Exotic Biomorphs

Aquanaut:

Aquanauts are environmentally adapted for underwater activities. They have seen a revival on exoplanets with habitable seas and oceans. Their heart rate slows while underwater, their skin includes a layer of blubber that retains heat, they store oxygen in their muscle tissue, and they do not suffer negative health effects from pressure changes. Additionally, their eyes have nictitating membranes and their corneas adjust to counter underwater refraction. Their hands and feet are webbed and they possess a transgenic swim bladder for controlling buoyancy. They can safely descend to about 200 meters depth (roughly 6 atmospheres of pressure) without suffering narcotic effects or other diving problems.
Armor: 0
Tags: +biomods, +mesh inserts, +cortical stack, +enhanced respiration, +gills, +sonar, +swim bladder, +temperature tolerance (improved cold), +toxin filters*

Ariel:

The surprising number of transhumans who chose to sleeve in Titan-adapted hulder morphs encouraged designers on Profunda to develop a Titan-adapted flyer. While the sturdy hulder morph is designed for nomadic herders, the ariel morph is designed by people who wish to survive by hunting. Individuals sleeved in the ariel morph can hunt and eat Titanian caribou, but they most often eat the smaller rabbit-like creatures that Profunda designers have also recently designed to live on Titan. Ariel morphs have exotic-looking heads similar to those of hulder morphs, but they also possess sleek and streamlined humanoid bodies with four limbs and a pair of bat-like wings.
These morphs have also been used by a few daring transhumans to explore the upper cloud layers of both Saturn and Uranus.
Armor: +1
Tags: +biomods, +mesh inserts, +cortical stack, +bioweave armor (included above), +claws, +direction sense, +enhanced vision, +long-term life support, +low pressure tolerance, +oxygen reserve, +prehensile feet, +radiation sense, +t-ray emitter, +temperature tolerance (cryonic), +flight

Betta:

The Betta is a newly released morph from Skinthetic, aiming for the luxury market. The inspiration is Betta splendens the Siamese fighting fish. The basic morph is sylph-like, but has long flowing “fins” extending from the arms, legs, spine and head. These colorful surfaces are fully innervated skin, equipped with chromatophores to shine in intense colors. Each morph is different, with individual colors, fin shapes and patterning. The skin is extremely soft and silken, occasionally with iridescent vellum hairs. The Betta morph is not particularly useful, but that is not the point. It is sensual, beautiful, requires great care and compels a high price. It is the morph version of extremely high heels: it takes the right kind of person to look fabulous in them. The most obvious drawback is that Bettas do not function well in high gravity; the fins will slouch and be in the way of walking. Bettas work best in microgravity where they can swim/fly/drift around freely. The large surface area also causes some temperature regulation problems: Bettas need warm surroundings or they will be chill (for aesthetic reasons the design team removed the pilomotor reflex too). This is even more important in water. Clothing obviously has to be cut in the right way for the morph, but if you can afford the morph then you likely already have a haute couture AI.
Armor: -1 (yes, you take a penalty on Damage rolls)
Tags: +biomods, +mesh inserts, +cortical stack, +clean metabolism, +enhanced touch, +enhanced pheromones, +chameleon skin (chromatic colors only)
Extras: +impractical

Cloud Skate:

Like the surya and hulder morphs, the cloud skate is another biomorph that pushes the edge of what is possible. It is designed to be able to live in the atmospheres of gas giants, including Jupiter. This morph is shaped roughly like a tailless stingray with a pair of slender arms. The version of the swim bladder used by this morph provides neutral buoyancy in dense atmospheres, preventing it from sinking below a safe depth. Several small outer system collectives are planning to use these morphs to colonize the atmospheres of Saturn and Neptune and are also working on creating versions of animals and plants that can also live in these exotic environments.
Armor: +1
Tags: +biomods, +mesh inserts, +cortical stack, +bioweave armor (included above), +direction sense, +enhanced vision, +high-g adaptation, +hydrostatic pressure adaptation, +long-term life support, +oxygen reserve, +radiation sense, +radar, +swim bladder, +t-ray emitter, +temperature tolerance (cryonic), +flight

Crasher:

An enhanced version of ruster morphs, crashers are rugged and durable designs capable of weathering a range of harsh environments. They are the ideal biomorph for gatecrashing assignments and are popular among first-in teams. Though pricey compared to other biomorph options, many gatecrashers traveling to less habitable and dangerous environments have found the investment worth it.
Armor: +1
Tags: +biomods, +mesh inserts, +cortical stack, +bioweave armor (included above), +circadian regulation, +clean metabolism, +direction sense, +eidetic memory, +enhanced respiration, +enhanced vision, +grip pads, +hibernation, +medichines, +oxygen reserve, +toxin filters, +vacuum sealing

Freeman:

Many leaders want to ensure loyalty or at least obedience from their citizens, especially recently sleeved infugees. The freeman biomorph offers rulers (some would say tyrants or dictators) a chance to offer citizens a new life without worrying about dissidence. Based on the splicer morph, the freeman is genetically modified to be more obedient, which results in lower Willpower. More insidiously, freeman morphs are genetically modified with a protein that makes their neurons sensitive to light. When combined with an optogenetics module implant, these neurons can be activated and deactivated remotely, enabling a monitoring muse or meshed overseer to control the ego’s behavior.
The freeman comes with a specialized monitor AGI installed in a modified ghostrider module. The monitor, usually a modified fork of the tyrant’s muse, watches and reports all suspicious actions taken by the primary ego. The purpose of this implant is often concealed. Citizens who sleeve into a freeman morph are told the implant is a security measure that helps prevent infection from TITAN technology or some similar lie. The module is designed to resist tampering and will report to headquarters the instant it detects a hacker’s intrusion. The monitor muse can manipulate the ego’s behavior or even take control of the morph via its puppet sock, but avoids doing that unless absolutely necessary. Dictators do not want to reveal that their citizens have spies implanted in their skulls, watching them.
Surprisingly, some people voluntarily sleeve into freeman morphs, preferring to hand responsibility and decision-making over to other parties, such as the Sendero Luminoso Benevolent Dictatorship habitat in the Neptunian Trojans.
Armor: 0
Tags: +biomods, +mesh inserts, +cortical stack, +modified behavior, +monitor module, +puppet sock
Extras: +glitched on all Willpower rolls

Grey:

Originally created as part of a fad based on 20th-century images of aliens, the grey morph soon became popular with eccentric scientists and engineers. This morph’s slender and weak-looking body stands only 1.5 meters tall, short compared to modern transhumans. Its distinctive large head and eyes strike many transhumans as disturbing.
Armor: 0
Tags: +biomods, +mesh inserts, +cortical stack, +circadian regulation, +clean metabolism, +eidetic memory, +emotional dampers, +enhanced vision, +math boost

Hulder:

Hulder are engineered for survival in the Titanian wilds. In silhouette, their bodies resemble a long-legged great auk, though viewed up close, the resemblance to a bird ends. Hulder have no feathers, but rather smooth, rubbery charcoal or black skin covering a thick layer of nano-augmented blubber. What resembles a thick bill from a distance is actually a seamless protrusion of the face, packed with sensory augmentations. Hulder stand 2 meters tall and weigh on average 135 kilograms. Their sensory organs, webbed feet, and fingers are all cybernetic. Hulder can only tolerate temperatures hospitable to baseline transhumans for short periods of time. In the open, they must balance their bodies’ chemical reservoirs with other hulder and caribou once per month or with a chemical reserve pack. A typical band of 2–6 hulder and 10–20 caribou can go about a year before having to visit a hab or a station like Huvudskär to replenish chemical reserves.
Armor: +1
Tags: +biomods, +mesh inserts, +cortical stack, +bioweave armor (included above), +digging claws, +direction sense, +enhanced vision, +long-term life support, +oxygen reserve, +radiation sense, +swim bladder, +t-ray emitter, +temperature tolerance (cryonic)

Hyperbright:

This morph is an attempt by a research team on Bright to create a successor to the menton, making it the most intelligence-enhanced morph ever created. Work on the hyperbright morph has been plagued with difficulties, as the designers attempt to push technical limits, creating a morph that can work at peak efficiency without distraction for long periods of time. In an effort to create a morph that proves their design and earns some positive reputation for their project, the creators took short cuts that caused the morph to have several distinctive and potentially annoying quirks, including an inherent need for drugs to stabilize its exotic neurochemistry. The result is a morph that is instantly recognizable by the brightly colored bony crest along the skull that helps cool its brain. Despite its quirks, the hyperbright has gained a small following among a number of scientists and engineers, especially since it has been optimized for use in the low-g environments of the outer system.
Armor: 0
Tags: +biomods, +mesh inserts, +cortical stack, +circadian regulation, +eidetic memory, +endocrine control, +grip pads, +hyper-linguist, +math boost, +mental speed (cognition), +prehensile feet

Neo-Beluga:

Neo-belugas are the smallest and most numerous of the surviving whale uplifts, ranging 5.5 meters in length on average. They are white-skinned with no dorsal ridge, toothed, and have the distinction of being the only whale that can swim backwards.
Armor: 0
Tags: +biomods, +mesh inserts, +cortical stack, +echolocation, +enhanced hearing, +oxygen reserve
Extras: +aquatic

Neo-Dolphin:

The uplifted versions of various dolphin species are very similar to baseline dolphins physiologically. Thanks to the oxygen reserve implant, neo-dolphins can stay underwater for longer (Cerean dolphins have gills installed, as the subcrustal sea has no breathable atmosphere above it). Common neo-dolphin germlines lack hands or other limbs, though cybernetic arms or even bioware enhancements are not uncommon. Neo-dolphin morphs are very rare, since there are few habitats that can support them, and they are almost never found apart from aquatic environments.
Armor: 0
Tags: +biomods, +mesh inserts, +cortical stack, +echolocation, +enhanced hearing, +oxygen reserve
Extras: +aquatic

Neo-Orca:

Though colloquially referred to as killer whales, orcas are actually members of the dolphin family. The average neo-orca length is 7 meters for males, 6 meters for females. Males also have larger and more triangular pectoral fins.
Armor: 0
Tags: +biomods, +mesh inserts, +cortical stack, +echolocation, +enhanced hearing, +oxygen reserve
Extras: +aquatic

Neo-Whale:

Less than several hundred neo-whale morphs exist, and the majority remain occupied by their original egos. They are primarily found in Ceres and Atlantica. They are derived from humpback, blue, and sperm whale genetic stock. Humpbacks and blues are baleen whales and require large amounts of krill to survive. Sperm whales are toothed, feeding on fish and squid.
Armor: 0
Tags: +biomods, +mesh inserts, +cortical stack, +echolocation, +enhanced hearing, +oxygen reserve
Extras: +aquatic

Nomads:

While synthmorphs are the first choice for many gatecrashers, morph designers have made great headway in creating biomorphs suitable for hazardous exoplanets. The nomad biomorph is optimized for operating in desert environments and takes many of its traits from the camel, prompting some observers to mistake the nomad for a pod morph. With an elongated face designed like a camel to trap water vapor in the nostrils as the morph exhales, nomads are clearly off-putting to many bioconservatives. Some models also have camel feet for better travels in sandy dune environments. Nomads are actually quite hefty under normal circumstances, as they are designed to be able to carry large amounts of fat tissue. Their fat tissue can be moved around their body to adapt to high or low temperatures. When nomads are in the field, however, they can become quite skinny, as they survive for months on their fat tissue alone.
Armor: 0
Tags: +biomods, +mesh inserts, +cortical stack, +efficient digestion, +enhanced respiration, +fat storage, +medichines, +temperature tolerance (improved cold), +toxin filters.

Observers:

Observers have their minds enhanced to bolster intuitive, analytical, and investigative capabilities. They are favored by detectives and others with a mind towards details, puzzles, and thin-slicing.
Armor: 0
Tags: +biomods, +mesh inserts, +cortical stack, +mental speed (intuition)

Ring Flyers:

Designed for use in Saturn’s magnetic field, this exotic biomorph is also occasionally used around Jupiter, Uranus, and Neptune, as well as having limited use in the Jovian Trojans and Main Belt. Easily recognizable with its slender limbs and round-backed torso, this morph can survive indefinitely in space, acquiring oxygen, water, and trace organic materials from the particles of Saturn’s rings. It can also maneuver around any planet with a magnetic field, flying swiftly and easily in any of these environments.
Armor: +1
Tags: +biomods, +mesh inserts, +cortical stack, +bioweave armor (included above), +enhanced respiration, +enhanced vision, +gas jet system, +grip pads, +hibernation, +long-term life support, +medichines, +oxygen reserve, +plasma sail implant, +prehensile feet, +radiation tolerance, +temperature tolerance (cryonic), +vacuum sealing

Salamander:

Salamanders are a type of biomorph popular with Solarians. They share some of the physiological traits of suryas, but are unable to survive unprotected in the corona (requiring a solar survival suit, like other biomorphs), and are instead bio-engineered to survive in the protected vacuum of coronal habitats. Their skin is thick, hairless, vaguely reptilian, and mostly black in color, with gold and orange body patterning. Like suryas, salamanders communicate either via wireless transmissions or by “sunspotting”—using their chromatophores to shift light and dark patterns on their skin to form patterns easily comprehensible to other coronal morphs. Salamanders have a wiry, streamlined, swept-back sort of look, a combination of fey and monkey-like. Their heads are also somewhat reptilian, with reflective eyes, no nose, and no mouth. Their feet are prehensile, usable just like hands. They lack reproductive organs and capabilities and feature cyberware gas jets on their chest and back for maneuvering in zero g. Many Solarians who normally inhabit suryas will sleeve into salamanders if they need to use humanoid tools or interact with non-Solarians.
Armor: 0
Tags: +biomods, +mesh inserts, +cortical stack, +coronal adaptation, +chameleon skin, +enhanced vision, +gas jet system, +medichines, +oxygen reserve, +prehensile feet, +vacuum sealing

Selkie:

Selkies look like a human-seal hybrid, and in fact their genetics are aquanaut with heavy splices of seal traits. Their arms are standard human-shaped, but their legs are fused into a pair of hind flippers for powerful swimming. On land, they can stand but have difficulty moving, as they must flop, roll, or hop like a seal. They are adapted for the lack of air, deep cold, and crushing pressure of subcrustal seas.
Armor: 0
Tags: +biomods, +mesh inserts, +cortical stack, +echolocation, +enhanced hearing, +enhanced vision, +enhanced respiration, +gills, +hydrostatic pressure adaptation, +swim bladder, +temperature tolerance (improved cold), +toxin filters

Surya

Named for a Hindu sun deity, suryas swim freely in the sun’s corona. Looking roughly like whales or orcas, suryas may reach lengths of ten meters or more. They generate powerful magnetic fields that shield them from solar radiation and heat, while allowing them to surf the solar wind and extract ionized particles. Strong bones and connective tissues protect against the crushing solar gravity. Beneath their thick hides are channels of liquid water interleaved with layers of fat which serve to shield the organism from harmful radiation. Engineered medichines repair tissue damaged by radiation and convert hydrogen ions into water. A surya’s skin is an extraordinary organ, embedded with chromatophores that allow them to transmit alternating patterns of light and dark for communication. In addition, a lateral line runs down their sides, allowing them to detect the long-period sound waves that reflect off the sun’s lower atmosphere and resonate through the corona’s gas and plasma. Suryas traveling through the transition zone between the corona and the chromosphere use these vibrations to predict and avoid heavy solar weather.
Armor: 0
Tags: +biomods, +mesh inserts, +cortical stack, +coronal adaptation, +chameleon skin, +enhanced hearing, +enhanced vision, +medichines, +vacuum sealing

Theseus:

While there are no sanctioned explorations of Earth, a few daring or greedy transhumans defy the laws to salvage there. Some scavengers and explorers still scour the ruins of habitats that were destroyed during the Fall. Others look for wealth and secrets in the quarantined zones on Luna and Mars. Some simply seek out remaining TITAN machines to destroy, wherever they may be found. The theseus is a popular biomorph for this type of work. Its medichines and nanophages keep the morph protected from most attacks by exsurgent nanotech, and the lack of a cyberbrain makes it less vulnerable to mind hacking. An emergency farcaster allows the user to safely return from situations where both their morph and their cortical stack might be destroyed or corrupted.
Armor: +1
Tags: +biomods, +mesh inserts, +cortical stack, +bioweave armor (included above), +direction sense, +emergency farcaster, +enhanced vision, +low pressure tolerance, +medichines, +nanophages, +oxygen reserve, +radiation sense, +t-ray emitter, +temperature tolerance (cold), +toxin filters

Glider:

The glider is designed to survive for many hours in Venus’s unbreathable atmosphere. Tall and thin, with long, strong limbs and a lightweight build, this morph also features gliding membranes that allow it to soar through the upper Venusian atmosphere. It can even gain altitude by riding thermals (which it can see using its enhanced vision). Once Venusian terraforming efforts are complete, an upgraded version of this morph will be able to breathe normally.
Armor: 0
Tags: +biomods, +mesh inserts, +cortical stack, +enhanced respiration, +enhanced vision, +flight, +grip pads, +prehensile feet