Today, we begin a look at the Higher Tribes of the Gaunt.
The premise of the Higher Tribes dates back, once again, to the Unliving of Coraabia. In that game, they discuss the different tribes, and the “Zomb” in particular were noteworthy as more powerful than the rest. Part of this reflected its cardgame nature: “lower” tribes like the Dung were “common” cards, while “higher” tribes like the Zomb were “uncommon” or “rare.” But I liked the concept and I wanted to explore it.
The Getics were the first higher tribe that I made in this round of design (the Legionnaires are, theoretically at least, the first Gaunt tribe ever created, if we set aside the Malgalm). They had been a long time in coming, and their design was one of the things that precipitated the design of the Gaunt Tribes at all.
See, a certain subset of players really wanted “pretty Gaunt,” for a variety of reasons. Some have a deep love of princesses, others want the option to play a pretty Gaunt, which I call the Blood Elves rule, after the fact that World of Warcraft introduced the Blood Elves to the Horde to even out the factions, as a lot of players specifically gravitated towards pretty races. They had asked questions about whether or not beautiful Gaunt were possible. I thought they were, but they would have to be bundled into a package, like a lens, because they would come with a collection of traits. Describing that required a lens system, and thus the need for tribes was revealed.
But why are “Beautiful Gaunt” possible, or even worth talking about? Isn’t “being ugly” a central Gaunt theme? We could certainly say so, but to me, the core element is not their ugliness, but their artificial nature. They are part of a broader technological niche, and this is less obvious until I release the rest of the technology, though the existence of Saruthim tech helps illuminate the broader landscape of necrotech. As a technology, they can be designed to be what you want, and certainly the True Tarvathim, the Gaunt who are designed by hand by a Necrocrafter could be beautiful, in the same way the Bride of Frankenstein was beautiful, in her own way. So why couldn’t an entire tribe of Gaunt be beautiful? Well, someone would have to take the time to craft such Gaunt. But why would you?
I have two broad answers to the question of “Why beautiful Gaunt?” The first is that people, especially Lithian people, like beautiful beings. Lithians, of course, are a notorious slave culture, and the ability to swap dancing girls and hunky gladiators is an important aspect of their culture, especially for powerful warlorlds. In Ballad in the Blasted Lands, when Maishan forged her alliance with Elamon the Exile, she eventually offered him a beautiful Gaunt concubine. She was, of course, a spy, and didn’t much interest him, but he kept her around. She was created because I realized the value of a necrocrafter being able to conjure up beautiful women (or men!) for others.
The second reason, and the second thing I wanted to explore, was Gaunt reproduction. Of course, the Gaunt don’t reproduce like people… but couldn’t they? They are organic beings crafted in the shape and function of the humanoids whose bodies fuel their creation. Wouldn’t sexual reproduction be a part of that? Well, my general answer is “Yes, but…” after all, such reproduction risks triggering degradations like mitosis or worse, but it is possible! The Loroko are proof of it! They are, after all, breeding beings originally created from the Flesh. How would one go about creating the process that resulted in them? Well, I would imagine it would look something like what I did with the Getics.
This raised a whole slew of questions that I’m going to evade with my usual defense of “We don’t usually talk about that sort of thing in public,” but Jose, when working on that (very rough) draft asked questions about anatomical features: do Getics have belly-buttons? Normal Gaunt certainly shouldn’t, but Getics might! It is possible for them to be born rather than made. And to please one of my players/artists who loves to draw cross-breeds, I explicitly made them extraordinarily genetically compatible.
But they had to be more than just pleasure slaves. For one thing, they’re unusually difficult to make, and thus a deeper investment than, say, an Eros clone from Ys. The character in Ballad in the Blasted Lands was a sorceress, after a fashion, and with my strategy of focusing on Talents as a Gaunt advantage, I thought a deep degree of Sorcery talent might be an interesting benefit for some Gaunt Tribe. Why not the Getics? That might make them more interesting! From that, spun the idea of general openness to psychic energies, which informed most of the rest of their abilities, except for Possessed by Grace, which I added because high DX seemed to suite them, it gives them a creepy “marionette” quality, which reminds you of how unnatural they actually are, and because, let’s be honest, these are going to be a prime PC option. PCs love to be tragic and pretty.
While they’re the first Higher Tribe I’ve released, the eagle eyed may notice they’re incorrect: a Higher Tribe should have 50 points and 3 talents, while they have 25 points and 2 talents. This is intentional. They are the inversion of the Horlocks: weaker than their status would suggest. I’ve gone this route to reflect the difficulty and delicacy of designing “beautiful Gaunt” as they run against the basic premise of what Gaunt are and what they can do, which means they are more valuable than their power-level would suggest.
The character from Ballad of the Blasted Lands was named the Moth, so she is, in principle, the first Getic. Given the amount of interest in them, I suspect there will be more, but this is why I settled them on Dhim, and had them crafted at the hands of Maishan in her Eternal City. I see them as excellent PC options: in addition to being pretty enough to ignore most of the negative reaction modifiers (other than their Social Stigma, and they still have to deal with a “spooky” Dishonest Face), but they have a reasonable DX, and while their IQ remains reduced, their Talent suite lets them overcome that problem, at least in some limited ways.
Mailanka's Musing 