Saturday, January 15, 2011

Gigacrawler: What Are These Things?


Here are some more things tucked away in the Gigastructure. Tell us what they are, and they'll be added to Gigacrawler. (And if you know what they really are--forget it--make up something new...)

Blogger's being insane so I can't put letters next to them so you'll just have to describe what you're describing.




































40 comments:

  1. Second picture of colorful pierced cubes:

    Youseeseeensees (UCCNC(s)- Universal Color Coded Nutrition Cubes)

    Cubes of inert, concentrated, fortified nutrition designed for creatures with wildly varying body chemistry. Coded by color, when consumed the cube will react with the appropriate body chemistry a become a nutritious paste. These have the potential to be toxic, or even highly reactive when consumed by inappropriate organisms.

    Color - Body Chemistry
    White - Hydrogen Fluoride Based
    Pink - Ammonia Based
    Red - Selenium of Tellurium Based
    Orange - Nitrogen Based
    Yellow - Chlorine Based
    Pea Green - Arsenic Based
    Forest Green - Silicon Based
    Blue - Carbon Based
    Indigo - Methane Based
    Brown - Phosphorus based

    ReplyDelete
  2. sorry, that should be Selenium OR Tellurium Based for Red

    ReplyDelete
  3. The Aviator there is the only guy who can make the Kessel run in less than twelve parsecs.

    The green glowy things are the Radium Rooms, a set of very pricey apartments trendily made from shipping containers. Obviously they cater to those who thrive on hard radiation.

    The skull on the tower is sort of analagous to the Wyvern In The Well; oracular, enigmatic, and greedy.

    The little plastic cubes are NOT Wang Cubes, but they are components used in drug design.

    The spiral? Another Guggenheim museum of some sort. Peggy Guggenheim now inhabits an army of sexbots. They/she collect/s art, found/s museums, and fuck/s abstract expressionists.

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  4. I'm sorry, I have only a passing knowledge of the project, so I might be way off base in some of these descriptions - but oh well - here comes the mind dump, in order of appearance:

    (newexer.jpg) Known only as the Red Eyes, these robotic creatures infest service conduits looking for unshielded power outlets. Red Eyes plug their tails into the outlets and stay as long as they can, charging up their batteries. When forced to move by Fixers, they can be quite cranky.

    (newex4.jpg) These multicolored cubes are known as Happy Time Candy, given to biological or cybernetic beings with taste receptors as rewards for jobs well done. Happy Time Candy assists in orgasm manifestation.

    (newex3.jpg) A Twant. Twants service citizens by providing light. Twants will follow a citizen around, even if the citizen does not need light. The Twant will only leave if a sufficient tip is given.

    (newex2.jpg) This is a museum replica of the Sol Industries Mark XI Personal Euthanasia device (single-seater only.) The Mark XI was popular amongst members of the Domesday Doomsday cult, a religious organization believing that only descendants of people listed in the medieval census of England by William the Conqueror in the 1,086th year of the Common Era would be saved from The Anglic Reckoning. As most members could not provide documentation of Domesday heredity, most were encouraged to purchase the Mark XI by the Domesday Doomsday cult's controlling entity, Sol Industries.

    (newex1.jpg) A standard issue Customer Service Representative V9. CSRv9's are cybernetic creatures containing rat and elephant brain cells which have been enhanced for dealing with repetitive tasks such as answering questions, without the pesky problem of dwelling on what those answers mean, or whether they were pertinent to the question issues by the customer. The CSRv9 has a GOTO line in it's conditioning loop in which it cannot end a conversation without routing the customer to a SalesBot v17.

    (gigaexlast.jpg) The Evening in Heaven, a chain of 'local' bars in which you can watch the dreams of others while lounging on White pillows and being fed the Paste of Fecundity by docile white monkeys.

    (gigaex18.jpg) Neurons in the Hive Mind, sending thought impulses from place to place. Each connection contains a passageway wide enough for people and creatures to pass through. Sometimes vile creatures infest the Hive Mind's passages, interrupting thought and interfering with The Plan. On occasion, the Hive Mind will hire contractors to clean out the infestation.

    (gigaex15.jpg) A diagram of the Great Happy Time Generator, which takes resources form an unknown place and produces candy. It really is some damn good candy.

    (gigaex14.jpg) The House of your average Fixer. Everything a Fixer would ever need to do their job lies within this space.

    (gigaex12.jpg) This is an image of the Green Cubes of Censure. Each cube contains a person who spoke out. For that crime, they are inserted into the cubes and displayed in public places. People sometimes go to cube clusters for picnics or weddings.

    end of Part One . . .

    - Ark

    ReplyDelete
  5. Colored squares: Hive mind style AI units. Individually they are extremely simple, and not all that intelligent. They travel in families, much like families of fish, and roll (as well as a squarish thing can roll) about aimlessly, scavenging fuel/energy and technology unless attacked, at which point they converge and connect together to form a larger creature made up of many of the AI units merged. The resulting creature will take one of the following forms (loosely) on a roll of a d6:

    1 - humanoid
    2 - low, solid quadruped (think cat or wolf)
    3 - tall, lanky quadruped (elk, llama, etc...)
    4 - sturdy quadruped (elephant, hippo-ish)
    5 - roll d4 + 2 for number of limbs. Half (round up) are legs. Remaining are arms or manipulators.
    6 - weird. Be creative, have fun.

    The new, merged creature is highly intelligent, but highly reactive, and will defend itself aggressively. One threatened it must be bribed at some non-trivial cost to be calmed. If successfully calmed or befriended, it will provide valuable information for a short time before crumbling into individual units and continuing to scavenge.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Here goes my stream of thought:

    (Part One)

    (newexer.jpg) Known only as the Red Eyes, these robotic creatures infest service conduits looking for unshielded power outlets. Red Eyes plug their tails into the outlets and stay as long as they can, charging up their batteries. When forced to move by Fixers, they can be quite cranky.

    (newex4.jpg) These multicolored cubes are known as Happy Time Candy, given to biological or cybernetic beings with taste receptors as rewards for jobs well done. Happy Time Candy assists in orgasm manifestation.

    (newex3.jpg) A Twant. Twants service citizens by providing light. Twants will follow a citizen around, even if the citizen does not need light. The Twant will only leave if a sufficient tip is given.

    (newex2.jpg) This is a museum replica of the Sol Industries Mark XI Personal Euthanasia device (single seater only.) The Mark XI was popular amongst members of the Domesday Doomsday cult, a religious organization beleiving that only descendants of people listed in the medieval census of England by William the Conqueror in the 1,086th year of the Common Era would be saved from The Anglic Reckoning. As most members could not provide documentation of Domesday heredity, most were encouraged to purchase the Mark XI by the Domesday Doomsday cult's controlling entity, Sol Industries.

    (newex1.jpg) A standard issue Customer Service Representative V9. CSRv9's are cybernetic creatures containing rat and elephant brain cells which have been enhanced for dealing with repetitive tasks such as answering questions, without the pesky problem of dwelling on what those answers mean, or whether they were pertinent to the question issues by the customer. The CSRv9 has a GOTO line in it's conditioning loop in which it cannot end a conversation without routing the customer to a SalesBot v17.

    (gigaexlast.jpg) The Evening in Heaven, a local bar in which you can watch the dreams of others while lounging on White pillow and being fed the Paste of Fecundity by docile white monkeys.

    (gigaex18.jpg) Neurons in the Hive Mind, sending thought impulses from place to place. Each connection contains a passageway wide enough for people and creatures to pass through. Sometimes vile creatures infest the Hive Mind's passages, interrupting thought and interfering with The Plan. On occasion, the Hive Mind will hire contractors to clean out the infestation.

    (gigaex15.jpg) A diagram of the Great Happy Time Generator, which takes resources form an unknown place and produces candy. It really is some damn good candy.

    (gigaex14.jpg) The House of your average Fixer. Everything a Fixer would ever need to do their job lies within this space.

    (gigaex12.jpg) This is an image of the Green Cubes of Censure. Each cube contains a person who spoke out. For that crime, they are inserted into the cubes and displayed in public places. People sometimes go to cube clusters for picnics or weddings.

    Next, part two . . .

    -Ark

    ReplyDelete
  7. Here goes my stream of thought:

    (Part One)

    (newexer.jpg) Known only as the Red Eyes, these robotic creatures infest service conduits looking for unshielded power outlets. Red Eyes plug their tails into the outlets and stay as long as they can, charging up their batteries. When forced to move by Fixers, they can be quite cranky.

    (newex4.jpg) These multicolored cubes are known as Happy Time Candy, given to biological or cybernetic beings with taste receptors as rewards for jobs well done. Happy Time Candy assists in orgasm manifestation.

    (newex3.jpg) A Twant. Twants service citizens by providing light. Twants will follow a citizen around, even if the citizen does not need light. The Twant will only leave if a sufficient tip is given.

    (newex2.jpg) This is a museum replica of the Sol Industries Mark XI Personal Euthanasia device (single seater only.) The Mark XI was popular amongst members of the Domesday Doomsday cult, a religious organization beleiving that only descendants of people listed in the medieval census of England by William the Conqueror in the 1,086th year of the Common Era would be saved from The Anglic Reckoning. As most members could not provide documentation of Domesday heredity, most were encouraged to purchase the Mark XI by the Domesday Doomsday cult's controlling entity, Sol Industries.

    (newex1.jpg) A standard issue Customer Service Representative V9. CSRv9's are cybernetic creatures containing rat and elephant brain cells which have been enhanced for dealing with repetitive tasks such as answering questions, without the pesky problem of dwelling on what those answers mean, or whether they were pertinent to the question issues by the customer. The CSRv9 has a GOTO line in it's conditioning loop in which it cannot end a conversation without routing the customer to a SalesBot v17.

    Next, part two . . .

    -Ark

    ReplyDelete
  8. Continuing on . . .

    (gigaexlast.jpg) The Evening in Heaven, a local bar in which you can watch the dreams of others while lounging on White pillow and being fed the Paste of Fecundity by docile white monkeys.

    (gigaex18.jpg) Neurons in the Hive Mind, sending thought impulses from place to place. Each connection contains a passageway wide enough for people and creatures to pass through. Sometimes vile creatures infest the Hive Mind's passages, interrupting thought and interfering with The Plan. On occasion, the Hive Mind will hire contractors to clean out the infestation.

    (gigaex15.jpg) A diagram of the Great Happy Time Generator, which takes resources form an unknown place and produces candy. It really is some damn good candy.

    (gigaex14.jpg) The House of your average Fixer. Everything a Fixer would ever need to do their job lies within this space.
    (gigaex12.jpg) This is an image of the Green Cubes of Censure. Each cube contains a person who spoke out. For that crime, they are inserted into the cubes and displayed in public places. People sometimes go to cube clusters for picnics or weddings.



    (gigaex11.jpg) The Zog, a giant fungus that is prevalent at the Bottom of the Heap. The Zog absorbs the flesh of the ancients, processing brain matter and incorporating memories into its mental matrix. Some go to the Bottom of the Heap to ask the Zog questions. Some return, others do not. It is rumored that the Hive Mind is jealous of the Zog and that a secret war is going on between the two, but the State Rumor Mills refuse to comment on it.

    - Ark

    ReplyDelete
  9. Okay, I'm half way through my finished list, but it dawned on me that I might be spamming here. Let me know if you want the rest of the list, Zak. :)

    - Ark

    ReplyDelete
  10. @arkhein

    you are doing exactly the right thing, i'd hate for you to stop now

    ReplyDelete
  11. @zak

    Hmm - blogger is fighting me. It hasn't actually posted much of what I sent. It seems real cranky on length. I've got 6,200 characters worth of text here, a description for each picture. I'm cutting it up into small chunks, but Blogger stays cranky and lies to me. Shall I just email you the puppy, or shall I fight Blogger a while more?

    - Ark

    ReplyDelete
  12. Continuing on . . .

    (gigaexlast.jpg) The Evening in Heaven, a local bar in which you can watch the dreams of others while lounging on White pillow and being fed the Paste of Fecundity by docile white monkeys.

    (gigaex18.jpg) Neurons in the Hive Mind, sending thought impulses from place to place. Each connection contains a passageway wide enough for people and creatures to pass through. Sometimes vile creatures infest the Hive Mind's passages, interrupting thought and interfering with The Plan. On occasion, the Hive Mind will hire contractors to clean out the infestation.

    (gigaex15.jpg) A diagram of the Great Happy Time Generator, which takes resources form an unknown place and produces candy. It really is some damn good candy.

    (gigaex14.jpg) The House of your average Fixer. Everything a Fixer would ever need to do their job lies within this space.
    (gigaex12.jpg) This is an image of the Green Cubes of Censure. Each cube contains a person who spoke out. For that crime, they are inserted into the cubes and displayed in public places. People sometimes go to cube clusters for picnics or weddings.



    (gigaex11.jpg) The Zog, a giant fungus that is prevalent at the Bottom of the Heap. The Zog absorbs the flesh of the ancients, processing brain matter and incorporating memories into its mental matrix. Some go to the Bottom of the Heap to ask the Zog questions. Some return, others do not. It is rumored that the Hive Mind is jealous of the Zog and that a secret war is going on between the two, but the State Rumor Mills refuse to comment on it.

    - Ark

    ReplyDelete
  13. Hmm, appears to be working now . And on . . .

    (gigaex10.jpg) Bob. Bob is the last of the functioning Priests of Zellar, a Heavy Metal Death band popular in the early formation of the Gigastructure. His dreams are soem of the more popular ones displayed in the Evening of Heaven. Bob is worshipped as a minor deity in dark places.

    (gigaex9.jpg) A postcard from Damothen VII. Damothene VII is famous for the Robotic Ball Hosts that creep through their city and dispense a high energy, cheese like liquid projectile from their Invigoration Nozzles. Countless citizens descent from their cocoons and into the streets when they hear the Feeding Bell.

    (gigaex8.jpg) One of the Irobots. Irobots act as liaisons from the Hive Mind to biological beings and their cybernetic descendants taking up the Fixer profession. Should one be looking for work clearing out infestations of Hive Mind neural passageways, one should contact an Irobot for cleaning schedules.

    (gigaex7.jpg) This is the inside of a Hive Mind Neural Conduit. At the moment, no vile creature infestation is occurring, which is a good sign that the Fixers are being paid well in this subsector, and have scads of Happy Time Candy.

    (gigaex6.jpg) Sad Time Chamber. Biological and Cybernetic entities guilty of lesser crimes than Speaking Out are sent to this chamber. An attractive member a compatible sexual nature exists in the chamber as well, but this co-inhabitant will refuse all sexual advances, and instead continually masturbate. Any sexual relief attempted by the criminal will be met with forced neural awareness of the pointlessness of existence. During this time, the bird heads on top of the Sad Time Chamber will continuously sing Exotica music.

    - Ark

    ReplyDelete
  14. Continuing on . . .

    (gigaexlast.jpg) The Evening in Heaven, a local bar in which you can watch the dreams of others while lounging on White pillow and being fed the Paste of Fecundity by docile white monkeys.

    (gigaex18.jpg) Neurons in the Hive Mind, sending thought impulses from place to place. Each connection contains a passageway wide enough for people and creatures to pass through. Sometimes vile creatures infest the Hive Mind's passages, interrupting thought and interfering with The Plan. On occasion, the Hive Mind will hire contractors to clean out the infestation.

    (gigaex15.jpg) A diagram of the Great Happy Time Generator, which takes resources form an unknown place and produces candy. It really is some damn good candy.

    (gigaex14.jpg) The House of your average Fixer. Everything a Fixer would ever need to do their job lies within this space.
    (gigaex12.jpg) This is an image of the Green Cubes of Censure. Each cube contains a person who spoke out. For that crime, they are inserted into the cubes and displayed in public places. People sometimes go to cube clusters for picnics or weddings.



    (gigaex11.jpg) The Zog, a giant fungus that is prevalent at the Bottom of the Heap. The Zog absorbs the flesh of the ancients, processing brain matter and incorporating memories into its mental matrix. Some go to the Bottom of the Heap to ask the Zog questions. Some return, others do not. It is rumored that the Hive Mind is jealous of the Zog and that a secret war is going on between the two, but the State Rumor Mills refuse to comment on it.

    - Ark

    ReplyDelete
  15. And on and on and on . . .

    (gigaex5.jpg) Appearing in this picture is a Hive Mind Knowledge node. The Hive Mind produces knowledge in the form of a warm, thick, white liquid referred to as Think Squirts. Think Squirts are the primary method of training of biologically based citizens.

    (gigaex4.jpg) Akane Flashy Eye Drip Face Lady is a popular toy amongst young biological and cybernetic citizens. ThinkSquirts can be loaded into the doll and knowledge dispensed to the children at age appropriate intervals. While not dispensing Think Squirts, children typically use the doll to practice social etiquette.

    (gigaex3.jpg) The Samj. Fixers know to avoid the Samj, as the intense ultra violet radiation kills most biologically based life forms. Silicon intelligences inhabit the Samj, and little else is known. Upon questioning, the State Rumor Mills deny the existence of the Samj.

    (gigaex1.jpg) The Couch. All Fixers have a Couch hidden in their House. The couch is only accessible via a secret entry, as Fixers sometimes need to avoid just about everything outside their house that might want to break in.

    There you go.

    - Ark

    ReplyDelete
  16. Okay, that is finally it. I've seen errors out of Blogger I've never seen before, but it's all there now. I'll be quiet now.

    - Ark

    ReplyDelete
  17. Gigaex4:

    ALICE (Aterrman Local Injector, Core Entry). Alice is a wide spectrum injection unit, coded to the quadrant where she is found. She can retract that mess of tubes and have a normal mouth in 1 round. She can protect against allergens, infections, etc. She is a playable race, though Alice units are extremely rare - 1% chance any 100 quadrants will find one. If given one month she can add any new quadrant she enters to her database. It will take her an additional month to synthesize the proper injectables. In combat she can inject a wide variety of toxins, paralytics, and digestive enzymes.

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  19. @c'nor

    if you have the time , it'd be cool if you could go over to Alterations and write up a few cyborg injection implants if someone wanted to build an ALICE-like PC

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  20. Junkbot( pics, 1,5,)

    State of the art robots that are past their prime, Junkbots are any and all animatronics that have lost their value for one reason or another. Many exists trying to stay active with the parts they have or are able to obtain. Their AI ranges as far and wide as there original design and can be anything from a broken down carousel horse to a robotic wetnurse. Just about anything can be labeled a junkbot.


    GENTS( pic 12)
    These " living" disembodied heads are the earliest form of meshing man-to -machine known in the Gigacrawl. .Original based on the scientific research of ancient german scientists to keep someone known as the " The Fuhrer" alive, these proto cyborgs, range from wacko billionaires to old crime bosses and even prisoners who are kept "alive" by their keepers. .But quite a few Gents you'll find are just some regular guy who saved each and every penny he ever made so he could live "afterwards" not realizing he might of been better dead instead of living as a "head in a box".


    Ooovum( pic 13)

    An alien race that gatecrashed onto the gygacrawl a millennium ago. The Ooovum always appear as a 4' to 8' foot high armored globe with two tentacle like arms and four elongated legs and are never without some high tech device or weapon. Other then their black/red puple eyes that look through a shielded slit in their armor, Who or what these beings look like nobody knows as anytime they die their bodies inside the suits evaporatein seconds into a inky black mist. The Ooovum get their name from the strange sound their suits give off and speak in a language that sounds like high frequency octaves.


    Mr. Handy( pic 3)

    An adult size toy humanoid robot. Mr.Handy can sing and dance in sync to his gigantic bulb-like head as it blinks on and off to your favorite tune. Mr. Handy is great with kids, doesn't mind walking the dog and has no problem cleaning up the house or taking out the trash. He is terrible at fighting( not being programed to do so) but makes a great peanut butter sandwich and will never say a bad word. Mr. Handy is your friend for life even after his battery runs out.

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  21. @Crowking:

    How does that work for Mr. Handy? Surely he stops working when his battery runs out?

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  22. His feelings are embedded into his solid slate memory chip or he really does love you in a Twilight Zone kind of way.

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  23. @Crowking:

    Do you mean solid state memory chip, or does he use some sort of weird rock thing (which would be awesome)?

    @Zak:

    Alterations are up. Let me know if anything doesn't work right.

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  24. He can either be working from a EPROM or is supernaturally motivated. Maybe both...

    Here's one more:

    PACER FALCON: MILLENNIUM CLASS ( newex2.jpg)

    This ultra sleek lemon of the 21th century is equipped with a 4.5 horse powered engine that runs at tops speeds of 25 miles an hour and handles as smoothly as a Coney Island Bumpercar. Front and back gasbag breaks and a PVC chassis, this " Classic" was put out of circulation after to many reports of customers becoming affected by asbestos poisoning. Somehow a few survived over the eons and can be seen put=putting along the avenues of the Gigacrawl.

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  25. The "bird domes" are clearly the breeding chambers of the avion. While they do not breed as such, they can reproduce by capturing another living creature and placing them within one of these domes. After 1d10+1 days, the prisoner emerges as an avion, with no memory of their previous life.

    The principles of the device are at least Tech Level 18, although the avion understand them on an innate level.

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  26. 5th from Bottom:
    Vac-Hab Portable. Marked with the seal of the Great Updoors Corp., these relics are usually found in compressed state as a wad of translucent plastic about four bricks in size, extremely cold to the touch, with a red button in one side. Press the button and compressed nitrogen-oxygen inflates the plastic to a pressurized dome some 3 x 3 x 2 meters in dimension (10% chance of human-toxic atmposphere, 15% chance of human-incompatible atmosphere, these might be figured out from chemical symbols on the button.) The plastic is permeable to solid matter. The dome may be recompressed by pushing the button again, which is in the middle of the floor now.

    The Vac-Hab was originally designed for excursions to airless or hostile-atmosphere levels of the Structure. Around here, they are most notable for the use to which the mechanocracy of Tlyan puts them. Prisoners are held inside them on a vacuum level, with a limited supply of food and the strong suggestion that suicide by pressing the button or running outside might be preferable to starvation.

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  27. (Giant bird birdcages, gigaex6)

    Cuckoo Chambers.

    These incubation chambers were created by a now-extinct species. They create, from the original creatures biological source material, new offspring. This offspring resembles one of the species that has come to dominate the gigastructure nearby the Cuckoo Chamber-- human most commonly, or nearhuman, or otherwise. The offspring-- the Cuckoo-- resembles that species in every detail, right down to genetic testing. For all intents & purposes they ARE that species. Except for the fact that they are mimics, created that way. Are the Cuckoos extinct? Did they just...become everyone else? Does being a perfect mimic of a human...make you a human?

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  29. pic 1.

    while high-res solid state hard-light holograms are present, as all things inevitably are, in the gigastructure, the scarcity of the skill-sets, resources and technologies used in their creation mean that low-res knock offs of infinitely far less application are more readily available. unlike the fine fractal talcum its staggeringly more rare/expensive triplux (tm) cousin grinds down into, a regular feature in the lungs of wet [ware]-dreamers, drifting through the half-remembered halls of the virtual palaces and heavens whose foundations it originally formed, their structure encoded into its - often corrupted and decayed - neuro-bonding holo-memory, the BASIC pixel-rubble pictured here is commonly used to create many simple constructs, such as armour, dwellings, shops, fortifications and virtual game environments. the magpie-like, scavenging nature of many of the structure's communities, however, means that it can also be found as a rag-tag component in all manner of cobbled together items, machines and personal effects, from the endlessly cascading and detonating invader-wave necklaces of the lower end ultra-malls to the shifting graffiti-chassis and growling letter-wheels of the steel desert's marauding packs of graff-bikers.

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  30. that should'be read 'PIC 2', obvs.

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  31. oh, and that should be 'tag-chassis'.

    i'll stop making a mess now.

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  32. Those are lovely. I'm using warforged, in many flavors, in my game and I might use one some of those images.

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  33. @Zak: Amending my earlier post. The alterations are not up, blogger ate them.

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  35. I used to play with those interlocking blocks (newex4.jpg) back in school. Most kids would pass them over for Legos, but I had a lot of fun with them. I used to make all sorts of 3D puzzles out of them. They are a bit tricky to work with, but they force you to get really creative.

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  36. Here goes...
    First picture, a sleeping 'bot hunting hound. Its aura is off, since it is sleeping. Yet, while awake, there is a vague blue haze that surrounds it and acts like a stunning field. It is a loyal hound to the one who creates it. It is fueled either through pure tech or through magic, though is still needs to eat at least once a day to survive. And that meal must be red meat.

    Those tiny plastic blocks are implants in stasis. When touched to the skin, with the depression side down, it will activate and bend itself to whatever the user wishes. These are only small variations, adding claws, an extra point of armor to a body part or port for a large stasis implant.

    The woman in the glass cage is actually a cunning trap. She is a siren, luring people to her cage. There the two bird heads activate and spawn gargoyle-like creatures that are immune to one kind of magic or energy or physical attack. If defeated, the woman will change into her true form, an even more beautiful alien creature whose touch will turn anyone to sand if they don't make a saving throw. She begs for help and anyone who hears it must roll a save at a negative 6 to any will based save.

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  37. gigaex7.jpg - Vorpal Tunnel, Vorpal Tube, Veeway, Transport Tube, Transtube are all names for the enormous transport tunnels that connect distant regions of the gigastructure.
    Wars have been waged over control of the most important routes. However some are in a state of neglect, and dangerous to travel through.

    Some sections are controled by tube pirates, and unless an appropriate toll is paid, or your vehicle is well armed and armored expect to be attacked and possibly boarded.

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  38. 1)(snouted thing):
    Quadrex Industries Series 3 Mark IX Simulated Quadruped (Dwarf Pony).
    The QUISQ line offered a variety of simulated life-forms, largely for recreational purposes (ie. equestrian sports). Though not as popular as their full sized counterparts, executives and parents alike were well aware that nothing would please children of a certain age quite so much as an appropriately sized, lifelike, ridable horse. This model was not however, a smashing success on the whole- they had failed to forecast the highly durable units being passed on to younger relatives after being outgrown, a fact that contributed to the demise of Quadrex.
    This particular unit is lacking it's custom external quasi-organic facade; this may be due to Quadrex's practice of selling off remaindered units "unfurnished" at a discount, or to users the habit of removing a damaged facade (the only thing creepier than a skeletal robotic horse, is the same wearing *half* it's skin), or simply to the facade having been eaten away by vermin.
    When found a unit will have remaining battery life equal to (1d8-1)x5 hours of operation. Thorough safety protocols prevent unsafe operation. Though a product of a TC13 civilization it responds to beckoning (verbal or gesturing) regardless of language- for these purposes it is TC4 (complex operations require fluency in one of it's many understood languages or TC12 hacking).

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  39. oh...
    ADDENDUM
    A new QUISQ simulated dwarf pony possesses a Physique of 20; subtract an appropriate amount or 1d6 for wear and tear in used units.

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