This table was inspired by the Metamorphica Revised, an awesome book with a 1d1000 table of mutations! I like to personalize my mutants, so here what I did was randomly select three mutations, and create a mutant from those three. Technically this is not anything you couldn't do yourself if you owned the book, but I tried to think about interesting ways to combine the mutations such that my mutants are more than the sum of their parts, and hopefully you'll get a kick out of them.
This is in no way meant to undercut the book, but to show what an awesome and powerful tool it is. In fact, if at least 20 people say they were encouraged to buy the book from this post, I'll make 20 more! Admittedly, I may just end up doing it anyway eventually, since it's a lot of fun!
The book has detailed descriptions of each mutation and subsets them by categories, but I chose to just pick at random from the full 1d1000 table, and to draw my own interpretations of their meanings. Likewise, in certain cases I bend, extend, or add to the interpretation of the mutations, for the sake of cohesion or because it struck my fancy. This exercise wasn't about "staying within the lines", but about using the metamorphica as a kickstarter for my own imagination. I try to be vague about any non-pertinent details so that it can be used flexibly. Many of these entities could be interpreted as one-of-a-kind fantastical beings, or as a template for an entire tribe or species. Many could vary in intelligence from bestial to god-like, or vary in shape from inexplicable to bestial to humanoid.
I also think this could be a good reference for the kinds of mutants one might encounter in Phantasmos, as mutants are the most populous "species" in the setting.
| Mutations | Numbers (d1000) | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Material transparency; Increased Empathy; Decreased Empathy | 869, 553, 516 | Transparent, bioluminescent skin with two polarities, red and blue. In blue-state, is loving and empathetic. In red-state, is aggressive and selfish. |
| Physical Coward; Large Ears; Internal Portal | 472, 83, 851 | Has elephantine ears, from which it can withdraw or deposit objects from a pocket-dimension. It can "hear" the muscle contractions of approaching lifeforms, which evokes a reflexive flight response. |
| Sexually Attractive; Aura of Disgust; Tusks | 136, 724, 183 | A succubus/incubus-like, tusked being. It is both alluring and revolting, which may manifest in its physical appearance or in a more subtle, existential manner. Maybe you're into it, and that's ok... |
| Demonic Phenomena; Control Clocks; Aura of Disgust | 778, 752, 724 | Reflects the time of death of any who observe it (and in some cases, can change it). Rather than inducing fear, most individuals instinctively externalize their feelings into hate and disgust towards the being. |
| Largesse; Drone Producer; Roots and Vines | 449, 425, 344 | A large, tree-like being. Produces animate fruit of various shapes, sizes, and properties, which do its bidding. |
| Precognition; Suckers; Decreased Awareness | 664, 374, 513 | An octopoid being with no sensory organs, except for the psychedelic swirls on its suckers which can sense the future through a complex space-frequency transform and predictive modeling. |
| Extra Fingers/Toes; Linguistic Mimic; Tail | 45, 567, 169 | A bird-like being with a long tail, at the end of which is a mouth surrounded by fingers. Manipulation of the mouth and fingers allows for perfect linguistic mimicry. |
| Editorial Evaluation; Re-Arranged Face; Toxin Resistance | 534, 126, 384 | Its face re-arranges to either literally or abstractly reflect whoever it is facing, allowing it to think as they do (more so sympathy than empathy per se). Any toxins, physical or metaphysical, can be spit out of its re-arranging face. |
| Wings; Microscopic Vision; No Pain Receptors | 199, 304, 308 | Wing-like appendages over its eyes sheer trace quantities of atoms in the environment into sub-atomic particles which it can "see" by touch. This would be a painful process, if it could feel pain... |
| Attention Deficit Disorder; Tumours; Light Generation | 505, 182, 296 | Covered in light-generating nuclear fusion tumors. It is bursting with so much energy that it struggles to focus on any one task (technically ADHD but still). |
| Fortune Teller; Long Legs; Math Brain | 819, 92, 569 | Its brain is actually a hyperplane which can do statistical prediction or multi-dimensional scaling of reality. In order to gather as much data from its environment as possible, it stands on tall legs to survey a wider area. |
| Diffused Organs; Energy Blast; X-Ray Vision | 35, 797, 998 | A large but biologically simple eukaryote. Most of its biological systems are generalized, redundant, or replaceable. Has fine-grain control of x-ray radiation which it can use both for visualization and energy projection. |
| Superhuman Strength; Romantic Rapport; Sense Interference | 948, 583, 585 | Has the proportional strengh of a spider, a precognitive sense towards danger, and is surprisingly charming- in a dorky way. |
| Force Field; Hallucinatory Possessions; Telescopic Vision | 817, 825, 376 | Primarily exists on a hyperplane. By pulling at the vertices of lower dimensions, can manipulate space like a force field, or project higher-dimensional objects into lower-dimensional space. Is able to observe at high-fidelity anything in lower-dimensional space within its range of vision. |
| Powerful Jaws; Tremor Sense; Create Darkness | 327, 386, 767 | Has a large jaw which utilizes compound mechanics across multiple gears, giving it dynamic range. Can produce vibrations in its jaw which ping the ground like echolocation to sense tremors. Can produce vibrations at the speed of light, in opposite phase of light, creating darkness. |
| Painkiller; Aura Reading; Parasite Infestation | 891, 605, 313 | Covered and filled with gross, worm-like extra-dimensional parasites which sense and feed off the magical or metaphysical auras of those around them, including the host. This allows them to absorb physical and emotional pain. If not for how quickly they run through their host, they'd actually be more of a symbiote. |
| Addicted; Slow Healer; Enhanced Senses | 401, 358, 541 | Body produces soma, a hyper-addictive drug which induces synesthesia and hallucinations which enhance the senses (and provide plenty of new ones). The being is unfortunately addicted to its own bodily excretions, to the point that much of its energy is focused on the production of soma, at the expense of physical repair. |
| Weather Sense; Short Legs; Anthopomorphic Animal | 600, 137, 9 | An anthropomorphic groundhog, close to the ground, with a hyper-acute sense of environmental phenomena. |
| Increased Physical Strength; Fortune Teller; Loose Skin | 285, 819, 96 | A large, strong being with loose skin (its foldy flaps). By pinching and pulling on the foldy flaps, reading them like palmreading or phrenology, can draw inferences not just about its own fortune, but of others touching the foldy flaps. |
| Superhuman Speed; Herbivore; Earthquake Prediction | 947, 439, 533 | A plant-strangling, vine or weed-like creature, burrowed deep in the ground. Unlike most plants, it is not only highly animate, but in fact faster than most animals- faster than their perception, even. Being so deep in the ground, it's developed a knack for sensing earthquakes. |
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