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# System prepended metadata

title: Species Templates

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# Species Templates

## Abstract

Species templates are a system that augments current species code, allowing a unified "template" to be placed on multiple different species to grant the same abilities/modifications to each. This is intended to grant more versatility to existing species that are only obtained through midround transformation (slime people, etc.) while also allowing characters to maintain some element of their original appearance. It is more than a little annoying that, as a Tiziran, turning yourself into a slime or plant just makes you look human. This system can find other uses as well, most notably the various Halloween monsters that have an obviously hasty implementation.

## Goals

1. Unify "transformed" and "monster" species types under a single versatile system.
2. Create an easily-extendable system allowing for the easy implementation of new templates.
3. Allow players to maintain some amount of their own character customization even if they become a vampire or what have you.

## Non-Goals

1. Make a system that is more powerful than existing species. You should most likely not get a lot of benefits from both your base species *and* a template unless there is a very good reason to.
2. Allow multiple templates. You still should only get one of these. While the balance would not necessarily be a concern if methods of obtaining multiple templates were heavily restricted, the implementation would become *much* harder if templates have to be compatible with each other.

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Each "human" character will be able to support a single template datum. Templates will work very similarly to species, with the main difference being that they will *override*, rather than replace, elements of a player's base species. For example, a vampire Tiziran will have the benefits (and drawbacks) of vampirism, but will still maintain their Tiziran appearance, sound effects, and so on.

Templates will each have a whitelist of species they can be applied to. This prevents potential compatibility problems that may otherwise arise.

This system will ideally replace a few notably species, most notably xenobiology slime people. The base "jellypeople" will not be touched, but the subtypes thereof will be moved to this system. While this may introduce some redundancy regarding the shared slimeperson abilities, it will make for a more pleasant gameplay experience overall.

## Alternatives

* Modify the transformed/monster species themselves to allow them to inherit appearance rather than only looking human. This would make balance much simpler, but would also make for much clunkier code to maintain appearance.

