Developing Ideas for ‘Insects-R-Us’
October 4, 2007 in Articles
McCallister said in response to my asking for ‘Bug World’ weapons—
Ummmm, you could have fly cruisers. Gnat personal transports. The outsider Moth-nectar collector teams. Spider-tanks. Beetle-class destroyers. Wasp pirate-vessel
====I’m not at all sure how you’d build a vehicle. Much less how you build an animal.
Also, these strengths and what not would have to be relative strengths since the spider is not on the correct scale for a typical setting.
For size measurements, a foot equals one millimeter in the Normal Human Scale.
But lets give it a try…
Character Name: Jack the Spider Tank Gender:Male Height: Ten feet Weight: Species:Spider
Persuasion (PER): 1@5
Charisma (CHA): 1@5
Animal Magnetism (ANMAG): 1@5
Strength (STR): 2@5 (Average insect str is going to start at 2@1 and go up to ants at 3@10)
Stamina (STA): 1@5
Resistance (RES): 1@4 (spiders are somewhat feeble here)
Density (DEN): 1@1
Flexibility (FLEX): 1@5
Agility (AGI): 1@5
Hand/Eye (H/E): 2@5
Intellect (INT): 0@5
Intuition (TUIT):1@5
Education Level (EDLEV): 1@2 (Basic commands known.)
Willpower (WP): 1@5
Averaged Attributes
Target Value (TV):
Damage Value (DV):
Ranged Strike Value (RSV):
Martial Strike Value (MSV):
Skills:
Wall-crawling: 2@5
Web-spinning: 2@2
Jumping: 1@7
Pincer bite: 1@8
Leg Grab and Pin: 1@10
Dodge: 2@1
Wear Armor: 1@8
Understand Language: Bug People Pheromonal Language 1@5
Hold Platform Steady 1@5
Armor shifts attack down one damage level. Armor is made of chitin shell.
Catapult on howdah on top of spider. Catpult launchmaster is Bugfolk as are his two assistants. They require the spider to hold the platform steady in order to have any chance of success.
==============================More McCallister below…
For actual monsters you could have E.Coli(insert common bacteria name here), the Plague(octopi-looking viral/bacterium, a crossbread, it’s the age ol’enemy!), Colony010(monstrous looking failed attempts at the original idea), machinos(nanites from other experiments, usually benign but still deadly if you are caught while they are building something).
There would likely be some kind of schism between the outside frontier, and the inside lab, so maybe two factions.
Bug weapons:
claw-grapplers, stinkbug gland(jams transmissions), acid grenades, melee weapons, venoms, neuro-transmitter scramblers(or instinct reprogrammers), paralyzing jellies, webbing, mandibles, limb-blades, egg injectors, parasite injectors…
M. J. Young said on October 4, 2007
It’s difficult to get to your articles if you don’t title them; I had to backdoor into it through the comments link.
(It’s O.K., I’m an American–I just read an interview with Hugh Laurie in which he quite amusingly said that it is a crime for Brits to “verb a noun” like that. I can’t help wondering how few of TV Guides’ regular readers caught the humor there.)
–M. J. Young
Tadeusz said on October 4, 2007
ok
I didn’t mean too, but once I did it, I didn’t see a need to go back and edit it. Especially since its such a slapdash article.
I guess I should ask my question in the main forum.
Eric