Mutants anyone?

[welsh]

How about your ideas for mutant monsters? Can we start a threat on that topic?

Yesterday I was poking at the new edition ideas on mutants and flora/fauna. I thought- not enough evil plants.
Today my wife just told me about this plant that causes blisters and blindness. I got to imagine a place where this plant releases spores into the air that causes blisters and blindness- and your group wanders into the region where everyone is blind and blistered.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_Hogweed

What are some of your ideas?

[mikeo80]

We have not had a specific thread on mutants. However, we have discussed them in relation to other topics. However, there is a thread on Blue Undead.

I, for one, am not in favor of mutants. Mutations take a LONG time to evolve. Yes, Man dumped a huge S*** load of radiation, biological and chemical horrors into the eco-sphere.

I refer you to the Chicxulub event that had at least a major role in the demise of the Dinosaur.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cretaceous%E2%80%93Paleogene_extinction_event

It took MILLIONS of years before the mouse and shrew size mammals evolved into larger critters.

Now, could you see a faster bunny? A goose that can fly longer? Maybe.

Not much else IMHO.

My $0.02

Mike

[ArmySGT.]

I go back and forth on this one. I think some of them are cool and would make a great adventure. Then, other times I think the various human factions are more than enough to challenge the players.

[stormlion1]

Well what about the Breeders then? I could see there experiments creating a spontaneous mutation that breeds true in subsequent generations.

[RandyT0001]

I thought the Breeders were looking for "untainted" genetic material in order to eliminate the mutations that have encroached into human DNA due to the fallout and biological attacks. I figure anything that had unwanted mutations would be neutralized.

[stormlion1]

They also experiment and the mistakes are either destroyed or sold off to slavers. It could be possible some of those mistakes may have eventually escaped and bred creating a mutated monsters.

[welsh]

I can understand why you might not want to include mutations if you are strictly following canon and want a more "real" game. But based on comments earlier about some of the technology and the willingness of the game to stretch reality for story, I for one enjoy mutations. That said, part of this stems from playing too much Fallout where the source of that mutation had more to do with FEV- a biological technology that was aimed, as I recall, to enhance or create super soldiers and the escape of FEV into the environment causing all sorts of rapid mutations.

Then again, if you are willing to accept portable fusion reactors, I think mutations caused by the mixed soup of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons as well as the break down of industry isn't that much of a stretch.

Acknowledge your point- be careful going down that road too far.

Still, a Kudzu that has gone mutant and is rapidly spreading, or an escaped defoliant that is destroying vegetation - all pretty nice mutations.

And then there is disease- Cholera, Ebola and the added effects of accelerated global warming changing the environmental conditions that make mutation and adaption more likely.

[stormlion1]

You have mentioned FEV! I need this now in the Morrow Project!

[welsh]

Ok, well, you asked for it. More here. http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Forced_Evolutionary_Virus

FEV is a core element of the Fallout universe and the main reason for mutations, but it is also a humanly engineered and in some cases mutated creation, the consequences made more severe due to the consequences of a great war.

BUT- I would caution that the Fallout universe is very different than that of Morrow Project. Fallout is a retro-future game- a game that is based on the type of science fiction one might have watched in the 1950s and 1960s. Sci/Fi apocalyptic type stories that might include the Forbidden Planet or Them or Panic in the Year Zero, where as a more modern view would be World War Z or Deep Impact. Or if you like the difference between the original Planet of the Apes franchise and the more current one.

That said, I think there are elements that can be mined for the Morrow Universe. Government or Corporate modified biological and genetic engineering gone mutant, with consequences and further changes since the end of the war- that would be worth exploring for a game.

One idea I have been playing with is that the trigger event of the war is a virus that essentially sterilizes women - Children of Men or White Plague- game, in which the survivors are the descendents of those who were immune or escaped but are themselves not immune. Some of the members of the MP may carry the virus unknowingly into the future, and the team has to figure out what to do about them.

[bobcat]

a major consideration would be to consider the significant mutations to wildlife in the Ukraine. for example wolves around the CNPP that make the ones in Starnam seem cute and harmless.