New Traits (Many based on forum posts; when possible originators are credited) Absolute timing (Positive ego or morph trait, 5 CP) The character knows exactly when they are, how long time has passed and can exactly sequence actions. While sometimes found in exceptional people, it can also be implemented through interfaces in a morph between artificial high precision timers and the nervous system. Acceleration tolerance (Positive ego or morph trait, 5 CP) The character is used to extreme accelerations and is not disturbed by them. High-acceleration burns, walking in small rotating habitats with severe Coriolis forces, evasive space and aerial maneouvers, rollercoasters – the character is not seriously affected. While normal people get penalties for working in the shifting (pseudo)forcefields people with this trait are unaffected. Alternate Life (Positive trait, 10 CP) The character has undergone psychosurgery to build a protective alternate identity. This surface personality is based on adding and removing key memories, creating an alternative past and a somewhat different personality. Most importantly, the surface persona is built to not know what the deep “real” persona knows. If interrogated it will not be aware of what goes on in the secret parts of its life (unless the interrogator succeeds with +50 DoS on interrogation or psychosurgery). The transition to the real person is triggered by certain keywords or situations, and they can then decide when to “drop back” into the surface persona. Note that both share the same skills (although the surface persona might not know of some) and mental stress (serious mental stress such as moderate Traumas may cause “leakage” between the personas). In theory several levels could be created, although this might produce a dangerously fragile person. [Suggested by killj0y] Artistic vision (Positive trait, 5) The character has a real creative vision, that spark that distinguishes the merely skilled craftsperson from the genius. Note that this trait does not imply any bonus to the artistic skill itself: many talented persons never learn how to properly express their visions. It also does not guarantee that others will recognize their genius or even like it. But for those who actually know and appreciate art works done by the character will have that something that is truly valuable. Bankrupt (Negative trait, 10 CP) The character has bad debts and is in the claws of the creditors. He might be indentured, forced to do certain things (especially common for debts to criminals or in the outer system) or just give up all income and possessions beyond a certain minimum level until the debt is repaid. Trying to get out of the debts is hard: he is bound by contracts, recorded oaths or legal decisions. Bootlegged (Negative trait, 5 CP) A beta or gamma fork of the character is circulating in the black market. While the fork might not know all sensitive information the character currently knows, it has many of the same skills and memories. It is of course a major indignity and possibly source of stress to encounter debased versions of oneself. Many people suffering this dearly tend to want to get at the ego dealers selling their forks. Built-in religiosity (Negative trait: 5 CP) As part of the behavioral control of uplifts, one approach that was tried was to use the pathways of human spirituality. The effect was not always reliable, but some uplifts and AGIs still retain such controls. There have even been instances of such religiosity induced in transhumans through psychosurgery. The character will experience religious feelings of reverence when encountering certain symbols, environments or authorities. While they can be defied, the emotional cost is great, and serving them produces rewarding emotions. Cannot learn (Negative trait, 30 CP) An AGI trait: in their zeal to prevent any seed AGI potential transhuman programmers have curtailed your growth potential so deeply that you cannot change as a person. Your basic personality, motivations and skillset are fixed and cannot be improved through experience. You can certainly learn new facts, but they do not change you. In many ways you are little better than a mere AI. Dependency (Implant Type) (Negative trait, 10CP) “No IR vision? Hell no, I’m not going there blind!” In the past you have had easy access to a Morph with particular abilities that you have begun to take for granted. When you are sleeved into a Morph that lacks the implant attached to this Dependency you receive a -10 modifier to all actions that you would normally gain a benefit to from the implant. This effect lasts for (48 hours - WIL). The conditions of this disadvantage are subject to the GMs wishes and should be discussed with your GM before use. [Originally suggested by codebreaker] Easily Merged (Positive trait, 10 CP) Due to a quirk of neuroscience or lifestyle (yes, some people do have boring lives), forks of the person are somewhat easier to merge than normal. While some claim they can train this trait by multiple merging, it has more to do with memories being laid down and accessed in patterns that “add” relatively well, or an outlook on life that has no problem with multiple pasts. Add a +20 modifier to the psychosurgery test. Fork Conflict (10 CP) The character has an alpha fork that has diverged and refuses to come back. Both regard themselves as the “true” or sane fork, despite having different goals. There is plenty of room for confusion, reputation damage, and legal battles. The conflict does have some advantages: blaming the “evil twin” is easy and plausible. Former Beta (20 CP) The character is a shadow of its original self, a beta fork that has survived and become its own person. Maybe the original was destroyed in the Fall, maybe the alpha was killed using an exceedingly subtle neurovirus that infected all backups, maybe the alpha and all copies were deleted for a crime but a beta survived. The beta has grown since then, and is no longer quite as hobbled as it was. It still suffers from a social stigma if its background is revealed: in most polities it cannot be a citizen, and almost anybody tends to assume it is just a copy, not a full person. It has mental effects similar to having edited memories and possibly modified behaviour. On the plus side, being a bit cut-down it takes less memory and processing power to run – it can squeeze into some systems and morphs a full alpha might not fit into. Characters with this trait should have few active skills above 60 and few if any aptitudes close to their limits. Imperturbable (Positive trait, 20 CP) The character does not outwardly flinch when a hacked cleaningbot jumps out of a wardrobe brandishing a severed head, a performer from Carnival of the Goat invites them for a tryst or when people infected by an alien nanovirus start to sing their childhood favorite song. The character is by no means immune to mental stress but is trained to keep their mind on the task at hand. The downside is that their extreme level of self-control tends to make them even more tense – when they break, they can break badly. Rather than give a bonus to resist mental trauma, it allows the character to delay it until the crisis has passed. A successful WILx3 roll will allow it to be stored until later, at the price of 1d10 extra SV per started day since the trauma. Is this a dream? (Negative trait, 5 CP) Due to long exposure to XP, simspaces or living as an infomorph, the person can no longer tell for certain what is base reality. While normal people might sometimes be confused, this goes further: the real world doesn’t feel more or less real than the imaginary worlds. Attempts at deceiving the character through AR or simspace hacking have a +20 bonus, and they might occasionally take risks in the real world they should only do in a virtual world. Mentally frail (Negative trait: 10/20/30 CP) The ego is vulnerable to psychological trauma. Just like the morph trait, but decreasing Lucidity by -5 per level and the Trauma Threshold by -1 per level. Mentally tough (Positive trait: 10/20/30 CP) The ego is resilient to psychological trauma. Just like the morph trait, but increasing Lucidity by +5 per level and the Trauma Threshold by +1 per level. Merging Paramnesia (Negative trait, 20 CP) “The Venus mission? I remember going to it with Zeke and Informed^3. We met with the tong and got the goods, but then SJ and her goons showed up. Zeke got shot up pretty badly, I hear she was repaired on Octavia. The goods? Got lost during the fighting.” Due to excessive merging or bad merges, the person has a broken autobiographical memory. The sense of temporal order and personal identity of the past becomes completely dissolved. Any strange combination of memories is possible, and there is no sense that one past is more real than any other – despite some of them being obviously fictional. The person is essentially confabulating their past, making it up as they go along to suit the situation. They are not deliberately lying and might even know they are suffering from paramnesia, but they cannot tell when their memories are deceptive or not. When trying to recall past events (beyond last merging), roll an INTx3 (or harder, if it is a small thing) test to see if they remember. If they fail, they will not notice and make up a plausible memory instead. On critical successes they will permanently learn a correct memory, while a critical failure means they consolidate an erroneous memory and will now always believe it. Any attempt to insert false memories will get a +30 modifier – but over time they run the risk of getting jumbled with other made-up memories. Militarized subconscious (Positive trait, 5 CP) Through training and psychosurgery the character has a subconscious that tends to detect and react to any outside influences. This makes attempts of infiltration, psychosurgery, suggestion or hypnosis harder (-20 to rolls). The downside is that if infiltration manages a critical success it can turn parts of the subconscious against the character, for example triggering paranoia or internal conflicts. Nolang (Negative trait, 5 CP) You have grown up with translator devices (or neurointerfaces) always translating what people say. So you never really learned your "own" language: you speak a personal shorthand that your devices understand and translate, and they translate everybody else into your language. Very convenient, except when forced into a situation where you cannot rely on translation. -30 on any communications attempt, even Kinesics, when not fully supported by your Muse and other technology. Overbearing network (Negative trait, 5 CP) The character has one particular network that takes a lot of time, effort or attention to deal with. It could be because they are right in the middle of criminal transactions that does require a personal touch, live a true celebrity lifestyle that requires regular apperances (and the occasional paparazzi, scandal or intrigue) or that the PI of the reseach team really wants the character to work hard on a question. The character needs to involve itself in the network at least once each game session, and during downtime perform significant services. Otherwise 1d10 rep will be lost. Rapid divergence (Negative trait, 10 CP) Due to a quirk of neuroscience or lifestyle, forks tend to diverge faster than on average. When merged, use the next level of time apart (e.g. for a 1 day separation, roll as if it was a 3 days-1 week separation). People with rapid divergence are often concerned that their forks tend to develop a “will of their own” (which is of course just a projection of their own willfulness). Secret Programming (Negative trait, 10/20 CP) The character's ego has been altered with psychosurgery to perform a specific task in specific circumstances (to be worked out with the gamemaster). For example, a programmer might have been programmed to leave a specific backdoor in every firewall they write, or a media personality may have been programmed to always obey the orders of someone who says the code phrase "The flowers of Babylon are lovely at this time of the year". The ego in question usually has no knowledge or memory of the programming, nor do they find anything remarkable about the actions that they do as a result of it--the programmer incorporates the backdoor as part of their regular coding practice, and the media personality follows the orders of the speaker of the code phrase (seemingly) of their own volition. The character must succeed at an INT test in order to realize that anything is odd (this becomes INTx2 if a third party points it out for them); if they succeed, they may attempt to break free of the program by succeeding at a WILx3 test. [Suggested by Deflare] Ward (Negative trait, 10 CP) The character has a dependent: a child, a spouse, or even an heirloom ecosystem. It could be a family member restored from storage as part of an indenture deal. The ward is vulnerable and has to be protected. It is also a weak point for you: your enemies can target you through your ward. Wealthy (Positive trait, 20 CP) The character owns valuable assets: investments, Earth antiques, voting shares in hypercorps, land or habitat space, family reputation, patents or other forms of wealth. These stocks produce a steady flow of income. In principle they can also be sold off or mortgaged to get cash or services, but this is often both impractical and will be at a loss. The character has a yearly income of 100,000 credits, and a few million credits in assets. In the new economy the income equates to an extra number of big favours that can be called in without a need for refresh rate. The wealth tends to act as a social +10 bonus when interacting with people who know of it (but some are of course envious or see the character as an exploiter no matter what she does; here the trait acts negatively). One downside of being Wealthy is that the character is tied to the fortune: the authorities (and celeb trackers) keep an eye on her, and should she do something illegal they can at the very least seize the wealth. (The trait "Secret Wealth" would be 30 CP, corresponding to a hidden fortune untraceably accessible via the lunar banks) Another problem is that the fortune requires some work to maintain. Normally this is handled by employees and the character's muse, but from time to time there are decisions to be made. If the character is not properly around to do this the wealth might start eroding. [Other variations of the Wealth trait: TBRMInsanity suggests: “1. You/your family are major owners of the vital resources in a traditional or transition economy and as such you are the single point of sale for vital items in many of the nanofabricators in the hab. Each level of this trait will decrease the cost of legal items by one level (example level 3 would make Expensive items, Low cost, and everything else would be trivial). Each level would be worth 15 points. 2. You/your family has inherited a large amount of money. Each level of this trait indicates the "durability" of your finances. When you make a purchase, if the category of the purchase is less then the level of this trait, then there is no change to this trait. If the category of the purchase is equal to the level of this trait, decrease the level of this trait by one level. If the category of the purchase is greater then the level of this trait, decrease the level of this trait by one level per category over this trait (example using a level 2 (Moderate) trait to buy trivial or low cost items would be free, moderate items would reduce the trait from Level 2 to level 1, High items would reduce the trait from level 2 to level 0 (ie gone), and you can't use this trait to purchase Expensive items). Each level would be worth 10 points.” Babayaga suggests: “The way we model hyperelite wealth is through the Patron trait: your wealth *is* your patron. This includes being able to "pull strings on the character’s behalf, supply resources, introduce them to people they need to know, and bail them out of trouble" as per EP corebook p.147. Indeed, virtually the whole description of the Patron trait makes perfect sense substituting the character's "network of assets" for the "patron". E.g. "if the character asks for too much, too often, they should find the patron’s support drying up. Additionally, the character may need to take action to maintain the relationship, such as undertaking a mission on the patron’s behalf."” ]