Denebian Slime Devils

Denebian Slime Devils are a mouth full of needle-sharp teeth propelled rapidly on land or through water (its preference) by a pair of webbed hind legs. It's eyeless head appears as a ceratopsians-like frill. Their long forelegs contain a two claws, which it uses to spear fish, its primary diet. Young can be as small as in inch in size; typical specimen's bodies are a yard in length; the largest are 3 yards and approach 500 pounds. Their primary senses are a type of sonar and smell.

Denebian Slime Devils will attack anything that's not too much bigger than themselves. They are considered a loathsome pest on Deneb V where they are killed on sight.

Harpoon (12)1d(0.5) imp. 1 yard. -3 to Dodge, -1 to Block or Parry.
Bite (12)1d cut. Close Combat.

Swamps of Deneb V

Based on Denebian Slime Devil from Star Fleet Productions, Inc.'s Star Fleet Medical Reference Manual. p. 98-99 and Decipher's Creatures, p35.

Species Specialties and Skill Penalties

Because of the common genetic ancestry of most of the races of the Milky Way Galaxy...--Hybrid - Memory Alpha

Many behavior/cultural and medical/physiological skills and techniques require you to specialize by species. There is a penalty when using these skills with culture [B23] or physiology [B181] you aren't specialized in. It is assumed you will specialize in your own species, but you don't have to. (Being specialized in other species but not your own requires a plausible background story—a 1 character point Unusual Background Perk).

Behavioral/Cultural Off-Culture Penalties

The penalties for using the behavioral/cultural-type skills – Anthropology, Body Language, Carousing, Connoisseur, Criminology, Dancing, Detect Lies, Diplomacy, Fast-Talk, Games, Gesture, Heraldry, Hypnotism, Interrogation, Intimidation, Leadership, Merchant, Poetry, Politics, Propaganda/TL, Psychology, Public Speaking, Savoir-Faire, Sex Appeal, Sociology, Streetwise, and Teaching [B23] – on a species outside your specialty are given in the table below. The Expert Skill (Xenology) skill suffers from the same penalties when used to identify or answer general questions about a species' culture.

* Cultural Familiarity for unknown species costs 1 character point, plus a 1 character point Unusual Background.
† Cultural Familiarity for enigmatic species costs 2 character points.

Counseling officers have access to Cultural Adaptability (10 pt) (or Xeno-Adaptability (20 pt)) which allow them to ignore these cultural unfamiliarity penalties for Common and Uncommon species (or all species). The Counseling! wildcard relative skill level bonus reduces these penalties for those skills above that aren't covered by Counseling! E.g. If you had Counseling! at Attribute+1 (36 pt), you would have only a -1 penalty when Carousing with an Alpha Centauran and no penalty when Interrogating one.

Medical/Physiological Off-Species Penalties

The off-species penalties for medical/physiological-type skills are based on the Zorsky Interspecies Compatibility Table [from GURPS: MODULE PRIME ALPHA, pp. 28-29] given below. These penalties can be waived if you can make a Physiology (species) roll for that species first. You may roll against Physiology (species) at defaut; such a roll suffers from the same penalties given below.

Physiology (species)/TL

IQ/Hard

IQ-6, Diagnosis-5, Physician-5, Physiology-off species penalty, or Surgery-5

This skill is covered on p. B213. A successful roll against your species specialty of Physiology temporarily removes the off-species penalty for physiology-esque skills [B181]: Diagnosis, First Aid, Physician, Pressure Points, Pressure Secrets, or Surgery. If you fail this Physiology roll, you feel the full effects of any off-species penalty. While a high Physiology skill with several species specializations can be an efficient way to go for high-IQ individuals and/or those with a wide range of medical/physiological skills, purchasing additional species specialties for particular skills removes their off-species penalty permanently.

These penalties can be waived if you can make a Physiology Skill roll for that species first, which will of course suffer from the same penalty. If you don't have the Physiology Skill for that species, you can roll against a default: IQ-6, Diagnosis-5, Physician-5, or Surgery-5.