World Building: Genegineering

Genegineering began with the concept of cloned bodies, available for sale or rent for digitized human consciousness. Thus was born the idea of the Kevin­™ and Kate™ model clones, their faces representative of a generically wholesome brand name. However, life would be boring if that was all that Genegineering had to offer.

Let’s start with organ replacement and muscle grafts. For the right price, have your filthy homegrown guts swapped for a Genegineered stomach with a nest of symbiotic digestive worms. Of course, this is just the start. Opting for more invasive genetic restructuring, the Geneineered can surpass normal human potential.

Originally, there were a number of Geneineering Boons, each one giving a character some minor advantage. This was simplified to give players a better selection, and better overall advantages.

It was during the re-imagining of Geneineering that Chimeras were fully introduced …

 We had discussed the idea of spliced human and animals, mixing human and animal DNA. People could now opt for retro-viral remapping rewriting their genetic code.

The idea grew out of a discussion we had about a bar bouncer being implanted with vat-grown gorilla muscles, becoming more of a gorilla than a human. Today one of our signature characters, the Hacker, Red, is a fox chimera.

Genegineering Boons improve the character in a different manner than Cybernetic Boons. Mechanically, Cybernetics increase skills and Armor, while Genegineering improves Attribute rolls. Both have a capstone boon that allows Physical Attributes to improve past human limits.  Genegineering boons, outside of the Chimera boon, also provide an almost undetectable advantage for characters that choose them, whereas Cybernetics are more obvious. The  capstone boons for both Genegeneering and Cybernetics are mutually exclusive.  At some point in the chains, you have to commit to one or the other to reach your full potential.