From: Sandy Petersen (sandyp@idcube.idsoftware.com)
Date: Tue 02 Nov 1993 - 09:45:58 EET
Sandy here once more,
re: Extension.
My house rules have always been that the Extension spell cannot be recovered by the priest until it is dispelled, wears off, or is otherwise cancelled (like with a Truesworded sword that is broken).
We also play that an Extended spell is no harder to dispell than if it were not Extended, but I have been reconsidering this.
re: Brithini cathedrals
re: Loren Miller's online Prax talk
Liked this very much. A fascinating discussion. Two important points: the tribes DO engage in intertribal commerce and marriage (at least via wife-stealing), and so there is some cross-cultural activity going on. This doesn't mean that the Praxians should have all adopted the same lifestyles, just that they aren't insular.
Also, the basic truth of the Praxians is that their lives follow the yearly cycle of their animals, and their cultures reflect the "cultures" of their animals. For instance, the High Llama people are led by a woman most of the time (generally the clan's oldest Eiritha priestess), and their khan only takes control when the group is threatened physically.
re: Loren Miller's Written Language discussion
Stormspeech was probably unwritten in the First Age, but I suspect the God Learners made a written form of everything for their own use, and once the written language existed, why wouldn't civilized Orlanthi use it?
re: Delecti
I seem to recall him as a derelict EWF remnant, a necromancer who now moves from body to body. When one body gets too rotten and moldy for him, he moves on. I know that he does occasionally stitch together mismatched bodies for animation, and that there is supposed to be a zombie whale somewhere in his marsh. Also there have been encounters with animated bronze skeletons wired together. The EWF gets a pretty bad rap in modern Dragon Pass, I would guess. After all, its main remnants are Delecti, the Tusk Riders, and the Beast folk (centaurs, manticores, etc.). Ecch.
re: Devil and Block
The Devil is regenerating under that block. It's just that the block's pressure keeps him squished at a faster rate than he can regenerate. The Storm Bulls feign a belief that if enough of the the Block is removed by miners etc., the Devil will be able to get back up. I'm not sure how many of them really believe it and how many of them just tell the story as justification for stealing all the Truestone they can get their hands on.
Nick Brooke sez:
> Honestly, (until the Lunars came) there's not *that* much Chaos in
> Sartar.
There was the Telmori and Snakepipe Hollow. And Hydra's Hill. But in the good old days, you at least had to go out of your way to get to chaos. Now it comes right up to your house, and inside.
> you are going to need a new title to replace "Storm Khan"
You could claim that the periodic raids of the Animal Nomads into Sartar make the name "Khan" recognizable. Of course, that wouldn't apply to the Storm Bulls out in Ralios or Brolia. How about "Storm King"? Or does that sound too much like a brand name?
Newton Hughes sez:
> Certainly d&d set a bad example by giving infravision to everybody
> and his dog, but in the case of dwarves isn't it appropriate?
I refuse to stand by anything I wrote in Different Worlds over 10 years ago.
Seeing by means of heat vision isn't a bad idea for dwarfs. Speaking as a biologist, I submit that the eyes are a poor site for this sense to be centered in, and recommend that the dwarf's skin be the proper arena for the Earthsense, whether it be heat or motion. Caves, with a perpetually unchanging thermal background, would be a good place to sense intruders via infrared, but a poor place to find your way around in. I think the dwarfs need another facet to Earthsense besides just infrared, though it may have nothing to do with any known abilities. Maybe they can just "feel" everything around them for some distance, and orient themselves magnetically to the planet's North.
Graeme Lindsell sez:
> one difference between Praxian and Sartarite Storm Bullers
> is that the later are exclusively male.
Your reasoning here is hard to argue with. I would still vote for the existence of a (very) few female Sartarite berserks if only because if a woman wanted to become a berserk and could prove herself worthy, I imagine the other Storm Bulls would accept her. After all, look what jerks and misfits they normally accept. She might get a lot of razzing though.
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