GURPS Aliens
- Thread starter Blue Ghost
- Start date
Peter Newman
SOC-12
I don't remember where it was defined in CT. I just took a quick look in my CT 'The Books' floppy and I didn't see the skill.
In MT the High-G-Environ skill is "experience in an environment of 2Gs or more." [MT PM p. 35]
I always figured that the Addaxur world was more like 1.4-1.5 G's, but that's just me. In CT they are specifically described as 'six legged'
not as six _limbed_. Therefore they:
1) Have six legs and additional arms
2) Have six legs, some [1] of which can serve double duty as arms.
3) Have some other way of manipulating the environment (cilia, mouth tentacles, little monkeys that live in symbiosis with them, whatever)
4) Have six limbs and no way of manipulating the environment (highly unlikely).
I picked 2) They have six legs, some of which can serve double duty as arms.
Therefore they are not bipedal or partially bipedal as the GT version is. IMTU their front two legs are strikers that they used to attack their prey (and each other during mating season). Gradually the paws developed into hands but the Addaxar still run on them.
[1] Some, not all, as there's no evolutionary reason for them all to work as hands, and that would make them too much like the Hiver, which was probably not the intention.
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GypsyComet
SOC-14 1K
I did Tienspevnekr back in the HIWG days, so any sector write-up running around the net is most likely mine (I think someone else did one at some point).
I established the ten world reserve and also planted other Addaxur worlds around the sector. They supposedly fit right in with the Zhodani, so they have an Alien Population code in Consulate space.
GC,
I pulled out my copy of AR:1 after getting all mixed up with the names. For whatever reason, GT named the species from Addaxur the Clotho and I'd forgot that.
What I had remembered was the "glyph" communication the GT Clotho/Addaxur use and my thoughts about how such communication would make interaction with other races difficult. (I've always been interested in "alien" aliens, so this communication hurdle was played to my preference.)
How did you present the Addaxur in your HIWG write-up?
Regards,
Bill
GypsyComet
SOC-14 1K
I toyed with various forms, but never settled on one that I liked. Given that they established enough technology to get off of a high-G world and establish colonies on 36 other worlds by STL, their forms are probably conducive to being strong tool users, which ruled out most of my high-G forms.
As for the Clotho nonsense, I recognized them as hijackers immediately. The Addaxur are the only place in the Zhodani book that uses an "x" linguistically, and have one of the rare uses of "u". I figure Zdetl picked up the "u" from the long-lost Chirpers and the societal rituals that came from that age, but the "x" has no explanation other than coming from the Addaxur. As such, a silent race is a misfit for that spot. The art for the Clotho also bears no resemblance to what I'd expect from high-G life.
The closest form I had to fitting all the parameters we are given was a sort of scaly centauroid gorilla.
Qstor2
SOC-13
There's a write up on the Zhodani base site.
http://zho.berka.com/data/CLASSIC/sector.pl?sector=TIENSPEV
Maybe its a good time to develop the race for Mongoose Traveller
Mike
GypsyComet
SOC-14 1K
That's mine. The stellar position codes give it away even if I didn't recognize the subsector names I gave it. Berka and I have bounced back and forth a bit, so the presence of the sector on his site is not a surprise, nor unwelcome. Its in the nature of the HIWG charter. I should probably dive back in and expand my library data for the sector.
And before you ask, I also did most of the naming for Zhdant sector, at Will Dover's request. You won't find any duplicated world names between the two, or the Consulate subsectors in Ziafrplians and Far Frontiers that I did. I think all the subsector names in Ziafrplians are mine as well, but I no longer remember (15+ years). That was some fun, too. Generating thousands of Zdetl words and screening out the tongue-twisters, then screening for duplicates...
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Well . . ., some of the names in the sector data for Zhodane are ones I generated with I did the UWPs, but I do remember we did shoot some letters back and forth about getting rid of the tongue-twisters. Several years later, when I took linguistics in grad school, I realized just how twisted those tables were.
GypsyComet
SOC-14 1K
Will! Long time, man. How yah doing?
As for the tongue-twisters, I tend to insert neutral vowel sounds where needed, but six of seven consonants deep gets to be a bit much. Stacked "ch" sounds got thrown out since I didn't want to sound like I was clearing my throat instead of stating a name. Generally if I couldn't wrap my larynx around it in two or three tries, it hit the reject bin.
The Zhodani word tables throw out some amusing one and two syllable words.
As for the tongue-twisters, I tend to insert neutral vowel sounds where needed, but six of seven consonants deep gets to be a bit much. Stacked "ch" sounds got thrown out since I didn't want to sound like I was clearing my throat instead of stating a name. Generally if I couldn't wrap my larynx around it in two or three tries, it hit the reject bin.
The Zhodani word tables throw out some amusing one and two syllable words.
I am doing all right. I had been working with the RPGA for a while, but am diversifying back into other systems. MGT has been an interesting read.
I would love for someone to come up with a better way of alien naming than the tables, though I have no idea how that would work.
I would love for someone to come up with a better way of alien naming than the tables, though I have no idea how that would work.
It's called "developing the needed Conlangs, and using real words"...
It's the habit/hobby that fueled Tolkein... and he didn't even play games with them.
Zedwardson
SOC-3
The Inheritors have a terrible name, but I could see them being a fun one off from GURPS Aliens 3 (the Hiver/Droyne book)
