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1.1 Introduction

This is the SLA Industries FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions). SLA is the techno-horror role-playing game originally released by Nightfall Games Ltd. This FAQ has been created to answer those questions which are frequently asked about the game. This FAQ also includes the game erratas as well as some of the system queries that can arise. This FAQ is unofficial and any queries about its content should be directed to the webmaster.

1.2 Game Background

For over 900 years, the universe known as the World of Progress has been ruled by SLA Industries (SLA is pronounced "Slay", not "Ess-Ell-Ay"). Keeping a close check on growth and expansion, the vast corporation oversees the gigantic open market. All possible goods are produced by SLA Industries, from food and housing to guns, drugs and luxury toys. Its customers are the planets and societies of the World of Progress, and its sole owner is the immortal company director, Mr. Slayer. Free thought is discouraged, information is suppressed and curiosity is not a survival trait. SLA Industries has a lot of skeletons in its past, and Mr. Slayer would like them to stay there.

The capital of the World of Progress is Mort City on the planet Mort, a roughly circular sprawl some two thousand kilometres in diameter. The planet Mort is similarly vast; the city is all but lost in the expanses of the factory wastelands, blasted test areas and warped production zones that cover the globe. It is also totally dead. Pollution killed all natural life long ago. The same pollution also destroyed the atmospheric system. The planet is always wrapped in thick, black clouds. The rain never stops. Never. Mort is the black jewel in the tarnished crown known as the World of Progress. A city where serial killing and prime-time carnage are the best career options. The heart of SLA Industries.

Mr. Slayer's office building dominates SLA corporate HQ, set in the gleaming splendour of the district known as Central. Only SLA's corporate employees and Operatives can be found here. Elsewhere, the grimy civilians walk nervously through the revolting, labyrinthine streets of Downtown and the nightmarish spaces beneath. Outside the city walls lurk the hellish Cannibal Sectors, terrifying areas of devastation packed with deadly, loathsome inhabitants.

For you, the Operative, it's just like the adverts. You're a hero, a media darling, climbing the ladder to the top. Doing well in the World of Progress means following Mr. Slayer's Big Picture and oh, what a picture it is! Life is so "pleasant" for the bulk of the population that SLA have employed you as part of their special troubleshooting forces. There are millions of you for Mort City alone, elite agents trusted to make sure that everything runs smoothly, and the Company doesn't get... embarrassed.

The capital of SLA Industries is resplendent in its decaying glory, a planet where a frantic struggle to survive is the only way of life. Life is cheap here; knowledge may cost you more than you can possibly imagine.

1.3 Product Background

SLA Industries was created by Dave Allsop, and written with Jared Earle, Anne Boylan and Morton T. Smith (along with many others) in 1993 in Glasgow, Scotland. Shortly followed by the supplement Karma it was heralded as one of the best first-time RPG's to be released by a British company.