Re: A quick thought on Scorpion Men

From: donald_at_ru-7yTj-vRXxlCS0WA8w5nYsh7Qc_kTUP6lrwip8YpSHjeDIbk3v83--Xav28mFYgRgqW
Date: Fri, 22 Jun 2007 01:00:08 GMT


In message <f5dokf+b4us_at_eGroups.com> "Mandacaru" writes:
>I was just responding to Adept's point about scorpionmen and the
>need for intelligence.
>
>Whatever it says in whichever rules, a society doesn't need
>intelligence to function. IMO, it is much more interesting if
>scorpionmen function perfectly well (i.e. they aren't "stupid")
>normally. They can even be very "clever" at some things, just like,
>dogs, ants, monkeys, flies, whatever. I think they are an awful lot
>scarier, more alien, if they aren't intelligent but via emergent
>properties, do clever stuff. Occasionally they eat someone and
>become conventionally intelligent. Great - I'd treat that as an
>aberration with consequences beyond being bigger and meaner. Maybe
>it leads to some reflection. Maybe more consciousness which can mess
>their "society" up. I also think they are a lot scarier if the queen
>isn't more intelligent - she just beomes another Big Bad at the end
>of the level - how very dull. It is potentially more fun (in a game)
>if the queen is basically what she is in social insect societies -
>the reproductive organs. Human PC's, being what they are, try and
>kill the queen because they think she is the big bad. What they
>don't realise is that there are thirty "soliders" or "workers" who,
>one week later, will form the new queen and be popping babies out.
>Of course that could flop if you build up to a big final conflict,
>queenie gets killed and the Narrator says, Ha ha you haven't killed
>the colony, ya boo sucks. If the players (not necessarily their
>characters) get an inkling in advance, it could be more interesting.
>Maybe the way to destroy a colony is to give them intelligent
>victims so they start to get all existentialist.

Or the PCs could follow the advice of Londar of the Volsaxi:

"I neither know nor care how they breed. When you find a nest, burn it. Kill anything that tries to crawl or fly away or returns to defend it. Then throw the corpses into the fire. When the fire dies down dig into the earth as deep as your Belveren says is needful and burn anything which is tainted. Then she can purify the site. With care and good luck it will be several years before chaos reinfests the place and you have to do it all again."

-- 
Donald Oddy
http://www.grove.demon.co.uk/

           

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