I’ve discovered this problem a few years back. When I create a character I truly love, I just can’t let it go. At all.

It all started with an NPC called Shiro. a japanese teenager in a Magical Girl game (I know, I know) that I just really loved.  A little arrogant, rude, kind of a bastard, but ultimately, a man with a good heart and a chip on his shoulder.  When the game (that I played during my classes in highschool with Ophite) died as a result of the year being over, I decided the character was awesome and was kinda sad he would be gone forever.

Thus, I decided he would return, and he did. Shiro had between 5 to 10 interpretations in different settings, different systems, he went from an agressive young fighter to a troubled hero-cop in WoD. I did not make the error of making him overpowered when he was a NPC, no, I just can’t get over him, or a few others, really.

The truth is, it became some kind of Fan Service to my long-time players. Loveable inside-jokes and such. My players remember the magical merchant Kerstan, who was also a slave to a powerful entity in an earlier game of DnD, and a possessed chemist later on. He was always a eloquent 7 foot tall, 110 pounds freak of nature that spoke only is raspy wispers and entered your personnal space, but was, in the end, a really swell guy (if scary as hell).

The fact is, I can’t get enough of my fan service, from the famous Milliarriss (ridiculously gleeful catfolk) to the “died by attack of opportunity” Morann (ridiculously gleeful sociopathic necromancer, the party loved her, she collected fingers, but they needed to be given willingly), I just can’t get over them.

Ah, confessions! I’m not one to reuse character concepts because I hate the idea that I’m a specialist type of player. But every game, a piece of me wants to come back to these awesome characters of old and play the shit out of ‘em.

More Year Zero goodness! Introducing a funky duo of NPCs the PCs hopefully will cross!

“Is he alive in there?”

The man was rather average in build, had blond hair and a joking smile. He was dressed odd red and black robes, clashing both with his bright hair and the stark whiteness of the laboratory. He knocked on the glass of a large glass tube. Inside was a naked, hairless man. Closer to a machine than any man had been before. He was a volunteer, it was all good. “We advise you not to do that, sir.” The other man in the room, a small scientist with large glasses and dark hair. He always refused to get his eyes fixed through surgery. His collegues never knew why.

“Can you wake him up, I’d love to introduce him to…” He looked at his papers. “Well, to himself, mostly. Would be nice for him to know who he is. Or will be. Or could be if he doesn’t kill us all!” He laughed, no one else did. “Enough jokes, good man, wake our friend the super-weapon up. You did set up the frequencies for the control chip to the voice-set we gave you, right?”

The smaller man looked at him with the blank eyes of a disillusionned, annoyed scientific genious. “Of course sir. Awakening sequence starting… ”

The tube was slowly emptied of it’s bluish fluids, and the man inside, with his perfect grafted muscles and multiple weapon subsystems sinked to the ground. The door at the base of the tube opened. He was breathing!

“Good morning, Eleven, my name is Reynard and I’ll be your new partner.”

A young man entered the intimidatingly large office, the walls were filled bookcases, rising up to the ceiling, a good 10 meters above the floor. A woman was sitting on the humungous hardwood desk on the other side of the room, a book in one hand. She must’ve been in her early twenties. Beautiful, a charming smile, short blond hair with which she played with. He was charmed. He was also new. “Finally, someone to tell me the Mk 04 blueprints are ready for production!” The girl had a wicked smile.

“Yes, Miss Frost”

“Perfect, send the plans to our man in Cogs Tech. Have him convince them to start production, we can frame them for illegal experimentation and eliminate some of the competition. We’ll start production in a few months when the dust’ll have settled.” She looked at him  with a sweet, innocent smile, even though she would destroy the lives of hundreds in a few short weeks. “Hey, what’s your name, new guy?” and with an adorable pouty face “Can I take you out for a beer after work?”

He was terrified.

Frostbit corporation came out of nowhere about 40 years ago, specializing in advance computer technology. They participated greatly to the mainstreaming of augmented reality and hover technology, afterwards. Nowadays, they do everything from affordable cars to cellphones and weapon developement. They have become the symbol of what it is to be a megacorporation.

Two years ago, Sebastian Frost died. The exact details  were never released but many different stories are told. His youngest daughter (last of 5, including another one deceased) took over the company and since, the corporations records have been perfect. The young Alisson Frost as been nothing but a blessing, winning personality awards after personality awards and making Frostbit one of the proeminent economic power of the world.

Frostbit Tower, undoubtably the tallest building in the world, excluding  orbital elevators, and act almost as a self-contained  city-state archology. It has a few million inhabitants, either working for the corporation directly or for one of the many shops inside the intra-mural malls. It is a good place to live, albeit a restrictive one.

Getting in the company is no easy task for people born outside of the tower’s walls, but occasionnally, the corporation will approach a particularly genious scientist or engineer with promise of riches and better conditions. Frostbit recruters are known for making irresistible offers.

I wanted to talk a bit more about the underlying concepts and ideas I’ve had for my Year Zero campaign. I’ll be tearing it apart for your curious eyes. Also, the experience will help me add some precision about what I want in my setting, basically help my planning.

The Title : Year Zero, it’s the name of a song by 30 Seconds to Mars, who used to rock some sort of Sci-Fi post-grunge alt-rock that produced one bitchin’ first album. The title Year Zero means a major new beginning, a little like how Shadowrun made the 2012 end of the world important. We are on the verge of a calendar changing event. Something big is happening.

The players : The exact nature of what the players are is yet undecided, but they are agent of change. They may end up being rebels opposing the OCU out to create their own spot in the universe, renegade wizards or psions who stumble upon a crazy important McGuffin, or even the crew of the very first FTL transport vessel. Hell, they might end up being all of that and then some. Agent of change is the keyword here. This is a world which is just about to be reborn, I want the characters to be, in some way, it’s mommy.

Theme : Evolution is good. Or more precisly, the current situation generally sucks. The Earth is slowly being sucked dry of ressources and is heavily overpopulated. Farmers from the other planets of Sol are trying to gain their freedom, for they work slavishly for little to no reward in barren lands. I want the theme to be something around “Getting out of the current situation brings good”. I want ambition, I want recklessness. Action! Romance! And then some!

“Great risks brings great rewards” I’ve got a whole WoD campaign based around the idea of stagnation. This is not that game. I need the characters to feel that if they do risk their lives for anything (that is not completely foolish) they will recieve something equally great. Saving the life of a nameless NPC will bring you allies and fame within it’s circle and I want to make the players feel it.

“Storm’s coming” I want the player to feel the turmoil acting in the world. I want them to feel the change coming, nothing will stay that way, and if they don’t take an active role in the change, the new world may be a very unhappy place for them.

Mood : JRPG cyber-punk. The characters are dark superheroes, they run up buildings and the windows bursts behind them. I want it to feel like The Matrix in space. The players will be fighting the forces of stagnation, in whatever form it may present itself, the details are still blurry, but they will be heroes to all who realize what the stakes truly are.

The beginning : I know I want to begin on Earth, but I’m not sure with what. I plan on using the media, in the form of newspaper clippings of some sort posted on this blog, or things overheard on the radio or screens lying around the city. The City itself might not even have a name, I don’t know if it needs one. I’m going to snoop around but keeping the city faceless might work to my advantage, the same way that keeping the actual exact year blurry might (On the year 2XXX).

Technology : Energy is not a problem anymore, although anything not made out of soy might be. When it comes to weaponry, energy weapons are most common for their ease of use, the occasional slug thrower can be found. Personal shields being rather easy to fall upon made melee weapon, energy or otherwise, more useful. There are rumors of Mage-tech being developed, but those are still rumors. There are no Direct Neural Interfaces, but augmented reality glasses and even (more rarely) cyber-eyes can be found.

The supernatural : Magic exist. It simply does and most likely has been existing for a while. Some individuals just have the mage-juice in ‘em, others do not, but in any case, it’s highly dangerous. UCO figures there are 3 types of wizards : the ones that works with them, the ones with huge bounties on their heads and dead ones. Monsters of all sorts, beings between worlds, as fancy spellcasters say, run rampant. Security forces or private investigators/hunters fight them for money. Psychics, as far as the goverment claims, don’t exist.

If there’s anything else you might want to know, ask me stuff, I need inspiration for more posts!

Year Zero is my upcoming Anima campaign, set in a more or less near future where most of the solar system is colonized. Faster-than-light travel is at a very experimental level, but the breakthrough is known to be only a few short years away.  Magic exists. It simply does. And it is a very dangerous force that the UCO, the United Colonies Organization, is trying to control. Renegade wizards and psychics have heavy bounties on their heads. And slowly, rebel organizations are rising from the colonies to oppose UCO and claim their freedom.

The soft, lounge-esque music was playing in the background of her quarters, a nice room fit for someone clearly above her own station. She had pulled a few strings to get a nice flat, she had status, money, a few well chosen diplomas and the looks to convince an old pervert that maybe he really should give her nice quarters, just so she could be as comfortable as possible and work her science in a stress-free enviroment. It was worth it.

She was waiting for him to come by, patient, but eager for that glass of wine besides the small window giving to a slowly greening area of Mars. It was good wine, from Northern Europe, a gift from family she’d been keeping since her graduation. A degree in Metaphysics, with honors and a license in Supernatural research.

He was a security officer, an uneducated philosopher. He was born to a middle-class family on Earth and wanted to see the stars. He wanted to be a pilot but his bad eyesight caused him to fail out of military training. Rather tame, but he had a way with words and was most likely the only person in the station who believed poetry was worth a damn, herself included.

She couldn’t wait, the lights were dim, the music made her dream. Until it suddenly stopped. The lights turned off for a few seconds, quickly being replaced by the red glow of the emergency power low-energy lighting. The alarm did not go off.

She heard voices and hurried steps, orders being shouted, with none of the usual military severeness. The leader had the softest voice. A small piece of metal pried open her door. 5 men all with old, battered slug-rifles and black armor stood in the pure white hallway.

“We got her”, the one in front was taller than the others.

Shocked, she didn’t move, a few seconds ago she was waiting for her lover… “GET AWAY FROM HER!” He charged the nearest soldier from further down the hallway with a speed no ordinary man could reach. His powerfist-enhanced punch hit the first armored strange on the side of the head, breaking his helmet and sending him to plumet a good 20 meters away.

The second soldier turned quickly and let go a short burst from his rifle in the chest of the attacker, who promptly fell down. “Shit, that fucker killed Mylo!”. A soft voice came from further down the hall “We said no names, friend. I’ll take care of her, secure the exit.”

She wasn’t a fighter, she was a scientist, a brilliant one, her man was probably dead on the floor in front of her quarters. A slim, tall man, beautiful and maybe a bit too feminine pushed away one of the soldiers with a long, slender hand. his presence was strangely soothing. She couldn’t move still.

“Love, it’ll be all right, just look up and give us what we want.” He stared at her with eyes so intense he could’ve ripped her soul to shreds. “I got everything! Clean up the mess in the hallway, I’ll get this one… Love, go back to waiting for your man, he should be here any minute. You can forget about us, we’re not important. I’M DONE!”

The soft, lounge-esque music was playing in the background of her quarters… It was a little off, though, like it skipped a few songs. She wondered why he was so late.