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Our second COTW this week was inspired by a recent thread on
GURPSnet about designing deities: by all accounts, a normal
man who ends up playing the role of a god...
Edward Browne; corporate researcher turned patron deity
(c) copyright 2001 andi jones
Total Points: 50 Points
Age 59; 5'8"; 145 pounds; a small-framed man with pale
complexion, thinning light brown hair worn very short, and
sorrowful brown eyes.
ST 9 [-10] - thrust 1d-2, swing 1d-1
DX 10 [-] - basic speed 5, move 5, dodge
5
IQ 13 [30]
HT 10 [-]
WL 12 [-]
ADVANTAGES: Administrative Rank 2* [0]; Ship Patron
(No access to supplies, -33%) [30].
*free from Ship Patron
DISADVANTAGES: Imaginative [-1]; Obsession (Find
Muratan) [-10]; Sense of Duty (Cueninan People)
[-10]; Shy [-5]; Unfit [-5]; Weak
Will -1 [-8].
QUIRKS: Studies in his free time; Worries about "getting too
old for the job"; Thinks of his robots as loyal pets; Enjoys
"Quippo" riding; Refuses to abandon a project, or leave a
task unfinished. [-5]
SKILLS: Acting-13 [2]; Administration-11
[.5]; Area Knowledge (Cueninan River Valley)-14
[2]; Beam Weapons (Laser)-11* [.5];
Disguise-13 [2]; Electronics Operation/TL10
(Sensors)-13 [2]; Electronics Operation/TL10
(Surveillance)-13 [2]; Exoskeleton/TL10-10
[2]; Intelligence Analysis-13 [4];
Intimidation-9** [0]; Law (Prospecting)-9/15
[.5]; Mechanic/TL10 (Robotics)-12 [1];
Merchant-13 [2]; Paleontology (Paleoanthropology)-12
[6]; Psychology-10 [.5]; Reasearch-15
[6]; Riding (Quippopotamus)-9 [1];
Stealth-10 [2]; Survival (Forest)-11 [.5];
Theology (Cueninan)-15 [2]; Vacc Suit/TL10-11
[.5]; Video Production/TL10-13 [2];
Writing-12 [1]; Xenology (Cueninan)-10/16
[1].
*includes +2 from IQ
**default from Acting
LANGUAGES: English (native)-13 [0]; Cueninan-12
[1].
EQUIPMENT
By far, Edward Browne's most impressive and important piece
of equipment is his starship, a 600-ton SLI Livingstone
class Planetary Survey Vessel, which he has named Luvan
(LOO-vahn). For a description of the ship, see Appendix I.
On his person, Browne usually carries no equipment as long
as he's on his ship, with the exception of a small
communicator worn on his jacket. On the planet surface,
however, his gear would depend on his activities. If nothing
else, he would seldom be without a hand-held Multiscanner
(p.UT19). In general, it may be assumed that he has access
to any of the TL10 items from "GURPS Ultra-Tech" and "GURPS
Ultra-Tech 2", especially Sensors & Viewing Aids,
Scientific Gear, and Survival Gear. He could also have
select Security or Medical equipment, if relevant. It should
be noted that his PSV is not armed, and his personal
weaponry is limited to a small laser pistol (1d impaling,
p.UT49). He also has a Vacc Suit, an exo-skeleton (designed
mostly for lifting and moving cargo) and one or two sets of
light body armour.
BIOGRAPHY
Edward Browne grew up on an unexceptional Terran colony, and
attended an only marginally less unexceptional university
only two star systems away. After graduating at age 24 with
a degree in research and marketing, he was recruited by
StarLight Industries, one of the biggest up-and-coming
corporations making profits in planetary surveying. At
first, Edward was impressed that his undistinguished
credentials had landed him a job with such a corporate
heavy-weight. But it didn't take long for him to see the
truth; behind SLI's slick public relations and flashy
recruitment campaigns was an organisation in disarray,
always one false step away from being shut-down by the
Interstellar Trade Commission or the Special Justice Group.
Still, it was solid work, it paid the bills, and gave him
the opportunity to travel. For six years, Edward worked in
various capacities within the company's research division,
serving at a number of posts in facilities all across the
Allied Systems.
At first, it looked as though Edward's seventh year with
StarLight would be no different than his sixth, until he got
called into his supervisor's office for an "emergency"
project. One of SLI's most lucrative surveyors - a man named
Antoine Marbaix - had gone missing on a terrestrial-type
planet in a distant system known on the charts only as Q9.
Marbaix's disappearance needed to be handled immediately,
and with the utmost discretion; Marbaix's successes had come
at the expense of many laws and regulations, and if the ITC
got involved it would almost certainly spell doom for
StarLight Industries. So Edward Browne - despite being only
a researcher, and despite his protests - was chosen to
travel to Q9 because he was by far the most competant
employee within striking distance. (Also, his research
skills would better allow him to acquaint himself with the
situation during the 22 parsec trip.) With virtually no time
to prepare, Browne was familiarised with a fully-loaded SLI
Livingstone-class Planetrey Survery Vessel and sent on his
way. His instructions were simple: go to Q9, find Marbaix,
bring him back by whatever means necessary, and under no
circumstances make contact with any other vessels,
organisations or governments.
In the time it took Edward to reach the planet, he read
Marbaix's record and studied what little information was
available on Q9. The small, dense planet appeared to be rich
in resources - potentially obscenely rich. Edward surmised
that from Marbaix's point of view, the real issue was Q9's
indiginous inhabitants - a highly-intelligent race of
iron-age people whose existence made the planet strictly
off-limits to developers, prospectors and colonists.
Arriving at Q9, Edward took up position in standard orbit,
and began looking for signs of Antoine Marbaix. There was no
evidence of Marbaix's PSV, but there were traces of Terran
technology on the surface that were clearly out of place.
Over the course of a couple weeks, Edward (with much help
from the highly-skilled onboard computers) meticulously
scanned the planet's entire surface, and began to reveal
what had transpired. It looked as though Marbaix's ship had
either crashed, or left the system, but either way it left
too much on the surface to be coincidence. Marbaix was still
around, and he was up to something. So Edward continued
doing his job: gathering data, collating data, and
interpretting data. And after another week, a disturbing
picture began to emerge. Marbaix was still on Q9, and he was
interacting with the primitive natives for unknown reasons.
Since Marbaix himself was evading detection, Edward had no
choice but to look to the locals - whom he began referring
to as the Cueninans (kyoo-NINE-uns). This proved harder than
he thought, and there was only so much information he could
gather from orbit. Edward's ship was equipped with an
atmosphere-capable shuttle, so he used it to deposit a small
force of robot sensor drones near the largest Cueninan city,
which seemed to be the center of Marbaix's attentions. As
surreptitiously as possible, Edward used his drones to get
his first close look at the Cueninans. Again, he gathered
and interpretted a massive amount of data, and again he
assembled a distressing image of what was happening. Marbaix
had made indirect contact with the Cueninans, passing
himself off as some kind of god. Edward was shocked, and
more than a little confused. He couldn't figure what it was
all about, and only began to piece it together once he got a
grasp of the language.
Marbaix had been impersonating a figure from the dominant
Cueninan religion, adopting the role of the adversarial
temptor called Muratan (moo-RAH-tahn) who embodied the
corruption of the gross material world. Muratan was in
diametrical opposition to the benificent Selzhin
(SELL-zihn), the creator deity and source of the true,
spiritual world. The two gods - each surrounded by a retinue
of lesser entities and demigods - existed in a dualistic
arrangement of opposing relationships: good and evil, light
and dark, fertility and sterility, etc.. It was difficult
for Edward to fathom Marbaix's motives, but he eventually
realised that Marbaix was bolstering Muratan's credibility
and influence among the disenfranchised military caste,
stirring up unrest and volatile uncertainty. Over several
months, Edward tentatively solved the riddle...
Impersonating Muratan, Marbaix was attempting to turn
Cueninan culture upside-down, aiming for nothing less than
the collapse of their civilisation. That collapse would
could quite possibly lead to their extinction, and open the
planet up to exploration and colonisation.
At first, Edward catalogued Muratan's incursions, while at
the same time learning more and more about the Cueninan
people, all the while trying to adhere to the ITC's strict
rules about his presence on the planet. But it soon became
evident that Marbaix was making progress, and sowing enough
discord to threaten Cueninan stability. Edward couldn't
ignore the fact that StarLight would be accountable for
Marbaix's actions. That alone might have been enough to push
Edward to action... But his growing fondness for the
Cunenina people clinched it. Two weeks later, he had a
power-loader exo-skeleton outfitted with powerful spotlights
and loud-speakers, and shuttled down to the planet's surface
for the first time. He located a procession of priests of
Selzhin walking along a river-bank. Edward - in his exo-suit
with glaring lights and playing loud music - appeared on the
opposite bank, and said, "Resist Muratan. Remain Faithful."
Fearing they might get too close, he quickly retreated, his
knees weak from the adrenaline rush...
Back on his ship, Edward's sensors (linked to the many
robots still concealed on the surface) confirmed that the
word of his appearance was spreading quickly, and that the
priests of Selzhin were using the event to combat the
growing interest in Muratan. To maintain the momentum,
Edward made several more appearances in the following weeks
along the entire river valley, doing much to restore the
strength of the church of Selzhin. And his actions resonated
with no one more than they did with Antoine Marbaix. Marbaix
left messages for Edward - in ways the Cueninans could not
see, or would not understand - indicating that he "accepted
the challenge". Edward hadn't meant to antagonise the man he
was trying to find, but realised that he'd unwittingly
walked into a competition not as one employee trying to rein
in another, but as the creator Selzhin trying to protect his
worshippers from the corruption of the adversarial
Muratan.
Over the next five years, Edward and Marbaix maintained
their game of cat and mouse, Edward from his ship and
Marbaix from his still-hidden base on the surface. They each
played the game with cunning and discretion, never betraying
their mundane natures to the Cueninans, nor leaving
themselves vulnerable to one another. After five years,
Edward was wholly and completely consumed by his new "job",
trying to guide and steer the Cueninan people in as subtle
and gentle a manner as possible. To the degree that he
could, he familiarised himself with Cueninan theology, so
that he could make references to known names and incidents
to seem more convincing. But he also introduced new concepts
and ideas to the religion as well; between his ad-libs and
the Cueninan interpretations of his work, he greatly
expanded the scope of Cueninan theology and cosmology. On a
more mundane level, he examined their agricultural,
metallurgical and medicinal technologies and used his
databases to introduce his worshippers to new concepts,
ideas and developments. He studied the practises of other
religions, and shared his "insights" with the Cueninans -
such as alerting them to the hidden dangers of their burial
ceremonies, or how to make their sacrificial rituals more
humane. And occasionally he conspired to make their hunt
prayers more effective by steering herds of game into
Cueninan territories... Evidence of Marbaix's
counter-actions dwindled, and by the time Edward Browne had
been living in Cueninan orbit for six years, it seemed as
though Muratan was once again a mere mythical figure. At
that point, however, Edward was thoroughly lost in his role,
and no longer cared about Antoine Marbaix. And since no one
from StarLight Industries had ever come looking for him, he
simply chose to stay. He felt as though the Cueninans
depended on him, and in a way it's possible that he now
depended on them...
Now, another twenty-three years have passed, and Edward
Browne is still living on his ageing PSV in orbit around Q9.
He has since re-named his vessel Luvan, after the name of
the primordial being that spawned both Muratan and Selzhin.
The name Luvan also extends to his ship's computer, which
while not sentient runs an artificial personality
simulation, and is capable of conversation and limited
interaction. (Luvan is, for all intents and purposes,
Edward's only friend.) In the last quarter-century, Edward
has continued to play the role of Selzhin, making his
presence felt from time to time in order to communicate his
"divine will". When he can prepare ahead of time and
security can be meticulous, he makes the occasional personal
appearance in his "god-suit", still the same exo-skeleton he
first used on the river-bank. But Edward's personal
appearances are rare, sometimes made only once a year. More
frequently, he makes his presence known by leaving signs and
portents for the Cueninan clerics; he has made laser-etched
pictograms in rocks, left machine-tooled idols to be found,
hidden devices to play sounds and messages, etc.. Once, he
even streaked across the dawn sky in his shuttle at mach 2,
leaving brilliant contrails suspended over the celebrations
of the high holy days. For the most part, Edward has had
sense enough to keep his meddlings minor. (On a number of
occasions, however, he has had to resist the temptation to
go down and become directly involved, such as in times of
war or natural disaster.) Most of the time, however, he's
content to watch his worshippers on his sensors, keep
records of their movements, and help them out from time to
time. And although it's been more than two decades since he
last made contact with Antoine Marbaix, Edward is convinced
he's still out there... (Either that, or he's using that
possibility to rationalise his continued presence on Q9, and
in the lives of the Cueninans.)
ENCOUNTERED
Despite appearances, Edward Browne does not have a god
complex. The day he made the decision to impersonate Selzhin
in front of that procession of priests, it was as much about
flushing out Antoine Marbaix as it was about helping the
Cueninans. And as he and Marbaix got swept up into their
strange "competition", Edward didn't do what he did for the
thrills, or for the sense of power, or because it made him
feel big to hold the fate of the primitive aliens in his
hands. What began as a desperate gamble to stop a madman
ultimately became a bizarre blend of genuine affection,
detached responsibility and amateur anthropological
curiosity.
Whether encountered aboard Luvan or down on the surface of
Q9, Edward will probably come across as withdrawn, shy and
unused to dealing directly with people. He chats with his
computers and robots as though they were pets, but it's
actually been close to thirty years since he spoke to
another living being. Edward spends most of his time on his
ship; when he's not observing the Cueninans, he's studying
or reading. Every once in a while, though, he shuttles down
to one of the uninhabited stretches of Cueninan countryside
for an afternoon of relaxation. (There is a species of
placid herbivores that live along the river-banks, which
Edward has named Quippopotamus for the high-pitched whoops
they make. They are docile enough that he has learned to
ride them.)
All things considered, Edward Browne has remained largely
well-balanced given that he's spent the last thirty years of
his life living on a small starship impersonating the patron
deity to a race of primitive aliens. Even so, his attachment
to the Cueninans is clearly unhealthy, not to mention
unethical and highly illegal. Edward has never been
challenged, and it's unclear what he'd do to protect his
job. It means a great deal to him, however, and he wouldn't
abandon it lightly.
CANONICALITY
Edward Browne uses the Ship Patron advantage from the new
edition of "GURPS Space" (p.S47), with a multiplier of 1,
and with a limitation to model his lack of access to
repairs, resources, etc.. Also, his Theology (Cueninan)
skill is M/E, since he's had the freedom to interpret (and
invent) the myths and stories with considerable
latitude.
WHAT IF?
Edward Browne was written for a generic space setting, in a
universe in which the humans are part of the Allied Systems.
It makes use of the Interstellar Trade Commission (p.S19)
and the Special Justice Group (p.S22), but any number of
organisations could fill the same roles. As per the sidebar
on p.S33, the setting is assumed to be on the scale of a
galactic arm. This scale could be changed; it is only
important that planet Q9 be "on the frontier", whether
that's 2 pc or 200 pc. The rest could be inserted into a
variety of campaign-types, from (relatively) hard SF to
free-ranging space opera. Edward Browne is designed for
TL10, but this can also be changed if necessary. The
important thing is that his technology is of an advanced
enough nature to impress the Cueninan people with his
"miracles". The most important element of the story is that
Browne (and Marbaix) are able to live in solitude out on the
frontier, which can be achieved in a number of ways.
ADVENTURE SEEDS
Reinforcements: StarLight Industries has undergone a change
in management, and someone has unearthed a thirty-year-old
directive sending a certain Edward Browne to planet Q9.
According to all the charts, Q9 is inhabited and off-limits,
surrounded by broadcast buoys warning off scouts, pirates
and surveyors. There are no further records, so a team of
investigators is assembled post haste. Upon arriving at Q9,
the PCs will find Edward Browne in orbit, going about his
business. What will they do? It would easy enought to
apprehend him; his ship is unarmed. But what if he tells
them about Marbaix, still down on the planet interfering
with the Cueninans? They'll be obligated to look into it.
And how far will Browne go to remain on Q9? If given the
chance, could he convince the PCs to let him be? Could he
convince them to turn their backs long enough for him to go
native, and disappear? And what if Marbaix is still out
there? The PCs might require Browne's help, in which case he
might ask for something in return...
A Technology Sufficiently Advanced: So what was is that
Antoine Marbaix wanted on Q9 that was so valuable that he'd
need to infiltrate the locals' religion? Would his
impersonation of Muratan have been sufficient to cause the
total collapse of the Cueninan civilisation? If so, was his
only motive to make Q9 available to colonisation? Was it
simple greed? Or was there something even more valuable,
something that Marbaix could only get through religious
texts? What if there was some ancient technology hidden
there, something the Cueninans knew about without
understanding? Maybe Marbaix knew this, and hoped his
impersonation of Muratan would not only wipe out the
Cueninans, but would also lead him to these ancient
artifacts... Which would all be ancient history if the PCs
didn't hear this story from a drunken, washed-up surveyor in
a seedy starport cantina. It's the kind of story that's
almost too outlandish to be true, and a quick review of
computer records confirms some of the details. The PCs set
out for Q9 immediately, hoping to find the artifacts that
Marbaix never found. Or did he? And what will Edward Browne
do when they arrive?
- written and formatted by andi jones
(andi@angelwerks.com
- thanks to geofferey fagan and bret indrelee
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