"Entomorphasis: Awakening To An Uneasy Dream"

[RobMuadib]

Forge Guys

While taking the dog out today I had the idea for a cool punk-indie Narratavist RPG.
(Some of you will remember that I am working on my great shared world-character design simulationist meta-system opus magnum The Million Worlds: Chronicles Of The Eternal Cycle(TM), so this will be a second project or a freebie on my website.)

Anyway, if you are familiar with the story Metamorphasis by Franz Kafka, you will remember that is about a guy who "awakes from uneasy dreams" to find that he has turned into a giant cockroach, and suffers mayhem and despair before his family finally kills him in disgust. Well, I have also read a story called sisohpromatem, it is one of the Writers Of THe Future anthologies, I forget the writer, anyway, it was a play on metamophasis with the situation reversed where a cockroach turned into a human, and later turned back into a cockroach and was killed by his former bretheren.


Now, add in 1 part joes apartment, 1/2 part mimic, and a 1/2 part the fly,
and you get Entomorphasis -

Premise
Your a cockroach, who can metamorphasize into a human, with superhuman strength agility and toughness and the ability to communicate
with and control cockroaches via pheromones, the catch, you have to constantly ingest human flesh and genetic material to stay morphed, and you have to constantly ingest cockroach genetic material to live.


I think it would be a pretty dark and freaky game to play, as well as darkly humorous. It would have to be Narratavist focused on Situation. On the one hand, you have joes apartment like funny situations, bleak and draining Kafkaesque existentialist angst, and Mimic/The Fly style gore and action. Your dependent on two worlds, and despised by both, either of which would kill you if they found out the truth about you.

So what do you guys think of this idea? Want to help me pound it into shape?

[Jared A. Sorensen]

See also the anime The Ultimate Teacher, about a cockroach that's turned into a high school principal (?!).