Background
History proceeds without any major swerves or weirdnesses until 2021, where humanity suddenly finds itself under alien attack. Without warning, a mass of alien dropships descends on the North American northwest, burning and conquering all in their path with unstoppably advanced technology. In the brief contact they have with humanity's leadership they identify themselves as the Mi-Go and inform everyone that they're terribly sorry, but humanity represents a threat to the entire solar system and has to go.
A week later, as humanity's leaders hurriedly gather to decide on a response, they are approached by shady ambassadors identifying themselves as members of the Church of Starry Wisdom. They claim to have access to weapons that can beat back the Mi-Go and, after a pyrotechnic demonstration, they are taken at their word. No one asks what the price is, and within months humanity is deploying Arcanotech weapons against the Mi-Go.
Over the course of a year, the Mi-Go advance is first slowed, then halted, and eventually, in the summer of 2022, humanity starts to reclaim territory from the invaders. Victory looks inevitable… except for the fact that Arcanotech is turning out to be very, very troublesome.
Scientists working on them go crazy, occasionally the more advanced devices malfunction, disgorging impossible creatures, and soldiers using the weapons complain of nightmares and hallucinations after continued exposure.
Not wishing to keep using the technology, a united humanity sues for peace with the Mi-Go, hoping to come to an understanding with the invaders that will no longer rely on the use of Arcanotech.
Upon hearing of this, the Church of Starry Wisdom, the Esoteric Order of Dagon, and numerous other sects worshipping the Elder Gods start an armed rebellion. The entirety of Africa, barring a few holdings on the northern coast, a vast north-south corridor extending from India and Pakistan to the north pole, and extensive Central American territories are conquered before they are stopped by coordinated military units not infiltrated by the cults.
This, the Mi-Go explain to the United Earth Government, emulating human exasperation in their synthesized voices, is exactly what they were trying to stop. Their initial strike disrupted an elaborated ceremony intended to summon the King in Yellow into this reality, something that would've seared Earth to an ashen husk and sterilized the entire solar system within a year. Considering the major Mi-Go settlements on Yuggoth(Pluto), they weren't about to let it happen.
All their military assets from Yuggoth have already been deployed, and their out-system fleets are still decades of Earth years away, so for now their only hope of stopping another major summoning is cooperation with humanity, contingent on humanity ceasing to fuck around with Arcanotech, which is an incredibly stupid idea.
In the year 2023, three major fronts exist in the war against the Elder Gods.
The North-American Front: Between the combined forces of the USA, Canada and the Mi-Go, empowered by Mi-Go technology and intelligence, the cultist forces in Central America are not a major threat. However, the US has extensive cultist infiltration and there's a major campaign going on to root them out, in addition the Mi-Go pursue difficult-to-understand objectives of their own.
The Chinese-Japanese Front: After discovering that the Esoteric Order of Dagon had huge holdings in the Sea of Japan, China and Japan united around a massive project: Damming and draining the entire sea. With the assistance of Mi-Go technology and their own high-tech industries, they've made massive progress, and the sea levels are already falling. Of course, the Deep Ones and their associated monstrosities, as well as shore-bound cultists, are not taking this lying down. There's a considerable demand for security specialists to ensure that the project goes as planned, and once some of the Deep One bases are above water, assault teams will be needed.
The Russian-Chinese Front: Russia has not been happy about the major cultist insurgency cutting through its territory, nor is China, and they are engaged in a conventional military battle to retake their territories and, eventually, free India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and all other affected nations. In addition to conventional military battles, special ops teams are required to infiltrate ahead and disrupt cultist summonings, destroy Arcanotech caches and assassinate leaders and priests.
Who are you?
All PC's are members of a mercenary outfit currently serving on the North American, Russian-Chinese or Chinese-Japanese front. Further details are free for meddling with.
Guns, Character Creation, All the Accounting
The Armory: Combat rules, weapon stats, armor stats. For now, assume that anything on this list is something you can potentially start with.
Character Creation: 15 points for Attributes, 5 points for Qualities(another 5 can be earned through Drawbacks, subject to GM approval), 33 points for Skills.
Equipment: 150 Favor(mixture of contacts and money) to buy stuff with, per character. Surplus Favor can be handed over to other players, or saved for later.
House Rules
#1: Fast Reaction Time is now a +3 to Initiative, not a magical Act First button.
#2: Essence is (Int+Will+Per)*2
#3: Armor is just a static number to make things easier on everyone.
#4: The Martial Arts modifier is added to strength BEFORE multiplying with the unarmed damage roll. Yes, this WILL get silly.
Game Time
Saturdays, 8pm GMT+1
