Nature is a state of constant conflict and change. Organisms must always adapt and evolve to survive, pitted against one another in an endless arms race. Human beings tried to leave this behind with technology. Our wheel, our fire, our antibiotics. We separated ourselves from the animals and forgot the eternal war with nature. All the while our crude approximations of other animals acted as crutches.
But we cannot really fly or plumb the depths of the ocean, the same technology that has made us powerful has made us weak in our dependency. Antibiotic superbugs and climate change are the cost of this hubris. There is a way out. We can turn our technology back to the war, we can change ourselves. Autochimeras are extreme primitivist biohackers applying science and medicine in a constant, unending transition towards imagined evolutionary supremacy.
Related to the schools of epideromancy and khrusomancy, the practice of autochimerism is too symbolically tiny to warrant the full fledged paradox of true adept magick. Focused on constant unnatural change and adaptation but only within the boundaries dictated by evolution found in nature. They use the very tools they malign in an attempt to shortcut millennia of missed natural selection. These dual, mutually exclusive tensions serve to power the framework of what would otherwise be tragically misguided and ineffectual self-experimentation.
In practice this manifests as a variety of ever shifting surrogate identities based on the flux of their current modification. A practitioner can choose to hold on to a particular form for an extended period, but increases the ever present risk of morphological breakdown by doing so (you can skip a roll to reset identities, but all subsequent rolls have a cumulative -10% shift per skip and automatic failure after a month). The need for constant change is their equivalent of taboo.
For every 10 percentiles beyond the first define a new identity based on self-experimentation and the adoption of animal traits, assigning it to a 10 point band covered by your Autochimera identity. Once a week (sooner if you want to dedicate a few days to adapting a new form ...or much faster at a substantial penalty) make a roll, gaining the identity within the resulting band at a level equal to the ones die of that roll multiplied by 10 (up to the value of your Autochimera identity) based on your constant self-experimentation. If you roll between 01-10% then lucky you, you get to roll twice, rerolling redundant entries except failures.
Failure causes problems beyond just nixing your powers for a while. Self-surgery, xenotransplantation and biohacking would make just about any medical professional blush in isolation, together they’re a recipe for disaster. Survivors can put themselves back together, but it takes enough time and work to make a new roll and repair your body.
Here’s a set of example results for an Autochimera with an identity at 70%, including the penalties for failure. New entries can be created to replace old ones on a monthly basis with a successful roll (or weekly, if you dedicate all your time to working on it):
01-10%: Roll twice. Apply both results, if duplicate identities are rolled choose one result to reroll. If this result comes up apply it again. If multiple failures are rolled apply all of them.
11-20%: Tapetum Lucidum (Substitutes for Notice, Coerces Unnatural, Unique - No penalties to Notice rolls for poor lighting). A reflective layer of tissue behind the retina that increases the light received by receptors in the eye. This causes them to shine in low light. -20% shift to Notice rolls in bright light from overexposure. Wear sunglasses.
21-30%: Canine Olfaction (Specific Information: Smell, Substitutes for Notice, Provides Initiative). An increased density of sensitive smell-receptors, modifications to the bone structure of the nose and the respiratory system, raising your sense of smell to 40 times that of the average human. Specific information works as the Yeti Ancestry identity (on pg. 47 of Book 4: Expose). You look a bit puggish and are highly sensitive to strong smells.
31-40%: Hemocyanin Blood (Substitutes for Fitness, Provides Wound Threshold, Unique - No negative shifts on Fitness rolls to resist bacterial infection and illness). A blue, copper heavy form of blood found in Horseshoe crabs containing ambocytes which react far more quickly and responsively to bacterial infection than mammalian white blood cells.
41-50%: Cephalopod Limb Neurons (Substitutes for Dodge, Provides Initiative, Unique - Can perform two, non-mental, actions simultaneously at half value). High proportions of cephalopod’s nervous systems are found in their limbs, making those limbs capable of semi-independent action. Matched failures or fumbles provoke behaviour like alien hand syndrome, Self checks and potentially autocannibalism responses.
51-60%: Echinoderm Regeneration (Substitutes for Fitness, Medical, Provides Wound Threshold). The medical feature automatically applies golden hour treatment (pg. 74 of Book 1: Play) to you assuming adequate nutrition and lack of sustained duress, but cannot be used for anything else. Miraculous, but doesn’t reach the level of regrowing limbs like a starfish and regrowth tends to be stiff and calcified for a few months.
61-70%: Patagium (Substitutes for Pursuit, Coerces Unnatural, Unique - Upgrades rolls to reduce falling damage by one level). A fleshy membrane used to glide and fly, like a flying squirrel or a bat. Human beings are too heavy to properly fly with them even with modification but it still makes a difference. The patagium collapses flat along the limbs and torso when not in use, you need to be naked to use this identity (or have clothes specially tailored for the purpose).
Fail, Matched Failure or Fumble: The autochimera is ...indisposed. Ramp up the body horror. From failed experimentation to implant rejection to biochemical cascade failures, something foul has come to a head. Witnesses should make stress checks.
The GM should apply one of the following: a Violence, Unnatural or Self stress check, damage equal to the sum of the failed roll, a standing -20% shift to an ability, chronic grievous illness that causes a wound every day you don't pass a Fitness roll until fixed. These conditions persist until fixed with a new successful Autochimera roll. In the event of a matched failure pick two, for a fumble pick three and permanently reduce the Autochimera’s wound threshold by 1d10.
But we cannot really fly or plumb the depths of the ocean, the same technology that has made us powerful has made us weak in our dependency. Antibiotic superbugs and climate change are the cost of this hubris. There is a way out. We can turn our technology back to the war, we can change ourselves. Autochimeras are extreme primitivist biohackers applying science and medicine in a constant, unending transition towards imagined evolutionary supremacy.
Related to the schools of epideromancy and khrusomancy, the practice of autochimerism is too symbolically tiny to warrant the full fledged paradox of true adept magick. Focused on constant unnatural change and adaptation but only within the boundaries dictated by evolution found in nature. They use the very tools they malign in an attempt to shortcut millennia of missed natural selection. These dual, mutually exclusive tensions serve to power the framework of what would otherwise be tragically misguided and ineffectual self-experimentation.
In practice this manifests as a variety of ever shifting surrogate identities based on the flux of their current modification. A practitioner can choose to hold on to a particular form for an extended period, but increases the ever present risk of morphological breakdown by doing so (you can skip a roll to reset identities, but all subsequent rolls have a cumulative -10% shift per skip and automatic failure after a month). The need for constant change is their equivalent of taboo.
For every 10 percentiles beyond the first define a new identity based on self-experimentation and the adoption of animal traits, assigning it to a 10 point band covered by your Autochimera identity. Once a week (sooner if you want to dedicate a few days to adapting a new form ...or much faster at a substantial penalty) make a roll, gaining the identity within the resulting band at a level equal to the ones die of that roll multiplied by 10 (up to the value of your Autochimera identity) based on your constant self-experimentation. If you roll between 01-10% then lucky you, you get to roll twice, rerolling redundant entries except failures.
Failure causes problems beyond just nixing your powers for a while. Self-surgery, xenotransplantation and biohacking would make just about any medical professional blush in isolation, together they’re a recipe for disaster. Survivors can put themselves back together, but it takes enough time and work to make a new roll and repair your body.
Here’s a set of example results for an Autochimera with an identity at 70%, including the penalties for failure. New entries can be created to replace old ones on a monthly basis with a successful roll (or weekly, if you dedicate all your time to working on it):
01-10%: Roll twice. Apply both results, if duplicate identities are rolled choose one result to reroll. If this result comes up apply it again. If multiple failures are rolled apply all of them.
11-20%: Tapetum Lucidum (Substitutes for Notice, Coerces Unnatural, Unique - No penalties to Notice rolls for poor lighting). A reflective layer of tissue behind the retina that increases the light received by receptors in the eye. This causes them to shine in low light. -20% shift to Notice rolls in bright light from overexposure. Wear sunglasses.
21-30%: Canine Olfaction (Specific Information: Smell, Substitutes for Notice, Provides Initiative). An increased density of sensitive smell-receptors, modifications to the bone structure of the nose and the respiratory system, raising your sense of smell to 40 times that of the average human. Specific information works as the Yeti Ancestry identity (on pg. 47 of Book 4: Expose). You look a bit puggish and are highly sensitive to strong smells.
31-40%: Hemocyanin Blood (Substitutes for Fitness, Provides Wound Threshold, Unique - No negative shifts on Fitness rolls to resist bacterial infection and illness). A blue, copper heavy form of blood found in Horseshoe crabs containing ambocytes which react far more quickly and responsively to bacterial infection than mammalian white blood cells.
41-50%: Cephalopod Limb Neurons (Substitutes for Dodge, Provides Initiative, Unique - Can perform two, non-mental, actions simultaneously at half value). High proportions of cephalopod’s nervous systems are found in their limbs, making those limbs capable of semi-independent action. Matched failures or fumbles provoke behaviour like alien hand syndrome, Self checks and potentially autocannibalism responses.
51-60%: Echinoderm Regeneration (Substitutes for Fitness, Medical, Provides Wound Threshold). The medical feature automatically applies golden hour treatment (pg. 74 of Book 1: Play) to you assuming adequate nutrition and lack of sustained duress, but cannot be used for anything else. Miraculous, but doesn’t reach the level of regrowing limbs like a starfish and regrowth tends to be stiff and calcified for a few months.
61-70%: Patagium (Substitutes for Pursuit, Coerces Unnatural, Unique - Upgrades rolls to reduce falling damage by one level). A fleshy membrane used to glide and fly, like a flying squirrel or a bat. Human beings are too heavy to properly fly with them even with modification but it still makes a difference. The patagium collapses flat along the limbs and torso when not in use, you need to be naked to use this identity (or have clothes specially tailored for the purpose).
Fail, Matched Failure or Fumble: The autochimera is ...indisposed. Ramp up the body horror. From failed experimentation to implant rejection to biochemical cascade failures, something foul has come to a head. Witnesses should make stress checks.
The GM should apply one of the following: a Violence, Unnatural or Self stress check, damage equal to the sum of the failed roll, a standing -20% shift to an ability, chronic grievous illness that causes a wound every day you don't pass a Fitness roll until fixed. These conditions persist until fixed with a new successful Autochimera roll. In the event of a matched failure pick two, for a fumble pick three and permanently reduce the Autochimera’s wound threshold by 1d10.
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