Creating a Character

Squad Concept

The exotic, volatile lives of mercenary squadrons in the Parting Clouds Conflict have only grown in popularity over the past twenty years. Comic books, radio dramas, cheap plastic toys, propaganda posters; and not to mention television appearances. Nam Dam Wings appearing in cell phone commercials, Sawbones-2 giving a speech at the international march for women's rights, Kriegsvalke doing a flyover of the olympus games, countless movie cameos. The horrors of lawless war are veiled behind money and the extravagance of their violence. And it's important to the business: the grinder always needs more meat. For every hundred squads that register as companies and arrive on the Isla every year, only one or two cement themselves. The old dogs can't live forever, either, as legendary aces fall behind young blood and new technology.

You and three cohorts have recently registered your own mercenary company and are in flight to the Isla yourselves. Plucky, ambitious underdogs ready to feed yourselves to the grinder. All you've seen of the grey zones is on TV: low-resolution photos and blurred footage of fire and brimstone on the news, vivid green forests and deep blue water in the comics. You've learned to fly a fighter jet in some nation's military, sure, but career service never appealed to you - or it ceased to be an option. The siren's song of Rangipakaru calls to you now, inviting you to reach for the heavens, to soar where the common man can only dream, to best Icarus at his own game, and to be shattered: broken apart and scattered across the earth.

Blue sky, break with me.

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Characteristics

Your character has six basic attributes, which represent their physical and mental capabilities. This game's engine (Cepheus, 2018) is loosely based on Traveler (1977), and is built off of the idea of your character's basic training pre-career being simulated. in 1977 Traveler, your character could even die before the first session in this process, needing to be started from scratch. Because of this, it's strongly advised to complete generation before determining your character's backstory.

We begin by rolling 2d6 for each of the following attributes:

Roll!

Strength: Physical prowess, fitness and forcefulness.
Dexterity: Physical coordination, reflexes, agility.
Endurance: Determination and stamina.
Intelligence: Awareness and problem-solving. Your 'street smarts'.
Education: Learning and general knowledge. Your 'book smarts'.
Social Influence: Charisma and reading body language.

The score for each applies a dice modifier to related rolls:

Characteristic Score	Modifier
0–2	–2
3–5	–1
6–8	0
9–11 (9-B)	+1
12–14 (C-E)	+2
15+ (F+)	+3

Finally, in the style of Traveler, you can compress your attributes into a simple hexadecimal code. This is optional but saves space on your character sheet.

1-9 are written normally, but beginning from 10 we count upwards alphabetically from A.

Example: Joe has STR 2, DEX 6, END 7, INT 14, EDU 12, and SOC 7. His code would be "267EC7".

Characteristic Conditions

Your character can experience events which alter their characteristics scores, or are otherwise related to them:

• Physical Damage: Wounds from combat or accidents, or symptoms from disease or poison, temporarily lowers your Physical attributes until medical treatment is received.
• Mental Trauma: Cranial injuries, cerebral damage, drug problems, and episodes of PTSD temporarily lowers your Mental attributes until therapeutic treatment is received.

When your characteristic scores are modified by such a condition, you'll need to use the corresponding modifier for their new score until the condition is removed. Additionally:

• Radiation Damage: When you are exposed to radiation, you begin losing points in Endurance the more severe your dosage is. Each time you lose a point, your modifier is reduced, and when the value reaches 0 your character dies from acute radiation poisoning. This stacks with Physical Damage, but radiation sickness can be treated.

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Age

Following basic training and after minimum military service length, your character will be in their early twenties and is an Airman. You can...

roll to determine your starting age

...or pick one from 18 to 23 and proceed from there. However, a character wishing to be an Airman 1st Class must...

add 3 to 5 years to their age

...and in order to become a Senior Airman they must...

do it again.

If your Strength or Endurance were below 6, you may now set them at 6: however, you were a shrimp when you enlisted or were conscripted and boot camp was hell on earth, something which should be worked into your characterization.

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Role

In Modern War: Airstrike there are a great many roles your character can have. Fuck you, almost all of them are for infantry and marines. In this campaign, these roles are largely designated to NPCs: if, at a later point, you want to make a secondary character that fulfills ground roles such as recon or infiltration, please inform the GM at an appropriate time. Your primary character can be a:

• Pilot: Pilots specialize in either fixed-wing or rotary-wing aircraft and excel at taking those expensive machines through complicated and dangerous aerial maneuvers. You gain a Role Skill-1 in winged aircraft or rotor aircraft.
• RIO: Also known as WSO, depending on what type of plane you're in. These are either backseat in a two-seater fighter, or are aircrew on a larger plane like a gunship or AWACS. The RIO is trained to fly a plane in an emergency, but lacks skill in maneuvering; their main training concerns targeting and control of high-end weapons systems and radar. They are, however, outmoded on most Generation 4.5 and Generation 5 aircraft. UAV operators may also fall into this category. You gain a Role Skill-1 in heavy weapons or comms.
• Loadmaster: These specialized aircrew work in helicopters and airlift planes, managing cargo weight and balance to ensure no gravitational issues during flight. They are also trained to execute cargo drops, personnel air drops, and rescue winches or rappel lines on helicopters. In a combat situation, they are often the designated door or tail gunner, and in a pinch they often have basic flight training but lack the experience to maneuver. You gain a Role Skill-1 in machinegun.

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Skills & Career Track

Every character gets the following skills after completing their initial tour of duty:

You get to add three skills at Skill-1, in addition to your Role Skill.
A 1 indicates basic proficiency: for instance, if you have completed a basic marksman training course, you gain Rifle-1.
Two more skills can be added at Skill-0. Boot camp also grants you Rifle-0, Melee Combat-0, Parachute-0 and Wheeled Vehicle-0.
A 0 indicates that you have been educated in how to use it: for instance, if you are told how to insert a magazine, disable the safety and pull the trigger, you now have Rifle-0.
You can lastly gain a +1 to any skill, including those you have at 0 but not in any skill you do not have a number in. Or, you can increase one of your attributes by 1 instead.

If you aged up and became an Airman 1st Class:

You can add one new skill at Skill-1; OR increase an existing skill by +1; OR increase an attribute by +1.

If you aged up and became a Senior Airman:

You can again add one new skill at Skill-1; OR increase an existing skill by +1; OR increase an attribute by +1.

Skill Table (You Can Also Suggest Your Own Unique Skills To Me Like "Alcohol Distillation")

Field Skills	Combat Skills	Social Skills	Specialization
Comms	Heavy Weapons	Bribery	Wheeled Vehicle
First Aid	Machinegun	Carousing	Motorboat
Navigation	Melee Combat	Gambling	Winged Aircraft
Recon	Pistol	Leadership	Rotor Aircraft
Survival	Rifle	Linguistics (per foreign Language)	Engineer
Tactics	Shotgun	Streetwise	Demolitions
Tracking	Grenades	Sleight of Hand	Medicine
Crafting	Tactics	Instrument	Mechanic

Progressing in age, skill, and rank beyond Rank 3 is standard. Continue aging up and gaining one skill point each time, up to Rank 6. However, keep in mind that with increasing rank, your character would most likely have less and less of a reason to abandon career service and become a mercenary with a deathwish. After Rank 6 you enter the world of NCOs, who would almost certainly never throw their career away to become a mercenary. If you can convince me otherwise, you may message me in private to try and justify this. Characters above age 50 begin suffering increasing debuffs to their physical attributes.

Here is a list of example useful skills for an aircrew character from the book: Rotor Vehicle, Navigation, Survival, Mechanic, Comms, Heavy Weapons, Leadership, Pistol, Bribery, Carousing, Gambling, Linguistics (Arabic).

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Origin

Your origin determines where your starting aircraft comes from, regardless of its classification. Characters from ALBAZUR have access to Soviet bloc planes, characters from SOLARI have access to NATO bloc planes, and characters from neutral countries will likely have a plane from their country-analogue's production or market access. For instance, if your character is from Italy, you'd make up a fictional analogue name (if it doesnt already exist in lore) like Hetalia and you'd probably start with a G.91 or F-104. Shared company planes will be from whatever source the majority of players share. Any future plane purchases after the campaign begins will not be tied to your Origin.

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Personality

Now your character is all numbers; meat with no soul. Here are some prompts to help you start developing an ego, but you are not required to share them with others:

What's your character's most notable personality trait?
Example: Cold-blooded, maternal instinct, green-eared rookie, thieving rogue, etc.
What's your character's most notable physical trait?
Example: Face tattoo, birthmark, beauty spot mole, heterochromia, etc.
What are three of your character's personality strengths?
What are three of your character's personality weaknesses?
Why did you enlist?
Example: Military family, compulsory conscription, escaping abusive family, etc.
What's a recent major event in your character's life that they've been dwelling on?
Example: Girlfriend cheated while you were in the service, diagnosed with an illness you can't afford to treat, looming unpaid debt, etc.
What's a current barrier for your character that they're trying to overcome?
Example: Can't bench 200, unhealthy obsession with 'yuri', belches loudly into hot mics, etc.
Why did your character leave their national/private military service?
Example: Compulsory discharge, poor living conditions, desertion, etc.
Why did your character decide to start a fledgling mercenary squadron rather than joining a larger, well-established one?
Example: Needs money, desires fame, esoteric ideological aspirations, worked for a larger one but the pay sucked, etc.
How did your character meet the other pilots in your new squadron, who are almost certainly not of the same nationality as you?
Example: Met at a private security job fair, established contact via online forums, actually Peregrine we all share the same nationality fuck you, etc.

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Personal Equipment

This is mostly intended for infantry. Fuck you. However, all air crew get basic starting kits. Most personal equipment can easily be obtained with a Trvial purchase.

FAST JET PILOT/RIO KIT LIST

Item	Weight (kg)
Flight Suit	–
Flight Helmet	1
Boots	–
G-Suit & Parachute Harness	6
Individual First Aid Kit	0.5
Combat Knife	0.25
Survival Radio	0.5
Strobe Light	0.2
Survival Kit <	3
> Fishing kit, fire-lighting, compass, water purification, saw, 3 ground flares, Mylar blanket, 1 liter water, 2 days cold rations, signal mirror
Paracord, 20m	–
Flashlight, Pocket	0.1
Oxygen Mask	–
Flotation Vest	1
Handgun, or bloc-specific ASDW like the AU-5/A.	1

Total: 13.55 kg

CHOPPER PILOT KIT LIST

Item	Weight (kg)
Flight Suit	–
Flight Helmet	1
Boots	–
Handgun, or bloc-specific ASDW like the AU-5/A.	1
Individual First Aid Kit	0.5
Flotation Vest	1

Total: 3.5 kg

LOADMASTER KIT LIST

Item	Weight (kg)
Flight Suit	–
Flight Helmet	1
Boots	–
Body Armour (Armour Rating 4)	3
Individual First Aid Kit	0.5
Flotation Vest	1
Harness and Tether	2

Total: 7.5 kg

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Creating Your Company

Once your characters are made, you should turn your imagination towards your lifeblood investment: the company. You will be starting small, just yourselves and whatever crew for any heavier craft you invest in, but as your company grows it will come to have legions of employees running your logistics and permanent infrastructure.

COMPANY NAME:

CHIEF OFFICER: (this should be a player who likes finance, since they will manage the company account)

EMBLEM: (you can make your own or repurpose one or just describe it with words)

The chief officer will receive some documents to help them track things, or are free to create their own. It's recommended for them to track deposits and withdrawals to the company Wealth Unit ✦ account (one of your pilots might be embezzling!), the company's current reputation, and the strategic and executive assets belonging to the company (such as planes and infrastructure; players can keep track of their own munitions and personal ephemera).