Deviants variation build advice

[tumbleweed664]

Hey all. I have a half or maybe three-quarters baked idea for a deviant concept, but the rules are a little complicated so I am hoping to get confirmation I did this correctly. It's sort of a weird combo of Crazy Jane, Q-Bee from Darksiders, and that ant superhero from that Rick and Morty episode. I am particularly unsure if I used the combo of Monstrous Transformation and the Relentless Variation deviation correctly.
The concept is a species of fae/demon/alien "bee" swarms that are closer to a sci-fi hivemind then actual bee swarms (close to the Amalgam form with one personality more dominant). They are carnivorous and their bites also steal memories. The energy and memories they eat are used to heal/replace dead bugs and grow the power of the swarm, and they can hide and deceive potential victims by consolidating and appearing as people they have bitten and the people in the stolen memories. They also use the energy to create a variety of substances for their stings and, most potently, for the nests of mysterious "honeycomb" they create, which can heal, harm, or have even stranger effects on people who consume them.

I like the idea of a Renegade who was turned into the queen of a swarm (not exactly sure how yet, maybe as a result of a powerful and large swarm force feeding someone royal jelly as it split and "reproduced"), probably by a conspiracy that wants to take advantage of the magical "honeycomb" as a wonder drug. The Deviant is stuck in bug form but they can appear as people whose memories they have stolen and thus live something like a human life, including engaging socially and having connections who are unaware of their nature (it seemed like too much of an unfun nightmare to enjoy rp-ing as otherwise).

I made this with what seems to be the default-ish number of starting variations (7 plus one scar-free dot from origin) and was spread pretty thin. In particular I could not find a way to fit in a dot of Memory Thief so at the start the character would not have quite enough control to be able to use the memories they steal.

Monstrous Transformation 5 (with the one scar free dot) made up of:
-Animal Transformation 3 for turning into a bee swarm
-Lash 3 for the swarm's stings/bites (a gentle brawl lash with versatile, envenomed, soporific, channel (inhuman digestion), and (in reserve, hopefully that's allowed) channel (memory thief))
-Face Thief 2 with the Recollection deviation making it 3
Scar: 4 Bane or Dependency (fleshing out the details but something appropriately fae or bee related) with the Relentless Variation deviation, which I would guess is +0 because despite the effect creating story complications, Face Thief makes it manageable.

Sacred Flesh 1, probably the Token version, with Rapid Healing as the secondary variation
Scar: Preparation 2 to 4, eventually 5 (I want to increase the magnitude of this variation over time to 3 or 4 and use growing the scar as a way to deal with excess Instability), with the Identifier deviation.

Inhuman Digestion 1 with the Cannibalize deviation making it 2
Scar: Amnesia 3 or 4, I'm thinking new queens lose much of their memories as they gain those from the swarm and people they bite. I liked the idea of the character ONLY being able to heal this way, but the closest way to achieve that seemed like the Sluggish Digestion scar which was a clunky fit (but did make me realize a healing method is probably required to avoid weirdness in applying the recovery rules to a bug swarm character).

Aside from wondering if I built this within the rules, I have a few other questions. How do I increase the magnitude of an existing variation through experience? Just spend the 4 exp and increase it by whatever amount, presuming a valid unentangled scar exists? Do the limits on unentangled scars include scars that are entangled but that have larger magnitudes than needed for their entangled variation(s)? Can I have a Skill Specialty in the use of my Lash under the appropriate skill (Brawl in this example)?

[Satchel]

Monstrous Transformation 5 (with the one scar free dot)

Worth noting: This means it counts as a four-dot Variation for the purposes of Scar entanglement, which means you can entangle another Variation with the same Scar.

-Animal Transformation 3 for turning into a bee swarm
-Lash 3 for the swarm's stings/bites (a gentle brawl lash with versatile, envenomed, soporific, channel (inhuman digestion), and (in reserve, hopefully that's allowed) channel (memory thief))

If you're not married to the concept of the character being a swarm by default from the beginning, you could manage some of these two effects through a bug-based version of Storm-Caller (Swarms, Blizzard, Poor Light, Currents, Crosswinds, and other Tilts being appropriate).

-Face Thief 2 with the Recollection deviation making it 3
Scar: 4 Bane or Dependency (fleshing out the details but something appropriately fae or bee related) with the Relentless Variation deviation, which I would guess is +0 because despite the effect creating story complications, Face Thief makes it manageable.

I feel as though this is mutually incompatible with Animal Transformation, or at least inadvisable, because turning into a swarm of bugs and disguising yourself as another person at the same time is already tricky and you've locked yourself into a version of the power that doesn't let you duplicate the human target's clothes.

You may want to consider either increasing the Threat Level this character is built for or dialing back the severity of their starting condition, particularly given that the thing you've described seems perfectly suited for a Chimeric created from prolonged integration with a Manticore.

Sacred Flesh 1, probably the Token version, with Rapid Healing as the secondary variation
Scar: Preparation 2 to 4, eventually 5 (I want to increase the magnitude of this variation over time to 3 or 4 and use growing the scar as a way to deal with excess Instability), with the Identifier deviation.

I'd question the inclusion of Identifier on this one, given what that Deviation represents.

Scar: Amnesia 3 or 4, I'm thinking new queens lose much of their memories as they gain those from the swarm and people they bite. I liked the idea of the character ONLY being able to heal this way, but the closest way to achieve that seemed like the Sluggish Digestion scar which was a clunky fit (but did make me realize a healing method is probably required to avoid weirdness in applying the recovery rules to a bug swarm character).

Animal Transformation (Swarm) doesn't use the radius mechanics presented in other forms of the Swarm rules, so nothing gets especially weird applying normal recovery rules to a character who exists as a swarm of insects.

Aside from wondering if I built this within the rules, I have a few other questions. How do I increase the magnitude of an existing variation through experience?

You don't. You need to have medium Instability marked to increase the Magnitude of a Variation's entangled Scar sufficiently to support higher Variation Magnitude, and then you choose to increase the Magnitude of the Variation, thereby making the Scar Magnitude increase permanent.

Just spend the 4 exp and increase it by whatever amount, presuming a valid unentangled scar exists?

That's the mechanic for buying new Variations.

Do the limits on unentangled scars include scars that are entangled but that have larger magnitudes than needed for their entangled variation(s)?

Entangled Scars are not unentangled Scars, so no.

Can I have a Skill Specialty in the use of my Lash under the appropriate skill (Brawl in this example)?

Certainly.

[tumbleweed664]

Thanks so much for the advice!

I feel as though this is mutually incompatible with Animal Transformation, or at least inadvisable, because turning into a swarm of bugs and disguising yourself as another person at the same time is already tricky and you've locked yourself into a version of the power that doesn't let you duplicate the human target's clothes.

You may want to consider either increasing the Threat Level this character is built for or dialing back the severity of their starting condition, particularly given that the thing you've described seems perfectly suited for a Chimeric created from prolonged integration with a Manticore.

Hmmm... So I'd either want to increase Face Thief to the next level which lets me copy clothes or focus on the recollection ability which itself seems to call out allowing attire?

I'd question the inclusion of Identifier on this one, given what that Deviation represents.

In my mind, making the nest takes a long time, is a messy process, and maybe the chemicals are detectable in someone who eats part of the nest and gets the powers, so it seemed like an appropriate place for identifier, but it is not needed to make scar magnitude high enough, so I could potentially drop it.

Animal Transformation (Swarm) doesn't use the radius mechanics presented in other forms of the Swarm rules, so nothing gets especially weird applying normal recovery rules to a character who exists as a swarm of insects.

Ah gotcha. The swarm rules are still kinda opaque to me, I think I've seen like three versions between here and Vampire and first edition Hunter (haven't checked Hunter 2e yet), but not worrying about healing issues does make this a little easier to execute!

You don't. You need to have medium Instability marked to increase the Magnitude of a Variation's entangled Scar sufficiently to support higher Variation Magnitude, and then you choose to increase the Magnitude of the Variation, thereby making the Scar Magnitude increase permanent.

Ahhhhhhhhh I read that wrong, thank you. So then there is no reason to not set the scars to the highest level I ultimately intend them to be. Then, is the healing I was referring to regarding a whole NEW scar?
[/QUOTE]

[Satchel]

Hmmm... So I'd either want to increase Face Thief to the next level which lets me copy clothes or focus on the recollection ability which itself seems to call out allowing attire?

Given that the Deviation also mentions memories I think it's intended that it works within the limits of the Magnitude you have in the Variation's core effect; given your description of the desired effect and its logistical justification, I'd make Face Thief a separate Variation so that you can take it all the way to Magnitude 5 instead of being constrained by the restrictions of Monstrous Transformation.

It may also be prudent to scale back the disintegration of form this character experiences at the ground level, if only because "stuck as a superpowered swarm of bees" is a heck of an End Stage to make your final assault with.

In my mind, making the nest takes a long time, is a messy process, and maybe the chemicals are detectable in someone who eats part of the nest and gets the powers, so it seemed like an appropriate place for identifier, but it is not needed to make scar magnitude high enough, so I could potentially drop it.

Ah, I see. Suffice it to be said that this is probably going to be entangled with multiple forms of Sacred Flesh to model the distinctive structure and/or process necessary to produce the breadth of effects attributed to the "honeycomb"?

Ah gotcha. The swarm rules are still kinda opaque to me, I think I've seen like three versions between here and Vampire and first edition Hunter (haven't checked Hunter 2e yet)

Animal Transformation (Swarm) is actually running on literally the same damage rules as the Swarm Form Merit from Requiem 2e, turning into a swarm with Life magic in Mage 2e, and detaching an inconsistent smaller body with the Unfleshed Bestowment The Soul Is In The Software from Promethean 2e; Demon's Insect Swarm form power comes the closest to the old mechanics, because it's the oldest 2e ChroD game and the Swarm Tilt it uses is built primarily for the Swarm Exploit instead; Beast's Infestation Atavism's Satiety Expenditure effect works markedly differently, and Mummy 2e doesn't have a swarm-form power and its modular version of the Swarm Tilt is built for modeling stage hazards instead of characters.

Essentially, should you need those mechanics for comparison: swarms have Health measured by their radius in yards, they deal one point of bashing damage per turn to everyone in their radius, they can increase the amount of damage they do per turn by one point of damage per time they cut their radius in half, and taking damage from attacks that can hit a swarm reduces the swarm's radius by half (dispersing the swarm if this would reduce it below a radius of one yard). Swarms modeled as characters instead take one point of damage from ineffective attacks (two on an exceptional success) and take damage normally from effects that would harm a swarm; the size of a swarm-character is determined by whatever method the individual power describes.

Ahhhhhhhhh I read that wrong, thank you. So then there is no reason to not set the scars to the highest level I ultimately intend them to be. Then, is the healing I was referring to regarding a whole NEW scar?

You can come out of character creation with Scar Magnitude higher than necessary for your Variations, and you can entangle new Variations with those Scars at will (bearing in mind that unentangled Scars will be Persistent Scars and affect the Variations entangled with them accordingly), but you can only increase Variation Magnitude through that Scar Magnitude in a scene in which you suffer medium or major Instability.

You can also heal a medium or minor Instability or downgrade a major Instability to medium by taking on a new unentangled Scar (which, unlike those gained from major Instability, won't go away).

[tumbleweed664]

Given that the Deviation also mentions memories I think it's intended that it works within the limits of the Magnitude you have in the Variation's core effect; given your description of the desired effect and its logistical justification, I'd make Face Thief a separate Variation so that you can take it all the way to Magnitude 5 instead of being constrained by the restrictions of Monstrous Transformation.

Yeah, maybe it makes sense to take Face Thief out of Monstrous Transformation. I guess the question then is how to do that within the 8 dot variation limit? I think at the start I'd be okay with it being at 2 dots with the Recollection extra making it 3, but I am not sure how to pay for that outside of making it part of Monstrous Transformation. I think overall I could make the Lash more limited and only 2 dots instead of 3.

EDIT: Actually, maybe I could drop lash and have monstrous transformation with animal transformation, inhuman digestion, and sacred flesh, and then separately face thief at 2 with recollection making it 3? Then I'd develop the stings in the lash during play.

It may also be prudent to scale back the disintegration of form this character experiences at the ground level, if only because "stuck as a superpowered swarm of bees" is a heck of an End Stage to make your final assault with.

I had not thought about this, though I am not sure how to scale it back without losing a lot of the core element of the concept?

Ah, I see. Suffice it to be said that this is probably going to be entangled with multiple forms of Sacred Flesh to model the distinctive structure and/or process necessary to produce the breadth of effects attributed to the "honeycomb"?

Potentially. The limits of these bee swarms is not set and lots of powers could potentially be justified to result from eating the honeycomb. I have a vague idea that the nature of the swarm sets and limits what Sacred Flesh secondary variations it can produce, though I have not thought out why or how (personality of the queen maybe?). Mostly because I had as an idea that a Loyalist swarm was used to make the character a Deviant, but for whatever reason that swarm cannot produce honeycombs with the healing effect (making the PC still of value to the conspiracy). But obviously these ideas are all developing and changeable.

[Satchel]

I guess the question then is how to do that within the 8 dot variation limit?
[…]
I had not thought about this, though I am not sure how to scale it back without losing a lot of the core element of the concept?

I think you are going to have to either build for a higher Threat Level or narrow the scope of the character's starting abilities to the one you consider most core to the concept.

If "stuck as a swarm of bees" is the core of the concept, you may be best served applying Relentless Variation to Animal Transformation, possibly adding Suppressible Variation with the cost of Unstable Variation if the deviant was transformed with the intention of getting her to destabilize and thereby develop more useful abilities. (Or Involuntary Stimulus with a Common trigger.)

Here's an alternative setup for a Dysplasia version of the character:

Elect/Unwilling/Accidental Chimeric
Controlled Scars: Concentration (Unfocused; Animal Transformation) 3; Unstable Variation (Face Thief) 2
Persistent Scars: Addictive Variation (Memory Thief) 2; Glitch (Relentless Variation; Suppressible Variation: Concentration; Animal Transformation) 3**
Variations: Animal Transformation (Swarm) 3, Face Thief (Recollection) 3*, Memory Thief 2,
* Free dot from Origin applied here.
** Scar Magnitude 2+1, because being a swarm of bees is very likely to create story complications by being always-on.

The honeycomb is a later development in this version of the character, and Unstable Variation can be entangled with another Variation to further accelerate her destabilization — Shadow Selves and its Prism Deviation mesh nicely with the dynamic implied by having Face Thief be the source of recurring Instability, and it paints a picture of a certain form of harrying the conspiracy might try to steer her towards as they wait for her to develop more productive Variations. It might be fun to give the character the Prized Experiment Merit to increase the likelihood of conspiracy actions targeting her.

[tumbleweed664]

I think you are going to have to either build for a higher Threat Level or narrow the scope of the character's starting abilities to the one you consider most core to the concept.

If "stuck as a swarm of bees" is the core of the concept, you may be best served applying Relentless Variation to Animal Transformation, possibly adding Suppressible Variation with the cost of Unstable Variation if the deviant was transformed with the intention of getting her to destabilize and thereby develop more useful abilities. (Or Involuntary Stimulus with a Common trigger.)

Here's an alternative setup for a Dysplasia version of the character:

Elect/Unwilling/Accidental Chimeric
Controlled Scars: Concentration (Unfocused; Animal Transformation) 3; Unstable Variation (Face Thief) 2
Persistent Scars: Addictive Variation (Memory Thief) 2; Glitch (Relentless Variation; Suppressible Variation: Concentration; Animal Transformation) 3**
Variations: Animal Transformation (Swarm) 3, Face Thief (Recollection) 3*, Memory Thief 2,
* Free dot from Origin applied here.
** Scar Magnitude 2+1, because being a swarm of bees is very likely to create story complications by being always-on.

The honeycomb is a later development in this version of the character, and Unstable Variation can be entangled with another Variation to further accelerate her destabilization — Shadow Selves and its Prism Deviation mesh nicely with the dynamic implied by having Face Thief be the source of recurring Instability, and it paints a picture of a certain form of harrying the conspiracy might try to steer her towards as they wait for her to develop more productive Variations. It might be fun to give the character the Prized Experiment Merit to increase the likelihood of conspiracy actions targeting her.

Yeah, this is definitely pushing against the restraints of 8 points. And thank you for the alternate build, that is helpful. The Glitch stuff combo-ing with concentration and suppressible is interesting though I am not sure I understand how that plays out in the game? I think I am thinking less in the context of developing instability, likely because I am not experienced with how all these systems tie together.

Another way I was thinking of doing it at the Dysplasia level is this:

Persistent Scars:
Conspicuous Appearance (Monstrous Transformation) 4; Relentless Variation +1
Amnesia (Face Thief) 3

Monstrous Transformation 5 (free origin point here)
-Animal Transformation 3
-Inhuman Digestion 1 plus 1 from Cannibalize
-Sacred Flesh Token (Rapid Healing) 3

Face Thief 2 plus 1 from Recollection

I'd maybe include a Preparation Scar for Sacred Flesh but I am not sure if I can with it already being a scar-free secondary variation. Otherwise, I'd hopefully develop Lash to allow for some fun stings (a way to disable but not horribly mangle people would be nice) and Memory Thief. Also I definitely think that Shadow Selves has a natural synergy with Face Thief and could make particular sense for this character, with the swarm splitting into multiple groups.

[Satchel]

Yeah, this is definitely pushing against the restraints of 8 points. And thank you for the alternate build, that is helpful. The Glitch stuff combo-ing with concentration and suppressible is interesting though I am not sure I understand how that plays out in the game?

Being a swarm means the deviant finds it difficult to focus and therefore use Willpower for extra dice/Resistance; she can recohere herself into human form if she concentrates, but if she's suffering from a distracting Condition or Tilt (such as the Distracted Condition Glitch can give her at later levels), she'll need to succeed at a Resolve + Acclimation roll to do so, and getting the Distracted Condition or otherwise being distracted will likewise force her to make a Resolve + Acclimation roll to maintain the ruse.

Conspicuous Appearance (Monstrous Transformation) 4; Relentless Variation +1

If you're only entangling Monstrous Transformation with Conspicuous Appearance and you're using your free dot on Monstrous Transformation then you only need Conspicuous Appearance 3 thanks to the +1 from Relentless Variation.

I will say that I don't think Conspicuous Appearance is reasonably compatible with an always-on Monstrous Transformation that includes Animal Transformation as part of its package; the social consequences of the Scar are pretty clearly built under the assumption that what they're applying to can, in broad strokes, be mistaken for human, and (going from the model where this has the Magnitude 4 version of the Scar) it's hard to say how observers are supposed to automatically notice the uncommon features of a swarm of bees.

I'd maybe include a Preparation Scar for Sacred Flesh but I am not sure if I can with it already being a scar-free secondary variation.

Sacred Flesh is not Scar-free. Sacred Flesh gives whoever benefits from it Scar-free Rapid Healing, which is the secondary Variation.

[tumbleweed664]

Hey all,

Here is a slight necro and a shot two at this, with some (okay, a lot of) fluff. Essentially, my dude ate the royal jelly and got turned into a swarm of bugs. I'd love anyone's thoughts on anything, mechanics, lore, etc.

I left everything somewhat vague, the PC has to be a Chimeric (which fits the best anyway) but these could be fae bugs, demon bugs, prehistoric bugs released from a cave, machine bugs if the Invasive doesn't get too annoyed, etc. The crunchy stuff may make more sense if you read the fluff first - sorry for the length!

7 dots plus one scar-free
Monstrous transformation 5, Persistent Drawback 4 (Amnesia 3 + 1 Continual) + 1 Relentless + 0 Suppressible (Concentration 4 + 1 Self-Doubt)*
- Animal transformation (swarm) 3
- Lash (Cutting Brawl, Channel (Memory Thief), Soporific, Versatile) 2 + 1 Circle Strike
- Memory Thief 3

*I was going for the PC by default being in bug form as above. If this doesn't work, another option I thought of was using power-build for a similar effect.

Anomalous biology 2 (Hungerless, Heartless), Dependency 3 (Ill, Fatigued) - 1 Common**

**I was planning on the substance required by the Dependency be either the memories they steal with their bites via their Lash channeling Memory Thief, or a substance they create in their nests with the memories. Do people think this works/is reasonable? I went with common since they only really need people. This is why they are Hungerless, they only need the memories, but they do NEED them.

The bug nest is Sacred flesh (Fragment, Rapid Healing) 1, Preparation 1 or 5?***, for reasons explained in the fluff.

***Is there any disadvantage or reason not to make this scar higher than the minimum it needs to support the entangled variation? It would make sense with the concept for it to be close to or at 5 magnitude, but for now it only needs to be 1.

Aside from bumping up rapid healing sacred flesh and taking sacred flesh for other useful abilities, later variations could include face thief limited to the memories stolen from their bites, shadow selves for break off swarms, and illusion-y stuff.

Imperial Wasps

Having the potential to be extremely deadly and valuable, imperial wasps are supernatural swarm insects that resemble more mundane bees or wasps. Like bees and wasps, they exist in swarms of individual creatures that perform different roles to support the swarm. Unlike normal bees or wasps, they essentially have a true hive mind. A single leading emperor or empress caste wasp largely controls the other wasps.

Like bees and wasps, imperial wasps have painful and potentially deadly bites and stings. Stings from the warrior wasps are different from one swarm to another and can potentially deliver poisons, sensory-overwhelming narcotics, and even acid or other odd substances. Uniformly, though, the bites of worker wasps have the same strange property: draining the memories of their victims. Victims who have survived a dedicated imperial wasp attack are sometimes turned into amnesiacs, and there are rumors you can see the faces of a swarm's victims on its wasps.

These stolen memories serve imperial wasps in the same way pollen and nectar serve bees. They will return with it to the greater hive to be turned into a "honey"-like substance used for building a nest, as food, and for replacing dead wasps. The swarms require this honey to survive, and grow ill and eventually die without it.

This honey is also what makes the wasps so valuable. It can be harvested and consumed by humans, most often increasing a consumer's healing to supernatural levels, potentially making a swarm a source of a panacea drug. Less commonly, a swarm's "honey" will have other or multiple different effects on the user.

In addition to their stings, a primary survival feature of wasps is an illusion-crafting ability that allows them to consolidate and appear as the form the emperor or empress caste wasp took before it consumed royal jelly and transformed to lead a swarm. As swarms grow in power, they also learn to imitate the forms of their bite's victims.

Older swarms have displayed other odd abilities. Some can create a "lieutenant" caste wasp branch off to lead a portion of the hive independently, some can use their illusion powers in other ways, and some swarms have even odder traits.

[Satchel]

Monstrous transformation 5, Persistent Drawback 4 (Amnesia 3 + 1 Continual) + 1 Relentless + 0 Suppressible (Concentration 4 + 1 Self-Doubt)*

You can't put Relentless on Persistent Drawback, because Persistent Drawback is a Controlled Scar — Continual is a Deviation that adds Magnitude on that Scar because the Variation is still a Controlled Variation that requires a roll, and it obviously doesn't require a roll if you've stapled on "the power is constantly active" as justification for a further bonus.

- Animal transformation (swarm) 3

As mentioned previously, I don't think Monstrous Transformation reasonably allows for including Animal Transformation as part of it, between the power's immediate description in terms of humanlike form and the explicit inability to assume more than one monstrous form at a time. If you want the character to constantly be in swarm form it should probably be a separate Variation.

-Memory Thief 3

Which Magnitude 3 effect?

Anomalous biology 2 (Hungerless, Heartless), Dependency 3 (Ill, Fatigued) - 1 Common**

**I was planning on the substance required by the Dependency be either the memories they steal with their bites via their Lash channeling Memory Thief, or a substance they create in their nests with the memories. Do people think this works/is reasonable? I went with common since they only really need people. This is why they are Hungerless, they only need the memories, but they do NEED them.

Worth noting that Dependency only allows you to try to get the substance once per scene, regardless of how common the character's need is. Making the Sacred Flesh method Secretion or Token might better facilitate the "dependent upon a substance the bees create in their nests" version, if it requires further refinement of the material, but if the intention is just to drive the character to use Memory Thief you would be better served using Scars like Alternate Persona or either of the core Involuntary Scars.

The bug nest is Sacred flesh (Fragment, Rapid Healing) 1, Preparation 1 or 5?***, for reasons explained in the fluff.

***Is there any disadvantage or reason not to make this scar higher than the minimum it needs to support the entangled variation? It would make sense with the concept for it to be close to or at 5 magnitude, but for now it only needs to be 1.

There's nothing preventing you from entangling new Variations with the Scar as Experiences become available to purchase them, no, though increasing the Magnitude of an existing Variation will require the justification of a scene in which the character suffers medium or major Instability. I'm guessing this would be Preparation 5 without a Catalyst, i.e. Grueling and Elaborate?



I will reiterate my earlier assessment that it feels like you're trying to cram too much into too low a Threat Level for this character. If the point is that the character eats memories and turns them into supernaturally-potent material, settle for their being full of bees instead of made of bees, and/or accept that they'll be dealing with a high-Standing conspiracy out of the gate. The Manticore Companion Merit can fill the gaps if you need the Lash and maybe the starter Sacred Flesh (or if you're not too concerned about the character themself getting the memories stolen with Memory Thief), and balancing out the out-of-Clade Variations with stuff like Pheromones or Mimicry (or Universal stuff like Specialized Sense or Superhuman Stamina) will help remove the need to try shenanigans with Monstrous Transformation to fit such a broad range of powers into a build below the level it would require.

[tumbleweed664]

Hmm... well, I think I could drop monstrous transformation and use those 5 points to take animal transformation at 4 and memory thief at 1 and keep the same general concept.

You can't put Relentless on Persistent Drawback, because Persistent Drawback is a Controlled Scar — Continual is a Deviation that adds Magnitude on that Scar because the Variation is still a Controlled Variation that requires a roll, and it obviously doesn't require a roll if you've stapled on "the power is constantly active" as justification for a further bonus.

Would just dropping continual on Amnesia fix this?

(Edit: based on the second Camouflage example, I do think this works without Continual and then bumping the Amnesia magnitude up)

Worth noting that Dependency only allows you to try to get the substance once per scene, regardless of how common the character's need is. Making the Sacred Flesh method Secretion or Token might better facilitate the "dependent upon a substance the bees create in their nests" version, if it requires further refinement of the material, but if the intention is just to drive the character to use Memory Thief you would be better served using Scars like Alternate Persona or either of the core Involuntary Scars.
.

Yeah, making it work as a token that way could facilitate the vulnerability I am going for better.

[Satchel]

Hmm... well, I think I could drop monstrous transformation and use those 5 points to take animal transformation at 4 and memory thief at 1 and keep the same general concept.

Sounds solid.

Would just dropping continual on Amnesia fix this?

(Edit: based on the second Camouflage example, I do think this works without Continual and then bumping the Amnesia magnitude up)

You would have to switch from Persistent Drawback (Amnesia) to Amnesia to meet Relentless Variation's Persistent-Only requirement, but yes.


Drilling down into the concept again, because this still seems like a lot:

You have a supernatural swarm insect that is carnivorous and capable of stealing and physically processing biological memory, in addition to possessing an actual gestalt consciousness of the sort science fiction would describe as a proper "hive mind" (in contrast to actual hive insects, which merely look like they're controlled by a single mind thanks to the way their individual decision-making processes work), and they're smart enough to be able to credibly impersonate humans.

The character you are attempting to devise has been blended in some way with these insects such that they have functionally become the "queen" of a swarm, ostensibly serving in the capacity accorded to that title by fiction rather than the usual role queen bees serve (i.e. brain versus ovary). One possible explanation forwarded for the character having attained this state is that they were force-fed whatever royal jelly equivalent the bees produce, given that they can also produce a number of other supernatural effects.

For whatever reason, it is important to you that the character be stuck in the form of a swarm of these bees as early as possible in the process of play, i.e. starting from character creation, necessitating the character have the ability to transform themself into a swarm of bees with Animal Transformation (and, due to the Discrete keyword on Animal Transformation, needing a fairly high Magnitude on that Variation from the outset to facilitate a swarm capable of dealing damage to living beings).

Setting aside for a moment my personal feelings that this is kind of jumping straight to a state that is sufficiently horrifying to warrant some narrative buildup, and setting aside how the amount of detail provided for the bees compared to the character blended with them makes it look like you're more interested in playing the bees than the person, it seems like the ready-made explanation for the character existing with patchwork memories in a swarm of carnivorous memory-eating bugs is that the bees ate her memories but cracking her soul open just so allowed her to persist as an actor with agency instead of just being so much food (maybe the queen-making process involves feeding the queen some poor sap's soul to form a core personality for the hivemind).

Given the real-world function of royal jelly, a build of the character less focused on the total loss of their original biomass would be better able to exploit the abilities of the swarm at a lower Threat Level; as it stands, as I believe I've thoroughly highlighted by now, a build of the character focused around being a swarm of superpowered bees has to either scale back on the other superpowers or accept the fact that as a starting character they need to be treated like the game treats a starting character with a bunch of superpowers instead of a character on the same half of the chart as "your only superpower is being immune to ghosts" or "you have a couple of minor but highly functional powers of the sort that would combo well into a Monstrous Form, like night vision, claws, and a bodybuilder's physique."

So it once again bears asking: is it important that this character be basically a Deviant-mind controlling a swarm of magic-secreting bugs or is it important that they be a Deviant mind-controlling a swarm of magic-secreting bugs? If you needed to scale back the concept to fit into a lower Threat Level, which of the multiple powers you've described would the character's Progenitor(s) have been aiming primarily to produce? How do you want the character's Scars and state to get progressively worse over time? A character who is gradually turning into a half-human/half-psychic-bee has a different arc than a character who is only maintaining their human mind through force of will*, who in turn is likely to run into different problems than a character who is being gradually consumed by an unliving swarm of clockwork termites to produce rarefied elixirs.** At the moment the ambiguity of the execution and the multiple competing concepts are making it difficult to pin down the character.

What challenges do you want this character to face now versus later?

* a concept which could as easily be rendered through the Cephalist clade, if you wanted to lean into the sci-fi hivemind tropes along with the character's typical disembodied state, but which then sort of weakens the connection between the character's Divergence and the conspiracy's pursuit of the bugs' secretions.
** Clade members getting too annoyed notwithstanding, the narrative distinction between Invasives and Chimerics is literally that one is fused with living material and the other is fused with nonliving materials, so any sort of machine bugs are going to have to have some sort of living vector from which a Chimeric could reasonably result in the same way that a Coactive merging with a machine's power source instead of the metal — maybe a particularly weird variety of parasitic wasps are involved, or maybe the bugs just have metallic exoskeletons, but a thing that is tangible and nonliving is liable to produce an Invasive if it doesn't instead trigger an allergic reaction or break the subject's mind.