Bio-Tech: Morphological Changes

Morphological Changes

No terrestrial vertebrate strays from the fundamental skeletal pattern of a cranium, four limbs, and a tail. In some animals, certain of these features are enhanced and others are atrophied – sometimes to invisibility. For example, dolphins replace their legs with flippers and a huge tail, snakes have no limbs, while humans have only a vestigial tail bone, but differentiate their limbs into arms and legs. Nevertheless, the basic pattern remains.

Genetic engineering can alter humans within these limits between TL9 and TL10, changing the function of limbs (or deleting them), adding a tail or altering body posture. However, deviating from vertebrate morphology to give humans more than four functional limbs, or other exotic changes, requires TL11+.

Modified Limbs

First time I saw the new foreman, I was a little skeptical: a work shack's cramped enough without two extra elbows. That lasted until I saw what Lyra could do in zero-G – we got the new solar panels up in record time. A few days later, Lyra invited me to her apartment, in the station hub where it's always weightless. That night, she showed me another reason to appreciate four hands.

– Copernicus Jones, Posthumans I've Known

Digitigrade Posture:

A human's legs can be redesigned to resemble a quadruped's hind legs. Someone with this modification walks on his toes and the ball of his foot, or a hoof. This is usually a cosmetic modification, for custom-designed satyrs or other beast-people. While less practical for bipeds than for quadrupeds, careful modification of joints can make this posture just as comfortable. This is a feature. 0 points.

Prehensile Toes:

These are toes that have been lengthened to serve as fingers and equipped with opposable thumbs. While a person with prehensile toes is using his feet as arms, he can't walk or run; he can still sit, float (in space or liquid) or fly, of course. This ability consists of Extra Arms (Two arms; Foot Manipulators, -30%; Short, -50%) [4]. 4 points.

Legs to Flippers:

Altering hands to provide webbed fingers and feet into seal or frog-like flippers grants the No Legs (Semi-Aquatic) trait and can also justify buying a half-level of Enhanced Move (Water). A true "mer-human" human may undergo radical gengineering so that the embryo never forms legs, instead developing a dolphin-like lower body and tail, and probably webbed fingers. This gives the No Legs (Aquatic) trait and can justify either Enhanced Move (Water) 1/2 or 1.

Legs to Arms:

Only popular in microgravity, this is a radical change suitable for gene-engineered spacers. It replaces both legs with a second pair of arms. This is Extra Arms (Foot Manipulators, -30%) [14] plus Crippled Legs (Accessibility, Not in zero-G, -10%) [-9]. Basic Move must be reduced by half as described in the Crippled Legs disadvantage; this will give extra points back. 5 points.

Extra Arms:

Adding one, two, or four extra functional arms (attached between the shoulders and the hips) is much harder than simply transforming legs into arms. Not only are extensive skeletal and muscular modifications required, but blood flow will need to be increased to handle these busy additions, which means a larger heart and more efficient lungs. The nervous system must also be reworked and the brain modified in order to control them. These modifications give two or four Extra Arms.

Modified Limbs

Trait	Cost	TL
Digitigrade Posture	0	9*
Enhanced Move (Water)	20/level	10†
Extra Arms (4 arms)	20	11
Extra Arms (6 arms)	40	12
Legs to Arms	5	9*
No Legs (Aquatic)	0/-5/-10	9*
No Legs (Semi-Aquatic)	0	9*
Prehensile Toes	4	9*
Striker	5-8	11

*Species modification.
†Enhanced Move (Water) requires either No Legs (Aquatic) (maximum 1 level) or No Legs (Semi-Aquatic) (maximum 1/2 level).

Gengineered Tails

Humans have a vestigial tailbone; species modification gengineering could use genes from other mammals to give humans a tail. This might be done for cosmetic reasons, or the tail may be usable as a weapon or a functional extra arm.

Ordinary Tail (TL9):

A normal animal tail, with various styles available (cat, wolf, pony, rabbit, rat, etc). Clothing should be designed with tail flaps! 0 points.

Prehensile Tail (TL10):

A tail capable of grasping, like a monkey's. This requires modifications to the brain and nervous system as well. It may be a popular biomod feature for spacers, where an additional grasping limb is always useful. This is an Extra Arm 1 (Extra-Flexible +50%; No Physical Attack -50%) [10]. 10 points.

Prehensile Trunk (TL11):

An elephant-like trunk on the face. Otherwise identical to Prehensile Tail. 10 points.

Scorpion Tail (TL12):

A segmented tail with a barbed, poisoned tip. Treat as a Large Piercing Striker (Cannot Parry, -40%; Clumsy, -3 to hit, -60%; Long, +100%) [6] plus Toxic Attack 2d (Cyclic, 1 hour; 5 cycles, resistible, +40%; Follow-Up, Striker, +0; Resistible, HT-3, -15%) [10]. 16 points.

Gengineered Tails

Trait	Cost	TL
Ordinary Tail	0	9*
Prehensile Tail	10	10*
Prehensile Trunk	11	11*
Scorpion Tail	16	12*

*All traits on the Gengineered Tails table are species modifications.

Winged Humans

We can synthesize the DNA for feathered or bat-like wings, but you can't just splice wings into a normal genotype and expect it to fly. Thanks to the square-cube law, a set big enough to lift even a child isn't practical. Sure, you can expand the wingspan, but then you end up with wings 50 or 60 feet across. Aside from the inconvenience, you'll run into problems of structural strength and finding the muscles needed to flap them.

As a result, winged bioroids typically have wingspans of about twice their height. While this can be a visually attractive feature, they have no chance on Earth of flying. I use that cliche deliberately: if you can find an extra-terrestrial environment with a lower gravity but normal or higher atmospheric pressure, then you're in luck. Planets like that are rare, but there are artificial habitats. Our Camazotz-series bioroids were grown for the domes on Luna City and Titan, and the big orbitals; in under one-sixth G, they really can fly. I imagine if we ever make a Dyson sphere, they'd be perfect.

– Dr. Sayyid Iqbal, Biotech Euphrates

A flying or gliding human will always have Flight with the Winged and Requires Low Gravity limitation. To work out the maximum gravity, in multiples of Earth gravity (G) that the race can fly in, find the average ST of the racial template (e.g., ST 10 for humans, or ST 13 for an upgrade with racial ST+3) and the Basic Lift for that ST. Then determine the average racial body weight as follows: cube the racial ST, multiply by 0.15 lbs., and modify for any build disadvantages included in the template – thus; Skinny is a useful trait for flying humans! Then divide that BL by racial body weight to find maximum gravity in G. This is for flyers; multiply gravity by 1.5 if the race's Flight is limited to Controlled Gliding or by 2 if limited to Gliding.

Example: A variant race of flying humans has racial ST -1 for an average racial ST 9, which also gives a racial average BL 16 lbs. The body weight averages (9 cubed) × 0.15 = 109 lbs.; however, the race is designed to be Skinny, so this is multiplied by 2/3, giving 73 lbs. (16 / 73) = 0.22 G (rounded to 0.2G); they could fly in a domed city on the Moon (0.17 G) but not Earth (1 G) or Mars (0.38 G). Therefore the race must take Flight (Requires Low Gravity, 0.2 G, -40%; Winged -25%) [14].

The limitation assumes a standard-pressure atmosphere (1 atm). In other environments, multiply the gravity the flyer can operate by the atmospheric pressure. Thus, someone who can only fly in up to 0.2 G gravity could fly in 0.3 G gravity if the atmosphere was 1.5 atm., but would be limited to 0.1 G gravity if it was 0.5 atm.

In addition to the difficulties of gravity, there are other problems: the wings themselves. There are two typical approaches to creating wings:

Arms to Wings

Both arms are modified to become a pair of wings. This gives Flight limited as described above, plus some additional limitations or disadvantages.

If the flyer's wings can still be used as arms when not flying, this is a further limitation on the cost of Flight; treat as Temporary Disadvantage (No Fine Manipulators, -30%).

If the wings are usable only to fly with, then they give the disadvantage No Fine Manipulators [-30], unless the race has feet or other body parts that can serve as arms.

For a sub-race that has two pairs of arms (see Modified Limbs), one pair of which can function as arms when not flying, these Extra Arms should have the limitation Temporary Disadvantage (Removes Flight), its value depending on the Flight's cost (after the limitations suggested above).

Angelic Wings

This is the classical fantasy of wings sprouting from the shoulder blades. It's very hard to gengineer, for the same reasons as adding an extra set of arms – in addition to the problems of arm-to-wing conversion, it requires redesigning the skeleton and adding new muscles and a modified nervous system. Take Flight with the Winged and Requires Low Gravity modifiers discussed above, and, optionally, either Controlled Gliding or Gliding if the wings are not capable of full powered flight.

Gengineered Wings

Trait	Cost	TL
Arms to Wings	Variable	10*
Angelic Wings	Variable	11*

*All traits on the Gengineered Wings table require species modification.

Devolutionary Modifications

Some morphological modifications take a backward step down the evolutionary path, causing humans to revert to more bestial forms. These are most likely intended for the creation of toys or slave races, although a very advanced civilization might enjoy creating blank-minded clone bodies this way, then "uploading" their minds into them as a new experience.

Chimerization or gene splicing could create humans with a sphinx-like morphology: a human head atop a quadruped animal body (e.g., a leopard or pony), with hands and feet replaced with walking paws or hooves – the Quadruped meta-trait. This can also justify Enhanced Move 1/2 or 1 (Ground) and Hooves.

A trickier morphological upgrade would alter chromosomes to blend a human upper body with a bestial lower body. This might require chimerization techniques in conjunction with genetic engineering, and is usually designed to allow faster ground speeds. A centauroid has Extra Legs (Four Legs) [5].

A human head on a snake-like body (such as the "lamia" that Tika Dawnstar created may be possible through radical manipulation of homobox genes. This gives the vermiform meta-trait. A snake-like lower body combined with a humanoid upper body is extremely difficult to genegineer, but more practical than a naga-like Vermiform; take No Legs (Slithering). Either justifies taking [Constriction Attack]] and Double-Jointed as well. All of the above modifications are mutually incompatible.

Devolutionary Modifications

Trait	Cost	TL
Constriction Attack	15	11‡
Double-Jointed	15	11‡
Enhanced Move	20/level	10‡
Extra Legs (Four Legs)	5	11†
No Legs (Slithering)	0	10*
Quadruped	-35	10*
Semi-Upright	-5	9*
Vermiform	-35	10†

* Species modification.
† Radical species modification.
‡ Enhanced Move (Ground) must be justified by taking Semi-Upright (maximum 1/2 level) or Extra Legs or Quadruped (maximum 1 level) as well. Double-Jointed and Constriction Attack may be taken if No Legs (Slithering) or Vermiform is also taken.