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Other insect totems, Addendum to MitS

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Young Freud View Member Profile	Sep 27 2004, 08:04 AM Post #1
Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 118 Joined: 20-June 04 Member No.: 6,423	Since I'm considering this as an idea for a campaign I'm going to put a spoiler on. My newb players probably don't know this website, but better to be safe than sorry: [ Spoiler ] I have been thinking about having an insect shaman be the major villian in an upcoming campaign. I've been thinking about making the insect totem a Bee shaman, instead of the ones out of the book. I'm really thinking of using the spirit powers for the Wasps and make it more of a roleplaying aspect to them than any hard stats. The three major points I'm looking into is: 1) "Give your all for the queen" RP rule: Drone and Worker Spirits and their metahuman quislings would all be motivated to, at all costs, to protect the Queen and Hive, up to and including giving their lives. This pretty much goes off the worker bee killing itself when stinging in defense of the hive. Suicide squads and kamikazes would be the norm here, and I can see Spirits willfully sacrificing metahumans before joining in the fight. 2) Adopting the infiltration angle of the Africanized honeybee, known as "Assassin behavior": the reason why Africanized bees have gotten so prolific has not only been their aggressiveness but the Africanized bees have been known to take over hives in secret, by sending infiltrating workers to locate and kill the infiltrated hive's queen and install their queen, without the invaded hive's drones and workers ever knowing. I'm planning on applying this to the Bee spirits and their followers infiltrating human organizations and corporations and taking them over. Granted, UB did the same thing, but I kinda what the campaign to have it's own paranoia. 3) The defense only behavior: I'm thinking this could allow them to remain undiscovered. If a hive is discovered, they simply compartmentalize the hive, move anything necessary, and route around whatever damage is caused by outsiders. The beehive can simply accumulate and grow passively and cautiously, such behavior advantageous in the post-UB era insects. I have also been playing around with the concept of having the insect shaman as a Sterile Toxic, kind of a double whammy. I'm probably bending and breaking the rules, but I kinda falling in love with the idea. Desire Reflection and Influence would certainly be benefitial, especially with the high attrition amongst fanatical followers. and the highly regimented and "flawless" lifestyle of Sterile Toxics would be attractive to a shaman interested in the Bee totem. I plan on having a minor runs against an low level insect shamans, to get them familiar with them, but have this sprung on them as they get higher. In fact, I plan on having the insect shaman as an Angel, contacting them, supporting them materially, and providing them with high-paying runs. Well, what do you think, sirs?

Ombre View Member Profile	Sep 27 2004, 11:29 AM Post #2
Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 126 Joined: 11-September 04 From: French Runner Member No.: 6,652	Think that maybe you could tie that in with the experiences described in Threats 2, where your villains could be using the one who thinks is using them (I'm trying not to give too much spoilers since I don't know how to do the nioce "spoiler-link" trick...

Omer Joel View Member Profile	Sep 27 2004, 12:07 PM Post #3
Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 278 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Rehovot, Israel Member No.: 265	Quite well done. A few thoughts: first, Bee hives should look quite different from Wasp ones, including larger numbers of drones/workers and built in the familiar honeycomb pattern (Bee spirit workers should be able to secrete the wax-like building material [forgot its English name] from their bodies). Second, Bee-spirit "honey" could be used in a manner similar to the one used in Queen Euphoria: to produce an addictive substabce. So a Bee hive might hide beneath the surface of a drug smuggling/manifacturing operation. Truth be told, I've been thinking about submitting certain expanded Bug Spirit rules to the next TSS issue; wemight combine our efforts on this. (I'll be writing about variant fleshforms and about Dragonfly spirits, and your Bee spirits should fit right in :))

Guest_Crimsondude 2.0_*	Sep 27 2004, 11:48 PM Post #4
Guests	Why not SOTA65?

snowRaven View Member Profile	Sep 30 2004, 01:39 AM Post #5
Shooting Target Group: Members Posts: 1,665 Joined: 26-April 03 From: Sweden Member No.: 4,516	Yeah Omer Joel - send a proposal to the WizKids people! If that falls through you always have TSS as a backup :elims:

spotlite View Member Profile	Sep 30 2004, 06:31 PM Post #6
Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 611 Joined: 21-October 03 From: Yorkshire Toxic Zone Member No.: 5,752	I thought the insects spirits in a hive pretty much would sacrifice themselves for a queen at all costs anyway! other than that, I quite like them. Additional insect spirit types always useful and fun!

Sijal View Member Profile	Sep 30 2004, 07:55 PM Post #7
Target Group: Members Posts: 37 Joined: 9-September 04 Member No.: 6,640	Any stats for these yet...I have a long bug campaign coming up MUAHAHAHAAH

Young Freud

Oct 1 2004, 06:47 AM

Post #8

Moving Target

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QUOTE (spotlite)

I thought the insects spirits in a hive pretty much would sacrifice themselves for a queen at all costs anyway!

other than that, I quite like them. Additional insect spirit types always useful and fun!

Well, my Bees would be more apt to do so, or use human allies to do so, particularly using Compulsion-influenced ones. The reason behind that concept was that whenever Honeybees use their stingers, the barbed stinger stays in the target and they tear their guts out when they instictively pull out (the Queen Bee has a smooth stinger, which can be used repeatedly; drones will usually headbutt an invader before using the stinger). The whole idea strikes me to be similar to a samurai committing seppaku for his master, honor bound to the Queen, which is why I wanted to include that concept.

Probably the biggest difference and a scary thing is that the Queen Bee isn't attached to the hive, which means the Queen Bee can be mobile (I mentioned this earlier, about "Assassin Bee" behavior). I'm playing with the idea of allowing the Queen to manifest as a Fleshform, similar to the Mantis Female, especially for mingling in human society and infiltrating and "imploding" organizations.

Kanada Ten

Oct 2 2004, 12:58 AM

Post #9

Beetle Eater

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QUOTE

I'm playing with the idea of allowing the Queen to manifest as a Fleshform, similar to the Mantis Female, especially for mingling in human society and infiltrating and "imploding" organizations.

Keeping it simple you could give her the the power of Possession (similar to the metamagic) and combined with Aura Masking she could do that.

IIRC, Mantis Mothers are good merge fleshforms.

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