McDonough's Rest. A small town built into a long abandoned adamantium mine on the far flung frontier world of Actaeon.  It's shelter from the native creatures, and any storm that might roll through.  When Earth is years of near-light-speed travel away, and no help could conceivably come to their aid, solid shelter is a must for a frontier settlement.  

The mine that McDonough's Rest sits in was set up and run by Alvarez Mineral Imports.  At the time, they were a small, ambitious operation that set up many such outposts in planets out in one of the star systems that have been colonized from out of the Sol System.  AMI’s business tactic at the time revolved around getting in some place cheaply(and with as little regulation to get in their way as possible) and leaving quickly with whatever they could grab.  They left behind a network of tunnels, the shallower ones being quite solid and equipped with worker quarters that weren’t completely stripped when AMI left.  

This made it an excellent find when Sean McDonough and his ship full of pilgrims arrived on the planet, looking for a place of their own.  In the two generations since McDonough’s Rest, as the town came to be called, is alive and thriving, primarily through agriculture.  There are other settlements that they can trade with, but they require a long caravan trip to reach, and it’s only worth the effort for things they can’t produce locally, mostly higher tech commodities.  

Recently, a representative from AMI arrived and asked, quite politely, that the people leave so that they can continue their mining.  When the townsfolk tried to open up some form of negotiations, it became clear that the request was anything but.  They were informed(just as politely) that if they did not vacate the premises by the time AMI’s operation fleet arrived, they would be removed by whatever force was necessary.  

With no law enforcement to speak of, McDonough's Rest faces death, either at the hands of AMI’s private police force, or the native mega-fauna out in the wild, should they try to flee.  The grandchild of the town's namesake, Patrick McDonough, has set out with the town’s only shuttle in desperation to neighboring towns to find anyone, local militia, mercenary, even a rival corporation, that would protect them, or allow them passage to another safe haven.

A handful of pilots and their mecha partners answer the call.  

~~~~~

[img]https://cdn3-vox--cdn-com.cdn.ampproject.org/i/s/cdn3.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/7273573/millspecBT01.0.jpg[/img]

The premise of this game is basically the plot of The Magnificent Seven, set in the future, on a colonized planet, with mecha pilots as the cast.  It doesn't have to literally be seven(in fact, I'll probably title the game based on the number of players).  

[img]https://pre00.deviantart.net/7763/th/pre/f/2014/094/0/e/titanfall_by_gstsenpai-d7d00by.png[/img]

[b]Pilot[/b]

Name: 
Appearance:
Helmet: Your helmet contains the neuro-link to your titan. It’s important, but often used as self expression for a pilot. 
Weapons: 
Gear: If this were a fantasy or super hero game, think of this like what your special power would be.
Background: Where’d you come from, and why are you working jobs alone?

[b]Titan[/b]

Name: 
Appearance:
Class: light, medium, or heavy
Armament:
Utility: Similar to the gear section of the pilot CS.
Last Stand: Your titan’s greatest, but most desperate ability. It can be devastatingly effective in combat, but uses a huge portion of your titan’s resources, leaving it lower on ammunition, or sluggish until its capacitors are able to recharge. 
The last stand often further merged the mind of pilot and mecha, which can lead to a moment of more effective fighting, but can be disorienting for a moment afterwards. 
Notes: 

[b]A little about the world[/b]

It's a frontier colony world, our town happens to be an old mine, but there's other settlements, they're just scattered.  We can get up to 99.9% the speed of light, but there's no warp or hyperdrive yet, so we still can't break that limit.  Earth is some ten lightyears away from it's closest neighbor, so pretty much anything that goes out to colonize space is going out there to stay.  There are worlds closer to Sol than Actaeon, and more densely populated.  Though it's been about sixty years or so since Actaeon was first colonized, it's still very much in its infancy as a populated world(Though, I am considering if we want there to be a primitive culture of native sentients). Some groups did come here for business, like AMI, but just like any frontier a lot of people come out just to find a place of their own.  Some even come specifically to get away from bigger government influence on more populated worlds.  The people of McDonough's Rest are among this second group.  

I don't think mecha(I've kept calling them titans, but I want a different name for them) need to have a specific origin.  It's enough to assume that they are the evolution of war machines such as tanks.  It could be said that they are particularly useful out in the frontier, where there's less infrastructure, and a weapons platform that can walk across any terrain, and even climb etc is invaluable.  

Due to the expense to build a titan and train a pilot, most are in the employ of one of the larger factions out in the frontier.  Even so, there's a fair amount that work as mercenaries, either independently, or as a mercenary company.

A form of AI was necessary to keep the mech's movements stable, and auto pilot was developed so that they could fight with or without a pilot(though they have always shown to be more effect with with a pilot).  They were developed to be smarter, to obey verbal commands and relay tactical information to their pilot.  These constant advancements, and a built in ability to learn created a sort of emergent intelligence.  A new titan is smart, but bland.  The older they get, the more their personality develops, and is shaped by their experiences with humans.  Some pilots form close bonds to their titans, anthropomorphizing them as humans often do.  By treating them as almost people, the pilots feed into the emergence of their personalities, and almost help to create them.  

Some pilots, however, don't care for this messy personality business, and will periodically factory reset their mecha's AI to maintain the professional, tactical machine that was originally built.  It has been argued that this creates a less effective AI, but there are no conclusive statistics on that.

A titan isn’t just a vehicle, it’s a partner too. You can choose how your character feels about it.

 

[hider=Bestiary]
[b]Slathe:[/b] Big enough to wrestle a mecha, and still only a mid sized creature on Actaeon. They are, however, the largest animal that has natural predators as an adult. A slathe has wooly hair, in various browns and reds that naturally locks up into a thick coat over their thicker skin. They have flat, simple faces and broad dull teeth in powerful jaws. The upper two of their four limbs are almost twice as long as the lower, and are similarly thicker as well. 

They’re tree climbers, and though otherwise non-aggressive, extremely territorial of their arboreal homes. 
Slathes form a symbiotic triangle with the razorleaf trees and yurgs. Their thick, matted coat allows them to hide in the branches of the enormous red razorleaf trees without getting cut, but since they can’t eat the leaves, they still have to brave the forest floor for food, making them prey for yurgs. When a yurg chases a slathe, if I they don’t get them, they’ll throw themselves against the tree, cutting themselves on the leaves. Their blood nourishes the razorleaf, giving it its color and providing it with the iron it needs to keep its leaves sharp and hard.


[b]Yurg:[/b]  Fast, mean, and dumb, yurgs are hairless, six legged predators.  Their shoulders come up to just above the average man’s head.  Their primary survival mechanism is to breed quickly, and throw as many of themselves at their prey as possible.  Before humans came along, their primary prey were the slathes in Actaeon’s great red forests, but humans are a good deal easier to kill, even if their meat won’t go as far.  They stalk human settlements, but a simple electric fence is usually enough of a deterrent, as it takes more zaps than you’d expect for one to realize that lunging at the wires won’t do it any good.  
As soon as they get up to full running speed, their front arms come off the ground and they grasp at their prey with sharp claws.  


[b]Mathorn:[/b] A tall creature on six spindly legs.  They are lithe and thin, and have disproportionately large horns on top of their head.  Two protrusions that grow in nearly perfect fractal “snowflake” patterns, side by side so that they fan out.  Their fractal horns never stop growing, but are actually living bone and scales, able to heal if damaged.  A mathorn, though able to walk for short distances, moves primarily in large, flea-like bounds.  The next jump in any series is notoriously hard to predict, helping to elude predators.  A common Actaeon figure of speech is to say that a pointless or difficult task is “like chasing mathorn.” 


[b]Quillodon:[/b] An enormous omnivore with a mouth to match its appetite.  A quillodon is covered every inch in sharp, thick spines about two meters long.  Though willing to forage if necessary, it usually gets its food by picking off plants(and smaller animals) that have gotten caught on its spines as it rolls, curled into a ball, over the land.  A quillodon is easily one of the worst of Actaeon’s native creatures to encroach on a human settlement.  Not because they are aggressive, but because they are so large they invariably cause damage just by passing through.  Fully grown, they have no natural predators, and killing one is difficult even for humans with their sophisticated weaponry.  It takes force that, on any other animal, would be extreme overkill to take one down for good.  It’s usually more cost effective to steer them away from settlements.  It’s not like they’re hard to see coming.  

[/hider]