Interior color schemes, decorative floral arrangements, pink suspension bridges; no sweetie pants, it’s not that type of a design. Game masters design games. Welcome to the first in a series of just that.

Mike runs a D20 campaign I play in on Fridays and has been inspired by the “Iron Lords of Jupiter” mini-game found in Dungeon magazine. The genre: Planetary Romance. Think sci-fi Conan on a weird day-glow Jupiter, sans bone-crushing pressure and lung searing frozen supersonic winds. (Fortitude save DC 780 every round … or die).

To conjure some ideas, Mike had us juggling different pulpy titles as adventure seeds, concepts to base stories upon. You know, like “Illinois Jenkins and the Trailer Park of the Damned” or “The Reefer Madness of Buster Rhymes”. I came up with the concept of “Mr. Steven and the Lusty Gorilla Amazons”, mainly to poke fun at one of the players: a slight-framed spectacled studious guy covered in lipstick marks in a tug-of-war between two bikini-clad ape-women. *chuckle* When the GM asked for our input to populate the setting, I thought the ludicrous concept could be salvaged and refined.

Lets look at the concept: Lusty … Gorilla … Amazons … SEXY!

Their libidos can wait for now — I hope — let’s focus on the basics, these are gorilla warrior women. Strength is going to be high, we could justify a +4 but that’s more for true monsters and I see them as a race: Strength +2. Gorillas are very intelligent for animals but you’re job wont be outsourced to one … yet. Intelligence -2 fit’s the animalistic nature and primitiveness of an Amazon. Balanced? Nah. A huntress needs Wisdom; shall we knock down Charisma to make them the half-orcs of our setting? Some GMs would, but I R Master-GM! I say we double down on the primitive: -4 to attack rolls and skill checks when using Medieval or more advanced technology (PL2+).

Good start, but being warriors — and old school ones at that — an edge is needed. Scent ability is hunter type all the way. Ranged attacks get +2 when throwing their feces, fitting but too animalistic and silly. Mobility for chasing down prey is good, but gorillas aren’t really speedsters on foot. Arboreal lends itself to jumping though: +8 to the Jump skill. In a heavy undergrowth terrain like the jungle normal movement is cut to a fourth, which leaping circumvents. Speaking of heavy foliage, Low-Light vision’s good too.

Lusty … eew. The subtext is that these bitches are serial rapists of men, but how do you get it up with Ko Ko holding you down — in more ways than one? I’m thinking we go to the mystical to solve the issue: Call of the Wild extraordinary ability. They can coo in a hypnotic rhythm as a standard action that effects male mammals within 60ft and requires a Willpower save with DC 10 + ½ their Hit dice + Charisma modifier — Charisma amongst brutes, how avant guarde. Failing the save results in a Fascinated effect. So we get some of the Siren myth in there too.

As a name for these primate Amazons, because gorilla-bitch won’t fly, we go with Primazons – it’s pulp, corny is welcomed. Next time we’ll flesh out their territory, culture, and whether bigger bananas really are better.

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