(Or: Why my players hate me some times)
Long story, but, it may be an interesting read for some of you.
Okay, so this idea came to me from our GURPS Teen Supers game. As I was putting ideas together for my next story for the game, I was reading one of my standard sources of inspiration: GURPS Classic: Creatures of the Night. And, within this wondrous tome I found excellent inspiration: The Fabricant (pg 41-42). It wasn’t long (seriously, about 30 minutes) before I had the plot figured out, and began looking to stat the creature out.
Well, the first thing I looked at were TL10 Combat Androids in UltraTech. After statting one up, I laughed and declared: “that would red-mist the teens; it would be a challenge for the ISTers. Or a normal ambush foe in MegaDenver.” (Cue lightbulb warming up). I copied the stat block to another page, and went about statting the Fabricant as a TL10 general purpose Android.
After completing the Fabricant (Doctor Johann Fox) and his trusty fabricant pet, I went back to the TL10 Combat Android version and started tweaking it. While doing this, my brain continued to percolate: Fabricants are “created” when someone becomes unstuck in time. Well, if the Teens aren’t successful at destroying (or curing) Dr. Fox, then, he probably has a way to “travel” in time. And, if it’s broken, he might be able to travel through dimensions and wind up in the I.S.T. game. And, even if they do stop him, I like this guy enough to be a different Dr. Fox.
So, Dr. Fox got his TL10 Combat Android upgrade, and some more upgrades to make him boss-level tough. His, original, Combat Android stats got cloned into his Fabricant-slave army. And, being a full TL higher than the IST world (1.5, technically), he’ll be trying to build his own ship to leave. The only way he can do this, successfully, is to convert more creatures to Fabricants and scavenge their bodies for technology. The way Fabricants make more fabricants is to make them ingest their flesh. For details, you’ll have to read Creatures of the Night.
Thus, he will come into conflict with the UN. I’m figuring he’ll start out by capturing primitive tribes in Africa and South America, turn them into Fabricants, keeping the best for soldiers and sacrificing the rest for spare parts. After several battles (unless the party is incredibly successful) he’ll get his ship built, and leave the Earth. Leaving the horrible, living creatures behind.
At this point, I had started reading GURPS Aliens for more ideas for the I.S.T. L2 game, and came across the Kaa: an evil, slaving, cannibalistic, serpentine race that’s pretty much a stock GURPS race. And, at this point, the lightbulb flared on, full force.
After a time, Dr. Fox will encounter the Kaa. Upon learning of the Kaa’s predilection for eating sapiens (of any sort; it’s kind of a religious/power-rush thing), he will hatch the following plan:
He will offer his allegiance to the Kaa Duke whose realm he has come across. And, as a show of his devotion, he will “execute” ten of his best soldiers and twenty of his strongest workers, and have them prepared as a meal for his new Kaa masters. (This is not, in any way, dangerous for his followers: a shot through the “heart” with a TL10 laser pistol won’t even penetrate their armored hide, but will make for a good show).
While they are helpless, becoming Kaa-Fabricants, he will have them reprogrammed to obey him. He will repeat this until he has the entire Duchy under his control.
The Kaa-Fabricants will have an across-the-board TL upgrade, and he will use this (sacrificing all the workers he needs to) to build a fleet of TL10 ships to come back and attack the Earth. Anyone can rule aliens . . . he wants to replace the Human Race with Fabricants. And metahuman Fabricants at that!
TL;DR version: Evil, life-hating robot, infects alien race and plans to do the same to humanity! Send in the Heroes!
Long story, but, it may be an interesting read for some of you.
Okay, so this idea came to me from our GURPS Teen Supers game. As I was putting ideas together for my next story for the game, I was reading one of my standard sources of inspiration: GURPS Classic: Creatures of the Night. And, within this wondrous tome I found excellent inspiration: The Fabricant (pg 41-42). It wasn’t long (seriously, about 30 minutes) before I had the plot figured out, and began looking to stat the creature out.
Well, the first thing I looked at were TL10 Combat Androids in UltraTech. After statting one up, I laughed and declared: “that would red-mist the teens; it would be a challenge for the ISTers. Or a normal ambush foe in MegaDenver.” (Cue lightbulb warming up). I copied the stat block to another page, and went about statting the Fabricant as a TL10 general purpose Android.
After completing the Fabricant (Doctor Johann Fox) and his trusty fabricant pet, I went back to the TL10 Combat Android version and started tweaking it. While doing this, my brain continued to percolate: Fabricants are “created” when someone becomes unstuck in time. Well, if the Teens aren’t successful at destroying (or curing) Dr. Fox, then, he probably has a way to “travel” in time. And, if it’s broken, he might be able to travel through dimensions and wind up in the I.S.T. game. And, even if they do stop him, I like this guy enough to be a different Dr. Fox.
So, Dr. Fox got his TL10 Combat Android upgrade, and some more upgrades to make him boss-level tough. His, original, Combat Android stats got cloned into his Fabricant-slave army. And, being a full TL higher than the IST world (1.5, technically), he’ll be trying to build his own ship to leave. The only way he can do this, successfully, is to convert more creatures to Fabricants and scavenge their bodies for technology. The way Fabricants make more fabricants is to make them ingest their flesh. For details, you’ll have to read Creatures of the Night.
Thus, he will come into conflict with the UN. I’m figuring he’ll start out by capturing primitive tribes in Africa and South America, turn them into Fabricants, keeping the best for soldiers and sacrificing the rest for spare parts. After several battles (unless the party is incredibly successful) he’ll get his ship built, and leave the Earth. Leaving the horrible, living creatures behind.
At this point, I had started reading GURPS Aliens for more ideas for the I.S.T. L2 game, and came across the Kaa: an evil, slaving, cannibalistic, serpentine race that’s pretty much a stock GURPS race. And, at this point, the lightbulb flared on, full force.
After a time, Dr. Fox will encounter the Kaa. Upon learning of the Kaa’s predilection for eating sapiens (of any sort; it’s kind of a religious/power-rush thing), he will hatch the following plan:
He will offer his allegiance to the Kaa Duke whose realm he has come across. And, as a show of his devotion, he will “execute” ten of his best soldiers and twenty of his strongest workers, and have them prepared as a meal for his new Kaa masters. (This is not, in any way, dangerous for his followers: a shot through the “heart” with a TL10 laser pistol won’t even penetrate their armored hide, but will make for a good show).
While they are helpless, becoming Kaa-Fabricants, he will have them reprogrammed to obey him. He will repeat this until he has the entire Duchy under his control.
The Kaa-Fabricants will have an across-the-board TL upgrade, and he will use this (sacrificing all the workers he needs to) to build a fleet of TL10 ships to come back and attack the Earth. Anyone can rule aliens . . . he wants to replace the Human Race with Fabricants. And metahuman Fabricants at that!
TL;DR version: Evil, life-hating robot, infects alien race and plans to do the same to humanity! Send in the Heroes!