ALIEN APPEARANCE

While many aliens can pass for human under some circumstances (or low lighting), the character with this trait will have an obviously alien appearance. It could be that they’re basically human but green, or have a large head to accommodate their massive brain power, or pointy ears, or obviously reptilian features. Players should feel free to be creative. This trait could also be taken by a human whose physical form has been altered by mutation or experimentation.

Effect

Alien Appearance is a Bad Trait that can provide either 2 Points or 4 Points. The more severe the Alien Appearance trait, the more ‘alien’ the character looks.

As a 2-point Bad Trait, Alien Appearance means the character is basically humanoid but with a distinctive alien feature. In most cases, when they encounter people who are OK with aliens there will be nothing out of the ordinary, however when meeting the inhabitants of more-primitive planets (see Technology Levels, pg. 65) who may not have met aliens before, social rolls will all suffer a -2 penalty (that is if they don’t just run away!).

As a 4-point Bad Trait, the ‘alien-ness’ of the character is more extreme. The may have tentacles instead of limbs, or a face like a squid – they could look like anything! Again, on advanced planets that are used to aliens, this isn’t a problem, but if they meet less experienced peoples they will suffer a -4 penalty on social rolls (possibly even become the target of scared locals who assume the alien is a monster to be destroyed!).