Earth: The Opening
“So many of these things have no words, because we never have a need to describe them. The world is. The rahk are. That is enough for us.”
“Humans struggle all their lives to achieve such acceptance,” he mused. “And rarely succeed.”
“I know. When I’m not filled with fury at their destructiveness -- or amazement at their stupidity -- I sometimes feel sorry for them.”
- C S Friedman
Making Your PC
This game will be made using the Unknown Armies system as a basis. Since the world isn't horror-based, the madness system is being taken out, even though I personally like it. For this game, players can be either humans or animals. Obviously, animals make their stats a little differently than humans do, which will all be explained below.

This page covers information on humans and animals, a character sheet, how to make a PC (roughly), a sample PC and information using magic and psychic powers.
Humans
Nature gives liberty even to dumb animals.
- Tacitus
There are a large variety of humans available, based on culture, religion and ethnicity. For purposes of 2007, the largest nations are China, Greater Mexico, the United States, the Canadian Federation and the African Alliance. The section on culture gets into the present starte of each nation, as well as many of the lesser-sized but influential nations, such as Japan, Australia and Agrentina.

Presently, genetic engineering is possible, but frowned upon. Children vat-grown after 2070 are far more likely to have genetic alteration, as part of military attempts to
  1. Duplicate the ability to use magic (which hasn't worked yet;
  2. Provide protection against it; and
  3. Create Soldiers capable of winning the war to come
Having psychic talents can be natural, but being a true psychic can only come about as a result of genetic tampering, either by drugs, governments, accident or some other unknown cause. The first "genie" was successfully made in 2060.
Other Species
We are all animals. You may reject that animal self as a personal choice, but doing so doesn’t make you more of a person, or less of an animal.
- William Barton, “The Transmigration of Souls”
"Imagine waking up and finding you could communicate with humans. Then realising you could talk with other animals in human languages. Now imagine the confusion and fear this would cause. Go ahead, try to. What, you can't? Oh, it's not your fault. You're only human after all. HAH! I've waited 13 human years to say that!"
-Bruno, Bruce Killburns pet dog, before gettings its name legally changed to He Whose Howls Are Feared By Night.

Despite the humour of the above urban myth, it touches on many different truths. The world isn't what it was, and humans have neglected to understand how confusing this is for animals ... species that have been enemies for years can how work out peaceful settlements -- if they really want to. Most animals consider the chances of dogs and cats reaching a peaceful settlement about as likely as the human Israel/Palestine war reaching a settlement.

With regards to animals speaking to humans, no one has been able to get insects to communicate yet, and fish seem rather shy. Birds often hate humans the most out of all animals: Ninety percent of all species that have become extinct have been birds. most other wild animals have little love for domesticated animals, often seeing them as broken or perverted, despite their superiority of numbers, which is beginning to tell in animal politics. For example, there is roughly one chicken for every human being on this planet,mwhich means their continuing boycott of Kentucky Fried Chicken is very potent. Dogs might get made fun of, but they can look to history to make fun of other animals. For example, There is approximately one chicken for every human being in the world. Dogs tell other animals that and use it as a sign of how they manipulate humans, and not the other wat around. Mice just direct other animals to the works of Douglas Adams.
Making Your PC
To make a PC in his game, you use a basic character sheet involving the following, explained after:
The Sheet

Name:
Species and Sex:
Summary:
Where am I from:
Background:
Something Shady About your past:
Description:
Personality:
Obsession:
Wound Points:
Passions

Fear:
Rage:
Noble:
Stats

Body:
Speed:
Mind:
Soul:
Skills

Body Skills:
Speed Skills:
Mind Skills:
Soul Skills:
Possessions
What you own.
Experience
You're experience to date.
Name:
This is you're PCs name. If you are human, its obvious. Animals might have a human name and their own, if the player wishes. For example, a dog could be called Rover by humans, but He Who Hunts By Moonlight by other dogs.
Species and Sex:
Basically, human or not human.
Summary:
What do you do for a living, summed up in a sentence or two for GM reference. Essentially, decide what your job is.
Where am I from:
A quick guide of what city and country your PC originates in. You can also include political leanings.
Background:
The background of your PC. Feel free to tell the DM about your idea, add things to the worlds history to work with your PC and the like. Include stuff about your family.
Something Shady About your past:
Something you did that could have nasty reprecutions if people found out about it.
Description:
This is a quick explanation of what your PC looks like.
Personality:
You're basic personality. Nothing set in stone, just a rough guideline to give you (and your GM) a feel for the PC. Keep in mind this is a campaign: Make a PC that will work with others!
Obsession:
This is your obsession skill. Its the most important skill your PC has and defines them. With your obsessions skil (A skill linked ot this)and marked on your sheet as your obsession, you can flip rolls for it which increases your chance of using it. If you have magic, it must be your obsession.
Wound Points:
This is how much damage you can take before dying. It is also equal to your body stat.
Passions
Fear:
This is the thing your PC fears most in the world. It can be sinmple, or complex. Skills that touch on it can be flipped.
Rage:
This is what your PC gets angry about the most, what makes then suddenly irrationally pissed and the like. Pick something that makes sense.
Noble:
This is your pc at their noblest: the impulse that makes them act great, put their life on the line etc.
Stats
Each PC has 220 points to divide between the 4 stats, explained below:
Body:
Body is a measure of physical prowess, showing how tough your PC is and how muscular you are. No body skill can be higher than this stat.
Speed:
Speed is a measure of how fast your PC reacts to thing as well as how agile and dextrous you. No speed skill can be higher than this stat. It is the basis for initiative rolls.
Mind:
Mind encompasses all your PC has learned, like good observation or noticing things. No mind skill can be higher than this stat.
Soul:
Soul it the catch-all stat encompassing non-mind stuff, like how social you are, charisma, lying, magic and the like. No soul skill can be higher than this stat.
Human
Animal
Body: A human's body can go between 30 - 70 without factoring in being a cyborg or genetic alteration.Body: An Animals body can go from 20 - 80, depending on the species.
Speed: A human's speed can go between 30 - 70 without factoring in being a cyborg or genetic alteration.Speed: An An animals speed can range from 20 - 80, depending on how darwinian their survival instict is :)
Mind: A human's mind can go between 30 - 70 without factoring in being a cyborg or genetic alteration.Mind: An Animals mind can go from 20 - 60 since most of them are still coping with their new language facilities and magic.
Soul: A human's soul can go between 20 - 70 without factoring in genetic alteration.Soul: An Aniamls soul can go from 35 - 80 since animals are inherently more magical than humans, currently.
Skills
Once you have your 220 points distributed, you make your skills up. The only limit is that no skill can be higher than its stat and no PC can begin with a skill over 55%. So a body of 30 means no body skill can be over 30. Each PC has a percentage equal to their stat to distribute into their free skills (shown below) or to put into skills of their choosing. Skill names can also be changed, for example a human with Struggle could rename it martial arts and still have the 15% in it.
Human
Animal
Body Skills: General Athletics 15%, Struggle 15% + Players own ones.
All humans and animals begin with the same free body skills.
Speed Skills: Dodge 15%, Drive 15% + Players own ones. Speed Skills: Dodge 15%, Fast Slash 15% + Players own ones.
Fast Slash allows animals to get an attack in at a foe before combat if they are aware combat is about to begin and their oponets initative roll is below their fast slash skill.
Mind Skills: General Education 15%, Notice 15% + players own ones.
Yes, animals have general education too, but they can opt to lower it and increase notice. For animals, general education includes their knowledge of human culture and their own.
Soul Skills: Charm 15%, Lie 15% + players own ones.
Sorry, humans don't have a monopoly on lying :)
Possessions
This is a listing of all items in your PCs possession.
Experience
This is how much experience you've gotten so far. Keep track of it, the GM doesn't.


Actuall character creation rules (Very basic ones at that) can be found at the the Unknown Armies section of the web site if the ones above are confusing. You can also ask Alcar (or anyone whos played it) for other information.
Sample Character
NPC
Name: Randall Jakes
Species and Sex: Human Male
Summary: Randall is a telepath for hire who works for shadowy government agencies or corporations to spy internally or externally for them.
Where am I from: The United States (Maine) but he is neutral to the UN.
Background: Randall discovered his psychic powers at an early age. His parents Janet and Karl, are both still alive and were horrified at the time. When his telepathic skills began to mature around the age of 14, they kicked him out of the house in fear. He lived on the streets for a while, but then got picked up by some organisation and taught how to use his telepathic gift to the best of his abilities. Randall has told no one who taught him how to use his powers and it is possible he doesn’t know himself. His current job of being a mental pickpocket of sorts nets him around 120,000 OC’s a year. Most of that goes into false ID’s, both real and virtual.
Something Shady About your past: Randall has a brother Jeff whom Randall taught to use his empathic powers properly when Randall was 20 or so and Jeff 23. Jeff uses his power to get people to like him and obey him and is currently the aide to someone powerful in the U.S. government. Randall is sickened at the results of his teachings and Jeff wants him dead. Also, what he did to his last employer counts as a secret.
Description: Randall is almost 6’ tall, with dark eyes and pale blond hair. He often wears dark colours and seldom smiles, unless it is mockingly. He is underweight and has a habit of watching everything around him with paranoid alertness.
Personality: Randall is a bitter and cold fellow. Spending most of your life in other people’s minds - and seldom pleasant people, at that - tends to make you rather jaded. He generally suspects the worst of others, because in his experience that’s what people do. he is also extremely slow to trust anyone since everyone is out for their own good and to hell with anyone else. What somewhat balances this is the fact that he is very open minded and has almost no prejudices towards others .... perhaps the only advantage of having spent so much time knowing what others are thinking and who they really are.
Obsession: Understanding others. Randall is secretly desperate to find proof that people aren’t as shallow as he thinks they are.
Wound Points: 40
Passions
Fear: Death. Randall is desperately afraid of dying and will sometimes take insane risks just to try and prove he’s not afraid.
Rage: Abusers. He detests anyone (especially psychics) who misuse their powers for selfish gains.
Noble: Protecting the “innocent” person. Randall will sometimes go out of his way to make sure bystanders and children are unharmed by fights and the like.
Stats
Body: 40 (lazy)
Speed: 55 (rabbitty)
Mind: 70 (focused)
Soul: 55 (intuitive)
Skills
Body Skills: General Athletics 15%, Struggle 30%, Control body language 25%
Speed Skills: Run away really fast 25%, Drive 10%, Stealth 20%, Vibro blades 30%
Mind Skills: General Education: 10%, Notice 20%, Telepathy 55%, Wild Talent: 10% (20%), Precognition 5%
Soul Skills: Charm: 15%, Lie: 20%, Read Body Language: 35%, Get hunches 15%
Possessions
A small 30 shot pistol, 3 false IDs, 500 OC on him, a legal vibro knife (plus another hidden one), thick jacket.
Experience
0
Notes: Randall's telepathy is broad range, but limited to affecting those in visual range. While he can communicate with people he can't see, he can't change their personalities or mentally turn their mind into putty unless he can see (and preferably touch) them. His telepathy is broad - he can read anything from surface thoughts to deepest secrets. While he has changed people's minds before, he's never done a complete re-arrangement of someones personality.
His wild talent (bought at 10% since its wild) is really a telekinetic power thats not under his conscious control. Or will ever be. When used ot save his life, it counts at 20%.
His precognition is a talent to be developed later and his hunches are basically hints that he has it.
Magic
'But you must not change one thing, one pebble, one grain of sand, until you know what good and evil will follow on the act. The word is in balance, in equilibrium. A wizards power of Changing and of Summoning can shake the balance of the world. It is dangerous, that power. It is most perilous. It must follow knowledge, and serve need. To light a candle is to cast a shadow . . .'
- Ursula K LeGuin, “A Wizard of Earthsea”
The Elements and their relations:
Earth
DarknessMetal
WaterFire
HealingLight
Air
Magic in this world is nothing more than the ability of animals to call upon an element relating to that animal. For example, many cats would be air and fire, because it "makes sense". This is based on the animals interpretation of themselves, largely. So the cat can call upon air and fire, sometimes even light, but most cats would be strongest in air. Now the human component comes in.

The human (likely a pc) also has magic, but only through the familiar. Surprisingly, humans seem able to access any of the elements, though they tend to only have one they can use consciously. In other words, a PC mage could have earth and be a gardener. Now they combine with the cat, and gain 3 elements, and additional magic. Naturally, this is rather rare since fire and air have no need or desire to link to earth (i.e. a cat is unlikely to pick you for a magical bonding). Most of them time, the cat would pick a human who is fire, since cats are stronger in air, and thus complement each other.

The actual bonding of a human and animal for magic isn't that common yet, even now. But most humans with animals will be assumed to be mages by intelligent people, out of paraoia. Pets aren't exactly common anymore.
The Familiar
So what does the animal get out of this? Well, most animals can't consciously work magic, its instinctual. A human does it at a conscious level, at least initially. Eventually the bonded pair find some medium between instinct and skill. Without this bonding, the human half can never access magic. With it, both of them are more powerful and able to use magic much stronger than they could alone.

Note that animals can occassionally bind with other animals (often wild/domestic) to achieve this same effect. Most think that is why the animals have been able to hold the rainforests for so long.
Game Mechanics
Magic as a skill counts as a PCs obsession skill. but only for 1 element. In other words, if I make a PC who uses Water and Air to effect healing, I give her 40% in Magic(Water), and 30% in Magic(Air) from a Soul stat of 70. I decide I want to be a Healer, so make the combined element (Healing) which I can do at 30% since 30% is my lowest of the 2 magic stats I have) so I mark off healing 30% as my obssesion. I might not be good with either element, but if I heal with them, I'm very useful.

When making magic rolls, you get to roll your soul check for the element, then your familiar does also (if you both have the element). You then pick which roll to use. For a sitution where you have one element, the bonded half the other, you rolll both for the middle effect (such as Earth and water causing healing together), the weaker roll is the result used.

Even the non-astute observer will notice nothing is listed for what the elements do, mostly because it seems obvious. Mages simply wish, and if they're good enough, what they want happens. You just need a good enough imagination and away you go!

When you affect others with magic, you need your roll to be equal to or below their OWN Soul stat, otherwise the magic won't work on them.

Final note: Failing is bad. If you try some magic the GM decides won't work (like microwaving 10 tanks within 3 days of learning magic) - that will likely fail. Even if its a normal magic effect and a mage fails, this can weaken their confidence, big time. Each time you fail, you get a -2% to your next roll with magic. Fail often enough, and you can't cast spells anymore. You have been warned.
Psychic Abilities
. . . for nothing contributes so much to tranquillise the mind as a steady purpose -- a point on which the soul can fix its intellectual eye.
- Mary Shelley, "Frankenstein"
Psychic powers, once largely dismissed as tricks or delusions, came into their own in the early ‘50s. Experiments in genetically altering foetuses to be able to use these abilities conclusively rocked the scientific world. It also opened a lot of peoples minds, which was fortunate since the ‘100s led to magic and talking animals. However, for the most part psychic powers have never been widely held and no institutions have been developed to study or train them, except by the UN.

While psychic powers tend to be less flashy than magic the existence of mages has forced many psychics out into the “open” at it were. Many of them can see mages for what they are or make excellent spies against mages and are high in demand by nations as special operatives. A quiet resistance is building among psychics, especially among the flashier - but rarer ones - like telekinetics and pyrokinietics. Some employers have been rumoured to suffer sudden heart attacks or wake up one morning with no memory of their operative left in their minds.

Sample psychic powers include telepathic ability, telekinetic powers, clairvoyance, psychometry, biokinisis and the like. Generally, abilities affecting the mind are much more common than ones affecting the body at a ratio of 1:5. Physical abilities like producing fire, electricity and the like occur in perhaps 1:100 of psychics.
Game Mechanics
Psychic abilities work using the Mind stat for strength in them unlike magic, which uses the Soul stat. Most psychics tend to have 1 or two abilities at most, with more specific powers being more reliable than broader ones. For example, a psychic could have precognition and be able to predict the future, or have Second Sight, which allows them to see auras as well as the future and past. As the former is more focused, the GM should make it work stronger and with better regularity. Also, psychic powers rely on the imagination as well. Psychics who limit their telekinesis to the range of a mental arm often find themselves able to do rather astonishing things within that limit, such as stopping someone’s heart or carrying heavy weights.

The final note regarding magic and failing in it applies to using psychic powers as well. However, good therapy can counter failed uses of psychic power. Psychologists that are pro-magic don’t exist yet as the International Association of Psychologists has declared that having magic is a form of insanity or delusion that manifests itself into reality. Some even claim its what happens when psychics become egomaniacs. Also, if a psychic ever rolls 100 on using a power, they burn it out entirely in one last burst of energy. They also give themselves a truly evil headache.
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