A Plethora of Norn Eggs in C1toDS
Written onNevorria was bursting with pride after she became the alpha female! This photo was captured at the moment she laid her first egg and solidified her place. Whereas every other female would be exported after bearing a litter, Nevorria would be able to bear as many litters as she possibly could. This would theoretically ensure a good number of males to begin the alpha male succession test, and also allow her genes to be passed along through her daughters. I hoped that her first litter of two eggs would both be males, although the course was untested, and could prove treacherous and in need of some tweaking. Brenlee certainly wanted to pass along his genes!
Just to show off her pride a bit more, Nevorria practically glowed as she laid her second egg. Her tiara was hidden in the last shot, but there is no mistaking the alpha female! I could hope for two daughters from these eggs, but the trouble is that if she and Brenlee take a long time to breed again, there will be no natural alpha male succession. If Brenlee dies before he is succeeded, I will start with another first generation male. Yet this goes against the idea of evolution in C3/DS. It would be an agonizing wait to see who popped out of the two eggs! Yet patience is a virtue when it comes to Creatures.
The pace of the game soon quickened, and I could barely keep up with all of the events that began to occur! Brenlee fell asleep immediately after he successfully kisspopped with Aurianna. Although she could not become the alpha female, she seemed quite excited to have a litter of her own! I failed to capture it, but Lamna was soon pregnant, as well. The interesting element with was that she had identical triplets on the way! Identical babies only have a 20% chance of occurring to keep the gene pool diverse, yet I was excited to meet these little ones. Even though they will be identical, they could be different genders. ‘Tis one of the quirks in C3/DS!
Aurianna followed Nevorria’s example and laid her first egg near the warm fire. As an inferior female, Aurianna would be exported after laying her eggs. My original plan was to kill off the inferior females, but I felt guilty just thinking about the airlock, bacteria, or even cyanide injections. Even when Norns act obstinate and downright stupid, I never feel the urge to end their lives. Aurianna was quite excited to be a mother, and how could I cut her life short just because she no longer fit in with the world conditions? Call me a softhearted fool, but all of the inferior females and their sons would simply be exported. I would leave the piranha pool for another day! They were well fed on bugs and small critters, after all.
In a few moments, Aurianna plopped herself down to deliver her second and final egg. I bid her farewell as she was exported. I would have to think of what to do with her later. It would be in her best interest if both of her babies were females. Males would automatically be exported, since the next alpha male had to be born to the alpha female. Aurianna would be lucky if she yielded two daughters, since this would ensure her genes and Bengal Norn appearance throughout at least another generation. I could only hope that both eggs would not be males, since it would effectively remove Aurianna from the history of Remniova forever. Luck had to be on her side, or at least, 50% on her side!
One matter which I had not worked out was where the eggs would hatch. I originally pictured Nevorria’s eggs hatching with the main group, and possibly being raised with everyone. However, with four already laid and Lamna’s three eggs quickly growing in her tummy, I decided to hatch the eggs in a secluded spot in C1toDS where I could watch them grow. And grow they did: I hardly had time for anything else before one crackled!
The first egg to hatch resulted in an adorable male, whom I named Hendar! All potential alpha males will sport the blue sword. This might change, depending on the number of males, but hopefully this little fellow will pass his grueling test. The Siamese and Zebra Norns certainly can produce attractive mixes! Hendar looked like he was perfectly put together. Aside from a few minor pigment mutations, Hendar was practically identical to his parents’ genomes. I wished him lots of luck!
Out of the second egg hatched a beautiful female, soon named Relbia. On the surface, she appeared perfect in every way! Unfortunately, a quick look at her genetics dismayed me. She only had two mutations, but one of them looked like it would render her completely infertile. The receptor that made her become fertile was no longer tied to estrogen: It was tied to chemical 47. This is an unallocated chemical, as far as I know, and would never enter her system. Relbia had another mutation that made one emitter associated with fertility and libido lowerer switch on at adolescence, rather than youth. I immediately remembered Signe.
I decided to let Relbia grow up in the Norn Meso, and I would check her fertility when she was older. I had a horrifying thought that this could be the only daughter that Brenlee and Nevorria had. They read my thoughts, apparently, for the alpha female’s second litter was on the way! My excitement turned into panic when I counted the number of indicators… Five?! I was getting used to the two or three Norns to a litter, but Nevorria apparently had to outshine everyone else! What did I get myself into? What a way to expose a flaw in my ststem, Nevorria.
There was no time for me to think, for Aurianna’s first baby fought her way out of her egg. Meet Meena! She will proudly wear the same mark that her mother did, so that Aurianna will be remembered. Look at all those stripes! Meena inherited most of her looks from her mother, but Brenlee’s arms and tail can clearly be seen. Aurianna herself had quite a different genome than the other Norns, and she passed many of these modifications onto her daughter. In a nutshell, Meena should experience more injury to her organs from all of the antigens and glycotoxin. Her threshold for dying from wounded is also slightly lower.
To my delight, Aurianna’s second egg hatched to reveal another female! I named her Iollis, and she also will bear the mark of her mother. She also inherited the genes which would cause more organ injury from antigens, but Iollis differed from her sister in that her initial concentrations of antibodies were slightly lower. Additionally, she lacked one gene related to belladonna, as well as three gain genes related to arousal potential and alcohol. Nothing seemed too out of the ordinary, though. She was one healthy baby Norn who just wanted to spend her time exploring and putting everything in her mouth. Completely normal.
The alpha male and female were quite proud of themselves! They wore their respective crown and tiara happily as they posed in the garden. With such an influx of eggs, I decided to change the pregnancy variables slightly: An initial multiple birth would still be 80% probable, but each subsequent birth would be reduced to just 40%. The maximum number of babies in a litter would also be decreased from six to four. Perhaps these would change again, but I had eight unhatched eggs to keep an eye on already! Chances were fairly good that little Hendar would not be the only one going through the alpha male succession test. Control yourselves, Brenlee and Nevorria!
I really love this idea, you inspire me to do a wolfling run at least. I really hope this project does well, and I would like to know- where did you get the litter increase function and genetics kit? I really want to find out where my norns genes are mutated, for I once had a norn that appeared to be blind, but I could never make sure. And where did you get those splendid markers? Thanks in advance, and mark my words, I will be reading this idea. :)
Awww, Brenlee and Nevorria look so happy together :>
So many babies though! What a lot to keep track of. This will be a lot of fun to watch progress.
Hendar is quite handsome!
This will get out of control: “Norn Revolution! Let us breed freely!”
Oh right I was gonna suggest you make them infertile but it slipped my mind =P
Lalasa2: Thank you very much! I hope your wolfing run goes well! I meant to include the CAOS commands for changing the pregnancy variables in this post. Forgetful me! I will be including them in my next C3/DS post, but for reference, here they are with their base values:
setv game “engine_multiple_birth_first_chance” 0.04
setv game “engine_multiple_birth_subsequent_chance” 0.01
setv game “engine_multiple_birth_maximum” 6
setv game “engine_multiple_birth_identical_chance” 0.5
The Creatures 3 Genetics Kit can be downloaded directly from Gameware. All of the downloads on the site still work. I also use Gene Compare, which compares two C3/DS genomes and lists only the differences. Very helpful!
As for the markers, they are currently in development by the talented Amaikokonut, and most of the sprites come from Mea. I don’t believe they are available at the moment, unless I’ve completely missed a blog entry! She graciously provided me with a pre-alpha release, but hopefully these will be completed soon!
I’m glad you’ll be following along! Hope you enjoy it!
Amaikokonut: Brenlee sure has learned how to enjoy life with Nevorria! They never leave each other, which continues to make my job of egg sitter quite stressful! Ha ha!
Kittie: Hendar turned out to be a very handsome guy! My IQ test actually did not go quite as planned, but he got far enough that he made it to the food in the Norn Terrarium. Yay for Hendar!
Pirate-Rob: An uprising… No! Ha ha! The only one who doesn’t seem interested in breeding is Seyon, who is still in the same area where we last saw her. I’m still figuring out what to do with the exported Norns. I’m sure there might be some interest in them!
Discover Albia: Thank you for your response. The stuff you gave me should be very helpful! I hope your own experiment continues to do well.
I hae to double comment, but it seems that even though I fixed the link for Gameware’s genetics kit, it doesn’t work. It runs into an error when I try ti install it. Do you know why that could be so? Also, even though I tried to reinstall Docking Station (It broke), I cannot get rid of the file “server.cfg” I know I have to get rid of it in order to play online, but everytime I delete it, it just comes back. I hate to lump this on you, but I thought to ask in case you could help me.
Drat! I hate when things don’t work. Did you have Docking Station installed when you started the installation for the Genetics Kit? I believe you need to have it working before it can be installed. As for the server.cfg file, there is a bit of help over at the Creatures Wiki which might help you. Depending on the version that you have, files may be stored both under Program Files and My Documents. If you’re using Creatures Exodus, have you installed the Creatures Remastered Patch? Let me know if anything works, or if you encounter other issues. Might be worth it to ask this on one of the two main forums, and you’re always welcome to e-mail me, although I receive an e-mail whenever a new comment is posted. Fingers crossed everything works!
What ended up happening in this world? Have you had any thoughts on how to refine the world’s rules for further experiments? I’d like to try this myself. :)
I am actually planning on getting back to this world by the end of the weekend. Hurray! I left it unsettled for a little too long, but I look forward to returning to it. I’m particularly looking forward to figuring out how to handle each generation! Thanks for asking, though, Malkin: Makes me really want to move forward with this and not completely abandon it! It will be awesome for others to try this out, too!
Interesting, so they’ll be exported now instead of left to likely die off? Well, that answers my as yet unasked question about how you were going to prevent the mothers and sons from breeding in that other area ;)
I decided it was a little more kind to give these Norns an actual shot at life, rather than living in a rather cruel environment. They usually make for a great starting base in CreatureLink!