Triton and Vertani as playable races

Kyrra

Sylvance said:

What about introducing half-breeds?

You already have sirens and satyrs. Can't get anymore half-breeded than that.

Jiraishin

Introducing half-breeds would raise questions as to why adventurers have never been half-breeds of anything before.

If a new race were to be introduced, I think the single thing I'd want most from it is that its homeland not be a bashing ground, or at the very least not a commonly used bashing ground. It's jarring, to me at least, when I have to think of the Tsol'aa village or Moghedu as simultaneously the ancestral homeland for race X and as a place commonly wiped out to fuel shrines. People like the GoM can RP defending that homeland, but the denizens are still going to die a lot, and it takes some of the magic away for me.

Minotaurs might be pretty cool, though I'm not sure what they could offer that's very different from current races.

Soulfyriani

More races would be cool, but I'd like to see more RP for races. As far as that goes the Nerai and Phaesteans have in my dealings made very in-depth RP story lines, which has a lot to do with divine interaction. Perhaps patroning a race could get the garden involved to breathe life back into the existing races/make being a particular race worth something.

Salindera

I definitely feel that more backstory would be really nice, even if it can't fix a lot of the problem. I've played a rajamala for years now, and it's kind of a pain that all we really know about them is that they're a race of aliens that Agatheis found that just happen to look like bipedal versions of Achaean cat species.

This is also what causes the situation where, perhaps even logically, the most shared rp around them is acting like housecats...

Faur

Soulfyriani said:

More races would be cool, but I'd like to see more RP for races. As far as that goes the Nerai and Phaesteans have in my dealings made very in-depth RP story lines, which has a lot to do with divine interaction. Perhaps patroning a race could get the garden involved to breathe life back into the existing races/make being a particular race worth something.

This. Of course, actually rewarding people who are ROLEPLAYING -AS THE RACE- might help, too.

Kyrton

Most fantasy races are take an animal and make it walk upright and smart, take a humanoid and make it taller or shorter, make it live in a different environment (underground or in an ice realm), make it thinner or stockier, etc.  I like the idea of inspiration from mythology and achaea seems to have been inspired by greek mythology a lot.  With that in mind I suggest minotaurs & centaurs (you already said tritons were out, but what about mermen/mermaids?).

From another point of view in terms of basic animal groups we have an invertibrate (horkval), bird (atavian), aphibian (grook), mammal (rajamala, satyr), and lizard (xoran), so perhaps a fish would be the next choice?

Personally I would like gnolls(hyena humanoid), a bear-man, or perhaps elemental humanoids (fire, air, earth, water).  I think the latter would fit in with city RP well and well as House RP or class RP (a magi who is attuned to fire, a blademaster attuned to water, etc)

Iocun

wtf an entire thread about new player races without a call for Topol.

This is sad.

Gog

@Kyrton: Centaurs won't work, as you'll effectively have a starting class with trans-riding.

@Sarapis: Honestly, the only way race is going to become meaningful is if it has no more bearing on combat. Achaea is sooo competitive that race is just another part of minmaxing the perfect combat character. I'd say do away completely with any difference between races regarding initial stats, leave in race specializations so people can still minmax (I'd say pair str/int and dex/con to what you gain and lose with specializing, that way it's still the same choice for everyone), give a full refund + one free reincarnation on the gems and raise the cost of the dagger. EDIT: You know what, better give everyone a free reincarnate who doesn't have one. Someone out there will complain about getting screwed and they probably won't be wrong either.

Also (warning: serious QQing incoming) get rid of sirens. They're not a "race" they're just pretty women. Turn all sirens into female humans, and allow female satyrs for consistency.

Nim

I say we get rid of humans and let there be boy sirens. Make everyone into a bishoujo/bishounen!

Shirszae

@Gog Alternatively , the lore for sirens could be enriched without screwing people who actually like the idea of a women-only race and see their potential as something more than just lolmudsex. 

Gog

@Shirszae: I don't see the point of a female only race. How do they reproduce? And really, what about a siren can't you RP as human. Literally the only difference is that they are so attractive that it's like a superpower. That's it. If you must have a female race, do nymphs, they'd fit in with the Greek theme and be way more fun to RP.  That being said, I don't like the idea of single-sex races at all.

Shirszae

Gog said:

@Shirszae: I don't see the point of a female only race. How do they reproduce? And really, what about a siren can't you RP as human. Literally the only difference is that they are so attractive that it's like a superpower. That's it. If you must have a female race, do nymphs, they'd fit in with the Greek theme and be way more fun to RP.  That being said, I don't like the idea of single-sex races at all.

Alas, we have sirens already. Perhaps you should just get familiar with the setting, and how all races at large reproduce in Achaea. To be honest, your post reads a bit like 'I don't like it, delete it,' which is a little bit conceited, to say the least. 

As for the question about RP, the answer is simple. Nothing, and everything. Is not that there are things that you can or can't do with one or the other (though I believe that is the case with a few things, to a point). The real matter is the 'taste' (the word I want escapes me at the moment) that each race can give to your chosen rp. Its the same thing with classes, really. They all are meant to kill, but the way you go about it will change or be affected in some way depending on whether you are one thing or the other.

Gog

@Shirszae: I realized that's exactly what it sounded like, that's why I prefaced it as "whining." I just don't think there is really anything about siren RP that a female human cannot RP, and no offense meant but your answer is a non-answer. I'll conceed the point on reproduction as it is irrelevant really, but I still don't see the point in a female only class.

Sena

HELP SIREN answers your reproduction question.

Also, I agree that sirens are basically human. So are dwarves, tsol'aa, and mhun. Sirens are actually the most non-human of the human races.

Nim

Actually, I think it says somewhere that sirens are beautiful, and can vary just as much as the concept of beauty itself. I think that isn't capitalized nearly as much as it could be (or maybe most players just have a pretty boring and limited concept of beauty), but beauty's a pretty strange subject when looked at objectively.

Nim's this little islander girl with green hair, and a few people have commented that she looks somewhat unique or weird. I think it's far weirder that so few sirens are even that exotic.

Man, just imagine what would happen if someone played a siren that matched @Synbios's alien definition of beauty, or (even worse) my own!

Gog

@Sena: Dwarves are dwarves, and tsol'aa are elves... I'm not even gonna argue about fantasy archetypes, they're not humans or related to them, there is a reason they are here and everywhere. Mhuns are an evolutionary offshoot of humanity, but the lore is there, the physical traits, even personality. All a siren has to RP off of is that they are seducers of men. I guess I just don't see the point, if there is one beyond that. I'm not saying I don't see their place in the setting, I just don't see any good reason why they're a playable race.

Iocun

Gog said:

@Sena: Dwarves are dwarves, and tsol'aa are elves...

The funny thing is: even elves (I assume we're talking about Tolkien elves) are pretty much humans, except that they grow older and have pointy ears. And it's exactly these distinguishing features that Tsol'aa do not share with elves :P

I agree though that sirens/satyrs need more of a backstory/culture.

Why don't they fit with the Greek theme as much as nymphs though? Both are derived from Greek mythology, after all.

Gog

@Iocun: Elves are generally precursors to humans, from a time when we lived in harmony with nature, and from the help file it looks like they're sticking to that story. A lot of fantasy worlds use this same basis for elves, the ears are just an easy visual identifier. My point wasn't about what you can do with the description of the race, more about the history and personality of the race. In fact, for the same reason, there could be sirens of any race, because the concept of beauty is more than just what standard humans think it is. That's another reason I don't think they should be an actual race. As for the Greek theme, never said they don't fit, in fact, they would fit perfectly... as denizens. Anyway, I'm under no delusion what I'm saying is even gonna be considered, just putting my opinion out there.

Iocun

I agree with the history and personality part, which is why more of a characterisation/culture should be made up for the still sparse races. Consider that many of the races originally had barely any backstory/culture and that it was only developed/made known later.

Xorans are the latest example of this. Before Prin and later the Bal'met story, they were a pretty "empty" race, yet now they are something really interesting. I can't see why something similar shouldn't be done about sirens and satyrs. (A few other races could use a bit more love too - rajamalas come to mind.)

Synbios

Nim said:

Man, just imagine what would happen if someone played a siren that matched @Synbios's alien definition of beauty, or (even worse) my own!

@Nim: I cannot define what I would consider my alien definition of beauty(well, not without turning your meaty brains inside out with my eldritch style of writing), so here's some tentacle hair to compensate:

Kyrton

Can we open a poll with the suggested races listed so far in alphabetical order so people could vote on which appeal to them most?

So far I have:

Arachnoi (spider people)

Elementals (fire, water, air, earth people)

Goblins/Orcs

Halflings

Imps

Kobolds (small reptilian people)

Kx'krah (genderless crystaline insectoids; fought the Horkval in the War of Humanity)

Lupines (wolf people)

Minotaurs

Murinae (rat people)

Ogres

Pixies

Sakuwat (yeti/abominable snowman type race)

Salamandrin (salamander people)

Scrula (used by Aegis to attack rajamala)

Sileg (mushroom people)

Topol (mole people)

Ursu (bear people)

Notes: Eliminated any D&D exclusive races (eg. Drow), eliminated any races Sarapis said no to (eg. Vertani, Tritons), eliminated any races that would start with an in game mechanical advantage (eg. Centaurs, Shokan), eliminated any races that would be inherently hostile to Sapience (Undead), eliminated joke answers (eg. Jedi, Wildcats), combined Goblins/Orcs because we're unlikely to get both, and eliminated any races whose descriptions were too vague (eg fae-like creature, gorrilla people possibly overlapping with Orcs who are described in Achaea's wiki as ape-like?).

I just did a quick history search for Scrula if others could provide a description that'd be great. I recommend everyone check out http://wiki.achaea.com/Category:Denizen_races so we can keep the suggestions coming

Gog

@Kyrton: I'd vote Salamandrin based off that list.

Nim

Synbios said:

Nim said:

Man, just imagine what would happen if someone played a siren that matched @Synbios's alien definition of beauty, or (even worse) my own!

@Nim: I cannot define what I would consider my alien definition of beauty(well, not without turning your meaty brains inside out with my eldritch style of writing), so here's some tentacle hair to compensate:

Would Have roleplayed.

Synbios

Nim said:

Would Have roleplayed.

Klendathu

Do we really need any more races when there's next to zero racial RP and it's just a mechanism for chosing a racial trait or stats?

Before I went dormant, the Children of the Scale xorani clan was quite active, building a back story for the race. That seems to have died off in the intervening 7 or so years. Perhaps before asking for a new race, the existing races backstories should be fleshed out some more?

Jurixe

Well, that might be because the Xoran already have an entire new backstory for their race, which culminated into the biggest ever event run in Achaea that killed off a dozen or more gods. Look up the events of Bal'met!

I'm not overly enthused by any of the proposed races thus far and agree that the time would be better spent helping to establish a greater depth of roleplay for the existing races. There is so much that can be done, really, and current efforts only really scratch the surface.

Jovolo

Wtb scrula race!

Valaria

wtb angel race.   i remember vividly  that sarapis deny me this long time ago. heh.

Razha

Sarapis said:

First, we need to keep in mind (or at least I do) that race isn't a huge part of RP for everyone because it's so fluid. In retrospect, I would have liked to have made stronger racial identities as core part of Achaea at the beginning, but that ship has sailed. In order to 'fix' it, we'd have to remove all gems/daggers of reincarnation, and the race you start with is the race you are permanently with, past maybe level 30 at least. Dunno how much people would like that in the end, but without it, race is never going to be all that important imo. I think there are also issues with adding another core 'identity', since we already have class, city, House, etc.

Triton, can't see it happening - they don't play well with others as an RP point and their culture is well-enough developed that I don't think we'd want to dilute that by making them a player race. Granted, only Neraeos (whose role is now dormant) really knew the ins and outs of Triton culture well as he developed it.

Vertani - There's a bit of an RP problem here because they're giants. All the other races are intentionally kind of the same size (so that clothes/armor make some kind of sense, though I'll certainly grant that it makes little sense for a Satyr to wear the same boots as a footed race, for instance). Curious what other peoples' opinions of this issue is.

I do like the idea of new races and it's something we've talked about. Will likely happen at some point. 

@Sarapis It's been a while since you posted this, but I think it honestly is pretty simple to fix races so that they can go back to being RP oriented instead of metagame oriented. I'd say make all races start with average stats, 12/12/12/12, with 4 specialisations like they are now: +2/-1 str/int, +2/-1 int/str, +2/-1 dex/con, +2/-1 con/dex. Refund the gems, drop pages, and give all existing characters one free final reincarnation (unless they already have one.) You could maybe even leave the pages in, because people would only be race switching really for RP reasons. This has the benefit of making RPers happy and balancing the metagame, so to me, it seems like the perfect solution, but maybe I'm missing something?

Harmonia

Sirens reproduce by Parthenogenesis.