Magical impact on land usage [Archive]

ConjurerDragon

09-13-2007, 02:34 PM

MatanThunder schrieb:
> This post was generated by the Birthright.net message forum.
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> MatanThunder wrote:
> :cool:
>
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> ------------ QUOTE ----------
> Pre Industrial era - Pre steam power - raping the land is much harder - thousands of slaves in a open cut mine is not really Anuirean either.
> -----------------------------
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> There is magic that can easilly take the place of machinery and steam power of the true industrial eras. A simple dig spell could be cast repeatedly. Now those thousands are simply removing the material that is already dug up. For enough gold (or other minerals) a mage (regent on no) might take an interest in putting their skills to good use.
>
> Also you could have a druid on site to help minimize or repair damage created by the mining.
>
> There are many other spells that can also aid in moving materials around in order to save the damage that can come about for your work force, so they might have feel better about their work.
>
> I actually have a spell written up that disentigrates (selectively) around an ore that is part of the casting process. This leaves the viable ore in place, but it does leave some 10` diameter holes through the region. When cast the affect is limited so that the mine can be shored up to prevent cave ins.
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> Other renewable resources could come from the elvish use of cystal/plant magical creations. The material could lend itself to a whole gammut of porducts that would generate income, without damaging the region. The elves can direct the plant/crystal growth so they could practice planned harvesting of the materials after a set time.
>
> Later
> :rolleyes:
>
Perhaps that is just me, but that sounds like Forgotten Realms to me.
IMHO I donÂ´t see magic used for mundane daily work in Birthright.

MatanThunder

09-14-2007, 06:38 AM

:rolleyes:

Perhaps that is just me, but that sounds like Forgotten Realms to me.
IMHO I donÂ´t see magic used for mundane daily work in Birthright.

In a campaign of realm based magic, ley lines, and the uber powerful I hardly see Faerun as that far from the Birthright setting. The Uber magic of ley lines and that of Weave could easilly be part of the same thing.

In a world where the magic of the land powers some of the most powerful spells, it is hardly surprising that druids and mages might use magic in order to help repair the land and thereby the magic source levels of provinces.

They already have a system of reverting a provinces magic level to a previous level. Using this idea to make repairs to the land are hand in hand with the restoration of source levels.

<snip to split threads>

With magic you could have great gains in transportation of goods (gates) and also in reforestation. Imagine the local mage buying up a series of clear cuts (complete with stumps). He casts regular or realm spells that speed growth in conjunction with local druids (with the promise to allow a sacred undisturbed grove later). The land could be harvested much faster, and our Lordship the mage could easilly get his investment back in spades. Now plant exotic trees and he really makes a profit.

And magic is something that is, for the most part (and the useful part), limited to the nobility* and clergy; or the treeh... I mean elves. So we have retrograde feudal lords and cadets wielding magic, retrograde fairies wielding magic, and retrograde priests wielding magic -

The limits you are expressing here about the uses and access to magic have less to do with the setting, and more with how "You Personally" percieve the setting. Each to their own, but I don't see magic as controlled solely by the clergy and nobility in the setting.

Mages are more free willed than this, even if they are subordinating some of their will for a paycheck. They will try to enrich themselves before their employer if they can find a way to do it. They are just as greedy as the next guy, and have magic to back it up (and powerful friends if they are not free willed mages).

Later

:cool:

Sorontar

09-14-2007, 07:23 AM

As I tried to indicate before, as a rule Druids and Mages don't mix in Cerilia. The Rjurik don't think much of mages and that is where most of druids are. Therefore it can be taken that is is very uncommon for any large scale interaction between a mage and a druid. Once perhaps in one province, but if you want to do it more than once or over a larger area, I would suggest that the druid is seriously going to push for lots of official recognition of his/her church and will want a couple of temple holdings. I know my druid would.

Sorontar.

Gwrthefyr

09-14-2007, 09:03 AM

The limits you are expressing here about the uses and access to magic have less to do with the setting, and more with how "You Personally" percieve the setting. Each to their own, but I don't see magic as controlled solely by the clergy and nobility in the setting.

It has everything to do with the setting. Anything more powerful than a magician has to either be blooded or an elf, unless it's part of the clergy. Hence, any useful wizard in Anuire will be noble, and old nobility at that. And they're just as free willed as the rest of the nobility, it's just that they're most likely to carry with them a lot of the same prejudices.

Sorontar: And it would be a right way to play a druid.

irdeggman

09-14-2007, 10:01 AM

:rolleyes:

In a campaign of realm based magic, ley lines, and the uber powerful I hardly see Faerun as that far from the Birthright setting. The Uber magic of ley lines and that of Weave could easilly be part of the same thing.

The difference is that of "scale" more than anything else.

Those in Cerillia capable of manipulating true magic (or "the weave" for those who really insist on making similarities between the Realms and Birthright {there are a few others out there}) are few and far between when compared to the number in other settings (except for perhaps Dark Sun, but that is more along the lines of "surviving being hunted down" instead of being capable.)

In a world where the magic of the land powers some of the most powerful spells, it is hardly surprising that druids and mages might use magic in order to help repair the land and thereby the magic source levels of provinces.

Quite true except for the fact that a wizard and druid would be relying on the fact that there are fewer people in the area. Wizards capable of repairing the land via magic as you propose should only be able to do so with realm magic - anything else would make it far to readilay accessable. The spells that affect provinces in that way are Realm Spells in the second ed material. So if "mining" or "foresting" then the sources are being reduced which reduces the effectiveness of the magic needed to repair them in the first place - thus results a death spiral of sorts.

Also if the population increases then the potential source levels are reduced which also gets you into that spiral, since the reason for getting out resources is because of the fact that there are more people there to use them.

With magic you could have great gains in transportation of goods (gates) and also in reforestation. Imagine the local mage buying up a series of clear cuts (complete with stumps). He casts regular or realm spells that speed growth in conjunction with local druids (with the promise to allow a sacred undisturbed grove later). The land could be harvested much faster, and our Lordship the mage could easilly get his investment back in spades. Now plant exotic trees and he really makes a profit.

And using magic for means of transportation also has great risks in Birthright - spells like "gate" will lead to the Shadow World and that causes all kinds of risks when attempting to use it as a more "mundane" manner of moving things rather than a "spectacular" one. Birthright Campaign Setting Rulebook (2nd ed) pg 88) "Many dimensional magics such as dimension door and shadow walk use this property to create short-lived passages through the Shadow World. Wizards must be extremely careful of using these spells; more than one mage has vanished while using such a spell and never returned from the Shadow World." It is fairly easy to equate spells such as "gate" as falling into this grouping as well as it fits more into the truely "specatacular" effect of true magic in the setting.

The limits you are expressing here about the uses and access to magic have less to do with the setting, and more with how "You Personally" percieve the setting. Each to their own, but I don't see magic as controlled solely by the clergy and nobility in the setting.

It depends on the definition of "nobility" being used. If that is used instead of being a scion then it is absolutely in accordance with what makes up the setting. Only scions of those of elven blood can cast true magic - period. Magician level magic should not be allowed to perform the type of "miracles" being mentioned here. In 2nd ed magicians were limited to 2nd level spells, except for divination and illusion - no spell that does a permanent restoration of the land should fall into those categories.

It is also very true (per the 2nd ed material - that the Vos and Rjurik distrust all arcane casters. Bards were special in 2nd ed Birthright (only illusion, divination and enchantment/charm spells), the Rjurik had a very special place for them (although they still did not like non-clerical magic being used) and the Vos thought less of bards than did the Khinasi (who thought them tricksters and untrustworthy).

AndrewTall

09-14-2007, 08:25 PM

<snip to split threads>

MT: On the magic band-aid point I designed a realm spell that effectively could be used to restore a realm to health as you suggest - primarily as a McGuffin for a campaign vaguely planned at one point, its cost needs tweaking - it is still too low I think, but if you are interested: http://www.birthright.net/brwiki/index.php/Shape_Realm#Notes

MatanThunder

09-15-2007, 01:09 AM

:rolleyes:

MT: On the magic band-aid point I designed a realm spell that effectively could be used to restore a realm to health as you suggest - primarily as a McGuffin for a campaign vaguely planned at one point, its cost needs tweaking - it is still too low I think, but if you are interested

Pretty Nice.......I like it. I will copy it off later for addition to my endless notebooks of spells. 18 Tomes 3" thick each and growing.

As I tried to indicate before, as a rule Druids and Mages don't mix in Cerilia. The Rjurik don't think much of mages and that is where most of druids are. Therefore it can be taken that is is very uncommon for any large scale interaction between a mage and a druid. Once perhaps in one province, but if you want to do it more than once or over a larger area, I would suggest that the druid is seriously going to push for lots of official recognition of his/her church and will want a couple of temple holdings. I know my druid would.

Once again I have to mention it is a matter of interpretation. Styles and level of play. There are always rogues in a field of endeavor. Even Weenies of the C*** recognize that there is a counter druid society that will use nature magic, in a more negative light.

Barring personal interpretations of the Rjurik (and I would say the Vos & the Elves are in the mix too) Druidic lore. I would say that for price (and once again I mention Sacred Grove Facilities), that a Druid could be enticed to aid in a business proposition, especially if it involves healing of the land. In addition to a bastion for Druidic nature.

Your younger people/druids would jump at the idea. If you use the old school version of the Druid Heirarchy, then you recognize that some younger druids of great skill, will be held back by their inability to simply defeat a druid in the named aristocracy. These titles are also most likely tied to provences (in Rjurik in this case). These provences wouldn't be easy to hold once you got them either.

Now that young druid might not be able to gain the position even though he/she has the potential to advance, but he/she could easilly find "NEW" digs as good as the title until they can contend for the title.

It has everything to do with the setting. Anything more powerful than a magician has to either be blooded or an elf, unless it's part of the clergy. Hence, any useful wizard in Anuire will be noble, and old nobility at that. And they're just as free willed as the rest of the nobility, it's just that they're most likely to carry with them a lot of the same prejudices.

Sorontar: And it would be a right way to play a druid.

As you interpret the information, which you are entitled to. For me I think that you are stuck on the idea that only the nobles were at the final battle and gained the "blooded" nature. But many lesser creatures would also have inherited the power. What happened to all them. Especially lesser blooded elves.

They do exist and they are as common as you wish them to be in your & I in wish them to be in my campaigns in the past

Your points are all related to your interpretation of the setting. Druids are of the same diverse stock as other creatures. In my campaigns I have always allowed elves to be Druids. It is one of the major beefs I had with TSR. It was a lame idea to exclude them from the class then and still is.

The difference is that of "scale" more than anything else.

Those in Cerillia capable of manipulating true magic (or "the weave" for those who really insist on making similarities between the Realms and Birthright {there are a few others out there}) are few and far between when compared to the number in other settings (except for perhaps Dark Sun, but that is more along the lines of "surviving being hunted down" instead of being capable.)

It isn't so much a difference in scale, as a choice of how to interpret the campaign setting. If some gamers want to keep is a closed society with no possible connection to other settings or magic connections then so be it.

I on the other hand see it as viable and eminently defendable postion that the "True" magic of the setting can easilly be connected to Faerunean "Weave". The High Magic of the Elves of that setting also has a great resonance with "True" magic, even though you have to have groups of elvish mages to enact elvish high magic.

It is all a matter of choice.

Quite true except for the fact that a wizard and druid would be relying on the fact that there are fewer people in the area. Wizards capable of repairing the land via magic as you propose should only be able to do so with realm magic - anything else would make it far to readilay accessable. The spells that affect provinces in that way are Realm Spells in the second ed material. So if "mining" or "foresting" then the sources are being reduced which reduces the effectiveness of the magic needed to repair them in the first place - thus results a death spiral of sorts.

Also if the population increases then the potential source levels are reduced which also gets you into that spiral, since the reason for getting out resources is because of the fact that there are more people there to use them.

I will try to locate the passage later if I can find the time, but there IS a way to revert/repair magic levels and 2nd ed. It is possible, and it doesn't matter what the nature of the lowering of magic source level was: whether strip mining, deforestation, or just an abundance of people.

It may be 2nd ed, but the 2nd ed ideas are what I am relating to here.

Personal choice of course makes the final decision.

And using magic for means of transportation also has great risks in Birthright - spells like "gate" will lead to the Shadow World and that causes all kinds of risks when attempting to use it as a more "mundane" manner of moving things rather than a "spectacular" one. Birthright Campaign Setting Rulebook (2nd ed) pg 88) "Many dimensional magics such as dimension door and shadow walk use this property to create short-lived passages through the Shadow World. Wizards must be extremely careful of using these spells; more than one mage has vanished while using such a spell and never returned from the Shadow World." It is fairly easy to equate spells such as "gate" as falling into this grouping as well as it fits more into the truely "specatacular" effect of true magic in the setting.

And you will note that it says nothing of gates or teleportation.

If some DM decides to shift me to the Shadow World on a whim without source material to back themselves up, then he/she is going to be talking to an empty space on the table.

I don't allow a DM to make rule changes without first illustrating the issue in a rules addendum. I look into one each time I game.

It depends on the definition of "nobility" being used. If that is used instead of being a scion then it is absolutely in accordance with what makes up the setting. Only scions of those of elven blood can cast true magic - period. Magician level magic should not be allowed to perform the type of "miracles" being mentioned here. In 2nd ed magicians were limited to 2nd level spells, except for divination and illusion - no spell that does a permanent restoration of the land should fall into those categories.

And once again I hate to mention that it is a personal interpretation of the rules that sets up the nature of "Nobility" in the game. All sorts of creatures were on the field that day, and each has an equal chance of first escaping, and then of passing on the line to their offspring.

There is NO hard/fast rule that only the NOBLES can be blooded, and not every blooded creature retains nobility today.

Any human or elf in the game can have the "blooded" ability in the 2nd ed. For me that extended to all races that were on the field that day. They could all have been exposed to the potential.

No offense intended. You can see it your way, but you will never get me to agree with the notion that only (A DM's) interpretation of NOBILITY can have the Blooded powers. It isn't part of the intent of the source material.

Later

:cool:

ShadowMoon

09-15-2007, 01:20 AM

:rolleyes:

And you will note that it says nothing of gates or teleportation.

If some DM decides to shift me to the Shadow World on a whim without source material to back themselves up, then he/she is going to be talking to an empty space on the table.

Book of Magecraft clearly states that all Dimensional magic operates through the Shadow World, hence Gate and Teleport too, even something lowly as Dimension Door, or Blink...

In my campaign all Conjuration, Divination (tho not many are aware of this), Illusion and Necromancy magic operates through Shadow World, hence they are know as Shadow Magic...
And using Shadow Magic involves great risks...

Thelandrin

09-15-2007, 01:23 AM

Actually, Matan, if you understand the theme behind teleportation, the Shadow World provides the extradimensional travel in Cerilia, just as the Astral, Ethereal and Shadow Planes do in regular D&D.

Also, you don't allow the DM to make rules changes without a rules addendum? How very grand of you. I suppose things that come up in play are forbidden by you from being amended by the DM as he sees fit to create a better adventure?

"It isn't part of the intent of the source material." Again, very noble of you to stand guard at the intent of the rules, but unless it's very clearly stated, it is impossible to discern such intent accurately. Everyone can state their opinions, but only Rich Baker et al can possibly know the full intent.

Finally, what are "Weenies of the C***"? If it cannot be written without censoring it (i.e. it's unprintable), please make sure it isn't written or printed to begin with.

irdeggman

09-15-2007, 03:09 AM

:rolleyes:

Barring personal interpretations of the Rjurik (and I would say the Vos & the Elves are in the mix too) Druidic lore. I would say that for price (and once again I mention Sacred Grove Facilities), that a Druid could be enticed to aid in a business proposition, especially if it involves healing of the land. In addition to a bastion for Druidic nature.

Except for the "old forests" there is an "unwritten" agreement between the Ahuireans at least to no longer destroy the "old forests". (pg 12 of Ruins of Empire) "No army has ever marched through the Erbannien, and none from Anuire ever will. Any ruler who despoil the shady trails of the forest would see his allies raving for his blood. An unspoken truce among the Anuireans ensures the protection of the Erbannien from war."

It isn't so much a difference in scale, as a choice of how to interpret the campaign setting. If some gamers want to keep is a closed society with no possible connection to other settings or magic connections then so be it.

I on the other hand see it as viable and eminently defendable postion that the "True" magic of the setting can easilly be connected to Faerunean "Weave". The High Magic of the Elves of that setting also has a great resonance with "True" magic, even though you have to have groups of elvish mages to enact elvish high magic.

It is all a matter of choice.

Either you have misinterpreted what I said or have a free flowing gate from the Realms that allows "wizards" to come to Cerillia en-mass. The point I was making was in the sheer numbers of wizards on Cerillia. There are many fewer than in the Realms (or other settings, again except for Dark Sun). That is a flat out fact and cannot be simply dismissed. In order to cast true magic you must be a scion (of which there are relatively few) or of elven blood. Also even among the elves there are few true mages. Book of Magecraft pg 5 "Although all Sidhelien have within themselves the potential to wield true magic, only a few experience a "calling" to become wizards. Still fewer posses the bloodlines that allow them to cast realm magic. So while magic is familiar to the Sidhelien, it is not commonplace." {Personally I find this a bit out of whack, but it is in the 2nd ed material and is very plain in how it is written.}

I will try to locate the passage later if I can find the time, but there IS a way to revert/repair magic levels and 2nd ed. It is possible, and it doesn't matter what the nature of the lowering of magic source level was: whether strip mining, deforestation, or just an abundance of people.

It may be 2nd ed, but the 2nd ed ideas are what I am relating to here.

Personal choice of course makes the final decision.

I have use 2nd ed material exclusively in my references because I know that your plane of reference. I could see a Realm Spell researched that could do it, even though there isn't one in the books that I could find - but anything that is not on par with an Alchemy Realm spell is "cheating" the system since it will effectively be giving the benefit of an Alchemy spell without the same "cost".

Sources do replenish themselves naturally, albeit slowly.

Book of Magecraft pg 22

"When a province's level increases, the development causes the land's maximum source level to drop immediately. When a province's level decreases, however nature takes longer to heal itself and replenish the lost mebhaighl."

And you will note that it says nothing of gates or teleportation.

If some DM decides to shift me to the Shadow World on a whim without source material to back themselves up, then he/she is going to be talking to an empty space on the table.

I don't allow a DM to make rule changes without first illustrating the issue in a rules addendum. I look into one each time I game.

Interesting since the exact text says "such as" and that is not an all inclusive list so the DM would not be applying this on a whim. He should explain how "transportation spells" function, but it is fairly easy to see a similarity (unless one wishes to ignore it) between the dimensional magics and any sort of gate used for transportation.

In the back of both the Book of Magecraft (pg 83) and Book of Priestcraft (pg 125) it specifically states that "Not all spells and magical items created for AD&D game settings are appropriate for use in a Birthright campaign. DMs and players need to take care that spells and items borrowed or adapted from other products are compatable with the rules and flavor of the Birthright world: spells with effects tht contradict, impair, or are otherwise incongruous with life in Cerilia should be excluded from the campaign.

Players may use any spell from the PHB in a Birthright campaign. . . .This section lists the spells and magical items from the tome of Magic that are suitable for use in Cerilia. Any spells or items excluded from this list are not recommended for the Birthright setting; al always, however, players and DMs may agree to allow (or disallow) a spell or item to suit their campaign."

irdeggman

09-15-2007, 03:22 AM

:rolleyes:

Your points are all related to your interpretation of the setting. Druids are of the same diverse stock as other creatures. In my campaigns I have always allowed elves to be Druids. It is one of the major beefs I had with TSR. It was a lame idea to exclude them from the class then and still is.

Well the logic of excluding elves from being druids in Birthright comes from the fact that all druids are priests of Erik (Birthright campaign Setting Rule Book pg 12.) And since the elves are immortal and have no gods it was only logical in that paradigm to exclude them from being druids. It was all part of making the setting of Birthright "unique" and have its own "feel".

In 2nd ed core material druids (and rangers) could get their power/abilities from either a god of nature or from the nature itself. The default was for druids and rangers to get their power from nature itself. In putting together the Birthright setting the developers decided to give the setting a specific "feel" and in so doing make druids get their power from the god of nature and rangers to get theirs from nature itself.

Gwrthefyr

09-15-2007, 04:26 AM

:rolleyes:

Once again I have to mention it is a matter of interpretation. Styles and level of play. There are always rogues in a field of endeavor. Even Weenies of the C*** recognize that there is a counter druid society that will use nature magic, in a more negative light.

And people who want actual druids (i.e. neither of these cliches and what they come with), who only care about nature inasmuch as it fits as part of their religious and social views, might have had groves in the past (after all, we have some traces to suggest that the romans and the etruscans did, so once urbanisation would have stabilised, there's little to tell us that the british and gauls would have set their temples mostly in groves even in the cities), etc, but are primarily tied to a particular group of peoples' public faith. But that's mostly me here, I think.

What you're suggesting is about the same as suggesting that a young catholic priest who doesn't find the patience to wait for a bishop to die would start peddling miracles and relics without church supervision. Or not expecting a wall (and a war) after nailing a bunch of reformist theses on the door of a temple ;)

Your younger people/druids would jump at the idea. If you use the old school version of the Druid Heirarchy, then you recognize that some younger druids of great skill, will be held back by their inability to simply defeat a druid in the named aristocracy. These titles are also most likely tied to provences (in Rjurik in this case). These provences wouldn't be easy to hold once you got them either.

Now that young druid might not be able to gain the position even though he/she has the potential to advance, but he/she could easilly find "NEW" digs as good as the title until they can contend for the title.

How much experience do you have with any century before, say, the 18th (and even, the late 18th)? I'd recommend the Dialogue of the Two Sages for a starting point on late classical druids; but quite simply the world, except in situations of great turmoil (see the Sengoku Jidai period) most of the world wasn't much of a meritocracy. If the young upstart isn't willing to wait for his turn (or, in the case of a more mobile hierarchy, unable to make his turn), the he's an upstart who would mostly be considered to deserve to stay back. Quite simply, there is nothing as good as the title - nobles and clerics alike would hoard titles and delegate the jobs for sheer questions of prestige.

But then again I prefer lower level campaigns (and never used the old school hierarchies at all, which weren't meant to be used for Birthright anyway, and the fighter's cohort in 2ed Birthright seemed rather tacked on as a result) - It's very rare for my players to have a character over 10th level who is not nearing or past their 40s.

As you interpret the information, which you are entitled to. For me I think that you are stuck on the idea that only the nobles were at the final battle and gained the "blooded" nature. But many lesser creatures would also have inherited the power. What happened to all them. Especially lesser blooded elves.

All were or likely became nobles (note that this includes the squires and knights; frankly, England (and Britain as a whole because of it) is about the only place in Europe to make a distinction between the two, to have exclusive primogeniture, etc. It was still very much a part of the aristocracy; when I say commoner, Churchill would be out of the category), at least among the humans. You may find me annoying with my historical stuff, but when we talk about humans, I like some grounding point. Classical armies generally fall in one of two forms: a citizen army (often, but not always, these states would practice slavery on a large scale and could thus afford it; the citizens might have class distinctions between them, e.g. Rome, or not - rare, I'm actually unsure if it actually existed; the germanic tribes were also a good example) or a professional aristocratic army (as we find among the celtic tribes, the japanese, the aryan tribes, etc.). By the end of the classical period, the transition from milites to nobiles was already getting underway in western Europe. From the little data we have, however, the Anuirean administration was likely closer to Persia (and emperor who acts more as king of kings with a variety of satraps and vassal kings), and probably didn't entirely make the distinction in the first place (on this point, you can feel free to disagree). In such a military system, the idea of commoners in the ranks (and I really mean in the ranks) is generally a great rarity - for an idea, bringing in commoners (besides mercenaries, which form an exception to everything I say) in the rank and file of the french army was considered troublesome to the nobility down to the end of the XVIth century.

With the additional weight of power carried by scions, it is fairly logical to assume that most if not all of them are nobles (even if I put them a whole magnitude above the PS of Muden stats, which feel rather low - aristocratic density could vary widely depending on conditions, and was usually higher, not lower, than what is suggested there); the migrations were already 5 centuries old, so the likeliness that it was some kind of total battle is, IMHO, low - even lower when you consider the area covered and the impossibility of feeding that many people over such a small areas (yes, even with clerics, but I consider more than 1% spellcasting clerics to be a very much overestimating the numbers).

Again historical comparison - Charlemagne has millions of descendants today, only, the count of Paris is a couple tens of thousands of them (other european dynasts are in a similar situation regarding CM) - here we have even more incentive to keep the blood pure (even if they didn't know exactly the nature and power of the bloodlines, marrying between scions would likely be a priority of marital politics among the nobility). Quite frankly, if nearly every scion of Anduiras within Avanil, if not the whole of Anuire and then some, wasn't at some point related to the Avans, I wouldn't be in the least surprised.

I will try to locate the passage later if I can find the time, but there IS a way to revert/repair magic levels and 2nd ed. It is possible, and it doesn't matter what the nature of the lowering of magic source level was: whether strip mining, deforestation, or just an abundance of people.

It may be 2nd ed, but the 2nd ed ideas are what I am relating to here.

Personal choice of course makes the final decision.

The only officially published method involved genocide.

And you will note that it says nothing of gates or teleportation.

If some DM decides to shift me to the Shadow World on a whim without source material to back themselves up, then he/she is going to be talking to an empty space on the table.

I don't allow a DM to make rule changes without first illustrating the issue in a rules addendum. I look into one each time I game.

IIRC, Teleport is on the banned spells list (if not officially, I've always seen it on the banned spells list of every PBEM I've checked). The others, well, as mentioned, the books of *craft and the book on the shadow world have some indications.

As for commonality of spellcasters, the RoE Atlas gives us the Chamberlain's estimate at about 200 "true mages"; even assuming they're all archmage level (one PBEM makes this a necessity for realm spells, IIRC - Book of Spellcraft establishes Archmage level in Birthright at somewhere between level 7 and 10), I doubt we'd see more than 2.000 to maybe 4.000 of them, excluding the elves.

ConjurerDragon

09-15-2007, 08:36 AM

ShadowMoon schrieb:
> ------------ QUOTE ----------
> :rolleyes:
>
> And you will note that it says nothing of gates or teleportation.
>
> If some DM decides to shift me to the Shadow World on a whim without source material to back themselves up, then he/she is going to be talking to an empty space on the table.
>
> -----------------------------
>
> Book of Magecraft clearly states that all Dimensional magic operates through the Shadow World, hence Gate and Teleport too, even something lowly as Dimension Door, or Blink...
>
> In my campaign all Conjuration, Divination, Illusion and Necromancy magic operates through Shadow World, hence they are know as Shadow Magic... >And using Shadow Magic involves great risks...

And the novels mention that risk too in "Iron Throne" where the courtmage of Boeruine transports Michaels sister to the Archduke for
some sinister plans.

kgauck

09-15-2007, 01:08 PM

There is NO hard/fast rule that only the NOBLES can be blooded, and not every blooded creature retains nobility today.

Its not that only nobles can be blooded, but rather that anyone who has a bloodline can act as a noble. Once somone has the power to excercise these special abilities to lead, they are by definition nobles. So its impossible for someone to wield true magic or gain regency without being a noble, because with anyone with a bloodline is generally considered noble. By the same token, there is no assumption that people who are born to wealth or privledge are nobles. Without a bloodline, they are no better than gentlemen.

kgauck

09-15-2007, 01:46 PM

It is all a matter of choice. [...]

Personal choice of course makes the final decision. [...]

I don't allow a DM to make rule changes without first illustrating the issue in a rules addendum. I look into one each time I game.

Obviously its not the DM's choice how they run a campaign, its yours. This is a real argument for keeping rules away from players, and maybe even not letting players know what game system you are using.

ConjurerDragon

09-15-2007, 02:47 PM

kgauck

09-15-2007, 02:56 PM

However that is no hard rule. In the PS of Illien is if my memory does not fail me is as example the mention of a relative of the former ruler who, while blooded, decided to run a farm and not get involved in politics.

He's still a noble, he's just also a farmer. Noble is the word that describes the divine spark in the blood, its not about what you do, or how you dress, or where you seek your amusments.

Gwrthefyr

09-15-2007, 02:57 PM

kgauck schrieb:
> This post was generated by the Birthright.net message forum.
> You can view the entire thread at:
> http://www.birthright.net/forums/showthread.php?goto=newpost&t=3984
> kgauck wrote:
> ------------ QUOTE ----------
> There is NO hard/fast rule that only the NOBLES can be blooded, and not every blooded creature retains nobility today.
> -----------------------------
>
>
>
> Its not that only nobles can be blooded, but rather that anyone who has a bloodline can act as a noble. Once somone has the power to excercise these special abilities to lead, they are by definition nobles. So its impossible for someone to wield true magic or gain regency without being a noble, because with anyone with a bloodline is generally considered noble. By the same token, there is no assumption that people who are born to wealth or privledge are nobles. Without a bloodline, they are no better than gentlemen.
>
However that is no hard rule. In the PS of Illien is if my memory does
not fail me is as example the mention of a relative of the former ruler
who, while blooded, decided to run a farm and not get involved in politics.

He's a bastard; and the PS of Ilien also has a commoner wizard's apprentice - the PS books would really have benefitted from better editorial oversight, as there's some of the fluff that doesn't really fit with the rules. Similarly, the PS of Talinie has at least one unblooded noble (as does the PS of Ilien), which isn't really explained satisfactorily (taking Deismaar as a starting point is rather problematic when it was 15 centuries ago; them being recently ennobled robe nobility might have made a better explanation, if weird for Lord Hestean). Not all nobility is court nobility; likely a majority of it will be manor-based (or, in the case of the Brecht, Khinasi, and most likely the Rjuven, also partly trade-based).

MatanThunder

09-15-2007, 08:18 PM

:D

Sorry for the length all....a lot to repsond to.

Book of Magecraft clearly states that all Dimensional magic operates through the Shadow World, hence Gate and Teleport too, even something lowly as Dimension Door, or Blink...

In my campaign all Conjuration, Divination (tho not many are aware of this), Illusion and Necromancy magic operates through Shadow World, hence they are know as Shadow Magic...
And using Shadow Magic involves great risks...

It specifically mentions the spells of shadow walking and dimension door. If you want to extrapolate that it includes the other types of magic in the field (that aren’t short hop magic, or that specifically mentions a shadowy access) then you have the right as DM to rule it that way. Since it is NOT in the written rules though I would say that you are “Arbitrarily” expanding the magic that is limited for your personal DM style. I don’t think that teleport and gate access the shadow world in any way…..period.

Furthermore gates are breaking through world/plane barriers. Teleport is translocational through the Ethereal (as I understand it), and the Gate spell is trans dimensional, by punching through the prime plane it is on and going elsewhere. All of your other examples are magics that allow localized dimensional affects that don’t leave the prime plane you are on.

BTW…Translocational is not a magic that will simply move you through the shadow plane, it is magic that uses the ethereal plane…..site to site, with instantaneous interim travel.

Actually, Matan, if you understand the theme behind teleportation, the Shadow World provides the extradimensional travel in Cerilia, just as the Astral, Ethereal and Shadow Planes do in regular D&D.

Except that if you read my posts about the fact that the Shadow World and the Shadow Plane (singular) are in fact the same thing. The only differences are caused by some local anomalies related to its proximity to some unique features of Cerilia. Also I have all planes having access to the astral plane (as the gods would not be able to access Cerilia otherwise). And the ethereal is also in touch with Cerilia as elemental summoning magics function normally there. Not unique….just different.

Also, you don't allow the DM to make rules changes without a rules addendum? How very grand of you. I suppose things that come up in play are forbidden by you from being amended by the DM as he sees fit to create a better adventure?

Sort of insulting……has someone walked out on you??

I only mention it to allow people see that the DM (and I am one too) doesn’t always have the final say. If any DM decides to willy nilly change fundamental parts of the game then the players deserve to know it. If they don’t like an individual DM’s style of play they should be able to avoid such problems by having a rules addendum to review……otherwise said DM deserves to have players getting up and walking out of their sessions.!!! Period!!

"It isn't part of the intent of the source material." Again, very noble of you to stand guard at the intent of the rules, but unless it's very clearly stated, it is impossible to discern such intent accurately. Everyone can state their opinions, but only Rich Baker et al can possibly know the full intent.

Except that each of use determines intent. Why does it bother you so that others interpret the rules differently??? It is up to each DM to see what a rule says. If you don’t like it…..well see my comments above on DM issues & addendums!!

Except for the "old forests" there is an "unwritten" agreement between the Ahuireans at least to no longer destroy the "old forests". (pg 12 of Ruins of Empire) "No army has ever marched through the Erbannien, and none from Anuire ever will. Any ruler who despoil the shady trails of the forest would see his allies raving for his blood. An unspoken truce among the Anuireans ensures the protection of the Erbannien from war."

Unwritten fairly screams to me that the DM is making a judgment call here.

Also you assume (errantly) that I am talking of harvesting “old growth” which clearly wasn’t my intent, as I mentioned a mage purchasing previously clear cut areas and using those areas for perpetual reforestation and harvesting projects.

If one is simply marching through an area, one isn’t necessarily despoiling them. Now the elves and the sentience of the wood might not like it and try to prevent it in all manners of nasty tricksy ways, but there is nothing to say that war breaks out every time one regent passes through the lands. The Ebanniens might fight for every inch, but the world of Cerilia isn’t just Anuire and the core provinces in the southwest. Even though that is where the Iron Throne is.

You seem to want to focus on those areas, but it was hardly my point about the harvesting of natural resources in the game. It isn’t about that old growth forest in the south of Resone & Aerenwe. It is about all the other areas too.

I have to split this reply

MatanThunder

09-15-2007, 08:19 PM

I'm baaaaacccckkkkkk!!

The point I was making was in the sheer numbers of wizards on Cerillia. There are many fewer than in the Realms (or other settings, again except for Dark Sun). That is a flat out fact and cannot be simply dismissed. In order to cast true magic you must be a scion (of which there are relatively few) or of elven blood. Also even among the elves there are few true mages. Book of Magecraft pg 5 "Although all Sidhelien have within themselves the potential to wield true magic, only a few experience a "calling" to become wizards. Still fewer posses the bloodlines that allow them to cast realm magic. So while magic is familiar to the Sidhelien, it is not commonplace."

If you find that you wish to downplay magic wielding amongst the elves with that Pg 5 reference then that is up to you. There are many things TSR just got plain wrong, and as with my statements earlier about elvish druids this is another one.

Elves are inherently a magical race. And simply by the writers of the Book of Magecraft saying that few find it a calling, I would say they are wrong. This is why!!

The elves of Cerilia are under huge pressures by humanity and humanoids. They are willing to do anything to protect their lands. (i.e. Rhoube). They would NOT ever simply put aside their magical heritage simply because they don’t feel a “Calling…..LOL” to do so. They would use every tool at their disposal to prevent those cockroach humans and humanoids from over-running their forests….and that mean magic. Also being such a long lived race, the older and elf is, the more likely that they have found reason to study & find new and unique magics, and since Cerilian elves are basically immortal they have much more time to come to the conclusion that magic is useful for the protection and health of the community.

I.E……the creators of the Book of Magecraft are wrong. They were trying to downplay the possibility of having large numbers of elves in the game wielding magic. If that fits into your belief systems as DM then I applaud your decision. For me the above comes into play.

The same type of individual DM decisions come into play when it comes to true magic. The rules say that true magic is rare, but the definition of rare is up to each DM to determine. When comparing Faerun vs Cerilia I find that although I would say rare is about 20-30% of Faerunean levels, what I have found is that many DM’s of this setting want to fairly remove magic from the game, except as a subservient role to their fighter regents.

Personally, I will always see that there are enough wielders of true magic, to keep magic as a viable and valuable part of the setting. Not just in the service of some lord of the lands either.

{Personally I find this a bit out of whack, but it is in the 2nd ed material and is very plain in how it is written.}

Oooooooo…. A 2nd ed dig…..TOO PLAIN……LOL..plain hardly

Each to their own, you will never find me playing 3.whatever (or now 4.whatever). 3rd ed is on its way out.

I have used 2nd ed material exclusively in my references because I know that your plane of reference. I could see a Realm Spell researched that could do it, even though there isn't one in the books that I could find - but anything that is not on par with an Alchemy Realm spell is "cheating" the system since it will effectively be giving the benefit of an Alchemy spell without the same "cost".

Sources do replenish themselves naturally, albeit slowly.

Book of Magecraft pg 22

"When a province's level increases, the development causes the land's maximum source level to drop immediately. When a province's level decreases, however nature takes longer to heal itself and replenish the lost mebhaighl."

The cheating is again in the eyes & hands of individual DM’s. Some people fudge their dice rolls willy nilly. That is cheating.

When any player or DM makes a decision using the rules in an interpretation that is viable than it is hardly cheating, and when you say cheating a system, then you are trying to make the final call on system issues, but you are clearly making a DM related decision.

Also there are magic items that augment sources. There would certainly be items and spells that would accelerate the process for a Cerilia that was a little more magic rich than you campaign may be. I think that the game system can survive such additions to the setting without it being broken. It would/could also serve as the focus for many epic adventures.

Imagine the Anuireans finding an artifact (the Branch of Source Rejuvenation) that provides repair of sources in an industrialized/civilized region. It would be war with any group currently possessing it.

Interesting since the exact text says "such as" and that is not an all inclusive list so the DM would not be applying this on a whim. He should explain how "transportation spells" function, but it is fairly easy to see a similarity (unless one wishes to ignore it) between the dimensional magics and any sort of gate used for transportation.

I mention the difference in the translocation/dimensional/breaching magic in a paragraph above……not all access nearby dimensions. It is my interpretation, and is not far from the norm in many groups that I have played in.

In the back of both the Book of Magecraft (pg 83) and Book of Priestcraft (pg 125) it specifically states that "Not all spells and magical items created for AD&D game settings are appropriate for use in a Birthright campaign. DMs and players need to take care that spells and items borrowed or adapted from other products are compatable with the rules and flavor of the Birthright world: spells with effects tht contradict, impair, or are otherwise incongruous with life in Cerilia should be excluded from the campaign.

&

Players may use any spell from the PHB in a Birthright campaign. . . .This section lists the spells and magical items from the tome of Magic that are suitable for use in Cerilia. Any spells or items excluded from this list are not recommended for the Birthright setting; al always, however, players and DMs may agree to allow (or disallow) a spell or item to suit their campaign."

Once again that is a DM addressed issue. If you want your Cerilia to be limited in scope that way, more power to you. To think that we all agree that we should limit things in magic to a certain realm, which is a game mechanic issue, is best resolved by individual DM’s.

I believe that because all prime material planes, inner, and outer planes have some connection with o one another that the magic of spells and items can easily be transplanted. It isn’t for everyone. Even the Dark Sun setting that is supposedly cut off from the other worlds in so many ways, has elemental planar connections that could allow for transport of items, ideas, and spells from prime material plane to prime material plane.

It can spice up a game setting that is otherwise predictable. As long as a DM and his/her players are aware of each others wishes in the area it is all good. Play it as you see it.

Incongruous has nothing to do with it….it is DM decided.

It appears your favor deciding NO!

A little more splitting sorry....

MatanThunder

09-15-2007, 08:21 PM

Well the logic of excluding elves from being druids in Birthright comes from the fact that all druids are priests of Erik (Birthright campaign Setting Rule Book pg 12.) And since the elves are immortal and have no gods it was only logical in that paradigm to exclude them from being druids. It was all part of making the setting of Birthright "unique" and have its own "feel".

In 2nd ed core material druids (and rangers) could get their power/abilities from either a god of nature or from the nature itself. The default was for druids and rangers to get their power from nature itself. In putting together the Birthright setting the developers decided to give the setting a specific "feel" and in so doing make druids get their power from the god of nature and rangers to get theirs from nature itself.

As to the Erik only Druid deity, I can only nod. I do allow elves to be Druids of Erik…am I wrong...so be it?? As to issues like the Elves of Cerila having NO gods because of being immortal, then I would have to agree to disagree. I would say that some battles between elvish deities and Cerilian deities prevents some connections.

As I have mentioned before though, there is a connection with the Astral so elves can access other deities if they have the will to do so. Not all of us think that the Shadow World is as unique a place as some seem to. It is part of the Shadow Plane for me.

Also there are rules for dealing with deities out of contact with their god for periods of time, so there is the potential of having Druid deities of other patheons making appearances in the game.

One other small point for the elvish druid nature, even if prevented (by Erik) from being truly Druid in the campaign, they still have the potential to be very druid-like in their spell casting as a magic user. They can access plants sentience with spells of communication, magically direct the growth of plants for the community, and use animation magics to manipulate them in times of need. They can even magically enhance their growth if the need arises. They would only do some of this with great need and motivation, but it can be done.

What you're suggesting is about the same as suggesting that a young catholic priest who doesn't find the patience to wait for a bishop to die would start peddling miracles and relics without church supervision. Or not expecting a wall (and a war) after nailing a bunch of reformist theses on the door of a temple.

Not miracles & relics….but dogma and rhetoric. They would be the Luther’s and other reformists, seeking change in an otherwise useless hierarchy. When the youth are stymied by the entrenched then they will evolve in ways that break/circumvent the powers that be.

How much experience do you have with any century before, say, the 18th (and even, the late 18th)? I'd recommend the Dialogue of the Two Sages for a starting point on late classical druids; but quite simply the world, except in situations of great turmoil (see the Sengoku Jidai period) most of the world wasn't much of a meritocracy. If the young upstart isn't willing to wait for his turn (or, in the case of a more mobile hierarchy, unable to make his turn), the he's an upstart who would mostly be considered to deserve to stay back. Quite simply, there is nothing as good as the title - nobles and clerics alike would hoard titles and delegate the jobs for sheer questions of prestige.

As with all of us only what I have read. With 2 years of college and books in Greek and Roman history that interested me, I can recognize that this limits my experiences somewhat.

But then again I prefer lower level campaigns (and never used the old school hierarchies at all, which weren't meant to be used for Birthright anyway, and the fighter's cohort in 2ed Birthright seemed rather tacked on as a result) - It's very rare for my players to have a character over 10th level who is not nearing or past their 40s.

Acknowledged and respected. For myself, being 48 puts me in the 40ish range. I also was blessed in my early years with the time to be a prolific gamer. I have some PC’s that defile (yes defile) the norm. I used to game bi-weekly (or more) for over 8 hour stints….go to school…..go to work……chase a girl…..then game…….repeat and rinse.

With the additional weight of power carried by scions, it is fairly logical to assume that most if not all of them are nobles (even if I put them a whole magnitude above the PS of Muden stats, which feel rather low - aristocratic density could vary widely depending on conditions, and was usually higher, not lower, than what is suggested there); the migrations were already 5 centuries old, so the likeliness that it was some kind of total battle is, IMHO, low - even lower when you consider the area covered and the impossibility of feeding that many people over such a small areas (yes, even with clerics, but I consider more than 1% spellcasting clerics to be a very much overestimating the numbers).

With all respect and recognition to your historical references, (and I do recognize the work in it), I have to say that there are far more rogue personalities in the world than those who follow a normal pattern. These individuals often use power for their own personal whims, and even though many on the fields that day were of some quality, I would say that some of them would be far from the pillars of society that you want the scions to represent.

As to the numbers….each to their own. I would say 1% is less than accurate, but that is just me. I think the idea of clerics/clergy in the game can support larger numbers even though vast numbers of them would be low level friars.

Also the greater number of clergy could help in the issues of feeding vast numbers of people in a small area.. They could stockpile the food before the battle.

IIRC, Teleport is on the banned spells list (if not officially, I've always seen it on the banned spells list of every PBEM I've checked). The others, well, as mentioned, the books of *craft and the book on the shadow world have some indications.

And that I must say is why I don’t play there. Banning of patently useful magic on a whim is not only wrong, but it sends me right to Playing an MMORPG where at least the rules don’t change when someone doesn’t like what this or that spell does to their game. It was a core spell and will always remain so with me.

As for commonality of spellcasters, the RoE Atlas gives us the Chamberlain's estimate at about 200 "true mages"; even assuming they're all archmage level (one PBEM makes this a necessity for realm spells, IIRC - Book of Spellcraft establishes Archmage level in Birthright at somewhere between level 7 and 10), I doubt we'd see more than 2.000 to maybe 4.000 of them, excluding the elves.

This is a DM choice though. If a DM wants to keep their Cerilia setting low level then so be it. For me I stress a more magic prolific game in any case. To set a number is pretty far fetched in any case. It may not even be the numbers, but the amount of exposure such individuals display. The impact of 2000 or 4000 thieves in a setting would be significant, but you make them mages and now you can change the world.

Thats it for now.

Later

:cool:

AndrewTall

09-15-2007, 09:17 PM

How you play in your game is of course fine M-T, but one of the consequences of the standard setting removing the etheral and astral planes is that magic using those realms then had to work via the shadow plane - including teleport. If you re-instate the astral and etheral planes then fine, say that teleport - and all the other transportation spells go back to using the etheral, but in a standard game all players should understand that any magic that works by folding time and/or space or uses a 'connecting plane' etc is going to tap into the Shadow Realm.

There are a number of ways that BR restricts the casual use of magic - mainly imho to allow other classes to rule realms and the like without being crushed by the next roaming wizard - if using standard DnD rules in BR a high level wizard could fly about invisibly assassinating rulers left and right to gain a huge bloodline with relative ease. Limiting transportation magic means that at the least the other regents can try and block the mage's approach - or pursue after the mage has shot their spells to exact vengeance; while a teleporting mage will sooner or later attract the attention of some deeply unpleasant Shadow World monster.

If you remove the limits on the spells without increasing the number of mages beyond 1-3 per realm the game is radically changed power wise and wizards would swiftly form the bulk of all regents. You clearly change both limits - many mages to minimise the impact of one rogue killer (my court mage uses spell X to detect/block the teleportation) and also recognise the impact of relatively common magic throughout society (a recognition which is lamentably uncommon) and that's fine of course - whatever your group prefers - but it makes a very different world to the ruleset as written and so is clearly going to grate on purists if presented as standard for BR.

I do support the use of written house rules and understand where you are coming from with your comments; but I also support the right of a DM to say 'this is the setting, I'm leaving the house rules unwritten to keep it simple, I'll rule ad hoc as fairly as I can in the spirit of the setting, if you feel hard done by let me know after the game and we'll come up with something'. A DM has a tough job to do, frequently gets much of their enjoyment from designing the world of the game and frankly magic et al work as they damn well please. Unless a restriction serious under-powers a PC compared to other PC's - as opposed to evening down a superman - then the player has no right to complain, they accepted the DM's authority when they joined the game - and I say that a someone with an ingrained bad habit of being a rules lawyer who has memorised most of 1e, 2e, 3e and a vast number of house rules (all of which of course now form a jumbled mess in my head...)

irdeggman

09-15-2007, 09:23 PM

Oooooooo…. A 2nd ed dig…..TOO PLAIN……LOL..plain hardly

Each to their own, you will never find me playing 3.whatever (or now 4.whatever). 3rd ed is on its way out.

It appears that you have a history of posts on these boards that resort to saying that I (and others) are taking digs at 2nd ed. And using that as the basis to dismiss arguements being presented.

I never, ever in this thread made a dig at 2nd ed.

I stated that I was was using 2nd ed rules and text as the sole basis for any of my points. This was being done since the OP (you) have repeatedly said that was the plane of reference you were using so I made the assumption that it was the basis for any rule-type arguements being made.

The text I quoted (and note that you have provided none) is very specific in what it says.

I never said anything about 3rd ed and yet you seem to imply I have and by making that assumption you are dismissing any arguement I am making.

ShadowMoon

09-15-2007, 11:50 PM

:D

It specifically mentions the spells of shadow walking and dimension door. If you want to extrapolate that it includes the other types of magic in the field (that aren’t short hop magic, or that specifically mentions a shadowy access) then you have the right as DM to rule it that way. Since it is NOT in the written rules though I would say that you are “Arbitrarily” expanding the magic that is limited for your personal DM style. I don’t think that teleport and gate access the shadow world in any way…..period.

Furthermore gates are breaking through world/plane barriers. Teleport is translocational through the Ethereal (as I understand it), and the Gate spell is trans dimensional, by punching through the prime plane it is on and going elsewhere. All of your other examples are magics that allow localized dimensional affects that don’t leave the prime plane you are on.

BTW…Translocational is not a magic that will simply move you through the shadow plane, it is magic that uses the ethereal plane…..site to site, with instantaneous interim travel.

Well I specifically mentioned that I consider those schools as Shadow Magic in MY Campaign...
Anyway, In Birthright You cannot access Ethereal Plane without Crossing the Evanessence, so we are back at the Birthright official mechanics that all dimensional magic operates through the Shadow World. PERIOD...

You may run Your campaign as You wish, it may well be FR with blood abilities and realm magic, You may say Sidhe have their pantheon, or whatever, but it is up to You, and Your gaming crew, but the truth is that Birthright concept is lost in those conversions...

ConjurerDragon

09-16-2007, 05:34 AM

irdeggman schrieb:
> This post was generated by the Birthright.net message forum.
> You can view the entire thread at:
> http://www.birthright.net/forums/showthread.php?goto=newpost&t=3984
> irdeggman wrote:
> ------------ QUOTE ----------
>
>
> Ooooooooï¿½. A 2nd ed digï¿½..TOO PLAINï¿½ï¿½LOL..plain hardly
>
> Each to their own, you will never find me playing 3.whatever (or now 4.whatever). 3rd ed is on its way out.
>
> -----------------------------
>
>
>
>
> It appears that you have a histroy of posts on these boards that resort to saying that I (and others) are taking digs at 2nd ed. And using that as the basis to dismiss arguements being presented.
>
> I never, ever in this thread made a dig at 2nd ed.
>
> I stated that I was was using 2nd ed rules and text as the sole basis for any of my points. This was being done since the OP (you) have repeatedly said that was the plane of reference you were using so I made the assumption that it was the basis for any rule-type arguements being made.
>
> The text I quoted (and note that you have provided none) is very specific in what it says.
>
> I never said anything about 3rd ed and yet you seem to imply I have and by making that assumption you are dismissing any arguement I am making.
>
I assum MT simply misunderstood you. You said the matter is very plain =
very clear written. And he understood that 2E is too plain = too simple
for you. At least that is the way I read his answer being a non-native
englishspeaker myself.

MatanThunder

09-16-2007, 05:45 PM

:cool: +

Each to thier own gentlemen!!!

Andrew T.....I am responding to your post here simply because it was addressing issues that I want to add some information to. I am not singling out your material for tearing down your ideas.....I am simply adding my opinions to them.

How you play in your game is of course fine M-T, but one of the consequences of the standard setting removing the etheral and astral planes is that magic using those realms then had to work via the shadow plane - including teleport.

Except that 2nd ed didn't make that distinction. I also posted on an earlier thread here, that the similiarities in the Shadow Plane & Shadow World were entirely congruous....with far to many similarities to be happenstance. They are the same place for me.

If you re-instate the astral and etheral planes then fine, say that teleport - and all the other transportation spells go back to using the etheral, but in a standard game all players should understand that any magic that works by folding time and/or space or uses a 'connecting plane' etc is going to tap into the Shadow Realm.

If this works for you, I applaud your design.

For me these spell types are two fold (and I will keep the astral & ethereal if you don't mind).

1) The first type of instant transport magic will shift you in short jumps. I also am lumping in shadow walk, because it is by far the most likely spell to actually become entangled with what everyone thinks the Shadow World can do. It entraps the unwary in a world of shadow with it's denizens.

2) The second type transports much farther distances utilizing other planes to do so. It transports using these NON shadow related planes. For gate the barriers between planes are actually breached. Either temporarily or permanently, but they are breached.

In this case if some unwary spell hurler were to open such a gate near an area where the Shadow Plane/World has encroached into the prime material plane of Cerilia, then I would say that a DM should allow some additional problems to arise....such as a lich or two stepping through. Otherwise the gate is going elsewhere, and will never ever touch the Shadow Plane/World.

There are a number of ways that BR restricts the casual use of magic - mainly imho to allow other classes to rule realms and the like without being crushed by the next roaming wizard - if using standard DnD rules in BR a high level wizard could fly about invisibly assassinating rulers left and right to gain a huge bloodline with relative ease.

With due respect...any regent worth his salt would have counter measures in place to thwart such attempts. There are a vast array of spells (if you accept that magic using regents) that have been created to prevent the entering of such breaches of security. Look at it like the secret service done magic style....instead of machine guns and head sets they have a magic wand (usable by any class) that detects for enemies or transportation magic. Oh, and they have a blast wand or two handy.

Of course this once again falls into the realm of DM style, but I think you might have missed the counter measures issus.

Limiting transportation magic means that at the least the other regents can try and block the mage's approach - or pursue after the mage has shot their spells to exact vengeance; while a teleporting mage will sooner or later attract the attention of some deeply unpleasant Shadow World monster.

If you as DM wish to limit the transportation magic that is purely up to you. I want to mention that there are any number of spells out there (some official) that allow a mage to tag along with teleportation spells. If the attacker jumps the counter mages spell simply brings him to the site of that jump (without error issues).

Once again I would offer up that this type of magic does NOT encounter the shadow plane/world at all. It is a function of the ethereal plane.

For those of you who may not know I wish to supply a little information on the Ethereal, with a caveat that this was the view at least thru 2nd ed.

The plane has two facets the border & the deep ethereal.

The border ether is encountered and usable for any prime material or elemental plane. In this medium travel is much faster (but not teleport fast). Teleport uses the the border ethereal to reach a familiar point for the casting mage in an instantaneous fashion. The are not actually entering the other plane like a "walk" magic would.

The deep ethereal is what a PC has to travel through to reach other inner and prime material planes. It is a long standing facet of the game, and once again travel here is very rapid.

If you remove the limits on the spells without increasing the number of mages beyond 1-3 per realm the game is radically changed power wise and wizards would swiftly form the bulk of all regents.

Not every mage is blooded, and that is part of Regency in Cerilia. Also every swinging fighter regent would be paying big buck for the best in personal defense systems....i.e.. the court mage......and would be offering them lands and hereditary title to keep them faithful. Also looking the other way for an occasional labs assistants untimely demise due to a lab accident.

They would and could do such a thing. To limit mages in the manner you mention only exagerates the problem, but allow those mages that do exist, to operate in bubbles of protective art. They use magic to conceal their activities, and no OTHER mages ever know, because there are so few. I would say that more mages are better here, to avoid the problem you mention above.

One final note, most mages are obsessed with the art.....and not with ruling people. Some do, but most are magic creation/use driven. So the idea that only mage regents would be the norm....sort of flies in the face of what a properly run mage is supposed to be about.

You clearly change both limits - many mages to minimise the impact of one rogue killer (my court mage uses spell X to detect/block the teleportation) and also recognise the impact of relatively common magic throughout society (a recognition which is lamentably uncommon) and that's fine of course - whatever your group prefers - but it makes a very different world to the ruleset as written and so is clearly going to grate on purists if presented as standard for BR.

Respectfully no, what I do is interpret some guidelines about mage population levels and the density of magic if Cerilia in a higher level than some do.

I do support the use of written house rules and understand where you are coming from with your comments; but I also support the right of a DM to say 'this is the setting, I'm leaving the house rules unwritten to keep it simple, I'll rule ad hoc as fairly as I can in the spirit of the setting, if you feel hard done by let me know after the game and we'll come up with something'.

If that works for you and your group then I do think it is a viable option.

Many people don't want to write them down, and they do evolve. Which is where I think the last part of your statement comes in. Instead of an iron clad, "This is how it will be", you offer an after the game option.

Although I wouldn't do it that way, I'm sure that many can find that an acceptable option....that is if their PC didn't die in some nasty inexplicable way....lets say facing the Lone Rider trapped in the shadow plane/world. LOL

A DM has a tough job to do, frequently gets much of their enjoyment from designing the world of the game and frankly magic et al work as they damn well please. Unless a restriction serious under-powers a PC compared to other PC's - as opposed to evening down a superman - then the player has no right to complain, they accepted the DM's authority when they joined the game - and I say that a someone with an ingrained bad habit of being a rules lawyer who has memorised most of 1e, 2e, 3e and a vast number of house rules (all of which of course now form a jumbled mess in my head...)

Yes DMing is a tough job. As to enjoyment, I would say that it is really a thankless job.

As to super PC's, you might have some Super NPC's to challenge them, and knock them down a peg when you find the PC's have too easy a time or the edge in the game. For me, there are so many options that there are only the occasional issues that are beyond my capacity to challenge. Try legendary monster upgrades and NPC challenges.

For the record. I am not really that much of a rules lawyer. What I don't tolerate is someone saying the game is AD&D and then cutting out parts that they don't want to deal with.

Thait is where the addendum comes in. If I can simply review a sheet of spells that they will never use, then I can get a feel of their capabilities as DM. If I don't like how they percieve issues in the addendum then there is far less conflict.

Personally, I have only have to leave a few sessions in the past. The DM has the fnal ruling in his game, but I as a Player decides if he/she is running the type of game I want to affiliate with.

MatanThunder

09-16-2007, 05:46 PM

Final Comment.....2nd ed is not "Too Plain". It is simply whether you were raised under that system or perfer the other. For me 1st and 2nd ed were well thought out, and eminently playable versions of the system.

I have absolute no idea what "Too Plain" refers too, and it is a denegration of the 2nd ed.

I have fully 2 (6' x 4/') bookcases of 2nd ed and less than 1 for 3.?????? That is because there is less material in 3.??? That isn't why I feel 3.???? is inferior though, but that is posting for another thread though.

Also, I did garner small pieces from the d20 & 3.???? ideas.... Like some streamling issues in combat: like ranged touch (I had always required a to hit for aimed spells), attacks of opportunity, and osme other issues. I just found some info useless in the newer eds. CR what????? I don't need no stinkin CR!!!

In any case can we simply stop the negative commentary about the eds. It isn't what this thread was for, and I think the site recently had one of those useless rehashes of what system is best threads. I didn't join in because I find I have better uses for my time.

Later,

:rolleyes:

irdeggman

09-16-2007, 07:56 PM

Not every mage is blooded, and that is part of Regency in Cerilia. Also every swinging fighter regent would be paying big buck for the best in personal defense systems....i.e.. the court mage......and would be offering them lands and hereditary title to keep them faithful. Also looking the other way for an occasional labs assistants untimely demise due to a lab accident.

Except that in order to cast true magic you had to either be blooded or of elven blood. Non-blooded, non-elven mages are magicians and magicians are incapable of casting spells that could do the kinds of things that are of real use here. They can only cast up to 2nd level spells except for Illusion and Divination. Divination is real handy for the "detection" types of things and would readily be used in lands that have spellcasters (noting that Rjurik and Vos in essence do not have any but the Khinasi would have a preponderance of magicians since they value "knowledge" and "magic so much). Also note that unless using the "Universal School of Magic" that came out with the Player's Option Series (and then the Spell Compendiums) an Illusionist couldn't even create a magic item (lke say a ring of invisibility) since Permancy was in their "forbidden" schools and a magician couldn't since the spell was above 2nd level. This was one of the reasons they created the Universal School as pointed out in the Spell Compendium.

Respectfully no, what I do is interpret some guidelines about mage population levels and the density of magic if Cerilia in a higher level than some do.

Interesting, how can one interpret a statement that says:

". . .fewer than 150 spellcasters in all of Cerilia can wield true magic."

as meaning anything other than what it says without calling it "house rules" and a deviation from the "canon rules" for the setting?

I mean that is quite specific and in no way "vague" or open for interpretation as written.

For the record. I am not really that much of a rules lawyer. What I don't tolerate is someone saying the game is AD&D and then cutting out parts that they don't want to deal with.

Interesting (and not that I disagree because I too hate when people seemingly randomly "change" rules) - but the same sort of logic should apply to a "setting". That is, settings are defined in ways that make them differnt then the general. For example Dark Sun and Birthright. Those two settings are much different than the "normal" AD&D settings (Greyhawk, FR, even Ravenloft) in that they have some things that are "unique" and separate them from the others.

How magic works is one. Defiling in Dark Sun and the blooded/elf blood thing in Birthright.

The fact that neither setting has gnomes is another.

The fact that elves in Dark Sun are drastically different than the "generic" elf. What I mean here is that while the "generic" elf tends to support preserving "nature" in Dark Sun they are more "business oriented" and would sell off the last forest if they could get the right proce for it.

The fact that Birthright elves can't be priests (its in the BR rulebook).

There are others too.

irdeggman

09-16-2007, 08:03 PM

Final Comment.....2nd ed is not "Too Plain". It is simply whether you were raised under that system or perfer the other. For me 1st and 2nd ed were well thought out, and eminently playable versions of the system.

I have absolute no idea what "Too Plain" refers too, and it is a denegration of the 2nd ed.
In any case can we simply stop the negative commentary about the eds. It isn't what this thread was for, and I think the site recently had one of those useless rehashes of what system is best threads. I didn't join in because I find I have better uses for my time.

You are the only one bringing it up. (And keep doing so in what seems like every thread you post it).

I repeat myself in that I never said anything disparaging about second ed in this thread - even though I was credited with doing so. I never said "too plain" either I said "very plain" which in entirely different.

What I said was:

So while magic is familiar to the Sidhelien, it is not commonplace." {Personally I find this a bit out of whack, but it is in the 2nd ed material and is very plain in how it is written.}

Again – I don’t see how this can be interpreted as a “slight" to 2nd ed. When I said “very plain” I meant as in “very plain English” or “very clear”, perhaps that is the source of confusion.

irdeggman

09-16-2007, 08:20 PM

Except that 2nd ed didn't make that distinction. I also posted on an earlier thread here, that the similiarities in the Shadow Plane & Shadow World were entirely congruous....with far to many similarities to be happenstance. They are the same place for me.

Then I guess the Shadow Plane was created by Aebrynis, Azrai and the catastrophe at Deismaar.

From Bloodspawn pg 5 (free pdf from WotC/TSR – an “official” Birthright product)

When Two Worlds Were One. . . .

The sages say that long ago, perhaps before humanity existed on Aebrynis, the world of Daylight and the world of Shadow were as one. The landscape of Aebrynis had not completely formed then, and the world could change according to its own rules, without rhyme or reason. A lake might form where a mountain had been, white glaciers moved over deserts, and rivers flowed through the sky. This was a time before the gods, but it ultimately resulted in their creation.

The gods, it is believed, were formed out of the land, and their natures bound them to it. Not wishing their natures to change without warning, as did the land, they began to enforce their will upon the world. Mountains, rivers, shores, and seas all took shape and stayed constant, bent to the will of the young gods.

But one god delighted in the ever-changing world and refused to bind his will and his being to the land. That god became Lord of Shadow, the god of Chaos and Change. He became Azrai.

Little is known of the gods’ earliest years in this time before humans and, perhaps, before elves. Giants walked the earth along with near-immortal beasts and other beings lost to the passage of time. It is said, however, that in the beginning Azrai alone of the gods willed change and evolution into being. If this is true, the race of humanity — as well as many of the other races now inhabiting Aebrynis — owe their existence to him.

The elements of permanence and transience — light and shadow — warred in those early days, and their battles grew so great that a rift formed between the land of Shadow and the land of Daylight. Passage between the two was still possible, even common, in those days, but soon (as gods measure time) the Shadow World and the world of Aebrynis solidified their borders. Aebrynis remained constant, only transforming in response to the actions of its inhabitants over long periods, while the Shadow World remained mutable and ever-changing.

Then came Deismaar, the destruction of the gods, and the cleaving of the world. The Shadow World became a place of fear and strange tales for those remaining on Aebrynis and now, more than fifteen hundred years later, only a scant number of people know more than a few tales of the Shadow World and its inhabitants.

The Shadow World remains in flux. Halflings alone of Cerilia’s races may still pass freely between the two worlds and, since halflings fled the Shadow World in response to a terror they will not reveal, most are loathe to do so. And even a halfling would find it difficult to navigate the ever-changing land of Shadow.

With due respect...any regent worth his salt would have counter measures in place to thwart such attempts. There are a vast array of spells (if you accept that magic using regents) that have been created to prevent the entering of such breaches of security. Look at it like the secret service done magic style....instead of machine guns and head sets they have a magic wand (usable by any class) that detects for enemies or transportation magic. Oh, and they have a blast wand or two handy.

Of course this once again falls into the realm of DM style, but I think you might have missed the counter measures issus.

Or you missed the fact that there are "fewer" mages capable of creating such items at all. In order to create a wand a character has to be a wielder of true magic (magicians can not do it) which means blooded or of elven blood and having the wizard class.

Since elves and humans are in a state of "distrust" it is very hard to imagine a lot of elf (or half-elf) wizards running around in human lands.

Although I wouldn't do it that way, I'm sure that many can find that an acceptable option....that is if their PC didn't die in some nasty inexplicable way....lets say facing the Lone Rider trapped in the shadow plane/world. LOL

I assume you meant the Cold Rider :)

MatanThunder

09-17-2007, 05:05 AM

:rolleyes:

My take on the "pertinent" replies.....

Not every mage is blooded, and that is part of Regency in Cerilia. Also every swinging fighter regent would be paying big buck for the best in personal defense systems....i.e.. the court mage......and would be offering them lands and hereditary title to keep them faithful. Also looking the other way for an occasional labs assistants untimely demise due to a lab accident.

Except that in order to cast true magic you had to either be blooded or of elven blood. Non-blooded, non-elven mages are magicians and magicians are incapable of casting spells that could do the kinds of things that are of real use here. They can only cast up to 2nd level spells except for Illusion and Divination. Divination is real handy for the "detection" types of things and would readily be used in lands that have spellcasters (noting that Rjurik and Vos in essence do not have any but the Khinasi would have a preponderance of magicians since they value "knowledge" and "magic so much). Also note that unless using the "Universal School of Magic" that came out with the Player's Option Series (and then the Spell Compendiums) an Illusionist couldn't even create a magic item (lke say a ring of invisibility) since Permancy was in their "forbidden" schools and a magician couldn't since the spell was above 2nd level. This was one of the reasons they created the Universal School as pointed out in the Spell Compendium.

With all due respect I will tell you why their interpretation is wrong, when you integrate Cerilia into the rest of the game worlds that TSR offered.

That is what I do. Take what is good in all offered material and throw out the rest. I combined 1st, 2nd, & even parts of 3.?? & d20 into a very playable system based on 2nd ed gaming system.

The analysis starts with their analysis of what Lesser Magic & True Magic is. (I will mention Realm magic later). Their changes to accommodate Lesser & True (Low/High) magic is arbitrary. This is why.

In their own introduction to the idea, they use schools of magic and specialization in chosen schools as some type of arbitrary system to determine whether someone can be a wielder of what they term “True” (High) magic. It is arbitrary when you look at every other AD&D (whatever edition).

Schools of magic & specialization have never ever been part of the overall differences in magic with all other magic systems created by TSR. I see no reason to change it especially since they campaign can easily survive & function well when using the normal magic system.

Just because you are an Illusionist or Divinationalist, you shouldn’t suffer penalties in wielding True Magic (for humans you need to be blooded or be elvish). These types of magic can offer vast powers that could serve any regent well if they specialized in it. It is an artificial boundry. For illusion magic there may be some case that it is less effective because of its lack of reality. To tell the truth though I have read about (and created) illusion magic that takes on a life of its own. As to divination magic, it can be one of the most powerful forms of magic (if properly used & implemented) and should never have been included by the creators of the Book of Magecraft…..I don’t know what they were thinking, but I think they were smoking some bad granola when they dumped this into the mix.

So I feel & they were wrong & arbitrary. I will always throw out bad ideas.

I want to relate a little more information that relates to the whole Birthright setting even though some may say otherwise. Birthright & Cerilia is a knock off of Raymond Feist’s Midkemia setting. The author has written a whole plethora of good books that has a game world where High & Low magic abound. Even in that setting they don’t discriminate against the illusion & divination magic. The setting is full of wars, political intrigue, merchant factions, and mages of all sorts. The original printing was in 1982 and Birthright didn’t come out till years later. The Book of Magecraft years after that. I feel that the writers of the Book of Magecraft were trying to skirt a line when the wrote up the ideas of lesser & true magic to mimic Low & High magic. (I will mention True Magic later, but the Tsunari certainly used such magic to breach the walls between world in order to invade Midkemia). I might be wrong, but I have always seen the relationship.

Okay arbitrary specialist limitations, low vs high magic…..let me see that leads to another issue. The number of mages that can use what is known as True (High) magic in Cerilia. By removing the arbitrary barrier of lesser and true magic, you bring in all those other mages that were somehow snubbed for not casting this or that special magic. Which equates to all the other schools of magic! This would add more to the numbers, especially since I now wouldn’t afflict the lesser class of mages from casting magic above 2nd (how arbitrary….did they roll a d4 and use that number?? LOL!). Also those True (high) magic practitioners would now have those needless specialization limits removed from those classes of magic, which would keep all the schools of magic in equal standing, and in line with all the other campaign settings. That is except Planescape which has special limitations for each plane your traveling in.

Realm Magic….High Magic….Epic Spells……Darksun Psionic Enhancements…..they are all the highest level of magic, and in each setting it is proven that someone can use that type of magic. Even in Cerilia where all the purists would like to limit the power of magic (it appears) there is a vast cauldron of bubbling super magic that they right/wrong people can tap for personal gain and profit. Now I do agree that only the Blooded have that divine spark that can control the very essence of planetary magic (those less divine suffer instant incinerations……can anyone say Karsus???), but I will not base their types of magic based on the schools of magic. Generalist or specialist, blooded human or elf, you should be able to use True Magic (Normal Magic) and Realm Magic just as in the other settings without a bunch of needless material added.

Lesser & True magic the CR of Birthright.

More to come.....

MatanThunder

09-17-2007, 05:11 AM

:rolleyes:

Respectfully no, what I do is interpret some guidelines about mage population levels and the density of magic if Cerilia in a higher level than some do.

Interesting, how can one interpret a statement that says:

". . .fewer than 150 spellcasters in all of Cerilia can wield true magic."

as meaning anything other than what it says without calling it "house rules" and a deviation from the "canon rules" for the setting?

I mean that is quite specific and in no way "vague" or open for interpretation as written.

The use of the number of what some gamers feel are the Lesser Mages. If you combine the two magics you only have the more skilled and lesser skilled casters just like in any other systems.

It should be interesting, since I just debunked their entire system (by relating it to the consistently used magic system from the 2nd ed.) , and detailed why I have always felt and played it like all the other systems in that genre, in order to maintain some reasonable consistency with many systems that use the “Same” magic system. It is vague and open to interpretation due to their changing of a consistent system of magic that covers many similarly created D&D based systems from the same company.

I don’t see Cerilia as that unique, just different in how Realm Level magic is implemented. Like several other systems when using the highest levels of magic.

For the record. I am not really that much of a rules lawyer. What I don't tolerate is someone saying the game is AD&D and then cutting out parts that they don't want to deal with.

Interesting (and not that I disagree because I too hate when people seemingly randomly "change" rules) - but the same sort of logic should apply to a "setting".

That is, settings are defined in ways that make them different then the general. For example Dark Sun and Birthright. Those two settings are much different than the "normal" AD&D settings (Greyhawk, FR, even Ravenloft) in that they have some things that are "unique" and separate them from the others.

How magic works is one. Defiling in Dark Sun and the blooded/elf blood thing in Birthright.

The fact that neither setting has gnomes is another.

The fact that elves in Dark Sun are drastically different than the "generic" elf. What I mean here is that while the "generic" elf tends to support preserving "nature" in Dark Sun they are more "business oriented" and would sell off the last forest if they could get the right price for it.

The fact that Birthright elves can't be priests (its in the BR rulebook).

Yes defiling is different, and an integral part of what has happened to Darksun, as it is a wasteland, in part because of defiling magic, and the depredation of the Priest Kings.

In Cerilia they tried (unsuccessfully with me & some others) to fundamentally set some arbitrary parameters about lesser & true magic by using schools of magic that even Darksun didn’t see fit to mess with. It is totally arbitrary, and as I mention above it is a knock off of a well written fantasy novel of the era prior to Birthrights invention.

The magic of all of the setting you mention have the same schools of magic and only Birthright tries to warp it (in a useless manner). I won’t limit two schools of magic on the say so of someone who doesn’t have a darn good technical (magical) reason to do so.

The elves & halfings of Darksun are both warped by their hostile environment, and it doesn’t have anything to do with magic inherent in their setting. For Birthright they have the halfings originating from a far distant land, where (if I remember right) that the Shadow World/Plane had encroached into until you couldn’t tell one from the other. Sounds like magic gone bad to me.

Also for your reference to the priestlessness of the Elves….I once again use some type of consistency here. I have conjectured many times that the Cerilian Elf is an ancient offshoot of the true original elves, in part due to their near ageless nature.

So I found that such an ancient branch of elvish stock might have become so haughty that they were excluded from the Seldarine (please excuse me if I mis-spelled it, I don’t want to take the time to look it up, as I am completing a thought). They could have lost their connection due to a lack of piety, but there is still the potential for a re-unification with their deities, and on occasion there are visitors from other realms that could bring a clerical connection with them. The spells in a clerics mind remain (until used) even if the connection to their deity is cut off for a period of time, but if they use up all their spells they can only use up to 2nd level (do I here a d4 rolling somewhere)). Enough of that.

The fact that others don’t see that all races have cleric flies in the face of consistency with all other races, and I would certainly entertain the possibility of re-unification with their racial pantheon. That is especially true if the Cerilian deities cut them off simply for being elvish……Erik is going to be stuck up about a elf wanting to take on druid powers, I’m sure there is someone in the Seldarine that could supply their spells……

Other information to follow....

MatanThunder

09-17-2007, 05:16 AM

Except that 2nd ed didn't make that distinction. I also posted on an earlier thread here, that the similiarities in the Shadow Plane & Shadow World were entirely congruous....with far to many similarities to be happenstance. They are the same place for me.

Then I guess the Shadow Plane was created by Aebrynis, Azrai and the catastrophe at Deismaar.

From Bloodspawn pg 5 (free pdf from WotC/TSR – an “official” Birthright product)

When Two Worlds Were One. . . .

The sages say that long ago, perhaps before humanity existed on Aebrynis, the world of Daylight and the world of Shadow were as one. The landscape of Aebrynis had not completely formed then, and the world could change according to its own rules, without rhyme or reason. A lake might form where a mountain had been, white glaciers moved over deserts, and rivers flowed through the sky. This was a time before the gods, but it ultimately resulted in their creation.

The gods, it is believed, were formed out of the land, and their natures bound them to it. Not wishing their natures to change without warning, as did the land, they began to enforce their will upon the world. Mountains, rivers, shores, and seas all took shape and stayed constant, bent to the will of the young gods.

But one god delighted in the ever-changing world and refused to bind his will and his being to the land. That god became Lord of Shadow, the god of Chaos and Change. He became Azrai.

Little is known of the gods’ earliest years in this time before humans and, perhaps, before elves. Giants walked the earth along with near-immortal beasts and other beings lost to the passage of time. It is said, however, that in the beginning Azrai alone of the gods willed change and evolution into being. If this is true, the race of humanity — as well as many of the other races now inhabiting Aebrynis — owe their existence to him.

The elements of permanence and transience — light and shadow — warred in those early days, and their battles grew so great that a rift formed between the land of Shadow and the land of Daylight. Passage between the two was still possible, even common, in those days, but soon (as gods measure time) the Shadow World and the world of Aebrynis solidified their borders. Aebrynis remained constant, only transforming in response to the actions of its inhabitants over long periods, while the Shadow World remained mutable and ever-changing.

Then came Deismaar, the destruction of the gods, and the cleaving of the world. The Shadow World became a place of fear and strange tales for those remaining on Aebrynis and now, more than fifteen hundred years later, only a scant number of people know more than a few tales of the Shadow World and its inhabitants.

The Shadow World remains in flux. Halflings alone of Cerilia’s races may still pass freely between the two worlds and, since halflings fled the Shadow World in response to a terror they will not reveal, most are loathe to do so. And even a halfling would find it difficult to navigate the ever-changing land of Shadow.

When Two Worlds Were One. . . .i.e….when the prime material plane of Cerilia didn’t have this nasty connection to the Shadow Plane…..The same forces mentioned cryptically here could simply be relating to a cataclysm that allows the Shadow World/Plane to encroach into Cerilia in a manner similar to that which afflicted the halfing’s original homeworld. I did mention that this was part of the connection when I posted here that the Shadow World & the Shadow Plane were one and the same.

It isn’t hard to think of Azrai coming through the Shadow World/Plane since it is such a dark and insidious place. Full of evil…..like him!!

With due respect...any regent worth his salt would have counter measures in place to thwart such attempts. There are a vast array of spells (if you accept that magic using regents) that have been created to prevent the entering of such breaches of security. Look at it like the secret service done magic style....instead of machine guns and head sets they have a magic wand (usable by any class) that detects for enemies or transportation magic. Oh, and they have a blast wand or two handy.

Of course this once again falls into the realm of DM style, but I think you might have missed the counter measures issus.

Or you missed the fact that there are "fewer" mages capable of creating such items at all. In order to create a wand a character has to be a wielder of true magic (magicians can not do it) which means blooded or of elven blood and having the wizard class.

Since elves and humans are in a state of "distrust" it is very hard to imagine a lot of elf (or half-elf) wizards running around in human lands.

Or there were never fewer mages, due to a lack of credible game setting creation. There is no reason to alter a very workable magic system, that isn’t arbitrary and one that seems to suit those who want to limit magic in their game.

Also races of all sort mix and match throughout any world….where did those half elves and partial elf bloods come from if there wasn’t some basic he’in & she’in going on in the woods of each other’s realms.

Any DM can do that in his own game….there are no logical reasons for the alteration except to offer something a little more like Midkemia.

I assume you meant the Cold Rider

I was in the middle of a poker tourney, so I didn’t look it up….You are correct sir!!!

Later

:rolleyes:

irdeggman

09-17-2007, 10:24 AM

MT,

You are so mistaken.

But to each his own.

Birthright was designed to be the way it was "from the beginning".

The logic for having lesser and greater magic was tied into what was necessary to survive harnessing the power of higher magics. The fact that the elves were "magical" in their nature. If you go to Shadowspawn and look at the history of the Sie it becomes even clearer in what was meant.

Birthright did not change the schools of magic they created an entirely different "class" to fit in with their concept.

As far as the Shadow World goes - it is much smaller than the Shadow Plane. In fact it is only Aebrynis - that is it is specifically the "Shadow" portion while Cerilia is the "Light" portion of the same place. It is not any larger and if you read the text in the rulebook and in Bloodspawn and in the novels it becomes clearer as to what the creators were trying to make. It may share aspects of the Shadow Plane but it is much, much smaller. The Shadow Plane didn't have any rules for "seeming" either - which is another "unique" function of the "Shadow World".

The Shadow World was also not always a place of "darkness and evil" - that came about due to Deismaar. Before that the differences between the "Light" and "Shadow" could more be more readily percieved as the difference between "order" and "chaos" - and that is clearly presented in the information in Bloodspawn.

Birthright has a very specific place for "magicians", those who can wield only "lesser" magic - these are the "court" mages, the "diviners", the ones who "advised" the rulers. The "true" mages, as you pointed out, tend to be less interested in ruling and "politics" and more in "knowledge", "research", and the like. The ones that are listed as "realm" regents - that is "protectors" of certain realms have somewhere in their personal history a reason for doing so and thus some kind of "duty". Very, very few would be under the "guns for hire" category.

Bottom line is that in all things rules wise there is an order of precedence.

More detailed supercedes the broad.

Setting supercedes the general.

Etc.

You need to recognize that what you have done is to make campaign that is based on aspects of different campaigns and various house-rules and not to put down people who disagree - based on the "canon" of the setting.

Telling people that it is a "matter of interpretation" is simply incorrect when the specific rules are clear. Sometimes they are indeed vague and designed for individual intepretation but when they are not the setting is what the setting rules state it is - anything else is a "variant" and a "home brewed" setting.

ShadowMoon

09-17-2007, 10:37 AM

Ditto...

^^;

PS: And please MT, try to be more; ahem, "diplomatic" in pointing Your arguments for Your campaign and interpretations...

And to all members of our worthy "covenant"; let the Birthright remain Birthright, not some generic Xena/FR/whatever-like game...

irdeggman

09-17-2007, 11:24 AM

Re: The Shadow World - an article by the main force behind BR, Rich Baker. Be careful of the "spoilers" about who the Cold Rider was meant to be (as if we couldn't already have put it together).

The essential portion of the file:

General Appearance and Properties of the Shadow World
Physically, the Shadow World exactly mirrors Cerilia. Hills, mountains, forests, rivers, and other such features are exactly where you would expect to find them on the daylight world. However, the Shadow World is cold and well, shadowy. There is a pervasive chill to the air that, over the course of a few hours, sinks into a traveller's bones and just aches. The sunlight is weak and dim even at its best, and it is always dark and overcast.

Time runs strangely in the Shadow World. It may feel like you've been there for hours, when you really have only been there twenty or thirty minutes. Distances and perspective can distort, so that an experienced guide can use the Shadow World as a shortcut (albeit a perilous one) to save hundreds of miles from a trip in the daylight world.

Buildings and sites of interest often present a different face in the Shadow World. A strong and well-defended castle in the real world may appear ruined, empty, or full of undead in the Shadow World, or it may not even be there at all.

People don't have shadow doubles in this realm, so a village of three hundred won't normally have a corresponding number of undead lurking about or pursuing a mockery of life. However, the restless spirits of some villagers who might become undead could easily linger in the place they knew in life.

irdeggman

09-17-2007, 03:53 PM

Here is a link to an interesting set of posts discussing flavor versus game mechanics and eventually setting definition.

It did deteriorate into a dwarf DR thing towards the end but the early on discussion of terms can be used as a decent reference point, IMO, to look at what defines a setting.

http://www.birthright.net/forums/showthread.php?t=1884&highlight=flavor+versus+game+mechanics

ConjurerDragon

09-17-2007, 04:22 PM

irdeggman schrieb:
> This post was generated by the Birthright.net message forum.
> You can view the entire thread at:
> http://www.birthright.net/forums/showthread.php?goto=newpost&t=3984
> irdeggman wrote:
> ------------ QUOTE ----------
>
> Not every mage is blooded, and that is part of Regency in Cerilia. Also every swinging fighter regent would be paying big buck for the best in personal defense systems....i.e.. the court mage......and would be offering them lands and hereditary title to keep them faithful. Also looking the other way for an occasional labs assistants untimely demise due to a lab accident.
> -----------------------------
>
>
>
> Except that in order to cast true magic you had to either be blooded or of elven blood. Non-blooded, non-elven mages are magicians and magicians are incapable of casting spells that could do the kinds of things that are of real use here. They can only cast up to 2nd level spells except for Illusion and Divination. Divination is real handy for the "detection" types of things and would readily be used in lands that have spellcasters (noting that Rjurik and Vos in essence do not have any but the Khinasi would have a preponderance of magicians since they value "knowledge" and "magic so much). Also note that unless using the "Universal School of Magic" that came out with the Player`s Option Series (and then the Spell Compendiums) an Illusionist couldn`t even create a magic item (lke say a ring of invisibility) since Permancy was in their "forbidden" schools and a magician couldn`t since the spell was above 2nd level. This was one of the reasons they created the Universal School a!
> s pointed out in the Spell Compendium.
>
>
>
> ------------ QUOTE ----------
> Respectfully no, what I do is interpret some guidelines about mage population levels and the density of magic if Cerilia in a higher level than some do.
> -----------------------------
>
>
>
> Interesting, how can one interpret a statement that says:
>
> ". . .fewer than 150 spellcasters in all of Cerilia can wield true magic."
>
> as meaning anything other than what it says without calling it "house rules" and a deviation from the "canon rules" for the setting?
>
> I mean that is quite specific and in no way "vague" or open for interpretation as written.
>
But we already had discussions about that number years ago. It ranged
from 150 Mages (True Wizards) of any level to 150 person able to cast
"true magic" (spells of level 3+ which are barred to Magicians and so
150 wizards of level 5+). It could could have been the anuirean limited
view like in the atlas which is described as being from the chamberlains
point of view which ignores wizards unknown to the Anuireans. Some
people interpreted it as 150 blooded wizards, guessing that it would not
include unblooded sidhelien wizards. So the number is open to some
interpretation.

irdeggman

09-17-2007, 08:48 PM

irdeggman schrieb:
> This post was generated by the Birthright.net message forum.
> You can view the entire thread at:
> http://www.birthright.net/forums/showthread.php?goto=newpost&t=3984
> irdeggman wrote:
> ------------ QUOTE ----------
>
> Not every mage is blooded, and that is part of Regency in Cerilia. Also every swinging fighter regent would be paying big buck for the best in personal defense systems....i.e.. the court mage......and would be offering them lands and hereditary title to keep them faithful. Also looking the other way for an occasional labs assistants untimely demise due to a lab accident.
> -----------------------------
>
>
>
> Except that in order to cast true magic you had to either be blooded or of elven blood. Non-blooded, non-elven mages are magicians and magicians are incapable of casting spells that could do the kinds of things that are of real use here. They can only cast up to 2nd level spells except for Illusion and Divination. Divination is real handy for the "detection" types of things and would readily be used in lands that have spellcasters (noting that Rjurik and Vos in essence do not have any but the Khinasi would have a preponderance of magicians since they value "knowledge" and "magic so much). Also note that unless using the "Universal School of Magic" that came out with the Player`s Option Series (and then the Spell Compendiums) an Illusionist couldn`t even create a magic item (lke say a ring of invisibility) since Permancy was in their "forbidden" schools and a magician couldn`t since the spell was above 2nd level. This was one of the reasons they created the Universal School a!
> s pointed out in the Spell Compendium.
>
>
>
> ------------ QUOTE ----------
> Respectfully no, what I do is interpret some guidelines about mage population levels and the density of magic if Cerilia in a higher level than some do.
> -----------------------------
>
>
>
> Interesting, how can one interpret a statement that says:
>
> ". . .fewer than 150 spellcasters in all of Cerilia can wield true magic."
>
> as meaning anything other than what it says without calling it "house rules" and a deviation from the "canon rules" for the setting?
>
> I mean that is quite specific and in no way "vague" or open for interpretation as written.
>
But we already had discussions about that number years ago. It ranged
from 150 Mages (True Wizards) of any level to 150 person able to cast
"true magic" (spells of level 3+ which are barred to Magicians and so
150 wizards of level 5+). It could could have been the anuirean limited
view like in the atlas which is described as being from the chamberlains
point of view which ignores wizards unknown to the Anuireans. Some
people interpreted it as 150 blooded wizards, guessing that it would not
include unblooded sidhelien wizards. So the number is open to some
interpretation.

But not the 20% to 30% of Faerun levels as MT states. Cerilia is a single continent while Faerun is an entire world. With restrictions placed due to ancestry and bloodlines it is entirely possible that only around 150 or so true mages exist in Cerillia - note there may be more in Aduria or any of the other "uncharted" continents since the authors are only talking about Cerillia. This is taking into account the passage in BoM about few elves follow the path of being a true wizard. I can very much see this 150 as a floating number but not one that should stretch into the thousands - especially when one considers that in both the Rjurik Highlands and Vosgaard this number is essentially "0" (well there are a few, specifcally some awnshegh - but the point is still vaild that there are far too few to really count due to cultural mores.)

AndrewTall

09-17-2007, 10:25 PM

The limit to illusion and divination may not suit your campaigns, but it is not arbitrary - it is too remove the 'combat' magics from the system and allow only spells that have 'low energy' requirements - I might argue that charms should have been included in the low magic list since again they have no physical impact/high energy requirement, but not that the limit on schools is arbitrary. Low energy magic btw means no blood and thunder magic basically. Create a light show or vision - dead easy! Light has no significant mass and the intensity of the light is too weak to harm anything, you could run a BR magician's spells off an AAA battery; a wizard's spells now, they need something with a bit more oomph...

Reducing the number of invisible stone-skinned teleporting fireball-wielding wizards in the game was, imo, to encourage a game where politics and role-playing could dominate class abilities if the players / DM so desired - it has long been recognised that plentiful magic items and high level magic is where the DnD system really breaks down and PC's become immune to politics as they can wipe out entire armies with ease and have no need to respect 'normals' or their diplomacy.

Making elves reject religion was again a deliberate change - the elves are meant to be very different in attitude to elves of other settings of the time and the refusal to accept the concept of worship was part of this - and specifically blamed for the ability of the humans to defeat the elves across Cerilia prior to Deismaar. Making the non-human races distinctive in one way or another has always been a way used to try to make settings unique, BR changed attitudes to create 5 human races and give elves and goblins unique twists. Only dwarves are pretty much the same mentally as in other settings and that was regretted in some of the interviews:
http://www.birthright.net/brwiki/index.php/Interviews.

Try looking at the setting on its own merits, rather than from a FR perspective the planar wheel-system formed 1 page in the 2e DMG - discarding it was routine for settings of the time to differentiate them. BR, unlike Greyhawk and later FR was never meant to be a generic setting. The setting isn't to all tastes - if it was they wouldn't have canceled it - and a lot of people only bought it for the war system and realm play rules as it was - but rare magic can really bring awe and wonder back into the game - and even a L1 wizard is the subject of awe when their powers are only known from legends of the Lost.

MatanThunder

09-18-2007, 07:09 AM

:D

Wasn't this supposed to be about the natural resources????? LOL!!

Here goes...

Just out of curiosity, why does this appear in your posts?

Gary

It means I am smiling, and that the ideas from a diversity of game players still amazes me so much that I just have to roll my eyes when someone sees one point of minutia so differently from my own.

You are so mistaken.

Not at all!! LOL!

But to each his own.

As it should be!

Birthright was designed to be the way it was "from the beginning".

I was there, so respectfully I don’t think it was to be as restricted as The Book Of Magecraft seems to have been trying (unsuccessfully) to make it.

The logic for having lesser and greater magic was tied into what was necessary to survive harnessing the power of higher magics. The fact that the elves were "magical" in their nature. If you go to Shadowspawn and look at the history of the Sie it becomes even clearer in what was meant.

The elves in most of the settings have the ability to use High Magic (in groups) so it is easy to see in this setting that the elves (and elvish) blood are tapped to be the magic using part of the Cerilia Setting. They would also be the group I would go to if trying to tap divine/world magics. Especially if a single creature was going to try to attempt to harness them.

As to the Shadowspawn and the Sie…..I could easily say that they were a type of Shade (See the monster) that is brought about by the melding (thinning of the barriers) with the Shadow World/Plane. It would certainly freak out the elves and halfings by seeing and evil counter self spawned from the thinning of the barrier with the Shadow Plane…er I mean Shadow World.

Birthright did not change the schools of magic they created an entirely different "class" to fit in with their concept.

First I see it as a kit (a specialization kit). I would also say that it was less a class of magic change, and more a warping of magic that fit in with keeping the game less magic user driven, and alleviating problems with PC’s & NPC’s as powerful as regents. It is really unnecessary though.

It really didn’t offer very much in the way of unique playability or atmosphere…it simply limited the types of magic and who could use what they errantly wanted to interpret as some limitation on the magic system.

Since the used the same spells, schools, magic system, and really didn’t beef up the spell selection or come up with the Lesser Mage Class or the True Mage class; they certainly weakened any argument about this system having a great amount of difference in the magic systems that other TSR settings offered. As I mention above the Magician & Seer could easily be a specialization kit.

The whole Magician & Seer kit descriptions could easily be integrated into any game as a type of specialist “Kit”, specializing in their own brand of magic without lessening their reputations in magic by calling them lesser mages.

The idea of True Mages didn’t even have the contrivances of the Magician & Seer. They were simply blooded or elvish blood spell casters who could use the arbitrary distinction of true magic. Where is there class distinctions, where are the kits?????

The entire idea that magic is that different in Cerilia is contrived & artificial, and it could/would/should easily fit into the regular magic scheme that almost all other magic setting by TSR use.

I want consistency in the magic systems of a large number of their campaigns.

What they offered here is not so much an abomination, as it is a arbitrary & weakened version of magic that has no real reason to exist!!

As far as the Shadow World goes - it is much smaller than the Shadow Plane. In fact it is only Aebrynis - that is it is specifically the "Shadow" portion while Cerilia is the "Light" portion of the same place.

If you read about the shadow plane they talk about the plane mimicking the prime material plane that it is in proximity to. It also has connections that are similar (but different) to the ethereal planes conjunction to the prime material plane.

Since the shadow plane is as vast as the ethereal, and offers a connection to the prime plane it conjoins, it would be very viable that it would seem Smaller in a border shadow, but as with the Deep Ethereal (away from a conjoining with a prime material plane) the Deep Shadow has pathways of deep chilling evil/cold that can afford passage of evil creatures to arrive on distant shores….i.e…..Azrai.

More on it way.....

MatanThunder

09-18-2007, 07:19 AM

:cool:

It is not any larger and if you read the text in the rulebook and in Bloodspawn and in the novels it becomes clearer as to what the creators were trying to make. It may share aspects of the Shadow Plane but it is much, much smaller. The Shadow Plane didn't have any rules for "seeming" either - which is another "unique" function of the "Shadow World".

Here is part of my original post about the parallels in the planes. You will note that 2 & 4 could easily be interpreted as part of the seeming. Also 3 would take care of the light vs dark parallels. (i.e. The Prime Material Plane (Cerilia) vs The Shadow Plane).

The Shadow Plane…..I am only including a little of the material here on the plane. It is several pages long, and if you really want it all you should snatch up a cheap 3.? Manual of the Planes and look into it.

Pg 59 Manual of the Planes;

Plane of Shadow: It is a toxic plane of darkness and power. It is the hidden place that hates the light. It is the frontier of worlds unknown. The Plane of Shadow is darkly lighted dimension that is both coterminous to and co existent with the material plane. It overlaps the Material Plane much as the Ethereal Plane does, so a planar traveler can use the Plane of Shadow to cover great distances quickly. The Plane of Shadow is also coterminous to other planes. With the right spell, you can use the Plane of Shadow to visit other realities.

The Plane of Shadow is a world of black and white; color itself has been bleached from the environment. It is otherwise appears similar (but not exactly identical) to the Material Plane.”

Here are excerpts from the following four paragraphs.

1) Black vault with neither sun nor stars, landmarks twisted and warped things, diminished reflections.
2) Plane of shadow is highly morphic, and parts continually flow onto other planes. Maps are useless despite landmarks…..precision is a lost cause.
3) The terrain of the Plane of Shadow is usually similar to the area where the traveler enters…….although it usually bears some resemblance to the corresponding terrain on the Material Prime.
4) Spells often draw forth parts of the Plane of Shadow, in particular for illusions that have the shadow descriptor. The Plane of Shadow is a monochromatic world, but shadow material pulled from it can be any color. The spellcaster usually colors, shapes, and shades of shadowstuff to make it more convincing. A shadow evocation that produces a fireball, for example, appears like any other fireball to those fooled by the illusion. (Fully listed for comparison to Illusion material of the Shadow Realm).

That is posted in the thread where I show the very close similarities of the planes on this site.

The Shadow World was also not always a place of "darkness and evil" - that came about due to Deismaar. Before that the differences between the "Light" and "Shadow" could more be more readily percieved as the difference between "order" and "chaos" - and that is clearly presented in the information in Bloodspawn.

And Deismaar could just as easily caused the very weakening of the border with the Shadow Plane that allowed those on the prime material plane to see into it for the first time. Light (the Prime/Cerilia) the Dark The Shadow Plane superimposed over each other flickering back and forth, with evil shade/sie splitting off and taunting the living, and even possibly dragging them into the Shadow Plane aka Shadow World. It could also work with the order vs chaos contrivance as the seeming would come into play. It all works fine.

Birthright has a very specific place for "magicians", those who can wield only "lesser" magic - these are the "court" mages, the "diviners", the ones who "advised" the rulers. The "true" mages, as you pointed out, tend to be less interested in ruling and "politics" and more in "knowledge", "research", and the like. The ones that are listed as "realm" regents - that is "protectors" of certain realms have somewhere in their personal history a reason for doing so and thus some kind of "duty". Very, very few would be under the "guns for hire" category.

With due respect. Not for some of us.

It was an arbitrary contrivance, as with all other settings any mage could be (A Magician). Magicians were never truly as class like Sorcerers & Wu Jen became. They both had class skills that were based on unique natures of magic use. Sorcerers memorize spells in a different way from generalists & Wu Jen can actually sacrifice life in order to power spells past their normal capabilities. The Magicians & Sees are simply a kit for specialists.

I also know of several variations on what people termed “Magicians” on the net. So for me they are just another class variation for magic users…..albeit the one that the Book of Magecraft tried to present years after the creation of the original Cerilia/Birthright setting. I use other Magicians, but not the arbitrary Less/True Magic distinctions!!!

Bottom line is that in all things rules wise there is an order of precedence.

With continued respect, but if we as informed DM’s find an inconsistency that we find abhorrent and not useful, the we can fundamentally alter a thing in order to put it into perspective for our games (and players).

What I have said is that the system is a contrivance that deviates without purpose from what are the accepted norms in magic use in the earlier system. (As a side note the newer system didn’t really offer very much for me either). The old system could be used to define any type of current magic or created magic.

More detailed supercedes the broad.

I have been detailed in my analysis of the deviations in the magic system that took it far from the basic magic system. I also analyze all the presented rebuttals and offer where I think it fits into a broader system that was part of TSR for magic and planar connection. It is detailed, but I would never go as far as to say that it supersedes your analysis of the system. You are a fellow DM afterall.

Setting supercedes the general.

Setting is set by the DM, and when there are so many holes in the basis of the system, then you are leaving it to individual DM’s to find their way out of the morass that the creators seem to have been satisfied with. So really DM supersedes the Setting!....LOL..

You need to recognize that what you have done is to make campaign that is based on aspects of different campaigns and various house-rules and not to put down people who disagree - based on the "canon" of the setting.

Canon is what we as DM’s make of it, especially in the currently dead setting of Birthright. If you want to spin it your way that is fine, but Canon does evolve. It is hardly set in stone. So what is house rule today could be Canon later. It is up to individual DM’s period.

If Canon couldn’t evolve then the Catholics (and I was one) would still be using the inquisition to change peoples minds about the church’s canon. Also there would have been the Lutheran, Protestant, or Orthodox reformations. It is a matter of evolution in the truth of the matters that will determine what Canon sticks and what is thrown into the garbage heap.

Telling people that it is a "matter of interpretation" is simply incorrect when the specific rules are clear. Sometimes they are indeed vague and designed for individual intepretation but when they are not the setting is what the setting rules state it is - anything else is a "variant" and a "home brewed" setting.

Except that if we want to integrate Birthright into the greater settings that TSR took the time to interlink, we have to counter a Canon that lacks reliable substance, and can easily be integrated & interpreted into the 2nd ed systems dynamics of planes and magic use. It is up to each DM to spin their Cerilia in their own image (yes even the one you have adopted and are defending). There is nothing home brewed or variant in this for me…..it is you who want to ignore the presented data on the magic system norms & the connections of the shadow plane.

It is you who don’t want to see the truth that Birthright was meant to connect to the other prime material planes & settings even if tenuously.

That's okay...you are a fellow DM and site contributor.

PS: And please MT, try to be more; ahem, "diplomatic" in pointing Your arguments for Your campaign and interpretations...

With complete & due respect I have been. What I won’t do (and don’t expect others to do) is to knuckle under or kow tow to a prevalent thought line that I consider ill informed if not outright wrong. I would say it is a bit of gaming responsibility to point out the possible connections for the review of my fellow games!!!

And to all members of our worthy "covenant"; let the Birthright remain Birthright, not some generic Xena/FR/whatever-like game...

As a member of our worthy covenant, I would say that the setting can certainly survive the realization that is part of a bigger (& not quite so unique) cosmos, that can certainly have a flavor that any DM wishes.

My points of debate seamlessly integrates the ideas into a continuous system of magic and planar connection that connects settings of the same period & creator. It is far what some purists want to represent, but let the purists deny the truth at their own risk, as those who preach Canon that is out of favor are regularly disregarded as less than reliable sources. (Not that you are, I am thinking of a recent show on the History Channel and two scientists with different ideas of the big bang and creation of the universe).

More.....

MatanThunder

09-18-2007, 07:34 AM

:cool:

General Appearance and Properties of the Shadow World
Physically, the Shadow World exactly mirrors Cerilia. Hills, mountains, forests, rivers, and other such features are exactly where you would expect to find them on the daylight world. However, the Shadow World is cold and well, shadowy. There is a pervasive chill to the air that, over the course of a few hours, sinks into a traveller's bones and just aches. The sunlight is weak and dim even at its best, and it is always dark and overcast.

I don’t want to have to repost the whole thing here, but you can easily use the same description for the shadow plane. I have recorded the page numbers and descriptors on this site in a thread I started about the Shadow Plane & Shadow World are one and the same.

The shadow plane descriptors are very much in line with what you have here, especially in the border regions near prime material planes. You can also refer to some of my other responses above about the similarities.

Time runs strangely in the Shadow World. It may feel like you've been there for hours, when you really have only been there twenty or thirty minutes. Distances and perspective can distort, so that an experienced guide can use the Shadow World as a shortcut (albeit a perilous one) to save hundreds of miles from a trip in the daylight world.

Planar travel almost always includes a time vs prime time modifier. It has since the early advent of planar travel & exploration.

Buildings and sites of interest often present a different face in the Shadow World. A strong and well-defended castle in the real world may appear ruined, empty, or full of undead in the Shadow World, or it may not even be there at all.

It also plays entirely into the Shadow World see my correlations and page numbers there. It mirrors the real world though in a decayed, cold, & evil/twisted fashion.

People don't have shadow doubles in this realm, so a village of three hundred won't normally have a corresponding number of undead lurking about or pursuing a mockery of life. However, the restless spirits of some villagers who might become undead could easily linger in the place they knew in life.

And the shadow plane is a world of undead, and as I mention in a response above, it also has the possibility that the weakening of the barrier between the Shadow Plane/World could offer formulas for the creation of Shade selves (another denizen of the Shadow World & Negative Planes). It all works seamlessly if you want to recognize the connections are there.

If you are a DM who wants to be a purist of Birthright differentness then no prob.. It does fly in the face of verifiable facts in the wider world of TSR’s version of planar connection & magic systems.

But we already had discussions about that number years ago. It ranged
from 150 Mages (True Wizards) of any level to 150 person able to cast
"true magic" (spells of level 3+ which are barred to Magicians and so
150 wizards of level 5+). It could could have been the anuirean limited
view like in the atlas which is described as being from the chamberlains
point of view which ignores wizards unknown to the Anuireans. Some
people interpreted it as 150 blooded wizards, guessing that it would not
include unblooded sidhelien wizards. So the number is open to some
interpretation.

Which is what I had sort of alluded to. When the poll was taken there may have been this or that number, but there is always room for recognition that mages are more prevalent then presented by these designers.

I could come up with a whole set of groups of mages that could conceal themselves from the count, and avoid some of the prohibitions of magic from groups like the Khanasi. It would be something like the Veiled Alliance (preservest’s) of Dark Sun.

But not the 20% to 30% of Faerun levels as MT states. Cerilia is a single continent while Faerun is an entire world. With restrictions placed due to ancestry and bloodlines it is entirely possible that only around 150 or so true mages exist in Cerillia - note there may be more in Aduria or any of the other "uncharted" continents since the authors are only talking about Cerillia. This is taking into account the passage in BoM about few elves follow the path of being a true wizard. I can very much see this 150 as a floating number but not one that should stretch into the thousands - especially when one considers that in both the Rjurik Highlands and Vosgaard this number is essentially "0" (well there are a few, specifcally some awnshegh - but the point is still vaild that there are far too few to really count due to cultural mores.)

Once again the total number of spell hurlers can fit to an individual DM’s style, even if some of us dump superfluous monikers like True Wizards……

The limit to illusion and divination may not suit your campaigns, but it is not arbitrary - it is too remove the 'combat' magics from the system and allow only spells that have 'low energy' requirements –

Not if our specialist illusionist that have the ability to create tactile illusions. Add to this permanent illusions, phantasmal representations of psyche, and other factors and the mere light worker creates intelligent Virtually Alive illusions that can do all manner of things magical. I would say that your vision of illusion magic is less than fully informed on the issue (without being needlessly negative about it).

Shadow Magic mimics real battle damage in a way that inflicts real damage (via a connection to the shadow plane….ooooooo) in simulated evocation magic, and when you factor in that it is only a Lv 5 spell and upgraded versions could certainly allow for greater amounts of damage to become real, and well, you can see how I find your ideas on the school less than realistic.

Greater Divination can yield a very clear picture of future events, with spells like Vision & Foresight. Not to mention that spell invention due to specialization could easily yield a plethora of new divination magics that might put the DM out of business. Oopppsss, wait a minute, don’t you remember my divinations from last week. I had a vision of death in the near future, so my PC does get a save to avoid the attack, as I mentioned that I was being very, very careful this week.

I might argue that charms should have been included in the low magic list since again they have no physical impact/high energy requirement, but not that the limit on schools is arbitrary.

I would hardly say that any school of magic is low magic, but I would certainly recognize each schools usefulness in each type of mission. Unfortunately, I would agree to disagree with your analysis that the school distinctions are not arbitrary

If I cant get another post in tonite I will finish this tomorrow....

MatanThunder

09-18-2007, 07:35 AM

Low energy magic btw means no blood and thunder magic basically. Create a light show or vision - dead easy! Light has no significant mass and the intensity of the light is too weak to harm anything, you could run a BR magician's spells off an AAA battery; a wizard's spells now, they need something with a bit more oomph...

Honestly. The illusion magic does a great deal with sound, and I have mentioned before shadow magic mimics real magic (even if they mention some type of limitations on it, which I couldn’t find readily at the time of posting….I did look though).

Illusions can have tactile sensations, phantasms have animating forces that simulate if not outright mimic life. A mage can impress his current psyche on an phantasm with the right spells though.

If you want to be a purist and ignore the entirety of illusion and diviner magic then that is you decision as a DM. I would of course argue that the Grand Coulee Dam might be needed to power some illusions though…..easilly!!!!!!!!!!!

Reducing the number of invisible stone-skinned teleporting fireball-wielding wizards in the game was, imo, to encourage a game where politics and role-playing could dominate class abilities if the players / DM so desired - it has long been recognised that plentiful magic items and high level magic is where the DnD system really breaks down and PC's become immune to politics as they can wipe out entire armies with ease and have no need to respect 'normals' or their diplomacy.

This is once again a matter of DM style. Some people have more information and understanding of issues in magic. In my own experience there is a counter spell for every spell or affect, and if you integrate it into the system, then you need to recognize your NPC’s have access to the counter measures.

If in negotiations a regent changes his course suddenly and inexplicably, then his court mage is certain to be secretly checking on him for enchantment/charm. It works that way for all the schools of magic, and in every situation that I have encountered. It is a matter of experience and personal DM choice.

The room/area the Fireball hurler entered had several hung spells on it. It had a clerical invisibility purge that neutralized the invis magic. It was protected from evocation magic throughout the area either the room, or in the near proximity of the regent by device. The teleport spell triggers a spell trigger spell that sets off a Teleport block spell on one of the guards pikes. I.e…..the mage in his magic robes is now at the whim of the pike wielding guards and hidden archers….what level did you say he was……how many hits can he/she take before they will start dealing real damage to his/her low hp total. They should have looked up my divination specialist before they made that career move…..LOL!!!

Making elves reject religion was again a deliberate change - the elves are meant to be very different in attitude to elves of other settings of the time and the refusal to accept the concept of worship was part of this - and specifically blamed for the ability of the humans to defeat the elves across Cerilia prior to Deismaar. Making the non-human races distinctive in one way or another has always been a way used to try to make settings unique, BR changed attitudes to create 5 human races and give elves and goblins unique twists. Only dwarves are pretty much the same mentally as in other settings and that was regretted in some of the interviews:

I did mention that this branch of early elves became haughty and spurned the Seladrine (spelling error possible). Other races like dwarves draw from a known racial deity aka Moradin in the setting....so I would as that they once again were inconsistent in the creation process. Some few elves will turn to the Cerilian pantheon or back to the old gods....not many but some..

As to the other races.

All realms have their unique human stories. It is hardly a unique idea….look at the forward in the Atlas of Cerilia…the German Merchants & Russians guys is hardly that unique of an idea either…in fact it could have been a mantra for TSR…..look at all the settings and look for the Egyptian nock off’s shall we….LOL

It is not unique…it is just another setting even to its creator.

Try looking at the setting on its own merits, rather than from a FR perspective the planar wheel-system formed 1 page in the 2e DMG - discarding it was routine for settings of the time to differentiate them. BR, unlike Greyhawk and later FR was never meant to be a generic setting.

It copies many other systems in so many ways that it really lacks it’s own merits unless you as the DM see it that way and want to be a purist. This means you want it different from the interconnected settings produced by TSR. More power to you and those like you. Your games and ideas are just as valid as mine in the bigger picture.

To not recognize that it lacked the possibilities that it had those connections flies in the face of game facts and details that I have presented from that system and time frame.

The setting isn't to all tastes - if it was they wouldn't have canceled it - and a lot of people only bought it for the war system and realm play rules as it was - but rare magic can really bring awe and wonder back into the game - and even a L1 wizard is the subject of awe when their powers are only known from legends of the Lost.

The reasons they cancelled it were many. Lack of interest in, what the 6th setting or was it 7th or 8th???? Also they were hyping a whole bunch of other systems like Gamma World, a wild west RPG, Twilight something…mercenary RPG, and other assorted materials, and you can see that the whole TSR lacked focus. They also had the Battlesystem for mass war games if you liked it….I liked Birthright better….you need less space, and there was room to expand the system if good ideas were added.

This was in part due to a lack of…..dare I say it…….I will….Gary Gygax’s direct control in the company. Gary was off in Hollywood hyping the D&D Cartoon and trying to work up movies for the system.

He left his now ex wife and a number of staff members that ran around willy nilly creating worlds here and there, without having the focus and vision to try to come up with some type of product line up that would make up each setting.

How about some better info on Aduria & Thaele…….real details…how about the rest of the planets continents…..only Faerun got the full mock up, although even it lacked definition for what was on the other side of the Maztica continent.

No TSR lacked leadership. Which is why when Gary came back from Hollywood, he found that his ex and some backers had seized control and shut him out……..

So they didn't finish things, started too many projects, had a full run of changes in ownership, direction, and design and sold the whole thing to the highest bidder... WotC, a division of Hasbro.

Later

:cool: :eek:

Gman

09-18-2007, 07:40 AM

If your talking planes then "the seeming" most closely resembles some of the effects in the plane of Limbo. Denizens are able to bend parts of their environment to their will and reality is what the strongest "will" chooses to exist.

Glamour magic is what it is intended to reflect.

It seems that what we are discussing follows the rules of the study of Literature or theology. What the author is trying to portray vs what the reader understands. Interpretation is possible but within certain limits before it becomes a completely inaccurate presentation.

Ahh Postmodernity/ deconstructionism and D&D.

Running a High magic Birthright campaign myself I do sympathise with may points that are being made but I don't view them as entirely in keeping with the BR canon.:)

Thelandrin

09-18-2007, 08:28 AM

The point still stands though, Matan, that you cannot make all sorts of predictions about what Birthright was "supposed" to be and then decry others for sticking to what is actually in the book.

Canon, by its very nature, cannot evolve without either everyone (including this site, in lieu of TSR) agreeing it so - otherwise, it is simply a large collection of house-rules, however brilliant or logical it may be.

While I also believe in the interconnectedness of the various game settings, I also try to rationalise each setting's individual rules within the greater whole. BR's only transitive plane is the Shadow World, but that's hardly a problem. Dark Sun is only connected through the difficult-to-access Grey. The new Faerûn's planar system doesn't match the Great Wheel, but does parallel it, so there are still distinct links. One does not need enormous amounts of additional data to synthesise them all together - it might help enormously, certainly, but you don't need it.

ShadowMoon

09-18-2007, 09:14 AM

Since this discussion is rather pointless; one argues against written rules and designers intent to justify his interpretation of the setting; so I'll just ignore it...

One thing tho; if Birthright was Magic unlimited like most childish fantasy games (aka Forgotten Realms/Eberron/whatever fairytale goodnight story), I would play only Stardrive/Dark Matter/whatever semi-realism simulation instead...

<snip due to splitting threads, belatedly>

irdeggman

09-18-2007, 10:40 AM

I was there, so respectfully I don’t think it was to be as restricted as The Book Of Magecraft seems to have been trying (unsuccessfully) to make it.

So was I and many others here. Looking at the posts from the "creators" it was also what they intended it to be. (thanks for the link AndrewTall). So "our" opinions on what they intended are in fact moot since they have made it pretty clear what they had wanted it to be.

The elves in most of the settings have the ability to use High Magic (in groups) so it is easy to see in this setting that the elves (and elvish) blood are tapped to be the magic using part of the Cerilia Setting. They would also be the group I would go to if trying to tap divine/world magics. Especially if a single creature was going to try to attempt to harness them.

As to the Shadowspawn and the Sie…..I could easily say that they were a type of Shade (See the monster) that is brought about by the melding (thinning of the barriers) with the Shadow World/Plane. It would certainly freak out the elves and halfings by seeing and evil counter self spawned from the thinning of the barrier with the Shadow Plane…er I mean Shadow World.

Except for nearly everything written in Bloodspawn on the subjects.:)

The Shadow World/Cerillia split did not occur because of Deismaar (see also the interviews posted for the "creators" notes on the subject). The Sie split to the sellie faeries and elves before Deismaar. The events of Deismaar started the Shadow World's turn towards it's evil orientation. I won't bother to post again (since I have done it numerous times in the past) the relevant portions from bloodspawn since you seem to "dismiss" everything there as being "wrong" or not consistent with the known cosmology. The Sie were masters of all magic (both clerical and wizardly) - when they split (and there is a one-to-one correlation between seelie-faeries and elves) the seelie-faeries inherited the mastery of clerical magic while the elves got the mastery of wizardly magic. The faerie Queen is also the only one left who "knows" what happened - a pretty obvious statement that even the oldest elf is not one of the original ones.

Also, as I pointed out the Shadow World is much smaller than the Shadow Plane and is exactly parallel and equivalent to Cerilia. They were both parts of the same whole, unlike what the Shadow Plane is. The Shadow Plane is more like a mirror image, warped reflection than a part of the same whole (you know like the seelie faeries and elves are part of the same whole {i.e., Sie}).

First I see it as a kit (a specialization kit). I would also say that it was less a class of magic change, and more a warping of magic that fit in with keeping the game less magic user driven, and alleviating problems with PC’s & NPC’s as powerful as regents. It is really unnecessary though.

It really didn’t offer very much in the way of unique playability or atmosphere…it simply limited the types of magic and who could use what they errantly wanted to interpret as some limitation on the magic system.

Since the used the same spells, schools, magic system, and really didn’t beef up the spell selection or come up with the Lesser Mage Class or the True Mage class; they certainly weakened any argument about this system having a great amount of difference in the magic systems that other TSR settings offered. As I mention above the Magician & Seer could easily be a specialization kit.

The whole Magician & Seer kit descriptions could easily be integrated into any game as a type of specialist “Kit”, specializing in their own brand of magic without lessening their reputations in magic by calling them lesser mages.

Hmmm let's see what did magicians get that is "different"?

Double specialization benefits.

Cantrip mastery

Proficiency list included that on the Rogue's list

Wider selection of weapons

So pretty much more than other "kit" benefits, although still in general a "weak" class, IMO, but not a "kit".

The idea of True Mages didn’t even have the contrivances of the Magician & Seer. They were simply blooded or elvish blood spell casters who could use the arbitrary distinction of true magic. Where is there class distinctions, where are the kits?????

BoM - see Royal College of Sorcery for some benefits of those who studied there (pretty much equivalent to a "kit") (wizard and magician both are included)

BoM contains several magician "kits" - which is necessary since that is a "new" class.

BR Rulebook pg 14 lists authorized kits and several of them are wizardly oriented. Academician, Mystic, Patrician, Peasant Wizard, Witch, War Wizard.

I want consistency in the magic systems of a large number of their campaigns.

Then it appears you really wish that all other settings were in fact "undiscovered" continents on Faerun. It has already been determined that magic works differently on Athas (Dark Sun) and that was acceptable, but it appears that in every other "setting" it would not be so.

What they offered here is not so much an abomination, as it is a arbitrary & weakened version of magic that has no real reason to exist!!

Except of course in a world that was "designed" to have fewer true wizards and have true magic be of significant impact because of it.:rolleyes:

AndrewTall

09-18-2007, 09:06 PM

Honestly. The illusion magic does a great deal with sound, and I have mentioned before shadow magic mimics real magic (even if they mention some type of limitations on it, which I couldn’t find readily at the time of posting….I did look though).

Illusions can have tactile sensations, phantasms have animating forces that simulate if not outright mimic life. A mage can impress his current psyche on an phantasm with the right spells though.

If you want to be a purist and ignore the entirety of illusion and diviner magic then that is you decision as a DM. I would of course argue that the Grand Coulee Dam might be needed to power some illusions though…..easilly!!!!!!!!!!!

My point - which you appear to have missed - is physics based. Sound, light, the sensation of touch, perception - all of these require little energy - that is RL physics energy i.e. joules. Lifting, creating mass, changing temperature, etc as evident in evocation, conjuration, transformation magic etc take orders of magnitude more energy. I know that some folk dislike the concept of mixing physics and magic, but to me it's natural - and I note that the energy needed to make even an illusion a hundred miles across pales in comparison to the energy needed to make a single kilogram of matter...

This is once again a matter of DM style. Some people have more information and understanding of issues in magic. In my own experience there is a counter spell for every spell or affect, and if you integrate it into the system, then you need to recognize your NPC’s have access to the counter measures.

I recognised all of that and stated as such. For the defender to have the spells you list as counters he needs to have the wizard. So you need to have both many mages and powerful 'fighting' magic in your game or few mages and little 'fighting' magic - the limitation on travel magics with the Shadow world was an attempt to reduce the wizard=gunship issue without stopping all fighting magic by reducing the ability of a mage to pop in, blast, and run before they run out of spells imo. You cannot have a coherent world with non-mages ruling realms if you have a few wizards with powerful fighting magic and no flight restrictions - the few wizards present inevitably wind up emperors - the other regents warnings from a court magician does a non mage regent little good if the regent can't then stop the mage slaughtering them, or massacring their people - I wasn't aware we disagreed on this point.

It is not unique…it is just another setting even to its creator.

All settings are unique, some more so than others. If you want to remove the 'inconsistencies' between settings then you perforce remove the uniqueness. In which case don't bother with the setting at all and just play the generic game either in a world you make or in FR/Greyhawk.

BR was designed, like other settings to be different to the existing standard, its uniqueness manifested in changed cultures, limited cultures for humans with depth, different monster types (vast legions were removed), enhanced political aspects to the game and substantial changes (for the time) to the magic setting - although many of the changes were taken up to a greater or lesser degree in later settings.

It copies many other systems in so many ways that it really lacks it’s own merits unless you as the DM see it that way and want to be a purist.

On the contrary, I see the merits of the setting clearly - however whereas you seem to see the village archmage syndrome of the Forgotten Realms as not merely an advantage to the game but an outright necessity whcih requires correction if absent; I see the syndrome as a severe even terminal drawback. Like all settings BR draws on a number of sources, like all settings whether the resulting blend is better or worse than the norm depends on the skill of the creators and the taste of the user. I think that the mix in BR is exceptional - which is why I have stayed with it for a decade since it ceased, if you don't like it, don't play it - FR and Greyhawk are already generic without the need for you to modify their 'errors'.

But yes, to preserve the individual merits of the settings you do need to be a purist and retain the aspects which make it different...

This means you want it different from the interconnected settings produced by TSR. More power to you and those like you. Your games and ideas are just as valid as mine in the bigger picture.

Indeed all games are valid (if enjoyed) and indeed I want BR to stay different - if I wanted to play one of the interconnected 'generic' settings you so clearly love I would do so; I don't so I play BR instead. But as you are posting in a forum dedicated to the specialist BR setting; not one dedicated to the generic inter-connected settings why waste time trying to convince us to change the specialist setting to the generic one because you think that the setting will be better that way? Go post on Gleemax about the stuck in the mud dinosaurs who like old settings and systems and don't see how 4e Ebbaron is going to be the best thing ever - far better than their antique crud?

No TSR lacked leadership. Which is why when Gary came back from Hollywood, he found that his ex and some backers had seized control and shut him out……..

One interpretation, imo the leadership was too inwardly focused, dominated by people without an understanding of the industry, pitiful at organising an efficient supply chain and risk averse to the point that TSR was almost inert. these failings had the predictable result that TSR suffered an abrupt and substantial loss of income when a minor company exploded across the US with a card-game that drew away a large number of TSR's core audience for a year or two crippling TSR's cashflow and profitability (anyone else remember Dragon stuck at the printers for want of payment?) this failure nearly killed the company - and the game.

Be grateful to WOTC, without them we might be posting on a board dedicated to DnD lamenting the passing of a hobby and arguing whether the similarities to Palladium or White Wolf are coincidental, or were planned by the writers. :)

Apologies to all and sundry if in splitting these threads I inadvertently killed their post, or changed something. Apologies to Arjan for the array of redirects cluttering his forums.

ShadowMoon

09-19-2007, 12:27 AM

Thank You...

MatanThunder

09-19-2007, 04:38 AM

:cool:

Thanks for the split...that is why I mentioned the original post in my last salad of thread additions!!!

<edit: snip to split threads>

Also with all respect how did this make it into this thread???

<edit: it hid, with great cunning, skill and guile>

One thing tho; if Birthright was Magic unlimited like most childish fantasy games (aka Forgotten Realms/Eberron/whatever fairytale goodnight story), I would play only Stardrive/Dark Matter/whatever semi-realism simulation instead...

Except that I don't think it is any more childish than any other Fantasy Game setting. I unfortunately see the ongoing purist & higher level game bashing as a systemic problem that is helping in the overall decline of Paper & Pen gaming vs MMORPG's..

I intend to start another thread about the issue in the forum this weekend if I can find the time!!

The basics of it are this. From what I can see from at least 20 sites there are a cadre of DM's out there that for whatever reason, can't or won't allow their games evolve to higher levels. They will go to any lengths to keep it that way.

I conjecture that the reason so many find the MMORPG phenomenon so alluring is that they don't run into this human road block element that seems to arise from the low level gaming in Paper in Pen gaming. The sheer number of the MMORPG gamers dwarfs the current Paper & Pen game settings.

If you have an opinion you might save it for this weekend....I don't want to make the mods split off another thread anytime soon if I can avoid it.

Later

:rolleyes:

kgauck

09-19-2007, 05:15 AM

[Birthright] copies many other systems in so many ways that it really lacks it’s own merits.
Lacks its own merits? Glad you like the setting so much.

This means you want it different from the interconnected settings produced by TSR.
The interconnectedness of settings was an option, and a distinct minority option. The only books you have ever needed to play are the Player's Handbook, the Dungeon Master's Guide, and the Monster Manual. Everything else is optional, including any setting, anything on cosmology, or anything on travel between planes. To pretend that it is the default approach to the game is simply arrogant.

To not recognize that it lacked the possibilities that it had those connections flies in the face of game facts and details that I have presented from that system and time frame.
The only possibilities that a closed BR cosmology loses is the possibility of travel to other settings and the introduction of non-BR characters and character designs to Birthright. In exchange for this small sacrifice, you get all the benefits of strict adherance to the BR setting, including rare magic, character designs made for the setting and far less liable to bust the setting, and a game that focuses on politics, not spellcraft.

This flies in the face of no facts presented, and no details offered. Just as you have contempt for the setting that has brought us here and sustains our community, we here have no interest in stripping away every part of the setting which makes it distinct.

Since you obviously don't like the BR setting, and feel the need to insult the community:

This is once again a matter of DM style. Some people have more information and understanding of issues in magic
Why are you here?

MatanThunder

09-19-2007, 06:07 AM

:cool:

This is once again a matter of DM style. Some people have more information and understanding of issues in magic

Why are you here?

How rude..........You make me laugh

With all due respect I could ask you the same question?????

To try to make the entire community see it your way?????

All I am doing is refering to the game in a way that you don't want others to see, and now you revert to plain rudeness....how droll!

More to come

Later

:rolleyes:

ShadowMoon

09-19-2007, 07:51 AM

:cool:

To try to make the entire community see it your way?????

Most of us think that way or very similar...

kgauck

09-19-2007, 09:25 AM

To try to make the entire community see it your way?????

All I am doing is refering to the game in a way that you don't want others to see, and now you revert to plain rudeness....how droll!

I don't need to make the community see how much the BR setting has merit. This is a community that has assembled by itself on the idea that the setting is already pretty good as it is.

irdeggman

09-19-2007, 10:31 AM

I don't need to make the community see how much the BR setting has merit. This is a community that has assembled by itself on the idea that the setting is already pretty good as it is.

So true.

This is reflected in many of discussions that occured when trying to put together the BRCS (I know it is a 3.x thing) that tried to encompass the "new" version game mechanics. There was a large voice (as in the community as a whole) reflecting what was in 2nd ed and what "the setting" was built around.

This does not mean that discussions on how to do things in a different manner do not have a place (or meaning) - only that such discussions need to reflect that it is a change/deviation from "the setting" as designed and not what the setting "was meant to be" or "should be". That is where my ire gets raised. I have many of my own viewpoints on what I do when I run BR - but I do not "pretend" that they are in accordance with what the setting material says or what it was "designed" to be. I alwyas try to separate "my version" from "the official version" when making this comparisons.

There are places in the 2nd ed Birthright material where "conflicts" appear or are deliberately "vague". These are left to DM interpretation, either by design or by default. But these type of interpretations do not extend to other settings' material and how they should interface with Birthright - those fall in the "my game looks like this but it is a deviation from the canon material" and not "my game looks like this because that is how the canon material should have been".

Thelandrin

09-19-2007, 11:44 AM

AndrewTall

09-19-2007, 07:56 PM

Matan, I don't know if you're trying to get into an argument with every BR moderator/admin at once, but you're doing spectacularly if you are.

Now, let's keep it civil and discuss (in normal-sized text) any topics in a rational way.

We became / were chosen as moderators imho because we like the setting so much - and even if we do change some things for our own settings (who me???) we were willing to strive to keep br.net and br.wiki as the accepted canon 'base' with changes and expansions as 'add on's' only, so that all the other people who want read about the setting have a common reference point - as a result we all tend to get peeved by this sort of thing at once, although MT has a gift I must admit :)

AndrewTall

09-19-2007, 08:48 PM

The basics of it are this. From what I can see from at least 20 sites there are a cadre of DM's out there that for whatever reason, can't or won't allow their games evolve to higher levels. They will go to any lengths to keep it that way.

The type of game changes dramatically as you go through the levels in DnD, particularly in 3e: gritty realism - swashbuckling - wuxia - super hero. If you like a particular style of play, you will want to have characters in the right zone. I expect that few people (DM's in particular) are equally happy in all game styles.

One DM I had liked to start a new campaign season at L10-12 minimum - he just didn't like low levels - he couldn't use the 'fun' monsters or spells and we kept dying when he got bored and did. Other groups, as you note, prefer low or mid level play - and therefore will strive to keep the game within those levels - to keep the game in the style they and their players like. These DM's are not so much a road block then as a shield protecting the players from the 'poorer quality' levels - as a good DM should.

People play non-level RP systems or skill based systems for exactly the same reason. Basically if a DM & the players like a game where characters are at risk from commoners, are strictly limited in abilities, etc then the DM will strive to avoid wuxia/super hero style play - and vice versa.

I conjecture that the reason so many find the MMORPG phenomenon so alluring is that they don't run into this human road block element that seems to arise from the low level gaming in Paper in Pen gaming.[/U] The sheer number of the MMORPG gamers dwarfs the current Paper & Pen game settings.

MMORPG is a completely different type of game to PnP or PBM/PBEM RP gaming. Many MMORPG's approach pure Hack 'n' slash computer games with little actual RP possible or even desired by their gamers. Further a MMORPG allows those unable to interact face to face to join a community, requires no travel, no local friends, has a global market for each game, etc, etc.

Most MMORPG's go monty haul in power as it pleases the pre-teen to late student market in particular to have rapid constant 'pay-off' from game play. since game pay-off is most easily recognised in power increase terms rather than RP satisfaction MMORPG's have rapid level progression, item acquisition, etc.

MatanThunder

09-20-2007, 03:02 AM

:D

If you can't allow the connectivity of magic and the fact that the Shadow World is in fact just another Shadow Plane then fine.

If I am going to get some purist site mod who only want magic and idea presented as they see them, then you all deserve each other. Will no one else on the site speak up for freedom of expression in this issue....or are you all mute conformists????

It doesn't matter to me if the poster is a site mod. If I can present created material that contradicts them then I shall with great gusto.

Back to what I had wanted to post about, but as my last post I don't know how long it will last. Lord knows that only a few posters have the vision of magic that it takes to be in the game here.

So I will be posting as to how the mods treat gamers here. Enjoy!!

If your talking planes then "the seeming" most closely resembles some of the effects in the plane of Limbo. Denizens are able to bend parts of their environment to their will and reality is what the strongest "will" chooses to exist.

If you reflect on the posted material from the Manual of the Planes #2 & #4 can do everything the seeming can. Oh wait that was deleted by a mod.

Glamour magic is what it is intended to reflect.

Please define glamour magic??? It's a facet of illusion, but it isn't a spell or individual school.

It seems that what we are discussing follows the rules of the study of Literature or theology. What the author is trying to portray vs what the reader understands. Interpretation is possible but within certain limits before it becomes a completely inaccurate presentation.

We are hardly there though. In the one of the posts above a contributor acknowledges that it is an optional version of the setting that connects it to everything else in the TSR world settings. They call it optional, but in those days the inter connectivity was a given for many of use.

Within a setting the game creators offered options and called them such. This was not noted in any setting as (optional) and neither was connections with the planes. All the material related to how that option is implemented becomes part of the system (and what the DM wants to understand it as) if they use the options.

(i.e. I see the connections and have found a fine way to integrate the changes that the author failed to adequately represent in the opinions of a reader.)

Ahh Postmodernity/ deconstructionism and D&D.

I don’t agree with the postmoderninity, but the deconstructionism is limited to the Birthright magic setting and how the Shadow Plane/World is part of that formula.

Running a High magic Birthright campaign myself I do sympathise with may points that are being made but I don't view them as entirely in keeping with the BR canon.

I’m glad to hear that others can see that magic isn’t anathema to the setting. I know that many won’t agree, but the Lesser vs True or Magician vs True Mages fairly scream kit. Class is more in depth. Fighter, Mage, Cleric, Thief….these are classes. Magician & True Mages are just kits for mages.

Also canon is highly over rated when you relate to how you enjoy the game (nice hearing from a fellow magic acknowledger in any case).

Also things get shot out of cannon frequently, and some of it are bits of useless material too, because they fall short of their target.

The point still stands though, Matan, that you cannot make all sorts of predictions about what Birthright was "supposed" to be and then decry others for sticking to what is actually in the book.

Point A…..I have mentioned with all due respect any number of times what I am saying is purely one DM’s interpretation.

Point B….I don’t decry sticking to a rule set. What I am pointing out is that the entirety of the magic system the offered in the Book of Magecraft was flawed in its implementation.

It lacked the focus of true class magic and a unique spell system related to that class like defilement of Dark Sun. Instead they opted for using a system that is easily adaptable to how magic works in all other settings, and I can still limit it enough by keeping it to the blooded humans and creatures of elvish heritage. It works just fine in conjunction with the AD&D magic system. The loss of a True Mage or the brands of lesser magic are not that big of deal for me in the presentation of the setting.

A high level mage of any type is to be feared and respected.

Canon, by its very nature, cannot evolve without either everyone (including this site, in lieu of TSR) agreeing it so - otherwise, it is simply a large collection of house-rules, however brilliant or logical it may be.

It can and does evolve within a community with or without the prevalent power groups or majority opinion being the final say.

Once again I would use the fractured parts of the catholic church as an example. Now I might get excommunicated for the site, but the facts remain. As other posters have pointed out there is the planar connections, and if I limit my magic system to the two groups I mention above I can easily use the full plethora of magic schools without the needless limits they try to offer in the Book of Magecraft…even using the Birthright spell selection from the book to supplement other spells.

While I also believe in the interconnectedness of the various game settings, I also try to rationalise each setting's individual rules within the greater whole. BR's only transitive plane is the Shadow World, but that's hardly a problem.

Each to their own. I don’t find it useful to limit the connectivity, but your ability to rationalize it is all that matters if you want too see it that way.

Dark Sun is only connected through the difficult-to-access Grey.

The grey, could also be seen as a part of the greater shadow plane, but Dark Sun is also connected by a myriad of elemental planes that allow for connectivity that will work in the dynamic of planar travel. I also allow for the ether and astral…..although their gods are on Dark Sun in the form of the priest kings & the dragon (s). Ethereal travel is needed for access to any connections to elemental magic of the four basic types.

The new Faerûn's planar system doesn't match the Great Wheel, but does parallel it, so there are still distinct links. One does not need enormous amounts of additional data to synthesise them all together - it might help enormously, certainly, but you don't need it.

How doesn’t it match up??…..I think it does, but with different pantheon connections.

You are right about one thing….I don’t need vast amounts of additional data to seamlessly integrate the planar connectivity into the game.

This may be my last post, so I don't know if my other responses will make it in.

At least an MMORPG isn't able to cheat the rules. Put up defenses with information or simply don't respond.

MatanThunder

09-20-2007, 03:09 AM

:eek: :rolleyes:

I was there, so respectfully I don’t think it was to be as restricted as The Book Of Magecraft seems to have been trying (unsuccessfully) to make it.

So was I and many others here. Looking at the posts from the "creators" it was also what they intended it to be. (thanks for the link AndrewTall). So "our" opinions on what they intended are in fact moot since they have made it pretty clear what they had wanted it to be.

What they wanted it to be hardly matters, when each DM is freely able to run any setting as they see fit within the game, as long as they use the basic setting materials related to geographical places in that world.

My Birthright setting has all the regions and players as anything you or the creators envisioned. The differences are that I can see advancement in the power level due to the very nature and strength of Realm Magic, and also, that I can see interconnectivity in the magic system that makes up the greater TSR setting games. I also can seamlessly infer that the Shadow World is in fact a part of the Shadow Plane by linking environmental factors that exist in both planar representations that are totally congruous with the issue. I have posted the material before.

No one as yet has in fact debunked the “seeming” issue that I have clearly linked to a page in the Manual of the Planes (by page #) and the similarities in the very nature of the planes descriptions in both books of the “Seeming” including the idea of using the Blood Spawn (which TSR acknowledges in the preface) could be used in other parts of the TSR release. It would be a great boon in the presenting of an adventure set in the shadow plane, and I will use the monster stats for the Seeming in Blood Spawn in order to enhance the Shadow Plane adventure.

The elves in most of the settings have the ability to use High Magic (in groups) so it is easy to see in this setting that the elves (and elvish) blood are tapped to be the magic using part of the Cerilia Setting. They would also be the group I would go to if trying to tap divine/world magics. Especially if a single creature was going to try to attempt to harness them.

As to the Shadowspawn and the Sie…..I could easily say that they were a type of Shade (See the monster) that is brought about by the melding (thinning of the barriers) with the Shadow World/Plane. It would certainly freak out the elves and halfings by seeing and evil counter self spawned from the thinning of the barrier with the Shadow Plane…er I mean Shadow World.

Except for nearly everything written in Bloodspawn on the subjects.

In that release (unofficial as it was never released, so we don’t know what the editors would have finalized in the product), there is a lot of monsterous information. I found it extremely useful, and as I mention above the seeming plays well with described affects of the Shadow Plane.

In that simply cryptic introduction (boxed on pg 5 when two world were one) that you seem to be relating to, I have mentioned before that I can see it as the Plane of Shadow splitting off from Cerilia. I works just fine in that context. If it was another setting in the world, then it would have locations uniquely its own posted in a supplement somewhere. They never did this. It can be the Shadow Plane, or a version of it that is unique due to its connection with Cerilia.

I note that the Shade is clearly mentioned there, which I related to earlier is part of the split off denizens that are part of the whole visual affect of the schism. Add that to the affects of the Seemings and you could very very easily come up with the visual presentation of what they present happened during the event at Deismaar.

Absolutely nothing in Blood Spawn screams out that I am wrong…in fact some of it can support my ideas….. In fact it is a monster compendium supplement….Creature of Light & Shadow, and not a definitive work on the planar connection between the Shadow Plane/World.

The schism they describe could easily be part of a break in the prime material plane of Cerila & the Shadow Plane…nothing in the release contradicts the material I have offered before about interpretation about the grandiose descriptors they use to find their Shadow Worlds creation.

The Shadow World/Cerillia split did not occur because of Deismaar (see also the interviews posted for the "creators" notes on the subject). The Sie split to the sellie faeries and elves before Deismaar. The events of Deismaar started the Shadow World's turn towards it's evil orientation. I won't bother to post again (since I have done it numerous times in the past) the relevant portions from bloodspawn since you seem to "dismiss" everything there as being "wrong" or not consistent with the known cosmology.

The split of a prime material world from the shadow plane everywhere could easily be described in this manner….as the shadow planes denizens interact with the prime material plane work into the overall presentation. I don’t dismiss it at all….I embrace it with an interpretation that allows for the recognition of the Plane of Shadow and Shadow World being one in the same. I can see it working just fine, with some nice little flavory nuggets of uniqueness for that part of the Shadow Plane.

The Sie were masters of all magic (both clerical and wizardly) - when they split (and there is a one-to-one correlation between seelie-faeries and elves) the seelie-faeries inherited the mastery of clerical magic while the elves got the mastery of wizardly magic. The faerie Queen is also the only one left who "knows" what happened - a pretty obvious statement that even the oldest elf is not one of the original ones.

I do have a question though. What deities did the Sie worship????

Also where did you dig them up, pg # and source please?

Which not only brings us back to a connection to shades, but also to the Seldarine and the split the Cerilian Elves have made with their racial deities.

The Sie don’t even warrant a full monster work up in Blood Spawn, and I want to see if they fit into the dynamics of the high powered magic that is part of what brought about the Shadow Plane/World phenomenon. It has been years since I read some of the material, and to be honest the background story is pretty dry reading.

Also, as I pointed out the Shadow World is much smaller than the Shadow Plane and is exactly parallel and equivalent to Cerilia. They were both parts of the same whole, unlike what the Shadow Plane is. The Shadow Plane is more like a mirror image, warped reflection than a part of the same whole (you know like the seelie faeries and elves are part of the same whole {i.e., Sie}).

To further mark that it is a separate plane I point out that on pg 9, “This region, presumably another dimension , we have since surmised…..” could this be a reference to the Shadow Plane/World. It was not noted as a dark paralell of the real Birthright.

I think you just made my point for me. If you note that the descriptor in the Atlas of Cerilia is this pg 9, “The landscape is eerily similar to Cerilia…(but not exact as you conjecture…and eerily …..like the shadow plane.).” It is a matter of interpretation at best. Also the border shadow plane for any prime material plane twists the plane it is near complete with its own plethora of possibly unique undead to mimic the lands of the living.

More to come..

:rolleyes:

MatanThunder

09-20-2007, 03:15 AM

:rolleyes:

My post..

First I see it as a kit (a specialization kit). I would also say that it was less a class of magic change, and more a warping of magic that fit in with keeping the game less magic user driven, and alleviating problems with PC’s & NPC’s as powerful as regents. It is really unnecessary though.

It really didn’t offer very much in the way of unique playability or atmosphere…it simply limited the types of magic and who could use what they errantly wanted to interpret as some limitation on the magic system.

Since the used the same spells, schools, magic system, and really didn’t beef up the spell selection or come up with the Lesser Mage Class or the True Mage class; they certainly weakened any argument about this system having a great amount of difference in the magic systems that other TSR settings offered. As I mention above the Magician & Seer could easily be a specialization kit.

The whole Magician & Seer kit descriptions could easily be integrated into any game as a type of specialist “Kit”, specializing in their own brand of magic without lessening their reputations in magic by calling them lesser mages.

Hmmm let's see what did magicians get that is "different"?

Double specialization benefits.

A extra spell or two…another schools of improvement +1…..this is NOT class material like mages, clerics, thieves, fighters…it is “kit related”. Also no new experience tables (They are True Mages afterall), and no new. At best they are a sub class of mages/wizards.

Cantrip mastery

With all due respect…..

Wow the power of True Magic coursing though my veins…..oooooooooo….the bad ol’ True Mage is going to turn me to a pink mage and make me fart with his super cantrips…..give me a break. This is kit related bestowing cantrip mastery is hardly True Mage power.

Proficiency list included that on the Rogue's list

They do this for kits of all types. Classes can use proficiencies of other classes due to their skill set in relationship to the skill the proficiency bestows.

I allow for some kits to use other classes proficiencies all the time to reflect their skill set. Although I do make them set it up as a class….as kits are weak, and a class can offer more in the long run for playability/enjoyment of the gamer.

Wider selection of weapons

With all respect that should make them masters of magic…..or wait could they be a fighter/mage or thief/mage?? Also it has been long accepted that allowing clerics to use other weapons if their deity prefers that weapon type. They are still clerics though.

So pretty much more than other "kit" benefits, although still in general a "weak" class, IMO, but not a "kit".

Respectfully classes are driven by unique experience point tables, hit dice, and also a unique niche in the flow of the game….the limited scope of their powers make them as you say weak…..mages….they are limited even more than a generalist mage, gain what 2 or 4 spells and a bonus/penalty to saves vs those schools they specialize in. Not a class at all. And not written up like one either.

The idea of True Mages didn’t even have the contrivances of the Magician & Seer. They were simply blooded or elvish blood spell casters who could use the arbitrary distinction of true magic.

Where is there class distinctions that make it a true class different from mages?????

BoM - see Royal College of Sorcery for some benefits of those who studied there (pretty much equivalent to a "kit") (wizard and magician both are included)

A class is distinctive….with its own hit dice and class powers. This is a kit as I point out above. Using mage exp tables…..hit dice….spell starting limits….etc….

BoM contains several magician "kits" - which is necessary since that is a "new" class.

Simply because they kit out the magician they can easily make more kits of kits…it is a viscous cycle of subclassing.

The variations offer very little new and are all kits. Sub classes of mages, using mage exp.

BR Rulebook pg 14 lists authorized kits and several of them are wizardly oriented. Academician, Mystic, Patrician, Peasant Wizard, Witch, War Wizard.

And here you are reaching into other settings materials outside of Birthright, to draw upon your True Mages unique to Birthright. Hardly a unique class of powerful mages destined to rock the world and rule parts of it wielding Realm Spells.

My point remains: that first of all the settings created by TSR are interconnected in so so many ways..

Also that the True Mages are kits…not a class unto themselves. Their alteration of magic is arbitrary and not very well thought out or implemented. To get a true mage you have to kit it like other places in the TSR settings…The Wizard Handbook, etc……. And the kits you mention…do the preclude illusion or divination magic….or do you have to alter them to fit???

I want consistency in the magic systems of a large number of their campaigns.

Then it appears you really wish that all other settings were in fact "undiscovered" continents on Faerun. It has already been determined that magic works differently on Athas (Dark Sun) and that was acceptable, but it appears that in every other "setting" it would not be so.

My point is that the magic system can be interconnected & consistent in Birthright (and other settings), because they offered so little uniqueness to what is laughably called “True Magic”, while the Dark Sun setting set up an entire magic system that drained life force from the land & creatures to power spells.

Maybe some innovative thought on the issue of “True Magic” would have me without a foot to stand on, but they used a very good system that can seamlessly be integrated into the dynamics of Cerilia.

To one point I do agree though….I do in fact want them to flesh out the places that are just beyond the edge of the map. Giving us full world maps to fill in the blanks, or to use some supplements that offer something new and well thought out.

What they offered here is not so much an abomination, as it is a arbitrary & weakened version of magic that has no real reason to exist!!

Except of course in a world that was "designed" to have fewer true wizards and have true magic be of significant impact because of it.

True magic offered very little in uniqueness, and the number of mages in the setting is entirely a DM adjudicated issue.

I was even able to get some gamers to recognize that the numbers might be beefed up. Secret groups add to that, and it can be anything a DM wants it to be within the setting dynamics, as long as they have a capability to handle the affects of magic in their own game.

More to come still!??????:D

MatanThunder

09-20-2007, 03:22 AM

:rolleyes:

Honestly. The illusion magic does a great deal with sound, and I have mentioned before shadow magic mimics real magic (even if they mention some type of limitations on it, which I couldn’t find readily at the time of posting….I did look though).

Illusions can have tactile sensations, phantasms have animating forces that simulate if not outright mimic life. A mage can impress his current psyche on an phantasm with the right spells though.

If you want to be a purist and ignore the entirety of illusion and diviner magic then that is you decision as a DM. I would of course argue that the Grand Coulee Dam might be needed to power some illusions though…..easilly!!!!!!!!!!!

My point - which you appear to have missed - is physics based. Sound, light, the sensation of touch, perception - all of these require little energy - that is RL physics energy i.e. joules. Lifting, creating mass, changing temperature, etc as evident in evocation, conjuration, transformation magic etc take orders of magnitude more energy. I know that some folk dislike the concept of mixing physics and magic, but to me it's natural - and I note that the energy needed to make even an illusion a hundred miles across pales in comparison to the energy needed to make a single kilogram of matter...

So you want to talk about physics, when I am talking about the magic system????? That is really incongruous??? The physics of magic illusion (light/force) is hardly the issue what I was trying to point out in the post that I was responding to….or the points that preceded it.

The point is and still remains that Illusion & Divination are not weaker than the other forms of magic, and they could easily be a mage to rival the other schools in their arbitrary analysis that some schools are part of the arbitrary kit of True Mage!!

The point that you appear to want to deflect by trying to draw light & physics into the points about magic? NO?

This is once again a matter of DM style. Some people have more information and understanding of issues in magic. In my own experience there is a counter spell for every spell or affect, and if you integrate it into the system, then you need to recognize your NPC’s have access to the counter measures.

I recognised all of that and stated as such. For the defender to have the spells you list as counters he needs to have the wizard. So you need to have both many mages and powerful 'fighting' magic in your game or few mages and little 'fighting' magic - the limitation on travel magics with the Shadow world was an attempt to reduce the wizard=gunship issue without stopping all fighting magic by reducing the ability of a mage to pop in, blast, and run before they run out of spells imo.

The creators never said they wanted to decrease mage power, just mage numbers. It isn’t a problem for those of us with an understanding of the full extent of the magic system.

Also you are failing to recognize that even in the Book of Magecraft they offer magic spell and item creation to add to the game. The world of Cerilia is capable of creating new magic items and spells that will offer up the blast and run scenario. It is the purist’s that want to limit the magic.

I also demonstrated fairly effectively that the attacking mage in question could be deposed of, with what 4 spells. You have to allow for imbedded magic, hung magic, and field magic in order for counter magic to work, but it is not a hard leap. I have 12 spells of official and unofficial natures that act as hanging or contingency based approaches to counter magic attacks. It works just fine. You just have to agree to grow your game to that level. Purists just don’t want to evolve to that point….each to their own.

You cannot have a coherent world with non-mages ruling realms if you have a few wizards with powerful fighting magic and no flight restrictions - the few wizards present inevitably wind up emperors - the other regents warnings from a court magician does a non mage regent little good if the regent can't then stop the mage slaughtering them, or massacring their people - I wasn't aware we disagreed on this point.

If you use court mages and counter magic this is not inevitable, and it will not happen if you can evolve as a DM to recognize that magic is not some type of boogey man for the Birthright setting. A non mage regent can survive easily,. (I and others have run it that way without the total breakdown or doomsday scenario you want to offer up), by using the tools the system offers as countermeasures to such an event..

It is not unique…it is just another setting even to its creator. Find the context

You drew this one out of a bigger post on something else entirely.

Here is the context you drew this statement from!

I did mention that this branch of early elves became haughty and spurned the Seladrine (spelling error possible). Other races like dwarves draw from a known racial deity aka Moradin in the setting....so I would as that they once again were inconsistent in the creation process. Some few elves will turn to the Cerilian pantheon or back to the old gods....not many but some..

As to the other races.

All realms have their unique human stories. It is hardly a unique idea….look at the forward in the Atlas of Cerilia…the German Merchants & Russians guys is hardly that unique of an idea either…in fact it could have been a mantra for TSR…..look at all the settings and look for the Egyptian nock off’s shall we….LOL

All settings are unique, some more so than others. If you want to remove the 'inconsistencies' between settings then you perforce remove the uniqueness. In which case don't bother with the setting at all and just play the generic game either in a world you make or in FR/Greyhawk.

Respctfully, you are incorrect at least for my DMing skills & style. I can keep the unique facets of the world of Faerun, Greyhawk, Dark Sun, Krynn, Birthright, Spelljammer, …….ad nausium, unique in all matters.

Magic system consistency and planar connections simply seems to violate the purist viewpoint for you. I back your reasoning to see it that way, but will continue to put forth that it is an option, and can be a norm to keep the planar connectivity & magic systems connections the same, unless a creator offers a viable reason to change things……like Dark Suns Defilement magic.

The intent of the full post was to show……..

In this statement I was also involving the fact that the creators were relying on another racial deity to serve as the god of a race supplied by the TSR worlds settings. The elves of Cerilia being cut off from the Seldarine is definitely an issue with me, unless you can show a racial issue that offers a real reason for them to lose the connection. Unique flavor to prevent a race from being clerics is a mechanism to allow them to be damaged in killed easier….look no healers…..in the light that they are basically immortal. I can kills elves healers in the part or no. It is another useless arbitrary addition.

I also wanted to offer up how much unique thought was offered by the creators in the races of humans, by illuminating their original notes on the variations of man. German Merchants & Russian guys hardly leads to unique. If they offered up some real cultural differences later on I wouldn’t recognize the fact that they are Russian Guys and German Merchants now!! (aka…the Brecht & the Vos)

BR was designed, like other settings to be different to the existing standard, its uniqueness manifested in changed cultures, limited cultures for humans with depth, different monster types (vast legions were removed), enhanced political aspects to the game and substantial changes (for the time) to the magic setting - although many of the changes were taken up to a greater or lesser degree in later settings.

And none of that is changed in my setting just more magic in the setting than some. Also it is hardly unique to have German merchants & Russian guys as your starting points. It is what they did with them afterward that made them unique, but I can still clearly see them as the German & Russians they are.

There is no unique really in the game, and this is why. If you have to create a whole new society, you would have to list unique items like….dress, customs, life styles, tools, class structures, some of which is just dry reading that only a few find that interesting. It might be what you call flavor, but for me it is too much.

Relating to other societies and cultures we can draw from in the real world allows us to do away with all that needless errata. What they created is not so much unique as it is altered enough to offer a sense of uniqueness….which is all we can ask without having 3” thick releases such as the the Culture of the Rjurik or the Vos????

Sort of dry reading really!!

Also I hate to mention that the monsters they list in the back of the Blood Spawn are AD&D based. As to vast regions there are vast unexplored regions in world as well detailed (if weak in some areas) that need exploring….what is on the other side of Maztica (Aztec/Myan knockoff)???????

The political aspects never leave…as long as you can deal with the magic, it only heightens that part of the game.

MatanThunder

09-20-2007, 03:25 AM

It copies many other systems in so many ways that it really lacks it’s own merits unless you as the DM see it that way and want to be a purist.

On the contrary, I see the merits of the setting clearly - however whereas you seem to see the village archmage syndrome of the Forgotten Realms as not merely an advantage to the game but an outright necessity whcih requires correction if absent; I see the syndrome as a severe even terminal drawback. Like all settings BR draws on a number of sources, like all settings whether the resulting blend is better or worse than the norm depends on the skill of the creators and the taste of the user. I think that the mix in BR is exceptional - which is why I have stayed with it for a decade since it ceased, if you don't like it, don't play it - FR and Greyhawk are already generic without the need for you to modify their 'errors'.

There is hardly a archmage in every village as you well know. As if most arch mages (other than Elminster or the 7 Sisters and a few others) give a Rats posterior about such norms….. They are in towers that float in the sky above them invisibly….they are in the crypts and dark places…they are behind their rivals with killing magic, but they don’t care about the peasants….at all……ever met a Red Wizard??

You seem to be objecting (and I can only read it from what the post is intending to relay, and I apologize if I am wrong), to power levels of magic again, which clearly falls into the DM’s hands. The scenario is the same but the power of magic is played up instead of played down.

But yes, to preserve the individual merits of the settings you do need to be a purist and retain the aspects which make it different...

What are your merits in the system………I think you are simply trying to limit the affects of magic on the setting…..the setting stays unique either way.

This means you want it different from the interconnected settings produced by TSR. More power to you and those like you. Your games and ideas are just as valid as mine in the bigger picture.

Indeed all games are valid (if enjoyed) and indeed I want BR to stay different - if I wanted to play one of the interconnected 'generic' settings you so clearly love I would do so; I don't so I play BR instead.

My points are just as valid as yours unless you are setting up the site to pander to only the low level and magic limiting gamer. We all have the right as DM’s to determine how the Birthright world plays out and the idea that you want to present only one side of the magic possibilities & planar connections fly in the face of Freedom of Speech. I am posting about Birthright as a gamer, with respect to my fellow gamers.

I should not be censored because I like the idea of magic being part of such a magically vibrant setting.

But as you are posting in a forum dedicated to the specialist BR setting;

Specialist what…….??????

I have only posted about the problems in Birthright as relating to the Magic System and how the planar connections can be made. With logical arguments and well thought out thread information that can show the connection by page numbers to these debate points.

I am posting respectfully and about Birthright…….The system and site can survive magic having just a little more power and the planes connecting in a manner not of your liking.

not one dedicated to the generic inter-connected settings why waste time trying to convince us to change the specialist setting to the generic one because you think that the setting will be better that way?

I’m posting to the Birthright setting and that is what the site requires…not that I post it as you want me to see it.

Go post on Gleemax about the stuck in the mud dinosaurs who like old settings and systems and don't see how 4e Ebbaron is going to be the best thing ever - far better than their antique crud?

I will post as I see fit within the guidelines offered. I am posting to the Birthright setting. You are setting up yourself to censor the material based on the edition and how you personally perceive the setting. I will continue to post until I run afoul of some rule violation that someone like you can use to get me banned, but I have already got those who read my posts here and elsewhere thinking on the issues of magic and planar connection in Birthright…..so you are losing already really.

No TSR lacked leadership. Which is why when Gary came back from Hollywood, he found that his ex and some backers had seized control and shut him out……..

One interpretation, imo the leadership was too inwardly focused, dominated by people without an understanding of the industry, pitiful at organising an efficient supply chain and risk averse to the point that TSR was almost inert. these failings had the predictable result that TSR suffered an abrupt and substantial loss of income when a minor company exploded across the US with a card-game that drew away a large number of TSR's core audience for a year or two crippling TSR's cashflow and profitability (anyone else remember Dragon stuck at the printers for want of payment?) this failure nearly killed the company - and the game.

More???? :D

irdeggman

09-20-2007, 09:56 AM

Will no one else on the site speak up for freedom of expression in this issue....or are you all mute conformists????

Do you mean like this one from an earlier post of mine?

This does not mean that discussions on how to do things in a different manner do not have a place (or meaning) - only that such discussions need to reflect that it is a change/deviation from "the setting" as designed and not what the setting "was meant to be" or "should be". That is where my ire gets raised. I have many of my own viewpoints on what I do when I run BR - but I do not "pretend" that they are in accordance with what the setting material says or what it was "designed" to be. I alwyas try to separate "my version" from "the official version" when making this comparisons.

I have pretty consistently expressed that opinion (as have others). It is the way you have consistently stated (or clearly implied) that your views are the "correct" ones (reference the many, many times you have stated that the original game designers were "wrong") and not merely stated that in your game this is how things are done. The way that you frequently (if not almost constantly) tell people who refer to canon rules "as you interpret it" instead of "I play things differently and in my game because. . . ."

The majority of people posting against you (and it is sad that it is becoming that instead of discussion on how things could be done differently in a different type of world/game) are responding to the tone of superiority being expressed.

kgauck did a pretty good job of expressing this earlier.

irdeggman

09-20-2007, 10:09 AM

In that release (unofficial as it was never released,

This is a false statement.

Just because a product was not "sold" as a hard cover does not make it "unofficial".

It was "released" as a "free" web site product from WotC - that makes it "official" - as anything produced by WotC is considered "official".

The "free" information also included "Book of Regency" and the novel "the Falcon and the Wolf".

irdeggman

09-20-2007, 10:29 AM

I do have a question though. What deities did the Sie worship????

Also where did you dig them up, pg # and source please?

They didn't worship anyone - they were "innate" casters. Information is found in that "unofficial :rolleyes: " source, Bloodspawn, page 27.

The Sie don’t even warrant a full monster work up in Blood Spawn, and I want to see if they fit into the dynamics of the high powered magic that is part of what brought about the Shadow Plane/World phenomenon. It has been years since I read some of the material, and to be honest the background story is pretty dry reading.

No full write up because they don't exist anymore. They cannot exist as long as the elves and seelie faeries do since they are the two halves of the whole. Actually there is one (and only one) left - the Faerie Queen (and she does have a write up that includes clerical as well as wizardly spells).

Here is the information on the Sie from Bloodspawn:

The seelie faeries were the first children of the Shadow World. Long ago, when the waking world and the Shadow World were one, a race known as the Sie (“see”) populated the land. These creatures were beings of great magic, innate wielders of both sorcery that worked with nature (priestly spells) and sorcery that broke the rules of nature (wizardly spells). They cast their spells not by the prayer of priests or the rote memorization of human wizards, but rather the gathering of magical energies (the process yet employed by today’s elves).

The force that spilt the world into two halves was so strong that it also split the land’s inhabitants, ripping the Sie in twain. Each creature became two separate entities—a faerie (seelie) in the Shadow World and an elf (Sidhe) in Cerilia. The seelie retained control of natural magic and gained power over a new force in the Shadow World: the Seeming. The Sidhe retained control of wizardly magic and became bound to the land itself.

Though the ancient link between the two peoples has long since been forgotten by all but the Faerie Queen (the only surviving Sie), to this day, when an elf is born in Cerilia, a new faerie appears in the Seelie Court. While it is possible that a traveling elf or faerie could meet its counterpart, no one knows what would happen in such an extraordinary event.

Unless slain, seelie faeries are immortal in the Shadow World but mortal in Cerilia. Conversely, elves are immortal in Cerilia but mortal in the Shadow World. The faeries are as attuned to the nature of the Shadow World as elves are to Cerilia. This link enables them to exist in such a hostile environment with virtually no natural predators. The evil of the Shadow World, however, holds plenty of unnatural ones.

Seelie faeries are generally vegetarians, subsisting primarily on fruits, nuts, roots, and seeds. They do, however, eat meat when it is offered to them. The fair folk have an aversion to milk—a means by which savvy individuals have been known to expose a faerie so masked in the Seeming that its identity was otherwise indeterminable.

Thelandrin

09-20-2007, 10:40 AM

ShadowMoon

09-20-2007, 12:13 PM

This is getting seriously out of hand. No more flaming, passive aggressive insults or talk about the Nazis. Full stop. No one is trying to censor anyone, except where the thread devolves into pointless insults, flaming or character assaults.

For the second time, can we all please discuss this topic in a rational manner? Thank you.

As long as no one accuse people of being Nazis and purists (in obvious negative context), just because some of us are satisfied with original feel and rules presented in our favorite campaign setting...

PS: Although I don't mind deleting my previous post, it was far from flaming... I stated that I wouldn't mind banning someone from community if that one arrogantly calling other members with rather offensive term (Nazis) for sole reason of not agreeing with him that our favorite setting should be more Diablo/FR/whatever uber magic one...

Thelandrin

09-20-2007, 12:43 PM

Just for the record, I deleted all offensive political references and anyone else's quotes of said references. Also, with absolutely no disrespect to you, ShadowMoon, I don't think public discussion of bans is entirely appropriate, so I removed that bit too.

DanMcSorley

09-20-2007, 02:15 PM

Edit: editing out my own post. I normally read this through the br email list, so I wasn't seeing the whole thread before I replied.

AndrewTall

09-20-2007, 10:48 PM

It doesn't matter to me if the poster is a site mod. If I can present created material that contradicts them then I shall with great gusto.

However not only have you conspicuously failed to do so - your 'great gusto' tends to be stated in an inflammatory manner - and as a result is completely counter-productive.

So I will be posting as to how the mods treat gamers here. Enjoy!!

By ignoring their flame-baiting, then quietly, and repeatedly, helping to explain the setting to them? All we have done is point out the way the setting is written and request that when you suggest modifications you have the grace to call them such without demanding that we either accept that the setting was flawed to avoid the modifications you propose or that the game should be re-interpreted by all to include them.

If you reflect on the posted material from the Manual of the Planes #2 & #4 can do everything the seeming can. Oh wait that was deleted by a mod.

My intention was too split the posts within the threads not delete any parts of them, my apologies if I erred.

Your point is irrelevant in any case, the question is not 'do the Shadow Realm and Shadow Plane have similar characteristics' - both have a similar design aim (spooky other world giving the excuse for demonic minions and rapid travel) so congruence is to be expected - the question is rather whether altering the setting so that the shadow realm is replaced / expanded into the shadow plane would be an improvement. I have yet to hear any benefits mentioned from discarding the setting system and adopting the standard DnD planar system and given the likelihood of cultural contamination see only downsides to doing so.

I see the connections and have found a fine way to integrate the changes that the author failed to adequately represent in the opinions of a reader.

No, you appear want to have the connections, ignore or do not consider why they were severed and fail to explain the benefits of your proposed changes. I remain unconvinced.

The loss of a True Mage or the brands of lesser magic are not that big of deal for me in the presentation of the setting.

Obvious from your posts and fine in your campaign - but they are a fairly major change for those who do not want yet another common magic world and as such should be accepted as a variant, not demanded to become the norm.

A high level mage of any type is to be feared and respected.

Indeed, which is why the original setting limited their number and often put severe social constraints (Rjurik, Khinasi, Vos) on them. Of course a high level anything should be feared and respected - mages no more or less than any other class.

At least an MMORPG isn't able to cheat the rules. Put up defenses with information or simply don't respond.

We don't cheat the rules, to cheat one has play with a hidden ruleset different to that agreed - we have simply stated the rules that the setting utilises and requested that any changes are noted as such. I would hope that any rational person would respond to confusion by providing information, and note that we have responded to your posts repeatedly despite your often abrasive tone.

The differences are that I can see advancement in the power level due to the very nature and strength of Realm Magic, and also, that I can see interconnectivity in the magic system that makes up the greater TSR setting games. I also can seamlessly infer that the Shadow World is in fact a part of the Shadow Plane by linking environmental factors that exist in both planar representations that are totally congruous with the issue. I have posted the material before.

Incorrect on all counts - as has been repeatedly stated BR is magic rare not magic weak. I am not aware of anyone arguing that realm magic was not an expansion to power that put mage regents on par with landed regents and the like. The interconnectivity - as again repeatedly stated - is very deliberately altered in BR as written. Your latter point was I fear not as persuasive to others as to yourself and failed to explain why the reinterpretation was superior in any event.

My point is that the magic system can be interconnected & consistent in Birthright (and other settings), because they offered so little uniqueness to what is laughably called “True Magic”, while the Dark Sun setting set up an entire magic system that drained life force from the land & creatures to power spells.

Darksun had a 'flavour' adjustment to magic - the spells available (in number and type) were practically identical to the standard - the BR change to heavily limit spell selection to make the magician class was a substantially greater modification to the wizard than the addition of a defiling effect to make the defiler class.

So you want to talk about physics, when I am talking about the magic system????? That is really incongruous???

Not really, you were asking why magicians had access to some schools and not others complaining that the schools chosen were arbitrary. I made a comment on the relative power requirements of the schools in question (all magican spells were low power, which is in keeping with the setting given that magicians do not fully tap mebhaighl) and also commented on the impact of the school selection on the combat effectiveness. I agree that Divination and Illusion are not 'weaker' in the round if properly played, but they are far more indirect than the more combative schools and so have a different impact on game-play.

I also demonstrated fairly effectively that the attacking mage in question could be deposed of, <snip>. You just have to agree to grow your game to that level.

Again you fail to see the point - yes the attacking mage can be defeated with counter spells - recognised in all of my responses on the subject - but those counter spells will not be illusion/divination based. Accordingly if you remove the restrictions on travel magic it is necessary to increase the number of true mages to permit other regents ready access to the counter-spells. As such the restriction on travel magics which you saw as arbitrary was in fact a necessary outcome of the restriction on the number of mages.

As to 'growing the game' I disagree that it would be an improvement, as a DM I found that unrestricted magic and high level play meant vast amounts of my time was wasted designing combat tactics to properly use the options available to a high level wizard adversary, to find challenges for a magic loaded party, etc and as a result less time was available for designing actual role playing situations to the inevitable detriment of the game.

Also I hate to mention that the monsters they list in the back of the Blood Spawn are AD&D based.

Given that BR is an AD&D game and this has never been questioned I can't think why you hate to mention the basis :confused:

There is hardly a archmage in every village as you well know.

The prevalence of mages in FR is hardly something you could miss. Look at almost any city or town mentioned and you will see multiple high level mages - the term 'village archmage syndrome' is simply a comment on the absurdity of the situation give the destructive capability of standard high level ADnD magic.

What are your merits in the system………I think you are simply trying to limit the affects of magic on the setting…..the setting stays unique either way.

The merits in a magic rare system are numerous, but generally revolve around less time spent on 'roll' as opposed to 'role' playing, greater perception of players to threats and challenges to their PC's, greater focus on thinking through problems as opposing to blasting through, etc. In this aspect of the system I agree with limiting the effects of magic - I see the benefits of using the setting as written and believe that they outweigh any loss from reducing the prevalence of magic.

I should not be censored because I like the idea of magic being part of such a magically vibrant setting.

We are not saying you cannot change the magic and other aspects of the system, merely that you are changing it - that is not censorship.

You are setting up yourself to censor the material based on the edition and how you personally perceive the setting. I will continue to post until I run afoul of some rule violation that someone like you can use to get me banned

No we are not. We have not at any point stopped your ranting - merely corrected you when you mis-interpret it. That you failed to see the humour in my Gleemax comment does not surprise me - for someone so vehemently pro-AD&D anti anti-3e you seem to spend a lot of time arguing against other peoples' liking for 'old fashioned' aspects of their old games which I find amusing... As for rules violations if Arjan/Irdeggman/etc wanted to ban you they would have done so - there is no need to scrabble for rules infractions that I am aware of, they have not done so. Indeed many of us have spent a considerable amount of time explaining the setting to you.

Beruin

09-21-2007, 12:39 AM

Man, twelve hours away from the boards, and all hell breaks loose...

For the second time, can we all please discuss this topic in a rational manner? Thank you.

I'll give it a try, though there are so many different topics swirling around here that I find it difficult to focus...

On Elves:

Making elves reject religion was again a deliberate change - the elves are meant to be very different in attitude to elves of other settings of the time and the refusal to accept the concept of worship was part of this - and specifically blamed for the ability of the humans to defeat the elves across Cerilia prior to Deismaar.

Unique flavor to prevent a race from being clerics is a mechanism to allow them to be damaged in killed easier….look no healers…..in the light that they are basically immortal. I can kills elves healers in the part or no. It is another useless arbitrary addition.

The elves rejecting religion is a great idea flavour-wise, cutting them off from all healing magic is indeed somewhat problematic, given their immortality. How large is the chance that an individual elf will someday suffer a crippling accident, disease or injury during his millennia of existence? IIRC, the Complete Book of Elves even offered a kind of magical cybernetics for this reason - not that this is something I'd like to see IMC, but it highlights that an immortal people would probably be very concerned with preserving their bodily integrity and health. This would make the elves either very skilled surgeons and technologically advanced medical practitioners or give them at least some access to healing magic.

I also do think that elves should excel in nature-based magic which is basically barred to them if they can't become clerics or druids. There are a number of options to work around this, like introducing arcane equivalents to these spells or perhaps in 3E feats like animal, plant or nature mage or possibly a prestige class, but the easiest solution is to allow elves to become druids. Even though I did like the notion of elves rejecting religion, I therefore decided on the following take:

The Sidhelien honor the cosmos itself as the only divine being. This being, the soul or world mother (the denomination Avanu´ilúvienti is feminine, also this deity is not normally associated with a specific sex), does not appear in the form of any living being, but rather the forests, mountains, lakes and oceans are the deity and every stone and stream and each living thing contains a spark of its divinity. This belief is a theorized and monotheistic evolution from the original animist religion of the Sidhelien.

Here's the accompanying creation myth:

At the beginning, there was only chaos. Out of the chaos, order emerged. Order and chaos wrestled with each other and mingled during this process. From this collision, the world sprang. It contained the powers of both chaos and order, still mindlessly fighting for untold millennia, until in the end sentience emerged and with it, balance, the fragile bonding of chaos and order. Avanu' ilúvienti was born. She created the eternal cycle, an order, fertilized by the creative energies of chaos or a chaos, restrained by the forces of order. The current shape of the world developed. The four elements formed and finally, life emerged. Yet still chaos and order threatened the balance and hence Avanu' ilúvienti herself. Thus, from star dust, the four elements and the waters of life,she created the guardians of balance, the first-born, the first elves
Okay, note that I originally wrote this in German and translated on the spot, so this is definitely not high quality prose, but you'll get the gist.
This is more a philosophical belief than a structured religion, but it still gives elves enough spiritual 'oomph' to become druids. AFAIR, someone (kgauck?) proposed the option that druids might use source holdings instead of temple holdings a while back, and this would fit nicely with this concept, imho.

Thelandrin

09-21-2007, 01:21 AM

Well Beruin, please by all means feel free to write your own interpretation of Sidhelien spirituality and woodland connection on the wiki. I have a very simple suggestion on my userpage and on my House Rules page, but I'd be interested to see yours :)

Beruin

09-21-2007, 02:21 AM

Continuing here....

On religion in general, I always thought that this is a weak point in all published settings, BR included, with the Scarred Lands setting as the only exception I know of. For the most part, the published settings offer a haphazard collection of deities, some good, some bad, some in-between with no internal coherence. What's worse, the existence of these gods is universally accepted by all races and cultures. This is not how it works in our world and not what I want IMC. Religion is an important distinguishing factor between cultures, and I want my cultures to be distinct.
IMC, Anuirean religion is closely modelled after medieval Christianity, monotheism included. Most of the official gods are retained as saints, which enables me to keep most of the temples as orders devoted to a particular saint. The Rjurik (which are purely Celtic IMC, without Norse influences) worship Danu, the three-fold Goddess, and Dagda, the God of Dozen Faces, each with a number of lesser aspects.
Every culture has a different creation myth (though I haven't worked them all out yet or probably ever will) and each culture essentially believes that it alone is right and all others are wrong, whether simply mistaken or downright heretical (You know, this is similar to what sometimes happens on these boards ;) ).
These beliefs and myths can have similarities, but might also be mutually exclusive. I haven't really decided who's right or who's wrong (other than the fact that Azrai is a real threat, but his nature remains debatable). This of course means, that I don't have a structured cosmology, but as I'm not much into plane or setting hopping, I don't really need one. Should I really be pressed into revealing the true nature of the universe (and the gods) I'd probably argue along the lines of the 2E Shaman's Handbook, which essentially states that spirits (and gods as very strong spirits) do not really exist, save in the imaginations of mortals and the belief of mortals powers and forms their capabilities. A cleric gains his powers from his god because he and a lot of other believers believe that his god provides these powers.

Back to elves/Sie:
The Sie were masters of all magic (both clerical and wizardly) - when they split (and there is a one-to-one correlation between seelie-faeries and elves) the seelie-faeries inherited the mastery of clerical magic while the elves got the mastery of wizardly magic.
I never really liked this explanation very much, I always pictured seelie-faeries has having a stronger affinity to arcane than to divine magic (okay, druidical magic excluded). This distinction also does not work very well in 3E, which blurs the line between cleric and wizard spells anyway - bards getting a number of healing spells, clerics getting powerful offensive spells via their domains, prestige classes that advance both divine and arcane magic, initiate feats and so on - and also basically allows any race access to all classes.

irdeggman

09-21-2007, 09:11 AM

irdeggman

09-21-2007, 09:26 AM

Another effect if introducing a larger amount of "true mages" into the setting is the lessoning of the "political" forces that ar intrinsic to Birthright.

Having more than a mere few wizards capable of casting high level magics allows for magic to bypass the political.

For example - ready access to "travel" magics allows for rapid insertion of troops (without having to deal with the political fall out of going through some else's lands to get to your target).

Ready access to high level damage dealing spells allows for singular wizards to "replace" troops. Why take the time and effort to raise a legion of troops when 1 or 2 true wizards could do the same damage?

Birthright more so than any other setting produced, relied and revolved around politics and diplomatic actions at the domain level. Even groups of players that spend little to no time at the domain level of play need to have their DM keep track of what is happening on the political front since that determines what types of situations/foes the PCs will encounter. In BR the political situation tends to be very mercurial and unstable, more so in some places than others - but in general this is true of the overall setting.

Beruin

09-21-2007, 12:14 PM

I do think that BR (via Book of Priestcraft) did more towards "politicizing" religion than did other settings/material. The differences between the different "sects" of Haelyn for example are done fairly well - although like almost everything BR they were designed for a lot of DM interpretation and fill in of missing information, but the skeletal structure is there.

Yes, I agree. There are still some things I don't like that much - for instance, holdings are sometimes intermingled too much, the WIT is strong very near to the headquarters of the OIT, which I see as too small, given that it was the traditional church of the empire, but on the whole, there's a lot of potential here.
The possible split between the Ghoeran and the Tuornen arm of the MOC currently features strongly IMC.

Beruin

09-21-2007, 12:53 PM

On to magic/magicians:

As I mention above the Magician & Seer could easily be a specialization kit.

This is mainly arguing semantics, the same train of thought could be applied to rangers, paladins, druids, and to a lesser extent, bards.

Maybe some innovative thought on the issue of “True Magic” would have me without a foot to stand on, but they used a very good system that can seamlessly be integrated into the dynamics of Cerilia.
...
True magic offered very little in uniqueness, and the number of mages in the setting is entirely a DM adjudicated issue.

I always thought that BR was quite innovative with the concept of realm spells and channelling mebhaighl.. When preparing for my current campaign, shortly before I made the switch to 3E, I expanded the notion of channelling mebhaighl to all arcane spells, using the channelling option from Player's Option: Spells & Magic, while using conditional magic for clerics. I adapted this system to 3E, revised it a bit, but still use it. This makes magic in my campaign very flexible, for instance I once allowed my 7th level mage to learn an 8th level divination spell, when it suited the plot. It cost nearly all of her spell points and the amount of mebhaighl channelled nearly killed her, but she could do it. This also makes sorcerers somewhat less useful, as wizards are already quite flexible and can learn more spells.

As a side note with regard to Dark Sun, I believe channeling and defiling magic do share a connection, as both harness the magic of the land to a differing extent. It would be conceivable, that so much mebhaighl could be harnessed that the land would be sucked dry, or the flow of mebhaighl seriously disrupted at least. This might be a way for Azrai to come back, if only he managed to acquire enough sources which would then be 'tapped' (I know, that's another game) and drained in an immense realm spell. This might make for an interesting Dark Sun/Birthright crossover I once thought, though I never came around to developing this any further.

kgauck

09-21-2007, 03:20 PM

What's worse, the existence of these gods is universally accepted by all races and cultures. This is not how it works in our world and not what I want IMC. Religion is an important distinguishing factor between cultures, and I want my cultures to be distinct.
There is a period in late antiquity, lets say after Alexander, when religion seemed to become syncretic, and the Greeks tried to identify which Egyptian (or wherever) god was the Nile version of which Olympian.

Many of the other cultures they encountered were other Indo-European cultures, with many of the same myths and gods, just with different names and some different cultural elements.

This syncreticism seems to have been then D&D norm since the begining. Rather than religion being exotic, it was universal.

In Birthright, like the indo-Europeans, you have a group of related cultural groups, who may have one common origin, and a shared religion.

Even so, I think its very interesting to highlight the cultural differences within religion. For instance, I have a priest of Sera in my current Rjurik campaign, and I think the Rjurik (especially as the PC has a tribal origin) would reject (or ignore) Sera's wealth and trade aspects, and focus on her luck aspects. The priest has Luck and Travel as spheres, and will be using some luck feats from the Scoundrels book. Since the Rjurik have such a concern with fate and destiny, a fate oriented Sera makes much more sense. But for Sera's followers in the highlands, fate is not so clearly mapped out, or rather it is mapped, but much more fluid. Its possible to learn how to change your fate by learning how fate and luck work in the world. Sera doesn't support supplication to get luck, she prefers you make your own luck, but through her teaching and lore, its possible to learn how to do this more effectivly.

Certainly a Rjurik luck-priest of Sera is going to end up being a totally different kind of priest from a Brecht wealth-priest of Sera. Not only in build, but in attitude, affinity, and interest.