[Glorantha] Animal sizes

> > And the shaggy highland cattle are not all that big.
>
> Where I live they have a herd of highlands around the corner and a herd of
> bisons 4 km away, and the size difference between bulls from either herd
> is negligible. Cows are just a little bit smaller, fitting the stats I
> quoted from Anaxial's Roster, above.

Jesus! Where is that then? The highland cattle I see here in Finland (straight from scotland, they are new here) are not that big.

Also I must say that the creature statistics in Anaxial's Roster are the most horrible crap published for Hero Quest to date. The stats don't scale to anytying else in the whole game engine, and all the animals have been nerfed terribly. A shadowcat has something like Quick 18 and resist magic 15. This is the creature whose RQ stats gave Dex 20+ and a POW 19 for the average kitty. It's also the book that gives one the impression that a starting hero with strong 5w (quite non magical) is stronger than all bat the largest horses.

The weakest HQ product by far :(

> Early Iron Age sails were primitive, if present at all - the Anglo-Saxon
> immigration occurred on boats like the Nydam boat, a clinker-built boat
> for some 24 people without any sail or mast. (Still a technical
> advancement over early Mediterranean wooden ships which were built shell
> first, skeleton later.) Seaworthyness of Mediterranean galleys was
> minimal, wind strengths of 6 Beaufort meant beaching or perdition.
>
> Compare e.g. Wolf Pirate longboats, which are on par with 9th century
> Viking Longships or contemporary Byzantine dromons.

The bronze age / early iron age saw great naval battles fought out by serious naval powers. Persia vs. Athens, for instance. I don't see why those kinds of ships wouldn't be appropriate for Glorantha.

<snip>
> Restricting Gloranthan shipbuilding to Bronze Age or pre-Roman
> Mediterranean technology would be counter-intuitive to most narrators who
> are way more familiar with the workings of the British navy in the
> Napoleonic wars (thanks to C.S.Forester, the Bounty mutiny etc, or pirate
> movies set in 17th century Caribbean). People expect multi-masted sailing
> vessels, with rigging to climb in and fall down off durign naval battles.
> People expect ships tacking into the wind.

Well, not me. I don't want an easy mismatch with bronze age here, high mediaval here and renaissance there. If I wanted to play a game that caters for easy clishes I'd play 7th Sea.

I'll keep to cataphracts, celts and ships that rely on the oar when the wind isn't favourable.

But each of us to his/her own,

        -Adept Received on Sun 25 Jun 2006 - 14:42:45 EEST