Infection and resonance are two concepts that effect most things in Bug & Claw.
Every Bug-kin has a crystal in their head. Over time, collaborating with others through arduous scenarios and encountering other strange, crystalline structures can increase the "resonance" of their crystal. Meanwhile, seeking rare ancient treasures in irradiated or chemical-doused lands and battling and felling strange enemies can expose characters to infection. Resonance and infection affect various aspects of play and the world.
The first thing you do when creating a character is roll to determine your starting infection and resonance values. Depending on your value, you'll be directed to two charts to roll on for the rest of your starting stats. Some players may intentionally seek out infection, while others may seek to reduce and defend against it.
Dominant resonance
D6 | Strength | Dexterity | Intelligence | Charisma | Flesh | Grit |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 6 | 4 |
2 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 5 | 5 |
3 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 5 | 5 |
4 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 5 | 5 |
5 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 5 | 5 |
6 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 6 | 4 |
Dominant infection
D6 | Strength | Dexterity | Intelligence | Charisma | Flesh | Grit |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 8 | 3 |
2 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 8 | 3 |
3 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 8 | 3 |
4 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 8 | 3 |
5 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 6 | 4 |
6 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 6 | 4 |
When you moult (level up), depending on your values, you may also have a different experience or unexpected effects. High-infection characters stand a chance to gain bizarre but chaotic physical abilities (inspired by how spells work in Maze Rats). Meanwhile, high-resonance characters have slightly more control over their growth trajectory and unlock more cerebral skills based in telepathy, telekinesis, and electricity.
Many areas struggling with infection may have blight affecting their crops, strange diseases, and malaise. The land might be home to an ancient creature that spreads infection.
Thriving Bug-kin colonies are often near crystalline structures. Most do not know how these structures work, but they can tell they help cleanse the land and keep many hostile creatures at bay. These structures, just like Bug-kin themselves, have a resonance. Society was sheltered and evolved in the glow of such structures. Some infections are simply too strong for crystal structures to cleanse on their own, though, or the crystalline structures need time to grow and gain strength.
If characters spread, influence, or destroy infection or crystal resonance, it will effect the world, the weather, how NPCs react to them, the population level and therefore the shops and item availability, and all sorts of interesting things. I plan to handle this in a fairly intuitive way, as well. Sometimes, it may just cause you to use one table over another or add or remove a number from your roll on a table.