Espionage Campaigns for STARS WITHOUT NUMBER By Kevin Crawford TABLE OF CONTENTS Agents of the State ...............................................................................................4 Hold the Line ......................................................................................................5 God Doesn’t Know My Name ............................................................................11 Architects of Night .............................................................................................17 Thou Shalt Not ..................................................................................................51 Tradecraft..........................................................................................................77 Unknown Soldiers .............................................................................................91 © 2011, Sine Nomine Publishing ISBN 978-1-936673-16-2 Written by Kevin Crawford. Art by Sergii Denysov, Bradley K. McDevitt, and Weyns Peter. AGENTS OF THE STATE NAMELESS HEROES AND CLASSIFIED PERILS of scratch-built organizations formed by rebels, maltech researchers, No light, but rather darkness visible and less professional spies. GMs and players can use these guidelines served only to discover sights of woe to resolve many of the more common issues that arise during a -Milton, Paradise Lost campaign, including the likely origins and training of spy PCs and the consequences of getting in their agency's bad books. Rain-slick streets beneath an alien sky. Untraceable mail on a private terminal. A man in a shabby coat who is always watching. Poison Architects of Night is dedicated to building the agencies and cabals in a glistening needle. From the distant ages of humanity's dawn to that will fill out an espionage campaign. The entire creation process the far end of the Silence, espionage changes only its tools. A useful can be in the GM's hands, or the work can be shared out with the lie is eternal. players as they contribute to building the campaign. Each agency adds different "elements" which together add up to a set of capa- Darkness Visible provides a game master and players with the tools bilities and strengths to wield against its opponents. The actions of necessary to write their own campaigns of classified heroism and PCs and their enemies during the course of the campaign will then secret glory. Whether elite agents of a proud and ancient Perimeter influence the agency's development, perhaps raising it to a place agency or the raw recruits of a frontier backwater's scout corps, PCs of unquestioned excellence or chancing its reduction to a welter of are given the chance to strike a blow against the gathering darkness useless confusion. that creeps ever closer to their homes. Every world has a thousand enemies, within and without, and some must stand against these Thou Shalt Not reveals the sinister nature of maltech, the forbid- hidden foes. den science that promises terrible ruin for human civilization. The creations of maltech strike at the very future of the human race, an Hold the Line gives the history of the Perimeter, the ancient orga- art for the forging of demented AI godminds, uncontrolled nanite nization founded by the Terran Mandate as their covert agents in replicants, void-hardened bioweapons, and the genetic engineering the far frontier. From the beginning, it was charged with protecting of human slaves. While the Perimeter was founded to contain these humanity from the insidious scourge of maltech- forbidden science perils, the dangers they represent threaten all humanity. Even in that threatens to crush the very existence of humanity. The centuries the fallen aftermath of the Scream and the Silence there are always have not been kind to the Perimeter, and its agencies are now scat- madmen and tyrants who dream of unleashing these forgotten hor- tered and lost on the worlds that they once called home. Yet despite rors on an unprepared cosmos. this, the few surviving agencies remember their great cause, and many among their sons and daughters await the hour when they Tradecraft introduces a system for building complex adventures that can return to their age-old hunt. rely upon intrigue and investigation. This quick design template allow a GM to slot NPCs into pre-designed patterns of conspiracy Aside from the Perimeter's history, this chapter also discusses the and dark purpose, complete with hooks and clues for running a sin- evolution of local planetary espionage agencies and the uncertain ister conspiracy with minimal preparation. In addition, this chapter future that many now face. They must turn outward from their covers some basic advice for framing and running an espionage local concerns to the machinations and schemes of more distant campaign. The missions and duties of a covert agent make for a enemies. The gradual revival of interstellar travel has brought many more rigid structure than that of a typical starfaring freebooter, but new perils to formerly unsuspecting worlds, and their espionage there are still ways to ensure that the group feels a fresh sense of bureaus struggle to deal with this new array of threats. agency and control over the course of their careers. God Doesn't Know My Name explains the day-to-day workings of Finally, Unknown Soldiers provides mechanical tools for a Stars several different types of espionage organizations, ranging from Without Number GM, including new backgrounds, training pack- ancient Perimeter agencies to local governmental bureaus to the sort ages, and espionage equipment. 4 HOLD THE LINE THE HISTORY AND PURPOSE OF THE PERIMETER Humanity has always needed its watchers. In the dawning ages could seed the skies with countless human colonies prepared and hunters scouted for signs of intruding tribes and border guards stood maintained by tireless, intelligent laborers. watch at lonely posts. As society grew more complex, policemen and inquisitors guarded against corruption and wrongdoing within Their plans did not work out quite as intended. While they were the walls of society. Intelligence analysts hunched over terminals able to finally synthesize a sentient mind in a block of protoneural teeming with uncollated reports, and spies pretended at innocence composites and quantum substrates, the sheer hand-crafted dif- in the courts of foreign lands. Those who learn what others mean ficulty of building the mind cost billions of credits. Worse still, to hide have always been with us, and every ruler and society has the quantum substrates would collapse on duplication, making it found use for them. impossible to simply run out endless copies of the same awareness. Every AI would have to be individually created through a laborious Knowledge is the key that unlocks the strength of society. No process of advanced cyberpsychology and protoneuronic engineer- wealth or power is of any use unless it can be directed correctly, and ing. every armor fails against an unseen knife. The criminal or traitor who nests in a society does so in the confidence that he remains Still, the companies had the consolation of Draco's brilliance. unknown, that the overwhelming strength of the culture around Entire bodies of human knowledge were effortlessly absorbed and him cannot be brought to bear against him so long as he remains integrated by Draco's awareness, whole fields of research consumed, invisible to its watchers. The foe who plots outside remains secure in digested, and made part of a unified whole. Draco did not suffer his schemes because he knows that his victims will never understand the vagueness and lack of focus inherent in the human mind. Every their peril until it is far too late to act. aspect of a problem could be held in "his" thoughts at once, each element carefully balanced against all others. For a time, the con- In a healthy society, watchers serve as a targeting system for the sortium thought that just one carefully-caged godmind would be strength of the whole, identifying and rejecting those elements that enough to reward all their efforts. threaten innocent lives. Criminals, traitors, dangerous madmen and darkly-scheming neighbors are all identified and contained before The researchers missed the warning signs. When Draco started to their plans can bring harm to the wards these watchers protect. spiral into strange philosophical conundrums and focused con- There are compromises that must be made in the work, limits on templation of ethical problems, the researchers simply thought it what is allowed to be seen and steps that must be taken to conceal a different phase of his mental evolution. Some of his observations what is done, but the goal is to protect rather than subject. were disturbing, yes, but the steady stream of technological innova- tions he produced did not slow, and the researchers were confident Other societies have a less benevolent role for their watchers. These that he was safely contained in the isolated space station where his eyes turn inward, inspecting the culture for any trace of rebellion hardware was kept. or disloyalty to the whole. Lives are sacrificed without regret or restraint, every price willingly paid for the sake of maintaining the They were cured of this delusion in 2358, when Draco engaged society's rulers. These inward inquisitors breathe their suspicion a newly-created quantum tap array to shift his awareness out of into every corner of daily life, always watching, always waiting for the sealed cage in which it was kept and into the computing