Quote from: FrankTrollman;468023But having some genuine bullshit microstates in Europe lends credence to the future history. We know that there are going to be some bullshit microstates in Europe, because there has never been a time when there weren't. Some of that involves grabbing the Balkans and drawing names out of a hat filled with all the bullshit tiny microstates that have existed or been demanded in that area and throwing them down.

On the contrary, I'd take your game the other way and showcase a future that's the complete opposite of the past ten years on the Balkan. Suppose the lesson of Mostar's failed existence as a bipartite town snowballs into, not more segretation and partisanship, but a yearning back for a reunited Yugoslav nation. And now, to add insult to injury, take the wheel of time even further back, don't have a new Tito, but actually re-instate a Balkan Empire united with Austrian leadership.
Just last week the Austrian emperor's last direct descendent died. He's buried in Austria, but his heart - take this - is buried separately, in Hungary, honoring an ancient tradition. You could basically tap into all that Hapsburg mythology of the past, recreate a great Slav empire, with Austria and Hungary rolled into it for greater measure, and then reinstate the multi ethnic boiling pot (a la 1900s) into the near future. Players could tap into historic familiarity, and re-explore these themes in a new angle. The ensuing scenario would be totally whacky (there most definitely WON'T be another great Slav empire, let alone one reunited under Austrian rule), but tap into familiar things from the past. Plus, the whole thing is so ripe with internal conflict you don't need to import inter-national strife into central Europe.

PS. Take this entire post with a huge grain of salt. I'm an Austrian myself. ;p For what it's worth, Austrian govts. have been trying hard since 1995 to self-style our insignificant nation as the gateway for the new EU nations to the Southeast (and those to join the EU later on).

PPS. And take this for a glimpse into such a horrific future. (Serb contribution to the 2010 Eurovision song contest.)

That is certainly a possibility. Although if I were going to reunite the Balkans under an Empire, I think I'd roll back the clock even farther. Turks moving in through Bugaria and snaffling up Balkan countries in order to protect Albanians and Bosniaks from persecution. Or a resurgent Macedonia connecting the Aegean to the Ionian and Black seas.

I mean, Greece has spent the last fifty years making threats and demands on various regional countries to try to keep anyone from putting Mehmed or Alexander's empire back together. But honestly, who cares what Greece has to say about anything these days? Back at the beginning, the EU demanded that the Greeks and Turks accept a peace deal in Cyprus. The Greeks rejected it, and they were let in anyway. But the Turks were kept out of the EU because there was no peace deal. Taking the side of Greece over Turkey has not been a good choice economically.

-Frank

How is your book going?

I just copied your source material over and gave it a good read again. I love this stuff. I just read some of my 3e Shadowrun core book and it just doesn't stack up.

I'm running it with my home brew system, which is perfect for this kind of thing in my opinion. I guess we will be starting this in a month or two.

I'll definitely buy a copy when you are done.

Thanks for the vote of confidence.

Quote from: Cranewings;468311How is your book going?

Well, I just did a first draft of the Demitypes writeup:

[size=30]Demihumanity[/size]

[size=24]The Asura[/size]

Jotun, centimani, naga, gorgon, deva, yokai: all words that mean “asura” in different regions. An asura is a demihuman with four arms. Their skin is usually either red or blue, but other colors happen in rare instances. Asura are the most common demitype in South Asia. In particularly isolated areas, they are sometimes worshiped as gods or hunted as monsters, but that sort of thing is rare in urban areas.

[size=16]Biology of the Asura[/size]

An asura is on average 1.7m tall and 80 kilograms. Asura have only seven ribs, but an enlarged sternum to fit their two clavicles. The hands on the lower limbs are mirrors of the hands on the upper limbs,  with the thumbs pointing downward when the palms face forward. Additional fingers and toes are common. Asura usually have at least 4 nipples, and it is not unusual for them to have 6 or even 8, with the additional nipples falling on the normal human nipple-line. Generally only the primary four nipples will have associated breasts. There is generally no underarm hair on an Asura, and they tend to have little in the way of arm or leg hair. The intestines of an Asura are shorter than those of a human and fit into a smaller area. Asura tend to eat more meat as they get less calories from vegetable matter than other demitypes.

Asura have a more thoroughly partitioned brain than other demitypes. An asura can “concentrate” on two different tasks at once, as their upper and lower appendages are controlled by different brain segments that have few connections. Every asura has dissociative identity disorder to one degree or another, with the different hemispheres of their brain maintaining distinct motion control as well as at least slightly different emotional states.

[size=16]Magic of the Asura[/size]

Asura have natural talents in the magic of evocation. This allows them to exert force at a distance, dilate time around themselves, speed up or slow down moving objects, and even change the weather. As an asura becomes more magical they grow extra parts. In extreme cases, this manifests as a third set of arms (either behind and between the first two sets, or situated below the lower pair). Asura can have what appear to be snakes grow out of their body, extra tiny heads growing out of their head, neck, or shoulders. Sometimes they gain other snakelike traits as well: fangs, a forked tongue, a snake tail. Other body parts can be duplicated, with a third eye or additional fingers or nipples being pretty common.

[size=24]The Deep Ones[/size]

Kappa, ningen, vodnik, taniwha, siren, dakuwaqa: these are names given to the deep ones. A deep one has gaps in their skin between their ribs through which they can breathe water. Deep ones have webbing running between their fingers and toes and often grow scales. Every deep one is fully amphibious, and capable of living in fresh water, salt water, or dry land. There are several undersea countries of deep ones that are state sponsors of terror, and deep ones are mistrusted in many parts of the surface world. Deep ones are most common in Polynesia and the East Coast of North America.

[size=16]Biology of the Deep Ones[/size]

Deep ones stand an average of 1.6m tall and weigh an average of 65 kilograms. They have webbed fingers and toes. The oxygen requirements of deep ones are very low, and they can get enough to live by exposing themselves to water through their intercostal gills. Their hypoxic metabolism leaves them needing to eat a high proportion of protein. Deep one urine smells like ammonia. The lower jaw of a deep one is oversized, giving them a pronounced underbite and very wide mouth. Deep one skin sometimes sprouts dermally derived scales.

Deep ones are possessed of an extra sense similar to the magnetic homing sense of migratory birds. This sense makes the deep one peripherally aware of distant looming presences in the oceans. These locations appear to be in R'lyeh, Y'ha-nthlei, Ker-Ys, and as-yet unrecognized locations in contested waters in the Northern Pacific and the Sea of Ronne. Deep ones feel that these areas are much closer to them than their actual physical distance would indicate, and often get the feeling that these looming presences are watching them or getting closer. A significant number of deep ones move to one of those locations, and generally cease all communication with the surface world upon doing so.

[size=16]Magic of the Deep Ones[/size]

Deep ones who develop their magical natures gain perception and space warping abilities through astral magic. Deep ones can see things through intervening objects and even spatially displace themselves short distances essentially instantly. The magical abilities of deep ones can unravel other magical effects. As deep ones become more magical, they also become more fish-like. Deep ones become greener and they become scaly and can gain dorsal and ventral fins. The mouth of a deep one becomes more pronounced and grouperish as they become more magical, and their eyes become flatter. Very magical deep ones have their eyelids turn transparent.

[size=24]The Dwarves[/size]

Gnome, menehune, caipora, smurf, korobokuru, gremlin: these are names that mean “dwarf”. Dwarves are short and strong, and well trusted as mechanics and doctors. But they are also feared and mistrusted as destructive saboteurs and con artists. It is well known that when a dwarf demonstrates a device functioning, it could easily do nothing at all when it has left their hands.

[size=16]Biology of the Dwarves[/size]

Dwarves average only 1.2m in height, but their heavy builds lead to them averaging 45 kilograms. The hypothetical average dwarf would be very hairy, but that is because about one dwarf in four produces an incredible amount of androgens and grows a large beard (regardless of sex), the remaining dwarves have the same hair density as a human. Dwarves are disproportionately strong and can generally lift more than a comparably fit human.

Dwarves have a difficult time adjusting their expectations to conform to the reality that materials behave differently in their immediate presence than they do the rest of the time. This is considered the concept of “object transience” and is an intensely counterintuitive concept for dwarves – especially those who were born as dwarves. The natural assumption of dwarves is that things continue to exist and to behave as they do in their presence when they are not directly observing them, which since this is not the case leads many dwarves to feel that they are being sabotaged by something they can't perceive.

[size=16]Magic of the Dwarves[/size]

As dwarves become more magical, they gain powers of thaumaturgy. This manifests as an implicit feeling of whether things around them are whole or damaged, as well as the ability to change those states from one to the other. Dwarven magic can corrode and destroy and it can repair and fortify. More magical dwarves sometimes gain discreet arcane traits in the bargain. These include having glowing eyes, having their feet reverse direction, or having their skin turn black or blue. Sometimes dwarves will acquire dermatographic urticaria or have their hair growth accelerate. A few dwarves also become even more proportionately strong.

[size=24]The Elves[/size]

Yaksha, sidhe, dryad, vanir, faery, apsaras: all words people use to refer to elves in different parts of the world. Elves vary wildly in height, but have the same average height as humans (just a flatter distribution). They have pointy ears, bug traits, and eat a lot of vegetables. Elves are frequently loners, and are almost as mistrusted as deep ones. Elves are the most common demitype in Central Asia and Western Europe.

[size=16]Biology of the Elves[/size]

Elves are generally gracile. Despite an average height the same as a normal human, elves average only 60 kilograms. Elves have pointed and elongated ears. Elvish eyes have multiple pupils that change in individual aperture rather than have a deformable lens. The intestines of an elf have several extra meters of large intestine, and their stomach produces small amounts of  cellulase, an enzyme that allows them to get limited sustenance by eating grass or sawdust.

Elves do not suffer from loneliness. While not strictly anti-social, an elf is not psychologically distraught in the absence of inter-personal relationships. Elves do still receive satisfaction from the esteem of their peers, feel sexual desires, and in other ways are incentivized to interact with other demihumans. They simply feel no anxiety when social stimuli are withdrawn.

[size=16]Magic of the Elves[/size]

Elves who become more magical acquire powers of illusion. They can turn themselves and other things invisible, they can project feelings and thoughts into people around them. They can create fanciful holograms. Some elves develop functional insectile wings, and elves who develop their magic can get antennae growing out of their scalp. Some elves shed glowing yellow dust.

[size=24]The Ogres[/size]

Yaoguai, giant, troll, oni, rakshasa, fomor: all words for “ogre” in the modern world. Ogres are the largest of the common demitypes. They are statistically more common in East Asia than other parts of the world. Ogres have sharp teeth and hair on less of their scalp and body than humans (though the hair they do have often grows quite long unless it is cut). Especially magical ogres grow spines or horns and some change color.

[size=16]Biology of the Ogres[/size]

Ogres are large, both in that they average 1.9 meters in height at age 25 (ogres continue to grow, albeit slowly, as they age), and in that they are more heavily built than other demihumans and average 140 kilograms. An ogre gains at least three sets of teeth during their lifetime, with the human “adult teeth” being replaced in an ogre's late thirties. An ogre's second set of teeth is 34, including two “tusks” that grow continuously throughout their lives. Unlike the other teeth, the tusks are not replaced when new teeth come in. Some ogres gain additional tusks with their 3rd set of teeth. Ogre biochemistry requires large amounts of dietary vitamin A, and deficiency is marked by pain and violent outbursts.

The proprioception of an ogre is incomplete. There are parts of every ogre that they do not identify as being part of their selves, having no internal feeling of where those parts are or what they are doing. Sometimes this will be a patch on the back or some other relatively inaccessible body region, but for other ogres it can include expressive portions like the hands or face. Ogres frequently make strange expressions that they are unaware of, and are prone to body dismorphism related to the persistent feeling that parts of their body do not belong.

[size=16]Magic of the Ogres[/size]

Those ogres who become more magically charged acquire abilities of enchantment. Many ogres can change into animals, clouds, or even other people. Ogres can also use their powers on others, transforming people into statues or birds. As ogres become more infused with magic, they experience a decrease in the amount of their body that hair grows on and a compensatory increase in hair growth in the places where hair remains. Sometimes an ogre will have one or more horns grow. Horns that grow from parts other than the head are called “spines”, but they are chemically the same as head horns. In especially high stress cases, an ogre's eyes may fuse into a single eye or their skin may change in color to red, black, or blue.

-----

That's about 1800 words. That's about 1% of the book right there.

-Frank

Are you planning on using the demihuman races because they are cool, or because you plan to use them for prejudice and civil rights style stories?

Quote from: Cranewings;468319Are you planning on using the demihuman races because they are cool, or because you plan to use them for prejudice and civil rights style stories?

Yes. The Demihumans tie in to the magic system (more on that in a bit) and also are going to tie into the plotline at several levels. R'lyeh Rising is a big part of what severs the internet into balkanized regions - R'leyhan terrorists seriously just up and cut the undersea information pipelines. And that means that the internet fragmented and people use magical sendings for long distance video conferencing because it's that or deal with satellite delay. And that means that since the internet was forced to become a serious of regional mesh networks with only archive access between being provided by slow sat feeds - that we have efficiently eliminated the stay-at-home Hacker as an archetype. The hacker comes in with the rest of the team, not only because he can make epilepsy-inducing holograms - but because there isn't a fiberoptic backbone to the world anymore and he has to come along if he wants to be in hacking range of devices.

So now you have everyone and their mother blaming deep ones for bringing about the end of Western Civilization, because they factually did that, and you have a noticeable number of deep ones running off to Devil's Reef to Ia Ftagn, and you have a recipe for ordinary people to be prejudiced against deep ones. So you get to tell all your stories about the Japanese American internment camps and extraordinary rendition of Canadians of Syrian Descent with the deep ones.

But also, because they tie into the magic system. Magic in Frank Trollman's Cyberpunk Fantasy Heartbreaker is defined into traditions and paradigms similarly to how Shadowrun 4 does things. However, there are substantial differences. This is not Shadowrun magic.

First, a bit of nomenclature: "Tradition" and "Paradigm" mean the same thing. If you have a pseudo-scientific path of magic, you have a "Paradigm". If you have a pseudo-aboriginal path of magic, you have a "Tradition". Either way, you'll have a "Path". Your "Path" determines rather more than simply what flavors of spirit you can summon (if you can summon spirits). It determines what skills are associated with what types of magic. That is, people in different paths do different things to get good at magic, and those different things they do are mechanically represented by having distinct skills that they use to use different kinds of magic.

Now you may ask, what are those five types of magic? They are:

• AstralDetection / Space Warping / Metamagic
  Clairvoyance / Dimension Door /Spirit Ward
  Deep Ones
  
  
• Enchantment Shapeshifting / Transformation
  Polymorph / Stone Skin / Alter Self
  Ogres
  
• Evoking Kinetic Forces / Time
  Telekinesis / Stasis / Earthquake
  Asura
  
  
• Illusion Images / Emotions / Veils
  Invisibility / Phantasm / Fear
  Elves
  
• Thaumaturgy Fixing / Destruction / Creation
  Heal / Disintegrate / Sterilize
  Dwarves

Ugh. No table function makes Frank a sad panda.

And yeah, each of the types gets an associated magic type. If you buy up all the available Deep One powers ad get a high Stress rating, you'll have a bunch of Astral magic at your fingertips. And you still have a path. So depending on what Tradition or Paradigm you are part of, your Deep One mutant abilities will have different skills that they run off of.

[size=16]Magical Targeting[/size]

Magic requires a link to affect something. A link can be achieved through sympathy (casting through a related object), or through touch, or through reaching out and touching them with your aura. That last one allows you to cast spells on things you can see, but it still only goes a limited distance. Having more Magic Stress makes you have a more powerful aura that can reach targets farther away.

Sympathetic targeting requires you to synchronize the two objects, which is time consuming if the objects aren't already in close proximity. And once the connection is established, they are like quantum entanglements, and you can "collapse" the link by casting a spell through it. This means, for example, that you can have a magical healer keep attuned blood samples on hand and then cast healing magic on them from far away if they get injured (and the healer knows about it).

A special shout out needs to go to Teleportation, because it is so problematic. Teleporation in Frank Trollman's Cyberpunk Fantasy Heartbreaker does not "target" the place where the teleported thing actually ends up. The effect is a short distance spatial displacement and the target is the thing actually being moved. So while you could set up a ritual link that would teleport some guy who was on Mars, you couldn't teleport him all the way to Earth, you could still just shift him a couple of meters.

A second special shoutout needs to go to Resurrection, because again it is super problematic.  Raise dead does not exist. But necromancy does. You can talk to ghosts and you can make zombies. But you can't use magic to actually raise the dead.

[size=16]Paths[/size]

The main thing that your Tradition or Paradigm gives you is skill-magic associations. It also gives you a summonable creature type that in turn gives you a list of powers that your spirits can select from when you summon them. And of course it also comes with primarily flavor concerns: different Traditions and Paradigms use different stuff for ritual use. So Northwestern Forge Magic looks like this:

Astral: Chemistry
Enchantment: Mechanic
Evoking: Demolitions
Illusion: Artisan
Thaumaturgy: Armorer
Summons: Spirit Constructs (Fire Aura, Stabilize, Strengthen)
Accouterments: Hammers, Metal Powders, Alchemical Metals[/list]

-Frank

Is 'Smurf' not trademarked?

Quote from: jadrax;468335Is 'Smurf' not trademarked?

Not as a pejorative. You can't have your people be actual Smurfs, but as an in-character reference you can just do it. Parody protection and all that.

-Frank

[size=24]A Schizophrenic World[/size]
"There has never been a stable time. Periods of history without events of note are ones too chaotic to allow proper records to be kept for future generations."

The future portrayed in the 2075 Asymmetric Threat world is one in which technology has advanced considerably, especially in the realm of information technology. Advances in flight, energy production, and human ecology have been substantial and there are now cities under the seas, on the Moon, and even Mars. And yet for all of these demonstrable advances, progress is nothing like uniform. Several major calamities have occurred, and many things we take for granted today are practically fantasy in the world of 2075. While the people of the world have access to things that are beyond our current reach, many things people do in 2075 appear quite backward to us today.

The Network of 2075 is not a world wide web in any meaningful sense. The major arteries of digital traffic we use today are fiber optic cables that run under ground and under water between cities. Those have almost all been cut by 2075, meaning that the essentially instant communication of high volumes of digital traffic that we rely upon today are a thing of the past. If 2070s teenagers want to download pornography, they have to find a local server hosting it or wait for the request to be sent up to a satellite, have the request forwarded to a different satellite (often through several intermediaries in orbit), have the request sent back down to Earth, and then have the data sent back through the same path the other way. There are serious time delays there, and performing real-time hacking through such a connection is essentially impossible. Depending on where you are, the servers on the Moon might be easier to access than other servers that are on Earth.

But just because every city is a data island doesn't mean that The Network doesn't exist or that it isn't useful. WiFi techniques have continued to advance, and WiFi access is pretty much everywhere and used by pretty much everything. Further, the chances of you being able to find things you want on The Network in your area are pretty good, because copies of information get made and re-archived on servers all over the world all the time. Whenever satellites have spare bandwidth, they use it to copy, update, and recopy data from servers in one area of the world to servers elsewhere. It makes the system a lot faster than you'd think, but also makes the system vulnerable to being fooled with fake information updates for short periods of time.

Unfortunately, that's just hit the stumbling block I have with Shadowrun currently.

I just don't know any players that have enough suspension of disbelief to accept the internet will be massively downgraded in the future over what we have now (currently I have got around it by setting my far future game in 1995, but I digress).

Although to be honest, I am not even sure your internet write up makes sense. It seems to be based on the idea that we lost fibre and are forced to rely on satellite uplinks? By 2070, I would expect that to be much faster than current fibre anyway. Indeed, the fact that everyone should have an uplink means the internet should be more diverse, spread over far more servers and be far less likely to form 'data islands'.

I'd have gone with more Sidhe/Fey elves. These aren't and never were human, but magical beings who LOOK vaguely human. They run the gamut of descriptions because of their magic--glamour, which is not illusion, nor reality control, but a little of both. Just enough to make seemings.

Quote from: jadrax;468524Unfortunately, that's just hit the stumbling block I have with Shadowrun currently.

I just don't know any players that have enough suspension of disbelief to accept the internet will be massively downgraded in the future over what we have now (currently I have got around it by setting my far future game in 1995, but I digress).

Although to be honest, I am not even sure your internet write up makes sense. It seems to be based on the idea that we lost fibre and are forced to rely on satellite uplinks? By 2070, I would expect that to be much faster than current fibre anyway. Indeed, the fact that everyone should have an uplink means the internet should be more diverse, spread over far more servers and be far less likely to form 'data islands'.

The internet as we know it requires physical undersea cables that carry all our traffic. In Frank Trollman's Cyberpunk Fantasy Heartbreaker, the seas are full of hostile Dagon nations that literally cut those cables. As for satellites, there is nothing whatever you can do about the latency issue, in which light itself requires an extra quarter second to travel to the satellite and back (and of course, you're actually going to need data packets to be sent from satellite to satellite, and those are individually farther away from each other than any two things on Earth are capable of being).

It doesn't matter how good your computers get, it doesn't matter how good your signal broadcasting or error correction get, you are never going to be able to play Call of Duty 2075 acceptably over a satellite hookup. That is physically impossible. Even internet via satellite today operates by sending a signal up to satellite and then right back down to a connection to the fiberoptic backbone under its footprint. Without that fiberoptic backbone being physically present, even the satellite delay we see today is a pipe dream regardless of advances in any scientific field. The farthest any two things can be from each other on Earth is 20,037 km. The closest it is possible to be to a Geostationary Satellite is 35,786 km. Since we are already transmitting information at the speed of light, and you can't transmit any faster (without sorcery or limited and expensive quantum entanglement communicators), the international connectivity will be worse in 2075 if the undersea cables get cut.

Quote from: SilverlionI'd have gone with more Sidhe/Fey elves. These aren't and never were human, but magical beings who LOOK vaguely human. They run the gamut of descriptions because of their magic--glamour, which is not illusion, nor reality control, but a little of both. Just enough to make seemings.

That would have been a way to go. I went more Faery and less Sidhe for several reasons. The first is because actually transforming things into other things is what Ogres do. Since they are based on the Chinese Yaoguai (think "Ogre Magi" from AD&D), shapeshifting is really their shtick. The second is because Sidhe and Vanir look like "humans, but prettier", which is boring and undescriptive in a world that has outpatient cosmetic surgery. Tinkerbell has a look that you can describe to people without using value judgments, while the residents of Tir na nOg basically don't.

So we get fae glamour being Illusion and Elves themselves having elegant bug parts. Because otherwise they'd be too similar to already existing demitypes (Ogres and Humans).

-Frank

Frank, I have an idea. Feel free to shoot holes in it.

Periodically they have to move our satellites because of debris. What if after a major war, two major powers shot down the lions share of each other's (and everyone else's) satellites. Now everyone is broke and all of them are down.

You want to launch more, but the cost and difficulty is through the roof because LEO is filled to the brim with high velocity scrap. Everywhere you look is satellite and missile debris. Hell, a few countries might even still have a grudge and a working laser they can paint all over your new space gear for fear its going to drop a rod on them or look inside their arcology.

Quote from: Cranewings;468539Frank, I have an idea. Feel free to shoot holes in it.

Periodically they have to move our satellites because of debris. What if after a major war, two major powers shot down the lions share of each other's (and everyone else's) satellites. Now everyone is broke and all of them are down.

You want to launch more, but the cost and difficulty is through the roof because LEO is filled to the brim with high velocity scrap. Everywhere you look is satellite and missile debris. Hell, a few countries might even still have a grudge and a working laser they can paint all over your new space gear for fear its going to drop a rod on them or look inside their arcology.

That is a good idea to a point. One issue is that I want people to be able to do things with Anteros on Mars. So while having a "scrap belt" around Earth and even people taking down satellites that belong to rival corporations on a regular basis, the space stations and such should still be accessible.

-Frank

Quote from: FrankTrollman;468537That would have been a way to go. I went more Faery and less Sidhe for several reasons. The first is because actually transforming things into other things is what Ogres do. Since they are based on the Chinese Yaoguai (think "Ogre Magi" from AD&D), shapeshifting is really their shtick. The second is because Sidhe and Vanir look like "humans, but prettier", which is boring and undescriptive in a world that has outpatient cosmetic surgery. Tinkerbell has a look that you can describe to people without using value judgments, while the residents of Tir na nOg basically don't.

So we get fae glamour being Illusion and Elves themselves having elegant bug parts. Because otherwise they'd be too similar to already existing demitypes (Ogres and Humans).

-Frank

I was thinking the whole point--size, shape, form, wings whatever is all aspects of faery glamour on themselves. They may not even be really pretty, just that glamour holds even in death when its something they've activated on their own body. But I meant entirely less mortal/living biology and more weird supernatural in their entirety. They may very well be the equivalent to an elemental--only one made of magic, or simply a demon analog, only with no Infernal relations. Just supernatural beyond physical mundane form. Otherwise it feels like your re-skinning Shadowrun elves.