Alien Shape

The player generates a head, torso, arms and legs. Each body part represents the shape of each animal. The body part does NOT add any special abilities the animal may have. For example, a scorpion torso would not be poisonous. The body part may not even have the same colour or coat texture of the animal type. The body parts' mash-up determines the alien’s shape and her movement rate.

Each alien body part has some lowercase letters in parenthesis beside it. These are the alien’s terrain types and determine the alien’s movement rate in different terrain. Goose (law) indicates the body part is shaped like a goose’s and works well on land, water and air. Goat (l) indicates the body part is shaped like a goat’s and works well on land.

These are optional accents to the alien’s appearance. Adornments are entirely descriptive. Adornments do not detract from or add any abilities to the alien. The player chooses the details (amount and size) of the adornments.

The aliens need not appear as a patchwork of feathers, hide and fur. Most players will choose a single coat type for their alien. This covering can be chosen from any of the four parts or created de novo.

The aliens need not appear as a patchwork of diverse colours. Most players will choose a single coat colour for their alien. This covering can be chosen from any of the four parts or created de novo. There is also an overly detailed colour generator in EXP. To create a de novo coat colour jump to Colour.

If the player rolls None for a body part, that part is not there. The alien does not have any use for that particular body part. An alien with no head part may have sensors attached to the torso. An alien with no legs may move by utilizing the torso or be immobile. Missing parts decrease the alien’s movement rate. An alien with no body parts would be a gaseous or blob entity.

The arms part has no bearing on whether the alien is a tool user or not. The society elements determine tool use, not the alien’s shape. An alien with opposable thumbs may not recognize a tool at all. The opposable thumbs may only pick berries or peel the flesh off prey.

The corollary is true as well. The society elements determine tool use, not the alien’s shape. An alien with no obvious tool using appendages will still be a tool user. Flippers, hooves, or fins adapt to tool use, or the tools adapt to flippers hooves or fins.

Each body part is proportional to the other body parts in the description. The alien’s size attribute (Small, Medium, Large, etc.) determines the alien size, not her body parts. A mosquito head part combined with a bear torso part would have matching sizes. The alien would not have a microscopic head on a bear torso. The alien looks like a bulky hairy body with an insectoid head sporting a long proboscis. The mosquito’s head would be a size proportional to the bear’s torso.

The corollary is true. The alien’s size attribute (Small, Medium, Large, etc.) determines the alien size, not her body parts. A giraffe head part combined with a sperm whale torso part would still be tiny. The alien looks like a square blubbery body with a giraffe head on a long neck. The whole abomination is about the size of a german shepherd.

This section is yet another reiteration that the alien parts represent shape, not function. Don’t let scientific knowledge get in the way of fun and storytelling.

The alien is not a 542 kg pink amoeba. The alien has a wate of 542 kg, and it looks like an amoeba.

This alien is held together by alien physiology crafted by generations of evolution. The alien’s internal composition consists of alien biology unlike biology on mundane terra. Fantastical artifacts have sciency fiction black box technomagical explanations. Alien biology also enjoys this black box explanation.

Alien shape and dexterity score determines its movement rate. The alien’s dexterity score will determine her base movement rate. The alien’s shape indicates which terrain types the alien is capable of moving on. The terrain types indicate how the base rate gets split between land, air, and water movement. Whether an alien can fly or not is enormously important to the player. Keeping track of the terrain types letters (l, a, w, s) is critical when evolving an alien species. For a detailed rendering jump to Alien Movement.