Monster of the Week #25

This week we jump over to a game we're just about to start...

CY_BORG

By the mad geniuses who created Mörk Borg comes CY_BORG - a game where the cybernetic doomsday is always around the corner. Inside is one of these lil' fellas called Headhunters, and as the image demonstrates, you probably know what their about.

A simple creature, but it's the details in games like this that make them fun. The Headhunter is describes as a "skittering horror", infected spider-like heads that scurry around and swarm their targets. They remind me of the creatures in Dead Space a little bit, or the Head Crabs in Half Life games, but only visually.

These creatures seem to be good swarmers, with a small HP pool of 3 and no armour, they are easy to take down. However, your characters are easy to take down too, with your HP being D8+Toughness. In my several games of Mörk Borg, many people have 3 to 6 HP, meaning combat is particularly risky. So imagine several Headhunters show up - that could be real scary!

In terms of it's abilities, the Headhunters can use their Ocular Ray as their only attack to damage players. If this hits, it deals D4A damage plus Freezing Gaze. The Freezing Gaze basically freezes your cyber parts, increasing the DR of all actions (presumably for the combat) to a total of your DR+armour die. This could make attacking the Headhunter more difficult, esepcially when you look at it's special attribute Small and hard to hit.

In Cy_Borg, to do most things, the base difficulty is DR12. If something is small and hard to hit, it could reasonably be asserted that the DR is increased, and in this game, that increases the DR to hit the Headhunter from a 12 to a 14. Between the DR increasing by 2, and potenitally being hit with Freezing Gaze, it could become very hard to hit this thing.

Technically, if you hit the Headhunter, it has no armour and should go down pretty quickly. One small detail I really like in Cy_Borg is that it provides nice little 'standard loot' that you can use to sell for money. As everything is 'cyberised', it makes sense that any foes you take down could be literally salvaged and sold on. In the case of the Headhunter, you can recover an Intact eye, selling for 25 credits. At the GMs discretion, you could easily provide more similarly priced gear for people to sell.

So that's the Headhunter! A simple creature but an easy foe to implement in the dark, depressing, and engaging world of Cy_Borg. This is maybe one of the simplest creature in the handbook, but there are plenty more awesome creatures to choose from. If Cy_Borg follows Mörk Brog in any way, there will no doubt be extra creatures to choose from in expansions.

So that's it for this week! What do you think about the Headhunter? If it sounds cool, check out the Cy_Borg RPG, or even Mörk Borg if you prefer (very) dark fantasy! They are both great games and I can't wait to run more of both of them!

-KJ