Friday, September 3, 2010

A Danian Differential.

I thought it would be interesting to post a rather under-spoken of topic concerning Danians. We all know that primarily, Danians are insectile creatures. We know this because of the 6 appendage insect rule, that is that insects have 6 "legs" which for Danians typically come in either 4 arms and two legs, or more commonly, 4 legs and two arms.

Now, what manages to slip through the cracks here is that there are a number of Danians who have upwards of 8 in combination, and depending on your definition of "limbs" upwards of 10! It is hard to tell unless you look for some, but several four armed Danians actually have a fully extended thorax like most others, meaning that they require 4 legs to balance. An example of this is Kepiaan, he is shown holding a weapon in one hand, while gesturing with three, and if you look at his rear, you see a long set thorax just like you see on creatures like Galin and Ibiaan. Another example of this is Khavakk, but in his case you can see all four arms and legs.

"Technically" this means that there are Arachnids amongst the Danians, and rather than just being just insects we have Insectile creatures, that is creatures with an insect like chitin (fancy word for bug skin) on the outside, no matter their number of legs.

Now as for that 10Lumb issue, this REALLY depends on what you judge to be limbs. There are onlya few major examples of this that I have amongst my own collection. Ghundac is the first example. You see two arms, six legs (an odd Danian for sure just from that), but you also see a pair of mantis like limbs with no hands. You see four similar limbs coming out of Neekwin's back. Now, whether these are limbs or not is really up for discussion. They can't hold items, it is difficult to say if they are used for attacking physically, or if they are possible of launching attacks themselves. In the last case, Mhein, if you count, he has 6 legs, and 4 arms, so there's less issue with what he can do.

Personally, I like to think of them as limbs. Neekwin having 10 limbs kind of expresses how he really is the "Mandiblor of the Mandiblor" when it comes to selecting a combat based Mandiblor! Although there are many, many more, I know very few people that can argue against the first thought in their heads when they hear the words "Combat" and "Mandiblor" in the same sentense is Neekwin.

5 comments:

  1. yeah and i like mhein but how many does fliandar have its like 8 or 6 or something i ave him and im just wondering if it counts as limbs or not

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  2. Actually I am fairly sure he only has 6, the two sprouting piles of parasites.

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  3. Those mantis-like arms are actually antennae, like Odu-Bathax's :) And I don't think they really count as Arachnids.. I mean, Primates typically have four limbs, but if you look at Illiar, he has six. I think Chaotic is a fantastical realm and Danians, just like overworlders and underworlders, can deviate from the anatomical archetypes. Interesting article however :)

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  4. btw, if anyone still checks this blog's comments, there's a discord server set up for the old chaotic people. We have a lot of the guys from the forums, Hikeda, and Blargers. https://discord.gg/4GBYcAu

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