While I agree with generally, the problem arises with Trill. Judging by the race picture, where they're pretty much humans with wings, there is no where for the flight muscles to go to power the wings. While this is true of most four-limbed winged creatures in fantasy, it does make me question how much credit we should give to real world anatomy. Unless we just say Trills fly magically. :shrug:

The same question could probably be raised about faelings, even in spite of their size. While you're at it, applying the cube-square law to krokani and tae'dae could be amusing. Say, do you suppose Poincare's conjecture applies to aetherbubbles?

I had never thought of that. And the butterfly wings always made me associate their flying more with beetles and such than with birds, and beetles fly perfectly well with six legs and wings. Also, faelings are more blatantly magical.

I defenetly picture them as cat men who use Parkour... look for videos of parkour and you'll see how I picture Aslaran moving around..

I always thought that the Trill body, while it looked humanoid on the outside, had some big differences on the inside. I always imagined Trill having broader shoulders and backs with clearly defined, large muscle groups that take up a good deal of the torso and shift everything else in the body slightly out of where it is in a human. When it comes to things built into the game, I go by the theory that "It exists, now let's find a rationalization".

The racial description doesn't say that they don't have large muscle groups, but this:



makes me think they can't have huge broad shoulders. I would never describe someone with large broad shoulders and bulky muscles as delicate... or graceful really. But that's me.

Well if you consider that human anatomy is not perfect, and is 'far' from fully evolved. We have redundent organs, non-used organs, etc...

Minor changes in the skeletal structure, and organ arangment would not only make the bird wings more possible, but provide less weight, and space for more muscles while retaining the graceful form.

On that note... Trill are an engima in themselves. They are not really aerodynamic...

I wish they'd have gone the other way, and made the Aslaran more feline - That is, digitigrade people with teats instead of breasts. I think that would help curb the furry sex.
The next person who uses the word 'anthro' with regards to the Aslaran is going to have his gonads teleported into the cold vacuum of space.

As for the anatomy of the different races, you have to understand that Lusternia's life didn't evolve - it was created. The particular combination of wings and arms would never evolve naturaly, but that doesn't mean it's impossible, even though it would require a muscular power unavailable in real-life animals.

I tried. But it was ultimately doomed. You can't establish anatomy details that go against human norms without there being something in the world background that makes it explicit or at least unavoidable. Not because of the people who've thought it out and then decided to go the boring furries route anyway; those people tend to compartmentalize themselves and thus have relatively little impact. It's because of all the people who don't think it through, don't check what others have established, and just play furries by default. You either contradict them, or you don't; and if you don't, you end up with a wishy-washy mess where every race is so broad and inclusive none of them actually have any unique characteristics or culture, so what was the point?

Hence,'I wish they had gone the other way...'

It's also the reason humans are my favourite race. They have no anatomical issues.

All I can say in this topic is:

1) The way an Aslaran looks may be that of a humanoid looking or like a lion standing on two feet
2) They way the move, depends on how you look at it, run with its arms and legs or just with its legs
3) How the Aslaran looks ranges to pure blooded to that of mixed, take my character for example, he's merian yet he looks 'more' human than any other merian, the only thing that makes him merian is those thin slits around his neck that enables him to breathe underwater.

That's all

Quite the contrary, I'm afraid. One of the reasons I favor the non-animalistic anatomy is my own encounters with the extremes of "furry" culture.

I'm sorry you find sex disturbing, but it's part of the human condition. The only addiction more thoroughly woven into the fabric of human society than alcohol is sex, and as Prohibition did with alcohol, shaming it underground just puts those who seek it out at the mercy of predators.

Now let's say your and Gwylifar's wish was fulfilled, and suddenly aslaran were more animal like. The "furry sex" would not cease to exist. It would simply become much more akin to bestiality.

When Gwylifar tried to define aslaran sex as bestial (estrus cycle, barbed genitalia, etc.), there was a huge backlash from aslaran players who didn't want their sexuality so completely redefined and inhuman. Sexuality goes way beyond the sex act to shape the very nature of a species, and most aslaran players (then as now) would have given up the race if Estarra had descended from on high and said, "Yes. Aslaran biology is like Gwylifar says."

Now if we, the moderates, had left, you would have had aslaran role-play reduced to two camps: those who were largely asexual, and those with actual bestiality fantasies to play out. And I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but there are way more people out there with bestiality fantasies than there are people who enjoy the pretense of asexuality.

What dooms trying to define racial biology like that is that it dictates role-play for the entire race. Especially, as it was with you, when the target is sexual biology. You wanted to tell every aslaran player who would ever be in Lusternia that he/she had to behave toward males/females within a certain set of parameters you found personally enjoyable, but which most of us found revolting.

This was very much akin to a player coming in and saying, "All Viscanti males are homosexuals who go at it like bunnies." Sure, it might have seemed like a good idea to him and his homosexual, Viscanti-playing buddy. But you know most of the straight guys already playing Viscanti would throw a fit -- probably kill the offender on sight from that moment on, given they're playing viscanti anyway, and certainly try to discredit him as a liar or a lunatic.

...You do know it's unhealthy to write such lengthy drivel around the sexuality of fictional races of fictional characters in fictional universes, right?

Aaand, I played a MUSH with a very animalistic feline race (Just as I described) and the race seemed to be quite popular and enjoyable. I'm not sure if bestial sex ran rampant (I think not) but it seemed to me the players of that race, for the most part, enjoyed even the roleplay of relationships between them without coming to the point of sex.

Oh, and I have nothing against furries, sex, or furry sex. But I knew the suggestion would piss you off, so...

YHBT. YHL. HAND.

If Aslarans are that much like cats, then wouldn't the females have like 6 breasts?

6 breasts, thrice the fun

How many hands do you have, Corinthian?

Two hands does wonders if you know what you are doing

With four extra parts? I'll bow to your superiority if you can manage that.