Before you take one step in this city, you need to know who you are. Your Origin is the hand you were dealt at birth—the wound you can’t change. It’s the story that gets you in the door or gets it slammed in your face. It dictates how the city’s systems, and its people, react to you. There are four truths to choose from. Choose wisely, because you’re stuck with it.
// THE VAULTED
The Gutter Truth: You are a ghost from a cleaner world, a hothouse flower planted in a sewer. Your family bought their way into a sealed corporate bunker when the world fell, and you were raised on the promise that you are better, purer, and cleaner than the masses. You step into the city with a bank account, a clean genetic record, and the naive arrogance of someone who has never known true hunger.
The Look: You look like you’re worth a fortune, which makes you a walking target. Your clothes are untouched by the city’s grime, favoring the sleek, minimalist, and often monochromatic fashion from high-end corporate suppliers like Stitch. Think sharp lines, fabrics that repel the filth of the lower districts, and a silhouette that screams you don’t belong here. Your cybernetics, if you have any, are subtle, expensive, and integrated seamlessly into your body—invisible to the common eye. You look sterile, which is just another word for prey.
The Deal: The system is built for you. Corporate officials and the Civil Authority will give you the time of day, and your high starting Reputation unlocks doors that are bolted shut for everyone else. Your pristine biology even gives you a natural resistance to the common sicknesses of the overcrowded city. But that purity is a fatal liability. The Amber Blight, the planet’s true poison, will chew through your clean system faster than anyone else’s. You’re a ghost on the streets, unable to read the signs, and your attempts at hacking anything but a corporate-approved terminal are clumsy at best.
Questions You Should Already Know the Answer To:
- What crime or disgrace saw your family exiled from the sterile spires, forcing you down into the grime with the rest of us?
- You lost everything—your name, your wealth, your power. You’re starting from absolute zero with nothing but a clean face and a bitter grudge. Who took it all from you?
- Are you here by choice? A corporate agent on a secret mission, or just a tourist slumming it for thrills? What are you really looking for?
// THE RUNNER
The Gutter Truth: You are a true child of The Bastion, born in the vertical slums and raised under the eternal amber glow of the Warmth Grid. The city is a language you speak fluently—its back alleys, its power conduits, its data streams. You live and die by your connections, your gear, and your nerve.
The Look: You are a Frankenstein’s monster of scavenged tech, street fashion, and military surplus. Your look is a chaotic but practical collage built from layers: a worn synth-leather jacket over an armored vest, cargo pants with patched-up burn holes, and heavy, scuffed-up combat boots. Your chrome is the centerpiece—visible, functional, and often second-hand. A mismatched cyber-optic that glows a menacing red, a scuffed robotic arm with exposed wiring, visible seams where the metal meets the flesh. Your look is your resume, a testament to your personal grind.
The Deal: You are a native to the concrete and the static. You can hack terminals and bypass security that would stump anyone else, and the city’s “Encounters” system will naturally feed you missions for heists, smuggling, and data theft. You know how to find work. But every piece of chrome in your body is an open door. The Whispers of the Rift have a direct line to your brain, making you more susceptible to their maddening effects. Your biggest fight will be against glitching parts, phantom pains, and the creeping dread of cyberpsychosis.
Questions You Should Already Know the Answer To:
- You were part of a crew that took on a job that went sideways. Who did you betray to get out alive, and who is still hunting you for it?
- You used to work for a Corp, maybe even the CA, but you saw something you shouldn’t have and had to disappear into the underbelly. What did you see?
- You’re carrying a piece of stolen data so hot that no fixer will touch it. What’s on it, and who are you running from?
// THE OUTLANDER
The Gutter Truth: You were born in the quiet cold, outside the city’s walls. The Amber Wastes are your home, a boneyard you learned to survive in. You understand the Blight not as a boogeyman, but as a fact of life, and you know how to harvest its secrets while the city-dwellers hide from it.
The Look: You wear the Wastes on your back. Your silhouette is defined by layers of functional, weather-beaten clothing: patched-up military surplus, quilted fabrics for insulation, and armor made from the chitinous hides of slain Riftspawn. A gas mask is a permanent accessory, hanging around your neck if not covering your face. Your tech is bulky, rugged, and reliable—built to work in a blizzard, not look pretty at a party. There’s a wariness in your eyes, always scanning the sky, and your skin might even carry the subtle marks of mutation from a life spent breathing the planet’s poison.
The Deal: Your body has adapted. You absorb the Amber Blight slower than anyone, and you know how to harvest the wastes for valuable resources and sustenance that city-folk wouldn’t touch. This gives you unique options when dealing with other wastelanders. But the city is alien to you. The Interlink is a confusing mess of digital noise, making your hacking ability minimal. The Corpos treat you with suspicion, and the CA sees you as a contaminated savage. Your low starting Rep will have a lot of “civilized” doors slammed in your face.
Questions You Should Already Know the Answer To:
- Your clan was destroyed by a rival, a corporate prospecting team, or a powerful Riftspawn. Are you in the city seeking refuge or revenge?
- You are afflicted with a strange symptom of the Blight and have come to the city seeking a cure, forcing you to deal with the hated corporate clinics.
- You found a relic of immense importance in the wastes, a Data-Shard you can’t access. You’ve come to The Bastion to find a Runner who can crack it for you.
// THE SYNTHETIC
The Gutter Truth: You are a machine in a world of meat. Whether you’re a purpose-built android who outlived your purpose or a human who uploaded their consciousness into a full-body prosthesis, you are now other. You are stronger, faster, and more durable than they are, but you are an outsider to their chaotic, emotional world.
The Look: Your body is a statement of purpose. You might inhabit a purely functional, industrial chassis, with unpainted metal, exposed pistons, and a form built for labor or combat—a walking tool. Or you could be a sleek, unnervingly human-like model, a perfect shell that resides deep in the uncanny valley. In either case, your movements betray your nature—an unnatural smoothness or a stark, cold efficiency that separates you from the frantic, fleshy beings around you.
The Deal: Your body is a fortress. You are immune to the biological effects of the Amber Blight and don’t need to eat or sleep, only recharge. You can survive environments that would kill an organic being instantly and can interface directly with certain machines. Your mind, however, is the battleground. The Rift’s influence is a cognitive virus to you. Your health is a constant battle against system errors, memory fragmentation, and cascading logic failures. You are uniquely vulnerable to the digital and psychic attacks that ride the Static.
Questions You Should Already Know the Answer To:
- You are a rogue military unit, having deserted your post after an operation that revealed the true, horrifying nature of your corporate masters. What did they make you do?
- You are a new consciousness, recently activated. Are you trying to find your place in a world that sees you as a tool, or are you looking for the one who created you?
- You hold the last recorded memories of your former owner, a brilliant scientist. Their final, cryptic message is your only clue to your true purpose. What was it?