Sperm Whale Characters
I'll admit that I was dubious about including sperm whales as a player character species, but I found something compelling about the idea of two dozen members of a previously extinct and physically massive species finding their way in a strange new world while managing the overwhelming fame such an existence would incur. It's a roleplaying challenge I though some would enjoy and that would add interesting adventure options for GMs. I didn't want them to seem a joke or feel like an over-the-top addition to a setting that otherwise strives for real-world verisimilitude, but in the end I think I was able to strike just the right tone. Here is some of the background text, explaining their addition to Poseidon.
Pod 21
"On a balmy summer day in 2190, the colony world was shocked when 21 frightened and malnourished juvenile Terrestrial sperm whales swam into Haven Harbor seeking aid. They seemed to have little practical knowledge of the wider colony world, and spoke only the unique language developed among the first uplifted belugas. It is impossible to impart the full scope of the media storm this event created and the political controversy that followed. Suffice it to say, the members of Pod 21, as they became known, are the most famous cetaceans in history, and have remained reluctant celebrities since that day.
In the end, investigators determined the whales were somatic clones, produced from archived DNA models, using xenosilicate templates and oversized artificial wombs. The project had been carried out somewhere in the Copper Islands on the eastern edge of the Dolphin Sea, but to date no one has been able to locate the mostly automated, semi-aquatic facility the confused teenage whales described. It has yet to be determined if this was an Incorporate experiment, the project of some egomaniacal beluga benefactor, an insurgent plan gone wrong or even the goal of a cult. The only certainty is that it had been a massively expensive undertaking, with considerable infrastructure, that went entirely unnoticed in the vast obscurity of the frontier for most of a decade.
The whales described how one day the handful of human and cetacean techs that had apparently created them simply shut down the creche, boarded a hopper and flew away. As they departed, one tearful human stuck a trode interface with navigational software to the side of one of their heads and told them to, “Swim to Haven.” This strange abandonment only added to the mystery of their origin and the fevered nature of the media coverage.
The whales shared that there had originally been 24 clones, prenatally modified to produce 12 reproductively male and 12 reproductively female individuals. One died during gestation, one shortly after being decanted and one was killed by a lesser white as the pod made its way across the frontier to Haven. The clones are exactly that, 21 somatically identical “siblings” who not only share the expected emotional ties but the additional bonds of being the only extant representatives of their species.
The trauma and stress of the sperm whales’ unique situation can not be overstated. They are members of a once-extinct species who have no parental bonds or cultural heritage. They suffered profound childhood trauma, have been hounded by the media and special interests for most of their lives, and now have to find their ways on a cut-throat colony world where civilization is often more dangerous than the wildlife of the frontier.
In 2199 the strange story of Pod 21 continues. A few have become reality stars, appearing at media events, speaking as pundits or in one case hosting a Poseidon travel show. Several are very active in cetacean rights and the Church of the Whalesong, two have joined the GEO and one of those is now a Peacekeeper. Several others have simply disappeared and there is varied speculation that they were lost to even larger predators, joined the insurgency or simply left civilization behind. The rest seem to be trying to live semblances of normal lives across the frontier, despite their individual fame. The challenges are considerable and despite their immense size, Poseidon is an even bigger place, apparently with room enough for even them."
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