From: ccoprdj@prism.gatech.EDU (Jorge Diaz)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.dnd
Subject: Re: stats for Aliens
Date: 9 Oct 92 21:25:30 GMT
Organization: Georgia Institute of Technology

In article <1992Oct9.184204.11389@ugle.unit.no*> skomedal@solan.unit.no (Knut Torstein Skomedal) writes:

Well, you're certainly entitled to run your Aliens your way.  However,
if you are going to try and keep this similar to what we saw in
the movies, you need to re-do a LOT of this stuff.

I know. this is a completely personal version of Aliens. I'm not wery interested
in spending a week "defending" these stats from criticism, but I'll try to answer
your questions.


*>Each tribe is telepathically controlled by a Queen.

*Where* did you get this from????  I can see improvising things that
we saw in the movie that were never explained (like the organ for
squirting acid used by the facehuggers), but this is something that
you invented.

Not quite, it was invented in the comic "Alien: Genocide" by Dark Horce Comics.
 Of course it is still *my* interpretation if those pages.

*>Should you discover a 2' tall
*>leathery egg in a strange old dungeon, destroy it at once from a
*>distance. It might contain a facehugger. If it does, it will open at
*>the top and a Facehugger spring forth if you make noticeable
*>vibrations or radiate heat within a 5' radius of it.\\

Again, where does this come from?
The first movie has Kane touching an egg. I.E. Vibrations.
The second movie has Newt trapped close by an egg. No vibrations, but body heat.
The rest is my invention.

*>The Facehugger will keep the victim comatose until
*>the chestburster is selfsustaining, which takes approximately 72 hours, 
*>then it dies.

72 hours???  Where did this number come from?  Kane wasn't even out
of it for 24 hours.

Still my imagination. Substitute any number you like to fit your campaign.
It's mostly due to getting a nice number for the cumulative chance of the Alien
embryo to survive the withdrawal of the facehugger.

*>If a Facehugger is incapable of finding a victim inside
*>of 12 days after it has hatched, it dies.

Again, where did you get this figure from?

My imagination. The creature operates om stored energy only so it can't live very
long, but I picked a number. Again, substitute any number that fits your campaign.

*>Facehuggers are without
*>intelligence, operating on instincts only, but they are superbly
*>programmed. Since they have no mind, they are immune to mindbased
*>spells. They are one of the most efficient organisms in existence.

Ditto.
The third book contains a (IMNSHO) good description of the Facehugger. That
is where I picked up most of this description. You can't expect to find a
reference to magical spells in a SF book ...:) so that sentence is 
obviously my creation. I included it because I find it logical and it fits my
campaign. I believe there are precedence for making *Alien*...:) "minds" immune
to humanstyle mental spells in the Monstrous Compendiums. 

*>If no dangers threaten, the Queen has the Chestburster eat the host to gain 
*>sufficient nutriments to complete its rapid growth, else she tries to
*>hide it. The Queen is in telepathic control of the Chestburster from
*>the moment it emerges from the host, and will not let it be killed
*>without reason.

Where does this idea come from???  I just don't get it.  I never saw
anything to suggest that the chestburster is under the control of
the Queen.

In the first movie there are no queens, ditto the third. The second contains only
one chestburster that is killed on sight. I.E no chance of control: I really
can't blame you for not seeing anything of the kind, there are no such in the
movies. It all ties in with the Queen controlling the Drones, which is my
interpretation of the Comic book I mentioned above.

*>The Chestburster is the young form of the Drone, and grows 
*>to full size in 20 hours if there is food available. It is usually 
*>sufficient to eat the creature it hatched from.\\

20 hours??  The alien in the first movie killed everyone in less than
24.  That includes hatching, growing, and taking everyone out.  I
think it's more like 2-3 hours.

Still my imagination. Feel free to change anything you like.

*>The Drone
*>injects a paralytic poison that immobilizes the victim for 1d4 turns unless a
*>Neutralize Poison spell is used at a successful hit with the tail.

Poison?  Paralytic?  Huh?
My imagination. It's *Quite* handy at times. <evil grin>.

*> The drone is telepathically controlled by the Queen, and functions 
*>approximately like a worker/warrior ant. Because of this outside
*>control they are immune to mindbased spells.

Telepathy again?
Yes, that is correct...:) see above.
*>They do not normally
*>reproduce, but if the Queen should be killed, all Drones have the
*>capacity to produce a new Queen. They function somewhat like the
*>facehugger in this respect, inserting the embryo of a Queen into a
*>host creature. {\bf How} this is done is not known.

That's right.  In fact, *IF* this is done is not known.  Where are
you getting these ideas from?

 This one is a bit special. I base it on these two presumptions:
1) if memory serves me right, the first *book* (not the movie) contains a passage
in the last parts (when Ripley are fleeing to the shuttle after failing to
pervent the reactor meltdown) where she stumbles into an out-of-the-way room and
finds the first two victims, one with a hole in the chest...
2) in the second movie,(special version) we see the father of Newt entering the 
horseshoeshaped space ship and being carried out feet first by his wife. That the
very first egg they stubled upon happened to be a Queen egg is too unlikely for
my tastes. Why wasn't the Alien in the first movie a queen in that case? From
this I let them have that ability, but of course there are other ways of
interpreting the movies.

*>The Queen can access all sensory input the Drones experience, and will
*>employ clever tactics in battle. No army this coordinated exist
*>elsewhere.\\

Aghh!  Now the queen has every drone as a familiar, too?

That I based on the aliens in Orson Scott Card's book "Ender's Game" and it's
sequel "speaker for the dead". I think it is a logical effect. Granted the
control she would have to be able to see what they were doing, wouldn't she...:)

*> The Queen is capable of laying a number of eggs equal to her hit dice
*>every day if the food-suppy is sufficient. Whenever the population of
*>the hive grows too large and there is sufficient land for the new
*>Queen to emigrate, the old Queen lays a batch of Queen eggs.
*>As soon as the fledgling
*>Queen has grown to the size of a Drone about half of the Drones leave 
*>with her to start a new hive.


Wow, now the Aliens are bees.  Cool. :-/

That is a semaphor. Please spare me that kind of critic.

*>Remember
*>that the Queen can se all that the Drones can see, so she is
*>immediately aware of the intruders and can direct more Drones to the
*>area without delay if the intruders cannot be handled by those present.\\

Right....

Exactly.

[Stuff about Champions deleted.]

*WHERE* did this come from?  What's a Champion?  Where's it come from?
What's it do?  Where have you ever seen anything in any of the movies
to suggest that such a thing even exists????

Nothing in any of the movies. Two of Dark Horse Comics' mini-series, namely the
last issue of the second miniseries (painted) and the Genocide book, contain
pictures and text referring to some kind of royal guards that is a lot tougher
than the normal drones. I made the rest up.
And nothing is stronger than the Queen.  Re-watch Aliens.
I have watched Aliens. Please allow me some artistic freedom.
The Champions won't be found on any of the PC's home planes the way I play
Aliens, and again I've based this om Dark Horse Comics. If you read the 
first miniseries they made, you will find that a few months after 1 (one) Alien
got to Earth, they ruled the planet. You won't find a Champion in a tribe younger
than 500 years, and you won't find such an old tribe on a plane they do not
already control, in which (still IMNSHO) there won't be any PC's. I got the
Queen's Charm Person ability from that series. The telepathic control is
described quite thoroughly in the painted miniseries they published afterwards.

And again, feel free to change anything you like. 

You can't include my version of Aliens in the natural fauna of your campaign
world. The most logical scenario would be located on another plane or consist of
preventing an invasion. The only exception would be to find an old egg. 
Jorge Diaz                       | "I want you to remember, Clark... in all
Georgia Institute of Technology  |  the years to come, in your most private
Office of Information Technology |  moments...my hand at your throat.  I want
ccoprdj@prism.gatech.edu         |  you to remember the one man who beat you."
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