BONE mutations for your Space horror games

April 4, 2025

Hi! Welcome to our first blog post talking about the changes coming to XENO in its new version: Caligaes’ XENO Invasion. This time, I wanted to share the changes made to the aliens you can play as from BONE’s perspective, as each XENO now has expanded and improved options.

The ATTRIBUTES of each XENO still work the same way they did in the pamphlet version, small numbers that represent great skills.SURVIVAL DICE have been renamed SURVIVAL POINTS to prevent confusion when explaining their mechanics.

The characteristics still provide a broad description of your XENO, encouraging a personalized visual construction of your creature.

BONE A: 1 | M: 0 | P: 1 | B: 2 SP: 3

CHARACTERISTICS: Your size is small. You have a tail as sharp as a dagger. You can speak, read, and write all languages.

The biggest change to your monstrous creatures is in the use and description of their X Abilities. All X Abilities are being modified, adding some limitations and new uses.For BONE, its After-Life Control ability now specifies the sizes of creatures it can control and clarifies that this ability only grants control over the body, not access to its memories.

X ABILITY: After-Life ControlYou can control small, medium, or large corpses by replacing their tongue with your own body. Your control is flawless, perfectly mimicking life itself. However, you do not gain access to the corpse’s memories, not even its name.

Macabre Puppet: You can take advantage of the physical attributes, skills, and technology the corpse had in life, as long as it makes narrative sense. While controlling a corpse, you can use BRAIN for MUSCLE or AGILITY TESTS, as long as the body allows it.Your Macabre Puppet is destroyed if it fails a DEFENSE TEST, regardless of whether you lose SURVIVAL POINTS or not.

Each XENO now includes optional descriptions to inspire the creation of your alien. Feel free to customize your own BONE when you invade Earth with them.

1d4 Descriptions:

You resemble an arthropod, with six pairs of scythe-like legs extending across your thorax and abdomen. Your elongated skull lacks flesh, and the holes that seem to be your eyes and mouth are covered by a dark, segmented membrane. Your tail, made of thousands of filaments, forms a razor-sharp blade.
You look like a snail. Your eyeballs are filled with a colorful, viscous fluid that moves to the rhythm of your voice. Your shell is attached to your body by dark spines, which also surround its structure. Your tail is thin, completely covered in tiny hairs.
Your form resembles a metallic-colored larva. Six mandibles extend from your face, forming a pyramidal beak when closed. Your limbs are short but numerous, and each ends in three or four-fingered hands. A shiny stinger decorates the tip of your tail.
You are a slender anthropomorph. Your entirely blue skin is hairless. Your head is oval-shaped, with a tiny, lipless mouth. Instead of eyes, two large holes consume a third of your face’s mass. Your tail is as long as your body and, unlike the rest of your skin, is covered in scales. At its tip, petals made of bone conceal hidden daggers.

Each XENO will have a mutation table, the method by which they level up in XENO.

In another blog post, we’ll discuss the new DAMAGE DICE and how XENOS gain MUTATIONS.
What do you think of these changes? Don’t forget to leave your comments and share this blog so more people can see it!
Remember, you can play the pamphlet version of XENO at caligaes.itch.io And don’t forget to subscribe to our Newsletter to get weekly alien content!

Good luck with your invasions!