Setting:Nutopia/Players

What is a Delver?

Those brave souls going into the dark places and risking themselves are known as Delvers. They take risks and struggle in ways few can imagine. They all have their own reasons for going out there, whether is money, revenge or the betterment of humanity.

Delver Classes

From a purely mechanical standpoint it is important to point out that Nutopia is at heart a classless set up. That said the archetypes below represent simple broad divisions of Delvers by capability. Within these categories there is a great deal of wiggle room, and they exist as basic guidelines. While blending between these categories is not unheard of, understand that a jack of all trades is a master of none, and that in some cases the detriments of one category would greatly impair the acquisition of abilities from another.

Soldiers

These guys are the workhorses of a Delver team. They specialize in combat, the kind of combat varies wildly from soldier to soldier. Snipers in light, agile stealth armor stand right next to brutal close range beasts in the heaviest of power armor totting rotary cannons in each hand. They have access to the widest array of combat modifications both cyber and bio, and access to a fair amount of nano mods as well.

A player who chooses to roll a Soldier has access to all the weapons and armors of the world, the Corps spent decades making a fortune in the various arms trades, and the Soldiers are the ones most qualified to take full advantage of the fruits of their former master's labor.

Outside of the many roles they fill on the front lines soldiers can serve a number of functions when the bullets aren't flying. Close combat claws and the inherent strength or their armors let soldiers get through barriers and overcome obstacles their fellow delvers cannot navigate, as well as allowing them to simply carry more than others. The less strength oriented delvers can bring maneuverability to the table, high speed and amazing manual dexterity second only to crackers are not uncommon, and exotic methods of mobility like flight, climbing claws or special adapted swimmers are not unheard of. Soldiers are also the most familiar with the direct mechanical actions of their gear, meaning they are often the go to individual if a railgun strip comes out of alignment or if a servo in your leg is on the fritz.

Soldiers come from a variety of backgrounds. Many were employees of the Corps low level security forces, others are immigrants from Unincorporated States' militaries. Motorpool sports a considerable community both special forces and technicians from both Corps and U States, while Babel has a large population of "Swimmers" soldiers cyber and/or biomodded for combat beneath the waves and in the deadly close quarters of battles aboard ship.

Hivers

Among the Delvers, Hivers are often the most eccentric individuals. They are drawn from the ranks of musicians, artists and dancers, sculptors and poets, architects and engineers. These are individuals who for one reason or another decided to take a radical step to accentuate their chosen craft, and those that become Delvers are perhaps more eccentric still, as performance artist come combat engineer is a transition not often seen in earlier ages.

The decision for an individual to become a Hiver is not one to be taken lightly. The implants involved and the conditioning needed to control them are invasive and at first quite painful. The most common implant sites are in areas of dense muscle, limited capacity Maker blocks are implanted in the quadriceps, triceps, deltoids and latissimus dorsi beneath the skin. Some of the surrounding tissue is the bolstered and modified to provide energy for the Makers, while the skin covering the implants is biomodded to allow the pores to dilate far beyond their usual size, letting fresh batches of nanites come through the epidermis. Near the implant sites exterior plugs are introduced, allowing tubing from an external feedstock tank to be attached, as the Makers need material to do their work. The Makers are hardwired together via sub dermal cabling, as a wireless link might allow a malicious Cracker to hijack them and dissolve the Hiver with his own Nanites. All of this is then hardwired to a cortical sheath that allows the Hiver fine control over his new “organs”.

The cost of these implants is high, without further extensive implantation the lost muscle mass is difficult to compensate for, leaving the Hiver comparatively weak, especially next to a gene-bulked Soldier. The use of the surrounding tissue to supplement power to the Makers also gives Hivers a much higher metabolism than most, and the repeated ejection of nanites can be damaging to the flesh, so when not doing anything terribly pressing they can usually be found scarfing down whatever high carb/high protein food is available. The general weakness and the need for ejection ports for swarms greatly limits a Hiver’s ability to use most of the heavy weaponry her fellow Delvers wield and keeps her out of anything other than specially modified armors.

The upshot to all this is immense, however, Hivers are the most versatile class of the three, both in and out of combat, and can accomplish amazing things with the implants that cost them so much. In combat Hivers can act defensively and offensively, outside of battle they can build shelter and supply all manner of useful items and materials. Even more radical is the way Hivers can go about doing these tasks. For example, in combat an Offensive Hiver might create vicious swarms of macro nanites in the shapes of stinging insects to harass her opponents, while another could use the makers to expel a chemical mixture that ignites with air from their fingers or build up a large electrical field and discharge it at an enemy, still another might create and fling spikes and spines of diamond or create blades and wade into close combat. What a Hiver can do and how she does it is really only limited by the players imagination and the Signal Man’s ruling (Signal Man is what we’re calling the DM/GM/ST for now, until someone comes up with something better)

As stated above Hivers come from extremely diverse backgrounds and all walks of life. Nearly all Hivers were born CE, as in the current era the machinery needed to create the implants is difficult to come by. There are of course still some young hivers born ACE, but they are few and far between.

Edit: It seems worth noting that some of the inspiration for this class was a picture of Till Lindemann wearing a jockstrap with a flamethrower attached to it... Make of that what you will.

Crack3rs

From young punks to wizened old code master, Crackers come in many varieties. Their skills range wildly and each has his own mix of abilities to bring to the table. On the combat scale they reside between Soldiers and Hivers in terms of firepower and survivability, while nowhere near as heavily protected as a Soldier can be they can still wear more armor and lug bigger guns than the physically weaker Hivers. They rest on an odd tipping point in terms of modification, some sport little more than wireless interfacing tools, while others are full hardshells comprised of hissing servos, synthetic muscle and whirring processor stacks.

The most unique ability of a Cracker is their mastery of VI and Forking. They can control more advanced Virtual Intelligences in greater quantities than other delvers. These software drones can be used to autonomously attempt many tasks while the Cracker themselves attacks a more pressing issue, or they can assist a Cracker in a particularly difficult task. For example a Cracker might allow a Fire Control VI to keep an enemy pinned down while they flit off into the infosphere to jam that same enemy's senses with scrapcode, or they could bring that same VI in line with their own attention and together pull off a highly improbable ricochet shot to bring the fight to an end.

Forking is a process deployed for when a VI just won't do. The Cracker creates a copy (of varying fidelity depending on the circumstances) of his own mind. This allows a Cracker to multitask with even greater alacrity, or to focus in even more extreme detail, but maintaining the split is stressful. The process is hardly without risk, and is never done on more than a temporary basis, but no one can do it like a well trained Cracker can. The most skilled of said group can even run multiple Forks and VIs at the same time, leveling a frightful amount of thinking power at any problem.

Amongst a delving team Crackers handle any obstacle pertaining to the infosphere. Their electronic warfare skills are unmatched, and given the right VI assistance they are no slouch in physical combat either, their parallel thought processes allowing them to accomplish great feats of acrobatics and marksmanship if they put their minds to it. They can control a wide variety of robotic minions for scouting or numerous other roles. Above all else the Crackers portable processing powerhouse represents a way to amplify the abilities of the other members of their team. A Soldier has turned target acquisition an neutralization into a science, teamed with a Cracker it becomes an art. A Hiver can create anything the mind can envision given enough time and material, with a Cracker's help these creations can be realized with great speed, and the reach of the Hiver's abilities extended.