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Thread: Blooded animals
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08-26-2010, 03:46 AM #11
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...what if they were killer piranha's? That's probably what let the evil forces take over the old lands!
OT: What really surprises me is why there's not crocodile Egyptian themed god...though I am short other continent's folk lore in my collection.
I always subscribe to the "... There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, ..." theory, meaning every entry in the books is the tip of the ice berg. Of course there's more than a few packs of blooded wolves running around northern Anuire. You bet there's 0 point blooded (think latent/tainted ability) animals around. True mages, more than you can shake a stick at - all waiting for a chance to get their hands on their own personal source of greater magic!
(I'm being cheeky after this point, if you have no sense of humor skip this part of post)
The farming blood lines thing ... absurd! Only the gorgon can do that, because he's the only one with a brain in the entire world! The greek's certainly never thought of it in their myth's either & look what happened to their stories!Legacy of Kings: Member
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08-26-2010, 04:57 PM #12
We don't have any egyptian cultures in Cerilia which is a pity - they are perfect for ehrshegh with their human bodies/non-human heads, I used them as the basis for Masetians in a lands of the utter west campaign sketch which I toyed with briefly.
I used some blooded bears in PS Danigau from recollection - although they could just have easily have been dire bears as I left it vague. Come to that I also had a NPC come from a family who had inherited their bloodline from a loyal wardog that fought at Deismaar - to the family's eternal shame (call him Fido and die...)
I'd probably go for bloodlines manifesting as enhancements to the animal (stronger, smarter, faster, etc) rather than as the normal bloodline powers to keep the idea of humans/etc as 'special' and not merely smart animals, and only allow larger animals or perhaps swarms to be affected. I'd make an exception for the bloodline of Azrai and make it notorious for corrupting animals into monsters and then ultimately into awnshegh.
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08-27-2010, 09:49 AM #13
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08-27-2010, 12:37 PM #14
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What if we don't use your interpretation but that of the standard rules though? In that case there's a constant influx of half progenitor strength blood coming into the pool, and mixing with the lower values of other generations.
>Add to that the chance of another bloodline coming into the species
>from another scion, and the trickle may go on for a long time.
>
>This is merely before people actively decide to breed such animals,
>in whatever way they choose.
I find that pretty doubtful. Blooded animals are pretty rare in the
first place. Sure, there`s a chance that the sequence of events that
led to a scion/animal could repeat within a generation, but given how
unusual an animal with a bloodline would be, two animals of the same
species with a bloodline would be proportionately more rare. That
is, in the absence of some sort of purposeful effort by some human
program to breed them, a bloodline in an animal would be very rare.
In the case of the perverts, do you think they're alone in their kink? Ennui amongst the decadent is just one of the reasons that others could be persuaded to give it a try.
Even if one were to propose some sort of program to preserve a
bloodline in an animal, there`s a fundamental problem: bloodlines
don`t really work that way thematically. From a raw look at the
setting materials, yes, that is a theoretical possibility, but one
has to ignore that bloodlines are, by definition, something that
makes a scion different from all the commoners. Scions (be they
human, elven, dwarven, etc.) are creatures of destiny and
importance. They aren`t simply bred. Thus, a program to breed
scions (even if they are animals) is going to run headlong against
the fact that destiny isn`t a manageable resource. But more on that
in a minute....
There's no automatic destiny about being blooded, unless you've decided to change the rules to make it so (well within your rights as a DM in your game, but please don't assume I'll do the same in mine). There's merely increased scope.
>After all, why hunt and kill an animal for a point of bloodstrength,
>when you can capture it, stud it, and kill it`s offspring for LOTS
>of bloodstrength?
>
>The more perverse and evil ways I leave to to others to work out for
>themselves (no animal husbandry jokes please!)
This is an interesting twist on an issue that has been a long running
point of contention in the Birthright community. Lots of people have
proposed that any character with the Long Life blood ability (or just
a member of the immortal elven race) would do the same thing with
their own offspring; animals notwithstanding. That is, a breeding
program with the specific intention of creating victims for
bloodtheft. There have been several remedies proposed for this kind
of situation when it comes to a breeding program of humans (or elves)
and the one I find the most compelling is the one that most directly
involves the DM. That is, there`s one simple concept behind the
ideas of the setting itself that addresses the issue of a such a
breeding program: such creatures aren`t going to passively allow
themselves to be bred and then murdered for their bloodline.
Merely being blooded, unless you have an ability that radically increases your chance to escape AND that hasn't already been countered, doesn't make a difference.
Of course, that`s not as obvious an issue when it comes to animals,
but if you`re going to premise that animals can have a bloodline in
the same way that mortals (and the elves) can, then one must come to
the same basic conclusion: those animals are going to be special in
the same way that mortals (+elves) are. They aren`t going to be
penned, bred and slaughtered without putting up some sort of
resistance. They do, after all, have the blood of the gods in
them. By its very nature that gives these creatures a destiny beyond
that of ordinary creatures. They aren`t going to be any more easy to
kill off than the player who proposes such a thing would be himself,
and the DM`s reaction to a player wanting to create such a program
should be comparable to how the player might react if he set up an
adventure in which the PC was automatically and inescapably
killed. The offspring of such a program are NPCs under the control
of the DM, but they are comparable to PCs in terms of importance and
significance in the setting. ALL of those with a bloodline are
creatures of destiny, which means destiny (in the form of the DM)
would take a hand in such a situation.
2. Thousands of years of humans interfering with animals means that the species is quite capable of penning and breeding virtually anything, especially when you add in magic.
As a DM, I might allow the creation of such a system by an
NPC/villain. It`s a good adventure hook. The role of the
players/PCs in that hook, however, is to be the liberators of the
victims. Should players want to set up some sort of equivalent then
that means they`d have to face the same sort of issue: bands of
adventurers seeking to free this prisoners.
Game mechanically, there`s another way to address this kind of thing,
and I think this makes as much sense as the DM addressing it based on
the nature of the setting itself: That is, a scion`s bloodlines
should not be noticeably increased by an act of bloodtheft upon a
creature with a bloodline score substantially lower than his/er
own. In the "New Scions" document I wrote up, for instance, I tried
to address this issue in a way that makes sense with the rest of the
setting. In that set of rules, an act of bloodtheft raises the
thief`s bloodline based on a comparison of his score to that of the
victim. If the victim`s score is higher than the thief then there`s
a chance the thief`s bloodline will increase. If not then there`s none.
In the case of a breeding program with animals the bloodline score is
immediately going to be halved in the first generation. So, there`d
have to be a scion at the beginning with a pretty substantial
bloodline in order for the blooded animals to have a score high
enough to have any effect. Other folks have suggested that
bloodlines can`t be increased by acts of bloodtheft within the same
family or familial line.
Any of these remedies involves the DM controlling the situation in a
way that some players might not appreciate, but honestly this is the
kind of situation that the DM is meant to control. Having a
bloodline breeding program of the type proposed really is something
that goes against the fundamental colour of the setting, and the kind
of thing that should be set up by the DM for the players to expose,
depose or destroy rather than something the players create on their own.
"Characters sewing the seeds of their own destruction through greed, it's enough to bring a smile to any DM. "
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08-27-2010, 01:44 PM #15
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Since I'm talking about the natural offspring of a blooded character that just happens to be an animal, and not usurpation of a bloodline, I can't see why even your take on Land's Choice is valid. Of course YMMV
I agree your points regarding evolutionary advantage, but think that it is countered by two key issues.
Firstly the animal must have gained a bloodline somehow - probably by killing a scion (boar, sphinx, hydra, maybe wolf). Animals that kill people tend to be hunted down and exterminated in short order - particularly when they killed someone important such as a scion. If the animal gained the bloodline through inheritance it is probably fairly old for its kind in the first place and thus unlikely to breed (one does not become a pet more dearly loved than the scion's children in a day, it requires years of tummy rubs and face licking).
Secondly, as noted by Geeman, the blooded animals in the books are noted as exemplars of their race, and generally are far larger / mutated / etc - as such they may be hunted as 'a magnificent beast' fit for 'royal sport' even without understanding of their true nature - and any animal which was visibly blooded would as noted be hunted relentlessly. A blooded deer with a snow-white fleece/magnificent rack of horns/etc may run a little more swiftly than its normal herd members, but it is the only one of its kind that the hunters gather from across the country to hunt, its lesser peers survive to breed because they are more likely to be ignored - to take the point to inanity, no-one ignores a 6 foot glowing mouse or spider but everyone ignores their normal kin, being special can be more trouble than its worth. There is also the issue that the animal may move into a different ecological niche due to its power / bodily changes - and few bloodline powers will help an enhanced wild animal much against a 'real' monster like a griffin, wyvern, etc if it starts competing with them as top predator/whatever.
The point about moving out of the ecological niche is noted, but otoh it does also mean that if it doesn't shift then it will probably dominate, and therefore breed more etc.
That said, the hydra and sphinx who are both animals who killed and ate scions and became blooded as a result, are noted as having fathered new races - the hydra admittedly by a method not-conducive to inheritance. These offspring and new races are however noted as monstrous not as blooded. Perhaps the idea is that bloodlines simply work differently when inherited by beasts?
I have thought about this myself and saying that it was the soul that made people different, but you get into the entire what does and doesn't have a soul problem. Especially with elves.
Abstract thought, and awareness of self have the problem of why aren't the babies all monsters?
Anybody got a good answer apart from the, "that's just the way it is", DM's fallback?
In general I'd support blooded animals as 'wonders' to be used as random events, etc, but discourage any form of 'breeding' or the like as too open to abuse - and use whatever excuse my gamers were happy with to justify it.
Nothing appears to stop a lonely wizard from polymorphing into a ram and starting a non-human family line if that's what you were thinking - but as noted bloodline thins rapidly without regency, inheritance or bloodtheft to sustain it, and at some point it should fizzle out, the shorter lived the species the sooner this will happen. That said, bloodline have existed in sub-domain humans for many generations, so perhaps great deeds can also strengthen the line? An animal can perform great deeds too!
In bird keeping putting together related birds to bring out a trait is called Line-breeding if successful, and Inbreeding if not.
I'm unsure if it's called the same with other animals, but that's pretty much what happened with all the domesticated animals, and even farmed 'wild' animals such as mink.
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08-28-2010, 12:48 AM #16
:^) X-men ... never thought of that. But have a look at the wiki for "bloodline" (http://www.birthright.net/brwiki/ind...itle=Bloodline). Also see the start of chapter 2 of the BRCS (http://www.birthright.net/brwiki/ind...od_and_regency). I can't remember how much is based on the original rules, but that is pretty much how I played it. Maturity plays a major factor in the availability and detection of bloodlines.
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08-28-2010, 04:34 AM #17Originally Posted by Dooley
Originally Posted by Dooley
Given a base stock of 1 on the scion side the line will collapse long before a new breed can be established.
You are also assuming that polymorph, etc permit breeding - the extent of the change is not, for fairly obvious taste reasons, fully detailed in the rules and lycanthropy and other issues are equally likely outcomesas blood inheritance while sterility is probably more likely than both.
Overall I'd say that the breeding scion to animals point is a non-risk, it will almost never happen, won't work for more than a few generations due to in-breeding, and has obvious social counters to stop it if it somehow endures. That reduces the issue of animal bloodlines to inheritance by a favored pet, or usurpation by a wild animal - both of which I have commented on.
Originally Posted by Dooley
In-breeding issues stop the parental influx you note, so the parental influx can only really be via investiture or the land's choice - as noted, a bloodline has no reason to stay in an animal when it can rise to a sentient being so depending on how you interpret the Land's choice (subconscious decision of the scion, collective will of the followers, manifest destiny, desire for greatness of the recipient, etc) the animal bloodlines are likely to fade out more or less rapidly - the animal will afterall not be able to gain regency to raise its bloodline or otherwise gain strength via great deeds - usurpation is its only method and that carries inevitable risks.
Originally Posted by Dooley
Originally Posted by Dooley
Originally Posted by Dooley
Breeding blooded animals avoids some of this social stain but still runs into the spiritual issue - this is the blood of the gods we are talking about - killing the animal would be close to sacrilege and breeding them with the intention of stealing the power of the gods is active blasphemy. Given that any society of scions will inevitably bring in social constraints to stop a descent into a highlander-style kill-fest breeding programs are going to hit major social problems.Last edited by AndrewTall; 08-28-2010 at 05:03 AM.
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08-29-2010, 06:54 AM #18
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The teen manifestation isn't in the 2e rules, and merely makes infanticide the best way to deal with opposing bloodlines.
Murdering children because they're weaker and easier to get to than adults has often been used politically, and the fact you get access to their blood without having to face the concurrent abilities makes it such a more tempting option.
The cry of "Oh if he'd only reached (whatever) years of age his Poison Sense would have warned him not to eat those!", or similar with other abilities, is too important to overlook.
Especially as it's directly thwarting the "destiny" that such blood brings (according to some)
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08-29-2010, 08:33 AM #19
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All it takes is one in a generation, and there'll probably be more than that.
You're also playing dirty pool with the numbers as we have no firm information as to the overlaps between the factors. After all million to one chances happen nine times out of ten!
Not quite, you can in-breed for desired characteristics for a while, but you have to cross-breed to maintain genetic strength as otherwise you get recessives popping up all over the place, stillbirths, deformities, and vulnerability to disease. Some species are also highly resistant to selective breeding or taming generally and so only some animal breeds are candidates in any event.
Given a base stock of 1 on the scion side the line will collapse long before a new breed can be established.
You are also assuming that polymorph, etc permit breeding - the extent of the change is not, for fairly obvious taste reasons, fully detailed in the rules and lycanthropy and other issues are equally likely outcomesas blood inheritance while sterility is probably more likely than both.
Overall I'd say that the breeding scion to animals point is a non-risk, it will almost never happen, won't work for more than a few generations due to in-breeding, and has obvious social counters to stop it if it somehow endures. That reduces the issue of animal bloodlines to inheritance by a favored pet, or usurpation by a wild animal - both of which I have commented on.
Are you mistakenly under the idea that I'm implying that such lines have gone from just after Mt D. to now?
Resources run out, come back in another 50 years and the bloodline may have faded away again. Somewhere else though another bloodline is expanding.
The difference in fade-out is only 1-2 generations whether reducing bloodline strength each generation or halving the score - tainted bloodlines (score up to 25)were noted in 2e as potentially evaporating in a generation or two supporting the step reduction noted or a cut-off well before halving to 0.
In-breeding issues stop the parental influx you note, so the parental influx can only really be via investiture or the land's choice - as noted, a bloodline has no reason to stay in an animal when it can rise to a sentient being so depending on how you interpret the Land's choice (subconscious decision of the scion, collective will of the followers, manifest destiny, desire for greatness of the recipient, etc) the animal bloodlines are likely to fade out more or less rapidly - the animal will afterall not be able to gain regency to raise its bloodline or otherwise gain strength via great deeds - usurpation is its only method and that carries inevitable risks.
Blood destiny is actually a core premise of the entire setting - read the conspectus, legacy of kings in the introduction and various comments by the creators. Having the blood of the gods in your veins means that you are marked out for destiny - the bastard by-blow is far more likely to become a hero / the town mayor / etc than just anybody - that's the whole point of the bloodline and what distinguishes it from just a munchkin grab-bag such as 2e psionic wild-powers.
Enslaving people and breeding them for the sole purpose of slaughtering their children is Elisabeth Bathory/Dracula-style stuff that would get the person a) targeted as a monster, b) shunned by everyone not completely contemptuous of society, c) faced by continual slave uprisings/desertions and d) turning awnie in record time.
Breeding blooded animals avoids some of this social stain but still runs into the spiritual issue - this is the blood of the gods we are talking about - killing the animal would be close to sacrilege and breeding them with the intention of stealing the power of the gods is active blasphemy. Given that any society of scions will inevitably bring in social constraints to stop a descent into a highlander-style kill-fest breeding programs are going to hit major social problems.
Killing a sentient being merely because he's on the other side, and doing it in such a manner that you get a benefit, is merely usurpation,
but doing it to an animal is sacrilege and blasphemy?
That's just silly
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08-29-2010, 11:43 AM #20
Particularly when the consequences are amusing
I'd expect far fewer than 1 in a generation though - 1% of people blooded (or less), of those how many are going to be a high level druid/wizard or a shapeshifter? Druids skew the odds as they are fairly common in the rjurik lands, but then they have all sorts of social issues moving them towards avoiding the social stigma of bestiality. I can accept that shapeshifters may be attracted to their alter-species if they spend a lot of time in their alter-form, but that has its own problems for them of loss of persona. Druids/wizards probably less so as they can shift to a variety of forms.
The effects are very variable, breeding in general has only recently with the benefit of DNA testing and so on, begun to move towards a real science. Much depends on the original quality of the stock, genetic variation present within the breed, the normal mating patterns and numbers, etc - when looking at notoriously sickly species such as humans the consequences tend to be tougher as nasty recessives pop up sooner.
Golden hamsters are a good example of what you've been suggesting. All captive G.Hammies come from 1 litter collected for research purposes in (from recollection) the 1930's. The continual inbreeding has left them notorious for dying young - from recollection only 1 of 3 that I and my brothers were given lasted to maturity. They survive as a species in captivity, but in competition with less in-bred cousins would be rapidly out-bred.
As a general rule it is safe to say that continued inbreeding will, sooner or later, cause loss of fertility, lower survival rates, etc and that limited genetic spread (inherent in inbreeding) makes a species more vulnerable to disease, parasites, etc - at some point any bloodline advantage is going to be outweighed by the benefits of fresh bloodstock reducing the immortal father syndrome.
The question is extent of the transformation - what happens to the various microscopic lifeforms within the shapeshifter changes, does the change extend to a genetic level? Does it convert the pre-existing sperm/eggs or would the new form have to be retained long enough to create new seed? What is the comparative genetic make-up of the new form to the old?
Not necessarily continuously, but you seem to be arguing that they should be fairly common, and reasonably strong which would indicate that they should have had a fairly continuous existence - I can't see any argument to support that approach or any way it would enhance the game to do so.
In-breeding risks are not mythical, and have been observed repeatedly in many species. By all means feel free to look-up some of the stats for large animals (which are the only cross-breeds we are discussing I presume) but any attempt to argue that having the same (male) parent for repeated generations will not reduce fertility, increase probability of disease, make out-breeding harder to prevent, etc - as you require to support your arguments that bloodlines averaging the parents can be retained over time via procreation from the rootstock - is doomed to failure.
If you want to have lines of blooded animals in your game then feel free to say that the bloodline 'purifies the stock' or some such for your game, but in any RL based genetic approach you will find that it is far more easily to breed a strong line from wide stock than from a narrow pool and that once defects start popping up it is very hard to eradicate them without breeding out.
As noted, they were brought up as they are required to maintain the bloodline barring repeated parental-progeny matings. Without investiture, bloodline won't be inherited so it will fade rapidly, with the land's choice it may do so more swiftly than would otherwise be the case although that is less of an issue.
Not really, the first question applies equally to any living being and is a wider argument for sidhe in any event, the latter was a 2e game mechanic to encourage humans as special (along with level limits, different multi-class rules) etc which was dispensed with in latter versions of the game and never really explained in the first place.
I can't see this being an issue in a game debate, 'generally only people can manifest bloodlines, animals/plants may be stronger/etc but don't seem to have bloodlines as such aside from awnsheghlien' seems a simple enough rule to be accepted by most players.
Even heroes fail, even empires fall - fate as the saying goes rules all - so some people succeed in their destiny and some do not. Those failures do not mean that those who failed weren't marked out for a chance at greatness and possibly given a helping hand - their less fortunate unblooded peers likely never even had the opportunity, or had to work twice as hard to get it.
From a metagame perspective, if bloodline guaranteed success then only the blooded could succeed and the the more strongly blooded would absolutely dominate which would make for a poorer game, so failure must be a possibility for gameplay - it is also a convenient way to avoid excessive book-keeping.
That bloodline has a strong but not dominant impact on success can be seen in the lack of unblooded rulers and the strength of the bloodlines of more powerful rulers - if there was no correlation between bloodline strength and destiny then other factors would be more dominant and we would see more rulers with very weak / absent bloodlines. What we can see at domain level will presumably extend at sub-domain level - why should it not?
Another question is do they fail? They certainly 'fail' in the sense that some families cease to be blooded, but does the actual bloodline itself - as distinct from the family it is passing down through - fail? If it is absorbed into a stronger line, passed via the Land's choice to someone unknown to the family, etc then the line itself may still survive - and if the family had proven itself unworthy by failing to attain greatness/etc why would it not move to/wait for a more worthy host?
I agree, although as noted in the predecessor thread serfdom and so on could approach similar issues.
I took social/spiritual issues as a given in any attempt to farm and harvest people so didn't bother repeating... That said I can see some social arguments that fighting another scion in battle and 'winning' their bloodline would be more socially acceptable than farming blooded sheep, particularly for the Anuireans and Vos.Last edited by AndrewTall; 08-29-2010 at 11:51 AM.
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