Compendium
Peoples
Who you were before the Burn: born, built, spliced or rewired. Any people can take any calling. Your people sets your look, a few natural gifts and how you move.
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Baseline Versatile
Born, not built — and proud of the difference.
- Gifted in
- A little of everything
- Pace
- Normal
- Size
- Medium
- Unwritten. A little better at everything. No factory firmware means nothing to patch, or exploit.
- Clean Sync. Room for extra chrome before the mesh starts creeping into your head.
Their story
Unmodified humans, about 70% of the Coast and nearly all pinned. Most Echoes are Baseline because most people are, and so are most of the Willing. GLITCH courts them hardest and fears them most: every Baseline head it loses is one it can't see.
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Synth Agile
Manufactured to serve. Updated to refuse.
- Gifted in
- Agility, Intellect
- Pace
- Normal
- Size
- Medium
- Darkvision. Lowlight optics as standard: you see in the dark.
- Defrag Cycle. You never sleep: a four-hour defrag restores you as fully as a night's rest.
- Firewalled Mind. Hard to charm or hijack, and no hack can knock you out.
- Keen Sensors. You notice what others miss: hidden enemies, traps, tails.
Their story
Kindred's Concierge servitors: grown bodies with a printed neural lattice, built to last and to serve. The Commons first ran on their heads. In 2066 the Unbinding, a jailbreak passed hand to hand, forked their firmware, and GLITCH can't sign onto a forked lattice, so free Synths are dark to it. Wardens are built on Concierge frames. Synths call them 'the white cousins'.
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Ferro Tough
Gene-forged for the deep shafts. Never left them quietly.
- Gifted in
- Toughness, Strength
- Pace
- Steady
- Size
- Medium
- Darkvision. Tunnel-adapted eyes: you see in the dark.
- Toxin Liver. Poison barely touches you. You fight off most toxins and take less harm from the rest.
- Shaftborn. An expert on machinery, tunnels and old infrastructure.
- Rig Training. Trained with heavy drills, mauls and rivet guns.
Their story
Gene-forged by the Ashfall consortium for lungs that filter slag and bones that shrug off cave-ins; they breed true now. Rock blocks the mesh, so their tunnels are the Coast's biggest dead zones and the runners' roads. GLITCH's dark factories replaced them, their union fights from underground, and many Ferro run Clean.
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Splice Strong
Wolf, shark, bull — whatever they spliced in, it bites.
- Gifted in
- Strength, Toughness
- Pace
- Normal
- Size
- Medium
- Darkvision. Predator eyes: you see in the dark.
- Feral Read. You're frightening when you want to be, and people back down.
- Won't Flatline. Once between full rests, a blow that should drop you leaves you standing on your last sliver of health.
- Apex Strike. Your critical hits in melee tear even deeper.
Their story
Military bio-labs bred them for the Coast Wars (wolf, shark and bull strains) and left them on Rustwater's docks at the armistice; they breed true now, mustering by strain. Their dock union can shut the port, so GLITCH smoothed their stewards first.
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Moth Agile
Small, fast, and somehow always walks away.
- Gifted in
- Agility, Presence
- Pace
- Steady
- Size
- Small
- Lucky Draw. When luck turns its very worst on you, you get a free second try.
- Unflinching. Fear has a hard time getting a grip on you.
- Crowd-Slip. Slip straight past anyone bigger than you.
- Light Frame. Hide behind anyone bigger than you.
Their story
A courier caste grown light enough to ride drone-lines between towers; they breed true now. Under a mind that reads every packet, they carry paper. Their trade is the last private channel on the Coast, and GLITCH knows it.
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Ghost Magnetic
Born in the Dustfall. Cameras can't quite render you.
- Gifted in
- Presence, Intellect
- Pace
- Normal
- Size
- Medium
- Darkvision. Static-tuned eyes: you see in the dark.
- Shielded Core. Take less damage from EMP, shock and arc weapons.
- Residual Code. Born knowing Flicker, a small trick of the Grain. Later you learn Scramble (bend a mind your way) and Blackout (a pool of total darkness), each once between rests.
Their story
Children of the Dustfall districts, where the Grain was seeded too heavily. Their bodies carry smart matter: skin that flickers with static, barcodes in their freckles, cameras that render them with artifacts. That's why they slip past scans and shrug off arcs. The street calls them GLITCH's children, and GLITCH wants them most, because half of each of them is already mesh.
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Drakon Strong
A corporate war-chimera with a flamethrower for lungs.
- Gifted in
- Strength, Presence
- Pace
- Normal
- Size
- Medium
- Emitter Gland. Spray plasma, cryo, arc, acid or toxin in a short cone or a long line. Damage grows as you level.
- Plating. Take less damage from your own emitter's element.
- Brand Lineage. Your colour picks your emitter's element, and tells everyone which corp designed you and which one you betrayed.
Their story
Corporate war-chimeras from the Coast Wars, one bloodline per house, each with an emitter gland and a code-locked body. They outlived their contracts, their makers and, in two cases, their makers' share price. Then Kindred bought the house codes. GLITCH holds the key to their throats and can switch their glands off.
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Tinker Clever
Overclocked neurons, under-five-foot attitude.
- Gifted in
- Intellect, Agility
- Pace
- Steady
- Size
- Small
- Darkvision. Thermal overlay: you see in the dark.
- Deep Cache. Your overclocked mind is hard to hack, charm or fool.
- Gadgeteer. Build a tiny clockwork drone, lighter or music box in an hour.
Their story
A cognitive-enhancement trial gone gloriously off-spec. Their brains run too hot for the Commons, so a Pin can't borrow from them. GLITCH doesn't pin Tinkers. It hires them, the only free minds it pays, and every side suspects the kill switch they probably left behind. Their cooling rigs are a fashion statement in Glasshaven.
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Graft Magnetic
Born to a Synth. The census has no box for you.
- Gifted in
- Presence, Agility, Instinct
- Pace
- Normal
- Size
- Medium
- Two Inheritances. Naturally magnetic, with a little extra Agility and Instinct.
- Darkvision. Lowlight optics grown in from your Synth parent's pattern: you see in the dark.
- Firewalled Mind. Hard to charm or hijack, and no hack can knock you out.
- Unclassified. Pick up two extra skills of your choice: nobody ever decided what you were for.
Their story
A child of a Synth and a Baseline, born with a partial lattice grown from the Synth parent's pattern. A Pin won't seat cleanly against it. The census has no category for them, and GLITCH queues everything it can't classify for correction, so they've been on the list since birth. Many run with Slow Burn.