Moon boats, exotics

From: Bob.Luckin@tiuk.ti.com
Date: Fri 26 Aug 1994 - 20:45:55 EEST



Hi from Bob Luckin !

The Moon's a balloon



David Dunham (X-RQ-ID: 5875) to Nick Eden :-

>Nick Eden (not yet affected by the Nick switch despite living in the UK) says
>>Nah, that isn't the red moon. Thats the bit of moon rock that supports
>>the moon boat by being pulled back towards the red moon. Look at the
>>lines of the boat.

>
>Perhaps, but the boat is described as riding a beam of moonlight.

I agree with David. There was a discussion of this a while back, when MOB posted an excellent description (X-RQ-ID: 976) upon which I presume the text and cover of SiP is based :-
> The famous flying Moon Boats are used by the Empire to carry
> messengers, important passengers and occasionally troops over
> great distances. They travel on and are propelled by special
> beams of moonlight, focussed from the Red Moon itself. Inside

There's no mention of a red rock ("Red Rock : It's not red and there's no rocks in it") in the posting, and it sounds like an important detail to have missed out. Also, I see no suspension wires running to the red orb in the picture, only the wispy edges of the moonbeam which is visible near the prow and stern of the boat. I'd have expected this (and the rest of the picture) to be tinted red, after the text description in SiP. But perhaps the artist forgot that the beam "bathes the whole area in it's reddish light". Or perhaps someone decided that would make the cover less attractive and reduce sales ?

However, Nick's idea is fun, and resembles the other Nick's (Brooks) earlier suggestion that moon boats were hot air balloons whose canopies were half black and half red, steered by altering how much of the red was turned towards the moon. Is there a more sinister reason behind this similarity ? Perhaps the Daily God Learners perpetrated a Nick switch a while back, and this is the first sign of something wrong ? This could be anothre argument against the great David switch...

Exotics



Robert McArthur (X-RQ-ID: 5863) says regarding the exotic units in Dragon Pass :-

>So, I think there's something more to the exotics than just hyped up "normal"
>magic.

I agree. Perhaps that's why the units are called "exotics" in the first place ?

Gems



Martin (X-RQ-ID: 5878) suggests pulling his gem descriptions from AOL, if it ever makes it across the water, and then says :-
>I should probably also send it to soda.berkeley.

Please do ! For me at least, that would be the better solution. :-)

Deeply Dippy



Joerg suggested a lot of DP variants, which for some reason spawned the following half-formed idea. How about a Diplomacy variant based on Glorantha ? The basis would be Genertela during the thaw; depending on the exact date you decided to start, several of the areas would still be under the Syndics' Ban at the start of the game, and each time you tried to invade one of these you'd have to roll a die to see if it had opened yet...

No doubt Diplomacy fans (I don't actually own the game) can come up with lots of other ideas for Gloranthan dippy...

Cheers, Bob
--
Bob Luckin voly@tiuk.ti.com "Able was I ere I saw Corflu"



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