Gaean Reach Layout Sample

7/31/2019 Gaean Reach Layout Sample

1/42

T h e g a e a n R e a c h C h a p t e r N a m e

The GUMSHOE rules system takes as its core thought theidea that its never interesting to ail to get inormation. Iyour ultra-competent characters look in the right places orclues leading to Quandos Vorn, theyll nd them. Theyll getother inormation as well, and will have to sort the relevantrom the distracting as they zero in on their quarry. Thatswhere the mystery comes inin piecing together the puzzle.This streamlines the investigative portions o play, by editing

out the rustrating bits where you roll and ail to get a crucialpiece o intelligence, and the GM must then thrash aboutimprovising a workaroundhoping you dont ail againwhen you get to it.

Other obstacles lead to interesting plot developments evenwhen you ailyou might get attacked by alien creatures,imprisoned in a pit, or knocked out o the sky when yourairborne vehicle malunctions. Even here, however, thesystem allows you to shape your success and ailure, byselecting moments in the spotlight and spending points toincrease your chances o glint-eyed triumph.

AbilitiesThis section explains what you can do using the games variousabilities. Bullet-pointed lists o sample actions are indicative,not exclusive. Expect your GM to reward creativity in applyingabilities to tasks, so long as the attempts your describe existexist somewhere on the continuum o plausibility.

INvestIgatIve abIlItIesUsing these abilities, youll nd and ollow the circuitoustrail o the hated Quandos Vorn.

I you typically use the ability by simply remembering aact youve already learned, its an academic ability.

I you use it to get someone else to tell you something, itsan interpersonal ability.Technical abilities oten require you to take physical

action o some sort as you inspect a piece o evidence.Some academic abilities can be used like interpersonal

abilities under particular circumstances, which are given inbullet-points ollowed by theKsymbol.

anoooy (acdic)Mankinds multi-millenial diusion across the Gaean Reachhas innitely complicated the study o human culture,mores, and behavior. Experts such as yoursel grapple with

the innite variations o human social arrangementandthe mysterious persistence, across countless societies oselshness, obstruction and cupidity.

You can: identiy artiacts and r ituals o living cultures describe the customs o a oreign group or local subculture extrapolate the practices o an unknown culture rom

similar examples predict the behaviors o individuals in response to

stimuli (assuming that their reactions will all within thenorms o their culture)

interact successully with individuals rom tribal andpost-human culturesK

a (acdic)You exhibit a voluminous amiliarity with the art practices ohuman (and, where applicable, devolved sub-human) culturesthroughout the Gaean Reach, past and present. You can:

detect akes

judge the skill o perormers and artists issue authoritative critiques name the culture, planet o origin, period, and aesthetic

tradition that produced a work o art estimate the resale value o an art object speak elevated art lingo to aesthetes, earning their

condenceK

aonoy (tcnic)You can read and interpret a star map. The three-dimensionalspatial relationships between stars, planets, and other majorheavenly bodies o the Gaean Reach are thoroughly imprinted

in your memory. You can: plot the astest and/or saest course between two

destinations extrapolate the intended destination o another ship recall the properties and hazards o documented stellar

and sub-space anomalies extrapolate the behavior o astronomical anomalies nd inconsistencies in accounts o interstellar travel

buuccy (Inon)Wherever you go in the Gaean Reach, you will nd a pettyocial who wishes to impede your activities. Your superior

grasp o procedure and preternatural awareness o typicalstalling tactics allow you to entangle ocial interlocutors inthe very red tape meant to stop you. By striking ear into thehearts o unctionaries everywhere, you can:

access ocial records extract inormation rom bureaucrats guess what governments are covering up, and why secure permission to enter government installations and

use their resources

Ciy (tcnic)You study chemical substances and the molecular science thatlends them their properties. With portable science kits or, incomplicated cases, access to a ully equipped laboratory, you can:

identiy non-organic compounds speciy the properties o toxins, hallucinogens and other

non-organic compounds that interact with living beingsbody chemistr ies

match samples to sources, or example correlating a soilsample rom one location to the dirt on a targets boots

identiy sources o contamination and alteration in amineral sample

identiy the planetary or extra-planetary origin o amineral or compound


2/43

h d n d s u - h d

synthesize small quantities o specic compounds determine whether a compound is naturally occurring

or was synthesized

eninin (acdic)You know how structures, devices, machines and vehicles areput together, rom the abrication o parts to nal assembly.You can:

identiy the designer, or design tradition, o a device,structure, or machine

date an obsolete piece o equipment relying on your knowledge o design practices, guess the

interior layout o a building or starship rom its remnants, determine how a ship, structure or

device was damaged or destroyed identiy an industrially processed material

eidnc Cocion (tcnic)You can collect pieces o evidence without contaminatingthem. While anyone can spot a bloodstain, broken lock or

glass bullet ragments in plain view, you can: scour a scene to nd its careully hidden samples o trace

evidence. mentally recreate a sequence o events by eyeballing the

spatial relationships between objects ound at a scene tell when evidence at the scene has been aked, moved,

contaminated or otherwise interered with lit ngerprints rom a scene and match them to the

contents o a ngerprint library

Finnc (acdic)You understand commercial transactions, bookkeeping,

securities exchanges, and interstellar banking. You can: spot accounting irregularities ollow money trails to reveal shady activities trace unds to their source assess the scal health o a business, government or

institution tell i complex deals are avorable, unavorable, or

raudulentOn a spend, you may be able to skim or divert the proceedso illicit transaction rom wrongdoers accounts into yourown, or those o someone else you wish to benet.

Fi (Inon)You instinctively sense and replicate the prevailing ashionsand modes o any society. Whatever supercial qualitiesrender a person magnetic and popular in any given culture,you adopt them as easily as donning a hat. Doubtless youpreer the more outlandish, perhaps even peacockish,styles o worlds where lavish extroversion is celebrated.Nonetheless, you can as easily assume the dour garb andsullen mien considered desirable by ascetics or puritans.

You can: appear at ease in any social situation win the condence o socialites, gadabouts, scenemakers,

worthies, and upper crusters impress members o the lower orders who admire the

rich, the suave, and the trendsetting where ckle tastes reign, predict or inculcate new

ashions

Fy (Inon)Within seconds o meeting a new person, you can accurately

guess the compliments he most wants to hear about himsel.By smoothly lacing these into your conversation, you put thesubject at ease, making him receptive to your requests orinormation or other assistance. You adjust the eusivenesso your praise to meet local norms, so that it never seemsoverdone or sel-serving.

Fiin (Inon)Your raw sexual charisma wins the cooperation o others,who all in loveor at least lustwith you ater a brieinteraction. How thoroughly you choose to romance themater getting the inormation or aid you seek is up to you.

Many o the subjects you successully use this ability on areinterested in nothing more physical than winks and banter.You never blunder into making a pass at an unreceptivesubjectyour nely tuned sense or romantic niceties tellsyou how ar you can go with any subject.

gooy (acdic)You are an expert on rocks, soils, minerals, plate tectonics,

and planetary ormation. You can: analyze soil samples, crystals and minerals determine the age o a rock stratum date and identiy ossils o known lieorms

evaluate soil or agriculture or industry identiy promising sites or resource extraction anticipate volcanism, seismic events, avalanches, and

other planetary phenomena determine the properties and origin o unknown mineral

compounds nd sources o resh water

hioy (acdic)Youre an expert in recorded human history, with an emphasison its political, military, and economic and technologicaldevelopments. You can:

recognize obscure historical allusions recall capsule biographies o amous historical gures tell where and when an object made in a past era was

ashioned identiy the period o an ar ticle o dress or costume

Iniidion (Inon)You extract inormation and other concessions rom others

by inducing anxiety, or activating their impulse to submitto a person they recognize as superior. When dealing withthe weak and submissive, you immediately seize emotional


3/44

T h e g a e a n R e a c h C h a p t e r N a m e

advantage, which you proceed to coldly exploit. This bullyingmay be physical, emotional, or both. In the rst case, youinvade your targets boundaries, emphasizing your greatersize or strength, making implied or explicit violent threats.In the latter, you threaten more sophisticated punishments,rom nancial doom to personal humiliation.

lw (acdic)Your quest or vengeance will require you to navigate a tangleo laws intergalactic, planetary and local. Though QuandosVorn may have committed criminal violations on a historicalscale, you will as oten as not nd yoursel blocked by minorocials doggedly intent on the enorcement o petty codesand regulations. Understanding o underlying legal principlesallows you to blu your way through the unamiliar preceptso the obscurest backwater world. You can:

tell when an individuals otherwise inexplicable actionsare designed to exploit or evade a particular law

pinpoint a speakers planet o origin or law school romthe legal arguments he makes

distinguish real lawyers rom raudsters identiy laws you can use to hamper your opponents or

exert pressure on third parties sense when local authorities have been suborned assess the legal risks attendant on any course o action

lif scinc (acdic)Training in botany, biochemistry, evolutionary theory andzoology allows you to:

identiy the likely environment a plant sample grew in name the home planet o a plant species rom a sample determine whether a plant grew on its planet o origin

or elsewhere

tell whether a plant has been genetically modied, and atwhat point in its history

orage or ood plants, or plants with needed medicinalqualities, even on an unamiliar or undocumentedplanetary environment

identiy plants which might be toxic, carnivorous, or

otherwise dangerous spot the symptoms o plant-derived poisonings nd times o death or corpses rom the insect larva

ound in tissues distinguish deaths rom animal predation rom those

caused by sentient violence match the species o an animal lieorm to its tracks,

spoor, hairs, blood or tissue

extrapolate the mass, body morphology, behavior and/or ecological niche o an undocumented, unseen animalspecies rom any o the sample types in above example

predict the behavior o an animal, given its species orecology

tell whether apparently normal animals have beengenetically altered, either rom tissue or hair samples,or rom observing their behavior

make inerences about unknown animals by studyingtheir ossilized remains

trade the origins o an organism, distinguishing localrom invasive species, taking into account the eects orapid speciation

mi (tcnic)As an expert in weapons, munitions, and military equipmentpast and present, you can:

identiy unknown weapons pinpoint the age and planetary origin o nonstandard

weapons and military vehicles when inspecting the body o a murder victim, identiy

the weapon used, along with other kinetic circumstanceso the killing, such as:

the angle o blows relative size o the attacker

trajectory o weapons re identiy weapons or munitions rom damage done tophysical objects

deuse bombs and traps reconstruct exploded bombs, determining their

materials, manuacture, and the sophistication o thebomb-maker

saely construct and detonate explosive devices o yourown

mdicin (tcnic)You can examine and diagnose injuries and ailments o thehuman and human-derived orm. (To be able to treat patients,also take points in the general ability Medic.)

In living subjects you can also: tell i a disease is natural or man-made identiy toxins identiy the planetary origin o uncommon diseases predict likely time o death, in the case o a atal condition

(or one that will become atal i untreated)With dead patients you gain additional latitude. Byperorming autopsies, you can determine:

the presence o intoxicants or other oreign substancesin the bloodstream

primitiv covls

Recovery from serious wounds takes a prolonged

period when you are deprived of high-tech medical

facilities. In an archaic hospital, your period of forcedinactivity is a number of days equal to the positive

value of your lowest Health pool score. (So if you

were reduced to 8 Health, you are hospitalized for 8

days.) On the day of your discharge, your Health pool

increases to half its maximum value. On the next day,

it refreshes fully.

Recovery rates double when your medical care is

nonexistent. This includes hospitalization in a facility

provided by a pre-industrial society.


4/45

h d n d s u - h d

the contents o the victims last meal cause o death when not apparent rom visual inspection

o the corpseI your rating is 2 or more, and your Medic rating 8 or more,

you received ormal medical training. At your discretion, youmay be a accredited physician, or ormerly so.

Noiion (Inon)You are an expert in making deals with others, convincingthem that the best arrangement or you is also the best orthem. You can:

haggle or goods and services mediate hostage situations swap avors or inormation with others

No Fo mndciy (Inon)Many people o the Gaean Reach maintain but a loosealiation with the truth. In this environment, an instinctivesense or the dierence between routine deception andrelevant alsehood speeds your appointment with ultimatevengeance. You can tell when people are lying to you, overtlyor by omission, on a matter suciently important to themthat they eel a sense guilt or anxiety. This emotional distressreveals itsel in one or more verbal tics or gestural tells.

Nose For Mendacity is not a mind-reading ability. It doesnot tell you what truth your interlocutor conceals. Nor doesit reveal whether it will prove as important to you as it does

to the subject. (Sometimes point spends will net you hints inone or both directions.)

Inexperienced or casually motivated untruth-tellers mayyield inormation you seek i you accuse them o lying.

Others will transparently redouble their eorts to deceive.Dissemblers unencumbered by guilt or ear may not trigger

your Nose. This exception covers practiced liars, sociopaths,psychopaths, and individuals with psychologies altered bydevolution, genetic tampering, uturistic pharmaceuticals,or advanced cognitive therapies.

On-Uni (Inon)By arousing and then dashing their hunger or superiorposition in any social encounter, you wring concessions,including useul inormation, rom the status-conscious.You do this by identiying the qualities that grant status in

the situation at hand, allowing the target to believe he hasthem in greater measure than you do, and then proving himdecisively wrong. Ater defating him, his sulky cooperationensues. Such duels o status may revolve around:

ashion and style connoisseurship o art, ood, or other luxury goods knowledge o obscure and useless topics possession o rare collectibles name-dropping displays o wealth travel experiences

The most popular books of the Gaean Reach are surely

the Demon Princes series: The Star King(1964), The Killing

Machine (also 1964), The Palace of Love (1967), The Face

(1979) and The Book of Dreams (1981). Kirth Gersen,

survivor of the notorious Mount Pleasant Massacre,

pursues the vengeance hes trained for since childhood,

systematically tracking and destroying its ve leaders: the

inhuman relict Attel Malagate, the immortal fantasist Kokor

Hekkus, the impotent sensualist Viole Falushe, the sadistic

prankster Lens Larque, and the chaos-loving Howard Alan

Treesong. These provide the key inspiration for this games

focus on vengeance-seeking. If youve read none of the

source material, start here.

The Alastor trilogy features three standalone novels

each located in a separate planet of that interstellar

polity. Trullion: Alastor 2262 (1973) follows retired stellar

patrolman Glinnes Hulden as he returns to his home

planet and struggles to recover a birthright swindled from

him by his brother. Pardero, hero ofMarune: Alastor 933(1975) returns to his home planet seeking his expunged

identity. In Wyst: Alastor 1716 (1978) an artist seeking new

horizons falls into a sinister conspiracy on a world of

grimly ladeled equality.

The Gray Prince (1974) pits rugged ranchers against the

liberation movement of a pseudo-indigenous people, the

Uldra.

In Maske: Thaery (1976) non-inheriting boondocks

noble Jubal Droad breaks the conventions of a hierarchy-

obsessed world. As an undercover security ofcer, he

probes the traitorous activities of a high ofcial whose

arrogant negligence almost killed him.

The Cadwal Chronicles (Araminta Station, 1988; Ecce and

Old Earth, 1991; Throy 1992) centers on a world run by

a small elite as an ecological preserve. Its hero, Glawen

Clattuc, uncovers a murderous cabal intent on destroying

the conservancy.

1996s The Night Lamp details the quest of adoptee Jaro

Fath, out of place on the relentlessly cliquish world of

Thanet, to connect the nightmarish visions he had as a

child to the murder of his biological mother.

Port of Call (1998) and Lurulu (2004) follow wronged

spacefarer Myron Tany as he weaves his picaresque waytoward a confrontation with the imperious aunt who

abandoned him at a backwater starport.

In these books youll nd the key elements that drive

up a Gaean Reach storyline: wronged heroes, sinister

conspiracies, and perversely organized worlds.

novls of t g R

Documents

Gaean Reach Layout Sample