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  1. #1
    Senior Member Jaleela's Avatar
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    Blood Abilities: Brenna and Travel

    Over a table top gaming session the other night, a question came up regarding the Brenna Travel ability. I've read both the 2e and 3e descriptions, which are the same:

    http://www.birthright.net/forums/sho...iptions#Travel

    My question centers around the road to be traveled. How far do you, as DMs, allow a character to travel?

    If a road has a bridge over a river, do you allow the character to travel past that point because the road is basically unbroken by the bridge?

    What if the character travels a road that leads to a river, but there is no bridge? Would you consider a ford a continuation of the road, or would you stop the travel at that point?

    What if they travel an ancient road with a broken bridge?

    What limitations do you put on the ability, or do you?
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    Blood Abilities: Brenna and Travel [9#28452]

    At 06:20 AM 2/23/2014, Jaleela wrote:

    >Over a table top gaming session the other night, a question came up
    >regarding the Brenna Travel ability. I`ve read both the 2e and 3e
    >descriptions, which are the same:
    >
    >http://www.birthright.net/forums/showwiki.php?title=BRCS:Chapter_two_Blood_and_regency_Blood_ability_ descriptions#Travel
    >
    >My question centers around the road to be traveled. How far do you,
    >as DMs, allow a character to travel?
    >
    >If a road has a bridge over a river, do you allow the character to
    >travel past that point because the road is basically unbroken by the bridge?
    >
    >What if the character travels a road that leads to a river, but
    >there is no bridge? Would you consider a ford a continuation of the
    >road, or would you stop the travel at that point?
    >
    >What if they travel an ancient road with a broken bridge?
    >
    >What limitations do you put on the ability, or do you?

    The Travel ability is, essentially, the ability to teleport with a
    few flavourful limitations. Those limitations, however, are
    important to convey the setting`s dynamics and more than a few
    adventure level game considerations, so I would stay pretty strict to
    the description of the blood ability as possible, meaning I would not
    allow a character using the ability to cross a river unless that
    river was actually bridged... or if there was another way around
    it. The description says "any road, path, or trail" and "any point
    on that same road or any road that splits from it." It also has a
    clarification sentence "...this allows travel from any part of
    Cerilia to almost any destination on the continent" which reads to me
    to indicate that one should be pretty generous with the
    definitions. So, I would say that means ANY contiguous road in ANY
    connection regardless of direction, size or quality of those
    roads. While I would not let a character with that ability cross an
    unforded river, I would probably rule that there is likely some sort
    of much more circuitous route around that river that the character
    could probably take, even if that meant going along forgotten roads,
    footpaths and goat trails. Travel time is irrelevant to that
    determination, just the connection of the pathways.

    A look at the map of Cerilia shows that there are not a lot of
    rivers, so I don`t think they are effective barriers to the Travel:
    Brenna blood ability. The nature of that ability means it would
    pretty much allow a character to teleport to any settled, civilized
    area with a population of more than a few hundred people, and
    probably almost any place that HAD been settled at one point or
    another unless it was so long ago (pre-Deismaar perhaps) that the
    paths leading to that place had been eroded away.

    However, the restriction would manifest in a couple of other
    ways. First, it isn`t really teleport. They character can`t appear
    anywhere, just on an actual road/path, so s/he would have to appear
    outdoors (though some underground dwarven or goblin construction
    projects might count as "roads") and physically on the path.

    Second, water could serve as a barrier. The character could probably
    Travel around rivers, but not to an island in the middle of that
    river, and certainly not any of the islands off the coast of the
    mainland. It is possible that taking out a river could limit that
    ability in certain cases. If you were talking about a particularly
    isolated province separated by a river that appears from the map to
    be contacted mainly by sea then you could have a situation that would
    limit that ability. It seems to me that would be pretty rare... but
    it is possible. If you were looking to create a one-off, adventure
    level situation then I think it would be reasonable.

    Third, terrain is a factor. Even provinces with a population level
    of 0 are probably going to have some sort of paths made by
    travellers, animals or by the few inhabitants that do reside there,
    but in provinces that are swamps, sandy deserts or icy tundra there
    would probably not be "roads" in the sense that anyone would
    recognize. Where residents use skiffs to get about boggy terrain,
    where the shifting sands obliterate any signs of a path within a few
    days or where people and animals simply don`t go could make entire
    provinces inaccessible. The province of Aldrud/Hogunmark (0/1) in
    the Rjurik Highlands is possibly a no go area for the Travel blood
    ability. Other provinces in Vosgaard might be comparably icy and
    isolated from man and beast. Similarly, a couple of provinces in the
    Tarvan Waste might be so devoid of creatures as to be off limits to that power.

    Last, I would argue that a man-made structure could bar the
    path. That is, normally, I think a character with that ability could
    "teleport" to anyplace inside a city outside of a building, right up
    to the doorstep, since the roads to that city go right up into it and
    form a network throughout the city itself. However, a walled city
    under siege, with its gates closed and the drawbridges up, would keep
    a character with the Travel ability out until someone managed to open
    up a sally port or otherwise made some sort of opening through which
    the character could pass.

    Gary

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    Site Moderator AndrewTall's Avatar
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    Given current local weather, I'd note that flooding could at least temporarily cut off some places

    I'd expect that you need a certain level of "path" or "trail" to travel along it, just an animal track wouldn't suffice. So the trackless wastes of Vosgaard, the depths of the Rjurik Highlands or the barren wastes of the Khinasi deserts wouldn't be readily accessible, at least until a proper path was forged through the wilderness.

    But that said, anywhere even remotely "civilised" should be accessible allowing anyone wishing to travel to a trading center to do so very easily which I suspect is the point of the blood ability.

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