This isn't so much a question as more of a consensus a ED roleplaying group came up with when we were tempted - through a T'skrang beastmaster who was supposed to be supplying food, and was only giving us berrys and nuts - to eat the T'skrang. Or at least his tail. Because at that point we had all heard the rumors that T'skrangs can regrow their tails, and it seemed like a replenishable source of food.

Well you run with this idea. T'skrang tail becomes a delicacy. T'skrang are soon herded up until they reach the point where they aren't treated like a namegiver race. Then the entire animal is seen as more of a delicacy. The hunting and farming of t'skrang kills them off before the end of the 4th age.

I have such a morbid set of friends.

Mmmmm... P. f. T'skrang's Meta Bistro......

Comment from a previous Developer at a convention: They and obsidimen went extinct because they could not survuve the downcycle.

SURGE is probably as close as you're going to get. And they're not "cutting ties" with Earthdawn, they just don't want to have to worry about what another company is going to do that will screw up their plans for the next sourcebook. Why bother creating something based on IP you don't directly control when you can simply come up with something original?

The Abstruse One

T'Skrang populations were already dropping by the time of ED, only 1/100 of their eggs were furtile by that point. Hell the rest became an exotic delicasy. Obsidismen and windlings made up such a small amount of the population it was hard to tell what was going on with them, especially as theyre procreation is fairly bizzar.

It would be tempting to make one up out of surge, but it would risk being treated like shapeshifters, or worse.

The issue with the downcycle causing their extinction is that this was not the first down cycle, and it seems improbable that they sprung into existence in the space of even a hundred thousand years.

Where magic is concerned, typical timescales seem not to apply. See SURGE and 2011 as prime examples of rapid biological change through enhanced magical energies.

lizard folk are listed in one of the paranormal animals books... those seemed like the T'Skrang

No lizard folk in any SR folk, 'fraid not. There is a circumstantial reference in, as I recall, Corporate Download referring to a form Scale has taken along those lines; and of course the PC race in the Dawn of Atlantis online game, but that's it.

I'll have to recheck AH, you could be right but I remember an obscure reference to something living in the louisiana swamps...

And in real life I remember references to Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster, that doesn't mean they exist.

Oh, but they do exist! I've even seen stats for the bigfoot (sasquatch). By corollary, if there was a role playing game in the game world of Shadowrun, then the Louisiana lizard men would be real on that game. Lets call it ShadowShadowrunRun

the only reference to t'skrang that i know of in SR is in the Matrix game Dawn of Atlantis. obsidimen are also referenced.

Hehe. That's funny, 'cause in our ED campaign the T'skrang are restauranteurs. Hehe.

"How to Serve Man".

~J

Oh man! I loved that episode. Not to mention the homage done by The Simpsons.

along the same lines, there is mention in the SOE book that might point to Obsidimen...something about "living rock" in the caves mentioned in the Czech section...

remember, the magic level just might not be high enough...

Well technically they are all alive in Shadowrun, just stuck to their life rocks in the dream time. A spike of magic may wake them. Also they would all have the magic and abilities for ed :E

And this reminds me of the fact that one of my SR players wanted to play a Windling in SR... x_x

See Paranormal Animals of Europe: sprites.