Your Character

Your character is your avatar in the game. At the beginning of the game, your character is a nameless drifter with no memories, coming in from the Badlands to the metropolis of Cinci. Your past, your abilities, your goals, and even your name and sex are all things that you will have to discover through playing the game.

## Character Information

There's a lot to keep track of. Here are some of the more important things.

### All About you

Your character is defined by a lot of things of that are permanent or persistent. Most of this stuff is visible through the "Character" tab of the game interface.

Traits - Your basic physical and mental abilities. They can increase or decrease during play.
Skills - Your training and learned abilities. They can also increase or decrease during play, but do so much faster.
Implants - Artificial modifications to your body that influence your traits and skills. You start with 1 or 2, and can buy others.
Mutations - Genetic modifications to your body that influence your traits and skills. You can start with some, and they add many challenges and opportunities to your game.
Temperament - Four different approaches to the world. You can have two of them at a time.
Morality - How much you prefer to perform "good" actions or "bad" actions. Different people will react to these values differently.
### How you feel

Your character's moods and desires are constantly changing.

Alertness - Your level of alertness and need for sleep.
Moods - How you are feeling at any given time. Positive moods can become benefits, while negative moods increase Hazards or drive you into Madness.
Need - Your appetite for sexual pleasure.
Perceived Temperature - How warm or cold you are. Being too hot or too cold can cause you problems.
Sustenance - How hungry you are and whether you've eaten recently.
### Problems you have

Things are always going wrong in the game.

Hazards - Long term problems in your life that you need to address before they cause more problems.
Menaces - Continual problems that can change the way you live.
Wounds - Serious trauma that will take time to heal and impair you in the meantime.
Total Pain - How much you hurt from Injury and Wounds.
### People you know

The people you know make a lot of difference in how successful you are in playing the game. You can track these via "People", "Inventory", or "World" tab of the game interface, depending on what you need to track.

Contacts - Specific people you know, who are ideally friends.
Crew - The people who are willing to work for you. Less detailed than contacts, but better allies than the organizations.
Trusted Sidekicks - Your trusted henchmen among your Crew. They're more trustworthy and competent than normal Crew, but don't have distinct personalities the way Contacts do.
Organizations - Groups of people that you know. They may be friendly or hostile.
### What you know

The game keeps track of the information you have, and you can use that information to improve your situation. You can see this on the "Inventory" tab of the game interface, and often activate specific pieces of information for benefits.

Detailed Plans - Careful plans that you can activate for benefits, such as learning more about an organization or improving a specialty team.
Familiarity - How much you know about a specific place in the game. Higher familiarity unlocks more locations to visit at that place.
Hard facts - Specific details that you know about a specific place. Can be converted to rumors or patterns.
Mysteries - Strange things that you know about. Can be converted to rumors, hard facts, or patterns by talking to Contact/Raff.
Patterns - Interconnections between bits of information.
Rumors - Vague details that you know about a specific place. Can be traded in for more familiarity or converted to patterns or hard facts.
Supply and Demand - Knowledge of illicit trade at a specific place. Used to make deals while Working The Streets.
### Things you have

Your character is going to acquire stuff. A lot of stuff. You can see this on the "Inventory" tab of the game interface.

Clothing - Your outfit, which can give bonuses to skills and allow you to dress appropriately to fit in at a location. You can't wear your desert gear to the Gym, after all.
Diary - A useful place to record your thoughts, or a potential security risk.
Living spaces - Places to cook, sleep, relax, park your vehicles, change your clothes, and store your stuff.
Spikes - Artificial memories for your brain that you can use with a Neural Interface.
Vehicles - Mechanical transport for getting places faster and carrying more stuff.
Weapons - What they are, and some tips on using them.
### How you're known

Other people in the game are going to know stuff about you. This knowledge can create opportunities or problems.

Personal Security - Your physical security and reputation for defending your stuff.
Reputation - What people know about you.
## Helpful Hints

This is some advice on some behavior you can try that people have found that works in the game. It may not work well for you, so experiment yourself. Don't consider this to be perfectly optimized behavior, just things that have worked for people.

Making Money - Some suggestions for ways to make money, both at the start of the game and when you're well established.
Working The Streets - How to sell crack in the Cinci Slums, Gamble Street Market, or Palisade.