[Recruitment] - Night's Black Agents

Spies. Mercenaries. Operatives. You were trained by the best in the world and spent years risking life and limb to stop terrorists and war criminals – or perhaps helping them. Now your organization burned you: maybe an op gone bad, maybe you went rogue, maybe you were the fall guy. You thought it mattered.

It doesn’t matter.

Through your network of contacts you discovered veritable proof of existence of something dangerous and definitely not natural. Something that is worth investigating and possibly stopping: vampires.
You are uniquely qualified: among the best in the world at what you do and with no affiliation. Whether you came from Interpol, the Mossad, the IRA… now, you have a new enemy. Now you are one of the




✅ Pitch & Style. It’s "Former operatives uncover a criminal conspiracy involving vampires". I’m going for a blend of tone from several sources of inspiration (some of them you see up there in the banner image). Expect tense and thorough investigation, quick and dirty action, and black humor.

✅ Adult Content or Controversial Themes. Corruption, injustice, drugs and alcohol and all manner of vice and crimes, blood-sucking of the metaphorical and literal variety, all kinds of violence (not on children or sexual in nature). You may not have time for sex and romance stuff. I may play some villainous NPCs as prejudiced towards some nationality or similar, but it is of course just performance.

✅ Welcome Marginalized Groups. This game is not welcoming AT ALL to vampires. Anyone else is very much welcome regardless of race, class, sex, gender or romantic preferences.

✅ Game Duration and Post Frequency. 3-4 posts per week. I'd say the game may last 6 to 8 months, something like 3 or 4 sessions at the table. I want to try and stop myself from joining any more games until this is done.

✅ Player Experience Requirements. I would like people who are comfortable adding to the narrative, coming up with their own NPCs, making up cover identities on the fly, improvising details about the world. Experience with the GUMSHOE system is nice but not required, it’s very easy and rules take secondary role in my games anyway.

✅ Specialized software. None. I’d like this to be played exclusively via forum, although I may open a dedicated discord server if the majority wishes so.

✅ Character creation. Use the NBA Sourcebook – should you lack it, I will provide a quick primer of the rules and copious help during character creation. The game is set in Europe (mostly Milan, in Northern Italy) in present times, we will collaborate in character creation so that the PCs end up being somewhat familiar with each other.

✅ How to Apply. Post a character concept here in this thread: just a nationality, a former employer (real world military, intelligence agencies, large private contractors, infamous criminal groups…), one or two specialties (forensics, assassination, hacking, counter-intelligence, forgery,...) and a couple of lines about morality and personality.
It doens't need to be the actual PC you will end up playing, it's just to see what everyone's feeling. I WILL GIVE PRIORITY TO PEOPLE WHO EXPRESSED INTEREST IN THIS THREAD. If in a few days (a week at the most) they haven't posted, then first come first served.

✅ What to expect from me as a GM. I enjoy roleplaying and narrative games. I will play fast and loose with the rules, ignore all the myriad of addition that NBA makes to basic GUMSHOE, and focus on personal moments. I’m not an avid image collector but I will try to add some pictures here and there when the post calls for it. The game will be set to Public.

Nationality: American
Former Employer: CIA
Specialty: "Political Operative"

She tells herself she sees the big picture; destabilizing unfavorable governments makes the world a better place--no matter the individuals hurt in the process (including her contacts). Her trade tools are her contacts. No qualms about manipulating and using to complete the mission.

Hey, as I mentioned in the other thread, I'd be interested in trying this system. This is my as-of-yet unnamed character proposal

Nationality: Italian
Former employer: "Freelance" mostly for the Mafia
Specialties: Started out in art forgery (supposedly specialized in "recovering" lost paintings the Nazis stole) and took up a "side hustle" of forging documents. So her specialties are forgery and con games
Morality: Will have someone else do the dirty work but she knows that there's occasionally dirty work to do and isn't afraid to order it when the situation calls for it
Personality: Charming, meticulous, cynical related to her experiences in art trade with the rich bastards of the world

Nationality: American
Former Employer: ex- Special Forces
Specialty: Infiltration and 'smoking' targets

Lost it all on the last mission, saw something that ate a whole magazine and then killed to guys and disappeared. The brass amended my report before offering me a discharge. They didn't have time or interest in the truth, just in soldier's that say what was expected. Cashed out and grabbed my gear only to find that the wife was serious about divorcing me if I went on 'just one more' mission. So, no family and no job, but I know for sure there's something out there that doesn't take bullets seriously and I'm going to find it and what will kill it.

Nationality: United Kingdom

Former Employer: National Cyber Security Center of the UK’s GCHQ (Government Communication Headquarters)

Specialties: Electronic surveillance, cyber security, drone operation, and computer intelligence.

Morality: Willing to do morally questionable things for the greater good. This is especially the case since he rarely takes direct action, and instead watches everything at a distance via satellites, drones, or video surveillance. He’s Edward Snowden but without a comparable streak of conscience.

Personality: He is a computer intelligence consultant who once worked for Her Majesty’s National Cyber Security Center. A total wonk when it comes to computers and electronics. Timid but brilliant. Prefers to act covertly as the hand unseen through operational and electronic support. He’s the faceless expert giving your unit instructions through their ear pieces, and the eyes-in-the-sky that drone-strikes enemies you’ve never heard of. He’ll never know the glory or horror felt by field agents or front line soldiers, and he’s completely happy with that. In fact, it’s better if no one knows his name.

Background: His access to mass surveillance and computer intelligence, however, began to reveal some odd, inexplicable patterns. Discrepancies in the data sets that didn’t quite add up. Upon closer scrutiny, he found disturbing evidence of the inhuman. Surveillance footage that couldn’t possibly be faked, and field reports of bizarre incidents that were swept under the rug. So he went looking for answers on his own…

@Windyridge @Carabas @SavageBob I take it you're no longer interested? If noone else applies I'll move us forward and send invitations over the weekend.

I must have missed this but that's ok, I just started in a few new games so I should probably pass on this one. Have fun everyone!

Yeah, I'd love to play, but right now is not a good time due to lots of new obligations IRL. Sorry!

I'm going to pass.

I am in entirely the wrong mood to start a game at the moment.

game will be up in a few days hopefully, I'm still recovering from a very intense week of personal stuff.

Sorry guys. Still interested in running this, I already did quite a bit of prepwork setting up npc avatars and making maps... I just can't guarantee a steady GMing presence on the site these days.

This project is on hold until I get back to a somewhat manageable routine.

No problem and thanks for the update! Looking forward to when it rolls on.

That's understandable. I'm going to let you know now though, if I pick up a different game in the meantime (not guaranteed but possible), I won't be available for this one anymore (I cap my number of active games at four to keep them managable).