Psi-Watch by PurpleXVI
Wherein I suspect I will shortly be proven wrong
Original SA post
I guess Fields is like some sort of horrific addiction, like cutting, you know it's bad for you, it doesn't even feel good, but somehow you just can't stop. With that in mind I cracked open the first few pages of Psi-Watch, just to have a look. I mean, really, it could be that he had created something decent this time, right?
Psi-Watch
Wherein I suspect I will shortly be proven wrong
Before we even get to the mediocre art, I wish to quote part of the foreword.
Chris Liefields posted:
When Image Comics debuted in 1992, it was a hyper-violent, vibrantly colored underworld of government conspiracies, cybernetically enhanced mercs, psionic super soldiers, covert corporate strike teams and subtle alien invasions. While all too many of the early Image issues were crudely written and amateurishly plotted, their passion and intensity and vibrant imagination drew me in.
Comics like WildC.A.T.s, Cyberforce, Stormwatch and Youngblood drew on the best in comics, military fiction and cyberpunk to create an entirely new genre of comics. Innovations in art and storytelling fed back into the industry, spurring creative revolutions at both Marvel and DC. Many of the best artists working in comics today got their start aping the beloved styles of superstars like Lee, Liefeld and McFarlane .
"Players must spend half of their starting money on belts and pouches. Starting speed reduced to 1/4 due to not having any feet."
That's right. Fields decided that the best inspiration he could possibly have for a D20 Modern game about comic book psionics was fucking Liefeld, with his horrendous art and miserable writing. And of course, Psi-Watch is also intended to tie into Otherverse. This specific tie-in is why I'm battening down the fucking hatches.
Welcome to INCOMPREHENSIBLE SCOWLING FACES AND ENERGY BLASTS: THE GAME.
SCOWLYMAN attempts to escape from Psi-Watch by smashing his face through the pages. Unfortunately, like me, he will never find respite from the horrific nightmare he finds himself trapped in
I'm sorry to be giving up so fast but between page 10 informing us that in this ALTERNATE UNIVERSE, George HW. Bush nuked Iraq to stop them mass-producing cloned suicide bombers, and a page 11 Fields Sidebar(tm) telling me that "these days," clones are regularly mass-produced for snuff films...
Pedophilia and mind-rape by page 19...
Did I mention this thing is 50 pages longer than Otherverse: America?
I'll be finishing this, but for the moment I need to gather my thoughts.
FUCK YOU, FIELDS!
The real start
Original SA post
ALRIGHT. Sanity restored, time to hammer out the first section of Psi-Watch...
Psi-Watch
THE REAL START.
Introduction and History!
So as far as I can tell, Otherverse and Psi-Watch aren't inextricably connected. Otherverse uses Psi-Watch's psionics for its own, but Psi-Watch so far SEEMS to have its own setting. At the very least it occurs quite a bit earlier than the events of Otherverse(2100-onwards, Psi-Watch the organization appears to have existed at least in 2001).
This is pretty standard for this book's art
Psi-Watch, the Organization
Pretty simple, Psi-Watch was established during the Cold War using alien technology to create a psionically-empowered organization that can defend America. they've got a huge space-station that sort of wanders around between Earth and the moon, being invisible, and they can teleport("slide") agents into position. The Sliding thing, to Fields' credit, is given some pretty clear limitations in a sidebar(one of these things that DON'T suck for once?!) which means it can be used to shuffle PC's into position from far away while still explaining why they aren't popping in on top of the BBEG while he's taking a dump.
Their spacestation is named "Bradbury Station," which is a goofy-ass name, and was built in the 1980's. Alternate history ahoy! I mean, more than we're already alternate with the alien tech and all. We're also dropped a note that the Slide stuff is reverse-engineered from "Culture FTL drives," something that we'll probably have to wait a while before Fields tells us what the fuck is about.
They've also got the NNS Engine which can scan recently dead, largely-undamaged, brains to recover their last hour or so of sensory input. Everything they heard, saw, smelled and felt. This thing is also used for scanning agents' brains so they can be slapped into "Extremis Clones" of their own bodies and rapidly revived. A decent way of slipping resurrection into what seems so far to be trying to be a sci-fi setting.
Of course, Bad Guys also use these things.
quote:
Prior to its destruction, Iraq had the capability to produce Extremis Clone suicide bombers, and its rumored that several Iraqi genelabs survived Bush’s thermonuclear bombardment.
In The Otherverse! posted:
Extremis Clone technology is cheaper and more widespread in Otherverse America, at least in the Choicer nation. The Lifer nation is repulsed by the technology, though Kodiak Island does have the capacity to produce several dozen Extremis Clones simultaneously. The Coven of Bast sometimes uses the technology to give a slain soldier a chance to complete her mission or settle her mortal affairs. Traditionally, Coven of Bast Extremis Clones choose ritual suicide after their mission, not wishing to prolong their unnatural existence.
The technology has come into wide use in the meta-porn industry. Using the technology, the porn industry has made the snuff film an acceptable form of entertainment. A substantial minority of meta-porn actors and actresses are Extremis Clones. Since they are mind-copied and cloned in hospital conditions prior to injury, these Extremis Clones do not suffer level loss during the process.
Meta-porn Extremis Clones usually have a slate of back-up bodies stored in stasis, which has driven down cloning costs dramatically. These civilian Extremis Clones also die far more often than their military counterparts, ironically enough. Metaporn Extremis Clones are usually slain and recloned every 2-3 months during a filmed death session, as opposed to every two years. Clones killed and resurrected any more often begin exhibiting disassociation and some become almost catatonic from emotional trauma- waiting several months between deaths seems to prevent the worst psychological effects.
Fields making sure we remember who's in charge of this shit. That's right, Fields is in charge, which means this is a downhill fucking ride.
Psi-Watch also has a dude who's permanently wired into all of the station's stuff all the time and basically manages Bradbury Station as well as being in charge of Psi-Watch. Their currently guy is a Cultureboo(really, he's insisted that everyone MUST LEARN THEIR SUPERIOR LANGUAGE) who despite being basically omniscient aboard the station has missed a group of people who've been plotting to start a war with The Culture and have him removed from his post. Sounds like a competent guy.
Then we get a section on Psi-Watch's recent history. Read and learn.
NEVAR 4GET posted:
Within the last decade, Psi-Watch faced its greatest challenge and failed. On September 11, 2001, the metahuman war between the Pentagon and Saddam Hussein’s metahuman soldiers, which began with the invasion of Kuwait culminated in a devastating assault on the United States. While the war was initially fought dispassionately, the conflict between George Bush and Saddam Hussein soon turned personal. In 1993 a US black ops team infiltrated Iraq and assassinated two of Hussein’s sons. Iraqi retaliation begat US response, and even after Iraqi troops pulled out of Kuwait, the conflict continued, in secret. A few years after the initial cessation of hostilities, Hussein finally claimed vengeance for the death of his sons.
Six years before the 9-11 Assault, a metahuman Iraqi assassin targeting Bush Senior failed in his murder mission (slaying his two sons, George Jr. and Jeb instead) as the family of politicians attended a Houston Astros baseball game. The elder Bush’s final act of retaliation was immediate and horrific- a multi-warhead nuclear assault on Hussein’s palaces that left most of Iraq bathed in lethal fallout.
This is almost kind-of something that makes sense. But that won't last long, check the next part.
A SINGLE TEAR FROM A CRYING EAGLE posted:
Though his military and metahuman forces were gutted, Saddam was able to hold the reins of power, and grow even richer siphoning off international aid earmarked for his people. For the next few years, Hussein plotted a counter attack. However, to carry out his plan, he was forced into alliances that would have been unthinkable just a few years earlier. Humbled, Hussein was forced to seek aid from his despised rival, the rogue Saudi geneticist Osama Bin Laden, a man he had tried to have assassinated just two years prior.
SUPERVILLAIN TEAM-UP?! OH SHIT, GOOD THING THEY DIDN'T JOIN UP WITH KIM J-
well fuck posted:
On September 11, 2001, half a decade of planning and groveling came to an end. At the head of an army of Wasabi assault clones , psychic suicide bombers and post-human mercenaries hired from every rogue nation on the planet, from North Korea to Mung Thoy Tan and the Republic of Cebary, Hussein lead the largest metahuman strike in history against America. The entire east coast was besieged, and casualties were in the hundreds of thousands before the first 24 hours of fighting had ended.
Well, I guess they did. NORTH KOREAN SOLDIERS IN NEW YORK. Still not sure if Wasabi Assault Clones are going to turn out to be the retarded name Fields gave something later on, or whether he simply fucked up "Wahhabi."
The Epilogue posted:
While America was badly wounded, the American counter attack devastated Iraq, Afghanistan and much of the surrounding region. The once mighty nation is now a desolate, heavily irradiated wasteland.
Today, Iraq is officially a dead zone, its outer borders patrolled by UN observers. A handful of human survivors, now dangerously mutated patrol the ruins, and claim the ruined desert as their home. Arms merchants and scavengers descend on ruined Iraq for a chance to claim some of Hussein’s legendary weapon caches- most of which were buried deep enough they could survive anything the US government could throw at them. Heavily mutated Taliban supersoldiers claim large swaths of irradiated territory for use as training camps and staging areas for their blitzkrieg assaults against Europe, Pakistan, Turkey and Israel.
So yeah, that's our recent history for Psi-Watch.
Puzzle Ops, the sorta-bad guys
So if Psi-Watch is the Justice League, Puzzle Ops is the CIA League. Basically they've got all the same shit, but they twirl their moustaches a little and are way more sinister. And they kidnap psionically gifted youngsters and train them in off-world academies.
If this is meant to be art of a Puzzle Ops operative, Jesus Christ they must do something sinister to their spines as well
They're lead by Wisenfield who is a MIND REAPER(some yet-undefined class) and has a SINGLE SCARRED-UP EYE that GLOWS WHEN HE'S ANGRY. Hello Cable. He also fought PSIONIC WARS IN VIETNAM.
The person in charge of their creepy indoctrination program is Mother Of Invention, henceforth abbreviated as MOI. And, well, she's a creepy lady.
YOU'RE NOT MY MOMMY posted:
Today she blends the powers of the Ultra-Mind and Nano-Sculptor, allowing her to warp minds and alter reality with a thought. Many of the children within CHINESE MARBLES have been mind warped to the point they consider the fearsome Psion their birth mother , and would gladly die for her.
Among MOI’s captives is James Wisenfield, the fifteen year old son of the Puzzle Ops director. MOI captured the boy as insurance against Wisenfield, faking his death in a dorm fire at his boarding school. The Puzzle Ops director knows the fire was most likely staged, and though he suspects MOI’s hand in the scheme, he can’t prove it. The fact that MOI can deny involvement- and the strength of her Washington connections is the only thing keeping her alive. MOI and the elder Wisenfield wage a quiet and lethal war against one another, greatly weakening Puzzle Ops as a whole. James Wisenfield himself has been turned into the voracious MOI’s sexual plaything and bodyguard, displaying ‘mind reaper’ psi-talents as impressive as his father’s.
19 out of 308 pages, and we've already got: Snuff, suggestions of pseudo-incest and blatant pedophilia. God speed, Fields, you crazy asshole.
UN-PET
The UN has some psionics that use guns, but are only allowed powers that shut down other psionics' abilities. They're kind of boring but I guess nice guys. They're also buddies with Mother Of Incest up there.
The Beehive
A mutant NANO SCULPTOR invented the science of Robotics during World War 2. Now he has a SECRET LAIR. He sells tech to people, that's it. Snooze.
The Antfarm
This one is kind of interesting. Puzzle Ops had a project to grow metahumans in orbit, VR-program them as agents and then drop them into hot zones as instant soldiers. Unfortunately the 9/11 NEVAR 4GET attacks killed a lot of important people involved in the project and it was left to be organized by an AI. So now the AI regularly produces superpowered clones, programs to be soldiers and drops them to Earth. Just sort of automatically.
All of the ones that make it safely to Earth shake their heads and just wander off to join someone who needs violent people with superpowers. Apparently so far no one has thought to just track the fucking course the drop pods are taking and finding the fucking space station. Considering that it's confirmed there are off-Earth human colonies, you'd think humanity would have a pretty advanced space-tracking system by now.
Uh, Fields? Just what is this art doing here? Is this some of your private art? I think it is
Immediately on the next page is this, it gets a cut as I think it may count as NSFW.
Mutant History
There's some stuff about how mutants were basically considered animals until the 1980's and hunting and killing them was legal. And outside of several pre-established "breeds" of mutant, like "Jupiter Tainted" and "Challengers," plenty of weird, one-off species spawn from "mutagenic chemicals" seeping into the water table.
THE MOST DANGEROUS PREY... posted:
During the late 1960s and early 1970s, Human Hunt Clubs were formed across the country, enabling hunters to publicly murder mutant Americans. Taking advantage of anti-mutant laws, Hunter Clubs could kill mutants purely for sport, and in most cases, completely escape punishment because their prey had fewer legal rights than a wild animal.
There's still a lot of MUTANT DISCRIMINATION, so a bunch of mutants from the Mutant Underground(helping mutants hide from recruiters or killers) have built their own city...
quote:
Psi-Watch’s own research confirms Nightflight is located deep within the Bermuda Triangle, a massive artificial island protected beneath multiple layers of holo-camouflage and defensive psi-tech. Constantly on the move, Nightflight hovers almost a hundred feet above the warm, Atlantic waters, kept aloft by a caste of genetically engineered, magnetically empowered mutant drones.
I haven't read any Marvel comics in a while, but isn't this almost literally a ripoff? I remember a Cable & Deadpool comic where they were on some hovering-over-the-sea mutant paradise city. At least come up with your OWN goofy-ass ideas, Fields.
quote:
The City of Nightflight is governed by the Council of the Helix. Some of the oldest, most respected of Earth’s mutants, many of the wise old reptiles on the Council have survived since World War II. The atomic detonations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki created the first true mutants , and many on the Council were just children as the Japanese occupation began.
Radiation gives you superpowers? This is old school mutants alright.
But yeah, blah blah, mutants persecuted, build an arctic city, everyone there dies, the site gets MYSTERIOUSLY NUKED before anyone can investigate. So then someone called the HUXLEY EMERGENCE offers to help by, well...
quote:
the Huxley Emergence offered the Genomic Underground a devil’s bargain. Using their genetic technology, the Emergence transformed a cadre of Mutant volunteers into the near-immortal Indomitables- mango-kinetic mutates capable of levitating an entire artificial island
I think he means magno, not mango. Even though that's funnier. Fields! Get a fucking editor! Also this is apparently a DEVIL'S BARGAIN because the Emergence... becomes friends with the mutants and gets access to their genetic information? Wow, real devil's bargain there.
The Land of White Jaguars
Well, that's an interesting n-
quote:
The hidden nation seeds clouds with pheromone traces, which drift on high altitude jet streams. Across the world, catlike Mutants occasionally pause, sniffing the air, scenting traces of a place they’ve never been, but have dreamed of all their lives.
Uhh that-
quote:
Founded by the legendary Cold Talon, The Land of White Jaguars is a haven for self-described Ferals. The Land is a place where mutants whose genetic gifts express as predatory atavism can hunt and kill without the terrified glances of baseline humans….
FUCK'S SAKE, FIELDS. Furries again?
quote:
Though the Ferals of the Land trade rail guns for natural claws when they must, they prefer fresh killed game to refrigerated meat, and favor forest chases to sitting in front of an XBOX.
They also murdered and ate all the human people who lived where they settled. This place is located somewhere in the Yucatan and they've basically refurbished a bunch of old ruins to serve as houses. They also dig up MAGICAL CRYSTALS that DISTURB THE TIMELINE, and their current queen, BUBASTIS BLACK is actually an Otherverse mutant refugee who somehow found the place because of these crystals.
bdazz
Humanity's Sweat
Rar bad anti-mutant racists who keep mutants out of jobs!!!!!
But considering places like the fucking Land of the White Jaguar exist, I can almost empathize with them.
The Huxley Emergence
These guys are basically the Evil Psionic Illuminati.
They go around cackling and spilling mutagenic chemicals all over the place to create more mutants, and don't mind that most people who come into contact with it just get tumors and die. The Good Children are the vaguely-nice faction who don't just want to twirl moustaches and wear black cloaks.
quote:
Similarly the Good Children masterminded the lethal chemical plant explosion in Bophal, India, during the mid 1980s, which killed hundreds but lead to the birth of dozens of new Indian psions. Many believe they also masterminded the Challenger disaster, leading to the birth of that metahuman race as well. Many of North America’s mutants were created at the hands of the Good Children.
I'm not sure, but I think the Challenger disaster mentioned here may be the shuttle thing, and the Bophal(actually isn't the real spelling Bhopal?) disaster can only be one thing.
They also seem to be kidnapping illegal immigrants in Arizona and experiment on them, trying to turn them into mutants.
The Church of the Themlic Mind
The Emergence also made these guys. They're basically Psionic Scientology. Even right down to having been started and run by a Science Fiction author.
The Zookeepers
Emergence's private army. Here's the only reason I mention them.
JOB PERKS posted:
The rape, torture and eventual murder of non-psis and lesser mutants is presented to prospective Zookeeper candidates as a perk of the job, allowing the Emergence to easily recruit a crew of brutal sadists who are easily controllable so long as they are give a fresh selection of playthings regularly. For the Emergence, recruiting post-human serial killers and rapists- or creating such monsters- is a cost effective solution to problems of army building and manpower.
God, okay, page 31 out of 308. I need a break here.
Like an erotic parody of the Marvel universe, but without the "parody"
Original SA post Psi-Watch!Like an erotic parody of the Marvel universe, but without the "parody"
We're still stuck knee-deep in the fluff, but maybe with any luck we can get out of the worst thicket of background if we put our backs into it.
Metamorphosis North
Before we're even properly introduced to one alien species(The Culture), we're introduced to a second(The Neon? Really? Your naming is shit, Fields), because we're told how Metamorphosis North produces a bunch of really sweet guns that they've made from reverse-engineering all that alien tech. The CEO is mean and angry because she is HALF-CULTURE and her mom left her, presumably because the kid was, as we're told, making fucking battle robots at age eight. It's probably tough to discipline your daughter when she can sic a Mad Cat on you.
Because of her BRAINS AND HATE, she's discovered a "war-torn alternate future" without the Culture, which she hates, on account of her mom. So she "infiltrated" it, set up a Metamorphosis North there, and used it to basically smuggle out that reality's tech to the Psi-Watch reality. Note that this "alternate future" is of course fucking Otherverse: America.
Their CEO Vose is, if you have not noticed, reasonably sinister.
Clever Girl posted:
Vose has prepared a series of “Bolthole” realities for her self and her executive board and their families. Boltholes I, II and III are alt-versions of late 19th century Earth, already pre-seeded with covert robotic pioneers. In the event of a crisis, Vose’s executive board can leap to any of these three worlds, activate the dummy corporations they have seeded and re-invent their way to unimaginable wealth.
The phrase "robot pioneers" somehow just makes me imagine robotic cowboys exploring the early reaches of the West: "BZZT LOADING STATEMENT there-is-gold-in-them-thar-hills.... pardner EXECUTE PROGRAM: DIG_GOLD.EXE" And this pleases me to no end.
Sir, we're checking for dangerous writing. Did you know that a Fields RPG can drop your SAN score at a range of 50 feet?
Then there's some shit about how Detroit has a PSI SWAT and how there's a mutant tent town called TRIPLE HELIX, and the reason that there are enough unwanted mutants around to need a spot there is because of the prevalence of MUTANT-ON-HUMAN rapes.
Triple Helix is basically Bartertown with more rape. THE STRONGEST AND STRANGEST is the KING FREAK and murder/rape is apparently common enough that people just ignore it when it happens. Being "a pretty mutant or a human looking for meth" is a death sentence in Triple Helix.
CHARMING, FIELDS.
The Thunder Battalion
These guys are a "meta-human militia" who are apparently the "prime suspects" for the Oklahoma City bombing. These guys are weird, on the one hand they hate normal humans for apparently discriminating against them, but on the other hand they want to overthrown the US government and establish a "white Christian theocracy."
Metamorphosis North has apparently also been shipping in Lifer mercenaries from Otherverse: America and a lot of them join the Thunder Battalion because they LOVE GOD. Because, yeah, the Lifers we heard described in O:A were totally fans of mutants and mutant supremacy...????
The LA Pyru Nation
As if Fields hadn't raped enough American history, this one is a doozy. Now he's going to fuck up the Rodney King incident.
Apparently Huxley Emergence infiltrators replaced the LA PD riot police tear gas with... MUTANT GAS!!! DUN DUN DUNNNNNN...
Lemme just copy-paste this shit.
History 101 in the Fieldsiverse posted:
LA might still fly the United States flag, but it hasn’t been a part of America since the Rodney King riots. Panicked by the widespread looting and arson, the LAPD’s riot control squads unleashed what they thought was next-generation tear gas on the rioters. The cloying urine-yellow chemicals that burst out of the LAPD’s grenade launchers were anything but ordinary.
Highly placed Huxley infiltrators within the police force and courts engineered the King verdict, while counter-culture agents sparked the first riots. With the justification of mass violence in place, the Huxley Emergence was able to deploy an untested mutagen on the crowds. Nearly 10,000 Los Angelinos died from the gas’ side effects. Almost a million more were mutated. Unable to cope with the rising tide of terrified metahuman rioters, the LAPD retreated into Beverly Hills and a few other enclaves, leaving the rest of the city to burn.
A few weeks later, LA was a city transformed. Nearly 70 percent of the city was razed, while newly metahuman warlords carved out territories for themselves. Meanwhile, LA’s ultra-rich protected themselves behind glistening force domes and hired vicious, private security cyborgs to keep the city’s millions of mutant poor at a safe distance.
LA’s Bloods and Crips, under the command of their superhuman generals, ended their decades long war and formed a new gang: The Pyru Nation. By force of arms and a reputation for fearsome violence, the Pyru Nation has claimed most of LA for its own. Its thugs are the only law for most of the city. The Pyru Nation controls the California drug trade, flat-out owns the prisons and is rapidly expanding its suburban territory. Pyru meta-gangers have killed hundreds of Cali gangleaders, absorbing their territory and members with each kill.
Is that a tattoo of a crying pistol on his pecs?
Apparently, though, the Pyrus are some of the only people really giving the Huxley Emergence a fight for their money, managing to capture Zookeepers and their powered armour intact(normally they self-destruct), and are now considering selling this tech to any interested parties as they lack the technological expertise to refurbish the armor themselves.
The Nation of Cebary
These guys basically enslave, breed and trade mutants like they're cattle. Another thing that I'm 99% sure I recall a Marvel story about. Cebary is located right next to South Africa.
The prime minister of Cebary's third daughter is the leader of the FREE CEBARY MILITIA. That's about all that's interesting about Cebary.
The Progressive Republic of Mung Thoy Tan
We've had these guys mentioned before, they were part of the guys who INVADED AMERICA along with Iraq, Al Qaeda and North Korea.
quote:
Prostitution and sex tourism are a major part of the rouge nation’s economy; the United Nations has censured the country several times for its official stance viewing child sex tourism as an economic resource rather than a social problem. The island nation is one of the world’s foremost producers of pornography, including highly illegal kiddy porn and snuff entertainment.
These guys are basically ultra-capitalists where ANYTHING GOES, AS LONG AS YOU CAN PAY. The rich are hyper-rich, the poor are ultra-poor. They're REALLY MEAN because they sell WMD's to anyone who'll pay and pretty much anything that's a crime is a crime punishable by death, and once you're dead they basically harvest every part of your body for profit.
quote:
The first and current Imperial President is Thong Muk Goi, a brutal warlord who slaughtered his way to power during the island’s Grand Revolution in 1983. A consummate egotist, Muk Goi refers to himself as the father of his people, and his image adorns every square inch of Mung Thoy Tan’s cities. Unlike many other dictators, however, Muk Goi has never instituted a purge of intellectuals… at least the ones who support his reign.
In less than 30 years, Muk Goi has transformed a once impoverished island into one of the highest tech nations on Earth, and despite the crushing poverty, virtually all of the nation’s population are literate. Cybernetics implants, including lifestyle, entertainment and sexual cyber implants are common among all strata of society; in many ways Mung Thoy Tan is both preview and cautionary tale of the decades to come.
They're off the coast of Communist Vietnam and why they haven't been fuckstomped by the Vietnamese before I really have no clue.
If you still did not get the hint that these guy were EVIL MEANBADS, their secret police can TAKE ANYTHING THEY WANT, including sex and money, from people, and they field an army of orphaned child soldiers.
Mung Thoy Tan is also host to the BLACKLIST, a bunch of EVIL ASSASSINS who do EVIL ASSASSINATIONS and fight PSI WATCH sometimes.
quote:
A genetically enhanced and fully masked Frontliner of the same name founded the Blacklist in 1984. Little is known about the origins or motivation of the masked killer, but his accent marks him as American, and some comments the rouge has made lead Psi-Watch to believe that the assassin is the child or grandchild of an American dissident who was imprisoned by the House Un-American Activities Committee during McCarthy’s witch hunts.
Whatever his reasons, Blacklist apparently despises the nation of his birth, and will often cut his million dollar rates dramatically if the target is an American politician or military figure.
At this point I'm convinced that Fields is just aggressively TRYING to shit on every aspect of global, and specifically American, history, he can get his hands on.
The Paint
Metahuman gladiator fights. To be allowed to compete you have to survive a point-blank bullet to the face. Sometimes they fight in active war zones. One of the two people in charge gets off on WATCHING MEN DIE.
whyyyyyy would anyone sign this shitttttt
THE CULTURE
Oh boy! Finally we get to find out what these weird alien dudes are all about!
Alright, let's see, they're in charge of "over three galaxies" and their home world is actually a giant world-ship, instead of a single world. Somehow they are still worried about "Terran incursion" for some weird reason. They've got a giant, liquid "Nano-AI" the size of Texas inside their WORLD SHIP, and when their FINAL SWORD warriors need to be indoctrinated, they just dip them in that.
They've accomplished all this shit despite brutal infighting every time they're not fighting someone else. They've got an AI heaven where "the best and wisest" members of the Culture are permanently uploaded to govern their race. When travelling FTL, the Culture slides into a side-dimension called "The Grey Corridor," which is apparently also where they believe they go where they die? Do Culture FTL-travellers have to be ready to brake for ghosts and alien angels?
Apparently they gave no fucks and just started building holiday homes there. On the one hand that's absurd on the other hand it's kind of awesome. You poke a hole in heaven, then you build a cottage there to chill in. FAIR ENOUGH, FIELDS.
Note for this next part, their world-ship homeworld is named "Wellforged."
Wombforged posted:
The artificial planet Wellforged is alive, and the goliath stellar mega-structure can breed. The bio-mechanical planet’s pregnancy lasts millenia, and its offspring starship launch from artificial wombs in the depths of the Hectate Library.
YEP. No mention of what it breeds WITH, but we're probably better off not knowing. The Culture is also at BITTER ANGRY WAR with "THE BLOODED GHOSTS" because said BLOODED GHOSTS blew up one of Wellforged's kids.
The Final Sworders are finally described... in extremely vague terms. All we're told is that they FOLLOW AND INTERPRET PROPHECY and that's fucking it.
One of the FS cults is named THE MAIDENS OF VIGILANT GENOCIDE and they get this art.
Worse yet is the writing they get.
The Maidens of Vigilant Unf Unf Unf posted:
Members of the chapter are trained to be stoic, somber and unafraid. Its members rarely smile, never retreat and only rarely show pain or surprise. In addition, the members of the order of maidens are sworn to celibacy, with many members undergoing cruel surgical modification to preserve their chastity, and are trained to find sexual release only in killing. In many ways, the order of maidens is a cult of female serial murderers, whose lusts were artificially induced by years of deprivation and torturous discipline.
Right. So that's that. That is that thing that it is and oh fucking Christ Fields what is WRONG with you.
Side-note: So far Fields has not spelled "rogue" right a single time, it's fucking "rouge" every single chance he gets. Must be a very red universe.
Basically there are like a dozen Final Sword CHAPTER HOUSES on Earth and they've all got different understandings of things and some are NICE GUYS and some want to CHOP HUMAN AND CHOP GHOST and we're never told WHY they feel this way, how those vaguely-referenced prophecies and shit lead to this.
We also do not get a SINGLE PIECE OF INFO about the Blooded Ghosts or Neons, and no information on what the Culture assholes actually look like. SO THERE'S THAT.
But finally we're done with intro-fluff and can get to CHARACTERS... next time!
Am I doing this because I hate myself, or am I hating myself for doing this?
Original SA post Psi-Watch!Am I doing this because I hate myself, or am I hating myself for doing this?
Being out of the Fluff Jungles we enter the Chargen Territories. Unlike Fursona and Otherverse: America, this book actually has a decent organization with sell-separated chapters, even though the in-chapter organization is still a mess, and the fucking index is for some reason at the BACK of the book. In a reasonable and standard move, he starts us off with our selection of races. And man are there a fuckload. Here's the list, followed by their one-line descriptions at the chapter-start.
Blooded-Ghosts(Chameleonic xeno-predators)
Challengers(Human precognitives able to sense other psychics)
City-Born(Mutants evolved for urban environments)
The Culture(Arrogant, high tech humanoid conquerors)
Gravediggers(Reanimated zombie-cyborg soldiers)
Mutants(Sworn to protect a world that hates and fears them ..)
Neon(Fiery aliens designed to thrive in deep space)
Four varieties of Patriots which are just HUMANS with [A MUTATION]
Shiftsteel Symbionts(Advanced cyborgs built with prototype Culture technology)
Spetsnazki(Russian-grown cloned supersoldiers)
Steamers(Sentient vapor in a containment suit)
Blooded Ghosts
The Blooded Ghosts are from THE GALACTIC SCAR which is a RADIOACTIVE SHITHOLE and as a result they're all huge pricks. The GALACTIC SCAR was, by the way, formed by two galaxies crashing into each other and EXPLODING. A couple of Kinda Metal points for Fields.
Blooded Ghosts posted:
The Blooded Ghosts steal to survive and exist in a society where murder and treachery are virtues.
How in the fuck would this produce anything even vaguely resembling a coherent society? For some reason Fields also thinks this would produce "willing martyrs..." but what would they martyr themselves for if all they're in it for is to fuck each other over?!
Presumably they martyr themselves in the hope of reincarnating as something less goofy-looking
Appearance posted:
In their natural form, Blooded Ghosts cannot easily pass for human. They blend reptilian and mammalian traits into a disturbing whole. Their crocodile-like bodies are thick with corded muscle and their scaled hides are decorated in desert browns and yellows, splattered with football sized red and black eye spots. Their short and surprisingly fragile skulls are sleek and wedge shaped, with vicious, iguana like maws.
Blooded Ghosts have two or three pairs of cold eyes spaced around their small skulls. Female Blooded Ghosts have six pairs of small breasts running down the underside of their bodies. All Blooded Ghosts are as comfortable on four feet as walking upright on two, and have long, prehensile toes.
For once I'm going to not bold the awful part. Let's play Spot The Fields! Aside from this standard level of stupidity, though, they're not too bad. They can pump out their own blood and then reshape it into a disguise cocoon that makes them look like anything not TOO dissimilar from their normal form. A reasonably interesting idea instead of just THEY CAMOUFLAGE LIKE THE PREDATOR or THEY SHIFT THEIR SHAPES.
Challengers
quote:
The space shuttle Challenger exploded seconds after launch in February 2, 1986. The ship’s crew were killed instantly; the United States space program was sidelined for months and the Psi- Watch experimental package that was an unlisted part of the cargo was torn apart by a high altitude jet stream, raining down over the Eastern Seaboard. Four months later, the first generation of Challengers were born.
Over the next three years, a handful of children born in the American South and East Coast were born Challenger, until the chemicals finally dissipated beyond detectable levels in 1995. Challengers are the metahuman children of the 21st century. Enhanced by a Cold War era chemical disaster that never made the history books, they grew up watching the Gulf War on TV, and became adults in the shadow of 9-11.
These guys aren't too weird, basically their Thing is that they can always spot other psionics and get an initiative bonus against them. They have no weird physical deformities or stupid societal bullshit going on.
Cityborn
Produced by being in crowded places with lots of pollution. Bleed oil or concrete or some such weird shit if wounded. Boring.
THE CULTURE
Oh boy oh boy oh boy guys this is it. Time to see what these guys are, I bet they're some cool fucked up alien race or some-
FIIIIIIIIIELDS YOU FUCK. Let's get this over with.
So basically, as we already know, their SUPERIOR CULTURE has conquered two galaxies already(Andromeda and M33) and "no native force can stand against them." Yet somehow they're doing some sort of slow assimilation bullshit with humanity instead of just steamrolling us. Why they're doing this when they by definition think all other races are inferior barbarians that should just be burned is a mystery.
quote:
Some of the most influential and reclusive figures in human history have ties to the Culture. Their agents have founded and disproved religions, steered the conquest of nations and forced the development of human technology.
No comment.
Appearance posted:
The Culture are attractive, lean and almost completely human in appearance. The arrogant aliens claim that the current human phenotype is the result of controlled breeding experiments and large scale genetic uplifts occurring during the early Paleolithic period. The women and men of the Culture are dark skinned, with dark hair and amber or caramel eyes.
So basically the excuse for them all being SEXY ALIEN BABES who look human enough to give us boners is that actually they shaped US to look like THEM, in the past? I would almost congratulate Fields on coming up with a vaguely good explanation for this shitty sci-fi phenomenon. Except it makes even less sense then, I can see why NOW they might prefer negotiation to accidentally having part of their fleet nuked apart by human superweapons or having a bit of a fight with human superheroes, but back when we were cavemen they could've just set us all to the torch and colonized the fucking planet.
They do get one cool thing which is basically HAUGHTY IMPERIALISTS, THE RACIAL ABILITY. When fighting anything human or humanoid from a civilization with a lower tech level than theirs, they gain a combat bonus equal to the difference in tech levels(expressed numerically as PL8, PL7, etc.).
Gravediggers
quote:
Project Gravedigger began in the late sixties, using the remains of American soldiers killed in Vietnam and Cambodia as ‘test-beds’ for cybernetics experimentation and surgical re-animation trials. Within a few months, government medics were able to successfully “reactivate” a human corpse, replacing damaged and decayed tissue with cybernetic analogues, producing a humanoid fighting machine for a fraction of the cost of producing a combat android and writing a working AI source code.
I will be genuinely surprised if we see no mention of Nazi cyborgs before the end of this book. These guys are cyborg zombies, that's it, zomborgs. For some reason the FBI uses executed prisoners as their private Gravedigger army, which means it's probably a good thing that Gravediggers lose essentially all their memories upon revival.
Mutants
They're mutants, that is their thing, they look weird and they are discriminated against. "They make excellent powered heroes," which is then followed by them gaining additional drawbacks when being "powered heroes," but they can totally use those drawbacks to buy more powers! Considering that the drawbacks are apparently randomly determined detrimental mutations, this is a weird definition of "excellent."
As part of the mutant write-up we're also told of the WHITE WAVE.
quote:
Beginning as the psionic alteration of a remote alternate Earth, the mysterious “White Wave” now spirals randomly through the multiverse, permanently changing any Mutant it comes across. The White Wave manifests as a blindingly bright cosmic energy storm, often parsecs in diameter. This brilliant discharge can appear without warning virtually anywhere in the cosmos, wreaking genetic havoc for a few minutes before rapidly fading.
Culture records indicate the post-human empire encountered the White Wave at least once before, more than 50,000 years ago, suffering causalities in the millions and losing dozens of colony worlds. In 1974, the White Wave appeared in Earth-space, wreaking havoc on the burgeoning Mutant populace. Due to the random and patternless nature of the event, another White Event could occur at any time.
Isn't this another Marvel ripoff? Basically what it does is it deletes all of a character's mutations, good AND bad, and turns them either psionic or pure human. Boom, pow, fail your save, get fucked.
Neons
Neons appear to be giant golden space-dinosaurs. No, really.
They come from the Large Magellanic Cloud at the center of the galaxy, mostly never bother with planets and largely just chill on asteroids and stuff. The Culture has apparently passed them over for conquest largely on grounds that they'd be really annoying to conquer, what with not being largely limited to a few, big planetary targets.
Their blurb also describe some of them as "hiding" on Earth. As they are ten-foot-tall "at the shoulder," "weigh almost as much as a fully-loaded Humvee" and "A Neon’s body is wreathed in a corona of plasma vapor, which glows as brightly as a halogen flood and can badly burn anyone touching the alien carelessly." I can only assume that they either "hide" at some very spectacular raves or that COMPLETE AND UTTER BLINDNESS is a common human mutation.
The Patriot Program
Well, at least he looks happy with himself
Patriots are the result of the US' "let's make our own mutants"-program. And they come in four varieties: Ivories, Boxers, Anvils and Mechanics.
Anvils are HUGE HUGE HUGE I AM STONY AND TOUGH and Fields informs us that most mothers giving birth to Anvils(which happens because sooooomeooooooone blew up the chemical dump full of ANVIL-GRO(tm) which then got in everyone's hair) die during it on account of it being like shoving out a huge, angry rock with arms and legs.
It honestly took me a moment to spot his extra arms
Boxers have two extra arms. They also have 0% body fat which sounds PRETTY UNHEALTHY for anything with an even vaguely mammalian physiology. Oh and lady Boxers have two extra tits, "others have a row of nursing teats running the length of their body." Jesus Christ.
Ivories are kind of interesting, they're armoured albinos, but their skin only becomes armoured when their body is full of adrenaline. Hence, if they're ambushed or otherwise surprised before they can "armour up," they can be gunned down as easily as normal humans.
Mechanics are just humans who're SUPER GOOD WITH TECH and apparently India and Pakistan are mass-producing them. No weird shit.
Switchblades are asshole Patriots made by the Puzzle Ops guys. They stop growing at around age 10, and are "addicted to watching others die."
quote:
They usually adopt a childlike persona, which they can drop with shocking suddenness. Others dress in an intentionally disturbing Lolita style
And then... on the next page there's... what looks like a definitely underage girl, Poser art, wearing something black and skin-tight and oh Jesus Christ I am NOT uploading this, because I'm pretty sure I'd end up on a watchlist if I did.
Shiftsteel Symbionts
MOVING ON.
Their art is borderline NSFW, so it gets a link.
So in 1942 a Culture warship crashes into Lake Michigan. After carefully investigating the wreck, the US government pries a bunch of pieces off of it and jams them into a bunch of astronauts and war veterans, which gives them superpowers.
quote:
During the early 1960s, a short lived and highly controversial US government project dumped trace amounts of liquid state Shiftsteel into the water supply of black and minority communities throughout the Southern USA.
On the one hand I can see the point that "HUR HUR THEY AIN'T PEOPLE, SO TEST IT ON THEM," but if the result of a success, which they already know is possible, is "psionic gifts" and "enhanced intellect and reflexes," why would they want a bunch of disgruntled minorities armed with that? This is stupid! This is SO STUPID!
Appearance-wise they look like humans with fancy armor and it looks shiny, except when they get sad, then it turns dull and cracked-looking.
There is a good suggestion here, though, this being that the "shiftsteel" components jammed into people are trying to replicate/rebuild/repair the components of the starship they were originally taken from, hence giving each Symbiont powers related to that. For instance the engines and navigational arrays usually provide short-range teleportation or flight abilities.
Their disadvantage is SYMBIONT AUTISM. Whenever they roll a natural 1 they stand around, staring blankly into the air as they enter an AUTISTIC TRANCE.
Spetsnazki
Essentially they're Soviet versions of the Patriots, except there's only one variant of them. The Soviets had stopped making them for a while, after the Cold War ended, but then Putin started up production again because I guess he looks like a BAD GUY to Fields.
COMRADE HAVE YOU SEEN THE ARTIST RESPONSIBLE FOR ME? I BELIEVE HE NEEDS TO BE SENT TO GULAG
Steamers
So basically MUTANT POLLUTION makes some people EXPLODE INTO SENTIENT SMOKE. Most of them just get swept away by the wind and resultingly die, but others get jammed into STEAMER SUITS so they can sort-of continue existing as dumb-looking robots.
That's pretty much it. There's no interesting fluff about them, they have no weird places in society, they don't have mist tits. Their art isn't even spectacularly bad. SO FUCK IT. POST OVER. We're clear of the races!
Page 86 of 308
Classes
Original SA post Psi-Watch!Well, that was surprisingly fast. We covered the fluff and races in only 86 pages, hmmm, let's have a look at the index and see what the remaining 200-odd pages cover...
Looks like a three-way split between Classes/Occupations, Feats and Gear, in that order. Barring hitting anything SPECTACULARLY bad, I think this is largely going to be me skimming and pointing out particularly miserable/stupid things. Considering Fursona, some of this is probably completely unbalanced, but no one is reading these Fields reviews because they want to see what Fields does to numbers. The "interesting" part here is what odd angles he'll try to jam his misshapen penis into the text.
All these classes and occupations are inspired by 90's comics!
Deep Sleeper
The first one we hit, Deep Sleeper, is actually one that's kind of cool. During the Cold War, the NATO nations enhanced and cryo-froze a bunch of soldiers which they then buried in deep vaults. The thought was that if it really came to nuclear war and most of their conventional forces were annihilated by an atomic firestorm, they could defrost these guys and have a ready-made army, prepped to leap out and kick ass.
Hell, there's an entire fucking setting in there, if you wanted to expand on it. Fields gets a tentative thumbs-up for this one.
Those spiky plates just make me think of Bowser...
Then there are a couple of forgettable classes which are basically YOU DON'T LIKE PSI-WATCH and YOU DON'T LIKE YOUR PARENTS. Being a Lifer from Otherverse:America is a class choice and I guess if you liked the Lifers, but hated the excess of cybernetic dong mods in O:A, you could use this to transfer one over. You can be a GANG DUDE, etc. etc. a lot of these aren't bad, they're just not noteworthy in any way.
Ron's mutant superpowers are balanced by his inability to figure out how shoes work
Of course, just as soon as I say that, I glance one page over and see..
Narcissican Clone
Thank you, Fields, I was briefly in a forgiving mood posted:
Illegal ‘kitten factories’ around the world produce an assortment of sentient and semi-sentient sexual playthings for the hyper-wealthy and decadent. The laboratories of Mung Thoy Than and the Republic of Cebary can custom-build slaves to order… if you have upwards of 10 million dollars to spend!
One of the most popular breed of sexual gene-toys is the Narcissican clone, a
force-grown duplicate of the client educated through VR memory implantation. Sometimes these clones are genderreversed, some times they are not, depending on the whims of their client.
Narcissican clones emerge from their growth-tanks with both the memories of their owners, and the knowledge they are the genetically programmed slaves of the man or woman whose genes they share. Even if they somehow manage to buy or win their freedom, most Narcissican clones find the conditioning and memories of their slave years difficult to fully lay aside.
"Prerequisite: CHA 13+, age 12+" Jesus Christ.
Time-Crosser
Another couple non-noteworthy starting points, and then there's "Time-Crosser," basically you come from a future where the Huxley Emergence and the Blooded Ghosts have gone FULL VILLAIN and stomped everything into ash. While they were cackling, you skipped back in time to try and stop them and create a timeline where this does not happen. Of course you also have "partial amnesia" so you can't actually change the past and all you know is a couple of "loose facts" about the future.
Wait a fucking moment, this exact piece of art was in Mutant Future, but without the shitty red colouring!
The Culture gets their own starting stuff, but they're even more generic, as each of them is literally just a starting job. The only thing to note is that all Sword Cult members are apparently trained in the use of katanas.
Blooded-Ghosts and Neons don't get any starting concepts, I guess they're all just either assholes or dinosaurs and that's enough for them.
What's wrong with your neck lady
Class-wise we get Powered Heroes just like Otherverse:America, including the Honey Trap, which now has art of a prostitute to remind players of how "awesome" this ability choice is. Of something to note, for anyone who wishes to break the game, though, is the "Microbe" power tree, which lets you shrink to microscopic size at its greatest limit, giving you a staggering +84 to defense/attack and letting you slip through anything that isn't airtight. Now, this might not sound that great, but this power has no limits on when, where and how you can return to normal size.
Yeah, you can slip into people's lungs and explode out of them. Even more hilarious is the extra power in that tree which lets you retain your normal strength bonus even when tiny, so you can punch someone apart from the inside. A bacteria-sized speck of matter with all the punching power of a grown man.
There is also an excess of shitty Poser art here, but I'm only going to share one of the pieces since I've scattered enough about of it in earlier posts. This one takes the fucking cake, though, then buys another cake and steals that as well.
Not limiting myself on sharing the horrible non-Poser art, though, it's pretty much all this bad or worse
This one belongs to the Combat Teleporter class, they basically... teleport around on the battlefield doing teleporty stuff. Though, hilariously enough, the things mentioned that they can do in the class fluff isn't actually stuff they can always DO(they MAY be able to do some of it, but only in very limited circumstances and definitely not to the extent that the fluff suggests). Not a bad class, though, some interesting abilities, even if all it really amounts to is "you dodge good and hit hard."
Congratulations, unsigned artist! You've managed to draw legs and feet WORSE THAN LIEFELD
That belongs to the Combat Type, another character class whose concept is entirely YOU HIT STRONG GOOD. If anything is getting obvious it is that Fields has kind of a boner for making melee combat viable in sci-fi/future settings. He pulled the same thing in O:A with the Vindicator medic class who got all HOLY NANOSWORDZ on his enemies alongside his VAMPIRE MEDIC thing.
Then there are the Culture's FINAL SWORD ladies who get their own Advanced Class. This one merits a slightly closer look than the others.
WARRIOR LAYDEEZ posted:
With her focus on an intellectual, cultured fighting style, the Final Sword is an unusual fighter, and is probably more well rounded than many other martial artists. She knows art, culture and world history, and can be as capable a diplomat as she is a fighter.
IF SHE'S A CAPABLE DIPLOMAT. IF SHE KNOWS ART. THEN WHY DOES SHE DRESS AS SOMETHING THAT WOULD CAUSE A RAGING MOB TO TRY AND PUT HER TO THE TORCH, AND WHICH ALSO MAKES HER LOOK LIKE A HIDEOUS NINJA CLOWN?
Her abilities also have stupid fucking names. One of them is, I shit you not, "Homicide Ballet."
Firearms from the Liefeld Armory! Just glue a bunch of rods and barrels together and add a trigger!
I mean, really, the classes these are associated to are all just YOU GUN GOOD or whatever. They're boring, but the art is leaving me in fucking stitches. IF YOU PAID FOR THIS BOOK, YOU PAID FOR THIS ART.
This also includes the completely broken Incinerator class. I mean, the others get some GOOD CHOPPY or GOOD SHOOTY abilities at 10th level, the Incinerator gets to become a living, multiple-use nuclear bomb. As far as I can tell there's little stopping you from combining this with the Microbe abilities from earlier and being an aggressive bacteria that explodes inside people.
It's also suggested that a lot of them are, obviously, used as "suicide" bombers by completely crazy groups. And hence Fields adds that they can totally be used for child characters!
Remember how MIND REAPERS were mentioned like 80 pages ago? Me neither, but here they are. Their thing is that they are GOOD WITH BRAINS and have BRAIN POWER SWORDS.
Then we reach the NANO SCULPTORS and I promptly run out of snarky comments to make about how fucking horrendous this art is. Just look at this shit! FUCKING LOOK AT IT! Their thing is I guess that they can grow swords and guns and shit. Yawn.
Before you know it, though, we're out of the woods, running past the Ultra Mind and their FUCK WITH HEADS bullshit and out unto the Plain of Feats. I'm going to save that for the next post, though.
151 pages down!
The Home Stretch
Original SA post Psi-WatchThe Home Stretch
Alright, all that's left now is really miscellanea. If it was any other author, any other game, I'd completely skip this and just tell you: "THERE'S SOME GUNS AND SHIT YO." But since it's Psi-Watch I'm going to skim it anyway. This is mostly going to be more of a Bad Art Of Psi-Watch post, but if we come across any creepy Fieldsian Feats or gear, I'll be sure to quote those. Same for anything so broken that I don't even have to juggle numbers to point it out.
Something tells me there'll be at least one.
The art ranges from the mildly anatomically inept to the COMPLETELY anatomically inept, as epitomized by Archerguy Tinyfoot. I don't even know what the fuck is up with the archer dude, anyway, this entire chapter is full of stuff like AK-47 EXPERT and CRESCENT MOON KICK and EMERGENCY SURGEON, and other tacticool junk. And then suddenly we get this dude with this fucking bow and his TINY LITTLE HEAD who's for some reason wearing an improvised loincloth despite having pants on.
This is the bit with MILITARY/ESPIONAGE feats, by the way, and includes the YOU ARE A RAPIST/SERIAL MURDERER feat from O:A. The only greasy "new" feat so far is "Racial Exotica," which makes you a SMOKIN' HOT ALIEN because of ALIEN MUTATIONS or ALIEN GENES. Though the suggestions for how these could look is "you're made of glass" or "you have steel skin." But apparently all humans dig the mental image of glass shards embedded in their dong or industrial machinery threshing their genitals.
Some of the art is alright(2nt), some of it suffers from monumentally bad ideas(1st) and some of it is a 50-50 mix of good art and bad(3rd, what the hell is up with that lady? I mean, besides the proportions and the fact that she's basically naked in a gunfight yet has mysteriously titanic shin guards...).
The racial feats actually have some interesting/cool abilities, noteworthily for the Blooded Ghosts. For instance, remember how they could cover themselves in blood to pretend to be people? If they eat someone, they can pretend to be that person, and mimic them right down to any superpowers they might have. Considering that it's "only" a couple of pounds of matter that needs eating, technically some character with regeneration abilities could let a friendly Blooded Ghost have a bite and share his powers that way.
Challengers had the ability to spot psionically capable people, and now they can get a feat letting them "flare" those psionics' auras, making them brightly visible to everyone around them. All without revealing themselves.
Cityborn become a LOT more attuned to the city and gain this ability which just sounds fucking awesome.
minor props, Fields, minor props posted:
You can raise permanent walls and make minor changes to the layout of buildings, which though created by psionics, look like ordinary construction. By spending an action point, you gain the ability to make minor and permanent changes to the urban landscape for a number of rounds equal to your INT modifier (minimum one round). You may make one change per round, as a standard action for the duration of this effect.
Either for a game set largely in one major city or as an ability for an opponent to have during a chase of some sort, this could be pretty awesome. Generally these feats turn the Cityborn from GENERIC CITY-THEMED GUYS into URBAN DRUIDS in a cool way.
Gravediggers get a feat which means they retain some of their pre-zombie memories, thus making the FBI's super-zombie army made of executed criminals an EVEN DUMBER idea.
I'm also sparing you guys a bunch of bland art of dudes punching robot bees and generic furry wank-material. Though I'm not sparing you the furry wank-feats.
Animalistic Mutations posted:
Benefit: You may choose one of the following minor mutations, which is considered an extraordinary ability for you.
...
Pheromones: Changes the character’s general appearance and genital structure. Receives a +6 bonus on sexually based Diplomacy checks.
Psionics get to induce undefendable-against ministrokes that can at worst be slightly ameliorated with Will saves. You can do this once per round and nothing says you need to wave your hands around to do it or that the target knows you're the person doing it. You can also choose what skill to target or languages you know they can read/speak/write. So you can basically completely delete someone's ability to communicate verbally in a couple of rounds, or maybe restrict him to a few languages that no one around him can speak.
Or you can delete someone's ability to drive a car while he's driving past you in traffic and watch him slam into a bus(since you can wipe away 5d6 ranks of skill at first level without even min/maxing... yeah, goodbye skills).
While the potential for shenanigans here is ALMOST huge enough to make me give Fields some props, the completely broken nature of it is just a bit too much.
Then there's the equipment chapter, and really the only interesting thing there is that Fields tries to name a bunch of guns and stuff after mythological creatures and items and he completely fucks up spelling them every time.
Though we do get the rare piece of Fields-Game art that I kind of LIKE. I'm not sure what it is about this suit of powered armor, but it looks pretty rad to me.
And you know what? Fuck it. That's it for Psi-Watch. Thanks for watching.