GAMMA WORLD Cryptic Alliances


The Hand of Man
[True Lifers]
  by Keith Johnson

This militant organization is mostly composed of pure strain and altered
humans, although there are mutated animals and sentient plants in their 
ranks.  They stand for a Gamma Terra populated solely by natural 
intelligences; they hate robots, computers, androids, and other artificial
intelligences.  This has no effect on other aspects of technology; they are
quite willing to use high-tech items (especially weapons) to meet
their goals.

Their bases are usually small, hidden, and secret affairs.  They do not
live at their bases, but only meet there to formulate plans and centralize
their organization.  There are usually a few high-tech artifacts to be 
found there, ordinarily in the leaders' possessions.

Traditional: Members seek to destroy as many robots and AI's as they
possibly can.  The only good robot is a deactivated robot.

Reformed: AI's must certainly not be allowed to survive.  However, 
non-intelligent robots can be useful as servants.  This philosophy only 
applies to non-combat robots with an Intelligence rating of 
Interpretive (5-7) or below.

Symbol: An open hand with six fingers, which represents its open 
membership to all genotypes.  It is displayed on flags and shields.

Benefits:  A member is able to buy a high-tech weapon from the
alliance at 50% cost.  He must buy the weapon with the intention of
destroying known, activated robotic units.  The GM determines what weapons
are available and offers the player his choice.  He also gets a +2 bonus to
his Use Artifacts score, but only when attempting to deactivate a
robot or computer.

Restrictions: A player must attempt to destroy robots and sentient
machines if at all possible.  He must also promote the supremacy of natural
life forms.

Experience Point Bonus:  A player gets a bonus of 100 xp times his 
current level once per adventure if he destroys a robot or AI.  Double 
this bonus if he destroys the robot single-handedly.  

Notes: Even though the meeting places are secret, True Lifers are 
generally open about their membership.  Their leaders are always pure 
strain humans or altered humans with no more than one or two visible 
mutations.  These men are usually heroes of combat and not always the best 
administrators.  They usually have at least one plot going to eliminate
some of their enemies (if they could get a hold of a cobalt bomb and use
it in the Mad Zone, it would really make their day).  They are
vehemently opposed to the Followers of the Voice and the Created.  They can
be friendly with the Archivists, but only as long as they are helping to
destroy a robot, and usually, the Archivists will only work with them if 
they are allowed to cart off the inactive bot to one of their temples 
afterwards.  True Lifer player characters could be difficult to deal with
in certain situations, such as when players are trying to get valuable
information from a robotic unit (not an uncommon scenario in Gamma 
World).  If all the players role-play well, it will likely end up a
win-win situation.  If not, the GM may have his hands full.