The amount of magic in your individual campaigns, as well as the amount of
magical weapons, armors, devices etc.. is up to you. In keeping with the
flavor of the birthright setting, I feel these items should be relatively
rare, at least in comparison with just about any other TSR/WoC setting. If
in your setting you agree with, or disagree with this assessment, that is
your option, provided you and your players find the gaming to be enjoyable,
then there is nothing wrong with any modifications, changes etc...

In my opinion, there are not many wizards in the setting of high power, when
compared with settings like Dark Sun, Forgotten Realms or Greyhawk. The
result is that there are very few magical items available, and those that
are, are mostly of minor power - at least relatively. Take a powerful
Awnsheghlien who has been practitioner of magic for many hundreds of years,
if not right from the battle of Deismar or even before. They are still
around now, and have not yet attained 20th level (correct me if I'm wrong
here). If many of the strongest mages in the setting with hundreds of years
of practice aren't high enough in level for a Permanency (wizard 8,
available at 16th level), then there will not be a ton of permanent items
kicking around. Priests don't need the permanency spell, and are a lot more
common then wizards in Cerillia, but just going by Volo's Guide to all
things magical, Priests don't typically make permanent items until they're
higher in level anyway. Other considerations might be that a priest would
likely only make items that are either available to the priest character
class or to all classes, priests included. Not many edged weapons, with the
possible exception of holy swords, would be imbued with power by Priests.

On the note of psionics in the setting, I allow them in my setting but the
box suggests not allowing them, as they are not in flavor with the setting.
A good balance is that regents do not gain any benefit for possessing
psionics, unlike any of the other classes. Perhaps there is a special guild
like the Dark Sun (The Order), that controls psionics, demands loyalty or
even fealty in exchange for training, support or even "protection" from the
organization...
Balance it however you choose. My personal view is to allow just about
anything, but in moderation. I also don't like making something available
to only PC's or NPC's, although no PC is going to be a Dragon, unless we
decide to play a council of wyrms hybrid game set in Cerillia before the
time of human arrival.

I've not played a birthright game in some time, but have been playing around
with ideas for the setting when we do return, as I know we surely will. I
have the luxury of having myself and a friend who both DM the AD&D game
lines, both of us prefering our own adventures to purchased ones, although
we both purchase our share of materials (between us, about every adventure,
accessory, and box for Forgotten Realms, Dark Sun, Planescape, Ravenloft,
Birthright and Generic Ad&d). In addition, one of our players is the GM
when we play Rifts / Heroes Unlimited, so each of us have tons of time off
in between adventures.

Some of the ideas kicking around are to run a setting prior to the battle of
Mt. Deismar. What was life like back then? I like the idea of playing
Dragons as characters, but adopted to Cerillia (of course I've really
modified Cerilliean Dragons to about on par with the Dragon of Tyr -
DarkSun), so that might be too powerful unless we take the Council of Wyrms
reduced strength at a younger age approach.
I like an idea regarding a powerful artifact that has been sundered into
several pieces, perhaps 13 because it is such a lucky number and 7 is
already used by the rod... This artifact would be very powerful and tip the
balance of power immeasureably in favor of whoever had it. The problem is
the 13th piece will never be found because of the unbalancing factor.
Anyway, each piece does something, and resonates as others are added to it.
Powerful Awnsheghlien such as the Gorgon, Magian, Raven, Serpent, etc.. have
a few of the pieces already, or maybe learn of the existence in a dark
vision. This leads to massive armies colliding in a desperate attempt to
seize the item. The entire story could be based around locating a single
piece. Perhaps the Gorgon allied with the Serpent (each thinking to use the
other) move with an army of humanoids in the upper tens of thousands,
towards the imperial city... this would get a lot of peoples attentions.
The players could discover the union between the two or three Awnsheghlien
in a side adventure and come across information regarding the artifact
elsewhere... I like the idea of something hidden in what used to be the
wizards tower in the imperial city (borrowing a Myth Drannor flavor sort
of).

Anyway, sorry for taking up this amount of space, I guess I just kept going
on.

*Huggles²*,
Snow.


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