Re: RuneQuest Daily, Thu, 01 Sep 1994, part 3

Date view Thread view Subject view Author view

From: Paul Reilly (paul@phyast.pitt.edu)
Date: Thu 01 Sep 1994 - 21:03:06 EEST

  Martin asks (sensibly)

>how have the Morokanth managed to survive on the
>plain(e)s of Prax? Even the Bison and High Llama riders have
>some members with missile weapons. Against Zebra, Sable, or

  We play the Morokanth as clever and "sneaky", after all they are darkness creatures. It is true that they would lose in a "fair" stand up fight, so we give them the following compensating advantages:

  1. As the main nonhumans of Prax, they have learned to cooperate among themselves better than most of the other Praxian tribes. Morokanth clans are readier to help each other than, say, Sable clans are - when a Morokanth Khan sends out the fire signal for help, his neighbors (maybe 50 km away!) will come and help, without asking "What's in it for our clan" until AFTER the crisis is resolved.
  2. They have a superb sense of smell and are good at finding waterholes, etc. While the animals of the other tribe are a great help in these matters, the Morokanth are the all-Prax champions. They have a sense for when an underground stream comes near the surface, for example. This gives them 'ecological' advantages when competing with the other tribes.
  3. They are better at night than humans are. This is one area in which the mounts of the other Praxians aren't that much help - they often have poor night vision as well. While this is not such an advantage on defense, it is very useful on reprisal raids against other tribes, typically conducted at night.
  4. They have gotten pretty good at intelligence, and tend to know when the other tribes are massing against them. They then scatter and hide or, sometimes, hole up in a strongpoint until the war fever blows over.
  5. They like marshy ground and wetland plants, and go down near the coastal flats, the Fever Trees, the Devil's Marsh, the Krjalki Bog, etc. They are immune to several human diseases (Yellow fever equivalent?) that make such places distinctly unhealthy for humans, and they like to eat some plants that humans can't live on. In short, they have a different niche from Praxian humans.

  If a Morokanth group does get caught out on the flat by a Praxian clan, they could well get wiped out if the animal riders want to do so. However, such a clan would be under blood feud from the whole Morokanth nation, whose memories are even longer than their noses...

Date view Thread view Subject view Author view

This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.7 : Fri 10 Oct 2003 - 01:36:43 EEST