HotZone Deux

A companion and concurrent campaign to HotZone.

Characters

Initial GM: John

• ????, played by Nigel
• ????, played by ????
• ????, played by Josh
• ????, played by Rick

Background

Global Context

(The following was written in 2007.) It's ten years in the future on Gurth, and the world has changed significantly in the last 20 years. America invaded Iraq in 2003, and tensions began escalating worldwide immediately. In 2008, the sectarian violence in Iraq spread like wildfire, and War in Iraq became the War in the Middle East which became the Central Asian Crisis. Long before pundits stopped changing the label, it was a world class clusterfuck. Had Russia, China, and India not united to quell the violence through diplomatic means in 2011-2012, the crisis was on track to evolve into World War 3.

This gradual unraveling of peaceful cohabitation was apparent to military leaders in numerous countries, and in fact the United States Special Operations Command presciently predicted a change in strategy would be required way back in 2006 when they issued the following public statement:

“Creating conditions where people want to live peacefully is a powerful weapon against terrorism. Direct action will become increasingly restricted as the Global War on Terrorism matures. Indirect actions of Foreign Internal Defense and Civil Affairs programs are the key to winning the war on terror.” 1

Powerful governments with awesome military arsenals became increasingly aware that wielding their power was becoming politically untenable in all but the most extreme situations. United States Special Operations Command, as just one example of a trend worldwide, quadrupled in funding and personnel from 2008-2015, but forced a significant portion of their Direct Action specialists into early retirement, and instead filled their ranks with civil engineers, psy ops specialists, administrators, and diplomats.

However, focused Direct Action operations will always be required when organized groups are willing to commit violence to contravene national interests, and so outside of government military operations, a second and third tier of operatives evolved. The second tier consisted of large private security companies, with tens of thousands of employees, some tiny portion of which could be used for “wet work” of Direct Action operations.

The third tier has evolved over the past 7-8 years. Increasing public scrutiny over and demand for transparency in military expenditures in industrialized nations worldwide has made certain operations difficult to fund through the large and somewhat infamous security corporations. However, worldwide, government agencies always have funds available for classified “black” operations, and it is here that the third tier of operatives has found its niche.

This third tier, or “SubNet” is a loose affiliation of a few thousand specialists and commanders worldwide, mostly ex-military. By adopting terrorist organizations' practice of maintaining “cells” which know little about global operations, the SubNet maintains a thick veil and appears to be nothing more than disconnected gangs of shadowy figures.

Your Team

Your team is one such cell.

Back in 2017, you were recruited by Agent Zero, a senior MI6 operative, to become a part of a standing team of off-the-books assets. Though you've had a lot of leisure time between missions, you've now conducted several successful operations and have established a fortified home base north of Bastia, Corsica.

Your villa on the coast of Corsica

Your high-speed cruising vessel

The adventure that brought you together involved parachuting at night onto the grounds of a terrorist training camp in the hills of Morocco to rescue a British diplomat. Agent Zero paid your team a million euros (all in 20-euro notes) for a perfectly executed mission.

In 2018, Pierre Gaston, the famous French billionaire art collector, gave you the Corsican villa where you now reside and a powerboat capable of 100km/hr after your successful rescue of his son from Algerian kidnappers.

In 2019, Prince Ahlaman of Saudi Arabia gave you one of his personal 12-seat jets (capable of 1300km/hr) after you successfully tracked down and neutralized an African warlord who had failed to deliver a diamond comparable to the famous Centenary Diamond. (You keep the jet at a private airstrip 15km away from the house, and have a German pilot on call with an hour's notice.)

In 2020, an Italian bureaucrat of unknown rank paid you €500k in small bills to disrupt the unknown plans of Divine Disorder relevant to an international banking conference in Rome. Your team discovered that the anarchists planned to shut down the traffic light system to create an impassable Italian snarl, and you detained their engineers until the conference was over.

In 2021, a Tunisian oil executive paid you a small fortune in emeralds to locate and retrieve his 22-year-old daughter who had fallen in with armed fighters in the brewing border conflict between Algeria and Libya. The young woman didn't want to be found, or rescued, and so it turned into a kidnapping mission, difficult but successful.

Months can pass between operations, so you have a lot of time to pursue other interests. But nothing gets your blood flowing like being on a dangerous covert mission, and so restless and boredom are common. If you're into that sort of thing, you might amuse yourself with frequent trips to Monaco to gamble, the Italian Alps to ski, Barcelona to party. There is also plenty of mountain climbing and scuba diving opportunities in the immediate area of your headquarters.

Character Creation

200 points total
max 100 attributes
max 75 disadvantages
max 50 advantages
max 5 quirks

You can be originally from anywhere in the world. You must speak English, and can speak up to 5 other languages if have a few sentences about why you can.

Before becoming a part of this team, what were you up to? Leading guerrilla fighters in Ecuador? Cracking bank security codes in Australia? Running guns from China to the highest bidder in Africa? Chasing drug dealers in the Caribbean? Running security operations for a nonprofit in war-torn South Sudan? Stealing launch codes for missile silos in India? You decide.

You can be a specialist or a generalist, but you should have some skills and talents useful on dangerous missions where techniques such as violence, subterfuge, seduction, surveillance, hacking, breaking and entering, demolition, and stealth are frequently employed. It’s highly likely you received some military training -- describe it. Otherwise, explain why you have those skills. But if you also want to be a great singer, or gardener, or tightrope walker, or anything else, spend the points and add those to your skills list.

Money: You have cash, lots of cash, and more money in your individual Swiss accounts. The exact amount shouldn't become an issue.

Gear: You can have whatever you like that is consistent with a mobile force of operatives, including:

• Earbud communicators
• Handheld/wristwatch computers
• Multiple small arms
• Night vision gear
• Body armor (thin and concealable or thick and impenetrable)
• Surveillance gear
• Electronics/hacking/security gear
• Explosives

If you want any heavy military hardware or other 'questionable' items, ask the GM. No nukes. ;)