Strangelight Workshop
Mekânicos e Investigadores do sobrenatural
A despeito de sua reputação por pesquisas heterodoxas e algo questionáveis, os empregados da Oficina Estranha-Luz são a vanguarda entre os pesquisadores independentes do sobrenatural nos Reinos de Ferro. A Oficina emprega agentes de mente aberta, com intelectos aguçados para a observação ocultista e científica, armados com apara-tos mekânicos especiais para suas investigações. Sediada em Ceryl, a Oficina já abriu escritórios em Caspia, Corvis, Leryn e Merin, tamanho é seu sucesso. Com a abundância de locais assombrados em Immoren ocidental, os empregados da Oficina Estranha-Luz devem permanecer bem ocupados durante anos.
Dizem os boatos…
O coliseu arruinado em Berck é em geral evitado, pois diz-se que é assombrado. Os habitantes locais afirmam que um “navio fantasma”, por incrível que pareça, navega dentro da estrutura em determinadas noites, pilotado por uma tripulação de espíritos inquietos. Alguns dizem que estes eram marinheiros da Armada Tordorana que foram capturados e mortos em batalhas navais simuladas para a diversão dos orgoth. Segundo os boatos, os membros de uma organização chamada “Oficina Estranha Luz” vêm bisbilhotando na cidade ultimamente, em especial perto do coliseu. Mas ninguém sabe se descobriram o misterioso navio fantasma ou desvendaram seus mistérios.
Apesar de uma reputação de pesquisa não convencional e um tanto questionável, os funcionários da Oficina Estranha Luz são os principais pesquisadores sobrenaturais freelance dos Reinos de Ferro. A Oficina emprega operários de mente aberta com mentes afiadas para a observação ocultista e científica, e eles são armados com aparelhos mecânicos especializados, projetados para auxiliar em suas investigações. Com sede em Ceryl, o Workshop abriu escritórios em Caspia, Corvis, Leryn e Merin. Sem escassez de assombrações e habitações no Oeste de Immoren, os funcionários da Oficina Estranha Luz devem permanecer ocupados nos próximos anos.
Fonte: Guia do Mundo e King Nations and Gods
Life as an agent for the Strangelight Workshop is a dangerous and complicated one. Using unpredictable technology, quick thinking, and sheer luck, these everyday men and women confront powerful supernatural entities of all types. Often this work is done without fully understanding such creatures’ abilities or motivations. Those who investigate and oppose these beings often receive little reward beyond the gratitude of those whose lives they’ve saved and recognition within their own strange organization. Those who fail are likely to lose their lives, to be remembered by only the teammates who survive them.
The Strangelight Workshop is a private institute that investigates and resolves incidents of occult phenomena. Most often the services of the Strangelight Workshop are contracted for a price, but the organization sometimes conducts its own investigations and may do pro bono work if there is a high chance of gathering rare and interesting information. Though primarily interested in the study of otherworldly entities, particularly grymkin, infernals, and the disembodied dead, they also investigate matters of the occult and black magic. Such “mundane” cases generally lie outside the Workshop’s core interests and are undertaken only for the purpose of garnering monetary compensation or when pertinent to other research. The Strangelight Workshop is most active in Cygnar and Ord, where it has small branch offices in several cities, but it has agents and contacts scattered across all of western Immoren.
The mysterious industrialist Jacob Strathmoore founded t heStrangelight Workshop in 593 AR. Strathmoore, known as a brilliant mechanik and inventor, became obsessed with the occult world of spirits and supernatural phenomena and made researching it his top priority in life. He transformed the massive estate, Blackwell Hall, into the nexus of his organization and poured unfathomable amounts of gold into developing new machines and techniques for observing, recording, and capturing supernatural entities.
Strathmoore may be the founder and patron of the Strangelight Workshop, but its members seldom see him. Some even believe him to be vanished or dead. Instead, a handpicked team of top-level agents manages the Workshop and its duties, working under the scrutinizing eyes of Commander Banning Keller, the Workshop’s second in command.
The basic unit of the Strangelight Workshop is the field team. Composed of several specialists under the guidance of a lead investigator, field teams investigate claims of the supernatural on the Workshop’s behalf — and they negotiate any payment for dealing with a supernatural entity, should one be discovered. Several field teams are in operation across the Iron Kingdoms, scattered between minor chapterhouses in major cities and Blackwell Hall itself.
The Agents
Nearly every member of the Strangelight Workshop, both
the numerous field agents and the senior members of the organization, started their lives on another path. The Workshop is a small and esoteric society considered by many to be a collection of lunatics, scam artists, or eccentrics obsessed with unsavory occult matters. Typically, the people who join only do so after a transformational experience related to the supernatural world (see “Calling,” p. 52). These people are the ideal candidates for the Strangelight Workshop, as they are willing to leave behind their old lives and throw themselves into uncovering the secrets of hauntings, grymkin, infernals, and other occult matters.
The fact that most members lived very different lives before joining has its advantages. The diversity of backgrounds among the Strangelight Workshop agents provides the organization with a wide range of experience and skills to draw on. This is particularly valuable among field agents. The best research can miss a key element of an investigation, so having agents able to comprehend a range of complications and tasks is vital to success. While not an official policy, the people responsible for accepting new field agents review a potential candidate’s background, hoping to expand the Workshop’s broad base of skills, knowledge, and abilities.
The Calling
The Strangelight Workshop is intended to be a character-driven game focused on the exploration of mysteries. As a result, one of the core elements of character creation is a character’s Calling. A character’s Calling is what drove the character to join the Strangelight Workshop in the first place, and it is the reason the character risks life, limb, and sanity in the exploration of the unknown. This job is not for everyone, and each character’s motivations are very personal.
At the most basic level, a Calling is a window into your character and provides a solid hook for you to understand the character you are playing. A Calling also has an effect on how a character manages to regain composure following repeated exposure to dreadful and dangerous supernatural phenomenon, and it determines what happens to the character when they have been pushed past their limit by such encounters.
Professions
Over the course of its existence, the Strangelight Workshop has refined its field teams into a number of dedicated roles or professions. Each team member contributes to an investigation or operation in a unique way, and over the course of an investigation, all play a part in the team’s success. If a field team loses one of its members, the Workshop is reluctant to field the remaining agents until the missing role is filled. Certain circumstances prevent the Workshop from filling a role, such as when a team is operating far from the Workshop’s support structure or when a particular investigation must be completed before a new candidate can be secured. Upon the team’s return to a chapterhouse or to Blackwell Hall, a new recruit is slotted into the open position as soon as possible.
A traditional field team consists of one member of each profession, but that isn’t always the case. Certain branch offices support smaller teams, and there may be specific investigations suited to these groups, particularly when the Workshop is gathering initial research or following up on the work of other agents. Some teams manage to get by with unusual combinations of the typical professions, and certain extremely dangerous tasks have necessitated merging teams or adding unusual specialists to the mix.
In addition to the dedicated members of a field team, the Strangelight Workshop often brings in outside consultants. These individuals are typically experts in a field related to a particular investigation. While not true members of the Workshop, many consultants have longstanding relationships with the organization and members of its upper echelon. Such consultants are often paid by Blackwell Hall for their work, though in some cases they may be compensated in other ways or might even volunteer their services. In some circumstances, a consultant will have more field experience than the team for which they consult.
BOUNCER
The bouncer’s primary role in a Strangelight Workshop team is to protect the physical bodies of the other agents, but just as often the bouncer serves as a general pack mule and muscle for the group. Bouncers are expected to hold back anyone who might try to interfere with the other team members, such as irate property owners, victims of possession, or angry members of the Order of Illumination. In this role, they need to be just as capable of avoiding violence as inflicting it, since they are often required to deescalate conflicts. They are expected to be physically strong and capable of intimidating innocent bystanders in order to keep them out of harm’s way.
Bouncers are often the newest members of a team with the least exposure to the supernatural world, and the higher-ups in the organization view them as cheap, expendable laborers. Fellow field agents tend to hold bouncers in a higher regard, thanks to them being some of the only team members able to deal with mundane threats to life and limb. They often work closely with the team mechanik, helping organize and carry gear.
CALLER
The caller is an individual who is able, with the assistance of specialized equipment, to draw in and communicate with specters and other entities. The caller’s role on the team is to speak with spirits, trying whenever possible to glean insight into what is causing them to linger in the physical world. When required, the caller helps guide a spirit to pass on to Urcaen. This has the dual benefit of putting a lingering soul to rest while allowing the passage to be observed and recorded for further study by the Strangelight Workshop.
Arguably the most specialized and difficult to qualify for a role on a team, callers are unusual individuals with a strong connection to the spirit world. All have had direct contact with one or more spirits before joining the Workshop, and this experience either revealed or catalyzed a latent sensitivity to the supernatural. Callers can sometimes see or hear things others cannot, which can be mistaken for madness. Their attitudes to spirits run the gamut, from those who take pity on lost souls and want to send them to their final rest to bitter individuals who hate or resent the spirits for terrifying the living.
INVESTIGATOR
The investigator’s role in a Strangelight Workshop team is to observe and record data, interpret information the team uncovers, and act as a guiding voice to the team’s efforts. Investigators tend to be the most inquisitive members of a field team and often take on de facto leadership roles. They are often the core member around which a team is formed — even smaller Strangelight teams almost always include an investigator.
One of the most important jobs the investigator performs is to document any observations the team makes via extensive notes and the lumitype. Images captured with a lumitype are the subject of much study by Blackwell Hall, and providing new information about the nature of the afterlife or supernatural entities can make a new investigator’s career.
JAMMER
Perhaps the most unique Strangelight profession, the jammer evolved as a role in teams after numerous casualties resulting from encounters with hostile spirits and other supernatural creatures. The jammer is a fighting specialist who confronts specters head on, outfitted and trained to intercept and incapacitate them. As with the bouncer, the jammer’s focus is on keeping the team safe and allowing more academic members to do their jobs. This requires restraint — it is easier for a jammer to botch an investigation than for any other member of the team. A ghost obliterated too quickly tells no tales.
Since the caller is the team member who attracts the attention of spirits and helps make them tangible, they are in special peril, and it is the jammer’s top priority to protect the caller by wrangling threatening supernatural entities. The jammer uses specialized equipment that shields the field agent from incorporeal entities and can physically interact with specters and other spirits.
MECHANIK
The mechanik’s role in a Strangelight Workshop team is to operate and maintain much of the finicky and often hazardous gear the team uses
in the field. This task requires a great deal of technical know-how and a healthy dose of intuition, luck, and courage. Mechaniks are responsible for handling the Strangelight projector itself, making them invaluable during an investigation. Investigations may require other bulky gear for them to manage and maintain, and they often rely on the assistance of the bouncer.
Mechaniks and investigators are usually the most heavily trained and experienced members of a given team, in part because they are less often directly in harm’s way and their protection is vital for the team to endure and succeed. Mechaniks receive considerable hands-on training by senior agents regarding the essential Strangelight equipment, learning them from the inside out. They must become familiar with sometimes-esoteric tools and the myriad ways experimental gear can fail as well as how to restore them.
You are about to embark on what we hope is a long a fruitful career delving into the mysteries of creatures and entities beyond the normal limitations of our world. We understand you might have questions about the challenges ahead, so we at the Strangelight Workshop have put together this reference, now in its second volume, to help get you started on the right foot.
The following pages include information about the capabilities and limitations of supernatural entities your fellow agents have observed while in the field. We strive to be as comprehensive as possible, but the Strangelight Workshop is always encountering new, unreal things out there. If you encounter something not described in your copy of Known Incorporeal & Disembodied Entities, be sure to record as much information as possible and attempt to return it to the closest Strangelight Workshop chapter house or known affiliate. Remember, there are others out there who are relying on you!
— Commander Banning Keller, dictated but not read
Known Incorporeal & Disembodied Entities, 2nd Edition, sometimes referred to as the “Specternomicon” by field agents of the Strangelight Workshop, is a semi-comprehensive manual about entities the agency has encountered while on multiple assignments. It is not always accurate, as field teams can only provide as much information as they gather before either putting a supernatural entity to rest or being destroyed by it, but it is constantly updated with new information as that information becomes available.
Fonte: No Quarter Prime
CLIQUE AQUI E BAIXEM FICHAS PRONTAS DE PERSONAGEM DO STRANGELIGHT WORKSHOP
Perhaps the oddest organization to make its home in the City of Wizards, the Strangelight Workshop specializes in investigating and handling hauntings and other unusual phenomena. Its agents are trained in both arcane lore and scientific observation and are equipped with a variety of specialized mechanikal apparatuses designed to aid them in their unique calling.
According to the organization’s representatives, hauntings have been on the rise since the Claiming.
During the Claiming, Strangelight Workshop agents discovered myriad secret societies brokering alliances with the infernals. Believing the infernals’ victory was certain, these societies sought to evade oblivion with last-minute pledges to the infernal masters.
While the armies of western Immoren defended their nations, the Strangelight Workshop waged their own shadow war against these hidden groups. Even in the aftermath, Strangelight agents seek out any remnants who might have sworn their souls to the infernals in those last and darkest days. The Workshop has branch offices in several cities, including Corvis, Point Bourne, and Mercir.
Adventure Hook
Lord Alain Runewood’s Canterwell Estate lies to the north of the city, and its lands, woods, manors, and stables have lain empty these past five years. In the absence of any human activity, rumors about the tumbledown structures and eerie groves have spread far and wide. Orwick Gove, an agent of the Strangelight Workshop, has traveled all the way from Corvis to investigate the estate, but he could use a little extra muscle in case something more substantial than the ghosts of the past haunt its halls and grounds.Adventure Hook
Both the Order of Illumination and the Strangelight Workshop are interested in investigating the ruins of Northguard, but both organizations are stretched a bit thin at the moment. Their agents in Corvis would be more than willing to farm out the operation to a trusted mercenary group. Clearing the ruins of any lingering spirits or other malfeasants would be tactically important to the Cygnaran military, which could then work to repair its northern fortifications against any future Khadoran advances.
Fonte: IK Requiem
