Animals as characters

By Ni Fang, in Star Wars: Age of Rebellion RPG

Hello, let me start off with saying that adapting a few scourcebooks {Onslaught at Arda 1, Dawn of Rebellion and the fan made Spark of Rebellion} with Force and Destiny made me start wondering based on a few things, in this case, Star Wars Rebels introduced us to a new type of wildlife, Lothcats.

If one were to make such a cute critter as a sentient character, What would their stats be ? Would I have to take the statblock from the fanmade Spark of Rebellion ebook ? Dawn of Rebellion didnt have anything on the Lothcats far as I could see. Unless I missed a page.

I am asking because I am working out the details of a campaign I want to run on a proboards forum that occurs between the Solo movie and start of Rebels, but has a Lothcat as part of the party. How would I go about this to set up the character ?

I get the anime take on animal characters but it doesn't fit the asthetic established. This isn't to say you shouldn't do it, your game your fun, whatever way you want to do it is your choice. However i dont think there is anything to base stats off as its an animal and as such will have awful stats compared with a normal pc. If your set on this I'd base it off a pc race stat block which give it a bit more agility or cunning and call it a day.

Loth-cats appear in Nexus of Power in the chapter on Lothal. Brawn 2, Agility 4, Intellect 1, Cunning 3, Willpower 2, Presence 2. They get a rank in the Natural Hunter talent, and four special abilities: Cunning Ambusher (SB added to opponent's rolling Vigilance for initiative against them), Leap (add 2 Boosts to Athletics checks to jump), Nightvision (no SB from darkness), Silhouette 0, and a natural attack for their teeth and claws (Brawl; Damage +2, Critical 2; Range [Engaged]; Pierce 2, Knockdown).

All in all not too shabby. That said, I'd use this stat block as a basis for creating a species template that is more in line with other alien species. Maybe Brawn 1, Agility 3, Intellect 1, Cunning 3, Willpower 2, Presence 2. Natural Hunter, the abilities, and not very many starting XP, since that's a lot of abilities.

ETA: If I were your GM, I'd impose a few other restrictions, as well. For one, you don't have opposable thumbs. Unless your character pays a lot of money for specialized technology, they won't be able to make use of their high Agility to fire weapons or pilot craft. I'd probably upgrade the difficulty twice on any such attempts. That makes Agility a much less useful stat for you. With that in mind, your other abilities won't be as expensive after all.

Edited by SavageBob

Are you looking to make one as a PC or as NPC? If the former, I've got nothing for you other than thinking it's a terrible idea. If the latter, then go with the NoP stats and just give it some personality.

In answqer to @HappyDaze Both, I plan on making two. One as my own character and one as a NPC. My plan is for these crazy fuzzies to be sentient enough to understand and be trainable, but also use technology to a certain level. We've seen thaty they clearly have the mindset and skill enough to take down stormtroopers and get away unscathed

In answer to @TheShard I might do that.. Will have to think on it though

In answer to @SavageBob Ah good perfect! Since I am going to be GMing this campaign with a fellow GM I do plan on having the Lothcat in question as part of the party with another as a NPC that the party interacts with. Giving the party and In so to speak with local wildlife and the like. I think I will adapt and alter things of the base stats in thie caase raise the intellect by three and the brawn by one. Maybe lower the agility by one and put that in presence or willpower.

All in all thanks guys!

PS I did make a Porg Jedi for another site, everyone there thinks Im crazy

Holy crap those are crazy stats for a cat

On 12/4/2018 at 5:13 AM, TheShard said:

Holy crap those are crazy stats for a cat

Seems normal for me I think, I mean if a Lothcat and take on a STORMTROOPER and survive, plus dodge its shots with ease, yeah, normal

Edited by Ni Fang

I have to confess ive not watched the cartoons much. I thought it was the size of a house cat.

5 hours ago, TheShard said:

I have to confess ive not watched the cartoons much. I thought it was the size of a house cat.

It is.

How does a house cat have higher brawn than a bothan?

Edited by TheShard

I'd say the OP's notion of having things like Lothcats and Tookas as playable characters is possible (it's odd, but could be fun with the right group, and Star Wars is no stranger to oddball species), though my suggestion would be to take a look at the Genesys RPG corebook and their section on building new race/species templates (built around modifying the base Human stat block).

SavageBob's suggestion of what mods to make to use as a basis is a solid starting point, though as he noted anyone using this to build a PC probably won't have a lot of XP to spend at character creation. Given that Lothcats (which are a sub-species of Tookas if I remember the Wookieepedia article on them correctly) are generally non-sentient, you as the GM will need to work with the player to devise just how this particular fuzz face is able to think to degrees that's not natural for its species.

One classic go-to is "subject of an secretive and/or unethical Imperial experiment," which has been used quite a bit in Legends. Heck, in the Doctor Aphra series we've got the titular character having genetically modified tookas to be used as living explosive devices (hint: she's not a nice or very moral person), so it's entirely possible that a Lothcat PC is the result of some Imperial lab project to devise a spy that's even less obtrusive than a droid while being better equipped to deal with unexpected variables during a mission, and so they decided to forcibly uplift a bunch of Lothcats/tookas to serve as clandestine spies/assassins.

Its a possiblity, I never was a fan of Dr Aphra. Read two of the comics in the series and felt it was going nowhere.

Yes, Lothcats are a offshoot of the common Tooka only more hilarious and cute. I mean honestly, they took down a pair of stormtroopers easily and never got hurt. and yes again they're not exactly a sentient spieces either. But the idea of genetic mutation or even Imperial medical screwups is all possible. But, like Kanan had said, Everything is connected through the Force.

Now somehow I am seeing in my Mind's Eye a Lothcat with a lightsaber and somehow acting like a Jedi..... Who knows its possible

Not that I plan to do just this, I already made a Porg Jedi knight as it is!

On 12/4/2018 at 2:06 AM, Ni Fang said:

PS I did make a Porg Jedi for another site, everyone there thinks Im crazy

...... :D :D :D :D

I love this on so many levels.

19 hours ago, Ni Fang said:

Now somehow I am seeing in my Mind's Eye a Lothcat with a lightsaber and somehow acting like a Jedi..... Who knows its possible

I would avoid bothering with a lightsaber, and just have them have a force connection. There is already precedent for animals having Force related abilities, so that's not that big a stretch for me. I would probably limit it to one Force power though. Like, for a species that is very agile and physical, give them Enhance, so they can make insane leaps, or be stronger than normal. If they are a very observant, reclusive animal, perhaps give them Sense, or Foresee, so they can avoid threats....though now that I've said Foresee, I'm picturing a cool little scene where the PC party shows up in some location, surrounded by a ton of that animal type, because they all Foresaw that event, and were there to witness it. Even if only for atmosphere, but to have the PC's, finally reach some Important Place of Power, and to have the GM describe that dozens, maybe hundreds of glowing eyes, watch them from the trees, a low humming noise coming from their throats, as they observe the PC's approach.

I ran a Star Wars mouse guard one-shot for my son. His character was a mouse, so his stats were relative to Silhouette 0 (and that was probably pushing it). Normal Silhouette 1, I intended to treat as Vehicular scale, with planetary scale well beyond the scope of the adventure.

http://swsheets.com/c/7zpflhyiy-duncan-ihado

29 minutes ago, Edgehawk said:

I ran a Star Wars mouse guard one-shot for my son. His character was a mouse, so his stats were relative to Silhouette 0 (and that was probably pushing it). Normal Silhouette 1, I intended to treat as Vehicular scale, with planetary scale well beyond the scope of the adventure.

http://swsheets.com/c/7zpflhyiy-duncan-ihado

....the mouse's name was Duncan Idaho? Please oh PLEASE tell me he had a friend named Usul or Muad'Dib?! :D

*looks at picture* OMG!! You gave him the overshawl that Mrs. Brisby wore in the Secret of NIMH cartoon! *dies from joy*

Edited by KungFuFerret
1 hour ago, KungFuFerret said:

....the mouse's name was Duncan Idaho? Please oh PLEASE tell me he had a friend named Usul or Muad'Dib?! :D

*looks at picture* OMG!! You gave him the overshawl that Mrs. Brisby wore in the Secret of NIMH cartoon! *dies from joy*

My son picked Duncan from a list of "mouse names." I gave him the family name Ihado, an obvious anagram of Idaho. Not as subtle, perhaps, as naming a character after a pavilion.

I can't claim credit for the artwork, which I credited on the swsheet (N-ARF on deviantart). I'm afraid there were no other Dune names, as they would have been lost on my son, as yet.

3 hours ago, KungFuFerret said:

...... :D :D :D :D

I love this on so many levels.

I would avoid bothering with a lightsaber, and just have them have a force connection. There is already precedent for animals having Force related abilities, so that's not that big a stretch for me. I would probably limit it to one Force power though. Like, for a species that is very agile and physical, give them Enhance, so they can make insane leaps, or be stronger than normal. If they are a very observant, reclusive animal, perhaps give them Sense, or Foresee, so they can avoid threats....though now that I've said Foresee, I'm picturing a cool little scene where the PC party shows up in some location, surrounded by a ton of that animal type, because they all Foresaw that event, and were there to witness it. Even if only for atmosphere, but to have the PC's, finally reach some Important Place of Power, and to have the GM describe that dozens, maybe hundreds of glowing eyes, watch them from the trees, a low humming noise coming from their throats, as they observe the PC's approach.

Like in Rebels, following the White Lothcat.... hmmmmmm I could go this route. Though I might limit the fuzzy to two Force powers. I know for a fact she will have Enhance. {for all those high jumps Lothcats do in the show} Forsee like a good one too. How else are they able to avoid Stormtrooper shots so easily ? Both are very good ideas

1 hour ago, Edgehawk said:

My son picked Duncan from a list of "mouse names." I gave him the family name Ihado, an obvious anagram of Idaho. Not as subtle, perhaps, as naming a character after a pavilion.

Is that a reference to my Gaze Eeboh character? :P Don't misunderstand, I love that he was named Duncan Ihado, Jedi Mouse. You blended two of my favorite bits of fiction from when I was younger (Dune and NIMH), and shoved them into a Jedi skin, which is just so much awesome-sauce to my brain that I am actually sitting here giggling at the idea of Jedi mice. I just loved the idea of him having a buddy mouse named Muad'Dib, since that name was the Fremen name for the desert mouse of their culture, it would've just been perfect. Even if the joke was only for you :D

44 minutes ago, Ni Fang said:

Like in Rebels, following the White Lothcat.... hmmmmmm I could go this route. Though I might limit the fuzzy to two Force powers. I know for a fact she will have Enhance. {for all those high jumps Lothcats do in the show} Forsee like a good one too. How else are they able to avoid Stormtrooper shots so easily ? Both are very good ideas

I stopped watching Rebels when they had Kannen give up the sith holocron to that big alien being "for safe keeping", and then immediately went back the very next episode and was like "Hey I need that back now." That just annoyed me on so many levels for story structure that I just stopped. Granted I'd lost interest previous to that, but that was sort of the straw to camel's back moment.

Given that Enhance and Foresee (and Sense) are used to justify the Jedi's uncanny dodge abilities, they would all work in my book. Personally I'd lean more to Foresee, if only because it has more potential for story elements later on (to me at least). Animals that have heightened reflexes, meh, that's almost mundane for some real world animals, so it doesn't interest me. But a species that can actually see the future, but maybe don't know why, and all have a single moment in their collective minds (the PC party showing up on a portentous night for example), just has so much more fun flavor for me. But I tend to lean more towards the mystic/spirit side of the Force stuff, than the physical stuff.

59 minutes ago, KungFuFerret said:

Is that a reference to my Gaze Eeboh character? :P Don't misunderstand, I love that he was named Duncan Ihado, Jedi Mouse. You blended two of my favorite bits of fiction from when I was younger (Dune and NIMH), and shoved them into a Jedi skin, which is just so much awesome-sauce to         my brain that I am actually sitting here giggling  at the idea of Jedi mice. I just loved the idea of him h  aving a buddy mouse named Muad'Dib, since that name was the Fremen name for the desert mouse of their culture, it would've just been perfect. Even if the joke was only for you :D 

At the risk of having my nerd card revoked.. it has been so long since I've revisited either Dune or NIMH, I missed the shawl reference and did not even recall the meaning of Muad'Dib.

2 minutes ago, Edgehawk said:

At the risk of having my nerd card revoked.. it has been so long since I've revisited either Dune or NIMH, I missed the shawl reference and did not even recall the meaning of Muad'Dib.

Well that shawl looks a lot like the one that Mrs. Brisbee was wearing in the cartoon. It might not be entirely accurate, but the basic design instantly made me think of that. And yeah, Dune is a personal love of mine from back in the day. Duncan Idaho being my personal favorite character from the entire series. But yeah the Muad'Dib thing is kind of an offhand comment from Stilgar, Paul kept having visions of the little mouse shadow in their moon, so he asked them what they call it. He also actually saw the mouse a few times in the desert, hopping around, so he felt it was significant. It actually endeared him to the tribe, because Muad'Dib is a clever creature in their lore and mythology. An animal of Wisdom and Cunning, so choosing that as your namesake would be a positive thing in their society, which is was. Usul = Strength (the name they gave him after his fight), and Muad'Dib = Wisdom (the name he chose for himself), so to them, he took the dual mantle of Strength and Wisdom, which they liked a lot. A good omen they felt.

So yeah, I would totally have made an NPC friend for your son's mouse named Paul, or Muad'Dib, even if I was the only one that got it, and giggled internally about it.

1 hour ago, KungFuFerret said:

I stopped watching Rebels when they had Kannen give up the sith holocron to that big alien being "for safe keeping", and then immediately went back the very next episode and was like "Hey I need that back now." That just annoyed me on so many levels for story structure that I just stopped. Granted I'd lost interest previous to that, but that was sort of the straw to camel's back moment.

Given that Enhance and Foresee (and Sense) are used to justify the Jedi's uncanny dodge abilities, they would all work in my book. Personally I'd lean more to Foresee, if only because it has more potential for story elements later on (to me at least). Animals that have heightened reflexes, meh, that's almost mundane for some real world animals, so it doesn't interest me. But a species that can actually see the future, but maybe don't know why, and all have a single moment in their collective minds (the PC party showing up on a portentous night for example), just has so much more fun flavor for me. But I tend to lean more towards the mystic/spirit side of the Force stuff, than the physical stuff.

I personally enjoyed Rebels, once past aseason three it was truly enjoyable for sure. Seeing the Bendu's forseeing of what happens to Thrawn was worth it, also lothcats vs Stormtroopers, yes pelase

Also in the case you want to see my Jedi Porg https://www.roleplaygateway.com/roleplay/the-multiverse/characters/terbus-the-porg/

43 minutes ago, Ni Fang said:

I personally enjoyed Rebels, once past aseason three it was truly enjoyable for sure. Seeing the Bendu's forseeing of what happens to Thrawn was worth it, also lothcats vs Stormtroopers, yes pelase

Also in the case you want to see my Jedi Porg https://www.roleplaygateway.com/roleplay/the-multiverse/characters/terbus-the-porg/

I tried to like Rebels, but some of the writing/directing choices irk me too much. I don't really mind where they take the stories in the Disney stuff, but when they make really sloppy story structure choices, that tends to ruffle my feathers. Not just Star Wars, any storytelling has this effect on me.

Also, I freaking love the prog description. His weaknesses are especially fantastic. I highly approve and hope you are having fun playing that character.

I figured, try it out, for a few episodes, and decide, I initally thought it was geared towards children. But its more geared I think towards older kids, teen and young adults, my own kids loved the series {when they actually didnt care much for Clone Wars}. Espcially season 4

But back to characters as animals. Am I actually crazy to attempt this ? I may give Lee a translator droid or the like, similar to what I gave Terbus

On 12/5/2018 at 7:58 PM, Ni Fang said:

But back to characters as animals. Am I actually crazy to attempt this ? I may give Lee a translator droid or the like, similar to what I gave Terbus

Do you mean the Loth cat attempt in your original post? *shrugs* I don't think so. The point of these games is to have fun, and if you and your people have fun playing in a game with a semi/fully sentient Loth-cat who runs around with the party, who cares? Well, some people on this forum will care, and will likely express their displeasure in you sullying the "canon" with your homebrew idea....but **** them. :P There's plenty of precedent in various storytelling about intelligent animals, and their place in a heroic adventure, and given the insane amount of diverse lifeforms that are sentient in Star Wars canon, (including a FREAKING TREE JEDI MASTER!!) I don't really see the issue with doing the same with Loth-cats. If it's fun, do it, and to **** with canon.

On 12/10/2018 at 9:57 AM, KungFuFerret said:

Do you mean the Loth cat attempt in your original post? *shrugs* I don't think so. The point of these games is to have fun, and if you and your people have fun playing in a game with a semi/fully sentient Loth-cat who runs around with the party, who cares? Well, some people on this forum will care, and will likely express their displeasure in you sullying the "canon" with your homebrew idea....but **** them. :P There's plenty of precedent in various storytelling about intelligent animals, and their place in a heroic adventure, and given the insane amount of diverse lifeforms that are sentient in Star Wars canon, (including a FREAKING TREE JEDI MASTER!!) I don't really see the issue with doing the same with Loth-cats. If it's fun, do it, and to **** with canon.

I’m probably remembering this wrong, but weren’t there instances (in legends at least) were the force itself was so strong in a creature. That it resulted in said creature gaining sentience?