Devi intelligence?

[Morgoth99]

The Devi Intelligence was a fungoid lifeform that had been statted out in Gurps Aliens 2, and I for one found them to be one of the more interesting "real weirdie" aliens that you could nonetheless play.

Does anyone know if they're going to be included in the Mongoose products? Or if there's even been any mention of them?

 

[Sigtrygg]

Fungal lifeforms you say?

 

[G'Naakbusters]

The Devi Intelligence was a fungoid lifeform that had been statted out in Gurps Aliens 2, and I for one found them to be one of the more interesting "real weirdie" aliens that you could nonetheless play.

Does anyone know if they're going to be included in the Mongoose products? Or if there's even been any mention of them?

They haven't been mentioned yet; then again, Crucis Margin hasn't been covered thus far.

As a side note, given that GURPS Aliens 2 gives the Devi primary as a G0 V star, it has to be in the Ghnema system, since that's the only G0 V in the sector. Happily, that placement works pretty well as a forward post for K'kree operations in the region.

Hopefully, they'll make an appearance in Mongoose at some point -- most preestablished aliens do eventually.

 

[agentwigggles]

How mongoose seems to work is that one of their inner circle freelancers would want to write the sector book that includes their homeworld.
Or that author of AOC would want to include them.
Or anyone can submit a jtas article about them.

 

[Tom B]

How mongoose seems to work is that one of their inner circle freelancers would want to write the sector book that includes their homeworld.
Or that author of AOC would want to include them.
Or anyone can submit a jtas article about them.

One thing to watch out for is copyright. Someone created them and might 'own' the reproduction rights.

 

[agentwigggles]

One thing to watch out for is copyright. Someone created them and might 'own' the reproduction rights.

More of a concern for mongoose itself, since when they buy the manuscript, its a transfer of all rights.
If whoever wrote the Devi, did so that was published for official traveller materiel, than traveller owns it.
This is a pretty easy question to answer.
If anyone happen to have the original publication, we can see if there is an exception for the Devi made in it.

 

[Morgoth99]

It was in Gurps aliens 2, and the copyright stated: Gurps Traveller: alien races 2, copyright 1999, Steve Jackson Games. Their license expired in 2015, so I expect the only thing to do would be to directly contact Mongoose to see what the status of any material printed in the SJ books is.

 

[agentwigggles]

It was in Gurps aliens 2, and the copyright stated: Gurps Traveller: alien races 2, copyright 1999, Steve Jackson Games. Their license expired in 2015, so I expect the only thing to do would be to directly contact Mongoose to see what the status of any material printed in the SJ books is.

If Far Future owned it, then so does Mongoose.

 

[Tom B]

It's a bit more complicated than that as I played a different system in the past and had a source book for it that contained a number of aliens and that included the Devi Intelligence.

That book was first published in 1991.

I'm getting the rest of the info from the Traveller Wiki, so ...

Gurps Alien races 1 was published in 1998, so the Devi Intelligence predates it.

However there were a number of other alien races common to both Gurps and the other system.

From Gurps 1
The Drakarans

From Gurps 2
The Devi Intelligence
The Inyx

From Gurps 3
The Inheritors
The Lithkind

From Gurps 4
The Evantha
The J'sia (though they had a different name M'sia)
The Valkyrie
and finally and most interestingly, the Tezcat. (When I saw that they were appearing in AoCS 4, I thought I recognised them, so I went back and looked at the other book and then did some digging on the Wiki).

From what I've seen the aliens descriptions are very similar.

So since the Tezcat have already been covered in a Mongoose book, probably everything is OK.

Personally I think the Inheritors are really interesting, living on a partially completed Dyson sphere and are fluorine breathers!

There were other aliens in the book that haven't come over to Traveller as far as I can tell.
Avatars: Clouds of ionised plasma.
Metamorphs: Aliens who impersonate members of other races.
Shai-en-Rin: Enigmatic, powerful ships that nobody knows much about.
Sheol: Aliens that live in a gas giant. Two different species, living in a symbiotic relationship.
Spyders: Six-limbed omnivores that communicate by weaving webs.

 

[Sigtrygg]

Several of the Alien Races in GT books were introduced by Dave Pulver. They were a direct copy of the alien races he had written for ICE Space Master.
Several of them do not really belong in the Third Imperium setting and could do with either retcon or removal.

 

[Morgoth99]

I like the Devi intelligence because 1. they're different. 2. I feel that they can fit, in a lot of settings, especially since they're both small, and their main goal is "spread to a few more worlds so we don't get genocided if the K'Kree wake up grumpy." If the GM wants to keep them limited, just find that planets that will actually support the sessile intelligence form are very rare.

 

[Tom B]

So Dave Pulver is the person who created them. Before they can be officially used in Traveller, the ownership of the aliens would have to be decided. I might be over-cautious here, but I'm not an expert in copyright law.

 

[Sigtrygg]

They were used in ICE Space master and in GT, goodness only knows who actually has the rights to them.

 

[steelbrok]

The Sheol were in one of the GURPS Traveller Alien books

 

[Tom B]

The Sheol were in one of the GURPS Traveller Alien books

Oh so they were.