Race Meet the Oscura

Discussion in 'NPCs and Creatures' started by Unendingfear, Apr 24, 2013.

?

Should it be added to the game?

  1. Yes please

    450 vote(s)
    61.7%
  2. With Improvements

    204 vote(s)
    28.0%
  3. No way

    75 vote(s)
    10.3%
  1. Chamomileable

    Chamomileable Subatomic Cosmonaut

    Decided to make some more eye colors for you, pal. Hope you like.
    [​IMG]
     
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  2. DeadlyLuvdisc

    DeadlyLuvdisc Oxygen Tank

    They are blobs. I suppose Fetalstar's artwork shows that they can have hair, but it is hard to imagine them in different colors.

    They did historically until the late 19th century, but don't anymore, which causes a lot of misconceptions. I'd like to see your source for that info.

    They were very functional: you could use it to water your horse because the material was fairly water resistant, it kept the sun off your face and back, the way the brim turns up at the ears makes it less easy to knock it off while using a lasso, and it could be used effectively as a fan for starting fires at night. The thing is, almost none of these things are relevant to modern cowboys, who often just use sunscreen and a baseball cap. Also, cowboys didn't wear pointed cowboy boots, and about 50% of them were either black or Mexican.

    Well, we're talking about a span of fifty years in history at most. I imagine their lore basically being a bunch of noir novels. Having a powerful centralized government is already a theme used by the Apex. If they have very limited interactions with other races, that seems like it would make their lore less interesting.

    I've had some time to think about it and I'll admit it is probably one of the best suggestions I've seen. After all, even though the Novakid are already a blob of amorphous stuff, the only organic sub-type that seems to be really lacking from the current race selection are microbes (and Arthropods). Also, though we don't actually know what humans can build (I'm guessing anything from the late 20th to early 21st century) these might actually have a lot of overlap with human crafting and items. Being able to build a factory might be nice (and probably not included in human crafting) but if the Novakid or the Glitch have any Steampunk flair then it may already be possible. Some people may even simply dislike them on the point that they use fossil fuels so much.
     
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  3. Illumina

    Illumina Void-Bound Voyager

    I think eye shape should be their first custom trait.
    Verticle narrow eyes, full circular eyes, horizontal narrow eyes, upward half circle, downward half circle, maybe a full squint too.
    Another thing is "slick" haridos. Like pompadours or cowlicks or buzz cuts and onward.

    Edit: also, maybe their "no shoes" legs should end in a sort of gel instead of looking like feet.
     
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  4. DeadlyLuvdisc

    DeadlyLuvdisc Oxygen Tank

    Comb-Overs. Awwww yeah, sexiest hair ever.
     
  5. Unendingfear

    Unendingfear Cosmic Narwhal

    Thanks a bunch man, added to the original post.
    Well, in the selections of pictures up on the front page, there's at least three different colors used. Purple, gray, and black. All look quite fine, at least in my opinion.

    For the most part, they wore bowler hats.


    Well, I provided evolutionary background (millions of years), and history since they achieved space flight. It's more a powerful decentralized government, really. The real government only does some select tasks, while the "Democratically elected" one handles day to day operations with none of the messy stuff. Their limited interactions actually set up a lot of opportunity. What happens when they meet <x> race? What happens when <x> race requests the Oscura to stop trading with another because of a fight they're in? All kinds of stuff like that. Then there could be stuff about what happens to a member of a race on their planets. Stuff like that.

    Thanks very much. I appreciate the compliment.

    Well, I don't see there being a whole lot of overlap. Oscura have a diesel-punk feel to them; hence all the fossil fuel usage (especially petroleum derivatives). It's a grimy and grittier feeling. It'd be closer to the scrapyard planets we've seen than the human stuff we've seen. Well, I couldn't really help somebody disliking them for the fossil fuel part. It's part of their life and their world.
     
  6. Chamomileable

    Chamomileable Subatomic Cosmonaut

    I mentioned it elsewhere, but I would also think a good explanation for their skin not instantly ruining their clothes is that the humanoid shape of the Oscurans stays in place with a shiny transparent laminate layer of oil that serves to keep their skin moist enough not to break the laminate, but dry enough to only feel about as wet as a clammy human hand. That way, if one of our less-noble tar-men gets shot while in the field, the laminate layer of "skin" is broken, and some of his oil "bleeds" out through the bullethole the same way human blood would. Also their ships have to look like 49' Fords, because why not be the mobsterererest.
     
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  7. Unendingfear

    Unendingfear Cosmic Narwhal

    There is liquid resistant cloth already in existence, though. Even if it's not that complex, it might be made from materials that prevent that from happening. Adding a layer like that might nudge them too close to the Novakid for comfort.

    Also yes, I absolutely agree. '49 Ford rockets and airplanes everywhere.
     
  8. DeadlyLuvdisc

    DeadlyLuvdisc Oxygen Tank

    On the same page of the page you linked, it directly contradicts you:
    "It was the bowler hat and not the cowboy hat that was the most popular form of headgear in the American West... However, working cowboys wore wide-brimmed, high crowned hats long before the invention of the modern design."
    It is merely saying that non-cowboys usually wore bowlers-- if everyone wore cowboy hats, they wouldn't have a special association with cowboys. Cowboys wore cowboy hats, there is no other way they would come to be called "cowboy hats". However, they did not wear the Stetson design which was not made until 1865, and that is the most widely known cowboy hat in modern times. One could argue that cowboys didn't wear the modern cowboy hat, but that would be splitting hairs.

    IMO Steampunk, Dieselpunk, and Decopunk all overlap. They just have variances on how gritty/shiny they feel, and might use different fuels, but the aesthetics are much more similar to each other than the differences between, say, ancient Mayan/Egyptian compared to Medieval Europe or Feudal Japan. Suggesting a dieselpunk race when we might already have steampunk (we really don't know yet) is kinda like saying "we don't have a chinese race, we should add it" when we already have the Hylotl. I don't want to argue over it, this is just my personal feeling.
     
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  9. Chamomileable

    Chamomileable Subatomic Cosmonaut

    My big concern was how we could implement something like that and not say "it's space I ain't gotta splain shit" about them wearing non-Oscuran armor. Still, this is something I'd like to see along with the Zaahir and Decapods added in. We really don't need a HUGE amount of playable races, but a couple more might not hurt. I just want an even number.
     
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  10. Unendingfear

    Unendingfear Cosmic Narwhal

    Well, the Stetson is what most people consider the cowboy hat. There is an important distinction, there. Many wouldn't even really consider early cowboy hats to be cowboy hats.


    Ehhh, only in that some originated from the other. While you obviously can find cultures with greater variance, they are vastly different in an of themselves. From the aesthetics to the themes explored, the only think really binding them together is the increased reliance on fossil fuels. Steampunk is about lots and lots of steam, clockwork, and brass. There might be factories and all, but they're of different styles and purposes. Dieselpunk is a vastly different beast. I mean just check out some of the images you get when you google for dieselpunk. It's much sleeker, and yet much dirtier in some regards. Like this, for example:
    [​IMG]

    Nothing like it to be found among steampunk, really. The closest might be a zeppelin, but that'd be pushing it far.

    It's not an argument, it's a friendly discussion. :) Talking about topics in some depth does not a fight make.
     
  11. Unendingfear

    Unendingfear Cosmic Narwhal

    Ah, well the non-Oscuran armor might be a tad more difficult. Reasonably, they could just line it with that material on the interior. Every race starts to get problems when they put on the other's armor. How would a Floran with a venus fly trap plant head fit a Glitch helmet on?
     
  12. DeadlyLuvdisc

    DeadlyLuvdisc Oxygen Tank

    How do their clothes stay dry?
    How is that ever not a good explanation? I mean, not only is this a game, but it has space pirate penguins and cats riding mechas.
     
  13. Unendingfear

    Unendingfear Cosmic Narwhal

    Hydrophobic cloth material is a reasonable explanation for how it stays dry. No need of "space magic," or anything like that. It exists, and it's demonstrable.
     
  14. DeadlyLuvdisc

    DeadlyLuvdisc Oxygen Tank

    I have a very hard time believing that they invented hydrophobic cloth before wearing clothing became a culture norm for them. If they were already wearing non-hydrophobic cloth as their cultural norm, why switch to dry clothing? It would be kinda like humans suddenly switching to clothing that constantly stays wet, just because it is new technology or something.

    Actually, I have an even harder time giving a shit. It's a game. I maybe spend a few moments deciding if the sprite looks nice-- I'm not going to sit and wonder and pour over hundreds of pages of lore just to answer that one burning question: "are their clothes wet or not?" What does become lore is based on what is entertaining, not what answers some pointless question for the few hardcore "everything must make sense and be realistic" people. For example, chances are far more likely that the Florans reproduce by rubbing their butts together than anything based on real-life plant anatomy.
     
  15. Unendingfear

    Unendingfear Cosmic Narwhal

    Haha, alright, I understand.
    It could simply be a plant that grows on the oil rich planet that might be hydrophobic if processed in a certain way. Not too unreasonable an explanation. There's lots of reasonable explanations for everything.
     
  16. DeadlyLuvdisc

    DeadlyLuvdisc Oxygen Tank

    Here's a funny explanation: Maybe instead of the clothing being hydrophobic, the oils they produce are cloth-aphobic. Something about the way the microbes process it alters the molecule so that it just wicks off of almost any surface. They'd still feel wet because they are, but they can't get anything wet because it would just wick off.

    Side note: do hydrophobic materials repel oils? I thought most of them only effected water, thus the name. Like hydrophobic sand, which still dissolves in alcohol and certain oils.
     
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  17. Unendingfear

    Unendingfear Cosmic Narwhal

    The possibilities really are endless for this problem.

    I'm not entirely sure there, but it might not repel it. It wouldn't be a huge leap of "space magic" to have a kind of cloth that does, though.
     
  18. Illumina

    Illumina Void-Bound Voyager

    Could expand their palette nicely and within reason I think.
    Burgundy/Wine, Sea Green/Bluegreen, Forest Green, Navy Blue, a White bordering on Gray, whatever you would call a very dull Orange, Magenta.
     
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  19. Sishio

    Sishio Big Damn Hero

    Since the oil is largely "fused" and made up of microbes, and they choose to stay in that shape, it'd make sense for them to not "bleed" into clothing if they don't want to.
     
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  20. Unendingfear

    Unendingfear Cosmic Narwhal

    All fairly reasonable colors for them.
    Or that could be it just as easily.
     

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