IPS-N Caliban

Striker/Controller

The Caliban is a relative newcomer in Interplanetary-Northstar’s line of single-client chassis, already

garnering a reputation among Trunk Security for its efficacy inside of the envelope for which it was
designed. Unlike many of IPS-N’s frames, the Caliban has no civilian analog or antecedent; it was
designed from the ground up to be a military machine.

The Caliban is IPS-N’s solution to the Yemanova Problem, or, the Impact-Override Problem. Capital
ships, the problem notes, are incredibly expensive and time consuming for corpros and diasporan states
to produce and maintain, and anti-ship weaponry has far outstripped capital defenses. In a conventional
capital duel, a successful kill means the death of thousands of viable personnel and the loss of millions of
units of manna; this leads many commanders to be gun-shy, relying on subline and fighter-class vessels
to accomplish battle objectives rather than risk their big ships — a strategy that proves just as costly on
average; instead of one or a handful of large ships being destroyed and signifying the end of a battle,
engagements grind on for weeks as squadrons of smaller ships engage inside the unpredictability gap,
inching towards victory.

IPS-N was the first to crack the Yemanova Problem. Their designers identified the need for a rapidly
deployable, sub-signature, directed weapon or weapon system; well armed and armored, small enough
to enter a ship and efficiently and quickly neutralize personnel in order to achieve victory. IPS-N created
the Caliban to solve this mission need.

The mech, cultural critics argue, venerates a particular humanity’s form, and is an unconscious nod
towards the anthrochauvinist roots of the machine among leading frame designers and fabricators. The
Caliban is not that. It was never intended to be an image of man writ large, striding across the battlefield
heroically to affect a greater purpose.

The Caliban has no roots, as many IPS-N chassis do, in the early efforts of freighter crews and asteroid
miners to defend themselves. It was not born from ingenuity - there is no legacy of resilience, heroism,
and the frontier spirit to paper over the purpose of its birth. It has no civilian applications in aid, disaster
relief, construction, or farming.

It is a cleaner, designed to solve a numbers problem on a ledger. It was only made small so it could to fit
through most ship doors and bulkheads with minimal problems, crawl up the spinal corridors of ships,
and speed up it’s average job completion rate by five minutes.

It is a tool designed to kill human beings very, very quickly.

 License:

I. Hammer U-RPL, Supermassive mod

II. CALIBAN frame, Hardpoint reinforcement, Spike Charges

III. Rapid maneuver jets, HHS-155 CANNIBAL

CALIBAN

HP: 6 Evasion: 8 Speed: 3 Heat Cap: 5 Sensors: 3

Armor: 2 E-Defense: 8 Size: 1/2 Repair Cap: 5 Tech Attack: -2

Save Target: 11

TRAITS:

Wrecking Ball: The Caliban counts as size 3 when inflicting knock back from any ranged or melee
attack.

Pursue Prey: When the Caliban inflicts involuntary movement as part of any action, it can move the
same number of spaces afterwards as a free action or reaction, as long as it moves towards its target
by the most direct route possible. This movement ignores engagement and doesn’t provoke reactions.

Slam: 1/round when the Caliban knocks a character into a wall, mech, or other obstruction that would
cause it to stop moving, it’s target takes 2 kinetic damage and becomes impaired until the end of its
next turn.

Weak computer: The Caliban takes +1 difficulty on all systems saves and checks

SYSTEM POINTS: 5

MOUNTS:

Heavy Mount

CORE system
 CORE SYSTEM: Flayer Shotgun

Passive:
The Caliban gains the following integrated mount:

HHS-075 “Flayer” Shotgun

The Heavy Howitzer-Shotgun is a compact, formalized version of the long-popular “Daisy Cutter”
pattern howitzer-shotgun used by Trunk Security and other stellar marine security forces. Chambered
to accept shot, shells, and sabots, the “Flayer” shotgun sacrifices some of the raw power of the DC in
favor of control and a much-improved fire rate.

Main CQB

Inaccurate, Knockback 2

Range 3, Threat 3

1d6+1 kinetic damage

When the Caliban fires the flayer shotgun as part of any action, it can use a powered fist, weapon butt,
or other strike to smack an adjacent character after the action resolves, dealing that character 1
kinetic damage and knocking them back 1 space.

Active (requires 1 CP):

Autochoke
The Flayer shotgun comes pre-equipped with a muzzle-mounted auto-choke, which allows its user to
better define the spread of shot issuing from the weapon, making it more accurate if necessary.
Protocol

For the rest of this scene, the flayer shotgun gains the following profile:

Main CQB

Accurate, Knockback 5

Range 3, Threat 3

1d6+2 kinetic damage

Hammer U-RPL
The “Hammer” Universal Rotary Projectile Launcher accepts any projectile or weapons system
that fits IPS-N’s Universal Cartridge system. Most common is the conventional airburst shell —
a fragmentation system designed to operate in all theaters, oxygenated or not — a ferocious
weapon in the compact halls, safe rooms, and bolt chambers of capital ships and stations.

Heavy Launcher

Inaccurate, arcing, knockback 2

Range 5

2d6+3 explosive damage

Supermassive Mod
The first of a suite of best-practice modifications for close quarters combat out of the Titan-
Enceladus Field Project that produced the Caliban, Supermassive Modifications describe a host
of modifications that can be made to close-quarters weaponry to enhance their general lethality
and utility by lifting safety precautions.

1 SP

Mod, Unique

Choose one Melee, CQB, or Cannon weapon. This weapon gains overkill and knockback +1. It
can be tuned during a full repair to take off safety limiters, gaining knockback +2 instead, but
additionally gaining the ordnance tag (ranged) or inaccurate tag (melee).

Hardpoint Reinforcement
Also developed out of IPS-N’s ongoing Titan-Enceladus Field Project, hardpoint reinforcement
systems further strengthen chassis, ensuring a 10% efficiency in TTK per unit.

2 SP

Shield

As long as it’s not slowed or immobilized, your mech has resistance to all damage during its
turn.

Spike Charges
A load variant originally designed for the Hammer U-RPL, the “Spike” system packs dozens of
hardened flechettes designed to tumble, ricochet, and pierce upon shell detonation, tearing
apart flesh and soft targets with sheer torque. As a payload for either an impact-activated
grenade or proximity activated mine, these weapons found their use first in micro/null grav
combat, where vessels and units flying out of control could be turned into missiles themselves;
in gravity-well combat, is system is less deadly, but no less chaotic.

2 SP, Limited 2, Unique

You may spend a charge from this system for one of the following effects:

Spike grenade (grenade, thrown 5): If a character is targeted by this grenade, it must
pass an agility save or have the grenade attach to them, where it arms. If an object is
targeted, it simply attaches. At the start or end of your turns, you can cause all spike
grenades to detonate as a free action, dealing 1d6 kinetic damage to whatever they’re
attached to and knocking back any characters or objects they’re attached to 3 spaces
in any direction. A character can detach a grenade by successfully repeating this save
as a quick action on their turn, else they detach at the end of the scene.

Spike mine (mine, burst 1): Once activated, all characters caught in the burst must
pass an agility save or have a spike grenade attach to them as described above.

Rapid Maneuver Jets

Further streamlining and miniaturizing IPS-N’s Ramjet system, IPS-N’s new RMJ chassis-
volatility package increases a chassis’ control envelope, ensuring a pilot can maintain enhanced
mobility at-pace — this control, coupled with a raw increase in speed, makes any chassis far
more difficult to successfully engage.

4 SP, Overshield, Unique

1 heat (self)

1/round when your mech boosts, you can engage this system. It flies, gains overshield 3 and it
ignores engagement from and may freely pass through the spaces of other characters larger
than it (but not end its turn in their spaces).

HHS-155 CANNIBAL
The IPS-N Heavy Howitzer—Shotgun is a large, breech-loaded, over-under cannon with an
extremely efficient kill rate at close range, especially in the narrow ducts and corridors of ships
and stations. It has one design flaw, which is that the shells are ejected with enough velocity to
decapitate an unarmored human.

Heavy CQB

Inaccurate, loading, knockback 2

2d6+4 kinetic damage

Range 3, threat 3

This heavy shotgun can be fired twice before it needs to be reloaded. Alternately, both barrels
can be fired at once, causing the weapon to be fired with +1 additional difficulty and requiring a
reload as normal, but increasing it’s damage and knockback to 3d6+4 kinetic and knockback 4
respectively.

When this weapon is reloaded, you may deal 3 kinetic damage to a character in range 3 from
the force of the ejecting shells.