Mutants

**Mutants** are a type of creaturethat appear very commonly in the game because of the fact they originate from the first book of the series Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle & Other Strangeness.

## About

A mutant is an animal or person who had their DNA altered to take on new traits. Mutants were originally mostly based upon animals, however, Heroes Unlimited also introduce other types of mutants later on not based on animals. Other mutated animals were also added to the series over time for purposes such as mounts.

Note that even if two mutants share physical appearances, they may look "different" still. For example in Animal mutants, a mutant with full Human Features that is a Rabbit mutant may look very different to another under the same Human feature mutations. The same is true for all mutants and even identical twins with the same powers are not 100% identical after their mutations are factored in.

Depending on the situation, a Mutant may hide themselves. For further information see Disguises, Covers and Alter Egos. This is due to their appearance, their reason behind their mutation or even the scenario of the storyline the player is playing part in.

Mutants are Similar to Experiments, but the nature of the end result separates them. Mutants are no matter what a result of genetic manipulation, whereas Experiments gain their powers through the experiment itself using substance without genetic manipulation. There are some crosses overs in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures, but this rule still applies to the separation of the two - even when the mutation is a result of Experimentation. A major difference between the two is also that Mutants usually are at odds or criminals of their sponsors, while experiments remain on good terms. Since they were never on good terms with their Sponsor, often mutants can be uneducated and/or poor.

## History

### Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle & Other Strangeness Timeline

Originally these creatures appeared as either accidents or experiments involving animals tainted with Human DNA. They were outcasts of both human-kind and animal-kind. Used by various companies, including the enemies of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, they were created as experiments with mutantigens for various reasons. These mutants were dependant on Growth to gain or loose power to the Eight Attributes, while this also determined their height and weight. They had their own Animal Powers. Animal mutants had an appearance depending on their Human Features.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures gives the rules for Superpowered Animal-Mutants, allowing 50 extra BIO-E to spend on powers as listed, with their effects being the same as Heroes Unlimited describes them. The sourcebook also supplied a brief description to allow the Experiments to become Animal-hybrids, giving an additional step for TMNT-style adventures using the Super-type.

Multi-Powered Humans introduced the Multi-Powered Human mutant, finally allowing "Human-Mutants", though they remained different to Super Heroes "mutants" as they still were made using the Animal Mutant Growth changes, in addition as part of a "what if" scenario, Hominidon mutants which represent alternative timelines where another species of human became the dominate species on Earth. The book also increased the size of Mutants from Growth 20 to Growth 25, as the book introduced Dinosaur-based mutants.

### After the Bomb Timeline

Written as a post-future apocalypse scenario, After the Bomb takes place in reality much similar to the Turtles timeline, but set into the future long after the events of their storyline. After bombs were dropped on the world, mankind found itself in a wasteland future filled with animal mutants, once rare prior to the event. These mutants found themselves at odds with the surviving humans, who ran an empire against them. Anyone found with DNA that had been mutated was an outcast, was doomed to either death or to join the mutant upraising.

There are many possible campaigns centered around this world, all linked directly or indirectly to the original After the Bomb setting.

Most Mutants featured in Road Hogs are wanderers roaming the West Coast of the USA.

Mutants Down Under was set in the Australian Outback and introduced a number of Australian exclusive mutants. The biggest threat here is the largest Human settlement, the Takarta. New Insect Mutants, which were used as transportation, were introduced.

Mutants of the Yucatan was set in Mexico, introducing a number of mammals, snakes and expanding Bats.

Mutants in Avalon covers Great Britain in a King Arthurian setting where Mutant Animals created the legen of King Arthur, not Humans. It is set either in a traditional old-time-y world, or a modern setting, depending on the timeline setting. It explores the 8 Kingdoms of Great Britian after an event they call "The Crash" which sees the rise of Animal Mutants across the UK and is set 150 years after this event. It is the only self-isolated Sourcebook, as campaigns in this book have a mystical element to them because it introduced Magic. More rideable Insect Mutants were introduced with this book.

Mutants in Orbit also introduced additional powers Mutants could have to boaster their strength while introducing Insect Powers to match the new Insect Mutants, finally allowing players the ability to make a full playable Insect Mutant. The Animal Mutants in this book are "space variants", which is why they have extra powers, i.e. a 'Earth Cat' won't be identical to a 'Space Cat' from another planet, therefore its "Mutant" variant will adopt those extra powers. These Mutants are stronger overall as a result.

### Heroes Unlimited Timeline

Mutants are a type of human that has been changed to have mutations. They are one of the choosable classes of characters. Here they are treated according to storytelling direction but are mostly treated like any other type of Superhero or Supervillain. Their reasons for their mutation is various, some experimental and some natural. The resulting mutants are no longer "human" in common sense. They are often terrifying to ordinary Humans, with fear being caused from ordinary humans by a few evil Mutants.

Mutants have unusual characteristics, such as odd ears, colour skin, they can be beautiful and angelic-looking, have extreme amounts of hair, odd eyes, a tail, claws or odd hands. With their mutation comes a variety of possible abilities. They can also be unstable, with their powers constantly changing based on their emotions, their age or traumatic events.

Animal mutants were included in the Revised version, other types are as well, Animal Powers are regarded as Minor Powers. Animal Mutants have the advantage over Humans as they are able to use Psionics freely without restrictions.

## Type of Mutant

"Mutant" is a catch-all term for anything that has undergone a serious genetic mutation. In terms of the Sourcebooks, there are 4 major types of "Mutant" classes.

* **Human-Mutants** (as seen in Heroes Unlimited); these are humans who mutated to take on other features not considered human-like at all
	+ Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures allows these mutants to have additional Psionic powers. Otherwise, they do not have the ability to take Psionics normally.
* **Animal-Mutants** (as seen in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle & Other Strangeness and related books); these are animals mutated to take on Human traits. The RPG lists a large number of species (see List of Animal-Mutant Species) each with different powers and minor abilities.
	+ Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures allows for Mutants with Superpowers. Mutants with this are called "Animal Mutants with Superpowers". There is a 18% chance of this occurring with a "Deliberate Experiment" background as described in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle & Other Strangeness.
	+ Mutants in Orbit allows for also additional powers, Mutant with this creation are known as "Space Animal Mutants" and represent a "space species" of a similar animal to that found on Earth. For example, a Space-cat mutant mimics the species of Cat mutant from Earth resembling a Earth cat. However, they have powers that seperate them from Earth cats because they are Aliens.
* **Insect-mutants** (as seen in Mutants Down Under, After the Bomb and Mutants in Avalon); these are insects which due to various means, typically the effects of The Bomb, grew to large-size and are used for personnel travel. Insect mutants have slight differences in their builds. There are two types; NPCs and Character Creation with Mutants in Orbit allowing for the Character Creation.
	+ Insects are considered separate only due to body build which results in a segmented body.
* **Multi-Powered Humans** (as seen in Transdimensional Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles); these are humans altered with DNA to take on Alien-like traits.

## Notes on Diet

One additional note is Mutants eat the same things as the species their based upon. Human-Mutants and their variants eat the same food as Humans. However, this is not the same with non-human species based mutants. Animal-based mutants, prefer their animal's diets. For example a Wolf mutant prefers meat and thus will eat animals such as sheep.

There is a few ethnical and moral issues related to the consumption of animals from animal-mutants are noted. They will not eat their own kind. Thus, a wolf mutant will never eat a wolf, or for that matter, another mutant because a wolf mutant would consider itself as both a "wolf" and a "mutant". Even evil mutants may have a sense of disgust at the idea of eating another mutant, thus mutants have somewhat a line drawn on what they will and will not eat out of principle and the issue is unrelated to the alignment of the individual. In addition, a mutant will not consume another mutant's kind in front of them, thus the wolf mutant will never eat a sheep in front of a sheep mutant.

Despite this, mutants often threaten other mutants based upon species, meaning that a wolf mutant would threaten a sheep mutant because sheep are normally prey to wolves. As a consequences, a Wolf Mutant will often remind a Sheep Mutant that wolves eat sheep and use that to their advantage against a sheep mutant. The Sheep Mutant also may be fully aware and even scared of such a threat due to natural instinct.

However, when it comes to the consumption of normal humans this is an entirely separate matter altogether. The mutants species, alignment and disposition towards humans impacts if they will consider humans prey. For example, a Tiger whose Alignment is among the evil variety but grew up adoring Humans will not consider them food despite their alignment and species. However, a mutant who hates humans and is evil would consider it. There are consequences of doing so if caught in the act of eating a human and therefore the mutant has to weigh in the risks and dangers to their own well being when doing such an act.

Other notes in general is that food can be an issue in some scenarios. For example in many stories from the After the Bomb timeline, food may be hard to find. Grass, leaves and other plants may be freely available, but due to the impact on wildlife, meat may not be. Or alternatively because animals travel and plants due not, the impact of the Bombs may have left a wasteland with no plants, resulting in the opposite situation.

## Images

ApeT'Cleass a Bat MutantCeaser a Wolverine MutantOne of Ceaser's Weasel mutants