Mutations

Red Age > Rules > Characters > Mutations

Flaws

• Compulsion: a certain stimulus provokes a Spirit Save, on failure you respond instinctively with (your choice when you take this) fight, flight, or freeze (possibly locked in hallucinations); save each round to snap out of it.
• Vulnerability: you take double damage from a form of physical damage (crushing, slashing, or piercing), or two other forms of damage (fire, frost, acid, poison)
• Frail: Low HP progression. Halve your Vigor stat. Brutes cannot be Frail.
• Sunlight Sensitivity: you have +D on rolls to attack, defense, or perceive while in full sunlight or comparably bright light.
• Mute: you cannot speak, or are unable to make intelligible speech. You can develop a system of gestures (and whatever noises you can make) that allows simple communication with those who know you well. If a malison, you have developed something to replace speech in your casting, often some form of noisemaking (clicking mandibles, clapping hands, etc).
• Plodding: your Speed is 20', and you have +D to initiative and Wits saves to react to ambushes.
• Blind: you cannot see / have no eyes. You probably want to take some kind of sensory mutation to compensate.
• Carnivorous: you can only gain sustenance from meat. Provisions cost triple. You can survive on preserved meat. Unless you have eaten relatively fresh meat today, it costs 2 reserve to restore 1 HP, you receive half healing and fatigue reduction from spells or effects.
• Bestial Fighter: when you enter combat, animalistic instincts take over. You can't speak, must roll Wits to understand the words of others, and are limited to simple, though potentially cunning, strategies. You can use melee and thrown weapons, but not missile weapons. You're uninfluenced by civilized taboos or shames while fighting.
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• in progress...
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• delusions / hallucinations
• hungers
• weakness
• missing / dull sense

mutations: some are passive abilities, others require mana, HP, or fatigue to fuel (look to gamma world, metamorphica, or other randomizers?)

General Mutations

(2 mutation pts each, except where noted)

Perception

Second Sight

• Cost: 1
• You have the spell-like ability Second Sight, as if you had Gnosis or spell-casting ability.

Eagle Sight

• Cost: 2
• You can see clearly over great distances. Treat yourself as being 10x closer to the object of your attention when determining what details you can make out.

Keen Smell

You can identify people and substances by smell. When dealing with creatures that have a scent, you have -5 DC to tracking and reading people.

Keen Senses 2

(1 - 2 pts, as Skilled or Expert Observer Feats)

Unhindered Gaze

• Cost: 2
• When you concentrate (total), you can see through matter. Your vision is limited to 10', and you can see through up to 3' of low-density material (soil, wood, flesh), 1' of stone or metal, or 1" of lead or similar.

Physiology

Improved Healing

• Cost: 2
• You have 2x your normal HP reserve. When you heal Life through rest, double the amount. When you remove Wound points, double the amount (including the extra gained from a successful Vigor save).
• When Bleeding Out, each interval, roll a Vigor save DC 16 to stabilize (as if someone where giving you medical treatment). If you suffer Dead Adventurer Walking, make a Vigor save DC 16 to downgrade it to Bleeding Out Fast.
• You will eventually heal even severed limbs or destroyed organs, so long as they don't kill you outright. Treat maiming as a wound with 8x the normal Wound points.

Aquatic

• Cost: 2
• You are comfortable in the water and gain a Swim speed equal to your normal Speed. You probably have features such as webbed hands, flippers, fins, etc. Choose 1:
  • Gills: you can breathe water indefinitely.
  • Diver: you can hold your breath for (3 x Vigor) minutes, and last twice as long when resisting suffocation.

Hazard Resistance (heat, cold, acid, pathogen)

• Each type is a separate mutation with the listed cost.
  • Heat (2): you are immune to mundane extremes of heat, and resistant to fire.
  • Cold (2): you are immune to mundane extremes of cold, and resistant to frost.
  • Acid (1): you are resistant to acid.
  • Pathogen (2): you have resistance to poison. You are immune to diseases of Magnitude (2+HALF) or lower, and gain +A on saves against nastier diseases.

Luminescent

• Cost: 1
• You can emit heatless light from your body, sustaining a candle-glow indefinitely, the brightness of a torch for up to a total of (PROF) hours per Long Rest, or brilliant light (costing 1 hour per minute).

Extra Limbs

• Cost: 1
• You have extra arms, tentacles, a prehensile tail, etc. This doesn't affect your ability to attack or defend (can't effectively wield more than 2 weapons, can't wield a 2h and shield, etc), but you have extra hands for grappling or holding things, and have +2 Readied items.

Hibernation

• Cost: 1
• You can enter a state of hibernation, as restful as sleep, during which you do not require food, water, or air. You appear dead. Bleeding, poison, disease, and other physiological conditions don't progress.
• You may wake, or at least surface enough to groggily perceive your surroundings, when stirred by nearby sounds or touch. It takes 1d4 rounds to fully enter or awaken from hibernation, during which time you are Stunned.

Plant

• Cost: 2
• You count as a Plant where such things matter.
• You are vulnerable to fire.
• You don't require oxygen and produce enough for another Medium creature.
• You are immune to diseases that don't affect plants.
• You don't need to eat as long as you have water and sunlight (but you may eat if sunlight is unavailable).

Inhuman Beauty

• Cost: 2
• You are effectively under a Sanctuary spell when interacting with humans and abhumans (and any other beings susceptible to anthropic beauty).
  • If you break the effect by taking hostile action, it doesn't affect those targets again until 24 hours outside your presence have passed.
• Take -5 DC when exploiting your appearance in social situations.

Blood-drinker

• Cost: 2
• You may restore 1 HP (or Reserve) per 2 Life's worth of fresh (less than a day old) blood consumed, up to (max HP / 2) per day.

Boneless

• Cost: 1
• You can contort as if your bones are made of rubber. Treat as the Contortionist feat, but without a Dex prerequisite.

Mobility

Intangibility

• Cost: 2
• You can pass through solid matter. It takes 1 action to phase out and requires conc (action) to maintain each round.
  • Take 1 hp for each 10' of matter (or fraction thereof) less dense than stone (wood, plaster, soil, sand, flesh)
  • Take 1d4 hp for each 1' (or fraction thereof) of stone or most metal (iron, etc).
  • Lead, gold, and denser material is impenetrable.

Fleet of Foot 2

(as Feat)

Sticky Toes / Arboreal

(1 pt, as Climbing Expert)

Buoyant

• Cost: 2
• As an action, you can inflate an internal gasbag, alter your connection to gravity, etc, becoming buoyant.
• As a bonus action, you can shift partly in and back out of buoyancy, tripling jump distance.
• As a reaction, you can begin becoming buoyant, enough to take half falling damage (or fully halt your fall if it takes long enough).
• While buoyant...
  • You have +D to physical actions and half Speed, jostled around too easily by wind or movement.
  • You can walk atop water or surfaces too fragile to support you.
  • Each round as an action, you can float up or down 5', or revert to normal (falling).

Communication

Limited Telepathy

• Cost: 2
• You can project words in your own voice into the mind of a willing target within 30', and can hear their response if they direct it back to you. Doesn't overcome language barriers.

Animal Speech

• Cost: 2
• You can communicate with animals as if under the Speak With Animals spell.
  • If you are a Plant, you may also Speak With Plants (or reduce the cost to 1 and speak only with plants).

Combat

Natural Weapons

You have claws, tusks, fangs, horns, bladed tail, etc. Light, d6 slashing / crushing / piercing (as appropriate), finesse or forceful, long or short (as needed). You don't count as unarmed.

Breath Weapon

Choose fire, frost, poison, or acid when you gain this mutation. You can spit a glob / jet at a single target within 15' up to 10 times per Brief Rest. The target must Dex (fire, frost, acid) or Vigor (poison) save or take 1d6 damage. 1+HALF times per Short Rest you can exhale a 15' cone affecting all targets within, dealing d6+PROF, save for half. Once you're out of uses, you can't use your normal Breath Weapon either.

- senses - communication: ESP - defense - offense: musk, venom - Sitting Very Still - flawless memory

achilles heel: you are resistant to physical damage, but also gain the Vulnerable flaw.

web-spinner: you can extrude up to 50' of web-line per day, replenished after a long rest with food. you can make parts of it adhesive, grippy, or smooth with a touch it. you can shoot a sticky strand at a target within 10' and they must Dex save or be grappled. each additional hit can advance the grapple. webbing breaks down quickly in flame, and loses its adhesion if doused with oil or alcohol.

sense material: when you concentrate (total), you can smell or otherwise sense the presence of a certain kind of material (precious metal, spilled blood, magic) within 60'. On the following turn, you can get a rough sense of direction, distance, and quantity.

exhale cloud: you can emit a 10' radius volume of opaque gas or fine particulate from yourself once per short rest.

???animal shape: you can transform into a particular type of Small or Tiny animal.

gullet storage: you can swallow up to

small: you are small. you can't use heavy weapons.

Phenotypic Mutations

Brute Mutations

Mighty 1

• as Feat

Mighty 2

• as Feat

Battle Rage

• as Feat

Numb to Pain

• as Feat

Brutal Natural Weapons

(1 pt)

• Same benefits as Natural Weapons, but when you make forceful attacks and don't use Dueling, you deal d10 damage. Deal +1d on crits.

Carapace

• Cost: 1
• Your body counts as Heavy armor, instead of Medium.

Ferocity

(1 pt)

• You have Expert Intimidation when making direct physical threats.

Rip & Tear

(1 pt)

• You make 2 Forceful melee attacks, splitting your attack bonus evenly (as Fighter Flurry, but only up to 2 attacks).

Indomitable

(1 pt)

• The first time per Short Rest that you take Life damage while at 0 hp: gain Resistance to damage until the end of your next turn (including against the Life damage from this attack), and you do not need to roll for a Wound or collapse.
• Collapse rolls and saves against pain are made with +A.

Hulking

(2 pts)

• You are Large (increasing carrying capacity, advantaging grappling and forcing, taking up 10' x 10' space, and gaining +5' reach).

- increase Vigor saves? flat +2 Vigor save? or +A?

Skulk Mutations

- halfling small and nimble

- undetectable - slippery mind: +A to Wits and Spirit saves against mental influence, probing, or divination - hypnotic gaze

Fade Away

• Cost: 2
• If you remain still for a round, you can become invisible and inaudible until you move or do something overt.

- stealthy - agile acrobat - keen observer - keen insight - silver-tongued - animal ken - sleight of hand

- changeling: gain the benefits of the Master of Disguise feat, and you can make minor changes to your own body as part of a Short Rest (shift soft tissue, slightly lengthen/shorten bones and flex bone structure, change pigmentation, add/reduce hair density and length)

General Mutations available through Skulk Mutation points

• Boneless

Malison Mutations

Improved Living Vessel

• Cost: X
• You can contain X additional spells.

Armored Raiment

• Cost: 1
• You can craft any armor you are proficient with into raiment, providing all the benefits of each.

Blink

• Cost: 2
• You gain a spell-like ability, costing mana (or a cantrip) to use. You teleport (Power+1) x 10' feet as an action, or half that distance as a bonus action.

True Sight

• Cost: 2
• You have an innate ability to see through concealing or deceiving magics as if you had True Sight with Power equal to your Malison Max Panoply rating. This does not confer other effects of the True Sight spell.

Weapon Bond

• Cost: 2
• You can form a magical bond with a number of weapons (including shields) equal to your SPT (min 1). Forming the bond requires a ritual during an Extended Rest.
• Bonded weapons...
  • Count as magical.
  • Serve as an Implement for your casting.
  • Can be teleported to your hand from within 60' as a bonus action, and you can sense their location while they are within 10 miles (with greater accuracy the closer you get).
  • Have +A to saves against effects while you are holding them (disarming, weapon destruction, heat metal, disenchantment, etc).

• spell resistance
• hypnotic gaze: a subject who meets your gaze from within 10' must Spirit Save or become frozen while you maintain contact. If in the middle of a struggle, they gain +A to the save.
• stunning scream