Help wanted (on dwarven realm rules)

[masterdaorin]

the conundrum: what to do with dwarven realms. various books note that dwarves inflict little disruption to the surface realm and thus have high source potential. nothing remotly of that sort seems to be in any domain write-up i've seen, but those same writeups make a general mess of source potential (ignoring coast/river notes, putting the erebannien at forest level <7> rather than ancient forest <9> and claiming it is the most magical and oldest forest on the continent, random enforcement of sidhelien exeption).
also do you adjust max province in mountains. rivenrock province for example seems to break province maximums.

There's more than just Rivenrock; at least one human realm - Mairada - also breaks this rule.

what are everyone's thoughts on the issue? any better ideas? any mistakes you can spot? perhaps i'm reinventing the wheel and rules for this are already somewhere and i just couldn't find it?

I've fixed what I think are these errors. Mind you, I try my best to develop things so that the core cannon data stays correct, but sometimes you just have to say the editors made a mistake, and fix it.

I wouldn't do anything special for dwarves.

Consider this: while dwarves live under the mountain, they don't want anybody messing around within the lands above their mountains. So dwarves DO maintain a significant presence aboveground - its just very well hidden most of the time.

So, dwarven populations affect the province's Source level just like every other non-elven culture.

I've changed/tweaked the maximum province levels allowed to better reflect this problem and "fix it" (e.g. mountain provinces can be developed to Level 6).

I've deleted references to coastal/river provinces bumping Source potential - absolutely none of the map data reflects this fact. Now, odd provincial Source levels instead reflect concentrations of mebhaighl due to terrain topography; conversely, a notable lack of Source potential reflects some terrible blight that suppresses the mebhaighl (e.g. major battles or some other catastrophe).

There are only a few cases of the above.

Elven realms are a special case. Almost none of the elven realms actually have high population values with untouched Source values.

I've explained it this way: those elven provinces that have lost their Fey status can no longer benefit from the elven culture's special ability. This source loss occurs for various reasons, but mainly due to non-fey populations interfering with the natural balance of the area.

I think that explanation fits nicely with the idea that elves are a diminishing race, and why they fight to keep everyone else out.

Forests levels not seeming right is another fix I've done: now I have three different grades of terrain types.

Remember, also, that 2000 years of human migration have mowed down most of the forests of Cerilia, and have certainly influenced (for the worse) even ancient forests like the Erebannien.

Urban provinces are a special type of province. They reflect cities on a small footprint of terrain - too small to provide food and other resources for itself. That is why they must have trade routes. They also have no effective limit on province level.

Regarding terrain types, I just go with what seems like the majority terrain type as shown upon the map. Sometimes you have to consider the underlying terrain over what's on top, and sometimes the reverse of that.

For example, what happens when you mow down a forest province? I've created a rule for that; now, provinces are referred to as having a Base Terrain type.

while i'm at it anyone have any cool ideas of a masela's ehrshegh?
(enhanced sense, sea song and the bloodtrait rolled for a pc)

I've created one: she is called The Mermaid.

[Malphas]

What I mean with it's a bit messy imho is: there is no real answer to your question because no one apparently was thinking enough about urban provinces, but they decided to add them to 3E anyway.

i mean i can see why they did considering one is present in ainuire

Well most npcs here are meant to be just npcs. It's always difficult to create a good villain without knowing the party's level. a character may always be too strong or too weak. Most awnies seem to point to mid-level characters.

the npc and villain distinction is blurry in many games. it doesn't really exist in political strategy like birthright. not as a gm decision that is. my current game started in khourane. they have a treaty with el sirad who has been legitimized as the ruler f the 2 provinces by current emira (and positive diplomatic contact to boot), have an antagonistic relationship with arron vaumel of mieres of all people (there are talks of assassination), have forged a defensive aliance with a wildcard npc i created, have a treaty with both djafra and min dhousai, are trying to get one with magian, and threre are talks of getting manslayer onboard (some anti gorgon league). party level around 5. present main villain: gorgon level 25 and if not for his 16 bwizard levels (witch they don't know about but suspect wizard or priest) they probably would be able to challange him. not to a duel or even a small confrontation but to a massive continent scale war with the allies they could muster (they would need convincing). just don't tell them that

I agree. altough I have nothing against magicpunk (first time I see this term, cool), we already have a lot of these,even the forgotten realms are becoming more and more steamy, birthright's more grounded "fire and steel" attitude sets it apart from other settings.

magicpunk is the favorite stile for me and the party but we all agree it is not fitting for birthright at all.

as far as cool similar terms: clockpunk (mechanical power of springs), dieselpunk (similar to steampunk but with oil)
and the funniest of all i've seen was against the storm's rainpunk

[Malphas]

There's more than just Rivenrock; at least one human realm - Mairada - also breaks this rule.

oh these are far from only ones. ber falaia is another example. as i'm sure there are countless others. as a matter of fact i'm thinking of using urban rules to help me with that issue. i even created rules of raising and maintaining a province above the maximum (in short throw money at the problem). i think i'll expand them to allow creation of urban provinces

I've fixed what I think are these errors. Mind you, I try my best to develop things so that the core cannon data stays correct, but sometimes you just have to say the editors made a mistake, and fix it.

oh they undeniably made several mistakes. some writings directly contradict others and more opinions are really helpful to solve these issues.

I wouldn't do anything special for dwarves.

Consider this: while dwarves live under the mountain, they don't want anybody messing around within the lands above their mountains. So dwarves DO maintain a significant presence aboveground - its just very well hidden most of the time.

So, dwarven populations affect the province's Source level just like every other non-elven culture.

I've changed/tweaked the maximum province levels allowed to better reflect this problem and "fix it" (e.g. mountain provinces can be developed to Level 6).

I've deleted references to coastal/river provinces bumping Source potential - absolutely none of the map data reflects this fact. Now, odd provincial Source levels instead reflect concentrations of mebhaighl due to terrain topography; conversely, a notable lack of Source potential reflects some terrible blight that suppresses the mebhaighl (e.g. major battles or some other catastrophe).

while i noticed the river one (and started thinking of an alternative bonus) i'm pretty sure i've seen the coastal applied selectively. i'll read and try to find examples or disprove my statement but not today.

Elven realms are a special case. Almost none of the elven realms actually have high population values with untouched Source values.

I've explained it this way: those elven provinces that have lost their Fey status can no longer benefit from the elven culture's special ability. This source loss occurs for various reasons, but mainly due to non-fey populations interfering with the natural balance of the area.

I think that explanation fits nicely with the idea that elves are a diminishing race, and why they fight to keep everyone else out.

i thought of doing something similar but it strongly contradicts source material.
the zwielunds have a half elf leading a bunch of humans and benefiting from that rule (as long as other reagents don't fuck that up). while despite being incredibly inconsistent rhuannach at least in glyncaerwyn definetly benefits to some extent.

i decided to tie it to ecological devastation as hinted in secrets of talinie (and basilisk to a lesser extent) instead.

Remember, also, that 2000 years of human migration have mowed down most of the forests of Cerilia, and have certainly influenced (for the worse) even ancient forests like the Erebannien.

oh i get that. the problem arises when descriptions of things don't mesh with the rules. human devastation of an elven realm like thuarviel (open to trade) is possible altho in case of dhoneaghmiere not so much, but sielwode? nope.
while Erebannien was described in a manner that it definatly should count as ancient forest (if anything does). for that issue i'm floating an idea to make base max source 9 but have the human (and the very humanlike high mage) wizards believe it is 7 due to cultural blindness

Urban provinces are a special type of province. They reflect cities on a small footprint of terrain - too small to provide food and other resources for itself. That is why they must have trade routes. They also have no effective limit on province level.

thanks that was helpfull. do you happen to know what is 3e latest version? the downloads page is abit muddy (some versions there dont seem to have any version identification). i grabed some at random tbh and it would be nice to read the latest one

Regarding terrain types, I just go with what seems like the majority terrain type as shown upon the map. Sometimes you have to consider the underlying terrain over what's on top, and sometimes the reverse of that.

pretty much what i was doing before finding this site.

I've created one: she is called The Mermaid.

brilliant, is there a page or a download if you don't mind sharing. not much experience with ehrshegh so it would really help to see what others did.

[masterdaorin]

i thought of doing something similar but it strongly contradicts source material.

the zwielunds have a half elf leading a bunch of humans and benefiting from that rule (as long as other reagents don't fuck that up). while despite being incredibly inconsistent rhuannach at least in glyncaerwyn definetly benefits to some extent.

Neither the Zweilunds nor Rhuannach benefit from the elven cultural benefit, if you ask me.

The text by Stark hints that Colin could do it, but he hasn't (which is odd, don't you think)? Either Colin is lazy, or this is just another throw-away line to confuse readers - since there are other elven rulers that can't seem to do that...

In the case of Rhuannach, none of the provinces have anything that breaks the rules, except the capital province (the source level is stated as level 7), but even a full elf hasn't raised her source holding to that level (instead, it's at 6 - again, odd, don't you think?)

However, in both cases, we have non-elven populations living in these two realms... I'd stick with the original rule, and say these two rulers can't develop their sources any higher... then this isn't a problem.

[Sorontar]

Remember that the rules are for players. The existing province values don't always agree with those rules and thus don't make sense, but (subject to DM changes) they are treated as reality - they don't need to be solved. The rules prevent the players from creating those special cases themselves.

Sorontar

[masterdaorin]

Remember that the rules are for players. The existing province values don't always agree with those rules and thus don't make sense, but (subject to DM changes) they are treated as reality - they don't need to be solved. The rules prevent the players from creating those special cases themselves.

Sorontar

Oh, I agree.

I believe that text in the Zweilunds actually put that idea into writing, if I'm not mistaken - though I can't remember if HotGB or the BoM came out first.

At any rate, I just wanted to point out that:

1) As always, play however you want. The text in the HotGB gives you license to do it.
2) There are realms that have this notion of untouched development, and there are those realms that clearly don't. The Zweilunds and Rhuannach are clearly two places that don't, taken at face value, so I wouldn't make it more complicated than it already is.

Maybe they can, maybe they can't. The point being, apparently non-elven races mess things up, and so why make a special exception for an exception for these two places?

I have actually found that the province levels do actually pretty well, if you solve the above problem, however the DM wants to do so, by fixing a few terrain values and, finally, by explaining why some elven realms aren't there and a few are still at these elevated values.

After that, I believe there is only a half dozen provinces in all Cerilia that need a further caveat (namely, the provinces in the realm of Maalvar, and a few provinces within the Highlands [of all places - odd, isn't it, that the culture that celebrates nature the most has the most places where nature is suppressed... hmmm.... ]).

Those depressed source values should be fairly easy to explain away, at any rate...