Pathfinder

Part I. The Job.

On paper, this job it seemed simple: meet the convoy at check-point N17, and then lead them 10 clicks into the Zone, to a Research Station N29. Anywhere else it in walking distance. But, “that side”, is not anywhere. It inside of on exclusion Zone. But job is a job. If I won't do it, some other stalker will pick it up. So, I've send my fixer my price and terms. He agreed to everything almost instantly, which was not a good sign. Whoever was running that convoy was either desperate or did not care, who will lead them on the Path. But, then again, I'm relying on my gut feeling, while fixer is talking to an actual client.

Now I had to prepare, in the short 6 hours prior to our walk to “other side” of the fence and check-points. I've booted my comp, and went through everything I could find: weather report, last reported incidents on the “Fence”, news of arrival and troops rotations, locations, locations, locations, and more locations. Trying to memorise the latest maps, latest changes in anomaly fields, position and roads to other check-points, approaches to Research Station, their layout, know security, water level in Pripyat river, hunting contracts in the same area, and any rumours about it.

No, before you ask me you can find that in your google search engine. Most of information is scattered across hidden chat rooms, info-fixers who tend to sell that kind of knowledge, and yes, it may be as reliable, as your TV weather forecast. At least military has decided to share the weather report around the Zone. Some even share the latest reports and prediction on the Outbreak from the Source. Tchernobyl is not a tourist park any more: its military base crossed with mutated zoo. Where zoo inhabitants are the least of your worries.

Before I knew it, it was 3 AM, and my shining green tea pot was empty. I've done another check of my gear: well worn boots, bag of sand and bolts, gas mask and goggles, “seven-russian” ammo for kalash, tactical radio and anomaly detector with extra batteries. Everything was laid out in front of me.

• “You should've asked who is leading that convoy”,- an angry thought crossed my mind.

• Something was missing.

• “They said they agree to my payment, but never confirmed that they will follow your instruction before going in!”, - an annoying voice in my head would not shut up.

• There. I've forgot about knife, rations and flash-light.

• “If they are going to RND29, they will have women on board”, - they ever-knowing whisper kept bugging me.

• True. RND29, had a science team lead by a Swedish blonde, with a name I could not spell. I've checked my knife: it needed sharpening.

• “Convoy is most likely led by some army goon, who will hide in the tank”, - whisper became unbearable. But as far as I knew, no stalker in Camp Odessa, got a delivery job. So army is getting it done. That's a bad news.

• I've added matches and pack of cigarettes into sealed plastic bag. Then grabbed a lighter. Never met a soldier who didn't smoke.

• “You must be on check-point early,”- the sick buzzing feeling of things to come, became even more annoying, - “they might not wait for you.”

• My wrist watch showed 3:43 AM. My alarm showed 3:50 AM. I need to get some sleep. I grabbed the phone and left a short message to Wheelman. He never sleeps. Not after his last raid to “other side”, anyway. I cursed. But it was too late. The “word” has slipped in. I've cursed again, this time loudly.

Wheelman came two minutes before the agreed time. Professional courtesy. He did not asked anything, the simple look at my kit gave the answer. Then he put on a morning radio show and drove me almost to a pistol shot away from check-point. By the time guards had me in their sights and illuminated by searchlights Wheelman was long gone.

Now I stood with my hands up under the morning drizzle from the sick grey sky. Two guards were coming towards me in a well trained cautious lock-step, with one covering another during movement, and both kept me firmly in his sights. That was good. These guys kept their head cool and watched the 360 degrees around their check-point. Only a fool thinks that a “Fence” is impenetrable for the mutants.

I glanced on my watch. 6:01 AM.

I was on time.

Convoy was not.

This is a preview of short story I've written for background of the Zone. If you'd like to read more, then either open a pdf file or download it. Thank you for reading.  

Monolith

Archive entry: FL002

Faction: Temple of Monolith

Type: religious organization active in ITZIF controlled regions,  humanitarian aid provider.

Status: Active, Legal.

Area of application: Temple of Monolith, is officially registered in US, Europe and Ukraine religions organization. In the ITZIF controlled regions it operates on the legal basis, according to ITZIF regulations 26R244B. Members of the Temple are known to believe that Chernobyl is a cornerstone to alien's Visitation and following Uplifting of the Humanity. Hence, they have made a repeated legal appeals to allow members of their organization exclusive access to Tchernobyl Power Plant, former town of Tchernobyl and Pripyat. So far all appeal have been rejected. Unspecified number of Monolith followers have been know to operate hidden bases inside Exclusion Zone and inside security Perimeter of the Zone.

Registered entity: Temple of Monolith, Berlin HQ, registered religious organization.

License Registration number: [REDACTED]

Operational status: active since 21/01/1980

Active in ITZIF regions: at least since 28/05/2014

The Temple of Monolith was born during the raise of New Age religions across Europe in the end of 80-s beginning of 90-s. However, unlike majority of those movements, who were more concerned with green energy, pollution, social injustice, or what should people eat according to the copied paragraphs from Hindu, Buddhist or Shinto texts, Monolith was thinking about contacting the aliens.

Their leader, a former Easter German mathematician Ernst Waintseen, or as he is known inside the organization “The Teacher”, grew his religion by borrowing from learning several sacred Hindu texts and use of “mid-expanding” drugs. Resulted “visions” have been written down by his students, then formed a basis of the ideology, which fused ideas of Christian faiths, like Judgment day, and life after death in the “Eden” with some randomly picked tenets of Hinduism, like cycles of life, stratification of society based on your caste position and some other humanitarian ideas. The core idea of this new faith was in contacting the higher sentient and intelligent beings of alien nature in order to overcome the difficulties of the current world. Temple of Monolith never explicitly shared the details of how this might occur, but insisted that it would happened during our lifetime.

Temple, originally was as elitist organization, with only very few gaining access to the Teachings, but in a course of century eventually grew into well know, well represented, although still reclusive and secretive religion. It attracted those who had potential, but lacked purpose, and gave it to them.

Aside from usual humanitarian activity, Temple had always pronounced that humanity lives in the Last Times before the Great Contact. They also promised, that when the Day of Contact will come, every a single soul in the world will see the Vision and hear their Word, and this will be the sign, that Humanity have been found by other Sentient being of the cosmos.

Until on the 2^nd of October 2019, when Global Blackout has happened. Entire planet saw and heard the visions, that we still struggle to explain. But, since then, number of Monolith followers have doubled across the planet. Some say, its because Monolith has an explanations to what happened, and plan on what to do next. Others say, that they always knew what's coming...

Notes from ITZIF Security: members of Temple of Monolith are know to participate in variety of legal and illegal activities. Though majority of them work as civil contractors and are noted for their good discipline, others are known to operate against the established order, proficient in both use of firearms and concealment among civilian populace. It is noted, that on several occasion Monolith followers refused to follow order from their superiors, if they had received contradicting orders from other members of their organization.

Prominent members of Temple of Monolith can be distinguished by black prayer beads and tattoos resembling square and round mandalas. Normally those tattoos are on the shoulder, back or chest. 

PMC (private military corporation) Monolith Security, is one of the leading security operators hired by ITZIF. Despite numerous instances of aforementioned PMC abusing code of conduct in Perimeter, violating the rules of engagement in the Zone no investigation into activities of Monolith Security has not been made so far.

Second.

So, here we are. Knee-deep in development. All of the notebooks, all of the old files, scraps of paper with notes made in the middle of your day job or middle of the night are all coming together. Or so I'd like to think. It should be easy, since there is so much work has been already done, but its anything but. At first, you see how long and difficult this journey has been. Then you see all of the previous concepts that either did not worked, or got scrapped midway. It's heavy toll. But necessary. We, at Star Wolfs Studio, are perfectionist. That means only one thing: all difficult concepts must be easy to explain and understand to players. 

For example, if read FAQ you'll know that STALCKER runs on combination of d12 and custom d8 dice. What you don't know, that until current version of rules, d12 was used primarily as tool for random effect generation on a table. In fact it was doing same job as 2d6 does in every other game. The core of mechanics was working on custom d8, which in many aspects is similar to X-Wing gold die [merge of red attack and green defense die]. All interaction were made by rolling your bucket of dice against the opposing bucket of dice, and then modifying your result to win or lose. In quick board game, where number of dice is limited to a maximum of 5, that works well. But when you have a more than 8 dice on both sides, it becomes a slog and draws players attention away from game to dice fiddling. That was not my goal as a designer. So something has to be changed. 

In my "research" I suddenly rediscovered two old but still great games: DnD and Space Hulk. In my opinion, Dungeons and Dragons, despite 5 or more editions, is still a very convoluted system. However, it still manages to present your efforts in a very quick an simple roll of d20. How "realistic" your chances of victory or defeat is open to debate, but system determines it by opposing roll of d20. In fact, system does not care for your preparation or other input: its all in the dice. 

Space Hulk is another source of pain and inspiration: there roll of d6 is a life or death question for each and every one of your characters. The tension of that game is built on two major pillars: uncertainty of situation, and uncertainty of roll. Unless you play as Genestealers, you never know the real strength and position of your enemy. And each and every missed shot or blow will have most grave consequences for your team. Luckily, new version of Space hulk allows for die roll modification and limited support, but still retains that fear of rolling "1", when you needed "6" to stay alive. Again, the very limits of die, are used to speed up decisions and their outcomes. 

So where is d12 coming? Good question. I'm glad you asked. 

In current rules, d12 is a main die used in every test you make during the game. To make resolution faster, you always know your success threshold. Even if you fail on the roll, you still can modify it using results from "Effect dice". Then all you have to do is compare results: win-win, win-lose, lose-lose, is all available options. But what about Critical success? Its still a Win result. But with benefits. 

  

In order to conclude designers ramblings: the test should be simple, easy to understand. But it should reinforce other mechanics of the game. Lets hope that play testing this version of STALCKER will show that it works. 

Sincerely yours,
P.S.



        

Duty: Tchernobyl Fire & Rescue Service

Archive entry: FL001

Faction: ITZIF Fire and Rescue Service contractors

Status: Active

Area of application: ITZIF private sub-contractor specializing in fire prevention, fire termination, emergency first aid, rescue operation inside Exclusion Zone, aid to sub-contractors in case of emergency events, radiation monitoring and control, radioactive and other hazardous material containment.

Registered entity: Tchernobyl Fire & Rescue LTD, Kiev, Ukraine.

License Registration number: [REDACTED]

Operational status: active since 14/03/2025

When first Tchernobyl disaster has happened, it was firefighter who were first to respond. They fought raging nuclear fire with little protection or thoughts about their own lives. They knew that with their every second, with every effort counted if humanity had any hopes of extinguishing the flames of disaster. To commemorate their bravery a monument in inside the first Exclusion Zone has been erected, both to commemorate and hope that similar tragedy would not occur again.

Unfortunately, on 2^nd of October 2019 disaster has struck again. In the beginning it was believed to be meteor strike that ignited the forests around Pripyat and Tchernobyl, However after several hundreds of square miles of forest fires, raised radioactivity levels in both air, water and ground around as well as electromagnetic interference of unknown origins it was clear that it was something more than just meteor.

The crisis and its effects became global concern, and despite protest from current government in Kiev, US, Russia, China and Germany has sent its troops and rescue specialist to stop the spread of effects of another disaster. Initial joint commission was organized under the banner of United Nations and was called United Nations Force for Tchernobyl Zone Isolation. During its short operational span, this intergovernmental body was transformed into ITZIF: International Tchernobyl Zone Isolation Force, with strong emphasis on private ventures operating under contracts from ITZIF.

One of the first private security firms to win and maintain contract was new company, called Tchernobyl Fire and Rescue Services LTD (TRFS Ltd). Comprised with former firefighters of Tchernobyl, equipped with mostly obsolete Russian firefighting vehicles and with substantial financial support from several benefactors outside of Ukraine, this company provided the best cost/efficiency offer to the crisis. Currently TRFS remains integral part of international efforts in preventing most dangerous effect of Exclusion Zone from spreading. They have permanent bases in 6 out of 12 major bases of Exclusion Zone Perimeter, and operate several outposts inside of the Zone.

Their main operations include fire-fighting both inside and outside Exclusion Zone, fire safety of Security forces, prevention works and forest monitoring. Today their ranks include one of the most skilled firefighter in the world with outstanding training base, equipment and experience. All TRFS operators have licence for firearms and allowed concealed carry inside Perimeter.

Majority of firefighters still come from Ukraine, Russia and Belarus. Company has adopted a insignia with motto: “Honour, Duty, Victory!” (Честь, Долг, Победа!) which signifies its unique a very high esprit-de corps. Contractors work in a very close-nit teams, facing both daily training and dangerous assignments as one cohesive unit. Majority of units are male only, on a basis that female operators are rare and commonly delegated to support roles in the company. In its over 20 years of service with UTZIF many members of TRFS have been awarded for performing beyond the call of duty, sometimes posthumously. It also must be noted the very high percentage of operators that claim to be part of Christian Church (Russian Orthodox Church in particular).

Equipment:

Most commons set of fire-fighting equipment consists of:

Light helmet with flash light, gas mask with oxygen tank and supply for 2,5 hours, multi layered robe with high-visibility stripes, light kevlar inserts and fire resistance layer, axe, heavy protected gloves, fire resistant pants, heavy boots, climbing set, personal medical kit, 9 mm pistol with at least two magazines, assorted tools, fire extinguisher of mission depending type (water, powder, CO2), filtered water canteen of 1 litre capacity.

Vehicles:

TRFS using several types of ground vehicles for its needs. Most common type is a 4x4 pick-up truck adopted as general purpose vehicle for transporting cargo and people outside of danger zones. The also used as first aid response trucks.

Jeeps, are common name for former military vehicles such as HMMWV or GAZ-2330 “Tiger”. They provide increased personnel protection from various NBC factors present in the Exclusion Zone.

Specialised fire-fighting trucks based on 6x6 and 4x6 vehicles are assigned to every outpost of TRFS, and are core of fleet. There several different types in services, but all are capable to carry several tonnes of water, water cannon, water pump and may use chemicals during fire-fighting.

Heavy engineering vehicles, boats and helicopters are commonly used under agreement with other sub-contractors of ITZIF.

First.

It difficult to begin.
It seems easier when someone else have already traveled the same path before you. Makes you feel safer, I guess.
But this path, this game takes me into the realms, others have not traversed same way as I am going to. STALCKER has been in my development logs for almost a decade now. Since that fateful game from GSC, to mods made by others, to Role-play written by Ville Vourella, to other games taking it to fast paced table-top skirmish game...

Why, my Stalker is different?

It changes focus from those who scavenge, loot, trespass and sell gifts of the Zone to highest bidder to people how fight on the frontline of dangerous Zone effects like forest fires, psi-emission, radioactive rains, and common crime. Medics, scientists, police officers, firefighters, rescue workers, combat engineers, security personnel, supply truck drivers.

Its not glamours, but is it less important? I shall let you be the judge. But, fear not: those stalckers who travel into the unknown are still part of the world I'm building. Just one of the many parts.

That was First.

P.Sh.