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Posted: 3/6/2019 9:39
Last Updated: 1/28/2023 15:01

Appendix: Legendary Beasts and the Supernatural

This is a work in progress being developed for Stormwood & Associates. Rules may change at any moment, as they are currently incomplete and not necessarily balanced.

Legendary Beasts
One of the challenges of the Fantasy rules is dealing with monsters and creatures that are a bigger than your standard mook.  I mean, most things you encounter should just be Fodder characters -- be they Zombies, Orcs, Spider-Wolves... but sometimes you fight a Dragon. This guide isn't going to create a specific monster for you, but instead give you a framework to create the stats for a Legendary Beast. 

Legendary Beasts play like any other characters -- but have adjusted stats. Build them like a normal character (level 1-5), but instead of 3 or 10 damage points, a Legendary Beast can at least 20 damage. If your characters have been rearchetyped, feel free to up this number to 30 or 40 for funsies. Make it nice and deadly. Give it the same number of sweet move points as your highest level player.

Creating a Basic Legendary Beast
Split 8 points between Fitness and Sweetness, and spend 4 points on Combat Statistics.  The character has the ability of Basic Sweet Move.

Cosmic Horror
A cosmic horror is similar to a Legendary Beast (and uses the same stats) but can do some messed up stuff.

Skills:
  • Spell Chuck and/or Create Ward (same as player rules)
  • General Sweet Move
  • Altered Reality (Two Sweet Move Points, no Test)
    Altered Reality allows a cosmic horror to transport players in one location to an altered reality. The Horror is present somewhere in said altered reality. The reality itself isn't necessarily inherently dangerous -- it's just OFF somehow. Other creatures may exist in this reality, though they should be restricted to Fodder.

    The more powerful the Horror, the larger the space is.  At level one, the reality is the size of a single room. At level two a large house. At level three a city block. At level four a city. At level five... like a whole world.
Vampires

Vampires are neat, so let's make some rules for them. You know what they are -- they drink blood. They're weaker during the day. Obviously there are so many versions of vampires out there, that whatever rules we make will contradict SOME mythology. So, as a GM, when world building -- feel free to edit these. This is what we're starting with though.

Our vampires are ageless immortals. They require blood to survive, but not a ton. Like, maybe a pint every week will keep them nice and healthy. If they drink more, they can go longer without feeding (drink two pints? TWO WEEKS!)... but, like, that can kill someone. So try not to do that. They can eat other food, but it doesn't do anything for them. Vampires are not instantly killed by the sun in this system BUT will revert to the default fodder stats while in sunlight, and may be prone to fainting (roll a d10 once the vampire has been in sunlight for a half an hour, and the vampire will faint if they roll higher than the vampire's level plus four. Roll again for every additional hour)

Vampires stat are setup like a human, but can take an additional ten damage than an equivalently rearchetyped character. In addition to whatever skills the vampire has with their archetype they also gain two of the following powers at level one. At level three they can gain two more:

  • Mesmerize - A vampire can mentally control other characters. It's a D10 challenge to see if the other character is mesmerized, and it lasts for 1d6 minutes
  • Fly - Vampires can fly in any direction for 30 feet per combat round. They can sustain flight for as long as they want... but... y'know, if they hit sunlight the falling starts. There is no cost for this and is treated as movement.
  • Create Vampire - Not every vampire can make someone else a vampire. If someone drinks this vampire's blood, they will turn within 24 hours. It's gross and unsanitary!
  • Vampire speed - Spend a sweet move point and move 100 feet in a second.
  • Vampiric Bond - A vampire can develop a telepathic connection with the single person they are closest to.
  • Form of Bat! - A vampire can turn into a bat! Uses a sweet move point but turning back is free.
  • Form of Wolf! - A vampire can turn into a wolf! Uses a sweet move point but turning back is free.

Feats of "vampire strength" can be achieved with regular sweet moves. In sunlight none of these powers work. None of their non-vampire abilities work. In sunlight, they are basic, level one fodder characters no matter what. If they are in sunlight and in another form (wolf or bat) they are stuck in that form until they get out of sunlight.

Additionally vampires have access to the ability "Vampire Aesthetics" - which allow them to make cosmetic changes to their appearance. These can include things like glowing eyes, pointier ears, have fangs extend (which can be any variety of teeth -- from full mouth of sharp teeth to traditional extended canines), and "Vampire Face" eyebrow ridges or the like. The GM can declare the limit, but all of these are reversible and are really just there to look cool.

Vampires can also feed. This can recover either health lost or sweet move points. For every point of damage or sweet move point recovered, the person the vampire is feeding from will lose one. When drinking from, say, blood bags, one pint will recover this as well.

Whether feeding hurts the victim or is "fun" is up to the GM. Make your mythos!

Of course, Fodder vampires are just Fodder with an aesthetic, and none of these rules apply.

Werecats
Werewolves are so passe -- we're going to talk about werecats instead. There are two kinds of Werecats in this system: the cat-born and the changed humans. Importantly, Werecats of all kinds can form into "Gestalt" entities -- multiple werecats can combine into a larger creature.

Cat-Born Werecats
Cat-born werecats begin life as normal looking cat kittens, and cannot transform into a human on their own -- though they individually have human intelligence. They are by, default, just a cat. What makes them werecats, is that they have the ability to combining with enough other werecats of relative mass can allow them to form into a single human-like person. This person has the combined personality of all the werecats that form them, and all werecats will retain the memories of the whole when they separate.

Cat-born werecats will often live in colonies that choose to interact with the "normal" world as a combined whole for access to established society to achieve their goals -- it's much easier to buy fish at a store if you're a person.

It's also hard to catch a person stealing a fish if they split off into twelve cats that run different directions.

Cat-born Werecats can have either full "Assistant/Sidekick" stats  or fodder stats as gestalt humans, but only fodder stats as individual cats. One or two cats can leave the gestalt without significantly affecting the gestalt's personality.  The ability to separate into multiple creatures is the only advantage they have over other characters.

Changed Human Werecats
These are the sorts of werecats you were probably expecting. A human (or other sentient race depending on your setting) changed by being bitten by a werecat (in feline form), they transform under the full moon without control, though some can also take feline form at will.

Their normal feline form is halfway between a person and a large cat, though it provides no combat advantages (beyond having claws that can be used with melee stats). Werecats can be either fodder or standard characters depending on the character's importance.

Multiple Changed Human werecats can form into a Gestalt entity as well -- four or more can combine into a creature with "Legendary Beast" stats.


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