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Old 12-28-2020, 02:42 AM   #1
Johnny Angel
 
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Pennsylvania
Default [Vehicles] Living Vehicles?

I am starting to write a setting for an upcoming game (related to the mage blade thread).

I have started to think about what vehicles are available in the setting. One of the ideas I came up with is that some of the "vehicles" are actually animals which have been modified through some mixture of magic and bio-tech.

While living vehicles do exist, in terms of something like a horse, I have ideas in mind which are a mix of living thing and machine (or at least a heavily modified living thing).

The cylon raiders from Battlestar Gallactica might be a good example, but my version would be less computerized machine and more bio-tech/magi-tech machine. Another example would be the biomechanical whale pictured here, but (again) I visually imagine something which still appears more living.

Are there guidelines for building something like this? I was looking at Transports of Fantasy, but I'm not sure that quite covers my ideas.
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Old 12-28-2020, 03:39 AM   #2
johndallman
Night Watchman
 
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Cambridge, UK
Default Re: [Vehicles] Living Vehicles?

What you need is GURPS Bio-Tech, available at your local branch of Warehouse 23. It has sections on Biovehicles (p. 96) and on magical Biotech (p. 30).
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Old 12-28-2020, 03:57 AM   #3
dcarson
 
Join Date: Mar 2008
Default Re: [Vehicles] Living Vehicles?

Spaceships 7 Divergent and Paranormal has some stuff like digestive system power-plants and brains.
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Old 12-28-2020, 05:48 AM   #4
Varyon
 
Join Date: Jun 2013
Default Re: [Vehicles] Living Vehicles?

Quote:
Originally Posted by dcarson View Post
Spaceships 7 Divergent and Paranormal has some stuff like digestive system power-plants and brains.
While Biotech is largely about general guidelines and building living vehicles as characters, Spaceships has support for building them as gear (vehicles), although it's skewed much more toward operation in space (for obvious reasons). Relevant parts are the first volume (for the base system, as well as things like Organic Armor), the fourth (for Robot Leg systems, which can certainly work for living legs as well), the seventh (in addition to what dcarson notes, this also has things like ornithopter wings, tails, maws, rules for vehicles that lack life support or get it via magic, smaller systems, etc), and Alternate Spaceships, from Pyramid #3/34 (with rules for flexible snake-like locomotion, volume effects of having large amounts of armor, water propulsion, etc).
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Old 12-29-2020, 03:54 PM   #5
Plane
 
Join Date: Aug 2018
Default Re: [Vehicles] Living Vehicles?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Johnny Angel;2359982
Are there guidelines for building something like this? I was looking at [URL="http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/books/transportsoffantasy/"
Transports of Fantasy[/URL], but I'm not sure that quite covers my ideas.
First thing that comes to mind is B74 "Exposed" limitation applied to "Payload" if you want "can carry stuff without counting the weight as encumbrance" without "protects what I carry"
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Old 12-30-2020, 03:04 AM   #6
Johnny Angel
 
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Pennsylvania
Default Re: [Vehicles] Living Vehicles?

Thanks for the responses.

The concepts in my head are still somewhat vague. The setting concept grew out of several separate ideas (i.e. mage blade, a big mushroom city, etc) I have had scattered about notebooks. More recently, something clicked in my brain and I decided to try tying them together into a game.

For the vehicles, I'm unsure if it will be more like riding a big creature or being inside a vehicle. I'm thinking more toward being inside because a little bit of my inspiration is coming from Star Wars. However, there's not only one answer. I'm trying to come up with a common list of vehicles and have pros and cons to either approach.

In my mind, one of the vehicle ideas is a druidic bio-mechanical dragonfly, with 4 wings and a cockpit from which to steer/command the creature. The picture in my mind is a dragonfly body, with a hollowed out portion of the head to serve as the cockpit and bridge, with a tie-fighter's window as the face.

Side note: One of the questions in the campaign is whether or not these vehicles are an unethical perversion of life. The druids (or whatever I decide to call them) who grew the mushroom (and possibly helped created early versions of the creatures) have differing opinions about whether they should still be used now.

As it relates to building the game mechanics for them, I'm not entirely sure how that interacts with magic, psionics, or a variety of other things which might influence the mind of a creature. What exactly is left of the mind of the creature is something I haven't decided yet either, and it may be a question which has multiple answers -depending upon the specific creature/vehicle.

The non-biological vehicles available would be things like zeppelins, air ships, and a few other rough concepts I have for a fusion of tech and magic.

Last edited by Johnny Angel; 12-30-2020 at 03:11 AM.
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Old 12-30-2020, 03:32 AM   #7
dcarson
 
Join Date: Mar 2008
Default Re: [Vehicles] Living Vehicles?

In the Titan series by Varley there is a very large species where the males are airships and the females are submarines. The males at least can be used as transportation where you travel in the first chamber of the digestive system I think.
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