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Welcome to this week’s free post for Covenant!
PLAYTEST FOR JUNE 30, 2024
There wasn’t any bidding or use of the rules this playtest, but something happened during the game that might have implications for Covenant in the future.
It happened when the player characters (PC) were recovering from their raid on the Rekana Industries scrapping site on their ship, the Infinity. They were being debriefed when they were joined by an old friend: Soike the risu.
And yet it wasn’t Soike. This Soike had a Generation-1 aco’s body, with all the benefits and drawbacks that come from that.
After an emotional welcome, Soike explained what happened. He’d disappeared about half a year ago or so in real time after being captured by Rekana, the BBEG of the last two game chapters. Rekana has a fetish for trophies, so he killed Soike, then mounted his head in his office.
That wasn’t the end of the story for Soike, though. Rekana has a biological computer that he powers with the brain tissue of his enemies, and the shock of being hooked into this computer resurrected Soike, or at least his brain. Soike has both esoteric training and the risu species’ electrokinetic abilities, and he used both to send his personality out onto Rekana Industries’ network and hijack the cybernetics of one of their risu managers. This risu was one of the many people who escaped with the scrapping site’s prisoners last week. Once on the Infinity, the crew transferred his consciousness again to the cybernetics in an aco body.
Soike didn’t escape Rekana empty-handed, though. He also managed to grab a lot of classified files, including the location of all Rekana’s scrapping sites, countermeasures for Corporate Security’s weapons, and information on every CEO in the Archimedean Confederation (AC). Rekana had planned to take over the AC by killing the leaders of the other company-states. Now the PCs and their allies in the aco Underground Railroad have his secrets. What will they do with it?
Sunday’s game was interesting because it implied that people can transfer their consciousness into cybernetic implants, including the ones installed in Generation-1 acoes.
Sazzy was quick to point out that what Soike did was a one-time thing, a confluence of his abilities and a unique and desperate situation. Still, it opens up some intriguing possibilities for the Covenant universe, like acoes being grown specifically for wealthy customers to hold their minds and give them functional immortality.
We’re not sure if we’ll add any of that, though. We need to think about it and see if it fits into the game’s feel. If we do, though, we’ll let you know here.
Radio Free Covenant - A Podcast about the Science-Fiction Roleplaying Game "Covenant" and Urban Fantasy Novel "Crossing the Line" 