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  1. #21
    Hi i've been gone awhile from this site and i'm sorry i started this thread and then sort of left. Thank you big mac for your extensive imput it's great i did know most of the back ground information you suplied already but i agree with most of your points\ideas i exspecialy like the the name for the sphere "birthspace" suprised i didn't think of it

    when i said
    Spelljamming could be thought of as a ocean trade route. The portal could be thought of as a port. Like a port, it could be managed by anyone but probably a guild. Who controls law around the portal depends on who has a law holding in the "province".
    i was not freffering to using spelljammers to go through portals the portal and the spelljammer as sea routes were two different ideas sorry about any confusion.

    the issue you raised with the cosmology is one i often think about personaly i tend to prefer useing the one material plane setting idea with the spheres and the phlogiston being in the same three dimensions. also the idea that the transitory planes are 4 dimensionable is arguable they do exist in the same dimensions as the other planes and the 4th dimension you think of is mearly the travel inbetween planes. beacause when you think about it using the planescape cosmology then the planes exist in three dimensions (law-chaos, good-evil and Inner-outer) and in the as transitory planes make up the space inbetween planes they really have 6 dimensions.

    the parralel lay lines idea also makes sense when aplied to the inner planes however their is as far as i know no fixed areas that corrispond to particular planets or spheres, because to use an example, the city of brass in the fire
    plane is acessed by all the major planescaping worlds just as many other important sites are equaly important to multiple worlds. still the idea of lay lines going through portals is still very confusing and their going through wildspace is also a problem. however as far as i can see if they are mearly flows of magical energy then they could go anywhere. therfore i adress this question to the birthright experts what really are laylines?

    the problem with the shadow world i think can easly be resolved by having it take the place of the border etherial like it says in the book. if this was the case then travel to the etherial and the inner planes would be severaly hampered. the outer planes however i would think would be unaffected. the outer planes would be hard to get to anyway because none of the gods in the birthright setting live their and the gods form the link with the outer planes in most settings so without using out of chariter knolage the PCs arn't going to be going their intill they already at another sphere and if their already at annother sphere then the shadow world isn't going to stop them. i also don't think it should in any way block acess to the phlogiston because as it is another plane it can't have any affect in the phlogiston. also you don't really need to explain why not many spelljammers come to birthspace just simply say it is off the beaten track.

    the trouble with it ruining the ecconimy is a huge worry and one i can see no way round because although spelljammers are exspensive as soon as theirs one it has a incredibly powerful monopoly. this isn't a new problem with spelljammers though i've seen the example of trading steel with kryn before. steel on kryn is as valuable as gold, so you simply have to ship steel in excange it for gold and then go back to another planet and trade it all for steel. i can see something similar possibly happening here.

    thanks for your ideas and again sorry for being gone so long

  2. #22
    Site Moderator AndrewTall's Avatar
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    I think of a ley line as a river of mebhaighl. While rain falls across a forest and trickles downhill into stream and rivers, mebhaighl is created by all life and flows back and forth between areas of strong concentrations, I see leylines as surging with energy as night falls and seasons change with one area gaining or losing 'attraction'.

    In canon mebhaighl is not life-force and is generated within Aebrynis the planet - which is why mountains ranges have strong mebhaighl.

    Either way a 'ley line' created by a mage is basically the equivalent of a canal - the wizard cuts the path with the create ley line action, and then opens the locks as required to draw mebhaighl from the strong source to the desired location.

  3. #23
    Quote Originally Posted by AndrewTall View Post
    I think of a ley line as a river of mebhaighl.
    ahh that does make sense that the leylines are mebhaighl (how do you say that i've always wondered) i had mearly thought of them before this as containing the magic refined from mebhaighl.
    Quote Originally Posted by AndrewTall View Post
    In canon mebhaighl is not life-force and is generated within Aebrynis the planet - which is why mountains ranges have strong mebhaighl.

    Either way a 'ley line' created by a mage is basically the equivalent of a canal - the wizard cuts the path with the create ley line action, and then opens the locks as required to draw mebhaighl from the strong source to the desired location.
    so as mebhaighl is part of the planet it, i would amagine it can not be easerly be taken away from the planet, or if it could then the planet would suffer. as such i would probaly say that laylines should be confined to Aebrynis.

  4. #24
    Site Moderator AndrewTall's Avatar
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    There is an interesting question as to whether depleting mebhaighl by casting domain spells causes damage.

    If you consider domain spells to be a zero sum game (i.e. the spell simply concentrates mebhaighl, then uses it to suit the caster's whim allowing the energy to then flow back into the system with no net loss to the system) then by taking the magic entirely from the planet you might have a depletion scenario as opposed to a zero-sum game.

    I draw no distinction in power terms between mebhaighl and magic. Or more accurately, I consider magic to be the manifestation of the collection, focus and release of mebhaighl - much like a car's movement is the manifestation of the burning of fossil fuels in the focus of an engine connected to transmission, wheels, etc.

    In my own campaign I like to take a Deverry approach to magic - energy is gathered and used to create an astral focus (in this case either a focus between the ShadowWorld and Aebrynnis or a site in the ShadowWorld) which the mage/priest then draws on to cast spells. Of course I tweak the Shadow World more than a little, and wind up with magic that is trivial (drawn from the surrounding life force cf athas) or good/evil/chaos depending on the Shadow World source so I'm hardly canon!

  5. #25
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    At 06:20 PM 2/24/2009, Keytium wrote:
    so as mebhaighl is part of the planet it, i would amagine it can not be easerly be taken away from the planet, or if it could then the planet would suffer. as such i would probaly say that laylines should be confined to Aebrynis.

    Ley lines cost more to create given their distance. So, depending on how one viewed the concept of "distance" in planar terms, a ley line would have either a cost of 0 or infinity unless one imagines the "distance" between a Cerilian source holding and, say, Sigil to be measurable in some other way. Personally, I don`t think a source could travel through a normal "gate" in the D&D sense; or, if it could, any closure of that gate, even for just a moment, would disrupt the line enough to destroy it. The only exception to this kind of thing that I think would be appropriate would be some connection between Aebrynis and the Shadow World, but even such a connection should be reserved for very special situations; even the gods might have trouble with such a thing. I picture it being the kind of thing that Azrai tried and that left him vulnerable to a Deismaar type of attack.

    According to the BoM, ley lines can`t cross a body of water more than 150 miles across. Even in such a case, I imagine that the magical energy is travelling along the surface of the planet itself, in contact (more or less) with the land from which it comes. That makes me think it would be difficult for them to leave the planet under anything like normal circumstances. A ley line from the BR setting might not be able to exist anywhere but on Aebrynis itself for that reason.

    One can create a ley line that is "unanchored" at one end, but for some reason it`s hard for me to imagine a ley line being "unanchored" to somewhere off the planet itself. It just seems like too abstract a reading of the system. The concept of BR "provinces" is tied up with the magic system itself. Sources exist in the context of provinces, population, etc. Other settings aren`t organized along those same lines, and though one might not want to read more into it than that, I personally don`t think other settings have the same basic components. They might very well have their equivalents, but it`s kind of like putting a dogsled on the train tracks. They`re simply two different concepts. Since one can`t really create Cerilian-style sources in other settings, it`s difficult to imagine a wizard connecting up to someplace outside the setting in a way that is fully compatible.

    So there are a few reasons to justify a DM ruling that such a thing is impossible.

    Gary
    Last edited by Thelandrin; 02-26-2009 at 12:06 AM. Reason: Edited for vertical length.

  6. #26
    so laylies can't cross large bodies of water i didn't know that. that does somwhat dampen the idea of it crossing the infinity that is the astral sea doesn't it? Birthright-L i must agree with you i think laylines in the sense that they exist in the birthright setting could not exist in an interplanar game.
    also i do tend to think of magic as just focusing and realeasing of power as Andrewtall called it a zero-sum game. from what little i know of how magic works in planscape this would appear to hold true but i'm not entirly certain.
    Last edited by Keytium; 02-27-2009 at 11:26 AM.

  7. #27
    Ehrshegh of Spelling Thelandrin's Avatar
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    Birthright-L is the mailing list account, I believe. You're agreeing with Gary there

    Ius Hibernicum, in nomine juris. Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.

  8. #28
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    At 03:20 AM 2/27/2009, you wrote:

    >so laylies can`t cross large bodies of water i didn`t know that.
    >that does somwhat dampen the idea of it crossing the infinity that
    >is the astral sea doesn`t it?

    To me, that certainly makes it difficult to justify.... Personally,
    I see the Astral Sea as a place composed OF magical energies of a
    general kind that are themselves of a sort with the energy that makes
    up ley lines. The Astral Sea is already a sort of conduit of
    existential energies between the material planes, and people have
    figured out how to do travel in that plane in a way they were
    "supposed to" given their physical nature. Putting a ley line
    through such a plane would be like relocated a creek to the middle of
    the ocean. The energies would just disperse into the plane just as
    the water of the creek would vanish into the larger body of
    water. That`s in addition to the other problems with the concept I noted.

    That`s not to say one couldn`t have a similar construct in the PS/SJ
    setting. If a visitor from another plane came to Cerilia, got a
    bloodline and learned how to create source holdings and ley lines
    then travelled back to the planes, I`d think he`d have to invent a
    whole new system to do something similar. Such a process would first
    probably require coming up with the planar/SJ equivalent of a
    bloodline. Some sort of "godspark" or being "chosen" by a
    god. There are several different special powers in those settings
    that might be used as equivalents. The process that Azrai used to
    create The Lost could easily be interpreted as a kind of granted
    power. Any god with the will to do so could probably grant a
    follower the ability to create some sort of equivalent of a holding
    through a magical boon/power. Gods are historically rather jealous
    of this kind of power, of course, so it might be something of a
    problem to convince one to part with such a power, but that`s another
    issue entirely....

    A manifestation of source-like power that wasn`t rooted in the plane
    of Aebrynis could look like just about anything. It might have
    powers that equate to a source holding (RP collection for wizards,
    realm spells, etc.) or it might grant any number of other powers and
    abilities. I imagine one could draw power from the energies that
    escape (or are trapped) by the passage of people through the gates of
    Sigil, for example. An extensive domain of Gate(9) holdings might be
    what gives the various organizations of that planar city their powers
    at the political level.

    But it seems to me that the structure of the "domain system" would be
    inherently different, and probably unique to each plane of
    existence. That is, in Planescape the organization of the population
    isn`t into magically infused provinces and holdings, but into a set
    of planes and poleis. The city/state seems more likely a way to
    break things up in Planescape. Perhaps the various wards of Sigil
    might each represent the planar equivalent of provinces. One would
    have to consider, of course, that the population numbers are very
    different. In BR we have population numbers up to 100,000 (though
    many people quickly rationalize or house rule their way around such
    numbers) while the population of planar cities are sometimes in the
    millions. In the Astral plane, one might have cities like that of
    the githyanki lich-queen, but on that plane it`s hard to imagine
    something like a source manifestation in the BR style for reasons
    already noted. But one could have some sort of "astral energy net"
    that could serve a similar function. Shimmer (4) holdings....

    There would certainly be the equivalent of holdings in such a
    setting. In certain cases, though, one would want to revise the
    concept a bit--if nothing else name changes are appropriate. The
    concept of law holdings on a chaotic plane, for example, is somewhat
    difficult to say without wincing....

    >Thelandrin wrote:
    >Birthright-L is the mailing list account, I believe. You`re
    >agreeing with Gary there

    Yeah, that was me. I hadn`t changed the email in my birthright.net
    account.... Hopefully, it`ll be OK now.

    Gary

  9. #29
    your right the source on differnt planes would be very differnt and the scale is completly out of wack. personaly i was never thinking of using any of the major interplaner city just for the reason that you descriped size. i was planing on having different types of source, on the outer planes sources would be granted by gods or be powered by the planes nature (you could drain pure chaos from limbo ectra) the problem with being granted by the gods is where to draw the line between this and a church holding?

    the inner planes would be more simple as they would simply represent higher consendrations of elemental energy being taped for example the burning sea in the plane of fire would have a higher source potential then one of the areas of molten land because it is more "fiery" in this way the inner planes would be the same as the standard setting with every terrain type have a source potential witch decreases as you increase habitation (the more buildings their is the less fire their is). the ones that cause a real problem is other spheres.

    i've seen threads that surgest things like mage colleages reprsenting sources in high magic settings but the thing is that in these settings magic can be drawn from many sources. in a world that the ilthid inhabit shoulden't their elder brains also count as sources, their is nature magic in these worlds as well, their is necromancy witch would draw power from grave yards and probaly other sources i haven't thought of yet. their is just too many ways you could draw power and each of these should have it's own list of spells ectra. to be honest i wouldn't be able to write a whole new lists of realm spells so what would you reconmend?

  10. #30
    Site Moderator AndrewTall's Avatar
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    I'd suggest that you stick with the plane itself generates mebhaighl in one way or another, but say that the outer planes energy is almost all claimed by the powers of the plane

    So in a prime material, you could use the standard rules, in the elemental planes you could have elemental nodes that act as source manifestations and come up with different terrains to simulate climate - on the assumption that most large populations would either require nodes of foreign elements, or have cities, etc which drew upon the energies of the plane in some form - you could again use similar rules to the standard. For an outerplane you could say that only a few rare areas produce sufficient 'excess' energy to be claimed allowing you to set source levels to suit the game.

    The downside is that ley-lines never cross a planar boundary, although I suppose you might be able to build gates to permit some kind of transfer. I expect that you'd need to visit a planar domain in order to tap RP too.

    In terms of varying realm spells, I'm not sure that a less is more approach wouldn't be better - and your players can always build the spells if they want them saving you the energy.

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