Hey all! This is my first stab at creating a Genesys build for characters and games set in my personal setting, uncreatively titled the MaunaVerse. It's an urban fantasy setting, with the primary feature of having dragons as the main protagonists!
To start with, I wanted to slap together some stats for a Mauna species, and below is my first attempt. The pros: I FINALLY DID IT! MAUNA STATS FOR AN RPG! This has literally been multiple years I've been struggling to get this to work in SOME system. Also, I think I was able to dilute their abilities down to the barest minimum, allowing unique talents be purchased to cover the rest of it. The cons? They are still exceptionally strong, and could likely use some paring down. But doing that will be hard for me, as these are my babies
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But without further ado, the Mauna!
MAUNA
Of all the strange creatures in the world, perhaps the strangest are the Mauna, the large, serpentine creatures that were undoubtedly the inspiration for the legends of dragons across every culture in history. While their appearance is clearly most accurately represented by the dragons of Eastern cultures like China and Japan, hints of their odd ubiquity can be seen in traits such as the fiery breath, more common to the legends of Europe.
Appearance
Natural shapeshifters, Mauna all possess two separate forms. The first is that of a specific human. While there is little to distinguish this form from a typical human, it is possible to identify a Mauna by their by their odd skin tones and the often jewel-like or metallic gleam of their eyes. In their human form, Mauna have an athletic build, and are typically highly attractive, although often in unusual or uncanny ways.
Once they shift form, however, no one could mistake them for human. Large, four-legged, and serpentine, with razor claws on their dexterous fingers, towering, antler-like horns, scaly armor, and a whip-like tail, Mauna bristle with danger and majesty.
Physiology
In their true form, Mauna have exemplary predator traits, despite being omnivores. Their scales armor their bodies, but are light enough not to interfere with their graceful movements.
Their senses are powerfully honed, allowing them to see in near darkness and hear sounds outside the frequency range of humans. Most importantly, however, they possess an additional sensory organ: a pair of prehensile whiskers over a foot long that hang down from just behind their noses. These whiskers are not just used for fine manipulation, but can also extremely sensitive to electromagnetic fields, heat, and pressure, allowing a Mauna to have a very strong sense of their surroundings at all times.
The Mauna have a very unusual lifecycle: their souls are not the common souls that other creatures have, but are instead infused with sparks of divine energy. The number of Mauna in the world is fixed at 3,039, and when a Mauna dies, their Spark does not journey to the afterlife (in whatever form that takes), but instead is reborn. In the distant past, the Mauna could be reborn to parents of just about any living species, but today they are only born to human parents.
A young Mauna lives a normal life, unaware of their true nature, until they reach physical and spiritual maturity, typically in their early twenties. At that point, they undergo a short period of distress as the divine power in their soul reawakens, reaching a crescendo as they assume their true form for the first time in a process that is known as the Hatching.
Newly Hatched Mauna are about as tall at the shoulder as a large dog (or a small tiger), and appear to have jet-black scales. Their scales actually an “infrared” in color, but this color is not visible to humans, resulting in it being mistook as black.
As they grow, their scales and eyes gradually change color, and most Mauna reach a vibrant red within their first decade after Hatching. The more lives they have lived, the greater their potential growth in both size and power. As they continue to grow, their color changes, reaching towards various shades of orange, and then, for the most ancient nobles, towards yellow. The Mauna of the distant past could continue to grow to massive sizes, their coloration following along the spectrum until they reached a deep, mesmerizing violet, but such potent creatures no longer grace the world.
Species Abilities
Mauna are exceptionally powerful. It is recommended that non-Mauna characters in a game with Mauna characters be granted an additional 150 XP after character creation to compensate for their incredible strength.
Brawn 2; Agility 2; Intellect 3; Cunning 3; Willpower 3; Presence 3
Wound Threshold: 10 + Brawn.
Strain Threshold: 12 + Willpower.
Starting XP: 90.
Divine Warrior:
A Mauna begins play with a Magic rating of 1, and gains a Divine rating of 1 as well.
Unnatural Toughness:
A Mauna’s starting soak value is increased by 1.
Shapeshifting:
A Mauna has two forms – their human form, which uses their base statistics, and a dragon form. They may shift between the two at will, and may subsume gear with an Encumbrance no more than their base (human-form) encumbrance into a form when they shapeshift. Shapeshifting requires an action.
When in their dragon form, a Mauna’s profile has the following changes: Brawn +2, Agility +2, Defense 1, Soak +1 (beyond the increase in Brawn). In dragon form, a Mauna add 2 Boost dice to all Perception checks due to their heightened senses, and remove up to 2 Setback dice imposed to checks due to darkness. They also have access to the following weapon profiles:
Claws and Teeth (Brawl; Damage +2; Critical 3; Range [Engaged]; Linked 3, Pierce 2, Vicious 2)
Horns (Brawl; Damage +3; Critical 2; Range [Engaged]; Knockdown, Pierce 5, Vicious 3)
Whipping Tail (Brawl; Damage +2; Critical 4; Range [Short]; Knockdown, Disorient 3)
In addition, at character creation, each Mauna character chooses one elemental Aspect. When in their dragon form, the gain the benefits of that Aspect.
Air:
When in Dragon form, your characteristic modifications are Brawn +1, Agility +3. In addition, you can fly by riding currents of air, utilizing the flying rules. Remove up to 2 Setback dice from rolls imposed by or to resist the effects of cold environments.
Earth:
When in dragon form, your soak increase is +2, and your natural soak gains the Cortosis quality. Your Claws and Teeth and Horns weapon profiles lose the Pierce quality, gain the Breach 1 and Superior qualities, and increase their Vicious quality by 1.
Fire:
You are immune to damage from intense heat, or any negative environmental effects from hot environments. In addition, you gain the additional weapon profile:
Fiery Breath (Cool; Damage +6; Critical 3; Range [Medium]; Blast 6, Burn 3). A Mauna’s Fiery Breath adds Presence to the base damage instead of Brawn.
Water : A Water-Aspect Mauna is immune to damage from intense cold, or any negative environmental effects from cold environments. In addition, they gain the amphibious quality. They treat water as normal terrain and can breathe normally underwater.
The Great Curse
In the modern world, the Mauna are diminishing, Recurring for fewer and fewer lives, limiting their power. They hide themselves from the masses of humanity, and all elders and nobles will caution hatchlings of the dire need to keep their true nature quiet from the public at large.
However, peace, safety, and convenience are not the only reasons for this mandate. Known only to the most dedicated scholars and the nobles of their people, the Mauna are cursed. Humanity recoils from the idea of the Mauna, much more fiercely than they normally should. This curse is subtle but potent, and taps into humanity’s herd instinct to act at its strongest. Small groups of humans, especially those who have relationships with the Mauna, are the least susceptible, but large groups that don’t personally know any Mauna are liable to react exceptionally violently towards them.
When a Mauna reveals their true nature to a human (typically by assuming their dragon form, but sometimes by using obvious divine abilities in front of them), the crowd must make a Discipline check or succumb to the Curse. The difficulty is Simple (--), with an upgrade to the difficulty for every 10 humans present. As long as the difficulty is less than Hard, humans with personal or cordial relationships with one or more Mauna are unaffected. Humans with a deep personal relationship to the specific Mauna triggering the check are unaffected unless the difficulty is Daunting or more.
The GM should make a check for the group, taking into account the average Willpower and Discipline of the humans involved. On a Success, the humans will react normally. On a failure, they recoil. Some will flee or cower, while others, especially if the group is large enough, will attempt to attack the Mauna. On a [D], after the end of the encounter, one of the humans present is consumed by the curse, and will go on to become a Hunter of some variety, based on their personality.
Divine Rating and Divine Abilities
The Mauna are unique in the world (and truly, in all worlds) in that they possess a direct conduit to an unknown source of power that they call the DIVINE. This power infuses them, granting them exceptional abilities. Divine rating is, like Magic rating, an additional characteristic possessed by some characters. Like Magic rating, Divine rating cannot be increased by the Dedication talent. Instead, a separate talent, [NAME], is used to increase it.
There are no skills linked to Divine rating. Instead, Divine rating provides an number of benefits, which increase as the characteristic increases.
A character gains the Innate Talent ability for the following talents for each rank of their Divine rating: Toughened, Durable, Enduring. These do not count as purchased ranks in these talents, and so do not increase the rank at which additional ranks are purchased.
A character with a Divine rating also gains a Divine Power threshold of 10 + twice their Divine rating. Any time the character would choose to suffer strain to gain an effect, they may instead spend an equal amount of Divine Power. They may also expend 2 Divine Power to gain the benefits of a Story Point, or to add a Boost die to a check after the check is made. Divine Power can also be expended to fuel Divine Talents, as given in the talent description.
A character that exceeds their Divine Power threshold may still expend Divine Power, but they suffer 1 strain for every Divine Power above their Divine Power threshold they expend. They may not expend more Divine Power than twice their threshold.
Expended Divine Power may be recovered at the end of an encounter by spending [A] from a successful check made to recover strain. Additionally, after a full night’s rest, a character recovers a number of Divine Power equal to twice their Divine rating.
EDIT: I suppose I should clarify that I intend to do a bit of a re-write of the Magic system for this setting, as the system as presented in Genesys does not work for MaunaVerse magic. Hence the reference to Magic rating. Obviously I also need to write up the actual additional Divine Talents for the Mauna, but for now I'm taking a break
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The other species that would be in a game in this setting would be things such as normal Humans, Eladrin (elves), Therians (were-people of various stripes), and possibly Vampires? They'd be tough to make into characters, but I might try it sometime.
Edited by Absol197