[Meta] New Additions to the Birth Rolls and I'm Also Going to the Beach

#Twin/Multiples Birth Rolls

Hey everyone, after some people noted a valid concern about twins in my birth rolls, I have decided to add another optional layer to my birth rolls system. I have updated the original birth rolls post where you can find all the rules, and also the Google doc where I wrote down all my ideas, which looks like the rantings of a crazy person, don't look at it.

Twins in the general roll are now lumped into one category, like this:

General Roll:

1-15: Mother dies, single child survives

16-31: Mother and child die

32-102: Child dies

103-134: Twins/multiples (separate roll)

135-1000: Single child that survives.

u/rollme [[1d1000]]

This means that now, if you happen to roll a 103-134, you have the option of using a twin/multiple roll that I created. It goes a little something like this:

 

Twins/Multiples Roll: (only if you roll 103-134 on the general roll)

1-25: Mother dies, twins survive

26-40: Mother dies, one twin dies while one survives

41-45: Mother and both twins die

46-156: One twin dies

157-175: Both twins die

176-717: Fraternal twins that survive (Roll 2 characteristic and 2 gender rolls)

718-996: Identical twins that survive (Roll 2 characteristic and 1 gender rolls)

997-1000: Triplets!

 

#Q&A

Here are the questions you will ask me and the things I will say to you.

• Why are triplets so rare? That's like 0.01%!

Yup, naturally conceived triplets only account for about 1 out of every 9000 births and Westeros does not have IVF technology that I'm aware of.

• How come triplets don't have a risk of death?

I figured since they're so rare, if you roll them you can have yourself some dang triplets, and the first person who rolls them on this sub (not their own private sub where you can roll as many times as you want) gets some Reddit Gold from me, because I'm sweet. And if you want to give yourself a chance of them dying, you can roll that for yourself or I'd be happy to help you out with some rolls for that.

• How come there is such a high chance (17.5% overall) of someone dying if I roll twins/multiples?

Having multiple babies is inherently more risky than one. Even nowadays, twins have a much higher miscarriage rate, and a slightly higher stillbirth rate. Twins are more difficult to carry to full-term than single babies, and are more likely to be less developed and of lower birthweights when they are born, which can affect them negatively. I have reflected this in the probabilities of the rolls. In addition, the universe in which we are RPing is medieval-ish, and childbirth would be dangerous. It makes sense that having twins or triplets would carry a greater risk to babies and mothers.

• I rolled that the mother dies but both twins survived. Are they fraternal or identical?

In the interest of keeping the rolls simple, I wanted just one roll so I didn't want to split up death chances by identical/fraternal status. If you roll something below 176, and you want to know whether the twins are fraternal or identical, I think it'll be fine to let you decide this. Keep in mind that about 2/3 of all twins are fraternal twins, and only 1/3 are identical. So I'm figuring this out as I write this. If you want you could follow this rule: If you roll a multiple of 3, it's identical, if not, it's fraternal. So let's say you roll a 17, which means that the mother dies but both your twins survive. Since 17 is not a multiple of 3, they would be fraternal twins. Or let's say you roll a 150, which means that one twin dies. 150 is a multiple of 3, so you would have had identical twins, had the other survived.

• What is the difference between fraternal and identical twins? How do I roll characteristics and genders for them?

Identical twins are monozygotic, meaning that they developed from one zygote, or fertilized egg, that split into two sometime during development. They thus share the same DNA, and will look physically identical. These types of twins are rare, and no one knows what causes a zygote to split into two. If you have identical twins, they will have the same gender, so you will only need to do one gender roll. Identical twins, however, may not have the same personality. Do two characteristic rolls, and see what you get and if it makes sense. Some things (like large size, deformities, etc.) will need to be shared by both twins. Other traits that are not necessarily genetic, like insanity or genius/gifted status, could be given to one twin only. Again, you'll just have to experiment a bit.

Fraternal twins are dizygotic, meaning that they developed from two separate fertilized eggs. They are no more similar than regular siblings, except that they happen to be developing in the womb at the same time. These types of twins are more common than identical twins, and can run in families because certain women can be genetically predisposed to releasing more than one egg from their ovaries at a time. If you have fraternal twins, they might not have the same gender, so you will need to do two gender rolls. Fraternal twins also may have very different characteristics, so do two different characteristic rolls like you would for normal siblings.

• If I roll triplets, are they fraternal or identical?

Fraternal. Identical triplets are so rare it's not even funny. It's like 1 out of every 1000000 births or something.

• Man I feel bad for anyone who rolls the mother and both twins dying.

Yeah I feel bad for u/pauix too.

 

#Vacation

Also, I am leaving tomorrow for a beach vacation! I may be less active than previously, or maybe the sand and seagulls will inspire me to write more lore about creepy children. I don't know, but I will be returning on June 5th, I think. If you need House Bolton for something urgent or militaristic, please speak to the lovely u/MrCervixPounder, who you should be speaking to anyway, because the Dreadfort is actually his claim.

Bye!