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  1. #11
    Site Moderator geeman's Avatar
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    Dealing with the taint of Azrai

    At 01:11 AM 10/14/2005 +0200, Danip wrote:

    >Good system. At first glance, the DC looks low, but as you only need to
    >fail a few times for major repercussions I guess it works out.

    That was the idea. Once one begins down that path it should be possible,
    but much more difficult, to turn away from it.

    >How many levels do you typically put into an awnshegh progression? Or is
    >it more of an open-ended path?

    I`ve written up characters with as many as 17 levels in the
    awnshegh/ershegh class without any particular difficulty (any more than
    writing up any other character of that level, that is.)

    The class itself is close to the most open-ended thing I could
    imagine.... It`s not a prestige class so characters with the right
    prereqs can take it at any level, there`s no max level, and the special
    abilities of the class take up several pages to describe. Awnsheghlien and
    ersheghlien are really a sort of omni-characters who can have just about
    any theme, so a system of portraying them becomes a general "mystical
    monster class" by default. The class itself also accompanies a much more
    versatile system of portraying blood abilities--if I can say so without
    sounding _too_ immodest--which is not level based like the one in the BRCS
    update. In order to make up characters with such potential diversity a
    system either has to be very long or very vague, and BR has had IMO plenty
    of vague, so I went with long. That said, I made a serious effort to
    balance the abilities of the class with those of existing character
    classes, feats, etc. (to such an extent that such a thing is possible)
    despite the length of the write up, and it`s been tested pretty well, so it
    seems to work.

    A version was posted a while back when there was a poll about how
    awnshegh/ershegh transformation should be handled, so it should be in the
    archives someplace. I`m planning on putting the latest (even longer)
    version in my perennial project "Legendary Beings and Mythic Monsters"
    which is a compilation of all the awnsheghlien and ersheghlien characters
    I`ve written up in the past (along with a few new ones) as well as various
    "sundries" like its own bloodline system....

    Gary

  2. #12
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    Dealing with the taint of Azrai

    Wow, it`s hard to top this. Sticking closer to the Brecht area, if you
    so desired, the Hag might be almost as suitable for this plot.
    Going to the SW seems more vague. The monsters there can be as dangerous
    as you like, really.

    Lee.

    In a message dated 10/14/05 1:11:08 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
    brnetboard@BIRTHRIGHT.NET writes:

    << Ooohhh...the Magian. Given the fact that the Magian would likely blast
    their collective butts into oblivion in a straight fight (not to mention what his
    nasty minions could do), they might be forced to instead go to the Magian and
    bargain (beg?) for him to cast such a spell on the PC.

    I could imagine the Magian making them believe he had such power, commit
    them to performing multiple questionable services for him, maybe even corrupting
    one or more PCs along the way...all an elaborate set of betrayals meant to
    twist their original desire toward dark ends. Use them, bend them, break them...

    But then again, it sounds like you really want a heroic good guy campaign,
    and having a character turn slowly evil would ruin it. Pity. >>

  3. #13
    Is the main concern about the character becoming evil or one of his descendants falling pray to the taint in the bloodline?

    There are many examples of blooded characters and even some awnsheghlien with Azrai bloodlines who have not fallen prey to the dark temptations of the blood. The LG Paladin of Haelyn, Teodor Profiev, who has a major Azrai bloodline comes to mind. And the Siren, The Harpy, The Chimaera, The Seadrake are all neutral I believe.

    It seems to me that a character who becomes afflicted with a bloodline would have a better chance resisting the urges that accompany it because they know what life was like without it. Odd thoughts urging them to do things that they would never normally think of doing would be a fairly obvious indicator. Especially if that person is in the presense of his friends and companions, I would think he should be able to keep himself together.

    If you are looking to guard against his descendents falling prey to the temptations of the dark bloodline, perhaps the goal shouldn't be to change the PC's bloodline but to try to secure a suitable wife for him to marry. She would need to be a scion descended from a more powerful bloodline of a different derivation, so this should not be an easy accomplishment but it could be the new ruler's first taste of diplomacy if you want. Maybe he would need to prove himself worthy of her through acts of valor and grand quests.

    And if he does manage to secure such a marriage, if she ends up being a capable co-ruler, it would mean that the character would be free to aventure from time to time with his adventure buddies and not worry about his domain falling apart while he's gone.

  4. #14
    Site Moderator geeman's Avatar
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    Dealing with the taint of Azrai

    At 04:17 AM 10/18/2005 +0200, Magnus Argent wrote:

    >There are many examples of blooded characters and even some awnsheghlien
    >with Azrai bloodlines who have not fallen prey to the dark temptations of
    >the blood. The LG Paladin of Haelyn, Teodor Profiev, who has a major Azrai
    >bloodline comes to mind. And the Siren, The Harpy, The Chimaera, The
    >Seadrake are all neutral I believe.

    Right. A character shouldn`t _automatically_ become evil if s/he has
    Azrai`s bloodline derivation, and not every scion of Azrai is going to
    become an awnshegh either. They really are two different aspects of his
    bloodline`s effects... albeit different aspects that stem from the same
    basic theme of Azrai--his corruptive influence on mortals.

    >It seems to me that a character who becomes afflicted with a bloodline
    >would have a better chance resisting the urges that accompany it because
    >they know what life was like without it. Odd thoughts urging them to do
    >things that they would never normally think of doing would be a fairly
    >obvious indicator. Especially if that person is in the presense of his
    >friends and companions, I would think he should be able to keep himself
    >together.

    Well... this is a divine thing and inherently difficult to quantify. It`s
    not like one of the senses or doing without shoes. A character with
    Azrai`s bloodline just has this nagging compulsion that s/he must resist,
    and it is probably reasonable to assume that part of the process itself is
    the rationalization of those urges. After all, Charm Person is a 1st level
    spell and its effects can be pretty dramatic. Imagine a divine power doing
    something similar, but in a more subdued and pervasive way.

    Gary

  5. #15
    <<Well... this is a divine thing and inherently difficult to quantify. It`s
    not like one of the senses or doing without shoes. A character with
    Azrai`s bloodline just has this nagging compulsion that s/he must resist,
    and it is probably reasonable to assume that part of the process itself is
    the rationalization of those urges. After all, Charm Person is a 1st level
    spell and its effects can be pretty dramatic. Imagine a divine power doing
    something similar, but in a more subdued and pervasive way.>>

    Actually, Charm Person (and Charm Monster, too, for that matter) doesn't make you do anything you wouldn't normally do. It just makes you view someone as though they were a good and trusted friend. Dominate spells can force you to take actions you wouldn't normally take but in that instance, you would definitely know that someone else is making you do these thing.

    But your point is well-taken. How does one quantify the power of the divinity in one's blood? Well, other than a bloodline score, of course.

    Hey, maybe that would be a good indicator as to how much of an influence Azrai's taint would be? Surely a scion with an enormous bloodline ability score would feel more of Azrai's dark influence than one who was barely tainted, no?

    One last suggestion: Oriental Adventures happens to embrace the concept of "taint". In that campaign setting, the taint is acquired through contact with the Shadowlands or someone/thing that came from there. In Birthright, one acquires the taint (of Azrai) differently but just because the two are presented differently doesn't mean that the game mechanics might not work equally well for your campaign.

    I'm a big fan of not trying to re-invent the wheel. There are many good variant rules out there from numerous sources and many can fit quite nicely into a Birthright campaign.

    Wasn't there a discussion on the birthright.net about Oriental Adventures and Birthright? It probably talked about the very rules I'm thinking of.. ?

  6. #16
    Senior Member ausrick's Avatar
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    dealing with taint, different campaign setting views

    Magnus Argent brings up an interesting point,

    If you want to look to other campaign settings for a possible answer, Ravenloft has one that comes to mind. In the domain of Mordent (and actually part of the reason that domain got wrenched into the realm of dread in the first place) was a man known as "The Alchemist" who was disturbed by his dark and sinister desires, so he labored and made a device that would alchemically allow him to shed his darker side. I believe the dark moral of the story however, was that though this device purified him, his discarded humanity was given life as well, and so he had basically a purely evil clone without any tempering force of conscience or good-will. I believe this device is an artifact and appears in the Ravenloft Dungeon Master's Guide that Sword & Sorcery did for d20 v3.5.

    This path does have some implications that depending on your gaming style might not be your cup of tea. Depending on how you approach it, the evil clone thing can be given a unique and profound twist, or can be cliche and overdone. (first of all, who says distilling the evil out of someone, that that evil has to be an exact replica, It could be an amorphous psionic black blob for all we know, and maybe the danger of possibilities and not really knowing if this would work would be part of the risk, but I digress.) And the real moral dilema is that once you've purged yourself of this evil, what do you then do with that evil. And some would argue that its a far more insidious act to free that evil from the shackles of the good character and give it life on its own than it would be to shoulder the burden for eternity. Either way, if you would do this, such a device would be nigh impossible to make or find, and be one of a kind. And even more importantly, it would deal with forces that are beyond mortal ken. Things could go horribly wrong. On the upside, it would give the DM a nasty villian. Also mechanically with the bloodline issue, If you somehow shed the taint would it be half the bloodline score? The bloodline score duplicates, The evil essence carries roughly the same score that the original blooded azrai scion had before the good PC bloodthefted him? These would all be mechanics you would have to decide.

    And most importantly, this is just an idea, you don't have to take stuff from Ravenloft and put it into your campaign if your campaign doesn't carry that kind of feel. (Except on the Winter Solstice of course, have a grand conjunction. :P )
    Regards,
    Ausrick

  7. #17
    Site Moderator geeman's Avatar
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    Dealing with the taint of Azrai

    At 03:57 PM 10/27/2005 +0200, ausrick wrote:

    >If you want to look to other campaign settings for a possible answer,
    >Ravenloft has one that comes to mind.

    There are, of course, some significant differences between the various
    concepts in other campaign settings and similar literary examples, but in
    addition to Ravenloft`s dynamics it might make sense to look at a few
    others for ideas as to how the issue of fighting off Azrai`s taint might
    work. Such as:

    1. The temptation of falling to the Dark Side in the Star Wars setting
    (movies and literature.)

    2. The corrupting effects and progressive nature of insanity in Call of
    Cthulhu. In fact, any number of progressive degenerations portrayed in
    that series might be apt.

    3. The effects of sangreal on male magic users in the Wheel of Time setting.

    4. The mind altering, existential effects of spice in Dune. One might also
    consider the theological implications that seemed to accompany that
    material. Spice allows for another "plane of reality" to be revealed, and
    those who embrace their awnsheghlien nature go through a process that could
    be described as essentially existential and based on theology.... Plus,
    there`s a political level of play in Dune that shouldn`t be ignored (not
    that it has much to do with the taint of Azrai, per se....)

    5. The loss of humanity as portrayed in several sci-fi shows. I`m thinking
    of some of the goofier Star Trek episodes here. Those transformations are
    almost invariably faster than should be the taint of Azrai (the shows are,
    after all, episodic) but the comparison between the god-like powers gained
    by some mortals is still apt.

    6. Just about any of the degenerate prestige classes that transform the
    physicality of the character.

    G

  8. #18
    2 simple solutions.

    1.Pull a deus ex machina.Have a god(preferably the successor of Masela,im not too suer what it is) change the bloodline derivation back to Masela.Make up some "Destined to rule the domain" thing.Maybe throw in a prophecy or subtle clues about a futrue quest you want to run that will require your PC to be Masela.

    2.Same as above except the god gives him a quest of some sort.Upon succesful completeion change him back to the original derivation.

  9. #19
    Birthright Developer irdeggman's Avatar
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    The “latest” version of the BRCS, not the playtest version contains a variant on this issue. It can be found at the sticky labeled “Latest Version of the BRCS by Chapter”on top of this forum.



    Here is the link:

    http://www.birthright.net/showthread.php?t=2628





    It contains the “sanctioned” versions of Chap 1 and 2, which are what you will need.





    Variant: Taint of Azrai

    As a variant, the temptation and draw of Azrai towards evil can manifest itself in the following ways.



    Scions with the Azrai bloodline and a blood score of 20 or more must make a Wil save against a DC of 10 + 1 for every number above 20 in order to avoid progressing towards the path of Azrai. This save must be made every time the scion’s bloodline score increases. A failed save results in the scion’s alignment progressing one step towards evil, i.e., a good aligned character becomes a neutrally aligned one and a neutrally aligned one becomes an evilly aligned one.



    Scions with a major Azrai bloodline gain the bloodform blood ability at the major level once their bloodline score reaches 50. Scions with a great Azrai bloodline gain the bloodform ability at major level once their bloodline score reaches 40 and the bloodform ability at great level once their bloodline score reaches 75.
    Duane Eggert

  10. #20
    One question......at which bloodline score does a regent change from minor to major,major to great,great to true?

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