Deific Power: Create Minion
Posted: Fri Apr 07, 2023 1:40 am
Prototypical Deific Powers are even more open-ended than is common for Palladium, and any answers to questions regarding them are likely to be subjective. That said...
Are there any examples given of adoption or creation of minion species? I was hoping to see perhaps a timeframe, or initial population size.
For some context, I've been wondering which deity could bootstrap their own servitors in the most time efficient manner, and what traits might be necessary or otherwise useful to embed. Dragons & Gods heavily implies that offspring are only the result of sexual reproduction, and mentions that at least two minions are required to reproduce. While the male/female dichotomy described would seemingly be less than strictly necessary, particularly when talking about the potential creation of beings such as demons or fungus people, the important takeaway is that they can't all be effectively clones of one minion.
What, then, is a suitable minimum viable population? The 50/500 rule is a proposed bound of a species' numbers against inbreeding and drift, respectively, which while many experts reject it as a useful guide seems good enough for this purpose. This is made easier by one or more ways by which servitor genetics can be made a complete nonfactor via the deific power. A supernatural being, for one, might not have a body composed of biological material, rendering reproduction perhaps less a function of exchanging genetic material than fulfilling some ceremonial requirement. Alternatively, a created minion could be given a natural ability possessed by their divine creator. A god with a portfolio of things like resilience, experimentation, or fertility might have an impossibly flexible genome (Palladium's general prohibition against hybrid beings notwithstanding), and share that with their new minions.
Almost as important as the specifics of the new minion species-to-be is how quickly a breeding population could be achieved. The Deific Power requires a Severe Body Investment, meaning half of the deity's HP/SDC must be sacrificed and only regained through healing, without recourse to any funny business. This is listed in D&G as 1d4x10 HP and 1d6x10 SDC per day. If someone recalls if that translates strangely into MDC I'd be interested to hear, but for now will just add the totals of those rolls together, for an average of 60 MDC healed per day.
Which deity in Palladium has the lowest damage capacity? This would seem to be, after access to enough PPE, the primary determinant of maximum minion creation speed. For the purposes of example, the god Amon could create a breeding pair and be back to full strength in around 6 months. If we use the above 50/500 guideline, then a viable breeding population might be had in a human generation. Amon strikes me as a good example of a being likely to create minions, what with her already collecting a wide variety of "children." A fun take might be for her new minions to have little genetic variation, such as seen in the Altara Warrior Women, such that she has what could be considered a canvas for her to refine her arts of torture and disfigurement.
tl;dr: Which god with listed stats could heal from a Severe Body Investment the most quickly? What natural abilities would a god in need of bespoke worshipers want to impart? What are efficient game-mechanical ways to get around any potential bottlenecks, genetic or otherwise?
Are there any examples given of adoption or creation of minion species? I was hoping to see perhaps a timeframe, or initial population size.
For some context, I've been wondering which deity could bootstrap their own servitors in the most time efficient manner, and what traits might be necessary or otherwise useful to embed. Dragons & Gods heavily implies that offspring are only the result of sexual reproduction, and mentions that at least two minions are required to reproduce. While the male/female dichotomy described would seemingly be less than strictly necessary, particularly when talking about the potential creation of beings such as demons or fungus people, the important takeaway is that they can't all be effectively clones of one minion.
What, then, is a suitable minimum viable population? The 50/500 rule is a proposed bound of a species' numbers against inbreeding and drift, respectively, which while many experts reject it as a useful guide seems good enough for this purpose. This is made easier by one or more ways by which servitor genetics can be made a complete nonfactor via the deific power. A supernatural being, for one, might not have a body composed of biological material, rendering reproduction perhaps less a function of exchanging genetic material than fulfilling some ceremonial requirement. Alternatively, a created minion could be given a natural ability possessed by their divine creator. A god with a portfolio of things like resilience, experimentation, or fertility might have an impossibly flexible genome (Palladium's general prohibition against hybrid beings notwithstanding), and share that with their new minions.
Almost as important as the specifics of the new minion species-to-be is how quickly a breeding population could be achieved. The Deific Power requires a Severe Body Investment, meaning half of the deity's HP/SDC must be sacrificed and only regained through healing, without recourse to any funny business. This is listed in D&G as 1d4x10 HP and 1d6x10 SDC per day. If someone recalls if that translates strangely into MDC I'd be interested to hear, but for now will just add the totals of those rolls together, for an average of 60 MDC healed per day.
Which deity in Palladium has the lowest damage capacity? This would seem to be, after access to enough PPE, the primary determinant of maximum minion creation speed. For the purposes of example, the god Amon could create a breeding pair and be back to full strength in around 6 months. If we use the above 50/500 guideline, then a viable breeding population might be had in a human generation. Amon strikes me as a good example of a being likely to create minions, what with her already collecting a wide variety of "children." A fun take might be for her new minions to have little genetic variation, such as seen in the Altara Warrior Women, such that she has what could be considered a canvas for her to refine her arts of torture and disfigurement.
tl;dr: Which god with listed stats could heal from a Severe Body Investment the most quickly? What natural abilities would a god in need of bespoke worshipers want to impart? What are efficient game-mechanical ways to get around any potential bottlenecks, genetic or otherwise?