Item and Creature Creation III: Fun and Games With Exceptions
I’m slowly feeling my way towards what I want to do with item and creature creation, and as such, I spent a little time today reviewing the ADRPG and Shadow Knight.
(As an aside – I always forget, when I haven’t looked at it in a while, just how completely insane certain sections of that book are. Can we say “power creep”?)
There are some fascinating examples of non-standard powers and abilities in the NPC descriptions. Items and creatures aren’t the only offenders when it comes to that, of course, but I’m sticking with items and creatures for this post. I may look later at the powers.
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Shapeshifting Yourself Dead And Other Fun Tricks II
Can you breed the opposite way as a shapeshifter?
I’ve considered this before – even talked with other people about this before, and the expressions I get when I mention it are fascinating. The consensus, it seems, is that one should not be able to do – nay, should not be able to even conceive of doing – such a thing.
I have some theories as to why this is. The uncharitable chunk of it comes down to latent homophobia. The more charitable one is that it’s just too much work.
I mean, who has which bits? Does it matter? Could you get the deed done with an eyeball and a pseudopod? Who carries the child to term? Do both parties do so?
And then there’s the matter of the child. What shape does it come out – the natural form of one or both parents, or the forms they were in when they did the deed? An amorphous puddle of goo? Does the child have shapeshifting too? How fast does it mature?
More to the point, since we’re talking about swapping sexes before… well… swapping sex – what happens to the sexual characteristics and gender identity of the child?