Mythological Creature Templates

[Soniv]

Greetings, gentlebeings! Tahlorn's recent thread about the overpowered nature of his GM's game, and specifically the uber-powerful Vampire and Angel races, has prompted me to start development of some more balanced alternatives, and start a general discussion thread for templates of mythological creatures. Anyone is welcome to post their own rendition of a creature of mythology here, and I shall start by posting my stats for a Vampiric Human. Also, feel free to nitpick my stats as you see fit; I want honesty, not flattery.

Vampiric Human

Attribute dice: 12D
DEX 2D/6D
PER 2D/5D
STR 2D/6D
KNO 2D/4D
MEC 2D/4D
TEC 2D/4D

Move: 10/12

Special abilities:

Fangs: The vampire's fangs provide STR+1D damage in combat.

Charm: Vampires, due to a natural ability to seduce, get +2D to all Persuasion: Seduction rolls.

Immortality: Vampires, being already clinically dead, do not age, and are immune to most non-combat forms of death (suffocation, poisons, etc). Their sustenance is gained from drinking the blood of mortal beings, which gives with it a powerful weakness.

Blood Nessecity: If a vampire has not fed on mortal blood for a day, their very immortality begins to suffer. All attributes are reduced by -1D per day of non-feeding, causing death if any attribute reaches 0D (Any reduction of an attribute already below 1D is simply truncated to 0D). The dice can only be restored by continued feeding, going up by +2 pips per day, until hitting the original die code once more.

UV Sensitivity: All vampires are sensitive to UV radiation, the most common source being natural sunlight. For game purposes, unless the vampire is in an area with trace amounts to no sunlight or UV rays, vampires take a minimum of 5D Speeder scale damage per round, up to a maximum of 5D Starfighter scale damage, based on the conditions of light. The Speeder scale would be dawn or dusk conditions, where Starfighter scale would be noontime conditions.

Torso Sensitivity: Due to an as yet unknown trait in vampiric biology, the torso is an especially sensitive area for vampires, and all called shots to the torso increase the wound damage one level (Two levels if using a melee weapon).

Special skills:

(A)Transform: A Dexterity skill, this allows the vampire to transform into a winged creature, typically of mammilian form, such as a bat. The Vampire gets a move of 15 and +2D to Dodge rolls when in winged form. The transformation requires a Moderate Transform roll. It must be trained in order to be used, and requires a Dexterity attribute of at least 4D to acquire.

Story Factors:

Culturally Refined: Some vampires, having been around for countless decades to centuries in undead form, have developed an exquisite palate of both mental and physical tastes, and have an aristocratic air to them. Newly-turned vampires, however, generally do not have such a refined taste, and can be nearly feral at times, due to their lust for blood.

Vampire Lore: The vampiric phenomenon, having been around for at the very least countless centuries (Possibly even eons), has developed quite a bit of renown and lore in the mortal world. Most non-vampires have preconcieved notions about the beings, the most common one being that certain forms of spice and objects of sacredness ward off the beings. This is a fallacy, as vampires are not some feral beings from another dimension, but the result of an as yet unknown pathological illness. Other forms of lore, such as vampires sleeping in coffins or having certain fascinations and obsessions, can neither be confirmed nor denied at this time, and are up to the GM to decide on.

Nocturnal: Vampires, naturally avoiding sunlight due to their UV sensitivity, typically lead nocturnal lifestyles, being active in their habitats at night, and sleeping or otherwise remaining inactive during the day.

Hunted: Due to their reputation for being undead creatures of evil, and various examples of unrefined vampiric acolytes slaughtering villages in their quest for blood, vampires are often hunted by various types of religious zealots, as well as individuals seeking vengeance for the death of a family member or friend. Therefore, a vampire must either become powerful or subtle, so that they can either rise unchallenged or not be known at all as a vampire.

Clan Lifestyle: Again, due to the immortality of vampires, many of them have formed clans, each with their own set of rules and social mannerisms. A good deal of vampires are clanless, however, and simply follow the rules set upon them by their lifestyle, so that they may avoid capture and execution by clans or mortals.

Cunning Nature: As most elder vampires have had a great deal of time to contemplate their undeath, they have come to realize that much of the mortal nature of direct confrontation is due to their perception of time being limited. As this is not a problem for vampires, due to their immortality, the elders prefer grand schemes of persuasion, never confronting an enemy directly, but simply convincing them over time that their struggle is futile or unnessecary.

Highly Skilled: Again, as elder vampires have been around for anywhere from centuries to millenia, they have developed high levels of skill, such that mortals could not ever dream of attaining. Any NPC elder vampire, then, should have a high base of skills to reflect this, and it is highly suggested that the only PC vampires should be fledglings, turned only a matter of days or weeks before the start of the campaign.

Also, other species can be vampiric as well, not just humans. Any vampiric species gains the abilities and skills of a vampiric human, and the attributes for a vampiric nonhuman represent those of a mortal of the same species, with the following exceptions:

The STR and DEX maximums are increased by 2D
The PER maximum is increased 1D

[Cazziuz]

Looks great, but you don't state how much blood the vampire actully needs to consume, and (in my personally opinion) drinking blood everyday would cause the potentially vampire PC would get a great deal of trouble whille getting that blood (well that could lead to interresting story's, but if it was a virus or somthing like that, maybe it would have evolved so that the vampire might store blood in his body for a couple of days worth).

Maybe I should point out that i play vampire the requim

I hope i helped.
_________________
The more one knows, the more one forgets, the more one forgets, the less you know, the less you know, the less you forget, the less you forget, the more you know.

[Soniv]

Hmm. Well, I would assume that feeding once per day would simply be either what the stomach can contain, or the entire blood content of a mortal of that species. As far as I know, I think the human blood content is eight pints, so that should be a human's daily blood requirement.

As for containing extra blood for a few days, that's not too bad of an idea; perhaps the vampire could fill their stomach entirely with blood for a day after gaining sustenance, thus allowing them to go for another day without having to actively feed.

I think the way I originally wrote the stats, I intended to give the vampires a day off anyway. Basically, you can stop feeding for an entire day, but on day two of fasting, the attributes begin to suffer.

Another way of making life slightly easier for vampires would be to allow feeding of species outside of the vampire's own, but with a penalty. Say, a human vampire could drink the blood of a stock animal, but would need two to four times the amount of human blood to gain the same amount of sustenance.

These are just some ideas; Any other suggestions, and of course, other interpretations of this and other species to add are gladly accepted into the thread.

[Allst Beamem]

[Endwyn]

Mythologicly Vampire myth originated with infections the simple villagers couldn't understand. They burried a dead person and then a couple more seemed to die. (It was an infection.) But they explained it as the dead rising and coming to take more with them. (Which is a half truth. The dead did in fact infect others before being burried and removed, and those people were taken with them. It could be viewed as "manslaughter from beyond the grave".....but not by our legal definition of manslaughter.)

OK, history lesson over. The blood thing: You should set up a tracker, a "blood pool" (BP or BP's) if you will. The vampire PC could then decide how much to take and when. You have a set number of BP's required to do several vampire activities. To rise for the night = X BP's, to use vampiric charm bonus = X BP's, ect. Why? Because making the vamp feed everyday removes the horror from the player. If the player has to feed 8 BP's everyday, then they will quickly loose thier view of control on the situation. The personal horor of being one of these things should come from having to make choices. Being a vampire can have many similar themes to playing a Jedi; if you let it. A vampire should be ever aware of it's unnatural existance, it leach on others. A vampire when feeding is always chosing a relative evil: stealing substinace from another to support his own life force. Not heroic, but probably justified as part of his food chain....everyone reasons away the bad things they do. A vampire running low on sustinace with only children around....do they chose to honor the innocense of the child or their own "unnatural needs".

No matter how you design the system it should be about hard decisions at times, the kind that define who you are, and who you will be.

(I play V:tM the precurser to Requim.)
_________________
Luke, I am your father.
That's impossible!
And Leia is your sister!
That's improbable?
And the Empire will be destroyed by..EWOKS!
That's...highly unlikely.
The Force? Bacteria called midichlorians.
If you don’t take this seriously I'm out.

[Tahlorn]

Alright, for the concept of blood-count.
I like the idea that using any special ability uses up more blood count, and that they lose b.c. with time as well. Also, for our vamp gal in the group, apparently she could iether use blood packs (like what you have at a blood bank or hospital), or have a snack off of someone. I don' like that for it pretty much removes the chance of running out of b.c., or the 'horror' of being a vamp, as Endwyn put it. My rule would be that if you need blood, not only does it have to be fresh (if not alive, it just died a round or two before), but if it was alive you can not just 'have a snack' and leave the guy a bit drained. It leads to death in the one that is being feasted upon, be it instant or lingering. A bit truer to the legends, and makes it a bit harder on the player for how they conduct thier affairs.

~T

[Endwyn]

I wouldn't kill the "snack" just because. If you want to have a more dramtic effect, have the vampire actually be draining life force from the person through the blood. This will prevent the hospital's stash from actualy providing substinance as it is just blood. Have this fact be something the GM reveals through the campaign. Hints would be things like children are tastier, old people much less so - old people may become mortally wounded from a vamp feeding from them as taking even the slightest life force could be fatal (say odd = wound, even none?). Have the player realize some races are tastier, and that FS and Jedi are tastier than "Joe" too. The more conected to the life FORCE, the tastier and more filling they are.

I really don't think vamps exactly fit into the SW universe, but if you want to try to fit them, that might be a good place. You might not have seen it this way, but not killing the person feed from becomes more dramatic. Your starving, there's only one person around. Do you drain them or just snack? Well, moral vamps would snack.....but their still hungry, what if they need the blood to survive? Well, if you kill everything they feed from just 'cause, then why not drain the one person? Just a look at plot points your going to miss, and the type of creature you would create.
_________________
Luke, I am your father.
That's impossible!
And Leia is your sister!
That's improbable?
And the Empire will be destroyed by..EWOKS!
That's...highly unlikely.
The Force? Bacteria called midichlorians.
If you don’t take this seriously I'm out.

[Tahlorn]

Ah, I like that idea. Snacking can be done to keep it up (b.c. or similiar that is), but if having to regain back attributes that are lost requires more sustanance. This could be done over a series of victims as snacks, or one large drain. And as for the life force, that makes sense to me, and takes care of the problem of the vamps jus going into a medical shop and raiding thier medical blood bags.

I don't think vamps really fit into the universe as well, but trying to hit some middle ground for one of our players.

Going to post an idea for another mythological creature soon.

~T

[Tahlorn]

Alright, rip it apart. As Soniv said previously about the vampires, don't sugar coat, give it to me hard. That's how I like it.

GARGOYLE
Attribute dice: 12d
Dex: 2d - 4d+2
Knw: 1d+2 - 3d+2
Mch:2d - 4d
Prc:2d - 4d+2
Str:3d - 5d
Tch:1d - 3d
Size: 1m-2.4m tall
Move: 8 / 10 walking, 16 / 20 flying

Claws and Teeth: Str+1d
Keen Vision: +2 to Search or Perception for noticing mobile things.
Flight, as per all the other flying races, but can not take off from ground. Must launch from a high point. Thus, due to this and climbing claws....
+2d to Climbing/Jumping
Stone Hide: +1d versus Physical damage
No need for sleep, due to Curse of Stone (see below)

Special Skill-
Sentry: 1D (at start up, ups as a nromal skill)
Effect:
If the Gargoyle remains still and concentrates (meditative state, can take no other actions) on iether the building or ship which they are on, they become aware of all beings entering or exitting the said building/craft. Treat this as the Force power of Life Detection, but with a much larger range (to enclose the thing which they are gaurding, plus 10 meters beyond).

Problem-
Curse Of Stone. If touched by sunlight (direct or indirectly), the gargoyle's body turns to that of Stone. Thier weight increases dramatically, and are nearly indestructable through standard means. They percieve nothing while in the state of Stone, do not age, and do not hunger or the like.


I think this is fairly awesome, IMHO.

~Tahlorn

[Sabre]

I'd treat vampirism more like a condition than a species, so that you don't have to rewrite the stats for every species. I'd also give them some sort of penalty against Force users (holy relics), and possibly restrict all Force use (since they're dead).

[Soniv]

I never did like the whole "vampires are weak to holy relics" part of the mythology, myself. However, I do like the idea of them not being able to use the Force. Since "Life creates it, makes it grow", and vampires are undead, the very antithesis to life, they should be restricted from using the Force. Also, some stories actually state that the holy relic part was a fallacy, and that it doesn't work.

Suggestions on how to handle bloodlust are actually quite good. I especially like the "blood points" system. Expanding on this, and the character's inability to use the Force, BP could essentially replace CP for skill enhancement; a vampire, unable to use the Force in a normal manner, would instead count on the remaining lifeforce stolen from their enemies to enhance their skills. However, to keep them balanced, perhaps they would still need CPs to actually increase their skills. Or perhaps BPs could replace CPs entirely.

Now, on to gargoyles. Looks great. Though the +2 to detection seems a bit under-powered, really. I forget exactly, but my intuition seems to tell me that most species get more of a bonus than this. Still, I suppose it works out, with the higher die cap and all. Overall, though, I see no major problems with it.

[Tahlorn]

Only gave them the +2 as per the fact that I give them the Sentry ability to show for thier ability to detect things, and I wanted to make sure that I didn't give them too much power (wanted to make sure I wasn't getting lured by the Dark Side of power-gaming). Maybe I should look at other races that have keen vision for an appropriate modifier. I could see giving them more bonuses due to the entire "no sunlight" thing. Maybe setting thier perception limits to 2d+2-5d, as it is the nature for Gargoyles to gaurd. I wish I knew more of mythos on Gargoyles, but honestly I am pulling most of my info from the Gargoyles cartoon from when I was little.

~T

[entropy]

Isn't there already a vampire-like race in star wars? I think they're called Anzat or Anzati. They have little tubes in their mouth that they use to suck your brain out. Does someone have stats for those and a description of how often they feed?

[Soniv]

Yes, the Anzati exist. The idea here, though, is to take Terran mythos and recreate them, using D6 stats. Anzati are not turned; think of them more like bipedal vampire bats than mythological vampires. Similar, but not identical.

With that being said, I welcome you to this thread. If you have any ideas for stats of any creature of myth, no matter what the source, feel free to post it here. Even multiple incarnations of the same creature type are accepted.

[Tahlorn]

What about Weres? As in, something human or humanoid which can shift into another form which does not resemnle thier original (werewolves, for a basic example).

I know that there are a couple races who can shift thier shape, and one which actually changes due to fear (forget the race name, they sart out tiny and gnome like, then get huge and ferally wolf type thing). But those races, from what I have seen, are not PC friendly. Can someone help me figure out stats for, lets say, a SW equivelant Werewolf?

Attribute and such would be that of standard human.
When shifted:
-Increased Str, Perc, and perhaps Dex (+2d)
-Decreased Knw, Mch and Tch (-2d)
Has ability to shift on command and/or from set stimuli (myth would be a full moon)
Shifting would iether be an ability/power or a skill (for getting better at)
Wounds carry over from one state to the other
takes a said amount of rounds to shift, and a few more to get thier "head back in the game" as it were (once fully shifted, has a couple rounds before can take any other actions)


Any input / suggestions are welcome

~Tahlorn