BONE: The Corpse-Snatching Alien (for Mothership TTRPG)

Welcome, Invaders! This is the first entry of the blog that will be shared through the XENO Invasion Newsletter! We’ll be bringing you weekly extraterrestrial content, from victims, random tables, missions and compatibility modules with other systems (like this one), so stay tuned!. 

This is how you can use the XENO BONE in your Mothership TTRPG games: 

BONE is a cat-sized, biologically engineered alien with the appearance of an arthropod. Highly intelligent, capable of understanding any language, whether biological or artificial. Six pairs of scythe-shaped legs extend along their thorax and abdomen. Their skull is elongated upward and backward, devoid of any fleshy tissue. The openings that resemble their eyes and mouth are covered by a dark, segmented membrane, and their tail is composed of thousands of filaments that, when joined together, form a devastatingly sharp edge.
Masters of espionage and manipulation, having the ability to control corpses and perfectly mimic the voice and mannerism that the host had in life. They use their expertise and body-snatching abilities to spread terror and confusion among their victims.
BONES serve as the information-gathering and covert intervention specialists in MOTHER’s army. Left unchecked, a single BONE can lead to the collapse of an entire nation. 

BONE [C:60 KNIFE TAIL 3d10 DMG I:65 INTELLECT: 80 AP:25 W3(35) Osseous Explosion. Makes a Macabre Puppet explode. Anyone Adjacent: Body Save or 4d10 DMG]

Peaceful Death: When possible, BONE will kill their victim without leaving any marks on the body.
Macabre Puppet: BONE can control corpses by replacing its tongue with their own body. Their control is perfect, mimicking life itself, but they only know basic things about their host such as their name, age, and immediate family.
Ghoul: When BONE voluntarily leaves a Macabre Puppet, the remains become a walking corpse. BONE can command these ghouls, but they can only follow basic commands.

Situation: Precious Minerals

(A scenario for your Mothership game, using the TOMBS system.)

Transgression: A cruise-size space mining ship has discovered a strange mineral deep within an asteroid field. These minerals grow from the core of a small asteroid towards its surface in a spiral shape. When touched, they emit a constant vibration and a deep hum.
MOTHER, the goddess of the XENOS, has detected this vibration through one of her receptors, and sent a BONE to take control of the mining ship and deliver it to the nearest planet under her control.

Omens: BONE will enter the ship by snatching the body of a miner or a hull-repair worker. BONE needs to reach and snatch the body of the commanding officer of the ship to redirect it to the closest planet controlled by MOTHER. For this purpose, BONE will sabotaje the ship, using the chaos as an opportunity to switch hosts and reach higher ranks each time.
The crew will find corpses of people that they have talked to recently, with strange marks on their tongues. BONE will frequently visit the cargo bay, to check the safety of the precious minerals.

Manifestation: If BONE is discovered while in a Macabre Puppet, they will slowly reveal their eyes through the impossible gaping mouth of their victim. They will try to kill anyone that witnessed their true nature. They will only escape through the vents if most of the crewmates know of their plan or if they are badly hurt.After being revealed to the crew, Ghouls will begin to appear from BONE’s previous Macabre Puppets. 

Banishment: There are two ways to stop BONE, either by killing it directly or by destroying or disposing of the mineral loadout of the ship. MOTHER does not tolerate failure within her sons. If BONE cannot complete their mission, they are better off dead.

Slumber: When MOTHER desires something, she will take it. Her sons are plentiful, if one is not enough, she will send more.

BONE is one of the aliens you can play as in Caligaes’ XENO. Right now, you can download the pamphlet version at caligaes.itch.io/caligaesxeno. Later this year, we’ll be releasing an expanded Quickstart version through our newsletter.

Join the XENO Invasion newsletter now to get weekly alien content! And remember that you can go directly to www.axostories.com/blogs to check the last week post where Alastor shared with us some Z-KOM VICTIMS. See you next week!