TEXT: Lords of Gossamer & Shadow 
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   by Matt Banach 
  
   
   
   
   
  Rite Publishing Presents: 
   
  Gossamer Worlds: 
  Incursion Earth 626 
  Explorer (Author): Matt Banach 
  Seeker (Editor): Steven D. Russell 
  Searcher (Cover Artist):  David Revoy 
  Trailblazer (Interior Artists):  Tarakanovich, Wataboku, 
  Michael Richards, David Revoy, Justin Nichol,  
  J.J. Tarujärvi 
  Pioneer (Trade Dress): James “Devin Knight” Hazelett  
  Lost Boy (Layout and Publisher): Steven D. Russell 
   
  Special Thanks to Jason Durall for his help in developing this.  
   
   
  Based on Lords of Gossamer & Shadow by Jason Durall 
   
   
   
  Gossamer Worlds: Incursion Earth 626  Copyright © 2015 Steven D. Russell All rights reserved. Lords of Gossamer and Shadow Copyright © 2012-2013 Steven D. Russell All 
  rights reserved. Erick Wujcik’s Diceless Role-Playing and associated marks and logos are trademarks of Diceless by Design Publishing, LLC, and are used under license.  
  See http://Rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product_info.php?products_id=1447 for more information on Erick Wujcik’s Diceless Role-Playing. All Illustrations except page 7 of the 
  PDF, banners, and tradedress are  licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/3.0/ 
  
   
  Incursion Earth 626 
   
   
  “A short spiral staircase wound 
  down to the next-lower floor of the tower 
  of boiling brass, with air just as steamy 
  and rounded walls just as sizzling-hot as 
  the last floor. The Door on this level was 
  plain and white with a metal knob, like 
  the perfectly average door to somebody's 
  perfectly 
  average 
  apartment. 
  A... 
  something... was affixed to the door in 
  small brass numerals, though out of the 
  corner of my eye I thought I saw the 
  numbers tilting, as if twisting on their 
  nails. Steeling my mind against the 
  uncomfortable psychic pressure I'd been 
  warned to expect, I opened the Door to 
  the sounds of a city street bustling with 
  zooming motorcycles, shouting people, 
  and the ominous whir of Incursion hover-
  drones.” - Yaeger's Travelogue 
   
   
  Description 
   
  Across the multiverse, there are 
  infinite Earths. After traveling the Grand 
  Stair for long enough, you come to 
  recognize these Earth-worlds by their 
  themes and differences, distinguishing 
  them from whichever version you first 
  encountered long ago which set your 
  expectations for what an 'Earth' should 
  be. Maybe World War II has to be won by 
  a particular nation-state for it to feel right, 
  or maybe you're only familiar with the 
  popular timeline up to the 26th century 
  and anything after that seems like some 
  bizarre fever-dream. Personally, I didn't  
   
   
  grow up on an Earth and I've never picked 
  a favorite, but I like visiting them in 
  general and I've traipsed up and down the 
  Stair long enough to know where 
  Incursion Earth 626 seems to fit.  
   
  Up until about thirty years ago, this 
  Earth was fairly “standard”. Then, in their 
  year 1985, reality cracked. It wasn't the 
  humans fault – at least not this time. 
  What happened was this: the pan-
  dimensional scientific collective known as 
  the Incursion used their hyper-advanced 
  planar tunneling techniques to bore a hole 
  into this gossamer world from a nearby 
  reality. If you're not familiar with the 
  
   
  stories of the legendary Incursion, I'll 
  refer you to Lucien's ostensibly-reliable 
  scholarship on them... but in case you've 
  given up on the old librarian's work in 
  favor 
  of 
  livelier 
  analyses, 
  I 
  can 
  summarize: the Incursion are a vast 
  armada of hyper-intelligent technocratic 
  overlords with holdings across thousands 
  of gossamer worlds, intent on expanding 
  throughout the multiverse with the 
  patience and inevitability of an invasive 
  species of weed. Weeds with super-
  science and space marines, that is. The 
  Incursion are neither infinite nor all-
  powerful, but they're terribly shrewd and 
  relentlessly methodical, not to mentioned 
  steadfastly 
  determined 
  about 
  their 
  mission of inter-dimensional expansion. 
  And so, about thirty years ago, without 
  warning, these invaders in x-ray-goggles 
  and armored lab-coats pushed the right 
  buttons to tamper with the fabric of the 
  cosmos, forcing open a Door... and 
  breaking something in the process. I have 
  no idea how to explain what exactly they 
  did, or what they thought they were doing 
  – I'm not the scientist, nor am I so well-
  versed in hoary mystical metaphysics to 
  spout some sorcerous explanation that 
  would probably be equally nonsensical. I 
  highly suspect that the Incursion don't 
  even know what exactly they did or how it 
  happened – because if they did, I reckon 
  they would've done it somewhere else 
  before or somewhere else since and, as far 
  as we know, the psionic event of Incursion 
  Earth 626 remains unique. The 1985 
  event resulted in an unprecedented 
  upsurge in ambient psychic energies – a  
   
   
  veritable flood of raw psionic power 
  suffusing the entire gossamer world. The 
  world hasn't been the same since, and will 
  never be the same again.  
   
  The moment the Incursion broke 
  through (via their ill-made Door onto the 
  surface of Saturn's moon of Titan) and 
  reality 
  cracked, 
  previously 
  average 
  humans found themselves plagued with 
  psychic phenomena – uncontrollable 
  telekinesis 
  and 
  unwanted 
  telepathy, 
  possessions and poltergeists, spooky 
  
   
  visions and spiritual violence. The first 
  few years of this catastrophically sudden 
  psychic renaissance were chaotic and 
  traumatic for the people of Earth, as 
  confused, 
  untrained 
  psychics 
  with 
  uncontrolled 
  abilities 
  ravaged 
  their 
  communities – most by accident or out of 
  fear, some on purpose. An entire town in 
  rural Sweden went insane when a young 
  telepath couldn't help but read and re-
  broadcast the thoughts of every living 
  being within five miles. New York City 
  nearly burned to the ground as telekinetic 
  psi-actives hurled taxi cabs at SWAT 
  teams 
  and 
  started 
  a 
  firestorm 
  by 
  rupturing every gas main in the Bronx. 
  Switzerland 
  closed 
  its 
  borders 
  and 
  initiated a complete lockdown in hopes of 
  weathering the apparent apocalypse, but 
  when U.N. investigators re-entered the 
  country in 1987 the entire population was 
  dead – every person who hadn't died of a 
  fear-induced heart attack had either 
  committed suicide or been ripped apart by 
  somebody else's bare hands. By 1988 the 
  world governments and a precious few 
  clear-thinking 
  psi-actives 
  developed 
  responses and brought the worst of the 
  situations 
  under 
  control, 
  though 
  everywhere it was a little bit different.  
   
  Some cultures made sense of these 
  new troubles through the old lenses of 
  spiritualism and folk-magic, as ancient 
  superstitions suddenly seemed relevant. 
  In many places psi-actives were burned as 
  witches, revered as gods, or both. Several 
  governments – the United States, United 
  Kingdom, Japan, and the still-extant  
   
   
  Soviet Union especially – pounced on 
  opportunity and “enrolled” the more 
  (relatively) 
  tractable 
  psi-actives 
  in 
  rigorous, highly secretive government 
  training programs. Those psi-actives who 
  didn't submit to the yoke of these shadowy 
  government keepers were either killed or 
  driven into hiding. 
   
  As if the great psychic upheaval 
  weren't enough to turn the world on its 
  head... 
   
  In 1991, the Incursion invaded Earth. 
  The Incursion had taken the previous 
  seven years on Saturn's moon Titan 
  building 
  their 
  fleet 
  of 
  intra-solar 
  spaceships 
  and 
  landers 
  – 
  since 
  (thankfully) not even the Incursion has  
  
   
   
   
  mastered a convenient way to squeeze a 
  fully-assembled 
  starship 
  through 
  a 
  person-sized Door. The Incursion fleet 
  arrived in terrestrial orbit all at once, 
  instantly 
  crippling 
  Earth's 
  primitive 
  satellite network. The U.S. and U.S.S.R. 
  launched nuclear strikes early on, but the 
  all-too-prepared Incursion effortlessly 
  reprogrammed missile guidance systems 
  with their vastly advanced technological 
  know-how, vaporizing Washington, D.C. 
  and Moscow with their own devices. 
  Orbital landers and swarms of hovercraft 
  descended, looming ominously above 
  other capital cities as they made a 
  deliberate show of eradicating any and 
  every fighter jet, helicopter, or rocket 
  which left the ground. With humanity 
  shocked and demoralized, gigantic holo-
  screens lit up over every major city on the 
  globe and the intimidating, helmeted 
  visage of the Incursion strategos told 
  everybody left how it was going to be.  
   
  The full story of the invasion and 
  conquering of this Earth is much longer 
  
   
  and harrowing than what I'm skimming 
  over now. For the past twenty-five years 
  humanity has been struggling against the 
  Incursion, fighting back when they can 
  and playing possum when they must. 
  Earthlings have always been a terribly 
  tenacious species, and this world is no 
  different.  
   
   
   
  Psionics vs. Sorcery 
   
   
  In this gossamer reality, psychic power and psionics take the place of magic and 
  sorcery. Visiting Gossamer Lords and Ladies shouldn't lose their hard-won Powers upon 
  stepping through the Door, but some effort should be made to emphasize the dominant 
  paradigm (psionics instead of magic) and encourage characters to use their mojo 'like the 
  locals do'. There are a few different ways to adjudicate this concept, and Game Masters 
  should choose whichever method bests fits their campaign: 
    
  1. Impromptu Psionics. Run Psionics as per the rules for Impromptu Sorcery (Lords of 
  Gossamer & Shadow, page 45) – psychics draw psychic energy from their surroundings 
  and personal reserves, rapidly and recklessly creating powerful effects; this process is 
  physically and mentally taxing on the psychic (e.g., experiencing headaches, nose bleeds, 
  fainting or worse) and disrupts the surrounding environment (e.g., lights flicker, rooms 
  shake, glass shatters), with greater consequences accompanying greater effects. Standing 
  in place while gathering one's power, screaming names into the swirling winds, is 
  appropriate and highly encouraged. 
   
  2. Sorcery by any other name. Run Psionics the same as Sorcery, with psychic 
  preparation taking the place of lynchpins, etc., making the difference between largely 
  cosmetic. This approach may maintain the most 'game balance' between Psionics and 
  Sorcery as Powers, but at the expense of psionics' inherent danger and spontaneity. 
   
  3. Apples and oranges, fast and loose. Run Psionics and Sorcery as two entirely different 
  disciplines. Characters with Sorcery just have to deal with a world where their psychic 
  opponents produce swift, devastating effects under a completely different set of rules, and 
  the game isn't going to grind to a halt while we debate the mystical physics of what is 
  actually taking place when little girls flip over tanks with the power of their minds. 
   
   
   
   
   
   
  
   
   
   
  Typical Denizens 
   
  Humanity is caught between a rock 
  and 
  a 
  hard 
  place, 
  fearful 
  of 
  the 
  unexplainable 
  psychic 
  phenomena 
  emanating 
  from 
  their 
  midst 
  while 
  simultaneously living in the shadow of 
  otherworldly conquerors. Still, despite the 
  terrors and the strangeness, the masses 
  strive for normalcy. Having weathered the 
  Incursion 
  occupation 
  for 
  over 
  two 
  decades, most people have given up the 
  notion of rebellion, grimly grateful they 
  still have cubicles in which to work and 
  shopping malls in which they can buy the 
  latest phones and fashions. You see, after 
  the shock and violent spasms of the initial 
  invasion, the Incursion made it clear they 
  had no designs on micromanaging the 
  daily lives of average citizens; while 
  presidents and generals were hobbled, the 
  regular folk of the world were left alone so 
  long as they threw no stones. Nowadays, 
  people still live in cities and suburbs, 
  going to school and buying groceries, 
  desperately pretending everything is okay 
  even though they shudder at the buzz of 
  Incursion drones overhead and whisper 
  suspiciously 
  about 
  whether 
  their 
  neighbor's kid is showing signs of being 
  'one of those freaks'. Many people have 
  given up and given in, resigned to dull, 
  gray lives they pray are safe from the  
  
   
   
   
  terrors all around. Others have retreated 
  into superstition, calling upon ancient 
  ways to ward themselves against evil and 
  reckon with the spirits which now 
  encroach upon the Earth from below as 
  assuredly as the alien overlords have 
  descended from above. Many young 
  people rebel in other ways, joining 
  costumed motorcycle gangs, listening to 
  dark “psi” music (supposedly composed 
  by psi-active virtuosos), and retreating 
  into immersive virtual reality video 
  games. Human figureheads complicit in 
  the occupation run local governments 
  under martial law, enforcing day-to-day 
  order with militarized human police 
  forces – a strategy the figureheads 
  maintain is necessary to keep heavy-
  handed Incursion troopers from having to 
  step in, which wouldn't be good for 
  anyone. Fear and distrust run rampant, 
  with occupation propaganda constantly 
  offering rewards for people to report 
  insurgents and/or anyone suspected of 
  being a psi-active. Psi-actives, they say, 
  are dangers to the public peace which 
  must be contained and registered with the 
  occupation 
  government 
  (who, 
  once 
  they've sufficiently disappeared them 
  from public view, will secretly render the 
  psi-actives over to the Incursion for 
  experimental research upon request). 
   
  Psi-active humans have difficult lives. 
  As if it weren't bad enough to be cursed 
  with terrifying powers which strain your 
  sanity and endanger those around you, it's 
  worse to be shunned and hunted for those 
  powers by an omnipresent and seemingly 
  omnipotent alien force. Most psi-actives 
  take great pains to hide their gifts, 
  numbing their minds with drugs and 
  booze when they can't cope and training 
  in secret with other psi-actives if they're 
  lucky enough to find a friend. Highly 
  secretive networks of psi-actives do exist, 
  
   
  run by brilliant psychers who are also the 
  backbone of the human resistance, but 
  these underground railroads and safe 
  havens are notoriously unforgiving of 
  internal strife; after all, a single phone call 
  by a suspicious bystander can bring down 
  a hard rain of dozens of jack-booted 
  Incursion thugs with designs on turning 
  anyone with psionic talent into an 
  expendable lab rat. 
   
  The 
  Incursion 
  occupiers 
  remain 
  largely a mystery. Despite two decades of 
  contact, precious little is known about the 
  Incursion, as they take great pains to 
  control what information humanity might 
  be able to learn about their physiology, 
  technology, tactics, or internal structure. 
  Incursion forces remain sequestered 
  inside 
  their 
  ships 
  and 
  hovercraft 
  whenever possible, relying on drones, 
  androids, and human pawns to carry out 
  ground 
  operations. 
  When 
  Incursion 
  soldiers do venture out they're encased 
  from head to toe in their trademark 
  armor, complete with fully enclosed 
  helmets and life support systems, so it's 
  tough to get to know them. A few 
  Incursion troopers have been killed and 
  examined over the years; one account 
  described the creature inside the armor as 
  some kind of bipedal lizard-man, while 
  another dissection found a horrific black-
  skinned monster with needle teeth and six 
  eyes. Oftentimes the troopers are non-
  living androids with nothing inside the 
  armor but metal and wires, and there's 
  one tale of finding a cybernetically-
  augmented human inside. Few records  
   
  survive 
  of 
  these 
  discoveries 
  and 
  dissections because the Incursion makes 
  it an operational priority to eradicate the 
  remains of their fallen or captured, either 
  through self-destruct failsafes, merciless 
  clean-up crews with superior firepower, 
  or orbital bombardment if necessary. 
  Personally, I suspect this particular 
  Incursion expeditionary force is made up 
  of multiple different species – or at least 
  their grunts are – so all the stories are true 
  to some degree, though that doesn't help 
  much in discovering some universal 
  weakness in hopes of breaking their iron 
  grip on this Earth. 
   
  
   
  Threats 
  Psychers are the movers and shakers 
  of this gossamer world – psi-active 
  humans who don't just have psychic 
  powers – they have a lot of psychic power. 
  While a lesser psi-active telepath might be 
  able to listen to someone's surface 
  thoughts, or speak wordlessly across a 
  room, a telepathic psycher can download, 
  rewrite, and reinsert a village's entire 
  mental existence in an instant, or 
  broadcast their whims across half the 
  planet as easy as breathing. Where a 
  novice telekinetic might be able to throw 
  chairs around a room, or break glass by 
  looking at it funny, a telekinetic psycher 
  can hurl mountains or drop their crushing 
  will on an entire city with the force of a 50-
  megaton bomb. A pyrokinetic psycher, 
  should such a terrible thing even exist, 
  would probably be more elemental than 
  human, liable to ignite the atmosphere 
  and burn the Earth to a cinder. How these 
  unstable 
  demigods 
  have 
  not 
  yet 
  inadvertently destroyed the planet is 
  either insane luck and/or a bit of a 
  mystery; part of it is that the Incursion 
  hunts down and captures psychers with 
  scientific diligence, subjecting these ultra-
  powerful psi-actives to rigorous (and 
  usually fatal) testing; the other part is that 
  many psychers have taken it upon 
  themselves to look out for one another, 
  forming a network of super-humans with 
  little in common other than their 
  shattered lives, strained minds, and 
  fervent desire to repel the Incursion and 
  liberate Earth. Most psychers are little 
  more than children – tortured teenagers  
   
   
   
  Psychers and Superpowers 
   
  The most powerful Psychers have mental 
  might rivaling that of a Gossamer Lord, so 
  feel free to create psycher characters with 
  a Psyche ranked on the Attribute Ladder. 
  Likewise, a psycher may be able to do the 
  equivalent of Deadly Damage (or worse) 
  depending on their particular powers. 
  Don't be shy about showcasing the 
  devastating potential of these very special, 
  very dangerous people.  
   
   
   
  
   
  and maladjusted adults pushed to and 
  past their breaking points by powers they 
  can't control, given to them for reasons 
  they can't understand, in a world under 
  siege they can't hope to save. Well-
  traveled Gossamer Lords and Ladies 
  might be used to encountering psyches 
  full of reality-rending power, but I'll 
  caution you: psychers are extremely 
  dangerous. This gossamer reality is super-
  charged with psychic energy in the same 
  way a log cabin might be soaked in 
  kerosene; this is not a stable situation, and 
  just because the world hasn't ended yet is 
  no guarantee that it won't. 
   
  Incursion Strategos Tau-Psi-5 is the 
  leader of the Incursion expeditionary 
  force which presently dominates this 
  gossamer reality. Like the rest of the 
  present 
  Incursion 
  forces, 
  Tau-Psi-5 
  arrived in this world thirty years ago 
  through the Door on Saturn's moon Titan. 
  At that time Tau-Psi-5 was only second-
  in-command of the Incursion fleet, but 
  upon realizing the transcendent potential 
  of psychic power possible in this gossamer 
  world – and his own talent for the same – 
  he chose ambition over protocol and slew 
  the over-cautious, by-the-book former 
  strategos in a brief but brutal mutiny. 
  How exactly this heretical little coup went 
  over with Incursion high command 
  (wherever that is) is unknown, but the 
  practical reality is that Tau-Psi-5 seems 
  confident in his local power... though he 
  isn't interested in stepping back onto the 
  Grand Stair any time soon. Nowadays, 
  commanding through loyal lieutenants 
  and strength of personality backed by the 
  implicit threat of his terrifying psychic 
  abilities, Tau-Psi-5 directs the Incursion 
  toward the goal of further research into 
  and complete mastery of psionics. While 
  he probably wouldn't otherwise bother 
  with the villainous cliché of conquering 
  the lesser beings of some backwater 
  planet, domination of the Earth is an 
  essential tactical step in securing access to 
  humanity's psi-active population and the 
  rich experimental resource they present. 
  A bit of a showman, Tau-Psi-5 takes 
  sinister 
  glee 
  in 
  playing 
  conquering 
  overlord as the years tick by and Incursion 
  scientists inch ever closer toward a 
  complete understanding of this gossamer 
  world's psychic phenomena... and how 
  they might be replicated elsewhere on the 
  Grand Stair and beyond. 
   
  Incursion Strategos Tau-Psi-5 
   
  Attributes 
  Psyche – 45 Points 
  Strength – 15 Points 
  Endurance – 20 Points 
  Warfare – 50 Points 
   
  Powers 
  Sorcery (Psionics) [15 Points] – Tau-Psi-
  5's psionic abilities mimic the Sorcery 
  Spells of Mind Touch, Quell, Death, 
  Immobility, Weaken, Barrier (telekinetic 
  shield), Psychic Ward, Bolt (pyrokinesis), 
  Environmental Attack (pyrokinesis), and 
  Teleport. 
  Cantrips (Psionics) [5 Points] – Focus, 
  Fracture, Grasp, Pain, and Stun 
  
   
   
   
  Artifacts & Creatures 
  Incursion Expeditionary Force 626  
  [44 
  Points] 
  – 
  Strategos 
  Tau-Psi-5 
  commands a moderate-sized fleet of 
  spacecraft, orbital landers, scout ships, 
  and assorted hover-vehicles manned by 
  thousands of disciplined and highly 
  trained Incursion operatives, overseers, 
  pilots, soldiers, scientists, etc.  
  • Double Vitality [2 Points] 
  • Combat Reflexes [2 Points] 
  • Hardened [1 Point] (Double Damage 
  for heavy artillery)  
  • Superior Stamina [1 Point] 
  • Resistant to Normal Weapons [1 
  Point] (Resistant to Firearms for 
  heavy artillery) 
  • Psychic Resistance [1 Point] 
  • Pass Through Door [1 Point] (when 
  outfitted with functioning Incursion 
  dimension-tech) 
  • Rapid Healing [2 Points] (medical 
  nanobots 
  injected 
  into 
  the 
  bloodstream, can be disrupted by 
  strong electromagnetic fields) 
  • Worldwide [x4 Points] 
   
  Tau-Psi-5's Helmet & Armor [8 Points] – 
  While it appears to be standard-issue 
  Incursion 
  equipment, 
  Tau-Psi-5 
  has 
  poured significant resources into making 
  his 
  souped-up 
  personal 
  armor 
  the 
  pinnacle of Incursion technology. 
  • Invulnerable 
  to 
  Conventional 
  Weapons [4 Points] 
  • Psychic Barrier [4 Points] – the 
  helmet's psychic barrier functions only 
  when worn, so Tau-Psi-5 is obliged to 
  
   
  remove it if and when he wishes to use 
  his own psionics. 
   
  The Big Gun [8 Points] – Pulled from the 
  business-end of an Incursion battleship, 
  Tau-Psi-5's enormous graviton-stabilized, 
  shoulder-mounted 
  antimatter 
  beam 
  cannon can punch a hole through a moon, 
  and the targeting system wired into his 
  helmet can pinpoint a target the size of a 
  car from over seven miles away. 
  • Deadly Damage [4 Points] 
  • Limited Mold Gossamer Reality [2 
  Points] – originally designed to be 
  powered by a starship reactor, The Big 
  Gun has been modified to convert and 
  run on psychic energy – either drawn 
  from its wielder, or drained from 
  nearby victims. 
   
  Stuff 
  Bad [+2 Points] 
   
   
  Yokai are hybrid monstrosities – psi-
  active humans infected and corrupted by 
  ancient bodiless psionic entities which, 
  for lack of a better description, we might 
  as well consider to be evil spirits. Before 
  the Incursion breached this gossamer 
  reality and all hell broke loose (literally), 
  these Earth-native evil spirits were the 
  mostly-dormant subject of folklore and 
  myth – ghosts, poltergeists, and demons 
  who had long ago retreated from the light, 
  relegated to forgotten shadows and rare 
  nightmares. But when reality cracked and 
  psychic energy levels went through the 
  roof, these intangible boogiemen took the 
  opportunity to re-assert themselves in the 
  modern world, feasting on super-psyched 
  fear and possessing the bodies of 
  traumatized 
  psi-actives. 
  Yokai 
  have 
  physical deformities which signal the 
  possession of a host, such as demonic 
  features (red skin, bulging eyes, tusks) or 
  additional body parts (elongated necks,  
  
   
  extra 
  mouths, 
  vestigial 
  twins), 
  or 
  animalistic features ranging from the 
  cosmetic (furry ears, tails, forked tongues) 
  to the extreme (human heads atop the 
  body of a giant spider, scorpion, or 
  serpent). Though the yokai hate the 
  interloping Incursion, and the-enemy-of-
  my-enemy and all that, even their unholy 
  harassment of Incursion forces is small 
  consolation compared to the terrifying 
  prospect of being left alone with the yokai 
  should the Earth ever be liberated. 
  Unsurprisingly: super-psychics + evil 
  spirits = awful crazy badness, so beware. 
  Cue the giant scorpion-person-thing in a 
  kabuki mask vomiting mind-napalm 
  directly into your brain, followed by some 
  creepy little schoolgirl with cat ears 
  giggling as she telekinetically vivisects the 
  one teammate who let his guard down. 
  Ugh. I'd rather face the alien overlords. 
   
   
  Notable locations 
   
  Occupied Tokyo is one of the largest 
  mega-cities on Earth – and a stronghold 
  of the Incursion-controlled occupational 
  government. While the glitzy, overbuilt 
  sprawl of concrete and steel is still a 
  massive population center and a bustling 
  hub of industry, the marks of Incursion 
  influence are everywhere. Gargantuan 
  holo-screens float above the skyline like 
  freaky 
  jellyfish-looking 
  blimp-TVs, 
  broadcasting propaganda, public service 
  announcements, and the occasional not-
  so-subtle threat by a helmeted overlord. 
  Docile citizens shuffle the sidewalks in 
  quiet but constant anxiety, burying their 
  heads in the fashionable glow of the latest 
  In-Phone (another victory of insidious 
  Incursion 
  infiltration, 
  simultaneously 
  monitoring and placating the population 
  with high-end consumer electronics; this 
  one even has a built-in app for detecting 
  and reporting psi-active disturbances).  
   
  Incursion medical towers gleam like 
  smooth 
  white 
  tusks 
  amongst 
  the 
  conventional 
  skyscrapers, 
  treating, 
  healing, and converting millions of 
  suffering 
  people 
  each 
  year 
  with 
  miraculous Incursion-developed cures for 
  everything from cancer and rare diseases 
  to impotence and depression. With the 
  occupation propaganda machine and 
  incentive programs in full swing, positive 
  public opinion of the occupation is higher 
  in Tokyo than any other major city on 
  Earth, but a significant percentage still 
  resist. 
  Human 
  insurgents 
  plot 
  the 
  assassination of traitors in the occupa-
  tional government, surveil Incursion 
  positions for any hint of weakness, and 
  stockpile artillery in the faint hope of one 
  day striking back.  
   
  Criminal motorcycle gangs are a 
  nuisance on the city streets and super-
  highways, but the relatively juvenile 
  trouble they cause – robberies, street 
  racing, and property damage – is mostly 
  just a headache for the government police 
  and a useful scapegoat for the headlines of 
  occupation news programs. The black-
  clad, militarized occupational police force 
  stomps around the city, raiding the 
  hideouts of alleged troublemakers and  
  
   
   
   
  swarming over reports of rogue psionic 
  activity, but the real fear is palpable when 
  Incursion drones and hover-ships fill the 
  air. Far below the gleaming skyscrapers 
  and 
  neon-lit 
  streets, 
  the 
  Tokyo 
  underground is rife with the secret 
  predations 
  of 
  the 
  yokai; 
  drawing 
  desperate to-be-hosts to profane shrines 
  in dried-up sewers and abandoned 
  subway tunnels, these ancient boogeymen 
  in stolen bodies are steadily building an 
  unholy army of their own. A Door to this 
  gossamer world opens into a bustling 
  subway stop directly below the heart of 
  downtown Tokyo, right next to a shabby 
  news (read: occupation propaganda) 
  stand that always smells like burnt plastic 
  to me. 
   
  Half a mile below the blasted ruins of 
  the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, an 
  ultra-secret cabal calling itself “Uncle 
  Sam” bides its time, training a highly 
  gifted cadre of psychers for an inevitable 
  counter-offensive against the invading 
  alien force. Shielded (or so they hope) 
  from Incursion sensors by the residual 
  radiation which still saturates the surface 
  due to the nuclear bombing of nearby 
  Washington, D.C., this highly organized 
  group is the best of what remains of the 
  United 
  States' 
  armed 
  forces 
  and 
  intelligence services, doggedly analyzing 
  every possible method of repelling the 
  Incursion. 
  Uncle 
  Sam's 
  massive 
  underground facility is a sprawling maze 
  of 
  laboratories, 
  bunkers, 
  and 
  sub-
  basements which connects to a water-
  logged natural cave system riddling the 
  bedrock 
  deep 
  below 
  the 
  irradiated 
  Potomac River. While this might seem like 
  a safe place to duck some heat from the 
  Incursion, I can tell you from experience 
  that the human defenders of this facility 
  (highly trained special forces units paired 
  with government-raised psychic hunter-
  killers) are even more ruthless than their 
  otherworldly foes. If you don't have an 
  extremely convincing cover story and a 
  good friend with a very high security  
  
   
   
   
  clearance to vouch for you, best to avoid 
  this place... unless you enjoy getting 
  riddled with depleted-uranium rounds 
  while your brain gets scrambled like an 
  egg. 
   
  Irkutsk, Siberia is the location of Camp 
  Shima, the Incursion's largest and most 
  notorious 
  ground-based 
  psi-active 
  containment 
  and 
  experimentation 
  facility. While a great deal of research into 
  psi-actives is undertaken on Incursion 
  ships in orbit, there's something to be said 
  for not poking dangerous psychics with 
  probes inside valuable spaceships that 
  tend to explosively decompress if a wily 
  telekinetic happens to rupture the hull in 
  a fit of pique. Hence, the Incursion 
  claimed the entire city of Irkutsk in 1995, 
  driving away most of the city's citizens 
  and using those who remained as fodder 
  for 
  psionic 
  experiments. 
  Nowadays 
  Irkutsk is a vast ghost town pock-marked 
  with 
  detonation 
  craters 
  and 
  burnt 
  buildings – scars wrought from twenty 
  years of psychers overloading and/or the 
  Incursion containment responses which 
  put 
  them 
  down. 
  Heavily 
  shielded 
  observation 
  bunkers 
  connected 
  by 
  underground tunnels dot the landscape, 
  providing 
  Incursion 
  scientists 
  with 
  cloistered vantage points from which to 
  watch their test subjects respond to staged 
  stimuli and navigate the dilapidated city 
  
   
  like rats in a maze. Champ Shima is itself 
  surrounded by hundreds of miles of the 
  densest security the Incursion can muster 
  – hover-tank patrols, radar, sensors, force 
  fields, anti-aircraft lasers, multiphasic 
  psionic jammers, you name it; absent 
  clever magic (which a canny Gossamer 
  Lord may indeed have), it's one of those 
  places you can probably only get into if the 
  Incursion brings you there. Evil overlord 
  and Strategos Tau-Psi-5 makes regular 
  visits to Camp Shima to test his own 
  psionic prowess against captive psychers, 
  moving slowly but inexorably toward the 
  day when Incursion mastery of psionic 
  technology is complete and they can move 
  on to conquer the next world. 
   
   
   
   
  Final Thoughts  
   
  Incursion Earth 626 is place with 
  plenty 
  of 
  problems, 
  but 
  amazing 
  potential. Beware its dangers – the 
  Incursion 
  haven't 
  conquered 
  entire 
  expanses of the Grand Stair by luck or lack 
  of opposition alone, and that wily bastard 
  Tau-Psi-5 isn't afraid to get unorthodox 
  and diabolical in order to maintain 
  control. 
  The 
  heady, 
  practically 
  intoxicating power of the psychic energies 
  which saturate this gossamer world is a 
  potent lure for any traveller of the Grand 
  Stair, so it's a uniquely advantageous 
  place to stretch one's psyche – just make 
  sure not to snap it. 
   
  ~ Yaeger Zane
   
  Incursion Earth 626 Domain Table 
  Technology 
  Level: 
  Electric (Earth) / Fusion (the Incursion) 
  Magic 
  Level: 
  Magic is Unknown (but Psionics are Known and Believed) 
  Security: 
  None (though the Incursion does monitor all known Doors) 
  Type: 
  Personal Domain [1 Point] (current owner: the Incursion) 
  Control: 
  Control of Contents [1 Point] 
  Influence 
  on the 
  Powers: 
  Eidolon – Average   
  Umbra – Average  
  Wrighting – Average 
  Special: 
  The Mind Unleashed – Psionics are the predominant form of 
  supernatural activity on Incursion Earth 626, with a recent and 
  precipitous increase in latent psychic energies. While within this 
  gossamer reality, Gossamer Lords and other visitors from the Grand 
  Stair treat their Psyche score as 5 ranks higher on the Attribute Ladder 
  (or the next-higher rank if they possess only an Average- or Superior-
  ranked Psyche). See also Psionics vs. Sorcery. 
  
   
   
  How to Use Incursion Earth 626 
  • The character's mentor suggests they develop their mental prowess (Psyche scores) by 
  taking advantage of Incursion Earth 626's super-saturated psychic environment. 
  Training begins at one of the mentor's secret safe houses, but the location is revealed 
  to be not-so-safe when a harried telepathic psycher lands on the characters' doorstep 
  with an Incursion capture team in hot pursuit. 
  • The Incursion is on the move elsewhere on the Grand Stair, and the player 
  characters are tasked with gathering intelligence on this threat and retrieving a 
  sample of their technology. Incursion Earth 626 is a convenient world upon which to 
  approach the mysterious technocrats; a captured Incursion trooper would make a 
  fine prize for study, and it'd be ideal if the characters could beg, borrow, or steal 
  massive data files on the topic from the human resistance based deep below the 
  irradiated ruins of the Pentagon.  
  • A psionic spirit – the type to create a yokai – has escaped from Incursion Earth 626 
  onto the Grand Stair. Desperate for a body, the spirit attempts to possess a character 
  or ally, and whether successful or not eventually explains where it came from – and 
  begs the player characters to help save its home from alien invaders. The spirit 
  makes itself sympathetic at first, but once the characters reach the world and come 
  to understand the sinister nature of the yokai, they realize that this gossamer Earth 
  needs to be saved from not just one threat, but two. 
  • There is a prophecy that a god-like psycher from this gossamer world is destined to 
  become a Gossamer Lord – or at least attain the vaunted power of one – and soon 
  there will be a critical moment where their path toward good or evil will be decided 
  forever. The player characters aren't the only ones with this knowledge, or an interest 
  in directing the way this person's fate turns. 
   
   
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/Amber/Lords Of Gossamer And Shadow/Gossamer Worlds/Incursion Earth 626.pdf