Reflavor formicid arms

[WalrusKing]

The gist of this proposal is very simple. Formicids are currently flavored as having four arms in their description and lore text. Despite having these four arms as currently described, they can't do many things people seem to expect of four arms, ie wearing four rings, wearing two sets of gloves, weilding more than one weapon etc. In fact, the abilities granted to them by their extra limbs can be more or less summed as they can weild a two handed wep with a shield, and they have decreased shield penalty. The proposal is to reflavor their extra arms as vestigial, handless limbs that are fine for shield holding and nothing else. This lore clarification should be made because people keep posting here, on reddit, and I've seen several in real life who are confused as to why the extra limbs don't grant the other powers listed above.

[milski]

If we're bikeshedding, why not just say they have Ant Strength

[BobIsDead]

Wait. That's the part of formicid lore that confuses people. Let's recap. They're burrowing ant people (because, you know, that's the first animal you think of when you think of a digging animal; not moles or badgers or anything sensible like that, but ants) with a stasis effect applied to them because of... reasons? Some stuff about earth magic not mixing with translocations? Even though deep dwarves also have ties to the earth and suffer no anti-translocation effect. Not to mention gargoyles, who are literally made of rock.

But, anyway, they're burrowing ant people with a stasis effect who have four arms. Because naturally a mix between a two-armed, two-legged creature and a no-armed six-legged creature would make a four-armed, two-legged creature. That's just basic science. Anyway, this inexplicable attribute along with their allegedly formidable strength (even though they're mechanically identical to minotaurs in the strength department) means they're allowed to wield a two-handed weapon and a shield at the same time... somehow?

I mean, do they use both their right arms for the weapon and their left arms for the shield? Wouldn't that make the weapon really awkward to hold? Or is it an upper/lower deal, which makes sense for the weapon but not the shield. Regardless, despite supposedly being nimble enough to somehow carry off this feat, they're all apparently too dense to work out that maybe if they used all four of their arms they could pick up one of those giant spiked clubs and start waving it around? Also, ogres and trolls are likewise too dumb to realise that what's a great mace to the smaller races should just be a regular mace to them, once you factor into account size scaling.


All of the above might make it sound like I'm throwing mad shade at formicids. But, I guess there's something endearing about how ridiculous they are. Like, they make so little sense that they actively cause everything around them to make less sense as well. It's wonderful. My only problem with them is the name. Formicid sounds too boring and scientific for them. Dwants is the only name worthy of their spectacular ridiculousness.

[WalrusKing]

If we're bikeshedding, why not just say they have Ant Strength

2 Arms + Ant Strength is also a perfectly workable solution I should think. An ant person doesnt necessarily need to have 6 limbs.

Wait. That's the part of formicid lore that confuses people. Let's recap. They're burrowing ant people (because, you know, that's the first animal you think of when you think of a digging animal; not moles or badgers or anything sensible like that, but ants) with a stasis effect applied to them because of... reasons? Some stuff about earth magic not mixing with translocations? Even though deep dwarves also have ties to the earth and suffer no anti-translocation effect. Not to mention gargoyles, who are literally made of rock.

Put plainly, yes, that is the part of formicid lore that seems to confuse people, based on the amount of proposals to let formicids do more things with 4 arms I've seen on here, the current high comment count thread on the reddit related to the same, and a number of questions I've received from people irl.

I suspect this is because hands are already a mechanic in the game that maps relatively simply and directly to some of these things ( i.e 1 hand = 1 ring, 1hand = 1hander, 2 hands = 2hander or 1 h plus shield, 2hands = 1 gloves etc. ) and because its so highly visible compared to a lot of other lore points.

NOTE TO ANY MODS THAT SEE THIS: Please move this to CYC. It seems appropriate given the bikeshedding, I just posted in the wrong subforum in my haste to complete my initial post before my awful mobile client timed out and lost everything.

[Shtopit]

There also is the specialized item description "it is a weapon for one hand-pair". It doesn't add anything, but it's very confusing, when you can simply have "Thanks to their unusual physical build, a Formicid can wield this weapon with a shield".

[shping]

Remember,