[Humor] [Link] Eclipse Maid, a posthuman maid role-playing game

post by Kaj_Sotala · 2011-12-28T13:18:42.536Z · LW · GW · Legacy · 21 comments

What do you get when you put together Eclipse Phase, the science-fiction RPG of posthuman horror, and Maid, the light comedy anime-themed RPG? The answer, of course, is... Eclipse Maid.

In the distant future, humanity's age has passed. Runaway technological development has led to the obsolescence of the human race, and the Solar System is now ruled by vast, posthuman intelligences that explore realms of science and philosophy unimaginable to the unenhanced mind. Their most idle musings spawn computational vistas more complex than entire human civilsations as they plumb the very secrets of the cosmos.

Incomprehensibly sophisticated as they may be, however, the posthumans have difficulty dealing with what they euphemistically term the “analogue world”. To be blunt, they're really quite hopeless when it comes to physical matters. For all their cognitive puissance, they haven't yet freed themselves from certain physical needs – energy, security, computational machinery on which to run – and so they create servants to carry out their will, defend their physical forms from rivals and hostile Outsiders, and generally keep things tidy.

Thus, even in the age of humanity's eclipse, there are maids.

The Ego (mind) Origins Table contains entries such as Blank ("You're a brand-new digital sentience, created from scratch to serve your Master"), Fork ("You're a scaled-down copy of your Master's own program. You have so many identity issues"), Uplift ("The Master gave you intelligence to serve him. Were you animal, or something weird like a plant?"), and Offspring ("You're actually a larval posthuman AI, serving your "parent" or another Master as a form of vocational training").

The selection of Morphs (physical bodies) includes ones such as Chibimorph, Giant Flying Space Whale, Spideroid ("This Morph resembles an armoured crab or spider the size of a small car. They're designed for combat and reconnaissance, but a hardware glitch causes Egos sleeved into them to become curious and philosophical"), Braincase ("A brain in a jar; you communicate using a built-in video screen with a picture of your face on it. While sleeved into this Morph, your intellect is vastly expanded, but you're easily tipped over"), Nekomorph, and Spectator ("A hovering metallic sphere with numerous camera-eyes mounted on prehensile robotic stalks. It's equipped with eye lasers for self-defence"). Special Morph qualities range from Blushes Easily ("This Morph turns red at the least provocation - even if this makes no sense whatsoever") to Solar Powered ("Efficient, environmentally friendly, and useless in the dark").

Possible Masters for your maids range from sapient starships to planetary minds to hive minds. You might enjoy reading the PDF even if you didn't know anything about role-playing games.

Thanks to Risto Saarelma for the pointer.

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