Posthuman and Proud

I typically don’t write about actual games of Lasers & Loincloths. The campaign has been going on too long for it to make much sense to anyone who hasn’t played in it. Too many asides, setting idiosyncrasies, and old stories.

A brief example. After making it back through the Ghooric Zone that wards the rest of the galaxy from their home planet of Abbith, the half of the characters that are in space finally reached their destination. A defunct and ancient yeti robot that now orbits their home planet in silent decay. One of the party clerics, a Samarajyan man named Bishma sought this old machine as the source of the transmission that beamed down to the planet's surface, transmissions that over the millennium a holy order had been founded on.

While inside the robot, (which of course was a dungeon thanks to Joshua Burnetts fantastic entry to the  2011 one page dungeon contest http://bernietheflumph.blogspot.com/) the party encountered a a pool of quicksilver with a dead yeti floating in it. This desiccated yeti was wired to the brain/control center and it was clear to the players that this was how the robot was controlled.

I wanted to give the players a hint that the quicksilver pool would affect anyone entering it, so I had the Wizard Azax’s flying armadillo familiar enter the pool. I rolled on the god seed table and whadda know, Chai the familiar gained superpowers.

Of course the rest of the party now wanted a dip in the god seed.

The wizard Azax went first, and out of the other side of the pool a clone of him emerged, only the clone had a goatee and arched black eyebrows and so was obviously evil. The party won initiative and wizards are squishy so “good Azax” blasted “evil Azax” with Bolt of the Vaccum. Evil Azax didn’t even live long enough to question the philosophical implications of his existence.

The intelligent bipedal she-weasel Skreek went next, her shtick is that she puts nearly everything in her mouth. And as a Blarka or weasel person she will only live to 8th level. (A re-skinned b/x halfling.) Roll on the god-seed table and she is now immortal and no longer needs to eat.

Finally Jesh, the farm boy come fighter come husband of a Djinn Princess decides to have a go. In is sci-fi exo-suit with the hilt of a cursed blade protruding from his chest he steps into the pool. 1d6 versus god seed table, and Jesh’s equipment falls to the floor as he evolves into a being of pure energy. Strangely appropriate for a man that love’s a genie spirit of fire.

The whole affair of the god seed table speaks directly to what I have referred to as the “deep universal thing” that happens in rpgs when you embrace the random number generation. Sure I chose the table, and we use our biased imaginations to make conjectures of how the results are meaningful. Conjectures that are predisposed to make logical narratives out of the “randomness” but damn, the results of letting the dice fall where they may where uncannily appropriate this time.

I dunno.

So now I have an immortal weasel to deal with who is already asking if level limits still apply. (We won't worry about that until she actually hits the limit.) I also have a 6th level fighter who became a being of pure energy. This required some extemporaneous rulings, I told him he was basically Dr Manhattan and he rolled with it reasoning that Dr Manhattan was Dr. Jon Osterman a nuclear physicist but Jesh was a farm boy and warrior so the understanding of “pure energy” would be different. He wouldn’t immediately become a post human god for instance, a feat that took Physicist Osterman some time to work up to anyway.

Kudos to Jesh’s player for the solid interpretation. I owe him some actual mechanics.

Being of Pure Energy.

"World line" by SVG version: K. Aainsqatsi at en.wikipediaOriginal PNG version: Stib at en.wikipedia - Transferred from en.wikipedia.(Original text : self-made). Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Commons -

The being of pure energy will eventually evolve to transcend “mortal” interest to exist in all places at all time subject only to entropy on a cosmic scale.

They no longer accumulate experience points. Rather they subtract the experience points they would normally gain until they reach 0 xp, the null state where they simply merge with space-time.

They retain the Hit Dice, HP total , Ability Scores,To hit bonus, and Saving Throw of their previous state. Armor class is equal to 14 plus DEX bonus.

They lose any special class abilities but gain others.

Entropy - Between the experience point total they had when they evolved and zero xp The Being of Pure Energy slowly loses their mortal identity and finds it difficult to interact with mundane reality. In order to physically interact with the world they must make a saving throw. Success indicates they can interact with reality, but they do so at the cost of 1HD worth of damage per round. Failure means their particles scatter across the universe and it takes a number of rounds equal to their hit dice to reform them.

Fission - The Being of Pure Energy can project gamma rays as a missile or melee attack for damage equal to half of their hit dice. They can forgo this attack in a combat round to increase their armor class by an amount equal to their hit dice.

Nucleosynthesis - Magical and energy attacks such as from laser weapons heal the Being of Pure Energy. They still take damage from mundane physical force. When a Being of Pure energy reaches 0 HP they simply dissipate into sub atomic particles. They may reform after a number of rounds equal to their hit dice have passed.

Hypersurface of the Present - While in a physical state the Being of Pure Energy may fly and communicate via telepathy. They are immune to any environmental effects. When not in a physical form they may teleport to any location they can perceive.