GURPS spells from Pyramid
Jan. 28th, 2017 05:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethI found a GURPS spell for Alter Gender
Alter Gender (Pyramid 3/28: Thaumatology II, p. 14), Prerequisite: Androgyny
Duration: One hour unless made permanent. May be removed by Alter Gender or Remove Curse.
Cost: 7 to cast, 5 to maintain. May be made permanent, as an enchantment, for an energy cost of 175.
Time to cast: 2 minutes
Same costs and time for Androgyny, which just makes you look sort of neutral for the game mechanics, doesn't change organs.
But it's a weird, weird little set of spells meant for goblins
(the color text is Jareth)
and its prereq chain is basically these weird goblin spells
so it can't fit in to other GURPS magic.
The costs imply it's simpler than Alter Body, and the text specifically says if it is made permanent they can get pregnant. So I think this means GURPS considers reproductive organs to be simple, like horns and tails, rather than complex, like prehensile tails or working eyeballs. Which is quirky but makes sense in game mechanic terms. Alter Body can make you look like a specific person and is waaaaay more versatile, it's how to be Mystique, not how to transition. That bit about non functioning organs had me looking at the levelled up version instead, but that one can make you a whole different sentient species, if you want, so it is again a teensy bit more powerful in game terms.
So now I have in game costs for a world changer of a spell.
But it has some weird assumptions around it and a bit of random transphobia in the story seeds suggestions - "A long-time ally of the heroes is hiding a secret: “She” isn’t female at all, but a secret practitioner of Yellow Goblin
Magic disguising her (his) true form via Alter Gender. So many lies..."
... no, no, and also no. If someone says they're a she then lo, they are a she, whether or not they've transitioned, by magic or other means.
Why put that in? I know the game mechanic description is all about how you can usefully hide by changing your whole appearance in two minutes, but that's not why people would want it. Alter Visage is quicker to cast and easier to learn, and substantially more versatile. People who specifically and only want to change their gender have a whole different motivation than this spell write up assumes.
So, not best pleased with this particular article.
But I'll take the cost and time suggestions and put them into the ordinary Body Control College instead.
Alter Gender (Pyramid 3/28: Thaumatology II, p. 14), Prerequisite: Androgyny
Duration: One hour unless made permanent. May be removed by Alter Gender or Remove Curse.
Cost: 7 to cast, 5 to maintain. May be made permanent, as an enchantment, for an energy cost of 175.
Time to cast: 2 minutes
Same costs and time for Androgyny, which just makes you look sort of neutral for the game mechanics, doesn't change organs.
But it's a weird, weird little set of spells meant for goblins
(the color text is Jareth)
and its prereq chain is basically these weird goblin spells
so it can't fit in to other GURPS magic.
The costs imply it's simpler than Alter Body, and the text specifically says if it is made permanent they can get pregnant. So I think this means GURPS considers reproductive organs to be simple, like horns and tails, rather than complex, like prehensile tails or working eyeballs. Which is quirky but makes sense in game mechanic terms. Alter Body can make you look like a specific person and is waaaaay more versatile, it's how to be Mystique, not how to transition. That bit about non functioning organs had me looking at the levelled up version instead, but that one can make you a whole different sentient species, if you want, so it is again a teensy bit more powerful in game terms.
So now I have in game costs for a world changer of a spell.
But it has some weird assumptions around it and a bit of random transphobia in the story seeds suggestions - "A long-time ally of the heroes is hiding a secret: “She” isn’t female at all, but a secret practitioner of Yellow Goblin
Magic disguising her (his) true form via Alter Gender. So many lies..."
... no, no, and also no. If someone says they're a she then lo, they are a she, whether or not they've transitioned, by magic or other means.
Why put that in? I know the game mechanic description is all about how you can usefully hide by changing your whole appearance in two minutes, but that's not why people would want it. Alter Visage is quicker to cast and easier to learn, and substantially more versatile. People who specifically and only want to change their gender have a whole different motivation than this spell write up assumes.
So, not best pleased with this particular article.
But I'll take the cost and time suggestions and put them into the ordinary Body Control College instead.
no subject
Date: 2017-01-28 08:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-01-28 11:21 pm (UTC)In the thing I'm trying to write all that happened was sex and gender got separated. There are still stereotypical packaged gender roles, but they have no expectations about what body they're on. It's simply expected you like pink and cookies and looking after people, or blue and beef and hitting, or local equivalents. Is meant to defamiliarise and make gender look stupids.
Or it could be that people instead of matching gender behaviour to bodies are expected to match bodies to gender behaviour, like the sex change spell makes room for new and weird ways to pressure people into gender conforming. But I'm not using that one because way creepy and pushing wrong ways.
But it would be neat if the spell was widely used in education and everyone knew what biological sex did and didn't do and just ignored default settings and got on with things.
But you might just get a rush to make all the kids match the social dominant and end up with a single sex society. Maybe one that took holidays as the other sex for biological purposes, or maybe not. Combined with GURPS Biotech's magic spell array you could have a society made all of one sex, using spells to reproduce, since Transfer Pregnancy takes hardly any extra energy to work on a male, and some of the spells could make new lifeforms from a couple different species so the ones for plain old reproduction ought to be simpler.
Magic can do anything weird biotech can do. Humans will make it weird whatever the starting point.