Backup (mage V20)
Backup
You can call in the cavalry and expect help when needed... in a limited capacity, anyhow. Thanks to your membership in some organization, you’re able to request Backup and have a small team of useful folks swoop in and take care of business. Unlike Allies, these people are largely faceless, have limited skills, and are more or less expendable. Essentially, they come in to handle simple tasks, then disperse back to the organization to which you all belong.
Backup characters come from a large pool of skilled but unAwakened personnel. Their relationship to the player characters is pretty much a matter of convenience, with no special loyalty attached. Though they might risk their lives on the mage’s behalf, the help’s not personal. These folks are just doing their job.
Backup tends to arrive as a pack of gun-wielding grunts who rush in to cover a mage’s escape. Any major tasks (or sacrifices) are the mage’s responsibility – the backup’s not there to handle much heavy lifting. In other situations, the Background can represent other types of support personnel: receptionists, students, roadies, drivers, medics, even prostitutes. A King or Queen of the Jungle might be able to holler for assistance and attract an appropriate group of animals, assuming that character has a story-based reason for such loyalty. The type of aid will depend on the organization, the situation, and the mage’s role within that group. An Ecstatic rock star could call in hookers and roadies, whereas a Black Suit might bring in cops, reporters, or a cleanup crew. And though it’s easy to dismiss the importance of students, receptionists, or bloggers, it’s also worth remembering that society at large depends more upon information than upon violence. One eloquent reporter can do more, in the grand scheme of things, than a dozen dudes with guns.
Typical Backup personnel have Traits in the 1-3 range, with one or two notable Skills. Animals are small (birds, rats, bats, domestic dogs or cats, etc.), and spirits are minor single- purpose entities (fetch spirits, breeze elementals, and so forth). More elite Backup agents – mercenaries, ninja, cyborgs, minor spirits, or large predatory animals, for example – cost twice as much as typical agents but have Traits in the 3-5 range, unusual abilities, or serious combat potential. Essentially, these elite “temp” agents become Allies for the course of a single mission and then disappear back to wherever it is they came from.
In order to get this Background, a character must be part of a larger organization – a gang, the police, an armed services division, the Technocracy, and so forth. Whatever his connection to that group might be, the mage needs to fulfill occasional duties on behalf of the group that sends assistance. If he doesn’t keep his end of the bargain, if his Backup tends to suffer heavy casualties, or if he otherwise abuses the agents and their group, this Background may be reduced or withdrawn. Sample Backup teams, and the types of mages they support, include:
• All: Students, drivers, receptionists, couriers, lab techs, political activists, merchants, manual laborers, EMTs, cult members, thugs.
• Agents of Authority: Cops and detectives, military personnel, reporters, EMTs, cleanup crews.
• Celebrities: Fans, roadies, personal assistants, photographers, road-crew, journalists, makeup artists.
• Clergy: Acolytes, lesser and lay clergy, healers, devotees of your religion.
• Cyborgs: Mechanics, technicians, soldiers, cybernetic “temps”.
• Feral folk: Animals, healers, medicine people, tribal elders, natives of the appropriate region.
• Gangsters and Vigilantes: Gang members, hookers, allied cops, street people, junkies, journalists, petty crooks.
• Hackers: Technicians, bloggers, hacker “temps,” political activists, anarchists, transhumanists, IT specialists.
• Martial artists: Healers, philosophers, martial arts students, “temp” fighters, devotees of your spiritual path.
• Ritual magicians: Occultists, cultists, acolytes, academics, fearful assistants, aspiring apprentices, minor imps, or spirit “temps.”
• Scholars: Research assistants, librarians, bloggers, academics, former students, grad students.
• Scientists: Techs, research aides, robots, misshapen or enhanced assistant “temps.”
• Shamans: Devotees, minor spirits, animals, activists, or armed defenders of your culture.
• Spies and Assassins: Informants, gang members, sleeper agents, cleanup crews.
• Subculturists: Artists, neotribalists, musicians, healers, bloggers, psychoactive specialists, badasses from your subculture.
• Tycoons: Corporate subordinates, flunkies, toadies, office personnel, journalists, security guards.
• Witches: Animals, devotees, New Agers, Pagan activists, healers, minor spirits.
This Background may go higher than five dots – see (p. 301). For sample Backup characters and animals, see Appendix I, (pp. 618-639).
- X -- You’re on your own, kid!
- • -- Two typical agents.
- •• -- Four basic agents or two skilled “temps.”
- ••• -- Six agents.
- •••• -- Eight agents or four “temps.”
- ••••• -- 10 agents.
- ••••• • -- 12 agents or six “temps.”
- ••••• •• -- 14 agents.
- ••••• ••• -- 16 agents or eight “temps.”
- ••••• •••• -- 18 agents.
- ••••• ••••• -- 20 agents, or 10 “temps.”
