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View Full Version : RE: true bloodlines



Silveras
03-22-1998, 09:16 PM
Well....
I refer everyone to the Birthright Rulebook, p.20. True bloodlines have a
great deal to do with the strength of the bloodline - they are the category
after Great (which rolls 8d8 to determine score).
What is not clear in the BR Rulebook, and which has been mentioned by
others, is the long-term effect of generations of heirs on the bloodline's
strength. Children receive a score of the average of the parents' bloodline
scores, with the strength and derivation of the stronger parent. Over time,
a True bloodline could then decrease to a score of 1, and a Tainted
bloodline could rise to a score of 100. The question then becomes "Should
the bloodline strength change as the score rises or falls ?"

My own feeling is that the bloodline strength should change as the score
rises and falls. Not based solely on the numbers, however. Bloodline
strength affects the starting score of a new character - it determines how
many, and the size of, dice that player rolls to find the score. There is a
wide overlap in the scores. A character with a great bloodline whose player
rolled badly (min. 8) could have a lower score than a Tainted character
whose player rolled well (max. 16). I view the bloodline strength as the
label the populace and characters use to describe the relative power of a
bloodline. Players have the score (number), but the characters don't. They
have the observable effects of having a bloodline - the blood abilities.
The more blood abilities a character possesses, the "stronger" his or her
bloodline is going to be recognized to be.

It would now be fairly widely known that the characters' bloodline score
can rise and fall with various forces - Bloodtheft, regency losses on bad
Domain turns, etc. So, for a change to affect the overall family's
bloodline strength, it would have to be a generation thing. Bloodlines
would thus rise or fall over generations, not based on the actions of a
single character. This effect also mimics the historical attitudes for the
past societies - those who have been noble longer, or from greater lines,
feel somewhat superior to those who have risen recently, or whose immediate
forebears were commoners.
So, characters who raise their bloodline score sufficiently for their
children to be born with more bloodline abilities than the parent had at
birth would be seen to have strengthened their bloodline. Characters whose
children are born with fewer blood abilities would be seen to have weakened
their bloodlines. Thus, the labels applied to the families (True, Great,
Major, Minor, and Tainted) would change over time, as the family was
recognized to have risen or fallen.
The last point I would make is that there probably should be a cap. True
bloodlines are recognized as having come directly from a Champion of one of
the old gods at Deismaar. Thus, no family should be able to raise its
bloodline strength to True (without a major quest to prove that such was
the original strength, which had declined over the years, and was now
restored).

Hope that helps....

On Sunday, March 22, 1998 4:33 AM, Richard Malena
[SMTP:rmalena@gladstone.uoregon.edu] wrote:
> At 04:09 AM 3/22/98 EST, you wrote:
> >Kyle wrote:
> >
> >>The Raven has a True bloodline as does the Laviathan of all things.
> >>Which I had thought that a True Bloodline was one which could be traced
> >>back completly unbroken from a survivor of Diesmaar. The Roele's would
> >>have been such a bloodline as would those others mentioned so far.
> >>Shouldn't the Dossier bloodline be a True Bloodline as well? Isn't the
> >>Lord High Chamberlin's bloodline unbrocken that far back as well? I
> >>could have missed something in the explination of true bloodlines and
it
> >>had never really clicked until I looked to see what other true
> >>bloodlines where out there.
> >
> >From what I have gotten from BR is that a true bloodline is a bloodline
that
> >has been taken directly from one of the gods and held over the millenia.
As
> >you said the raven, levithan, and the gorgon all have true bloodlines,
since
> >they were the orginal recieptants of their bloodlines. That is what I
think
> >on this subject, i invited further debate.
>
> My little question to this is the nature of a true bloodline. True in no
> way says anything about strength, correct? Therefore, a blood strength of
1
> would be true if it had been passed onto an elf who had lived during the
> time of Deismaar. Is this correct? If so, true bloodlines don't mean
whole
> lot except that you're old, and strength should remain the only factor in
> describing bloodlines. My own two cents!
>
> -Alenecht
>
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