[Chalkarts]

I've not gotten my hands on as much SR fiction as I'd like so I don't have the cultural knowledge to get this character to work in my head, so i need to ask the group a question.

Are all Native American characters considered human?
How do the Lakota handle a troll member of the tribe in their midst?

[Sendaz]

they have a range of metahumans like everywhere else in the world.

According to Shadow in Focus: Sioux Nation, Metahuman Demographics are roughly as follows:
 Human 63%; ork 17%; troll 9%; elf 5%; dwarf 5%; other 1%

Lakota are one section within the Sioux, who generally are pretty tolerant of metahumans within their own tribes and many Awakened non-sapient critters, but they are pretty rough on non-Sioux regardless of metatype.
So if you are Troll born into a local tribe you are good, but if you are human from outside the tribe, you are still an outsider to be wary of.

An exception to this is awakened critters not native to their lands, which tend to be shoot on sight because they are alien.
SURGE mutations also tend to have a target painted on them because they don't quite fit in, and Elf/Ork posers just seem silly to many there.

[Reaver]

While you won't find any Haida Pixies or BlackFoot Cyclops (as both those meta-variants are not native to North America), You'll find a surprising number of Elves, dwarves, orks and trolls.

The baseline metatypes expressed in every population demographic. While some of variants also appeared in their regional areas.

[Chalkarts]

Awesome,
A troll with a Short Spear and Shield for combat.

[Medicineman]

Chalkarts,
go check for the Cascade Orks

He who dances with Orks and Trolls
Medicineman

[Reaver]

Awesome,
A troll with a Short Spear and Shield for combat.

Shields never where a hallmark of tribal warfare
At least not in the traditional sense. Mostly just leather streached across a wooden frame. Good only to conceal the body from an arrow volley, but NOT enough to stop an arrow.
Traditional armors were.... buck ass naked, and bone chest coverings made from bison ribs.... and not that effective.

General weapons found among all native anerican tribes include:
Knives
Axes (called a tomahawk nowadays)
Clubs
Spears of various styles. Haida spears were hollow so they would float in the ocean with a detachable barbed tip with a leash attached..... aka Harpoon. Plains tribals favored a long shafted heavy spear. Not to throw, but to stab and set against bison. Inland tribals favored a thin light, yet ridged shaft with a barbed tip. Perfect for throwing between trees, and then the stuck animal is slowed by the spear stuck in it....

Clubs came from multiple tribes, some with very unique styles and effectiveness. From the WarHawk to the Attiweta, they all have one thing in common.... lethal point of impact use.


(Who said a Northern education doesn't pay off).
Words like 'primative' get thrown around alot when discussing Native Technology, and while it's true they never developed metal working, their wood and stone craft was ahead of anyone else....

And given the landscape of the time and modes of transport (walking, waterways. The horse didn't arrive until the Spanish and English) their methods of warfare are not European. Stealth and lightning fast raids were the traditional tactics. Until the 'white man' changed the game with gunpowder, horses and disease..

Looking for a 'typicial' Native american Warrior setup? Stick to a Tomahawk and knives.... and a belt of scalps

[Wakshaani]

Re: Scalps.

Scalping was a thing started by the white man ... Natiev hair was gorgeous and distinctive, so to prove that you'd hunted Indians, you could gather up their scalps and bring them in for a bounty, so many dollars each.

Desecrating bodies this wy was pretty damn horriffic (And several of the people that were scalped not only weren't dead, but didn't die. Yikes!) ... so, the natives started scalping in retaliation, as a way of showing white people how pissed they were.

White media being what it was, this quickly became "Indians are scalping our womenfolk! The SAVAGES!" and it was painted as the natives, who "had never seen blonde curls", attacking white women for trophies. Which lead to a HUGE pushback as the people demanded that the government do something about it.

Which was, of course, to send in way more soldiers to kill the people who were pissed about being scalped in the first place.

(History... full of knowledge, but man, it can be awful.)

[Reaver]

There are lots of acts through history unfairly attributed to native americans that were actually started by europeans.
Scalping is just one of them....

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

While you won't find any Haida Pixies or BlackFoot Cyclops (as both those meta-variants are not native to North America), You'll find a surprising number of Elves, dwarves, orks and trolls.

Genetics are weird, and just like it's likely that any particular European-descended individual has African genetics in them as recently as 2,000 years ago, it's similarly possible for a 'full-blooded' Native American to have Euro blood in them.  In addition, remember that just because the cyclops meta-variants is very rare outside of Greek-area Mediterranean heritages - pixies, after all, are an entirely different metatype, and technically as non-human of one as a centaur or sasquatch - it doesn't mean that they can't exist.

So feel free to pick your preferred metatype and your preferred heritage seperately; just be aware of the rarity, and hence what you might have had to have put up with while you were growing up.

[Medicineman]

While you won't find any Haida Pixies or BlackFoot Cyclops (as both those meta-variants are not native to North America), You'll find a surprising number of Elves, dwarves, orks and trolls.

Genetics are weird, and just like it's likely that any particular European-descended individual has African genetics in them as recently as 2,000 years ago, it's similarly possible for a 'full-blooded' Native American to have Euro blood in them.  In addition, remember that just because the cyclops meta-variants is very rare outside of Greek-area Mediterranean heritages - pixies, after all, are an entirely different metatype, and technically as non-human of one as a centaur or sasquatch - it doesn't mean that they can't exist.

So feel free to pick your preferred metatype and your preferred heritage seperately; just be aware of the rarity, and hence what you might have had to have put up with while you were growing up.

+1
Well Written , Wyrm

With an alliteration Dance
Medicineman

[Crimsondude]

While you won't find any Haida Pixies or BlackFoot Cyclops (as both those meta-variants are not native to North America), You'll find a surprising number of Elves, dwarves, orks and trolls.

Genetics are weird, and just like it's likely that any particular European-descended individual has African genetics in them as recently as 2,000 years ago, it's similarly possible for a 'full-blooded' Native American to have Euro blood in them.  In addition, remember that just because the cyclops meta-variants is very rare outside of Greek-area Mediterranean heritages - pixies, after all, are an entirely different metatype, and technically as non-human of one as a centaur or sasquatch - it doesn't mean that they can't exist.

So feel free to pick your preferred metatype and your preferred heritage seperately; just be aware of the rarity, and hence what you might have had to have put up with while you were growing up.

It's not just genetics, though. It's also a matter of how Shadowrun's magic adopted the "belief = power" system that, among other things, turned every religion into a magical tradition. The metavariants are almost certainly powered more by this mumbo-jumbo than metagenetics.

[DragginSPADE]

While you won't find any Haida Pixies or BlackFoot Cyclops (as both those meta-variants are not native to North America), You'll find a surprising number of Elves, dwarves, orks and trolls.

Genetics are weird, and just like it's likely that any particular European-descended individual has African genetics in them as recently as 2,000 years ago, it's similarly possible for a 'full-blooded' Native American to have Euro blood in them.  In addition, remember that just because the cyclops meta-variants is very rare outside of Greek-area Mediterranean heritages - pixies, after all, are an entirely different metatype, and technically as non-human of one as a centaur or sasquatch - it doesn't mean that they can't exist.

So feel free to pick your preferred metatype and your preferred heritage seperately; just be aware of the rarity, and hence what you might have had to have put up with while you were growing up.

It's not just genetics, though. It's also a matter of how Shadowrun's magic adopted the "belief = power" system that, among other things, turned every religion into a magical tradition. The metavariants are almost certainly powered more by this mumbo-jumbo than metagenetics.

True, believe=magic to a certain extent, although just how far is never clearly spelled out.  However, magical expression in Shadowrun can very unpredictable.  If I was running a game and a player wanted to be a Native American cyclops for example I'd allow it. 

After making him VERY aware that he's probably the only one existing, and will stand out quite a bit because of this. 

And also making sure his character is more fleshed out than just "I'm a native american cyclops." 

[Sendaz]

And also making sure his character is more fleshed out than just "I'm a native american cyclops." 

Don't forget "Tamaha"  means "One eye" in the Dakota language so you could work that into the name if they were playing from the Sioux Nation like the OP was suggesting perhaps.

[Glyph]

Two things to keep in mind regarding metahumans in tribal lands are:

1) They were taking anyone with even a drop of Native American blood in their ancestry.

2) Many metahumans fled the sprawl for tribal lands to escape persecution.

So I think you could justify most exotic metatypes with the same "melting pot" argument you could use for the CAS or the UCAS.