If you want my opinion.. (Which I imagine you don\'t especially. ) I like the way Medievia did it. In places frequented by people, (cities, trade roads, woods around trade roads,) you can\'t even attack someone, (penalties make more sense, but I\'m just giving what Medievia uses first).

In fairly out of the way places, (such as the woods around the Labyrinth) there is what\'s called NPK. NPK, for those who didn\'t guess right away, stands for Neutral Player Killing, which basically just means that the law doesn\'t hold much sway. If you are killed in one of these areas, you just get teleported out.

There is also CPK, chaotic player killing, in areas where few tread, (like Haunted Woods,) where if a person is pked, it works the same way as if you killed a creature. Recently they implemented LLCPK, where only a certain number of items can be looted from a corpse.

Of course, I\'m not suggesting that system for PlaneShift, but maybe something like it. The more remote the area you\'re in, the less protection code gives you from attack. I\'m not a fan of pking really, but I like the idea of danger. I was actually playing once, and the person leading our party stopped us, because there was movement ahead, and then proceeded to tromp right on up, because they were Player Characters, and completely harmless.. Personally, in the spirit of rp, I was the last one to follow.. Would YOU tromp on up to a group of people in the sewer? Anyway, I\'m digressing. v.v

Sorry if some of the language is kinda haughty, I just like pretty words when talking about science.

Kran were created through divine magic, by the hand of Talad. This is known for fact. However, not all existing Kran were created that day. (As people can choose it as a race, therefore the number of Kran in existance is not limited.) So.. That means that Kran must have some way to reproduce, or that Talad creates more of them. This does, however, seem a strange task, just creating Kran out of the blue every once in awhile. If the Kran are simply magically animated constructs, as so many would have us believe, then they would not be able to reproduce, as the magic that is believed to make them move while holding their shape, think, live, and whatnot would have to be cast on their young to make them more than a stone. I was thinking, that maybe if they were enchanted, that if their young were of the same enchanted stone, then they would live too, but that just doesn\'t make sense. If that were the case, Kran could shapeshift, create things out of their bodies, only losing body mass, (such as weapons) and could not be harmed, because they would be little more than flexible rocks, held together and manipulated by magic. I believe that there is something more.

In order to maintain their existance, I believe that, even though they were created by magic, they were created with a functional system.

 They would likely breathe, not Oxygen, but Carbon. When monoatomic Carbon comes in contact with SiO2, they react to produce pure Silicon, and Carbon monoxide.(SiO2 + 2C --> Si + 2CO) Which would explain a source of silicon to grow and heal, straight from their food. Breathe in Carbon Dioxide, and breathe out Carbon monoxide and Oxygen. This is however, only possible if the Kran stomach is able to break molecular bonds. A crop of sorts, to break apart the Carbon Dioxide into monoatomic Carbon, and diatomic Oxygen. The Oxygen is by far the heavier of the two, (being two atoms, each heavier than a Carbon atom) so the Carbon would ..float, as it were, to be absorbed from the top of the organ, while the Oxygen is pushed to the bottom, (assuming this organ is a vacuum aside from what has been introduced) to be absorbed and exhaled. The absorbed Carbon, would then go to the stomach to aid in digestion, which would produce Carbon monoxide, and Silicon, along with solid waste.

 As for muscles, I do not see why joints could not be pushed, in the stead of pulled, by metals supersensitive to heat, which expand when electral current passes through them. (the opposite of muscles, but the same result.) And then slowly cool, and contract when current is no longer applied. (The metal muscle thing was stated before, by someone else, but in fewer words.)

I do not, however, believe that Kran have any need for blood. Comming in, I thought it would be a suspension of silicon and other things in water, but the more I thought about it, the more it made sense that substances absorb through poors inside the Kran\'s body, as opposed to traveling in a liquid.

I do realize that there are holes in this, probably rather big ones.. But hey, I\'m just doing my part in this wonderful discussion!        /me loves picking fantasy apart to think of how it should work.