Seriously, all I can see shirren doing is causing problems because "You're not my host! Don't tell me what to do!" Though I suppose the "gets along with everyone and puts the group first" is a have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too way around that.Just don't give them direct orders, and you'd be fine. Phrase everything as a choice between two superficially different options. The same as dealing with young children.
Nice. :)
Anyone have stat line guesses?
Here is mine:
Dex: +2
Char: +2
Wis: -2
All Round Vision
Low Light Vision
+2 to Perception
+1 Natural Armour
Telepathy
Scent
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If you give a Shirren one of those "Choose-Your-Own-Adventure" books, is that "pushing?"Turn to page 38 to find out.
...or don't.
:P
They are so....beautiful! :') This book is a must-buy for me now. Bug and plant races are the way to my heart.
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The problem is that the hive mind in question here is the main antagonist of the setting, the Swarm.
Speaking of which, I wonder if this could mean something about Starfinder's new Core 20 deities. We know that new, alien gods are supposed to be part of the remaining 13, and presumably each core race will have at least one of their own gods representing. I could see a Swarm Queen being an evil aligned god playing a Rovagug-esque "DESTROY EVERYTHING" role, maybe with a bit of Lolth-y personality flavor. Perhaps buggers who defect back to her worship are a good way to introduce a Shirren racial variant.
Either that, or Crawlin' Cailean. I want my lucky cricket god.
The Vesk being a thing also likely explains why Gorum mysteriously disappeared from the lineup, despite being what you'd think a shoe-in for Starfinder job placement for deities. A Vesk war god sitting on top of an entire star system-spanning empire? I can see why Gorum might have started to feel a little inadequate.
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Will there be any mechanical effect from their "pleasure of choices", and if so any alternate traits for a more traditional sort of bug folk?
Some enterprising gnomes or gobs should fire up the printing presses/e-Book compilers to start selling Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books to the shirren.
Edit: Argh! Ninja'd!
If there was ever a point to adding a 'useless trivia' skill, this race would be the reason. :)
Mustn't. make. Cliff Clavin. as. a. shirren.
What about Half-Elves? ;)
All 7 of the core Starfinder player races—humans, androids, kasathas, lashuntas, vesk, shirrens, and ysoki—are joined in the core rulebook by updated versions of Pathfinder's core races, and even more playable races will be following shortly behind in the Alien Archive.So we're getting updated states for elves, dwarves, gnomes, halflings, half-orcs, and ratfolk then? Will the Alien Archive feature any of the other Pathfinder races (aka Aasimar, Tieflings, Suli, Catfolk, etc etc)?
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Just don't give them direct orders, and you'd be fine. Phrase everything as a choice between two superficially different options. The same as dealing with young children.
A PC race that you have to treat like children just brings back kender shaped trauma.
Allow me to rephrase then; will there be any bug race options that aren't shirren? Proud warrior bugs? Chitinous Vulcans? Elegant moth folk? Hard working, philosophical beetles? Interdependant but hardly hive-minded social insects? Anything at all?The problem is that the hive mind in question here is the main antagonist of the setting, the Swarm.
Humans can be proud warriors, contemplative, elegant, hard-working, or philosophical too...why couldn't there be all sorts within the other races.
I'm totally gonna make a Shirren assassin. "I just love killing!""I decide who lives and dies. I choose you shall live.
...
Oooh, That was a good decision. *Drool*"
Anton Chigurh as a shirren is ... kind of disturbing.
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I'm totally gonna make a Shirren assassin. "I just love killing!""I decide who lives and dies. I choose you shall live.
...
Oooh, That was a good decision. *Drool*"
Terrifying thought. Shirren torturer.
"Stop already! I'll tell you anything you want to hear!"
"And ruin my fun? I haven't even gotten to use the good torture implements yet."
Just don't give them direct orders, and you'd be fine. Phrase everything as a choice between two superficially different options. The same as dealing with young children.
A PC race that you have to treat like children just brings back kender shaped trauma.
Allow me to rephrase then; will there be any bug race options that aren't shirren? Proud warrior bugs? Chitinous Vulcans? Elegant moth folk? Hard working, philosophical beetles? Interdependant but hardly hive-minded social insects? Anything at all?The problem is that the hive mind in question here is the main antagonist of the setting, the Swarm.
There's the Haan, which are supposed to be in First Contact and presumably the Alien Archive as well. Though, they seek more arachnoid than insectile.
Just don't give them direct orders, and you'd be fine. Phrase everything as a choice between two superficially different options. The same as dealing with young children.
No reason why you can't give them orders. They get to chose to follow them, or choose whether to follow the letter or the spirit of the order, or not focus on the choice so much that it has a narcotic effect because they just went shopping a little while ago and they are still good from the last buzz, or anything else because they don't HAVE to push themselves to intoxication just because the option presents itself. As a culture I bet they look at Shirren who go overboard on choice-huffing the same way we look at drunkards.
{. . .}
So, being terribly obtuse and ignorant of Shirren anatomy, I am entirely unable to tell whether we are observing two different Shirren sexes in this post or one. At GAMA, we got a peek at what I assume to be an alternate Shirren sex:Kind of looks like a cat. I am okay with this. Can anybody confirm whether the Shirren displayed above are male, female or host?
{. . .}
Linkified.
I see a Shirren apparently wearing a weird partially face-covering mask, but not anything that looks like a cat.
On the other hand, who is the short blocky robot in the foreground?
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On the other hand, who is the short blocky robot in the foreground?
I bet a technological equivalent to a familiar or animal companion.
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Honestly, I'm really glad that they have avoided doing the Star Trek monocultures gimmick with a lot of the races. I get that simplifying aliens and their cultures makes it easier to describe them to players, but I always found that terribly dull, limiting, and uninteresting. So I'm glad that they didn't make the Shirren the standard 'hive mind collective insect race'.
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Will there be any mechanical effect from their "pleasure of choices", and if so any alternate traits for a more traditional sort of bug folk?
Seriously, all I can see shirren doing is causing problems because "You're not my host! Don't tell me what to do!" Though I suppose the "gets along with everyone and puts the group first" is a have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too way around that.
To be suitable player characters, the Shirren require free will -- they cannot be part of a hostile hive mind.
However, since they derive pleasure from making choices, I can see them getting overly excited over choices that do not really matter, or for which there is obviously a single right answer with numerous inferior alternatives.
Starfinder Gnomes :-))
Starfinder Gnomes :-))Will there be any mechanical effect from their "pleasure of choices", and if so any alternate traits for a more traditional sort of bug folk?
Seriously, all I can see shirren doing is causing problems because "You're not my host! Don't tell me what to do!" Though I suppose the "gets along with everyone and puts the group first" is a have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too way around that.
To be suitable player characters, the Shirren require free will -- they cannot be part of a hostile hive mind.
However, since they derive pleasure from making choices, I can see them getting overly excited over choices that do not really matter, or for which there is obviously a single right answer with numerous inferior alternatives.
Then what does that make the Ysoki?
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Shirren Tinder must be the complete opposite of human dating.
*Swipe left, right, right, left, left, right*
Hey, you've got a match!
No, I'm good. *Lights a cigarette*
HA! Yes.
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Shirren Tinder must be the complete opposite of human dating.
*Swipe left, right, right, left, left, right*
Hey, you've got a match!
No, I'm good. *Lights a cigarette*
↑ ↑ ↓ ↓ ← → ← → B A
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I'm excited about this one. If we can't have baby (larval) Shirren as a racial familiar option, I will be disappointed.
The other Starfinders stared at their traveling companion with shock.
"What?" Said the Shireen.
"That's your son?" Ask the Captain.
"Yeah," The Shireen stuck one of his fingers into the hard plastic carrying case until the slimy grub cooed with joy, "He's my little pride and joy! What did you think he was?"
"We thought he was a pet."
"A PET? He's my son! I take him along to teach him the family business."
"But...but you're an Operative...you kill people!"
"...So?"
The reproductive genetic roles of the three sexes are the same as the Azad in Iain Banks' Player of Games novel. Good to see a call out to some of his work.
Do the Shirren exhibit dimorphism, such that the females could be at least one size category larger than the males? If we're drawing inspiration from Terran arthropods, then this could be an interesting race.
I am guessing that non-Shirren would have a tough time telling male and female Shirren apart -- only the hosts would have visually distinctive characteristics.
How did I miss this blog.
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It's....it's like my nightmares have come true! I have found my people!
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I just had an amazingly terrible idea for my campaign. I'm making a Shirren priest (class probably a cleric or mystic) who leads a cult of followers who worship the Swarm and earnestly believe that the only way their species can survive is to re-merge with the Swarm. The members of said cult are all complete communists and use implants/stims to simulate a hivemind, with all members contributing to it. The party is hired by the priest (who never joined the hivemind so he could preach independently) to go blow up a rival cult (players don't know that priest is a cult leader yet). After they blow it up, when they ask why the priest wanted them to go kaboom, he basically says "Cause they were interfering with my church's ancestor worshipping. Hey, speaking of, we need some security at our next meeting cause the government is trying to dissipate us. Interested?" If the players are smart, "ancestor worship" might clue them in on the cult. Otherwise, if they are not dumb, the government intervention should tip them off of the less-than-legal stuff happening. Even if they are dumb, the actual being at the cult meeting should hopefully be obvious enough to reveal that they are a cult. It's up to the players how they proceed with this knowledge.
Ideas/critiques/questions anyone? I'm still relatively new to gm'ing, so my storylines right now aren't quite on par yet.
Sounds like these guys are like alt-(Pathfinder)-Gnomes in a way...
Ysoki/Ratfolk, which previously existed in Golarion, treading more alt-D&D-Tinker-Gnome territory...
What is the difference between the treatment of the new "Starfinder Core" races and the old Pathfinder Core races?
"Core Races" in PRPG meant the PC stat races in Core Book.
Only now I hear all those races will also be included in Starfinder Core Rules.
Except amongst those, only Human has been described as a Core Starfinder Race.
Will a distinction between those two groups of PC Races be an ongoing thing, or is it just weirdness of Blog Previews?
Sounds like these guys are like alt-(Pathfinder)-Gnomes in a way...
Ysoki/Ratfolk, which previously existed in Golarion, treading more alt-D&D-Tinker-Gnome territory...What is the difference between the treatment of the new "Starfinder Core" races and the old Pathfinder Core races?
"Core Races" in PRPG meant the PC stat races in Core Book.
Only now I hear all those races will also be included in Starfinder Core Rules.
Except amongst those, only Human has been described as a Core Starfinder Race.
Will a distinction between those two groups of PC Races be an ongoing thing, or is it just weirdness of Blog Previews?
The primary difference lies in how common they are. Core races are always the most common and accessible of the races available for play and are the most prominent of the races that can influence the civilizations at the core of the campaign setting.
I'm sure that dwarves, elves, gnomes, and the other races from Pathfinder are included because that is what the players coming for Starfinder from that game are most used to already and these are the races that will be the first those players will demand a conversion for. Because Golarion is gone, there aren't very many of those races around. While they were common there, they aren't common now since Golarion's disappearance.
Also, I think the PF Core races are going to be in a barebones appendix in the back of the core books. Not given the same detail and treatment as the main races, but "Hey, if you want an elf, here are the stats!" Maybe just a couple of pages of no art for those.
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Also, I think the PF Core races are going to be in a barebones appendix in the back of the core books. Not given the same detail and treatment as the main races, but "Hey, if you want an elf, here are the stats!" Maybe just a couple of pages of no art for those.
Nope, awesome art showing them in the Starfinder universe!
Developer, Starfinder Team
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Sounds like these guys are like alt-(Pathfinder)-Gnomes in a way...
Ysoki/Ratfolk, which previously existed in Golarion, treading more alt-D&D-Tinker-Gnome territory...What is the difference between the treatment of the new "Starfinder Core" races and the old Pathfinder Core races?
"Core Races" in PRPG meant the PC stat races in Core Book.
Only now I hear all those races will also be included in Starfinder Core Rules.
Except amongst those, only Human has been described as a Core Starfinder Race.
Will a distinction between those two groups of PC Races be an ongoing thing, or is it just weirdness of Blog Previews?
There is a distinction.
Imagine if we had put fetchlings and tengu in the Pathfinder Core Rulebook.
^That would depend upon what you did with the Fetchlings and Tengu.
Of course, that would be harder to put together, since they don't have established tradition to build upon in the West (Tengu do have established tradition to build upon in Japanese culture, so if Pathfinder manages to catch on big there, this would change things up in the future, and likewise with Kitsune). So since many of the Starfinder Core Races don't have an established tradition to build on, the work of introducing them will be similar -- you have to start people off mostly from scratch, rather than giving them modifiers to an established tradition (which comes from a mixture of old European myth, Tolkien's works, and previous editions of D&D, in order of increasing influence).
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Imagine if we had put fetchlings and tengu in the Pathfinder Core Rulebook.
I'll instead imagine an all-tengu crew (T-Force?) in a Gatchaman Phoenix ship in Starfinder.
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Sounds like these guys are like alt-(Pathfinder)-Gnomes in a way...
Ysoki/Ratfolk, which previously existed in Golarion, treading more alt-D&D-Tinker-Gnome territory...What is the difference between the treatment of the new "Starfinder Core" races and the old Pathfinder Core races?
"Core Races" in PRPG meant the PC stat races in Core Book.
Only now I hear all those races will also be included in Starfinder Core Rules.
Except amongst those, only Human has been described as a Core Starfinder Race.
Will a distinction between those two groups of PC Races be an ongoing thing, or is it just weirdness of Blog Previews?There is a distinction.
Imagine if we had put fetchlings and tengu in the Pathfinder Core Rulebook.
... you should have put Tengu in the core rulebook...
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... you should have put Tengu in the core rulebook...Sounds like these guys are like alt-(Pathfinder)-Gnomes in a way...
Ysoki/Ratfolk, which previously existed in Golarion, treading more alt-D&D-Tinker-Gnome territory...What is the difference between the treatment of the new "Starfinder Core" races and the old Pathfinder Core races?
"Core Races" in PRPG meant the PC stat races in Core Book.
Only now I hear all those races will also be included in Starfinder Core Rules.
Except amongst those, only Human has been described as a Core Starfinder Race.
Will a distinction between those two groups of PC Races be an ongoing thing, or is it just weirdness of Blog Previews?There is a distinction.
Imagine if we had put fetchlings and tengu in the Pathfinder Core Rulebook.
...can we have Tengu in Starfinder?...