MerNorns

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The Mernorns for Creatures 2  
    
  Introduction  
 	 Many years ago, when the Shee still lived in Albia, there was a long series of mild summers and warm winters. The plants of Albia bloomed unabated, and the animals and insects sunbathed in the warm light from Alb ia's sun. It was a time of plenty for all, and the populations of norns, ettins and shee boomed. The ettins put up many new beautiful sculptures and buildings, which were admired for centuries afterwards, and the shee kept as many as five pet norns each!  
 	  However, then the volcano did what it had always done. It erupted, spreading a pall of dust and smoke into the atmosphere. Coughing and spluttering, the shee, norns and ettins retreated from the island. However, that wasn't the end of it. The dust in the  a ir cut down the sunlight, and the temperature fell sharply. The oceans froze over every winter, and the plants no longer grew as fast. Starving, the shee realised that their norns would not survive unless they could find food from somewhere new. So they s et about creating a new creature... 
 	 Firstly, they made a new species, with thick leathery skin and scales, tough, and able to live on very little food. Unfortunately, these new creatures, called 'grendels', were insane- they cared about nothing other than  their own survival, and the badly frightened shee could do nothing about them. They locked them away, and hoped that nothing would ever awake the grendel mother again. 
 	  They then decided to alter an existing norn, instead. Giving it a swimming tail in stead of legs, and gills instead of lungs, it could live underwater, and feed off the zander fish in comfort even when ice bergs covered the sea, and snow howled through t he world. However, the shee liked to look after their norns as babies, so the norns only gradually became aquatic, rather than being aquatic all their lives, and entered their watery environment as they grew up. 
 	 And so a new race of norns, the MerNorns, was created... 
  
  Installation  
 Download the following files from the website: 
 If your computer had to convert a lot of graphics when you first ran Creatures 2, download the 555 sprite set, if you computer started creatures immediately, download the 565 sprites. If in doubt, download the 555 sprites, since these are more commonly  used by most graphic cards. If you have oddly psychedelic looking norns, you’ ve got the wrong set! Unzip the files and place them in c:/program files/Creatures 2/images. 
 Download the att files, and place them in c:/program files/Creatures 2/body data. Finally, download the norns themselves, and import them into your world. If you don’ t know how to import norns, consult your Creatures 2 manual. 
 The baby mernorns should look like ‘ type H’  norns, but will be listed in the advanced science kit as type M. 
  
  Care of MerNorns  
  Baby mernorns are air brea thers, and will suffocate underwater. Therefore, make sure you hatch them on land- either take the eggs to the incubator, or persuade the female to lay her egg in the airlock in the volcano, where they can hatch naturally in air. 
     As they grow into children, they become amphibious, and able to live on land or in the sea. Their adult colouration starts to show at this stage, too. They stay amphibious as adolescents, and this is a good time to breed them with normal norns if you wish  to. However, you should coax them into the sea before they reach the youth stage, and grow the mernorn tail- at this stage they switch over to being entirely aquatic, and will suffocate if still above water. If you don’  t get them into the water in time, inject them with the included emergency cob once every ten seconds while you direct them to a sea- this will keep them supplied with oxygen for the move. This can also be used for saving drowning babies . However, the cob won’ t work if the norn is already unconscious- inject them with metabolism transplant and then difibrillant to revive them first. 
    If you breed a mernorn with an ordinary norn, the offspring can be very variable in its preferences for water or air. I think these are the possible mutations: 
    Land based throughout life, 
 Normal mernorn life cycle, 
 Land based as a baby, then amphibious for the whole life, 
    Land based as a baby and child, then suddenly becoming aquatic as a youth, 
 Land based as a baby and an adult, but amphibious as a child. Weird. 
     
    To look out for these possible mutants, set your observation kit to monitor any increase in suff ocation. If a norn starts suffocating, move it to the opposite environment. To check the genome for water/air compatibility while the norn is still a baby, look for the following genes in the advanced science kit: 
    Emitters in organ 5: 
 Air(baby) 
 Always present- if missing, this is an unrelated fatal mutation, not due to the cross. 
 Air(child) 
 If missing norn is not amphibious as a child. 
 Air (Youth) 
    Two genes called this are present. If one or both are missing, the norn will either be amphibious as an adult, or be land based again as an adult. 
     
  Technical Stuff  
 Sprite and body data file sets added: 
 Female Baby, 
 Female Child, 
 Female Youth, 
 Female Elderly, 
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Breed Slot - Norn: 'm'
--Complete--
	- MALE: [Child, Youth]
	- FEMALE: [Child, Youth]
--PARTIAL--
	- MALE: [Old]
	- FEMALE: [Old]

Name: Aqua
Genus: Norn
Gender: Female

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Name: Piscean
Genus: Norn
Gender: Male