Star Hero versions of Fantasy Hero races?

[Steve]

I was wondering if anyone had converted races from Fantasy Hero into Star Hero. I'm not talking mechanics or packages, more in the line of concepts.

 

For example, Elves may not be an immortal race in Star Hero but merely extremely long-lived humanoids (2-3 points worth of Life Support: Slow Aging). Would you keep their culture as it usually is shown (forest dwelling nature preservers with bows) or change it in some way to reflect a more science-fiction galactic backdrop? Maybe they are a contemplative race of esthetes? Perhaps they are keepers of lore, like secret martial arts skills?

 

I would picture Orcs making for a warrior race, maybe much like Klingons.

 

I'm just looking for ideas, to see if anyone has used the fantasy races and modified them for inclusion in a sci-fi setting.

[Rapier]

Re: Star Hero versions of Fantasy Hero races?

 

For example' date=' Elves may not be an immortal race in Star Hero but merely extremely long-lived humanoids (2-3 points worth of Life Support: Slow Aging). Would you keep their culture as it usually is shown (forest dwelling nature preservers with bows) or change it in some way to reflect a more science-fiction galactic backdrop? Maybe they are a contemplative race of esthetes? Perhaps they are keepers of lore, like secret martial arts skills?[/quote']

 

Wow. In my head I SO read Elven Wookies.

[Supreme Serpent]

Re: Star Hero versions of Fantasy Hero races?

 

You could do some interesting things with it. Could either just take the "theme" and throw that on a different frame, or take the physical aspects along with you too - ie the "elf-equivalent" could be an orange 3-tentacled squid, or it could be a pointy-eared humanoid.

 

To use some D&D examples and assuming the second option, have Goblins and Hobgoblins together with some common (engineered?) origin. Questions could be raised as to why some races with seemingly far-flung origin points like Elves and Humans are able to cross-breed so easily.

 

In Babylon-5, Minbari are close to an elf-equivalent for that setting.

[Tom Carman]

Re: Star Hero versions of Fantasy Hero races?

 

I was wondering if anyone had converted races from Fantasy Hero into Star Hero. I'm not talking mechanics or packages, more in the line of concepts.

...

I'm just looking for ideas, to see if anyone has used the fantasy races and modified them for inclusion in a sci-fi setting.

 

I haven't read this, but it sounds interesting:

 

Two Space War by Dave Grossman & Leo Frankowski - Baen Books

 

Ad copy from Baen Books' site:

 

MEN WHO GO UP TO THE

STARS IN WOODEN SHIPS

INTO A UNIVERSE OF DANGER!

 

It is six hundred years in the future and mankind has learned to move between the stars . . . by going into Two-Space, the vast realm where sentient wooden ships travel beneath canvas sails in a universe that is corrosive to technology.

 

As they charged headlong into the galaxy, humans discovered others who were already there: The elven Sylvans who live in the vast forests of low-gravity worlds, the dwarven Dwarrowdelf who thrive deep in the mines of high-gravity worlds, and other, far more alien races. The ancient Sylvan race is enchanted by the human culture, embracing Tolkien as prophecy and taking classic human science fiction as a guide.

 

Against this stellar backdrop, Lt. Thomas Melville's ship is mortally wounded in a cowardly surprise attack. With his captain killed, Melville must capture a feral, sentient enemy ship, then must fight his way across the galaxy to warn of the vast invading armada. In an odyssey of turmoil and battle he forges his ship and crew into a mighty weapon of war and earns the love of an alien princess.

 

Now, if he can only survive the attacks of two very angry alien empires, and avoid being court martialed by his own nation of Westerness for getting them involved in a vast intergalactic war, he might live to enjoy the fruits of his labor.

[tkdguy]

Re: Star Hero versions of Fantasy Hero races?

 

The Warhammer 40,000 game by Games Workshop has done this. It can give you a few ideas, even if you decide against using the 40K universe.

 

Here's a list of the races in 40K.

[Dale A. Ward]

Re: Star Hero versions of Fantasy Hero races?

 

In Babylon-5' date=' Minbari are close to an elf-equivalent for that setting.[/quote']

 

 

Damn... beat me to the punch!

[Lucius]

Re: Star Hero versions of Fantasy Hero races?

 

It has certainly been done in fiction. I remember Andre Norton had some stories where the Faerie were a starfaring group of several related species, generally psionically gifted as I recall, who migrated from world to world, often settling on worlds with a primitive sentient species already established, sticking around for enough millenia to embed themselves in the native folklore indelibly, then moving on before the natives got technologically advanced enough to make them too uncomfortable.

 

I've toyed with the idea of saying the Faerie originally evolved with the First Generation stars, thus explaining why their blood is not iron-based and why iron would be poisonous to them. Unfortunately, I don't think the range of elements they'd have to be composed of is broad enough to realistically provide for the evolution of life, let alone complex humanoid forms. Perhaps better to make their blood copper-based like Vulcans but accept that they can't be that cosmically ancient (I was disappointed to learn copper has a higher atomic number even than iron....)

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Where did the palindromedary go?

[AmadanNaBriona]

Re: Star Hero versions of Fantasy Hero races?

 

Julian May does a pretty good job of porting the creatures of Faerie into an iron susceptible, psionically powerful dimorphic alien race in her Pleistocine Exile saga.

[FeralWhippet]

Re: Star Hero versions of Fantasy Hero races?

 

For example' date=' Elves may not be an immortal race in Star Hero but merely extremely long-lived humanoids (2-3 points worth of Life Support: Slow Aging). Would you keep their culture as it usually is shown (forest dwelling nature preservers with bows) or change it in some way to reflect a more science-fiction galactic backdrop? Maybe they are a contemplative race of esthetes? Perhaps they are keepers of lore, like secret martial arts skills?[/quote']

 

For an interesting take on this see the Silfen from Peter Hamilton's "Pandora's Star". The series ends up more than a little disappointing, but the idea behind the Silfen was nice. Too the human eye they look very elf-like, but that's really due to them being so alien that the apparent elf-like nature is the result of people trying to fit them into a human understandable mental image.

[Curufea]

Re: Star Hero versions of Fantasy Hero races?

 

Spacemaster had elves in space

[HeroGM]

Re: Star Hero versions of Fantasy Hero races?

 

I haven't done it for a Star Hero game no.....

 

Way back in Dragon (long time ago, 81-83) they did an article "Dwarves in Space," putting D&D style dwarves into Traveller.

[tkdguy]

Re: Star Hero versions of Fantasy Hero races?

 

There's also the Spelljammer series for AD&D 2nd Edition; 3rd Edition came out with Dragonstar.

[Alverant]

Re: Star Hero versions of Fantasy Hero races?

 

If you're going with concepts, the Jurai in Tenchi Muyo fits with elves pretty well. They have a relationship with their Jurai trees. It gives them their special powers and variants of their trees are used in their ships. I don't remember everything but it could be in wikipedia or something.

 

Dwarves could be genetically modified humans for mining asteroids or heavy gravity worlds.

 

I'm planning a halfling-like race for a Star Hero campaign. They are humanoid but half the size of ordinary humans because largest landmass on their homeworld is about half the size of Afirca, the rest are islands. The smaller the landmass, the smaller the animals that evolve there will be.

 

Orcs can have the same type of origin and culture as the Klingons in Star Trek. Hey, why not make them the leaders of an empire with gnolls, trolls, hobgoblins, etc being their subject races.

[tancred]

Re: Star Hero versions of Fantasy Hero races?

 

Goblins in Space!

'Nuff said.

[Susano]

Re: Star Hero versions of Fantasy Hero races?

 

As has been said elsewhere -- a lot o the stuff in the Asian Bestiaries would make for great aliens. Heck, there's something in there big enough to *eat* spaceships!

[David Johnston]

Re: Star Hero versions of Fantasy Hero races?

 

I was wondering if anyone had converted races from Fantasy Hero into Star Hero. I'm not talking mechanics or packages, more in the line of concepts.

 

For example, Elves may not be an immortal race in Star Hero but merely extremely long-lived humanoids (2-3 points worth of Life Support: Slow Aging).

 

They aren't immortal in Fantasy Hero either. They only live about 1600 years.

 

But lets see now. A humanoid species which is very long lived, older and more learned than humanity, gifted with some kind of psionic (magical) powers that few humans can duplicate. Oh yeah, and they have pointy ears. Remind you of anyone?

[Lezentauw]

Re: Star Hero versions of Fantasy Hero races?

 

They aren't immortal in Fantasy Hero either. They only live about 1600 years.

 

But lets see now. A humanoid species which is very long lived, older and more learned than humanity, gifted with some kind of psionic (magical) powers that few humans can duplicate. Oh yeah, and they have pointy ears. Remind you of anyone?

 

a spork?

[MorpheousXO]

Re: Star Hero versions of Fantasy Hero races?

 

They aren't immortal in Fantasy Hero either. They only live about 1600 years.

 

But lets see now. A humanoid species which is very long lived, older and more learned than humanity, gifted with some kind of psionic (magical) powers that few humans can duplicate. Oh yeah, and they have pointy ears. Remind you of anyone?

 

VULCANS!!!!

[David Johnston]

Re: Star Hero versions of Fantasy Hero races?

 

Thank you for humouring me with a pretence of shock.

 

Really, most of the fantasy folk packages could be used as is. The "Cat-people" template for example is a science fiction standard dating back to Andre Norton's Salariki in the 50s although her particular cat people has a sense of smell so acute that it was both a superpower and a serious weakness. Dwarves aren't at all unlike certain heavy gravity human variants I've seen.

[Captain Obvious]

Re: Star Hero versions of Fantasy Hero races?

 

It has certainly been done in fiction. I remember Andre Norton had some stories where the Faerie were a starfaring group of several related species, generally psionically gifted as I recall, who migrated from world to world, often settling on worlds with a primitive sentient species already established, sticking around for enough millenia to embed themselves in the native folklore indelibly, then moving on before the natives got technologically advanced enough to make them too uncomfortable.

 

I've toyed with the idea of saying the Faerie originally evolved with the First Generation stars, thus explaining why their blood is not iron-based and why iron would be poisonous to them. Unfortunately, I don't think the range of elements they'd have to be composed of is broad enough to realistically provide for the evolution of life, let alone complex humanoid forms. Perhaps better to make their blood copper-based like Vulcans but accept that they can't be that cosmically ancient (I was disappointed to learn copper has a higher atomic number even than iron....)

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Where did the palindromedary go?

 

Poul Anderson's Interloper was along similar lines. There were at least five or six alien races on Earth, hiding in the fringes and carrying out their experiments.

Of course, in that story, fairies were Earthlings too, but with the rise of humanity, they wanted to get away to a planet without so much sunlight and iron...

 

[Captain Obvious]

Re: Star Hero versions of Fantasy Hero races?

 

The smaller the landmass, the smaller the animals that evolve there will be.

 

You mean like the moas of New Zealand, the Sumatran rat, and the Galapagos tortoise?

 

In general, you're right, though.

[Susano]

Re: Star Hero versions of Fantasy Hero races?

 

You mean like the moas of New Zealand, the Sumatran rat, and the Galapagos tortoise?

 

In general, you're right, though.

 

Actually, the way it tends to work is large animals get small, and small animals get big. So you get dwarf elephants, but giant flightless birds.

[Curufea]

Re: Star Hero versions of Fantasy Hero races?

 

Pshaw - Darwin was a hack!

;-p

[gewing]

Re: Star Hero versions of Fantasy Hero races?

 

It has certainly been done in fiction. I remember Andre Norton had some stories where the Faerie were a starfaring group of several related species, generally psionically gifted as I recall, who migrated from world to world, often settling on worlds with a primitive sentient species already established, sticking around for enough millenia to embed themselves in the native folklore indelibly, then moving on before the natives got technologically advanced enough to make them too uncomfortable.

 

I've toyed with the idea of saying the Faerie originally evolved with the First Generation stars, thus explaining why their blood is not iron-based and why iron would be poisonous to them. Unfortunately, I don't think the range of elements they'd have to be composed of is broad enough to realistically provide for the evolution of life, let alone complex humanoid forms. Perhaps better to make their blood copper-based like Vulcans but accept that they can't be that cosmically ancient (I was disappointed to learn copper has a higher atomic number even than iron....)

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Where did the palindromedary go?

 

 

I was just thinking about copper based Elves last week!!!

 

what other metals might work. Aluminum? (aluminium for our Commonwealth members. )

[gewing]

Re: Star Hero versions of Fantasy Hero races?

 

Thank you for humouring me with a pretence of shock.

 

Really, most of the fantasy folk packages could be used as is. The "Cat-people" template for example is a science fiction standard dating back to Andre Norton's Salariki in the 50s although her particular cat people has a sense of smell so acute that it was both a superpower and a serious weakness. Dwarves aren't at all unlike certain heavy gravity human variants I've seen.

 

 

 

I was looking at the example drawings of the races in D&D 3.5 players handbook the other day. Cross Dwarves with Humans- Orcs?

 

For years I have thought of having Humans be the stable product of Elf/ "dwarf" (I was going to play some games here. more another time) crosses, or perhaps elf/orc.