The Mogwai: the Techno-Monkeys of the Arkhaian Spiral

Back when I first laid out what sort of aliens I wanted in Psi-Wars, I set out the broader "diagram" of what niches races would fit.  The core races, the Eldoth, Keleni and Ranathim all illustrated some profoundly important aspect of the setting; you cannot really have Psi-Wars as a cohesive setting without them.  Other races matter less, but still fit important niches.

I wanted to have "comedic" races, silly races that made players laugh or helped relieve tension in the game; while not a wildly popular set of races in Psi-Wars, you can see their use in the form of the Ewoks, Jawas, the Gungans and the Ardennians/Lantero (who rally should be a single species).  These tend to be smaller, cuter races, so they're non-threatening and can afford to be "silly" in a way that the "serious" races cannot.

I also needed races for the Arkhaian Spiral, whose theme is "Technology."  I knew I wanted a race that practiced Ergokinesis, but I wanted a different take on Ergokinesis than what House Grimshaw had: rather than a dread race that shoots lightning, I wanted a technologically savvy race that used its power to gain an intuitive understanding of engineers.  I code named them "Techno-goblins," and imagined them occupying a similar niche to gnomes in most fantasy games.

With the need to expand Cronus Kronos, I wanted to add the races of the Arkhaian Spiral to Kronos so it didn't feel like Umbral-Rim-Lite.  The point of Kronos is to mash up the alien races of all the parts of the galaxy into one place, thus these "Techno-Goblins" needed to be detailed.

And now they are: the Mogwai of the Arkhaian Spiral, and with them, a new "rare" power, Machine Telepathy

Mogwai Design Diary

As I work on these races, I try to conceive of both a visual theme, and a mechanical niche, and then mash them together.  Their niche is, of course, their Machine Telepathy and access to a unique psionic power.  Their visual niche is a cross between monkeys and alien greys.

For their visual inspiration, I drew a lot of my ideas from the Sophons of Endless Space.  They mostly looked like sillier greys, which served as the foundation of the look of the Mogwai. I wanted to play up the "monkey-like" nature of a playful race, and thus I combined the idea of them with an "alien monkey" to get the core idea of how they might work and think. 

I don't generally embrace using GURPS Space as a means for creating highly-thematic space opera aliens, but I tinkered with it a bit: how could you create a highly intelligent race? Well, the things that make for a high intelligence race often make for a curious and playful race, which fits well with my themes.  If we think of them as "gathering ominvores," which partially explains their brachiation and their monkey-like posture, then a tendency to be easily distracted also fits, and makes them a little exasperating. 

Of course, I would rather not just give them bonus IQ.  They're not smart at all things, just amazing and intuitive engineers.  However, Versatile seemed to fit their playful and creative nature.

When it came to their technological aptitude, I knew I wanted Machine Empathy (which can be found in GURPS Steampunk) as their basis, though I boosted it a little so it has a touch more utility. I also gave them access to more Machine Telepathy powers, making mechanical toys to play with mostly about exploring this specific power-set, similar to the Asrathi Witchcat and Probability Manipulation.

I don't really like it when a race gets thrust into a single role ("If you want to be a mage, play an elf; if you're playing an elf, you should be a mage") and the Mogwai do that a little: if you don't take Machine Telepathy, your talent is wasted points.  However, I tried to make their power-set broad enough so they're more than just inventors.  To be sure, they make excellent inventors, but with Blaster Overcharge and Vehicular Overcharge, they can buff starfighters or their own weapons, which gives them utility in other areas and thus a more flexible concept.  I had known I wanted something like this for a long time, hence their code name of "Techno-goblins," they were meant to invoke the madcap science of goblins from various works, or the Nockers of Changeling.  Thus, I needed them to regularly critically fail at their use of these powers: sure, they can buff their items, but it often goes horribly wrong in hilarious ways.  Perhaps I should borrow the comedic critical failure table from Thaumatology and modify it for new Mogwai critical failures?

The name came from Gentleman Gamer as we discussed the race.  I was looking for a homeworld name, and he suggested Weimog, a scrambled version of Mogwai, the gremlins from Gremlins.  I fell in love with the idea, and while he found "Mogwai" a little on the nose, Psi-Wars has no pretentious about its origins.  I find simple, obvious names work best, and a call-out to an 80s film that is beginning to fall into obscurity fits nicely, I think.

Using the Mogwai

I'm curious what sort of reception they'll get.  Most of the races of Psi-Wars have been serious, though the Sparriels have been with us since Iteration three, and they're close to a joke.  The Gaunt tip-toe towards joke, but they're more tragedy than comedy. Still, I hoped to make them more than just a joke.  

I expect they'll probably see use as NPC mechanics or drive engineers, as their small form and excellent mechanical aptitude make them natural fits here.  I also imagine people will like them as spies, hackers and infiltrators: they can excel at reading computers, or gain Cyber-psi to directly hack machines with their minds, and their small forms help them get in and out unseen. Twinks will notice their higher DX, which I gave them because all depictions of monkeys and chimps I can find have +2 to +3 DX.  Pair that with their Blaster Overcharge and their small size, and you get some shockingly good commandos or bounty-hunters, which I even call-out in their description: the idea of a teeny, cigar-chomping, alien-monkey with an oversized blaster rifle that he can super-charge with explosive force seemed too fun an idea not to try.  They can be cool, but it's a funny, satirical sort of cool.

In any case, this expands our total collection of aliens by one, and pushes us a little into the Arkhaian Spiral and gives us some insights into the politics and cultures there.