Well, I'm proceeding with the Assault Witch campaign sourcebook, tentatively titled
Witches of the Blue Skies. I just commissioned some artwork for the book, and the text is pretty much done. Expected Witches of the Blue Skies within a few weeks.
Today, I'm going to do a big preview of the book's fluff. Here's most of the campaign advice and setting information I'll be including with the final sourcebook. This should give you an idea of how I'm integrating
Strike-Witches-style antics into the Black Tokyo universe.
Enjoy the preview,
CHRIS
Witches of the Blue Skies is a campaign sourcebook for the Black Tokyo Campaign
Setting. Black Tokyo is such a
diverse sand-box campaign world, filled with so many anime influences and
homages that it’s possible to run your campaign in any of a dozen radically
different styles. The high-flying, fast-moving and thrilling Assault Witches
campaign is one of these many styles.
Witches of the Blue Skies will help you build skilled young aviatrix, who take
to the sky thanks to occult jet boots. Daring heroines called Assault Witches
blend military training with the magical gift of flight, and leap into the sky
to battle a remorseless horde of enigmatic destroyers called the Abyss.
Let’s fly!
Obvious Inspirations
The Assault Witch Campaign is
strongly, strongly inspired by the Strike
Witches anime in specific and “mecha-musume” anime in general.
Other inspirational anime and
fiction include:
Battle Fairy Yukakazi
Cat Planet Cuties
Chobits
Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
Guyver
Kantai Collection
Macross Plus
Maharomatic
Neon Genesis Evangelion
Sky Girls
Transformers: Kiss Players
Patlabor
The Assault Witches Campaign
An Assault Witches campaign
has a military flavor, but isn’t too concerned with accurately modeling military
life or traditions- if it were, the protagonists wouldn’t be teenaged girls
flying through the stratosphere sans
pants. Instead, the campaign embraces the tropes and clichés of military
fiction and layers them over a traditional anime action core.
Girl Heroes
The core of an Assault
Witches campaign are the young women of a particular fighter wing. All (or at
least most) of the characters will be Assault Witches, probably assigned to Misawa’s
105th Joint Operations Group, or a similar fighter wing you’ve
built your self. There’s room for non-Assault Witch support staff, allied
heroes and non-military adventuring companions, but unless these outsider
heroes can fly (and fly really fast!) they’re
going to be left out of the action when their Assault Witch comrades take to
the sky to battle the Abyss.
Most Assault Witches are
going to be female, which certainly fits with Black Tokyo’s strong female fandom and is certainly in keeping with
the spirit of the anime that inspired the campaign. An Assault Witch campaign
should emphasize the importance of camaraderie, female friendship and teamwork.
There might be a few male “Yeagers”
flying with the squadron or allied male heroes, but first and foremost this
should be a campaign about badass, heroic young girls defending their country!
Yuri
It’s an all-girl cast. It’s Black Tokyo. The lesbian subtext should be so prevalent and so
obvious that it becomes text. Many of the new mechanical elements
(feats, traits and powers) presented in this sourcebook reward players for
building yuri aviatrix and loving, longing for, and occasionally losing their
squadron mates. Romance, even romantic comedy, can fill the days between Abyss
assaults, when the Assault Witches return to their base for training and
downtime.
The concept of Masamune Divisions within the JSDF
is not just a tongue-in-cheek homage to mangaka
Shirow Masamune who certainly illustrated many military women who played that
role, but also provides an in-setting justification for how a modern, first
world military could ignore or even condone some rather extreme examples of
fraternization.
While yuri romance and rather
acrobatic, high-speed fanservice are core parts of an Assault Witch campaign,
the rape and monstrosity found in many other Black Tokyo campaign models really
isn’t….unless you want it to be. The
Abyss, Tottori Horrors and other monsters native to this campaign style are
completely inhuman and utterly monstrous, without recognizable human desires or
motives. They want to annihilate the player characters with superior firepower
and can cause massive causalities, but their evil is a more impersonal,
emotionless and alien evil than the lust-driven rage of setting villains like Taru Tsuyoi. That makes the Abyss and
similar creatures somewhat less infuriating than truly nasty villains with a
personal motivation: Abyss might wrack up high body counts and billions of yen
in property damage, but they don’t infuriate the players on a personal level
like a rapist or child molester would.
All that said, Assault Witch
squadrons might deployed to fight the worst, most visceral evils Black Tokyo
has to offer. And throwing a flight wing of courageous, optimistic Assault
Witches against something truly monstrous and rapacious – something that wants
to fuck them to death with a hundred razor edged cocks – can highlight not only
the horror of the rapist, but also the innocence and courage of the Assault
Witches themselves.
Dogfight Days!
Air to air combat! That’s the
primary focus of the campaign. Most if not all the player characters will be
fliers, and even among the ranks of ordinary fliers, these girls will be
extraordinary. Player characters are going to be among the fastest, most
maneuverable creatures in the crowded, dangerous skies over Black Japan. An
Assault Witches campaign is a very high power, combat-focused campaign. Build
fast, competent, hard hitting heroines and equip them with best gear the
gamemaster will allow!
Techno-Magical Wings
An Assault Witch campaign
emphasizes techno-magic rather than more traditional sorcery, and places less
emphasis on Shinto and Buddhist folklore and scripture than most Black Tokyo
campaigns. Powers and magical items built for this campaign type have a
military flavor, and are a bit higher tech than the norm for Black Tokyo. There
are also more guns – including military grade firepower! – available to the
player characters than elsewhere in Japan, where guns are fairly restricted and uncommon.
Mildly Military
The Assault Witches are
ostensibly a military organization, but action and adventure should be the
prime focus. Routine training, paperwork and collateral duties are usually
glossed over in favor of combat and military melodrama and are typically things
that happen off-screen or in the background between dramatic events.
The campaign should touch on
all the expected tropes of military fiction, but always in a slightly skewed
fashion, with anime sensibilities and the personalities of exuberant young
girls in mind. And whenever possible, add some fanservice to an otherwise by
the numbers military-fiction scene.
Some plot points you might
want to touch upon, include:
·
The ‘fuckin’ new girl’ has to prove herself
to her more experienced squad-mates
·
Uniform
inspections and awards ceremonies as a huge pain in the ass
·
Two squad-mates
who initially hate each other forced to save one another’s lives and become
true friends
·
A fierce rivalry
with another unit, another branch of the military, or with an allied foreign
unit that constantly shows up the PC’s squad
·
A new officer who
knows a lot less than the veteran enlisted members of the squad and might or
might not be able to admit it
·
A rookie Assault
Witch has to overcome her fear during her first battle, or a coward redeeming
herself with an act of over-the-top courage
·
A character’s
compassion leads her to try to befriend an enemy that everyone else believes is
a remorseless killing machine, or de-escalate a conflict rather than engaging
·
A character
killing for the first time, which can be played as a tragedy or a huge personal
milestone for a badass young warrior
·
An Assault Witch
reaching some combat milestone like 100, 200 or more shoot-downs. In the
real-world, five shoot downs make you an ace- Assault Witches might make ace
within the first game session!
·
Exhausting,
intense physical training or days long field exercises
·
Simulated battles
against members of your own squad playing the part of the opposing force, or
wargames against the militaries of allied nations (or other factions, like
Chrysanthemum Seven or GILGAMESH)
·
An unexpected
enemy assault or crisis during a field training exercise or war game
·
Minor offenses
being punished by confinement to base and extra (usually unpleasant) duty
·
Leaves cancelled
by an impending crisis or heroes forced to return to assemble an ad-hoc squad
to fight some major threat
·
Having to jury
rig something because proper supplies or methods aren’t available or will take too long, or
just because the by-the-book procedures suck
·
Everything
has a procedures manual. Everything.
Military Porn
Part of the appeal of the Strike Witches anime is the fetishistic
level of detail it devotes to the heroines’ period-accurate weapons and
uniforms, not to mention parallels between the characters and their real world
inspirations. The more details you can pack into your campaign, the more fun it
will be, even if your players never consciously pick up on your research.
Picking up a few Osprey Publishing books on both modern and WWII-era Japanese
arms and equipment, or an appropriate Jane’s Guide will add a lot of flavor to
your campaign. (Doing the research for my campaign worlds is often the most fun
part of a project for me, hopefully it will be for you too.)
Duty Sections
The Assault Witches have to
be ready for action 24 hours a day. As a result, there will likely be a minimum
of four squadrons, each of which acts as a duty section.
My real world experience at
Misawa AFB had four duty sections, Alpha and Baker, Charlie and Dawg, pulling
12 hour shifts. Alpha and Baker (my section) were paired, so when Alpha worked
day shift, Baker worked night shift and vice versa. When our sections were off
duty, Charlie and Dawg took over. Usually, the duty sections rotated between
day and night duty every two weeks. This makes a pretty usable system for the
fictionalized Misawa airbase and its fliers. Usually, all the player characters
will belong to the same duty section, and will have the closest relationship
with members of their own duty section.
The Real World: Article Nine
Article nine of Japan’s Constitution, ratified after the post-WWII
Occupation, prohibits the country from maintaining an offensive military.
Officially, Japan is a pacifist nation: its armed forces are referred
to as ‘self defense forces’ rather than a military. The difference is not
merely semantic. Japan’s soldiers are considered civil servants, and unlike the American
military, are not subject to a separate military justice system- they are
governed by the same civil law as any other Japanese citizen.
Military service in Japan lacks the prestige and adventurous allure it holds
for Americans. Similarly, the benefits offered to JSDF members are meager
compared to the living conditions of American forces stationed on the island.
Pay tends to be lower for JSDF members than their American counterparts,
military medical care is limited to injuries or illness incurred in the line of
duty, and JSDF soldiers do not have exchange or PX/BX privileges. If JSDF
members live on base, they do so in spartan barracks several decades old.
JSDF resources are deployed
around the world on humanitarian missions more often than they are to project
power. In the wake of the Fukushima
disaster, JSDF forces were deployed to Northern Japan to assist with recovery and rebuilding efforts, while
larger contingents of forces were deployed around Indonesia after the 2005 tsunami. A deployment to Iraq, in a
support role, during the Bush ‘presidency’ lasted only a few months and caused
such a political firestorm at home that the excursion is not likely to be
repeated.
The JSDF resolutely refuses
to even consider the use of nuclear weapons in combat, and Japan remains non-nuclear by choice. American forces
stationed in Japan cannot store nuclear arms in their host nation, and
many Japanese port cities are even leery about letting nuclear-powered aircraft
carriers or ballistic missile submarines to make a port call. Most Japanese,
including most JSDF members, view nukes with almost primal revulsion. Likewise,
Japan has not produced military technology that would allow
it to project force, in keeping with the constitutional limits on military
growth. For example, the Maritime Self Defense forces have cruisers and patrol
boats, but no true aircraft carriers (though military buffs are quick to point
out that many of the larger Japanese ‘destroyers’ are aircraft carriers in all
but name).
Misawa Air Force Base, Misawa, Aomori Prefecture
The Japanese Air and Ground
Self Defenses Forces share this sprawling base with the United States; both the USAF and Navy have huge contingents on
base. In addition to its mundane military duties, Misawa AFB is home to Japan’s
Assault Witch squadrons. Promising
female pilots and rookie aviatrix train tirelessly in the clear blue skies over
the quiet, dusty city of Misawa. In
addition to the glamorous Assault Witches, a coven of female military mages are
trained here. Chrysanthemum Seven trains military
Flow Witches and Lovely Medics to spec-ops standards here, before deploying
them to anti-oni squads throughout
Black Japan.
Crown Princess Masako’s
vision of a more inclusive, female-friendly JSDF is bearing its ripest fruit at
Misawa. While the women warriors assigned here have great power, the sheer
presence of so many witches and female occultists has attracted oni to the area, like predators scenting
prey. Battles against demonic lust-predators and rapacious horrors from the
Black Else are especially brutal, this far north.
Brigadier General Sora Masamune
General Sora Masamune is the
ultimate commander of Misawa air base, and was the first Assault Witch- the
first to don the turbine leggings, before there was even an official term for
what these high-flying women were! General (then Ensign) Masamune was the first
female pilot to fly combat mission for Japan- off the books flights over Laos and Cambodia with specially selected American pilots during the
Vietnam war. (By the way, the rumors about her and Ladybird Johnson in the
Lincoln Bedroom are all true.)
When it became obvious the
young ace’s natural talents were only being stifled by her specially modified
and custom-painted F-4 Phantom, the best techno-occulists in the JSDF were
commissioned to create the Assault Witch technology! With her help, they did
it, and throughout the late 1970s and early 1980s, proved the technology in a
series of secret sorties the world never heard about, but owes its continued
existence to.
Now in her mid-60s, Gen. Masamune
has been forced to abandon the sky for desk duty- training, disciplining and
guiding the next generation of Assault Witches. She’s still impressive in the
air though- the limp she’s sported since flak over Hanoi blew apart her left hip doesn’t slow her down at all
once she reaches altitude during check flights.
As one of the first woman to
play a major role in the modern Japanese military, Gen. Masamune has been
instrumental in carrying out Crown Princes Misako’s modernization campaign. Masamune
fought hard to bring the Assault Witches to Misawa, and protects the 105th
Joint Fighter Wing fiercely, and under her command, the wing has proved its
utility against the Abyss and other incursions.
Using Brig. Gen. Masamune in the
Campaign
General Masamune is a stern
but honorable authority figure for the campaign. She is a contrivance to keep
the air base and its staff running smoothly. She is also going to take the sky
one last time, die heroically, and inspire the young fliers under her command
to live up to her example. You can also use her (once or twice, before her luck
fails) to rescue a doomed player character, or even up an unfair battle, but
with concrete mechanical weaknesses built-in that keep her from being an
irritating GMPC.
If you run General Masamune
in combat, use the Assault Witch Squadron Leader stat-block with the following
modifications. These reinforce her role as an aging badass, who does the
impossible and fights heroically but knows her time is passed.
·
General Masamune
has only 14 Hit Points (1 HP per Hit Dice).
·
General Masamune
takes no damage from successful attack rolls and is considered to have Spell
Resistance 30 against opponents of CR 7 or less. She automatically succeeds on
saving throws against effects produced by enemies of CR 7 or less.
·
Opponents of CR
8+ receive an untyped bonus on ranged attack rolls against Gen. Masamune equal
to ½ their Hit Dice, with no cap.
·
When slain, Gen. Masamune
cannot normally be raised or resurrected (her soul is unwilling,
basically, unless the PCs have such a deep personal relationship, developed by
roleplaying she might return for one final mission).
·
Even if she is
raised or resurrected, she still has these modifications.
·
If Gen. Masamune
is slain, all player characters involved in the battle, with Assault Witch
cavalier levels gain enough XP to gain one level, which must be spent on this
class.
The Drill Sergeant of Lion Squadron
Lion Squadron is the largest,
most storied and most famous Assault Witch squadron on base (though far from
the only one). Part of Lion Squadron’s legendary effectiveness is their
extraordinary training and conditioning regimen. The squadron’s drill sergeant
is, in his own way, every bit as extraordinary as the base’s commanding
officer.
Ten years ago, a male lion
washed up on the Nagasaki shore during an especially fierce Akashita Wind storm. Battered and
beaten, the lion’s right forepaw was completely destroyed by what looked like
heavy machinegun fire, and a good deal of his fur was burnt away. As strange as
the lion’s sudden appearance was, when he finally awakened in a nearby zoo’s
veterinary clinic was the revelation that he spoke. Initially, the lion just
growled fluent English, but he picked up Japanese within two years.
The wounded lion had no
memory of how he came to be in Nagasaki, nor who nearly killed him, nor even how he could
reason and speak. Not knowing what else to do with the lion, Chrysanthemum
Seven took him into custody, and eventually nursed him back to health. Over the
years, the still nameless lion went into battle alongside C-7 as they fought
the horrors of the Black Else.
Eventually, the lion (LG
male Ubasti Fighter 11) became the unofficial mascot of Lion Squadron
and its semi-official physical training instructor. He’s fiercely protective of
the base’s young women, and most of the cat-girls on base consider him a gruff
favorite uncle…even if his pre-dawn PT sessions leave most of them puking and
gasping in exhaustion. With his new mission, and new girls to protect, the
great, scarred lion leaves questions of what he is and where he comes from to
his unquiet dreams.
Combined Fleet HQ
The Combined Fleet Project is an adjunct to the military’s Assault Witch program headquartered at
Misawa AFB. While Assault Witches are brave young girls trained as soldiers and
magical fliers, the heroines of the somewhat more obscure Combined Fleet are
made, not born. Combined Fleet POETICA are forged on site in Misawa, using
military facilities operating under a multi-billion yen license from the New
Day Girl Factory. The Combined Fleet POETICA are the only authorized model of
android girl produced away from the megacorp’s Ehime facility.
Approximately 150 Combined
Fleet POETICA are quartered in a set of run down barracks in the western
quadrant of Misawa AFB. The well equipped, heavily armed and extensively
trained androids are deployed with Assault Witch squads, or even with
conventional police forces when the opposition is expected to be supernaturally
intense. Despite the inherent danger of their role as ‘living land
battleships’, the Combined Fleet androids relish their duties. They’re
programmed for courage and love the romantic adventure of serving in the JSDF’s
elite anti-supernatural squads.
The Combined Fleet barracks
are rundown open bay structures of early 1960s vintage, but the androids keep
them with obvious pride. Under military law, these POETICA are free citizens of
Japan (Gen. Masamune pushed for this, before she’d sign off
on the project). The Combined Fleet androids spend most of their meager
salaries on military memorabilia, both actual historical artifacts and well
made replicas, and have turned their barracks into an impromptu museum of Japanese military history. Historical cosplay is a favorite
hobby.
Warrant Officer Heiankyo Alien (named for one of the very first Japanese videogames)
is the most senior POETICA in the program, and a highly competent, extremely
serious young warrior. Though General Masamune has been able to win the base’s
POETICA their freedom, she hasn’t been able to raise the program’s greatest
success story to an actual officer’s rank. Officer Heiankyo refuses to let the
slight affect her performance, though it has made her secretly bitter. She
lacks the joy her younger ‘sisters’ bring to the job, and not even late night LAN parties with them can break her out of her worsening melancholy. She
hides her depression well, at least as far as humans are concerned, but the
other POETICA on base know what she’s really feeling.
If you need statistics for
Warrant Officer Heiankyo Alien, use the Combined Fleet POETICA stat-block.
Strike Kitten Barracks
In contrast with the relative
handful of Combined Fleet POETICA quartered at Misawa AFB, nearly 1,000 Strike
Kittens are stationed with the Assault Witch Squadron. The genetically sculpted
and adventurous kittens are quartered with human JSDF women in slightly more
modern barracks than their android sisters have received. They are
administratively split up among several squadrons, but share common duty, and a
common origin. The best and quickest are active duty Assault Witches, with the
rest filling reserve slots, completing their training or performing non-combat
duties around the base. And again, because of General Masamune’s insistence,
the Strike Kitten are free.
The joint service air base’s
commanders (both Japanese and American) have had to put the Strike Kittens
officially ‘off limits’ as far as on-duty romances are concerned. The Japanese
men on base are bad enough, but for American Navy and Air Force personnel
stationed here, most whom have never even seen a catgirl before, the Strike
Kittens are simply irresistible.
Of course, most of the
Kittens have no interest in romance. They’re still young enough, and boisterous
enough, that their only love is the open sky. They’re not always the most
reliable about switching on their IFF transponders, and most of them have been officially reprimanded about
unauthorized flights in the airspace- a distracted, flying catgirl can be a
major navigation hazard. But sometimes the call of a clear blue sky on a spring
day is loud enough to override their military discipline and send a small wing
of catgirls into the clouds.
While the Combined Fleet
POETICA have a strong leader in their warrant officer, the Strike Kittens
aren’t quite as lucky. Three Technical Sergeant Strike Kittens share command
duties between them. The trio manages to get most of their paperwork done with
Gen. Masamune’s extensive help and
are quickly maturing into competent leaders, if not exactly by-the-book ones. Sergeants
Ringo, Kayu and Atari are constantly in trouble
with the general for minor breaches of discipline, but have good hearts and are
better leaders in battle than they are administrators.
If you need statistics for
any of these three feline Tech Sergeants, use the Assault Witch Strike Kitten
stat-block.
Kotobuki-San and the Assault Witch Mess
The Assault Witches share
their old and somewhat run-down mess facilities with the rest of the JSDF
members on base. The Assault Witches themselves have a smaller mess area
cordoned off, which the kitchen staff tries to make as elegant as possible,
which usually means hanging curtains over walls stained by age, time and water.
The food however, is a lot better than anything the Americans get in their
larger and more modern mess-hall.
The kitchen is run by an old
woman everyone just calls Kotobuki-San (Mrs. Kotobuki).
Everyone with magical senses gets occasional tinges that she might be more than
human, but as far as anybody can tell, she’s just a 68 year old woman who’s
worked in restaurants her whole life and will probably keep working another 20
years, who’s unhealthily obsessed with the local football club, and who makes
the absolutely best cakes and tea in the whole prefecture.
The mess itself is open 24
hours a day, to accommodate service members on all shifts, but Kotobuki-San
only comes into work at exactly 0433 every morning, and has her first baked
goods ready to eat an hour or so later. She leaves work around 1630 each
afternoon and never seems to take regular days off, though she might disappear
for a bit during World Cup season.
Squadron Gymnasium Facility II
The Assault Witches and
related staffers have access to one of the base’s gymnasiums, which is a boon
because when winter comes, Misawa grows far too cold for outdoor PT. Facility
II is found a few short yards behind the mess hall, behind a rather ugly
fenced-in fuel-oil storage depot. Facility II also boasts a small and intimate
but popular artificial onsen. The gym’s onsen is women only, and has become a
defacto hang-out for many of the base’s Assault Witches. Even General Masamune
occasionally comes in for a long, leisurely soak, and as she says “rank has no
place in the bath.”
In-Game Use
The indoor onsen is a place
for hanging out and roleplaying, with a ton of fanservice potential and sexy
bathing adventures mixed in. If the PCs do a lot of their pre-mission scheming
and post-mission debriefing in the onsen, consider giving everybody who
participates regularly the Nearly Naked Exposition trait as a reward for
staying firmly in-genre. And also, if you want to shake up the players, or
literally catch the heroes with their pantsu
down, nothing’s stopping a Breath of
the Onsen or similar monster from taking up residence!
Hanger S-Alpha
The 105th Joint
Operations Group is headquartered in one of the larger and more modern hangers
on base. Hanger S-Alpha was erected during the late 1990s, and includes
dedicated medical facilities for Assault Witch Nekomusume and POETICA, briefing
rooms and simulators used by the squads, arcane/mechanical repair facilities
for Assault Witch components. Fast launch tubes leading directly to pre-cleared
runways can put whole squadrons of occult fliers into the air within minutes!
An air traffic control tower
looms high over Hanger S-Alpha, painted with the iconic symbol of the 105th
JOG- a golden feather and grey missile against a bright blue field. An ever
increasing roster of black diamonds, each symbolizing a successful Abyss
shoot-down, is painted beneath the unit logo.
Unknown to most base
staffers, and even to most lower-ranking Assault Witches, a massive underground
laboratory beneath Hanger S-Alpha contains the remains of hundreds of Abyss and
other oni predators, studied under
extreme security. Project GILGAMESH has pushed time and again for access to the
samples, but General Masamune is leery of letting their scientists in. As far
as she’s concerned, her methods of containing the Abyss are far more effective,
and cause fewer collateral damage than GILGAMESH’s handling of the Tottori
Horrors. To say Project GILGAMESH disagrees is putting it very mildly.
The Armory Slit
The 105th’s
magi-tech armory is kept within Hanger S-Alpha, under ultra-tech security and
potent magical wards. The armory’s towering entryway resembles nothing so much
as a fortified adamantine vault door built in imitation of a woman’s most
intimate folds. Base policy requires all occult weapons and artifact-level
devices be stored in the Armory Slit between missions, though Assault Witch
adventurers are allowed to keep most magical costumes, armor, and wondrous
items in their quarters. Unofficially, most proven Assault Witches keep an
enchanted pistol or combat knife on their person at all times for self defense.
The American Contingent
Misawa AFB is unusual in that
it has a large American presence, and over half the massive, fenced military
airbase is given over to Air Force and Navy facilities. The presence of so-many
foreign troops gives Misawa its unique character and brings new approaches to
the JSDF’s traditional fight against oni and undead. The American contingent is
fully briefed on the reality of supernatural Japan, unlike most American soldiers serving elsewhere on
this dangerous, black planet.
A deployment to Misawa is an
eye opener for most sailors and airmen, an introduction to wonders and horrors
formerly concealed by the modern world’s shadows. Once they overcome their
culture shock they realize that while the United States is relatively new to the fight against the Black
Else, superior training and firepower counts for almost as much as Shinto
exorcism techniques and Goetic demonology. The Americans are higher tech, and
use more modern methods than Chrysanthemum Seven; the Red Line Array was their idea, as are the Solenoid Quench Cannon and other revolutionary anti-oni weapons.
The American forces on the
base are under the ultimate command of the United States Air Force, with the
Navy taking a smaller role on base (though the Navy does provide a substantial
minority of Yeager officers). The
American side’s commanding officer is Air
Force Colonel Rick Plantaganet
(LN male human Fighter 8/Rogue 4), who even though he’s a balding, 52 year old
desk-weasel still goes by the moronic callsign he picked up during his days as
a pilot, he even signs his orders with it. He’s the stereotypical ugly
American- a close-talking, loudmouthed, aggressive, Evangelical Christian
bully, and his troops would probably get more done if some oni bit his head off at the shoulders. There’s a few of them who
are clever enough to realize it.
The Red Line Array
Misawa AFB is home to a huge
antenna farm that covers several acres. Most of the world believes the array is
an electronic warfare site, if they give it any thought at all, but its purpose
is far stranger. The Red Line Array sits at a conflux of ley lines, and is able
to feel the pulse of mystical energy across the planet as easily as a
stethoscope finds a patient’s pulse. Chrysanthemum Seven uses the Red Line
Array to track every torii gate
currently open in Asia.
The arcane technologists
working in the windowless Array Control can….
|
Red Line Array Task
|
Computer Use Check DC
|
|
Map all stable torii in one Japanese prefecture
|
DC 25
|
|
Map all currently open
temporary/unstable torii in one
Japanese prefecture
|
DC 30
|
|
Map all torii that have been closed within the
past 24 hours, throughout one Japanese Prefecture
|
DC 32
|
|
Map the location of all
Conjuration spells or effect of 6th level or higher, cast within a single
Japanese prefecture
|
DC 35
|
|
Map the location of all raise dead or resurrection or similar spells cast to restore life to the dead
cast within a single Japanese prefecture
|
DC 30
|
|
Map the location of all
death effects of 4th level or higher, cast within a single
Japanese prefecture
|
DC 28
|
|
Map the location of all
haunts duplicating the effect of 3rd or higher level spells within
a single Japanese prefecture
|
DC 30
|
|
Any casting of wish, limited wish or miracle (or similar spells) sounds a
visual and audible alarm indicating the prefecture of casting. Pinpointing
the casting to within 30 ft requires a check.
|
DC 15
|
|
Either the Tottori or Hyogo
prefectures are mapped, due to lingering dimensional rifts.
|
+5 to check DC
|
|
Provide a realtime location
on a single Outsider (20 HD or fewer) known to the operator within Japan
|
DC 40
|
|
Provide a realtime location
on a single Outsider (21+ HD or greater) known to the operator within Japan
|
DC 30
|
|
In all cases, mapping is accurate to within about 30
ft
|
The Red Line Array becomes
erratic during Akashita Winds; add +1d8 to the check DC during a wind storm
anywhere on the Japanese archipelago. Each check requires 1d4 minutes, and
provides a tactical map accurate to about 10 meters. Only Chrysanthemum Seven
operatives, Assault Witches or their agents have access to this
ultra-classified data. Mapping a prefecture requires about 5 minutes per skill
check.
The Red Line Array came
online during the early 1970s. Prior to that, a ring of Jomon-era stone
monoliths stood in the empty pastureland. Similar to the monoliths at Stonehenge and other sites, these ornately carved pillars served an undoubtedly
similar function for the island’s most ancient inhabitants. When the Array was
erected, the Heart Pillar was moved to the near-freezing steel and concrete
bunkers beneath the Array itself. Now, the great stone pillar is connected, by
magic and fiber-optical cabling, to the vast server farm powering the array.
Anyan Tennouji Primary
School
Unusually for an on-base
military school, Anyan Tennouji is named for a Japanese fighter (one of the
boldest Japanese aces of WWII, and one of the nation’s most patriotic
Doujinishi), rather than an American military hero. The reason is that during a
fierce engagement with US Army Air Corps forces, Lt. Tennouji broke off
hostilities and joined his US rivals in a pitched battle against a horror emerged
from the Black Else, and saved myriad lives, both American and Japanese. A
painted concrete statue of Lt. Tennouji’s Zero decorates the school’s sports
field.
Anyan Tennoujii (known as AT
Primary to most students) is a combined primary school, servicing American
students from grades pre-K to grade 8. A surprisingly large number of the
student body are Doujinishi themselves: living warplane-spirits summoned by the
care and attention that the air base’s flight crews lavish of the military
aircraft as well as incarnate gun fantasies and military power dreams. A
handful of Imperialistic Kami have been born at the base, and though
technically not American citizens (or citizens of any nation, really) they are
allowed to attend AT Primary with their mortal class mates.
Many of the young plane fantasies
and war-dreams attending AT Primary soon mature into competent fighter pilots
themselves- the best donning the armored turbine leggings of an Assault Witch
and taking to the skies.
Benten’s Sea Pizza II
The first and biggest
Benten’s Sea Pizza is in Kanagawa Prefecture, but recently the second restaurant in the strange
franchise opened in Misawa, working out of a two story restaurant right out
side Misawa air base’s front security checkpoint. Like its predecessor,
Benten’s Sea Pizza II is famous for its delivery girls- high flying teenaged
girls delivering pizza on the backs of enchanted flying brooms.
The pizza place’s dining room
is always crowded with base personnel and is famous for its fried cheese rolls
not just the pizza. Now that Pizza II has opened, it’s taking some of the
burden off the Kanagawa branch, handling deliveries for pretty much everything
north of Tokyo. The pizza place’s cooks and its high-flying delivery
girls are primarily the children of base personnel, both Japanese and American.
Gen. Masamune has subtly endorsed Pizza II, because it gives her a pretty deep
well of flight-trained young women to recruit Assault Witches from. She
suspects that’s the real reason Pizza II’s opened up, though she, like pretty
much everybody else, has no idea the Benten in the store’s name actually refers
to a real, living goddess rather than just a reference to Shinto myth.
In-Game Use
Pizza II is designed as a
point of origin for some Assault Witches, explaining where they first learned
to fly. It also provides a way for non-Assault Witch cavaliers flying with the
105th JOG to match the speed and in-air maneuverability of an
Airplane Girl. Your character concept not suited to Cavalier levels? That’s
fine, put your character on an enchanted broom that can push the Mach limit,
and she can still be effective in the air.
Pizza II is also a tie
directly into the Goddess Benten plotline woven through several Black Tokyo
sourcebooks, and a good way to connect to the rather helpful goddess and become
embroiled in her many, many schemes.
If you want to further
differentiate broom-fliers trained at Pizza II from ‘ordinary’ Assault Witches,
you might allow them to access some of the broom-based fighting styles in Otherverse America. Agile Broom, Ancient
Trusted Weapons and other feats in that tree are ideal fighting styles for
Benten’s delivery girls, which give them not only some cool tactics to use with
their enchanted brooms, but a unique factional identity.
Club Ivy, Hatchinohie, Aomori Prefecture
Club
Ivy is the name on the lease, but there’s no sign, or indication what’s behind
the peeling green door in a small, windowless building a few blocks from
Hatchinohie’s train station. Nobody ever refers to this dingy
bar-slash-bordello by name, anyway. It’s well known among both the local
Japanese blue collar workers who frequent the place after work, as well as the
American servicemen at the nearby Misawa AFB.
Club
Ivy is a small-time, Yakuza-owned whore house staffed by a mix of human and
POETICA prostitutes. Most of the android prostitutes are actually free, at
least to a degree. Club Ivy has become a sort of underground mecca for runaway
POETICA. Working here (or at similar low-end clubs on a circuit) for five or
six years can buy a POETICA a new life and a foreign passport.
The
battleship-girls of Misawa’s Combined Fleet know about the bordello, and help
out its POETICA as best they can. They occasionally show up after closing time,
bearing gifts, spare clothes, manga and circuit components for both the human
and android prostitutes. Badly damaged POETICA sex-workers here know they might
be able to get off the books medical care if they can stay alive long enough to
reach their weaponized sisters in Misawa.
The
Club is run- in name only, by an 80-something, semi-retired Yakuza named Arata (CN male Human Rogue 6). He’s
half-senile and narcoleptic, and bangs on a tambourine in time with the bar’s
music, at least until he nods off. In reality, he tends the bar, takes the
customer’s money and leaves all the real decisions to his POETICA wife, Korra (N female POETICA Expert 5).
Korra worked the club herself for nearly a decade, and when she stopped fucking
on stage, she married the owner and became legally emancipated. He got old; she
can’t. She still likes the senile old rogue, and he’s done enough years of
loyal duty to the Yakuza that they allow him the illusion that he’s still
running the place- still the deadly pimp he was decades ago.
Some Suggested Missions
The Assault Witch campaign is
primarily mission based. The game session begins with a briefing from their
superiors, and than the player characters soar off into battle. Usually an
Assault Witch squadron is allowed pretty wide latitude in tactics unless it
becomes obvious to the chain of command they’re out classed, giving players
some discretion on how they carry out their missions.
The archetypical mission: air defense.
Pick a Japanese or Okinawan
city that’s coastal and has an American or JSDF military base. An Abyss force,
size and composition of your choosing, is either already attacking, or will be
on site within a few hours! Scramble and drive the Abyss back, destroying as
many as you can while protecting human lives and property whenever possible.
If you want to make a
standard air defense mission more challenging, roll on this chart to add some
random, and potentially nasty complications.
|
Air Defense Mission Complications (d20)
|
|
1 One of the most powerful
PCs is grounded for this mission because of some bureaucratic reason
|
11 Extremely poor
visibility (moonless night, intense fog, smoke from ground fires, ect)
|
|
2 Tropical storm or
hurricane conditions
|
12 The Abyss assault is a
feint concealing their real target
|
|
3 Local criminals or
supernatural threats plan their crimes to coincide with Abyss raids
|
13 Local government
hamstrings the Assault Witches by preventing them from using their heaviest
firepower
|
|
4 The airspace is crowded
with civilian flights
|
14 The scramble order comes
during the middle of the night, sending an exhausted team into battle
|
|
5 The Abyss appear in far
greater numbers than previously expected
|
15 The Abyss range farther
inland than previously seen
|
|
6 The team is in disarray
and not cooperating well because of personal problems or romantic
complications
|
16 During the battle, the
Abyss force splits up to tackle several distant objectives simultaneously
|
|
7 A crashing Abyss
threatens lives on the ground
|
17 The Abyss seem more
intent on killing civilians than ever before, virtually ignoring the Assault
Witches
|
|
8 The enemy is a small
flight of Abyss Witches (which should operate solo!) , rather than more
conventional and combative forces
|
18 Variant Abyss types like
White or Blue Abyss (or stranger creatures of the gamemaster’s design) appear
|
|
9 The battle derails a
bullet train, risking thousands of lives
|
19 GILGAMESH agents are
watching the battle and assessing the Assault Witch’s capabilities, but not
interfering
|
|
10 Cellphone and radio
communication is dropped midway into the battle because of a stray shot
|
20 A single Abyss ‘ace’
seems to be learning from each encounter with the PCs and countering their
usual tactics
|
For variety, between these
air defense missions, try some of these stranger missions (you can roll D20 if
you want a random mission):
1.
A low level squad
is assigned to provide air cover for prefectural police assigned to hunt a
particularly dangerous Black Car or Wet Hell Taxi. When the cops find the
vehicle, it’s up to the Assault Witches to chase it down and blow it away. If
it has hostages still alive, that makes things a lot harder.
2.
During the spring
or summer, a wing of Assault Witches is assigned to air show duty. Pull off
fancy Acrobatics and Fly checks and put on a great show to raise recruitment
numbers!
3.
An Akashita Wind storm drops torrential
rain and high winds on a major Japanese city, but the Assault Witches have to
stay airborne, spotting demonic predators as they emerge from unstable torii and calling in their positions to
ground squads.
4.
An experienced
squad is assigned to help the Maritime SDF hunt down a Bake-Kujira or other coastal kaiju. Hopefully, the team’s got
plenty of back up and can pull some really heavy firepower from the armory.
5.
During winter
exercises in Hokkaido, a sudden blizzard turns the sky into a frozen, white-out
hell and severs comms, and the Assault Witches need to work together just to
survive and return to base.
6.
A frustrating
wild goose chase, where the Abyss are gone by the time the squadron arrives,
and all they can do is help with the clean-up….until one of the squad finds
some overlooked piece of evidence that finally answers the question of what the
Abyss are and what they really want.
7.
The Assault
Witches are assigned escort duty for the Imperial Family’s or Diet’s aircraft,
and have a rather nasty encounter with some purely non-supernatural terrorists.
8.
Some bastard in
the Diet has called in the Assault Witches to help with a TBMS cat-girl cull:
the Strike Kittens are near riot! Officially, the Assault Witches can’t disobey
orders, but unofficially (and with Gen. Masamune’s quiet sanction) they can be
so ‘accidentally clumsy’ the cull fails cataclysmically.
9.
Capture a lone Abyss Witch alive for interrogation
and/or dissection.
10.
The Assault
Witches are stationed aboard a Maritime SDF destroyer as it performs
humanitarian and relief missions in the Pacific Rim region. It’ll be months before they see Japan again.
11.
A massive
earthquake and related tsunami devastates Tokyo, as residents have been fearing since the Great Kanto
Quake. The nature of the campaign changes forever, as the greatest mega-city on
Earth is forever scarred. The Assault Witches help however they can…but what
happens when rogue elements in the military stage a coup against the badly
crippled Diet?
12.
Try out an
untested, prototype weapon against the Abyss which fails disastrously when it’s
turned on.
13.
Find out who or
what’s shooting down Pizza II delivery girls, and expect that Benten herself
will show up to complicate the investigation.
14.
A pair of
well-liked Assault Witches from a rival squadron are killed in a training
accident. Was it just an accident? Even if it was, base activities come to a
crashing halt until a safety stand-down and investigation is completed, and the
Assault Witches deal with their grief.
15.
Project GILGAMESH
(and their mecha) shows up at the site of an Abyss attack with their own
agenda, which makes the battle a lot more difficult, and a lot more dangerous
for civilians caught in the cross fire.
16.
It’s annual
leave! Time for the squadron to hit an onsen, do some shopping and karaoke
until dawn! Of course, where ever they go to relax is sure to be hit by some
kind of supernatural predation when the girls are caught without their best
weapons and gear.
17.
Project GILGAMESH
has gotten authorization for a sweep and clear mission into the Tottori
Exclusion Zone and all available Assault Witches are called in as air support.
So’s everybody else in the JSDF and Japanese police force’s anti-supernatural arsenal.
Big problems: GILGAMESH is in charge, they’re extremely overconfident, there’s
variables they haven’t seen, and the task force’s chain of command is a muddled
mess of competing egos.
18.
Scout rumors of
the appearance of an Abyss Hive far
from Japanese territorial waters, either in the Philippines, near the Hawaiian islands or
in the Oceania/Australia region. Is it a wild goose chase offering the
opportunity for a paid holiday, or the beginning of the climactic battle?
19.
Assist Police
Section Seven in shutting down the Oni’s
Night Stadium on its next appearance. Or provide close air support during
an undercover operation launched to finally put a stop to the Rape Pure Tournament. Either way, the
night is far more horrible than anything the Assault Witches have encountered
to date, and there’s a chance they might cross paths with the Eyrines Sisterhood, either as enemies or
reluctant allies.
20.
A squad of fairly
experienced Assault Witches are assigned a bevy of new, first level rookies.
They’ve got to take them on their first live-fire, anti-Abyss mission and keep
the newbies alive while doing so.
Hey, the artwork is starting to pour in for my upcoming Witches of the Blue Skies sourcebook and I thought I'd show of some of my favorites.
CHRIS
