Altered Time Line Reference Area

1. Altered Timeline Intorductory Narrative
2. Party and World Info
3. Starting Equipment
4. Starting Enhancements


Altered Timeline Intorductory Narrative

    On Nov 15th, 2017, at 12:35pm a massive communications software glitch in the main East-Central United States communications center caused 100% of its telecommunications computers to fail.  Switching stations in outlying regions were unable to cope with the strain of the added load they were required to carry and shutdown in order to prevent damage to their systems.  The shutdowns spread to virtually every switching station and communications center in North America wiping out all ground and satellite based communications across North America within 7 minutes of the original problem.
    At 12:46pm, CONDOR (Computer Operated Naval Defense OpeRations) instructed all United States submarines on active duty to fire all missiles at all hostile targets.  Minutes later, retaliatory launches from US targets across the world fired their arsenal at all their targets.
    By 1:20pm, Nov 15th 2017, more than 6.5 billion people perished in nuclear fire, with another .5 billion dying from radiation poisoning shortly there after.  Within 2 years another 300 million died in the nuclear winter that ensued.
    There were survivors… those lucky (unlucky?) ones that managed to stay away from both the initial atomic blasts and the radiation that followed.  These survivors lived in a wasteland, relying on finding caches of food left over from before the apocalypse as well as bits of edible plants that were far enough away from missile targets to survive.
    Surprisingly, the earth healed itself faster that scientists had thought possible.  By 2021, the skies had cleared and although there was still a fair amount of radiation plants were starting to grow again, even in areas that had been cleaned away by nuclear blasts.
    Small enclaves of people starting forming – eking out a living using a few working relics from the past plus new hand made implements.  Granted, the planet wide human population had dipped to 23 million, but mankind was on its way back.
    By 2030, it was clear that the radiation had serious adverse effects.  Babies were born with mutations… strange and unexplainable mutations.  Some were disfigured and not capable of full thought.  But others were gifted with powers beyond what science could explain.
    Early in 2034, trouble started for the 24 million humans still walking the planet.  Animals not seen since before the war were now appearing in numbers.  But they weren’t normal animals, these were larger, almost human sized animals with a brain cavity the size of a humans.  And they were vicious….  and armed….  typically with well made swords and guns of unknown origin.  Strangely, these animals lived for only about a month before mysteriously dying.  To make things stranger still, the weapons the animals carried didn’t last much longer than the animals that carried them.  Usually, they would begin to corrode about 1 week after the animals died and would be completely unusable within 2 weeks.
    In late 2034, two important discoveries were made.  The first was that there was a small number of military personnel that had been living underground since the apocalypse – surviving in relative comfort compared to those above ground.  They were well supplied with both food and offensive and defensive military equipment.  The second discovery was that the new animals that were appearing were being engineered in factories and released into the wild to make trouble for the humans.  Attempts were made to enter these facilities to gather information but the people that ventured in never returned.
     In 2038, the future of mankind became very grim.  Robots, mechanical “killing machines”, of unknown origin slowly started appearing, attacking and killing any human they could find.  But these robots were not using swords and guns like the engineered animals, they used energy weapons.
    By 2042, the worldwide human population was down to about 6 million.  The military had come out of hiding and were 100% engaged in hostile actions with both the animals and the robots.  Although the animals were easy to take care of, the robots took a lot more firepower to take down. 
    In early 2043, one man emerged as a leader both the military and the now mutated remnants of human kind.  His name was Richard Rinn.  He organized successful raids on weapons manufacturing plants and outfitted many people with the latest in offensive weaponry.  He smashed defense grids and with the help of the few remaining scientists, reprogrammed some of the engineering plants to produce animals that were not inherently predisposed to wanton destruction and the death of humans everywhere.  He also discovered that the animals were engineered to have a critical dependency on a specific chemical that was not available outside the cloning plants.  He removed this dependency, and in turn gave animal kind a human like life span.
    Within 3 years, Rinn was leading animal and human kind against what was now understood to be the common enemy – the robots.  And doing it quite successfully.  The tide was finally turning.  Usually every raid on a  manufacturing plant resulted in the recovery of some state of the art weaponry.  Research facilities were infiltrated, stripped of their information and then destroyed.  Robot manufacturing plants were being destroyed too, preventing the killing machines from ever stepping foot on the earth.
    The current date is April 3rd, 2046.  Robots are being made stronger, faster, larger and more deadly.  But man and animal kind are keeping up - at least as far as being more deadly is concerned.  Who will emerge victorious to inherit the scorched earth?  Only time will tell….

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Party and World Info

Party Information

    You know general information about the recent past.  There are no real artifacts… most everything is known, or can be explained by someone.  There are however unknown science objects and information – these map directly to the examiner’s skills where it’s not old things that can’t be understood, but rather new things that have never been seen before.  In this light, the examiner is more of a “scientist” than anything else.  The animals in the party were created in one of the first cloning plants Rinn modified. All animals in the party are about 3 years old; the animals are cloned, engineered to grow to full size in a very short time and then imprinted with some basic survival skills.  Rinn’s modifications to the cloning process also gave you full and moderately unique personalities. 
    You have all been in the militia fighting the robots for some time and have seen a fair amount of combat.  You have all showed outstanding courage and skill during your military careers and were promoted up through the ranks until you were singled out for special ops duty.
    You have also encountered your fair share of radiation… which is where you got your mutations from.

Special OPS

    Your unit name is “Joshua Company” and there is no rank or specified leader.  One person is chosen per combat mission to lead the team.  Everyone else follows the leaders’ orders for the mission.  People can give suggestions, but the leader must always be obeyed.
    Occasionally Joshua Company will work with 1 or in some cases other 2 special ops units in order to achieve a common goal.

Common Character Modifications

Basic Equipment

World Notes


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Starting Equipment

Weapons (batteries not included, with the exception of #4)


Special Equipment

General Equipment

Genral Equipment 2

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Starting Enhancements

Your Character Mod

    Members of special ops teams always receive the best technology retrieved from raids.  Sometimes it’s weapons and sometimes it’s a special science package – but it all gets equally distributed amongst the special ops teams.

    Some time ago, a raid on a research laboratory resulted in the following science package being discovered.  People who had not yet received an enhancement drew lots and you were the winner.

Healing Systems - Michelle - Senga - Enforcer
Muscular & Skeletal - Ron - Czin - Scout
Vision & Hearing - Roger - Strider - Scout
Combat Aug - Doug - Shitake - Esper
Skinweave - Bruce - Dunkin - Examiner

Healing Systems

This science package simply contains a nana bot delivery system.  These particular nano bots work with and enhance the users immune and repair systems.  The nano bots are initially injected into the body with a syringe.  Using basic elements and compounds found naturally in the body, they replicate themselves until they reach an “ideal” number which is based on the size and weight of the individual.  As they are replicating, they learn the unique physiology of the user and customize themselves to that user.  This takes about ones days time during which the user feels extremely hungry and somewhat tired.  After the one day of replication and acclimatization, the nano bots become fully functional.  Since they are specifically tailored to work in the users body, they cannot be transferred to another person.  If any leave the body, via a wound for instance, they quickly deactivate and then disintegrate in a very short time.

The benefits of the Healing System are as follows:

Muscular & Skeletal Enhancement Systems

This science package is comprised of a single deployment unit that contains a medical computer and materials bay.  This package requires the use of a medium sized medical scanner, which is not included with the package.  Once the medical computer is connected to the scanner, it starts to take detailed readings of the users body. Once the scans have been completed and analyzed, the materials bay is placed at the base of the neck on the users back.  The packages’ computer then begins sending out guided micro filaments into the users body.  During the first hour of installation, these filaments are added to existing muscle tissues, which will allow the user to react faster and with more precision, while at the same time allowing them to perform better under strain.  The next 2 hours are used to add filaments to existing bone tissues, allowing them to carry a much larger load.  During the last 15 minutes of installation, certain paths in the brain are modified to carry signals to the enhanced muscles much faster than is normally possible.  The package cannot be removed during installation – doing so could seriously harm and even kill the user.

The benefits of the M&S Enhancement systems are as follows:

Vision & Hearing Enhancement Systems

This science package contains a nano bot delivery system that delivers “one time use” nano bots along with all the materials they require to enhance a users vision and hearing.  The nanobots are delivered via syringe in three separate injections each no less than 3 and no more than 4 hours apart.  Once in the body, the nanobots will begin building specialized sensing equipment in one of the users eyeballs and a sound discriminating computer just behind the users ear along the inside of the skull.  The installation of the visual sensing equipment renders that eye essentially blind since the sensing equipment is physically in front of the rods and cones that the user normally uses to see with.  The nanobots attach the visual sensing equipment to the users brain overriding the old signal coming in from that eye.  The sound discriminating computer is also attached to the users brain and is used to enhance the users ability to hear.

The benefits of the V&H Enhancement Systems are as follows

Note: There is no perception increase as a result of installing this Enhancement.  When activated, the vision systems do not give a perception increase.  When activated, the hearing systems give a +8 perception increase.

Combat Augmentation

This science package is a head mounted scanning and imprinting device.  Essentially, it is a helmet that when worn will imprint a given knowledge set or skill set onto its wearer. These devices are “one use only” and render themselves useless after the imprinting has completed.  To initiate the imprinting, the helmet is placed over the users head and a visor is lowered to completely cover the users eyes.  Images are shown on the screen and the unit keeps track of how the information is processed and stored by the brain.  When the scanning phase is complete, the unit artificially activates the areas of the brain to store new information as though it was being learned by the user.  These new “memories” are permanent and can be remembered as though they really happened.  They will fade over time, as do normal memories.  Time to imprint depends on what is being imprinted.

This particular helmet was set up to imprint a Combat Augmentation skill set.  This skill set requires the helmet to be worn for 2 hours in order for full imprinting to occur.  The skills learned by the user are as follows:

Skinweave Augmentation

This science package is comprised of a single deployment unit that contains a medical computer and materials bay.  The medical computer simply takes dermal scans of the user.  Once the scans have been completed and analyzed, the materials bay is placed on the users stomach.  The packages’ computer then begins sending out guided microfilaments into and through the living dermal layer of the users body.  These microfilaments are a carbonate fibre and are actually woven together covering 100% of the surface area of the body.  The entire process takes 12 hours to complete and there will be slight discoloration of the skin due to bruising.  The bruising will disappear within one week of installation, leaving no outward indication of the augmentation.

The benefits of this augmentation are as follows:

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