PlaneShift
Gameplay => General Discussion => Topic started by: Falcon Avian on May 23, 2010, 07:37:19 pm
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I have been wondering about some of the settings with the less human-like races (and I think others have to).
Enkidukai:
Are they based on more on house cats or wild cats?
Are they the type to enjoy or hate water?
Are they soft furred or more rough?
Klyros:
How far can they glide?
Do they need more water then most other races?
Are the wings used for balance?
EDIT: What is the red are on their stomachs for? Looks like gills, but I'm not sure.
Kran:
What type of circulation do they have and what is it made of?
Do they breathe slowly or not at all?
Is there any type of mineral they would get sick from and can they eat organic matter like apples?
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"Silicon still supports oxygen linkages, so Kran breathe much more slowly than other races, enabling them to happily breathe underwater. "
"Kran metabolism is very complex, they are used to eat sand of various and precious minerals that are digested in their stomach thanks to strong acids. They can also eat food full of mineral salts like seaweed.."
I'd assume that because their stomachs have strong acids in them they could eat anything they want...but it might not 'taste' good
http://www.planeshift.it/kran.html
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They can also eat food full of mineral salts like seaweed.
"They don't breathe so they can't drown." "Silicon still supports oxygen linkages, so Kran breathe much more slowly than other races, enabling them to happily breathe underwater."
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http://www.planeshift.it/races.html
This site, which is the overall category of what Lilura posted (the kran section), should answer most of your questions about the races. If you want to get in depth, you should probably ask the settings team.
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I have been wondering about some of the settings with the less human-like races (and I think others have to).
Enkidukai:
Are they based on more on house cats or wild cats?
Are they the type to enjoy or hate water?
Some members of the team seems to have some disdain for treating Enkies like cats at all from what I've seen. They're just people that look feline to the players, and people that look like, well, Enkies, to the characters.
Are they soft furred or more rough?
I always assumed soft. Now I wanna know if I was wrong.
Klyros:
How far can they glide?
Do they need more water then most other races?
Are the wings used for balance?
I'm no expert on flight, but it stands to reason that how far they could glide would depend on their wingspan, how much they weigh, the wind, et cetera, and that the wings likely would be used for balance. What I'd like to know is whether they can turn in the air, not having tails and all. Do they use their legs/feet as rudders, or do they just have to be careful where they jump from?
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the devs obviously based enkis on cats. you'd have to be lying to say otherwise.
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the devs obviously based enkis on cats. you'd have to be lying to say otherwise.
Hehehe that's what I thought.
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About the enki. There is more to them than just the fur that the devs chose to give them.
http://www.planeshift.it/enki.html
http://pswiki.xordan.com/index.php?title=Enkidukai
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That explained they were short furred, but didn't answer any of the questions :S
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Think of them like people. Some are afraid of water, some are not. That is the same as 'wild' cats. Tigers love water, they are frequently seen swimming at waterholes and crossing rivers in their natural habitat. Other 'wild' cats shun the water as much as possible, except to drink. It is appropriate to let the players create their enki's own fears based on RP experience/personal history, not the type of 'wild' cat they are modeled after.
The short and long hair is in my mind negotiable....again a little creativity. Akkaido is a good example, he has some thicker fur/hair off his chin giving him the appearance of an enki style beard.
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Lol @ Akkaido. You never cease.
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I'm not Akkaido ::| I am a GM that has seen his description; it was a perfect example to support my point.
And I'm female which means I am not Akkaido in any way, shape, or form. ;)
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I'm not Akkaido Blink I am a GM that has seen his description; it was a perfect example to support my point.
Ah well, if you've perused this forum you could take a shot at why I would think your account was him.
And I'm female which means I am not Akkaido in any way, shape, or form.
I don't know about that.
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I'm not Akkaido ::| I am a GM that has seen his description; it was a perfect example to support my point.
And I'm female which means I am not Akkaido in any way, shape, or form. ;)
Riiiiiiight....Tell that to half of the female players in Planeshift XD
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And I'm female which means I am not Akkaido in any way, shape, or form.
I don't know about that.
/me laughs sweetly and lets the thread get back on topic.
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the smooth or rough enki fur would all depend on how one plays them. For example, a prissy lady who never goes outside and spends half her time cleaning herself would have smooth fur, whereas a warrior would have rough and matted fur.
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Fyrre wanders into the strange world of the forums. I was thinking about making a topic about the races' more detailed descriptions too... would you mind if I posted some questions here?
I'd say Enkidukai are more based on domestic cats than wild, at least going from the race's models. The models all have pointed ears, where the wild cats whose fur patterns some of them share have rounded ears. The concept drawings have slitted pupils like domestic cats, but it's harder to tell with their models, though domestic cats' pupils can become rounded too. I've seen a lot of Enkidukai hiss and purr, but hardly ever a roar and never a "chuffing" sound like the big cats make. Probably only the original developers know how close to either group of cats Enkidukai were originally intended to be, but I've found more examples of them acting like domestic cats in role plays.
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Sure Fyyre, more questions the better! \\o//
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I growl and grunt to men and purr to the ladies.
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Okay then, but I forgot some...
Enkidukai
Can they sheathe and unshethe their claws?
Do they have a Jacobson's gland (that cats "taste" or smell the air better with), or a similar organ?
Can their pupils go from slits to circles, and do their irises go to almost the visible corners of their eyes?
Do baby Enkidukai crawl, or walk on all fours?
Nolthrir
Can they talk to each other underwater?
What color is their blood?
Kran
If they somehow get hurt, do they bleed?
Do they have bones (maybe made of rock) and muscles?
Are their eyes gemstones, a different kind of rock, or something else?
Can they smell?
Can they feel? If so, how does that sense work with skin made of rock?
When a kran is born in gemmation, does kra grow to kras full size quickly, or are younger kran smaller than older ones?
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Okay then, but I forgot some...
Enkidukai
Can they sheathe and unshethe their claws?
Do they have a Jacobson's gland (that cats "taste" or smell the air better with), or a similar organ?
Can their pupils go from slits to circles, and do their irises go to almost the visible corners of their eyes?
Do baby Enkidukai crawl, or walk on all fours?
Nolthrir
Can they talk to each other underwater?
What color is their blood?
Kran
If they somehow get hurt, do they bleed?
Do they have bones (maybe made of rock) and muscles?
Are their eyes gemstones, a different kind of rock, or something else?
Can they smell?
Can they feel? If so, how does that sense work with skin made of rock?
When a kran is born in gemmation, does kra grow to kras full size quickly, or are younger kran smaller than older ones?
Going with laws of physics, I can answer the first Nolthrir question :woot:
No they cannot because if they try to talk underwater the sounds would turn into bubbles and rise to the surface thus making no noise at all for them to hear. Although they might have developed a sign language like klyros have for underwater communication.
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hi fyrre
kran have no nose or ears :( (but kran perceive sounds thanks to vibrations on their bodies)
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I growl and grunt to men and purr to the ladies.
To the kran you...?
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Okay then, but I forgot some...
Enkidukai
Can they sheathe and unshethe their claws?
Do they have a Jacobson's gland (that cats "taste" or smell the air better with), or a similar organ?
Can their pupils go from slits to circles, and do their irises go to almost the visible corners of their eyes?
Do baby Enkidukai crawl, or walk on all fours?
Nolthrir
Can they talk to each other underwater?
What color is their blood?
Kran
If they somehow get hurt, do they bleed?
Do they have bones (maybe made of rock) and muscles?
Are their eyes gemstones, a different kind of rock, or something else?
Can they smell?
Can they feel? If so, how does that sense work with skin made of rock?
When a kran is born in gemmation, does kra grow to kras full size quickly, or are younger kran smaller than older ones?
Going with laws of physics, I can answer the first Nolthrir question :woot:
No they cannot because if they try to talk underwater the sounds would turn into bubbles and rise to the surface thus making no noise at all for them to hear. Although they might have developed a sign language like klyros have for underwater communication.
Actually...maybe their vocal system works differently than a normal human's when they're underwater?
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Okay then, but I forgot some...
Enkidukai
Can they sheathe and unshethe their claws?
Do they have a Jacobson's gland (that cats "taste" or smell the air better with), or a similar organ?
Can their pupils go from slits to circles, and do their irises go to almost the visible corners of their eyes?
Do baby Enkidukai crawl, or walk on all fours?
Nolthrir
Can they talk to each other underwater?
What color is their blood?
Kran
If they somehow get hurt, do they bleed?
Do they have bones (maybe made of rock) and muscles?
Are their eyes gemstones, a different kind of rock, or something else?
Can they smell?
Can they feel? If so, how does that sense work with skin made of rock?
When a kran is born in gemmation, does kra grow to kras full size quickly, or are younger kran smaller than older ones?
Going with laws of physics, I can answer the first Nolthrir question :woot:
No they cannot because if they try to talk underwater the sounds would turn into bubbles and rise to the surface thus making no noise at all for them to hear. Although they might have developed a sign language like klyros have for underwater communication.
Actually...maybe their vocal system works differently than a normal human's when they're underwater?
Unless they use a talking system like dolphin's clicking that require no air use like normal talking (Wouldn't be good for talking in English) then it would be very hard for them to get information across talking. And they still seem to need to breathe air from what I read in the database so it's very unlikely they can.
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One way to make Nolthrir underwater speech work is to have it be similar to how whales and dolphins communicate. Cetaceans push air through their equivalent of a nasal cavity, which they can control, (like we can control the larynx), to produce sounds which then go out through their blowholes. Nolthrir could have a similar setup, with the sound produced by air from their gills going through a specialized nasal cavity, then out their nostrils. IIRC the book about music in-game implies that Nolthrir music is whalesongesque, so that would be consistent.
It would also mean their language would be hard for any other species to speak, though. So that could raise some theme issues :-\
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dunno about y'all, but i can talk underwater. though, it's not that clear.
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dunno about y'all, but i can talk underwater. though, it's not that clear.
No one would be near earshot of you though, the sound would dissipate very quickly ;D
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actually i have talked to people underwater. it sounds like this:
"pphhbbllpphheyyy bbllwabllssaaap!??"
"nuuffbblllin gllbbmmuuuschhh yoouuggglgle?"
"wwhaagbb?"
"huuhgbluug?"
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Increase the pitch to what would be a horrible screech through air and your voice becomes just clear enough to communicate one word at a time. Also, it would be much easier to do if your lungs could fill with the water, and you got some practice. I figure nolthrir could be heard clearly for about 8 meters underwater. They wouldn't need to use clicks, but that kind of speech would increase their range significantly.
Why do people capitalize the racial names? When people refer to any given species in real life, they don't capitalize it.
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Okay then, but I forgot some...
Enkidukai
Can they sheathe and unshethe their claws?
Do they have a Jacobson's gland (that cats "taste" or smell the air better with), or a similar organ?
Can their pupils go from slits to circles, and do their irises go to almost the visible corners of their eyes?
Do baby Enkidukai crawl, or walk on all fours?
Well, I know Atagal and Emmara roar, but it is usually only under stressful situations: Anger, frustration, anguish. Sort of like when humans scream or yell.
IMHO, I play enkis to have retractable claws. The Planeshift.it website says their fingers end in claws. However, since they are not RL cats, the enkis might have a natural mechanism to make them retractable. I and several other players have played the enkis to have retractable claws.
The other two questions I don't really have an opinion, maybe someone else has an idea. Perhaps a dev can drop in some answers into this thread.
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I really doubt that the settings team has thought this out in this level of detail.
You most likely will not get an official answer.
In the absence of detail in the ps setting, I strongly admire the level of detail that House Cheshire members that I have met to date put into their characters. ie. Unique ear markings, purple eyes, jewelry, Xyssia's strange back scar, etc ... these colorful yet realistic details make these characters stand out in my mind.
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So I guess I should formulate some questions about some races that will hopefully get answered.
Kran:
-How do their joints work if there is no soft cartilage and muscle there?
-What do you call their unibrow, or the crease over the eyes that you would find hair on if it were a human?
-How good is their vision, and do they have eyelids for blinking?
-If they hear through the vibrations they feel, can they know how they sound? Wouldn't they have speech problems if they didn't have a soft uvula and a soft roof of the mouth?
-Is there any sicknesses or health problems that could occur in kran? I would like to know of some since the kran body works in such a different way. If there aren't any, then some writers need to get those pencils sharpened! :P
Lemurs: a.k.a the rarely played race.
-What facial features does the race generally have? I know this will differ with males and females.
-Would playing a lemur that isn't picky about his/her food OOC? I think there would be exceptions. [Guess that's a complaint about the sites description of them. http://www.planeshift.it/lemurs.html]
-Would their vision be weak because they lived underground for a long part of their origin?
-What texture is their hair? Do they have much body hair or no?
-What accent would you normally find a lemur with?
Diaboli:
-Just one contradiction on the diaboli description on the site: What exactly is "the perfectly shaped body"? They 'love' to eat and don't consider humility as a thing to worry about, so wouldn't there be plenty of fat diaboli's?
Xacha:
They seem to be very primal and they also seem to be traditional. The site doesn't offer much description at all on this race, I would love to know more of the general psychology on this race if anybody can explain it. The fact that the race is heading towards extinction causes me to wonder if they are hardy and strong willed.
This also goes for the Nolthrir and Dermorians, what is the history/description of where they came from?
I think that's about it for my questions.
I really doubt that the settings team has thought this out in this level of detail.
You most likely will not get an official answer.
In my opinion they should get more in depth with all the history of the races, and the world they came from. I'm sure the settings team is full of hard workers so there is no excuse skip for them to the details. :D
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Thanks for the answers so far and o/ Lilura.
I have a few more Enkidukai questions. Hopefully that's all for now. ^^
Do they have whiskers?
In the same way that everyone is either on race or another, will Enkidukai parents with two different fur patterns have offspring with either one or the other pattern?
Do they have rough tongues?
I figured most of the details were up to the players, but it would be nice to have the bigger race details more consistent than they are now. If the devs don't know, maybe players can make a majority decision on some answers- though no one wants to find out that they've been role playing their character or wrote their description "wrong". :?
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So I guess I should formulate some questions about some races that will hopefully get answered.
Kran:
-How do their joints work if there is no soft cartilage and muscle there?
-What do you call their unibrow, or the crease over the eyes that you would find hair on if it were a human?
-How good is their vision, and do they have eyelids for blinking?
-If they hear through the vibrations they feel, can they know how they sound? Wouldn't they have speech problems if they didn't have a soft uvula and a soft roof of the mouth?
-Is there any sicknesses or health problems that could occur in kran? I would like to know of some since the kran body works in such a different way. If there aren't any, then some writers need to get those pencils sharpened! :P
Diaboli:
-Just one contradiction on the diaboli description on the site: What exactly is "the perfectly shaped body"? They 'love' to eat and don't consider humility as a thing to worry about, so wouldn't there be plenty of fat diaboli's?
I think that Kran skin is hard but at the joints a bit softer, and I've always thought of the crease would be called there brow. Kran probably can vibrate there mouths in a way to create sound. I have no idea about there eyes, I think there not the same as real eyes. There is an in game book on all the race's life spans and a couple of health problem listed.
I'm pretty sure that Diaboli just have fast metabolisms :P .
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It has been said many times that kran are silicon based, but this creates a great flood problems.
The cascading reactions required to sustain life cannot be supported by the nonreactive compounds of silicon; which is most of them. Most of the ones that are reactive are very reactive (explode in contact with air), and most of those are gases. The reason for this property is that silicon will bond with oxygen whenever possible (those explosions) and then refuse to bond to anything else (rocks). It's probable that insoluble, solid compounds will be produced as waste products no matter how kran function, so the kran would also need an extra bodily system to remove said compounds (quartz is a lot harder to get rid of than water an carbon dioxide). Since silicon oxides are very hard to get rid of, kran bodies would much prefer to use some other insoluble compound in their energy absorption cycle...a very confounding cycle. If kran do really work with oxygen (insanity), all their life reactions are significantly more extreme than ours; it takes far more energy to break silicon-oxygen bonds and produces far more to make them. The kran body would be unable to have anything to do with the carbon cycle (carbohydrates, alcohol, anything considered organic to us), which appears to be dominant in Yliakum. I heard once that they eat rocks; this does not make an ounce of sense. As above, they would be required to produce rock (or some other silicate using oxygen), and any rock they could extract energy from would lose it the instant (or shortly after) it came in contact with the air. Kran do not have the advantage of plant life that the carbon based life forms of Yliakum have, so they are missing an entire half of their cycle. I have no idea what would fill this.
I assume that this all will just be hand-waved by saying "Talad powers all kran like robots with a direct link to the crystal."
On a similar note, how do the crystals grow (on Talad's temple, in Gugrontid, though gemation [augh!]), without being bathed in solution of the same?
Finally on Diaboli, I thought they were able to seriously mess with normal concepts of biology because their own incorporates multiplanar physics, effectively squaring their options.
(It is quite late for me.)
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@Nivm: Which is safe to say that it's easier for them to explain it as this:
"Talad powers all kran like robots with a direct link to the crystal."
Anyways, what you are able to explain when it's late for you flies right over my head. I suppose you have a good idea there though with the whole 'extra body system' thing. I suppose you made it up. I may be wrong. Just sounds like something you'd say, which is not a bad thing. Perhaps this should be a good anatomy addition. People really have good suggestions for the races description, etc, and I wonder if the settings team would take it into consideration...*coughs* (fat chance!) *coughs again* Though, this was a good idea, and I agree with it. Just took a lot of re-reading to process though my complex brain, which is choked up on acetaminophen and tiredness lolz.
About the diaboli, I didn't understand a thing you said.
@Zayla: Somebody told me about the book that you can find in the sanatorium about the illnesses and age limits. I remember it just being about one or two illnesses for each race, and not saying anything about age limitations. Though, I can't see any GM locked or player items ever since 0.5. I rely on these forums to tell me such things. :P
About the diaboli, one only has a fast metabolism with the right diet and amount of exercise. Or my biology teacher was wrong.
The fit macho men and women along with the lack of fat people in Ylaikum makes me feel obese, and I'm not lolz. ;D
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I have a few more Enkidukai questions. Hopefully that's all for now. ^^
Do they have whiskers?
In the same way that everyone is either on race or another, will Enkidukai parents with two different fur patterns have offspring with either one or the other pattern?
Do they have rough tongues?
I figured most of the details were up to the players, but it would be nice to have the bigger race details more consistent than they are now. If the devs don't know, maybe players can make a majority decision on some answers- though no one wants to find out that they've been role playing their character or wrote their description "wrong". :?
I play them with whiskers and I believe other players do also, but it has been awhile since I've RP'd with another enki that denoted any particular facial reactions specific to enki features.
I'm not sure about the fur color issue of parents from different 'tribal' types [sorry if 'tribal' is not the right word.]. They are the same race and the wiki info implies that enkis rarely marry outside of their 'tribal' type. I would think that the individual kit from PC mixed parentage would have one pattern or the other, but siblings may have differing coat patterns. Just a thought if someone else has an opinion then chime in.
I know one menki that RP'd having a rough tongue. I suppose that also could easily differ for each players preference since it is not a crucial characteristic for society interactions. I little bit like some humans can roll their tongue and others can't.
@Rigwyn: Honestly, I agree with your comment about the devs perhaps not putting that close of thought into it originally; I hope they are watching this thread though. I'm seeing some interesting questions popping up that would add to the background and depth of each race. I also would prefer that the devs keep working on things that need to be implemented to expand the playing options and the world itself ;)
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While we're throwing out questions about How Things Work, what's the average size difference between males and females of the different races? In real life, male humans on average have something like 15% more body mass than human females on average, with (IIRC) about 15 cm difference in average heights. But what's true of humans, and presumably Ylian and maybe Xacha, shouldn't be true of Enkidukai, Dermorians, Stonebreakers, etc. Is the average menki significantly bigger than the average fenki, like a lion vs. a lioness? Are male and female elves usually about the same height? Are female Klyros usually bigger than male Klyros, a la many birds and lizards?
(While I'm thinking about sexual dimorphism, do different races have different traditions about male and female roles? Are there racial differences in normal family structure? There's no way they all traditionally raise their kids in nuclear families.)
TBH I'm more interested in this nitty-gritty mundane stuff than any other part of the theme.
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While we're throwing out questions about How Things Work, what's the average size difference between males and females of the different races? In real life, male humans on average have something like 15% more body mass than human females on average, with (IIRC) about 15 cm difference in average heights. But what's true of humans, and presumably Ylian and maybe Xacha, shouldn't be true of Enkidukai, Dermorians, Stonebreakers, etc. Is the average menki significantly bigger than the average fenki, like a lion vs. a lioness? Are male and female elves usually about the same height? Are female Klyros usually bigger than male Klyros, a la many birds and lizards?
(While I'm thinking about sexual dimorphism, do different races have different traditions about male and female roles? Are there racial differences in normal family structure? There's no way they all traditionally raise their kids in nuclear families.)
TBH I'm more interested in this nitty-gritty mundane stuff than any other part of the theme.
I don't think it is mundane. You are asking questions that will eventually enrich the settings of each race when 1.0 eventually makes it debut.
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Don't the developers read everything that goes through the forums? It's only a trickle, so if your someone like me who only came to the forums a short time, you can read everything that was posted today, then read about the same amount of material in the past.
@Nivm: Which is safe to say that it's easier for them to explain it as this:
"Talad powers all kran like robots with a direct link to the crystal."
Anyways, what you are able to explain when it's late for you flies right over my head. I suppose you have a good idea there though with the whole 'extra body system' thing. I suppose you made it up. I may be wrong. Just sounds like something you'd say, which is not a bad thing. Perhaps this should be a good anatomy addition. People really have good suggestions for the races description, etc, and I wonder if the settings team would take it into consideration...*coughs* (fat chance!) *coughs again* Though, this was a good idea, and I agree with it. Just took a lot of re-reading to process though my complex brain, which is choked up on acetaminophen and tiredness lolz.
About the diaboli, I didn't understand a thing you said.
Why would anyone want to take the easy explanation for their art? (Many people have answered this question; I've yet to find a satisfying answer.)
I didn't say anything about extra bodies; I meant another bodily system, like your respiratory system, your endocrine system, your nervous system, or your circulatory system. It would probably be something akin to the circulatory system, but constructed to extract waste products that are solid instead of liquid or solute gas.
I'm sorry I didn't make it explicit, but these are all guesses I've made based on vague assumptions. It seems like all the setting information is very vague and poorly written.
Back on the diaboli, I was talking about how their biology will not conform to our normal understanding. I was under the assumption that they are beings whose evolution took advantage of the multiplanar nature of Yliakum and its connected universes/worlds. It's kinda hard to explain off the top of my head, but I'll go through all of it.
There's the "dimensions" people talk about; those systems in which we divide our universe so we can better understand it. Once past the three spatial dimensions, people start arguing about how they should be divided, but it's usually 8-11. There are some books and videos out there where the author tries explaining the divisions, I think one of them was called "imagining the tenth dimension". Anyway, pulling from Heinlein's Waldo, you can imagine multiple universes (space, time[lines], and all) as overlapping 2d planes (plane shift!) that are an infinitesimal distance apart but not touching. Magic in any coherent universe you can name, can be described by places where these planes do touch; connections with their own complicated, non-arbitrary rules. (In some cases the entire plane of existence is in constant contact with another, a more natural relation.) "Magical" creatures are those that do not live on just one plane at any given time, and thus they are "multiplanar". The diaboli can be described "magical" by this definition, and by the common definition as well. I would guess that Yliakum has anywhere from five to ~twelve planes connected together, although it might also have the "nexus" property, making its connected planes infinite, although not functionally so.
On gender dominations, not all animals are male-dominant like humans are. Iguanas and hyenas are female dominant; as if they somehow became sentient races with civilization the males would be the ones staying at home cooking and cleaning while the females would be off hunting or acting territorial. There are also a few species that don't have a dominant gender, wombats was it? Annoyingly enough, although Yliakan races are many, they are not diverse in this regard; it seems like however they differ physically they otherwise act just like humans.
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I don't think it is mundane. You are asking questions that will eventually enrich the settings of each race when 1.0 eventually makes it debut.
I don't mean that it's mundane in the sense of "unimportant", but mundane in the sense of "things that would be part of our characters' everyday lives", vs. something like, say, the secret history of the Klyros.
On gender dominations, not all animals are male-dominant like humans are. Iguanas and hyenas are female dominant; as if they somehow became sentient races with civilization the males would be the ones staying at home cooking and cleaning while the females would be off hunting or acting territorial. There are also a few species that don't have a dominant gender, wombats was it? Annoyingly enough, although Yliakan races are many, they are not diverse in this regard; it seems like however they differ physically they otherwise act just like humans.
I would imagine many players play their characters as basically funny lookin' humans because that's the type of psychology and social behavior they're familiar with. It's difficult to find out much about any of the Yliakan races as it stands, and requires a lot of guesswork.
For example: if you cared to, you could extrapolate from the existence of the Ynnwn, and what we're told about their psychology, (that they don't feel inferior for their half-breed status), that: 1) Diaboli, Dermorian and Nolthrir are all very accepting of mixed-race pairings, 2) Diaboli, Dermorian and Nolthrir families would normally not make a little Ynnwn child in their midst feel like an outcast, and 3) Dermorian and Nolthrir families and societies are structured in a way that having a lover or spouse with a much shorter lifespan isn't going to be considered a major problem. And from #3 you could theorize that because of their long lifespans, Dermorians and Nolthrir really don't consider it a big deal to have many partners over the course of your life. That in turn would imply a bunch of other things about them, including social structures that are either matriarchal or egalitarian, because you'd have many women with children from multiple fathers, which brings the problems in a patriarchy.
But that's an annoying amount of guesswork to have to do. Frankly it would be nicer if there was even a very slapdash listing somewhere of Here's What We're Thinking In Terms of Everyday Theme Stuff Right Now, This May All Change By 1.0, But Just In Case You're Curious Here You Go (TM).
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Heh, and you don't think that they get ideas from other people's guesswork? As an alpha project, you can get a good look at its present and future just by searching.
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diabolis may be able to eat loads and still have "perfectly shaped" bodies because of a fast metabolism. it would explain their short lifespan.
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If you ran as much as the folk in planeshift you would have a voracious appetite and yet stay fit.
Losing weight might be a much more pressing problem than gaining weight.
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Wouldn't some Ylians be kinda fat if they ate a whole bunch of stuff and didn't exercise? Wouldn't anybody from most races be fat if they didn't exercise?
@Sarras: Does metabolism affect the lifespan? If so I didn't know that. ::|
@Rigwyn: Didn't it used to be that more of royalty used to be fat, and the rest of the people in the kingdom were skinny and starving? XD I'm not saying that should in any way relate to PS, but if there was a rich diaboli whom ate alot, and didn't do much running around at all, would it be safe to say he/she is going to get just a little bit of fat on his/her body.
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Guess you have not met Hiimbo :)
Yeah, I agree... I was speaking generally - spelling out every exception to the rule gets painful.
And yes, there was a time when fat was foxy and skinny meant you skipped breakfast and lunch regularly because you couldn't afford it - not because you were on a strict rice diet.
- Fat, as in, "Oh Talad! She's gonna pop if she swallows another greasy porg!"
I just can't imagine people getting all "ooooh! oooh!.. I gotta have her!" over a big wiggly, jiggly, amoeba-shaped, bullion-cube--scented, humanoid .. but hey, to each his own ;)
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I don't think it is mundane. You are asking questions that will eventually enrich the settings of each race when 1.0 eventually makes it debut.
I don't mean that it's mundane in the sense of "unimportant", but mundane in the sense of "things that would be part of our characters' everyday lives", vs. something like, say, the secret history of the Klyros.
On gender dominations, not all animals are male-dominant like humans are. Iguanas and hyenas are female dominant; as if they somehow became sentient races with civilization the males would be the ones staying at home cooking and cleaning while the females would be off hunting or acting territorial. There are also a few species that don't have a dominant gender, wombats was it? Annoyingly enough, although Yliakan races are many, they are not diverse in this regard; it seems like however they differ physically they otherwise act just like humans.
I would imagine many players play their characters as basically funny lookin' humans because that's the type of psychology and social behavior they're familiar with. It's difficult to find out much about any of the Yliakan races as it stands, and requires a lot of guesswork.
For example: if you cared to, you could extrapolate from the existence of the Ynnwn, and what we're told about their psychology, (that they don't feel inferior for their half-breed status), that: 1) Diaboli, Dermorian and Nolthrir are all very accepting of mixed-race pairings, 2) Diaboli, Dermorian and Nolthrir families would normally not make a little Ynnwn child in their midst feel like an outcast, and 3) Dermorian and Nolthrir families and societies are structured in a way that having a lover or spouse with a much shorter lifespan isn't going to be considered a major problem. And from #3 you could theorize that because of their long lifespans, Dermorians and Nolthrir really don't consider it a big deal to have many partners over the course of your life. That in turn would imply a bunch of other things about them, including social structures that are either matriarchal or egalitarian, because you'd have many women with children from multiple fathers, which brings the problems in a patriarchy.
But that's an annoying amount of guesswork to have to do. Frankly it would be nicer if there was even a very slapdash listing somewhere of Here's What We're Thinking In Terms of Everyday Theme Stuff Right Now, This May All Change By 1.0, But Just In Case You're Curious Here You Go (TM).
I'd say that it'd be likely that Dermorians are egalitarian from their nature as a race of hunters; not sure though.
Sidenote: Kaerli took her mother's last name, for instance.
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Does metabolism affect the lifespan? If so I didn't know that.
There is a correlation, but correlation does not imply causation. Most life forms with high metabolism live shorter lives, but it's only one factor...Although, one very good example a high metabolism and short life span would be Bruce Lee. It would be interesting if all diaboli were played as less extreme versions of his trade-off.
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About Enkidukai:
They're definitely more like "wild" cats than domesticated cats. That said, they're not completely uncivilised, they are more primitive than other races in their societal structure.
They generally don't shun water afaik, unless your character has a fear of water.
Any other questions PM me, I've spent alot of time making my menki as on-Settings as possible.
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i like how players think they follow settings so well by making up their own settings based on logic. this game is, in fact, illogical.
omg i'm hallucinating one of those greek philosophers Dx
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What do you expect players to do. They put a lot of thought into the details of their characters and try hard to be setting compliant. The problem is that there isn't much material to work with
And we all know that if you do something a littke out of setting someone's gonna bitch about it.
Look at rhop, from what little I know about them they have a terrific history and rich player enhanced setting, however they seem to have been hammered over small details that should not matter.
We could all make plain cookie cutter characters with little to no details but that sucks.
So due to a lack of information about enkis I make one and make some about him based on what cats or tigers.. All seems fine and dandy.. Months later I'm told that I'm out of setting for
* marking my territory,
* hissing,
* licking my self,
* craving fish,
* craving raw meat,
* rubbing the side of my neck against someone in order to give them my scent,
You get the point ( and don't nitpick at what I'm saying, step back and see the forest if you have an issue with one of the trees )
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I marked my territory in Ojaveda... with your blood Rigwyn XD
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What do you expect players to do. They put a lot of thought into the details of their characters and try hard to be setting compliant. The problem is that there isn't much material to work with
And we all know that if you do something a littke out of setting someone's gonna bitch about it.
Look at rhop, from what little I know about them they have a terrific history and rich player enhanced setting, however they seem to have been hammered over small details that should not matter.
We could all make plain cookie cutter characters with little to no details but that sucks.
So due to a lack of information about enkis I make one and make some about him based on what cats or tigers.. All seems fine and dandy.. Months later I'm told that I'm out of setting for
* marking my territory,
* hissing,
* licking my self,
* craving fish,
* craving raw meat,
* rubbing the side of my neck against someone in order to give them my scent,
You get the point ( and don't nitpick at what I'm saying, step back and see the forest if you have an issue with one of the trees )
I have done fairly ooc things too out of logic by looking at amphibians and reptiles ;D
For example, I thought klyros needed a lot of water due to them being an amphibian-like reptile and seem to be slimy, I later was told this was false so I just decided to give Esorono a skin condition that causes him to dry out fast >_>
What confuses me beyond my mind though is why do we have nipples and belly button? :@#\
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What confuses me beyond my mind though is why do we have nipples and belly button? :@#\
Maybe they tattoo them on, because it weirds the other races out to look at them otherwise :P
The art on the main races page suggests female Klyros (Klyroses? That's another thing, why isn't there a distinctive singular and plural for Nolthrir and Klyros?) have breasts, which is stupid on a multitude of levels. So problems abound.
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i have a feeling the devs skipped their biology classes.
and i'm surprised how this game lacks so much in settings. when i was little and played adventure roleplay-ish games with my friends, they were a lot more thought-out than this game. we even started from scratch. ;D
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i have a feeling the devs skipped their biology classes.
and i'm surprised how this game lacks so much in settings. when i was little and played adventure roleplay-ish games with my friends, they were a lot more thought-out than this game. we even started from scratch. ;D
It's very hard to stay IC when you get very little information and have chars that make no sense doesn't it?
...
Also how the hell does meteor work? :@#\
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Look at rhop, from what little I know about them they have a terrific history and rich player enhanced setting, however they seem to have been hammered over small details that should not matter.
We could all make plain cookie cutter characters with little to no details but that sucks.
I found the college, the religious organizations, the government programs, some TF2 stuff, the protein, and more religious stuff. Could you post a link?
Well, the enkis are filling the "cat-people" niche, and the developers are denying that fact. They could probably make their view work better if they write more about he enkiduki themselves, and change how they look in game. Both the concept art and the models currently follow the stereotypical ideas for fetish fuel.
As a note on enkiduki and water, I'd expect they would find getting covered in it uncomfortable and distracting. The wild cats are hunters, and this often results in getting covered in blood. If the blood soaks into their fur, it stains, and begins rotting. The resulting stench will give their prey an early warning of their presence, likely resulting in the blood soaked cat starving to death. So they evolved an acute sense of any liquid in their fur, and have a pre-programmed urge to lick it out. Since enkis both have the same kind of fur, and hunt for their food (that food being bloody), they probably have the same distracting sensitivity to liquid in their fur. Although being sentient, they would probably devise other means to clean it out than licking themselves, and they would be able to resist it like we resist an itch.
When looking at the six limbed kylros, I assumed they were artificial abominations about 20000 years back, but have improved slightly since then. The in-game graphic demonstrates they are not even fit for gliding, but perhaps if they leap off something tall they wont hit the ground as hard (if they flail enough).
Although, I also spotted a player riding a flying creature that had a wingspan about 1/4 what it needed to be, and designed to function underwater instead of in the air. It was one of those more jarring failures.
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"RHoP" = Royal House of Purrty. You only need look in the guild threads to find them...>>
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Ah, I thought you were referencing a completely different game.
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Regarding the extra boobage and nip slippage, I think its more of a marketing thing.
Guys play video games
Guys like boobs
Therefore Guys will like characters with boobs.
Hell, they went as far as putting boobs on dwarves.
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Hell, they went as far as putting boobs on dwarves
I like my midget rpg avatar with some big boobaes.
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At least the female characters here don't have "bouncy" idle animations like Night Elves do. xD
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Has anyone noticed GM's and Dev's seem to be trying to avoid this? ;D
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Has anyone noticed GM's and Dev's seem to be trying to avoid this? ;D
A) The conversation has been reduced to talking about boobs.
B) It's most likely been discussed before.
C) They are not going to change what they have already come up with. (Or maybe they will idk)
D) We are getting beyond the simplicity of magic and talking about biology.
E) Enkiduki are yet again being called cat people. They don't like that.
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If they don't like enkies being treated as kitties or child characters being around, maybe they should have that information easily accesable in game somewhere instead of having to rely on the users either coming onto the forums or IRC to get condescendingly told off by a GM or dev, or running around with such a character in-game and getting condescendingly told off by older users.
And we wonder why so few people stick around. ::)
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If they don't like enkies being treated as kitties or child characters being around
Them not liking child characters being around is stupid. If it is part of some unreleased settings info, then it isn't released for a reason: it's flawed. That being implemented has to have a good story and reason behind it, because there is no reason not to play children other than those "unreleased settings". I'm not going to be paranoid about such things. If it's not implemented then they can't complain about users playing out legit characters.
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if the devs want players to roleplay in the settings, they ought to release the settings. that means on the website, not just the in-game library. new players will have come up with awesome characters, assuming they fit in because they don't have access to settings from the start, go around making trouble with those characters, then be told it's not in-settings, and then decide to keep breaking settings because they could care less now that they worked so hard on their characters.
neverendiiing seeentence!
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The developers and game masters don't even read the forum enough to be considered avoiding something, at least as far as I can tell. I know now that the developers have the same attitude commercial video game producers do about giving out information. If they were a said designers, they would be the ones that think of the game as "not released" and thus anything they tell anyone is a "sneak-peek", "spoiler", or at worst "security leak". It's an attitude severely detrimental to the game, as it makes the difference between an active community and one like this, but there isn't anything the players can do to change it. I don't think I've every seen it change before, actually...
I would like to get the topic back to logical speculation, but I can't think of anything to add at the moment.
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Sorry to double post, but I now do have a question, and I don't think anyone would have spotted it if I had just used the edit (does editing mark the thread as new and add it the "unread posts" section?).
Enkinduki can wear human gloves fine (a quest for it), so they must have hands. Yet for some reason they always refer to them as "paws". What is that reason?
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Paws are just a name, so far as I know. When looking at my pet cats paws, I find that they are very much like our hands, just furry and with 'fingers' that are spaced much closer together. I'm assuming that an enkidukai is going to have the same type of paws that my pet cat does. It's also possible that the guy giving the quest has a pair of human gloves and enkidukai gloves.
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I think that quest is a place where you just need to say, "Glad I could help, moving on before I think about this too hard." It's not just that Ylian gloves seemingly fit Enkidukai hands - both a dwarf and a Ynnwn can give their gloves to the character and they'll fit. Either his hands/paws, like Aslan, grow bigger the bigger you are, or... yeah, let's just move on.
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moving on before I think about this too hard.
Never.
I assume this is an oversight by the people who designed it, as they kept reminding themselves that things were different in one way, but forgot to think of all the ramifications. Like different clothing required. (During that quest, he puts on the gloves that I just took off and gave him.) If the bone structure of an being's digits are close enough to match the same gloves, even loose, they should both be called hands.
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It's not as if there's a big division between a paw and a hand; "hand" is just a specialized term for the paws of certain animals (mostly primates). Enkidukai may call what they have "paws" because when their ancestors were first learning the common language in Yliakum, their teachers took one look at their furry, clawed digits and used "paw" instead of "hand", and the Enkidukai adopted the term as their own.
They already have quite a bit of specialized vocab, so one more word isn't a big deal.
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Yeah, I guess you can get away with convoluted etymology rather easily. But I thought that kind of thing was translated to English!
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Yes, and the language they're really speaking clearly has distinct terms for "hand" and "paw", as many RL languages do :D