Xell; Chimera City

[Ghostman]

What kind of senses do the Orchidfolk possess? Apparently they have some sort of hearing, to be able to understand spoken language, and obviously they have good olfactory senses. But can they see, and if so, what range of colors? What senses do they rely on to move safely when uprooted?

The Glib are looking even more wonderful than the Profane. I bet it'd be quite entertaining to witness a "battle" between the two...

[Steerpike]

[ooc]I added some descriptions of their senses - thanks.  They can see colours really well, but their eyes are otherwise primitive (not as clear or ranged as human vision).  They also have scent receptors and "ears."  When moving they would navigate by a mixture of touch, sight, and sound; I also added that their tendrils are very sensitive to tremors and textures, so they'd work like DnD tremorsense.[/ooc]

[Steerpike]

[ooc]Posted switchskins under the Ethnography.  They're slightly Jekyll-and-Hyde, but not exactly.[/ooc]

[LordVreeg]

[ooc]Posted switchskins under the Ethnography.  They're slightly Jekyll-and-Hyde, but not exactly.[/ooc]

I enjoyed them immensly.  I can easily see a number of stories coming from this.  
Once you explained that they carry injury, pregnancy, and other 'baggage' of their other side, it negated a number of hypotheseis I was forming.  It is not a replacement so much as a process.  I am trying to work on the idea of more than one brain, or at least more than one intellect/memory center sharing the same internal hardware.  
One wonders what the effect of a psychic attack would be.

Or, if they carry injuries but do not share memories, what would the effect of a TBI (traumatic brain Injury) in the Amygdala be?  Now THAT is a good question.

[Steerpike]

[ooc]That would certainly clinch the question of whether the share the same gray matter.  I think they do - after all, if they share their other major organs, it makes sense to share their physical brains.  There's something eldritch at work, but I think basically teh switchskins have the same hardware, different software, and the software additionally manifests by changing skin and hair pigmentation.  That would be my psuedo-scientific take; the city residents would of course formulate their own theories, probably a lot of them much more mystic.[/ooc]

[Steerpike]

[ooc]Bit of a query here.  I'm thinking of harvesting some ideas from this setting and transporting them over to CE.  Specifically I'm thinking of stealing some of Xell's elements and cannibalizing them for use in Crepuscle, one of the Cadaverous Earth's two still undetailed cities.  The Profane and the Glib, with their linguistic-based magic, seem like a good fit as well; the Innocent might even supply a hitherto absent note of optimism in the otherwise grimdark setting.  I was pondering this setting today and I realized I almost liked it more in some of its older incarnations.  Gone would be the spirits (though maybe not the Flea, who seem pretty CEish anyway), the faerie, probably the switchskins, etc- though these elements might survive in future projects.  Ratheads would actually fit pretty well in CE, which has an almost conspicuous absence of rat-based creatures, despite its themes of decay.  Not sure about the orchidfolk, but maybe.

What do people think?[/ooc]

[Llum]

I don't think the switchskins are really CD, they have too much of a duality thing going, already covered by the naghini.

Ratheads fit the best (even if rats are lame IMO). Maybe if they had something to spice them up a bit, to turn the old trope.

Orchidfolk... possibly. Crepuscle is a port city, so that helps.

The Glib almost seem like they could be related to the maze somehow, not sure but thats the obvious point for me. I don't see how the Profane differs all that much from other CE magic tbh, aside from being strictly verbal?

[LD]

I think the ratfolk would be too cliche for CE. They fit in Xell as part of the overarching tapestry, but everyone expects a dying world to have ratfolk ... I would rather see more relation to the cestoid empire and CE's core ethos.

It also seems that ratheads are a bit repetitive- filling the shunned race role that the leechkin and hagmen already try to fill.

The orchidfolk are more alien and perhaps suitable to CE.

[Steerpike]

Good point about the redundancy of the ratfolk.  Orchidfolk might work in Crepuscle - Xell's geography may get reworked into that city.  I don't know if they're eerie enough for CE, but maybe...

[LD]

Hm. For what its worth, I think the orchidfolk are fairly eerie. Perhaps with some slight reworking they can be stranger still.

Also apologies- reading what I wrote with new eyes, I may have come off a little harsher than I wanted- I do enjoy your work- I am just not certain that the ratfolk will add any "oomph" to CE and may in fact detract from it; whereas they do seem to fit in Xell's phantasmagoric dream ethos.