Description of a female kelki.

Zerla

Hi all,

I'm brand new to Aetolia and am wondering how to write an appropriate description of a female kelki.

So far I've only seen very generic descriptions and I have absolutely no idea what's typical and what's not.

Any pointers to reading material are greatly appreciated.

Ezrax

Areka

There's some mixed stances on anthro-races (no hair, hair, no traditional lady bits, traditional lady bits), so one of the things that would help us help you is if you decided what kind you want to play (the 'mostly human with just flavour' is pretty typical, though I tend to treat those as not fullblooded >> - or the 'fully done loud and proud' type). 

Moirean

The typical depictions run from the tame (blue-skinned human) to the moderate (aquatic elf) to the really fishy (a toned-down version of humanoid sahuagin(D&D)/naga(WoW), sans the tails - I've never seen crazy fish teeth depicted, but I'd totally applaud if you included them for fun). For the most part, people tend to see Kelki as a "pretty" race, with long and webbed fingers, aquatic-themed colors, willowy builds, gills and sometimes fish scales.

I'm trying to google some image suggestions, but I just keep seeing sushi pictures and I totally haven't had lunch yet.

Moirean

Areka

And here's Eleanor's drawing because Eleanor art! Tentacle hair is also really common and can be pretty fun.

Vharen

The only one I could find that was SFW and I liked.

As for the accepted descs, I couldn't tell you. From the help file, it reads like Slyphe took seathings and squished them into a humanoid shape. I guess fish-based is normal, but I personally don't see why you couldn't be a Street Shark or a Narwhal. Take that with a truckload of salt and a big "MY OPINION ONLY."

Moirean

Oh man, I was hoping we weren't going to mention tentacle hair. This will just get @Benedicto all excited. -_-

Eleanor

The creation story for Kelki is that Slyphe wanted to make the best people ever and mucked around with fish until that was a thing. So them being totally fkn hot is pretty canon really. And thanks to that being the canon, you can basically grab any fish parts you like the look of and mash 'em together for your kelki. I'm fond of the tentacle hair thing, and we all remember ol' whiskers with his catfish face. Go as fishy as you're comfortable with.

Angwe

Vharen said:

The only one I could find that was SFW and I liked.

As for the accepted descs, I couldn't tell you. From the help file, it reads like Slyphe took seathings and squished them into a humanoid shape. I guess fish-based is normal, but I personally don't see why you couldn't be a Street Shark or a Narwhal. Take that with a truckload of salt and a big "MY OPINION ONLY."

Yes. Please make this a thing.

Edit: Image wouldn't work

Zerla

I'm perfectly fine with full-done loud and proud — something really fishy — for the record.

How to adequately describe tentacle hair eludes me at the moment though.

I was actually thinking about fish scales but I'm unsure if these should be patches or covering the whole body.

I'm also fine with crazy fish teeth but again, I'm not sure how to adequately describe them.

For unique features I've been thinking about: The webbing between her thumb and index finger on her left hand is torn, she has a scar on her right cheek (possibly surrounding the eye).

And finally I also believe I need to consider my guild in the matter, but maybe they don't really care.

Missari

Your guild won't.

Buford

Clrly the best Kelki: 

Zerla

Apart from the description, is there anything else in the game that references physical attributes, such as height or weight?

Currently I'm leaning towards small (5ft or 155cm) lithe and covered in scales.  Though I'm unsure how that would affect the facial scar I had envisioned.

Writhing tentacles instead of hair.  Countless circular curved teeth.  Gills on her throat.

I'm actually thinking of leaving the teeth out of the general description and making a macro for

EMOTE (Opening her mouth to speak,) reveals countless circular and curved teeth.

Which I can then use before SAY.

Eleanor

Macros for your says seem like a good idea but tend to annoy people a lot. There was someone who added 'with a rumbling delosian accent' to every single one of his says, and I can tell you that there was a lot more ridiculing of it than there was applause.

You only really need to add something like that once or twice in the scene, people will get the idea. Any more than that and they feel like you're constantly ramming it in their face.

Zerla

Eleanor said:

Macros for your says seem like a good idea but tend to annoy people a lot. There was someone who added 'with a rumbling delosian accent' to every single one of his says, and I can tell you that there was a lot more ridiculing of it than there was applause.

You only really need to add something like that once or twice in the scene, people will get the idea. Any more than that and they feel like you're constantly ramming it in their face.

Yeah, I'm thinking of binding it to a key, like F10 or something, so I can use it easily, and it'll never be automatic.

Mariena

She is a prudent Kelki. Smooth, vibrant orange skin covers the woman from foot to head. Standing at around five and a half foot, the thin and angular dimensions of her body somehow seem out of place on land. The webbing betwixt her slender, spindly fingers is of a lighter orange- verging on white. White, almost scale-like patches dust evenly across her face and down her neck, before the skin is lost to clothing. Short-cropped, her hair is of the same white and light-orange hue of the accents covering her body. Large, blue and shiny eyes glint oddly in available lighting, as if coated in a reflective substance.

^ That's my kelki alt. She's a koi fish. I roleplay her flapping gills and her fishy teeth

Zerla

This is what I'm thinking about so far:

She is agile Kelki, standing five feet tall, her skin covered with silver scales reflecting the light and her head with a mass of writhing tentacles.  On her right cheek, a scar curves from her temple to the edge of her mouth, where the scales on either side don't match.  Gills line her throat and fins stick out from her upper arms and thighs.

I doubt I'll want to change it drastically.  Is it OK to add colour for the tentacles and fins later?  How much refinement do people generally tolerate in Aetolia?

Areka

People will drastically change their descs once they hit endgame (and often times while endgame, dat essence), so refining colour is not a concern (especially as some aquatic species can change their colour, hello sneaky octopus!). 

Trigru

Just try to avoid overthinking it, Zerla.

In roleplay, the images you put into your emotes will leave a much longer lasting impression than anything in your description. You could leave yourself as a static, scaley fishmistress, but when you emote "smiling, and baring your curved fangs", or "laughing gaily, scales shifting from blue to brilliant orange in visual mimickry of your mood", no one will forget it, I promise you.

Xavin

I was under the impression that it wasn't just fish that Slyphe was mucking about with to create kelki, so you could feasibly have a kelki that has features from -any- aquatic animal. Fish (sharks), mollusks (oh god an octopus or squid-based kelki would be horrifying), aquatic mammals...there are a lot of options.

Haern

Xavin said:

I was under the impression that it wasn't just fish that Slyphe was mucking about with to create kelki, so you could feasibly have a kelki that has features from -any- aquatic animal. Fish (sharks), mollusks (oh god an octopus or squid-based kelki would be horrifying), aquatic mammals...there are a lot of options.

Next up, a Kelki with a foot that explodes out of their mouth so they can move around like the clam that spawned them.

Riluo

 This is what they should all be like!

Aarbrok

...and now my coffee has been sprayed all over my keyboard through my nostrils this morning.

Good form!

Moirean

Those fugly version of Kelki exist - they are called tyrill and are another race entirely.

It should be noted that Kelki are not straight up fish people. They were made by the combined efforts of Slyphe and Lleis and while they may have an affinity for the water, they don't naturally breathe through gills by default. They need an air-based environment, aka old Kelsys, which was an underwater city with airlocks and all that jazz. Yes, I know that underwater breath is something that you can unlock as a kelki, but that is not inherent to the race, but rather something they can learn to do, magic-handwave-etc. Or the origin myth needs to be changed. :P

Minarael

I now really want a kelki mantis shrimp. I'd have to get really, really, stupidly good at combat for it to work quite right. But I'd be ALL THE PRETTY and super terrifying. 

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/mantis_shrimp

Zerla

WRT underwater breathing.  Even though I'm describing gills on my Kelki (for now) they are non-functional.

From my limited understanding of how fishes breathe they'd be in the wrong place anyway.

The two emote keybindings I have are:

"A small tentacle slithers down her face and strokes Zerla's scar."

"Opening her mouth to speak, Zerla reveals countless circular and curved teeth."

Though I'm thinking of tweaking the latter a bit.

If anything in my description is decidedly non-canon, I don't mind changing things.

Irruel

You could create half a dozen variances on the emotes - i.e. a bunch of subtly different emotes drawing attention to tentacle hair, and a bunch drawing attention to the teeth, and then use a randomise function in your keybindings to call those emotes. Done sparingly and combined with there being various from each similar theme, not many people will notice that you're reusing them, even over multiple meetings with you.

If you're not sure how to code that, there are plenty of people who'll be happy to help.

For other emotey things:
If your gills are visible while clothed, you could occasionally have them move a bit.
If you have scales, you can have them reflecting light, glistening etc
If you have fins hanging off random limbs/appendages, you can have them flexing and flaring.
Same goes for webbing, I suppose, but ew. Webbed toes just makes me think of Tasmanians and people from the NZ South island - nudge @Macian

Eleanor

Honestly, I would opt for just writing out emotes. If you want it to be common to your character you'll have it down to muscle memory in no time, and doing it by hand will allow you to shake up the wording. If you have a limited number of macro'd emotes, people are just going to go "oh look she's punching f10 again. I wonder if she's bored or if that's supposed to be part of the scene." I mean, if you have emotes that fire frequently, people are at best going to start tuning them out like automated def-up messages (like the messages for warmth/miasma or constitution dropping or shadows creeping in for whatever hiding skill that is at night). And, well. I think if people are automatically tuning out bits of your roleplay, then you might not be doing it right.