Mutant UA



"Mutant: Undergångens Arvtagare" is a Swedish tabletop roleplaying game. The world ended over a millennium ago, and a new world has grown in the ruins.

Players have four classes to chose between: Human, Mutant, Psionic, and Robot. (While most games classify such options as races, in this game they are labeled classes.) Mutants and psionics can be either human or Half-Human Hybrid. The human versions can often pretend to be real humans, but risk getting exposed. The hybrids have a more stable social status.

Humans are the aristocracy of the local empires, the inheritors of those who rose from their underground bunkers so long ago and re-conquered the world. Their technology has withered away since, but they still cling on to their former glory. Human characters are given a lot of social advantages from the start; a poor outsider human still has a far greater chance to establish herself in society then a mutant.

Mutants have physical superpowers, but are more specialized then humans. They are also socially repressed.

Psionics have mental superpowers, but are persecuted.

Robots have special rules and powers, but also lots of disanvantages including dubious social standing.

The game world is centered on Pyrisamfundet, taking up the middle of what used to be Sweden. Other important nations are Ulvriket, Gotland, and the city-state of Göborg.

These countries control their cities somewhat well. The countryside is less lawful, and the "forbidden zones" are entirely outside government control. These zones are dangerous in various ways. One zone causes madness in those who enter, another is full of aggressively growing crystals, and so on.

Has examples of:

 * Absurdly Sharp Blade: Some of the ancient artifacts.
 * After the End: The timeline starts a unknown number of centuries after the apocalypse.
 * Amusing Alien: ancient robot characters often fill this role.
 * Animal Wrongs Group: An entire species are made as a parody of this trope. Rubbitar, a race of sentient rabbits, hate all flesheaters. Subverted/justified in later works, where it turns out that humans have a history of eating them in spite of knowing that they are sentient.
 * Apocalypse How: Type 2, in the backstory.
 * Attack Animal: Quite common.
 * Black and Grey Morality: Some of the adventures feature really horrible villains, while the better factions are still morally dubious. Of course, the player characters can still be knights in shining armor of the gamemaster allows, but the game itself is really not designed that way.
 * Black Comedy: Satire about enviormental collapses, pandemics, nuclear holocausts, social injustice, et cetera.
 * Clap Your Hands If You Believe: Psionics are often treated this way by naive characters.
 * Doomsday Device: Several, and they all lack proper maintenance...
 * Eldritch Abomination: In the form of giant warmachines and other such ancient horrors.
 * The Empire: Pyrisamfundet, where most of teh game content is located.
 * Equippable Ally: Common.
 * Grey and Grey Morality: The normal mood of the game, with all sides being dubious and having lots of questionable baggage.
 * Half-Human Hybrid: Pigs and Dogs are big ethnic groups in the empire, while rabbits are usually hostile. All and any animals are possible: One canon character is a humanoid frog.
 * Lost Technology: A cornerstone of the setting.
 * Living Weapon: Fits the setting.
 * Neglectful Precursors: They left A LOT of stuff behind. Some of it useful, some lethal, some poisonous, et cetera.
 * Nonsense Classification: Pyrisamfundet doesn't like to have a forbidden zone in the middle of their nation. They feel it's embarrassing. So they decided that it isn't a real forbidden zone. Sure, it's an ash-desert full of monsters and mysterious phenomena - but hey, this area is geographically shaped like a square. Real forbidden zones are round!
 * No Such Thing as Space Jesus: While the psions can perform miracles and are revered as prophets among the mutant tribes, the humans know that it's "only psionics", nothing more.
 * Outgrown Such Silly Superstitions: Subverted - the humans pride themselves with their rationality and knowledge, but they have lost true science. Their knowledge is muddled, full of misunderstandings, superstitions and ancestor worship.
 * People's Republic of Tyranny: The republic Gotland is probably a bit of this, but it's hard to say for sure since the country was never given a expansion of it's own.
 * Police State: Ulvriket, one of Pyrisamfundets prime competitors.
 * Punny Name: Lots of them.
 * Psychic Powers: One of the main themes.
 * The Republic: The City-State of Göborg fills this role.
 * Steampunk: A bit of it. The civilization is on steam power level.
 * Stupidity-Inducing Attack: This exists as a psionic power known as "Parasit" (would be "Parasite" in English). The character increases one of his own attributes by stealing it from someone else, and Intelligence can be the chosen attribute.
 * They Changed It, Now It Sucks: Defied - Depending on how you count, there are three or four different games calling themselves "Mutant". The first was very close to Mutant UA, while the second and third had nothing in common with it. Mutant UA is back to basics, returning to the original gameworld while giving it some big updates.
 * We ARE Struggling Together!: One of the reasons the humans have such power over the humanoid mutated animals is that the various animal groups typically hate each other. When they try to unite against their oppressors, dark hilarity often ensues.
 * Written by the Winners: Played straight, exaggerated, parodied and Played for Laughs.