As an exercise in showing how easy it is to create new race templates and traits for MotSP from any inspiration, here’s a comedy example (that is, nonetheless, throughly suited to MotSP).
Vogons
They are one of the most unpleasant races in the galaxy – not actually evil, but bad tempered, bureaucratic, officious and callous. They wouldn’t even lift a finger to save their own grandmothers from the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal without an order, signed in triplicate, sent in, sent back, queried, lost, found, subjected to public enquiry, lost again, and finally buried in soft peat for three months and recycled as firelighters. If you want to get a lift from a Vogon, forget it. They are vile and ill tempered. If you want to get a drink from a Vogon, stick your finger down his throat. If you want to annoy a vogon, feed his grandmother to the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal.
History
Billions of years ago, when the Vogons first crawled out of the primeval seas of Vogsphere, laid panting and heaving on the planet’s virgin shores… when the first rays of the young Vogsol sun had shone across them… it seemed as if the forces of evolution had simply given up on them then and there, turned aside in disgust and written them off as an ugly mistake. They would never evolve again. They shouldn’t have survived. The fact that they did is a testament to the thick-willed stubbornness of these creatures. Evolution? they said to themselves. Who needs it? What nature refused to do for them they simply did without until they were able to correct the gross anatomical inconveniences with surgery.
The natural forces of Vogsphere worked overtime to make up for their blunder. They brought forth scintillating jeweled scuttling crabs, which the Vogons ate, smashing them with large iron mallets; aspiring trees which the Vogons cut down to use the firewood for cooking the crabs; and elegant gazellelike creatures with dewey eyes which the Vogons would catch and sit on (they were useless for transport because their backs snapped under the weight, but the Vogons sat on them anyway).
The planet whirled away for unhappy millennia until the Vogons discovered the principles of interstellar travel. Within a few short Vog years every Vogon had migrated to the Megabrantis cluster, the political hub of the galaxy. They now form the powerful backbone of the Galactic Civil Service. Also, some of the young Vogons join the Vogon Guard Corps, which, aside from making them look moderately less hideous what with dashing uniforms and all that, also allows for exciting promotion opportunities such as Senior Shouting Officer. Despite their intelligence, they remain little changed since their first appearance a billion billion years ago. Every year twenty-seven thousand jeweled scuttling crabs are imported, then they while away a drunken night smashing them to bits with iron mallets. They have as much sex appeal as a road accident.
Race Template
Bonuses
- Educated: +1 free skill point in lore.
- Fanatical: +1 Will, +1 Constitution
- Large: -1 to defences, +1 hit point per level. +1 damage in close combat.
- Blubber (Scales): +1 Armour
- Born Bureaucrat (New trait): +2 to Save Rolls or +1 to Skill levels when dealing with red tape.
Penalties
- Stat Penalty: -4 Comliness.
- Stat Penalty: -4 Charisma.
Quirks
Terrible poets.
Often quite handy with an iron mallet.
Vogon Guard NPC (50xp)
“I’ll tell my aunt what you said.”
Close Defence: 11
Ranged Defence: 11
Armour: 1 (Natural blubber) 1d3+1 in rubber overalls.
Hit Dice: 3+3 (16hp)
Initiative: 0
Movement: 10
Attacks: 1/+0 (close combat), 1/+1 (Stun pistol)
Damage: 1d6
Saves: 5 (Toughness 7, Will 6)
Traits: (See Vogon)
Skills: Weapon Expert Pistol 1, Lore: Regulations: 1
Vogon Standard Guard Uniform 1
A set of thick rubber dungarees, prone to filling with sweat but considered very dashing by vogons and based on their own, dense, rubbery flesh. While ‘fashionable’ by vogon standards, a guard must by them out of their own salary.
Light armour, 1d3 protection, street fashion, cost 250gp
Stun Ray
Worn in a low-slung holster, the vogon stun ray is a fine example that simple engineering doesn’t always produce something aesthetically pleasing.
Small Calibre, d4 damage, Close Range, Shocking, Stunning Ammo Save N/A, Cost 100gp
New trait: Stunning
What you do to the target as damage is applied as a penalty to stun saves from the shocking attack, but the weapon does no other damage. x1.0
The history of the realm of Pendragon is, in many ways, the history of its noble houses, the long, bloody, often glorious and sometimes shameful record of the ambitions, victories and defeats of the powerful individuals who have steered their families to greatness and schemed and fought their way to the very apex of Pendragon society. Noble houses have determined which among their number have held the crown, and have always competed against each other to ensure nearness to or control over the throne. They have also influenced the election of Arch-Bishops of Camelot, placed their second sons in senior positions within the church, formed the backbone of the Pendragon Legion, prosecuted the war against Morgan le Fay, betrayed their King and raised rebellions or saved their monarch’s life and crushed uprisings against him. No monarch of Kingsland can be successful without the support of the great noble houses, and yet each must also be aware that if he allows them too much power or grants them too many concessions his own royal authority is irrevocably weakened.
Postmortem Studios 