Characters Inspired By Vinge br /A Fire Upon the Deep, Race notes for Tines

[Totalwar 0]

Ive begun research on creating a Tine Character template for my role playing game. In order to be more accurate Ive started an in depth study of the book A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge. Heres the first part of my notes, tell my what you think.

 

All information is adapted from A Fire Upon the Deep, By Vernor Vinge Copyright 1992. The following are notes for role playing an alien Tine character. All page numbers are from the hard cover published by Tom Doherty Associates, Inc.

 

Page 11:

That hill, above the timber line, but think I saw a pack of animals running away from the blast onwest side

yeah, shouted Jefri, wolves. Johanna had only had a quick glimpse of moving specs.

 

Relevance and thoughts: This is the first glimpse we get of the tine species. It is appropriate in both its wolf like description and regarding their pack like nature. As you will come to discover Tines are very rarely found operating as physical individuals. Although the term pack is usually reserved for a collection of individual animals, packs of Tines are usually between 4-6 members but are only of one mind. The pack described in the one passage was likely only one individual mind, made up of 6 individual creatures.

 

Page 12:

The three travelers were headed west, down from the Icefangs towards Flenser's Castle on Hidden Island. There were in his life when he couldn't have borne the company, but in the last decade Peregrine had become much more sociable. He liked traveling with others nowadays. On his last trek through the Great Sandy, there had been five packs in his party. Part of that had been a matter of safety: some deaths are almost inevitable when the distance between oases can be a thousand miles -- and the oases themselves are transient. But aside from safety, he had learned a lot in conversation with the others.

 

Relevance and Thoughts: I may or may not go into extensive detail about landmarks. Three landmarks of note are presented here: Icefangs, Hidden Island, and the Great Sandy. It also appears that the Icefangs are at least somewhat east of Hidden Island since it is said they are traveling west. The fact that they are traveling west is also some importance because it means that they maintain a sense of geographical understanding that translates to North, South, East and West. At this time it is unclear what these directions might be based on (solar movements, lunar movements, magnetic fields or some unknown point of reference).

We will soon be introduced to our three travelers, although again it is important to note that there could be as many as 16 creatures traveling together. These creatures are divided into three distinct pack minds. It is also important to note Peregrines past resistance to traveling with others. This appears to have been a common thread throughout most of this races history causing their technological to grow slowly in the absence of social interaction. Ironic that a stronger small group bonding would act as a hindrance to widespread social bonding.

Their hesitance to travel or work near other packs is related to how their pack minds work. Although we will learn more about this later, Tine thought is more or less communicated by sound. As a result, two individual packs will begin to hear each others thoughts if they get to close. The problem lies in a difficulty in distinguishing between ones own thoughts and the thoughts of the near by pack. Tine probably help minimize these effects by learning sound discrimination techniques but these would need to develop over time. Technology has just begun to develop, and a lot can be learned from simply interacting with other packs.

In a role playing game sense, any Tine attempting to perform an action while another tine is nearby is at a disadvantage. Any skill checks, even for speaking, become more difficult. Packs nearer than 10 or so feet (3 meters) my not use any skills and are more or less reduced to animal intelligence.

 

Tine Names

 

Peregrine Wickwrackrum

Scriber Jaqueramaphan

(not taken name) Tyrathect

 

The first three Tine packs we are introduced to show us a lot about Tine society just by their names. It appears each pack has a taken name, describing what it is they do, and a pack name, created by adjoining the names of each individual creature within the pack. We will go into the pack names more as we learn about individual Tine, but the taken names are of some interest. Peregrine can mean foreign or alien, but since this pack is also referred to as a pilgrim we can assume that they are using the meaning roving or wandering (http://www.dictionary.com/) Scriber is probably taken for the root word Scribe which means, a public clerk or secretary, professional copyist of manuscripts and documents, a writer or journalist. The taken name is used in a similar fashion to a first name, in that Peregrine Wickwrackrum is often referred to as simply Peregrine, and Scriber Jaqueramaphan is often referred to as simply Scriber.

It is also of some relevance that Tyrathect has not taken name due to the fact that she is a relatively new pack. She was a teacher probably had a taken name similar to professor but as she is no longer teaching she no longer uses that taken name.

 

More can be found at my site, http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ under "tine notes"

[Nerdvana 0]

More can be found at my site, http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ under "tine notes"

I went to your site and there is no content there. Is there any chance you could email me with the info you had posted there previously? I'm assuming that your site went down is all, but I'm thinking of developing similar data and don't want to reinvent the wheel if I don't have to.

EDIT: Never mind, I found it on a good google search, its now here: http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ (for any who care)
Edited November 1, 2008 by Nerdvana (see edit history)