Rogues' gallery - Trippies

After sending Trey my seeds yesterday I emailed Fenway5 my material for Rogue Transmissions #2, a fuller version of the lost and found item list.

Now that's done, I'll be finishing up and posting rules for a few general factions. They're also aimed at Rogue Space, but should be easy enough to convert to other systems and settings. First up are the transhuman Trippies.

So who are these Trippies then?

Humans of the clade known as the Trippies are squat, strong and bioengineered with a prehensile third leg grown from the lower back, an adaptation to dynamic atmospheres.

And what's that got to do with us?

At the GM's discretion, Trippies may be taken as starting characters and/or be NPCs.

Starting characters: Origin, nature and lifestyle mean around 50% of Trippies have the Technician Archetype, and all have a further +1 Hit Point. The many challenges and the clade rejection mean initial Empathy is -1D3. The GM may allow a finboard or skytrike.

NPC groups: A group may include 1D6 Trippies of up to 1D2 generations; all but 1D3-1 will have a finboard and there will be skytrikes with seating or anchors for all but 1D2-1.

The third leg: A third leg may be used to a) hold or manipulate as if a hand or b) move 50% faster than an average bipedal human. It may be used simultaneously to reroll one die per attack in melee against humanoids, to represent surprise kicks, trips, switches and bracing. If a third leg is badly injured, initial instability modifies all Attributes by -1.

Technologies: Trippies make extensive use of various advanced human technologies, notably anti-gravitics. In many colonies, Trippies are adept riders of tripedal finboards, these often towed by skytrikes; the largest skytrikes mate with interstellar driveframes.

                                                                                                                              

 Finboard, powered*    C -  H -  A -  S -  E  100% [2]  skims: 25' powered or 2 x rider move

                                                                                                                              

 Skytrike, suborbital, random pattern*

 C      16.6%    [1]   Canopod (seating for 1D3 Trippies: 1 rider + 0-2 passengers)

 H      16.6%    [1]   up to 3 Rating points of payload, 1D3+3 finboard line anchor points

 A      16.6%    [1]   C: 1  H: 1  S: 1

 S        50%     [3]   125'

 E        100%     6

                                                                                                                              

* Uses the vehicle construction rules in Rogue Transmissions #1.

But what are they doing here..?

The GM may want to roll below for each starting character or NPC group, who is/are:

1. ... trading, or otherwise seeking or offering skills, services or technology.
2. ... fleeing a threat, prejudice, a discrimination of some form, or far worse.
3. ... asserting a claim, attempting to right a wrong or continuing a vendetta.
4. ... seeking a suitably hazardous landscape to explore, exploit or colonise.
5. ... experimenting, releasing untapped potential or raising consciousness.
6. ... studying, self-engineering or otherwise adapting to this particular site.

As ever, feedback is welcome, but better yet tweak what's here or run with it. If you don't know Rogue Space, my original review is here and the links below lead to more material.

Rogue Space downloads - Rogue Space news

RS@Hereticwerks - @Swords & Stitchery - @Mik's Minis - @TheFairlyUnkempt - @the Expanse

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Symbiogenesis, you and me

Over the weekend I worked on a location for the next in the series, a fallen orbital lodged in bedrock which has produced a strange ecology, but maybe not such an alien one. Looking at symbiosis in evolution, I found this interview with Lynn Margulis, a critical thinker who died last year, but someone who's still changing minds on what life may be.

After Gaia she's most linked with endosymbiosis, the theory that cells fused to make new cells, which is one that made the long journey in from the fringe to the mainstream against the usual resistance. But that's only part of symbiogenesis, the idea symbiotic relationships drive evolution too, with gradual change only part of the truth. She says:

Evolution is no linear family tree, but change in the single multidimensional being that has grown to cover the entire surface of Earth.

That's not core yet, but we're moving that way, even if the vids suggest it will take time.

The first part covers education, and needing to see the sources, plus Carl Sagan, former husband and father of two of her children. In the second things warm up, and the third gets onto the nature of current science and suggests how much there is to understand.

For a sense of why this approach could be so important even beyond big steps forward, just look at the quotes in Science on "the sprawling religious persuasion of Anglo-Saxon Biology" and mainstreamers who "wallow in their zoological, capitalistic, competitive, cost-benefit interpretation of Darwin". More on that here. We may be inside the science.

And that's not all - here's one for gamers and game designers to adapt to our kingdom:

Genuine insight into morphogenesis, the emergence of form ... comes not from computer models but from intimacy with the microscopic and submicroscopic behaviours of living beings.

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Review - Minority Report

What an interesting film this is. I deliberately catch up with big movies and books years after release so it was the first time I'd seen it. I think a delay helps balance the gadgets and gimmicks better with the more subtle themes, and this seems like a film to benefit.

On the whole I enjoyed it. In terms of inspiration it's got lots to take away. The concept and accumulation of detail are impressive, exactly as we'd expect, although for me it's not as profound as it seems to want us to think it is and there's plenty that doesn't work, is too loose, oddly tired or silly, and all the obvious laughs felt somehow out of place.

It does still manage to surprise though, on many levels, and there's a feeling of a natural development despite the railroading, with plenty of observations to make and layers to peel back. I'm still thinking about the construction, the relationships of the characters, the painful ambiguity, especially of the ending, and the very human, honest approach.

Appropriately, given the water theme, it's the immersion in the world that really grabbed me, though more the subjective world or worlds of the central figures than what I saw as a rather uneven near future setting. It also has one of the best shots I can remember in a blockbuster, downstairs at the hotel, 10 to 15 perfectly realised seconds of cinema.

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Shockwaves and drifting

This ties in with three posts - on modelling minefields, the mutant burstworm and space battle drift markers - as well as wider events. It has fiction and some counters.

First the fiction, for Expansion Joints. It has to be 15 words, one of them opening.

Opportunity? Well, it's an opening... But blasted through soft tissues, memories and dreams, chances taken?

In a lot of gaming explosions are taken for granted. As a man in demolition recently put it regarding the Oslo attack "men and boys are interested in gunpowder and bullets and fast cars". The RPG blog Compromise and Conceit has strong thoughts on that insanity.

Of course, the forces in gaming could go beyond outright destruction. On to magnetism maybe, or gravity making a slope more or less easy to climb. There can also be flows, like the water in a river that needs to be forded or the air rushing in a shaft or tunnel.

Recording this might be easier with counters. These have direction of course, and the box means a number can be marked too, predetermined maybe or the result of a roll.

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Oooh, pretty... - Living table (3) - Entries 1-10

I don't know if these crystal cave pics are doing the rounds. If you haven't seen them, they're well worth a look for the wonder as well as inspiration.

The shapes remind me a little of obelisks, most likely because I still have in mind the Obelisk at Dawn scenario for Risus at engine of thwaak and that fallen obelisk terrain tile at NetherWerks.

It got me inspired enough to think about a cave contents table for DM Muse, like Small Creatures and Bodies of Water, but again NetherWerks are on it with their own Cave & Tunnel Hazards.

Then I thought of a table of rocks and crystals, maybe weird ones. Greg's totems for Novarium, explained here, and the post on the jeweller up at the moment at The Tao of D&D have that covered in part, but there's always scope for strange new types.

The idea ties in with the mines posts here too, the intro and nascent list of fictional mines and resources. The material might have effects of some sort, desirable or not, and if mined could impact the local community and area, later the wider world.

Needles deals with the subject in science fantasy with the Fuel Traders of Nimbus IV, maybe as satire. That theme of exploitation is also there in Moon too I remember now, a good film. A Field Guide to Doomsday also posted the borer blimp recently, not to mention back in February the very imaginative quarilla, an organic crystalline blend.

Thinking about those crystals then, here are some ideas to start off a living table.

1. These formations bleed a palpable energy into the surrounding space.
2. These formations absorb energies of all kinds, but whither do they go?
3. These formations are soft to the touch, flexible and strong.
4. These crystals sparkle, but to the rhythm of no light that falls upon them.
5. These crystals leak - no, whisper - the knowledge of aeons.
6. These crystals are hollow, the larger forming the passages of a strange network.
7. These structures are growing visibly, branching and filling the space.
8. The structures seem to convey something - are they a vast communications grid?
9. These structures extend filaments into rock and flesh alike, growing on within.
10. The pillars here support the world, perhaps even... Yes, even the fabric of reality...

I've just added all of these to DM Muse and they should be up soon. It's a living table, which means anyone can add new entries - if you have a good idea, don't hold back.

Update: How about treating that crack on Talysman's latest geomorph as a crystal?

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Hello, little beastie... - Living table (1) - Entries 74-80

If you read my recent post on spectral creatures, you might have thought of something I didn't, that the ideas would make good entries for the table of small creature concepts.

You can find the full table here at DM Muse, ready for rolling. It's a living table, meaning anyone can add entries. There are 11 living tables so far, and new can easily be started.

Here are the latest seven then, making 80 in total.

1. This creature exists in this particular stream of light and will defend itself by striking at the visual organs of any individual observing it.
2. This creature inhabits the current light conditions at this specific location, and as the conditions change, it will follow, vanishing if they cease to exist; if an observer can manoeuvre closer, roll again on this table, treating the same result as the creature transferring to another set of these conditions elsewhere.
3. This creature exists only at the edge of sight, and maintaining it in the peripheral vision requires concentration; any individual approaching will seem to move to the edge of sight too, and if such an approach is made, roll again on this table.
4. This creature appears to exist within a reflective surface, such as a mirror, window or puddle, which is in fact a portal of some kind; if physical contact is attempted, roll again on this table, with the same result indicating the individual attempting physical contact is drawn through the portal.
5. This creature ordinarily inhabits the shadow of the individual discovering it, but has become briefly disoriented; it will attempt immediately to reenter the shadow; if prevented, the individual will undergo minor personality changes.
6. This docile creature navigates darkness by emitting light from an unusual organ.
7. This creature is in fact a colony of sparks of light inhabiting a precious stone.

I've added them to DM Muse, so they'll be visible a little later. Go ahead and add more.

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Ravelling yarns (4) - A-Z | Just a man

Here is the repost I mentioned, of the series for the A to Z Blogging Challenge 2011.

The idea was to put up a post every day in April except Sundays, the theme of each inspired by a letter of the alphabet, from A on the first day to Z on the last. Mine were short fragments of a larger narrative adding to the ravelling yarns near future setting.

I've arranged them in order, with the duplication of linking lines gone, although there is still some repetition in the content, written in to make reading the serialisation easier.

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Hello, little beastie... - Living table (1) - Entries 51-70

A few more entries for the Small Creatures table here at the Expanse and over at DM Muse. They're ideas for small creatures in gaming and writing, non-system-specific.

There are 20 more, making 70 in total. Again, rolling a D70 isn't practical, but DM Muse can do the random bit. Remember, this is a living table, meaning you can add to it.

1. As a defence, this creature expands to immense size; if an attempt is made at capture or harm, it will deflate, releasing a cloud of noxious gas.
2. This elongated creature is slow-moving and muscular, and will attempt to constrict a nearby organism if ignored.
3. This creature is magnetic and exerts a strong pull on metal items.
4. As a defence, this creature produces a flash of light through its outer tissues.
5. This creature is able to focus any light falling on its body, and will defend itself by unleashing a blast of as much heat as it can muster by this means.
6. This creature has a terrifying appearance likely to cause shock upon discovery.
7. This ornately-horned or tusked creature attempts to gore any perceived threats.
8. This creature has a fungal biology and will release spores upon discovery; these will produce rapidly-maturing offspring in clothing and among possessions at a later date, at which point roll again on this table for the nature they exhibit.
9. This creature secretes a lubrication making it extremely difficult to grip.
10. This multipedal creature will respond to danger by fixing itself to the ground with its sharp claws.
11. This telepathic creature will attempt to plant suggestions in the minds of nearby organisms, encouraging its support and protection.
12. This insubstantial creature will attempt to possess the body of a nearby organism, and will be difficult to evict once in.
13. This creature is covered in a great mass of silken hair, which it will shed and attempt to abandon unnoticed; if pursued, roll again on this table, treating the same result as no additional effect.
14. This creature has the ability to pass through solid materials; if approached, it will do so, leaving an opening icy to the touch.
15. This flying creature catapults away when discovered to circle or hover far overhead, remaining there for some time, a sign for all able to read it.
16. This creature is in fact mechanical, a collection of highly advanced technologies; if approached, roll twice more on this table to determine its immediately notable systems.
17. This shapeshifting creature is able to mimic the appearance of other organisms, even those of greatly differing size, and defends itself by duplicating a threat.
18. As a defence, this creature will break itself down into increasingly small component organisms which scatter in every direction.
19. This creature is in fact a vehicle for another; if approached, roll again on this table, treating the same result as immediate emergence; upon emergence, also brought about through the death of the vehicle or attempts at friendly communication, roll once again to determine the nature of the pilot.
20. This highly-intelligent creature controls a network of other creatures spanning a vast area; if threatened, it will call upon them, at which point roll again on this table for each new arrival to determine its nature.

I've fed them in at DM Muse, but it may take a little while for them to appear. If you want to add your own ideas, or even a completely new table, go right ahead.

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They call him Swarm Breaker

So we now have snakes, beetles, spiders, ants, gigapedes and worms, both large and small, and some of these not even fully in our reality.

Humanspace really isn't looking like a space for humans who are squeamish.

Unless, born of a stray NetherWerks comment at the home blog ix, you find the man they call...

Suwár 'Debugger' Tar, 'Swarm Breaker'

An arachno-mutant turned from the hive, now a renowned underworld hire.

Born on the post-apocalyptic world of Hogintu, Suwár was adopted young by nekrobra smugglers when he showed an exceptional talent for charming. He was attacked on a run by space spiders and partially transformed, serving his arachnoid masters loyally before a dimensional distortion brought about by an unrecorded weapons test severed the connection. Discovered by a super-scientific explorer team, he was interned in a research establishment, before escaping into the underworld with other test subjects.

Hello, little beastie... - Living table (1) - Entries 31-50

Here are some more entries for the Small Creatures table at the Expanse and DM Muse. They're ideas for using wee beasties in gaming and writing, non-system-specific.

There are 20 extra, making a total of 50. Rolling a D50 isn't practical, but DM Muse can handle that. The tables are alive so you can add your own ideas.

There are two more tables up now as well, Nasty Mutations and Stronghold Favors, nine altogether. If you want to create a completely new table of your own, you can.

I've also added a small creature to the 'blog your own adventure' project. The scene is here, and the beginning of the adventure here. I'll write a later instalment today...

C'nor at Lunching at Lamias has also combined a few rolls on the table to create some more complex creatures, which you can find here.

And re tables, check this out - some ideas there for the What's in the Tome project. Desert Scribe also has this fun table for non-critical hit damage in starship combat.

The new entries then.

Diddly Squat?

Most of us with an interest have probably noticed the rumour by now, and Bell of Lost Souls has just put it out for a much wider audience too. The suggestion is the Squats might finally be coming back to Warhammer 40,000. It's been a while.

Read this post at The Veil's Edge - from Tuesday - for an important idea, that bloggers are responsible. In this sense there's been little doubt for a while now the Squats will return in some form. I do disagree with one point though, that this rumour feels right.

For me what makes it seem like a rather crude joke, or an exaggeration on the part of the quoted source, is the idea they might have battle axes and be intoxicated. Yep, you read that right. If the impression given all those years ago was that GW wanted more than dwarves in space, why would they go back to the idea? This is the popular, comic image of the Squats, embellished in the telling over years, not the expected Demiurg.

I think the design studio at least would want to justify the anger and bitterness caused and give us a fuller development, and we ought to expect no less as older and hopefully more mature people. While it may be wonderful to see the Jokaero back, today's idea seems little more than a short step from the original concept. From the point of view of design, it can't have been much work. No one is really challenged by the new Jokaero. We got a surprise; GW earnt some kudos. But surely two decades ought to bring more?

PROTOSTARS!

It's been a while since the last PROTOSTAR! so here's another blog I think deserves many more followers than it has, a blog with a simple concept but a very high quality.

It's A Field Guide To Doomsday, home of some very odd creatures, designed for Mutant Future, but excellent inspiration for any setting in terms of likely characteristics.

The blog is mostly one pulp mutant per post, often a hybrid of existing creatures. Especially interesting for me - although admittedly rather horrific - are the mantipede, shockroach and brainwhale, perhaps for seeming just a little more believable.

Another good generic idea, for all kinds of fictional settings, and one I assume is less of a hybrid, is the dunestrider.

The verman is something - or maybe someone - Warhammer fans might recognise as a distant relative of a Skaven, while the labwrath both of them would want to watch out for.

Here's one of the posts which break this pattern, one for the modellers in particular, featuring a girantula made almost real. The 'Designer's notes' tag has more on good sources.

The latest post is also in this vein, a couple of links on real-life apocalyptic scenarios and contamination. Here's a quote from the first of the two, an article in The New York Times:

"It is a very grim read," Mr. Younkins said. "This is for potentially very grim situations in which difficult decisions have to be made."

That, beyond the vivid colours, is a A Field Guide To Doomsday too.


The earlier PROTOSTARS! are also well worth a visit.

• ix
• Confessions of a 40K addict
• Super Galactic Dreadnought
• Fire Broadside!
• Blighty Waaagh Boys, including the intro to the series 

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From 3D to ?siD

I've been pondering the subject of psychic powers and magic. Here's an odd and possibly even horrifying look at how they might work.

To understand the idea we need to think about the differences between 2D and 3D. Imagine a 2D world, strung across the room you're now in and perfectly immaterial. Imagine tiny 2D lifeforms getting on with their lives inside, moving across the surface and around each other of course because they can't go over or under.

Now imagine you step up to that flat world and make contact with the very tip of your finger. What's that going to look like from their point of view? Maybe an area of their world fills with an alien material, and friends and colleagues vanish.

Keep pushing and as the finger widens from the tip, the area of destruction in their world widens, and more bystanders are lost. If the world isn't perfectly immaterial, some of those individuals might even get pushed out of their world, either on or in your finger. What would happen if you blew on the world? Or sneezed?

Ravelling yarns (3) - Ten thousand worlds

Another snippet in the 'ravelling yarns' series. The first is here, the second here, but there's nothing you need catch up on.

This time round the musical inspiration is a track I've linked to before, Dātura, which I labelled back then "for all the possible presents". Since that time, with all the thinking here on information, the discussion of portals and the attempt at the scope of fiction, I've seen 'present' is a very open idea. With this in mind the song is used now for a possible future.

As before, I do recommend listening before reading, and listening right the way through for the change in mood.

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Ravelling yarns (2) - Find your kind

Today a strange story, the second in the 'ravelling yarns' series. The first is here.

It won't be to everyone's taste, but if you've not disliked the recent posts,
you might not dislike this.
It's tongue in cheek as ever, and based on lessons being learnt at the feet of the great ideasmiths in the blogrolls on the left-hand side.

I'll avoid infodumps, despite agreeing with Kim Stanley Robinson, quoted today at Strange Horizons.

The inspiration came especially from the discussion still running at Ecumenical Monday, Olaf Stapledon's Star Maker and a chance listening to Johnny Cash's cover of Redemption Day and Arcade Fire's Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains). I strongly recommend you listen to both of these before reading, and best of all in this order.

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Big beasts

I don't do politics here, and definitely not party politics, but this post at Gene Expression hits above the belt. Can it be true?

If it is, I have a funny feeling I'm so conservative I'm actually liberal. Which is to say I'm so liberal I'm conservative. The spectrum's really a colour wheel after all. If not a sphere. Or a hypersphere.

We are large, we contain multitudes.

Sleigh bells and whistles

I've held off for long enough.

If you have an interest in the physics of Santa Claus - not just that physique - then Science In My Fiction has an article for you.

Wondering how he'd look to an Inquisitor in the 41st millennium? Possibly the definitive answer is set out at Warhammer 39,999 in a humorous text of mysterious origin.

Also for fans of 40K - and anyone with a hand in worldbuilding - the trusty Just_Me at Bell of Lost Souls has an interesting article up, on holidays in the Imperium.

And as if that were not enough, the long-awaited Killzone update has finally arrived at Galaxy in Flames - forget the presents under the tree!

There are also more Christmas gifts waiting for you at various generous blogs.

Titillation red and pink

If your mind is still out on the red planet, Secure Immaturity has a review today of Total Recall. He's revisiting the work of Paul Verhoeven, and also covered Robocop recently. Yep, that means more nudity, and ultra-violence now too. But also sympathy for mutants. It needs mature reflection.


On the subject of nudity, I've been reflecting as maturely as I can. What follows some may find uncomfortable or even offensive - if so, skip this and the next eight paragraphs.