OK, disclaimer first.
I AM NOT LIABLE FOR STUFF MY BRAIN TENDS TO PONDER WHILE MY CONSCIOUSNESS IS OUT DOING GODS KNOW WHAT!

OK, so this is something that came to my, when i fell asleep in the bathtub after having read a shadowrun novel dealing a bit with shifters and stuff.
so Regeneration.
How far does it go?
How deep does it go?
There are several ways to get regeneration in Shadowrun.
We know there might be females with regeneration.
So, one of those, let's make it a shifter for ease of use, has sex. Gets her cherry popped.
And now what happens? Does regeneration jump in? Does it mend what's broken again?
Does she get to "enjoy" it all again when going at it next time?
Also, how fast does this happen? It would give "caught in the act" a completely new meaning.
And it would lead to some interesting Problems for continuation of the family line for them too.

Now something a bit more harmless:
HAIR! Does it regenerate? Do shifters have to use silver blades for getting a haircut and a shave while in metahuman form?


*wanders of to seek shelter in a vault somewhere*

This was covered in the TV series True Blood, which boils down to it being a ahem, slitch of a time.

For acedemic endevour I applaud you fever to know. The disclaimer does not protect you from the vault needed to be padded. At the end of the day what ever works for your game.

And no, hair is dead with the exception of the folical, so would not regenerate per say.

This is not for a game. This is just something my brain came up with while i was sleeping <.<
In my dream, the female shifter complained about how having to have her cherry popped every time bothered her and she started pouting and refused to have sex again and started eating random people and her partner trying to find silver condoms or something like that . .

LOL! yeah, if you go the True Blood route, it grows back again. Unless you get a silver condom or whatever hurts the shifter to "scar" down there for good.
Another option, is the Species route, where the hot-blonde-alien-creature (whose code name can't recall), conciously regenerates, which means she must be aware of the wound and will it to "heal". of course, once a creature passes out, it won't regenerate until it is awaken.

My guess would be "no" because a female's "cherry" doesn't 'heal' back up naturally over any length of time. The way I've always understood it is that regeneration is just very fast healing. Regeneration does not for example seem to provide the ability to regrow a lost limb (It is never mentioned, and something that significant seems as though it should be mentioned if possible.)

So no, once she is no longer a virgin, she doesn't go back to being a virgin thanks to regeneration.

Well, in the FLUFF lost Limbs do indeed grow back.
Also, remember that regeneration is a magical ability.

Where in the fluff? No where under the regeneration power description does it mention regrowing a limb. It only mentions removing boxes of damage.

The novels for example.

But the 'damage' in question is not equivalent to a lost limb. It is a torn membrane, which is equivalent to a deep cut in the skin. That does heal, no?

Just a thought: In terms of it never healing on its own, is that because it won't heal, or because the same causal factor happens often enough during the initial healing process that it heals in a disrupted form? So, if a woman's hymen broke, but she did not have intercourse again for 6 months, would it heal into a barrier again, or would the healing be prevented because of some natural cause, I don't know, maybe the hymen is a stretched membrane and as such withdraws from itself upon disruption?

What about Tattoos and the such?

I don't think the novels count as fluff for the actual rules



No, I'm quite certain that once not a virgin, always not a virgin. If it is broken it will not heal on its own. Sort of like if your arm is cut off, the arm won't simply grow back no matter how long you remain without an arm. I mean an arm being cut off it just like a -really- big cut isn't it?

Now, if regeneration did grow back limbs (Which nothing in any of the actual rulebooks supports in the slightest that I've seen) then there might be some argument, but so long as it doesn't do that, it is just very quick healing.

They would also stay, because once again, the body doesn't naturally heal a tattoo.

There's geckos that throw off their tail and it regrows.
and i think a bit of that also applies to certain spiders and snakes each time they shrug off their old skin too.
Furthermore, in SR3 where there was still REAL damage, even Serious Damage simply went away with Regeneration.
And Serious Damage was more or less describes as the loss of a Limb i think.

But shifters are not geckos, or spiders, or snakes.

Snakes do not undergo regeneration. Snakes actually simply grow skin in very much the same way we humans do, they just loose their old skin all at once instead of slowly in minute pieces like humans (and other mammals). I'm not sure about spiders, never heard of them regenerating anything.

Many reptiles do have a form of 'regeneration' that does allow them to regrow lost limbs, but it is important to note that the new limb will -never- be as good as the old limb. Mostly this happens for tails, which has evolved as a defense mechanism. The tail pops off and wriggles around, predator goes for tail while reptile gets away to grow a new (smaller) tail.

There is certainly the argument that things that we call regeneration can regrow limbs, but there is no argument that the regeneration power as described in the books (Which is entirely different from any other form of regeneration) can restore a limb.

And as I recall, Serious Damage was described as being a level of damage like that of having lost a limb (I think it was deadly actually, not serious) but having that level of damage doesn't mean that you necessarily lost a limb. And that level of damage you could naturally heal from, so of course regeneration would let you heal from it.

Not necessarily. Does the body naturally heal cyberware or bioware implants ? No, but a regenerating being reject them unless specifically (and expensively !) custom-deisgned.

So for a tatoo to stay you probably need a specialy and individually formulated ink - a "Deltaware tatoo"

The body also doesn't forcefully eject cyberware either, so I think your comparison is not 100% accurate.

The outer layer of skin probably would also not heal (leaving pink or red marks where wounds were) as that was not dead. I *believe* the hymen is mostly connected by skin (which is dead), but it's not like I checked.

Also worth asking whether the given animal has a hymen at all. A woman made into a vampire after the hymen has already been broken likely will not regrow the hymen, just like old people vampires don't suddenly grow younger. lycanthropes are technically animals, not humans, and the human aspect is basically a clever disguise. Most animals don't have hymens. It's very possible lycanthropes did not have hymens to begin with.

[Warning! Derailment ahead!]

Is that ever cool. I will have to check out the prevalence of hymens. Did you also know that humans are one of the few mammals, and the only primates, that do not have a bone in their penis? So, given the above information, somewhere in human evolution we lost the penis bone and gained the hymen.

I wonder what the evolutionary advantages of these were? One can guess that gaining a hymen allowed for some level of protection from foreign objects/infection. The loss of the bone seems counterintuitive, as the bone facilitates intercourse, even under 'less than ideal' initial stimulation.

I recall taking my 10 year-old daughter into the lab at the back of the archaeology museum. While I was cataloguing some artifacts, she made herself busy looking through the comparison sample drawers. "Dad, what's this?" She held up a (badger, racoon? I forget now) penis bone.

Actually that's wrong, it's a mucous membrane, so it's very much "alive" (living tissue).

In any case, I for one thinks this discussion is kind of.... weird.

Agreed

As for the body regecting cyberware, yes actually, the body does naturally reject it (It doesn't spit it out, but I don't think regeneration says that it spits it out, just that it is rejected). There is plenty of fluff about having to take immunity suppressants when you first get new ware to stop your body attacking it, or perhaps to stop your body around it failing as it freaks out. Either way, the body has bad reactions to cyberware, and a creature with regeneration has these reactions only hundreds of times faster (and thus worse). This is why you need deltaware, so that the body doesn't have such a bad reaction.

So in the case of cyberware in a person with regeneration, the problem is likely much more along the lines of the body around the ware being damaged than the ware itself being damaged. In the case of bioware I could totally imagine the hyper speed healing of a creature with regeneration actually breaking it down.

See disclaimer please ^^

I would wonder if it has something to do with the fact that we (well, I anyway) have so freaking much sex all the time for non-reproductive reasons. Or alternatively, if it relates to our walking upright. Maybe penis bones get caught in things more. The latter would suggest lycanthropes wouldn't have one either (in human form), but the former would have no real impact.

Huh, I did not know.

You are fired from the internet forever for getting crappy vampire storyline all over my shadowrun I will commence my effort to track you down and throw you out an airlock in the morning....or sometime.

As Karoline pointed out a woman's hymen does not regrow under natural means with any length of time, any emphasis based on the proverbial cherry is not something your body seeks to fix, so why would magic choose to do so.

Furthermore I think regeneration powers in games are dumb and poorly represented, too quickly it seems to become a race to zero of ridiculousness.

For some reason I'm not bothered by reading realative strangers thoughts on regenerating hymens.

However; I am a little freaked out to know that Stahlseele dreams about shifter sex while asleep in the tub.

The fact that you came here to post that bit of personal info is Awesome. You RawK dude!

I'm gonna have to agree with the Hymens do not regenerate camp. Mostly because regeneration would really screw up the whole female side of the reproductive process so there must be some caveats where those specialized organs are concerned. But also because virgin sex is really kinda gross and I don't want my own shiftersex dreams to be ruined.

(Continuing slight de-railemnt)
This post assumes 2 things I found immediately:
1) Evolution is true.
2) Humans are primates.

Let me instead offer a different opinion: God formed man without a penis bone and woman with a hymen to make evolution look dumb. Sounds "unlearned," but I'm probably right here. You'd have to daisy-chain suppositions to get anything else, and all of it would be unproved and unprovable (IE: both of our positions are unprovable - and we're prolly not gunna convince the other).

Back to the topic:
Imagine the big bucks that a vamp might make selling his liver over and over. If people wouldn't take it, the ghouls sure might.

Here's another Q for the collective brain here: since the Infected are at the same time able to be categorized by their original type (ork, elf, ect.) and as their new type (vampire, ghoul, ect.), can you then have a vampire drinking a wendigo's blood, and the wendigo eating parts of the regenerating vampire?

I'm gonna have to go with the not grow back group.

Hymen rarely block the entire passage anyway. They normally have a hole in them, and sometimes it is large enough that intercourse won't touch it. Similarly, some women are born without a hymen. Similarly, someone who loses an arm, assuming they survived without medical attention, would probably grow back the skin on top. Someone who tore their hymen wouldn't replace it with anything. It isn't replaced, in part or wholly, when damaged, since the body doesn't find it necessary to. Similarly, I would think that a regenerating shifter, following it's bodies whims, wouldn't need to grow back a hymen. Unless it is a willful process, in which case the shifter can go ahead and do what she wants. Its a free world! You have no right to be checkin' MY hymen.

When you consider all of the sexuality implied in vampires feeding, and accept that wendigos probably get off on it as well, you end up with one very fucked up porno...


New run idea: The team is hired to determine the authenticity of a BTL detailing a snuff scene involving a wendigo. Imagine the movie 8mm, only a million times worse. My players are going to hate me... well, hate me more than they already do.

oh well, that's just how i roll.
kinda like Archimedis ^^

OK, seems as if Dumpshock is basically of one opinion on this.

Implication does not equal fact.

Excellent realization, Neraph!

... I do not know if that was meant to be sarcastic or not, but I'm going to pretend that it was not. Thank you. I personally try my hardest in my posts to at least let people know if I think somethink or I know some thing. If only more people did this (I'm looking at you, "scientists").

Actually, thats not entirely true. The body does try to heal the tattoo, the inkt gets blurry because of that. Small enough tattoos, (like, really small!) can even dissapear, the less then a drop of ink absorbed into the blood-stream and filtered.

BUG SPIRIT!!!!

*KILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILLKILL*

Since both of these are types of Essence Drain, it seems like they'd just be trading Essence back and forth. That is to say "yes", but other than the implied ecstacy, what's the point? (Actually, there's a decent point that a vamp that couldn't get out to feed-- either because he doesn't want to leave his warded safehouse or because he has un-Regen-able spinal cord damage and can't walk could have other vamp-types bring him Essence.)

The tattoo would blure faster than normal, but with the tech into tattoos in the sixth world (And animated tattoos) it could probibly reshape itself.

What about Nano-tattoos?
Would the Regeneration be fighting that stuff too?

LIKE A VIIIIRRRRGGGGIIIIINNN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I think this is proof that madonna is infact a vampire left over from the 4th world.

Well, in theory I'd imagine that anything with regeneration couldn't have nanites because of the fact that the body naturally destroys a rating point worth of nanites a week, so I figure they'd destroy a rating point ever hour or so. But that isn't in the rules, so they can make the same use of nanites (And thus nanotattoos) as anyone else.

I mean regeneration heals the body at roughly... 28800 times the normal rate (I think a BODx2 heal test is every 24 hours with rest, while a BOD+MAG test for regeneration is every 3 seconds.). So yeah, forgot about the tattoo fading, but I don't think that is the body actively doing something about the ink, I think it is just the ink slowly spreading in the skin or being leeched by blood and so on.

No, not using Essence Drain. Essence Drain states that "Sometimes the transfer of a token amount of physical material takes place, such as blood for a vampire or flesh for a wendigo, though this usually serves to enhance the passion or terror of the moment." (emphasis added)

I'm not talking about Essence Drain. I'm talking about the Dietary Requirement.

Ah, for my money I'd say yes, although if a GM ruled otherwise I wouldn't care that much.

Though, if the vamp counted as metahuman flesh, it would also mean a vamp could feed ghouls. Again, not something I have a problem with but if it was disallowed it wouldn't bother me.

Running Wild:

The most frightening change to the body as a whole is the
ability of all HMHVV I Infected to regenerate physical damage
at what can only be described as a phenomenal rate. The virus can
reconstruct the genetic template it affixes itself to with incredible
speed, restoring the vampire from near-death to complete health
in a matter of minutes. Given a little time, it can even restore lost
limbs and organs.



PS: How does this actually interact with a vampire's vulnerability to erm..wood?

Allergenes stop regeneration from working.
So yes, it is easier to kill a Vampire with a wooden stick than one made of titan . .

The vamp in the SR4 BBB doesn't have a Vulnerability to wood, only a severe allergy. Was the Vulnerability added in Running Wild?

From the BBB, a vamp's allergy to wood causes it to not regenerate while in the presence of the substance. (So as pointed out in another topic, you can stake a vamp to torpor.) Vulnerability to a substance was pointed out to mean that wounds inflicted by that substance can't be regenerated at all. That's a pretty big jump from one to the other, but I don't have Running Wild so I was hoping for a clarification.

On this topic, or rather off it as my mind tends to do; How exactly would a Shapeshifter give birth? I may inadvertently answer my own question in the next few sentences. I would surmise that it would require a c-section of epic proportions. In that case I suppose it would answer the question as to why shapeshifters are so rare, yet would raise even more questions such as why most shifty's dwell in the wilderness where it wouldn't be easy or efficient to perform a c-section. Or does the shifty's infant just kill it during the birthing..oh so many questions, all of which are caused by Stahlseele's bathtub sex dreams.

Furthermore, on the topic of Infected rejecting ware; would by chance a limb that was once mechanical grow back once infected or would the limb continue to be lost. Also I would like to know more about the effects of the Regeneration against genetic defects or even diseases that are both currently affecting the character or will be affecting it in the future i.e. a carrier whose disease lies dormant.

In completely irrelevant news, I haven't logged in Dumpy in over 4 months and when I return I see threads about Shifty's Hymens, Synthblood, Angry Tree Spirits, and of all things Teleportation!? I have obviously been gone too long and in fact thinking of taking yet another hiatus until either Deus Dies of old age(impossible? need cite) as it is obviously his fault or Lofwyr destroys this site.

I would assume a shapeshifter would give birth in animal form to animal babies, some of whom may or may not be shapeshifters. If a shapeshifter daddy who impregnated a regular animal or human, the mommy would probably give birth to a baby the same species as herself, which may or may not be a shapeshifter. For my money, a shapeshifter daddy's baby would probably not be a shapeshifter if he mated with a human, and would have about a 50% of being a normal animal if he mated with a normal animal. If two shapeshifters mated, the odds would be higher the baby (or the litter) would be a shapeshifter, but that would be no means be guaranteed. Say if two wolf shapeshifters mated they would have a litter of wolves, one of which might be a shapeshifter.

Fair warning, I made all this up, but it's what I'd go with.

You could go even further, say that a pregnant shapeshifter has to stay in animal form or she will lose the baby. Or you could say the baby changes with her. Or it stays an animal (or litter of animals) and if she tries to give birth in human form, dingos will be dropping out of that thing. I would say the instinct to give birth in the natural form would be overpowering, though.

Edit: You could also say that a shapeshifter can't get a human pregnant. I don't have a problem with that, although I tend to err on the side that gives me the most options.

Perhaps I didn't make it clear, My question was revolving more around how the regeneration would affect the birthing not the Mendelain aspect. Furthermore I could care less about furries and what they do in games, I tend to make a habit of putting as many silver rounds as possible in anything Dual Natured. My questions were just posted to not only increase my post count but to try and get this thread back onto the intended topic of the author.

Cool

If I'm not mistaken, a shapeshifter has the aura and the genetics of their animal form even when shifted into a human, so this would rule out fertile mating with humans/metahumans - a shifter would only be able to reproduce with another shifter or an animal of the appropriate species.

I don't remember reading about shapeshifter mothers and the possible side effect of shapeshifting while pregnant.

I would assume the shapeshifter doesn't require a c-section of massive proportions, simply because shapeshifters give birth mainly in the wild. One could argue that shapeshifter birth is just them ripping their own stomachs open and pulling out babies as fast as they can before the hole seals back over, but there's really no reason for it. I don't know the rate of vaginal tearing during birth for animals (humans it's about 80%, if I recall correctly), but let's assume that any tearing that occurs will heal up fairly quickly, but not impede the birthing process in any meaningful way.