Adventure seed: Permanent Kittens.

Permanent Kittens

It seemed a good idea at the time… no, wait, people did freak out at the concept of genetically engineering cats who would never move past the kitten stage.  But there were arguments for it, not least of which was the one that if you’re going to genetically engineer animals, it’d be best to ensure that they were sterile. Which is obviously what was going to happen, here.  Also: the process of creating Permanent Kittens is extremely involved and multi-generational; keeping a stable supply of them around requires conscious effort on humanity’s part.  But, really: it all came down to people wanting kittens that never grew up.

Which would have been fine, except that the same researchers that triggered the ‘never grow up’ sequence in cat DNA also managed to tweak lifespan to about forty years in the first generation – and, not even remotely incidentally, substantively increase the kittens’ intelligence in the process. Before you’re wondering: no, they did not all become murderous, furry little sociopaths… not all of them. Probably not even most. But they’re all manipulative as all get-out, and ruthless when necessary, and know, instinctively, that Kittens Must Rule. Guess the researchers overclocked the winsome factor there, huh?

…And that’s why there’s a fellow with a strange accent and that rather mismatched wardrobe that screams ‘time traveler!’ is talking to you right now.  He’s apparently from the future, where the Kitten Lords of Greater Madagascar are fighting a fairly nasty and disruptive naval war with the Imperial Siamese Buccaneer Alliance over Indian Ocean trade routes.  The guy’s (human) superiors from when’s he from feel that simply stopping Permanent Kittens from being created in the near future (from the players’ perspective) should cause minimal damage to their timeline – which is blatant nonsense, but the guy they sent is here now anyway and he does not like kittens at all. So he’s motivated.

He also has a briefcase and head full of carefully-chosen blueprints of tech that’s about five years ahead of the current campaign year’s state of the art, which means that he’s pretty much too valuable to kill – and won’t be spending much time in a mental hospital, should the players feel tempted to go either route.  Best to take the contract, huh?  I mean, kittens are cute, but genetically-mutated Abominations of Science are genetically-mutated Abominations of Science, am I right?