Just sitting here and got bored and I had one of those annoying thoughts hit me.

Metas can be born human then later change.

I was woundering what if 2 people before they goblinized had a kid then when they goblinized one turned into an elf and one turned into a troll would the kid if s/he were to goblinize later be a half breed?

Yes I am looking for peoples thoughts on a half elf half troll but something along the lines of blade all the good stuff and more ofless none of the bad.

RAW is very clear that there are no such thing as half-breeds.

Also, humans that goblinize in 2070 are probably about as rare as albinos. Almost all orks and trolls are born that way, and humans never goblinize into Elves. All elves (and dwarves) were born as elves or dwarves.

Finally, and most importantly, the GM can make any house rule desired.

Folks can never goblinize into elves or dwarfs. You're either born that way or you're not. And it's extraordinarily rare for a baby of one race to be born to parents of another in the 70's.

Goblinization into other races (or for that matter, "throwback" babies being born to orcs or trolls) is similarly rare, although some old metaplot made them temporarily more common a few years back. Regardless, it's been said repeatedly that "biracial" children overwhelmingly tend towards one of their parents races, with a vanishingly small number expressing as one of the other races. Presumably they'd have a chance of their offspring expressing the other parent's metatype, and you could certainly arrange their stats to imply a hint of their other half, but for all intents and purposes - and this includes game rules - they're just one or the other. No vast collection of silly in-betweens.

Oh yeah, and another thing:

Although not canon, in my campaigns I've always had the IEs resort to Blood Magic and Places of Power in order to survive throughout the Downcycle...

While the rules may say it is near impossible the thing to remember is this:

Shadowrun is a world of magic and thus things can happen that just don't seem likey or even possible.

Like I said this was just a thought for the simple theory of say a person being born of 2 humans that later became an elf and a troll.

Later in life the child grew up expressed as an elf but with the +5 body +5 strength that trolls get and the +2 agility +3 charisma of an elf.

This was as useall just one of my questions to be looked at in fun and the thought of a big bad good looking I'll beat your ass elf just sounded like so much fun to me.

Spike babies are and always were elves. They were born before the general awakening thanks to Spikes in the mana level that allowed it to happen. Hence "Spike" babies.

And there are still humans born to troll families that do express late/puberty. Weird.

Trollelf:

Version 1: Troll, Exceptional Charisma. B 7, A 5, R 3, S 7, C 4, I 3, L 2, W 3. Thermographic Vision, Reach +1, Dermal Armor 1. If you want, design a special Quality (-5 points) that removes one natural ability (dermal armor, for instance).

Version 2: Elf, Exceptional Strength, Toughness. B 5, A 5, R 3, S 6, C 3, I 3, L 3, W 3. Lowlight Vision.

Version 3: Pick a race with stats in-between the two(B 3/8, A 1/6, R 1/6, S 3/8, C 2/6, I 1/6, L 1/5, W 1/6.) - an Ork! Give him Exceptional Charisma and Human Looking: (B 4/9, A 1/6, R 1/6, S 3/8, C 1/6, I 1/6, L 1/5, W 1/6) Call him an Elftroll and make people laugh a lot when he says he isn't an ork, but half-elf and half-troll.

In the old germany sourcebook there was reference to genetic freaks like elves with troll arms, trolls with dwarfbeards and such, but there's never been any stats or anything more written about that afaik.

Version 3 is awesome. I may well play that character now.

A Spike Baby is any Awakened critter or metahuman that was born before the Awakening. Case in point: century ferrets. Elves are the best-known case, but there have also been (somewhat apocryphally) orks, and at least one troll. Not sure about dwarfs. There's always that one guy from the Secrets of Power Trilogy.

This makes me wonder a few things.

1. Those people who gave birth to dwarves or elves- what percentage of them ended up changing to dwarves or elves later on? How about further up the family tree? Might you discover that grandpa suddenly turned out to be an elf, explaining your own pointy ears and vegetarian tendencies?

2. Is this spike change still existant? I.e. if you were to find an area of the world that had a lower than normal level of mana, would people revert? Maybe mystic creatures would find themselves feeling groggy, going into a hibernation mode/wanting to go off to the astral plane?

3. Given that UGE does still exist, what about elves and dwarves being born to humans? What about this happening to non-human parentage? For instance, you have two Trolls, they have a kid, kid ends up being an elf. Can this be explained as 'rare, but happens,' or does the mother have a heck of a lot of explaining to do?

Well its my understanding that even the Spike Babies were born as elves or dwarves, although I could be wrong, but sure, I'd agree with the point that there are genetic lines that could lead to a baby being born as an elf, ect at a lower Mana level then another genetic line, but where I disagree is with the idea that after being born human, 'Grandpa' would then express into an elf.

I am not sure if I feel incredibly stupid or I just think a lot of you guys are being overly strict in reading. I always got the impression that there were two waves of change, one for the elves and dwarves, one for the orks and trogs. But I NEVER had the impression that no one ever turned into an elf post birth. I always saw that 'expressing' as an elf or dwarf in the teens or beyond was actually common for a breif time.

Where did this 'never, not ever, not even in your dreams bucko' line come from?

And why, exactly, should it be true? What makes the members of those two metatypes so special that they can only be born that way? Certainly the 'growth' into a Troll is at least as extreme a physical change as shrinking into Dwarf size, and someone expressing suddenly as an Elf might not even notice right away...

I don't have the old books handy, but it was in the history part - I'll check the SR4 book to see if it mentions it.

But UGE is specifically elves and dwarves being born to human parents, while goblinization is specifically orks and trolls metamorphizing at puberty.


edit:

see the edit to my previous post

Probably the same way as Oooh, my teeth got pointy or darn, I grew much more than my friends...

I suspect a great portion of my trouble here is that it doesn't make much sense from a consistency angle that only half the metahuman subtypes 'goblinize'. So without a hard and fast line, which I have never seen outside this thread saying it's impossible, then I have no valid reason to suspect that only those two types actually change in adulthood.

Presumably there were ork and troll babies coming at some point, so why should we not assume that some poor (or not so poor) bastard goblinized into one of the fairer races?


Hell, if some dude just sprouted horns and fangs and grew four feet, would I even notice that his neighbor got pointy ears? Doesn't even rate attention compared to the shocking 'goblins' sprouting. Doesn't mean it didn't happen (and logically, it should have...)

So the real question becomes: Why didn't we see more trog babies during the first wave? I'm working under the assumption that the 'babies, then adults' pattern was due to the fact that it's easier for a prenatal expression of meta-genes. Or can we assume that ork and troll babies were born, but were under-reported or miscarried more often (stresses of birthing larger babies?), murdered at birth as 'monsters' or simply thought to be deformed, but otherwise 'human' children?


To be honest, it's hard to read that mini-encyclopedia of a history every time a new edition rolls off the press. I'm sure I haven't paid close, critical attention to it since I was 14. And my 14 year old mind was all about: It only makes sense if all four metatypes express at the same time...

My guess as to why the elves and dwarves came first were due to a sort of racial mana threshold- the elves and dwarves required a lower level of ambient mana in order to assume their true forms, while the goblinization didn't take place until mana had climbed higher.

Geeze you guys rules rules rules put the book down and back away from it.

While I have enjoyed the posts made and there are most definitely some really GOOD points this was all set up as a what if or a have fun with this post and you all got so serious.

Is it just me or have people forgotten that imagination is a great thing to play with from time to time?

As for my idea I was thinking once again instead of the +5 to the body and strength go with say a +3 to both and then give the +1 to agility and +1 to chrisma.

This is because while I am still playing with the idea of a merger I am not so sure it could be said the merger would be perfect thus giveing the child max bonuses.

Now you can go ahead keep digging through rules if you want but I really think you just need to take a break and have some fun lol.

Well IF I were going to bring in some sort of half-breed, then at most I would pick the metatype traits from one of the parents and add some purely cosmatic traits from the other, such as an elf with small Troll-like horns and lumpy skin. You know, the same type of thing that daddy very well could have paid a surgeon to add on so his little tike would look more like him.

But then again the very idea of Bladish Day-Walkers grates on a raw nerve more then Drizzt Clones from that other system.

Seriously though, trying to cross the very different traits of an Troll and an Elf would cancel each other out as the bulk and dermal plates that gives the Troll his incredable toughness counterdicts whatever joint and tendon changes is necessary to give elfs their increased agility.

You'd be better off starting from stratch and imagining a gene splicer creating the 'perfect' Metahuman in a lab that starts with a natural 7 before counting BP additions in every stat who then is carted off for intense delta-grade Cyber/Bioware implantation before being infected with a custom built strain of HMHVV that gives the subject all the strengths of vampires with none of the weaknesses, plus it also reconizes the existing top-end Cyber/Bioware as part of the body, and after all of that, is entered into a pact with a Free Spirit to grant the subject the powers of a Full Mage plus those of a Full Adept before being carted off to an AI to be altered and become the first being to have both Magic and Resonance, and while we're at it, why not allow this speical one-of-a-kind person to cast spells while in the Matrix and use special Complex forms that grant bonuses to his meat body actions...

*Edit*

Although, getting back to what I think the spirit of the thread was supposed to be, I'd bet that my perfectly engineered monster of science and magic could beat the socks off your Eloll, or would it be Trolf or maybe even Trelf?

Imagination may be a great thing, but for a story to really resonate it helps if everybody can suspend their disbelief. An internally consistent set of rules helps maintain suspension of disbelief, while a series of random special cases undermines it. Half troll/half elves who express as dragons at puberty are very much outside of the way Shadowrun's fictional universe works, even without having to add to the torturous metagenetics logic they've already tried to add to cover it.

Of course, you're free to add whatever you like to your own game. Just remember that weak or haphazard internal logic can spoil a whole group's enjoyment far more easily than being unable to play a gimmicky character can spoil a player's.

Well, Casazil, you did ask for people's thoughts on the topic of a half-elf half-troll with all of the bonuses and none of the penalties... Those thoughts have been shared and now - because they're not glowing and giddy about what a great idea this is - the sharers don't have imaginations. For shame, Casazil.

Sorry for venting my spleen, but daggum... don't ask for opinions and then chastise those who offer them. Not to mention give you (and me) a greater insight into the SR world as it stands.

To say it'd be cool/fun/awesome to have a character with bonuses to nearly every stat is not 'imaginative.' It's easy.

Ravor took his commentary further than I was thinking, but I agree with the sentiment - balance and creativity within the system are what I find fun.

But, hey, whatever gets your socks rolling up and down.

You could be a Wakyambi (African Elves who are really tall) or a Fomorian (Celtic Trolls with no Charisma penalty).

But the whole "half-breeds" thing doesn't fly in Shadowrun, they literally don't exist.

Which is a good thing. Characters should impress with their history and opinions, not with their Star Trek forehead markings.

-Frank

Ok consider me spanked I'm sorry I went to my room and thought about what I said after that though I have to say this:

Yes you have plenty of imagination but maybe I was just thinking too far out of the box it happens with me I am far off in non-reality mainly because reality for me sucks.

No I didn't watch blade then come up with the idea it was just the only thing that I could come up with to explain my thoughts of a character that was getting all the bonuses and only one negitive.

My thoughts were mainly to play around with the character races try to figure out something new I guess what I was looking towards (with a really bent lens) were the meta-variants.

again I am sorry if any of my comments offened anyone I did this thread and others in the past as fun what if ideas and here I go getting all serious bad me I'll try not to do it again.

@Fastball taken and accepted.

I will of course continue to post hehe like I said I have all kinds of strange thoughts about things for shadowrun.

And yes I think this thread did inspire some good conversation on the races and rules for the game.