Furry Hell Parallel

[Tom Mazanec]

GURPS Furries!! I can hardly wait.
When I sent my Aesop article in to Steve Jackson, he suggested some changes (which I incorporated of course) and finished up with "Another one for the Furries! SHEESH!!". I'm glad to see that he is more open to the subculture now.
EDIT: I would also like to see a character sheet for Marx!

[Tom Mazanec]

Aaron informed me (email) that the Great Waste is situated East and North of what is equivalent to the Mississippi River, but that geography is rather different (no problem, Yrth has VERY different geography).

[Tom Mazanec]

Do the dittos correspond to Utility Fog, or is GURPS Utility Fog monochrome (so no invisibility)? Or are they like what I once read of as "Miracle Fog"?

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Tom Mazanec

Do the dittos correspond to Utility Fog, or is GURPS Utility Fog monochrome (so no invisibility)? Or are they like what I once read of as "Miracle Fog"?

Dittos basically grant the user the ability to create magical illusions (including invisibility), and having a ridiculous number grants some form of TK by making the illusions solid (although you can make invisible bridges just as readily as visible ones). I don't think they really correspond to anything, although Miracle Fog may come close (I think that can actually create real, physical objects - like assembling a chocolate bar out of air - rather than just illusions with mass). I suspect a modified version of the Illusion Advantage (from Powers) may be the most appropriate for ditto users.

[Tom Mazanec]

Thinking it over more, Varyon, the dittos might be better off just TL12^, what with their mind-reading ability. Zero bombs and Amesworth radiation guns could be TL9^.

[Tom Mazanec]

Here is Aaron's explanation of how anthros age.
It is not as bad as I thought:

The lifespan of an anthro is analogous to that of the pattern animal, not the precise same. For instance, a mouse anthro might live thirty years, a cat fifty, a turtle over a hundred, and an insect (depending on the kind), maybe days or months.

[Tom Mazanec]

How would you design a Buddibomb™ as a GURPS Robot?

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Tom Mazanec

How would you design a Buddibomb™ as a GURPS Robot?

I feel we don't really know enough about them, and are probably unlikely to really find out. All we know is they have some rudimentary AI that can detect "threats," after which they'll call out "Bad" for a while and attempt to attach to the target; once attached, they say "Bad" for at least a little while longer (possibly while waiting for any nearby Buddibombs to attach), after which they excitedly say "Yay!" and explode.

They seem to regard anyone transformed as a threat, but also seem to have some degree of hierarchy to this - they targeted Holly's friend who was simply an anthro, but when a transformed Holly was confronted with her dangerously-mutated fiance, they targeted the fiance first (he was certainly more of a threat than a mouse-girl). Once he'd been dealt with, however, Buddibombs started coming after her as well.

Offhand, I'd give them a slow-ish movement speed - Move 2 or 3 maybe - and probably an explosive payload comparable to a TL9 thimble grenade. They have some ability to detect mutants, and can also detect if the transformation went wrong, prioritizing those over normal anthros (priority is likely monsters>freaks>anthros; freaks are the ones with incomplete transformations, who transformed while conscious but stoned out of their gourd). Detection range is probably something like 10 yards. Once they detect such a "threat," they move toward it, taking the shortest route while accounting for obvious barriers. Once they reach the target, they attach as per a limpet explosive. If others are fairly close, they'll wait until all are attached before exploding; otherwise, they explode in 1d seconds. They probably only have a handful of HP and maybe DR 3 or 4. That should be all the relevant stats.

[Inky]

The lifespan of an anthro is analogous to that of the pattern animal, not the precise same. For instance, a mouse anthro might live thirty years, a cat fifty, a turtle over a hundred, and an insect (depending on the kind), maybe days or months.

Why so much less for the insects? Everything else is adjusted, presumably towards being somewhere between the pattern animal and a human (which makes sense, or as much sense as anything would in the circumstances), but "days or months" is more like an insect's actual lifespan. If a mouse's lifespan is two or three years and a mouse anthro's is thirty, then if an insect's lifespan is one year (butterflies, say) and there's any vague logic to this at all, the corresponding insect anthro should live about ten years. (And I'm not even mentioning periodic cicadas.)

[Tom Mazanec]

I asked Aaron about the history of this TL.

I have a couple, none of which are really relevant. My favorite is that a colony was established near Niagara Falls in the 17th century by a Prussian merchant named Frederik Neither who made a fortune selling goods and arms to anyone with the money or land to pay for it. His colony sold arms to the British and Americans during the Revolutionary War, and, growing to become Neitherland, sold arms to both the US and the Confederacy during the Civil War. At the end of the war, both North and South financially ruined, Neitherland claimed the entire East Coast and everything east of the Mississippi River as payment for war debt. Neitherland becomes the world's greatest technological powerhouse via military research.