#paratype

folks tend to think hearted just means your favourite animal or an animal you really really like. and it can be that for some. but it can be so much deeper. for me it’s so much deeper.

cows are a part of me. they’re a part of who i am. not my brain or my soul or my body, the way my theriotypes are. but part of my heart. which is why i love the term “hearttype” so, so much.

i want people in my life to see cows or cow-related things and think of me. i want to be associated with cows in everyone’s minds. not because i AM a cow, the way i’m associated with dogs because i’m a dog, but because cows are a part of me. when my friends see cow-print trinkets or cow figurines and the first thing they do is think i would like it, it makes me SO euphoric.

of course, i still am cowhearted. even if sometimes folks make wrong assumptions about what that means. that’ll never stop me from using a term that describes me and my experiences. i think for me they’re also partially a paratype, and i connect with them a lot on the level of being a farm dog. when i think about my life as a farm dog i think about cows. i think i had a herd. i loved them.

Not for whatever the usual suspect is, like, I don’t know, shame or want to hide it or nothing to talk about or writer’s block etc etc.

No. I grew avoidant because how much people make nonhuman equate to alterhuman. Nonhuman is alterhuman, but alterhuman is NOT nonhuman.

Maybe it’s spite, maybe it’s anger, maybe it’s “nonhumanity is overrated” in a way in terms of community topic—that’s a joke, it’s always fascinating to talk about.

But alterhumanity is so much more, and a big, inclusive umbrella. And I’m tired of my other identities being a footnote, or forgotten. I’m tired of my friends or fellow community members feeling like they don’t have a space, that they don’t belong, or aren’t welcome inside a space that is theirs and ours and for all of us.

We received so many wonderful submissions from the indie ttrpg community of games to play next on Tiny Table. We need your help to narrow them down! We will be taking the top 3 games to Patreon for our patrons in the Mini and Micro tier to vote on.

Reactors and Romance: Reactors and Romance is a rules-light RPG about flirting while piloting a giant robot. You only have one stat, and that is your HEAT 🔥. Your HEAT measures how hot your mech's reactor is getting, and how hot of a pilot you are 😉 Will you fight or flirt your way through battle? Can you keep your mech from overheating? What will it be hotshot?

To Infinity...: Inspired by Alien and The Thing, "To Infinity..." is a tabletop social deduction game where up to 4 players and 1 GM need to escape on a spaceship from an alien monster who killed the rest of the crew. What none of the survivors know is that this isn't just a monster, the alien could be any one of them...

Hellborn Descended: Hellborn Descended is an infernal TTRPG set in a modern Hell, inspired by comics and shows such as Hellboy and Helluva Boss. In Hellborn, players take on the role of sinners, demons, and fallen angels, working together as mercenaries to attain wealth, fame, and power, or gloriously die trying. Check out their kickstarter!

Darkest Hour: Darkest Hour is a horror tabletop game inspired by horror movies of all kinds, featuring a group of monster hunters attempting to put a stop to a malicious supernatural entity in a single night. Over the course of six rounds, known as the Hours, the hunters must use their abilities to establish benefits that will aid them even as the haunt grows in strength and the hunters become less effective. As Blackest Night envelops them, the haunt feels insurmountable -- will the hunters find the haunt's true weakness and destroy it for good, or be whittled down until only a Final Girl remains? Featuring six haunts, six locations ripe for the haunting, and six unique hunter archetypes, Darkest Hour is perfect for one-shots for 2-5 players, and can either be run by a GM, or communally without a GM.

Dawn of the Orcs: Dawn of the Orcs is a GMless dark fantasy worldbuilding and roleplaying game. Play the magical technocrats who create the first orcs as living weapons and tell the story of how the Orcs become their own people. It can be played seriously as a fantasy transhumanist Dr. Strangelove, or as a wacky game of Saruman by committee.

The Trains of the Glorious Republic of the People: The Trains of the Glorious Republic of the People is a tabletop RPG where players take on the roles of a train crew in a fictional 1930s totalitarian state. Your mission is simple: get yourselves and your unique train from point A to point B though things are never that easy on the tracks of the Glorious Republic. The game requires only d6s, pen, paper, and, above all, your loyalty to the party.

Paratype: Paratype takes place in the aftermath of an apocalypse where giant bugs have reclaimed the earth. For humans survival is a challenge-one helped by the invention of a device that grants strange new buggy abilities. Paratype is a game about survival, humanity and so, so many bugs.

Broke Wizards: Broke Wizards is a light, silly game about working class sorcery. Play as students of the prestigious Audment's Academy of the Arcane who must go delving for treasure in order to pay tuition. To cast magic, wizards must use items found around their dormitory as makeshift spell ingredients - and then use their real-life argumentative skills to convince the living force of magic that yes, actually, a dirty shot glass is a great ingredient for casting a spell of water breathing, thank you very much.

RiskTaker: RiskTaker is a GM-less system built around players making big moves with big risks. Each sessions revolves around "The Scene," a climactic event like an episode's final battle in a superhero TV show, or the aftermath of a heist gone wrong. Players take turns either doing exposition scenes to give context to The Scene and built character relationships, or Influencing The Scene, which means they take a decisive action and decide how effective that action will be. But watch out - the more impactful your action, the more things can go wrong, and the more likely it is that they will. But what's a good story without a few Risks?

'til it kills us: in ‘til it kills us, you play as a group of young, reckless queer activists fighting to make a difference in the world. you’re angry, and you’re scared, and rightfully so. not to mention, you’re all a little bit fucked up. whether you’re dealing with issues at home, struggling with mental illness, or just learning to stand on your own two feet, life isn’t easy. but you’re also in love with the world, and with each other, so you keep fighting anyway. it’s the only thing you can do. the only problem is your magic. sure, it protects you. sure, it helps you fight. but you can feel it – feeding on the most unpleasant parts of you. and the longer you have this magic, the more you fear by those feelings. you worry it might be powering but you keep fighting. what else is there? remember what you always said: we’re going to keep on fighting ‘til it kills us.

By Megasomamars

Paratype is a post apocalyptic role-playing game taking place in a world filled with giant mutant insects and humans able to hybridize themselves to gain strange new abilities to survive their ever changing world.

~ @empyrean-demise (Nonhuman Blog-)

Honestly, I've thought the same thing! Seeing mention of pine devils is fairly rare even in general cryptid-centric spaces though, so maybe there are more of us who just don't know the species? It took me till very recently to find it myself.