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M-Rex
Could a case be made that bred Drakes are T'Skrang?

Also, Obsidimen...will they appear when the mana level get's high enough?

mfb
one obsidiman has already appeared. i believe it was in SoA, there was some Japanacorp kid who SURGEd into a giant rock-monster. he's out in some remote corner of the world, now, digging for other rocks.
fistandantilus4.0
No he was one of the high ups in Yamatetsu/Evo, and had been a big racist before he SURGED.

I would'nt say bred drakes were t'skgran. I'd say they were Aardalea's descendants.
Eleazar
Is this all Earthdawn related stuff? Not to imply Earthdawn isn't related to Shadowrun. It's just the only way I could think of asking the question.
Ancient History
QUOTE (Eleazar)
Is this all Earthdawn related stuff? Not to imply Earthdawn isn't related to Shadowrun. It's just the only way I could think of asking the question.

Yeah, pretty much.

No, bred drakes are not t'skrang.
ornot
Hehe.
I wonder what the 6th World would make of Windlings? A Windling street sam would be quite comedic, although I don't see one hefting a PAC...
Ancient History
QUOTE (ornot)
Hehe.
I wonder what the 6th World would make of Windlings?

They have those already. They're called Sprites.
ornot
QUOTE (Ancient History)
QUOTE (ornot @ Apr 25 2007, 04:13 PM)
Hehe.
I wonder what the 6th World would make of Windlings?

They have those already. They're called Sprites.

I must have missed that book. I take it that they aren't player characters, but rather critters of some sort?

Heck, I'll just root around in your fine archive for a bit, see what I can turn up wink.gif
Demonseed Elite
Yep, in SR, they are considered Critters.
Grinder
Time to change it. biggrin.gif
M-Rex
QUOTE (mfb)
one obsidiman has already appeared. i believe it was in SoA, there was some Japanacorp kid who SURGEd into a giant rock-monster. he's out in some remote corner of the world, now, digging for other rocks.

SoA?

Sorry. Not properly up on my acronyms.
WhiskeyMac
Shadows of Asia
M-Rex
QUOTE (WhiskeyMac)
Shadows of Asia

Doh! Thanks.

I should have guessed. biggrin.gif
Luddite
What happened to the T'Skrang though? I could understand the Windlings and Obsidamen being rare as hell, but why no lizardmen?
FrankTrollman
QUOTE (ornot)
QUOTE (Ancient History @ Apr 25 2007, 11:55 AM)
QUOTE (ornot @ Apr 25 2007, 04:13 PM)
Hehe.
I wonder what the 6th World would make of Windlings?

They have those already. They're called Sprites.

I must have missed that book. I take it that they aren't player characters, but rather critters of some sort?

Heck, I'll just root around in your fine archive for a bit, see what I can turn up wink.gif

The book is Paranormal Animals of Europe. It was the second critter book, and it was set in 2054.

-Frank
fistandantilus4.0
QUOTE (Luddite)
What happened to the T'Skrang though? I could understand the Windlings and Obsidamen being rare as hell, but why no lizardmen?

Same as orks and trolls.... just more so. Need higher mana level.
bibliophile20
QUOTE (fistandantilus3.0)
QUOTE (Luddite @ Apr 25 2007, 10:42 PM)
What happened to the T'Skrang though? I could understand the Windlings and Obsidamen being rare as hell, but why no lizardmen?

Same as orks and trolls.... just more so. Need higher mana level.

hehe... methinks I know what is going to happen for the 50th anniversary of Goblinization...

After what happened back in the Year of the Comet, and all the naysayers who said, "nothing major is going to happen this year," when April of 2071 comes around, I have no doubt that the tension will be thick enough to cut with a knife.
Jack Kain
Some how I think 50th anniversary of Goblinization will either be a huge world shaking even.
Or something like Y2k, which is to say nothing.
bibliophile20
QUOTE (Jack Kain)
Some how I think 50th anniversary of Goblinization will either be a huge world shaking even.
Or something like Y2k, which is to say nothing.

When the whole world holds its collective breath, those are pretty much the only two options when it comes to a resolution.

Nah, if the mana curve really wanted to jerk everyone's chains (which, considering that mana is affected by metahuman emotion, isn't that implausible), then the Big Earthshaking Event™ will come 51 years after the Awakening, in 2072.
fistandantilus4.0
On April 24th...

"Now you will receive us..."
Lady Door
*crawls under a desk and waits for all Hell to break loose*
M-Rex
What's the consensus on Ryan Mercury/Ryanthusar? Is he a bred-drake, or a wyvern that couldn't manifest because the mana levels weren't high enough?

Can a dracoform stuck in human guise due to mana levels actually not understand what it really is? I seem to remember Harlequin stating to Ryan Mercury "even you don't realize what you are", or something similar after Ryan banished one of Harly's elementals.
Ancient History
T'skrang suffered fertility problems even during Earthdawn. They may be extinct.

Ryan Mercury is/was probably a bred drake.
Mistwalker
I would have to agree that Ryan Mercury is a bred drake, and once exposed to high enough mana, "goblinized" into a drake. That seems to be the story in the trilogy.
hobgoblin
hmm, how hard would it be to make a t'skrang using surge?
FrankTrollman
QUOTE (hobgoblin)
hmm, how hard would it be to make a t'skrang using surge?

Start with an Elf. Then give it the following SURGE modifiers:

Prehensile Tail (+5)
Gills (+4)
Horns (+2) (can be used to give a crest, as the t'skrang have)
Scales (-2)
Altered Skin Coloration (-2)
Altered Eye Coloration (-1)

This highlights the basic problems with the SURGE mechanics: the bonuses and penalties involved are batshit crazy. A set of gills is all well and good, but it's not world shatteringly important. Heck, having a t'skrang crest is not, I think, a net advantage but you're paying for it anyway.

On the flip side, the whole "you look frickin weird" is split up into three separate drawbacks, each of which are essentially the same problem you'd have for just having a tail or the crest - the fact that you have scales doesn't make you any more unique looking after you have a head crest and a prehensile tail. And the fact that your scales are blue doesn't make you any more unique than you would be if your scales were any other color.

Be that as it may, such a character might look like a t'skrang, but they wouldn't be a t'skrang. They'd still be milk drinking tree shrews who bore their young alive even so. The t'skrang were never humans and could never breed with humans. If they aren't hiding on a metaplane somewhere, it's because they are all gone.

-Frank
hobgoblin
well, i guess one could use the rules but toss the costs. and the rest is fluff i guess wink.gif

as for not being able to breed with humans, we are all decendent from fish. as in, there are some reptilian like dna in our bodies. hell, real life science is working on tapping some lizards ability to regrow limbs. lets just hope that people turn out like the lizard og spider-man fame silly.gif
Demon_Bob
Where are these surge modifiers?
Grinder
In the SR3 sourcebook "Year of the Comet" iirc.
Omer Joel
An NPC in my game - Nejala - is a SURGEd Human with several T'Skrang features; while she isn't a full-blown T'Skrang, she has a tail, scaly skin and a forked tounge. Full-blown T'Skrang would probably appear at the next SURGE-equivalent, that is, when the mana level would climb even further.
Rajaat99
QUOTE (FrankTrollman)
Be that as it may, such a character might look like a t'skrang, but they wouldn't be a t'skrang. They'd still be milk drinking tree shrews who bore their young alive even so. The t'skrang were never humans and could never breed with humans. If they aren't hiding on a metaplane somewhere, it's because they are all gone.

There's never been anything anywhere saying that T'skrang were never human. In ED, they believe that Trolls were never human. Also in ED no races can breed with each other. ED Ork and Human breed, you don't get one or the other, like in SR, you get nothing.
That being said, I do believe that it would be a slow magical change, but heck, I'm probably wrong. If a human changed into an Obsidimon in SOA, a human changing into a T'skrang wouldn't be any more strange or unbelievable.
knasser

So, could you see it as human form being a sort of survival trait for the magical races? A sort of spore that can survive the long mana drought. That could also leave human humans as a degenerate mutation that never quite manages to return to its majestic, original form.

Interesting way of looking at things.

-K.
fistandantilus4.0
Actually Rajaat, I believe it is stated somewhere that t;skrang , windlings, and obsidiman never did come from human stock, while the rest of the name giver race, such as humans , did. I don't have any sort of page quote handy to support this however. Except with the obsidimen of course. They're obvious because they're born from rocks.
odinson
The problem is that SR and ED are 2 different games. They may have similarities, and some things carry over, and they are supposed to be set in the same world just in different ages, but they are still 2 different games. That means that what holds true in one doesn't have to hold true in the other. SR developers could just decide that they don't like one of the ED races and cut them out of their version of the game. Maybe they just never existed. Maybe ED and SR are in different dimensions that are very similar but have differences so stuff from one doesn't translate to the other. SR doesn't have to import anything from ED when mana levels reach the appropriate strength. Any similarities are just a coincidence.
fistandantilus4.0
No, the developers of both games worked well together over the years trying to make things consistent between the two games. That's why Icewing/Ghostwalker is still called Dollmaker for example.

There has been talk about the reasons behind winlinds and obsidimen not being around before. Over the years in SR, they've began showing up, in tiny little bits here and there. They just aren't playable PC races. Well, not without SURGEing at this point anyway.

There are examples of each of the 'missing' races in Shadowrun. Obsidimen and t'skrnag as recently as SoA. Windlings were way back in Paranormal Animals of Europe, and acutally referred to as "windlings" and included a reference to True Fire. The 'Dragon Tears' in SoA also sound an awful lot like True Water, wouldn't you say? The setting have been pretty consistent for the most part. The big differences were in the mechanics. The story line/ metaplot lines up pretty well.


Edit: As far as manalevels reaching the same range, that won't (or at least shouldn't) happen in Shadowrun, because that would be over 2,000 later in the timeline. Obviosuly that's way past the reach of the Shadowrun game. I do understand what you're saying, it just isn't relevant. The similarities aren't coincidence.
odinson
QUOTE (fistandantilus3.0)
As far as manalevels reaching the same range, that won't (or at least shouldn't) happen in Shadowrun, because that would be over 2,000 later in the timeline. Obviosuly that's way past the reach of the Shadowrun game.

unless everyone is an immortal elf.


wasn't ED at the end of the magic cycle, so everything in ED should appear much sooner than that shouldn't it?


The game developers have worked well togeather. what i'm saying is that if the SR guys ever randomy feel like changing anything like having an obsidiman surge instead of being born form a rock they are different stories and don't have to be exactly the same, they just happen to make most things the same.
fistandantilus4.0
QUOTE
wasn't ED at the end of the magic cycle, so everything in ED should appear much sooner than that shouldn't it?

The Scourge happens at the highest point in the mana cycle, so at appx 2,500 years, give out take 250 each way. The Earthdawn setting is just after the Scourge has "ended" albeit a bit early. SO it would be about 7.500 years in the past from SR, give or take a few centuries.

QUOTE
if the SR guys ever randomy feel like changing anything like having an obsidiman surge instead of being born form a rock they are different stories and don't have to be exactly the same,


Yeah, because this sort of did happen. There's the fellow from Evo/Yamatetsu that SURGEd in to a rock man. But that doesn't necessarily mean that he's an obsidiman, it just means he's a changeling. Obsidimen are explained in the ED setting as being formed of a union of earth and spirit, sort of like an living breathing, bleeding , elemental . They live 900+ years, they go dormant if they're in doors for too long, they can commune with their liferock that they're born from by melding in to it, etc.

Now if this corp guy could do all of that (and it might take a while to find out if he can live 900 years) then he'd be an obsidiman (assumingly) and then it would conflict with what we "know" of them.

But then we have this other group over by Lake Baykal that is supposed to be living rock men, and they all stay in the same area. The area has always been very mystical, and they tend to congregate around the island. That seems pretty consistent with a group of newly made obsidimen gathering around and protecting a liferock.

So assuming those things are still working as I outlined, then it's still very consistent. If not, we'll just throw things at a few writers. wink.gif Sharp things for people that do bad things, soft, chewy, tasty things for the ones that do good things!
Ravor
Also some food for thought, its my understanding that things such as the Ghost Dance, and the Aztlan's massive Astral remapping through Blood Magic has sped up the natural Mana cycle, so its possible that the Horrors and the Scrouge may happen sooner then it should have according to Earthdawn's history. (And then we also have the possiblity that the Mana Cycles might not be uniform in length or depth either...)
fistandantilus4.0
Those, at least the Ghost Dance, were localized spikes.
Dragon Heart Trilogy Spoiler:
[ Spoiler ]
Protector152
The great ghost dance did speed up the approach of the horrors because of the amount of blood magic used. In fact the mana levels around the site of the great ghost dance are higher then they will be on most of the planet for a thousand years according to Harliquin. See "Harliquin's Back" for more details.
fistandantilus4.0
Wasn't it also supposed to be the reason for the early arrival of the bugs?
Perssek
Do you believe that for a long time I thought that the bugs were the horrors? No, really. embarrassed.gif It was so until I started reading into ED material and some Ancient History stuff that things started to make sense and I could differentiate the horrors from the poor bugs.

Did it happen to anybody else?
Demonseed Elite
The metastory of Shadowrun has never been easy for a player to jump into and catch up with, but we also try not to make it essential for playing the game. It's just one of those bonus things, like the people who follow every nuance of television shows like Lost.

Plus, it's a lot of fun to write!
Ancient History
QUOTE (Perssek)
Do you believe that for a long time I thought that the bugs were the horrors? No, really. embarrassed.gif It was so until I started reading into ED material and some Ancient History stuff that things started to make sense and I could differentiate the horrors from the poor bugs.

Did it happen to anybody else?

Someone say my name?
Perssek
QUOTE (Ancient History)
Someone say my name?


Yikes!! (little girl scream type C)

Drek, did I summoned him just by saying his name? What do I do now? YouŽre that kind of great free dikoted spirit that gives us wishes and stuff? biggrin.gif

Just kidding - man, your writings, musings and - I dare to say - essays into SR helped me to understand better the setting and to put more intrincate stuff into my campaigns for my players to follow. Amazing - really amazing the research and compiling work you did. CanŽt thank you enough (there should be a .gif smile for kissing ass - IŽuse it now).

But thanks anyway.
Cheops
QUOTE
Also in ED no races can breed with each other. ED Ork and Human breed, you don't get one or the other, like in SR, you get nothing.


Reference please? I don't ever recall reading this anywhere in ED. I know that Obsidiman and T'skrang are incompatible and Windlings are incompatible because of size issues.

All of the non-Human races believe that they were never human. Why would they? There is mention in the books that Humans believe that all the other Name-Givers came from them (DoE Vol 1, 32-33). In fact there are 5 paragraphs dedicated to the subject along with a quote from a VERY offended elf.
Grinder
Me neither. Races can't change or transform in another.
bibliophile20
There is one point that has been in the back of my mind, though, on this issue. Both of those races existed in the Fourth World--which means that they somehow survived the duration of the Third World when coming from the Second.
2bit
Who says they had to be around in the 2nd or 3rd?
fistandantilus4.0
I guess the whole 'recesive' gene bit about some trolls birthing human kids that turn in to trolls at adolescence stops happening in ED, since i'ts never mentioned.

Or maybe they just assume the chica was cheating on the man. biggrin.gif

"Wait.. where's 's horns? Why you little!"

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