Here is the outline of a setting and 12 Troika! Backgrounds that expand upon it, somewhat inspired by a book called "Bleakwarrior" by Alistair Rennie, in an attempt to mix the gory and the weird





The City-Fortress of Alteus





In 1954, an experiment on altered mind states supervised by Prof. Aldous Huxley goes terribly wrong and the collective unconscious begins to sip into the material world.

In 199X, all that remains of reality as we know it (and then some) is the City-Fortress of Alteus, an urban settlement roughly the size of Spain, where 4 million people "live" within a society twisted beyond recognition. Under the supreme rule of Max Champion, The Total Commander, The Great Locomotive, Fist of the Morning Star, whose thought is truth, Alteus’ and its seven Districts are allowed to exist like a feral, life-affirming “Fuck you” against the pungent miasma of improbabilities that has been lapping at its Walls for nearly 50 years.





Player Backgrounds





1. Gordo Mechanicus

You spent the last few years hiding in a clockwork graveyard, until a pack of syptid came looking for parts. They wouldn't have found you if it weren't for your clumsiness. You managed to take down most of them, but a few escaped, and now you're on the run again.

Possessions: a bag of delicious nuts and bolts (equal to 1 provision), a broken pocket watch, compromising documents

Weapon of Choice: Great Spanner (dmg as Maul)

Advanced Skills:

3 Eat Metal

2 Great Spanner Fighting

2 Jury Rigging

1 Parkour

1 Scavenging

1 Spell - Rust Breath





2. Purger of Purulence

The Confraternity of the Bulbous Protuberance gave you shelter and comfort, rescuing you from a life in the city's sewers, where cata-rats and nefarious refuse have been your sole companions for as long as you can remember.

Possessions: Pustule badge of honor, purging kit (suction pump, needles, plastic tubes and various adaptors), two empty glass jars

Weapon of Choice: Trowing Syringes (dmg as Knife)

Advanced Skills:

3 Purging Ritual

2 Syringes Fighting

2 Healing

2 Herbalism

2 Poison





3. The-Quill-That-Kills

You were raised by the Scribes of Venerium, within the halls of that sacred library nested atop the peaks near the Southern Wall. Your childhood was mostly spent sparring with Titan-class Ovoloids knee-deep in the snow and transcribing countless pages from the Questionable Memoirs of Kilk Masterbulk

Possessions: writing kit, fur boots, long hair, longer beard, bear hide (as Modestly Armored)

Weapon of Choice: The Quill (dmg as Sword)

Advanced Skills:

5 Language - Old Cassius

2 Quill Fighting

2 Evaluate

1 Tracking

1 Spell - Ink Blots Divination





4. Meatgrinder

You stole from thieves, cheated the gamblers and begged the poor before discovering your passion for meat and its succulent juices. But thieving is not something you can leave behind that easily, and when you left the Grinding Corps, it wasn’t through honorable discharge, but with the biggest score of your entire conniving career.

Possession: stolen ring, loaded dice, a map with the location of a stack of stolen meat, 50' of cured intestines (tough as rope)

Weapon of Choice: Meat Tenderizer (dmg as Hammer)

Advance Skills:

3 Meat Tenderizer Fighting

2 Sneak

1 Gambling

1 Pick Pockets

1 Locks

1 Run

1 Climb





Special: you have a cumulative 1 in 6 chance of falling into Meat Frenzy for every full day that passes without consuming some kind of fresh meat (provisions don’t count). When overcome by Meat Frenzy, you are compelled to tenderize and then consume any slab of meat of at least 1Kg in weight (including your own, if it’s the most readily accessible, which it is in most cases). The good news is that whenever you attempt a task that is aimed at satiating your frenzy, you add +2 to your Skill





5. Drudge of Klosh

You are a survivor of the Darkest Pit of Klosh, whose Impossible Machines nearly made you deaf. Your sojourn there taught you how to "see" in the dark, and how to rip a tongue using only your thumb and your middle finger

Possessions: horrible nightmares, a bad attitude, an empty sack, 2d6 steel marbles

Weapon of Choice: Your Bare Hands (dmg as Unarmed)

3 Wrestling

2 Rip Tongue

2 Mechanical Repairs

2 Language - Machine Speech





Special: because of the many years spent in the darkest darkness your vision has been permanently reversed: you can see in darkness as clearly as normal folk see in daylight, but you cannot see in daylight unless you possess a source of darkness to obscure your surroundings





6. Slayer of the Indolent

The most significant years of your life where spent aboard the Mother Bachele, where you managed to rise from simple Meat Slave all the way to Defender of the Supreme Engine

Possessions: a ledger, characteristic plumed hat, a satchel, an unfulfilled sense of duty

Weapon of Choice: The Whip (dmg as Staff)

Advanced Skills:

3 Whipping

2 Intimidate

2 Secret Signs - Morse Code

2 Repair Golden Barge

1 Pilot Golden Barge





Special: by an act of pure concentration you can pinpoint the exact location of a personality you have met at least once before who is currently slacking off rather than doing whatever it is supposed to be doing. Make a Luck roll; on a success the person you are focusing on is being lazy this very moment and you know exactly where.





7. The Cook

Cooking has been your life long passion and your motivational drive, even when the only edible ingredients had to be harvested from human bodies, the screams audible for miles beyond the confines of your mobile kitchen.

Possessions: greasy pots, dull kitchen knife, smeared apron, paper hat, bag of spices

Weapon of Choice: Pot Lid (dmg as Shield)

Advanced Skills:

3 Cooking

2 Pot Lid

1 Hunting

1 Herb-gathering

1 Spell - Tasteful Illusion

1 Spell - Sanitize

1 Spell - Premium Cut





8. Wind-dyed Fleshrider

The Windborne Carnefices are those you call family, the spoils of their victims all you have ever owned. Hard to remember the colour of your uniform under all that blood and guts, although you seem to recall dashing yellow stripes over a dark hue blacker than the night.

Possessions: 1d6 spoils of your victims

Weapon of Choice: The Rusted Saw (dmg as Longsword)

Advanced Skills:

2 Fly

2 Torture

2 Interrogation

2 Saw Fighting

2 Sanctimonious Speech

1 Spell - Amplify Pain





9. Pointed Pretender

Is hard to believe that you where once the Dominator of the Power Temple, first among the Pyramids of Cruel Intentions. But all those who rule must be cast out into the world, for only by experiencing first hand its infinite cruelty they can hope to challenge the Pointed God itself and take its place.

Possessions: pointed holy symbol, conical wooden stake, annoyingly boisterous attire, solar-powered portable music player

Weapon of Choice: the Pointed Lance (dmg as Spear)

Advanced Skills:

2 Ride

2 Pointed Lance Fighting

2 Charge

1 Spell - Convincing Thought

1 Spell - Resplendent Appearance

1 Spell - Crack Funny Joke

1 Spell - Exude Testosterone





10. Slugger

You crawled through the mud, pushed your way above the corpses and withstood the reek of their rotting flesh, so they could keep firing, keep killing, keep piling up the corpses. Your memories are of stale blood, fire and steel, and Death's heavy footsteps marching beside you. Now the war is over and they are mostly gone, so it’s up to you to keep the fire burning.

Possessions: 2d6 Fusil slugs, 1d6 pistolet bullets, 2 unexploded land mines, ammo mould

Weapon of Choice: The Boomstick Boombastic (dmg as Fusil), modified to fire only if gripped by your hand (a modification executed by the last person who knew how to work such a technology and who is now dead)

Advanced Skills:

3 Boomstick

2 Run

2 Climb

2 Swim

1 Sneak

1 Spell - Turn Blood into Ammo





Special: you don't need to roll when retrieving ammunitions or explosives from your backpack in a hurry. You always know exactly where you put them and how to access them





11. One of Lord Anguish 13 Lieutenants

Choose one of the following: Agony, Pain, Torment, Torture, Suffering, Distress, Angst, Misery, Sorrow, Grief, Heartache, Desolation or Despair. Whenever they ask you what it was like to serve under Lord Anguish, your reply is always the same: "You gut them, you hang them, you fuck 'em". Then they leave you alone.

Possessions: a map of Anguish Kingdom, a whistle, a big but gentle dog, binoculars, a somewhat reluctant steed

Weapon of Choice: Your Own Confidence (see Special)

Advanced Skills:

2 Ride

2 Gutting

2 Hanging

2 Fucking





Special: the first weapon you brandish after dawn grants you +3 when fighting with it until next sunrise

12. Botanophobe of the Slopes

You used to love nature when you lived among the Herbalites. Then you discovered what they were really doing behind the bushes, within their caves. Now you wish you could burn every single blade of grass from the face of the Earth

Possessions: a sickle, a flintstone, a profound hate towards anything grassy and green

Weapon of Choice: The Scythe (dmg as Greatsword)

Advanced Skills:

3 Herbs Lore

2 Scythe Fighting

1 Spell - Turn Plant into Mud

1 Spell - Turn Green into Red

1 Spell - Scorched Earth