setting primer

Setting

Ancient Precursors - The original Bastards were hyper advanced beings who came into the universe when it was created. Their grasp of science was so great they were almost god-like. In their apocalyptic war they shaped the cosmos and set the future of Bastard Galaxy in motion. The modern galaxy lacks the technology of the bastards and must live in their shadow.

A crowded galaxy - Civilization has existed since the beginning of the universe, and has spread throughout it. Truly barren planets are rarities; most have at least simple life or machine ecologies. The galaxy is dotted with cosmopolitan settlements, cities of the cosmos where dozens or even hundreds of different sapients rub shoulders. Even in the remotest worlds you might find indigenous tribes or lost ruins

A multi-polar system - There are dozens of strong polities locked in a delicate détente. Most major states are aligning together against the Agredeem God Emperor and their insidious mind control but old grudges run deep. Rapacious Mega-Corps like Mother Corp and the Intergalactic Candy Company consume all they can in the name of greed while colonial powers like the Neo-Floozies absorb smaller polities. There is a divide between organic and machine life, with some machine nations being extremely mecha-chauvinistic. Living gods like Molsheen the divine tumor lord over their own private theocracies while ancient powers like the Republic of Sea Serpents and the Gas-Bags scheme through the centuries. The nomadic Empire of Friends is pushing into the local region, bringing conflict with it. The pirates of the Under Sphere wish to create their own realm and will plunder others to build it. Only the fear of war keeps the tenuous peace, but even then cold conflicts sometimes boil over.

Humanity Divided - Human beings came into the universe either as servants of the Bastards, or as Bastards themselves. They spread like few other races have, and now humans can be found across the galaxy. In the past the human Empire of Dirt ruled them all but that time has past. The human home world of Dirt has spawned another polity, the Seeder initiative seeks once more to unite humanity. But humanity is no longer interested in being united. Many humans belong to alien polities.  Centuries of isolation have split them into hundreds of sub species. They have adapted to live in extreme and strange environments, like dreams or virtual worlds. Perhaps the most divergent are the Canine-forms, humans who were long ago spliced with dog DNA. Ancient injustice caused them to rebel and to this day there is a grudge between them and the rest of humanity.

Themes

Cosmic - The Bastard Galaxy is full of wonders. There are alien jungles, bustling space ports and crumbling ruins. Space is full of ships, stations and ancient mega structures, each unique and idiosyncratic. Each of the galaxy's millions of worlds offer a different vista. There is always somewhere unexplored and undiscovered, full of mystery and danger.

Psychedelic - The Bastards unleashed the realm of the mind onto the world. Psionic powers, astral realms, living memes, these are just part of the world now. The galaxy has become a place where will and imagination can overwrite reality. Seekers of the psychic world find power, transformation and sometimes madness.

Evolution - The galaxy is an ancient place. It has become strange and gnarled with time. Ecosystems have advanced over millions of years to become intricate and powerful things. The technology of the Bastards has become feral, infusing nature with elements of vanished civilizations, the scars of the past become the fruits of the future. Machine ecologies carry on the work of their vanished masters and new gods are born from the corpses of the old ones. The brutal, elegant logic of evolution carves everything into weird and terrible new forms. 

Odd Jobs promos

These are session promos for the Bastard Galaxy campaign I have been running. 


You're a freelancer doing odd jobs on the planet dirt  when you get an offer that's too good to refuse. It's a simple courier job but the pay scale is out of this world. All you have to do is take a glass of milk from an aristo to his nephew  on the aquatic colony world of Glishar. But can anything really be that easy? Find out in Odd Jobs: Milk run

 Your new client is the Coven of Bad Water and they have unusual taste. They want a bottle of fermented Drongus sauce from the city of Ix. The catch is that Ix was destroyed thousands of years ago. Fortunately, they have lead on the last bottle in existence. Unfortunately, its deep in the Undersphere, in the collection of the mad baroness Tubulla. Your job is to break into her sprawling larder complex in the boreal region of the Mansion Baronies and steal the goods. Along the way, you can help yourself to any of the Baroness's rare consumables. But watch out for the locals and the Baroness's henchmen that Stand between you and a successful Odd Jobs: Fridge Raid.

The planet Lover has always been Dirt's twin. Humanity used to live their long ago, until the wars that scorched them both. Where Dirt regrew twisted and strange, Lover became fierce and verdant. The Dentata world next door was ignored for ages until a new industry popped up: ecotourism. Now you have a gig guiding galactic aristos across the sea of flowers, so that they might witness the majesty of the slug whales. But slug whales are far from the only creatures in the floral sea. Do you have the wiles to survive Odd jobs: Boat Tour?

You find yourselves in the dubious employment of Mother Corp on the compost moon Heap. You have been hired on as Delvers, foolhardy souls who explore the moist and rotting depths  in service to Mother Corp's soil mining operations. Unbeknownst to your vegetative employers, you all have a hidden motive. You're double agents, working for the resistance group the Glade. Your mission is to hijack one of Mother Corp's cyborg mole machines and pilot it to a hidden Glade base deep in the anaerobic sea. But what else lurks among the refuse and the rot? Find out in Odd Jobs: Turn Over.

You find yourself stranded in the buried city of Discardia. The surface is embroiled in a mass revolt and Mother Corp is blockading the moon. Fortunately, the Glade has a secret route off world; the interplanar lens, an ancient artifact that can open dimensional portals. However, the only plane "close" enough to Discardia is the Trail, a vast and confusing dimension that threads its way through astral space. Your hosts tell you that a group of guides will be arriving soon, and that they will be looking for laborers to help with some kind of harvest. Translation issues make the details spotty but your hosts think it was something about…Eels? Find out more in Odd Jobs: Dream Gig.

Deep within the labyrinth of Quidious Halc in the bowels of the planet Arlot, the Spined  Oracle has spawned once more. The great and the good of the Neo Floozy empire are gathering in the depths, preparing for the oracular hunt. The one who slays the beast will see their future etched into it's spines. A frontier town has formed on the outskirts of the labyrinth, where all the guides and guards and camp followers congregate. It is into this managed chaos you arrive, ostensibly to seek employment under the neo floozy worthies. But you already have a secret employer, and a hidden objective. You have been contracted by the Fandorian resistance, and your target is the Neo-Floozy  governor of Fandoria, the Pond Scum city state of Goba. The oracular hunt is dangerous, and accidents happen out in the labyrinth. Your true mission is to make Goba's luck run out. But will your own luck see you out of the labyrinth. Find out in Odd Jobs: Rat Trap.

Software design draft rules

I'm mostly just posting this here so my players can see it. Maybe at some point I'll expand on  it.

Software is made out of  code fragments (also known as code frags). Code frags can be created at a rate of one frag per 10 hours of work. They can also be found in information systems or recovered from broken code. Basic software requires 3 frags per level, and takes an hour to assemble. Special types of frags exist, such as eureka frags and dubious frags. Rules for these will be introduced when the're first found

Basic Programs Types

ICE - Counter intrusion software meant to thwart unauthorized users

ICE Breaker - Software designed to break ICE

Agent - Autonomous software that makes decisions and takes actions without input from the user. Can be combined with other programs like ice breakers and payloads

Payload - Software used to effect undefended systems. The two most common are Control Spikes, which grant control of the target system, and Data Siphons, which hijacked data. Other more exotic versions exist.

Red Queen decay

Digital Warfare is in a state of constant evolution. Strategies and counter strategies come and go. Frequently used software runs the risk of becoming obsolete. Each time a piece of soft ware is used, roll its Red Queen die. On a 1, that soft ware is now obsolete and users suffer disadvantage on all checks. Most programs have a Red Queen die of d6.

space pirates

Space is large and remote, with long stretches of isolated nothing. These distant waypoints and astral lacuna form perfect ambush points for the many pirates that stalk the galaxy. A spaceship is a tempting prize in and of itself; as rip drives and other ftl devices are expensive to make. Any cargo that happens to seized is a bonus. Rarely, pirates will raid independent planets and freeholds, but the logistics of transporting their booty out of gravity wells is beyond most pirates. In addition, most freeholds are themselves populated largely by pirates, making them less than soft targets.

Pirates form a huge section of the Galactic underclass; those desperate losers looking for an easy score to get rich quick. Independent pirates make up the bottom of the barrel in pirate society. They use scrap ships and make shift weapons, and can present a real danger to the unwary, but are no real threat to hardened targets. Above the independents are the privateers, state sanctioned pirates. Many polities empower their more heavily armed citizens to take action against the state's enemies. Currently with the rise of the Agredeem empire, the Seeders and other allied powers are licensing many more privateers to disrupt the God Emperor's trade routes. Also, many polities employ privateers as pirate hunters. There is a notable convergence in attitude, culture and personnel between pirates and pirate hunters.

Aside from privateers, there are some pirate polities, that is, states that use their armed forces to commit piracy. The Republic of Sea Serpents is notorious for this practice. The Joker merchant marine corps spends as much time waiting for victims as they do protecting Sea Serpent shipping interests. According to the Sea Serpents, the Jokers are private contractors and they can not be held liable for their actions on their own time. Most states find believing this more convenient than contesting it.

While not strictly speaking a polity in its own right, the leading edge of the migration of the Empire of Friends is a refuge for all the outcasts and criminals of the empire. While the so called "pirate corona" is  a poorly policed zone, it is not ungoverned. The corona has its own twisted version of the Creed of Friendship, and is ruled by several strong factions of ner-do-wells, including the Bad Dude Alliance and the Coven Collective. As the empire, and thus the corona migrate, independent pirate bands are absorbed by these factions. They are organized enough to pull off daring planetary raids. There is a constant struggle between the main stream empire and the pirate corona, but there are also back channels that let the two sides coordinate against outsiders.

The Machine lifeforms of the Xietentoeten Economic Zone are strongly mecha-chauvinist, and frequently do not respect the property rights of organic life. Armed parties of XEZ will target and rob non machine life just because they can get away with it.

Two groups of sapients follow the Candymen. The Intergalactic Candy Company is the more respectable, business side of the candy. The Candy Cults are the more wild and primal side. While the Candy Company serves the Candy for material gain, the Candy Cults serve through faith and addiction. Made up of Candylings, Candy Mutants and assorted candy addicts, they rove the stars, looking for tribute for their candy masters. They have a reputation for mercy. Instead of spacing captives, they keep them alive. They accept ransoms to rescue high profile captives, and will release others at the nearest freehold, but not before exposing them to candy narcotics. Many take to piracy themselves to feed their new addictions.

But of all the pirate polities the most feared are the Reborn of the Undersphere. Hailing from a cluster of planets below the Galactic plane, Reborn corsairs raid much of the Galaxy. They don't just seek ships and goods, but personnel as well. Reborn are created through a mixture of mental conditioning and a certain retro virus. The process of creating a Reborn is fraught with peril. Roughly one in fifty successfully survive the process; the rest are turned into non-sapient creeps or killed outright. Even other pirates fear the Reborn. 

Dream piracy is the act of psychically entering another's dream with ill intent. It is most often practiced by the Pirate Corona and the reborn corsairs, as well as Father Corp. The first two factions use this technique to find hidden intel about potential targets, as well as to subvert and suborn the minds of defenders. Father Corp steals entire dreams wholesale, leaving the victim dazed and listless until they can have a proper dream.

pre gen characters for odd jobs

Warriors

A Tale of Swords is a robotic sword fighter. They are a black rainbow destroyer, a linage of machine life that evolved from ancient killbots. They look like a humanoid figure in heavy black armor adorned with an oil slick sheen. They are traveling the galaxy seeking the beauty in violence.

Snar Leeson is a human monster hunter from the death world Osgren. Osgrenite culture centers around hunting and cooking. Snar is searching for a probably mythical noodle shop called the cosmic noodle.

Merle Row is a dog person known as a Canineform. They are in the Cult of Master Vigilant, which worships an abstract god of duty and loyalty. They were expelled from their after falling asleep on watch, and now they wander the galaxy seeking atonement.

Vrax Belter is a former human mutated into a candyling from their candy addiction. They spent some time with a crew of candy pirates before striking off on their own.

Scientists

Blossom is a Jezoflorid ecologist. Jezoflorids are serpentine plant people who are sold by the monolithic Mothercorp. Blossom is a member of the Glade, an anarchist faction that opposes Mothercorp. They are exploring the galaxy looking for bio weapons to use in their guerrilla war.

HSIYA is a sapient computer virus and hacker in a humanoid robotic frame. Their people are called the counter Gnomics. They are searching for a  nice big undefended network they can start their own colony/multi-level marketing scheme in.

XHTL is a Prime Strain crystal smith. They used to work for Father Corp, crafting advanced psionic devices. They left due to poor working conditions and are now looking for adventure.

Taril Wranz is a human academic from the Academy of Gnomic Arts. They are fusing with an ancient Gnomic prosthetic that replaced their arm. They are wandering the galaxy looking for inspiration for their thesis.

Pyskers

Garval is a Power Fetus, a psychically strong but physically underdeveloped race. They appear as a fetus inside an opaque exoskeleton made of psychic force. They were forced out of their home, the empire of friends for perversion, and now they are seeking a new community to join.

Flara Orzo is  a Pertanguan telekinetic. The Pertanguan's are cybernetic grub creatures who are obsessed with  Speed. Flara was part of a race crew until all their friends died in a crash, of which Flara was the sole survivor. They are seeking funds to buy a new racer to compete in the galactic grand prix .

Fango Kha is a reptile/human hybrid with biokinetic powers from the theocracy known as ThePeople of The Whorl. They are on a holy pilgrimage to see every kaiju in the Galaxy. 

Green Grin is a Maskform, a branch of humanity that has adapted to live in dreams. They have an innate power to form bonds with dream creatures. They were exiled after their beloved pet went on a destructive rampage.

Jacks

Glurp is a Flesh 7monk. The Flesh 7 are a race of cyborgs with electronic brains and organic bodies. Glorp practices an obscure martial art known as Night Beast Style. Flesh 7 bodies are mutable; Glurp currently has humanoid body with a large predatory muzzle. They are wandering the galaxy looking for chances to prove the strength of their style.

Sir Kraver of Dung hill is a Fandoran trash knight. The Fandorans are a rat-like race that have recently been annexed into the neo-floozy empire. In the conquest Sir Kraver lost their ancestral home. They are questing for allies and material for their rebellion against the nep-floozies.

Low Tide is an Agrdeem, a race of amphibious star fish. They were an operative of Orphan Guild, a mass survaliance agency tasked with defending the Agrdeem Totality from the rise of the Great Stars. They failed, and now low tide is wandering the galaxy seeking ways to undermine the Agrdeem Empire.

Hizam, who is no one but Orn, is a fungal sapient from the Reclaimer Alliance. They are an "exorcist" (Literally, "creep eater" in the original Ornish) They were cast out for up staging their master.

Timeline of Galactic History

• The universe begins and the bastards arrive.
• The bastards schism into countless factions as the universe expands. Multiple factions stake claim to each of the dust and gas super structures that will form into galaxies. Our galaxy is claimed by 3 groups that will come to be known as the floozies, the Obelisk Dreamers, and the gnomics
• The early period is a time of cold warfare with occasional nova flashes. The factions hide in the cosmic dust and search for their rivals while keeping themselves concealed.
• As suns begin to form, they break cover and claim as many stars as they can.
• After the first generation of stars dies, the heavy elements they leave behind begin to form planets.
• The bastards unleash von neumann probes to claim and colonize these planets
• After hundreds of thousands of years of slow burning territorial disputes, most planets have been claimed by at least one faction. Many are disputed. The conflict heats up
• Bastard civilization reaches its peak as the galaxy devolves into warfare. This period is sometimes referred to as the golden age of bastards
• The war reaches its highest pitch. Automated war machines and ontological weapons proliferate. The highest bastard sciences are harnessed to terrible effect.
• At some point the bastards die out, leaving their war machines behind. The war will continue on for several thousand years after the first combatants disappear. 
• The war gutters out as the combatants destroy each other. The planets of the galaxy are mostly home to ash and low, vicious battles. This last desperate stage marks the start of the first galactic dark age.
• After thousands of years, various civilizations arise. They use scavenged bastard tech to build galactic empires. This period is known as the first crop.
• The Ger creators start seeding their planets with the Ger, the carbon based self replicating infra-structure.
• A galaxy spanning human polity is formed. Its name is lost to history, but modern human supremacists call it the First Empire. More moderate historians call it the Terran Dominion 
•  As the successor civilizations expand, conflicts arise. The horrors of the bastard war are still apparent, so alternative solutions are sought, leading to the establishment of the Galactic counsel.
• Trade and cultural exchange lead to a golden age. The first crop attains a level of technology that rivals that of the original bastards, but they still fall short.
• Multiple pathogenic memeplexes arise. It is believed at the time that they were released deliberately by an unknown party, leading to paranoia and blind reprisals.
• The memeplexes spread as open warfare breaks out. New memeplexes evolve or are created. They are joined by bioweapons and reactivated bastard war machines.
• Galactic civilization collapses, leading to the second galactic dark age, also known as the plague aeon
• Suborned elements from various civilizations build fusion candles into gas giants and set them on escape trajectories out of the bottom of the galactic plane. This splinter formation will become known as the under sphere.
• The Ger creators die out, but not before sending out a shut down code. Most Ger growths enter into  hibernation.
• The Psychic Storm ignites.  A loose coalition of powerful psychics driven mad by infectious memes, they rampaged through space towards galactic west.
• The Terran Dominion is sundered by a rebellion of the canineforms, a genetically engineered servant race. They  were previously kept in check by an inbred loyalty instinct, but a religion centered around an abstract god "the Voice of Authority"  allowed them independence.
• In many ways, the societies of the first crop are more obscure than the bastards. Large sections of history and culture are infected by dangerous memes and have to be forgotten.
• Once again civilization begins to rebuild itself, beginning the second crop.
• The history of the Republic of Sea Serpents begins. They existed before this point but destroyed all previous records for unknown reasons, possibly related to memetic pathogens
• The galactic counsel once again rose to prominence, and implemented a new conflict resolution system.
• The Second Human Empire arises, otherwise known as the Empire of Dirt, named after the human homeworld of Dirt.
• The Canineforms start their own empire, the theocratic Domain of the Voice.
• Far off in the Galactic West the Psychic Storm suffers a coup and is rebranded as the Empire of Friends
• Disputes would be settled by fights between champions, with no weight classes. This system spurred the development of weaponized kaiju.
• Some kaiju escape into wild space and go feral. Loose kaiju begin to pose a threat to galactic civilization.
• Most societies react by increasing funding for kaiju programs to create counter-kaiju kaiju.
• Secret societies and cults dedicated to kaiju grow in power.
• An important kaiju duel between the Domain of the Voice and the Empire of Dirt is interrupted by feral kaiju supported by armed fanatics.  Both sides blame the other, and resort to conventional warfare while also using their kaiju.
• The war quickly grows in scope as the two combatants release wild space born kaiju. Soon, most of the galaxy is pulled into the kaiju war.
• Angels of the Last Machine being to appear. These strange beings claim to have arrived from the far future. They empower certain machine intelligences, turning them into saints. This is the bringing of the Sophonic Advent.
• The devastation of the war ends the second crop and begins the third galactic dark age. Kaiju continue to rampage throughout the galaxy.
• The age of the Technocratic Kings begins on the Planet Dirt. These tyrants keep technical knowledge to themselves to rule over the hidden arcologies.
• Only in the past hundred years have powers arisen that can face the feral kaiju. This is the beginning of the third crop, and the modern period.
• Twenty years ago the great prophet Apple overthrew the Technocratic kings and began the Seeder Initiative, an attempt to rebuild the human Empire

C R A W L

If you seek to earn riches while you Slumber, Venture forth to C R A W L. 



C R A W L is a billion twisted dreams from the plague Aeon. At its boiling heart it is said there is an obelisk corrupted with strange astral life. Where once the obelisk dreamed of a lost paradise, now it dreams its own diseased hell. Everything in C R A W L dreams, and those dreams teem with their own dreamers. All these dreamers and dreams form a twisted knot of loops and spirals, an infinite closed expanse of parasitism.

The dreams of C R A W L are slick fluid and flesh scapes, endless expanses of astral life swirling and melting forever. Each dream is home to millions of crawling and squirming things, and each one dreams one of the dreams of C R A W L. When a creature in a dream dreams, its astral body becomes a luminous portal. Any creature touching it is sucked into the new dream. No one knows how many dreams there are in C R A W L

The closer to the lost obelisk, the denser the dreams become. At the center, the cancerous energies bleed out into real space. Though it looks like a real sun, it is a hole in space through which dread energies can enter the world. They call it the Crawl Star.

Around the Crawl Star, there are five celestial bodies. It is thought that they were once dead planets but through the unwholesome green light of that cursed star they were transfigured into living beings. They are the Children of C R A W L .

The first child is Olhambve, the Mournful Ooze. It is a desolate world of stone and lichen, dotted with temples to dead gods. In the gutters and cisterns lurks the ooze, a single  predatory ocean. Those devoured by it find themselves in a pocket of C R A W L where they are dissolved for a subjective eternity. Somewhere on this forsaken world there is the hidden lair of the Lune-man pirate Ax Feber. With his ship, the corvette Darkshine he preys on those that come to C R A W L. Exposure to the light of the Crawl Star has warped his mind. He seeks to marry Olhambve and birth a new race of monsters. In his lair he has a thousand precious jewels, and he is always looking for more, so that he may win the favor of his beloved.

The second child is Frantolous, The Soft Expanse. It is a world of soft pink flesh, a perfect globe marred by city sized ticks. On the back of one of these titian parasites that Father Corp has made their outpost. Father Corp is a voracious corporate god that feeds on Dreams though out the galaxy. They have come to C R A W L to harvest its diseased riches. Here is where you can earn your fortune. Those who sleep in the light of the Crawl Star find themselves pulled into C R A W L itself. As they wander its recursive dreamscapes they become infested by all manner of dream creatures. If they can survive and return to the material universe, they can sell their unwelcome passengers to Father Corp. On their outpost on they have extraction jars that create tremendous negative psychic pressure to suck out any errant dream creatures. Most of these poor creatures are doomed to be ground into their component emotions and sensations, but the most symbiotic are instead given to Father Corps breeding programs. The servants of Father Corp, the Prime Strain, use shiny beetles to adorn their pallid bodies. The most prized adornments come from C R A W L. There is a fortune to made by one who finds a new fashion.

Here also is the only place where Father Corp may brew one of its drugs, paracosm. Those who imbibe this pale orange ichor have visions of their own private universe where they are the demiurge. There are many who use this to escape their lives as they sleep. However, do not use it while you sleep near the Crawl Star. This new dream will merge with C R A W L and you will be subsumed into the cycle. It is derived from the venom of the dream giver beetle. They use it to create living astral nests for their larva.

The third child is Xyzxy, the Cryptic Garden. It is a tangled orchard of vines and dark swollen fruit. Within each pome is a writhing mass of worms and beetles and strange plastic things. The woods are deep and trackless and haunted by the masked ones, terrible and strange primitives. Each one is a walking hive of parasitic minions. They are hostile to all who trespass on C R A W L and the children. 

The Fourth child is Olark the Writhing World. It is a ball of worms and beetles the size of a planet. Father Corp has laid its covetous eyes upon it, and has created a fleet of fishing ships that trawl the living ocean for cheap and easy protein, though they may soon abandon the venture. The squirming catch is often treacherous, and something is eating the boats. They say Father Corp is really searching for some lost bastard relic lost beneath the wriggling tide.

The Fifth and finale child is Peivlard the Watchful Myriad. It is a cluster of eyes of all different shapes and colors, always focused on the same point. It can view any point in C R A W L and the children. It is a sick voyeur that wishes to see violence and depravity. It speaks in a voice like ocular jelly dripping from a corpse. It speaks poisonous truths it has seen, so that it may reveal in the chaos it causes. When its eyes are upon you, you can feel ten thousands cold stares boring into you. It is said that Peivlard knows where every treasure of C R A W L is buried and it will tell you, but for a terrible cost.



Editor's note



Here we have another delightful entry from my friend the cloaked figure. It's a nice account of 
C R A W L, though its clearly not a first hand one. That's okay, even preferable. All the first hand accounts tend to be … unhinged, for some strange reason.

First, a quick note about biology. Spooky-pants here describes the dream flora and fauna in terms of strict parasitism, and while there's a lot of that going around, parasitism exists on a gradient with mutualism. Not every symbiont in C R A W L has a parasitic relationship with its host. This is clear from the number of dream pet linages that have come from there. One of my aunts has a blue spiraled sivganzer, a type of astral serpent native to C R A W L bred to protect its hosts from nightmares. It begs food qualia from strangers and is afraid of loud noises.

Moving on, I can't believe I have to say this, but don't try to rob pirates that live on the outskirts of gross dimensional rifts. I don't even know how creepo knows all this junk, so acting on this information is not recommended. On a similar note, while collecting dream bugs for a soulless all-devouring corporation probably pays well, there are easier ways to make money. Saner ways, in any case.

And finally, a note on those "terrible and strange primitives", they are referring to the Maskforms. They are a human subspecies adapted to living in dreamscapes, and they are closely related to Riddleforms. As a Riddleform myself I most object to this characterization. While Maskforms lack the sophistication of digital lifeforms such as myself, I wouldn't say they're primitive. Also, they are only sort of strange and occasionally terrible. Neither the less, their crusade against the predations of Father Corp can only be seen as noble. After Father Corp is preying on Maskform colonies across the galaxy. Its only fair that they take out the occasional Father Corp freelancer.

As always, we at the Galactic Gazetteer can not be held liable for any fool thing you do after reading our fine publication. The legal department has been sharpening its claws against the side of its cage, so please, feel free to occupy its attention.