[ Mutant Monday ] The Origin of Eygg Part 2

 Professor Zunlin looked at the holographic scan of the strange eggs.  Zap, one of many research androids, adjusted a control.  "Professor two of the eggs are viable, and will hatch soon.  They are very strange humanoids of some sort."

"Okay Zap, lets put one into cryogenic storage, and lets get the other one into an incubator.  We will of course do sme genetic modifications...."  Looking at a monitor the Professor let out a sigh.  "Appears to be some chromosomal damage from the radiation.  There will be mutations, but hopefully we can counteract those with genetic modification.  Okay Zap lets get busy."

Zap put one of the eggs in cryogenic storage as the Professor took the egg to the gene lab.  "Oh what a glorious day!  Another specimen to experiment on!"  The Professor had no idea that the post apocalypse would be such fun.

***

50 years later....

The Professor lar in the medical pod.  Eygg saw that he was having difficulty breathing as he slept.  His eyes opened, and turned his head, looking at Eygg.  "Eygg, I have lived a long time, and I fear I do not have much time left.  I'm having the androids put me back in cyro-stasis.  At least until the Ai finds a way to extend my life further."

"What will I do without you Professor?"  Fear creeped into his mind, and he tugged nervously at one of horns.

"The outside world is dangerous, but you may need to go gather supplies, or get replacement equipment.  Whatever is needed to aid the research androids.  You have plenty of equipment and vehicles; as well as your abilities."

Zap walked up quietly.  "Professor the chamber is prepared.  Are you ready?"

Coughing, the Professor nodded his head yes.  He looked at Eygg again.  The creature had kept him company since hatching, and proved to be highly intelligent.  "Eygg don't be sad.  Good bye for now..."

The medical pod followed Zap, floating silently down the hall  Eygg didn't follow, standing silently, and shuddering, a single tear rolling down his cheek.
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[ Mutant Monday ] The Origin of Eygg Part 1

 Zuhla quickly placed straw in the basket,  grabbing one of the many Kobold eggs in this years clutch; she jumped when she heard the cries of anguish from her brethren.  Grabbing more straw, then another egg she knew time was growing short.  Other members of the tribe were doing the same; while the warriors tried to slow the foul humans bent on destroying them.

Managing to fit only three eggs in the basket she winced when a human entered the egg chamber holding a torch, and a sword.  Time to leave.  "Flee my sisters!"  Running onto a dark tunnel she heard the human scream.  "Destroy all the eggs!"

Navigating easily in the dark, she found another tunnel, one she had never been in before.  Running she was soon lost in the deep cavern, however she knew she could survive.  Slowing to walk, she tried to get her bearings.  Hoping the others had escaped, she trudged onward.

Soon she found herself in what looked like a dwarven hallway, but long since abandoned.  Walking carefully down the tunnel, and wary of traps; she heard something growl behind her.  Not looking back she ran again, and found the hallway leading into a large room.

In the center of the room was an archway that glowed.  She had heard rumors of such things, and wondered if it was magic. A way out?  She ran through it....

Everything went black.  She tingled all over, and then nothing.  Awakening, she panicked.  Where were the eggs?  She sat up, and saw the basket beside her.  The eggs seemed intact.  Looking around, and shuddering the air  she breathed seemed odd, and she felt sick.  She was in the ruins of some strange, ruined city.

Zuhla expelled the contents of her last meal, and laying down, clutching the basket; she took her last breath, as the radiation ravaged the last of her life from her body

***.

Research android Zeta Alpha 22 scanned the area.  "Professor, I have found a corpse.  It matches no known life forms.  There are also three eggs.  Instructions?"

"What do you think Zap?  Bring the corpse and eggs back to the compound, and quickly.  Take the necessary precautions."

"Instructions received Professor." Zeta Alpha 22 extremely disliked the nickname the professor had given him.  It wasn't proper protocol.  Zap loaded the corpse and eggs onto the cargo platform, following all biohazard precautions.

Ancient Art

 

I have been working on cleaning and organizing my work space and I found this piece of ancient art.  I am really surprised it has survived this long.  It was drawn on a scrap piece of paper with a black felt tip pen.  This drawing has to be nearly 50 years old; if not older.  I thought I would post it on this blog because it has a very Gamma World vibe to it.  I laughed at the minimal landscape.  I'm not sure if I already had Gamma World when I drew this, but who knows?  I was always drawing weird stuff.

I hope everyone is having a good weekend.  Taake care, stay healthy, and happy gaming..

A Kobold in the 25th Century

 I'm on something of a Gamma World kick, and my next NPC mutant creation will be from the AD&D Monster Manual.  I was flipping through the pages, and thought maybe a Gnoll would be good, but decided on a Kobold.  Why?  I don't know.  Just seemed to be a  good choice.

Then I was wondering how the Kobold arrived in a post apocalyptic, largely irradiated Earth?  Did the Kobold stumble through a Planaar Travel door that suddenly appeared in the cavern?  Maybe a wizards spell gone awry, or a magical portal?  Decisions, decisions....

The hapless Kobold arrives on Earth, in a irradiated area, and he is exposed to radiation.  Would the Kobold survive and possibly be mutated? The monstrous races in the AD&D Monster Manual have no stats like PCs so I decided on a Constitution of 10;  as they are a particularly frail race, having only one to four hit points. 

So this dimensionally displaced Kobold has arrived on Earth, and in a radioactive area.  I randomly roll the intensity of the radiation, and roll a 10.  Referencing the radiation intensity level versus the Kobold's constitution, the result is a D, which means it has an 80% chance of death, and if it survives; it will end up with a defect.   The defect appears a week later.   The chance that the Kobold will get a good mutation are very low. 

After a couple of days of wandering the wastelands the Kobold arrives in another irradiated area with a radiation intensity of 3.  The Kobold takes 4d6 of damage.  The poor Kobold doesn't even live long enough to get the mutational defect.

It could have arrived in a non-irradiated zone, but the point of this exercise was to create a mutant Kobold.  Yes of course I could have just rolled one up, but I like to play "what if...", or more accurately "how did this happen?".  I needed a good backstory. So as I was reading the Kobold description; inspiration hit, and I came up with an idea, which I think is good, but that's for a later post.

Mutant Monday - [ Gamma World 1E Character ] Meelar the Hunter

Meelar's stomach rumbled as he poked a pile of loose rubble with his club.  He saw some of the rubble start to slide down, and a creatures head appeared.  He stepped back raising his weapon, but with surprising quickness more of the creatures body shot out of the pile, biting down on his forearm, and held on.  Screaming he swing his club, hitting the beast on it's head.  It appeared unfazed.

More of the creature slithered out of the pile and began wrapping it's long body around his.  Meelar knew he had better act fast.  He extended one of his tentacles to the front of the creatures face and expelled the gas, which would render it motionless.

Soon the snake like creature stopped moving, but he had to pry the head off.  It had to large fangs which dripped with poison.  Looking closer at the creature he noticed it was very long, and covered in fur; which once skinned and prepared could used for trade or any number of things, and if edible the snake would provide the village with quite a few meals.  However it would take a few helpers to get the creature back to the village; which thankfully wasn't too far away.

Description

Meelar the Hunter is a humanoid, of average height, and not quite 2 meters tall.  His body is fairly muscular, and covered in scars. He has two large, spikey horns on his head, and because of this he can't wear normal helmets.  His hair is long and black.  He has two tentacles that originate on his elbows, and they can extend to about a meter long, but aren't as strong as his normal arms.  The paralysis gas is expelled from an opening at the end of the tentacles.  His clothes consist of a simple brown tunic and sturdy pants.  He has leather boots.

Meelar lives in a small village, but spends most of his time hunting or scavenging and is gone for days at a time.

Meelar the Hunter

  3 Mental Strength  ( The original roll was 13 but lowered due to a mental defect. )
11 Intelligence
16 Dexterity
  9 Charisma
16 Constitution
14 Physical Strength

Armor Class 6 ( Cured Hide )

Meelar has a nice set of stats; except for his Mental Strength.

Physical Mutations

Gas Generation - Musk ( Paralysis Gas )
New Body Parts

When I rolled Gas Generation  I was kind of meh about it, but stuck with the roll.  I decided on a paralysis gas, and given the vague description would have to house rule it.  It does give a range of 10 meters.  I decided the paralysis would last 5d20 melee rounds modified by the targets Constitution  If they are paralyzed more than 4 minutes I decided that a Constitution Savings Throw would be required to prevent death; because this is a total paralysis and the diaphragm or any other muscles, not even the heart are working.  

The description of new body parts is vague ( as are a lot of the mutations descriptions ), and says the mutant gets one or more new body parts/  I thought about only giving him one, but thought it was kind of boring.  So I decided a character would have one to three extra body parts, with and a chance for an extra one for every defect the character has.  After all, not all new body parts are that useful.  So I rolled a d4, and and Meelar ended up with four new body parts.

Deciding on the body parts was difficult, but I finally came up with them.

He has two large spikey horns on his forehead.  If he uses them in combat they can do various amounts of damage.  A swipe does 1d6, a headbutt can do 2d6, and if moves at least half his movement ( a ram ), he does 3d6 of damage.

Two tentacles originate from his elbows.  I counted these as two parts.  The paralysis gas is expelled from the end of one or both tentacles.  The tentacles can extend up to a meter in length, but they have half of his Physical Strength - 7.

His fourth and final body part is an internal organ that neutralizes venom and poison.

Mental Mutations

Will Force
Reflection
Mental Defenseless (D)

Will Force is cool, but Meelar doesn't have many abilities to double the effect of, and decided, because it says it doubles any ability, that he could use it to double either the range or duration of his gas attack.

Reflection is well described, but I wondered how Will Force would affect it?  I decided it would double the amount of damage dice reflected back at the attacker.  So on the first melee round he could reflect 6 dice of f=damage instead of 3.  So if the melee lasted 20 turns Meelar could reflect up to 40 disce of damage back.

His only defect is Mental Defenseless which makes him very susceptible to mental attacks.

Equipment he carries on a hunting trip.

Bow
12 arrows
Slug thrower 
10 bullets
Leather Gloves
Ceramic Hunting Knife
Club ( aluminum baseball bat )
Cured hide armor
Plastic water bottle ( Holds one liter )
One weeks rations ( Dried meat, dried fruit, and bread. )
25 Domars 
2 Acclera Dose ( Restores 1d10 hit points. )
Leather backpack

At the village he lives in a stone building, which has a fireplace, small bed, table and chairs.  Hidden underneath the wooden floor he has another 100 Domars in a metal box, which also holds a few, small colorful stones he has collected, and 2 doses of Mind Booster.

He has a few cooking pans and utensils, a spare metal hunting knife, a wooden club hangs by the door.

***

Normally I wouldn't put so much detail into a NPC, but it was fun, and I thought Meelar would be a major NPC, and possibly a follower of a PC.   At first I wasn't too happy with the gas generation, but as I wrote about Meelar and made it a paralyzing gas, it went well his vocation.  It makes hunting a little easier.

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Gamma World 1st Edition

 Gamma World was ( I believe ) the second RPG I had bought as a teenager.  It was a fun game, and me and brother spent hours rolling up characters, and occasionally just picking the mutations we wanted.  We were both comic book readers and wanted to recreate the superheroes we liked best, which was impossible when rolling randomly on the tables; so we just ended up picking the mutations we wanted, and since the descriptions were sometimes vague; we tweaked the effects.  It was great fun role-playing a wasteland wandering Spider-man. 

I had sold my original copy of Gamma World a few years ago, but earlier this year I bought another copy.  I've been reading it, and noticing how wonky some of the mutation descriptions are, and a few of can give you VERY odd results.  So I plan on doing a retro-review and in depth analysis of the first edition rules.

I will also be working on a new campaign, and hopefully can find some players for a one-shot or extended campaign.  Of course I will probably be tweaking a lot of the character generation rules, and mutations.  Or maybe not....

Anyway, I hope everyone is having a great day. Stay safe and healthy.  I'm off to roll up some mutants. 

11 years later?

It's been a very long time since I made a post on this blog; 11 years, maybe a little longer.  Where did the time go?  Into the past I guess....

Anyway a lot has happened in the past 11 years,  and the last couple of years have been nuts, but if you are reading this you know. 

Anyway, I was reading an old post and checked a link to discover it went to a sketchy, adult oriented website so I fixed it.  I'm not sure how it happened, but I'm glad the original resource website was still available.

Anyway, hopefully I can get motivated to blog more.

Until next time, stay safe and be well.