In the Swedish gaming magazine Sinkadus no 11 (1988) a new potential player character option was presented for the Mutant Post-apocalyptic RPG, the Neo Man (Note: technically for the Mutant 2 iteration from 1986 – the one that added the characteristics of Perception and Education, introduced a segment based combat system, similar to Runequest’s strike ranks but continuous, introduced hit locations and a much more sophisticated skill system), the Neo Men.

The Neo Men were originally the product of biologically manipulating humans to become bigger and stronger to become an asset of the military as a criminal punishment, during the 21st century. The manipulation also affected their personalities and intelligence significantly in a detrimental sense. Following the catastrophe a lot of them survived the harsh reality and due to their resilience and created societies.

The Neo Men, through natural selection, tends to be a little bit smarter than orginally but still much lower than the other types (2D6+2 compared to 2D6+6 for mutants and 2D6+8 for mutans) , but their societies has long ago been eroded due to the rise of the human and mutant societies. They tend to form part of the under class when they live in “normal” society. In a way they could be seen as the equivalent of the Neanderthals in our world and perhaps as Orcs in other worlds (but perhaps more timid).

During lock-down I bought a set of Cowboy Orcs (why not!) and I thought this could represent a gang of Neo Men, perhaps of the smarter type! I also wanted to make their skin pink and reddish, a little bit like muscles on one of those educational posters (because it used to scare the s**t of me when I was little). This is a little bit different than the more greyish looks proposed in the original article.

I bought them on ebay from Miniature Men, seller is called miniaturemen07. I might have bought a few more… but that is for another time.

Anyway, here they are…. (they were originally seven, but I seem to have lost one).

They are nice and bulky compared to normal sized 28mm, but then the Siz of a Neo Man is 2D6+20 compared to the normal 2D6+6!.

/ Hope that was of some interest…