Some of you old-timers out there may remember this, but I`m posting it

mostly for the benefit of the newer folks, as well as the members of the

Birthright.net forums who may never have seen it before. It`s a compilation

of a combined effort from a few of the tinkers on Birthright-L a couple

years back. I think you`ll like it.



Specialty Holdings



The concept behind Specialty Holdings combines ideas from the design

philosophies in 3e regarding "prestige classes" and "feats" at the domain

level. Folks have been suggesting this kind of thing for a while, normally

having it fall under the old "monument" construction rules per

Birthright.net, but Specialty Holdings tie even more directly to the holding

levels rather than just being the result of a building process.



Specialized holdings are created when a player declares a rule action to

specialize his holding. Instead of advancing to the next holding level, it

stays the same level buts gets an additional descriptor marking its new

effects. For example, a Law(5) would need a rule action to make it a Law(6)

or a Law(5,Secret Police). Only one such specialization could be used per

holding per province. Thus, the specialized holding gets you a

specialization benefit but the drawback is that its not as effective overall

as if you`d of just ruled it normally. There may also be additional

difficulty and expenses involved in specializing a holding, above the normal

cost for a rule action.



For additional information on how specialized holdings work, I`ve compiled

some of the efforts of contributors on a geocities website. Please, I

highly encourage and request people to take a look at this information and

comment regarding their own opinions, suggestions, and submissions. The

included list is far from exhaustive or complete, and is well open to

further expansion and variation.



The information can be found at

www.geocities.com/lordrahvin/holdings.htm



You can either view it in sections for easier reading or download the

complete text file. It`s too long to submit here in detail.



Thanks,



--Lord Rahvin