[Reposting] NEW Alien Race Competition

One of my favorite concepts in Sci-Fi is Uplift, where advanced races take sub-sapient creatures and advance them to full sapience for various reasons. So, I created a few Uplift Races for NEW. Pan Facticius (“Super Chimps”) Pan Facticius, commonly called simply “Pan” or “Super-Chimps”, are Humanity's first attempt at uplifting a species. Based largely on Chimpanzee and Bonobo DNA, they...
One of my favorite concepts in Sci-Fi is Uplift, where advanced races take sub-sapient creatures and advance them to full sapience for various reasons. So, I created a few Uplift Races for NEW.

Pan Facticius (“Super Chimps”)

Pan Facticius, commonly called simply “Pan” or “Super-Chimps”, are Humanity's first attempt at uplifting a species. Based largely on Chimpanzee and Bonobo DNA, they also incorporate aspects of other non-human primate species, such as the long arms of orangutans and prehensile tails like a spider monkey. (Incorporating a functional prehensile tail was actually significantly more difficult than increasing their intellect to human levels, what with adding New World monkey DNA into an Old World Monkey base, but humans are nothing if not obsessive in pursuing their preconceived ideals).

Pan are a very young uplift race, the oldest fully uplifted examples being a mere 50 years old. They were created as a test of human scientific skill, to “see if we could”, but though they weren't specifically intended for any one career or service area, they were designed by scientists to have qualities and skills that would serve them as a race, meaning that they tend towards manual dexterity and have a predisposition towards engineering and pure math. Additionally, due to certain, LEGALITY, issues their development and most tank breeding to create a genetic base has happened on space stations and asteroid settlements, so most Pan grow up living at least part time in zero-g.

While the upper limit of their life spans is not yet known, (the oldest being only 52) Pan are designed to have a human lifespan, and the eldest are showing aging progressing in line with that.

Size: Small

Attributes: Agi +2, Log +1, Wil +1

Skill Choices:
Brawling, Climbing, Zero-G, Mathematics, [Technical], Astrogation

Exploits
Brachiate: Pan still have opposable digits on their feet, and a prehensile tail (see next exploit), which greatly improves their climbing ability. Their climb speed is equal to their normal move speed, and they do not suffer the normal -1 to speed for being small on their climb speed.

Prehensile Tail: A Pan can hang by it's tail, or hold an object, or manipulate anything that could be manipulated with a single finger. The tail serves as an effective extra hand, but cannot perform any action that would require two or more fingers, or a finger and a thumb. They can type slowly, hit a button or flip a switch, or hold something, but firing a gun, holding a melee weapon in a manner necessary to attack with it, or even using a pen to write are out. (Such actions may be allowed with a further special exploit, but not by default).

Young Race:
As a very young uplift race, Pan suffer a social status not unlike small children. While individuals will respect them once they get to know them, in general Pan are underestimated and their opinions and advice not given serious consideration. Any check that relies on being respected or listened to suffers a -1d6 penalty, however any check that relies on being ignored (socially) or underestimated gains a +1d6.
 


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thundershot

Adventurer
Crap. I totally forgot about this. I was hoping to submit something but family issues (dad had triple bypass) kept me occupied. I look forward to seeing what comes out of it.
 


llothos

First Post
Since all 8 races are really great and you all took the time to do this I think you all deserve a copy for your hard work and dedication to the game...

Now back to reality, look forward to seeing who won.
 

M3woods

Explorer
Since all 8 races are really great and you all took the time to do this I think you all deserve a copy for your hard work and dedication to the game...

Now back to reality, look forward to seeing who won.
Champion of the People! Huzzah!

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N900A using Tapatalk
 


Morrus

Well, that was fun
Staff member
OK, here goes. All eight entries were great! Here's my review of each!

@TiwazTyrsfist's three uplifted races were fun. I found the extra limbs (or tail) rules a little in need of some tightening up, though. The multitask ability of the Cephalo seems a bit weak as phrased, and I'm not too clear on how Many Arms differs from dual wielding options already present, and the castes maybe need a but more explanation (a vehicle caste?); ambidexterity isn't a skill. Same with the tail of the Pan Facticius. The Gaelzh poison ability needs some range or aura - as written it affects everybody in the universe! Tangle Vines is just trip reflavoured? That said, I love the blooms concept. Formatting, the entry deviates from WOIN style guidelines quite a bit (non-caps for attributes, non-italics and not lower case for skills, colons rather than periods after exploit names.

@SamWolfeIVI - this was brave as you don't actually have the game! That said, you seem to have gotten a decent idea anyway. Similar formatting issues, and the exploits have no rules associated (though they would be very easy to provide mechanics for).

@btccg - lots of description! A feline race like the Felans, the Prydes are a solid way to describe subraces. The inclusion of magic might be confusing for those with just the NEW core rulebook, though that's by no means a deal-breaker. It does mean for some setting assumptions, though. Maybe making those psionic for standard sci-fi settings, and magic for those with magic? Technomages are, of course, a great sci-fantasy trope, and there's always room for them! Some formatting issues, but the best so far in that regard.

@hardvice - I like these a lot. Psionic ewoks! Similar formatting issues as above. I love the captivating saliva. It looks like a race that could easily be used in any setting.

@llothos - love the concept! Formatting issues, like everybody else. Some of the items seem to be just notes and would need to be rewritten to put in, say, a book. How is the charging up ability of natural weapons different to the way everyone can pay 2d6 for +1d6 damage anyway? Water and cold weakness; the way it's phrased is odd - the correct phrasing would be "Vulnerable 2d6 (water/cold)". I like the steam effect of taking cold damage, though would that not be heat damage rather than acid?

@M3woods - Best formatting so far (though skills should be lower case). The Cherran Trigger is interesting. I haven't playtested it, but I do wonder if the countdown plus the END checks plus the status track might be a bit too much to track?

It's a hard decision. @M3woods Mattari is probably the most solid entry in terms of rules and formatting; @llothos' lava race is conceptual appealing, but the entry formatting and rules aren't as solid as the former. I love the effort @btccg went to for description.

I'm trying to balance concept and solid writing/formatting/rules. My heart wants to choose the Lavos, my head says that the Mattari is the most solid entry. Because I feel that solid writing for a system is the hardest part of game writing, I'm going to go with my head and award it to @M3woods for his Mattari, but I want to give a solid thumbs up to @llothos' Lavos with a note that with some tidying up on format, and a little tightening of the rules, that would probably have run away with the prize.

Well done to everybody. These were such fun to read. I might tidy them up a bit and whack them into a PDF for free in the fan creations downloads area just to make it easy for other folks to grab 'em.

@M3woods, please PM me a mailing address! I'll get your hardcover in the mail right away!
 
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llothos

First Post
Cool congrats to everyone. I'm glad I at least got a thumbs up, I've never played the system and just bought the book on a whim in the hopes of playing it. Then I saw the contest and thought why not :).
The charging up ability I was thinking it was a narrative way to explain how a natural weapon can do the extra damage(edit:would say doing an extra D6 of damage for same cost have been maybe make it a exploit?). As for the steam damage that was one thing I wasn't sure how to translate and I agree I should have changed it to heat. Looking back I'm not sure what my reasoning was for acid.
 
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M3woods

Explorer
Congrats to everyone. I look forward to downloading the PDF and using all the alien species submitted in future games (pun intended!)

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N900A using Tapatalk
 

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