Character generation in Eclipse Phase is beastly. I think, though perhaps there is a certain lack of system mastery on my part, that is the most taxing process I’ve yet used. I have enough experience with D&D/Pathfinder that I can get through it without too much difficulty, but Eclipse Phase tends to leave me frustated and annoyed. I never feel as if I can make the stats reflect the original idea I had in mind when I started.
Thus, this post was born. I’m going to document here the ideas I get from time to time, typically in a way that leaves a certain wiggle room to accomodate needs of play for characters. I typically omit weapon skills, fray, and certain other common needs for these characters to focus solely on core concept; unless, of course, those are core to the idea in question.
Industrial Artist
An indentured worker who has been assembling factories, habs, or other things in space in orbit of Mars. Before being indentured, she was an industrial artist on Earth (Detroit).
She struggles for greater autonomy and freedom from the restrictive constraints of the her corporate masters.
Goals:
- Freedom of self-determination
- Arts
- Anti Hyper Corps
Possible skill focuses:
- Art: Sculpture / Industrial
- Hardware: Industrial
- Hardware: Robotics
- Free Fall
- Social skills: Kinesics, Persuasion, Protocol
- Scrounging
Hyper-corp Bio-engineer
While she works for Hyper Corps to help terraform Mars, or other planet(oid)s, she has begun to doubt the benefit of it. She fears that the terraforming of new spaces will lead to catastrophic exploitation of the new environment, and leave society no better off than before - the domes will be to keep out pollution and toxic air instead of keeping in the necessities of life.
Goals:
- Societal Stability
- Reclamation of Earth
- Expansion of neo-natural habitats
Possible Skill Focuses:
- Profession: Bio-engineer/Terra-former
- Medicine: nanomedicine, bio-sculpting
- Protocol (academic circles)
- Networking: Reclaimers (e-rep)
- Animal Handling
- Research
- Art: Taxidermy
- Interest: Aquatic environments
Creates unique life form modifications with bio-sculpting, taxidermies them if they don’t work out, or when they die, etc.? Maybe…
Simulspace Artist
She always wants to be in motion, exploring ideas to their depths, and consequently ends up pushing frequently against the grain of society. Sentience and ego, while they can be copied, remain deep mysteries (maybe?) and there’s lots of room to explore - especially in one’s own domain.
Goals:
- Self-discovery
- Shock culture
- Search for faith
Possible skill focuses:
- Infosec & Interfacing
- Art: Simulspace
- Interest: Psycology, Meditation, Faith
- Psychosurgery
- Persuasion, Deception, Kinesics
Maybe this character would go towards the psychic skill route, or ex-humanism, or alien collaboration.
FTL Scientist
While it is clear that gates exist, and they allow for faster than time/light travel, deep research into them is often frowned upon, and is the purview of less scrupulous hypercorps. Tired of being stonewalled, she left the research lab of the hypercorps to find a hermit like place with access to a gate to continue her research. She believes openness in knowledge is the only way to prevent the re-surfacing of the TITANs, or similar disasters from happening again.
Goals:
- Open-Source (Scientific Research)
- Understanding gates / FTL
- Alien Contact
Skills Focuses:
- Research
- Phsyics/Chemistry/etc…
- Hardware: Electronics, Robotics, Aerospace
- Programming, Interfacing, Infosec
- Interest: Gate-crashing
- Networking: Autonomist, h-rep (argonauts?)
She spends her time researching available gates, principally the one in autonomous control, making extensive use of robots with limited AI to help her. She supports herself in the anarchist community by repairing and building electronic/robotics systems (synth-morphs, habitat features, etc.)
One of goals is to create a space ship capable of connecting to the gate network, once it’s understood how gates link to each other.