Hi Folks,
I got to thinking about what it would take to try and bring into play,
population demographics involving only 2% of a given population, that would
still explain why some are born with Magery, some are born with Magery 1,
Magery 2, and Magery 3. I got to thinking, if you treat the problem as
being a recessive expression of certain traits, how many gene pairings
would you need in order to effect a 2% population having magery?
This is what I came up with:
There are 6 specific Gene sites that require two recesive genes in order to
activate Magery 0 traits. There are 8 specific Gene sites involved with
Magery 1, requiring in this case, recessive genes for it to express
properly. There are 10 specific gene sites that produce a mageborn with
magery 2, and 12 gene sites that help produce Magery 3 individuals.
Now why did I pick those numbers? The odds of having all of the proper
recessive genes works out to being the reciprocal of the number 2 to the
power of the number of gene sites. Thus, Magery 0 occurs in one person in
2^8th or 64. Magery 1 occurs in one person per 2^10th or 256, Magery 2 in
one person per 1024, and Magery 3 in one person in 4096.
If you add up all of the probabilities, the odds of anyone having any kind
of magery is equal to .02075. The odds of anyone having Magery 1+ alas, is
roughly .00512 percent. Not quite the .002 statistics that is quoted in
BANESTORM, but at least in the general ball park while having some form of
genetic reasoning behind it.
Now, why would anyone want to use something like this? It is a
rationalization at a genetic level saying "Ok, Magery is a purely recessive
trait. Two mageborn who marry WILL produce children with magery. A parent
with magery can STILL produce mageborn children with a person who is a
"hybrid" dominant traits override the mageborn recessives within their own
genetic map. If the "hybrid" has enough of the recessives within their
genetic structure that they can STILL produce mageborn children with the
Mageborn partner - such a child will be possible. If on the other hand,
the dominant aspects of the "Hybrid" come out in the mating, the children
will be Hybrids without the magery capacity.
I don't have enough genetics to be able to refine this into something that
is reasonably iron clad, so is there anyone who wants to take this idea and
run with it?
At least it allows me as the GM (assuming that I'd want to use a scheme
like this!) some guidelines in assigning how many mageborn within any given
kingdom have magery 0, magery 1, magery 2, and Magery 3 without it feeling
like total GM fiat instead of a GM using mathematics to back up total GM
fiat ;)
Hal
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