LONG BIT
Drifting through space, on the edge of no tomorrow sits mankind’s last and greatest city - BONSAI. Housing a zillion and a half souls, the city is threatened from without (alien warlords, grey goo, interdimensional incursions, etc.) and within (exploitation, oppression, system failure, etc.). As the ZOKU, the city’s freelance guardians, you patrol the skylanes clad in hardlight armor and fight to prolong the future.
SHORT BIT
You’re a sentai of holo-armored space ninjas tackling the Syssiphisian task of defending a humongous arkship that has no destination. Whether that means fighting an alien invasion, handing out vigilante justice, or holding a bake sale.
The citizens of BONSAI fall into four broad categories:
CRISPY - After millennia of compulsive gene editing the CRISPies are on the knife's edge of post-humanity. Build a race using Savage Worlds Deluxe no abilities worth more than +1.
Baseline - Normal people with minimal genetic tampering. +1 Edge.
Baseline - Normal people with minimal genetic tampering. +1 Edge.
Robotnik - Machines built to serve, their sentience and it’s relevancy are often debated. Hardy but Outsider.
Endling - Alien refugees, often the last of their kind. Build an alien using Savage Rifts. Be weird.
Hardlight Armor - The customizable uniform of the Zoku grants Heavy Armor 4, environmental protection, and low light vision. The armor shuts down if you’re Wounded by a Heavy weapon. Make a Repair check at -2 to get the system up and running in combat.
No Strings- In BONSAI’s reduced gravity you can leap 7 yards horizontal and 2 yards vertical with ease. With a successful Strength roll you can add your Pace die.
Space Ninja Technique - Reduce the required traits for combat edges by 1 die type. Also each sentai member gets one of the following powers at a d8:
quickness, deflection, smite, entangle, boost/lower trait, bolt, speed, shapechange, summon ally
These require an activation roll. Jutsu style hand motions grant a +1 to activate. On a raise you get the Mega version. These are just examples, if you wanted a buster cannon then bolt would be an appropriate power.
S // The highest rank
A //
B //
C //
F // The lowest rank< You start here
The higher your rank the more favor you can pull from those below you.
DISTRICTS -
BONSAI contains countless Districts, they mostly exist to provide some cool set pieces. Also Campaign Rules change based on the District. Some examples below with keywords.
Zigguraut - Temple of Government + Escher staircase pyramids.
Torii - Samurai + Lightcycles. Blood & Guts
Spaghetti Junction - Wild West + Forking. All guns have +2 ROF
Axolotl - Mesoamerica + Waterworld.
Red Velvet - Beyonce's Antebellum. Social Tricks can cause Wounds on a double Shaken result.
Perhonen - Fragile + Sharp + Tron. Everything here explodes in razor edged polygons. Large blast template when you miss, 2d8 damage.
Palace of the Dogs - Asylum
Kamehameha - World turtle + Jellyfish,
Cagliostro - Gankutsuo + Old World Opulence
Cagliostro - Gankutsuo + Old World Opulence
Courthouse -
Zenosyne - Acceleration +
Pixel - 16-bit + Scott Pilgrim
Niffleheim -
Gun Barrel -
Afterlife -
INNER
Enki Collective - Lingual hackers. Urge the destruction of the Zigguraut District.
Mammon Cabal - Stock brokers and soul traders. Quietly advocate mass upload of the population.
Great Divide - Spin doctors and access merchants. Divide and conquer while reaping rewards.
Can Openers - Anti-Robotnik militants. Feel Lowborn labor is being replaced by tireless servitors.
Also there’s rival sentais within the ZOKU
OUTER
Heart Machine - Swarms of nano machines that seek to reconstruct their eons dead space god.
Uluru - Temporal evacuees from the war that destroyed Earth. Seek to colonize BONSAI.
The Thin Man - Monofilament rubber band alien cat burglar. Seeks a treasure hidden in the depths of BONSAI
REPO - robot lawyers representing alien intelligences that claim controlling interest of BONSAI.
