The Backstory,Earth and Humans

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    • The Backstory,Earth and Humans

      On of the things I like about Shard is one of the things some people take umbridge with,namely the backstory with Human Scientists uplifting the Animals into what they are today, I've always been a fan of uplifting animal stories, and comparing Shard to other Anthro Animal RPGs like TMNT & OS/After the Bomb and Ironclaw/Jadeclaw, if in TMNT all the Animals are uplifted either by accidental exposure to Mutagens or by Deliberate Experimentation and Ironclaw/Jadeclaw is simply 'It has always been this way' Shard splits the difference The Humans uplifting the Animals is the explanation how a bunch of Earth Derived Animals ended up on this Alien World but knowledge is beyond those Animals lost in the mists of history

      Reading the backstory in the PDF of the Shard Book, I got to ask, is the Earth Dying at this point? Is it possible the two scientists had every Earth Animal on their ship because that was all the Animals that were left?
    • Hmm;

      Marati’s genetic treatments had been a success. Humanlike language and sapience conferred to nonhuman species. An entirely new metaphysic.

      She seems shocked that he is sapient, but it does appear that this is what they were trying for.
      "That is not dead which can eternal lie / And with strange aeons even death may die."

      H.P. Lovecraft

      Quoting the Necronomicon, in "The Nameless City"
    • Thanks for the interesting comments regarding this somewhat obscure bit of SHARD'S history. I like where your thoughts are going and I also like the fact that much of this information is left somewhat vague in the way that most ancient religions and science is regarding the origins of life and the many possible theories such discussions create.
    • You're absolutely correct, both the sapience and the capacity for language was the goal. And more than a mere experiment, certainly. The two scientists had grown to love the animals they worked with as if they were their own children, and had been willing to break the laws of the mega-corporations that essentially ruled their lives in an attempt to save them from the off-handed destruction that the couple had been ordered to purvey.

      We were careful not to definitively label that "yellowing" planet as Earth, but that's certainly an understandable conclusion to draw, considering that those "cutter ships" ascended from its atmosphere representing the Corporate Judiciary...

      <WARNING: This information may ruin some of the mystery of Dárdünah for some players. Thus, proceed at your own risk. Remember, as Griffin above indicates in his comment, characters in Dárdünah would have no knowledge of this origin except through religion and myth, and would view the world from that perspective. The "Journey Chant" found in the Basic Compendium gives the best indication of how the populace of our game's world vaguely views what you are about to read.>

      There is, of course, a greater history that I can briefly cover (with perhaps more details at a later time), but I can at least say that, in the universe from whence came the scientist couple, who would later be remembered in myth and legend as Mahiámbah and Mahitáytah (the Great Mother and the Great Father), humanity had spread across the solar system and beyond. Many worlds had been terra-formed and colonized, and for many humans old Earth was a distant memory at best, since indeed many had never walked its surface at all... That's not to say that Earth we know was gone at the time of our introduction, merely that our home planet (which came to be called Terra by future generations) was no longer the hub of our known universe, merely the original cradle of both humanity as well as the enormous host of animals being cared for by the older couple Chun Yin and Krishna Marati.

      To understand how the two scientists came to be in the predicament of our game's introduction, I'll give you a brief explanation of the history that immediately led up to it. Essentially, in our distant future, humans have spread out across vast sections of our known universe, having successfully mastered faster-than-light travel. Traditional governments once confined by Terran borders have now been replaced by ruling corporate interests of vast power and influence, which have shaped a sort of "territorial" quality of governance established by these mega-corporations as various planetary systems, valuable resource areas, and border zones. The various inhabited worlds have settled into a sort of peace and slow growth phase as human cultures melded and grew, diluting to a large extent the early racial/cultural boundaries that defined old-Terran politics and relations. Each colonized world, of course, developed its own tastes and motivations to some extent, and their individual qualities were often seen as delightfully exotic to other "outworlders" from different areas of inhabited space.

      As a result, many fashions, trends, and pastimes were viewed as valuable entertainments worthy of shipping from planet to planet for rich profits. One such trend became the collection of "menageries"; zoological research vessels willing to open themselves up to a planet's public, hungry for glimpses of creatures from dozens of exotic worlds. It was during this time that many of old-Terra's animals, either extinct or quickly heading that way, were carefully collected by those who still deeply cared for Terra's legacy. Marvelous strides in genetics had allowed most of these animals to be preserved and revived, and for a time the sheer nostalgia of being able to see animals that had once walked the surface of the "home world" made this star-faring attraction quite popular, especially among humans who had never had the chance to even see Terra with their own eyes. These were the halcyon days for the kindly and loving couple who cared for them. Though it was Marati's passion as a biologist to study and care for the animals, even his wife Yin, who developed the experimental hyper-drive that would eventually change everything, loved her husband's efforts, and saw their wild charges as the children they never had. They both wanted so much more for the animals than sad, perpetual captivity. They wanted to eventually give them a life of freedom as equals to themselves; equal beings with equal minds.

      But all fads regrettably come to an end, and such menageries became less popular and far less profitable. As both interest and earnings faded, Omega-Corp changed the rules for the old couple. Knowing that the scientists had the saved genetic information and material necessary to easily reproduce their "collection" if such attractions ever came back into style, they decided to re-outfit the research vessel to become a far more lucrative refinery ship and send it to a distant asteroid belt to profit from the constant demand for rare metals. Of course, the animals would need to go... The heartless order to merely jettison them into space, and then report to the nearest station for re-assignment, caused the scientist couple to make a fateful decision. They had no intention of allowing their heartless employers to devour their life's work, their very children, merely to feed the company's terrible greed. Their beloved children had come to feel more "human" to them than the soulless corporations who ruled their lives...

      Informing their small crew of technicians and caretakers that the Company had granted them a leave of absence as the zoo-ship was to be re-outfitted, they shuttled them to the nearest habitable world, disobeyed direct orders to evacuate themselves, and outfitted the ship with Chun Yin's experimental drive. They chose to flee then, pursued by the company's ships, and engaged the experimental drive as their vessel was fired upon. Perhaps it was the energy from their enemy's weapons mixed with the strange power that fueled the experimental drive that did it... A hole was torn into the very fabric of the universe itself as the ship seemingly vanished from existence.

      The dimension which the zoo was pulled into was unlike anything back in Terran space. Magic was a powerful reality here, as much a universal law as gravity or light. The couple was transformed by the tremendous rush of magical energy which engulfed their ship. They were hyper-evolved into a highly advanced state of being. They became, in essence, gods.

      The divine couple's psychic impressions were now given the force of magical evolution, and as a result the animals were also magically transformed. All the fauna became bipedal Zoics, gaining the intelligence and awareness of normal humans. Further, the Zoics were imprinted with selective genetic memories, imbuing upon them an archetype of ancient Terran eastern cultures. Thus, the animorphs were predisposed towards the development of Oriental style societies.

      The couple, having transcended to a higher spiritual state of being, were no longer tied to the needs of a corporeal form. The newborn gods guided their ship safely towards a habitable planet. They then set about understanding the mysteries of Their new state and dimension, waiting and watching.

      The ship plummetted towards a shard-like section of a sundered, crystal world, streaking into its atmosphere like a fiery comet. Guided by the loving hand of the Great Mother and Father, the Zoics were safely brought to ground somewhere in the lush, alien jungles of their new home, Dárdünah....

      And the rest, as they say,...is history... (10,000 years of it, to be more precise)... ^^
    • Scott Jones wrote:

      Traditional governments once confined by Terran borders have now been replaced by ruling corporate interests of vast power and influence, which have shaped a sort of "territorial" quality of governance established by these mega-corporations as various planetary systems, valuable resource areas, and border zones.

      They became, in essence, gods.

      So in effect they pulled a Shadowrun, but expanded to a galactic scale.

      Huh, I had been uncertain as to whether or not they had really survived, and was assuming that the impression of them as Creator Deities was an exaggeration of some recollections of them.
      I guess things are a bit more complicated than I thought, and the "myths" were a bit more literal.
      "That is not dead which can eternal lie / And with strange aeons even death may die."

      H.P. Lovecraft

      Quoting the Necronomicon, in "The Nameless City"
    • Sydonai wrote:

      Huh, I had been uncertain as to whether or not they had really survived, and was assuming that the impression of them as Creator Deities was an exaggeration of some recollections of them.
      I guess things are a bit more complicated than I thought, and the "myths" were a bit more literal.


      I like to think of it as a special kind of leveling up. The Mother and Father became a special kind of god. The animals leveled up into a sentient anthropomorphic form, and some of those original animals themselves appear to have become Devah.

      Hey Scott, how many story points does that take to go from mortal child of the Mother and Father to Devah?
    • Scottie ^^

      Teenage Mutant Sarpah wrote:

      Thank you SO MUCH for this! I know some people like things being left to interpretation but maybe this is the S in my isfp type talking (Don't know how many here believe in MBTI) maybe because like the Sci-Fi genre more then the Fantasy but I looked at the prologue and just wanted to know more about what the heck was happening here


      You're welcome! I'm glad you enjoyed it! Hopefully it helps open up some new avenues of inspiration for you!

      Scottie ^^
    • Sydonai wrote:

      I guess things are a bit more complicated than I thought, and the "myths" were a bit more literal.


      Indeed! Enough so, in fact, that players in the Dream, when invoking the children of the Great Mother and Father (the Devah), would certainly feel their power manifest under the appropriate game circumstances... Few would ever doubt their existence.... They call upon the Devah because calling upon their Divine Parents would be far "too much"...
    • Wow!!! you guys totally turned on my quest for pushing the limits of the game with the question about how many points does it take to go from mortal to Gods!!!​
      Off the top of my head I would say a good starting number would be somewhere between 10,000 for lesser Deva to 999,999 for greater... of course this is not based upon anything other than my own opinion but it gives an idea of the degree above common or even legendary characters the truly divine would actually need to be... keeping in mind that the concept of what it means to be a GOD is somewhat subjective and could be any thing to which a group or individual pays homage...
      great food for thought!!!
    • Mulefoot wrote:

      griffin wrote:




      keeping in mind that the concept of what it means to be a GOD is somewhat subjective and could be any thing to which a group or individual pays homage...
      great food for thought!!!


      That's a good question. What would the character sheet of Kramah look like? And do the Devah have characteristics higher than 12?


      Well,...from my end of things, you'll never see me putting points down for real when it comes to such things.... As much as I liked reading through Deities and Demigods, I found the very idea of actually applying statistics to a "divine being" to be cheesy... Gods should be gods, for me,...unknowable, potentially limitless in power and scope, and certainly so mysterious that they could never be encapsulated by actual rules and stats... Literal "Deus Ex Machina" material that could be used to pull almost ANYTHING out of the storytelling hat, if necessary... Apply stats, and you ruin the mystery!

      Heh! ^^