Crusader kings did a pretty decent job of making people look different, there were always just too many people to even try and recognize each one individually. I hope that Elemental can pull it off so that we can recognize a person just by their picture, no matter how many people there are in the game. That would be nice. I'm hoping for a pretty large number of people from game to game, but def not anything like Crusader Kings numbers, that was just too much and for me at least it ruined the immersion. Also, I hope we get to see our family members age in a realistic manner, it always peeved me when my son turned of age (was it 16?) in CK and he had a full beard and looked older than myself  

Overall, it's good to hear there is a generator based on traits, it gives me hope that we will have recognizable characters. I just hope it provides enough variety. And unlike many of the comments I'm seeing here, I don't have the urge to make ugly people   I want my daughters to be beautiful, and my princes to be handsome.. I sure hope I don't have to marry them off to those Urxen scum to get them to stop attacking me  Oh well, i'll just have to shun my ugly grandchildren...  

I wonder...

"Congratulations! Your daughter was born with the Trait: Dangerous Beauty*. Don't mind that her poligonal appearence is uglier than sin due to mixing human genes with slime genes**. Looks doesn't matter, traits do. And her inner beauty if Dangerous Beauty. "

* as in truly sexy and indecent way.

** Some quests have... unexpected consequences.

cross breeding... it's always beena  problem as it not?  LOL

I just want to know what happens if you marry your cousin...  I want my line pure wink

If fallen are magicly twisted humans in essence, there is no reason they shouldn't be able to cross-breed with men, geneticly they could be rather close. Morphological differences don't necassarily denote genetic incompatability. Look at the variety of dog phenotypes that can be interbreed.

It is hard to apply classic genetics when you are in a world of magic and magical manipulation. Genetics imply in evolution and evolution imply in the complete logical destruction of all pre-made creatures and whatnot. That aside, you also incur in the problem of turning magic into some sort of deus ex machina for medieval biotechnology - "Hey, lemme use this spell to grow a steel skin in this lineage of Skorgs" - and in the background, dozens of genes are created out of thin air to allow cells to bioaccumulate iron and carbon nanoparticles in orderly fashion on the outer epithelium. Such changes would promptly generate a reproductive barrier. Promptly. Finally, chimps and man are rather close, so were we close to our cousins of the largely extinct Homo genus. That doesn't mean crossbreds between man and chimp or man and Homo neanderthalensis were/are/will be possible. Minor, stupid changes can create reproductive barriers. And tackling your example, even dogs aren't all compatible with each other. Their breeding distribution resembles a horseshoe, with the extremes being unable to reproduce between themselves.

Summing up, while it is quite possible that if you apply genetics you can end up with a justification for crossbreds assuming 'races' do have a genetic compatibility - no matter how improbable that would be seeing the large differences between one another - you are still exposing yourself to the side-effects of introducing so realistic a concept in a unrealistic world. Making it even more simple: it won't be logical.

Well, I imagine your wife will die and then you can either forget about new children or seek another wife.

I agree up to a point that there is little point trying to apply genetics to a fantasy world, however my point was that for those who wish to a pug looks more different from a Grey hound, and a Great Dane for example than a man does from a chimp. But all three dog types can be interbred.

As an Aside if a human & chimp / can or cant be interbred has never been fully answered a Russian scientist did try some experiments but since his work was considered highly unethical and stopped no definative results are available, it's not something that's been tried often (at least not openly for obvious reasons). However othordox thinking is that we are not similar enough geneticly. Would you recognise a human/chimp hybrid if one existed?

Interestingly dogs show an amazingly wide range of Phenotypical variation while maintaining genetic compatability.

You could also argue in a magical world that magic did not alter the genetics at all simply distorted the way that it was expressed and that this distortion is passed on by means other than the genetic code.

Anyway I tend to agree any use of genetics in a universe in which magic exists is speculative, hell men in the world of elemental may not even have DNA for all we know.

Hmm, odd. We have also been told that we can have out grandchildren and there children etc married off. So that would mean we are potentially going to play for 100+ years on a large map. Which means that if the channelers aren't immortal they would be getting nearer and nearer to there eventual demise.

the sovereign cannot die of old age, only his children.    It isn't really speculation, just how it has been stated to work.

To make breeding your descendants truly interesting, "Fear" and "Awe" ala Dominions should be implemented as combat bonuses linked to the ugliness or beauty of the spawn.  Diplomacy would be exciting if you had incentive to force your death/chaos-magic infused, black-scaled, formaldehyde-scented mutant niece to court the the quarter-wombat, quarter-octopus bastard child of Lord Gorrank the Hideous, in a last-ditch effort to churn out a grandchild with "The face that could launch 1000 ships screaming into the abyss of insanity".

Such a beast could even be used as a strategic biological weapon, sent to foreign state dinners and parties under diplomatic immunity and cursing those unlucky enough to be seated near her with impotence for years, let alone unfortunate dance partners whose feet are trod upon by her horribly gnarled and razor-clawed tentacle-legs.  The mere threat of an arranged marriage would make tyrants tremble.

That's definitely more fun than the life-magic themed "Awe" breeding route.

Oh I doubt it too, though it raises the question of how many generations are actually going to go by from game to game. Will the lore (That channelers live for a few hundred years) affect gameplay as to there are going to usually be around 3-5 generations per game? I don't know, it's very confusing to think about. Especially late at night after a few of these --->