How do Snakes Cry?

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    • Excellent question!

      Dig if you will a picture,.... Oh,..wait,...that's doves... ^^

      As you know, we have indicated that serpents have no eyelids,...and I have always run my games as if snakes produce no tears, even though they still go through the motions and vocalizations of "crying"... We haven't really mentioned snake tears in the core rules anywhere, because the need to determine whether actual tears are produced when "crying" happens for snakes, specifically, hasn't ever become an issue in-game...

      So there are two ways any GM could deal with physiology questions that are currently unanswered in a game such as ours...and in either case, the simplest answer is usually the best!

      In the first case, deciding that snakes simply can't cry for your game, the GM could play up the fact that many aspects of these different jenu can sometimes have elements that serve to "alienate" them from other jenu types in cases where it might make interesting game-play and narrative descriptions... The 'unblinking serpent's gaze' is one such case that can easily be used to create an unnerving environment out of a simple meeting with a snake, especially when the idea is that the character has never met a snake before, in the game, and the GM really wants to make it more interesting... Once the player has been exposed enough to 'unblinking snakes', then the reaction would wear off, and that particular facet of snake physiology might rarely be mentioned again...

      In the second case, deciding that snakes DO produce tears for your game, even though they don't have eyelids, the simplest assumption would be that they have a tear-duct, situated appropriately at the corner of their lidless eye-scale, that is essentially a "latent" or "remnant" piece of physiology that appeared as a direct result of the blending of human and animal traits that happened when the Zoics were first "formed"... Though such serpentine tear ducts wouldn't really do anything beneficial for their eyes, they WOULD react to emotional states and emit tears that could roll down their faces...

      This is much like the gland that allows jánah, who's base animal form wouldn't normally have nipples on Earth, to actually be able to lactate for the sake of feeding their children in Dárdünah, and thus have the feminine secondary sexual characteristics of breasts...

      Hopefully this helps!

      Scottie ^^
    • Yes, I found this to be a great way to explain the possible ways this subject could be approached with in the game...
      Once again this is one of the features of the SHARD universe which I find the most pleasing, the free flow nature of the generalities which can be customized by a specific Game master to suit the needs, ideas and expectations of the players he or she may be entertaining...