Nuclear Echoes (human version)
Let me think. If I do drop the "furry" aspect of the game (and honestly, while I'd originally hoped that I'd encounter enough furry-fan support to push me through it, it hasn't materialized), what would be different?
Hm...
- Every Ranger gets a Geiger... a plain metal disc implanted in their skin somewhere, usually on an arm. This tingles in the presence of radioactivity, getting hotter and hotter and finally becoming outright painful when in the presence of dangerous levels of radioactivity. This would replace the whole Radiation-Sense thing.
- The only non-human PCs in the basic game are Dogs... descendants of the C.A.A.P. dogs from the Companion Animal Augmentation Program. Some of them wear garments and ornaments to openly proclaim their intelligence (important, because there are tons of unintelligent, normal dogs around, too), but they can shed them to pretend to be normal dogs if necessary. They get extraordinary bonuses to smell & listen sense tests (they can actually track foes by scent) and can run faster than humans. They tend to be crippled by a lack of hands, of course, but they often have psychic powers to make up for it. They are also really good at communicating with normal dogs and wolves, pretty much getting a "speak with animals" ability at it. Breeding with normal dogs is forbidden, but does occur sometimes.
- The intelligent dogs are commonly called "Capse." This is a corruption of C.A.A.P., but very few folks know that except for Channelers.
- The basic game could even make a Dog some special ally you buy, with optional rules for playing one as a PC.
- Other uplifted animal races (such as humanoid Hyenas and Harpies) might exist, but would be dangerous enemies living outside of the Verde.
- People still worship the Goddess, but she might need a better name than "All-Mother", dunno.
- The Oracles and Caretakers are still around... but racial distinctions are much less common.
- Rules for Mutant Freaks allows for the occasional weirdo, and I might write up some sort of ogre-like mutants (big & dumb) that are common and might breed true.
- Horses would be expensive, but present and would serve their usual purpose as animal steeds.
- The Goddess didn't "create" the humans (although She does claim responsibility for their original creation, millions of years ago); rather She came to save them from the Shadows after the Last War wiped almost everyone out.
They'd still have many enemies.
- Various Echoes that possess folks, particularly Malignants.
- The alien monsters from the south that follow the Blight (a good source for slime monsters as well as howler-like predators).
- The occasional Malignant-possessed robot Exterminator.
- The assymetrical psychotic robots known as [Mechanical] Horrors.
- Primitive Beast-folk, like Harpies, Kukukuk and Hyenas. Should they be optional?
- Rebels, heretics and general outlaws, bandits and nogoodniks.
In retrospect, the rule for Malignants shouldn't be "kill"... while poignant, it loses the whole moral quandries part... it would be better if the Rangers are expected to judge whether it's better to try and rescue the victim or just kill them. And in areas where there are recurrent possessions, something must be wrong that's causing rampant negative emotions for the Shadow to hook onto... can they fix it?
Let's see... some possible moral quandries...
- Trying to save folks possessed by dangerous spirits or just killing them. Killing them doesn't always help, because if whatever negative emotion they latch onto is present in multiple folks in the area, they generally just jump to a new host.
- Judging various bandits, rebels and heretics. Here there is a huge amount of leeway, because the Caretakers only really care about decisive leadership, not justice. Screwing it up can leave lots of negative emotions for Shadows to latch onto, though.
- Dealing with Beast-folk and other intelligent but non-human creatures. Settling problems between humans and capse could count too... many capse are pretty much developmentally retarded, because the genes that make them smart have been diluted too much... does that make them inferior to humans?
- Whether or not to obey the Caretakers when they issue a particularly harsh and/or hurtful directive. Rangers generally have a lot of leeway in enforcing these edicts, at least so long as there aren't any Caretakers present. The Caretakers don't have time to look up whether or not something was enforced properly, so unless new trouble springs up, they consider it handled correctly, whether or not the Rangers actually followed their orders.
Most other foes... blight creatures, Exterminators, Horrors, Malignant raveners, etc., are just dangers to be faced and slain. Morally
un-ambiguous opponents.
Posted by Kiz at September 15, 2004 11:14 AM