Very weird mixed species characters

I am about to introduce a new player to my series, and he has his eye toward playing a mixed-species character. He hasn't actually said what two species yet, and I'd like to be prepared for any kind of weird kind of combination he may come up with- his mind works in strange ways.

So in a survey-like fashion, would the following hybrids work (genetically and biologically speaking) as well as pychologicially- social barriers etc?

Human > Andorian (thinking about this for my character, actually)
Ferengi > Anything :eek:
Vulcan > Andorian
Human > Bolian
Tellarite > Human

and on and on...

ALSO, POST THE WEIRDEST MIXED SPECIES-HERITAGE CHARACTERS YOU OR YOUR PLAYERS HAVE EVER COME UP WITH ON THIS THREAD. THANKS! :cool:

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Lately, I've had the idea for a medical nurse modeled after Margaret Houlihan from M*A*S*H*. Her character was described by Dr Friedman as "six shades of passion looking for an exit"

To that end, I think she'd be:

Vulcan/Betazoid
Vulcan/Centauran
or
Vulcan/Deltan

Just a couple silly combinations off the top of my head... (and I apologize profusely - it's late and I need some sleep) ;)

Antican/Selay (weird for weird's sake)
Bolian/Andorian (true blue!)
Pakled/Vulcan (just imagine!)
Vulcan/Klingon

While mixed characters can be fun, I would assume there would be some limitations. After all, a horse/donkey mating makes a mule. . .which is unable to produce offspring of its own. And no mattet how alike we are. . .human/primate mating would produce no offspring at all.

The Antican/Selay species are so unalike I would think offspring in their case would be totaly impossible. . .

but as this is RPG (and Sci-Fi at that) I guess it would not be too far out their to eventually see a species having mated with that silicon based rock thing from TOS :p

On a connected note... Are there any species that narrators wont allow?

On the whole I tend to allow most mixed species, but will deny any that simply do not match.

Now the arguement has been run to death about the pros and cons of the mixed species abilities and even existance, however I run my games on established canon, and while Sex is vaguely compatible between the vast majorities of species, not every species would be compatible for propogation, there are extremes that I would start to draw the line.

I will consider most combinations on a case by case basis, which is considered around various personal conceits;

Extremes in body chemistry - While not a total block, after all if Vulcan/Human hybrids can exist then most combo's are possible, especially with advanced medical sciences... But single cell protoplasm and humans... Possibly not.
I am also tempted to put Vulcans and Bolians in this camp, but they are on the hazy middle ground. The aformentioned Slay and Anticans - Lizards and dogs... Genetic problems along with a desire to kill each other on sight... I think were safe from that combo... Even the fish guys from Pacifica, definatly Cetateans, all significantly different from the humanoid norm to make propagation dificult...

However this is from the humanoid viwpoint, someone that wants to play a Pacifican/Cetatean hybrid would probably be allowed... And far more interesting than most.

Species Interactions - Again a minor consideration, but harkening back to the Selay/Antican mix, we are aware that there are many species that hold differing politcal/religious/social ideas from each other.

In my opinion the vast majority of these mixed species would need to be supported by a back story to support the character (preferably one that gives plot). Sometimes this can cause problems, for example I once received a character that was reliant on the Vulcan Mother mating with the Klingon Father due to pon farr, but in my universe Vulcan women dont suffer the pon farr, the 'blood fever' is brought about by the Psionic connection between mated Vulcans. and so the character didn't work, although in another game it would work perfectly well...

Taking it too far - If a player attempts to take more than two species by going back to their grandparents, they may well end up with a slap. :D No, reaaly I had one of these in the past, but the player was simply trying to get the pluses to make them a munchkin and I didn't allow the character (and by his choice) the player into the game. Munchkins dont scare me, I simply raise the bar to where they become ordinary...

Similarly, the other way, with a sngle mixed species grandparent has 2 choices, as discussed in the recent thread elsewhere. The player can chose to make the gentics colour or substance, having a visible feature, but no real alteration to the template, just to make the character stand out slightly would be colourful, and not have them charged the 6DP for the mixed species template.

Should the player want the points, then its simply a mixed species advantage following the same rules as a half breed.

The only thing thats sacred... - Is that which is accepted as canon. Those mixed species that have been seen on screen. I still prefer a little more back-story, who doesn't, but the on screen evidence at least support that such genetic drift is capable of occuring in the Star Trek universe...

Ferengi/Iconian :D
Dolphin/Vulcan :eek:
Cardassian/anything (they shouldn't have killed Ziyal)
Klingon/Smurf :p
Vorlon/Shadow {Warning! Alternate Universe Error #476}
Talaxian/Kazon :eek:
Robin Lefler/Wesley Crusher Mwuhahaaha!

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Hi I'm Dan Stack, Moderator-Man. You may remember me from such exciting threads as "If you think there are xxx in Starfleet, YUR A MORUN" and "VOYAGER RULZ, TOS DRULZ!!!!"

I think it is time for this thread to get back on track to something within the bounds of reason. Please take the Smurf/Klingon hybrids to Star Trek or General Chat. We now return you to your normal discussion.

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Well.. Trek flavour, maybe ?

Mixed characters are fairly common in Trek... it seems every series (save Enterprise for now) has its share of mixed guys (amongst regulars or semi-recurring).
The Advantage is a bit costy, but count it as the price to have a "special" character, with curious background and abilites.

My other post on this topic has had me thinking of an idea, but not sure as to if it would fly or not. I had mentioned: A horse and donkey offspring is a mule; which is unable to produce offspring of its own.

We have seen a Human/Klingon trying to deal with the conflict of its two, often opposing, natures. Would a character unable to produce offspirng due to the odd mix of its parants prove a good source of story for a character?

I tend to see the character having the problem of constantly asking, "why am I here." I mean the main goal of all life is to produce offspring. So anyone think this could develope into anything?

My apologies for starting to veer this topic off-subject.:o

I definitely think there is story potential for a mixed species PC who cannot procreate due to his or her parents' lineage. Depending on how it was played out, the PC could hate the parents, or one or the other. It could certainly be interesting, and as a Narrator, I can see many ways to torture the PC. :D

Slightly OT, but it's to make a point...

In my MERP game I have a character that's a half-dwarf... human and dwarven parents (created with the help of magic in Saruman's breeding pits). Anyway, I let the player do it for the story, but she had to pick dwarven or human stats... essentially the fact that she as half-dwarven was only a role-play issue, and didn't have any effect on the actual game mechanic. She chose Dwarven stats. (Incidentally, as far as she knows she's sterile... essetially she's a Mul from Dark Sun)

So, in LUGTrek would you allow an mixed race character... say Human/Vulcan... to use only one set of stats or the other and not pay the "mixed heritage" cost?

I think that's a great idea. I love it when players say "I want to bend the rules this way and play this kind of character, but I don't want to do it for additional advantages or more points." When players make this kind of effort to better their character without messing with the stats, that's great.

I would bend the rules for any superior character concept. The characters are more important than the numbers, IMO. If the system can't be adjusted to allow any character concept a player comes up with, the system isn't worth using.

In the very first campaign I ever ran back in '83, our Chief MO was Half-Vulcan, Half Human like Spock...but was raised by his mother on Earth. His father perished aboard the all Vulcan U.S.S. Intrepid.

He didn't know how to mind meld, had the "bad habit" of smiling or laughing at jokes and basically halved all the Vulcan bonuses and penalties. He wasn't designed as a power character, only a cool character.

Other mixes from our games...

Human/Caitian
Klingon/Vulcan
Andorian/Human (See Among The Clans: The Andorian Sourcebook-The Andorian/Human crossbreed in that book was inspired by a PC)

AndorMan
Powers and abilities for beyond those of mortal Andorians

I think a Klingon/Betazoid mixture would be very interesting.

An excellent villain, if nothing else. :)

On a side note, I think that "species" is the wrong word for this discussion. By definition, different species can not breed offspring that will breed. Seeing that Torres on Voyager was a fertile Human/Klingon, we must assume that Humans and Klingons are merely different "breeds" of the same species. Once we have taken that leap, it's a short step to add Vulcans/Romulans, Andorians, Tellarites, Betazoids, etc to that species' list of breeds.

Maybe "race" would have a better ring to it than "breed" though.

Hybrid characters should be restricted IMHO to species which similar. Human-Klingons, Vulcans-Centaurans lets say, however, how about an Andorian and Human. The human is a primate with red blood while the Andorian counterpart has more in common with an insect with blue blood.

What colour then is his blood? What kind of "malformations" are there? If his blood is somehting in between, then his hair, skin and antennae should also be different. I could picture an Andorian/Human hybrid, with red/blue blood, stubs on the head for antennae, a rather hard skin (from the exoskeleton/eperdermis mix). This may be too biologically inclined though. There was a thread here on the meaning behind being blue, it was rather good on content and brought up alot of good points.

Personnally, I allow nearly all hybrids as long as they have a good explanation for them. I particularly like the Cardassian/Bajoran mix, lots of social issues and enemy's to contend with on both sides. I do think that Klingon/Vulcan hybrids are rather unpredictable, the raging emotions of a Vulcan without the self-control inside the body of a tank like warrior :eek:

When Worf and Jadzia were planning on having a baby, Dr. Bashir explained that she was on a regement of Genetic Resequencing drugs, or something to that effect. I often use that as the explanation in my campaigns, a form of genetic engineering that is not only available to the masses, but legal in the UFP.

Some individuals might actually protest industries or doctors that produce and provide such pharmacuticals, since genetic engineering is so taboo in the Federation. Interesting Right-to-Life/Pro-Choice social commentary variant adventure there, no?

AndorMan
The Six Million Dollar AndorMan

Slightly off topic: There's a character in Shatner's Star Trek: Preserver novel that's a mix (deliberately I believe) of half-Klingon half-Romulan. She marries Kirk and they have a child.

I'm assuming the child is 1/3 Klingon, 1/3 Romulan, 1/3 Human. A strange match to say the least!

Quote:

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Originally posted by Perrryyy

I'm assuming the child is 1/3 Klingon, 1/3 Romulan, 1/3 Human. A strange match to say the least!

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wouldn't that be 1/4 Rom, 1/4 klg, and 1/2 human? prob'ly just nitpicking here.

Probably, I don't know for sure. Your math makes more sens than mine did.

What do you get when you mix a full human with a half-klingon half-romulan?

I'm not even sure I've got the Punnet square worked up right. Any biology majors on the board?

Quote:

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Originally posted by Perrryyy
What do you get when you mix a full human with a half-klingon half-romulan?

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Well, half the genes would be human, the other half would be either Klingon or Romulan (approx. half of each). As to what you would get, depends on which genes are dominant. Based on Spock, I would say Vulcan/Romulan is probably dominant over human. Based on B'Elanna Torres, I'd guess human and Klingon traits have more of a tendency to mix (B'Elanna doesn't look QUITE Klingon, but she doesn't look human either). I don't really know about half-Romulan, half-Klingon; which would be dominant. Your guess is as good as mine! :)

Quote:

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Originally posted by LizardQueen
I don't really know about half-Romulan, half-Klingon; which would be dominant. Your guess is as good as mine! :)

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Well from what we saw on this TNG episode with a half-Klingon, half-Romulan girl (Birthrights, IIRC), it seems such a mix woudl look very much Klingon, with the exception of pointy ears.

Of course, we mustn't forget that genetics is a bit of a lotery game, and it would be possible to have hybrids whose dominant genes vary from one to another.

For instance, I don't remember if Sela had pointy ears (if not, then Vulcan/Romulan genes are not necessarily predominant over human ones). And I don't remember K'eyler (sp??? I mean Alexander's mother) very much, but wasn't she a bit more Klingon-looking than B'Elanna did?

Since the player decides about most of the other things, s/he should also determine which visual traits are dominant.

Quote:

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Originally posted by Robbert Raets
Ferengi/Iconian :D
Dolphin/Vulcan :eek:
Cardassian/anything (they shouldn't have killed Ziyal)
Klingon/Smurf :p
Vorlon/Shadow {Warning! Alternate Universe Error #476}
Talaxian/Kazon :eek:
Robin Lefler/Wesley Crusher Mwuhahaaha!

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OK . . . OK

Why did you have to bring up Smurfs? Does anyone else here remember that LONG string of Smurf Borg

In the Voyager Episode where Torres and Paris look at thier child, Torres remarks that for a 1/4 Klingon, she still will have facial ridges - and the Doc said that Klingon DNA is pretty dominant.

But it also led to a deformed spine (easily corrected)...

Which got me thinking: what other little nasty genetic snafu might lurk in the future of the player of a mixed-breed species? :) What happens to a half-betazoid when she reaches "the phase"? Or a quarter-vulcan, every seven years? Got Klingon DNA? Well, Klingon puberty is hell, my friend...

But other things leap to mind: the human immune system has a fairly easy time with the common-cold. But what about a *half*-human immune system. Maybe the equivalent of the "flu" is a deadly epidemic to Bajorans. Hrm.

*rubbing his hands together with evil thoughts*

The Doc

Quote:

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Originally posted by Michael Barratt


But other things leap to mind: the human immune system has a fairly easy time with the common-cold. But what about a *half*-human immune system. Maybe the equivalent of the "flu" is a deadly epidemic to Bajorans. Hrm.

*rubbing his hands together with evil thoughts*

The Doc

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How about a pregnant half-Bajoran/half-human female with the flu? Pregnant Bajoran women are prone to sneezing fits! :D