Every day this week I’m writing about Beacon City 3, a setting for Spencer Campbell’s excellent Dusk RPG.
Dusk is a minimal rule, minimal prep, RPG about a world where the Sun has gone out and the things in the dark have come for the people who are left. It’s a lovely, clean system that does a lot in a small space of time and can be bulked out with additional modules if you want. It also scratches the Destiny 2/Dustland Runner/Mad Max aesthetic I love. That sense of something new being in a world that’s no longer quite yours. I like it and, as the TTRPG part of my brain wakes up a little, I came up with something for it. Welcome to Beacon City 3.
Today we’re looking at three of the inhabitants of the city. We’re also using the excellent The Story Engine system, which I had so much fun with doing Facility 23 last year.
Celeste
Prompts
Received their powers from…
And now they were learning it was a mistake
Sun 2
Moon 4
Shade 1
Cell 4
Health 4
Suntech
Boost, Hallow, Moonstone, Taser
Physical Description: a 5’9, powerfully built, broad shouldered woman with close cropped black hair. Endlessly, glacially calm. Warm, precise voice.
Celeste wants to help. That’s all she ever wanted. She was a quiet, studious child, the one who always cleaned up after parties. She loved science, astronomy in particular and would spend hours out on her roof, watching the Moon.
They found her out there on her tenth birthday. Glowing with the light of the moon.
The local Lunar Church, run by a kindly man with a red face and a warm voice, met with her family. Rector Diolch told them that Celeste was unique, a child like no other in her generation. Touched by the Moon goddess, picked to join her hunt. To defeat evil. To drive back the darkness. To bring moonlight to the dusk.
Alice spent her entire life in the Cult. She was confrimed as a Rector on her 16th birthday and by her 25th was an active duty Shard working with three adoptive siblings on the Beacon City program.
When the sun fell, Celeste’s faith strengthened. This was where she was meant to be, this was her calling. For the first couple of weeks there was regular communication with the other Beacon Cities. A sense thst this was an incredibly hard situation but not an impossible one. There was hope.
But when the world ends you confess your sins. Rector Diolch stumbled through a Wormhole, wearing armour she’d never seen before and bleeding froma dozen wounds. He quoted her, word for word, a dream she’d had the previous night. He told her that she had been built, not birthed. That she and her siblings were children implanted with lunar suntech in the womb. That she was an experiment. One he had inherited and put out into the world rather than kill as he’d been ordered.
He told her the Lunar Cult knew. That even now, at the end of the world, they wanted her dead. Then he disappeared to warn her other siblings.
Now, Celeste must choose between telling the truth about her nature or keeping it hdiden. For now, she’s chosen the latter and is desperate to contact her siblings and find out if Rector Diolch has contacted them too.
Arch
Prompts
Once survived by taking refuge with…
And now the could lose their position over it
Sun 1
Moon 1
Shade 5
Cell 2
Health 6
Suntech
Personal shield, Reinforced armour
Physical Description: A tall, gangly man with a shaved head. Indeterminate age. Walks with a slight stoop.
Arch runs InBetween, the restaurant/mess hall tht serves the staff of the city. He’s a constant presence in there, always chatting, cooking, working or serving. He’s the senior staff membe but you’r eas likely to find him washing the dishes as you are cooking the main dish of the day.
The reason for his loyalty is brutally simple; he owes the Shards of Beacon City 3 his life. A week out from the capital, the city’s path was blocked by a wrecked scientific convoy. The vehicles hd been picked apart by a horde of Duskhounds and they’d spread the debris cross the rods to stop the city and claim it next. It almost worked.
Arch is the reason it didn’t. Wounded and terrified, he stumbled out of the wreckage and warned them off. The Duskhounds brought him down before the Shards reached him and while they were fought off Arch was severely injured. He wasn’t expected to live. Byu the time he recovered, the city was back under way and he ws the only survivor. Arch had saved the City, it seemed only fir the City save him.
Arch has adapted well. He doesn’t talk about his past or what happened. He works tirelessly, he knows everyone and he remembers everything,. He’s asked not to talk about his life before this, and the trauma of the attack is clearly still with him. But Arch is dealing with it, and the new way of the world, as best he can.
Zeph
Prompts
Has made a bitter rivl of/with
And they are only learning about it now
Sun 2
Moon 3
Shade 1
Cell 4
Health 4
Suntech
Bike, Signal flare, Cartodrone
Physical Description: A tall, slender human being with close cropped grey hair and deep blue eyes.
Zeph joined the program because the alternative was prison. One of the most legendary racers to ever ride a monobike, there isn’t a street Zeph hasn’t burnt along, not a jump they haven’t made. Zeph’s distinctive red and gold Shard armour was the first of its sort and their livery, and equipment, was mimicked by a dozen wannabes. Zeph has done it all. Won everything.
Zeph’s lying. The truth is they weren’t arrested, they turned themselves in. They were bored. They wanted something new and the thought of making their way out across the continent and discovering new challenges was irresistible. Also there were a couple of hundred public disorder charges and a damage bill with too many zeroes on it. Dodging that helped too.
Now Zeph’s the primary scout for Beacon City 3 and they love it. Even after the fall. Zeph loves nothing more than the world running at their speed. Just a horizon. Just a line. Just space.
A week ago, Zeph was running a scanning pattern to the North of Beacon City 3. They were pushing their equipment, speed and luck in equal measure and at the exact second they maxed out…
Someone passed them.
Nothing on their sensors, nothing on their eyes other than the afterimage of a Hellion rider. One in gold and red. One whose eyes bored into Zeph as they hurtled past.
Zeph has a rival. Zeph has a race. Zeph is SO excited.