From: David Cake (davidc@cs.uwa.edu.au)
Date: Mon 20 Nov 1995 - 11:54:14 EET
>It could be that the only way to avoid the KoW's attention
>is to bury your arms and refuse to resist (all hail the White Moon!), at
>which point they would lose interest in you
'...except as a source of magic points and cheap labour' is probably
the appropriate way to finish that sentence.
We already know that they consider everyone who isn't a warrior to
be a slave.
On the subject of the KOW, I think I agree with just about everyone
in general, and probably no one in specifics. I agree that the Kingdom of
War should be bad guys, a place no one would want to base a campaign in,
where life is nasty, brutal, and short.
I also think that this does not make them unrealistic - indeed,
victory at any cost seems a reasonable motivation compared to Pol Pots Year
Zero, to take only one of dozens of horrific historical examples.
But I also agree that it is necessary to work out some things about
the KOW to play a campaign that even uses them as enemies. This includes how
the soldiers behave, what abilities they are likely to have, and how to beat
them. To do this you really need to work out why they do what they do, which
means where they come from/ how they got that way.
Personally, I like the Granbretan examples as well. The KOW does not
have the same air of decadence, but I like the idea of a society of
competing orders of warriors. I think they had fragmented into a society
obsessed with territorial considerations and conquest as the only way to get
things (as each group was forced to develop more and more ruthless warriors
to defenc against the other groups). These competing groups have united for
only two reasons a) LDOAH is mean enough that most of the individual leaders
are not willing to defy him and b) the outsiders make so much softer picking
than the others.
So, what do we call these subdivisions? Orders? Legions? and how do
they identify themselves? Not with animal masks like Granbretanians.
Banners? Shields? I want my players to start recognising individual units of
the KOW, and start worrying about the particular atrocities that they have
seen them commit before hand.
My version of the KOW featured (though my players never met most of
them) such groups as human ZZers, Wachaza river pirates, Sorcery using
Arkati and simple sorcery using atheist tappers, and corrupted Humakti.
The Humcti of the KOW not only emphasised the death aspects far more
than the truth aspects of Humakt, but had also removed the distinction
between dishonourable and honourable death - so Mallia was worshipped as a
subordinate cult. The only vestige of the Humakti code of honour was a loose
code duello - they still believed in one on one duels, though their concept
was more like a duel of Thed rather than a Humakti duel. They still despised
undead, partly because then they get some useful powers against undead by
doing so, which gives them a fighting chance against the ZZ units of the
KOW. Parts of the inspiration for these guys is due to Paul Reilly's
campaign notes, which features some similar types.
And Sandy's idea of a typical KOW campaign was OK as far as it went,
but needed a bit more Gloranthanness. Deliberately summoning Plague spirits.
Soul Wasting or Tapping the spirits of the ancestral dead of their foes.
Forcing wives to provide the POW for the zombification enchantment of their
dead husbands. Or just summoning ghoul spirits en masse into the dead. Or
twisted healers, who when they have finished healing injured troops use
their magics to keep enemy leaders alive to be tortured perpetually as an
example. Capturing enemy soldiers, Tapping them to death, and then
reincarnating dead KOW soldiers into their bodies (Thanatar Guardians).
Cheers
David
Computing Officer |" Life is easily understood as bit strings of logical
Arts Faculty UWA |depth greater than their length" - Rebis, Doom Patrol
davidc@cs.uwa.edu.au |" Do not think, HIT, it is our way" - Milk & Cheese
>Microsoft, meanwhile, denies that the problem exists.
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