Quirks are an opportunity to provide mechanically informed flavour to your Character: after all, it's hard to work for the Cross Institute without having some sort of metaphysical baggage. These Quirks are selected from the Quirks list and Characters may have up to 2 of them.
Some Quirks are unambiguously positive, some Quirks are unambiguously negative, and some are just ambiguous, but all Quirks are designed to be fun. You of course do not have to take any and can give your Character all the flavour you want in your Character Bio, but Quirks sign you up to a particular area of interest.
You have had a particularly negative (or positive) experience with an anomaly and you're convinced it will remember you. For good or ill.
Describe your experience – it could be with an Anomaly listed in the Archive or an as yet uncategorised one – and expect that if the anomaly in question shows up it will remember you.
For whatever reason, you have a peculiar and very recognisable quirk to your appearance. Perhaps you have Mouse Ears, perhaps you have a Tail, perhaps you have webbed fingers. Whatever it is doesn't immediately cause you problems, and personally you might think you look pretty cool, but it's something that those outside the Foundation might find… alarming.
You have sources inside Ursa Major who are able to keep you informed as to the goings-on there. At the start of each Event you will receive a dossier on the current workings and machinations of Ursa Major that may be able to keep you one step ahead of their attempts to capitalise on the latest anomaly.
You have some sort of supernatural perception ability: you might call it a sixth sense or a “tingle” but you can pick up on the presence of certain types of energy. Once per fifteen minutes you can call DETECT for one of the following categories:
Due to an Incident, you look and appear generic. No, like, really generic. It's incredibly difficult to pick you out from a crowd and you're likely to never get noticed by management. At the same time, if nobody can remember who you are then you could get away with anything, right?
At some point during your time working for the Cross Foundation you have done something that completely violates the rules of the Foundation. Perhaps you took an Anomaly home and fed it dinner; perhaps you secretly smuggle pictures of new Anomalies to Ursa Major; perhaps it's you who keeps stealing your Manager's lunch. Whatever it is, you're desperately aware that if you got found out for it you could be fired – or worse – and therefore do everything you can to avoid the truth coming to light (even if that means committing worse crimes…).
Your thing you could get fired for must be firmly within our Acceptable Themes.
You are one of the many instances of Dr G. Miller. You have no reason to believe your right to be the Dr . Miller is any less than any of the other Dr Millers, and have access to the general pooled knowledge that multiple Dr Millers have amassed, but you are under the scrutiny of the Foundation, as well as the scrutiny of other Dr Millers.
You may style your Dr Miller instance however you like – there is no restriction on any aspect of appearance or name beyond a requirement that your name can be distilled down to Dr G. Miller.
It's your first day on the job – congratulations! Sorry we couldn't on board you properly but we needed all hands on deck for this one…
You will arrive at your first event as a brand new Employee without any Authorisation or records set up for you and will have to pick one up in play. This will likely be frustrating, but at the same time you can hardly be blamed if something goes wrong on your watch.
Being new only lasts so long – you will be required to swap this Quirk if you play this Character at future events.
You have been part of the Cross Foundation since you were very young or perhaps since you were born. Perhaps you were born on Foundation activity, or perhaps you were a foundling brought in by someone during an incident. Either way, you don't have a life outside the walls of the Foundation… yet.
Technically you're a member of staff, but unlike most of your “colleagues” you don't leave at the end of the day because, well, you live here. You've lived and breathed Foundation until you were old enough to attend Incidents and that's been your first exposure to the outside world.
All Player Characters must be over the age of 18, so at this point you are able to leave if you want, but expect consequences.
You are, somehow, lucky. When you need to make some sort of random or luck-based draw (such as Tinkering or Surgery) you can always have a do-over. However, Cross Foundation staff know better than to believe in coincidence, and there's almost certainly something deeper going on.
Your body… well, it doesn't work like other people's bodies. It's weird, that's for sure. This works out quite nicely for you, but also if you're even subject to Surgery it will be harder to piece you back together.
Pick one of the following benefits:
Mystery Quirk #1 is a mystery – the Refs know what it is and what it does but you'll have to find out in play if you take it.
We promise it will be fun.
Your Department is on the ball enough to have actually put together a pre-briefing on the latest Incident for you to peruse. At the start of each event you will receive a dossier on your Department's perspective on the Incident that can hopefully give you an edge.
You've been “underperforming”. Whatever that means. Perhaps you know why or perhaps you don't but you're currently on Probation and could lose your job (or worse) if you're found wanting by your Line Manager. That said, your Line Manager is also going to be answerable for why a member of their team couldn't improve if they can't sort things out. During the event, expect an Employee Review.
You are one of the few people who understands that everything that the Cross Foundation writes off as “paranormal” or “anomalous” can be explained away perfectly well with rational and scientific explanation. You're yet to find anything that truly flummoxes you, and though you likely pretend to be on board with all the “spooky” nonsense, you've managed to find a small network of like-minded employees who share their explanations. You'll have access to this resource during the game, but be warned that most of upper management look down on those who refuse to see “what's right in front of them”.
You have an item that you really shouldn't that you took from the office. It's not yours, and it's certainly not signed out on any equipment lists, and you would definitely get in trouble and have it confiscated if your boss found out. But… it's really useful.
Pick an item from the Requisition default catalogue or describe an item that you'd like to have (subject to Ref approval) and you'll have it. It will clearly have Foundation markers on it though, and if you lose it you lose it.
You don't like technology and technology doesn't like you. You can't directly make effective use of anything digital, but also if when it all comes crashing down you'll be safe from any repercussions.
You are prone to having ominous dreams – more kindly referred to as “Visions” or “Unguided Precognition” by the Oracular Manifestations Department – before Incidents occur that give you some insight into the strangeness you're likely to find yourself in. These dreams are sometimes direct or sometimes vague, but at least they're consistent.
You've seen some things that you can't explain. That's part of the job, but where other staff will explain it as “it's anomalous”, you've become convinced it's some sort of “Magic”. This is seen by most as ludicrous, but when you started manifesting powers it didn't seem as wrong. Some people are concerned you're tapping into an unknown anomaly, but as far as you're concerned you've tapped into the real magic of the world.
Pick one of the following:
Where do these powers come from really? Don't worry about it.
Tell us a completely mundane but slightly odd fact about your Character's past. Something they may well never have noticed, or just written off as a coincidence. It's absolutely not a coincidence and the Refs will work that into Plot or active Anomalies.