Radam's page

Personally I don't think the boat race picture is very good. Maybe its supposed to be a different ancestry, but that neck of the first red rower just looks wrong (and also the second one which has the near exact same pose).

Well, considering most are aliens with a completely different biology I would assume real alien cuisine would taste quite bad if not downright indigestible.

Or at least taste really strange and not like food. To quote Dumbledore "Alas! Ear wax"

So food synthesiser would be everywhere non "locals" gather.
Or at least from a culinary point of view species would be grouped together into who can eat the same food like it was mentioned in Mass Effect.

I forgot.
In the build a species section it says the creature type is mostly for flavor.
I would have preferred if they had mentioned what is affected by creature type like the hold spells which do not work on non humanoids.

That gets overlooked a lot.

Just some thoughts in no particular order and I probably forgot half what I wanted to write about

- Awesome Atrazoan art. It takes skill making a walking starfish seem badass
- Space Marine Kelo. Seriously, that is not space marine inspired, thats a picture of an Ultramarine with the skull images removed
- The lines between Soldier and Operative gets even more blurred. And with the Operative being one of the best skill users already and now stealing more and more stuff from Soldiers they become a bit too good imo
- Dragonkin can reproduce with other species? Is that a normal thing in Starfinder or something special to Dragonkin only? Their entry doesn't seem to think that its a big deal.
- Generally Dragonkin are a bit one sided, its all about the bond. On one hand, having such a detailed topic is nice, but on the other hand it makes them one trick ponys. What about them looking like how Vesk think their heroes will be transformed in the afterlife? No mention of that?
- The equipment and feats being spread through the book is a bit sup-optimal in my opinion.

Do Lycanthropes even exist in Starfinder?

Radam wrote:

And have there been any picture of a Akiton human anywhere so far? But considering how small and inhospitable Akiton is I do not think that their population is comparable to lets say Ryphorians.

Pact Worlds page 53.

As far as numbers go, Arl (Pact Worlds, page 52-53) alone has nearly 7 million humans (more than three times the entire population, counting all races/species, of Absalom station) and doesn't include all of the other communities and tribes on the planet.

Compared to a entire inhabited solar system 7 million, the size of Hong Kong for example, is not much.

Earth just recently reached 8 billion people. And even though the Pact System lacks a densely populated world like earth for biological species (probably), Castrovel, Triaxus and Verces still likely have a few (2-3) billion inhabitants each.

Radam wrote:

I assume that people living in the Pact System at least learn the names and looks of the species living in it.

Common species maybe. But people only generally know the animals they run into and or the ones in their area. People know cats because they're common housepets. People in north america are familiar with skunks, but how many people know zorilla ? And thats on the same planet. Add 12 planets ..

Londo Mollari : But this - this, this, this is like - being nibbled to death by, uh - Pah! What are those Earth creatures called? Feathers, long bill, webbed feet, go "quack".

Vir Cotto : Cats.

Londo Mollari : Cats! I'm being nibbled to death by cats.

Here is where the media comes in. Many people know of lions and similar animals despite them not living in an area where they are common.

I assume that people living in the Pact System at least learn the names and looks of the species living in it. Basically you wouldn't have flash cards with "cat" ect. for teaching children but cards with "Lashunta". The rest is filled in by media consumption.

But I imagine knowledge of species that do not live in the system is much rarer, especially when they do not visit often like Vesk. I doubt the majority of people know what a Stellifera is, let alone recognize one when not using its hydro power. And Astriapi will probably get confused for Shirren a lot.
But with so many species out there most people probably don't care much when they encounter something they do not know. When it walks around Absolom Station its probably another traveller.

Mass media exists at least within the Pact System, so people there would certainly have heard of gnomes.
Seen one in person? That depends on where they are. People living in a frontier town on Akiton? Probably not. People on Triaxus where there is a sizeable gnome population? Most certainly.

And once you get into near and far space most Pact World races would be rather rare.
Its all about location, not rarity.