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Sodium Cliffs of Mrentmor

so, what's the skinny on this place from which the deadly kzash hounds apparently originate?​​
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  • jonsillsjonsills Posts: 6,315 Arc User
    Kzash hounds have very high blood pressure.
    "Science teaches us to expect -- demand -- more than just eerie mysteries. What use is a puzzle that can't be solved? Patience is fine, but I'm not going to stop asking the universe to make sense!"

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  • markhawkmanmarkhawkman Posts: 4,915 Arc User
    Tateklys says "Oxygen raged Kzash hounds from the sodium cliffs of Mrentmor".

    Which suggests Mrentmor is a planet or location on an alien planet that has a non-oxygen atmosphere.

    This fits with how Tateklys calls the Kzash hounds "exotic".
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  • bulgarexbulgarex Posts: 2,310 Arc User
    edited May 2018
    Nothing on either Kzash hounds or Mrentmor in any of the PnP books for the setting, from any era. They must be Cryptic inventions, although I couldn't find a CO Wiki entry for them either. The Malvans have a habit of importing deadly creatures from planets across the galaxy as foes for their gladiators. Some of them hail from very alien environments and couldn't normally function in ours, but the incredible Malvan technology can often bypass those restrictions. For example, the sapient energy race called the Az'arc'a evolved in the radiation belt surrounding a gas-giant planet in the galactic core, which has spawned an entire energy ecosystem including large predators. These creatures can't naturally survive for long in a gravity field as strong as a planet's, but the Malvans surround their gladiatorial arenas in exotic force-fields which protect them. (See Champions Beyond for details.)

    Wherever Kzash hounds come from, it isn't Malva. The Malvans long ago eliminated extreme and dangerous environments and creatures from their planet. Every acre of it, even the "wilderness," has been sculpted over eons for the perfect combination of beauty and comfort.
    Post edited by bulgarex on
  • markhawkmanmarkhawkman Posts: 4,915 Arc User
    So how many planets in Champs lore have non-oxygen atmospheres?
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  • bulgarexbulgarex Posts: 2,310 Arc User
    edited May 2018
    I'm guessing you mean, "inhabited" planets. ;) There are quite a few non-oxygenated worlds named, particularly in the books related to the sci-fi future eras of this universe; but the great majority of planets with native sapients have oxygen atmospheres. (Which is a practical approach when you want different species to be able to interact and adventure with each other.)

    However, there are a few notable exceptions, whose inhabitants are strikingly alien by Human standards. The planet called Umara is a Venus-like high-temperature world with a dense atmosphere that's predominantly carbon dioxide and fluorine, lethal to most species. Its native people, the Jaruma, are a space-faring race with a body chemistry based on fluoro-silicon compounds, known for their skills in prospecting, mining, and genetic engineering. Jaruma stand over two meters tall on average, with roughly cylindrical bodies, three stubby legs at the bottom and three arms toward the top, arranged radially. A hand at the end of each arm has a mouth, surrounded by three eyes.

    Korun, within the galactic core, is described as a dense, massive world wrapped in "superheated" atmosphere constantly churned by volcanic activity. Its exact composition isn't specified, but from that description must at least be high in carbon dioxide and sulfur compounds. But since the planet's native sapients, the Korundar, don't need to breathe that's not a major issue. Korun has a silicon-based ecology, with crystalline "animals" and "plants." Korundar bodies look to be made of rock like smoky quartz, between 6 and 8 meters tall, with two upper limbs and four lower ones, giving them a vaguely centauroid appearance. They're also slightly radioactive, so typically wear a thin layer of lead foil when traveling to other inhabited worlds, which they often do as miners, metallurgists, engineers, even mercenaries.

    The planet that humans will one day discover and name Tridymite Beta is a hot, rocky world with a thin atmosphere made up mostly of carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen, and chlorine. Its sole inhabitants, the Crystobalites, look on average like two-meter tall masses of quartz, without external limbs or organs. They're nearly immortal, but also nearly immobile -- it can take them years to move inches. They perceive and communicate by radio waves. Highly intelligent, but deficient in mobility and manipulation, they've occupied many millennia engaged in profound philosophical debate.

    Most of this information can be found in Champions Beyond, with supplementary details taken from Terran Empire, Worlds Of Empire, and Digital Hero #8.
  • markhawkmanmarkhawkman Posts: 4,915 Arc User
    Ah, I was wondering because the tiny bit we do know about Kzash hounds is that they come from a planet with an atmosphere different from Earth.
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  • beezeezebeezeeze Posts: 927 Arc User

    Tateklys says "Oxygen raged Kzash hounds from the sodium cliffs of Mrentmor".

    You know for some silly reason this might be my single favorite quote in this entire game.
    Must be something about the way he says it...


  • markhawkmanmarkhawkman Posts: 4,915 Arc User
    beezeeze said:

    Tateklys says "Oxygen raged Kzash hounds from the sodium cliffs of Mrentmor".

    You know for some silly reason this might be my single favorite quote in this entire game.
    Must be something about the way he says it...
    The voice acting for Tateklys is generally REALLY good. Especially the part at the end where he's sputtering in shock because he thought you couldn't beat Firewing :p
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  • bulgarexbulgarex Posts: 2,310 Arc User
    edited May 2018
    I did find it a bit odd that the CU to date doesn't include any methane-breathing, cold-environment races. I remember when they were all the rage for sci-fi lifeforms radically different from the oxygen-breathers.
  • jonsillsjonsills Posts: 6,315 Arc User
    Problem with anything cold enough to breathe methane is that merely being in proximity to an endothermic life form like a human would be quickly lethal. (In James White's Sector General stories, most of the doctors visiting the SNLU wards have to do so in a bodysuit that's essentially a small tank with manipulators, covered in refrigeration mechanisms for the patients and internally heated for the physician. Conway swore that no matter how good the heater was certified to be, he always left that ward feeling like he was freezing.)

    Chlorine, on the other hand, can be useful, provided the chlorine-breather has a good, sturdy environment suit - exposure to oxygen would be as deadly for them as exposure to chlorine would be for us.
    "Science teaches us to expect -- demand -- more than just eerie mysteries. What use is a puzzle that can't be solved? Patience is fine, but I'm not going to stop asking the universe to make sense!"

    - David Brin, "Those Eyes"
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  • don't the benzites on star trek breathe methane? they don't seem to have any trouble existing in the same environment humans do​​
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  • bulgarexbulgarex Posts: 2,310 Arc User
    edited May 2018
    I found this bit on the Memory Alpha Star Trek fandom wiki, regarding Benzites:

    "In the The Sky's the Limit short story Acts of Compassion, The Benzite physiology is explained in more detail. It states that Benzites breathe in a gas heavy in chlorine, which is exhaled in the form of carbon trichloride and the gaseous mixture also contains essential mineral salts and lots of moisture. Furthermore, the story mentions that Benzites could go a short period of time without their breathing apparatus but prolonged exposure to standard class-M atmospheres resulted in lung damage that would eventually prove fatal."
  • bulgarexbulgarex Posts: 2,310 Arc User
    jonsills said:

    Problem with anything cold enough to breathe methane is that merely being in proximity to an endothermic life form like a human would be quickly lethal. (In James White's Sector General stories, most of the doctors visiting the SNLU wards have to do so in a bodysuit that's essentially a small tank with manipulators, covered in refrigeration mechanisms for the patients and internally heated for the physician. Conway swore that no matter how good the heater was certified to be, he always left that ward feeling like he was freezing.)

    Chlorine, on the other hand, can be useful, provided the chlorine-breather has a good, sturdy environment suit - exposure to oxygen would be as deadly for them as exposure to chlorine would be for us.

    All granted; but the CU Jaruma race, outlined above, would probably face the same type of temperature barrier, albeit in reverse, in dealing with the relative cold of a Terrestrial environment.

    But hey, this is a comic-book universe with comic-book tech. For advanced enough species life support might be as simple as wearing a belt.
  • fireballherofireballhero Posts: 3 Arc User
    Tateklys says "Oxygen raged Kzash hounds from the sodium cliffs of Mrentmor". You know for some silly reason this might be my single favorite quote in this entire game.
    Must be something about the way he says it...The voice acting for Tateklys is generally REALLY good. Especially the part at the end where he's sputtering in shock because he thought you couldn't beat Firewing :p

    I'm pretty sure the VO is John DiMaggio, the same person who did Dr Drakken in the Kim Possible series. If you listen, you can hear the similarities between the two characters.
  • bulgarexbulgarex Posts: 2,310 Arc User
    edited August 2018
    Per the official future time line of the Champions Universe, Tateklys has a very interesting life-path ahead of him. He eventually tires of the Malvan gladiatorial games -- he only became involved with them as a challenge to relieve the perpetual Malvan boredom. In the meantime, the invasion of Earth by the alien Hzeel was repulsed, which left the Hzeel empire weakened, allowing their enemies the Perseids to attack. The Hzeel home world was destroyed, and the surviving Hzeel became refugees. Tateklys was intrigued by the Hzeel talent and penchant for crime, and through behind-the-scenes patronage and guidance, recruited many of the survivors into a vast new criminal gang. In a few centuries Tateklys was the secret and fabulously wealthy boss of one of the biggest organized-crime groups in the galaxy.

    But even that activity eventually began to pale for him, so he turned to the study of science. Like with everything else he attempted, Tateklys was very successful. He became the first Malvan in millennia to make significant new scientific discoveries, particularly in the fields of dimensional and temporal physics. Equipping his personal starship, the Aurelius, with time- and dimension-travel tech, Tateklys began to explore other eras and universes.

    Tateklys had never wholly lost his interest in the Terrestrial heroes he encountered in the 21st Century. He took up the practice of recruiting, or kidnapping, heroes from that and other centuries, casting them through time or to other worlds, setting up challenges for them, to test their responses so he could learn to understand the motivations for heroism.

    Tateklys in his role as "Praetor" of the Forum Malvanum is described in Champions Beyond; but the story of his future self is written up in a source book of NPCs for the sci-fi future of the Champions Universe, titled Scourges Of The Galaxy.
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