Hammerheads

Hammerheads is an official Cortex Prime setting first published in the Cortex Prime Game Handbook (2020). It was designed by Cam Banks, with editing by Amanda Valentine. The layout and art direction was by TL Collier. Art by Ten Ten Studios Malaysia. It was released for free as the quickstart setting for the system.

## Introduction

> The winds had already picked up, which meant the fires were spreading faster and faster. It was like staring right into hell. The whole forest was burning, the flames leaping across the ravine as if it wasn’t even there. Our team came in low and fast, Hammerhead Two pushing itself to the limit to get us there and over the blaze so we could maybe, just maybe head it off before it hit the highway. With hundreds of stranded cars and the town on the other side, things were going to go from really bad to really freaking worse.
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> *We had the rig packed with extinguishers and loaded with water tanks, but there wasn’t anything we could do directly. Our engineer, Rex, had a plan that involved setting charges and firebreaks. But all I could think about was getting down there and getting those people out of their cars and away from the burn as fast as possible.*
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> *I’d say this was just another day for the Hammerheads, but that’s the thing. There’s no day like any other in this job. And it’s my job. My name’s Ulrich Engström, callsign Ragnar. And I’m a Hammerhead.*
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Hammerheads is a setting for Cortex Prime. It’s set in the near future when the world is besieged by the ravages of climate change, corporate catastrophe, and crisis. You play a Hammerhead agent, recruited from the ranks of first responders, the military, and the scientific community to join this elite global disaster management organization. Only the best and brightest, those individuals who run toward danger rather than run away, are sought out by the mysterious World Crisis Agency to serve. Equipped with state-of-the-art technology and the mighty High-Altitude Multi-Mission Emergency Response Headquarters—the Hammerheads—you and your team answer the call when nobody else can do it. In a world of disaster, you are the heroes the world needs.

Each Hammerheads crew has its specialists to cover a wide array of disaster scenarios, and their Hammerhead is likewise outfitted and designed to get them to the scene of the crisis and help them manage it as soon as possible and with minimal loss of life and resources.

In this game, you create a Hammerhead agent by picking training packages, assigning attribute dice, defining distinctions, and establishing your relationships among the various characters. As you play, you can upgrade your training packages, step up your relationships, and customize your own Hammerhead vehicle.

## Genre & Tropes

Hammerheads is a love letter to *Thunderbirds*, the ITC television show by Gerry Anderson, in all of its various incarnations. This game aims for the feel of an action-adventure TV show without a lot of violence or conflict, instead shifting the driving motivation to natural and man-made disasters. This also means it’s inspired by disaster movies from *Only the Brave* and *Dante’s Peak* to *San Andreas* and *Contagion*. The heroes are the brave and the bold, but they have their own problems and baggage from a life spent on the front lines of catastrophes.

### Crisis Response

Hammerhead agents are recruited for their willingness to go into dangerous and volatile situations and do what they can to solve problems, rescue endangered people and wildlife, and deal with threats from both environmental and corporate origins. They’re not mild-mannered, they don’t have better things to do, and they’re not in it for the money. A Hammerhead agent, regardless of their background or specific skills, is there to do what needs to be done on a team of others who are likewise committed to this line of work.

### Climate Change

Regardless of what some politicians and corporate interests want you to believe, the world’s climate is damaged. Over the last hundred years, human activity has altered weather patterns; and in the world of Hammerheads this continues to worsen. Floods and erosion from rising sea levels, polar ice shelves dropping tons of ice into the ocean and creating tsunamis, widescale firestorms and heat waves, and monstrous hurricanes and ice storms are all symptoms of this shift. Isolated extinction events have begun to hit every continent on the planet, and the race to respond to these long-term problems has consumed world governments even as they are stymied by opposition.

## What You Need to Play

To play Hammerheads, you need these rules, enough dice for each player and the GM, a copy of the blank character file for each player, and a copy of the blank vehicle file. Share around a copy of the training package descriptions if needed.

### Cortex Prime Rules and Variants

This setting uses attributes Physical, Mental, and Social, roles—renamed as training packages, relationships , and distinctions. The distinctions define your character’s former life and background, their approach or attitude, and their most identifiable quirk or quality. SFX for each of these three types of distinction are fixed, and all of them are available at the start of the game.

Hammerheads uses standard tests but difficulty dice are replaced with crisis pools. Almost all scenes are either action scenes with players deciding what their Hammerhead agents do while the crisis pools represent a gradually worsening threat, or downtime with players recovering from their missions and working on their relationships. Contests aren’t used in this game. Stress is used and applied to the attributes, along with complications that are created during play and made worse by the crisis pools on the GM’s turn.

#### Agent Attributes

Every Hammerhead agent has the Physical, Mental, and Social attributes. These are a prime set for the characters and they’re also how any stress is applied to the agents during the mission. Hammerheads uses the Shaken and Stricken mod to represent targeted damage, injury, or harm. When an agent is harmed or affected by a crisis pool, the effect die is applied to one of the agent’s three attributes, and this can reduce the agent’s ability to remain effective on the mission.

#### Agent Training Packages

Every PC in Hammerheads has a die rating in each of the fourteen specialist areas, called training packages. These reflect the agent’s capability in undertaking specific rescue or crisis management operations. A training package follows the same rules as roles; training packages are considered a prime set for Hammerheads.

* Crowd Control: Dealing with masses of people in stressful situations, riots, or panic.
* Emergency Medical: First response medical assistance, triage, and paramedic treatment.
* Firefighting: Dealing with fires and arson.
* Hammerhead Pilot: Piloting any of the Hammerhead vehicles.
* HAZMAT: Dealing with toxic spills, gas, chemical-based hazards, radiation, and pollutants.
* High-Altitude Recovery: Rescues in the air, such as on mountains or aircraft, using cables or parachutes.
* Legal Specialist: Understanding local, state, federal, and other laws and the application of laws in crisis situations.
* Logistics: Understanding the flow of resources to and from crisis areas and rescue operations.
* Marine Recovery: Rescues at sea and on lakes, on boats or ships, and underwater.
* Network Specialist: Resolving issues connected to or involving information or computer networks and systems.
* Mechanic: Using, repairing, modifying, and understanding machines, engines, vehicles, generators, and appliances.
* Tactical Response: Dealing with armed, military, or security problems using counter-terrorism or law enforcement.
* Technical Analyst: Understanding electrical systems, including power networks, cables, broadcast devices.
* Urban Recovery: Rescues in cities, inside buildings, underground tunnels, cramped spaces, and traffic.

#### Agent Relationships

Each Hammerhead agent has a relationship of some kind with the other agents on their team, which defines how they see or associate with the other agents and the nature of the backstory they share. Each relationship has a die rating. Choose a pre-built relationship from the list below. Relationships aren’t necessarily reciprocal; your relationship die rating with another agent might be a different size than theirs for your agent. If there’s any disagreement about the backstory, the players should settle that before the game starts.

For each agent on the team, one of the following is assigned, from the perspective of your agent. That agent…

* …saved my life
* …owes me big
* …is a troublemaker
* …knows their stuff
* …is a liability
* …is dependable
* …is good for a laugh

Use relationship dice when your Hammerhead agent is assisting or helping another agent to perform a test. Hand over your relationship die with that agent to that agent’s player for their dice pool. When assisting another agent, it’s always your relationship die with them that’s added, not their relationship die with you.

#### Agent Distinctions

Every Hammerhead agent has three distinctions, each of which covers a different element of the agent’s background, personality, and approach to their work. Each distinction also has three specific built-in SFX and is rated at D8.

##### Your Life Before:

* Gain a PP when you switch out this distinction’s D8 for a D4.
* Spend a PP to step up an attribute when you connect to your old life.
* Add D6 to the crisis pool to double your attribute die when you connect to your old life.

##### Your Approach or Attitude:

* Gain a PP when you switch out this distinction’s D8 for a D4.
* Spend a PP to reroll your dice when you align with your true nature.
* Add D6 to the crisis pool to step up your training package die when you align with your true nature.

##### Your Quirk or Quality:

* Gain a PP when you switch out this distinction’s D8 for a D4.
* Spend a PP to double your relationship die when your assistance embraces your quirk or quality.
* Add D6 to the crisis pool to step up a relationship die you include in your pool when you embrace your quirk or quality.