298. Predator Trance

An offshoot of preliminary research into the uplifting of cats, a predator trance is the induction of a focused, high empathy, low sympathy state. While under a trance, users can study potential targets with virtually endless patience, building an understanding of their patterns of behavior and thought. This focus and study gives a small but significant edge in altercations. Users become disconcerting during the trance, not bothering to hide their intent from anyone other than their target.

The effectiveness of a trance depends partially on how similar the target is to the user. The more similar the target, the more accurate a mental model can be built. As a general rule humans, human-like AGIs and neo-hominids are compatible, but neo-avians, octopuses and neo-cetaceans are compatible only with others of the same kind.

Mechanics

A predator node is bioware [High]

When activated, a predator trance eliminates negative situational modifiers from distraction, increases kinesics against studied targets by +10, and attacks against studied targets by +10.

201. Knitting Spores

The fibers of the knitting fungus spread throughout the body, encompassing everything beneath the skin into its weave. As a result, the body's tissues are held together more stubbornly, better resisting impacts and shocks, and limiting damage. The spores are engineered to not damage organs, but this limits the speed of their growth, and they usually take 2 months to fully spread. The spores would be destroyed by stomach acid if ingested, and would cause damage to the lungs if inhaled, so they are rubbed thoroughly into the skin, sending their initial sprouts through pores.

Mechanics

Knitting spores are bioware [Moderate]

Knitting spores increase wound threshold by one.

171. Lyre's Syrinx

Thanks to its uniquely complex syrinx, the lyrebird is capable of mimicking any sound it might hear. A favorite of singers, socialites, and con-artists, it allows for beautiful singing far beyond the human range, as well as, with practice, imitations of many sounds and other people's voices.

This is not the first augmentation available to replace the human larynx with a syrinx, although it is has become the most popular, thanks to its versatility. Early experiments with syrinx implants were little more than gimmicks, allowing users to sing like birds but little else. The great advantage of the lyre's syrinx is its versatility, its excellent mimicry allowing for normal human speech as well as most other sounds.

Not surprisingly, the lyre's syrinx is most popular among neo-avians. Militant mercurials often use complex code-song languages to communicate secretly, not unlike binary chatter.

Mechanics

A lyre's syrinx is bioware [Moderate]

A lyre's syrinx gives +20 to impersonation when mimicking another's voice.

105. Dermalichen

The infamous debut of Marie-Smith Nguyen at the Elysium Gallery of Living Art was also the debut of a new type of body modification. A clever young biohacker had engineered the fungal substrate of lichen that live on human skin. Modifications to the fungal filaments allow for much a greater variety of form than found in nature, and modifications to the symbiotic algae and cyanobacteria for more and brighter colors. The fractal plates, bushes and mazes grown on a users skin are fragile: mature dermalichen growths are often used as form of conspicuous leisure, demonstrating that one can avoid any bodily stress.

Mechanics

Dermalichen are bioware [Low]

72. Flight Bladder

Flight is one of the old dreams of humanity, and even with petals, experimental psychosurgery, and and new senses, remains a sought after experience. Many rent or buy flight capable morphs, or spend time in flight-oriented simulspaces. Sometimes, flight is not elegant. The flight bladder is merely practical at best, often slow and ungainly, and scorned by neo-avians. Some find, however, a pleasant laziness in drifting effortlessly through the sky.

A flight bladder works by taking in light-than-air gasses (usually helium, from convenient tanks) and storing it, for as long as days. The bladder can exhale small amounts of gas at a time, for propulsion or when it is time to return to ground. A bladder cannot be used in environments where gravity is too heavy, and/or atmosphere is to light. They are redundant in micro or zero gravity. For those reasons, they have caught on primarily on the moons of Jupiter and Saturn.

Flight bladders are most popular among neo-octopuses, whose body-plans adapt well to drifting and floating. Often it is an easy replacement for the ink-sac. The bladders, are redundant to neo-avians, not strong enough for most synths, and unless installed and used very carefully, render hominids hilariously off-balance.

Mechanics

A flight bladder is bioware [Moderate]

A flight bladder grants a morph the microlight mobility system, as the robotic enhancement.

59. Eudaimonia Gland

The eudaimonia gland began, almost a century ago, with research into the biofabrication of psychotropic medications and nootropics. Innovations that allowed for the manufacture of these substances by engineered bacteria eventually led to the ability of  the human body to create them. Specialized glands for specific compounds eventually gave way to more generalized designs. The eudaimonia gland is the culmination of this research: a single gland producing a broad spectrum of beneficial mind altering substances.

A eudaimonia gland sits at the base of the brain, constantly sampling brain chemistry and secreting varieties of psychotropics based on those samples. The gland is deliberately capable of creating only small doses, so as to avoid overdoses. This means that the gland can not, in itself, provide complete treatment for all but the mildest of mental illnesses, but it does blunt the edge of stresses and traumas, and they have seen a huge surge in use since the Fall.

Mechanics

A eudaimonia gland is bioware [Moderate]

Treat as a drug gland (Comfurt).

52. Gut Macrofauna

Marie-Smith Nguyen's debut at the Elysium Gallery of Living Art revived one of the stranger dreams of some small corners of bio-hacker society. Her piece was a carefully crafted papier-mâché pregnancy belly, open at the belly button, and filled with a hive of honeybees. Disaster struck when she tripped, shattered the hive, and the gallery was suddenly filled with angry bees. This gave some strange people strange ideas.

Every so often, a bio-hacker floats the idea, seriously or tongue-in-cheek, of going whole-hog with symbiosis, and engineering symbiotes that would put human bodies on the path towards becoming ecosystems. After the Elysium debacle, enthusiasm peaked as bio-engineers considered the possible benefits of playing host to a hive of eusocial insects. They would defend the body as their home, and pay rent in honey!

The only practical results from this brief craze is a biomod creating a thick skin pocket suited for a wasp nest. The wasps are engineered not to attack anything smelling like their host, but will otherwise defend their home with their usual vigor. Footage of their effects during an attempted mugging has gone viral, but the mod is illegal or discouraged on most habitats.

Mechanics

Any time the host is attacked and suffers damage equal to one wound, everyone in the immediate area is attacked by wasps. Treat as bees and gardener wasps from Panopticon.

43. Organ Plasticity

With organ redundancy, biomorph designers had increased the ability of a biomorph to endure wounds. They also sought to increase the ability of a biomorph to recover from wounds. Medichines would seem to have this role thoroughly locked down, but some die-hard designers maintained that the inherent processes of a morph could be designed so as to allow greater healing, both with and without medichines. They eventually developed a genetic treatment restoring some of the qualities of stem cells to all cells in the body.

Organ plasticity is intended to allow organs and tissues to alter themselves to become other organs and tissues. The advantage this offers for healing can be immense. If you begin to experience liver failure, a new liver will begin to bud off of an artery. If you lose skin, muscle cells will produce new skin cells. Even if you lose portions of brain, new neurons will fill the empty space.

Organ plasticity functions best with medichines to smooth over transitions and odd gaps or redundancies. The development of teratomas are a frequent side effect of the augmentation.

Mechanics

Organ plasticity grants a morph the rapid healer trait.

42. Organ Redundancy

The widespread adoption of synthmorphs has created difficult competition for biomorph designers. Just as synthmorphs have been attempting to break into markets dominated by biomorphs (such as socialites and celebrities), biomorphs have been attempting to break into markets dominated by synthmorphs. One of the key advantages of synthmorphs has been the fact that synths are made of materials like steel, and thus are relatively indestructible.

Attempts to bolster the structural integrity of biomorphs have included augmentations like exoskeletons and skeletal reinforcement, but many morph designers have come to the conclusion that they cannot fight synth designs on their own terms. A biomorph cannot match the invulnerability of steel, but what it does have is an ability to endure and heal wounds, a resilience that could be enhanced.

One of the simplest, but by no means easiest ways to enhance biomorph resilience is to provide redundant organs. The loss of one kidney is not a death-sentence because only one is needed, so why not an extra heart, liver or spleen? Once the hard problems of syncing multiple heartbeats and re-balancing glands and hormones were solved, it was only a matter of gene splicing, grafts, or stem cells.

Morphs with redundant organs tend to have thicker torsos than normal, extra volume being necessary.

Mechanics

Organ Redundancy is bioware [Moderate]

Similar to the structural enhancement augmentation available to synths, but increasing Durability by 5 and Wound Threshold by 1.

35. Sensites

Another in the failed product lines of designer symbiotes, Sensites, unlike famine worms, offer direct, functional augmentation. Distilled from parasitic nematodes, Sensites have been heavily engineered for relative gigantism, and sensitivity to various electromagnetic spectrums.

Sensites are most commonly available in aerosol cans. To apply, a user simply sprays the eggs on bare skin. The little worms hatch, and migrate to the underside of the skin, where they live long, slow lives. Upon exposure to their pre-programmed spectrum of radiation, they begin to rapidly spasm. An experienced user can judge the strength of different fields, and, if the sensites have been applied in lateral lines, gradients as well. Overall, however, the sense is rough and outclassed by newer options.

Mechanics

Sensites are bioware [Low]

Sensites can be made to react to most electromagnetic spectrums. The user can tell overall strength and the direction of powerful sources, but with little detail.

31. Universal Tissue

Pet-project of the biohacking branch of fork hive biohacker Myrmidon, universal tissue seeks to replace organ specialization with a uniform mass capable of all biological functions. Myrmidon has a vision for a new type of morph, an exoskeleton filled with his universal tissue like a foam. In theory, such a morph would have no vital organs and therefore be virtually indestructible. In practice, all of Myrmidon's tissue formulas thus far have run into the "jack-of-all-trades, master of none" problem, and his prototypes are not competitive with similar models on the market, such as Nova-Crabs.

Mechanics

Universal tissue is bioware [High]

Universal tissue acts as structural enhancement, for biomorphs and pods instead of synths. However, SOM is reduced by 10.

27. Plasticity Treatments

The functions of the brain are not trapped in neatly demarcated areas. Give enough time, the brain will reroute or relearn many tasks, allowing for significant recovery after some brain damage. It is during infancy and childhood that the brain is most plastic and capable of learning at great rates.

With a cycle of plasticity treatments, these great learning and adapting abilities can be regained, no matter the age. A tailored retrovirus followed by a short round of hormones allows the brain to once again rapidly adjust itself to new circumstances. The treatment has become popular with those attempting to learn new suites of skills, adjust to new morphs or otherwise adapt themselves to long-term, radical changes. The cost, however, can be high. Memories formed before the treatments began slowly become unintelligible to the newly altered brain.

Mechanics

Plasticity treatments are bioware [Moderate]

Plasticity treatments halve the time necessary to learn new skills, acclimate to new morphs and more (at the GM's discretion), but at the cost of many pre-treatment memories.

19. Bioluminescence

Bioluminescence is a property of many animals, especially marine life. Injected symbiotic bacteria allow bioluminescent patterns to be applied almost exactly like tattoos. The mod has become particularly popular among cetacean uplifts and those who spend their time in dark environments.

A new form of art in the black oceans of Europa and Ceres is bioluminescent performance dance. Aquatic morphs of all kinds dance in the dark, with only their glows visible, forming complex patterns of movement and color.

Mechanics

Bioluminescence is bioware [Low]

18. Translucent Skin

Old-hat for scum swarms, but a hot new fashion on Mars, the translucent skin biomod does exactly what it says. Rendering the skin translucent (although somewhat milky) exposes muscles, fat, and some bones. Other versions also render fat and muscle translucent, so as to show the organs. The mod has become popular among many athletes as a way to show off their musculature, and among bodypunks to show off cyberware and unusual organs.

Mechanics

Translucent skin is a biomod [Low]

14. Medichine Service Pack 4: Biomineralization

Service pack 4 for Go-Nin brand medichines (subsequently copied by their rivals and open source projects) provided support for enhanced biomineralization. A biomineralization upgrade can be used by any morph with carapace armor, reinforcing the typically keratin or chitin based carapace is reinforced with layers of hydroxyapatite.

The upgrade is purchased as two pieces of software: a patch for your medichines, instructing them on how to build and maintain the extra layers, and the blueprint for a supplemental mineral pill, providing extra calcium and phosphates. Once your medichines have been updated, simply ingest one pill a day for two weeks. After two weeks, you'll find that your exoskeleton is tougher than ever before!

Mechanics

Upgrades carapace armor to 14/14. [Low]

12. Famine Worm

Designer symbiots were one of the most hyped failures of the biotech industry. Tailored micro and macro-organisms promised automatic, self-regulating augmentation, a tool that could merge with the body's complex systems. Many of these promises even came true. When it came to the market, however, biotech companies were simply unable to overcome the "squick" factor: their products were too gross for consumers. In the end, they were rendered obsolete by medichines and nanotechnology.

The famine worm was designed as a hedge against starvation, able to provide a package of calories when most needed, but the famine worm was also a genetically engineered tapeworm that very few people were willing to host. The worm was first offered to famine and starvation-response charities, where it saw some minor successes. The primary market was in militaries where potential hosts could simply be ordered to eat the eggs, however gross it seemed. Famine worms are no longer sold or supported by any company, but the freeze-dried eggs remain viable for decades and the genome has become public domain. You never know what you might find in some barsoomian supply-cache or old brinker hab.

Acquiring a worm is simple: just swallow a pill containing the egg. Once hatched, the worm anchors itself at the top of the intestinal tract. Like a normal tapeworm, it has a voracious appetite, eating from the digestive system of its host. Once it reaches sufficient size, however, it stops growing, and eats only enough to sustain itself. A famine worm can remain in this low metabolic state for years. If the host (and therefore the worm) ever goes for ~48 hours without eating any food, the worm dies, and begins a genetically programmed phase of rapid disintegration. The disintegrated worm is easily taken up by the intestines, providing a small but timely burst of calories and nutrients.

6. Berserkergang

Named for the famous berserk state entered by some old Norse warriors, Berserkergang is an augmentation designed to induce a similar berserk state through a powerful cocktail of combat drugs. Users become indifferent to pain, will ignore injuries, and will push their bodies to the breaking point and beyond.

Transhuman warfare emphasizes intelligence, battlespace control, and an effective command of information, but intense and unpredictable violence still has its place. Some scum militias have experimented with unleashing berserkers on unsuspecting enemies, sowing confusion and fear before a conventional assault. Crime syndicates have also made use of berserkgang when performing high-profile assassinations, such as when a waiter in an unassuming splicer morph suddenly flipped a table and killed a Night Cartel lieutenant, his bodyguards, and several bystanders before succumbing to blood-loss.

The Berserkergang augment is quite rare. They cost more than some morphs, but the inevitable violence of their use means they are usually only used once. Smart animals are augmented with Berserkergang at least as often as transhumans; the Martian police's brief experiment with berserker police baboons still haunt the memories of many.

Mechanics

Treat as Neurachem (Level 2), Adrenal Control, and Drug Gland (MRDR) [Expensive 15,000+]