Teacher/Instructor

Available to: Academic Elite and Elite Militia
There is a great call for teachers in the border towns and farming villages in and around Cardania. Few competent teachers exist and even fewer towns and villages can afford to pay them what they are worth.(NEW) Teach: This is the ability to impart knowledge or skill in a particular field of study or task. Teaching progress is checked once a month. A Teacher can also tutor a group of students equal to less than on quarter of the teachers [(IQ+ME)/2] after hours on one subject per pupil. Base 10%; +5% per level

Core Skill: Teach (+20%)
Other Skills: Choose 2 skills from any category (+20%); Choose 4 skills from any category (+15%)

TEACHING MODIFIERS
May never teach a skill above teachers skill level
Penalties: -5% per point of student's IQ below 9
Penalties: -5% when instructing number of students greater than teachers [(IQ+ME)/2]
Penalties: -15% when instructing number of students more than double teachers [(IQ+ME)/2]
Bonuses: +2% per student's IQ point above 14
Bonuses: +5% instruction books
Bonuses: +5% proper facilities (School, Lab, Gym, etc.)
Bonuses: +10% per month of additional tutoring (at least once a week)
Bonuses: +10% if student has related skill at more than double new skills %(Basic Mechanics, Basic Math, etc...)
Bonuses: +10% when instructing number of students equal to less than half of teachers [(IQ+ME)/2]

INSTRUCTION TIME
Time: 2 months per 10% up to Skills Base %
Time: 3 months per 10% past base and up to Teacher's Skill % in subject (Teacher may never teach students more than they know).
Time: 6 months for Physical Skills (After two months of training sessions have been successfully completed, skill modifiers will be at 1/2 (round down))
Time: 4 months Hand to Hand: Basic
Time: 6 months Hand to Hand: Expert (Requires and replaces: HtH: Basic)
Time: 8 months Hand to Hand: Martial Arts (Requires and replaces: HtH: Basic)
Time: 6 months Hand to Hand: Bull Fight
NOTE: loose all previous HtH bonuses after learning new HtH skill.

TEACHING WEAPON PROFICIENCIES
Instructor must have at least three levels of experience in the weapon. Two successful teaching checks must be made: First successful check will negate non-proficiency modifiers while using this weapon; Second successful check will give the student first level proficiency in the weapon.
Time: Base of three 6-day weeks(4 hours per day)
Penalty: -5% / 3 days removed from training
Penalties: -5% when instructing number of students greater than teachers [(IQ+ME)/2]
Penalties: -15% when instructing number of students more than double teachers [(IQ+ME)/2]
Bonuses: +5% / 3 days added to training
Bonuses: +10% when instructing number of students equal to less than half of teachers [(IQ+ME)/2]


Example: Bob (IQ 14; ME 15) is teaching chemistry to a class of 30 students in an old school house with a chemistry lab and chemistry books. Bob has the Basic Chemistry skill at 60%, and Teaching skill at 34%.

Starting out, it will take Bob 10 months to instruct the students to the base skill level(50%). At the end of each month of teaching the class he will need to roll a teaching check for each student with a base check of -5% (Class size is more than double the average of Bob's IQ and ME (14.5), but has access to a chemistry lab and books (-15%+5%+5%)). However, students with IQ's lower than 9 will be at -5% per point below 9. So to successfully teach Johnny, with an IQ of 6 (-15%), Bob would need to succeed a Teaching skill roll of 14% (34%-5%-15%).

Bob could try to tutor Johnny (+10% per month) after school which would allow for a skill roll of 24%.

Failure would mean that Johnny would not gain the 10% for Chemistry skill these two months, and would have to suffer through two more months of instruction to make it up.  Some instructors will dismiss students they deem unteachable.

Bush Pilot

Available to: All except Feral Background
Prerequisites: Hands and Biped at least partial(needed to control the aircraft), IQ 12+, ME 12+

There is always a call for those crazy enough to fly into the wilderness areas beyond the borders of Cardania, the Empire, and New Kennel. Jobs usually include transporting supplies, equipment, and people.

Main Skill: Pilot Airplane or Helicopter (+20%).
Core Skills: Navigation, Read Sensory Equipment, Radio: Basic Communications, Astronomy, Basic Mathematics, Rope Works, Wilderness Survival. All receive a +10% apprenticeship bonus.
Pilot: Airplane, Helicopter, Vehicle Weapon Systems, or Aircraft Mechanics (+10%; or add 10% to Main Skill choice).
Rouge: Select any two.
W.P. Skills: Revolver or Automatic Pistol and select any two others.

Wilderness Scout

Available to: Any background except the Academic Underground.

This character has spent the past ten years learning how to live off the land, becoming a skilled hunter, trapper, and scout able to hunt, track and trap both all types of prey. The character is able to survive in a number of different types of terrain and weather.

Scouts are often called upon to blaze trails and explore newly found ruins, but may also be called upon to identify creatures and/or bandits troubling frontier towns and track them to their lair/camp.

Mutant animals most often take this apprenticeship to reclaim some aspect of their feral heritage and return to a natural relationship with the world. However, this often causes a friction in their relations and dealings with their urban kin.

Main Skills: Wilderness Survival (+20%), Tracking (+20%), Land Navigation (+20%), Hunting
Core Skills: Animal Husbandry, Trapping, Identify Plants & Fruit, Skin & Prepare Animal Hides. All skills receive a +15% bonus
Domestic Skills: Choose four (+10%)
Medical Skills: Choose one: Holistic Medicine or First Aid
Rouge Skills: Choose one: Detect Ambush, Detect Concealment & Traps, Locate Secret Compartments & Doors
Military & Weapon Proficiency: Camouflage (+5%), Intelligence, WP Knife, WP Bolt-Action Rifle, and any two WP of choice

(Optional) Bonuses & Penalties: +2 PS, +2 PE, -2 PB, -1 MA. When dealing with urban (non-rural) folk, Wilderness Scouts receive a -6 MA penalty and may never have more than +40% to their Trust or Charm bonus.

Favorite scenes from the Planet of the Apes movies

Whenever I watch the Planet of the Apes movies I cannot help but think of Palladium's After the Bomb. Conquest of the Planet of the Apes could show what the world may have been like before the Big Death. And the original Planet of the Apes may give us an idea of what the world could be like after the Empire of Humanity is destroyed and the last of the humans have mutated to little more than wild animals.

Below are two of my favorite scenes from those movies that best reflect a mutant animals view of humanity:

[from: Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972)]
MacDonald: Caesar... Caesar! This is not how it was meant to be.
Caesar: In your view or mine?
MacDonald: Violence prolongs hate, hate prolongs violence. By what right are you spilling blood?
Caesar: By the slave's right to punish his persecutor.
MacDonald: I, a decedent of slaves am asking you to show humanity.
Caesar: But, I was not born human.
MacDonald: I know. The child of the evolved apes.
Caesar: Whose children shall rule the earth.
MacDonald: For better or for worse?
Caesar: Do you think it could be worse?
MacDonald: Do you think this riot will win freedom for all your people? By tomorrow...
Caesar: By tomorrow it will be too late. Why a tiny, mindless insect like the emperor moth can communicate with another over a distance of 80 miles...
MacDonald: An emperor ape might do slightly better?
Caesar: Slightly? What you have seen here today, apes on the 5 continents will be imitating tomorrow.
MacDonald: With knives against guns? With kerosene cans against flamethrowers?
Caesar: Where there is fire, there is smoke. And in that smoke, from this day forward, my people will crouch and conspire and plot and plan for the inevitable day of Man's downfall - the day when he finally and self-destructively turns his weapons against his own kind. The day of the writing in the sky, when your cities lie buried under radioactive rubble! When the sea is a dead sea, and the land is a wasteland out of which I will lead my people from their captivity! And we will build our own cities in which there will be no place for humans except to serve our ends! And we shall found our own armies, our own religion, our own dynasty! And that day is upon you... NOW!



[from: Planet of the Apes (1968)]
Cornelius: [reading from the sacred scrolls of the apes] Beware the beast man, for he is the Devil's pawn. Alone among God's primates, he kills for sport or lust or greed. Yea, he will murder his brother to possess his brother's land. Let him not breed in great numbers, for he will make a desert of his home and yours. Shun him; drive him back into his jungle lair, for he is the harbinger of death.

Psionic Combat Training

For use with AtB: Mutants in Orbit

This is an advanced form of psionic combat training taught to those with psionic powers and who do not wish to partake in brutish physical combat. This skill cannot be taken in conjunction with any Hand to Hand combat skill. All bonuses are cumulative.

1: Starts with four psionic attacks/actions per melee; +2 initiative (precognitive reflex).
2: +2 to parry and dodge (precognitive reflex).
3: +2 to save vs. psionic attack; +1 initiative (precognitive reflex).
4: +1 psionic attack/action per melee round.
5: Gains Mind Block Auto-Defence (See Heroes Unlimited).
6: On unmodified roll of 1, 2, or 3 to save vs. psionics, opponent takes double damage or doubled duration (attackers choice).
7: Psionic abilities range increase by half.
8: Psionic assisted leap (double leaping and jumping distance).
9: +1 psionic attack/action per melee round; +3 damage to psionic attacks.
10: Gains Group Mind Block (See Heroes Unlimited).
11: Gains Mental Stun (See Heroes Unlimited, Minor Super Ability)
12: +2 to parry and dodge; +1 initiative (precognitive reflex).
13: Psionic abilities range doubles.
14: +2 psionic attack/action per melee round.
15: Ascendant: character becomes a being of pure astral energy.

Note: This is a work-in-progress and has not been play tested. Use at your own risk and only with your GM's approval. I doubt this would work well with the Animal Psionics or in any After the Bomb setting other than Mutants in Orbit, as it allows for mutant animals to have human psioincs.