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Organized Play Member. 50 posts (137 including aliases). No reviews. No lists. No wishlists. 1 Organized Play character. 3 aliases.




For the last few weeks across Hong Kong, but especially in the Kowloon area, the talk is all about the Portland Street Community Centre. Everyone is talking about it, even the tourists are hearing the chatter. A new community center in the busy, sometimes seedy Mongkok area. Many are hopefull that the philanthropic benefactors behind the center can truly do as they've stated and reduce the area's sex trade. Others just see a potential for their own business. But most are excited about the athletic facilites, meeting spaces and offices that will be opened and available.

Either way, the ribbon-cutting ceremony is happening tonight, and it seems like there's no choice but to go. Whether a major donor, someone hoping to use the center for their local business, just there for the free food or following someone from your past, you've all made it to the ceremony.

The night starts simple, the large building hosting a large number of very different people. Many officials and business men give long-winded speeches throughout the night. Some people listen attentively, while others wander, gazing at the tables full of cakes and snacks. Some of the youth gather in disparate parts of the room, a little knot of black or red or blue, practicaly snarling at each other from across the room. Even a small knot of homeless people stands together, hovering near the food table, waiting.

Go ahead and get a quick introduction in there, including your reason for being here and what you're doing. Do any of you know each other? Do you know someone else here? etc., etc. And remember, if I haven't specified otherwise, you are welcome to specify any part of this.


Welcome everyone. For now we'll finish character creation and get things going on that direction. For my reference, I see a couple of you are familiar with see Feng Shui 1, is anyone familiar with Feng Shui 2 yet?


Sevral thugs step through the door and look around the bar the bar. They swing their M16s around to point at Hank Grear and start to spray the area. Hank leaps over the bar just ahead of the bullets as glass shatters all around him. He reaches around and grabs a bottle in each hand testing their weight. He looks over at the bartender, huddeled down on the other end of the bar, "Mind if I use these?" The bartender shakes his head, bewildered.

The gun fire pauses for just a moment but it's long enough. Hank leapes up and with a quick motion throws the bottles one after the other as he moves, closing the distance with his assailants. Each bottle smashes against the head of two of the men, dropping them to the ground only moments before Hank arrives. One man begins to fire, but Hank knocks the gun quickly to the side, and the bullets mow down two more thugs. Hank grabs the barrel of the rifle and brings it back up and into the face of the firing goon.

Five down, two to go.

The men bring their guns up, Hank standing between them. He drops to the floor just as they begin to fire, and they both go down. bits of plaster rain down as the thugs fire uncontrollably in their dying spasms.

After a moment or two, Hank stands up and begins to search the pockets of the nearest thug. He pulls out a handgun and a card. One name stands out on the card. Klawhauser. Hank walks over to finish his drink. He checks the clip in the handgun. Seeing it's full, he shoves it back in, and cocks the gun. He slaps a wad of cash down on the counter and starts to walk out, "I'd love to stay and chat, but I've gotta see a man about a horse."

Welcome to Feng Shui 2: Action Movie Roleplaying

Well, if you've gotten this far, I'd imagine you can already figure out that I'm starting up a game of Feng Shui 2, and I am looking for some players. I'm looking to run a game for 3 or 4 people, one of which is already taken. So if you are interested, read on.

What is Feng Shui?

As suggested by the subtitle, Feng Shui is a roleplaying game designed to emulate action movies. Many of the themes are geared towards Hong Kong action movies (if you're unfamiliar with this genre, think Jackie Chan, Jet Li and Bruce Lee and you'll be close enough) but many of those same themes have been borrowed into the action hero movies we're all so familiar with, so it fits pretty neatly in that category as well. Either way, expect big explosions, lots of guns and cool action sequences.

What's the setting?

This adventure will start in Hong Kong, present day-ish (meaning that we're going to play fast and loose with the setting). When we're getting ready to start you'll all eventually need a reason to be there.

What kind of game will you run?

For now, I'm starting with one of the prepublished adventures to get things going. I would like to then continue the game further into a full fledged campaign, but I figure we'll reevaluate as a group once we finish the one adventure.

Do I need to know the rules of this game before applying?

Short answer: No!

Feng Shui is a fairly simple game to get into. The few things you'll need to know have been summed up in a couple pages on some of the Feng Shui products, but for our purposes, I'll give you the rules you'll need. Character creation will be handled below (hint, it's really easy), and then basic game play will be handled in the discussion thread before things begin.

Okay, so how do I create a character?

1. Choose an archetype from the list below this section. This is the general idea for your character and what they can do. The descriptions that I've attached give a general idea of how the archtype can be implemented, but this is not the only flavor for the archtype. In fact . . .

2. Create a concept. Your specific implementation of your archtype. Sure your a Maverick Cop, but what kind of Maverick Cop? Are you a care-free young'en who thinks you know better than the rest of the department? Or a high strung, cop, close to retirement that gets the job done no matter what rules he has to break? Feel free to go deeper than this. 1 or 2 strong ideas are much better than a lot of weak ones. And remember, you are an action hero! Be awesome and melodromatic. Which brings me to the next point.

3. Create a melodromatic hook. Action heroes don't have nice clean pasts. They're going through divorces, had murdered parents, brothers, sisters, lovers or children, have forbiden romances, caused the accidental death of someone innocent (sometimes even a loved one) or are searching for a missing person that's important to them. Maybe you've gotten a bad rap and need to clear your name or were betrayed by your best friend. Maybe you've been part of the mob for umpteen years and now you want out. Be creative and embrace the melodrama.

4. Finally, Name your character. This one's pretty self explanatory, but if you need help, feel free to ask. Just remember, you're an action hero. Go for something simple and cool (John McClane, Sarah Conner, Martin Riggs, Elen Ripley, James Bond, Trinity, etc.) If you've got a character from the non-English-speaking world, make sure to choose a name that fits (you can still make it sound cool.)

Archtypes:
You are free to play with no special considerations:

Big Bruiser: With your size and strength, you cast an intimidating shadow across the scene of any fight. You don’t hit as often as other combatants, but when you do, look out! Your massive frame allows you to withstand blows that would flatten a smaller fighter. Most people assume you’re stupid, and maybe you are—but maybe not, letting you play their misperceptions to your advantage. You may have worked as a manual laborer, or as a guard of some kind. You might be a quiet, gentle giant or a bullying loudmouth. You are definitely a mountain of determination and endurance.

Bodyguard: You have a very particular set of skills. As a Personal Protection Specialist, you get your client from point A to point C while avoiding the bad guy at point B. Obscure outside the tight circles of your profession, you avoid the glare of fame cast by your celebrity and political clients. Maybe you lost the client who most mattered to you, the one you broke the rules for and fell in love with. Perhaps your client has disappeared and you've sworn to find them. However you came to this juncture, now your greatest act of protection awaits.

Bounty Hunter: You started out skip tracing and finding deadbeat dads, but your considerable talent soon found you tracking a craftier, more desperate class of crooks. You often sign on to hunt criminals who have crossed international borders, or are hiding out in countries without extradition treaties. You always get your quarry, and though you’re not looking for a scrap you take pride in handling a takedown quickly and with minimal fuss. At first, your latest gig seemed like any other. Then your target displayed a depth of resources that didn’t fit the profile. The deeper you dug, the weirder the story got. Still hot on the trail, you have no idea what you are about to plunge into.

Drifter: Whatever your story is, you ain’t tellin’. Constantly on the move, you want nothing more than to be left alone— and maybe the simple pleasures of life, like a cold drink on a hot day. Destiny, that well-known troublemaker, has other plans. You have a knack for wandering into other peoples’ trouble, and a conscience that won’t let you stay out of it. Whenever thugs are threatening a helpless young widow, you’re there. Whenever criminals become the law, you’re there. There with a great big freaking gun. And if you have to plant a bunch of them in the ground, well, you always warn them not to mess with you.

Driver: Chill-out electrobeat pulses from your speakers. Sodium-lit empty highway snakes out before you. With gentle control you accelerate. You are your car. You are at peace. Existential zen, zen, zen. Everyone covets your skills. Fast drivers meet demands in dark places. A vehicle like yours doesn’t pay for itself. So you cross a line or two. Stay cool, cool, cool, you tell yourself. Forget everything else. Just be the road. Who are you fooling? Jacketed inside that cool, bottled within all that control, burns six-twenty horsepower of rage, rage, rage.

Everyday Hero: You might be nobody special, but that’s the source of all your awesome. Unlike some archetypes you could name, you work for a living—probably in a good, honest, vanishing blue-collar job. Maybe you’re a factory worker, a truck driver, a plumber, or a sailor. You may be on vacation when the action begins, or find yourself in a crossfire as the result of a jobrelated errand. Aside from taking care of your melodramatic hook, all you really want to do is sit down with a can of beer and watch some sports at the local bar. But somehow trouble always comes looking for you. That’s because of your basic, essential decency and/or stupidity. And also your peculiar luck. On one hand, your luck gets you through situations that even you don’t believe you could survive. But on the other hand, your luck tends to get you into weird and frightening situations to begin with because the good guys need your help. You may not be the smartest, or the strongest, or the most skilled person in the world. But you’re a good guy, and “Good guys always finish—ugh! Hey, wha’d you shoot me for? Oh, man, now I’m bleeding… howzabout a knuckle sandwich?”

Ex-Special Forces: Afghanistan. Iraq. Places you still aren’t allowed to name. A former member of an elite force trained in counter-terrorism, hostage rescue, and sabotage missions, you had a hard-bitten military mindset drilled into you along with your extensive list of deadly skills. It is possible that you were dishonorably discharged from your beloved unit, fairly or otherwise; this might be your melodramatic hook. People keep expecting you to relax, to kick back, to get along, just like everybody else. But you can’t. Your nerves are still on edge. Whenever you get into a fender bender, or a confrontation on the street, it takes all of your determination not to leap on the guy harassing you and beat him to a pulp. You long for a new cause to believe in, one you can feel as much fervor for as your old corps. Most of all, you want the pure rush you get from combat. There’s nothing you’d like more than to feel the taste of blood and fear in your mouth on another battlefield.

Full Metal Nutball: They call you a gun nut—accent on the gun. Well, also, come to think of it, accent on the nut. Okay, okay, sure, they apply equally. Except that you don’t just love guns. You delight in ordnance of all kinds, the more explosive the better. Your weird little hideout bristles with rare, illegal, and just plain impractical weaponry. How you acquired it all with no visible means of a support may be revealed in the course of play, or remain a mystery hardly worth addressing. You don’t shoot your firearms as well as you lovingly care for them, so when you finally get a chance to pull the trigger for real, the results skew toward the slapstick as well as the lethal. When you meet real deal shooting and killing types, you try to contain your drooling enthusiasm, but when things get hot the whooping and hollering starts. Mostly you come off as a lovable oddball. In addition to your pistolophilia, you likely spout various paranoid beliefs.

Gambler: As a devil-may-care hang-glider on the winds of fate, you’ve turned natural luck and a flair for getting yourself out of scrapes and into a profitable career. You’ve learned to handle yourself in a fight—not all losers are good sports, after all. But mostly you rely on your drop-dead gorgeous smile and your airtight instincts to keep yourself out of trouble. With these two weapons at your disposal, you’ve carved out a life of luxury for yourself—no pleasure is too flashy or shallow for your tastes. You came from humble beginnings and made your fortune using only your brains and your need for victory. The latest clothes, the shiniest gadgets: these are things you’ve dreamed of since childhood. But the real prize is the sheer joy of beating the odds, of triumphing over your opponents when logic decrees that you should be down for the count. Now a situation where all of the odds you’ve memorized are turned upside down has pulled you into something unexpected. Nonetheless, you face this new adventure with a grin and a heaping helping of aplomb. You know it won’t take you long to figure the angles.

Karate Cop: You are a loyal, team-playing officer of the law who happens to be about as adept in the martial arts as you are with your service revolver. You overcome the bad guys not by being bigger or tougher but by sheer pluck and perseverance. When you punch a huge slab of a goon in the jaw, it hurts your hand. When you leap from a bridge to a passing hovercraft, you feel the impact roll up through your body. When fireworks set your jacket aflame mid-fight, you struggle awkwardly to put it out. You’re not the most graceful combatant, or able to manifest the bizarre fu powers of the ancient masters. But no matter how many times they knock you down, you get back up, shake off the pain, and keep running after the wrongdoers.

Killer: You used to work as a professional assassin. Maybe you served an intelligence agency. More likely you whacked people for the triads. You prided yourself on cool, calculated efficiency and the ability to get the job done without getting involved. You know everything there is to know about the acquisition, handling, and employment of firearms. You’ve been perforated by bullets more times than you can count. It’s what you call an occupational hazard. The intellectual puzzle of the perfect kill mattered to you then. The value of your life, or those of your victims, never factored into the equation . . . until now. Now something is driving you to change history with your trigger finger, instead of just wiping out unsuspecting targets. And maybe, just maybe, that gives you a chance to redeem yourself . . .

Magic Cop: Even though magic is rare and difficult to perform, supernatural manifestations still ooze from the world’s dark corners, sometimes with lethal results. Many large police jurisdictions secretly maintain small units of officers trained in the mystic arts. These cops are able to take on the occasional renegade sorcerer or shaman who might pop up, and can dispatch demons and ghosts without freaking out. You are one of these cops. You’re probably a loner; the system is set up so you have little contact with regular law enforcement officials. Other officers think you’re nuts, if they know who you are at all. You have built up tough mental defenses against the creatures of the night. To normal folks, you come off as grim or aloof. You might think of yourself as a holy warrior, implacably gunning down anything that smacks of the occult. Or maybe you wish you could build a bridge between the world of the supernatural and the world of everyday humanity. Sometimes, the answers you seek lead to more, discovering that there is much hidden beneath reality’s mundane veneer that even you know nothing about.

Martial Artist: An accomplished young student of one or more schools of hand to-hand combat, you are as effective with your bare hands as when wielding traditional hand-to-hand weapons. Embarking on a lifetime’s study, you have recently mastered a number of esoteric chi powers. Most importantly, you have absorbed a profound truth: martial arts are more than just a series of combat moves. They represent an ancient and learned discipline, one that preaches restraint, discipline, and humility. You work hard to live up to that philosophy. You choose your fights carefully, and work to uphold the values you have learned, such as reverence for elders, respect for the traditions of the past, and self-sacrifice for the greater good. You probably work at a humble job, caring little for material goods. The only goal you consider worthy of pursuing is the physical and spiritual perfection attained by the great masters of the past. Your dedication to honor and self-perfection leads you into the battle against evil without a second thought.

Masked Avenger: For many years, you watched your society slowly sink into corruption. Crime runs rampant on the streets. Justice eludes the common man. Criminals are rewarded victims, forgotten. The police and judiciary, hopelessly tainted or just plain unable to deal with the evil’s rising tide, can’t be trusted to do the job. The time for brooding is over. Seeking to strike fear into the hearts of evildoers, you have donned a distinctive, armored costume and identity-concealing mask to take the law into your own hands. You use your own uncompromising moral compass to find wrongdoers and beat the crap out of them. With your fierce fists and barking automatic pistols, you aim to turn back the clock and return to an age of justice. Although your abilities are formidable, you do not expect to transform society all on your own. Only when people stand up for themselves and take back their own streets will the criminals of the world truly quake in fear. Rhetoric aside, your mission may not be entirely altruistic: the Masked Avenger’s past usually involves sworn vengeance of some sort. Did some terrible event push you over the edge from thinking about vigilantism to stalking the streets in funny clothes looking for villains to punish? Maybe you’re a little crazy—but the really crazy ones are the bad guys who stand in your way.

Maverick Cop: The Maverick Cop is a plainclothes detective assigned to a major crime unit of a big city. You may work undercover, you may be in an anti-mob unit, or you may be a homicide detective. Good-looking but slovenly, you may cultivate a drinking problem and definitely have a personal life in a state of serious disorder. Despite the fact that you are one yourself, you’ve always had a problem with authority figures. You see yourself as a loner, but this may date back only as far as your last partner getting killed, or the origin point of some other melodramatic hook. You are always on the verge of being fired and are often on suspension. You keep your job only because your gruff superior officer has a secret soft spot for you, and because you get results. Although you always get the job done in the end, everything seems to conspire to make you look bad. People connected to your investigations have a habit of getting killed. Witnesses get snuffed. Bystanders fall like tenpins whenever you take part in a firefight. Most of all, you never seem to be able to just apprehend a crook. It’s not like you deliberately set out to empty the contents of your high-caliber revolver into each and every scumbag you’re supposed to arrest. You warn them even, tell them they shouldn’t be feeling lucky, shouldn’t ever get you riled. Punks never learn.

Ninja: In Feng Shui 2 the term “Ninja” is also used generically to describe any operative who specializes in stealth and penetration missions. Although capable of holding your own during a fight, you prefer deception and surprise over a frontal assault. Ninjas maintain a mystique around themselves, often pretending to have secret mystical powers. Although the Ninja does have a passing acquaintance with esoteric chi abilities, the mystery surrounding you is mostly due to your own wit and presence. It is not fame that you crave so much as cultivating that mystique. You wish your deeds to be famous, but your identity to be a secret. You want to be feared. You want to be whispered about. Nothing amuses you more than to stand among people who have no clue just how quick and deadly you are. But lately, you have begun to feel a sense of emptiness. Maybe you have suffered a loss in love, or some other personal blow that has made you feel less invincible than usual. Perhaps you’ve begun to question your amoral existence. Or perhaps you've had an awakening desire to do something—to leave a mark on the world, even if no one will ever know your name.

Old Master: You are an elderly expert who long ago conquered the most difficult principles of martial arts and chi powers. You spent many long years tutoring others in the secrets of your art, and are used to being treated with utmost respect. Therefore, you can be a bit of a hothead when challenged by others who do not know enough to bow before your superior experience. You are a harsh disciplinarian; you grumpily pine for the good old days when proper respect was paid to elders and the heavens were in harmony with the Earth. Although you no longer possess the physical strength and endurance you had as a young student, your skill and Chi powers still make you a formidable opponent. You want to retire from active participation in the world of martial arts, leaving the field to the young men and women you have trained to follow in your footsteps. Now you want to rest, and to study the arts and ancient poems. But the tide of evil in the world seems to be growing again. You must show a new generation of heroes how to become masters themselves, as your masters taught you. Used to deference and with bones growing more tired by the day, you can be surprisingly cranky, even comically crude, when crossed. Some life lessons are best imparted with a clout upside the head.

Private Investigator: As an experienced investigator you have accumulated contacts throughout society: from well-heeled clients who can afford to hire you, to the enforcers of the law you must occasionally skirt, to the seediest elements of the criminal underworld. You most often work for lawyers, digging up information for use in court cases. When one corporation sues another, you find yourself poring over corporate ledgers and sifting for obscure references in old business publications. You’ve worked for insurance companies, keeping plaintiffs under surveillance to see if they’re as injured as they claim to be. And then of course there are divorce cases. Although you may have gotten into your line of work because you fell in love with the film noir world of Philip Marlowe and Sam Spade, you’ve spent more time hunched over a laptop performing background checks than you have slugging it out with gangsters and crooked cops. Maybe that’s why, when you sniff out the first clues that point you to something more, you’re ready to chuck the real-life world of the private detective in favor of the fantastic adventure you’ve always dreamed of.

Scrappy Kid: Life is simple. You’re a kid. You like to have fun. But there are these bad guys who want to wreck everybody’s happiness. They think they’re better than everyone else. They want to be the boss of you. So even though boring old grownups want to keep you safely tucked away somewhere stupid, you’re gonna do something about it. After all, why should they get all the fun of shooting guns off and watching explosions and meeting cool monsters and all that stuff? Sure, you’re not exactly a killing machine, like you plan to be when you grow up. But you’re not bad for someone whose age isn’t in the double digits yet. You’re the best kung fu kid in your class, and you’ve learned some tricks you weren’t supposed to learn yet. And you’re fast, you know how to duck, and bad guys underestimate you. Hey, what could be cooler? You don’t have to play the Scrappy Kid as comic relief. (And shouldn’t, if your GM and the rest of the group want to maintain a consistently dark and gritty tone in your Feng Shui 2 series.) Maybe you’re a grim little warrior, forced by tragedy to fight back in a grownup world. Just because you haven’t hit puberty yet doesn’t mean that you don’t have a threatening squint worthy of Clint Eastwood.

Sifu: Sometimes the greatest warrior fights by healing his comrades. With your mastery of pressure points, perhaps in tandem with Western medicine, you keep your fellow heroes up, when they would otherwise fall. Whether they’re bruised, battered, scorched, or riddled with bullets, you can supply the few miraculous jabs required to send them tottering back into the fight for another round of brutal punishment. You serve as headmaster of a martial arts school, healer to the surrounding neighborhood, and beacon of wisdom for all who seek your counsel. You teach your students to embrace the honor and tranquility of Chinese philosophy. A man of peace, you were dragged only reluctantly into a battle with the injustices of your age. You would sooner bring your adversaries to the light than kick them into the darkness. But because you are a humble as well as a learned person, you are not so arrogant as to think that you can heal everyone. When push comes to shove, sometimes the weak must be defended. On those sad days, you stop setting bones and start breaking them.

Spy: You used to work for an intelligence agency. There are any number of reasons why you might have left. Maybe you were squeezed out by the machinations of shady new superiors. (Did you overhear them saying something about a Lodge, or a Wheel?) Maybe you left under a cloud of suspicion, after making a tragic mistake that led to the deaths of your subordinates. Or maybe you don’t remember who you used to be and why those assassins keep chasing you, but are determined to find out. Your retirement, happy or otherwise, comes to an abrupt end when the shadow world closes in on you again. What it offers, more than the chance to put those mothballed skills back into the field, is a feeling that may be new to you—that this time, you’ll know why you’re fighting, and that the fight is just.

Thief: You are a master thief. Although you make your living taking things from their legal owners, you don’t do so primarily for the money. Sure, you live in luxury from the proceeds of your past misdeeds. But it’s the challenge that keeps your senses keen and your ambitions sharp. You operate through careful research, by assembling every available scrap of information about your target. When you go in, you have every angle planned out to the millisecond. You also plan for something to go wrong. That’s when the adrenaline kicks in, when you have to think fast and get it right the first time. When the alarms are screaming and the footfalls of heavily-armed guards are rushing your way, when the distance to your getaway vehicle seems impossibly vast in the moments you have left to you—that’s the moment you live for. The money is just gravy. Still, there’s a thought nagging at the back of your skull that maybe all of this thrill-seeking is just a little bit meaningless—maybe even adolescent. Lately you’ve been thinking about leaving a positive mark on the world. Robbing from the rich and giving to the poor, or something like that. Is there a way to use your skills for the greater good?

Transformed Crab: In Ancient times, animal spirits from the supernatural realm between being and nonbeing sometimes yearn for the vividness of mortal existence, and through innate magic they assume human form. You have such an individual way back in your family lineage. You may or may not know any of the secretive transformed animals of the Ascended. You descend from a truculent crab spirit, fierce and determined to protect itself and its loved ones from the many harms of a hostile world. Some threat has lured you reluctantly from the safety of your carefully constructed life. Whoever steps on you will live to regret it

Transformed Dragon: In Ancient times, animal spirits from the supernatural realm between being and nonbeing sometimes yearn for the vividness of mortal existence, and through innate magic they assume human form. You have such an individual way back in your family lineage. You may or may not know any of the secretive transformed animals of the Ascended.You carry the blood of the mightiest of Chinese supernatural creatures, the dragon. Knowing, imperious, confident, you stride through humanity’s ranks mantled in good fortune. Driven by your past, you’re willing to risk all you’ve achieved and accumulated for victory.

Two-Fisted Archaeologist: The past is dangerous. Your years as a field historian have proved that time and time again. Magic isn’t mere myth—it used to be stronger, and pockets of its power reside in the iconic treasures your museum trustees back home most want you to find and bring back for their display cases. Through bitter experience you’ve learned that some of these are best stored in secure facilities, where the chaos they’d otherwise unleash cannot threaten humanity. Your rivals have ranged from unscrupulous profiteers to hallucinogen-snorting cultists to reactionary terrorist groups. The archaeological sites you’ve dedicated your professional life to resonate with mystical energies, making them strategic prizes in that fight. To protect both innocent lives and the precious heritage of these sites, you're ready to step in and fight.

You're still free to play, but you'll need to think a little harder on how to fit in

Archer: You exert supreme mastery over mankind’s quintessential missile weapon: the bow and arrow. With perfect serenity, you nock an arrow and draw. Sensing time’s crystalline nature, you divide the moment of aiming into a spiderweb of interlocking infinities. At the moment of precision, you loose the arrow. Your mind’s eye flies through the air, following the arrowhead as it closes the distance between you and your target. With the silence of the serpent, it strikes. Already you have drawn another arrow, ready to repeat. Guns may be louder, faster, more destructive. But no one deals death more beautifully than you.

Consider: How did you become such an expert in the bow? Why a bow instead of modern weapons?

Gene Freak: Bizarre energies somehow mad you able to manifest previously unknown bodily feats. Maybe you were changed by brushes with ordinary radiation or other experiments gone awry, a handful of moderns also acquired credibility-defying super powers. Most gene freaks want to be left alone. Maybe you do, too, but something in your past prevents it.

Consider: How did you gain your powers? How do you deal with it? Who knows and how do you keep it a secret?

Redeemed Pirate: You used to be a member of one of the many pirate gangs that sailed sea. The sea belonged to you and your comrades and there wasn’t a thing anyone could do about it. You lived a heedless life of looting and slaying. But there's since been a crackdown on piracy, matters grew dicier for you and your friends. You did what you had to do to survive— including some things you aren’t proud of. But you eventyally had to call it quits. A pivotal event in your life has sent you wandering again, perhaps far from the seas where you feel most confident. Now you are about to throw in with a ragged band of misfits, in whose company you might finally atone for the darkness of your past.

Considerations: Piracy is not near as common as it used to be. Think about how you got away with it for so long. How did you get into it in the first place? And how did you get out?

Sword Master: You trained until your blade became an extension of your being. The peace it brought, though others told you how impractical it was in this day and age, made everything worth it. Only in those elongated split seconds when you dueled against a foe, did you feel truly alive. But now something has changed and spurred you to action.

Considerations: You're bringing a knife to a gun fight. Why?

These don't fit in our current setting but could later, so you need to talk to the GM (me) before choosing to work out the special considerations

Bandit: Nobody starts out wanting to be a bandit. You began life as a farmer, craftsman, or merchant. Then disaster struck. A flood destroyed your farm. Imperial taxes drove you into poverty. Perhaps you were the victim of other bandits. In any case, you turned your back on society. You began to live off what you could steal. With guile and determination, you turned survival into not only a way of life, but also a source of inspiration for others. What life dished out to you, you took, and converted into power. Other bandits now flock to you. Imperial soldiers hunt you. Merchants shudder whenever your name is spoken. And yet, you find yourself returning to the very society that you once abandoned. Something draws you there — something you wish to fight for — something you must defend. You have taken the first few steps on a new road. It leads either to redemption, or to death.

Considerations: Bandits are from a time long ago. We'd need to discuss how you got here and where you came from. If you want something similar that belongs in our time, consider the thief or reformed pirate archtype.

Cyborg: An inhabitant of the scorched Future, you suffered a fate that should have killed you. Recovered by radiation-addled members of the Jammer cult, you begged for a merciful demise. Instead they tried to save you, using their bizarre scrounged technology. You returned to consciousness both better and worse than before, an amalgam of mangled humanity and barely operational robotic prosthetics. Impelled onward by a cranial chip that won’t let you kill yourself, you plunge into the fray in search of a cure for your freakish condition—or maybe just the oblivion destiny continues to withhold from you.

Considerations: Cyborgs are from the future. We've got to discuss your prior knowledge of elements in the upcoming campaign and how you got here.

Exorcist Monk: A very long time ago, impudent beings from the spirit world entered the world of man and began to interfere with it. You, a wise and therefore powerful monk, have descended from the serenity of your mountain monastery to perform the necessary exorcisms which will allow the world to return to peace, enabling people to once again pursue enlightenment through detachment. Though you’ll not turn a blind eye to other evils, none of them can be truly vanquished until your central task is done.

Considerations: This archtype is a powerful anti-magic. During the entire first portion of our campaign, there will not be a lot of magic for him to go against and you may feel wasted for a time. In addition, this is another character that has more knowledge of story elements than most characters. Plus they're from the past and we'd need to work through how you got here.

Ghost: Ghosts aplenty haunt the magic-rich ancient world. You are one of these—a spirit unwilling or unable to leave the trappings of mortal life behind to join the eternal cycle of reincarnation. Other ghosts prey on mortals, motivated either by jealousy of the living or by the same malign intentions they harbored in life. But you are tied to Earth for some other reason. Your soul cannot rest, for in life you swore a solemn oath to complete some great undertaking. You may have sworn to protect someone, to wreak vengeance on an enemy, or to recover some lost treasure or artifact. Ghosts have a bad habit of falling in love with mortals, and can often be stunningly beautiful and alluring. Although you know such loves are forbidden, you may already find yourself in a romantic entanglement that crosses the sacred barrier between the living and the dead. If you are not in such a doomed relationship, you are sufficiently prone to such temptations that you might end up in one before the series ends.

Considerations: In the present, it is much harder for ghosts to manifest. You will need to have been a ghost from the past, and somehow survived a draining of the magic in the world. In addition, we need to discuss how you survive and get around in the modern world.

Highway Ronin: You drove the desolate highways of the shattered future, not to get somewhere, but to escape from everywhere else. You fought for gasoline, for your freedom, and sometimes to avoid ending up on a cannibal’s flame grill. When confronted by the helpless, the desperate, you told them they didn’t need another hero. But in the end, you stepped up, and drove your battered but trusty vehicle against the strong, to protect the weak.

Considerations: Highway Ronin are from the future. We've got to discuss your prior knowledge of elements in the upcoming campaign and how you got here.

Sorcerer: You are a master of the occult arts, studied in the ancient techniques of channeling and transforming chi energy into a supernatural force, bent by your will. Some say this corrupts chi energy into what it was not meant to be. You call those people fools. Although there are many ways to do harm to an opponent, none has quite the awe inspiring effect of an energy bolt cast from a magician’s hand. You have some trouble manifesting your great powers. In most places superstitious cretins assume that all sorcerers pursue sinister ends. True, most who follow the ways of the occult wind up doing great harm to the people. They have been corrupted by exposure to the Underworld, the home of demons and evil spirits. Or perhaps they have been seduced by their own lust for power. But that does not describe you! You have the will to resist, where weaker minds failed. Given the bad reputation of sorcerers, you have learned to keep your mystic abilities hidden as you fight for the right.

Considerations: Magic is really difficult in this day and age. How did you come by it? There would be almost no one to teach you. It's possible you came from the past, but we would need to discuss it. In addition, along with the sorcerer’s versatility comes some additional complexity. You will want to own a copy of the Feng Shui 2 rule book to play it to the fullest.

Supernatural Creature: You are a being from the Underworld, a mystic realm haunted by demons and the spirits of the dead. You are yourself a being that humans would describe as a monster or evil spirit. But you are not evil, for even the spawn of the Underworld are capable of exercising free will and doing right instead of wrong. You realize, however, that almost none of your kindred bother to make this effort. They live to terrorize and to inflict pain. You did, too, until you were summoned and dominated by the cruel eunuch sorcerers. At first, you followed their orders—you had no choice, shackled by mystic bonds. But eventually you were able, through intense mental effort, to break free of their influence. You saw around you people who lived in fear, people whose lives were seen as mere playthings by your masters. And although most demons would never even think such thoughts, you decided that you would atone for the wrongs you had done, and destroy those who had forced you to do them. Supernatural Creatures vary widely in appearance, but all are horrific. Some appear as decomposed human corpses, others as grotesque ogres. Others show no resemblance to the humanoid form. Although you may now fight for the forces of good, your alarming features prevent you from ever passing as a normal member of society.

Considerations: You do not belong. How did you get here? We also need to talk about what you do to hide and survive. As well as prior knowledge. Lastly, you cannot ever pass as human, so you need to make sure this is something you want.

Wait, that's it? What about stats and stuff?

Well, that's the thing. Each archtype already comes pretty well prebuilt and I'll give you what you need for the archtypes that join the game. We can switch a few things out once you've chosen your archtype to get a better fit to your concept, etc., but otherwise, yeah, that's it. I'm not sure exactly how I'll do recruitment. If there's only a little bit of interest, I'll just take the first two or three that show interest (plus the one that's already recruited). Otherwise I'll do it based off of the concept and melodramatic hook.