Weird Revisited: Hwaopt

This post first appeared in 2017...

Hwaopt are reptilian humanoids from a distant world. They have large eyes and their dorsal surfaces have tubercules and spines marked with splotches of drab colors. They have adapted to a trogloxenic existence, with the largest group dwelling in and maintaining a vast, library cave system, which may be the greatest repository of knowledge in the know world.

As their vocation would suggest, hwaopt are bookish creatures--to the point pedantry in the eyes of many. Their tendency to verbose lectures on obscure topics is minor social deterrent to other species compared to their odor.  Hwaopt use chemical signalling as part of their communication with others of their kind, but non-hwaopt often find these pungent scents unpleasant.

Hwaopt are generally nonviolent, perhaps even cowardly in the estimation of other races. This is not true of their degenerate, brutish relatives, the troglodytes.

Hwaopt Traits
Ability Score Increase. A hwaopt's Intelligence score is increased by 2 and Wisdom is increased by 1.
Alignment. Hwaopt tend toward lawfulness.
Size. Hwaopt are medium.
Speed. Base walking speed is 30 feet.
Darkvision. Accustom to life underground hwaopt can see 60 feet within dim light as if it were bright light, and darkness as if it were dim light for 60 ft.
Odor. Hwaopt scent glands deliver subtle chemical signals to other hwaopt. They can tell if another individual of their kind has been in a room or other enclosed location (60 ft. area) within an hour and make a DC 12 Perception to determine their general emotional and health state and whether it is an individual they have encounter before. Open areas, a lot of air movement, or other strong scents generally make this impossible. Other races tend to find hwaopt scents unpleasant, so they wear masking perfumes when they plan to be around other species in close quarters. Creatures with a keen sense of smell must make a DC 12 Constitution check or be poisoned until their next turn. A creature who succeeds their check is immune for 1 hour.
Languages. Hwaopt can speak and read the Common language of humans. They also speak their own tongue, a language whose grammar is notoriously difficult to master. Their scholar tendencies provide them one extra language.

Transhuman Space + 2300 AD

I think a mashup of Transhuman Space and Traveller: 2300 AD (later 2300 AD) would work quite well. They both share the trait of being relatively "hard sci-fi" rpgs. Both eschew world governments and the like for squabbling nation states continuing into the future. Both try to avoid most of the fantastical technologies of a lot of space opera.

There are a lot of differences, sure, but I feel like those differences could compliment each other. Transhuman Space's exuberant optimism regarding AI and biotech balances out 2300 AD's in places laughably conservative (and now dated) notions regarding future tech. Adjusting in the direction of 2300 AD's temporal setting (maybe meeting in the middle at 2200) would make Transhuman Space's rosy tech and space travel outlook look more conservative. Bringing in 2300 AD's stutterwarp drive and "realistically alien" aliens broadens Transhuman Space into interstellar science fiction, which is often more to the rpg crowds' liking than solar system-confined post-cyberpunk, while staying relatively true to the hardish sci-fi leanings of TS. Plus, 2300 AD has a star map and young space colonies ready for you.

Of course, you could do without FTL and keep 2300 AD's aliens and colonies. If you had things like Alastair Reynolds' "lighthuggers" and suspended animation sleep, you could still maintain 2300 AD style civilization, particular when you factor in Transhuman Space tech regrading brain downloading and bioroid bodies.

Wednesday Comics: Best of Trek

 Yesterday was the anniversary of the airing of the first episode of Star Trek back in 1966. It seems like a good time to talk about some Star Trek comics.

The earliest Star Trek comics were from Gold Key. They are pretty goofy for the most part, and the characters don't resemble their tv counterparts at all, but it's always interesting to see tie-in media from an age when there was very little of that media out there. These all have been collect in archives from IDW.

The Marvel Comics series of 1980-1982 is better than the Gold Key series, though it mostly fails to feel particularly Star Trekian. When it does, the episodes that inspired it are pretty obvious. It probably didn't help that Marvel was prohibited from using anything that wasn't in the first movie. IDW has collected much of the early Marvel stuff in an omnibus (now out of print).

DC had the Star Trek license for quite a while. Their output was on par with the best of the Marvel issues on average and better at times. Much of this has not been reprinted in a while (though there are Best of Peter David archives and other themed archives). A graphic novel by Chris Claremont and Adam Hughes Debt of Honor has been reprinted in a facsimile edition.

Revisiting the Wild Wild West

 

Just a reminder that my and Jim "Flashback Universe" Shelley's rewatch and commentary on the 60s TV show Wild Wild West continues over on Jim's blog. 

Wednesday Comics: New Old Stuff on Comixology

 Browsing the new comics listing on Comixology yesterday, I saw a few things I'd recommend from back in my comics reading youth.

Blackhawk (1988) #1

This prestige format series by Howard Chaykin was subtitled "Blood and Iron" for the trade, and now nice hardcover collection. It grounded these venerable Quality Comics characters in the the complicated historical era of World War II. Where the square-jawed nonentity of the Golden Age is reimagined as Janos Prohaska, a Polish former Communist. Only the first issue is out now (though the collection is), but it's only 1.99, so it's not that expensive to see if you like it.

Solo Avengers (1987) #7

I had a subscription to this title (it later changed it's name to Avengers Spotlight so it would be alphabetically near the other Avengers titles) for a short time for some reason back in the day. I don't remember anything about this particular issue, and I'm sure it's pretty forgettable. But I'm also sure they don't make them like this anymore and it's got art by Jackson Guice and Mark Bright. So if like me you dig comics that era, there are worse things to drop $1.99 on.

Star Trek Ranger: The Impossible Murder

Player Characters: The Crew of the USS Ranger, Federation scout ship:
Aaron as Lt., j.g. Cayson Randolph, Operations Officer
Andrea as Capt. Ada Greer
Dennis as Lt. Osvaldo Marquez, Medical Officer
Paul as Cmdr. D.K. Mohan, Chief Helmsman

Synposis: The Ranger is tasked with transporting the Yannidian Ambassador to Deep Space Station K-7 to negotiate a historic treaty, but the crew finds themselves investigating a murder when the ambassador transports up murdered.

Commentary: This adventure was adapted from a 1980 story in the Marvel Star Trek comic written by Mike Barr. The player's did a great job of investigation in the early part of the adventure and rapidly came up with the likely "how" of the murder, and some ideas as to why. Things slowed down a bit in uncovering the nefarious forces behind the plot, which was probably due to me not providing enough ways to get to the solution to that final puzzle. Mysteries are always a bit a tricky, and that's not less so with Star Trek Adventures than other systems.

Deep Space Station K-7  is of course the place where the Federation first encountered the tribble.

D&D Setting + TSR Game Mashups

 Here's an idea: Take a D&D (mostly 2e) setting and combine it with a non-D&D rpg also published by TSR. Here are a few:

Spelljammer XXVc (Spelljammer + Buck Rogers XXVc)

Buck Rogers is thrown into suspended animation and awakens in a world where magic is ascendant, and Earth is an occupied territory. This winds up being a bit like Shadowrun with rockets (XXVc already had a hint of cyberpunk to it), but the difference is genetic engineering and other high-tech feats would actually be accomplished via magic.

Another Spelljammer combo: Add the Buck Rogers Adventure Game for a pulpier approach.

All Alone in the Night (Ravenloft + Metamorphosis Alpha)

When the generation ship Warden left earth, the monsters went with it, and Dracula takes his real estate schemes to the stars! Like The Starlost, you would need isolated habitats, but here they would be ruled by various horrors. Vampire Hunter D could also be an influence here. 

Another Ravenloft option: Mix in Gangbusters with the monsters as mob bosses.