Warren de Grey

[HealingWaters]

In reply to Laurna, just as a point of curiosity what if it were passed from the male side, man blocked marries human wife and gets bypassed on that end?

[Elkhound]

Yes. It's also been established elsewhere in canon, IIRC, that other humans who spend a lot of time in the company of Deryni can begin to form rudimentary shields as a result of such exposure, so I think Kenneth's shields are an example of such shields forming from his exposure to Alyce (and possibly other Deryni at Court as well, or his exposure to Donal Haldane, but I would think in his case they would primarily be due to his proximity to Alyce).

Perhaps (relating to the other thread) if Brion had noticed Jehenna's shields, he might have attributed them to that.)

[revanne]

One of the joys of KK's writing for me is how open to different interpretations things are. Genetics are deeply complex ( being an identical twin gives me something of a fascination with this). Given the mix of genetic complexity, then add in fear-driven denial of powers, blocking and the equally complex relationship between natural and supernatural, psychological and spiritual - little understood in our universe or KK's- it's hardly surprising that there are all sorts of anomalies.

Personally I think that Warin is descended from a blocked Deryni with a strong openess to the divine calling to heal that has been perverted by the times he lived in. Morgan and Duncan don't have the knowledge to recognise this. As to what happens to Warin, with his passionate intensity I imagine he struggles to come to terms with the unjustified suffering he has wrought and the unwitting blasphemy he has committed and seeks some form of extreme penitential reparation.

[tenworld]

Personally I think that Warin is descended from a blocked Deryni with a strong openess to the divine calling to heal that has been perverted by the times he lived in. Morgan and Duncan don't have the knowledge to recognise this. As to what happens to Warin, with his passionate intensity I imagine he struggles to come to terms with the unjustified suffering he has wrought and the unwitting blasphemy he has committed and seeks some form of extreme penitential reparation.

or perhaps he was blocked early in life but with the Healing left on.  we didn't learn more about Sir Se, but maybe one of his chores was to monitor and block known families.

[HealingWaters]

Not sure that Se could block, that talent seemsto have been a sub class of the healers

[Laurna]

I love science! I just read about this genetic study on trauma of one generation passing down to the next generation. Go figure, the first thing I think about is the Deryni world. I wonder if in the Deryni fictional world, there is the possibility of passing down the Deryni blocking mechanism from one generation to the next.

The idea is controversial, as scientific convention states that genes contained in DNA are the only way to transmit biological information between generations. However, our genes are modified by the environment all the time, through chemical tags that attach themselves to our DNA, switching genes on and off. Recent studies suggest that some of these tags might somehow be passed through generations, meaning our environment could have an impact on our children's health. .......

It's still not clear how these tags might be passed from parent to child. Genetic information in sperm and eggs is not supposed to be affected by the environment - any epigenetic tags on DNA had been thought to be wiped clean soon after fertilization occurs.

However, research by Azim Surani at Cambridge University and colleagues, has recently shown that some epigenetic tags escape the cleaning process at fertilization, slipping through the net.
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/aug/21/study-of-holocaust-survivors-finds-trauma-passed-on-to-childrens-genes

If a Healer's blocking ability is adding a Tag to the gene to turn if off, and that tag persists through fertilization, then I am guessing there is a possibility that the next generation could be blocked as well. The article goes on to say the DNA is not changed, only the tags that turn genes on and off might be passed on with the strand of DNA.  In this study, they have shown a tag caused from trauma to pass down at least three generations.

So now I may reconsider my stance on children from blocked parents being unblocked. I think in a certain percentage (I am hoping a small Percentage) they just may still be. Imagine three or four generations going by and then suddenly the children have Deryni abilities appearing as if out of no where.
Food for thought.

[Evie]

The Deryni Adventures Game sourcebook states (and I think KK has also said in chat) that children of Blocked Deryni are not Blocked themselves. However, if they are never told they are of Deryni blood, and they have no reason to suspect this, then that would explain why they may go for generations without anyone in the family discovering they possess this gift. Two things that might make a Deryni who was unaware of his Deryni origins suddenly discover this gift might be a precipitating crisis that causes them to call upon the previously unsuspected gift instinctively, or else a growing sense of self-awareness that might eventually offer a clue that there are hidden talents lying beneath the surface and waiting to be discovered.

That said, I think where such trauma-induced tags might come into play might be that the genetically-remembered trauma (for lack of a better way to put it) might make a descendant of a blocked Deryni less likely to attempt calling on such innate powers in the first place, even in a crisis situation, for fear of recreating the traumatic situations that caused their ancestors to become Blocked in the first place, and which might inhibit any growing self-awareness that might cause them to look deep enough within themselves to find their gift. Maybe that could help explain why Jehana (despite not being Blocked or presumably not a descendant of blocked Deryni) was in such denial of her own heritage also. If she'd been traumatized by her abbess' attitude towards Deryni, the last thing she'd want was to become aware of her own Deryni gift, at least until her only son's life was at stake.

[tenworld]

we could be back to the secret inner council, a group of highly trained deryni who still monitor and control.  But I am wondering, given 200 years has passed since they started blocking and hiding deryni, what percentage of people in the kingdom are actually deryni?

[Evie]

we could be back to the secret inner council, a group of highly trained deryni who still monitor and control.  But I am wondering, given 200 years has passed since they started blocking and hiding deryni, what percentage of people in the kingdom are actually deryni?

My guess is that it would still remain a very small percentage, since IIRC the Deryni gene(s) is/are recessive, so for the trait to be passed on, I would think both parents would either have to be Deryni or at least carry the gene even if it's not expressed in that parent. In an age with less persecution and with most if not all Deryni knowing what they are, it would be easier to select a mate who shares the Deryni gift and therefore greatly increase the likelihood of passing it on to the next generation. If a person has no knowledge of being Deryni, however, the chances of just accidentally happening to select a partner who is also a Deryni trait carrier becomes lower, given that the percentage of Deryni in the general population is already quite low to begin with, which I would think would make it more likely that the blocked Deryni (or their descendents) would end up with fully human partners and children who might or might not be carriers of the Deryni trait themselves.  Lather, rinse, repeat for several more generations, and there'd be a few extra Deryni out there who might never guess what they actually are, but I don't think there'd be a huge rise (if any) in the Deryni population overall.  Definitely not the same sort of Deryni population growth one might expect in times when Deryni suffer minimal to no persecution and are free to knowingly select partners among other Deryni.

[Elkhound]

The Deryni Adventures Game sourcebook states (and I think KK has also said in chat) that children of Blocked Deryni are not Blocked themselves. However, if they are never told they are of Deryni blood, and they have no reason to suspect this, then that would explain why they may go for generations without anyone in the family discovering they possess this gift. Two things that might make a Deryni who was unaware of his Deryni origins suddenly discover this gift might be a precipitating crisis that causes them to call upon the previously unsuspected gift instinctively, or else a growing sense of self-awareness that might eventually offer a clue that there are hidden talents lying beneath the surface and waiting to be discovered.

In "The Priesting of Arilan" the idea of someone not knowing he was Deryni was brought up in the context of the Ramos ban, and Arilan opined that anyone learning meditation techniques would probably suspect, at least.

[tenworld]

My guess is that it would still remain a very small percentage, since IIRC the Deryni gene(s) is/are recessive,

that implies Kenneth Morgan has Deryni genes, but do we know that?

[Laurna]

Apparently I will have to go back to do research, which I do not have time for at the moment.

If the Deryni gene were recessive, there would be no such thing as half-Deryni. There would only be Deryni carriers. In this way, the Deryni gene could be  hidden for generation's, but for a child to be able to do any magic at all, he/she would need to be full Deryni and therefore get a Deryni gene from both parents, even if one is hidden and unknown. This is true in the case of Alaric and Duncan, as one of each of their parents carries the hidden gene and the other is full Deryni. Perhaps this would explain why the CC does not consider half-Deryni to be Deryni and therefor the are not under the CC's jurisdiction.

However, I was under the impression the Deryni gene was dominant and children with only one Deryni parent could still have the ability to be trained to do magic. Or is that a misconception.

[Elkhound]

The Deryni Adventures Game sourcebook states (and I think KK has also said in chat) that children of Blocked Deryni are not Blocked themselves. However, if they are never told they are of Deryni blood, and they have no reason to suspect this, then that would explain why they may go for generations without anyone in the family discovering they possess this gift. Two things that might make a Deryni who was unaware of his Deryni origins suddenly discover this gift might be a precipitating crisis that causes them to call upon the previously unsuspected gift instinctively, or else a growing sense of self-awareness that might eventually offer a clue that there are hidden talents lying beneath the surface and waiting to be discovered.

A person who was part Deryni and didn't know it might have a high percentage of accurate hunches about people, and know most of the time if he's being lied to; he might have a good rapport with animals, or know when the weather was about to change.  But plenty of people who *don't* have Deryni blood have such.

In "The Priesting of Arilan", Dennis opines that anyone who was trained in the meditation techniques taught to seminarians would suspect, at least.  (And, I'm guessing, quietly drop out.)