305. Engorged-with-Wealth

Engorged-with-Wealth is the one of oldest residents of Ceres, and certainly the oldest neo-cetacean. He predates the rise of the Hidden Concern, and has run the same protection racket for decades. Relations between Engorged and the Hidden Concern are cold and professional, with the latter tolerating the business and territory of the former in exchange for a percentage.

His primary means of enforcing payment is by threat of being devoured. His digestive system has been substantially retrofitted, with BTX2-laced saliva and a powerfully muscular stomach capable of rapidly flooding itself with acid, like a crocodiles. Any biomorph can be swallowed whole, with cybernetics and stacks simply regurgitated and all else dissolved. His gaping mouth suddenly engulfing them out of the darkness is the last thing many defaulters have seen.

Engorged also has a cult following as a singer. While traveling from settlement to settlement collecting payments he also almost constantly singing, improvising long, deep dirges that remind many of gregorian chant.

Mechanics

Morph: Neo-Whale

Motivation: +Wealth +Survival -Law and Order

COG 15 COO 20 INT 20 REF 20 SAV 15 SOM 25 WIL 15
MOX - INIT 9 SPD  1 LUC 30 TT 6 IR 60 DUR 100 WT 20 DR 150

Active Skills: Deception 45, Fray 75, Infiltration 83, Intimidation 78, Networking: Autonomists 45, Networking: Criminals 68, Palming 50, Perception 60, Scrounging 40, Swimming 90, Unarmed Combat 85

Knowledge Skills: Academics: Genetics 50, Academics: Psychology 50, Art: Singing 50, Interest: Criminal Groups 50, Interest: Music 60, Interest: Music 60, Interest: Rumors 60, Interest: Uplift Clades 60, Language: English (Native) 90, Profession: Loan Shark 50

Ego Traits: Anomalous Mind, Heightened Instinct, Social Stigma

Reputation: g-rep 75

Implants: Basic Biomods, Basic Mesh Inserts, Cortical Stack, Crocodile Stomach (treat as Digestive Symbiotes), Drug Gland (BTX2), Echolocation, Enhanced Hearing, Enhanced Smell, Gill, Hydrostatic Pressure Adaptation, Temperature Tolerance (Improved Cold), Toxin Filters

141. Neo-Canines

Man's best friend might seem like the obvious choice for uplifting. Smart and friendly, their ability to coexist with humanity has been stress tested for thousands of years. This is, perhaps, why they have not been uplifted. For many people, re-engineering this old relationship would feel wrong in ways that don't apply to avians or octopuses. These same people were greatly disturbed when it became apparent that an exhuman project had uplifted dogs, creating neo-canines.

Socially, neo-canines instinctively form into tight packs of up to a dozen individuals, which can include non-neo-canines. Trust and loyalty within these packs is absolute, but no bonds will be formed with anyone outside it. Non-pack members are treated in a business-like fashion at best, and will not be shown either empathy or mercy. Mentally, neo-canines are smart, smarter than many humans, but their intelligence is focused in some unusual ways. Their ability to understand the motives and predict the actions of their pack-mates is almost perfect, leading to great feats of cooperation. They have difficulty with long-term thinking, however, typically having to work methodically to build formal plans.

Neo-canine physiology has not been changed from that of normal dogs, at least on the surface: they are mammalian quadrupeds. The only visible differences are that their tails are longer, stronger, and prehensile, and their tongues are similarly longer, and have been turned into an effective tentacle, at the cost of their sense of taste. Neo-canines typically use their tails to for tasks requiring strength, and their tongues for tasks requiring finesse. They are incredibly perceptive, with enhancement suites for all senses.

Mechanics

Neo-canines are biomorphs [Expensive 25,000+]

Implants: Basic Biomods, Basic Mesh Inserts, Claws, Cortical Stack, Enhanced Smell, Enhanced Hearing, Enhanced Vision
Aptitude Maximum: 30
Durability: 30
Wound Threshold: 6
Advantages: +5 COG, +5 to an attribute of the player's choice, +20 Kinesics
Disadvantages: Quadrupeds have a difficult time in microgravity (–30 to Free Fall Tests)
Notes: Reduced size trait
CP Cost: 25

Plot Hook: Most neo-canines currently living are members of exhuman-led packs, although it is rumored their will be an auction on Extropia selling their genetic data for recreation. Firewall would like the players to attend the auction. They are to take note of the high bidders, counter a predicted exhuman attack, and either steal or buy the data.

77. Neotenic Elephants

Elephants had always been on the short list for uplifting. Their natural intelligence and sociability made them seem like obvious candidates. Their long gestation periods, and requirements for space, as well as their low numbers and associated genetic homogeneity, however, made uplifting difficult in practice.

One Somatek team had a clever solution. A neotenic elephant, never developing beyond childhood, will stay small, around one meter tall and 140 kg in weight. The trunk can be both strengthened and made more dexterous, giving them an agile, grasping limb. Their general cuteness is an added bonus: it was predicted they would be more accepted by society than other uplifts.

It was as the team was moving from physiological work to mental and social, the beginning of the uplifting process proper, that the Fall occurred. Some of their members and data were evacuated from Earth, but the elephant uplifting process had been dealt a mortal blow it has yet to recover from. Only the physiological blueprints remain, in the form of a neotenic elephant morph.

Mechanics

Neotenic elephants are biomorphs [Expensive 20,000+]

Implants: Basic Biomods, Basic Mesh Inserts, Cortical Stack
Aptitude Maximum: 30
Durability: 50
Wound Threshold: 8
Advantages: +5 SOM
Disadvantages: 1 arm, quadrupeds have a difficult time in microgravity (–30 to Free Fall Tests)
CP Cost: 20

39. Domesticated Limb

The octopus is the uplift most different from humanity. In a wild species, as much as two thirds of an octopus' neurons are located in their limbs. In uplifted octomorphs the size of the primary brain is increased, but half of their neurons are still located in their limbs. The tentacles of octopuses and octomorphs therefore have a significant degree of autonomy, capable of grasping and feeling on their own initiative. The semi-autonomy of these limbs has led to the development of one of the most unique martial arts in transhuman history.

"Domesticated limb" (as translated from octopus color language) is a martial art dedicated to the training of octomorph tentacles. The focus of training is not on the ego, but on the nervous systems of the limbs, training their reflexes to perform combat-useful actions. A master of domesticated limb, or more precisely, their tentacles, are capable of choking someone out, breaking an arm, or dissembling a gun, with no conscious attention whatsoever. This comes with problems, as there have been cases in the past of domesticated limb practitioners accidentally subduing random passers-by.

Mechanics

Domesticated limb is treated as an Unarmed Combat specialization, active whenever the user is in a octomorph.