Can people still goblinize? I assume no, but it happened once where my friend wanted to make a simsense star that goblinized and then started to run the shadows because of the fact he is now an ugly troll. I let it pass thinking that goblinization can still happen every once in a while, but looking through the books, I couldn't find any information that supported people randomly goblinizing after 2021.

I guess SURGE is kind of Goblinizing 2.0, so it might have made sense that way, maybe...

But at the same time, I know I can always just house rule it, but knowing I have some RAW that might back me up would be kind of nice.

Some children born to ingentis and robustus parents appear to be sapiens only to fully express at puberty. So yes, it's possible... mostly.

Exactly. Heck, read the intro run in the front of the SR4 book. One of the characters is a 'princess' (or heiress or something similar) who goblinized into a troll.

Metahumanity's genepool is still way too diverse. Goblinization (and even UGE babies, though the U is a little less U now) will likely continue on for a good long while until (and if) people start to only breed with their own race. Since that's likely not going to happen in modern society... well, nuff said really.

Isn't Brakhaven's niece an Ork?

Brackhaven (the real one) was as well.

In fact, one of the SURGE affects in Year of the Comet (the SR3 book that covered, among other things, SURGE actually happening) was goblinization - humans to orks/trolls and metas into variants. It was pretty darn unlikely on the random tables, but it was possible. That should be a good enough fluff justification. Note that no such quality exists in SR4 (you'd just pay the points for your race as normal) so don't go looking for a goblinized quality.

The rule of thumb in my group is that "un-inherited" goblinization (where you have no known predecessors that are troll/ork as opposed to the 'human' child of a troll/ork expressing in their teen years) generally doesn't happen anymore. If you've got the genes, they would have expressed by now. On the other hand, the world is an odd place and exceptions do happen, though rarely and becoming more and more rare as more time passes since the original waves of goblinization. Year of the Comet style SURGE effects would count as an 'externally' induced exception.

While this is the way our group plays it and thus not official, it does seem to match reasonably well with the way things are portrayed in the game books.

As to the genetic predisposition to meta - how strong is the meta gene? A human-ork couple has a 50% chance of having a human child, 50% ork child. How likely is the human child, with a human partner, to have an ork child? And what is the chance that in the event these two have a human child, it will goblinize in puberty?

You mean "effects."

in general, it is still a possibility for two humans to have a metahuman child (or a child that goblinizes later). but it is stated to be rare, and getting even more rare. now, that said, if you want to have it happen for a character's background, go ahead and have it happen. just because it's unlikely doesn't mean it can't happen, after all... just understand that the character has gone through something that not many other people will have in that age range.

It's about as rare as being a mage, right?

So according to fluff about less than 1%, but according to the gaming table, roughly 75%?

About that, yes.

Is it possible for individual tresholds in the ambient mana level required for goblinization? Let's say one dude would goblinize in 2011 but the soon-to-be orc person standing next to him wouldn't because this other person needs a richer mana environment to transform.

I would imagine so, otherwise YotC wouldn't have caused anyone to goblinize. It is the same thing for SURGElings, they just required a high level of mana in order to SURGE. It would have happened eventually without the comet, but it might not have started happening for another 20 or 50 or 100 years.

Hehe, dwarf-troll. That would be awesome. I should make a dwarf character that thinks he's a troll, or a troll that thinks he's a dwarf. Or maybe one that is a dwarf-troll offspring and so decides to try and be both dwarf and troll like... perhaps despite being human

Dwarf changeling with things like dermal deposits, etc.

My current Troll runner is using this background. She was born to human parents, but goblinized at puberty. But since people had already experienced the transition (the first time) she wasn't ostracized and had a "fairly" normal childhood.

And on a similar note, I wonder how many inter-meta adoptions there are? Ie humans adopting orks and dwarves and vis-versa.

I'd imagine that adoption rates of elf females would be high among humans, and most other inter-meta adoptions would be notably rarer. I suppose humans adopting elf males and elves adopting human males/females would be the next most common. Maybe humans adopting dwarves after that... I'd imagine inter-meta involving trolls or orks in either direction (though especially with the troll/ork being the child) would be fairly rare. I suppose adopting an ork/troll male would be more common than a female though (because males are supposed to be tough and strong and such).

Just my thoughts on the subject.

I take issue with this part of the canon. It assumes that people will spontaneously become monogamous (I'm sure that's the wrong word) within their own meta type and metavariant type. There's just no way that's going to be the case, even with some of the less attractive and more brutish types. The only way it's going to happen is if fertility rates for interracial breeding were to begin plummeting. Otherwise, and particularly with the more attractive races (which is very much still going to be based on the human/elven ideals of beauty this soon after the Awakening), it's pure hogwash.

And because of that fact, not to mention just how fucked up metahumanity's genepool is courtesy of the 5th World, goblinization, UGE, SURGE, and other related phenomena will and should continue for a good long while. There simply hasn't been enough time or motivation for the multi-generational, same-race relationships necessary to clean it up.

i assume the meaning is that at least one of the parents is of the same metatype. ie you don't often see 2 humans have an elf child, or a troll and an ork have a dwarf child; in the first example, it's usually going to be a human, in the second example, it will usually be an ork or a troll.

But isn't that exactly what happened in the 6th world when everyone went all "Hate the Race"?

Sure, there are still people who don't care about race, but the whole Humanis Policlub and everything that came after still tends to segregate people whether or not the minorities want to be segregated. When the world changes so violently, people try to stick with the old status quo. It's safer, more secure. And a lot of crap happened during the Awakening.

I'm not saying it agrees with our modern culture, but remember, this has been set up through several editions of SR. Not just SR4. And if you look at the late, lamented Earthdawn connection, it makes sense that the story line is moving things back to the "original reality".

Of course, that poses the question, are metahumans going to start being incapable of inter-breeding with other races / variants in the near future?

I know the timeline is "off" from what I recall in first and second edition, but in Changeling, the main character goes through Goblinization in 2039, 18 years after the event.

http://pl.shadowrun.wikia.com/wiki/Changeling

I'm still reading through my LE book, so I'm still catching up on all the changes from my memory.

I don't think so. Since there really isn't any difference from a DNA POV (Read Augmentation) between the different Metahumans. This means that from a genetic POV we are all human (just expressed differently). Metahumanity is an effect of your Astral DNA (sorry I can't remember the actual term used in Augmentation). This means that inter-breeding would always favour one Metahuman race over another (50-50 chance each time). I would guess that in the long run that previous history of Metahumanity in someone's genetic line could result in a metahuman baby (expressed at birth or during puberty) given the chance.

Further more there are several Astral DNA strands that are not active (due to the mana level being too low). Once the mana level raises again (like it did during SURGE) we can see entirely new Metahumans coming out of the woodwork (ie all the missing Earthdawn races that are not in SR).

what, you mean all two of them? (one of which is blatantly not metahuman at all, and does not even reproduce sexually, and therefore is incredibly unlikely to be born to metahuman parents even if they do bring in the earthdawn connection, i might add)

I've never played Earthdawn myself so I didn't know how all the playable races worked. I just knew that there were at least 2 races (maybe more) in Earthdawn that hadn't made it to SR. Pardon my ignorance, and thank you for educating me.

Pixies were one of the playable races in Earthdawn that are currently in SR, but not available as PCs... Of course, I'm still catching up with all the SR4 books, so I might have missed one where they became allowed as PCs.

you did

Whoohoo!

I missed my pixie character! (Nobody else in the group did, though. @=)

*grin* my tiny hacker is a pain in the arse.

Yeah, agreed. Fairly sure it meant 'same metatype' as in 'same as the child' not 'both parents have the same metatype'

They specifically used "parents," not "mother or father," and it specifically said the same metatype as their parents. Not the same as one of their parents. Not an equal chance of one or another. But the same as both parents.

So yes, it says 'the same as one of their parents, an equal chance of one or another'.

The part being argued about is if "In 2072, most metahumans are born to parents of the same metatype." means that there is a very low percentage of 'interracial' marriages, or if it meant to read as 'most metahumans are the same metatype as (one or the other) of their parents. It could for instance be pointing out that most orks will have one or both of their parents as an ork, and/or that having a troll couple with a human (or elf or dwarf or whatever) baby is rare.

That's an exception to the previous "rule" I was referring to. They're saying most relationships in the Sixth World are same-race, and that somehow -- through some amazing miracle -- the genepool has cleansed itself to the point that they're all but guaranteed to have children of the same metatype. Even though there's 6,000+ years of inadvertent interbreeding that's all somehow undone in less than 60 years.

There's no reason at all that the same genes that caused humans to give birth to elves and dwarves would somehow be completely cleansed from a troll or ork's genetic history.

See, I don't think that is what they are trying to say, or at least not what they intended to say. I'd imagine elf/human couples are exceptionally common, and human/ork ones are reasonably so as well. I'd imagine dwarves would have a fairly high rate of couples with human/elf/ork partners.


Sure there is. There could for example be only be a single gene that expresses metatype. This would explain the lack of 'half breeds' because it is genetically impossible to have both the 'elf' gene and the 'troll' gene. Seems more likely though that there are two, one of which is always human, and the other of which can be any race, which would explain why sometimes a troll/troll couple will have a human child.

I mean heck, check out plants. Plants have interbred for millions of years, and yet it only takes a couple generations to pick out particular genes and make them 'breed' pure.

Funkenstein, honestly, I read that more from the aspect of "parents" meaning "the genetic donors."
Also, it is stated that there is about equal odds, which, to me, means: it is likely on the X-Y chromosomes,
or, at least, the deciding genetic marker is.

Remember. In Augmentation it comes out and says that part of Metatype and what not IS magical. It's something that they can 'sorta' chart magically. Thusly, Metatype and expression of metatype doesn't have to follow 100% scientific format. The Astral shadow genes or what ever. (( I too forget what they called them exactly))

Yes.. technically it's a dodge. It makes it so it's harder to nail down.

But it flows back to the same old thing. If there's "Magic" in a setting, and something unexplainable happens. "It Was Magic" Is the easy and possible answer.

It _Is_ A literary dodge and can be used by lazy developers to hand wave stuff they don't want to think about too closely,

but in SR4, it's not that they ignore it. It's that they purposefully focus on it. It's done on purpose. It's factored in on Purpose.

It's -not- purely scientific. In SR4. "It's Magic" is purposefully built in.

That being said if you accept Magic as a force of nature and that fact that Humans are the most mana neutral metahuman (sing that they existed when mana levels were non-existent) then it makes sense that metatype is effected by a non-biological process and this process would have to be a process that didn't exist prior to the Awakening.

The Pixie-Windling connection was somehow something that I didn't notice until RC made Pixies a playable race. Then all the sudden it clicked with me.

However, I would have to say that sometime in the future they would (or at least should) make meta cross-breeding impossible. If you go with the Earthdawn connection at all, that is how things worked in that world. To me that means "as mana is low, races are still in flux. Once your mana gets high enough your astral mana will lock in and you'll be that meta-type and be unable to reproduce with others." That is, of course, entirely an opinion stemming from my appreciation of the Earthdawn setting, so YMMV of course.

Also, side note, why bring Windlings (Pixies) back BEFORE T'skrang (Sort of like lizardmen for those who don't know). I mean you can make something RESEMBLING t'skrang from the changeling rules, but it doesn't feel quite right. Whereas Pixie fluff basically states "they are creatures of magic". I find it difficult to buy in the fluff that Pixies require a lower ambient mana to emerge then a t'skrang. I will, however, believe that Obsidimen have not yet returned, because living rock guys bursting out of mountains seems pretty darn magical.

Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe there were a few other Earthdawn races outside of core. Thorn plants from out east, Anubis warrior type guys from Egypt, and maybe even a few others I'm forgetting. It seems that they also have not yet quite returned to the world. (Anubis folk == changelings?)

(I think it would be cool if the Blood Elf ritual re-manifested at some point in SR and horrendously painful thorns sprouted from the skin of half of the pretty-boy elves out there, anybody with me?)

It was hinted at that VITAS may have killed off some of the people who would "become" some of the other Earthdawn races.

-M&P

Interesting, I don't recall that. Any idea where that hint was dropped?

Book and page reference would be nice for the VITAS hint. I'd like to go back and re-read (hazards of speed reading, you miss stuff).

"Break into my basement laboratory again, Dexter and I, Mandark, will curse you with the most hideous disease!"

I think that's what the sidebar will look like, anyway. Dexter, of course, being pretty-boy elf. And Mandark being a the evil fiend working for Aztechnology.

Yes, I can see this. Very interesting.

While I could certainly see that, what I remember was a dev commenting that some of those other races simply did not survive the final magic crash at the end of the Fourth Age.

The impression I had was that the theory was that magic crashed very quickly at the end of the fourth age due to some of the things the Therans did to mess with the cycle. The faster than normal drop in mana levels could well have prevented the normal "de-expression" process so-to-speak resulting in the less-human of the races not surviving in any form other than the fragmentary astral gene sequences that expressed during SURGE.

I think it was in some side commentary (not any official "cannon" products).

-M&P

What do you think Aztechnology is doing? I think that most of the Blood Magic is being counteracted by Draconic magic (to stop the horrors from returning), but is just a matter of time.

Ah, but does Aztechnology actually KNOW what they're doing?

They might think so, but I would find it very interesting if one of their little rituals backfired on them in a major way and they went all nuts trying to fix it.

RE: Dev comments on VITAS and such. Hate to say it, but wanting something to be canon doesn't make it so. (Personal experience speaking). So if it's not actually documented in any of the books, there's plenty of wiggle room for future books. Of course, now that the thought is out there, it's entirely possible someone throws this idea into one of the actual books, therefore making it canon, etc.

Last thought (for this post, anyway), remember the part about the rules all being voluntary? Despite everything the book says about goblinization, etc., the GM can pretty much throw those rules out the window. Or, if you want, use SR4, but back date the timeline so the players get involved in heart of metaplot incidents. Retconning is a wonderful thing! @=) ... sometimes ...

I'm not 100% certain about that. To me Aztechnology is sort of the SR equivalent of the Cuthulu cult.