Apropos of nothing, I was thinking about various old posts I wrote about animal fantasy. (See here, here and here. The link to Sean Rubin's website is broken; his blog is here. It is traditional at this stage for me to asset that IANAF, so let me make it clear: I Am Not A Furry. But I do like animals, and I like animal fantasy. ) It doesn't seem as though in these posts I covered a long-harboured ambition of mine, which is to produce an animal fantasy retro-clone but weird. By which I mean, forget mice. Or, rather, you can be an anthropomorphic mouse if you want, but why stop there? You should be thinking about being an anthropomorphic seagull. An anthropomorphic walrus. An anthropomorphic fucking cassowary. Or, what's wrong with anthropomorphic insects?
So here are some anthropomorphic insect classes for S&W:
The Moth
Hit Die: d6+1
Armour/Shield: Any
Weapons: Any
Abilities: Can Fly (120'); can cast spells as cleric
Advances/saving throws as cleric
The Cricket
Hit Die: d6+2
Armour/Shield: Any
Weapons: Any
Abilities: Can leap up to 100' by foregoing other actions; Has Fighting-Man multiple attacks
Advances/saving throws as Fighting-Man
The Beetle
Hit Die: d6+2
Armour/Shield: Any
Weapons: Any
Abilities: Can Fly (90'); has natural AC of 7
Advances/saving throws as Dwarf
The Cockroach
Hit Die: d6-1
Armour/Shield: None
Weapons: Dagger, staff, darts
Abilities: Can Fly (90') on reaching level 4; can cast spells as a Magic-User
Advances/saving throws as Magic-User
And so forth. Cockroaches are magic-users because fuck you, that's why. 'Bad guy' races are social insects which inhabit 'dungeons', like ants, termites, maybe also wasps and bees. Shrews are purple worms. Black birds are dragons.
For more anthropomorphic creepy crawlies you might want to check out my buddy Andy Hopp's "Low Life" Current edition is for Savage Worlds but a creative DM should be able to adapt. New edition is also in the works.
ReplyDeleteNever heard of it, but will check it out - thanks.
DeleteI know what's wrong with anthropomorphic insects: the 6th World insect shamans!
ReplyDeleteand thanks for introducing me to the cassowary
What's a 6th World insect shaman?
Deletesorry about that, I was under the impression you knew a lot about shadowrun too. They were bad people summoning insect spirits and merging with them, one of the "iconic" ennemies and being anthropomorphic insects. I was answering the rhetorical question
Deletethat type of comment (from me) is why you run a nice blog and I only comment! keep up the good work
I played a lot of Shadowrun but it was about 15 years ago now and my memory is hazy. Also I never GMed that game. So my knowledge is a bit piecemeal. I had one character who was a shark shaman though.
DeleteHey these are fun I really like the Beetle and am exporting those shellac-backed walking-talking treasure troves to my ASE game. How will the PCs react if they find out the expensive shellac they are peddling is ground up shells of 'people'?
ReplyDeleteAnd please, I've got to know, what is a Furry exactly?
A furry is somebody who likes dressing up as a furry animal. And possibly doing perverse things in that form.
DeleteSome years ago I read the book "Empire in Black and Gold" (a young-readers fantasy about kingdoms and races based in totemic insects) and found the setting intriguing. I was so compelled to write a arthropod-inspired setting for my D&D campaign, but althought I keep extensive notes my players never explored beyond the initial dungeon. Such is life. But bugs are cool and under-represented in fantasy and RPGs, I think.
ReplyDelete