Roleplaying Games

Put Your Brain in a Robot Body because Humanity is Overrated

The bizarre bodies of Eclipse Phase: Morph Recognition Guide

Eclipse Phase is about a decade old now. It wasn’t the first hard sci-fi RPG made, but it’s one of the most fascinating. 1st edition was pitched as “The Roleplaying Game of Transhuman Conspiracy and Horror”. The conspiracy elements worked but it never really stuck the horror landing. 2nd edition was sold as “The Roleplaying Game of Transhuman Survival”. That scans, because the whole game is about trying to save humanity from an uncaring universe and its own suicide by scientific advancement.

The Morph Recognition Guide compiles almost all the various bodies, called morphs, you can upload yourself into from 1st edition. It features portraits for those that didn’t originally have them, which was most of them. It also collects morph-specific rules and introduces some new ones, like knock-off models, planetary variants, and how to rent morphs. Mainly, it’s a catalog of all the bizarre bodies you can download yourself into.

Biocores

I’m starting with an edge case to explain the norm. There are four kinds of morphs you can inhabit.

• Biomorphs are organic bodies with organic brains. The meat-thing you’re in now is a “biomorph”.
• Synthmorphs are mechanical bodies with computer brains. If you’re in one, your mind has been digitized and uploaded into it. That mind is your “ego”.
• Pods are mass-produced biological bodies with computer brains.
• Infomorphs are pure data. If you’re an infomorph, your mind was digitized and uses a shell program to operate freely.

Biocores are unique because they’re the opposite of pods: technically a synthmorph but with a meat brain. Some people prefer the advantages of being a synth but fear having their egos hacked. Some people just want to be different.

Brutes

Biomorhs are basically your default. There’s no reason you can’t have your original body (called a Flat) upgraded to match an off-the-shelf biomorph. But because bodies aren’t special anymore, it’s just easier to upload yourself into a new one.

This one is for mob muscle and other pro criminals. Or athletes. Or fans of Street Fighter. It’s huge, so living in a crowded habitat means bumping into everyone and everything.

Exalts

Exalts are basically idealized baseline human bodies. They have the basic cybernetic implants, plus a ton of genetic enhancements. In an Exalt morph, you will always be super-healthy and super-hot.

Galateas

Or you can be well-designed and super-hot. Galateas were made to help synthmorphs become more accepted by the masses. Their cyberbrains are specialized for social interactions to win over hearts and minds.

Infomorphs

Infomorphs are pure software in a “mind-emulation package that runs an ego”. You’re basically an AI. You can interact with people in meatspace via microphones, cameras, monitors, and speakers. You can control drones and other connected devices. Of course, you also can resleeve into a waiting physical morph.

This is a good place to explain the reality of uploading your mind into a computer or another body. You can’t “transfer” your mind. You make a copy on another device. That copy is the new “you” and the old “you” is erased. Because having two of you complicates things. Unless you want to make a “fork”, which is a whole other thing I’m not going to get into.

Infomorphs are technically an entire class of morph, but the other infomorph shells didn’t have their own portraits, so…

Kites

Another great thing about Eclipse Phase is that you can be a flying robot. Kites come in human-size and small/child-size. They can fly in most any atmosphere, including space. They are super-neat.

Mimics

Reason #4827 Why Sci-Fi is Better Than Fantasy: You can BE a mimic! You can be a suitcase or a game console or a big book and stalk that hypercorp exec until you’re ready to make their day a lot worse. Like a lot of synthmorphs, you can remote control it like a drone, called a sock puppet, instead of sleeving into it. But where’s the fun in that?

Neo-Avians

This is basically a normal uplifted avian body. Specifically a raven, a crow, or a parrot. About the size of a human toddler. Includes some basic cybernetics, which most uplifts would get anyway. They excel in low-grav environments, and are often jerks. Then again, that might be just anti-uplift bias

Neo-Orcas

Visiting a water world? Sleeve into one of a few aquatic biomorphs. Who wouldn’t want to be a genefixed killer whale with cyberarms? Revel in underwater thuggery. Like the neo-avians, this is the default for an uplifted orca.

Security Pods

Pods are looked down on about as much as synths. Originally they were meat sock puppets for AIs. That way a corporation could save money with automation in hospitality without robots that fell into the “uncanny valley” and creeping out the guests. After The Fall of humanity, refugees who left Earth as infomorphs were desperate for bodies. Corporations were more than happy to provide them, with some strings attached.

Security Pods are often used as sock puppets. These pods are straight-up soldiers and not meant for living cushy civilian lives. Even though their bodies are organic, they usually lack sex-bits.

Vacuum Pods

A blue collar pod. Made for construction and maintenance in space. Even more than most pods, they all look the same.

Venusian Gliders

This biomorph was designed to fly in Venus’s upper atmosphere. That’s not as terrible as it sounds. The planet is about half-terraformed. There are no stats or info on his chap-pants.

This sampling of transhuman bodies is just the tip of an insane iceberg. There are about a hundred more in the Morph Recognition Guide. For better or worse, transhumanity views the body as a tool or a vehicle.

If you’re ready to play this strange game, be aware that it’s number-intensive. Luckily there’s a Fate conversion for it, by the same designer. Unless you like your crunch on the level of Pathfinder, play Transhumanity’s Fate instead.