Timeless Threats: Time Guardian

Introduction

Since the solution to humans playing with powers they do not understand is apparently more humans playing with powers they do not understand, a mortal organization of Time Guardians has sprung up. They pursue Time Thieves using the same techniques, further polluting the time stream.

Appearance

Some Time Guardians wear uniforms and helmets that mark them as some form of soldiers or agents. Others attempt to blend in with the locals, although any “streetwise” characters, particularly Time Thieves, can identify them by their quasi-military bearing and slightly – or obviously – “square” behavior.

Tactics

Time Guardians sometimes travel alone, but most travel in pairs or in groups of up to five. Teams of more than two often consist of specialists: the leader, the combat expert, the “face”, the technology expert, the detective, the history expert, etc.

Guardians exist to stop temporal paradoxes, divergent timelines, or all unauthorized time travel depending on which future the Guardians come from. A Guardian will investigate and hunt down their quarry with varying degrees of subtlety and respect for natives of the current time.

Time Guardians often try to enlist local law enforcement or government in their duties. The Agency that employs Time Guardians will not exist for several centuries, so locals understandably will not have heard of them. Thus Time Guardians have to produce credentials good enough to fool locals … which technically is a crime.

Guardians operate like an efficient paramilitary team. Their rigorous training can be a weakness, however, if they encounter situations beyond their training.

Time Guardian Characters

Extra Dice Needed: standard polyhedral dice.

The Referee first generates a stalwart agent or policeman in the Host System. Anachronisms are practically expected. Each Guardian has a specific “beat”, so logically they would be restricted to worlds using a specific Host System.

The Referee must then determine how the Time Guardians travels through time and space.

Time Gem

The Guardian has a Time Gem, confiscated from a Time Thief.

Character Additions: Add the Time Gem to their equipment. Use the same auxiliary sheets as a Time Gem User, and generate the Time Gem and Gem Control score the same way. The Referee will need a set of standard polyhedral dice, especially the percentile dice.

Time Monitor

The Guardian has a two-way communicator, anything from a cell phone to an ear bud or implant, that links his current time with the time at his headquarters. He can always call for help or a pickup using one of the other methods.

Character Additions: The device or implant.

Time Portal Device

The Guardian has a portable device that fits in the palm of his hand or clips onto his belt. It functions like a Time Gem’s Portal ability, but without the Depletion check. Anyone who learns how to set spatio-temporal coordinates and push a button can use it.

Character Additions: The device and the knowledge how to use it. The Referee might require a skill or attribute check to enter coordinates accurately while in the middle of combat. Configuring the device takes a minimum of one round of combat.

Time Portal Network

Time Portals exist everywhere, if one has the talent and training to find them. Portals may be as obvious as a specific ancient archway or as hidden as an ordinary-seeming door one can unlock with a special ability. They may only exist during specific times. A Guardian may have to chase them all over creation.

Character Additions: An ability to sense “natural” time portals, perhaps aided by a compass or a map that requires special training to read.

Time Projector

A device at headquarters projects the Time Guardian to the time and place where he’s needed, then scoops him back up if he’s at the rendezvous coordinates at the appointed time. Unless paired with a Time Monitor, HQ has no way of knowing the Time Guardian’s status until he misses the rendezvous.

Character Additions: None, but projectors tend to prepare for every contingency.

Time Ship

The Guardian has a vehicle, usually a space ship but sometimes a car or an unassuming box, that takes him (and his partner, if any) through time and space. Use the Host System’s rules for vehicles, if any, and add a “Time-Space Engine” to the specs. Otherwise assume it’s big, space-worthy, and far beyond most pre-moderns’ understanding. (Unless they’re a medieval French girl named Laureline.)

Character Additions: The ship and a driving or piloting skill. Use the appropriate Host System attribute or a percentile skill if the Host System has no piloting skills, or skills at all.

Special Abilities

All Time Guardians are extremely physically fit, mentally tough, and emotionally centered, if a bit zealous at their job. The Host System statistics should reflect that.

Apart from their method of traveling through time, Guardians’ “powers” come from their gear, detailed below.

Disguise

Guardians attempting to blend into the populace have a few technologies available.

• Holographic Veil: When activated, this thin, iridescent cloth can be used to change a face or an entire body to a single, fixed disguise. Touching the veil will reveal it as future technology, but if the Guardian keeps out of arms’ reach from the civilian populace he can look exactly like one of them, or at least how the holographic artists thought they’d look.

• Makeup: A potentially low tech solution, cosmetics combined with the right clothing can alter facial features and body shape to allow a Guardian to blend in with the crowd, at least physically. Cosmetics must be applied virtually every day, and depending how far the locals diverge from the Guardians’ own strain of humanity they may prove more provocative than concealing.

• Surgery: Surgery in the Guardians’ time can make anyone look like any human race or humanoid species. Once surgically altered, however, the Guardian looks like that permanently, or at least until they can return home for more surgery.

Remember, too, that a false face will fool no one if its owner has not mastered the language and culture.

Medical Kit

Medicine in the Guardians’ time can work miracles, but wounds can still be life-threatening. Details depend on the Host System’s damage and healing rules, but assume a simple medical kit provides a qualitatively better level of care than even the best hospital in the local era.

Stunner

Time Guardians’ orders are to capture, not kill. Therefore they wield futuristic weapons that can stun a target with minimal chance of untimely death.

A stunner looks like a 1950’s toy ray gun, although still enough like a gun to put trigger-happy local law enforcement on alert. The Guardian must aim the weapon at a target and make a Ranged Weapons Check to hit the target. Maximum range is only 50 ft (15 meters). If the Host System has no rules for stun weapons, assume that the target must then succeed at a Physical Check (Constitution, Health, Strength, Stamina, etc.) to remain conscious. If the target remains standing, additional hits add cumulative standard penalties (Banes, Disadvantage, etc.)

Appendix: A Time Guardian in Various Systems

The stat blocks below assume that the Time Guardian is neither a natural covert operative nor a combat specialist. We assume that the Agency sends agents of this rank and caliber by Time Projector, so they cannot return by themselves or call for reinforcements. Either naturally or through surgery they could convincingly pass as natives of this time, given the right mannerisms and speech patterns.

All agents are issued a standard survival pack, which they keep concealed. It includes a MedKit, a Stunner, a rope, a grapnel, pitons, a thermal blanket disguised as a woolen one, emergency rations for 3 days, and flint and steel. Most gather weapons and torches on their own.

Barbaric 2E

Barbaric 2E is published by Stellagama Publishing.

Protection: 4 (leather armor + shield)

Weapons: Sword (3d6), Stunner (see above).

OpenQuest

(Note that I’m using a SimpleQuest-style stat block here, for simplicity.)

HP: 13, AV: 2 (leather), DM: +1d4, MR: 15m, Loot: 1

Resistances: Dodge 40%, Persistence 30% Resilience 40%

Skills: Athletics 35%, Deception 40%, Perception 40%, Streetwise 30%

Combat:

• Cloae Combat 45%, Shortsword (1d6+1d4)
• Ranged Comabt 55%%, Stunner (see above)
• Unarmed Combat 35$, Fist/Kick (1d4+1d4)

Magic: None (no time to learn any)

Shadowdark

A well-proportioned person unconvincingly pretending to be a ruffian

AC 15 (leather + shield), HP 14, ATK 1 shortsword +1 (1d6) or 1 stunner +1 (stun), MV near, S +1, D +1, C +1, I +0, W +1, Ch +0, AL L, LV 3

Fit. Advantage on STR checks to break through bars, lift gates, etc.

MedKit. One use of this item heals 2d6 HP. The kit has five uses.

Stunner. DC 15 CON check or target falls unconscious.