Character Archetypes

Characters are defined by their skills and reputation. The combined party needs a broad range of skills to overcome the challenges arrayed against them. These might include gathering resources, winning allies, researching, infiltrating (or defending) mesh systems, repairing or improvising a critical tool, combat, and finally applying what they have learned to a resolution. The skills the party must bring to the table can be roughly grouped as combat, social, technical, and knowledge. These establish the four broad archetypes in Eclipse Phase — the fighter, the face, the techie (or hacker), and the scientist (or artist). In smaller groups, PCs may want to fill multiple archetypes, while minimizing overlap. In larger groups, characters benefit more from specialization. Players should coordinate to avoid specialties that overlap too closely, but different specialties in the same field can create force multipliers.

Each of the archetypes below lists suggested Career and Interest skill packages to take during character creation in brackets after the entry.

Combat

Even the most cunning party will eventually be in a situation that must be resolved by brute force. Most characters should have some combat effectiveness. The fighters are those characters who specialize in a range of combat methods, so they can always adapt to the situation at hand. Critical skills include Guns, Infiltrate, Athletics, and Fray, and they will have a morph outfitted to take a pounding. Melee skill should also be considered, but in a high-tech setting of armor and bots, it may not be as effective as other options. For groups of six players, it is recommended to have at least two fighters. Some example fighters include:

Direct Action and Medusan Shield Mercenaries, Firewall Erasers: These characters deploy heavy-duty hardware to utterly destroy the target. They are the ideal character for slash-and-burn operations. What they bring in explosives they lack in subtlety and discretion. Their obvious combat morphs and oversized weapons will invite scrutiny during operations.

Career: Soldier

Earth Survivors and Freedom Fighters: These characters have learned to survive under the nose of a vastly superior enemy. They are capable with light, heavy, and improvised weapons, and bring a diversity of technical and knowledge skills to endure when conditions are tight.

Career: Covert Operative/Scavenger, Interest: Fighter/Survivalist

Ego Hunters, Police, and Militia: This character knows how to navigate the micrograv jungle to locate their target. They have a strong focus on social networks and investigation skills. Their combat is usually focused and discreet, but their training relies on reinforcements when facing a stronger enemy. A good addition when the party isn’t looking for a body count.

Career: Enforcer/Investigator, Interest: Fighter/Forensics Specialist

Assassins: The assassin uses stealth and trickery to avoid direct confrontation. They have a wide toolbox, and can leverage everything from nanotoxins to explosives to get the job done. The assassin’s reliance on stealth may become a hindrance during confrontations. An assassin who is caught unawares, who has not mapped the environment and prepared multiple attack and escape routes, doesn’t survive long.

Career: Covert Operative/Soldier Interest: Rogue/Jack-of-All-Trades

Social

All doors open for the face, who knows who to talk to and what accounts to grease. While all characters should have some level of social skills and reputation, the face is the one who can sweet talk themself right into the central control room. Sample social archetypes include:

Glitterati: Vid stars, oligarchs, and politicians, they’re famous enough they’ve had to trademark their face. They can usually get what they want done through force of will alone, but when that falls short a healthy bankroll will bring in the people who can. For the glitterati, fame is a double-edged sword, as they are very sensitive to being caught in scandal. Firewall work is fine, as long as they’re able to deny it publicly.

Career: Face, Interest: Artist/Icon or Networker

Spies and Con artists: Sometimes it’s not who you know, but who you are. The con artist relies on perfect mimicry and a heavy dose of infosec to pass themself off as a corporate head or a Martian ranger; whatever the role necessary to get a guided tour to the target’s front door.

Career: Covert Operative/Face, Interest: Networker/Rogue

Negotiators: This character has the gift of gab and the rep to flex it. Fixers, auctioneers, and lawyers, they can get anyone to see things their way. Their skills extend beyond haggling. A good negotiator can convince opponents to back off or call in favors when the chips are down.

Career: Face

Mindhackers: Through skill in psychosurgery or psychic sleights, the character peels back layers of their target’s mind, to lay it bare or rebuild it as they see fit. Mindhackers are useful for any investigative team for their ability to isolate secrets, but also on high-stress teams for their skill in unwinding their allies’ accumulated traumas.

Career: Mindhacker

Investigators and Journalists: With a nose for sussing information from an uncooperative target, investigators have skills in perception, persuasion, research, and a host of technical and knowledge fields. This mix is ideal for unraveling whatever situation the team is stuck in.

Career: Hacker/Investigator, Interest: Networker/Rogue

Technical

The techie specializes in using, repairing, and abusing technology, either hardware or software. The techie is the hero when life support is running out and the AI has turned hostile. During combat, the techie can shut down the enemy’s tools or provide forward observers for the combat characters. The most common technical characters are:

Hackers: Hackers are critical for their ability to pull data during an investigation. Dirt like camera feeds, forgotten lifelogs, and illicit shipping ledgers hang out in forgotten caches, waiting to be dug up. The hacker keeps just as busy tidying up their own group’s mess, by erasing their camera logs and digital footprints. In combat hackers are lethal. As long as their team can buy them time, hackers can eject magazines from guns, jam friend-or-foe targeting on security systems, open airlocks behind enemy lines, or even shut down offending synthmorphs.

Career: Hacker

Engineer: When the team wakes up on a station being consumed by grey goo in a decaying orbit and also the commander’s seat sticks, it falls on the engineer to save the day. The engineer has a range of mechanical and hardware skills to fix what’s broken or modify something else to work just as well.

Career: Techie

Bot Jammers: The jammer fields a team of sophisticated combat drones, disposable bots, and nanomachines. Used in tandem, the jammer has mastery of the battlefield. Tied into the group’s tactical network, the jammer’s bots scout the map. Snipers harass the enemy. Remote spy drones plant radio taps in air-gapped networks. Armored bots take on suicide missions so the team can escape. The bot jammer is practically a full combat squad all on their own.

Career: Hacker/Techie, Interest: Jammer

Scavengers: The team has minutes to act before people die. Without power or parts, the engineer quits in disgust. This is where the scavenger thrives. The scavenger pulls through the bones of the habitat to form something new. They can slap together a CO₂ scrubber from old batteries and cooking supplies. They can scrap the crashed shuttle to rebuild the synthmorph. Once the team sets out, the scavenger has the eye for every diamond of valuable technology buried in the debris, and when they return home, the scavenger knows where to flip that trash to pull in a tidy profit.

Career: Scavenger, Interest: Artist/Icon or Networker

Knowledge

Know skills are those most specific to the mission. Gatecrashers will need the xenoarcheologist to analyze recovered artifacts. A chemist is recruited to identify the new drug on the streets. The most common roles include:

Genehackers: Genehackers design custom animals, morphs, and bacteria. Genehackers usually can fill in the medic role, but they will also be the lead in understanding the alien corpse, the bioplague, and the exsurgent beast. When provided with the laboratory and time, they might even be able to cure whatever affliction is consuming the habitat (or, in the right group, create their own, more devastating threat to release).

Career: Genehacker

Xenoarcheologists: Exoplanet exploration is the source for the most drastic leaps in technology, as gatecrashers dredge up forgotten alien devices. Unfortunately, all of those dead species means transhumanity is also bringing back all those deadly threats. When the party is grave-robbing, the xenoarcheologist isn’t just documenting how a foreign culture lived; they’re identifying what that dangerous object is or whether that creature is a pet or a predator.

Career: Explorer/Scientist

TITAN Researcher: The TITAN researcher prods the leavings of the AIs who nearly exterminated transhumanity. Any work with TITAN remains has a high mortality rate. Many specialists are motivated by the high price TITAN technology can get on the black market. A few risk death and insanity to understand how the TITANs came to be and why they left. Regardless of the motivation, TITAN researchers have a reputation for being a little reckless with their own survival.

Career: Scavenger/Scientist/Techie, Interest: Survivalist