We here at A Field Guide To Doomsday have made no secret of our affection for all things Ol' School Gamma World. And for me, nothing says "OSGW" ("osgwa"?) like the 1982 1e module, Famine In Far-Go.
FIF-G was the first module/supplement to an rpg I ever acquired (which was convenient, since my very first rpg happened to be the Gamma World 2e boxed set). I can still remember the occasion: it was a dreary and rainy Saturday, and instead of plopping down for cartoons, I was dragged way-too-early to my aunt-n-uncle's furniture-retailer-slash-Zenith-TV-repair-shack in Beautiful Downtown Willis, TX (which, at the time, consisted of a Dairy Queen, and not much else...hell, you had to drive over 10 miles away just to get to the Piggly Wiggly). And if that wasn't bad enough, we then went to a lakeside timeshare presentation where my dad proudly received some Real, Genuine, 110% Authentic Faux-Gold Presidential Coins...enclosed in their own frame! WITH REAL CARDBOARD BACKING!!!
At the end of that agonizing day, we stopped off at the longggggggg departed Gierspeck & Roper bookstore, where I could pick out one thing.
Famine In Far-Go beckoned, and I read it all the way home...and re-read it about another half-dozen times that weekend.
I was a bit confused by the presentation, because the art wasn't as polished as my 2e boxed set, and the rules parts were "off" (I didn't grasp the hows and whys behind different editions, you see). And the new monsters seemed EXTRA FREAKY when compared to the core bestiary.
Albino buzzsaw-horned antilopes? Purple bug-morphing bison? Weather-controlling be-jetpack'd moose?
And nothing was weirder than the belligerent chickens known as the Gallus Gallus 5/13s. They were hideous AND hilarious, and possessed mostly detrimental mutations, and lived in an atomic robo-factory.
AWESOME.
I fell in love with those ridiculous chickens...but have never gotten the opportunity to do anything with them...
...until now!
I hereby present my favorite official Gamma World monsters, adapted for Mutant Future from the original text. I claim no credit for their majesty.
Happy Easter, everybody.
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No. Enc.: 1d6 (2d6)
Alignment: Chaotic
Movement: 120' (40')
Armor Class: 7
Hit Dice: 7
Attacks: 1 (bite or weapon)
Damage: 1d4 or by weapon
Save: L7
Morale: 9
Hoard Class: VII, XIX
XP: 2,890
Encountered in Ancient automated hatcheries and food processing plants, the beings known as the Gallus-Galluses are corpulent, squat, 4' tall avians with cyclopean visages and patchy yellow-orange feathers. They are cunning, deadly, and malignant, and bent on the total domination of all other life forms. Pure Humans incur the greatest of the Gallus-Gallus' wrath, based on the treatment of domesticated chickens in The Time Before.
Gallus-Galluses lack depth perception, and suffer -1 To Hit in melee combat, and -2 at range. They make up for this deficiency with their chameleonic abilities, Surprising on a 1-4 on 1d6 and gaining +2 to Initiative. They are also particularly vulnerable to all known toxins, suffering a -8 to Saving Throws Versus Poison.
Each Gallus-Gallus tribe has a suffix designation based on some arcane numerology known as a "batch number". The mightiest and most infamous of these perfidious poultry-people are the 5/13s, who raid settlements and drag all Pure Human captives back to their high-tech lairs for "rendering"....
Mutations: Chameleon Epidermis, Frailty ("No Depth Perception") [D], Intellectual Affinity (Tinkerer), Mind Thrust, Poison Susceptibility [D] (x2)
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Not-The-Designer's Notes: Famine In Far-Go was designed by Michael Price, and developed by Price and Michael J. Richie. Illustrations provided by Jim Holloway, Jeff Easley, and Timothy Truman(!).
Not-The-Designer's Notes Addendum #1: The text from FIF-G says the chicken-critters are 4' tall, but the illustrations clearly show them as being larger, based on the scale of backgrounds and furnishings. I can only assume the pics depict bigger, badder versions....
Not-The-Designer's Notes Addendum #2: I excluded the "Complete Mental Block" Disability from the original version, which prevented the Gallus Gallus 5/13s from perceiving a particular kind of robot...a robot which happened to be in their lair in abundance. "Specific Robot Blindness" was just too goofy, even for me. Feel free to add it in again.
