Mutagenic Matrimony (or, My Bloodthirsty Bride)

"I want to play your mutant game."  —  The Woman (2011)

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Thanks to the fun had robbing and antagonizing goblins so obnoxiously that the li'l buggers burned down our dirt-farming village in revenge rescuing a wholesome rural community from foul raiders in Theron's new Castles & Crusades campaign, my wife has been bitten by the roleplaying bug.

Which is awesome, given that she professed to HATE gaming, due to a) a long-time boyfriend who preferred building Vampire: The Masquerade characters to making out (no, I don't get it either), and b) getting press-ganged into a Call Of Cthulhu LARP that was secretly recorded and turned into a documentary shown in local film classes.

I always suspected she had it in her, though.  She loves video games, and plays RPGs almost exclusively.  I've sneaked in from work and overheard her joyously—if terrifyingly—singing, "I love loo-ooo-ooootings!" and "Too much talking, not enough kill-llllling!" to herself while playing Dragon Age.  And God Of War and Knights Of The Old Republic are her favorite games ever.

Anyhow, she's been clamoring to play more tabletop games, and wants me to get a Mutant Future campaign going.  Here's pretty much how it went down:

"I want to play your mutant game."

"Really?!  Cool!  What kind of character do you want?"

"A crawdad."

"..."

"A MUTANT crawdad."

"Do you want to be unique, or from race of...."

"I WANT TO BE FROM A RACE OF MUTANT CRAWDADS!!!"

"That's fine.  What you going to name her?"

"Penelope.  Penny for short."

"..."

"And she wears a pink wig."

"...Ooookay.  You'll have to roll the rest randomly, though."

"Fine by me."

A few dice rolls later...

*scribble, scratch, erase*  "I don't need a high Charisma, because I'm a fucking crawdad."

A few more dice rolls later...

"So, that means I smell delicious to monsters, and take extra damage from boiling?!  That's AWESOME."

"..."

"And I got a Phobia, too?  Well, then...I want to be afraid of potatoes.  And corn."

"...Um, it has to be random.  You need a 4 to get 'Plants' on the Phobia chart."

*rolls a d6*  "OH, HELL, YEAH!"

A few more dice rolls later...

"Now you need to spend your gold."

"I totally want a trident.  For stabbing."

...and...

*scribble, scratch, erase*  "...A bedroll?  That's stupid for a crawdad...but a blanket might be cute, though.  A snuggly one."

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And so was born Penny, and her people The Craw.  Only the animal-specific parts (Natural Armor; lungs and gills) of her race were picked at the beginning—EVERYTHING else, she rolled at random.  She rolled that max 1d8 damage on the claws.  She randomly rolled each and every mutation, including three(!) rather perfect Drawbacks for her concept.  And, yep, she straight-up got that 4 on that Phobia chart.

I'm bursting with pride here.

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Write-ups to follow shortly.