I would say that they do everything together only because dvati are not two individuals; they are one being distributed between two physical bodies. The only reason why the come up with two names is for the sake of others, otherwise they would just use the one name.
Most other questions concerning this race can be answered with this philosophy. One soul, two bodies.
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the other members of the players think my dvati is only one person because i have kept my race a secret so far
How do the other players think your Dvati is only one person, when they can see two physical bodies? That is kinda difficult to keep secret, unless only one of them is ever present at any one time, and they do the old "switcheroo"?
the other members of the players think my dvati is only one person because i have kept my race a secret so farHow do the other players think your Dvati is only one person, when they can see two physical bodies? That is kinda difficult to keep secret, unless only one of them is ever present at any one time, and they do the old "switcheroo"?
One great source of inspiration, especially in understanding the psyche of a two bodied / one mind creature might be to check out a series of sci-fi books by Christopher Hinz called the Paratwa Saga. When I first saw the Dvati, I immediately thought of the Paratwa from these books. Only, the Paratwa are superior and far scarier. Note that these books are a bit on the mature side.
Most of the members of my circle of friends read these books in high school (Liege Killer in particular), and they found their way into our 2nd ED AD&D games as a player character race in my DM's campaign world. They were utterly terrorfying. I'd GLADLY take the Dvati over that monstrosity any day! I'd be surprised if these books were not a least a source of inspiration for the Dvati, as they have the balance lacking in other conversion attempts at this concept that I've seen before. I like the concept and the Dvati will fill in the "Paratwa niche" in my campaign world nicely.
this is where it gets difficult, do dvati do everything together, what if we start going out? does that mean both of my dvati twins are going out with the rogue? what about marrige and children? can dvati mate with humans?
Hi there. I know this thread is rather old now, but I just came across it for the first time and, as the guy who created the Dvati, I hope I can shed some light on their rather complex and admittedly confusing ecology.
The main thing to remember about the Dvati is that they are identical twins, not clones. Despite the theological notions that they share a single soul, they are, pretty much just like real-life twins in that each tends to develop a distinct personality. That being said, however, the relationship between a Dvati and its sibling are far greater than that of other humanoid twinnings. They tend to be very similar to each other, in that non-Dvati often have great trouble telling them apart, even when they speak, but to those who really get to know them, the difference becomes more apparent. Dvati twins share a strong emotional bond that is extremely difficult to sever. This is why they never part after reaching adulthood and tend to do everything together as a set (well, that and the fact that separating a set causes them to shrivel up and die, but that's beside the point right now).
Dating outside their race is very difficult for them. The Dvati (their language is roughly Slavic, BTW, "dva" being Russian for "two") see the world in dualities. Although I didn't emphasize it in the old Dragon entry, they're a very lawful people who tend to put everything in even, equal terms. When they mate, they mate pair-to-pair, each partner in the mating sharing time with the others equally. It's unusual for a marriage to produce only one set of children. Usually, the wife-set will become pregnant simultaneously. Indeed, it takes donations from BOTH males of a set to make a dvati female pregnant. Since overpopulation can be a problem, it is extremely rare for a Dvati female to birth a set more than once in her liftime.
Can they mate with non-Dvati? Technically, yes, although only with humans and only with a set of identical twins. In other words, Dvati females can only reproduce with a set of male twins, either human or Dvati. The really twisted thing is, the offspring is almost always a single being, a Dvati/human hybrid. These hybrids are pretty much pale, small-nosed humans, probably about the same size as a half-elf. Since identical human twins are rare, such parings are all but unheard of and, as such, I've never bothered to come up with half-Dvati stats.
Biology aside, Dvati, being twined beings of duality, find single beings to be rather curious creatures. While they certainly don't distain or avoid them, they would find the notion of dating a single individual as confusing and odd as we would find dating a set of identical twins simultaneously to be. The relationship would brobably be rather strained since the set would expect equal treatment and time from the single individual who would find his attentions pulled in two directions at once. It's not an impossible situation, but it would require a lot of work. This can also cause rivalry to develop between the siblings, which is very, very bad. Rival sets tend to become weak and sickly the more polarized against each other they become.
So, does that mean that the Dvati do everything together? You betcha. Their emotional bond makes separation very difficult. In fact, as mentionmed above, Dvati who separate tend to grow weak and sickly and eventually die a slow, miserable death. This is why when one dies, the other tends to suicide. They simply cannot bear to be separated from their sibling (more evidence, their clerics claim, to support the notion of a single soul shared between a set). As such, the Dvati have very little notion of privacy. They tend to do everything together and find the singled-races' notions of shame and privacy to be a little silly. This is part of their culture's great fondness for honesty. There are very few secrets among the Dvati. So, a Dvati who became involved with a non-Dvati would expect her sister to share the single mate equally. If she doesn't, then conflict could arise, and sickness could result (the truth of it is that no one can ever be more important to a Dvati than its sibling, so if it comes to a choice, the singled individual will pretty much always get the boot).
I hope this answers your question and helps you understand the Dvati a little better. Eventually, I hope to convert them to D&D 3.5 rules and clairify a lot of these ecological type questions. Until then, good luck with your campaign and thanks for giving my creation a try! if you have any more questions, feel free to contact me at everwho@comcast.net.
-Talon
this is where it gets difficult, do dvati do everything together, what if we start going out? does that mean both of my dvati twins are going out with the rogue? what about marrige and children? can dvati mate with humans?
Hi there. I know this thread is rather old now, but I just came across it for the first time and, as the guy who created the Dvati, I hope I can shed some light on their rather complex and admittedly confusing ecology.
The main thing to remember about the Dvati is that they are identical twins, not clones. Despite the theological notions that they share a single soul, they are, pretty much just like real-life twins in that each tends to develop a distinct personality. That being said, however, the relationship between a Dvati and its sibling are far greater than that of other humanoid twinnings. They tend to be very similar to each other, in that non-Dvati often have great trouble telling them apart, even when they speak, but to those who really get to know them, the difference becomes more apparent. Dvati twins share a strong emotional bond that is extremely difficult to sever. This is why they never part after reaching adulthood and tend to do everything together as a set (well, that and the fact that separating a set causes them to shrivel up and die, but that's beside the point right now).
Dating outside their race is very difficult for them. The Dvati (their language is roughly Slavic, BTW, "dva" being Russian for "two") see the world in dualities. Although I didn't emphasize it in the old Dragon entry, they're a very lawful people who tend to put everything in even, equal terms. When they mate, they mate pair-to-pair, each partner in the mating sharing time with the others equally. It's unusual for a marriage to produce only one set of children. Usually, the wife-set will become pregnant simultaneously. Indeed, it takes donations from BOTH males of a set to make a dvati female pregnant. Since overpopulation can be a problem, it is...
Hey there, cool race man!
Have you gotten around to doing your version of the dvati yet? I’d love to see it, sounds exactly what I’m looking for. :)
A few questions:
What are the dvati homelands like?
If you were going to put the dvati into forgotten realms or eberron, where would you pu them and what changes would you make to them? I DM eberron while my friend DM’s FR; any chance of a “dvati conversion download” or at least a post with a few pointers? ;)
Do you think they make for a cool "psionically inclined" race?
Wow, sorry I'm, like, REALLY late with this reply, but I just don't check these boards very often, and I didn't realize it had been so long...
Hey there, cool race man!
Have you gotten around to doing your version of the dvati yet? I’d love to see it, sounds exactly what I’m looking for. :)
Well, as it turned out, I didn't have to. I didn't realize when I posted this reply that Paizo had already done a d20 conversion of the Dvati in the Dragon Compendium. I thought this was all still regarding my old AD&D version. So, since they've been converted already, there's really no reson for me to try my own version. I would like to go ahead and put together an Ecology article, in the style of the Ecology articles in Dragon, but there's no telling when I'd get the time to do that.
A few questions:
What are the dvati homelands like?
Whatever your DM wants them to be like. I originally invisioned them as being native to the Outlands in the old Planescape setting, but now that Planescape is pretty well defunct, it's up to you to put them wherever they fit best in your world. The world I invented for my players had them in a desert setting based heavily on Melanie Rawn's "Dragon Prince" novels, but that was mostly because my world was a hodge-podge of settings and ideas taken from various sources, from comics to novels to movies.
If you were going to put the dvati into forgotten realms or eberron, where would you pu them and what changes would you make to them? I DM eberron while my friend DM’s FR; any chance of a “dvati conversion download” or at least a post with a few pointers? ;)
That's an interesting challenge. Eberron: well, they're pretty alien, so if they were located on Khorvaire, it wouldn't be in large numbers, probably not even large enough to call any single nation their home. I see them more as being scattered around everywhere. They're pretty civilized, so they'd probably be found in the more "civilized" areas. Their alienness, might make them suitable for Xen'Drik, but only if they were sort of like oases of civilization in the sea of wilderness and ruins that is that continent. You could place them on Argonnessen if you connected them somehow to dragons. I don't know anything about Sarlona, so I can't say if they'd fit in there or not, other than to say that seems like a pretty alien, ordered place, so maybe that's a good spot for them
As for the Realms, the same thing that stands for Khorvaire would stand in Faerun. I just don't see them being populous enough to have their own area. Faerun is pretty well mapped out with very little space to put an entire culture of people that isn't already part of the setting. I could see an alternate idea being placing them on one of the Unknown Lands or islands out beyond the Trackless or Eastern Seas, if you don't mind the possibility of possibly breaking canon should a future Realms book reveal the secrets of those areas. In eaither case, making them planar isn't a bad idea either, you'd just have to change their type to Outsider and you're set.
Any other discussion regarding their culture, that I haven't already mentioned, is a little beyond the scope of what I can do here. All I can say is that they are a lawful, ordered society and that their art and architecture and whatnot is based off off the concept of duality.
Do you think they make for a cool "psionically inclined" race?
Oh, definitely. The one time a friend of mine played a Dvati set (way before the release of the Dragon Compendium), he played them as psions. The ability to share powers between them was of great advantage to him. Of course, he was playing them as two separate characters, as opposed to one-character, two-bodies, as Dragon set them up. As they are officially, they share class-levels between them, so there's only one list of powers anyway. Still, there's no reason they couldn't be psionicists. Personally, I think they make excellent rogues and their innate frigility makes them poor fighters. Spellcaster types, who stay away from claws and swords, would probably last longer.
I hope that's helpful to you!
-Talon