[Xanth]

Russ and I are working quietly on the rewrite of the levels, but we have a few questions (or, rather, I have a suggestion I'd like feedback on) for you. It doesn't matter if your character is Therian, if you'll ever have a Therian, or whatever. I just want to know what the members think, because it's easy enough for me to come up with stuff and not so easy for us to implement it. So, here goes.

As it stands, Therians are split into two groups - animal-based and human-based - but there's very little difference between them. I'm wanting to expand on those differences, but my ideas could change the species quite a bit. They'd keep their history, but their culture would be more involved... Now, as they currently don't really have much of a culture (something else we're trying to work on), I don't think the changes to current characters would be drastic, but that's partially what we're here for.

Anyway. Here's what I want to do:

• ANIMAL-BASED
  
  • Born and mature as whatever animal their base form is, have a similar life-span to their base form. Live and think as their base form does but with extra human intelligence (eg. tend to live in rural areas. Family unit depends on base form (a wolf would be part of a pack, for instance, while a tiger would live alone).
    
  • Have the ability to take human form but only one (their base) animal form.
    
  • Have more control over their forms than human-based Therians do (eg. probably would be able to partial shift earlier than human-based).
    
  • Have animal senses and instincts even in human form.
    
  • Communicate (understand, at least. Talking back would be more difficult depending on the animal) with animals of their base form even in human form.
    
  • Revert to base animal form while injured, tired, asleep, hungry (like, really hungry, not just peckish) or sick. Also would usually fight in their animal form.
    
  • Has some resistance to mental influences (like mind control) and possibly some immunity to illnesses and poisons.
  
  
• HUMAN-BASED
  
  • Born and mature as humans do, have a similar life-span to humans. Live and think as humans do (eg. tend to live in urban areas, alone or in family units).
    
  • Have the ability to take multiple* animal forms but ultimately have less control than Therians currently do (eg, can take form for shorter periods). ((I'm thinking there will actually only be one "level" of control, actually, so they're not too much stronger than animal-based, and that the upgrades come in the form of new/better types of form.))
    
    * There are two options with this.
    
    • Set forms like now, where the Therian chooses a form permanently (eg. at level 2 might choose Sparrow, at level 4 might choose Hawk, and those are the only options they ever get).
      
    • We only determine the type of form (eg. small domestic for level 2s, medium predator for level 8s, etc) that can be used, so the Therian has the option of any form that suits the need.
    Will probably be restricting these by genus so they're not too much more powerful than animal-based, so you couldn't be a bird and a wolf.
    
  • Have animal senses (eg. exceptional hearing) while in that animal form, but not in human/other form.
    
  • Communicate with animals while in that form.
    
  • Revert to human form when injured, tired, asleep, hungry or sick. Would usually fight in their human form, especially at lower levels.

I'm aware of the lack of balance between them, so I'm also interested in suggestions for power boosts for the animal-based Therians.

But, at the same time, it has to be said I'm quite liking the idea of not all things being balanced (it's always seemed kind of fake that we've tried so hard to make sure each of the species has equal power, so we're putting less focus on that and more focus on the powers feeling right for that species/class), so that's not too important.

Would you be more or less inclined to play a Therian if we did run with this, and which would you pick? What's your reasoning? Do they seem like they'd be hard to play, or harder than Therians currently are?

Thanks for the input, everybody.

[Eivyonydd]

Basically I don't think any of this has any bearing on whether they would be hard to play. Obviously an animal based Therian would be harder to play than human based one, because nobody actually thinks like an animal so working out how to play that would be a challenge.

Questions to consider;
~ Are animal based Therians less intelligent than human based?
~ Why are there 2 forms and how do they come about?
~ If you want to have 2 forms why not make them separate species with even more different traits.

To me those last two seem important. You are essentially encompassing most animals and humans in one species which makes them really odd. It makes sense to have humanoid based creatures that can learn to shift forms to other animals. It makes less sense to have many different animal based Therians that can turn into human. Even if you turn into a wolf and mate with a wolf you would not produce offspring. If the DNA of a Therian is compatible with the other races of Elysia which it is, then it is not compatible with an animal. It wouldn't change when they change.

That said I don't have a problem with the animal based shifter. I just wonder if maybe they are a different thing altogether. Even a Therian who spent most of his life as an animal is still humanoid by nature.

Also I personally think that the shifting should be the easiest thing in the world. Shifters shift, that is what they do. You should really break it down by Shifters who can have multiple forms (immediately) and those that only ever have one form. The multiples can't do partial shifts, the singles can. All other abilities like enhanced senses, shifter combat, animal empathy, trailblazing to suggest a few, should be the stuff that they develop as they get older.

But those a my 2cent suggestions.

As for your descriptions of what they could and couldn't do. Essentially I think you just need to firmly describe what they can do at each level so that people have an understanding of it. What you describe isn't hard to incorporate as long as you know whether you are allowed to at your current level.

[Xanth]

I'm considering everything you've said Jarratt, but wanted to quickly respond to the bit about "Even if you turn into a wolf and mate with a wolf you would not produce offspring. If the DNA of a Therian is compatible with the other races of Elysia which it is, then it is not compatible with an animal". Therians were created when a wolf was bitten by a vampire, so they started out as animals that evolved but are compatible with the other species because of the vampire DNA. The idea was that they split somewhere along the line, the animal and human-vampire DNA mixing with the human DNA being dominant in human-based Therians and the animal DNA being dominant in animal-based Therians. The BloodLust virus is what triggered their evolution and gave them their shapeshifting abilities, so I think it stands to reason that's why they're compatible across species.

For that reason, I think animal-Therians would be compatible with plain animals. We've actually got a Therian character (Kaida) who was the product of a Therian/bear relationship, and that's partly what I meant by animal-based living as animals rather than humans. I think there'd be varying degrees of "intelligence" among the animal-based, so some might find mating with animals beneath them while others wouldn't necessarily even be aware of the differences.

Hmm. Maybe it's worth taking a look at Therians from scratch, although I'm reluctant to make too drastic a change without input from the Therian players themselves.

[Eivyonydd]

Yes but a wolf isn't compatible with a bird or a cat. If a Therian can mate with anything, then it might not be in the usual way. i.e. A Male Therian cannot produce offspring with another species, however a female Therian can. Only the female Therian can bear children. And the result of mixed breeding will *always* produce a Therian, never a half breed.

I mean that is just how I would look at it. It makes female Therian's the more dominant part of the species, which is interesting, but also means they are less expendible because males can't carry on the species without them.

Basically just because a virus evolved a wolf into a new species doesn't mean that species is still a wolf.

And I still think a Therian is a Therian, not an animal or a human with the same abilities. In story they might live mostly as animal but their basic form is the Therian form (whatever that is and it might not be human). I also think that choosing to live mostly as an animal would have consequences on one's intelligence. I mean most stories of things that can shift form or consciousness into another body have the fear that the person will lose themselves in that form without the capacity to change back. I think this is a good flaw to explore a variation on.

Anyway, like you said I'm not a Therian player, so their input is more useful than mine.

[Lani]

Quote

ANIMAL-BASED

Born and mature as whatever animal their base form is, have a similar life-span to their base form. Live and think as their base form does but with extra human intelligence (eg. tend to live in rural areas. Family unit depends on base form (a wolf would be part of a pack, for instance, while a tiger would live alone).
Have the ability to take human form but only one (their base) animal form.
Have more control over their forms than human-based Therians do (eg. probably would be able to partial shift earlier than human-based).
Have animal senses and instincts even in human form.
Communicate (understand, at least. Talking back would be more difficult depending on the animal) with animals of their base form even in human form.
Revert to base animal form while injured, tired, asleep, hungry (like, really hungry, not just peckish) or sick. Also would usually fight in their animal form.
Has some resistance to mental influences (like mind control) and possibly some immunity to illnesses and poisons.
HUMAN-BASED

Born and mature as humans do, have a similar life-span to humans. Live and think as humans do (eg. tend to live in urban areas, alone or in family units).
Have the ability to take multiple* animal forms but ultimately have less control than Therians currently do (eg, can take form for shorter periods). ((I'm thinking there will actually only be one "level" of control, actually, so they're not too much stronger than animal-based, and that the upgrades come in the form of new/better types of form.))

* There are two options with this.

Set forms like now, where the Therian chooses a form permanently (eg. at level 2 might choose Sparrow, at level 4 might choose Hawk, and those are the only options they ever get).
We only determine the type of form (eg. small domestic for level 2s, medium predator for level 8s, etc) that can be used, so the Therian has the option of any form that suits the need.
Will probably be restricting these by genus so they're not too much more powerful than animal-based, so you couldn't be a bird and a wolf.
Have animal senses (eg. exceptional hearing) while in that animal form, but not in human/other form.
Communicate with animals while in that form.
Revert to human form when injured, tired, asleep, hungry or sick. Would usually fight in their human form, especially at lower levels.

Theres alot of little things I'd like to focus on in here that I noticed (Please dont take it like I'm being mean, sorry if it comes off like that)

Quote

Communicate (understand, at least. Talking back would be more difficult depending on the animal) with animals of their base form even in human form.

Animal based therians technicly speaking become the animal when in that form, so as an animal they would be able to speak it. However, in many roleplays, therians that are in animal form (Such as Usagi, Kaida) have understood human language while in animal form, so it makes sense that the reverse would happen. Therians would potentially (animal based or human based) be able to understand there genus's words, but as the human mouth cannot pronouce it, be unable to reply in a way that would make a normal animal understand.

Quote

Has some resistance to mental influences (like mind control) and possibly some immunity to illnesses and poisons.

I'm not understanding where this immunity would come from? Perhaps as an animal has a better digestive sistem and is used to more they would recover faster, however since when injured/unconsious they shift back, the poision would affect them more since on average they would be smaller than there human forms. And as animals have simpler minds wouldnt it make them more susseptable?

Quote

Have animal senses and instincts even in human form.

I believe that if we're going for the sense of realism in Elysia (Like the logical explaination for bloodlust) then it would make sense to say that sense insticts are well...instictual, they would stick with the shifter, as being a shifter would be a big part of there life (changing body parts tends to do that) and the instincts would be engrained, however not as much, the instincts of whichever form they're in mostly dominating. (Ex. As a Avian shifter, you would stay away from cats in bird form and be frightened of them, but in human form you'd only have a dislike for all cats although you wouldnt be sure why.)

Quote

have a similar life-span to their base form

this would make for short lifespans I believe and the therians would be too innocent about culture because they would only live on at average of 5-14 years. It wouldnt be fun and I'd get rather depressed ><

Quote

Have animal senses (eg. exceptional hearing) while in that animal form, but not in human/other form.

I'm not sure why they wouldnt retain some of the skills, as they would retain some of the instincts as well.

But your right, we need to bump up the Animal-based ones. Perhaps fairly easy shifting that happens at an earlier age to give them more skill with shifting? But I do agree with Jarratt, it doesnt make sense that from a young level, Vampires suck blood, Dracovari learn powers, Anyeli fly but Shifters have such a difficult time with powers. The female thing makes sense too, but perhaps the reason theres a small community of shifters and not a huge one would be that the infertility rate is higher among shifters?

[Eivyonydd]

So not sure if this is useful or not but I was thinking about what the different species have as basic innate abilities. This is a rough idea of my thoughts that you might find useful as a base to expand upon.

Therian
Species Traits
~ Can change forms between animal and human
I would expand on this to have a subset that can change to many forms and one that can only change to one form but may partial shift.
~ Possible Flaw - limited intelligence

Vampire
Species Traits
~ Never age, essentially immortal
~ Flaw - crave blood and need to drink it to survive

Anyelos
Species Traits
~ Can fly
~ Not sure what flaw they would have.

Nymph
Species Traits
~ Don't appear to have a baseline ability at present, but they seem the most human at present. I guess hyper attractive is a possibility
~ Flaw - Allure, members of the opposite sex are magnetically drawn to Nymphs. Some might see this as a boon, but without control this can be harmful to those around them (no wonder most Nymphs are solitary right?)

As for the other two I'm not so sure yet. I guess I was mostly putting this here to help you think about the Therians and ways you could present them.

[Xanth]

Not to ignore what's been said (thank you both ), but I'm beginning to believe more and more that Therians need a major rethink. They and their background has evolved so much...

Another option, and I'm kind of leaning more towards this one myself, would be to remove the base distinctions altogether. We could lean either animal-based or human-based as our only route. Personally, I think going with the human-based option would make Therians easier to RP, especially at lower levels where animal-based currently might struggle to interact with humans.

• Born and mature as humans do, have a similar life-span to humans. Live and think as humans do (eg. tend to live in urban areas, alone or in family units).
  
• Have the ability to take multiple animal forms. (Will probably only determine the type of form available, but I'm not set on that yet. Gain a form per level up to 5.)
  
• Morphing control/discipline might also be levelled (including ability to partial 'shift) so you could choose more forms or better control. (This will probably include length of time they can stay in animal form, what kind of damage they can take before they revert, and other stuff on a similar vein.)
  
• Have animal senses (eg. exceptional hearing) while in that animal form. (Won't be giving senses in human form; that's what the partial 'shift is for.)
  
• Communicate with animals while in that form (probably same as above).
  
• Revert to human form when injured, tired, asleep, hungry or sick. Would probably fight in their human form, especially at lower levels.
  
• Maybe has some (minor) resistance to mental influences and possibly some immunity to illnesses and poisons (idea with this being that animals think differently so would be less familiar to telepaths than a humanoid mind, and that the mix of human/animal would make them resist illnesses and poisons that don't normally cross the species barrier (like, the human part resisting an animal illness where the animal part resists a human illness... Not set on this one.))

I think, this way, Therians get the best of both worlds without being overpowered. They have room to grow but aren't cut off from human interaction like animal-based currently are.

Lani mentioned that Therians don't get great powers available at lower levels, so I figured I'd mention, that is one of the things we're trying to fix in the rewrite, since a couple of the species get a raw deal when they're starting out.

And to answer Jarratt's post - yeah, all of the species have weaknesses. For Therians, it's the "constantly eating" since they have a high metabolism, and for Anyeli it's water (although that's always just been assumed rather than actually written down anywhere >_>). Nymphs also have the whole urbanitis thing.

[Eivyonydd]

I'd forgotten about the Urbanitis thing for Nymphs. But FWIW constantly eating is not a flaw. It is a character trait. It doesn't prevent or restrict anything.

[Zephyr]

I think what she meant was that if they don't constantly eat, they burn through their energy super quickly. No energy = no anything.

[Eivyonydd]

I mean that could be a really good flaw in a more numbers orientated rpg, and certainly in a computer rpg, but it seems a little hard to enforce in a forum. I think it is worth exploring though to try and figure a way of making it work.

Of course perhaps the flaws are best used as guides for the problems these species face. I like to play up the urban aspect of Nymphs, and even feel that for Vyon the lack of control over the Allure that he has is not good. But others might be interested in other things.

[Xanth]

You could say the same thing about Vampire bloodlust if you look at it from that perspective, though.

[Eivyonydd]

Well yes and no.

Firstly Vampire bloodlust creates a social stygma that exists in the world. Some people are accepting of vampires, others aren't, but the character still has to deal with those consequences. Even if they don't exist between players they are likely to exist with NPCs, so essentially Vampires have a negative social status with regards to NPCs.

Secondly the act of drinking blood is another mental hurdle a vampire has to overcome. They need to drink blood like we need to eat food, except for young vampires I guess seeing blood gives them cravings which isn't totally true with us and food (well not all the time). Spilt blood could in theory send them to frenzy, but more likely than not the character will have to be played as resisting urges. How many times can you rsist exactly? Resistance obviously gets better as they grow older or something.

Energy burn isn't exactly the same. The mostly obvious flaw in it is that they will burn energy fast when physically active. This means they will likely be lethargic when they don't need to act, lying around, sleeping longer, conserving energy. When they do act the use energy quickly. In most situations they can probably compensate by eating, or by storing lots of energy first. Therian needs to run from one location to another they eat lots and then run because the distance is great. But in a fight is where the real concern would come, a long fight will take it's toll on a Therian. Seriously they would be all fast and hard hitting but that would quickly wear off. I don't think too many people are going to be aware of this to play it.

I'm not sure it is a very good flaw for the universal nature of the species either. Perhaps they burn less energy in animal form, more in human form and the most in a partially shifted form. It would make more sense then because birds fly for ages, but a shifter would be up and down in a instant.

Anyway I'm not sure any of this is helpful. ^^;

[Lani]

I think the needing of more food would happen in secondary form, not primary.

[Xanth]

This is all good stuff, though putting it into play is going to be tough. It should be said, as well, that 'accidental morphing' is meant to also be a flaw, so it's not like they have just the one. And for Anyeli it's the civil war, which isn't so much a flaw on a personal level but is still something major that Anyeli are forced to deal with.

Anyway, I'd still like to know what the general consensus is on me removing one of the Therian types (most likely the animal-based option). I think I need to send an email out to all Therians trying to get some opinions on this since it will probably be a fairly major change, especially to the animal-based shifters that we have. Although, as I've said before, we'll be allowing reapplication of established characters to account for changes where necessary.

[Lani]

I think the chance of an animal-based therian ever finding out what they are (and being able to comprehend that due to the simpler animal brain structure) that it would make sense to only have human-based, unless there is a special circumstance.

[Aiden]

There. were. no. free. cookies. .

I agree that it would be simpler to only have human-based Therians.

I've got another idea though to throw into the mix. Suppose all Therians are born human-looking, and then branch out into animal-based or human-based (like gray-feathered Anyeli choosing either white wings or black wings). In a previous post, Jarratt said something about shifting being the easiest thing in the world. Maybe that could be true in the first few days when a young shifter gets his powers, but after the month he'd become more animal or human based depending on which form he decides to take more often. Sooner or later it would become easier to stay animal and more difficult to turn human, or vice versa.

There wouldn't be an issue of animal-based Therians being less intelligent than human-based ones because they began at the same level.

...or was that how shifters worked since the beginning of EF? Sorry I'm an addle-brain! :X

[Lani]

I dont think the difficulty to shift makes sense, shifting should be like breathing, right? Shifters shift. But this kind of seems like the more they level, the less power they have. I dont get that ><

(I think we're all a little addle-brained )

[Lani]

Hrrm. I've read the idea before and liked it, but I dont know if it would make sense based on the rest of the RP. That happens in Twilight too (shiver) and a few book series that are pretty popular, but in EF it tends to run on a system where the more you post/level, the more skills you get, and for this to work, it would be something like:

Level 1-2: Very good shifting/effortless
Level 3-5: Dulled down, difficult to shift
Level 6-8: A little easier to shift
Level 9-10: Efforless shifting again.

We have very few therians already, and I think imposing more limits would make that species almost never choosen, with people insted deciding to go for high-payoff, low-level characters. For instance, for Lani, she'd be powerful, until around three posts from now. Being powerful doesnt fit in with her story, as she's always had an extraordinarily difficult time shifting. As for Aiden, he often appears as a human, almost as much as he does as a cat. This would limit rp in my mind. D:

Sorry if I'm coming off as rude ><

[Eivyonydd]

I still think shifting should be the natural thing and the other powers should be the things that are learned and gained.

Here is my idea spelled out by level.

Youngling - change freely from form to form as a playful game but change time isn't instant.
Training - Must choose a single form to learn. Possibly learn like a master/apprentice and not in a school so would choose the form of their master, or their masters preferred form.
Level 1-2 - Remains with that singular form whee change is effectively instant.
Level 3 - chooses either to be a multishifter or singular shifter. Multishifters can turn into other forms while singular shifters gain the partial shift ability.
Level 4+
- For multishifters it is all about the number of forms, the size of them, the time it takes to shift and the ability to shift from animal to animal without reverting to human.
- For singular shifters it is about the ability to partial shift, the speed of partial shifting, and the halfforms that can be made between.

Note: The halfforms of the the single shifters would be where werewolf legends could come from, even though Therian's clearly aren't werewolves.

Note: Only in very special cases can a Therian learn a legendary form as it requires both the use of partial shifting and multishifting (i.e. a griffin is lion/eagle). Those special cases usually are never given to player characters.

Note: In this situation an animal based shifter is really just a single shifter that can turn between 1 animal and human. It is up to the player to limit their intelligence and act more instinctual like an animal.

And again the other abilities the Therians could gain includes Heightened Senses, Tracking for Scouts, Combat for Warriors, and the ability to store more energy as they get better at it. For the most part I think the single shifters would make better warriors and the multishifters better scouts but it does depend on the animal(s).