Unofficial wiki & guide
Zero Parades Wiki
For Dead Spies — ZA/UM's espionage CRPG
The unofficial guide to Zero Parades: all 15 operant skills, the fatigue / anxiety / delusion stress system, dramatic encounters, characters, factions, items, and the world of Portofiro — everything you need for CASCADE's return.
New here? Start with these.
For new operants
Start here
Meet CASCADE
Hershel Wilk. Burned five years ago. Recalled to Portofiro to find out what put PSEUDOPOD in a coma.
Index
Browse all 15 skills
Coordination, Cold Read, Grey Matter — every skill across Action, Relation, and Intellect.
Index
Browse known Thoughts
The Conditioning system: Thoughts Hershel can internalize. Four documented so far, more on the way.
Gear
The Operant Toolkit
Your kit in the field: cipher, lockpicks, camera. What each module unlocks and where to find the upgrades.
Main task
What's Wrong, PSEUDOPOD?
The main thread. Reconstruct your double's last 48 hours and find what the red disc did to him.
World
Step into Portofiro
The island city-state where the game opens. Quisach, the Bootleg Bazaar, Foto 24.
Featured characters
The operants, controls, and ghosts in CASCADE's network.
CASCADE Hershel Wilk
Protagonist / burned operant
PSEUDOPOD PSEUDOPOD
Operant Bureau control
TAXMAN Tempo del Sur
Whole Sick Crew
KINDRED Karolina Hayato
Whole Sick Crew
RADIAN Ramses Molloy
Whole Sick Crew
VIRTUE Vespar Sondo
Whole Sick Crew
ESTOC Ezsti Newitz
Whole Sick Crew
TV HOST Subcomandante Bagman
Conspiracy broadcaster
Factions of the Developed World
All factions →Superbloc
The Supreme Union of Proletarian Republics. Hershel's side. Sort of.
La Luz
Officially the Illuminated Empire. The other side of the cold war.
EMTERR
L'Empire Sans Terretoire. The Bank. The world's biggest investment bank, third power.
Operant Bureau
The Opera. Superbloc intelligence. Hershel's former employer, current handler.
Weeping Eye
La Luz's secret police. They watch the operants who think they're watching them.
Whole Sick Crew
Hershel's burned Portofiro network. The friends she has to find and figure out.
Illuminated Empire
La Luz's official name. The neon, the cars, the surface optimism.
Sixty-Six Wolves
A globally popular Luzian cartoon. Sixty-six collectible cups. A side quest you will finish.
The Bank
EMTERR by another name. Pays everyone. Owns nothing. Or so it claims.
The world
Collectible set
The Wolf Cup collection
Six of the 66 collectible Sixty-Six Wolves cups, hidden across Quisach. One full set unlocks the Collect Them All task.
Preset builds
The three opening hands the game offers you. Pick one for your first run; respec later.
Coordination first
Kinetic
Hands solve it before the mouth does. Starter skill: Coordination, the Action-faculty workhorse.
Personalism first
Charismatic
Win in conversation. Starter skill: Personalism, the Relation-faculty headliner.
Grey Matter first
Analytical
Let the world leak details. Starter skill: Grey Matter, the Intellect-faculty engine.
Tasks & missions
All tasks →What's Wrong, PSEUDOPOD?
The main thread. Figure out what happened to your control.
Collect Them All
Six of the 66 Sixty-Six Wolves plastic cups, scattered around Quisach.
King of Trade
An escaped monkey runs a barter shop on the second floor of an abandoned pet store.
A Gift for Duchess
A favor for the matriarch. The kind you can't cleanly refuse.
Loose Ends
The Whole Sick Crew didn't leave clean exits. Tidy them.
Check Out the Aerial Creep
Something is wrong above Quisach. Someone has to look up.
Browse everything
Skills
1515 skills, 3 faculties.
Thoughts
4Conditioning ideas that rewrite Hershel.
Items
37Clothing, consumables, key items.
Characters
53Operants, NPCs, the Whole Sick Crew.
Factions
15Powers of the Developed World.
Locations
8Portofiro, Quisach, and beyond.
Tasks
8Main and side missions.
Nationalities
5Mircean, Luzian, Tsunese, Kohila, Rustamian.