So, I'm making a character for a shadowrun campaign, and I'm new to fourth edition, (but I played third.)

So, I wanted to make an ork ('cuse I'd never played non-humans before) so, when writing a backstory, I wanted to make my character born to some Humanis humans. Then I had the question:

Are Non-humans born still born to human parents (UGE or whatever) in 2070, or has that pretty much stopped? The book provides little insight that I've found. The only thing it has to say is: (in the base book on page 66)

"When Sapiens are born to Ork mothers, they will express robustus at puberty roughly 95% of the time."

Does this mean that Ork "children" (under the age of puberty) look like humans? Or does it mean that roughly 5% of the time, ork mothers will give birth to a non- ork?

Lastly, an idea for a character is that he changed during SURGE (the year of the comet) but little information is actually given about SURGE. Am I missing something? What was SURGE?

IIRC, there are still a few people that express (UGE) into orks or trolls at puberty, but it's pretty rare. Occassionally there are some troll families that birth a human child, but it expresses late. No more elves or dwarves born to pure human parents though.

SURGE is a UGE like effect that effects peopel across the boards. It happend in '61-62, during the Year of the Comet, apparently due to higher mana levels. It affected mostly mundane humans, having apparently "random" effects. Some grew a third eye, tails, astral vision, some expressed in to trolls, gills, etc. It 's all in the book year of the Comet.

Dwarves and elves are born that way. Orks and trolls undergo goblinisation later on, usually in puberty. It's more or less settled down by 2070 with the races now breeding true, but the child of a human-human couple expressing as an ork is still possible. It would probably be remarked upon and the current generation of orks might occasionally lack sympathy for the character (making him doubly an outcast), but it's perfectly possible for a character background.

The line you quoted means that ork parents can have a human child, but that the child will nearly always goblinise at puberty anyway. Mostly orks will have ork babies and soon, cases of human babies from orks might become unknown entirely.

SURGE was specific to the proximity of Haley's Comet and the rules are in the Year of the Comet book. SURGE has therefore stopped for now, but if you want such an effect, you could have a character conceived or growing up in an area of strangely high mana count. Perhaps the parents sneaked into Stonehenge and had sex in the centre or the circle, or something. Personally, I don't like SURGE, but this is the sort of thing that would justify it, post-comet.

Although I don't really care for SURGE, I was under the impression that it is still occurring but at a greatly reduced rate (perhaps a few hundred new cases per year worldwide). I believe it is also said that SURGE will become more common as mana levels increase, and the Comet was just a 'preview' of what is to come.

Year of the comet was 61, base SR4 is 70. it was only 9 years ago, most of the people that had surge are still running around with tails and spikes and astral vision or whatever. You could easily justify a character that was affected by surge at a comet party.

There are however no rules for it in SR4.

Edward

Also it was my understanding that dwarves and elves could still be born from human parents and visa-versa, it was just very, very rare.

Okay, so, to sum up:

1) Surge (happening in 2061) created a lot of weird stuff, (mutations, tales, mundandes gaining astral perception) but it also caused lots of humans to turn into non-humans (trolls, orks, elves, dwarves) (Similar to the orgiginal 'Goblinization' that happened way back when.)

2) Ork children, until they hit puberty, look like humans. When they hit puberty, they usuallystart start expressing ork traits.

3)Though very rare, it is possible for two human parrents to have a troll or ork offspring.

Just rogering up to agree with Knasser

People who bathe in the Ganga river are periodically SURGEd into Hindu-appropriate forms even as late as 2064 (Shadows of Asia, p. 63). There are a few other places that have similar effects (although admittedly, less Hindi influenced) in such places as the Merrimack River in the UCAS or Lake Bosumtwi in Ghana.

-Frank

Is there a definitive answer to the question of ork/troll hyper-aging? I personally don't use it in my games (it brings up too many unanswered questions, like orks going through puberty when they're like 8 years old, or crawling around the house as infants looking like six-year-olds, despite being 18 months old), and I justify it by looking at the "worldwide" age limit for humans being 55. It seems reasonable to me that inadequate medical care, sheer ignorance of how to take care of orks and trolls (and a lack of properly sized equipment, violence, tendency towards poverty and dangerous jobs, and poor dietary choices (orks are said to prefer meat-centric diets, and if they're poor they probably aren't getting healthy food) accounts for their average lifespan being 40 something. After all, it wasn't too long ago that humans were dying around that age. In some countries, we still do, I think.

I think the ork and troll lifespans are partly due to health care and lifestyle and their race. From what I understand, men live somewhat shorter lives than women because of testosterone and its effects on our bodies. I think the hot-tempered nature of orks and trolls isn't just a mis-perceived racial stereotype (at least not how I run things in my game), and as a result, orks and trolls tend to burn out a little younger than the other races.

Dread Polack

Huh. Well, that makes sense then. So they age normally until 20, when some of them develop a condition that ages them rapidly.

I think that they have them reach sexual maturity around 8-10, rather than the 13-15 or a human, and physical maturity around 16, rather than the 21-ish of a human. So, they age a lil' faster, but not, like, Kudzu speed or anything. Helps the racists keep spinning horror stories of ten year old linebackers abusing poor precious human kids.

The shorter lifespan is a big issue in the Tir, where Orks don't get anywhere *near* the age of social security and where some laws, such as a drinking age of 30 or school required until ...ack. I think 25, I'd have to check ... anyway, it meses an Ork up badly.

Of course, there's also the issue of Elves getting social security while in their prime, so.

...

(Vote Brackhaven!)

So...you're saying the mature at age 5, by 2070? This is why I just simplify it by assuming they have human-like maturity rates, and simply die sooner on average due to medical issues and poor lifestyle options.

Also, I seem to recall that there is a difference between menarche and the age at which it is safe (or even possible) to safely bring a baby to term.

EDIT: Yeah, I noted after a quick look on Wikipedia that menarche and puberty are two distinct developmental stages.