[Apocalypse|State] - The Ghostfighter

This is one of the new playbooks I'm putting together for a AW hack for

Contested Ground Studio's A|State.

The ghostfighters of The City are a breed apart from the common guffer or militant trooper, having honed their skills in knife fighting and stealthy attack to a remarkable degree. The most talented of ghostfighters are prosperous and in demand. Untalented ghostfighters are dead. A ghostfighter is quite simply an individual who has trained themselves to a high degree of expertise in stealth, infiltration and armed combat. Do not make the mistake of thinking that they are assassins. They are stand up fighters, preferring to look their enemy straight in the face before delivering the killer strike. Many notable figures employ a ghostfighter or two as unobtrusive bodyguards at exorbitant prices.

Creating a Ghostfighter
To create your ghostfighter, choose name, look, stats, moves, gear and Hx.

Name
Choose a first name, a family name and/or street name from the list of names on page 6-7.

Look
Male, female, to scarred to tell
Street clothes, all dogskin and chains, combat gear, suited and booted. 
Scarred, tattooed, fidgety, thousand-yard stare, piercings.

Stats
Stats (Cool, Hard, Rep, Smarts and Weird) range from -1 to +2, distribute stats so that the total equals +3.

Basic Moves:
You get all the basic moves

Ghostfighter Moves
You get:
The patter: The street-talk of the ghostfighter is full of belters. dancers, tans and stookies. You can fully understand and converse with another ghostfighter using the patter. Those unable to understand the patter have no idea what you’re talking about.

Choose 2: 
Scarification: Physical and mental scarring is an occupational hazard for a ghostfighter. When you suffer harm from a blade (self-inflicted or whatever), and the character’s harm countdown reaches 9:00, you may choose the following instead of the list on AW page 165.

• Physical scarring (describe): +1rep (max 3)
  
• Mental scarring (describe): +1weird (max 3)

Every tattoo tells a story:  Some have none but they are very much in the minority. Most ghostfighters have five to ten tattoos, and a sizeable number have many, many more. Some even have almost all of their skin covered in some sort of tattoo, living works of martial art. When you show your tattoos and talk about the stories behind them, no one who can see and hear you can do anything but watch. You command their absolute attention. If you choose, you can exempt individual people, by name.

Live & die by the blade: When you fight using only a blade you get +1armour.

Infamous: You exude an aura of barely-suppressed violence and imminent trouble. When you go aggro on someone, roll+rep or roll+weird.

Markain fighting style: When you fight using a blade (only), you sacrifice some defence for a punishing attack. Roll+cool.

• On a 10+, you are a whirlwind of bladed fury, you inflict +1harm.
• On 7-9, you strike with scary speed and accuracy inflicting normal harm, but you have left your opponent a gap to capitalise on, take -1 forward.
• On 6-, like a noob, you’ve have left yourself extremely vulnerable to attack, the MC should inflict significant harm or offer a hard choice.

Demeloque fighting style: A more cerebral and defensive fighting style emphasising wearing down your opponent and striking fast and hard when they’re tired and make a mistake. When you use a blade (only) roll+smarts. On a 10+, choose 2, on a 7-9 choose 1.

• Inflict harm.
• They take -1 right now.
• Your harm is ap
• Take +1 forward

Ghostlike: While many Ghostfighters have messy public and bloody fights there are also a substantial number who do their business far more quietly. When you infiltrate a place in order to kill an NPC, roll+cool.

• On a 10+, you get in, kill your mark and get out, like the ghost that you are.
• On 7-9, you get in and kill your mark, unfortunately you’ve been caught standing over the still-warm body, blade in hand.

Gear
You get:

• 2 weapons.
• Oddments worth 2-barter.
• Fashion suitable to your look, including a ghostfighter’s coat worth 2-armour.

Weapons (choose 2)

• Boatman’s hook (2-harm, hand, messy)
• Butcher’s blade (3-harm, hand, messy)
• Garrotte (hard-harm, intimate)
• Half Llife (2-harm, ap-1, hand, hitech)
• Llife (3-harm, ap-1, hand, hitech)
• Long Llife (3-harm, ap-2, hand, hitech)
• Mudlark’s fist (1-harm, hand)
• Razor gloves (2-harm, close, messy)
• Sword (3-harm, hand, messy)

HX
Everyone introduces their characters by name, look and outlook. Take your turn. List the other characters’ names.

Go around again for Hx. On your turn,

• Tell everyone Hx+1. You put yourself out in the public view.

On the others’ turns:

• Choose the character you trust the least. Whatever number that player tells you, ignore it; write Hx+3 next to the character’s name instead.
• Everyone else, write whatever number they tell you next to their character’s name.

At the end, find the character with the highest Hx on your sheet. Ask that player which of your stats is most interesting, and highlight it. The MC will have you highlight a second stat too.

Special
If you and another character have sex, you take +1 forward. At your option, they take +1 forward too.

Improvement
Whenever you roll a highlighted stat, and whenever you reset your Hx with someone, mark an experience circle. When you mark the 5th, improve and erase.

Each time you improve, choose one of the following. Check it off; you can’t choose it again.

• get +1hard (max +2)
• get +1rep (max +2)
• get +1rep (max +2)
• get +1smarts (max +2)
• get +1cool (max +2)
• get a new ghostfighter move
• get a new ghostfighter move
• Improve your dojo (workspace, detail)
• Improve your dojo (workspace, detail)
• get a move from another playbook

Barter
If you’re charging someone wealthy for your services, rep-barter is the going rate for one murder executed or one week’s employment as bodyguard.

John

While most of this character will remain, it was more of a concept character. With the addition of origins and upbringing I'll need to redo the character.
John

That's brilliant, by the way.

I totally want to play Battlebabes and Gunluggers in AW, and Ghostfighters in a|state. So this is like a 5-course dessert meal for me.

Oh, I guess Hocus is the closest thing to a Lostfinder, and driver is most like an ex-Mikefighter Pilot.

Cheers Gregor, I'm enjoying re-reading all the A|State stuff I've got, trawling the CGS forum for obscure questions not covered in the books and generally trying to do justice to both AW & A|S. 
John