Criminal Ideas?

[grinch]

Evening all, hope you are all well. 

I’ve been getting into the habit lately of doing large statblocks to be used as NPCs for any potential GMs. Mainly for specific areas such as residents of Leper Hall for the Victorian period etc. 

But I also want to do statblocks for any criminals that the Shadow Proclamation have captured that could be used in the event a GM does
an adventure set in a prison or involving a prison break. However, I’m struggling to come up with criminals whose crimes aren’t just committing acts of murder or theft.

Would any of you happen to have any ideas of what other criminals could be used? The more descriptive in terms of crimes or physical appearance the better as it would help me more when crafting a statblock for them.

All the best,

Grinch

[spydalek]

Some sort of robot dressed up like Moriatry or some other famous (public domain) villain, from a West World-esque theme park designed to let people live out (public domain) books. But it got programmed too well and believed it really was the villain, and started killing/hurting guests, or escaped the park and managed to get away from the theme park and caused problems elsewhere. And because it was self-aware they couldn't reprogram it so it got sent to a space prison?

That was the first thing that came to mind, for some odd reason.

[grinch]

Jun 27, 2021 19:42:39 GMT spydalek said:

Some sort of robot dressed up like Moriatry or some other famous (public domain) villain, from a West World-esque theme park designed to let people live out (public domain) books. But it got programmed too well and believed it really was the villain, and started killing/hurting guests, or escaped the park and managed to get away from the theme park and caused problems elsewhere. And because it was self-aware they couldn't reprogram it so it got sent to a space prison?

That was the first thing that came to mind, for some odd reason.

Really like that idea. Already explored the idea of a robot becoming a victim of its programming with ALPHA (Stats to be posted soon..) so there’s certainly precedent for the idea.

I’m imagining that said robotic felon would belong to a Fairy Tale/West World type theme park as you already suggested and would be designed around the Old Witch from Hansel and Gretel. Unfortunately, she would start re activating after hours and begin kidnapping the various children staying in the park all the while avoiding capture through her knowledge of the parks layout.

The park authorities would eventually catch up to her and discover that she has hundreds of missing children in cages all in various states of starvation and emaciation. Her robotic nature meaning she could not consume them as per her character so this was the next best thing.

Unable to simply reprogram her under Section 4/6/X of the Sentience Act, they have instead adopted to arrest her under charges of kidnapping and multiple counts of endangerment of a child. 

Whilst in prison, she is permitted to be activated at certain hours and with no children within the prison facility, the murderous witch part of the programming is largely dormant and as such she mainly acts as a benign old lady. 

Something like that by any chance?

[spydalek]

Jun 27, 2021 22:15:03 GMT grinch said:

Really like that idea. Already explored the idea of a robot becoming a victim of its programming with ALPHA (Stats to be posted soon..) so there’s certainly precedent for the idea.

I’m imagining that said robotic felon would belong to a Fairy Tale/West World type theme park as you already suggested and would be designed around the Old Witch from Hansel and Gretel. Unfortunately, she would start re activating after hours and begin kidnapping the various children staying in the park all the while avoiding capture through her knowledge of the parks layout.

The park authorities would eventually catch up to her and discover that she has hundreds of missing children in cages all in various states of starvation and emaciation. Her robotic nature meaning she could not consume them as per her character so this was the next best thing.

Unable to simply reprogram her under Section 4/6/X of the Sentience Act, they have instead adopted to arrest her under charges of kidnapping and multiple counts of endangerment of a child. 

Whilst in prison, she is permitted to be activated at certain hours and with no children within the prison facility, the murderous witch part of the programming is largely dormant and as such she mainly acts as a benign old lady. 

Something like that by any chance?

Yes! This is exactly what I was thinking.

I love this idea so much.

[Catsmate]

I like it. Too many Who plots are of the universe threatening scale.

A few ideas, specifically time-travel related.

Money
You've mentioned theft, and we've discussed 'salvage' previously on the forum but there are other 'get rich quick' schemes like travelling back in time and acquiring materials or objects that are valuable in the future and either storing them or bringing them back to the future.
This would cover schemes like Scaroth's plan for selling multiple copies of the Mona Lisa in the present (possibly based on a real plot) and Waterfield's antique shop.

• My game universe has an organisation called the Timeless Society, a network of time travel aware antique dealers who handle the disposal of displaced objects and otherwise assist time travellers.
  

The idea of using future knowledge for investments purposes is a trope in itself, used in TimeCop and referred to in The Time Meddler, where the Monk invests money in one century, and collects the profits in another.
Land speculation ("Perhaps I should slip outside and file a claim on the land. When they get around to inventing the aeroplane, I'll make a fortune!") is another possibility as is resource exploitation. Detailed maps of useful and valuable mineral deposits obtained in one period could allow them to be mined earlier, though at the risk of a temporal paradox.

• Crossing over with Meddling there's the possibility of, as the perennial example, Nazi Germany learning of oil deposits in Europe decades before they were found.
  

Wines and spirits could be purchased in one period, allowed to age in a safe place, and sold decades later when they are rare and valuable. Midsomer Murders and The Saint used a version of this with faked vintages.
Other recreational intoxicants could be purchased in one period (most controlled narcotics of today were easily obtained over a century today) and sold today. On a larger scale cannabis, coca or opium poppies could be cultivated on a large scale in one period, processed and then shipped uptime. Similarly for synthetic drugs, produced in an era when it was legal or unknown.

Arms smuggling could be lucrative (and was always dangerous) but unless great care was taken it'd easily cause temporal disruption.

The high prices paid today for anything connected with the RMS Titanic is another potentially lucrative field.

Then there's the opposite route, buying in the future and moving to the past. For example gold is today worth almost €50 per gramme but in a couple of centuries asteroid mining might reduce this enormously (as gold has relatively few actual uses)


The Collector.
There are enough unhinged collectors in reality and fiction to provide a market for a specialised sort of thief who targets 'lost' works of art, films and books. One classic example is Shakespeare's missing play Love's Labour Won. A manuscript copy (if it existed) would sell for probably nine figures today.
Arguably The Archivist falls into this category too.


Meddling.
Perhaps the time traveller tried to alter the past? Whether it was for what they thought would be 'better' or to suit their beliefs (like Krasko) this is something that would be opposed.


Expatriate.
Or maybe the time traveller isn't interested in living in their native time, but prefers to lord it among the primitives of the past? Or conquer an empire, like The Man Who Would Be King.


Sex.
One of the strongest human drives. A time traveller could target victims in the past rather than the present, and evade law enforcement. Or supply clones of Cleopatra or Marilyn Monroe to the slave markets of the future. Or genetic material to those who want a child of Julius Caesar.

[Catsmate]

For crimes of the future that don't involve time travel here are some examples.


1. Smuggling.
Whether it's banned technology, alcohol to puritanical regimes, narcotics, currency or arms, a demand tends to create a supply, and then a host of laws and their enforcers.
'Rum Row' is an excellent historical example of 'respectable' smuggling. Gold was smuggled to India in the '50s and currency control (e.g. in Britain in some periods) caused a black market in money transfers. British gold sovereigns were counterfeited, with proper gold content, in the 1950s because though their gold content was about 2.9 pounds they sold on continental markets from between four and ten pounds. Several prosecutions ended in acquittals because the fake coins had at least as much as the genuine ones....


2. Illegal cloning.
Whether you're dealing in sex slaves, cloning your enemy to torture or selling butchered carcasses of public figures for banquets there will be someone who objects and probably laws to break.
On a related note, of abusing biotech for fun and profit, there are gladiatorial monsters¹, the ever popular cat-girl toys, illegal alien or geneered pets (lap elephants, Alaspanian mini-drags), humanoid labour slaves and colonists modified for hostile environments.
Then there are analogues of the current trade in "traditional medicines" made from animals parts, is their a black market in 'human horn'?


3. Food.
One man's meat is another's poison.
This could be trafficking in endangered plants or animals, meat that was raised in an environment rick in heavy metals (and hence toxic to normal humans [or aliens]²), meat that is not what is stated (which ranges from vat cultivated meat rather than from actual animals to padding out the rat surprise with beef).
Then again the offense could be possession of a ham sandwich:

When entering a planet the party experience no more than the usual problems at customs, even the weapons passed OK. Until one Earthling was scanned and the shocked customs agents pulled out..............a ham sandwich.
Soon there's a ring of unfriendly (and nauseated) cops staring at him. "It contains actual animal flesh".
On that planet, as in most of the civilised galaxy, meat is cultured, grown in vats without any actual living animals being involved. They look at someone eating "real" meat in the same way cannibals are looked at today.

Perhaps the Earth Empire is trying to stamp out the trade in 'Terran Veal' ("The other white meat") and someone was caught with a shipment of BabyBurgers (Succulent FauxFlesh human veal, tank cultured for purity, finely ground, seasoned and served in a high fibre bun. Mmmmm....).

• Controversial to put it mildly. On some worlds it's available in fast food cafeterias, on other you'll be executed for admitting you ever ate one. Quite tasty though.

Or maybe the Draconians object to humans cloning them for roasting?


4. Mind control.
Today they are laws regarding using narcotics to reduce the ability to think. Future tech will probably supply far more, and more effective, methods to reduce people to pliability, on an individual or planetary scale.
Fitting that pesky Galactic Patrol officer with an implant that makes him your obedient slave, and bodyguard, is likely to be frowned upon. So is using advanced mimetics to have a planet elect you president ("That Jane Doe is a darn nice person") or turning your followers into an army of obedient slaves. Or perhaps possessing a pheromone spray.


5. Ecotage & Bio-security.
Ever tried to bring a Bengal into Australia? Some places are rather fussy about invasive species³. Right back to Classic Trek (remember the Tribbles?) this has been a way to get into trouble.


6. Impersonating a Goddess.
Or demon. One of those more specialised crimes but the idea of using advanced technology to persuade to society to worship you has potential. Trek did it rather well ("The advocate will refrain from making her opponent disappear") and Cessair of Diplos got fifteen hundred years for this offense.

Impersonating a religious personage, to wit a Celtic goddess, for which the penalty is imprisonment for one thousand five hundred years.

7. Information.
Information wants to be free. However many people, organisations and governments disagree. From the Official Secrets Act onwards telling people truths that those with power don't want heard is a great way to get in trouble.
Of course "information" could include all forms of data, including child pornography and revenge porn.


8. New pastimes and addictions.
Sci-fi has invented many new entertainments for governments to disapprove of. These could be 'wireheading' where an electrode is inserted into the pleasure centre of the brain, numerous flavours of narcotics (from thionite and bentlam to Nuke, not forgetting Novovacuous, Opiasamin, Skoob and Vraxoin) and nanomachines, alien parasites and many more.
Then there's the area of virtual reality addiction, which may be a pathway to worse.
Larry Niven also describes the Tasp, a remote pleasure centre stimulator.


9. Medicine
Of course the future may have more positive medical developments to disapprove of. Orgallegging was a cliche in sci-fi of the seventies but is probably impracticable. But force-growing clones and harvesting them for spare may not be.
Then again an over-populated planet may prohibit access to treatments that extend life (except for the controlling elite of course), immortagens, or enhancement drugs.
An society with an anti-psi bias may prohibit psionic augmentation drugs or treatments (and lobotomise telepaths).


10. Mad Science
Strangely enough using sentient beings as test subjects for science is frowned upon. Today we have the Nuremberg Code and various national and international restrictions and guidelines on medical and biotech experimentation, though we still use data from past unethical experimentation. Some examples of current experiments that are ethically prohibited, but could produce interesting results:

• I've mentioned what biologist Stephen Jay Gould called "the most potentially interesting and ethically unacceptable experiment I can imagine" before. The idea is to produce human/chimp hybrids ('chuman' or 'humanzee'). It has been tried (e.g. Elie Metchnikoff, Hermann Moens, Hermann Rohleder, Ilya Ivanov) and failed⁴ but it would be entirely possible with current technology; the rhesus macaque has been crossed with a baboon.
  
• Take children and raise them in different test conditions (controlling every aspect of their environments) to finally provide developmental psychology with hard data. Particularly useful if you can use populations of identical twins.
  
• Remove brain cells from a live subject to analyse which genes are switched on and which are off.
• Use bone marrow transplants to transfer desired traits. This has been done, there are at least two people cured of HIV infection by transplantation of bone marrow from doners with the CCR5-Δ32 mutation. However the transplantations were done to cure cancers, the elimination of HIV was a side-effect. Large scale transplants are currently blocked on ethical grounds.
  

Hope this helps. I need to do some work. More later.




1. I recommend G. R. R. Martin's Tuf Voyaging.

2. Can anyone say 'dodgy beef scandal'?

3. There's a TV series full of ideas.

4. As far as anyone knows.

[Catsmate]

More crimes for the future.

OK, I think we've covered the basics, the variations on assault, robbery, murder et cetera.

11. Possession of Contraband.
Governments, and others with power such as corporations and nobles/landowners, have a tendency to want to control what people can buy, or at least tax such purchases for there own revenue or restrict them to support a local monopoly.
Firearms, narcotics (including alcohol), cheese, undesirable books/media, cash and negotiable instruments, precious metals, gems, stolen property, satellite dishes, radioactives, radio jammers, endangered plants and animals, toilet fittings and much more have been restricted. Which leads to smuggling and then possession of contraband.

In the future it's entirely possible that nanotech, anti-matter, artificial intelligence, black holes, diamondoid materials, self-replicating robots, strangelets, magnetic monopoles and many forms of software will be added. With a galaxy perhaps containing hundreds, or millions, or jurisdictions, it'll be easy to fall foul of such laws.
Then there are sumptuary laws (wiki) which limit imports or spending. A hapless traveller might be found wearing the wrong shade of cloth (e.g. an Imperial Purple t-shirt dyed with a cheap, synthetic dye).


12. Meddling in Alien Cultures.
Regardless of the rights and wrongs of Trek's Prime Directive¹, there will be issues with interfering with other cultures, whether truly 'alien' or human derived. And hence a vast scope for getting into legal trouble.
What's the status of a human who introduced the horse collar² to a regressed human settled world in Draconian claimed space?

I'm reminded of Mack Reynolds' 'Planetary Agent' stories where interference, no matter how horrible the society was, was prohibited³.

Article One: The United Planets organization shall take no steps to interfere with the internal political, socio-economic, or religious institutions of its members planet.
Article Two: No member planet of United Planets shall interfere with the internal political, socio-economic or religious institutions of any other member planet.

But there was a man, or perhaps a group, calling himself 'Tommy Paine' who did meddle.

...this planet Goshen. It had kind of a strange history. A bunch of colonists went out there, oh, four or five centuries ago. Pretty healthy expedition, as such outfits go. Bright young people, lots of equipment, lots of know-how and books. Well, through sheer bad luck everything went wrong from the beginning. Everything. Before they got set up at all they had an explosion that killed off all their communications technicians. They lost contact with the outside.
Within a couple of centuries they’d gotten into a state of chattel slavery. Pretty well organized, but static. Kind of an Athenian Democracy on top, a hierarchy, but nineteen people out of twenty were slaves, and I mean real slaves, like animals. They were at this stage when a scout ship from the UP Space Forces discovered them and, of course, they joined up.”

The United Planets couldn't do anything, but Paine could. He introduced the steam engine, the fly shuttle and the spinning jenny. The society of Goshen was radically churned up.


13. Unapproved Conquest.
Likewise governments will probably have a tendency to frown on groups of people heading off into the black to conquer new lands for themselves⁴.


14. Slavery.
This could be new variations on this human tradition; controlling of sentient artificial intelligences, slavery by mind control or programming, enslavement of aliens, creation of genetically altered lifeforms et cetera.
Of course slavery could be legal, if perhaps only in certain places, and it's those opposing the Peculiar Institution that are in trouble. The pitched battles of Bleeding Kansas and the US Fugitive Slave Laws⁵ come to mind.

A variation on this is the Company Town and Debt Bondage where slavery is not exactly in place, but the situation is functionally the similar. Lots of legal possibilities here, from smuggling and profiteering to aiding escapes.
One version of this that's appeared in sci-fi is contracting the desperate; find a planet with lots of surplus population and fairly awful conditions and sign up people to labour contracts in exchange for passage to a 'company world' and sustenance.

Philip High's The Prodigal Sun had a fairly horrific version called simply The Programme. Those programmed are hypnotised and conditioned into cooperative members of society by means of aversion therapy. If the programmed person even thinks about violating societal norms they experience a sudden attack of excruciating pain. Each one is given a little booklet with all the forbidden thoughts (known as "the bible of the damned").

The patient must understand that because of his inability to conform to present society he is mentally sick and has, therefore, been referred for treatment. This treatment is not a punishment for misdemeanor but a comprehensive therapy designed to restore him to normal society.
It is advised, therefore, that the patient familiarize himself with this book for his own immediate well-being and a swift return to normal life.
The patient experiences psychosomatic pain when his thoughts, actions or emotions are contrary to the therapeutic plan designed to restore him to health and his rightful place in society.
To determine the exact cause of pain, the patient must recall his thoughts or actions at time of onset. In all cases he will discover that he, himself, induced the attack by thought or action contrary to the plan for his recovery. It is advised, therefore, that the patient read the book thoroughly in order to determine his point of departure from the programme of rehabilitation.

15. Land theft.
With the right technology (Blish's spindizzy comes to mind) entire cities, or tracts of open land, may be removed from their home and taken away, for whatever purpose. Even if this is done by the land's owner it's quite possible that the government will object to having the land removed and a large hole left in it's place, leading to legislation such as Fenspace's Federal Land Theft Prevention Act.


16. Trespass.
Many, many, years ago (1958) Asimov wrote Lucky Starr and the Rings of Saturn⁷ which examined the concept of who controls a star system. I shall quote wiki:

A Sirian [the bad guys of the series] ship then contacts Starr and informs him that the Sirians have built a colony on Titan and claimed it for Sirius, contrary to the traditional principle that inhabitants of one world in a stellar system have sovereignty over the entire system, even those parts without permanent settlements. Starr orders the pursuing Terrestrial fleet back to Earth; but returns with Bigman and Councilman Ben Wessilewsky to the Saturnian system.

Does a settlement on planet Z give the government of that world control of all that planet? All the star system? How far out does this control extend⁸? Do they have to patrol it? Is there a right to Freedom of Navigation? What about establishing a settlement on a rock in an eccentric orbit? What about multi-star systems (most of them)? Can a ship 'skim' gases from the atmosphere of a gas giant, or mine ice, for fuel⁹?
There are enough questions there to keep the legal professions out of trouble for centuries. Or get a more-or-less innocent trader in a lot of trouble....

Artificial environments are likely to levy some sort of tax or charge to cover things like air, light, gravity, not being sucked out through a poorly maintained window et cetera. And if there's a tax then there will be those who evade it. What happens to them? (Summary airlocking? Bonded labour? Recycling for their phosphorous content?)


17. Mad Science 2 - Madder Science.
Previously I dealt mostly with biotechnology, but what about physics? Modifying planetary orbits ("They were untidy"), using someone's star to operate a Dyson Swarm¹⁰, igniting a gas giant into a short lived star to boost real estate values on it's satellites. Or mining a star for heavy elements, with some 'slight burps' of plasma...

I'd put things like 'Operating a Nuclear Pulse Engine in an Atmosphere' here too.


18. Artificial Intelligence.
What rights do sentient AIs have? Are they legally 'people'? Or are they property? Are there AI liberation (or enslavement) groups active in society? Are there AI states who act against AI slavers?


19. Looting.
A variation on theft but an interesting one. Presumably it'll be a crime to (for example) pillage a battlefield for damaged ships, unused supplies and ordnance, spilt anti-matter and similar items.
What about abandoned alien planets? Are they free game for 'archaeological research'? What about advanced technology, or works of art?


20. Being Bloody Stupid.
This covers things that may not actually be crimes, because law-makers underestimated the stupidity of people.
"Yes sir, there is no specific law against tearing a hole in the fabric of reality and allowing Things from elsewhere into our universe to feast on all intelligent species, but I'm still arresting you for contravening the Being Bloody Stupid Act of 5581¹²."






1. It's a really, really, stupid idea. Mixing the naturalistic fallacy with a rather horrible application of social Darwinism.

2. An extremely socially disruptive technology.

3. Human sacrifice for example.

4. Or maybe not, there's plenty of examples of both in human history.

5. I've mentioned the Christiana Riot previously.

6. Farming comes to mind. Usable soil is likely to be rather scarce in space.

7. The sixth book in a series based around David 'Lucky' Starr, fixer of problems. The later editions had an introduction explaining why the science was now wrong.

8. The reason for the traditional 'Three Mile Limit' of territorial waters was cannon range?

9. Yes I've played a lot of Traveller.

10. Or worse a Dyson-Nicholl Laser array....

11. Something the Time Lords seem to deeply disapprove of. No Transhumanism in Doctor Who.

12. Thanks Sir Terry.

[grinch]

Loving the ideas here so far so thanks for posting them.

Actually had an idea regarding a sentient planet (think an Evil Mogo from DC comics) who was eventually placed under arrest by the Shadow Proclamation. Not quite sure how you would put a celestial body on trial or what crime it might have committed but I imagine that it’s imprisonment (for the sake of practicality) is merely having several gravity satellites positioned around it to keep it in place.

[spydalek]

Jul 6, 2021 19:21:50 GMT grinch said:

what crime it might have committed

Messing with other planets' ecosystems by travelling into their system? Kidnapping innocent spaceship crews who go into their "air"space? Seeding other planets with astroids to steal mass?

Somethings like that, I imagine?

[grinch]

Jul 6, 2021 19:54:04 GMT spydalek said:

Jul 6, 2021 19:21:50 GMT grinch said:

what crime it might have committed

Messing with other planets' ecosystems by travelling into their system? Kidnapping innocent spaceship crews who go into their "air"space? Seeding other planets with astroids to steal mass?

Somethings like that, I imagine?

I like that. Moving towards planets to wreak utter devastation on the planet’s surface through close proximity to its gravitational fields.

It was generally believed that the planet was in fact merely the equivalent of a wild animal and as such lacked the sentience to be convicted. Until one of the planets it moved close to attempted to communicate with it, only to hear the sounds of the tectonic plates on it moving. Sounds of which when translated revealed that it was in fact laughing with great delight at their misfortune. 

The Shadow Proclamation actually sent agents and a fleet of Judoon to the planets surface in an attempt to negotiate with it but were quickly attacked by the constructs it made and then absorbed into its centre. 

Thankfully, they managed to capture it through a ring of gravitational satellites. And there it remains.

[soultaker666212]

I present to you, Pablo Capone. Pablo Capone is a mixture of Al Capone and Pablo Escobar who once run a criminal empire that spanned multiple planets/moons/asteroids/space stations/spaceships etc. How Pablo Capone came to be I will leave ambiguous simply to allow for you to decide how he well came to be, whether it is thanks to genetic engineering of both of their DNA's, android with both of their personalities and memories inside of it, zygon shapeshifter who figured out how to shapeshift into two people etc. All we know is that he ran a criminal empire that mainly distributed and smuggled a narcotic and alcohol mix. It was/is (as after his capture his empire split into rival factions) an alcoholic beverage that had narcotics mixed with it to create an addictive brew with special effects. His empire had many ships under its wing, ranging from small fighters to large freight carriers used for smuggling to salvaged corvettes used for security and his own personal yacht. Pablo's own brew was sold in illegal speakeasies across multiple planets filled with many alien species drinking away and suffering from the brew's effects. He had a team of loyal men who would do anything for him but those who betray him or fail him he would place a hit on them or kill them personally. His empire was run as a mixture of a 1920s Mafia and South American cartel with many people within its ranks. How he got caught I will also leave ambiguous as well to allow for your own creativity. Would be one fun person to include in a campaign even as a villain outside of a prison (maybe your player characters are the ones who bust him?)

[soultaker666212]

Mr Lust. Mr Lust is a strange yet elegant man with mass amounts of money. Usually wearing the finest of suits he was much of a socialite amongst the elite of many different planets. Why is this man a criminal, well he ran a brothel known as the Den of Debauchery. The Den of Debauchery had prostitutes both willing and unwilling to be there from multiple species including humans, androids, catkind, silurians, ood etc who serve club members from across the galaxy (even rumoured to serve customers from across galaxies). To be a member is to be invited by an already existing member giving it an extra piece of security. Where the brothel is located changes each time but its main entrance is always a red door that appears anywhere. Given the Den of Debauchery changes each time, some argue that it may have interdimensional properties to it, whether or not that is correct is up to the GM to decide. Mr Lust has considered using just shapeshifters as his prostitutes, however according to him it won't be the authentic experience in pleasure. Mr Lust usually works within a hidden room within the brothel where he manages his illegal business from behind closed doors. He is though part of a larger criminal organisation referred to as The Seven, each one representing 1 sin from the seven deadly sins and all run their own businesses related to that sin. Out of The Seven Mr Lust is the only one to have been caught meaning out there there are 6 other members still committing various crimes.

[soultaker666212]

Speed Demon. Speed Demon is an old cyberman (specifically the Telos Earthshock style) that has now been reprogrammed to be an illegal spacecraft racing pilot. He was found in an old cyber war battle site, left to rust and decay until he was picked up by a bunch of thugs. Part of his handle bars of his head is missing, mainly the connect tube, giving him almost a devil horn apperance. The thugs then repaired and fixed up Speed Demon and recalibrated him to be a pilot within illegal space racing programmed with multiple flight manoeuvres, routes and courses and many more advantages within the field. The thugs ran a space racing team (of the GM's choosing on names and logos etc) amongst this illegal activities who used Speed Demon to make lots of money from his winnings. Speed Demon raced through nebulas, asteroid fields, within planetary atmospheres and other dangerous places winning many races and became legendary amongst this underworld of racing, How he got caught was a Judoon raid upon the HQ of this illegal space racing team and then arrested for illegal space racing. His legacy still remained though with imitators using cyberman helmets as a way to profit upon his legacy (Kinda like Frankenstein from Death Race 2000)

[soultaker666212]

Shalka Krafaris. Shalka Krafaris was a former Sycorax tribe leader who abandoned his tribe after he "foresaw" an apocalyptic event that would destroy the entire galaxy. Shalka after abandoning his tribe began to recruit like minded people into believing this event will happen, forming up a doomsday cult around this event with loyal followers brainwashed by Shalka's words and "visions" into believing this event to come true. Shalka and his cult (named whatever the GM wants it to be) found a small moon around a planet in a system they presumed to be safe from the up and coming apocalypse which they named the moon Safe Haven. However this apocalytpic event was likely to happen though, as it would have been Shalka to orchestrate it. Back when Shalka was with his tribe he discovered a powerful artefact from a long lost race (could be anything and any race up to GM) that has the ability to destroy galaxies. Shalka intended to use it so he and his followers could be the only ones left and rebuild back a better galaxy from amongst the ruins. His plans failed when the artefact malfunctioned and was later arrested along with many of his followers.

[soultaker666212]

Glodax. Glodax is an Ice Warrior hitman loyal to anyone who pays him well. His backstory is a mystery, never even willing to go into details at all only than he was born upon Mars like the rest of his species. All though he is a mystery upon the backstory department, his skill in carrying out his hits are second to none. He would go so far as to travel across systems, clusters, galaxies maybe even across time just to simply carry out his hit to the exact specifications. He had his own spaceship outfitted with various weaponry, with an onboard armoury as well. Glodax has a reputation amongst the criminal organisations as the best of the business and you would be very lucky to have you within his service. The only reason he got caught was he was sold out by one of his employers who simply was not satisfied with his performance against his target and betrayed Goldax to the Judoon. Now he sits within his cell planning his escape to one day get revenge back upon the very person who betrayed him.

[soultaker666212]

The One Armed Bandit. The One Armed Bandit is the nickname for a notorious leader of a series of illegal gambling dens across multiple planets. She is a robot in the design of a slot machine with 2 legs and only 1 arm. She has 3 eyes in the shape of the spinning wheel that spin around to show different emotions and also has a microphone which she speaks through. She one day worked inside of a regular old casino where she was built for that purpose however someone hacked her and she gained a level of sentience and escaped. She was reprogrammed to serve under an already powerful crime boss who ran a series of illegal gambling dens himself. However she got the nickname The One Armed Bandit after she murdered the crime boss and simply took over his gambling empire. Not only did she improve and expand the illegal gambling empire, she made it more secure hiring better security and choosing more hidden locations. Her dens had many different games from multiple planets some of her dens even specialised in only 1 game. The most advisable thing though is to pay any gambling debts on time with the correct mouth, or you will owe her your life and she is willing to take it as payment. How she got caught was a sting operation one of the dens she owns and she just so happened to have been inside when it happened.

[soultaker666212]

Kantor. Kantor is a Draconian noble who was extremely corrupt. He was born into the nobility of Draconia where he was raised into a privileged society around him, allowing him to develop his arrogance and stubbornness as his major personality acts. When he grew to adulthood he was placed in-charge of leading a Draconian colony within the outer edges of the Draconian Empire (Up to the Gm to name and create the colony), however his leadership was very corrupt. He accepted bribes from multiple different criminal organisations and turned a blind eye to their activities, he set up a secret police force in order to detain and even execute anyone who dare opposes him including alien outsiders, enacted various Draconian laws (pun both not intended and intended) in order to keep his people subjected. He turned himself into a corrupt dictator just to simply gain more power. Kantor was even hated by many of the other nobles because of his actions and soon they amounted a resistance against him, both funding a resistance organisation within his colony and also blockading his planet. The other nobles agreed to work with the Shadow Proclamation in arresting Kantor an it took a platoon of judoon, mercenaries, resistance fighters upon the planet and Draconian soldiers to put an end to Kantor's regime, where he was later arrested for his brutal acts of dictatorship.

[soultaker666212]

The Gardener. The Gardener is a mysterious lady, she usually wears black robes and covers her face with an eyeless mask. She walks with a limp and is assisted by other women who help tend her lovely garden. Her garden is situated upon a moon and contains plants from various different planets in beautiful patterns and designs. However its not the plants you should be worried about but the statues, as the very statues were once living people from many species. The Gardener is a Gorgon, who turns visitors into stone to add as statues to her collection and garden. The other gardeners are all under her spell and tend to the garden and its statues and protect the Gorgon with all of their might. The Gardener was defeated when the Shadow Proclamation was able to use her ability to turn living things into stone against her, and later freed the people she had turned to stone using a pendant she kept hidden. Noe she remains as a statue locked up in a shadow proclamation prison forever.

[Catsmate]

Nice ideas.

[soultaker666212]

Brutis. Brutis was the nickname for a powerful Hoix who fought in a series of underground and illegal combat arenas. Temporally displaced thanks to a Time Rift upon his planet, he went rampage on where he was displaced to, however within the chaos there was a scout for these illegal combat arenas who foresaw his potential. Recruited, he was trained with various melee weaponry from multiple different species even some ranged weaponry as well. Brutis had the reputation of being ferocious in battle, using all of his strength and might to simply kill his opponent. Brutis made a lot of money from these events, all though he rarely even spent it due to his lack of understanding of money, yet did enjoy a life of relative luxury from his career. He never ever lost a fight he was in and had killed many different opponents in quick to bloody ways. Admittedly he did enjoy the combat he performed though and loved slaughtering his opponents in combat. He was arrested when the Judoon raided an arena he was in at the time, he fought heavily against Judoon though killing many until he was captured thanks to high technology.

[soultaker666212]

Ghast. A name so feared amongst the citizens of many worlds hat it strikes chills within the hearts of people. Ghast is a time war dalek scientist, falling from out of the Last Great Time War and into the hands of a dictator. His knowledge upon various torture methods made him useful to any dictator who would hire him to torture their undesirables and political enemies either to game information or for simple pleasure. He worked well in teams of like-minded individuals yet can just as easily exterminate them for their failures as well, some did end up becoming victims within his torture methods as well. However Ghast, being a scientist, conducted various grotesque and inhumane experiments upon his victims, giving him the nickname The Angel of Death for a good reason. He moved from dictator to dictator and each time brought up results and simply escaped when the dictator got opposed. Ghast however was eventually caught during the raid upon Kantor's colony dictatorship, where Ghast was employed by Kantor (see above) to torture his opponents and for Ghast to construct his experiments.

[soultaker666212]

Enigma. Enigma was the codename of a Vinvocci hacker who stole mass amounts of money from multiple different banks and became a millionaire in various different currencies. Being an expert in technology, as she was raised by her parents who ran an advanced computer repair business, she was knowledgeable in the hardware and software of these advanced tech computers. However when she became an adult she could not even land a single job even within the tech business so she turned to some she would never have thought to have done, crime. She knew basic things about hacking but taught herself further and began to start hacking and stealing digital currencies from banks. Overtime she developed her skills further and soon she was hacking banks on planets 5 systems away from her, becoming so rich she could afford anything she wants. Various other hackers were also impressed by her skills and she did teach a few hackers her tricks as well. She was caught however when she made a simple mistake within the code that allowed for the Shadow Proclamation to then track her and arrest her.

[soultaker666212]

The Dreaded Scurge. There is one name that could strike the fear of every space trader across multiple trade lines and that name was The Dreaded Scurge. The Dreaded Scurge was a pirate with military-like efficiency who raided any ship he could from civilian freighters to military escorts to criminal smuggling ships etc he took what he plundered and killed if necessary. There is a reason for why he has military-like efficiency, Scurge is a Sontaran. Cloned specifically to be a pirate, he was tasked upon an unorthodox mission to collect resources for the glorious Sontaran Empire from enemy weaponry to foodstuff, but it was also to weaken their enemies' resources and play a war of attrition. Scurge had access to Sontaran cloning technology allowing him to replace any of his Sontaran crew upon a whim allowing him to continue his mission at all costs. His ship was stolen, human in design and nicknamed The Emperor's Revenge in the honour of the glorious Sontaran Emperor. The Dreaded Scurge was eventually captured though, by a Rutan agent within the Shadow Proclamation who infiltrated his ship and spied upon him, but also leading him into various traps set up by the Shadow Proclamation until he was eventually caught.

[soultaker666212]

Allister Craw. Allister Craw is a human male who is a whiz at engineering and technology. He was a prodigy right from the very beginning and passed any of his education courses related to engineering and technology. All though he was a prodigy he did prefer a life of secrecy and kept to himself like most prodigies do sometimes, but that's because he was hiding something secret. Craw took hypnosis as a hobby, experimenting with it in many ways and trying to develop hypnotic technology. You see, Allister had a plan to use any hypnotic technology he makes to enslave planets with it and get them to do his bidding to create an empire of immense technological and engineering feats. He designed a satellite that he could control and hypnotise the population of planets without them even needing to see the device. Allister found a suitable planet with a species he considered worthy and fired up his device and soon the entire planet was hypnotically enslaved under him. How he got caught and arrested does remain a mystery (might be your players and this leads to a cover up?) all is known that is had psychological damage upon the species for years and years to come.

[grinch]

Just taking a break from my break (oh dear, what a paradox) to say you’ve got some excellent ideas Soultaker.

I’ve added them to my notes and when I get the time I’ll write them up and do the necessary expansion and fine tuning.