Time in Birthright

[Jaime T. Matthew]

Greetings.

I'm not sure how many of you have read all of the Birthright novels
(they're decidedly mediocre, but often have useful information or
ideas), but in them they introduced the idea of time moving
differently in the Elven lands and on the Shadow World.

Now, it is easy to mess with time in a novel (we call that a plot
device Bob) but has anyone carried this idea into their games? I
would love to see (or help develop) a system for the randomness of
time in the Elven lands presented in the first Birthright novel (I
forget the name offhand). There was (not surprisingly) no mention of
this in either the rules or the Tuarhievel supplement.

Now the Shadow World presents an even stickier problem. The book
mentioned that no time passed while people were travelling through
the Shadow World. Has anyone used this? I'm not sure its a playable
notion.

Jaime
__________________________________________________ ____
Jaime T. Matthew
mrjamela@netcom.com
http://www.geocities.com/hollywood/6750

[rcantin@oricom.ca (Robin]

Well met, Jaime

I didn't read the Birthright novels where 'elven time distorsion' is
mentioned (reading War discouraged me from buying the others), but the DM
in the campaing I play in did and exploits it with good effect.

She didn't build any random system for it, only using it as a plot device
(right, Bob? ;-)

As a general rule, non-elves will get nowhere fast in an elven forest,
while the elves will travel at least as twice their normal travel rate
(overland movement only, this isn't a haste spell).

Here are some instances where our DM did use it:

- - The Baron of Roesone goes to the High Mage in Arenwe for a cure and
advice. He spends what looks like three months there, but when he's back in
Roesone, only one month has passed.
- - A powerful mage spends three days in the Shadow World adventuring and
returns to find he's been gone for a few hours.
- - The reports of the ambassador of Ilien in Arenwe come in at irregular
intervals, although to his point of few, he always sends them on the same
day of the month.

Note that these time correspondances are not the same from time to time, at
least in my campaing.

Robin

>I'm not sure how many of you have read all of the Birthright novels
>(they're decidedly mediocre, but often have useful information or
>ideas), but in them they introduced the idea of time moving
>differently in the Elven lands and on the Shadow World.
>
>Now, it is easy to mess with time in a novel (we call that a plot
>device Bob) but has anyone carried this idea into their games? I
>would love to see (or help develop) a system for the randomness of
>time in the Elven lands presented in the first Birthright novel (I
>forget the name offhand). There was (not surprisingly) no mention of
>this in either the rules or the Tuarhievel supplement.
>
>Now the Shadow World presents an even stickier problem. The book
>mentioned that no time passed while people were travelling through
>the Shadow World. Has anyone used this? I'm not sure its a playable
>notion.
>
>Jaime
>__________________________________________________ ____
>Jaime T. Matthew
>mrjamela@netcom.com
>http://www.geocities.com/hollywood/6750
>************************************************** *************************
>>