Steve Jackson Games - Site Navigation
Home General Info Follow Us Search Illuminator Store Forums What's New Other Games Ogre GURPS Munchkin Our Games: Home

Go Back   Steve Jackson Games Forums > Roleplaying > GURPS

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 10-14-2019, 03:42 PM   #1
AlexanderHowl
 
Join Date: Feb 2016
Default Powered Animals [Fantasy/Powers/Supers]

Powered animals have a long existence in human literature, with the Bull of Heaven being the first written example in the Epic of Gilgamesh (though they probably have existed since the first human told the first fictional story). I personally like them because they fit within practically any speculative genre, from fantasy to horror to science fiction. In particular though, they are suitable characters in supers games, as the idea of a talking ninja cat with the ability to teleport is not that strange compared to some super heroes (I have had players develop super heroes that were composed of tangible mathematical formulas whose powers represented using mathematics to alter the physical laws of the universe).

Do you use powered animals much in your campaigns? If so, do you use them as antagonists, protagonists, or both? Have you played a powered animal PC? If so, how did you make them different than the human PCs?
AlexanderHowl is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 10-14-2019, 04:59 PM   #2
Prince Charon
 
Prince Charon's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 2012
Default Re: Powered Animals [Fantasy/Powers/Supers]

Some animals in the Five Earths setting (see .sig) have a degree of sapience (and opposable thumbs), including cats and rabbits, and some of the smarter ones have psychic abilities and Path/Book magic. Think GURPS Bunnies and Burrows updated for 4e, with perhaps some adjustments here and there.

Random thought that might fit here a bit: Bunnies and Burroughs, a game of animals living on Barsoom.
__________________
Warning, I have the Distractible and Imaginative quirks in real life.

"The more corrupt a government, the more it legislates."
-- Tacitus

Five Earths, All in a Row. Updated 12/17/2022: Apocrypha: Bridges out of Time, Part I has been posted.

Last edited by Prince Charon; 10-15-2019 at 12:14 PM.
Prince Charon is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 10-14-2019, 06:15 PM   #3
Donny Brook
 
Donny Brook's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2014
Location: Snoopy's basement
Default Re: Powered Animals [Fantasy/Powers/Supers]

This reminds me of the classic Gamma World 'hoops':

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hkSDDnVxC1...assbunnies.jpg
Donny Brook is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 10-14-2019, 06:34 PM   #4
David Johnston2
 
Join Date: Dec 2007
Default Re: Powered Animals [Fantasy/Powers/Supers]

One concept for a supers universe I've played around with is the one where there are actually more super powered animals than humans. The result is a struggle for survival against intelligent rats, giant insects and feral canines with laser eyes.

Of course just about everything in the GURPS fantasy bestiary is superpowered.
David Johnston2 is online now   Reply With Quote
Old 10-14-2019, 08:04 PM   #5
AlexanderHowl
 
Join Date: Feb 2016
Default Re: Powered Animals [Fantasy/Powers/Supers]

Imagine a world where 0.1% of cats have superpowers. In the USA alone, that would result in 100,000 supercats of varying capabilities. If we assume that 90% have 1-100 CP in abilities, 9% have 101-200 CP in abilities, 0.9% have 201-400 CP in abilities, 0.09% have 401-800 CP in abilities, and 0.01% have 801-1,600 CP in abilities, you could have ten very powerful kitties. Of course, the superdogs, with equivalent numbers, would be their mortal enemies.
AlexanderHowl is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 10-14-2019, 11:27 PM   #6
Flyndaran
Untagged
 
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Forest Grove, Beaverton, Oregon
Default Re: Powered Animals [Fantasy/Powers/Supers]

Quote:
Originally Posted by David Johnston2 View Post
One concept for a supers universe I've played around with is the one where there are actually more super powered animals than humans. The result is a struggle for survival against intelligent rats, giant insects and feral canines with laser eyes.

Of course just about everything in the GURPS fantasy bestiary is superpowered.
I've long imagined a campaign revolving around a zoo for super animals. Weakly powered to fully un-powered humans have to investigate sightings, and capture them.
__________________
Beware, poor communication skills. No offense intended. If offended, it just means that I failed my writing skill check.
Flyndaran is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 10-15-2019, 06:16 AM   #7
Varyon
 
Join Date: Jun 2013
Default Re: Powered Animals [Fantasy/Powers/Supers]

On one of the worlds of Brandon Sanderson’s Cosmere, magic is only found in animals, but fortunately these animals are generally restricted to a single archipelago. Said archipelago is basically a hellscape of horrifying predators that can hunt you down by detecting the presence of thoughts, have lethal poisons, and so forth - and it’s made worse by the fact that the few humans who do live there have a bizarre culture of trying to murder each other with traps. Said humans have learned to tame the less-violent birds to work symbiotically with them; the main character has one that makes thoughts undetectable within a given radius, and another that can show whomever it’s in physical contact with visions of their death, by way of warning (so if he’s likely to trigger a pit trap, he’ll see a superimposed image of the pit broken through and himself impaled at the bottom). These symbiotic birds appear to be the only way native humans can use magic.
__________________
GURPS Overhaul
Varyon is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 10-15-2019, 09:25 PM   #8
Refplace
 
Refplace's Avatar
 
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Yukon, OK
Default Re: Powered Animals [Fantasy/Powers/Supers]

In My current Supers setting I have a few very notable super animals.
One of the origins is a power seed about the sizeof a watermelon seed. When eaten it rewrites your DNA granting physical and mental enhancements. Animals tend to get smarter and more durable. Its not the most powerful origin but the most common one for animals.
Carnivores are unlikely too eat one,though if they eat a prey animal that just ate a seed before its gone to work it will work on them instead.
Also its inheritable maternally.

Known animals are a telekinetic killer whale, two giant wolves in Ireland (Fenris and Fenrir), a giant floating octopus, and a growing number of giant squid.
__________________
My GURPS publications GURPS Powers: Totem and Nature Spirits; GURPS Template Toolkit 4: Spirits; Pyramid articles. Buying them lets us know you want more!
My GURPS fan contribution and blog:
REFPLace GURPS Landing Page
My List of GURPS You Tube videos (plus a few other useful items)
My GURPS Wiki entries
Refplace is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 10-16-2019, 12:16 PM   #9
Black Leviathan
 
Join Date: Sep 2018
Default Re: Powered Animals [Fantasy/Powers/Supers]

We built blink dogs with the Jumper Advantage. We had a Fox Familiar that could go insubstantial. We've had a few other monsters with advantage powers, mostly because it's simple mechanics where it fits.

We don't think about the pt cost of the powers as much as we would for a PC. We're more focused on the cool factor.
Black Leviathan is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 10-16-2019, 12:33 PM   #10
Flyndaran
Untagged
 
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Forest Grove, Beaverton, Oregon
Default Re: Powered Animals [Fantasy/Powers/Supers]

Most familiars are "just" powered animals.
Though I guess few groups use them as full fledged PCs.
__________________
Beware, poor communication skills. No offense intended. If offended, it just means that I failed my writing skill check.
Flyndaran is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Tags
fantasy, supers

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Fnords are Off
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -6. The time now is 02:04 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.9
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.