XING LA

All missions on Lenin-2 are hell. I

guess thats why they call it a Hell
parallel. Its way too hot, and theres
nothing but bugs and carp to eat, and
if you close your eyes for two seconds,
some kind of savage is going to try and
smash in your skull with a rusted-out
electrical transformer bar. The major
powers (except the British Empire)
went Communist in the late 19th century and, just like the Soviets did to
Russia in Homeline, they wrecked the
environment big time over the next
century. Britain lost what the Chinese
called the Summer Wars to the
Communist powers in the 1950s, and
that knocked the struts out from
under the global economy, too. Hong
Kong and expatriate Americans in
Shanghai had managed to spread capitalism to China, though, so technological progress kept progressing
until the ecological collapse took
everything down with it. The Gulf
Stream shut down and shifted global
weather patterns. Catastrophic warming melted the ice caps and flooded
the coastlines; mega-storms tore
through the desertified continental
interiors; famines killed billions of
people. While all this was going on,
the Bolsheviks, the Mitteleuropan
DKAP, and the Christian Communist
Congressional Party fought the
Autumn Wars over the stinking
remains of the fresh water and the
fish. The few million survivors are
grinding along at medieval tech levels,
except for the Chinese, who had
enough stuff that some survivor settlements can keep the lights on and the
engines running. Until the plankton
all dies, anyhow.

POINTS SUMMARY
Attributes/Secondary Characteristics
Advantages/Perks/TL/Languages/
Cultural Familiarity
Disadvantages/Quirks
Skills/Techniques
Other

322

We run surveys all over the planet,

trying to see if we can somehow jumpstart the ecology again, just like China
was trying to do before the ax fell. We
wind up trying to salvage a lot of the
Chinese records, and so weve kind of
made Soochow Island our hell away
from hell. Theyve got liquor, and
electric lights, and cooked food, and
gambling, and all the comforts of
home. A lot of these coastal Chinese
got genetic grafts during the last, desperate try anything times; with some
of them, it seems to have helped. One
really sharp local I mean sharp as a
nanofiber, nothing gets past her
probably has some water-rat DNA in
her; her eyes are red, and her teeth
arent quite right. But she can hold her
breath for half an hour, track stuff by
the smell, and see in the dark. More
importantly, Xing La (thats her name)
can drive, fly, or float anything that
moves. And if it doesnt move, she can
make it move. Shes a natural pilot,
too, and she doesnt depend on radio
or instruments like half the people
Infinity sends out here. She has like a
sixth sense for these wrecks, and without her, we wouldnt have found that

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[ -109]
[ 127 ]
[
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ICONIC CHARACTERS

lost conveyer before the cannibals got

to it. Weve probably hired her for
some kind of work on every mission in
Lenin-2 for the past four years, and
shes been more places and done a better job than plenty of folks from
Homeline.
So what Im trying to say, I guess, is
that the team and I, we feel kind of
bad about leaving her there in her miserable hole to die with the rest of the
human race on that ball of mud. I
mean, if it turns out that we cant reseed the krill, and we cant fix the
North Atlantic, and we cant find any
earthworms that can stay alive in the
plague zones for more than a month.
And shes got nothing but talent, and
drive, and pluck to spare, and its even
more wasted than most of Lenin-2 is.
Anyhow, weve sent her name and profile upstairs to well, Id better not say
who, but you know who I mean and
hopefully, they need someone who can
drive a motorcycle up a sheer cliff, or
thread an airship through the eye of a
typhoon. If not, so help me Buddha,
Ill smuggle her back to Homeline
myself.

225
Name ___________________________________
Player ____________________ Point Total __________
Xing La
Ht __________
Wt __________
Age ____________
Unspent Pts __________
54
100 lbs. Size Modifier _________
0
27
Appearance _______________________________________________________________________________
Skinny East Asian woman with gleaming eyes and bony teeth

CHARACTER SHEET

Languages

CURRENT

ST

10

[0 ]

HP

10

[0]

DX

12

[40] WILL

12

[0]

IQ

12

[40] PER

12

[0]

[30 ]

10

HT

13

FP

CURRENT

[ -9 ]

BASIC LIFT (ST ST)/5 ______

20 DAMAGE Thr ________
1d-2 Sw ________
1d
6.25 [ 0 ] BASIC MOVE ___________
6
BASIC SPEED __________
[0]
ENCUMBRANCE

MOVE

DODGE

20
None (0) = BL
_____
40
Light (1) = 2 BL
_____
60
Medium (2) = 3 BL _____
120
Heavy (3) = 6 BL
_____
200
X-Heavy (4) = 10 BL _____

6
BM 1 _____
4
BM 0.8 _____
3
BM 0.6 _____
2
BM 0.4 _____
1
BM 0.2 _____

9
Dodge _____
8
Dodge -1 _____
7
Dodge -2 _____
6
Dodge -3 _____
5
Dodge -4 _____

ADVANTAGES AND PERKS

DISADVANTAGES AND QUIRKS

Clueless
Disturbing Voice
Duty (To ISWAT; 15 or less;
Extremely Hazardous)
Gluttony (15)
Hard of Hearing
Low Empathy
Shyness (Severe)
Skinny
Unnatural Features
(Lambent eyes and bony teeth)
Unusual Biochemistry
Wealth (Struggling)
Attentive
Bad posture (-1 to Dancing and Sex Appeal)
Code of Honor
(Stay bought and finish the job)
Incompetence (Finance)
Likes processed food (especially fast food)

Written

_________________________________________________________
[ 2]
Cantonese (Broken)
_________________________________________________________
[ 4]
English (Accented)
_________________________________________________________
[ 2]
Mandarin (Broken)
_________________________________________________________
[ 0]
Shanghainese (Native)
_________________________________________________________ [ ]

8
TL: _______________________________________
[ 0]
Cultural Familiarities
___________________________________________
[ 0]
East Asian
___________________________________________
[ 1]
Homeline
___________________________________________ [ ]

PARRY

Reaction Modifiers

Appearance ___________________________________
Status _________________________________________
+2 from anyone she does work
Reputation ____________________________________
for (Artificer), +1 in close confines
________________________________________________
(Sanitized Metabolism), -2 for Clueless,
________________________________________________
most of the time, -2 from those who
________________________________________________
can hear her voice (Disturbing Voice)
________________________________________________

DR

BLOCK

SKILLS
] Name
Level Relative Level
] Airshipman/TL7
13
IQ+1
] Armoury/TL7
]
(Heavy Weapons)
13*
IQ+1
] Axe/Mace
12
DX+0
] Breath Control
14
HT+1
] Drive!
16
DX+4
] Electrician/TL7
13*
IQ+1
] Electronics Repair
/TL7 (Sensors)
15*
IQ+3
Electronics Repair
[ -10 ]
/TL7 (Sonar)
14*
IQ+2
[ -10 ] Fishing
12
Per+0
Gunner/TL7 (Rockets)
14
DX+2
[ -20 ] Knot-Tying
13
DX+1
[ -2 ] Machinist/TL7
13*
IQ+1
[ -10 ] Mechanic/TL7
[ -20 ]
(Gasoline Engine)
14*
IQ+2
[ -10 ] Navigation/TL2 (Sea)
15
IQ+3
[ -5 ] Navigation/TL7 (Sea)
14
IQ+2
Scrounging
15
Per+3
[ -2 ] Scuba/TL8
11
IQ-1
[ -5 ] Seamanship/TL7
13
IQ+1
[ -10 ] Smuggling
11
IQ-1
Spear Thrower
13
DX+1
[ -1 ] Survival (Island/Beach)
11
Per-1
[ -1 ] Survival (Swampland)
11
Per-1
Swimming
15
HT+2
[ -1 ]
[ -1 ] * Includes +2 from Artificer.
[ -1 ] Includes +3 from Absolute Direction.
[
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Absolute Direction
Breath-Holding 3
Discriminatory Smell
Infravision
Legal Enforcement Powers
Pressure Support 1
Sanitized Metabolism
Striking ST +10 (Bite Only, -60%)
Talent (Artificer) 2

Spoken

5
6
15
10
15
5
1
20
20

ICONIC CHARACTERS

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