The items described in this chapter are all products of the unnatural science of arcanotech. This science is based on the interaction between magical Chi flows and the scientific method, and arcanotech engineers have put this knowledge to the worst possible use.
Although it may mimic the form of common items like guns, goggles, or armor pieces, arcanotech gear is alive. Arcanotech gear is created by growing living matter in the lab, and then infusing it with the spiritual essence of ritually slain supernatural creatures or captured spirits. This living matter is then placed in housings of high-impact plastic, to which it fuses. The resultant material is called Arcanotech Resonating Biopolymer, or ARB.
Arcanoware is so visually distinctive that it is recognizable at a glance to anyone even remotely familiar with it. It is often moist or slimy to the touch, or it may be a hard and bone-like substance covered in a chalky residue. The outer shells of arcanotech gear are invariably decorated with arcane sigils, and are covered with forms that seem vaguely skeletal, or resemble the shells or crustaceans. There is something profoundly unnerving about these devices: those who stare too long at the tiny details of their housings can become nauseous or even psychologically unstable.
Gaining Arcanoware
Most pieces of arcanotech gear must be physically connected to their users in order to work. To be able to operate a piece of arcanotech tech, you must have an Arcanotech Input/Output Port, or AI/O port, surgically installed somewhere on your person. These ports are about the size or a dime, and appear on the surface of the skin as small rings of typical chalk-white arcanotech matter, decorated with a number of occult signs. A specially adapted form of coaxial cable is connected from the arcanotech device to the user's AI/O port. The AI/O port itself extends below the surface of the skin; it terminates in a microscopic piece of optic fiber which penetrates one of the nerves. The AI/O port translates electronic and magical impulses from the arcanotech device into chemicals which can be rapidly transmitted and read by the brain. Any AI/O port can accept data from any arcanotech device, but typically only one device can be connected to any port at the same time. Some Bureau agents and soldiers have jury-rigged splitters to allow them to plug more than one device into the same port in the field. These are recommended only for emergency use, such as when one AI/O port is damaged and a remaining one must do the work of two. Any character who begins the game with arcanotech schticks can have as many AI/O ports as desired.
Surgery
Characters with no arcanotech schticks who wish to acquire them in the course of play must also acquire AI/O ports. Doing so means finding a character who knows how to surgically install them. The installation requires the doctor to a roll of Medicine, at a difficulty equal to twice your Magic. The doctor must have access to a lab full of arcanotech biomedical equipment. If this check fails, the character is not only unable to use the AI/O port, but must find a more skilled surgeon to awaken these abilities in him: he simply doesn't have the spiritual aptitude for it. This may reflect well on the character. GMs should add to the Difficulty if the character is particularly virtuous or spiritually advanced, and subtract from it if the character is especially wicked or depraved.
In order to gain a new device, one must also acquire it in the course of the storyline. Arcanotech devices are not exactly easy to come by. They exist only in certain junctures, and even there are often tightly controlled by the authorities, who only disburse them to soldiers and top agents. The best way to get these devices is to capture them in battle.
Exchanging Arcanoware
Unless surgically implanted, arcanotech devices can be exchanged for other arcanotech devices. Each new device must be individually attuned, taking some hours (best done between adventures), but you are by no means bound by your initial arcanotech schtick picks. You cannot safely have more arcanotech items attuned than you have paid arcanotech schticks for.
Surgical Implantation
Arcanotech devices can be surgically implanted in a character. They are still visible, but a surgically implanted device requires no time or action to connect. The drawback is that you can't easily get rid of the item, and it makes you look truly weird at all times.
Cost
<Experience Arcanotech: no such section>
Using Arcanoware
Arcanotech devices use Powers. That is, all arcanotech devices can be used this way - some can be used with other skills, such as Guns, MartialArts or FixIt.
Most arcanoware does not require any ammunition or other supplies. But even if they do, don't worry about how the character gets replacement material when it runs out. Like a gunman's constant supply of highly illegal weaponry, this should never be an issue in an action movie context.
Unattuned Arcanoware
Using arcanotech devices that you are not attuned to, or for which you do not wish to spend schticks, is possible but dangerous. Each scene in which you use such a device, it costs you 1d6 Magic points. This can cause an arcanowave episode, see below.
Compatibility
Arcanoware is unusually compatible with other types of schticks, particularly Fu and Guns. Arcanotech guns and melee weapons can generally be used with such schticks. There are a few exceptions. All arcanotech close-combat attacks count as weapons, and cannot use Fu schticks that can only be used unarmed. And arcanotech weapons cannot be Signature Weapons, either for Fu or Gun.
Desperate Efforts
Arcanotech users can, in a pinch, draw additional energy from their own bodies to increase their chances of success with an arcanotech device. Each time they do this, they can add an extra bonus die to their Action Value for any single Arcanotech Device check at a cost in Magic points equal to the result on this bonus die.
Selling Out (optional rule)
A lot of arcanotech effects cause Impairments. It is possible to give in to temptation, and shrug off these impairments, at the cost of mutation. For each point of arcanotech impariment that you want negated (for the rest of the fight), you use up 1d6 magic points. Overspending magic points has the same results as above.
Arcanowave Episode
Whenever you overspend your Magic points by using arcanowave, you suffer an arcanowave episode. You lose a number of shots equal to the overspent Magic points having convulsions, and at the end of the session you must must either get some new Schticks or Limitations to channel the overabundance of arcanowave energy.
Special Cases
Slaves
Certain effects work only on slaves. The Tharkoldu of TORG have effects that work better against slaves than against creatures in general. A slave is someone who has formally submitted to you, and who obeys your commands. The world laws of Tharkold support this, but a Slave Chip or some other control mechanism can also be used.
DNA Sequences
Some arcanotech devices use a victim's DNA sequence as a targeting matrix. These devices also contain a DNA analyzer, so that a simple sample of blood or tissue can be inserted into the device for analysis. This analysis usually takes about ten minutes.
The tissue sample should be fresh, ideally taken directly from the victim, but this is rarely the case. Instead, you must try to make do with old or low-quality samples. The Arcanotech difficulty of extracting a valid DNA Sequence is the sample's age in hours. Investigation might be required to find a sample in the first case.