§1 The Five Identity Aspects
What makes a character who they are? In Syn City's system, there are five primary aspects. Everything on your sheet is one of these.
Stats
FOUNDATIONStats dictate what you can do at the most fundamental level. No bells or whistles here — these are the building blocks that comprise your other aspects, grouped under 8 umbrella categories of four sub-stats each.
Skills
6 SLOTSSkills are upgradeable — you can progress them because you can hone them. They cover things you might do in the world. Know how to build a grenade? That's a skill. 3 combat + 3 non-combat slots.
Techniques
5 SLOTSAbilities you can use in combat or combat-related circumstances to mix things up and keep your enemy on their toes.
Traits
10 SLOTS*Unchanging things that describe you and affect the outcomes of what you do. You can't upgrade these — but you can upgrade yourself with cybernetics instead, which compete with Traits for 10 total slots.
Cybernetics
10 SLOTS*Modifications that improve your stats and empower you to do superhuman things at the cost of your Humanity. The more you chrome up, the riskier you are in an op if you don't take measures to mentally stabilize yourself.
Slot Helix
TOOLTraits and chrome share one spine. Launch the chrome-and-flesh double helix to visualize how your ten shared slots wind together.
§2 Reading Order — The Clearance Ladder
The archive files the Protocol the way the city grades its chrome: Utility, Field, Lab. Clearance is a reading order, not a wall — every file is open. Start at Utility and work inward.
Know it before you hit the street
Standard issue. You don't walk out the door without it — who you are, how you're built, and what you were born as.
Identity & Stats
The five aspects of an operator and the eight cores that measure them.
Open file FILE P-02Character Genesis
100 XP, two skill picks, and the grit-and-bio math that keeps you breathing.
Open file FILE P-03Traits
What your body and reputation already do for free — if your stats can carry it.
Open file LINKED ARCHIVEPeople & Perks
The census file — what each of the four life forms gets at the factory.
Cross-referenceBe fluent before the first contract
The first job always goes loud. Combat flow, the arsenal, and the moves that separate operators from chalk outlines.
Combat Flow
Acts, endurance, reactions, crits — the turn economy of staying alive.
Open file FILE P-05Arsenal
Bludgeons to machine guns, street padding to cutting-edge plate.
Open file FILE P-06Skills & Techniques
Six skill slots, five technique slots, and the shards that fill them.
Open fileDeep systems for long careers
Nobody needs these on night one. Veterans never stop studying them — chrome catalogs, advanced operations, and the conditions that end careers.
Cybernetics & Chrome
Grades, slots, and the eye catalog — what 20 XP of permanence buys.
Open file FILE P-08Advanced Operations
Breaching, grappling, deep runs — plus terrain, cover, and every condition on the books.
Open file TOOL HELIXSlot Helix
The chrome-and-flesh double helix — visualize your ten shared slots.
Launch tool