Pregnancy in Arg-Reg

As topics and situations have brought it up, I've been wandering about pregnancies.

In general what are the rules for pregnancies on the server? Are there scripts or is it just to be RPed out? Are people meant to roll a die to see if unprotected sex leads to a pregnancy?

I've seen some servers get very serious about this, having dice roles on if a child is conceived, what gender, if it's still born, if the mother dies... It got pretty dark sometimes.

Also, I know lycans have their very own scripts for pregnancies, and more information on that would welcome, but can a lycan/non lycan (eg, human) reproduce? (I'd think so, but wanted to make sure).

This also has relevance to mine and Cjc180's character. In game, Aria is pregnant, Grace is in heat and Haven is Haven. Add these all up, plus the fact that Haven and Grace have been in a serious relationship, one thing led to another. Some DM feedback on what the possible results of this could be would be welcomed.

Friends,
Good questions all.

RP pregnancy for non-scripted sorts as you see fit, statistics for such things are easy to find online, roll dice or not as you see fit.

For the lycanthropes, we chose to push the 'nature rules over these' sorts by making 'nature take its course'. Males will fight over females in heat. Male/Female alone-ness during a female's heat phase likely results in pregnancy and the Lyco parents must then work to keep the young safe until maturity, failure results in XP penalties for the parents. We opted for this and some other features of the lyco system so it would not be all moonlight and mayhem, but have some more 'serious' aspects to the 'curse'.

Feedback welcome.

Be well. Game on.
GM_ODA

I would think so as far as D&D cannon but i don't know if the system is set up to do that on server....

FOr a lycan/non-lycan pregnancy, would it still be possible to try and get a 'full' lycan pregnancy (i.e. the scripted pregnancy)?

also, this draws up another topic- child PC's. After all, after you've had these kids, what do you do with them? time passes slowly, even in game, and many choose to ignore the ig passing and use real life. What happens to the child until it's an adult. I have no idea how it works with lycan pregnancies. Can people choose to make a child character to use (level restricted of course) until the child has grown up?

Elgate wrote:FOr a lycan/non-lycan pregnancy, would it still be possible to try and get a 'full' lycan pregnancy (i.e. the scripted pregnancy)?

also, this draws up another topic- child PC's. After all, after you've had these kids, what do you do with them? time passes slowly, even in game, and many choose to ignore the ig passing and use real life. What happens to the child until it's an adult. I have no idea how it works with lycan pregnancies. Can people choose to make a child character to use (level restricted of course) until the child has grown up?

You can always have another player play as the child or you can keep them following you as a henchy as far as I know for lycons the children are in ((for werecats at least)) their small form all the time

FOr a lycan/non-lycan pregnancy, would it still be possible to try and get a 'full' lycan pregnancy (i.e. the scripted pregnancy)?

As long as the pregnant one is the lycan it should work, there are provisions in the script to allow druids and/or otherwise transmuted players to interact on that level. Just not tested, but it should work...

child PC's. After all, after you've had these kids, what do you do with them? time passes slowly, even in game, and many choose to ignore the ig passing and use real life. What happens to the child until it's an adult. I have no idea how it works with lycan pregnancies. Can people choose to make a child character to use (level restricted of course) until the child has grown up?

The lycan script handles this as follows:

- When the female reaches the time that the server has determined will be the DOB (with the earlier clock fluff this may have been an epic wait, but clock will be fixed soon, next update apparently)

- The previously determined number of puppies/kittens/cubs NPCs are spawned, they are made at the time of birth but the count and DOB is set long before, along with their appearance (Data from both parents was stored on the female PC's runestone when the quest 'started').

- From the moment they are 'born' the puppies/kittens/cubs follow their mother around and basically pester ever so often for food and/or drink, (usually only drinking until they reach a number of days old --- During this time, the father gets XP for bringing food to the mother... I think this works, but none have done it yet to report its working). When they are eating solid food they may spread out between the parents. Some will follow dad around at that time.
Pretty much the quest at this point is keep them alive, fed and warm... They have no regeneration ability at this very young age, but will respawn at a cost of 2 Soul Runes. Thus the parents have something that can't shrug off a few heavy hits like they can. Its something fragile to look after.

- The quest itself is completed by a hunting lesson, a way to teach the puppies/kittens/cubs how to fend for themselves. After this is complete they will be around a bit less. Only spawning when they choose or when DM calls them into an event (Troublemaker wand for those DMs reading)

The AI Puppies/Kittens/Cubs will follow their own path for the most part, a 'carrier choice' is picked randomly from parents (sometimes families, if one or both parents are natural born), so they level according to the class they picked. Each litter has a unique number so the NPCs can recognize family (siblings, parents, siblings and such of parents if born, etc), these PCs they will interact with, even accept food and shelter from. Anyone else approaching them they will retreat behind the closet parent. Any item their parents give them is examined and equipped or used if possible, else returned to them. While still in the party they will copy their parents' example, such as if their parent shifts to small form, so will they.


At any time (This includes the first few days when puppies eyes are still shut - But I wouldn't recommend it that early), a PC can take the place of the NPC AI Puppy/Kitten/Cub. This requires either both parents to be online, or just the mother and DM help (there is variable which should be in the DM Document to override test for father, they don't always stick around on here for some reason).
If the mother has filled in the Tome of Self, the PC who intends to be the Kitten/Puppy/Cub needs to start a PC of the same name as one of the NPCs (It checks this), obviously the same gender too. That's it, the PC sets Subrace to 'Puppy', 'Kitten' or 'Cub', and when they start they should have a Player Tool Feat, this feat is used on the NPC Puppy/Kitten/Cub (lol getting tired writing that)... From that moment the NPC no longer spawns, any items the NPC is carrying is transferred to the PC along with parent data, litter number, DOB, lycanthropic race, etc.

It is possible to take over the NPC Puppy/Kitten/Cub from the moment it is born, though I wouldn't advice this as lightly to starve if mother PC is not on line, better to choose after they started to eat solid food


Think that covers the basics of how the 'Winter Yearly' / 'lycan pregnancy' Quest works.

I never realized how complicated and well thought out this was.....


*Hands Erin a diploma From the college of perfectionism*

Indeed it is, however its also been based on the IG clock, which i think was finally fixed recently, so hopefully everything can flow smoothly again once more, not have our lycons reverse aging or being born like 50 years in the future XD.

*chuckles*  Yes Shar it is very complicated and well thought out.

*should know ... has helped to virtually test most of the avail lycan races pregnancy scripts and effects for Eri*  
When a female lycan is in heat they will get a message in their journal saying "winter yearly"

For any Lycans to mate they must be in small or animal form.
If sucessful with mating you get a message about the "winter yearly"
The pregnant lycan PC suffers from periodic effects of the pregnancy, sickness, weakness, fear, etc.  

Note: This can be very tough if your in battle when it happens

Now when it gets closer to time for the birthing, the pregnant PC lycan will grow "fat" 'showing the pregnancy .. then few weeks RL after that they will usually have the babies.  

First your shifted into the PC's small form (animal form)
You will get a message from the server saying "It is time"
Then  "they are coming"
Then  "they are here"  at which time the female PC lycan is forced into their animal form and actually "births"  however many babies the script rolled, and also whatever their sex (male/female) was rolled to be by the scripts.

So far as I know eri has only set the scripts for Werewolf, Werebear, and Werecat lycans

Again, was pondering on this for a while. Even though hypothetically, you could play a char for 7+ years (Eg, you start with a 20 year old human and play till they're 80. 45 days= a year in game, (45 X 60) = 2700/ 365= 7 RL years), we could also hypothetically play through generations of chars.
For most human classes, they'll probably have to retire from adventuring at 60 (Docking playable years for that char to about 4 years), and if they have a child at 20, and that child has kids at 20, then by the age of 60, your char is a grandparent.

As such, having kids adds an interesting twist to the server- you could have lineages, have chars related to heroes of the past events and so on.

So maybe the pregnancy script should be opened up to every race? That way a new PC can 'adopt' a NPC child, like one 'adopts' a puppy, and has character history in their tome of self, listing these other PCs as ancestors.

Also, this would add more submersion to pregnancy- rather than someone just RPing they're pregnant, the script enforces people to think about certain things- eg, morning sickness, the dangers of engaging in fights, shapeshifting...

Also, currently, the lycan script only allows bear/bear, cat/cat, wolf/wolf mating, although in DnD lycan/nonlycan pairings were possible and the offspring was always a lycan. So perhaps the lycan script can be expanded to include say Human or elf bear/ human or elf, dwarf cat/ dwarf and so on?

Are there any server rules on non standard pairings? Eg, dwarf and human? Is that even possible, and if so, is the child half dwarf, full dwarf or human, infertile (mule)?

Friend Elgate, 
We are on the same path.

It is the eventually intent to open the whole system for pregnancy and lineage to all PCs, it is being perfected in the LYCOS atm especially since those wolf packs are generally family based groups.

As far as half-breeds. DND certainly up to 2nd edition, and even up to 3.5 iirc has no mention of most such half-breeds and I really don't want to get into too much of that - I've not seen any standard DND core book reference for example half-dwarves - and except for the noted crossbreeds that are rare but standard DND lore - like half-orc, half-elf and even half-ogre. Part of my reticence for this is that most races have unique characteristics and I don't want to get into debates with half-dwarf-elfs insisting they get this bonus or that - there are enough 'full-breed' races to play without opening a whole new set of debates; much preferring the cannon I can just read, rubber-stamp-or-toss-out, and code.

 Be well. Game on.
GM_ODA