Thursday, July 25, 2013

Ancient Armory: Vespartillery

An ill-advised combination of light-weight scooter and heavy artillery, the Vespartillery is the ideal vehicle for the mutant on the go who also likes to pack a punch. The scooter can only carry two passengers at a time, and its maximum speed is 80 MPH. It is not a hardy machine, as it can only take 15 hit points of damage before it's utterly destroyed.

The Vespartillery is equipped with 6 side-mounted micro-missile launchers (3 on each side). Weapons can be fired from triggering assembly built into the handlebars. Each micro-missile has a range of 1,500 feet and will do 7d6 hit points of damage to anything in a 30-foot radius of impact. However, the vehicle is so light that firing a micro-missile will decrease the vehicle's speed by 20 MPH if it's in motion. And firing the missiles if the vehicle is at a standstill has a 15% chance of causing it to dump over onto its side -- unable to fire again until it's brought upright.

The truly fearsome weaponry on the Vespartillery is the front-mounted cannon barrel that juts out three feet from the front of the scooter. The cannon can only fire one shot with a 3,000-foot range. The shell will do a staggering 10d10 hit points of damage. However, firing the cannon while the vehicle is in motion will cause the handlebars to wrench out of the driver's hands, causing it to then spin wildly out of control and crashing horribly. The only safe way to fire the cannon is if the vehicle is stopped and held securely, and even then it has a 30% chance of falling over due to the concussive force of firing the massive gun.

3 comments:

  1. Holy crap. I stumbled across the picture randomly and just made up everything you read in this entry. But doing some research, I found out this *IS* a Vespa, and this *WAS* used in WWII as an anti-tank weapon. Just look at this better picture of the same darned vehicle.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Vespamilitare.jpg

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  2. Yeah, the link notes that is was the French-made Vespa 150 TAP (Troupes Aéro Portées or airborne troops). What a neat little motorbike.

    Although, the actual vehicle mounts a M20 75 mm recoilless rifle (recoil not being an issue with this), with the ammo carried it the cylinders. But given the Kamandi-style nature of Mutant Future, with weapons piled-on and real-word accuracy ignored for the sake of awesome, you design is perfect.

    I can totally see Haruko Haruhara (of FLCL) riding this in one of her hyperactive, over-the-top battles, while standing on tho seat and handles with her Rickenbacker bass guitar serving as her battleaxe and assault rifle. (Yeah, that show was on ten forms of narcotics! =D)

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  3. I am reminded of Eddie Izzard's bit about italian scooters, but with a very different context.

    "Ciao!"

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