Skags Mutants

 As part of my tinkering with the Mutants in the Now ruleset, I settled on creating some fictional speices, some from Blue Planet and some from the Borderlands video-game franchise, due to both settings' focus on the violent ecology of their planets. Violent creatures being surpisingly easier to make then trying to specialise herbivores and more normal animals. A legacy of being based on Palladium's RPG and hence AD&D.

I made skags first but never really had an idea to fix their growth. Species in Mutants in the Now (in the Mutants in the Next book) can metaphorph to adult forms and age, but nothing suggests changes after they achieve adult forms. Skags get bigger and more armoured the older they are, with the largest types developing a laser beam. But they don't morph shape very much. I could just discount Skagzilla as a one-off creature had not another giant, aged but apaprently normal skag done the same in Borderlands 2.

I ended up truncating some of the changes and tied them to the aging rules, leading to the odd situation where they get weaker as the reach their monstrous final forms. This may all be edited later after feedback.

Dinopithos latro Skag SR 11 Enhance DET STR END GOO-P: +20 Basic: Gugiformes, Carnivore, Quadrupedal Major: Aggressive (5) Burrow (10 GOO-P, Slow -5 GOO-P) Enhanced Scent: Rotting (7) Exoskeletal Defences (15) Swift: Sprint (5) Minor: Abrasive, Claws (digging), Heat Tolerance, Hibernation, Longevity, Mandibles (piercing), Pack Hunter, Prehensile Tongue, Rot Digestion, Territorial Leaping Slam (Swift: Sprint +2 GOO-P): If the Charge attack hits, the target is also Grabbed.

Spitter Skag SR 9 Enhance PRE END PRO GOO-P: +27 Basic: Gugiformes, Carnivore, Quadrupedal Major: Aggressive (5) Burrow (10 GOO-P, Slow -5 GOO-P) Enhanced Scent: Rotting (7) Spines (15) Swift: Sprint (5) Toxin Resistance (2), Toxic: Lead-Acid Pollutant (12 GOO-P, Toxungen +5 GOO-P) Minor: Claws: Digging, Heat Tolerance, Hibernation, Longevity, Mandibles: Piercing, Pack Hunter, Prehensile Tongue, Rot Digestion, Territorial, Corrosive Mucus (Toxic: Toxungen +3 GOO-P): The ranged attack with Lead-Acid Pollutant reduces the damage by only one step, reduces Armor by 1 per hit.

When a skag reaches shifts from Adult to Middle-Age, it follows the rules established on p.41 of Mutants in the Next with the following exceptions from Species Shifting: It must immediately increase its Size Rating by 1, even if this causes a negative GOO-P value. If you have a negative amount of GOO-P at the end, you must take as much GOO-P as you can as a milestone to offset this (Now, pg. 94). If you still have a negative GOO-P value, you must continue to do so at every milestone until your GOO-P total reaches 0. The skag becomes known as an Alpha Skag and may purchase the Extra minor traits: Spurs (Heel, Legs)

Spitter skags are known as Elder Skags and cannot.

When a skag shifts from Middle-Age to Elder, it undergoes the same process with new effects: It must immediately increase its Size Rating by 2, even if this causes a negative GOO-P value. The skag refunds the Major Trait: Sprint if not yet refunded. The skag may purchase the Extra Major Traits: Exoskeletal Defense and Stable. Special: Exoskeletal Defense costs 5 GOO-P for you instead of 15 GOO-P. If Exoskeletal Defence was already present, the GOO-P difference is refunded. If Spines is present, the trait may be replaced with Exoskeletal Defense and the GOO-P difference may be refunded. They gain the Unique Trait: Resistance 4 (5 if you have Exoskeletal Defense) You may refund your unique species trait if present and purchase the replacement Psychic Power: Ergoplasmic Lance (15 GOO-P) [Thank you LV0 Console Peasent] A beam of mysterious, luminescent psychic force streams forth from your hands or mouth as a ranged strike, obliterating all in its path. It doesn’t disappear once the attack hits or misses, traveling forwards until its energy has been expended. When performing this attack, you may use +DET instead of +PER or +PRO; this attack does double your Determination dice on a successful hit against Defense. Before you can use this power, you may spend a moment to charge up energy. If you do, you add your Determination dice again to the attack’s damage, for three times your Determination dice of damage in total. You may only charge Ergoplasmic Lance if you have less than two statuses. If you use a charged Ergoplasmic Lance for two turns in a row, you gain and reinforce the tired status and don’t recover from it at the end of this scene unless you spend 1 WILL. Boost: Ignore any Resistance and Armor of non-boss foes have when inflicting damage with this ability, or reduce the Resistance and Armor of boss foes by 3.