A CURE FOR THE IDIOCY OF "FOUR EQUALS TWO" -- Part one; the setting.

As stated immediately above, I'm not what you'd call a fan of the fourth edition of White Wolf's "World of Darkness" setting for their modern horror RPGs. The writing staff responsible for the transition from third to fourth edition have systematically gutted every single game line of whatever it was that I most enjoyed in that particular line, and this leaves me feeling abandoned.

So, I've gone off and started putting the pieces back together, to create a game that I can enjoy. Details follow the obligatory disclaimer.

DISCLAIMER: I already said that this project originates in my fondness for the material that didn't make the final cut for White Wolf's second second edition. There will be numerous systemic and mathematical allusions to those now out-of-print games. This is not plagiarism, as such allusions are openly admitted, and this work is not intended for any sort of profit. Furthermore, this is a work of fiction, and can be readily filed under "More Bricks" for those familiar with the reference. And while I'm on the subject, the killer attack weasels crawling out of your monitor screen are purely a figment of your imagination. Carry on.

SETTING OUTLINE: Years ago a conveniently evil corporation was in the process of buying up all sorts of "exotic" research from other companies (and defunct government agencies), and they set up a project combining elements of psionics research and human bioengineering. This project resulted in the creation of numerous human "puppets", rapidly grown to maturity, programmed with necessary skills, and intended for lease to various clients who had little concern for the legality of these endeavors.

These puppets were all engineered to be attractive, athletic, equipped with a variety of psionic capabilities, and very prone to mind control. The conveniently evil corporation also engineered a "master-brain" to exercise that mind control over the puppets, ensuring that their puppets would obey their orders without question, and would always come back home (or destroy themselves) when the lease expired.

However, some of the conveniently evil corporation's matchingly evil clients wanted puppets designed for purposes ranging from seduction/infiltration to pyrokinetic bombing, and it was inevitable that some covert government agency would trace these puppets back to the conveniently evil corporation, classifying it as a credible threat to be targeted for elimination.

An assault was launched on the conveniently evil corporation's puppeteering facility, the defenses were overpowered, and the master-brain was killed, cutting the strings on all the puppets. The aforementioned agency realized what a valuable strategic and tactical resource these puppets could be, and decided not to simply dispose of them. However, the same activities which brought them to the aforementioned agency's attention had also been noticed by other competing agencies in other governments, and the decision was made to let the situation cool down for a while before exploiting this particular resource.

The surviving ex-puppets were placed into mundane civilian lives, and several years went by quietly. Then the international situation took a turn for the worse, and the aforementioned agency decieded that it was time to begin tapping the psionic capabilities of the ex-puppets. A few at a time, they were brought back in, given training as necessary to bring them up to date with the current methodologies and equipment, and sent out into the field as "exotic operatives" to accomplish missions that defy orthodox solutions.

[coming up next, the basic systems stuff]