This is for Hacking.  Go see HouseRulesOnRaces for the official rules.

There are eight races in Camrish, five in Boston:  Humans, Dwarves, Trolls, Orks, Windlings, T'Skrang, Elves, and Obsidimen.  Only the five human-like races exist in Boston, so far.  Look at the Shadowrun or Earthdawn books for details on races.

Stats should be bought as appropriate (low Strength and Stamina for Windlings, high for Goblins).  Everybody gets a favored attribute, except Humans, who get two extra favored skills.  Favored stuff is cheaper to advance and needs no training time.

The current system seems to give everyone a favored attribute (except for humans), plus require bonus points to be spent by some races:

* Humans get two extra favored skills, and require no background.

* Elves have Appearance, and spend two points on Low-Light Vision.

* Dwarves have Manipulation and spend three points on Thermal Vision.

* Orks have Stamina, and spend two points on Low-Light Vision.  They get tusks for free: a Spd 0, Acc +1, Dam +2L, Def =0 Brawl weapon.

* Trolls have Strength, and spend three points on Thermal Vision.  They get Horns for free: a Spd -3, Acc -1, Dam +5B Def =0 Brawl weapon.

* Windlings have Perception, and spend five points on Astral Vision.  They can fly about as high as a normal man can jump.

* Tskrang get Wits as a favored attribute, and have a tail for free: a Spd -3, Acc -1, Dam +2B, Def -1 Brawl/MA weapon.

* Obsidimen are not a PC race.  They have too much Plot.

<hr>
Yes, not really an idea for now, but I feel it should be put up anyways, for posterity or something.

Trolls have a basic mobility penalty of -2.  This is balanced by having extra -1 and -2 health levels. (0/-1/-1/-1/-2/-2/-2/-4/inc)

Windlings have a basic mobility bonus of 2--two bonus dice to dodge, +2 yards movement, etc.  If their mobility modifier ever becomes negative, they can no longer fly and suffer appropriately until the situation is fixed.  In balance, they only start with one health level of each type. (0/-1/-2/-4/inc)

--zebediah

Fewer health levels are painful. How about mobility penaltys of +-1, and the extra health levels at each penalty are shifted by one. Trolls get -0/-0/-1/-1/-2/-4/inc and windlings get -0/-1/-2/-2/-4/-4/inc. Trolls are tough, and don't notice being a little hurt, and windlings are a bit delicate, but tougher then they look. This also makes Trolls heal from incap a bit faster, and everyone knows trolls heal fast:) -jss

Mobility penalties are painful; how do you integrate that mobility penalty with the Charms that reduce effective Mobility penalty?  They're also painful in a "my character sucks and there's nothing I can do about it" way.  I don't think this applies to groups other than Shadowdawn, which is peculiarly vulnerable to the "I chose to play a Foo because I thought it would be all cool and winning, and Bob said that the only way to survive is to play a heavily armored Durable Foo.  And now I found out it has down sides.  This sucks, Foos are broken and worthless." problem.

I think part of the problem is that mobility penalty is hard to get rid of, and mobility bonus nigh-impossible to get, elsewhere in the system.  Since it's a unique bonus, everybody'll want a Mobility Bonus and so play a Windling.  Everything else, after all, can be moved around.  This is not dissimilar from the Durability/Tuffness problem with Trolls in GURPSdawn.  Here's a suggested fix: Windlings only get the mobility bonus when entirely unencumbered, nothing heavier than a light shift.  Certainly nothing metal.  Trolls don't suffer additional mobility penalties from armor until that penalty gets worse than -4.  So now there's an additional incentive for Windlings to wear light clothes, rather than trying to bulk up, and for Trolls to wear Supermegaduperultraheavy Plate.  Justin's HL fix is also wise.  --bts  
<hr>
By way of clarification, "Def =0" for horns and tusks means that you *can't* defend using these, and that indeed you can't defend on a round in which you attack using them.  It's hard to dodge when you're sticking your head into your enemy.  --bts

<hr>Hmm..here's my though process, tell me where I go wrong.  Mobility penalty affects, what, Dodge, movement, and intitative?  I think that's it.   It notably doesn't affect parrying.  So trolls with mobility penalties are unlikely to focus on dodge (and instead go for melee), don't run as fast (unless we're using minatures, which we really haven't been, this comes up only rarely), and have -2 intitative, which does kind of suck.  Having low initative means people beat them on initative fairly often--adepts can stock up on charms, cybertrolls can get initative boosters, but most trolls say "I never cared about dodge anyway, pass me the Superheavy Plate" and soak a few attacks before landing their own wolloping attacks.  The also get the bonus health levels, making "nibbled to death by ducks" a bit less of a problem.  Windlings, in contrast, are highly enourages to go the dodge route for defense, since they get a notable bonus to it (and though parry is an option, 'soak' isn't as useful when you're missing health levels from being bug-sized, and want to stay light so you can fly), and they're fast, in both senses of the word, but they're generally not very strong.

Health levels come up more frequently than mobility penalties, and they're harder to ignore.  If you've got charms, then they work normally, so it takes about 2 charms (or one for an abyssal) to get rid of the Troll Penalty, and one charm a little more than makes up for the windling penalty.  Charms can only reduce mobility penalty to zero unless they explicitly state otherwise, so if windling's can't fly without a mobility bonus, they're still restricted to light armor (or stuff made of moonsilver, I guess).  So the change is a little less than a charm on the health level side, and a little more than a charm on the mobility penalty side.  Yes, the "mobility bonus" is unique, but with the exception of moving a little farther per round, the effects of it are not unique--initative and defense bonuses are available in the form of weapons and charms, and if there aren't charms that make you move faster in combat time, I'm kind of suprised.

So yeah.  Reasoning.  Let me know what I'm missing/where I'm wrong. --zebediah

Frankly, all over the place.  Your analysis of the relative merits of Dodge, Parry, and Soak does not match what I've seen.  I'll take it in order: Yes, Mobility Penalty affects Dodge, Movement, and Initiative.  It does not affect parrying.  The initiative penalty is murder: all the initiative boosters either cost essence and your one charm for the turn, or fry your nerves and taint you.  And regularly losing initiative means you either *must* have Parry charms, or will get slaughtered.  Soak is not a viable defense.

In particular, HLs erode over combat, defenses don't --- so if you lose initiative and thus lose a couple HLs, your attack is at a penalty, or you're dead, and you miss.  Also, your claim that "two charms get rid of the Troll penalty" seems mistaken to me: this is not a mobility penalty from armor, so the Armored Scout's Invigoration series won't work on it.  Even if it did, that's a commitment of 10 Essence for the day, which is substantial.  An initiative, defense, and movement bonus all in one and with no Essence commitment, for what works out to 10 XP (for an Ox-Body to get the HLs back) seems a little pumped though, don't you think?  On the Troll side, a penalty to Initiative and Movement (since you're right, they'll gravitate towards Parry instead of Dodge), which takes 20 XP and constant Essence usage to overcome --- more XP if you want scene-lengths, and there is nothing longer than that --- and the horrible combination that you're losing initiative more often, so have to abort to defenses, but Full Dodge is no longer a reasonable option, so all someone has to do is split for two attacks and you're toast.  --Brian