Familiar/Steed/Pet/Animal campaigns
Posted: Tue Jan 26, 2021 10:07 pm
I'm weighing a couple of notions for a Rifts game I want to run, and wanted to bring up a question or two. Both games revolve around non-human characters, those often described in Palladium material as having high-animal intelligence.
The first would involve a number of beings together due to their individual association with heroic characters. Like the thread title says, they would be things like familiars, steeds, and other animal companions. Due to some sort of dimensional foul-up at the climax of a confrontation with a Shifter/Demon/whatever, all of the heroes got sucked into a particularly nasty rift. As the town the Shifter was holding hostage struggles to rebuild, the companions stay in the area in hopes of their people's return. Meanwhile, they struggle with things like a familiar's separation anxiety, the desire of many to return to the wild, trying to balance being helpful to the people of the village while not having their personal agency denied as dumb animals, and the fallout of further interest in whatever magical/industrial/natural resource which led to the initial Shifter's dominion.
Think of it if like Cordwainer Smith wrote A Night in the Lonesome October, with a dose of Legion of Super-Pets.
The second is full on ocean adventure. The players choose from a rotating cast of characters, including such things as schools of fish with hive minds, Blue Otters, Mega/Line/Land Rays, kindly-raised Shadow Sharks, a Sea Druid stuck in an animal shape, drug-addicted cybernetic dolphin hackers, what have you. This is intentionally more open ended, with an eye towards exploring natural vistas. Maybe helping a Tritonian researcher acquire samples leads to the discovery of a Naut'Yll attempt to cap deep-sea vents, and while the response to this by a New Navy submarine rubs a Lemurian patrol the wrong way, an empathically communicated memory of the party's whale witnessing that same sub helping her pod on their migration route helps to ingratiate otherwise bristling factions.
QUESTIONS: A lot of these beings vary considerably stat-wise, and combined with how few if any can talk I reckoned I'd have each player control two characters. How has that worked for any of you in the past? I figured that, when possible, a player might have one S.D.C. or low M.D.C. character, and one higher, just so the player of the Whisker Coyote might focus elsewhere if shots are fired.
Also, what are some good character options available for this sort of thing? I've begun putting together a list, but I've been far from systematic. I'm trying to avoid natively sapient beings that happen to not have opposable thumbs, so things like Waternix and Dragon Wolves are out.
Krel, Dragondactyl, Dragon Cat, Blood Lizard, Whisker Coyote, Owl-Thing, Pegasus, Megasteeds, Psi-Pony, Blood Hawk, Covenant Hawk, Unicorn, Familiars (Biomech in particular allows the use of some technology)
It's a little weird just how many horse-like varieties there are. I know My Little Pony's heyday has come and gone, but that's not a comparison I'm looking to invite.
The first would involve a number of beings together due to their individual association with heroic characters. Like the thread title says, they would be things like familiars, steeds, and other animal companions. Due to some sort of dimensional foul-up at the climax of a confrontation with a Shifter/Demon/whatever, all of the heroes got sucked into a particularly nasty rift. As the town the Shifter was holding hostage struggles to rebuild, the companions stay in the area in hopes of their people's return. Meanwhile, they struggle with things like a familiar's separation anxiety, the desire of many to return to the wild, trying to balance being helpful to the people of the village while not having their personal agency denied as dumb animals, and the fallout of further interest in whatever magical/industrial/natural resource which led to the initial Shifter's dominion.
Think of it if like Cordwainer Smith wrote A Night in the Lonesome October, with a dose of Legion of Super-Pets.
The second is full on ocean adventure. The players choose from a rotating cast of characters, including such things as schools of fish with hive minds, Blue Otters, Mega/Line/Land Rays, kindly-raised Shadow Sharks, a Sea Druid stuck in an animal shape, drug-addicted cybernetic dolphin hackers, what have you. This is intentionally more open ended, with an eye towards exploring natural vistas. Maybe helping a Tritonian researcher acquire samples leads to the discovery of a Naut'Yll attempt to cap deep-sea vents, and while the response to this by a New Navy submarine rubs a Lemurian patrol the wrong way, an empathically communicated memory of the party's whale witnessing that same sub helping her pod on their migration route helps to ingratiate otherwise bristling factions.
QUESTIONS: A lot of these beings vary considerably stat-wise, and combined with how few if any can talk I reckoned I'd have each player control two characters. How has that worked for any of you in the past? I figured that, when possible, a player might have one S.D.C. or low M.D.C. character, and one higher, just so the player of the Whisker Coyote might focus elsewhere if shots are fired.
Also, what are some good character options available for this sort of thing? I've begun putting together a list, but I've been far from systematic. I'm trying to avoid natively sapient beings that happen to not have opposable thumbs, so things like Waternix and Dragon Wolves are out.
Krel, Dragondactyl, Dragon Cat, Blood Lizard, Whisker Coyote, Owl-Thing, Pegasus, Megasteeds, Psi-Pony, Blood Hawk, Covenant Hawk, Unicorn, Familiars (Biomech in particular allows the use of some technology)
It's a little weird just how many horse-like varieties there are. I know My Little Pony's heyday has come and gone, but that's not a comparison I'm looking to invite.