GURPS Alpha Centauri

[David Johnston2]

Well one possibility is a kind of Centauri rhino. The Progenitors themselves are vaguely reminiscent of anthropoid ceratopsians, so you could create something inspired by them but bigger and quadrupedal that loves to eat alien plants and charge vehicles.

[David Johnston2]

There's definitely no niche for brachiators in most of Planet because the only cellulose stiffened trees are the ones humans brought. But the Jungle presumably has some large plants that might have little furless sloth-like creatures living on them acting as groomers. Harmless, but could act as scenery.

[The Necromancer]

I'll toss a few ideas out for your animal search.

Insects of all sizes are potentially valid, especially if you're not going to insist on perfectly scientifically realistic creatures.

Razorbeaks might be hunted by spider-analogs, for example, that weave webs near the fungal towers, or even larger cousins of the bolas spiders that try to pick them off in midflight by flinging balls of silk on a line. Semi-intelligent spider analogs might hunt in small groups, using nets of their own silk.

Mindworms themselves might be preyed upon by various sorts of ant-, spider- or beetle- analogues, as the psionic disruption of a flowering might not have much effect on "animals" that far down the IQ ladder. Indeed - the presence of these "parasites" limiting the growth of fungal colonies and the range of mindworm predation might be part of the reason why full flowering cycles don't happen more often.

As far as large animals go, you might use the oceans for those. The fungus is very common, it's true, but it isn't everywhere, and generally it's the oceans that are less fungus-filled in the games I've played. Why not a psionically dampened fungus-grazer that's a manatee-analog? Extra thick skull with high trace-metal content that's toxic to mindworm burrowers, or an unusual neurological signal transmission mechanism that makes the animal unsuited for mindworm attack or even invisible to them. Perhaps these animals are why isles of the deep aren't more common, if they spend their days eating holes in the "rafts".

[Phoenix42]

First off, thanks a lot for the input guys, I'm starting work on my Alpha Centauri Bestiary as of now -

One of the main questions I'm always battling is how the animal in question fits into the larger symbiotic relationship-network. So if you have any ideas for how your animal provides a needed input for the Fungus tracts, I'm all ears for those, too. Needlessly to say, I will be putting the bestiary up along with the rest of the stuff when it's done (or, at least, reached a certain size).

Well one possibility is a kind of Centauri rhino. The Progenitors themselves are vaguely reminiscent of anthropoid ceratopsians, so you could create something inspired by them but bigger and quadrupedal that loves to eat alien plants and charge vehicles.

I'll definitely buy the rhino - of course one would have to start asking the symbiosis question, and more as to its natural habitat and why it has this "charging" instinct. One idea my girlfriend put to me could be that it lives in symbiosis with the glowmites of the continent, rather like true-life rhinos, except that as well as being cleaned by them and offering breeding grounds in its dung-heaps (yum), it is also almost constantly accompanied by a little swarm of varying size, as the mites come and go (maybe they spend their first life-cycle in the rhino-hide), and warn the rhino about things such as weather changes, larger or otherwise dangerous animals in the vicinity, etc. That would also account for a very large animal having comparatively low neural functions, since a large part of its perceptive activity is transferred to the swarm.

But the Jungle presumably has some large plants that might have little furless sloth-like creatures living on them acting as groomers. Harmless, but could act as scenery.

Definitely a sloth for me :); I should mention at this point that in my campaign I use the Chiron "huge" Standard Map, and the believing campaign is set on the eastern Continent, with the Believers starting at the northern coast and the Gaians at the edge of the Monsoon Jungle to the south-east. So since the whole thing is about the Gaians and the Believers as for the moment, Monsoon Jungle critters are always gladly accepted. In this context, I think that the "biologically over-the-top" applies especially to Jungle inhabitants. It should still be feasible, but whacky ideas are definitely your good old Jungle material.

Originally Posted by The Necromancer:
Insects of all sizes are potentially valid, especially if you're not going to insist on perfectly scientifically realistic creatures.

Again, my biology skills fail me. I seem to remember there was some sort of problem with realistic oversized insects, and I seem to remember it having something to do with their circulation. Do you happen to know what it was? I ask especially because I really would like to have some large insectoid lifeforms on planet, for the mere reason that one of my players decided to take Entomophobia, and I wanted to give him some fun apart from the occasional beetle in his characters' sleeping bag. King-size preying mantises have always been rather a favourite of mine...

Razorbeaks might be hunted by spider-analogs, for example, that weave webs near the fungal towers, or even larger cousins of the bolas spiders that try to pick them off in midflight by flinging balls of silk on a line. Semi-intelligent spider analogs might hunt in small groups, using nets of their own silk.

Mmmhhh... I like... *can already hear the curses at the failed fright checks coming up...* How large would these things be, approximately? As I have understood it, razorbeaks are similar to pterodactyls and other flying dinosaurs, so a spider would have to be relatively large to hunt them, I'm thinking 4 ft span with legs?

Mindworms themselves might be preyed upon by various sorts of ant-, spider- or beetle- analogues, as the psionic disruption of a flowering might not have much effect on "animals" that far down the IQ ladder. Indeed - the presence of these "parasites" limiting the growth of fungal colonies and the range of mindworm predation might be part of the reason why full flowering cycles don't happen more often.

As far as large animals go, you might use the oceans for those. The fungus is very common, it's true, but it isn't everywhere, and generally it's the oceans that are less fungus-filled in the games I've played. Why not a psionically dampened fungus-grazer that's a manatee-analog? Extra thick skull with high trace-metal content that's toxic to mindworm burrowers, or an unusual neurological signal transmission mechanism that makes the animal unsuited for mindworm attack or even invisible to them. Perhaps these animals are why isles of the deep aren't more common, if they spend their days eating holes in the "rafts".

I like the idea of insects living off mind-worms, I also really like the idea of large marine life. The psionic dampening and countereffects you suggest are really inventive, I'd definitely take those on. My only problem is that for obvious reasons, they couldn't really be parasites, but would still have to offer some sort of symbiotic bonus, on a larger scale perhaps. Maybe they only eat certain mind-worms, like defective ones (can happen, considering they all have exactly the same DNA, even with the typical Planetary superscience thing going), or the dead? That would provide for usefulness on both parts.

Speaking of Mindworms:
I have a rather ideosyncratic interpretation of the mindworms and the so-called Planetpearls. When I first started off AC, I was confronted with the usual question of whether or not to make the faction leaders immortal. I went with yes. However, I couldn't get a grip on why the rejuvenation treatment could only be made available to a limited number of people. Of course, it would be expensive and tricky, but especially democratic factions would probably try everything they could to make it as widely available as possible, leading to a large number of "immortals". That appeared rather weird to me. On another part of my preparations, there were the mind worms and their singular DNA sequence, literally identical among all mind worms. This usually, in genetics, prohibits reproduction via gene degredation (cf. Dolly) and makes any species highly susceptible to viral and bacterial infection. Of course this could be explained away by the usual "it's Planet. It's weird" but as a GM I like to have some answers for players who spend time researching stuff. Also, I was always wondering what the heck could be so valuable to make Planetpearls harvested from dead mindworms so valuable. So my solution was to say that the planetpearls in the mindworm contain an unreproducable superscience substance which rejuvenates eucariotic cell-structures in a radical process, keeping them rejuvenated and healthy despite their identical DNA, thus making them powerful psionic weapons due to their similarities in Gestalts, rather than a bunch of inbred worm-thingies. Of course, you know where this is going. Once harvested, the Planetpearls could then be refined to produce a longevity treatment for humans by using the same substance to treat aged human tissue. Of course, the limited amount of mindworms and therefore Planetpearls keeps the number of treatments that are possible within limits. As an offshot, the Human Genome Project was initiated in my campaign by the Peacekeepers for exactly the reason above, to attempt to further map Human DNA so as to make for more efficient use of Planetpearl essence, in the hope of making the same amount of essence available to more people (with all the beneficial side-effects the HGP always has). That was my "two birds with one stone" attempt to deal with two grey areas of the campaign setting.
I mention this at this point because of course this will feature in the AC bestiary, and maybe it can spark a few ideas of its own regarding other planetary life. Maybe, e.g., the animals feeding off mindworms (one way or another) also profit from the Planetpearls in some way? Feel free of course to critique the solution itself, what you think of the idea, etc.


And a last addendum: I am beginning to upload my Alpha Centauri files to Rapidshare, and will be adding the links to the earlier post listing the files available. Once I have added all the files listed, I will consider putting more up if people are still interested.
So far I have added the Map of Planet, the Mind Worms and Progenitor templates, the AC character sheet (which, I should say again, is not by me originally but a friend, so kudos to him for that), the modified Psi Terror table, a Ranged Weapons sheet for players with TL8(P) Flamethrowers and Shredder weaponry, and finally the calendars for the Believers and the Peacekeepers. Let me know whether the downloads work.
Good Night and Good Luck :)

*edit*
also added my Chiron trivia sheet and the prologue intro of my fourth book in the Peacekeeper campaign; the trouble with the intros is that with my 2003 version of powerpoint, you either have to embed the file as wav, which is gigantic (which is why the intro is 40-odd MB large) or have it run separately as an mp3. In the latter case, I'm not too sure about the legal restrictions on posting music files in the sjgames forum; and the intro without the music is kind of ridiculous. Also, one would have to manually re-direct the music tag in the presentation even if one downloaded it, in order to hear the music. Still wondering how to go about that one...

[The Necromancer]

Originally Posted by Phoenix42

I seem to remember there was some sort of problem with realistic oversized insects, and I seem to remember it having something to do with their circulation. Do you happen to know what it was?

IIRC, Earth spiders, if extrapolated to a larger size, would fail to have an efficient enough circulatory system to provide for their own needs and sustain their own life. Giant spiders (and other insects) are simply not "realistic" if they're using earth-insect internal biology and structures.

I see no reason, however, that these analogs should have to function internally like earth spiders. They could have an entirely different circulatory system, an endoskeleton, internal musculature, really just about anything required for "realism" to work. Alternatively, if you're willing to handwave the science a bit (which will vary by game and may not be suitable for yours, I acknowledge) then there's really no issue at all.

Mmmhhh... I like... *can already hear the curses at the failed fright checks coming up...* How large would these things be, approximately? As I have understood it, razorbeaks are similar to pterodactyls and other flying dinosaurs, so a spider would have to be relatively large to hunt them, I'm thinking 4 ft span with legs?

Yeah, probably - which brings us back to "giant spiders can't exist" on the realism side. I was actually picturing the razorbeak as quite a bit smaller, maybe toucan-sized, with an accordingly smaller spider. Something large enough to be quite a scare, but probably not a threat to humans. Unless maybe they are pack hunters or hiveminds, or if they started attacking smaller "engineered" or non-native livestock like chickens, rabbits, etc. What do your University characters do when Fungal Ferdie the Six Million Dollar Goat gets eaten (or even attacked) during a trial run in the wild?.

I like the idea of insects living off mind-worms, I also really like the idea of large marine life. The psionic dampening and countereffects you suggest are really inventive, I'd definitely take those on. My only problem is that for obvious reasons, they couldn't really be parasites, but would still have to offer some sort of symbiotic bonus, on a larger scale perhaps.

Parasites in the larger sense of "infiltrates a biological system and causes adverse results" not parasites in the "latches on and leeches" sense - I'm making the assumption that these things have some sort of mechanism to live through a Flowering and come through on the other side, like being dormant, or laying eggs that hatch after a Flowering finishes.

If these things are hard to 100% eradicate, and put pressure on various phases of mindworm/fungus colony growth, then they could be a small part of the reason why it takes so long between cycles - the fungus has to build up its "antibody" systems to fight off the relatively benign "infection" of these creatures at different points in the cycle, effectively slowing the rate of Flowerings and acting as a sort of damper on the whole system. Perhaps they hibernate for long lifecycles like locusts, emerging every few years to feed, mate, and lay young, and causing large swathes of blight in the fungal colonies/mindworm populations. They might do so directly (eating fungus, destroying same, killing mindworms) or indirectly (by predation of the fungus-supporting lifeforms).

If your characters are living in societies that are cultivating or using the fungus intentionally, then these "parasites" preying upon the fungus system might actually be seen as pest animals by your colonists, eating hybrid forests or damaging centauri nature preserves.

Maybe they only eat certain mind-worms, like defective ones (can happen, considering they all have exactly the same DNA, even with the typical Planetary superscience thing going), or the dead? That would provide for usefulness on both parts.

For a truly symbiotic relationship, this would certainly work - you can add any lifeform into the system, as long as you can explain how it impacts the system and why it's good (or not!).

I like the idea of insects living off mind-worms

I'd imagine it's possible - depending on what point you're at in the Flowering cycle - that animals of many sorts (small, non-sentient ones) might exist as part of an evolutionary branch that never quite gets off the ground before a flowering comes along and resets the table.

The psionic dampening and countereffects you suggest are really inventive, I'd definitely take those on.

Life always finds a way. In that sense, depending on how loose you're willing to get with the setting, you can probably add just about anything.

Maybe, e.g., the animals feeding off mindworms (one way or another) also profit from the Planetpearls in some way? Feel free of course to critique the solution itself, what you think of the idea, etc.

It could contain something necessary for their growth, their reproduction, or it could simply be their purpose in the biological cycle to recycle the planetpearls into the system for some other reason. Perhaps ingesting planetpearls causes them to be immune to the psychic terror, leaving them on an equal footing against mindworms (or just leaving them to live "around" them without interfering as the mindworms leave them alone).

[capnq]

Originally Posted by Phoenix42

Monsoon Jungle critters are always gladly accepted.

Jungles are good places for snakes; they could prey on the sloths. Constrictors like to drop out of trees. Venom could have radically different effects on Terran life forms than it does on Planet's native life; e.g. it might causes hallucinations rather than paralysis.

[David Johnston2]

Honestly the emphasis on symbiosis in the ecology makes native predators, in the sense of things that hunt and kill, unlikely. Which brings me to:

Gluepots: Crosses between a snail, a carpet, and a slime mole, gluepots ripple blindly across the ground leaving a trail of gooey fertilizer behind. It's back is sticky and corrosive, and inexplicably attractive to Planet's bird population as they near the end of their lives. They stick and are slowly digested by the slime. If someone sleeps on the ground, glue pots will try to squirm under them and dispose of the presumed carrion. This will of course kill the glue pot as well as the victim if said victim doesn't wake up

[Phoenix42]

Originally Posted by The Necromancer

I see no reason, however, that these analogs should have to function internally like earth spiders. They could have an entirely different circulatory system, an endoskeleton, internal musculature, really just about anything required for "realism" to work. Alternatively, if you're willing to handwave the science a bit (which will vary by game and may not be suitable for yours, I acknowledge) then there's really no issue at all.

I would prefer not to faze science as far as it can be accomodated. AC makes a strong attempt to rationalize and make Chiron seem real, so I think a GM should try the same as far as possible. At any rate, as you said, the "insects" don't actually have to be insects in the biological sense of having a trachioid open circulation system. As long as they have a carapace of some sort - it would seem that the standard chitinous materials used by earth insects would use up too much carbon, so maybe there are silica-strengthened carapaces? As far as I know, nitrated compounds aren't very tough, but I'm open to suggestions (where are chemists when you need them). Or if they have carbon carapaces, maybe they "hand it down" by generations, at least in some species. The parents build/weave/grow the carapaces during their life, laying their eggs inside the carapaces to grow into their clothes, as it were. But the final batch is laid inside the parent itself, which dies and thus the new generation takes over the parent's carapace. Sorry, just musing here, let me know what you think...

Yeah, probably - which brings us back to "giant spiders can't exist" on the realism side. I was actually picturing the razorbeak as quite a bit smaller, maybe toucan-sized, with an accordingly smaller spider. Something large enough to be quite a scare, but probably not a threat to humans. Unless maybe they are pack hunters or hiveminds, or if they started attacking smaller "engineered" or non-native livestock like chickens, rabbits, etc. What do your University characters do when Fungal Ferdie the Six Million Dollar Goat gets eaten (or even attacked) during a trial run in the wild?.

Well, there is nothing to suggest that there aren't different species of razorbeak, in different sizes. I actually imagined the razorbeaks (and that's how I've described them to my players so far) as being about the size of a small eagle or albatross, but with the flight mechanics of winged dinos, that is soaring and swooping more than actually flapping (which works quite well on a warm planet such as Chiron). But there's nothing to go against toucan-sized versions as well, in fact it seems a lot more believable to have different-sized subspecies, seeing as there should always be more members of one animal family.
As for the goat... well, knowing the University, they probably simply apply for more research funds ^^ ...or hire a few "specialist" adventurers to get the goat back while not creating any fuss (interesting plot hook for a more absurd adventure).
"Good Morning Commander... Our experimental clone project, codename GOTE, was lost during a top-secret fungus grazing mission at 12.00 hours last evening. Your mission is to return GOTE to the science authorities within the next 48 hours. Assemble a team of elite individuals at your own discretion. You are authorized to use any expenses or any means to reclaim the specimen. In the event of your capture, we shall deny all involvement. This lizard shall self-destruct in 5... 4... 3..."

Parasites in the larger sense of "infiltrates a biological system and causes adverse results" not parasites in the "latches on and leeches" sense - I'm making the assumption that these things have some sort of mechanism to live through a Flowering and come through on the other side, like being dormant, or laying eggs that hatch after a Flowering finishes.

If these things are hard to 100% eradicate, and put pressure on various phases of mindworm/fungus colony growth, then they could be a small part of the reason why it takes so long between cycles - the fungus has to build up its "antibody" systems to fight off the relatively benign "infection" of these creatures at different points in the cycle, effectively slowing the rate of Flowerings and acting as a sort of damper on the whole system. Perhaps they hibernate for long lifecycles like locusts, emerging every few years to feed, mate, and lay young, and causing large swathes of blight in the fungal colonies/mindworm populations. They might do so directly (eating fungus, destroying same, killing mindworms) or indirectly (by predation of the fungus-supporting lifeforms).
If your characters are living in societies that are cultivating or using the fungus intentionally, then these "parasites" preying upon the fungus system might actually be seen as pest animals by your colonists, eating hybrid forests or damaging centauri nature preserves.

I like the idea, though I personally would prefer to keep the fungus and fungus-based lifeforms in dominant control at the top of the food chain for the moment in my campaign. However, I could imagine these lifeforms, if they were former fungus-lifeform symbionts, going rogue during later phases of human influence; e.g., a snailbiter (a 25 ft long eel-like creature that latches onto isles of the deep and eats dead and defective mindworms, while profiting from their Planetpearls and securing psionic safety in its own right) is dependent on a certain type of algae or other for its hormonal systems. With humans increasingly planting kelp farms and the like, this algae is becoming more and more scarce. The consequence being that they are now actually increasingly predating on the mind-worm boils, causing the mindworms to become more and more aggressive (though the snailbiters are largely immune to this).

Life always finds a way. In that sense, depending on how loose you're willing to get with the setting, you can probably add just about anything.

Well, I don't want to get too loose, but AC only really details the lifeforms that are dangerous to human settlements, and adds a handful of others for flavour. So I think there's quite a bit of room for other creatures that aren't large-scale threats, even partially psionic-resistant ones (who cares about a psionic-resistant lizard that's only 20cm long and lives off insects as far as game terms are concerned? yeah, we do, but...).

It could contain something necessary for their growth, their reproduction, or it could simply be their purpose in the biological cycle to recycle the planetpearls into the system for some other reason. Perhaps ingesting planetpearls causes them to be immune to the psychic terror, leaving them on an equal footing against mindworms (or just leaving them to live "around" them without interfering as the mindworms leave them alone).[/QUOTE]
Yup, I'll definitely go with that. Maybe not equal footing, but certainly somehow similar. Maybe the Sealurk started off as a boil/fungus symbiont and then by a freak of nature its antipsi abilities manifested with actual psionic powers as well, the more the generations ingested the Planetpearls. More for the biologists to worry about :)

Originally Posted by capnq

Jungles are good places for snakes; they could prey on the sloths. Constrictors like to drop out of trees. Venom could have radically different effects on Terran life forms than it does on Planet's native life; e.g. it might causes hallucinations rather than paralysis.

First off, welcome and thanks for the input! Of course, it could be the other way round: What actually is beneficial for some of the plant life (for instance, a nerve agent the snake injects into the sloths which works as an analgesiac on planetary lifeforms helps the sloth against some of the stinging plants it eats, for which the sloth then obligingly carries the snake eggs to some point in the jungle which the snake itself cannot reach, or something like that) turn out to a deadly nerve agent for humans...

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Honestly the emphasis on symbiosis in the ecology makes native predators, in the sense of things that hunt and kill, unlikely. Which brings me to:

Gluepots: Crosses between a snail, a carpet, and a slime mole, gluepots ripple blindly across the ground leaving a trail of gooey fertilizer behind. It's back is sticky and corrosive, and inexplicably attractive to Planet's bird population as they near the end of their lives. They stick and are slowly digested by the slime. If someone sleeps on the ground, glue pots will try to squirm under them and dispose of the presumed carrion. This will of course kill the glue pot as well as the victim if said victim doesn't wake up

Nice one! How large would these things be? 8 hex? Does the death of the glue-pot come from the diverging biochemistry or simply from the fact that humans often wear respirators and other non-organic materials?
And they say you don't learn anything from roleplaying... now I know (having googled it) what a slime-mole is :)

I think predators are tricky as well, but not impossible. If the service rendered to the larger ecosystem by the predator is more valuable than the damage inflicted on the individual getting eaten, it still may be possible. And after all, predators are only killing larger lifeforms while others kill smaller or immobile ones. As they say, if you're a blade of grass, a cow becomes a dangerous predator... And keeping numbers of otherwise fast-reproducing herbivores down would seem a useful thing, especially if, e.g., the herbivores would otherwise endanger some part of fungus growth by overpopulation or eating too much of a symbiotic plant.

*edit* obviously the thing ate part of my post. I really should start posting when I'm awake...

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Phoenix42

Nice one! How large would these things be? 8 hex? Does the death of the glue-pot come from the diverging biochemistry or simply from the fact that humans often wear respirators and other non-organic materials?
.

Biochemical incompatibility. It's not that common for humans to sleep out in the open anyway, and a lot of the ones who do have been modified to breath the air.

[capnq]

Originally Posted by Phoenix42

I think predators are tricky as well, but not impossible. If the service rendered to the larger ecosystem by the predator is more valuable than the damage inflicted on the individual getting eaten, it still may be possible. And after all, predators are only killing larger lifeforms while others kill smaller or immobile ones. As they say, if you're a blade of grass, a cow becomes a dangerous predator... And keeping numbers of otherwise fast-reproducing herbivores down would seem a useful thing, especially if, e.g., the herbivores would otherwise endanger some part of fungus growth by overpopulation or eating too much of a symbiotic plant.

Planet's predators could also cull ill or otherwise defective larger lifeforms, similar to the scavengers that eat dead or defective mindworms. They have the planetmind to guide them to prey that needs to be removed.

The game's artwork for the Locusts of Chiron [1] look quite wasp-like IMO, so other insect forms have a precedent. The "glue" that hardens into an Isle of the Deep's shell could have a more flexible variant for chitinous structures.

[1] The image displayed during combat that replaces the faction leader portrait, not the unit on the map.