A good point. They're tough fighters who aren't going to put up with outright insults. ...Which, hmmm. Apparently includes Nobbit, according to the very first google search result.

I have a feeling that trying to riff off 'hobbit' is a joke that would soon wear thin.

What are they proud of? Drinking, brawling, stealing, um... not washing... what else? Regular Midget players, please add to the list!

I had no idea Nobbit was a word. I suggested it because nob is a slang for penis while also being a word to describe a high society person. Because another thing Midgets like is being Midgets; they think they're the best. And they think they're the best because... they're Midgets.

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For rent: one skull, in serious need of dusting.

Why Claudia Hoppit gotta conform to sapiannormative ideals of beauty? That's pretty racist.

Okay, it seems 'Mudder' was not received with general rejoicing. How about... Mucker?

Let's see how it works in that same level one monster:
You hear a nasal voice coming from behind you. "All right mate, 'ave you got the time?"

You turn around, bewildered.

"Right 'ere, boss," says the voice. It's a stocky tracksuit-clad Mucker staring at you.

"I haven't actually got a watch," you reply.

"Nah mate, on yer phone, innit? What's the time on yer phone? Kin I 'ave a look at yer phone?"

You shake your head. "They didn't let me bring it..."

"GIVE US YER PHONE, INNIT!" screams the Mucker.

Not too bright, this one. Fighting back laughter, you assume the combat stance.

You have encountered Angry Mucker which lunges at you with hard fists!

Let's try another one:
Seven filthy Muckers hauling a glass coffin trundle past. Your hand immediately covers your req bag; an automatic reaction when seeing Muckers. "What are they stealing now," you mumble to yourself. The thieving Muckers suddenly stumble all at once, and a unconscious woman tumbles out of the coffin.

And that's when they notice you standing there.

You draw your weapon as they stalk towards you and your coin purse.

You have encountered Seven Filthy Thieving Muckers which lunges at you with songs of, 'hi ho, hi ho, innit'!

Message shown when monster wins: The Muckers rejoice and celebrate their win by turning out all your pockets, taking your bag, and stuffing you inside the glass coffin before picking up the woman and running off into the forest.
Message shown when monster loses: You rejoice and celebrate your win by robbing the Muckers blind, and then rifling through the unconscious woman's pockets.

Also already a word, across the pond.

Let's try it in the outpost description...

Squat Hole, Home of the Muckers

You are standing in the heart of Squat Hole. Man, this place has gone downhill.

Rusted-out cars compete for space with empty cider cans, and there's a general atmosphere of meanness about. Piles of dead skunks and excrement lie steaming and glistening by the side of the road. All the windows are broken, and the whole place could do with a good scrubbing, but there's no chance for investment around here - there is truth in the rumour that copper wire was invented by two Muckers fighting over a penny.

The afternoon sun is hot, and makes sweat bead on your forehead. Some locals are enjoying cans of cider near their rusted-out wrecks.

Squat Hole appears to be its usual foetid self. The violence is centered inside the Outpost rather than outside, and the guards patrolling the walls are busy perfecting their skiving skills. The pile of empty cider cans beneath their posts is growing at the rate of several cans per minute - for the moment at least, Squat Hole is secure under their slightly blurry eyes.

Outpost wall hitpoints: 12,857,090

A scratchy voice issues from a nearby speaker - the signal is badly polluted, but you make out enough words to determine that Cyber City 404 is sending an urgent distress call. This looks like a job for some serious fighters. You consider for a moment whether that means you.

Looking around, you see there is only one other Contestant nearby.
Nearby some muckers stand around smoking hand-rolled cigarettes, using a decomposing chicken carcass as an ashtray. Occasionally they shout at each other in irritating, squeaky voices:

So I gather. It means something like 'pal' or 'mate', doesn't it? Since Mi-- muckers also sound like they're from across the pond, they're not likely to kill anyone for calling them that!

Nobody needs to tell them about the less flattering meanings.

(And none of the meanings are racial or sexual slurs. The worst one I saw was short for muck-raking journalist -- and nobody's going to believe our Muckers are writing articles for newspapers, slanderous or otherwise.)

After spending six days reading this whole thread I've decided to put in my two cents:

Shortness is, to me, an essential part of being that race. I've written dozens of these buggers and I love them to bits and the way I build them I relate height to strength as an inverse ratio. The smaller they are the stronger they are and subsequently more muscularly dense (or mentally, Carlynne being an exception )

I love the absolutely insane and hilarious idea that something small could absolutely wreck shit against something really big. And really, reaaaaaly wreck it's shit. Wreck it so proper that these short bastards have a sinister reputation of kicking ass.

I wrote Carlynne really tiny because it's even funnier to see seven inches of foul-mouthed woman haul off an adult male for various activities both vulgar and violent.

The comedic element of tiny+rank is what I love the most about them! Hell, I have whole jokes written into the Port based on height (see Portia in the bread stand.)

I don't care much what they're called, Mudders (mudder fucker jokes all around) or muckers (mucker fuckers works too!) swampers, gonads, seriously anything. Any name. Just don't take away their height.

To me, it's really important. I think it'd be easy to distance them from humans, I always imagine them with thick, leathery skin and coarse body hair, too many teeth (when they've kept their teeth) hyper dense bones, a few less toes (they're wide enough)

I like the hormone mutation idea but darn it I love the height.

I suppose, to me, the definition of a Midget has been short, ornery, base cunning, hairy, smelly,warty, ugly, thieving, selfish, conniving bastards and I've literally never read them and thought of human midgets! To be honest I always imagine shrunken Popeyes or inflated babies covered in leathery skin and stubble. Smushy faces.

Like bulldogs but people!

Anyway I'm tired and incoherent. There is my two cents.

You have misinterpreted me, sir! I quite like the term "Squatter" as a replacement for "Midget", and I've never actually seen the term "squatter" used on the Island before. Plus, it's a distinct word due to its capitalization, the way "Joker" is.


I'd be alright with that. I'd also like to propose the term "Fecker", while I'm at it, perhaps "Little Fecker". If it's important to make it seem to the Midgets Feckers like it's not an insult, we could allude to its flattering Scots definition of "effect". (Please note, non-Feckers, the additional connotations of theft and throwing things, staples of Midget culture as seen on the Island today!)


That's not very likely, as Season Three is being built from scratch. As to when the change should be enacted, either when Season Three arrives or just whenever we pick a suitable name, I'd opt for Season Three. Replacing it beforehand will take effort that would better be spent on Season Three itself, I reckon.

We can do a patch-job of replacing the name starting now. If only the name is changing, it's not that big a job to do a search and replace on the code. CMJ can hand off the parts that are in the database to me, so those won't interfere with his work on S3.

Coming up with entirely new races... I agree, that's better left for S3. Besides, in S3, all bets are off. Who knows, we might not even have races then! That's only one method -- there are other ways to create variety in game play. Point allocation is another tried and true game design, with pre-made templates that would correspond to the S2 races, but many more options. But... we'll just have to wait and see what we get then.

Well, yeah, that's what I'm saying. Season 3 is being built from scratch, and who knows how long it'll take? Season 3 is effectively meaningless. It's the procrastinator's "tomorrow". We can't just keep going "we'll fix it in season 3!" when "season 3" is nothing but an enigma.

Right now, it's really pretty offensive that "midget" is listed as a separate race from "human", and a simple name change will fix that. Not alienating potential players right off the bat is a better place for effort than an enigma.

It gets worse

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moooooooooo Visit and help me finish the monster list: goo.gl/rpBGe (Ya'll mostly know me as CLOG, fyi)

There was an episode of Firefly where a group of serf-like mud-harvesters on a planet were called "Mudders." (Yes, 'mud harvesters' because the mud was really good for building or something or other). Anyway, they had a very common and highly alcoholic beverage they called "Mudders Milk." All the essential nutrients, plus a good buzz! Also pun.

ANYWAY. I like "Muckers," too.

Without repeating a bunch of other posts, I am all for a name change right now. I'm not terribly worried about the offensive nature of the race itself because they're still respected and feared despite being short and ugly. But, I'll let that be a decision for a later time.

Some ideas:
Nimblers/Nimblets/Nimblants
Swotters/Swottits/Swottants
Smuggers/Smuggits/Smuggants
Thuggers/Thuggits/Thugges/Thuggants
Cruggers/Cruggits/Crugges/Cruggants
Crubbers/Crubbits/Crubbes/Crubbants


Every time I read "Swampers" I think of the song Sweet Home Alabama: "Now Muscle Shoals has got the Swampers; And they've been known to pick a song or two."

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Something something unintelligible gibberish something.

FML: Kew had a squatter in her studio once. It was Unicorn Hamlon/Meenos.


Okay anyway. I do not think we should take away the shortness aspect. I... don't really like frog people, since that's really just another morph? Pretty much every fantasy canon has a little-people race and I don't think that in and of itself is offensive. I liked Waverly's idea of too much testosterone, and it really fits with most of their character traits. Plus, think of the tiny penis jokes!

...On that note, let's call 'em Knobs. XD

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Wouldn't it be loverly?

FML: You can get attacked by a squatter in the abandoned factory. I don't see that that's much of an obstacle to anything though, not least because there's a new abandoned factory in the pipeline anyway.

Matthew: Yes, you do RP. Sorry for suggesting otherwise. Having said that, I still disagree with your comment about proposed changes making them dull. There's plenty of scope for creativity there still.

In my midget playing I've given a lot of them the most appalling names. Sewage, Chlamydia and Mildew from the Skronkys, Mange Whittle, Ratpiss Jenkins, Maggot Braithwaite, Verruca Lynn from the general population. So I would have no problem whatsoever with them having a most unpleasant title and completely failing to realise it. The Squat Hole inhabitants know, for sure, that they are the cleverest, kindest, most charming, most honest, most respected race on the Island, and they assume without question that everybody else sees them in this light as well. Any denial of this is simply jealousy on the other races part. The politics of envy. In short, they are delusional. Whatever they are called, they will assume that it's an honourable name respecting their natural prestige, then devote what little capacity for rational thought that they have in justifying this.

Physical characteristics.
As it stands, these play a rather small part. I tend to forget that they're meant to be hairy. By far the biggest indicator of their average height is the name "midget".

I've been running through in my mind how much of the stuff that I've written for the wiki I'd have to change. And the answer is, not that much. A search and replace for the word midget itself, obviously, but I can't think of much else. There's a line in the page for Mundungous Hobbes (great midget philosopher, spends all his time propping up the bar in Booz and banging on to anybody who'll listen about how the world owes a living to midgets in general and him in particular.) At one point he opines that life on the Island without midgets would be "Nasty, brutish and tall." That would have to go. There's one scene where Cantankerous Biggs is trying to rob the bank "disguised as a kittymorph". The bank staff mistake him for a kid trick or treating. That would have to go as well.

Consider this rather wonderful picture of the Skronkys by Shi.

Notice the lack of beards, even on the males. On her first draft, Cyril (a mutant) was the same height as the main family members. The point here is that the standard midget physical characteristics didn't really occur to her as she was drawing.

So I'm not sure that any change in physical features in canon writing will make much of a difference to how they're perceived.

Having said that, I'm personally pretty attached to their current height. That's because I've spent far too long imagining midgets and have the idea of shortness pretty ingrained now. Changing that will take a little getting used to, but I'll get there if I have to, once I know what it is that I'm going to have to change to. The point of this being that I'm rather too close to have a useful opinion on how useful dropping their shortness is.

Has this been thought about any more? Do we have a definitive new name?

As time goes on, I find myself more and more attracted to CMJ's original name, "Squats"; it's uncomplicated and conveys the message of shortness in its name, much like "Dwarves".

What about simply calling them Skronkies, it seems to be the main family the current midgets revolve around. I have to add, that they are one of my favourite parts of the island, despite never really having played them, as I don't think I could do it justice. This appeal may have come from despising Chavs and Neds and the way the treat the rest of society, so seeing them almost in the form of comic relief almost is highly amusing.

The Skronkys are Hairy Mary's characters, not an in-game Thing.

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For rent: one skull, in serious need of dusting.

Docenspiel's right. They're my creations rather than an in-game thing.

I know that in the wiki I've written that they can be used as side characters by anybody (and they still can be). Technically the Skronkys include Julia from the midget massage and Chlamydia from Booz, which are game given characters, and as such are open to anybody who wants to use them. Indeed, occasionally somebody does, usually somebody fairly new to the game, visiting Squat Hole for the first time who have probably never heard of the Skronkys. Often they're used in ways that contradict my own personal vision of them. Tough luck me. I wouldn't want to criticise somebody for that, and I certainly wouldn't want to have a situation where a new player has to spend ages reading the wiki and then pass an exam in Island Studies before they're allowed to play. That's clearly not the way forward.

When I first came up with the Skronkys it seemed to me that they were the sort of characters that would be part of Squat Hole life. They were very much side characters to be brought in when useful, and I thought that it would be nice to let anybody use them as extra flavour in Squat Hole if they so desired.

So Grey, thank you for your comments, it's most flattering to read that they're one of your favourite parts of the Island. It's a wee bit worrying that you haven't played them because you don't think that you could do them justice though. If people read what I've written and enjoy it, then great. If they then have a richer picture of Squat Hole and find that it's helped their RP (even if they don't mention the Skronkys directly), then fantastic. If it's stopping people from RPing midgets, then not at all good. I do hope that this isn't happening too much.

In that vein, it was good to see Zefrieus add something to the Who's Who in Squat Hole about some of the modern street gangs that are growing up there. Good stuff.