At 12:30 PM 3/6/98 +0800, you wrote:
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Gary V. Foss [SMTP:GeeMan@linkline.com]
>
>Magic items are relatively scarce in the Cerilia. Now, I'm not
>complaining. I rather like the lack of magic items. It appeals to
>me
>not only as an opportunity for better role-playing and gaming skill,
>but
>as a contrast to the other settings out there that seem to have magic
>items crawling out of the woodwork. But I've been thinking that the
>rationalization for the lack of magic items is a little faulty.
>Generally, the relatively small number of wizards is the explanation
>for
>the lack of magic, but I'm not so sure this holds up. Here's my
>reasoning:
>
>
>The lack of magic items in the campaign world has never been given a
>second though by me until now.
>
>My take on the situation is that when the armies gathered at Mt
>Desimar for the big bash, most of the magic items that the peoples of
>Cerilia had left after their long flight from the Shadow, and the many
>battles to carve out kingdoms from the elves and humanoids, were
>destroyed when the mountain got leveled.
>
>I know it has been a few centuries since that happened, but the
>constant state of warfare between the various races, and internal
>conflicts does not seem to leave a lot of time to sit around and make
>a sword+4 (months in the making). The same reasoning goes for the
>elves and dwarves. These two races have been in a state of constant
>warfare with the humanoids of Cerilia even before the humans arrived
>to stir the pot.
>
>So I guess what I'm saying is "Who has time to make a Staff of the
>Magi, when there are 2 or 3 other wizards just itching to get their
>hands on my sources?"
>
I would agree although I would also argue who has the skill? If you
conclude that the distribution of wizard levels is relatively normally
distributed then it follows that in a campaign with fewer wizards that
there will be fewer wizards of high enough levels to create items. As to
whether this can be applied to priests (who don't create that many items
anyway) I don't know, because there are not fewer priests in Birthright
than other campaign worlds (I think).

Craig