Mantid Ladies should not be persecuted., not like other bugs Options

[RedmondLarry]

Good questions, great mikey. Wonderful things for a player to ponder. A GM simply decides the answers as he/she desires for their campaign.

[The Jopp]

[mfb]

i think the deciding factor on whether mantids, as a race, are 'friend' or 'foe' is, "what are they going to do if/when the bug problem gets under control?" in the meantime, my view--none of my characters have had the opportunity to form an opinion--is that the enemy of my enemy is somebody you don't shoot until they stop being useful.

[The Jopp]

Say, is a good merge visible in a persons astral signature or are they completely hidden within the body's aura?

[mfb]

i think a good merge gets something akin to Masking. might be wrong.

[Mephisto]

[mfb]

in ooc terms, that question was answered in the original UB boxed set--one of the encounters involves raiding the shop/home of a woman who brought to term a baby fathered by a fly flesh form (awesome alliteration, eh?). the baby was described as being literally half-fly, half-human (obviously, the fly half was human-sized, not fly-sized).

oh, the aura thing--on 5+ success on the investment test, the resultant good merge gains the power of aura masking. it says that this ability is largely unused in worker spirits, though i can't imagine why this would be so--the Skill power makes worker spirits vastly more useful than an equal-force soldier good merge.

[The Jopp]

Personally I would rule that the child would be a normal metahuman since the host body needs a spirit to create a merge. If a flehform is a parent of a child the child would probably be "normal", at least physically.

Magic isn't locked to someones DNA and a merge is not an actual merging of two DNA strands, rather a Spirit trying to shape the physical shell into its own design. When the child is born there will be no spirit inside it, but there is no stopping a spirit from chosing it as its host.

[mfb]

thing is, jopp, it's obvious that a low-success flesh form undergoes a change in it's genetic structure. those insectoid features aren't a shamanic mask or other magical effect--they're a biological component of the flesh form's body; they're made of cells that reproduce just like any other, they take nutrients from the bloodstream, the bleed when you prick 'em. therefore, the question is whether or not a flesh form with less than 5+ successes (at which point it could be argued that the host undergoes no genetic change) is genetically compatible with a human, for breeding purposes. the canon answer, as per the UB boxed set, is that, yes, there is some level of compatibility. it doesn't state where the line between compatible and non is drawn, though; personally, i'd draw it at 4 successes exactly.

[Deacon]

[Bitten by the bu...]

My daughters are fine, thank you very much.
Well behaved around adults, helping kids in trouble and in general not creating more mayhem than other kids. They do seem to have a devastating effect on the opposite sex, but that was to be expected.
My husband is in fine health as well.

Does that answer your questions??

[The Jopp]

ROFLOL!

:rotfl: :rotfl: :D :D :grinbig: :grinbig:

[Snow_Fox]

Since it has been well documented that Mantid females have the ability to generate exztreeme desire in metahuman males, it can be validly questioned as to whether or not the males they takes are "willing." Also althought htey claim to only take females who are willing, I know from personal experience that they don't like to hear "no" if a female they want is not interested in their offer. They can be persistant until you give an answer they can't ignore.

[Bitten by the bu...]

Sweetie, every female of a certain age know that any male of a certain age can and will be led by their hormones and a touch of the feminine pheromone. Don't come and say to me that you, dear Fox, haven't played that game with devastating effect?!

Mantis only take those who are willing and She only claims those that want her with body and soul.
How does the other Totems get their shamans? By Recognition. They recognize something of themselves in their meta/human shamans.
So does Mantis.
Most shamans of any creed are nutters anyway. Just look at the Bandit who "borrows" anything or Crow that steals anything shiny or Parrot that wants to be in the limelight all the time...
One way or the other, all shamans are twisted...
My Path are no more right nor wrong than any other shaman's.
My Totem are no more right nor wrong than yours, Fox.
We battle the same evil, we fight the same fight and yet you renounce me and mine???
Tsk tsk, I would have thought better of you, dear...

[Siege]

Urk. Your name takes on a whole new level of scary.

-Siege

[Shadow]

Wow this explains something that happened to my team recently. We were coming of a run, and had just been chased into the barrens by a corporate team. Our rigger managed to out fox them and we hid the van under the old 205 exit. None of us relished the idea of hoofing it through Halloweener territory but those are the breaks. So there we were, about 6 blocks from a safe house and we here some serious drek going down. Guns, explosives the whole bit. Being the stealth guy I go out and take a look.

It took me a few minutes to figure out what was happening, but here it is. A group of gangers decided to raid this house. When they got there they opened the door using a second hand rocket launcher. Real clever I know. But what came spilling out was un-fraggin believable. The most gorgeous women I have ever seen in my life. All fighting hand to hand with the gangers, tearing these guys apart. These were trolls and orcs mind you. And these girls just ripped them to pieces. Most of em were half naked and they were shrugging off bullets like rain drops. My first urge was to run out and help the girls, but something in the back of my head told me to keep down. At the end of the slaughter the girls piled the bodies up and lit em on fire and walked back into the house like nothing had happened. The strangest thing was though, the fire lit them all up, and on the wall there shadows weren't human. Needless to say I got the hell out of there.

I wake up in the middle of the night and I want to go back there. I feel like I have to. The only reason I think I have been able to resist is my adept training. But let me tell you, I am not so sure it wouldn't be worth it.

[Playing Games]

Now, the ego, and fear tramps come running in.Don't get me wrong,these women can be scary.It is just that they are still,rather mortal.When,I call on the powers that help me,I can go toe-to-toe with these people.

I broke one over my knee.It was hard fight, but I am not your normal spell-slinger.Them, gods, or demons like me.

Now,as do I find them evil.Yes,I do.Like the people who work of S-k. Does this mean,I will kill them on site?Nope..It does mean,I will not hesitate to kill them, if they in the way of my goals.And like I said,my gifts,make it a fair fight,my toys, and skills put them in an up hill battle.

Different-Days

[last_of_the_grea...]

Well, I've never fought any kind of bug spirit. Us mundanes tend to avoid that kinda thing. Apparently I have a natural talent at fighting spirits, though. Shocked the heck out of or team's mage when I was trapped into fighting an earth elemental. Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide and no aid coming any time soon, so I said, "What the frag," and threw down! Nasty fight and I didn't come out unscathed, but the mage told me after I "killed" it that I was lucky. I prefer to think I was good. So, if I have to tango with a bug, mantis or otherwise, I'm confident I can give as good as I get. Anyone here ever had to rumble with a bug? Sing out!

[Siege]

Sorry Mikey -- I've seen footage of what happened to mundanes tangling with bugs.

Put a shaman's number in my speed dial after that sec cam video.

-Siege

[Herald of Verjig...]

The subtitle of this thread is wrong. Your guides are both very distinct and very similar. Oak, Dog, Ant, Mantid, each is the complete truth of its place.

Not like the foolish guides of the past who were broken and frail half-truths.

[Kagetenshi]

I have fought a bug. I am mundane, or so the tests tell me; I'm fine with that, as I spend most of my time in the Matrix, anyway.
We were hitting an abandoned parking garage that apparently had a connection to an underground datastore inside; I'm not sure if that's true or not. The place had a bug hive underneath, we found out later, but all we saw was corpses. Then, inside, there was a woman.
She was eating something, someone; I couldn't see what. Wendy went first, she was our streetsam, walked up towards the other woman. She got near, and then the other woman suddenly was around and ripping her throat out. Bob was blasting away with his shotgun, and I was fumbling for my pistol, when the thing leapt on me.
I'm not sure what happened, but I just... pushed, and the thing cried out in pain. I did it again, and again, and it finally collapsed and died. Rusty, our mage, finally got back from tangling with a leftover Ant that'd tried to jump us from behind, gave one look at the thing, and ordered us to pull out. We did, and quick. It was too late for Wendy, but the rest of us are alive somehow.
Rusty said the woman was a Mantid. I don't know about Mantids, but I know I wasn't a bug, and I know she killed one of ours and tried to kill me.
So you'll excuse me if I don't buy your assertion that Mantids shouldn't be hunted.

~J

[Finbar]

It's very simple really. Mantis spirits are Parasites. They come out of the Astral nether regions, find some bimbo and devour her soul and steal the Body.
Now the only people i've ever heard say that the woman was depressed, suicidal, brain dead and gullible, were the mantis spirits themselves speaking through the host body.
Dont believe them, they just want more host bodies so they can summon more of their kind through. It's perfectly logical really, they want to propogate their species, but at the cost of our metaspecies.
At the end of they day, they dont feel like we do, they are just another type of Bug. We are an exploitable resource they can use and nothing more. Any bug which tell you otherise is obviously lying, just look at Chicago and what the Universal Brotherhood did! Thats the work of the Bugs. If she says she only there to kill and eat other bugs, whats the rest of the story? metahumans who have been infested by a parasitic Bug spirit are gone, their souls are corrupted, their minds are erased and the spirit controls them like a puppet, nothing with a benign agenda is so hostile and debasing, so utterly ruthlessly crushing what it meant for their host to be human.
Not even Dragons are that bad.
Well, maybe some are, but hey, what ya gonna do? Least ya can kill bugs!

[Snow_Fox]

[Snow_Fox]

[Dogsoup]