Mutant Humans (LegacySPORE)

In LegacySPORE, human mutants should be created as mutant animals, using the general rules update from After the Bomb second edition.  Instead of using the human description there, however, use the statistics presented below.  This plays off the mutant animal rules while still preserving aspects of the old method of creating human mutants.

As part of this rules update, options available to mutant animals are also expanded.

New Options for Mutant Animals

Add the following options to all other animals.

Human Features

Looks: The following options are available to non-human mutant animals:

[Partial -2] BIO-E for Androcephalic.  Androcephalic characters have bodies and limbs with no human looks, but heads—particularly faces—with full human looks.  Sphinxes are androcephalic mutants (often with the winged flight super ability).

[Partial +2] BIO-E for Hybrid.  Hybrid characters have legs and feet with no human looks,  but torsos, arms, and hands with full human looks.  The head has partial human looks—though often appears human-like with bestial traits (ears, nose, horns/antlers, etc.).  Fauns and harpies are hybrid mutants.

[Full -2] BIO-E for Zoocephalic.  Zoocephalic characters have heads with no human looks, but bodies and limbs with full human looks.  The deities of ancient Egypt were zoocephalic mutants.

In LegacySPORE, the only way a mutant animal can gain the traits of another animal is to select those traits as super abilities (such as Animal Abilities, Winged Flight, or the like)—BIO-E cannot be spent to develop such traits.  Using a priority system to maintain balance, all characters have the chance to develop super powers and/or psionics.

Aeons, Things, & Horrors (SPORE)

Beyond the confines of Physical and Psychical Spaces of the SPORE TriCosm, there exist a host of ancient beings called aeons.  These are the eldest of a class of beings known for "meddling" in the affairs of psychical space.  Their Psychical and Psychical descendants include both the Elder and Younger Things.  While aeons and elder things are more clearly inspired by the Lovecraft Mythos, younger things are too.  Their ilk can be seen in the "Star-Spawn of Cthulhu."

These three classes of alien being are decribed below, with a handful of examples.

Aeons

Aeons are the most ancient beings, pre-dating the known universe—which, to them, is little more than the corpse of their beloved brother (see "The Beautiful Dead One," below). The Aeons are native to the proto-space of Ooloni, which predates the space-time of our Universe (and the SPORE TriCosm). Though there are hundreds of Aeons, though only a handful take part in the affairs of the SPORE setting.

The aeons are godlike in power and influence—but like the gods of Earth’s classical era are both fallible and vulnerable. They demonstrate very “human” emotions, motivations, and insecurities. They are often divided by their motivations into two classes: Sephiroth (or Empyreal/Heavenly Delights) and Qlippoth (or Infernal/Hellish Horrors).  The line between these two classes is quite blurry, howevever--and one aeon could be seen as both sephiroth and qlippoth, depending on the context used when discussing it.

Aeons and Elder Things (see below) use the pronoun It/Its, always capitalized. Younger Things may identify with a gender or not, and use whichever pronouns they choose.

SPORE: BIO-E For Everyone!

Anyone who has tried to play the mutant animal rules from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Other Strangeness in Heroes Unlimited knows that there is a major power imbalance between those mutant animals and the other power categories.  This was somewhat alleviated in that game's second edition successor, After the Bomb--but I play revised-era Palladium rules (mostly out of preference, though partly for financial reasons).  So, I have come up with my own solution:  Give all characters BIO-E, mutant or not.

This method changes the way BIO-E is used, but not what it represents.  BIO-E is still used to purchase humanoid traits, natural weapons and armor, animal powers, and animal psionics.  It is also used to purchase any attribute modifiers associated with a given animal type.

Many of the house rules I use for the SPORE settings are drastic variations on the originals; what follows is a simplification of concept copatible with revised-era palladium rules as published.  Details used in my LegacySPORE campaign will be different because of other rules changes.

Starting BIO-E

The average human can be described in mutant animal terms as follows:

• Size level 10, 45 BIO-E
• No attribute modifiers, 0 BIO-E
• Full human biped, 10 BIO-E
• Full human hands, 10 BIO-E
• Full human looks, 10 BIO-E
• Full human speech, 10 BIO-E
• No natural weapons or armor, 0 BIO-E
• No animal powers, 0 BIO-E
• No animal psionics, 0 BIO-E
• Base Animal BIO-E:  85

LegacySPΩRE: Firebird Institute

Firebird Institute & Ember Village

The Firebird Institute was founded in the early 1990s by Dr. Alexandre Bennu in order to continue the legacy of recently retired hero Firebird.  Originally a half-way house for parahuman rehabilitation, it grew over time to include research facilities and its own team of super-beings.  After Dr. Bennu’s death, leadership of the Institute passed to his protege, Dr. Brian Stoker—an open advocate for the Parahuman Homeland Initiative.

SPΩRE: Parahumans

The various SPORE settings share several common elements--though, in many cases, these elements are substantially different than their counterparts in the other "realities."  For example, each setting has a class of people who are more than human, no longer human, or some combination.  They are known by the generic term parahuman.

Parahumans in GaiaSPΩRE

The term parahuman was created in initially for the GaiaSPORE setting.  Here, parahumans are a race of people created during the Century War (another recurring theme) to serve as living weapons.  The various factions of the war each followed the same basic process: animal DNA was spliced with human DNA to create specialized super-soldiers.  Dozens of different animals were used, but only a handful of parahumans proved to be viable enough to produce offspring.

LegacySPΩRE: Sky-Shot & Sage

In my reboot/sequel Heroes Unlimited campaign--the guinea pig for my SPΩRE rules--a new generation of characters have made their way to the Firebird Institute in western Massachusetts.

My earlier players might better recognize the organization in question as the Phoenix Institution--where they once served on a team called the Phoenix Force.  These have since been retconned to Firebird Institute and Firebird Patrol.

Since the last campaign [20 years ago in both real and game time] the United States have collapsed, and a collection of new federations has come to dominate North America in its wake.  Furthermore, mutants and psionics have come to be recognized as a "growing issue;" these parahumans need to be dealt with--but the successor states cannot agree on how.  In Texas, Dixie, and Appalachia parahumans are feared and their population controlled; in New England, California, and Cascadia parahumans are celebrated and their population protected.  These recent events form the backdrop of the LegacySPORE setting.