Planetary Frontiers: A D20 Planetary Exploration reskin
Posted: Thu Nov 06, 2014 6:43 am
"We tried for decades to turn around the damage we'd unknowingly--and then knowingly--done to Earth. Either it was too late by the time we got our act together, or we never did get it together.
The Neo-Concordiates, while they couldn't agree on measures to lessen or halt the destruction of our planet, were able to come together and formulate a plan to evacuate as many people from the planet as possible.
We floated in space in the EvaCity Pods for generations--just long enough for Earth As We Knew It to become a legend--before the sensors found a planet suited to our needs.
The sphere below us is harsh and alien. Without doubt, there are untold dangers we can only guess at. The computers detected life, but holds no indication of the sapience of said life. All we know is that it has carbon and water--liquid water.
We're lucky. We found it before we ran out of food or fuel.
The pods may be isolated by space, but we've heard terrible stories on the broadband. Some pods ran out of fuel while they scanned a planet from low orbit--crashing and presumably killing everyone on board. Others ran out of food--the lucky ones dwindled away on ever shrinking rations, the doctor says that going that way can be almost peaceful. I don't believe him. But the unlucky ones... well, hearing a thick voice growl 'all flesh is meat,' punctuated by a scream, crackling over a radio even once is too much.
We're lucky.
Aren't we?"
Like Rats Leaving A Sinking Ship
Late in the 26th century, the Earth was dying. Some areas were reclaimed by the waves, while others had been reduced to scorched deserts where lush forests had thrived before. Humanity had largely transitioned to cleaner technology--electric and hydrogen powered vehicles, biopolymers, wind and solar power--but it was too late. The damage of centuries of oil dependence had done their damage. All the technology that had been created could not save the planet.
Humans, on the other hand, that it could save.
Countries had long since died to larger, more globalized entities, called the Neo-Concordiates. These political entities are generally tied together through shared languages and cultural mores, rather than geographic proximity.
The Neo-Concordiates put together their assets and created the Evacuation City Pods, or EvaCity Pods. In essence, the number of pods a given Concordiate had at it's disposal was tied to how much that Concordiate contributed to the overall project, in an effort to encourage Concordiates to contribute as much as they could spare.
No Concordiate even attempted to evacuate their entire population. The people were triaged--after the politicians were given space, of course--and people with valuable skills, such as doctors and engineers, were chosen first, then people with valuable traits--a resistance to disease or infection, a genetic predisposition to accepting cybernetic implants, psychic ability--and finally, any space remaining was often filled through lottery or contract. Some people were only able to save themselves or their families through agreeing to what amounted to slavery.
The EvaCity Pods were launched simultaneously on Dec 31, 2587, loaded with fuel, supplies, and equipment which was designed to turn each into a closed ecosystem and ensure the longest survival time as possible. The EvaCity Pods were not given coordinates, only criteria, and sent to find planets and planetoids which met those criteria. The goal was not to make a new Earth, but to save as much of Humanity as possible.
The State of Humanity
26th Century humanity resembles that of the modern day only in broad strokes. On the whole, things are not much better or worse than they are today. Though fewer people exhibit prejudice against humans with dark skin, or women, there are now genetically engineered and artificial beings which often face prejudice much as the minorities of today do now.
Technology is generally cleaner and less hazardous to the environment, but this perversely means that people are more willing to exploit the world they live in as they reason they're doing less harm than they used to.
Tensions ran high on EvaCity Pods. People had just escaped certain doom, and did not take kindly to things they thought might endanger them again. Social liberties had grown immensely in the more than five centuries between our era, and the era of the Earth Evacuation, but the Pods--insular, isolated, and stratified by nature--became breeding places for reactionary policies, often enforced by self-appointed governments. This isn't true for all Pods, however, and more moderate Pods did and do exist. Generally, the more culturally diverse or culturally homogenous a Pod was, the less tension there was.
Technology of the 26th Century
In the 26th Century, genetic engineering, artificial intelligence, nanotech, and many other technologies widely regarded as unrealistic or very far off now, were ubiquitous.
Artificial beings--both mechanical and organic--walked the streets. Nanites were used militarily and commercially. People regularly bought resistance to severe diseases in pill form. For the right price, you could replace your perfectly good flesh arm with an improved cybernetic version featuring enhanced strength, tactile feedback, weapon concealment and music storage. It didn't take long before every man, woman and child was a genetically modified organism, and new types of human began walking the streets.
Weapons seldom used bullets anymore. Energy weapons--both lasers and augmented melee weapons--ruled the day. It was cheaper for military and police to fill a clip with solar-provided energy than metal and powder, criminals were all too eager to take on weapons with limited forensic signature, and the private sector did not provide enough demand for manufacturers to continue producing kinetic weapons, thus even the average civilian won access to energy weapons through the lobbying of arms manufacturers.
Genotypes
By the 23rd Century, society gave way to the march of science, and the practice of designer genetics graced our double helices for the first time. People began to elect to have their genome modified, whether for cosmetic or professional purposes. A wide range of modifications was available, but a handful of distinct genotypes slowly resolved as those who elected to have their genes modified began to pass on the traits.
Dorics
Doric was a mining corporation, primarily interested in extraction of minerals from asteroids. When it included a option in it's employee health care package to undergo elective genetic modification for a financial incentive, many of it's miners chose this option, and were pleased to find that the backbreaking work came easier to them. The fact that they were far more efficient, now being possessed of greater stamina, less vulnerable to disease or toxicity, and more stable in the low gravity of asteroids, was all the incentive Doric needed to pay for the many procedures.
The company is all but a memory now, but the name stuck for the modified employees and their children. Dorics have heavy bone structures and thick bodies, with a propensity for hirsuteness.
Whereas the Dorics were a creation of a corporation, Flight-Adapted-Entities, or F.A.E, or Flyers, were a military creation. Candidates for the experimental procedure were selected from among promising flight school cadets and promised an immediate promotion upon finishing flight school if they consented undergoing the proceedure.
The F.A.E. procedure enhanced the nervous system of it's subjects, increasing agility, accuracy, reaction speed and response time, as well as lightening the subjects' bones. Flyers' senses are acute, tuned to the smallest sound or motion, and the minutest detail.
Flyers are shorter in stature and thin, allowing them to fit into smaller aircraft cockpits, their lighter bones take up less weight allowance, all this allows the craft to be smaller and faster or carry more weaponry.
In addition to these physical adaptations, the F.A.E. procedure also gave its subjects the ability to rest in just four hours of a meditative trance as if they'd had eight hours of full sleep. In this trance, the Flyer is more aware than other pilots to specified stimuli. A Flyer can self-hypnotize themselves prior to this trance with samples of stimuli to which they wish to being fully responsive. A Flyer working as a pilot always self-hypnotizes themselves to respond to the various alarm and alert signals of their craft. In this way, they may fly for an indefinite period of time, trancing for four hours as needed able to respond to alerts at a moment's notice.
Flyers have large eyes and ears, the latter typically long and pointed, with beakish noses.
As genetic modification became more and more common in the hands of civilian and criminal forces, law enforcement agencies found themselves needing genetic modification on their side of the law.
It's a fine line to walk, as the idea patrol officer is capable of appearing imposing, being firm, and generally a strong presence, but also approachable. It was decided that rather than creating a transgenic program for police officers, it would be better to put the benefits to work behind the scenes rather than on the beat.
The most successful transgenic program for law enforcement was the Gnomon program, designed to enhance forensics experts. This program was called Gnomon, from the greek for "one who examines."
The Gnomon program changed its subjects rather more completely than the Doric and F.A.E. programs. Gnomons are smaller and slighter than even the F.A.E., often less than four feet tall. With their small stature came delicate hands and the ability to manipulate small clues and details in cramped confines. It also came with a reduced muscle mass, but they were made hardy to better resist all the manners of toxins and disease they may come into contact with, and having the handy side effect of increasing their ability to work long hours.
Large eyes more adept at capturing light made them better able to gather clues in darkness or light.
Gnomons are also, almost as a rule, minor psychics, giving them a resilience to others and a handful of tricks they can utilize.
Gnomons stand 3-4 ft tall. The primary source for manipulation of their DNA was bats, and it has left them with large ears and distinctive noses. A fine fur is not uncommon among Gnomon, but by no means ubiquitous.
Need to do Halflings and (Half) Orcs still, obviously. I'm leaving out the weapon traits and "+X against (creature)" stuff since the former don't make a lot of sense in a cosmopolitan setting where "races" are genotypes within a single race, and the latter don't make a lot of sense in a setting where there are no known other sapient races. Weapon traits will likely be removed from being a part of your race and instead come as part of something like Occupations from d20 Modern/Future. Basic humans will probably be generically modified, reflected in a selectable ability mod in addition to the bonus feat and skill points.
The Neo-Concordiates, while they couldn't agree on measures to lessen or halt the destruction of our planet, were able to come together and formulate a plan to evacuate as many people from the planet as possible.
We floated in space in the EvaCity Pods for generations--just long enough for Earth As We Knew It to become a legend--before the sensors found a planet suited to our needs.
The sphere below us is harsh and alien. Without doubt, there are untold dangers we can only guess at. The computers detected life, but holds no indication of the sapience of said life. All we know is that it has carbon and water--liquid water.
We're lucky. We found it before we ran out of food or fuel.
The pods may be isolated by space, but we've heard terrible stories on the broadband. Some pods ran out of fuel while they scanned a planet from low orbit--crashing and presumably killing everyone on board. Others ran out of food--the lucky ones dwindled away on ever shrinking rations, the doctor says that going that way can be almost peaceful. I don't believe him. But the unlucky ones... well, hearing a thick voice growl 'all flesh is meat,' punctuated by a scream, crackling over a radio even once is too much.
We're lucky.
Aren't we?"
Like Rats Leaving A Sinking Ship
Late in the 26th century, the Earth was dying. Some areas were reclaimed by the waves, while others had been reduced to scorched deserts where lush forests had thrived before. Humanity had largely transitioned to cleaner technology--electric and hydrogen powered vehicles, biopolymers, wind and solar power--but it was too late. The damage of centuries of oil dependence had done their damage. All the technology that had been created could not save the planet.
Humans, on the other hand, that it could save.
Countries had long since died to larger, more globalized entities, called the Neo-Concordiates. These political entities are generally tied together through shared languages and cultural mores, rather than geographic proximity.
The Neo-Concordiates put together their assets and created the Evacuation City Pods, or EvaCity Pods. In essence, the number of pods a given Concordiate had at it's disposal was tied to how much that Concordiate contributed to the overall project, in an effort to encourage Concordiates to contribute as much as they could spare.
No Concordiate even attempted to evacuate their entire population. The people were triaged--after the politicians were given space, of course--and people with valuable skills, such as doctors and engineers, were chosen first, then people with valuable traits--a resistance to disease or infection, a genetic predisposition to accepting cybernetic implants, psychic ability--and finally, any space remaining was often filled through lottery or contract. Some people were only able to save themselves or their families through agreeing to what amounted to slavery.
The EvaCity Pods were launched simultaneously on Dec 31, 2587, loaded with fuel, supplies, and equipment which was designed to turn each into a closed ecosystem and ensure the longest survival time as possible. The EvaCity Pods were not given coordinates, only criteria, and sent to find planets and planetoids which met those criteria. The goal was not to make a new Earth, but to save as much of Humanity as possible.
The State of Humanity
26th Century humanity resembles that of the modern day only in broad strokes. On the whole, things are not much better or worse than they are today. Though fewer people exhibit prejudice against humans with dark skin, or women, there are now genetically engineered and artificial beings which often face prejudice much as the minorities of today do now.
Technology is generally cleaner and less hazardous to the environment, but this perversely means that people are more willing to exploit the world they live in as they reason they're doing less harm than they used to.
Tensions ran high on EvaCity Pods. People had just escaped certain doom, and did not take kindly to things they thought might endanger them again. Social liberties had grown immensely in the more than five centuries between our era, and the era of the Earth Evacuation, but the Pods--insular, isolated, and stratified by nature--became breeding places for reactionary policies, often enforced by self-appointed governments. This isn't true for all Pods, however, and more moderate Pods did and do exist. Generally, the more culturally diverse or culturally homogenous a Pod was, the less tension there was.
Technology of the 26th Century
In the 26th Century, genetic engineering, artificial intelligence, nanotech, and many other technologies widely regarded as unrealistic or very far off now, were ubiquitous.
Artificial beings--both mechanical and organic--walked the streets. Nanites were used militarily and commercially. People regularly bought resistance to severe diseases in pill form. For the right price, you could replace your perfectly good flesh arm with an improved cybernetic version featuring enhanced strength, tactile feedback, weapon concealment and music storage. It didn't take long before every man, woman and child was a genetically modified organism, and new types of human began walking the streets.
Weapons seldom used bullets anymore. Energy weapons--both lasers and augmented melee weapons--ruled the day. It was cheaper for military and police to fill a clip with solar-provided energy than metal and powder, criminals were all too eager to take on weapons with limited forensic signature, and the private sector did not provide enough demand for manufacturers to continue producing kinetic weapons, thus even the average civilian won access to energy weapons through the lobbying of arms manufacturers.
Genotypes
By the 23rd Century, society gave way to the march of science, and the practice of designer genetics graced our double helices for the first time. People began to elect to have their genome modified, whether for cosmetic or professional purposes. A wide range of modifications was available, but a handful of distinct genotypes slowly resolved as those who elected to have their genes modified began to pass on the traits.
Dorics
Doric was a mining corporation, primarily interested in extraction of minerals from asteroids. When it included a option in it's employee health care package to undergo elective genetic modification for a financial incentive, many of it's miners chose this option, and were pleased to find that the backbreaking work came easier to them. The fact that they were far more efficient, now being possessed of greater stamina, less vulnerable to disease or toxicity, and more stable in the low gravity of asteroids, was all the incentive Doric needed to pay for the many procedures.
The company is all but a memory now, but the name stuck for the modified employees and their children. Dorics have heavy bone structures and thick bodies, with a propensity for hirsuteness.
- Doric Genotype Traits
- +2 Con, -2 Dex-- Doric bodies are sturdy and rugged, but mining doesn't require much finesse, and so no attempt was made to avoid loss of agility as bones and muscles grew and thickened.
- Medium size, speed 20 ft.-- Dorics are thick bodied, with legs that are often described as immense, but more suited to tireless steady work than rushing. However, the strong, sturdy body of a Doric is little-encumbered by thick clothing or heavy armour. They can move at full speed when wearing any armour or carrying medium or heavy loads.
- Darkvision-- Mines are dark places, and it's cheaper to have workers who can see in the dark than put in lighting. Dorics possess modified echolocation organs, much like those of bats or dolphins, which allow them to "see" up to 60' in the dark with enough precision to read inscribed or embossed letters. No colour is discernible with this sense as it is auditory rather than visual.
- Stonecunning: The often perilous stone corridors of asteroid mines required workers who could notice unusual or unsafe passages as naturally as one might notice a red sign. Thus the Doric package included a remapping of the subject's brain that made it better suited to this purpose.
- Stability: The broad bodies, thick legs and wide feet of Dorics makes them absurdly difficult to knock over.
- +2 vrs. poison and psionics.
Whereas the Dorics were a creation of a corporation, Flight-Adapted-Entities, or F.A.E, or Flyers, were a military creation. Candidates for the experimental procedure were selected from among promising flight school cadets and promised an immediate promotion upon finishing flight school if they consented undergoing the proceedure.
The F.A.E. procedure enhanced the nervous system of it's subjects, increasing agility, accuracy, reaction speed and response time, as well as lightening the subjects' bones. Flyers' senses are acute, tuned to the smallest sound or motion, and the minutest detail.
Flyers are shorter in stature and thin, allowing them to fit into smaller aircraft cockpits, their lighter bones take up less weight allowance, all this allows the craft to be smaller and faster or carry more weaponry.
In addition to these physical adaptations, the F.A.E. procedure also gave its subjects the ability to rest in just four hours of a meditative trance as if they'd had eight hours of full sleep. In this trance, the Flyer is more aware than other pilots to specified stimuli. A Flyer can self-hypnotize themselves prior to this trance with samples of stimuli to which they wish to being fully responsive. A Flyer working as a pilot always self-hypnotizes themselves to respond to the various alarm and alert signals of their craft. In this way, they may fly for an indefinite period of time, trancing for four hours as needed able to respond to alerts at a moment's notice.
Flyers have large eyes and ears, the latter typically long and pointed, with beakish noses.
- Flight-Adapted-Entity Genotype Traits
- +2 Dex, -2 Con-- Flight-Adapted-Entity are agile and quick, but fragile.
- Medium, 30 ft. speed
- Immune to Sleep effects-- Flight-Adapted-Entity do not sleep, their bodies are designed to enter trance instead, which is a wholly mental trigger. Any effect which would render an F.A.E. unconscious simply fails to effect them.
- +2 to saves vrs Metacognition psionic effects-- The trance of Flyers is a small effect of a larger reworking of the subjects' brains. While not immune to metacognition, Flyers are difficult to affect with the discipline.
- Low-light Vision-- Flyers' eyes are are not just designed to catch details better than those of non-augmented humans, but also to make better use of exceptionally low levels of light.
- +2 Perception-- All the senses of a Flyer are heightened to catch the smallest details.
As genetic modification became more and more common in the hands of civilian and criminal forces, law enforcement agencies found themselves needing genetic modification on their side of the law.
It's a fine line to walk, as the idea patrol officer is capable of appearing imposing, being firm, and generally a strong presence, but also approachable. It was decided that rather than creating a transgenic program for police officers, it would be better to put the benefits to work behind the scenes rather than on the beat.
The most successful transgenic program for law enforcement was the Gnomon program, designed to enhance forensics experts. This program was called Gnomon, from the greek for "one who examines."
The Gnomon program changed its subjects rather more completely than the Doric and F.A.E. programs. Gnomons are smaller and slighter than even the F.A.E., often less than four feet tall. With their small stature came delicate hands and the ability to manipulate small clues and details in cramped confines. It also came with a reduced muscle mass, but they were made hardy to better resist all the manners of toxins and disease they may come into contact with, and having the handy side effect of increasing their ability to work long hours.
Large eyes more adept at capturing light made them better able to gather clues in darkness or light.
Gnomons are also, almost as a rule, minor psychics, giving them a resilience to others and a handful of tricks they can utilize.
Gnomons stand 3-4 ft tall. The primary source for manipulation of their DNA was bats, and it has left them with large ears and distinctive noses. A fine fur is not uncommon among Gnomon, but by no means ubiquitous.
- Gnomon Genotype Traits
- +2 Con, -2 Str-- Gnomons are small and weak, but hardy.
- Small, speed 20 ft.
- Low-light Vision
- +2 Perception, +2 Forensics
- Psychic-- Gnomon make saves against the Metasensory discipline, and can use each of the powers Call to Mind, Detect Psychics and Far Hand. Their manifestor level is equal to their HD or Class Level. They have a number of power points equal to their Charisma mod times their Class Level or HD, and each of their powers cost 1 power point.
Need to do Halflings and (Half) Orcs still, obviously. I'm leaving out the weapon traits and "+X against (creature)" stuff since the former don't make a lot of sense in a cosmopolitan setting where "races" are genotypes within a single race, and the latter don't make a lot of sense in a setting where there are no known other sapient races. Weapon traits will likely be removed from being a part of your race and instead come as part of something like Occupations from d20 Modern/Future. Basic humans will probably be generically modified, reflected in a selectable ability mod in addition to the bonus feat and skill points.