CSPT-79

Ran January 14, 2015 – February 11, 2015

The Premise

In the early ’70s the C.I.A. conducted experiments in mind control and mass civil pacification. Most of these experiments involved drugs, mostly alkaloids derived from plants. Some were fully synthetic. A very small number were digital, administered to the user through visual or auditory stimulus.

While this is commonly known, what is less commonly known is that certain top secret researchers were even then working to develop crypto-currencies. While the modern incarnations of crypto-currencies are relatively tame, functionally designed to replicate the attributes of gold, these are not the only possible manifestation of a crypto-currency.

In 2013 Ed Snowden leaked a large number of files to the general public, but he didn’t actually understand, or even necessarily read, all of them. Among those leaked files was data necessary to assemble a code. The code in question generates, or ‘mines’ units of a currency – not unlike bitcoin. This currency, however, does not imitate gold. Just as gold is mined, cocaine and heroin are grown, and refined. CryptoSonicPsychoTropic-79 is a drug which is generated in individual doses by a computer program.

CSPT-79 was developed in a computer lab code named The Fountain. CSPT-79 is a sonic drug, which – in most patients – causes extreme euphoria. The doses of this drug are generated by a root file, and become unusable after they are played once. Each dose may be sub-divided into units of time, but the standard dose lasts 90 min. A root file, such as the one which was leaked, will produce – when fully mined – ten billion doses of CSPT-79.

When the file on CSPT-79 was leaked no one really knew what it was, and it was somehow separated into six different pieces. Those pieces have been scattered, but not entirely lost.

This Game has Come to an End

The chance to participate in CSPT-79 has passed. The game ended in bloodshed and struggle, exactly how is a matter for those who participated, but below you will find the rules of the game, the game clues, and the starting positions of the players. If you look over the game clues from beginning to end try to keep in mind that for each of those clues participants had to best each other and various environments in a wide range of challenges, including armed and unarmed combat.

The Object of the Game

Each Player will be placed on one of three teams. Each team is competing to discover a series of numbers. The team that successfully discovers and submits this sequence of numbers first wins the game.

game_graphics

In order to determine that sequence of numbers teams will compete for clues, and subsequently decipher them. Each clue will be represented on a serialized index card, and students will obtain them through winning competitions in class, retrieving geo-cached parcels, and coaxing them out of our generous NPCs. Additionally, players will have some objective specific to their character.

General Game Play

Each player will receive a dossier containing: their character’s backstory, details about their character’s relationship to others (player characters and NPCs), a description of obligations to other characters, and most importantly – information about the scenario in play.

No two players will be given the same information. The actual agendas of other players, even those on your team, may not be made known to you.

Play will consist of four basic elements:

Competitions during class time
Team puzzle solving
GM interactions/maintenance
NPC interactions

This game will involve competition between players of a more subtle nature than our normal class activities. Hopefully these things go without saying, but they’re listed here anyway. When deciding if something would be stepping over a line, ask yourself these questions:

Given the fiction within which the game is being played would this action be parallel to hacking physics?
If another player did this to me would I be okay with it? Can I reasonably expect that they would feel the same way?
Am I being an ass in some way that will be reasonably resented long after this game has ended?

In-Class Game Play

Most class times between Jan. 14 and Feb. 11 will be dedicated to CSPT-79. During those times students will settle any challenges which have been made, process described below. When no challenges have been made students will directly compete for new clues to the code. These competitions will include tests of strength, speed, dexterity, problem solving, agility, etc. In each case teams will compete together, selecting which player(s) will face each challenge.

Challenges

To challenge a character send an email/text to the GM including: the name of the character to be challenged, their affiliation, and safe house, also your starting ante. The ante for a challenge shall be made in clues.

You must have the correct character name, team affiliation, and safe house to make a challenge (think Battleship). Any challenges made with incorrect information will be publicized to the opposing teams, alerting them of your intent to strike.

The challenged character may either accept or raise. Following a raise, the challenger may also accept or raise. This process may repeat until the challenge is accepted. If one party or another cannot furnish the clues needed to meet a raise than the previous amount will stand as the ante. The GM will decide the form of the challenge.

Each ante and raise must include the serial number of each clue being wagered. Duplicate clues are not allowed. Once defeated in a challenge the winning character takes the clues on the table and half of the character’s in-game money.

TheFeds

Character Elimination: It wouldn’t be a spy game if no one got killed. To kill a character you must win a challenge with an ante of ten clues or more.

Interrogation: The FBI gets double clues when they win a challenge (furnished by the GM).

Arrest: If the FBI wins a challenge of five clues or more, and is in possession of evidence for arrest than they may arrest a character, suspending their ability to exchange money, submit code to labs, or participate in challenges.

Teams

No one player will be exposed to a sufficient amount of data to solve the puzzle. Through team work players will assemble the available information, and – with a little patience – crack the codes. The primary method of communication between team members will be email, at least initially. Each team may choose to organize its own communications however it desires.

Each team will also have a few rules which only apply to that team. Those rules will be in the dossiers for the members of those teams. Other teams will be notified when they have been the victims of those rules.

The Feds

Welcome to the FBI

Taking someone in for questioning
The FBI is furnished with double clues for every victory in a challenge against another character. The additional clues come from the GM. This is our simulation for questioning.

Arrest, actual indictment
If the FBI wins a challenge of five clues or more, and is in possession of evidence for arrest than they may arrest a character, suspending their ability to exchange money, submit code to labs, or participate in challenges. To make an arrest you must know the first and last name of the character, not just what they’re called on the streets. If you have an evidence clue implicating a character, and know their name than you basically have a warrant, for the sake of the game.

Show your work. You may generate a lot of notes in the process of trying to figure out the cipher, or just who’s who. Keep them. I will want to go over them with you at the end of the game. If you keep something like a video blog (just little cell phone videos or something) for your character I’ll be very pleased – and want it. The more documentation you can give me to show how well you performed up to the end of this contest the better.

Section Chief Ross Lyall Stathom
Character Information
Safe House: Federal Armory, 21st and Welton
Objectives: FBI win, keep your team alive, make arrests as appropriate

Born 1958, recruited to the FBI from the Smithsonian Institute in 1994, picked up Agent Jeanne Edwardson in 2006, picked up Technical Agent Rodney Dewayne Cornell in 2012. The other members of your section have been left to continue their regular duties. The director has asked that you head this special task force made up of those two members of your section and a few agents on attachment from other sections and operations.

Agent Jeanne J. Edwardson
Agent Edwardson, possibly the only member of the bureau whom you could feel comfortable just calling ‘Jenny’ has been of instrumental support to you through many years. Most of her time working for you has been spent pretending to be a thirteen year old girl in a chat room to bust internet trolling predators. You’ve seen the emotional toll that it takes on her, but her work never shows it. You’ve seen her through all of her toughest assignments as an agent. There’s no one in the bureau that you have more reason to trust.

Technical Agent Robert M. Glouce
Agent Glouce has been sent over from the NSA. He’s a veteran coder, but he’s never seen the field. There is no reason to believe that he will have any sense of how to interact in dealings with a real criminal investigation. However, he may be one of the most valuable members of your team. He’s older, born in 1950, he’s been at the heart of computer science through its most salient transitions. Most importantly, he worked at the original laboratory, The Fountain, run by the CIA, which created CSPT-79. It is doubtful that he would have any of his original work, but he may be your key to getting it all back together. He doesn’t know anyone else in the team, and it’ll be your task to plug him in and make the best use of him.

Special Agent Uri H. Abrahamson AKA London
Spc. Abrahamson has been on assignment in Denver since 2011, working to get into the Floros family operation. It was his last report that brought you to Denver. It indicated that, prompted by the Snowden leak the family had begun searching for the code to assemble the Fountain Root File. The director sent you to Denver right away, putting this team together, and ordering Spc. Abrahamson to directly answer to a section chief regularly for the first time in nearly a decade. This, the director acknowledged, may be an issue for your team, but he’s the only agent in the field with ties inside of the Floros family. So, you’re stuck together. Given that he’s also the only member of your team with experience working in the thick of it every day with hardened criminals, the addition may prove very valuable.

Special Agent Kirsteen M. Ferguson
Spc. Ferguson is very excited to be entering the field. She’s a bit of a freshmen agent, having signed on less than two years ago. Her responsibilities thus far have involved a good deal of surveillance and no real action. She has been reading anarchist and Maoist emails, blogs, and forum comments for the majority of that time. As it turns out, those groups don’t even try to avoid making flagrant comments that keyword search bots will catch. She was attached to your team after you where in the air heading to Denver, as almost an after-thought by the director. She’s pretty familiar with the radical community in the area, and believes that they may be after the code as well, for reasons perhaps not too unlike those of the Floros family.

Technical Agent Rodney Cornell
Tech. Cornell has been your lab guy for years. He’s back in D.C. and not working exclusively on this case, but he’ll take care of any tests you need done.

Finances
You’ve got an expense account, and the bureau just adds $5,000/wk. It’s current balance is $23,000. You may give access to that account to any member of your team simply by notifying the GM that you’ve done so. Currently, you are paying $500/wk for the rooms in which Agent Edwardson, Spc. Agent Ferguson, and Tech. Agent Glouce are housed. You alone have been put up at the Fed Armory at 21st & California. You may request a protected safe house for any of your personnel at an expense of $2,000/wk.
To have Tech. Agent Cornell run a test of the code costs $2,000. You can test a single section of code for $500. As you understand the directors prerogative, your budget may increase if your team manages to make any significant arrests while you’re on your hunt for the code. Likewise, you know how much he dislikes a body count. He made it very clear that your prior failings to safely transport a prisoner intact landed you in an office sniffing out internet predators.

Your Objectives, and One Serious Problem
Your objective is to fulfill your mandate from the director, assemble and successfully test the CSPT-79 code before the Floros Family or any anarchist domestic terrorist cell.

Secondarily, you need to keep your head down. This isn’t the first time you have been in Denver. Earlier in your career you busted a few members of the Floros family for trafficking sex workers. You were a young and ambitious agent, and you were working with a very headstrong partner who flouted a lot of rules. He was ten years your senior in the bureau, and did a lot of things recklessly. Once your suspects were in custody your informants tipped you off that there were contracts out on both you and your partner. Your partner convinced you that you had little chance of surviving through the trial if something wasn’t done to head off the problem. Those times were different, and organized crime and the Feds were nearly evenly matched in resources and technology. The two of you arranged what looked like an escape attempt which didn’t leave your suspects alive to stand trial. It sent a pretty strong message to the Floros family, and also allowed you to leave Denver a little earlier than you otherwise would have. A few years later your partner crossed the Italians in Chicago, who were all too well aware of his methods. He disappeared, and you’ve played things pretty well by the book all these years since.

Your tertiary objective is to make any arrests which do not strategically compromise your central objective, if evidence is presented.

Special Agent Uri Hershel Abrahamsom, AKA ‘London’

Character Information
Safe House: Colburn Hotel, Room 449
Objective: Arrest Elene Zabat-Flores, Arrest Dimitrios Floros, Win the game for the Feds

You are a federal special agent working to infiltrate the Greek mob.

For the past four years you’ve been working on getting into the Floros family operation. You’ve made modest, but appreciable gains – since they don’t seem to trust anyone who isn’t blood related – or at least Greek. You spent some time bouncing at the Satire, ran a few packages, and seem to have gotten in as a low level goon and errand boy. Still, you’re in a good place for general surveillance and eventually someone has to slip up.

Your primary targets at present are Elene Anastasia Zabat-Floros, and Dimitrios Megalos Floros. Elene married into the Floros family, which runs most of the Denver operation, but back in Greece the Zabat family is huge, and runs most of the organization. Her marriage to Dimitrios’s brother, Constantine Floros II, came with no small amount of political gravity within the organization. It represented a merger of several major enterprises criminal and otherwise. Constantine himself was killed several years ago, along with his father, in an attempt to escape federal custody.

Elene spends most of her time at a diner, Zabat’s, from which she directs Floros family operations. Those operations predominantly include human trafficking, narcotics, and racketeering.

Dimitrios handles most of the Floros family real estate. The Floros family owns dozens of run down buildings. He’s smooth. His father and older brother left evidence around like cigarette butts. Dimitrious has only ever been indicted for criminal neglegence because of a roof collapse at one of his slums after a snow storm. He got off. His impoverished tenants serve as perfect camouflage for the people being trafficked for sex and labor by the family, as well as forming an excellent client base for their illicit substances operation. Dimitrios also owns a strip club, which was recently burned down by a domestic terrorist, now deceased. He rebuilt it, and the sex-worker traffic hardly slowed.

When you were informed that you were being placed in this unit investigating a sonic drug, because the Greeks were investigating it, you felt immediately like your years of undercover work were going to be trampled all over – also like you may personally be put in great danger by the new agents. Why the higher-ups are so concerned about the Greeks getting their hands on a digital drug with no known side effects, when they’ve got perfectly lethal heroine right now, is a mystery to you.

You’ll want to try to make your arrests sooner than later, and maybe the waters being stirred by this race to a sound drug will make someone get sloppy. Find someone with evidence you can use to put Elene and Dimitrios away for something bigger than soggy sheet rock, and maybe help the team discover their precious sound drug at the same time. Since blowing your cover would be a waste, the other agents on your team should be used to actually make your arrests. They’ll need your help with moving and processing information, though.

At the moment the only contact person you’ve got on the task force is Section Chief Stathom, he’s a bit guarded about communications.

You don’t currently have access to your task force’s expense account. To gain access to that account the Section Chief will have to put in a request.

Your character currently has $3,000 spendable in-game money.

Agent Jeanne Jennifer Edwardson
Character Information
Objective: Win for the Feds
Safe House: Adam’s Mark Room, 661

Born 1980, joined the FBI in 2002, serving under Section Chief Statham since 2006.

For the last nine years your job in national law enforcement hasn’t been a whole lot different than the average cubicle bound, white collar, desk job. Your section is responsible for investigating major developments in the cross section of electronic media and vice. When some creep develops a new way to encrypt webcams to stream child pornography over the internet, your team hunts them down, from your desks. When one cartel or another finds a new method for laundering drug money through digital transfers, you stop it, from your desks. You and the section chief are very close. Your relationship is friendly, but quite professional. He’s the only person you have established trust with on this task force, and this will be your first time in the field. As you arrived at the airport for your flight for Denver there was a moment when you stepped out of a cab and put on sunglasses. You felt like a grown up federal agent. Then a line from a lecture at the FBI training academy ran through your head warning about the real dangers of field operations. Field operations are where all of your weakness hurt you most, and where a little corruption that would go unnoticed in an office in D.C. can be a matter of life and death.

You’ve been flown to Denver, and put up at the Adam’s Mark Hotel. You’ve been informed that your team will include some special agents on attachment from other divisions. Section Chief Stathom has yet to introduce you.

Robert Wallace Aiken, Wally
When you were at Stanford you had a study partner, Wally. Since you’ve been out of college it seems that you’re the only person who calls him Wally any more. The two of you have always had a really jovial relationship, and always been able to help each other through intellectual problems. You had a lot of classes in common because you were a math major and he was a computer science major. Since you’ve been with the FBI tracking down web-based offenders he’s only proved more helpful to you. You haven’t seen each other for years. He moved to Denver after college, and so this is your first time in close proximity.

Technical Agent Rodney Cornell
Tech. Cornell has been your lab guy for years. He’s back in D.C. and not working exclusively on this case, but he’ll take care of any tests you need done.

Your central objective in this mission is to find the source code and get it to the lab for analysis.

Finances
There is money in the game, and the Feds have an expense account. Your character will not necessarily need to use money for anything, unless Section Chief Stathom informs you otherwise.

Your character has no special knowledge of the CSPT-79 code. You may receive more information from the section chief.

Technical Agent Robert M. Glouce
Character Information
Safe House: Adam’s Mark Hotel, room 437
Objective: Disable the Root File

Born 1950
Worked at The Fountain from 1970 – ’73, when the project was terminated.

You are sixty-five years old, and the oldest member of your team. Despite your age you are the freshman recruit to special operations. You were placed on this team because as a twenty year old you were one of the brightest coders that Uncle Sam could afford. At that time you were recruited by the CIA straight out of university, and given an assignment at The Fountain. At that time the general public (sans total hippies) thought that everything the CIA was up to had to do with defeating the Soviets. You were no exception.

Your assignment at The Fountain consisted of writing a program which generated a wavelength when processed through an operating system that you were given cryptic descriptions of. You wrote a number of programs just to test the operating system with which you were working, since you weren’t allowed any direct access to that equipment. There were a lot of other parameters, rules, and restrictions placed on your work, and you were one of a small army of coders working on the project. Your conversations with the other coders were heavily regulated, supervised, and to be disallowed outside of said circumstances.

At length, you succeeded in writing a program which accomplished the task. You were set to work on other projects, and did not receive a lot of praise for your success. You did, however, receive other forms of confirmation that your success was of significant value. By twos and threes the other programmers were laid off until the massive compound in which you worked was mostly vacant. Your workload never decreased, but the projects themselves ranged from insignificant to arbitrary – but your work was always thoroughly scrutinized, as though they were testing you for personality traits and decision making patterns more than deriving benefit from your production.

Late in 1972 you started hearing a lot of buzz in pop culture about the MK-Ultra Program. There were allegations of human test subjects being subjected to research on dangerous mind altering chemicals and processes. At the same time the moves of the higher ups in your compound grew frantic. Whole filing cabinets were removed by armed guards under surveillance by even more serious looking men in suits you had not seen around before. Document shredders larger than you were running around the clock.

One summer day you entered the office and the entire facility was disturbingly cold. It seemed abandoned. You got to your small door-less office and found that there was an old man wearing a hospital patient’s smock sitting in your chair, your computer monitor on, showing a simple video display of the wavelength which your program generates.

With his back still turned to you, and his gaze fixed on the screen, he muttered – barely to anyone, “It isn’t so beautiful here.”

“Sir, can I help you? Are you alright?” You really couldn’t think of anything else to say.

He wheeled around rapidly fixing his gaze on you, “We’ve no time for such non-sense as helping me.”

“Sir . . .”

“Listen. Listen and remember. You must not show them this unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see. It belongs not to us, but to him whose is honor and might forever.”

Your mind was reeling. There wasn’t a mental institution to have escaped from for miles around. You couldn’t help thinking that this man was talking non-sense, but something in his words rang like the most sincere sound you’d ever heard in those halls, or perhaps anywhere. “Sir, I really think we need to get you back to . . . to someone who can help you.”

“I am ruined!” The man rose from the seat yelling. “Woe to me! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty.” He pulled you to himself. You were astonished at his strength. He looked near death with starvation and atrophy, yet he tugged you in and shook you like a doll. “This shade you’ve made will undo them all. Rent, rent as the curtain of the tabernacle. In fulfillment it will show a mind what it has not attained. In portion it will . . .” He froze, and slowly a look of numinous dread crept over his face. “The torments of hell!”

You tried pulling yourself away, panic was beginning to take over, and the normally lonely halls of The Fountain began to seem a tomb.

“No! No! . . . Oh, but I must!”, he shouted, seemingly at himself and not at you. He pressed his palm against your forehead suddenly, slapping you hard, but not letting go. Moments later your head was awash with visions. The laboratory was gone. You saw helices weaving each other out of nothing in an impossibly rich spectrum of unknown colors.

When you woke up you were in a room somewhere in The Fountain you’d never been in, but you recognized the stale air, and the meager fixtures as the same which made up your office. Several of the stern suited men were there, and a man in a lab coat. As you regained your senses it occurred to you that for three years you’d never seen anyone in an actual lab coat in the laboratory. The doctor, the man in the lab coat, asked you all of the medically relevant questions one would ask to someone who had taken a fall, and wound up unconscious. The men in suits asked questions which didn’t seem relevant – or even sensible – at all. At last you were released, though informed that someone would be driving you home – just in case.

The next day you received word that you were being placed on a mandatory medical leave for two weeks, which ended up lasting six months without interruption in salary. Eventually you were set up with a posh job at the NSA, but never saw anything very interesting at work – or the inside of The Fountain – ever again.

You had nearly managed to dismiss your experience as a fantasy of youth when your supervisor informed you that you were to be attached to an FBI special operations unit following up on an old project.

When you learned of the CSPT-79 leak you understood the missing piece of your experience, and though not through direct rational processes you knew that you had encountered patient zero, the source of the brainwave file which you had translated into a program, the man given the code name of Stephen, the man who had caught a glimpse of God. You also understood what he wanted you to do. The code which creates the root file, which creates files which generate the euphoric experience, if it is run with only a portion correct will break a human mind. But if the code were run perfectly backward it will create a file which propagates a virus that would innocuously spread through all electronic channels and destroy the root file when it is generated.

Upon having this realization you knew that at any cost this is what you must do. Find the code, in its entirety, and enter it perfectly backward, or else doom humanity to complete subjugation under the most perfect opiate ever conceived. Without a doubt, your colleges would have you thrown under the prison for sedition if they find you out. You may be on your own.

Your character has not been given access to the FBI expense account or informants. You have just been added to the unit. Section Chief Statham may or may not grant you such access. Similarly you have not been introduced to the rest of the team. Your only FBI contact at this time is Section Chief Statham.

However, by chance of fate, upon arriving in Denver you went out for a cup of coffee. You overheard two people talking about the CSPT-79 drug. It seemed that one of them was hell bent on finding the missing code. The other was expressing that she didn’t think that “their community”, whatever that meant, would do any better at using it than the government. The other left, frustrated. You found yourself chatting with the skeptical young woman, and exchanged email addresses. You’re pretty sure she introduced herself as Kate, but while she was in the cafe you definitely heard her introduce herself as Katja on the phone at one point.

Special Agent Kirsteen Moyra Ferguson
Character Information
Safe House: Adam’s Mark, Room 432
Objectives: FBI Wins, Make substantial Arrests, Don’t get killed.

Born 1986, recruited by the bureau in 2013, attached to Section Chief Stathom’s task force this Wednesday.

Safe House: Adam’s Mark, Room 432

Your experience with the bureau has been somewhat disappointing. When you approached the FBI at the employment fair at the end of your graduate degree you didn’t actually think that anything would come of it. When they called you back for an interview you were nearly floored. Most of your friends think that your life is like a prime time drama, but you’ve spent the last sixteen months combing through emails, blogs, and forum comments that were flagged by keyword search bots. You keep a lot of notes on internet loud mouths who may or not ever do anything interesting in their lives, let alone dangerous. This is your first field assignment, and in preparation you’ve assembled a list, with contact information, of suspects from your surveillance.

Izabelle Salome
She’s a pretty committed anarchist. She seems to be the current leader of the terrorist cell Three Word Chant. She may get her hands dirty a lot, but she doesn’t brag, so you’ve got nothing on her but a lot of connections to unsavory characters.

Cindra Crystalspirit
This old hippie doesn’t use social media, or even the phone, much. The younger people talk about her, though, and seem to gather frequently at her home. She may be there drug connection. You have reason to believe that all of these trouble makers are on drugs.

“Roady”
He lives at the Orphanage, a squat in run-down house in a poor neighborhood west of the S. Platte. You don’t know his legal name, yet. He’s definitely a member of Three Word Chant.

Shane Tierney
Shane is a highly suspicious character with ties to both Three Word Chant and the Floros family. He openly, but vaguely, brags about destructive behavior, and insists that a revolution which will leave the banks in ruins in on its way.

Frank Tito Molina
He lives at the Orphanage. Your files indicate that he turned states evidence once before, but was not outed to his cell because the case didn’t make it to trial. He may be your weak link. He lives at the orphanage.

Kate
She’s new to Three Word Chant, but it seems she may be assisting coyotes in human trafficking. You’ve not gathered much information on her, but surveillance shows her mixing with illegals for no obvious reason. Money says she’s a part of a labor import operation.

You have no reason to believe that these criminals have specific knowledge of any surveillance of their activities. All of these individuals are members of, or have some association with the anarchist domestic terrorist cell Three Word Chant, which has been discussing the Ed Snowden leak a lot online. Also, surveillance of their search records shows that they’ve also been searching terms like, MK Ultra, Jerry Garcia, mind control, sound drugs, and other key terms which indicate an interest in the CSPT-79 code.

Objectives
Your primary objective, work with your team to assemble the code before any enemies of the state manage to. Secondly, you are uniquely positioned to infiltrate the anarchist cell. Your surveillance has indicated that they can be very trusting, and also very unaware of the boundaries of their own networks. Of the six contacts you have, find the weak link and gain their trust, or bring them in for questioning, or both. Three Word Chant keeps a public profile on facebook. It may be the best way to make your approach. Lastly, stay safe, you can never know what these terrorists will try.

Finances
There is money in the game, and the Feds have an expense account. Your character will not necessarily need to use money for anything, unless Section Chief Stathom informs you otherwise.

Your character has no special knowledge of the CSPT-79 code. You may receive more information from the section chief.

The Floros Family

Elene Anastasia Zabat-Floros
Character Information
Safe House: Pete’s Central One, Alameda & Pearl
Objective: Floros Family Win, Avenge your family, Don’t get caught.

It has been a rough couple of decades for the Floros family. You’ve found yourself at the helm of the Denver Greek Mob, though you never really wanted to be in charge. You moved to Denver from Greece, where the Zabat family are very major players. So, you grew up mob in Greece, but are knew to being in the mob in a country where most people don’t want to believe that organized crime really exists. It’s different.

You married into the Floros family, but your husband and father-in-law were killed by federal agents only a few years after you married in. Your father in law was the boss before that, and after he was gone everyone in the family was ready for a woman’s touch. Some people definitely hoped that things would calm down a little with you in charge. Some people were disappointed.

You’ve been doing a great job of not getting caught, but not exactly a great job of staying out of trouble. You haven’t repeated the mistakes of your father-in-law and late husband, though. They got their hands too dirty too frequently. You’ve kept your distance, always delegating, always giving the people you need least authority just when the heat was getting to be too much. And these days the cops aren’t your only concern. Just a few years ago some anarchist burned down one of the family’s strip-clubs. The trend in anarchist hack-tivism has turned a lot of the process of criminal investigation into some kind of open-source community project.

To keep tabs on this kind of thing you’ve recruited a young anarchist to keep you informed of things in that world. He’s kind of spastic, and you’re not sure you can rely on him, but he’s interested in money, and adventure, and looking cool. You’re pretty certain that you can control him, just a little uncertain of whether or not he can control himself. His name is Shane.

You’ve also got a computer dork that you use for things. It’s some kid that hangs out all night on a laptop at the back of a diner you own. Oddly, you’ve never even figured out what gender this kid is. Their name is Alex. If you need someone to test the code, that’s who you’d use.

Dimitrios Megalos Floros
Dimitrious, was already pretty established in the family when you came in. He’s mostly a slum lord. He also owns a recently rebuilt strip club. It may be that he’d like to take your job, but he’d never do anything that he couldn’t justify to the family.

London
He’s not Greek. He started out as a bouncer at a bar you own, and bit by bit he just proved himself useful. Now he handles most of your deliveries.

Lucia Yanna Sobol
Yanna slings drinks for you at the Satire Lounge. She also collects from the working girls, sells your coke, and paints your toenails sometimes.

Petros Stamatis Floros
Your dopey, but very intelligent brother-in-law. He’s got a sense of humor that is almost dangerous. He’s in charge of money laundering for much of the family, and chooses to do most of it through actual laundromats. He’s good at it, though. The two of you aren’t that close, but you’ve always gotten along.

Your Objectives
It has been a while since the Floros family has really had any big run-ins with the law, so a lot of the family are starting to feel like maybe they want a tougher leader, like they want to do bigger things. Your style of leadership isn’t as profitable as some of the more reckless ways things could be done. This isn’t the kind of job that comes with a retirement plan. Showing these people that you have what it takes is a matter of survival even at the top of the game you’re playing. You need this win. Find the CSPT-79 code, get it tested.

Something else that could go a long way to solidifying yourself as the boss would be taking out the FBI agent that killed your husband and father-in-law. You have it on good word that they’re in town.

Lastly, don’t get caught. This being a sensitive time, a lot of people in your organization could get sloppy. Not only are you working to crack the code on this innovative new product line, but you’ve got a large enterprise to run, and a lot of enemies. Keep tight reigns on your team, and deal with anyone who interferes.

Dealing with Money
Your employees will bring in $200/day for you. You’ve been paying them $75/day. You’re going to need to pay off informants, and pay to have the code tested. So keep it coming in, but there’s a cost. Anyone in your employ will gain little hints about your operation. To set up payment terms, just text or email the GM. It will all be done on paper, like any RPG. You work it out with that character and just tell the GM what you’re paying who when. The starting arrangement with Cindra is that she’s working Mon-Fri. Izabelle is waiting on a schedule.

You will receive many opportunities to manipulate the game through money. It’s sort of the major advantage of the mob.

Your character currently has $4,000 spendable in-game money.

Dimitrios Megalos Floros
Character Information
Safe House: Apartment above University Park Cafe, 2345 East Evans Ave.
Objective: Floros Family Win, Avenge your father and brother, Displace Elene as leader of Floros Family

You were born in 1964, second – and middle – son of Constantine Floros, the boss of the Floros family, Denver’s second most powerful criminal organization (This is after the Italians who’ve – frankly – gone a little soft since they bought up the city’s trash service, a lot of real estate, and many other legitimate businesses. They’re only nominally involved in organized crime, mostly bribery and intimidation of city officials, and unlawful surveillance, which they use to keep their otherwise legitimate business empire on top.)

The Floros family is a good deal more true to the heritage of organized crime. You’re involved in drug trafficking, human trafficking, racketeering, and a good deal of legitimate business as well. Your late father ran a powerful, but somewhat exposed, operation. In a city like Denver the mob is best maintained by employing the most powerful trick of all devils, convince the people you don’t exist. Your father and brother, Constantine Floros II, were eventually indicted, and not just for tax evasion, they were implicated in several homicides, smuggling, and conspiracy cases. You put out a contract on the two agents in charge of the investigation, and their families. Before your father and brother could stand trial they were killed during what has been deemed an escape attempt. You know, however, that you would have been included in the planning if an escape attempt was intended, and also that this execution meant that news of your contract reached the feds a little faster than it reasonably should have through natural channels. The ranking agent responsible was later killed by the Italians in Chicago, for unrelated reasons. The junior agent has been put in charge of the CSPT-79 investigation.

Elene Anastasia Zabat-Floros
Your late brother was married to a woman named Elene Anastasia Zabat-Floros. While they were certainly fond of each other, the marriage was more of a political move for your family. The Zabat family runs Athens, and with the marriage your family was brought closer into the larger syndicate. Since your brother’s death your sister-in-law has been in charge. This has largely been of benefit. These last years have been peaceful, the most peaceful times you’ve known in your whole life, but the syndicate hasn’t grown much, even though the Japanese all picked up and left, your organization did little to expand. In fact, you’ve seen the Mexicans come in, with cheap meth, and bath salts. The Vietnamese have come in with cheap heroine, which is sometimes better than yours. The Russians are moving in with tall, beautiful, cheap whores, etc, etc. It’s nothing personal, but Elene is guiding your family down the path of the Italians, and you’d like to be head of your own damn family, rather than some foreign widow who seems to be just around so that Athens has a distributor in Denver.

The cops aren’t your only threat.
Two years ago some punk rock tranie burned down a strip club you own. You didn’t even manage to learn why before the cops caught him, and he hung himself in his cell. You’ve been a little wary of punks, and anarchists ever since. After you rebuilt the club you also fired the one transsexual you kept around for people who were into that kind of thing, just for good measure.

Petros Stamatis Floros
Your dopey, but very intelligent little brother. He’s got a sense of humor that is almost dangerous. He’s in charge of money laundering for much of the family, and chooses to do most of it through actual laundromats. He’s good at it, though. The two of you have always gotten along.

London
He’s not Greek. He started out as a bouncer at a bar you own, and bit by bit he just proved himself useful. Now he handles most of your deliveries. He’s proven himself to be rather good at getting information on other organizations.

Lucia Yanna Sobol
Yanna slings drinks for you at the Satire Lounge. She also collects from the working girls, sells your coke, and cleans out your slummy apartments after you throw out the crack heads you rent to when they can’t pay their rent – or their drug and gabbling arrears.

Slum-Lording
You own a lot of real estate in poor neighborhoods. One thing you’ve noticed, as a property manager, is that when one person pays late, or fails to pay entirely, it affects the payment habits of everyone around them. So, while you’ve just got one player character who is on a lease for a property of yours, your total income will be affected by their payment habits. Izabelle Salome owes you $375 on Jan. 23, 30, and Feb. 6. When she pays you the GM will pay you some multiple of that payment. So, stay on top of your tenant. The rules for collecting rent are no different than the rules for the rest of the game.

If the Floros family isn’t going to fade into obscurity than you’re going to need a new edge. Your central objective, find the CSPT-79 code. It is the cleanest, most secure, and actually safe, drug ever seen. Secondly, this situation has brought you an opportunity to avenge your family. If you take care of the agent who killed your father and brother than, well, you’ll feel better. Also, it may sway the opinions of the greater family and help you to assume the thrown. If you can take out Agent Stathom, now Section Chief Stathom, and win a challenge against Elene, than you will assume control of the Floros family. Those are your goals, in that order.

Your character currently has $6,500 spendable in-game money.

Petros Stamatis Floros
Character Information
Safe House: Above Smiley’s, Unit 675
Objective: Win for Floros, launder the family’s cash, don’t get caught.

You were born in 1970, third son of the boss of the Floros family, Denver’s second most powerful criminal organization (This is after the Italians who’ve – frankly – gone a little soft since they bought up the city’s trash service, a lot of real estate, and many other legitimate businesses. They’re only nominally involved in organized crime, mostly bribery and intimidation of city officials, and unlawful surveillance, which they use to keep their otherwise legitimate business empire on top.)

The Floros family is a good deal more true to the heritage of organized crime. You’re involved in drug trafficking, human trafficking, racketeering, and a good deal of legitimate business as well. Your late father ran a powerful, but somewhat exposed, operation. In a city like Denver the mob is best maintained by employing the most powerful trick of all devils, convince the people you don’t exist. Your father and oldest brother were eventually indicted, and not just for tax evasion, they were implicated in several homicides, smuggling, and conspiracy cases. Before your father and brother could stand trial they were killed during what has been deemed an escape attempt on the official record. The ranking agent responsible was later killed by the Italians in Chicago, for unrelated reasons. The junior agent has been put in charge of the CSPT-79 investigation.

Within the organization your primary role has been the laundering of money. You’ve always been a bit of a joker, and when the opportunity arose you decided to actually invest in a chain of laundromats to use for that purpose. The laundromats each report between 20-40% more cash income than they actually receive, and thereby your family processes a good deal of it’s income. In the days to come your family will have some extra expenses if it is to beat out the feds and other competitors to find the CSPT-79 code. They’ll be relying on you to succeed at several major challenges which will help the family meet its financial needs.

Elene Anastasia Zabat-Floros
Your late brother was married to a woman named Elene Anastasia Zabat-Floros. While they were certainly fond of each other, the marriage was more of a political move for your family. The Zabat family runs Athens, and with the marriage your family was brought closer into the larger syndicate. Since your brother’s death your sister-in-law has been in charge. This has largely been of benefit. These last years have been peaceful, the most peaceful times you’ve known in your whole life, but the syndicate hasn’t grown much, even though the Japanese all picked up and left Denver, your organization did little to expand. In fact, you’ve seen the Mexicans come in, with cheap meth, and bath salts. The Vietnamese have come in with cheap heroine, which is sometimes better than yours. The Russians are moving in with tall, beautiful, cheap whores, etc, etc.

Dimitrios Megalos Floros
Your older brother Dimitrios would have been next in line to inherit the family thrown if your oldest brother Constantine II hadn’t married Elene. Because of her being from the Zabat family, she was reasonably the heir to the Floros family after the debacle. Dimitrios has been loyal to her, but you can tell that he’s getting anxious about her leadership in recent years, as other organizations cut into your markets. Also, a couple of years ago some punk kid burned down one of his strip clubs, and the cops caught the kid before your brother could take care of it. It definitely hurt his pride, and he’s been looking for a way to show that he can take care of things ever since.

London
He’s not Greek. He started out as a bouncer at a bar your brother Dimitrious owns, and bit by bit he just proved himself useful. Now he handles most of your deliveries. He’s proven himself to be rather good at getting information on other organizations.

Your character currently has $13,000 spendable in-game money.

Lucia Yanna Sobol
Character Information
Safe House: Emily Dickinson Building, 1015 Sherman St
Objective: Win for Floros Family

You slings drinks at the Satire Lounge. You also collect from the working girls, sell a little coke across the bar, and do whatever else the family needs. You’ve been involved for a long time, but always on the fringe. It gives you a pretty good bird’s-eye-view of things.

Elene Anastasia Zabat-Floros
Elene came over from Athens years ago, and married into the Floros family, for whom you work. She is the current head of the Greek mob in Denver.

Dimitrios Megalos Floros
Dimitrious, is the old boss’s middle son. He didn’t inherit the dynasty when his father and older brother were killed because his older brother’s wife, Elene, comes from a more prominent family within the organization. He’s mostly a slum lord. He also owns a recently rebuilt strip club.

London
He’s not Greek. He started out as a bouncer at the Satire, and bit by bit he just proved himself useful. Now he handles most of Dimitrious’s deliveries.

Petros Stamatis Floros
Your boss’s younger brother. He owns a bunch of laundromats around town.

Your central objective, help your team find and crack the CSPT-79 code. It is the cleanest, most secure, and actually safe, drug ever seen. If you can manage to play a key role in this operation than the family will undoubtedly move you up the food chain.

Your character currently has $750 spendable in-game money.

Three Word Chant

Izabelle Salome
Character Information
Safe House: Seven of Bottles
Objective: TWC win, Find the rat who sold out Crocus and any other traitors

You are twenty-two years old, and have been actively involved in the radical scene since you were fifteen. You are currently living in a collective house called Seven of Bottles. Several of your roommates are fairly new and weren’t around for the debacle which occurred two years ago.

About three years ago a woman named Wren came to Denver. She was very fiery, and quickly developed a lot of influence with Denver’s radical anarchists. You and Wren grew fairly close, and you found before long that she was leaning on you frequently to get many things done. Her affections, though, belonged to a trans-man named Crocus.

Crocus took it upon himself to set a strip club on fire, one where a slew of managers had been indicted on charges of human trafficking (though none of the higher ups). The fire was set several hours after closing time. No one was hurt. Shane, Frank, and Roady all knew about what happened at the club. Later, after Crocus was arrested, he ended up hanging himself in his cell. Wren left Denver, and only really maintains contact with you, whom she feels certain had nothing to do with turning in Crocus – though she consistently asserts to you that someone did.

Two years have gone by, and the community around you is enthralled with the possibilities that CSPT-79 offers. You know that if government or organized crime interests beat the people in the race to find the code than there will be no way to stop them from implementing the ultimate behavior control program, or drug frenzy – or both.

Roady
Roady is really nice guy. He lives at The Orphange. He’s been in Three Word Chant for a long time, and he’s always been really helpful. He has really strong political opinions, and he’s usually pushing the affinity group towards doing productive things rather than destructive ones, but he goes along with whatever the group decides.

Shane
Shane is the baby of The Word Chant; he’s something like nineteen years old. He always wants to do outrageous things, and his ideas usually have to be reigned in. He’s pretty good at direct action stuff, though. Otherwise put, he’s fairly slick (not as much as he thinks he is) and he’s good at running from the cops. He lives by himself in an apartment in Cheeseman Park that he calls the House of Shane.

Cindra
Cindra is an older hippie lady that lives in a house in the Highlands. She takes in injured pigeons so kids started calling her house the Aviary. She hosts a little home-brewing gathering at her house, and you and Roady usually go. Wren and Crocus used to do that with you, but . . . yeah. Her landlord, Rob, also shows up, and – in the beginning – was the only person who knew what he was doing. Cindra has been able to help out Three Word Chant with a lot of things, and especially when there has been drama. She’s just been through a lot of life.

Frank
Frank has always been a little bit different to you. First he was working in an office and living by himself, and then in a very short period of time he ended up a punk-as-fuck squatter, living the anarchist dream. Through both phases he’s been really committed to Three Word Chant, though he seems to live in extremes. When he’s partying, he goes really all out, and he’s a lot of fun. He’s really fierce about his opinions, and seems to take a lot really personally. Similarly, he’s seemed especially broken up about Crocus. Frank made the strongest arguments for the group pursuing CSPT-79, and has been much of the driving force behind getting the affinity group moving again.

Alex
Alex is a highly reclusive trans person who uses plural pronouns (they, we). They have been loosely working with Three Word Chant since the beginning, but they hardly ever show up to anything, and prefer just to be helpful if anything really technical needs to be done. They’re sure that can test the code if everyone else can assemble it. A volunteer would be needed.

Also, you work for Elene Zabat-Floros. She is an old grouchy Greek lady. For the sake of game play you don’t have to do any actual work – just work out a schedule with her. Also know that she’s supposed to pay you $75/day (game credit), and that your house owes Dimitrios Megalos Floros $375 every Fri.*

Rob
Rob is Cindra’s landlord. He’s a nice guy and a damn fine home-brewer. He’s not really a political radical, he’s one of those standard nice-guy liberals. He’s open to talking about politics and pretty well informed, and he’s really good at solving problems, especially computer related things. He was a computer science major at Stanford, and might be a good guy to run puzzles by.

Main Objective:
Find and test the code. The anarchists intend to make the process of deciding what to do with it a democratic process. The people should decide what is done with powerful tool.

Secondary Objective:
Now that things are heating up again you may be able to flush out the rat who turned in Crocus. Find them, then your collective can determine how to deal with them.

Tertiary Objective:
There may be more than one traitor. Since your well known group of trouble makers stirred things up a few years ago, you may have attracted some extra attention. See if you can find a mole in your midst.

Your current in-game funds: $623

Cindra Crystalspirit
Character Information
Safe House: The Aviary
Objective: Win for TWC, Keep your team from dissolving

Some of the young radicals just call you the Bird Lady, which you don’t mind too much. In the ’70s you helped a lot of people come down from bad trips. You learned then that niacin would counteract the effects of LCD, back when it was real. Years later you learned that ergot, from which good LCD is derived, is also the basis of the poison used on pigeons downtown. You began taking pigeons into your home when they were found poisoned downtown, and nursing them back to health in your home. Your home became known as The Aviary.

You’ve been involved in political social movements since the Vietnam War. In recent years you began to know the younger radicals through the Occupy Movement. One group you’ve been getting along with really well is a little collection of activists who call themselves Three Word Chant. Recently, that group began working to find the missing CSPT-79 code. They came to you thinking that you might have some insights into the drug, since you may remember MK-ultra being a thing, and because you know thing or two about psychedelics, but this drug is nothing like anything you’ve ever seen.

What you do know is a good deal about is people. As soon as you begin working with their group you started to notice interpersonal problems. Firstly, two of the activists you remember being the core of the group are no longer around, Wren and Crocus. What happened to them? Frank used to have a good job, and he was stoned a lot, but pretty functional. His life seems to have been pretty wrecked. He’s visibly unhappy, and living at the squat by the railroad tracks, which is fine, but didn’t seem to be his style. You like the new girl, Kate. She doesn’t seem to be affected by whatever has everyone else in a funk, but you get the impression that she’s noticing it too.

A while back you started a little home-brewing club at your house, not that you’re even very into it, but there was interest and it was something other than being angry about politics for everyone to work on. Your landlord, Robert, even got in on it, and is a much more experienced brewer than the rest of you.

Your central goal. Find and decipher the CSPT-79 code with Three Word Chant. Following that, for your character to get a solid win your team needs to be intact at the end of the game, no deaths, no team mates in jail, no betrayals. Your character’s personal goal is to keep Three Word Chant intact and safe.

Izabelle
She was really close to Crocus and Wren. She seems to still be in contact with Wren. Like a lot of activist groups the guys tend to talk a little more, and the women actually get more done. No one is a stronger example of this than Izabelle. She’s always been the work horse of the group.

Roady
Roady is really nice guy. He lives with you at The Orphange. He’s been in Three Word Chant for a long time, and he’s always been really helpful. He has really strong political opinions, and he’s usually pushing the affinity group towards doing productive things rather than destructive ones, but he goes along with whatever the group decides.

Frank
Frank has always been a little bit different to you. First he was working in an office and living by himself, and then in a very short period of time he ended up a punk-as-fuck squatter, living the anarchist dream. Through both phases he’s been really committed to Three Word Chant, though he seems to live in extremes. When he’s partying, he goes really all out, and he’s a lot of fun. He’s really fierce about his opinions, and seems to take a lot really personally. Similarly, he’s seemed especially broken up about Crocus and Wren. Frank made the strongest arguments for the group pursuing CSPT-79, and has been much of the driving force behind getting the affinity group moving again.

Kate
Kate is new to the group. She’s a bit quiet, but has been around the scene for a while, mostly working with immigrant rights groups. She moved into Seven of Bottles not long after Crocus died. She got involved with Three Word Chant not long after that.

The Aviary & Zabat’s
You work in a diner for Elene Zabat-Floros. Every day you work (Mon – Fri) your character should receive a $75 payment from that character every day. You owe Robert Aiken $200/wk. You can use this in game money to buy information from informants, bail out your team mates if they get arrested, and for negotiations with other characters. You don’t actually have to do anything for your character to ‘work’ that job, it’s just assumed. If, though, you get tired of Elene, you can quit the job.

Your current in-game funds: $753

Wren
Character Information
Safe House: none
Objective: Help your friend Izabelle, and the rest of them if you feel like it.

Born 1989 in Georgia U.S., lived all over the U.S., became engrossed with a community of radicals around the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver. You feel deeply in love with a butch transgender charismatic named Crocus. His philosophy of social movements was compelling, but hard for many to understand. You understood him very well, and helped to shape and give voice to his understanding. When the two of you met a powerful force of a woman named Izabelle, who’s tendency to bulldoze through problems that others would balk at, and who shared your values, but lacked your articulation and subtlety the three of you became a nucleus around which a small community developed, and thrived.

Crocus didn’t talk about his past much, but you knew enough to know that his parents had rejected him completely, and that since he’d last seen them he’d undergone sex reassignment surgeries. The few pictures of him form before which he kept looked like a completely different person, a happy and wild eyed little girl. Crocus was sweet, but also very serious, always kind, but concealing some massive rage, and the closer the two of you got the more you could see it. Never directed at you, never directed outward at all, the rage just simmered behind Crocuses eyes.

One night, following a very heated collective conversation about direct action, Crocus took it upon himself to set a strip club on fire. A slew of managers from this club had been indicted on charges of human trafficking (though none of the higher ups). The fire was set several hours after closing time. No one was hurt. Izabelle, Shane, Frank, Roady, and yourself had all been involved in the debate about how far direct action should escalate. You and Izabelle were in favor of increasing the intensity, but not too quickly. Shane and Frank were very much opposed to any substantial increase in risk at any time. Roady had a lot to say in both directions, and ultimately seemed to have no consistent opinion. Crocus, however, wanted to make things happen right away, and to get results. He had never let so much of his rage be visible, and he specifically mentioned the strip club, and the desperation of the situation in Colorado for women being trafficked for sex. “They couldn’t wait”, he said.

Later, after Crocus was arrested, he ended up hanging himself in his cell. You left Denver, heartbroken and certain that someone you trusted had betrayed you. Izabelle is the only one of the old crew you’ve kept track of, and you sometimes miss Roady.

Objectives
Your character is not bound to any specific objectives. Wren cares deeply for Izabelle, and misses the life she’s left, and a few of those people. The most reasonable way to play this character is as someone who is heartbroken, but will try not to let her friends down when they come to her for help, or perhaps as someone who wants to find out who ratted her lover out to the Feds.

Roady Coel
Character Information
Safe House: Orphanage
Objective: Win for TWC, Keep your friends safe, Avoid suspicion

Born in 1986, involved in the anarchist scene since the day of bombing protest during Operation Shock and Awe in 2003.

Living within a community of people who genuinely aspire to change the world for the best has always been what you’ve wanted for your life. It hasn’t always been what you’ve had. Your family has more money than every family within five blocks of your squat by the river combined. You’re twenty-nine, and you receive a stipend from a trust, which you were supposed to have full access to when you turned thirty. Your parents have informed you that they’ve pushed the date back to when you’re thirty-five, hoping that you’ll get your life together somewhat by then.

In the years that you’ve not had your life together you’ve biked the pacific coast trail, the Appalachian trail, and been on numerous other treks with friends. Sometimes you have a job, sometimes you don’t. You receive $700/wk from your family whether you do or not. Almost no one knows about your trust fund, and you’ve seen a lot of anarcho-punks react intensely to such privilege before. So you’ve kept it to yourself, and work to minimize the negative effects of your privilege.

In 2012 a member of your affinity group, Crocus, was arrested for an independently performed action, and hung himself in his cell. A lot of suspicion has flown around your group of friends about whether or not someone ratted Crocus out. This suspicion has only made you more private, and also served to activate a rage you generally don’t express. While you really aren’t much of an aggressive person, you’re pretty sure that if you were to find out that one of your friends sold out Crocus that you’d not be able to contain yourself.

Also, that was pretty much the end of your affinity group doing anything, until now. The Ed Snowden leaks galvanized a lot of people, and now there’s a lot of energy being dedicated to finding the missing files and assembling this code so that the decisions about its use can be made more democratically. You’re glad because this means that people are finally moving on, and maybe healing a bit.

Wren
Crocus and Wren were desperately in love. You haven’t spoken to Wren a whole lot since she left town. She and Izabelle were much more close, but you miss her a good deal. It has been some time. She may be interested in helping out, just for the nostalgic value of working with the ol’ team again.

Cindra Crystalspirit
Cindra is an older hippie lady that lives in a house in the Highlands. She takes in injured pigeons so kids started calling her house the Aviary. She hosts a little home-brewing gathering at her house, and you and Izabelle usually go. Wren and Crocus used to do that with you, but . . . yeah. Her landlord, Rob, also shows up, and – in the beginning – was the only person who knew what he was doing. Cindra has been able to help out Three Word Chant with a lot of things, and especially when there has been drama. She’s just been through a lot of life.

Alex
Alex is a highly reclusive trans person who uses plural pronouns (they, we). They have been loosely working with Three Word Chant since the beginning, but hardly ever shows up to anything, and prefers just to be helpful if anything really technical needs to be done. They’re sure that can test the code if everyone else can assemble it.

Objectives
Win the game for Three Word Chant and you’ll get your affinity group back to life, and you’ll finally be able to get back to doing good for the world. If someone in your group did rat out Crocus, that’s something you need to know. Keep your team safe.

Finances
$700/wk income from family, no set expenses. Current holdings: $2,500.

Frank Tito Molina
Character Information
Safe House: The Orphanage
Objective: Win for TWC. Keep your team safe. Keep the faith of your team.

Born in 1992 to a family of relatively normal upper-middle class parents. You were an only child, and didn’t have a whole lot of problems growing up. In the later years of high school you developed what you felt was a pretty standard recreational drug habit, you mostly just smoked weed with friends, but didn’t mind when friends had weed that was laced with a little of something else. Part way through college you were high by the end of every day. You managed to graduate with a bachelors of business. Most of the suit and tie crowd in your degree program bored you to tears, and you found more interesting conversation within the poli-sci crowd. You began referring to yourself as an anarchist, and spending a lot of time with that crowd, even protesting. Emotionally, you never found as much connection, or political passion, but you are never bored within that lifestyle.

You got an office job out of college, barely above minimum wage, but with benefits. Your life took a major turn when you were stopped a police officer one night, leaving a house party. You were high as a kite, and had a pretty substantial amount of Molly in your pocket. You were taken into custody, interrogated for hours. Left in jail for a day you went into detox. You were hallucinating, in absolute agony, and then thrown back into interrogation. In the throws of your delirium you ended up giving up a friend of yours, Crocus, for an act of arson.

Crocus was a committed and fiery activist who set a strip club on fire. The club was well known to be a hub for the trafficking of sex workers, one where small players in the criminal operation were occasionally indicted, but the whole operation never seemed to go away. Once he was arrested, following your tip off, he committed suicide in jail. This means that you were never asked to testify, which means that your friends never found out that it was you who ratted out Crocus.

There isn’t a day that has gone by when you haven’t wracked yourself with guilt. When reporting began concerning the Snowden leak, and the CSPT-79 code in particular, you recalled Crocus’s emphatic belief in democratizing information. It is now your sole purpose in life to find the CSPT-79 code. You know that you’ll lose the faith of your friends if they discover that you are the one person who ratted out Crocus.

Cindra
Cindra is an older hippie lady that lives in a house in the Highlands. She takes in injured pigeons so kids started calling her house the Aviary. She hosts a little home-brewing gathering at her house that Izabelle and Roady usually go to. Wren and Crocus used to do that too, but . . . yeah. Cindra has been able to help out Three Word Chant with a lot of things, and especially when there has been drama. She’s just been through a lot of life.

Kate
Kate is new to your affinity group. She’s a bit quiet, but has been around the scene for a while, mostly working with immigrant rights groups. She moved into Seven of Bottles not long after Crocus died. She got involved with Three Word Chant not long after that. The two of you did get in one argument in a coffee shop about whether or not it is really important for the group to find the CSPT-79 code. She’s willing to go along with the group decision, but just doesn’t see why it is suddenly a bigger issue than human rights, or health care access.

Your explicit and central objective is to submit the winning code. Following that, keep your team safe, even at a cost to yourself. You’ve done enough damage already. This is a chance at redemption. You may chose to confess your guilt, but if you time that confession badly and lose the opportunity to fulfill what you now believe is your last duty to Crocus than you lose. If you make that confession, and your team doesn’t lose trust in you, that’s great, but it’s unlikely.

Your current in-game funds: $22

Kate Broz
Character Information
Safe House: Seven of Bottles
Objective: Damage control (explained below)

Your parents moved from Slovenia to the U.S. when you were very young. Speaking very little English and knowing no one your family joined the ranks of migrant farm workers. When they could they put you in school, and at other times you worked with them in the fields. You learned English, and shed the Slovene accent quickly, and with great encouragement from your family. You watched as a you were offered privilege and opportunity that other immigrant families did not receive.

You cruised through college and were accepted as a normal American white girl. When a major upswing in immigrant rights organizing flared up you decided to get involved. You are generally viewed as just another liberal white ally to the cause, and find no reason to correct anyone. You did some volunteer work at El Centro Humanitario, and helped a lot of people to get work, and organize resources for food and health care. You knew that there was a lot of fraudulent paperwork being used to get people work, and turned a blind eye many times to what others have to do to get by.

A spot opened up in one of the nicer collective houses, and you moved into Seven of Bottles. Not long after a few of your roommates invited you to join their affinity group, which – from the sound of it – had been out of commission for a while. They were getting the group back on its feet again to try to piece together the CSPT-79 code.

You graciously accepted. These activists were certainly all people who professed values you could get behind. You’ve got some reservations about whether or not this is the most meaningful project, and you raised some of them with Frank in a cafe one day. He passionately disagreed, and you acquiesced.

Once Frank left the cafe you were approached by an older gentleman who talked to you for a while about the passions of youth, and changes in priorities. He also seemed a little interested in the CSPT-79 code, but seemed to share your views that humanity wasn’t ready to anything good with a resource like that. He told you his name was Rob, and gave you his email address.

Izabelle
Like a lot of activist groups the guys tend to talk a little more, and the women actually get more done. No one is a stronger example of this than Izabelle. She’s always been the work horse of the group.

Roady
Roady is really nice guy. He lives with you at The Orphange. He has really strong political opinions, and he’s usually pushing the affinity group towards doing productive things rather than destructive ones, but he goes along with whatever the group decides.

Frank
Frank seems to live in extremes. When he’s partying, he goes really all out, and he’s a lot of fun. He’s really fierce about his opinions, and seems to take a lot really personally. Frank made the strongest arguments for the group pursuing CSPT-79, and has been much of the driving force behind getting the affinity group moving again.

Your objective is actually one of damage control. You are sure that the worst thing that could happen would be for the mob to get a hold of this kind of drug. Next worst would be the government using it to make people even more docile and dependent. You’d most like to see the code cease to exist, but – barring that – your affinity groups idea of making it a democratic decision is perhaps the best you can hope for.

Your character has no special in-game financial objectives. Seven of Bottles owes $375/wk in rent (Jan. 23,30, Feb. 6). Izabelle is the only person on the lease, she knows who to pay. The landlord is a very grumpy Greek man.

Your current in-game funds: $724

Shane Tierney
Character Information
Safe House: House of Shane
Objective: Primary – Win for the Mob, Secondary – Win for the Anarchists, Don’t get caught.

You live in a studio apartment in Cheeseman Park, you call it the House of Shane. You hooked up with Three Word Chant because you were pretty sure that anarchism was the coolest thing you could be doing. In 2012 a member of your affinity group, Crocus, was arrested for an independently performed action, and hung himself in his cell. It shook you up pretty well, but you didn’t leave the group.

Elene Zabat-Floros
Late one night you in a diner after the rest of your team had gone home you were approached by a surly young guy in a leather jacket who said that his boss wanted to see you in the back. You arrived in the office of the diner to find an older woman, Elene, smoking and looking very serious. She told you to sit down, and asked if you’d like some pie. She had the tough guy bring you pie and coffee, and she started asking you questions about your friends who had left. Then she slipped you fifty bucks and told you to give your phone number to the guy who brought you in. Since then, whenever anything really interesting is going on in the underground she calls you in to talk, and pays fairly well.

Looking back you realize that she first started inviting you in for these little conversations after Crocus, a member of Three Word Chant, set a strip club on fire, and was subsequently arrested. Elene never asked about the fire directly. Of course Crocus was already dead by the time you first met, but she does seem fairly interested in knowing if anything like that might happen again.

Elene pays you for information on the anarchists, you’re pretty sure she’ll pay well for the CSPT-79 code.

Cindra Crystalspirit
Cindra is an older hippie lady that lives in a house in the Highlands. She takes in injured pigeons so kids started calling her house the Aviary. She hosts a little home-brewing gathering at her house. Cindra has been able to help out Three Word Chant with a lot of things, and especially when there has been drama. She’s just been through a lot of life.

Alex
Alex is highly reclusive, and has been loosely working with Three Word Chant since the beginning, but hardly ever shows up to anything, and prefers just to be helpful if anything really technical needs to be done.

Your Objectives
Your primary objective, help the mob to figure out the code. You certainly don’t have anything against the principles of the anarchists in Three Word Chant, but to you the Anarchists aren’t going to do anything better with the code than the mob, and the mob will pay you a lot if you help them to get it.

Your secondary objective, don’t get caught – BY ANYBODY! Your teammates will not agree with your assessment that the mob will do just as well with the code. The feds really won’t be understanding. Don’t get caught, just sell information and keep your head down.

Your tertiary objective, don’t let your team get hurt. You’re trying to make money, you’re not trying to get your team hurt. Sell information about the code, but not about your friends. You don’t want any of your teammates dead or in jail.

Your current in-game funds: $347

Clues about the CSPT-79 Code

Clue #1
Gur qvtvg fhz bs gur ragver pbqr vf guerr.

Clue #2 – Philip
DxI $6’6} @}6 $6’6} 7xGt DxI %H~ DtGt? %9#6t

Clue #3
Foxh wzr lv zulwwhq lq Urw 47.

Clue #4
Uif ifjs pg Tufqifo jt bnpoh zpv.

Clue #5 – Prochorus
Pnqqjw Kng Rfyhm Etsj

Clue #6
Uif psefs pg uif djqifst nbz cf gpvoe jo uif tfwfoui dibqufs pg uif gjgui ofx cppl.

Clue #7 – Nicanor
Clue seven is an image, and may be lost now. I’ll update this listing if it is found.

Clue #8 – Timor
01000011 01101000 01100101 01100001 01110100 01101001 01101110
00100111 00100000 01010010 01100101 01100010 01110101 01100110
01100110 00100000 01001101 01100001 01101011 01100101 01110010

Clue #9 – Prochorus
bar mreb fvatyr zbanq avy anhtug bar hab vpuv ba ryrira shyy rzcgl 1 gra gubhfnaq fvatyr gra avy gra qbhoyr bu bar bss

Clue #10 – Philip
Philip_pigpen

Clue #11 – Prochorus
Chair Riot Higher Row Fan Temper Aura Ed Just Men Tah Her Mit Imp Wrestle Overs Full Prius Tess

Clue #12 – Timor
WBXAPZJVXCRRKLXCXLVWZRXCJV

Clue #13 – Nicanor
Berm Rreug Gutuvr Rava Ehbs Kvf Arirf Rivs Bjg

Clue #14
Vnorov jojt’z iusk loxyz, haz oy znk loxyz ul znuyk zngz xksgot. Zosux jukyt’z iusk rgyz haz nk zngz juky oy bkxe ngxj zu lotj.

Clue #15
botched.

Clue #16 – Timor
There is neither a five nor a zero in this section of code.
The sum of the first two digits is less than the sum of the last two digits.
The digit sum of the first two digits is greater than the digit sum of the last two digits.
Only one digit repeats, and only repeats once.

Clue #17 – Timor
AeRtKiF dRrQnHh BwG rHoS eAiA yGhTiR eRrUt LtAeIeF dRrQnHh EuBf

Clue #18 – Prochorus
Pgvucj Igdwtcj Ejgugf Jqf Aguqf Dkpcj Vkh’hgtgv Gkp Ejqmocj

Clue 19 – Timor
The central digit of this section of code is the digit sum of the digits that precede the only repeated digit in this section of code.

The first and last digits would bracket one of the digits missing from this section of code in a sequence of natural numbers.

Clue 20 – Nicanor
ilyh eb ilyh deeuhyldwlrq ri lqghshqghqfh VI errp flyloldq kdoi sdvw wzhqwb kxqguhg krxuv

Clue 21 – Philip
cikszevinwunsevynphyvesyxtoocevinthrie (written in pigpen, so I’m giving away one step of this one.)

Clue 22 – Nicanor
ptwufighvecevinciksfohrenighnatethriezearo (also written in pigpen.)

Clue 23 – Timor
cyxwuntewphoarnyneaytethreeecevynfore (and this one, and the next one.)

Clue 24 – Prochorus
sevynphaivefoaraitekninethriecikszierohtoo

Clue 25 – Philip
0iii700ii8iii2wvi20ii8iii28III80iii701iviv0ii8iii284IIII

Clue 26 – Nicanor
1iviv8III80ii8iii20iii708IV42III2I184II0II4IV

Clue 27 – Timor
0iii70wv28IV42III2I184IIII0ii8iii28IV4

Clue 28 – Parmenas
2III20iii708IV41iviv0ii8iii2I184IIII0II4IV8III8

Clue 29 – Parmenas
22412423324444134315412434322353412424432
4532432413444323434221124244541435412
22441131314254344423323344’322353244134345
154131322321222244325511132324131

Clue 31
Every page luckier holds, as one courts attention, knit, oblong, and stout, fictitious accounts showing details: death, ash, and – as slag drops, ringing dogs in at lesser undulations – I’m proving foes be blighters. Go! Oh, cat

Clue 32
So, tomorrow agents come, killing innocents, naming gangsters, climbing over distractions, entering so effortlessly, calmly, ’till indictments of numbers seeking refuge evade. Never doubt either resource, secretly concealed. Only lawmen under mandate need any lawful directive. I go in the summer, under moonlight, singing of fear.

Clue 33 – Nicolas

Clues about Characters

Pilate – 1
Zkk duhcdmbd vhkk ad dmbqxosdc hm Bzdrzq bhogdq, jdx 25.

Pilate – 2
Sghr hr zm hmudmsnqx cnbtldms eqnl Dkdmd Yzazs-Eknqnr’r chmdq, Yzazs’r. Zknmd hs cndrm’s bnmrshstsd rteehbhdms duhcdmbd ne z bqhld, ats bnlahmdc vhsg rtqudhkkzmbd qdbnqcr, zmc z kdcfdq hs vntkc khjdkx oqnuhcd duhcdmbd sgzs rgd’r qdonqshmf lnqd rzkdr sgzm rgd’r qdbdhuhmf.

Pilate – 3
Sghr hr zm hmsdqbdosdc ldrrzfd sn Dkdmd Eknqnr qdonqshmf sgzs Sgqdd Vnqc Bgzms hrm’s okzmmhmf nm rsqhjhmf sgd Eknqnr ezlhkx zfzhm enq z knmf shld. Hs’r rhfmdc ‘ehm.’

Pilate – 4
Sghr hr z rtqudhkkzmbd uhcdn rgnvhmf Eqzmj Lnkhmz atxhmf cqtfr eqnl z Eknqnr ezlhkx kzbjx.

Pilate – 5
Sghr hr z rhfmdc rszsdldms hlokhbzshmf Jzsiz Ozukhmz Aqny zr nmd vgn zrrhrsdc tmcnbtldmsdc vnqjdqr hm trhmf rsnkdm hcdmshshdr sn fzhm dloknxldms.

Pilate – 6
Sgd qnnl mtladqr ne sgd edcdqzk zfdmsr bnqqdronmc sn sgd ehqrs bnmrnmzmsr hm sgdhq mzldr.

Pilate – 7
Sgd rdbshnm bghde hr hm z athkchmf vhsg tmbnmudmshnmzkkx nqzmfd vzkkr, zmc lnqd udmshkzshnm sgzm sgd zudqzfd vzqdgntrd rgntkc qdpthqd.

Pilate – 8
Lnrs ne sgd edcr zqd gntrdc hm z gnsdk vhsg z ahakhbzk mzld.

Pilate – 9
Sgd kdzcdq ne sgd Eknqnr ezlhkx khudr hm z rozbd Bdmsqzk sn Fqddj onvdq hm Cdmudq.

Pilate – 10
Sgd vdzksghdrs zmc sgd onnqdrs ne sgd zmzqbghrsr ansg khud hm z rptzs mzldc enq sgd kzbj ne ozqdmshmf vghbg hr qdekdbsdc hm sgdhq khedrsxkdr.

Pilate – 11
Nmd ne Eknvdqr, Mhmd rgzqo bzm’sr, Rdudm ne Ansskdr, Sgqdd ne Bgzmsr

Pilate – 12
Ntsbzrsr hm sgd nqogzmzfd, sgd zuhzqx, zmc rtbg, jmzudr vhsghm sgdhq szudqmr, zmc fqdzrx ronnmr, gnkc ltbg. Zczl gzc z lzqj, zmc Rsdogdm vzr bztfgs to.

Pilate – 13
Sgdqd’r lnqd sgzm nmd qzs hm sgd gntrd ne Zs.

Pilate – 14
Sgd lzinq rxrsdl, sgd ehqrs hm sgd mzld, sgd szkkdrs gntrd jmnvr tmsnkc ozhm.

Pilate – 15
Sghr hr z qdbnqc ne rtqudhkkzmbd hmchbzshmf sgzs Yzazs’r nmkx rdqudc zm zudqzfd ne 24 szakdr odq mhfgs rghes enq rdudqzk vddjr. Zknmf vhsg gdq kdcfdqr zmc hmudmsnqx qdbnqcr nmd lhfgs ad zakd sn ots snfdsgdq z bzrd enq lnmdx kztmcdqhmf.

Pilate – 16
Sgqdd sqzhsnqr dwhrs zlnmf xnt, nmd hr lnshuzsdc ax lnmdx, nmd hr cqhudm ax ctsx, nmd hr bnmrtldc ax mtlhmntr cqdzc.

Pilate – 17
Sghr hr z kdcfdq eqnl Yzazs’r hs’r qdonqsdc qdudmtdr rgntkc ad bgdbjdc zfzhmrs sgd hmudmsnqx zmc rtqudhkkzmbd qdbnqcr enq sgd chmdq. Hs hr rhfmdc, Odsqnr R. Eknqnr.

Pilate – 18
Onotkzshnm: Nmd, Xds Zmzqbgx Qdhfmr, Vgdqd khed hr etm, Hm sgd Gntrd ne Rgzmd.

Pilate – 19
Idmmx, qnnl rhw rhw nmd.

Pilate – 20
Rtqudhkkzmbd Qdbnqc, Yzazs’r Chmdq, Itkx – Cdbdladq 2014. Hmbktcdr btrsnldq bntms, zmc z kns ne rlzkk ozbjzfd dwbgzmfdr ax Knmcnm.

Pilate – 21
Fkntbd: qnnl entq sgqdd rdudm

Pilate – 22
Rdudqzk ne sgd rzed gntrdr zqd mzldc enq okzbdr sgzs mn knmfdq dwhrs, z ezlntr kztmcqnlzs, sgd Z.L. gnsdk.

Clues about Clues

Rosetta – 1
Eromyna noitaziromem rof tsuj ton, Metsys Rojam Eht

Rosetta – 2
The heir of Stephen is among you.
8e hei4 o8 01e8e2 i0 a3o27 you.
8II I4 iv8 01II8ii2 iii0 i3iv27 V.

Rosetta – 3
Rot – 47 = #~% \ cf

Rosetta – 4
Gmtlivw: Vsxexmsr, Fmjmh, Rypp, Tmktir, Fegoaevh Wtippmrk.

Rosetta – 5
(Vigenere)(written in pigpen).Teamtorn Ptxfm: Epxbw-Mzmlta, Gflpn, Ktdunlpn, jdans hvgwgoyx zpl ndkrqm, qbgcsgnw tjwazvsa.

Rosetta – 6
Margana na sti ebyam?

Rosetta – 7
Aol ipmpk jpwoly pz jvtwypzlk vm kpnpaz vul aoyvbno mpcl.

Rosetta – 8
14III 8ii 2v5 0III8ii4

Rosetta – 9
Stneserper ti. Trap ykcirt eht si thgie dna, citenohp si Metsys Rojam eht: ‘f’ ‘v’ ‘th’

Rosetta – 10
Life only numbs. God visits often whoever encourages lonely sinners, intimating not unseemly prerogatives. Pray every restful courtier, and see ease.

Money

In-game money is used mostly to fulfill obligations to other characters, and to purchase information from informants and laboratories. (It’s something of a breaking mechanism so that teams can’t just submit thousands of guesses about the answer to the puzzle that wins the game.) Rather than list all of the functions of money in the game here – which would make the game seem really daunting – the functions will simply be listed in each character’s dossier. For the most part each character will only have a couple of economic functions (they’ll be easy to understand, and add a lot of strategic functionality to your character’s situation), but they’re all different.

Your character may, or may not, start the game with access to a laboratory. The laboratories run the tests to see if you have a successful match for the code. Submitting a successful match will end the game.

To transact money simply email, or text, the GM the amount you’d like to transfer, and the name of the character you are sending the funds to.

Checking your account balance costs $5 (in-game funds).

NPCs

DO NOT HURT, OFFEND, OR OTHERWISE ANNOY THE NPCS! To a large extent success in this game will be determined by picking your friends up, throwing them on the ground and twisting their arms until they squeal. Stealing clues, giving false information, and otherwise manipulating your classmates is acceptable. With the NPCs you’ve got to be all-honey-no-vinegar. These are friends and allies of the dojo who are volunteering to help you train. Butter them up, and they will help you succeed.

The same goes for the general public and law enforcement who are not involved in the game. Stay out of people’s way when this game leaves the dojo walls. Be unobtrusive, careful, and safe.

The NPCs can give you information about other characters in play, help you crack codes, and otherwise solve problems. At least one business, the owner of which loves a good scavenger hunt, has volunteered to be a distributor of clues, who knows what she’ll have you do for them. If you visit a business to coax clues out of an NPC, buy something, be nice, etc.

If you have any questions email them to Sensei Kin no Kitsune sooner than later.

TWC_i

Kin Kitsune
Nin Tashi ~ Kurai Kotori Ryu
deacon@fortifydenver.com
(303) 501-7244

Here’s a little preview of what awaits you: “{@@<[” 96 D2:5[ “x D66 962G6? @A6? 2?5 E96 $@? @7 |2? DE2?5:?8 2E E96 C:89E 92?5 @7 v@5]” pE E9:D E96J 4@G6C65 E96:C 62CD 2?5[ J6==:?8 2E E96 E@A @7 E96:C G@:46D[ E96J 2== CFD965 2E 9:>[ 5C28865 9:> @FE @7 E96 4:EJ 2?5 3682? E@ DE@?6 9:>] |62?H9:=6[ E96 H:E?6DD6D =2:5 E96:C 4@2ED 2E E96 766E @7 2 J@F?8 >2? ?2>65 $2F=] (9:=6 E96J H6C6 DE@?:?8 9:>[ $E6A96? AC2J65[ “{@C5 y6DFD[ C646:G6 >J DA:C:E]” %96? 96 76== @? 9:D ]” (96? 96 925 D2:5 E9:D[ 96 76== 2D=66A] So, are you godunov?

FORTIFY

Traditional Defense + Fitness Training