 May 4, 2009 - 8:45am | I was looking at the Saurrians from Drgon 103, more than just a skim this time, and I was struck by the possibilities for this race. When I first skimmed the article I wasn't really in favor of mixing in another race for the sake of just having another race. but upon deeper scrutiny I think these guys are rife with opertunities for adventure. Few problems though - the whole aquatic background giving superior underwater sight and gill slits to breath water mixed with evolution from "land dragons" from 4 different environments and the whole 4 separate distinct saurian races being born within the same family from intermarriage and no half breed types? it just seemed confuse to me. But I liked the back ground and their desire to strike back at the Sathar. There is a lot of possibilites here: I'd drop the whole land dragon evolution thing and keep the aquatic evolution thing going. that combined with the whole fleeing the destruction of their homeworld and not playing a major role in the Frontier opens the oportunity for them to colonize water habitats within the Frontier. It allows the Frontier to accept 500,000 refugees as they's be perfectly happy using the enviroments the core 4 normally pass up: Oceans, seas and lakes. I'd keep the land dragons as the source of the sathar cybo-dragons though, why waste a perfectly good animal and it makes a good tie in to the Volturnus material. the barrier of the ocean/sea/lake surface mutes their impact and interaction some but it opens up all new realms and opertunities for adventure: under sea cities and a whole alien culture to mix explore. In fact the whole escape their system's destruction with the rescued population being put into stasis smacks of the "Space Seed" episode from the original Star Trek and opens up a similar KH/AD adventure with discovering and boarding the saurian craft. Latter the saurians can have raised the "Saurian Legion" to help combat the Sathar. but when the UPF mistakenly sends the legion to perform a police action on during a corporate war rebellion formulates within the ranks. They'd also contribute heavily to a destroy the sathar campaign. or a group of suarians hire the PCs to sneak into and scout their home system or an abandoned colony part of that might also involve recovering something from sathar conquered system. The saurians could also institute a Sea Guard- kind of like the Coast Guard but with a submarine element and part of their pride in contributing to the frontier and not wanting to be beggers and welfare recipients. So players ejecting in an escape pod or crash landing in water would, when they are at the verg of drowning be rescued by a Sea Guard sub and taken to its port, an under water city, which can lead to further adventure or they just take the elevator or a sub to the surface, going about thier business or they need to recover stuff from their wreck, now at the bottom of the sea and they'll have to hire a sub. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 May 19, 2009 - 11:16pm | I am with Aramis here on the half-breed issue. Not only in terms of the science, but also in terms of lameness. Half-breeds worked in D&D - kinda. They were DISASTROUS for the Star Trek universe, leading to layers and layers of lameness and cheddar. In fact, I think the half-breed thing was a key, fundamental flaw in Star Trek. It worked with Spock, but then they just went bananas with it, resulting in tragic amounts of gouda. |
May 20, 2009 - 7:29am | But thats the point if saurians are the same specis with their racial differences identifiable outwardly in coloration or in the differences shown in the artwork of the dragon mag its not a problem. The Dragon mag article, as written is a bit cheesy. I'd simply make all saurians the same species with the 4 different races being like black, white, red, or yellow humans- however I really wouldnt anticipate more than 1 saurian in a party and with them not being the main show in the game worrying about half breeds would qualify as fiddley. Yet having 4 different racial types within a species and each with a slight variation of abilities would almost inevitably lead to a player saying hey I want a character whose mother was saurian x and the father was saurian z and you either have to say YES or NO to that and I found that giving greater options to player in the character is better. I thought the HARP method of handling half breeds was a good rule mechanic I certainly wouldn't use it to make a half yazerian half vursk. Though if you started allowing it I'd suppose there would be players trying to have a Yazuman or a Humalisite  I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 May 20, 2009 - 8:33am | Though if you started allowing it I'd suppose there would be players trying to have a Yazuman or a Humalisite lol. Sounds like something that would require a topical ointment to get rid of. But yes i can see the half-breed issue being abused. StoryTime: One of the guys from my old gaming group would definately have pushed that issue to the limits, now he is a geneticist so he would spend hours rationalizing, arguing, and finally proving why the Humalisite and Yazuman would be a viable pc option. I always enjoyed asking him for the WalMart version, make him write it out, show me some charts... and then tell him "no". Time flies when your having rum. Im a government employee, I dont goof-off. I constructively abuse my time. |
May 20, 2009 - 9:12am | One of the guys from my old gaming group would definately have pushed that issue to the limits, now he is a geneticist so he would spend hours rationalizing, arguing, and finally proving why the Humalisite and Yazuman would be a viable pc option. I always enjoyed asking him for the WalMart version, make him write it out, show me some charts... and then tell him "no". LOL  I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 May 20, 2009 - 9:37am | Core races intermixing - wouldn't allow it personally. I would simply state things like dralasites use a triple helix type of 'DNA' (completely incompatable with human style double helix) or Vrusk have something like 75 pairs of chromosomes (way more than humans), or Yazirians (the closest) still have enough differences that would make it as impossible as humans mating with merkats. There are other medical issues one could invoke - perhaps copper based blood types, incompatable physiology (Vrusk skeletons intermixed with human, or new organs that do not appear in other races), tissue rejection qualities that would not allow such foreign material to survive... after all we are not talking about variations all seen in our common Earth species, but of species differences spanning different worlds and systems. Simply NO - regardless of what a geneticist might want to try to rationalize. And I agree, that having one saurian race would be the way to go, pointing back to my own post earlier. Pick the one you like and make that the 'race', discarding the others, or build your own race, using similar background material. <insert witty comment here> |
 May 20, 2009 - 10:50am | Multiple closely related races isn't an issue, if one can explain why they were isolated long enough to speciate. After all, humans coexisted with hobbits up until about 6KYA, possible as little as 300YA. It's possible that a world could generate 2 to 5 different intelligent races; I doubt that they would become technological independently, however. If they can successfully interbreed and produce reproductively viable offspring, they wouldn't be speciated; the defining characteristic of speciation is inability to cross-breed |
 May 20, 2009 - 3:51pm | I am with Aramis here on the half-breed issue. Not only in terms of the science, but also in terms of lameness. Half-breeds worked in D&D - kinda. They were DISASTROUS for the Star Trek universe, leading to layers and layers of lameness and cheddar. In fact, I think the half-breed thing was a key, fundamental flaw in Star Trek. It worked with Spock, but then they just went bananas with it, resulting in tragic amounts of gouda. Gouda? Why not Brie or Cammbert? Or Provolone, Ricotta or Parmesan? Or even Monterey Jack...or my personal favorite, Velveeta.... Seriously, half-breeds are like every other plot device...okay if used sparingly. "You're everything that's base in humanity," Cochrane continued. "Drawing up strict, senseless rules for the sole reason of putting you at the top and excluding anyone you say doesn't belong or fit in, for no other reason than just because you say so." —Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stephens, Federation |
May 20, 2009 - 3:59pm | One of the guys from my old gaming group would definately have pushed that issue to the limits, now he is a geneticist so he would spend hours rationalizing, arguing, and finally proving why the Humalisite and Yazuman would be a viable pc option. I always enjoyed asking him for the WalMart version, make him write it out, show me some charts... and then tell him "no". LOL I would actually allow Yaz-Human crossbreeds...one to a party and once in a blue moon(Shadow's Venusia clan, while not strictly crossbreeds according to the "racial" description, are a persecuted minority in the Space Rats campaign I'm running....)but the possibility is still there. After all, both races have essentially primate genetics, so, at least, the outside chance of this happening should be there. This could even work as a major campaign storyline. Crossbreeds between Vrusk, Drals, (gods forbid)Sathar or any other race...no. "You're everything that's base in humanity," Cochrane continued. "Drawing up strict, senseless rules for the sole reason of putting you at the top and excluding anyone you say doesn't belong or fit in, for no other reason than just because you say so." —Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stephens, Federation |
May 21, 2009 - 1:31am | Multiple closely related races isn't an issue, if one can explain why they were isolated long enough to speciate. After all, humans coexisted with hobbits up until about 6KYA, possible as little as 300YA. It's possible that a world could generate 2 to 5 different intelligent races; I doubt that they would become technological independently, however. If they can successfully interbreed and produce reproductively viable offspring, they wouldn't be speciated; the defining characteristic of speciation is inability to cross-breed But, Jedi's Saurians wouldn't be four separate species, but four different sub-species. Still the same species, but some enviromental quirk or another caused them to develop somewhat differently from one another. "You're everything that's base in humanity," Cochrane continued. "Drawing up strict, senseless rules for the sole reason of putting you at the top and excluding anyone you say doesn't belong or fit in, for no other reason than just because you say so." —Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stephens, Federation |
 May 20, 2009 - 4:51pm | Gouda? Why not Brie or Cammbert? Or Provolone, Ricotta or Parmesan? Or even Monterey Jack...or my personal favorite, Velveeta.... Velveeta...the SPAM of cheeses.  |
May 20, 2009 - 5:47pm | I like SPAM too... Especially fried up with Velveeta and rice.... "You're everything that's base in humanity," Cochrane continued. "Drawing up strict, senseless rules for the sole reason of putting you at the top and excluding anyone you say doesn't belong or fit in, for no other reason than just because you say so." —Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stephens, Federation |
May 20, 2009 - 11:04pm | I would actually allow Yaz-Human crossbreeds... I had thought up an adventure idea of a yazerian mother who had her pups stripped from her on a station orbiting the planet at Madderly's star- at least I think that was the one- it needed to be the one with the free world rebellion kicking all the vursk out so that i had the racial prejudice to work with. It was inspired by some anti breast feeding in public broo-hah-hah that happened here in MA. She's breast feeding her pups on the space station and security arrest her. then a bit of a kangaroo court transpires and she's found to be an unfit mother and her pups are put into protective custody. She turns to the PCs for help. the low down is Merco (which is head quartered there) is funding genetic research into super soldiers and the pups are funnelled into the research section working on the genes for yazerian battle rage to see if they can reproduce the same thing in humans. the story line brings in a Blade Runner feel and the whole unisol or Wrath of Kahn thing with engineered soldiers. its not quite humans mating with Yazerians but close I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
