There are few enough Zones and nearby population centres that the stal-kers working in the same Zone will soon learn to know one another. Popular meeting places (like Harmont’s Borscht or Toulouse’s Bar Bonnevier) have their own stalker subcultures where strangers will get long looks. Behind the stalkers come dealers and the green newbies who want in. The places change as they begin to attract too many Institute spies but no one will attempt an open charge or raid. Stalkers tend to be armed and not just with guns.
Thirteen years is long enough for traditions to form and for the first stalk-ers – the survivors at least – to have retired. Some disappear altogether to spend their hard-earned treasure with a new name and identity. Many could never quit entirely or were left poor and crippled by the anomalies. These veterans are still hanging around in cities near the Zone, selling information and old maps, or they may have become dealers between new stalkers and their old clients. Some train new stalkers to either get a cut from their earnings or so that the skills they learned would not die with them.
Active stalkers, either the last of the lone wolves or the stalker teams, form the core of this community. Some become heroes in the eyes of the others, some villains. Alliances are made and broken. If someone is revealed to be an Institute snitch, stalkers who lost friends behind bars may give him a good pounding in an alleyway. If someone steals or withholds loot from his team, the word travels fast and he will soon be a marked man. Some people die and new people come in but it is difficult to get into the community. Most dealers shun newcomers without recommendations from old business part-ners. That is the first step of ensuring that someone is not an Institute spy.
Some stalkers are not a part of this community, or their relationship with it is complicated. The biggest group like this are the ideological stalkers, whose expeditions have ideological or religious motives. At first they were thought of as lone freaks and village idiots but these days there are entire stalker teams from religious or ideological sects. Their goals vary: some try to pre-vent ordinary stalkers from getting their hands on artefacts by finding them first and others collect artefacts to change the society or the international status quo. Some even acquire artefacts outside the Zone and take them back in, or simply use them as cult objects in their rituals.
Then there are the mercenaries that a dealer or even the Institute has brought in to perform a certain job. Usually it is to find a certain artefact or inves-tigate a location but it can also be the capture or even destruction of a certain stalker or a team. Then there are the brigands, shady groups that try to ambush stalker teams returning from the Zone and force them to hand over their loot. Finally, there are the extreme sportsmen who do not even want artefacts but just want to get deep inside the Zone for much of the same reason a mountain climber wants to reach the top: because it’s there.
From the GM’s point of view, lone stalkers or ex-stalkers can be seen as fulfilling certain roles and their combinations:
Guides are veterans that people go to for information on unusual loca-tions, creatures, or artefacts.
Conciliators are retired stalkers who still have excellent contacts with all sorts of organizations, even the Institute. They can mediate disputes and pass on messages.
Teachers take new stalkers into the Zone and try to pass their skills onto the next generation.
Rescuers spy on the Institute’s communications and try to help stal-kers in trouble or to find people who have disappeared into the Zone. It is valuable work, even though the vanished stalkers are usually dead.137
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Competitors wish to prove to their dealers and contacts that they are a more valuable partner than the player characters. They will also try to spy on the characters’ activities, trying to find out their contacts and clients.
Madmen have lost their senses after witnessing something shocking in the Zone. They are the scum at the bottom of the community but on the other hand have experience from many events and places from where there are no other survivors. Asking about them may be difficult, though.
Cripples have been permanently disabled in terrible accidents in the Zone. They often know other veterans and active stalkers that they used to work with and live however they can by doing little jobs for them in the borderlands. In exchange, their old stalker buddies take care of them. There is no social security outside the society, so the cripples have all the disad-vantages of a stalker’s life with none of the benefits.
Judges are famous stalkers who can shift the opinion of the entire scene. Their views and attitudes will decide how Institute snitches and ar-tefact thieves are treated. They also often oversee the punishment. The judges also have great, if unwanted influence over nicknaming new people.Burbridge used to be famous and powerful enough to be a “judge” to the stalkers of Harmont but then lost his influence (and was renamed Buzzard).
After him, that power fell mostly to Red, the greatest of the lone wolves.
Red nearly killed Burbridge in the cemetery and none of the stalkers in Harmont could have held him accountable. The novel also names a cripple, Hamster, the only one to make it out of an anomaly called Meatgrinder. The experience truly left its mark on him.
In the rulebook’s examples, Czar is influential enough to be a judge in the Toulouse stalker community. Thus far, however, he has only killed duplici-tous dealers.
The players’ stalkers may also end up in these roles from the point of view of the other stalkers in the region. As time passes and great deeds are done, they will become those famous veterans that the newbies will look up to in admiration – or at least will pretend to admire in the hopes of getting some free pointers.
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Dealers
Also part of the borderland microcosm are the representatives of the cli-ents; the Dealers. Nobody involved in illegal xenological research will reveal their names or identities, preferring to work through intermediaries. Some-times these are specialists in the service of the client but usually they are independent intermediaries such as the organized crime. For examples, look at how movies portray illegal weapons dealers, drug dealers or dealers of stolen art and forgeries.
It is important to the game that the dealers are not just vending machines that swallow artefacts and spit out cash. They have their own special quali-ties, goals and weaknesses. Dealers send stalkers on missions, pay better for some things, make the stalkers commit crimes and sabotage their com-petitors’ businesses and contacts. To the GM, the dealers are also a window he can use to show the players the bigger picture of the world, be it a deep plot, political tensions or the activities of radical groups. Dealers represent their contacts in the borderlands for both good and ill. Their activities can be used to deduce something of what is going on behind the curtains. Playing a dealer might be just as rewarding as playing a stalker.
In addition to the permanent representatives of their employers, there are some dealers who are just visiting and looking for something specific. They will pay well for that one thing but are not interested in anyothing else.
After finding what they wanted, they’ll vanish. Because of this, many stalk-ers have hidden caches waiting for a golden opportunity, or to be used for bargaining when the dealer has a gun to your head. Taking care of your client relationships, listening to the rumours and maintaining your contact network are just as important in the life of the stalker as the Zone itself.
The novel mentions two dealers, first a shady person named Throaty and later Buzzard, a retired stalker who has taken an entire stalker team under his wing.
In both cases they are interested in all kinds of artefacts but also give their stalkers special mis-sions and the equipment to go with them: a por-celain container for Witch’s Jelly, a gas balloon for the Golden Orb.
Throaty got so excited about a wheel that turns without friction that he promised to pay double for all that Red would find. Buzzard relied on Red’s services because he believed none of his own protégés could get to the orb and survive.
Red never trusted them. Even though Throaty’s task had been completed, he still kept the con-tainer hidden away as a guarantee. When Red was caught, he agreed on the delivery of the con-tainer by phone and never gave Throaty the chan-ce to remove him as a witness.
Throaty is also a good example of how a dealer can function as a window to the rest of the world.
Red delivered him the container with the Witch’s Jelly. Later it was revealed that the same con-tainer had most likely caused the destruction of a top research centre (it got Jellified) and a huge scandal when they could not explain where they had acquired the container and the Jelly.
Unfortunately, the novel does not reveal what happened to Throaty.
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Pricing Artefacts
The price of an artefact depends on its rarity, usefulness and the needs of the dealer. They have their own clients whose desires and interests are reflected in the dealers. Price differences may be significant and change over time. If the rumour spreads that someone is paying large sums for a certain type of artefact, there will be more seekers out. Even if the first finder will get a good price for his loot, the price will drop sharply after that and the latecomers may be left with nothing.
Effect is hard to demonstrate €10 No clear practical application €50 Simple xenotechnological applications €100 Complex xenotechnological applications €500 Revolutionary xenotechnological applications €1,000
Super artefact €100000
The artefact can be a part of machinery x2 The artefact is usable as it is x3 Beautiful, like jewellery or sculpture x2 The artefact is not dangerous to the user x2 The effect fits the client’s business x2 The dealer was looking for just this artefact x3 Visiting dealer was looking for this artefact x5
Once the base price has been multiplied with every applicable multiplier, you get the highest price that the dealer will give for the artefact. With super artefacts, though, this is admittedly difficult to estimate. The dealer will naturally never pay the full price if he can avoid it. Usually he will first offer half and the stalker can then try to haggle upwards (getting full price is very difficult or nearly impossible – usually the price ends up to be 70-80% of the artefact’s maximum value).
Finding the best buyer may be an adventure in itself. The stalkers should endeavour to find out more about their dealers, such as who they are work-ing for. Based on that, they can determine what kind of artefacts would likely be desired by the clients of each dealer. Additionally, there may be a special need or even a random buyer for a certain, specific kind of arte-fact. There are always rumours going round but ascertaining them and find-ing the buyer before the competition can be a lot of work. As the reward for an adventure to find a buyer, the maximum price of an artefact could be doubled or tripled. The stalkers may have also found new clients or ascer-tained what one of their old dealers really, really wants.
So what would the price tag on a Death Lamp look like using this formula? It is a super artefact, so that’s €100,000 to begin with. It is usable as it is, which is x3. It is believed to be largish and have a conspicuous appearance (x2). It is not dangerous to its user (x2) and if sold to a dealer with military clients, it will fit their bill splendidly (x2). In addition, if the dealer has been informed that there is something like that in the region, he is ready to drop more cash to get his hands on it (x3). €100,000 x 3 x2 x 2 x 2 x 3 =
€100,000 x 36 = €3,600,000. The last variable is very significant because the dealer might at first only offer €1,200,000, but haggling could raise to close to that €3,600,000.
Not bad, but you could probably add another zero to the end if the stalkers can get two well-connected dealers into a bidding contest, or can bypass them altogether and sell straight to their clients. Of course, there is always the danger that a dealer in this situation will try to run off with the artefact himself, or kidnap one of the stalkers and torture him until he finds out where the artefact is hidden. A super artefact is always a super artefact and people are prepared to kill to lay their hands on one.