«
»

Skewmen

This creature is swiped from Other Dust by Sine Nomine. You can check out my earlier review for the game.

UPDATED 08-Sep-13: I’ve swiped the Harvestman from Savage AfterWorld because the picture is so creepy.

Skewman

A particularly nasty mutant flaw leaves Skewmen with strangely-jointed limbs and a great difficulty in standing upright. Furry pelts, scales, and other cosmetic epidermal changes are often experienced as well.

Skewmen are forced to creep and scrabble through the wastes, reliant on crude clubbing weapons that can handle the abuse of their locomotion.

Most Skewman tribes hate the “upright”, and blame them for their twisted condition, crediting their evil ways with bringing the curse down upon the innocent ancestors of the Skewmen.

Here are their game stats:

Skewman (#Enc 2d6): HD 1d8, AC 8, MV 6″, SV +1, club (melee Atk +1, 1d6) or rocks (ranged Atk -1, 1d4), 75 XP. Aberrant deformity.

Individual Skewmen often possess additional mutations (thick hide and scaly armour being the most common; 3-in-6 chance). Some also have the ability to scale walls like a gecko (6″ climb speed; 2-in-6 chance).

Skewmen tribes may number up to 4d10 individuals. Some groups make a point of enslaving the “upright”, committing gruesome surgical atrocities on these wretched prisoners in order to leave them more like their captors.

 

Harvestman

Harvestmen are a newly-evolved Skewmen subspecies. The Harvestman’s head and joints bend in impossible directions, and the creature scuttles around on all fours (even up walls and on ceilings).

Although the Harvestman is not an arachnid nor related to the species in any way, it has been nicknamed “Daddy Long-legs” due to its spider-like appearance. They are faster and more powerful than typical Skewmen:

Harvestman (#Enc 1d4): HD 2d8, AC 7, MV 9″ / 6″ (climb), SV +2, bite (melee Atk +2, 1d6), 200 XP. Aberrant deformity, bite attack, thick hide, wall climber.

These creatures are generally less social (and less intelligent) than other Skewmen, and hunt alone or in family groups.

This entry was posted on 2013-05-24 at 23:29 and is filed under Game Rules, Minimalist with tags , , , , . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

4 Responses to “Skewmen”

  1. John Says:
    2013-06-08 at 10:18

    Do they have to be evil, upright hating, mutants? Can they be used as a PC? Do they get a scale wall and/or cross rubble bonus?

    Reply
  2. K-Slacker Says:
    2013-06-09 at 08:31

    I guess a skewman could be used as a PC, using the ‘Tribal Defenders’ rules from the Character Genotypes supplement. Most are pretty nasty, though.

    I’d give them the Aberrant Deformity plus Mobility Impaired (×2) flaws, plus they would be limited to light weapons (let’s call it the “Weapon Restriction” medium flaw). The Wall Climber mutation is a good suggestion (medium perk); I’ve added it to the post. A PC would also have one more or more perk (most likely Thick Hide or Scaly Armour).

    Reply
  3. K-Slacker Says:
    2013-06-22 at 20:06

    Well I’ll be damned; this is really a thing:

    Do a Google search for “genu recurvatum”.

    Reply
  4. K-Slacker Says:
    2013-09-08 at 12:00

    I just swiped the Harvestman from Tim Snider’s Savage AfterWorld.

    Here is a link to the original post:

    http://www.savageafterworld.com/2013/09/savage-menagerie-harvestman.html

    Reply

Leave a comment