The Beastly State of Your Campaign

I thought about an article that would describe and list all the possible diseases with which you (the GM) could hit the characters. However, that hardly seems fair. These are our heroes, and are in life-and-death situations every day; why give them more realistic stuff to worry about? In most cases, they wouldn’t worry anyway. It wasn’t until the 1850s and 1860s that people started figuring out that microorganisms were the likely culprits killing every one. Besides, who really wants to think about the fact that there are more bacteria on a body than there are body cells? That in a human mouth there are more bacteria than all the mammals currently living in the world?

Bleh.

Just because they didn’t know about them didn’t mean they were using them, however. The characters rely on bacteria as well, mainly in the items they eat—bread, cheese, wine, etc. Take away those little critters and there will be nothing for the heroes to fight for. Rather than get rid of the little microbes all together, it’s best to say that heroes are naturally immune; after all, this is make-believe.

Fermented Foods
A combination of bacteria and fungi are used to make cheese, sour cream, yogurt, sauerkraut, vinegar, olives, pickles, soy sauce, miso, chocolate, coffee, and most alcoholic beverages.

Medieval Battles
Diseased corpses were catapulted into castles during sieges. Not recommended as something to do to the characters but always a good backstory.

Bacteria in World War I
During WWI the British needed acetone and butanol to make smokeless explosive powder cordite and artificial rubber, respectively. Prior to 1914 between 80 and 100 tons of wood were required to make one ton of acetone. By 1915, Chaim Weizmann developed a fermentation process using anaerobic bacteria to convert 100 tons of molasses or grain into 12 tons of acetone and 24 tons butanol. This method continued until the late 1940s when it was replaced by cheaper petrochemicals.

Oil Spills and Bioaugmentation
Bacteria from the genus Pseudomonas are capable of degrading oil as their source of nutrition and were used to clean up the spill from the Exxon Valdez. Bioaugmentation uses specially cultured microbes in the biological treatmentof sewage and industrial waste effluent.

Fuel
Microbes are used in fermentation to make ethanol and in biogas reactors to produce methane. Currently algae species are being researched to make liquid fuel, and scientists believe bacteria can convert certain agricultural and urban waste into fuels as well. In the future microbes may be used to create living fuel cells and as a solution for most pollution.

And in Game Terms?
If you ever have to explain a phenomenon, blame microbes. The character can’t see them, but they can effectively fix or cause something you otherwise don’t have an explanation for. In future and space settings, microbes could be used to power anti-gravity machines or spaceships, or other sci-fi inventions, such as teleporters. You can even use them to help explain magical powers, or something horrible like that.

Microbial Special Abilities as Monster Stats

Microscopic critters are fascinating because they are capable of lots of things their larger counterparts can’t do. So this article is about the special abilities of microbial critters, and applying them to the monsters the characters fight every day. You could also apply them to the characters if you play that sort of game.

Generation Times
The time required for a bacterial population to double its number. E. coli can do it in 17 minutes. Tuberculosis does so in 792 minutes. Bacteria reproduce asexually by binary fission.

Game stats: Whatever the monster, after a certain amount of time it reproduces. With a short generation time, a single creature can produce a colony of 107 to 108 in about 12 hours.

Dormancy
In 1995, scientists were able to revive Bacillus spores from the digestive tract of an amber-encased bee that lived from 25 million to 40 million years ago.

Game Stats: When the creature or colony loses its food supply, the character or creature is capable of dehydrating itself, forming a thick tough spore coat, and resting for a long period of time. When conditions are favorable again, the spores absorb water, break down the tough spore coat and form new cell walls (skin).

Bioluminescence
The production of light, with very little heat, by some organisms. The substance, luciferin, is an organic molecule that emits light when oxidized by molecular oxygen in the presence of an enzyme (luciferase). The enzyme picks up electrons from flavoproteins in the electron transport chain and then emits some of the electron’s energy as a photon of light. Generally bioluminescence is a marine phenomenon. In the Indian Ocean, the sea appears to have a soft white flow due to bioluminescence. The flashlight fish in the deep sea has a symbiotic relationship with bioluminescent bacteria, using the glow of the resident bacteria as an aid in attracting and capturing prey in complete darkness.

Game Stats: There could be a creature that produces bioluminescence on its own or uses bacteria to produce a soft white glow.

Extremophiles
Yep… that’s a word describing critters that thrive or even require physically or geochemically extreme conditions that are detrimental to most life on earth. Most are microbes and unicellular although there are some exceptions. Bacteria have been detected as high as 20 miles above the Earth and seven miles into the depths of the sea. The most notable extremophiles are bacteria, with some archaea (prehistoric bacteria-like microbes). However, there are some Animalia that are extremists. Paralvinella sulfincola (hyperthermophile) are a species of warms that thrive on undersea hot-water vents. Pompeii Worms (Alvinella pompejana) are also hyperthermophiles. Tardigrada, also called water bears, are water-dwelling, segmented, eight-legged creatures that thrive from the high Himalayas to the deepest seas, and in the polar regions. They can survive at temperatures nearly reaching absolute zero, temperatures as high as 151 Degrees C, and in radiation 1000x that of other animals. In 2007, the tardigrades were exposed to the vacuum of space and not only survived, but laid eggs. They can survive at least ten years without water in a dormant state.

Game Stats: Goes to show that you could pull a monster out of anywhere. A monster with tardigrade-like qualities would be nigh-unstoppable.

• Acidophile: Thrives in pHs of 3 or below
• Alkaliphile: Thrives in pHs of 9 or above
• Capnophile: Thrive or require high levels of carbon dioxide, but little oxygen
• Cryptoendolith: An organism living in the microscopic spaces within rocks; also called endoliths, which can be used to describe creatures living within fissures, aquifers, and faults filled with groundwater
• Halophile: Organism requiring at least 0.2M concentrations of salt (NaCl) for growth
• Hyperthermophile: Organism thriving at temperatures between 80 and 122 degrees Celsius
• Hypolith: Organism that thrive under rocks in cold deserts
• Lithautotroph: Organism capable of deriving energy from reduced mineral compounds, like pyrites.
• Metallotolerant: Tolerates high levels of heavy metal, copper, cadmium, arsenic, zinc.
• Oligotroph: Capable of thriving in nutrient-limited environments
• Osmophile: Capable of growing in environments with high sugar concentrations (sugar monsters!)
• Piezophile: Lives at high hydrostatic pressures, such as oceanic trenches.
• Polyextremophile: Organism that qualifies as an extremophile in more than one way, such as a Thermoacidophile (combine many extremes; make your own!)
• Psychrophile/Cryophile: Capable of survival, growth, or reproduction at extremely low temperatures (-15 degrees C)
• Radioresistant: Organisms resistant to high levels of ionizing radiation, most commonly ultraviolet radiation, but also including those organisms resistant to nuclear radiation.
• Thermophile: Organism thriving at temperatures between 60–80 degrees C. Hyperthermophiles are those that thrive in the hottest temperatures. Xeriphile: Organism thriving in extremely dry desiccating conditions

Viruses
Most believe viruses originated as bits of nucleic acid that escaped from cells. Although bacteria reproduce asexually, there have been occasions where a bacterium will absorb portions of another bacteria’s genetic material. A virus isn’t alive, being only a portion of a cell and it can trick host cells into pulling it inside by pretending to be nutrients or by fusing its viral coat to the cell wall or membrane and then injecting itself into the host. Most viruses cause diseases of one sort or another.

Game Stats: A monster that, once destroyed, lets out some of its genetic material to be absorbed by another creature would be pretty upsetting. As long as some of its material goes somewhere, it will continue to exist in one form or another.

Pseudopods
Projections of cytoplasm, most often seen on the amoeba. As the cytoplasm extends and fills, the amoeba moves. The pseudopods also surround and capture food in a vacuole. Found in soil, freshwater, and saltwater, some are parasitic, living within other life forms.

Game Stats: It explains Black Pudding and the Blob. Be fun to have one of these fully grown creatures pour out of a dead thing.