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 Posted: Fri Feb 08, 2008 7:31 am
As you may have noticed, there has been a slight population boom among Sentinels that do not conform to a major type! Over time we will run into more and more of these atypical Sentinels, and to ease confusion and assist in RPing we've decided to explain a bit more about them. To begin, there are two basic 'types' of Aberrants.
1 - The mixed-Type Aberrants
Cross a Ghost and a Wildtype and what do you get? A little bit of this, and a little bit of that.. who knows? First-generation crosses are a mixed bag. Second-generation crosses start to more closely resemble one particular type. 'Muddied' bloodlines with many generations of crossing will eventually revert to a near-Wildtype look, as that is the dominant bloodline within the clan.
2 - The genetic anomalies
Albinos, melanistic Sentinels, and other such bizarre mutations do occur. These Sentinels are called Aberrants for lack of a better term, and are quite rare among the clan. Genetic causes are usually recessive in nature, and parents who produce such an offspring are discouraged from mating again.
In addition, there the Minor Types:
While some consider the minor types to be little better than Aberrants, they are more correctly called Types in their own right. Much like the Wildtypes, Shadows, and other varieties, the visual appearance of these Sentinels is passed down through the generations. A minor type Sentinel is generally part of a family who can trace their roots back over generations; these types tend to be proud of their heritage and a bit more clannish than most Sentinels.
More info will be provided on each of these types over time, along with information on clan attitudes towards Aberrants in general. If you are unsure in the meantime, please ask!
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Posted: Fri Feb 08, 2008 11:33 am
The origin of the Types
As a pseudo-natural world, Noctua follows the basic principles that we hold true in our world. One of these basic principles - natural selection - is responsible for the different 'types' of Sentinels.
The Wildtype can be considered, for all intents and purposes, and the basic and 'pure' Sentinel type. It is relatively well-suited for any environment, without being terribly specialized. The wildtypes come in all sorts of ranges of colours and relative darkness/lightness, and are the most common of the types in Noctua.
The Deep Woods type originated, appropriately enough, in the deeper woodsy areas. In that environment there was strong selection pressure in favour of warm and darker feather colours, and higher visual contrast. Smaller Sentinels tended to be a bit better at maneuvering in the denser forest areas, which explains why the average deep woods Sentinel is a bit smaller than the average wildtype.
Shadows are from further south, where the weather is distinctly warmer. Dark feather colours were favoured due to the nature of the trees further south, and the fluffy down layer diminished somewhat over time as the southern Sentinels adapted to their warmer climate.
The Mist hail from up north, where lighter plumage gives them an advantage during the long winters and a thick down layer keeps them warm. Mists can appear larger than other Sentinels because of that down layer, but they also tend to be a bit larger in general as the trees are more sparse and higher mass is better at conserving body heat.
As a type, Ghosts are relatively new. They have been established long enough that nobody remembers exactly how they came about, but some of the more 'purist' Sentinels still consider them as little better than Aberrants. The Ghosts owe most of their bloodline to a mixture of Mist and Shadow, but unlike most multi-generation hybrids they began to breed true and become a bloodline of their own.
Other minor type bloodlines came about in much the same way, but for various reasons they never became populous enough to be considered a major type.
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