Making Some Sense of Huge Sneezes

[Zracken3]

Hello, everyone. I was wondering if anybody would be interested in spending some of their valuable time, energy, and talents to help me solve an issue that is not important at all.  

My friend and I have decided to start playing a sci-fi themed tabletop roleplaying game. Think, Dungeons & Dragons, but in space. Anyway, this friend knows I like big sneezes and has indulged my interests in the past by making characters that have them. Unfortunately, the justification for these supernatural sternutations has always been "it's magic." Obviously, this excuse will not work in a science-based setting (though high-tech can sometimes seem like magic, perhaps). My question is this: does anyone have some pseudo-scientific ideas for why a regular-sized humanoid might have unreasonably powerful or dangerous sneezes? The character(s) races are already set, so inherent biological explanations may not be the best, but I'll hear them.

A huge thank you to anyone who actually helps with this ridiculously trivial problem of mine! 

[ZakuConvoy]

Hmm...are these humanoids aliens or Earthlings?  

If they're aliens, you could always go with the idea that any large sneezes were a evolutionary curiosity.  Eons ago, they evolved huge sneezes to scare away predators.  Or maybe they needed especially strong lungs in order to breath in the atmosphere on their planet, needing to take in more air to get the fewer atoms of oxygen or whatever other element they breathe that's thin in their atmosphere. 

If they're humans, I'll admit that's tougher.  You could always say that however they're breathing in space has caused a mutation in some percentage of humans.  However these humans and aliens are able to breathe the same air on the same ship, it's caused a side-effect on their lungs that makes their lungs and sneezes much stronger and harsher than normal.  Perhaps you could even  say whatever artificial gravity their using could be doing a similar thing.  Or maybe, the Earthlings sneezes aren't really any stronger, per se, they just seem that way because other alien races have much smaller sneezes, by comparison. 

Or you could go a third way, and just say a virus did it.  The virus may have mutated by being around so many different alien races from different planets.  The virus has evolved to be able to infect any member of any species and causes much larger sneezes than normal.  Or maybe it was just designed by some mad fetishy scientist.

Or you could say the region of space the characters are in has slightly different laws of physics in play, causing sneezes that would be normal in Earth-space to multiply in this specific far-off region of space.  It could be something the science team is trying to study.

Or maybe it's just a weird "hiccup" of whatever universal translator they're using.  For whatever reason, it translates everything into English but causes everyone's sneezes to be much larger than normal.  Just a weird glitch they haven't ironed out yet.

...Maybe that's too many ideas at once.  Hopefully, that helps in giving you some options, anyway.  Hopefully, one of these ideas fit the setting well enough.

Edited October 24, 2020 by ZakuConvoy

[Zracken3]

They are aliens, though they were made relatively human-like to ease their integration into a human-centric setting. The species-specific ideas you gave would work, however it would then apply to all members of that species. I would prefer a more individual situation in this case, if possible. A lot of the ideas you gave were really good though and will definitely be food for thought. I'll be thinking about them myself, and I'll check in with my friend as well.

And there's no such thing as too many ideas. Keep 'em coming if you have more -- anybody! 😆

[Matt alacran]

You could do something where the character was I judged and has a prosthetic or cyborg nose which begins malfunctioning. 

[Zracken3]

3 minutes ago, Matt alacran said:

You could do something where the character was I judged and has a prosthetic or cyborg nose which begins malfunctioning. 

Also an interesting idea.  Sorry if it was just a typo, but what is "I judged" in this context?

[Matt alacran]

10 hours ago, Zracken3 said:

Also an interesting idea.  Sorry if it was just a typo, but what is "I judged" in this context?

My bad that was supposed to say “ injured “