SPLICERS GUIDE / HELP / LORE / SPLICERS In play: help splicers. Also splicing, bioware, genecraft, uplift, uplifts. IN THIS TOPIC 6 What Counts Who Makes Splicers Splicers in Society The Church and Splicing Family Lines Playing a SplicerSplicers: people with non-human DNA, from a pair of cat ears to a full animal head.
Splicer is the umbrella word for any human who has been genetically modified, and for any animal-based being that has been uplifted: given human-level intelligence and a two-legged body.
The first splicers came out of genetic experiments. In the few generations since, splicing has become mainstream and accepted.
What Counts
Splicing is entirely organic, and the word covers a lot. A splicer can be a baseline human with a small cosmetic trait like animal ears, a fully anthropomorphic person with an animal head and fur, or anything in between. Not every splicer is animal-like. Some have designer DNA of another kind, such as pointed ears inspired by half-remembered legends of the old world.
Splicing does not include ordinary changes inside the human range, like a new eye colour or a new sex. Those are so common that nobody has a word for them, the same way we have no special word for someone who dyes their hair.
Who Makes Splicers
Mythos holds the monopoly on gene-splicing, surgical alteration, and biomodification. It built the modern splicing process, and traces its ideas back to Saint Vael, who is said to have used crude genetic techniques in secret to heal the first citizens. The exact method is a Mythos trade secret. It is not surgery, but fleshcrafting, a medical form of magic.
House Varga supplies the other side of the trade. It breeds and keeps the genestock, the raw genetic material and living specimens that splicing needs.
House Vesalius controls Mythos and is splicing's biggest beneficiary, using it heavily on its own members.
Splicers in Society
Splicing is legal and allowed by the Church, but splicers still live with real social divides. Light cosmetic changes are fashionable in high society and on the street alike. Heavily modified people and uplifted beings often face exploitation, prejudice, and little legal protection. Elite families keep private collections and menageries of exotic splicers on their estates, in conditions from pampered ornament to bonded servitude.
The Church and Splicing
Unlike cold chrome and cyberware, organic splicing is accepted by the Church of the Nine. It works on living tissue, not chips or steel, so it does not break the Church's ban on joining man and machine. Splicing is seen as cultivating living matter, not corrupting the soul.
Family Lines
Splicer traits usually pass down to children. That is a strict rule for uplifts; for other splicing, parents can opt out. A child of two different splicers, such as a cat and a dog splicer, usually takes after one side, not a blend of both. You can also be spliced later in life, even if you inherited nothing. Splicing before birth is possible but very rare, and needs serious Mythos connections.
Since splicing is only a few generations old, nobody has traits diluted enough to miss, and any amount of non-human DNA makes you a splicer. It is extremely unlikely that someone would not know they are one.
Most splicers carry traits from animals. Some carry traits from creatures we would call mythical, like elves or dragons. People in Deshret believe those beings were real before the Burning, and that Mythos, or maybe Varga, recreated their genes.
Playing a Splicer
If a trait would give your character a real mechanical edge, leave it out of your design. If it is cosmetic, almost anything goes, as long as the character has two legs and two arms to fit the game's code. Hooves are fine, and so is a tail that can hold a cup but not a weapon. Ask staff about unusual ancestry.
Read next: help mythos, help house varga, and help house vesalius.
NEARBY [P] SEPULCHRE [N] SYMPHONY LORE 36 Abkal Cabiri Coterie Deshret Districts Diving Glossary Great Houses Guilds House Amari House Drepane House Kadesh House Morcant House Qamarat House Rook House Valcora House Varga House Vesalius Kolkhos Languages Law Life In Deshret Materials Mythos Ophirian League Outriders Pegasus Religion Saints Seals Sepulchre Splicers Symphony Technology The Hum Vulcani
On the Agora: https://agora.underspire.net/t/splicers/46