Living Powers

Creativity? Check. Powers? Check. Characters? Check it out.

In the realm of Untold, you have thousands upon thousands of Power, Race and Aspect cards to choose from; however, due to cash or circumstance or lack of creativity, you may not have particular Race card available for a certain adventure, game or Battle you want to run. As a GM this can be challenge, but a worthy one worth all of your creative abilities. Using this article you can shorten your prep time by creating new minions and NPCs on the fly.

So how would you like an inside secret from the creator's own minds concerning the versatility of Untold?

When caught without the necessary Race card to play a minion, Ashy used a concept inspired by Nathan called a "Living Power" and provided his band of play-testers with a host of baddies built out of Aspect and Power cards alone. Crazy, right? All you need is to know your party's UP, the cards you have available, and the creativity to weave them together into a monster worth fearing and fighting for a night of fun.

How does this work? Quite simply, your Untold Points represent the life of your character and creature. Race cards make for a quick and simple way to define your character's means of existence (say as a Apoc, L'na, Klik, or any of the new races from Hostile Hands: Races of New Earth). However, Race cards are not always necessary, especially when making quick 'mook' fighters to hassle your party along their way towards a mission. Using the same UP amount given to your players, take a selection of Power cards and Aspects to form the basis for your homespun monster.

Below you will find four examples that range from relatively low to mid-range UP amounts on how to craft these sorts of Living Power creatures and characters.

Canopy Grunt (Total UP: 15)
Body 3 (9 UP)
M201 Grenade Launcher (4 UP)
Climber (1 UP)
Intimidating (1 UP)
Quick Description: "Trained to take the high ground, these soldiers provide the fire support from elevated platforms, such as ridges, catwalks and ledges of all kinds. Also known for their rough and ready nature, these catwalk fighters are often menacing with their ferocity."

Blade Drone (Total UP: 40)
Vibro-Saber (UP 4)
Evasive 2 (UP 8)
Body 8 (UP 27)
Quick Description: "Slender and sharp humanoid machines dart toward you, their edges vibrating with seeming anticipation of the coming bloodshed. Contact with any part of these wickedly honed creations will be a biting experience."

Maggot Maulers (Total UP: 50)*
Body 3 (9 UP)
Large (10 UP)
Grayfly Swarm (28UP) [hot]
Grapple (1 UP) [hot]
Grapple Attack (2 UP) [hot]
Quick Description: "Distended carcasses of taut, bloated skin bulge with the baleful writhing of countless maggots, each one shambles from the shadows to engulf you. Their horrid, slimy appendages lock you into the preamble of a nightmare as they unleash an otherworldly whine from their crawling hides--a host of voracious flesh-shredding flies instantly mature from the gluttonous maggots, ready to devour your exposed skin."

*=As you can see, the possibility of having only two Character Deck cards, the Aspect card and Large Power card, offers a great range of possibilities. In this case, we chose to structure the monster's primary combat power around the Grayfly Swarm Hot Swap Power card (cost: 28 UP, and deals 10 UP worth of damage as long as in play). But we also included additional grapple combat capabilities to make these minions as truly vicious as grapple-based attackers.

Even NPCs can be created in this way:

Klik Informant (Total UP: 57)
Mind 3 (8 UP)
Smart 3 (8 UP)
Small (1 UP)
Agile 3 (UP 8)
Mechanic 3 (4 UP)
Eidetic Memory 2 (8 UP)
Silver Tongued 5 (8 UP)
Linguist (1 UP)
Awareness (1 UP)
Insightful 2 (4 UP)
Scout Sensor Suite (6 UP)
Quick Description: "The strange oblong sphere seems to defy physics with its lumpy tubular design, a weird cross between a blimp and a slug, and minute foil-thin propelling arms that end in tiny pincers protruding from its flanks. However, from experience, you know these slithering mechanical oddities are canny spies within the intelligence gathering community of the Great Machine, used to infiltrate other worlds and societies closed to Kliks of greater girth and grandeur."

As you can see, you can craft them at any UP range and any situation. In fact, we would like to hear about your creations, so please register and submit them on our forums! Truly, with this game, you have Untold Possibilities!