System Rules
A note: I'm probably going to abstract most of these behind a system kind've like CK2 actions, but I'm not sure on the exact details yet.
You, yourself, and your people: Slivers are a telepathic communal species. They can speak aloud, with some difficulty, but among themselves they speak mind-to-mind, often sharing one another's senses when convenient. Most slivers are about as smart as a dog, although leaders, such as yourself are as intelligent as an average human. Despite the lack of brainpower, individual slivers do have a sense of self-identity, though limited and with obedience to the hive as a near universal trait. With non-slivers your telepathy only has a range of 2-3 meters; it will give you a rough sense of what the non-sliver is saying when it speaks, but it doesn't help you speak back. You don't know what the maximum range is for slivers to talk to one another and/or share sense data - as far as you can tell it works across any distance within the same plane. You also have a very rudimentary form of genetic memory. It's not very reliable, but it tells you a thing or two now and then.
Physically, slivers are warm blooded, though not otherwise mammalian. The basic sliver body plan is that of a snake, except with a tail that splits into two small tendrils and a single sharp clawed limb set in the center of their body, beneath their head. They move by slithering, with the front half of their body held up in the air, claw ready. Slivers are omnivorous and diurnal, though they can stay up at night if they wish.
The main distinguishing feature of slivers is their communal nature - not only are they a eusocial colony species with a telepathic hivemind, they also tend to have special abilities, which they share with all nearby sliver around them. These can be simple physical adaptations, such as larger muscles or a thicker hide, complex abilities such as flight, or new magical abilities, such as telekinesis, mind blasts, or reincarnation.
Technologically, slivers are very interesting. You don't have thumbs and aren't that smart, which do pose challenges technologically. But many of the various special types you can get give you the means to take interesting shortcuts. Spinneret Slivers give you the ability to weave Silk, for example, and there are several slivers that boost your research ability.
In terms of magic, slivers aren't hugely impressive, but they do have a few advantages. First and foremost, your inherent ability to create mana bonds and channel magic from them gives you a significant leg up on the competition. Acquiring mana will be much, much easier for you than for other mages. Second, your inherent racial abilities give you some possibilities for advancement other mages don't have access to, though they're not particularly easy nor powerful. Beyonf that, slivers have about as much in the way of magical potential as the average human being.
Sliver categories:
Tier 0: The most basic most generic slivers, thrums. They follow the basic sliver body plan to a T. About the size of a large dog. No special abilities unless granted by other slivers, P/T 1/1.
Tier 1: Minor physical adaptations. Builds on existing traits, adds nothing new. Examples: Plated, Blade, Muscle, Sinew, Talon, Quick, Screeching.
Tier 2: Major physical adaptations or minor magical abilities. Examples: Winged, Constricting, Harmonic, Might, Battle, Bonesplitter, Spined, Mnemonic.
Tier 3: Incredible physical adaptations or major magical abilities. Examples: Telekinetic, Megantic, Bonescythe, Fungus, Essence, Psionic, Vampiric, Pulmonic, Brood, Synapse, Gemhide, Mindlash, Spinneret.
Tier 4: Legendary Slivers. The leaders of the hive. Sliver Queen, Sliver OverLord, Sliver Legion, Sliver Hivelord. These do not spawn naturally, but there are means by which you might induce one to spawn.
Shared Abilities: Shared abilities effect all slivers that are paired with the special in an action, for that action. Toughness increases shared this way increase a slivers food consumption by 0.2 per +1 toughness per action, up to a total cap of +1 per +1 toughness, unless specified otherwise.
Sliver Survival Needs: To survive, a sliver must eat T units of food every turn, where T is its MtG toughness plus its tier, if it's mature. If it doesn't, it dies. Additionally, depending on the weather, a sliver might require housing - this means hive capacity equal to its MTG toughness.
Sliver Growth: All slivers (including you) are born as 0/0 creatures. In order to grow, a sliver needs T+1 food units; getting that much will let it grow +1/+1. When it reaches the stats printed on its MtG card a sliver becomes adult. Immature slivers special abilities (if any) are not active, and they contribute only three actions a turn. (NB: This includes the spawn ability of Sliver Queens.) An immature sliver must grow every turn or it's growth may be permanently stunted.
Time and Actions: Each update will represent a month of game time. On each turn, each sliver will have 6 actions, including you. The starting list of actions is below; new actions will come available as the game progresses, and you should feel free to propose new ones.
- Forage: Gain 2 - 2P units of food, where P is the sliver's MtG power. Depending on the season this may be severely reduced. On a given turn you may choose to set a foraging cap. ("Stop foraging when we bag 5 units of food, even if we actually rolled 8.") This action includes both hunting and gathering. Requires a successful Stewardship roll.
- Patrol: Jog around your turf to make sure that nothing funny is going on. If anything is, kill it. May require a Martial roll.
- Scout: Go outside your territory and look around to get a general sense of what's there. Scouts move fast, so they get only basic information, but you can tell them to look for specific things. (e.g. "A new hive location" or "ogre encampment.") Requires an Intrigue roll.
- Survey: Do a detailed search of an area. This will tell you vaguely what's inside an area, and may provide a small bonus (+1 to +5 per action, up to a cap) on hunts inside that area. With certain technologies, you can gain additional information about an area. Requires a Stewardship roll.
- Build: Build something, including a hive. You need to know how to build anything you want to build, so in the beginning at least you'll be limited to making burrow hives. Each action contributes 2dP build points for physical labor. Requires a Stewardship roll.
- Attack: Send your guys off to kill your enemies and take their stuff! Requires a Martial roll.
- Social: Diplomacy, Trade, and anything else that involves interacting with other sapient beings. Requires a Diplomacy roll.
- Research [Requires Lead research ability]: Spend time trying to invent something. When you start researching I'll secretly assign a number of research points to the topic. Each type of sliver has some amount of research dice, which it rolls each action. When you've generated enough research points the effort is successful. You can research anything you want, but learning something from someone else is generally faster. Research may consume resources, so be sure to allocate some. Unlike other actions, research is not limited by distance! Telepathic communication means all slivers everywhere can cooperate. You may have multiple Research tasks underway at a time and work on them as time allows. Requires a Learning roll.
- Search Hivemind Memories: Spend time trying to pull secrets from the distant echoes of your kin. Works like research, except needs no physical resources and Roll 1d100, 1d100. first d100 is the percentage of research that you get, second d100 is the percentage of that research that's on the appropriate topic. There are various ways to modify these rolls. Requires a Learning roll.
- Mana bond [Legendary only]: Bond a piece of land so that you can draw on its mana. Not all land is suitable for bonding
- Learn Language [Legendary only, only once per turn]: Advance your understanding of a particular language by one level. (See below.) You must have a conversational partner to use this action and that partner must speak the language to at least the level you are trying to learn. The queen can speak through any sliver, so the partner doesn't need to be physically with her. Once a language is known (to whatever level), it can be used by every sliver.
- Spawn Slivers [Requires Queen or Hive]: You can spend mana to spawn new slivers. This costs 2n mana with a queen, or 3n with a hive, and creates nd6 new slivers. newly spawned slivers have a 10% special rate, or 15% when queen spawning, where the specials available are determined by the mana spent. (You can only get specials when the mana you spend covers their mana cost)
Again, other actions will become available as the story progresses; voting for an action that isn't on the list is fine, so long as it makes sense. Specific types of slivers may have actions available to them that are not available to others.
Technology:
Slivers aren't very good at tool use, what with not being that smart, lacking thumbs, not being very motivated due to their inherent abilities, etc. Still, They have a lot of ways to gain interesting shortcuts, and slivers are nothing if not adaptable. You don't start out knowing of any technologies beyond you hives, though.
Languages:
You don't need full fluency to find languages useful. The levels are:
(1) Awkward: You need the other person to speak slowly and use short words. You can only exchange very simple ideas -- where is the X, I want food, etc.
(2) Basic: You stumble a lot, don't understand nuance or idiom, and you sound like a bit of a simpleton, but you can hold conversation on most non-technical topics.
(3) Conversational: You have a thick accent and idioms are a problem, but otherwise you can handle whatever you need to do, linguistically speaking.
(4) Fluent: You speak like a native.
Literacy uses the same progression but is counted separately.
Unit Types and Abilities:
Combat:
Units have the following stats:
- Power: A measure of the creatures offensive ability.
- Toughness: A measure of the creatures defensive ability.
- Troop Strength: A measure of the creatures usefulness in mass combat. Usually equal to power * toughness, but not always.
- Classes: This measures ways that a sliver can contribute to combat beside melee combat.
- Weight: This determines whether or not transport units can carry said sliver.
- Mobility: For most slivers, this is foot. Some slivers grant increased mobility, however.
- Upkeep: Usually measured purely in terms of food. You may end up with increased demands, depending.
