Miscellaneous Grab Bag Part 2

 Lets start with some pointless minutia I started writing up one day at work, when no tasks had come in and we were in the end of the year slump. More of an exrcise in memory, trying to stretch back my high school biology studies and turn it itno game material. As much as Star Wars constitutes a game, more like an ecosystem of games and inter-related concepts.

(Artist appears to be Ksenia Zelentsova)

Twi'lek Skin Tones.

Twi'leks are the sexy alien babes that cropped up in Episode 6 as dancing girls in Jabba the Hutt's palace. That set th tone for how most of the franchise treats them, arm candy or obtainable babes for the hero. As they turned up in the first 3 movies, they got made a staple of crowd scenes and minor characters. While most of their details came from the WEG Star Wars D6 game, later Expanded Universe material would lay out some key concepts.

Their planet is a tidally-locked nightmare, their culture both practises slavery and sell their women to get them off their miserable planet. Their men are ugly as sin. Men have human ears, females have cones (they were part of the dancing outfits in the movie). They are naturally submissive and come pretty much every colour of the spectrum, with Red being the rarest mutation and Blue being second rarest.

The blatent colonialism aside, doubled down on by the original actresses being Asian or African and having an generically sexy foreign French accent. The skin things still hasn't been changed.

Lucas in his children's TV show The Clones Wars retconned the planet (Ryloth) being tidally locked, them being naturally submissive and decided to double down on them being French-pancolonial, drawing on Northern African design elements for houses and resistance fighters. Making the Asian-acted ones probally from Ryloth Indo-China.

Thier status as generic sex symbols was now just exploitation and abuse from their lawless and clannish planet. Even now, some people still get angry about that last bit because it ruins the fantasy aspect.

But enough about that, let's get onto biology.

Twi'leks only have eyelashes. So therefore, we are looking at skin genetics, which for ease of cross-breeding in the Galaxy Far Far Away is close enough to humans.

Skin tones in humans is controlled by, if I remember, 7 alleles. Either on or off to determine the production of the two types of melanin that effect skin tone. With more alleles being turned on meaning more pigment and hence darker. For hair colour, it's more varied with the exact ratio of Eumelanin (darker) and Pheomelanin (reddy-yellow).

Twi'leks come in such a range that we need to go deeper to figure what combiation of hues gives us the range. We have red, blue, purple, pink, teal, green, yellow, orange, a kind of umber, chromatically black and pale. Red is a mutation like real-world albinoism so we can discard that from the roster. Blue in real life is pretty much only made via manipualtion of light, rather than pigment.

So what is the commonality here, once we discount the blue shades?

We end up with a lot of yellows, as the majority of Twi'leks are generic green shades or teal shades. The pinks and purples become redder and the Yellow and darker warm colours don't change. This sounds a bit like Eumelanin and Pheomelanin in the hair, but for skin.

For the blues shades, there must be a another layer in the epidermis, ne that ranges from dense blue-wavelength structures to not, or Blue-Transparency.

From here the chart emerges, which I have found to have lost and so have had to quickly rewrite with some large missing chunks, but the general idea is there. The pink is anomalous, so maybe I had it in a different spot for the original chart.

Any sort of banding or spotches on the lekku (head tendrils) or other parts of the body would be their own genetic thing.

A Good Place to Live, Die and Come Again

The New World of Darkness/Chronicles of Darkness tends to work in an urban area (commonly in the US) except for those wandering stories like Promenthean and Werewolf. So I sort of reckon Joliet, Illinois would a good place. It's close enough to Chicago, centre of published Vampiredom to get plot hooks but not so urban to attract wanderers coming from the south. Somewherein Texas would be good too, but I found Joliet first by looking for nice round populations.

Joliet has a little more than 150,000 residence. If we apply the 0.5% In the Know ratio, and quater that fro actual supernaturals. Joliet has 750 people In the Know and 187 actual supernatural residence and Hunters (who count because they can have supernatural powers themsleves depending on what organisation is picked).

Dividing that supernatural populations into blocks like in my previous post. I found I got very large groupings, even after rounding down.

The main group at 50%; 187/2 = 93.5

The secondary group at 25%; 187/4 = 46.75

The two minor groups at 12.5%; 187/8 = 23.375

So perhalps it would be best to mix them up a bit.

Break Joliet's supernaturals into 3 groups at 25%; 46 each.
Or keep 2 groups at 25%, add 2 groups at 12.5% and add 4 groups at 6.25%; 11

With three remaining oddballs.

The wider population of Will (696,355), Kendall (131,869) and Grundy County (52,533) which include and surround Joliet. Offer a vast range of preserved landscape, famrs and towns without having to venture into Chicago. Some 4403 In the Know and 1100 Supernaturals, include Joliet itself. Perfect for adding all the rest who are being kept away by the city centre.

New Antarctica Jam Monsters

As I stall out on the Antarctica Jam I am almost 50% done with, I have instead turned to some new additions to the Antarctica Jam Bestiary. Some are new spins on things, but one I made to give Antarctica more of a Gondwanan flavour and a couple were remakes of Runequest monsters.

(As it says on the picture, Pprehistoric-fauna.com)

Troll - stats as B/X

The Titians made humanity

Trolls were the test

Each proto-man a self-contained force, a society of one.

They find children difficult as they are dialect-speaking subcultures and leave to grow into their full selves.

People cannot become a troll but can adopt their ways.

Independent, alone and masters of their own body. Warping, dancing and fighting as the body becomes less human.

Trolls were not supposed to still be around.

These guys are based on the notion that the Angels from Neon Genesis Evangelion were self-contained biospheres, hence why they were Kaiju, mixed with Anno's previous series, Nadia and the Secret of Blue Water. here the alien-created prototype of humanity is a gaint called Adam, who is found preserved by the aliens.

Head Horrors

(adapted from Headhangers from the Runequest Gateway Bestiary)

Flaccidly huge and pale, with spine and claw. The near-carcass equidistance between reptile and insect. Sprouting are numerous stalks, often bearing living humanoid head. For they only prey on intelligent creatures, consuming the energies of the victims over months, while the heads live on.

There are usually 1d10 heads. The heads will aid the Head Horror in fighting by shouting, spitting, and otherwise distracting opponents in combat. Each heads gives -1 to attacks against it.

If maximum damage is rolled or the victim killed, the head is considered severed and swallowed by the Head Horror. To be stored internally and will grow on a stalk in 24 hours. Victims’ spirits are trapped until their heads are completely absorbed.

HD 3 AC 5

Attack 2: Both attacks occur simultaneously 1d8+2

Move: 120 feet per turn.

Sloth Squash
(Absolutely Jack O'Bears from Runequest)

Vaguely humanoid, this creature is some horrible combination of tropical plant and animal.

The Sloth Squash can ensnare another’s mind. These victims whose saves are overcome are frozen in place and helpless unless the Sloth Squash dies or a form of Dispel Magic is used against the hypnotised target. Sloth Squash are basically Chaotic, and from this their weird power comes.

HD 6 AC 6

Attacks 2: 1d6+1

Once per round per victim, the Sloth Squash can hypnotize victims up to a total its HD, who must save vs spells or be frozen in place and helpless.

Move 150 feet per turn

Surprises on a roll of 1-3 on a d6.

Thylacoleo
The marsupial lion or panther, an ambush predetor with powerful "bolt-cutter" teeth, but also dangerous opposable claws.

Armour Class 4 [15]

Hit Dice 4 (18hp)

Attacks 2 × claw (1d4), 1 × bite (1d10)

THAC0 16 [+3]

Movement 210’ (70’)

Saving Throws D12 W13 P14 B15 S16 (2)

Morale 8

Alignment Neutral

XP 75

Number Appearing 1d2 (1d6)

Treasure Type U

Claw Grapple: If a victim is hit by both claws in the same round, the Thylacoleo grabs with it's teeth for an extra 2d6 automatic damage.

Sphinx

HD: 14

AC: As Plate

Attack: 2 x 1d6+2 Claw

The face of a woman with the distinctive teeth of a great cat or marsupial lion. The body of the same and the wings of a great white bird. She is of a higher tier of messenger. Wanting to know about how people live and what they consider to be sin. Their hypocrisy and their compromises to live in the material world. Her decorations or pouch contains the wealth of the prophets.

(Effectively a double-strength Griffon by L. Mann)

If you contribute to the Antarctica Jam, you can get a whole bestiary of these for free and you get to contribute to a good collaborative OSR project.