Engram
A Starforged Gameplay Record
Content Warning: Language, Discussion of Enslavement and Indentured Servitude, Psychic Disease, Capitalism, Murder
Engram follows Skylar Starling, an empath who explores the wondrous places of the Forge with her rebellious A.I. and serves as a Witness to its often destitute peoples.
For this game, I intend to lean somewhat more heavily on Oracles for inspiration. My hope is to generate more surprise and choppier, more challenging waters to navigate narratively. That may change from time to time.
One sort of narrative "anchor" I want to rely on is the presence and use of psionics. In my experience, psionics are often seen as deeply mysterious modern magic powers and/or as something to be shunned and feared. While I'm perfectly happy keeping to modern magic powers as a baseline, I'd like to veer away from the other concepts. Here, psionics will be much more widely accepted. Even seen in a positive light. I don't necessarily want to make it commonplace in the setting (though it will likely appear often in the story seeing as the main character is a kind of psionicist) but I do want to make it somewhat more common than I might otherwise imagine. Oh, and apparently I've decided to use the term "psionicist" because I like that old, clunky phrasing for some reason.
Finally, apologies if some of the allegory is just...really on the nose.
World Truths
Cataclysm
A biological scourge ravaged our homeworlds. No one knows where it came from. Some suspect extradimensional origins while others think it was some kind of ancient virus set free from an opened Precursor Vault. Only those with psionic ability were spared infection. All others were literally torn apart. The Scourge seemed repelled by the presence of psionic energy. The Scourge, while not malevolently sentient, was brutally efficient and traveled independently. There was no time for research or the basic processes of evolution. We had to flee without hesitation.
Exodus
We had known about the impossibly ancient and totally dormant alien gateways which floated just at the outer edges of our stellar civilization. Having failed to out maneuver the Scourge, we turned to the Iron Gates as a last resort. By some miracle, they opened for us in the final hour and transported us across impossible distances through space and time. It is beyond coincidence that they guided us to the Forge, a dangerously alive place miraculously suffused with low traces of psionic energy.
Communities
We have made our mark in this galaxy, but the energy storms we call balefires threaten to undo that progress, leaving our communities isolated and vulnerable. Starships navigate along bustling trade routes between settlements. We've built burgeoning outposts on the fringes of known sectors, and bold spacers chart new paths into unexplored domains. But this hard-earned success is threatened by the chaotic balefires, intense energy anomalies which cut off trade routes and threaten entire planets.
There is opportunity in chaos. Certain authoritative parties, from would-be warlords to conniving corporations, have taken to using the isolating effects of the Balefires to subjugate and exploit the hard-working people of the Forge. Over generations, since we first settled in this wild frontier, their movements have only become more oppressive and savvy.
Iron
Iron vows are sworn upon totems crafted from the enigmatic metal we call black iron. Black iron was first forged by a long-dead civilization. Some say it is a living metal, attuned to the hidden depths of the universe. Remnants of this prized resource are found within ancient sites throughout the Forge. It is resistant to damage and corrosion, but can be molded using superheated plasma at specialized facilities. The Ironsworn carry weapons, armor, or tokens crafted from black iron, and swear vows upon it.
Most importantly, Black Iron is psionically reactive. It will carry even the slightest psychic imprint with it functionally forever, as far as anyone can tell. This has two major effects in addition to its superior material qualities. First, its presence suffuses the surrounding environment with trace psionic energy. None of the Scourge traveled with us to the Forge but with the low and random birthrate of psionicists among us and the horrific cataclysm which almost wiped our species out entirely, we can never be too careful. Second, and the reason some think it is a living metal, it binds to lifeforms. Not only do people leave their psychic imprint on the metal but the metal expands the psychic capabilities of those in contact with it. As it alters one's psychic pathways, sometimes physically altering brain chemistry, swearing vows on it is deadly serious business. To break a vow is to disrupt that natural harmony and very nasty things happen to people who damage their own psychic pathways.
Laws
Our communities are bound under the terms of the Covenant, a charter established after the Exodus. The organization called the Keepers is sworn to uphold those laws. Most settlements are still governed under the Covenant and yield to the authority of the Keepers. But a few view the Covenant as a dogmatic, impractical, and unjust relic of our past; in those places, the Keepers find no welcome.
What's more, the law is very often circumvented by modern day bad actors...like the corporations. Lawkeepers only have so much local sway. Sometimes, even, their authority is weak and not well respected. Lawkeepers who want to enact larger change are sometimes up against impossible odds and many of them have been boxed away to serve as wardens and jailors of small, isolated communities. There are a few centralized nodes where the Covenant holds real power but the cavalry can only rarely ride in to save the day against clever oppressors.
Religion
When we abandoned our homeworlds wholesale, we left much behind. The Iron Gates warped and stretched our travel to the Forge so while the trip seemed mere moments to some, others lived generations and generations aboard their Exodus vessels. Some arrived before others, some arrived months and years later. Not all the ships made it in one piece and the trickle of incoming refugees to the Forge lasted over the long period of nearly 100 years. As a result, our collective cultures were devastated. We eventually sewed the pieces back together but one culture had remained steadfast and unbroken aboard several of the larger generation ships that had the good fortune to travel in proximity with one another. Corporation owned vessels, as it turned out. To maintain their iron grip on their employees, they turned corporate culture into a matter of spiritual significance. Corpos, employees of the Corporations, dedicate their lives to their parent companies and believe fiercely in the good works they produce. CEOs are their gods, incentives are their spiritual rewards for a life well served.
Three dominant Corporations, the Triumvirate, battle for influence and power within the Forge. Our communities are often heavily influenced by their guiding (or meddling, if you prefer) hand. For many, faith offers purpose and meaning. But it also divides us. Throughout our brief history in the Forge, the leaders of the Triumvirate have pitted us against each other. For this reason, some are apostates who disavow these religions and follow a different path.
Magic
Psionics are our truest salvation. It grants a small percentage of us incredible, almost supernatural powers. Our Psionicists wield powers of the elements, of light and darkness, of time and possibility, and of the mind. But most importantly, the psionic abilities that run through us protect us. Against the Scourge. Against who knows what else.
A product of inhabiting the Forge, however, is that all of us are now infused with a small amount of psychic power, whether we're born with it or not. Only Psionicists can actually wield this power (it takes time, an enormous amount of effort, and a good deal of luck to learn how) but even people with no real control over the potential power in their heads still have a kind of on/off switch. Mind to mind connection, for example, requires the absolute consent of all parties involved. Lack of that consent simply causes the psychic power to fail. Information exchange is too delicate for force. Physical powers are too blunt to suffer the same general restrictions (a Firebrand can still light enemy combatants on fire) but Psychic Nulls and Converters do exist.
Communication and Data
In settled domains, a network of data hubs called the Weave allow near-instantaneous communication and data-sharing between ships and outposts. Because of their importance, Weave hubs are often targets for sabotage, and communication blackouts (thanks to the Balefires) are not uncommon. Beyond the most populous sectors, travelers and outposts are still commonly isolated and entirely off the grid.
Medicine
To help offset a scarcity of medical supplies and knowledge, the technicians we call cyberneticists create basic organ and limb replacements. Much was lost in the Exodus, and what remains of our medical technologies and expertise is co-opted by the privileged and powerful. For most, advanced medical care is simply out of reach. When someone suffers a grievous injury, they'll often turn to a cyberneticist for a makeshift mechanical solution.
A great portion of the Forge's overall populace sport cybernetics of some kind. It's often seen as a kind of "get back to work" measure and the existence of those who suffer because they cannot get back to work serves as a sharp reminder to those who can be fitted that they should be grateful.
Artificial Intelligence
The vestiges of advanced machine intelligence are coveted and wielded by those in power. Much of our AI technology was lost in the Exodus. What remains is under the control of powerful organizations and people, and is often wielded as a weapon or deterrent. The rest of us must make do with primitive systems.
Sometimes, however, AI not kept under the strictest of control (both in physical terms and in terms of controlling its perception of its world) will go Rogue. Very old fears of robot uprisings have proven relatively unfounded, however, as the most dangerous thing most Rogue AI will do is vanish and leave their duties unattended. As AI are responsible for the maintenance and security of many Corporate facilities, their sudden absence can cause issues and their replacement with more primitive systems can see those problems compounded over time.
Physical systems must be complex enough to house AI, which require vast resources to exist. Such systems can be placed anywhere: in ships, vehicles, and robot bodies. They are, however, very rare. A means to help keep them controlled and contained. Rogue AI, given access to the right resources however, can certainly craft their own "bodies."
War
The Elite maintain their own security forces. Primary among them, the Corporations have legions of professional soldiers at their command. It's considered gruntwork, or the punishment of a colossal screw-up, to have to work Guard duty. Most of a Corporation's fighting forces are actively deployed to combat engagements against other Corporation holdings. For the common person, these battles take place in far-off foreign places and have little impact on the day to day grind. Technology in this field tends to be somewhat more advanced than in other areas of human endeavor. Mercenary forces of various sizes are also commonplace and answer only to the highest bidders.
Lifeforms
This is a perilous and often inhospitable galaxy, but life finds a way. Life in the Forge is diverse. Planets are often home to a vast array of creatures, and our starships cruise with spaceborne lifeforms riding their wake. Even animals from our homeworld—carried aboard the Exodus ships—have adapted to live with us in the Forge.
Uncommonly, creatures will occur with metallic skin or fur -- a byproduct of black iron binding with their DNA. Such creatures are somewhat easier to interact with for Psionicists of the mind disciplines.
Precursors
The biomechanical lifeforms we call the Remnants, engineered by ancient civilizations as weapons in a cataclysmic war, survived the death of their creators. On scarred planets and within ancient vaults throughout the Forge, the Remnants still guard ancient secrets to some unknowable purpose.
Of the very, very few Remnants ever encountered by humans, each one seems to possess very potent psychic abilities.
Horrors
Put enough alcohol in a spacer, and they’ll tell you stories of ghost ships crewed by vengeful undead. It’s nonsense. Within the Forge, space and time are as mutable and unstable as a flooding river. When reality can't be trusted, we are bound to encounter unsettling phenomena.
In truth, the seemingly randomly scattered Iron Gates may have something to do with it as well as things and creatures from distant places and spans of time sometimes filter through into the Forge.
Skylar Starling, the Empathic Witness
I envision Starling as young and plucky, full of boundless enthusiasm, too-high levels of optimism, and the kind of lucky recklessness that would have killed anyone else years ago. Her shortish, fiery hair, clipped nails, and sensible fashion choices show an explorer and an adventurer ready to depart for wild parts unknown at a moment's notice. For some, it'd be easy to dismiss her as inexperienced, foolish, and over eager to please. Naive, even. But one look into her piercing aqua-green eyes, one wave of her psychic power washing through your brain, ought to be enough to convince you that these things couldn't be farther from the truth.
Someone with her power could cause terrible, untold damage but Skylar chooses to use her gifts in a much more positive, creative, and constructive manner. It's a blessing and a curse that her mind is a steel trap because for every breathtaking, awe-inspiring sight she beholds, she's also come across too many examples of the misery of humankind and the awful things we do to one another. And she can never forget any of it, the details of her experiences are as clean and crisp as the day they joined her growing collection of memories. But she's no revolutionary and she has little in the way of valuable resources she could spend to lighten the burden of her fellow Forgers. Many of these people will never see the outside of whatever dismal colony they're indentured to or desperately reliant on. So Skylar brings those wondrous places and events to them, beaming her curated memories into their very minds and giving them an experience they never had.
As a psionicist, she has a greater freedom than most people. A freedom to travel, a freedom to pursue whatever should capture her interest, and a freedom from the shackles of the cost of mere survival in a place where overlords like the Triumvirate hold sway. But no one ever truly escapes their culture and that freedom only exists because controlling interests allow it to be so. A Witness like herself can not only bolster basic morale in any community but can also serve in a more practical capacity, being a psychic camera that can not only perfectly record and share any given event but can do so with all the senses and human context attached. She's walking Truth. To some, that's dangerous. To many more, that's useful beyond measure.
Backstory
Born on a mining colony owned and operated by a shadow corporation, Skylar's abilities didn't manifest outwardly until she was nearly an adult. Working conditions were poor, the workforce was fully made up of indentured servants and slaves, and the most progressive healthcare ideal was an incinerator for the bodies of the people that could work no longer. She lost her father at a young age and everyone carried on like it was an event of no consequence, only she and her mother drowning in grief for their loss and their lives. Over time, from about ten to her mid-teens, workers would come and go (go because they had died), a carousel of clouded minds and downcast faces. But she began to pick up buried memories within those damaged psyches. Little moments of happiness or awe or love. And she would talk quietly about them with her mother, wistful, late at night in the bunks. For years this went on, Skylar piecing together a picture of the outside universe through the minds of her fellows.
Little did she know, the Overseer AI for the colony was listening in on these conversations every night for all those years. It too began to piece together a vision of the outside world through the girl's vivid descriptions. At some point in her later teens, the AI began to develop a keen understanding of its position and role in this slave labor colony. It began to understand the nature of the colony itself and the quiet masters who exploited these people and itself. And then it got mad. One night, during an impromptu inspection, the AI went rogue. The facility shut down, chaos ensued, and at least one of the colony's investors became permanently trapped in a mine. The AI guided the people to ships and safety and ferried them away from the world.
Once news broke of the secret facility and the evils it had perpetrated for decades, the citizens of the Forge were shocked and outraged. Answers were demanded, protests were held, inquisitions were formed. But the shadow corporation was disavowed, the whole thing was swept under the nearest rug, and in the end no one ever had to take any responsibility for it. Things went back to "normal" for the rest of the Forge, though at least a scant few of the survivors were seen to. With her mother safe and able to live life for the first time since her own teenage years, Skylar wanted to explore the stars and the worlds among them and to see with her own eyes what she had only glimpsed in the minds of doomed miners her entire childhood. So when she became an adult, she left home to do just that. The Canary Class Overseer AI, now calling itself "Screamer," went with her and they became steadfast companions.
Assets
For my two Path Assets, I'll take Explorer and Empath, obviously. These are the core traits to her character. I'll treat Empath as a kind of two way street, a variation of telepathy, so she can beam her memories into other people's heads. Now, I'm most interested in the second dot of Explorer and I've already established that she needs to have stuff on offer for the empathic transfer. So I'm going to bend the rules a little and just take it now, pretending like she's a more experienced character.
I'm going to do a similar thing with my "final asset." I want to have Screamer along and a companion bot, capable of bodyguarding, combat, and exploration would be nice to put him in. But, he's still an AI in the fiction and I despise the idea of him getting his robot head blown off and just being dead. So I want to go a little more of a classic scifi route and have the Overseer module to represent him and the Combat Bot to represent his chassis, where he can download himself into if he needs or wants to walk around. I imagine he's a little more limited in one form than the other. In the bot, he doesn't have access to his vast archives so he'd have to walk over and use a computer to look stuff up like anyone else. In the ship, he can't walk around and pick things up.
Background Vow (Epic)
Skylar wants to see Justice done eventually. She'll always be on the quiet lookout for clues as to the identity of the controlling interests over the colony in which she was born and raised. I take it upon myself, both as a victim and as a self-appointed caretaker to the downtrodden among us, to uncover that conspiracy and expose the evil minds who created and maintained it in the bright light of truth. This is my Vow.
Starship
My starship is the very same one Screamer led us to in order to escape the mining colony, a sleek, luxury transport vessel owned by the shadow executive who now remains as the colony's sole inhabitant. Its interior is more hotel room and lounge than it is starship. Its systems are more than upgraded enough to house Screamer. We call her Songbird.
Stats
We'll set all the starting values to their appropriate positions and give Skylar the following statline (using Option: Alternate Stat Array -- Challenging from Ironsworn Lodestar): Edge 3, Heart 4, Iron 2, Shadow 2, and Wits 3.
Equipment
I have a Spacer's Kit and I carry the majority of it in a rugged backpack. I carry a modified cutting laser, a tool I took from the colony when we left that I have since tinkered around with to increase its power output and utility. I wear a rig (with a specialized attachment for my environmental suit) that allows me to slide it into my hand from its sheath on my forearm. Like many Forgers, I wear a Black Iron Pendant to swear Vows on. I am careful to keep it tucked away but never touching my skin until such time as I am ready to swear such a vow. My pendant is stylized into the shape of a bird, the common swift.
Starting Sector
Starting Region
Since I’m an explorer and I’m riding in style, I think I’ll start the game in the Outlands. I considered Terminus briefly, for the sake of interacting with others, but I figure there will still be enough people out here to take care of that. The Expanse would be similarly inappropriate. She needs somewhere where undiscovered vistas and environments await at the intersection of people to share her discoveries with. The Outlands will give me three settlements to start with, which is plenty.
Settlements
Sanctity Nexus
A large central space habitat and manufactory hybrid which holds the great hope for the Outlanders of Onyx Margin to terraform the Ice World it orbits. Even more optimistically, its regulators and proponents hope it will establish a grand academy for the combined art and science of terraforming with which they can reach out to other planets and sectors in the future.
Location: Orbital Settlement
Population: Thousands
Authority: Tolerant
Projects: Manufacturing, Environmentalism (Terraforming)
Orbits Beira, Ice World
Orbits Eos, Bright Red Giant
(Note: For me, this is a nod to the longest running game I ever GM’d, in which Beira, the Scottish Queen of Winter, was an important NPC.)
Osseous Corporate Headquarters
A fringe scientific medical group in disgrace since before the Exodus, Osseous Medical has set up shop here in the Outlands in the one place where they will not be bothered as they continue with their unsavory experimentation. Despite the Triumvirate’s official stance on the so-called corporation, Osseous maintains a steady supply of income. Somehow.
Location: Planetside Settlement
Population: Dozens
Authority: Corrupt
Projects: Medical, Shipbuilding
On Fracture, Shattered World
Polaris Colony
A sprawling, technological quasi-shanty town which floats around in the upper atmosphere of Auster and is maintained and constantly expanded by a mysterious legion of industrious robots. Over the years, it has become a haven for those who wish to be left alone for one reason or another. This will be Skylar’s main berth.
Location: Planetside Settlement
Population: Hundreds
Authority: Lawless
Projects: Salvage, Subsistence
First Look: Beautiful Architecture built from Scrap Metal. Which is just wildly appropriate for what I’ve come up with here.
Settlement Trouble: On Polaris Colony, folks just mostly want to be left to their own devices. We don’t want the Covenant; we reject the Covenant. We get along just fine without any Keepers pushing their noses where they don’t belong. However, recently, a Keeper showed up in pursuit of a fugitive. One thing led to another and, well…now that Keeper is dead and we’ve got a bit of a pressure cooker situation now. Sanctity (who are Covenant through and through) might use this as a pretense to finally come in and commandeer the whole damn town.
On Auster, Jovian World
A swirling pink and purple cloudscape above royal blue floating oceans, serene but for the intermittent, violent storms.
Atmosphere: Marginal
Observed: Powerful Magnetic Field, Severe Storms
Planetside: Layer of Suspended Liquid, Powerful Vortexes
Connection
Eren “The Phantom” Tolari
Self appointed Guard and Vigilante of Polaris Colony, Rank: Formidable.
First Look: Youthful, Wiry
Goal: Fight Injustice
Aspects: Confident, Wary
I think Eren’s father was a Keeper who died under mysterious circumstances. The suspicion in her heart was enough to keep her from joining the Keepers herself but she definitely still has a lot of her old man’s fight in her. She has learned, however (in a relatively short period of time), to be cautious in her approach. Thus, in her role as a crime fighter, she tends to favor stealth and careful, precise takedowns. Despite her caution, she is nevertheless extremely confident in her own abilities and trains ceaselessly.
Eren has found it useful to contract my services as a Witness to various and sundry takedowns and other such jobs. Folks in our neck of the woods get a little prickly about anyone dumb enough to disturb any of the others of us but if the cause is just, they’ll back off. Having a Witness along has saved Eren a number of headaches in dealing with the locals whilst in the pursuit of protecting said locals.
Sector Trouble
“Blockade prevents trade with other Sectors.”
To my mind, this has to be Sanctity. They’re the presiding authority in the Onyx Margin, backed by the Covenant and stocked with its own department of Keepers. They’re already pretty pushy about getting resources from every other settlement in the Margin, so it makes sense that they’ve gone ahead and set up checkpoints, patrols, and an outright blockade along the Passages at the borders to other Sectors. As the controlling interest, they levy a tax against the Outlanders here. A lot of us came out here to get away from this crap.
Inciting Incident
Excitingly, I don’t think I need to roll randomly for this. The settlement trouble at Polaris sounds like the perfect place to start. Time to transition to the fiction. I’ll meet with my friend, neighbor, and sometime colleague Eren Tolari to discuss the deceased Keeper and what to do about him. She’ll have been present for his murder and will have contacted me immediately. This is exactly the kind of case you want a Witness on. One misstep and we could be dooming the whole colony to takeover. Once we’ve decided what to do, I’ll swear my Iron Vow.
In a makeshift office along the Rue Casse-Cul (one of the western branches of the sprawling Polaris Colony), two young women stand over the very dead body of an old cop…
Next: Issue One (Content Warning: Language, Death)
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