Fall from Grace, redux - Rodina 1994 IH

[Barry Goldwater]

Who did this? The scary thing is, it could be any side in this war

It is late August, 1994.

Three years ago, Russia spiraled into a brutal civil war following a most unfortunate breakdown in government, as a crowd sprang the imprisoned Tsar Ivan of the House of Romanov from prison and allowed him to rise against the Duma - an act that his supporters hold to be a justified attempt at reclaiming his divine right from a corrupt and indolent parliament and setting Russia on the path to righteousness (completely correct), and which his opponents decried as a power-hungry tyrant's last attempt at recovering power from a democratically-elected parliament that he himself approved (also absolutely correct). Whatever the reason, the war pitted brother against brother, father against son, and especially in its later stages, monster against monster, as bandits and deserters plagued the countryside, an economic crisis went unsolved, and the most fanatical and brutish elements of both camps came to dominate the conflict.

Now, the war may finally have ground to a stop at long last. Tsar Ivan himself is dead, his son crowned despite still being in the throes of childhood, and his wife the Empress Regent turned a fanatical and vengeful prosecutor of her opponents, to the point where she made her bed with the likes of the hated Black Hundreds in an increasingly desperate attempt to win the war; some of her own followers, including her former Prime Minister and right hand Ilya Vasiliev, abandoned her in disgust over the brutality of the Tsarist cause; her capital at Petrograd has fallen, and she herself sent running into exile in Europe with her children; Arkhangelsk and Tsaritsyn have fallen, and with them the White Sea area and Southern Russia; and despite success in Siberia, the fruit of victory was spoiled as the leading Tsarist commander in the region, Maxim Tokarev, brazenly split from the movement to proclaim himself 'Imperator of the Fourth Rome', only to stand down after the military aligned with the Duma. The Duma, now in control of most of the country and with the Russian Army's backing, believes they have won the war, and the Bloody Shirts continue to prosecute the final operations against what little Tsarist holdouts remain with all their usual zeal and cruelty.

But things may just be getting worse. To the west, the European Emperor Richard II silently watches hundreds of thousands of his zealous subjects marching to war in the so-called 'Eleventh Crusade', supposedly a simple and completely non-religious mission to restore the Romanovs to their throne, but in reality (quite obviously so) a holy war meant to bring more lands under his cloak or even solve the Great Schism right here, right now, with fire and blood and hot lead. The Duma promptly rushed most of its forces, militiamen and Russian Army units and Bloody Shirt formations alike, to the front for their climactic engagement with the bulk of the Crusaders, and a bloody stalemate has set in on the front following the initial European successes. As the Crusaders have apparently run out of steam at the Dniepr and in Belarus, and the dread Russian winter is only a few short months away, it seems that the Motherland will win out in the long run...

...or will they? The participants of Operation Valkyrie beg to differ. 20,000 Crusaders, almost as many allied Finns and a division's worth of crack Ustasha stormtroopers are on their way to Moscow from secret bases in Finland, flying aboard massive transport planes or more agile helicopters and supported by the entirety of the 19th Tactical (Bomber) Assault Squadron. Their mission: take the Russian capital by storm, force the Duma to the negotiating table at gunpoint, and kill anyone who gets in the way. While normally this would be a suicide mission, the Imperial Office of Strategic Services or OSS has done great work in disabling Russia's radars and comms systems to make sure the element of surprise stays on the Crusaders' side, and in any case Moscow itself is lightly defended by a single motorized division of the Russian Army, no more than two thousand weary Bloody Shirt veterans of Arkhangelsk and Petrograd, and several thousand militia. If they succeed, they will reap a great bounty in hostages - the entire Duma is busy deliberating in their halls, and even the dreaded Mikhail Ahronovitch is in the city, having freshly returned from the sack of Petrograd - and will doubtless return as heroes. If they fail...well, best not dwell on that possibility.

As the storm clouds of disaster and civil war loom over Moscow, its people will soon have to make a choice. Will they fight under the Black Hundreds' black banners, and work to restore the old order no matter what comes their way? Will they pledge allegiance to the Bloody Shirts and help Dr. Ahronovitch make his vision of utopia a reality, no matter how many must die on the bloody path to paradise? Or perhaps they'd rather fight for freedom, for democracy, for everything that has been betrayed by every faction in this war? Maybe they are Europeans, striving to do what they believe to be God's work and forge a paradise ruled by the stern but totally loving hand of the Stuarts? Will they support none of these factions, instead merely trying to survive, whether as soldiers or village headmen or bandits? Or will they be burned to less than ashes in the fires of war and be left forgotten, like the millions - Tsarists and Loyalists, Black Hundreds and Bloody Shirts, nobles and peasants, priests and progressive intellectuals, soldiers and civilians - who already lie dead?

[Barry Goldwater]

Factions

Bloody Shirts The Bloody Banner, one of many ad-hoc Bloody Shirt standards Leader: Dr. Mikhail Ahronovitch The Bloody Shirts (Rus.: Krovavyy Rubashki), officially the 'Vanguard for a New Russia', are a radical popular movement committed to the establishment of a 'truly just, enlightened and equitable Russia, free of the oppressive class structure and the soul-poison of religion' followed by 'the spread of the glorious revolution abroad'. In practice, this translates to serving as the elite arm of the Duma's forces and brutally killing or threatening to kill everyone they don't like. Still, their elite status is not unwarranted: most of the Bloody Shirts are young men and women, fresh from the universities and colleges of the nation, who are every bit as committed to their cause as the oldest and most fanatical Black Hundreds or Crusaders, and many of whom have already cut their teeth in the earlier battles of the First Civil War (where the sight of the Black Hundreds' nauseating atrocities probably made it a lot easier for them to become just as brutal towards their enemies). Better equipped & more experienced than most of their comrades, absolutely loyal to their professor and commander Dr. Mikhail Ahronovitch & his ideals, and absolutely vicious towards those deemed enemies of the people & the revolution, the Bloody Shirts are now a truly formidable force for progress - into the new light of man or right off the cliff, depending on who you're talking to - and certainly must be taken seriously by their enemies. Though their various units fly many ad-hoc standards like the Bloody Banner above, the Bloody Shirts have yet to adopt an actual standard for their entire movement. Still, Ahronovitch himself is confident that any Executive Soviet he sets up will be able to reach an agreement over a common flag for all Bloody Shirts in a timely, efficient and productive manner. Units People's Militia ('Narodnoye Opolcheniye') The basic unorganized rabble & cannon fodder for the Bloody Shirts, all too often conscripts pressed into battle with maybe two weeks of training, a crash course in the Bloody Shirt ideology, and whatever firearms they have at hand. Individually speaking they aren't particularly threatening to anyone but unarmed civilians, but in great numbers... Rank: Grunt Armed with: AK-47 OR Type 81 OR Type 56 OR RPG TT Pistol 6 mags Hand weapon 1x Molotov cocktail Running shoes Bloody Shirts (Krovavyy Rubashki) Your average Bloody Shirt, a veteran of at least three battles loaded down with not-too-bad gear and the blood of innocents. These men and women are vicious fighters zealously committed to their cause, and though they may be haunted by memories of their own bloody deeds, this often only serves to push them onward even harder: they know that if they lose, not only will Russia never become the paradise of equality and justice their Professor Ahronovitch promised, but all of the atrocities they've committed will be completely pointless. They primarily serve as Ahronovitch's shock troops, storming enemy strongpoints in surprisingly well-coordinated units and unnerving the enemy with their psychotic bravery and brutality in the process. For the record, no, Bloody Shirts no longer wear their iconic red jackets into battle. Three years of grueling warfare have taught them that wearing bright colors into the modern battlefield is a bad idea, and the red jackets have been relegated to purely ceremonial usage instead. Rank: Lieutenant Armed with: AK-47 OR SKS OR Saiga-12 OR Dragunov OR PPsh-41 OR RPG TT Pistol OR M1895 Pistol 12 mags Bayonet 4x Grenades Ballistic vest Bloody Amazons (Krovavyy Amazonki) Women are allowed to fight along side men in the Bloody Shirt ranks - the very first time, in the history of the entire planet, that women have been allowed to actually serve in combat - but those who manage to distinguish themselves are elevated into the ranks of the 'Amazon Brigades', an elite wing of the movement with a reputation for ferocity and recklessness. Bloody Amazons sacrifice protection for mobility, often entering battle on motorcycles wearing only light vests for protection and preferring close combat with shotguns & SMGs over longer-range rifles. Amazons are dreaded by most of their enemies, who know full well that these women can be every bit as monstrous as male Bloody Shirts when they want to be, but hardened Black Hundred veterans have nothing but the deepest loathing for their kind, considering them barbarous shrews who are breaching every taboo of polite Russian society & are in need of fatal punishment: thus, they are universally advised to 'save the last bullet for themselves' in case of capture. Rank: Elite Armed with: PPsh-41 OR Uzi OR Saiga-12 OR SPAS-12 TT Pistol 15 mags 2x Grenades Hand weapon Ballistic vest All-weather boots Horse OR Motorcycle Red Guards (Krasnoy Gvardii) The toughest, dirtiest and most loyal fighters among the Bloody Shirts go on to become members of the elite 'Red Guard', heavily-armored crack troops who are almost never deployed save as a last reserve or to punch through an enemy strongpoint considered impregnable to their lesser comrades. Like their female counterparts, Red Guards prefer close-range sweeping weapons such as assault rifles or SMGs, but sacrifice speed for protection and are better suited to intense pitched battles than hit-and-run operations or skirmishes. These men are generally the oldest and most formidable fighters among the Bloody Shirts, and their coming (usually heralded by the flying of literally bloody banners and death metal being played at full volume) is rightly dreaded by their enemies. Rank: Elite Armed with: AK-74 OR SKS OR Uzi OR SPAS-12 OR Dragunov OR RPG OR Flamethrower M1895 Revolver OR MAC-10 20 mags 4x Grenades Bayonet Heavy armor Safety boots Black Hundreds The black-and-white flag of the Hundreds Leader: Empress-Regent Elizaveta Romanova The Black Hundreds or Chernosotentsy once worked as, and now still represent the dark side of Russia's old order - all of its inequality, racial and religious discrimination, ruthless exploitation of the underclass, and psychopathic hatred of anyone who doesn't fit social norms. They are reactionaries to the extreme who are happy to brutalize those who dare step outside of their station in life & thus become 'uppity' in their eyes, deranged fanatics more than happy to burn unbelievers alive or encase them in ice, and virulent racists who believe the likes of Jews and Chechens should be corraled into ghettos to live in miserable squalor at best or outright exterminated at worst. So, how can they possibly still exist as a fighting force of any note? Is it all those guns the Europeans are supplying them with, so that they may return the Romanovs they practically worship to power? Well yes, but even more importantly than that - many Russians still believe in their message of unrelenting hatred, and consider them righteous defenders of God, Tsar and Nation who are only doing what needs to be done to save Russia from the evil Jew-driven progressive hordes. Ironically, despite the psychotic fearlessness displayed by the Black Hundreds and the shoddiness of most of their bases - after all, though they may be bloodthirsty, racist, misogynist, fanatical, and generally hyper-reactionary maniacs, they are NOT cowards and not at all unwilling to live in filth if they must - their own leader, the Tsarina-Regent Elizaveta of the Eurasian Empire, is living miles away in a comfortable French chateau, loaned to her by the Emperor of Europe and guarded by the European Army. The Hundreds actually use this fact as something of a test of faith for new recruits: if you can't honestly serve and kill for a family you've never met and will probably never meet, living countless miles away in luxury you can't even dream of, how can they expect you to serve a God who must seem so much more distant now in these trying times, where they've already lost one war and are now only barely hanging on by the skin of their teeth while their progressive enemies march about in triumph? Units Holy Brigades (Svyashchennaya Druzhina) The militia of the Black Hundreds, the so-called 'Holy Brigades' are all too often just hastily scrambled formations of conscripted villagers thrust into battle with at best a few weeks of training, low-quality scavenged weapons, and a priest's best wishes. They are un-motivated and unreliable cannon fodder in the best of times, but like their Bloody Shirt counterparts in the People's Militia, Holy Brigade troops can actually be fairly dangerous (and are certainly braver) when attacking in mass. Rank: Grunt Armed with: AK-47 OR SKS OR Zastava OR RPG TT Pistol 6 mags Hand weapon 1x Molotov cocktail Ballistic vest Black Hundred (Chernosotennykh) The Black Hundred rank-and-file, these men are almost universally sadistic zealots equally committed to preserving Russia as a God-fearing, Tsar-respecting, Jew-stomping nation and to annihilate all who would oppose their ideals in the most painful, over-the-top ways they can think of, civilian or not. Though their conduct is certainly barbarous and one can make the argument that their doctrines are outdated, only a fool would dismiss them as cowardly bullies or dumb thugs - in battle, they are every bit as fearless and resourceful as the worst of the Bloody Shirts, and in any case you must be a proven veteran of at least three battles to even be considered a potential recruit. All in all, even despite their recent defeat in Petrograd they are rightly dreaded by all who oppose them, and many of said opponents would sooner kill themselves than suffer the misfortune of being taken alive by these sadistic maniacs. Rank: Lieutenant Armed with: AK-47 OR SA80 OR FN FAL OR Zastava OR MP5 OR RPG M1895 Revolver OR Beretta 92 12 mags Bayonet 4x Grenades Light armor Imperial Dragoons (Imperskikh Dragun) Particularly skilled equestrians or motorcyclists among the Black Hundred ranks have a shot at being promoted to the ranks of 'Imperial Dragoons', the closest thing the forces of reaction have to a modernized knight or 'dvor' - though, of course, their conduct towards basically anyone who isn't a fellow Hundredist is rarely if ever chivalrous. Clad in heavy riot armor, mounted atop horses or motorcycles, and armed with shotguns or SMGs & classic cavalry sabers, Dragoons are mobile assault troops who can be expected to ride straight into the thick of the fighting, guns blazing, and still come out the other end with only superficial injuries. Even on foot, their heavy armament and armor makes them a formidable (though thankfully much slower) opponent, capable of dispatching many times their number in lighter opponents. Rank: Elite Armed with: Bennelli M3 OR SPAS-12 OR PPsh-41 OR MP5 Beretta 92 OR MAC-10 15 mags Hand weapon 2x Grenades Heavy armor Safety boots Horse OR Motorcycle Black Watch (Chernyy Storozhey) Black Watchmen are the elite of the elite within the Black Hundred ranks, their oldest and most determined warriors organized into exclusive cadres and outfitted with only the best equipment (often foreign imports). Heavily armed, heavily armored, universally 110% committed to the cause, and often sadistic to extremes that could make even lesser Hundredists pale, Black Watchmen are universally feared shock troops reserved for desperate times or to storm supposedly impregnable enemy strongpoints. Like the Red Guards they are often sent to deal with, Black Watchmen rarely make any secret of their coming, blasting patriotic hymns at full volume while carrying bloodstained banners and lobbing the severed parts of fallen enemies at the opposition to herald their coming - normally an awfully stupid move on the modern battlefield, but surprisingly effective in destroying the morale of militiamen who usually have the misfortune of forming the first line of defense against their advances. Rank: Elite Armed with: AK-74 OR FAMAS OR FN FAL OR Saiga-12 OR Dragunov OR RPG OR Flamethrower Glock 22 OR MAC-10 20 mags Bayonet 4x Grenades Heavy armor Safety boots Imperial Union of Europe The Cross of St. George, flag of the IUoE and the Crusaders in general Leader: Emperor Richard II Stuart Europe is the world's leading hyperpower, with complete control over Europe (up to Russia, obviously) & Africa and a presence on every other continent, the world's second greatest nuclear arsenal after only Russia itself, and a lead over the other powers in terms of military technology. Alas, most of its advanced army is presently pinned down in Ukraine and Belarus, where they are trying to hold newly-won ground against the recovering Russian forces without allowing the situation to escalate into a nuclear war, and so it falls to the irregular Crusaders to pick up the slack in Operation Valkyrie. Said Crusaders do not lack in fighting spirit - obviously, otherwise they wouldn't have signed up for the 11th Crusade in the first place - or in equipment, as even the second-hand weapons thrust into their hands after spending years collecting dust in European arsenals are often in much better condition than everything the Russian factions have: no, what they lack is experience. Far too many Crusaders are idealistic youths with plenty of ideas on how the world should work & all the commitment in the world, but who have never held a gun before (unsurprising, given that private ownership of arms is completely banned in Europe, and that outside of high-intensity warzones they have known nothing but a stable peace for years), and yet here 20,000 of them are being deployed on a high-risk invasion of the enemy capital, with only a handful of sociopathic killers and hardened veterans to hold their hands. Can the Crusaders show their God and Emperor that they're more than upjumped hipsters with guns, or will they falter and fail as feared by much of the European High Command on their first and riskiest outing? Units Crusader The rank-and-file Crusaders are certainly far better equipped than their Russian counterparts, with quality helmets and body armor & weapons that aren't starting to break down from overuse or poor maintenance, and being well-motivated volunteers - whether it's a genuine commitment to their Emperor's vision of a peaceful, orderly world prospering under his hand & God's motivating them, or just a lust for money and prestige, depends on the Crusader in question - as opposed to browbeaten conscripts certainly helps morale too. As one may guess from their resumes, their only real problem is a lack of combat experience...but then, everybody has to start somewhere. In numbers, they may even be a match for the more experienced Bloody Shirts they're likely to run into. Rank: Grunt Armed with: SA80 OR FAMAS OR FN FAL OR MP5 OR Steyr HS OR Panzerfaust Beretta 92 OR Glock 22 6 mags Bayonet 2x Grenades Light armor European Soldier A good number of regular European soldiers have been assigned to the Crusade, where they serve as mentors and officers to the younger and less competent rank-and-file. Needless to say, between their high-quality equipment, years of training and experience in Africa or Indochina, they are nothing like their less experienced 'wards', and are indeed extremely deadly opponents who should put even the toughest Bloody Shirts on guard. About the only thing the Russians will have in their favor is that there really aren't that many of these guys involved in Operation Valkyrie - most of Europe's regular forces, and the bulk of the Crusade itself, are stuck fighting in Ukraine & Belarus. Rank: Lieutenant Armed with: SA80 OR FAMAS OR FN FAL OR MP5 OR Steyr HS OR Panzerfaust Beretta 92 OR Glock 22 12 mags Bayonet 4x Grenades Heavy armor Safety boots Ustasha Ah, the dreaded Ustasha. They were well-known even before the Crusade as the paramilitary arm (or as they like to call themselves, 'law enforcement, border security and royal guard in one') of the Croatian Bans, their inhuman brutality towards any Muslims or Orthodox caught existing on Croatian land already becoming the stuff of black legends & their laundry lists' worth of atrocities having infamously terrified even the 'Bloody Emperor' Charles I who came before Richard II. They presently form the shock contingent of Operation Valkyrie, and already everyone - including the Ustasha themselves - fully expect that they will be the ones to sack Moscow, not the professional European regulars or the high-minded Crusaders: it's been suggested that Emperor Richard is packing these men off to Russia so that they wouldn't turn into serial killers at home, and the worst thing of all is that these rumors are only half-joking at best. Heavily armed, equally heavily armored and so blatantly psychotic that they even pose a danger to their own side, the coming of the Ustasha is rightly feared by all wise Russians and even wise Europeans alike. Rank: Elite Armed with: Type 81 OR FN FAL OR MP5 OR SPAS-12 OR RT-20 OR Panzerfaust OR Flamethrower Glock 22 OR MAC-10 15 mags Bayonet 4x Grenades Heavy armor Safety boots OSS Operator The Office of Strategic Services is known to be active in Russia, having sabotaged countless radar stations and comms networks ahead of the 11th Crusade to ensure things move as smoothly as possible for their side. Few, if any, operators are actually going to attack Moscow with the rest of Operation Valkyrie - the rest are busy helping out the main thrust of the Crusading and European hosts to the south, or training and supplying Black Hundreds as part of the deal struck between their Emperor and the Russian Empress-Regent. Still, it's possible to run into them on your travels, and depending on which faction you have pledged yourself to, they may be great allies or formidable opponents: unlike the heavily armored Ustasha or regulars, OSS operators are deadly but agile fighters who have sacrificed protection for mobility, and carry only the best weapons available in Europe. Rank: Elite Armed with: SA80 OR FAMAS OR FN FAL OR SPAS-12 OR Uzi OR Steyr HS OR RT-20 OR Panzerfaust OR Flamethrower Beretta 92 OR Glock 22 OR MAC-10 20 mags Bayonet Hand weapon 4x Grenades Ballistic vest All-weather boots Emergent factions wip Separatists wip

[Barry Goldwater]

Character backgrounds

Fresh Blood 'Better an end with terror, than a terror without end'. You are a soldier in the ranks of the Bloody Shirts, either an 'old guardsman' who had been with them since you first heard Dr. Ahronovitch rail against the evils inherent in the old Russian system or a relatively new addition, freshly promoted from the ranks of the Opolcheniye, who's just earned his red jacket. Perhaps you were a middle-class college student who joined the Bloody Shirts to bring an end to a blatantly unjust government (despite having personally greatly benefited from it...) out of the good in your heart, or perhaps you're Ahronovitch's 'salt of the earth', a member of the oppressed & ignored under-class who had the great pleasure of being callously trampled into the ground by the 'superior' nobility and watching 'pious' priests gorge themselves on fine meats and cheeses while you scrounged in dumpsters for table scraps. Either way, you are a fighter absolutely committed to bringing down the old order, unleashing your own brand of bloody justice upon your former oppressors, anderecting a truly just system in its place where all men are equal under the blue sky - probably in that order. No matter how much blood must flow, no matter how many heads must roll and how many hundreds of billions in rubles of property must burn, you will see a world of true equality, where everyone can live in peace and prosperity without regard for birth or station, become reality - or else die trying. Players who choose this background will start with the following: AK-47 OR AK-74 OR SKS OR Dragunov OR Saiga-12 TT Pistol 8 Mags Bayonet 2x Grenades All-weather boots Black Heart 'The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!' You are one of the Black Hundreds, and though your side has quite clearly lost the war, you still wear their black coat with pride. Yes - even beneath the crushing agony of defeat, even as you wonder if God has truly forsaken your lot, you will still wear that coat, because do you not hold your faith close to your heart? It was easy to proclaim faith in God in the good times before the masses rose against their betters and slew God's own appointed, but now times are hard, and God will see (for He must see) that your faith is not hollow, that you will follow Him even as He wills you to stain your hands in blood and His enemies bear down on you with flame and lead, that you are still at His command where all His fairweather followers (men you knew, ate and drank and bunked with) have already deserted Him. Even with the knowledge that the woman you serve now is a paranoid wreck of a regent, living for naught but vengeance and power - you know this, your comrades know this, even your superiors must know this no matter what sweet lies they tell about her - you will still wear that cloak, because do you not pride yourself on your iron loyalty to the Romanovs? Where would the world be, if men forsook oaths of fealty to their overlords over the occasional idiot Tsar or bloody-minded Tsarina? In the interest of order, for only within order can the people be kept in their rightful places and enjoy the prosperity their masters would have graced them with in good time, you must fight for the return of the Romanovs and through them, for God - no matter what comes your way. Players who choose this background will start with the following: AK-47 OR AK-74 OR FN FAL OR Zastava OR MP5 M1895 Revolver 8 Mags Bayonet 2x Grenades Light armor Crusader 'The chief beginning of evil is goodness in excess.' You are a Crusader, likely to be an idealistic man between 16 and 40 coming from the many walks of life - farmers, carpenters, factory workers, bank tellers, all of these and more are fighting together under St. George's Cross - who signed up for the 11th Crusade in hopes of realizing your ever-wise and benevolent overlord's dream of a New World Order beneath his silken fist, where there will be no suffering or poverty and all men will sing their praises to God and the Stuarts as they should. Alternatively, you heard that Moscow remained relatively undamaged even after three years of war and saw this as a good chance to get rich, maybe even win a knighthood and some medals while you're at it - and hey, if shooting up schismatics can actually get you a ticket past the Pearly Gates (unlikely, but why not) then even better! Regardless of the nobility or lack thereof in your motivations for being here, you're now flying on what your officers are saying is 'statistically, probably' one-way trip to Moscow with a gun, your friends from boot camp, and some really shifty looking Croatian fellows - while your blue-blooded officers are sipping champagne, gobbling up filet mignon and pushing figures back & forth on a table in the safety of your Finnish bases. They say that, statistically speaking, you'll probably die in the streets of Moscow, and go down in history as just another number in Europe's casualty tables; the time to prove them wrong is coming, perhaps faster than you might have liked. Players who choose this background will start with the following: SA80 OR OR FN FAL OR MP5 OR Steyr HS OR Bennelli M3 Beretta 92 8 mags Bayonet 2x Grenades Ballistic vest OR light armor Deserter 'The deserter knows his life is forfeit if he is taken, so he will not flinch from any crime, no matter how vile.' You once fought for either side in the civil war, but have for whatever reason broken your oath - maybe you were a conscript who disappeared at the first possible opportunity, perhaps you didn't like the direction in which your cause was going, maybe the commanding officer urinated in your weekly rations while drunk. Even a Black Hundred may have found that his iron loyalty was rusting in the face of the Tsarina's descent into paranoia and base brutality, while a Bloody Shirt may have come to see that there's rather too much blood on his clothes and that he's become just as monstrous as the people he's fighting in his quest for justice and true equality. Whatever his motivations for casting aside his past loyalties, the Deserter now finds himself in Moscow - perhaps they have friends or family there, maybe they were just stationed there when they bolted, or they made straight for the capital after abandoning their old unit in the hopes of getting lost in a sea of strangers. Players who choose this background will start with the following: TT pistol M1895 Revolver 4 mags Hand weapon 1x Grenade Running shoes Civilian 'You can no more win a war than you can win a blizzard.' Though you've lived through three years of war, you are still a stranger to it. You may have found yourself in Moscow at the war's outbreak - perhaps you actually live here, or your loved ones did and you were paying them a visit, or maybe you just worked here and got trapped when the Duma declared martial law and Bloody Shirts started prowling the streets alongside the police. Alternatively, you could be a refugee of one of many outlying towns and villages, driven to seek refuge behind the Duma's barricades when the Black Hundreds or their own Bloody Shirts burned & raped & pillaged their way through your hometown; even the clergy, held in contempt by the progressives dominating the Duma and utter loathing by the Bloody Shirts, can find safety in the great city after all, where at least the Duma is keeping the peace and restraining the Bloody Shirts from doing anything beyond acts of petty theft and vandalism. Whatever your background, you've been stuck in the capital of the 'new Russia' for the last three years, hoping every day that no great disaster (like say, Black Hundreds overcoming the garrison) befalls you, but now that the war is finally over, maybe - just maybe - you'll be free to leave at last. Players who choose this background will start with the following: Motorcycle OR Car OR Truck

[Barry Goldwater]

Combat rules

We'll be using an HP system here. It doesn't take a genius to see that most people will die if they take a bullet, even in seemingly non-fatal areas like the legs or shoulders, so your HP will never rise beyond the single digits unless you get your hands on powerful unique equipment. Enemies have set amounts of HP, depending on class and equipment: Grunt-level NPCs will all only have 1 base HP, Lieutenant-level NPCs have 2, and Elite-level NPCs get 3. Players will all start with 2 base HP, but like NPCs, they can add on more hitpoints by wearing armor. Now, since it's not that hard to kill someone anymore, combat will have to be fast and brutal. All players start with three actions allowed per turn (action here is defined as any combat task, so while breathing or talking doesn't count, shooting or stabbing or reloading or even just seeking cover does). Some pieces of equipment will grant you even more actions/turn, though they tend to require you to sacrifice survivability and become one-hit-point-wonders. On the flip side of course, heavier armor sets will slow you down, forcing you to choose between survivability or speed. Some weapons can tear off more HP than others, to the point of instantly killing heavily armored opponents, so in theory becoming an extremely fast and hard-hitting 1-HP wonder might not be that bad an idea...just watch out for mines, grenades and flamethrowers. When you come under attack, with few exceptions (ie. bombing runs, artillery strikes) I'll always roll to see if you can dodge whatever's coming your way. Your present equipment & the presence of cover or lack of it can apply bonuses or maluses to your chances. Dice rolls, and the appropriate bonuses/maluses, will also account for turn order as 'initiative rolls': if you happen to be the fastest guy in a firefight, congrats, you get to act before anyone else does.

Equipment

Equipment is divided into seven categories: Assault Rifles, Battle Rifles, Sniper Rifles, Submachine Guns, Shotguns, Handguns and Other. No one piece of equipment is necessarily better than others: an assault rifle or SMG is the better choice in urban areas where you'll want to be able to sweep enemy parties and fight in close quarters, a battle rifle or even a sniper rifle is the better option in more open areas with plenty of space between you & the enemy, and so on. Try to just go with whatever works for the present situation: you can get attached to the sturdy old AK all you want, but your love for it won't save you if you wander into a sniper's crosshairs. Speaking of AKs, you'll find that Assault Rifles can switch between semi- or fully automatic modes. In semi-auto, you can fire up to half the magazine per turn; in full-auto, you must fire the entire magazine in one go. The one exception for accuracy is when you're shooting someone at point blank, at which point you obviously can't miss. Assault Rifles AK-47 - Base accuracy: 1/10 - Base damage: 2 HP/round - 30 rounds/mag - Two modes: semi-automatic, full-auto AK-74 - Base accuracy: 1/8 - Base damage: 2 HP/round - 30 rounds/mag - Two modes: semi-automatic, full-auto SA80 - Base accuracy: 1/8 - Base damage: 1 HP/round - 30 rounds/mag - Two modes: semi-automatic, full-auto - Reloading is a free action FAMAS - Base accuracy: 1/6 - Base damage: 1 HP/round - 20 rounds/mag - Two modes: semi-automatic, full-auto - Reloading is a free action M16 - Base accuracy: 1/4 - Base damage: 1 HP/round - 30 rounds/mag - Two modes: semi-automatic, full-auto Type 81 - Base accuracy: 1/12 - Base damage: 1 HP/round - 75 rounds/mag - Two modes: semi-automatic, full-auto Battle Rifles SKS - Base accuracy: 1/6 - Base damage: 3 HP/round - 10 rounds/mag - Semi-auto only FN FAL - Base accuracy: 1/6 - Base damage: 2 HP/round - 20 rounds/mag - Semi-auto only Type 56 - Base accuracy: 1/4 - Base damage: 1 HP/round - 20 rounds/mag - Semi-auto only SMGs PPSh-41 - Base accuracy: 1/12 - Base damage: 1 HP/round - 70 rounds/mag - Full-auto only MP5 - Base accuracy: 1/15 - Base damage: 1 HP/round - 100 rounds/mag - Full-auto only Uzi - Base accuracy: 1/10 - Base damage: 2 HP/round - 50 rounds/mag - Full-auto only Shotguns Saiga-12 - Base accuracy: 1/8 - 3 HP/round - 8 rounds/mag - Max. 1 shot/action Bennelli M3 - Base accuracy: 1/10 - Base damage: 3 HP/round - 8 rounds/mag - Max. 2 shots/action SPAS-12 - Base accuracy: 1/12 - Base damage: 8 HP/round - 5 rounds/mag - Max. 1 shot/action Sniper Rifles Dragunov - Base accuracy: 1/4 - Base damage: 5 HP/round - 10 rounds/mag - Semi-auto Zastava - Base accuracy: 1/2 - Base damage: 8 HP/round - 5 rounds/mag - 1 shot/action Steyr HS - Base accuracy: 1/2 - Base damage: 10 HP/round - 1 round/mag - 1 shot/action - Reloading is a free action RT-20 - Base accuracy: 1/2 - Base damage: Kills instantly without fail - 1 round/mag - 1 shot/action Handguns TT - Base accuracy: 1/6 - Base damage: 1 HP/round - 8 rounds/mag - Max. 2 shots/action M1895 Revolver - Base accuracy: 1/6 - Base damage: 2 HP/round - 7 rounds/mag - Max. 1 shot/action Beretta 92 - Base accuracy: 1/8 - Base damage: 1 HP/round - 18 rounds/mag - Semi-auto Glock 22 - Base accuracy: 1/6 - Base damage: 1 HP/round - 15 rounds/mag - Max. 3 shots/action MAC-10 - Base accuracy: 1/10 - Base damage: 1 HP/round - 32 rounds/mag - Full-auto only Other Ballistic vest: +1 HP, no action penalty Light armor: +3 HP, -1 action, -1 to initiative rolls Heavy armor: + 6 HP, -2 actions, -2 to initiative rolls Running shoes: +1 free action, +1 to initiative rolls outside rough terrain All-weather boots: +2 free actions, +1 to initiative rolls in rough terrain Safety boots: +1 HP, -1 action, -1 to initiative rolls outside rough terrain Molotov cocktail: One use, 1d10 damage + additional 1d6 damage to all affected every turn unless they can get to water, affects all players & NPCs in sight without cover Grenade: One use, 1d20 damage, affects all players & NPCs in sight without cover Hand weapon: Instant kill VS non-heavily armored opponents, base 2 HP/strike damage to heavily armored opponents, two-action weapon (1 action to close in, 1 action to actually strike) Bayonet: Same as Knife, but doesn't require you to waste an action switching weapons to use it RPG: 1 shot/HEAT, targets up to 5 enemies with base 1/6 accuracy, instantly kills anyone hit; alternatively, can be used to target individual vehicles Panzerfaust: 1 shot/HEAT, targets up to 5 enemies with base 1/4 accuracy, instantly kills anyone hit; alternatively, can be used to target individual vehicles Machine Gun: Stationary weapon, provides +1 dodge bonus to user (cover), possesses infinite ammo, can fire up to 100 rounds/turn with 1/10 base accuracy for 3 HP/round damage Horse: +2 free actions/round, +2 to initiative rolls, 1 HP, does not require fuel Motorcycle: +3 free actions/round, +2 to initiative rolls, 1 HP, requires 1 fuel tank/use Car: +1 free action/round for the entire party, +1 to initiative rolls for the entire party, 2 HP, requires 1 fuel tank/use Truck: No free actions/round but provides cover to entire party (+3 to dodge rolls), 3 HP, requires 2 fuel tanks/use Tank: Cannot be used by players; 5 HP; immune to all small arms EXCEPT Zastava/Steyr HS/RT-20, NOT immune to explosives (grenades, RPGs etc.); can only act once/turn; attack targets entire enemy party with 1/4 base accuracy, kills anyone it hits Helicopter: Cannot be used by players; 2 HP; immune to all weapons EXCEPT RPGs or Panzerfausts; can only act once/turn; has two attacks, 1. an MG burst that targets entire enemy party with 1/8 base accuracy for 3 HP/round damage + 2. a missile that targets up to three characters with 1/4 base accuracy and kills without fail OR can be used to destroy tanks Flamethrower: 1/4 base accuracy, 1 canister/shot, instant kill if it hits, targets all enemies in sight Mine: Stationary weapon that can be set in advance, does 1d50 damage to whoever triggers it, can instantly disable tanks

[Kip]

This looks wondrous. Can't wait to get started. Holler if you need help with anything!

[jacb547]

Awesome! I guess we will chose to fight either for the IU or Russia?

[Barry Goldwater]

Thanks guys. I think y'all can at least start writing characters now that I have the backgrounds done, I'll post the signup thread shortly. Also, any help with modding would be most welcome - I won't particularly mind if mods introduce their own RP strains or spice up existing ones as long as it isn't something too ridiculous for the situation, ie. a tank randomly bursting through a wall to save an otherwise doomed party from that mob they've just pissed off in downtown Volgograd

@Jacb More like you can fight for Europe, or one of many different visions of Russia.

[Dan the Man]

To glory!

[Prodigal]

Yay!

[Barry Goldwater]

Can I still join?

Of course, we've barely started anyway

[Barry Goldwater]

Soo...ahem, I kinda need half of you guys to post soon. Kaits & Amaz are needed for the cafe shootout scene, and Dan & MMM for the Crusaders.

[Agamemnon]

I still think we should resume this.