Digestion, Endo, Vore Or Unbirth Roleplaying System
Contents |
What the hell is D.E.V.O.U.R.S?
Simply put, DEVOURS is a generic, quick and dirty roleplaying game system designed for players to fudge together characters and roll dice to see how many people they can stuff into their face, or how long they can last on missions filled with predators.
Character Components
Base Stats
Most interactions in DEVOURS are based on eight stats, that represent an individual character's aptitude in a particular aspect of existing. The values of the stats are added to dice rolls, on actions that would make use of that particular aptitude. These stats do not change, but can have temporary modifiers both in the form of negative modifiers (‘damage’ to the stat) from enemies, and positive modifiers (‘buffs’ to the stat) from your own abilities or allies’ assistance. Generally, a stat being reduced to zero results in the character being incapacitated, and this is the main means of subduing a character in the game.
- Strength: This stat is used to represent the character’s raw physical strength. Characters with a high strength stat are good at moving heavy objects, grappling foes, breaking doors, and breaking faces. Reach 0 strength? You’re rendered so weak that you’re unable to take actions until your strength returns to at least 1.
- Speed: This is stat represents the character’s dexterity, athletics and/or finesse. Characters with high speed excel at jumping chasms, escaping pursuit and dodging blows. Reach 0 speed? You’re rendered so lethargic that you’re too exhausted to move at all until your speed returns to at least 1.
- Stamina: This is used for challenges related to endurance and taking punishment. Characters with high stamina can shrug off harsh environments and resist blows. This is equivalent to “hit points” from other roleplaying games, and most things that do any damage to stats, will damage this stat. Reach 0 stamina? You’re rendered unconscious and unable to act until your stamina returns to at least 1. Reach NEGATIVE stamina equal to your base value? You’re considered dead, and are out of the game until you are revived.
- Smarts: This is a measure of raw brainpower. Problem-solving is an easy matter for a character with a high smarts score. Certain special attacks may also employ this stat in the case of magic users, or other complex mental-based actions. Reach 0 smarts? You’re considered so brain-numb you can’t take actions until your smarts returns to at least 1.
- Seduction: This is a measure of the character's aptitude in social situations, and the more subtle mental abilities such as persuasion, deceit, and obviously seduction. Particularly charming predators may even convince prey to give themselves up to them. Reach 0 seduction? You’re reduced to a shambling mess with no idea what to do in social situations, too anxious to take actions until your seduction returns to at least 1.
- Self-Control: This is a measure of nerve, persistence, determination, self-identity, and mental fortitude. Characters with a good degree of self-control are generally better able to resist persuasion and seduction. Reach 0 self-control? You become totally enthralled by whatever brought you to that state, unable to perform actions on your own until your self-control returns to at least 1.
- Stomach: This is, simply put, a measure of the character's inherent ability to eat things, keep them eaten, and subdue them ONCE they're eaten. This system did come from a bunch of vore-loving people, yanno! Reach 0 stomach? You’re not able to keep anything in there until you return to at least 1 stomach! No noms for you!
- Size: This is a measure of how big a character is. Bigger characters will take up more room in a predator's stomach, and have an advantage in a grapple. Smaller characters have an advantage when trying to be stealthy and conceal themselves. Reach 0 size? You’re so small you’ll fit /anywhere/! That is usually not a good thing, assuming you enjoyed not being digested, or stepped on, or whatever. You’re also way too small to take any actions until your size returns to at least 1.
Skill Points
Skills, simply put, are experience that the character has in performing specific tasks, which give them a bonus to said tasks. There are no predefined skills to choose from; however there are plenty of example skills listed in the examples section. They cover a more narrow scope of actions than stats do (no more than 2 actions, each), but are much less ‘expensive’ to add to a character, and you can have many more. (See the ‘Creating a Character’ section.) Each skill has an associated stat it draws from. For example, if you took skill points in “Grappling”, to improve your ability to perform grapple actions, that would rely on your Strength stat. It is up to the player and GM to decide what stat each skill relies on, if it is not common sense.
The total bonus a character can receive from a skill is capped at the value of the associated stat. If you had 4 points in “Grappling”, and your Strength had only 3 points, you would only receive the benefit of the first 3 points in your “Grappling” skill. It’s possible that you receive a buff to your Strength during the game, at which point you would start to receive the full benefit of the 4 points of “Grappling.”
Perks and Flaws
Perks, unlike skills, generally don't have ranks and are of a fixed cost. Generally, they include special abilities such as alternate methods of eating people, attacks that damage stats other than Stamina, spells of a magical nature, and anything else you’d like to add to customize what your character can do. Flaws are the opposite of perks, and have a negative effect on your character. The reason for taking them is that they have a NEGATIVE cost during character creation, and allow you more points to put into other aspects of your character. They can be useful when you are struggling to find that last point to add into your favorite skill. Flaws include things like fears of specific animals, a permanent inability to perform a certain task, or other disabilities.
There is no list of allowed/disallowed abilities, however use common sense when deciding on what your character will have, and the pricing. The GM has final say in the pricing of each perk and flaw. There are plenty of example perks and flaws in the examples section.
Inventory
Your character isn’t going into the world naked (well, unless you want them to), and can take as many items as they need with them. There’s no hard limit on the number of items you can add to a character, but at some point you’ll realize you don’t need that “9th mundane crossbow.”
Items are divided into four broad categories, based on their quality/usefulness. The categories are:
- Mundane Items: Run-of-the-mill items that you can find anywhere are of the Mundane variety. They cost nothing during character creation and are of the lowest quality. This includes things like kitchen knives and rusty swords, or improvised lockpicks made out of a screwdriver and nails.
- Minor Items: These are built-for-purpose items and were likely purchased at your nearest general store. They perform their job adequately and include things like crossbows, potions, and decent quality swords.
- Major Items: A family heirloom sword with some sort of magical enchantment would fall into this category. These are fairly powerful examples of items, and would be of great benefit to a character should they have Major armor or weaponry.
- Epic Items: The legendary sword a great hero used to defend the kingdom is an Epic item. These items are the most powerful, most expensive, and most rare out of the four tiers of items. Those who wish to focus on using weapons and armor over magic and abilities may wish to bring one or two of this tier.
You’ll be creating these items when you create your character. To help you get an idea for the appropriate features each tier of item should have, there’s a list of “Item Features” in the examples. The costs of each are discussed in the ‘Creating a Character’ section, and there are plenty of full example items in the examples section.
The Basics
Whenever a player would like to perform an action in-game (besides simply moving around), they roll two ten-sided dice (“2d10”) and add the value of any relevant stat, plus any skills, perks or situational modifiers that may apply. If they are acting directly against an opponent, then the defending player (or GM in the case of an NPC) also rolls 2d10 and adds any relevant modifiers. If the attacker's roll exceeds that of the defender, then the action succeeds. If the defender is incapacitated or chooses to Relent, then the action succeeds automatically.
A “Critical Failure” occurs whenever both dice land on 1, regardless of the total sum of dice+modifiers. Instead of just not succeeding in the action, something “goes wrong” and a negative effect is applied, such as missing so hard you fall over, or pulling a pin out of a grenade and throwing the pin instead.
In contrast, a “Critical Success” occurs whenever both dice land on 10. A success above and beyond whatever the intended result happens, such as affecting additional enemies with an attack, doing extra damage, or just succeeding where you otherwise would have failed.
Occasionally, a player will need to roll against the environment. Normally this will involve a static difficulty assigned by the GM. This happens in the case of spotting hidden items, traps, picking locks, and the like.
Combat
To hit an opponent in melee combat, the player rolls 2d10 and adds their Strength to the roll. Similarly, for a ranged attack, the player rolls 2d10 and adds their Speed instead. Either way, any specialist skills are also added to the attack if they apply. The defender rolls to avoid the attack, which usually involves rolling their Speed. If the attacker's roll exceeds that of the defender's, the attack hits and does damage where appropriate, otherwise it misses.
Spells and all other ‘attack’ abilities are treated much the same, though they may use other stats as the modifier for the 2d10 rolls. Magic may use Smarts, for example, and spiritual/ghostly attacks may use Self-Control.
Eatin' People
Eating is done through a series of maneuvers, usually starting by grappling the person one wishes to nom, then devouring/swallowing them, and finally digesting them over a series of rounds. The advantage to devouring people in combat is that you don’t have to totally defeat them using your combat rounds: once they’re in your stomach, your digestion of them each round is automatic, and you can start attacking the next enemy.
Grapple: Opposed strength check. If successful, the target is considered “held” and takes a -1 situational penalty to any actions they attempt. This penalty does not apply to “defending” against actions.
Reversal: Opposed strength check while being grappled. If successful, you cease to be held, and your opponent is held instead. This is a difficult maneuver, and the character suffers a -2 penalty on their roll in addition to the penalty for being held. The character gets a size bonus if they are bigger.
Grapple escape: Opposed strength check while being held. If successful, you cease to be held and disengage from the grapple. The character gets a size bonus if they are bigger.
Swallow: Requires grappled opponent. Opposed strength check. Success means the prey is considered “swallowed” and takes a -2 to further rolls unless they are performed with the consent of the predator (again, this penalty does not apply if they are the “defender” of a roll, such as the predator's inevitable efforts to subdue them). The predator gets a size bonus if they are bigger and a penalty if the size of their prey exceeds their remaining stomach capacity.
Struggle: Roll prey's Strength versus predator's Stomach (including the -2 penalty for being swallowed). Success frees the prey from the predator's stomach and returns them to being "held".
Subdue: Requires swallowed opponent. Roll predator's stomach versus prey's Stamina. Success does a point of stamina damage. This can be performed for free on each round the predator has the prey inside, as their stomach “does its thing” on its own.
Note that being subdued does NOT necessarily mean digested, it simply means that the prey is unable to continue struggling. This could simply mean that they're all tuckered out. Actual complete digestion requires the predator to continue until the prey is killed (negative Stamina value same as base stat), and if the prey has friends in the area, they may rescue them before that happens.
Please note that “stomach” and “swallow” are used loosely in this game. The same 3-step “grapple, shove, gurgle” steps apply to however your character consumes the prey, be it AV, UB, or whatever other method!
Size Modifiers
Sometimes being bigger is better. If one character is simply BIGGER than another, they get a +1 modifier to vore-related actions against the smaller one. If their stat is TWICE that of their opponent, the modifier is +2, and three times the size is +3, and so on. Bigger characters generally have an advantage when it comes to swallow checks and reversing grapples.
Stomach versus size
A predator's capacity for eating is generally limited. While most predators are capable of handling prey their own size, some can only do so with difficulty.
If the predator's stomach stat is lower than the combined sizes of their prey (including the one currently being swallowed), they start to suffer penalties to swallow checks (-1 for simply exceeding it, -2 for exceeding by a factor of 2, -3 for exceeding by a factor of 3, etc). Likewise, prey gets an equal bonus to escape rolls.
The predator does NOT get a bonus for having a capacity that exceeds the size of their prey (except that the prey might be slightly more comfortable!).
Creating a Character
Character creation in DEVOURS is based on a “Character Points” (“CP”) system. Most games will be based on 80 CP, which you can spend on various aspects of your character. The GM may change this depending on the difficulty of the mission.
Buying Base Stats
The first thing to do is assign your character's base stats. All characters start at 1 point of every stat, at no cost. In general, 3 is considered an “average” level for a stat, where they would perform as well as a commoner.
The price of adding stat points starts at 3 CP per stat point, and then doubles to 6 CP at the 6th stat point, and doubles again at the 11th stat point (continuing to double every 5 stat points).
While it is possible for a starting character to have 10 in a stat and 1s and 2s in everything else, it is not recommended - there's no advantage to having a Strength of 10 if you turn into a blushing mess at the first pretty lady that comes along (low Seduction stat), or if someone decides to snarf your soul instead (most soulvore uses Self-Control modifiers!).
Adding Skills
Skills are specific activities that your character has had experience in, and will perform better than somebody attempting the activity for the first time. You can choose to represent this by putting some of your CP into skills, and they will receive a bonus when performing those actions. The player can create the skills as they see fit, but they should be limited to applying to two actions/rolls
Each skill is simply 1 CP for each point in the skill.
For example, “Grappling” skill can apply to both grappling, and escaping from grapples. “Magic” is too broad a skill if you have six spells it would apply to. You can break it into multiple skills though, such as different schools of magic!
Creating Perks/Flaws
To represent abilities your character has, as well as any special talents they can actively perform (as opposed to the passive experience skills provide), you can add perks to your character in exchange for CP. Examples of perks include transforming, flying, magic spells, having extra limbs, and anything else you can think of that is more a “property” or “ability” of the character, and not a skill or statistic.
Perks are created by the players and priced by the GM, but there is an extensive example list including many of the most commonly desired perks in the examples section.
Flaws are the opposite of perks. They apply negative features to your character, such as a phobia of a specific type of thing, or reduce your capability to perform certain types of actions. The advantage to taking flaws is that they have a NEGATIVE CP cost, i.e. they give you CP for applying them. They can be advantageous if you just need a few points to accomplish the character you were trying to build, or want to roleplay your character as accurately as possible, including any weaknesses.
When designing both perks and flaws, consider the type of character you are trying to make. If you are attempting to make a mage, you would want to give them perks such as spells, and magical abilities, and give them flaws relating to their physical strength and non-magical talents. If you are trying to make a soulvore-focused character, consider giving them traits relating to taking souls and how they are allowed to interact with them, as well as flaws related to normal vore.
Equipment
Most adventurers will want to go out into the world with at least some equipment, allowing them to take on the world with more than just their IRON BALLS and a sense of a sudden draft because they're not wearing pants. Equipment generally provides a better bonus than a skill of a similar level, which is mitigated by the fact that equipment can be taken off them, get lost or broken, has to be carried around and concealed, is inappropriate in a formal setting, and so on.
The costs of the different tiers of items (which are described in further detail in their own section earlier in this guide) are:
Mundane: 0 CP
Minor: 1/4th CP
Major: 1 CP
Epic: 2 CP
The reason Mundane items are free is because they will the type of item a character could have just walked down an alley to have found getting thrown out. This is not the type of item a middle-class adventurer would be using as their primary weapon, but would be a convenient backup to their “Major” primary weapon.
Alternatively, characters who are not “gear-intensive” such as mages, could stock up on a full set of decent equipment (single piece of armor, one weapon, one potion, and one misc item) for the cost of 1 CP, if they are all minor items.
So, You Got (B)eaten
Well, it's happened. Someone's wound up inside someone else and they're too weak to fight things out any more. After that, well there are a few things that can happen to them - no matter what, they're going to have difficulty taking part in things for a while.
Stat recovery
Regardless of the outcome, win or lose, the characters are likely to have taken some damage, and they will take time to recover. The important factor here is the character's Recovery Time. If a character is damaged in some way, then they will need to rest for a particular amount of time in order for their stats to return to their previous levels.
By default, this time is 10 hours, minus the base value of the stat they are attempting to recover (to a minimum of 1) - for example, for a character with 3 Stamina, their Stamina recovery time is 7 hours.
If a character is resting, they automatically recover up to half their base points (rounded up). If they are NOT resting, lost stats return at half this rate.
Recovering lost stats does NOT change the status of the character - dead characters are still dead, soulvored and absorbed characters are still stuck in the predator, this merely allows them to rest and recuperate before attempting to reform or escape. In the case of those trapped inside a predator, the predator is not generally aware of the prey's recovery unless they take an action.
Prey that are still recovering from a lost battle are generally off-limits as far as dealing further damage goes. This applies to prey that the predator has chosen not to digest, indigestible prey who are simply trapped, or those who have been absorbed or soulvored. In short, predators do not have the option of simply digesting their prey "a little bit" every few hours to keep them down.
Digestion
This is the most common fate to be suffered by prey, though that doesn't necessarily mean it's the easiest from which they may recover. Generally speaking, predators who have subdued their prey may choose to digest them at will unless they have a perk that says otherwise. Where combat rounds and the chance of rescue is an issue, they must continue to make damage rolls until the prey are actually dead, otherwise it is assumed that the prey are helpless and no rolls are required.
Once the prey are gone, generally speaking it will take a while for the prey to actually be processed. The time is determined by adding the prey's Stamina to their Size, the result is how many hours it will take for the predator to process them. If the predator's Stomach stat is double that of the prey's Size, then the time is cut in half. Three times, it is cut to a third, and so on.
For the purposes of eating more prey, the size of the meal is reduced proportionally over the digestion time. For instance, a size 4 prey that takes 8 hours to digest will lose a point of size every 2 hours until there is nothing left. If a character is resting, then their recovery time is reduced by half as long as there is still some of their prey left.
Absorption and Soulvore
Characters with appropriate perks may be able to absorb their prey's bodies or spirits into themselves, trapping them inside them, provided the prey are not immune to such attacks.
Absorption is a non-fatal act and leaves the prey trapped as part of the predator, with which they may mentally communicate if the predator allows it. The prey is aware of their position, and the predator may even opt to allow them to speak or even move slightly within their body.
A predator with a perk such as the “Trap Spirit” perk may take the souls of defeated prey (either by conventional digestion or by soul-draining) into themselves, as with absorption. This act, which may or may not be considered “fatal” depending upon the manner by which it is accomplished, seals the prey's spirit inside utterly and renders them incapable of reformation for the duration of their stay. If the predator allows it, the prey may mentally communicate with them or even with other prey who have met the same fate - some predators have entire worlds inside their minds for their prey to run around in.
Note that the prey must be actually killed before their spirit is released, unless the predator has Snatch Spirit in which case they must be drained down to SC 0, and both absorbed and soulvored prey do NOT count their size for determining the predator's remaining stomach capacity.
Reforming and Escaping
Generally speaking, getting eaten is a setback, but far from crippling (flaws notwithstanding).
After a combat encounter has finished, provided at least one member of the party is still capable of continuing, they may assist the others in getting back into the fray. Reformation magic is reasonably commonplace and most adventurers' kits include a few scrolls, wands, pills, potions and such to get things going again, and no adventurer's guild worthy of the name will send anyone out on a mission that hasn't been fully trained in the use of such devices.
Deceased characters are given new bodies, those who are merely trapped are forcibly warped back to their compatriots and even those who have been melded into the predator or had their very spirits sucked up can be redeemed. The process is not automatic, however, and may not be entirely pleasant.
Returning to play is done with a single roll of the character's base stat.
Dead characters roll their Stamina against a static difficulty of 12.
Unconscious characters roll their Stamina against a static difficulty of 10.
Trapped characters roll an opposed Strength check against the predator's Stomach.
Absorbed characters roll an opposed Stamina check against the predator.
Soulvored characters roll an opposed Self-Control check against the predator.
In the latter three cases, if the predator holding them has been subdued or otherwise persuaded to release their prey, then the prey are merely treated as Unconscious.
A success on this roll means that the prey manage to break free from whatever predicament they are in and are returned to the party with all their stats recovered to a minimum of 1. A failure means that they are stuck within the predator and must wait until half the Recovery Time for the stat responsible for their subduing has passed before making another attempt.
Unfortunately, such quick fixes come with a cost - for those who wish to come back into play without resting for at least their Recovery Time, the strain of being knocked out and brought back so suddenly and sharply causes them to suffer Revival Trauma - they receive a -2 penalty to all rolls until they have rested for at least their Recovery Time, after which it is reduced to -1. Resting again negates the penalty completely.
If the character waits for at least their Recovery Time before attempting to come back into play, then this penalty does not apply. If they have been out of play for double their recovery time, then they succeed automatically.
Predators, naturally, may also release prey at any time at no penalty - for friendlier eatings, even absorbed, soulvored and digested prey might be able to come back without suffering Revival Trauma (if they were willing from the start, it's entirely possible that their stats weren't damaged too badly in the first place).
Party-wipe scenarios
Unfortunately, it's not guaranteed that anyone in the party will be in a position to assist with recovery. In this case, the unfortunate party are pretty much out of luck - for a while. Someone back at the guild will notice they haven't checked in eventually, and set the clerics and wizards on the case. Occasionally, the predators might be merciful with someone they've captured alive and turf them out when they're no longer useful, allowing them to revive and gather their friends. Sometimes, predators may even bring their own prey back. Either way, the party will be up and running again... eventually. Generally speaking, unless it's really important that the party extricate themselves, the GM is encouraged to just dump them back in town a few days later feeling pretty sheepish about themselves.
On the other hand, if the GM feels that they really want to make the party roll, someone is playing a solo game, then that's their call - it really depends on the tone of the game they're running (the usual grading of silly/non-serious/serious applies here). They are also completely at liberty to mess the players around some other way if they like - requiring an endo prey to make an actual combat roll to try and escape from the predator, or in darker games, even ruling that deceased or soulvored prey are eliminated entirely is a possibility.
If the GM wishes for downed prey to get out by themselves, once they have been out of play long enough for their stats to completely recover (twice their Recovery Time in most cases), fallen characters may make an unassisted roll to escape - if successful, they manage to extricate themselves from their predicament through their own means. Those who are reforming will generally restore themselves in a safe, convenient location, absorbed prey who manage to overcome their predator's hold will usually be able to activate a Recall spell to whisk themselves away somewhere safe, and so forth. However they manage it, generally they'll find themselves in the nearest safe town. Not necessarily convenient for their mission, but at least they'll be out of danger. If they are not successful, however, they're stuck where they are for a little longer, and may attempt again after their Recovery Time has passed once more. Fortunately, once ONE party member has restored themselves, they are free to assist the others if they have a recovery kit - which will automatically succeed, as above.
If the GM really wants to run a serious game, they may forgo the recovery kits entirely or provide particularly potent NPC predators with exotic containment abilities that require some challenge to be completed before the players may free themselves - an example would be a scenario where the entire party get devoured by a creature that absorbs their prey and traps them in a mindscape of some sort, forcing the party to go on an adventure inside them. Naturally, this is something that should be tailored to player preferences.
For shorter games with disposable characters, a party-wipe could also be time to draw proceedings to a close.
Examples (Under Construction)
This section contains examples for the kinds of skills, perks/flaws, and items you can create in the game. The ones allowed in your particular game are entirely up to the GM, but these can be used as some general guidelines on what you can do, and how much it would cost. These are not rules for the pricing, nor are they the only choices you can pick from, your GM may decide these should be more or less expensive than the price listed here, or may decide to not allow them at all.
Skills
Here are some example skills that you may find useful for use on your character. You're not limited to these, you are welcome to create your own and run them past the GM for your game to make sure they're acceptable to use in your particular campaign. If you come up with any cool skills, and they are not too broad (as in, they only affect one or two actions/dice rolls), feel free to add them to these lists.
| Name | Stat | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Attack Skills | ||
| Unarmed | Increased chance to damage an opponent when unarmed. | |
| Melee weapons | Increased chance to damage an opponent with a weapon in your hand. | |
| Thrown | You are good at peltin' people with stuff. | |
| Archery | Increased chance to hit with a bow or similar weapon. | |
| Guns | Rooty tooty point and shooty. | |
| Heavy Weapons | Rooty tooty point and obliteratey. | |
| Defense Skills | ||
| Melee defense | You are skilled in the art of parrying and dodging close-quarter attacks. | |
| Ranged dodge | You are a leaf on the wind. Bonus to avoid ranged attacks. | |
| Slippery customer | You are hard to get a hand on. Bonus to evade grapples. | |
| Vore Skills | ||
| Grappling | Increased chance to grab an opponent, and escape from/reverse the same. Not just for vore, but... | |
| Stretchy | Your stomach can hold more stuff before you suffer penalties. | |
| Powerful stomach | Gives you a better chance of damaging prey on digestion rolls. | |
| Digestion resistance | Predators are less capable of damaging you once they get you in. | |
| Self-preservation | Gives you a bonus to escaping from stomachs. | |
| Social Skills | ||
| Bluff | You're good at spinning a yarn and getting people to believe it. | |
| Disguise | You can pass yourself off as someone else. | |
| Intimidation | Whoa, you scary. | |
| Animal charm | You know how to make feral critters behave. | |
| Subterfuge Skills | ||
| Stealth | How not to be seen. Sticking to the shadows! | |
| Burglary | Lock-picking, safe-cracking, breaking and entering, and otherwise gaining entry to places you shouldn't be. | |
| Physical Skills | ||
| Athletics | Running, jumping, gymnastics, and so forth. | |
| Tracking | You are good at finding where people went. | |
| Survival | You know how to find food, water, and shelter, what's good eatin's, and what's bad eatin's. | |
| Technical Skills | ||
| Computing | You know how to operate a computer or similar device. | |
| Electronics | You are skilled in the operation and maintenance of electronic equipment. | |
| Mechanics | You know how to build, service and repair mechanical devices. | |
| Knowledge Skills | ||
| Arcane | You know your way around the workings of magic. | |
| Academics | You are book-smart and well-read in classical academic subjects. | |
| Sciences | You are familiar with the scientific process and all manner of useful stuff. | |
| Linguistics | You are adept at communicating with people who speak other languages. | |
| Medicine | You can make people not die, and or if not quite dead, feel better. | |
| Artisan | You are good with your hands when it comes to crafting stuff. | |
| Cooking | You make food taste good. | |
| Demolitions | You know how to safely handle, store and and use explosives. | |
| Drive - 'Vehicle' | You know how to operate that particular type of vehicle. | |
Perks/Flaws
Perks are abilities and traits that a character can actively make use of, that are not "experience" so much as some innate ability or enhancement they have. Flaws are the opposite, some sort of innate weakness or disability of the character that hampers them (but gives CP back during character creation). Here are some examples of commonly desired perks. Note that these prices are not necessary applicable to every game, run by every GM.
| Name | Cost | Description |
|---|---|---|
| General Perks | ||
| Cute & adorable | 3 CP | The character may apply a size bonus to seduction rolls if they are smaller. |
| Good lookin' | 1 CP | You just look good. You get a bonus to seduction where appearance is a factor. |
| Organizational Ties | 1+ CP | You hold a reasonable rank in some organization, such as a police force, a guild, a crime family, a government or similar. You may pull strings for favors, and may be asked in return. This perk may be taken multiple times for a position of greater power. |
| Wealth | 1+ CP | You've got a better-than-average income. Whether that's from investments or a few jobs on the side during downtime, you have slightly more disposable income to dispose of. |
| Pocket Dimension | 3* CP | Gives the character access to a hammerspace thingy that can contain things of a combined size equal to the level of the perk. The character may even stuff a held opponent into it with a successful opposed strength check, at which point they may attempt to escape as if it was a stomach. The character may also enter it themselves provided they are small enough, though doing so requires an escape roll if they are held unless they want to drag their opponent in with them (in which case it becomes an opposed strength roll as above). *Each level of Pocket Dimension costs an additional 3 CP. |
| Fly | 3 CP | The character is able to fly. They may put themselves out of harm's reach, make ranged attacks from the safety of the skies, and so forth. |
| Extra Limbs | 2+ CP | You have some extra appendages to hand, be they extra arms, prehensile tails, tentacles or some other such appendage. You are able to perform additional tasks while your hands are occupied, such as grapple someone when you're already holding another. This does not allow you to perform any additional actions in a round, just carry one out while your arms are otherwise occupied. Each additional point spent on this increases the number of things you can hold or wield simultaneously. Note: this perk does allow you to grab someone while you are being held by another, unless the person holding you also has enough appendages to occupy all of yours. |
| Astral Projection | 2 CP | You can disconnect your soul from your body at will and become a free-floating spirit, as per the Spirit form and Ghostly perks, below. This allows you to pass through walls as though intangible and explore your surroundings in relative safety. If you encounter a predator with the Snatch Spirit perk though, you may be in trouble. |
| Illusion | 2+ CP | You can project illusions that fool the senses of anyone who sees them. Whatever your imagination can conjure up, you can create. Opponents make a Self-Control check against your Smarts to see through it, and the illusion immediately fails if they directly interact with it. The low level of this perk allows you to create a reasonably local illusion, higher points costs allow you to project illusions ranging from merchant caravans all the way up to a phantasmal city. |
| Invisibility | 3 CP | You can turn invisible at will. This can be a pretty big bonus to stealth. While you're able to move around while invisible, you cannot perform any offensive actions without revealing yourself. |
| Telekinesis | 2+ CP | You can do move things with your mind, allowing you to perform fairly simple tasks at a distance. At 2 points you have about as much dexterity as you'd have with a balled fist, 3 allows you to grasp things, and 4 allows you fine enough control to write or turn a key in a lock. Attempting a complex task or something with fine control beyond your expertise will require a Smarts check at the GM's discretion. |
| Telepathy | 2+ CP | You can speak to people with your mind. This generally requires a willing recipient, and can be done within the same room. Increasing the cost will increase the range to within the same building, town, and so forth. Adding an additional point will allow you to send/receive thoughts with an unwilling recipient with an opposed Smarts check, and if you take an appropriate attack to drain their Smarts to zero, will enable you to dig through their memories for useful info. |
| Traumatic Stomach | 2 CP | Something about the way you treat your prey is particularly harrowing. Whether it's relentless taunting, particularly violent churning or simply being particularly painful, people who spend some time in there are rarely eager to repeat the experience. You gain +1 on all intimidation checks against someone in your stomach, and if you manage to render someone helpless in there you may roll another intimidation check against their base self-control - if successful, they are afflicted with the Phobia flaw in future dealings with you, until such time as they are able to overcome their fear (such as by managing to defeat you, or seeing you humbled, etc). That is, of course, assuming they ever get out. |
| Healing | 3 CP | You have healing abilities that go above and beyond mere medicine. With a successful Smarts roll, you can restore people back to health, instantly recovering half their base Stamina stat, rounding up. You may do this a number of times equal to your Smarts stat before resting - for the purposes of recovering uses, use your Smarts for determining your Recovery Time. |
| Transformation | 4 CP | You have the ability to shift yourself into another form. The sky's the limit, provided the resulting form does not exceed the character point total of the primary form - essentially, apply it as a combination of bonuses and penalties. Generally, skills and knowledge-based abilities must be common to both forms, while base physical stats and the like are open to modification. Changing form is a full-round action. The form may be an impediment or otherwise inconvenient to the character, in which case the cost is reduced and may even become a flaw.
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| Martial Artist | 1 CP | It's all about technique. You may use your Speed instead of your Strength for grapple attempts against an unheld opponent, whichever is higher. |
| Dance like a butterfly | 1 CP | You can be frankly ANNOYING to lay a hand on sometimes. Opponents attempting to grab you must roll against your Speed, rather than your Strength. |
| Shrinking Spell | 2 CP | The character may make a ranged attack with their Smarts vs. their target's Speed. If it hits, they roll their Smarts vs. the target's Self-Control, success does a point of Size damage. |
| Electric Bolt | 2 CP | The character may make a zappy ranged attack. Opposed Speed check to hit, Strength versus Stamina to inflict Stamina damage. |
| Just Drift Away | 3 CP | The character doesn't so much digest prey as convince them that they don't want to leave. Essentially, Seduction-based digestion. Pred uses Seduction stat for defending against struggling; Prey uses self-control to struggle. Subduing prey rolls against their SC and deals SC-based damage. |
| Silver Tongue | 3 CP | The character may use their charm to lull a prey into them. Grappling, Swallowing and Escaping/Reversing Grapples are handled by opposed Seduction/Self-Control rolls by the pred and prey respectively. |
| Come Hither | 1 CP | Can initiate seduction-based grapples from up to 10 feet away. |
| Goo Form | 2-3 CP | You are slimy and squishy. You get a +1 bonus on attempts to grab and swallow people, +1 to escape from grapples, and you may attempt to reverse a grapple at no penalty. Your prey, however, have a +1 bonus to escape from your insides. The 3-point version of this perk allows you to spend an action to shift between gooey and solid forms. |
| Curse | 3 CP | You can inflict a penalty upon an opponent. This operates as a normal ranged attack, but instead of doing damage on a successful strike, you impose a -2 penalty to the stat in question (ie, roll once to hit and again to inflict the curse). These penalties are cumulative, but cannot reduce a stat below 1 and do NOT count for the purposes of incapacitation. The penalty may be removed outside of combat with an appropriate roll - for instance, the victim may attempt a stamina roll to recover from a shrinking spell. Generally, the effects will wear off faster than actual damage would. |
| Remove Curse | 2 CP | The opposite of the above attack, you can lay your hands upon an ally and remove any curses instantly with a successful Smarts roll against the character that inflicted the curse. This may be used a number of times per day equal to your smarts stat, and can be recovered by resting. |
| Shield | 2 CP | You can spend an action to bless an ally, making it easier for them to resist damage. They gain +2 to their stamina to resist damage rolls for the rest of the combat. This may be used a number of times equal to your smarts stat before you have to rest. |
| Polymorph | 4 CP | You can inflict not just a curse, but a full-on transformation upon an opponent. Construct a change template to be agreed upon by the GM to reflect the new form - generally, the net character points of the victim will be unchanged, but any perks that rely upon their physical form (such as flight) will be disabled. Again, this requires a ranged attack and the change takes place instead of damage. |
| Indigestible | 2 CP | The character can only be subdued by digestion damage, but not killed. Their stamina does not drop below zero. |
| Bellydweller | 2 CP | [Requires Indigestible] The character is more than familiar with being stuck in a gut and knows how to just ride it out, or even get comfortable in there. The character only receives damage from the predator if they performed an action on their last turn. |
| Absorb | 3 CP | The predator is capable of absorbing defeated prey.
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| Insoluable | 2 CP | The character's body simply won't blend with another. They are immune to absorption, however this offers no protection against conventional digestion. |
| Snatch Spirit | 2 CP | Enables the character to grapple with ghostly characters, and also allows them to attempt to snatch the souls out of victims' bodies.
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| Trap Spirit | 2 CP | The character can absorb the souls of digested prey and trap them as per the soulvore rules.
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| Spirit Form | 2 CP | The character's body and spirit are one and the same. They may use their PHYSICAL stats as normal when engaged in soul-combat, instead of the predator's choice of defending stat (ie, strength to get out, stamina to resist absorption, etc).
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| Insoluble Soul | 2 CP | Your soul is warded against absorption, and can only be subdued (ie, it stays in the belly of a predator, even if they have Trap Spirit). If Indigestible or Spirit Form are also taken, this perk only costs one point. If both are taken, then they receive the benefits of this perk automatically. |
| Ghostly | 2 CP | [Requires Spirit Form] The character is intangible and may ONLY be grappled or swallowed by soulvore-capable predators - however, they may not engage in physical acts of vore themselves. They may also interact with other ghostly characters as if both parties were solid. |
| Poltergeist | 2 CP | The character may become tangible at will, allowing them to swallow other characters through conventional means. They may also become intangible freely, though this will result in them dropping their prey. |
---Flaws Res-sickness (2 pts): Returning from the dead is something of a strain on you. After reforming, all your rolls are at -1 until a full day has passed. This flaw may be taken multiple times, in which case the penalty is cumulative and wears off one day at a time.
Phobia (1 pt): You are scared of... something. You're at a -1 penalty when dealing with the thing you fear in any way that doesn't involve trying to get away from it. If you get trapped with it, are unable to take any action BUT try to escape unless you pass a self-control check at difficulty 14 first. The cost of this flaw increases to 2 points if the thing is particularly common in the setting.
Special Requirement (1pt): You need... something. Maybe it's blood. Maybe it's souls. Maybe it's as simple as raw meat, or a recharge every so often. Whatever it is, you need something to function properly that goes above and beyond simple food and water. The GM may assign penalties if you don't sate your needs often enough. The cost of this flaw increases to 2 points if the thing is tricky to get hold of - for instance, a vampire might need to drain one STM worth of blood from someone every day or so. Inconvenient, but with the right contacts, a willing donor (or a butcher who can bottle it if they don't mind drinking from animals) it can be acquired fairly easily. A creature that needs to keep eating people's souls is likely to have a tougher time finding willing providers.
Bane/weakness (2/3pts): You are seriously allergic to something. Be it silver, iron, holy water, whatever, it really messes you up. If the item does not normally cause damage, people may attack you with it as if it was a weapon (with +2 to their damage roll). If the item does normally cause damage, it causes double damage against you. this flaw costs 2 points if the weakness is something your foes are likely to have to prepare in advance, and 3 points if it is commonplace.
Mentally exhausting (1pt): This flaw is paired with an attack of some kind. If you miss or otherwise fail your attack roll, then you take a point of Smarts damage. For abilities without a roll of some kind, you make a roll against a static difficulty of 12.
Melee only (1 pt): This flaw is paired with a perk that normally consists of a ranged attack, and renders it unusable at range.
Example flaws:
- Weak Acids: You suffer a penalty for digestion checks to damage your prey.
- Sucker for the ladies: You are poor at resisting seduction attempts from females.
- Technically inept: You suffer a penalty when attempting to deal with anything technological.
- Slow healing: Your stats are reduced for the purposes of determining recovery time.
- Nonviolent: You are less likely to deal damage in a melee.
- Kindhearted: You think defeated prey have learned their lesson, and are less likely to keep them in when they try to leave.
- Clumsy: You suffer a penalty for things involving grace or dexterity.
- Physically unappealing: Doesn't matter how silver-tongued you are, you ugly.
Items
---Major Items
Characters receive one of these for each level of the Equipment perk.
Revival Kit: These are standard issue for many adventurer's guilds, police forces, and noble guards. They're not exactly the easiest things to produce, nor are they entirely reliable, and suffer from the fact that they require some part of the person you're planning to revive when they're built - and the person must be alive at the time of creation. In short, they're an insurance policy for adventurers who expect their comrades to wind up in sticky situations, to be crafted before they depart. Depending on the GM, these may be provided for free to all party members, in which case they don't count as a slot. For use, see the section on revival, below.
Greataxe: Or any other really good melee weapon. It's very sharp. It provides you with +2 on damage rolls.
Longbow: Or any other decent ranged weapon. It provides you with +1 on damage rolls and lets you attack at range.
Splatterpult: Essentially, a magically-charged grenade launcher. Allows you to punt objects at people at range. Also includes a handy hook for pulling pins on grenades (which will generally be taken as minor items). You can also just fill it with rocks for a basic ranged attack.
---Minor Items These are somewhat easier to acquire than Major Items, and usually of lesser utility. Most one-shot items are minor items. Characters receive four of these for each level of the Equipment perk.
Shield: Basically defensive item. Gives you +1 to avoid being hit.
Basic armor: Provides +1 to resist damage in direct combat, does not protect against digestion.
Shortsword: Lets you carve chunks out of people. +1 to your damage rolls.
Spear: Generally doesn't hit as hard as a sword, but the extra reach gives you an advantage. You get +1 to hit.
Short bow: Lets you attack at range, rolling your Speed for the purposes of damage.
Healing potion: Allows you to immediately recover half your base Stamina, rounding up. One-shot item.
Potion of Strength: Boosts your strength by +2 for a short while, usually enough for one combat or similar scene. One-shot item. If a second potion is consumed, it has no effect.
Grenade: A one-shot item. Allows you to make a ranged attack against a group with +1 to hit - anyone who successfully dodges is assumed to have dived for cover. Does damage as per a Strength 5 character.
---Mundane Items These are commonplace items that a character can get hold of with very little difficulty. Generally speaking, you can take however many minor items as you can reasonably carry, or can just assume you have them unless the GM says otherwise (ie, you've been captured and stripped naked or something).
Knife/club: Sure, it's basic, but they're plentiful and can be improvised. They let you use your melee instead of your unarmed skill.
Rock: You can chuck it at people. Use your strength for damage.
Rations: Basic food and water. It keeps you going. Not as tasty as people.
Clothing: You use this to cover yourself up.
