Campaign encounter: unscrupulous reality traveler trying to make a buck...

[Isamu Dyson]

How would a near-future gadgeteer that travels to a more primitive alternate reality/timeline (we're talking the dawn of the Age of Sail here) protect themselves while offering their services to a government?

Do they simply need strength of arms, or is something more complex necessary?

[mucat]

Depends what technology their near-future world affords them, I guess.

Protection against unfamiliar diseases and parasites would be a key thing.

For protection against hostile animals and people...small, unobtrusive weapons that wouldn't look like weapons to the locals are useful. Light but effective body armor -- ceramic is probably better than kevlar against primitive weapons; force fields are better yet if they exist in his/her home timeline.

Finally, a way to bug out quickly if things go bad. What technology brought the traveler here in the first place...and can it be used for rapid escapes? A panic button to teleport/world shift/timeskip quickly out of danger would be a great help...with a dead man's switch to use in dicey situations, or better yet, an automated trigger. "If my heart stops or my blood pressure drops sharply, zap me instantly to a trauma center in an advanced timeline."

[Isamu Dyson]

For clarity's sake: they're not trying to hide the fact that they're a foreigner in more than one sense of the word.

Also, their access to technology (outside of dimension travel) is about what goes for the most advanced hardware in the Shadowrun-verse. Basically...advanced cyberpunk equivalent.

[Acatalepsy]

For clarity's sake: they're not trying to hide the fact that they're a foreigner in more than one sense of the word.

Also, their access to technology (outside of dimension travel) is about what goes for the most advanced hardware in the Shadowrun-verse. Basically...advanced cyberpunk equivalent.

The best way for them to protect themselves is by surprising the locals with what they know; intelligence is your best friend, and you don't need to advertise all of your capabilities. I'm thinking bugs here - if you can bug the local ruler (concealed inside some jewelry, perhaps?) and know what he's planning, that's a good way to avoid getting shanked, Red Wedding-style. Thermal vision, a small, quiet UAV flying overwatch together make ambushes problematic; there are ways to defeat such things, but the locals aren't likely to know them.

In terms of direct defenses, stab-proof underlayers are the way to go, ideally underneath more locally produces armor, or convincing replicas built with superior materials (there are companies that do that sort of thing, but you have to be careful you're not getting what amounts to an expensive prop).

Protection from diseases (in the form of vaccines, antibiotics, etc) is critical.

If they're exceptionally paranoid, dealing only through intermediaries (again using bugs and tracking technology to verify that they're not being cheated) is even more safe, but also it's difficult to make work.

Given how difficult travel is, it's probably safer to pretend to be a foreigner from some place that the locals know about, than to pretend to be local when you're not. If I wanted to get noticed in Age of Sail Spain, I'd pretend to be from India or the Middle East.

[Slipperychicken]

He's going to need to power and maintain all his gear, plus replace ammunition.

Also, I would totally bring a mono-whip there just to freak people out and make them think I'm magic.