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  1. #1
    hobbychest@pcsia.co
    Guest

    Blood of Azrai

    I have to agree with Tripp on this one. I played an Azrai blooded
    character. Good actions and evil actions did not affect the bloodline
    strength of the character one way or the other. The good and evil
    aspect of the bloodline was a psychological thing to roleplay. I don't
    think any alignment rules needed to be placed on Azrai blood. The
    "voice of Azrai" is actually what I chose as my blood ability. Sure it
    was of no use whatsoever as far as advantages, but it made for cool
    roleplaying opportunities. Azrai bloodlines should be treated pretty
    much like any other bloodline except it has somewhat of a corrupting
    effect. It might affect your alignment and actions, but your alignment
    and actions should not affect the bloodline.

    Robert Thomson


    BI>I'm gonna jump into the discussion discussing the Taint of Azrai.

    BI>I'm not going to argue how a DM(or Player) should view having a
    BI>Bloodline of Azrai, what I'm going to discuss is this stuff about
    BI>acquiring Azrai's bloodline by doing various things.

    BI>Ok, Let's say my bloodline is that of,oh, let's pick Reynir[because I
    BI>like wolves]. Ok, for some reason or another, I do a horrible, and
    BI>despicable act, who knows, maybe I killed my parents and raped the
    BI>horses. Alright, I'm blooded, so my folks probably were too. For
    BI>simplicity sake, let's say the were both Reynir as well. Now, why the
    BI>heck should I get, or even have it possible to get, an Azrai bloodline
    BI>out of this[assuming all of the horses were unblooded]? There's no
    BI>Azrai related blood within 100 miles of our farm[at the East end of
    BI>Albiele], so where woulde it come from? Frankly, I see no reason for
    BI>Azrai to enter into this at all. Now, surely it was an evil act and
    BI>all, and standard Alignment penalties will derive from it[unless I was a
    BI>hideously evil person already], but it shouldn't do anything to my
    BI>Reynir bloodline except maybe raise it's Strength for the Bloodtheft
    BI>itself.

    BI>Now, Bloodtheft IS NOT an evil practice in, and of, itself. What is
    BI>evil is going around just offing folks for the sake of it, but if you're
    BI>a goodguy Paladin, and you happen to kill a horribly evil blooded
    BI>individual by heart piercing, or even a good person by accident, then
    BI>there shouldn't even be any alignment penalties.

    BI>Now, the only time that this taint of Azrai stuff needs to come in is:

    BI>1) The character already has an Azrai Bloodline
    BI>2) The victim has an Azrai Bloodline
    BI>3) Maybe some artifact in the area[bloodstones?] have Azrai's power in
    BI>them.
    BI>4) Investiture of some sort involving an Azrai blooded individual

    BI>Apart from those, I just don't see it. Now, as to how you figure the
    BI>bloodline change, that's up to you.

    BI>As a final note, let me remind everyone, that nobody out there is
    BI>arguing that especially good acts will bring about an Bloodline of
    BI>Anduiras spontaneously, so why should Azrai's be any different. As far
    BI>as I'm concerned, Azrai's bloodline acts exactly like all of the others,
    BI>and before anyone goes pointing to the physical manifestations of it, or
    BI>something like that, just remember that BE introduces the Blood Ability
    BI>that causes that, which is only associated with Azrai[I think it is
    BI>Bloodform], so even that is just a Blood Ability.

    BI>Ok, that's enough from me for now, and, as usual, let me say that all of
    BI>this is just my own, humble, opinion. So, most of you can disregard it,
    BI>however those of you for whom I DM, hahaha, you have to live by it,
    BI>muhaahahahahaha[unless you can convince me why I'm wrong].

  2. #2
    Tripp Elliott
    Guest

    Blood of Azrai

    Mark A Vandermeulen wrote:

    > I certainly see your point, and I agree that you have a completely valid
    > way of interpreting the rules, but my justification for my own
    > interpretation is three-fold. First, I simply needed some mechanic to keep
    > my players from becoming blood-crazed homicidal maniacs, and the
    > possibililty that they would become gibbering monsters seemed to work the
    > best. Second, in this world, Azrai became so incredibly powerful that it
    > took ALL the other gods to kill him. My belief is that this is because he
    > discovered and took over the Shadow World, which is intimately associated
    > with Cerilia (or rather Aebrynnis). I believe that opening ones-self to
    > evil opens one up to the shadow-world influences, and in this way the
    > taint of Azrai "leaks" into the person's bloodline, potentially changing
    > it if not opposed. Azrai was a lot more powerful than the other gods, and
    > yet his scions are no more common that those of the other Old Gods: my
    > interpretation of this is that a large chunk of his "god-stuff" lies
    > hidden somewhere in the shadow-world, keeping it tained and dark. Third, a
    > number of awnsheighlein bear traits that seem to have some from
    > derivaitons of other gods. As examples, the Sphynx and the Lamia both
    > exhibit affinities for cats, which is the animal associated with the
    > bloodline of Brenna, not with Azrai (who is associated with snakes). I've
    > taken this to mean that they were both once humans with Brenna's bloodline
    > who were subsequently "taken over" by the taint of Azrai. Finally, it is
    > simply my own personal preferance to role-play in a world where good is
    > hard, but rewarding, and evil is "easy" and seductive. My personal agenda,
    > if you will.

    I always figured that "blood-crazed homicidal maniacs" don't tend to
    have the greatest longevity in most societies. Even the Gorgon would
    probably take exception to somebody going around offing folks for no
    reason at all, and might take measures to stop it.

    > I would have to disagree strongly. At least to a lawful-good character,
    > accidentally killing a good person IS an evil act, and worthy of some
    > gut-wrenching guilt if nothing else. If not enough to actually turn the
    > god away from a paladin, it is at least enough to require a Quest to atone
    > for it. In my Cerilia, however, the guilt is not all that one acquires
    > from such an act: the evil itself becomes a tangible force which needs to
    > be overcome.

    Not to start anything here, but you're kidding right? Good people kill
    good people all the time. It's usually called war. Even in a war where
    one side's leadership is totally on the moral shortside, the common
    dogface in the trenches is the same no matter which side he is on.
    There's absolutely nothing to even keep one Paladin from killing
    another, and it need not be in a joust, or tournament either. It is
    completely possible for two good-aligned nations to go to war. I would
    argue that the Spanish-American War is just such an example[but let's
    not let this drop into a history discussion ok].

    Also, for some reason, people refuse to play Lawful-Good characters
    because they think of them as goodie-goodie people. I look at this
    completely differently. Being Lawful-Good tells me two thing, you
    believe in Law and Order, and the majority of your acts are good.
    Launcelot was LG, and he was sleeping with his best friend's wife[I know
    we had this discussion a month ago]. Lawful good people can steal, lie,
    cheat, and if necessary do whatever is necessary if they happen to
    believe that the Ends justifies the means.

    Too many people also want to apply modern Western Standards to how
    Paladins must act. I was playing a Female Paladin who loved men, she
    couldn't get enough of them. Had another player argue that she had to
    be celibate, and I laughed at him[both the player and the character he
    was running]. Later on in that campaign, the same player used a horn of
    blasting or something that destroyed my Holy Sword. I had the healing
    one from the Paladin's book. So, my Paladin took the fact that her holy
    sword crimbled to dust as a sign from her god that she had lost favor,
    and so she committed suicide to atone for it. So, this same player
    tries to tell me that she can't commit suicide because that's evil. Boy
    did we start going at it then, I was pulling out Japanese examples left
    and right. Anyways, my point is that what Modern Western Civilization
    deems to be good or evil, is not what folks in the BR world would, so
    remember that.[sorry I left on a tangent there]

    > It really all comes down to role-playing bias and prefrences, IMHO. In
    > your formulation, Cerilia is much more high fantasy themed, while in my
    > formulation, it is more like a "world of darkness" in a medieval setting
    > (without actually being Vampire: the Dark Ages. Brrrr. :p )

    Yes, it sounds that way. I tend to think of Cerilia(or at least
    Anuirea) as something like Middle Age Europe, which many call the Dark
    Ages, but I look at it from the point of view of the folks who were
    trying to regain the glory of the Roman(Anuirean) Empire. Calling that
    Era the Dark Ages is a misnomer because apart from a few plagues and
    such it wasn't that bad of a time.

    I tend to view Brechtur as being more of a Renaissance period culture,
    and for that, I remind everyone that the Renaissance was a distinctly
    Northern Italian event. The rest of Europe only participated on the
    fringes of it.

    The Rjurik Highlands are a wild area very much like the Scottish
    Highlands around the time of the movie Braveheart.

    The Khinasi are, as many have pointed out Arabian, and we have yet to
    see the Vos, but my take on that would be go buy some Robert E. Howard
    and L. Sprague DeCamp to learn about the Vos.

    Ok, once again, I've talked too much.

    Tripp

  3. #3
    Tripp Elliott
    Guest

    Blood of Azrai

    Joel Parrish wrote:

    > ======== Fwd by: Joel Parrish ========
    >
    > The only ill effect I could see from that act is maybe a blooded centaur a
    > few months later..... ;)

    An excellent point, but which Derivation would it have. Hahaha, I was
    wondering if anybody actually reads the stupid quips I put into my
    messages.

    Tripp

  4. #4

    Blood of Azrai

    At 08:41 PM 10/29/97 -0800, Tripp Elliott(kmelliot@erols.com)wrote:
    >

    >
    >Ok, Let's say my bloodline is that of,oh, let's pick Reynir[because I
    >like wolves]. Ok, for some reason or another, I do a horrible, and
    >despicable act, who knows, maybe I killed my parents and raped the
    >horses. Alright, I'm blooded, so my folks probably were too. For
    >simplicity sake, let's say the were both Reynir as well. Now, why the
    >heck should I get, or even have it possible to get, an Azrai bloodline
    >out of this[assuming all of the horses were unblooded]? There's no
    >Azrai related blood within 100 miles of our farm[at the East end of
    >Albiele], so where woulde it come from? Frankly, I see no reason for
    >Azrai to enter into this at all. Now, surely it was an evil act and
    >all, and standard Alignment penalties will derive from it[unless I was a
    >hideously evil person already], but it shouldn't do anything to my
    >Reynir bloodline except maybe raise it's Strength for the Bloodtheft
    >itself.
    >

    >
    >As a final note, let me remind everyone, that nobody out there is
    >arguing that especially good acts will bring about an Bloodline of
    >Anduiras spontaneously, so why should Azrai's be any different.
    >

    >

    There is only one reason for spontaneously tainting(or at least threatening
    to)a BL with Azrai Blood, and that is PC control. I have been gaming with
    my Players for over a decade and many of them are excellent role-players,
    but often I hear stories from other DMs(on this List and others)about newer
    players who become power hungry. The BAs of BR can make this problem worse.
    Really new Players will often pay heed to warnings about alignment shifts,
    but someone who has been gaming a year or two may laugh them off preferring
    power to virtue. At this point corruption of the characters BL can be the
    perfect tool. There is little or no need to reward good Players beyond what
    they will earn from their acts(although the granting of a BL for a
    particularly good, self-sacrificing, and pious act might make a good plot
    line for an adventure). I don't believe anyone will argue that beneficial
    BLs should not be handed out as rewards, but I can see where some DMs would
    use the Azrai taint as a way to prevent such power hungry actions, like
    producing mass offspring just to "harvest" their BS. While I can understand
    this train of thought, I don't agree with it. I say if they go mad with
    power-lust then let them, but let them reap what they sow. Bad reputations,
    vengeful friends or relatives, Curses, and even the old alignment shift,
    can be just as effective and a little more subtile. Without having to use
    much in the way of game mechanics you can create a great role-playing
    opportunity. Still I have heard some DMs *need* to use a heavy hand, and
    that is a shame. I'll stop my babbling here.


    Sepsis, richt@metrolink.net (ICQ:3777956)

    "War is a matter of vital importance to the State;
    the province of life or death;
    the road to survival or ruin.
    It is mandatory that it be thoroughly studied."
    -Sun Tzu,(The Art of War)-

    BR Netbook: http://webpages.metrolink.net/~veleda/birth.html

  5. #5
    Mark A Vandermeulen
    Guest

    Blood of Azrai

    Well, I'm obviously in the minority here, so after this I'll shut up on
    the subject. I apparently haven't been too clear on my ideas, and its
    certainly true that they appear in about 4 or 5 posts so some people may
    not have actually seen them all. Because I can't help feeling that I'm
    being horrible misunderstood here (sob. poor me, etc etc. ;)

    First of all, I am not really all that much an ogre of a DM that
    apparently I'm coming across as. I do not have problem gamers, but i
    believe that this is in part because of this rule that I set out very
    early on in the game: if you do evil, you invite the taint of Azrai into
    your "blood." It is completely reversible, but it does need to be fought
    and overcome, through role-playing. The whole idea was to get my gamers to
    think about their actions, and their consequences, rather than their stats
    and how fast they are growing. I wanted them to develop stories, not their
    character sheet. And it works very well. We've had some wonderful times
    role-playing the difficult choices that have to be made, and the
    temptation to take the easy way out of a tough situation (letting your
    sword do your thinking, etc.). I often let another player role-play the
    "tempter voice" of another player's character. Some of my players have
    found it interesting to try "skirting" the edge of evil, and this way
    doing so has a palpable cost, rather than just benefits. (After all, if
    they do become awnsheighlein, they loose their characters, but one
    character actually started developing a blood form before he repented, and
    boy was it tough to redeem himself then.)
    Also, I said in one or two posts, killing someone in a battle or
    in self-defense, or in a duel where both parties agree to duel to the
    death, is NOT an evil act: it is a form of socially-accepted killing, and
    therefore not evil. But killing an opponent because it is easier than
    working around him, or because you're angry at him, or because you were
    being chased and ran into him and drew your sword and killed him before
    taking the time to see whether he was hostile, all these are evil acts. In
    fact, most of the instances of killing that happen are evil: killing
    through neglect, killing because you "went too far," killing because you
    were careless. Each of these could be called "accidents," but I would call
    each one of them evil.
    And finally, that which detirmines what acts are likely to invite
    in the taint of azrai is actually detirmined by each character. We had a
    long discussion when we were creating characters about what each
    character's philosophy and morality were. An act invites the taint of
    Azrai only if the Character feels that he has committed and evil act.
    Needless to say, this meant that some characters were much more
    "resistant" to the taint than others. After all, a theif can steal
    something, and not really believe that he is doing something "evil." And
    yet killing may be something altogether different. It has more to do with
    whether the character sees himself as doing something evil, partaking of
    an evil act, which creates an opening that allows the Taint of Azrai to
    leak in from the Shadow World.

    Actually, I have also been playing that each bloodline DOES have a sort of
    psychological tendancy that goes along with it. People with Masela's
    bloodline tend to be drawn to water, they take vacations to the ocean
    shore, and may tend to be found living near bodies of water more often
    than would be expected by chance along. It's not anything which can't be
    resisted, but it's something that's always there. They "fell better" or
    "feel right" when they're near the ocean. Reynir's scions have an affinity
    for wild land, and for being loners. Basaia's scions tend to be
    intellectually-oriented. Brenna's scions tend to think of things in terms
    of money. Vorryn's scions may tend to be moody, or mysterious. And
    Andurias's scions tend to be very aware of their honor. And Azrai's scions
    have the Taint of Azrai, that tendency that calls them to the easy way,
    the selfish way. All these can be resisted (you CAN be a paladin with the
    bloodline of Azrai) but it is something that is always with you, always
    there in the back of your mind.
    I hope this clears up any mistaken beliefs about my ideas. They
    are my ideas, so I tend to think that they are good ones, but I'm not
    monomaniacal enough to think that everyone will (or should) agree with me.
    As always: do what you think is best, what will give you the best, most
    enjoyable game. I DID think that more people would find these ideas
    interesting, but that's not necessarily the case. At any rate, I'm done
    now. If anyone would like to keep up this converstion I would be happy to
    do so, but we should probably do so via private e-mail and conserve some
    bandwidth on the mailing list.

    Sincerely,
    Mark VanderMeulen
    vander+@pitt.edu

  6. #6
    Neil Barnes
    Guest

    Blood of Azrai

    On Thu, 30 Oct 1997, Tripp Elliott wrote:
    > Yes, it sounds that way. I tend to think of Cerilia(or at least
    > Anuirea) as something like Middle Age Europe, which many call the Dark
    > Ages, but I look at it from the point of view of the folks who were
    > trying to regain the glory of the Roman(Anuirean) Empire.

    Technologically & culturally Anuire is much more Renaissence than Dark
    Ages. They've got Galleons, Plate Armour [1], an Urban middle class and
    large High-Medieval castles.

    The renaissence was very much about recapturing the 'glories' of the
    Roman empire. It was built upon the reimportation of methematics and
    classical art & literature from Byzantium, Muslim Spain & the Outremer
    kingdoms of the middle east. Michaelangelo's David is probably the best
    example of this - the renaissence was very much obsessed with Classical
    ideals of perfection.

    neil

    [1] Even in the Crusades the Christian cavalry were still using chain
    mail as standard, plate is a much later devlopment, c 1400 AD.

  7. #7
    Adam Theo
    Guest

    Blood of Azrai

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    Mark A Vandermeulen wrote:

    > Actually, I have also been playing that each bloodline DOES have a sort of
    > psychological tendancy that goes along with it. People with Masela's
    > bloodline tend to be drawn to water, they take vacations to the ocean
    > shore, and may tend to be found living near bodies of water more often
    > than would be expected by chance along. It's not anything which can't be
    > resisted, but it's something that's always there. They "fell better" or
    > "feel right" when they're near the ocean. Reynir's scions have an affinity
    > for wild land, and for being loners. Basaia's scions tend to be
    > intellectually-oriented. Brenna's scions tend to think of things in terms
    > of money. Vorryn's scions may tend to be moody, or mysterious. And
    > Andurias's scions tend to be very aware of their honor. And Azrai's scions
    > have the Taint of Azrai, that tendency that calls them to the easy way,
    > the selfish way. All these can be resisted (you CAN be a paladin with the
    > bloodline of Azrai) but it is something that is always with you, always
    > there in the back of your mind.
    - --
    hello, Adam Theo here,
    nice idea. i've usually played it as that BLs don't affect personality
    or class, because early on, my players felt that when they made a
    wizard, that they should have a BL of Vorynn. i tried to disuade them
    of this, and i did, but it took along time. mostly it aws just because
    of the way they thought. many of them were old DL players, so they
    tended to think on a whole "balance" and "rightful place" thing. but
    they have come to a point where we can now start discussing things which
    we do/don't like about the system. but early on, to help disuade this
    idea from them, i decided that BLs don't affect class or personality i
    any way. we're now thinking about changing that for the better, and
    your explanation is a good one. thanks.
    adamtheo@usa.net Florida, USA
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