Royce's Random Thoughts

8 Points

Arguably the most violent martial art on Foxen Prime, fang and claw is a purely hand-to-hand combat system, utilizing a foxen’s natural weapons to attack their opponent, with an emphasis on targeting the face, particularly the eyes and ears. Usually an initial attack involves trying to partially blind an opponent, either by slashing with their paws or kicks to the face. Next the attacker will move for a grapple, in order to try and get in a biting attack on the throat.

Though variations on the basic system have been around almost before foxen civilization, the formal martial art was first codified only one hundred years prior to First Contact, used by Mother Country commandos when raiding Gerwart targets.

There isn’t much in the way a cinematic tradition for this martial art, though it’s common in entertainment media to portray practitioners as being able to maim or kill in one mighty blow, while taking massive damage themselves.

Skills: Judo, Karate.

Techniques: Aggressive Parry, Axe Kick, Back Kick, Counterattack, Ear Clap, Eye Poke, Eye Rake, Head Lock, Jump Kick, Kicking, Neck Snap, Uppercut, Wrench.

Cinematic Skills: Flying Leap, Immovable Stance, Power Blow.

Cinematic Techniques: Eye Pluck, Lethal Kick, Lethal Strike.

Optional Traits

Advantages: Combat Reflexes, Damage Resistance, Fit, Hard to Kill, Recovery.

Disadvantages: Bad Temper, Berserk, Bloodlust, Duty (military unit).

Skills: Body Language, Tactics.
 

Swordmastery

5 Points

Certainly one of the most romantic combat systems in foxen history, swordmastery was used by elite personal guards of the Mother Country countesses, who served as both bodyguards and intelligencers. It had been thought that the specific techniques had been lost to history, as swords became obsolescent with the invention of rapid-fire gunpowder weapons. However, a recent discovery in the Longlake District archives of a training manual written by one of the last of the swordmasters, has inspired historical reenactors to revive the system.

Swordmastery attempts to make its practitioner a one vixen army, using acrobatic rolls and tumbles to dodge attacks and get in close to a group of opponents, forcing them to hold their blows less they strike one their comrades. Typically, a swordmaster will engage one opponent their weapon, while using their free hand to punch or elbow strike other opponents out of the way.

The philosophy of swordmastery also makes a distinction between what constitutes an opponent worthy of lethal force, such as armed guards and soldiers, and opponents who are merely innocents doing their job, such as constables who only deserve disabling blows. This does tend to give swordmasters an “honor before reason” reputation, but whether that is historically accurate or merely the product of fanciful tales is up to much debate.

Cinematic depictions of swordmaster combat appeared almost as soon as the art was developed, usually involving more implausible acrobatics, such as Chambara style wall walking and chandelier swings.

Skills: Acrobatics, Brawling, Broadsword or Rapier,

Techniques: Acrobatic Stand, Bind Weapon, Breakfall, Close Combat, Counterattack, Disarming, Evade, Elbow Strike, Feint, Retain Weapon, Reverse Grip.

Cinematic Skills: Flying Leap, Immovable Stance, Power Blow.

Cinematic Techniques: Dual Weapon Attack

Optional Traits

Advantages: Combat Reflexes, Daredevil, Fit

Disadvantages: Code Against Killing: Cannot Harm Innocents, Code of Honor: Swordmaster (Only use lethal force against armed opponents)

Skills: Acting, Body Language, Detect Lies, Savior Faire (nobility), Tactics

Background: Becca Blacksailor is a Swordmaster, a highly trained Service caste foxen, serving the Countess Longlake, a prominent member of the Mother Country Council of Countesses. Not quite a soldier, Becca serves as Longlake's personal agent, intervening where her countess sends her. Sometimes that means intervening in conflicts between Longlake's vassal Ladies, sometimes that means being her Countess' bodyguard while traveling, and sometimes that means illegally entering the MC's rival Gerwart on cover ops missions.
 

Becca is aware that as a Swordmaster, her profession is being increasingly viewed as an anachronism with the growth of gunpowder weapons. Nevertheless she takes pride in her work, though as she begins to age, she finds herself increasingly looking forward to more assignments in her home district, rather than sneaking about Gerwart ports counting ships and stealing plans.

She also happens to be Alinadar Blacksailor's direct ancestor, though Ali is unaware of this during the course of The Red Vixen Adventures.

Description: Foxen female, Height: 5'2", Weight: 130 lbs. Age: 30. Fur: Black and white tuxedo pattern. Hazel eyes.
 

Statistics: ST: 11 [20], DX: 14 [60], IQ: 11 [20], Ht: 12 [20]
 

Basic Damage: Thrust: 1d-1, Swing: 1d+1
 

Secondary Statistics: HP: 12 [2]. Will: 12 [5], Per: 12 [3]. FP: 12 [0], Basic Speed: 6.5 [5], Basic Move: 8 [10].
 

Social: Tech Level 5 [0], Culture: Mother Country (native) [0], Gerwart [1].

Languages: Mother Tongue (Native) [0], Gerwart (Accented) [4].
Wealth: Comfortable [10], Status 2 (High Service Caste) [10].
 

Advantages: Foxen Racial Package [36], Acute Hearing/2 [0], Acute Smell/Taste/2 [0], Ally: Feydian Cliptoe (75% pts., appears quite often 12-) [6], Ambidexterity [5], Blunt Claws [0], Combat Reflexes [15], Common Sense [10], Discriminatory Smell [0], Fit [5], Legal Enforcement Powers [10], Patron: Countess Longlake (powerful individual, appears fairly often 9-) [15], Signature Gear (saber) [2], Sharp Teeth [0], Weapon Master (fencing weapons) [30].
 

Perks: DR 1 for palms, soles of feet [0], Fur [0].
 

Disadvantages: Code of Honor: Swordmaster (Carry out your Countess' orders faithfully, never strike with more force than required, accept honorable surrender, protect the innocent) [-10], Duty: To Countess Longlake Often 12-, Extremely Hazardous [-15], Pacifism: Cannot Harm Innocents [-10], Sense of Duty: Mother Country citizens (large group) [-10].
 

Quirks: Dislikes Shoes [0], Humble [-1].
 

Skills: Acrobatics 15 [8], Acting 11 [2], Area Knowledge: Countess Longlake's district 12 [2], Blind Fighting 12 [8], Carousing 12 [2], Climbing 14 [2], Cloak 14 [2], Dancing 14 [2], Dart 15 [2], Escape 13 [2], Fast Draw (knife) 14 [1], Fast Draw (sword) 15 [2], First Aid 12 [2], Games: Castles and Corners 12 [2], Geography (political) 11 [4], Heraldry 11 [2], Holdout 11 [2], Intelligence Analysis 11 [4], Intimidation 12 [2], Judo 13 [2], Jumping 15 [2], Kiai 12 [4], Law: Mother Country 12 [8], Leadership 13 [8], Main-Gauche 16 [8], Meditation 12 [4], Navigation (land) 12 [4], Observation 13 [4], Parry Missile Weapons 14 [4], Power Blow 12 [4], Rapier 16 [8], Riding (Grass Chaser) 14 [2], Running 12 [2], Saber 16 [8], Savoir Faire (Service Caste) 12 [4], Search 13 [4], Shadowing 12 [4], Soldier 12 [4], Stealth 15 [4], Strategy 12 [8], Tactics 12 [8], Teaching 12 [4], Throwing 14 [2]. 
 

Total Points: 425.

Background: While the Stellar Alliance tries to maintain harmony with all intelligent species outside of Alliance space, even the most inclusive Alliance citizens have a hard time putting in a good word for the Ardalians. Even going beyond their offsetting appearance, the typical Ardalian comes across as blunt, uncaring, and cruel, seeing other intelligent species as merely tools. Possessing a resource illegal to distribute in Alliance space, and a need for intelligent species to manipulate their environment, the Ardies have reputation for being the most despicable sentient race yet encountered.

Appearance and Biology: Evolved from shallows dwelling, plankton consuming invertebrates, adult Ardalians live in the shallows and coves of their worlds, a water planet with 85% oceanic coverage, the remaining 15% divided among scattered archipelagos. Their bodies are roughly saucer shaped, approximately one hundred and fifty yards in diameter, the skin undulating in surface patterns that can camoflauge them from casual observers or unlucky victims, with fifty large, plate sized eyes circling their body. Mounted  between each set of eyes is a single tentacle that can extend to almost three hundred yards in length, the final yard long tip ending in a unique nerve cluster, which both allowed the Ardalians to develop a technological civilization and earn the disgust of free sentients everywhere.

This nerve cluster possesses the unique, and so far unduplicated, ability to interface with other species, even those with a radically different biology than that found on the Ardie homeworld. The tentacle tip is pressed against a subject, or more accurately victim’s, back, allowing thousands of needle sharp “nerve pins” to pierce the subject’s spine and create an interface between the Ardalian and the subject. This procedure has been described as “having molten lava poured over your nerve ends” by the few survivors of the experience. The process takes about an hour to complete, and the victim is usually restrained and conscious, as the Ardie tests and cements its control.

Once complete, the interface allows the Ardalian to use the victim’s eyes and ears to observe the world, and their hands to manipulate it. Their puppets have no control during this process, their own nerve impulses overridden, only able to feel and observe silently as their bodies are used for the Ardie’s own ends. The feeling of violation is terrifying, and the few puppets that have been successfully freed from the interface often suffer long term psychological damage, beyond the physical damage inflicted on their bodies by the uncaring Ardie controlling them.

Ardalians reproduce by budding, releasing up to a hundred buds at once every twenty years or so, to float away with the tides, most to be eaten predators before they can mature. Adolescent Ardalians are mobile, crawling along the floor of their world’s seas at one yard per second, until they’re either eaten or find a safe harbor.

Society: Ardalians are highly individualistic, the nature of their biology making it difficult to even form a community to interact with. Nevertheless they managed, using their sonar to communicate over long distances, and a local species of borderline sentient humanoids (roughly equivalent to Australopithecus) to do work on the shoreline that couldn’t be done in the water. Even so, since the ability to mine metals was very limited, so was their technology, until first contact was made with a Stellar Alliance exploration ship and trade could begin.

First contact revealed much about the Ardalian personality. While they do have some admirable traits, mostly a devotion to speaking truthfully bordering on rude, they have a hard time thinking of other sentient, in particular their enslaved puppets, as people. To an Ardalian, the only people worthy of consideration are other Ardies, and then only to the point of what use they can be. Anyone else, especially their puppets, is a disposable tool. Indeed, prior to their discovery by the Alliance, they were on the verge of losing their ability to manipulate items on land because they were killing the local humanoids faster than they could breed.

Alliance Relations: They can described as “strained” at best. Ardalians don’t leave their homeworld except under extraordinary circumstances, but they’re desperate for Alliance credits to build up their tech level. While there’s some argument in favor of providing the Ardies with robots to replace their puppets, there are few things the Ardies have, beyond biofauna unique to their world, that can’t be found elsewhere trading with more pleasant races.

Unfortunately for the Alliance, one of those pieces of biofauna is the Trileaf, an innocuously named flowering plant that is the base ingredient in Redline, an amphetamine variant commonly used as a combat drug. One ampule has a street value of $500, and provides the user with a feeling of invincibility and immunity to pain for up to ten minutes (Combat Reflexes, High Pain Threshold, Overconfidence), followed by a crash that subtracts 20 minus HT worth of Fatigue Points. Using it more than once a week requires a 3d6 HT roll, failure resulting in a permanent subtraction of one HT. In terms of value for an Addiction disadvantage, it’s considered Illegal, Expensive, and Highly Addictive.

For obvious reasons the Alliance forbids the export of Trileaf except to licensed research institutes. For equally obvious reasons various criminal enterprises try to get around this restriction. Currently the Alliance charter forbids interdicting planets that have not proven to be overtly hostile to member worlds, though this interpretation is getting increasing scrutiny as Redline addiction spreads. This is especially acute given that Ardies, when they aren’t trying to get technology, are trying to get slaves to replace their dwindling puppet population. The usual victims are captives taken when a pirate attacks a civilian vessel, though there are always urban legends abound about innocent tourists getting drugged while on a “safe” Alliance world and finding themselves shipped to Ardalia Prime (and maybe missing a kidney or spare lung).

Ardalian Adult, 663 Points

Stats: ST +50 [50]*, DX +2 [40], HT +2 [20], Will + 2 [10], Basic Move [0]** SM 8

Appearance: Monstrous (universal) [-25]

Social: Tech Level -4 [-20]

Advantages: 360 Degree Vision [25]. Acute Hearing/4 [8], Ally Group (slaves), 21-50 allies, -25% point total, constant x4, minion +50%, touch range only -30% [40], Chameleon [5], Doesn’t Breathe (gills) [0], 48 Extra Arms, extra-flexible +50%, weak, -50% [480], Injury Tolerance: No Head, No Neck [10], Night Vision/5 [5],Photographic Memory [10], Regrowth [40],Sonar [20], Unaging [15].

Disadvantages: Callous [-5], Cold Blooded [-10], Increased Life Support (massive) [-10], Intolerance (all non-Ardalians) [-10], No Legs (sessile) [-50], Selfish [-5], Truthfulness [-5].

* -80% for Size Modifier 8

**Due to Sessile.