Evangelion : Purgatory

[Miggy Smallz]

Well, since several other campaign threads have shown up here, I'll put a preliminary back story and introduction post on here.



In January 2016, Zeruel (see the above Angel, from episode 19) attacked NERV headquarters, but was subsequently defeated/eaten when Evangelion-01 went berserk for the second time. As a result of the incident, however, Shinji Ikari achieved 400% synchratio and merged with the LCL. He essentially achieved a personal state very similar to what was intended in the Third Impact, which was the transcendence and unification of souls. He encountered his mother's spirit, residing in Eva-01, who asked him whether he was ready ("Do you want to become one with me? Do you want to become one mentally and physically? Etc."). He decided to continue living and was ejected from Eva-01's core.

During the End of Evangelion/Death and Rebirth movies, Shinji is responsible for the Third Impact-- everyone is absorbed and unified into one consciousness.... except the entire process is halted. According to this page:

However, Shinji Ikari makes the fateful decision to reject Instrumentality, thus ending Third Impact. It is implied that any individuals with a strong sense of themselves and who choose to do may, eventually, reclaim human form (if they can "imagine themselves within their own heart").

Thus, begins our setting.

The world has been greatly reduced from its already-crippled, Post-Second Impact state. Much of the world's water is tainted with LCL. The population has been reduced to just under a billion people or so; much of civilization has been concentrated into arcologies dotted around the world. The geographic landscape has been changed, as well, with many coastal cities underwater. Only a handful of people managed to survive Third Impact, by clinging onto their wills to live, or perhaps driven by unfinished business.

Younger characters can be either born after the Impact or be one of the first people salvaged, or reconstituted, from the protein strands in the LCL oceans, though the process is costly and experimental. Older characters than that are Third Impact, or possibly even Second Impact, survivors. For older characters, please think about what would drive you to reject Instrumentality, and let me know down the road, though it won't be a factor for a while.

The crux of the game is 15 years after Third Impact, although we will start directly in the wake of the events in End of Evangelion. Those playing younger characters can play as another survivor, using your same stats, whereas the older characters may use your own sheets and play as your (younger) characters directly. The first part of the game will deal with establishing your first foothold in this new, dangerous world.

A few characters from the series have survived, and may show up in the storyline. Certainly, Shinji and Asuka are running around somewhere, since we saw them directly. I can confirm that Shigeru Aoba (one of the three NERV technicians, the one with the long hair) has survived, though we'll explore the world and see if anyone else might have survived.

[Miggy Smallz]

Takao (JOHN) woke up inside his Evangelion's entry plug, completely powerless and inert, the air stale and thick. Not getting any response from HQ, he manually opens his entry plug, and climbs out, to discover the world drastically changed. As if he was on a different world, the sky is a field of deep purple, the stars twinkling like diamond dust, unhindered by the usual glare of city lights. Everything is silent; no power exists. Disconcerting, however, is the destruction all around-- he recognizes the lake as the one above the Geofront, but the shoreline is unnatural, the shape of craters, and the lake water tinged orange, like LCL. He can't recall what happened, but he recognizes Mass Produced Evangelions, standing in a crucified pose, against the horizon. His own Evangelion lies face-down in the lake. He climbs out, and jumps into the water.

Meanwhile, Chinese expatriate Jing Mae (TANYA) awakes on the lake's beach, remembering only slightly that the shelter she was in with her family was destroyed, and the sight of the giant Rei-Lillith looming over the city, with no other explanation. As she shakes off her shock from being reconstituted from LCL, she notices the Evangelion, face-down.and Takao climbing down into the water. She hides for a moment behind some reed grass and a sign by the edge of the beach, observing him before she notices that he is roughly her age. Deciding she can trust him, she waves him over, and they discuss their options-- she needs to find her brother, but he (not remembering anything at all) needs to get back to NERV HQ to find out what happened. He tells her to accompany him, where it ought to be safer.

Down the road, a girl named Jennifer (played by TOM for the moment) wakes up reconstituted, completely naked and sitting in the soaked driver's seat of a crashed mini-truck. The engine is ticking, cooling off, and the windshield is spiderwebbed. Going out of her car, she sees she crashed into a light pole, but she doesn't know why. After putting on her clothes again, laying at the foot of her seat, she decides to go exploring, but on her side of the street, it is empty, although she comes across several sets of crumpled clothes and shoes on the ground, and the occasional crashed car, also with clothes in the driver's seats. On the opposite side of the street, heading out of the city, it is packed with cars, immobile and bumper to bumper. She walks along the street, until she comes across Takao and Jing Mae, coming towards her. After exchanging mental notes about what they recall and what they think what happened, she joins them to search out NERV base.

It doesn't take long, and they find a concrete bunker set of stairs heading under ground; it's one of the many anonymous entrances to NERV headquarters. Surprised to see the door easily swing open, Takao tells the two women to wait as he goes into the darkened stairwell-- at the bottom of which, emergency floodlights light a tight concrete corridor, and, on the ground, a matching pair of black suits, white shirts and shoes-- the uniform of a NERV security agent. Takao finds a handgun in the shoulder holster and heads upstairs once more, after yelling out, 'Hello!!! Is anyone there?' and getting no response. He brings the two civilians with him down into the bunker where they find the body of a NERV security grunt, a knife slit in the base of his neck, and another handgun.

At the base of the stairwell, they hear the faint call of someone down the hall. It's Shigeru Aoba, one of NERV's three lieutenant engineers, with a relieved look on his face, and his own revolver out. He heard Takao's call earlier and explains the situation to him, with little explanation to the two confused civilians-- Third Impact was initiated, NERV HQ suffered an invasion, and Rei everywhere as he watched everyone turn to LCL around him. Now, a handful of personnel were found, reconstituted with little reason, but some went insane, and were now roaming the corridors, searching for a way out, while a cell of them were holding Central Dogma. They need to be in Central Dogma in order to restart power and establish a connection to the rest of the city, he explains, as he brings them towards that direction, stopping carefully to check around corridors and evading echoing footprints running through the darkened, destroyed hallways.

At one section, he sees Misato's body on the floor, which he lays out respectfully with a grimace-- she was killed before Third Impact initiated, so she never dissolved into LCL. At one blast door, he manually opens it, and relieved NERV personnel huddle around and point towards the opening of the hallway-- the exposed walkway that leads straight towards the command tower itself, where several crazed officers have established themselves and are sniping at all comers.

Few handguns exist between the seven of them, and one woman has her hands full with a distraught female officer who's clearly gone a bit crazy. Steeling their resolve, they split into two teams and run down the walkway, evading overhead fire.

The battle takes a few minutes-- Shigeru manages to take several of them out, as do Jennifer and Takeo. Each of the terrorists are killed, and Jennifer is shaken. As they take a minute to catch their breath, Shigeru works to restore power to Central Dogma, and as they powerup, something catches his eye. Strange subroutines are showing up on the overhead monitor, and protocols he had never heard of are starting up-- the names stream by : The Black Egg protocols, the Monolith and Zenith protocols, the Ys and Project Exodus files…. the list goes on. On screen, one of the many surveillance cameras, labelled Gaf's Room, reveals a massive chamber opening, steam spilling out, as pinkish-white humanoid-shaped beings of light come out of the chamber, and grow in size, and leave NERV headquarters. One of them, phases right through Central Dogma, driving several of them-- including Jennifer-- insane. Above-ground security cameras capture the whole thing, as the nine beings-- which are now registering orange and blue AT Field patterns, the pattern of Angels-- begin to evolve, change shape, and then disperse to the different areas and environs around the world.

In the years following, occasional Angel sightings are reported, though what they are searching for-- if they are indeed searching for anything-- is anyone's guess.

[Miggy Smallz]

Next game this Sunday! I'm guessing around 3, or whenever Ian and John finish their hike!

[Miggy Smallz]

Some questions and answers, taken from Elpizo, the co-chief game architect.

Let's say three players are fighting an Angel with ATS of 90. Let's say that players A and B spend 4 points each on the Neutralize power (page 171), and player C spends 1 point-- thereby the three now have a combined strength of 90 neutralizing the Angel's.

Question 1: The Angel now effectively has an ATP of 0 since the pdf says to treat the ATP pool as -1 for each ATP spent. Now that its AT field is neutralized, it now has no ATP, and it can no longer do rising cross attacks, or any other AT-generated attacks-- it no longer has the brunt of its attacks available. Is this true, or not?
True. Without ATP the Angel cannot use A.T. Powers any longer, this is intended. If an Angel were to use Neutralize on a player, then that player would not be able to use A.T. Powers either.

Question 2: The book says this takes 1 half action, and Maintain free. Does this mean it takes 1 half action, and each round, the pilots must spend ATP all over again (but doing so as a free action)? For example, do they have to spend 40, 40, and 10 each and every round?
Or, is the Angel's field Neutralized automatically each round, since it's 'maintained free'?
Neutralizing takes one half action to initiate, the 'maintain free' cost is only for actions, meaning that keeping the neutralization power activated is a free action every round. However, the ATP cost must be paid anyway, and at the beginning of the turn you choose for how much you are using it (you could be neutralizing for 4, then change to 1 the next turn, then drop the power entirely).

Question 3 : Let's say the pilots or angels are hit with an area-of-effect explosion. Where does it hit? I ruled it hit all areas that were within the blast radius get damaged.
Area of effect attacks default to the Body as per the DH rules, I choose to treat it like any other attack and roll for the location randomly though.

Question 4 : So, let's see-- conventional weapons have to overcome the Armor bonus, Toughness, and an additional 10 on top of that. HOWEVER; Evas, even without AT Fields, can attack each other freely, correct?
The benefit of AT Fields is the standard Deflective field, which works off of the pool of available ATP. Let's say an Angel and Eva are duking it out; they can hit each other, but it's unlikely they can damage each other because of the Deflection. The advantage in such a situation is the Neutralization field, which reduces the ATP and lowers the chances for Deflection. This is the whole basis for Eva battles. Any conventional weapons, including N~2 mines, must overcome an additional 10, yes.


If you've got any other questions send them this way!

[Miggy Smallz]

Following the first game and its fight in the mountains of Maibara / Sekigahara, a few things had developed:

- Commander Shinji got on the Ops Director's case about the handling of the mission, when it was discovered bystander footage was shot, and then televised on various networks. Also, that UN Nerv forces were used to gun down every one of the would-be terrorist / mech joyriders who had stolen Tri-DENT mecha walkers, even after they had surrendered and were trying to flee.
- Although the identities of the Eva pilots remained confidential, protesters had lined up outside of the UN Nerv Academy in Higashi Betsuin area (the school everyone attends), remembering that the last set of Eva pilots (those in the series) were only children. The assumption is that the new pilots are just as young, and there are worries of the moralities of using child pilots (though none of the current pilots are young) and their competence.
- Asuka had given Takeo a memory disc along with dossiers on all of the candidate pilots in the first graduating class.


Takeo (John) went on a manhunt to discover who was responsible for taking the footage, going so far as to go undercover himself, posing as a local news broadcaster asking for usage rights of the film footage. Eventually, he called in his Men in Black, sacked the TV studio and discovered the identity of the hapless hiker in the woods. He black-bags him, interviews him for what seems like hours and hours and he disappears.

Meanwhile, Jing Mae (Tanya) cares for her ward, Bobby, and continues to run her Chinese ramen shop. One day, she happens to serve a TV network executive, who invites her to come onto his cooking show, a sort of Iron Chef challenge. She accepts, hesitantly.

Svetlana (Ian) is mysteriously occupied for much of the game. Probably fawning over her new gaming system. Terry (Tom) has become considerably more badass, and, in an attempt to rip-off some classmates of their lunch money, decides to turn their Pokemon trading card game into a gambling pool. Similarly, he teaches them how to play Texas Hold 'Em poker, and winds up winning all of their Charizard cards from the hapless otaku. They never even stood a chance.

Commander Shinji contacts Takeo with a mission of a more personal nature: he wants them to find his estranged ex-wife, Asuka Sohryuu Langley-Ikari, who heads the oversight committee that ironically keeps Nerv's militaristic branch in check. She had not been seen in quite some time, the last confirmed time being when she visited the school.

Takeo recalls the disc he was given, and opens it. It's a confusing jumble of information, focusing largely on the Tokyo-3 base, now abandoned and turned into a peace park. The information includes geographical, soil analysis, satellite overview shots, and most strikingly, the flare of an AT Field directly in the base, underground, where there should be no one left. A post-it sticky attached says, 'Check this out for me, wouldja?' in Asuka's hastily-scribbled handwriting. Also in the package is an address, located within Neo Nagoya.

Takeo personally heads to the Ekinishi area of Nagoya, which is the ritzy, high-rise end of the city. The doorman panics as he sees Takeo's credentials, and allows him to go straight up to the penthouse, which is Asuka's public address, one of several around the world. After threatening the doorman, who literally pees his pants, Takeo calls his Men in Black to simply hack the door open, and to interrogate the doorman. The Men in Black don't shoot him in the head, as Takeo orders, but instead bully him, knock him around, and eventually make him 'disappear.' Takeo logs into Asuka's computer in her lush, fancy penthouse suite, and discovers she purchased a tour package to the Tokyo-3 Peace Park through some no-name company, as well as copies of the analytical data on Takeo's disc.

At the same time, he assigned Jing Mae and Terry to investigate another address, in the Chikusa area, now run-down and turned into the red-light district. Hookers and pimps and clubs line the streets, and the hookers watch them with little interest as they navigate the small, dark roads to a squat 2-floor apartment/brothel that is open-air once you enter through the front doors, with a path leading to a small courtyard in the back. After trying her door, and looking in the usual hiding spots for keys, they circle to the back and awkwardly climb to her balcony, and break her glass door. Jing Mae then lets Terry in from the front door, and survey the mess. The room is unkempt and obviously Asuka's personal room, as opposed to the penthouse suite, which is more for show. Maps and documents are pinned all around the room; coffee mugs are left on the floor; her futon askew and unkempt on the floor. A hasty glance shows that all of her attention had been on the one AT Field flare from the Tokyo-3 base, which Nerv itself had seemed to not register, and that perhaps she had gone to investigate it herself.

Finally, Takeo orders NERV to ship off the Evas to Tokyo-3, with the pilots and a small batallion of troops, just in case. The old NERV base was abandoned, and a lake now stands above where the Geofront was once active. A slight shudder rocks the area, like an earthquake. The MAGI are offline and disassembled, so they have to enter the base and power it up manually. They open a hatch in the mountain where the Evas once deployed from (episode 3), and enter in strike formation, with Terry at point. The base is labyrinthine, as it spirals down, down, down into the mountain, and is blocked at several points by blast gates that they have to pull apart in their Evas. Finally, at the bottom, however, near Central Dogma, they have to exit their Evas, and manually turn the winch to open the blast doors.

As soon as they manage to get the doors open about shoulder-width, Terry hears the skittering of what sounds like a million metallic points on metal. It turns out to be an Eva, in the old headquarters' command room. There's little telling how long it had been there, but it's massive-- about five decameters long, with metallic, chitonous scales on its back, each scale bearing the look of an agonized human face. Its endless rows of legs end in gleaming points, and its three eyes glow red, and its mouth lined with three massive pincers. For whatever reason, it has made the base its home.

A fight ensues, and the Angel fires of a Rising Cross blast, tearing a 10-dm wide hole in the floor and ceiling, sending the pillar of light high into the sky, visible even from Yokohama to the north. Water gushes into the enclosed room from the lake above, threatening to drown them. Finally, Svetlana, with the help of the three Nerv technician operators, connects Tokyo-3 with MAGI back in Neo Nagoya, and gives the OD control of the base-- immediately, he opens all the blast gates in the base simultaneously, to release the rising waters. Soon enough, the Angel milipede, designated Befafes, dies, turning into metallic goo and dissipating in the water.


- to be continued -

[Miggy Smallz]

Yes, I know that two entire game sessions are missing from this log. Whatever.

Here are a couple things that happened this last game (not in particular chronological order):

1- Shinji was arrested and removed from office. Quote, as he is escorted out, "I may have lost my office, but I gave up none of my secrets, none of my power." However, the issue of what to do with Adam is unresolved, with some of the other Ops Directors wanting their bases to now house Adam (Svetlana basically announced rather publicly that they now held Adam). Moving the flagship base to Beijing has been mentioned, as well as America and the idea of creating a new island in international (neutral) waters. Australia's OD moved to confiscate ALL of Shinji's records, so they may sift through the data, etc. Vancouver's OD brought up the interesting point that no one seems to know what happened to Lillith following Third Impact.

2- JingMei is now in a wheelchair.

3- Vincent and Terry, the unofficial but newly-dubbed Party Administrator, wined and dined with still-visiting scientists from New San Andreas, Pakistan, and Berlin NERV branches, getting them drunk and drugged. They had a great time, and decided to do a technology exchange-- thereby giving the pilots 4 Biological/Structural points to adapt their Evas, to a limit of the technology tier (tier 2?) lists. I think Ian and Jolane decided on getting S2 Organ engines, thereby no longer being restricted by utility cords.

4- Five weeks after Shinji was arrested, ALL of the Evas suddenly became active, struggled against their restraint cages doing minimal damage to them, cried and moaned in a bestial howl, and then, just as suddenly, became inactive once more. No explanation was found for this.

5- It was decided that the school would do a community-outreach event, the United Nations Ambassadorial School Winter Holiday Cultural Program. In essence, it's a Christmas school play. Jolane met Terry Bradshaw, the senior class homeroom teacher for the first time, and a new teacher, Andy Serwin (really a NERV operative) was introduced as the drama teacher. The class decided to do the Three Musketeers. They had seven weeks to prepare for it. Svetlana and Jingmei were on the staff/stage crew side, whereas Jolane and Terry were the Queen and D'Artagnan, respectively. Despite Terry bombing terribly in rehearsals, he totally rocked the role-- they all did, and it was a hit production. The next class directly after them had decided to do a Pokemon musical.

6- Following the Shinji arrest, Teruo decides to downgrade Jolane's status and security in times outside of Angel attack, moving her to the Tactical Command, where she meets and befriends the tech operators: Satsuki, Sayuri and Aoi (I think I gave other names earlier; scrap them. These are their names from here on out).
Satsuki loves manzai comedy and fried snacks, and is a little bit goofy. Sayuri is tall, lanky and athletic. Aoi is the smartest out of the three, but she is also fairly well-rounded. Here are their stats:

LT. SATSUKI ONOGI
WS BS S T Ag Iint Per WP Fel
30 35 30 35 25 35 35 35 28

LT SAYURI WAKABAYASHI
WS BS S T Ag Iint Per WP Fel
35 33 32 38 30 35 30 30 30

LT AOI MIZUGUCHI
WS BS S T Ag Iint Per WP Fel
30 30 30 30 35 40 30 20 30


7- In the aftermath of what was being called the Gifu Incident, even more protesters were seen outside of the school. In the coming weeks, one person slowly became their mouthpiece, a religious nut who took the Angel monnicker a little too seriously, and declared that NERV was acting against God's plan. A week before the school play festival, Svetlana and Terry hatched a plan to upset the protesters-- spreading rumors that the protesters were really distributing drugs, and secretly handing out leaflets laced with LSD.
Oh by the way, Andy Serwin (see point 4) was brought in as extra security in response to the escalating threat of the Illumined One-- the religious protesting nut-- and his followers. He was the male lead in his college production of A Streetcar Named Desire, and was chosen to keep the 'Children' close and under his protection.
Anyway, the vast majority of NERV personnel failed their perception rolls that night as they manned security all around the base the night of the play, and after the Three Musketeers production, as the class was relaxing back in the school, the protesters rallied and attacked. Despite being outnumbered and outgunned, the class slowly took them out one by one, and then killed the Illumined One after he shot one small child in the head and threatened to blow them all up with a grenade (Terry shot his hand off; a flanking NERV guard caught the hand clutching the grenade and threw it out the window before it could explode, minimizing casualties of the children he surrounded himself with).
In total 12 students of various ages were killed. The fallout of this is that some people will leave the school; it was also a PR disaster, considering the visibility level of this event.

Two major things happened off-camera, but only one player actually knows both sides of what they were (they involved Takeo, and Jolane). Although fairly important plot-wise, to avoid metagaming, I will wait till next game to ask if revealing what they were is okay.

Everyone got 500 XP. John, please get 300 XP, as you weren't there, but we discussed what your plans were over the phone.

[Miggy Smallz]

Svetlana rubbed her throbbing temples as she sat in her massive, empty interim Director's office. Damn Takeo's timing-- he WOULD leave Neo Nagoya with local resentment at a fever pitch.
Twelve students dead; 5% of the students outright transferring or quitting, and who knew how many others were quitting without notice or simply taking grieving leave.
There was a small chime at the door and, after pressing a button, Svetlana watched as Lt. Sayuri walked in, her tall, athletic build filling the doorway. She snapped a textbook salute, relaxing only-- if it could be called that-- when Svetlana lazily returned it.
"Sir," she began, "some updates.
"The items from Chairwoman Langley-Ikari's...secret residence have been catalogued and sorted, and placed in Vault J-33." She placed a Security card on the desk. "Director access only. Here are the items gathered."


Things found in Asuka's place

Maps to Tokyo-1, -2, -3, with points circled in red wax pencil
A photo of Shinji, her, their son during shichigosan, in kimono-- on the back is an address in America and the word Zukunft (Future)
An address book with only a handful of contacts scribbled inside (13 in fact)
Photocopies of photocopies, heavily censored. Some keywords have been left intact, however, & may be researched
A UN ftp site and log-in, which leads to an archive with only a page uploaded in it.
Access to her 2 email addresses
An anonymous Nerv clearance card.
An iPod equivalent. There are 12,000+ songs listed inside, organizeable by track name, date added, artist, album
Some business papers, largely administrational and mundane
Three keys, on separate keyrings


"Interestingly, we perhaps may have found her DNA traces at Tokyo-3. Research director Vincent is attempting to complete the protein and chromosomal chains now, but it looks like contact with Angel-designation Iruel triggered a collapse of her ego border. Just as in the Third Impact," she said.
"Some of the agents in Section-2, Security, have been profiled in the newspapers, given the visibility of the school shootings. The security director thought it was a good idea for a positive spin-- and with a recommendation to promote several of the soldiers. Likewise, we have several of the more extreme rioters in holding cells. We would like your input on what to do with them." A smile crossed her face, albeit briefly. "The girls-- the other lieutenants and I-- were really impressed with your play, and your handling of the hostage situation. Satsuki and I took four out each, actually."
She paused for a second, hesitation in her eyes. "There is one thing. This came by NERV internal mail." She passed over a thick packet. "It has no address, but two arrived, one for you and Director Muramasa. By name.
"Lastly, we're still investigating the cause for the Eva units' sudden movement while in the holding cages. Doctor Vincent has been busy with another project for Director Muramasa, it seems. That is all."
Svetlana noded, and waved her away, barely murmuring thanks. So much to do. So much to do.

Elsewhere...

Doctor Vincent's face was washed pale in the light of the telecom monitor. "We have a situation, sir."
"About the Evangelions? I heard," Director Takeo said. "I hope you've found the cause for their moving on their own. How goes the cloning project?"
"It's finished, actually. Adam is contained, but we've managed to simulate its AT Field and some of the known AT Powers seem completely viable."
"So the problem--?"
"It's Lillith, sir. A sample of her genetic material has gone missing. We're thinking the incident with the Evas is related to whenever the sample was stolen."
"Shit!"
"We're reviewing the security cams, but whomever it was, was very, very good."
Takeo nodded, but frowned. "Thank you, Vincent. I'll be in touch."
"Very good, sir. Once you return to Japan, Adam will be ready to graft to your hand."
"Thank you. Over."

[Miggy Smallz]

As mentioned last night, crafting the world post-Third Impact would take a really, really, really long time and would necessitate the assumption you know some key points about the Evangeion world. That's why I'd like to make the world a kind of sandbox setting-- you get to create whatever backstory is necessary to make the world a more enriching setting for your character. While the world population has been brought down to a tenth of what it formerly was, there is a lot of room to work with. Just send any information to me (including the backstory character stuff I requested, last night) and we'll largely find a way to fit the setting. For information prior to Third Impact, I recommend the following site: http://wiki.evageeks.org/

Anyway, here is some information you probably would want to know about, even if it never comes into play. Use these in conjunction with the previous email (Svetlana prose piece) to figure out what direction you would like to take the game to wrap up a story arc for John to finish playing out (two more sessions, I am assuming-- after that, we can take our time fleshing out the world and your characters).

MAGI

Much like in the original series, MAGI is a bio-supercomputer whose computational abilities make today's Cray computers seem like outdated punch-system arithmetic machines. It is segmented into three compartments, entitled Unit 01, 02 and 03, losing the Balthasar, Gaspar and Melchior monickers. Whereas the secret of the original MAGI computer was that the three units contained actual lobes of only Naoko Akagi, their designer, sectioned into spheres of influence of her as a woman, a scientist and mother, the new MAGI are run on super-MRI scans of the brains of specially-chosen individuals.

An MRI supercomputer scans an individual's brain, even after death, and makes super-fine digital mappings of the brain, down to the smallest brain wrinkle or neural pathway, thus retaining the entirety of that individual's knowledge and memories. While human computational skills are limited by our dominant consciousness and subconscious, when interfaced to a computer, the brain loses that handicap and can run at a staggeringly efficient level.

Nerv's MAGI systems across the world differ in varying degrees of sophistication, from the "standard" design as originally seen in the TV series, to second-generation quantum computers, which run off the collective experiences and knowledge filtered from vats of LCL. However, Neo Nagoya's and Berlin's MAGI computers are third-generation quantum computers of this design. Currently, Berlin's MAGI are based off of scans of Frau-doktor Elsbeth Strauss-Langley (Asuka Soryuu Langley's stepmother); Neo Nagoya's are based off Major Misato Katsuragi's lobar scans.

As of episode two, however, Neo Nagoya's MAGI has been touched by the presence of the Angel Iruel, although this growing corruption is latent…and still unchecked.



LILLITH / ADAM

The progenitor alien beings hidden underneath Hakone, Japan's Tokyo-3 Geofront base, and in the Antarctic, respectively. See the wiki for more details.
Following the End of Evangelion, when Lillith combined with Adam in an effort to induce the Human Instrumentality Project, Adam was spit back out-- still attached to Gendo's preserved hand-- and Lillith's massive head half-submerged in a lake. Adam was not found until the events in the second game, when Asuka Soryuu Langley-Ikari picked up on its-- or the Angel Iruel's-- AT Field pattern and went to investigate.
Shinji Ikari presented Adam's hand to the committee of all of NERV's Operations Directors, whereupon it called upon an Angel, Shachihokoiel, to rain down fire and hell across Neo Nagoya. Following those events, Shinji Ikari demanded the hand of his father-- and Adam-- back, but OpsDirector Teruo refused, causing a schism between the NERV fractions.
Secretly, Teruo conspired with Chief Science Officer Vincent to engineer clones of Adam, and to graft Adam itself onto Teruo's hand, just as Gendo had. The Adam clones would be grafted onto Teruo's clones as well.
Lillith's head and other biological samples were kept in the deepest vaults of Neo Nagoya-- until recently, when one of the samples was stolen by an unknown agent, working under Shinji Ikari.



SEELE / Kreuzzug

Seele had been disbanded shortly after the End of Evangelion-- largely, their own super-secrecy did them in as less than half a dozen people recognized the name following the Third Impact. Instead, a new organization has sprung up in its place. Entitled "Kreuzzug" ("Crusade" in German), of the known characters Director Heidi Von Figaro (of NERV Berlin) and Commander Shinji Ikari are members, though, as is the Secretary General of the United Nations. The organization is secret and unaccountable, and funded entirely by the United Nations.

[Miggy Smallz]

GAME OVER MAN, GAME OVER

Thanks to everyone who played in Adeptus Evangelion; the campaign was epic and delightfully unpredictable. I am so, SO happy this campaign came to a conclusion, and in such a fitting happy ending-- Shinji is reunited with his wife, Asuka, and makes right his mistake of rejecting Instrumentality those 15 years ago. Takeo gets his chance to destroy the world. Terry manages to blow up the greater basin region of Louisiana with an N2 mine, vaporizing everything in a 1-km radius, and dealing 2d10+10 damage for the next 1km out.

Before we finish, I wanted to thank Ian and Tanya, John, Jon and Tom; your eagerness and excitement were infectious, and thank you for believing in me, and making sure we were correct on the Dark Heresy rules points.

Of course, I would be willing to play again, if you all were, although it would have to be after the new year. There will be a version 2.5 being released around the Christmas holidays, with lots of new content, and continuing with the same characters or making new ones would work for me.


And now, some of the behind-the-screen GM notes--


There is a house in Pennsylvania, abandoned several years ago and reclaimed by sprawling forest surrounding it. It is NERV property, but was one of the homes for Shinji, Asuka and their son, Yaso (literally, Eight-ten. The word for "nine" sounds like the word for "suffering," so this name means that suffering should skip the child the way the child's name skips suffering. Explanation from Languagehat.com). Taking the time to cross-referencing the directions recorded in the iPod for 'Take Me Home Country Roads' would likely have been a direct link to finding Yaso, alive and well, and under the care of Hyuuga. Interestingly, Yaso's personality is grim but proactive and determined-- he has the quiet demeanor of Ayanami Rei, but is more forthright, taking after his mother.

Takeo Muramasa, the Ops Dir, had always planned to try and destroy the world, and his actions in creating Adam clones and binding them to his own mass-produced clones only illustrate the point. Shinji knew this, and had taken refuge in a secret NERV base to recreate Kaworu Nagisa, his childhood friend and the last Angel Tabris, as a series of clones, not unlike Takeo or Rei Ayanami, expecting a fight from them. The reason for NERV bases New San Andreas and New York going silent was largely because their staff was sent to this secret base to work on this project, but most had turned into LCL. The Dirac Ocean created was an unintended side effect of the Tabris clones being in such close proximity to Lillith.

Lt. Satsuki (who loves manzai) turned to LCL thinking about her parents, while in custody for questioning the OD directly. Lt. Sayuri (tall, athletic) turned to LCL thinking about Jolene. Lt. Aoi (the nerd) turned to LCL thinking about a classmate in the academy she had always had a crush on. Andy Serwin turned to LCL imagining his boyfriend. Each one of them was extremely happy.

The UN ftp site that required MAGI to decode was actually the first step in gaining access to Kreuzzug, the SEELE-like secret illuminati organization. NERV bases in Berlin, New York, San Andreas and Beijing were all involved, and digging further would have prompted a visit from one of their ODs.

All across the world, just as Adam awoke and instinctively protected itself from the Angel attack that inflicted insanity, ALL of Takeo's clones that were released into the world stopped whatever they were doing, turned towards the direction of Louisiana and screamed, dropping in seizures.

Asuka was regrown in a synthetic amniotic sac. By forcefully pumping her with growth hormones, Vincent and Takeo were able to age her one year for each month she was grown. By the time she was 'eight' years old, she was released into Takeo's care, and already showed signs of remembering details and memories from her previous life.

Terry, Tom's character, is officially the last human alive on earth, although only longer by literally only seconds before turning into LCL.

[Miggy Smallz]

Oh, sweet, Adeptus Evangelion expansion book just came out.....

Campaign planning time!