Stock #37-2753

Contents
­In This Issue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Reign of Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
By Roger Burton West
Putting Science in Your Fiction . . . . . . . 4
By Sean Punch The Toughest Race
in the Solar System . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
The Divine Pacific By Carolyn Ivy Stein and Steve Stein
Republic of Datastan . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
By Matt Riggsby The Murrinres Portals . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
By Jason Brick
More Options for
Metatronic Generators . . . . . . . . . . 12 Play Stupid Games,
By Christopher R. Rice Win Stupid Prizes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
By Sean Punch
Space Zombies! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
By J. Edward Tremlett Random Thought Table:
Gone but Not Forgotten . . . . . . . . . 48
Lord Kelvin’s Icebox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 By Steven Marsh, Pyramid Editor
By Matt Wehmeier
About the Authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .51
Mind Over Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
By Aleksei Isachenko About GURPS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Ghost Planets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
By J. Edward Tremlett

­From the Editor

In earlier years, when I had more free time, I was a
casual reader of science-fiction magazines, especially Article Colors
Analog and Asimov’s Science Fiction. (Those who are famil- Each article is color-coded to help you find your favorite
iar with me are probably unsurprised I have a soft spot sections. Not all themes appear in every volume.
for Martin Gardner’s “puzzle tales.”) Over the course of
Pyramid’s third volume, we did over 40 issues with arti- Red-Brown: In every issue.
cles of interest to futuristic gamers. But there’s one thing Dark Blue: Character options.
we’ve never gotten to do: a “general purpose” science-fic- Light Blue: Powers and magic.
tion issue . . . one devoted to all aspects of futuristic Green: Locations.
gaming. In other words, I wondered if we could re-cre-
Orange: Monsters and creatures.
ate the wonder you could find in an issue of a general-
purpose science-fiction magazine that’s both specific as to Dark Pink: Gear.
its purpose (in this case, “futuristic”) and yet broad in its Purple: GM advice and adventure ideas.
surprises and possibilities. Here, then, is an assortment of
tech, locations, things to do, and gamerly insight – enough
to provide something of use for near-future cyberpunk spies, Write Here, Write Now
post-apocalyptic scavengers, and spacefaring surveyors. Your comments help us give you what you want! How
Pyramid is nothing without its fans, so – as ever – we are you using this material in your campaign? What do you
thank you for your support, and for helping to make this wish we’d write about? Let us know via private feedback at
exploratory experiment possible. The future awaits; what pyramid@sjgames.com, or join the public discussion online
treasures will you find? at forums.sjgames.com.
– Steven Marsh, Pyramid Editor

GURPS System Design z STEVE JACKSON
GURPS Line Editor z SEAN PUNCH
GURPS Project Manager z STEVEN MARSH
Production Manager z SABRINA GONZALEZ
Director of Sales z ROSS JEPSON
Editorial Assistance, Production Artist,
& Prepress Checker z NIKOLA VRTIS
Page Design z PHIL REED
& JUSTIN DE WITT
President/Editor-in-Chief z STEVE JACKSON
Chief Executive Officer z PHILIP REED
Chief Creative Officer z SAM MITSCHKE
Chief Operating Officer z SUSAN BUENO
Project Manager z DARRYLL SILVA

Pyramid Magazine 2 Sci-Fi/Tech I

 ­In This Issue
From post-apocalyptic possibilities to otherworldly excur- it’s simply a matter of Mind Over Time. From the datapad of
sions, this issue of Pyramid is a star chart to adventure, with GURPS Sorcery: Sound Spells co-author Aleksei Isachenko
out-of-this-world options set to inspire just about any futuris- comes the new Chronokinesis power for GURPS Psionics,
tic campaign you could imagine. with its 10 time-altering abilities, plus techniques, perks, and
Knowledge can be its own reward – and the focus of related advantages.
adventures – by Putting Science in Your Fiction. Unleash Sean Worlds await exploration in the grander cosmos – includ-
Punch’s insight into picking the right goal and the right skills, ing Ghost Planets. Learn about three such abandoned worlds,
key traits for scientists, important supporting skills, and gam- each with GURPS Space data, an overview of what is to be
ing the scientific method. found, and a few ideas for what’s really going on.
On a tiny artificial island somewhere in the Pacific is The The GURPS Reign of Steel setting needs bold fighters,
Divine Pacific Republic of Datastan. Unclaimed by any greater sneaky scouts, and genius mechanics to fight against robotic
nation, this bit of land is a cyberpunk or Transhuman Space overlords. Reign of Action – from GURPS Reign of Steel: Will
destination for pilgrims of a new faith tradition – or those to Live architect Roger Burton West – shows you how to make
with data to protect. The article from GURPS Hot Spots guru these heroes with the GURPS Action series. Plus uncover a
Matt Riggsby includes an overview of residents, adventure new lens, a new skill, new gear, and new adventure ideas.
seeds, and a map of the island’s lone building. Push your skills to the limit with the thrill of multi-disci-
Who can’t use unusual abilities? Metatronic generators plinary competitive events in The Toughest Race in the Solar
are weird-science devices that let you do the impossible, and System. Learn about the elements of typical races, the neces-
in More Options for Metatronic Generators, longtime GURPS sary equipment, some potential dangers, and several adven-
scribe Christopher R. Rice expands on previous material to tures ideas.
give designers details on new If you’re looking for someplace new,
varieties and sizes of generators, the answer may be just a footstep away,
combination devices, damaging courtesy of what’s on the other side of The
machines, and more. Murrinres Portals. Discover possible ori-
Impossibly, the great beyond is gins, sample connections, new gear, and
now even more dangerous, thanks ideas for using these mysterious gateways.
to the threat of Space Zombies! What would sports look like in a dark
Become familiar with the origins, future? Find out when you Play Stupid
game stats, suggested uses, and Games, Win Stupid Prizes with GURPS
variations of three new types of Line Editor Sean Punch. Get guidance
interstellar undead. on the nature of players, the playing field,
In the Infinite Worlds, there are winning, necessary skills, and more.
many worldlines that don’t follow What you know can be a huge advan-
normal physical laws. Lord Kelvin’s tage or the beginning of problems, when
Icebox is one of them. In this alter- you explore places that are Gone but Not
nate history, the Earth slowly Forgotten. Delve into the many ways that
freezes as the sun is dying rapidly. a humble map or schematic could compli-
Get tips for adapting this chilly cate the average location search.
location, ideas for campaigns, and With this Pyramid, you’ve got a
suggestions for Infinity operations. tachyon-powered trove that’ll let you do
When you want to rewrite his- six impossible things before breakfast.
tory or how long a second takes, The future is now, and it’s awesome!

Cover and Interior Art: Tithi Luadthong • Cartography: Matt Riggsby

Additional Material: Jason “PK” Levine and Sean Punch
Special Thanks: Antoni Ten Monrós
Pyramid, GURPS, Warehouse 23, the pyramid logo, and the names of all products published by Steve Jackson Games Incorporated are trademarks or registered trademarks
of Steve Jackson Games Incorporated, or used under license. Pyramid is copyright © 2021 by Steve Jackson Games Incorporated. All rights reserved.
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Submission of your photos, letters, humor, captions, and marginalia constitutes permission to Steve Jackson Games Incorporated to use them in all media.
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Pyramid Magazine 3 Sci-Fi/Tech I

 Putting Science
in Your Fiction
By Sean Punch
A curious thing about science fiction is how many scenar-
ios concern technology, not science. They focus on computers,
military hardware, spaceships, solving the Problem of the
Week with a vaccine or modified deflector dish, and the like.
Characters identified as “scientists” do work that looks suspi-
ciously like inventing or adapting hardware.
In principle, there’s nothing wrong with that! Technology
is applied science – and the average person appreciates appli-
cations more than experiments, never mind theories. In prac-
tice, this can be disappointing for gamers playing scientists
who lack such “design skills” as Bioengineering and Engineer.
They end up spending many points on Hard and Very Hard
science skills they use rarely or only to support inventors (who
get the glory), or feel pressured to become inventors.
Here’s a quick-and-dirty system to use when a character’s
objective – and perhaps an adventure’s entire point – is to
increase scientific knowledge. When the desired outcome is
“just” a new or better gadget, use New Inventions (pp. B473-
474) instead.
We’re at a Loss, Professor
First, identify what has to be figured out. This could be
nearly anything: how alien life functions, a revised theory of
stellar evolution, a mathematical proof, even a theoretical
model of a fundamental interaction. Unless those at the gam-
ing table are scientists (and perhaps even then!), this is best
left vague. What’s crucial to roleplaying is motivation:
Pure curiosity. A scientist has made finding a result their
work – possibly their life’s work! The rewards are for the
player more than the character: Scientific investigation is a
mini-game that makes investing in scientific skills worthwhile,
and that may provide a payoff in terms of traits; e.g., “buying
off” an Obsession, learning a higher-TL version of a skill, or
earning bonus character points for roleplaying Curiosity (or
that Obsession).
Eye on the prize. Not all curiosity is pure. The real incen-
tive might be recognition: Reputation among peers, or with
everyone in a highly educated society; Rank in a hierarchical
research institute or a military organization with a “science
wing”; Tenure at a prestigious academy; or the evergreen
cash prize, which could bestow Independent Income, Status,
or Wealth.
Keeping up with the Joneses. In a campaign featuring fac-
tional hostilities – cold or hot – between nations, cyberpunk
Pyramid Magazine
corporations, spacefaring races, etc., the goal might be less
personal. The idea is to close a “knowledge gap” from below
or widen it from above. For the former, homegrown science
can suffice, and is also needed to understand data stolen via
espionage; for the latter, original research is essential. While
an individual scientist may still benefit, that’s secondary.
The right tool. Particularly in action-adventure plots, exist-
ing methods and technology might be up to solving a prob-
lem – if the problem is sufficiently well understood to pick the
correct solution, be that the precise target for a laser or the
perfect planet for a colony. Again, while this can lead to per-
sonal prestige, the chief goal is to help a faction meet its goals.
Supporting cast. Don’t reject plots where science sup-
ports invention, though! These can lead to great teamwork
between scientist and technologist PCs – and if some of the
above motivations are also in play, additional uses for science
skills only make such skills more valuable and add much-
needed variety.
A word of caution: These motivations shouldn’t sideline
PCs, even if the campaign is all about science. Like any mini-
game – inventing, netrunning, crafting, etc. – this one can
bore the uninvolved. Make sure that non-scientists can be part
of the research team (p. 7).
Complexity
Like an invention (p. B473), a science project has a “com-
plexity,” set by the GM:
Complexity Science Skill Sample Projects
Level
Simple 14 or less Using existing ideas to
explain something
ordinary.
Average 15-17 Bending existing ideas
to explain something
unusual.
Complex 18-20 Developing new ideas
to explain something
atypical.
Amazing 21 or more Revolutionizing a subfield to
explain the “inexplicable.”
“Science skill level” refers to the skills in Science Skills
(p. 5) – not to Supporting Skills (pp. 5-6), which limit what’s
possible in other ways.
4 Sci-Fi/Tech I
 Complexity doesn’t necessarily correlate with the expense
of laboratories, research expeditions, assistants’ salaries,
computers, libraries, etc. It might, if the GM thinks that
makes sense – often meaning “if the plot requires it.” But
one can explore mathematical proofs and scientific theories
of Amazing intricacy with only scratch paper or a low-end
computer, while even Simple research costs a fortune when
its subject is expensive (e.g., antimatter at $25,000 a
microgram; see GURPS Ultra-Tech, p. 88).
Science Skills
Science skills are necessary to frame the problem
and interpret the results of working on it; they might
be used for investigation, too, but plenty of research
is done mostly by technicians with Supporting Skills
(below). If the understanding being sought arises
during the campaign – e.g., to solve an unexpected
problem, support another PC’s nonscientific efforts,
complete a mission from headquarters, or earn a
reward – the GM specifies the skill(s) required. If a
player is roleplaying their scientist character doing
their job, this is their decision – a physicist uses
Physics, not Biology!
The following are typically considered science
skills:
Astronomy, Biology, Chemistry, Expert Skill
(Epidemiology, Hydrology, Psionics, Xenology, etc.),
Geology, Mathematics, Metallurgy, Meteorology,
Paleontology, Physics, Physiology, and Psychology
(Experimental).
The GM may add others. If it suits the cam-
paign, these rules can be adapted to social-sciences
research using Anthropology, Archaeology, Eco-
nomics, Expert Skill (Egyptology, Political Science,
Thanatology, etc.), Geography, History, Linguis-
tics, Occultism, Philosophy, Psychology (Applied),
Sociology, Theology, etc.
Supporting Skills
Solving scientific problems involves carrying out
experiments, collecting samples, observing phenomena, scrib-
bling equations, analyzing data, and so on. This leads to at
least one of the tasks below. Players are encouraged to propose
the supporting skill(s) involved, but the GM’s word is final.
Gathering Data
Operating instruments or collecting specimens can be an
adventure in itself! The go-to skills for this at TL7+ are Elec-
tronics Operation (Scientific), both to run lab experiments
(especially for Chemistry or Physics) and use survey gear “in
the wild,” and Electronics Operation (Sensors), to operate
ultra-tech sensor suites. The GM is free to specify others,
particularly at lower TLs: Cartography to chart a region for
Geology or Expert Skill (Hydrology), or an entire sector of
space for Astronomy; Forensics or Physician to collect sam-
ples for Biology or Expert Skill (Epidemiology); Observation
to hide in the bushes, taking notes on wildlife; Photogra-
phy for visual information collected using cameras rather
Pyramid Magazine
than specialized apparatus (e.g., scintillators); Prospecting
to gather mineral samples for Geology; or Surgery or Vet-
erinary to dissect (hopefully formerly) living beings for the
life sciences.
Equipment is often involved. If so, apply Equipment
Modifiers (p. B345) to effective skill level. Spending money
here can aid research efforts of any complexity.
Traits for Scientists
The apex “science trait” is IQ. Don’t overlook Talents for key
skills, though; GURPS Power-Ups 3: Talents features several, of
which Natural Scientist is broadest.
Other traits give conditional bonuses: Higher Purpose
(p. B59) – common for cinematic wonks – adds its bonus to
research consistent with its goal. Hyper-Specialization (GURPS
Power-Ups 2: Perks, p. 16) gives +5! Single-Minded (p. B85)
grants its +3 only to rolls that take at most a day: Hypothesis
rolls (p. 6), Investigation rolls (p. 6) for most Simple projects,
and Conclusion rolls (p. 7) for Simple and some Average proj-
ects. Versatile (p. B96) gives +1 to Hypothesis rolls.
Luck (p. B66) plays a role in science (even if scientists dis-
agree!). Because it relies on real-world time, high-complexity
projects benefit the most, as rolls might be spaced out across
game sessions. The GM who dislikes this may allow one use of
Luck per character per project, even if the rolls are far apart.
Intuition (p. B63) is similarly important, but its mechanics
don’t play well with skilled tasks. Optionally, the GM can let it
act like Luck for a Hypothesis roll or a Conclusion roll – choose
one per project.
Not every “brainy” trait is a good excuse for benefits. In par-
ticular, neither level of Gadgeteer is relevant – those are about
inventing, not science.
And a few traits might be all-or-nothing. Eidetic Mem-
ory (p. B51) bestows no bonuses – the idea is to explore the
unknown, not recall the known – but if data is lost, it permits a
Conclusion roll from memory. Intuitive Mathematician (p. B66)
doesn’t add to skill, but replaces the need for an expensive com-
puter if the GM rules that one is necessary.
Reviewing Data
Alternatively – especially for venerable puzzles – it can suf-
fice to review somebody else’s data. This might be published (in
journals) or unpublished (in lab notebooks or on computers,
including those stolen by spies!). The go-to skill is Research,
or its special default to the chosen science skill at ‑2 (p. B217).
In some settings, a Hidden Lore specialty might replace
Research for obscure secrets. Conversely, for Simple or Aver-
age problems – never anything more complex! – Current
Affairs (Science & Technology) may suffice for anything so
public or longstanding that “everybody knows about it.”
In all cases, effective skill is the lower of this review skill
or the original researcher’s effective skill for Gathering Data
(above). If the latter is unknown, the GM can roll 1d+2 for
skill for non-scientists working from default (and for cranks),
1d+7 for mediocre scientists (most students qualify), 1d+12
for experts, or 1d+17 for the field’s brightest lights. For stark
realism, have Writing skill cap this for journal results.
5 Sci-Fi/Tech I
Developing Theory
Someone conducting a “thought experiment” or seeking
a mathematical proof spends most of their time scribbling
equations, or maybe consulting peers, reading the literature,
and spending time cloistered away seemingly “doing noth-
ing.” The most common skill here is Mathematics – generally
the Applied specialty – if equations and mathematical models
make sense (GM decides), or the project’s science skill other-
wise. For a revolutionary theory, a different science skill might
be needed . . . perhaps that’s why it’s revolutionary!
Analysis
For Gathering Data (p. 5) and Reviewing Data (p. 5) when
raw data is available, the skill used for Investigation rolls
(below) is the lower of the effective skill chosen above and
a data-analysis skill. The latter is the researcher’s choice of
Computer Programming or a Mathematics specialty, typically
Applied or Statistics. When reviewing data, if raw data is not
available – only results – use the original researcher’s skill
here, too!
For Developing Theory (above), ignore this rule.
The Scientific Method
After identifying a problem, assigning a complexity, and
choosing skills, it’s time to go to work.
Hypothesis
Anybody with the correct science skill can propose an idea
to test. The Hypothesis roll for this resembles an invention’s
Concept roll, and takes just as little time – around a day – but
that doesn’t make it easy! The GM rolls in secret against sci-
ence skill, with these modifiers:
Modifiers: -6 if the problem is Simple, -10 if Average, -14 if
Complex, or -22 if Amazing; -5 if the knowledge sought is one
Pyramid Magazine
TL above the scientist’s, and the GM might allow ‑5 per TL, as
even real-world puzzles have answers that amount to “we can
go no further without becoming a TL12 society”; when refin-
ing, each iteration after the first gives a cumulative +1, and the
immediately previous iteration gives a noncumulative +2 for
success or ‑2 per critical failure (at worst ‑6).
Interpret the results as follows:
Critical Success or Success: Proceed to the next step (Inves-
tigation roll).
Failure: The scientist is stymied and cannot proceed, but may
try again (usually the next day) at no additional penalty.
Critical Failure: The scientist mis-frames the problem.
Advance to the next step – but from here on, the work is
doomed to failure!
Investigation
Next comes running experiments, collecting samples, por-
ing over data, scribbling on the blackboard, or whatever else
the supporting skills suggest. This is where the bulk of the
time is spent:
Complexity Time
Simple 1d-3 (minimum one) days
Average 3d days
Complex 1d months
Amazing 1d-1 (minimum one) years
This doesn’t replace GM judgment! A scientific
expedition takes however long it takes to play out
the adventure, regardless of complexity. Anything
that takes months or years can happen “in the
background” of other adventures.
The GM makes a secret Investigation roll against
the skill picked in Supporting Skills (pp. 5-6).
Despite taking most of the time, this step isn’t sub-
ject to steep modifiers – such work is often parceled
out to lab technicians, graduate students, survey
scouts, and other modestly skilled assistants.
Modifiers: Equipment modifiers, if applicable;
where there are limiting skills, as when analyz-
ing data or reviewing another scientist’s research,
use the lowest skill; up to four assistants may roll
against any skill that seems relevant (GM’s deci-
sion, but keep an open mind if the assistants are
PCs!), granting +2 per critical success, +1 per success,
‑1 per failure, or ‑2 per critical failure.
Outcomes are as follows:
Critical Success: If the Hypothesis roll was a success or crit-
ical success, proceed to the next step (Conclusion roll)
at +2! If the Hypothesis roll was a critical failure, this is
revealed and the scientist can skip to another iteration; the
next Hypothesis roll gets the usual cumulative +1 for this
iteration, though also the ‑2 for a critical failure on the pre-
vious iteration.
Success: Proceed to the next step.
Failure: Proceed to the next step, but at ‑5.
Critical Failure: Proceed to the next step, but the research is
fatally flawed – treat any failed Conclusion roll as a critical
failure, any successful roll as an ordinary failure.
6 Sci-Fi/Tech I
Conclusions proceed, not only can it do so, but all rolls for it (e.g., every roll
made to establish a space colony) are at +1.
Last comes interpreting what was found. This Conclusion
Complexity sets the scope of success, not its degree. Simple
roll takes only 1/10 as long as the Investigation roll – rounded
outcomes are plausible after a few days of work; Average ones,
up, minimum one day. It’s a secret roll against the project’s
after a week or two; Complex ones, after months; and Amazing
science skill (again), with these modifiers:
ones, after years. This needn’t have anything to do with real-
Modifiers: The same modifiers that applied to the Hypothe- world science (which is rather random, in truth) – it should
sis roll (p. 6); +2 if the Investigation roll was a critical success, serve the story. For instance, if the GM wants the campaign’s
‑5 if it was a failure, no modifier otherwise. next major science-driven event to occur in a few months, they
can require success at a Complex problem.
Read these results as follows: An important exception is advancing a society’s TL in a sci-
Critical Success: If neither the Hypothesis nor Investigation ence. That’s always an Amazing project – and the GM is free
roll was a critical failure, this represents wild success – the to rule that it always requires critical success, too! Raising
problem is solved in a way that’s justification for a reward, a whole society to the next TL is the result of many such
like a prize or being permitted to learn a higher-TL skill. advances and next-TL inventions. The GM might let scien-
If either the Hypothesis or Investigation roll was a critical tist and inventor PCs slowly check off boxes on a list over the
failure, treat this as simple failure. course of a lengthy campaign.
Success: If neither the Hypothesis nor Investiga-
tion roll was a critical failure, the problem is
mostly solved – a “serviceable” solution, not
a prize-winning one, that the scientist can Research eams T
refine at +2 on the next iteration. If either the The same character needn’t make all rolls for scientific discov-
Hypothesis or Investigation roll was a critical ery. It’s more fun if many PCs are involved.
failure, treat this as simple failure. Different people can provide the Science Skills (p. 5) and the
Failure: No solution presents itself – try again. Supporting Skills (pp. 5-6). The primary supporting skill and the
If neither the Hypothesis nor Investigation data-analysis skill (Analysis, p. 6) needn’t be those of the same
roll was a critical failure, refining and retry- individual. Investigation rolls (p. 6) permit up to four assistants,
ing is allowed at no extra penalty. If either the using whatever skills the GM permits – which can be as boring as
Hypothesis or Investigation roll was a critical Housekeeping to clean up the lab, or as thrilling as combat skills
failure, treat this as a critical failure. for capturing dangerous animals! The researcher providing the
Critical Failure: A bogus conclusion is reached! science skill can let somebody else make the Investigation roll and
Any attempt to use the results fails. After this serve as their assistant; their science skill always counts as “rele-
happens, the scientist may refine and retry; the vant to the work.”
next iteration is at ‑2 per critical failure (on this The Hypothesis roll (p. 6) and Conclusion roll (above) typi-
roll or either previous one). cally use the same skill, but different people can provide it. This is
unlikely to be a deliberate choice, but a trusted colleague can take
K nowledge s ower I P over if the primary researcher suffers a mishap.
For fun’s sake, assume there’s no difference between one person
What’s the good of all this? Success on a Con- or many working on the project, as long as all are willing to coop-
clusion roll should “unstick” something that was erate. Infiltrators, slave laborers, etc. can sabotage the effort, delib-
waiting on new science. In an action-oriented erately failing rolls (treat all results as failures except for critical
campaign, it might kick off the next adventure or failures, which remain critical failures).
campaign arc – someone can try to invent some- Somebody who contributes no other skills can serve as the coor-
thing the GM didn’t previously permit, a society dinator of a team of two or more others. Roll against Administration
can move ahead with a space colony, etc. Early (for sedate academic projects) or Leadership (for field expeditions,
in a TL, success could unlock aspects of the TL military research, etc.) to direct the effort. Success gives +1 to all
that the GM ruled were awaiting discovery. At any rolls for the project, as they make sure the person formulating the
time, success may negate a rival faction’s bonus hypothesis instructs their team, investigators cooperate, and results
for scientific advantage, or grant the researcher’s are properly delivered to the individual drawing the conclusions.
faction +1. Critical success gives +2. This is cinematic (realistically, apply ‑1 to
Critical success on the Conclusion roll is the team efforts and have any success here cancel that), but provides
Holy Grail! Scientists may go through many iter- a good reason to have different people make Hypothesis and Con-
ations trying for this, with cumulative bonuses clusion rolls.
eventually raising effective skill to 15+, making It rarely makes sense to divide time requirements among multi-
critical success more probable. Critical success ple assistants – scientific progress doesn’t work that way. But it is
counts as success and rewards the researcher reasonable to permit Time Spent (p. B346) at each step, allowing
personally – whether that means scoring “free” less-skilled scientists to work slowly for a bonus, or geniuses to take
Reputation or Wealth, or being allowed to learn penalties to produce overnight results. The bonuses that assistants
the science skill at the next TL. If the whole point give to Investigation rolls, and coordinators give to all rolls, can be
was to grant a faction a bonus, this should be used to offset haste penalties.
at least +2; if the goal was to let a major effort

Pyramid Magazine 7 Sci-Fi/Tech I

 The Divine
Pacific Republic
of Datastan
By Matt Riggsby
There is in a remote corner of the Pacific a small but stable
fragment of an artificial coral atoll. Bits of vegetation cling to
cracks in the rough, gray surface. Rising from this infinitesi-
mal bit of nominally dry land, hardly bigger than a regulation
football field, is a somewhat rusty pair of linked hexagonal
structures. They’re dotted with satellite dishes and daubed
with religious symbols, some fresh, some faded and peeling.
This is the Divine Pacific Republic of Datastan. To some, it is a
hermitage. To others, a flag of convenience. And to cyberpunk
adventurers, it may be a great many things.
Birth of a Nation
The DPRD’s origins stretch back nearly 50 years. Until
then, it was the remnants of an undersea volcano which never
quite reached the surface. Kember-Mysore GmbH, a bioengi-
neering firm, located the site, which it dubbed T-5. Along with
several others like it around the Pacific, it was used as a field
site to test rapidly growing coral as part of a project to restore
the Great Barrier Reef. The tests failed. The engineered coral
grew quickly enough, but unevenly, even unpredictably. The
material left a stumpy island nucleating around the research
observation tower rather than a large, substantial reef. KMG
folded before it could clean up the site.
Some years later, one of the senior engineers associated
with the project, Ahmad Kowalski, reached a religious crisis.
He had been working his way through a variety of syncretic
ideas for some time and had decided to take a retreat for sol-
itude. In a crowded world, the barren, abandoned, artificial
rock of T-5 was perfect. After seven years of near-total soli-
tude, punctuated only by days-long expeditions to the near-
est settled islands for provisions now and again, Kowalski
developed what he called the Doctrine of the Circle. This
philosophy was an esoteric and cleverly stated (if not par-
ticularly original) proposal for unifying the world’s major
religions through a variety of circle-based metaphors. His
withdrawal from the world didn’t quite end there, but it did
take on a different character. He restored some of the sta-
tion’s communications equipment, plugged himself back into
the global network, and began trying to spread his doctrine.
Pyramid Magazine
Kowalski’s “Circlism” didn’t take the world by storm, but
it did gain a few adherents. These people traveled to the tiny
spot in the Pacific to join him, which raised the question of
how to support the growing religious community. Ahmad was
solely interested in philosophy at this point, so the task fell to
his children, Miryam and Abbas. Abbas, trained as a hotelier,
became both a sort of facilities manager and the main busi-
ness contact with the outside world. Miryam, an engineer like
her father, noted the site’s legally ambiguous status and sug-
gested establishing it as an independent state and data haven.
The name, the Divine Pacific Republic of Datastan,
started out as a joking working title, but Ahmad decided
that he liked it, and so it stuck. He composed a proclama-
tion establishing the republic as a newly independent nation
with a document which is heavy on religion and light on
specifics of government. The DPRD had by that time a per-
manent population (if only a dozen or so people), perma-
nent territory (the atoll was quite stable), and was outside of
any territorial claims anyone cared to make, so it nominally
passed muster by international law.
Once established, Datastan might not have thrived, but it
survived well enough. Miryam’s technical setup proved nicely
functional. Clients would deposit data by encrypted trans-
mission or by handing off physical storage media; they used
Datastan’s services to keep the information safe from gov-
ernment intrusion or to avoid taxes on intellectual property.
Devotees would make pilgrimages to meet Ahmad, padding
out the DPRD’s expenses with offerings for the cause.
After several years of this, Ahmad’s health started to fail.
His family and devotees set him up with more and more elab-
orate medical supports. He’s now essentially a body in a tank,
floating in and out of lucidity. He serves as a sort of oracle and
focus of veneration, though not quite direct worship.
Abbas died in an accident a few years ago, leaving Miryam
the only functional member of the Kowalski family in resi-
dence. She still handles the technical tasks, but the business
end of the DPRD has been passed on to a couple of devoted Cir-
clists. So far, business has been good enough to keep Datastan
going, but there’s always the risk that an established state will
take notice of them and decide to step in, or that someone will
want to come and take some valuable data by force.
8 Sci-Fi/Tech I
The Location: Overview
T-5 is in the southwestern Pacific, somewhere east of the
Philippines and north of New Zealand, over 100 miles from
the next closest bit of dry land, and over 200 from the near-
est inhabited island. It’s a slightly curved piece of artificial
coral running north to south, about 120 yards long and 40
yards across at its widest but tapering at the ends. Most of it
rises from 20’ to 30’ above sea level, falling off sharply close to
the shore. While the surface of T-5 remains very rocky, a few
seeds, perhaps floating in on the ocean or brought by migrat-
ing birds, have found purchase in cracks here and there, pro-
viding tiny flecks of green. Most of the island’s vegetation is
decorative plants living inside the facility.
The station consists of two hexagonal towers, connected
at several different levels. Each tower has a lift (surrounded
by a steel mesh cage at each level) and a staircase. The struc-
ture is largely steel, treated to resist corrosion from the salt
spray. It has been painted repeatedly and extensively by the
residents and provided enough reinforcement to stand up to
storm winds. A small dock off the west side of T-5 allows boats
to tie up and load and unload safely. A tunnel leads directly
into the bottom level of the facility from there.
The facility is primarily solar powered. Most of the time,
the atoll is surrounded by a field of flexible solar panels sup-
ported by a floating framework of inflatable struts, about an
acre on both the east and west sides. They are tough, to a
modest extent self-repairing. They can be retracted quickly in
the event of bad weather.
The original décor was nonexistent. It was set up as a
research station, with an array of scientific equipment (long
since gone) and support machinery for keeping it habitable.
(The support machinery was largely replaced after the sta-
tion was reoccupied.) There were and still are concrete floors,
exposed pipes and conduits, and so on, with barriers and
shields over infrastructure for safety here and there, but for
no other reason. The more “industrial” parts of the facility
are still unadorned and are lit with utilitarian LED panels.
Occupied spaces have been subjected to layers of elab-
orate decoration by people who have typically had more
enthusiasm than talent. The walls are covered with a
mishmash of devotional paintings linking multiple holy
symbols, collages of religious images (such as saints and
temples), banners and tapestries, and so on. Floors are
covered with surprisingly good carpets, and the ceilings
are hung with strings of lights and decorative lanterns.
The Location: Levels
The facility consists of six levels, from the subterranean
utility level to the temple at the top.
For a map of the facility, see p. 11.
Basement: Power and Utilities
This level holds the facility’s main power controls and stor-
age, including large battery banks, a backup hydrogen-pow-
ered generator, and related controls and conduits. It also
handles sewage treatment, water purification, and the like.
The doors between the towers and to the tunnel on this level
are heavy (DR 30, HP 30) and watertight against the possibil-
ity of heavy waves threatening to flood the facility.
Pyramid Magazine
1. Storage
This level contains a great deal of mundane storage: food,
cleaning supplies, spare tools, emergency clothing, replace-
ment parts for the structure, and so on. The doors open on to
the surface of the atoll.
2. Living Quarters
The towers are connected on this level by a short, wide
corridor. The area is divided into shared rooms by retrofitted
walls, which provide minimal privacy. The level also contains
a kitchen, a common living area, and a dispensary/sickbay.
3. Data
This level features multiple racks of servers. Each rack has
its own battery backup, so even if main power is interrupted,
servers will continue to operate and will have time to shut
down gracefully. There are multiple layers of security from
encryption to multi-factor authentication methods to keeping
some servers physically disconnected from the network until
suitable authentication protocols are met and someone (not
an automated system) plugs them in.
4. Control/Quarters
While level three is where the data is, most of the work
of managing it happens on level four. The northern section
of this level houses workstations, controls for the building’s
various systems (including climate control and the solar pan-
els), and most of the actual communications gear for receiv-
ing and transmitting data, connected to satellite dishes on the
roof. The southern level was originally used as quarters by
the Kowalskis, but with two of them gone, some of the more
permanent residents have drifted in. This level has a balcony
around it.
Building Stats
The facility has HT 12, DR 12, HP 672. Sections of wall
are DR 12, HP 38. The windows are heavy plastic (cover DR
10) and have steel shutters (+15 DR) which can be closed
against bad weather. The entire structure, with power,
data, and comms facilities, would cost about $3 million.
5. Temple
The top level of the tower is used for ritual and devotion.
It is more comfortably appointed than the rest of the sta-
tion. Ahmad’s life-support apparatus occupies a chunk of the
southern tower.
The Residents
The station typically holds a dozen or so long-term resi-
dents. Up to another five or six from the tiny but persistent
population of Circlists from around the world could comfort-
ably visit. The station is hard-pressed to hold more. While
larger parties are not unprecedented, any visitors in excess of
about 20 people must stay in whatever boat they came in.
9 Sci-Fi/Tech I
Notable
Permanent Residents
Ahmad Kowalski: Ahmad’s medical-support machinery is
functional, but far from state of the art. He mostly spends his
days in a drugged fugue state, occasionally issuing pronounce-
ments. When he’s lucid enough, he engages in religious discus-
sions and instructions enhanced by audiovisual presentations
(he’s got direct cybernetic feeds to a number of systems in the
station). He’s deeply versed in religious lore, but he’s rarely in Australia? somebody else?) has asserted a territorial claim to
a state to call on it.
Miryam Kowalski: Miryam is patient with the Circlists, but
has never really been a follower of her father’s religion. She’s
stayed on through familial devotion and an interest in build-
ing Datastan’s digital infrastructure, something she likely
wouldn’t have the opportunity to do sticking with more con-
ventional jobs.
Archee Abimbola: If Ahmad has an heir apparent, it’s the
charismatic Archee (her real name is Angela, but everybody
calls her Archee). Archee took over Abbas’s role as the coor-
dinator for the facility and negotiator with outside entities,
and she regularly puts out surprisingly professional and
well-written Circlist videos and articles. Also like Abbas, she
knows enough to let Miryam have complete control over tech-
nical issues.
Doc Amsterdam: Doc (always called Doc, never their
birth name Sigismunde) is Ahmad’s longest-standing fol-
lower and has been in residence on the station longer than
even Miryam. This person balances the eccentricity of the
Circlists with substantial medical skill. That Ahmad is still
alive in largely improvised and salvaged life-support gear is
a credit to Doc’s skills.
Eamon Marillo: The station doesn’t need an enforcer, but if
it did, it would be Eamon. He came to the station in search of
peace after years of serving in the military and a stint in pri-
vate security. He retains a num-
ber of cybernetic and biological
enhancements and will use them Ahmad Kowalski,
if he has to, but only if he has to. founder of the Circlists, is
deeply versed in religious
Adventures lore, but he’s now rarely in
Datastan is about as isolated a state to call on it.
as one can get in a densely pop-
ulated cyberpunk world. It’s
hours away from the nearest populated place by conventional
transportation. While it’s not off the grid, all electronic traf-
fic goes through a single chokepoint (the facility’s high-grade
communications installation). This makes it difficult to hide
communication and possible to get cut off from the outside
world altogether. The Circlists largely keep to themselves, so
it’s not a great place for a base of operations, though some-
thing might be done with a group of adventurers working as
couriers, running physical media to and from the facility.
It’s probably better, then, as the site of an adventure. There
are a few different ways to play the Circlists, depending on what
function they need to serve. They can certainly be what they
appear, a largely loopy group of religious fanatics, a diverse
network of sincere believers with largely benign intentions.
Some may be canny against attempts to fool them and ada-
mant against doing things that go against their moral code,
Pyramid Magazine 10
but unable to offer much physical resistance. Alternatively,
they could be dangerous religious fanatics, heavily armed and
willing to sacrifice whoever they need to further their agenda.
Here are a few specific ideas.
The Empire Strikes Back
At last, a more conventional nation-state has taken notice
of the DPRD and isn’t happy about the dubious legality of
its only marketable service. Some nation (the Philippines?
the tiny rock on which the DPRD is built and wants to take
control. This could play out as a largely social, political, and
legal adventure (as the DPRD works the case through world
courts) or as a military defense (with the Circlists trying to
hold off a small occupying force). Adventurers could be
Circlists defending a location which was never meant for it,
conventional troops trying to take the structure without dam-
aging it (the value of the data Datastan holds is considerable),
or perhaps a third party of mercenaries recruited by the DPRD
or their patrons, coming in to save the day.
Data Heist
The DPRD doesn’t know and doesn’t want to know the
contents of the files sent to them. But somebody knows some
of what they’ve got, and they want to get their hands on it.
A small group of adventurers must infiltrate Datastan, find a
specific data storage module (about the size of a paperback
book), and bring it back. While security isn’t enormously
tight, there are inadequately understood countermeasures to
prevent this kind of thing from happening: a policy of only
allowing established outside Circlists to visit, a well-obfus-
cated filing system, media cabinets with multiple locks, and
possibly more. Moreover, the place is crowded at the best of
times. How do you sneak around if there’s always somebody
there to see you?
A variation on this presents a different tar-
get: When KMG collapsed, its holdings didn’t
just vanish. The company went into receiver-
ship and its assets were broken up and sold
off. Now, decades after the fact, the current
owners of intellectual property related to the
engineered coral project have found some-
thing of value in the files. However, there are
some critical details missing, and the only
surviving member of the team responsible
is Ahmad Kowalski. An extraction team is commissioned to
pull him out whether he’s willing or not and take him to a
corporate facility in Brisbane. The problem, of course, is that
Ahmad is hooked into an elaborate, jury-rigged life-support
apparatus, and there’s no easy way of extracting him from it,
or the apparatus from the building.
Death in the Pacific
A Circlist has been murdered; whodunnit? The surviving
Circlists must call in an investigator to figure it out. Datastan
is an excellent site for a locked room or cozy mystery.
The bounds of the location and the cast of characters are
well-defined. Was it a relationship gone wrong? A bid for
leadership? A spiritual dispute gone physical? Everybody’s a
suspect. Even Ahmad.
Sci-Fi/Tech I
 B 1 2 N

3 4 5

Map of the T-5 Observation Station

1 hex = 1 yard

Pyramid Magazine 11 Sci-Fi/Tech I

 More Options
for Metatronic
Generators By Christopher R. Rice

Metatronic Generators, from Pyramid #3/46: Weird Science, primed with some of the target’s DNA. AHB rounds cannot
allowed the creation of assorted weapons and gewgaws, but be primed more than once. Minuscule, $3,300, 0.047 lb. LC2.
it didn’t cover everything. This article offers even more nifty
Statistics: Modified Firearm Damage (Apparatus, +0%;
devices and suggests numerous additional features and uses.
Homing, Detect (Specific Person), +55%; Superscience,
-10%) [6].
It’s a Feature, Not a Bug
Metatronic generators have several built-in assumptions Armor and Shields
that may not play well with a GM’s campaign assumptions; For generators in the form of armor or shields, total the
read carefully! Additionally, the following are considered cost of all the advantages it grants (usually Damage Resis-
optional rules and are not required to use the original article. tance or Enhanced Defenses), and multiply that by $2,000 for
armor or $1,500 for shields. Base
Ammunition Generators weight for armor is 30 lbs., while
weight for shields is 15 lbs. Most
Instead of creating a gun or other Metatronic generators such generators are self-powered.
weapon that causes a specific effect,
metatronic generators could be one- are devices that emulate Use the shields listed on p. B287
as a guideline for determining what
use ammunition. Use 1/5¥ the cost for unusual abilities and level of DR they have. To save space,
a generator of its size, the weight per
shot (WPS) of the ammunition, and work as if the user had the GM may use the Defense Bonus
meta-trait (GURPS Supers, p. 34)
multiply the final cost by the cost per those traits. instead of Enhanced Defenses.
shot (CPS). (Weight per shot and cost
If using the optional Damage to
per shot of the most common ammu-
Shields rule (p. B484), calculate HP
nition types can be found in GURPS
based on the shield’s weight (pp. B557-558). Damage Resis-
High-Tech, GURPS Low-Tech, and GURPS Ultra-Tech.)
tance may be increased for the device itself and for the wearer
Ammunition generators are almost always a SM -12 minus-
(see Power Amplifiers, Enhancers, and Mitigators, p. 15).
cule generator (see New Sizes and Interpolated Values, p. 13)
and are assumed to be self-powered.
Example: Unobtanium-Alloy Shield
Bullets or projectiles that have additional effects, but not
A medium-sized shield (p. B287) made of an indestructible
increased damage, use the rules for modifying muscle-pow-
metal. It gives DB 2. $351,000, 15 lbs., Self-Powered. LC4.
ered ranged weapons or modifying other weapons on p. 11 of
GURPS Power-Ups 4: Enhancements, based on the damage Statistics: Defense Bonus Meta-Trait 2 (Apparatus, +0%;
from the weapon they will be fired from. Cosmic, Unbreakable, +300%; Superscience, -10%) [234].

Example: AHB (Autonomous Combination Devices

Homing Ballistic) .45 ACP Round
The expression “bullet with your name on it” come to life.
This .45 ACP round for an M1911 (GURPS High-Tech, p. 98)
uses the rules for guided weapons from Guided and Homing
Weapons (p. B412), with the guidance system being a version
of Detect (p. B48), based on one specific target. The bullet is
Multiple generators can be combined into a single piece
of equipment. If all devices can be used at once, weight is
equal to the heaviest generator plus 80% of the weight of all
others. Cost equals the most expensive generator plus 80%
of the cost of all others. If only one device can be used at a
time, the additions to weight and cost become 50% instead.

Pyramid Magazine 12 Sci-Fi/Tech I

Weight calculations use the devices’ weight after subtracting Example: Power Damper Cuffs
the weight of any batteries, power cells, or ammunition. This set of sturdy cuffs neutralizes any superpowers the
Some combination generators might be based on devices subject has if they fail a roll against the lower of their HT-5
using different batteries. To make them all run off the same or Will-5. Any neutralized abilities stay neutralized until the
size of battery, adjust endurance in proportion to the relative cuffs are removed; the powers will return three minutes after
weight of battery size. Note that changing battery type could the cuffs are removed. Additionally, the device reduces the
modify the final weight; subtract the weight of the old battery wearer’s ST by 10 while worn. They have DR 8, HP 22, HT 14.
and add the weight of the new one. Mini, $571,800, 2.3 lbs., LC2.
Example: An Small battery is 3.3 times as heavy as an One variation of this generator is damper cuffs, made for
Extra-Small battery. A generator that switched from the latter those with “super strength.” They negate 10 levels of Strength
to the former would operate for 3.3 times as long and would bought with the Super-Effort enhancement (GURPS Supers,
weigh an extra 0.23 lb. p. 24), 10 levels of Lifting ST, and 10 levels of Lifting ST
bought with the Super-Effort enhancement. They are small
A combination generator shares the Bulk of the com- generators, cost $1,154,300 weigh 5 lbs., have HP 28, but are
ponent with the worst Bulk, and the LC of the component otherwise the same.
with the worst LC. For ST, use the highest required ST of all
generators. Statistics: ST-10 (Apparatus, +0%; Superscience, -10%)
[-90] + Neutralize (Apparatus, +0%; Based on lower of HT or
Will, +40%; Contact Agent, -30%; Cosmic, Lingering Effect,
Damaging a Generator Powers stay neutralized until cuffs are removed, +100%;
Though it’s not explicitly noted, generators can be dam- Fixed Duration, +0%; Superscience, -10%; Weaponized, Will
aged like any piece of gear. Use the rules from pp. B557-558 -5, Ignores DR, -0%) [100]. Includes the cost of rugged fine
or the following quick reference table. Generators made of handcuffs and leg irons.
plastic or light metal have DR 1; heavy plastic or wood, DR 2;
most metal, DR 4. All generators start with a HT of 12.
New Sizes and Interpolated Values
Size HP Size HP For sizes other than those listed on the Power Table in
Minuscule 0 HP* Portable 13 HP Pyramid #3/46: Weird Science, p. 19, use the Power Table: New
Diminutive 1 HP Semi-Portable 27 HP Sizes (below). For devices with a SM between two sizes, add
Tiny 2 HP Large 58 HP the stats of both sizes together and then divide by two (round
Mini 3 HP Very Large 125 HP up); use the best battery requirement.
Small 6 HP Massive 268 HP Example: A SM -7 Mini generator costs $3,250 per point,
needs 2¥AA/24 hours, weighs 0.17 lb., is LC 3, and has Bulk
* Any penetrating damage destroys the device.
-2 and ST 2.

Disadvantageous Generators Physical Ammunition

Some generators inflict disadvantages on those who wear
For most weapons that use disposable ammunition, use
them. Buy such devices normally, but use the absolute value
the listed values for a bullet of that caliber or type. GURPS
the disadvantages they inflict while worn. Disadvantages and
High-Tech is handy for that information! Optionally, use the
advantages may be combined normally.
following generic costs, based on the size of the generator.

Power Table: New Sizes

Size Dollar Cost Weight Power Requirement* LC Bulk ST
Minuscule (SM -12)†‡ $5,500 ¥ point cost 0.0003 lb. AA/month 2 N/A N/A
Diminutive (SM -10)† $4,500 ¥ point cost 0.003 lb. AA/week 3 -0 N/A
Very Large (SM +4) $500 ¥ point cost 30,000 lbs. F/12 hours or external power 3 N/A N/A
Massive (SM +6)§ $250 ¥ point cost 300,000 lbs. External power 3 N/A N/A

* For generators that are beam or conventional weapons,
the power requirement indicated becomes the number of cells
required for its listed amount of shots. External power allows
an unlimited number of shots, but can overheat if more than
its Shots statistic ¥ 3 are used inside of one second. In such
cases, make a HT roll for the generator; a failure results in a
minor breakdown until it’s fixed.
† Diminutive generators require either TL10+ technology,
or that they be self-powered. Minuscule generators need
TL11+ technology.
‡ Minuscule generators can be made smaller. Each SM
smaller adds a cumulative $500 to the cost per point and
reduces its weight by 1/10. At SM -10 or smaller, targets must
make a Vision roll to spot the generator, with a penalty equal
to (SM + 10). A generator must be at least SM -19 to enter the
bloodstream and SM -44 to enter a body through its pores.
These sizes assume a SM 0 being.
§ Massive generators can be made larger. Each SM increase
decreases the cost per point by $50 (minimum cost of $50
per point). Weight also goes up by ¥10, making the generator
harder to damage or disable (see above).

Pyramid Magazine 13 Sci-Fi/Tech I

Costs cover the bullet, its propellant (which might be rare!),
any micro-circuitry, and so on. This cost might apply to its
generator capabilities only. A generator weapon could be
capable of using normal ammunition with typical results, but
only special ammunition allows it to be used as a generator.
For example, a small-sized generator shaped like a revolver
might take .38 caliber bullets – or its own special “bullets,”
which permit it to fire plasma beams!
Per Full Reload
Generator Size Weight Cost
Mini 0.05 lb.       $1
Small 0.5 lb.      $10
Portable 1.5 lbs.      $30
Semi-Portable 15 lbs.     $300
Large 150 lbs.    $3,000
Very Large 1,500 lbs.   $30,000
Massive 15,000 lbs. $300,000
New Enhancements
A few new enhancements broaden the range of what
metatronic generators can do.
Energy Reserve
see Powers, p. 119
Fiction is full of Energy Reserves that recharge only
with the aid of an action, substance, or circumstance. To
simulate this, use the new Triggered Recharge enhance-
ment (below). Use the examples under Weakness (p. B161)
to help determine rarity for both modifiers.
New Special Enhancement
Triggered Recharge: Your ER doesn’t recharge at a
normal rate. Instead it requires a specific condition to
refill. The enhancement value depends on how fast your
recharge rate is, and how convenient it is to fulfill the
conditions: +300% if the entire reserve recharges when
the condition is met; +150% if it recharges 5 points per
second of exposure; +60% if you’re limited to 1 point per
second of exposure; +30% if you’re limited to 1 point per
10 minutes of exposure. Modify the enhancement’s value
by the triggering condition: ¥2 if it’s very common, ¥1.5 if
common, ¥1 if occasional, and by ¥0.5 if rare. Addition-
ally, if the trigger is not consumed or can otherwise be
reused, double the final value.
New Special Limitation
Energy Discharge: Your reserve loses the energy stored
within it, unless a particular condition is met. The cost
depends on how quickly it loses energy, and how hard it is
to fulfill the conditions to keep your ER intact: if you lose
one point per 10 minutes the condition is not met, this is
worth -10%; if you lose one point per minute, it’s worth
-20%; if you lose one point per second, it’s worth -30%;
if you lose your entire reserve as soon as the condition is
not met, it’s worth -40%. (This last requires an ER of 10
Pyramid Magazine 14
Power Batteries
A common trope for special gear is that it helps someone
use pre-existing innate abilities without exhausting themselves.
This is effectively an Energy Reserve (below and GURPS
Powers, p. 119) and is bought as such. If the Energy Reserve
can be used for another, related ability – e.g., ER (Spirit) and
ER (Magic) – add a special enhancement: “Extended Source”
for +20%. If they are not related in any way, the cost becomes
+50%. If it applies to all powers in a setting, cost becomes
+300%! Optionally, for this enhancement’s purposes, the GM
may rule that cosmic powers are related to all other powers in
the setting.
Nearly all power batteries are self-powered, though some
might convert electricity (e.g., normal batteries or power
cells) into some form of exotic energy to fuel paranormal
abilities.
or greater.) Modify the limitation’s value by the trigger-
ing condition that prevents energy loss: ¥0.25 if it’s very
common or an easy to meet requirement, ¥0.5 if common,
¥1 if occasional, and by ¥2 if rare or a difficult to meet
requirement (e.g., you must constantly sing to preserve
the ER). As soon as the condition is met again, the Energy
Reserve starts to refill.
Hotshotable
+20%
You can “overload” your generator’s attack to fire a
hotshot. Each hotshot uses up two shots (if applicable),
but multiplies damage by 1.3 or adds +1 damage per die,
whichever is better. For attacks that inflict attribute pen-
alties or affect an area, also multiply penalty or radius
by 1.3.
This comes at a price: when firing a hotshot, the attack
gains a Malfunction of 17 (this can be reduced, with each
-1 adding -5% to the enhancement’s total cost). If more
than 10 times its RoF hotshots are fired within a minute,
the attack “overheats.” This results in the Malfunction
number dropping to 14 (or 12 if firing more hotshots
while it’s overheated!). This can be avoided by spacing
shots every 10 seconds or with complete nonoperation for
a full minute. If a roll indicates a malfunction, roll to see
if the ability is crippled, at a penalty equal to 18 minus its
current Malfunction number.
Melee Attack
see p. B112
Abilities with Melee Attack 1-4 can have a greater
Reach. Each +1 yard increase adds +5% to the modifier,
up to 0% for Melee Attack 1-7 (just like a whip). For an
additional +10% to the modifier, the Reach can be made
variable as a Ready maneuver. If this is a free action, this
becomes +20%.
Sci-Fi/Tech I
 or ability. These are bought as higher levels or additional
enhancements to the ability.
The third type, power mitigators, remove limitations on an
ability, for the usual cost.

Prototypes and Mass Production

The prices for all generators assume that while not rare,
they’re not commonplace. For different assumptions, use the
following multiplier to change the costs:
• Impossible: Generators are so rare as to be impossible. If
allowed at all, one costs at least ¥100!
• Very Rare: Generators are unusual enough that very few
people have one, much less know such a device is possible.
¥25.
• Rare: Generators may be hard to make or require expen-
sive components, but they’re not totally unknown. ¥5.
• Uncommon: This is the default assumption for genera-
tors. ¥1.
• Common: ¥0.2.
• Very Common: Generators are common enough that
everyone in the setting probably owns one or two. ¥0.04.
• Ubiquitous: Generators are as common as any other
household product. ¥0.01.
The GM can go even further if they wish. If a device is liter-
ally one of a kind and the process to make more is lost, it could
easily cost ¥100 to ¥1,000 more than normal! An ambitious
GM could even create a list of advantages or specific effects
that they want at a specific rarity. For example, teleportation
or shrinking devices may be “impossible” – either not allowed
or radically expensive – but thought-shielding technology may
be “common” and thus cost 1/5 of what other generators do.

Recharging Rates and Battery Exchanges

Metatronic generators assume a device either needs a
battery (+0 CF) or that it requires no battery/is self-powered
(+1 CF). The latter still requires weapon-based generators to
Example: Power Ring recharge their number of shots at a rate of one per second. If
These rings (sometimes pendants or bracelets) give the this is not the case, add the modifier “No Recharge Limits” (+3
user access to an ability-appropriate Energy Reserve of 10. CF) on top of self-powered for a total of +4 CF.
This reserve recharges at a rate of one point every 10 min- If it’s a self-powered weapon, but has a slower rate of
utes (independent of rest). Additionally, the user can summon recharging, use the following table.
and “deploy” a supersuit that covers them fully and is immune
to their powers. Diminutive (SM -10), $252,000, neg. weight. 1 Shot Regained CF 1 Shot Regained CF
Self-Powered. LC3. Every 3 seconds -0.1 Every 10 minutes -0.6
Every 10 seconds -0.2 Every 1 hour -0.7
Statistics: Energy Reserve 10 (Apparatus, +0%; Power Every minute -0.3 Every 3 hours -0.8
Modifier, -10%) [27] + Supersuit (Supers, p. 30) [1]. Every 2 minutes -0.4 Every 10 hours -0.9
Every 5 minutes -0.5 Every 24 hours -1
Power Amplifiers,
Recharge rates over one day are plot devices, not limitations.
Enhancers, and Mitigators Non-weapon generators can use the same rates, where
Many items in fiction can boost their wearer’s abilities in every minute of use requires a “cooldown” period of the listed
some way. The easiest mechanic for this is to buy levels of amount.
an appropriate power Talent as a metatronic generator (typ- The GM may allow the use of numerous smaller batteries
ically a small, easily portable device like a ring or necklace). to power a device that would otherwise require larger ones. As
These are power amplifiers, because they amplify all of the a general rule, each “step” in difference between the battery
user’s powers. needed and what is available is about ¥10. So if a TL9 device
The second most common type of such devices are power needed two B cells to function, 20 A cells could be used, or
enhancers, which augment a specific, pre-existing power 200 AA cells.

Pyramid Magazine 15 Sci-Fi/Tech I

 Space Zombies! By J. Edward Tremlett
I wish I knew what to do, here. Conventional medical treat-
ment is just not working. It’s a virus that attacks the vascular tis-
sues, but all the anti-viral treatments have no effect. My patients
just keep getting weaker and less responsive . . . there’s three who
are about to . . . oh. Oh, Bilal, I’m so sorry. Bilal Khawaja, 2nd
Lt., died at 13:28, 6th Rajab, 1732. I will begin an autopsy as
soon as . . . wait, he’s still moving. Bilal, can you hear me? Can
you . . . oh my God –
– Last log of Dr. Khadija Malik, aboard the Kaulan
(missing, presumed destroyed)
Zombie horror in space might seem unnecessary, or
even over the top, given how everything in the great beyond
is already trying to kill visitors. But zombies make a logical
extension of that menace: they both physically represent exist-
ing environmental hazards and take advantage of the harsh
realities of space travel. On a spaceship, a space station, or an
inhospitable planet, there’s nowhere to run and nowhere to
hide for long, and fire and explosions in a pressurized environ-
ment are a really bad idea.
It’s always possible to throw some brain-munching, rot-
ten ghouls in vacc suits at the PCs, but this article presents
some more specialized options: semi-traditional undead
flesh-munchers with a green twist; intelligent, genetically
damaged bioroids a few human meals away from death; and
victims of nanotech gone awry. Each is given a case history,
what they’re currently up to, how they might be encountered,
and ideas for a parallel outbreak. There’s also a small selection
of inspirational zombie (or zombie-adjacent) films where the
action takes place out in the black, rather than on Earth.
This article references GURPS Zombies and GURPS Bio-
Tech, but access to those books isn’t completely necessary; the
cunning GM can crib what they need from the descriptions
to bring these sci-fi nightmares to (un)life. That said, reading
Futuristic Sci-Fi (Zombies, pp. 147-148) can only help, espe-
cially the boxed text What Do They Eat in the Future?
The Zeaters
The Baret was a Yuangdong-class generation ship – a huge,
brutalist conglomeration of self-supporting, five-family hab-
itation/hydroponics modules attached to a central core con-
taining the main engine, recycling, and energy stores. In case
of catastrophe, the modules could eject from the core, link
up with one another, and head for the nearest system. When
it left the shipyards, the Baret was only at quarter capacity,
with a plan to ready unused modules and add new ones as
the crew increased.
Such spacecraft had to be completely self-sufficient. Every-
thing – and everyone – was recycled, and anything encoun-
tered on the way was harvested for what it could provide. To
Pyramid Magazine 16
that end, these ships employed a forward scoop, designed to
funnel all debris encountered into a combination grinder/
sterilizer before depositing it into the recycling pool. Unfor-
tunately, the Baret clearly ingested something its sterilization
matrix couldn’t handle.
The ship had just celebrated its 500th year of operation
when the first signs of the disease appeared: listlessness and
a lack of energy, followed by vascular issues – eventually lead-
ing to gangrene in the extremities, organ failure, and brain
dysfunction. In later stages, the victims were near-mindless
and violent; they attacked those who ministered to their ail-
ments, literally trying to bite them to death.
Before long, all hab-modules had people presenting symp-
toms, but it wasn’t hard to discover where it’d started. The
first victims had been the ones attending their modules’ hydro-
ponics. By the time they realized that zucchini pollen was the
culprit – and that anyone who’d handled it, breathed it in, or
eaten the ensuing crops was infected – about 45% of the crew
was symptomatic. Worse, those who’d died from gangrene
and/or brain damage were not only still moving, but actually
eating anyone nearby.
With a heavy heart, the Council of Captains made a ter-
rible choice. They purged the Baret’s recycling stores, and
destroyed the link-up and steering capabilities of all cur-
rently used hab-modules. They filled them with the symp-
tomatic members of the crew – alive or “dead” – as well as
those most likely to show symptoms due to exposure. Then
they launched them all off the ship’s core, condemning them
to whatever fate awaited.
After that, the greatly reduced crew continued their voy-
age in as-yet-untouched hab-modules. Five centuries later, the
Baret made it to their new home. The descendants never talked
about the horrible choice their ancestors had been forced to
make. They also never ate zucchini again.
Dark Harvest
The Baret jettisoned around 150 hab-modules that day.
Some of the more cunning, non-symptomatic exiles dealt with
their Zeater problems, bypassed their captains’ sabotage, and
traveled to nearby systems – hoping to find inhabitable plan-
ets. Others said their prayers, opened the airlocks, and ended
it all quickly.
Sadly, the majority succumbed to horrid eating frenzies,
ending in a bunch of stuffed Zeaters slowly rotting as the
modules floated through deep space. Some eventually auto-
landed on planets (some actually habitable), and some were
picked up by deep-space salvage units. The Zeaters encoun-
tered were usually mush by that point, unless they were
flash-frozen by exposure to vacuum, in which case being
thawed out set them back into motion.
Sci-Fi/Tech I
 But the real danger was the self-contained, fully working
hydroponics bay in each hab-module. Unless someone thought
to turn it off, crop after crop of tainted zucchini would have
kept churning out – their deadly pollen ready to infect a whole
new generation of Zeaters. (See Ghost Planets, pp. 28-31, for
an example of what might happen when one of the modules
lands on an inhabited planet.)
Vital Statistics
These flesh-eating monstrosities can easily be represented
by B-movie ghouls (GURPS Zombies, p. 90): strong, slow,
stupid, and quite putrid, with a burning desire to eat human
flesh. They don’t possess the Infectious trait, though; the
tainted pollen (and fruits or vegetables created with it) is what
carries the curse.
Alternate Vectors
Whatever strange piece of debris entered the ship’s scoop
and infected the biomass can’t be alone in the universe. Some
strange substance is flying through the black, crashing onto
green planets, infecting the ground, and transforming cer-
tain (or all) flowering plants into nightmare factories. Maybe
there’s a deadly garden planet where anything grown carries
deadly pollen – maybe there are many such places out there,
waiting for humans to set foot upon them.
Pyramid Magazine
You Reap What’s Sown
The colonists of Kalen-17 were excited when the test farm
actually got the corn to work, given the strange nature of the
soil they were working with. The main colony’s crop matured
quickly, looked absolutely luscious, and tasted amazing. But
no sooner had they finished their meal than they received a
panicked message from the test farm, 50 miles away: “Don’t
eat the corn! It’s poisoned, somehow. And the people who ate
it are . . . ieeeeeee!” A trip to the farm uncovers bloody devasta-
tion and shambling, cannibalistic creatures, along with scien-
tific proof that the entire colony might be doomed to become
like the monsters they fought.
The Hunters
The Meili was a luxury colonizer, designed to ferry
10,000 pioneers to a freshly terraformed planet, just one
century’s cryosleep away. In keeping with Somlines’ stan-
dard practice, security was handled by 200 Orion-class
bioroids, placed in reactive cryopods that could be activated
if the ship’s AI detected trouble. The plan was to have them
awaken upon arrival, then perform planetary security for
10 years – enough time for the colonists to train their own
guards. At that point their bodies would start shutting down
(also known as “the Decommissioning”).
17 Sci-Fi/Tech I
 Unfortunately, Somlines’ corporate profits had been going faux-meat. When one finally gave in to the cannibalistic urges,
down, so they’d started buying their sleep-sec bioroids from she discovered the meal healed the damage done by her inbuilt
the secondary, “not perfect but usable” market. It might not self-destruct, at least for a day.
have been ethical behavior, but it was unlikely to cause a huge After a few unfortunate “feasts,” the six survivors called a
problem. And if it did, it’d be decades before someone could truce to discuss what to do. They decided that 10 long years
complain, so who cared? of patrolling silent corridors had created a new allegiance to
About 20 years into the Meili’s journey, the ship was hit one another, and to the ship. The colonists were now just fro-
by debris from a rogue comet. The ship awakened a group zen food.
of 10 security bioroids to defend against the “attack.” Once They calculated that, as half a human could feed six for
they determined there was no problem, they tried to reenter a day, they’d run out in about 54 years – 16 short of their
cryosleep, only to discover the sleeper units – also bought on planned destination. But what was waiting there for them
the cheap – would not let them back in. anyway? A slow death once their food ran out? They were
Resigned to their fate, they went about guarding the ship still within reach of several well-inhabited systems, so why
and its passengers. But as their time came, and their bodies not take control of the Meili, alter their course, and find some
began to shut down, a strange appetite awoke in them – a livelier game?
hunger for flesh that could not be sated by even the rawest
The Hunt
That was several decades ago. Since then, dark
rumors of a “ghost ship” have plagued the outer
Chewy Viewing rims of several systems: on-again, off-again distress
signals or transponder blips that lure another craft
In the movies, when something from space turns people in, only to have both signals go missing without a
into zombies, the action generally takes place on Earth. This is trace. Sometimes subspace chatter catches mention
probably because it’s cheaper to shoot a horror movie in small of “Meili” or “derelict lux-sleeper” – occasionally fol-
town, USA than on an alien planet or spaceship. That said, a lowed by screaming.
few zombie (or at least zombie-adjacent) movies do take place There are currently 25 Hunters awake; after los-
in the final frontier. GURPS Zombies rightly suggests Doom ing a few to their prey, they decided they needed
(2005), and both it and the following should provide useful more hands. Unfortunately, this has more than qua-
ideas and inspiration. drupled their original consumption – requiring them
Ghosts of Mars (2001). Miners possessed by alien ghosts to hunt more frequently. Their successes have given
self-mutilate, kill, and generally wreak havoc on a terraformed them better armaments and experience, as well as the
Mars. Unfortunately, killing the possessed just lets the spirit parts needed to fix their malfunctioning cryopods.
loose to infect someone else! Not one of John Carpenter’s better Their favorite tactic is to lie “dark” at the edge of
movies, but if you want to run a one-shot where unlikely allies a system, waiting for a large sleeper ship or medium
must work together to stay alive, this can only help. Another, passenger liner to appear. When one gets in commu-
similar movie is Plaguers (2008). nication range, they put out a distress call and let an
Pandorum (2009). Sleepers awaken on a ship to discover most away team board the Meili – allowing them to explore
of their crewmates are missing, and some very nasty things are only so far before dealing with them. Then the rest
on the move. Said nasty things have been mutated by a drug of the bioroids invade their would-be rescuers’ ship,
meant to help, which should sound familiar by now. Effectively killing any who oppose them and capturing the rest.
captures the paranoia and claustrophobia caused (or at least not “Frozen food” and awake prisoners are taken aboard
helped) by large spaceships that weren’t designed with a calming and put into cryosleep for later consumption.
aesthetic. See also the titular ship from Event Horizon (1997). If the Hunters did run out of food, they could
Planet of the Vampires (Terrore nello Spazio) (1965). Two enter the pods, and trust the ship to awaken them if
spaceships land on an unknown planet, and the crew of one something promising came by. That’s a tactic of last
ship mysteriously kills one another. As if that wasn’t bad resort for them, though – cryosleep seems too much
enough, their bodies don’t stay in the grave! An alien space- like Decommission.
craft may hold answers, but can the survivors discover them
in time? A classic sci-fi horror film that (probably) influenced Vital Statistics
Alien (1979), the possessed crew of the Argos are intelligent, The Hunters are Orion-class genetic upgrades
sneaky, and darn creepy. (GURPS Bio-Tech, p. 67) – stronger, faster war-
Prometheus (2012). An archaeological mission to discover riors whose pain tolerance and exceptional reflexes
the origins of humanity goes quite awry due to bad luck, ques- have bred unfortunate overconfidence – turned
tionable backing, and some really poor handling of biohazard- into bioroids, and . . . changed. Add Bioroid
ous nanotech. Might not be the best part of the Alien franchise, (Bio-Tech, p. 214) [-5], Immunity to Metabolic
but the vicious zombies created by the dark gunk are delightful Hazards [30], Regeneration (Regular; Accessibil-
examples of undead body-horror. Its follow-up, Alien: Covenant ity, Only after meal of human flesh, -20%) [20],
(2017), keeps the infectious body-horror but uses it to make the Regrowth (Accessibility, Only after meal of human
titular aliens instead of zombies. flesh, -20%) [32], Restricted Diet (Human Flesh)
[-20], and Draining (Human Flesh; Illegal) [-10].

Pyramid Magazine 18 Sci-Fi/Tech I

Draining shows up as gradual, painful rot and decay. A daily
meal of human flesh heals the damage. Without such a meal,
the Draining would continue until they until they died, at
which point they’d be nothing more than wet and putrid
(thankfully unmoving) skeletons.
Alternate Vectors
This particular batch of bioroids can’t be the only one
that had this particular defect but were sold anyway. Given
Somlines’ questionable business ethics, there could be many
other sleeper ships with similar cannibalistic time bombs
on board. Some of them may have already made it to their
planet, and are helping their colonists build new lives – sadly
unaware they’ll turn from master
and servant to prey and predator
sometime in the next 10 years.
Now give me the strength
Welcome to Planet Blood To split the world in two
The parahumans were modi-
fied in vitro with one goal in mind: I ate all the rest
to act as forerunners for coloni- and now I’ve gotta eat you
zation – going where no normal
human could and preparing the – Monster Magnet,
way for their weaker cousins. So
did they venture out into the dark-
“Space Lord”
ness, ever mindful of their duty to
explore, conquer, and transform
the worlds they found. Their job done, they sent a signal back
and re-entered cryosleep to await the colonists’ ships. How-
ever, when they awoke – a full year before the first ship was
due to land – they realized something was wrong: they were
withering away, and only those who gave in to an unspeakable
hunger were healed (for a day). Some said they should all die
to save their charges, and some said they should find a cure.
But a growing number decided this was merely evolution, and
that they must secure their place in the food chain.
The D Generation
Once nanotech started to become more readily available,
a rather cutthroat industry leader in one particular sys-
tem – Zonk Inc. – decided to go into cryosleep replacement.
Their public-relations firm put out a great deal of anti-cryo
propaganda, warning of supposed dangers of repeatedly
putting oneself into a pod. Once the meme took hold, along
they came to offer a “healthier” alternative: Drowz, also
known as D.
Drowz was a nanotech injection that consistently repaired
the body while putting it into a rest state. It could be pro-
grammed with a specific timeframe (anywhere from 1 to 100
years), as well as an “alarm” in case the crew needed to be
awakened for an emergency. Best of all, it provided a tai-
lor-made dream to run during sleep, ensuring its users woke
up refreshed and happy at the end of a long voyage.
Initial tests appeared to be promising, so Zonk Inc. started
using it exclusively in-house, and paid a few bribes to put it
out on the open market early. Unfortunately, skipping those
last few tests proved deadly: Drowz had an nasty tendency to
break down after more than 30 years of consistent use, chang-
ing the user’s metabolism in drastic and unpleasant ways.
Pyramid Magazine 19
After a few decades, word came back of entire Zonk crews
who’d awakened on the other end of their journey, only to
attack and eat the med-techs who’d come to welcome them.
The ones they managed to capture were killed, rather than
cured, by nanotherapy – it was as if the introduction of the
repair bots shorted out the D.
Thankfully for the rest of the universe, a shocked company
scientist blew the whistle, but by then it was too late: numer-
ous long-haul ships had been launched out of the system,
their crews injected with Drowz. The system’s authorities did
the best they could to intercept and/or destroy any ships still
within the boundaries, but far too many were already gone.
All they could do was send a signal out to those expecting the
ships to inform them of the danger.
Degeneration
Many years later, a worrying num-
ber of infected spacecraft – known as
the D-Generation – are still out in the
black, somewhere. Some may have
awakened early to deal with an emer-
gency and not gone back on course,
some may have gone badly off-course
for other reasons, and some may have
been boarded by salvage operations,
rival corporations, pirates, or aliens.
The D-Generates are still function-
ing after all this time: near-mindless and happily munching
whatever comes their way. Some D-Generation ships look like
space conventions, with several boarding ships either parked
or latched onto the hull, their crews long since eaten. Some
strains of D actually jump into nearby dead bodies, reviving
them to join their killers in endless, hungry somnambulation.
Vital Statistics
These unfortunates can be represented via the ReViv™-
ified from GURPS Zombies, pp. 103-104: super-healthy,
fast-healing, but pretty dumb (and very vulnerable to other
forms of nanotech).
Alternate Vectors
In the resulting scandal, Zonk Inc. was dismantled and sold
to pay for damages – its holdings and stock going on the open
market. Supposedly all supplies of Drowz were atomized, but
some may have escaped the cull (or been tragically misla-
beled) and are still out there in a stockpile, somewhere. Also,
Zonk couldn’t be the only nanotech company out there who’s
developed something akin to Drowz, only to have it break
down after decades of use.
Live Longer, Eat Well
SleeBee is a life-extender that kicks in during sleep, possi-
bly increasing one’s lifespan by a third. The nanotech’s been
on the market for 10 years now, with many glowing reviews.
However, some of its longtime users are having problems wak-
ing up lately – they want to sleep later, enraptured by dreams
of endless banquets. In time, the courses will have human
faces and look absolutely delicious. Not long after, the users
won’t be the same when they wake.
Sci-Fi/Tech I
 Lord Kelvin’s
Icebox By Matt Wehmeier
In the GURPS Infinite Worlds setting, some worldlines just
drive Homeline scientists crazy. Kelvin is one of them. Named
for the famed British scientist William Thomson, Baron
Kelvin, Kelvin’s sun is a burning mass of magnesium and oxy-
gen radiating heat slowly into the universe. This reaction is
gradually cooling over time, and Earth is already feeling the
effects. Originally a close parallel to Homeline, Kelvin’s tem-
perature has dropped an average of 9°F (5°C) since the 1850s.
The local year is now 1914, and civilizations across the world
are struggling to survive in a world that is slowly dying.
From a scientific standpoint, Kelvin’s Earth should not
exist. Nuclear fusion is impossible on the worldline, and
researchers have split individual uranium atoms but have
been unable to sustain a nuclear fission reaction. Earth on
this worldline is at least 300 million years old, and geologic
and evolutionary processes seem to have progressed more
or less normally, but Kelvin’s sun is believed to have been
formed much later than that. Scientific observations place
its maximum estimated age at only a few million years. In
addition, the sun’s cooling should only be noticeable over the
course of millennia, but civilizations around the world are
already collapsing.
It is widely believed that most forms of complex life on the
planet will die out before the year 2000.
Out in the Cold
Kelvin’s history started to diverge from Homeline’s in the
mid-1860s. At first, low temperatures were thought to be an
extension of the “Little Ice Age,” a period of relatively mild
cooling in Europe that took place on most known worldlines
(including Homeline) between the 16th and 19th centuries. As
crops continued to fail and temperatures continued to drop,
however, it became clear that the phenomenon was both
global and accelerating.
The great powers in Europe initially ignored the problem,
insisting that food supplies were adequate to avoid disaster.
The Great European Famine starting in 1875 proved oth-
erwise. Bread riots erupted across England, Scandinavia,
Germany, and France. The United States was still capable
of feeding itself at the time, and the government sent mas-
sive amounts of grain to affected areas at inflated prices.
This left European governments indebted and embattled
as hungry citizens demanded access to food reserved for
the wealthy.
Pyramid Magazine 20
The Scramble for Africa was a desperate affair, with
European expeditions haphazardly claiming pieces of the
West and Central African coast. This frequently led to open
conflict, and pitched battles between French, German, Dutch,
and British forces were common. Fearing general European
war would break out as a result of the skirmishes, Bismarck
formalized the borders of most of the claims at the Congress
of Rome in 1885. Germany received some large conces-
sions in present-day Ivory Coast and Ghana in exchange for
France being granted most of the Congo. Britain and Ger-
many split most of East Africa, and Portugal retained Angola
and Mozambique.
All European powers operating in Africa established a bru-
tal plantation system to grow food to ship to Europe. Britain
depended on Egypt, India, and Nigeria; France on Senegal
and the Congo; and Germany on German West Africa and
Tanzania. An increasing number of European colonists were
brought to Africa, establishing cities on the coasts and steadily
pushing inland. Coal mines and ironworks were started in the
colonies to replace mines in Europe that were rapidly becom-
ing too dangerous or unprofitable to maintain.
The World Today
In local year 1914, temperatures have fallen dramatically
since the initial crisis of the 1870s. Hundreds of millions have
died of starvation, of disease, and in regional conflicts. The
soil of Britain, Ireland, Northern France, the Low Countries,
Northern Germany and the Alps, Scandinavia, the Baltic
States, Poland, and most of Russia is now frozen year-round.
Agriculture is all but impossible there, and only a few small
settlements remain in these areas. Southern France, Italy,
Iberia, and parts of the Balkans have continued farming to
varying degrees, and cities there remain inhabited, though
with significantly reduced populations.
Initially, America fared better than Europe in dealing
with food shortages and longer winters. This did not last.
Today, states north of the Mason-Dixon line have been all
but abandoned, and every winter the permafrost inches fur-
ther south. The U.S. government has annexed Cuba, much of
Mexico, and Costa Rica to seize additional farmable land. The
United States became a de facto one-party state in the 1890s
as Southern Democrats came to dominate what remained of
the U.S. Congress. These politicians have staunchly refused to
extend citizenship to the population of the new territories, and
northern refugees are routinely denied the vote.
Sci-Fi/Tech I
 The British capital has been moved to the island of Malta,
as it is seen as a central point from which to rule the various
remnants of the British Empire in Africa, Asia, and Australia.
Most of the British fleet is now stationed in the Mediterranean
and tasked with defending the island. Cairo and Suez were
briefly considered as alternative capitals, but frequent
riots and other forms of local unrest in Egypt made this
an impossibility. The aggressive raids of the independent
Boer Republic into British South Africa similarly disqual-
ified Cape Town. The Empire has only been able to main-
tain a stable food supply on the backs of peasants in India
and West Africa, and British repression is likely to become
more extreme as temperatures in these areas cool and crop
yields fall.
Both France and Germany are also drawing most of their
power from their colonies. The military junta established in
the wake of the French Third Republic’s collapse in 1881 has
devolved into little more than roving armies operating under
the command of individual generals in southern France,
Algeria, and West Africa. The German city of Neubrandenburg
(on the site of Homeline’s Buea in Cameroon) is now the bur-
geoning administrative capital of the Kaiser, as almost all
of Germany has become too cold for permanent habitation.
The other northern and central European states (Austria-
Hungary, Poland, Sweden, and Denmark) have effectively
ceased to exist.
Spain is locked in civil war between monarchists, liberal
republicans, and anarchists, with the monarchists being
sponsored by several of the quasi-independent French
armies. Italy eyes the new British capital at Malta with
unease as they desperately move industrial centers in
the north away from the glaciers advancing out of the
Alps. Greece has annexed parts of western Anatolia,
and its armies are now planning a campaign to retake
Constantinople. Arab revolts have preoccupied the
Ottomans for over a decade, covertly sponsored by
the British armies in Egypt, who see an opportunity to
expand their influence. The Russian government moved
its permanent capital to Sevastopol in the late 1880s
as large parts of the East European Plain became too
cold for permanent settlement. The nominal Russian
Republic is led by General Alexander Myshlayevsky,
who has established himself as a dictator.
Further east, the British Raj has imposed partic-
ularly severe conditions on the native population of
India in a desperate attempt to sustain the empire. A
major revolt is brewing in the largest cities, and parti-
san forces have begun striking at British targets in the
countryside. China is experiencing a massive civil war,
and the Japanese military government has begun colo-
nial expansion into Southeast Asia and the Dutch East
Indies, a move which has gone nearly unopposed by the
overtaxed European powers.
Infinity Operations
Infinity’s primary base on Kelvin is located on
the site of Homeline’s Calgary in Alberta. Most of the
research there is related to climate science and the study
of Kelvin’s cosmology. Nuclear fusion generators cannot
operate on Kelvin, so the core of the semi-permanent
Pyramid Magazine 21
base is powered by a combination of solar cells, wind tur-
bines, and a high-efficiency ultra-dense carbon reactor (a
design appropriated from Bonaparte-4, GURPS Infinite
Worlds, p. 113), which supplies most of the heat. The base has
steadily expanded underground to house a permanent staff
of 20, supplemented at any given time by 30 to 40 climatolo-
gists, anthropologists, meteorologists, and physicists.
Infinity has jumped two miniature satellites into orbit
around the planet, but ground teams were unable to estab-
lish contact with either. It is suspected that the physical laws
of Kelvin are so alien that they prevented the satellites from
entering a stable orbit. Signal interference may also have been
caused by luminiferous ether or some other undetected sub-
stance existing above the atmosphere. A geostationary satellite
is currently being prepared for a third and final attempt; in
the meantime, scientists will have to be content with data col-
lected from the ground.
Significant humanitarian efforts are underway in the
northernmost surviving population centers. Miracle Workers
distribute food, clean water, and TL-appropriate medical sup-
plies to refugees in cities in America and southern Europe,
working with and through the many local Christian charities
attempting to do similar work with severely limited resources.
Several proposals have been made by organizations on Home-
line to relocate thousands of refugees to an unpopulated
Earth. All have been flatly rejected.
Kelvin, 1914
Current Affairs
The global powers struggle for survival as the sun cools
and global ecosystems die.
Divergence Point
4 million years ago; the sun forms as a sphere of burning
magnesium.
Major Civilizations
Western (multipolar/diffuse), Japanese (empire).
Great Powers
United States (oligarchy, CR2, CR5 for non-whites); Brit-
ish Overseas Empire (oligarchy, CR2-3); Kingdom of Italy
(dictatorship, CR5); French Military Directorate (military
junta, CR5 in major cities, CR1-2 elsewhere); Russian Repub-
lic (dictatorship, CR5); Empire of Japan (military junta,
CR6); Kingdom of Greece (oligarchy, CR3).
Worldline Data
TL: 5 (early TL6 in some places)
Mana level: None
Quantum: 5
Infinity Class: R4
Centrum Zone: Inaccessible
Sci-Fi/Tech I

Adapting Kelvin
Inhospitably cold worlds are a common feature in science fic-
tion. They range in severity from planets boasting boreal forests
teeming with animal life to dead ice balls orbiting distant, dim stars.
It is now believed that Earth may have been completely or
near-completely covered in ice around 715 million years ago, about
the time animals were first evolving in the oceans. Many scientists
also hypothesize that one of the icy moons of Jupiter, Europa, hosts
an undersea ocean of liquid water that could support complex life.
Because of its atomic structure, ice is less dense than liquid
water, and it floats. This means large bodies of water rarely freeze
solid, because the ice insulates from the cold air and allows liquid
water to remain below. Geologically active worlds can also heat the
seas with volcanic vents, which sustain life in parts of Earth’s ocean
that don’t receive sunlight.
Any civilization that has mastered space travel will have devel-
oped ways to deal with the extreme heat and cold of the vacuum
of space. The construction of bases on an ice world would rely
on similar technologies. Even on worlds with a breathable atmo-
sphere, explorers may be more comfortable and safe wearing
pressurized, climate-controlled suits similar to those they would
wear in a vacuum.
Two major challenges to constructing a base on an ice world
are the threat of winter storms and the buildup of snow and ice
on critical infrastructure. Bases can be built low to the ground
or underground to deal with storms, while snow and ice can be
managed using heaters and other technological means. Explorers
must monitor the weather carefully to avoid being caught outside
during storms and severe temperature drops. Bases often have a
reactor that can provide power indefinitely, but individual suits
and vehicles are likely to have a limited supply.
Infinite Weirdness
Kelvin is not the only worldline with wildly divergent physi-
cal laws. Some of these “puzzle worlds” are described in GURPS
Infinite Worlds, pp. 140-142. Others are detailed below.
On Archimedes-4 (Q6, current year 1472), pi is exactly equal to
three. By all accounts, it is a normal TL3 worldline with a West Afri-
can coalition led by Mali colonizing Europe and about to discover
the New World. Judging by the warped state of the probes returned
from the survey mission, however, Infinity will not be sending
explorers from Homeline anytime soon.
Helios-1 (Q5, current year 459) is dominated by the competing
Greek city-states that conquered the Mediterranean on a world
without Alexander the Great. Earth is the center of the solar sys-
tem, and the stars in the night sky appear to be painted on a jet-
black barrier approximately 6,200 miles (10,000 kilometers) from
the surface of the planet.
On Pythagoras-2 (Q4, current year 1396), Earth is flat. Viking
explorers are currently mounting a daring expedition north of
Iceland to discover the edge of the world.
Some worlds are so alien that they cannot be effectively explored.
Flatland (Q3) and Pixel (Q5) are two examples of worldlines that
don’t even exist in three dimensions. Hinton (Q6) has four spatial
dimensions, and Euclid (Q3) has shredded and spit back every bit of
matter sent from worldlines with conventional geometries.
Pyramid Magazine 22
Campaign Seeds
Adventure is around every corner on an apoc-
alyptic worldline. Below are a few suggestions
for parties making their way through the cold on
Kelvin.
Lost in the Taiga
It was supposed to be a three-month expedi-
tion. A research mission southeast of Calgary,
about 40 miles past the old Canadian border. It
was July; there was barely even any snow on the
ground. Now it is September. A thrown track
on the snowcat means driving back is impossi-
ble, and the radios have a sharply limited range
without satellite support. Three scientists and
two Patrolmen are stranded with no way to reach
home base. Food supplies will last 10 days at most,
and rescue will take much longer to find the team.
Temperatures are dropping by the day. The crew
can attempt to brave the cold to the north and risk
freezing, wait for rescue and risk starvation, or
head south on foot and risk permanent exile on a
dying world.
Endless War
The current crisis has taxed all remaining
great powers to their limits and brought them to
the brink of destruction. As a result, it is unlikely
that Kelvin will ever see a world war. That doesn’t
make the regional conflicts currently raging any
less brutal. Much of Africa and most of China are
dominated by roving armies often eager to massa-
cre civilians to procure supplies. What’s left of the
United States, the entire Middle East, India, and
large parts of Latin America are only one more
failed harvest away from total anarchy. Smaller
groups of bandits have formed nearly everywhere
on Earth, and they regularly terrorize farmers
and isolated travelers in their unending search for
food. Players can lead a small band of militiamen
to oppose the raiders and evade the armies, or they
can join the bloodbath and attempt to make their
way in a cruel world the only way they know how.
Millenarian Cults
Infinity has plenty of experience with doomed
timelines, and different cultures tend to have dif-
ferent responses to the end of the world. Usually,
modern Western cultures experience a surge in
Christian revivalism, authoritarian despotism, or
utopian fringe movements. On Kelvin, however,
millenarian death cults have emerged in all major
cultures around the world, and especially among
Europeans and Americans. Violent masochists
are attracting thousands of followers in major
cities, and what began as bizarre rites and dra-
matic public meetings soon escalated into hor-
rific violence and ritual suicide. Some preach that
the embrace of death is the only way to freedom.
Sci-Fi/Tech I
Others claim to have magical powers that can save believers
from annihilation. Government attempts to suppress these
movements have only emboldened them. A few leaders are
on the verge of establishing themselves as the twisted patri-
archs (or matriarchs, as is the case in New Orleans) of the
cities in which they operate, supplanting traditional gov-
ernment authority altogether. Adventurers can be Infinity
agents assessing the risk these groups pose to local popula-
tions, sociologists attempting to determine the causes of this
bizarre behavior, or Cabalists investigating some of the more
plausible accounts of necromantic activity.
The Plane
A few months ago, a climatological mission in the Rocky
Mountains discovered something unexpected: a red biplane,
at least 20 years more advanced than anything on Kelvin,
flying over the mountains. Photographs of the plane have
revealed that it doesn’t quite match any Homeline production
model. It normally follows a steady flight path crisscrossing
the Rockies, but if pursued it sharply increases speed and
engages in increasingly dangerous evasive maneuvers until it
loses its tail and disappears. It has an unusual range for a craft
of its size, bears no visible weapons, and has failed to respond
to radioed requests for identification in 15 modern languages
and three dead ones. The plane is suspected by the Patrol
to be a parachronozoid (Infinite Worlds, p. 73), but it could
also be a rogue flight by an outtimer, the invention of an indi-
vidual mad scientist on Kelvin, or something else entirely.
Pyramid Magazine 23
The Future Looks Bleak
The great powers have expended significant effort to
project strength and resolve, even as their empires crumble
before their eyes. Some even talk about “reclaiming the tun-
dra” of their former homelands. The truth is much darker.
The major colonial powers will probably collapse within a
decade due to fuel shortages, colonial revolts, and strained
food production. The quasi-dictatorial United States and
the remaining Latin American republics will soon follow.
Society in some form will continue to exist along the equator
as long as the snows stay away, but cities will revert to TL4 or
lower in most areas without adequate supplies of coal or oil.
After that, populations will slowly starve, and the survivors
will turn to TL1 tribalism.
Arctic species have done unexpectedly well (some would
say impossibly well) through the collapse, spreading far to the
south as the world cools. Tribes near the equator may last for
decades after the soil freezes by using hunting and survival
techniques similar to those of the Inuit of Canada. Eventually,
though, air temperatures will become too cold to support
human life, and the oceans will begin to freeze. Surviving vari-
eties of trees will die or be buried by the advancing glaciers,
and the world will settle into a permanent winter as the sun
continues to cool. Even after the oceans freeze over, however,
life on Earth is likely to continue. Hardy microbes will survive
on the surface, and the deep oceans will likely be kept warm
for millennia by undersea vents.
Sci-Fi/Tech I
 Mind Over Time By Aleksei Isachenko
Some stories portray psychic abilities that alter the flow
of time. These may be the result of humanity’s attempts at
taming black holes, exposure to exotic matter, or a side effect
of faster-than-light travel. This article presents a new psionic
power – using the GURPS Psionic Powers framework – that
lets the psis master the time flow.
Chronokinesis
Users of Chronokinesis abilities can accelerate them-
selves, decelerate others, cause slight timeline alterations,
sense temporal tampering, and put others into stasis. Abil-
ities that are detailed in this article do not permit “actual”
time travel, because such powers work best only in time
travel-focused games. Chronokinesis has some overlap with
ESP and Probability Alteration.
Chronokinesis abilities can be neutralized not only by
psychotronic devices, but also by reality stabilizers (GURPS
Ultra-Tech, pp. 194-195). This does not change the value of
the power modifier.
Power Modifier: Every ability in this power has the lim-
itation Chronokinesis, -10%. This reflects that it is part of
this power and uses the rules under How Psi Works (GURPS
Psionic Powers, pp. 6-11).
Celerity
25 points*
Skill: Celerity (IQ/Hard).
You enter an accelerated time stream for a single second.
This lets you take two of the same type of maneuver in com-
bat, but this does not change your position in the combat
sequence. You could perform two Move maneuvers to quickly
reposition yourself, two All-Out Attack (Double) maneuvers
to strike at least four times, two Ready maneuvers to ready
and prime a grenade, etc. Feints are possible only against
opponents who are also under the effect of Celerity or have
Altered Time Rate 1 from other sources.
This ability can be used as a free action once per turn. You
can use it after you performed your first maneuver of the turn
to get the second maneuver.
Statistics: Altered Time Rate 1 (Accessibility, Same type of
maneuvers, -20%; Chronokinesis, -10%; Reduced Duration,
1/60, -35%; Requires IQ Roll, -10%) [25*].
* Altered Time Rate is a leveled advantage that can get
out of hand quickly with enough limitations. If the GM is
willing to make Celerity a leveled ability (25 points/level),
then the number of additional maneuvers becomes equal to
Celerity’s level.
Pyramid Magazine 24
Temporal Separation
Hard
Default: Celerity-2; cannot exceed Celerity.
When you use this technique, you can perform two differ-
ent types of maneuvers on your turn (instead of being limited
to two of the same type).
Chronosense
4/7/11/16 points for levels 1-4
Skill: Chronosense (Per/Hard).
This is a limited version of Psi Sense (GURPS Psionic
Powers, p 41). It uses those rules (and psi techniques), but it
can only detect time manipulations – chronokinetic abilities,
time travel, and usage of time-manipulating technologies,
such as hypertime fields and tau-shields (both GURPS Ultra-
Tech, p. 195) and similar devices.
Statistics: Detect (Time Manipulation; Chronokinesis,
-10%; Reflexive, +40%; Vague, -50%) [4]. Further levels
remove Vague [7], then add Precise, Nontargeting [11], and
then Analyzing [16].
Time is the most valuable
thing a man can spend.
– Theophrastus
Deceleration
25/28/31/36/41 points for levels 1-5,
plus 41 points for each additional level
Skill: Deceleration (Will/Hard).
You shift your victim into a slower time stream. To shift
the target, you must win a Quick Contest of your skill against
the victim’s HT. If the victim loses, they gain the Decreased
Time Rate (p. B129) disadvantage for a number of minutes
equal to your margin of victory.
At level 1, you must make skin-to-skin contact to use
Deceleration. At level 2, any touch will do. At level 3, you can
use your ability at range; your skill roll is at -1/yard. At level
4, apply normal range penalties (p. B550) instead. At level 5,
use long-distance modifiers (p. B241) instead. Each additional
level imposes a cumulative -1 on the subject’s resistance rolls.
Sci-Fi/Tech I
 Statistics: Affliction 1 (HT; Chronokinesis, -10%; Contact Careful Reversal
Agent, -30%; Disadvantage, Decreased Time Rate, +100%; Hard
Malediction 1, +100%; Melee Attack, C, No Parry, -35%; No
Default: Reverse Time-5; cannot exceed Reverse Time.
Signature, +20%) [25]. Further levels remove Contact Agent
[28], then Melee Attack [31], then improve Malediction to 2 When using this technique, you avoid becoming dazed
[36], then improve Malediction to 3 [41], and then add further after reversing time.
levels of Affliction [41/level].

Destabilizing Shift
Hard Chronokinesis Perks
Default: Deceleration-3; cannot exceed Internal Clock: You can concentrate for a minute to set an internal
Deceleration. alarm that will notify you once a certain time passes. If you are asleep
The victim finds it difficult to control their at that time, you are woken up by the mental alarm. You can only have
body while in the decelerated time stream. one alert set up at a time.
In addition to imposing the normal effect of Lesser Haste: When you’re performing a long task in a hurry (Time
the ability, you reduce the target’s DX by your Spent, p. B346), your total penalty for haste is -1 less severe per level of
margin of victory (maximum 10) for the same this perk (up to your Chronokinesis Talent level).
duration. You cannot use this ability on this Light Acceleration: When wielding a beam weapon, you may roll
victim again until it wears off. against Will-4 and spend 1 FP to make an attack count as if the weapon
was an FTL beam (GURPS Ultra-Tech, p. 133).
Relativistic Sense: When traveling aboard a spaceship (or another
Haste fast-moving vehicle), you always know the time rate experienced
10 points/level onboard. See Relativity Effects (GURPS Space, p. 36) for details.
Skill: Haste (IQ/Hard).
You accelerate your movements and reac-
tion time. For three seconds, your Basic Speed
increases by 1 per level of this ability; this bonus counts for Speed of Thought
all purposes. When you move under this effect, you leave a
16/30/36 points for levels 1-3
trail of transparent afterimages that disappear two seconds
Skill: Speed of Thought (IQ/Hard).
later. This trail does not obscure vision, but is distracting out
of combat and makes your route obvious. This ability can be You greatly accelerate your mind’s ability to process
used as a free action once per turn. information by letting your neurons transmit signals at FTL
speeds. While Speed of Thought is active, you benefit from
Statistics: Basic Speed +1.00 (Chronokinesis, -10%; Nui-
Combat Reflexes (p. B43).
sance Effect, Trail of afterimages, -5%; Reduced Duration,
In combat, you act before those without Speed of Thought
1/20, -25%; Requires IQ Roll, -10%) [10/level].
or Enhanced Time Sense (p. B52) gained from a different
source. Roll against your skill each turn; your margin of suc-
Reverse Time cess is how many of your defenses get +1 from Combat Reflexes
80 points/level that turn. If you have Parry Missile Weapons (p. B212), then
Skill: Reverse Time (IQ/Hard). you can parry bullets at -5, but not beams.
Outside of combat, you can perceive information that is
You can rewind time and replay a particular situation mul- too fast for others to discern, such as high-speed “bursts” sent
tiple times until a desired result is achieved. This can be done via Telecommunication with the Burst enhancement (GURPS
once per play hour for each level of Reverse Time, but for cam- Ultra-Tech, p. 31), and you’re never fooled by holoprojectors
paigns that use game time, this ability can be used once per (GURPS Ultra-Tech, p. 52). In addition, you never suffer skill
day for each level. This is not an action at all – it takes no time penalties for being mentally rushed.
and can be used after you make a roll. If you succeed on your At level 1, you must concentrate for one minute to enter
Reverse Time roll, time visibly rewinds, and you dictate the this state, and must take a Concentrate maneuver every
result of the die roll you made as long as it is possible (that is, turn to maintain the effect. Your ability shuts down if you
your effective skill was at least 3). Once you or anyone else has lose your concentration (e.g., if attacked and you fail your
made another roll, the flow of time cannot be restructured. Will roll). At level 2, the ability can be activated by taking a
Reverse Time can only affect mundane rolls, not magic, psi, single Concentrate maneuver. At level 3, you don’t need to
etc. After you use this ability, you are dazed (p. B428) for one Concentrate constantly – roll against your skill once per min-
minute, and can roll against Will once per minute after that ute out of combat and once per turn in combat.
to recover.
Statistics: Enhanced Time Sense (Chronokinesis, -10%;
Statistics: Super Luck (Accessibility, Not on supernatural Immediate Preparation Required, 1 minute, -30%; Requires
rolls, -25%; Alter Reality, +75%; Backlash, Dazed, -50%; Chro- Concentrate, -15%; Requires IQ Roll, -10%) [16]. Further lev-
nokinesis, -10%; Requires IQ Roll, -10%) [80/level]. The Game els remove Immediate Preparation Required, 1 minute [30]
Time, +0% enhancement is optional. and then remove Requires Concentrate [36].

Pyramid Magazine 25 Sci-Fi/Tech I

Stasis
117/120/123/128/133 points for levels 1-5,
plus 133 points for each additional level
Skill: Stasis (Will/Hard).
You remove a creature or object (or even yourself!) from
the time stream. To put your subject into stasis, you must win
a Quick Contest of your skill against your subject’s Will. When
using this ability on yourself, just make the skill roll. The sub-
ject stops in time for a number of minutes equal to your mar-
gin of victory (or margin of success, when using on yourself).
They are frozen in place, unaffected by gravity and time. They
don’t age, breathe, or require sustenance, and injury, meta-
bolic effects, and even supernatural effects halt their prog-
ress. The subject cannot be affected by anything physically,
psionically, magically, or the like, but they keep their position
in the local frame of reference (usually a planet). Perception,
thought processes, and other mental faculties stop, too – the
subject cannot perform even mental actions. From the out-
side, the subject in stasis looks like a perfectly reflecting mir-
ror, impenetrable to sensors of any type.
Reality stabilizers (GURPS Ultra-Tech, p. 194) can end
this effect prematurely.
At level 1, you must make skin-to-skin contact to use Stasis.
At level 2, any touch will do. At level 3, you can use your ability
Pyramid Magazine 26
at range; your skill roll is at -1 per yard. At level 4, apply normal
range penalties (p. B550) instead. At level 5, use long-distance
modifiers (p. B241) instead. Each additional level imposes a
cumulative -1 on the subject’s resistance rolls.
Statistics: Affliction 1 (Will; Based on Will, +20%; Chro-
nokinesis, -10%; Contact Agent, -30%; Malediction 1, +100%;
Melee Attack, C, No Parry, -35%; No Signature, +20%; Tem-
poral Stasis, +1,000%) [117]. Further levels remove Contact
Agent [120], then Melee Attack [123], then improve Maledic-
tion to 2 [128], then improve Malediction to 3 [133], and then
add further levels of Affliction [133/level].
Mass Stasis
Hard
Default: Stasis-4; cannot exceed Stasis.
You can affect everything (creatures, objects, movements
of nature, etc.) in a two-yard radius at once. Anyone entering
the affected area is frozen in time as well. Thus, you can put
your foes into stasis and throw a dozen thermobaric grenades
at them. These grenades will only detonate once time resumes
due to being put in stasis themselves.
Unless everyone within the area is willing, the person with
the highest effective Will resists for the entire group. The tech-
nique is all or nothing; if that one person resists, then the tech-
nique fails, but if not, then it works. If the GM is uncertain of
who has the best resistance roll (e.g., one person has high
Will while another has modest Will but also Luck), they
can pick two, roll for both, and average their margins of
success for the Quick Contest.
You may double this radius, cumulatively, for every
5 points by which you make your (modified) skill roll.
Time Stop
65/80/90/100/110/115/125/135/145
points for levels 1-9
Skill: Time Stop (IQ/Hard).
By concentrating for a certain activation time (see
table) and making a skill roll, you exit the time stream
along with equipment up to your No Encumbrance limit.
While outside the time steam, you perceive the world as
frozen. You can’t affect it (and vice versa) – only observe
and move through it. You can interact with items you
brought along; this lets you patch your wounds, reload
your guns, and so forth. However, this does not let you
attack others in any way. Time passes for you (you tire,
grow hungry, age, etc.), but it’s subjective.
You may stay in the realm for a given subjective
duration (see table) before you automatically return to
the normal time stream. Once you come back, your
body must adjust to the change – you cannot stop time
again for at least five minutes. You can use Time Stop
again to return to normal time before the duration
runs out.
At level 5 and above, you can exit the time steam
with less concentration time, but you are at -1 to skill
for every second you skip. At level 9, you can remain
outside of the normal time stream indefinitely; you may
also use this ability again without the five-minute wait.
Sci-Fi/Tech I
 Level Activation Time Duration
1 10 minutes 1 hour
2 70 seconds 1 hour
3 40 seconds 1 hour
4 20 seconds 1 hour
5 10 seconds 1 hour
6 10 seconds 12 hours
7 6 seconds 12 hours
8 2 seconds 12 hours
9 1 second Indefinitely
Statistics: Jumper (Time Stop*; Chronokinesis, -10%;
Immediate Preparation Required, 10 minutes, -45%;
Improved, +10%; Maximum Duration, 1 hour, -10%;
Reduced Fatigue Cost 1, +20%) [65]. Further levels reduce
Immediate Preparation Required to 1 minute [80], then
replace Immediate Preparation Required with Takes Extra
Time 2 [90], then reduce Takes Extra Time to 1 [100], then
remove Takes Extra Time [110], then reduce Maximum
Duration to 12 hours [115], then add Faster Concentration
2 [125], then upgrade Faster Concentration to 4 [135], and
then upgrade it to 5 and remove Maximum Duration [145].
* This Jumper variant originally appeared in Designer’s
Notes: GURPS Powers, pyramid.sjgames.com/sample.
html?id=5782.
Bulk Compensation
Hard
Default: Varies; cannot exceed Time Stop.
As for the Autoteleport technique (GURPS Psionic
Powers, p. 68).
Timeline Alteration
6 points/level
Skill: Timeline Alteration (IQ/Hard).
You may subtly alter the current timeline as if you per-
formed a particular action or set of actions in the past to
achieve specific results in the present. This can be done once
per game session for each level of Timeline Alteration, but for
campaigns that use game time, this is ability can be used once
per week for each level. This ability can be used as a free action
even if it isn’t your turn (for example, as a reaction to getting
shot). Timeline Alteration has the following limitations.
• It must be an action you could realistically have taken.
If you see a computer in a villain’s hideout that you never
visited before, you cannot say that you hacked it beforehand.
However, you can say that you brought a contact SQUID
(GURPS Ultra-Tech, p. 100) to do so now. You also must pos-
sess all of the skills and abilities necessary to have accom-
plished the task (see below), though you may rely on skill
defaults, if applicable.
• It cannot directly contradict any established facts. If you’re
being shot at with shaped-charge warheads, you cannot say
that you decided to cover your battlesuit in a layer of reac-
tive paste (GURPS Ultra-Tech, p. 189). You can say that you
applied the paste to your body under the battlesuit, or that you
put on a nanoweave jacket under the suit this morning, but
only if you haven’t taken off your battlesuit recently. However,
if you’ve been injured by previous shots, the “sudden reveal”
Pyramid Magazine 27
Additional Chronokinesis Abilities
In addition, the following advantages make good
starting points for those who wish to build new Chro-
nokinesis abilities: Absolute Timing; Affliction (to
reduce Basic Move or Basic Speed, or grant Altered
Time Rate, etc.); Danger Sense; Duplication, with
Sequential; Enhanced Time Sense; Jumper (Time);
Leech, with Steal Youth; Protected Power; Temporal
Inertia; and Unaging.
of your nanoweave jacket doesn’t change your previous inju-
ries! Reconcile this however you can (e.g., the previous bullets
must have missed the jacket); if you cannot, this is not a per-
mitted use of Timeline Alteration.
• It cannot be obvious. No one can be aware of the action;
its effects must be unnoticed until this very moment. Retro-
actively attacking a foe or speaking with him is forbidden,
because this would contradict established facts from the foe’s
point of view. For indirect interaction (e.g., picking someone’s
pocket), the GM should make your roll (see below) in secret.
If you win, you acted unnoticed; otherwise, the attempt and
this ability fails.
• The action cannot involve the help of others. You must
perform the action by yourself. You cannot involve voluntary
or involuntary help of others who are present. Thus, you can
say that you brought an electronic lockpick beforehand, but
you cannot say that you brought a lockpick and let one of your
allies who is currently present pick a lock.
Some actions may require additional rolls. Indirect inter-
actions (see above) always require a roll or a Quick Contest of
some sort. If you’re retroactively performing a complex action
that requires multiple additional rolls, every roll involved
(including the skill roll to activate this ability) takes -2 per
additional roll. Chronokinesis Talent does apply to all rolls
made when using Timeline Alteration.
Example: If you want to pick a lock to the server room (roll
against Lockpicking), disable the monowire trap there (roll
against Traps), and hack the mainframe (roll against Com-
puter Hacking), all these rolls, including the roll to activate
this ability, are made at -6.
Any consequences of the retroactive action are paid in the
present. This may not always be realistic. For example, if you
stumbled into a monowire trap in the past, you take damage
in the present.
Altering the flow of time this way is mentally taxing! After
using Timeline Alteration, you are mentally stunned for one
second. After that, you can roll against Will every second to
recover.
The GM should impose a level cap on this ability. Three
levels are usually enough.
Statistics: Foresight* (Accessibility, Cannot involve others
who are present, -10%; Backlash, Stunning, -10%; Chronoki-
nesis, -10%; Requires IQ Roll, -10%) [6/level]. The Game Time,
+0% enhancement is optional.
* The Foresight advantage originally appeared in the article
Fortunately, I Saw This Coming, from Pyramid #3/53: Action.
Sci-Fi/Tech I
 Ghost Planets By J. Edward Tremlett
Even with all its vast possibility, the universe remains
mostly barren. Worlds that can support life – any life – are
an extreme rarity, making them like treasure strewn among
the stars. Such planets should be protected from all harm,
defended at all costs, and forsaken only as a last resort.
Perhaps that’s why abandoned worlds present such a lure
to the curious: someone was here, once, so why did they leave?
Did their civilization perish due to war or disease? Were they
driven out by someone who either chose not to keep what
they took, or proved unable to do so? Did they somehow
change their state of existence, making terrestrial life a quaint
anachronism?
Or are they still here, somewhere, waiting for the right
moment to reveal themselves?
This GURPS Space-friendly article presents three aban-
doned planets, suitable for any game taking place in the great
beyond. Basic system, star, and planetary information is given
for each, along with what remains on the surface, clues as to
what may have taken place, and options for why they are (or
seem to be) deserted.
Other than the time-honored science fiction standby of a
crash landing, there could be numerous reasons for PCs to
investigate these worlds. Someone may have hired them spe-
cifically to look into why this world is deserted, for either
scientific or economic ends – perhaps both, if their patrons
have some ulterior motive. They might also have been hired
to track a missing ship (or a person on that ship), and this is
where the trail has led. Or perhaps the PCs are hiding out, and
this is the most convenient place to lay low.
Badland
Badland is a classic example of “any port in the storm”; it’s
baking hot, geologically worthless, and too far off the shipping
lanes for a spaceport. But it’s got oxygen, and makes a good
place to hide. It also has intriguing ruins – proving that, as bad
as this place is, someone once called it home.
Basic Data
Badland is the second planet in a small, binary star system
(B V orbited by a B1 VI). The other four planets are one super-
hot, airless rock; two gas giants (with seven and eight small
moons, respectively); and a cold, tiny, far-flung ice-world in an
irregular orbit. The last planet and a few of the larger moons
can support an emergency landing.
Badland is a Standard planet that may have been a garden
once. Its atmosphere is thin Standard, primarily nitrogen with
18% oxygen. Its water lies below the sandy surface in a moist
layer. Temperatures range from 100°F to 120°F when one star
Pyramid Magazine 28
is in the sky to 120°F to 140°F when both are shining (roughly
half its year). Its diameter is 5,767 miles, and its surface grav-
ity is 0.8 G.
Badland has light volcanic activity and light tectonic move-
ment. Its surface is generally flat, with occasional outcrop-
pings of yellowish granite. Background radiation is tolerable,
and there are no pervading environmental toxins. Its year is
401.25 days, and it rotates clockwise with a 14° tilt.
Its surface vegetation resembles the “living rocks” of Africa:
tiny cacti with long roots. The primary lifeforms are burrow-
ing reptiles, tiny arthropods, and odd pancake-like things
that skim across the sand in great herds (all edible, but best
if cooked).
What Remains
Peppered about Badland’s surface are large, crumbling
ruins, crafted from the ubiquitous yellow granite. They
range from small clusters to sprawling, miles-long networks
of buildings. They are most commonly found at or close to
the equatorial zones.
Each complex has at least one large, central dome. These
range from 30’ to 60’ in diameter, and between 20’ and 40’
high. They have regular, curved entrances, and a sizable hole
in the center of the roof. Each entrance in the large dome
points to an entrance on another structure, such as another,
smaller dome; a shorter cylindrical building with a single,
curved entrance (perhaps a house); or a wide, short, hollow
circle of rock that may have been a pool.
These domes might have been the central hubs of the
inhabitants’ activity, but it’s hard to be certain. Their everyday
objects have long since gone away, and no obvious examples
of written language mark the buildings. The only real clue
stands in the largest dome in each cluster: a single, 10’-high
cylindrical column, right under the hole in the roof. Each
column bears a crudely drawn representation of a human-
oid form under a curious motif. Is it a god, a warning, or an
answer to where they went? Who knows.
Dry Mysteries
Those who’ve crashed or hidden on Badland are generally
more interested in escaping than investigation. A decent expe-
dition – or a longer stay – might solve the mystery of who built
the structures and why.
One Too Many
Thousands of years ago, Badland’s inhabitants were a
simple people, living well on a green and pleasant world.
Then a rogue star entered their system, creating havoc with
the planets before settling in its current position.
Sci-Fi/Tech I
 Badland’s orbit was thankfully untouched, but the light of Garden-14 has moderate volcanic activity, with a few small
two stars wrecked its climate. Unable to leave or truly adapt, smokers in the hills and along the ocean plates. Its continents
its people eventually died out. As an act of defiance, the last are well-forested flatlands, quite suitable for farming once
survivors trekked to each city to leave an explanation: two cir- cleared, with large lakes, gentle rivers, craggy hills, and some
cles over a figure on each central column. equatorial deserts. Tectonic activity is moderate, background
radiation is within tolerable levels, and there are no pervading
Planet Pit-Stop environmental toxins.
A thousand years ago, this planet was a halfway point for a It has a 25.25-hour, counterclockwise rotation on a 15° tilt,
civilization leaving their original, dying system for a new one. and it takes 350 days to orbit its star. Its surface vegetation is
These reptilian beings placed a massive, circular platform wide and varied, with many edible plants, flowers, and fungi,
in geosynchronous orbit to repair and refuel their long-haul and the trees are primarily deciduous. The most predominant
spacecraft. Meanwhile, the travelers beamed down for rest terrestrial lifeforms are mammals (herbivores), birds, reptiles,
and relaxation, using devices atop the columns (marked with insects, and arthropods. The seas are stocked with fish that
a single circle over a humanoid figure) tend to live near the coasts and surfaces.
When the move was finished, Badland was abandoned and
the orbital platform powered down. Its creators expected it
to burn up in the atmosphere, eventually, but it went into a
strange orbit – one that intersects with the planet every two
years. Intrepid PCs could board it, power it up, and learn
Three abandoned worlds
much about its creators, provided they overcome the plat-
form’s defenses against unauthorized use.
present mystery and danger
Beware the Travelers
to brave space explorers!
It transpires there are many hot, arid balls of sand and
granite, roasting under two stars, with this exact type of
architecture. They belong to a highly advanced civilization What Remains
that sees planetary transit as a religious experience, and move
All three of Conservacorp’s equatorial docking platforms
from system to system every few generations. When transit-
hang dead in the sky – memory zapped, airlocks open, weap-
ing, they either colonize a whole new world (to reward them-
ons powered down. The web of geostationary weather-control
selves via creation) or retake a former holding (to atone by
satellites still functions, but they cannot provide information
living rough).
about what happened.
Unfortunately, their philosophy considers other sentient
On the planet’s temperate zones sit numerous rings of hab-
beings as lesser creatures, worthy only of sterilization. They
itation modules. A few on one continent were clearly occupied,
did, however, leave a warning to squatters: they move only
as they still contain colonists’ belongings and supplies, along
when the stars overlap, as shown on the columns – one
with varying signs that something is amiss. A further clue lies
humanoid under two interlinked circles.
beyond: something landed on the northern part of the inhab-
ited land mass, but it’s so badly damaged that investigating it
Garden-14 must be done on the ground, rather than from orbit.
Terraformed within the last 25 years, Garden-14 seems per-
fect for human needs – that’s how Conservacorp makes them, Behold the Serpent
after all. It verdant continents and unspoiled oceans teem with Garden-14 was meant to be a paradise, but something’s
life, and satellite-controlled weather keeps conditions fairly gone seriously wrong. Repairing the orbital platforms’ CPUs
tame. But in spite of evidence that colonists were making new reveals something – a solar flare, perhaps – fried their mem-
lives here, this particular planet is mysteriously deserted. ory a few years back. Reconstruction might be possible, but
hopefully those on the ground don’t get into too much trouble
Basic Data before then.
Garden-14 is the fourth planet in a large star system,
Early Ripe
orbiting a G2 V star. Its eight neighbors are: two small, rocky
The formerly inhabited rings show no signs of a struggle or
clumps; an ocher greenhouse planet; two slightly larger,
disaster: their supplies, armories, and med-labs remain well-
waterless planets with thin atmospheres; and three gas giants
stocked, their crops have all overgrown. All space-to-surface
of varying sizes and colors, the last two possessing 39 and 47
vehicles are parked, but their ground vehicles are missing.
moons, respectively. The fifth and sixth planets and some of
Following their tracks leads to the nearest ocean shore, where
the larger, rocky moons could support an emergency landing.
they sit abandoned.
It’s a Standard (Garden) planet with a thin Standard atmo-
Whatever landed is so badly mangled that only metal
sphere, primarily nitrogen with 20% oxygen. The surface is
shards remain. The wreckage is weird: it seems to twitch when
60% covered by saltwater ocean, with three major landmasses
observed, stopping only if touched by the observer. Ever after,
split somewhat evenly between its temperate zones and trop-
there’s a growing sense of not belonging here; observers who
ics. Temperatures range from 60°F to 80°F, courtesy of the
stay become languidly suicidal – eventually joining the colo-
weather satellites. It has a diameter of 8,723 miles, and its
nists in the ocean or the void.
gravity is 1.1 G.

Pyramid Magazine 29 Sci-Fi/Tech I

 Repairing the platforms’ computer gets the memory back.
The last log entry is from the commander: “I’ve been down
and seen it. I understand now. This is wrong. We need to
leave.” Internal cameras show the platform crew walking out
of the airlock, sans suits.
The Deadly Crop
A battle clearly happened at the rings; there are signs of
weapons-fire inside and out, along with blood smears. The
armories are empty, the ground vehicles were destroyed,
and the med-labs were sterilized with fire. The gardens were
burned, then coated with defoliant, and large burn piles with
human bones in them squat nearby. The space-to-surface
vehicles are all gone.
The crash site is a large hab-module, once used on modular
generation ships. It’s insides have burst open with a cornu-
copia of vegetables – most notably zucchini. Breathing in the
pollen or eating the vegetables has dire consequences (see the
Zeaters in Space Zombies!, pp. 16-19).
The platforms’ memory reveals their weapons were used
to destroy all spacecraft leaving the surface. The last survivor
weeps as he explains that he slaughtered his friends to stop the
undead contagion, making clear he doesn’t intend to outlive
them. The reason for the open airlocks now seems clear.
Harvest Home
The rings have suffered EMP damage (as did the plat-
forms). There are signs of flight and panic on the surface.
Pyramid Magazine 30
Gardening tools and equipment were dropped mid-field, and
possessions were left behind. The stores are stripped bare, as
are the armories and med-labs; all missing equipment and
supplies sit in the launch bays, piled next to spacecraft they
never repaired.
The crash site is a small attack craft belonging to a hith-
erto-unknown alien race. The vessel was shot down by the
orbital platform’s weapons. Inside the ship are three corpses:
short, scaly tripods, sealed in clear, plastic bubbles of nutrient
goo. The ship is equipped with lasers, EMP generators, and a
teleport gun.
Fixing the platforms’ memory shows that the aliens’ fleet
appeared, and sent attack craft down to the surface. The plat-
form fought back – scoring a few hits on the main ship and
at least one attack craft – before an EMP hit. What happened
after that seems horribly clear.
Cathedral
The planet known as Cathedral must have been built, rather
than merely reshaped. Its great, monochromatic fields of flow-
ers – like stained glass from orbit – are bordered by long, deep
rows of solar panels. Its equator is ringed with a line of 20
equidistant holes, 50 miles in diameter, each surrounded by
a massive, dangerous, and now deserted city. The planet feels
haunted, as if something bad or very strange happened a long
time ago, or has yet to take place.
Sci-Fi/Tech I
Basic Data
Cathedral is the only planet in its system, orbiting a F5 V
star. Some speculate its neighbors were either cannibalized in
its creation, or else knocked out of orbit for aesthetic purposes.
It’s a Standard (Garden) planet with a thin Standard
atmosphere, primarily nitrogen (21% oxygen). It has no
oceans, only an evenly spaced, longitudinal network of rivers
running straight from the poles to the equatorial city-pits.
Temperatures range from 80ªF to 100°F. Its diameter is 8,000
miles, and its gravity is exactly that of Earth.
It has no volcanic or tectonic activity. A regular band of
rainclouds floats across the north and south hemispheres,
keeping the fields well-hydrated. Background radiation is tol-
erable except for in the cities, where it dramatically spikes to
80 rads per minute.
It has a 30-hour day, rotates counterclockwise with a 20°
tilt, and takes 286 days to orbit its star. Its surface vegetation
is a carefully curated, if inedible, mix of grasses and flowers,
arranged in large fields of only one kind and color. The highest
animals are insects and arachnids, locked in a constant strug-
gle beneath the beauty.
What Remains
The fields are cunning achievements – equal parts machine
and mud. Plant-specific fertilizers prohibit other growth, and
automated seedbeds ensure constant levels of depth and color.
The cities feature wide-open architecture. Walls are
eschewed in favor of tall, wide columns, and buildings go as
high as 10 stories, making the lack of walls particularly dan-
gerous in crosswinds. The “rooms” have no furniture, but
their interiors are sometimes decorated in swaths of bright
color, like the planet’s fields. Pressing individual colors makes
the others change, though patterns do not repeat.
Teleport-platforms move people from level to level, and
from one side of the city to the other, but not to other cit-
ies – an equatorial road runs between them for that. Each
city has platforms that spacecraft could land upon – large and
small – but lack refueling or maintenance facilities.
The equatorial holes go 500 miles straight down, with no
lifts. The radiation increases quadratically with depth, compli-
cating remote-piloted journeys down to investigate. The cur-
rent theory is that something akin to a miniature sun burns
within each, possibly cooled by the waters. But what needs
that much power to run?
Otherworldly Emanations
Cathedral seems too grand to have been left alone. Explorers
often feel like its creators just stepped out, and might return
at any moment. They also sense they’re being watched – espe-
cially in the cities – and their travels frequently feature in their
dreams exactly as they occurred, as if something was review-
ing their memories in sleep.
Apply Within
The planet’s inhabitants are still around, watching their
visitors. It’s just that the explorers don’t understanding what
they see.
Long ago, the august beings who created Cathedral
uploaded their minds into the multi-tiered, solid-state
Pyramid Magazine 31
mainframes their guests have mistaken for cities. They live
within gardens of thought and memory, enjoying the bene-
fits of a virtual lifespan limited only by the life of the planet’s
power plants.
Most uploaded find their explorers highly amusing, and
enjoy watching them try to decipher the color patterns they
once used as physical language. However, some want to see
if their guests can figure out the code, and have thrown tests
at them, hoping to find the one mind in a million worthy of
joining them. Unfortunately, it’s a one-way trip – the process
extracts all molecular energy, leaving nothing but dust and an
odd, charred smell.
This Is Our Church
As it transpires, Cathedral is a center of worship. More
specifically, it’s a place where a star-faring civilization’s sur-
plus population were sent to die with a degree of spiritual
dignity.
Upon this world – “Release” in their language – those
who could no longer toil unaided, or live without assistance,
were expected to die. They were teleported onto the “land-
ing pads,” and permitted to take what time they needed to
prepare themselves. They could then either jump into the
pits – possibly succumbing to radiation along the way – or
slowly starve in the gardens, ultimately becoming part of
Cathedral’s beauty.
Eventually, the civilization decided it was cheaper to
“release” the very sick and injured at home, and Cathedral
was abandoned. But there are still those who cling to the old
ways and desire to leave existence as their ancestors once did.
A very large ship of spiritual pilgrims is now en route, accom-
panied by a small army of mercenaries – well-paid to make
certain their own religious authorities don’t stop them. If the
PCs pester them with questions, they’ll be attacked as well.
The Cog
Those who think Cathedral was made aren’t wrong – they
just might not have dreamed for what or by whom. The
planet is a self-aware, self-powered component of an incred-
ible spacecraft the size of a large solar system, built by god-
like beings in the early days of the universe.
Billions of years ago, the ship suffered from damage as
philosophical as it was physical. The ship could only be
repaired by completely scattering its components to rest
and regenerate. Cathedral was placed by this star – after
its neighbors were chased away – and left here to heal,
ever so slowly.
In that time, it’s regained its mind and soul, but not its
memories. It watches its visitors and scans their dreams,
hoping it can see something through their eyes that it cannot
perceive with its own. It might eventually try communicating
through the color patterns in the cities, but has yet to encoun-
ter anyone worthy.
Once Cathedral’s memory is restored, it will leave to seek
other pieces of the ship – racing from the star at tremendous
speeds. Any on the planet will be taken for the ride of their
lives, but might not survive the ship’s reassembly. Hopefully
the planet will either show mercy or be grateful for what-
ever help they gave, but will that translate to escape or a
quick death?
Sci-Fi/Tech I
 Reign
of Action
By Roger Burton West
GURPS Reign of Steel is a setting that calls for bold fighters,
sneaky scouts, and genius mechanics – otherwise the innately
superior robots would already have stamped out those pesky
meatsacks. That’s a call that GURPS Action can answer! But
the Action templates assume you’re in a functioning modern
society, and even in the few places in the world after the Final
War where that’s still true, it’s not quite like our world.
This article assumes you already have GURPS Reign of
Steel and GURPS Reign of Steel: Will to Live, as well as at
least the first two volumes of GURPS Action.
Lenses and Templates
All templates and lenses that list Guns (Pistol or Rifle) may
add the equivalent Beam Weapons skill (as an alternate or an
extra). Very few humans know how to use the robots’ lasers
or particle cannon, but the protagonists are among the elite!
All templates and lenses that list Guns (Rifle) may add
Guns (LAW) as an alternate or an extra skill.
Every combatant may wish to consider learning the basics
of Explosives (Demolition) and Traps, either from templates
or with spare character points.
Action Templates
The assassin is a precision killer, making single attacks
from a long way off, and that usually means serious train-
ing. This person could be a Zone London SAS sniper, or a
Washington WASP or Moscow info-commando with changed
loyalties. Given the nature of the threat, assassins may add
Artillery (Guided Missile) (A) IQ-1 [1]-11 to the list of available
Guns skills. (Add Attribute Substitution [1] to turn it into a
DX-based skill at 15; see GURPS Power-Ups 2: Perks, p. 15.)
The cleaner knows what the robots and their human lack-
eys are looking for, as well as how to hide it; Disguise and
Knife may be less useful than Freight Handling and Forensics.
This is an unusual skill set in a world that’s just barely surviv-
ing, and this person probably has been specially trained for
the task rather than picking it up through life experience.
The demolition man might choose Artillery (Guided Mis-
sile). This person is generally more useful with Explosives
(Demolition) then with Explosives (EOD). Still, sometimes
the smarter robots set the ambushes.
The face man won’t work in a game that’s just about deal-
ing with robots, but plenty of Zones allow a few human or
bioroid servitors and collaborators. Some of the hardest tasks
Pyramid Magazine 32
may be persuading other resistance leaders to cooperate on
a big operation. Since working with intelligent machines is a
possibility, Psychology (Robots) (H) IQ-2 [1]-13 may be taken
as a primary skill.
The hacker won’t have an easy time of it going up against
robots directly (see Reading the Enemy’s Mind, Will to Live
p. 42), but if the enemy has a single conceptual weakness, it’s
trusting their technology to do its job. Does that robotruck
have the correct transfer codes to go into the high-security
base? Does the census say the human infestation here has
been eradicated and no further exterminations are necessary?
Then that must be the way things are supposed to be.
The infiltrator could be anything from a scrappy camp
escapee who knows the robots’ blind spots to a high-tech pro-
fessional with scavenged kit. This person may end up planting
bugs for the wire rat or the hacker, or spying out sites for the
demolition man to place charges – or getting into a collabora-
tor’s office to read or modify records.
The investigator doesn’t fit well into most Reign of Steel
games – unless someone is needed to take all the intelligence
gathered from raids and robot-activity reports and synthesize
it into an intentions-and-capabilities briefing to guide the next
raid. In a small resistance band, this person may not have the
luxury of sitting safely back from the action, so they’ll pick up
a few combat skills.
Everybody loves to see the medic. But they don’t just patch
up wounded fighters; they also design tests and treatments for
the latest designer plagues, sort out disease and malnutrition
among survivors, and even work out what’s going on with the
Green Men of Caracas.
The shooter is what people think of when they say “resis-
tance fighter.” No special changes are needed here, though
Armoury is necessary for maintaining weapons in a world
with limited resources.
The wheel man often goes unappreciated – until it’s time to
get in or out of a situation in a hurry. They may need to work
with the hacker to bypass the bot brain of a Morag, a Wraith,
or even a humble robotruck, but then this person can make
that mobile tech pull maneuvers that no robot ever dreamed
of. The wheel man might even convert a captured Hovercat
to act as a cavalry mount! (Add Mecha to the list of allowable
Driving specialties.)
The wire rat plants cameras and breaks into existing sur-
veillance feeds, often getting physical access for the hacker to
do their magic. The need to be one’s own tech support makes
Electronics Repair important.
Sci-Fi/Tech I
 Martial artists (from GURPS Action 3: Furious Fists)
aren’t generally recommended. They put lots of character
points into hand-to-hand fighting, but unless the campaign
involves full-on cinematic martial arts, that kind of fighting
doesn’t do well against hard steel armor. However, the traceur
(especially in an urban environment) and the ninja can still
offer plenty of useful support apart from their fighting skills.
Skill sets from GURPS Action 4: Specialists are a great
way to get an Action-ready character with a few more choices
than the templates offer; Bushwhacker, Chemical Safety and
Parkour may be especially useful.
Lenses Old and New
The criminal lens won’t often apply. Zone Washington is
the only place that still has organized crime that’s distinct
from the human resistance.
Intelligence, law enforcement and security generally tie
the team member to Zone London, the last human govern-
ment that’s still permitted to run its own spies and police. For
Washingtonians who’ve changed sides, everyone else regards
them as untrustworthy, since the bots have tried that method
in the past; add at least one level of negative Reputation
(Might change sides again; Resistance fighters; 7 or less).
The intelligence lens could also work for a Zone Moscow
info-commando.
Military may work much like intelligence and law enforce-
ment, but is also a common background for guerrilla fighters
from other Zones. For irregular troops without formal train-
ing, see Resistance Fighter, below.
Resistance Fighter
20 points
You have experience as a fighter cut off from support.
You’re not trained in large-scale maneuvers or combined arms
tactics, but you can live off the land and keep an eye out for
your squadmates.
Skills: Soldier (A) IQ [2]. • Another 18 points chosen from
Beam Weapons (any), Bicycling, Brawling, Gunner (any),
Guns (any), or Knife, all (E) DX+1 [2]; NBC Suit, Polearm,
Spear, or Throwing, all (A) DX [2]; Camouflage, First Aid,
Gesture, or Savoir-Faire (Resistance), all (E) IQ+1 [2];
Armoury (Small Arms), Explosives (Demolition), Leader-
ship, or Scuba, all IQ (A) [2]; Tactics (H) IQ-1 [2]; Swim-
ming (E) HT+1 [2]; Hiking (A) HT [2]; Skiing (H) HT-1 [2];
Survival (any) (A) Per [2]; 2 more points in any lens skill
to raise it by one level; or 6 more points to raise it by two.
Social Traits: The idealized resistance fighter has a Sense
of Duty to their group, their Zone’s humans, or even all
humans. But this kind of struggle isn’t pretty, and some
may end up looking out only for themselves and their
mates. You may also spend some of your advantage points
(or leftover lens points) on Military Rank 0-4 [5/level] and a
Reputation with your chosen group.
New Skill: Savoir-Faire (Resistance)
see p. B218
This is the skill of appropriate behavior among front-line
resistance fighters, people who may have spent most of their
lives under combat conditions. This includes such things as
Pyramid Magazine 33
always making a noise when you approach someone so as not
to startle them, putting up with their requests to prove you’re
not a robot infiltrator, and generally acting like an old hand
rather than a fresh recruit.
The remnants of mankind
stand on the brink of an abyss.
But where before there was
only despair, now there is
a chance to survive – and
maybe, to win back Earth.
– GURPS Reign of Steel
Gear
Action characters tend to be better-equipped than most
people in the world, whether that’s because they can make
their own gear, because they’ve stolen it from the robots and
modified it for their own use, or because they know of special-
ized equipment caches. The pre-Final War equipment from
GURPS Action 1: Heroes is often still available, but some
selected ultra-tech items can make life much easier.
Biometric Cracker Tools: +3 to Lockpicking and Electronics
Operation (Security) skill on attempts to defeat any biometric
scanner. $4,000, 10 lbs.
Chameleon Cloak: Wraps round one person. +2 to Stealth
skill against ordinary or IR vision, +1 against UV or hyper-
spectral vision. Halve the bonus (and round down) if the
wearer is moving. $2,000, 2 lbs.
Contact SQUID: Allows the interrogation of a computer
(including a robot brain) to read its stored data, but must be
physically attached. $20,000, 5 lbs.
Cufftape: Looks like duct tape, but a 2’ length restrains arms
or legs with ST 20. Each failed attempt to break free does a
point of damage to the restrained area. Cufftape has DR 1, and
6 points of cutting, corrosive or burning damage will destroy
it. $10, 0.5 lb., for a 100-foot spool. Monowire Razortape at $80
attacks the prisoner with thrust cutting damage using their
own ST, at +1d and with an armor divisor of (10), if they suc-
ceed in breaking it.
Inertial Compass: The GPS module doesn’t work any more,
but this palm-sized unit can still show the current location
and overlay it on (pre-war) maps. It gives +2 to Navigation
(Air, Land, and Sea). $120, 0.2 lb.
Infrared Goggles: 2¥ magnification, and allows the user to
switch freely between normal vision and Infravision. $500,
0.6 lb.
Plastex-B: The best explosive available outside robot armor-
ies, though any that’s legitimately in collaborators’ hands has
taggants to trace it back to them. A standard block does 6d¥4
cr ex damage; when using the Blowing Stuff Up rules from
GURPS Action 2: Exploits, divide the needed dice of damage
by 24. $20, 1 lb.
Sci-Fi/Tech I
 Rocket Piton: A launcher to fire a rocket-propelled piton
and attached line up to 200 yards. The GM rolls the firer’s
Climbing to determine how firmly the piton is set. $40, 2 lbs.
Surveillance Worm: A robotic snake, 0.1” wide and 2” long
(SM ‑10). Provides remote vision that replaces traditional sur-
veillance endoscopes. Controlled by trailing fiber-optic cable
or radio communicator. The built-in illuminator has a range
of two yards, but the user has No Depth Perception (p. B145).
$4,500, 2 lbs. including control console.
Survival Rations: One nutritionally balanced meal; shelf
stable for 15 years. (Don’t ask about the taste.) $2, 1 lb.
Vapor Canteen: Extracts moisture from the air, taking 4
hours to fill its quart capacity in normal humidity. +2 to Sur-
vival when living off the land. $450; 2 lbs. empty or 4 lbs. full.
Pyramid Magazine 34
Voice Mask: A microphone and speaker system that changes
the wearer’s voice to make it unrecognizable. $200, 0.1 lb.
Wristwatch Rad Counter: Detects and displays radiation
exposure, and can set off an alarm if the dose rate or total
exposure gets too high. $100, neg.
Getting the Job Done
Any campaign within Reign of Steel can get the Action
treatment, from a band of survivors scavenging food and
medicine to keep their families alive to the awakening of
Tranquillity’s deep-frozen pre-war experts. There are some
special considerations when using this combination of setting
and play style, however.
Sci-Fi/Tech I
 Action games work best with an episodic or mission
focus – pick a target, prepare for the job, go in, accomplish
the objective, and get out again – rather than playing out the
admin and politics of a colony of survivors. That stuff gener-
ally happens between episodes, and the curtain rises again as
the next mission begins. Outfitting usually goes quickly too, as
the PCs already have the best equipment they can find.
The GM should feel free to set the BAD of major targets
to impossible values; if going directly up against a zone-
mind were a thing humans could easily do, they’d already
have done it back when there was a working civilization.
Even the best of the best, represented by the PCs, must
be sneaky, to gather intelligence and work out where and
when to strike . . . and how to prevent the other Zones from
moving in, nuclear missiles first, even if they succeed! That
isn’t to say Action PCs can never take on a zonemind, but
this works much better as the climax of a campaign that’s
involved information raids and resource piracy to find the
enemy’s weaknesses and deny them raw materials than as a
one-off adventure.
In a typical Action game in a modern setting, the enemy
is less competent than the PCs but more numerous. Here,
the enemy may be outnumbered, at least at first; they’ll still
be less competent (an individual robot is often not all that
skilled with its primary weapon), but their bigger weapons are
more potent than anything humans carry. The correct defense
against a Juggernaut’s particle beam cannon is not to be there
when it goes off.
Even light robots are armored in a way a typical villain’s
mook or henchman isn’t; and they’re all Unfazeable, so they
don’t run from a fight unless they think there’s an advantage in
it. A Reign of Action party carries rather heavier weapons than
its modern equivalent, and it needs to get reliable hits with the
big guns rather than spraying and praying.
Most importantly, robots have a working support organiza-
tion and humans generally don’t. Once bullets, missiles, and
beams start flying, it’s a race against time to get the job done
and vanish back into the scenery or at least anonymity before
the Vultures arrive to hose down the battlefield with laser fire,
and the Wraiths follow, loaded with exterminators to kill any-
thing with a pulse.
When planning operations in Zones where free humans are
tolerated, the ethical Action team should also consider repri-
sals against civilians. The GM must take this into account
when the team asks the locals to help them blow up the robo-
fac complex, because the locals still have to live here once the
adventure is over and the team’s gone home.
Robots are not the only enemy. Many regions have human
collaborators, bandits, or other resistance groups with differ-
ent philosophies. They’ll have their own plans and simply dis-
regard, or even invite, robot reprisals against someone other
than themselves. This is where the face man shines, to resolve
such situations without too much loss of human life.
However, except in the most cinematic
games, the bulk data will not be in a form
readily understood by humans.
– GURPS Reign of Steel: Will to Live
Pyramid Magazine 35
As far as combat rules are concerned, Flesh Wounds
(p. B417) and TV Action Violence (p. B417) are essential to
keep the protagonists and (most of) their allies alive when
the heavy weapons open up. Even with those options, it won’t
take them long to run out of FP and HP if they get into a
drawn-out fight.
Further Reading
Geraghty, Tony. Who Dares Wins: The Story of the
Special Air Service, 1950-1980 (Arms and Armour Press,
1980) and later editions. As well as recounting the history
of the SAS in the real world, this book gives some insight
into its unique culture.
Adventure Seeds
Supply convoy and prison-camp raids are fine to start with,
but one looks a lot like another. GURPS Reign of Steel: Read
the Sky gives one example of an adventure that works under
Action rules. Here are some other action-focused plots that
could work for one-off games or to start a campaign.
Instant Sunshine
The British government has secretly assembled a nuclear
warhead from parts not usable during the Final War. A resis-
tance cell from Les Brigades de Libération has found out
about it, and plans to use it to decapitate Zone Paris. Their
plan is to sneak into the facility in southern England, assault
it with Nanoburn, take the warhead to the nearest maglev sta-
tion, and hide it (and themselves) in a cargo container routed
through the Channel Tunnel. The PCs could be that cell . . .
or they could be the SAS team trying to stop the theft before
Zone Paris inevitably intercepts the attack and retaliates
against London. In either case, a firefight on a 300 mph mag-
lev train is a necessity.
Building Bridges
Morag submarines traverse the oceans largely unmolested
by other robots. That could be a way to re-establish communi-
cations between the two remaining human governments, the
Washington Protectorate and the British Isles. But first the
group needs to catch a Morag – which probably means fight-
ing a Zone Zaire raiding party – then get through the other
side’s defenses, which are specifically designed to deal with
these submarines, all without doing too much damage to their
future allies.
Washington Blues
The PCs’ resistance cell commander sends
them to help out a black-market contraceptive
dealer and make the FBI look bad when they
come to arrest her. But the dealer is a collabora-
tor, turning in some of her customers in return
for a quiet life, and the “FBI” squad is a disguised
HLA strike team out to assassinate her. So who
fed the bad intel to the PCs’ commander?
Sci-Fi/Tech I
 The Toughest
Race in the
Solar System
By Carolyn Ivy Stein and Steve Stein

Adventure races are multi-disciplinary events in which Elements of an Adventure Race

athletic teams navigate challenging environments under their
Essential features of adventure races include exotic or sce-
own power, often over days. Most contemporary adventure
nic locations, challenging terrain, human-powered propul-
races – such as the Eco-Challenge (Fiji, 2019) and the Raid
sion, and old-fashioned orienteering. Courses extend several
Gauloises (New Zealand, 1989) – involve running, hiking,
hundred miles and require several days for the fastest teams
bicycling, and paddling canoes, kayaks, or other watercraft.
to complete. Teams push through, night after night, with lit-
Some races require rock climbing, caving, rappelling (abseil-
tle sleep. They struggle through exhaustion, risking body and
ing), and other activities. Racers navigate without modern
mind as they attempt to stay on course to each checkpoint
equipment, relying on compass, sextant, and race-provided
before mandatory cut-off times.
maps and charts – no GPS.
Team members must stay within sight of each other, help
Near-future adventure teams race among asteroids,
one another, and finish together. The most efficient team
moons, and nearby planets. They brave exotic atmospheres
often wins against fitter groups. Accurate navigation, fast
and corrosive seas. They scale alien peaks. In the far future,
transitions, and sound planning matter more than raw speed.
perhaps contestants visit planets like Venus and use its high
Only a handful of people finish the most challenging contem-
atmospheric pressure to hang-glide between floating bubble
porary races, such as the Patagonian Expedition Race, which
cities. Anything is possible.
involves crossing 350 miles of mountains, glaciers, and freez-
Player characters might be race participants, race orga-
ing streams.
nizers, medical personnel, or security. They might be a cam-
era crew embedded with race teams and
Pre-Race Interviews
required to endure the same harsh con-
ditions. Perhaps the party must rescue Many races limit the number of
stranded or injured contestants. teams, screening applicants through
rigorous application processes and pre-
race video interviews. These allow race
Overview directors to screen out those unready
for the demanding race ahead and find
In stage races, participants have a
charismatic competitors. Videos of suc-
day (or longer) to complete each stage.
cessful applicants are incorporated into
The sooner they finish, the more time
pre- and post-race media.
they have to rest before the next stage
begins. Contenders with the lowest
Briefing
cumulative time among the stages win.
One of the best-known contempo- Each race starts with a briefing,
rary stage races is the Marathon des which often includes an inspiring story
Sables across the Sahara Desert in by the race director, fellow adventurers,
Morocco. Runners cover six daily stages or military veterans. The race director
of varying lengths and difficulties for repeats rules, issues last-minute warn-
156 miles. The longest stage is 57 miles. ings, and provides contestants with the
Runners receive shelter and fresh water course map showing checkpoints and
each night, but otherwise carry their transition areas. After the briefing, they
own food and supplies. have a little time for last-minute prepa-
rations and then walk to the start line.

Pyramid Magazine 36 Sci-Fi/Tech I

Start Line
Racers line up and wait for the signal to start. Large races
Race Equipment
use staggered or wave starts, grouping athletes by ability and Race organizers may supply boats or spacecraft, but other-
starting them at slightly different times to avoid congestion on wise teams provide their own equipment, especially custom-
the course. In these races, winners are those with the fastest ized items, such as bicycles, wetsuits, and spacesuits. Teams
time instead of those first across the finish line. are self-sufficient, carrying everything they need (food, water,
clothing, medical supplies, small repair kits, and so on) on
Stages their backs. They restock and do major repairs (and switch
Adventure races challenge athletes’ strength, endurance, among bikes, boats, or other vehicles) at transition points (see
intelligence, dexterity, and emotional toughness, though not Checkpoints, above), where their support crew (one or two
all at once. The best organizers structure races so a mental people) assist them.
or emotional challenge comes after one or two arduous (but For modern-day (“low-tech” in futuristic settings) equip-
dissimilar) physical challenges, which gives different muscles ment, see GURPS High-Tech, especially Tool Kits, p. 24,
and exhausted minds a break. Multi-Tool and Duct Tape, p. 26, Foodstuffs, pp. 33-35, Expe-
Map-reading and orienteering pose mental challenges, dition Gear, pp. 51-61; Clothing, pp. 62-65, and First Aid
whether on land, sea, or in space. Some races have ath- Kits, p. 221. For a variety of futuristic expedition gear, see
letes solve puzzles or build things, such as rafts, which they GURPS Ultra-Tech, pp. 74-80. For respirators, spacesuits,
then use. Rappelling down a cliffside or exploring a claus- and other protective gear, see GURPS Ultra-Tech, pp. 176-
trophobic cave or dangerous asteroid crater offers emo- 179, and Transhuman Space, p. 152. For futuristic food, see
tional challenges. Foodstuffs, Ultra-Tech, pp. 73-74. Tool kits are at Ultra-Tech,
Some stages require additional short physical or mental p. 82, and first aid kits are at Ultra-Tech, p. 198.
challenges, such as diving into water or scal-
ing a cliff to retrieve “medallions,” tokens
that offer proof of completion. One contem-
porary race requires tearing a page from a B D
ody iversity
hidden book. Including different body types among team members is an advan-
tage because of the varied environments crossed. A “ripped,” muscular
Checkpoints body might be great at climbing sheer cliff faces but will contend with
Checkpoints keep groups on track and hypothermia in icy waters because of low body fat. The lithe, small racer
provide sites for medical aid and evacuation. sheds heat easier than more muscular teammates but struggles paddling.
Some checkpoints are just a person with a Most adventure races require mixed-gender teams. Future races
clipboard who notes the teams as they arrive. might insist on a mix of alien species. Bio-tech may be allowed, lim-
Others are transition areas at which teams ited, or banned, depending on the setting and a race’s individual rules.
assemble or disassemble bicycles or other A race permitting bio-tech enhancements might insist at least one team
equipment, transitioning from one activ- member be unenhanced.
ity (hiking, biking, kayaking, spacefaring,
etc.) to another. Transition areas offer more
substantial medical and other support than a
one-person safety site. In space, a checkpoint may be set up on
a parked spaceship.
Mandatory Gear
Checkpoints are placed closely enough that even the slow- Races require teams to carry some equipment for their
est racers pass through at least three each day. Those who own safety. A typical list includes wetsuits (or spacesuits),
encounter serious trouble head for the nearest checkpoint, warm, waterproof clothing, food, first aid and wilderness
even if that means doubling back. Checkpoints reduce cheat- survival kits, and dry bags to protect gear from water. Some
ing and allow race staff to monitor teams’ progress and assess challenges may require bringing snowshoes or dust shoes
their ability to continue. for crossing snowy or powdery terrain. First aid kits should
include items to deal with trauma, venomous bites, stomach
Finish Line illnesses, and fever.
Refer to GURPS High-Tech, p. 58, for typical gear in a sur-
Team members must cross the finish line together. While
vival kit. A race survival kit is smaller and lighter than typical
some races require them to cross under their own power,
kits and has items designed for several disparate environ-
many adventure races allow teammates to help injured com-
ments. It may include small-vehicle repair kits. If the team is
panions across. Bystanders may not help.
racing through space, emergency oxygen and patch kits are
Because of such races’ rugged courses, the start and finish
critical components.
lines are often the only place spectators can see their favorites.
As they cross, participants receive finisher awards and go to
the recovery area. For current races, there is a wide diversity Futuristic Technology
of prizes given to racers, including pottery, jewelry, medals, Just as today’s bicycles represent dramatic advances from
belt buckles, or edible products. Race directors often com- those of the late 19th century, future bicycles will benefit from
pete for the size, quality, and uniqueness of these mementos. such new technologies as light carbon-nanotube frames, and
Transhuman races might gift winners or finishers with per- tires, lubricants, and mechanisms designed to work in vac-
sonalized body modifications. uum or dangerous atmospheres.

Pyramid Magazine 37 Sci-Fi/Tech I

 The same is true for other gear. Teams use backpacks,
clothing, and rope made from light, nearly indestructible syn-
thetics; canteens that can extract and purify water from thin
atmospheres; and canoes and kayaks that withstand the cor-
rosive seas of alien worlds.
As long as they don’t violate the rule of human-powered
propulsion, most technologies are available except for navi-
gational devices. Bicycles, boats, and similar technologies
decrease 10% in weight and increase DR by one and HP by
20% for each tech level above 8. Racers favor “rugged” equip-
ment (Ultra-Tech, p. 15).
Navigation Equipment
Races on Earth and similar planets with strong magnetic
fields retain the restriction to compass and map navigation.
Racers in other environments may use inertial compasses.
Sextants are often used in space races. As a general rule, limit
navigation technologies to hand-carried systems at least two
tech levels below a society’s norm.
Muscle vs. Technology
As much as possible, racers rely on their own motive power,
using spacecraft only to move between widely separated race
checkpoints, such as between planets or other stellar bodies,
or perhaps to visit distant locations on a single planet. A race
on Mars, for example, might have competitors climb Olympus
Mons and then transport them via spacecraft to Mars’ north
pole to hike across the ice.
Racepods
A special exception to the rule of human-powered vehi-
cles is the modified workpod, the “racepod.” Common in the
Transhuman Space setting, workpods (Transhuman Space:
Spacecraft of the Solar System, pp. 7-8) serve a variety of
maintenance and transport purposes at orbital spaceports and
in the asteroid belt. The mechanically skilled strip them of all
but the most essential gear and boost their speed, creating
racepods. Often painted with team colors and symbols, each
carries two people and their gear.
Adventure-Race Funding
Exotic locations and equipment costs make adventure
racing a sport for well-off athletes, even when they remain
on Earth. At some tech levels, space adventure races are
only available to the wealthy. As technology advances and
the time and expense of space travel decreases, extraplane-
tary adventure racing becomes open to a greater variety of
people. Experienced athletes might attract media or other
corporate sponsorship.
Danger in
Adventure Racing
Adventure races provide more than the illusion of dan-
ger. Challenging environments and uncertain weather,
which can change in the blink of an eye, make them risky.
Injuries are common. Race directors try to make races as
safe as possible and will rescue the injured or endangered,
though often only from designated race checkpoints.
Pyramid Magazine 38
Disaster in the Making
Whether a standard adventure race or a casually organized
one (see p. 39), many things can go wrong.
For the fatigue costs of various activities, see pp. B349-357,
426-427. For the effects of lost FP, see p. B426. For ways of
recovering lost FP, see p. B427.
Physical Issues
Infection: A cut gets infected, causing fever, inflammation,
or death. See p. B444 for game effects and treatments.
Gut issues: Contaminated food or water can cause gastro-
intestinal distress, including nausea, pain or agony, and retch-
ing. See Afflictions, pp. B428-429, for the game effects of these
conditions.
Fatigue, dehydration, and missed sleep: Exhaustion compli-
cates physical challenges, muddles the mind for mental chal-
lenges, and reduces the party’s abilities to deal with both the
emotional challenges on the course and each other. For rules
on these, see pp. B426-427. A common trick among adventure
racers is tying a lead rope to an exhausted teammate and thus
lending them some strength by literally towing them along. In
game terms, a teammate “under tow” receives +1 to rolls to
avoid further FP loss.
Falls: These can cause broken bones, concussions, or
worse; see Falling, p. B431. If this happens the team will need
to decide on what to do. Adventure racers have died when they
chose to go on when they shouldn’t have. However, if they
don’t continue on, they lose the race.
Body-temperature problems: Hypothermia (in which the
body loses heat faster than it can generate it) is a fatal risk in
races through cold climates or that involve wading through
or swimming in ice-cold water. Hyperthermia (in which the
body’s temperature rises too fast because of the environment)
is even more common, since running and other vigorous
activities increase core body temperature. The easiest way to
simulate these in game terms is to have racers make regular
HT or appropriate HT-based Survival rolls when operating
in extremely hot or cold environments. A failed roll costs 1
FP. See Cold, p. B430, and Heat, p. B434, for suggested time-
frames and modifiers for such conditions.
Foot problems: Damage to feet (blisters, trench foot, etc.)
knocks many teams out of races. Treating feet in a spacesuit is
impossible. Alien planets might offer new varieties of foot fun-
gus. One contemporary ultrarunner had his toenails surgically
removed to avoid problems. Transhuman athletes might pur-
sue even more exotic surgical or genetic adaptations. After the
first day of racing in wet conditions, participants need to roll
against HT for every eight hours on their feet to see whether
they develop debilitating foot problems. A failed roll increases
the fatigue cost of running and hiking by one.
Equipment Failures
Things that can break are too numerous to
count but here are some ideas.
• Broken transponders or radios mean the
group is out of contact with their support team
and the event organizers (and possibly lost).
• Getting lost costs time and can be deadly.
A team lost in space may run out of air or
water before they can be rescued.
Sci-Fi/Tech I
 • Watercraft can rip on rocks or break apart in rough
waves, stranding the party in potentially dangerous waters.
• Bicycles can break, forcing the participants to carry
them instead of being carried by them.
• Space travel and hikes on airless asteroids offer a host
of dangers from ripped spacesuits to spacecraft collisions.
Adventure Seeds
These futuristic space-race ideas assume a level of tech-
nology that can get contestants between spots in the solar
system in hours or days instead of months or years.
Sponsored
A new gear manufacturer contacts the PCs. She makes
backpacks with special “features” to speed adventurers on
their way. She will sponsor them in a race if they use only
her gear and film themselves as they go. It seems a great deal.
Nothing could possibly go wrong. Right?
Solar System Summits
People in the 21st century boast of climbing the “seven sum-
mits,” the highest mountain on each of Earth’s seven conti-
nents, or running marathons on every continent. Adventurous
souls in the future seek to perform similar athletic feats in
distant places, such as climbing the highest peaks in the solar
system’s major bodies, including Mount Everest on Earth
(29,029’), Mons Huygens on the Moon (18,000’), Olympus
Mons on Mars (69,841’), Ahuna Mons on Ceres (13,500’), and
the Mithrim Montes range on Titan (10,948’). Danger awaits
on each of them as teams race to complete the circuit as fast
as possible.
Race to the Rescue
Hired as medics and rescue personnel, the heroes must
rescue a racing team which disappeared into a crater on an
asteroid and ceased communicating. Only five hours of oxy-
gen remain, so the rescuers must race to prevent the deadly
consequences of failure.
Discovery
In the midst of a race, the PCs discover a dead body,
wrecked spacecraft, alien artifact, valuable mineral deposit,
wormhole, etc. Do they report it or hide it for later recovery?
Earth-Moon-Mars Lowest
to Highest Stage Race
This popular race features stages on Earth, the moon, and
Mars. It begins on Earth at the oasis of Ein Gedi in Israel.
Teams paddle nine miles across the Dead Sea to Wadi al Muji,
Jordan and then mountain bike 123 miles to Petra (the famed
archaeological site), stopping along the way at Al Safi, the low-
est place on Earth (1,329’ below sea level).
After hiking around Petra, participants retrieve their moun-
tain bikes. Pedaling north, they visit Kerak (a Crusader castle)
and then head northwest to the Dead Sea, which they again
paddle across, finishing the race near the ancient mountain
fortress of Masada.
Pyramid Magazine 39
Fat Ass Adventure Races
Most races have an organizational structure that sup-
ports the athletes. A fat ass race is a casually organized
race in which racers provide all their own support. The
term originated with ultrarunner Joe Oakes who created
an unofficial 50-mile adventure run for friends called
“Recover from the Holidays Fat Ass 50.” His slogan: “No
Fees, No Awards, No Aid, No Wimps.” Participants agree
on a course (often long and across difficult terrain) and
supply themselves. Translating the fat ass to a future set-
ting like Transhuman Space makes it even more danger-
ous, since there will be no aid stations or provisions for
rescue if things go wrong in space or in an asteroid mine.
Given a day to recover and enjoy the sights, the party is
transported to the Moon, where they cross Mare Imbrium on
specially modified mountain bikes before summiting Mons
Huygens.
A long spaceflight takes them to Mars for the third and final
stage, where they complete the race by summiting Olympus
Mons, beginning with mountain bikes and transitioning to
foot to cross the mountain’s large dust fields. The shortest
combined time for the three stages wins the race.
Jovian Circuit Race
Also called Galileo’s Circuit, this race among three of
Jupiter’s largest moons is the dream of many adventurers.
Distance and extreme environments make it within reach of
very few. Teams use racepods (p. 38) to travel among Callisto,
Europa, and Ganymede. Io, the innermost Galilean moon, is
too irradiated and volcanically active to visit.
Operating from one of the established research outposts on
these moons, they hike or bicycle from the outpost to the first
checkpoint and then make a rough circuit of the base, stop-
ping at three other, roughly equidistant checkpoints. Depend-
ing on the moon’s terrain, a circuit involves either 26.2 miles
of running/hiking (the traditional marathon distance) or 100
miles on mountain bikes.
Teams hike and run across the jagged rocks and ice of
Europa. Large parts of Callisto are flat, covered with packed
dust over thick ice, making them amenable to mountain bikes.
On Ganymede, they ride along one of the moon’s deep grooves
(sulci) or circumnavigate one of its many craters.
After completing a circuit, contestants return to base and
either blast off for the next moon or celebrate completion, if
this was their third moon. For more on the Jovian moons, see
Transhuman Space: Deep Beyond, pp. 42-51.
Asteroid Hunt
This contest tours several asteroids in the solar system’s
Main Belt, large and small, inhabited and not. Beginning at
Ceres (the Belt’s largest asteroid), racers navigate racepods to
visit several asteroids. Since low gravity makes bicycling and
running impossible, activities are restricted to careful explora-
tions on foot, often into caves. One popular race on Ceres uses
pogo sticks (see The Ceres Tricentennial, Transhuman Space:
Deep Beyond, p. 14, plus pp. 123 and 136 for relevant traits).
Sci-Fi/Tech I
 The Murrinres
Portals By Jason Brick
Kob Murrinres did not create or even name the Portals.
They existed before the precursor species to Murrinres’ pre-
cursor species first appeared as potential in some deeply
ancient phylum’s genetic mutation. Murrinres was merely
the first to publicly theorize these strange gateways were
not random events, some flotsam of probability in an infin-
itude of infinite spaces, but connected phenomena. Not
all experts agree with the Murrinres Model (most notably
Professor Eugene Mail of Miskatonic Tech Altair and Grand
Orv Drexler of the Imperial Corps of Exploration), but those
academics can argue all they like. It does not change what
the Portals are.
What science knows for certain is they exist. Dozens of
operating or ruined Portals lie within known space and the
explored quanta, with over 100 suspected instances hinted at
in surveyor records, adventurer journals, and scraps of myth
or legend. They are here, and for those who use them, they
represent wonder and dread in equal measure.
The Murrinres
Phenomenon
Murrinres Portals vary in size, coloration, materials, and
a quality scholars have dubbed resonance. However, they all
bear a handful of common characteristics. All known Portals
are rectangular and have the psychological aura of a doorway.
They glow, some dimly and only at their edges, some brighter
than the noon sun across the entirety of their form. All have
controls across or within their frame, though the workings
of each are different and not all controls remain operable.
In theory, all are connected to one another via a magic or
technology not fully understood even by TL12 civilizations.
In practice, a functioning Portal serves as a teleportation
channel between itself and a single other Portal. A being or
object goes in one side and exits from another opening in one
step, regardless of what distance lies between the two. Usually,
the trip is painless and instantaneous, experienced as a flash
of light and cold with no lingering aftereffects.
Two Portals are connected in a state called attunement. Any
given Portal is attuned to another Portal, which may or may
not be attuned to it. This means a move from Portal A to Portal
B does not automatically mean a return trip is possible. Portal
B might take a traveler to Portal Q, to some letter in an alien
alphabet that burns the minds of those of other species who
look on it, or to nowhere at all.
Pyramid Magazine 40
Attuning a Portal, or changing its attunement, is difficult
but possible. To do so, a user must understand the operat-
ing panels of both the Portal they are using and the Portal
they wish to attune to. They must be able to use the starting
panel swiftly and without error. Finally, the Portal and its
operating panel must still be in working order. With all three
prerequisites in order, and skillful operation, any function-
ing Portal can theoretically attune to any other functioning
Portal in the multiverse.
Of the currently cataloged Portals, more than half no lon-
ger work. A little less than two-thirds of the remaining are
permanently attuned to a single Portal, some reciprocally and
some in a daisy-chain effect. The remaining are evenly split
between functional and unattuned specimens, Portals local
experts can attune on demand, and Death Portals (p. 41).
The confirmed discovery of a new Portal rarely passes with-
out sparking a gold rush of scientific, economic, and military
action as parties vie to understand and control it.
To use a Portal, one walks through it. With a perfectly
attuned Portal, that’s the entire process. Many Portals are
poorly attuned, either through errors during attunement or
faults in the control panel. In that case, it must be set using
an appropriate Engineer skill (depending on the world, the
nature of the Portal, and the tech level of the campaign).
With a success, everything goes fine. On a critical success, the
Portal becomes perfectly attuned for 3d weeks. On a failure,
those who travel through each take 1d HP injury from small
rearrangements of their atomic structure. A critical failure
causes a major mishap; roll on the Operations and Accidents
table (p. B531).
Eventually, every regular Portal user develops a collection
of scars and small changes to skin texture, eye color, hair, and
general body structure. Any of these could make for an appro-
priate quirk in campaigns where Portals are common.
Inside the Portals
At TL11 or higher, science understands most of how
Murrinres Portals function. They all connect to a pocket
dimension with highly malleable space-time. Any given Portal
reaches its own causality into the pocket dimension. When
one Portal attunes to another, it attracts the target Portal’s
causality zone toward its own with a force similar to, but
different from, gravity. Once the zones are connected, travel
between the two is instantaneous, with a traveler spending a
brief fraction of time in the pocket dimension.
Sci-Fi/Tech I
 Though the theories of individual cultures vary, at
lower tech levels, a combination of scientific theory,
technological tinkering, and magical lore leads to pre-
vailing ideas of what forces lie beneath their function.
TL10: The prevailing belief is that the Portals are con-
nected extradimensionally, with a few advanced
thinkers beginning to posit the nature of that
connection.
TL9: Most theories revolve around bends or warps in
the space-time continuum of this universe. The ini-
tial discovery of a Portal often spawns a glut of FTL
research.
TL8: There is a rising uncertainty about the Portals as
scientists learns more about them. Most who claim
to know something assume some sort of quantum
phenomenon.
TL7: Hotly contested competing theories draw from
various realms of physics, metaphysics, and
astrology.
TL5-6: The Portals are ascribed to various forms of nat-
ural philosophy, including elements and humors or
made-up phenomena like phlogiston.
TL4 and under: The Portals are almost certainly magic,
which may or may not be true depending on the
world or universe the culture calls home.
Murrinres Technologies
Every discovery and natural law spawns devices,
and the Murrinres Portals are no exception. The
Portals themselves are one example, as are devices
clever minds have created to facilitate their use.
Murrinres Portal
Each Portal is different, sometimes matching its
environs and sometimes starkly dissimilar. Though
their variance of form suggests multiple origins, most
current theorists are convinced they are the creation of
a single culture, or even a single individual.
Portal Screen
This portable personal force field surrounds the
wearer with a layer of matter from their home universe,
which interferes with potential harmful effects from traveling
through the Portals’ pocket dimension.
Murrinres Technologies
The table below provides the following information:
Device: The Murrinres technology in question.
TL: The minimum TL for the device to be invented and
built.
Device TL Effects
Murrinres Portal Unknown Teleportation
Portal Screen 10 Protects wearer while teleporting
Resonance Scanner 11 Detects and reads Portal resonance
Drexler Dowser 8 Detects Portal pathways
Pyramid Magazine
Resonance
Any police officer, criminal, spy, or simple bouncer can
tell you any space containing sentient beings vibrates with a
collective emotional state. Portals, although not sentient (we
think), transmit a condensed version of that sense from what-
ever destination they are attuned to.
A trained user can sense the level of danger on the oppo-
site side of a Portal by observing its resonance, receiving a
degree of warning about what they will encounter when they
go through. This normally applies only to danger from living
threats, although an entire absence of resonance can be an
equally powerful warning.
Various cultures use different means to sense a Portal’s res-
onance. Skills like Observation, Occultism, or even Dreaming
or Ritual Magic may be appropriate. In worlds where Portals
are common, this is frequently a Professional Skill.
The best resonance readers can suss out threats up to sev-
eral miles from their point of arrival. They also can recognize
a known Portal attached via attunement to the one they are
investigating. Given that all known Portals are opaque to every
sense, detection technology, and form of scrying, this skill has
saved countless lives.
Death Portals
Those who pass through a Death Portal do not return.
These aptly named specimens fall into four broad categories.
The first leads to a location fatal to most sentient life, like
a hellworld, volcanic caldera, or the vacuum of space. The
second is damaged or misattuned in a way that fatally injures
those who use it. The third is damaged or misattuned in a
way that maims travelers, drives them insane, or transforms
them hideously. Nobody knows what the final type does.
People simply never return.
All known Death Portals are widely avoided and often
held under heavy guard, leaving no room for tragic accidents.
The possibility of accidentally stumbling into a new one is
what makes exploring any previously undiscovered Portal an
endeavor fraught with peril and excitement.
When rolling for the effects of using a damaged Portal,
or from a critical roll to attune one, anyone wearing a Portal
screen rolls twice and selects the least harmful effect.
Effects: What the technology does.
Size: Will vary from iteration to iteration, with the listed
description being the most common approximate size.
Cost: The item’s typical cost.
Size Cost
Doorway up to building N/A
Backpack $600
Podium ($900 ¥ TL)
Light rifle $800
41 Sci-Fi/Tech I
Resonance Scanner
These devices come in myriad shapes and use a variety of
different techniques, but they all perform the same task: they
pick up on the resonance between one Portal and another, giv-
ing some hints as to what lies on the other side.
Drexler Dowser
The connections between Portals leave a nanoscopic wrin-
kle in normal space-time. A Drexler Dowser detects such
wrinkles, allowing somebody to follow them. This is rarely
practicable, but since the Drexler Lines tend to be laser-
straight, it can indicate the location of an attuned Portal
within the same quantum or universe. In theory, a sufficiently
powerful Drexler Dowser used far enough away could provide
a map of the Portal network for an entire galaxy.
Murrinres Locations
The existence of a Murrinres Portal turns its location into
a hot spot of one sort of another. Some are economic, some
magical, some military . . . but any known Portal attracts
interest and adventure.
Portals can serve as an alternate means of reaching loca-
tions that are part of the GURPS Infinite Worlds setting. See
also Infinite Worlds (p. 43) for Infinity’s and Centrum’s reac-
tions to the Portals.
Baal Station
Built in 2235, Baal Station sits in a hollowed-out water-ice
comet near the inner border of Sol’s Kuiper Belt, more or less
on the ecliptic of and in synchronous orbit with Pluto. It forms
Pyramid Magazine 42
the center of a constellation of mining operations, ice farms,
sail laser stations, and homesteaders forming a semi-autono-
mous community at the edge of the solar system. Baal Station
Portal lies in an ice cave near the comet’s center, currently
attuned to a Portal orbiting at Earth’s Lagrange Point L4.
The Portal’s origin is unknown, but suspected to be extra-
solar. Wherever it came from, this instantaneous connection
to a point so close to Earth makes the Baal Constellation
the wealthiest and most powerful in the Kuiper sphere.
Independence movements bubble just under the societal sur-
face, but so far have resulted in a series of advantageous nego-
tiations with Earth.
Centro’s Tower
The “wizard” Centro Aleg never knew an ounce of magic.
What he did know was the location of a reciprocal Portal
linking his TL4 realm with a TL8 city in a nearby
quantum. He would travel, returning with
technologies indistinguishable from magic.
He failed to return from one such journey
some 200 years ago, and his tower remains a
place of mystery and dread.
636c61726b650d0a
On a Steel world (see p. B528), a Portal
sits in the barren desert that was once part
of Idaho, Oregon, Washington, and Montana.
It shifts its attunement at irregular intervals,
sometimes allowing reciprocal access. This
object, known only by its catalog number with
the nearest zonemind, elicits no curiosity from
the planet’s robotic overlords. They ignore
it, even give it a wide berth. However, a few
humans who know of it speculate the attune-
ment changes are at the behest of a sentient
program or a nanotech experiment.
Kublai Crossing
On Han-68, the Golden Horde’s empire
never fell. On its timeline, the year 1944, the
Empire has existed as a one-world government
for over 600 years. Though the regime remains
autocratic and draconian, six centuries have led
to blossoming technology and art. The world sits
at TL9+, with the exception of space travel (all spec-
ulation about which has been severely repressed), with cities
like gardens and zero pollution.
A pair of reciprocal Portals lie in Nagasaki and Rio de
Janeiro, each the largest city in their hemisphere. No other
known planets boast two Murrinres Portals, and no other ver-
sion of Earth has a Portal in either of those cities.
Marta’s Corridor
In the year 2075, the Matrix holds a curious phenomenon:
a virtual Murrinres Portal. This cybernetic gateway allows
instantaneous transport of files no matter their size, though
the exact mechanic of transfer is not understood. As far as
physical location is relevant, it appears attuned to itself, but
accessible from any point on the planet.
Sci-Fi/Tech I
 For the two decades of its known existence,
megacorps, oligarchs, and governments alike have
searched for a way to control or restrict access to
this invaluable piece of cybernetic real estate. So far,
none have succeeded.
Murrinres Adventures
Adventures are made of mystery, danger, and
exploration. All three of these tend to accumulate
around Murrinres Portals. Some theorists suggest
the causal link evoked by an active Portal alters prob-
ability in this reality to make life more interesting
in their shadow. Others point to the more mundane
attractions of wealth, power, and opportunity associ-
ated with such artifacts.
Murder on the Murrinres Express
An extremely rare variation of a Murrinres Portal
teleports beings through time as well as space. In
order to solve and stop a murder, the investigators
must ride a Temporal Portal one month into the past
and several parsecs from the scene of the crime, then
race through conventional space to save the day.
Naturally, the parties responsible for the murder dog
the same trail, doing everything in their power to
stop the investigation.
The Medusa Gambit
Medusa-331 is a hell parallel on Quantum 7 that
fell to Centrum five years ago. Until recently, Cen-
trum has maintained only resource-gathering opera-
tions on this planet overwhelmed with semi-sentient
undead. Infinity has learned that Centrum (or
somebody else) has attuned a Portal in the ruins of
Medusa-331’s Kuala Lumpur to the Homeline Por-
tal in Toronto, itself unattuned. The adventurers
must travel to Medusa-331 via parachronic projec-
tor, survive the horrors of that parallel, and put the
Medusa-331 Portal out of commission.
Rakbar’s Revenge
In a monster-haunted mountain range of a fan-
tasy world lies the entry to an ancient and vast laby-
rinth of corridors and chambers. This fastness, built
by the mad tyrant Rakbar, is filled with creatures of
all descriptions. Deep within it lies a Portal attuned
to nothing, but with Portals from hell parallels (and
possibly actual Hells) are attuned to it. The gibber-
ing, seething, hungering nightmares of a thousand
universes periodically wander, or are driven, through
the Portal to populate this brutal megadungeon. Why
the adventurers must brave its depths as a raid or
entire campaign is between them and their gods.
Survey Says!
A reliable map of connections between Portals on differ-
ent worlds would be invaluable to an interstellar civilization
lacking other forms of faster-than-light travel. Such a job
Pyramid Magazine
Infinite Worlds
Within the quanta of the Infinite Worlds universe, Murrinres
Portals are considered a class of parachronic projector, possibly
harnessing the natural energies responsible for phenomena like
banestorms and shiftrealms.
Infinity keeps a sharp eye out for Portals, attempting to secure
them whenever one is found, mounting expeditions in force to
near parallels of worlds with a Portal to find if a parallel Portal
exists. When Centrum takes on a similar mission at the same
time, the result is among the most fierce and bloody fighting in
their ongoing conflict.
Centrum-held quanta either hold far more Murrinres Portals
than those closer to Homeline, or Centrum is much better than
Infinity at finding them. Nobody knows why.
The Grail
One of the most compelling arguments advanced against
Murrinres Portals being intentionally constructed is the absence
of any nodes with multiple Portals in one place. If built by sen-
tient beings, the utility of such a cluster would make one inevi-
table. Among societies sufficiently advanced to understand how
they work, nothing in known physics forbids it.
Possibly something outside known physics prevents con-
structing a node. After all, nobody currently understands how
to build one, so some secrets of their reality remain. It’s also
possible a node, or multiple nodes, exist outside known spaces,
awaiting discovery.
Destroying a Portal
It is virtually impossible to destroy a Murrinres Portal. They
have withstood nuclear explosions, sustained antimatter blasts,
and massive amounts of applied magical force. The Baal Station
Portal is thought to have originally stood an a planet that was
destroyed out from under it, and survived to float in space as
it accreted a comet. Most destructive energy directed at their
structure seems to get transported into the pocket dimension.
One can, however, ruin the control panel. Most can be
smashed, shot to pieces, or blown up. The average specimen has
DR 20-30 points higher than usual for its construction material,
and requires 60-100 HP of damage to destroy. Some control pan-
els can self-repair, but the process takes weeks at a minimum.
Application of some Engineer or Weird Science skills could find
a faster means of sabotage. Some superpowers or spells have
been known to put them out of commission.
If all else fails, somebody with sufficient determination could
destroy the ground on which a Portal sits. Or the entire planet.
Sometimes such an extreme choice is worth it.
would require intrepid and resourceful individuals to jump
from world to world, facing unknown dangers and frequently
getting lost, as they map planets and environments both
within and without the known civilizations. Such adventur-
ers would be well paid indeed – if they survive to deliver the
map they create.
43 Sci-Fi/Tech I
 Play Stupid
Games, Win
Stupid Prizes By Sean Punch
Longtime Pyramid fans will remember Deathball (from
Pyramid #3/3: Venturing Into the Badlands, pp. 4-8): a post-
apocalyptic team sport where the goal is to score, well, goals in
a bloody free-for-all. But when creating a dissolute, dystopian,
or post-apocalyptic setting, one sport isn’t enough, unless
it’s the campaign’s entire focus. The more examples you
include, the more ways players have to connect with these
often alien-seeming societies. Moreover, to compete for mind-
share within the game world, all of these sports must be equally
engaging, which in darker futures means equally bloody.
Here’s a grab-bag of ideas. Some suit “uncivilized” futures,
as in GURPS After the End. Others befit advanced societies
gone horribly wrong; perhaps the state uses death sports to
relieve overpopulation (classic cyberpunk!), maybe syba-
ritic posthumans see life as cheap, or possibly robots regard
humans as playthings (GURPS Reign of Steel, anyone?). And
“virtual” sports of this kind (So, You’re Dead – Now What?,
p. 47), would fit right into Transhuman Space.
What’s Your Game?
Any number of sports are possible, but here’s food for
thought.
Team Sports
Sports like Deathball see groups facing off against one
another. In violent futures, the results resemble a pitched bat-
tle more than a game. Participants typically play particular
roles or positions, broadly split into “offense” and “defense.”
The primary role of offense is to rush into opposing ter-
ritory – or, in a sport like roller derby, just to rush – and
score. Sometimes this involves carrying, throwing, kicking,
or shooting (perhaps literally) something into a goal or end-
zone; other times, the objective is to capture something like
a flag, or conceivably a rival; yet other times, the idea is to be
the first to attain an objective or complete a number of laps.
Traits: Lots of Basic Move! Then improved DX if precise shots
matter; better Basic Speed, or Enhanced Dodge, for eluding
rivals; and good Per, and potentially Peripheral Vision, for
situational awareness.
Pyramid Magazine 44
Players on defense are bigger and tougher. Their job is to
thwart enemy offense. In a blood sport, this involves hard con-
tact. Traits: High ST (and Striking ST, if permitted), HT, and
HP are a must; High Pain Threshold is valuable.
There can be subdivisions. “Offensive guards” who protect
faster teammates against enemy defense need both speed and
strength, and fall somewhere in the middle; in roller-derby-in-
spired sports, they’re most of the team. In games with choke-
points, goals, flags to steal, etc., there may be a static defender
who is scarily big and strong.
Then there are team sports where everybody has a similar
role. For instance, a vicious relay-race variant would require
all players to be fast and tough, with traits from both major
categories. A court game (e.g., “slaughter volleyball”) would
involve fluid roles, and everyone would need moderately high
DX for precise shots.
Individual Sports
Other sports resemble ruthless squash, singles tennis,
or marathoning: one athlete, no backup. That person might
be pitted against a rival or a heat of rivals, but “player vs.
environment” games are a valid option, and still other sports
might involve a single player facing a team, fox-and-hounds
style. Traits: A runner must be fast (Basic Move) – but also
nimble enough to evade rivals (good Dodge), dangerous
enough to fight them off (high ST and combat skills), and/or
tough enough to endure their abuse (HT, HP, etc.). If facing
a whole team alone, evasion is wisest. On a court, DX again
reigns supreme.
Playing Field
Play areas likewise fall into a few broad categories:
Arena: Or “field,” “pitch,” or “rink,” but “arena” sounds nicely
gladiatorial. The key characteristic is that it’s big – boundar-
ies don’t play a major role in the outcome most of the time,
with the exception of sports with goals or endzones. This
usually implies a team sport, though something like one-
on-one motorbike jousts or autodueling requires space.
Sci-Fi/Tech I
For arena sports, boundaries tend to be dangerous (elec-
trified, flaming, spiked, etc.) to keep players from forming
a boring phalanx against a wall. There’s enough surface
area that sponsors and hosts may spice things up with sur-
prises, from pits to landmines.
Court: A court or ring is an arena small enough that its
boundaries significantly affect play. Perhaps they’re used
for rebounds – or maybe it’s a constant battle not to stum-
ble out of bounds and be penalized. Climbable walls, like
a cage or wire fence, are likely. If so, they’ll be closed over-
head – or topped with barbed wire, glass shards, lasers,
etc. – to prevent escapes, and players who clamber up and
attack rivals from above (p. B402) are likely to wow crowds,
who also appreciate bone-crunching falls (p. B431). There
may be a net or other barrier (also dangerous!) down the
middle to adjudicate scoring. Courts suit individual and
team sports alike, the latter kind being larger.
Track: A run or course along or around which player(s)
sprint, roller-skate, drive, etc. It might be circular if victory
conditions involve laps, linear for flat-out speed tests. The
boundaries are definitely dangerous, to encourage runners to
run without a Sandman in pursuit. In vicious, bloody sports,
the track will resemble an obstacle course, with pits and
bladed hurdles to jump, swinging booms to duck, random
flame jets, etc. For added gore, have a repurposed combine
harvester bring up the rear and mangle stragglers.
Winning
By now it should be clear that there are many ways to win.
Broad classes are:
Points: If there are flags to capture, goals to score, nets to
lob balls (or grenades) over, laps to run, etc., there’s proba-
bly a points system. Crowds won’t sit through a match that
ends when the first person or team carries the skull into an
endzone or completes a lap; it’s too easy to win by running,
which is boring. Such sports may have complex scoring sys-
tems, like American football with its touchdowns, field goals,
Duels and Dungeons
Many futuristic combat sports won’t use all of this
advice. Exceptions include:
Duels: Ring or cage matches like boxing or MMA suit
a grim future almost “as is.” Some ideas in What’s Your
Game? (pp. 44-45) – like dangers built into the play area
or its boundaries – may spice things up. Perhaps contes-
tants wear spiked gloves (a myrmex or cestus, GURPS
Martial Arts, p. 226), steel-toed boots or cleats (GURPS
High-Tech, p. 69), or armor, or use weapons. But Playing
the Game (pp. 46-47) is mostly irrelevant. Run combat
using combat skills, not Combat Sport skills and definitely
not Sports! To stand out in a world of blood sports, this is
probably to the death; any rules will concern gear (specta-
tors won’t appreciate a swordfight settled with a gun), and
be so few that Games skill (p. B197) would be, er, overkill.
Dungeons: Survival contests inspired by sources like
The Hunger Games or The Running Man are essentially
“dungeon crawls.” The arena is vast, filled with noncombat
Pyramid Magazine 45
Danger, A-Z
Many ideas here recommend deadly stuff: hazards on
and around the field, and sporting-gear-turned-weapons
for the athletes. Such things necessarily vary by game
world – post-apocalypse settings with limited technology
aren’t TL12^ post-scarcity societies whose bored, blood-
thirsty sybarites reassemble matter! Dangers should match
the sport, too; hockey sticks suit something resembling
hockey, while landmines would be silly in a tiny court, fine
for a vast arena. For many ideas – briars, fires, glass, gas,
shocks, and hard knocks – GURPS Action 5: Dictionary
of Danger provides full stats. See GURPS Ultra-Tech for
all your death-ray, nanotech, and killer-robot needs.
conversions, and safeties – but in a bloody “combat sport,”
this will rate physical risk and/or how many maimings or
deaths occurred.
First Past the Post: A sport where the victor is the first per-
son or team to attain some arbitrary target might find fans if
the risk is high enough. A good example is a track sport involv-
ing seriously scary obstacles – say, landmines!
Survival: The objective might be to be the last person
standing. If no rivals can continue, you win! This is often
an alternative victory condition to one of the above. It’s the
only acceptable victory condition for a duel (below), be it
“ultra-boxing” or laser-tag with actual laser weapons.
Escape: Survival could mean getting out of the dangerous
play area and into a safe zone. This is especially likely in fox-
and-hounds style sports wherein a lone runner must elude
many foes they have little hope of defeating. But in a particu-
larly bloody sport, the individual or team that exits the arena
first might trigger the shooting, drowning, nerve-gassing, etc. of
everybody left behind – including tardy teammates! It should
be hard to distinguish “survival” from “escape.”
challenges that use standard skills – Climbing, Computer
Hacking (to tamper with network uplinks), First Aid,
Traps, etc. Periodically, combat breaks out among contes-
tants or against “monsters” like assassins, death robots,
and mutant beasts that work for the event hosts; handle
this as standard combat There might be a Games skill
that functions like Area Knowledge, hinting at likely loca-
tions of supplies, dangers, and technology to meddle with.
There won’t be an overarching Sports skill, but there could
be “bonus” mini-games that follow the advice in Playing
the Game (pp. 46-47), each with its own Sports skill.
Rallies: Contests like that in Death Race 2000 might
rage across continents, the participants being pursued
by hordes of fans – or camera-equipped drones. These
amount to “dungeons” where vehicle skills take the front
seat. Scoring 40 points for a murdering a random teen-
ager, 70 points for a toddler, and 100 points for a senior
citizen is optional but thematic.
Sci-Fi/Tech I

Playing the Game
There are several ways to play out sports. All require skills
to roll against. With the exception of those in Duels and
Dungeons (p. 45), this means a Sports skill.
Sports
see p. B222
Futuristic sports that are neither simple duels nor entire
adventures each have their own Sports skill. A DX‑ or HT‑
based roll lets athletes perform the sport’s standard non-
combat feats: throwing, catching, running, etc. Sports also
gives an “active defense” of (skill/2) + 3 to avoid tackles, evade
the sport’s predictable obstacles (not the surprises of bored
warlords and ratings-seeking networks!), or intercept enemy
passes (Catching, p. B355). An IQ-based roll works like Games
to answer “Can I get away with this?”, but not to cheat.
Even in the bloodiest sports, Sports doesn’t replace com-
bat skills. To grab, hit, shove, shoot, or otherwise mangle
rivals, learn a suitable combat skill. Brawling and Wrestling
are nigh-universal – and in sports with gear that can serve
as weapons, so are any skills that calls for (e.g., Staff for a
hockey stick). If the sport involves riding beasts or vehicles,
learn Riding or a vehicle-operation skill for that.
At the GM’s option, Sports might have a variety of tech-
niques like Catch, Evade, and Throw, improved by those who
play certain positions. Treat them like Evade (GURPS Martial
Arts, p. 71): Average, defaults to Sports, cannot be improved
past Sports+5. If something seems too effective, have it default
at a penalty and cap it at Sports skill.
Pyramid Magazine
Ultra-Fast Ultra-Violence
The quickest way to settle a match is to roll
a Quick Contest of Sports. For team sports, use
the average Sports skill of each side, and if actual
teamwork is involved – not a requirement! – limit
this to the captain’s Leadership (if plans are
made in the thick of things) or coach’s Tactics
(if they’re made in the locker room beforehand).
The winner wins. The loser loses.
Both sides suffer whatever consequences the
GM feels are “typical” of the sport. This might be
abstract (“Winner loses 1d HP; loser suffers 3d
HP.”) or explicit (“Winner escapes; loser is dosed
with Nanoburn.”). The GM may create a table
of suitable hazards (explosions, flame, shocks,
etc.) and rule that the winner rolls fewer times
than the loser. Either may be linked to margin
(“Winner loses 1d HP, loser suffers dice equal to
margin of loss,” or “Winner rolls once on the table,
loser rolls once per point of loss.”). Yes, it’s possi-
ble to win and still die!
Ties get interesting. In some sports, they go to
“the house” and everybody is equally hurt. In oth-
ers, there’s sudden-death overtime – perhaps lit-
erally. The latter might simply be repeated Quick
Contests with the usual consequences until there’s
a clear winner or somebody is too dead to con-
tinue (if you die on a tie, too bad). Or there could
be a mini-game to settle ties; e.g., a pistol duel.
To put the “combat” in “combat sports,” use
the Combat Results Table on p. 36 of GURPS Mass
Combat, reading “casualties” as percentage of posi-
tive HP lost (e.g., ‑20% causes 2 HP of injury to someone
with HP 10), percentage of certain death at ‑5¥HP (so ‑20%
causes that person 12 HP of injury), or even percentage of the
team maimed or killed!
Not So Fast
In sports with points systems, it can be fun to roll repeated
Quick Contests and add up margins of victory until someone’s
total reaches a magic number. Painful consequences could
occur at the end or be assessed at each stage as suggested for
a tie above. In the latter case, victory because the other side
can’t continue is usually possible.
In other sports, Regular Contests are the way to go. Keep
rolling until there’s a clear winner. This is more fun if each
Contest involves everybody getting battered and bruised. Per-
haps not lethally, but just enough – say, 1d HP of injury, or a
single roll on roll on the random hazards table. Again, victory
by default may occur if someone can’t continue.
Details, Details
Most dramatically, game out the match on a combat map!
This is most exciting for team sports in arenas or on tracks.
The GM sketches out the field, place hazards and obsta-
cles, and defines objectives like “capture this flag and bring
it here,” “occupy this hex for 10 turns to score a point,” or
“cross this finish line.” Then the players place their charac-
ters on the map and move in combat time, using standard
combat maneuvers (pp. B364-366).
46 Sci-Fi/Tech I
 A few of these merit extra notes: Move and Attack: Used to run down the field and then take
a shot – or slam a rival. The former is a ranged attack (‑2 to hit,
Aim: Where things are hurled, kicked, or shot, the Aim
or Bulk where worse); the latter has no penalty or skill cap.
bonus does add to Sports skill for passes or scoring attempts.
The ‑2 on rolls to avoid obstacles is especially significant on
All-Out Defense: A goalkeeper or similar can use Increased
hazard-riddled fields!
Defense to get +2 to block a shot. Anyone can use it for +2
Ready: Used to pick up a handy weapon – or to take control
to intercept a pass (Catching, p. B355). Either is instead of a
of a loose flag, ball, or puck, in sports that have them. Also
bonus to defend oneself.
useful for handing off such things; see Readying Weapons and
Attack and All-Out Attack: Useful for attacking rivals –
Other Gear (p. B382). It’s more dramatic on the fly, so the GM
whether to maim them or to grab something – but also to
may allow a “Move and Ready” that allows assuming control
shoot or kick something down a field or into a goal, or to pass
or handing off at a run. This requires a Sports roll to succeed
over a distance longer than a yard. Standard bonuses and pen-
(by both parties, in handoffs), with failure meaning a fumble.
alties (e.g., for range and target size) apply.
Like Move and Attack, it gives ‑2 on rolls to avoid obstacles,
Evaluate: The GM may permit the bonus to add to any
forbids retreating, and precludes parrying.
Sports roll made against one rival you’re “covering,” even if it
Wait: Extremely useful for intercepting rivals! Also makes it
isn’t strictly an attack.
easier to catch a pass; see Catching (p. B355).
Feint: A Feint rolled as a Quick Contest of Sports can give
a goalkeeper or someone who’s “covering” you a penalty to
block your shot or cut you off.
Move: Used to cover ground when carrying things across
Stupid Prizes
This could be precious supplies in a post-apocalyptic set-
goal lines or running off with flags – or in races. Don’t forget
ting, freedom or citizenship in a dystopia, or just not dying.
Sprinting (p. B354).
What, you thought it would be something better?

Rules? Where We’re Going, We Don’t Need Rules!

Actually, you do, even in the bloodiest sports.
First, there must be some way to determine who won:
who escaped, scored highest, was first past the finish line,
whatever. Without that, you have a battle – not a sport.
Not that battles aren’t sometimes called sports, but they
still need “victory conditions.”
Next, there’s inevitably a definition of “out of bounds.”
This is to keep athletes from doing the sensible thing and
fleeing the field in perilous sports where escape isn’t the
intended victory condition! It might be tied to the scoring
system: Step out of bounds and lose points.
And except in last-man-standing survival, some brutal-
ity may be illegal. If not, nobody will bother to run, advance
the ball, or do whatever else brings victory – they’ll kill
their rivals and then boringly walk the bases. Yawn. Thus,
grappling and nonlethal blows might be the order of the
day. Accidental deaths, particularly those caused by haz-
ards of the field (falls, traps, combine harvesters, etc.), are
another matter; canny players seek to shove or trick oppo-
nents into such fates.
All of this is covered by a suitable Games skill (p. B197),
which would-be cheaters should learn. A successful roll
answers “Can I get away with this?” In refereed sports,
Games can be used for an Influence roll (p. B359) to get
away with murder – often literally! The usual ‑3 for this
abuse is waived, because the judges know that spectators
want blood, but roll at ‑6 when the aim is to beg for mercy
or avoid harm.

So, You’re Dead – Now What?

Violent sports are a good way to get maimed or killed. is harmed. That’s unlikely to be normal, intended function-
That’s no fun when it happens to a PC. A few workarounds: ality, but illegal blood sports tend to up the ante!
Respawn! Those using virtual or robot bodies may
There’s No “I” In “Team.” In a campaign focused on
be able to resume a match if crippled or killed. In ultra-
sports, each player might have a “stable” of athletes. This
advanced or superscience societies, they could even reap-
works best for team sports, but could also work for indi-
pear in clone bodies, or all-new bodies materialized using
vidual sports sponsored by clans, wasteland settlements,
replicators (Ultra-Tech, pp. 93-94), with their minds
corporations, etc.
uploaded (Ultra-Tech, pp. 219-221). Limited “lives” are
It Was All Just a Dream. In a non-post-apocalyptic
likely, especially if they involve costly robots or clones!
future, sports needn’t be “real” in the sense that actual
Even if cost is no object, there may be a limited number of
people are breaking actual bones. We have violent video
respawns to keep things interesting: Run out and you lose.
games today. Maybe tomorrow, people play VR games – or
Or maybe you just lose points for respawns. Regardless,
real physical ones via robots controlled through telepres-
you’re sure to lose time as your replacement loads in at a
ence. This completely insulates players from harm . . .
“respawn point,” even as rivals continue the race or score
well, unless the neural interface (GURPS Ultra-Tech,
on an empty goal.
pp. 48-49) involved can injure or kill the user if their proxy

Pyramid Magazine 47 Sci-Fi/Tech I

 Random
Thought Table
Gone but Not Forgotten
By Steven Marsh, Pyramid Editor
Welcome back! Where were we?
I recently played my first AAA video game on release date
in . . . let’s call it “forever.” The game in question was Marvel’s
Avengers. I’m trying to keep this relatively spoiler-free, but
I’ll say that I was probably the exact audience for a game like
this, and I really dug it (at least the single-player campaign
mode – I haven’t done much in the online multiplayer).
However, there was one element that I found particularly
inspirational for my gaming. (And, again, minor spoiler warn-
ing.) At some point, you find yourself in a derelict vessel. Part
of the game is bringing that craft “back to life” as you com-
plete missions and make progress in the game.
This led me to realize that the notion of the “abandoned
[whatever]” is common in gaming. In fact, it’s great inspi-
ration for countless potential adventures (see, for example,
pp. 28-31). But this iteration of “derelict” is different and
particularly applicable to modern and future gaming: the
known derelict.
Normally, abandoned locations and vehicles are unknown,
at least to the adventurers. Sure, most dungeons and the like
started life as Uncle Overlord’s Emporium of Evil, but the
heroes don’t know that. This means that they’re going mostly
blind into any situation.
However, in any world with modern-or-better information,
it’s quite possible that full and (seemingly) complete maps or
schematics are available for most locations and large vehicles,
assuming it’s been created within the confines of that techno-
logical record-keeping and barring efforts at secrecy.
So how does the existence – or assumption – of knowl-
edge change things? Let’s look at some various map-related
possibilities.
There’s Abandoned,
and There’s “Abandoned”
Although the core assumption is the proverbial “dusty cor-
ridors” of an abandoned location holding some great secret or
plot point, the advice in this article works for thriving areas
as well. However, people actually using a place affects why
and how information is different from what the heroes have
Pyramid Magazine 48
before showing up – “a hidden alcove of evil robots created by
a mad scientist 100 years ago” will have different ephemera
than “a hidden alcove of evil robots created by a mad scien-
tist last week – and here’s her monogrammed coffee cup.” Of
course, any abandoned location could have some kind of pres-
ence in it – quite possibly reoccupying it – if for no other rea-
son than to give the exploratory scene a reason to exist beyond
what could be delivered via exposition or a few dice rolls.
These Are the Droids
You’re Looking For
From an adventure standpoint, most roleplaying games
keep locations and maps secret to impart a sense of mystery.
Ooh! Where does this room lead? What other exits can we
use tactically?
However, that’s not strictly necessary for suspense or sur-
prises. If I go to a new book or game store, the sense of sur-
prise doesn’t come from finding a trap door or a hidden alcove
that leads to an unknown annex. No, their surprises come
from the contents, the people, and the interactions.
So even if we know a huge amount about a location ahead
of time, it’s still more than possible to give heroes that sense of
wonder, shock, or danger.
What Door?
It’s possible that the heroes’ information is only slightly
incorrect. Maybe there’s a room that isn’t on their map. Per-
haps an area was subdivided in a way that isn’t reflected in
the schematics. This can instill that aforementioned won-
der as with an unknown locale, even when within a larger
known locale.
If you go this route, it’s tempting to make any diversion
from the known map a Big Deal. However, that may not be
the best plan, especially in an ongoing campaign. After all,
if the players associate “different from map” with “Incredi-
ble Secret That Must Be Uncovered,” then they’re likely to
divert all focus to dissecting every difference they encounter.
Sci-Fi/Tech I
That’s fine when you want to use the differences as an encoun-
ter flag, but it can blunt the impact of any interesting elements
you are trying to hide. It’s similar to how – in a horror cam-
paign – sometimes the lights should flicker even when it’s just
a faulty electrical system. Maybe the unlabeled closet has a
murderous guard robot activated by light; maybe it has boots.
To make the game world feel more lived-in, it’s useful to
devise a reason for these minor differences beyond “gotta
mess with the players.” Some possibilities include:
• The data source the heroes have isn’t updated every time
a change is made. In this case, you can give the heroes an
idea of how often the data source is updated, and contrast
that with the addition or revision: “Your map dates back to
a year ago, but this door was clearly installed within the past
month or two.”
• The tweak is minor enough that it’s not even considered
a tweak, per se. For example, maybe a garage door is jammed
in the permanently open position, making it easier for the
occupants but removing a tactical possibility for the heroes.
In this case, the heroes may be able to undo the modification
or tweak, to their benefit.
• The revision is hiding something for bureaucratic rea-
sons. Maybe the legal standards under which the location or
vehicle operates forbid subdividing rooms in such a fashion.
Maybe the door that was added opens the “wrong way” for
fire-code reasons, but made sense to the people making the
alteration (for purposes such as keeping a tighter light seal for
a darkroom or hologram chamber).
• It’s covering up a mistake. Humans have been covering
up their mistakes to try to avoid getting in trouble since at least
the Garden of Eden. Maybe the information isn’t reflected on
the heroes’ resources because it’d be possibly embarrassing
or actionable against someone in power. Maybe there was a
fire that destroyed a portion of the location, and it was rebuilt
Pyramid Magazine 49
differently from the map (and not reported because “I burned
your base” reflects poorly on the base-commander perfor-
mance review). Perhaps the vehicle was involved in an acci-
dent or confrontation that required a chunk of it to be rebuilt.
Something Is Very,
Very Wrong
There’s always the possibility that the schematic doesn’t
match up at all with where the heroes find themselves. In some
ways, having a map that’s really incorrect is almost worse than
not having any map, since it’s too easy for the adventurers to
make bad assumptions or get in over their heads. Let’s look at
how that can go wrong.
These Aren’t Starship Blueprints;
It’s the Map to Zork II!
Probably the least-problematic situation for the heroes is
to discover almost immediately that the information they have
is wrong. They get to the location only to discover that the
outpost clearly has five doors on the front instead of three and
two levels instead of one. They crumple up the map and toss
it aside.
Ironically, this is the most realistic outcome. What’s more
likely: hiding a secret antechamber in otherwise accurate
blueprints, or accidentally switching maps somewhere along
the data pipeline? Storing information is complex, and mix-
ups are often one misclick away. Maybe the heroes got a map
for an outpost on Ceti Alpha VI instead of the one on Ceti
Alpha V. This is especially true if the particular records that
the protagonists need are seldom accessed; any errors are thus
unlikely to be found and reported.
Sci-Fi/Tech I
 Of course, this doesn’t preclude any villain from misfiling
or obfuscating information deliberately. If it’s logical and triv-
ially easy for data to be lost in the digital flotsam, then it’s at
least as easy to misplace it deliberately.
It’s Right Until It’s Wrong
From a game-challenge standpoint, arguably the cruelest
possibility is for the map to seem correct, until the heroes get
too far into the situation to back out or realize that they’re
getting into trouble. Imagine the panic on the players’ faces as
their heroes get in the elevator from the space station’s Level
1 — where their map was completely accurate – to Level 2 . . .
where it’s completely wrong. Oh, and the elevator won’t take
the heroes back to Level 1. Good luck.
To Map or
Not to Map
The assumption here is that the heroes have
access to considerable information about the aban-
doned location. This isn’t necessary, of course, and
plenty of games get good mileage from unknown
locales. Basically, treat having minimal information
like typical dungeon crawls, and you’ll be fine.
Knowing that a map is available doesn’t strictly
require that the GM create a map for the players to
use. In a freeform-enough campaign, it can sim-
ply be a matter of making sure the players know
that their heroes have information available to
them: “You know that – when the records were last
updated – the entryway required a passcode, which
is ‘reallythatsthepassword’ . . . lowercase, no punctu-
ation, all one word. The entryway leads to a research
area on the right, and some offices on the left. Your
goal is located in the back office . . .”
Dead or Alive
When considering the interaction between infor-
mation the heroes have and the actual locale, it
can be useful to determine if a place is currently
active, abandoned, or some combination thereof
(was abandoned once but has since been reoccu-
pied, perhaps by those who aren’t as conscientious
about updating maps or records?). Currently active
locations might depart from available info because
of short-term problems and/or solutions, deviations
between when information is sent and when it’s
updated in the archives the heroes access, or active
misinformation. In an abandoned location, the rela-
tionship between historical data and the state of the
place currently is dependent on the gap between
its abandonment and the “present day”; the further
in the past, the more likely that information is old,
outdated, or corrupted. And a reoccupied location
allows for all manner of deviation.
Pyramid Magazine 50
But how would something like that happen? Well, here are
some options.
• Oops. It’s a data glitch. Somehow, parts of multi-page
maps from several similar locales were mixed up, so that one
section the heroes get is accurate but another section is com-
pletely wrong.
• It’s secret. The most likely possibility is that the maps
have been deliberately altered or obfuscated, so that a signif-
icant element is hidden or obscured. The person who modi-
fied the maps and/or made the alterations or additions to the
locale might have done so without authorization from their
superiors or a larger entity. If the company that the master-
mind works for has a specific department for Making Sure
Giant Robots Aren’t Built on Bases, then it behooves that mas-
termind to make sure both the blueprint doesn’t accurately
reflect the giant-robot storage facility and has enough “cor-
rect” map information to easily convince someone checking
on the location. In such a case, the heroes’ confusion is just
a side effect from trying to trick whomever the obfuscator
thinks is the real threat.
• It’s a trap! The scariest prospect is that the mastermind
behind the incorrect map deliberately aimed to confuse and
entrap interlopers exactly in the manner the PCs find them-
selves. This is the least realistic option unless Bond-esque
villains are a feature of the campaign world, but it has the
potential to be the most memorable and gut-dropping. If you
go this route, then you might as well go all the way; if there’s
a specific map feature or element that would be irresistible
to the heroes (or players!), go ahead and include it: “There’s
supposed to be a secret cache of Elder tech on this floor! The
map’s been right for the past three floors; it can’t be wrong!”
• It’s weird. Even odder reasons are possible. For example,
maybe some kind of dimensional rift exists between one por-
tion and the next of a locale – the map is “wrong” from our
universe’s perspective, but perfectly fine from wherever the
explorers stepped over to. Or maybe the heroes are all trapped
in some kind of virtual-reality simulation, and they’re sending
themselves the “incorrect” maps as a sign that things aren’t
what they seemed. It’s your universe; go nuts.
We Know the Unknowable
As an out-there idea, perhaps the information the heroes
have is better than they expected and particularly helpful for
the situation they’re going into. Algorithms might determine
and then highlight the most-likely locations of hidden areas
unknown to the map’s human creators. Artificial intelligences
may give insight into the current occupants of an abandoned
area, based on projected reports of activities in the area.
Tactical possibilities might be laid out more explicitly. This
can be especially useful if the adventure is designed around
outmatched heroes up against a vastly superior force.
About the Editor
Steven Marsh is a freelance writer and editor. He has con-
tributed to roleplaying game releases from Steve Jackson
Games, Green Ronin, West End Games, White Wolf, Hogshead
Publishing, and others. He has been editing Pyramid since
2000; during that time, he won four Origins awards. He lives
in Indiana with his wife, Nikola Vrtis, and their son.
Sci-Fi/Tech I
 About the
Authors
Jason Brick is a freelance writer whose 30-year gam-
ing habit has included all four versions of GURPS, plus
countless other systems. His work can be found in maga-
zines worldwide. In his spare time, he enjoys travel, mar-
tial arts, and time with his family. Read more at his blog,
writelikehell.com.
Roger Burton West wrangles computers near London, UK.
He has had articles published in volumes 2 and 3 of Pyramid,
co-wrote GURPS Reign of Steel: Will to Live, and wrote
GURPS Disasters: Meltdown and Fallout; whoever’s mon-
itoring his web searches has probably dismissed him as a
harmless crank. His gaming website is tekeli.li.
Aleksei Isachenko worked as an engineer at an aircraft
plant and is now an associate professor in the department of
manufacturing engineering. Psionic powers are used exten-
sively in his games, be they science fiction or fantasy. He
wishes to thank his gaming group for support in this foray
into writing. Special thanks to Christopher R. Rice for some
great suggestions.
Sean Punch set out to become a particle physicist in 1985
and ended up as GURPS Line Editor in 1995. In that capacity,
he has written, edited, or contributed to hundreds of GURPS
releases, revised the game into its fourth edition (2004),
and been a regular contributor to Pyramid magazine. From
2008, he has served as lead creator of the GURPS Action and
Pyramid Magazine 51
GURPS Dungeon Fantasy series; work on the latter led to his
design of the Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game, released
in 2017. Sean has been a gamer since 1979, but devotes most
of his spare time to Argentine tango. He lives in Montréal,
Québec with son amour, Geneviève.
Christopher R. Rice has been published in Pyramid mul-
tiple times, and now he’s been published in the newest
iteration. He’s also authored, co-authored, or contributed
to eight GURPS supplements (and counting!) on a range
of subjects. Of course, if he’s not writing about GURPS,
he’s blogging about it. Visit his site, “Ravens N’ Pennies”
(www.ravensnpennies.com), for more GURPS goodies.
He wishes to thank L.A., for being the wonderful, amazing,
inspiring woman that she is – not every man gets his muse
personified in the flesh! He also wishes to thank his gam-
ing group – the Headhunters – for alpha testing, his family
(especially his mother), and Elizabeth “Archangel Beth”
McCoy, his Sith Editrix mentor. The rules for Triggered
Recharge for Energy Reserves were created by Antoni Ten
Monrós and have been reproduced here with his permission.
Matt Riggsby is trained in anthropology and archaeology
and, like the rest of his generation, has a job in computers. He
works for an international healthcare IT company and lives
with his lovely and talented wife, an above-average child, and
a pack of dogs.
Longtime gamers, Carolyn Ivy Stein and Steve Stein have
played GURPS since the release of the Third Edition in 1988.
Carolyn is a freelance writer. Steve is a professor of military
and maritime history at the University of Memphis, and has
published three books, most recently The Sea in World History:
Exploration, Travel, and Trade (ABC-CLIO, 2017). He also
teaches strategy for the Naval War College.
J. Edward Tremlett, a.k.a. “the Lurker in Lansing,” takes his
ancient keyboard from its hiding place and unfurls his words
upon the world. His bizarre lifestyle has taken him to such
exotic locales as South Korea and Dubai. He is a frequent con-
tributor to Pyramid, was the editor of The Wraith Project, and
has seen print in The End Is Nigh, Worlds of Cthulhu, and the
anthology Ride the Star Wind. He’s the author of the fictional
blog SPYGOD’s Tales (spygod-tales.blogspot.com), and lives
in Lansing with one cat and enough Lego bricks to make a
Great Old One. Maybe he already has.
Matt Wehmeier holds a master’s degree in history from
the University of Chicago. A Chicagoland native, he has been
reading GURPS supplements and looking out with wonder
at the infinite worlds for over a decade. His counterpart on
Homeline is a senior analyst at Infinity specializing in Western
and Central European comparative politics.
Sci-Fi/Tech I
 About GURPS
Steve Jackson Games is committed to full sup-
port of GURPS players. We can be reached by email:
info@sjgames.com. Our address is SJ Games, P.O. Box
18957, Austin, TX 78760. Resources include:
New supplements and adventures. GURPS continues to
grow – see what’s new at gurps.sjgames.com.
Warehouse 23. Our online store offers GURPS print
items, plus PDFs of our books, supplements, adventures,
play aids, and support . . . including exclusive mate-
rial available only on Warehouse 23! Just head over to
warehouse23.com.
Internet. To discuss GURPS with our staff and your
fellow gamers, visit our forums at forums.sjgames.com.
You can also join us at facebook.com/sjgames or
twitter.com/sjgames. Share your brief campaign teasers
with #GURPShook on Twitter. Or explore that hashtag for
ideas to add to your own game! The Pyramid web page is
pyramid.sjgames.com.
Store Finder (storefinder.sjgames.com): Discover
nearby places to buy GURPS items and other Steve
Jackson Games products. Local shops are great places to
play our games and meet fellow gamers!
Bibliographies. Bibliographies are a great resource for
finding more of what you love! We’ve added them to many
GURPS book web pages with links to help you find the
next perfect element for your game.
Errata. Everyone makes mistakes, including us – but
we do our best to fix our errors. Errata pages for GURPS
releases are available at sjgames.com/errata/gurps.
Rules and statistics in this book are specifically for the
GURPS Basic Set, Fourth Edition. Page references that
begin with B refer to that book, not this one.

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Pyramid Magazine 52 Sci-Fi/Tech I