills. Furthermore, you get a number of adventure points to buy additional advantages or equipment.

Since the characters play in military squadron each player has a rank and a number of mission points that she or he must fulfil before be allowed to leave the corporation and became a free person. The mightier the beta type the more of these points are necessary to become free. The main thing is: if a character isn’t free he or she isn’t allowed to keep what the find on a mission other than to buy it with adventure points.

At the end we get 10 example characters. One for each beta type.

Part 3

The last part of the book offers the rules for playing as a group, i.e. the creation of the spaceship and the game mechanics for flying and fighting said ship. The rules are similar to what is described in the second part.

Next, there is a section about the exploration mode. This is a more boardgame-like system where you do a squarecrawl instead of a hexcrawl. Players a given certain cards and they make special skill checks based on the effects of the cards.

Finally, the last third is a complete scenario for the characters on the world "Holz-11" which offers a mission with a mix of the explorative board-game like mode and the more normal rpg mode.

I will not go into details because to be honest I have only skimmed through the scenario. Why?

To a certain extend my interest in the game ceased to continue after I had understood the rules and the boardgame-like aspects didn't go so well in reading it. So, be warned: playing might be totally different and what reads strange might actually be much fun on the table, but for me it made the impression of moreorless repetetive die rolling mechanics without much story or suspension. I have played a monster hunter companion game with similar mechanics called John Sinclair and the rpg part will ceratinly be fun, but as in John Sinclair I fully expect a certain balancing problem. The be good at the squarecrawling you need a character who is specialised on certain things, but then he or sche sucks at fighting and vice versa. I would expect that a certain part of the party are always a bit bored because they can't do meaningful contributions.

Outlook

It seems that Markus Heitz who owns the rights to the game thinks about Jusitifiers in a similar way now. Last Saturday he announced a new edition of Justifiers (in English) in cooperation with Clockwork publishing (makers of the new Space 1889) which shall be kickstarted this year and will use the mechanics of the German RPG Splittermond. The reason for the change of system are that the old system seemed to be a bit dull and also easily unbalanced for him.

Thus, no need to care too much about Justifiers - Das Abenteuerspiel in the future as a new and different edition is on its way.