Welcome to your Grevakc.  Two hundred years in our future, Space and Time Interglobal (SATI) developed time-travel technology.  One or more of your parents or grandparents became part of SATI's groundbreaking colony in the distant past, all 65 million years of it.  Whether a scientist or support staff, your relative was only supposed to be a commuter, able to return to the future at the end of the project (or earlier, to bring back data).  But nine years into the project, when research sites and cities had been established, time travel... blew up.  The facility that contained the machinery literally exploded, and no one has been able to reestablish any connection to the future.

It is now been a hundred years since the Last Commute (as the final time-travel event was called), and the citizens of Grevakv have raised families, built communities, bioengineered dinosaurs and hunted them, and generally made themselves at home.  There is a lingering fear, particularly amongst the surviving Commuters, about the asteroid that could be due sometime very soon, the one that wiped out the dinosaurs in their timeline.

But others think that with time as broken as it is, events that may or may not have happened in a distant future don't count for much against training your T-Rex to hunt (or roll over) on command, or making sure you're not eaten by a dakotaraptor on your way out of town.

As a likely consequence of time travel, strange events called time anomalies will pop up.  Looking like nothing so much as a peculiar distortion in the air, they can be sensed at the distance with the right equipment.  Stepping into one will allow a cypher to be encoded into one's DNA, ready to be invoked (or briefly manifested and used) at will.  Sometimes time anomalies also leave behind artifacts or remnants.  Artifacts seem to be pieces of tech from the future, while remnants are often odd little bits and pieces more often recognized by an original Commuter.  The last, and most terrifying, consequence of time strangeness are the lethally violent but extremely self-contained weather events known as time terrors.  Few have managed to live through those.

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Books used in this campaign will be: Cypher System rulebook, Predation.  Expanded Worlds is optional.  Everyone will start at 1st Tier, and your background will be worth extra XP.

Your character in Predation is a descendant of one of the original Commuters (whether that person was your parent or grandparent).  You've never seen a metropolis, an airplane, a cow, a cat, or even the Internet, but you have a genetically-engineered dinosaur as a friend and live in towns (or villages, or tiny outposts) raised by high technology, but held together with living wood and vines.  You might have woven spider-silk armor, and carry your grandfather's trusty antique laser pistol, but also have a good bone knife in case the power-pack fizzles again.  You might work in a laboratory as a biologist, but come out to find the road back home washed out in a flood and you'll have to hike through the jungle to get home.

Like any Cypher System character, your character can be described in a single sentence:

[Name] is a(n) [Descriptor] [Type] who [Focus]

You might be a Clever Tec who Plays God, a Savage Karn who Predates, a Kind Osteon who Entertains, or a Agile Pteryx who Hunts with Great Skill.

The four character types in Predation are:

Karns - the warriors of Grevakc

Tec - scientists and experimenters

Pteryx - explorers and wanderers

Osteons - storytellers, historians, tricksters, performers, and soothsayers

Any descriptor in the Cypher System rulebook or Expanded Worlds can be used, and Predation offers the following additional ones: Daring, Empirical, Savage, Slick, Volcanic.

A point about Foci - Even if a Focus describes your abilities as being from magic, they are actually based in technology.  Nanobots, genetic manipulation, cybernetic implants, with the technology of Grevakc being 200 years in our future, who knows what kinds of modifications have been thought up by then?

The following Foci are recommended for Predation:

Builds Robots (Builds Cyborgs) (see Notes)
Calculates the Incalculable
Carries a Quiver
Conducts Weird Science
Controls Gravity
Crafts Illusions
Crafts Unique Objects
Defends the Weak
Doesn’t Do Much
Entertains
Explores Dark Places
Explores Deep Waters
Fights Dirty
Fights With Panache
Fuses Flesh and Steel
Fuses Mind and Machine
Hunts with Great Skill
Infiltrates
Is Licensed to Carry
Leads
Lives in the Wilderness
Looks for Trouble
Masters Defense
Masters the Swarm (see Notes)
Masters Weaponry
Metes Out Justice
Moves Like a Cat (Moves Like a Raptor) (see Notes)
Moves Like the Wind
Murders
Needs No Weapon
Never Says Die
Operates Undercover
Performs Feats of Strength
Plays God*
Predates*
Rages
Sees Beyond (see Notes)
Self-Evolves*
Slays Monsters
Solves Mysteries
Stands Like a Bastion
Talks to Machines
Throws with Deadly Accuracy
Travels Through Time Sees Through Time (see Notes)
Walks With Dinosaurs*
Wields Two Weapons at Once
Works the Back Alleys
Works the System
Would Rather Be Reading

*Predation-specific focus

(see Notes) - if you want one of these Foci, I can discuss necessary modifications with you.

If you also have Expanded Worlds, you could choose the following foci:
Collects Bounties
Learns Quickly
Explores
Likes to Break Things
Figures Things Out
Negotiates Matters of Life and Death
Finds the Flaw in All Things
Revels in Trickery
Helps Their Friends
Runs Away
Is Wanted by the Law
Scavenges

If you have an idea for another Focus not listed here (say, something listed in one of the Numenera books, or The Strange), you can make a case for it and I'll listen.

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Companions

Everyone starts play with a companion.  They can range from something like a T-Rex to a small early mammal called alphadon.  With the genetic tinkering available, you could even be liberal with the size, having a triceratops the size of a cat, for example.  (Recently, it was discovered that a lot of dinosaurs were covered in brightly-colored feathers, so feel free to get psychadelic with your companion's description.)

Basic groups are Early Mammals, Pterosaurs, Ceratopsians ("horned faces") and Ankylosaurs ("sherman tanks"), Ornithomimids ("bird mimics"), Raptors ("running lizards"), and Tyranosaurs ("tyrant lizards").  There are lots of options of size and species and whatnot, but each of these major groups determines the companions base stats (health, armor, any skills).

In normal Predation play, your companion is not played by you, but by someone else in the group.  To get your companion to do something, you have to make an interaction roll.  As a 1st-tier character, you'll have to beat a DT 3 to get your companion to do what you ask of it.  To help role-play this, and to give your companion some extra personality, your companion will have a Disposition (which you choose).  That Disposition will help the person playing your companion know how to react when your companion will (or won't) do something.

For example, if you wanted your Clumsy T-Rex friend to attack the malfunctioning lab droid, and failed your interaction roll, it might be because he was willing, but slipped on the floor and crashed into a wall.  Or maybe your wanted your bright orange-and-black Flashy bambiraptor (think teacup poodle, but in raptor form) to go distract a guard so you could sneak into a research facility.  But instead he's doing a whole routine of tricks that's distracting all right, but right in front of the door you need to enter.

Each Disposition offers some role-playing notes, and also a benefit to your companion.  As your companion gains in levels (as you do), you can choose benefits, such as greater speed, armor, or attacks, weapons, flashy enhancement, scouting implants, etc.

However, due to the peculiarities of play-by-post gaming, people will be playing their own companions, because otherwise the wait on actions could get entirely too long.
This message was last edited by the GM at 04:08, Sat 10 Aug 2019.