CYBER-PULP FANTASY CORE-Humanoids

CYBER-PULP FANTASY CORE

© Jerry Harris 2013

Published here as Open Game Content.

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Overview Index

Background Index

HUMANOIDS

The fractured races of the Humanoids breed prodigiously, but die very young.  30 would seem to be the genetic maximum, but their harsh lifestyles usually end in their 20’s.  They are also the most varied and mutated race, to the point where different “breeds” (Orcs, Goblins, etc) cannot actually interbreed.  Some of this is due to regional species hyper-specialization, but mostly due to actual breeding experiments by the other races and even amongst themselves.  Hobgoblins, for example, may have been created by Goblin selective breeding (or somebody else bred them, nobody’s sure).

Humanoids can be cloned and accept cyber implants.  Neither procedure is wide-spread, as humanoids breed quickly enough on their own and don’t live long enough to make the expense of cyber implants worthwhile (except perhaps as a suicide cyber terrorist).  Genetic or magical alteration of humanoids is forbidden by international law, due to past grievances and also the very real possibility of creating some kind of super-humanoid.  Those experiments have ended badly for the offspring.  (You’ll see later in the NPC section.)  

The various humanoid races generally represent the barbaric forces trying to destroy the current dominant civilization.  They’ve entered into various causes over history and occasionally triumphed, but they always collapse and are subsumed into a new civilization built by Humans and Demi-humans.  They are not adept at magic or technology, and are only able to parasite on others’ work.

Their main disadvantage is their general poverty and fanaticism, which makes them easy prey for charismatic Human and Demi-human leaders seeking followers for their personal causes.  (Such as some of the Drow have actually joined with the Humanoid Movement.)  Where war and raiding were once their medium of expression, now the Humanoids work in terrorism, mass infiltration, protests, media attention, litigation, and low-scale asymmetrical combat.  The various types of WMD’s held by Human and Demi-Human dominated societies are the only thing keeping mass warfare from breaking out with the Humanoid dominated countries.