HotZone 4

A companion and concurrent campaign to HotZone (East Timor), HotZone Deux(Corsica), and HotZone 3 (Albania).

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.

You're all freelance mercenaries who have been working as a team for the last five years, based out of a cliffside mansion in Romania, overlooking the Black Sea. The home was built in the 1700s by a Russian Czar, and you've modernized it with a basement firing range, a cyber-operations room, a helipad, and seven-car garage.

It's typical for the team to go months between missions, and during downtime, you might drink and gamble in Bucharest or Odessa, assist Doctors Without Borders in Turkey, parasail the Black Sea, train with your Aikido master in Berlin, hunt in the mountains, or just stay home and do Crossfit with your live-in concierge Tatiana Rushenko.

Some recent missions include:

• For a cool million in American small bills, you infiltrated a Russian military compound in Ukraine to seize sensitive nuclear materials. Your contact on the gig was Sylvia Montana.
• Mr. Black dispatched you to Zaire to rescue a mining executive and her family. It was a messy job, but because of your long relationship with Mr. Black, the modest payment was a crate of the cutting-edge assault weapons.
• As a favor to Tatiana, you traveled all the way to Las Vegas to extract her kid sister, who had fallen for an immigration scam. You convinced the gang of human traffickers to accept $10,000 for her freedom, and young Eva Rushenko works as a cocktail waitress at a Romanian seaside resort just down the road now.
• You waged an all out assault on a Divine Disorder cell in Denmark. This job came courtesy of a request by Sven Svensen, an Interpol officer who calls you in when legal jurisdictional problems are delaying justice.

Character Creation

Background stories and proposed character details are due to the GM by end of day March March 3, 2016.

These are 200 point action hero characters.

Constraints:

• Though your skills may be focused anywhere you like, you are a capable tactical operator. You can run and shoot.
• Nothing supernatural.
• You can speak English competently -- additional languages are encouraged (and cost a couple points each).
• Your background almost certainly includes years of some country's military training. But you're no longer officially affiliated with any government agency.

Please provide:

• Name, gender, age (28-55), height, weight
• Appearance description + (Hideous/Ugly/Unattractive/Average/Attractive/Gorgeous)
• Background story (many examples at HotZone#Characters, HotZone_Deux#Characters, HotZone_3#Characters)
• If trained by a national military, which? What focus? How long?
• Native language, additional languages
• Personality and/or proposed Advantages & Disadvantages
• One or more Contacts -- an acquaintance, somewhere, who might be able to provide information. More valuable contacts cost more, of course.
• Skills -- your focus/expertise
• Desired Attributes (ST, IQ, DX, HT, 8-16)
• Desired "go bag" gear. Two revolvers and a bulletproof vest? 12 lbs of C4? $50k in cash? Laptop and bug detector? Etc. Additional gear will be available, this is just a starter list.
• Anything special you want to propose. Deep kingfu training. Insane pistol skills. Ability to pilot any aircraft. Rapid Healing. Tons of hit points.
• Quirks, dislikes, habits, sayings, prejudices, scars, tattoos, enemies, etc.