Friday, July 23, 2010

Gummi Bears!

     I was going through a box of some of my old AD&D DM Binders and came across this write-up I did many years ago. I recall basing it upon someone else's conversion for the Palladium Fantasy RPG that I found on the 'net, but I couldn't tell you who the original author of the Palladium conversion was, that was before Palladium Books went all Cease and Desist on anyone doing conversions for their stuff. Anyways thought some of you might get a kick out of this, particularly those of you who game with your kids. I also think they would fit in nicely in a Tellos based Campaign setting.

Gummi Bears

Climate/Terrain: Temperate/Dense Forests
Frequency: Very Rare
Organization: Tribal
Activity Cycle: Day
Diet: Omnivore
Intelligence: Average to Very
Alignment: Any (however 70% are of a good alignment, evil ones are rare and are not tolerated within a Gummi Bear colony).
No. Appearing: 1d6, a colony may have up to 50 individuals.
AC: 6
Movement: 12
Hit Dice: 2 and up
# of attacks: 3 (claw/claw/bite) or 1 (by weapon)
Damage/Attack: 1d3/1d3/1d4 or by weapon type.
Special Attacks: Spells
Special Defenses: Immune to plant toxins, save vs. other poisons at 4 hit dice higher.
Magic Resistance: 40%
Size: 2-3 1/2 ' tall Weight: 25-75 lbs.
Spell Like abilities: Charm Person 1x day, Detect Evil 2x per day, Tongues 1x day.
Natural Abilities: Keen normal vision, Animal Empathy, Infravision 50'.
Skills & Languages : Common, Faerie and one additional language. All are taught herbalism at an early age. Most are also accomplished singers.
     Gummi Bears are a race that has for the most part gone unnoticed. They are small bear-like creatures that inhabit dense forests on the outskirts of human settlements. They maintain a keen affinity with most wilderness creatures and strive to live in harmony with their environment. They are very curious about human culture, but have, so far, been too cautious to announce their presence. However, this curiosity has caused them to locate their colonies or "Hives" close to human settlements, so that they can observe the humans in secret. Their communities tend to be underground dwellings, a traveler could be walking over a Gummi Bear community and would never know it. While little is known about these creatures, sages speculate that they are in some way related to Faeries, evidence of this lies in their high magic resistance, innate spell powers and their ability to concoct magical potions.
Appearance: They look like small humanoid Teddy Bears.

Gummi Bear Juice
A mystical concoction made from the elusive "Gummi Berry". When a Gummi Bear consumes 1 oz. of "juice" he gains the strength of a stone giant (20) as well as, 1d4 additional points to constitution and dexterity for approximately 10 minutes. On humanoids the effects are highly variable, but also short lived. Irregardless of race the effects of Gummi Bear Juice can only be experienced once per day, further consumption will only resort in a pleasant "giddy" feeling. The most common effect non-Gummy Bears experience is stone giant strength (20) for 2 minutes, however, other effects have been known to occur (see below*). Please note that these potions are extremely rare and can only be made by the colony's chief Alchemist/Herbalist (who is apparently always a female). As a consequence price is very high for non-gummi bears even those favored by the hive. It has been reported that the chief alchemist-herbalist can also make other potions as well. Reports vary but the two most commonly reported are potions of healing (made from rare bee honeys) and sweet water (harvested from the dew of an unknown deep forest fern).

*Gummi Bear Juice varied effects table (roll for when consumed by non-Gummi Bears)

00 – add 1 point to strength permanently
99- add 1 point to dexterity permanently
90-98- Super Batch (sorta) save vs. poison; failure means acts as normal but drinker is -2 to all actions for next d6 rds, success means works as normal but is also +2 to all actions for next d10 rds.
86-97- storm giant strength for 2 minutes.
35-85-stone giant strength for 5 minutes.
19-34- hill giant strength for 1 minute.
16-18- tasty, but nothing happens
12-15- Eww Nasty! save vs. poison; failure : severe diarrhea for 1d4 hours, success; bad flatulence for 1d4 hours (can't surprise anybody!).
02-11- Poisonous- Save vs. poison or be nauseated for 1d4 hours (-2 to all actions)
01- Really Nasty Stuff! save vs. poison or suffer -1 point from constitution permanently!!

Sure the table is a little wonky, but it was from many years ago! ; )

6 comments:

  1. Awesomely done! Back in the day, my best friend and I would run RPGs set in some of our favorite cartoons. He-Man, GI Joe, Thundercats, and yes, Gummi Bears. He and I used to draw up the new characters and run our own adventures in those settings.

    As one of of Disney's first direct to TV offerings, Gummi Bears still stands out as one of theb est. The characters were fun and quite amusing at times and there was a fair amount of good story writing for a children's cartoon.

    -Eli

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  2. Thanks Eli,
    Although I can't take all the credit, as I mentioned this was originally based on work done by a Palladium gamer back in the day, I just AD&Dized it. : )

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  3. I always loved this sort of Tolkeinian Dwarvish vibe they gave the ancient Gummy Bear society in the cartoon. The massive lost cities with huge ursine carvings, the massive networks of tunnels, the magical technology.

    That and Duke Igthorn and his ogre minions were always pretty durn funny.

    A lost gem.

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  4. I hear ya BigFella, it was indeed one of the good ones from back in the day. : )

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  5. Also gummi bears are exotic snack favored by some of the humanoid races. I plan on mounting some gummis to some bases soon. Thanks for the stats look out party !

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  6. Many thanks to brutorz bill for the gummi idea , it played well in my adventure with my pathfinder group. Heres how i played it STEP1 : Plunge flask of explosive gummi liquid inside anoher gummi bear STEP 2 ) SUICIDE explosive gummi runs towards unknowing party members STEP3) Gummi bomber throws himself at feet of party member , explodng and causing 1d6 damage per flask

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