Magic in the North

[Marcus Lindberg]

Hi!

I am planning to start a Rjurik Campaign in the north and will
probably start as soon as I get my hands on the new King of Giantdowns
adventure. I wonder if there is someone who balanced their game
for a Rjurik campaign? My players are ruthless powergamers so some =

changes must be made.


Problem #1. Nobody has claimed the sources in the north.

I find this quite strange. If I where a fresh graduate from the
Anurian University of Magic I would go north and get all those =

sources. An simple invisibility spell would be enough for personal
protection. I find it undesirable for a the mage in the party
to be able to get holding very easy while the other partymembers
must struggle.

Some answers I have been thinking about:

A1: Everyone hates mages, killing them on sight. That might be =

enough to kill a fresh graduate but not a competent mage.
The rjurik sourcebook also mentions the northern kings to have
"advisors" that are mages but why have they not claimed the sources? =


A2: The Gems of Arobea (major artifact) owned by the elves uses
hidden leylines to draw power from much of the north making
source holdings there unstable at best. When the elves has
retrieved all gems then they will be able to control ALL
sources there making awesome magic like lifting their capitol
into the sky making it into a castle in the clouds raining
faery magic onto their enemies. Hmm, I'm rambling


Problem #2. Elf characters hasting themselves, making wishes etc

Elves does not age. All the elf characters haste themselves
at every combat not caring that they age. The humans look
on with envy. Also, The elven queen is a Wizard level 18
and is able to cast as many wishes she wants as aging 10 years
don't affect her. I wonder why her character stats was not
all 25 in ability scores.

A1: Elves ages.

A2: Wizard trainers are hard to get by in the north. The PC's
may not select spells freely when they advances in levels.
Surprise, surprise, no Haste spell will ever be available ;-)


Problem #3, those Erik Priests are wimps.

The Erik priests are wimps in a dungeon crawl, and the huge majority =

of all AD&D are dungeoncrawls. It is not appearant to me how the =

Humans in the north was able to win against the elves. Their
magic seems to be crap. Bad armor does not help either.

A: Lets hope for the Priestcraft book to boost them

Cheers

/Marcus


PS. Was there any answer to the question about correct Rournil Spheres?

DISCLAIMER: English is NOT my native language.

[Brandon Quina]

I personally hate the 'Wish' spell, and dont allow it. As for haste,
well, thats one of the advantages of being an elf.


- --
Brandon Quina \\|//
lore@tmgbbs.com (x x)
---ooO-(_)-Ooo---

[DURKS95@aol.co]

I think elves age they just never die do to old age, there bodies would still
change with age in my opinion, and magic in the Rjurik lands isn't common and
I'm sure the people wouldn't wanna be ruled by a mage, Revolts galor maybe.

[MagnusKhn@aol.co]

(About the Elf Wish and haste problem)
I would recommend, as many others have before, that Wish not exist on
Cerilia. It is meant as a low-magic world, and Wish is just too much. Other
spells recommended to not exist are: Limited Wish, Clone, Ressurect, & Raise
Dead. IMO the 'back to life' magics cheapen death far too much, and are
inconsistent with Cerilia's established history. If it were that easy,
Michael Roele would not have stayed dead... He was loved enough that someone
would have brought him back. (speaking of this, is there a blood-power in
"Blood Enemies" that allows a regent to 'invest' his bloodline back into the
land itself, as Michael did in "The Iron Throne"?)

...(V)agnus |{haine...

[George Chatzipetros]

----
From: MagnusKhn@aol.com
To: birthright@MPGN.COM
Date: =D3=DC=E2=E2=E1=F4=EF, 23 =C1=F5=E3=EF=FD=F3=F4=EF=F5 1997 11:18 =F0=
=EC
Subject: Re: [BIRTHRIGHT] - Magic in the North

> (About the Elf Wish and haste problem)
> I would recommend, as many others have before, that Wish not exist on
>Cerilia. It is meant as a low-magic world, and Wish is just too much.
Other
>spells recommended to not exist are: Limited Wish, Clone, Ressurect, &
Raise
>Dead. IMO the 'back to life' magics cheapen death far too much, and are
>inconsistent with Cerilia's established history. If it were that easy,
>Michael Roele would not have stayed dead... He was loved enough that
someone
>would have brought him back. (speaking of this, is there a blood-power i=
n
>"Blood Enemies" that allows a regent to 'invest' his bloodline back into
the
>land itself, as Michael did in "The Iron Throne"?)

I agree with most of that. Cerilia needs to reamin low-magic, something
like Middle-earth for example and not Forgotten Realms. However, have u
seen the movie "Excalibur"? I think a cut-down wish could resemble the
"charm of creation" Merlin knew (and was supposendly the most powerful
spell). Cut down the wish's power, amplify the drawbacks (perhaps the
wizard needs to go into hibernation for some years or decades) and there =
we
are...

George, neon@mail.otenet.gr

"I've got to get me a gun. Guns made everything right" -- R. Valentin
"You can't fight against the future. Time is on our side" -- W.E.
Gladstone

http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Vault/8046 -- The Transcendence Freeware
RPG

[Paul Lefebvre]

Robert Harper wrote:

> At 09:10 AM 8/22/97 -0400, you wrote:
> >
> >
> >I personally hate the 'Wish' spell, and dont allow it. As for haste,
>
> >well, thats one of the advantages of being an elf.
>
> Far too great an advantage. I would rule that elves are not truly
> immortal,
> rather they don't naturally age. However, artificial aging can affect
> them
> - for these purposes use the normal AD&D Elf age categories.
>
> Thus elves can be rendered decrepit/killed by Hastes, ghosts etc.
>
> It also suggests (as some seem to like) that their 'immortality' is in
> fact
> something stopping them from aging (where they live, what they
> believe, a
> supernatural favour, whatever) not an innate quality.

If you simply look at the birthright rulebook included in the boxed
set, on pg. 7, it clearly states in the third paragraph that "they are
unaffected by agin attacks and normal disease". Half-elves are are "30%
resistant to disease and aging attacks" which means ghosts and wishes
and stuff. Elves are immortal, do not age, and are not affected by
the aging effects of wishes, ghosts, hastes etc...however, they ARE
affected by some of the other aspects of casting wish spells....if used
to duplicate other spells, a wish does not have any special effect on
the characterr (makes sense since the original spell doesn't
either...). However, for unique effects, the wish results in the
character being confined to bed for 2d4 days. Sounds pretty intense to
me....takes him out of the campaign for a bit...and if he's in an
adventure at the time..All of this also ignores the fact that wishes
should not be very common. They are the highest order of magic (barring
realm spells, 10th lvl magic, or psionic enchantments) and are EXTREMELY
dangerous to use. ANY wish at all can be violently twisted in terms of
what it does according to how it was worded. That in itself is
something that is worse than simply aging 5 years (countered by wishing
for slow aging, or quaffing youth potions, or protection from time
spells etc). I never allow characters to get away with using wishes
with impunity...almost every one I've given out twisted the characters
if it wasn't a VERY simple and straightforward request.
A knight in my campaign began going rather cruel and selfish (had
been a knight of solamnia). He earned a wish at the end of a very tough
adventure and wished for some innate magic powers similar to a tanar'ri
(I can't remember exactly how it was worded). I turned him into a
pretty little succubus and he/she was sucked away into the
abyss....wishes give the DM leeway to have fun with characters that try
to stretch the limits of the game, IMHO.

Paul L.
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[Paul Lefebvre]

Ray Davis wrote:

> >
> > Elves does not age. All the elf characters haste themselves
> > at every combat not caring that they age. The humans look
> > on with envy. Also, The elven queen is a Wizard level 18
> > and is able to cast as many wishes she wants as aging 10 years
> > don't affect her. I wonder why her character stats was not
> > all 25 in ability scores.
> >
> > A1: Elves ages.
> >

Elves are not aged by spells, ghosts etc. However, I sincerely hope
that you are not allowing your characters to use the NPCs from the
campaign, such as that elf queen...if you are, no wonder you're having
problems...begin lvl 1 with new characters...fixes all problems. When I
was running a BR campaign, I let the players use some of the bloodlines
out of the books, but at different strengths (as children or siblings of
the rulers in the book) but beginning at lvl 1. Had absolutely no
problems. And actually, most of my characters didn't even want to run
super-strong characters. It just takes the fun out of the game.
Concerning the elf queen, using those wishes does mean that she's
bed-ridden for a couple days...rather hard to run the nation when you're
flat on your back in bed spitting out your lungs for a few days
...good opportunity for the DM to throw a crisis at the
nation....
One simple solution is spell availability. In Cerilia, wizards are
not common. Any character needs tutors and other wizards to trade
spells with. Who says that the wish spell is that easy to find?? Maybe
only one or two wizards actually have it...and don't want to share. In
my campaigns, characters can purchase or trade for spells with other
wizards (if they're not rare spells), but otherwise they have to find
everything....and wish spells are one that just doesn't show up very
often. Progressively it gets more and more difficult to find spells of
each lvl. 9th lvl spells are near impossible to find. Most mages only
have 2-3 of them to use...

Paul L.

[Paul Lefebvre]

MagnusKhn@aol.com wrote:

> (About the Elf Wish and haste problem)
> I would recommend, as many others have before, that Wish not exist on
>
> Cerilia. It is meant as a low-magic world, and Wish is just too much.
> Other
> spells recommended to not exist are: Limited Wish, Clone, Ressurect, &
> Raise
> Dead. IMO the 'back to life' magics cheapen death far too much, and
> are
> inconsistent with Cerilia's established history. If it were that easy,
>
> Michael Roele would not have stayed dead... He was loved enough that
> someone
> would have brought him back. (speaking of this, is there a blood-power
> in
> "Blood Enemies" that allows a regent to 'invest' his bloodline back
> into the
> land itself, as Michael did in "The Iron Throne"?)
>
> ...(V)agnus |{haine...
>

Interesting idea. I'm not so sure about disallowing so many of
these spells. In my campaign I simply limit the availability. Raise
dead for one is a spell that requires that the deity actually want to
have that dead person around again. Perhaps it was Michael's fate or
something. In which case Haelyn would not want him to return to life.
Perhaps he needed his spirit in the planes for one reason or another.
Simply keeping in mind what the DM wants to do with the campaign can
prevent misuse of many of these spells. BTW, is there any word on
when the book "War" (sequel to the Iron Throne) is going to be released
in paperback?? The original product release schedule seemed to indicate
it was going to be this year. But the new one doesn't show it. Has it
been cancelled? Or is it simply moved to '98 (I REALLY, REALLY, hope
not).

Paul L.

[MHahn59022@aol.co]

In a message dated 97-09-03 06:39:40 EDT, you write:

[Paul Lefebvre]

MHahn59022@aol.com wrote:

> What about spell reasearch? Any mage regent worth his salt would spend
> every
> avalable action reasearching new spells - or old ones that he couldn't
> find.
> Given this why would /spells/ be as rare wizards are, even if they
> decide not
> to share. If I were an elven mage-regent who made it to 18th level,
> one of
> the first things I would do is research the wish spell. IMC, I prevent
> this
> by saying that you need certain books to research specific spells. If
> the
> PC's want to research the spell the need to find the book. I put the
> two
> copies of the book needed to research wish into the Gorgons Crown and
> the
> fallen academy of magic in the imperal city.
>
> Michael Hahn

Good idea about requiring certain books for researching specific
spells. It's similar in a way to something written about building
libraries in Spells and Magic. In terms of researching among high level
mages though....remember. I think realistically, the higher you get in
terms of character levels, the fewer people actually reach that level.
It's just against the odds. Thus there may just have not been THAT many
18th lvl wizards throughout the history of Cerilia. And even those that
got it, many would have been elves, and many elven towers, cities and
such were destroyed or lost over the years as the humans rolled over
them (thus causing these books with the wish spell inside to be lost).
Perhaps the Gorgon has claimed the spellbooks of many powerful mages
he's killed and stuff, to increase his own power....seems like something
he'd do.

Paul L.