Alas (from the scientist in me) this is almost certainly what is truly at work here. Ultimately, things work in Arcanis due to the Word of Henry, and we mere mortals cannot hope to truly fathom such things without going mad. He's like Cthulu, only more Latino.




Again, I truly do not think that the recessive model works all that well, which is why I champion the "Dominant Gene" model. Of course, we're basing this on Mendalian genetics here, rather than more complex genetics that are very difficult to explain using text in a forums and based on a fictional High Fantasy universe, but it still doesn't line up.

For example (If Recessive):

For a val to be a val, they have to have a Recessive allele (call it 'h') while a Normal Human has a Dominant allele (call it 'H'). Inheritable genes have two sets of alleles (one from each parent) except in the case of individuals with genetic disorders (ie: missing a chromosome) or Men (the Y chromosome is, functionally, an incomplete X chromosome so it is missing some genes).

So, this means that Humans are HH (Homozygous) or Hh (heterozygous), with the Hh being carriers of the "Val" gene. This means that humans can breed as such:

HH + HH = HH 100 % of the time.
HH + Hh = HH 50% of the time, Hh 50% of the time.
Hh + Hh = HH 25% of the time, Hh 50% of the time, and hh 25% of the time.

The way recessives work is that to express that genotype/phenotype, you need two copies of the recessive gene (or, at least NO copies of the Dominant gene). In this case, Vals would be hh, which means that there is a statistically significant chance that two humans would produce a Val without any Val-sex going on that generation.

There is, to my knowledge, only a single instance of this happening in Canon, and that is during "Shadows of a Forsaken Past" where the soul of the Dark-kin killed by Hilmur is reborn to two normal human parents as a val'Hamen. There are no other times in Arcanis History that I can recall where this has happened, and in this case it was heavily implied to be an aberration of epic proportions from the 'way things usually go'.

Now, when you go the other way, you see that Vals almost NEVER can breed a Val using anything other than a Val:

hh (val) + HH = Hh 100% of the time (human)
hh + Hh = Hh 50% of the time, hh 50% of the time
hh + hh = hh 100% of the time.

This means that Val children would be a fairly uncommon (statistically), with only those who are heterozygous for the trait even standing a chance of producing Val offspring with a Val. Of course, a significant portion of the Val's in the world are probably of a noble background, which means that their 'marriage options' are probably more than a little limited. This means that the humans that they breed with are probably statistically MORE likely to be carriers of the val genes.

As an example of how this could work; The Balin family are known to be a vassal family of the val'Tensens, and are considered nobles/patricians in their own right. When arranging a marriage for their own children, the val'Tensen family will probably focus on other 'noble' lines above commoners for political alliances. With this history, there is a stronger likelihood that there are Val-genes kicking around their cells because (as stated above) the likelihood of producing a Val is not that great from such a union, but at least a significant portion of the humans produced are carriers. These matches would likely be even MORE favourable because these humans would have a far greater statistical likelihood of producing a coveted Val than just a random human would off the street.



For example (Dominant)

As stated before, I feel that the dominant theory fits better with past and present canon (going from 'breeding true' to the new 'no longer breeding true'). The reason for this is that in this system, you can only produce a Val if you have at least one Val parent. There is absolutely NO chance of producing a Val from just two humans:

Let us call this gene V (Val) with the non-val allele being v, so Vals would be VV (Homozygous dominant) or Vv (Heterozygous), and humans would be vv (homozygous recessive):

VV (Val) + vv (human) = 50% Vv (Val, human carrier), 50% VV (Val)
VV + Vv = 50% chance of VV, 50% chance of Vv
VV + VV = 100% chance of VV.

In all three above examples they will always produce Vals. That said, there is another combination which does NOT:

Vv + vv = 50% chance of Vv, 50% chance of vv (Human)!
Vv + Vv = 25% chance of VV, 50% Chance of Vv, 25% chance of vv (human)

This means that a Heterozygous Val (being a Val who had a Human ancestor) could produce a normal vanilla with a similarly Heterozygous Val or a normal human. This lines up with established canon--again, using the good Senator Tensin-Balin as an example, who managed to bag himself a val'Tensen wife and had at least two children. One (Cassicus) was a val'Tensen and another (Aphineas) was human, which would suggest that the Senator (vv) had a wife who was Vv, meaning that they had a 50/50 chance of Val or Human, which is supported by this example.

Now, you could say that the above example of Tensin-Balin and val'Tensen can be done just as well with the recessive theory, and you would be correct. As stated, the good Senator is from a vassal family, and may well have Val ancestors to make him a carrier of the gene, which would also give a 50/50 split. However, I think the Dominant theory is the superior one because it also remains closer to the whole "Val's Breed True" story from the previous campaign. It would also be CLOSER (not quite as close as I'd like, but that's fiction!) to explaining the pariah status of the Vivisectionist, and it would prove that the birth of the val'Hamen from humans was a truly awe-inspiring act of the Gods. If they are recessive, then Val + Val = Human mixes are probably at least as common as V+V=V, so there should be far less stigma, and it makes the H+H=V rare, but not unheard of.

They both have their pros and cons, but I am strongly in favour of the one which actually fits more into the story (from my opinion).

Also, to the "It becomes dominant if the parent is a Val" doesn't hold water to me from a genetic point of view. In this case, it would simply be a Dominant gene as that solves all these issues quite nicely from a scientific point of view without even having to factor in magic and the gods and such.

Ok, slightly different thinking here. Consider for a moment the possibility that the manifestation of a val isn't genetic, but the active completion of a divine circuit at the moment a new val's life begins. If there's sufficient power in the circuit the individual is a val. If there isn't at the time, the new life is human instead. Within each val the receptor attract the divine spark to make manifest their nature. The circuit once active is continuous. The divine portion of the circuit might not even be tied to a specific god, but to their underlying source of power.

Originally the gods walked on Onara. The circuits were short, direct and potent. The Valinor either were already part of that chain or were introduced. There were likely a lot of possible circuits for the power to follow representing a wide variety of val families and lineages reflected at least still in the val and the ul. The Valinor being tied to specific gods and specific aspects of those gods define the manifestation of the bloodlines.

It would explain why the ul would manifest different bloodline abilities if the Valinor used as part of the circuits define the channel the power takes and what can be activated.

Why are the bloodline powers in order and defined? Because they complete this circuit and for the most part the powers are linear or at least the circuit/paths pretty linear. The choices in options simply represent parallel paths to the same end.

The disruption of a circuit in the death of a Valinor such as the Reluctance of Hurrian would immediately cause the power flowing to try and find a new and close channel. The channel in that case was the Wrath? of Hurrian.

How is it that some few val'Vasik survived? Perhaps their circuit was also completed either through another Valinor (unlikely) or that their circuit was strong enough to absorb the shock of losing part of the middle and keep the power flowing.

Why do the val'Inares have power even though they have no Valinor? Because in their case the circuit doesn't run through an intermediary, but directly from Yig. One thing I would be very curious to see is whether the Bloodline abilities of the ul family associated with Anshar share the exact same abilities as the val'Inares where there isn't a Valinor to introduce a flavor or to shape the manifestation of their abilities.

With the val'Holryn, they don't have specific Valinor (under this theory) to bias the power or to dominantly serve as the primary conduit in the circuit. As such any of the familiar circuits (val families as opposed to ul for example) can and are used. The power starts from the divine source, is attracted to the val'Holryn and finds a convenient path (Valinor) to get there. Once that circuit's established the bloodline is manifested.

There may in fact have been an effort to take the val'Holryn as the uncontroled state and find ways to create that divine circuit to be able to reliably manifest the desired set of bloodline abilities.

In the val'Hamen example Cody provided, completing this circuit directly through the soul being reborn would allow for the bloodline to manifest even though both parents are human.

Now, as to why vals no longer breed true - there's a problem with the divine power grid. The change is reflected in the new edition of the rules. This also corresponds to the time after the war of the Valinor in the heavens above Grand Coryan at the end of the first story arc. The channels themselves may be less reliable (intermittent signal) missing (dead Valinor) or have a certain level of interference (power released in the fight) to cause that initial connection with the new potential val to fail.

I've heard references to the Blood Wars and would LOVE to know what published materials or mod(s) the references are in as it sounds very interesting and applicable to this discussion.

I expect my theory isn't even in the same ballpark as the real explanation and likely further off than the others provided, but a fun exercise nonetheless.

With a sweep of his hat,

Paul

It is not clear to me if the change in how vals breed is something that happened after the events of the first campaign ... or ... a retroactive change to canon. Based on the side bar in the A:RPG my reading is the later. I don't think vals have been breeding true since some time in the First Imperium. But that's just an opinion. I would love for Henry to clarify that.



The Bloodwar was a civil war in the First Imperium. All players will be able to read about it in Cradle of Empires when it hits the shelves. Former IK members also received a private document that contains at least some of the information from Cradles. I wrote a little bit about the Bloodwar in "Tukufu's Letters" last Halloween. It would take too much space and effort to rewrite it here (to say nothing of translating out of Tukufu's subjective First Person account to a 3rd person "objective" account.)

Hi there

Actually was reading the rulebook on train today into work and there is a sidebar I missed.

From memory it states

A val and a val will almost always breed true with the child from one of the bloodlines. On the very rare occasion that the child is human it is fostered out (I presume to a vassel family)

A val and a human may produce a val. Vals tend to marry into their human vessel families when marrying humans as it increases the chance of a val offspring

This matches the val being dominate but maybe the Vv (using Neirites coding) being the most common genotype. (Explaining why Vals are suddenly not breading true as VV use to be most common, but diluting the line in the last 60 years had risen to the Vv ascendency) (but does answer my original question). I have loved the discussion

Cheers
Taffy

Is this theory at all effected by the val'Holryn's being the first/oldest val line? I thought that Henry said that in a Q&A that I found once. Is that accurate?

Hello,



That's incorrect.

I said they were the first Val family I created when developing Arcanis. I never said that the val'Holryn were the first/oldest Val family.

::Shrug:: There is data to support both the "Dominant" and "Recessive" theories. The passage you quoted makes reference to the Val families mostly breeding with the Vassal families due to their increased likeliness of producing a Val, which would suggest a recessive gene. However, the fact that we only have the one example in canon of two humans making a Val means that this theory isn't exactly 100% either.

I support the Dominant theory because it is the MOST consistent, but it does directly oppose the quote on pg. 119 of the ARPG. Unless there is a magical means of ensuring that two normal Humans carrying the recessive gene don't produce a Val, we must take the quote about the Vassals as possibly being more of a 'in hopes of' rather than 'this is how it works' (after all, how versed in genetics are these people?).

Hello,

[quote="Nierite] However, the fact that we only have the one example in canon of two humans making a Val means that this theory isn't exactly 100% either.[/quote]

What? Where was this.

Two humans CANNOT make a Val. Please tell me where this is written in canon so I can nerf it ASAP!

As mentioned above, the ONLY example we have of two humans making a Val was in the Adventure "Shadows of a Forsaken Past". Here, if a Dark-kin (IIRC) was killed in the "test" of Hilur val'Hamen, the character was given a choice of their fate and one of them was to be reborn as a val'Hamen:



As I mentioned before, this sole example has rather extenuating--and rather divine magical--circumstances around it which is why in my genetic theories I tend to discount it (at least from the genetics side of things).

Hello Cody,

Thanks for the reply.

I'll make sure that that line is excised from the text when/if we re-release that adventure for the new system.

Thank you.